Sludge and Turnip (1) - Down the Rabbit Hole

Full disclosure: It's late, I'm tired, this will be a wall of text

Have you ever found yourself consumed by a new project? The lure of a new era, the "shiny goblin syndrome" pull of new figures. Discovering all the new ins and outs of a new system. If you're a long time (or frankly short term) follower of this blog you know I tend to get drawn in to the "new" much more often than I'm putting the finishing touches on a project. What's grabbed me this time?

Well, it's none other than new kids on the block; Sludge and Turnip.  

Inserted through this ramble are the photos I found of both systems, that I used to con a long time gaming buddy down this path with me.

When they first released Sludge, I thought it was a neat concept but had no desire to go out and buy the dozen or so kits required for an army to kit bash it all together. I thought, "man, what a cool idea but I have enough on my plate" I found the project just a hair to esoteric for my usual "well I can always use the figures for multiple systems" line of thought. When Turnip first got some attention I didnt really make the connection between the two and just sort of thought it wasn't for me.

Like most projects, it stuck in the back of my mind and lingered there like a disease until eventually I came across Knucklebones Miniatures. This is another one of those patreons for STLs I keep coming back to. In his catalog, he has a pile of stuff suitable for the whole Sludge/Turnip craze and of course I started printing. 

For some inexplicable reason, this aesthetic has captured me and progress continues. One of my long time gaming partners has also taken the plunge and I've found out there's actually a somewhat local scene for the game so at this point its just a matter of finishing a few more units and then trying the two systems out. 

 So what is it?

I'll be honest, being relatively new to this scene I'll probably butcher some of this but Turnip28 seems to be one of those weird "movements" more than anything. Years and years before my time, GW released a game called Inquisitor. This was a bit of an odd duck in that the game was a little bit more rpg and character driven from the others and the figures in a much larger (54mm) scale. Each character was named and unique and totally customizable. Being long out of production but still having a fan following, all the neatest bits seem to have been distilled down to "aesthetic" 

As I mentioned, (and will probably mention again) this is all before my time and to be frank, information given to me 2nd or 3rd hand. Somewhere along the line, the community, trying to keep the spirit of the art and the aesthetic alive, kept it all going in 28mm. My introduction to this story is here with the amazing fanzine, 28mag 

This is far from only about inquisitor or any one specific thing but is an absolutely amazing magazine that anyone who likes converting, gaming, gw, or neat dark miniatures should check out now.

Sometime during the pandemic, a guy named Max Fitzgerald dreamt up the tangential world of Turnip28. I'm linking the goonhammer interview here because if you've read this far you'll probably read anything and its a good read to break down this odd duck.

 As I understand it though, the story is basically, "what if the Napoleonic wars turned to shit, got all weird wwi with it, and then they all started worshiping root vegetables?"

In the meantime a gentleman named Sean Sutter (creator of Relicblade) has been working on his own fanzine with several other indie game designers (called BLASTER) Introduced in Blaster vol. 3 is Sludge. I don't know that one game inspired the other in anyway but for me, this finally meant "I could use figures for both games" Sludge has more of a Renaissance feel to Turnips Napoleonic but they are close enough (Infantry, cav, artillery) to me to merit the dive. I'm glossing through the specifics here for a couple reasons but fully expect more content for both games and a podcast or two comparing them.

 So where does that leave us?

Well, in the time its taken me to actually finish this post, I actually painted an entire Turnip force and more or less enough stuff to play sludge minus a couple characters. Over the next few posts (hopefully coming very soon) I'll showcase some of the stuff I've finished and hopefully I'll be demoing both games with Paul very soon.

Cavemen (2) - Primevo

 I was incredibly excited for this one to come out and Paul and I finally had a chance to play it. I'm a huge fan of this game and wholeheartedly recommend it.

We did a full review over on the podcast which you can listen to HERE if you want to know more

Miniature Shame Golf - End of Summer Season

If you haven't read about this yet, check it out HERE

So lets check in. How did I do?

In short. Not great. I knew the results would be less than flattering but I thought I'd paint more in general. The total number is around what I thought it'd be but I did think I'd have more figures done to show for it. The constant reminder of a running total did however prevent me from buying more things than I normally would. As an off the top of my head example, I was really on the fence about grabbing the new kill team box and the penalties for buying something at launch were enough that I decided against it for now. 

Because of the rather loose nature of the rules, the challenge motivated me to finish a lot of stuff that was just sort of close to done but not finished because it was easy points. Right off the bat, the night before Stellacon, I finally got around finishing the bases on some old WW1 British as well as finishing a whole starter force of Germans, all for Blood and Valor (Review HERE)

Some day I'll come back and take better glamour shots of some of this stuff. I swear.

At Stellacon, I blew a whole bunch of stuff out, in the hopes of actually lowering the number some. Although that worked out nicely, I also walked away with 1k points of slaanesh and a Nights Watch army. Though I left that day with a negative score, it was the last time I'd have that. 

Twice this Summer I've found myself in Chicago at the excellent Games Plus store. Discovering an amazing game store like that will put a dent in your balance for sure. I walked out both times relatively light but definitely with an addition to my score.

The launch of Dominion was a huge dent because aside from being a huge box, I picked it up on release day and took the penalties there. So Far I've only finished these. I have plans to convert the Stormcast so those will have to wait until later. 

Some other addition to my pile of shame include some 3d printed terrain, a ton of stuff for conquest and the other half of my 3d printed 10mm ogre army. 

I did have one really excellent evening of painting where I finished a bunch of Lumineth stuff, a bunch of Crisis Protocol stuff and my first Moonstone figure.

There were a few other purchases here and there but unfortunately as of the end of this season, im sitting at 232 and coming in second to last place. I'm writing this a little early and there is a chance I'll get below the 200 mark but its unlikely. I have a few packages out standing (Lunar preorder, moonstone kickstarter) that will hurt when they arrive but I also don't know how much time I'll have to paint this month.

I'm definitely glad I participated but my goal for the fall season is absolutely to get bellow 100, and ideally below 0. Only time will tell

Marvel Crisis Protocol (1) - Introduction

 I have a smattering of "in progress blogs" I've been working on but to be honest, it's a figure here, a building there and no real completed anything. Lately I've been smitten with MCP. Just before I really dove into wargames, hobby stuff and painting, I was big into comics. I had discovered them in earnest pretty late in the game, being drawn in from video games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Batman Arkham Asylum. I dove in head first and started with the Civil War Marvel stuff and began reading whatever I could. When I got into hobbies, something had to give and I haven't really read any comics since. When Crisis Protocol was announced I put in a preorder as soon as possible, played a couple demo games and thought "Ok, this is pretty neat"

Like all projects, I threw the game back into the pile of shame, breaking it out once every few months to demo it to someone new, and moved on to other projects. Recently, I had a friend visit from out of town who wanted to try it and his enthusiasm encouraged me to break everything out again, and finally play with all the bells and whistles. This encouraged me to teach Erin how to play more seriously (we had done a small "lite" version of the game months earlier) and both of us were surprised at just how much we both liked it. Ever since then, the game has occupied most of my painting time and all of my hobby time with a bunch of side projects as well as getting me back into comics and buying a subscription to Marvel Unlimited (as a brief aside, I just read the 12 issue run of Inhumans from the Marvel Knights era and was super surprised at just how much I liked it.)

I had painted a few figures when I first got the game, mostly just the ones I wasnt as interested in (Black Widow, Red Skull, Ultron) and have been finishing stuff up left and right. To that end, heres some of the figures I've finished lately. 

Spider-man from the Core Set

Wolverine and Cyclops from the X-men Expansions

 

Next on my short list of stuff to do, finish up the Guardians of the Galaxy and get them photographed, get some terrain painted, and get some storage sorted. 

Miniature Pile of Shame Golf

 That's right folks, it's time for another "Matt does a painting challenge in the hopes of putting a dent in the grey tide" post.

I stumbled across this Dana Howl Video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po3u5ukzbpU

 In short, Dana has adapted the concept of backlog golf for miniature painting. Basically, you get one point every time you buy a figure and lose one point every time you paint or sell a figure. There's bonuses for things like completing starter sets and penalties for things like buying stuff close to its release date. It's sort of what I was doing at the start of the year with the "2 out-1 in" thing but a little better defined.

The "season" starts  June 15th and ends Sept 15th.

Finish painting a model -1
Buy a model +1
Give away or sell a model -1
    (stacks with commission painting)
Complete a unit - 1 additional
Complete faction starter -5 Additional
Complete 2 player starter or board game -20 additional
Box with between 1-10 figs bought within 30 days of release +5 Points additional
Box with between 10-30 figs bought within 30 days of release +20 Points additional
Box with between 30+ figs bought within 30 days of release +50 Points additional

Buying stls doesnt add to total until they are printed.

Gifts and trading dont change point totals.

I'll be doing this with anyone in our group who wants to join in and it looks like other people might be playing on social media with #shamegolf

More Necromunda Stuff for the Analogue Challenge

 Recently Added to my Pile.

First up, Here's the Bounty Hunter Ortruum 8-8

And here's the Starter Gang I finished up for Necromunda

 Real short and sweet this time around.

Cavemen (1) - First Figures

 Weirdly I was bitten by the caveman bug. I'm not really sure why but the idea of tribe on tribe skirmish gaming seems like itd be fun. A few shows ago (now years ago haha) I purchased 3 blisters from Copplestone from one of the vendors. I just got around to painting them up.

First up the Cavemen Characters

The official artwork has a lot of warpaint and such on them and I may go back at some point and add some but until I know what rules I wanna use, I'm not worried about having specific characters

All of these were painted primarily with contrast paints and I'll post the recipes below

 

Here are two packs of Cavemen, cleverly titled Cavemen and More Cavemen.

The paint jobs were dead simple. Darkoath Flesh, Snakebite Leather, Wyldwood, Black Templar, Basilicanum Grey. The bones were picked out in Iraqui Sand, the weapons with PZ Aces Old Wood. 

Tufts are Dark Green Shrubs from Gamers Grass.

I'm about half way through a wooly mammoth now and I have a T-rex to paint. I'm resisting the urge for now to buy some figures from lucid eye until I thin out more of the "to finish" pile. 

Rules we're discussing includes Tribal, Primevo, and Savage Core.