The Elder Diary: #20150202
More than half a year later since last "diary update", but from now on I'll try to post more updates at least monthly (if I don't finish any painting/modelling project, that is).
The main update is the following photo of how's my progress with the Imperial Knight:
As you can see, excepting the base and decals, main body is finished. I also have already painted the shoulder pads and currently working on the arms. With some luck I'll have it ready for decals soon (and probably tackle one of my modelling projects, which without painting I don't even feel like showing here). It's been a huge amount of work, especially because the crappy Citadel gold paint mix has "separated" and before painting it needs heavy re-mixing and around 4-5 layers until it looks like real gold (and this painting over a silver layer, else needs even more layers!). I'll probably try Vallejo's equivalent of gold for the future, now I'm so near the end I don't want to change color and have more problems. I've also given highlights to blues, some silver parts and to the gold (using silver) and it definetly shines and looks way better. Combining with the washes, despite my poor painting things look way better :)
Apart from that, and due to the recent addition to the family of a young golden retriever dog, my sleep cycle and free time is quite chaotic now, so I'm focusing on either playing Diablo III or Hearthstone from the laptop near the dog, or reading books.
Whenever I can escape a bit to the "workshop room" I'm either painting or trying to finish assembling Deadzone miniatures, as I finally received wave 3 shipment and still have (quite a few) minis to assemble from the two earlier shipments. Definetly one of the best kickstarter projects I've backed regarding price/content ratio... lots of minis (5 factions + zombies), lots of scenery, lots of extras...
I also have pending buying some powerful white lights to improve the room's lighting for photos, currently is ok for painting but far from adequate for photos.
So, let's hope I come again soon with some cool photos!
The Elder Diary: #20140418
As my spare time becomes more scarce and I prefer to write fewer blog posts but with more interesting content (at least more focused and containing less offtopic clutter), it's been quite a few months since I posted something about my painting progress or CRPG related entries.
As a summary, that I will probably do again in the future, this is more or less all what I've been doing:
Boardgames
D&D Castle Ravenloft: Not much to say, we played the first missions, it is interesting but hard to win the bad guys!
Our ongoing Risk Legacy campaign: Finished battle 9, really cool how the game develops, and still way to go until the map "becomes fixed".
Descent 2nd edition: I liked it so much I bought the base game. Expansions seem a bit meh, until I get tired of the base game I doubt will buy anything else.
Flash Point: A collaborative game where up to 6 firemen try to save 7 people from a house while fire and smoke spreads and causes explosions.
CRPGs
Braverly Default: I'm loving it. Same as Final Fantasy series are dead (last games being a disgrace), this is a nice spiritual successor, combining Final Fantasy III job system with summonable friend special moves and combat tweaks, plus configurable difficulty setting and encounter %. And lovely graphics. Did I already say I'm enjoying it a lot?
Zelda: A link between worlds: I was reluctant to play this because the 2D Link wasn't appealing, but I tried and I actually like a lot the puzzles, but I agree on the general consensus that it is quite easy. I haven't finished it yet, but due to lack of time.
Project X Zone: More tactical than RPG, it's very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics but with simpler "fighting-like" battles.
Diablo 3 expansion: Now it finally is a roguelike and action house went to hell, so has become what it should have been two years ago.
Warhammer Quest on iOS: Along ALL expansions, and now I'm playing the additional characters, so you can imagine how much I like this game. One of the best purchases for my iPad, it's so great to have a "portable WHQ" even for holidays.
Space Hulk: One of my big dissapointments, and not due to the game itself, because the mechanics are so nicely replicated, but due to the mess of technical issues and bugs that come and go on most game updates. From neverending turns to glitches, sound muting or crappy 3D performance (I recently updated my graphics card, which makes the situation even more absurd), if the game worked tecnhically correct it would be great.
Also the DLC plague made it a "just buy the basic game, and if on sale, better" approach.
Shadowrun Returns: After finishing the main game, how with the Berlin campaign/addon free for being a backer I'm having more netrunning and turn-based combat. I still have my hopes in the fan-made content for the long term, but even without it is a nice old-school like RPG.
Fire Emblem: Awakening: This was a cool strategy-RPG mix, that hooked me to my 3DS for weeks. I pumped 30+ hours to finish the main story and didn't managed to do every side-quest and character sub-plot, so it can become a really long game if you want.
RPGs
Not much, although I'm reading a lot of Warhammer 40,000 codexes for the lore and background (literally skipping the rules). I must have read around a dozen codexes, along with companion books (new Games Workshop way of squeezing more money, put half of the lore in another book), and of course the books which I still do reviews here.
But no pure RPGs since a while...
Painting & Assembling
I'm still assembling all Deadzone minis, plus a cool Imperial Knight and some unexpected things; GW's new website and the exclusive minis touched my collector weak point so I grabbed my wish list and now have a few more things to take care of.
I'm currently painting the Imperial Knight, and had some started minis pending (some old Rogue trader-era MKVI Space Marines and some Necron basic troops) also on the queue for whenever I want to change a bit.
As usual, with my rate of painting It'll take weeks, but I prefer to go slow but leave it in a decent painting level (decent for my skills, not for normal standards which are way higher).
Apart from normal miniatures, I've finally started painting a Star Trek Enterprise model I had from my trip to Australia a few years ago. I expect to finish it soon as I don't want to ad too many details.
Tags: Boardgames Deadzone Final Fantasy Miniatures Offtopic Painting Risk Legacy Roguelike Shadowrun Space Hulk Videogames Warhammer 40000
Deadzone Kickstarter
Few weeks ago I received my last pledged kickstarter boardgame, Deadzone from Mantic games. I wanted it mainly because of two reasons:
- Necromunda is "deprecated" and forgotten by Games Workshop. Many miniatures are no longer available and those still in stock are expensive, so Deadzone serves as a good source of squads, plus I get to choose if to use Necromunda or Deadzone rules.
- I loved the modular scenery idea. Not having any Necromunda-like scenery my scenarios would be quite limited, and with Deadzone I have quite some options now. Some of the miniatures are also quite awesome (Enforcers, some Plague models, Orks/Marauders...) so even if I don't enjoy the rules, I still get quite a few cool minis to paint (some day...).
So, while I wait for the second shipment of the kickstarter (zombie miniatures and the Forge Fathers/Squats 5th faction), I've been busy this days assembling all the scenario and some of the miniatures and this are my thoughts.
First of all, I pledged for a Strike Team. For 150$ you get the starter box (see photo below, Enforcer & Plague factions, scenery, rules, etc.), plus Rebs faction, Marauders faction, a fifth faction (I choose Forge Fathers), some zombies, a nice gaming mat and some extra scenario sprues.
All the miniatures and scenario come in hard plastic. No assembly instructions included.
So far, miniatures I've assembled come with some moulds and require a low-to-med amount of cleaning work, but overall are better than Sedition Wars ones. The amount of detail is great, and as expected some of the minis are fantastic. I still have lots of plastic bags to open and assemble but looks near 50 miniatures on the 1st shipment.
Scenario is also hard plastic, in different sprue types containing walls, floor/ceilings, corridors, doors, windowed walls, and accessories like barrels, boxes and ladders. There are also two sprues with the "connectors", small pieces that allow to join walls/bases/barriers either adjancent or with a 90ยบ angle.
This are some photos of most of the buildings I decided to make. The bridges are not glued to any building so I can put them anywhere. I also did some horizontal and U shaped barriers. I used most of the pieces.
Regarding the buildings, while there were a lot of sprues, you must decide if to make lots of small buildings, or fewer but bigger or taller ones. I built 4 1x1 small ones, two 2x1, a 3 stories tall one and a "small landing pad" that allows to place a building over it and acts as an elevated building with cover. Plus three barriers and two bridges.
And my main (and almost only) complaint is about the connectors. While the idea is cool, in practice it has some flaws:
- Sometimes they connect gently, sometimes I needed to push them really hard with a lime. I even broke a long metal lime so imagine the pressure I was applying...
- They are hard-plastic, but because if the previous issue, it is far from easy to detach them once joined. I broke 3 or 4 this way, and ended up planning a lot every connection before making it.
- There are way too few of them. In order to make all my desired buildings, I had to only use one connector per "side" instead of two, so the joints are half as firm as they could be. Red areas in the photo below were left without connectors (green areas).
And despite that optimization, I barely had enough for everything. At least the kickstarter pledge should contain an extra sprue of connectors.
Also this means you must glue all pieces to improve stability and avoid pieces breaking/unjoining.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. I now have 5 squads (containing the Escher Necromunda one), lots of scenery and two game rules to apply with them, and I'm still pending more minis.
The base game might be a bit pricey when launches (around 14 miniatures and less building sprues) but I think the kickstarter was worth it.
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