Ballads of War 2x22-2x23

My painting queue is stagnated. Fortunately I haven't run out of comic pages yet (though I'm dangerously getting close to that point, yikes)

We have a deeper glimpse to the Dark Angels. People around me used to laugh at Sgt. Moustache, but hell if I care. My long-term plan included more sequences of him, particularly being promoted to the Deathwing Company due to his unquestioning loyalty, so the reader could know of the dark secrets this Chapter bears. It was meant to serve as a secondary narrative arc related to Cypher, so everything had a purpose in my mind.

What we can see for the moment is that the Dark Angels have some secrets of their own and they don't like to share; though remaining loyal to the Imperium, they certainly have their own agenda, and nobody, not even other fellow Space Marines, are to interfere.

Of course they don't give a shit about what's kept inside the mausoleum, they only care about Cypher. So apparently, if Cypher is moving (according to the Harlequin's proposal we saw last week), the green Marines begin to get nervous. They are able to depart away from this battlefield just as quick as they appeared in the first place. The hunt is on!

More stuff incoming! Previous stuff HERE :)

Ballads of War 2x20-2x21

Here we go again, with our favourite man in a cloak...

It's only now, like ten years later, that I wonder why would anybody keep the hood on when inside a building. Specially such a dark hall. I guess I shouldn't follow that train of thought, or else I'll be wondering just afterwards why would anybody wear a creepy clown mask at all times...

Well, anyway, the important thing is that the Harlequin and Cypher are about to negotiate. The Great Harlequin's logic dictates that the Dark Angels are a nuisance as they are pursuing Cypher. If he left, the Marines would do so as well, so the Eldar could take over the mausoleum. But Cypher doesn't look quite prone to that course of action. Will he be able to convince the Fallen Angel that the sarcophagus will be safe with the Eldar? The key here is if the Harlequin, a warden of the knowledge of the mythical Black Library, has something to bargain with...

In the meanwhile, we can see another kind of diplomacy. Relationships between Space Marines Chapters are not always as smooth as it would be desirable for the profit of the Imperium. Interrogator Chaplain Asmodai doesn't look too happy of the news he's being updated with. 'What, you have you own men there inside?' 'What, there were civilians?' 'My secrets, my secrets!!' Man, you can see him sweating there inside that helmet, his teeth clenching.

More mysteries unveiled on next installment! All previous stuff, as usual, can be found HERE.

Playing 'Sector 6'

 Quick boardgame review today. Gaming weekends have been scarce lately, so I was more that eager to try this one. My pal got into this KS and we've just given it a chance:

What's it about? Within the walls of the Obliti space prison, the lack of resources has become critical. Inmates are forced by the internal mobs to compete along the maze corridors of the prison, so they can get as much oxygen as possible. The competitors have to run fast, collect oxygen from the designated points... and avoid getting stuck! The maze is deadly, as the configuration of the corridors is never the same, and the inmates change it every step they take...

So the game itself is really simple. Each player will have a team of two inmates. They'll have to collect oxygen from the different stations, moving along the maze. When all the oxygen is collected, the one who got most wins. That easy.

First thing is building the maze. Both players get the tiles from a deck and alternately set their tiles, just as they please.

Corridors and cogs. It's all about that. You begin setting tiles...

...until you have something like that

Each tile will have a station in which the runners can collect oxygen. Red ones have one oxygen dose, yellow have two doses, green ones have three and blue ones have four doses. So you get the tiles randomly, but as you build the whole structure, you decide where to place them, and in which position. As you can see in the pic above, being our first game, we favoured the corridors (well, it looked 'natural'), but the interesting way to play it is blocking them. Just for future reference. You'll see at once.

Each turn you will move your runners alternatively. They can make just one move, and it must be straight. No matter how many tiles you move, as long as you don't make any turn.

The black mini above moved one tile, the yellow moved three

You don't have to reach the end of a corridor, you can move at will. The thing is that runners will interact with the tile they just left, and only that one. Not the tile they end the turn in and not any of the tiles they passed through.

The other two minis moved one tile each, both towards blue stations

The way you can interact with the tile you left is by collecting the oxygen in it OR by making the tile turn. The tile will make 1 turn (left or right, your choice) and will eventually interact with the tiles around, if the cogs fit. It can only affect one adjacent tile, the closest to the sense of the turn. Turning this tile won't affect any other tiles adjacent to it, even if there are cogs that fit.

During first turns, you will usually go collect oxygen

Runners block line of sight, and you cannot interact with them in any way. So the game is all about blocking routes to the rival and moving your runners in the most efficient way.

Black players cut the way for that yellow one

As we had lots of open corridors, our game was mostly about running from here to there before the rival, it wasn't very tactical.

The station is getting depleted of oxygen

In fact, at one point we had more or less agreed a de facto partition of the board...

This is like chess, thinking your next moves, but in a space prison. And running low of oxygen

Breathtaking! Ha, you see what I did there? :P

Once you have collected all the oxygen on the board, the game is over and you just count the doses.

Ouch! I lost! My pal got three out of four blue tokens, which were decisive in his victory

The difference wasn't really big, just three or four points. I think it was so because we focused on getting oxygen each turn instead of taking advantage of the maze and its possibilities. Being just two players may have helped to that too; the game is designed up to 4 players (I think there was a KS SG with an upgrade up to 6 players). I have the impression that the more players, the more tactical it may become and the differences in the scores must be more significant.

The game took us no more than 20 min, so we had another round!

So my thoughts on Sector 6: it's a fun, quick game. A perfect filler to be played anytime, ideal for non-usual gamers. It may require some space vision if you want to block the way to you opponents and it takes the puzzle games category to another level.

The only thing I think I'd like to try differently is turning the tiles and how it affects other tiles. I mean, when you turn Tile#1 it only affects Tile#2. I'd like to see how the game changes if Tile#2 interacts with Tiles#3 and #4 or whatever, so one single tile turn can change the whole board. It may be a little fuzz, but given that the regular game takes just 15-20 minutes, it may be worth a try.

Of course, you must have noticed we played with unpainted minis. Don't worry, I've taken proper action to avoid that will happen ever again in the future.

Roughly 20mm scale

I have to say we used Sector 6 as a warm-up for a gaming evening...

We also played Pandemic, but that will have to wait for another day...

Not so happy citizens (Pt. 2)

Rough row of days, but I'm painting the civvies as fast as I can. Let me show you what I have so far, almost half of the whole group.

You'll see, I'm favouring quick results over high resolution details. I just pretend to have a decent sized mob. I've used some really flashy colours (the Warhammer effect, you know), but as I was taking pics I realised I need a richer palette. Will take that into consideration for the next batch.

I also have a couple of signs, I wanted them to be on the cheesy side, no resemblance of any current political movement whatsoever. They of course are in Latin Gothic, as you could legitimately expect.

So let's see what we have!

Protester from the Red Era

Hipster protester. He rioted before it was cool

Round 1, fight!

No conversion, he was originally this angry

The adaptation of 'panem et circenses' (bread & circus) to the grimdark millennium

No, you're not supposed to drink that

Yup, he's going to the demonstration with his mug. No fucks were given that day

This one looks upset though

The Moebius connection

If you ever studied Latin at school you'll get it

Doctor Who taught me not to piss off a man with a fez

Come'ere, I'll talk you about this magic wand

Kind of Dragon Ball uniform, now that I think of it...

May I validate your ticket for this revolution?

This is as far as I've got for the moment. I have all the rest primed, so I hope I'll be throwing some paint at them anytime soon. I'm on it!

Ballads of War 2x18-2x19

Meanwhile up on board the Eldar ship Menelvagor...

We cannot lose track of the Eldar plot here, as they are pushing hard to get the place, remember. The unexpected intervention of the Dark Angels is a real setback, they have come to strike from nowhere (but that's what one could legitimately expect from a Space Marines force!) and now High Farseer Ellinderelion is somehow unsettled by the turn of the events.

As he has pressing issues on that side, we are no longer sure if he's chasing Brent and El'Kais or if he's simply letting the destiny to happen, as per his predictions. As the outlaws don't know either, they better move as quickly as they can.

But the real situation is the new balance of forces. A combined force of Blood Angels and Dark Angels means a lot of problems. The Eldar had engaged a civilian settlement to divert Imperial forces, so it would become meaningless if they have those Space Marines fiddling around. We know Eldar are not prone to open battle with such odds, they cannot afford spending their lives in bare clashes of forces, every combat for them must have a purpose. Apparently the Great Harlequin has an idea. What can that be...?

To see how we came to this point, you may want to check it all HERE...

Not so happy citizens (Pt. 1)

Here it is, the project I was talking about last week. Where to start...

I have a plan.

I have plans for running a Rogue Trader game in which a group of Arbites will try to contain an angry mob of citizens gone wild. They will try to overrun the Arbites and kidnap/kill/whatever the Governor, ransack the local market and show random general civil unrest. I have some ideas in mind for the rules and so.

But I needed an angry mob of citizens! Right, I have quite an extensive collection of civilians by now, but I wanted some specific protesters, not only bold adventurers. Numbers is what matters in this case, so I needed an inexpensive solution for hoarding a respectable amount of minis. My salvation came under the form of the Wargames Factory zombie survivors. The price/quality/(quantity) rate was just too good to let it go. So using that and some other bits I had (WHFB, 40K Skitarii...) I got all the greenstuff I had and begun to do silly things. Here you have them, in no particular order:

That's a Skitarius head upside down

Yep, GW heads are huge for models of actual humans

What's a boy without charming toys?

One of the very few minis with a firearm. Irrelevant however, this is going to be 40K...

Almost no GS needed, it gives all I need

Fancy hats are totally in this season

So are hispter hairdos

Is that a wrist walkman?

An angry servitor. His lobotomy didn't work and he recalls his former life. When he had arms and stuff

Pig Iron head on a Warhammer Fantasy body. Never can go wrong with this

Nothing is more Rogue Trader than that coat

I might paint that scarf Hufflepuff

Thats quite a sign. Not a clue of what will I write...

Angry metro ticket collector

I should have unpainted it but... welll, laziness, you get the concept

Opera singer or he reall wants you to look at his empty hand

Leaflets, propaganda, pamphlets

Whenever you see oversized stuff of any kind on a head, it's just a helmeted head from Bolt action

You revolt while I have my tea, I have a terrible cold

This one could take part in any current protest all over the world

Big head, big hands, big axe

More RT. Just because

Maybe the most incongruous of all these :D

Some kind of Merchant of 40K Venice

That's a Mortal Kombat pose

Yeah, OK, I like Moebius, what can I say

Maybe too much Moebius

Not sure if that's a helmet or his actual head

Speaking of heads...

Angry taxi driver marching against those Uber guys

These arms come from the WotC minis I used like a year ago (or more). Diogenes you say?

Angry Daft Punk Jedi bloke. Yes. Just because I can

You can see this group is highly incoherent eclectic. Inspiration has come from many places, from the City of Jedha from Rogue One (really nice designs for civvies there!) to actual pics from riots from here and there.

From quite a long time I considered purchasing the wonderful rioters by Offensive Miniatures, but in the end I took the cheap solution. The only thing that bothers me (well, 'bother', I'm talking about plastic toys) is the lack of females in the box. A mixed box (a male sprue and a female sprue) would have been just perfect. Anyway, though inexpensive, I think I'm not buying the ladies' box, my revolt will have to work with these. I have way more than enough for my scenario.

No clue of when will I be able to paint them, but it looks like the Arbites are going to have a rough day...