Some more Adeptus Mechanicus

With the week off nearly over I managed to sit down and paint the last Ad Mech miniatures I had picked up. I think the plan is to play some One Page Rules Grim Dark with them - as I am too tight to get 40k (although I believe the rules etc are available for free online), there is also Xenos Rampant to use as well. 

None of these can be used in Kill Team - so bigger games are needed. 

First up the Tech-Priest Dominus. 

He has got greener robes in comparison to the rest of the army - I should have mixed in more of the standard green with the scaley green. But it looks pretty good. I picked up the model assembled from eBay - I have to say that with this model and the Kataphrons to follow they can be a little challenging to get to all of the model with the poses they are in. 

The Kataphrons;

No 1 - Heavy Arc Rifle and Hydraulic Claw

No 2 - Heavy Arc Rifle and Arc Claw

No 3 - Torsion Cannon and Arc Claw

I went for a mixed load out on these, as I don’t think I will get anymore and it seemed to be more interesting - I imagine in games (unless skirmish type) they would all count as the same for ease of play.

These were assembled and painted with the tractor unit and torso separately - which I think worked ok.

All I have left on the 40k front is a farseer to paint for the Eldar and when I get them for Christmas Voidscarred Kill Team.

In between jobs I painted an eBay rescue - Theoden King - from Lord of the Rings. 

He arrived missing his sword arm - fortunately on of the Gripping Beast plastic sets does have left handed sword arm, so with a little carving and paint he was repaired - it’s only taken about 5-10 years to finish him - ridiculous! 

I have been stalking eBay and Etsy recently to see if there is anything I might want and sadly there isn’t, which is probably a good thing as I will hopefully get on with working through the metal/plastic back log.

Morts

Done some painting

So will a little break from work I have settled down and done a bit of painting. 

Actually completely finished - some grooty Treemen types. 

Done with speed paints and with a little dry brush - should be useful for many game settings. Nice quick job. 

Not painted, but assembled some Valkyries by shield wolf miniatures - picked up on a kickstarter a while ago - not totally sure why I assembled these. I have a few wings and bodies spare - but am short of left arms. They aren’t high on the get painted queue. But I think the assembly process helped get the mind to the painting space. 

The tractor units for the Kataphrons are painted and I have started on the bodies. 

I’m not sure if I’m going to do some chipping on these or not. I might wait until they are fully assembled. 

Some not brilliantly done 15mm civilians for the age of reason. 

Done with speed paints - just to get the job done. The top row are clutter for battlefields. The priests can actually be used in games of Maurice - with an effect on your troops - which is why I got them, can’t remember the rule now. 

So some stuff done. 

Morts 

Runebound - DK’s birthday game.

On Saturday some of the collective turned up at DK’s for his birthday games day - Present were Snake-Eyes, myself and DK obviously, those with notes from there mum’s Sylon (jet lag - returned from Canada the day before), Steedo (been away all week with work and wanted to spend some time with Mrs Steedo (might also been too soon after the Essen trip)), Tiger-King (apparently “sick” again). I was only available for the afternoon session 1pm to 6pm ish (more of that later). So after about an hour’s discussion about Essen and the adventures they had were were ready to start the rule’s explanation.

Due to the excuses DK decided that we would play Runebound (a game that he has had for a while, but due to the ridiculous number of games, has never got to a table) , which is a sort of RPG lite board game hybrid. We chose a character each - DK the “noble“ knight, Snake-eyes a Wizard and myself an Elf Ranger. The game is basically explore the board doing various events, to obtain money, equipment, weapons so that you can defeat the big bad at the end of the game. The game is semi cooperative in that if the big bad get to the middle of the board, you all lose - but if you defeat the big bad you win!

The starting point of the game - each character has three actions. Movement costs 1 action and you role 3 dice and then can move on the terrain types rolled (unless on road). Training - getting more skills cards, Healing and something else cost one action. To activate an encounter (the gems on the board) costs 2 actions. There are 3 types of encounters; Yellow combat; Green exploration/quest; Purple social interaction. Each successful encounter would gain, you money, lore and the encounter token - which could  be collected up and spent to improve stats or gain skills , from the skills cards.

The game moves along quite nicely - the combat was fun (in the early part of the game) - involving casting (throwing/dropping) 2 sided counters which could be then used to activate abilities or attack you opponent. This worked well in the first half of the game, but as we gained more skills and weapons we gained more counters and the combat slowed things down quite a lot (although this was probably because I was running rather late by the end of game and wanted things to end …).

The boss monster is revealed - it’s a dragon - run for the hills. He only needs to move 5 or 6 hexes to the city (picture on the right) in the centre to win the game and for us to be losers. It this point i was running about trying to get money to buy some armour to take into the boss fight, but virtually every encounter was a bloody quest (l think that I had about 5/6 active quests) on the other side of the board! About 5 turns was spent trying to get the money together to be in with a chance in the boss fight. Snake-eyes did roughly the same - but trying to get lore. DK was trying to buff himself and we were fortunate that for three turns the big bad didn’t move, then he did. At this point DK’s noble knight stepped up - I say noble, but on three occasions during encounters DK had the opportunity to do the right thing and … on the first DK’s character punched an old woman in the face and stole her money. Then he encountered a refugee camp and could have helped them, but chose to loot the place instead … I can’t recall what the final “Murder Hobo” act he perpetrated, but Snake-eyes and I were thinking that the population of the world were probably safer with  a dragon overlord.

The final boss fight between DK and the Dragon King - Snake-eyes and I were ready to step up, when DK was defeated … but after two combats DK prevailed and won the game! The combat was close and we suggested that he retreated from the first combat, which I think he was about to lose. We were luck that the Dragon didn’t move after this as well - well DK was as I was rooting for the Dragon at this point. In the second combat if the dragon king wasn’t killed DK would have been - a damn close run thing. The combat  in the boss fight was a bit protracted in the boss fight - the token flipping things loses something with lots of tokens and isn’t as much fun.

Well done DK on  a Birthday win of Runebound (and thanks for the Somerset Cider Pork Casserole) - I enjoyed the game and would play again, even though it took 7 hours with 3 players - apparently it should be 3 hours with 3 players according to BBG! I thought we were playing fairly quickly - obviously we had some AP issues (again).

Morts

A Proper Ramble … for charity

The gaming and miniature modelling front has been quiet for a few weeks due to most of the collective heading off to Essen and work being a bit mental and tiring at the moment - also the Kataphrons aren’t really making me want to finish them at the moment - perhaps I will get some mojo back in the next week when I am off work. I am catching up with some of the collective at the weekend, so might see some of their booty and hear stories of their adventures in Germany. 

So what have I been up to? 

Well last weekend I was involved in a monster (well a 32 mile overnight) charity walk across Dartmoor, with 4 colleagues (Gavlar, Guy, Padders and Carlos). So prepare to be slightly bored by my adventure - with pictures. After a day of work we headed off to Okey for a 4:30pm start on the Friday night.

We started at Okehampton station - well Youth Hostel (but they are at the same place), headed across the A30 and onto the moor, heading for Culiver’s Steps - I should say that it was raining when we started out. 

The path down to Culiver’s was more like a river …

The East Okement River was definitely full - this might cause a few problems at a crossing later on …

The weather had started to clear as we head towards Oke Tor. 

The crossing at Knack Mine was not possible, so with a bit of ferreting about we did find somewhere to cross - but it was a bit dodgy. We would have looked a bit foolish if someone had gone in the water - we did loss a water bottle to the rain gods. 

Heading towards Hangingstone Hill - the planned campsite. Although I can’t remember what tors are in the background here. 

The sleeping arrangements for me in a beautiful red light - I made a mistake by letting myself get cold on Friday night and then not being able warm myself up (I should know better - I just done a course on this!). We shared a Chilli and some under cooked rice (which gave a few of us a dodgy tummy a couple of days later). Obviously I survived the night - we had covered 6 of our 32 miles planned - Ivybridge Station was still some distance away. 

Saturday morning at Hangingstone - still a bit dark, well it is 6:40am. 

Looking better on the way to Quentin Man’s - looking over towards Fernworthy and Sitaford. 

Following the walls to Sitaford Tor. 

The Grey Wethers stone circles.

Postbridge … bridge - about 10am. 

Here we were treated to a breakfast bap and cuppa tea by the support team - it was very welcome. After a slightly longer than anticipated stop we headed on - only 20 miles to go. 

The Trig point on Bellever Tor.

A herd of horses or are they Dartmoor ponies on the way down. 

The West Dart River at Hexworthy - after Bellever we had done a fair few miles on the road at about 6km/h, as it had been decided to avoid the stepping stones (due to the dodgy crossing last night). We then head up to the Forest Inn for a well earned pint at 12:30pm. 

The next part of the walk from Hexworthy was tough - the walk up Ryders Hill is not something I plan to repeat - long, draining and dull. The picture above shows Redlake spoil heap as we headed down to Huntingdon Warren. 

The view back back towards Avon Dam reservoir after the climb up from the clapper bridge. Looking nice. By this time 3pm we were starting to flag. Still quite away to go, but we had been walking since 7:30am. 

The over towards Plymouth Sound (but could be Bigbury bay) as we plod along the Two Moors way. This was the worse part of the along the walk - it seemed to go on for ever along the old tramway and my body seemed to be collecting aches and pains all over the place! With about 2 miles left my right Achilles started hurting … but we all pushed on and completed the walk at Ivybridge Station. 

So in total we covered 32 miles over the 2 days and 26 miles on the Saturday - raising about £2500 for new kit for the Ten Tors and DofE. 

I have to say I have never been so knackered - on Saturday evening my leg muscles and shoulders were burning! I’m pleased to have done it (carrying full kit), but I’m not planning to do a walk that long again.

Morts