Ninjabread

Good intentions heal the soul

2008-11-21T14:42:00.003Z

Glossy soul tokens I've been agonising over.

Problem is how to base them. They're little chunks of metal with a very sharp edge around the base. They'll chip easily. It's something I'm countering on my Epic models by gluing them to coins. But unless I glue stuff to the obverse of the coin you can see the design through the paint. And basing them to match my fledling force looks odd - the token ends too abruptly and it looks like an odd novelty fountain. And some regular opponents said it would make them too big and they'd get in the way during games.

In the end I just elected to gloss varnish them. What a cop out.

More Cryx

2008-11-19T12:23:00.003Z

My first Cryx model I did - the Pistol Wraith. I love this model as it's got a later-Castlevania vibe going on.

The biggest model in my Cryx army so far. And the most ineffectual. The Slayer.

I've got a heavy wreck marker for this too. I should have painted that first as it spends more time on the table than the Jack itself. Humph.

Sharks in custard

2008-11-11T22:41:00.002Z

My Fighta Bomba Swadron has swelled to six strong.

Originally my list featured two 3-strong swadronz, until it was suggested I merged them. Both swadronz went after the tended to pick on the same unit anyway, so I'm losing little in the way of flexibility. They take only half as much flak now.

There's maybe a tad too much red on some of these. I use the red to cover the areas I've messed up the yellow on. Sometimes it just starts over-powering the model. But rather than obsess over repainting bits, I'll just call them finished and aim to not repeat the mistake on the next batch of models.

Bellies gonna getcha

2008-11-10T18:04:00.002Z

With a few more train journeys, I've had the time to finish my Bile Thralls.

It's a little frustrating having sunk hours into doing the whole unit of ten, only for them to be worth 65 points in total. The first 350 of my Cryx was done so quickly, with the Slayer and Deneghra. Bile Thralls are a poor points-per-pence ratio, but they may actually help me lose less.

I've stuck them up on CoolMiniOrNot, so you can go vote should you so wish.

Playing the game, not the system

2008-10-21T06:52:00.000+01:00

One of the questions facing Rob and me these last few weeks is: Is it actually possible for either side to win Battle for Armageddon?

No matter which variant you play the drawing bracket is pretty wide. The Imperial player has to control every single Hive, have them intact AND kill the enemy commander (Ghazghkull/Angron). If people were playing with a hardcore 40K tournament mentality it'd be very easy for the Orks/Chaos to just keep the commander on a supply line and deny the Imperials victory.

The main reason we enjoy the game so much is the background. The whole game is grounded in some of 40K's richest fluff. Indeed, the rulebook itself is actually a story of the entire campaign penned by the mighty Bill King with a few pages of rules slipped in. The point of the game (as far as we're concerned) is to take on the role of the army commanders rather than actually try and win.

Huh?

Well, the Ork player has just punched a hole in the Imperial defensive line. He decides to pour two whole clans through the gap, and avoid further causalities swamping the rest of the line.

It's very unOrky. (Well, unless you're playing with the Chaos Attacks Blood Axes). In fact, with our gaming philosophies it's almost cheating as that's not what the Orks would do (or "did" if you take the fluff as seriously as us).

This is the roleplay element that is present in wargames I love. Deciding what your pewter captain model will do, and not the omniscient player towering far above his miniature legions.

It's lovely when you play games where both players have this attitude. They're fun, and you have cool discussions over which Hive Yarrick should be in based in. This is in great contrast to tournaments, where the WAAC attitudes mean the games are decided by who's able to fudge their inches the most get the petty rules anomalies rules in their favour.

Smiling at strangers on trains

2008-10-20T00:57:00.005+01:00

I make a lot of journeys on trains. And as well as having several good (comic) books in my bag, I also entertain myself by taking my paints. Here they are somewhere approaching Didcot.

Here they are somewhere in Birmingham, further along in their paintjobs.

It's a great use of time. I got a good four hour run at them today, four hours that I would normally have had to have put an evening aside for, or stayed up extra late to do. It's magic time from nowhere.

It's also perhaps the only interesting picture of someone's painting area you'll ever see...

2p or not 2p

2008-10-16T10:39:00.004+01:00

Since the basing restrictions in Epic are so loose, I've opted for basing infantry on 2 pence pieces rather than the standard 40x10mm bases, or the less common 20mmx20mm Space Marine era bases. The game mechanics don't hinge around base size or shape (like they do with, say, Warmaster), so as long as you're not being a nobber you can do what you like.

The regimented 5-in-a-row look of the standard Epic bases doesn't work for Orks visually. Marines and Guard suit it, where they look like they're advancing in awe-inspiring formation, in their neatly-arranged squads. Orks just swarm, with very little in the way of force organisation. Clumps of infantry just look right, not lines.

On top of that, my vehicles are all on round bases, and so it keeps the army looking consistent. I can't stand mixing round and square bases.

Hey look, if you squint that picture looks like a plate of pies.

Q. What's yellow and dangerous?

2008-10-14T09:33:00.004+01:00

Look at that. Led by a vintage Mekboy Speedsta with Bubbla Chukka, and accompanied by a converted Flakwagon. Looking good.

Of course, red's the traditional colour for Kults, as they're typically Evil Sunz. But Bad Moonz would have a lot of teef to spend on flash vehicles, so I feel I'm still adhering to the background.

These guys took to the field again last night against Si's Shadow Scorpions - and won 3-0. Si made the mistake of tackling my Gargant head-on, where its awesome firepower and big stompy boots made short work of the beakies. With my first win under my belt I feel justified modelling on some trophies using all the spare Marines I've got knocking about.

I've chosen to base every model in the army, mostly 2 pence pieces. It makes them look a lot more imposing on the table, and so much easier to handle. Tiny metal models just roll around and get their bottoms scratched chipped and generally mangled by gaming. And, I hate it when some models in an army are on bases, and others aren't. I can overlook it in 40K where basing large vehcile models is impractical. But in Epic, the baseless vehicle models can be based, and what's more, the bigger models (titans, gargants...) are based anyway. It brings out my OCD side.

I won't have to pay

2008-10-14T00:17:00.005+01:00

I love picking holes in print advertisements. I get told off because I stand really close to airbrushed movie posters and scream, "THEY HAVE NO PORES". But this advert, that I see every morning on my way to work, has really been bugging me.

For those not living in Manchester, we're having a big vote later this year on the Manchester congestion charge. One approach they're taking to selling the idea making you pay to drive your car to work is saying that you won't always have to pay the congestion charge. To me, this is like persuading someone to play russian roulette with the reasoning it's not suicide most of the time.

Anyway, I see this one on my way into work every day.

Does anyone else read this as "I won't have to pay the congestion charge, BECAUSE I AM GAY"?

Feel the air under our wings

2008-10-11T11:30:00.002+01:00

Two late-night Epic games at Rob's - Bad Moon Orks vee Nevi'im Eldar. Have the close-up shot of the only painted models against the board, and let me mislead you into thinking everything in the game was fully-painted...

Rob took his brand new Epic Eldar. They müllered me, twice. All those dratted pulse weapons chewed through my lovely big Stompa Mob with sustained fire. Ouch. Luckily, he's not quite got the hang of the Eldar's unique move-shot-move tactic. I fear that day.

Here's what he has to say about them:

I have even named the craftworld now (Nevi'im: Hebrew for Prophets). They were one of the first of the craftworlds to leave Eldar society and isolated themselves even after the Fall from other Eldar believing them to be totally corrupted.

Eventually the Nevi'im decided that the Craftworld society was slowing them down and left them vulnerable. This feeling was only compounded when they heard of the attack on the Iyanden craftworld. The Nevi'im used the most powerful Bonesingers to create an armada of ships out of the original Craftworld and they split themselves into Marauder fleets.

The Nevi'im society became one of nomadic sensibility, much like those of the Saim Hann Craftworld.

And as if yo rub salt into the wounds of my twin defeats, he did it whilst showing off his new Bret McKenzie jumper.

Just one cage

2008-10-10T01:14:00.000+01:00

More copying the standard studio schemes. This time, it's Deneghra, the most diminutive of the Cryx casters. She was bought as a present, and so she went straight to the front of the Cryx painting queue.

This was my second attempt at painting the girl. The first time I used the Vallejo Game Color (eurgh american spelling) silvers, and it came out truly awful. They had that glittery finish that put me in mind of fairground bumper cars. I got sulky, and threw her in my undersink Nitromors jar. For my second attempt I wet out and bought some of the GW metals - I must say, (price aside) they're the best metals on the market, and produce a gorgeously even finish.

Only problem with Deneghra is she's, well, 'meh'. She's not a 10-foot tall steampunk skellington, or a zombie pirate dragon - she's just an unimposing little girl with very straightforward colours. Maybe in time I'll do another in a more striking scheme, with marble green armour plates, and lots of runic tattoos.

I do like the way her skin came out. I wanted her to stand out from all the green/grey Thralls, and look healthy and alive, but still eeeeevil.

Don't matter which way we're facing

2008-10-09T06:06:00.000+01:00

One of the many true joys of my Squat army, is that they're tiny models. They double up beautifully in the standard GW cases, rather than struggling one-to-a-space like my 40k Orks.

Means a whole 1750 point army can fit in a case, with a layer spare for my Cryx, and then some. Means games don't entail logistics problems, or lugging cumbersome bags on train stations. It means they can be surreptitiously slid under my desk without attracting quizzical glances.

I see a Bad Moon rising

2008-10-08T06:32:00.001+01:00

Cute Bad Moon Fighta Bombas. Wooo, they're the tiny Epic 40K era ones, not Forge World's ginormous Aeronautca Imperialis ones. I love them.

They might get some snow on their bases to match my other Epic army, and (as-yet-unmade) personal gaming board. And they're not varnished yet. I'll give them nice matt finishes, and then high-gloss cockpits.

I've always favoured brash, bright schemes for miniatures. They should be colourful and vibrant, not drab. If you carefully paint a miniature in a subtle came scheme and place it on the table, then it disappears. No-one can see them, and the visual spectacle of the army is gone. Doubly so with 6mm scale - the infantry models are the size of clumps of basing material, and get lost.

This Bad Moon army will stand out a mile.

Cryx

2008-09-24T21:20:00.006+01:00

My Cryx. Curis' Cryx. They came from the Crypt. Curis' Crypt Cryx. Crikey.

The one thing that as a stumbling block in Warmachine for ages was how to indelibly stamp the models as mine. I wanted Cryx with a twist, something uniquely mine. Problem was, I knew too little about Warmachine to ever do conversions or alternative paint schemes that actually fitted. I'd be converting what I thought was woo-awesome, only to find that those conversant in the PP fluff would roll their eyes and mutter. It would be the equivalent of a child at GW sticking a Terminator in the cockpit of an Eldar Warwalker and making hands for it out of screws. It looks good, but only to them in their painful nativity.

So eventually, I jacked it all in and settled on copying studio paint schemes. Nice and simple, no thinking required, and the perfect way to break out of my rut where I just borrow techniques from previous models.

It also fits nicely with (what I perceive) is the PP mentality of collecting the figures as-is, rather than making them your own. The 40K Universe is sufficiently big to wedge 1,000 Marines of your own devising in. The PP Universe is a teeny tiny thing where there's not as much space to do you own thing.

Good or bad? Well, it got me to take those hesitant first steps towards collecting a whole force.

Toy Soldier VII

2008-08-05T07:02:00.002+01:00

My Squats have taken once again to the field of battle! As the sun has now set on 4th ed 40K, my Squats appeared at Toy Soldier VII in Preston to take on all-comers.

They were joined by their regular friend, Inquisitor "Hood" Hargen, helping bulk them out to the 1750 pts required and defending their minds with his titular Psychic Hood. As I was also fielding a Callidus, Hargen was promoted to Lord Inquisitor, and had a mandatory retinue of suitable oldskool models, inclusing this old Judge Dredd Ape Gangster Citadel produced under licence in the 1980s. Here he is failing to kill an Eversor with a banana.

Vikarius's Battle Cannon mercilessly obliterating the Sister Troops choices. Although we were playing 4th edition, the missions were based on the 5th edition hearsay floating around at the time the rulespack was put together. That meant Troops were exterminated with extreme bias.

And here they are, fighting against some Classic Space Wolves. Old lead models with beards. Most of these Space Wolves were released in the Rogue Trader era. Lovely.

At the end of the tournament, they'd managed 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses. That's impressive for Squats. Have to reconfigure them for 5th ed now.

In site news, I fluffed up the end of my six-month hiatus by missing it by a whole 4 days. Oops. There's been a bit of behind-the-scenes cleanup going on, and some changes will be coming int effect soon. Keep watching this space.

Er, 6 months back...

2008-07-14T21:42:00.003+01:00

Today marks 6 months since Ninjabread was last updated.

So what happened Curis? Fall out of love with wargaming?

Well, I just got absorbed into other areas of the hobby. Painting my exciting new Ork army, attending tournaments and faffling with far too many side projects.

There's a few stories of what happened in the missing months over on the Dice Not Blog. There's even photos on the sporadic updates. I always recommend you give it a read.

So what does the future hold for Ninjabread?

Well, I've been trying to kickstart it. Problem is I get in a circle of not wanting to update the blog as there's no strips. And I don't want to do more strips as there's nothing to read in the blog. Catch 22.

However, I have been fiddling behind the scenes with some new code and galleries. I've decided the only way to get things back to their golden days is to gradually resume it bit by bit. Starting with this rather boring post. Expect fun pictures, articles, and layout changes.

Here's to another 6 months.

A world of jackpots and corporate values

2008-05-15T10:31:00.000+01:00

Sillily I gave all my bases to the club to base up the many many trees we have. This has left me without any 40mm round bases the stick my exo-armoured models on now I'm experimenting fielding them as Grey Knight terminators.

The Crypt was all out of the bases, as was the local Games Workshop. I phoned every GW store in the area, and none of them had any. Word on the street is that they're discontinuing the packs dedicated to just one base type and replacing them with blisters that give you a little bit of everything. Not very useful.

And while I'm moaning, it's impossible to navigate to the store locator on the UK GW site. And when you do get there having to use your Google-Fu, they don't even have the opening hours listed, so you have to phone. Not at all helpful.

Luckily, Glenn came to my rescue, kindly furnishing me with enough bases for the squad. Here he is forced into the bright daylight of a gorgeous Saturday morning

Cheers Glenn!

More fire than the belly of the sun

2008-04-19T21:18:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow's list.

Got to drop the extra armour on the Rhino and Russ as it's not modelled on, and I can't bring myself to blu-tac plasticard to their sides.

When Chaos Attacks

2008-01-18T02:01:00.001Z

You may well know I've been playing a lot of Battle for Armageddon of late, but I had yet to try the supplement Chaos Attack. (If you're interested, you can download them for free from Games Workshop's Specialist Games site.)

Chaos Attack is set during 500 years previous, when Angron invaded. He paused halfway through his campaign to build statues to the Chaos Gods, which allowed Logan Grimnar time to organise the second continent's defences, and summon a whole pile of Grey Knights. He was subsequently banished back to the Warp for 100 years.

You may also know that The Chaos Attack supplement allows you to field Squats, much to my glee. With this in mind I went over to Rob's to give it a go.

He rightly pointed out that since we were playing the First Invasion, Inquisitor Horst and the Golgothan Squats didn't turn up for another 500 years. However, much to my glee, turns out the Chaos side get Chaos Squats! Both Khorne and Nurgle flavours. Here they are having just stomped on Helsreach Hive with Angron himself and the Deaths Head Titan Legion.

(I wonder if the writers knew that Deaths Head were also an elite Waffen-SS division. Perhaps they were oblivious, like Simon Furman when he wrote the character Death's Head in the 1980s Marvel Comics.)

As a testament to the game's designers the Chaos play very differently to the original Orks. I was expecting them to swamp the Imperials under sheer weight of numbers, and then see if the Imperials could recover with their Build Phases. However, the Chaos player has to be more cautious, especially as he lacks the surprise attack rules. At the end of turn 8 I only had 4 Chaos counters left on the table, and lacked the numbers to occupy 2 of the 4 hives I'd destroyed. Rob had come very close to winning throughout, but was ultimately unable to roll a those 4-ups to banish Angron back to the Warp.

Great game. And there's a tonne of variants still to try.

Double Teaming

2008-01-15T01:03:00.001Z

Matt and I have been busy this last month getting our forces ready for the Games Workshop Doubles Tournament. For those of you unfamiliar with Doubles, it's two allied 500 point forces that have to conform to awkward restrictions for the 2nd elites, fast attack and heavy support choices. The real challenge of the event is choosing two forces that complement each other. Me and Matt chose Orks and Dark Eldar.

Orks and Dark Eldar? How can that be justified fluffwise? Well, to make things even more bizarre we threw something else into the mix ... Genestealers.

Once upon a time, a cunning Haemonculus had come across some Genestealers, those six-limbed aliens famous for stealing genes. His experiments splicing the Stealer DNA with his own creations weren't successful, creating only horrible deformed Eldar/Stealer hybrids (for which Matt had modelled up some Grotesques). The Eldar physiology wasn't tough enough, but their Ork slaves' was...

It all fits nicely together modelling-wise. The Dark Eldar Warrior plastics even have five crests on their helmets, making them look niddy.

My Stealer/Orks (Greenstealers) will be developed over the coming year into an complete and independent force. More pictures to follow when I've finished modelling all their new trophies on.

Trophies! Yes, they've got trophies from the many enemies they hideously butchered. Our weekend's Doubles gaming went rather well. We won four of our six games, managing to climb as high as table 6 for the last round before being smacked down by Allen and Nathan's Taudar. I did manage to shoot down a Holoed-up Prism though, as Allen had cockily parked it on top of impassible terrain where a its vectored engines did nothing to help my lucky immobilised result. With the new Ork Codex out that Kan will be getting a Kustom Mega Blasta made out of a Prism Cannon.

Nice thing about playing Doubles is the second player. We were able to spot the flaws in each others' tactics, and we could draw upon twice as much experience. I definitely want to do it again. Hope Matt does too, (not that my constant disregard for his advice cost us any games).

Roll on the 2008 Season.

It'd bollocksed up

2008-01-09T13:01:00.002Z

My sweetly ignorant girlfriend is to thank for this strip. Being entirely baffled by wargames (other than knowing she's not allowed to touch any of my 'little plastic men') she actually reads most of the padding White Dwarf is full of, and picked up on their choice of words.

This is Ninjabread's 10th strip, which means I am now considering the site permanently established. You can go back to the beginning and see how the quality and style has fluctuated during these initial endeavours.

In other news, Ninjabread does indeed seem to be back and fully functional. In case you missed it I was having some issues yesterday. I thought I'd broken it with my own fiddling, but it turns out it was my hosting company's fault.

Torchwood

2008-01-03T12:28:00.001Z

Welcome to 2008. I saw the New Year in in the Welsh capital city Cardiff.

Cardiff's main pull for geeky tourists like myself is that Russel T. Davies films a lot of his new reimagined Doctor Who here. The city is crawling with locations. In fact, Torchwood, Doctor Who's bastard offspring series is entirely set here. I find both series' Celtocentricity deeply irritating.

Wales is also famous for its national dish - cheese-on-toast. It's very difficult to find in Cardiff as the place is bursting with chain Italian restaurants.

Anyway, I did visit the Millennium Bay and admired the fountain. Problem was, that all those thoughts of running water made me need the loo.

Oh no! Turns out that very flagstone was the secret entrance to Torchwood!

Ambrosial Christmas

2007-12-26T21:55:00.002Z

Christmas holidays at last. I'm taking some time off to work on my super-secret new Doubles army along with Matt. We've dreamt up a bizarre double-team that's in some ways a 40K ménage à trois. It's all very idyllic at the moment, with phonecalls co-ordinating the two forces' colour schemes and dicscussions about how the forces will tactically complement each other - but that's bound to go out the window as pre-tornie panic sets in. Actually, there's only two more weekends until the Doubles. Oh no, panic's kicked in now.

Matt pointed out on the Dice Not Blog that the Host from yesterday's Doctor Who Christmas special reminded him of the classic Blood Angels captain.

Uncanny hmmm?

Armageddon Bound

2007-12-23T15:49:00.001Z

This last month I've been playing an awful lot of Battle for Armageddon. It was one of the three "Wargame Series" boardgames released by Games Workshop in the early 90's (the others being Horus Heresy and Doom of the Eldar).

But it's not a proper copy, I downloaded it from Games Workshop's site and printed it off. It was originally stuck up on the site back in 2000 as part of the hype surrounding the Third War for Armageddon campaign. But with the new Ork Codex round the corner Jerv's drawn our attention back to the ability to download and print off our own copies. You can get it from Games Workshop here.

It's a bit of a bitch to assemble. Rather than put any thought into digitising the game, it was just scanned in warts and all. (One of the Ork Strategy Cards reads "BUILDING AND MOVMENT" - which I love.) Then, whichever bright spark chopped up the board made all the pieces different sizes. And cropped off some of the edges. And the counters don't line up.

But hey, it was free. What do you expect?

It's a great little tactical game, with a surprising amount of depth. You have to think ahead, like Gothic and Aeronautica. You choose Strategy cards detailing what four actions your counters will make in the coming turn, without knowing what your opponent's are, or what who'll play theirs first. It can also form the bases for a tightly-structured 40K and Epic campaign, which is interesting.

With my post-GT 40K funk it's been a great game to bring along and play. As it's just a folded card map and a bag of counters I'll be keeping it in my gaming satchel for those nights I can't find a board.

But that's not the best bit. In the Chaos Attack supplement it lets you play as Squats. Corr!

Aeronautica Aliquantulorum

2007-12-17T12:29:00.001Z

At the Club Challenge last year I treated myself to an box of Eldar Aeronautica Imperialis. They're gorgeous, and I've been taking my time painting them in a crimson Void Dragon scheme.

I swear these were dust-free when I photographed them. These ships are freaking tiny, what you see in the photo above is smaller than my thumbnail. The wings are literally paper-thin. They flex when you look at them. I'm looking forward to fielding them in Epic or AI.

Luckily Dave challenged me to a game of AI this evening, but he's got Eldar too (gasp). To stop a internecine war I'm going to field ... Squats.

I've got a pair of Overlords, a squadron of Iron Eagles and some allied Thunderbolts. No clue what I can do with them, I'll try and wing it.