In Her Majesty's Name II: Getting a game on!

Summer is finished, and with it, thoughts return back indoors of an evening, towards gaming and painting. As can be seen from my *cough* frequent posts over the summer, I have painted a grand total of zero miniatures over the last four months. I have built half of one warjack for Khador, and mostly put together the new warcaster unit for the same faction. An impressive tally, you must admit. I have also gamed twice in that time. Give or take a match that I've forgotten, as it has been a very long summer.

Do not feel sorry for me though, my time away from the gaming tables has been mostly due to travels, spending time with the family and other fun ways to experience life (with a bit of work some evenings, but I don't mind that so much now and again). So, I hear you all ask, what have I done that is worthy of posting here? The short answer is In Her Majesty's Name. I posted on this game recently here, so if you don't know what it is, go on over and look.


The long answer is a little more detailed. One of my oldest, and dearest friends was over in Montreal a week ago. S and I go way back to High School, and have been gaming together, on and off since then. Unfortunately, I now live in Montreal, and he in Brussels. However, we were in the same city as he was over here for work. I think he is having trouble finding gaming close to where he is, so he was keen to make sure we got a game in while he was in town, We had a quick look through what I had ready to go, and settled on IHMN. I of course have the almost a fully painted set of the Society of Thule, and S has a soft spot for Prussians, so it was an easy fit. For my part, I put together a British Rifle Company, pulling together my Dystopian Legions Britannians for the occasion.

The lay of the land

Neither of us had really read through the rules before, but we boh had a copy, and they really are quite simple (roll 1d10, add skill, take off mods, beat target number). We got together, set up the table, and rolled a scenario from those available in the book, as this is a game that really benefits from playing though a scenario. The rules are super simple, but the complexity and variation comes from the depth of personalisation and characterisation you give the members of your company. Wether its through straight forward character traits, super science of indeed magical abilities. All this makes it a game that borders closely on and benefits greatly from role-playing, hence, the scenario was required. We rolled the 'Bad Jack' scenario, but more on that later.


The game was rather slow to start, as we jockeyed for position on the table. We were both rather concentrated on the left flank of the board, with one or two models each on the right flank. Bad Jack, the mutated laboratory experiment stalking both sides that we had to hunt down, started in the centre of the table. One thing we noticed straight away, was that, as both sides were armed with military rifles fo the most part, we were shooting each other from turn one. We could have had more scenery on the table to make this less of an issue. The second thing was that we had both thought from reading the rules that we would be dropping like flies, as after each shot, everyone makes a Pluck roll. One fail and you're out of the game. In reality, it could be relatively easy to hit someone, but we also seemed to be making an inordinate amount of Pluck rolls, which led us to evolve our game play from one of being in cover and hiding, to getting out there and getting on with it. It did mean that what we thought would be a very quick game, took longer that we anticipated.


The making of the Pluck rolls brings me back to Bad Jack. In the rules, he is given a pluck of 2+, this means on an unmodified roll of 1d10, he is only failing on a 1. Indeed, he has talents that increase this even more, and this brings me to the issue that we had with this scenario in particular, and maybe the game in general. It was almost nigh on impossible to bring down Jack, and other minis in general.

Another slight issue we had was the interaction os S's flamethrower, and my armoured walker. However, this has been fixed in the errata, so no need to go on about it here.

One modification  would make to the rules would be with the volley fire rule. This states that models can club together their shooting to bring down heavily armoured targets, which it does. They give bonuses to hit, however, I could have had all my riflemen concentrate fire on Jack, and yes, they would have hit him every time, but they would have no greater chance of actually putting him down than one alone, as they do not actually modify his pluck roll by any more than one rifle would by itself. This goes for more than just the high Pluck models, anyone facing a volley fire, or for that matter an gang in hand-to-hand, should not only be easier to hit, but have a higher chance of taking more damage. Fortunately, this is a set of rules that encourages fiddling to make it work on your own gaming table, so that is what I will do.

In summary, we liked it. It was a lot of fun, and would benefit greatly from the players putting more effort into the scenario design. This time was just to get us to run through the rules, but if I planned another game (once I convince some of the locals to play) then I would sit down before hand and work through a scenario that fits the companies first. And if I were to replay Bad Jack, he would be very much nerfed!

As a final aside, S left me with a present in the form of the rules for Muskets and Tomahawks. A rules set  have been admiring from afar, but avoiding buying the minis for. Now, I really have no excuse not to. Do I? No, I didn't think so!

...off to buy Roger's Rangers and a bunch of Iroquois...

IHMN: Society of Thule, Dr Kobalt

Here is this month's miniature for the Colore Ton Monde painting challenge. Again, an early finish this month, and again, this is leaving me with plenty of time to get on with painting my Dystopian Legion Light Dragoons (those guys are taking forever for some reason).

Dr Kobalt is Count von Stroheim's personal artificer, and the brains behind the Tod-truppen. His Arc generator means that any Jager that fall in his vicinity are raised again as Tod-truppen.

This month's theme was archaeology, but it could also be stretched to cover scientific types (there are not many straight archaeological miniatures). Therefore, this guy fits right in.

IHMN: Society of Thule, Count Friedrich von Ströheim

Got the brushes out last night, and came across this guy at the top of the lead pile, and I figured he fitted perfectly with this month's Colore ton Monde challenge, so job done!

Count Friedrich von Ströheim is the leader of the Society, and as such is clearly the star of the show. He, along with the Tod-truppen, mean I am now half way through painting this faction, at least as it comes in the box, as I have bought a bunch of other Jäger minis to boost their numbers if need be.

 

I may go back and add something to the base, and the face leaves a lot to be desired (mostly due to casting issues on the right side behind the pipe), so that will likely be redone. There's a nice big line through his shoulder that I missed too that I'm rather annoyed about, but hey, it's table ready.

I'm also swithering whether to go back and paint the helmet black instead of silver. Any thoughts?

With the challenge out of the way, I'm free to get on with whatever, but I think I'll try to get the rest of this faction done. I've mostly finished the base coats on the Jägers, which only leaves 2 more to go.

Colore ton Monde June

The results from last month are here. Please let me know if you can see it, as it's now on Facebook, rather than blogger, and I don't know what the access is. There was no real theme for the month, and we were left free to paint whatever. I chose to do the Tod-truppen for my Thule Society for IHMN.

As has been posted on the Club Chaos Facebook page, the theme  for the month of June is as follows:

* Le temps des boîtes *
En juin, beaucoup de monde sont dans leur boîtes, se préparant à déménager. On emballe, on emboîte, on protège. Pour le mois de juin, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle "en boîte", que ce soit une armure lourde, une combinaison étanche, un transporteur de troupe, ou toute folle déclinaison que vous créerez.

*The Time for Boxes*

In June, lots of people are in their boxes, preparing to move house. We wrap, we box, we protect. For the month of June, we invite you to paint a "boxed" model, that could be in heavy armour, a diving suit, a troop carrier, or what ever other crazy variation you create.

I have a troop carrier for my Britannians sitting waiting to be painted, which takes care of that!  Sorted!

Finally, there are two other little things I would like to mention. First off, Ubique is running a wonderfully unique give-away on his blog, so for more details, click here. Obviously, it is not in my interest for you to enter, but I really do feel it's worth yours.
Secondly, I have rather generously been nominated for a Leibster Award by Ian, who had some very kind words to say about my blog, so I shall be posting my response to that shortly.

In Her Majesty's Name: The Society of Thule, Tod-truppen

This month's Colore ton Monde challenge was to paint a mini. Any mini. Man that was a toughie! I'm not being completely facetious here, as the guide to what to paint each month does help. I have a huge lead mountain to scale, and sometimes I need a little help with which direction to take next. So you might say the Colore ton Monde challenge is my Sherpa!

Finally, I decided upon some minis I bought back in the UK in February, The Society of Thule.

A recent sale of old stock by North Star Figures led to be buying a whole bunch of 1866 Prussians. This was not due to any intention of actually gaming the Austro-Prussian war, but as use for other Victorian gaming, either to be converted as Hannoverian troops for my Dystopian Legion Britannians, or as Prussians to game with in IHMN.

The last week has therefore been less painting and more model prep of these guys, and the Thule boxed set. I was surprised to see and feel that the North Star minis came with a lot of mold releasing agent still on them, so they needed a good scrub before basing and priming.

I have been trying to paint the whole lot of the Jägers, both from the IHMN box and the batch of 12 North Star Jägers, but that was taking too long for me to have any figs actually finished in time for the end of the month, so I decided to just get on and finish some of them, so as to have something to submit to this month's Colore ton Monde. Of all the minis, the Tod-truppen were the simplest to do, with less kit than the rest of the troopers.

I'm not entirely sold on the fact I went for green skin on a green uniform, but it does go with my current trend of limiting my palette.

Hopefully the rest of the contingent of Jägers will follow shortly, with the rest of the Society of Thule hot on their heels (there are 3 other character models in the box).

Back from Blighty Bearing Minis

I have just returned from a quick trip back to the UK. Due to the circumstances of my visit, I spent the whole week at my parents house, rather than touring around visiting everyone. This allowed me to spend some time on their loft, looking out and going through my old stuff. Much of which I brought back with me.

I am now in re-possession of the following minis:

GW

House Escher for Necromunda
Wood elves and Sea Elves for WFB.
A couple of Humans that could be either Empire or Bretonnian
Regiment of Renown: Avenging Knights of the Cleansing Flame (Nominally a human unit, but works as High Elf, or even Melnibonean, and seriously, what a name!)

Void

VASA troops for Void (any version)
Also a couple of Syntha, Junkers and Viridian troops in there too (but not enough for a big force)

Urban War (or any of its current incarnations)

Triads
Koralon
Viridians

Whilst I was out there, I also picked up Heroes Villains and Monsters for IHMN, and the Minis set for the Society of Thule, which of course I could order here online, but the Pound is strong against the Canadian dollar so it made sense to buy in pounds rather than in Dollars, and I didn't have to pay shipping.

I left behind a bunch of WFB minis, including High Elves and Empire a dragon and other monsters and a Bloodbowl team, as well as the larger robots and vehicles I have for Void and all my Flintloque/Alternative Armies stock. These can be picked up at a later date, or posted out.

So, all in that's me equipped (or in some cases better equipped) to play 5 new (or old) games that I didn't have the minis for before. I call that a win.

I also brought back my old GW case, which is great for skirmish games, and much easier to take back and forward to the club with my minis of choice in, rather than my larger Army Transport case (Which is great for larger minis, so will still see great use for Warmachine and Hordes). Here are a couple of pics of what it was full of.

Just as an aside, I carried this case through security as hand luggage. I expected to be stopped and have it opened at the x-ray machine, either at Glasgow or Heathrow, but I walked through both times without issue. I was surprised. Maybe the X-ray attendants were gamers.

I'll be posting more pics of some of these that have been painted in the following weeks. I was surprised by the quality of some of my older paint jobs. Despite the fact that my techniques have changed and improved, I think I spent much mire time per mini back then (I painted eyes, something I have since let go, and I didn't use inks or washes at all). Then it'll be on to re basing them, as my basing skills at the time for the most part included swamping the base with Goblin Green, and sprinkling on some green flock (I rarely even plugged the slot on the base).

Whilst there, I also picked up some magazines in W.H. Smiths. The Wargames Illustrated and Wargames Soldiers and Strategy I could have picked up here in time, but Battlegames Magazine is not one that I have seen this side of the Atlantic (maybe someone wants to do something about that). It has something different to offer ovber the other two in the type of articles it prints. Maybe I should post a review of it too.

Meanwhile, back to finishing off this month's Colore ton Monde challenge. Just as well I managed to do the bulk of that before I left, as painting time this last week has been an obvious no-no.