Long blog post today.
May has been a very slow month for me, but I have no complaints because a lot of things have been completed. I have been "unemployed" now for over two months and have been handing out resumes and showing the government for employer insurance purposes that I have been seeking work. To be honest I am far more interested in Self-employment and working from home. I have invested a considerable amount of time into my wife's brainchild (online sales through Amazon, Etsy, and other platforms) as well as my own business plans for Steepled Hat Studios.
Last week Wednesday I attended a seminar style presentation about EI rights, my duties, and was given some resources on how to continue gaining government support through the employment insurance program Canada has in order - I have discovered that reporting my time and earnings in self employment is a completely legit method to continue the support until I can support myself. This is great news for me since I was worried that they'd expect me to get a "real job" and it would hamper my pursuit in living the dreams and goals that my wife and I have set out for ourselves.
Hail Caesar!
Last week I went to my local model / gaming store and picked up some Black Tree Design Imperial Romans and some old Iberian's made by Gripping Beast from another local gamer. Turned out he was an old dormitory mate that I sadly do not really remember to much (that first year of university wasn't a great experience in the shared, coed dorms. I forget a lot of happenings there and got out of the dorm system as soon as I possible could!) and he remembered who I was. That's pretty cool considering that we both turned out to be miniature wargamers - but his interests sadly were not embedded in Historicals. If I ever get into Kings of War I'll go find him again, though.
Anyways, I got these Imperial Romans because their ballistic siege weapons are fairly large compared to the Scorpions I had before, and they are pertty basic. I think they'd make great generic siege gear for anything from Syracuse up to early imperial rome, or perhaps an Imperial Player that I know now or int the future will be interested - they were only 10 dollars and I got two of them with full crew so it was a steal of a deal. If I don't use the siege gear, the Romans can become more casualty markers.
Additionally I also got some of these: Gripping Beast Scutarii in attack position. Damn, these are old models.
They're "Scutarii" and supposed to be in advancing position. You can see for 28mm models they're quite different from the Victrix Libyan infantryman standing in the background.
And as you can see, here they're not going to be Scutarii. Scutarii are the medium troops that have the bigger oblong shields. I just wanted a small unit to use as mercenaries between my Carthage and Republican Rome army, and I outfitted them with Wargames Factory, Victrix, and warlord games buckler sized shields from all sorts of sets.. So they're no longer Scutarii, they're Caetarii (light troops!)
I got a unit because I figured they'd be fast and easy to paint, since they're fairly unadorned. I was going to get a few more, but when I went to look again I thought about it .. these guys are ugly as hell and out dated. That, and they're metal. .. Think if I get anymore I'll just buy a box of the Victrix stuff!Painting : I've been doing a bit, here's the slow progress of my Unit of Victrix Hastati.
VVV waterslide transfers I'll be putting on the shields.
Here's some layering on these guys, using Rakarth Flesh > Pallyd Witch Flesh instead of The light Gray you can see on the broken guy... I think bother colors look great on tunics and I may use both shades within my units.
I love highlighting and layering Victrix models - much easier than Agema because the details pop and are a bit easier to get at! The clothes and largest parts are done, so after the skin the rest should be done up fairly quick!
The Mess
Some time ago I was installing some new shelving in my room and I had thought it was all secure. I loaded a whole mess of my model collection, including some stuff I got off a friend, and to make a long story short, it all came crashing down :(
I threw all the survivors in a box. As you can see a lot of them are snapped, bent, shattered, broken, and missing. There's lots of bits and pieces and stuff missing. Very sad about this, and I will not store my models on anything up high ever again.
the metal models will all be strip painted and repainted, so they're saved... But many of the plastics are really, really bad off. My Celts are done and I'll have to restart. Fortunately I only did up 12-15 or something like that.
Anyways, after doing some separation and gluing, here's what is going to be usable so far!
I am able to save one unit of Agema Hastati. These guys will look very awkward with their re-glued shield and stance positions. I think I'll just use them until other Agema or Victrix units are done up to replace them. The Victrix velites have fixed up quite nicely, though I've had to remove some of the javelins that were in their shield hands. They still look great and I was able to save 6 out of 8 of them so they can still function as a skirmishing unit.
Sadly, all the models I inherited also came crashing down. I was very upset about this since I had just got them, and they hadn't even seem battle. I feel bad and irresponsible since they were not painted by myself.
I will never take on commissions again. I am glad my cousin gave me the opportunity to try it but I already take so much time painting my own stuff. I've had these guys for months and still they're not near completion.
Frostgrave
Tim and I have been continuing our Frostgrave Campaign. We missed last weeks due to work and life stuff, but we had our games 5 and 6 on Wednesday.
Since we're playing pretty regularly we've thrown in the odd scenario into our campaign. I am hoping to quickly prime these Reaper Bonez models and dry brush them stone colors to do the Live-statue campaign that the Rulebook includes.
Since we're playing pretty regularly we've thrown in the odd scenario into our campaign. I am hoping to quickly prime these Reaper Bonez models and dry brush them stone colors to do the Live-statue campaign that the Rulebook includes.
They were pretty cheap and I just mounted them on Victrix bases. I am not going to do much with them other than the quick prime, base, wash and dry brush. Should take no time at all when I get around to actually doing them. I think I need a 6th statue, but I'll figure that out later!
Anyways, here's details from our last two games: We first played a Scenario with the Mausoleum. We didn't have a proper looking Mausoleum so we just placed one of Tim's larger buildings in the middle , and skeletons spawned from there!
Again, I don't take photos as frequently as I do Hail Caesar as the turns here move by much faster, but here's what I got anyways!
Anyways, here's details from our last two games: We first played a Scenario with the Mausoleum. We didn't have a proper looking Mausoleum so we just placed one of Tim's larger buildings in the middle , and skeletons spawned from there!
We used quite the variation of our own terrain and the local store's collection. There's a house with four treasure tokens at each corner of it if you can see it in the pictures. That's the Mausoleum where skeletons spawn randomly at the end of each turn.
Just a shot of my warband
One of Tim's group advances..
Wandering monsters! We decided to not have other random monsters spawn, and only skeletons came out this game. They die pretty easy with their tiny 1 hp but they do well at stalling advances!
Our Mausoleum
We eventually both got up to the middle of the mat and started fighting. Two of my thugs take on one of Tim's man at arms while another one of his archers offered cover fire.. Tim had a knight and a crossbowan at the far side of the wall, but spawning skeletons continued to stall them as my soldiers pulled treasure away.
Here's the last shot of this scenario.
I would say Tim had the worse of it this game. He made off with two treasures thanks to his quick thieves, but he lost a good chunk of his forces since he was out numbered in some of the combats and to continue fight skeletons that popped up on his side of the field. It did not help that towards the end my Dog engaged his apprentice and took the apprentice out with a critical bite to the foot. As a result the dog mangled her foot, and now the apprentice has both a mangled leg, and a mangled toe, and her movement dropped again!
It wasn't too bad , though, as you'll see in the next game!
Tim's Warband in the distance split into two groups, advancing.
The majority of my group got together behind a tower while the Wizard of my group was doing stupid things.. I have no photos of it, but I used a scroll of Leap to jump up to the top of a skaven-inspired bell tower to get some treasure, but Tim had clear shots at my wizard and he ended up taking out my Wizard with his own Wizard very early on in the game.
In our last game, Tim found a Demon in the bottle (Reaper Bonez gargoyle above) which he smashed up and unleashed upon my men while one of his Zombies was fighting agaisnt a Templar.
Surprise! This time the Ice Worm showed! Two games too late for the scenario! And it decided to pop out of the earth on the side Tim was closest too...
It moved into to engage as his Wizard was the closest enemy, and with a roll of 20, the Worm Critical Hit Tim's Wizard out of the game!
Funny story - my Knight and Templar took out his Minor Demon from a bottle (which didn't really do as much as we thought it would) and my Templar ended up fighting the Worm by himself while my Knight went off to chase archers (which ended poorly for him). The Worm attacked my Templar, but I rolled a 20, and critical hit killed the worm outright. . There was quite a few rolls of 20 in our last few games!
Tim's Templar also did heavy damage. He along with a Barbarian took out one of my archers, a man-at-arms, and another Knight. He was probably Tim's MVP this go round in melee.
In the end, Tim's thieves and bone darts and archery really won the day when he took out my Wizard. I lost every single unit in my warband except the Apprentice that escaped with 1 hp, and my Infantryman, that also escaped with only like 2/3 hp, but was able to take one treasure. Tim had a major victory, gaining 5 of the treasure and huge amount of Xp since his wizard took out my wizard. That being said, my Warband is severely behind in exp.
My big mistake was buying my Wizard Boot's of Speed, which made him whip up quickly to the middle of the board and up high with the Leap scroll - that caused him to become the target of all shooting. Also, my spell casting still requires 9's or 10's to cast, while Tim has his bone dart spell down to the minimum already - that means that I am at a 50% chance to succeed whereas tim has something like 75% , which is a huge difference in this game! It's very apparent when we cast spells, as my Apprentice with his -2 to casting almost never gets a spell off!This game can be unpredictable with dice rolls though, so even though I am behind in experience, a lucky game or two can easily put me back to the top. I'm also thinking that I'll invest in some more thieves. Tim has two that basically just grab treasure and get out of the board, making sure he succeeds in having something at the end of game.
That's all for now! Hoping the next time I post all my cousins models and all the repairs are done ! Tim who plays Frostgrave with me agreed that once we have something like 6 full units done on each side we'll play some small, non-point battles with Carthage VS Rome in the way Hail Caesar was meant to be originally played. I am hoping that another Tim we know can also come out with whatever he's got ready and that in time we'll be able to also play larger point games with Graham whenever he makes a trip into town.
So until next time, 88! Adios!
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