Sunday, November 6, 2016

Playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP)

Hi All,

Not a lot going on hobby wise but I did get in a session of 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) yesterday.

After reading Graeme Davis's blog about the 30th anniversary of WFRP I decided to try and see if i could join a game and get my RPG fix. You may remember I had played a few sessions of Call of Cthulhu awhile back on Roll20 and had been hoping to maybe start up another game with one of the OSR D&D clones. But so far I've been too busy, or scattered to do much about it.

Somehow I managed to get into an ongoing campaign and played my first session. It was interesting and not too far outside my experience after dabbling in Call of Cthulhu. What is a little difficult for me is trying to remain in character, my character is pretty opposite my personality. He is very depressive/pessimistic and a "cheap bastard". Not that I don't have tendencies to those things at times, I just don't spend a lot of time there on a daily basis.

It was fun to learn about the system and find some of the fan made charts to flesh out his background, so here it is:

 Leopold Boselmann is the third son of Reikhardt and Brita Boselmann although it has been questioned that someone else is the father of him and his younger sister, Dagmar. He was born on Monstille under the constellation Cacklefax the Cockerel in the poor village of Herzholz, between Maselhof and Wissenberg in Wissenland. As such he is morose, even by the standards of Wissenland.

Following the lead of their father, Jodokus and Hildric bullied and tormented Leopold and Dagmar until Reikhardt and Brita divorced. After that Brita and her two youngest children went to live with her Father, Alterer Bruder Holsteiner. He had lost an eye in a mercenary band in the South as a young man and was now the town's grave digger. Leopold's grandfather brought him into the trade, but it wasn't long before Leopold realized he could make more money by selling bodies to traveling merchants who dealt in such things with the colleges of magic. Although he needed the money to support his mother and sister, he came to the conclusion that all magic was evil and the path to corruption.

After the death of his Grandfather, Leopold's “Uncle” Liebink Hornlach took an interest in the family, primarily Brita. He used his position as village Bailiff to turn a blind eye to Leopold's doings, but as time went on he treated Leopold's mother as more of a wanton than a lady. When Dagmar came of age “Uncle” Liebink took a fancy to her and it wasn't too long before Leopold's mother disappeared and Hornlach's protection dried up.

With the open enmity of his Father and Brothers, no Mother or Sister left to care for and the real possibility of ending up at the end of the Hangman's rope, Leopold packed his meager belongings and stole 9 Gold Crowns from Hornlach on his way out of town. He probably is persona non grata in Herzholz.

His prized possessions are his Grandfather's tarnished copper lantern and a gold earring from his mother which he wears in his left ear. He is an adherent of Ranald the Protector and has vowed to make a name for himself and give his children a better start in life than he had. He also makes sure to pray at the temple of Morr and make a small donation before robbing a grave, just to be safe.


Doom: The hourglass shatters before thy last grain falls.

So there you have it. Overall the session went well. I still have a lot to learn about character development in WFRP, but I think I have some ideas on how to progress.

My internet was a tad problematic, I'm not sure if I need a new router or not, but things have been dropping out quite a bit. Roll20 froze on me once and Skype crapped out completely once and was dropping out at the end of the session. With the dropouts, I'm not sure if it was skype or my headset. I have a logitech chorded G35 and the levels changed at one point during the session. What was bugging me was that I could hear myself with a slight delay in the headphones. I find it very hard to talk when I get a delayed play back of my speaking voice in the cans. I tried looking it up after the session and apparently the majority of gamers want to hear their own voice in the headphones. None of the sound settings on my surface seemed to cut the mic to the headphones but also allow it to be heard by skype and others. I finally remembered that in the past I'd run my audio through Voice Meeter for recording. By fiddling with the settings and turning off the mic in the playback channel I can be heard and not hear myself.

Now to figure out how to sneakily get my own agenda underway. While helping the party of course. ;)

Oh and welcome to Rogue Painter Chronicles. I don't see a blog or website in your profile. Let me know and I'll add it.

Happy Gaming.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Paint Table Saturday 156 - Beastman?

Hi All,

Very little going on on the hobby front. I've been trying to clean house and tidy up all my games and hobby stuff. I'm not doing very well.

Here's something I slapped a little paint on during the week.


Sorry for the unedited cellphone pic, my lens may need another cleaning. Anyway, I'm just playing with color and sort of fumbling around with how I want him to look. I need to mix up some ink washes with those inks I bought a few months back.

You can also see where I had some spray primer issues on his leg. Every once in awhile I have a problem with this gritty texture coming from the spray can. I read somewhere this week that it could be from being too far from the model and paint droplets drying in mid air. this gives a granular texture to the model and is kind of unappealing.

I've done this now with expensive acrylic spray and cheap home depot primer. I'm not sure if I'll leave it or try to buff it/sand it off. It doesn't want to come off with a stiff tooth brush now that I've put a coat of paint on it. I don't like the idea of stripping the whole thing. I'll let you know what I eventually do.

Hopefully the chores will get finished and the mojo will return.

Happy hobbying everyone.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Brian's Birthday Bash - The lost battle report

Hi All,

While I was making all of the reports for Oldhammer Weekend 2016 I realized I had forgotten to do the report on our Man O'War game back in July.

This one is more of a blow by blow, as it's been awhile, and my memory becomes hazy pretty quickly these days. I'm also busy with a lot of non hobby things and feel a little rushed, so the story aspect is not flowing for this one.

So Man O'War, about 1,000 points each. Dwarves vs. Skaven, all painted by Brian Kirkell.

As usual, right click and open in a new window to see the images Eye of Terror size.










So there you have it. I'm supposed to be tidying up my stuff and doing chores around the house, so hobby stuff is more on the back burner of late. I'm realizing that I just don't have room for all of these big box games I've been funding on kickstarter. It's a bummer because I'm interested in some of the stuff GW is putting out now.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Oldhammer Weekend USA 2016 - Sheep of Camembert

Hi All,

My fourth and final game of the weekend. I had to get to the airport around the time Huzzah opened so I was unable to join everyone for the last days games. Brian had finished his Bretonnian army for the event but then, as usual, GM'd a good portion of the day. Since I alwasy make it a point to get in at least one game with my Oldhammer fantasy army I couldn't leave Brian with his force un-blooded.

So we borrowed a conference room at the hotel we were staying at and got in a quick game before I headed off to the airport and he went back to Huzzah Hobbies.

These were again 1500 point armies. We just placed terrain in an appealing manner and decided to use his Pink sheep from the battle at the farm scenario. The idea is we were each trying to obtain these sheep that tasted like cheese. A battle ensued.

Right click to see them in Grail-Vision.











My inability to harm his general, and the subsequent killing of mine was just the tip of the iceberg. I threw a lot at those damn peasants and they just would not quit. My fanatics were also nullified by the gobbos running away and the Illusory hero causing the others to deploy early.

A fun game, but a crushing defeat. Thus ended the festivities for me. In writing these games up i realized that I have some pictures of the Man O'War game Brian and I played in July. I'll try to get those going soon.

I'd also like to welcome Nathan Heazlett to the blog. Nathan was one of the players in the Nu Ork scenario and he graciously let me use some of his photos to help tell the story. I don't see a blog in his profile. Let me know and I'll link to it.

Thanks for looking.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Oldhammer Weekend USA 2016 - Escape from Nu Ork

Hi All,

Here we have Dustin's RT scenario for 200 point warbands. I tried to incorporate Abdul Goldberg, but how I had him stated out he was almost 200 points by himself. I used the Chukk and a loaner figure from Dustin.

Be prepared to have your socks knocked off by non stop action. As is my wont, I basically missed what was going on t the other end of the table. I think, in retrospect, the game would work a little better with a square gaming area. We seemed to have all the objectives on our side of the table. It was fun though.

My Space Chickens were alternative armies Chukk. I appear to be the only one at Oldhammer to have such an abomination. I stated them as ratlings with +1 to WS. The Clukkatrix had Troglodyte stats. I used Thomas D's rogue trader points calculator to get their values. It worked well once I fixed the formulas to work correctly in Open Office.

As usual right click to view in Emperorscope!













Up next? Who knows. I have a ton of stuff to paint for hero hammer and I'm in the process of putting together a figure for Orktober.

The next battle report will be my Hotelhammer affair with Brian and his Bretonnians.

May you roll 6's.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Blog Interlude - Some products you may be interested in.

Hi All,

As I work on various household projects and get the next battle report ready, I thought I'd share with you some projects that have caught my fancy. I am not able, at this point in time, to support all of them monetarily so I hope to live vicariously through you.

The Forge of Ice "Sleepy Sentries & Sleazy Merchants" looks nice and really fits a niche for those pulpy Conan style games. They look like Stygians to me.

Next is Astropolis by Lead Adventure. With only 3 days left I may be able to resist and stick to my guns on holding off on purchasing these. My hope is that when I finally paint some of my stash and don't feel so guilty I will be able to purchase some of these in their store.

Their kickstarter may be over but Shortwars got my attention. I may be adding more to my Halfling army in the future. I've had a chat with John Lye on facebook and I like the stuff he is doing. You may have seen some of his Hybrids, lovely stuff.

Speaking of Hybrids, watch out for French company Uscarl, you may have seen some beautifully painted examples of their upcoming release on JB's blog here.

Finally, I've been peripherally aware of them for years, but check out Skull and Crown. Thomas Foss makes some beautiful Wooden flats and puts on some grand games. I wish I had taken my son out earlier to play these when he was younger. Our goal is to make 2017 the year that we game together at a convention. I think one of Thomas games would be a great entree for him.

Welcome to The Fall Guy, if you have a blog let me know and Thomas Foss of the Skull and Crown blog.

Thanks to all who stop by to read and especially to those who comment. The best part about blogging is the mutual inspiration we can give each other.

Have a good one.


Saturday, October 15, 2016

Oldhammer Weekend USA 2016 - The Road to Marienburg

Hi All,

  The next battle from Saturday Oct 1st was my Orcs vs. Thomas D's beautiful Empire army. I call out a theme idea that I had about some magical halfling muffins, but don't really explain it well.

  These were 1500 point armies. I modified my list slightly to include some different models and try something a little different this time around. Some call that meta gaming. ;)

  The comic is once again made using Comic Life 3, the Fantasy template. The colors are a little garish, feel free to critique the choices. I'm trying to tie all the comics together with the "Oldhammer Comics" brand and I'm using a couple of the Graphic Novel page layouts to get that House of Hengist style.

As always, right click on an image to open it in a new tab/window to see it in full bigness.









The pictures I took for this battle are not the greatest, but I can't go back and retake them. I also was trying to not slow down the game even more than my fumbling through the rules made it. 3rd edition is fun, but it can take a long time and be quite draining.

I may start showing some painting next, mostly paint repairs. Next Battle Report will be Escape from Nu Ork, but I need to do some yard work and get the Halloween decorations up.

Thanks for looking.