Obligatory Year End Post Pt.2 - Achievements in Oldhammer

So, while the painting itself was pretty lackluster, I feel like I accomplished quite a bit on the actual Oldhammering side.

I started by resurrecting the Oldhammer Opponent Finder in April. It still may not really help all that much in actually getting you games, but I think it is reassuring to see others who share your interests and helps to build a sense of community.

Next was the Oldhammer in the New World T-Shirt.

I was very happy with how it turned out and how well it was received. Hopefully I can come up with another good idea for the coming year. If possible I'd like to raise some funds for swag for the next event.

Then it was actually going to, not one, but two Oldhammer Events. Brian's Birthday Bash and Oldhammer Weekend USA 2016. We Oldhammered hardcore and had a lot of fun doing it.

Then of course it was the publishing of the Oldhammer in the New World Zine.

I feel that this was almost as much an accomplishment as the T-Shirt and I'm very proud of it as well. I'm working on the next issue and need more content if you want to submit some. The theme is Rogue Trader.

The final Oldhammer accomplishment was meeting up with Dai from The Lost, The Damned and The Stunted and getting in a game while visiting family in NoCal. I think the world is a better place when we get together and share the things we enjoy. I'll be gaming with him again.

So, now that I look back on it, Oldhammer-wise 2016 was a resounding success.

I'll try to come up with a cogent post and plan for how I'm going to tackle 2017.

Brushes at the ready!

Obligatory Year End Post Pt.1 - Painted in 2016

Well, it seems like that time of year when bloggers look back at the year gone by and ponder what the year ahead holds.

As of writing this I have 72 published posts this year, the lowest full year total since I started blogging.

So let's remind ourselves of what was painted.

Figures Painted

The Merchant of Venus XII

I've broken him again in the interim so my staff repair is still not satisfactory.

The Leman Russ and Anti-Tank Squig Gretchin

As per usual it was overshadowed by much better submissions in the bonus round. I hate the photography on this one, I should probably reshoot it.

20mm Ogres and 28mm Giant Rat

No the best picture, but it gets the idea across in one shot. Still haven't had a chance to use these in anger.

Dahn Alt Rump

No real complaints here, I liked this one. I need to finish the rest of my Imperial Cops. I think I want to change their name to Team Terra, Galactic Police.

Otherworld Warlock

He was fun to paint, although I recall spending a lot of time blending his skin only to have it look like it was color blocked in one color only. He is one of the figures I chipped up transporting.

Abdul Goldberg

Probably the figure I'm the most proud of for 2016 for sure if not all time. I also thought I photographed him particularly well. Unfortunately he suffered some pretty major chips in the Oldhammer transport fiasco.

Chaos Warriors

This reminds me that these guys still need varnish and final basing, as well as a proper photo shoot.

Reaper Cthulhu

Another one that needs varnish and better pictures.

Don's Boar Boyz

They look ok. Still not happy with the pace with which I painted them. He's said something about selling off his armies, not sure if these are part of what he's sold.

I also finished up Gropez the Halfling Barbarian, 4 more Goblin Fanatics, 5 gobbo Wulf Boyz, and 10 space chickens with the Clukkatrix for Oldhammer Weekend. They all need their own pictures and perhaps some touch ups from travelling damage.

So it looks like 49 figures, 1 Vehicle and 1 Elder God.

This post turned out much longer than I intended, so I'll stop here and talk about the other hobby things I did in 2016 in my next post.

Cheers.

I met a strange man on the internet

And a battle report ensued.

Hi All,

Got a chance to meet up with fellow Oldhammerer and top bloke Dai from over at The Lost the damned and the stunted.

We had some wine, talked about all sorts of stuff, looked at his miniatures and then had a quick game of Dragon Rampant before I had to hit the road. It was great.

Please forgive the crap cellphone pictures, I was travelling light. The game was more climactic than the report makes it appear. We both got down to our leader and one unit left on the table, his one unit just happened to be a giant.

Dragon Rampant gave a quick, simple game and we each got to roll satisfying handfuls of dice.

Here's the report, right click to embiggen.

Score +1 for fun and Oldhammer West of the Mississippi. Since I'm out his way a couple of times a year to visit family we'll probably get together and game again. Next time I'll be more organized. I promise. ;)

Back to the drawing board - Mighty Empires Campaign Map

Hi All,

Sorry for not posting regularly. Life and stuff. As is usual for me this time of year, I realize how lazy I've been the past year and get grouchy about all the projects I've let slip through my fingers. Both hobby and real life.

But anyway, this post is to tell you about the action I'm going to take to fix that.

Mighty Empires

That's right, I said it. Again. I've always had a thing for sweeping campaigns.Of course I've also had very scattered and grandiose ideas about them that ended up falling apart because I couldn't stay focused long enough to work it all out.

Linlandia

So you may recall the campaign I started with my gaming buddy from High School. I still hate the name, but he won the battle that got to pick it, so there it is. We set it up as a way to stay in touch after I went off to college and it ended up fizzling after a year or so. But I have two binders full of stuff for it and you may recall that I found a lot of the letters and paperwork from that campaign.

Maps

I have several maps of the campaign lets see where it all started.

This one was reconstructed from my hand sketched map of our tile placement. I then scanned in my tiles and placed them into a hex grid in GIMP. It was a royal pain in the ass.

Here is the sketch version. I made many copies of this so we could show changes in territory easily.

Lastly, here's the "fancy" hand drawn version I made as a present for my friend and to rekindle interest in the campaign. It didn't really work. But it was fun to make.

Next Steps

I hear you saying "I see what you've done in the past, what are you going to do to actually get this project moving?"

Welsh Piper

Welsh Piper is one of those sites I've found and forgotten about multiple times. It has great resources for hex mapping and a great program for calculating Fantasy populations. So I'm going to be printing out his hex templates and figuring how to scale my map into  his templates.

Scaling

The main problem is what scale are the Mighty Empires tiles. In the original game the time scale is supposed to be one season, and banners move one hex. Years ago I read "The Logistics of Alexander's Army" (I think that was the title) and 10 miles a day march for an army seems stuck in my brain. I think I fudged about a months worth of travelling in one season, so roughly 280 miles. I then dropped that to 250 to make it easier to divide by five, because that's how the Welsh Piper templates are set up. Of course the Welsh Piper mega hexes are 125 miles, so I will figure out if I want to just make my map scale 125 or translate my one hex into two in Welsh Piper.

Hexographer or Hand

The ultimate goal is to create this map in Hexographer, but I've found it difficult to get started or manage the aforementioned scaling issues so I'm going to do it by hand with colored pencils. Oldchool style.

The Plan

I'm going to print out templates and copies of the maps and start hand drawing the new maps over the Christmas break. As I get going I'll fill you in on how it's progressing and ultimately how you can get involved if you want to participate in the ultimate battle of good versus evil.

Thanks to Airborne Grove of Give Em Lead for re-re-kindling the idea for this and Bulldog Lopez of  He of Three Names for reminding me that I can use headings in a post.

A Random Encounter - A Knight's Quest Tale

Hi All,

Hope your December is going ok thus far. As usual for me this time of year, I'm stressing about all the things I haven't done. Such is life.

Here's a report of a game of Knight's Quest I lead my Brother and Son through over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Rather than prepare an adventure, I brought an assortment of figures and dungeon tiles and worked out a random system on the fly for generating the encounters.

I also wanted to try and get know how Serif PagePlus X9 works, so i used that program to make the report. I intend to use it for the Oldhammer in the New World Zine moving forward.

So here it is.

So there you have it. It was a brutal slugfest and the party was totally decimated by the first encounter. I need to figure out how to balance things a little better if we continue to use this. The general consensus was it was too brutal and hard for the PC's. Anyhow it was fun getting in a game and throwing some dice, even if we didn't make it to the Orcs, Bugbears and Ogres.

I'll probably be painting up my Analogue Hobbies VI entry fee and side duel figures (from last year) and then trying to sort my minis and get to work on all the half finished stuff.

Later.

More info on the Oldhammer in the New World Zine.

Hi All,

The decision was made to keep the Zine as a "perk of membership in the facebook group.

You can join here.

If you are still on the fence, here's a little more about what's in the first issue.

So if it looks like something you'd be interested in, head on over to facebook. Join up and download the full zine.

Sorry Mac, I didn't correct your last name in the contributors list. Bad editor. :(

I'm working on learning a new product to lay out the next issue. I'll be making a battle report with it. 

Later.

Oldhammer in the New World Zine Vol.1 Iss.1 is Live!

Hi All,

Just wanted to let you all know that you can download the first issue of the Oldhammer in the New World Zine from the files section of the facebook group here.

Please forgive any mistakes, I tried to catch what I could, but editing by oneself can be difficult. I hope this gets you all fired up to game, paint and share your exploits.

If you want to contribute, just let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I've been working on - Oldhammer in the New World Zine

Hi All,

Sorry for the lack of posts, I know you wait with bated breath for each one. ;)

I've just been busy, scattered, putting out fires as is my usual state of affairs.

What I have been doing is trying to compile a "magazine" of what's going on in our hobby here in the Americas, ie Oldhammer in the New World.

My hope is to have this be an addendum to the various things that are happening online and try to shine a spotlight on different areas or people that are doing some cool things.

My hope is that others will see this and be inspired to, not only get together and game, but share their experiences with the community at large and create a snowball effect.

I'm doing the first issue in Comic Life 3 because I have a fair amount of experience with it and it's already paid for. Don't worry though. I'm doing the main articles in standard print fonts, so no Comic Sans or the like. I can't justify the expense for In Design, and Scribus was too much to learn at the moment.

Right now I have enough articles for this issue, but could use some for a future issue.

What I am really looking for is good pictures of individual models and terrain pieces for segments I'm calling Old Met'l and Oldhammer Super Models, respectively. So far I've had about 5 people step up for Old Met'l and 2 for Super Models.

So if you have something you want to share, send me a link, an email or a pm and I'll be happy to include it.

Don't be afraid that you aren't Oldhammer enough. If it is truly in the spirit of Oldhammer then it is fine.

Have a great day, I've got to run.

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.

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.

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.

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.