Hendybadgers Hobby Update - June 2012

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't had a whole lot of hobby related things going on recently.
So I thought I would give you all a little update about where everything stands.

BLOG

There are LOADS of things lined up for this blog in the next few weeks.
Reviews - Merchantman and Warship ships from Ainsty Castings, Pirate buildings, Sea Dog and Sea Prince ships from Games of War, Judges, Punks and Robot gangs from Judge Dredd by Mongoose Publishing, GW Temple of Skulls and more.

The 'Win a Hendybadger' winner will be announced very soon. Just waiting on one more vote to come in.

ToaTS is almost at 100'000 hits. What an awesome landmark! When I started I never expected it to get to this point.
And how do I thank all of my wonderful readers, followers and viewers?
With an AWESOME GIVEAWAY! Over £70 worth of minis!
If you want to take part though, you need to be a follower of this blog using the box under the tags box on the right>>>>>>>>>>>>

An unboxing of Mantics Warpath starter set thanks to PJ at Shades of Chaos

New Pulp City battle reports. Maybe even some in a 'comic book' style

Any new news I like the look of and several other bits and pieces inc my own painting progress

EVENTS

I will be running a couple of Pulp City demos in the next couple of weeks at PAW and the Giants Lair in Plymouth. Even have a demo booked with the awesome Warhammer Joey/ The Joey Berry

PERSONNAL HOBBY

A lot has changed in my life over the last few months. Our first child, odd working hours, Mrs Badger now being on unpaid maternity leave etc.
This means that I have a whole lot less hobby time and hobby funds that I did this time last year.
So, what am I doing?

I want to use my precious time and money on my all time favourite game. Yeah you guessed it - the Supreme Pulp City

I have a few PC projects on the go.

Scenery - 
I now have 2 Urban boards that I want to finish off. Maybe give the buildings a lick of paint.
Planning a couple of Industrial boards including a large canal.
Also want to do some weird and wonderful boards like you see in comics. The moons surface, jungle, city park, docks etc

Models-
I have 4 main goals. To Collect, Build, Play and Paint every Pulp City mini.


I now have all but the elusive June Summers reporter (do you have a spare or know someone who does?) Some will have doubles as well due to a painting aim.
All but 5 of those are now made.
About 75% have been used in games
Painting sort of deserves its own headline

Then there are the soon to be released Monster Rules. I am collecting a range of 4"+ minis from several other companies to use with this new addition to the game.

Painting -
Before now I have painted around 40 minis in 5 years of gaming. The first 25 were flat colour Tyranids and not much happened since.
I saved my pennies and invested in the new GW paint range and painting guide. Over the last few months I have also collected all of the extra painting guides in White Dwarf.
Time to teach myself how to paint properly! (any hints and tips are welcome) Not just dry brushing and washing for me anymore.

The Pulp City painting has a couple of side projects.
1- One of each PC mini in an original paint scheme
2- All of the scenery
3- The Pulp City Avengers - Heroes  inspired by Marvel supers (3-5 are doubles from painting project 1)
4- The Pulp City X-Men - Villains inspired by Marvel supers
5 - Pulp City Marvels - Any that don't fit into the X-Men or Avengers themes.
6- Monsters from a range of different companies

OTHER

Soon I will play testing for a tabletop game. But that's all I can say at the moment.Shhhhhh........

So that's that.........
Hope you all enjoy reading Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher in the future!

Hendybadger awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

ToaTS First Ever Salute!

So this year was my first ever visit to Salute. And I Loved it!
I know the ole blog network has been flooded with reports over the last week so Im not going to go into too much depth, just cover the things I found and liked!

Apart from getting stuck on the M25 in rush hour, it wasn't too bad a journey from the far South West.
We settled down Friday night and headed off to the ExCel early Sat morning.

Just before the doors opened we met up with afew of my fellow bloggers and Pulp City players for the first time. Great lot!
Then it was time to go in. Luckily we were hovering in just the right place and jumped onto the back of the first cue!
We each had advance ticket goody bags aswell. When my wife opened hers, she had a golden ticket for a free KR Multicase backpack! Yay!

This is what we found as we went in.

Wow! Amazing! In Heaven!
Never seen anything quite like that before and didn't know where to start first!
Well, I did. Pulp City. Being a huge fan of the game and chatting to the creators on a regular basis I HAD to go and finally meet them.

Karol on the left and Maciej on the right. A great pair of blokes that seemed mobbed with customers for most of the day. That's great news for the game!
They also had a couple of new models on display. The L3 Green Emperor of the Jade Cult and some new underground dwelling Grimm.

Maciej also had one of his new Reaver Lords on show. His own personal side project of large fantasy minis.

We did go back to the Pulp City stand afew times during the day for my little Super Hero fix.
The fix included seeing lots of pics of new models that haven't been shown yet!

With that covered it was time to feed my Pirate obsession!
That started with a visit to Black Scorpion to pick up lots of their new releases.

My wife then spotted a couple of VERY nice boards.
Cutlass by Black Scorpion but run by the Redditch Wargaming Society and Simon the pirate!

(Thats my wife and little one with him)

The next piratey find was Freebooters Fate.

Great looking boards and a STUNNING line of minis.
I wanted to pick some up but with no interest for the game in the area at the moment I couldnt really justify spending out on it.

One of the display boards also caught my eye. The battle for Coruna.
An amazing table and imo it was the best in the entire show.

With the pirate in my happy, it was time to go and see what else we could find.
The GCN (Gaming Club Network) had a stand there and after a chat, our local club is going to re join.

A stunning range of minis we found were BaneLegions. A range of highly detailed resin heroes and monsters for you fantasy games.

Another range that really stood out a mile was Dropzone Commander by Hawk Wargames
All of the minis and scenery was wonderful. Cant wait to see how well this game takes off.

Talking of ranges that stood out, there was 1 other for me.
The Discworld Minis from Micro Art Studio. Amazing sculpts and I think they have really captured the characters perfectly.

While we strolled around the show we ran into afew people I have spoken to online over the last few years.
Including lots of Pulp City players and some of the Privateer Press team from when I was a Press Ganger.
(Cheers for the prezzie Vish!)

We stopped at one point to have a chat with Warren from Beasts of War who wanted a picture with James as a mini pirate.

Then we bumped into Ian from Fenris Games who has supplied ALL of my Pulp City and Mailfaux bases as well as several scenery bits.
I highly recommend checking out his range of goodies.

Whats a selection of people pics without a Storm Trooper though?

Towards the end of the day we headed over to see the guys at Sarissa Precision to see what new goodies they had. As well as lots of new Wild West additions, Steve told me there will be more for the CityBlock range in the near future. (Which will be on here as soon as I can get hold of some)

We didn't realise how big and manic this show was going to be. So a combination of lots of chatting and a poorly little boy meant we couldn't get to all the stands we wanted to.
Apologies to Ainsty Castings and Heresy Miniatures. We just ran out of time.

All in all it was a great day and an awesome experience. We are already planning next years trip. Within an hour of being there my wife said 'Got to come here again!'. The joys of a gamer wife! Yay!

To finish off this (not really a) report, a pic of my goodies from the day. Including cannons from Britannia Minis and an order for some new Battlefoam Trays that arrived at out house the day after we did!

If you haven't been to Salute before, you should plan for 2013. You wont regret it!

Hendybadger awaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Then all went quiet.......... for SALUTE!

As you may have guessed already, Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher has headed off to Salute 2012
The first time to a convention outside of Cornwall or Devon, this should be fun!

It does mean that the blog will be quiet for afew days though as were are making a short break of it.

When I'm back you will see all sorts on here including-

Reviews - Games of War and Ainsty Castings 28mm Ships, Pulp City Supremes, Black Scorpion Pirates, Large models from a variety of companies and more.

Dramatic Battle Reports - The pirate ship 'Black Badger' continues to terrorise the High Seas, 'The Lesser of two Evils' story continues at the forces of Necroplane try to take the Heart of Neptune, A first try at a Comic Book style battle report

Salute 2012 report (obviously)

And loads more.

Handybadger awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! (for a while)

Legends of the High Seas - Game 2 inc New Rules

A few days ago we had our second game of Legends of the High Seas. You can see my first impressions >>HERE<<.
But before I start this post properly I have a couple of apologies.
1- I meant to post this up at least a couple of days ago but have been a very busy Badger
2- I know I said there would be ships in game 2 but we decided to run a couple more land battles and look into the more specialised rules a couple of times before we added then in.

So, the second try.
This time we set a scenario and used the more in depth rules including Fame, Fortune, crew/hero special rules  and campaigns. Plus a slightly nicer board.
The setup -

Instead of just putting rough crews together we started out with new crews we would continue to use from game to game.
Liams Royal Navy ( I forgot to write down the archetype)

Steves Vamp-Elven Privateers with a Bloodthirsty female Captian. Giving enemy crews -1 Courage

My Pirates of the Black Badger. Led by Cap'n James Hawk. A Lucky soul.
Being as lucky as he is, I got 2 re-rolls during the game and the ability to re-roll booty afterwards.

With the basic movement, shooting and fighting rules down we started off playing a Clash of Swords scenario. The basic game where 2 or more crews fight each other off until only 1 remains.

As the 3 crews advanced towards the village they had the great idea to take cover from incoming fire.

This gave us the chance to use a couple of new rules. First was jumping. If an object is 1/2"-2" high a sailor has to go around attempt to jump over. Another simple rule that uses a single D6. On a 1 he doesn't make it, 2-5 he gets over and stops and on a 6 he gets over and can keep going.
This is basically the same for other strange movements like climbing, swinging and swimming.
1 is a fail, 2-5 is ok and 6 is good!
The cover was also helpful in the shooting turn. If you target a model that has at least 1/4 covered by something (or someone) else you have to roll to hit, then to see if you can miss the cover, then wound if you still hit your intended target. Most objects are a 4+ to avoid. They call it the quite obvious 'In the Way Roll'

Unfortunately that wasn't enough to help some. Alot of the shots hit home and took the target to the floor.
When a model is taken 'Out of Action' in the game by losing all of its Wounds you have to see if they survive afterwards by rolling on the serious injury charts. On a 1-2 a Henchman just dies. 3-6 he is fine.
The Heros chart is abit more detailed though. Using D66 (1 dice then another) you roll to see how they are wounded. The results range from Dead to Hardened. Including all sorts in between like hook hands, peg legs and trials that could result in a hanging.
How did we fare on this? Well all 3 of us lost a Henchman, well Steve lost 2, and each had a wounded hero.
My quartermaster was lucky with a full recovery but Liams First Mate wasn't as lucky. A nice black eye patch for him (-1 to all shooting rolls) Steves became a Hardened sailor gaining extra experience.

As the fighting continued the crews got to half strength. This meant taking Rout tests.
At the start of your movement turn each sailor has to roll 2D6 + Courage. A 10 or more means they are fine. Less, they run off the table. Not dead or injured but gone.
If things look REALLY bad you can voluntarily Rout. Your entire crew running to live and fight another day.

I mentioned experience. As your sailors fight they gain experience for things they do.
Fighting in a game gives 1, holding an objective is 1 and each kill a Her gets is another. Different scenarios do have different ways of gaining them.
Once you total up your experience at the end of the game it is marked on your Roster sheet in supplied boxes. In these boxes there are empty ones and filled ones. The filled ones mean you have reached an advance.
When this happens you roll on the advance chart to see what happens. For Heros this could be a +1 to a characteristic of a special skills that effects the way he is used. For Henchman its a +1 increase or one of them could be promoted to Hero!
Combined with the serious injuries this can give you some VERY interesting sailors. Some you can even become attached to as they destroy all or survive with 2 hooks, 2 peg legs and an eye patch but a great shooting skill!

The last part of the campaign rules is booty. And we all love abit of booty!
When you finish a game you roll 2D6 x5 for your doubloons. A set amount is taken for crew upkeep, food and such, and the rest is yours to keep.
A winning crew gets 3D6 and some scenarios give you even more.
This can then be spent on new sailors, weapons and special rare equipment.

What do I think of this part of the game?
I LOVE it! The extra in game rules add alot more flavour and feel to the game and the campaign system add a while new level of customisation and crew building.
Already looking forward to the next game (tonight) and then we are planning for the ships next week.
Is it wrong to get excited?

I will let you know how things proceed.

Hendybager Ho!