Friday Rucht Hour: That is Not Dead, Which Can Eternal Lie….

The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!

- H.P. Lovecraft, Dagon 

You saw my preview of this model earlier. Well, it's finally done! When last you saw it, Cthulhu was mostly done except for his wings and his base. Now, the whole model is complete. It was tremendously fun to work on. I especially had fun working on the veins in Cthulhu's wings. Those were a nice touch. The Reaper Bones mins, at least the large ones, continue to be fun to work on. 

Here's the base that I've put him on, from Secret Weapons Miniatures. Interestingly, the only problem I had was figuring out where to put his feet! The whole base was just so cool, it felt bad to cover up any part of it. The whole thing was easy to paint. Just some dry brushing to get the details out. Dry brushing white onto the maggots was done so that they would appear distinct. Of course, the rune stone that Cthulhu is stepping off of was original with the model. Just had to saw it off of his original base. 

One more note - primer! It was advertised that you didn't need to primer your Reaper Bones minis…. I have now found that not to be exactly the case. The Bones plastic is flexible. So when it bends, paint which has dried will flake right off. The dry paint simply doesn't flex. 

You can see the result of this below. I'm going to definitely have to coat it to hopefully affix the paint to the plastic. The paint hasn't been flaking off of the rest of the mini, so I think you're only in danger on the flex-y parts. Anyhow, be warned! Primer your Reaper Bones unless you're in a hurry! 

Friday Rucht Hour: Cthulhu Awakens!

The painting of Reaper Bones minis continues!

I've painted about six to seven Bones minis already - and three of them are of large size or above. So far, I've got the giant and dragon that have both been posted here.

Right now, I'm working on Cthulhu. I have to share this story with you guys…

I got Cthulhu via trade with Mik. He got some trollbloods, I got the Elder God. No big deal. Well, our buddy Andy comes over to visit that night and takes a gander at the model. That's the white, unbased picture below. Well, once Andy saw my prize…he almost wet himself. He couldn't believe it. He literally did a walk around of the entire model on the table. You would have thought I had just gotten a motorcycle.

Guys, if you like painting minis like this, I can't recommend Cthulhu enough. He's really big. His pose his great - he's poised in mid-stride - and he's even on a neat base. He's stepping off of a massive rune stone, in case you were wondering.

Now, as cool as his base was…I had to make it even cooler. With my trusty Dremel, I sawed off the base of the Elder God, leaving only the really cool rune stone. He'll be mounted on that base filled with fungi and maggots that I posted about earlier.

Anyhow, you guys will be the first to see the final product!

P.S. Note how I didn't base the model before painting it? They said you don't need to base your Reaper Bones minis and they were right! Amazing!

Friday Rucht Hour: Reaper Bones II

Yep. I'm doing it.

As of this writing, I'm dropping some money for the Reaper Bones II Kickstarter. Why, do you ask? You'll note that the second round of Reaper Bones has fewer minis than the first offering. That is actually a draw for me. The first Reaper Bones featured so many miniatures that it was overwhelming to me. I couldn't imagine using many of the figures offered and I already have a large backlog of unpainted minis. (As does any hardcore enthusiast. Amirite?)

However, looking over this offering, it has fewer minis but I like almost all of them better. The minis they are offering are bigger, more dynamic, and more complex. Plus, they are offering a lot of the bigger minis. I am already drooling over some of the dragons, giants, and demons. My experience with the large-scale Bones minis has been quite positive. Aside from the difficulty I had slicing the Bones minis apart, they are a dream to assemble. Just stick the plastic pieces together and they stay together. You almost don't need glue.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But they stick together very well. For example, check out ol' Cthulhu here. This mini has not been glued together. Simply dry assembled.

But for people who only want some of the big minis, there is an option. Just put down a dollar and pick up some of the extras! This is the route I almost took. I probably would have taken that route, except that so many of the core minis were amazing.

One day left, people! What do you think?

Thor's Day Hero: Hellboy

When Hellboy first hit the scene I knew I had something special in the issue I held in my hands. Mike Mignola's artwork and overall style are simply fantastic to say the least. Couple that with an amazing story concept, wow, you've got a winner.

Mixing Lovecraft mythos, sci-fi goodness, weird war II elements, four color fisticuffs, and a good guy ultimate anti-hero Hellboy and his Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense never disappoint. He routinely sands down his devil horns, has a literal right hand of doom made from impervious stone, and wields a pistol that deserves its own link. From the smallest of Sprites to the largest tentacled masses from beyond the stars, Hellboy and his team tackle everything head-on with 'leap first, look later' bravado. Welcome aboard the Thor's Day Heroes Hellboy.

A Cthulhu Christmas to You!

Happy holidays to everyone out there! I thought I'd share this pic before it got wrapped up, a friend of mine made this Great Old One cutie for my daughter and she did a great job. So to you and yours and whatever it is you're doing, enjoy!

I figure I'll have a "look at what I got" post or two, get through the holidays, and then get it on come 2012 with this thing back to what it should be!

The Fishmen of Frankfort

Of course know one knew how the Deep Ones were able to make it as far inland as rural Kentucky. It was equally mysterious as to how they seemed to thrive as well, until the day a cult telegram was intercepted by Threshold agents. It was the Cult of the Black Goat, and they had brought an entire clutch of Deep Ones from the coast and were housing them in a secluded farm. The amphibious Deep Ones stayed hidden in an immense cavern and were sustained by its large underground lake. The farm itself was a Black Goat front.


Threshold agents' cars parked alongside at the farmhouse and two separate teams fanned out to search the complex. The house was innocent-looking enough on the outside, but on the inside it housed an entire cell of Black Goat cultists. An altar was found in the basement as well as a tunnel that was dug connecting it to the nearby barn. A large cache of firearms was found as well as a printing press. All of the bedrooms were filled with bunk-beds and footlockers, enough to house many more than its original intended occupancy.


This large barn was photographed by recon biplane, but the real secret was within. This barn housed the entrance to the underground cavern and lake. Its floor all but gone and two large, descending staircases of smooth, black stone wound down into the darkness below. Torches were set into the walls, but they had long since burned out.


Tucked away in a secluded part of the farm was this old cabin and much smaller barn. The grisly scene within is too graphic to report on, suffice it to say inhuman depravities were readily evident. The remains of what could only be guessed as the farm's former occupants were within as well. The smaller barn had an underground tunnel in it as well that, like the main house, connected with the large barn. There was only one item found within this smaller barn, yet it was the most fascinating. A large, tractor sized device on wheels resided within. Its nature is guessed to be scientific and it seems it is some type of device used to measure the stars themselves. Several large glass containers were also fitted to the device, but their purpose at this time is unknown. Worn tracks on the ground show where the device had been wheeled out of the barn on a regular basis and seem to stop in an open clearing of land.


Contact was made between the Threshold agents and cult forces. The human cultists had their ranks bolstered by the Deep Ones, whose strength and ferocity were superhuman. Fortunately the strongest armed of the Threshold teams was near the main house, so they were closest to the enemy emerging from the large barn. Small arms gunfire echoed off the hills and the two forces closed in on one another.



The other Threshold team heard the shots and came rushing from the corner of the farm they were searching near the grisly cabin. Unfortunately they rushed right into an ambush with the second contingency of cultists and Deep Ones. Unlike the firefight elsewhere, the confines of the woods meant this particular engagement would be up close and personal. This is where the natural dominance of the hybrids won out, cutting down the Threshold agents to a man. The remaining Lurkers went to reinforce their allies by the large barn.

In the end it was the resolve, the courage, and the Thompson Submachine gun of a lone Threshold agent who not only survived, but dealt a deadly blow to the Lurkers that remained topside. So effective was this final act that the remaining Lurkers in the large barn assumed more Threshold had arrived on the scene and they escaped through the underground caverns.

Strange Aeons: Review and Batrep

This week we got in our first game with Strange Aeons, the new indie skirmish game set in a pulp 1920's Cthulhu-mythos setting. I've seen this one before and it's very appealing to me in all aspects, plus there's a free demo ruleset out there too. Fortunately, Chrispy has a pension for new rules and trying out a wide variety of games, and like the Fear and Faith game we had a blast playing, he came ready once again with minis and rules at the ready.


The rules themselves are straight forward and honestly, nothing too entirely special. The mechanics are solid and intuitive and I found no fault with them really, but at the same time they don't exactly blow you away or anything either. These are just the gameplay mechanics mind you, whereas the rulebook really shines is in the campaign structure and narrative scenarios. A lot of thought is put into linked 'mini-campaigns' that can be played in one day, and the rules used to handle what goes on in between games is detailed and let's you build a band of heroes or villains that have depth and you can keep alive, adding new skills and strengths while they gain experience.

There are basically two factions, the Threshold Agents who are the good guys; two-fisted action heroes and academics who fight the unseen forces of Eldritch Horror. For the most part they are basic, albeit above average, humans that can at later times gain extraordinary skills and even arcane powers. The forces of darkness (I forget what they're called) comprise the cultists, their coven leaders, and creatures benign, obscure, and terrible (werewolves, Godlings, winged terrors, even Yeti and the like). Everything is built on a points system and you have different levels of heroes and villains with varying costs, plus the cost of their weapons and equipment.

The inhuman adversaries can be pretty powerful too, in the game we played my band of heroes, four in all with weapons, equaled 15 points total. On the villains side, a single winged Night Gaunt was 15 points by itself. There's plenty of skills, both martial and arcane, for both sides; for instance the coven leader on the bad guy side in our game had spells at his disposal.


Threshold Agents emerge from a dilapidated mausoleum

We started with a beginning scenario, in this case it was "Escape" and our characters were trying to flee the clutches of evil and get off the short edge of the table. There were three players; myself running a 15 point band of Threshold Agents, Jake (my non-gamer brother-in-law) ran another 15 point band of Threshold Agents, and Chri3 who was ran a 30 point band of cultists and critters. Chrispy, who the game belonged to, adjudicated the rules.


Captain Ace McCoy and his crack zeppelin crew, look familiar?


Barracus and his comrades claw through to the surface amidst ruins


The Cult of the Swollen Goat led by a Magus, with a Night Gaunt ally


The Swollen Goat advances across the board

Gameplay takes place in turn activated rounds. Each side has a leader or commander that has the ability to activate other models. On a leader's turn, they can activate two other models that same turn to act. All activated models get two actions (move, shoot, charge, etc.) and you can double up on actions if you like, such as moving or shooting twice. There will be times where you have more figures than you can activate, when you run out of activations, play goes to the next player. When they are done, if you have any figures that have yet to act this turn, they get to go. Play alternates in this manner until all models on both sides have had an activation. Once the round is over, a new one begins. There is also a command distance for leaders, and if models are outside this distance, they aren't able to become activated by the leader.


Boom! Murph lights up a couple of cultist thugs with dynamite

I was a little disappointed in the weapon selection in the rulebook. The model in the pic above is armed with a BAR, but there weren't any stats for one, or even something close. Handguns were either heavy (1911's, .44 revolvers, etc.) or light (.22's, .25's, etc.) but there weren't stats for individual ones, Mauser stats would've been nice.

They did have some pulp staples like Thompsons and what not. The melee weapons seemed a little more varied, but apparently for the points, the meat cleaver is your best bet. It's probably best just to call this one any short bladed weapon however so you don't have a band full of butcher shop employees running around fighting evil.


Even more BOOM! Jake's munitions expert, blows up a couple more cultists


Ace McCoy takes on the Night Gaunt, and loses...

The core mechanics are flexible enough to allow for some cinematic heroics and other tabletop shenanigans, which is a big plus for me. In the case above my character scaled a tree and charged into melee with the Night Gaunt, this melee was most unadvised since the human was incredibly outmatched in terms of both strength and ferocity.


Taking a stroll down Victory Lane

Jake and I lost sight of our objective, get off the board, and instead met our demise trying to destroy the cultists to a man. We were understandably confident, we had wiped out all of the basic cultists and only two models remained of the enemy. Unfortunately, those two models were the coven leader magus and the Night Gaunt, the two most powerful models on the table. Every time the magus would fail a spell check he would roll on the madness table, every time he did this he would inexplicably get the 'frenzy' side effect which made him incredibly good in melee. I think Chri3 was frustrated he couldn't make his spell checks, but you certainly can't complain with your magus becoming a melee master!

It was a loss for the Threshold Agents, we weren't able to make it off the board and to our freedom. One of my models, second-in-command Sheila Ripcord, took a grievous wound and on the 'post battle' chart she shuffled her mortal coil. All three of my other characters took minor wounds, which all came up being a non-issue after the game. Nobody was able to gain any skills however, and now I have to replace my dead lieutenant. Jake also lost a character, although it was his leader unfortunately. On the enemy's side, the cultists were all dead, but that didn't matter because they were only of 'minion' level anyway, not able to gain new skills. The two that did survive however are just going to be more powerful next time.

In the post-game there are some more cool things your band can do. One of these is search the battlefield for 'map pieces' and artifacts. These pieces, if found (which isn't always guaranteed) can unlock new options for your band and their linked games. One of these options is opening up side quests that you can play out for the heroes that give significant rewards if you're successful. Another option they can unlock is allowing you to buy named and special characters from the Threshold Agents list. These characters, such as martial arts experts, sharpshooters, and the like can only be purchased with points earned through map pieces and side quests.


My overall impressions of the game are quite favorable. It's skirmish level, so you don't need a lot of figures, plus it's pulp on top of that, so you get a really cool selection of figs on the market to pick from. The forces are diametrically opposed, so your good guys look like good guys, and your bad guys definitely look like bad guys. Take all of this goodness and roll it up in a fresh tortilla of Cthulhu-mythos, cover it with mini-campaign secret sauce, and you've got Strange Aeons. It'll satisfy your pulp skirmish itch, and crank it up many more notches by mixing it up with some very well thought out and characterful Eldritch Horror.

Playtesting Galactic War

I took a few minutes out of my "oh-so" busy Dragon Age schedule to get in some 15mm sci-fi gaming! Andy and Chri3 came out last week and we finally got a game going. Last time we had two people back out at the last minute, this time though, we were good to go. Andy adjudicated the rules while Chri3 and I duked it out dirt side.


The world of Playtestia XII

Playing in 15mm means a 4x4 table gives you plenty of space to romp around in. With GWI, you'll be using a lot of troops, so that'll fill up fairly fast. The units are ideally based in "stands", much like Flames of War, so even if you have a ton of figs on your side of the table, keeping tack of them and moving them around isn't a chore.


For my army I used a bunch of my Star Grunt II army. It's mostly Islamic Fed troopers, with some NSL power armor, and New Israel troops acting as my overall command squad. It's sounds like a mixed-bag army, but they've all been painted using the same desert color scheme. Rounding out all the foot troops are six Mechwarrior flying vehicles (VTOLs) in two squads of three, and a couple of vintage Battletech mechs to use as walker. All in all, it may look like a lot, but it's small force, weighing in at just 500 points. I get the impression from the rules that a standard game is going to run around 1500 points or more.


Andy brought his 15mm stuff to the fray for Chri3 to use. A lot of it is old Citadel Traveler figs with a good amount of GZG stuff thrown in to boot. As you can see, he's got a good deal more vehicles than I to round out his force.


Not only do you determine planet type by rolling on a few tables, but you get into scenarios as well. We rolled a planet with gravity lighter than Earth, and an atmosphere which was the same. We got a "defend the object/take or smash the object" scenario in which I was the defender. You start with putting infantry around the objective, then duke it out from there. The stats on the scenario objective were pretty beefy, so instead of wiping it out, Chri3 was going to have to just outright steal it and get it off the board.


Hover tanks glide between the urban terran...


Brutal melee breaks out between infantry near the power conduit. I like a lot of the aspects used in the rules, first and foremost is that rolls are usually contested. To shoot, I roll my dice with modifiers and your dice roll with your own modifiers. Hand to hand combat works in the same way. This keeps players involved in the game "around the clock", and adds a neat little "tension" mechanic to rolling off head-to-head in combat. In the above pic, Chri3' troopers were charging in, but I passed a morale-type roll that let me get in a round of defensive fire first, effectively dropping them in their tracks before they closed.


SPANG! My airships take down an armored vehicle...


A flamer-armed soldier sealed the fate of my defenders

Instead of having mechs out there, Chri3' army had three "walkers" represented by large riding beasts. These are some fun figs, and are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Andy's excellent collection of 15mm sci-fi stuff.

I'm horrible when it comes to relating things mechanical. If you're at all familiar with my blog, you'll know it's usually the fluff that takes center stage. That's a tough place to be in though when you're doing a playtest of new rules; authors want to know how the rules stack up, not the fluff. I will say this, and you can ask the FoW group I game with, when it comes to "odd" tactics, and pulling off something on the table that is just plain goofy, I'll usually be the one to do it. In that respect, I'm a perfect playtester! Mind you, it's not like I'm a tactical "genius" or anything, in most cases it's that I'm a tactical moron, but every now and then some zany move on the tabletop works very well and leaves everyone else scratching their heads.

Vehicle Reinforcements in 15mm

Above I have a selection of 'light' walkers, the five on the right are classic Battletech mechs. In the foreground is a 15mm soldier for scale. The two larger mechs on the left will be more like "flavor text" mechs or special scenario mechs that require large mining mechs or the like. These come from the defunct line of WizKids' Mechwarrior 'clicker' game. Speaking of which, the two larger 'dreadnought' sized suits immediately to the left of the sample fig are pretty cool and can function as mega-power armor or something.

Apparently walkers are a big deal in the future. Now aside from the age-old arguments that the design of a walker just doesn't make a lot of sense (just ask the Ewoks), there is one irrefutable reason walkers are still prevalent. They look cool. Keeping in mind the Galactic War playtest rules we're dabbling in, walker elements, both light and heavy, play a significant role, but other rulesets, such as the venerable Star Grunt II also use walkers.


Now we have some 'heavy' walkers, and again, the Mechwarrior line comes through in spades. These were a little banged up, sitting in a shoebox in the garage for years, so I've had to do some hack 'n slash 'n superglue action to get them up to par. The primered model, weighing in heavily being all metal, is from the Heavy Gear line.

A note on Heavy Gear models, they are simply beautiful and if I had the money, I would just replace all my walker and mech models with these models. The Mechwarrior models are great, super cheap (in some cases, free) and will do just fine in a pinch, but to really do up 15mm sci-fi "right", it'd be the DP9 models for me, hands down.


I was getting out of Mechwarrior about the time they started to introduce flying units, so unfortunately I only have one of these transport choppers (I cut off its armament). I like the style of a "near-future" battelfield where helicopters and other "mundane" devices are still used. To that end, this chopper is also great.


A removable stand on the base allows the chopper to "hover" on the ground

Here's a smattering a ground vehicles, all of them from the Mechwarrior line. Last month Eli had shown the same HQ Rover in a post of his over on I See Lead People. It was that post that caused me to get all of these models out their eternal shoebox in the garage in the first place. There's also a couple of cool "jeep" like vehicles, one solid looking tank, and a missile truck that I had to convert a bit so it wouldn't look so goofy.

Rebel Minis Sahadeen Army

Sahadeen Army from Rebel Minis

In my spending frenzy at the end of last year, I picked up a few packs of 15mm figs from the fine folks Rebel Minis. Thanks to the Dropship Horizon, I heard about these guys in the first place, plus they were having an end of year sale to boot.


I picked up every product code they offered in the Sahadeen range (well, except the hab tents), these included a good mix of troop types. I love these snipers, they have a lot of character. They come in pairs, obviously, a gunner and a spotter, I like the extra touch of putting a 'big fifty' style muzzle brake on the rifle.

I have a sizeable force so far with my Star Grunt II figs, pushing seventy five troops or so, and I was looking for something that was a style departure. These Sahadeen were just the thing with their desert fatigues, goggles, and hooded heads.


Sahadeen sniper (left) compared to FoW sniper (right)



heavy and special weapons

The snipers also came with a SAW gunner and rocket launcher. You get two of each type, six total, for a mere $3.49. The tripod gunner and kneeling rifleman came in the separate gun team pack, also with doubles of each miniature.


detail of the SAW gunner, remember, these are 15mm!


detail of the support gunner


kneeling comparison of FoW (left) and Sahadeen (right)



I picked a pack of the Sahadeen infantry to be core troops, but I should've picked up two packs at least. You get 21 figs for eleven bucks and as you can see, a good mix four different poses with five troops each and a separate leader fig. These guys had a fair amount of flash on them, fortunately most of it is on the underside of their bases. One of the four poses has the hood pulled down and you can see the trooper's goggles.



While I was at it, I went ahead and picked up the War Maidens pack too. As you can tell from their name, they're all females, and even though they're on a smaller scale, you can tell a difference between the men and women. These are also neat because they are armed with large pistols in one hand and swords/knives in the other. As you can see, the distribution with the War Maiden poses isn't quite as equal as the infantry.


Here's a little size comparison with a Rebel Minis Earth Force marine in the middle. No, I didn't order this one, it came as a freebie with my order. As you can see, the height is slightly tall, and he's just a tad thinner than GZG. So, from left to right we have a Flames of War trooper, an older RAFM Traveler fig, Rebel Minis marine, GZG Japanese Corp troop, and finally a "predator" that I don't know who made.

Communication was great and I received my order the same week I placed it. The figs looks nice on the website, and sometimes they don't always show up looking as cool, but not this time. There is a great amount of detail on these guys, and plenty of character too. I will definitely order some more from here, not just Sahadeen, but some of the other factions too. It doesn't stop at sci-fi either, they've got plenty of zombie packs, modern military, and even civilians. It doesn't just stop at 15mm either, they've also got plenty of offerings in 28mm too. So what more can I say? I was very pleased with my overall transaction and figures. Check them out at Rebel Minis, the prices are good, the shipping is fast, and the figs look great. Tell them "Mik's Minis sent you"...I've always wanted to say that!