VSF

 

Getting started on my VSF-variant Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign, here is my party during a recent ARSS operation in the Balkans.

Left to right: Professor Humphrey Hodgeson, Maisie Hodgeson and "Jack".

Professor  Humphrey Hodgeson. A younger son of Lord George Hodgeson, his academic achievements at Oxford led him away from the usual family careers of the Military or the Church (his older brothers include a Major General, a Rear Admiral and a Bishop). He was quickly recruited by a clandestine branch of the Foreign Office, the department for Arcane Research and Scientific Studies. As well as the inventor of numerous devious (and sometimes dangerous) devices used by ARSS operatives, he is a fine shot with a revolver. Currently operating in the Mediterranean theatre.

Maisie - the Honourable Margaret Mary Georgina Hodgeson. The youngest child of Sir William Hodgeson, Professor Hogeson's eldest brother. Her intelligence and adventurous spirit led her to join her favourite uncle on one of his missions, by stowing away in his trunk. On the conclusion of which ,she was offered an official position within ARSS.

"Jack" - Jonathan Berry. A 2nd cousin to Sir Graham Berry, the Premier of Queensland. He first came to notice commanding the police unit that captured the infamous Ned Kelly, the mutant bushranger, and his gang. He was subsequently recruited as an operative of the Colonial Office, tasked with investigating some of the more "exotic" occurrences throughout the Antipodes. Currently on secondment to the FO in the Mediterranean ("Boss, you're sending me to work for an ARSE?"). 

Jack and Maisie engage with some Balkans brigands.

 

Jack distracts an Iron Man, whilst the Professor prepares a suitable devious device. 

More VSF/Steampunk with Vehicles

 So what makes the difference between Victorian fiction and Victorian Sci-Fi? Exotic weapons and steam-powered conveyances of course!

I already have reasonable collection of horse-drawn transport (although it's mainly rural, some more urban vehicles and in the planning stage), but I needed some steam-powered vehicles. Scouring Ebay, some good old die-cast toys supplied my need!

Sir Henry Willoughby-Smyth shows off his new steam-power carriage to a lady admirer (a Brumm model).

Not to be outdone, Lord George Ponsenby invites Sir Henry to view his latest stream-powered conveyance from Italy (this one is a Rio model).

And a street view from a recent game.

That's it, I'll be getting some of the latest efforts photographed and posted after Christmas.

In the meantime Season's Greetings everyone!

Some Lockdown Painting - VSF/Steampunk

 Recently, in between lockdowns, I've played a few games of Wolsung from Micro Art Studio in Poland, with an old gaming buddy who recently returned to the hobby. She loves painting and chose the game because of the figures, which are rather nice, but a tad expensive for my budget. I've really enjoyed the game, so I put together a few  clubs (factions) utilising figures I already had in my collection. This inspired me to re-visit my VSF version of Sellswords and Spellslingers and also led to me trawling the internet for interesting miniatures to paint.

So here are a few of them.

A rather prim lady engineer from Ramshackle Games.

Mek the Knife, Murdoch, Newspaper Magnet and The Tunstall Torcher, all from Black Pyramid Gaming's \Steam and Steel range

Steam-powered, bicycle-mounted Gatling gun (well why not?).  A miniature from the SMOG boardgame by CMON.

Country squire and staff by Blue Moon.

In Wolsung there is an undead faction, the Ven Rier, which are decidedly Germanic. As I already had a group of Westwind's vampires, which I'd painted up in the first lockdown, I decided to go for a Transylvanian branch of the faction.

Westwind zombie cossack guards.

And some more zombie cossacks.

The whole faction.

Ice Zombies/ghouls for Ven Rier cannon fodder. Confusingly, in Wolsung bog-standard zombies are called "ghouls" and the more dangerous undead are "zombies"!

Two more bizarre creatures from the SMOG game, a giant stinging bug creature and a rat-like sewer scavenger.

Various Fantasy Figures

 I haven't posted much recently. Partly because I have been a bit preoccupied with reinventing our family business in the face of the current situation and finding new ways to earn some sort of income. And partly, if I am honest, because I seemed to lack enthusiasm to do so. 

Not that I had lost interest in gaming. I have kept painting since the summer, if a bit sporadically, and even managed some regular games with selected friends. It was just that I couldn't be bothered to take photos and put them into a blog post. So giving myself a kick up the backside, I dug out the various minis I've painted since August and taking some piccis to get myself started. I have been painting only 28mm fantasy, for some reason, perhaps because I have mostly only been playing skirmish games (fantasy and gothic horror/steampunk) for the last few months, so that is what has has grabbed my attention. 

I'll put all the Victorian-style stuff in another post, so this is just the more conventional fantasy stuff, mainly for use in Sellswords and Spellslingers.

To kick off, a mummy. A Reaper Bones mini that I picked up in a bag of odds and sods at a wargames show (remember them?) some time back.

"Mummy" and "Daddy" ogres, again Reaper Bones.

Another Reaper mini, metal this time, a Ranger looks for clues (or lost scorpions).

Some resin spider victims that I found on the web from Russia.

And the same with their new friends!

A troll, once again a Reaper Bones mini.

Some strange sort of mutant troll, not sure what range this is from.

Finally a bunch of plague zombies. These are plastic, I think they are from one of the Zombicide board games.

Scenario Book for Sellswords and Spellslingers Update 5

 After some minor delays (inevitable considering the Covid 19 situation), things are moving on towards publication! I have just been sent the front page artwork from the publishers and I'm really pleased with it.

It is now looking at a publication date for the end of September/early October.

Fingers crossed!

Scenario Book for Sellswords & Spellslingers Update 4

I've just heard that my mini-campaign book for Sellswords and Spellslingers, LAST STAND AT MISTHAM, is now due for publication before the end of summer!

An "Ooops!" moment from the last playtest game.

That's very exciting news for me. I really enjoyed the creative process (and had a lot of fun playtesting the scenarios), but it will be fantastic to see the finished work in print. Due to Covid19 it may only be available in pdf form to begin with.

The Ganesha Games team have started working on the layout and artwork, so at the moment they are planning for publication sometime in August!

Ganesha Games have already indicated that they would be interested in more books, if this is popular.

More for Venice plus other painting to keep myself busy

I didn't get around to posting an update on my painting log last week so I thought I'd combine the two weeks with my latest construction for my Streets of Venice layout.

I've got a bell tower, but the other iconic building I was missing for Venice was a church, so I finally got around to building the TT Combat kit I'd picked up in March.

 At first glance it looked complicated, but I realised that the basic construction was relatively simple, a lot of the pieces were decorative pillars and  arches for the windows.

What else have I been up to....?

 I picked up a bargain on Ebay, 30 Oathmark goblins, assembled and painted for the price of a new box! The lighting was really bad in the photos and the skin tones looked grey, but when they arrived I realised they were actually sades of green. Not the vivid GW palate, but still a bit to green for me as I would be adding them to my Middle Earth armies.  But that's still a minor problem, so I experimented with a couple of different browns on the flesh.

 Once I was happy with the result I could bang the whole lot out in no time at all.

My friend Mark in South London very kindly sent me the next figure. It's a Plague Doctoress from TT Combat's Carnevale range. I painted her in various shades of grey to match the Plague doctor I already had, but it doesn't really show up much in this picture.

And using a flash just washed all the colour out. I really need to look at getting a light box for this photos.

A steampunk contraption from Ramshackle Games.

A test unit for my 10mm French Foreign Legion.

Three more Alfar, old Heartbreaker sculpts by the talented Phil Lewis.

Another set of captives from Ramshackle Games, I'd originally only ordered one set of 4, but they got missed of the original order, so Curtis very kindly sent me two sets!

Another Viking warrior.

 
 

Scenario Book for Sellswords & Spellslingers Update 3

It's with the publisher!

I submitted my final text to Ganesha Games this week, so it is another step closer to publication. Obviously it will be a while yet as it still needs editing, design, layout and artwork producing, but I'm hoping that it should be in print by the autumn.

So, what does it consist of?

The book is a narrative mini-campaign of 5 linked scenarios, designed to be played by either Basic (up to 100 XP) or Expert (100 to 150 XP) level parties. Each scenario will have two versions, varying the foes and challenges, depending on the level of the party, although the basic victory conditions will be the same.

There are new foes, including an Ogre and mounted Orcs and Goblins. The book also introduces a new concept to Sellswords and Spellslingers, the Battlebeast. This is not a foe in it's own right, but rather any ferocious beast (wolf, boar or even unicorn!) that can be used as a mount by any humanoid foe. The Battlebeast's stats are additional values that augment the rider's own stats. This way players can use what ever models they have in their own collection. Whether a player has goblins mounted on spiders or lizardmen riding small dinosaurs, that's no problem.

Keeping Myself Busy 10

Again not so much to show for this week, but I have finished my scenario book for Sellswords and Spellslingers! I've just got to make a final selection on some of the photos and I'll be sending it to the publisher this week!

Anyway on with the minis.

 Two 3d-printed Italian MS boats for Cruel Seas.

 A Barbarian King from Ramshackle Games. It's a three part resin model, with a choice of arms, either clutching a sword or a big sci-fi gun if you're going for the post-apocalyptic look. I stuck with the sword!

 I have kept the model in two parts, mainly for ease of storage, but that also allows me more flexibility in the possible uses.

Finally three more Oathmark plastic Elf Light Infantry. I can see these making an appearance in lots of games, as wood elves, rangers or even forest bandits!

In a different form of "lockdown art" Broni dug her pencils and paints out. I think this expresses her frustration at having all her music gigs cancelled for the foreseeable future!

Keeping Myself Busy 9

Not many figures painted at all this week. I have been spending more time working on the new Sellswords & Spellslingers campaign book, and when I did get to the painting table I got distracted by some 1/300 ships!

Four more Alfar for my Jotunheim project, these are old Phil Lewis elf sculpts from Heartbreaker. That's "old sculpts", not "old Phil Lewis".

This is a skirmish project that still hasn't really got beyond "a vague idea" in the planning stage, Considering I've already painted 72 28mm figures for it, I really should progress it, perhaps once I've finished the Sellswords book.

Way back last year sometime, I picked up a shedload of 3d printed 1/300 WW2 little ships for Cruel Seas, unfortunately, they all came without weapons. I had a few spares kicking around and thanks to the kindness of a couple of chums on the Pendraken Forum, I have gathered together most of what I needed. I painted up some Fairmile Bs and a HDML for a scenario idea, undercoated a bunch more and stuck them all in a drawer next to my painting table.
I am currently reading "Flag 4" by Dudley Pope, which rekindled my interest so I opened the drawer and pulled some little boats out!

The first batch, a small tanker, a couple of freighters and a RN Steam Gun Boat.

 A surfaced U Boat, not a lot of used in a coastal forces game, but could come in handy for a scenario.

Finally a F-Lighter. I was going to paint this up as an Italian Motozattera MZ800 and the start of my Italian fleet, complete with the red/white stripes for aircraft identification. But I decided to make it a bit more generic so I can also use it as a German vessel in the Channel or in the Adriatic/Aegean after the Italian armistice.