My Warhammer 40k Problem

 Do you remember the film Airplane?

My problem is similar to the "drinking problem" in that film. I like Warhammer 40,000 quite a lot but have notable difficulties actually interacting with it. My first figures were purchased around 2018, my current reign of painting began in 2021, and yet so far, I have only played a single game of Kill Team after a Herculean effort to get a team mostly finished. The root problem is that while converting and assembling large numbers of figures comes naturally, the painting of them does not. It could be said the refusal to play with unpainted figures is the real problem, but I consider that a virtue. Part of the initial motivation for doing my Historical projects was that they would be simpler to paint and that the requirement of authenticity would not permit overly ambitious conversions. The first assumption somewhat fell by the wayside when I had to tackle the buff-toned straps worn by Redcoats. Nonetheless, these figures worked well to practice painting at scale and with increasing levels of detail. Having worked from simple Afghan robes to Redcoat webbing to even a Napoleonic figure I think that there has been an improvement both in battle-ready style and in more detailed renditions over the past few years.

The Frenchman and yesterday's Late Roman definitely match or exceed any Games Workshop Figure I can see myself attempting for the immediate future. My only lacking ability now is speed, since it took a year and a half to paint around 100 figures for the Colonials project. Granted, at least a third of that time was spent moving, travelling, or working late, but the issue of speed remains. Completion rate likely comes down more to a figure's paint scheme and my painting equipment than practice at this point.

But why did I seem to convert every Warhammer model I touched? Threin lies a tale:

The 4th edition core book was my introduction to Warhammer 40,000 by complete happenstance. On a trip in 2017 I was perusing through a used bookstore. They often carry some good ttrpg books at excellent prices. This time I found a rulebook for Warhammer. At that point all I knew was that it had chainswords and something to do with "xenos". I paid about four and a half guardsmen's worth of money for it, laid back on the couch of a friend, and was changed forever.

There were no miniatures in the first few pages. There were no rules, points values, or helpful balance datasheets. There were only black and white image spreads of the most intricate world I had ever seen. John Blanche's Catechism of the Autoculus of Mars was probably what sealed my fate.

The reason I could never just build and paint a figure straight out of the box is that the world I was trying to evoke was this one. Look at the hunched figures, the strange customs and impossible designs. Look at them and see! If I had not found the INQ28 movement a few years later, I do not know if I would have returned to the hobby at all. But why worry about creating an army when INQ28 is a skirmish game movement? I think it has to do with the effect. One bizarre servitor is a cool character, ten are a force, one hundred are a vision of a world distant and unreal yet present and undeniable. To put it simply, the effect of Warhammer 40,000 I want to capture requires extreme detail alongside extreme scale.

But having learned the perils of unabated conversions, I must admit that there are limits to my abilities as they stand. I will one day realize the maximalist future painted by Blanche and company in my own way, but to do so I should probably start painting Warhammer figures again alongside my Historicals.

All of this to say that I have been tinkering with a few Imperial Guard colour schemes on and off.

Roman Cavalryman

In more ways than one, this figure represents the end of an era.

 

That sounded more dramatic than I might have intended. I am not stopping or even altering this blog in any meaningful way. The end that this figure represents, alongside that of The Western Roman Empire, is one of equipment. This figure saw both my first varnish can of Testors Dullcote finally give out, and the final days of the only brush I use to paint figures. It also marks the end of my first bottle of Taimya model glue.

When I say the only brush I use to paint figures I mean the only one I use to do basecoating and highlighting. It also generally does my washes, but I do have a wash brush and several drybrushes in various stages of their torturous existence. And a series of undead brushes brought back from the grave to apply typhus corrosion and pigments. But my main brush is nonetheless starting to wane even after two years of careful cleaning. Currently I am debating paying for a proper sable brush or getting another of the one I currently use. The latter option would require actually scraping it clean so that I could see what brand it was under layers of paint applied accidentally by my fingers.

As for Taimya, their glue is excellent. Especially compared with certain inferior brands I used for years. I use Taimya's orange-cap bottle for assembly and the green-cap for reinforcement. The latter also flows well into beads of Gorilla Glue gel but I have a sneaking suspicion that mixing solvents like that might have unintended consequences. As an aside, Gorilla Glue gel will produce a liquid at the bottom of a bottle after months of use. If this liquid is accidentally dribbed onto a bathrobe it will cause smoking and charring of the article in question. That was an exciting night.

From what I can gather, Testors Dullcote is no longer in production. For a replacement I hear Rustoleum offers a good solution in terms of a matte varnish. I did buy a pot of Citadel Stormshield to finish the parts of this figure that were still too satin, but eventually decided not to risk it on what is meant as a gift. Having for the future will nonetheless be a boon for when I want to touch up a specific area without the drying times of a spray varnish.

Onto the figure itself. This was my first cavalry unit painted, and I am quite surprised at how well it managed to come out. Granted, this took a lot of time but I am still pleased. There was a recipe at the start, but after a certain point it was entirely given over to improvisation. And since I have been on a tight schedule this month, I did not take the time to write down each step as I freestyled my way towards completion.

My knowledge of Rome is fairly limited, but the period works to my advantage somewhat better than with more modern figures. For one, so much is dependent on single sources that a level of creative reconstruction is expected, and for two the sources that do exist are well-documented due to their scarcity. A manual on the specifics of a belt buckle for an 1880s Redcoat would be drowned in the firehose of other 1880s uniform manuals, but a single line about belt buckles in the Roman world will have had at least a dozen books written about it before I was even born. That being said, I do still prefer the modern era due to the presence of machines more complex than a trip hammer.

SAGA is a game I would like to try at some point. The simplistic listbuilding and fairly casual gameplay appeal to me in much the same way that Turnip28 does. This interest was doubly sparked when I realized that the creator of Planetes, one of my favorite anime shows, also made the well-known Vinland Saga, which means I have a preready series to watch while painting a SAGA force when the time comes. The Vikings series has also been well reviewed, and I did like Black Sails which seems like it was in a similar vein.

This mural from the Wikipedia article on Roman Cavalry is the source I worked for when painting the shield. My freehand skills still have some distance to go, but I found that using watered down rhinox hide on the green produced a very nice gradient. Weathering was attempted with pencil lines, Rhinox Hide, and Wraithbone, but this proved too jarring and was painted over again with Mephiston Red.

Victrix was my main guide for most of the specific details. I did not go quite into the same level of detail, but being pressed for time and not wanting to learn how to use transfers gives me a decent enough excuse. The javelin case was fully forgotten though, to my everlasting shame.

Osprey provided a few clarifications, and the justification for me to paint the figure's clothing red instead of an undyed faded yellow. It is not uncommon to hear complaints about their accuracy, but I will take what is on offer when it comes to visual historical representations.

Here the result of playing around with the camera's focus can be seen. This effect amuses me.

The Worst Game: Dodge, Block, Parry, Guard, Brace, and More

 Like many misbegotten souls, I have a homebrew system.

As a matter of fact, I have several. But I do not have time today to discuss the dynamic lift experienced at the bow of an airship or why I created a system with the semi-mystical ability to ravage a player's vocal cords in a single night, so instead I will discuss my most recently updated system. I call it The Worst Game. Forewarning, these images do not illustrate any specific concepts as I lack the time to sort through them. My apologies.

I do not actually consider The Worst Game the worst game, but the origin of the name is best saved for another post. At its fundamental essence, the system is a combination of features from nearly every game I have played up until this point, and several more I have yet to try. Some of the primary features are the maneuver lists which may be applied to skill checks or combat actions. They function as a strange hybrid of Honor+Intrigue, 5e,  Blade of the Iron Throne, and Interlock. The combat maneuver list is intended to allow players to recreate scenes of swashbuckling adventure, with rapid blows and parries and a touch of acrobatics for flavour. I even use scenes from certain films as a guide for designing the system by literally walking through frame by frame and trying to figure out how the blows on the screen would translate to the page. Needless to say, this system is going to need a lot more testing and editing before it will play nicely.

To achieve this swashbuckling effect, I felt it was important that attacks happen in frenetic clashes, with pauses between as opponents pull back to assess or climb on the scenery. Rather than abstract combat clashes to opposed rolls like some systems do, I instead chose to continue modelling each individual swing of a weapon. To keep a lethal feel, I did alter the representational nature of the game a bit by having it so that only critical hits deal appreciable damage in-universe. Non-critical hits work similarly to D20 Star Wars or Starfinder where they damage a regenerating stamina-bar. The Worst Game actually has two such bars, Stamina and Focus, which can be best summarized as hitting harder versus hitting more precisely. Both are also spent on using maneuvers, with certain weapon keywords letting a player discount the stam/foc cost with their skill level. For example, a sword has the slashing keyword, and so discounts the slashing-specific maneuver, cleave. Cleave here allows a player to attack multiple adjacent enemies rather than being overkill damage like in some other systems.

The danger of publicly writing about The Worst Game for the first time is going too in-depth about years of on and off tinkering, but I hope that the basic idea is apparent now. Combatants are able to use maneuvers to achieve powerful effects in combat, but risk their own energy reserves if they invest too heavily without pulling back to catch their breaths. Turn order has been compartmentalized in The Worst Game, meaning that between actions regenerating there are a number of "steps", named so because players are at minimum allowed to take an actual step on the battlespace. Player actions regenerate at different rates, and the less-powerful bonus action will eventually upgrade into a full action if the action slot is empty during this regeneration period. This means that while one player's action is regenerating an opponent's action may be ready. The reaction maneuvers, so-called because they may be used reactively or with the guard action, are intended to allow for that rapid strike-parry-strike-parry cinematic flurry as one player attacks while the other defends until their action regenerates and they take the lead in the dance of blades.

This is all subject to change, but as of the most recent update I am very pleased with the reactive maneuvers. Firstly though, a little more context. The guard action converts movement into defense for the duration of an action regeneration period. In The Worst Game AC only represents how hard an individual is to hit, with Armour itself working as a form of damage reduction like in Cyberpunk. AC no longer stands for anything and should probably have been renamed years ago. Guarding also allows a defensive maneuver to be readied without needing to spend a reaction but also tells your opponent what is being readied. Normally maneuvers are played in the form of cards to allow for bluffing during attacks. The guard action is good for players who wish to hold their ground for a time, or those who want to save their reaction for attacks of opportunity. The Worst Game uses levels of success, meaning that a higher AC can lead to a lower level of success from an attacker, and a critically failed attack allows for an attack of opportunity. Guard is the most defensive of the options, as only it increases AC.

Dodging meanwhile can cancel a series of attacks entirely, but it does so at a much higher risk than guarding. It is a proper maneuver rather than an action, and as such may only be used as a reaction response to an attack or as part of the guard action. It allows the defending player to attempt an acrobatics check to move to an adjacent tile of their choice. However, in The Worst Game facing does matter, so jumping directly away from the enemy is more difficult than jumping around their flanks or to your side. Critically failing to leap away results in becoming prone immediately, opening the way for automatically successful critical hits by the attacker. Dodging is intended to be used in response to an opponent trying to maximize the number of attacks in a step, as if used to get out of range or into a higher AC area such as the opponent's flanks it will affect all attacks moving forwards until the opponent can reposition. At the same time, it uses your movement points and means that you will have to reenter your opponents space in the future if you want to attack, giving them the advantage later down the line.

As part of that spacing system, Brace allows attacks against opponents entering, but not leaving, melee range. I dislike the way many games disincentivize leaving melee, but also understand that hit and run tactics can be frustrating. The step system solves some of this by allowing players to move in response to their opponents one tile at a time, but someone who has invested actions into moving more than one tile per step may still be able to strike and fade without consequence. Now, there is some risk to it unless approached more intelligently by trying to attack someone from behind or by attacking in pairs, for example.

Blocking is a very fun maneuver, intended to allow for players to trade a short-term risk to their energy for a long-term risk to their equipment. If a player can beat an enemy's AC, they will be able to treat their weapon as an additional level of armour. The caveat is that any damage which bypasses the hardness of the weapon is applied to both the weapon and the player, meaning that after enough blocked attacks a sword may shatter. While dodging is intended to be used against many attacks, blocking is intended to be used against single heavy-hitting attacks from large weapons or opponents applying multiple maneuvers to a single attack. That is why it targets an enemy AC, as someone who is investing totally in an attack will have a lower AC due to not taking the guard action. The same is technically true with regards to dodging many attacks, but dodging is intended to risk more and sacrifice more opportunity in the short term for a player and therefore not be as attractive against a single attack.

Parrying is the maneuver of masters. It targets the roll of an opponent's attack, and if successful will reduce their degrees of success by a certain amount. This can turn a success into a critical failure at higher levels of skill, opening the way for an attack of opportunity. Bonus actions may be used as less-powerful reactions, meaning that even if the guard action has not been taken parry still presents the highest chance of allowing for a riposte. It sits between the relative short-term safety of using block and the higher risk of trying to dodge, as a failure will result in a hit with no additional armour, but not risk falling prone or giving up much opportunity. At high skill level it promotes waiting for your opponent to make the first move as you guard, then slicing them to ribbons like a Samurai film. This is a thematic result of design.

For all of my talk, a demonstration of how these rules work would certainly come in handy. That will come in good time.

Billy Yank and Friends

Both practice and a pastime.

 These three Union soldiers were painted as a "Thank You" gift to some contacts of mine. The recipients are all Civil War buffs, and one is even a fellow wargamer. These units were a good reason to practice on the Perry kit as well, since I will hopefully be able to transfer the experience gained through painting them to my Veruzian infantry project. They are all from the Perry Miniatures Skirmishing Infantry box, though the middle one is of smaller stature due to coming from the marching sprue provided in the box rather than the skirmishing sprue.

I tend to find the naval angle of the conflict more interesting, but that ties back to my continual interest in strange and oft-malformed technologies past and present. That said, early trench conflicts around Richmond alongside sieges like Vicksburg are still very fascinating to read about. These three are not intended for any specific theatre, though I did unsuccessfully try to aim for an area roughly around Northern Virginia with the basing.  The bases themselves were freestyled with a base of Vallejo Russian Mud drybrushed with Steel Legion and then Karak Stone. The flowers were directly from Army Painter. I chose them both to disguise the base itself, which I think came out too arid-looking, and to provide a complement to the otherwise very blue figures. They adhere oddly in places, so in the future I might want to mark out flat areas while putting down texture paste to prepare for foilage. In a similar vein, drybrushing with more chocolate-coloured browns should help to keep the soil moister-looking next time.

 

 On the topic of the figure's blue shades, they proved to be the most difficult part of the proceedings. I drew largely from this tutorial by Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy for the steps. The sack coat was Vallejo Imperial Blue mixed with Abbadon Black, then highlighted with Imperial Blue, then Macragge Blue lightly, then washed overall with Nuln Oil. The pants started as Imperial Blue washed with nuln, then highlighed with a mix of Imperial Blue and Russ Grey, then highlighed with Russ Grey lightly at the end. This was difficult to achieve consistently and required several reapplications of wash and highlight to balance out. Both of these schemes came out very reflective and had to be matte varnished. They are less reflective in reality than they appear in the photos.

 

The canteens were Baneblade Brown washed Agrax, straps were Karak Stone washed Agrax and rehighlighted with Karak Stone. The black details were Abbadon Black washed Nuln and highlighted with Corvus Black, which I find surprisingly effective. Abbadon Black on its own tends to take a rubbery appearance, which is good for polished jackboots or industrial tubing but not so much for Civil War equipment. The skin was done with a standard Cadian-Reikland-Cadian-Kislev, hair was Dryad Bark washed Agrax. The wood was Mournfang Brown washed Nuln and the musket strap was Rhinox hide washed likewise. Steel was Leadbelcher washed Nuln, highlighted Ironbreaker. Brass was Retributor Armour washed with Nuln and Reikland, highlighted with Auric Armour Gold.

 

To close out, have some alternative photos. I have been trying to practice with camera settings more, although at some point it might be wiser to just create a proper setup rather than continually write disclaimers about how satin or not these figures may be in reality.  This one is my favorite of the three front-facing takes.

 

𝅘𝅥𝅯My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of The Lord𝅘𝅥...

Hexmap Reminiscences

Nostalgia, in small doses, is a delightful pastime.

And to paraphrase Fallen London, in larger doses it proves one of the very worst ways to die. To finish out the month I have decided to look at my pre-digital mapmaking efforts. Originally my intent was to write a longer philosophical post on the nature of digital versus physical gaming and how Comp/CON represents an existential threat to civilization as we know it, but my thoughts refused to coalesce into something of postable lucidity. These maps are not my earliest, not by a long shot, but they are the earliest I can find.

With all that said, let us begin. The above map is faded both due to being used as the cover for my tabletop binder and because it is in reality two maps. The sketched map is laid across a printed hexgrid, this being in the years before I discovered DrawHexGrid when I had to print out grids found through searching. The game this map covered was a short-lived attempt at remotely running my native Pathfinder 1e during the early days of the Pandemic, notable only for how quickly my players and I became distracted. It was an uncertain time, to be sure. Eventually I ran Curse of Strahd in 5e over Winter 2020 to avoid having to prepare an entire game from scratch.

At first, I thought this map was one from a pre-pandemic game about Sky Islands, but in reality I believe it dates to around Summer 2021. The specific way the biome colours change indicates that I was trying to follow a tutorial about how to delineate climate zones on a map, and that this was a test case. I do not believe it ever saw use in a game.

This map was used as background for an Autumn 2021 airship-focused one-shot descended from the aforementioned sky islands game. The players were tasked with taking a mysterious package West across a mountain range, through the vaguely Great War battlefields of the map, and to the central castle which resembled Mont Saint Michel in France. This game was notable for the theming effort I undertook, having shifting location-appropriate images on wall displays, a fully integrated soundtrack, and a homemade Maconochie stew replica served at the halfway point. It was fairly linear, but judging from the reception it got, still well received.

Here is a map with an early appearance of my cloud-tracing technique, used in Autumn 2022 to create another island for an airship one-shot. In this one the players figured out how to navigate from one part of the island to the other around dynamic weather patterns and an often mechanically uncooperative ship. While less spectacular in presentation than the previous adventure, I preferred it for the less guided and more immersive aspects. The map itself has spine-based mountains where I would start with the spine and draw branching slopes outwards from there.

Hexmap, date unknown. This was never used in a game. I remember little about it, save that it was created during a thunderstorm and that I ate a meatball sub sandwich on the same day. It was a good sandwich.

The island in this map was used for a breezy and low-stakes series of adventures in Summer 2023, which could be called a campaign in a loose sort of sense. The lines here are not roads, but rather the monolithic and overgrown ruins of vast canals and fortifications. These adventures marked the first in-game appearance of some ideas which still crop up in my games, like steam-powered longships and pirate parliaments. The outline was traced from a cloud by hand, which is also the case for the next map.

This map is from what I would consider my last completed campaign, run across Spring and Summer 2022. The game itself took place largely in the top right area, but events from other regions did bleed into play over time. The setting of this map also contained two one-shots, a series of connected short adventures, and the introductory scenario for Curse of Strahd. As of writing, it was the last game I ran in 5e before swearing off the system in favour of strange homebrew and older systems.

It has been over a year since I last ran even a one-shot. Playing Pathfinder 2e is nice, but I really should get back into the game master's chair. It is comfier in there, even if one has to work hard to avoid slipping out. These maps help remind me of the joys that can be found in that position.

Rude Turnip Chaff

Not quite done yet, but close enough for my taste.

These are some Turnip28 Chaff. They serve as skirmishing light troops ahead of the more numerous Fodder. Despite this, they are not especially good shots. Their value as a distraction is more to do with how they act, which is rudely.

Painting was largely the same as last time, but with Vallejo Green washed Biel-Tan instead of red for facing colour. I did this in a nod to Napoleonic Riflemen, but I think it required more work in the end than Red to stand out from the blue. The cross straps here are in Zandri dust, and the hair in Mournfang Brown. For all four figures I applied excessive amounts of typhus corrosion, and as a result had to re-glaze the blue jackets, brown pants, and green facing. In the end this came out well enough nonetheless. The figures still need mud applied to their backs and boots, and my intention is to have some hanging vines added to their long-rifles. The rifles are normal Napoleonic guns crossbred with Jezails for length. Their hats are Napoleonic, and the shields are Persian.

This one is my favorite. His fingers were originally sculpted, but those broke off and were replaced by plastic fingers from a GW zombie. I considered several finger gestures, but this one seemed the most appropriate for skirmishers. He is shouting "Hey! Over Here! You Missed Me!" very loudly while waving his hat. His rifle is intended to be leaned against his shield, as seen in the earlier image.

In addition to the mud which will need to be added, I also want to add red dots to the top of his tufts. I did this on the Fodder, but it proved to not show up very well so a brighter red may be needed. Alternatively, I could apply dots of glue to the tips of the tufts and paint those, but that seems like too much effort for the easy-bake Turnip style I work with.

The joke with this figure is that he cannot see what he is shooting at due to his face being bandaged. Only one figure in the entire set is actually shooting at a target instead of goofing off. Turnip comedy modelling is one of my favorite things about the whole game.

Here is that aforementioned bastion of competency. I am tempted to clog the barrel of his rifle with plant matter to have a complete set of incompetents and may well do so. Shredded Gauze painted darkly seems like the best option for a seaweed/vine-type material, so my intent is to use that.

Chaff Three is facepalming. He is intended to be placed next to the first one, in reaction to his shouting and rudeness. The angled nature of his rifle pose means I will have to either base him at an angle or on towards the edge, I lean towards the former. His rifle-strap is also broken, which means that plant matter will need to be shoved there too.

They will all have shields, but each shield is still early in development. My hope is for a wicker-type pattern, but Ushabti Bone is a paint which taunts me by drying slowly and mixing with washes. Given that this is Turnip28 I intend to proceed onwards rather than strip and restart the shields. More layers of paint just means more protection for these sorry Sots after all.

The next Turnip figures I intend to pursue will be Brutes, but for their production I will need to delve into casting with Bluestuff to replicate a very specific component.