Sedition Wars: Upping the Strain

I hate to admit it, but the Strain need all the help they can get. Don't get me wrong, i'm still loving the game, but it needs a bit of tweaking.  With the right mix of Vanguard units, it's pretty tough for the Strain to win, in at least campaign scenario 1 and 2.  Here some modifications i've gathered from the forums which i'm going to try out in the next game:

Sedition Wars: First Impressions

Convinced my roommate to play/try-out Sedition Wars on a weeknight! It was fun! Since then I've played it like 6x (mostly scenario 1) and I am pretty happy with the game.  More after the jump:

Painted Dwarf Fighter hero from SDE

Never toss a dwarf!

Hey folks, here's my first mini from Super Dungeon Explore painted up.  I choose the dwarf since he was my least favorite hero to try a new priming scheme, but now that he's painted, he's my most favorite!  Plus he's plays really well too, a tank immune to knockdown effect, perfect against the dragonlings in the base set!

I'm particularly fond of the beard work and the Non-Metal Metallic i used on the ax/shield.  It's my first time using the NMM technique where you paint the reflection using shades of grey instead of actual metallic paint.    I though it turned out fairly well considering i kept it simple and didn't use a ton of shades (only ~5).  

The priming technique i used this time is gray spray paint primer and then dry-brush white to highlight the details. I think it works better because although i like white primer for bright color, it always seems to take a thicker layer to get an even coat than grey or black.  Grey is a good balance.  The white only picks up on the  edges which gives your color basecoat a natural slight highlight.   Also the extra layers of white builds up where you want the build up (on the edges) so it's better than using a wash which fills in areas and decreases overall detail.  conceptually.  it may not actually make a significant difference.

Anyway, the game is great and we've been playing it a lot so i'll be painting the rest of the heroes up soon!

The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology

If you like designing games or even just modding them, take a look at this book. It's got articles about everything, from video games (half-life) to Magic the Gathering. I found it super intriguing to learn what worked or didn't work in making successful games. It's also huge (954 pages) and for $35 at amazon it's a pretty good deal. I came across it at my university arts library when working on a class paper. Recommended!

 In other news, i've been playing a lot of Super Dungeon Explore lately! it's pretty great, i'm loving it, seriously. Almost done painting up my first figure, the dwarf, so i'll be posting that soon hopefully!

Uncharted Seas with Pirates PocketModels

Highpoint in the game: see that chinese ship on fire (cruiser) in the middle?  I maneuvered my 3 frigates (triangle sails-below) close for a killing shot, except it "magazine exploded" spectacularly taking out my entire frigate squadron.  Holy crap!   Used a blue plastic party table cloth under my transparent hex grid for a nice ocean effect.

I saw these Pirates PocketModels being sold as a massive discount of 20 pack for $10 at Target, and I thought to myself, what a great deal - what game could i play with it?   =)   Naturally, Uncharted Seas came to mind as a fleet-level naval combat game which needs lots of ships, and i've been meaning to try out the game mechanics as a proxy for applying Firestorm Armada to my Star Wars Starship Battles figures.  Read on for my conversion and review!

WIP: Painted Castle Ravenloft figures

Instead of the usual friday night foray into the depths of Castle Ravenloft with my gaming friends, we decided to have a miniature painting party instead! and painted up some of the heroes and monsters from the game!

Navia Dratp in progress painting

In Progress: All I need to do is the eye detail, and maybe freehand the orange/red tattoos on his shoulder.

Recently I've been working on some Navia Dratp figures I've had primed up for the longest time.  They're part of a Japanese chess/Shogi variant where these special units can be "summoned" to the chessboard. At approximately 54mm scale, the detail on these guys are pretty nice and they're really easy to paint.  I've been using them as my practice into the world of miniature painting.  Plus the set of them were like dirt cheap since the game's been out of print for years now. The game is pretty good, lots of fun with different win conditions, but it suffered from terrible naming and probably bad marketing. And some of the character designs are just plain weird.  These two are among my favorites.  The pose on the Pterodactyl (below) is pretty dynamic too.  My painting technique here is pretty much all dry-brushing.  I haven't really moved up to blending or advanced techniques like that but it's amazing how good you can get something to look with just a simple darker color basecoat and dry-brushing up the lighter shades.  Also, this size 2 Filbert is my newest favorite brush for detailed, controlled dry-brushing. =)

probably add the red tattoos on his head an call it done!