Super Dungeon Explore

Today I managed to break my usual pattern and get some gaming in. I got together at the local games store with my friend John and a few other guys to play a game. Unfortunately we were all a little pressed for time due to work/family and we couldn't really enjoy it as much as we might like.

We played a board game called Super Dungeon Explore. It was a very simple and extremely awesome game. The aim of it is to loot a dungeon and destroy the monster spawning points inside. Players take the roles of fairly standard heroes (we had a mage, a druid, a ranger and a barbarian) and one player takes the role of the dungeon.

The game had a great anime aesthetic that worked really well. The figures themselves were awesome and I am thinking I might try to pick up a copy to paint and play. I might even see if I can tax my finances sufficiently to back the kick-starter for the upcoming expansion pack.

This was my first game but it was super simple to pick up. This was not the dungeon masters first game however and we all died horribly after two hours of great fun and utter hilarity.

The stand out line of the day had to be: "Be a man and sparkle burst that shit!"

I apologize that the photos are so bad, all I had to hand was my old ipod touch.

The mage in battle

The druid fleeing the oncoming horde

Uh guys, is there a dragon behind us...

The enemy break our defense and pour through the gap

The Oppo

This isn't what it looks like

My character, the ember mage, dead before her time

Our druid (John) holds back the tide (briefly)

A New Hope?

So, I will admit it has been many months since I have done anything with this blog. For the past year I have been working forty hours a week plus studying for another forty hours in order to finish my degree. This hasn't left much time for optional activities, like say, hobbies, or seeing my family, or sleeping. Fortunately the worst may now be behind us! I have finally finished my degree and am in the mood for some serious gaming!

I've recently been tricked by parties who shall remain nameless into getting into DropZone Commander. Pictures of my progress there will be forth coming but I thought I would start with some stuff I finished a while ago and never got a chance to post.

Mordheim. All right thinking people struggle between this and Battlefleet Gothic as their favorite GW game. But like so many others when I looked at Mordheim I thought to myself, self, you know what this needs? Khemri. So when the expansion for that came out I was personally delighted and hatched a plan to build an elaborate system of underground tombs to fight in.

Like most plans this one was heavy on the ambition and failed to factor in time, money and difficulty. Fortunately some of these have now been overcome and I have finally started work.

This is the first room I have created. The idea is to make them all on tiles so they can be slotted together by a random number generator as exploration continues. 

Progress on this particular project has been slow, but hopefully it will pick up now that I have some more free time!

Battlefleet Gothic Planets

My grand plans for a BFG campaign tragically fell through due to a combination of work, school and poverty. I am, however going forward to finish the collection!

Here are a few planets I have been working on. Both are intended to be earth like and are made out of simple styrofoam spheres, sealed with PVA and then spray painted and finished with acrylics. I went with an oil based gloss varnish to give them some depths and a shiny finish. One of them I coated half the sphere with Nuln Oil was and then painted lights to represent major cities.

Witch Hunters and Imperial Escorts

As usual my chronic my life hasn't exactly been conducive to painting alot these past few month. I am currently working 40hrs and attending university full time, whilst still trying to be a husband and a Dad.

I did recently manage to finally finish a few pieces though!

Santa Claus is real, and he is pissed!

Kill it with fire, axe or pistol? Why pick?!

We may be minions but we are righteous! Also we have a fish.

I saved hundreds in shield insurance by switching to this random piece of wood.

And from the grim darkness of the far future:

Spanish Army of Flanders

There has been alot of excitement among my local gaming group about the Fire and the Sword rule set. This finally motivated me to get off my butt and finish the first unit of my Spanish. The Spanish don't play a role in the Second Northern War (the conflict the rules cover) but they make perfectly acceptable mercenaries. I might even make two standard bearers for each unit so I can double them as Swedes.

I haven't done any banners yet as I'm planning to buy these from Flags of War.

Battle Mat and Ork Concept

Progress in the shipyard has been slow this month. I've had my parents here to visit and most of my time has been taken up touring around and playing golf. Now that they have jetted off for warmer climbs I need to make the most of the time before the fall semester from hell (tm) begins to eat up my time.

I have been steadily acquiring ships via ebay. The Imperial Flotilla is already completes and I have about 30% of the ork vessels.

I have an orc ship done with my planned paint scheme in outline (no highlights or shadowing) just to see if it would work.

I kind of like it although I think it will benefit alot from some highlighting.

I have also acquired an excellent battlemat. I experimented with a lot of ideas to try and do it cheaply. Eventually I stumbled upon a thread on Boardgame Geek which suggested a vinyl banner. It turns out that a site like bannersonthecheap.com will print a photo on vinyl quite cheaply. I took a high def Hubble space telescope photo and had it printed at 4 x 8 ft.

Although it suffers a little from being blown up so much I still think it looks great, particularly at the low low price of $40. It also has the added attraction of being very easy to transport to the club or wherever. I take no responsibility for those strange alien creatures.

The Imperative

Astropaths have confirmed that the Dictator class cruiser Imperative has joined other elements of the Imperial Fleet. This addition significantly boosts the strength of the cyclops squadron.