What is Best in Life? Hasslefree and Red Box minis

So, yes, I finally got back into doing some painting. No, it's not my Mass Effect figures - in all honestly I probably won't get back to them until the Extended Cut comes out and I get my ME mojo back.

First up is Sana from Hasslefree Minis:

A beautiful mini (she's resin) and great to paint. Got some weird reflections in the pics making it look like there are a few white spots, but they aren't really there.

Next up is Ferrus, also from Hasslefree:

The blade he swings is black as night.

Like Sana he's resin, and while not as flawless as, say, a Studio McVey LE mini, there was almsot zero cleanup required - only issue was a bit of greenstuffing required on the joins around their wrists. No flash, and barely any mould lines at all. Crisp details and soft enough to cut easily without being too soft that I'm worried about them sagging in heat etc.

Lastly is Hakar the Horrible from Red Box:

When taking the photos I noticed I got some grey on his right arm and the handle of his axe.

Bummer - that skin's going to be tough to fix.

The plan is to base them with a grass/snow mixture - going to play around with GW's new snow texture stuff and see what happens.

Group shot with a couple of other Red Box barbarians:

 I'm painting these guys up to (hopefully) get a game of Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies in with them and my other generic fantasy figs. Should have some more to show soon.


If that isn't enough to sate your barbarian rage, check out

BadassDungeonCrushers.com

and take the membership test:

Koronus Gazetter #4: Destiny? Also 200th post apparently

New issue of everyone's favourite 40k newspaper!

As you can see they've been a busy bunch, making big names for themselves, which brings up an interesting thought - what sort of destinies are they cooking up?

This is something I've touched on previously, but it's an interesting challenge for a GM in both running and world-building. With an open 'sandbox' world players can go and do whatever they want, but need a suitably 'free' background. For game with an overarching plot players are tied to the rails to a certain degree (not always a bad thing BTW).

Blending the two can be a tricky proposition when trying to mesh a destiny with player's desire to be free and take control.

Rogue Trader provides a perfect avenue to have the two exist simultaneously in blocking off star systems but giving players a bunch of 'free' hooks to explore on them own. Of course in a more terrestrial game this is much more of an issue, but does not avoid the issue of keeping the plot straight.
In my game I'm using the Warpstorm Trilogy as the basis for overarching plotline of the game, so the plan is to tie one of the character's backstory to the main plot. Should that player go and do something stupid like get themselves killed I do have a contingency plan in place - there is the chance that a player could otherwise 'wreck' the plot.

Obvioulsy it's not that a player should ever be said to wreck a game (at least not unintentionally) so it is of course entirely possible that they somehow finangle a way to make the plot come to an early grave.


If this due to an epic TPK, then oh well... I can recycle the plots later ;)

Should they cut a big section out of the plot then also oh well... dealing with those sort of things is the fun of GMing and good on them for clever thinking.


Having a destiny for a character, or characters, needs always to be in mind for a GM - I'm no fan of PCs knowing they're destined or the chosen ones (past examples may have soured me, see earlier link), so though the player knows they have some secret in their past that will be revealed - it was their idea in the first place - but I've only given vague hints thus far.
When players start making their own destinies it can be most entertaining, because they aren't always good. The Drakes have made a number of powerful friends, but have racked up quite a number of enemies. Enemies who are prepared to wait...

In some cases I'll speak out of game to the players in both vague and direct terms about the consequences of their choices, but mostly I prefer to leave things nice a vague. The PCs actions in the world will affect how NPCs act and their plans (and so they should), and they will sometimes change their plans to thwart or aid the PCs.

It does mean a fair amount of record keeping, but I find that having the main plot driver seperate from both what the PC and NPC's actions means that should they throw a spanner in the works through some side quest things are more recoverable by not being tied too tightly.


Listening to player speculation on the plot is also important for gauging how interested they are in plot points. For instance my players were very interested and somewhat unnerved by recovering information about the Gaunt Triumph, so hopefully they'll be enticed by what's in store.

If they're not, I'm sure I'll think of something.


Edit: Apparently this is my 200th post. Go me, and thanks to all my loyal minions!

Review: Wreck-Age minis

Pictured below are the first batch of Wreck-Age minis:

Click for much larger look

Now, I got these as part of my signing up to their kickstarter, so they didn't come packaged. That said, I got the earlier kickstarter exclusive mini in a nice clamshell:

When I got this guy I was honestly really surprised by the quality of packaging, especially for such a limited mini. It's also good to see there's nothing shorted on quality, something Matt and Anton of Hyacinth Games seem to be very focused on.

The minis themselves are gorgeous and packed with details, like they just stepped out of Fallout or Mad Max. If you look at the pics below you'll see little details such as stitches on their clothes and the carefully thought out layers of re-purposed gear they're wearing:

I've heard it said you can judge a mini line by the quality of its female sculpts, and Wreck-Age does not dissapoint. No over sexualisation (or any, really), and great proportions and a styling that fits with the theme and style rather than just being 'the girl mini' that often gets thrown in by some lines.
Hyacinth also seem to be making a 50/50 split between male and female figs at the moment, which very few companies do but is a growing trend [/tangent].

(Note: this guy was a limited edition mini for Adepticon 2012, so not a general release - the kickstarter exclusive is this guy with a riot shield. You shoulda backed the Kickstarter!)

 The models pictured above are exactly as they arrived to me - no clean up of flash or mould lines at all - straight out of the envelope onto the table. The only issue I have is with the slotta tab, namely that it's too deep for the bases:

An easily fixed issue, but a bit annoying. Now, the folks at Hyacinth Games were kind enough to send me enough bases of both the shown GW style and the lipped Privateer type, so perhaps that could be an issue. Yes, I could get up and check, but I'm in another room now and it doesn't bother me that much frankly.

Edit 24/5: Matt put in the comments below that the next batches will have smaller tabs, so this issue is a non-issue (perils of being an early adopter ;p)

Scale shot with other minis, click to embiggen:

L to R: Hasslefree, Sedition Wars, Wreck-Age, Infinity, G.O.T., Wreck-Age, EM4, GW

The best scale matches were with Hasslefree and Sedition Wars (whose ranges have a great variety of builds), with G.O.T. a close third. The EM4 Miniatures figure is fine height wise, but misses out with its more 'heroic' proportions. That said they'd work fine on the tabletop or mixed in together in a display.
The Infinity figure has the same proportions, but they are noticably taller, moreso than the slightly taller GOT. The Orc trooper is on the tall side, but most of the Infinity figs are noticably taller.
GW has GW proportions, so is obviously not a fit.

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of the range (especially that female No-Ghost), and will certainly post more about them when I get them.

All the miniatures above are available now, except the two exclusives obviously ;)

More Mass Effect Movies

What I've been doing instead of painting, ordered in scale of ridiculousness.



I have 650 video files, over 200 gigs worth, to choose from.