Welcome and Hobby Highs and Lows

First up another welcome along to my newest follower, Andrath. I hope you like what you see, feel free to comment on anything you see herein.

So recently my hobby time has been affected somewhat by illness, but that seems to be past so I have been getting back to Pulp City and I will be demoing the game at the club this Tuesday when I'll be giving Rob a game.

With that in mind I've spent part of the week getting my Pulp City house in order (as it were), I've put together a reference sheet that includes the new rules, printed out all the cards that I downloaded some time ago and got them all cut out and laminated and finally went back over the rules and popped onto the PC forum to clarify a few things (thanks again for your help Leon).

I was feeling a quite pleased with myself and really looking forward to Tuesday, then this morning I went to put my finished cards in the box with my models and discovered that all the minis had got a dirty yellow tint to them, most notable on Gentleman and Solar as they are both predominantly white, but all of them have been affected to a greater or lesser extent.

It appears that for some reason that the varnish has reacted with the corrugated plastic of the box they were in (a Figures in Comfort Company Box which I picked up a little while ago), the plastic of the box has discoloured in a similar way to the models and unfortunately having tried a suggestion given to me over on Lead Adventure Forum to try and clean it off that didn't work it looks like I've got a bit of repainting to do in my future :(

Still, I'm not going to let it get me down, I still get to play my first game proper on Tuesday and I'm excited about it, plus I've almost got a couple more figures ready to go.

First up is Apebot:



The big lad is basically done, finally. This is the 3rd lot of paint I've put on him now and whilst I'm still not 100% sure I like it, I'm a lot happier than I was with the last two attempts. The lamppost is from Fenris Games. I just need to get him varnished (though I may re-highlight the red first...I haven't decided yet).

On the painting table at the moment is the chap that started this whole trip to Pulp City in the first place, Guerilla:



I'm really happy with the way he's coming along and I reckon a couple of more hours work should see him done plus an hour or so for the base, hopefully I'll be able to field him Tuesday night, we shall see.

Anyway, that's it for now, I do have a few more thing bubbling away but more on them next time.

Take care.

J

Hello, Good Evening and Welcome

I'd like to extend a welcome to my newest follower Dr. Willett's Workshop.

I hope you enjoy my little corner of the web and don't mind my occasionally, (ok, mostly), random mumblings on this hobby of ours :)

My posting drought is nearing an end as I'm finally over the lurgy that's been plaguing me for most of the month, so expect more content very soon, mostly Pulp City related at the moment, but there should be some variation in topics soon as well.

Watch this space.

J

All by Myself

As we're roleplaying from Thursdays from now on I decided last night to break out one of my 2'x2' boards and get to grips with the basics of Pulp City so that when I take it down the club the games should run somewhat smoothly.

The main thing I wanted to accomplish was to understand the bare bones of the rules at first, I'll add in agendas, minions etc. at a later date.

So, I decided to do a little level 3 encounter using Solar and Jade Hawk as the heroes with Rook and the Gentleman acting as their opponents, I dug out my AT-43 scenery box and set up accordingly:



Over the next 5 turns the game went fairly quickly, just over an hour and 15 minutes, which wasn't bad for a learner, though I did occasionally get old and new rules muddled, I was pretty much on top of it by the end, here are some more pics from the game and some of the thing I learned:


End of turn 1. Jade Hawk has learned that charging Rook may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but his high Defense compared to her Strength means she needed to use her Trump roll to even scratch him and he can take a lot of damage.


Turn 2. Whilst Solar has fun hurling a concrete barrier at Gentleman, Jade Hawk learns to use the right power for the job and uses Wing Sweep that targets Rooks lower Agility score to get the hit and move to get closer to the now very wounded Gentleman, unfortunately Rook's next go involved him getting up and firing off a Sink Hole at Jade to put her flat on her back to see how she liked it and reduce her health alarmingly.


Turn 3. Solar and Rook took to beating 7 shades of whatsit out of each other rolling 6's all round to keep canceling each other out, Solar's origin allowing him to get a slight advantage over Rook and injured him a little more.

Jade Hawk goes to finish off Gentleman only for the dice to fail her completely allowing the Gentleman to Point Blank her out of the game on his next activation...ouch, that's no way to treat a lady.


Turn 4. Solar breaks off from Rook and gets revenge for Jade Hawk by taking down Gentleman only for Rook to charge and get a great attack roll result which is as impressive as how bad Solar's defense roll is. Solar is not looking well.


Turn 5. Solar tries to get some distance between himself and Rook so he can hit him with Sun Ray, but more bad rolls allow Rook to get in and land the finishing blow with a certain amount of ease...Villains win.

All in all I rather enjoyed myself, the new rules have definitely streamlined the ease of play and I like the Power-up dice pool idea, it came in handy in a couple of places (though not handy enough for the heroes unfortunately).

The Action Points and the way you activate models is quite different from any other game I've played, but is a very nice way of doing it, being able to activate models more than once until they've used their AP allowance makes choices of action critical and in larger games should see some interesting tactical decisions being made, and only being able to do 1 action per activation (or 2 if it's a move or hold action) makes you think about things differently than other games, I like it.

The new way Trump traits work if great and a lot more straight forward than in the original rules, a lot less to remember and also the new abilities Trump Traits give are a lot more likely to be used.

Things I learned: Lvl 1 Supremes going up against Lvl 2 ones really isn't a good idea, but once that lesson was learned (the hard way:), things got easier.

Scenery manipulation is fun, I need to get a street board done so that cars and lamp posts can go a-flying :)

I NEED the rulebook to be out soon, as fun as I hoped it would be, from the sound of it the rest of the new stuff is going to knock this game out of the park (if you forgive the analogy).

Hopefully I'll get another practice game soon to try out the parts of the rules I didn't use yesterday, then I think it's time to unleash the game on the club, can't wait :)

More soon.

J

The Vagaries of Inspiration

Recently I've been getting a lot of ideas for gaming, some from simply seeing something and wanting to emulate it, some from somewhat more obscure places.

On the obscure front I've come up with a new villain for Pulp City after listening to a song on a Bad Religion album, not sure exactly what to do with him yet, I think I'll wait to see what Supreme Genesis 4 is looking for before deciding.

In slightly more ordinary terms thanks to a video game I've come up with the main McGuffin for the 3rd D&D adventure that I can start seeding ideas for inro the current one I'm running.

And on a terrain front seeing the pictures from Gencon showing the Pulp City games I was hit by the revelation that 2'x 2' board is all I need to play the game, (not sure why it didn't occur to me before, but it didn't), and I already have 2 boards that size I made up when AT-43 came out as 4'x2' is the Rackham official tournament table size. Of course I only used them twice I think (maybe 3 times) as the size of our armies at the club quickly expanded far beyond them.





As you can see, they're perfect for secret military bases, evil lairs and Danger Rooms. And as both boards are only painted on the one side it means I can paint up the other sides to represent other environments.

So a trip to Homebase and 4 coats of green woodstain later I now have a green board that I intend to add the following scenic elements to.



The rubbish bins on the right are from Antenociti's Workshop whilst the planters and park benches are from Fenris Games, here are a couple of close up shot of the benches:





And yes, they are as finicky as they look to put together, though definitely worth it IMO.

All I need to do now is make up some pathways and order a centerpiece for the board from Thomarillion and hope the weather sorts itself out long enough for me to undercoat everything and get the board varnished.

Should have more soon.

J

Right as promised I'm back with a bunch of pics.

First up is the finished vehicle: a Warthog from Antenociti's Workshop.



I got it to go with the Infinity models that I'm using for Flying Lead but I think it would work well for other games, might even use it for Pulp City as something the Mysterious Man has created for his minions to travel in, we will see.

As for the horny monster, get your minds out of the gutter people, I'm talking about this guy:



Finally finished him (although I have realised that I forgot to add static grass to the base but that will be soon remedied). And just in time for Tuesday's D&D session >:)

I've also been starting a fair few minis as I said yesterday, here are a lovely group of ladies who are hopefully being finished soon:



L-R we have 2 models from Piazo's Ptolus range that are destined for the D&D campaign, (though thet're for the adventure after the one I'm running now), and 3 models for Malfaux.

Dr Warlock has mentioned on his blog that his Malifaux mini's seem to take longer to paint than the PC ones and I can definitely agree with that. The models are great but they do seem to take that bit longer to paint up, they seem more finikity and it takes that bit longer to get them finished. Still I will keep soldiering on.

As for my Pulp City stuff there's quite a bit on the go:



June Summers is the closest to completion, she just need a bit of attention to her base and right eye and she's done.



Jade Hawk's the next closest, an absolute joy to paint I'm really happy with the way she's turning out. She only took around 1 day to get her to this point and now I just need to finish the base to complete her.



These four are at least part way to completion, Ace of Wraiths of the left is coming along very nicely, (one of these day's I'll actually paint an ACW Union army and not just use the colour scheme for other projects...no really I will...probably :)



Finally we have the silhouette brigade here that I just need to start, I think Kitty Cheshire (2nd from left) will be the next as I have a pretty good idea what I want to do with her.

I've also made up some Pixel tokens for Vector (2nd from right) to call on in battle:



They're made from 2mm Foamed PVC, something I found on Antenociti's Workshop (I believe he used it for a lot of the buildings on his Salute table this year), it is to Plasticard what Foamcore is to cereal packet card and the 2mm stuff is exactly the right size to fit the slots in PC bases hence the tabs I added to the bottom of each pixel, (I slightly screwed up the Mega Pixel as you can see, but it was an easy fix and a bit of greenstuff will hide the join), now I just need to pick up some bases to put them on.

Other than these I still have to figure out Dr Red's base as well as Skyline's, finish Virus and I still have a complete block on how to paint Apebot, I think I just have to strip off what I've done and start again from scratch unfortunately.

I thought it would be nice to put all my completed PC min's together to show what I've got so far:

First up the Villains


Next the Heroes/Villains


And finally the Hero(es)


Another reason why I want to get Jade Hawk and AoW painted, poor old Solar's feeling a little lonely fighting the good fight on his own, and Howler and Chimp Chi need their leader to turn up soon as well.

I think my next PC buy will need to be from the Heavy Metal group, not sure who yet, will make a decision soon though.

Anyway, just one more thing to show you this time, and that's the Malifaux building I was working on:



Just need to paint this sucker up and it's ready to go, I've also worked out a plan for the next building I want to make to go with this as well as a plan for the board I want to put them on, but more on that next time I think.

Right, I've rambled on far longer than I'd originally intended so I'll stop wasting your time now.

So until next time, stay safe.

J

The Empire Strikes First

So, long time no update, sorry 'bout that just haven't had anything to post for a while, I seemed to start a lot of stuff and be unable to finish it or get it to a point that it was even WiPable really.

I've finally managed to get a few things done enough to show, but I won't be able to get photo's up till tomorrow. Still I felt like bloging something today just to prove to myself I still can if nothing else.

So tomorrow, prepare to see a vehicle completed, a horny monster and some more Pulp City mini's in various states of paintedness (and possibly a few less words being made up by me :)

On some non-mini related news, saw the announcement trailer for Bioshock Infinite today...so ridiculously excited about this I'm positively giddy, can it be 2012 already?

'Till tomorrow

J

I See You

Thankfully my hayfever has let up quite considerably of late so my eyes have been a lot better, it's just been the heat and humidity that have made doing anything hobby related a pain...oh well, c'est la vie.

I have made some progress on one front, I've completed the first of my homemade Pulp City Supreme write-ups, I've posted the finished background and rules over at the PC forums, here: http://forum.pulp-city.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1348

Go have a read and feel free to comment on any of the rules you think might need tweaking.

I restarted running my D&D campaign on Tuesday last, first time DMing in Steve's Gaming shed. I'm using a version of D&D 3.5 coupled with some of the parts of 4th edition that I actually liked and it seemed to go well, a lot more enjoyable than 4th ed. as far as I'm concerned, (I actually want to play it now rather than feel like I have to slog through it for the sake of the group like I did with 4th). I'm using the Tunderspire Labyrinth adventure as a template, but changing things toward the end to go my own way with it.

The guy's all seemed happy and the only thing I might go back and look at is how tough some of the basic enemies are, as they seemed a little too easy for the party to defeat leaving the leader somewhat exposed quite quickly, still it's a learning experience for me so we'll have to see what happens in 2 weeks.

Despite the weather I have done a few hobby related bits , the main one being a spot of terrain building inspired by an article in Privateer Press' No Quarter magazine. Now I don't play Warmachine, Hordes or Monsterpocalypse but I have found the painting and hobby articles in NQ to be very good, so with some money saved up I took a trip to Leisuregames in Finchley last Wednesday and amongst other things picked up some copies I was missing. I one of them had an article on making Cryxian buildings in it and it looked mighty fine indeed, in fact I realised that it would actually make a good building for Malifaux, (when I actually get round to playing it that is), and as I had a number of the bits required, it only took a quick walk to my local Hobby Stores shop to get some styrene bits-and-bobs and I was off.

Here's a pic of the build so far:



Most of my day today has been spent in front of the TV watching the F1 British Grand Prix cutting and gluing rivets into place, I still have the back of the building to rivet and I'm trying to work out how I want to do the chimney I want to put on the left end of the building, then I need to sort out the base and add the steps up to the front door.

I'm really happy with the result so far and I'm really looking forward to making more scenery and terrain soon.

I have also been putting paint on a few more Pulp City models, but the pics I took today were so blurry you couldn't make anything out properly...oh well, you'll just have to wait a bit longer to see them.

Lastly, Spartan Games have finally released some new Uncharted Seas models, in the form of Destroyers, I've picked up a pack to see how they play, here's a quick pic of them "in the nude" as it were:



Not sure if I have enough green stuff to get the bases done before Tuesday, but we'll have a go and see what happens.

Not sure how they'll work, but the Reassignment & Recycle rules make them quite an interesting prospect. My only issue is that squadrons are fielded in sizes between 2 and 4, and Spartan have blistered them up in packs of 3 , meaning if you want to use full strength squadrons you're either going to have spare ships to find something to do with, or you have to buy 4 blisters and play large enough games to be able to field them all.

Anyway, that's all for now, take care.

J