Of Dice And Men: Within the sound of silence

I have been very quiet in my bloging lately. But I have been active in my gaming and other hobby's.
With a bunch of games played

Gaming

My DnD group has been having trouble assembling for games lately it seems that life and circumstance conspire to impede the group's progress. The other players normally still meet up to play something and lately that has been Zombicide. It has become one of my favorite games to play. We have added a house rule to keep everyone evolved, when a player dies they have the option to spawn another character on to the map. This has allowed us to complete most of the missions so far, usually at a very high rate of character attrition.

I have managed a few games of Dystopian Wars. This included a massive three player game of my & a friend's combined armored forces against a huge force of INVADERS FROM SPACE ! Sadly I had call the game off due to fact that I am a Dad. So the earths forces retired form the field of battle and all of mainland Europe was overrun by the alien menace.
In the last game I played something amazing happened we played to the correct conclusion of the game. The victory conditions for both sides was to destroy 50% of the opposing force including all small units.
The game ended in my crushing defeat but it was still very satisfying. I have been having problems getting a whole game in the time I allocate for gaming. But now the games have been flowing smoothly that we understand the rules better.

My small tanks prepare to
sweep around the right flank.

The medium tanks hold the left flank.

Damn exploding dice 17 hits from 5 dice
8 of my small tank tokens gone=game over

My small tanks surround an enemy and
disappear in explosion from a critical hit.

The battle lines are drawn
2420 points aside.

Got to use my fuel counters
they worked good.

Despite the problems with getting six people to put there lives on hold to go adventuring in the fantasy realms of the Forgotten Kingdoms we have some games of DnD. Some notable events of the last couple of sessions, My Half-Orc rouge opening a kitchen cupboard and being promptly eaten by the shambling mound contained within, The party searching every item in a castle study looking for the quest item only for the DM to exclaim that he forgot to draw a door on the map, My Ranger drinking and smothering himself in the contents of series of jars containing the base ingredients to produce potions of elemental protection, In the following battle my ranger took no elemental damage so as far as he is concerned he is now immune to all elemental damage and the party mage becoming imbued with elemental power and the ability to levitate then proceed to only use this method of travel even though it is only 15feet every 6seconds.
The last session ended on a cliffhanger. The party standing on a stone bridge spanning a void filled with chaotic elemental power as the bridge is rent and shattered by incredible cyclonic lighting charged wind.
Waiting patiently to see if Gumbar the Ranger survives.

I normally play Dystopian Wars on the weekend at the local club but last week a friend and I joined in a game of Deathwatch that some of the other members had been running. Play time was limited as with every pen and paper RPG I have seen the character creation process is a time consuming pain. But we did manage an suitable epic entry for Space Marines. Walking on up to a fellow marine and gunning down the Tau Stealth Suits he was locked in hand to hand combat with in a hale of fully automatic Bolter fire at point blank range.
I believe the Deathwatch system and setting lend its self to, one off encounters and drop in drop out style game-play, allowing players to skip a session and not feel like they are breaking the story. Unlike DnD were a character disappearing during a long trek through a dungeon would make little sense. Deathwatch killteams are deployed in short notice to any possible type of terrain for any type of mission in numbers varying from a single marine to hundreds of battle brothers.

Hobby

Spartan has released there new System Dystopian Legions set in the same universe of Dystopian Wars I was wondering what kind of city these guys would inhabit I guess it would be something like Dishoned.
I decided to sketch out some ideas for some gaming terrain with a steam-punk bent. I liked the results and will development them further, after I finish work on my first set of industrial platforms. I got to thinking about how people must ~~steel from~~ get influenced by the different media they consume and sketched out some more terrain ideas inspired by some of my favorite games. The one at I think has the most promise is the stuff inspired by Mass Effect I really liked the octagon shaped Hab-Blocks from the mission to the Horizon colony.

Modular SiFi walkways

Every colony need stack of cargo pods

Living in prefabricated comfort.

I good fend recently traveled to Brisbane to listen to some music lucky bastard. In between enjoying the sights of a great city and listening to Cake and Ben Folds Five I had him pick up some brushes. Brushes made from the finest quality sable hair. I am not sure what quirk of evolution gave sables such crisp, pointed, springy hair but apparently Winsor & Newton decided they were perfect water color brushes for the super rich. he also picked up some brush soap apparently made from powered Ultramarines.