Hobby Accomplishments

It's been awhile since I posted anything about my hobbying that didn't relate to the GMing of my Rogue Trader campaign. While GMing takes up a large part of my spare time, I do have a few other geeky events of note.

The Kickmaster

After

Before

My Reaper Bones Kickstarter minis arrived. I have long enjoyed reaper's excellent range of metal minis. When I first heard about the bones Kickstarter I was very interested, a huge assortment of great sculpts for an unbelievable price. I instantly backed it at the Vampire level and eagerly awaited for the arrival of more RPG minis then I could ever use. At first I was overwhelmed with the sheer number of figures that were supplied. But when I had the chance to sit and check over each of the miniatures, I noticed some imperfections. Nothing serious just some warping of blades and barrels, and some loss of detail in the sculpts. I already had several metal Reaper miniatures and they were far superior to the bones versions of the miniatures. The warping bothered me a bit so I endeavored to see if I could straiten the new plastic material that Reaper used to produce the bones.  I used hot water to soften the plastic and as I held the plastic straight I dipped the figure into a bowl of chilled water. So far the miniatures have remained straight even when subjected the tropical North-Queensland summer. I am still a little concerned about the strength of some of the thinner bits like spear shafts and ankles on some minis.

some very nice sculpts

Kickstarter contents 

Another box of minis from a different Kickstarter also arrived. Wild West Exodus, I liked the idea of WWX as soon as I heard about it. The brain child of Romeo the owner and host of 40k Radio &  Battle Foam. I first heard about it on 40K Radio and The D6 Generation podcasts. A Weird Wild West setting consisting of an alternate history infused with SiFi technology. I think Romeo really liked the movie John Carpenter of Mars, there are a few similar themes and the WWX Dark Council bare some striking similarities to the Therns in the movie. Romeo regularly talks about some of the business practices that GW employ and why they mystify him. Outspoken criticism on how GW does things and how they should be done is one of the reasons I enjoy listening 40k Radio when Romeo is on. It's great to see him literally putting his money where his mouth is, employing modern plastic injection moulding and detailed resin casting practices to produce miniatures with as much detail and character as Games Workshop's. WWX also employs some nifty retail practices, $5 minis and neat a return policy for retailers. Unfortunately no one locally besides myself backed it. I hope in the future it gains a local following.

Role Play Shenanigans 

Beyond the Thunder-Dome

Attack on a hill top emplacement

Recently I GMed an extra long session of Rogue Trader. The plan was to bring the current story ark to a satisfactory conclusion, before two of the players moved away. It was a great day and I got to use a bunch of my old 40k Ork minis as they rampaged over the world of Damaris. Unfortunately we did not get to complete the final grand space battle that would sever the Ork Warlords control of his forces I did get to run a couple of other encounters that included some vehicles. An Ork junk fort full of looted equipment that had been re-purposed into Killa Kanz, and some high speed highway Madmax themed combat. The players pulled some shenanigans and circumvented my brutally hard combat challenges. First they requisitioned some mining explosives and jerry-rigged them to use in an airstrike. Second while being chased by speed crazed aliens on an assortment of ramshackle vehicles the party's navigator used his lidless warp infused third eye to melt the drivers faces. At first I was a little peeved that the players bypassed all my work, but the spectacle of the crashing Ork trucks still loaded with boys & the plume of a flame filled oily mushroom cloud rising from the ruins of the Ork fort were great role-playing events.

Print is a dying Medium

So I have previously talked about the fine people at Urban Laser Craft, and how they were nice enough the reward me monetarily for my CAD work with MDF & acrylic terrain. I was very pleased when the owner Will informed me that his product line would be featured in the Cool Mini Or Not magazine Ravage. So despite paper being a vestigial method of information dissemination I am still immensely proud that my designs will be immortalized in a physical medium. I do have a little pang of regret that I signed over my copyrights when I sold my designs, it would have been neat to see my name in the article.