Dumpster diving* and catching up

Not the hero we deserved but the hero we needed. 

Be warned: this is a bit rambling. Feel free to scroll down to the pictures of dumpsters, if that's what brought you to the door.

At some point in the past couple months I have started feeling bad about writing up yet another battle report with unpainted figures. Yes, I know it's not a big deal, but I'm just envisioning reading my blog with all these black-and-white pics and how that'd only point out the other flaws in my work, like how I have become real shoddy about taking good notes about how games go.

But! This will past. I am painting up new Pulp City, and am one breakthrough away from getting a good color scheme down for my Wrath of Kings Hadross. Wrath of Kings has been the game of the spring so far (in fact the gents from my group are about to head to Origins to the big dance there.) While I will sing the praises of the assembly side of the Wrath of Kings figs, I confess they're a bit intimidating for a mediocre painter like myself to get done swiftly. But anyways.

(Somewhere on the backburner there's a post brewing about learning Hadross tactics. They're rock hard, but surprisingly tricky to get rolling.)

Enough about my shortcomings. I've also been busy this spring getting lots and lots of Kickstarter pledges arriving. It's beautiful. Many Zombicide figs waiting in the queue, many Wolsung figs getting assembled, and just this week, my pledge for urban terrain from Impudent Mortal arrived on the doorstep.

One of the pieces I picked up to enhance Pulp City and Batman games are the dumpsters. And being a gamer for... a long while now, I have picked up many odds and ends over the years for uses both theoretical and practical. It's only in the past couple years that I took stock of the various terrain bits I had picked up hither and yon, and formulating plans for actual terrain layouts (we typically play at the local store, or someone else's house. I don't have a dedicated gaming room here.)

So I realized I had a bunch of these things from various manufacturers over the years, and decided to toss up a couple comparison shots for scale, so people know what they're looking for.

(The models were chosen because they were [mostly] painted, and representative of their lines. I had other painted Batman figs, but I figured most players would own the Arkham henchmen, due to their usefulness.)

Checkmate Agent (Crossover), Heroclix Dumpster, Arkham escapee (Knight Models)

A blast from the past, the tried and true Heroclix had a lot of useful pieces over the years, and my only regret with the ancient terrain packs was that I did not pick up more. It's the smallest of my lot, but also the only one that came fully painted. Looks to me like something outside a restaurant, more of a trashcan with dreams of grandeur.

Reaper Bones zombie, large Armorcast bin, Supreme Zed (Pulp City)

Mr. Hyde (Heroclix Hulk), smaller Armorcast bin, Reaper Bones zombie

These two are, I believe, out-of-production Armorcast bins. Searching online tells me they might be out-of-production Ainsty, but there's some confusion. Regardless. They are solid chunks of resin, and look great. perfect for near the construction site.

Checkmate Agent, Reaper Bones Dumpster, Supreme Zed

I nabbed one of the Bones dumpsters on a whim, and was not disappointed. Unlike the rubbery material of the other figs, this is hard smooth plastic. Which is BRIGHT WHITE and a pain to photograph. The lid opens up (shown farther down) and while maybe a little big, not really noticeably so, and IMHO would definitely work with the Knight Model figs. 

Checkmate Agent, small Impudent Mortal dumpster, Zombicide zombie

When I signed on for the Impudent Mortal kickstarter, I was looking forward to their stuff, but I have to admit, it's more impressive in person. Please note none of the dumpsters from them are fully assembled. They were put together right out of the bag, no instructions, no trimming. A breeze.

The small dumpster above even has a couple details I didn't put on yet, like the door for the side hatch. 

Arkham escapee, Impudent Mortal bin rear view

A little less in scale for the Knight Models figs, but really, not a big deal.

Supreme Zed, large Impudent Mortal dumpster, Checkmate Agent

And here's the large Impudent Mortal bin. The doors in front can be put open or closed. Hefty! It's the extra bits like the vertical supports that really make them shine. Also notice the slats on the bottom.

And the ridiculous group shot. The Checkmate Agent just barely doesn't fit inside the small Impudent Mortal bin, whereas the larger one fits even 30mm bases comfortably. The Bones product is rather roomy as well.

So, hope that was useful-ish. Any tips for later comparison shot entries?

Drax, not Drax, Drax

And finally, an in-joke for a handful of people.


* Full credit to Maurice for coming up with the 'dumpster diving' title, which I really should have thought of first.

The Dark Age of the Wrath of Kings

If I ever post black-and-white shots, it's because I'm rolling with unpainted minis.

Been a hectic month and change since Cold Wars, but I did manage to get in a couple solid evenings of gaming. A few weeks back, we started out with getting going with Dark Age, and concluding with a lovely skirmish-level game of Wrath of Kings. These two are the games of the hour with the posse.

Sadly, paintjobs aren't there yet, but we're getting started. On the other table, the first game of the night featured the watery forces of Hadross versus the piggy armies of Teknes. (If you haven't read up on the backstory, it's pretty neat. Check out the faction overviews here.)

Marc's Kukulkani are rather fierce, on the other hand.

My first game of the night was running through some Dark Age versus Mark. He's an actual champ at the game, an even has a model of his own in the game. So while the savage beating I took wasn't unexpected, it was highly informative.

The Kukulkani aren't just easy to misspell, they're also an interesting combination of heavy hitters and fearsome magic. My Outcasts struggled to even get any hits in. I did manage to get a better sense of my strengths and weaknesses, however, which is something that's easy to do on paper/internet forums, but that pales in comparison to real-world experience.

We were running 350 point armies, in preparation for an upcoming tournament. I had designed my army more towards running through secondary objectives, which left me a little short on the hitting power.

The tagline for the night: "Mistakes were made."

My second game of Dark Age featured a fight against Aaron's amusingly warped Dragyri. He was trying out running no less than three Death's Devices, which are as hardcore as they sound. Equally fun was the wall of slaves that runs in front of them. Again, I didn't get much accomplished, but I learned a little more about my future tactics fighting such juggernauts.

The two statues at the bottom of the pic are Crooked Dice Argonauts, here used as objective markers for my Motivation.

Now on to Wrath of Kings. Game three of the evening showcased my Hadross versus Maurice's Teknes. 

My motivation (think scenario, but just for your troops) was 'Land Grab,' which required me to get into his side of the board and bust up some objective to show him who's boss in this town/village/etc. Speed isn't Hadross's strength (taxi-crabs aside) but he started the day with many more troops than me, so I knew it'd be wading through his battle lines no matter how I cut it.

Slimy Sevridans slip forward.

The Teknes motivation was 'Capture the Prisoner,' and he selected Iron Eyes as his target. I deployed her a bit... ambitiously, I confess, and she dropped fast. From then forward, I was trying to catch up the pigs spiriting her unconscious body back to their side of the board. That is a tough one to fight back against.

My MVP was easily the Orsund Cavalier, who took up position in the middle of the battlefield and spent the rest of the day beating to death anything that came within reach of his massive tentacles.

Three games. And we could have easily done four! Admittedly, they were small games of Dark Age, but the system is brutally fast. And Wrath of Kings is simply a breeze. We're loving the system, here's hoping we don't wear it out too soon. I'll need to get a more detailed batrep up for this game, because the mechanics are a treat.

Wrath of Kings: assembly in a snap

One day. That's how long it took to assemble the above figs. They're from my Wrath of Kings kickstarter package. The figs have a great amount of detail, and mine had little to no flash. And I am terrible at assembling, especially things with tiny bits. But these practically assembled themselves.

Looking forward to trying the game out in the near future. Team Hadross!