Update: August 22, 2016

When we last left the Ratkin project, things were looking failry bleak with not much progress at all. I had just finished the first base for a unit of Clawshots and was playing around with both the Secret Weapon rust powder and the Games Workshop Oxide wash, which, when combined, makes for some pretty awesome rust effects. Here's how we were looking a few weeks ago.





























Since that time, I have been busy working on getting the Clawshots themselves done, and then working on several other bases for the larger units. First up is the Clawshots. Picture 1 is the unit in progress and picture 2 is the same finished guy from the other angle. I used the same oxide and rust effect on the gun, and I think it really makes the weapon look old, used, and not taken care of. Perfect for the rats.

Picture 1 - His good side.

Picture 2 - His other good side.

Picture 3 is the remaining Clawshots from my first run (those that I could easily see in the bitz box and were primed) waiting on some paint. I have about another 12 or so, and I am thinking of being able to do either 4 or 5 units of them in the future just for extremely large point games and to make the army look nice on the shelf. Pictures 4 and 5 are more work on the models that will go on the first base. I really like the fact that I don't need to stack tons of models down on the base to show off the units and can instead focus on spacing and basing to make the unit look cohesive and full.

Picture 3 - Four more guns!

Picture 4 - Starting on the blue robes after a quick all over wash.

Picture 5 - Working on highlighting the fur tones and beginning work on the guns.

Pictures 6 through 9 show the finished Clawshot unit ready for the table top. I might add another rat gunner eventually so that the unit looks a little more fleshed out, but three models is sufficient to meet tournament requirements, so that is where I will stop for now until I finish up everything else I have going on.

Picture 6 - Clawshots ready to go

Picture 7 - close up of the right side and the rat's rusted gun

Picture 8 - Rat butts.

Picture 9 - a view from the other side, rat toenails included free of charge

Other than the finished Clawshot unit, I have been working on the bases for several hordes and regiments which you can check out the progress below. These bases need to be finished up in the next several weeks before the West Coast GT in mid-September.

Horde base and another Clawshot base after priming and an initial brown basecoat

First level wash on the bases

Starting the basing highlights and beginning to work on the stone pieces

Starting the highlights on the stone pieces and picking out random detritus on the bases 

A few more regiment and horde bases waiting in the wings.

Next up is finishing the bases and doing a couple of test models for both the blight units, warrior units, and various weapon teams that will be used in the army. I hope to have a couple of test models done in the next week along with the horde and regiment bases so that I can use them at the West Coast GT so my opponents know exactly what each unit is. That beats having to stick unpainted, unprimed straight plastic models on the bases. But with only two and a half weeks before the tournament, we will see how much I am able to get done before then. Though I hope to completely finish the army before next year's tournament season.

Update: August 12, 2016

Well, it has definitely been a while since I posted anything on this page. Just slightly over three months it looks like. Don't worry, I haven't given up any hobbies, I just haven't had as much time for them with a family vacation, child raising duties, and lots, and I mean lots, of work piling up on my desk. Though, up until recently I really haven't felt the desire or need to push hobbying to the forefront of my limited free time. However, I am now glad to say that has changed as I gear up for the West Coast GT in early September and just a desire to fully transfer my old Skaven army into a full Ratkin army for Kings of War. I have also been eyeing Malifaux and am in the process of putting together a crew in order to steal a few quick games here and there this winter when the amount of chores around the house begins to dwindle.

Let's take a look at what's been going on:

First up is Malifaux. I grabbed the Malifaux 2nd Edition book and got hooked on its scenario based play. Not wanting to take this game to seriously, though, I opted to choose the Gremlins as my faction. I just love the idea of clay mug swilling, pig riding, swamp-billies running around. To start my collection I picked up just the basic Bayou Boss set which includes Som'r Teeth Jones and his Gremlin crew.





























The big difference with Malifaux models are how small the sculpts and details are in comparison to Warhammer and Kings of War models. The kit was just full of small details like hats, fishing rods, and shoes that were difficult to see, let alone glue to a model.





























Here's Lenny, hanging out with his little piggie friend.





























And one of the more ridiculous, but fun sculpts in the Gremlin army, the 'skeeters (think gigantic flying poisonos mosquitoes).





























The basic faction models are also fantastic looking and I am really looking forward to putting some paint on these models in the near future, though it will be after the West Coast GT as I have been pushing Kings of War models at the moment.





























Next up the transition project to Kings of War. The first army I decided to transition was the Skaven to Ratkin. This was because the Wood Elves the army furthest along on normal square bases and could be easily switched to Age of Sigmar if I like where the game ends up after the release of the General's Compendium (which I have still yet to pick up, because there aren't that many AoS tournaments in the U.S., let alone the West Coast).

With that in mind, I knew I needed to start working on bases first, so that I had something on which to put the models. I purchased a bunch of models from Tectonic Craft Studios because they made very simple, and perfectly sized MDF bases that cover the whole range of various Kings of War units sizes. While I have been playing around with the rats, my favorite units are the Clawshots, and I plan on always including at least one, if not two of these in my lists (especially now as these models are some of the most painted). So I jumped right to putting together a base for the first unit.

I went with a quicky piled up defenses look based around rocks and scattered shields from fallen enemies. The whole theme of this list will be a Ratkin army that has destroyed a previous settlement and has been living in its squalor. The army will be based as though it is in the process of being besieged and the Ratkin units using the terrain and settlement (what's left of it at least) to their advantage. To accomplish this goal, I expect to use a lot of broken masonry and a combined rusty and oxized metal look that you can really see on the metal potions of the shields in this piece. Now, I just have a few dozen more bases to get together.

Front view:





























Rear view:

9th Age: Official Game Release Announcement

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few days, or just became so disillusioned with the end of Warhammer 8th Edition that you deleted all of your forum and game group accounts, you should have already heard the news: The 9th Age has been officially released.

Here is the release announcement:

Welcome To The 9th Age FantasyBattles: The 9th Age is here, ushering in a new age for Miniature Fantasy Wargaming!

The free Rule Book, Magic Compendium and 16 Army Books are now available on http://www.theninth­age.com/index.php?simple­page/. These books represent the cumulative efforts of over 250 volunteer staff members and the input and playtesting from more than 5,000 fans, who were eager to help pick up the pieces after the scene crashed in summer of 2015.

The project was launched in Q3 of 2015 by a team led by the creators of the near­ universally adopted Swede ­comp and ETC ­comp tournament balancing rules. With their cumulative decades of competitive wargaming experience serving as the guiding hand, and a palpable desire within the fantasy wargaming community, experienced tournament players from all over the world quickly lent their support to help create what has become a comprehensive, balanced, re­imaging of Fantasy Wargaming for a new age, if you will. This community of stalwarts persevered through a lengthy design and balancing phase, producing thousands of games worth of play­testing data that was compiled and used to inform more than seven book iterations. The result is the most balanced tournament­ ready system ever created.

Already The 9th Age has established itself as the tournament standard for competitive fantasy wargaming. As a beta, the Ninth Age has been played at innumerable games and Grand Tournaments worldwide and will be the ruleset for the European Team Competition (ETC) in August 2016. In less than a year The 9th Age has experienced staggering growth and support from all reaches of the globe, filling a void in the fantasy war gaming scene. Now that T9A offers a stable version, the game is increasingly accessible to gaming groups who balked at the rapid pace of updates in the early development phases.

Complete army books include three human factions, three elven factions, two dwarven factions, two undead factions, three beast­like factions and three monster­like factions. As there are no official miniatures for the 9th Age any model you own that you feel adequately represents a unit is completely legal under these rules, and always will be. YOU the player decide what your units look like. Recently, The 9th Age announced Shield Wolf Miniatures would provide miniature support going forward. We are in discussion with other manufacturers and we anticipate more miniatures companies will follow their example. So Join us in this new Age, download The 9th Age today!

Now that the game has been officially released and all the rules are available online, I will be taking a look at the finished game. I have heard good things and bad things about the game so far, but I am willing to take a look at it and see if that is where I want to devote some of my hobbying energy. The biggest problem I see, however, is the lack of major support in the areas where I generally game: the West Coast and Texas. If these regions don't pick up the game, there is not really anywhere that I can play it, so it might just be the thing that is out there that is only played in Europe or the East Coast.

Let's Play: Forbidden Island

With the birth of my son, getting in games of anything has been difficult. Doubly more so for games with my wife as usually one of us needs to be watching the child (who thinks sleep is just a word and not an actual thing he needs to survive). The last real game my wife and I were able to get in was a quick game of Forbidden Island. Previously, I went through the basics of how to play to this game. Now, let's take a look at how the game went for my wife and I.

Kings of War: Army Construction (V.2)

So I have managed to play a game of Kings of War and have a better handle on how certain things play out and certain units function or should function in a game. So with this limited progress on my part, I wanted to update the army lists that I have for my armies. My first attempts at list for my Ratkin, Elves, and Twilight Kin are available here. These lists are designed solely from models that I already have put together and mostly painted so that I don't need to do a single thing to them before I put them on a table. As I continue progressing in this game and find that certain units are better or worse, then I might get around to putting some new things together or changing base sizes etc.

Battle Report: Kings of War - February 28, 2016

So I finally grabbed a little time to play a practice game of Kings of War. My buddy and I sat down on a cold Sunday afternoon to play a short 1000 point game to try and get the basics of the game down. We settled on just using the models that were already sitting around in my display case and play a simple game between the Ratkin and the Kindred Elves.

My buddy played the Kindred Elves and I took control of the Ratkin for the game. These are the quick lists that I put together:

Kindred Elves - 995 Points
Kindred Archers (Horde) (Brew of Keen-Eyeness - +1 to standard ranged attacks) - 295 points
Gladestalkers (Troop) - 130 points
Gladestalkers (Troop) - 130 points
Bolt Thrower (War Machine) - 90 points
Elven Mage (Individual) (Lightning Bolt, Scarletmaw's Fenulian Amulet - +2 to Lightning Bolt) - 145 points
Hunters of the Wild (Regiment) (Brew of Haste - +1 to speed) - 205 points

Ratkin - 1000 Points
Blight (Horde) (Brew of Haste - +1 to speed) - 220 points
Death Engine (Monster) (Vile Sorcery - ranged attack) - 210 points
Blight Lord (Individual) (Bane Chant) - 115 points
Weapon Team (War Engine) (Pierce 1) - 80 points
Warriors (Regiment) - 90 points
Weapon Team (War Engine) (Pierce 1) - 80 points
Warriors (Regiment) (Chant of Hate) - 115 points
Enforcer (Individual) - 45 points
Swarm-Crier (Individual) - 45 points

Note - After we played the game, I realized that the Ratkin list is illegal because there is an additional individual for which there is no base regiment or horde unit. So that 45 points should have been put into another unit (or combined with the Enforcer to grab a new unit of 90 points). Luckily, that sole individual did absolutely nothing in our game but die.

Let's take a look at how our first game went!

Update: March 21, 2016

So things have been busy. I have been busy! I have even been adulting (unfortunately) and that hasn't provided much time to play games, let alone post updates as often as I'd like. But, I have not forgotten about this space and am working on finishing my battle reports from Masters. I even played my first real (but small) game of Kings of War and will be posting a full battle report on that soon, as well. I just need to quit adulting for the time being.