Painting Warrior's Sons

The final ASOIAF commission for 2024. Faith based Lannisters! With two additional attachments from the attachments box.

Painting Pyromancers

More Lannisters - this time, the Pyromancers. A box of these dudes would provide more than enough mage-type miniatures for any D&D player. 

Free Folk vs Starks, 22.01.2025

Back at it with this year's first game. I tried my Thormund list which lost at the last tournament, against newly painted Crannogmen. Way too excited to take proper pictures, here's me rushing up the right flank and using my opponent's favorite refuse flank strategy against him, round 1.

Painting a giant swordsman

Rounding off the giant commission, we got this guy wielding a huge sword. He's a Reaper Fire Giant, so he's got lots in common with the blacksmith. However, I was commissioned to make him more viking-like.

Painting a giant blacksmith

Time to pay off some commission debts while having fun with this Reaper giant. We established a human skintone, black armor, and lava around the base.

Golden Vault: Dimensional train ride

Our goals ever escalate! We need to talk to some guy who knows the true names of 3 leaders of the Lower Planes. He is being transported on an interplanar train ride to be judged in Mechanus, the plane of lawfullness. And a modron called Glitch is helping us with info.

Converting and painting Word Bearers Chosen

I bought the Chaos half of Dark Vengeance some time ago - only the Chosen are left to do something with. I updated their gear for 10th edition, then painted them as Word Bearers.

Creating and painting nun mortar teams (black habit)

Just a cool little addition to my nun force. Painted like the rest of the heavy weapons teams. Mortars 3d printed.

Astra Militarum vs Adeptus Custodes, 08.01.2025

New Year, new army, right? Not quite, but I do have some new support tanks for my Guard. They aren't even finished, but I just couldn't shake the itch to try them out. I used them all here: Hydra, Deathstrike, Basilisk, 2x Manticores.

Painting nun tank crews in the white and black of the Dominicans

Standardizing my Imperial Guard nun tank crew paint scheme. 

Note that the order of applying colors is deliberately broken up, instead of finishing one type of detail after another. I observed that by applying the basecoats quickly, I tend to slop over, but this ordering enables covering up any mistakes without constantly fixing them. Same with the highlights.

Painting Spearwives and Free Folk characters

With the frequency I tend to put these girls on the table, it was time to paint them. I got the remainder of the Free Folk Heroes 1 box as well.

Review: Horizon: Zero Dawn

Alright, prepare for a gushing review. It took me about a month to play through this game, partially because I went ahead and did - literally - everything. I enjoyed it through and through.

Review: Assassin's Creed Unity

I know, I'm only about 10 years late. But I played all the previous games, and I just finished this one. 

Review: Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Unlike my other reviews, this is for a fairly modern game. Buckle up, this will be long-winded.

Review: XCOM: Chimera Squad

After the gushing review I gave XCOM 2, you will not be surprised that I had high expectations of this game. It was... not what I expected.

In short, the game is easier, cartoony, and has a completely different theme. Instead of the ever present alien menace, we now instead have aliens who had integrated into Earth society, and human extremists threatening the planet. Your force will include humans and aliens, with their special abilities that you experienced during previous games. None of them are customisable. 

The mechanics are also greatly simplified, but you still have inventory management, skills etc. 

Now, I could have raged at the corruption of the XCOM ideal and quit. Instead, I chose to play. I still liked it. Embrace the goofy dialogue and humor.

And in the end, I triumphed.

Review: XCOM 2 and XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

This was my game of choice for 2022. Based on the number of XCOM-like games I played since, it's also one of my favorite formats.

Review: Fallout 4

I played this game so much, it was The Game for 2023. I took a lot of screenshots and shared stories with my friends. Too bad I didn't keep any.

Review: South Park: The Stick of Truth vs South Park: The Fractured but Whole

I played The Stick of Truth a couple of years ago, and it's a game I'll remember for a long time. Besides the South Park-y graphics, it has everything that a modern RPG needs: classes, skills, spells, party building, inventory management. The gameplay is relatively simple, but so many novel elements are added over the course of the game that it kept me plugged until the end. I even went for collectibles and such. South Park humor is a thing of its own, and if you don't like it, you won't like the game. If you do, and you like RPGs or just video games in general, this is the thing for you.

We still make references to it during our D&D sessions and we still play the OST when we need combat music. 

So this was my background as I set down to try out The Fractured but Whole. It was completely underwhelming. A few new mechanics, but mostly the same. Novel elements that I couldn't figure out. The theme wasn't enough to keep me hooked. I quit after a couple of hours.

... not saying it's a bad game. If you don't play The Stick of Truth before, it might have the same novelty element. It no longer did for me.

Review: Total War: Three Kingdoms

Everybody said play Total War: Warhammer. So obviously I played Total War: Something else. It's great, but strange. Let's dig in.

Review: Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus

Another XCOM-like. Yeah, I really like these. Some points similar to the Necromunda game.

Review: Necromunda: Underhive Wars

This game is such a beautiful mess and I loved it - although I may be a bit biased due to external factors.

Review: Cultist Simulator

The same article of mobile game reviews that recommended This War of Mine also recommended this. I didn't like it. It's a jumbled mess that I did not manage to figure out. Unlike This War of Mine which also had no tutorial, but felt very rewarding when figuring something out, Cultist Simulator seems to lack direction and is so random that whatever your learn during one attempt seems useless at the next. I never understood the purpose of the game either. Having zero graphics did not help at all. Zero stars.

Review: This War of Mine

My usual approach to mobile games is: when a period comes up where I don't have access to my regular hobby stuff, e.g. holidays or whatnot, install a bunch of games, play each until I hit the pay-to-win wall, delete, repeat. There are very few that make the cut - as in, they're not cash cows, but actual enjoyable games. This is one of them.

It will also depress you.

Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition

While everybody was already starting on Baldur's Gate 3, I was still in the middle of this old thing. Is it great? Not on the level of Dragon Age: Origins. Is it worth it? I loved the first two, I loved the world of Thedas, so I think yes. 

Painting a Fire Elemental

Made by Reaper Miniatures.

Painting commission animals

After the trolls and ogres, I decided on a final commission this year, and got these cutesy animals. I decided on experimenting. Some of them are Reaper minis, links included.

Painting The Edge: Dawnfall sinister miniatures using slapchop method

I joined the appropriate kickstarter for The Edge: Dawnfall as it had demon miniatures, and it seemed like a great idea for Warhammer. Then it was delayed, and I got my stuff somewhere else. Also the big guys  are not quite big enough for greater daemons. The smaller guys are included in weird numbers. Anyway, I shelved the idea (and the miniatures) for a long time. Then I stumbled upon them recently, and I thought, since I did not do slapchop in quite a while, let's put two and two together.

Note that the game seems dead, there is no wiki, no other info on what is what. Sadly, that's the fate of most (if not all) complex board games, no matter how much the producer promises a living game. Anyway, I'm just saying that I don't know what the darkness models are properly called.