Oota-goota Santa?

My hobby life naturally took a hit last year when I had most of my stuff in storage. Still, I did manage to paint a couple of things. The last thing I completed in 2016 was a figure for our local Secret Santa. I have held off showing it since I wanted to be sure the recipient had received it, however the obligatory "Thank you Santa"-post didn't materialise so I was a bit worried. A couple of eBay buys had gone missing just before Christmas and for a moment I suspected a dishonest postal worker had decided to nick my packages.

In the end I flat out asked if it had arrived, and yes it had. (My eBay buys were refunded by the seller too, so all is well that ends well, as the bard wrote.) But what was it, I hear you ask? Well, the title is a clue, as the figure was Greedo for Imperial Assault.

Oota-Goota Solo?

Two duros and a bothan walk into a bar

I can't be arsed to do a summary of 2015, I suspect I diverged from plan a lot, but the final tally is nevertheless quite impressive, at least by my standards. I painted solely 28mm figures this year, and I focused heavily on WW2. Still, some 40k and a lot of Star Wars models sneaked in there, and I even painted some Gates of Antares figures.

In total I painted seventeen fantasy figures and one monster, 43 WW2 figures, as well as five vehicles, four terrain pieces and two buildings, (I never put the last one up on the blog), and lastly 32 sci/fi figures of various sorts... that's almost a hundred figures. Not bad.

Roll on 2016! I started these figures sometime last year, can't really remember, but they proved a bit more complex to paint than I imagined so I switched to easier figures. But now their time had come.

A couple of rebel saboteurs.

Last Ditch Painting of 2015

...bring on 2016! But first, I had to finish a least some of the figures that I had lying about. These Imperial Assault figures were started months ago but somehow I got bored and painted other stuff. (Story of my life, basically.)

Three Imperial Officers...

...and three Rebel Troopers.

More pictures after the break.

Oooh, shiny!

It's almost Christmas, and I haven't written anything for more than a month. I had a slight burnout during november because of too many things going on at once, and then there was Star Wars. In order to avoid spoilers I didn't keep as much tabs on the online community as usual, instead I was following John Boyega on Instagram and other sites. I tell you right now, John Boyega seems like a very funny guy to be friends with.

But that's not what I wanted to show you today. Instead I have found some other new shinies.

"Mein Gott, was ist das? Essen mein flammenwerfer!"

Yes, it's a Ghar battlesuit from Beyond the Gates of Antares, Rick Priestley's new sci-fi game. "But what of Frostgrave" I hear you cry. Fear not, I'm plodding along with that one as well as all the WW2 and Star Wars stuff I have. It's just that a couple of my work mates go Gates of Antares crazy recently and I bought the Ghar stuff from the starter box off one of them.

Crimson Empire

Well, as I promised earlier, I have now painted my winning Imperial Assault team. It proved to be quite frustrating.

The winning team, in their winning colours.

I used some different techniques mostly because my GW Mephiston Red had dried in the pot. Damn Games Workshop, I almost think they do it on purpose with their crappy paint cans. I have other paints more than a decade old but GW paints seem to last a year at most.

Champion of the Force

By chance I happened to participate in a local game night tournament of Imperial Assault. I had only played the game with my kids previously and wanted to try it for real. At the last minute I threw a list together consisting of the Royal Guard Champion and two pairs of Royal Guard (one elite). They are all hard hitting close combat troops with the Royal Guard figures able to support each other when defending. I had five points left so I added an elite Probe Droid for some ranged support. Completely oblivious how command cards worked I selected all cards that had the keywords "brawler" and "guardian" as the Royal Guard and the Champion are both.

The furious six in all their unpainted glory... 

At first I was going to take as many painted figures as possible but that would have been a rebel list with many different characters and probably very hard to play. As it was my first proper game I thought it would be better to keep things simple.

The Empire's Finest apprehend terrorist scum...

I have finally finished another two characters and three stormtroopers for Imperial Assault. I still haven't got a game in, but I have five weeks of vacation coming up in a few days and have managed to buy all the extra figure supplements released so far. Now let's hope it rains a couple of days.

Our heroic troops have spotted terrorist intruders in a medical facility and take action! 

I had devised a plan for painting the stormtroopers quickly, using a white undercoat and a fine diluted black wash. The wash backfired and turned the white armour into grey dullness however, so I had to manually highlight all the armour back up to white.

The cowardly terrorists are caught and soon surrender,

The stormtroopers had quite a lot of mold lines that I had missed when I trimmed and undercoated them. Since the arm and leg armour pieces had some ridged details already I thought the mold lines were part of the design, but the wash showed all too well my errors, so I had to fix those as well.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh! Roowwrrrr... Grrrrf!

[Translation: Let the wookie win.]

Friends, let me introduce the mighty Chewbacca and Gaarkhan, fierce warrior.

In case you didn't get it. Let. The. Wookie. Win.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I finally caved in and bought Imperial Assault, Fantasy Flight Games' dungeon crawling skirmish boardgame with a Star Wars theme. I actually had given in some time ago, and started to buy the expansions a couple a time some months ago. I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable and how hard it would be to catch up with all the expansions later, so why not start buying them in advance?

I'm not going to do a full review, other saying that it's awesome! Go out and get it now! If you don't trust me, watch this review by Tom Vassel and Sam Healey on Miami Dice:

More pictures after the break

Tantive IV unboxing

As some of you know I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I'm also very fond of games, so Fantasy Flight's X-wing Miniatures game is right up my alley. One of my favourite ships from the Original Trilogy is Princess Leia's ship Tantive IV that is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer at the beginning of A New Hope.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Originally called just "Rebel Blockade Runner" it was ret-conned to be a Corellian Corvette going by the name Tantive IV. (I wonder what happened to Tantives I-III?) Anyway it arrived in local shops yesterday and I had to pick one up immediately. Everyone was surprised that it turned up right on the heels of the Rebel Transport that have been delayed for some time. So suddenly there were two ships to buy, and I naturally bought the biggest one first. Enough talking, I did an unboxing video which you can see right after the break.

Systema Gaming Scenery Power generators assembly and review

I've got the power!

Impressed by the Storage Silo I reviewed previously, I bought a pair of Power Generators from Systema. A sheet of 5mm MDF and a small sheet of orange acrylic is enough to build two of these babies. The assembly was -- as with the Silo -- very straight forward. No instructions are included but it's hardly necessary. It would be nice though for the more inexperienced builder I think.

I used ordinary white wood glue thinned with a little bit water and applied with a brush. It gives you a little wiggle-room and enough time to pull the pieces apart if you make a mistake, but dries fast enough so you do not have to wait long periods. All parts can only fit in one way so if you have to shave or file down a lug to get it to fit, you are trying to assemble it wrong!

I did however hit a couple of snags. The first was that glueing the acrylic pieces was harder than I anticipated. The fit is not as good as with the MDF parts so they move around a bit, and trying to align eight pieces of plastic between to circles of MDF at the same time was quite interesting. I thought of using superglue to first glue them rigid to one MDF pieces, but then I wouldn't have been able to adjust any of them if they weren't glued on 100% straight.

The second problem was that when popping out the parts I ended up with a cog-wheel shape that was left over. It was simply superfluous material used between two other parts on the MDF sheet, but I thought it was used to align the acrylic beams. For half an hour I tried to get it to fit before I realised my mistake.



I did a time-lapse video of the assembly and you can see how I try to fit the part around the acrylic beams, and that I try different ways of holding the acrylic. In the end I just held and pressed them in one hand. The acrylic does not absorb the glue like the MDF, so I had to wait a while for the glue on them to dry before I dared touching them. While waiting I undercoated the base with white primer. The whole process took about two hours, including trying and refitting the acrylics, brewing coffee, talking to my wife on the phone and undercoating the base. Next time I will start with the acrylic beams and then I can do the base while the first parts dry, so it should take less than an hour. The "power" assembly can be removed so you can use the base as it is if you like, which gives you a bit more variety.

At 12 Euros for a pair they are very good value for money. As evidenced by the Plague Marine in the picture above they are quite large as well. While not exactly gothic they could be a piece of Eldar or Tau machinery and would also fit very nicely into a game of Infinity or Star Wars. Systema provides good service and are very nice to deal with.

I give the System Gaming Scenery Power Generators 4 out of 5.
Recommended and good value for your money.

Wedge saves the day!

Me and a couple of friends played an exciting game of X-wing recently. We wanted to try out the new Wave 3 ships and introduce a new player to the game. At first we were going to play two separate games since we were four players, but decided to play a big multi-player battle instead. Each player could choose 75 points of ships, making the game 150 points in total. Me and Håkan played the peace-loving galactic Empire while Mats and rookie Dave played the terrorist Rebels.

I chose Colonel Jendon in a Lambda Shuttle with Heavy Laser Cannon, Anti-Pursuit Missiles and the ST-321 title, along with Major Rhymer in a Tie Bomber with Advanced Proton Torpedoes and a Proton Bomb. The tactic would be for Jendon to aquire target locks early and then pass them on to Rhymer, who would be able to fire the Adv. Proton Torpedoes at range 2 because of his special ability (they are normally range 1 only). Hopefully I would be able to pull off the sacred Target Lock/Focus combo for maximum carnage.

Meanwhile Håkan chose three TIE Interceptors led by Thurr Phennir, all from the elite Sabre Squadron. He gave the Sabre Squadron pilots the Veteran Instincts upgrade making them Pilot Skill 6. I don't remember what other upgrades he chose, I think Thurr got a pilot skill as well but it didn't come into play during the game.

Mats naturally wanted to play with his B-wing so he chose Ibtisam, tooled up with Heavy Laser cannon and Advanced Proton Torpedoes, along with an Outer Rim smuggler in an old beat up YT-1300 freighter as bait. Mats also gave Ibtisam a Fire Control System allowing her (yes, Ibtisam is female) to gain a Target Lock on a ship she has just attacked. The plan was obviously to fire the Heavy Laser Cannon at long range getting the Target Lock for free and then swoop in for the kill with the Advanced Proton Torpedoes.

Dave was a bit star struck I think as he chose Wedge Antilles -- the best pilot on the rebel side -- along with a Rookie Pilot in an X-wing and a Gray Squadron pilot in a Y-wing. He also bought an Ion cannon for the Y-wing which could potentially wreck the best laid plans if used at the right moment. A solid squadron rather straight forward to use, the biggest problem would be for Dave to keep them together, always tricky to pull off the first few times you play.

Dave and Mats mulling over the set-up.

Find out how the game went after the break. Warning, the page is quite pic-heavy.

Star Wars X-wing Wave 3 review

One of my friends went to Gencon, yes I'm officially jealous! Before he went I asked him if he could, possibly, perhaps, pretty please with sugar on top, pick up any of the new ships that FFG were rumoured to release. He answered "Sure, it's the Slave 1, isnt it?". I carefully corrected him and sent him links to FFGs webpage along with pictures of B-wings, TIE Bombers, Lambda Class Shuttles and the HWK-290. "Sure" he said again, "I will see what I can do." When he returned I somehow got it into my head that he would have bought four Slave 1's, but my worry was unfounded. Dave delivered.

THANK YOU DAVE!!!

Mine, all mine.

So, what are my opinions on the ships of Wave 3?

Let's get the cat out of the bag and start with the HWK-290. This ship is from the Dark Forces series of computer games and is a light personal transport from Corellian Engineering Corporation, the same company that made the famous YT series of light freighters. In other words, this is the only ship so far that isn't featured in any of the films. With a two crew and ability to take six passengers the model is smaller than I imagined, on par with an X-wing but a bit bulkier. At first I didn't like the model, but now it's warming on me. I'm actually planning on getting a second model and repaint it.

Gamewise it's an interesting asset for the rebels. It's not hard-hitting as an X-wing, and not as robust as the Millenium Falcon or an Y-wing. The manuever dial is decent but lacks the K-turn, so the ship can't do a 180 like the other ships in the Rebel fleet. It's cheap, however, and can take a crew and a turret. So you can load it up with an Ion or Blaster turret and a Gunner if you want to give it some more offensive capabilities. It's true worth though is as a support to your other rebel forces. The Moldy Crow title card give the HWK-290 the ability to retain Focus tokens after the End phase, allowing you to build up a pool of focus tokens. Not so useful you may think, but Kyle Katarn (the most famous pilot included) has the ability to give a focus token to a friendly ship within 3 range, while the Recon Specialist crew included give you two focus tokens for each focus action. The other named pilots (Jan Ors and Roark Garnet) also has supporting abilities so this ship will change the metagame a bit I think. And as a last nugget you can give the Blaster turret to your Y-wings in case you are tired of ionising Imperials.

I have always thought that the B-wing looked cool and that the HWK lacked a windscreen...

The other Rebel ship in this release is the B-wing, which can be glimpsed in Return of the Jedi, just at the beginning of the Battle of Endor. Sadly despite being über-cool they didn't get any screen time. According to canon it's a heavy assault fighter designed to take on capital ships. It is heavily armed and has a unique rotating cock-pit which allows the pilot to remain in position while the fighter swivels around him. This is carefully recreated in the LEGO models I have, but sadly not on this small model. It is depicted in flight mode with S-foils extended in attack position in the upright "pose" it is seen in the movie.

Promotional composite still released by Lucasfilm. How I wish they had filmed a scene like this.

Gamewise the B-wing is indeed a heavy fighter. It has the ability to take two torpedoes, one cannon and one system upgrade. We get both regular Proton torpedoes and the new Advanced Proton Torpedoes, Ion Cannon and the new Autoblaster included in the expansion. Advanced Proton Torpedoes and Autoblasters are both range 1 weapons which can be devastating if you manage to get into position. So you have the option to kit it out as either long-range or short-range, or both. The system upgrades are a new kind of upgrade introduced in Wave 3 and included with the B-wing is a Fire-Control System, which lets you gain a Target Lock after you have performed an attack, if the target is still alive that is. Two generic and two named pilots are included; the unique pilots can both take a skill and have a different special ability each.

The B-wing is the first Rebel ship that can take cannons, so you can use the Heavy Blaster cannon included with Slave 1 on the B-wing and put the Autoblaster on Slave 1 if you want to. It is also the only Rebel ship able to do a Barrel Roll, to represent its rotating cockpit. A neat way to use a function already included in the game to make the ship unique. Maneuver-wise it's quite slow, but able to make sharp turns at low speeds and it can make a 2 speed K-turn. Combined with the Barrel roll it will be interesting to play.

The TIE bomber in stylish blue-grey while the Lambda Class Shuttle wear 80's computer beige.

Next up is the TIE Bomber. It too doesn't have a lot of screen time, but who doesn't remember when they are Proton Bombing the asteroids in The Empire Strikes Back? This is one mean ship, being able to take two torpedoes, two missiles and one bomb. Although it is probably not wise to fully load the bomber up with everything and the kitchen sink, it gives you the option of customisation. Do I get missiles, torpedoes, or a bomb. One of each? Two kinds of missiles for different targets? Or nothing and just fly it like a decoy and blaster magnet? The choice is yours.

The TIE Bomber is quite maneuverable and able to make a K-turn although it isn't as fast as a regular TIE. While it only has two defense compared to the other TIE:s' normal three, it has six hull points so it should stick around a bit. Two generic and two unique pilots are included. As with the B-wing both named pilots are able to take a skill and have a special ability each; both are useful when attacking with secondary weapons so make sense on the TIE Bombers.


And so we come to the final ship of Wave 3: The Lambda Class Shuttle. Sometimes erranously called the Shuttle Tyderium, but that is only the name of the shuttle the Rebels used to land on the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. It would have been cool if FFG had included a rebel pilot with the ship, but I guess they are saving it for later.

The Lambda class shuttle is the only big ship in this wave, unlike wave 2 where both the Rebels and the Empire got a big ship each. First off, the ship is beautiful. I have always loved Star Wars for their ship design. Folding wings, hexagonal windows, asymmetric ships, love it. But the Lambda is the most beautiful ship in my opinion. And yes, you can fold the wings up and down on the model.

So what about gameplay? The Lambda fills the support niche. Although it packs a punch with three attack and the ability to take cannon upgrades, the other ships will run rings around it. Put simply, it's manueverability is awful. The hard turns are red, it's top speed is three, and it can't do a K-turn or a barrel roll. Sure you can give it engine upgrade which lets you boost making it a bit faster, but since the hard turns are red you cannot do a turn and then a bank with boost. So you only gain speed, not the ability to turn more. But it can do one maneuver which no other ship can do in the game: it can stop and stand still for a turn. With five hull points and five shields though it can take some damage.

But as I said, it's role is support, not to dog-fight in itself. It can take a system upgrade, a cannon and two crew, and here's where the fun begins. Included in the box are Advanced Sensors, which allow you to take your action before moving, and Sensor Jammer which allows you to change one of the attackers dice when defending. The crew includes among others a Rebel prisoner which give a stress to the first rebel ship each round to target you, and Darth Vader which can cause an extra critical to a ship you attack. The pilots included is a generic pilot and three named ones. The named pilots each have useful support abilites like taking stress off nearby ships or dealing out target locks to other ships. However, none of the pilots are able to take a pilot skill, which I think is a bit odd.

To summarize: If you like Star Wars and X-wing you need all of the ships. At least one of each. (If you are a real die-hard fan you might balk at the HWK-290, but it's a nice ship.) FFG are devious devils and put the most useful cards in only one of the expansions. People have complained that Push The Limit is only in the A-wing expansion, and they will get another gripe in Adrenalin Rush which is included in the TIE bomber. In short it lets you treat a red maneuver as white, once per game. Do a K-turn, target lock and shoot your missiles, blammo. On the other hand they can't include each card in each expansion and I plan to get three bombers anyway. So there. And they did put two copies of Anti-Pursuit Lasers in the Lambda, so they are not all evil.

May the Force be with You.

X-wing news and starter guide

Seems like Fantasy Flight Games is on a roll with their X-wing games. Right now Gencon is going on and FFG has not only released the highly anticipated ships of Wave 3, but also released info about the future of the game.

The ships of Wave 3; HWK-290, Lambda class Shuttle, TIE Bomber and B-Wing.

The Wave 3 ships are geared towards supporting functions and some slow heavy hitters. Some new upgrades and missions will shake up gaming field, I think. Personally I have always loved the Lambda class Shuttle and I look forward to the B-wing.

Picture taken from FFG's in-flight report slideshow at GenCon. I don't know who took it, sorry.

That's right, FFG will be releasing Tantive IV (which is a Corellian Corvette of course) and a Rebel Transport some time next year. The X-wing is apparently an alternative paint job with alternative pilots and upgrades to the currently available X-wing. It's not clear though if the X-wing will be a separate model or come with the Rebel Transport, there are conflicting reports from different sources about this.

This picture gets a lot of use...

But what if you have just started out with the game, or if you have a lot of friends who are playing and you want to get into the game as well?

Millenium Falcon Unboxing and quick review

A couple of days ago I picked up the Millenium Falcon from Fantasy Flight Games, for their X-wing miniatures game. I had pre-ordered it and a Tie Interceptor at my local friendly gamestore so I wouldn't miss it in case the first batch sold out. They also got the Slave 1 and A-wing which I will pick up later. (And yes, everything is out of stock at FFG, so I better hurry.)

The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, in a pretty box!

At first glance the box looks very attractive with the miniature cleverly displayed. The tear in the upper right corner came from when I eagerly ripped the box open...

I want it all

I have been diagnosed with RAD: Raging Aquisition Disorder or Gamer's Magpie Syndrome. It's sometimes unscientifically described as the "Oooh, shiny!"-weakness... Basically, what it means is that while I labour away, painstakingly painting three hundred and fourty-two greek spearmen in 10mm scale, I get seduced by something new... we all have it in a fashion, how else would you explain people who buy new phones every six months?

"Hallo? I would like to order a platoon of Tigers please. What do you mean I must build all the Panthers first?"

But I digress. What I was going to talk about is the various stuff that recently have caught my eye.

God helg!

God jul till alla läsare!

Julen var ju ursprungligen en hednisk ritual som de kristna "kidnappade". Tomtar var ursprungligen ett litet sagoväsen som ibland hjälpte människorna men även kunde bli arga och farliga om man inte blidkade dem med gröt och andra offer. Så det här med varför man firar jul är väl inte så himla viktigt egentligen?

Därför kommer det här lite annorlunda julhälsningar:

Vad som egentligen hände...

Klicka för fler hädiska bilder...

Use the Force, Leif

Uh-oh... Fantasy Flight Games har precis basunerat ut att de har snappat upp licensen till Star Wars.

Som ni kanske vet så släppte Wizards of the Coast licensens förra året, vilket inkluderar både rollspelet och samlarfigurspelet. Figurspelet var rätt pifft, och jag har köpt booster för halva priset sedan spelet slutade tillverkas. (Har ingen att spela mot, men snart uppnår min figursamling kritisk massa och blir självmedveten, precis som Skynet. Då får jag en motståndare. Eller så väntar jag tills sönerna blir tillräckligt stora...)

Nåja, vad har Fantasy Flight i pipelinen då? Jo, man börjar med ett kooperativt living card game, ungefär som man gjort med sin Sagan om Ringen-licens. Det innebär alltså att 1-4 spelare tillsammans försöker besegra spelet vilket är rätt kul och annorlunda. Antingen vinner alla eller ingen. Man spelar naturligtvis goda (rebellerna i Star Wars och olika hjältar i Sagan om Ringen) och spelet sköter den onda sidan. Jag har Sagan om Ringen-kortspelet, och det är riktigt bra, vilket bådar gott för Star Wars-varianten.

Sen har tänker man också lansera ett rymdskeppsstridsfigurspel (säg det snabbt fem gånger). Det vill säga: Man flyttar figurer, på ett bräde eller en spelplan. Figurerna föreställer rymdskepp. Eftersom spelet ska heta "X-wing" är det lätt att inse att det är dogfights mellan små rymdskepp som gäller. Wizards of the Coast hade också ett rymdskeppsspel, men det var collectible, det vill säga att man inte visste vad man fick i lådorna, det här verkar inte bli det, utan du får ett visst antal skepp i grundlådan, och kan sen köpa expansioner med fler skepp (och säkert nya regler för nya typer av skepp). Dessutom kommer skeppen att vara färdigmålade, så det är bara att sätta sig ner och spela. Sweet!

Sen ryktas det om ett rollspel i faggorna också, och de har gjort ett bra jobb med rollspelen till sin 40k-licens. Däremot är jag inte förtjust i deras version av Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, som har en massa specialtärningar och mer känns som ett boardgame. Vi får se vad tiden lider vad det blir för något av det. Om det blir bra så kan jag dessutom använda alla figurer jag redan har till Wizard of the Coasts samlarfigurspel...

En intressant detalj är att allt som glunkats hittills har rört den klassiska trilogin, man nämner inget om prequels. Även om jag inte tillhör en av dem som avskyr de nya filmerna så ligger de klassiska filmerna lite närmare hjärtat på mig ändå. Dessutom tycker jag det är bra att man fokuserar på en epok i taget i stället för att blanda som Wizards of the Coast gjorde.

May the Force be with You. Always.