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G.I. Joe Miniatures... but not from Wizkids.

Posted by Toco

27 Oct 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

We can't keep waiting forever for WizKids (I) to publish GI Joe HeroClix !

I finished some on my own.

Lady Jaye, Shipwreck, Polly, Lifeline, Snowjob

Snake-Eyes, Scarlett, Kamakura, Beachhead

Budo, Quick Kick, Jinx, Dialtone

Firefly, Crimson Guard, Tomax, Xamot, Big Boss

Road Pig, Croc Master

Stormshadow

Wraith (need to finish his slottabase)

Wraith

5 Comments

Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:59 pm

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Gaslands: Mobile Armored Strike Kommand

Posted by Toco

09 Oct 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

Gaslands: Refuelled is a game I recently fell in love with. I played the pc game DeathTrack (1989) a lot in the early nineties, so the theme immediatelly connected with me. You can also compare it to Carmageddon, another cool pc game.

Since I'm a Star Wars fan I gave the game a try by using Pod Racers. You can read about that in this post on BGG.
This game is a blast! The racing mechanics are smooth and simple. Not too much analysis paralysis. A race game should be fast.

Gaslands is a welcome change for a miniatures collector like me. I've seen my share of sci-fi and fantasy monsters. This game now allows me to use old Matchbox and new Hot Wheels toys to convert and then effectively use in a tabetop game. While Pod racing is very fun, there are other interesting themes... The 80's had great cartoon shows. One of them was MASK. Vehicles in conventional mode could transform into action mode, revealing weapon platforms and other tech. The second series of ten episodes was released in 1986 and changed the format of the show to a racing theme. M.A.S.K. and V.E.N.O.M. competed in races for prizes, or as distractions as V.E.N.O.M. tried to pull off one nefarious scheme after another. By this point, V.E.N.O.M. were aware of the identities of the M.A.S.K. team whereas they had been kept secret in the first season.

Well, here's my chance to own 1/72 scale MASK toys and play a great game with them! My first try will be the iconic maroon Kenworth W900 Tractor Rig. I rummaged through my son's Matchbox car collection (which for 50% are my old toys) and found a black truck. Ready for painting!

With a simple paintjob I hope to make him look like this wonderful toy set:

Now let's find myself some more Hot Wheels/Matchbox/Majorette cars... Here's a list I'm using. It might help you to build your MASK force too.

Firecracker: mid-1980s Chevrolet K30 Dually pickup
Gator: Orange Jeep CJ7 Renegade Off-Road vehicle
Jackhammer: 1985 Ford Bronco
Thunderhawk: 1985 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
Hurricane: Turquoise Chevrolet Bel-Air 57 street car
Outlaw: tanker truck
Rhino: maroon Kenworth semi-tractor
Volcano: blue monster truck (all terrain van)
Raven: black Chevrolet Corvette
Firefly: orange dune buggy
Slingshot: white recreational van
Bulldog: diesel truck tractor
Stinger: orange pontiac gto
Switchblade: futuristic stealth-looking attack helicopter

"eBay here I come!"

PS: DeathTrack 1989 https://macsplex.com/922282

4 Comments

Fri Oct 9, 2020 2:10 pm

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From the Bogs of Albion the Fimir Rise Once More

Posted by Toco

24 Sep 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

Subject to much controversy, the Warhammer (and HeroQuest) Fimir Warrior remains an interesting miniature.

Fimir Warriors, members of the Fimm caste, are the footsoldiers of their race. And now I have a whole unit of them! Matriarch and all. I'll field this regiment with "counts as" rules in future battles.

(In the background of the picture you'll notice some metal versions of the HeroQuest henchmen from expansion sets HeroQuest: Wizards of Morcar and HeroQuest: Barbarian Quest Pack. These were collected over the years and now ready to receive a coat of paint.)

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Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:00 am

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A new Boss for the HeroQuest Orcs

Posted by Toco

20 Sep 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

This metal Orc from Citadel UK will be just perfect to act as a special character in the original HeroQuest quests.

Same looks, same era, same producer.

In the background a metal archer. I'm rebasing these miniatures to fit on the original plastic bases from the core HeroQuest set. This will result in a coherent look for all the greenskins in my quests.

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Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:00 pm

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Warmaster BattleReport - The Battle Of Grim-On-Sour

Posted by Toco

11 Sep 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

In this blogpost you'll find a Warmaster battle report. Yes, it's not a typo, it's not a Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles (5th Edition) game that you see in the pictures.

Quite some time ago I made a simple conversion of the WM rules so that they would work with 28mm (hero scale) miniatures too. Why, you'd ask? Well, ever since my first Games Workshop Ltd. boardgame (HeroQuest) I have been collecting 28mm Old World miniatures. Also, almost all of my scenery is 28mm scale. I love the toys but the game takes too much time. Warhammer is a detailed tabletop wargame, where Warmaster gives up on detail but simulates the battle very well. AND is situated in GW's Old World. My favorite setting.

( My low impact conversion from WHFB to WM is in blogpost 38814. )

Scouts reported a large Beastmen army making way to the Bretonnian village Grimeaux-en-Seour. Traders in the village have good a relationship with the nearby Dwarf kingdom. A defense is organized, determined to hold and end the Beastmen invasion nearby the river La Seour.

The Dwarfs

Bretonnia

For this 1400 points battle I used a scenario from the rulebook, page 82: The Battle Of Grim-On-Sour. I wanted some objectives to fight for and I really liked the simple but effective special rule for the river scenery. The objective in this game was for the Beastmen to set on fire as many buildings as they could. This would give them many extra victory points. The defenders had to prevent any building in the main village to catch fire. I placed two towers and one farm outside the main village, and 6 buildings in the main village. It sure looked sour for the defenders of Grimeaux-en-Seour...

Round 1:
Filthy Chaos Hounds were released as a first wave. The dangerous beasts crossed the bridge closest to the village. The nearby Bretonnian Grail Knights and Knights of the Realms reacted immediatelly and charged the trespassers. Hooves and lances killed all of the foul animals, but two Knights were dead... (Equals one WM stand.)

Charging Knights roll a lot of dice!

On the other bridge over the river La Seour another combat started. A Beastman Charriot raced over the bridge. Battle-frenzied Trollslayers ran towards the incomming danger plotting to stop and destroy the Charriot before it set foot on their side of the river. They managed to inflict serious damage but were eventually overun. (One WM Charriot stand was destroyed. Represented by 3 hit points behind the miniature.)

Clash at the far Bridge

Round 2:
Some chaos in the Chaos ranks stalled the units commanded by a nearby Bray Shaman. (Failed command roll...) But orders from the Beastlord general managed to manoeuver the horde. A Bestigor brigade took the furthest bridge and Minotaurs claimed the bridge nearby.
These manoeuvers insitgated an immediate response by the Grail Knights which totally destroyed the Minotaurs, but this unfortunate clash ended in a suicide for those brave Bretonnians... The bridge was cleared at a high cost.

The White Dwarf, known from famous fights at Karak Varn, assisted by the mighty Dwarf General, charged the Bestigor brigade. With succes! After three rounds of battle the foul Beastmen brigade was destroyed. Second bridge secured!

Battle Queue

The Dwarfs are quite busy...

To the White Dwarf's left flank another Dwarf regiment was charged by Minotaurs who recently crossed the river. The Minotaurs scored 13 hits, of which 9 were unsaved... One Mino died in return.

Round 3:
The Chaos Thugs (which count as Herdkin) that crossed the river in the earlier round fired their Arrow to great effect onto the Dwarf Cannon crew. One Cannon and its crew took enough hits to be out of action.
In the valley in front of the Cannons the Dwarf regiments suspected a new charge of the Beastmen Charriot and they succesfully fell back to safety.
The White Dwarf's regiment gloriously advanced to the bridge but was flanked and wiped out by the Charriot charge. (I'm sure the White Dwarf secretly escaped unharmed to perform new heroic quests...)
The remaining Dwarf regiments charged and pushed back the Beastherd into the river.

One bridge secured

Round 4:
A brave Bray Shaman joined the Chaos Thug regiment and performed a suicide charge on the Dwarfs. The Shaman had not been quite usefull in casting magic spells, issuing command and now he also fails in battle...

Defend the village!

Stop that charriot!

The vicious struggle for control of the bridge nearby the village continues when another Beastmen Charriot charges and wipes out a regiment of Bretonnian Knights of the Realm. (One of three Charriot stands is lost in doing so.)
The Dwarfs are confused by al the skirmishes and fail their command phase.
High above the battlefield the Bretonnian general follows the flow of the battle. Seeing the confusion of the dwarf army and the deadly loss of the first bridge he makes a valliant decision: the Pegasus swoops down and joins battle with another regiment of Knights. They charge the Charriots, who are joined by their Centigor hero. The Bretonnian defenders rip through the Charriots and kill their Centigor leader.

"Give them not an inch! Chargez!"

Round 5:
The Beastlord was pretty sure of his victory when he initially decided to lay waste to this petty Bretonnian village. But now seeing all his beastly followers falling to the swords and hammers of both humans and Dwarfs, he's not so sure anymore.
But at the far side of the battle his eyes catch a glimpse of the invigorating color of flames. A farm is on fire! Two Minotaur are wrecking the farm and outhouses.

Burn that down!

The Beastlord orders Goristro, his Shaggoth stronghand to take the second bridge. The general himself charges to the other bridge together with a Beastherd brigade.
The final battle between both Bretonnian and Beastmen generals begins. The dice gods really favoured the human forces here... Bretonnian Knights score 7 hits, where the Beastmen score 0. The Beastmen are pushed back 2cm. Followed by another 2 hits by the Knights. The Beastlord is killed.

The evil general is dead. The village is safe!

Conclusion:
- when I set up this battle I really thought Beastmen would win. It seemed impossible to protect all houses. But rolling a six to light fires is quite rare. And reaching the village seemed more difficult than anticipated.
- The dice gods really favoured Dwarfs and humans in this game. But not in such a way that it damaged the fun of the story. The battle felt tense.
- I made an error in linking my miniature to the rights stats. Early game I used the stats for a Beastherd instead of Bestigors. A mayor mistake that favoured the Dwarfs. That's why in the final battle, when the Beastlord fought side by side with his Beastherd brigade, I used Bestigor stats! But not even that could help them...
- Not much rules questions arose from this battle, except for a question I apparently had in earlier games too: a unit supported by another units, loses this support when one rank is killed because you remove stands from the back of the unit. This is a little bit odd, but it's the official rule.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and report. Please try playing Warmaster with 28mm miniatures yourself. It's all official GW, it's the Old World and it's fast. Awesome!

4 Comments

Fri Sep 11, 2020 6:00 am

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HeroQuest - the start of my hobby

Posted by Toco

heroquest

07 Sep 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

All this talk about a HeroQuest revival made me dig up my collection again. Planning to finalize them, with paint, after 30 years...

Opening all my HeroQuest boxes an gazing upon the contents made me want to continue work on "Allied HeroQuest" also...

HeroQuest

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Mon Sep 7, 2020 4:30 pm

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Warmaster 28mm: Beastmen versus Dwarfs & Bretonnia

Posted by Toco

31 Aug 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

Time for my constructed (but not fully painted) Beastmen and Dwarf armies to hit the gaming table. My mancave is not large, but I managed to install three polystyrene insulation plates as a table on top of my small desk. A large brown curtain will act as muddy ground.

Battle report will follow soon...

2 Comments

Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:12 am

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Escaping Covid, searching Wyrdstone ...

Posted by Toco

26 Mar 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

For too long have I ignored the calling of Wyrdstone. Because we're all grounded here in Belgium because of the Covid outbreak, it's time to again plan travelling to Mordheim: City of the Damned!

My bits box has plenty of loose miniatures to form warbands. Skaven will be the first. After all, Mordheim is swarming with these vermin.

The Henchmen:

4 Verminkin with spears and shields.

These rats are minor conversions from GW's Plague Rats sprue.

5 Verminkin with swords and shields.

The oldest plastic GW miniatures. True vintage OldHammer stuff!

The Heroes:

2 Black Skaven with swords and bucklers.

I had a set of Warhammer: The Island of Blood Skaven Clanrats dormant in a dark corner of the bits box. These two guys with hoods are just perfect as dark silent assassins...

1 Assassin Adept with halberd and shield.

With a minor conversion to give him a halberd this rat is ready to lead the pack. He looks viscious and mean. He's the ideal backstabbing leader of this vile Skaven warband.

I intend to do a speed painting job on these with black, brown and red. That method worked fine on my Goliath gang for Necromunda. (See earlier blogposts...)

"To Mordheim!"

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Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:30 pm

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Bretonnian Men-at-arms from Fireforge Games

Posted by Toco

16 Mar 2020

Toco

(tocoking)

Belgium
Oost-Vlaanderen
Vlaanderen

www.tocoking.be/hotspot

A whole brigade of Bretonnian cavalry has been waiting in my closet for the infantry to arrive. And finally they're here. Two regiments of Men-at-arms from a Fireforge Games KickStarter.

I removed a coupled of milimeters from the resin guy's legs in order to make his the same height as the other mini's. It's sad these guys are 35mm and not the Warhammer FB heroic scale 28mm... But they look good and remind me of the Advanced Heroquest Henchmen. But, again, they are much larger than those vintage dudes...

The standard bearer holds a banner from Games-Workshop. He also received a headswap from the GW Men-at-arms (or Archers) sprue.
The MDF base comes from eBay. Suits my needs perfectly. For my Warmaster 28mm conversion I need regiment ranks of 4 wide, 3 deep. (More about that in previous blog posts.)
To reach 24 infantry spots I only had to use 1 filler. Some barrels fulfilled this purpose perfectly.

PS: Fireforge's Folk Rabble set is terrible. I had great difficulty fitting the arms and weapons. They are not the same modelling quality as the henchmen from above.