Update: A New Future For Chaos Magic

Needless to say that I'm long overdue for an update. The pandemic introduce new issues for me and made old problems that has plague the blog for a while worse.  One reason I will get into here is that I think this blog has lost its identity and for a long time I've struggle to figure out where to go to next. When I first got into war gaming being able to make my armies truly my own was extremely important. And not just what my vision of an army in that particular gaming world but an army that is independ of the game world I'm playing in.  The lore behind the armies I play are something wholly my own.  I started this blog because I wanted someplace where I could post the stories I created for my armies and have my friends read it.  The death of Warhammer Fantasy greatly hurt this blog.  At the time none of my local friends had any interest in moving to Age of Sigmar and I had no interest in playing the fan game 9th Age.  I got interested in other games but none of them really fit the needs of the blog.  To be a replacement for Warhammer Fantasy a game needed 3 things.  It had to be a game I was personally really excited to play.  It had to be a game that I could find other people willing to invest in and play the game.  And it had to be a game that lend itself well to game by game storytelling.  All the games I got into since the end of fantasy hit one or two of these points.  I couldn't find one that hit all 3 points.

So between all that and severe anxiety writing, I've been undecided on where to go next for a while.  I felt that whatever plans I come up with to replace the hole Warhammer Fantasy left, I wanted them to be something that combines games and storytelling.  And then in my indecisiveness I considered if that was worth being an issue at all.  It was such a struggle trying to figure out what I wanted to do.  This year I decided to put in the effort to make sure I was actually moving forward with personal goals, one of which is posting stories here.  There are a handful of projects that I've been thinking about or have already put in some work.  I think it is finally time to make those projects a reality on this blog.  This will be a very new look and direction for the blog as pen and paper role-playing games plays a big part in many of my new projects.  How that will affect the blog will be by me converting the game sessions into narrative chapters.  My goal is for the sessions to read like they are apart of a novel.  I will also write short stories that will be set in these new game universes.  This will be information player characters already know, something the players will learn about later or just something to flesh out the worlds.  Any additional content will be depended on the project as well as I'm still toying with things.  With that overview, here are the projects I will be starting.

My most ambitions project I'm currently calling Lancer X Battletech.  It is my own game world that borrows some ideas from the mech pen and paper role playing game Lancer and the 40 years old mech war game Battletech.  At its core the project is a Lancer game with the players being involved in a global militry conflict.  I will be keeping track of both sides combat strength during the campaign in a similar way to a detail tabletop war game campaign.  The players themselves will have a lot of control on the direction they go as a team.  As a result, any battle that lacks the players will be played out using the Battletech system.  These battles can greatly affect the story and the overall direction of the war.  The results of these games will be reported here either as a game battle report or told as an in universe narrative story.  Because the size of this project is so big, I don't plan on starting it any time soon.  My needs will require a large collection of Battletech minis.  I did invest in the last 2 Battletech kickstarters so I do own a lot of models with A LOT more coming soon.  Still that might not be enough so it will take some time buying and painting up my collection to reach what I have in mind.  Also for special mechs (which includes both enemy bosses and players "ultimate" design) I want to put together my own custom designs by using Gundam kits.  Lastly I want more experiences in running role playing games before trying something this massive.  I ran games before but not very often and what I did run didn't last very long.

So in the meantime I will be writing articles describing the elements of the setting.  There are things my eventual players will need to know before they make their characters.  I also would like to have lore that would be interesting if players wanted to know more the setting but is not mandatory.  And the purpose of posting it here is for it to be valuable to the players and still be entertaining for science fiction/fanstay fans. I'm also toying with the idea of running another roleplaying game or two in the setting, ones that are much smaller and shorter.  There are two possible systems I'm considering.  One of couse would be Lancer.  One of the reasons to run a smaller game is to get more experience game mastering so I might as well do it with the same system I'm planning the massive game with.  And using Lancer it wouldn't be hard to come up with a side adventure that would feel like a complete story on its own and setup for things to come in the bigger campaign.  My other idea for running a game in the setting is for a very VERY different game.  The other game I'm considering running is called "You're In Space And Everything's Fucked."  You can probably imagine the type of game that is and I can easy come up with an adventure using it that will tie into my bigger campaign and hint at some very sinsiter stuff that won't otherwise reveal itself for a while.  And yes, that was the exact title of the game.

And that summarizes my plans on this project.  The next few months I will be posting articles describing the setting and maybe a few pictures of how my Battletech forces is coming.  But I will not be showing off any of my Gundam conversions, those deserve to be reveal for the first time in the story.  And I might run a surprise game or two.

My second project is a modern fantasy role playing setting I call Dreams and Nightmares.  I've had several ideas to run modern fantasy games using the new "World of Darkness" system or as it now known as Chronicles of Darkness.  The version that became Dreams and Nightmares came about suddenly when I volunteered to run a game for my friends.  I created my setting starting with Mage the Awakening Second Edition and trying to make it something more superhero like.  After getting a general idea of the type of characters my friends wanted to play, I expanded on the setting, making it more of my own thing.  Overall it is still very similar to the Mage default setting but that isn't going to last.  Unfortunately that friend group is not good at meeting regularly.  So much that my friends still have not finished making their characters.  Yet there is still interest in playing and I've keep expanding on the setting.  The point when I decided I wanted Dreams and Nightmares to be a blog project was when I realize why I felt uneasy about running a Beyond the Supernatural RPG.  I was looking for a game to run and I've enjoy Palladium games in the past.  Yet there was something about Beyond the Supernatural that made me not want to run it.  I finally realize it was because I had already put so much energy into developing one modern fantasy game and I was reluctanted to do it again when Dreams and Nightmares was still sitting on the shelve.  The two games are too different to try to run them both in the same setting... or are they?  I came to an epiphany remembering (possibly missremembering) in my reading of the Mage setting, psychic stuff was mention to exist but I didn't see any game rules for it.  And Beyond the Supernatural is game from the players point of view nearly all psychic.  Even if I am wrong about Mage and it does have its own rules for psychics, I've decide Beyond the Supernatural rules is how psychic works in Dreams and Nightmares.  In addition, adding a second rule set to a setting opens the door for third and more.  Plus Mage the Awakening itself is one of about 10 game lines that was design to somewhat work together.  Now in my mind I have ideas of multiple campaigns all using different gaming systems to reach an "Avengers: Endgame" like conclusion using yet another game system, or even every player using a different systems.  I know this probably sounds needlessly complicated but I do gravitate towards complex games and I've spend some time thinking how I could run two different game systems at the same time and why.

What would this all look like?  First I will continue trying to get the Mage game off the ground and in a few months try to get a Beyond the Supernatural game running as well.  Like Lancer I planning on writing lore articles that describe the setting as well as a series of short stories set in the world.  I will enjoy trying to figure out how to write short stories with characters whom identities are both secret with enough information to know who they are when they are reveal in the campaigns.

I've been interested in certain types of history for all my life.  In fact when I was in college I took so many history classes on the side that I was closer to a history degree than my declared degree.  And I've been thinking about doing something with history for a while so while I was coming up with ideas for revamping the blog, I figured might as well try now.  I don't know how well this is going to work on (or even what exactly this is going to look like) but I think it is time for me to see what I can do on this front.

The plan is for me to pick something about history and then spend three or four months researching it.  After that try to come up with something interesting that I learned using miniatures.  Still not sure how miniatures will play a role in this as I'm not really into painting models historically accurate.  I'll just see what ideas I come up with when I doing the research.  A possible example what this will look like is an article about a particular time in history and then I will talk about a historical game that tries to recreate that experience and go over what the game gets rights and what it glosses over.

I have one more project I want to mention here and I called it Halloween.  It is simply a serial series that will only have chapters release in October.  It will have artwork that consist of miniatures on a watercolor background.  Watercolor painting is something I've recently pick up for the sole purpose of doing something like this with it.  I don't consider myself good at it so there will probably be fewer pictures at the beginning while I'm practicing to get better.  And that is basically it.  Halloween is very different from everything else I do here given it does not have a gaming component and it is purely fiction.  It is a fantasy setting that I took some inspiration from Norse Mythology and it can be expanded upon in many different ways.  But I think I want to wait until the series starts before discussing side projects for it.

That leaves 2 final points to end on.  One, these are not the only things I'm working on.  Besides everything else I've mention I want to do, this year I also want to write a novel and write a comic book series, the latter I will briefly discuss in another article here, and I want to be more active in two other blogs.  One is my Food Blog where I recount my adventures at restuarants and other related food stories.  The other is my photography blog, Mirrorless Magic.  Something else I've done since my last update is pick up photography and Mirrorless Magic is where my photography stories (not related to gaming) will go.  It will also have my Watercolor art that I mention in the Halloween section.  If a piece is more art than game, then it will be at Mirrorless Magic.  The last thing I want to mention in this update is that the one thing I've learn about me and this hobby is that things can change and can change fast.  Something new can easily change how I feel about any and or all my projects.  While I was crafting this final version of this update, Gamesworkshop release Warhammer: The Old World and I still don't know how that is going to affect me or the blog, if it does anything at all.  All I can say is that I wrote this update to be my vision for what I want this blog to be for the rest of this year and if something does change, I hope it doesn't take me another 3 years to mention it.  Let the stories begin!

Pirates of the Out of Print Game

I'm a little disappointed in myself for the lack of updates but I suppose this crazy world has contribute to that more than I am willing to admit to myself. I found myself going back to work a lot sooner than I anticipated. Even though it is a short walk home for me, the summer heat is such that I find myself completely exhausted once I do get home. There has been other personal events that has also contribute, but at least those events have the benefit to potentially being interesting story for a blog, maybe. Another blocker to my ability to update was my desire to only make post that showed some progress oppose to just being about my thoughts, ideas or plans. After reexamining that desire this week, I've come to the conclusion that I'm better off at least writing about something oppose to not writing at all. I have a lot of stories I want to tell so anything that helps me practice writing in general is a benefit to me at this point. My desire to only write post when I had made some kind of progress came from the frustration I felt at having post after post that just deals with concepts. I lost sight of the value of putting my thoughts and ideas on paper... um on virtual paper. I had forgotten that writing on concepts not only help keep the ideas fresh in my mind but the process itself of writing blog posts has inspired new ideas before. With that in mind I want to write about a new game I've invested in.

Pirates Constructible Strategy Game is a game that was publish from 2004 to 2008. It is a strategy game that straddles the line between being a collectible card game (CCG) like Magic: the Gathering and miniature wargames like what I usually cover here. It came in random packs that you punch out cardboard pieces to make the ships(I say cardboard but I suppose its more like plastic as it feels similar to credit cards). I never played or collect it back in the day but I did have friends that were big fans of it. I don't think I got into it because I was getting tired of CCGs in general as well as I don't like the random aspect in a miniature wargame. The random aspect was also why I didn't get into the first version of Monsterpocalypse. I also wasn't as excited about cardboard models as I was with metal/plastic ones. Which is a little strange as at the time I dislike painting and would have preferred to have prepainted models. That preference has completely swap since then.

So why am I bringing up a out of print collectible game? Two Fridays ago a friend was showing me his Pirates collection and that got me thinking about and looking into the game. I couldn't stop thinking about it over that weekend so I ordered some packs on the Sunday. I figure the price was just too good for something I had so many uses for. I've already had ships on the mind off and on for a while now. In the last year or two I started assembling the ships in the Dreadfleet boardgame. I stop when I screwed up gluing together one of the 2 main ships in the game. It had 3 pieces that needed to be glued together and it was really awkward trying to hold all 3 pieces together. So I glued two pieces together first but that meant that the third piece no longer fit. All 3 had to be glued together at same time. Even called Games Workshop for help but was told since the game was out of print, there was nothing they could do to help. Since that was one of the main ships, that killed my interest in finishing Dreadfleet. I still planned to go back to it. I had put 4 ships together and there were another 5 waiting to be assembled. On top of that I've been looking at Warlord Games miniature ship line. I think their line is in a similar scale as Dreadfleet so I could buy a box and either put the ships together as is or convert a few to be in the same high magic fantasy style as the Dreadfleet ships. I've also gotten a tip on how to fix my glue mistake that I haven't gotten around to trying (it work on a Chaos Giant model that I also misglued). In other words, I've been on the verge of having a miniature fleet collection for a while now.

A Pirates pack on Amazon averages about $10 each, guaranteeing 2 ships each. Some expansions were price much higher than that while other were cheaper. Not a bad price for miniatures I have a lot uses for. Since I've never played Pirates before, it would normally be a little risky investing into an out of print game that I might not like when I actually played it. But I can use the Pirates ships to expand the play ability of Dreadfleet. Of course I've never played Dreadfleet either. In the event that I don't like Dreadfleet either or the ships are too small for it, I can still use the ships the next time I run a miniature fantasy campaign game where I can put a major seafaring aspect to it. Also with me exploring running more pen and paper role-playing games with Pathfinder and others, I could use the ships in a pirate heavy theme campaign. Lastly failing all that, I plan on doing comic book style stories using miniatures here and that requires a large collection of as many different models as possible. I hope I end up enjoying the game but if I don't it will still be worth it to invest in it.

To make it more interesting for us, my friend and I decided to invest in different expansions. He stayed with the sets he already had packs for which was Spanish Main, Crimson Coast and Revolution. I went with South China Seas and Barbary Coast, which was probably a mistake given that South China Seas is one of the rare and most expensive sets for the game. For my first purchase I got 1 pack of South China Seas and 15 packs of Barbary Coast. The one China Seas pack was half of the cost of the 15 Barbary Coast! Here is a picture of some of the packs and one pic of my English ships.

After actually having a few ships assembled in person, I really love the looks of the ships. I will be playing my first game of Pirates and really of any war game in person today for the first since the pandemic started. Of course with masks and social distancing. I will be discussing more about Pirates in future posts. Whether it be as a collector or as a fan of the game will depend on my first few games. Until next time, stay safe.

The World We Live In

I finish moving at the beginning of the month. Since then I've been relaxing and getting used to the world we now find ourselves in. Needless to say the plans I had for after I had move are now completely out the window. It is kind of hard to get the motivation to work on hobby stuff when I don't know when I will get to play. In any case my art room/office still needs work to be used as intended. I need to rearrange the layout and buy new furniture so it can be a place I can always just sit down and work. So it will be a little while before I can get back to the miniature hobby. That and having to sort all my projects that got mix together in the moved. If I had to guess before I moved how many models I had, I would have been very very wrong. There is nothing like being tired of your moving and wondering if you can just toss that box in the corner that you haven't open in years in the trash. Only to open it up and realize no you can't because it has over $200 worth of miniatures in it, some of which is nicely painted.

I normally have a beginning of the year update that explains what my plans for the year are. I really struggled with it this year because I found myself listing out the games I plan to work on without being able to show any kind of progress on them. And that got to me. So I've decide to do each game with it own article after I've done some kind of modelling progress with it. This might prevent me from talking about some projects but I will feel better if I have something to show off while talking about a game. I also had 3 other projects I wanted to talk about in that failed beginning of the year update. One was that I still wanted to do my 80s project and to put a deadline on me by announcing I will having something for it done by September. That's not happening now. I have a collection of miniatures I either got for it or I pick up for other reasons that fell apart and repurposed them for the 80s project. And while I can paint these miniature up, they are just a small amount to the number I models I need and we are in a time where my abilities to get models (and paint) are limited for the foreseen future. Until we get to some kind of normality I can't have a timetable on when I can release my 80's project. I also realize I shouldn't show off my progress on the models in the 80's project for storytelling purposes. If a new villain suddenly appears in the story, the shock of it is lost on the audience if you see me painting the guy up for a year before his appearance! So in the end I do still plan on doing the 80's project but I can't talk about it until I'm ready to start releasing it. The other two projects I wanted to talk about in January are also not happening! The projects were two very different podcasts. One was a podcast on Battletech and Gundam in a similar style to my War Journal podcast with a different friend. Being able to discuss and compare these two giant mech settings with a fellow fan would have been fun and eye-opening. The other podcast was me interviewing local artists. It would have force me to study art in a way I have never experience before and learn to come up with engaging questions to people I don't know. I miss doing podcasts and I now have easy access to equipment to make them again. However the pandemic shut those podcast projects down. I don't see recording podcasts as an option for at least a year and doing it online is not an option I want to take. I think the sound quality would be terrible and trying to setup an interview online with people I don't know is a headache I do not want.

I've talked a lot about what is NOT going to happen here, I should probably get into what I will be doing. Due to social distancing, these last few weeks I've turn to looking at pen and paper games. Most of my physical games have move online to the Roll20 web site. While working on transferring my paper character sheets into digital ones for Roll20, I was filled with ideas for games that I could run. I've been thinking about running a game for a while and converting characters to Roll20 feed into that. Eventually I got an idea for a massive game universe with Pathfinder that I love so much I had to do it. Unfortunately I'm limited on what I can say about it because there will be a twist that I want to be a surprise for the players. I envision 4 ways for the game to interact with this blog; 2 ways immediately and 2 way later down the road. The setting resembles Arthurian Myth with Olympian gods. In universe there are many stories about the gods the populace tells themselves and these stories changes depending on the region. Instead of just summarizing these stories, I will write them out into full stories and post them here. The first few stories will be ones that the player characters would have heard growing up. As the party adventures through the world, they will come across both new stories and vastly different versions of stories they already knew. At higher levels and with the party interacting more with the gods themselves, the players will start to learn about the actual source of those stories, what the real version of those stories were. Some of these stories will be important to the campaign. Others are just there to enrich the world. I will post all those stories here so the players will have a place to read them as well anyone else who is interested in reading about a mythology I just made up.

The second way Pathfinder will make an appearance here will be a narrative version of each game session. I won't post anything from the game sessions itself because I don't think it is fair for the people involve and there are some thing that should just stay private. What I will do is take a summary of what happen during the session (in-character stuff only) and make a narrative version of it. If I do it right, they should sound like classic Dungeon & Dragons novels like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. Once I have a few posted I will make a page dedicated to Pathfinder so all the myth stories and game session stories will be all in one place. Once the real world goes back to normal and I can meet with friends in person, I will have a need to buy and paint a new range of miniatures. I've been interested in painting miniatures for role playing games for a while and running Pathfinder in a physical place will give me a reason to do just that. If the game last that long, I will post pictures of any models I make for the game. Some of those pictures might have to wait until the party face them in the game first. Lastly, one of my players is also a war gamer. If everything goes will with my campaign, the two of us could come up with a way to use Warhammer or another war game to play in my setting. Might even get to a point where his character leads an army and the result of the battle affects the Pathfinder campaign. But those are ideas for a much later date.

So, I'm back and Chaos Magic future will have a lot of tabletop role playing games in it. Beside the Pathfinder game I'm going to run, I still plan on writing those Flashback Storytime entries. My miniature hobby will make a return at some point. It is just that the menu is going to be role playing heavy for a while. Until next time, stay safe.

Fifty Shades of ... Red?

I haven't updated in a while and I hope I will get around to discussing why. Part of it was due to putting my hobby on hold due to medical issues and preparing to move to a new apartment. I won't be doing anything hobby related until after I fully move which is looking to be around the end of March or beginning of April. To keep from having the drought here last until then, I wanted to write an article about a new project idea I came up with before I had to give my hobby a break.

The idea is pretty simple. I want to try to paint a single large miniature in one color and have it still look good. Obviously to make it still be visually appealing I will need to use many different shades of that one color. That color being red. I haven't decide what model to use yet other than something larger than the standard 28mm, which is the scale for most of the games I play for normal sized troops. I immediately thought it would be some kind of demon as that made the most sense in my head for what this is going to look like. There are also a lot of choices when it comes to picking big demonic models in the industry. After putting a little thought into it, I wouldn't mind some kind of angelic model either, though that is far less common. The last time I was in a gaming store, I notice another very enticing option. There is a line of Dungeons and Dragons miniatures that come pre-primed and really for paint. I'm considering one of their dragons. It fits perfectly with what I'm trying to do with this project, both in size and price. Ironically, the model is suppose to be a White Dragon.

I do have some unpainted models that might work, though I had something a little larger in mind. I have Games Workshop's Demon Prince and Cockatrice models that I could use for this project, though I will need to convert the Cockatrice as it is missing a hand (it came that way). I've assembled them but I never got around to painting or priming them. They are a good option if I want to try this on the cheap side since I already own them. It is just that the more I think about it, the more I want to use something bigger. Here are what those models look like:

In any case, I will not be picking the model until right before I start this project in April. I plan on it being a long term project. And while I am historically been a slow painter, that is not the reason why I think this will take me a long time to finish. It is the paints themselves that is the roadblock. I'm surprised at how many different paints I actually have as I had gathered everything I own together to box them up for the move. If everything I had were red, then I would have the paints I need for this project. Unfortunately, this is all I own to work on this project with...

Just 5 bottles which include a bottle of white ink and white paint to make lighter reds. Also I have two bottles of the exact same shade of red(I brought the second bottle thinking it was a different shade as it look different). I'm going to need a lot more paint that I have to buy. Buying a bottle or two isn't too bad for me. Buying 15 to 20 is a different story. If I was a much better painter I could make do by mixing my reds with my other colors. But I'm not. I don't trust myself to be able to mix red with something else and have the result still be red, outside of white and black. I also don't trust myself to be able to remake the exact same color. By that I mean if I mix a color and run out before I finish what I was painting, I don't know if I could reproduce that color to finish. So I will be buying a new bottle of red paint every month for a while. I doubt I will actually use 50 different shades of red, but at the very least I will be going for at least 20. That's a brief look at my new project. I will have more to discuss about it and many other projects in April. Until then, take care.

My Misadventures at Painting Continues... Plus a Tournament!

On Friday I decided to do some painting on my Statue of Liberty in hopes of having at least one model that looks almost finished for the tournament on Saturday (yesterday). I wasn't going for an accurate look got for the Statue, especially since I'm planning on painting the main body copper, in theory the color the Statue of Liberty was when France delivered it to the U.S. For the stone pedestal I was going for colors that would look good and that I own. One of those colors, Game Color's Bonewhite came in a bottle that was a decade old. I use Bonewhite when I want something to look whitish. I tend to use it fairly often but in low amounts. And that is what lead to my misadventure Friday.

I got the table ready for painting and tried to squeeze Bonewhite paint onto my palette. Nothing came out. I can hear liquid inside when I shake the bottle so I know it still has paint. A quick look at the nozzle tells me its clogged. I grab a toothpick and stabbed it in the nozzle. With the nozzle cleared, I tried squeezing paint onto my palette again. A very small dab came out which I decided wasn't enough for my needs. I start squeezing and again nothing came out. I had confirmation bias with the small amount of paint on my palette and thought the remaining paint must have congeal so I continued to squeeze. Had I realize having the paint congeal and in a liquid state that I could hear were mutually exclusive, I would have saved myself a lot of headache. Instead I continued to squeeze until the bottle exploded! I got paint all over the table and my clothes and me. My shirt was already ruined as I only wear it around the home so no lost there. My shorts on the other hand were fine shorts are now probably ruined. I had covered the table in newspaper so it escaped being coated in paint. Fortunately I didn't get any paint in my eyes (thought I did get it on an eyelid) and I didn't get any paint in the carpet. My palette did get the additional paint that I wanted, you could say it got a little too much!

I dip my finger into it Saturday morning thinking it had dried. It hadn't. I suppose that much paint takes longer to dry. I found the nozzle on the floor (amazingly without getting any paint on the floor) and what I should have figure out before became crystal clear what happen. The nozzle was clogged at both ends. The dab of paint must have been in the nozzle itself. The toothpick was too thick to properly clear the nozzle. You could say something like this ruined my desire to paint. However I knew all of my Bonewhite was now on that palette and I didn't have the option to use it another time. I painted what I had planned on using the Bonewhite for, though as an added insult I notice something about my Statue of Liberty. Both of my Monsterpocalypse buildings got a little paint on them. Neither building will take much to fix but I notice the Statue of Liberty had 3 places the place could of landed on. The one place it DIDN'T touch was the part I was going to paint!

All of this led to my second Monsterpocalypse tournament on Saturday. I'm no where near having my own playable force so I was planning on just using Tracy stuff though I did use some of my own models this time. The first tournament I was confident that could do well if not win. I lost every game to took last place. For this tournament got less practice in, I was playing Destroyers which I'm less familiar with and I throw together a force based on what I own and which few units I knew. Based on all that I figure I would get last again. It didn't surprise me that my force did not work well together. What did surprised me was that I went 2 wins, 1 lost in the tournament and got second place. Both tournaments had the same 4 players and both times everyone played everyone. After the tournament I realize with the exception of Tracy whom won every game he played, every match result in this tournament was the reserval of the first tournament's. Second place got the building prize because Tracy already had one so he let whom ever took second have it, which again was me. Overall this was a very weird weekend with a lot of highs and lows for me. I've lost half a bottle of paint and shorts but I've learn a little more about painting and the game Monsterpocalypse. I also got a little more painting done and walk away from the a tournament with a new building. I guess I should say this weekend was worth it!

Introduction to Flashback Storytime

I initially created the Chaos Magic blog so I would have a place to host the stories I wanted to write that were about my Warhammer Fantasy Armies. I didn't have any ideas at the time what that would look like nor how I could expand with other content while keeping with the initial core concept. Over the years that core concept needed to be expanded and/or change over and over again. I'm always struggling with what I wanted the identity of this blog to be. One idea I keep coming back to and then rejected it is to write a series of stories about various events of my life. I can categorize these events into two groups: one is about funny or somehow interesting stories about food with other being about funny or somehow interesting stories about my gaming life outside of wargames. I still can't bring myself to post the food related stories here, which is why I made a food related blog. I just haven't done anything with that blog yet and this blog needs a lot more consist content, which is why I keep thinking about it. For that matter, I've made a separate blog for the game related stuff (and Shadowrun Crossfire content) as well which I also haven't done anything with. In my mind, tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) felt fundamentally different from wargames and deserve their own blog. However, since the blog has evolved far beyond Warhammer Fantasy, it makes less sense to differentiate RPGs from wargames. I suppose there is a case that it made no sense to not include RPGs when the blog added Flames of War and Team Yankee material. In any event, I've change my mind on the matter and want to introduction a new series I will be starting on the blog called Flashback Storytime.

I have sat around the table with friends playing role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun and others for probably thousands of hours over the past 19 years. I probably have hundreds of hours playing fighting games in the arcade and I definite got more than a thousand hours playing fighting games on console systems. There is a way to look up how many game hours you have played in League of Legends but I'm afraid of how high that number would be. An average normal game last between 20 and 55 minutes though some games could last longer. My main account has over 2500 games on it and that doesn't include the many other game modes I've played nor my other accounts. All this says that I have a rich environment to pull from to retell interesting stories. Some of my stories happen many years ago and while I will try to be as accurate as I can remember, I might get details wrong. If there are parts of the stories I can't remember at all, I will be making stuff up to make sure the overall story works and is constant. I won't make up anything I know is false. I will just be trying to fill in holes in my memories of something that makes sense. For example I might write a story in which the real life event was at a different location but everything else was accurate. That is what I will be going for.

I am unsure how often I will publishing these stories, which I will call Flashback Storytime. At the very least I want to publish one this month and one next month. However with next month being National Write a Novel Month, I doubt I will get much done on the blog in November. With my former core concept of stories for my wargame armies not being relevant anytime soon, several Flashback Storytime stories will probably be coming soon. I just wanted to give an overview of what I wanted them to be before a started posting. I hope people will enjoy them. Until next time!

Learning From Building Mistakes

I finally got a little painting done for the first time in a while on a building for Monsterpocalypse. Its not much with far more that needs to be done on it. Yet I notice I already made a mistake on it. It is not an "oops, I screwed up" mistake but a "I just realize I'm making life harder on myself" process mistake. Here are some pictures of it.

The reason I primed the building black was because my white primer was low and while I had the opportunity to prime, I wanted to prime a group of models all at once. That group being 2 buildings and several Ubercorp units. Also thought black would be better for the Ubercorp units as I had an idea of how I was going to paint them. I had no plans for the buildings. Eventually I decided to paint this building brown with maybe a logo on top. And this is when I started painting. The problem is that I don't want the windows black. And I've learn from past mistakes that any washes on black does nothing! That means I have to paint each window by hand. If I had plan this out better, I would have primed the building white or at least a light color, if not whatever color I wanted for the windows. Had I done this, then after I painted the walls brown I would just needed to apply a wash to the entire building and I would be done. Instead, after I finished with the brown, I will have to paint in the windows which will take even longer than it will take me to paint the walls. After that I will still need to apply a wash before I would be done. Because of that, I will put it aside to work on other models. I'm not starting over with this building and I will go back and finish it. It just that I think I could make a lot more progress faster working on the other models. I still have a few days before the end of the month so I will hold off on further hobby updates. Until next time!

August Hobby Progress

August was the first time this year I've made significant progress on the hobby. It wasn't as much as I had hope but with working extra hours and starting back to college, I take it as a start. Also one of my flaws is that if I make major hobby mistakes, that tends to derail the project I was working on and August was no exception to that. I will go over where I fell short last month and what I did manage to accomplish.

Battletech - For Battletech there was an evening I was going to put together the Septicemia. However I forgot when dealing with metal there is so much work to do before I can start gluing the figure together. I started some of the cleaning but I didn't have time that evening to do all of it, plus I need to wash it before I can add glue, a step that I don't need to do when working with plastic or resin. With the package open, its at the top of my list to finish this month.

Monsterpocalypse - There were three things I was working on before a mistake detail everything. I opened the Carnidon/Spikodon pack and saw they needed a lot of work to remove model lines. I got Zor-Maxim and Sun Industries Buildings primed. I was about to start painting them when I notice a flaw on the Sun Building. It was like the primer didn't stick to a long thin stripe of it. I figure I will just prime it again and it should fit it. I was wrong.

It is hard to see in this picture (I need to buy more lights but I don't have anywhere to mount them yet) but the primer bumbled up in several places. I don't know if this was because I rushed the second round of priming, I spray it too much, I did it when it was too hot or it was too humid at the time. More like a combination of all the above. I stop all work on Monsterpocalypse and been thinking about how to fix it. I've made many mistakes painting in the past with the need to remove it to try again. However I never actually removed paint, much less primer from a model before. Fortunately I'm in an Art Class this semester and have teacher to ask for help. The result of this will be in next months Hobby Progress as I will discuss it with my teacher tomorrow.

Flames of War - I got started working on 6 tanks from the Panther/Jagdpanther Platoon box. The panthers needs a little work before I can play with them in practice games, but all 6 needs a lot more work before they are done.

And no, I did not mod the tanks to swap between Panthers and Jadgpanthers. I build my tanks with the idea that in theory I could use all of them in a game. In retrospect, glancing at the new system, it seems it would be unlikely that I would use both Panthers and Jadgpanthers in the same game. A little late now but I plan on practicing some conversation ideas with the Jagdpanthers. I will model one to look like it is dug in. Another I will try to used bits and whatever I can find to make it look like a normal Jagdpanther. I will probably wait on the 3rd until I see which of the previous two conversations I like the most. Or just have it around in case I come up with a different idea. I've been taking my time with the tanks to make sure I get them right. I will be adding a lot of the optional bits on them, like spare wheels and tank tracks. That's all I have to say about the tanks and really all the progress I made in August. See ya next time!

Battletech Update

I notice I've talked about several Battletech plans but I have yet to follow through with them. There were plans to do a battle report for a game and while we did play that particular game, I didn't take enough notes to be able to write a report about it. We made plans to do a campaign about an invasion of the planet David, but between miscommunication and me taking too long to write up a list, those plans fell apart. We still have those notes so it is possible for us to try to do the campaign again sometime in the future. Most recently we had plan to do a Word of Blake scenario this summer. That obviously didn't happen and I can say it wasn't my fault this time. The plan was for me to get as many of the actual mechs in the scenario as possible. I order 4 at my LGS (local gaming store) to start the project. However only 1 ever came in. I've come to learn (or remembered) that my LGS has trouble getting Battletech merchandise in. We still want to do that scenario so I will have to get the mechs elsewhere.

My Battletech collection is about to get a massive surged. Not only did I recently pick up the two new box sets, I've also invested into Catalysis Games Clan Invasion kickstarter. I'm looking at getting 40 to 50 mechs from it depending on how we split our pledge level and paying for additional add ons. With such an influx of models I will be building multiple faction forces. Some will have a history appropriate to the lore of Battletech. Others will be more of my own touch. In general, it will probably be a mix of mechs that faction is known for plus mechs I personally really like the looks of. Some of the factions I'm making armies of are: Word of Blake (obviously), Comstar, "Rome" and the Society. I will be using my own color scheme for each of them though I will try to incorporate something from the official scheme in my version. The plan is to focus my Battletech energies into these 4 forces but I'm getting a lot of stuff from the Clan Invasion and I don't think all of it would fit for the Society. I'll find out more about that in the months coming up. In the meantime, I don't think I will do anything story or games related on the blog for the rest of the year for Battletech. I will be doing updates showing off progress I make with my minis and I'm sure these 4 Battletech forces will be making an appearance.

Word of Blake - Word of Blake are the villains in my Battletech world. When I first heard about them I wanted to have a force dedicated to them. They never meant to be one of the first teams I wanted to work on but that changed when we pick a Word of Blake scenario to play. My friend wanted to play the good guys for once and since I already wanted to painted up Word of Blake minis, this sounded like the perfect scenario to play. As I've have grown tired of playing with proxies all the time, getting the actual minis the scenario calls for is important to me. Since I've only got one miniature for Word of Blake, it will be a while before we can play. I also don't plan on getting much more for Word of Blake outside of what the scenario calls for. I'm more interested in the other 3 factions. I've notice 3 of the mechs I need for the Word of Blake scenario will be available in the kickstarter so that will bring us closer to the scenario when the kickstarter products ship.

ComStar - Besides maybe a Chaos flavor mercenary group, ComStar was the first faction that I really wanted my own version of. The more I learn about the history of the Battletech lore, the more I became fascinated with the Star League and ComStar. Yes, I know Star League and ComStar are two different but related organizations in the lore, but for me I see no reason to separate them for my army. I'm not sure how often I will be able to play as the Star League so it might not be a big deal. Of all my factions, this is the one I don't own any mechs for yet. Any progress for ComStar will have to wait until my Kickstarter stuff comes in. The kickstarter has 2 different ComStar packs and you can be sure I will be getting at least one of each, if not more!

"Rome" - My Rome army is currently my only Battletech force that wasn't inspired by something in Battletech. Instead I was inspired by a character in the media empire "Fate" series by Type-Moon. Fate has many novels and games based on it and probably my favorite character in the Fate series is Emperor Nero. Despite Fate's Nero being a historical figure, you probably have no idea what this character is like unless you are familiar with the way Type-Moon approach to history. She (yes, she) has a personality that combines being supremely arrogant with fun to be around. She isn't the only arrogant character in Fate but she manifest it in a very different way. Characters such as Gilgamesh and Ozymandias feel other beings should be humbled and honored to be in their presence. Nero on the other hand feel that because she is so great, it is her duty to show you a great time by showing off the arts and wonder of her Rome. How this comes back to Battletech is when I learn Battletech has a Rome styled nation in its lore with the Marian Hegemony. I will start my Rome army by picking mechs in the 2 new box sets that are commonly used by Marian Hegemony. I don't know how many that will give me. I have the feeling that most of the mechs in new Box sets were widely used by most nations in the Inner Sphere.

The funny thing I just realize is that I could make my Emperor Nero character be in proper Battletech canon. I supported the kickstarter at the level to get a canon character made into the setting. That's not going to happen. I did the kickstarter with a friend and the canon character was the first thing I gave up to my friend. I didn't want it at the time and my friends knows the setting well enough he could make someone that would fit perfectly. Oh well, it just means I don't have to do a crash course in Battletech lore in the next 2 months so I can get Fate Emperor Nero Battletech history right. It's a "what if" worth thinking about.

The Society - The idea about doing a Society army is based on a random conversation and a single mech, Septicemia. My friend was telling me about his struggles in just finding information about a Battletech source book he wanted. His problem was that the book, Wars of Reaving had a particular mech. When tried to do online searches for the book, he kept getting information about that mech. That mech is the Septicemia. I had a fearful reaction when he told me the name of the mech. The name reminded me of one of the 3 types of plagues that I learn in a college class over a decade ago. I don't even remember what class that was but I told my friend that name probably meant something like blood disease because I remembered the plague had something to do with an infection of the blood. The disease I was thinking of was the Septicemic plague and I was right in that it's an infection of the blood. Eventually my friend was able to get the source book and inform me that the Septicemia was design to be like a blood disease to the Clans Warrior Culture. I might be a little fuzzy on the details but I believe this was because the Clan Warrior Caste thought there was only one way war should be perform and the Septicemia was meant to counter that way of thinking. It is an amazing story how I've learn this bit of Battletech lore and is the reason I decide to make a small Society force, along with me really liking the look of the Septicemia. It was a few months ago but I saw a pack for the Septicemia at my LGS. With the history I told you about, I instantly brought it. It will probably be the only mech I have for the Society for a while, but at least its a good one.

Intro to Monsterpocalypse and Back to Flames of War

Sometimes when you are working on a project and can't seem to make any progress on it, its probably good idea to put it aside and work on something else for a while. This article is the something else to the project I wanted to finish before anything else on my blog. That project was suppose to be a followup youtube hobby progression video to the ones I did a few years ago, starting by summarize my current hobby. For some reason I could never finish the audio of what I wanted to say. The sad thing is the information I wanted to say is already outdated. If you follow my blog for any amount of time, you already know my hobby plans changes remarkable fast. 3 things happened two weeks ago that changed my hobby plans. This article will talk about two of them, starting with the game that was the catalysis for everything else, Monsterpocaylpse.

Tracy's Monster Collection

Monsterpocalypse is a miniature game about Kaiju (giant monsters) meeting up with giant robots and other giant creatures from media using a city as a ring as they destroy buildings trying to hurt each other, with a few planes and tanks thrown in to annoy them like gnats. Version 2 was just release last fall. I never got into nor played version 1 of Monsterpocalypse. This was mainly due to it being a collectible game. Like Collectible Card Games (CCGs) like Magic the Gathering, Monsterpocalypse version 1 was sold in random packs. You never knew what you were going to get. While I could accept that practice from CCGs, thought of doing that with more expensive miniatures was a non starter for me. Version 1 also came pre-assembled pre-painted, which for the younger me at the time would have been fine. Today pre-painted miniatures would be a reason for me to NOT get involved. In any case Monsterpocalypse version 2 is more like standard miniature games in that you know what you are purchasing and the models needs to be painted. Two weeks ago Tracy suddenly called me up to show me a demo of it. We haven't talk since the beginning of Summer so I was surprised to hear from him. It was a fairly easy game to learn and Tracy have at least one of everything that is currently available. I quickly found mechanics that I loved and wanted to make force around. Fortunately, the force construction rules are really simple.

The first thing you pick when building a force is decide what agenda to used. Currently the agendas are Protectors (the good guys) and the Destroyers (the bad guys). Each agenda is made up of several factions. When making a force, everything you pick needs to be from the same agenda though some models may have rules that is only beneficial to their own faction. Standard games have 2 monsters, up to 20 units and 6 to 12 buildings per player. Monsters are the core of your force and are unique. That means you have to pick 2 different monsters from the same agenda in a standard game and you win the game by defeating both of your opponents monsters. Units are the smaller models of your force like planes and tanks. Units are used to control the battlefield and setup advantages for your monsters. Units don't start on the map, they need to be spawned in. When units are destroyed, you can just spawned the model back in the next time you can spawn units. In this way, you have unlimited units to spawn, your choice of 20 units is picking what options you have available to spawn. This opens the door for deep strategies as the game ages. I could see players having one unit in their list that they don't use in a lot of their games yet it is there in case the right scenario comes up. Buildings play an unique role in your list and the game itself. Both players build the game map by placing their buildings one at a time, taking turns. Game maps have spots mark for where buildings need to go. This makes building the map a mini-game of itself as you want to set it up to give yourself as much of an advantage as possible while your opponent does the same. There are two types of buildings: apartments which have a defense 5, no limit to how many you can bring and no special rules; and special buildings which have a defense of 6 or 7, a limit of 4 per type and a wide range of special rules. Some building special abilities require you to have 3 units around it first before you can use it. Here is some of Tracy's buildings...

I decided to build a protectors force around Zor-Maxim and teleport rules. I first pick Zor-Maxim because I thought he could teleport around the battlefield only to realize that his ability only works on units, not himself. I stuck with him because I could envision controlling the battlefield by teleporting all over the place. Shadow Sun Industries is a building that interacts with models with the teleport rule. That's why the first two things I own of Monsterpocalypse are Zor-Maixm and Shadow Sun Industries. I haven't yet played a game utlizing my theme because Tracy doesn't own what I need to test it. My core force is going to need multiple Shadow Gate and Shadow Sun Industries. Once I have that, I can play a game to see if my theme is viable and what other units and Monster I want to add to my force.

While learning how to play Monsterpocalypse, Tracy inform me that my Flames of War plans needed to change. My plan was to slowly collect models that I could use in a force from my Berlin list and evenually go to tournaments. I was aware that something about Late War was coming out this Summer but I didn't know any of the details. Little did I know that previous lists, like my Berlin list were becoming invaild with the new Late War book. That makes building a Berlin force for tournaments kind of pointless. A little frustrating that a lot of my recent purchases were from late Late LATE War are now useless until Battlefront comes up with new rules for them, in 3 or 4 years! On the bright side, my recent (beginning of the year) purchase included a box of Panther tanks which can make up over 50% of a force in the new system. Between that and the new plastic men, it shouldn't cost that much to finally have a playable army. I have several big ticket expanses to deal with so it might be closer to the end of the year before that playable army becomes real.

My German Flames of War Army

My German Flames of War army is a mess. Like a scrapyard, my army is a collection of unassembled troops and vehicles along with a handful vehicles assembled and primed but not painted. That is why when I saw the late war deal Battlefront was doing, I decided to ignore what I already had and based my purchases on making the core of a new army. I used the Berlin list because it is the only one I own. Also, given the list is such a hodgepodge of choices, I have the option to try out various designs and have it make sense as the list is literally whatever was still working in Berlin at the time thrown together to make an army, regardless what army it came from. I'm still going to paint the army non-historic fantasy colors. I have decided to use the German decals instead of trying to create my own fantasy ones.

That was the plan when I made my ordered. I have gotten a couple of surprises since then. First, two-thirds of my order was out of stock. Its not going to cost me anything extra but it is a little frustrating as I don't know when I will get the rest of my order. Two things I really wanted to work on: an unit of tanks and 2 AA guns, I have to wait until who knows when for them to get here. What I did get was this:

The first thing that surprised me when I opened the box was the sniper. I've been out of the loop about Battlefront news and I really didn't expect the sniper to come with the Team Yankee style cards. I suppose they were getting introduce to late war when I quit being active. Very cool but unexpected to me. I only brought the sniper because it was cheap and it got me over the minimum amount needed for free shipping. My other surprise is the Bedb... the Kleinpanzer Wanze tank unit. I was hoping since it was a newer product that the Wanze unit would be plastic. I enjoy working with plastic over metal or resin. To my dismay, the Wanze tanks are resin, which makes sense. To my knowledge the Berlin list is the only one with the Wanze tanks as an option and you can only take one of them. From the company prospective, product that sells high volumes is better to do in plastic while product that doesn't sell as well is better to do as metal or resin. As much as I would love to have a lot more Wanze tank units, there is no game reason for me to buy more than one, which is why it is in resin.

At least I have some tanks to start working on. And as much as I don't want to, I have troops to work on as well. As for colors, I will prime my army with yellow/gold and paint the models grey and either dark red or dark blue. Which colors I pick would depend if the unit is from the army (Heer) or air force (Luftwaffe). Then I remember a lot of this list as well as what I purchase is not in either. I suppose I still have something to decided before I start painting. In any case, I will start priming within the next week or two.

80s Project

For the last 2 weeks or so, I've had this idea about a fiction series I want to write. I get these ideas all the time. It usually goes that I've come up with an idea, I think about for a while, I realize the reasons why its a bad idea or not a good time to work on it now so I can stop thinking about it. This time after a week thinking on it, it is still on my mind and I'm really excited to work on it. So I'm going to put in the effort to make this project happen. And that idea is to write a story that is inspired by 80s cartoons using characters also inspired by various cartoon characters I grew up loving. Overall a story that shows how much I love the 80s.

I'm still in the brainstorm stage but there are a few characters I know I want to have it in. The overall story will probably be similar to ThunderCats with me using Lion-O, Cheetara and Mumm-Ra with the concept of a group like the Lunataks. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will also be a major influence. I want one of the turtles to be one of my heroes though I'm not sure which. I will probably pick the one that will best work with the rest of the cast (whoever that be) if I don't make it an amalgam of multiple turtles. I also want to use characters inspired by Bebop and Rocksteady, mainly the versions of them when they first appeared in the cartoon when they were a serious threat. I run into a slight problem here as I can't think of who else to add. Both He-Man and SilverHawks would make sense theme wise. But I never really watch He-Man as a kid though I was aware it existed. And while I did watch a lot of SilverHawks, I can't remember anything about it other than I watch it and the transforming villain looked better to me before he transformed. Transformers, G.I Joe, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and M.A.S.K. are all good candidates but I'm having trouble fitting them in with what I've already started with. They also have another problem which I will get into later. In any case, I think I have enough to work on to get a general feel of what the story will be like.

My initial vision of the story resemble a light novel with each chapter or episode being a combination of artwork and text. There are many 2d character editors out there and I was planning on using one to make my artwork. I know these editors can take some time to master but making simple character profiles that show off what characters look like and their normal outfit are fairly easy to do. What will take more time to learn are dynamic poses and action scenes. I was going to host these chapters on a new site made just for it. It was most likely going to be another blog but I was planning on weighting my options. As I said, this was my initial vision, how it going to turn out will be quite different. The difference came about due to me changing my mind and deciding to host it here on Chaos Magic. Between me working on many other projects that will be on their own platform and current Chaos Magic projects future being uncertain, I wanted something here that would be updated regularly. Once I decided on that change, it made sense to me to change how to make the artwork. If I was going to put this on a site dedicated to miniature war gaming and storytelling, then I should use miniatures for my artwork on this project too.

Switching to using miniatures is a significant change. Redesigning the characters in some ways are now both easier and harder to do. Not only do I have to factor in what I want the redesigns to look like, I'm also limited to what I can find in available miniatures as I'm terrible at using green stuff. I'm willing to look at any miniature range in the 28mm or 32mm heroic scale. I'm hoping painting and conversions will bridge any gap between what's available and what I'm envision for characters. Miniatures is the reason using stuff from Transformers, G.I Joe, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and M.A.S.K. is extra problematic. I think redesigning characters is fairly easy, redesigning vehicles and make them look good is something completely different. And then trying to build that in miniature form is quite possible beyond my current skills. Even if I could come up with something that works, those shows would be costly for me. Especially Transformers and M.A.S.K. where each character/vehicle represented would need 2 models. As a painter this means I would also have to paint 2 models in a way to make it seem like they were the same object. Not to mention the second model needs to be converted into something completely different. Just feels like they are not worth the trouble. That said, bringing in Transformers means Unicron is available, and I would love to use Unicron. In terms of storytelling and theme, a race like Transformers should be in the series from the beginning. However, it would be far easier on me if they got introduction in season 3 plus. It will be some time before these series starts so I have a little time to decide.

The miniature swap is going to greatly affect how soon I can start this project. Maybe I was underestimating how long it was going to take me to make those initial 2d profile artworks, but I figure I could get them done in a timely manner and probably start working on the first chapter in 2 or 3 months. Now I'm thinking its going to be double if not triple that time before I can start proper. The only up side is that I know where to start. My former podcast buddy made me aware of Dark Sword Miniatures and their Critters Kingdom line. With how the my story is forming, I know I will need a lot of anthropomorphic miniatures. Even if they don't have anything to fit any of my redesigns, I'm going to need a lot of anthropomorphic animal miniatures for background characters, important non hero characters and villain minions. This will give me a large selection of material I can work on and have regular progress updates. One thing I won't do in miniature is the scenery. For me that is too expensive and I don't have the room to store it. For a project like this using terrain at my local gaming store won't cut it. Gaming terrain works fine for games but its probably too small for what I want to use it for. Plus official terrain would need some conversation for my story so they don't look like they are from the game world that they are from. My backgrounds will be some combination of landscape pictures taken by me and things I think up later.

And that is my new 80s Project. The first two things I'm going to do is watch a bunch of 80s cartoons for ideas and plan a large Dark Swords Miniatures order. I have to say it is going to feel weird building and painting miniatures that I have no plans to play any games with. On the other hand, I created this blog to do a project just like this, with the only different in having the plot decided by war games. If this is something you might be interested in then stay tune. If not, I do have more war gaming news to post soon. Until then!