RPC 2012 - Pictures

Yesterday I visited the RPC in Cologne with my Cousin. Weather sucked hard, lot's of light rain and quite cold. Buuuut, have some pictures.

Upon entering we immediately saw a sign pointing to the kids area.

 Lots of LARPing stuff to be had.

We headed through the Hall with the PC games where a loud man with a fake lightsaber was yelling stuff about Star Wars: The Old Republic Online to the tabletop area. We were greeted by a woman with a slightly wooden demeanour.

 The Freebooter's Fate booth was awesome as always. I really need to get into that game. It has no dice, but works with cards, very attractive if your average on 3d6 is a five.

 My Cousin playing a demo game, while I ran around taking pictures.

 Awesome Costumes, awesome tables. I want to build a bay with a ship wreck as a gaming table now. And a sunken Aztek temple. Which fit none of my Wargames factions. *sadpanda* Just means I don't have enough factions. *dangerous thought*

 

Dun dun dun ....

Highlights of the demo game: I. Goblin Pirate climbs up to a Pirate Musketeeress (Is that a word?) and promptly gets pushed down the tower by her, landing squarely on his face. II. Pissed of pirate gal runs at a bunch of goblins to skewer them with her sword, but is beset by Polly the Parrot looking for a cracker, making her flub all her attack rolls/draws(? you can't roll cards...).

After the game we returned to the PC games hall, because Malte had to play Aion. A free to play MMORPG. Why you have to do that at a Con eludes me. The guy with the light saber was now demonstrating some game, where you picked nicely colored symbols from circles to make your guy stab and whack stuff with your sword. Graphic sucked, so I guess it was some Console game. But if you stand behind someone and whack him with a two-handed sword he takes more damage. Wow, Id never guess that!
Seriously, is it so difficult to come up with good sword fighting in a game? Skyrim did it, but in most fantasy first person games I click people dead. Lame!

Soo, Aion. The game with the wings. I have it on good authority (the blond guy in the picture) that it sucks. And though the banner in the background might suggest it, Khorne did not have a booth this year.







Costumes!

I did not expect the Imperial Inqisition. Actually I did. There is always someone with a cool Witchhunter costume. I don't think they found any witches though.

Someone might have misunderstood the roleplaying involved in this con. But then, she was giving out flyers for the Warhammer card game Invasion. Cue Archaon: "I'm going to invade the realms of men by playing a CHILDREN'S CARD GAME!" Ever watched Yugioh: The abbriged series? Well you should!

 If the world ends, I'll stick with these guys. They are cool. I saw their awesome stuff last year already, but this time they had really upped the ante with two vehicles and a tent.

There were also a lot of Airsoft players running around in full combat gear.

 This time its the Empire, not the Imperium. (Distinction only makes sense in English)










Lord Vader. Badassness incarnate. One of the few characters whose voice actor I like more in the german version.
Looks like he is recruiting.

That's how you look cool when fencing.













Back to the tabletop area

 "Stell dir vor es ist Warhammer und keiner geht hin." That's how that would look.

 Still nice gaming tables. Though my Imperial Guard might run into problems with their 9+ tanks and AFVs.

More sucky photos of gorgeous Freebooter miniatures.

 Le sigh. There was a couple dressed up as the Vodoo guy on the left and the creepy rat lady (not shown)

Can't see shit, Captain!

The cats (Oncas) had an espeacially beuatiful paintjob. Spider Amazon? Mantis Amazon? Crocodile Amazon? I think I just found my faction.









Back at the Tabletop testing area I played demogames of Dystopian Wars and Infinity.
Dystopian wars was nice, though my dice kept exploding. (If you roll a 6 you get a succes and roll again. If you get another 6 repeat. Guess what happened.) Now I want a fleet of war Zeppelins.
Infinity was great fun to play. Now I get why it is a shooting game. One of my line troopers blew away my opponent's strongest model in a round of shooting with his rifle. My opponent had problems to wrap his head around the fact, that his miniatures could react to moves made by me. He just tried to shoot back every time and was pasted by superior firepower.
I also watched a game of Mercs. Looked interesting, but I think I understood barely half of the game.

After the games I decided to have alook at the medieval market outside. Luckily I had my raincoat. It was a wash. I was looking to get a horn, not to drink from, but to make noises with. But there were only ones with the annoying plastic things inside that goe "FWEEEEEEE!" to be had. The food however was good. Meat on a stick and bread. Can't go wrong with that.

Speaking of charred meat:

Hang over your fireplace for that unique Dragon Slayer look.

Some more random stuff:

No Creepers to be found, except the one on the Tshirt. Whew!

They are lying! They spoke perfect German! I felt rather dumb adressing them in English and getting answers in German.

They say dress for the job you want. What if I would want this job? No, not mannequin.

After drifting around a little, I went to collect my cousin. We just wanted to leave, when they started a Live Raid on the buffed.de booth in SW: The Old Republic Online, so we had to watch that till the first boss. It looked like World of Warcraft with slightly smaller, glowy swords and a lot smaller shoulderpads.Roleplay seems to be quite good however, as my cousin told me. I might try it out if I should suddenly  have hours upon hours to burn on it.
And apparently the cool guys play the evil side again.

Also played 10 Minutes of Risen 2. Looks nice. Pirates and Voodoo are cool.

Finally we left. My Cousin with a metric ton of dice (won't roll well, everybody knows only dice you get as presents roll well) and me with a hand-and-a-half sword, some Freebooter minis and a boatload of flyers.

Next year, I'll have to buy a ticket for both days.

Fenris

Shooting flowers

cause they don't shoot back. Or move. Which can get annoying, when you just want to try out your camera.

Some red flowers.

Some white flowers.

Some blue flowers, not that good a photo. Still getting the hang of it. Also the colour isn't really correct, but you won't notice unless you visit my parents garden.

Tried to get a picture of the full moon. Didn't work so well because it was at night. (duh!) But the result still looked cool.

Cheers
Fenris

Where now the horse and the rider?

I have always been a sucker for cavalry. I absolutely loved  Tolkien's depiction of the Horse Lords of Rohan in Lord of the Rings. Elves, Dwarves? Not for me, Vikings on Horseback it is! This  often lead me to pick factions with a focus on cavalry in video games. I swept everything before me with my Ritterbrüder cavalry in Medieval 2: TW and my heart soared everytime my artillery had weakened the enemy enough to order an all out charge with my Cuirassiers and Hussars in Empire: TW.

Knights who don't say ni.

Sadly this did not expand to the tabletop. In Warhammer 40k I played the Space Wolves and while they had cavalry in the form of bikers, I ran them once and they sucked. I never really got into Warhammer Fantasy, so that was that. (I still have an Idea for an Empire list but that would probably cost more for the core troops than two Warmachine armies)

Then I started Warmachine and lo and behold. My faction Khador derives from ancient Khardic horselords. Though this was not my primary concern when choosing the faction, I soon noticed I could run lots of cavalry. One unit of Uhlans and three solos. There is even Vlad's theme list which allows you to run 11 cavalry models at once. I was in the process of building this theme force when Privateer Press dropped a bomb.

Vlad: My horse better be amazing!

A cavalry caster!

Coming out in July. What's my birthday? Oh right, July. Thanks PP. Gone are the days of envy for the Swans cavalry caster. Now what to run with him? Since whe know next to nothing about his spell list, the prudent thing would be to hold of on choices, analyze him when he comes out and then run the most competitive choices.

F**k prudent, f**k competitive! This is what I will run:

• Vladimir Tzepesci, Great Prince of Umbrey
• Drago
• Full Iron Fang Uhlans
• Uhlan Kovnik Markov
• Manowar Drakhun
• Fenris
• Gun Carriage Battle Engine
• Min Steelhead Heavy Cavalry
• Stannis Brocker, Steelhead Commander of Ternon Crag
• Alexia Ciannor, Mistress of the Witchfire

Assuming Vlad still has 5 Jackpoints, this adds up to exactly 50 points. 16 models, 14 of them heavy cavalry, one a Battle Engine that behaves like cav. *insert mad scientist laugh here* There's also some room to cut and adjust. Lose Alexia and max out the Steelheads. Since we might even get light cav in colossals, maybe switch those in.
It's the time of the horselords come again! So how much cavalry can I paint till July? And why do I not have Fenris yet?


I'm on a horse!
Fenris

"But a force of Iron Fangs would also look really cool with Mr Giant-Shoulders." SHUT UP, BRAIN!

Putting the Steam in Steampowered: A lazy man's guide to smoke plumes

Have you ever looked at any Warmachine artwork and noticed the smoke plumes on the 'jacks, only to look back at your minis and notice they are not the steambelching monstrosities you imagined?

Fear not, with a little work you can turn your Jack into a smokespewing Juggernaut! (Any similiarities to actual Khadoran Juggernauts coincidental)

Step I: Materials

• A volunteer, in this case my Black Ivan
• Super Glue, I like the gel type
• a Paper Clip
• a Piece of Cork
• Hedge and Bush foliage, I use Javis Countryside Scenics, look for big roughcut pieces
• (not shown) a drill for pinning
• (not shown) Black Primer (P3, Army Painter, GW, pick yours)
• (not shown) Grey Primer

Step II: Prepping the model

Drill two holes into the smokestack. These will hold our pins, to which the smoke plume is later attached. Since the standard Khadoran Juggernaut Chassis has only one big smokestack it is easier on this one. Other chassis may require less or more holes drilled.

Step III: Prepping the Plume

Find a piece of foliage that looks like a smoke plume. You can easily tear it into shape by hand. Plumes bent backwards can make your 'jack look like it is running forward.

Step IV: Pinning the plume

Cut the paper clip into two long, straight parts (from now on to be referred to as pins). Put one of the parts into the hole in the smokestack. Do not glue it in, yet. Put the foliage onto the pin in a Position you like. Remove the foliage again. The pin will leave a hole. Now cover the upper end of the pin in super glue and glue the foliage to the pin.

Step V: Priming

Use the pin to attach your smoke plume to the cork. Give it a good spray of black paint. Let it dry. Repeat till the plume is black and no green or brown shows (left). Then spray with grey primer. Focus on the top of the plume to give it a more realistic look. You can also add yellow and red to the plume's underside to get a furnace glow effect.

Final Step:

Now glue the second pin into it's hole and cut it to size. Cover it with super glue and slide the smokeplume on, aligning the first pin with the other hole. Depending on the smokestack on the model you might want to put some superglue there, too. Whatever you choose to do, you should get something like this: 

'sup?

I did not glue Black Ivan's smoke plume on yet, because he obviously has to be painted first. Also, I missed a spot while spraying, but I think you get the picture. This is obviously only the bare bones of the method and much more can be done while painting the smokeplume. I suggest looking at 'jack artworks and photos of steampowered locomotives for inspiration. Oh, and I do realize the smoke coming from a Warjack's furnace would look different in reality. This is strictly rule of cool stuff.

I hope I could help you to get some steam into your hobby.

Cheers

Fenris

So this a Blog, huh?

I have a blog now. Blogs are cool.