The Legends Continue

Last weekend was London MCM and what a show. Though I cannot speak for the celebrities or panels that were present I can say that the Comic Village was a true joy. I spent three days behind a table talking to Con goers, Cosplay artists and even the staff about the work I was doing and projects Deadstar as a whole were putting together, but it was sheer amount of Indy talent that was on show that really made it something to remember.

Indy comics has been a passion for many years and though it is highly unlikely it will ever replace my day-job, I'm fine with that. The time I dedicate to these art projects to tell stories is purely for my love of the genre and the amount original ideas that never get seen outside of these communities is amazing. For a while now, Indy publishing was just something that seemed to be bolted on to some cons as an after thought in favour of merchandise stands and Pop figures, but from where I was standing this weekend, I didn't feel that way.

By day 3 fatigue was making me weirder than usual

I got to talk to so many people about their work, their experiences and their passions. All trying to make their mark on the comics world and having a great time while doing it. To the creators I spoke to at MCM, thanks for putting in the effort and thanks for chatting with me. Big shout outs to Anaseed Comix for Goblin related content and Peter Chiykowski for Postcard From Impossible Worlds, Check it out, it's an interesting read.

The same must be said to the attendees. Thank you, Indy publishing isn't an easy thing to do, so taking the time to walk through and look at what's on offer is always appreciated, but remember, Marvel and DC will be in your local bookshops or Amazon tomorrow, sometimes the small press stands are gone in the blink of an eye. It's in these places that really cool and unique ideas are found, but they won't stick around for long without the attendees' support. So post a link, talk to the creators or actually buy something, you never know what treasure you might find.

Finally a massive thanks to the organizers and staff around the Comics Village (again I can't speak for the rest of the event, I didn't see it) Everyone was busy, but the few I was lucky to talk to were always friendly and looked to be enjoying themselves, even after three days solid.

I'm looking forward to the next con and I hope to see you all again.

"No One Expects-"

Well, I've been promising myself (and several others in my gaming group) that I'd start an Inq28 campaign. A proper one with well thought out rules and narrative and black jack and random objectives.... Then I got a new job and most of those plan have been scrapped. So what's left I hear you ask, Kill Team Elites, that's what. Most of what I've been planning for this campaign hinged on the Elites expansion bring out a few missing pieces to the data sheets. This was to allow players to really take theme and narrative for their INQ28 warbands without having to make up rules for big monsters or heavy duty specialists. Sure the big guys are pricey, but it made more sense to me than Commanders in my opinion.

Going forward, I've set everyone the task of getting their Kill Teams ready and I have spiced up the standard Campaign system just to keep that INQ28 cloak and dagger feel. I won't be running this with Gamemaster as I've put a few things in place to (hopefully) curb certain peoples cheesier impulses. (you know who you are) I'll post the House Rules pack another day for those interested in what we were working with, but right now I'm trying to get my own stuff painted.

On to the miniatures then. First off the painting queue, three Zealots for my Ordo Hereticus Inquistor. These guys are specialist witch hunters and exorcists, the shot gun is filled with rock salt, the book records the deeds of the damned for further scrutiny and the bones are from a psychic blank so that Deamons and Witches are weakened in their presence.

So many precautions to hand, these guys most be in the thick of such messes a lot right? Well not really. Their Inquisitorial master has been playing around with Daemon Hosts. Needless to say that's frowned apon, but "The end justifies the means" and all that. More pictures as I finish stuff off hopefully. 

No "I" in Team

Last few weeks have been a whirlwind in work. largely due to changes in leadership and the chaos that involves. The obvious side effect is I don't get to go gaming as much as I'd like (1st world problems and all that) but thankfully I was able to get in some Kill Team earlier this week. My regular opponents Gaz and Keron brought the Wolfs and the Ad Mech and new-comer Lora brought Genestealer Cult. So a Four way slug-fest was held in honour!

The mission called for capturing prisoners (I know, who does that?) and by the narrowest of margins, Gaz was able to sneak a victory at the last second. It was a lot of fun and backstabbing and with KT Elites released soon, I figured it was High time to get my Terminator Lord finished. So, here he is, Nerek Bane aka. The Savage. I'll flush out a bit more backstory later on, but for now here are some pictures of the spiky bugger.

Big Robots, Gribblies and Cake!

A slow week on completed projects, but a fun week none the less. I got my first game against Imperial Knights last week and didn't do too badly. Yeah sure, trying to go toe-to-toe with a 3 story tall, armoured war machine in combat with my Warboss might sound like a bad idea (and it was) but damn it, it felt right at the time.

Though My warboss bought the far, The Mek was able to finish the Knight off for me. In the end I only lost by a single VP.

There have been so many great GW releases of late that I'm spoiled for choice on what to work on, but I was determined to get more of my Chaos Marines done.... then this happened.

Once I get some more green stuff on him he'll be added to the Night Lords as a Greater Possessed. The Primaris with cape is something completely different.

Finally, I had my birthday last week, I leveled up and the guys at work decided to show me appreciation by blowing up a cake in my honour. I don't have any photos unfortunately, but after the initial shell shock of a dynamite filled cake they presented me this.

And for added effect the icing had bourbon whiskey in it. It was a VERY good day.

Return to the Night

I've been playing a bit more Kill Team of late and after running the Grot Suicide Mob I've decided to try something a bit different. Up until now, I've been fairly unimpressed with Kill Team, favoring the character building and options offered by Shadow War. I've tried to keep an open mind, but it took a completely different play style to really show me what Kill Team was all about. The Grots were (let's face it) never going to win big (or at all) but the idea was fun. Now I've brought my Night Lords back out to play and Kill Team has really grown on me.

As a further bonus, the Chaos Marine Codex recently got updated so now seemed like the perfect opportunity to get more of my Night Lords actually painted. First off the bench were the remaining Cultists

These finish off my squad of ten so it was really bugging me for a long time. As a reward to myself though, I'm moving onto something a bit more interesting, the Un-named Lord of Chaos.

He'll by my painting project for the next few weeks I imagine, but He's not the only thing I've working on. Besides rewriting scripts and trying to hash out the finer points of my next Comic short story, I was able to cobble together a Sorcerer conversion to round off the army.

Da Flashiest of Gitz!

Though I finished these guys last week, I've only recently had a chance to photograph them. Now I've made my excuses, onto the Weapons Road Show!

First up the Kaptain of the self proclaimed "Kings of Dakka" Boss Thugnutz and his over burdened ammo runt, Flint. The Boss' weapon of choice is the obnoxiously noisy "Terrorizor". Built from a heavily modified imperial auto-cannon, this beast of a gun has been fitted with additional medium range assault weapons for those jobs that require quantity of fire over quality. The fact that everything is wired up to the same trigger is irreverent.

Next is the Kings' Mek, Zaggrok. When he's not tinkering with the squads guns to correct minor issues or improve on performance, he's working on his personalized energy blaster, the "Flash Kannon Supreme!" Powered by multiple stripped back plasma batteries and then given an extra boost using Orky Kno-Wotz, this suped-up plasma cannon boasts an impressive rate of fire, recharge time and background radiation. Zaggrok has had trouble keeping grot assistants alive whilst working on the gun's power pack as a result of it's radioactive nature. It never occurred to him to give the grots a lead vest too.

In mob of trigger happy show-offs, Og is the worst. He make outrageous claims, both on and off the battlefield, regarding his marksmanship with his favourite gun Little Og. Perhaps worst of all is Og's ability to back up most of his bragging. For an Ork, Og tends to hit his mark more often than not and can indeed write his own name in bullets in the landscape. It would be more impressive if he could actually spell his name however.

Grizzgutz used to be a loota boy before he got into a fight with an Ogryn over ownership of a ripper gun.. After winning the fight and taking the ripper gun as a trophy, he sank his fortune into kustomizing it into something more his style: namely louder and heavier than when he found it. Due to heavy caliber rounds and the tremendous recoil on this newly constructed monstrosity, Grizzguts is roundly mocked as the worst shot in the mob. The jokes tend to die down a bit though when he does score a hit, especially after the time Grizzgutz blew up a Land Raider with one shot.

The one-ork-arsenal that is Baggrot is a sight to behold. The weapon, referred to as "The Gun Rack" is the result of one Mek not knowing when to stop sticking guns together. "The Gun Rack" cost a fortune to build and has cost many times that amount in ammo over the years, so much in fact, that Baggrot is possibly the ONLY Ork known to exercise restraint and ammo conservation. It is also possible that this could have been mistaken for the gun jamming all the time.

And that's the lot. I've got some other projects to start working on so I'll hopefully have something next week.

Dune Buggy

Finished painting two more pages for New Wastelands this week and was lucky enough to get out of work to visit the Comic Carnival last weekend. Though I was only there for an hour, it was great to see some old faces and have a quick chat with some new people too.

This has been one of my favorite images to work on recently as it has all the best aspects of the post-apoc genre about it; insane bounty hunters, re-purposed industrial Hell-scapes and dune buggies.

Looking ahead to next weekend, Swansea Comic & Gaming Con will be thappening in Swansea funnily enough. This was a great event last year (that I sadly missed. Kev kept me up to date) but this year I've marked the day off. I'll be there to talk the ears off any soul that wanders by our stall, mostly about our existing titles, but you know that I won't miss the chance to talk about Age of Savagery  Vol2. Just to sweeten the deal, Kev has given me the green light to print out some previews of a couple of the stories we have already received. Gotta say Volume 2 is shaping up to be bigger and better than Volume 1 so if you want to be a part of the Sage of Savagery or know someone that does, just send them the previous link ;)

I hope to see some of you at Swansea.