Reply To: Hobby Weekender 23/02/2019 – Here we go!

[dawfyddParticipant 11926xp 4]

Hi guys, apologies for not engaging last week, just wasn’t feeling up to it I’m afraid. But I’m about to start a week off and have a load of hobby-stuff I want to try to work through 🙂

So haven’t done any painting in the last week and a bit, but decided to play around with some kit building (I know, quell-surprise!), starting with putting Predator on the DVD and knocking together a Catachan Company Commander and a squad of infantry.Gods do I wish GW had redone the basic jungle Fighter kit when they did the Command & Heavy Weapon kits…..

This morning threw together another 5 Skyclaws,  as I really dig having two 15-man squads of Space Marines to throw at opponents – 1 of Bloodclaws and 1 of Skyclaws 😉

And finally digging through the sprues in the pile found this chap. I  have the Death Guard portion of Conquest slowly accumulating, and the ltd Noise Marine. Perhaps it’s worth looking at the Lost & the Damned forces of the Traitor Legions later in the year???

And  to the questions – I’ll stick to number 3: Whilst I would LOVE a TF miniatures game (and there was a chap  on Facebook who was working on the concept with prototype minis but he got shut down when he approached Hasbro with the idea) , but I  suspect the need for multiple minis for the different alt-modes would be somewhat prohibative. On the other hand, if it was pitched as a skirmish game, say no more than 10 models, then that should make it more feasible. I think the biggest hurdle would be the fact you  would be dealing with forces almost completely made of characters. There is some  scope for “grunts” in the form of Decepticon Seekers, Vehicons, Insections and Autobot Auto-troopers, but as they normally share a body-type with established characters it would be reliant on there being ways to differentiate them beyond just paint. No-one wants a  force of Starscream look-a-likes all with the same pose. On the flipside there is a LOT of scope for rules variety given the sheer number of sub-factions in  the lore – Dinobots, Predacons, Wreckers, Stunticons, Aerialbots, the DJD, Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord for example –  offer options for themed forces orbonuses for having all of a specific team on the field (Grimlock and the Dinobots for example putting the fear of Primus into opposing ‘Cons when on the field). I could easily see a stripped down version of the Infinity rules forming a basis for a game that simulates the crazy action of the Robots In Disguise,perhaps with the lethality of weapons toned down?

And thinking about it, if you start to account for the different iterations of the franchise, and even the time frames the stories can take place over (this is a franchise where the core two factions are supposed to have been at war for millions of years, and a good portion of the species predates the wars start…). Beyond G1 you could easily build rules forBeastWars, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, the Bayverse, Animated, Prime, RiD and the IDW-verse, that could work as their own thing or be  merged together (which is itself a fluffy option given a portion of the Lore where a resurrected, dimension-hopping Unicron forces the rebirth of Optimus Primal who gathers warriors from across time and space to stop him)…..