Aeon Trespass: Odyssey (ATO) by Lawnor

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Exalted Zeus

Regular Zeus was the only Godform included in the core box so I painted him 2 years ago.

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Dirty Green Cloth

Base: P3 Traitor Green
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0606 Medium Green

Gold

Base: GW Retributor Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
High: VMA 71.066 Gold
High: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

White Hair

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin Mixed with White
Drybrush/layer: White

Blue Lightning

Base: GW Fenrisian Grey mixed with P3 Frostbite
Wash: Warcolours Marine 2
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight
Drybrush & edge highlight: P3 Frostbite mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight mixed with P3 Morrow White
Selective edge highlight: P3 Morrow White

Godforms: Exalted Zeus, and Cycle 4 Progress

That was the last of them. There was a lot in that box and I’m glad they’re done. I even managed to not go Godform until after they were done. I’ve used 3 models so far. Completely unnecessary, but it’s nice to have them ready.

I’ve had a week off work recently and spent it mostly playing Cycle 4. I’m currently at the final encounter. I think. This game likes surprises. I’ve definitely been cheating though. I’ve been applying my house rules all the time, and forgetting a bunch of stuff. I’m a little overloaded in keywords, special rules, curse afflictions etc. I cannot keep track of it all so I’m forgetting stuff, good and bad. It would all be very manageable if I was playing with 3 other people, but each character has so much stuff specific to them, and it changes all the time, so I keep forgetting stuff. I would love to find out all my issues with the game are just my own shortcomings.

I hope to be back here soon with pics of all the C5 enemies painted. Most of them are ready for basing. I’ll get them all finished and varnished together before I start work on the Titans.

I’m also deliberately ignoring some stuff. Some of the curses seem to play out as “You just die after 1 round” unless you’re set up specifically to counter them. No way of curing it (I thought. I could have but missed a random rule on a random card from 3 cycles ago that would have solved it. Spotted it 2 days ago) and you need very specific gear and actions to stay alive, which I did not have for a while. it felt like an “F You” rule, so if it wasn’t possible for me to deal with it, I either ignored it, or spent a fate to avoid it’s effect each round.

At one point the game had me unlock a special surprise encounter (No narrative spoilers here) that had me spend what felt like an hour going through decks and boxes to get together everything I needed to set it up, but then it quickly became apparent it was not possible for me to win. I wasn’t allowed to avoid the fight, or run away. It was just a kick in the teeth, 4 dead titans and 2 hours of my life wasted just for a negative play experience and more animosity towards the game and the company.

I’m done moaning for now. Despite my grumps, once I get going and apply my house rules I do enjoy the game. I would be curious to see how much more manageable everything is with 3 other players. not just to spread the load of tracking the characters, but the extra input on strategy, tactics and gear loadout to see things I can’t. I’d also love a second opinion on the rules as I may be doing lots wrong and making it harder.

Godforms: Hades, Helios, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, & Both Posidens

May 27 2025

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Hades

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Coal Black Robes

Base: P3 Coal Black mixed with Black
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush: P3 Coal Black
Drybrush: P3 Trollblood Base

Grey Robes

Base: P3 Greatcoat Grey
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White base

Dark Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Blighted Gold

Base: P3 Blighted Gold
Wash: P3 Cryx bane base mixed with P3 Brown ink
Wash: p3 Umbral Umber mixed with P3 Coal Black
Drybrush: P3 Brass Balls

White Hair

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin Mixed with White
Drybrush/layer: White

Bone

Base: P3 Jack Bone
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
Wash: Handcraft Tabletop Terrain Wash 267.01 Dunkelschatten (Dark Brwon Grey)
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Base
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Highlight

Mid Tone Leather

Base: P3 Bootstrap Leather
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Green Fire

I did this in the wrong order, but here’s what I should have done
Undercoat: White
Base: P3 Yellow Ink, with just a touch of P3 Green Ink
Layer Shade: Above but with more green
Layer Shade deeper areas only: Above but with more green. Never go more than 50/50

Godforms: Hades, Helios, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, & Both Posidens

Helios

Flesh & Hair

Base: White
That is all
Highlight with something brighter if you’re not limited to the standard laws of physics

Glow

Base: White
Airbrush lightly towards the ends with the following, covering progressively less area. The yellow clipped her hair too by accident. I think it works and makes sense so I left it be. Also, I’m lazy:
S75 SFG-41 Hykey Yellow
MP 64 Lemon Yellow
MP 61 Canary yellow

Gold

Base: GW Retributor Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
High: VMA 71.066 Gold
High: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

Red Cloth

Base: P3 Khador Red base
Shade: P3 Sanguine Highlight
Highlight: Army Painter Lava Orange

Hephaestus

These models came pre-assembled. Look at him, and at Poseidon below. Horrible to paint. There are parts of their backs I could not get a brush to, and can see. I’ve done the best I can though. I’m definitely not pushing for OSL on an area I can only partially reach.

Steel

Base: VGA 72.754 Gunmetal
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush Pig iron

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Beard

Base: P3 Umbral Umber
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Iron Hammer

Base: p3 Pig Iron
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: P3 Cold Steel

Mid Tone Leather

Base: P3 Bootstrap Leather
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Pottery

Base: Colours of War 383 Motherland Earth
Layer Shade, wet blended in: Colours of War 322 Dark Leather
Layer Highlight, wet blending in: Colours of War 362 Sicily yellow

Fire

Base: Mr paint MRP-F005 Deep yellow (Airbrushed before anything else, even if the fire wasn’t progressed until after the metal)
Highlight: Deep Yellow mixed with Mr paint MRP-F008 Fire Orange
Highlight: Fire Orange
Highlight: Fire Orange mixed with Mr Paint MRP-F013 Deep Red
Highlight: Deep Red
Apply some white to the hottest recesses only then paint over that with Coat d’arms 068 Ink Wash Yellow
Touch the tips only with some black

Hera

Glow

Base: White
Airbrush lightly towards the ends with the following, covering progressively less area:
S75 SFG-41 Hykey Yellow
MP 64 Lemon Yellow
MP 61 Canary yellow

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Gold

Base: GW Retributor Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
High: VMA 71.066 Gold
igh: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

Yellow Cloth

Base: p3 Mouldy Ochre
Wash: P3 Rucksack Tan
Highlight: P3 Sulphuric Yellow

White Cloth Trim
Base: VMC 70.918 Ivory
Highlight: Ivory Mixed with White
Highlight Maybe just touches of white, probably never going 100% pure

Red Hair

Base: P3 Heartfire
Wash: P3 Khador Red Highlight
Drybrush: P3 Cygnus Yellow

Hermes

Glow

Base: White
Airbrush lightly towards the ends with the following, covering progressively less area:
S75 SFG-41 Hykey Yellow
MP 64 Lemon Yellow
MP 61 Canary yellow

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Blue Cloth

Base: Pro Acryl Blue
Wash: GW Drakenhof Nightshade. Please remember not to hassle the Drakenhof
Drybrush: Pro Acryl Faded Ultramarine

Gold

Base: Darkstar Royal Gold
Wash: Reaper MSP 09253 Flesh Wash
High 1: Darkstar Braid Gold
High 2: Darkstar Pale Gold

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

Blond Hair:

Undercoat: Army painter Fanatic Matt White
Base Reaper MSP 09256 Blond Shadow
Wash: Thinned Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh
Wash: Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh in to the deeper areas only
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09257 Blond Hair
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09258 Blond Highlight

Blue Lightning

Base: GW Fenrisian Grey mixed with P3 Frostbite
Wash: Warcolours Marine 2
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight
Drybrush & edge highlight: P3 Frostbite mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight mixed with P3 Morrow White
Selective edge highlight: P3 Morrow White

Poseidon and Exalted Poseidon

Do the water effects first, following the instruction in the early post on basing.

Dirty Green Cloth

Base: P3 Traitor Green
Wash: GW Athonian Camoshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0606 Medium Green

Dark Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Gold

Base: Darkstar Royal Gold
Wash: Reaper MSP 09253 Flesh Wash
High 1: Darkstar Braid Gold
High 2: Darkstar Pale Gold

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

White Hair

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin Mixed with White
Drybrush/layer: White

Turquoise Crest

Base: Miniature paints MP17 Aquamarine
Wash: Miniature Paints MP13 Deep Bronze Green
Drybrush: Miniature Paints MP21 Arctic Blue
Drybrush: GW Fenrisian Grey

Sharks

Base: P3 Bastion Grey
Wash: P3 Greatcoat Grey
Wash: P3 Greatcoat Grey mixed with P3 Coal Black & p3 Umbral Umber
Drybrush: P3Bastion grey
Drybrush: P3 Ironhull Grey mixed with P3 Beast Hide

Mouths were washed with GW Carroburg Crimson
Teeth were dotted with GW Menoth White Highlight
The eyes were black

Godforms: Aphrodite, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, & Dionysus

May 27 2025

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During the dark days of Covid shipping prices skyrocketed. ITU decided to not pass those costs on to their backers and honour the original shipping costs. They gave us a way to help them with those costs though by releasing the Godforms Box. 14 new models that were never planned for release, as far as we knew. The Price Per Model was really good. I suspect they were sculpts they’d toyed with before that they rushed to completion in the most cost effective way to maximise profit. Now I’ve got the models I can see parts of other titans in these designs, so I assume some heavy copy and pasting has occurred. I also think the final result isn’t up to their usual standard. That’s fine. They almost never get to see the table, and I can understand the choices involved in their production. I’m a little disappointed, but I get it. they’re fine enough.

So what are Godforms? They’re not the gods. They’re all dead. When a Titan is stressed enough (usually when they’re about to die) there is an outside chance (10%) that they’ll go Super Saiyan and channel the essence of a dead god, and kick names and take butt. This is why some of these Godforms may be a different gender or body type to what you might expect for their deity. Mind you, Zeus would transform in to different animals to seduce women, so who’s to say how tied any god was to a particular form anyway?

With that said, you’re here for pretty pics and paint recipes. So here we go. I painted everyone as one big project, and tried to paint similar colours on different models at the same time. It speeds things up a bit. Fist up is Aphrodite, as played by Jack Black who is feeling just fabulous!

Aphrodite

Wings

Zenithally primed
Base: White
Selectively airbrushed pink on the trailing edge only. I want to say it was Warcours Pink 1, but I forgot to take a photo apparently.

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Highlight: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh (I was able to drybrush this over every model, except for Aphrodite’s belly, where it just made a mess. I had to actually layer on the highlights here manually.

Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Gold

Base: Darkstar Royal Gold
Wash: Reaper MSP 09253 Flesh Wash
High 1: Darkstar Braid Gold
High 2: Darkstar Pale Gold

Blond Hair:

Undercoat: Army painter Fanatic Matt White
Base Reaper MSP 09256 Blond Shadow
Wash: Thinned Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh
Wash: Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh in to the deeper areas only
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09257 Blond Hair
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09258 Blond Highlight

Godforms: Aphrodite, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, & Dionysus

Ares

So what are those big red things? We just don’t know.

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Dark Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Mid Tone Leather

Base: P3 Bootstrap Leather
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Red Things

Base: GW Khorne Red
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush GW Evil Sunz Scarlet
Drybrush: GW Wild Rider Red
Drybrush: P3 Khador Red

Each drybrush leave more and more of the darker core untouched

Wood bark

Base: S75 SC-31 Brown Leather
Wash: S75 SC-81 Inktense Chesnut
Drybrush: Coat d’arms 224 Horse Tone Bay

Gold

Base: p3 Deathless metal
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: P3 Rhulic Gold

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

Red Crest

Base: Khador Red Gase
Wash: P3 Sanguine Highlight
Highlight: Army Painter Lava Orange

Bear/Hair

Base: P3 Umbral Umber
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Artemis

Wings

Zenithally primed, then airbrushed VMC 70.918 Ivory
VMC 70.847 Dark Sand was airbrushed on the centre/front edge of each wing

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Dark Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Gold

Base: Darkstar Royal Gold
Wash: Reaper MSP 09253 Flesh Wash
High 1: Darkstar Braid Gold
High 2: Darkstar Pale Gold

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

Blond Hair:

Undercoat: Army painter Fanatic Matt White
Base Reaper MSP 09256 Blond Shadow
Wash: Thinned Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh
Wash: Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh in to the deeper areas only
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09257 Blond Hair
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09258 Blond Highlight

Blue Lightning

Base: GW Fenrisian Grey mixed with P3 Frostbite
Wash: Warcolours Marine 2
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight
Drybrush & edge highlight: P3 Frostbite mixed with P3 Menoth White Highlight mixed with P3 Morrow White
Selective edge highlight: P3 Morrow White

Cloud
Base: P3 Underbelly mixed with White
Wash: P3 Underbelly
Highlight: P3 Underbelly mixed with White
Keep adding more white to the highlight for progressive layers, until you’re happy
Drybrush with your final white mix. It seems to smooth it all out.

Athena

They sculpted on the infinite length light rays and made them 1″ long. Nooooo! Why would you do that? I hate it!

Light Beams

Base: White
Airbrush lightly towards the ends with the following, covering progressively less area:
S75 SFG-41 Hykey Yellow
MP 64 Lemon Yellow
MP 61 Canary yellow

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Pale Blue Cloth

Base: GW Fenrisian Grey
Wash: GW Russ Grey mixed with GW The Fang
Drybrush: P3 Frostbite

Gold

Base: Darkstar Royal Gold
Wash: Reaper MSP 09253 Flesh Wash
High 1: Darkstar Braid Gold
High 2: Darkstar Pale Gold

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

Hair

Base: P3 Umbral Umber
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Feathers

I forgot to take notes but I think I did this

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin Mixed with White
Drybrush/layer: White

Cloud
Base: P3 Underbelly mixed with White
Wash: P3 Underbelly
Highlight: P3 Underbelly mixed with White
Keep adding more white to the highlight for progressive layers, until you’re happy
Drybrush with your final white mix. It seems to smooth it all out.

Demeter

Glow

Base: White
Airbrush lightly towards the ends with the following, covering progressively less area:
S75 SFG-41 Hykey Yellow
MP 64 Lemon Yellow
MP 61 Canary yellow

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green
Wash: P3 Battle Dress Green & Skorne Flesh
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Green Cloth

Base: VMC 70.967 Olive Green
Wash: VMC 70.823 Luftwaffe Cam. Green
Highlight: VMC 70.857 Golden Olive

Dark Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Gold

Base: p3 Deathless metal
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: P3 Rhulic Gold

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

Hair

Base: P3 Umbral Umber
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Mid Tone Leather

Base: P3 Bootstrap Leather
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Dionysus

Flesh

Base: Foundry 126A African Flesh Shade
High: Foundry 126B African Flesh Base
High: Foundry 126C African Flesh Light (Tee hee hee)
Targeted Wash: Army Painter Strong Tone

Dark Blue Trousers

Base: P3 Exile Blue Mixed with Black
Shade: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight: P3 Exile Blue
High: P3 Cygnar Blue Base
High: P3 Cygnar Blue Highlight to peaks and hard edges only

Dark Green Cloth

Base: VGC 72.147 Heavy BlackGreen
Wash: VGC 72.147 Heavy BlackGreen mixed with Black
Highlight: P3 Iosan Green

Dark Leather

Base: VMC Panzer Aces 302 Dark Rust
Drybrush A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Gold

Base: GW Retributor Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
High: VMA 71.066 Gold
High: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

Iron

VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
High: P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome & P3 Quick Silver
High: VMC 77.787 Chrome

Black Hair

Base: VMC 70.994 Dark Grey
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush: P3 Battlefield Brown

Mid Tone Leather

Base: P3 Bootstrap Leather
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand

Pottery

Base: Colours of War 383 Motherland Earth
Layer Shade, wet blended in: Colours of War 322 Dark Leather
Layer Highlight, wet blending in: Colours of War 362 Sicily yellow

Wine & Musical Notation

Base: Army Painter Mars Red mixed with P3 Sanguine Highlight
Wash: Warcolours Pink 5
Deep Wash: GW Druchii Violet
Highlight: Khador Red Base
Use the edge/side of your brush to paint the notes black

Easter Weekend: 4 Days of Playing and Painting ATO

Apr 22 2025

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We’ve just had the Easter bank holiday weekend. In the UK this is 4 days off work, which is the perfect time to start a new campaign. Plenty of time to get a game set up, get confused/frustrated by the rules, get a massive headache, sleep it off, and still have 3 days left to actually play, even with more hurdles getting in the way.

A week ago I’d taken a little time to get the game set up again, as I’d ended Cycle 3. I’d put all my active stuff in a separate box, with a separate bag for each Argonaught and their Titan, gear, Memnos, etc. I had everything partitioned to make it as easy as I could. I’d also integrated the errata card pack. Everything was ready for me to open the C4 box. This took about 2 hours, going at a relaxed pace while dinner was cooking, the washing was going, etc.

Easter Friday comes along and I open the C4 book and start reading the setup for the new cycle and the new rules for the new mechanics. By the time I’d actually gotten as far as being ready to start the first fight 6-8 hours had passed, I’d only read a few paragraphs of narrative, made 1 choice and not even picked up a dice. This game is so heavy, and hard to get momentum in at the start of a cycle. I didn’t want to start a fight unless I had the time to wipe and replay it immediately so I quit for the day and went to paint. A whole day playing and I hadn’t got to the actual playing part yet! I knew something like this would happen, so very glad for the 4 day weekend. If I’d invited friends over to play today I’d be feeling so bad for having wasted their time.

The next 3 days went smoother. Each new fight took some learning as the fight specific mechanics feel like they make perfect sense if you already know what they’re trying to say, but are not clear otherwise. There’s also a rule I cannot find. Airburst X. it’s in the 10-ish pages of new rules at the start of the C4 boo, but no matter how many time I look, I cannot find it. A fan made cheat sheet explained it, but if you can point me to a page and paragraph that’s be awesome. For some reason, they still have not added an index for anything other than the core rules so we’ve no help finding anything, and I’m already flicking through all 4 books every time I have a question with no idea which book I want. Would a final combined index, even as a PDF, really be too much to ask for?

I had 3 days of play. I’m overcoming hurdles and getting my momentum going again. I seem to be doing a few days of timeline each day, and ending the day off with a fight, before returning to painting. If I keep this up there should be about 20 full days of play in C4 alone. More once the Adversary starts giving me grief.

I’m enjoying the game, but I am still applying my homebrewed easier mode. If I was playing it on full difficulty I’d probably have lost an earlier cycle too many times and have quit trying. I don’t know if I’ve misunderstood some rules, if I’m not smart enough to see the combos and the potential of some gear and powers, if I’m overloaded soloing this, or if it really is pitched this hard.

Paul Grogan / Gaming Rules! has been hired by ITU to create a how to play series of videos HERE . I’m going to watch through it all and see if he draws my attention to anything I’ve misunderstood.

First battle against the Midascore

I am currently powering through the Godforms. Maybe I’ll even get them done before I need one? I’ll be back later with guides, once I’m done.

Godforms WIP

Cycle 4 Titans & Cirrotrireme

Apr 22 2025

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Cloudsoarer

She is built from the Midascore and has been painted with the same recipes where appropriate. The following recipes where used where needed.

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Battledress Green
Wash deep areas only with P3 Battledress Green mixed with P3 Skorne Red
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Hair

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin mixed with White
Drybrush: White to just the tips

Camel

Base: P3 Rucksack Tan
Wash: p3 Gun Corps Brown
Deep Area Wash: P3 Battlefield Brown
Drybrush: P3 Rucksack Tan mixed with P3 Menoth White Base
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Base

Leather

Base: VMA 71.040 Burnt Umber
Drybrush: Ammo A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade

Gold Trim

Base: P3 Rhulic Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
Highlight: P3 Solid Gold
Highlight: P3 Solid Gold mixed with P3 Radiant Platinum

Gold Lantern Thing

Base: GW Retrubutor Gold
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: VMA 71.066 Gold
Highlight: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

Chains

Base: VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight: VMC 77.712 Steel mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome
Highlight: VMC 77.707 Chrome

Immortal Truthbearer

They clearly just mirrored the STL of the regular Truthbearer, broke his chain, and gave him armour. Don’t really blame them on saving effort, but still…

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Battledress Green
Wash deep areas only with P3 Battledress Green mixed with P3 Skorne Red
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

His One Massive Ball

Base: P3 Trollblood Highlight
Heavy Drybrush: GW Karak Stone
Medium Drybrush: GW Screaming Skull
Light Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Highlight
Vallejo Pigment 73.111 Green Earth was brushed on straight from the pot (No moisture involved) with an old drybrush moments before Varnishing. It mixes with the varnish and runs in to the recesses and seals behind itself, giving age, dirt, and depth to the stone.

Black Hands and Mask

Why are his hands black? I don’t know. They appear that way in the art, but perhaps that’s just excessive shading? Maybe I’ll get an explanation when I unlock this guy. Maybe not. Maybe the artists just like desaturating everything too much. Applying an art style is all well and good, but it has it’s problems when it’s out only means of identifying what we’re looking at and it’s misleading.

Base: Revel Aqua Color 36.106 Tar Black
Drybrush: Revel Aqua Color 36.174 mixed with Revel Aqua Color 36.106 Tar Black
Drybrush: Revel Aqua Color 36.174
Drybrush: Revel Aqua Color 36.174 mixed with Reaper MSP 09024 Amethyst Purple

Green Cloth

Base: P3 Traitor Green
Wash: GW Athonian Camoshade
Drybrush: Ammo A.MIG-0606 Medium Green

Gold

Base: GW Retributor Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
Highlight: P3 Soild Gold
Highlight: Darkstar Pale Gold

Red Eyes

Undercoat: Darkstar Pale Gold
Ammo Mig A.MIG-093 Crystal Red Paint

Lunarlander

The Lunarlander is built from the Babelian Lunacy, so his tentacles and gold armour use the same recipes as that model did.

Iron

Base: P3 Pig Iron
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight: P3 Cold Steel
Highlight: P3 Cold Steel mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome
Highlight: VMC 77.707 Chrome

“Face”

Undercoat: Thin down some P3 Menoth White Base and let it run in to the spiral and dry
Glow: Base with some Coat d’arms 168 Ink Wash Yellow. Before it dries, dab in some spots of Coat d’arms 159 Golden Yellow wherever you want

Shadowdancer

Shadowdancer is build from the Dahaka, so I have panited her skirts the same way I painted that.

Flesh

Base: P3 Midlund Flesh
Wash: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Skorne Red
Wash: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Battledress Green
Wash deep areas only with P3 Battledress Green mixed with P3 Skorne Red
Drybrush: P3 Midlund Flesh mixed with P3 Ryn Flesh

Iron Blades

Base: P3 Pig Iron
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight: P3 Cold Steel
Highlight: P3 Cold Steel mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome
Highlight: VMC 77.707 Chrome

Hair

Undercoat: Army painter Fanatic Matt White
Base Reaper MSP 09256 Blond Shadow
Wash: Thinned Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh
Wash: Coat d’arms 113 Ink Wash Flesh in to the deeper areas only
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09257 Blond Hair
Drybrush Reaper MSP 09258 Blond Highlight

Feather

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin mixed with White
Drybrush: White to just the highest points

Leather

Base: VMA 71.040 Burnt Umber
Drybrush: Ammo A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade

Gold Fabric

Base: P3 Rhulic Gold
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia
Highlight: P3 Solid Gold
Highlight: P3 Solid Gold mixed with P3 Radiant Platinum

Gold Metals

Base: GW Retrubutor Gold
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: VMA 71.066 Gold
Highlight: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

Steel Mask

Base: VMC 77.712 Steel
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight: VMC 77.712 Steel mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome
Highlight: VMC 77.707 Chrome

Wishender

The Wishender is made from the Demidjinn. His gold and black flesh are painted the same as with that model.

Iron Blades

Base: P3 Pig Iron
Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight: P3 Cold Steel
Highlight: P3 Cold Steel mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome
Highlight: VMC 77.707 Chrome

Chainmail & Machine Parts

Base: P3 Pir Iron
Wash: GW Nuln Oil or GW Agrax Earthshade for different effects on different areas
Highlight: P3 Quicksilver
Highlight: P3 Quicksilver mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome
Highlight: VMC 77.707 Chrome

Blue Trousers

I don’t like the Hataka paints I have. They go on heavy and vibrant, overpowering whats underneath, but then they usually seem to vanish, even after a lot of coats. Every now and then I try them again because I do like the colours. I had mixed success here, but I think the P3 paint did most of the work

Base over black: Hataka A001 Dark Sea Blue, leaving the recesses black. This is almost the first highlight. Actually worked. I was happy.
Highlight: Hataka A711 Dark Blue. Seemed to do very little at best
Highlight: Hataka A083 Gris Bleu Clair. Seemed to do very little at best
Highlight: I added some Cygnar Blue base to each of the above and tried again and got results
Wash: GW Nuln Oil in to the recesses. Can apply all over if it’s gone too bright or you want to smooth it over a bit

Black-Grey Loin Cloth

Base: P3 Greatcoat grey
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Base
Wash: GW Nuln Oil. 2nd coat if you want it darker

Red Holsters / Machine Shell thingies???

Base: Army Painter Mars Red mixed with P3 Bloodtracker Brown
Wash: GW Carroburg Crimson
Highlight: AP Mars Red
Highlight P3 Khador Red Base

Leather

Base: VMA 71.040 Burnt Umber
Drybrush: Ammo A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade

Hair

Feather

Base: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin mixed with Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Wash: Reaper MSP 09148 Ghoul Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09150 Bloodless Skin mixed with P3 Sickly Skin
Drybrush: P3 Sickly Skin

Other Gold Details

Base: GW Retrubutor Gold
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Highlight: VMA 71.066 Gold
Highlight: VMA 71.066 Gold mixed with VMC 77.707 Chrome

Arrow Shafts

Base: P3 Hammerfal Khaki
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade

Arrow Flights

Base: P3 Ironhull Grey
Drybrush: P3 Underbelly Blue
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Cirrotrireme

Some sort of flying, balloon powered boat platform thing?

Wood

Base: P3 Battlefield Brown
Drybrush: GW Karak Stone
Drybrush: P3 Jack Bone
Wash: Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: P3 Jack Bone
(This recipe usually has a Wash of GW Agrax Earthshade here, but I skipped it this time)
Wash: GW Seraphim Sepia

Iron

Base: P3 Pig iron
Wash: Jan’s Magimix, around just the base of the horn (6-8 Parts GW Nuln Oil, 6-8 Parts GW Agrax Earthshade, 5-6 Parts Lahmium Medium, 2 parts Athonian Camoshade. Thanks, Januinevision)
Drybrush: P3 Cold Steel

Green Balloons

Base: P3 Gnarls Green
Wash: GW Coelia Greenshade
Drybrush VMC 70.967 Olive Green

Rope

Base: VMC 70.884 Stone Grey
Wash: Handcraft Tabletop Terrain Wash 267.01 Dunkelschatten
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Base

Clouds

Base: P3 Underbelly Blue mixed with White
Wash: P3 Underbelly Blue
Highlight: P3 Underbelly Blue mixed with White
Highlight: Last step with more white
Highlight: Last step with more white
Highlight: Last step with more white
Highlight: Last step with more white
etc until happy.

Bronze

Base: P3 Deathless metal
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: P3 Rhulic Gold
Drybrush: P3 Solid Gold

Cycle 4 Primordials

Apr 4 2025

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The Babelian Lunacy

Remember to test fit all the modular plugs first. Chances are you’ll need to shave some down so they fit easier. Remember, paint will make the plugs thicker, so shave off a little more than you need to avoid problems later.

Stone Tower

This is also the recipe I have started using for buildings on the bases

Base: VMC 70.981 Orange Brown
Airbrush Zenithal & Side on spray: VMC 70.819 Iraqui Sand
Drybrush: VMC 70.819 Iraqui Sand mixed with Italeri FS36622 Flat Gull Grey
Drybrush: Italeri FS36622 Flat Gull Grey
Drybrush: Italeri FS36622 Flat Gull Grey Mixed with White
Drybrush: White on just the sharpest edges

Tendrils

Base: VMC 70.994 Dark Grey
Drybrush: P3 Sulphur Yellow

I was going for black whit a hint of yellow, but it ended up green and I just went with it. At this stage it looked a little like a dark, desaturated spectral ghostly green. Might be worth a revisit later should I ever want that effect.

Wash: GW Nuln Oil
Drybrush: P3 Mouldy Ochre
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Highlight
Drybrush: P3 Mouldy Ochre over the P3 Menoth White Highlight

Eye

Base: P3 Deathless Metal
Wash: GW Nuln oil towards the back. Do this while washing the tendrils if you can.
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade everywhere else. Do this while the Nuln oil is still went and blend them together
Circular Drybrush: P3 Deathless Metal over the front portion, retaining a ring of the Agrax behind it
Circular Drybrush: P3 Molten Bronze, retaining a ring of Deathless Metal around it
Circular Drybrush: P3 Rhulic Gold, leaving a ring around it
Circular Drybrush: P3 Solid Gold, leaving a ring around it
Circular Drybrush: Darkstar Pale Gold, leaving a ring around it
Drybrush: Darkstar Pale Gold mixed with Vallejo metal Colour 77.707 Chrome over the bumpy bits

Black Gloopy Bits

Paint the same as the Dahaka, when you paint him

Midascore

Airbrush the wings and then the body before you do any further work, to avoid messing anything up when its harder to fix it.

Wings & Underbelly

Base: Airbrush Reaper MSP 09302 NMM Gold Base. Don’t go for a solid layer. Let the black show through in the shadowed areas.
Pin wash around the bumps, along the edges, and in the crack and holes with P3 Umbral Umber
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09303 NMM Gold Highlight
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09303 NMM Gold Highlight mixed with white

Body

Base: Airbrush what you can safely, then hairy brush, using Reaper MSP 09301 NMM Gold Shadow
Wash: Army painter Strong Tone
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09301 NMM Gold Shadow mixed with Reaper MSP 09302 NMM Gold Base
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09302 NMM Gold Base on selected higher areas

Armour Plates and Claws

Base: P3 Deathless metal
Wash: Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: P3 Rhulic Gold
Drybrush: P3 Rhulic Gold mixed with Vallejo Metal Colour 77.707 Chrome
Edge Highlight: P3 Rhulic Gold mixed with Vallejo Metal Colour 77.707 Chrome

Hair

Base: Reaper MSP 09256 Blond Shadow
Wash: Coat d’arms 133 Ink Wash Flesh
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09257 Blond hair
Drybrush: Reaper MSP 09258 Blond Highlight

Mouth
Wash: GW Carroburg Crimson
Base teeth: P3 Menoth White Base
Highlight teeth and base eyes: P3 Menoth White Highlight
Pupils: Back

Horns
Base: MRP-F059 Brown-Grey
Drybrush: MRP-F060 Dust Grey, avoiding the base of each horn
Drybrush: MRP-F063 Bone White, leaving more of the horns untouched
Drybrush: White on just the tips
Wash: MRP-F059 Brown-Grey mixed with a little black, applied only around the base of each horn, and perhaps stretched up in to some of the deeper recesses a little

Do the airbrush layers for the Dahaka and the Demidjinn at the same time. Both were primes black and given no zenithal preshade.

Dahaka & His Map Mini-Me

Base: Airbrush Revell Aqua Color 36106 Tar Black side on and above only.
Highlight: Airbush Revell Aqua Color 36106 Tar Black mixed with Revell Aqua Color 36174 Gunship Grey
Highlight: Revell Aqua Color 36174 Gunship Grey from a steeper angle only
Pin Wash: Nuln Oil
Drybrush: P3 Coal Black
Pick out the eyes in white

A lazy and unsatisfying paint job, but it matches the art. I could add colour, but I have no idea what this is. I’m assuming its made of smoke, or the black ambrosia all primordials seem to contain, so it is black for a reason?

Demidjinn

Skin

Base: Airbrush Revell Aqua Color 36106 Tar Black side on and above only.
Highlight: Airbush Revell Aqua Color 36106 Tar Black mixed with Revell Aqua Color 36174 Gunship Grey
Drybrush: Revell Aqua Color 36174 Gunship Grey

Gold

Base: Darkstar Regency Gold
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: Darkstar Regency Gold
Drybrush: Darkstar Regency Gold Mixed with Darkstar Pale Gold
Drybrush: Darkstar Pale Gold
Drybrush and Edge Highlight: Darkstar Pale Gold mixed with Vallejo Metal Colour 77.707 Chrome

Leather

Base: P3 Bootstrap Leather:
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand
Wash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Drybrush: A.Mig-0620 Dark Sand as needed

Horn & Spike

Base: P3 jack Bone
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Base, avoiding the base
Drybrush: P3 Menoth White Highlight, only more towards the point
Drybrush: White on just the tip
Wash lightly: Jan’s Magimix, around just the base of the horn (6-8 Parts GW Nuln Oil, 6-8 Parts GW Agrax Earthshade, 5-6 Parts Lahmium Medium, 2 parts Athonian Camoshade. Thanks, Januinevision)

The columns and brickwork caught inside him were painted the same as the the ground at the same time I was painting the bases. This will match all my previously painted columns.

I’m told that is everything I need to start Cycle 4 and play for a while. Last night I cleaned up and primed everything else for the cycle, which is the Titans made from these primordials, the Immortal Truthbearer, and the flying boat platform thing. I’ll be back here when I have something finished. I plan to start playing Cycle over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. I hope I can remember anything about what had happened and how to play.

Wave 1, The 2nd Wave has finally arrived!

Mar 25 2025

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The second wave of the Kickstarter, which ITU are calling Wave 1, has finally arrived, only 4 months after shipping began. Thanks Brexit and Packman Fulfilment!

Wave 1, The 2nd Wave has finally arrived!

Everything I'm told I'll want to have painted before starting Cycle 4

All the above stuff is now airbrush base coated, and the C5 models drying after a bath. The other C4 stuff and Godforms have already dried and been put on one side for later

Black Friday ??? Titan

Mar 25 2025

Tutoring 1

2 Comments

This model was released on Black Friday 2025 and may or may not be staying around. He was sold only as the ??? Titan. What they did not tell us up front is that the box contains no instructions for integrating him in to the game. Apparently he’s already in there, hidden somewhere, and we need to figure it out as we play. Given he seems to be added and perhaps designed after the fact I have concerns that it might not be obvious when he’s unlocked. If I play the game, unlock him and don’t notice because they chose to keep it vague I’m going to be very disappointed.

New Titans: Corona, Harbinger, Meleager, Porphyra, and Zeno

Oct 23 2024

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They released 5 new Titans on their web store. Rules-wise they appear a little disappointing. Little more than alt sculpts for the base level titans, but holding different weapons. Last time, it was a whole new special titan with it’s own rules. This time we just got a few new gear cards. Maybe I’ll be more impressed once I get playing again. If they do this again I likely won’t buy them.

I rushed then through so they’re ready for the table as soon as Wave 2 arrives. it docks near the local distribution hub this Saturday, in theory.

Corona Titan

New Titans: Corona, Harbinger, Meleager, Porphyra, and Zeno

Harbinger Titan

Meleager Titan

Porphyra Titan

Zeno Titan

Helios

May 10 2024

Skill 6

Idea 6

2 Comments

With Wave 1 finished it was time to put the box away until Wave 2 arrives, but I can’t do that until I paint the last mini. That meant it was time to work on Helios, god of the sun, and the most knock-overable first player token ever made. The sun part was mostly airbrush work, finished off with some brushwork.

Fear my underpants!

This is a double post. They really should feed those hamsters more often

May 10 2024

Tutoring 2

Skill 2

No Comments

This is a double post. They really should feed those hamsters more often

Cycle 3 Finished: My Heroic Mode rules

Mar 20 2024

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WARNING! The pics below contain heavy spoilers of the maps. Do not look closely at them. They are for my benefit later

I finally finished all the available content last week! It only took me about a year. 30 fights in C3, 32 fights in C2, and at least 25 fights in C1. Wave 2 (C4+5) are hopefully shipping Q2, as of last weeks update, so I hope to get started on this soon. I may detour to KDM briefly while waiting for delivery and painting up what I need to get started on cycle 4.

Cycle 2 was all about being outclassed and struggling to overcome overwhelming odds. Cycle 3 drops that (To some extent. It’s still hard. More on that later), and instead focuses on time travel. The land is stuck in a series of time loops, and now so are you. One of the monsters will switch you to a timeline you’re already dead in, if you don’t move fast enough. This mechanic is interesting, and a fun challenge once you get used to it, but I found, especially early on, that it was far too easy to pull the wrong card at the wrong time and just erase all your titans. That was a horrible experience and lead to me embracing my own Heroic Mode rules, which I’ll come to soon.

This game has always taken up a lot of space. I have it set up with the battle board taking up a whole 6×4 table, and the world map and tech cards filling up a desk. C3 laughed at that. You think it’s got a world map? A single world map? Pah! I ended up with 4, over 3 different time periods. I pulled out a 2×4 board and rested it on a spare bed, and even then I had trouble fitting my extra maps on in. I then had guests stay over in that spare room a few times. They kept having to step over my map board, and avoid my map desk. It must have been odd for them.

The game is hard and has issues, but I enjoyed it once I tweaked the rules a little. Cycle 3 really blew my socks off though. The finale for C3, the cliffhanger for Wave 1 was truly epic. It was a moment that stands out for me. One of my high points in gaming from the past few years. I cannot discuss it because Spoilers, but it was really well done, and really special. It makes me really excited to see where the story is going, and how they are going to change the game going forward. I really wish I could talk about it. I was buzzing for a couple of days. 11/10 would recommend. If you don’t mind playing a long hard game to get there.

Hero Mode

I’ve worked my way through two cycles, occasionally bending the rules because of negative play experiences and the game being pitched far harsher than I want, i.e. They don’t mind if you wipe and start again from the very beginning. Not terrible if you can play the whole thing in a month or two. Soul destroying if you lose nine months of progress and you’ve still got 9 more months to go even if you’d survived. I don’t mind a hard game, but I want a game I can complete before the heat death of the universe. I’ve other things I want to get done.

Cycle 3 added in some new mechanics for its fights that meant I could die instantly regardless of my health, and I decided this was just too much. Time to dial it back a notch and make it so I stood a chance and enjoyed myself. I tweaked rules as I played the cycle and I’m calling it my hero mode. I’m formalising it here for the benefit of others. Losing a Titan isn’t too bad. Losing 1-2 every fight (minimum 1 fight every 5ish days, often 2-3), and then taking 9 days to grow back a replacement, and you can only grow one from each generation at a time quickly leads to you running on Dreamwalkers only, and they seem to be terrible once the cycle gets going. At least that’s the impression C2 gave me. This will lead to an attrition loss pretty quickly.

Maybe none of this would be needed if I was smarter. Maybe none of this would be needed if I wasn’t playing solo and I could keep track of everything better, and had a second opinion on rules I might be playing wrong.

1: Lesser Toying (Stolen from the Hermesian Persuer. Some people play full Toying at all times). All Primordials roll 1 less dice to hit, and you ignore the first increase in Danger from them evolving. Minimum roll of 1 dice.

2: If you reveal an instant death card before you’ve even had a chance to make a choice, put it back in the deck and draw again.

3: You can spend Fate to shuffle and redraw Obols. You can spend Fate to reroll an Awakening test.

4: All instant death cards and effects force an Obol draw instead. If this is a phased effect that has a Obol draw option a stage below (ie for one successful hit, draw an obol, for two you die instantly), add an extra “You Died Horribly card” and draw.

5: Argo Abilities and powers like that, that grant a very limited number of uses in a fight can be applied after you roll the dice. Argo Trireme Abilities do not count against your AA limit, but you can only ever bring one.

6: Rerolls: Rerolls from Spiral or Black tokens are a separate thing from generic rerolls, so those dice can be rerolled for each of those effects. Black tokens can also be spent to apply their Break token effect without rerolling that dice.

7: Sisyphean Tokens can be spent to redo any instance of RNG, even after you’ve seen how it all plays out. If this is a card draw, shuffle the old card back in the deck before drawing again. Time is limited. Why redo the whole fight, when you just want a redo of the last disaster?

8: Argo Fate. If you’re going to reduce yours and your characters would know this (i.e. they can see a fight about to happen), feel free to ignore the voyage sequence briefly and spend any fate you want to make use of this change. Fate is so limited. Don’t waste it.

9: Spending Fate to gain nodes or train titans. Mark it on the timeline, but don’t pick who or what is getting the benefit until the time comes. It’s no fun when they’re dead or retired by the time it comes up.

10: Argo Bred. This isn’t a balance rule. This is just about me hating this term. In the rules “Argo Bred” refers to Non-Dreamwalkers, whether they were bred on the Argo or not. Titans who were bred on the Argo do not count as Argo Bred. This drives me crazy. I play that any titan bred on the Argo is Argo bred, along with the Non-Dreamwalkers.

11: When you spend fate to reroll any dice you can chose to just add 1 to it instead. This will never make it count as a critical.

12: Loot gained by critical hits. I did not play with this rule, but I’m very tempted for C4. The first time you encounter a monster go through its BP deck. Make a list of every card with loot that can be gained by critting it. Every time you wound that card put a tally by its name. Every time you roll to hit that card, add the number of tallies to your roll. If it is 10+, it counts as a crit, but only for the purposes of earning that item. You gain no other crit effects, unless you rolled a natural crit normally.

13: Memnos Nodes. When earning nodes, I don’t distinguish. Anything that can gain you a Memnos Node could also gain you a Fated Memnos node

14: If you would gain a titan or a resources from an icon on the world map, but you are already at max, leave a token there. if you end up back there later (You won’t) you can collect it then. I recommend printing your own tokens for everything.

15: Once you max out your Argo knowledge through Inwards Odyssey, keep track of extra gains. Every extra point you scored can b cashed in during the following Onwards Odyssey to extend the timeline by one, or can be spent instead of an Argo Fate. You can still use all your tech and abilities during the onwards Odyssey to grow new titans, train them up, and improve your Argonauts etc.

Hypertime Oracle:

1: The timefront does not advance faster as he evolves.
2: If you retreat the timeline beyond the board edge, keep track of these spaces and knock them off of it’s next advance

Harpy:

1: The Bleed effect that happens at the start of the each fight shouldn’t trigger any negative rules you might have about gaining more bleed tokens. Dying, or being pushed to the brink of death before the fight starts is no fun.

If I remember more, I’ll come back and update

Once again, SPOILER ALERT: Do not look closely at these following pics. They are for my benefit so I can restore my map once Onwards Odyssey arrives.

Talespinner Titan

Dec 11 2023

2 Comments

I ordered this lady during Essen, and she’s finally painted up. They say she’s unbalanced un early cycles, but I’m not seeing it. Her unique ability looks like its great for getting a good strike in when the Kratos Pool is empty, but it still leaves the next guy without any tokens. I think she’ll still leave some from items I suppose. She might be Good, but I’m not seeing Great.

The one great thing I am seeing is how you make her. All other named titans require 7-10 days to grow. She doesn’t have that. you can spawn her at a moments notice, and the resource she uses is rare, but its not used for anything else at all. This means when you’re low on good titans and in trouble, she’s always an option. She might surprise me anyway, and could be a superstar in Sins of Herakles. Who know?

House Rules / Hero Mode / Lawnor Cheats

Nov 2 2023

Skill 5

Idea 5

3 Comments

As discussed in my last post and in the chats beneath it, this game is aimed a little harsher than I want for a game that will take me two years to play through. I don’t want to have to wipe and replay two months of content when I feel I’ve not done anything stupid or wrong, and it’s just the game demanding I’m both smart and lucky. I don’t mind losing a game. I don’t mind having to replay content. I just don’t have the lifespan to redo a 2 year campaign because the dice turned against me. A 2 month campaign perhaps, but this thing is too big for how easy it is to lose and either start from the beginning, or restart losing your progress/story and being handed a randomised one instead.

It does feel sometimes like they’ve play tested fights and mechanics, but not had the time to repeatedly playtest the five cycle campaign as a whole. How could they? Who has that kinda time?

As such, there’s a few rules I’ve taken to bending, changing, or occasionally ignoring. There’s some I’m starting to rewrite for my solo play purposes. I’m going to compile a list below over the next few days, and probably keep adding to it when I get back in to playing C3 regularly. Please comment below with your opinions on these, and your own house rules.

For extra context for all this, I am playing solo so I might be misunderstanding some rules, and I definitely make mistakes as I play. I misread stuff. I forget stuff. I get caught up in trying to keep track of everything and don’t see things I would have if I was one of 4 players at the table. As a general rule I allow myself the “I’d have seen that if I was only controlling one titan” rewind/reset a lot of the time. I only have one brain and it’s kept very busy, and it’s probably not up to code to begin with!

Things I definitely do

Trireme Argo Abilities

These are a type of Argo Ability. You’re capped at how many Argo Abilities you can take in to a fight, and you’re also capped at 1 Trireme Argo Ability. I assume your Trireme Argo Ability is supposed to count against your Argo Ability limit, but I’ve decided to not count it as such. Their effectiveness (so far. I’ve just finished C2) is very limited, and there’s very few fights they can be used in, so I don’t see the harm.

Argo Ability Tokens

You get some Argo Abilities and other powers that let you buy rerolls or add tokens to the Kratos pool a very limited number of times per fight. You’re usually supposed to declare all of this before rolling your first dice. It feels really bad when you blow your load and it affects nothing. I try to play this by the rules, but on tougher fights I usually talk myself into making all my rolls first and applying the tokens once I know if they’ll be useful.

Black Tokens

These give you a reroll and apply a break token to the rerolled dice. The rules say all rerolls happen at the same time, but these feel different. They’re tokens you spend from the pool which feels like it has a different timing, even if this is never clearly stated. I imagine they want them to count as standard rerolls, but I usually apply them separately, allowing me to potentially reroll the black tokened dice a second time. I also allow myself to apply them as a break token while skipping the reroll part.

+1 to all tests

I misread some rules during C2 and made some of my voyage phase tests easier than was intended. I’m pretty sure if I’d played them properly, I’d have lost the campaign halfway through. I have decided that from the start of C3 I will be meeting the rules halfway, and giving myself a +1 bonus to all voyage phase tests, maybe including adventures.

Trireme Scout

Losing them is very expensive. Argo Fate is far too expensive a resource for this. I have decided the chance to recall the trireme is 100% if I’m on the same map tile. I might boost it a little under other circumstances too.

Mnestis Theatre rewards

The Mnestis Theatre gets far too hard very early. It is not meant for people who want to play the campaign. It is meant for people who want to bang their head against a wall repeatedly, grinding the same fight again and again until they find the right mix of gear, tactics, and luck. Some of the rewards from it do help with the game though, so I have decided that every 5 days of the campaign I can unlock the next line of rewards from the Mnestis tree. You should probably play to unlock the Skyseer normally, though. I got a little past that point naturally.

Mnestis Ascending Rewards

I forget what they’re called, but you get tokens from the Mnestis theatre that you can attach to equipment to ascend it. They’re supposed to then be locked to that item. There’s a house rule on the ATO discord that lets you swap these tokens around at will between fights. I think this is a good idea.

AB Titans

I usually rule that any rule that calls out Argo Bred Titans applies to any titan I bred on the Argo, along with all special titans.

Finding AB Titans vs Capacity

The rules state that you can never get rid of a titan you own by choice, so if you find a better one when you’re at capacity you cannot keep it. This also means that if you’re at capacity and remove one to turn it in into a special titan in 10 days, but then find another before then, you cannot keep the special titan. I ignore this. I can always set a titan free to keep a special titan.

Inwards Odyssey tokens

I finished C2 with an Inwards Odyssey score of 46ish, but it’s capped at 40 in C2. I decided that for each point over the cap I’d allow myself to extend the Onwards Odyssey mini campaign by 1 day, or buy an extra Argo Fate.

Sisyphus Tears

These are supposed to be spent to let you reset and retry a fight. I don’t need an in-game mechanic to let me do that. I’ll do that anyway if I think things have gone horribly wrong through my lack of knowledge on rules or boss mechanics, or the RNG really skewing against me. I have decided that I will allow myself to use these to draw again when a titan pulls a card that kills it (it might be a trauma card, an obol, or perhaps I decide it’s the fault of the AI card). I’ll put the offending card back in the deck and reshuffle before drawing. Tears are super rare so I almost never get to apply this rule. I think I only have 6 after two cycles and I’ve only done this a couple of times.

Round 1 Insta Death

Sometimes the monster will activate and give your titan a paper cut and you draw a card that just kills it outright and you haven’t even activated that titan yet. No roll to avoid, no chance to redraw. You’re just dead. It feels like you’ve lost the fight and you haven’t even started playing it yet. At times like this I decide I could just reset and start again, or I could skip all the work and just draw a different card. I don’t spend a tear for this (See above). It’s a freebie because I hate this mechanic. It’s a negative play experience with no interaction. It’s the game telling you you don’t get to play it.

Pygmalion Stones

These things are rare and they’re the only thing that stops you losing your best titans for ¼ of the campaign when things go wrong. You earn 1/3^rd of a stone every time an Argo Bred titan dies, but you really don’t want the AB titans to die. These stones are to prevent that. I count the deaths of Dreamwalker titans I bred on the Argo towards earning more stones, and I still only have 5 and I may have spent as many as 1. I save them for emergencies, and saving long growth time titans.

Memnos Draw Deck

Memnos’s (menoses?) are geared towards their cycle and can feel useless in the wrong cycle. When I’m told to draw a Memnos at random from my draw deck I restrict my draw to ones for the current cycle, if available.

Argo Fate for Memnos/Mausoleum

Sometimes I’ll spend an Argo Fate to gain a Memnos on a certain Argonaut in a week, and then they’re gone by then. When this happens I let myself pick a different Argonaut. AF is too rare to let go to waste.

Things I’m thinking about doing

Crit locations for special items

There was a discussion on their discord a while back about how sometimes you just can’t get the interesting items from critting the right BP cards. I proposed this rule and it got a lot of appreciation. I might test it out in C3.

“How about a house rule where every time you damage a BP with an item from a crit make a tally mark of it on the back of your campaign sheet next to the BP card name. For the rest of the campaign whenever you attack that card again add the number of tallies (or half?) to your to hit roll on the crit dice. This new value only counts for purposes of seeing if you qualify to get the item. It won’t make a miss a hit, and it won’t earn you any other bonuses. It could represent your past experiences with the monster letting you get better at grabbing that thing you saw last time. It’s not like you go through the whole BP deck every fight and I’m guessing most of these items will be on higher BP cards, and so be seen less, and be less likely to get damaged. I’d reset the tally marks between successes, if you can get multiple items from a single card.”

Reducing cooldown on AB titans?

The conversion time for making special titans makes me reluctant to risk them sometimes. I made it through C2 without it actually becoming a serious problem so I’ll leave it alone for now. If it does become an issue I might reduce the cooldown, or allow multiples from the same timer to run in parallel.

Extra cores from kills

I feel like I’m not quite getting enough cores to use them as much as the game allows. It’s close though, so this rule doesn’t want tinkering much. I’m considering a house rule where I roll a d10 after killing a primordial. If I wounded more than 1 BP3 card I add 1 to it. If I successfully used Carving I add 1 to it. if the result is 10+, then I can gain an extra core. It shouldn’t come up much. I’d eyeball around 1 in 7 fights. That would have given me around an extra 4 cores from C2 I think.

Toying

One of the popular house rules I see on the Discord is to apply the Hermesian Persuers “Toying” ability to everything. I’m not doing this, but if things become unreasonably tough it’s an option. I definitely turned this on for the tougher Mnestis theatre fights I tried.

Wandering Titan tokens

I’m considering making up a handful of Titan tokens for use in the voyage phase. Any time I find a wild titan and I can’t pick him up because I’m at capacity I can drop the token down. If I end up back on their tile later I can then collect them if they’re useful. I could go one step further and have them move one tile randomly at the end of each day. They move across land so don’t need rivers, and they wouldn’t step in to the ocean.

Advice

Saving Progress in their App

When you move the campaign along in the app it doesn’t create a new entry like I thought it does. It overwrites your current save slot. You will lose some information you might want later. If you wipe and want to reset back to the start of the campaign then you have no save slot to revert to. I suggest making a whole new entry in the app and manually importing your information and using one as a backup save and the other as your current saved game.

Tech Trees

Go to Board Game Geek and grab a tech tree. Mark off what you’ve already got, and make notes on it about the things your aiming for (“This breeds titans”, “This is next quest goal”, “urgent” etc). It’ll make life a whole lot easier.

Double Size Timeline sheet

Print the timeline sheet at double the size. It’s hard to make legible notes on the one they give you. It’s too small and cramped. Then document everything. You never know when it’ll be useful.

Keep all dead/retired Argonaut sheets

When someone dies or retires, mark off what happened, when and why at the top of their sheet and save the sheet. They will be relevant later on. Don’t assume that you can wipe the page and reuse it. You will regret this.

Retirement is good

I didn’t understand this at first. I would try and progress both Memnos on my characters to unlock their abilities. This is a waste. if you have to pick one to spend points in, go with whatever has the most. When you max out the Memnos your character will retire. This is a good thing. You’ll gain something, and put a tick on the choice matrix. Who knows what you’ve unlocked, or when it can come back to reward you? Also, Memnoses are geared towards being useful in the cycle they are from, so you want all the C1’s removed from the deck so they’re not getting drawn in C2.

Fighting the Adversary resets fate

During C1 I spent a lot of time fearing the adversary, mostly because it cost 2+ hours of my time when I was trying to progress the plot. It took me a while to understand that the Adversary is often a good thing. The only way to lower your AF is usually to fight something. The Adversary is an extra chance to fight. It can be worth throwing away a few Dreamwalker titans to get some AF back and reset your dials. Don’t underestimate the importance of this.
Timeline Flow Chart

Edit: 09/11/23

Voyage Phase Progress Tracker

I leave my game set up. I usually stop playing just as a new fight triggers so I can start the next session with a fight. There are a few different stages in the turn sequence a fight can trigger, and I don’t always stop before a fight. This means when I get back to the game I’m not always sure what stage in the turn I’m actually at. When playing you can trigger events and unlock things midway through a story event and it’s easy to forget them. To help with all of this I mocked up this voyage phase sequence tracker, and printed out a photo of my Argo as a token to move along it. I leave my Argo on the last resolve step, and put tokens in some boxes as reminders to resolve stuff when I get there.

We can see from this thgat I'm about to resolve a timeline battle, I'll collect a Doom token when I hit that stage in the sequence, I've got 2 Nymph summoning tokens remaining, and my Adversary is The Burden, who is not on the map at this time

I’ll likely revisit this post in the future as the game progresses.

Cycle 2 Finished

Oct 31 2023

8 Comments

Cycle 2 does an amazing job of expressing it’s themes through gameplay. It goes all in on “show don’t tell”. This is great game writing. However, it’s themes are hopelessness, powerlessness, and being overwhelmed. That doesn’t lend itself to a “fun” game experience. Once I was deep in the cycle I got in to it though, so it’s not bad, just tough.

Right at the start of the cycle (with my choices, at least. I assume this holds true for everyone?) the game took all my toys away and punished me hard. It made it very clear I could not hold my own and the final boss was going to just murder me effortlessly any time he turned up. In C1 the boss turned up 3-5 times before the final battle, so I’m left with a feeling like this bully can turn up at any point and kick my teeth in and steal my lunch money. It’s great for stressing the theme, but left me stressed and demoralised. I’m writing this while I’m in the start of C3 and I’m putting off playing for fear the game is about to do something similar and any choice I make now will be the wrong one. It took me 65ish days of the 80 day campaign to recover from that initial battle.

I’m moaning, but once I got my teeth in to C2 I did enjoy the ride. I misread some rules though, which did make it easier. C2 introduces the Ascendency rule. When ascendency is in play all C1 items are less effective unless they are ascended. Its worded in an ambiguous way in the book. It says to only apply ascendency when we’re told to, then introduces it half way through a fight. I thought it ended when the fight did, and would get turned back on and off during future fights. I was half way through the campaign before I found out I was cheating accidentally. and once it’s on, it’s on forever.

The Chimera was an interesting opponent. I avoided fighting it at first because it has a lot of extra rules and I thought it would be very hard. A level 1 chimera basically sits there and lets you kill it. As you fight higher level versions it gains more abilities, coats you in its slime, and that slowly burns you to death across a battle. It mechanically sells the idea of the classic Blob movie. It starts off small and weak, but grows and grows, until it swallows Manhatten and the army are powerless against it.

Cyclonus was more in line with what we’d seen before, but posed extra challenges. He has cages strapped to him with people in. Sometimes damaging him will kill someone in a cage and cost you Humanity. What humanity does and how it will interact with the game is not explained. it’s a threat looming over you the whole campaign. How far are you willing to push your humanity? What will the consequences be? Cyclonus also increases your Rage against your will, giving an alternate type of damage to the battle.

The Burdon is the Adversary that replaces the Hermesian Persuer, once you finally beat it. The Burdon plays out like clockwork pinball. You don’t really want to fight it. You start at the bottom of a cliff (left side of the board) and have to get to the top (The right side). Every time the Burden attacks it stands to the right and does knockback and you bounce off lots of terrain. Fall off the bottom and you die. Make it to the top and you escape. He is way too hard to fight in C2, but he’ll be back in C3.

C2 was tough and intimidating, but enjoyable. I do think they could do with dialling back the difficulty a smidge. I’ve had a little contact with them and seen some of their chats with the community. They seem to be of the opinion that losing a cycle and starting again is normal, to be expected, and not a problem. It feels like they expect people to lose even if they’re making good choices. They seem to have balanced the game around this viewpoint. I don’t think they fully appreciate how long it takes normal people to play this game around having a job and a family etc. I’ve been playing this game for 6ish months and I’m 2 cycles out of 5 in. If I buckle down I might finish the game late next year. If a game takes 2 years to play through it should not be normal and expected for people to wipe and start again from the beginning unless things have gone very wrong, and yet they don’t want anyone creating a reset point. If you wipe you either start C1 from the beginning, or you restart the current cycle with random ticks on the choice matrix and default crew and item loadout. No thanks.

I do enjoy the game, but I think I’m going to look for ways to take the edge off the challenge. I think I’m going to lower the difficulty of all the voyage phase tests by 1. Some people apply the Persuers “Toying” ability (-1 attack dice, -1 damage to each attack) to all Primordials. I’m not going to do that yet, but it’s a consideration. I want to experience the content and go play other things. I don’t want to wipe 18 months in to 2 years of game, and either reset or quit.

I tried my hand at the Mnestis Theatre (It’s like the X-Men’s Danger Room). The earlier level fights are manageable, but it quickly ramps up to silliness. The Mnestis theatre is not meant to be beaten casually. you’re meant to spend a few days bashing your head against each monster, trying to work out the perfect combo of gear, titans, tactics, and luck required to win. It is not meant for people with limited time who want to make progress. You should definitely do what’s required to unlock the Skyseer as soon as possible, but otherwise maybe skip this, unless you’re a glutton for punishment. I’m thinking that every 5 timeline days I’ll allow myself the rewards of the next level of the Mnestis tree.

For anyone curious about such things, Across C2 and the Mnestis theatre I was involved in 32 battles, and spent 4-5 hours working through Onwards Odyssey C2 after the campaign. That makes this about 85-101 hours of play, give or take.

The C1 map is more or less square, but the C2 map is a lot taller than it is wide. Plan your table space around this. I’m told C3 is 3 maps, each smaller than what we’ve previously seen.

Onwards Odyssey

Jun 26 2023

2 Comments

I’ve been hooked on Diablo 4 since it’s release a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had no free time for anything else. Sunday morning I decided I was going to put the game down and do some painting. It turns out it was so hot that paint was drying on the model before I could work with it so I packed up and went back to Diablo. They were having a DDoS attack so I couldn’t play that, so I went back to ATO. Cycle 1 was finished and I’ve been putting off Cycle 2 as I’m going to need the table space in two weeks. I’ll start up again after that. There was one more thing to finish of before I pack up Cycle 1 though: Onwards Odyssey

Onwards Odyssey was an optional extra they sold after the KS ended but before wave 1 arrived. It’s two mini campaigns set between Cycles and 2, and 2 and 3. The physical books and tokens will arrive with Wave 2, but they released a PDF when Wave 1 shipped. Given I already had the world map set up, it only took 2-2.5 hours to learn the new rules and play through the mini campaign. It didn’t add as much as I might have liked to the game, but it was worth doing. It was world exploration without the risk. All the fights have been removed, although I had the opportunity for one, but I preferred the other story path. I suspect there’s a second fight to be found, too. It’s a chance to uncover a few more things before you leave Cycle 1 behind. I gained a pet dog. he acts like a piece of equipment, but doesn’t take up an equipment slot. I also added a few more ticks to the ongoing Choice Matrix.

My ship is now fully restocked and ready for what happens next. The timeline for this was too tight for anything other than strictly efficient navigation. I would have preferred a few more opportunities to interact with the story. It adds two new adventure hubs, and a collection of standalone events on the map, based on your existing Choice Matrix. I found these were outside of my best path and not worth (From what little information I had about the anyway) steering towards, although I would have loved to. It was a shame to miss them. I hope they’ve had a chance to learn from this before writing the versions for between later cycles.

Golden But-But-Ding

Jun 14 2023