Weekender XLBS: The Origins Of 4Ground & Cel-Shading Your Minis!
October 16, 2016 by dignity
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Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!
In this week’s episode of “Warren Mangles some Science” ,,, he’s close:
– Gigantism rather than Giantism… ayway over to some experts via the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37622249
I should fit right in!
If Justin took his butternut squash to Asgardia – after a while wouldn’t he be a bit Thor? 😉
Ohh God, that was just perfect LOL 😀
@warzan have you tried the clip on spray gun for the paint cans which are just off/on with the nozzle?
http://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/garage-workshop/welding-metal-work/can-gun-1-spray-can-tool
I work with people who have to put together complex documentation and an ex-colleahe of mine once gave me a perfect way of measuring the comvoluted complexity of it.
How any fingers do you need to understand something?
Reading it off page 7 as is – zero,
Now it’s referring me to another rule on page 23 that I have to read at the same time – which refers me to a definition on page 67… I’m suddenly up to threee fingers to keep my place.
Keep adding additional codexes, quick references and you need OctoTrump and his many (small) hands whith their (short) fingers to keep track of where you are.
Litko sells clear acrylic bases in several sizes. I’ve used the 1″ bases and love them. Just make sure you use a new blade when removing the base. The plastic is soft on these board game minis, and removing bases is simple.
http://www.litko.net/categories/Bases-%26-Base-Bottoms/Acrylic-Bases/
@warzan, for Zombicide heroes, leave the bases black. If you use a clear base, all you´re gonna see is the colour of your base sleeve (orange for instance). Also, IMHO, with clear bases, you loose the contrast that makes the models pop.
I’m thinking the black base ‘jars’ a bit – and clear bases have too many downsides for me. What about a light sand texture with a light dry-brush?
For a boardgame like Zombicide I would never use clear bases. First it is a lot of effort (contradicting your approach of having it done quickly) and secondly it makes the miniature much more fragile to handle and for a boardgame this is a bad thing. Moreover, glueing clear bases is a hassle as you either gave to use special glue (like two component one) that often has a long drying time or be very careful with superglue as this will Frist the base resulting in an awful look.
Frist = frost
Awesome show guys. When I saw that picture of the Citadel Guard Archers I was immediately taken back to that picture in The Seige of Goner book. Eitehr you couldn’t help yourself or that’s a very lucky coincidence 🙂
That’s a nice look you chaps have gotten there on the Zombicide:BP minis @warzan . Might have to look into trying that, although it made me chuckle that you’ve flipped the plastic colours on the heroes & zombies 🙂
Happy sunday!
Nice tip for painting those kilo-plastic Kickstarters.
For clear bases you can try Sally 4th website. They can made custom size bses if you want.
http://wargamesbuildings.co.uk/epages/950003459.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/950003459/Categories/Clear_TerraBases
I’ve bought clear bases from Litko in 25 and 30 mm round and 25 mm square for Deadzone, AvP and Dungeon Saga. You have to decide whether you want 1.5 mm or 3 mm thick.
Justin the Ass Guardian? Really?
Best rule set, where you just play and it feels like your actually there fighting on the battlefield. Easily without question…. Bolt Action. Superb. So many water cooler moments. Briliant
When the dwarven zombie apocalypse comes, we’ll all be relying on him! 😉
happy sunday
Happy Sunday!
Great show as always guys and I was so surprised to have my name and comment from last week read out…. Fame at last! 😉
It is a nice look on the Zombiecide minis and I may try this on my Blood Rage minis. But why didn’t someone straighten the swords on the heros models? 😉
Or companies could do with what Mythic Games are doing with Mythic Battles, and do the weapons in hard plastic 🙂
Happy Sunday 🙂
Thanks guys so much for the great response to my LOTR armies on parade board, really pleased to say it won gold yesterday. 😀
@warzan you asked where the castle is from? Well, it is all scratch built from blue foam 😀
Ah ha!
Nice discussion on the cell-shading. Perhaps that needs capitalising… Cell-Shading… yeah…
Anyway, I’ve been using a lot of brain time to work out what to do with my Dungeon Saga stuff; it’s been sitting around and I’ve not even played one game because it’s not painted. Problem is, there are something like 100-150 minis there and I’m coming to the realisation that I’m never going to get that done in this lifetime, hence will never get to play the game.
I have been coming up with painting ideas, but even very basic schemes would take too much time and I’d end up dissatisfied with the result – I save my effort for Infinity minis. All I knew was it was going to involve clear bases, because as Warren said, some artist spent time on the board and covering it up with scenic bases.
So, I have my bases and now it looks like I’ve got a paint system that doesn’t look crap!
One thing that I’m trying to work out is how to attach the minis to the perspex bases once I’ve cut them off the old bases (preferably without losing parts of my fingers!).
So, @warzan, can you please, please, please let us know how you get on with the detaching and re-attaching of bases? Ta!
heres a thought. cell shaded flames of war. make them look as if they just fell out of a 1940s newsreel
I would love to see a WWII army in 15 or 28mm with a grey scale look to them. Once I get to my British Bolt Action army I am thinking of doing this and wonder how @johnlyons or @elromanozo wood go about this type of scheme?
@warzan Sally 4th do clear acrylic bases in various sizes
Think that’s where I picked mine up from.
I know that the obvious choice is Litko, but I didn’t fancy the shipping cost at the time.
Great idea and execution with the cell-shading! I supported Black Plague on KS and need a simple way to paint them. I also intend to use the hero minis for frostgrave and my own projects (been tinkering with the idea of creating a brutal dungeon delve 2d scroller inspired by Darkest Dungeon). To that end, I think I will paint the heroes and abominations to tabletop standard and use the dark cell-shade technique on the hordes of zombies.
Cell-shading and painting an added light source could be brilliant. If I back the KD:M kickstarter, that might be the way to go. Looking forward to the tutorial with drybrushing in next re-roll, since airbrushinging is well beyond my hobby budget.
The best way I have found to remove bases from plastic minis is to use clippers to remove everything around the feet then use a hobby knife with a chisel blade (I know X-Acto sells the blades separately) to carefully slice the bits under the feet. I place each foot sideways on a cutting mat and do a quick chop. It may be necessary to use a file or sand paper to smooth and even the bottoms of the feet so I usually leave a tiny bit of the base on when chopping.
That cell shading idea is ******* genius. They look great and faster than my fastest rate of about 6 minis a week.
Happy Sunday guys,
Interesting to see the new painting method and it is something I am going to suggest to my buddy for his Zombieside which he plays with all the family.
I came across some images of a Kingdom Death Monster boxset at Gencon that had been painted up as statues which looked lovely although I think the time that had gone into them was a lot as they were a commission. I can only find the images on the guy’s Facebook page now. For those interested scroll down to the 4th Aug. I really like the marbling and the cracks he has put into them :-
https://www.facebook.com/theblackhandsblog/
Interesting right at the end about the special rules and having them incorporated and universal. I think this is a balance of fluff and play in many ways. I am not sure with the lore and background of many games if their specialist units and characters are a true reflection of the fluff they are built upon. I love to read the history of a character/unit and get a real feel for them. I wonder if anyone plays large scale games of things like 40K from an RPG perspective. I imagine from the BoW team Ben would be the best one to ask this of, it may be interesting for him to face off his Dwarfs against Night Goblins for one of the Karaks and with RPG in mind battle to win the day.
Warren touched on the Orks would never wave a white flag and retreat and from all we know that’s very true but some of the old lore for Kommando’s had them sneaking up on an enemy and the other Orks thinking they were strange and cowardly or ‘sneaky gits’ for doing that. Maybe ‘it’s a trap!’ as these guys would be the only ones other than gretchin who would be willing I think.
I always associated the jump, shoot, jump rule as a special rule brought about by their fluff. In essence a representation of their advanced technology allowing them to acquire a target and engage quicker. This along with their Greater Good mindset where the idea is to fight to your last breath if needed, but in doing so taking as large a toll as possible on the foe. Maybe I am reading too much into things or am just finding coincidence in the fluff but I would like to think that some special rules come from an amalgamation of not only a character/units equipment but also their background.
Great show today guys and plenty to think about.
“I am not sure with the lore and background of many games if their specialist units and characters are a true reflection of the fluff they are built upon.”
Privateer Press have external playtest groups for WarmaHordes whose sole purpose is to test whether the way a new unit plays matches its fluff. They have other group for testing whether the units are balanced. Seems such an obvious thing to do once you hear it.
That’s very cool. Is it a community built play testing group or one that Privateer Press put together?
PP put it together. I had the chance to hear from one of the PP guys last about how they go about creating and playtesting new units. They do a lot of in-house alpha playtesting, and when that’s done it goes out to their external groups for beta testing, and some of those specifically test for fluff. Not to say they can’t feed back on balance either, but mainly they want to know whether the unit plays the way it’s meant to.
I really like that. I imagine they would only really have been able to set this up once they were well established and had a pool of players interested in being a part of said playgroups. I have found that for new companies it can be difficult getting a good size number of playtesters to volunteer. I imagine there may even be groups out there now who ask to be paid to playtest.
Without a doubt. It’s hard enough for a minis game by a small company to get people to play it regularly, let alone get regular playtesters. I’ve been playtested some in my time and you get to see just why it is many games are unbalanced when they launch their first edition. It’s not because the creators don’t want it to be well-balanced, they just can’t get enough quality playtesting. PP are big enough, and more to the point WarmaHordes is big enough, that they can do it. GW could obviously do it for their main games too. They don’t, but they could.
Re AP and darkening. I think I used the wrong word. Tinting is probably the word I should have used.
At the end of the show when Warren is saying It’s all about you…you…you to the ass gardian. Is that you,you,you?or ewe,ewe,ewe?.
Why during various discussions about rules do I always come back to two of my favorites:
– Infinity: Inclusing “first action move, any AROs? Second action I’m shooting at that part of the move” (allows the pop-out and back)
– Malifaux. A wide variety of models but minimal core rules to learn with cards for each model with a handful special rules for each; but with a few exceptions they are easy to understand and apply.
Why do these rulesets work so well?
>> They use language consistently so you know at which point or period something is applied or how long an effect/condition remains in play – even for rules unique to a particular model.
>> There’s a lot of reuse of the same UUSRs across factions/models. It’s then the permissible combinations of those for each model that makes them unique.
>> This allows for players to easily switch between factions and playstyles – they don’t have a whole new set of rules to learn for the new faction. You can also understand the capabilities of your opponent’s force more easily as it’s 80% familiar UUSRs but with their own twist.
We rarely need to open the Malifaux rulebook in a game to clarify something as almost everything you need is on the cards. We often have to open up one of the two Infinity rule books to check out rules; although as their Wiki gets up to speed that’s getting more convenient. If only they used cards in similar way; actually I’ve started mwking my own tablet/phone based quickref documents using cut&paste (page per model/unit type).
I think Sorastro uses clear bases for his Zombicide miniatures(also from Litko i assume). He also stated that they become more fragile. But ik have tot agree with Warren that the clear bases do the board justice.
When Warren was mentioning ‘special rules’ I was mainly referring to historical games.I like playing 6mm WW2 and don’t use any points systems but stick with real TOE’s so it came as a bit if a shock when invited to play Flames of War and presented with a morass of special rules depending which nation I was playing. They just all seemed unnecessary.
Could you use the cell shading in combination with normal painting? What I mean is painting the heroes normally full colour and painting the minions with cell shading.
Love the 4groung stuff. Recently I made my first kit from them for bolt action and it is just amazing. I am already looking for the next building to add.
That is what I intend to do – except the big baddies, they will get some more paints on them. I think it will make the heroes and bosses stand out more, while the hordes of zombies gets a cohesive and dark comic look.
Yes, that is the idea. I just hope that it would still feel as one whole and not as two separate things being used together.
I can’t wait to see your results with the Conan figures. Any chance of a video showing how you have gotten the results of those Zombieside figures. What about just the heros been sprayed army painter plate mail then shading with dark tone before dull coat?
Great interview with 4Ground. I’ve just finished putting together the Jesserai Sci Fi kits I won a few months ago on BoW (thanks again guys!) and it all went together like an absolute dream. I’m staggered at the precision of the kits and how good they look. I can now see why people collect buildings!
Happy Sunday
Really like cel shading idea might have to give that a try with my Journey: Wrath of Demons minis. Though they are quite large it may be just the thing to get them looking good enough to play a few more games with.
Happy Sunday
Hail to the assguardian!!!!
Happy sunday!
In terms of the best ruleset for universal rules and “clean” play, that allows you to enact a units tactics – Bolt Action. The order dice mechanic fits perfectly for the unit reactions in firefights, all weapons are on the same stats regardless of your faction (alright germans get an extra MG dice), it just allows for/promotes smooth gameplay where tactics come to the fore.
I argue that Bolt Action gives you a movie perpective of real world tactics because it has the problem of compressed ranges, and that forces you into situations that are more movie like that real world.
Happy Sunday …
So the rules that does it best , well to understand that you need to know a bit about the period you are fighting in dont you? Which means that in theory you are talking simulation of real world stuff. Which means that any sci-fi game or fantasy game it does not matter as they are not real so the rule set for that game does it best.
So in historical in my limited knowledge the best set of rules I have come across for ancients is Fields of Glory because you are allowed to use tactics and its tactical decisions that win or lose you the game. the renaissance version works equally well.
when it comes to WW2 The best set of rules I have played on a skirmish level is Chain of Command, for a larger scale game Rapid fire although I do not enjoy the rules is the best set for recreating that level of tactics.
On to Naval wargaming which I guess is a whole other beast, and a whoe other set of tactics, the biggest problem is the micromanagement of the ships and their is a ruleset called Seekeige 5 which are so detailed and micro manage everything that it reduces the playability to almost zero, where are there is a very old set of rules called Microfleets which do an amazing job of allowing you to use real world tactics.
Happy Sunday ! Look at Sorrostos painting show on YouTube he uses clear BASES for his zombies !
Cell Shading is the way to go I think. Unless you are a very talented professional painter who can churn out wonderful paint jobs by the hour.
I have looked at all those beautifully painted KD:M figures and although I love them I must realistically admit that I won’t be able to produce anything like it within an acceptable time frame unless I quit my job and family and fag breaks.
KD in particular is a game I really want to play and I’m not having stitting it on the shelf collecting dust because all the miniatures have been too intimidating to paint.
The Walking Dead..? Nah..I rather paint them conventionally. I think walkers and survivors can look very good even with a simple base-wash-highlight technique using a limited colour palette and some blood and gore effects. I’m gonna bring some to the Bootcamp for you to have a look.
Clear bases..yeah I know where you are coming from and I thought I was sold but the shininess and reflective nature of clear plastic turned me off again. Renedra do frosted ones but they again obscure the ground more than letting it shine through. I will just try to make my bases blend in and be an asset rather than a liability.
Great XLBS. Thanks Gents.
The chat with 4Ground was a treat. I have couple of cheap pieces of 4Ground terrain and incidentals (a cart, a Medieval hovel, maybe more), but might find the excuse and the cash to splash out on something special one day. Fingers crossed.
I like the speed and effect of the cell-shade method, the black plague minis on show did look so much improved on being straight out of the box, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish there. I would need at least one other aspect to be happy, so the blood idea and the lighting effect idea sound really interesting.
I would like to try the cell-shade technique, but would have to resort to spray cans because I don’t have an airbrush. In the Walking Dead boot camp forum we discussed perhaps trying to keep that monochrome comic feel in the painting of the minis. I think the cell shade idea will take you a long way towards that without getting too complicated.
The way I have tried to speed up at times has been a method that Miniwargaming showed off months ago on one of their tutorial videos. There’s a dark primer, followed by an immediate angled highlight colour to give you your shade gradient. This straightaway looks cool, but then rather than an all over dip you hit it with different coloured inks / washes. It can leave the model potentially looking a bit washed out, excuse the pun, but done well it can be fairly fast and look really cool and not look unfinished.
When it comes to tactics I have heard AoS and Kings of War being described simply a smash up in the middle of the table with a hope that your initial deployment and dice rolls win you the day. Then people that love these games refute this and say that you can impose tactics on the game, it just requires a bit of extra thought on the part of the players involved.
Of the games that I play, I think that Bolt Action gives me plenty of scope for tactics. I feel that version 2 gives you even more chance to develop tactics through the “snap to” rule from officers. The random dice activation system is one of the games strengths, but also a blocker to completing manoeuvres of more than one unit at a time etc. The ‘snap to’ rule can give you that extra order or two that help you sweep around a flank, prepare a wall of defence by setting multiple units to ambush etc.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” That said you should still be able to simulate the fact that before the battle erupted you were able to dictate a brief plan of action to your units. “If all communication is lost you must still try to reach and hold location A” or “you must take out that anti tank gun at location B”.
Is having to prioritise your targets as the core theme enough to make a game be considered tactical? As fun as this aspect of a war game often is, I’d say it probably isn’t enough in isolation.
The best way to remove the minis from their bases is to use a clipper and clip around the foot first, then use a hobby knife to trim the extra off the bottom off the foot. It’s easier this way to come at the excess from the bottom from a better angle.
Sorastro did also a really amazing job in painting the Zombicide minis, not only shell shading them. It is just a little bit more work and makes a huge difference.
ups… forgot to “say” – Happy Sunday! 🙂
While I agree that clear bases would look pretty good, from a purely practical standpoint, it’s something that I had considered and decided not to do. When playing Zombicide in any of its guises, you end up with lots of zombies all bunched together, all different sizes, bits sticking out everywhere. I just felt that the clear bases would leave the minis too fragile, as one of the benefits I see from board games with minis compared to full on miniature war-games is that I don’t have to be as careful with the minis. I’m not saying that I’m rough or anything with the minis in boardgames, but their resilience is something that I just don’t have to think about when having a game, and I feel clear bases would just take away a bit from the enjoyment of the game as I’d constantly be worried about them snapping off due to the time invested in getting the minis on there.
Great interview with the 4ground guys, now tell them to get back to work and send my wife the Stoic Arms she’s ordered for my 40th on the 24th!
In regards to “Warren’s wonderful Cell Shading Technique of Fast Efficient Board Game Face-liftery” – I feel like if I were to do that technique, I would get itchy fingers and just end up painting them all after finishing the steps you describe. It is a problem with me, not the technique but I would feel like it was the first few steps to painting them all up to tabletop standard.
I have a mountain of Super Dungeon stuff, half of which is painted but it is a great gateway product in terms of converting boardgamers to miniature gaming. Simply because bright block colours work really well on them, it means you can paint them easily and fast or really take you time on them. The choice only affects the STYLE of the outcome, not the quality.
Never the less, as long as the cell shading technique obliterates grey bits of plastic from the boardgames of the world, I’m a happy chappy.
I signed up to be an asgardian! Not sure why, although the half bottle of red I had with my sunday lunch probably contributed.
I have two suggestions for rulesets that get out the way and let you run your tactics.
Infinity, there is complexity, but tactics really are everything in that game, and Dropzone Commander. I do not have as much experience with dropzone, but its a beautiful ruleset for giving you a framework to play out your story.
Great vid again guys, thanks.
Happy Sunday!
I’m with Justin . it is about universal rules when possible and a tight well written rules set. I think special rules increases the ability to preform diverse manoeuvres not decrease them. there is a danger here in thinking that a simple rule set allows for greater tactical flexibility, when I believe the opposite is true. it is true that it is easier to concentrate on the manoeuvers with a simpler rules set, but only when you are learning the game. it has more to do with how willing you are as a gamer to invest the time in learning a complex system in order to get past that, there is off coarse a limit to this. without special rules you limit the depth by removing a more subtle layer of variables.
special rules can be a problem if the games percentage variable is low as it causes the invulnerable situation of which you spoke. If you like playing multiple games in varied settings heavy rules sets are a barrier though. In the current climate the game will have the widest appeal by striking a balance between depth and simplicity, this is also better suited to playing multiple genres. that’s not to say they will be the best at simulating a battle and there will continue to be support for very rules heavy systems for those who like the experience this offers.
Its interesting that you talk about the feeling that the grid movement system gives you. It creates the illusion of sweeping movements and dynamic action with the visual experience.
but it makes manoeuvres more basic and doesn’t allow for the level of tactical depth on this level compared to other movement mechanics as a pay off. I’m not saying this makes such games lack depth as there are multiple levels of interaction outside off movement.
I do think as the lines continue to blur between board games, dungeon crawlers and skirmish games. I sure we will see some more detailed grid based movement mechanics that offer a serious alternative to the tactical variables offered by the traditional movement mechanics.
I remember Adam Poots saying he felt movement was probably the most important thing.
on the subject of kingdom death monster, Black and white were mentioned in the kickstarter comments. I think it would look amazing but you have to do the source lighting. you just won’t capture the atmosphere of the game without it. I would say though that if your going to get into the resin collectors pieces that while this method would look good, if your not going to paint some of the most amazing miniatures ever then what are you going to paint.
I am inspired though and like many have been terrified to put paint on them. I now think I might join you with the plastics while steadily collecting and painting the resins to the best of my ability. please do turquoise light, the versions I’ve seen look so good.
Warren I dropped it in yesterdays comments but the guys at mayacast and Warsenal responded to you reaching out to them over Schaldez oil. You need to listen to this weeks mayacast 1hr 31mins into the episode. you will get to hear Tom and kip talk about it and also what the boys at Warsenal have planed. you will get the giggles for sure.
I’m with you Justin! Redheads are the best…
Cel-shading (not cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel_shading)
Is trying to render something in 3d so it looks like a comic book or animated cartoon.
This seems more like it is about simulating a Dageurreotype or producing a statue effect.
When I hear cel-shading I imaging something with simple cartoonish, often garish colors that don’t bother with transitions from shade to highlight, simplify the colors were designed so a hand colorist could easily produce them rapidly for a publication, put a variable outline on the edges of things to simulate aspects of comic book inking.
Great show. Ben from 4 ground is always great viewing. One of the highlights of your Salute coverage each year is watching him enthuse about their products.
In Dropzone commander,With the exception of the shaltari gates all of the units are governed by the same basic rules.The faction flavour/play style comes through in the units statline (phr are slow and tough,scourge are fast but short ranged etc).special rules appear here and there for special abilities but tactical decisions rest on the player to play to the factions strength and not let their opponent exploit their factions weakness.This can make predicting your opponent tricky because there are very little written rules to govern their decision making beyond the factions flavour.
One of the best xlbs I’ve watched – the “well they need to practice more” quip had me spitting out coffee!
As a backstager I like the way xlbs and other parts of backstage can delve further into detailed topics – I really loved the 4ground background. Re-Roll is also great for me and offers real value to take some BoW on the go with me. I can’t wait to be able to watch more 40k charted, but I find it damnably difficult to locate episodes – roll on BoW 2.0.
On the issue of clear bases – do it! I love custom basing for all my minis and I find it as much a part of the hobby as painting. So when I got silver tower I made 51 bases to match. I got green stuff imprints of some Scibor bases I owned, then I used GW crackle paint, painted it gold then added the Tamika clear green on top. They looked really good, and almost matched the game tiles. But something was missing and I realised if I wanted to use the minis in Frostgrave then they would look a little incongruous striding across the snowy battle field on emerald and gold bases.
So I bought a load of clear bases and they look really great and can’t believe I hadn’t done it before. They really show off the miniature and offer maximum cross game portability. I’ll find the link for where I got them on eBay and post later.
I have to admit that I am not gonna try this for all 221 Conan minis though!
GW is doing something good with the boxed games. I’ve bought SpaceHulk, Assassinorium, Imperial Knight Renegade and silver tower in the last 18months. Frankly if they bring out Space Hulk expansions as part of Specialist Games pretty much all of my gaming money will go there!
40k is definitely too bloated. I have spent far too much money on minis, books, games etc and am totally invested in the backstory- one of the greatest sci-fi IPs around if you ask me. I have about 6000pts of Dark Angels, 2000pts of CSM, 1500pts of Grey Knights, Adeptus Mechanicus and 2 knights, plus an Inquisitorial Warband. But other than some introductory games at the local GW I’ve never played a proper game. I hope that 8th will AoS it and make it more streamlined. The counter-point to this is I’m not a fan of Star Wars (…put the pitchforks down….) but bought big into xwing and play it loads. I can play it down the club with a guy who plays tournaments and get my ass handed to me, or also sort-of play with my 7yr old.
Lastly on sensitivity in gaming I have no problems with any aspects of zombie apocalypses, but have found myself never wanting to play any war game set in recent history. I can’t bring myself to “game” something that had real terrible impacts on our society. So bolt action and flames of war are out, ancients and napoleonics are in ( if I didn’t find them so dull), but strangely I am interested in Team Yankee! I love the fact they are recognisable armour but in a sort of fictionalised ” what if” scenario. And this is largely why I prefer fantasy and sci-if bent to my gaming. Perhaps I’m just weird!
Lastly, I loved the story about Warren’s home town. I’m originally from a small Welsh village but now live in Kent and work in a London. My wife always jokes that she rescued me and that no one else has ever left. As much as I hate to admit it…….she’s probably not wrong!
If GW produced a version of Space Hulk with the miniatures true to scale i would be very tempted to get into W40K despite the misgivings with the game. I would probably still need GW to sort out the W40K game too though.
I think having a GM in battle games would be great. If GW ( or whoever ) designed a game to have a GM they might still be able to design it so that there are alternative rules so that a GM weren’t needed, and alternative rules for an AI GM for things like citizens etc. To counter the issue of ‘i can’t pretend i don’t know your troops are there’ when there isn’t a GM i would suggest using ‘detection tokens’ ( aka Space Hulk style ‘blips’ ) for troops that haven’t been seen, along with some rules that allowed each player a certain number of false-positive detection tokens ( aka Space Hulk ‘0 blips’ ). Special cards might allow a player to move their false-positive detection tokens as though they were actual troops, or maybe the player should be allowed to move them anyway.
Reaction mechanics, by themselves, don’t quite do it for me. I’d like to see both players assign an action to all their troops, and then for both players to ‘similutaneously’ take those actions.
Nice one guys! Always want to hear more about 4Ground!
@brennon you a OG!
Thank you for the kind comments on the Zombie trooper!
It was my first commission for an actual company to be displayed in their store so I really wanted to show case the model and tell a story beyond what the model would be normally used for. (Because that’s what i grew up on while looking at ‘eavy metal team magazines and in online stores!)
Super chuffed to be mentioned, and you didn’t mess up my name! Been watching the show for ages!
in addition, the cel shaded technique is really compelling ! certainly want to try that out myself.
Thanks for the show fellas.
Much peace,
Malev
The game for teach yourself tactics? Age of Sigmar, with just 4 pages of basic rules you do have to work it out yourself, there are bonuses for flank attacks for example, they just don’t tell you what they are.
a great funny show guys
Personally on the complexity of rules I have to say the like of Infinity and 40k are just about the same. The number of variant army lists and crazy special rules are just massive and ever growing for Infinity, they just hide it better. And as for not know what your opponent has ask to see the book for the details. I have found that as long as I have the board understanding of what an army can do I can deal with it. And no commander in history ever had a complete detailed understanding of their enemies so that generally works. If 40k ‘needs’ to be simplified then I feel so does Infinity.
Lovely show guys. Love hearing about the background for 4Ground. Always loved their products, i have a couple of long houses ive been assembling, as I watched the show.
About the painting of board game miniatures. I would use different color spray primers, and then use some washes.
While I am not sure I would call it cel-shading, I think the technique has a lot of value when it comes to board games because it conceals the fact that the miniatures are (cheap) plastic. This is particularly true of any miniature in a light coloured and glossy material such as the Lion or indeed Conan himself from the Conan unboxing. As Justin rightly said, the detail level is the same as the rest of the miniatures and once you put primer over them, they will blend in perfectly with the others.. but it isn’t a very complimentary look until you do so because the model appears to be soft and lacking in detail.
So in priming the miniatures and applying a monotone zenith highlight followed by a wash, what you have (perhaps inadvertently) done is make them look like pieces from an expensive chess set; recognisable as board game pieces of an indeterminate material that could well be metal, but full of easily discernible detail. Pieces that look to be of high quality and complete not in the sense that there is nothing more you could do, but in the sense that any non gamer is going to look at them and believe that they are supposed to look like that. With the extra steps you mentioned for the Walking Dead (where I would also be inclined to add a dash of red) or Kingdom Death (the lantern idea is fantastic) I think they might even satisfy the voice at the back of your mind that you *could* have with the Black Plague minis; Once finished, it will be clear that the look of those miniatures was a conscious choice in the pursuit of a pleasing aesthetic that is highly appropriate to the theme or source material.. and not simply a batch paint job that stalled after applying the primer 😀
As for the plastic bases this is a dilemma I have struggled with for the last year, most recently because of the Lets Play video for TWD which inspired me to dig out my copy of Project Z and assemble the miniatures. I used blue tac to put half a dozen on some clear acrylic bases and another half dozen on the supplied grey bases and I simply can’t chose between them. With the clear bases, the zombies really feel as though they are “there” when placed on a gaming mat and I have enough of those now that I don’t have to worry about playing on a bare table surface (where a nicely finished scenic base would usually win out) and exactly as you say @warzan if there is any kind of board, tile or in this case, mat, I feel bad ‘concealing’ it beneath a base that might not even suit the surface it is being played on. I have the right glue for the job (although I think some will require pinning) so when I’m sitting at the table and looking at the pieces in front of me I have no doubt that it is the right way to go. But there are two things that hold me back and one of them is probably quite relevant to BoW content.
1) When considered on their own, the miniatures feel ‘unfinished’. Perhaps this is just psychological but when I have a dozen models for a skirmish game, a completed base helps to tie those models together. With a clear base, those models can fit in everywhere but they equally don’t seem to belong anywhere. I don’t think this matters too much for miniatures that will not be used outside of the game your acquired them from (e.g. board games) but this is causing me an even bigger headache when it comes to my skirmish games such as my Frostgrave warband.
2) When you are sitting at a table and the miniatures are less than a foot away, you are rewarded with a very immersive scene that is so well demonstrated by the photos that come out of Battlesystems. However when you take two steps back, you suddenly realise that you can’t actually *see* where the miniatures are unless you have opted for a very high contrast colour scheme that deliberately jars with the tiles or board the game will be played on. The bases – even a simple matte black as seen with the Black Plague miniatures – helps to frame each piece not unlike a selection ring in an RTS. Without it, I can imagine ‘loosing’ miniatures during game play to become common place (I thought there were five zombies left but I have only moved four. Where is the fifth one? Um…). This is easily remedied by a minute or two of squinting and moving around the table until the shape of the missing model is silhouetted against something else. However, this will not be possible in the videos so whenever we get a wide-angle shot showing the whole table I think it will be very hard to see what is going on unless you make Justin circle the miniatures in post 😉
On rule complexity and quantity, I think i would echo the sentiments @spacewolflord and others. I think it is more an issue of the ease with which one can navigate the rules and the speed at which one can get to, understand and use any given rule. Checkers ( aka Draughts ) has very few rules, but if you came by those rules briefly mentioned and buried in a 400 page tactical tome it might take someone quite some time to get the hang of the game.
On using splashes of colour in Cel-shading. I would think the best way to do this is to mix the colour you want to use with the base colour ( muting to taste, as it were ) and apply it before you apply the washes and inks etc.
Great show as always guys. I really enjoyed the chat with the 4ground guys.
Ive only been on BoW for a few months so have been having a nose through older content – and i have to say some of the most interesting stuff on the site is the Designer’s Studio series. Getting to hear from the folk who behind-the-scenes of the industry is super fascinating – im not talking about their latest product, ruleset or kickstarter – but rather them as people: what the love about the hobby, why they’ve found a home in the industry, and the things that drive them in their daily work.
And, that chat with the 4ground crew, was a real throwback to the feel of the DS series. Superbly interesting content, which dates really well too – that interview with John Stallard is just as fascinating now as it was when it was posted 941 days ago!
In answer to @warzan ‘s closing question – chess.
;p
I’ve been bugging John to show us how he weathered the toy cars for walking dead. Will we be seeing that soon?
Happy Monday!
The interview with the 4Ground guys was something great to watch and listen too.
40k can be so cool and at the same time so irritating. Still it is iconic.
@warzan Hit me up if you need Clear Bases cut I work for a small company that does laser cutting and id be happy to help 🙂
happy monday 😉
Kings of war has those universal special rules not AOS, in AOS every units has its own special rules with all different names, actually some units have rules that do the exact same thing yet have different names on other warscrolls. Even 40k has a bunch of standard special rules that go across all the factions.
Personally I think alot of the flavor of factions come from the different things they can do compared to the other forces. If every army could do the exact same thing ya there would still be tactics but the game for me alteast would feel like chess as a miniatures game. That may make it easier and more”approachable” but to me sounds boring and bland and wouldn’t make me want to collect and paint a force even if the miniatures were halfway decent.
Any way this Cell Shading malarkey could be done without an air brush?
Happy Sun… err Tuesday 🙂
Great show guys. I’m really excited to see your Kingdom Death footage, really keen to see how you take to it. I’m involved in 3 campaigns and always finding new aspects in the game with different players.
as a change of pace from painting 60 zombies from Warlord games (before my walking dead stuff gets here), i have decided to finally paint my Spacehulk set (2010 or so edition).
spending the time doing a really nice paintjob on the marines makes a really nice contrast from batch painting 6 zombies at a time, and adding blood everywhere and also a contrast from the much smaller scale infinity figures i am painting.
For me, i would prefer to paint in Warrens style for games with smaller models, like risk 2210 etc, for me its hard to look at 28mm figs and do a job like that, that does not bring out the quality of the models, especially the heroes.
Isn´t the cel-shading technique the same idea Justin did with his AVP boardgame?
@warzan let me know if you were serious about play testing K47 with a GM…. because id buy a plane ticket in a heartbeat
Another great show.
KoW is a great universal rule set, I don’t know how it would fare with more ‘modern’ warfare but it handles Ancient, Dark Ages, Medieval (and the mythic crossover) and fantasy excellently.
Warhammer used to be the same but had far more precise with army lists, however it also took far longer to play.
Some of the mechanics of Bolt Action have proven they work well in historical, weird-history and sci-fi too, although I doubt it would suitable for massed combat in a sword and shield setting.
4Ground make the nicest terrain on the market. If they ever start doing ships like longboats, triremes and the like I’m in serious trouble.
Oh and I was wondering If John would be more tempted into Konflict 47 if the Germans could field the Mouse and Elephant tanks. These things were effectively the Baneblades of WWII that luckily for the allies never saw action
With that cell shading Warren you could, if you want, go one step more and do a Sin City style coloring of certain bits of the models.
Happy Sunday, although the time I got to watching the show it’s actually Happy Friday night. Great show am very tempted by the Cell Shading, do you think it would work with larger minis like Dreadfleet and some of the other GW stuff?
Justin, I must ask did the chat up line work with the redhead?
I’m really into the cel shade thing.