Category: The Ageing Gamer

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  ABC Warriors

Seven Robots to Tame a Planet! – The ABC Warriors Miniatures Game!

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What could possibly be so important to drag me back to this, my barely/rarely updated blog?

Why, only the unexpected release of The ABC Warriors Minatures Game.

Surely not, I hear you cry.

This beggars belief, I hear you shout!

Who the hell are the ABC Warriors?, I hear you mutter.

The ABC Warriors was a comic strip in 2000AD, the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, about a mysterious Colonel who gathered together seven robots, who could withstand Atomic, Bacterial and Chemical attacks, to go to Mars and save the planet.

In subsequent stories they joined Nemesis the Warlock in the far future to help stabilize the time tunnels, then returning to Mars to fight the Volgans, the original villians of the series.

Along with Nemesis, the ABC Warriors were my favourite strips in 2000AD, which already was crammed with quality content.

And Warlord Games have seen the light and turned their later war, against the Volgans, into a miniatures game.

Have a look at this:

Ooh, very nice indeed.

Previously they’ve made games for Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, two other popular 2000AD strips.

Links:
ABC Warriors – Warlord Games
Judge Dredd – Warlord Games
Strontium Dog – Warlord Games

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Konflikt '47

Battle Ready 2022, part two

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Battle Ready didn’t really work out in January, or (no) Grey Knights (painted) January as I like to call it.

February is Konflikt ’47 month.

As usual, beautifully presented…

That’s the collection as it stands. Two British Army infantry sections, two Airborne weapons teams and officers, and the weird war walkers, automated infantry, armoured dudes, A M5 half-track and a tank.

I spent the weekend putting them together, and I’ve started undercoating.

Let’s see if I do a better job this month. 🙂

Links:
Bolt Action – Warlord Games
Konflikt ’47 – Warlord Games

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Mothership

Mothership RPG, part one

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(Sorry for the radio silence. Space Madness and all that…)

Check this out. It’s a kickstarter for a new role-playing game with the kind of retro-futuristic style I just love.

There’s also this. It’s an anthology of material for Mothership. It looks amazing.

That’s it. 🙂

Links:
Mothership RPG – Kickstarter
Hull Breach Vol. 1 – Kickstarter

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Warhammer

Battle Ready 2022, part one

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Grey Knights. That’s the army for January.

Currently I have a very small amount of models painted. I’ll try and dig them out for a group shot.

A few months back I bought some out of print metal Grey Knight Terminators from Troll Trader, enough to make up 3 squads of 5. I have a box of the current plastic Grey Knight Terminators that I’m making up as an Apothecary, a Standard Bearer and a 3 man Paragon Squad.

They’ll be the core of my GK army, adding to the Stormraven Gunship, Dreadknight and a few other odds and ends.

Even the already painted models will be getting a wee spruce up with some paint.

I’ll dig the other models out of the cabinet later and I’ll try and get a picture up for tomorrow.

🙂

Links:
Troll Trader
Plastic Grey Knight Terminators from GW

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Warhammer

Things to do for 2021 – The Warhammer List, part one

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This year I didn’t get as much painting done as I would have liked. Not fine art but the subtle art of painting tiny soldiers for the purpose of table-top wargaming.

I have loads of models built and very little painted. They’re on my shelves of shame.

I think, rather than setting a goal of new armies or any foolishness like that, I’m going to do an army project a month. To clear through an army a month is achieveable, and it stops things from getting stale. If I haven’t finished an army by the end of the month, then back on the shelf they go and the next one is given a once-over.

This gets certain projects, like my Grey Knight Terminators, Adeptus Titanicus Titans, Aeronautica Imperialis models, and a few other small projects, a set amount of time to progress the models.

It’s a different plan, in that I have a plan at all.

Tomorrow I’ll have a look at the shelves of shame and try and set a more solid list.

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Dysmantle

Dysmantle, part one

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Head over to Steam, or wherever you get your pc games from, and buy a copy of Dysmantle. It’s a Strategy/Open World/Crafting thing.

You leave your underground shelter and find the Island, belonging to some fictional nation, swarming with various types of undead. What follows is you trying to figure out what went wrong.

The big mechanic of the game is that, with the right weapon, you can break down nearly everything you find. Road signs, fire hydrants, bins, the contents of houses, houses, fences, trees, rocks, and anything else you find. All depends on the strength of the weapon you use, and you discover and can upgrade these as you go.

I’ve had it for less than a week and, to be honest, it appeals to the obsessive-compulsive part of my personality. And it’s not TOO difficult, which for this ageing gamer is a benefit.

Links:
Dysmantle
Dysmantle on Steam
Dysmantle on GoG

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Warhammer

There’s Stompin’ and There’s STOMPIN’

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Although I’ve not played any Warhammer at all this year, my mini painting has continued in fits and starts.

A wee while ago I sucummbed to the voice in my head – one of the good ones – and picked up this guy.

The Ork Stompa.

I don’t have an Ork army, and have no intention of working on one, but ever since the Stompa was released I had an eye on it. It’s just so cool.

The is the work in progress as it stands, with a tentative name of The Great Pumpkin, but so far it is coming together nicely. And that’s despite the instructions being the worst of any model kit I’ve ever bought.

A guy here has made annotations to the current instructions. These were a big help.

The Stompa isn’t finished yet. There are banners to go on its back, a shoulder panel for the Big Choppa arm, some hatches, other decorations and some Gretchin (the Warhammer 40K equivalent of goblins).

I’ll put it on the shelf for a week or so while I crack on with finishing the hungry, hungry Tyranids. Then I’ll go back and work on the Stompa some more.

Here are some photos:

Links:
Ork Stompa – Games Workshop
Better Instructions – Imgur

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Call of Cthulhu

Beyond the Mountains of Madness, part one – Planning a New Campaign

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Years back, in 1988, Chaosium released one of their biggest campaign books for their Call of Cthulhu rpg. I bought it, read it, and was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content. It was incredible.

But I never got around to running it in a game.

The other month Chaosium announced a reprint of that same campaign, but in a nice hardcover with some light reformatting. So, with my original copy looking a bit dog-eared, I decided to treat myself… and it’s a joy to read again.

And it’s got me thinking.

With me hitting 46 next month and with the idea of wanting to do more next year than this (which is a whole discussion of its own), Beyond the Mountains of Madness is a game that is long past time to do.

I have a Discord account, so it makes sense that I set up a BTMOM server there and organise it by chapter. I’m really looking forward to this. And running it online means I don’t have to worry about any further COVID-related lockdowns.

Links:
Chaosium
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
Beyond the Mountains of Madness pdf

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  Warhammer

The Adventures of Inquisitor Smashface

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There’s a game available on Steam (and, presumably, most modern consoles) called Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor – Martyr. As you can guess it’s linked to the ever popular tabletop wargame, Warhammer 40K, a game where you move little soldiers about your friends Mum’s dining table, rolling dice and listening to W.A.S.P., while casually keeping an eye on his mum and her friend who are obviously trying to pretend that they can’t make out the lyrics to the live version of Animal (Fuck Like A Beast), which starts with a rising chant of “Fuck like a beast, fuck like a beast”.

Allen Johnston, I’m looking at your here. I’m still amazed that you never got pulled up for that.

Anyway, Warhammer has come a long way since the heady days of my teens. And while I have a reborn love of moving expensive tokens about a make-believe battlefield, the electronic gaming part of the hobby is yet another channel to pour the precious seconds of my life into.

I’ve played Inquisitor – Martyr before, initially on the Playstation, but I could never get into it. An almost perfect storm has caused me to get into it again now.

  1. My daughter has all but commandeered the Playstation. It was inevitable.
  2. I got a new pc at the start of the year, a shiny laptop to replace the aging Frankencomputer I had before.
  3. The game was really cheap on Steam.

A. Perfect. Storm.

It’s a game in the style of Diablo. You play as one of four character types, each with their own playstyle, you gain experience points for killing baddies and completing missions. All the usual stuff.

So, Inquisitor Smashface. He runs about with a heavy flamer (a bigger than big flamethrower) and a thunder hammer (a two-handed hammer that has electricity running through it). And it’s great fun. Smashface has reached level 20 now, which means I can take the hammer. Before this, using the flamer was like running the game in easy mode. But now that i’ve unlocked the Thunder Hammer? Bloody hell, it’s fun.

As long as I keep moving, and don’t get tied up in fighting mobs, i bash the heads of heretics in. It’s great fun. As I unlock more skills, i’ll try other weapon combinations but, for now, it’s all about burning the enemy and flattening them with a big hammer.

The Ageing Gamer  ⁄  EVE Online

EVE – Yet Another Enjoyable Time Sink

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At the start of the year, with lock down being a thing and my daughter hogging the Playstation, I installed Eve Online on my shiny new laptop. Eve had transitioned to a Free-To-Play model with two states of being, Alpha – which had a limit to the skills and ships you could use – and Omega – the paid-for account which opened everything up to use. I had played Eve before so I was already aware of the game – a vast space MMORPG.

Oh, it’s not Pay-To-Win, like some MMORPGs. The ships available to an Alpha account are perfectly playable.

So, having spent a few months here and there in the vast galaxy of EVE, just logging on for a hour at a time, tonight felt like my first proper game,

A few weeks ago I joined a player-run corporation, the equivalent of a guild in Warcraft or Guild Wars, and a few days ago I decided to fly from system to system to where the Corp is largely based. Tonight I logged on to put my new ship though her paces and was joined by a Corp member who just turned up to help me destroy an enemy space station. We shared some chat after and went our our seperate ways.

And this is what I had been missing: the social element.

I’ll probably log on every day this week for a bit, and see if anyone wants to fly about and blow stuff up.

Al’s shiny new Confessor

And the Corp even have their own Discord server, which is even better. I wonder if I can get any of them to play Guild Wars? 😉