Wolsung – An Archive For The Steinberg Shed Space Blog

Bushido Progress

I managed to get only a few minutes this week in the shed. Not enough time to get much done but the undercoat was finally applied to the Silvermoon starter set.

The scale, when compared to the shorter Wolsung Triad Orcs, is notably different. Even more so than I first expected. Some will fit in with my Triad crew, sumo wrestlers are meant to be huge aren’t they? Others may not be quite so useful for the other games we play.

When they are painted though, it will not be Wolsung that gets played first. We really need to get some games of Bushido played. Just so that I can lose at another game. It helps to make sure that I feel that I have made another great investment.

Wolsung, Objective Based Games.

Another 3 feet of fun happened when we tried to play the objective based games that are listed in the online expansion for Wolsung.

The western town was back out for this one and gave us some simple terrain to allow us to focus on the objective (a small red telephone box) placed in the centre of the table.

A couple of proxies were used for the figures yet to be released and we were off again. The Ash and Oak, with their wheelchair bound leader were fastest to the objective while the Inventers carried enough fire power to pick off smaller models that popped their heads up. Shield spells were also used by the Inventers to good effect and covering every team member in 6 a inch radius.

Shields don’t work too well against hand to hand combat so the gentlemen decided to get up close and personal at the site of interest, the objective itself…

Overall this played well and added an edge to the game that was lacking from the kill the hero style missions from the original book. The objective ensured lots more movement and led to closer interaction than the usual stand off and shoot games of late.

Wolsung, More Bases And More Men.

The Wolsung buzz continues as I am thinking about new members for the Triad club I use. A second starter set adds 3 more henchmen. These are copies of the original 3 I own, but 2 come with slightly different options, allowing new poses due to customisable parts. Also, as I made green stuff bases for the first starter set, the addition of custom bases will allow me to change their look enough to make them individual.

I have enjoyed toying with greed stuff again and 2 out of the three came out as well as I would have liked. The sand base looked very flat when I made it so some water effect was added later to add some more interest.

The Proxy crew I am using for the Ash and Oak club needed some hounds to play with one of their heroes too. Warlord Games do some great little dogs in their Celtic range. These were smaller than I expected them to be when they arrived but look good when painted up. I guess I am used to heroic scale dogs, like those from my Wulfen Jaeger crew from Empire of the Dead, rather than true 28mm dogs.

Basic paints done and ready for figures to be finished…

Water effect gloss done and they fit quite well with the older bases too (thankfully…)

The puppies (as they are now called) based to fit my old Empire of the Dead Zendarians.

The next table is now set up for a game and I hope to run the Ash and Oak club myself next game to give my opponent a nice surprise.

Just as I was finishing the post this chap was finishing drying too. Trader No.2, ready to pop smoke all over the battlefield and obscure anyones chances of shooting my Triad heroes.

Until next time… When a second Fisherman and Shade will be completed (I hope).

Wolsung, In A More Traditional Setting.

My ‘Old West’ scenery, originally built with Malifaux in mind, was out recently to play phase two of our Wolsung games. Less height and more scattered cover makes any game play differently, but the game was just as quick and bloody if we weren’t too careful.

These boards are porpose built as a 3’x3′ setup and I thought they wouldn’t see too much use after we left Malifaux behind a couple of years ago. Its nice to have a game on that sized table again to get some use out of them. The river board can be swapped out to a grass board for more scenery to be added if needed. Or for larger games it can be a 3’x4.5′ board using all three pieces. The town is half old west store fronts from Sarissa Precision and half 4Ground frontier houses. I just need some higher points to add to the variety. A water tower and gallows would do that quite well I think.

Again the heroes went up and over while the henchmen covered their backs. This was a three hero fight and added an extra couple of chaps to each crew. Even so, this only left me with 6 Triad figures to play a game.

The old colonel was pushed about by the bruiser again and took pot shots at anything he could see.

My close combat hero, Phoenix, was no match for the Ash and Oak’s Heroes this time and they managed to take him out and retreat before I could retaliate in anyway. Strike and fade seems to play as a good tactic for these assassination games.

One of the triad tricks is to place smoke screens (mist clouds) as quick actions from lower grade henchmen. Add in one hero, Mr Cheng, and all these clouds become acidic and harmful…

A good couple of games again and next up we should be trying the new missions. I do need to find something to represent the many mist clouds I seem to be using in most of our games.

Wolsung, In The World Of Deadzone.

A while back I ended a post with the words “more to follow…” Seems a long while since that post, and until now, but the game I predicted did happen.

One game of Wolsung was all it needed to show that we would enjoy these rules. Simple but effective. Short but conclusive.

I was concerned at first at the three turn game limit in Wolsung, but this is actually enough to feel like you played a whole game, and it helps to focus your actions in a way that guarantees you try to get the most out of each and every move.

Although our newly constructed Deadzone scenery was not exactly the table we expected to play our first game on, it worked well. Wolsung seems to favour dense scenery and height differences to add an extra layer of complexity to a simple kill the king style of mission. Most of the missions in the basic book are assassination games where a varying number of victory points are placed on the heroes and awarded for killing them. The new rules (post Kickstarter) seem to add more mission types but we have yet to attempt these.

Wildly differing height differences and raised walkways are something our scenery has lacked in the past. I am now considering how I can add these features to the Victorian town and other scenery in the shed without adding a too far out effect to the overall look.

For the first game I played the Triad crew and my opponent played the Inventors. 2 heroes, straight from the starter sets, and we were on our way. Our cat and mouse tactics were the result of not knowing how effective each others forces would be. The Inventers appear to be full of close combat specialists (heavily armoured Golems…) and magical buffs. While the Triad starter is all about staying in cover and completing surgical strikes, as they don’t seem to excel at either close or long ranged attacks.

Whatever their obvious strengths, the synergy between all members of a crew is a key factor for success in all the clubs it would seem.

Game two showed the need to hide high value assets and commit hard with henchmen.

Game three was Triad Vs Ash and Oak. The Ash and Oak club seems to favour long ranged snipers but can dish out the damage, up close, with their bruisers too. We proxied in figures for this game, as we didn’t have the starter, but we wanted to play the third club to see its worth. I never expected to find a use for the old man in a wheelchair that I bought at Overlord about 5 years ago. I think he is from the Dystopian Legions range. Great figure and a steal when I got him… The other members of the club were from various Empire of the dead crews and a couple of Wyrd Miniatures from Malifaux.

One lesson I learned early on is that my ranged Triad henchmen are not meant to try to fight in close combat with anything other than a mouse… Here she was mashed in one action by an Ogre Bruiser

Overall Wolsung will most likely dominate the table for the next few weeks. Until I go to Salute at the end of the month, which is when all manner of new toys will be likely to descend…

Deadzone Scenery – Bigger And Bigger

A friend of mine popped over recently with his scenery pieces from the first Deadzone Kickstarter. He has never managed to get this built due to now having 2 small girls in the house and lots of other commitments.

We spent the last few weeks toying with this and putting the pieces together in our usual haphazard way. Mantic have managed, as usual, to send out loads of stuff but also miss out some vital parts. An example of this is the landing pad, which came packaged as about 30 pieces but without 2 or 3 main parts and no instructions what so ever…

We managed to build a suitable structure (with only a few blisters and sore fingers).

A couple of towers and 2 storey buildings later, we were well on our way.

Not too sure about the stairs we built but the overall effect is good.

My original Deadzone scenery is only a couple of storeys high and not too wide. This stuff was delivered in quantities that allowed us to build larger structures.

The stuff is flexible enough to allow many shapes.

Lots of firing points at varied levels.

We are about to play a game on this stuff so I have set it up as a 3’x3′ board. Lots of cover and lots of height differences.

The game… Wolsung… Not the most obvious choice of game for a set of sci-fi scenery, but the game should benefit from the mix of height and concentration of cover. As we have also never managed to play this game (my crew has been painted for ages and gathering dust) it ticks two boxes at once…

More to follow soon.

Market Day.

Another purchase from Warfare in Reading was these little items.

The crates are some fine resin casts from Ainsty castings. They are from the Trade Goods range, one of many varied and versatile ranges, and are their Boxed Produce set. These paint up easily and look good with a simple paint job.

The sacks are also resin and come from Antenocitis Workshop. These are their Fantasy Sacks (I always thought that a sack was a sack was a sack…)

All together they are perfect for that Market I always wanted to finish. My barrows are now filled and are ready for use from the Medieval to the Victorian era. Just need to find some neat little market stalls and I am done.

Now, I must keep a look out for some those Wolsung market stalls I saw in their rulebook.

Post Number 41.. And I Am 41. Birthday Brings New Stuff.

I am happy to say that I have reached another birthday safely and without loss of life or limb. (Lets all be thankful for the small things).

Birthdays are good as the represent a chance for me to talk loved ones into buying me stuff for this never ending hobby… This year I the found timing in my favour and attended Warfare in Reading just before my birthday. This meant I was able to actually buy my own presents and give them out to have them wrapped and returned on the day.

Usually there is some trepidation before the day as I await to see if the requested item will be sourced correctly by said loved one or if a surprise replacement (usually the result of a mistaken order or wild guess at an alternative) will be found within that colourful paper…

This year was all about the base (sorry cant get that song out of my head) or headquarters as an Englishman would call it.

The headquarters in question is the new Warbases Police House.

Complete with smaller out building/ jail house block.

This will be the HQ for my Victorian Peelers faction which gets the odd outing in Empire of the Dead and may also show up in ‘In Her Majesties Name and Wolsung’ (if I can shoehorn them into the rules).

The next was again off the Warbases stand and is their Workshop (slightly less generic than the rest of their range). This reminds me of a twentieth century British workshop often seen on industrial estates and farms in my childhood. I almost picture this with an ancient petrol pump outside and an oil stained set of blue overalls on the attendant/ mechanic.

Complete with sliding doors (the main doors big enough for a truck to drive in) it will look good by itself or along with the other buildings in my set.

My Daughter (not a gamer in any sense) also shocked me and tagged along to Reading to find me something for my birthday. She proved to be no trouble at all (even as a blonde 15 year old surrounded by ‘sad old men’) and came up trumps with this built and painted 1/48 scale Tiger from the bring and buy. Putting an immediate smile on my face until she calmly stated I couldn’t have it until my birthday…

Who knows what next year will bring!

Wolsung Done. The Finished Bases And Figures.

These guys are now done. The sculpted bases went as well as I could have hoped and I didn’t ruin the miniatures when I painted them… I have regretted however, using the oldest paints I have in my collection to finish off these guys.

Worm Purple and Imperial Purple were some of Games Workshops original paints. They are from the era of the basic paint set and creature paint set (anyone remember those?) Surprisingly mine are still liquid and I have very fond memories of painting lots of English 100 years war billmen in two colour jacks using this very combination.

The combination worked better on those billmen than on these guys I think…

One day I will realise I cannot paint in bright colours. My palette seems to be more suited to rustics and greyscales…

I think in future I may try to stay with these muted tones as even when I use the brighter colours I often find them dulled down by the use of inks and washes that feature very often when I paint. I think it takes a specific level of skill to use those brighter tones. A skill I am happy to admit, I lack.

Back to these figures though, overall I am pleased with them. Especially the bases. In this case beginners luck may have had a hand. If I expand this force (which is highly likely) we will see how well the second set of bases come out.

Lesson learned: Stick to what you know, and let others paint in brighter tones…

Wolsung And The First Sculpting To Be Done In This Shed.

On the painting table this week is a new project, namely a Triad crew for Wolsung. Wolsung is a simple steampunk skirmish game produced by Micro Arts Studios.

These miniatures are the first I have had where the bases needed some pinning to get them done. Luckily for me these come with a pin moulded to them but the bases supplied were normal slotted ones.

My usual basing method is to cover the holes left by the slot with paper then to grit it all up and hit the whole thing with a basecoat of primer spray. The model gets painted and the base gets finished last.

This time however, I decided to change all that…

So, 5 figures would usually take me about two days to paint and base. As I have decided to sculpt individual bases for each of these guys they are going to take much, much longer…

The first coat on the bases was done with greenstuff and liquid greenstuff (the potted GW stuff). The regular greenstuff gave me a firmer mix for holding texture (in this case pressing the bases into a heavy grit sandpaper). The liquid greenstuff was used as it gives a softer smoother finish (for water in this case). Small craft sticks made up the remaining shapes and surfaces.

The first 2 bases were planned to represent a river or shore edge. One was planned to look like a man made shoreline (banked and planked to hold back the tide). The last 2 were planned to look like simple tracks or road edges.

The miniatures base pins were pushed in while the greenstuff was still soft then holes punched for grass effect to be added later. A sandy base tone with plenty of washing with brown ink started things off. A little bit of green staining gave a water aged, algae coated, look to some areas.

The water was done by painting a blue base coat and green ink wash. White highlights were used to pick out the ripples that were formed by the brush lines in the liquid greenstuff. The mud on the banks was done in a deeper brown and a final coat of gloss varnish was applied thickly to add some translucent shine to the mud and water.

Overall I think it worked quite well.

So far, I’ve finished only one painted mini but all of the bases are completed. Grass effect was done using some long grass stems that I picked up over 4 years ago (goes to prove all things find their worth in the end…)

I will add some pictures of the others when I get them done and then we may even get a game in. The Wolsung rules look simple and fun and I will let you know how they play when I find out myself.