First, on the Glorious precipice of the Empire of the Petal Throne, my players are all done with school. We will meet again in on Monday, mostly for book keeping and planning the way forward, because over the next month or so, we will all be off on vacations, in sequential order, meaning we will not all be available at the same time for a bit. Hate to jump into a campaign arc and then have a one month lapse. They are a bit ahead of the narrative on this blog, and I will begin in earnest to correct that tomorrow. I am going to draft that post, then bring it to the group meet, to see if I left out any juicy bits. It should be up mid week.
Geo and I got together and puttered around with a game mechanic called Microscope.., which I learned about from Risus Monkeys' blog. We decided to undertake a Tekumel pre-event history. The game begins with the players setting an opening and closing event for a timeline. We started with discovery of Tekumel, and ended with the stars going out. Then you take a couple turns putting in some broad time phases, and start zooming in on events within those phases. .
The game looks like it would work better with a group, larger than two. Still, we muddled through a S'su attack on an terraforming operation that led to a new mythical location refered to as the "City in Amber". I could see this being taken out at a con like U-con, by Tekumelani and used to fill in possible histories of the vast periods of history that are only hinted at in the game. (oooh.. just noticed they have established the dates for U-con this year. Can't say I am thrilled about the drive in Nov, but it looks doable right now... wonder how it lines up for Aethervox activities..) Risus also suggested this game might work well with a website called corkboard.. And we may take what we have done so far there, and invite others to join..
And the last Tekumel based report for this post is the acquisition of some old EPT figs from Ebay. There was a guy selling a pack of figs, which led me to look at his other auctions. In some random lots I found a nice set of Vimuhla worshippers. Not an expert, but I think think they are from the Legion of Red Devastation, a few swordsmen, and a pair of priests.. I have seen the priest figure often before, as it is the same one used to represent Chirine... On his blog he has been prepping some figs for a game event in North Texas, that looks really interesting.. and appears to be full.. Oh, and a few old shen missing the tails.. but that seems fixable.. I also acquired a few random figures that are proxy-able.
On the 40fnordk front, I have been puttering on painting myImperial Guard army. So I will share a bit of bling here.. I think.
This is the Commander, for the time being. Don't really love this figure. Skull mask, and dancing pose.. but, twill serve..
next down here are a couple of my Sentinels. Hope to eventually complete three squads, two scout one armoured..
These are the mounts I will use for Rough riders. They turned out really well, I think. The one in the back, with the black saddle came to me with a paint scheme completed. I used approximation to achieve the same on the other six. These were fun to paint, as I could try a lot of experimentation with the colors, and didn't have to stay "in the lines.."
And the next two are samples of troops. 40fnordK is a pretty figure intense game, and IG perhaps more than most armies. My earlier post explained how I initially acquired these Steel legion figures in the upper picture. But, despite their high value, they don't add up to a hill of beans when building a 40fnordK army. It gave me the mandatory HQ unit and infantry Platoons, which adds up to one to one and a half of the mandatory troop choices.
Steel legion figs are spensive, so when someone posted the Pig Iron figures in the lower pic for sale on TMP, I decided they could make a nice second infantry platoon troop choice. And the price was pretty good.. though I don't recall what it was. And some came painted. That buy inspired the color scheme.
Problem is, they didn't have figures for Sgts (who carry hand guns and swords and such.. stupid 40fnordk rules sets..) or the Platoon Command Squad. I got twenty figs like these, half painted, which really only accounts for the troop figs. I purchased some NCO's from Pig Iron (well, technically The WarStore.. who will be the Sgts for both the infantry plts and the Platoon Command Squad PCS) leader. Then I realized that I needed four more infantry for the PCS and it wouldn't hurt to have some heavy weapons in the mix.. So now I have some of those on order. All of which adds up..
Then came Tax time.. and it appears my tax situation changed a lot last year, cause now I am broke.. so mini purchases are on hold for a bit. going to have to figure out a way to fund new purchases, though I probably have enough for a decent 40fnordk army, I see the Tekumel Project is putting out oodles of tempting products..
At the moment, those are my two major gaming fronts.. I have some odd projects on the back burners. A host of terrain making materials cluttering up my geek space.. and a currently dormant Mage Knight Hordes of the Things Project. It would be much easier to get caught up if only I could put caffeine back on the menu..
