Updates! Metalica Walks, Knights of the Black Moon, March of the Fire Masters

It's been a few months, I started a new job in April and things have been hectic ever since! But, the forges have not been silent! In fact I've had a bit of an upsurge in productivity, I think the dissipation of the cloud of depression which was hanging over me at my old job has been largely to thank for that but whatever it is I'm happy to be getting back into my various projects (and starting a few new ones).

Legio Metalica

Last we left of  Mors Incarnadine was complete and the Reavers were on the bench, well, I now have a complete Axiom Maniple and and additional Warlord!

From left to right: Victorious Endeavor, Borophagus, Mors Incarnadine, Aelurodon and Hastati Lux

And the extra Warlord?

Metalica Primis

Metalica Primis was my first attempt at freehand on the titans since I can't see GW/FW giving us Metalica transfers and time in the next decade given were almost 12 months into AT's release and we still don't even have full loadouts for Reavers or Warlords!

I've since applied weathering powders to Metalica Primis and my next job is get the freehand symbols and transfers on the other Metalica engines.

I got a few lightbox shots of the first Maniple (apart from Hastati Lux for some reason) a while ago, I've also since drilled the barrels! Once the Freehand, decals & weathering are done I will go back and get shots of all the Metalica engines.

Knights of the Black Moon

Once the Metalica engines were finished my next job was knights.  I've always liked the Knights, even the gangly classic knights from AT's first incarnation (I even have some, knocking about somewhere).  So I wanted a knight household to support my engines, enter House Hyperion!

I don't know what it was about Hyperion but when the 40k scale Knight was released however long ago that was I settled on Hyperion then.

I feel like I could do a better job on the crescent moons but for now they will do.  I wanted the Lancer's shields to have an energy bubble look to them so the shields are backed with clear blue plastic with Woodland Scenics water effect stippled onto them followed by a was of Druchii Violet. I'm happy with the effect and will be rounding them out to two full lances.

They've also got some reinforcements on the way in the form of a pair of Knight Porphyrions.  

There will be more knights joining them soon enough, once I find both time and funds between all my other projects...

 Legio Surturvora

Enter the Fire Masters, infamous world burners and turncoats!  A few of my friends are into the idea of AT but not the buy in cost which, I will admit, is a hard pill to swallow, so I had already resolved myself to the idea I was doing two legios (which has now upped to four in my mind, but thats a story for another day).  A stroke of luck however picked me up the battleforce (1 Warlord, 1 Reaver, 2 Warhounds) for £65 on ebay! 4 titans for the price of a Warlord, I couldn't pass it up.

And now they're mostly finished!  I've got the bases to finish off then its decals and weathering to finish them.

Unsure where to go with names, I started googling some of the distinctly not latin names of known Surturvora titans, namely Denala, Ashima and Su-benoth, this led me to Babylonian & Mesopotamian mythology, which gave me a nice starting point. armed with that my times are.

Ig-alima

Ignis Natus

Lulal

Inanna

The flames were a bit daunting at first.  Luckily the sets come with enough extra panels for practice purposes! 

Other bits and bobs

So I keep getting side tracked with other projects as well, like these

I loved BFG back when it was released. and since I was doing my 30k army two scales already I figured why not move to a third one... so here we have the VIII Legion Battleship Void Wraith, the IX Legion Battleship Regalia and its, as yet unamed, escorts and the Mechanicum Ark Eternal Equation.  They're not finished yet but jsut need a bit more detail work.  Interestingly, two of the battleships are recasts but you would never know now there's paint on them.

And my other project on the bench?  He knows nothing...

I couldn't pass up chibi none copyright infringing Jon Snow, renamed to Black Snow from Ninja Division (Soda Pop Miniatures as was). but what is the Bastard of Winterfell without the goodest boy!

So taking one of my leftover wolves from the Impact Miniatures kickstarter he now has his own non copyright infringing Ghost, which I have named Spook.

I plan to try and keep this updated a bit more regularly so, until next time...

The British...I mean, Praetorians are coming!

A few posts back I showed a WIP Praetorian guard for 40k, well, I decided to go one step further and add the 208th Praetorian Infantry to my burgeoning Epic armies!

I've not quite got my head round photographing 6mm infantry, maybe I need to switch back to my actual camera and its macro settings as opposed to my (admittedly decent) phone camera.

These are the first 4 bases of what will be an 8 base Infantry Company, the models are from Baccus 6mm and aren't actually Imperial Guard, they are actually 6mm British Colonial troops with their long rifles cut down to more closely resemble lasguns.  They haven't got an extensive range of different troops so I think some creative greenstuffing will be in order to make Grenadiers/Stormtroopers.  I also managed to snag some Stormblades off eBay so the Praetorian's have the first of their armoured support.

208th Praetorian Infantry

Hailing from the Hive World of Praetoria the 208th were latecomers to the 73rd Expedition fleet, having been raised following the compliance of Dreska. The 73rd had lost almost the entirety of the 16th Michorian Samites during the compliance of the renegade humans and subsequent running space battles with nearby Orkoid forces which had been drawn towards the growing conflict.

The Praetorians were considered 'green' troops upon joining the expedition, have been recent formed and, as such, untested in the field.  Despite their untested status the Praetorians proved effective in the field, being deployed first against the Eldar during the purge of Jorn III alongside fellow Milita regiments of the 603rd Mødherne Brotherhood and the 9th Sumian Mamelukes and then again working directly alongside Legion elements of the IX and XII Legions during the Neverlight Compliance.

Being a recently founded company the 208th joined the expedition fleet with their full compliment of armoured fighting vehicles.  Standard battle tanks, such as the Leman Russ were in abundance as well as larger super heavy tanks such as the Stormblade.  

A relatively recent addition to the Armouries of the Imperial Militia the Stormblade was a tank of known provenance, having served for the early decades of the Great Crusade in the armouries of the Legiones Astartes.  However, with the discovery of STC data allowing for the creation of the Fellblade, Glaive and Falchion super heavy tanks the Stormblade found itself increasingly sidelined in favour of the more advanced tank designs.

As the crusade wore on these mothballed units found themselves being recommissioned into the rapidly expanding regiments of the Imperialis Mitia, or Imperial Army. Finding a new purpose amongst the human soldiery the Stormblade ground its way across the battlefields of the galaxy unleashing the fury of its Plasma Blastgun upon the enemies of humanity once more.

Legion Armour

As tanks such as the Stormblade fell out of favour with the Legions armoured behemoths such as the Legion Glaive were gaining a reputation as main line tanks within the Legions. Detachments such as the above, attached the the VI Grand Battalion, III Tagma of the IV Legion could be found on myriads of battlefields across the galaxy.  

Primarily deployed against infantry heavy positions the Glaive's Volkite Carronade was capable of reducing massed infantry to smoking ruin in moments and was even effective against light vehicles. The 73rd had an expansive armoury of Volkite weaponry going into the Neverlight compliance and then into the Mycenae campaign, effective as they were against the massed infantry assaults and ramshackle vehicles  

When they came under attack from, what the considered, renegade elements of the XII and XVII Legions they were forced to turn the deadly Volkite weapons on their erstwhile brethren.  The Carronades of the Glaive's proved particularly useful at scything through the packed ranks of degenerate cultists thrown before any assault by the Word Bearers.

Land Raiders and Rhinos were commonplace on the battlefields of the Great Crusade, so much so that their use extended beyond the Legions to the Imperial Army, or at least, those regiments capable of manufacturing their own.

 WIP Stuff

I've got quite a bit on the painting bench at the moment, including a pair of Mastodons, a Trio of Fellblades and a squadron of Leman Russ tanks.  But here's some shots of the next 4 bases of the Praetorians, a tiny Primarch and my first test paint for some Metalica Secutarii Titan guard.

Thats my weekend sorted!

Until Next Time

  

WIP Reavers and Tiny Tanks

So after a nice break in sunny Spain I'm now back in significantly less sunny England, which makes me sad, but it does mean I can continue to work on my Axiom Maniple for Legio Metalica!

I've now finished what I started before I went away and got the super structure built for the two Reavers Hastati Lux and Victorious Endeavour.  I like the Reaver kit, not least because it comes with more weapons options than the notably lacking Warlord, I found the legs on the Reaver a little more fiddly than Warlord though (I even glued the lower leg sections on backwards on the first one!). 

Please excuse the quality. But, for those interested, yes the Warhound weapons scale well for Reaver carapace weapons.

As you can see Hastati Lux is armed with a twin linked Turbo Laser from the Warhound kit on its carapace.  Because there is no such thing as too much BWEEEEEM!  Tactically it will be rubbish at stripping shields, but it will ruin the day of any Princeps caught with his shields down! The Warhound weapons take a little jiggery pokery to fit the carapace mounts but not too much.

Victorious Endeavour is the more well rounded engine. Where Hastati Lux and Mors Incarnadine will aim to get into firing positions and likely stay put once they do Victorious Endeavour will be much more mobile, advancing ahead alongside the two (yet to be built) Warhounds Borophagus and Aelurodon (paleontological names there for anyone into their prehistoric dog species), closing the gap, stripping shields and, when it has chance, getting in close to BIFF! some unsuspecting engines with the Power Fist (I briefly considered a double fist loadout but decided against it in the end)

The beginnings of my Epic force.

I also managed to get my grubby little paws on some 30k Epic tanks off eBay. The Glaives were meant to be Falchions but due to a mix up at the other end I got Glaives instead.  Oh well, I was planning on getting some at some point anyway so its not a huge issue.

Still very much PIP!

I love these models though, whoever made them has done a fantastic job of translating the FW models to 6mm scale.  Painting tiny hazards stripes though?  I must really hate myself between these and the white/black stripes on the titans!

I haven't got myself a 28mm Mastodon, I will live vicariously through the 6mm version!

I also picked up a Mastodon (and the nice chap sent me a free Land Raider Proteus and Rhino.  The Mastodon is awesome, like the Glaives I can't overstate the amazing job done translating the 28mm model to 6mm.  I just need to get them all finished.

You'll notice a suspicious lack of infantry for my Epic stuff, that's because I want to get my hands on some of the lovely MkIII Tacticals and Breachers I've seen around various blogs/forums. It may take a while, and a lot of patience, but some will surface eventually, and then, they shall be mine! (though in the meantime, if anyone has any leads on some, let me know!).

Right! Need to get the Warhounds built tonight and then I can get the whole lot sprayed and crack on with the painting.

Until next time...

Legio Metalica Walks!

At last! An update with actual models, its been a weird few months and I have been in a bit of a lull.

However, the siren call of the new Adeptus Titanicus proved too strong for my, admittedly poor, impulse control.  And as such, here strides forth [I]Mors Incarnadine[/i] the first of my Legio Metalica engines.

I was a little slow off the mark (and also, too poor) to pick up the Grand Master Edition so I settled for the Warlord Bundle with the titan plus rules. I will say I really like the ruleset, which I know, everybody is saying the same thing. The rules are complex enough that the first time you play you'll find yourself keep going back to the rulebook to check stuff but once you get the majority of the basics set in your head there is a lot of tactical depth.  I wont go too much into detail in this post but I will do a full battle report once the Warhounds are out and we can run full maniples.

Mors Incarnadine and the war on Mycenae

Tasked as they were with the eradication of an Ork Waaagh! splinter which had found itself in the resource rich but otherwise unremarkable Mycenae system the 73rd Expedition fleet petitioned Legio Metalica for aid, given their long history of war against the Greenskins around Charadon it was the logical choice. The lords of Metalica agreed and a Demi Legio of 35 God Engines accompanied the 73rd Expedition to Mycenae.

In the shadow of the great war machine a stranded member of the IV Legion fends off the traitors.

The engine designated Mors Incarnadine acquitted itself well in the following four years of war, scoring a total of 8 confirmed Engine Kills on Gargant class Orkiod constructs, but it wasn't until the aftermath of the War that the engine proved its true worth.  Caught on the fringes of Lorgar's Ruinstorm the 73rd found itself isolated and ignorant of events taking place in the galaxy at large.

When a fleet of ships belonging to the XII and XVII Legions broke through the storms the 73rd at first thought reinforcements had arrived.  It quickly became clear that was not the case when the XVII Cruiser Epistle of Fire launched a devastating torpedo salvo detonating the plasma reactor of the Solar Auxillia Bulk Carrier Flame of Jupiter crippling the IV legion Cruiser Thunderhead.

The fleet of the 73rd scattered from the oncoming ships, attempting to extricate themselves from the incoming lance and macrocannon salvos.  While the orbital forces retreated in good order, suffering no further casualties, it allowed a window for the enemy to launch transports and landers onto the planets surface.

One of the most hotly contested zones in the first assault wave were the landing fields on the great crystal plane.  One of the few area in Mycanea's vast deserts open and stable enough to facilitate the landing of Titan and Ordinatus assets.  

When the enemy forces began to land, having received news of the attack from orbit Mors Incarnadine along with its Reaver Class escorts Hastati Lux and Pyroclastia held the landing field, along with support elements from the 208th Praetorian Infantry and a garrison force from the IX Legion, for 7 hours of bitter fighting, buying the defenders in other locations time to prepare their defences.  When it became clear they could not stop the flow of enemy landers the trio of titans were the last defenders to pull back from the landing fields.  Although Pyroclastia suffered catastrophic damage its weapon systems which would see it sidelined from the fighting until the very last days of the war, to have held their ground as long as they did was a truly magnificent feat.

So I still have a little more work to do on the titan, it needs decals and markings etc, though I'm not certain whether to get decals printed from the BOLS Metalica Transfer Sheet or to do a bit of a redesign on the, admittedly dated, Legio icon. We shall see.

Now, something I've been toying with the idea of for a while,  This guy is just the first test paint for the regiment (because why do one militia list when you can do more), but here is the first soldier of the 208th Praetorian Infantry.  The pants came out a bit on the shiny side which was odd but a blast of matt varnish once I've finished the rest of the squad will sort that out.  

Life... uh, finds a way.

So, 2018 has been pretty trash so far if I'm honest.  Between restructures at work, my fiancé leaving me and other stuff I'll be surprised if I make it through the year at this rate. Hence, the lack of updates, I've generally been having some downtime while I got myself back to an even keel.




I've not been entirely unproductive though, I finally finished the Brotherhood unit, finished building a unit of Destroyers and made a start building a second Tactical squad.  All of that to come in another update though.  In this update I want to talk about Jurassic World: Evolution.



Now, I love dinosaurs, always have, from being very little I wanted to be a Palaeontologist, even back when the other kids wanted to be Doctors and Astronauts, and I still love them now, even to the point of considering quitting my job and doing a Palaeontology access course at Uni so the second I saw this game it was a must have for me, plus Jurassic Park has been one of my all time favourite movies since it came out and my mum took me see it all those years ago.

Jurassic World: Evolution is a park management sim sent in the JP/JW canon. Its made by Frontier who also made Planet Coaster(A game which has sat on my wishlist since...forever really) and Elite Dangerous. Think, Zoo Tycoon but with dinosaurs.  Right, blurby bit out of the way.


The premise is pretty straight forward, the game dumps you on Las Cinco Muertes, the Five Deaths, islands from the films, Matanceros, Muerta, Tocano, Pena and Sorna.  The only one they visited in the films, I think, is Sorna which is the setting for both the Lost World and JP3.  Isla Nublar is also available as a sandbox island but I'll talk more about that later.  So the game drops you on the first island, nicely narrated by Jeff Goldblum, and effectively says "build a park".  Parks have a Star rating, between 0-5, better dinosaurs and better facilities means more stars.  Once you 3 Star and island it unlocks the next island.

The mechanics are solid if a little basic, you send dig teams out to sites to dig up fossils, you extract genomes from the fossils, once you have 50% you are able to incubate that dinosaur.  Once you have your genome you can modify it(various cosmetic skins and improved stats), but modifications reduce how viable the genome is, so higher genome percentages are better. 

Some dig sites are locked to begin with, as a way to keep a feeling of progression certain sites need a certain number of Expedition Centres (the building you send your dig teams out from) in order to be able to look for fossils there, you can only build a single Expedition Centre per island so it means you can't get certain dinosaurs until later in the game. Its a simple system but it does keep you thinking "oh I want to get to the next island to get X".

Once you have your dinosaurs it becomes a game of keeping them happy.  And believe me, that's sometimes not as easy as it sounds.

Ankylosaurs, for example, are not very friendly.

Dinosaurs have a "Comfort" rating which is measured on a few things, access to food and water obviously, whether their enclosure meets their needs which is represented by the "Forest" and "Grassland" traits, this one can be particularly finicky if you have a small enclosure as it may be impossible to meet both needs if the dinosaur requires a lot of both, and their desire for company represented by "Social", how many of its own species it wants, and "Population", how many dinosaurs in total can be in the enclosure. If a dinosaurs "Comfort" falls below a certain point, which differs from species to species, they become unhappy and start smashing fences down. 

Clever girl...

Some dinosaurs aren't fussy, the Edmontosaurus for example is quite happy to be on his own in an enclosure with lots of other dinosaurs, and some are picky little divas! Chasmosaurus I remember being particularly picky as it wanted to be in a group of at least 3 of its own kind, but not more than I think 8 dinosaurs total in the enclosure.  That lead to a string of frustrating breakouts.

Here's some Edmontosaurus being not fussy.

Besides the needs of the dinosaur's you need to juggle three departments, Science, Entertainment and Security,  They'll give you one Mission per island and as many Contracts as you want to do.  These missions and contracts increase your reputation with whichever faction you do them for and, typically, reduce it with the other 2.  Its a real balancing act as if your reputation runs low with a faction there is a chance they will start sabotaging you. 

Dom, get on to recruitment. Get them to look for a security team that can work as a team. They may have to escort the current security team from the building for not acting like a team

So, that's the basics of gameplay, there's a little more nuance in some areas but that is the core things you are working with.  Other factors are Weather, some islands are prone to storms which damage buildings and agitate the dinosaurs and occasionally (or regularly if you are particularly unlucky like me) Twisters which can really ruin your day by blowing holes in fences, taking out your power lines and damaging a lot of buildings.

Is it good?  Well I'm 45 hours in on a game that's been out 10 days so I'd say that speaks for itself.  is it perfect... well, no, it could be, with some tweaks.
 


Before I get into my particular pros/cons however I'd like to law out some caveats:  If you have spent any time on either the SubReddit or the Steam Discussion boards you will have heard JP:OG had this and JP:OG had that,  I've never played Operation Genesis so can't compare it. Perhaps less relevant, I really didn't like Jurassic World, if I had to rate all 5 films they would be in best to worst order: Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Fallen Kingdom, Jurassic Park 3, Jurassic World, so that may give some context, or may not, who knows.

Its like Disney Land, except in perpetual darkness, and Mickey can (and will) swallow you whole.

Pros:


Graphically the game is stunning, like, as good as the films level of gorgeous.  The pictures peppered throughout this article are a mix of screenshots I've taken and promo shots I've nabbed off Google so should give you a good idea of how it looks.

Dinosaur variety, the game launched with 37 species of dinosaur, 42 if you bought the deluxe edition(which I did, obviously!), now today the Fallen Kingdom patch has landed giving another 6 species for free, so now we are at 48.  As someone really into dinosaurs this is brilliant,  with the exception of compsognathus all dinosaurs from the movies are in the game, plus others. Currently the game is missing Pterosaurs and Aquatic Reptiles but the developers have hinted that it could be something they look at down the line.  Are there dinosaurs missing I'd like to see?  Of course, Iguanadon, Ornitholestes and Amargasaurus to name a few, but with so many dinosaurs out there there are bound to be species not in the game that people want, but Frontier has a good track record with supporting their game post launch. I wouldn't be surprised if after all is said and done the roster is more like 85-90.

Rar Rar Rar...Grrr

Challenge, although the mechanics are relatively simple the game still offers a challenge.  The usual thing to happen, to me at least, is a cascade failure, its all going fine and you're keeping everything ticking over then suddenly its sabotage, then dinosaurs are out, then a storm hits, then by the time you get dinosaurs back in their enclosures the more social ones are annoyed and breaking down the fence, then the Science department sabotages you again because I'm sorry Dr Dua but can you not see I haven't been able to do whatever it is you've asked because shit went south when you decided to open all the gates last time!  Two and a half hours later you've got the dinosaurs back in their enclosures, everyone is happy and it all goes back to normal. And you're wondering in your head if you could ask the Security division to march the Science guys out back and shoot them all...


Cons:
AI,  the AI is...strange, to say the least, dinosaurs wander about, eat grass, hunt goats, whatever.  Herbivores, don't herd, even the ones that say they want lots of their own kind around (I'm looking at you Parasaurolophus), Raptors don't become a pack oh and if you put a carnivore in with herbivores it will kill and kill and kill until something kills it in return.  Now you're probably thinking, regarding the carnivores, that makes sense, which it does, sorta... except they don't kill because they're hungry, its almost like they're killing for sport! (Gotta get those quotes in). A good example is (mild spoiler), on Isla Sorna, when you first get to the map there are dinosaurs already on the island, there is a Spinosaurus and 15 Stegosaurus, the Spinosaurus will make its way from Stegosaur to Stegosaur not even missing a beat from killing one to the next until (about 4 Stegosaurs in) it dies.  And I restarted that island 4-5 times to see if it played out the same each time, and it did.  I dunno how easy it would be but really it should be tied into the Hunger stat, if its not hungry, it wont hunt, unless its the Indominus...

On a similar note, Comfort needs to be switched to go off the size of the enclosure, its currently a radius bubble around the dinosaur, or they need to be tweaked to search out comfort in their enclosure before breaking the walls down.  I've had dinosaurs wander into one corner of the enclosure, get annoyed because they don't have any friends (despite 6 of the same species being in there), or there's not enough forest (despite the enclosure being half trees) etc and then kick the fence down.  While we are talking about that, can we get a notification when a dinosaur is attacking a fence? The first we know at the moment is when it goes "Fence Broken!" "Dinosaur Threat!", which is rarely useful.

Terrain constraints, each of the "campaign" islands offers a unique challenge, so smaller maps for those, I'm totally fine with, but for the sandbox, I'd really love a truly massive map!  Isla Nublar, as it is, isn't that big,  if you're clever with your enclosures then you will be able to fit all the dinosaurs in, but you do have to be clever about it.  I'd love to see either custom maps or a random generator.  Also, the terrain tools can be a bit of a diva, once you get the hang of them they are ok, but I would like to see smaller brush sizes for the tree/water placement and maybe a few more terrain deform options.

Automation,  one thing I love about sim games is automation, I've played a lot of Surviving Mars and I love getting a colony to the point where it can almost run itself and I only need to step in if birth rates are up and I need a new dome or something.  JW:E has nothing in the way of automation,  you need to manually tell your ranger teams to go refill the feeders, send helicopters to remove dinosaurs who have died, even manually release dinosaurs when you incubate them which forces you into a little cinematic as it leaves the incubation lab, which is lovely, the first time you see it for each species, but thank you very much I've hatched dozens of Struthiomimus, I don't need to see it again.  You can skip the cinematic but only once its started, I'd rather you just had a remote release option so you could carry on whatever you are doing elsewhere.  I'd even be happy to use an upgrade slot on my ranger station to give them a radius in which they will automatically refill feeders and medicate dinosaurs.    


I've seen people talking on the SubReddit about more cosmetic options, different building skins, small decorations for park (like benches, signs etc) which, I agree would be nice, but I think we will definitely see them patched in later so I'm not raising them specifically as an issue... yet.

Finally, bugs, I've been really lucky and only really encountered one so far, where I tranquilised a dinosaur too close to the incubation lab and when m transport team tried to move it it stayed on the ground while the helicopter chugged off into the distance dragging its lines across the map until eventually it pinged out of existence and the dinosaur woke up exactly where it had been tranquilised so I had to start over getting it into its enclosure.  Its a minor thing and hadn't happened on any of my previous islands.  I have read of a few others online, one interesting one is that Dinosaur Visibility doesn't, currently, effect your parks rating, so someone managed to make a 5 star park where the guests couldn't see a single dinosaurs.  That something I suspect will be fixed fairly quick though.


All in all its a good game that I'm having a lot of fun with, its not perfect, but then again, most games aren't these days, and I think with a little polish it could be one of the greatest dinosaur games ever!