Shadows of Brimstone - So what is it?

Shadows of Brimstone is a cooperative dungeon crawler set (initially) in the Wild West, published by those crazy people at Flying Frog Productions.

Unusually, the core game comes in two versions, City of the Ancients and The Swamps of Death. Each core game contains The Mines location (which is where you start each adventure) together with a different Other World location, which you can travel to through portals, more of this later.

Each player chooses a character from the 8 classic western archetypes currently available, such as US Marshal, Crazy Priest and Mexican Bandit and collects together their starting gear.

Each adventure can either be taken from the Adventure book where the layout of the Mines is pre-mapped and the events pre-scripted, or take on a completely random map layout on their quest for money and loot.

Players can keep track of their character's experience, stats and equipment and keep them from adventure to adventure, levelling up as they go. Between each adventure players can go to Town and visit various shops to buy new equipment, heal various aliments and do any character-specific events (the Outlaw can try to rob the Bank!).

An experienced Outlaw

The gameplay is familiar if you have played a few games like this. Each turn every character/monster activates in initiative order and can move and then attack. When a character attacks, you count up how many ranged shots or melee attacks they have and roll to hit and wound. The target can then roll to defend and takes wounds accordingly.

Every monster have their own stats and rules which are printed on giant cards.

When you move to the edge of a map tile, a new one is drawn from the pile and you carry on, much like Warhammer Quest.

The blue and white blob is a portal to another dimension...

As previously mentioned, some map tiles have portals for exits. When you go through a portal, you randomly draw a card from the Other World deck to find out which dimension you end up in. This is where the City of the Ancients and the Swamps of Death come in. Each Other World has their own loot deck and event deck. Therefore, you start your adventure in the Wild West, but could end up knee deep in a swamp being attacked by dinosaurs or find yourself in a frozen abandoned city surrounded by alien technology!

There is already a ton of expansions and additional characters planned. I'll have a look at these in the next post.

Shadows of Brimstone - Preamble

There was a town, if you could call it that, named Brimstone; a small railway stop on the edge of the hottest deserts in the south west territory. Barely a speck, it didn’t even show up on most maps… That is, until they found the Dark Stone.

Digging in the hills, an old prospector came across a strange nugget he had never seen before, a black rock, part way between a crystal and a metal ore. But there was something special about that rock, it had a glow you could only see out of the corner of your eye and was warm to the touch. It had properties folks said were magik, and of course, that caused a stir. Within days they found more of it buried in the earth, and stories started to spread. Business men and scholars started offering top dollar for even the smallest shard of the stuff, and that opened the floodgates. 

It was a gold rush, but not for gold; for the black rock… the Dark Stone. People came from all over to try and make their fortune, and Brimstone boomed over night. They dug mines in every scrap of land they could get a hold of. Round the clock they worked, digging deeper and deeper into the earth, bringing up cartloads full of the rock and sending it back to town to be stockpiled and sold to the highest bidder. What they didn’t know, what nobody knew, was that the energy in the Dark Stone resonated with itself. As they collected more and more of the rocks all in one place, it started to cascade, until… it exploded. In a flash, the town was consumed and a shock wave rolled out across the desert, burning the trees and tainting the land.

Reality itself was being ripped apart, and the people along with it. Dark portals to other worlds started tearing open across the countryside, pulling people in and unleashing all manner of demons and creatures into our world. Wherever there was Dark Stone these gateways would appear; some only flickering open for an instant, others opened and stayed that way.

That was 6 months ago. Since then, demonic creatures of all kinds have been pouring out of the mines, and the scorched hell on earth that is…was Brimstone. The government denies its existence, and anyone sane steers clear of the whole area, but plenty of folks find they can’t help but be drawn in, whether it’s to try and help somehow or just to find a fortune of their own, doesn’t matter. Everyone wants to be a hero. Damn fools. No one ever escapes… the Shadows of Brimstone. 

 

Astra Militarum - WIP Update

Hey all. Just a quick update to my unit. I am managing to find some time here and there to do a bit. Here is the latest. I still need to add a bit more weathering with powders and tidy up some stuff like the pipe that runs to the flamer from the promethium tanks on his back but they are getting there. Quite pleased with these for standard troops. Its been a great learning process and I have discovered several things that I can do differently to speed up the process for the next batch.

Astra Militarum - WIP

Just a quick update to show show a WIP photo. I'm working on a large unit of shock troops in the new scheme. I'm managing to get an hour in here and there and its adding up. I'm still in the process of laying down the base colours ready for the wash. Its coming together though. I'm hoping to have this squad done in the next week or two. Then it'll be the command squads and then some tanks!

2016 - The year of Astra Militarum

So it's 2016 and barely anything has changed in a year on the gaming front. I have started to play Star Wars Armada (which is a fantastic game) but in terms of modelling and painting, most of my armies still sit in almost the same state they started the year in. I did get some AM built and a squad painted but for the most part, the last 6 months, I have made no progress. Roll on into 2016 and I have got things going!

I am keen this year to really get my Astra Militarum army to at least 1250 points, painted, and then possibly get a Baneblade variant to add to it (I love the model). My last attempt at painting was loosely following the normal Cadian paint scheme but one thing that never sat well with me was the khaki fatigues that went along with the green armour that they wear. It just seemed like the model would stand out like a sore thumb. I there fore decided to go to a more green overall scheme:

The model still has enough contrast to stand out and I think looks more realistic in terms of what a Cadian soldier might wear. Sure it would be nice to add some camo pattern to the them but I am going to have to paint scores of these guys, which brings me to the next part.... Airbrushing! I have decided to use my airbrush for more than priming. These guys got a Zenith highlight in white, basecoat in Vallejo Green RLM 62 (this was applied as a dusting to the whole model), then highlighted with Vallejo Camoflage Lightgreen and the GW Straken Green. I then used Vallejo Beasty Brown to colour the base and add a mud affect to the boots and fatigues. All of this was done with the airbrush and in a fraction of the time it would take to do with a brush. It also meant all my highlights were added in. 

Something else I tried with this was a watercolour wash. I mixed some black and some burnt Umber to create a dark wash and applied it liberally. Once this was dry I then dampened a cotton bud and wiped it across the model. This leaves the wash in the recesses but removes the excess on the raised surfaces. It's a bit of a faff but way faster than touching up afterwards and it also means that the airbrush work isn't ruined or covered up. I did go in afterwards and add some Nuln Oil to some of the receses in a controlled manner but this took little time.

Overall I'm really happy with the look. I'm looking forward to getting the others painted up!

Gotrek

200 point Kill team Tournament

So Praetor and I made it to the Kill Team tournament at our FLGS. Well, let me rephrase that. We went down to watch the tournament and have a friendly game on the side lines. Our armies were nowhere near ready with mine not being fully built let alone painted and Praetor didn't have much of his army of choice even started. I got there a bit early and they had odd numbers so I was recruited into the tournament. Praetor was more than happy to watch and coach me over a liquid lunch too :)

I had to quickly build my list and ended up with (Specialist skills are listed in brackets and in italics):

Veterans [Krak Grenades for Squad]

Grenadiers [Carapace Armour for Squad]

Rules: Doctrine: Grenadiers

Veteran Autocannon Team [Autocannon, 2x Frag Grenades T, Lasgun] (Ignores Cover)

Veteran Sergeant [Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Laspistol]

7x Veteran w/ Lasgun [7x Frag Grenades, 7x Lasgun]

 

Veterans [Krak Grenades for Squad]
Grenadiers [Carapace Armour for Squad]

Rules: Doctrine: Grenadiers

Veteran Sergeant [Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Laspistol]

7x Veteran w/ Lasgun [7x Frag Grenades, 7x Lasgun]

2x Veteran w/ Plasma Gun [2x Frag Grenades, 2x Plasma Gun] (1 x Preferred Enemy, 1 x FnP)

I was fairly confident that this list was the best I could come up with out of my selection of models. I did however end up with half my army with no heads let alone no paint (the other half was the unit from the previous post). All my opponents were great about this and were more than happy just to have some fun.

Without going into detail the day played out with all the highs and lows that make 40K what it is. Highlights (and some lowlights...):

• My plasma gunners proceeded to kill themselves almost every game despite their skills. 
• Every one avoided my Autocannon as much as possible until a lone Dire Avenger shot and wounded it with two 6's and I then failed two 4+ cover saves! 
• I managed to kill a charging Space Wolf (can't remember the unit name but it was an actual Fenrisian wolf) which was sweet!
• My warlord managed to get up to WS 5 and I attempted to put this to good use twice and failed. The first time was Epic. I shot his Laspistol at a Blood Angels death company marine, wounded him, he failed his save..... but passed his FnP!!!!! I then charged him thinking this could be it... but then he got shot in the head by overwatch.... Damn! The second time was when I charged a Dire avenger in the last game. I had three attacks and those three dice epitomised my luck for that game vs the Eldar.... three 1's!!! I called the game there after losing over half my force and having no chance of getting the objective.
• I discovered that Warp Spiders are hard to kill! Well, except for the first and only one I did kill which was a 22" shot from a lasgun on turn 1. Luckily I ended up drawing this game due to some lucky dice rolls that meant my lone guardsman running for the opposing table edge survived a barrage of monofilament shots to get line breaker.

Overall it was a fantastic day and everyone was a great sport. The games flowed well, dice were rolled and good times were had. 

I came in 4th overall out of 6 in the tournament, but the biggest surprise was that I got best painted (getting best painted when half my army wasn't even built felt a bit bad but the TO asured me that it was OK as not everyone had painted their armies) and best sport which felt great and netted me some credits in the shop.

Thanks to all those that took part, the TO's and to Praetor for coaching me over a few beers at half time.

Gotrek

Astra Militarum, Cadian 812th - First Squad Painted

So I finally managed to finish my first ever squad! In all my years of wargaming I have never fully completed one. I am really happy with the result and am looking forward to moving forward and improving my painting and modelling skills.

I will hopefully do a showcase at some point but for now I have managed to at least get some higher res images with some better lighting.

Praetor, Zogg and myself have decided to enter a local 200 point kill team tournament so these guys will be featuring in that army. I'll post more information about the tournament soon and hopefully start up a series of posts about it.

Cheers,

Gotrek