eudaimon

Hmm you raise a valid point about Kang. My play group are happy to let me run with Kang as the leader, which I would prefer from a fluff point of view, but I hear your thought on the Firestarter. Should I get both? Something like Kang, Firestarter, 2x Rail worker, Fire Gamin, Arcane Effigy?

Hi guys, as the name suggests, I am looking for a bit advice for a forthcoming campaign that we are running in Sydney. Its a standard campaign, and I am looking to start a new crew. I have never played the Rail crew before, so, if I am starting with Kang, but with an aim to get Mei Feng quickly, what do you guys suggest (and should I start with Kang, or maybe the Firestarter?). 35 stones available, standard campaign rules. I have access to the Rail Crew and rail golem, all gamin (not air), howard, mech rider, spiders and swarms, gunsmiths, X-roads (so probably Envy?), Union Miners, Soulstone Miner, December's Acolyte and Silent ones if helpful... I'll need something that will work with a henchman led Kang crew for a few games before I can bring in Mei, so Kang needs to work as a first priority, with secondary thought to Mei's eventual joining. Thanks!

And so Gluttony. Honestly, my least favourite model of the 7, and also the one that, in my set at least, was the worst cast. I had to use a lot of greenstuff here, a surprise given Wyrd's great quality most of the time. But... but... somehow, as I painted, it all seemed to come together. This was my very first effort at dark skin, and it just worked. Bringing in the gremlin colours seemed easy, and, inspired by Live and Let Die, the skull facepaint just came to life. All in all, I like the result a lot, and more than I was expecting.

Wrath growled, his luck was on the down. The bayou was a hot, humid and retched place. The pathways, if you could call them that, were ankle deep in fetid water and his feet squelched with every step. Sticky vines hung down from strange trees like spiders webs blocking his path. The closest things he could think of were the mangrove forests of Old Earth, but these were as close to mangroves as a cat was to a horse. His lead had come from a buck-toothed, one-eyed sot of a gremlin he had found drowning his sorrows on the outskirts of the quarantine zone. The gremlin had heard the story from a 3rd cousin, who had heard it from the occasional trading barge, who had heard it from Tyrant only knows where. Wherever it had come from, Wrath was beginning to doubt the veracity of the tale. There was a new arrival making his home on the bayou, a man as at home there as a pig in muck. He was a fat man, so the story went, and when the beasts of the bayou got too close he would beat a primal rhythm on his drum and they would slink away, or sit and listen, or come close and eat from his hand, the gremlin wasn’t sure which. What the gremlin did seem very sure about was that his kin on the bayou revered this man as a mystic, and he had quickly got involved in their schemes and meddling. “Help ussss…..” Wrath grunted, and pushed on, brushing aside the hanging vines a vegetation. His feet were sodden, and his boots squelched with every step. His clothes were torn and ruined and Wrath couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was someone, or somethings, keeping a watchful eye on him. As the hours past, the going became slower. The sun was starting to set on the horizon and Wrath almost began to lose faith. Maybe this lead was not one worth following - who could trust a drunken gremlin anyway - he’d already started the process well enough, he could track down his drummer another way. As these thoughts began to enter his head, almost on queue, the vegetation started to clear. Wrath pushed aside the thinning foliage and there, ahead of him, was his destination. The hut dominated the clearing. A sturdy structure of planking and tightly tied vine, raised on stilts to fend of any threat of encroachment from the foetid swamp. A verandah swung around the front of the hut, and out on the front was a fat man, head bowed over a cauldron, a large bongo drum by his foot. The man slowly raised his head, a faint skull chalked on his face. “You, you took your time,” he said, and smiled.

So to Envy, no doubt along with Lust one of the better models in the crew. I've been playing a slow grow campaign and he has been such a beat stick, I am a big fan. For the colour scheme, it was about this time that I decided that I wanted to bring something from each of the factions into the model. Happily for me, Wrath already had purple in the neverborn spirits, so it would only be the re-purposed Lust that would didn't have the her native factions colour. I can cope with that. So here is Envy, fresh from a West Coast Customs paint job. Much happier with this finish then the hash I made of Lust.

Wrath gingerly pushed a door open with one meaty hand and the rotted frame creaked and buckled. The room was dark, musty and more scrapyard than the workshop the little sign outside had advertised. A few broken sunbeams pierced the gloom through cracked windows and dust motes danced in the light. Wrath hacked a cough like a steam train leaving Malifaux station. He scanned the room. Piles of junk were strewn this way and that, and it was difficult to pick a path through the mess. Remnants of half finished projects were everywhere, on and under work benches, with tools laying casually on the floor among the layers of dust. Something crunched under foot. Wrath sighed and idly kicked an empty pot which clattered across the floor, clanging into some metal contraption. He had been sure this was the place, but he would never leave his workshop looking like this. Crossing to the nearest pile of junk, Wrath picked up one of the unfinished projects and turned it over. Unfinished it may be, but there was no denying the workmanship. The moulding of the brass, the beaten copper and the fine cogs of the clockwork mechanism. The fine cogs…. Wrath gripped the thing, whatever it was intended to be, tightly, and slowly crushed the protective plates of the mechanism. After a few seconds it buckled and collapsed, and the intricate clockwork of the mechanism fell loosely into the palm of his hand. Wrath picked one of the larger cogs and held it up to his eyes. There, as he suspected, was a simple set of hallmark initials. He looked the room over again, paying more attention to its contents this time. There was something else among all the metal and tools, glass. Shards of glass were scattered across the floor and a handful of empty bottles were piled in a corner. Wrath recognised those bottles. Whiskey. Wrath spun on his heels and marched out of the workshop. Across the street the telltale swing doors of a saloon billowed slightly in the breeze and Wrath didn’t hesitate to cross and enter. The saloon was unremarkable and well kept. A card game was in play at a table in the corner, two serving girls worked the room whilst an old man eyed the scene from behind the bar, a rusty blunderbuss strapped to the wall. But none of that bothered Wrath, because there was one more thing in the room that he wanted. From under the stairs came a simple tinkle of ivories. The tune was being played slowly and badly, but it was unmistakeable. It was from that night. On top of the piano was an empty bottle of whiskey. The player, wearing a battered bowler hat, was hunched, mournfully tapping at the keys. Wrath smiled, his luck was on the up.

And so onto Lust. No doubt right at the top of the best models on the game table, and also one of my favourites as a model too. As noted previously, I had wanted to do a full on spotlight set of models, and I started with Lust. Although the base went well (and I got a great shadow effect on the floor boards), I wasn't happy with how Lust turned out. This is the only clip I have: I know it looks like I have a turbo flash going on there, but it is (mostly) the paint job. So it was back to the drawing board. Re-painting over a model is never a good exercise, and I was a bit disappointed with myself and the model by this time, so it was a bit of a half arsed effort I admit, but here she is, all done.

“One of usss…..” Wrath pushed his way uneasily through the crowded alleyways. Torrents of little kingdomers flooded the narrow spaces, darting this way and that, perfectly at ease in the confines. The strange noises and smells made it hard for Wrath to concentrate and the voices surfaced unbidden in his head. “Help usss….” “Save usss….” He forced them back and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand. He had heard rumours of a fiddler in one of the taverns in the little kingdom, one that was driving patrons into a frenzy with her playing. He couldn’t be certain, but it had to be her - he knew it, who else could it be? There was nothing concrete to the rumour, nothing he could pin his search on, and so Wrath had been forced to start at the first dive bar he could find, and to make his way from speakeasy to speakeasy via smokey sheesha bars and dank noodle joints. It was in a small and dark underground bar called “Gnomezilla’s” that he found her. Following a simple chalk sign advertising “live music here” alongside a stream of kingdom script he didn’t understand, he descended down into a low ceilinged, dark walled room. The lighting was low, just a handful of candles burning in holders on the wall. A bar was crammed into the corner, a mix of hooch, whiskey and moonshine propped on the shelves. Two bar staff, a male and a female dressed in white shirts, black bowties and red waistcoats stood lazily behind it. Tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly around the room, all facing towards a stage in the centre of the room, a glowing soulstone powered lamp shone a bright light onto the stage. Twenty or so patrons talked idly to one another, their attention turning every now and then to the empty stage. Wrath sucked in a breath and ground his teeth, and strode over to the bar. “Whiskey.” The female bartender snapped to attention and in one smooth well practised motion poured and served the drink. Wrath finished it in one hit and tossed the scrip onto the bar top. A hush descended on the crowd, and all the patrons turned, fixated on the stage. She walked with a slow feline gait across the shadows of the stage towards the central spotlight, carrying a violin lazily by the neck, almost dragging it behind her like a tail. The crowd sat bolt upright, glued to the stage, and even Wrath could feel his pulse start to quicken. It was her. The woman turned deliberately to the face the crowd and painstakingly slowly lifted the violin to her chin. With a flourish she raised her bow and began to play. ******* The woman lowered her bow and dropped into a curtsey. Wrath pushed himself away from the bar and walked towards the stage, picking his way through the detritus of unconscious bodies and smashed glass that littered the floor. At the same time, the two bartenders moved out from behind the bar and began smartly and efficiently relieving the delirious patrons of their scrip. Blood was pooling in places and here and there the bodies groaned and clawed at the air, still fixated on the stage. It was her. Maybe she would know what happened. Ignoring the pitiful mewling of the patrons, he followed her backstage.

Fantastic idea and awesome execution. Inspiring stuff, well done!

So a bit of a writing and hobby blog this one, as I work my way through the XRoads7. A wonderful bunch of models that I am super excited to paint. As a quick box review, there is good and bad. The models are obviously full of character, and generally go together really well. There was some filling needed on most models, but only a bit. The exception was Gluttony, at least on my model, that needed some quite heavy green stuffing. My original plan was to paint them all fully highlighted like they were under spotlights. I think worked quite well for the bases that I did, but when I did the same technique on the models, it just didn't work right. I only tried Lust (as my practice model) and the effect looked kinda good when you were spinning the model around and you could see the different points of light, but it just didn't look right when static. So I went back to the drawing board and just painted them normally. So, to go with the first part of the story, here is Wrath.

“Help ussss….” “Save usssss….” “One of usss…...” The sibilant whispers danced on the wind, plaguing his every waking moment, a constant companion since that night. Get out of my head! Wrath screamed internally to quieten the noise. It worked sometimes, but soon enough the incessant echoes would come back, they always did. Wrath trudged, head down, along the road. The badlands sky was ablaze with the setting sun, and in another time, would have been considered beautiful. Now all it was was a reminder of that night, when the fire raged and the Crossroads burned, and the sky was the colour of apricots. Apricots. Ah, how he longed for simple pleasures again. Nothing had been the same since, taste and smell had deserted him and apricots were no better than cold crispbreads. “Help usss…” He was getting closer now, he could see the ruins ahead on the road and he picked up speed. There ahead, lay the remains of Crossroads, the hamlet they had played that fateful night, back before the two strangers had danced, back before he was Wrath, back when he was but… damn! He screamed a frustrated scream. What was his name! “One of usss...” He kicked the loose piles of wreckage around hard, the faint smell of burning still in the air. “Save usss….” Leave me alone! The voice seemed to laugh as it faded from his mind. He didn’t know what he had hoped for by coming back here, something, anything to get rid of the voices, but whatever he had hoped for it wasn’t here. He didn’t know who he was, who he had been or what he was supposed to do. But anything, anything to get rid of the damn voices! Whatever had happened hadn’t happened to him alone. He had to figure it out. He had to find a way. There was nothing else for it, he was going to get the band back together.

Intention is only ever a subjective guess, but if you go BEYOND what is needed in order to achieve something, it seems counter intuitive to penalise someone for this. Lets say you are playing a campaign game and have put down two markers and are well set to achieve your scheme. Your opponent has a model with "Baggage" which he walks into the middle of the two markers. You kill him, in order to still be able to score the scheme, but the baggage "upgrade" (supposedly a bad thing) drops you a scheme marker within 2" of the two you have, thus invalidating you from completing the scheme, even though you have you gone beyond what is required. It also invalidates abilities like the mech rider (if you couldn't put down markers more than 2" away from other etc). Changes to rules like there are generally done to stop a certain mischief from happening. Therefore, it seems logical that the intention of the changes is to stop the mischief created by models like the mech rider or Colette crews when dropping a stack of markers and baby sitting a single stack (like frequently happened in Line in the Sand) in order to get the scheme, and instead make them babysit three separate areas. However, it seems against the intention to invalidate the entire stack just because you have more than one - after all, what mischief would the wording under that interpretation successfully stop?

Some of the new gaining grounds schemes have rules that require that scheme markers be more than 2" away from another scheme marker to count. Would this invalidate all makers within 2" (as RAW seems to indicate) or only additional markers (as RAI would seem to indicate). Example 1. There is a stack of 2 scheme markers on the centre line for convict labour. Are BOTH markers invalid for Convict Labour (as they are within 2" of each other) or only the additional marker, allowing for 1 marker to count towards Convict Labour. Example 2. There are 3 scheme markers 1.5" away from each other, like this SM<--1.5"-->SM<--1.5"-->SM. Are all three markers invalid for Convict Labour (as they are within 2" of each other) or may I elect to ignore the middle marker and score from the marker on the left and right, as these are more than 2" away from each other.

Hi, I've been using your great app for a while and am now just starting a campaign with our play group. The problems with campaign upgrades and injuries have already been brought up, but I thought I would ask again if there is a hope of an update on the horizon to let us track our campaign crews in your app or if we still need to stick to paper? Thanks!!

Thank you Gnomezilla, that is a very generous offer. It doesn't solve the problem of getting Mei Feng's master upgrades though - it looks like the only way to achieve that is to buy the entire TT Wave 1 pack.