New Campaign= New team

Imagine what its like to be a writer for Shades Of Chaos Games. Think about all the games that must get played. All the new rules that only a handful of people know about. Knowing all the rules by heart...and then using them to your advantage. Sounds pretty cool right??? Well its not like that at all. Most of the work I do for OUTLANDS/Shades Of Chaos Games involves sitting around trying to think up new and exciting ways to expand upon the OUTLANDS core rules. Then, once I have an idea, I have to go about writing the rules around that idea.....and then...rethink the whole thing. 80 percent of the 1st draft is rubbish. Its either unplayable, overpowered or breaks the games core ruleset. So, the 1st rewrite, which is usually around the time if a rule is viable or not. It everything is OK (ish) I'll then pass it out to the rest of the team for review. Again, this can lead to yet another rewrite or even abandoning the 'rule' altogether. Once everyone is happy with the draft..that new rule is playtested...and then rewritten..and playtested again. Finally a decision is made to release the new rule or mission....and trust me sometimes it just never happens. And that is just for one new rule or mission. It's just not all fun and games. In fact its very little gaming. Lucky I like my 2nd job :)

So imagine my delight when talk at the local gaming club is about starting a new OUTLANDS campaign. Excellent, a chance to get some serious OUTLANDS games under my belt...ready for the upcoming ~#####~ (can't tell you yet sorry).

For this new campaign I have decided to build and paint a whole new 'Spice Hunters' team. Did I mention 'paint'..yes I did. Now anyone who knows me will undoubtable notice that my painting isn't top of my list of 'things-to-do'. If I'm honest its pretty much near the bottom. But, I have a plan. 1) OUTLANDS only uses 5 miniatures....any 5 miniatures. All good no painting fatigue..which is one of the reasons I really don't like to paint. 2) I have a simple colour scheme, four maybe five colours....and I have the miniatures already.

Nuns with Guns by EMP GAMES (Click Here for the website). I picked this blister up while demo'ing OUTLANDS at ATTACK 2018. The pack has been sitting around in my demo kit for a good few weeks. Everytime I take a look (usually for something else that I need) they stare right back at me. So now its time to break out the...drum roll please....wait for it!!!!!

I'm am so, so sorry....no I not.

Lets crack open the blister and see what we get. Firstly, the pack has 6 metal miniatures and 6 plastic bases. Considering the price I paid...that is a good exchange rate of Miniature per £.

The pose of the miniatures is very similar but I guess you can only do so much with a nun's habit. When I 1st had a look I was mistaken and counted 4 individual poses and 2 exactly the same. On closer inspection I proved myself wrong. The weapons are pretty basic it...but as its OUTLANDS that isn't going to matter. One of the good things about OUTLANDS is that its design to allow the players to use any miniatures they want or already own.....all the juicy stuff is on the character sheet.

Clean up was a delight. No flash and just some very faint mold lines. I'm planning on 'underpainting' (use inks and washes) for most of the colour...so having mold lines can be problematic. Two minutes with a small metal file soon solved any problems. However, I did run into a small but pet hate... the tabs of the miniatures.

As you can see I had to remove quite a bit of excess otherwise the miniatures would be sitting proud of the base. A pet hate and one that was quick to rectify with some old tile cutters.

After which it was just a matter of gluing the miniatures to the bases supplied. I always use Super Glue when working with metal miniature. If anyone has a suitable alternative please like me know. Super Glue fumes have an habit (hehe habit) of making my sneeze.

All set for priming and painting.

Next update I'll hopefully show of how I painted 'The Nuns Of Navarone'.

On a side note. As its a new campaign I've decided to use a different set of dice. My old GW black dice have a reputation. Chris Payne kindly passed these 'purple/black' dice onto me. So its best that I start to put them to some good use.