Convergence of Cyriss - Warmachine

New Warmachine faction on the horizon - the Convergence of Cyriss.  Art-Deco, Clockwork robots, lots of metal to paint and some new mechanics thrown in.  No mention of how and where the fit into the Warmachine universe, but I'm sure find out more soon.

Initial thoughts? Mostly positive, like the look of the new warjacks, but not entirely sold on the paintjob (but that may be because I hate using metallic paint.)  Also, gamers are going to shorten the faction name to CoC.  Hmmm.

It's good to see PP not resting on their laurels and continuing to expand their game base, but, obviously, I'd have preferred a fifth Hordes faction before a sixth Warmachine.

Venexia Miniatures - Some Good News?

Some good news courtesy of Madaxeman, that Venexia have sold their miniature range to an unnamed American company.  No mention of timescale for any releases, or even if there will be a release, but this is still better than no news whatsoever.

   

Sadly, progress on my Italian Wars project stalled quite suddenly when Venexia stopped trading.  This was all the more frustrating in when I missed the announcement and so missed the opportunity to pick up all of their excess stock.  Damn.

Great book, but haven't enough figures for a game yet.

There are a few companies out there with a range of 16th century figures, but after looking around, none approach the quality Venexia gave.  Fingers crossed for some more news.

Venexia Miniatures shutting up shop?

I popped over to the Vexillia website this morning, to order some more Venexia 15mm Italian Wars figures, only to find an announcement that apparently the Italian company are planning to close down and that most of the range is unavailable.

Is there anything more frustrating to a wargamer then losing your preferred miniature range half way (ok, about a quarter of the way) through a project?

I'm a bit torn about what direction to go in now.  I picked Venexia because I thought their figures were the best available (Museum Miniatures and QRF are both fine, but don't hold up well next to the Venexia figures.)  Hopefully, the model range will be sold to another company sooner or later, but for the immediate future, I'll be putting this project on hold.

Extremely frustrating since I only bought Warlord's Pike & Shotte rules at the weekend! Bummer.

Throne of Everblight

Now, I try not to put up too many plain news posts here, as there are plenty of blogs and websites out there dedicated to just that.

Instead, if something appears on t'internet that provokes enough of a reaction, well that goes straight up and I'll try to put a little opinion there as well.

Today is just one of those occasions, as Privateer Press have finally released an image of the upcoming Legion of Everblight Battle Engine:

This was always going to be the easiest engine for PP to get "wrong."  The Skorne and Trollblood artwork looks excellent, but are both quite safe with regard to the overall theme of the factions.  The Circle engine has had plenty of publicity, is suitably esoteric, but really doesn't do anything for me.

This, however, looks the absolute business, and completely different to anything else in HoMachine.  I'm really looking forward to reading it's rules and I'll be using this as a spur to finish off the various LoE minis I have kicking around the house.

Warlord, Hordes and Spartan news

The biggest nerd news of the last couple weeks is Warlord Games announcement of a new set of WWII rules.

Not the biggest shock in the world, especially with Warlords vast Bolt Action range of miniatures.  Perhaps the most surprising thing about the release is their decision to join with another company to produce the rules.  After the success's of Black Powder and Hail Caesar, Warlord must have been tempted to try this alone.


However, the joint venture with Osprey really makes these rules a great prospect.  Now I'm assuming that as Osprey will be publishing, the books will follow their Field of Glory/Renaissance/Force on Force template of a hardback rulebook and smaller, softback supplements.  This format is something Osprey have become very proficient in; each release since the original FoG rulebook has improved on the previous one.


The books will presumably have access to the vast library of images and artwork from Osprey's back catalogue which can only be a good thing.  Lastly, in my opinion, Osprey have never been a company to take the piss with the amount and frequency of supplements they print.  So hopefully we won't see an endless stream of unnecessary supplement books simply to generate £$£ (I'm looking at you Flames of War!)


Meanwhile, Privateer Press are busy preparing us for the next Hordes book, Domination, with two new Epic Warlocks, Vayl and Hexeris:

Vayl, Consul of Everblight

Lord Arbiter Hexeris 

Massive improvements on the original, Primal sculpts.  Considering all the movement phase shenanigans she gets upto, Vayl always looked surprisingly static.  Here there's much more fluidity and dynamism to her.  Hexeris looks suitably malevolent, but I think he could have been given a little more variety compared to the original. 


Now what we really need to see are the Hordes Battle Engines (the Circle Celestial Fulcrum looks a bit meh to me.)


Spartan Games have posted up some images of their upcoming Capital Class flyers for Dystopian Wars:

Kingdom of Britannia Eagle Class War Rotor

Initially, I thought this looked a bit of a mess; the hull looked too bulky and the propellers seem pathetically tiny.  However, after looking at it for a little longer, the Eagle does grow on you.  It has a certain "plucky British gumption overpowers the laws of physics" feel to it; bloated, ungainly. . . armed to the teeth!

Empire of the Blazing Sun Tsukuyomi War Gyro

This guy looks the place though, kind of an amalgam of the Nakatsu Cruiser and the Inari Scout Gyro.  It also has plenty of character with all those gyros and turrets.  Certainly looking forward to seeing this in the flesh (resin.)


And also from Spartan are the first of their new sculpts for Uncharted Seas: 

Human Condor Flagship

Great looking new design there, very "Age of Sail" - I'd love to see how this would look with some rigging and webbing.  I've never been that interested in Uncharted Seas, but with all the resculpts being released, I might have a closer look.  Considering it's one of the cheapest games out there to get into, that shouldn't be too hard.


So there we go, some news from the last couple weeks and a few comments.  Love to know what everyone else thinks. . .