Thursday 31 January 2013

What Lurks Beneath: Final

Good Thursday everyone!

Well it looks like this is a week of reminiscing and completing things. Earlier this week it was MaliQuest, now it's my terrain entrant for the Malifools contest.

I am proud to bring you: The Newfairbank Beast!



Here you have ol' beasty being investigated by Dead Justice and her crew of rotters.

I realise now when I sit it next to my other terrain that it appears the base coat spray paint I used was lighter than I used on my other bits. It was a can I bought months ago when my previous one ran out. I thought it was the same colour, but obviously not.



Here we have Perdita giving a bit of scale to the item. As you can see it's not exactly small, but not large either.



A better view on a little bit of detail I added. This is the remains of a previous meal the Newfairbank Beast had eaten.



Last is a full shot with nothing in the way.

Perhaps compared to my previous terrain project of Chapel Hill this was a lot less ambitious with far less detail, but I had one goal in mind:
- I was making this for a contest, but I wanted something that I would be happy with using in an every day game of Malifaux, so even if I didn't win (and as I said yesterday, there is still competition, so the odds are stacked against me) then I still get to walk away with a terrain item that I can use and enjoy. Much better to do that than instead make an item that is both awesome, but something I would never use in a normal game.

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Right where was I? Apologies I just received a DM over Twitter that threw my attention all over the place and needed my attention (you nub Jon!) but it's all good and fixed now.

Oh yes, signing off!

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Well there we have it! I hope you enjoyed watching the progress of this project, and that I've convinced those of you who were dubious that you can make nice looking terrain for a fraction of the price from a shop!

And on that note, stay safe and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Wednesday 30 January 2013

What Lurks Beneath: Part 4

Good Wednesday everyone!

Wow, I'm actually struggling to believe we're already halfway through the week! It's insane!

Just a short post today as yesterday I did 2 semi sizeable ones.

So the past few days I've been working more on my terrain entry.

A reminder, over the weekend I basecoated it so we had:



Well on Monday I highlighted the model, this was done using an emulsion paint that I use to highlight all my 'wasteland' terrain, mainly because I use a lot of it and it's cheaper than acrylic paint.



As you can see already the details are starting to come out. All that's left is to do the well itself, the tentacles and the bones.

So last night I painted the well, this was done using the same technique I use to paint the cobblestone bases of my Neverborn, the tentacles were then painted pink and given a purple wash, while the bones were painted white with a brown wash:



This will have more work on it tonight highlighting the tentacles and bones on the floor, and then -in theory- this will be done and ready for submission.

Already however I think it's clear to see what the finished piece will look like. Will it win the Malifools terrain contest? I doubt it, there is some strong competition from some very talented people, but let's just wait and see when it's finished eh?

Anyway, that's it from me today, so stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor

Tuesday 29 January 2013

One Year of Nonsense!

Good evening all!

So by now with hope you've had a read through of my MaliQuest page, downloaded the rules, read through them, downloaded the cards and gone "WTF? 300 cards to print out and cut up? Stuff that!"

I also hope that you noticed my comment about the blog's one year anniversary? No? Oh...

Well that's what this post is all about. It's possibly going to be a little longer than my normal ones, but I've got quite a bit to chat with you about.

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What has been:

So wow, what a year it's been. What started off as a project for me to chronicle my Malifaux terrain project has grown into so much more.

I think my most unexpected thing is that while my following may be small, it has grown to a small number of regular readers. To you all I say thank you, it means a lot to know that you take the time to read my posts and where possible, leave feedback.
- I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it is an extremely humbling experience.

I've also attended my first tournaments and even walked away with my very own spoon!

I've featured on the Malifools Broadcast Network.

I've even been creating my non-gaming posts in the form of Geek Dad, and once again been humbled beyond measure at the comments about this.

I've seen MaliQuest grow from an inane ramble into a fully working and playable game (just please, have a guillotine available to cut out the cards).

I applied and was accepted into the Wyrd Henchman program.

And most importantly, I've met some fantastic people and made some good friends.

I think the last point is the most important of them all.

yWhat is due to come:

But it doesn't stop there!

As you know, this year I am moving into Resurrectionists and with hope, by this time next year should have a force of semi sizeable quality.

I'm carrying on with Geek Dad, and chronicling the passage as my daughter moved from 1 year old to the terrible 2s.

With hope there should be more terrain workshops once I finish my current terrain bit
- Of course this will probably come AFTER I have bought all the Dungeon Rise sets.

And even if it kills me, I will pass these damned exams!

But wait! There's more!

Let us not forget that I am due to get started on MaliQuest: Paths of Fate expansion!

I'm also hoping to host more events, including some MaliQuest days at the shop and club.

And good faith allowing, I'm hoping to provide some form of coverage of Salute2013!
- More on that when I have a CLUE on how the hell to do it!

And on that note, I'm going to bid you all good night, stay safe, and as always: See you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Live!

Good Tuesday everyone and happy birthday from New Fairbank News!

It's hard to believe that one year ago today this blog was started.

But this post now is not about that, no this post is to celebrate the final launch of MaliQuest!




For those of you who have been particularly aware, you'll have seen that there has been a MaliQuest page on this blog for a while, however it has been empty for most of that time, but no more!

And so please, if you can give it a look:http://newfairbank.blogspot.co.uk/p/maliquest.html

First and foremost give the rules a look, and let me know your thoughts!




So now you have all you need to play, so crack out your Dungeon Tiles, break open some monstrous miniatures, and go dungeon crawling!




Of course I will still be releasing errata as it becomes needed, and please expect over the next 6 months the first MaliQuest expansion "The Paths of Fate".

Stay safe, and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Monday 28 January 2013

Forward Looking

Good Monday everyone!

So last night I did my weekend recap, which of course is normally what I would save for the Monday - oh well!

Instead I have for you a forward looking post. Nothing ground breaking, just plans for the forth coming week (or two).

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So first and foremost, it needs to be said that today I am attending what is to me an EXTREMELY important meeting. It's where all the senior manages from each region at the company I work at turn up at the central HQ and discuss what has been going on. The people who attend this meeting are some of the most important and influential people in the entire company. My manager was meant to go, being the head of finance for my area, because of other reasons however he can't make it and has asked me to go in his stead.

Now for most people this probably isn't a big thing, it's just a meeting where I report back on my area and take note of what others are doing. It happens every few months and the others attending it will see it as very routine. But to me it's the first step towards greater goals.
- You see, I'm looking to progress in this field, and a lot of these people I've worked with before many years ago, they've moved on to better positions and the last they saw of me was a guy who processed the payroll. I need to show them that I can stand shoulder to shoulder with them at every stage and make sure I'm remembered for all the right reasons, so when a certain position becomes available in a year or two, I'm taken seriously when I apply for it.

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Next up I should be doing more work on my terrain entry for the Malifools contest. Currently I have base coated it with spray paint:


This needs drybrushing highlights and the well and tentacles need to be painted. But as you can see it's coming along.

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There's my studying of course. I'm still struggling to find out where I went wrong with my last exam and the course providers are flat out refusing to tell me what I did wrong.

On Thursday I sent a very angry and forceful email out regarding this, and I have yet to have a reply.

Today when I get a moment I'm going to contact their appeals department and see if I can get the result appealed. I doubt anything will happen, but if it gets me a step closer to understand just what I did wrong then that's a good thing. I can't just throw another £50 at another exam (that's how much each exam costs for a single sitting) without knowing that I've fixed the problems from last time.

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Of course there's tomorrow! Now who can tell me what's special about tomorrow? Why yes, it's the one year anniversary of this very blog!

To celebrate this special day I've got a very very special treat for everyone. I'm not going to say what here, but for those who're attentive you'll already know what this is.

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And of course there's other bits and pieces too. I'm still on WoW, currently progressing through the Shado-Pan rep so I can get some pretty mounts, while also doing the Dominance Offensive, and I must say, hats off to Blizz, managing to find a way of telling a story through daily quests is a great thing! I actually look forward to doing the next part.

I'm also playing through DMC:Devil May Cry which was released on console a few weeks ago and on PC last week. It's freaking AWESOME!

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Anyway, that's it from me for now, so please, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Sunday 27 January 2013

A Very Possible Henching Hiatus

Good Sunday everyone!

I am back from my demo and gearing down for the night before work tomorrow.

Today has been an interesting day, gave a few demos to some people and during my lunch break even played a game of MaliQuest!

- You see, as Wyrd have only given me permission to promote this game within my own time, today seemed the opportune time to do that. I had myself a 30 min lunch, and as we're only allowed to claim for time spent running demos, my lunch break is off the clock and therefore I'm able to promote my game (I just can't claim Stones for it and have to make sure the players realise that it is not a Wyrd funded game).

The game went very well I must say. The player seemed to enjoy himself, and I got to throw a number of things in his way including Belles, Nephilum and Lord Chompy Bits.

We were supposed to be playing an Action game, which for those of you who don't know is MaliQuest without the loot/character progression, however as the player wanted to see more of what I had been working on, I factored in some loot cards.

One lesson learned was that as the Dungeon Rise set has tiles, the players naturally are pulled into wanting to use them, whether they are supposed to or not. For this reason it was suggested that we might as well just use the squares rather than tape measure.
The issue of diagonals was raised by me, to which it was suggested to make them 1.5". I was later told that this guy had played a lot of Descent before, and with hindsight I can see that he does indeed know what he's talking about.

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I've also come to a decision, I'm going to go on a Henchman Hiatus for a couple of months. Nothing major, just not running events.
This is to allow me to focus on getting my exam sorted and also mean that I can spend the time I would be Henching hosting MaliQuest events.

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On the subject of MaliQuest, two little things:

1). I'm looking to host two Adventure Days. The first will be at the shop, and with hope between myself and the store's contacts we'll be able to get together a nice party to play through a proper lengthy adventure. The second will be at the club, and it is my hope that my first adventure day grabs the imaginations of the players and encourages them to join in on this day and maybe even become club members.

2). If you've heard any of my chats on the Malifools, you'll know that I'm open to calling the role of GM something different. After a quick Twitter call out, we've got a few suggestions; Governor General (GG), Governor's Proxy (GP) or Sheriff. The last one was my suggestion because I have a badge already:



I'd live to hear any suggestions you may have or which of these are your favourite.

- Answers either in comments, via twitter (@doctorloxley) or via email (doctorloxley@hotmail.co.uk)

Anyway, on that note I'll be leaving you. Stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Saturday 26 January 2013

When Notice Is Short...

Good Saturday everyone!

Today is an interesting one for me, got a few things planned, but most of them are about prepping for tomorrow.

Yes, tomorrow is my first MaliDAZE demo day of the new year, and it will be hot!

I'm piggy backing off the games club that Leisure Games is running and so will have a bit of a captive audience there - yes they are already signed up to play other games, but that's ok, I can set the ground work to have them come back next month!

I must admit I'm a little annoyed by the timing as it's also a club day at The Titan's GC, and seems a little unfair to go to Finchley without going there, but I'm 'required' to do 1 event a month, and thanks to my studies this has been the only time I'm able to wrangle within January.

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But what else? I'll also be printing out stat cards in order to proxy my Undead Guild Hounds as Canine Remains. You see last night I 'finished' my Belles and with them completed my Seamus crew as is - no photos yet I'm afraid, as I'm not all that happy with them, there's a few minor issues I want to iron out first.

And so it is my plan to use this crew tomorrow. In fact if I'm right, and I can play a full game then I'll even be able to try out Avatars, which I've personally never done before, and aSeamus is such a fun model, I'm sure he alone will be a good pull factor.

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That's not all! I'll also be trying to capture some fun photos of 'staged' MaliQuest for Tuesday's launch.

If I can ill be printing these out along with the rules and taking them along with me tomorrow. Sure I won't be able to promote it while I'm on Hench-Time, but when I take my lunch down time and am off the clock, then that's fine.

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Other than that, not much else going on in Chez Loxley. I've undercoated my terrain piece and hope to highlight the base and hopefully get started on the well itself tomorrow, but for now a teaser as to where I currently am with it:



And that's it from me!

Stay safe, and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Friday 25 January 2013

What Lurks Below: Part 3

Good Friday everyone!

A quick couple of things today, firstly, last night I applied the PVA seal over my terrain:



Now with hindsight I would recommend NOT using wallpaper paste to stick this stuff down in the first place. It did not hold onto it very well and seemed to dissolve the moment the water:PVA solution touched it.

Next up I stuck down the puttied bones I had made:



With hope over the weekend this will have dried itself out and I'll be able to get started on the painting.

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So I managed to arrange for my next demo day to be this Sunday. It's crazy short notice I know, but oh well.

The good news is that it's at the same time as the shop's gaming club, so I should have a captive audience!

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Last but not least, I heard back from both my examination board and course provider, both are saying to speak to the other and flatly refusing to help.

I've gone back to both telling them straight, I need help or else I can't progress at all, and if I don't progress then they don't get any more money from me.
- it's a bit of a shallow threat, my company has paid for this course, so I can't pull out. But it might work.

Anyway, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Thursday 24 January 2013

What Lurks Below: Part 2

Good Thursday everyone, so as I write and my train is just not moving, it's time to update on how my terrain project for the Malifools contest is going.

So where I left off, I had finished sculpting the well:



My next step was to build boulders and the base itself, this would be done with newspaper, wallpaper paste and of course, cat litter.


The boulders were built by taking newspaper and scrunching it up into balls, then tearing off strips of newspaper, smearing it in paste and wrapping it around the balls.

- Now I need to say, in the past I have done it by covering the internal paper in paste as well, but this takes a lot longer to dry. If you can keep the core dry, then the whole thing dries so much faster.

Once that was done I realised I had a load of paste left over, and so I experimented using this for the base over PVA.

So smearing this over the hardboard base, I then poured the cat litter over the top, picked it up and gently patted the excess off.

- Note: always do this over a newspaper, that way you can pick it up afterwards and poor it back into the container and not waste your materials.

This left me with the following:



My next stage which I hope to do tonight is to make my watered down PVA solution and covering the base in it. This will help bind the cat litter to it.

I'll then stick down some putty bones I made, wait for it to dry out again and then on with the painting!

I will update you all in due course, but for now, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Wednesday 23 January 2013

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Super Dad? I prefer 'just' Dad

Good Wednesday everyone!

A bit of a strange one today, it's something that quite a few people have commented on to me, including many at work, friends and even at nursery.

It's the concept of "Super Dad". The father who changes nappies, plays with his kid, feeds bottles, gets up in the middle of the night when there's tears and commutes to work during the day.

He's the Dad who can do everything, he's so awesome that he's seen as either an equal or a threat by Mums.

Can I just stick a pin in that ego balloon for a second?

That's not being a "Super Dad", that's just being a "Dad".

Yes most nights when there requires a night cuddle/change/feed I get up and let my wife sleep. But why wouldn't I? My wife needs her sleep! I won't go into why, but bad-medical things happen when she doesn't get enough sleep.

Yes every night when I get home after work, before I get a chance to relax I play with, bath, feed and put my little moo to bed. But why wouldn't I? She's my daughter and I love spending time with her! So her mum gets to do the morning stuff with her, and I do the evening. We're sharing the work load and fun time together.

Yes on occasions like today I do the morning shift, and will also play and bathe her tonight, but again why wouldn't I? You see unfortunately my wife is a bit unwell tonight, so rather than have her climb out in the snow, risk herself and the Moo, I told her to go back to bed and get more sleep, while I dealt with the Moo.

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You see this is why I hate the term Super Dad. I know that there are fathers (and to a lesser extent mothers) who take any opportunity to spend as little time with their kid(s) as possible, but that doesn't even enter my head. And I know that compared to these parents I do a hell of a lot of work (on top of working 9-5, studying for my Accountancy course, and the random bit of hobby time here and there) but does that make me a "Super" Dad? He'll no! It makes those arseholes "Shit" Dads.

This is what I mean, perhaps I'm living in a fantasy world, but to me being a parent is about sharing the fun and the hard work, doing as close to 50% of the early mornings, as close to 50% of the bad nappies etc, sure it won't always work out that way, and there will be days that I do all the nappy changes, all the feeds and get no time to myself because the Moo is demanding all my time...

But what the hell do you think my wife does when I'm off once a month doing my demo days in London? She's doing all the nappies, all the feeds and all the play time.

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So please, enough with the praise and complements, we shouldn't be idolising those of us who pull our weight, we should be demonising those who don't.

I mean seriously, has it really got so bad that a father who doesn't pull his own weight is treated as the regular dad? I hope not.

Anyway, stay safe, and please, no super - just Dad.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Tuesday 22 January 2013

What Lurks Below: Part One

Good Tuesday everyone!

So last night was very interesting, I watched Dredd (very good film, even though very little happens) and got started on assembling my terrain entry for the Malifools terrain contest.




As you can see from the 'before' picture, my components were a hardboard base, a toilet roll, milliput and a toy octopus.

After cutting the toilet roll to the required size, and making it a smaller circle, I then proceeded to cover it in mixed milliput (this stuff is only about £2.60 a pack, so you can use it on large projects like this without breaking the bank). Once smothered I then carved stones into the putty and stuck to the hardboard base.

Next was cutting off the tentacles of the octopus. This was truly a shame as the model was awesome, so I may need to buy another after pay day.

Gluing these down, stage one was done. Seamus is included just for scale purposes:



The plan is to continue work on this tonight, by using wallpaper paste mixed with water, and smothered over newspaper I'm going to make a series of smallish boulders which I will put onto the base, then make a small path by gluing on model railway basalt, which is quite fine and uniform, wonderful for making pathways.
After that is done the next stage will be to cover it in watered down PVA glue, followed by a heavy sprinkling of cat litter.

I will then use the remainder of the watered down pva spread over the top of the cat litter, this covers the whole thing in the gluey gunk and in doing so sticks the cat litter down quite well.

Once done it's on to painting!

Anyway, today, despite my wishes I made it to the train station (there is SO much ice out!) and am on my way to work.

Stay safe and I'll see you all Breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Monday 21 January 2013

Let it snow!

Good Monday everyone,

So even though it would have cost me a day's annual leave, I don't have today off and am currently awaiting a delayed train to arrive to send me to work.

I did notice a lot more cars parked in drives this morning than normal, and I'm left wondering how many people in the country will not go in today because of an inability to drive, while myself and many others can still walk 20+ minutes to a train station and take 2+ trains to get to work.

Oh well, moan over.

I suppose you are probably wondering what happened with my exam? Not good I'm afraid.

The resit was had, but despite putting down answers I would swear to you were correct, I failed again.

- a reminder, in order to pass any papers in this course I need to score 70% in each section. I still don't know why it's that high for a foundation course, compared to my BSc which was only 40%.

Anyway, I'm not letting it get the better of me, but I'm going to see if I can make use of some extra tools. First things first, if I can get a proper breakdown on my paper. Rather than actually giving me results, the print outs just say "not yet competent" for wrong answers, so despite requiring 70% to pass, I don't actually know what % was my score.

I'm also going to see if I can get a copy of the answers for the paper I took, so I can compare with my answers. Considering I don't know where I actually went wrong, without seeing what the right answers should have been, I can't fix that.

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So that was Saturday morning.

The rest of the day was very fun, we had lots of snow, and me and the moo played in the garden until it got dark:


and then once it had become far too dark, we then went inside and played indoors.

This involved lots of running around, but also playing in a very rustic "den" - or if you will, a duvet covering a gap in between our bed and radiator:


Next came Sunday, and a short but thoroughly enjoyable trip into town.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, and despite the cold biting through my shoes, everything still seemed very peaceful, and we even had the moo walking with us for part of the journey.

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That's it for the weekend I'm afraid, very little else to report on.

But there is more!

I'm still on course to launch MaliQuest and it's Blog Page next week, but I did realise this weekend, it seems this month I haven't booked a demo day at the store!

I suppose to be honest, that is because I have been busy, and my focus (especially over the past few weeks) has been getting my exam booked and revising for it. So I think one month off from Henching is understandable in these curcumstances.

I'll probably email the community rep Jac however, just to let her know anyway. It's the polite thing to do.

So what's next? Well I've been working a little by little on my Belles for my Seamus crew:


These still require a lot of work, but are getting there.

I'm also going to be working on the Malifools terrain competition.

My entry is quite simple, it's a town well to go on my old west board of New Fairbank, only difference is that something will be living in/coming out of the well...


This arrived from eBay last week, and once I have removed the head and body, leaving me with just the tentacles, it will make a lovely "unseen horror" beasty, just to add a little character to an otherwise boring terrain piece.

More on that as it gets built.

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Anyway, on that note I'm pretty sure we're up to date.

I can't say how prolific my posts will be over this week, got a lot to focus on, but I'll be back soon.

So stay safe, and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Thursday 17 January 2013

The Adventures of Geek Dad: One Man and a Little Lady

Good Thursday everyone!

Yes it's time for another Geek Dad instalment! It's been awhile, but I think it's time.

For those who've been following, my little Moo is a little over 14 months old, which means she's toddling all over the place, asserting her personality and exploring the world with little to no fear.

Amazingly she is still sleeping through the night, and rarely wakes for loud noises. Such is the case once we hit 1845ish and she goes to bed, we pretty much have the house to ourselves.

Until 1845 however, the house very much belongs to her. If she wants to play with a certain toy, she will do so, and woe betide anyone who tries to stop her.

This is where last night came in. As you probably know my wife was away because of family issues and so it was means the Moo all to ourselves.

We decided (well she decided and I agreed) that we were going to go on an adventure, exploring the dark corners of the house, before setting up a shelter in between my bed and radiator, a good place to make shelter if you ask me, next to a heat source and sleeping arrangements.

Afterwards the little Moo acquired a form of transport, but required me to get it started, I however knew that time was drawing late, and play time needed to end.

The cries were incessant until I managed to get her into the bath where she got to splash in water and play with bubbles.

This gets me wondering about our current routine, and a possible need to teach her discipline or not.

You see, I love to see her play, however as with many children she doesn't seem to get tired (at leased not in a sensible time frame). However I know that if she has her bath around 1830, her bed time bottle around 1845 and then sleep by 1900 at the latest, she sleeps through till 0700 easily, and wakes up well rested and eager for the day ahead.

But at the same time I hate to stop her doing what she wants to.

I guess it just shows a different side to our own childhood. I remember when my parents would stop me from doing something I really wanted to do, I thought they were such fun spoilers. Now of course I realise that they wanted to let me do what I wanted, as seeing me having fun and laughing would have brought them as much joy as I get from seeing my daughter having fun.

However, they couldn't let me just do what I wanted, because that would have resulted in anarchy.

And so at roughly 1900 I finally put her to bed and got started on my own fun times including painting of my Seamus crew, which resulted in the following:


The rest of the crew have a long way to come, but I'm quite happy with master and avatar.

You always hear about how a photo hasn't done justice to a model/paint job and I'm afraid the same is true here.

Anyway, time for me to leave you all, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Wednesday 16 January 2013

A Date to Remember/Forget

Good Wednesday everyone!

So, remember when I said that next Tuesday was the 1 Year Birthday of New Fairbank News (NFN)? Remember how I was timing the launch of MaliQuest to coincide with the birthday?

Yeah it seems I was a week early, it's not next Tuesday but the Tuesday after.

Ho-hum!

Anyway, the next 24 hours seems interesting. Because of an unfortunate event my wife needs to go up t'north which means I'll be looking after the Mini Moo by myself. This is looking to be interesting, and tonight I am planning to do some more painting.

Currently I've been working on the skin for my Seamus crew, and as a Work In Progress I have Avatar Seamus for you guys:


Clearly there is a lot of work to go for this, the skin needs highlighting, the hat, trousers, boots and cuffs need painting and the jacket needs shading and highlighting.

If you're wondering about the skin, this is because I refuse to see aSeamus as a Mr Hyde model. I know of the reference people are making, but I'm sorry, LoEG was an assassination against literature. No this dude is The Hulk!

Of course I didn't want to go with green skin, not when his jacket it orange and his base is very green heavy. Cue original Hulk:


For those who didn't know, The Hulk was originally gray, and this seemed to me like a good tone to offset the vibrant orange of the jacket.

I still need to highlight the skin, and I'll probably do so tonight.

Anyway, this is where I am at the moment. Looking forward to some Father & Daughter time tonight, followed by painting and maybe even an early night - I am so rock n roll!

Anyway, stay safe and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Monday 14 January 2013

The Week Ahead

Good Monday everyone!

This week promises to be crazy busy for me.

For starters I am supposed to be having my resit exam on Saturday. I have yet to receive confirmation of this however, and so will be emailing the exam centre today to chase this up. More on that when it is confirmed.

Next up, mid week my wife is travelling "up't north" in order to attend the funeral of her grand father. Not much I can really say about that, as this is not the place. However it does mean that I'll be looking after the Moo almost exclusively for a couple of days (excluding work hours where she'll be at day care). This promises to be fun.

As my wife will be away it means the lounge becomes mine, and with it the time and space to do as much painting as I please. And as such I intend to use Wednesday night as the opportunity to make great progress on my Seamus crew, when last we saw them, they appeared as follows:



But that's not all!

For those of you who listen to the Malifools podcast, you'll have heard that in Friday's episode they announced a new competition in the form of Terrain building for Malifaux.

I have decided to tackle this buy purchasing the following:


Yeah he's not much to look at, but fingers crossed will work wonders for what I have planned.

For that however, you'll have to wait and see.

Anyway, that's all for today's quick update, time to relax, let the snow covered landscape pass me by and have a quick nap on my way to work.

Stay safe, and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Friday 11 January 2013

MaliQuest: Update 1.2 Complete

Good Friday everyone, I'm sure after the two weeks of Bank Holidays everyone can agree with me: being back for a full week is tiring.

But anyway, last night after studying for my upcoming exam I then proceeded to update my card packs.

Very little has changed other than adding my 'new' cards into them and providing one sheet of 'backs' with each pack:

Character Sheets (Now including Ten Thunder colours)
Starter Gear
Artifacts
Equipment
Weapons
Mods
On Pickup

These updates, combined with yesterday's Rules update means we are nearly there.

My next project in regards to this is to work on creating a page in my blog designated just for MaliQuest.

Eventually I would like to have an actual website in itself for this, but obviously it has to be at 0 cost to myself, as I'm not charging a penny for any if this. So no paying for web names or hosting for me - however if anyone has available space etc they would be willing to donate about 120mb to (seriously, that's how much all the .PDFs come to at the moment) then I would gladly take up the offer.

But in the meantime I'll be working on the blog page.

Then in 11 days time, with hope it should blossom and bloom ready to go.

What do I need from you? Well I'm glad you asked!

If you have not already, please have a look through yesterday's rules pack:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zv6robbdtqen3ab/MaliQuestRulesv1.1.pdf
And tell me if a). It all makes sense, and b). There is anything that leaves you unsure and/or confused.

As I said before, if after reading this you feel like you could GM/Play a game of MaliQuest, then in theory I've done my job. If not then tell me why and I'll make those amendments.

We have under 2 weeks before the go live date, but I'm confident we can reach it!

In the meantime, stay safe and I'll see you all Breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Thursday 10 January 2013

MaliQuest: Rules Update 1.1

Good Thursday everyone,

Just a quick update today compared to yesterday's.

Last night I made the updates I promised, including messing around with the spacing and also reducing the sizes of the character cards.

Unfortunately it looks like the cards have lost a bit of quality in regards to this shrinkage. I'll see if I can fix that - it might be by reducing the original sizes rather than document versions.

Anyway, enough of that, here's the Rules Update v1.1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zv6robbdtqen3ab/MaliQuestRulesv1.1.pdf

Let me know what you think, stay safe and as always I'll see you Breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Wednesday 9 January 2013

MaliQuest: The Rules v1

Good Wednesday everyone!

So last night was very interesting, you see, as I've already covered I have a bit of a cold and so have been needing more sleep than normal. Of course between games and similar I have been denying myself this sleep and working through the pain that follows with painkillers.

Well last night I was in a pickle. I KNEW I had to take it easy and probably have a nap/early night but I have SO much to do, including studying for my upcoming resit exam (wish me luck) as well as everything else.

So what happened? After dealing with all the required things (study, WoW dailies etc) I picked up my note book, lay on my sofa and started writing the MaliQuest Rules by hand.

As time went by I found myself getting very frustrated, I knew that no matter how perfect I made that version I would need to retype it all up anyway, plus after spending X number of years glued to a keyboard for both work and leisure, typing feels more natural than writing.

Anyway, long story short I went upstairs to my computer and about 3 hours later came down with this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ge8ad4ory4vtr8f/MaliQuestRules.pdf

That's right, v1 of the MaliQuest is now up.

Feeling very tired, but also excited to get this up finally I went to bed. Laying in bed however I remembered two things that I needed to include but forgot:
1). Control Hands: Each player has their own control hand even if they are part of a large group and a Control Hand is normally 6 cards in size.
2). Resurrecting when in a solo party: there are times when the games will be just one player and the GM, and in these situations, if Death occurs there will be no party members to use Soul Stones and Resurrect you. Instead at the Player's choice they may use one of their own Soul Stones to Resurrect themselves. The rules are the same as standard, however they are Summoned Completely Within 6" of where they died.

So please have a look at this, it's uploaded in .pdf so that most/all smart phones can download and read. If you have any questions please let me know.

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- What I'd like you to think about, assuming you had all the cards printed out and ready to go, and you had a Dungeon to Quest through, after reading these rules do you feel like you could play a game?

If the answer is no, then please tell me why, as that is something I need to tackle - unless the reason is that you don't know how to play Malifaux. I'm sorry but that's just a requirement.

*****************

As an aside, there is one note/comment I made in the section about Encounters:

NOTE: Outside of an Encounter, Players can only use cards and abilities once until the start of the next Encounter. This does not apply to general Player actions such as those listed earlier.

This is very important. It means that once an Encounter is over, you are only able to use a Healing item once to try to heal yourself. Once this has been used, you need to wait until the start of a new Encounter before trying to use it again.

I am afraid there is no fluff reason at present behind this, it's purely a balance thing. As it stands the moment players can heal themselves they will enter each and every Encounter at full health and it turns the relationship between the Party and the GM in an ugly way.

****************

So there we have it! These changes that I've already flagged I'll be adding, most likely tonight, and will add anything else that people can raise to me.

The cards themselves are already available in a v1 facility here:
Artifacts
Equipment
Mods
Weapons
And character cards can be found here:
Guild
Arcanist
Outcast
Resurrectionist
Neverborn

I'm sorry to say that the cards themselves still require a few tweaks, namely the Gremlin Moonshine needs to have all rarities below Rare removed.

Oh and the cards shown in the Rules are wrong (whoops) the Fire Spell and Immobilise are wrong, their CC is supposed to be 10 and 12 respectably without a suit requirement.

*************

Last but not least!

I promised the other day some good news, well here it is!

You know Jac? The woman currently acting as the community voice for the Through the Breach Kickstarter? Well she also handles the day to day running of the Henchman Program.

Last Friday I contacted her about MaliQuest and whether I'll have permission to publicly run games of it - and if those games can be run as a Henchman or not.

Well the good news? The first part, Yes I can publicly run games of MaliQuest. I am fully allowed to put out these rules and let others play it!

The Unsure news? Whether or not I can run these games as a Wyrd henchman has yet to be decided, this is because there is the potential clash between this and TtB.

So it was left with Jac agreeing to approach Justin the Community Manager and Eric J himself to ask for their thoughts.

Let me just run that past you again. Eric J, one of the founders and creators of Wyrd itself is going to be shown/told about MaliQuest!

But let me tell you, even if I have to do so as just Dr Loxley, rather than Dr Loxley "the Henchman", I will be hosting games of MaliQuest!

**************

And on that note: stay safe, and I'll see you Breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Monday 7 January 2013

Dailies & Painkillers

Good Monday everyone!

Well I am on a train speeding it's way to work, but it's going to be touch n go that I make it on time. This is largely my own fault, my alarm went off as usual at 06:30 and I thought "just 30 more minutes... Wait make that 60 minutes".

The advantage is I feel a lot more awake than I did about 2 hrs ago.

So what's been going on in my life since the last posting?

Well Thursday was a day off for me, so i did what any self respecting male would do: I slept, did house work and did some Warcraft daily quests.

Friday? Back at work, crazy busy including the joyous fun of taking down the office Xmas tree.

But then it was the weekend! Two days of relaxing and fun! Right?

Nah not really. Between the wife and I there's all manner of ill health going on, and in my case it's only a combination of pain killers that is keeping me going - but boy am I tired.

I did get to proof listen to the SkypeQuest recording however (ok that was actually done on Thursday, but shhh!) and let me tell you, when that gets posted you're going to both laugh and cry at once.

It's three hours in length and sadly does not seem to be suitable to be split into manageable chunks.

I think that after the first hour, maybe even two, what was enjoyable soon turned into a pain, and I urge you, if/when you intend to listen to this, do so in chunks, in one go it just goes on a little too long.

Anyway, I can feel my head getting heavy again, so I'll need to wind this down.

Plans for the week: book my resit exam, plan the MaliQuest rules supplement (which reminds me, I have news about that, but it'll keep for another time), do more WoW dailies to try and get my character new stuff and try to get over this damn cold!

Anyway, stay safe and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Wednesday 2 January 2013

MaliQuest: The First Playtest

Good Wednesday everyone!

So here we are, 2013 and only a few weeks away from NFN being 1 year old!

But that is not what I am here to discuss with you today.

Oh no, today is all about my very first play through of MaliQuest!

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Allow me to set the scene, it's New Year's Eve, the kid is in bed for her mid-day nap, I've spent the past 2 hrs building a Dungeon, and we're about to get started.

Mrs Loxley creates her first character, Sissy the Showgirl who can immobilise and cast fire spells.

She enters the dungeon and is attacked by a Terror Tot.

Immediately we encounter a problem, her current gear set up, the Fire Spell and Immobilise, are not suitable, mainly the Immobilise is a waste of 1AP. We soldier on, and she is rewarded with a common loot drop in the form of Gremlin Moonshine.

Using the moonshine out of combat she takes herself back to full wounds and enters the next room:

Ahead are 2x Rotten Bells, between the fire spells and occasional immobilise the bells are defeated - just.

Looting the corpses she is rewarded with 2 weapons, a Peacebringer and a Crossbow - both common.

Moving ahead she is met by an Alp, and in a single fire spell the Alp falls dropping a Df chest piece.

Sissy the Showgirl is now Df7, but still can only take a few wounds, and as she rounds the next room she encounters the first trap of the dungeon: The Spike Trap!

It was decided that this would be dealt with as an opposed duel, where the GM determines the Cb equivalent. In this case it was CbE6 and after the duel a damage flip of 1/2/3 was flipped.

Following on there were more undead and Neverborn culminating in a movement heavy fight between a Mature Nephilm and Sissy.

At the end of the game, Sissy walked away wearing Wp Goggles, Df Chest, Ca Gloves, an Immobilisation Orb, a Mechanical Assistant, 2 types of flame spells, Gremlin Moonshine and a Wooden Bullet loaded Peacebringer.

But what did we learn?

1). A lot of the non-damaging abilities seem quite surplus to requirement when put against 2 damaging attacks. Yes you can immobilise a Tot and blast it for 2 turns with fire, but you run the risk of the immobilise being resisted and being charged, where 2 fire blasts in a row will deal with the problem without that worry.
- Because of this, the Immobilise Orb has been changed from a (1) action to a (0) action. The same has happened to the Mechanical Assistant.

2). We also found out that healing is just too easy, and even with negative modifiers, there is nothing to stop the player when outside of combat just standing there healing themselves to full.

Healing should be something that is few and far between. For this reason the Bandages Artifact will have Charges, much like ammo.
Gremlin Moonshine has been removed from Common and Uncommon, meaning only Rare and Epic remain.

3). Equipping gear while in combat is currently a no-no because of the 1AP per item requirement, and the reward for switching items does not even draw near to the risk of losing 1AP.
- Equipping/Swopping gear has now changed. Equipment (Head, Chest, Gloves and Boots) can not be swopped while in combat. Weapons, Artifacts and Mods can be swopped at 2 items per (0) used. This means you can swop out your Greatsword for a Peacebringer (1 item) and Equip it with Special Ammo (2 items) and then make 2 Strikes with the Peacebringer, all in 1 turn.

4). Turn taking has also been modified.

For Multiplayer Parties, it remains as standard, the GM activated a model, then the party does, them the GM etc.

In Singleplayer Parties this means any room with more than 1 monster results in the player being out activated and out gunned. For this reason in SP Parties, if there are 2 monsters in a room and the GM wins the initiative then it plays out as follows:
Monster 1, Player, Monster 2, Player, Monster 1 etc.

And on that note, the first play test results are in.

I'm happy overall, the aim is to see what works and what doesn't, and I'm slowly getting there with that.

For now, stay safe, and I'll see you all Breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley