Sunday, 27 May 2012

Primeval Abyssian - The Faction Breakdown!

Here is a brief Overview of the ten factions that make up my up and coming wargame Primeval Abyssian. It's been a while since I posted any fluff, so hopefully this will give people a stronger idea of what to expect and the variety of the factions!

Races Of The Etherium

Tolathians :
Tolathians are an elemental race based around the elements of thunder, lightning, clouds and storms. They have a society that is a mix of Nomadic and Marxist elements allthough they do have an overlord, the Thane of Tol. They use cloud shaping as a long-range communication method, while their actual mouths work a little like advanced Tesla-coils, with each tooth discharging electrical energy to make a different frequency. Tolathians planets are stormformed - so they have a constant supply of lightning to feed them and keep them charged up. Their bodies look deceptively frail because they are very thin and wirey, but they are one of the toughest races of the Etherium.


Cascadians
The Cascadians are a time-manipulating species able to co-exist with millions of their own copies that exist in slightly different time-streams. Governed by the sentient time-vortex itself, the Cascadians are the guardians of time and uphold the laws of defending the Vortex and time-streams from any and all that would dare corrupt it.

Iaethlein :
The Iaethlein are a race of noble energy beings that use hard-holographic technology to defend themselves from the perils of the Ether. Their bodies are permenantly contained within a hard holographic armoured shell to protect their fragile energy bodies. Their realm of space is a collection of stars linked together through holo-roads which make up a larger Circuit. 


Prymarsiam Dominion
The Prymarsiam Dominion consists of a triangular area of Etherspace, within this area lives two aquatic species the Pryark and Marsiarm. The Pryark are a leech-like elemental species of Aquamancers able to control water as a weapon - they are the governers of the dominion and order any outsiders that dare to enter the dominion be destroyed. The Marsiam are a bionic jellyfish-like species - low on intelligence but tough and capable in battle. The Marsiam are excellent footsoldiers and police within the Dominion - together the two races form a highly militant force capable of destroying any who enter their boundries.

Jequerita
The Jequerita are an aggressive re-foliating plant species that spread through the ether using Ether-seeds. When a Seed reaches a planetary body it will grow into Jequerita plants which detach themselves and spread smaller seeds to spread over the planet. The Jequerita can control native plants and foilage. They are a scourge upon the Ether, however they have a low intelligence and tend to act purely on instinct.

Luuran
Lead by the High-Seclorums, the cthulhoid elphantine Luuran are a zealous religious species which wish only to convert the Ethers races under one God, known by outsiders as the All-Seeing-Eye and one unified Realm. The Luuran send out fleets of ships to save neighbour species from invaders - only to take them over themselves under the watchfull eye of the Luuran. Those that join the Luuran are gifted by the Sect-Tome Keepers many secrets and revelations of the Ether - as well as permenent defensive forces to ensure their safety.

Axon Synapse
The Axon Synapse are a super-intelligent race of disembodied brain aliens which use mechanical spinal-chord suits to move about freely. While the Synapse are incredibly intelligent, they are also insanely paranoid and obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge to the detriment of other races. The paranoia of the Synapse has also lead to the Axons becoming a highly isolationist species - however given the nature of their pursuit of knowledge, it is not uncommon to see Axon Nerve-Fleets investigating other worlds and civilizations.


Masters Of Unlife :
From the hidden Necroverse, a shadowy graveyard dimension - the Masters Of Unlife seek only to elliminate life in all it's forms. The Masters discovered the Ether by accident, when an alien race opened a rift between the Ether and Necroverse - allowing the Masters of Unlife to continously send their Abyssal Drone hordes into the Etherspace safely. Many wars have occured since they have entered the Ether, and it has taken the combined strengths of many other species to ensure the Masters Of Unlife are kept at bay.

Ylataran Nexus :
An Extra-dimensional threat from beyond. The Nexus are a race of organic aliens who have dimensionally transcendental technology built into everything including themselves. They have in the past destroyed entire universes and dimensions - and now they have discovered the Etherium. The Nexus infilitrate planets easily using drop-pods that contain entire armies inside the larger interiors - they convert the planets into sickly yellow organic globes similar to that of their own forms and technology.

Ekimmu
The Ekimmu are a powerful and ancient species of Wind-based entities that live off the lifeforce of others. The Ekimmu rage across Etherspace in powerful fleets, their vampiric war-machines and cruel infantry scouring any civilization they discover. It is said the Ekimmu are the accidently created warriors of the Lumenenion, a deadly race of alien spriits who in their fleshforms once built the mightiest war engines and weapons in the entire Ether - only to be destroyed by that which they created. The relationship between Lumenenion and Ekimmu is unclear but this deadly civilization should be avoided at all costs.

Thursday, 10 May 2012

MORE Elder Things? yes please!


Just found these awesome Elder Thing miniatures. They are 15mm which seems to be popular for Azathoth-Mythos games of late. Anyway, what can I say? I love them. It's nice to finally see Mythos models in squad form as opposed to the normal singular blisters. This makes it easier to build armies of them, so if you want to crush that Shoggoth uprising - can't do any better than going here to buy a load :

http://roebeast.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/elder-thing-miniatures-assembly.html

"Here are the first miniatures for my upcoming tabletop wargame Eldritch Empires. This game will focus on great battles that take place in the early history of the planet we now call Earth. Throughout the stories of H.P. Lovecraft he describes conflicts between many of the major races that colonized earth. Since it is highly likely that The Elder Things were the first creatures on Earth and created all of its native life I decided to start with them." 

Sounds pretty much what me and my friends wanted to do ourselves, well this guy shows he can do it better than us, so ill be happy to be a customer in that retard! Can't wait to see what else this guy will unveil. Personally I'd love to see and field a Polyp army.


I shall definitly be keeping an eye on this guy's stuff as it seem's he knows how to do the 'craftian horrors well!


Saturday, 28 April 2012

A tolathian on webcam?

It's a rubbish webcam-shot, but here's a photo of the first painted Tolathian Puppet. His eye's glow a rather nice blue - but the webcam didn't pick that up sadly! I'll get better photos once I'm able to borrow someone's camera! I gotta attach string to it next which is going to be extremely tedious - I'll be drilling holes into it's body then attaching thread (glued into small pieces of plasticard tubing) into the holes. 

Friday, 23 March 2012

An introduction to my WIP Cthulhu Mythos skirmish


One of the rulesets I'm currently working on is a cthulhu mythos themed skirmish game between the different races. It was kind of a no brainer since none of the cthulhu games available focus on the monsters (most are rpgs/horror games set in some period of earth normally). I figured it was time to write about this game and see if there is any interest in it or not.

The Factions :


Unlike PA, I've taken a different approach to the armies within. There are three different slots you can take your units from. The first determine the "core" of your force, the second is determined by which god you choose to worship and the third is like an equivilent of mercenaries where you can fill your force up with a few random monsters that have joined you.

There are Six factions to choose from :


Mi-Go
Yithians
Polyps
Shoggoths
Elder Things
Chthonians

Each of these have an HQ, Troops and Elite type choice which forms the core of your force. These are obligatory, so you will need at least one HQ, 2 troops and 1 elite. You cannot mix any of the six factions.

Those We Worship :

The second choice opens up "god specific" type units. E.G. If your Polyps choose to worship Azathoth, then your god specific unit you must take are Pipers of Azathoth, or if your Shoggoths worship Shub-Niggurath then you must take a unit of Dark Young. This allows civil wars and "themed" armies to be more viable, so no two Elder Thing armies should ever be the same since your opponent will likely be themed around a different god, and this can of course be modelled by paint schemes or conversion work.

The list of Gods currently consists of :

Azathoth
Shub-Niggurath
Yog-Sothoth
Nyarlathotep
Hastur
Zhar & Lloigor

Of course there will be many more, there are dozens of Old Ones and Outer Gods afterall. I will likely add as many as I can!

Eldritch Aid!

The third slot is optional, but contains all the non-aligned one-off type beasts and monsters found in the mythos such as Gugs, Hounds of Tindalos, Moonbeasts, Star Vampires ect. This slot being optional allows a little more variety in units, and allows fans of the mythos to have a few of their favourites that don't belong to any specific faction.

Rules-wise, it will be a heavily modified version of the PA engine - but there will be specific rules for Gods and lots of other insanity. The goal of this ruleset will be to allow mythos fans to enact battles between their favourite lovecraftian aliens across the stars, or even act out famous battles such as the war between the Elder Things and Shoggoths, or the conflicts between the Polyps and Great race of Yith.

I'm not particularly sure what else to write about yet, it's still in it's early days but I will keep people notified on it's progress.

Thursday, 22 March 2012

Cyclone Masters and Gusts


Now I've gotten the recasts I've been working on the ol' Tolathians again. The workbench currently contains the second Commander figure, and the second troops-choice the Gusts. Once these are done ill have 7 of the 10 units completed for the Tolathians.

I decided recently I'd rather have all three of the first armies complete because id rather release them together rather than make people wait for Second Waves that I would not know when I'd be releasing. From observing the 40k community, it seems like people don't like waiting for 2nd waves of models especially when they do not know when those waves will be released so it seems a better idea to do it this way.

Heres a few rough fluff tidbits for the Gusts and Cyclone Masters :

Gusts -
Gusts are nearly as common as Wisps and act as the Close-Combat footsoldiers in Tolathian Cells. Gusts are those that have slowly lost themselves to war and over time become more bestial and hate-fueled. Before the process of insanity takes over completely, the Tolathian will submit itself to be lobomtomised. It's eyesight at this point will of been almost lost entirely as a cruel side-effect of losing it's mind, so the eyes will be entirely removed. It's Electro-Talons will be removed and replaced by vicious metallic scythes giving it deadly close-combat weapons. It's mouth too will be reformed allowing it to bite and chew on it's enemies with enhanced stronger fangs. Knowing full well that not all enemies the Tolathian Storm-Empire and it's cells face will be honourable warriors - the Gusts are used as berserkers against these kinds of enemies, unleashed upon the ranks as weapons of pure terror and brutality.


Cyclone Master -
The most common military commanders of Tolathian Cells are the Cyclone Masters. These honourable leaders take their Cells from the front-lines, protecting their brethren with hurricane shields and decimating enemy lines with their powerful Wind-Staff's which litterally destroy the ground and change the landscape in front of them. The Cyclone Masters often use this catastrophic ability to rearrange the landscapes to suit their strategies and tactics. These masters of the elements are often feared by their enemies due to the sheer power built up within their cold souls.

Saturday, 10 March 2012

Recasts and Glowing Eyes!


Today I got a package from Ed (of Troll Forged) which had a whole load of Tolathian and Luuran resin recasts. This will mean I can finish the remaining units using the recasts as a base.

I also managed to get one of the first casts of the Tolathian puppet (http://outsidetheuniverseitself.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-i-figured-i-should-expand-this-blog.html)

Tommorow I'll start prepping the puppet, it has some flash, mould lines and bubbles to fix - which won't take very long at all (it isnt finecast :P). Next week I'll start painting the damned thing - which will be interesting since I've never painted anything that big before - and I am also excited to try out the blue glow in the dark paint which I'll be using to paint the eyes and Rune on the body.

The web show will likely take years before it see's fruition - I have to make all the set-pieces which will then need to be recast a lot, and I need to get good enough with the camera and then theres post-FX, props that are specific to the stories ect. I'll keep things updated as to the progress though and maybe ill put some test-footage up so you can see the creature with it's glowing eyes!

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Happy belated new year!

Well it's a month into the new year, I hope everyone reading this blog is doing well - I have been extremely busy with all kinds of real-life stuff have sadly not had the time to sculpt anything new let alone post on this blog, but as things settle down I'm getting back into the swing of things.

I have an interesting question though! what kind of Cthulhu Mythos monsters plastic kits would you like to see? and do give this some thought, I know many will probably say Deep Ones/Innsmouthites/Cthulhu Spawn so try and be creative ;) 

Friday, 2 December 2011

Blackball Games release Elder Thing


Theres a few Elder Thing sculpts out there to buy,, but I never felt they were really that good - until now! Blackball Game's have released this beautiful and fantastic depiction of the Elder Thing  sculpted by a very clever chap named Aragorn Marks for $20 here :
 http://blackballgames.bigcartel.com/product/book-of-fragments-elder-thing

Overall, I'd give this thing a 9/10, nearly perfect depiction. The only thing I'm  not really sure about is the weird faces around the body which feel a bit out of place to me. The model is apparently a multi-part kit thugh so if like me - you're a lovecraft fanatic that only cares for big hordes of monsters, then it look's totally possible to have a dozen of these things in a variety of poses. Perfect for recreating the battles between Shoggoths and Elder Things!

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

A little of everything, and more.

Been a while since I updated this thing!

To quote one of my favourite shows, "Many, many things have happened".

Firstly, I'll be sending off a huge bulk of the finished kits in the next few weeks! I have no idea how long it will take for the caster to mass-produce them for me in plastic, but it feels like a huge step forward and that makes me happy.

Secondly, I'll be releasing pictures of the dreaded Ekimmu master-sculpts in a few weeks as well. The Ekimmu are inspired by Assyrian mythology as the name suggests. They are a gasseous based form of life and vampiric in nature.

Theres also a good chance the packaging will be done as proper boxed sets, but this won't put the price up at all. I intend to keep the prices as low as I possibly can for a variety of reasons - being that my sculpting abilities arent as high as companies like Citadel and Privateer Press - it would not be fair to customers to charge those kind of prices, and secondly I want it to remain affordable. While you will only need about 20-30 models max, an army should not cost you much more than £30-£40.

And finally, the first draft of the rules are nearing completion! the Alpha-rules will be posted here for free. I do hope that this will attract more attention so I can get some constructive critisicm and feedback on the rules so I can make the next version better and more fun. The rules are intended to be fast, fun but balanced - and balance is important for both friendly-games and those with a more tournement mindset.

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And it's kind of unrelated to the blog but it looks like I have a pretty solid chance of getting signed to a small record label for my electro-industrial project Ion Plasma Incineration. If you're interested, you can get my first 2 IPI releases on bandcamp and they are dirt-cheap :


http://ionplasmaincineration.bandcamp.com/album/tdcp


http://ionplasmaincineration.bandcamp.com/album/the-rush-ep

Thursday, 6 October 2011

Favour?

I would like to get some coverage on beasts of war and would kindly ask anyone on that site to email them and tell them you want to see coverage on "Primeval Abyssian", please :) It seems they are becoming the "go to" site for wargaming - especially now they have just launched a TV show dedicated to tabletop wargaming!

You can contact BoW here :  http://www.beastsofwar.com/contact-us/