Giant Robot!!!

Thankfully this has nothing to do with Michael Bay . . . . at all!

I've finally gotten round to updating after the New Year. (I've have no Net Access at home at the moment thanks to our ISP) The only thing I left off from the Half Year Review is the construction of a Giant Robot and now it get a post all of it's own. (Photos to follow)

As part of Gaelcon (See last post) our Con Director had the brilliant idea of building a Imperator Titan in Warhammer 40K scale. If your not familiar with the game, most of the models are called miniatures and for good reason. They're small, you can fit armies of them on the dinner table and the Vehicals can fit in the palm of your hand. This would not . . . in game it's a towering engine of destruction, a self contained, mobile, heavily armoured giant robot designed and built solely to destroy it's enemies. Roughly 100ft tall with starship weaponry, it is devestating to those standing in it's way. (I have nerdgasms just thinking about them)

When he first had the idea, my initial reaction was "Awesome . . . I want in." There are many websites out there were people have done it before but we were going to do it bigger and better . . . well not bigger really as it has to be in scale . . . . but definitely better. So after a couple of months I hadn't heard anymore talk about it I decided to talk to the Con Director and see what the latest on it was. His reply was "We've started a couple of months ago" to which I repeated my offer. I had two hands and was willing to do the grunt work. So he gave me the whens and wheres and the following week I tagged in.

When I got to the Assembley Yard (it sounds grander that way) I found they had started on the basic skeleton and had a rough assembly on the legs to hips. I found the size of the legs to be a little deceptive. They were a little over 1 1/2 ft. I must have looked crestfallen because they guys then showed me the model we were using as a reference. I had no idea what were actually building. I had seen some models of Titans in the Warhammer Epic range and thought it would be similiar to those . . . . what I didn't know is that the current editions only do the smaller titans, The Imperator looked monstrous compared to them. It could be roughly broken into three sections, Legs and lower body, upper body and the citadel. The Citadel was an unknown to me . . . it rested on the Imperator's hunched shoulders, and has several towers and turrets which bring the total height of it to roughly 4 1/2 ft. On top of the tallest tower there rests a (to quote my favourite Colonel, if you can't recognise the quote then get off my blog!) Big Honking SpaceGun!

So we had building sessions once a week for the months before Gaelcon but as it got closer and we realised we had more and more to do we started have more sessions when we could. Towards the end of it I had spent and entire weekend working on it except for a short break when we had to go to a Committee Meeting. But it was an Adventure and an Experience to say the least. When we started I told the lads I'd do any grunt work they needed, measure, carry, fetch, make tea . . . but I wasn't using any of the power tools. We were using MDF, foamboard, old election signs and of course a lot of GW pieces (several tanks and installations were harvested to bring us this Titan) so I was happy enough with snips, files and scalpels. By the last month I was working away on the Sander, Band Saw, Table Saw and a Rotary Power Tool that I remembered I had from the year before.

Once we had the basic structure built we started to fill out the body parts with plaster which had to be smoothed out once it dried. It was mainly used for the Legs and Head but some gaps in the Torso were also filled in. This is were the Rotary tool became a godsend. I worked on the Head to carve out the recesses for the eyes and cleaned up the jaw line nice. At this point we had the main work of the Model done all that was left to do we detail it to hell and back. Trolling through our Bitz box and a lot of findings we added more of the superficial (but awesome) details to make the Titan pop. Pipe and tubing were used to make pistons, Wheels were made into gears and then there were the guns! A lot of the guns were stock GW tank barrels but a lot of them were made from tubing and bits.

And finally after all of this work we still had to Paint it. Painting occured in three stages, Basecoats and General tones on the night before Gaelcon's setup day, Layering, Corrections and clean up during the setup day and then some more detailing and fine touch ups during the Gaelcon weekend.

We had advertised the Titan as an event at Gaelcon saying it would take on all comers but noone actually was brave enough to try. (We were certain it would still be standing at the End) It was also made known that the Finished Titan was to be included in the Gaelcon Charity Auction and that the Con Director was determined to win it. (Rookie mistake and you hate to see it done!) So a lot of people were bidding strictly to pump the price up and put him through the wringer. In the end he got it for €800. (That's over $1,100 american) And it now resides in his bed room, defending it from the forces of Chaos and probably scaring one or two of the girls he brings home.
So we can say we've built an Imperial Emporor Class Imperator Titan, what did you do with your summer? This year we're threatening to build a Chaos Imperator (Not the Con Director though . . . he has his own Titan which he loves very much but towards the end of the build there were times were he was sick of looking at it. So he said he was definitly out if we do.) and then at the next Gaelcon have to the Titans at opposite ends of the table blasting away at each other while the crowds eggs them on.

And why the hell not?!!

My Gaming History 1

Since things are a little slow till the Wedding in Rome (not mine) I've to post some of the finer moments of Gaming Sessions I've played in. I have for the most part be playing games with the same circle of friends for 7 or 8 years. Mainly we have played White Wolf systems, Vampire and Mage, but we have also had a few games from d20, B.E.S.M., Marvel Universe RPG, amongst others. There were usually a few good moments in every session but occasionally there have been those moments that you can look fondly upon with a gleam in your eye and that warm feeling in cockles of you heart.

This story takes place during a Vampire Campaign were I was playing a Gangrel. I had spent a lot of time with the GM planning and creating a fairly well balanced Character, a decent history and a good plot hook for future games. One thing that came up during the process was the issue of the Gangrel Clan Flaw: They gain an animal feature every time they frenzy. This could be things such as wolf or bat like ears, cats eyes, claws or fangs, patches of fur, etc. On top of that for every 5 frenzies they lose a point from a social attribute. Given most Gangrel are prone to frenzy they can become patchwork monstrosities that are just as big a threath to the Masquerade as the Nosferatu or Tzimisce can be.

I had decided I didn't want to have to deal with this so I pumped up my conscience and willpower to give me as good a chance as possible. Now the GM didn't quite like this idea, he thought that was half the fun of being Gangrel, the chance to be a powerhouse, running on instinct not reason. When I told him I didn't want to frenzy he said he'd make me in fact not only would he make me frenzy, he'd make me want to frenzy. The game progress as I had expected given what I had went through with the GM. He had a solid idea of how he wanted the game to go and could improvise his way out of most situations we had trapped him with. It's the basic rule, no matter how many options you think you have presented to the party they'll still come up with something that not only is something you didn't think of but also buggers the rest of your plans. But he rolled with the punches and was able to keep the momentum of the game going, mainly this came from not using dice for combat resolution, instead he used Rock, Paper, Scissors.

As the game went on I had narrowly avoided a couple of Rötschreck Frenzies, due to fire or other stresses and thought I had everything well in hand. This is when the GM unleashed his plan. We had been sent to examine an underground base that was controlled by Sabbat Tremere . As we went through the base the leads we had proved fruitless and we were getting no where but slowly. As we went through the lower levels we entered rooms filled with corpses, dissected and partially dissected, of one or two clans mainly Gangrel. I announced to the party that I felt uncomfortable with the surroundings pointing to the gurneys. After two or three more rooms with more bodies but less parts therin we finally open a door which has a "Surgeon" "operating" on one of the bodies in front of us.

Straight away I say "I kill him!" to the protests of the rest of the party. They gave valid arguments like we needed the information and so on but I was determined to kill him. After about 5 minutes of out of character discussion I relent and say fine I won't kill him. But I turn to the GM and say "I reckon that'll require a frenzy roll." He smiled and said "Yes it would" and we did a quick check against each other. Just a quick point on using R,P,S as a resolution system. If you are using it make sure that you don't, as my GM did, always start with the same one. (His was scissors in case you're curious.) So we engaged, whilst I look away from the GM towards my friends, 1, 2, 3 and throw paper and smile and say "Oh dear I lose" and quickly and violently proceed to kill the "Doctor". The GM and myself were laughing maniacally as my character went on a half hour rampage through 5 War Szlachta and was eventually found clawing at a door. After a few minutes of reveling in the ramage I finally told the party how to immobilise me so we could move on safely. My memory of the rest of the game is vague compared to the lead up but it's safe to say we got through the rest of the compound and back to our base.

After the session the GM and I sat down to decide what animal feature I had gained. After a lot of discussion I managed to persuade the GM to allow me to take a social trait as opposed to physical one. We decided that my character would now have to circle the ground 3 times before sitting down, be it a just on the floor or even walking around the chair at meetings. The only condition the GM put on me was I had to Roleplay this. So at the first session after my frenzy I had said nothing to the rest of the party, but everytime we mentioned we were sitting I made a point of standing up turning around in a circle 3 time and then sitting back down. I think the first 2 times this went mostly unnoticed but on the 3rd time one of the guys copped it figured out why I was doing it and proceeded to fall out of his chair laughing.

What can I say I dedicated to my Roles,

And why the hell not!?!!