Over on Patreon I have rolled out a new set of tiers for ChargeBlog. It’s goal is still mostly to be more of a tip jar rather than a full on job but the offering of single tier wasn’t really doing what I’ve been wanting it to be. Saying the words “pay what you want” in Patreon’s interface doesn’t particularly work. So that’s why we now have The News Fans (to pay for the News Stand posts) and more importantly The Board of Shadowy Figures.
If you haven’t looked yet, The Board of Shadow Figures basically lets you decide the main project for the month. I’ll pick three options and provide them before the end of the month, the Board votes and then based on their votes I get to work. Not only does it incentivise me to get hobby stuff done but it also means I get to see what people are actually interested in. However, projects that don’t get chosen aren’t abandoned – If I have time, they might be done alongside the main project (or when I need a break) or simply reappear in the another month’s selection down the line.
(Also there are no videos included in the list as I’m still working on the BPRE interview that has taken me WAY longer than planned. I basically ended up rewriting it again as it wasn’t quite doing what I wanted it to do.)
For the month of October, I present to the Board of Shadowy Figures the three project options.
Option 1: Prototype MENA Building
For a long time I’ve had a literal pile of Tabula Rasa buildings from Knights of Dice. These buildings are great empty shells, ideal for building all sorts of structure on top of but needing a little work to make them look nice. I simply assembled them, got the job of building MDF… and then did nothing with them.
Now though, I am ready to start getting them together and get them ready for the board. Not only do I have the space to properly spray and apply sand (I have a garage now) but the rise of 3D printing means I have access to a wide variety of pieces to modify and enhance the visuals of the buildings, to make them fit the target setting more. TT Immersion and Urban Scatter Gaming both have some great sets of little detail pieces, and my time in Al-Masrah may have ended but the reference photos I’ve taken for how best to decorate the sets is still there and strong.
Objectives: Complete one test building with decoration and painting work before the end of the month, showing the process in a blog post by the end.
Option 2: BPRE Phaseline
It’s been a while since I got the box, and I’ve only just started painting some of the Shurta (prompted by the urgent operational requirement from my Work Opponent). I really want to get this stuff painted up seeing as BPRE is maybe the game I’m going to be playing most frequently (every Thursday lunch, fingers crossed).
In addition, I still need to play the Phaseline, the epic game mode that really brings the destruction. It’s maybe a little long for the lunch break, so I’ll need to get a longer session lined up, but it would be nice to sit down and use the monstrous-sounding fires cards in my deck.
Objectives: Finish painting up the Phaseline models and cover the process in a blog post at the end of the month. Bonus – play a game of the larger Phaseline game mode.
Option 3: The Goon Squad
I have been building up the Bazistan Internal Security Forces for a while, using various Combat Octopus modular bits and combing them together to see what you can do. I had already assembled and painted sets armed with pistols and AKSUs, but hadn’t got around to finishing a set with the full size AKs. And then I moved house.
Now though, these guys have been sat in a box waiting to be painted. In addition, I really want to cover just what you can do with the modular parts, so this is a good chance to get the brain cells going.
Objectives: Paint up the Bazistan Internal Security Forces and cover how they were assembled in a blog post, as well as some ideas how to use them in game.
If you want to decide which of these projects I’ll be hitting (and you’re part of The Board of Shadow Figures tier), you can find the post to vote over on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ChargeBlog. The voting is open until mid-day on the 1st of October, at which I shall begin work!
I’ll be back on the first of October to announce what I’ll be working on, including a few more details on the winner. Honestly, I’m happy with all three of them, so go forth and vote!