If it’s under 20 miniatures, I usually don’t bother spray-priming. I brush-on colored airbrush primer, then follow with a wash.

I’ve also been fiddling with a drop of ink in a child’s craft paint flip-top, no mixing. Dip the brush into the ink and paint. More ink for flow, more paint for opacity. Maybe a drop of hobby paint for shade.

Rinse the brush frequently, even if not changing colors.

Pledge: finish off a project

A time when I can’t prime outdoors is not a problem. An airbrush used with a vent fan is useful for that.

One thing to change about my favorite minis game?… I haven’t played in so long I can’t say anything for mechanics. Perhaps it would be that I actually do play. I’m rather split on just one to say is my overall top choice. I guess I played Malifaux the most in shops but have fond memories of others.

Am I staying hydrated? Eh, not as much as I should be. High amounts of caffeine has seen a decrease in body fluids.

One can always prime outside.

I don’t mind new keywords in Star Wars Legion – I’ve just finished designing a new, very iconic sib-faction for Star Wars Legion and for that immersed myself very deep into the nitty gritty of the granular design spaces of that game, and I have come to love what keywords can bring to the game if utilized correctly. The most important question for me became this: Is a new keyword – so by extension a new mechanic – really neccessary, or can the same be achieved with an existing keyword or a combination of existing keywords. And then, IF a new keyword is neccessary, to keep it as simple as possible.

To be honest, most keywords are pretty simple, and to play a good game, it suffices for each player to know their armies keywords and how they work, and being able to precisely explain how they work to their opponent should the need arise.

Some examples for new keywords from the new subfaction I designed – sometimes with interactions between them and/or existing ones – which were required to accurately represent new units and the ideas behind them in the game. Some of the units took a week or more to get right and as simple as possible at the same time:

And here are three examples of new units and upgrades which could be achieved with the existing keywords:

@fourtytwo I admire the making of game factions and carving space for gaming in the gaps. I don’t think the keyword concept will bode well in time. Magic the Gathering has done that to high holy hell and back making the game nowhere near backwards compatible or playable outside of the current set/expansion/meta. Hopefully the limiting of keywords works on your future.

There is a significant difference: In Magic, keywords and such have been introduced for the sake of themselfes, to be a new feature in and of themselves to expand the game and make new cards and card effects. In Star Wars Legion, keywords are used to represent stuff from the movies and shows within the context of the basic game mechanics. There haven’t been introduced that many new ones since the game dropped, and almost all new ones truly introduce a new feature into the game that was required for the new type of thing brought into the game from the setting.

I myself strongly critique a few new kewords in Legion which are not really needed AND just give you something basic and useful without you having to work for it, like this silly INDEPENDENT: X keyword, where your unit gains aim and/or dodge tokens for just standing there. THAT is dumb in my book, because it does add nothing new to the game and does not add to the game being dynamic (there already ARE ways to gain these tokens, but you have to do something for them, be it taking an action, creating a synergy, or creating a certain game state). It’s like gaming with support wheels – I don’t know about others, but I’d feel silly using many such units.

@horati0nosebl0wer OnePageRules is technically its own thing … they also have their own backstory. Or at least that is the idea I think.
And I was thinking a more radical redesign than simply reducing the number of stats and sticking with the D6.

This kind of bleeds over into things I’d like to see in (any) miniatures game :
= an initiative system that feels right for the type of warfare the game wants to represent

= alternate activations, because there’s nothing worse than getting your entire army wiped out before you can react

= the ability to push your luck when activating a second unit , because in order to better represent certain aspects of warfare you may need to activate multiple units at once

= different dice sizes to better represent skill, troop quality, non-human creatures/aliens and other things

= a maximum on the number of dice you can roll (+/- 10 should be more than enough)

= standardized keywords across all factions.
I’d be tempted to argue that if you need more than a single A4 sized page of text (in a reasonable font size) then you’ve got too many …

= no faction exclusive actions in terms of actions a player can perform, unless there is a good reason that factions/unit can’t imitate it

= minimum number of 4 factions that have to exist
reason : you need a bit of variety and I think 4 is enough for that.

= a maximum number of factions that can exist
reason : it should be possible to update and refresh the models of the entire game in one iteration.
The sheer number of factions in 40k/AoS make this impossible, which is why GW couldn’t refresh the entire range even if they wanted to.
As a bonus you don’t have to invent weird stories to explain why a certain faction managed to invade the most secure location in the entire universe …

= 9 as the magic number for the unit types within a faction
This is in part based on me playing Team Fortress Classic for several years() as well as based on the idea that a combo of basic stats (speed, damage and defense) and values (low, medium, high) results in a 3 x 3 grid.
You can increase granularity but that tends to come at a cost of making it harder to visualize where the counter for a given unit is.
I’d also argue that no one unit should ever be good at all 3 core stats, because that tends to make the other units useless.
And of course no unit should be bad at all 3 as it would make the unit useless compared to everyone else …

oh .. and a final thought :
a new version of the rules should have a good reason to exist … marketing is not a good reason.

@danlee I agree. I’d rather play a game ‘as is’ instead of house ruling anything. It’s not like the designers didn’t make an effort to make it playable out of the box, right ?