Ghost Archipelago | The Lost City of Carcosa

Feeling a bit Crabby

24/09/2019

Another bout of the mystery stomach upset losing more sleep, but at least I got some more painting done.

Giant Crab soldier for frost grave Gohost Archipelago.

Now I grew up near Poole harbour and my family had a shipping boat, so one time I was taken there as a 7 year old to pick up some crabs. So 1970’s in the back of the car with my grandparents I was left with a box of dinner plate sized crabs in a box…they were ALIVE.

They were trying to get out, so a 7 year old was poking them back in to the open topped box.

Never had crab paste since.

Talking bull…

One Dragon Bull, I had this resin model pinned together by Richard – its’ a great model

A very large beastie !

Now I need to paint up some of the actual heritors and crew.

Filed under Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Mordheim

Ghost Archipelago: The Abandoned Tower (Part Two)

21/07/2018

By now I’d sent a crewman into the abandoned tower after the central treasure.

After the screecher monkey had been killed, again by mobbing by my crew.

But not before a Mountain Goat had turned up, to attack the herbalist and his crewman sidekick.

But not for long, unfortunately elsewhere one of my crewmen bringing up the rear went down.

And then both a tree spider and giant crab, man turned up (typically I had not brought my crabmen with me).

So a very out of scale Stegasaurus was used, and as you can see, the random monsters were getting in the way of me getting off the table with my loot. (upper part of the photo are my Guide and “Black Archer” trying to lift another treasure away without much luck I must say).

No this really isn’t going to work.

And it didn’t most of my crew went down on this side of the board.

Of course this left the cabman to bear down on to Jim’s forces, along with blood bats, and the Eritrean, resulting in Doozlebat running away (again).

lwaading to my Heritor with a hop skip and a jump, kill the tree spider, Sprint round pick up a treasure and bolt for it.

Whilst my warden undertook a rearguard action fending off his opposing number with traded “projectiles” leading to casualties on both sides.

End result ?

I had the central treasure (forgot to climb the tower with my Heritor), plus one ordinary treasure.

Jim’s heritor Doozelbat had two ordinary treasure, but the fifth one was unclaimed.

Therefore I won, but I feel it was a somewhat hollow victory.

I’m aiming to have stuff ready for either the Stone Circle or the Saurian breakfast as our next scenarios.

Filed under Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, Mordheim

Ghost Archipelago: The Abandoned Tower (Part One)

21/07/2018

On one hand I can’t believe it’s been five days since an update, but on the other hand and on reflection I can. I had to chair a council meeting with 53 angry parishioners.

So, Jim’s suggestion of a gaming session was very timely once I’d slept off that event.

Rather than a simple head to head, I managed to find a scenario we had scenery and monsters for. The Abandoned Tower.(p110 off the GA rulebook)

Our combined scenery.

Jim continues to have a painted war band whilst mine of embarrassingly in indecent states of undauntedness. I am finishing off the normal Frostgrave stuff still. That’s my excuse and I am sticking to it.

My deployment was aimed at getting this item of treasure, along with the central one.

As my A Team approached the tower, one of the giant snakes moved forward. Jim has an extensive collection of cheap kid’s toys that double up for our games as perilous foes, so he chose both a giant snake model and this centipede model.

My Heritor and her crew mobbed the giant snake, and she killed it (more XP)

Whilst my Warden cast “Brambles” to keep the enemy at bay.

Jim’s Warden played the inevitable card of summoning wandering monsters and throughout the game managed to have them pop up behind my war band.

This one was an Erithrean, whose write up is a bit vague and we couldn’t find any FAQ via his smart phone. I resisted the comment of calling it Jimbo (oops) s it was represented by a small elephant model.

Meanwhile, Jim’s forces (Doozlebat – his one and only name for leaders) and approached the tower and encountered the other giant snake, which was actually represented by a giant snake (!), and lost a crewman.

before the Warden and co mobbed it and killed it.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table, I had seized both target treasures and was trying to make a quick get away….

Then all went wrong, firstly for me, and then Jim…

Filed under Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago

GA: 2018 04 02

10/05/2018

A shamefuly long silence due to ennui and lack of time. Plus simply not wanting to wade through three dozen photos, but here is Jim and my game from the beginning of last month.

Head to head. Jim was shorter of time than anticipated, and I lack the specialised scenery for many of the other scenarios. 😦

My war band, mostly.

First random encounter – large lizard.

The enemy advance, trying to climb up to one of the treasures atop the rock pile.

I moved in on the next piece of treasure and last game’s man of the match dealt with the large lizard – really must paint this guy !

The race to the central treasure (in the pagoda) begins to hot up.

A snapping turtle is the next random encounter, ironic as Jim has tortoises (they smoked out his house one time).

And yet another, this time a tribal warrior – the LE test piece from the nick starter.

More ! More tribal warriors and skeletons. yes Jim had cast the same summon beast spell.

Hedge of thorns to slow the enemy down.

Man of the match down – to the turtle !

Kick off in the middle of the table, both Warden and Heritor (metal) involved in the fighting.

The final insult, a giant snake got one of my crewmen as he lugged treasure off the table.

These random beasties were wearing my crew down big time.

Last stand of Vicky my Heritor.

Good game even if I did “lose”, the random beasties spell is very powerful.

Filed under Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago

GA: 2018 03 10 First time around

16/03/2018

At short notice, Byakhee Jim asked for a games session, and we settled for Ghost Archipelago, which other than a couple of solo games I’d done, we’d not played before.

But barely had the pixels been sent, then I had to deal with real world stuff nd the session was truncated to just the morning.

So round to Jim’s place. He even had a boat that was the right scale.

So we bent the rules, and placed a few treasure tokens closer together than is usual.

My set up.
My first mistake.

Bottom of the picture are the cards from the accessory pack. Normally I am leary of buying these fripperies, but on this occasion because players will have two different sets of attributes (let alone all the rules for gear they have) I splashed out and think they are worth it.

Jim’s forces, I don’t think he’d yet thought up a suitable name, I fear it might be Doozelbat III.

Jim’s Warden cast a spell summoning beasties, and sure enough he got lucky and could place them where he wanted which distracted a couple of my warriors, and this was the second problem I had all game and led to my downfall. (Getting the excuses in early)

My Heriotr Vicky raced in retrieve her treasure, but was beset by three of Jim’s ship’s crew, which after spending Health points for the Sprint, lead to an untimely end before her crew could wade in.

Skeletons. Again Jim rolled high and placed them where he wanted them, cutting off my escape route.

Having lost my Scout, a wounded Savage, and unwounded Crewman waded in to try and get the treasure.

By more beasties were turning up.

Then my Warden Chardonnay got zapped after injuring Jim’s Heritor.

My crewmen were still being distracted by a never ending list of beasties, and whilst killing them, were also taking wounds.

Ground Sloths are no fun either.

My only ray of sunshine – my crewmen put down no leas than FIVE of Jim’s crew. But had to flee before picking up the treasure because…

Yup a Saurian Monarch turned up.

By now my Herbalist had acquired one treasure piece.

It was agreed it was time to call a day, with me coming off very much the worse.
My Heritor Vicky was Badly Wounded so starts the next game at -5 Health.

Quite a different set of abilities to Frostgrave, and the campaign system is still to be bottomed out, but most importantly we had a good time.

So what went wrong for me ?
– Hubris, I’ve got too used to playing high level wizards in frostgrave
– dividing my forces at the start of the game
– failing to pick up the treasure under my nose
– the summon beasties spell that then hemmed me in, trapped my crew into pointless battles.

Filed under Frostgrave, Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, Mordheim

GA: Treasures & Foes

15/01/2018

Still beset by the really bad light levels here in the Uk, but I did manage to
(a) update my previous post
(b) finish off the treasure tokens from the Ghost Archipelago Nickstarter.

So here’s the mother lode:

The bases are textured so no flock, and a bit too small to add ferns, and static grass.

Nice pieces. Not currently available.

Four skeletons, with different basing material and some ferny fronds.

This doesn’t get better does it ?

The fifth one was the one I glued together backwards.

Hopefully tomorrow, light permitting, I’ll show the results of the little challenge.

Filed under Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, Mordheim

Of Plastic, Dinosaurs & Toads

13/01/2018

Not the post I intended, but I am once against thwarted by low light levels which has hindered the highlighting of several figures.

So I diverted my efforts (mostly) to sorting out a shoe box size pile of slotta bases, some of which I’d promised to Too who turned up to collect them this afternoon.

I now have some on Freecycle to try and give them to a good new home, as having sorted them I don’t need so many, and as black plastic they cannot be recycled. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should have heard that plastic is a major pollutant in the environment, so we should be doing as much as possible to stop this stuff going to landfill and or being washed in to the seas. I’ve shifted loads of stuff on Freecycle, so i recommend it as a way of getting rid of stuff you no longer want, but has no monetary value.

(NB: Plastic sprue can be recycled providing they’re not black ! So make sure you check your local council’s recycling details and put them in iff they can be recycled PRETTY PLEASE)

Talking of plastic:

Found these on Evil-bay,, and bought them so I could hack them up into scenery pieces for Back of Beyond and Ghost Archipelago pieces.

At only £7 they’re good value, even if they are not 100% anatomically correct.

On the subject of anatomy:

I was hassled at frostFayre, for not having Ice Toads in my expansive collection, so the following w/e I ordered some from CP Models.

Jon then sent a smug message saying he already had two of them.

Good job I’d ordered three.

To distinguish them on the field of battle I painted their tongues, red, white and blue !

Now hopefully tomorrow, I should have finished off some more Captains, treasure items, and continued with the small challenge I set myself !

Filed under Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, RCW / BoB, Scenery

A little challenge

08/01/2018

Over the last year I haven’t painted as many actual human (or demi-human) figures as I could/should/would have.

Instead I’ve let myself become diverted by scenery, treasure tokens and easy to paint creatures.

No problems with any of them they’re all useful, but I now find a paucity of actual painted human figures is holding me back in Frostgrave.

Therefore I thought I’d to an ad-hoc challenge to paint five human figures in a week.

If successful I might extend this and repeat it throughout the year.

The first five are shown above. I chose them on the basis of need. L-R:-
– Holborn Toddlebrew. My first wizard. I have a painted model but it’s “primitive”
– Gideon, the apprentice (ditto, also not colour co-ordinated)
– Savage, in preparation for Ghost Archipelago, plus a chance to brush up (ha!) my skin tone painting
– Apothecary, because…
– Crosbowman, because…

Some are undercoated or have vestiges of a paint job, others are raw metal, so first job is to get them all to the same stage of painting.

In the meantime I do have some figures to show the world, but am waiting on a few more to be painted for the “added value”.

Filed under Frostgrave, Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, Mordheim, Painting

FrostFayre 2017 & Aquarium Mats

30/12/2017

Recovering from running FrostFayre 2017, seven of us played all day 10am-6pm.

Frantic last minute preparations in the village hall, as tables were set up, figures chosen and last minute changes to rosters were made.

Table 1-only a single car’s worth (and not even full) worth of scenery enabled me to set this one up.

And Table 2.

I was Umpire for the first set of games, and so today am rather tired as I was also the caterer, feeding the 5,000 with bread and fishes, ok, 6 of us with pizzas !

Now wading through the 70+ photos Louis took.

On my return last night, my parents provided a belated Xmas present that had been held up:-

Yup, some mates of aquarium plants. They come on plastic grids and can be popped off, or cut up in to useful “organic” shapes.

This one as you can see is about 25-35mm high, ideal for jungle terrain for Ghost Archipelago.

My parents had got me three of these mats as a bundle off of Amazon after all of us had scoured pet shops and garden centres only to be told that staff knew what we wanted but could not order them, nor could they say when they would be next in stock as it was up to suppliers.

Once again, the local shops lose out. 😦

Watch out for this stuff being carved up and added to bases shortly.

Filed under Frostgrave, Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Ghost Archipelago, Mordheim, Scenery

GA: The Cow Incident

26/12/2017

In late November my mother announced that unlike the previous 5 years, we would be exchanging presents with my Aunt and Uncle. So I had to revisit my Xmas list and dream up some more low value items the family could buy.

So I hit e-bay for some cheap scenery for Ghost Archipelago.