Focused (1)

01/04/2018

.Right well as ever it never went as well as I’d thought, but here are 4 figures painted / finished in one day.

Another Treasure Hunter.

Again laden with stuff.

For some reason the lantern hasn’t come out well as it is more yellow than that !

Marvo, Shazzamm’s Apprentice. Another Citadel Cleric.

I chose them because their staffs were the same.

Another Captain, again a Foundry (ex Citadel) Medieval type.

The large shield is again a chance to paint with bright colours to break up the endless browns and silver !

A quickie – an old Citadel Night Horrors figure base painted by a friend (Joe) and then washed and highlighted by me today. Suitable for AVBCW, as he is toting a shotgun.

More to come, those that didn’t make the grade before the light was gone !

Filed under AVBCW, Frostgave, Frostgrave, Mordheim, Painting Tagged with

FrostFayre 2017 – Part Three

04/01/2018

The morning’s games had taken much longer than expected, so it wasn’t until 3pm we started the second round, at which point three people ducked out, and only watched the beginning rounds.

So table 2 was used for a four way match between Anthony, Jim, Richard and myself (yay I got to play !). Jim and I were playing very experienced war bands (Doozelbat and KIY respectively) with the other two forming an alliance squeezed between us.

Following advice at the Frostgrave forum on LAF we reduced the number of treasure to 2 per player. Funnily enough, Doozlebat and KIY had an extra one each. 😉

KIY’s deployment.

Oh look another treasure chest pops up 6 inches from my deployment zone. Richard and Anthony were a bit puzzled. Cough…REVEAL SECRET. Another “essential” spell…

So what was Doozlebat’s spell for his third treasure chest ?

I barely had time to shift round to the side of the table, before Doozlebat had zapped one of Anthony’s war band !

Again Anthony was heading for the treasure in the open grave (deja vu !).

But in a taste of what was to come, Skye (Richard) slew Doozlebat’s apprentice in a surprise shot, which ironically deprived me of one of the few shots I could have had on Doozlebat (unsettled business).

Talking of which, Skye’s minions were trying to take one of my treasure’s, so a small fracas ensued, an Imp thrown in for good measure was easily slain by the diminutive handling war band.

Whilst Anthony’s archer and hound raced out to grab the central treasure….

….which wasn’t there… FOOLS GOLD…thanks Doozelbat (Jim) !

All this treasure taking had however alerted a wild dog which turned up behind Doozlebat. Jim was very relaxed claiming he’d deal with it easily.

But promptly forgot about it, allowing the wild dog to attack the X-bowman and distract him for two turns ! DOH !

Which helped Anthony lug a treasure chest out of harm’s way.

One of Doozlebat’s only treasures rescued.

Meanwhile KIY suffered a minion down due to long range fire from Doozlebat, a minion already injured by an elemental bolt to the face from Skye.

aWALL stopped most of the elemental bolts, but not before a treasure hunter who had killed one of Skye’s minions was put down.

And a third loss for KIY, again long range magical elemental bolts !

And Skye escapes with the treasure !

As did Anthony’s war band.

So the two big hitters got a bit of a mauling from the new comer upstarts. Goes to show that no matter how high a level in frost grave, a few well aimed shots and good dice rolls the mighty can fall.

Nominally i won with 4 treasures, but with minions down, one badly wounded (missing next game), it was won ate a price.

Until next time !

Filed under Forstgrave, Frostgrave, Mordheim Tagged with

GA: Scenery

28/11/2017

Whilst wading through another tranche of photos from Friday’s gaming session, and with a training course tonight (Data protection), I thought I’d throw some new photos of the scenery I’ve been working on.

One of the GW Gondorian ruins pieces complete with creeping vines and ferns, also by GW on a CD scenery base.

The creeping vines are again made out of the soft plastic the ferns are, and can be, with a little persuasion, be wrapped around scenery pieces.

Same painting techniques used.

Makes it look good I hope !

And of course some statues.

I bought the GW Gondorian ruins multi pack which is a really good bargain from the evil empire !

Should be good scenery to let these pirates run amok over. 🙂

The new Ghost Archipelago crew plastics by Northstar.

GW even squeezed out a freebie (!!!!!), a badge with the WH40K logo on it.

Filed under Mordheim, Scenery Tagged with

Red Herrings – Ulterior Motives scenery +1, -2

12/07/2017

I bought the Ulterior Motives scenery on the Nickstarter, and got two sets which is just as well as you can end up requiring two pieces of each scenery type depending on what cards are drawn by the players.

Two statues – nice to have.
Two magic circles – nice to have and I haven’t got any others as yet. I have just about manage to dry brush the dark grey and black respectively to avoid over brushing the gold symbols.

These were done in a hurry for Saturday gone, in case we needed them – we did but they played little part ion the game.

Pits and trapdoors. Easily fabricated from scratch but they came with the set and are nice pieces easily painted up so iff you are short of time why not ?

Standing stones and sarcophagus.

I managed to get the runes right on one of the standing stones but failed on the sarcophagus.

Again nice times, can be replicated elsewhere but for the price on the Nickstarter, they were worth it.

The standing stone did get used in our game on Saturday YAY !

Both items are generic enough to be used in any number of different games as general scenery.

Finally, the +1 and -2:

A small piece of scenery that has been knocking around for a long time.

I think it is a piece from a Grenadier Red Dragon set.

Anyway, with a nice big red jewel it makes for a nice scenery piece and objective for Frostgrave/Mordheim.

The attentive Frostgrave fans will note the Zombie and Archway from the Ulterior Motives scenery set are missing.

they’re to follow as I have done some kit bashing with the first, and used the second as an excuse to paint more stuff !

Filed under Mordheim, Scenery Tagged with

Arcane Tables & Altars

02/06/2017

Some more arcane scenery for Mordheim/Frostgrave, to give the interiors of the wrecked buildings some allure.

From Ristul’s Extraordinary Market (see also later for a UK supplier) some arcane tables and altars, I’msure I can work up some scenery rules so that Wizards gain casting powers or learn new stuff when in base to base contact with these items.

In the resin, a couple of the tables need assembling, and I used Renedra bases as usual. In fact this set pictured is probably the worst for flash, but even so it is very thin and easily removed, and the main pieces are very well cast.

I’ve got a couple more sets of these tables, so I’ll be painting them in even more lurid colours to jazz up the table.

I got my sets from The Dice Bag Lady, (Bad Squiddo Games), who is/are very reliable and prompt.

Filed under Mordheim, Scenery Tagged with

FG: Ulterior Motives review

02/06/2017

The last Kickstarter was a small affair, a discounted set of Ulterior Motives card set with options on the accompanying scenery and the large rhino riding barbarian. There were also prizes to be won such as designing your own scenario for publication, designing your own figure etc.

My order arrived today, very promptly after the Kickstarter ended on Wednesday.

The card pack, larger than your average playing cards (pictured right).

40 cards to shuffle and pick for Ulterior Motives. Plus two more that are double sided and provide all the new rules/guidance on how to use the cards in the games.

Hmm, 42 cards eh ? 😉

The changes to the basic rules open up the board a lot more, so I anticipate these games will be longer in duration. This is especially true because the amount of treasure is reduced to 2 treasure tokens per warband (plus one in the dead centre).

Looking at the motives cards themselves, a lot of them mean you are having to fight your way across the board. There is no shirking here.

But to compensate for less loot, there is a lot more experience to be gained, and in some cases more loot. So you are taking greater risks for potentially greater rewards.

My feeling is, that Ulterior Motives is better suited to more experienced players and war bands, as they will need to be fairly robust to cross more than half of the board (into enemy territory) or further, and that if they don’t get much treasure casualties might be high and expensive.

The cards often dictate specific creatures, models and scenery. Unsurprisingly, the scenery that has been produced to accompany this release. As each player will be pulling a card, it is possible that multiple pieces of the same creature and scenery will be required.

In addition, some of the results will also mean you have a use for the original Frostgrave treasure tokens, even the rather parsimonious single ring on a base.

And here is said scenery – resin pieces except for the Zombie with the map attached to its back which is white metal.

A little bit of flash but pretty good castings.

Some or all of these can be scratch built, or acquired in other ranges, but for a one stop shop its a good pack of items that fit perfectly with the items required in the deck of cards.

The only minor disappointment was the gateway, which is one sides, good job I bought two sets, and yes they do match up like so.

(I have other gateways, like the Portal of Kittens)

A nice set and I’ll look forward to playing them.

My only other query is wondering if you can play the Ulterior Motives cards at the same time as playing some of the other scenarios – might get messy but an interesting thought.

Filed under Mordheim Tagged with

FG: Run of the Rangifer (Part Two)

15/05/2017

Well one Wizard down !

The game was getting violent.

The Rangifer had leapt down from the upper storey with intent to harm my (now) deceased treasure Huntress, and landed next to a long cloth wearing barbarian, which then prom poly fell down under the enraged creature’s blows.

Worse than that, shaking off the Blinding Light, another Rangifer trashed my Thug behind my lines.

the gold maddened minions of Thaddeus tried to pursue my brave treasure collectors, and despite the war hound downing one of their number outnumbered and put the puppy down.
(Slots in the volunteer hospital to tend orphaned injured kittens are also available)

Making Thorin Oakenshield look normal, another Rangifer is slaughtered by Thaddeus’ gold crazed minion.

My apprentice Gideon fought of a Rangifer attack, and then was helped by “Deadeye” the ranger fresh from his killing of Thaddeus.

And another Rangifer goes down.

This was the last one.

Thaddeus’ minions were meanwhile dealing with more random creatures that were turning up.

But not before an arrow put down Holbron as well – another 20 !
So both Wizards down in the same game.

But that didn’t stop the fighting, with a Giant rat out out of its misery behind Thaddeus’ lines.

Getting out of Dodge City, my innocent crew were pursued by the thieves, to the bitter end.

Another exceptionally hard fought game, but really good fun especially with both Wizards being decked by 20’s – despite us being ~56th Level and packing a lot of protective gear. There is no guarantee of survival.

As it turned out…

Thaddeus suffered a permanent injury.
Holbron had a severe Injury and had to pay 100Gc to fix it…normally this isn’t so bad but as I had had to rebuild my war bands’ costa I had decided in the spirit of fair play to empty the treasury to zero to offset any deliberate or accidental gamesmanship in choosing th4 spell lists etc/ So after effectively 2 games I had a very diminutive treasury to cover medical costs.

Until the next time…

For completeness’ sake here is JP’s take events.

Filed under Frost Grave, Mordheim Tagged with

FG/MH Graveyard

06/12/2016

When I played with Byakhee Jim, he fished out an old Graveyard I’d made for Mordheim, on the grounds he was hoping to raise a Zombie and thus was in keeping with his character’s background. As it happened things didn’t go his way and the graveyard didn’t get much of a look in.

Just as well, because it had warped on its base, and my old polyfilla covering had become chipped. So having rebound the piece, I decided it would be a good idea to renovate it, after all JP’s wizard Thaddeus (who is EVIL and must be destroyed) also practices the dark arts…

So the gravestones, a mixture of metal and plastic items were removed, the base was bent back almost flat (a lot better than it was), and then a healthy amount of masonry paint added.

The original graveyard had a grey surface, so that went as it was too plain, with my generic biscuit earth colour. But to compensate I added a short entrance path of the usual pizza box flagstones.

The graves were marked out with an unusually healthy looking grass, whilst the rest of the yard had unhealthy sickly looking burnt grass added.

Some graffiti was added as I used to do to many of my scenery pieces. No prize for guessing which TV series I nicked it from…

Filed under Frost Grave, Mordheim, Scenery Tagged with , ,