Barbarian

Today a fierce barbarian joins the warband for Frostgrave!

The funny thing about getting this figure done is that for all my years playing D&D and Pathfinder I've never actually painted a barbarian before.  He's a pretty classically styled take on the character and he's one of those figures that seems to hit just the right balance between having a few extra details and textures without crossing the line into overdone.

That's one of my six needed miniatures from yesterday crossed off my list!

I actually painted this guy late last night (or early this morning) due to a bout of insomnia.  The upside of insomnia is that you can get some extra hobby work done, the downside is the no-sleep part.  Having said that I had time to get even more done last night but unfortunately the rest of the stuff I need for this week was unprimed so I couldn't work on it last night.  This did mean I worked on a few other pieces simply because they were primed and ready to go so I might have a few off-plan things getting finished up in the next couple of days.

Pre-weekend checklist:

1.  Barbarian for Frostgrave

2.  Soothsayer and Apprentice for Frostgrave

3.  Renegade and 2 Motorcycles for Dark Future

Crossing things off checklists is what separates us from the animals.

-Jay

Some scatter terrain and a bear!

We all go through different journeys through hobby gaming.  Some people start with role-playing games, some with collectible card games, some with euro games and some with miniatures.  It can be funny how where you start can sometimes influence how you buy, collect and use hobby materials years later.

When I first got into hobby gaming it was via the role-playing game route which then transitioned into miniatures.  That meant that when I first starting buying stuff on a 12 year-old's restrictive budget I prioritised rulebooks, then some models and after that scenery/maps.  As someone who has now been collecting for years I find I rush to get new books, buy models steadily (don't we all), then grab up cool buildings and scenery kits.  In the past I always played game with a lot of figures on each side so my scenery focus tended to be on "full-sized" pieces (buildings, hills, forests, etc) , now that I'm skirmish gaming more often I've found I have tons of scenery but a lot of it is too big or doesn't work well together.  To that end I've really only in the last couple of years started adding scatter terrain to my collection.  A while back I showed the two ruined Undertaker's carts I had done as an example.  In each of those cart boxes came a second pieces (2 crates with a sack draped over them) which I just finished up.  I also painted up 4 cake pillars to use in the Storm Of Undeath scenario from Thaw Of The Lich Lord.  Having done those I think I'm going to buy a second set and do them as broken pillars.

While shopping at Michael's for cake pillars I also came across a small vinyl toy bear figure.  I've been looking for a bear for Frostgrave but they seem to be really difficult to find.  I repainted this guy as a polar bear and he seems to work just fine.  He's quite a big beast (that's a 60mm base he's standing on) so even though he has a friendly look on his face I'm assuming he'll be quite menacing on the tabletop.

All right, so here's the count down for this week.  All of this stuff is do-or-die, I need it for an assortment of games/events I'm participating in this weekend.
1.  Barbarian for Frostgrave (needs to be done by Friday morning)
2.  Soothsayer and Apprentice for Frostgrave (need to be done by Saturday morning)
3.  Renegade & 2 Motorcycles for Dark Future (need to be done by Saturday night)

Wish me luck!

-Jay

Ice Spiders for Frostgrave

Another wandering monster has wandered in; Ice Spiders!

These are Reaper Bones figures so they are fairly basic but they will serve their purpose.  They're nice chunky figures (they are on GW 32mm bases for reference).

I've got four more projects (five more figures) that NEED to get done by Saturday....keep watching this space!

-Jay

Hobby Treasures

I just got back from a four day business trip so my hobby activity has been a little light lately but I did get a few things I wanted to share with everybody.

A few years ago Gale Force 9 started releasing some box sets of resin D&D miniatures.  Their market position was that these are premium products and as such they came with premium prices.  I liked some of their sets but to be frank the prices seemed out-of-line with what was in the boxes so I never pulled the trigger on actually buying any of them.  Fast forward to earlier this week and I found myself at a game store in Baltimore that had their stock of GF9 D&D minis on sale for 50% off.  I decided to buy a couple and give them a try, I will say they are definitely worth buying at 50% off but I don't know that they're worth their full price.

I got the Beneath Baldur's Gate set planning on using 3 of the figures for Frostgrave and also I've also wanted a Wererat figure for quite a while.

Kleef Kenric seemed like he would make a good D&D character or captain for Frostgrave and his little friend seemed like he would be a good fit as an Igor type for just about an horror game.

When I got home I also had something fantastic waiting for in my mailbox.  A bunch of my buddies from back in Edmonton have an awesome podcast called Hobby Night In Canada hobbynight.ca and they have started producing some cool stuff for tourneys and cons.  Mike was good enough to hook me up with some of their awesome dice!

Last up I made a small purchase when I got home.  I bought the two e-pubs for Frostgrave (Sellsword & The Hunt For The Golem).  I'm pretty stoked because this gives me two new sets of scenarios to play through and the captain rules from Sellsword looks like they'll really add something to the game.

Okay.  Now I need to get back to getting my Soothsayer and Apprentice done before this Saturday.

-Jay

These ARE the skeletons you're looking for

When I put up my project list last week I knew I was tempting fate, historically as soon as I declare I'm painting something I get distracted and don't get it done.  This time out I took a side-step for a slightly different reason.

I had planned on painting 6 Mantic Revenants as my armoured skeletons for Frostgrave however once I started painting them something hit me right away....these models are freakishly two-dimensional.  So I tossed them (literally threw them out) and started on some GW Skeletons I had hanging around.

Ultimately I want to replace these with Wights as they are more heavily armoured but I didn't have those on-hand so I worked with what I had.

Once again painting for Frostgrave seems to be moving me closer to getting my revised Vampire Counts for Age Of Sigmar done as well (that's actually why I painted 7 of them, I'm holding back 3 to do a command group later).

Hoping to get a couple more small things done this week, I've definitely fallen behind a bit in the last few days.

-Jay

Project Plans For The Next 3 Weeks

Honestly I should probably stop stating my plans because every time I do I end up not entirely following through.  Having said that I have an event coming up that I want to use as a deadline to get some more stuff done so here's my plan for what that looks like.

FROSTGRAVE
I should be able to play Frostgrave one more time before I have to hit the road for work.  For the next scenario from Thaw Of The Lich Lord I will need 4 pillars/columns which will be some cake pillars I'll be painting up and then adding to my scatter terrain as well.  In addition I need 6 Armoured Skeletons which will be represented by Mantic Undead Revenants.   Once I get a few more of those done they will also be joining my Age Of Sigmar Vampire Counts.  That's all I need but I suspect I will try to do a few odds and ends to add to my wandering monsters as well.

Also at the end of the month Lords Of War here in Oakville is hosting a Wizard & Apprentice painting contest.  Speaking honestly I never expect to do that well in painting contests but they are a great way to push yourself to get some stuff done by a fixed date.  The plan is to get the Soothsayer and Apprentice done before the end of the month.

BATMAN
On February 6th my local FLGS will be hosting their 1 year anniversary and is running some mini-games for people to participate in.  For the Batman event each participant is invited to bring in a single character up to 150 points.  I just picked up The Wonderland Gang so even though he's only 75 points I'm going to get the Mad Hatter done up to play with.

MALIFAUX
As part of the same celebration at Lord Of War on February 6th they will also be hosting an Enforcer Brawl.  This is basically a free-for-all where everyone fields a single Enforcer model.  I've got a bunch of Enforcers done but again this is a great push to get something new done.  I'm planning on painting up a Mature Nephilim that I will be needing for a Through The Breach campaign this year.

Well that's the plan.  Will I get it all done (for a change)?  I hope so.

-Jay

Sometimes the healing wizards could use a little extra healing help

Last night I finished my Apothecary for Frostgrave.  I decided to do a few things slightly different this time.  I went with a brighter colour palette than usual and did not paint him to match anyone else in my warband.

I also feel like he could be used as either a healer or some sort of merchant in a fantasy RPG.  It was another great addition to my miniature collection because even though I have a ton of figures he looks genuinely different from anything else in my collection.

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As an update to how my actual games of Frostgrave have been going I just completed  the third Thaw Of The Lich Lord scenario 'Loot The Cart'.  In a 3 player game I had the worst outcome I've had in a single game of Frostgrave to date.  All but 2 of my 10 models were taken out of action (including both my wizard and apprentice) and I failed to secure a single treasure counter.  To add injury to insult my apprentice got smacked in the face hard enough to bust his jaw so he now has a further -1 penalty to all his casting rolls.

I think this outcome really highlights the inherent balance of the system and how well it scales as a campaign game.  Stan beat me fairly badly in the previous game as well and so far the real impact is that his wizard is a few (3 or 4 I can't remember) levels higher than mine and he has a few more cool items than I do.  When we actually put models on the table the game still plays evenly and I don't feel in anyway over matched.

....now if I can just get the dice to co-operate in at least one game....

-Jay

Age Of Frost-mar?

The work on models for Thaw Of The Lich Lord continues!

I had originally purchased a box of GW Ghouls in preparation for a Mordheim game that never actually happened.  As I was starting  to collect models to do a Mordheim force GW announced Age Of Sigmar so I basically put the whole thing on hold.  I base-coated the skin thinking I would use them for Age Of Sigmar but never got around to finishing them (until last night).  For Thaw of Lich Lord Scenarios 3 and 7 as well as the wandering monster chart I need  some Ghouls and now when I circle back to Age Of Sigmar I will have a small unit for that as well.

The other day I ended up working from home while my daughter was feeling ill.  When I work from home I usually try to get a little work done on figs on my breaks and with this figure being heavily textured and monochromatic I was able to get it done in about 30 minutes total.  This guy is a Stone Construct for Frostgrave so he's adding on to my growing collection of random wandering monsters.

I'm now planning on playing Scenario 3 tomorrow so I need to get a move on and paint my warband's Apothecary!

-Jay

One more soldier and one more monster for Frostgrave

A day late my first two models of 2016 are done!

After my last game I lost 3 of my cheapo starting soldiers and replaced them with a knight (Boromir from my previous post), an Apothecary (that I hope to have done before Friday) and this Marksman.  The Marksman is a significant upgrade over the Crossbowman he's replacing so I'm really looking forward to seeing how he does.

I also finished my third construct getting my Small Construct done.  The constructs were the first 'proper' Frostgrave models I bought but somehow they slid down my list of priorities and I'm only just finishing them now.

Before my next game I need to get my Apothecary done, but I had also forgotten that I need to get at least 3 Ghouls done so I've got at least 4 models I need to complete before I can get to my Rangifers.

-Jay

Closing out 2015.....can we pretend it's still 2015?

I've been hobbying steadily but I've been super-slack about posting stuff on line lately.

I wanted to wrap up (and show) the last of the stuff I painted the last week or so with the goal of setting a clean slate for 2016.  My hobby focus has been on Frostgrave since I got back from B.C. and I'm starting to look at what I'm painting as possibly supplementing a D&D or Pathfinder game in the near future.

My friend Stan and I are trying to get all the scenery and models done that we need to play through Thaw Of The Lich Lord.  The next scenario on the schedule (we've already played through the first two) involves four cultists defending a broken down cart filled with their loot.  Sticking with my traditional lack of attention to detail I picked up a scenery pack for Malifaux with a broken down cart....not realising I had already bought one, so now I have two for when I need some extra scatter terrain for Malifaux.

One of the elements that is different with Frostgrave from a traditional fantasy skirmish game is that as warbands snatch treasure it can attract wandering monsters which function independently of the players' forces.  I have a fairly extensive collection of 'classic' fantasy gaming monsters however there are some uniquely Frostgrave critters I wanted to add to my collection.  To that end I got some Constructs (basically magic powered robots) which I thought were great because they broke with the traditional steam-punk look of most fantasy robots as well as a Snow Leopard and Ice Toad which basically call out that we're not playing in Middle Earth or The Forgotten Realms.

I finally got around to replacing my Bretonian Men-At-Arms figures with some proper Frostgrave soldier models.

In addition I've rounded out my force with a wizard (Malbeth The Seer from  GWs Lord Of The Rings line) and apprentice (Bretonian plastic from Warhammer).  Eventually those figs will also be replaced but for now they are my Thaumaturge and Apprentice.

Last but not least I touched up and rebased Boromir (again GWs Lord Of The Rings) to use as my knight.

For the first time in a few years I also got some models for Christmas so 2016 starts now!

-Jay