Let the descent into Avernus begin!

As I write this last weekend Wizards Of The Coast broadcast their D&D Live 2019 "The Descent" event and it was the first time since those events began I watched and kept up (more-or-less) live.  Although a number of cool new products were teased and previewed the centrepiece of the event was the new book; Baldur's Gate Descent Into Avernus.  This book looks like another D&D hardcover combo adventure/campaign book and blends a descent into the first level of the nine hells with some Mad Max diesel-punk elements.  For me personally this is great!  

When I think back nostalgically on my early adventures in D&D in the early 80s a lot of the real fun came from blending different elements into 'classic' fantasy backgrounds to give players a truly different experience.  Expedition To The Barrier Peaks (sci-fi) and Ravenloft (horror) are fondly remembered by most players of that era in spite of (or perhaps because of) their break from traditional western Tolkien-esque fantasy.  I got immediately excited when it seemed like WoTC was going to do something truly thematically different, and I can't wait for September to get here.

So I won't.

Watching the four main table streams from the event gave me some ideas for miniatures I'm going to need for the adventures and I decided to start working on them right away.

Before the first adventure of the event had even concluded I'd pulled out 2 Reaper Bones Vrock models I'd purchased with the intent of using for Curse Of Strahd and based them up and started painting.  The Vrocks are a pretty good starting point because although they are a classic D&D fiend, they don't look like most classically devilish or demonic fiends.  Vrocks are basically hellish vulture monsters that depending on party level can be either a real nuisance or a huge threat.

The Reaper Bones Vrock has a great pose that emphasises both it's large size and bestial ferocity.

I've got a pair of them because when I initially got them two was how many I needed for my initial intended purpose.

I also wanted to show them next to a traditional man-sized figure to again make note of their size.

I've got a few more fiends to paint up to get the ball rolling and then I think I might dig into my Games Workshop bitz to start creating some infernal warmachines.  In a perfect world I'd wait to start scratch building until I saw some rules but the world isn't perfect and I'm not the most patient modeller :)

-Jay