I'VE GOT A FEVER! AND THE ONLY PRESCRIPTION.....is more Owlbear!

The funny thing about miniature painting as a hobby is sometimes you'll think you are "done" something, or you have "enough" of something...that's never actually true.

After my most recent Owlbear run a friend pointed out that I didn't have the super-fantastic Gale Force 9 Owlbear, and then he sent me one.

There is so much to like about this model I barely know where to start.  One thing that separates the Gale Force 9 Owlbear from the other models currently on the market is they've gone much heavier on the feather texture as opposed to the bear fur.  Personally I really like this as it makes the creature feel more alien and strange than even the idea of an owl/bear hybrid is to begin with.  The one bear element that the model has retained that I really like is the unbelievably dangerous looking claws.

Overall this is an amazing model that has tons of texture and is a simple joy to paint.

At some point in the not too distant future I see an encounter with a ton of Owlbears attacking a town or village my PCs are camped out in.

Okay...so I think I've now...actually...exhausted all the Owlbear model options currently on the market...again...for now.

-Jay

Liam The Sorcerer Druid

Today's addition is a new character model for an upcoming Ravenloft game I'm hoping to play in.

One of the things I really like about 5th edition D&D is how subtly flexible the system really is.  It doesn't (at the time of this writing) have  the seemingly limitless specialised character options previous versions of the game had but it's surprising how many truly unique character types you can create either by use of the feat system or through creative multi-classing.

Years ago I ran a Ravenloft (2nd edition) game that centred around one of my favourite adventure/campaign/box-sets of all time; Castles Forlorn.  Castles Forlorn has tons of stuff in it that really appealed to me; ghosts, vampires (sort of), a Scottish highland theme, and time travel!  I haven't touched the material in years but when a friend suggested a 5e Ravenloft game with characters native to Ravenloft I pulled out my Castles Forlorn book (a reprint of the original content from DMs Guild) for inspiration.  I decided on a red-headed Druid.  In Forfar (the land of "Forlorn") red-heads have a traditional innate magic ability.  I decided to replicate this in 5e by having my character have started life out as a wild magic sorcerer before becoming a true Druid.  This will be my first experience both playing a multi-class character as well as trying the multi-class spellcaster rules (until my Saltmarsh character Garkas levels up again....).

For my miniature I stared with another Games Workshop Mordheim human and once this time added a head and arms from the Frostgrave Sailor sprue.  I also added a backpack because at this point adventurer miniatures without backpacks just look wrong to me.

So that's Liam ready for action.  He won't be nearly as powerful as other members of the party right off the bat but I'm hoping he's interesting to play and should be different than anything I've played before.

-Jay

Generic Brit Fantasy Warrior Miniature

(least inspiring post title ever)

Usually when I paint a single miniature it's either because it's something I need for a game or its some sort of cool critter that I don't have but wish I did.  Today's addition is neither of those things.

I might be trying out the Advanced Fighting Fantasy rules (or I might not)...

I might need a replacement character for my current Warhammer Fantasy Role Play game (or I might not)...

I might need an additional sword armed warrior for Frostgrave and/or Rangers Of Shadow Deep (or I might not)...

But in any event if I need figures for any of the things listed above, they're all basically one figure.  A friend recently hooked me up with 2 sprues of the old Empire Militia/Mordheim Human figures so I had a good base to work up from for something slightly different from a traditional D&D 'sword and board' style fighter.

In addition to the Mordheim sprues I used a head from the Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago sailor sprue and added a backpack from some Napoleonic-era soldiers I had kicking around.

I really like this figure because he looks and feels a bit more like an adventurer collecting his gear as he goes and bit less like an optimised RPG character.

I can't wait to figure out what game I actually painted him for :)

-Jay

The Fiend is currently accepting applications

I've been running a couple of D&D games lately but haven't been playing in as many.  The one game I have been playing in semi-regularly is about to get an upgrade!

A friend decided to run a group of us through the original U series of AD&D modules using the current 5th edition rules set.  That first module series from TSR's UK division consisted of; Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh, Danger At Dunwater, and The Final enemy.  We had just concluded the first module in the series (Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh) when Wizards Of The Coast announced their next campaign book is Ghosts Of Saltmarsh, which is apparently both a 5th edition update of the original trilogy along with a bunch of new material for supporting nautical adventures.

Coming out of our last session my character, Garkas, had begun the process of recruiting sailors to his cause.  His first two recruits were a pair of brothers from Saltmarsh but I'm sure more loyal followers lie in his future.

Doing these figures also gave me the opportunity to use my new green stuff roller that has wooden boards as it's texture.  I really like how these turned out and even though I'll be sticking with cobblestones for most of my fantasy bases my revised Garkas model (Captain Garkas?) will definitely use this basing style as well.

For my first two sailors (I'm sure I'll be adding more soon) I used the plastics for Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago.  With the expansion of the Saltmarsh gaming material I'm super glad to have gotten these as I think a bunch more sailor models are in my future.

This also might be the push to get off my butt and move from Felstad to the actual Ghost Archipelago and get some more games in using the Frostgrave rules.

-Jay
 

Catching up on fantasy RPG figures

Today was a bit of an assortment of figures for three different fantasy RPGs in currently playing-in/running but I've also got an eye to their utility for Frostgrave and Rangers Of Shadow Deep.  Its always nice to get a few different things done as even if its only three figures it feels like three entire projects.

First up I'm playing my second game of the new/current Warhammer Fantasy Role Play tonight and I muddled through without a miniature for my character last week.  Meet Jurgen the Grave Robber.

Jurgen is a Reaper miniature.  Surprisingly it's very difficult to quickly find miniatures for a lot of the character options in Warhammer Fantasy Role Play.  I suspect I need to build up a pool of WFRP figures as well as Dungeon Crawl Classic funnel miniatures, basically rough around the edges lower class fantasy civilians.  Aside from the figure I have to say the current version of WFRP is (in my opinion) the best version of the game to date.  I always liked the idea of the original but the system, especially character advancement, was so crunchy it always felt like more work than it was worth.  The current version maintains a lot of that old-school Games Workshop feel including some of the core ideas behind character advancement but simplifies it to a far more manageable level.  Hopefully Jurgen has a long future of murder-hoboing ahead of him.  Jurgen will also work really well as a PC or NPC for my Ravenloft games.

Next up is my (temporary) updated Garkas miniature.  Garkas has hit third level and I chose Pact Of The Blade, so now he is armed with an ethereal magical battleaxe.  I also added some hair in preparation to transition to another miniature after my next session or two.  I've already approved kind of a weird idea with my DM that will require replacing the entire figure when I hit level four.

This is really just a bit of fresh paint on my existing figure.  I redid his axe and added some hair.  I still really like this miniature but I'm excited about the next step in Garkas' evolution. 

Lastly is a figure I'm not ready to be very specific about yet.  She's an NPC for an upcoming adventure.  More on this shortly.  In the interim she will probably also be joining my warband for Rangers Of Shadow Deep.

The only downside with this miniature is it's the latest victim of me trying to paint eyes while I've got a minor hand strain.  The figure is one of the new Frostgrave plastic Soldiers.  I absolutely love these miniatures for a multitude of reasons:
1.  They're plastic
2.  Multi-part with most D&D weapon options
3.  Female figures that don't fall into "chainmail bikini" territory
4.  They fit really well with winter themed adventures

That's it for now.

-Jay

Zoe's World - Skeleton

After another brief sabbatical from the hobby Zoe asked me about painting some more figures from out of the blue last week.  At the conclusion of her last batch of painting I had her pick out another group of models so I could prep them ahead of time and this worked out great!  It meant as soon as she felt like painting I already had 5 models based and primed and ready for her her to go.

Zoe's painting options were; Human Female War Cleric, Griff-hound, Medusa, Orc or Skeleton.  She chose to start with the Skeleton but she did manage to make a bit of progress on the Medusa as well.

The skeleton is a Reaper Bones model and I have to say for a small very inexpensive figure it was really good.  All the depth of detail was fully realised and in spite of multiple small-narrow points on the model there was virtually no bending out of the package.

Although the Skeleton is a far simpler more basic model than a lot of what Zoe has painted in the past painting it actually show a tremendous amount of growth and learning on her part.  She drybrushed the Skeleton proper and for her first time did not go overly heavy on the paint during a drybrush.  She also chose a light pink colour for the shield which required multiple (four or five, I can't remember) thin layers of paint to get a consistent colour.  Compared to her previous pastel coloured Unicorn you can really see improvement in her technique which yielded a smoother crisper result.

She's going to have quite the eclectic model collection if she ever decides to jump in and start playing miniature games.

-Jay
 

Labyrinth Of Thorns (contains encounter spoilers)

This past Monday (Family Day here in Canada) I got together and ran a group of friends through Ashley Warren's excellent adventure; Labyrinth Of Thorns.

I'm playing in a couple of semi-regular D&D games but this particular group has basically been getting together to play holiday themed one-offs.  We started coming out of Christmas playing Winter's Splendor (also by Ashley Warren) and after thoroughly enjoying it and looking for a Valentine's themed adventure we were all super-happy to find a suitable Valentine adventure written by the same author.

If I can get slightly review-y for a minute I'd just like to start off by saying that Labyrinth Of Thorns is an excellent adventure.  It's contained to a specific fixed area which keeps players from going too far afield from their central goal, has a fantastic villain with cleared defined motives, and has really vivid flavour text and descriptions that make it easy and rewarding for both DMs and players to immerse themselves in the story.
I would wholeheartedly recommend Labyrinth Of Thorns to anyone looking for a terrific and rewarding adventure that mixes puzzles and problem solving with some challenging combat encounters.  It's available on DMs Guild.

Now on to the figures (because I'm me and that's my thing).  Obviously I can't show figures without potentially spoiling some of the encounters so.....spoilers ahead.

First up we have our intrepid band of adventurers.

I didn't paint most of these models, and unfortunately Kim's Gnome Sorcerer got a bit washed out by my flash but as you can pretty much figure out this was a pretty motley collection of "heroes". 

As an aside the funniest moment for me when the characters introduced themselves was that I was suddenly struck by the fact that my friend Jay's half-orc Ranger was pretty much Dan Harmon's character from HarmonQuest, which was only made more funny when Jay told us he didn't watch HarmonQuest and really wasn't familiar with the characters on it.

One of the first encounters was with a group of Vine Blights.

I'm super excited about WizKids doing Blight models as I have needed them forever for Curse Of Strahd and forgot how prominently they featured in The Sunless Citadel as well.  I basically painted the models brown, then green washed them, then gave them a drybrush of their original brown colour.  Simple but effective and really quick to get done.

One of the next encounters was with a Harpy.

I really struggled with this one  as I generally paint miniatures with an eye to using them in games with my daughter so  prefer more of a PG look and vibe to my figures but the Harpy choices available on short notice were this Reaper miniature or basically nothing.  I'm happy with how she turned out but if I was going to run this adventure again I would probably invest some time into replacing this miniature.

One of my favourite encounters and some of my favourite models to paint for this adventure were the 3 Spectres.

For the Spectres I used some of my Age Of Sigmar miniatures along with the technical paints Games Workshop produced specifically for painting ethereal miniatures.  Not only do I really like the look and feel of these miniatures, it was a great reminder that I should go back and paint some more ghost-pants for my Age Of Sigmar games.

Not every encounter in the adventure is meant to be hostile and the players were able to enlist the help of a sympathetic ghost named Ophira.

Ophira showed up with the intention of warning the group off from their encounter with the Spectres but one of them jumped the gun and they started mixing it up right away.  She was however able to help the group in their final battle before unceremoniously meeting her end.

And finally the adventure's big-bad(s); Rafael The Paladin and his pet Chimera.

These were also really fun and rewarding miniatures to paint and are from Reaper's Bones line.  Rafael is a really cool sword-and-board style warrior and instead of the colour choices listed in the text of the adventure I chose to paint him to match my cleric and paladin of Trithereon with the thought that I could possibly use them as the core of a warband in another game down the road.

The Chimera was another 'classic' D&D monster I didn't have in my collection so it felt great to finally get one done.  This figure was a bit of a surprise for me because when I looked at it in the pack the detail looked a little soft but as soon as I started to get paint on it I realised it actually had a lot of deep texture on it.  I'm really glad to add the Chimera to my repertoire of D&D monsters.

And there you have it.  A well written adventure, populated by some pretty cool miniatures enjoyed by a  great group of players.  That just simply felt like D&D done right!

Now I guess this means I need to start looking for an Easter themed adventure?

-Jay