YOU are the hero!

Back in the day I was what is commonly known in RPG circles as a "forever DM"; that meant I got to run a ton of games but I never got to play as a player in the game.  For all my obsession with Dungeons & Dragons my most common outlet for having adventurers as an in-game character was Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.  Fighting Fantasy was also my introduction to the British art and gaming scene in the early 80s.

As much as I enjoy the solo gamebook experience it was like a new door opened when back during the original run of gamebooks a novel format version of a group play version of Fighting Fantasy was released.  Since then Arion Games has also published an Advanced version of Fighting Fantasy (which is great!).

I'm playing a Fighting Fantasy game this coming Tuesday and I need a miniature for it.  I kit-bashed an adventurer because I seem to always have trouble finding a miniature that is armed, and has adventuring gear but isn't wearing armour.

I started with an Oathmark Elf figure, added some arms from the Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago sprue, backpack from Victrix Napoleonic British infantry, coiled roper from Great Escape Games cowboys, and a head from a Warlord World War Z sprue.

I'm really happy with how this figure turned out.  He looks like he wouldn't be out of place in a Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones style setting.  I'd say I'll be able to use him for multiple other games, but let's be honest...I never re-use PC models...

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

  

Battletech: Hansen's Roughriders

 Earlier this year Catalyst Game Labs began releasing mercenary themed lance boxes for Battletech.  In addition to providing some cool new mechs they've themed the boxes around the play style of the factions represented.

The first of these boxes I was able to get my hands on was the Hansen's Roughriders battle lance.  The Roughriders are historically a fairly rough and tumble unit not given to the kind of finesse of say The Eridani Light Horse, or the trickery of the Snord's Irregulars.  As such their lance box may the most 'meat and potatoes' of all the Battletech lances, but to be honest I really liked the mix of battlemechs.

The lance's most recognizable mech is the Atlas.  The Atlas has long been the official (unofficial?) mascot of the Battletech line.  This brute is a 100 ton assault mech and in the earliest iterations of the game was the most powerful and heavily armoured mech available.

The new mech, and arguably the box set's best feature is the Penetrator.  The Penetrator is a newer 75 ton heavy mech that looks really fantastic and menacing, and also includes a pilot card for Archer Christifoli a significant and popular character in Battletech fiction.  On a person note I also decided to try out some blacklight neon paint I had for the searchlights and I'm REALLY happy with how the effect turned out!

Next up is the Enforcer, a highly flexible 50 ton medium mech that boasts a really balanced mix of mobility, armour, and firepower.  I'm hoping to add an Enforcer to my next force as well.

The final model is a new jumping variant of the 45 ton Hatchetman.  The Hatchetman was one of the first mechs introduced to the game to feature a dedicated melee weapon, so early in the game's history in fact that at the time of it's introduction there were no rules for such weapons and they were merely there for flavour.

That's it for now (after a lengthy absence) , but I've got a lot of stuff on the horizon so expect more regular blog posts from now until the end of the year!

Thanks for stopping by.

-Jay

Da Boyz Are Back In Town

 It's been more than a minute since I played some GorkaMorka, but it's 2023 and here we are.

I got my Nob, Spanner, and first 3 Boyz done.

HEY KIDS!  REMEMBER WHEN MINIATURE GAMES WERE JUST SILLY FUN?!

More GorkaMorkaing tomorrow.

-Jay

Sir Kullen Lorcan Oath Of Vengeance Paladin

 I am on an incredible run of painting miniatures for long running games and having them get killed in the first game they play in.

I am currently playing Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen (which so far is AMAZING by the way) and my initial character Sir Dane Lorcan was tragically killed in our first serious combat.  R.I.P. Dane.  This led to me needing to make a new character, and due to us being a small group I needed to play a fairly similar character to fill the frontline fighter role in the party, I decided to travel back in time to 1983 and unleash my inner 12 year old for the classic replacement character idea; my fallen character's brother looking for revenge!

Sir Kullen Lorcan is a Knight Of The Crown Oath Of Vengeance Paladin.

Sir Kullen is basically a bull in a china shop out for revenge against The Dragon Army.  I'm excited to see how he does.

Sir Kullen is yet another terrific WizKids model I got from my Friendly Local Game Store.  You should check out yours.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

Five Leagues From The Borderlands - The Civic Minded Six

 It's beginning to look like 2023 will be the year of games that can be played solo for me.  I am actually currently in the process of playing four (seriously FOUR?!) separate solo fantasy miniature skirmish/RPG games.

The first game up in the que is Five Leagues From The Borderlands.  Five Leagues is probably the most popular and well known solo game I'll be playing.  I am definitely still trying to find the game that appeals to me the most.  So far they all have strengths and weaknesses.  Five Leagues is fairly straight forward and rules lite (which I like) but in my opinion lacks flavour.  The campaign system is engaging but it feels to me like the campaign system should be bolted on to some other game?

For my Five Leagues warband I re-cycled two underused figures from previous D&D and Dungeon Crawl Classic games, and painted four new figures.  Let's meet the Civic Minded Six!

The leader of The Six is Sir Dane Lorcan.  Sir Dane is a WizKids Frameworks miniature with a head swapped in from the plastic Frostgrave Captains.

My favourite new character was Cheech my Feral Outsider.  He's a tremendous miniature and was highly effective in my first game.  In my second game?  R.I.P. Cheech.

Penelope Haberdasher was probably my most effective character snipping away with her crossbow and also filling in the underappreciated role of fashionista that every successful adventuring party needs.

My final hero level character is a reused miniature for Donal from a previous D&D game.  I only got to use Donal once in his D&D game before he was forced to retire for somewhat meta reasons.  I'm excited to use him in a bunch more games!  On an unrelated note; R.I.P. Donal.

In addition to my heroes, each warband starts with two followers, who are effectively lesser characters.  My first follower is The Penitent.  The Penitent is a Fireforge Games miniature that I had effectively as a backup character in a Dungeon Crawl Classics game.

My last character/follower is Mac.  Mac is a Wargames Atlantic celt model.  Mac was a moderately effective support character and I look forward to painting more of these cool models going forward.

It was nice to get some painting done, as well as scratching a bit of an old school RPG itch.

And as always I got all of the assorted miniatures from a variety of different companies through my friendly local game store.

Thanks for checking in!

-Jay

First scenery project for Rangers Of Shadow Deep

 Although there's still a week left in 2022 I'm getting a slightly early start on my planned gaming activity for 2023.  This past year has been a bit of a weird one for me in that while I still really enjoy painting miniatures and playing miniature games it's all gotten a bit stale for me.  I think the main reason for this is that my tastes haven't really changed or evolved much over the past 15ish years so my painting has gotten a bit repetitive.  This combined with challenges around my schedule and personal time have pushed me in what feels like a logical new direction; I'm going to try to play more smaller scale, but more 'complete' games.  By this I mean my current thought is that I'm going to paint far less miniatures in the coming year but build and paint a lot more purpose-built scenery for my games so that things look and feel more complete.  Given the challenges I've had actually getting out and playing games with other opponents my plan is to start off with games that have strong solo play, so my first two sets of projects will be for Rangers Of Shadow Deep (fantasy) and CQB (modern).

My first small project will be for Rangers Of Shadow Deep but will also potentially work for D&D and/or the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game.

Nest Trees.  The second scenario in the Rangers Of Shadow Deep rulebook requires some 'Nest Trees' which are the homes to some malignant giant spiders.  This is a great example of a scenery requirement in Rangers Of Shadow Deep which almost any player can easily add to their table.  If a player isn't interested in doing a spider themed tree they can easily use either regular unmodified trees or even a counter or cardboard cutout.  For me with my new plan, and also the fact that I like haunted forests as a game setting I decided to take some diorama trees and add; eggs, webs, and some partial corpses.

I think I went a bit too heavy on the web but overall I'm pretty happy with how these turned out.  For anyone wondering why I've started with the scenery for the second scenario its simply because I need a slightly larger space to build and photograph my intended scenery for the first scenario but I'm REALLY excited about getting to work on it.

Hopefully this is a new and fresh direction that will generate some fun new projects for me.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

Back To Stennard

 I recently got to return to Breaker Press' fantastic grimdark Stennard campaign.  Ironically after a year-ish away I returned playing one of the characters from the original funnel I played in the setting; Rhonda Eynion.

Rhonda is a first (almost second) level Cleric and is the conscience of a party that desperately needs one.

Being the moral center of the party Rhonda tends to jump in to save people and defend those in need.  The result of this is that she has slowly surrounded herself will a small entourage of NPCs that she is accompanying to their homes and relatively safe havens.

First up is Vela Correnwood one of the NPCs you are trying to save in The Precipice Of Corruption published adventure.  After rescuing Vela Rhonda and the party escorted her to her home at Hillwood Camp to recover her axe.  At this point Vela is filling the niche of a henchman/backup-PC.

While playtesting another adventure Nick is working on the group saved a couple of children that an evil witch in the woods was trying to consume.

Both children should actually be girls, but unfortunately I only had one female child miniature so I had to make do with what I had.  As an aside this is the 'Children' 2 pack from WizKids and I have to say it is one of the few packs of their miniatures I have gotten that I was actually disappointed with.  The figures are quite small (befitting of children) which is fine but for some reason this has translated into some incredibly shallow detail.  Both of their faces are virtually non-existent and the texturing on the boy's clothes is barely there.  Generally I really like the WizKids models but this pack is a rare miss for them.

The other great thing about these figures is that in addition to using them for Dungeon Crawl Classics I've decided I'm finally going to play some Rangers Of Shadow Deep (and maybe some Frostgrave) in 2023 and all of these figures will work well for those games.  The motivation to paint the children was actually as objectives for one of the first scenarios in the Rangers Of Shadow Deep book.  I also want to call out that North Star Military Miniatures official Frostgrave miniatures are a great line both for fantasy RPG miniatures in general, as well as specifically having a great assortment of female miniatures that break from the pin-up style of clothing and gear.

Here's the group making their way through the woods to...safety?

For anyone looking for a grimdark campaign setting with a real old-school feel I would highly recommend checking out the content from Breaker Press Games, all their current titles can be found at Breaker Press DTRPG 

And my miniatures, as always, can be purchased from your friendly local game store.  Please check them out and support local businesses!

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay