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

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

Some odds and ends

Yesterday was one of those days I picked away at a few small projects and almost finished projects while trying to get some coherent writing done.  Nothing earth shattering here but one more figure I actually needed with a lot of urgency (played using him as my PC last night), and two more sci-fi scatter terrain bits.

First up; Flint.

Flint Stone is my character for Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  He is a member of the Hanna-tribe which of course makes him a Hanna-Barbarian (I'm a dad, I'm allowed to tell dad jokes!).  Anyway Flint is made out of the Northstar Frostgrave Barbarian box set with a Bolt Action backpack thrown on to complete the wandering adventurer look.

Flint did mostly pretty well in his first game until a short run of bad luck (literally, I couldn't make a single 'luck' roll) and I'm looking forward to playing more Fighting Fantasy in the near future.  I also appear to have begun collecting a small tribe of barbarians since last year. 

There's definitely one more Barbarian in my near future and then it will definitely be time to move on.

The other thing I realized late yesterday afternoon while prepping some more Broken Contract figures is that I had the two bases of oil drums I'd gotten with my two female Gen-Mods just sitting around and I could get them done quickly.

I actually tried something slightly different this time and I think it worked out pretty well, but it may have been just a bit too subtle to show up in my pictures.  For the oil drums I started off by dry-brushing them metallic (Lead Belcher in this case), then painted them with a watered-down yellow (Averland Sunset), and then I hit them with a super light dry-brush of the same metallic again.  This gives the effect of painted drums where the paint is wearing off but no necessarily super-rough or dirty.

So that's it.  I have a few more lingering almost finished figures I'd like to wrap up this weekend and then it's back to the wasteland.

-Jay

A short detour back to Saltmarsh

Hello all!

I've done a fairly good job lately of focusing on finishing miniatures I actually need for games I'm really going to play, which is super odd for me.  Having said that I've had a bit of a wish list in my head of models I either don't need at all, or at least won't need anytime soon.

A while back I was playing in a Saltmarsh game that due to the greatest obstacles any D&D game can face (scheduling and the real world) has been on indefinite hiatus.  In spite of that I've never abandoned the idea that at some point Garkas (my character) and I will get to return to Saltmarsh.

Previously I had painted my PC model; Garkas, as well as a pseudo-dragon and 2 NPC sailors.  Our last session had ended with us freeing both the pseudo-dragon as well as the sea-elf NPC Oceanus.  I had wanted to do up a miniature for Oceanus for some time but was struggling to find an unarmoured elf model with a spear and crossbow (ideally in plastic).  I've mentioned this a few times in the past while looking for other character models but it is often difficult to find models which are heavily armed but lightly armoured.  While browsing WizKids site I found a half-elf monk who basically looked right with the exception of the fact that he had no weapons.  I dug out my trusty Frostgrave sprues, nicked a crossbow and a spear and; voila!  Oceanus!

I'm super happy with how this figure turned out.  The pose looked really cool to me and he looks ready to fight without being in an overly dramatic stance.  It's also another case of adding a PC/NPC model that feels like he'll get re-used multiple times over the coming years.  Having finished Oceanus I'm now thinking about circling back and re-doing my sailor models once I finish my last few Animal Adventures baddies today.

Oceanus and all his bits and pieces came from my Friendly Local Game Store!

-Jay

A few smaller critters for Animal Adventures

The march towards Zoe and I playing Raiders Of The Lost Bark for Animal Adventures continues!

I got the last 2 PC/NPC doggies done the other day.  Tedric and Hartley are smaller (much smaller) dogs being a chihuahua and a french bulldog.

I went pretty basic with the paint jobs on these two but I'm still very happy with how they turned out.  Tedric in particular in my opinion definitely leans more to the fantastic side, largely be virtue of the look of the knife being carried in his mouth.  Until we actually play (hopefully this weekend?) this will be the last of the actual dogs for a while.

Having finished the dogs the next step was to get started on some rats which are the main antagonists of the adventure.

These two small rats are actually small add-ons on the Frostgrave Wizards 2 sprues.  It was nice to have a few rats to get started on.  I'm expecting to get a few more rats and rat swarms from my FLGS this Wednesday and then I should be able to get the last of the models done we need for our game.

-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
 

Spiders! Big Spiders!

One of the things I've been looking at lately when I need models for fantasy games is some figures that not only would work across multiple games but for multiple player audiences.

For Rangers Of Shadow Deep I needed some giant spiders but I'm also looking for some fun (but not quite chibi) looking models to use in my D&D games with my daughter.  So basically I wanted something with cartoonier proportions that looked a bit more unique.  I also decided I really wanted to get away from the classic spider colour-schemes of dark greys, browns or blacks.

I ended up getting a bunch of packs of Battleclaw monsters from Toys R Us (yes we still have those in Canada) on clearance.  These were great packs, and you'll see more of them in the next week or two, as they came with 2 monsters in each pack for less than a dollar.  The Battleclaw monsters have a vaguely Pokemon aesthetic which works for what I was going for and should be suitable baddies for my daughter to fight in D&D.

Colour-wise I wanted bright but not too bright and basically landed on Spider-Man's costume colours.

They were cheap, easy to paint, turned out well (I think) and still have more than enough size and mass to feel like a threat in a 28mm miniature game.

-Jay