A Bit of a Mish Mash

Contrary to my usual tendency to wait until the last minute, I've begun working on my Christmas day game. For a change of pace, it will have nothing to do with Christmas itself, and everything to do with the harsh reality of winter (with a heaping scoop of supernatural activity added) on the American frontier in the early 1770s.

Inspired by The Silver Bayonet, at least in concept, I'm preparing a colonial America horror game - my take on the British tradition of Christmas season ghost stories. For rules, I have settled on a free set that so far in my tests seems well suited to the genre. They do require some effort to grok, since they are a beta version: Perilous Tales. That said, they seem easily teachable to my players who have little experience with wargames (other than my previous holiday games).

Figures have been acquired - here are the photos from the eBay seller:

Technically they are AWI militia from Barzso/LOD, but they will do for settlers.

 

Frontier women from Barzso/LOD

 

I may have anywhere from 3 - 8 players so those two lots will cover my bases. 

 

What I am undecided about is painting. I know a lot of people clutch their pearls at the idea of unpainted figures, or horror or horrors, mixing painted and unpainted, but I grew up with unpainted plastic soldiers - as is often discussed, this is the typical route in the US, green (and later, tan) plastic "army men", not painted figures. 

 

So, I prefer it for 54mm figures for the pure nostalgia of it. Which is why my 54mm WWII collection has been cleared of almost all the painted figures. But I digress.

If I do paint them I will go for a more "grimdark" approach than "toy soldier", since I want to convey the game's atmosphere through the physical components.

 

And speaking of grimdark, my Sisters of Battle / Blessed Sisters have been started.

For the Emperor.

This represents half (in terms of model count) of my starter 300 point Grimdark Future: Firefight team. It is clearly a WiP shot - there's quite a few more steps in the process to go. 

I'm following Sonic Sledgehammer's tutorial for Our Martyred Lady, in large part. He is by far my favorite painting tutorial creator on YouTube - he sounds very friendly and is very encouraging,  his painting steps are accessible to us mere mortals, and he's not afraid to make a painting error on camera.

Yesterday, our family and friends D&D group started in on act three of a campaign set in Ravenloft (I play a "business man" who is really a thief specializing in the liberation of rare books from private collections). 

It had been so long since the end of act two that most of us had forgotten nearly everything. Our DM did an admirable job at summarizing it all. There was no combat in the session - just role play - which I thought would irritate my son, but he dove into his character head first and provided the most enjoyable moments during the negotiations with Baba Yaga.

Finally, tonight I will be playing game three in the 2024 Blitz Bowl season.