Last Post of 2024!

A bit late, but here is a single picture from the Christmas Day game.

The above was taken near the end of the game. The tension had been ratcheting up gradually until finally it all hit the fan - the bogeyman, wraiths, wolves, AND wendigo all out on the table. 

The wraiths were super annoying (in my play tests and in the real thing). I just borrowed an existing monster from the rulebook - a spirit, I think. When killed they respawn 8" away. There is no way to actually kill them.

The party lucked out during the final rounds - I rolled poorly when checking against the threat level and the villains only recovered hit points once. By concentrating their attacks, the party was able to kill the wendigo. With the evil destroyed, the wolves were released from their trance, the wraiths were dispelled, and the bogeyman, who had profited from his lurking around the wendigo lair, took off deeper into the woods.

Huzzah!

While the players enjoyed the setup, figures, and terrain, (and 2/3 liked the game system) to my surprise, what really tickled them was the cotton "smoke" for the fired muskets. As a staple of Horse & Musket wargame pictures I have seen over my nearly 20 years of miniature gaming, I thought nothing of it, but for them it was revolutionary (no pun intended, given the game's period). 

I was reminded that it's easy to take for granted those things that we do or see every day and how much impact the littlest thing can have on someone who hasn't encountered it before. It also reminded me of something I read in a book long ago, about how, when you invite people to dinner at your house, you should make them what you would normally make, don't aim for fancy or different or to impress, because what is a typical meal for you will still be a treat for your guests.

In any case, I am quite satisfied with how it looked and played, and I look forward to playing it as a solo venture since Perilous Tales supports solo play out of the box and utilizing the "campaign" rules which allow for character advancement. But that's for 2025 - the Christmas game was the last game of 2024. 

Of course, I'm knee deep in my reviewing 2024 and goal setting for 2025 (for everything, not just hobby), so more on that will probably be my next post.

Until then, Happy New Year!

Play Test Pics and Merry Christmas!

Got in my last play test on Christmas Eve afternoon, so despite starting what seems like forever ago, it came down to the last moment!

The game covers two 24" x 24" tables. The first is all woods, but the second is a bit more varied and features a cave at the villainous end (as it's referred to in the rules).

The rock is not real. It's aluminum foil with thin layer of clay.

The orange glow is courtesy of an LED tea light candle. The cave is a tissue box glued behind layered cardboard and foam core. It's filled with cotton batting to diffuse the light.

Below is the Big Bad, a wendigo. 

If you were expecting a deer skull and antlers, that's not the traditional Algonquin myth, but the popular fiction version that took shape over the 20th century.

Something like this perhaps? I decided to make this just because. It's a little too tall and was described by a friend as a "glorious demonic angel", which I think suits it. It's a wire armature, clay and tissue soaked in 50/50 water and Mod Podge.

I'll paint this like the other monsters, but with the bone stuff as uh bones. But not until after Christmas sometime.

Speaking of, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Santa brings you whatever is on your list (if you celebrate or a nice day-off if not, and if you're working, well, i hope it's a quiet day at the very least)

Holiday Game Preparations Continue

Somehow, despite starting earlier than in years past, it is still coming down to the wire to get everything ready for the Christmas game.

First up, here are the finished captives and the last of the colonist militia types for this game (you can see their in-progress pictures on an earlier post)

The prisoners came out quite a bit better than I anticipated. The scout guy was harder to paint than the others since his pose blocked easy access to his clothing.

 Once those were finished, I started in on the monsters.

I had thought about building armatures entirely from wire, but then I thought, "Why not shortcut the process and start from a figure?"

 I have a pile of 54mm-ish blue Marx-style knights and this seemed like a good a use as any for them.

For the first creature I was going to make, i lopped of the arms and legs. Then I thought,"Why waste the legs?" Two monsters for the price of one!

It's just a flesh wound.

Here is the second one, with wire looped to form a claw and a start like hand, slathered in air-dry clay:

He's kind of cute. And kind of grotesque. Exactly the kind of thing that I find most disturbing.

Here both are, awaiting priming:

In their natural air-dried state.

Using more knights from the same pile, I lopped off bits - faces, arms, a head, and covered in strips of Mod-Podge soaked tissue to look like rags (you can see them to the left below)

Black, followed by a white dry brush (and for the clay guys, I added some glowing dots and some frosty blue dry brushing on the the hands) and voila:

Are the dots eyes? The actual monster? A lure? A magic missile weapon?

Here's a close-up of the headless guy to show off his head:

You can tell he has a helmet on, but my players won't notice.

Yesterday, a bag of 100 2" tall skeleton warriors arrived:

Bag O' Bones

And I promptly set about hacking a bunch of them to pieces. These will be used to make some scatter terrain for the final game board:

It's like watching a Law & Order episode.

100 is far more than I need for this project, and I will have enough left over to fill out a 750 point Age of Fantasy Vampiric Undead army (they have skeletons, zombies, and werewolves in addition to vampires). 

I might even replace the clay monsters in this scenario with some skeletons strategically covered with rags(tissue to hide the "ancient armor" bits). Since I think the bogey men (or whatever they are) kind of deserve their own scenario.

Still lots to do. So many more hack apart

I really want to make a cave lair to put at the Big Bad's board edge, but we'll see what happens. The Big Bad itself is far more important to the game than the cave.

Code Word: Santa's Got a Brand New Bag

Like a lot of wargamers, I purchase my own Christmas presents. I know I know, you can hear the piteous violins softly in the background.

But we do what we must and bear the terrible burden.

Now, I could wait until after Christmas to share my modest haul, but I am too excited by the last item pictured to wait.

So without further ado, here is what Santa will be putting under the tree this year.

First up is Space Marine Adventures: Labyrinth of the Necrons. 

After going most of my wargaming life without making any Games Workshop purchases, I've made one each Christmas for the last few years (I blame my son). The tradition will continue this year with another of their self-contained box games.

I really enjoy Fireteam, Space Marine: The Boardgame, and Blitz Bowl, and Alex (UpTheBlue) did a play through of this awhile back and it stuck with me. So, when it was on sale for Black Friday, I took advantage. 

 At the very least, at less than $20 USD for five GW miniatures it was a no-brainer.

Will I paint the figures? I might. I might not. If I paint them, I'll probably paint them all as Blood Ravens, despite the heresy of it all.

Next up is a bundle of new recruits for my lizard folk army. My goal is to field a 2000+ point 28mm force for Age of Fantasy that I can bring to the local One Page Rules gaming group meetups. This lot, plus several sprues of Wargames Atlantic lizard folk I still haven't touched, and a second Dark Heaven command set, also taking space in the Pile of Shame, will get me there.

The one in the baggie is possibly my favorite - it's an old Grenadier model:

He's a bit vertically challenged but I'll just build up his base so his head is about even with everyone else.

Though it's jumping the gun a bit, I have already decided his paint scheme will be based on the yellow-headed gecko (not to be confused with the yellow-headed day gecko)

I had considered picking up the Grenadier lizard-man champion with lance, which was one of the first miniatures I ever had (in a Grenadier box set, when I was a kid, around 12 years old- when I had started playing AD&D - from Kay-Bee Toys, a gift from my Grandma). But seeing it now - it isn't nearly as grand as I recall it. I suppose that's true of many of the things of childhood. 

That said, even as I type this I still want one, so maybe for my birthday!

For now, all of the above is hidden away - although I hope I can remember where I stashed them when the day comes. I'm quite good at forgetting where I put things.

Santa himself will probably gift me some cash this year, and so a book or two is probably in the cards as it wouldn't be Christmas without some new reading material, but I don't want to presume anything and spend money I haven't got.

Rest assured, I have quite a long list of potential titles! 

(the post title is from the movie, Elf, spoken by my favorite character - the toy department manager)

Christmas Game Prep Update

I've made a fair bit of progress on the painting for my Christmas Day game. 

First up, our heroes!

LOD/Barszo Colonial Militia and Pioneer Women

Note that, I am painting the bases white for this game, but I will probably paint them brown/beige to look more like dirt and mud afterwards, for more general use.

Players will be able to choose the figure they want to use, and then choose a pre-gen character card. Perilous Tales (the rules I'll be using - I have the free version but I see they have recently had their official release, so I will buy them!) really only has one stat (called Skill), and then hero types get special abilities, which can't be duplicated among the party. In a co-op game this gives everyone some spotlight time and for the RPGers, it gives them something to hang a personality on.

The game, as planned, will actually consist of three games of Perilous Tales, each set on a different layout, with different opposition. Think of each table as a scene/room and it makes a little more sense. I will allow the players to heal somewhat between scenes, and there will be some light role-play between them - remember, my group is really an RP group, not wargamers.

I may reduce this to two layouts but time is running out to decide!

In any case, the first table will feature a pack of ravenously hungry wolves OR depending upon my overall villain story, possessed wolves.

SCS Direct wolves (they used to be easy to find on Amazon, in their Fantasy Creatures II set, but I can't find that for sale anymore)

 On the paint table now are the captives awaiting saving and another militia member.

Women from LOD/Barszo Huron Captives set with another colonial militia figure.

The women figures are resin and have a fair number of divots and other odd artifacts of their creation. The pioneer women were most troublesome and the standing/shooting figure especially so. I covered her skirt multiple times with coats of Mod Podge to to fill in the pores (for lack of a better term). It worked well enough for my low standards, but those who care more about such things would do well to pick up some green stuff if they want to paint these figures.

Next up, finish painting those figures, possibly paint up some of the other pioneer women (to function as a witches coven, if I go that route), and some DIY figure making with wire and clay.

Blessed Sisters of the Grim Dark Future

Saturday night, I needed a break from painting figures the holiday game, so I returned to my Blessed Sisters.  

I have wanted a force of sci-fi nuns-with-guns since I first heard they existed, and I'm thrilled to have finished "stage 1".

I can now field a force for Grim Dark Future : Firefight of 300 points, give or take depending on which upgrades I take. FWIW, you can play GD:FF with more points but I find it takes way too long, since most units consist of a single figure, and units activate individually.

Canoness Veridyan (left) commands a detachment of Blessed Sisters

I still have five of the Battle Sisters to build and paint, but that's "stage 2" and a 2025 project. 

Between now and Christmas, I'll be churning out figures for the Christmas Day game. I'll share some progress on that in the next post. I know that I'm dragging my feet on the painting because making my own figures for the monsters seems a little intimidating but also because I now have multiple ideas for the adversaries - option paralysis as they say.

Christmas Day Game WiP

Last night, I began putting paint to figures for this year's Christmas Day game - a folk horror scenario set in winter, on the American frontier in the early 1770s.

 First up, a colonist:

 

I was torn on painting style, but knew that "toy soldier" would not cut it for this scenario and the horror atmosphere. For the first attempt, I went with a base color-wash-second base color approach. This figure is *not* done yet - I am just testing to see how it looks.

 

So far, I dig it.  

I still have the musket barrel, shoe buckles, powder horn and flesh to attend to. Although, I do like the flesh as it is - just a white base coat and Agrax Earthshade - there is as large area on his face where it pooled and needs to be brought back down to something a little less "fell in a mud puddle".

 

 Up next, the first of the antagonists (SCS Direct wolves, from one of their monster boxes):

I will be painting up 10 wolves and wanted something quick to paint, but that conveyed the menace they represent. 

Inspired by a suggestion Roger (of The Hobby Blog for Model railways, Wargaming and Military modelling) made in a comment on a previous post, I went with a dry-brush only approach, and the result is just what I had in mind.

For my own notes: Black basecoat, Hippo Grey dry brush, Bridgport Grey dry brush, White drybrush. Easch dry brush layer was progressively less heavy as well.

Frankly, I was quite pleasantly surprised by how much detail these figures have - it was impossible for me to see it on the unpainted figure. So, I had expected the dry brush to yield, well, not much.

Eyes (maybe, and if so, in something unnatural) and basing and I will call these done. And then just 7 more to go 

My hope is to knock out the manfactured figures rather quickly over the next week, so I can have the rest of the time to make some home-made monsters and do any necessary terrain acquisition/creation.