Interlude (Part 9)

Not much going on over here due to health issues. (again)

I did manage to get a game in with my mate Stewart of Hail Ceasar to help him prepare to demo the game at KublaCon in May. He used Dark Ages vikings and Saxons for the units, but the game was just fine regardless.

The rule as a whole were fun, lots of pushing units back and forth during combat and trying ones best to batter them down until they run away. Only thing I thought was a bit lacking was there was no removal of casualties (A whole movement tray is removed once a threshold was reached) so really the use of minis in this game wasn't even strictly required.

The two forces face off. The upper Saxons had hanged the Viking' Lord's son and revenge was required to be meted out!

Skirmishers on the left sent some helpful arrows at advancing Saxons but ultimately dissipated in a red mist once drawn into real-men's combat.

My dice were not with me this day and so the rest of my left flank ran off in the same way my Skirmishers had done previously.

On the right I was doing better, though there was a LOT of stubborn defense on both sides. 

The Viking Lord at the back of my men I think died twice in this game..... Oof. 

In the end the Saxons brushed the Viking nuisance away and the day was there's.

So after this game I was all hyped up on Dark Ages gaming and decided that I wanted my own collection to be able to play, though far smaller in scale than what you see in the above pictures. Something closer to Saga or Lion Rampant skirmish games - so I bought an OOP Gripping Beast Jomsviking 6 point starter set off Ebay on the cheap. Yep, the paint mountain just grew by 37 more warriors.... ~_~

A pic of all of them - each sculpt individual and minimal mold lines (Which I was overjoyed at) during basing. Only gripes about these figs is that I had to drill holes through their fists to be able to put spears in their hands and that their spears are cast in white metal, not more durable brass rod.

My friend and I both got cheap copies of the new Star Wars: Armada capital ships battles game starter set. More my style than X-Wing as it appeals more to my megalomaniac side. So once we get the basic game down, expect some batreps in the near future.

Lastly, for those who made it this far, to recuperate the hit my bank account took buying these latest purchases, I have some of my old Warhammer 40K 1980's Imperial Guard and Squats up for auction on Ebay. Feel free to jump onboard and help me keep my wife happy! :)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/daiharries76/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

And now for something completely different...

Sometime later this year I plan to run the 4th Chapter in my roleplay group's long running Barbarian rpg (Using the Pathfinder rules set). It all started with fellow group member Frank having a hankering to get in some Conan/Frazetta-esque type escapades for a few game sessions that turned into a campaign. We then played something else that escapes my memory and he ran Chapter 2 in the same setting, only with younger characters (Mine was the son of my original character.) in a modified version of the Pathfinder Kingmaker campaign. Once we finished off that part, then Gregg took the helm and swung the whole story away from the Kingmaker campaign and sent us into an equally exciting storyline with invading forces from the East and betrayals at the highest echelons of society.

Now in my own campaign, I intend to fast forward the storyline once more by 30 or so years and set it in a part of the Kingmaker map that had yet to be explored. For this, there will be many miniatures required (Because fights in rpg's this day and age are easier to keep track of that way) for npc's, bad guys and also the player characters (That I intend to pre-generate to keep them in line with my planned story.) and that means I get to make an earnest effort into chipping away at the unpainted mountain.

For starters, here are some Goblins and Hobgoblins. I'm not that much of a fan of the green-skin look to my Goblinoids, so I went with an older orange and brown (Respectively) colour for these.

Gob's in the front rank, Hob's in the rear. (Don't read too deeply into that)

Goblins are from an 1980's TSR Monster Tribes set put out for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

I tried to make all the fur look like it's the pelt from some sort of spotted predator.

The Hobgoblins are a mix of actual Hobgob's from the same boxed set and some 1987 Ral Partha (I think) Orcs. They were all similar in size so I felt they could all mix in quite easily.

To show they are from the same unit as the Goblins, these have the same Red shields with Crescent/Spot designs clumsily slapped on. Hashuuk the White Crescent is their boss and will feature in a later post.

Whilst I was working on the above, my son was doing his usual and working wonders with Fimo, creating this Plague Bearer to look like the old 80's/90's  style. :)

Also, yesterday I finally bashed out these two Ruins terrain pieces for my 15mm wargames!

Excuse the ugly burner things - these pics were taken late last night and the cooker hadn't been properly cleaned.