Night Goblins, a humble beginning.

Since we're doing a lot of Famine, Sword, & Fire lately - and we're doing some narrative campaigns, I've decided to start assembling some "single box" armies to use.  These will give us some more narrative options, allies, and unique units for various scenarios.  The idea is that each of these armies will fit in a single 11L "RUB" (Really Useful Box)...whereas my real armies (Chaos Dwarfs and Mercenaries) will end up with 3-4 boxes apiece.

 

These smaller forces will also be there to loan out to new players, etc.  The first unit is done, and I'm mainly rescuing eBay lots for this army.  It'll feature 3-4 units of night goblins, some trolls, maybe some squigs and a shaman or two.

 

 

Orc archers for the Chaos force.

While putting together the Battle Masters project, I've been snagging up some old warhammer fantasy monopose miniatures which were sculpted in the same era (likely by the same people!).

Some Orc archers to add some additional missile fire for the baddies.

 

The last picture is the Orcs as I received them from eBay.

FSF + Battle Masters = Convention FSF?

After running games at Siege of Augusta the past few years and CoastalCon when it's available, I'd like to be able to run a game of Famine, Sword, & Fire...but I don't trust "normal" people with my delicate miniatures.

I was trying to decide how I'd produce a bunch of miniatures which were robust, quick-to-paint and attractive "enough" for gaming.  Enter...eBay and old copies of Battle Masters.

I started collecting some second hand models, and ultra-sonic cleaning them in 99% alcohol and cleaning up a bunch of old mold lines and questionable assemblies...

So, to see if I have the motivation to really do it, I decided to start with some of the harder-to-paint minis: the Orcs.  They have more detail than most of the other ones.

While easy...painting up a ton of these guys was definitely boring.  I also am trying to snag any vaguely reasonable Warhammer monopose fantasy plastics from the early 90's.  (for those unaware: Games Workshop teamed with Milton Bradley to produce Hero Quest and later Battle Masters).  Battle Masters was made with GW sculpts but often with less detail and crappier plastic.

I added a set of Black Orcs I found on eBay for an "acceptable" price.

So this is the potential start to two opposing armies for use in demo games and convention games of Famine, Sword, & Fire.  If I can stomach painting more minis...I'll try to finish out the project.  If not, I'll find a way to use them or sell them off!

Games!: Famine, Sword, & Fire - and a new side project!?

Been running a bunch of games of Famine, Sword, & Fire lately.  Some pictures included from the last game.

In related news, I've decided I'd like to be able to run FSF (or a toned down version) at conventions in the future, but I don't want to risk my Dacians (which are lovingly painted and rather delicate), so how to build a quick "robust" pair of armies that I can field easily?

I decided to scour eBay and order several lots of Battle Masters miniatures from the 1992 board game.  They're mainly simple monopose miniatures, and simple/robust sculpts.  They "should" paint easy and give me two opposing armies I can run (while also hitting a nice nostalgia spot for older gamers).

The first batch from eBay arrived and I've been prepping them for recovery.  Removed all the stickers and bits...tossed them in the ultrasonic with alcohol and brushed them all with dish soap, etc.  Disassembled the ones (as these don't need glue).  I have some more batches en route this week.  When they arrive, I should have - more or less - two nicely opposed armies which I can hopefully paint in a reasonable amount of time.

May not be done for 6-months or more, but it'll be a fun nostalgia trip.

The Forgotten Scout Squad

 I forgot I was waiting for some decals to dry on this Space Marine Scout Squad from 2nd edition when I posted earlier.  Another five models (10 total) for use with Scrapheap and/or a possible 2nd edition 40K game we've been kicking around lately.

Oldhammer: Blood Angel Space Marine Scouts

Struggled to get a good picture of these guys for some reason, but a squad of nice old metals, recovered from eBay minis.

Slightly...rough when picked up off eBay.

Stripped, cleaned, re-based, repainted.

Thar be dragons...

Well, after a near disaster with the anti-shine, this is the finished cheapo ($8 shipped!) Hero Scape dragon that was simply rebased and repainted.  I'm happy with the result.  The anti-shine did it's random "we're going to discolour everything to a flat grey..." nonsense that occurs very rarely.  Of course it simply had to happen when I was flattening a large dragon model.  Some scale shots included.

The paint scheme...while a bit drab was inspired by an idea I had a long long long time ago for my fantasy world setting.  The idea of cave/cliff dragons which resided on the cliffs overlooking the sea.  They'd perch there pouncing on whales, large fish and other poor ocean-going vessels.  Hence the stone-grey colour scheme, a kind of camouflage as they clung to the cliff face waiting for a meal.

Some works in progress and more pics.

Here are some more photos of the dungeon beasties that are in progress.

Unable to stomach the prices for the beautiful Otherworld Miniatures bugbears I decided to gather a bunch of D&D prepaints and see if I could salvage them into something a bit nicer.  They've been equipped with new weapons and shields, removed from their bases and re-based.

Another late addition.

While the prepaints start off rather...underwhelming.  With a little paint, a nice base, and some minor adjustment to weapons and equipment, they can become very reasonable as seen below:

Men-at-Arms

   A couple of people had asked me about the men-at-arms I posted in my first post.  They are Gripping Beast Hirdmen mixed with a box of Fireforge Crusader knights on foot.  Luckily the FF/GB stuff is literally plug-n-play.  Identical scale, shape, arm mounts etc.  In the future I may grab some GB Arab archers, some FF mongols, some more crusaders etc.  I suspect combing a half dozen boxes you could creat some really genuinely cool stuff.

I really like the end result of combing the crusader and viking bits.  The figures end up being quite historical looking with minor differences.  These kind of mash-ups would work well in a near-historical setting like Game of Thrones etc. 

The beginning of a dungeon crawl...

So one of my current projects (without much of a concrete objective in mind...) is the creation of a dungeon and a dungeon's worth of suitable monsters.  This will be kept and used for pretty much any dungeon crawl or small fantasy skirmish I feel like gaming.

Scale: 25/28mm with 1" squares (using Dwarven Forge dungeon pieces) and 25mm bases up to about 75mm bases for larger creatures.

Inspiration: Older style, simple but charming figures.  I want some decent simplicity and retro look without going too retro (no button nosed gnomes in big flouncy shirts here...).  So a kind of D&D original look but without the 70's flair.

Game?: I may eventually produce a card-driven game to run at conventions (maybe not sell...).

Anyway, on with the pictures!

A group of Men-at-Arms for use as towns' guard, mercenaries or allies.  Gripping Beast Vikings mixed with Fireforge Crusaders.

 

Mantic Ghouls for use as ghouls, zombies and various unpleasant things.

GW LOTR orcs...very poor plastic sculpts (huge bits of unsculpted plastic on the minis).  Pretty disappointed considering how good many GW plastic kits are.  Will be used for goblins.

Wargames Factory orcs - not the best sculpts, but very nice to see something different.  You'll find no gigantic muscled green orcs here...I'm avoiding that "look" as much as possible.  Never been a fan.

Wargames Factory skeletons with some Mantic bits thrown in for good measure.  I like the skeletons okay but as with most plastic skeletons I fear some will break with gameplay.  Good thing I have more spares sitting in the box!

The start of our intrepid band of adventurers.  Otherworld Miniatures in the front rank (far preferred) and some "gigantic" Reaper miniatures in the back.  I'll keep adding to this bunch, as the characters will also serve double duty, standing in for evil characters or special NPCs etc.

Recycling the trash...

For many monsters and creatures I've found very cheap reasonably pre-painted miniatures from HeroScape, D&D, Pathfinder etc.  I've recovered several of these for use as they're decent figures (very soft on the detail unfortunately) but I like the look and they do rather well as monsters.  Most of the large creatures are based on 40mm plastic rounds, while normal figures are 25mm renedra plastic rounds.

A HeroScape troll was recovered, given a different look and based.

I really love the look of the D&D Ogre I found, so I picked one up, repainted, re-based and re-armed him.  Unfortunately my dip dried up without me knowing it, and I dunked him in goop...I managed to save it, but the overall miniature turned out poorly.  Still love the look of the guy though.

I can't afford lovely OW Minis bugbears at the moment so I started gathering up a handful of pre-paints from D&D.  They're all horribly painted and some of the sculpts are so bad I've thrown them out.  This fella is the first of five I'll be saving and refitting to look decent in the dungeon.  I'm pretty pleased with the end result.

More to come later...