The good, the bad, and the ugly…

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Hi folks, I got back from my camping trip last Friday, and I’m still absolutely knackered – turns living in a field with two lively kids is hard work! We all had a great time, but it’s good to be back in civilisation… I really missed central heating, hot running water, my wife, and (most pertinent to this blog) my paints! Luckily, I have a number of minis based and undercoated, ready for a quick painting splurge, so I had a good session over the weekend and cranked out 3 additions to my mook squad/PDF… a series I am calling ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly’ for reasons that should become clear…

First up, ‘The Good’. This is an old (1987) Citadel piece produced under license for a roleplaying game called ‘Chainsaw Warrior’. He’s quite a ‘flat’ sculpt, which is fairly typical of the time, but I quite like the little fella… He’s properly tooled up for action, and he brings some much-needed heavy fire support to mook-squad:

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Next up we have ‘the bad’… This is a piece from the 1991 Adventurer range, and he is a really odd sculpt – the folds in the cloth are quite soft and puffy, and he has a face like a witches tit. That said, he actually painted up quite nicely! And then I decided to try and do some OSL for his glowy sword-thing… (for some reason, I thought that glowing swords of light might be a catchy idea in a sci-fi setting…don’t know why). I’m less than pleased with the result – it’s not what I had in mind at all, but I’ll live with it for now and see if I can fix it up at a later date. Anyhow, he’s on the team to bring some leadership to mook-squad:

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Finally, we have ‘The Ugly’. This is another old (’87 again I think) Citadel piece produced under license for a roleplaying game called ‘Paranoia’. This is a really odd sculpt, with an almost medieval design to the helmet which just leaves the guy’s snaggle-toothed mush hanging out… judging from what we can see of his face, it’s probably a good thing that the bulk of it is covered up! He’s quite lightly armed and equipped, so at some point during the painting I decided to appoint him the role of Medic, and it is in this capacity that he joins mook-squad:

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I have a couple more figs that are undercoated and ready to add to this group, (and I suspect that the group will grow even more over time), but here’s a shot of the whole crew as it stands:

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So, as well as a frenzy of painting, I also found time to work on a little piece that I’ve been quietly putting together for a little while. There is still a way to go, but he’s ready for a sneak preview…

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He’s based on the rather excellent ‘Slaughter Priest’ mini for AoS, combined with many and various ad-mech bits and bobs… I have no idea what to use him as – pit slave most likely, but maybe part of a bAd-Mech warband or something similar… Oh, and sorry, but no prizes for guessing the inspiration here ;-)   Anyhow, that’ll do for now, have a good week chaps, good to be back.

Frostgrave reinforcements

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Hello chaps, super quick update from me today – after my last game of Frostgrave I managed to roll up a ‘magic crossbow’, but didn’t have a model to represent it! I had a quick rummage in the leadpile and saw some possibilities with an old Citadel chaos thug, (the one with a brace of pistols), so I set about him with snips, file and filler. Playing to the techno side, I tried to suggest that the crossbow was some kind of compressed air powered device in order to set it apart as a ‘magic’ item. I got him finished earlier today, just in time for a cheeky little game this evening, so I thought I’d get a quick post in to show him off. I chose to paint his legs up as if he had tights on rather than have him bare legged… I couldn’t resist painting his pants up in leopard skin, (it’s sad, I know… but I couldn’t resist!). A few bits and bobs were used to make up the crossbow, and his right arm was transplanted from an earlier chop job on a Marauder thug… I wanted to include arrows somewhere, but I didn’t think about the discrepancy of having flights on the arrows in hand, but none on the crossbow bolt until painting… hopefully no-one will notice… You didn’t notice, did you? :-/   The rest of the painting was as per the rest of the warband, including his warpaint… Anyhow, here he is:

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This will be my last post for a while, (sorry impRebelOrk!), I’m away on a camping trip with the kids next week so I’ll be off-grid for a while. I’ll catch you homosapians on the flip side!

Frostgrave first impressions

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Hello chaps, quick post from me today… So, I had my first ever game of Frostgrave on Monday night, and what a laugh! I didn’t do much in the way of recording a blow-for-blow account, (too busy figuring out how to play!), but I can tell you that it is good fun. I think both Ross and I were quite conservative throughout – Ross lost 2 chaps while my Warhound bought the farm, and we ended up with a 3-3 draw on the loot front. Our wizards/apprentices never even set eyes on each other, so we were being over-cautious I think :-)   Highlights were Ross ‘Leaping’ a thug up to claim treasure from a very high ledge, only for me to ‘Crumble’ said ledge out from under him, (and then the falling, the screaming and the dying), and Ross’ wizard killing my Warhound with one hefty whack of his staff.

Objectively, it seems rather easy to play for a draw in a standard game, and that was a little disappointing… We realised that we were on for a draw pretty early on, so we pretty much went for damage limitation after that. I think we’ll be going for some scenarios next time to make it more interesting. The game mechanic itself is pretty slick, and the d20 roll can really chuck out some crazy results. Magic, and the use of it is key to the game (duh!), so choose your spells wisely, and don’t be afraid to get stuck in! We only managed one mook-fight, and apparently archers are pretty ineffective…

One big surprise was how much fun we had with all the ‘out-of-game’ stuff, (we decided to start a campaign, so we did all the injury rolls, treasure rolls, etc. right after the game). All in all, despite the ‘pick up and play’ billing, it is quite a rich game with plenty to think about on the strategy side and a fairly simple mechanic that is easy to get you’re your head around and that doesn’t get in the way of play. My warband is already expanding, because I rolled up a ‘magic crossbow’ as one of my treasure items, so (of course) I needed a crossbow dude… with crossbow that looked like it might be +2 better than a regular crossbow… in a techno-barbarian style…  I had a quick rummage in the lead-pile for a mini that fit the feel of the warband last night, and then got busy with the cutting, the gluing and the sculpting:

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Compressed air-powered crossbow with sniper scope? Yeah, that’s got to be +2 better than a regular crossbow, right? Now, to get him painted for the weekend! :-D