Frostgrave Warband: Badgers!

I feel I am making good progress at getting my Frostgrave project closer to the tabletop and our first game. Tonight I finished up another warband -- Splintered Light Miniatures 28mm Badgers. These are some really nice figures, I feel. Unfortunately, four of them were the same pose. So, I put my skills to the test on making them look different. I think I did a pretty good job at giving them the appearance of variety.

The Badgers' Heritor leader, left, and their spellcasting Warden (and familiar) right

 First up, are the warband's leader (Heritor) and its Warden (spellcasters). The leader is the guy on the left with the giant morning star held over his head. Although the lighting in my photo doesn't show it, his surcoat is a deep purple. I actually snagged this miniature from my friend Keith Finn in a trade because it looked like the perfect leader figure for this warband. Alongside him is my favorite figure of the warband (or should I say figures?). I love this Badger pointing as if he's casting a spell or about to hurl a blast of magical energy towards an enemy. What makes it all the better is the tiny, unclothed badger in a mirror pose. This small badger was a giveaway from David McBridge of SLM, tossed into a purchase I made at a convention. What better figure for a tiny familiar than this one? As soon as I got these figures out in preparation for painting, I thought I had to put the two of them on a combined base. He has magical symbols painted on his lavender tunic, with the largest one on the back (which you can't see in this pic).

A Badger archer and axeman investigate my newly-produced ruins pieces looking for abandoned treasures

One of the modifications I did to the figures was add a bow strapped to the back of one of the Badger Axemen. As you can see in this picture, I did a very medieval looking surcoat over the armor that the figures wore. Some of the armor I painted in bronze mail, the others in steel chain. I gave them a checkered pattern on their surcoat, which I thought turned out fairly well. You probably can't tell from these iPhone images, but there is highlighting in each square, as well. The other badger, in yellow and black, was also slightly modified. I converted his double-bladed axe into a single-bladed one. I know, not the most labor-intensive modification, but it does give him a slightly different appearance. Hopefully, with the different color schemes they'll appear less uniform on the tabletop.

I converted the spearmen on the right from the axemen on the left - I like how it turned out!

Finally, the most fiddly of my conversions -- the spearman. I snipped off his axe and added a spearhead to the top and extended the axe handle to the base. It is every so slightly crooked, but then again, miniature spears made from soft metal often end up that way as wear and tear from using the figures! I like how the slight lean forward of the pose looks as if he's resting on the spear, supporting some of his weight. The red, white, and silver pattern is fairly medieval looking, and I like how it turned out, too. His companion axeman in blue and yellow is the only one of the four axe poses that is completely unmodified.

I'll be offering up this warband to my players to use in my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago campaign. I definitely like how these figures look. They are some great examples of Splintered Light Miniatures quality poses and castings. Next up on the painting desk is some more terrain -- scratch-built ruins using the Hirst Arts block that turned out really nice!

Christmas ads for First Command Wargames

I had fun making these up -- Christmas advertisements that we plan to post on Facebook and other places. Hope you enjoy them!

Paleo Diet: Clever Use of Fire!

An idyllic day in Cave Man world...about to be shattered by man and his newest tool - fire!

So, we decided to try Paleo Diet again, now that we understood (or think we understand) the helpful benefits of fire when fending off the attacks of nasty beasts we are hunting. Each of the five players had two hunters and one dog. All of chose to have one of our guys armed with fire, while the some chose bows or spears for the other hunter. I decided to give a club a test, considering it was a +1 to hit creatures (the problem being you have to move into contact, unlike the spear which you can shoot at Short range and the bow at Long).

Objective Number One - a rocky outcrop with a pack of four sabertooth tigers

Keith set up a board with a rocky outcrop on one end -- the lair of a family of four sabertooth tigers. He said the predators had been snatching the tribe's infants and young, and the womenfolk had demanded we come back with their skins or no fun around the campfire tonight -- or any other night in the near future! Mike W and Allen were dispatch to tackle the sabertooths, while Joel, Mike S, and myself were to bring down some bison from a herd that had entered our hunting lands. The herd, we noticed, was being stealthily stalked by a shortnose bear and a pack of wolves. So, we would possibly have competition for the meat!

Objective Number Two - a herd of bison that had wandered into our hunting grounds (note the bear stalking them)

We're not 100% sure we're doing the reaction tests correctly, but the way we decided to play it was this:  (1) Hunter rolls his choice of 1, 2 or 3 dice to activate. (2) Any failures are immediately checked for reaction by the closest animals (two failures, two animals; one failure, one animal, etc.). (3) Hunter takes his successful actions, which the possibly triggers possible reactions. We had noticed in our first game that predators will not attack a hunter who is within 1 Medium with fire. So, as long as we don't get split up, our pair of hunters should be fairly invulnerable to attacks...right?

My two hunters, Og and Ugg (with fire) and their trusty hound approach the animals

Hard-luck Allen found out one flaw in our plan immediately. He failed on his first two attempts at activation, prompting the charge by two hyenas who were outside of Medium, but inside of a Long distance. Allen dispatched one and chased off the other, which set the tone for the evening. We were wildly more successful than our first attempt at hunting prehistoric big game. My group ended up being the most successful of them all. Keith had handed me two fairly troglodyte looking figures, which I named Og and Ugg. We snuck through an area of brush (flaming brand in hand), which scattered some woodland creatures and a startled the bison when we emerged from the patch of woods. However, Joel and Mike were in position and we began a game of ping pong, spooking the bison in a circle between our three bands which had surrounded them.

Dashing forward, Og and Ugg strike down a bison with their clubs -- meat on the menu for this evening!

On my next turn, I charged into contact with the first bison and ka-THUNK! Two clubs came down on it and bison burgers were on the menu for the evening! Og, Ugg, and their pooch proceeded to take down three bison. After the hound dispatched the third one, he began howling in celebration, which lasted for three turns (three straight turns of 3 failures on my dice -- ha, ha!). Meanwhile, Og and Ugg decided to go help Allen and Mike W with the sabertooths. We spooked a pachyderm off with our fire, then closed within a good "lope" distance (Long). On my next turn, I rolled two successes for activation, again. We charged in and thwacked the big cat (they're not really felines, are they...?) on its noggin. Both Og and Ugg hooted in celebration. Not only would they enjoy lots of good bison for dinner, but their women would be happy and they would be able to partake in dessert, too!

My hunters pummel a second bison into dreamland, while the hound drags down another

All in all, we were very successful as hunters this time around. No dead humans, though one hound was savaged and killed by a sabertooth. Perusing the rules afterwards, we began to wonder if we were doing it wrong. We were uncertain if the animals are supposed to test reaction after every activation our hunters take. So, if Og gets 3 successes, does he do one activation, then check for reactions before doing his next one? Keith said he would check the FAQ and find out. Otherwise, we are getting a good idea why man was able to become the dominant species!

Elated with our success, we track down and kill a sabertooth tiger, too -- Og and Ugg are unstoppable!

SE Asian Jungle Ruins

Splintered Light Miniatures with Hirst Arts ruins pieces flocked to represent overgrown jungle terrain

Earlier this year, a friend of mine, Tim Peaslee, very generously handed me a box of Hirst Arts plaster pieces of ruins, caverns, boxes, barrels, etc. I quickly painted up the boxes for this year's "That's My USAid!" scenario using my Wars of Insurgency modern skirmish rules. When I decided to begin my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago campaign, I pulled the box back out and sorted through the pieces. I organized them by size and the full scale of Tim's generosity finally sunk in. There were a LOT of pieces, here!

A couple merged photos showing what I called the "Single Pieces" -- roughly 1 inch square

I decided to paint up some of them as broken down and overgrown ruins of various temples, palaces, or other stone buildings. There were three basic sizes, and at least two different styles within each size. There were what I called the "Single Pieces" -- small, square ruins pieces about one inch (25mm) square. First, I glued them to a square of styrene or bass wood. Then, I spray painted them flat black. Once dry, I went over the black thoroughly in a 50/50 mixture of glue and water -- my typical method for painting resin terrain. A dark gray then dark dry brush followed. After flocking the bases, I added Woodland Scenic clump foliage to show the ruins beginning to be overrun by the jungle.

The Double Pieces measuring roughly 1"x2"

The Double Pieces were about 1"x2" rectangular sections of crumbled ruins. One of the styles included the stump of a tree growing out of the wall. This was particularly appropriate since you see that time and again in SE Asian ruined temples such as Angkor Wat, in Cambodia.

The Large, roughly 1.5"x3" pieces

Finally, there were the Large Ruins pieces, which measured roughly 1.5"x3". There were two main styles, both of which had a tree stump growing out of them. I suppose I could have hunted and found a tree to fit on the stump and have it be a live tree, but I wanted to keep these pieces quick and simple. They did paint up very quickly. Just as much time was spent flocking the bases as was on prepping, priming, and dry brushing them. They did not take long to paint up, and felt they looked great. The clump foliage glued onto the stones themselves really give them an overgrown look.

Next up is another batch of ruins created with Tim's Hirts Arts. Here I will be assembling pieces to recreate a crumbled down staircase, gallery of statues, and section of columns with statues atop them. Stay tuned!