The Crooked Staff Blog

YouTube (print & paste) Catch-up

2026-04-23T18:09:00.004+01:00

It's been a while since I last talked about the 'print & paste' videos and pdfs that I've been releasing... and so I thought it was time to remedy that!

So, I started the year off with a couple of encounter/puzzle ideas (complete with the terrain to go with them):

Now, in my opinion, the first video is a much better encounter than the second one - but as luck would have it, the second one has had more than four times the views so far (go figure).

I actually used both of them in an adventure I run a while back (once in person, and once online), and I'm happy/relieved to say that they worked reasonably well both times :)

* * *

After those I've been working on some more sci-fi stuff (as I plan on trying out the 'five parsecs from home' game) - which has mostly been focusing on buildings, greebles, and the like:

And, I have to admit that I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out!

Some of the (optional) bits can be a bit fiddly - but I think it's a great way to get some passable sci-fi terrain to the table relatively quickly (plus, I've tried to keep it fairly generic looking - so that it will fit in with a number of different games and settings).

Though I'm not quite done with this current sci-fi phase that I'm going through, and I have at least one more video in the works...

...which, as you can see, will be for some quick and easy barricades.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to this year so far (terrain wise)... and I think 5 videos in (slightly less than) four months isn't too bad (though I've also been getting a lot of mini's painted too - but that's a post for another time ;) ).

Age of Fantasy Quest: Game 1

2025-12-27T19:34:00.000+00:00

“Right then… keep yer mouths shut.” whispered Ulskrag as he peered down the broad steps and strung his bow. “There’s bound to be some of those filthy longbeards about… their stink is all over the place!”

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m giving another one-page-rules game a try – this time Age of Fantasy Quest (with the aim of trying to tie it into my Five Leagues from the Borderlands game – in which I’m playing a bunch of orcs battling against the dwarves of Balin’s company during their failed re-colonisation of Moria).

Now I did get a few rules wrong during the first half of the game (or just forgot things here and there) - but it worked out reasonably well in the end – though I think it would be better if I had more table space (though that’s not something I can change at the moment).

Anyway… on with the game!

Ulskrag ordered Izdin (his second in command – a large orcish brute wielding a heavy axe) and the rest of the patrol down into the chamber, and had them form a defensive line between himself and the group of dwarves that appeared out of the darkness.

The bearded folk were few in number, little more than a patrol themselves, and so the lads (Bagash, Kildig, and Gitnik) faced them head on – charging in (with their spears leading the way), while Izdin came around at them from their flank.

This resulted in the death of all three dwarves – though Bagash was also slain in the exchange.

Meanwhile, Ulskrag took his time to make his mark on a pile of stones to indicate the passing of his patrol (as was their custom – it being a means of ensuring the orcs actually patrolled their allotted areas), before moving deeper into the ruinous chamber.

However, it seemed that their recent engagement, brief though it was, had not gone unnoticed, and more dwarves rushed in through an open archway on this lower level.

This time, the remaining lads (Kildig, and Gitnik) advanced a short distance and set themselves to meet the enemy's charge… and succeeded in beating them back (this time without loss).

Like before, Ulskrag had begun making his mark on the appointed stone – but seeing that the dwarves had not been dealt with, he moved into position to take a shot at them with his trusty bow… but missed dramatically – his arrow disappearing into the darkness of the passage from which they had emerged.

Seeing this, Izdin (his blood still up from the previous encounter) charged into the dwarves, his axe swinging left and right as he cut all three down in a matter of mere seconds.

Both impressed and a little intimidated by this, Ulskrag called Kildig, and Gitnik over to watch his back while he continued with his task (he actually failed the roll to complete this several times during the course of this encounter – so I had him spend two power to turn a failed roll into a success).

With the primary mission complete (i.e. both objectives had been achieved) it was time to roll up a secondary objective. This resulted in ‘safeguard’ – which meant that a marker is placed in the centre of the table, and a hero will need to make three successful dex texts when within 3” of it to ‘safegaurd’ that area from enemy attacks. In story terms I interpreted this as the group having to hold that area while Ulskrag daubed the stones with the blood of their enemies - to mark this area as orc territory).

However, before doing that he chose to search the area for any indication as to what the dwarves might be up to in this hall (as there was also a search token next to one of the primary objectives)… but this turned up nothing of interest… though the delay meant that more of Balin’s folk had made their way into this area – this time descending from a higher level (i.e. through door 1).

The resulting battle proved costly…

...and although this newest threat was eventually dealt with – it cost the lives of Kildig, and Gitnik.

With the halls falling quiet once more, Ulskrag searched another promising area for possible loot, and this time uncovered a strange elixir.

Once again, the delay meant that yet more dwarves poured into the area… and, the remaining pair of orcs chose to hide behind a ruined pillar while this next group (armed with hammers) made their way towards the middle of the hall.

Then, with one of the ruined portions of the chamber between them, Ulskrag began raining arrows down upon them…

...before fleeing again.

(Now, if I’m reading things right, the AI rules as written state that if an enemy doesn’t have line of sight to a hero they head towards an AI goal – so they never pursue a hero once they turn a corner for example. However, I don’t really like that – so I adopted an Advanced HeroQuest rule, and judged that when a hero disappears from view, its enemies will pursue it for one round (following the direction the hero took)… and if their movement doesn’t bring the Hero back into sight, then, and only then, will they head back towards an AI goal).

So, with the dwarves giving up the chase, the pair decided to investigate another of the chamber’s corners…

...but came up empty handed once again.

Now, with the dwarves’ backs turned, the pair climbed a set of crumbling steps that led up to a platform that overlooked the central portion of the chamber, and prepared their final assault.

Ulskrag took aim and loosed his arrows, while Izdin charged in with is axe held high.

However, more of the sneaky beardlings had made their way into the area, and were already heading towards the skirmish in the centre of the room. As such Ulskrag jumped down and joined the fray.

The resulting battle ended with Izdin felling the last of the remaining hammerers, while Ulskrag finally threw caution aside, and charged the newly arrived axemen… slaughtering them all with his orcish blades.

With the halls falling quiet again, if only briefly, Ulskrag took the time to daub markings onto the fallen stones in the blood of his enemies (as a warning to any other dwarves that might journey this way).

(Note that I once again failed a couple of necessary rolls to complete the secondary objective – so I used two power to convert those fails onto a sucess. However, this quickly depleted my power score… but I think you can still do that with zero power remaining… but it instead comes off your wound total.)

But no sooner had he finished, the sound of yet more hurried footfalls echoed throughout the chamber… the heavy stomp of dwarven boots - this time approaching from behind (i.e. door 6).

Looking each other up and down, both Ulskrag and Izdin could see that they were in no shape to fight off more of the hated longbeards; both were wounded, and more than half of their patrol lay dead.

So, with their mission complete, they decided to flee the hall – spitting foul curses at the pursuing dwarves, before quickly outpacing them and disappearing into the long dark of Moria.

Age of Fantasy Quest: the set-up

2025-12-27T11:23:00.001+00:00

In my last Five Leagues from the Borderlands game, my party of orcs arrived at the Uruk Hold (a large orc encampment deep within Moria) after being ambushed by some of Balin’s folk along the way.

Upon reaching their destination, they fell in with a group of returning scouts as they made their way past the outer barricades, and into the camp proper.

Anyway, before I continue with Muzlug and Lagashi’s story (and also because there are other games I would like to try out over the holiday period), I thought I would rewind slightly, and play out a battle using the One Page Rules ‘Age of Fantasy: Quest’ ruleset… and use that scenario to represent the patrol that these scouts were returning from… and maybe weave that into the story somehow (maybe Muzlug & Co. will investigate the same area too… you know… since I already have the table set up ;) ).

However, before I get started, I will say that I’m not playing ‘Quest’ rules as written… and instead of having multiple ‘heroes’ I’m just going to have the one – but he will be accompanied by a small warband that’s worth the same amount of points (i.e. my hero came out to 90 points, so I have put a 90 point list together to represent his small patrol, and together that should roughly equal the power level of two heroes for the purposes of working out the strength of the various ‘waves’ that they’ll be encountering… if you’re familiar with the way ‘Quest’ works, then you’ll know what I mean).

Speaking of which, here’s a picture of Ulskrag’s patrol:

Left to right: Ulskrag (orc ranger 90pts), 3 goblin warriors with spears and ‘furious’ (30pts), and Izdin (black orc – 60pts).

Now, this is more of a test game than anything else – so there’s not much of a story – other than Ulskrag being tasked to patrol the area I’ve got set up on my (small) table… and then taking it from there.

So, as you can see, the way I’ve got things broken up into 4 quarters (shown in red) is a little unconventional – but that’s because my playing space is made up of 2 magnetic blackboards (which my tiles are attached to)… one larger than the other (hence the L shape).

Furthermore, rather than having the heroes and enemies arrive at random table corners, I’ve instead set things up so that there are six specific entrances (shown in blue) – which, as you’ve probably guessed, I can randomise with the roll of a d6.

Now, as far as the mission goes I’ve selected an ‘Investigation’ – which means I need to investigate two markers (which I’m rationalising as my patrol route), and I also ended up with 4 search tokens as well.

The last thing I placed was the ‘sentries’ (in this case a group of 3 dwarf axemen)… and rolled to see what doorway my patrol would be entering from...

...and with that, I think it’s time to start the mission!

(but that will be my next post ;) )

Building a Dwarf Army Pt.5

2025-11-20T17:37:00.001+00:00

It’s been almost a month since I last posted about my dwarf army progress… and in that post I said that I’d pretty much got everything done except my banner bearer (as I wasn’t sure how to paint the banner itself).

However, if this is your first time here, before I go any further, I’ll post links to the previous four parts of this project below (just in case you have any questions about the models, the paints, etc.)

PART 1 / PART 2 / PART 3 / PART 4

Anyway, with all that out of the way, I’m pleased to say that I did paint up the banner guy in the end… and I just went with a simple painted-on design to get it done reasonably quickly and easily:

And now that he’s done, he can get added to the rest of his unit (a unit of ‘dwarf hammer elites’ and an attached ‘champion’ for the OPR Regiments game):

And, while I’m at it I’ll also post pics of the other units too (mountain warriors & champion, bearded veterans & sergeant, and marksmen & sergeant):

Actually, if you’re interested here’s the full 750 point army list using the OPR army builder app (which is great BTW):

Now, typically, as soon as I was done there was an update to some of the rules and point costs – which did mean that I had to re-jigger things slightly to get them back up to the aforementioned 750 points… but at least I didn’t have to paint any more models (or scrap ones I’d already done).

And with that, I think I’m going to call them done for now!

They’re not my best work (as this was always meant to be something to get done quickly/efficiently/cheaply) – but, even so, I’m still pretty happy with how the army looks as a whole…

...and I’d be more than happy to push them around the table if I ever get the chance (or to use as a loan army to teach someone the rules).

Though, I suppose I could make some matching movement trays for them… but that’s a job for another time... as my next project is to make a few more bits of dwarf(ish) themed terrain...

...but more on that later :)

Five Leagues From the Borderlands (part 8) – Ambushed!

2025-11-01T17:15:00.005+00:00

Before I begin, I just want to quickly say that I probably played this game over a year ago, and so my memory of it isn’t perfect. I’m also not sure why I didn’t post a bat-rep at the time – but since I recently stumbled upon my notes (and found a few pictures on my hard drive) I thought it would be a good time to share them – especially since I’m thinking of restarting the game (or doing something similar with the newer ‘Deep Below’ spin-off).

Anyway, we left off with our little band of orcs acquiring a ‘contract’ – which involved visiting the Orc Outpost, the Uruk Hold, and the Loot Exchange settlements within 5 turns, and making an 8+ speech test in at least two of them.

I had interpreted this as having to re-establish connections between some of the orc groups that had taken up abode in the various halls of the dwarven complex… and, as such, had decided to return ‘home’ this turn (back to the Orc Outpost) – and gained a ‘friend’ along the way.

CAMPAIGN TURN 4

Town Events: Wandering healer

Hard Times: 2 upkeep (I used 1 ration to offset this)

Activities: Performed a successful speech test (with a +1 ‘friend’ bonus), recruited another follower, and visited the blacksmith to repair Muzlug’s spear.

Research: No result

Trade: Sold 'jars' for 2 gold.

My interpretation:

It turned out that Bagna (the sniveling wretch that befriended the group on their return journey) had the ear of Grob (the settlement's leader), and was able to get Lagashi an audience with him within a few days.

In the meantime, Muzlug was able to exchange some of the loot that they had found for a new spear shaft, and Pushdug convinced him that he probably knew a couple of good lads that might also want in on their escapades.

However, as it turned out, only one of these ‘lads’ was still alive… an axe wielding orc by the name of Dinshat – who was currently being patched up by a healer of sorts.

And since the rest of his band were currently missing (being the heavily armed patrol that had failed to return) he was easily convinced to slink away and join Muzlug’s Mob when no-one was looking.

Later, when Lagashi eventually got her audience with the great orc Grob, he was quick to agree that messengers should be sent down to the ‘Uruk Hold’ on the level below - as whispers had reached his ears of it falling back into Dwarven hands. And, even though he doubted those rumours to be true, he was no fool, and knew it to be wise to be seen to do ‘something’ (sending someone to check for example) …even if only to stave off challenges from those that were all to eager to take his place.

Therefore, Lagashi was quick to relay this news to Muzlug - resulting in the pair gathering their small warband, and heading off in short order.

TRAVEL ROLL: Waylaid by foes (petty robbers)

It was already late when the warband moved out – and so it wasn’t overly long before the group set up camp in an empty room at the end of a grand (but ruinous) hall. They even lit a small fire (against Pushdug’s advice) as they settled down – not fearing much due to the fact that they hadn't travelled all that far from the outpost.

Then, during Snagluk’s watch, the quiet, but unmistakable sound of booted feet echoed out in the main hall… and sneaking a look (with eyes well accustomed to the dark) he espied the unmistakable shapes of dwarven figures approaching their position. They had seen the light of the campfire perhaps… and were creeping closer and closer with each passing heartbeat.

THE BATTLE

Now I’m fairly sure I had some comprehensive notes to accompany these photo’s – but all I can seem to find are half a dozen bullet points – so maybe I had intended to write up this bat-rep straight away instead of relying on my notes (as I do remember the whole thing being fairly short and sweet).

Anyway, the set-up looked like this:

And, at the start, the dwarves moved in using the ‘infiltration’ rules (for a defensive battle), before eventually being spotted by Snagluk – who was the only one to act in the quick phase of the first round… but in his panic his shot was well wide of the mark.

During the next few rounds, the two opposing forces rushed to meet each other – but the main dwarven contingent were temporarily halted as tendrils of dark magic swirled around them – making their limbs heavy, and their boots feel like lead (i.e. Lagashi cast ‘bind’).

After dispatching a couple of the filthy longbeards, two of their number turned tail and fled like the cowards that they are – leaving their leader alone to face the consequences of their actions.

Needless to say, it didn’t go well for the lone dwarf… and (acting in the quick phase) Pushdug charged in and cut the fool down with a single blow!

RESOLUTION

Even though this was a travel battle, I think I still treat this like a regular battle – and need to do all the usual ‘resolution stage’ stuff… so:

1. No adventure points gained.

2. No injuries.

3. Advancements...

Muzlug 2 XP
Lagashi 2 XP
Pushdug 3XP (+1 for killing their leader) he also gains +1 combat skill at lvl 1
Golb – nothing gained
Snagluk – gains the pathwise skill.
Dinshat – gains the battlewise skill.

4. Loot – found a delvers kit.

5. Unusual find – found the remains of a victim (I need to return a token to a random settlement)

6. Settle in – reached the ‘Uruk Hold' settlement.

7. News Travels – Rangers have been scouting the area (+2AP)

My interpretation:

With the echoing footsteps of the fleeing dwarves fading into the depths, the warband took stock. None of them had been injured (other than a few scratches and bruises), and so counted themselves lucky.

Pushdug gloated over the fact that he had warned them about lighting a fire… and this time Lagashi was inclined to agree. However, Muzlug berated the group for letting two of the dwarves escape – stating that the group would now need to move with haste themselves – before the bearded cowards could return with more of their filthy kin.

Despite this, they did a quick search of the bodies, and looted a few supplies/tools of sturdy dwarven make – and also discovered the decapitated head of a large orc brute tied up in a sack.

Dinshat, the newest member of the warband, confirmed that this was Rutgot – the leader of the missing patrol… and stated that news of this should probably be taken back to the outpost.

(note that I used a Story Point to change the location that this needed to be returned to – having it be the Outpost that they had just left – as I thought that fit the story better)

Despite this, Muzlug ordered the group on… and to make it ‘double quick’ since he believed that the dwarves were on to them (as he didn’t want to face a larger force of the beardlings with his own meagre band).

And yet, they arrived at the outskirts of the Uruk Hold (an orc camp that could rival the populace of a small town) without further event, and fell in (and exchanged news) with a group of returning scouts, as they made their way past the outer barricades...

Building a Dwarf Army Pt.4

2025-10-25T11:51:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in my previous ‘building a dwarf army post’ – my (revised) plan was to try and get this entire army done within the space of a month… and I almost did it.

At the end of the last post I shared a picture of all the core troops done… so all that was left was the various command models.

Well, here they are:

The two guys on the left are conversions (using the EM4 miniatures as the base model), and the two guys on the right are metal models from Black Tree Design (though both were originally holding hammers, so the spear guy is another conversion).

However, that does leave one more mini to go before I can call the army complete… and that’s this fella:

...and I’ve been putting off painting it as I’m not sure how to tackle the banner.

Some thoughts I had were to simply ‘quarter it’ and call it done (this is supposed to be a quickly painted project after all), or I could buy some decals (though that makes it more expensive), or I could try to sculpt something onto the banner itself (a large rune for example) in greenstuff (as that would probably be a bit easier for me to achieve than trying to freehand a design).

But I’m still not 100% sure about what to do yet – so I’ve put him to one side for now.

That being said, I’ve still been splashing a bit of paint around… as I want to paint up some orcs next. However, the plan for these is to take one sprue of the various orc and goblin kits that have a vaguely Tolkienesque look about them…

(Oathmark orcs and goblins, Wargames Atlantic goblins, and Warlord Games orcs)

...and see what kind of warband I can make with them.

This will also give me A LOT of spare heads when I’m done – so the plan is to see if I can use some of those to convert some of the EM4 orcs that I have as well.

But, as you can see, I’ve not assembled any of these yet, and what I’ve been doing instead is having a go at painting some of the existing (mostly metal) models that I have in my collection – to see if I can work out a colour scheme that I like (mainly for the skin tones).

So, with that in mind, here’s the first two tests on some old Ral Partha orcs…

...which don’t look too bad – but not 100% how I want them (though the guy on the left isn’t too far off).

I’m also considering using these ‘test models’ as a little warband in their own right for a couple of games of Deep Below (a Five Leagues from the Borderlands spin-off) – as I’m probably going to do a few more test models before I’m done… and it would be good to have something in mind for the models (other than them being just tests).

Anyway, as far as the dwarves go, they’re pretty much done (save for the banner bearer)… and it did take around a month to finish them (the first primer was applied on the 22nd September, and the last varnish went on on the 21st October) – and I even had days (almost a week at one point) where I didn’t do anything at all.

So, all in all, I think that’s pretty good going for someone like me :)

Building a Dwarf Army Pt.3

2025-10-14T13:07:00.008+01:00

The last time I posted my progress on my small dwarf army, I explained how I was splitting the models up into a few different groups – so that I could paint all the models with blond beards first, then do a second batch of greybeards, and so on.

And while I haven’t had as much time to spend on these as when I first started the project… progress has been made:

So, as you can see in the above picture… I’ve finished all the grey-bearded models on the left, the brown-bearded models on the right, and I’ve also squeezed in a few ginger guys as well.

However, it would be a pretty short blog post if I left it there, so I thought I would show exactly how I’m painting these – with a few pictures showing all of the steps I’m using to get them done in a reasonably quick and easy manner… so here goes!

First the models are undercoated…

...and, as you can see, I’m using a brush on grey primer for this.

Next I paint all of the silver areas…

...and I’m not to careful with this – I just get it in on as quickly as possible.

After that I paint in the skin (note that unless otherwise stated, when two paint bottles are shown, I’m using one drop of each to get the desired colour)…

...and again, I’m only careful on the areas close to the metal… and I don’t worry too much if it gets on the beard etc.

Then I paint the beard itself…

...which, in this case is a ginger colour (and this is the only colour I change on the various minis).

And then I paint in any red(ish) cloth…

...which isn’t a lot on this guy.

Next it’s the green trim around the armour…

...as this complements the red quite nicely.

Then it’s time for a few browns…

...first for the boots, gloves, pouches, etc.

And then a darker colour for the wood and weapon handles:

(note that when there is a white rim on the bottles – these are the Model Colour range… not my main Game Colour paints)

Next is any gold trim etc…

...so the metal plates on the arms, dagger hilts, extra armour plates, and so on.

And finally I tidy up any areas where I might have made a bit of a mess…

...but, generally speaking, it’s usually just dotting the little metal studs.

Once that’s had a few minutes to dry I then apply a wash of 2 parts Fleshshade to one part Wash medium to the face and beard…

...though the beard wash changes depending on it’s colour.

Then the rest of the model gets covered in marine juice/sonic tonic…

...which, if you’re not familiar with, the Sonic Sledgehammer youtube channel has a video HERE.

And when that’s dry (and has also darkened everything down a bit), I add a few highlights with the same original colours – though this isn’t anything too crazy – just a bit of tidying up really...

...and, this is when I paint the base too (as you can see I was actually working on two models at the same time when taking these pic’s).

These are then left overnight before I varnish and base them…

...as I also use a brush on varnish – so I like to make sure the paint has had plenty of time to dry/set. Plus, as you can see, I’m just using some ‘geek gaming’ base-ready stuff on the bases – as I think that’s one of the quickest ways of getting them done.

So, that’s all I’m doing with these guys – but if I group them all together...

...they don’t look too bad at all (nothing to shout about – but perfectly good enough for gaming purposes).

And, while I still have a handful more to paint (mostly the ‘command’ types), I think I’m still on track for getting them all done within the space of a month.

So, with any luck, I’ll have them all done when I post the next update (fingers crossed).

Falling Block Traps

2025-10-09T17:54:00.004+01:00

It’s been a while (or, at least, it seems that way) since I last released a regular ‘print & paste’ terrain video – because if I ignore the giveaway stuff, the 2D tiles & cards, and the dungeon box (as all of these are kinda their own separate thing)…

...I have to go back 4 months to find the last piece of scatter terrain… or five months if I’m just including ‘dungeon’ stuff.

So, it’s been good to get back to more dungeon related scatter terrain (as that seems to be the core content for the channel)… and coincidentally, it’s turned out to be not too dissimilar to the last one I did:

However, despite having an encounter in mind for these (just like the previous ‘traps’ episode), I’ve not included it in the video this time – as I haven’t got it to the table myself yet, and I don’t want to give away the solution just yet (though, to be fair, it’s not super complicated).

Anyway, as usual, you can find the (pay-what-you-want) pdf file over on DriveThruRPG… and I hope that you can get some good use out of them!

Building a Dwarf Army pt.2

2025-09-26T14:45:00.000+01:00

In my last 'army building' post, I ran through the models I'd bought, some conversions I'd done, and basically just cleaned everything up to get it ready to paint.

I also mentioned that I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to split them up into smaller batches (i.e. whether I should paint a unit at a time, or split them up into smaller points value forces, and so on) - but in the end I thought I'd probably get them done quicker if I did all the dwarves with the same beard colour at the same time (as I plan on having 3 or 4 different colors).

As such, I decided to do all the blond(ish) guys first, and picked out several models from each unit to get the ball rolling...

...and spent pretty much all of Monday evening priming them (I used a brush on primer), and getting their base coats down.

Tuesday night was spent adding some washes (a flesh wash on the skin & beards, and 'sonic tonic' over everything else...

...and, as you can see, I also got the shields glued on as well (these where painted and washed separately, and had their backs drilled out where they needed to fit over a 'nub' or a hand) - plus, I also got the next batch primed while waiting for the washes to dry.

On Wednesday I spent a couple of hours tidying/highlighting with the original colours (as washes tend to darken everything down and/or leave tidemarks in some places) - and since I squirted out a bit too much silver paint (well a lot too much really), I also got the silver done on batch 2.

Now, I did (briefly) consider doing a few more highlight layers to make them look a bit better - but I quickly talked myself out of that... as I am supposed to painting this army quickly after all :)

Anyway, on Thursday evening it was just a matter of varnishing them (again, I'm using brush-on varnish), gluing on the basing material, and then sealing in the basing material with some watered down PVA.

And, as you can probably guess, this did mean that there was a certain amount of drying time between each of these steps... so I also splashed on a few more colours on batch 2 (the ones that are going to have grey beards).

Now, as you can see in the following picture...

...they're not going to win any awards - but I think they look more than good enough considering they're just regular troops in a 'regiments' style of game... and I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out.

However, they've still took a bit longer to finish than I would like - but the second batch should be quicker... since I've already got some paint on them. That being said, I don't think I'm going to have as much time to paint next week... so we'll have to see how it goes :)

Building a Dwarf Army pt.1

2025-09-22T15:44:00.002+01:00

For a while now I've been toying with the idea of painting up a few (fantasy) armies as quickly as I can (well, I say 'quickly' ...it'll still probably take me a while as I'm not a fast painter - but quicker than I normally do :) ).

As such, I didn't really want to spend a ton of money on an expensive army for, what is essentially, an experiment - plus I also wanted to see how cheaply I could do something like this, and turn it into a kind of 'war gaming on a budget' series of blog posts too.

So, for the rule system, I'll be using the various 'age of fantasy' games by One Page Rules - as the core rules are free (and it doesn't get much cheaper than that). It would also allow me to build up forces/armies for several of their games (the 'skirmish' and 'regiments' variations for example) - plus I could probably also repurpose what I have for other games too (Oathmark, or even The Old World, for example).

Anyway, for cheap miniatures, the obvious choice was to grab a bunch of those cheap orcs and dwarves that are available over on the EM4 Miniatures website...

...as a pack of 48 models will only set you back £14.99 - and if you buy both sets (i.e. the orcs and the dwarfs pictured above), and buy at least one pack of shields as well (£1.99 for 25) that will mean that your order qualifies for free postage too. Nice!

However, the one thing I would like to point out to folks that aren't familiar with these models - is that they do have a slightly annoying nub on the back of each model...

...which you'll have to deal with in one way or the other.

For my dwarf army, I'm only going to tidy up the back of the spearmen (and any special models) - as I'll simply add shields to the back of the guys with axes and crossbows... as that will cover them up ;)

Anyway, seeing as how these dwarves only come in three different poses (one with a spear, one with a 2-handed axe, and one with a crossbow), I wanted to add a bit of variety to my army... which has lead to a bit of conversion work on a couple of the models.

The first of these is a simple weapon swap...

...just by cutting off the top of the axe and replacing it with some hammers from my bits-box.

I also did a couple of weapon swaps with the spear guys (note that the banner is from an old space marine kit)...

...which involved drilling out the spear to replace it with the toothpick and hammer that you can see above - though the axe guy took a bit more work as I swapped out his entire arm and head - which required a bit of cutting and re-sculpting to make it work.

And, as for the crossbows, I've only done the one conversion so far...

...which again, was another head-swap (note that both of these heads are leftovers from Northstar/Oathmark kits).

Now, the original plan was to only use the EM4 Miniatures for this army - but I also found a couple of metal dwarves from Black Tree Design (or EOE Orbis as it's now known) in my pile of shame...

...and these particular ones are a pretty good match (with regard to size and style) for the EM4 dwarves - and so I thought I'd use them for my heroes/champions (and sacrificed a couple of the plastic guys to get them on matching bases).

So, that's pretty much all I did with regard to conversion work - though that, combined with cleaning up the models (getting rid of the mouldlines and 'nub's for example) probably took the best part of a weekend.

THE PLAN GOING FORWARD

The next job is, of course, to start slapping some paint on them - and I had thought to split them up into several batches.

The first would be a 150 point force for the 'skirmish' version of the game...

...which would feature a champion, a ranger, two 'hammer elites' and one group (of 3) mountain warriors.

After those are done, I could expand that to a 250 point force...

...which includes a champion, two marksmen, two hammer elites, and three groups (of 3) mountain warriors (one of which has a banner).

From there, I could then expand on these - bringing them up to full unit size for the 'regiments' version of the game (perhaps completing one unit at a time))...

...until I get up to a full 750 point (starter) army (note that I'm thinking of painting the shields separately - which is why they're not shown here).

However, I'm not sure if it will be faster to just batch paint one complete unit at a time -OR- separate them out into four random piles (as I'll be using 4 different beard colours)... and do that instead (i.e. batch paint all the blond guys first, then the guys with brown beards, and so on).

Whatever I decide, I'm hoping to get started on them this week... and see if I can get them done by the end of the month (though the end of next month... or even the end of the year, is much more likely :) ).

25,000 Subscribers!!!

2025-09-18T18:04:00.000+01:00

As of today the YouTube channel has surpassed the 25k subscribers mark… which might not be much when compared to the big channels out there – but it’s a pretty huge milestone for someone like me :) :) :)

So, as you’d expect, I’ve made a short video to acknowledge that fact…

...and in that video I also announce another giveaway.

Now, the giveaway isn’t anything special (mainly just a $100 gift certificate for DriveThruRPG)… but it’s a small token of my appreciation nonetheless.

I’ve also used this as an opportunity to (re)release the ‘modifications & requests’ pdf…

...as I removed that from google drive a while back – due to the fact that (apparently) my exclusive deal with DriveThruRPG means I shouldn’t really be sharing modified versions of the files in other places. As such, it’s now available over on DriveThru instead (though I did spend a bit of time making it look a bit more presentable before doing so – hence the delay ;) ).

Anyway, I’ll finish this post by saying thank you to everyone for their support over the years (it really is appreciated), and here’s hoping you’ve managed to get some good use out of some of this nonsense of mine :)

New releases/projects

2025-09-02T18:40:00.000+01:00

Well, I’ve finally got them done… the dungeon cards & tokens (that I first tested out in THIS old blog post) are now available for download :)

As you can see in the video, there’s also a sample solo dungeon included with the cards – but the encounters detailed in the pdf could just as easily be used in regular (i.e. a GM plus several players) game as well.

I’ll also add that, if anyone does give the solo adventure a run through (using the cards and the 2D dungeon tiles), I’d love to hear how it goes!

In addition to the new video, I’ve also started up an e-mail newsletter – one where I can do monthly recaps of stuff I’ve released, things I’m working on, purchases made, and other gaming nonsense. I also hope to share pictures of projects that people in the community have built using some of my textures too – as those are always cool to see.

So, if that sounds like it might be of interest, you can sign up for it HERE.

And that’s it for now… for my next project I’ll probably getting back to making more terrain… but more on that if the prototypes work out as planned :)

Playing catch-up… again!

2025-08-02T13:09:00.008+01:00

I’ve been neglecting the blog of late (as you might have noticed)… so here’s a quick round up of what’s been going on in my own little hobby world (and some ‘behind the scenes’ commentary ;) ).

VIDEO CATCH-UP

First up is the truck that I talked about in my last post…

...the video went live back in May – but didn’t do very well compared to my other videos (which is fine – that’s just how it goes sometimes).

Next was the hedgerows (which I also mentioned last time)…

...and that episode performed about as well as my usual stuff (which is always nice to see for a pretty niche video).

Some time after that came another of my ‘dungeon in a box’ style of videos…

…and, as I had hoped, this video did rather well (which was also a bit of a relief – as I spent a lot of time on this one – essentially all of June… and then some :) ).

And finally, yesterday saw the release of some more 2D dungeon tiles…

...which isn’t doing terrible.. but it is on the lower side of average.

So, as you can see, quite a mixed bag in terms of content and performance – and while I don’t usually stress too much about the latter (as it’s largely out of my control, and I prefer to make stuff I’m excited about, rather than what I think might be popular/trending), I thought I’d include the briefest of overviews for anyone that might be interested in that kind of thing.

MINIATURES CATCH-UP

Most of the stuff I’ve been painting recently has been skaven related (you’ll see why later)… but this has involved a mix of sorting through some old models…

…painting some that I’d already got assembled (and, of course, buying and assembling a few more)...

...then splashing some paint on the new models too.

Now, there was a bit of a challenge here, as I’ve been trying to match the colours I painted my old skaven (with my original Army Painter paint) to my new Vallejo paint range – but I think I’ve got them pretty close.

GAMING CATCH-UP

I haven’t done much in-person gaming this year – but I did get to run a ShadowDark one-shot the other day (note that the chocolates box actually contains a bunch of scatter terrain).

And, of course, I forgot to take pictures during the game (though it was mostly a dry erase layout with some of my terrain pieces scatted here and there to liven it up a bit) – but I think it went OK (despite making a few mistakes).

It was also my first time running (or indeed playing) ShadowDark (and this particular game was a sort of funnel/gauntlet scenario that I’d written – but for a bunch of level 1 characters rather than zero level) – and, like I say I think it went down well*

*I’m also planning on running it for my online group as well – so here’s hoping they like it too.

Another game I’ve been messing around with is the old classic Advanced HeroQuest.

And, as you might have guessed, this is one of the reasons for all the skaven miniatures I’ve been trying to get finished.

It’s also more than a little responsible for me wanting the make more 2D dungeon tiles – as well as providing the incentive I needed to finish off the random dungeon cards (and tokens) that I started working on a while back.

And, since I just mentioned the cards and tokens, there does seem to be some interest in me sharing those – so I think I’m gonna go ahead and make that my next video.

Though please be aware that it’s a fairly simple idea – it only really generates the layout of the dungeon – you’ll need to make the random tables/charts yourself (which will vary depending upon the system you’re running, and the type of adventure you want to have).

Anyway, this has been a rather long post, so I think I’ll leave it there for now.

As always, thanks for reading, watching, and all that – and (with any luck) I’ll try to not leave it quite so long between updates going forward!

EDIT: I almost forgot - I also went on a solo adventure to the UK Games Expo this year...

...and came back with a bunch of loot :)

Playing catch-up

2025-05-12T18:23:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since I last talked about what I've been doing (terrain-wise) over on my YouTube channel - so I thought now might be a good time for a quick recap!

OK then, earlier in the year I announced another 'community challenge' - i.e. just a fun little project where I put together a bunch of random textures, and then 'challenged' everyone to make something with them (you can see the blog post I made about it HERE).

Anyway, I was very pleased to have nearly thirty people take part... and you can see all of their entries in the following video:

So, I want to say thanks (again) to everyone that took part - it was really great to see how inventive/creative everyone was!

Anyway, after the 'challenge' I've also released another three videos - the first being a sci-fi shuttle (which I'm quite proud of)...

...the next was a bunch of pedestals (to add to 'the dungeon')...

...and the most recent was a 'fun' idea for a trap...

...which also had a little encounter to go along with it :)

Anyway, if I go back to the 'shuttle' episode - in that video I asked if folks would like to see if I could make similar vehicles using the same chassis/fuselage/hull. And, seeing as how a lot of folks said yes, that has inspired the next video - in which, I'll be showing how to make a 6-wheeled truck.

Here's a picture of an early prototype:

And here's how it ended up looking (note the smaller one is printed at 75% - just to illustrate that you can easily change the size of most of this stuff within your pdf reader):

So, that's the video I'm working on at the moment, and with any luck I'll get that out later this week!

* * *

In other news, I seem to have been bitten by the World War II bug again... and, since I have a couple of Wargames Atlantic sprues lying around, I thought I would assemble a little (early war) British force:

And, I'm thinking that I could use the One Page Rules 'firefight' game (using the 'human defence force' list and a bit of common sense) to play a few skirmish games with them.

Obviously, that then leads me down the rabbit hole of WW2 terrain... and while I'm not fully committed to it yet... the ideas have begun:

(though things like 'hedgerows' and 'emplacements' will likely have a wider use than just WW2 gaming).

Anyway, I think that covers most of what I've been up to (aside from painting several more undead models to test out my new paint set)... though I have also given my hobby area a bit of a tidy/makeover - to accommodate this new(ish) Vallejo range of paint (that I recently bought - due to having problems with some of the Army Painter 'fanatic' range):

So yeah... that's it for this post. As I say, the next video should follow along in a day or two (or three)... so hopefully you'll tune in for that!

Gaming in the 40K universe: Game 3 – Purging the unclean!

2025-03-02T17:06:00.000+00:00

OK then – I previously covered how I set things up for game three – and in this post I’m going to attempt to recap the game itself. So I’ll begin with a bit of background information…

After his previous expedition ended with the death of most of his small retinue, Jops Van Jools (a minor noble from a Rogue Trader dynasty) was a little hesitant to test his luck by entering ‘the hollow’ (as it’s quickly becoming known) for a second time – at least not without a sizeable force.

However, as the days passed, the horrors began to fade… and he realised that he himself hadn’t actually fared too badly (he’d escaped with only minor injuries)… and if he did bring in a larger force – that would likely attract unwanted attention (which wouldn’t be a great idea – what, with the inquisition sniffing around)… and after all – doesn’t fortune favour the bold?

So perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to explore the place a little more – I mean… now he knew what to expect – so things should go better the second time around (a fairly logical assumption).

As such, he assembled a similar sized bodyguard as before… and instructed his men to bring a flamer with them this time – as that would likely prove useful if they ran into similar trouble again.

So it was that, through his contacts, he learned that the local enforcers had been attempting to clear out a specific area – to see if they could get an old generator back online. If this could be done, it might be a section of the ‘hollow’ that could be fortified, and thus, allow the local lawmen to gain a foothold. Having power restored (even residually) might also open up other sections of the ‘hollow’ – and maybe even allow for those areas to be more easily explored (and plundered). But the enforcers had failed in their mission.

However, our young ‘hero’ was of the House of Van Jools… and his men were well trained, well equipped, and well paid (not a bunch of street scum turned enforcer thugs); and since the area had already been partially cleared out, he could perhaps kill two birds with one stone.

All he had to do was succeed where the enforcers had failed – thus placing them somewhat in his debt… while at the same time, this mission had the potential to open up new avenues for exploration – ones likely to have been sealed off for centuries.

And so the mission began...

Game System: StarQuest (from one page rules)

Primary Objective: Investigation – Make a Dex check in rooms 1 and 5 to ‘awaken the cogitators’

Secondary Objective: Safeguard – Make three successful Dex checks in room 4 to make sure the generator comes online

TURN 1

The small force entered the abandoned complex, treading carefully as they observed the damaged caused by the recent small arms fire. Making sure to be as quiet as possible; Servitor CF-HB-1 and the sergeant watched over the first dead-end passage (where one blip was registering on their auspex), while Jops and the flamer squad approached the first doorway.

Unfortunately, it would seem they had not been quiet enough, as the blip in the passage began to advance, and was quickly joined by another (i.e. I rolled a six on the reinforcement die… and randomly determined where it appeared – which happened to be here).

TURN 2

With no signals inside the first room, the troopers moved to open the door and made way for the young rogue trader to (attempt to) awaken the cogitator. However, the room was filled with noxious fumes from toxic sludge seeping out of an old pipeline (i.e. dangerous terrain) – which caused Jops to cough and hack… leading to his failure (despite spending ‘two stress’ to make a second attempt).

Meanwhile, outside in the passage, more of the blighted undead put in an appearance… lumbering down the hall with murderous intent.

TURN 3

Inside the room, Jops continued to struggle with the fumes (causing another 2 wounds – for a total of 3), but managed to awaken the machine spirit despite this… before quickly exiting the room to join his retinue in the corridor outside.

Speaking of which, in the passage outside, two of the poxwalkers were slain by the sergeant and servitor (initially from range, and then as ‘strike backs’ in close combat)… and everyone regrouped and made ready to fend off more of the foul creatures (as a similar thing happened with my reinforcement roll – and another blip appeared at the far end of this passage).

Note that I made an error here – I think you can only move and shoot – not shoot and move… but I did the latter, and might have done similar later in the game).

TURNS 4 - 8

Thus began the fight in the hallway…

...as more and more creatures were attracted to the sound of battle (i.e. a blip was revealed to be cultists arriving at the party’s rear, and yet more blips kept appearing in the same ‘dead end’ passage)...

...but luckily, the one moving from room 3 to 4 turned out to be a false reading (little more than a mutated rat fleeing the disturbance).

Though one of the troopers were lost in the exchange with the walking undead.

And then, just when all the visible enemies had been dealt with, a demon appeared!

Note that I made another mistake here, as I must have had my screen scrolled up a bit – so that when I counted down to number 4 on the visible part of the list, I read it as being a plague bearer – when in fact, that creature should have been represented by the ‘6’ blip – but never mind – I later realised my error and swapped the 4 and 6 listings around.

TURNS 9 - 13

And so, the battle in the corridor continued – with the (depleted) squad of troopers and the heavy bolter servitor attempting to hold off this new threat, while our brave rogue trader and sergeant hurried off to awaken the second cogitator bank.

Not surprisingly, things didn’t go well for the remaining troopers, and by the time Jops had got the cogitator up and running, it was only CF-HB-1 that had survived the demonic encounter (which slowly made it’s way to rejoin what was left of the group).

TURNS 14 - 22

With residual power restored, the doors were opened into the generator room – uncovering another wave of ambulatory, pox-ridden corpses. These rabid ‘things’ took down the servitor with little trouble, and put up quite a fight (dealing several wounds to Jops) before they themselves were put down.

The young rogue trader then got to work on the generator while the various ‘blips’ all seemed to converge on their position (i.e. at this point, rather than rolling randomly, I simply had any blips that came into play converge on room 4).

TURNS 23 - 27

Unlike the cogitators, this was taking much too long… so much so that Jops was barely two thirds way through the procedure when more gun-toting cultists appeared in the doorway…

...and by the time this latest threat was dealt with, the sergeant lay dead in a pool of his own blood – and Jops himself could barely stand (but luckily, an approaching blip turned out to be little more than a glitch on the scanner).

TURN 28 ONWARD

So it was that, alone and badly injured, Jops staggered back over to the generator… this time managing to complete his task without any further disturbances… thankfully.

AFTER ACTION REPORT

As with my last mission, I will be rolling a d6 for each unit that was taken out during the game – with the result being the number of games that these particular ‘models’ will have to sit it out (while repairs and purchases are made, allies and replacements arrive on the scene, and so on). And, luckily, my habit of rolling low actually worked in my favour this time:

Sergeant: 1 mission before a replacement arrives

Flamer Squad: 2 missions before replacements arrive

Heavy Bolter Servitor: 1 mission before a replacement can be acquired.

That being said, it does mean that I will need to use another group of models in my next mission (as everything other than my ‘hero’ is currently awaiting replacements/reinforcements)… but I have more painted… so it shouldn’t be a problem just yet.

I also feel that the appearance of a demon (albeit a minor one) would ramp up the tension somewhat, and be something Jops Van Jools would (at the very least) pass on to the ‘higher ups’ within the family (perhaps even to the Inquisitorial agents present in the hive).

So I’ll have to figure out how that will play out – but for now I think it’s time I brought this blog post to a close :)

Anyway, before I go I do just want to quickly say that I hope a few of you are enjoying these solo bat-reps – because, even though they are mainly just serving as a journal of sorts (to help me keep track of things), I think it’s good to see some of my terrain ‘in action’ so to speak (as I always forget to take photo’s when playing games with other people).

Gaming in the 40K universe: Setting things up for game 3.

2025-02-25T21:51:00.001+00:00

After playing my last solo game, I had a few ideas about how I could improve things a little… nothing major, just some ‘quality of life’ improvements and some slight tweaks here and there.

The first of these was to make a few more ‘blips’ that could be used for ‘false signals’ on the sides that get revealed when the token comes into sight.

I also decided to (use the StarQuest app to) generate twice as many enemies as I needed this time…

1. Three Plague Zombies (poxwalkers)

2. Three Plague Zombies

3. Three Plague Zombies

4. Three Plague Zombies

5. Three Plague Cultists with Rifles

6. One Plague Warrior (plaguebearer)

...so that’s six enemy models/units, and the same amount of ‘error’ blips.

I then mixed up all the numbered blips and separated them into two piles – and each of these piles also had three ‘false-signal/error’ tokens mixed in as well.

That way I could use one pile (that contained 3 random enemies and 3 false signals) to populate the board at the beginning at the game, and a second pile (that also contained 3 random enemies and 3 false signals) to use as reinforcements during the game itself.

(Note that ‘reinforcements’ are my homebrew way of introducing extra enemies instead of the ‘wave’ system in regular StarQuest. Basically, at the end of each turn I roll a d6… and if I roll a six, I then place a blip from the reinforce pile at a randomly determined dead end).

Anyway, for the table set-up I used my random dungeon tiles and cards again (to generate the layout) – but like before, because I only have a small table to play on, I did have to jigger things around a bit to get it to fit (I’ll also be using my ¾ size ruler again to measure distances).

So, pictured above is how things were laid out… which I then tried to tie to some of the mission objectives in the StarQuest book.

As such, I placed a computer terminal in each of the ‘special’ rooms – and used these for the markers for the ‘Investigation’ Primary objective. So, my hero had to get to each of these and make a Dex Test to get them back online (thus restoring power to the doors to the Quest Room).

Then, as the secondary objective, I chose ‘Safeguard’ – which meant I had to get to the quest room and make another three successful Dex checks to make sure the generator came online.

Some of the other interpretations where:

A blip was placed in each monster room and the quest room. The remaining 3 blips where each placed at one of the dead end ‘monster spawner’ points (you can’t see it in the picture – but the last one is at the end of the passage in the bottom right).

As before, I numbered all of the rooms (1 to 6), and rolled a die for each blip (except the one in the quest room). The number on the die then represents where that particular blip is moving to. When a blip reaches its destination, it remains there for one round, and I then roll a die for it again (note that all blips simply make a 6” move on their turn until they are revealed).

The ‘T’ token represents dangerous terrain filling that tile (in this case noxious fumes from the toxic spill).

The ‘R’ tokens means that I need to roll a random event if/when I enter those tiles (and try to interpret the result in a fitting way… re-rolling if necessary).

When I got a ‘room feature’ on a card… I simply put some crates on the tile, and these would be treated like a search token (I only got one this time – as seen in the corner of room 6).

And I think that was about it. As you can tell, I’m not always using the cards and tokens in the same way – but instead just trying to make them fit whatever mission (or indeed whatever game system) I’m playing at the time.

So, last time the ‘special rooms’ where areas that could be searched… but for this mission I’m using them as part of the main objective (and I’m instead using ‘room feature’ results as things that can be searched). It’s really just a matter of using them to inspire ideas, rather than giving them set values.

Anyway, because my Rogue Trader and his (heavily armed) servitor where the only survivors of the last mission… he needed to add some new members to his retinue…

…and here we have (from left to right) a sergeant of the household troops, the servitor that survived the last mission, the main man himself (Rogue Trader Jops Van Jools) and a small squad containing a flame thrower (as I reckon that will come in handy for killing swarms of enemies).

So, as you can see – like before, I’m not using multiple heroes for my game (like you are supposed to), but instead creating a small retinue worth the same amount of points as my character. So that’s a total of 220 points (110 for my hero and 110 from various ‘firefight’ lists… and it’s that 220 points that I used to create the custom ‘wave’ of enemies listed above).

And I think that’s about it for this little pre-game ramble… in my next post I’ll do a quick recap of the game itself (and we’ll see who managed to survive this one :o ).

Gaming in the 40K universe: Game 2 – Part 2 (going rogue).

2025-02-15T17:02:00.005+00:00

The last time I posted here, I got to talking about how I was going about running/playing a solo game of (One Page Rules) StarQuest – but with a few changes so that I could have just the one hero (accompanied by a bunch of retainers) exploring a dungeon-like environment.

So, for the sake of completeness, I’ll post a link to that entry HERE, and I’ll also re-post the photo of the table set up:

Though something I forgot to mention last time was the fact that on smaller boards, OPR recommend that you half all the distances (movement, weapon range, etc.) - however I feel that really slows things down too much.

As such, I thought that maybe reducing everything to three quarters might be a better way to go… though that does mean a bit of extra maths. However, to simplify that, I thought I could still use all the listed ranges in the rules as written – but instead, make a little ruler that was reduced to three quarters size.

So here it is pictured next to a regular ruler…

...and, I have to say, it worked rather well :)

Anyway, now that I’ve got all that out of the way… let’s get to the mission itself.

BACKGROUND

As mentioned previously, all of these games are being set in a little homebrew corner of the 40k verse – with the possibility of certain outcomes influencing other games (so the result from a solo or co-op skirmish game could have ramifications in an RPG one-shot, and vice versa).

So, with that in mind, the first game that took place (a co-op game using the firefight rules more conventionally) saw an inquisitorial agent (accompanied by a captain of the local branch of enforcers) retrieve some valuable information (of Vermillion level security clearance) from an old abandoned section of the Magna Prime hive city… an area that has recently been rediscovered/reopened.

And, as has been detailed already, other miscreants and ne'er-do-wells have also been exploring the area (despite the best efforts of the Magna Prefects – the local enforcers) in the hope of retrieving valuable archeotech and the like.

Therefore, when Jops Van Jools (a low ranking family member of a Rogue Trader dynasty) appeared on the scene (as part of a scheduled visit – providing various delicacies and even a few illicit goods to the upper hive), he quickly learned of this new development within the depths of the hive – and not surprisingly, it was something that piqued his interest.

Through his contacts, he also learned that the inquisition have involved themselves (though, so far, somewhat unofficially) – but that has not perturbed him from undertaking his own investigation… as any potential secrets/artefacts of ‘the hollow’ (as it is becoming known) might well prove to be valuable… possibly to the extent of elevating his position within the family.

So it is that Jops has used his influence to gain access to a secluded section of ‘the hollow’ - one that appears to be fairly self contained... and one with a faint glimmer of power – the source of which is worthy of further investigation.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVAL (recover the power source from the quest room, and return to the entrance/exit passage)

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: NONE

THE MISSION

Jops and his crew (a squad of three household troopers, Maximilian the cyber mastiff, and heavy weapon servitor CF-HB-1) entered the abandoned structure and immediately picked up multiple movement/lifeform signatures on their scanners. Hopefully these would be little more than rad-grubs and tox-crawlers (or other underhive pests) – but it paid to be cautious nonetheless, as it could just as easily be mutants or cultists… that is, if you gave any credence to the rumours surrounding this place.

TURN 1

CF-HB-1 was sent to keep watch over the left passage, and Maximilian the right, while the young Rogue Trader and his guards investigated the first room on their way to the power source. The ‘blip’ reading from the left proved to be a false one… as did one from the right… but the third one marked a bunch of lumbering corpses – each of their faces contorted into an unsettling rictus grin as they advanced towards the party.

TURNS 2 TO 8

Jops took one of the creatures down with a blast from his plasma pistol, though the panicked guards missed will all three of their shots.

Things then escalated quickly as Maximilian was overwhelmed by the remaining two pox-ridden walkers… and yet more mutant dead-men appeared at the group’s back (from deeper within the complex).

In the resulting battle, things went poorly for the household troops, as they were torn to ribbons while trying to hold back the initial group of monsters (to give Jops and CF-HB-1 time to deal with the newcomers).

And all of that commotion must have alerted other denizens of this portion of The Hollow… as no sooner as the undead beasts were slain, a group of foul smelling cultists (clad in tattered rags, and clutching rusty weapons) entered the room – forcing the remaining members of the expedition to turn and face them.

TURNS 9 TO 16

Luckily, these cultists were dealt with quickly, and Jops was able to search the old consoles in the room (finding some kind of discarded stim wedged behind them), while the servitor opened the door to reveal yet another glitch ‘blip’ on the scanner.

With only one distant blip on the scanner, the remaining duo made their way to their target…

...though it was no simple task to remove this ancient power cell (or whatever it was) – so CF-HB-1 was set to watch the door… while Jops did his thing (i.e. it took several rounds for me to make a successful skill test to retrieve the object).

And all the while, new blips started to appear on the scanners (i.e. this was the first time I actually rolled any ‘sixes’ at the end of each turn – to indicate ‘reinforcement blips’).

TURNS 17 TO 20

With the ‘goods’ (finally) secured, the pair started to make their way back to the entrance - breathing a sigh of relief when the next blip proved to be nothing at all…

...unlike a new reading that suddenly appeared at the end of the passage they had just traversed – as more pox-infested cultists crawled out of the drainage system (i.e. another six was rolled in the ‘reinforcement phase’ – and a blip was placed at a random dead-end).

However, since they had the prize in their possession, Jops Van Jools decided that discretion was the better part of valour… and made a beeline for the exit (lamenting the loss of his troops and the expensive cyber mastiff that would be left to rot in this emperor-forsaken pit of corruption).

AFTER ACTION REPORT

And that was about it. All things considered, I think it worked out pretty well.

There’s a few things I might change up for my next game – but I’ll discuss those more when I get to it.

In the meantime, I’ve also decided that any models that get taken out during the game cannot be used again for 1d6 missions (as repairs/purchases are made, reinforcements arrive, and so on).

As such, I cannot use my cyber mastiff model again for 2 missions, and these particular trooper models can’t be used for 4.

I can still use the same unit types if I paint more models to represent them (or paint up entirely different units) – but for the next mission only servitor CF-HB-1 will be rejoining him from this particular crew… any other units I include will have to be freshly painted models.

Hopefully, this will encourage me to assemble and paint more models – because if this particular mission is anything to go by, these extra ‘filler units' don’t last long once combat is joined.

Anyway, I hope this was an interesting bat-rep of sorts. I’m mainly ‘journaling’ them for my own benefit/reference (as is often the way with solo gaming)… but I’ll continue to share them here on the blog… along with any session recaps of any RPGs or co-op games that I play in this setting (whatever the system).

But that’s it for now… I’m off to see what models I can muster for my next game :)

Gaming in the 40K universe: Game 2 – Part 1 (going rogue).

2025-02-14T17:02:00.003+00:00

In my last couple of posts I’ve been talking about gaming in my own little home-brewed corner of the 40K universe… first I covered the setting, and then I recounted a co-op game of StarQuest with a friend from Discord.

Next I want to talk about another game I played/ran solo – this time using my 2D dungeon tiles and the ‘random dungeon cards’ I was experimenting with a while back (you can read more about those HERE).

However, before I get to that, I just want to share a picture of the little warband I’ve created for this game, and some extra terrain pieces I’ve made (which I felt were needed to add more of a sci-fi vibe to the dungeon tiles – though I obviously need to do more).

Now, all of these models were printed on my brother’s ‘Bambu A1 mini’ 3D printer – and for a cheap FDM printer (with a 0.2mm nozzle) it does a pretty good job. It really does seem that FDM printers have come a long way in the past couple of years… and if you’d like a follow up article where I discuss all the (free) model parts I’ve used for these (as most are kitbashed in some way), then let me know, and I’ll do just that.

Anyway, for the game itself I used the StarQuest rules again (by one page rules) – but this time I created a single hero (who came out being exactly 100 points), and gave him a small retinue worth the same amount of points from the ‘firefight’ army builder (I judged that these units couldn’t perform any of the specific hero actions in StarQuest – but would count as having a 6+ for any tests that relied on the extra skills a hero has).

Thus we have Jops Van Jools (bonus points if you get the reference) – a young upstart from the Van Jools Rogue Trader dynasty. Being way down the line of succession for the Warrant of Trade, Jops is usually tasked with duties of little import and/or perfunctory roles as is fitting for one of his station.

But enough of that for now… so, the idea for this game was to set up a random ‘dungeon’ of sorts – however, when I’ve done this in the past, I’ve usually generated the dungeon on the fly (i.e. placed a new tile as each room or passage came into line of sight), but this time I thought I’d use my (prototype) random dungeon cards to generate the ‘dungeon’ ahead of time… and maybe treat this as a preliminary (auspex?) scan of the area.

And here’s how it ended up looking (note that I used some common sense to modify the results to fit my small board – so if a card revealed a passage that was 2 tiles long and ended in a t-junction… but I only had space for it to be one tile long with a single right turn – I just did that instead):

I’ve also not used any separate tables for this one – and I removed all the blank tokens from the mix. This way, if a card said ‘draw a token’ I was almost guaranteed to get something of interest. Here’s what I went with:

S token = place some terrain to represent an area that can be Searched.

T token = that room/passage tile counts as dangerous Terrain.

M token = add a Monster ‘blip’ in the middle of the tile.

R token = ignore this Result.

Similarly, if I drew a ‘monster room’ card for a particular room – that room got a monster ‘blip’ token, and if I drew a ‘special room’ card – that room also got some terrain to function as a search token. Furthermore, if a card said to roll on the room feature table – I just added a bit of terrain (though I also added some terrain to the quest room, as I think it deserves it).

As for the monsters I’d be using – I used the same army list from the last game (i.e. one that features all the Nurgle themed models I have painted thus far).

And since my warband is 200 points in total (i.e. 100 points for my hero, and 100 points in ‘followers’), when playing StarQuest on ‘difficulty 1’ – that meant that the first ‘wave’ of monsters that appeared in the ‘dungeon’ would be worth a total of roughly 100 points (i.e. half the points value of my guys) – and so a random ‘wave’ of opponents was created in the app… which gave me these:

However, I still want there to be some mystery to the game (i.e. I don’t want to know exactly where all the enemies are going to be) – so I actually placed twice as many blip tokens on the board… with the idea being that if I got a result of one, two, or three when it was flipped over – that would correspond to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, enemy on the list… and if I got a four, five, or six – that would indicate a false reading from the scanner (i.e. no enemies would be placed).

As such, the blips (marked one to six) were shuffled – with one being placed (face down) in each of the ‘monster rooms’, one being placed on the tile that yielded an ‘M’ token, and the last two were placed in random dead ends (these dead ends would also function as ‘spawn points’ for additional enemies placed later in the game).

Speaking of which, I didn’t want to roll for additional ‘waves’ in the usual way (which involves keeping track of ‘enemy alertness’ – instead I simply rolled a d6 at the end of each turn. If that resulted in a six – I just put another monster blip at the end of a random ‘dead end passage’ (from any blips that had already been removed from play).

And the last thing I’ve introduced is something from Five Leagues/Parsecs… that being that each room has been numbered (in this case one to six) and I’ve rolled a d6 for each blip – with the result being the room that it is moving towards…

...as you can see in the image above (i.e. the blip in room two is going to be headed toward room five on its turn).

Now I know I’ve probably made all of this sound rather complicated with my bad explanation of things – but it actually worked rather well in practice :)

Anyway, rather than making this blog post any longer, I think I’ll recap the game itself in a separate article in a day or two. So, here’s hoping this has been a vaguely interesting read, and I’ll hopefully catch you again in the next one.

Gaming in the 40k universe: Game 1 (Inquisitorial Secrets)

2025-02-08T18:28:00.007+00:00

As I recently mentioned, I hope to get some more solo/co-op games in this year, and base those games in the 40k universe-ish (maybe even an RPG session or two).

In my previous post I outlined the homebrew planet where this will be taking place (hence the ‘ish’ part mentioned above), and in this one I’ll do a brief recap of the first game I played with a friend on TableTop Simulator (TTS).

So, for the table, I was able to find a bunch of assets that folks had already uploaded – so that we had a nice area to play on, and all the ‘bad guy’ miniatures we would need (note that even though there are tons of models available on TTS – I only used ones similar to those I have painted… because even though we are playing online, the whole thing is still being used as a means of encouragement for getting actual miniatures painted).

Also, one of the nice things about TTS is that it allows you to import images of your own – to make little standees. For example here’s a shot of the models we painted for our ‘heroes’:

On the left is Khalia (an inquisitorial acolyte) and young Capt. Tommard Howas (of the Magna Prefects)

Now, the system we used for this game was ‘StarQuest’ from One Page rules – which seems like a fun little skirmish game – as it pits a number of ‘heroes’ up against waves of random enemies (I say ‘random’ – but you create a list ahead of time, using their ‘firefight’ army builder – and it only draws from that list… so that you can ensure that you only face off against models you have in your collection).

Anyway, you can also randomise the mission’s objectives (primary and secondary) if you like – but since we are playing a bit of a narrative game, I chose these ahead of time so as to tailor them to the setting.

So, I went with ‘Area Search’ as the primary objective (i.e. there are three markers on the board… and one of them will be the thing we are searching for), and ‘Escort’ as the secondary (so that once we had found ‘the thing’ we had to get ourselves, and it, to the extraction point).

As such, the set up went something like this (note that the idea is that I’ll set things up for the first mission, then my friend will do the next, and we’ll alternate back and forth whenever we play):

An Inquisitor by the name of Yadec was investigating disturbances in a newly opened (previously abandoned) manufactorum level of Magna Prime. Now this area is not technically part of the underhive (as it’s not low enough) – but due to the fact that it’s been lost/sealed-off for as long as anyone can remember, it commands a similar status.

To begin with, these ‘disturbances’ were little more than the usual gang squabbles/claims over the area, the enforcers trying to keep order, and miscreants and ne'er-do-wells daring its depths in the hope of uncovering ancient artefacts and lost technology. However, this didn’t last long, and the two most prominent gangs in the area (‘the scabs’ and ‘the skinnies’) actually seemed to start working together – a worrying sign.

Enforcers of the Magna Prefects attempted to clear the area out on several occasions (in order to make way for a more official exploration/reclamation undertaking) – but each time they were either repelled or lost entirely. Since then, the usual rumours of cults and mutants occupying the area have begun to surface (along with tales of it connecting to the actual under hive) – which led to an investigation by the aforementioned Inquisitor. However, he has not been seen or heard of for quite some time.

However, several faint signals/beacons have recently been detected in one part of this area – ones bearing Vermillion level security codes of inquisitorial origin.

As such Khalia has been tasked with the retrieval of whatever it is that is sending out this beacon… and has been accompanied by young captain Howas of the Magna Prefects (as a local escort).

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE = AREA SEARCH (locate the data slate containing the inquisitorial data)

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE = ESCORT (retrieve that information, and return it for decoding)

THE GAME

Now, we actually played this game at the start of the year – so some of the details are a bit hazy… but I think it went something like this (I’ll try to keep it brief):

Acolyte Khalia and Capt. Howas proceeded with caution as they entered the eerie structure – weapons drawn and at the ready. While not really part of the underhive, the whole place had a similar look and feel – along with a faint smell of rot and decay… a rather unsettling thought.

However, it didn’t take long for the source of that odour to make itself known, as several mutant undead creatures shambled towards them as the pair made their way down a broad corridor towards the first marker.

The beasts were quickly dispatched, and the marker proved not to be the thing that they were looking for… simply delaying them long enough to attract the attention of yet more walking undead… twice as many as before… closing in from the other end of the corridor.

These were dealt with in a similar manner – though this time things resorted to close quarters combat – with both the acolyte and enforcer suffering minor injuries.

The duo then ventured deeper into the complex, avoiding the attention of more blighted creatures and pox-ridden cultists, only to realise that the second signal was also little more than a false reading.

As such, the last signal had to be the thing they were looking for – so off they went.

This was a race against time, as more enemies started to pour into the area… and, of course, the data slate proved to be difficult to extract from it’s surround. Yet, in time, the data was retrieved, and several nearby enemies were slain.

But, with more and more foes making their way to the site of the last marker...

...Khalia and Howas were forced to sneak around them, and on to the extraction point before the area was totally overwhelmed.

* * *

And that was about it. I think there were some search tokens investigated along the way… and there was an ineffectual frag grenade thrown into the mix at some point – but, all in all, it was a fun evening’s worth of gaming :)

Gaming in the 40k universe (not necessarily using 40K rules)

2025-02-06T18:02:00.008+00:00

For a while now I’ve been thinking about creating my own little (non-canon / fan-fiction) 'world' based in the 40k universe (or something vaguely 40k-ish) – just so that I can set some of my games there (be it an occasional RPG session, a skirmish game with a friend, solo-gaming, and so on).

This is mainly so that a bit of an ongoing story can be achieved (as I do like things to have some kind of narrative), and also to encourage myself to paint some of my sci-fi mini’s, and get some use out of all the sci-fi terrain that I’ve made (as I’ve only got it to the table once or twice).

Now I don’t foresee it being anything special, nor particularly original – just something to draw upon for my own personal games.

So, what better place to start than a hive city – where an old section of the (under)hive has been uncovered/rediscovered… and is infested with cultists (and/or worse). This could lead to some fun sci-fi dungeon crawling shenanigans – as various factions vie for control of the area, and/or undertake expeditions to seek out ancient archeotech or similar.

And since I currently live (in the real world) in the area where the old kingdom of Mercia once was – I think that’s what I’m going to call this ‘fantasy’ world – or more correctly, the gas giant about which the (habitable) moons orbit. A quick online search actually reveals that Games Workshop do mention a planet called Mercia in their fiction once – but nothing is said about it other than a Rogue Trader caught some ‘blight’ there – which works well for me… since I’ve got a bunch of Nurgle models painted up for the ‘bad’ guys :)

As such, the current plan is to go with something like this:

PLANET: Mercia (gas giant)

LARGE MOON: Mercia Magna (hive world)

SMALL MOON: Mercia Parvum (mining penal facility)

And most of the action will take place on Mercia Magna...

MERCIA MAGNA

Capital/Largest Hive City: Magna Prime

Planetary Governor: Lord Ulf Inneza

Station in geosynchronous orbit: Magna Caelum

Enforcers: Magna Prefects

...beginning in Magna Prime (i.e. that’ll be the site of the ‘new’ discovery)

(pictured here are a bunch of ‘Magna Prefects’ that I kit-bashed last year)

Now, I have played a couple of games already (an online co-op game in tabletop simulator using the StarQuest rules, and a solo game where I experimented with my random dungeon tiles/cards again) – but rather than tagging the results of those on to the end of this post, I’ll see if I can write them up separately, and have each game in it’s own post.

So, that’s the plan… and in the meantime, I’m also going to be working on some new sci-fi stuff for the YouTube channel – starting with this little fellow...

...so there's that to look forward to as well :) (well, at least, I'm looking forward to it!)

Docks, Piers, and Bridges

2025-01-20T17:31:00.000+00:00

As I’ve recently mentioned over on Patreon, I didn’t really plan on releasing any new videos until this year’s ‘community challenge’ was over (see my previous entry)… just so that folks (myself included) could focus on that, and not be sidetracked by yet another new project.

However, as you can tell by the title of this post – all of that has gone out of the window, and since I’ve just finished this...

...I thought I’d share it :) (as I’m not a huge fan of holding things back once they’re done).

Anyway… HERE is a link to the pdf file over on DriveThruRPG (as usual it’s a pay-what-you-want files), and here’s hoping you like ‘em!

2025 Community Challenge

2025-01-01T18:41:00.008+00:00

First of all… happy new year…

...fingers crossed it will be a good one!

Anyway, over on the YouTube channel, I’ve decided to start the year off with a (month long) community challenge!

All of the details are outlined in the video above… but all it really boils down to is – here’s a bunch of random textures…

...lets see what we can make with them :)

The hope is that several people will take part (I’m looking at you, gentle reader ;) ) and then send me pictures of what they have built – so that I can make a follow up video at the beginning of February that showcases everyone’s projects :)

So that’s the plan!

I will, of course, be taking part myself… and while it’s not a competition (there’s no prizes or anything like that), it should be a fun project to get the year started!

Miniatures Painted This Year (December Update)

2024-12-31T10:46:00.000+00:00

This will likely be my last blog post of this year, so what better way to end things than with an update on all the miniatures I managed to get painted this month (and to see if I actually managed to keep to my goal of painting more than I buy this year).

So, first up is this little fellow…

...now I actually told a bit of a white lie when I got him earlier in the year – as it was actually going to be a Xmas/thank-you gift for a friend that I game with (one who will often give me a lift home when I need one). As such I didn’t want to spoil the surprise (just in case he stumbled across the blog) so apologies for making up a story about it being stuck to a plinth and used as a trophy :)

Anyway, the next mini’s I splashed some paint on where these two reaper bones models…

...which I painted up with the intent of using them for a few solo games of ‘Age of Fantasy: Quest’ (perhaps setting the scenarios in my old Age of Shadow campaign world).

Next up where these guys…

...which are more undead from Mantic Games’ Dungeon Saga kickstarter. Now I was hoping to get all of the undead from this set done over Xmas – but I got sidetracked with other things… so I still have three zombie trolls to go.

And, speaking of getting sidetracked, my brother has recently bought a Bambu A1 mini 3D printer (as it was on sale)… and he’s printed a few things off for me (and I’ve also been having a bit of a play around with it myself when time allowed).

As such, pictured below are three skeleton mini’s from Fat Dragon Games… one fresh from the printer (though I did accidentally break the spear and had to repair it, then add some ‘wraps’ for strength)… one primed… and one painted:

And for FDM prints (using the 0.2 nozzle, and the settings provided by Fat Dragon Games), I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed. In fact, here’s a few more:

The HeroQuest style one he gave to me – as he didn’t want it because it’s printed a bit small, the oversized crawling claw was the first one I had a go at printing off myself (as it wouldn’t take very long), and the mummy was the first one where he downloaded two separate files (i.e. the mummy and the base), and merged them together (though some of the wraps did break off – but it was easily fixed with a bit of greenstuff).

Anyway, getting back to regular miniatures… this next one is going to be used in a co-op game of ‘Grimdark Future Star Quest’ (set in the 40K universe):

(kitbashed from a reaper bones model – with a stargrave ‘trooper’ head, and a GW ‘arbite’ shock baton).

The game itself is going to be played online with one of the guys from my Discord server… but we thought it would be cool to use mini’s we’ve actually painted (rather than generic tokens) – and it turns out that it’s not all that difficult to turn a front & back photo into a standee that works pretty well on Tabletop Simulator (as can be seen below).

But yeah, this is going to be used as an enforcer captain in the hive city where our games will be set (the idea is that it will be a homebrew planet of Mercia Magna – which I/we can use for RPGs, war/skirmish games, solo adventure games, and so on).

And seeing as how I might also play some solo games myself (perhaps more StarQuest, or 5 Parsecs Bug Hunt), and as I say, run some one-shot RPGs in the hive city of Magna Prime (working title), and maybe even the odd (narrative) game of ‘GrimDark Future: Firefight’ …that means I’ll need some more enforcers to back him up.

So, to allow me to do that, I’ve done a bit of kitbashing to make some ‘security gunners’ (using the GrimDark Future: Firefight army builder)…

...which were made from Wargames Atlantic ‘bulldog’ bodies, Stargrave Trooper heads, and the Wargames Atlantic extra weapons sprue.

These are accompanied by some ‘security fighters’…

...which are also made from Wargames Atlantic ‘bulldog’ bodies and ‘cannon fodder’ arms, Stargrave Trooper heads, and Games Workshop ‘arbite’ shock batons.

And to round them out I’ve also put together this ‘veteran gunner’…

...which uses similar parts with regard to the head and body – but this one has a shotgun from GW’s ‘hive scum’ kit.

I also found this model buggy/truck on Thingiverse – which I think has the perfect look to go along with my enforcers.

However, to print this with the highest detail and the smallest nozzle would have taken around 9.5 hours… which I would probably have done if I had my own 3D printer… but since this would be done on my brother’s machine (and I didn’t want to tie it up for an entire day) he instead installed the larger (0.4) nozzle and used a thicker layer height to get it down to 2.5 hours.

As such, the resulting model does have some pretty obvious layer lines if you look closely – but on the whole I still think it’s great.

And finally… the last models of the year are these guys:

Again, these were (free) 3D prints (I think they might have been on the Cults 3D website)… and they’re actually intended for use as ‘basing’ decorations. However, I’ve blown them up 200% when printing them – so that they fit nicely on a 20mm base in their own right (and can be used for little gribbly creatures of the underhive… or even as dungeon vermin in a fantasy setting).

So, that’s everything that I got painted in December… which brings the grand total up to:

148 painted models in 2024.

Which isn’t bad at all!

However, the whole 3D printing thing has thrown things a bit out of whack with regard to the number of miniatures I bought… as ‘technically’ I only paid for the 3 Fat Dragon skeletons (which I picked up as a thank you to FDG – seeing as how we were using the printing ‘profile’ he provides for free).

So technically (there’s that word again ;) ) I only bought 3 mini’s this month - as the rest were free downloads ;)

And that brings the total number of models that I paid for this year to:

115 models bought in 2024.

Which makes this whole endeavour a success right?

Well… not quite. You see, I also got the DarkTide boardgame back in July for my birthday (which contains 20 mini’s)… plus I had a bumper gaming Xmas:

...amongst which are 8 Dark Souls miniatures, 7 animal adventurers, 5 (dire/giant) wolves, and 20 orcs & goblins on sprues (so that’s another 40 miniatures there).

And if you include the other 8 free models that have been printed… it actually comes out to:

183 models acquired in 2024.

But yeah, I think I’m still going to count this as a win, as I DID paint more models than I bought (which was my original aim… I did specifically use the word ‘buy’ in my first post back in January :P) – though I’ll admit that it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that :D

In any case, it’s been good fun all the same… and it’s great to look back at the folder where I’ve been keeping all these pictures, and see everything I’ve done this year all in one place (even if you don’t share your pictures with anyone, I really do think this is a great thing to do).

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for this year’s hobby projects… but if you’re interested, I’ll be starting the new year with another terrain project – one that everyone can take part in – so I’ll see you then!

Miniatures Painted This Year (November Update)

2024-11-30T15:06:00.002+00:00

I'm actually on time with this post for a change... so let's see what I painted and purchased in November :)

So... painting-wise... the first things I splashed some paint on were these casualty markers:

Now, looking back at my blog posts, it seems that I actually purchased these back in February - so it's only took me nine months to get started on them.

And as far as the painting goes, it was a pretty quick job on these... just base-coats, a light wash on the 'dirty whites', a flesh wash on the skin, and Sonic Sledgehammer 'marine juice' over everything else. I also tidied/highlighted most of the areas with the same base coat colours (as the washes tend to darken everything down a bit).

Next up were these plastic Victrix gauls/celts... which I'll be using as Rhudaur Hillmen for a possible 'Angmar' themed game of 'Age of Fantasy: Quest'

And these were painted up in pretty much the same way... so just a flesh wash over the skin... 'marine juice/sonic tonic' over the rest... and then tidied back up in a few places with the original colours. There's also a bit of kit-bashing going on here and there - but nothing major.

And, while these models don't look great individually, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out as a group - especially when you consider that they're just quick paint jobs :)

Anyway, now for my purchases... and it seems that it's been a bit of a Victrix month - as I've also bought some late (armoured) Romans...

...as well as a sprue of their fantasy heads, cloaks, and shields...

...with the aim of maybe kitbashing these (along with some other Victrix/historical sprues that I already have) to make some Arnorian soldier types (specifically those of Arthedain)... again, for a possible Angmar themed game.

And while that does amount to three new sprues - technically, it's only six new models... and so I'm counting it as such :P

Which brings me to this year's totals. So that's 15 painted this month, and only six bought... which amounts to:

112 bought

125 painted

...and I've not even been tempted with any of the 'black friday weekend' sales so far - so I might be able to pull this whole 'paint more than I buy' challenge off after all.

Though I probably shouldn't tempt fate by saying that... as there's still one more month to go :)

Orc/Goblin Huts

2024-11-22T18:41:00.002+00:00

As is usual with most of my projects, I’ve been posting WIP pictures of these on the various social media sites… and I even ‘streamed’ on discord for a couple of hours while I was drawing some of the textures (I say streamed – but it was just me and a couple of guys in the chat :) ).

Anyway, they’re finally finished…

...and while I’ve labelled the video as ‘orc/goblin huts’ they could be used for a wide variety of humanoid creatures (including humans).

So here’s hoping you can find a use for them in some of your own games!