"Denizlere Hakim Olan Cihana Hakim Olur"

"He who controls the seas, controls the world."

Avci Class Destroyers

Here they are - the first squadron from my Dystopian Wars Ottoman Naval Support Group boxed set.

I didn't paint them as per the "codex", choosing a blue that I hope mimics the slate blue of the Blue Mosque. The colour I picked is FolkArt Light Periwinkle, which looks about right after a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone. The white is Martha Stewart Crafts Wedding Cake.

I chose to keep the scheme simple; there are just three non-metallics and three metallics: brown for the deck, white for the "walls", blue for the roofs, and silver for the guns and ladders, copper for the pipes, and gold for the finials.

The sculpts are incredibly detailed and almost daunting to paint, but at this scale I reckon I can get away with my usual block-and-wash method.

Next up should be the surface skimmers.

Frostgrave Playtest 3

With my wizard and apprentice painted, fg and I met for another session of Frostgrave, this time with some rule updates/amendments.

We used the Dungeon Command tiles fg just bought for this session:

The two warbands enter a dungeon.

My dwarves, led by my new figures, bulked to maximum size.

fg's Necromancer has decided to hire goblins instead this time.

"Ooh, treasure!"

"Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea." - A genie is released!

For the second game we decided that the magic glyphs printed on the tiles are teleporting portals which will teleport a figure to another random glyph, and that each turn a magical construct will "spawn" at a random glyph.

The Necromancer casts a 'Wizard Eye' to get line-of-sight on the dwarves without exposing himself to attacks.

The dwarven Runesmith thwarts him by casting a 'Fog' spell in front of his 'Wizard Eye'.

Goblin and zombie attack a dwarf warrior while another goblin tries to drag the treasure away.

The use of teleport portals means the warband members are scattered across the board.

The dwarven Runesmith teleports to the Necromancer's exit area, hoping to rob the goblins of their treasure. On the bottom left corner, a dwarf warrior fends off a magical construct.

There were some rule changes as the author considered the feedback from the playtesters. To me, the biggest change in the dynamics came from restricting figures carrying treasure to half-moves - this made it possible to let others do the sometimes risky work of collecting the treasure and just robbing them later. Slower movement rates also compelled other figures to hang around the treasure-carriers to provide security, and makes the game very different from the mad rush to grab treasure and then run off before the opposing warband can get you.

With fg's wizard hitting level 20, we have decided to restart the campaign with new warbands, perhaps wizards from other schools of magic.

Thanks, Google...

As if my dwarf runesmith apprentice wasn't having a hard enough time...

Scibor Dwarf Sapper OR Frostgrave Runesmith Apprentice

As promised, the second Scibor figure:

Again, this is a very nice sculpt, although there were some casting issues in the form of flash and bubbles. The scroll he holds in his right hand was actually a stick of dynamite (as are the ones in his backpack you will see below), but I shaved of the fuse and I think it looks passable as a scroll. I painted his cloak grey as those of my dwarf rangers, and I think he can do double duty as a messenger/courier for my dwarf army. I gave him a standard blue robe but added a yellow trim to the hem as a mark of elite status.

"It's getting dark, master - do we really have to explore the ruins at night?"
Master and apprentice use backpack from the same range, as evident by the stitching.

As my Frostgrave warband is dwarf-themed, and my wizard is an Enchanter or artificer type, I am thinking of adding some sort of Iron Golem ("construct" in game terms). Time to trawl ebay for some cheap plastic figures then...

Me experimenting with a bit of creative lighting and post-processing.

Big Brother is watching me

I got a notification from Google this morning telling me I have an unread Auto-Awesome photo. I clicked on the link and this is what I saw:

Apparently Google is adding animation effects to my photos because it knows what I want even when I don't?

Scibor Dwarf Miner OR Frostgrave Dwarven Runesmith

As many other wargamers who have blogged about their New Year resolution, I too am aiming to buy as few figures as I can this year. I try not to start any new army, but additions to existing armies is fair game.

With that excuse, I bought myself a dwarf miner figure from Scibor to use as the wizard of my Frostgrave warband.

The dwarf wizard searches the ruins of Frostgrave for ancient magical artifacts.

As my left foot is in a cast, I couldn't get out of the apartment to spray-prime. Fortunately, fg brought over some brush-on primer so I could get some painting done. I really like the result and will definitely be using brush-on primer for my more detailed figures from now on.

The figure was a nice sculpt as usual from Scibor; the beard was a delight to paint. I did the minimum work on the figure: snipped off the pipe on the back of his hat and also candle on the front of his hat and filled in the bowl of the reflector, and he looked less like a miner and more like an Orthodox priest. He had a vest of scaly leather, which I painted in the copper that I use for all my dwarf figures - I guess it was made from the hide of a Copper Dragon. I was tempted to convert the pick-axe to a hammer, but then the pick-axe looked nice and I figured it wouldn't look out of place on a wizard who is exploring an arctic environment.

Hmm, is this the way? The backpack is well-sculpted. I stained the hem of the greatcoat with some Devlan Mud.

Or is it that way? I should really have brought a compass...

I've also ordered the Scibor Dwarf sapper to be his apprentice. Hopefully that figure arrives soon and I can get it done this week.

Getting Set

I managed to paint the Harbinger of Set figure by Crocodile Games this week, which I am planning to use as Set himself for our OGAM games. He is on a resin base from Fantascape.

Now the reason why I had the time to paint him is because I am now at home nursing a broken foot, specifically the fifth metatarsal. The injury occurred on New Year's Eve, so I spent the last day of the year having my bone set. Getting about the house is a bit of a pain now with a bulky plaster backslab on, but hopefully I can switch to a lighter plastic cast or a boot next week.

Meanwhile, I hope to prep the Egyptian infantry which will be part of the same warband. Will take me a while and I may have to hand-prime instead of spray-prime them, but one does what one can.

Here are a couple more pics of Set.

"Come at me, bro!" said Set to Osiris.

Frostgrave Playtest 2

fg and I played two more games of Frostgrave using our same warbands.

The set up for the Wurm Hunt game

The Necromancer's men are attacked by the giant wurm while hunting for treasure.

Opposing warbands waiting round the corners of a ruined building for the other party to make the first move.

The Necromancer's rag-tag band enter and search a building.

We realised we played the game wrong late into the second game: movement is halved for the second move in a turn. That aside we found the basic rules robust. The use of d20 means combats aren't a sure thing, and a +2 advantage in Fighting still makes a fight risky.

The first game saw me gaining a huge advantage over fg, until my recklessness saw both my wizard and her apprentice put out of action. The aftermath saw fg's wizard gain a huge lead in experience, which after the second game saw him reach level 12 versus my wizard's level 7.

I enjoyed the games enough to want to continue with the warband, and maybe even try a different one from a different school of magic.

Out of Egypt...

I like mummies.

They are one of those figures that you can use across periods and genre, from fantasy and mythical to VSF to Pulp, and even games like Blood Bowl.

The latest addition to my small collection of mummy figures is the one from Northstar which they released as part of their Of Gods and Mortals Nickstarter. You can see him standing proudly atop a resin base from Fantascape, showing off his six-pack abs. I also managed to paint up two bases of Egyptian-themed critters, which are Bones miniatures given to me by fg.

I really like the Northstar mummy because it wears the double crown of Egypt, which to me speaks of the ancient history of that land.

The next figure on my painting list is the Harbinger of Set figure from Crocodile Games. Hopefully I can get that done over the New Year break.

2013 in Review

Well, it's that time of the year again.

We played a total of 15 sessions, not including two sessions of RPG and my solo dungeon crawl campaign, which is an improvement over the last year.

A game of X-wing on 01 December - Martin bought several packs of fighters the same evening after this game...

Looking at the review post last year I can see that I have failed miserably at not buying more new figures, but at least I gave a good account of myself and painted most of those that I did buy. The main exception here are the Egyptians that I bought for an OGAM warband, and the Ottoman Dystopian Wars fleet that lacks painted opponents. Well, at least I got some of the Egyptians primed yesterday...

One trend that I do see is that we seem to be playing more easy-to-set-up games these past few months instead of the big 15mm games that involve hundreds of figures. Boardgames, pre-painted figures and dungeon tiles do cut a lot of preparation work for me, but I guess I would still want to set up that big game on those occasions where several players can make the session.

I'm not sure how useful it is to predict what we will be playing in the upcoming year, seeing as how last year's predictions came true for the first few months before we got hooked on something new, but goes anyway.

I would like to complete the current campaign arc for our RPG game (three more sessions planned, with a few possible endings that will allow another arc if the players are keen and able). I also expect that fg and I will play a few more playtest games of Frostgrave as we level our wizards up - I have already ordered a couple more figures for this project.

I also want to look into what else I can do solo with my dungeon tiles, or what other solo projects I can get into using my existing figures.

The only big purchase I plan to make is the Perry WOTR foot men-at-arms, plus a few packs of their metal figures to round up my WOTR/Empire army.

Well, that's that then. Have a good year-end holiday season.

Frostgrave Playtest

I recently had the privilege to become a playtester for Frostgrave, a game of dueling warbands led by wizards in a lost city that will be published by Osprey in 2015.

The rules are pretty easy to learn and involve not too much die-rolling: almost everything is resolved by the single roll of a d20, sometimes competitive.

I managed to play a game of it with fg just yesterday, using the Dwarven Forge dungeon terrain he bought.

The game as it stands has 10 schools of Magic for a player to choose from, and a list of 100 spells. Wizards gain experience points and 'level up' with the progress of the campaign and warbands can grow in size and even buy 'building upgrades' much like in a computer game. We will definitely try the game again in the near future.

Dwarven Forge terrain. Took a while to set up, but the result is worth it. The central crypt is from Thomarillion.

The Necromancer's warband, led by a professional Tomb Robber.

Skeletons stream out of the crypt to protect the treasures. The tissue represent the Fog spell cast by my dwarven wizard.

Giveaway Draw Results

I made the draw and here are the results:

Medieval Bundle - Dan Mersey

Mutiny Bundle - Adam from TMP

Do let me have your mailing addresses and I will send the bundles off as soon as I can make it down to the post office.

As for the rest of you, I hope to be giving away some of my other stuff, which include some really old (70s?) ancients and medieval wargames rules, in the near future.

Thanks for participating.

Giveaway

I'm pruning my bookshelves and have decided to give some of the rulebooks to fellow gamers who will give them a better home.

These are the two bundles:

The Medieval Bundle: Peter Pig's Conquerors and Kings, Poleaxed 2nd Edition, Ed Smith's Wars of the Roses rules, and MiniFig's A Knight to Dismember rules.

The Indian Mutiny Bundle: TVAG's John Company 2nd Edition, and The Devil's Wind.

OK, this is the first time I am doing this and I am note sure if there are some internet rules about the whole thing, but these are the terms I offer.

Let me know if you are interested in getting either of the bundles by leaving a comment, and I will draw a recipient at the end of the month. This is not a first-come, first-serve offer.

The offer is free; once I let you know you have been drawn, do let me have your email and mailing address and I will mail it off to you. You don't even have to pay for the postage. I am doing this not to get some money back, but to give these rules a good home. If you want to pay back somehow, I ask that you make a small donation to a local charity, or consider doing the same thing I am doing and give some rulebooks that you no longer use a chance for a new lease of gaming life.

The Medieval Bundle is a straightforward, but the Indian Mutiny bundle is more... dubious. I understand that John Company is now in its 3rd Edition, and for some inexplicable reason I am missing the Event Cards sheets, so if you get it, you are getting an "obsolete" and "incomplete" game. In addition, it is also a thick book so postage will be higher, especially since there are also all those card sheets. If you want The Devil's Wind but not John Company 2, do indicate that in your comment/request and I will take that into account when deciding whom to send the Bundle to.

Thank you.

Song of Drar and Murin: Game 6

This scenario is inspired by a Tabletop Teaser from an old issue of Battlegames, which is the only frankly "fantasy" scenario I have seen so far. It gave me the idea that I can actually combine underground and overground tiles in the same game.

The dwarves must cos the overground tiles to reach the entrance to the mines, then search for a stolen relic which is in one of the three rooms there.

Warg riders attack!

A dwarf warrior is slain!

The dwarves push on despite their loss. More warg riders attack!

Birgir is felled by a war rider, but I use the warband upgrade I bought from the victory in the previous scenario to avert his death - rank hath its privileges.

With the overground tiles cleared, the dwarves enter the mines.

Puny goblins are no threat to my experienced dwarf warriors.

The first room is empty! Move on, boys!

Die, foul goblins!

Found it! Let's haul it home, boys!

Despite the loss of one warrior and the near-death of Birgir, the game wasn't really challenging; I gave myself a limit of 40 turns, and completed the scenario in fewer than 30. Should I increase the number of cards per tile? Or the number of points of enemies on each card?

I may shelve the campaign while I try to think of some way to make it more interesting. In the mean time I should get started on my Egyptian warband for OGAM, or catch up on some reading...

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Wanting to have a solo game to play too, fg bought himself the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game last week and brought it over this afternoon.

The game is rather daunting, and has almost 500 cards in the basic set - fg bought a couple more expansion packs, which meant we had over 500 cards. Fortunately the game box was design to help organise the different sets of cards, and the rules actually come with a "map" of which cards go into which slots.

The game itself is not too difficult once you get the basic mechanics. It plays rather like a mapless dungeoncrawl, or a role-playing game without the role-playing. A campaign consists of several scenarios, each of which consists of a few scenes; each scene comes with a randomised deck of encounters and treasures, which the characters go through as they "explore" each locale. The make-up of each deck has some relation to the locale: a civilised locale will have more ally cards for example, while a dungeon locale will have more treasures and monsters.

The characters may choose to stick together or split up to explore the locales. While sticking together is the safest, there is a clock running - if your party does not "close" all the locales and eliminate the boss villain in 30 turns, you lose the scenario.

Winning a scenario allows your characters to upgrade, and they also get to keep some of the treasures they gain along the way.

We played a campaign through and a scenario in a second campaign, and kept our characters. This is a rather fun beer & pretzel game which we will most likely play again soon.

Gallows Grove

Privateer Press makes really nice figures and models, but they can be expensive. I've been eyeing their Gallows Grove for quite a while now, and was able to get a pack in a recent sale - still cost quite a bit though.

It's a beautiful model, if a little hard to put together and paint. I don't think I got the glowing sigils effect, but I guess I can always go back and re-do that if I get better at it.

Song of Drar and Murin: Game 5

As promised, I took the fighting outdoor and added some warg riders to the pack.

Instead of placing the cards on the tiles, I changed the rule for this scenario: the dwarves must make their way to the entrance to the mines, with the pursuing goblins being placed on the starting tile each turn. Since the goblins move faster than the dwarves, the dwarves must make their way across the open area quickly before the goblins can surround them.

To make sure that the goblin commander and the warg riders make an appearance in this scenario, I picked the goblin commander and one war riders card out, then drew another four cards at random, and then shuffled the six together.

The dwarves need to make it to the top left corner. The goblins enter from the bottom right corner.

The first two cards I draw are the goblin commander and the warg riders! Birgir, the new leader of the dwarves, orders the men to leg it.

But it is not possible to out-run the warg riders. The dwarves form a defence at the defile.

The goblins are pushed back after the first scuffle, but more warg riders arrive and one warrior ventures too far ahead of the line...

The warg riders charge again, and the warrior stumbles. Birgir face a tough choice: should he try to save the warrior, or get the rest of the men to safety?

We are dwarves - that's not even a question! Birgir sends two dwarves to prepare a second line of defence while he and the slayer charge in to rescue the downed warrior. The goblins begin to gather but they are unable to make it into combat.

A gruesome kill by Birgir sends many goblins fleeing - you can see the "casualty pile" on the top right of the photo.

The goblin commander rallies his men for a second charge, but another gruesome kill, this time by the slayer, sends more of his followers scrambling for safety.

Now outnumbered, the goblin commander decides discretion is the better part of valour...

Lucky tile placements allowed the dwarves to hold off superior number of enemies in this game. The most tense part of the game was when Birgir was faced with the choice of abandoning one of his men or risking all their lives. It took me a while to decide, but I realised I had to do the dwarven thing.

I played the whole thing through in an hour, with History Channel's Vikings in the background, and managed to pack all the figures and tiles away in less time than a commercial break took. Now I wonder what the next scenario should be.