Scattered Scenery

A short ‘utility’ post today – just some scatter scenery to block line of sight and, er, scatter about!

First off some crates and boxes courtesy of Fenris Games. I’ve had these for ages and they’ve made an appearance on my VBCW blog as I use them in my VBCW games, but now they’ve also been co-opted for Frostgrave.

 It’s interesting to note how my painting style has changed. These are just primed white, given a base coat and then a quickshade wash. Whereas nowadays…

…I tend to prime scenery black and then drybrush successive shades of colour, like in these barrels and boxes (and cat) bought second hand from the genius chap behind Matakishi’s Tea House.

I also bought these trapdoors and gratings from him. They’re all seconds from his 3D printing efforts – one man’s rejects are another man’s scenery!

Club Night: The Silent Tower

Back at the Hereford Wargames Club for another game of Frostgrave! It’s really great that so many club members are willing to give the game a try and are keen to return for another bash. For this game, Liam and Chris returned with a Necromancer and Elementalist warband respectively, while Reece had his first game with a Witch warband. I took to the field with my Illusionist band.

With four players on a 3’x3’ mat, it was absolute mayhem! In between explaining the game, spell effects, double-checking rules etc. not to mention having a great laugh, I didn’t take many photos or make note of what was going on, so this batrep is mainly a series of impressions from my side of the table.

We drop two treasure tokens each and then I place a treasure in the main tower and the two connecting ones. All four warbands cautiously advanced towards the silent tower and it’s priceless treasure. Faces dropped when I explained that, in this game of magic and spellcasting, no spells could be cast at or in the towers!

Luckily I rolled high for my first casting – the beauty spell. Snipping off a couple of health points made it nigh-impossible for my illusionist to be attacked by the other warbands. I also tried the same with my apprentice, but he proved to be less than capable! Meanwhile treasure is located and grabbed – will it attract any wandering monsters?

Yes – a large golem! This massive stone brute clumped onto the table behind Liam’s Necromancer band, causing his wizard to hurriedly leap out of the way, leaving his minions to dodge it’s huge fists.

This blurry photo shows the pack of rats that appeared behind my warband. They ignore my treasure-laden thug, who had been rendered invisible, and headed for my wizard. Luckily Liam sent in one of his thugs in an attempt to outflank me, so the rats pounced on him instead. My warhound engaged the rat pack, but for some reason I turned it invisible, making my wizard the prime target (rats don’t appreciate beauty)! The warhound must attack, making it visible again!

My invisible thug continued to lug away treasure as my warhound and archer, hurriedly pulled back, dealt with the rats. The warhound succumbed to the furry tide, forcing me to pull back another thug. Thankfully the other warbands seemed content to attack each other and leave me alone, give or take the occasional ranged shot.

We’re all nabbing treasure, but the precious stuff at the top of the main tower was still unclaimed. Much hilarity ensued as we all fluffed spells and groaned as more creatures wandered into the fray behind us. Chris is faced with a pair of ice spiders and later a boar, Reece got menaced by some wolves while Liam, still battling the golem, also had to fend off a bear.

On my left, Chris’ Elementalist could have caused a lot more trouble for me with his elemental bolts. After blasting one of my archers into crispy pieces, he targeted many more of my band as they moved up, but luckily for me rolled low each time.

Liam’s shadowy Necromancer leaped onto a connecting walkway to the main tower – would he go for the treasure? This made him a great target for my remaining archer. He hits, but didn’t kill the wizard, but it’s enough to persuade him to teleport away from such an exposed position.

Opposite me, Reece’s Witch was battling with warbands on both flanks and occasionally taking pot shots at my band. He managed to secure some treasure and caused quite a few casualties, despite the wolves snapping at his heels.

But it’s my man-at-arms that scaled the ladder of the main tower to claim the treasure within! By now it’s getting late, so we call it a night. Each warband took casualties, but more importantly each had a share of the treasure. Shots were missed, attacks went in cack-handed, spells were miscast and we only seemed to roll high when we didn't want to - all good fun!

Behold the Bone Wheel!

It was no good; the ropes that bound his body were too tight. Garant stopped struggling and, trying not to let the stinking cloth that smothered his face panic him, attempted to take stock.

The warband had been ambushed by ghouls as they returned from a treasure hunting expedition. Already battered and bruised they were easily overcome by superior numbers. The last thing Garant remembered was the screams of his employer before everything went black.

He awoke to find himself trussed up like a parcel – knees lashed up to his chest and arms pinned behind his back, all encased in some filthy bloodstained sacking. He was also swinging in mid-air, no doubt hoisted up somehow.

Was he on a ship? He could hear the creaking of wooden beams and the flap of sails. A pale light shone through the sack. There! A hole! Small, but, if he craned his neck, enough to see through maybe. He shifted, squinting through the hole as best he could.

Yes, he was definitely suspended off the ground judging by the angle of the ruins around him. Not a ship then. What else? From what he could make out the wooden beams, from which hung tatters of cloth, were horizontal. Was that another sack dangling from one? He tried to focus, but the sack swung as whatever it was that held him moved.

All he could see now was sky: dark storm clouds and flickering green light - not unusual in these parts but with a greater intensity than he had previously witnessed. Shapes moved unnaturally below him and then the chanting started…

Garant strained to catch what they were saying in their strange, dry croaking voices, but the language was beyond his ken. Murmuring low at first the chant rose in pitch and volume. The green flashes lit up the entire sky and the world shook as something booming replied. Garant screamed.

Behold the Bone Wheel! (Though admittedly there’s nothing particularly bony about it).

All painted up now for your delectation. In the end I decided not to glue the top nut in place, so it can be taken apart for ease of storage. The banners are just weird symbols I got off the internet, pasted onto a sackcloth background and printed out onto paper.

I must say I’m pretty pleased with it!

Bone Wheel WIP part 2

...in which I discover I'm not very good at sculpting.

"The victims? Oh I'll just sculpt some burial shrouds," I blithely stated.

Well, er, no. My attempts at sculpting such things failed dismally, so I went with the backup plan: large bulbous sacks - the type of thing Inca mummies are found in, tied up in the foetus position.

Meh, they'll do - hopefully they'll look ok painted (they better had do - it took me ages to get the string tied onto them and looped.)

On a happier note, the main assembly is now finished and painted! I'll leave the big reveal for later, but here are some teasers...

 

Bone Wheel WIP part 1

I hope you enjoyed my teaser pics – now all is revealed!

Alongside the shipwrecks of the Battle on the River scenario, the eponymous Bone Wheel is perhaps one of the most contentious pieces of scenario-specific scenery in the whole Thaw of the Lich Lord supplement.

I’ve seen some great versions on the web, plus some good improvisation (the 6” circle surrounding a tree in a Magic Murder Mice video batrep springs to mind), but I’ve been wracking my brains for ages to come up with a solution that not only functions as per the scenario, but also looks good and most importantly doesn’t cost me anything!

Seeing as I dislike spending money on scenery that I’ll probably only use in one or two games, I started to poke around the bins to see what I could find…

Strips of balsa wood, donated by Giles

Empty Rendera bases sprue

2” base hacked off a D&D Pathfinder model

Nylon bolt, nuts and washers found in the bin at work

Some string

MDF offcuts from my Dark Ops cemetery set

Bits from various plastic mini sprues

The plastic ring-pull thing found inside Ribena bottles

Lots of No More Nails glue (henceforth abbreviated to NMN) and Superglue!

I started off by making the hub and spokes of the wheel by gluing lengths of sprue onto a nylon washer (using a 6-sided nut as a guide for the angles). I then glued another washer on top and filled in the gaps with NMN.

I then threaded a nylon nut onto the bolt, got it to the height I wanted and then fixed it with Superglue. Once this had dried I worked out how high I wanted the wheel to stand and sawed off the remainder of the bolt. It was then glued onto the base, upon which I also glued the MDF offcuts. Once all was dry I then smeared NMN onto the base and bottom half of the bolt.

Back to the wheel. I stuck some balsa wood strips onto the flat side of the spokes and, once the glue had dried, snipped the long edges to make them look more worn. I then tied string around the edge to act as a rim, and also tied bits around each spoke to hopefully make it look like they were lashed on. Each knot was held in place with Superglue if necessary and soaked in PVA to help them stay on. I then glued a hand onto the end of each spoke. More NMN was dabbed on to rough it all up a bit.

Again reaching for spare plastic sprues I hacked up some heads and glued them on the flats of the other nut, once more dabbing liberally with NMN to add texture.

The whole thing goes together like this:

The wheel sits, and spins freely, on the bottom nut. The second nut screws on above the wheel to hold it in place. When I’ve finished this nut will be glued on, leaving just enough room for the wheel to spin. The plastic ring-pull thing will be glued upside-down (making it a conical ‘coolie hat’ shape) to cap off the top.

What I decide to do with it next will be the subject of another post, so stay tuned.

Now on to the victims…

Devourers

A quick post to start off the day - jumping forward to the Breeding Pits expansion by way of these two big 'n' beefy Devourers.

These are a pair of Ankhrav Drones from the plastic D&D Pathfinder Deadly Foes range. I've only repainted their faces - the rest of the models are left in the prepainted colour scheme. 

I didn't even bother re-basing them but simply added some of my usual mixture to the original bases. Nice, quick and easy. (Edit: I've just noticed that I haven't tidied up the base edges. Rest assured this will be rectified by the time this post is published.)

Oh, and here's another WIP teaser shot - any guesses now?

Undead Trials

“Fascinating…”

The collection of bones and armour that was once, according to the carvings on the tomb, Sir Bagnold Mortshield, stood impassively as Thaddeus Daemoncall peered into it’s empty eye sockets.

He looked at the small tome in his hands once more and uttered a short incantation. The armoured skeleton before him shifted a little, flakes of rust falling off as it stiffly moved into a defensive stance. The Summoner nodded with satisfaction as it raised a shattered sword over what remained of it’s shield.

“Y’know boy, it’s really not so different from raising a zombie – just a sight change in the wording of the spell. I can understand why that necromancer fellow was after this book. Go on, you have a try.”

His apprentice shivered; the freezing wind which howled through the old graveyard cutting through him. Trying to ignore the cold, he took the book from his master and focused on the eldritch symbols.

After a few false starts, what was once a great Dwarven lord jerked out of it’s grave, thick skull rattling in a bronze helmet stained with corrosion.

“Hmm… Yeah, it’s not so difficult is it? Perhaps we-” he stopped. “Oh, I see you’ve manged to raise two more – well done master.”

Thaddeus paused studying his handiwork and looked up at the two armoured skeletons – long dead temple guards by the look of them – approaching between the gravestones. “Eh? Um, they aren’t mine…” Suddenly he grinned. “A perfect opportunity to test out the fighting abilities of our new friends though!”

A wave of his hand sent the two armoured cadavers shambling towards the undead interlopers, who readied their weapons with surprising swiftness. Thaddeus sat himself on a slanting tombstone and was just settling himself to watch the fight when an eerie green light attracted his attention.

“Oh…”

His heart sank as a glowing ethereal shape floated across the graveyard. It turned it’s once beautiful face towards them and opened it’s mouth.

“You know the best way to deal with banshees boy? Put your fingers in your ears and run!”

Some more undead for the Lich Lord campaign – some armoured skeletons and a banshee.

The banshee is a Reaper Bones mini in translucent plastic. By way of an experiment I’ve simply drybrushed over this. Not sure if it works to my satisfaction, and I made a pig's ear of the eyes, but she’ll do.

The two ‘temple guard’ skeletons are from Northstar’s official Frostgrave range. I really like the design of these figures, but was disappointed by the amount of flash on them. One of them had so much flash under it’s arms that if it had flapped them it would have taken off!

The other skeleton is another Reaper Bones one, with the sword cut short as I couldn’t get the bend out of it. The dwarf is simply a Mantic plastic figure, knocked about a bit to make it look more undead. This one nearly went in the bin as I put the turquoise wash on it’s armour too thickly and it ended up looking like a Smurf. Luckily I was able to rescue it with some drybrushing.

Enough of my trials and tribulations - here's a teaser shot for a future post. Can you tell what it is yet?