Ho Ho Ho, Hairy Christmas

 I know, I know, that’s a terrible (barely even a) pun, but here we are nevertheless.

This year’s festive offering is North Star’s limited edition Krampus miniature:

He came in a pack of Silver Bayonet minis, although there aren’t officially any scenarios featuring Krampus. I did stumble on some unofficial scenarios over on Goonhammer though, so maybe next year I could play through those at Christmas (assuming I ever actually finish my Silver Bayonet unit - I’ve started painting the last member, but think he looks a little French so might have to replace him).

He’s quite difficult to photograph, being so dark. Except for his hooves, which I took inspiration from the official paint job for and provide a nice little pop of colour.

My son saw that I was painting this, and asked if I could include it in the family D&D game so he could fight him to save Santa. I wasn’t going to be able to finish it in time for the scheduled day, so had planned something else (involving Frosty the Snowman and a Paindeer). Then on the scheduled game day, the other half of the family spent the day throwing up, so we've had to postpone… maybe I’ll add him at the end to foreshadow next year’s festive session! 

As of writing this draft, the Tally stands at:

39 vs 255 = -216

But I’m writing it the day before, and I suspect I will have opened some 28mm scale presents by the time you’re reading this…

The adventures of Tim the Necromancer: House of the Golem

Potentially for the last time this year, I was able to take Tim for another spin in the frozen city to finish off the Hunt for the Golem mini campaign. Having studied the rampaging Golem, Tim has decided it’s time to steal it - and if he can’t (which is entirely possible, as it has now been responsible for many deaths), he could probably try to reverse engineer it from it’s smouldering corpse…

I set up the board as best I could to look like a ruined factory, with multiple rooms that have been smashed through. I rolled for random monsters, adding one result to each table edge and treasure token, coming up with a boar, Small Construct, Minor Demon and 5 zombies on the board:

The Golem, as per the scenario, was placed 10” from the centre in a random direction, ending up behind a wall on the left hand side.

Team Speedy (also known as ‘Team Have Bows’) set up first on the right hand side of their table edge, planning to hopefully pick off the relatively weak zombies on that side before swooping in to clear out the treasure.

Tim sets up on the far left with the Knight, Barbarian and Apothecary - with a Boar, Minor Demon and the Golem clustered just ahead of them, it was likely that this corner of the board was going to feature the bloodiest fighting! Because of this, Team Apprentice sets up just to their right, and consists of the Apprentice, Thug, Man at Arms and Warhound, hoping to be close enough to cast spells on the Golem, as it’s likely that taking control of it could be key to success!

Tim and the Apprentice cast their pre-game spells, and Tim excitingly gets a critical success raising a zombie, which means that the gang gets to add a Ghoul instead (better, faster, stronger). He then follows this up by failing to cast Brew Potion, but the Apprentice succeeds in making a Healing Potion, which he gives to Tim to replace the one he used last game.

To kick things off, Tim starts strong by successfully casting Control Construct on the Golem, bumping the total to 18 using his Staff and Ring of Power, but despite this the Golem succeeds in resisting his control. At this point, I stop and ponder - if I had been successful, I could have just run it straight off the table next turn to immediately ‘win’, and I decided that would be no fun so no doing that for at least a couple of turns.

The raised zombie/ghoul, Knight and Barbarian cautiously advance, positioning themselves just outside of the charge range of the boar’s fearsome tusks, and also hiding just behind the ghoul to avoid someone that isn’t instantly replaceable getting blatted by a thrown rock from the Golem!

As expected, the Golem hoys a rock, but due to poor rolls the raised ghoul ‘lives’ on to fight another day. That other day may come sooner than expected though, as the Golem then stomps over to loom over it…

In the Apprentice Phase, the Apprentice considers also trying to cast Control Construct, but settles for casting Strength on the Knight instead. The Warhound charges in to engage the Golem, and everyone else piles in to hide behind a low wall from the Minor Demon behind the Golem, ready to pounce on the Golem next turn. 

Looks like most of this game is going to take place in about one square foot of the board…

The monsters all start making their way towards the gang, and I realise that I’ve messed up, and left the Warhound within charge range of the boar, and so it does! Luckily for the Warhound, it rolls very badly and the Warhound bites it down to 1 Health.

I’ve on the right, the Captain zips off an arrow at an approaching zombie, dropping it to 1 Health - I’ve had this (almost but not quite taking monsters out) happen quite a few times in the last few games. Maybe I need to track down some items that buff everyone up to do at least one more point of damage! The Tracker tries to finish it off with an arrow of his own, but missed, so Team Speedy huddle by a low wall of their own hoping that the zombies won’t notice them and will wander off. Tactics!

Unfortunately for them, a Giant Rat appears just behind them at the end of the turn:

As the new turn begins, Tim attempts to cast Control Construct again, but fails so badly that exerting to make it a success would cost him more than half of his Health. He briefly considers it (that’s what Healing Potions are for after all) but decides that it’s just too risky with when there is also a Boar and Minor Demon rushing at him (and anyway, he rolled a 2, so maybe worth it next time with a less terrible roll). Then, it’s a case of trying to work out who to activate, and in what order - the Warhound activates first and finishes off the Boar, leaving him unopposed to support the Knight who runs in to chop at the Golem with his magic sword and Strength spell enhanced muscles (although he does move around the Warhound to attack, in order to leave a gap for the Barbarian to have a go at the Golem if all that isn’t enough). The combination of an above average roll and the aforementioned magic sword and magic muscles (and a bevy of supporting companions) result in him dealing it an impressive 11 points of damage, dropping it to only 5 Health. The Barbarian then dashes into the gap left by the Knight to finish it off, and also manages to deal 11 points of damage, chopping it down and claiming the Script of the Golem for Tim! I guess Tim gave up on trying to capture it, and figured it was safer to study it while it wasn’t actively attempting to murder him and his employees…

There’s still treasure to gather though, so the Apprentice sends the Ghoul/zombie forward to fight the Minor Demon, figuring that it’s better to try to pin it in place so that everyone else can bundle it later, rather than letting it assassinate whichever lone character it can get its hands (tendrils?) on. The zombie gets smashed for 4 damage, but survives to fight on. The Apprentice then tries to cast Control Undead on a wild zombie loitering behind the Minor Demon, in the hopes of setting up a flanking situation, but suffers a critical fail on the casting roll, meaning he can’t try to cast that spell on this particular zombie for the rest of the game.

Unfortunately the Man at Arms (who is a better fighter) is just slightly too far away to be able to fight the Minor Demon this turn, so the Thug who is slightly closer steps up to fight alongside the gang’s ghoul/zombie, but loses the fight and suffers 2 points of damage. The Man at Arms dutifully runs in to join them, hoping that next turn some better fighters will be able to get there to relieve them!

In the Monster Phase, the Minor Demon rips apart the already damaged ghoul/zombie with ease, and all the other monsters on the board menacingly close on the bundle of juicy targets clumped together on the left hand side of the board. Over on the right, two zombies can no longer see Team Speedy - one shuffles off in the wrong direction, but the other continues forward, towards Team Speedy’s hiding place:

The Giant Rat that recently appeared charges in to attack the hiding Tracker, and crits, which is enough to take the Tracker out of action in one bite. Seeing this, the Captain quickly puts an arrow in it, then she and the Thief charge into the zombie that is between them and the nearest Treasure Token, and although the Thief is able to land some pretty solid hits she isn’t able to finish it off, and they remain locked in combat.

To add insult to injury, a randomly determined piece of terrain collapses, so a chunk of ruin behind Tim and the Apprentice crumbles to nothing. On the other hand, no more monsters appear, so maybe my luck is turning…

Tim cuts to successfully cast Control Undead on the zombie behind the Minor Demon, before sending the Barbarian in who manages to strip the Demon of half of it’s Health. He then shuffles forwards a bit, as last turn he lagged too far behind to be able to activate the Knight in the Wizard Phase. Next, he sends the Warhound in to finish off the Minor Demon, but unfortunately the Demon gets a crit and takes the hound out of the game.

After Tim has finished activating his group, the Apprentice cuts to successfully cast Control Undead on a different zombie to the one he crit failed against previously, planning to send it back across to the right hand side of the board to assist Team Speedy. And that’s it, as he has also lagged behind, and doesn’t have anyone near enough to activate in the Apprentice Phase.

In the Monster Phase, both monsters in combat attack, but in a change of fate both lose their fights and are taken out of action by Tim’s gang, the zombie by the Thief and the Minor Demon by the lowly Thug!

Buoyed by this sudden victory, the Captain looses an arrow at the zombie that they had previously wounded and crits it, leaving the right hand side of the board now suddenly clear of enemies, so she and the Thief dash ahead to secure a pair of Treasure Tokens. As the Thief grabs the central Treasure Token, 4 Giant Rats scurry onto the board just ahead of them…

While the Apprentice controlled zombie attacks the last uncontrolled zombie (doing 2 points of damage) Tim’s controlled zombie attacks the Small Construct that has been slowly but surely closing on the gang cutting it down to 5 Health, and it seems like the dice are definitely favouring me this turn.

Writing that down obviously tempted fate a little too hard though, as my next roll is absolutely terrible and the Thug is wounded by the Small Construct when he charges in to fight it. As is the Man at Arms when he also joins the fray. Dammit.

The Knight also stomps over to join in, but it takes both of his actions to actually get into combat so righteous violence will have to wait until next turn.

As the turn ends, a skeleton enters the board on the right hand table edge, next to the group of Giant Rats - which is less than ideal, as all of the fighty types are over on the left, and threats seem to be massing on the right around the Thief and Captain!

On the aforementioned left, the Barbarian bundles in to join the combat and manages to pull down the Small Construct, freeing up the 4 other models that were surrounding it.

Tim then marches up and joins them, casting Leap on the Barbarian and sending her flying off to land at the feet of the Thief. The Apprentice suddenly remembers that he has Gloves of Casting, and so probably could have had a crack at casting Control Construct on the Golem earlier. Probably best not to mention that to Tim, he mutters under his breath as he starts heading off towards the right side of the board too. He pauses briefly to lob a Grenade over the head of the zombie in combat with his controlled zombie - and only goes and kills it, in a wildly out of character move!

Ahead of him, the swarm of rats and skeleton boil across the ruins towards the Captain, surrounding the Treasure Token that she was heading towards:

Using the proper encumbrance rules for the first time, the Thief makes a much slower than usual rush towards the north most table edge with a Treasure Token, hoping that no monsters spawn there and ruin her day.

With the Small Construct destroyed, the Knight starts making his slow way over to the right, where the Captain looks fairly imperilled, while the Thug grabs the nearest Treasure Token. Tim had originally planned to raise a new zombie to do the fetching and carrying, but got the Thug to grab it instead lest he embarrass him by failing to cast the spell. As the Thug hoists the treasure under their arm, another Small Construct wanders onto the board, just behind him, so Tim has his controlled zombie lumber over to screen the Thug from it. Unfortunately, the controlled zombie is immediately cut down by the Small Construct (in hindsight, I shouldn’t have made it fight!) so the Man at Arms redirects, and also loses the fight, getting cut down to 4 Health and becoming Wounded!

The turn ends, and an Ice Spider scuttles in on the right hand board edge, making things look even hairier over there…

Tim and the Apothecary both charge in to rescue the wounded Man at Arms - although he does love magic, Tim is actually pretty hench and smashes the construct to pieces with his staff, allowing the wounded Man at Arms to limp off of the board to safety. 

The Apprentice, meanwhile, moves forward to get in Grenade range of the sea of Giant Rats ahead of the Captain, succeeding via a combination of his Gloves of Casting and spending Health, destroying the two closest. The wandering skeleton then moves to attack the Apprentice’s controlled zombie (as it was just closer than the Captain thankfully) and is destroyed. The now reduced swarm of rats manage to make it into contact with the Captain, but exhausted from scrambling through the rubble and ruins aren’t able to attack this turn. Seizing the initiative, the Barbarian charges in and easily cuts one down - the Captain tries to slice the other, but loses the fight (although luckily does not lose any Health). The rest of the gang either head for the Captain if they’re not carrying treasure, or trudge towards the edge of the board if they are. 

At the end of the turn, 2 zombies appear and immediately attack Tim and the Apothecary (maybe I should start having things appear at a random point on the board rather than in the centre to avoid this sort of thing happening). Tim tries to brain one of them with his staff, but even with the Apothecary supporting him gets hit for 6 points of damage, leaving him on 10 Health - this is what people mean when they say Frostgrave can be really swingy - so Tim cracks his Healing Potion. The Apothecary then manages to win a fight against the same zombie, but isn’t able to do any damage to it, and with Tim in the other side of it isn’t even able to push it away from him!

Hearing this scuffle the Apprentice swings across to get line of sight on the zombies attacking Tim, shooting the nearest one with a Bone Dart but due to a good roll from the zombie isn’t able to damage it. Frustratingly, both parties rolled 19, and the defender wins draws when it comes to shooting - one point more and the Appentice would have blown it away!

Back on the right, the rat bites the Captain who uses her Dodge skill to reduce the damage to zero, and the Ice Spider manages to get into biting range of the Apprentice’s controlled zombie. On the left, the two zombies attack the Apothecary, who thumps them both with his staff and pushes one back out of the combat.

While this is going on, the Thief finally manages to make it off of the board with her Treasure Token, and the Knight bundles in to attack the rat currently trying to bite the Captain’s face off. Despite rolling a 1, all of his bonuses still added up to enough to beat the rat’s 10, which wouldn’t do anything to most monsters, but is enough to kill the rat! 

Behind them, the Barbarian dashes forward to attack the Ice Spider, but gets poisoned. Free of the rat, the Captain grabs the last Treasure Token and as she does so a Ghoul wanders onto the board behind the Apothecary - I guess my luck has dried up over on the left… 

At the end of the turn, 2 wild dogs appear on the board, entering on the northern edge. I still haven’t painted any dogs, so they look like weird mushroom creatures today:

Tim, fearing losing a chunk of Health to another bad roll in combat elects to Raise a Zombie instead to bolster his numbers. The Apothecary attempts to take out the zombie between himself and Tim, but loses the fight and 1 Health. 

The Apprentice, feeling like the right flank has things under control heads back towards Tim, exerting for 2 to cast Bone Dart again and this time successfully destroys the zombie. 1 down, 1 to go!

The right flank does indeed turn out to be under control, as the Ice Spider attacks the controlled zombie and is cut down, leaving the entire right hand side of the board suddenly clear of threats. For now, tha5nis, as the mushroom men/dogs rush towards the Knight:

Back on the left side, the Ghoul surprisingly loses its fight against the Apothecary, but due to being armed with a staff he isn’t actually able to do any damage to it but does manage to push it back. The zombie then attacks the Apothecary, who again wins narrowly enough that he isn’t able to deal any damage. Maybe I need to find him a magic staff or something that means he causes more damage, based on how often he seems to end up in combat!

The Captain looses an arrow off at the approaching mushroom men/dogs before heading towards the edge of the board with her Treasure Token, as the Knight charges in to see if he will have more luck in taking it out. He doesn’t, and a crit from the mushroom drops him straight to zero Health in one fell swoop… seeing this, the poisoned Barbarian uses her single action to put herself between the mushrooms and the treasure carrying Captain, as does the Apprentice’s controlled zombie. Luckily, when the end of the turn rolls around no more monsters enter the fray.

Feeling like things are entering the endgame, Tim orders his newly raised zombie to attack the wild zombie next to him, but despite outnumbering it 3 to 1 his zombie is immediately destroyed. I realise at this point that Tim shouldn’t actually have been able to cast that spell last turn due to being in combat, but it achieving literally nothing makes me feel less bad about that. Biting the bullet, Tim swings with his staff again but due to the staff’s inherent damage reduction rule is only able to drop the zombie to 1 Health. The Apothecary tries to finish it off, but unfortunately can’t seem to get a decent blow in, as often seems to be the case. The Apprentice casts Bone Dart on the Ghoul near the Apothecary, but isn’t able to stop it from attacking the Apothecary. Both roll terribly though, leaving the zombie to attack the Apothecary instead - he manages to crit and take it out, leaving Tim now unengaged. Over on the right the wild mushroom/dogs attack the Apprentice’s controlled zombie, chipping away at its Health, but at the end of the phase it is still standing.

At the end of the turn, the Captain escapes with the last Treasure Token, and the Barbarian joins the controlled zombie in fighting the mushroom/dogs, giving it enough of an advantage to be able to pull one down. 

Having failed to take the Ghoul out by combat or shooting, Tim then fails to remove it as a threat by casting Control Undead. The Apprentice steps up and is more successful, and that’s it for the game bar the Barbarian making a fighting retreat while the Apprentice’s controlled zombie is left fighting the lone remaining mushroom/dog…

Post-game:

The Warhound and the Knight survive with no negative effects, but unfortunately the Tracker is Badly Wounded and has to miss the next game.

The Captain gains 30XP, not enough to gain a level again. She does loads in every game, but doesn’t actually seem to be getting many kills, which is where the bulk of her XP would come from…

Tim would have gained 421XP, which caps at 300, enough for him to gain 3 levels. He learns a Flourish to the spell Bone Dart that makes it more effective against Constructs and the Undead, gains a point of Will, and makes Grenade easier to cast, as it’s the spell that probably gets cast the most by the gang (as they always seem to be getting mobbed by groups of enemies).

For treasure, as well as the Script of the Golem gained for destroying the Golem all 3 tokens get rolled on the scenario specific table (as there’s no other time we’ll get to see most of these items) and Tim ends up walking away with a barrel of Construct Oil (which Tim already had), a Book of the Golem and a Mind Wrench, which Tim equips to make future attempts at stealing a golems easier. The Treasury generates 7GC, reduced to 6 after the Captain takes her cut. Not the most profitable result the gang has ever had, but this scenario was more about Tim wanting to learn about making his own mechanised weapons of destruction rather than mere profit.

What’s next? I think I’m going to take a pause in the adventures of Tim to focus on other projects in the New Year, but that’s not the end of him - he might nip back to the library to see if he can find a book about how to animate rather than just steal constructs (or venture into the Necromancy section, to see about learning the flourish that lets him summon a controlled skull using Animate Skull). Or carry on with the solo campaign in Perilous Dark. Plus, his Mortal Enemy might have something to say about his plans - and at this point, I realise that I forgot to roll for his Mortal Enemy at the start of this scenario! I roll now and she wouldn’t have turned up anyway, so we’ll retcon and pretend that I remembered…

One addendum that I forgot to include in my last post - the Tally took a little hit:

I ordered a bunch of bases, and couldn’t resist a lovely Westfalia Amazon on Clearance (as previously mentioned, a mini for a pound is almost irresistible to me) for my Warriors of Athena project. I had some issues with the website I was ordering from, which meant I had to re-place the order a couple, of weeks after my first attempt, and in the interim discovered that the do their own line of bits, so I ordered a few things - a banner pole (because all else failing, I’m sure I’ve always got a need for a rod), a couple of round shields (to see if they would be the right size to replace the now unavailable Hasslefree Hoplite shields that I have used on my House Stark conversions), and some knight helmets with Bishop hats (because the second I saw them I was struck by inspiration, and am tempted to make a unit of battlin’ bishops for Barons War).

Only one actual mini in there though, so the Tally now looks like:

38 vs 255 = -217

What’s next? It’s Christmas, so my painting time is limited in favour of wrapping presents and making space in the fridge for a turkey. I’m not going to get the Tally back in the black (do I ever?), but I could probably finish off 14 minis in the next 9 days to get the annual average up to one a week, right?

By Saint Lazarus!

As often seems to be the case, I’ve been tempted by a new project. The lines of thought that lead me to it are too long to write out here, but largely it was excitement at Wargames Illustrated’s Assassins and Templars, rediscovering Assassin’s Creed, and then spiralling out into wanting to Wargames the Third Crusade because that’s just how these things go when you start to do a bit of reading. In the short term though, I bought myself a copy of Outremer Blood and Faith, and set about painting up a mini to whet my whistle.

During my reading and watching of various YouTube videos (largely along the lines of ‘Teutonic Knights: did they really wear such fantastic helmets?’), I came across the Knights of the Order of St Lazarus, and figured that would make for an ideal first figure. They are (mostly) knights with leprosy, charging into battle hoping to die honourably because that way is a fast pass into heaven - they are the Dwarf Slayers of the medieval period! 

So, here is my first mini for Outremer:

White really is a pickle to paint isn’t it. For this guy I highlighted up to pure white from a very light grey, but I wonder if white with a grey wash/glaze then highlighted back up to white wouldn’t be easier? 

My brief internet research suggested that leprous knights often wore masks, so I converted one for my mini - it’s a cut and carefully shaved down Frostgrave cultists head, transplanted onto a mail coif wearing Fireforge head:

I even highlighted the mask properly rather than just drybrushing it! Ugh, looking at my shonky freehanded cross on his shield in this extreme close up doesn’t make me happy, rest assured it looks much better at arms length! 

And here’s a picture of the back too, as always to prove that I painted it. Not a lot to look at, mostly white. 

I wasn’t sure what colour the ring around his head should be - is it supposed to be fabric, as some pictures suggest? It’s not sculpted like that, so I left it metal in the end…

While I was digging in my Game of Thrones box for historical sprues to convert my knight, I also came across a metal monk, and figured Crusaders could probably do with some pilgrim monks to fight over. 

It’s a fairly quick and dirty paint job - I went a bit too heavy on a drybrush and tried to knock it back with glazes, but with the end of the year looming and the Tally still… looking like it does there came a point where done was good enough and this was it.

No idea who made the mini originally - I feel like it came from Forlorn Hope some time ago, so is probably originally a Grenadier sculpt?

Finishing these two brings the Tally to:

38 vs 255 = -217

14 minis to do before the end of the year to hit the challenge of averaging a mini a week, that’s doable right? I may or may not have dug out some minis to prep that only need very simple paint jobs…

What’s next then? Well, before I paint anything else, Tim the Necromancer has managed to squeeze in one more game…

Things with wings

You wouldn’t know it from everything else I’ve been posting about, but over the summer I decided that my next project was going to be Warriors of Athena, an obscure Frostgrave adjacent Greek Fantasy game originally released as a series of magazine articles - and then it got announced that it was getting a proper release from Osprey! The plan is to rope in some compatriots to watch Clash of the Titans while building warbands, but in the interim I’ve been painting some suitable enemies, some Foundry harpies:

You can tell at a glance how happy I was with each individual face based on how much Blood for the Blood God got splashed around. 

It’s been a while since I painted any miniature nipples, so I turned to my big book of painting for inspiration and advice:

Looking at their backs, I tried to make the upper feathers look different to the lower feathers - I think I could perhaps have gone a bit further, but I’m not mad at how they turned out:

I think I need to start varnishing my miniatures if I’m going to play games with them though, these ladies have done nothing but fall over since I got them.

Fun fact about the bases - they are decorated with bones from a Wargames Factory skeletons set that I bought years ago from a gamer that had given up on trying to get them to go together as they were so fiddly, which was fine for me as I wanted to use them for scenery. Having rejoined the Lead Adventure Forum again this year, I was looking through some of my old PMs, and realised that the gamer that I had bought them from was actually Joseph McCullough, who went on to write Frostgrave, and Warriors of Athena, the game that these miniatures have been painted for.

Speaking of wings, I’ve also painted this little chap, an excellent sculpt as ever from Crooked Dice:

I bought him at Salute just because he’s such a lovely little sculpt, it’s mostly serendipity that I actually have a use for him now.

Speaking of little sculpt, he’s tiny, that’s a 20mm base he’s on. I suspect it may be time to dig out the magnifier that I have somewhere, that got packed away back when I was young and vital and didn’t need such things.

It’s been a while since the last Tally post though, so I’ve also received some miniatures:

Last month’s GW free mini of the month was a Chaos Dwarf, which I quite fancied, but unfortunately came out the same week that I found out that if you work hard enough, you unlock extra time off on doctor’s orders (hence all of the solo games and blog posts recently), and it was a week and a half before I could bring myself to go into town, where I discovered that they had apparently run out that morning. So instead I treated myself to this pack of D&D miniatures from the games shop on the other side of town:

My daughter has made it very clear that she wants to play a Tabaxi Rogue at some point in the future because of the Dungeon Club graphic novels, so I figure I’ll probably end up letting her have one of these when the time comes.

The next month, I nipped in on day of release to grab the Deathwatch marine, because I figured there’s definite inq28 potential there:

I also took advantage of em4’s Black Friday deals - I ordered a kilo of random dice, planning to make my children dice advent calendars, although they took too long to come to be ready for Advent, so the backup plan is to do some sort of twelve days of Christmas deal instead. I had a voucher from when em4 used some pictures of minis I’d painted on their website, so bought a slightly discounted bridge (because slowly but surely, I’m working my way towards playing that next Rangers of Shadow Deep scenario), and then figured I may as well add on a mystery bag of five random minis for a fiver to qualify for free postage (although to be fair, out any mini in front of me for a pound and I’m likely to bite) and was furnished with these:

I’d admittedly assumed it was going to be some of the weirder ranges that em4 stock, but other than one prepainted dwarf that will likely get stripped so that I have a random minis for ready the next time my son wants to paint something I got 4 Grenadier sculpts, only one of which I already own (the chap on the far left). I was especially happy with the chap on the far right, as having recently finished Cyberpunk 2077 I was tempt3d to paint up a Rockerboy, and ummed and ahhed for a while over ordering the singer from the same range at the same time, but showed remarkable restraint and resisted the urge.

All things included, that brings the Tally to:

36 vs 255 = -219 

I’d need to paint ten minis a day, every day, for the rest of the year to get the Tally back into the black at this point! I’ll settle for trying to get my finished minis up to an average of one a week though.

What’s next? More Frostgrave, and more painted minis hopefully! I will admit, I did dig out some minis that can be painted with very simple paint schemes to try and game things in my favour, but on the other hand, inspiration may have struck for another new project for next year:

And then again, I rearranged my nerd bookcase earlier to try and get all my Really Useful Boxes of minis onto shelves rather than having some piled up on the floor next to it, and found myself unearthing things I hadn’t seen in a while and going ‘ooh I should probably dig out my Strange Aeons minis right?’

The adventures of Tim the Necromancer: Field Research

Having previously found some clues to the whereabouts of the massive golem currently rampaging through the frozen city (that he may or may not have been the cause of), it was time for Tim to hunt down the thing itself and have a proper look at it.

As mentioned in my last post, this scenario takes part in a crumbling garden, full of low walls, fountains and statuary (which can be magically animated during the game), so I tried to set up the board to represent this as best as possible:

Some homemade weeping angels (so old they were painted before this blog was even a thing) stood in for statues (with the plan being that any that got animated would be replaced with the much nicer Weeping Angel miniatures made by Crooked Dice). I also set the golem up further back rather than in the centre of the table, as I figured that was mostly to have him equidistant from the two groups in a two player game, and figured it would be better to give him a turn or two extra of hurling rocks at my troublemakers!

I rolled to see if Tim’s Mortal Enemy would make an appearance, and again they did not. Then it was time to roll for monsters - I started with rolling for each edge of the board other than the one Tim would start on, and then also rolled for a monster to start in the centre of the table, to make sure that the game wasn’t too easy. I rolled a Wraith, 2 Ice Spiders, 2 Wolves, and a Bear. The only bear mini in the house is the one my daughter painted to use when her D&D Druid transforms, so on the table he goes! 

(The picture of him on the table was hugely out of focus, so here he is in a box instead)

As well as deciding that the Golem would activate between the Wizard and Apprentice phases, originally I had planned to have the Golem treat anything (including wandering monsters) as a target, since he is described as being on an out of control rampage, but then I decided not to, as I figured he’d likely spend all his time stomping the monsters while Tim idly sauntered over, which would make things a bit too easy!

Pre-game, Tim and the Apprentice (whose name is Sebastian, but Tim has never asked) crack their knuckles and set about casting their spells. Both fail to cast Brew Potion, and Tim even fails to raise a zombie, but the Apprentice manages to successfully do so. Come on lads, get the bad rolls out now before the game starts properly I guess…

Again, Tim varies slightly from his usual go-to setup. He enters in the centre, accompanied by the Barbarian, Apothecary, and Man at Arms, planning to march up the centre towards the Golem to give it a proper looking at, in the hopes of finding some weakness or override that they can use to claim it in the glorious name of Tim. On the left, the Apprentice is accompanied by the Knight and Captain (who both have magical weapons and so are some of the only people in the gang able to actually harm the Wraith ahead of them) and the Thug and raised zombie (who do not, but are frankly expendable). On the right flank, the Thief, Warhound and Tracker form a compact Team Speedy, hoping to nip in and grab a Treasure Token before rapidly getting back out.

As things commence, Tim strides through the doorway ahead of him, surrounded by his heavily armed comrades, and casts Control Construct on one of the statues in the garden, animating it under his control (although he has to use the power stored in both his staff and ring to turn a narrow failure into a success). 

The Golem, now having a viable target in range where it didn’t before, grabs a chunk of broken masonry from the ground to hurl and absolutely pulverises the newly animated statue (having rolled a 20). It then stomps forward to investigate the shards, leaving it looming unfortunately over the Treasure Token that Thief & co had their eyes on…

On the left, team Apprentice scramble through the ruins towards the Wraith, with the Knight running as far as his legs will take him, while the Captain holds back slightly to let the Thug edge ahead to lure the Wraith out. The Apprentice initially considers casting Grenade (as the one magic attack he knows, Bone Dart doesn’t count), but decides to cast Strength on the Captain instead, to make her as good in a fight as the Knight.

Due to the relatively clear nature of the centre of the board, every monster can see the gang and starts running/shambling/floating towards them (delete as applicable). The pair of wolves that started in the centre of the board attack the Man at Arms (mostly because I forgot just how fast they move), but he cuts them both down in short order. At this point in my notes I wrote ‘I must sort out a replacement mini for him’, but if you’ve read my last blog post you know that’s not actually the case. The Wraith makes it into contact with the sacrificial Thug, but this takes both actions so it’s not able to attack this turn (aha, right into my trap!)

On the right, the Tracker sends an arrow towards the Ice Spiders scuttling towards them but doesn’t manage to land a hit. He then hustles into the cover of a nearby broken wall, to take up a better firing position to try again next turn. 

I start to wonder if I might have made a mistake leaving the right flank so lightly defended, and deliberate for a while about what to do with Thief and the Wolfhound. In the end, the Thief decides to stick to the original plan and sprints towards the treasure, trusting that Tim and his group are on their way to engage the Golem.

(On this day, humanity received a grim reminder… ah, you either get the reference or you don’t)

The Warhound meanwhile takes up position hiding behind a tree, planning to pounce on the Ice Spiders heading towards the Tracker next turn. Last but not least, the zombie starts making his way across the broken ground towards the Wraith, where if all goes well weight of numbers should be able to pull it down next turn.

At the end of the turn, a Snow Leopard enters on the right - I definitely should have sent more soldiers over to that side!

Muttering ‘I don’t get paid enough for this’ the Man at Arms dashes past the Thief to engage the Golem. In hindsight, I wish that I had deployed the Thug in Tim’s group rather than the Man at Arms who is now potentially about to get splatted by a massive angry Golem, but I can’t turn back time (yet), so it is what it is.

Seeing enemies building up to his right, Tim attempts to cast Grenade on the pair of Ice Spiders, but as usual fails miserably. Assuming that the Man at Arms is going to be fine holding off the Golem (that to be clear has been leaving a trail of bodies across the frozen city) the Barbarian dashes off to the right to join the Warhound behind the tree, ready to ambush the spiders. Then I remember that she is a barbarian, and and so her second action is spent dashing directly towards them rather than skulking (which will hopefully also draw the leopard away from the exposed Thief).

Tim cautiously advances, just close enough to the Golem to get the bonus XP for having a good look at it, but also pushes the Apothecary in front of him, just in case.

Then it is the Golem’s turn, and it’s time to see what happens in its fight with the man at Arms. I roll the dice with bated breath… and the Man at Arms rolls a 20 and wins the fight! This deals 10 damage to the Golem, and he pushes it back in the hopes of being able to make a break for it and escape next turn.

On the left, the Knight, zombie and Captain all bundle thenWraith, figuring that overwhelming numbers is probably the safest way to take it out.

The Knight attacks it first, but is dropped to 2 Health (curse that double damage!). The Captain then has a crack at it, and also loses (as having a magic sword, magically enhanced strength and outnumbering the foe 4 to 1 doesn’t help when you roll a 1), but luckily is saved from taking any damage by her armour. This isn’t going as well as I had hoped! The zombie doesn’t bother to fight, as he doesn’t have a magic weapon, he’s just there to make up numbers and provide an outnumbering bonus. Behind them, the Apprentice is a little worried, but still hopeful that the group will prevail against the Wraith, so uses his Gloves of Casting to cast Control Construct on one of the statues, and rolls a 20! Consulting Advanced Spellcraft, a critical on this spell means that it doesn’t count towards the usual ‘max 1 controlled xxx in your warband’ rule - nice!

In the Monster Phases, the bear that has been inevitably making it’s way across the board pushes past the Golem to stand in front of the Man at Arms, while over on the right flank the Snow Leopard pounces on the Barbarian. The first Ice Spider scuttles up to join this fight, which the Barbarian wins, but due to a low roll is only able to drop the spider to 1 Health. The second spider then also reaches her and has better luck, biting her for 3 damage and poisoning her.

The Wraith attempts to finish off the wounded Knight, but a much better roll means that he is able to slash through it with his magic sword (that I only at this point remember also has a Healing Potion in the hilt) and banish it back whence it came. 

The Thug, suddenly finding themself no longer engaged in combat, takes this opportunity go haring off towards the leftmost Treasure Token.

Back in the centre of the board, the recently animated statue dashes (well, I say dashes, I imagine it’s more of a slightly jerky Harryhausen stop motion effect) to engage the bear that is closing in on the Man at Arms, whilst also making themself coincidentally the closest target to the Golem. 

On the right, the Tracker makes a risky shot into the combat swirling around the vastly outnumbered Barbarian, figuring that there are so many enemies that statistically they are mostly likely to hit a viable target rather than their comrade. Luckily, they do, their arrow striking the Snow Leopard, although unfortunately he isn’t able to damage it. He dejectedly holsters (stows?) his bow and plunges in to join the melee, as does the Warhound, which savages the undamaged Ice Spider and tosses away it’s broken body. The turn ends, and no more monsters enter the board - phew!

Tim, considering bigger plans for the future, tries to cast Control Construct on the Golem, but rolls a 7, much lower than the 14 needed. Figuring that he may as well go big or go home, he sacrifices 11 points of Health to empower the spell (as the target has to make a roll against the casting number, so bigger is definitely better) , a risky move as the Golem still gets +6 on these rolls - and the Golem rolls a 1 and joins team Tim for a turn! Seeing blood literally dripping out of Tim’s ears (he is only on 4 Health at this point if I recall correctly), the Apothecary dumps a Healing Potion down his throat, while the Thief dashes over to grab the rightmost Treasure Token:

As she does so, a Ghoul enters the board over on the left side, just in front of the group of heavily armed maniacs that just took down a Wraith…

Under Tim’s control, the Golem smashes its fists down on the Bear’s back, dealing it 5 points of damage. Tim then has it back away, hoping that he can position it to do the least possible amount of damage next turn when it manages to shake off his control, sending it off to hug a tree:

Team Apprentice on the left flank has the Captain loose off an arrow at the newly appeared Ghoul, scoring a critical hit and slaying it instantly. Satisfied with this, she then starts off towards the right hand side of the field to try to rescue the Barbarian, followed (much more slowly) by the Knight. The Apprentice tags along behind them, pausing only to cast Control Construct on the statue nearest to the Golem, hoping to use it as a sacrificial pawn to buy the rest of the gang time to grab the rest of the treasure and get out. Thanks to the use of his Ring of Power and sacrificing 3 points of Health, he succeeds.

Ahead of them, the beleaguered Barbarian is attacked by the leopard, but manages to slap it down to 1 Health - if only she had a magic weapons or some Gloves of Strength to have been able to finish it off! The remaining Ice Spider also attempts to sink its fangs into her, and is swatted in response.

In the centre, the Bear smashes the controlled statue to pieces, leaving it and the Man at Arms half an inch apart, while the Thug grabs a Treasure Token. Luckily, no more monsters appear at this point. 

Back with the Barbarian, the Warhound runs up and attacks the Snow Leopard, but isn’t able to land any telling blows. Seizing the advantage granted by this distraction, the Barbarian chops the legs out from under the leopard, slaying it. The Tracker, now with no threats in their immediate vicinity, takes the opportunity to attempt a tricky shot on the bear, over a low wall and past the Man at Arms which lands true, dropping the Bear to 2 Health. Seeing this, the Man at Arms who had previously been considering making a run for it instead charges in to try to finish it off. He probably should have made a run for it, as he loses the fight, but luckily does not take any damage thanks to his armour.

Finally, the zombie lurches forward to shield the Apprentice from the Golem with his body. The turn ends, and again no new monsters enter the field.

Seeing that there are very few enemies left, Tim feels like it is probably time to start wrapping things up. He attempts to cast Grenade to finish off the heavily wounded Bear, but fails badly enough that empowering the spell to turn it into a successful casting would leave him on the brink of death, so doesn’t. Somewhat sheepishly, he tucks himself behind a wall lest any more monsters appear and attack him in his fragile state. As this is happening, the Apothecary (having already used his Healing Potion on Tim) climbs the fountain ahead of them to grab the central Treasure Token, and as he does so a pair of Ice Spiders enter the table behind them, from the same edge that the gang entered on.

The Golem, managing to shake off Tim’s magical control, launches a rock at the statue recently animated by the Apprentice. Unable to destroy it in a single blow like the previous one, this time it charges in to try to finish the job:

The Apprentice suddenly remembers that they know the spell Slow, which is ideal for using on particularly deadly single monsters, and so probably would have been great to cast earlier. He figures at this point though it’s probably too late to make much of a difference, and initially planned to Leap the zombie into that combat to provide the Man at Arms some backup, but again I remembered that you can’t use it to enter combat. Checking Advance Spellcraft, you can actually learn to do that, so that might be something to consider for the future… he casts Grenade on the Bear (well, technically on a point about an inch behind it, but you know what I mean), and as ever despite the spell being successfully cast, it fails to do any damage. The Knight steps into the broken doorway in the centre, between Tim and spiders, backed up by the zombie and Captain.

Behind him, in the centre, the Bear rears up and delivers a massive blow to the Man at Arms, dropping him to 1 Health.

On either flank, the Thug and Thief both leave with a Treasure Token apiece. I wonder if I should start using the non-solo Treasure Token rules, where anyone carrying one is encumbered and slowed, rather than the rules from Perilous Dark I think where you aren’t? Something to ponder…

The poisoned Barbarian vaults the wall ahead of her and sets off towards the Bear, but is overtaken by the Warhound who is able to make it into combat next to the Man at Arms. The Tracker picks off one of the spiders bearing down on the Knight with a well-placed arrow, then moves off after the Barbarian and Warhound towards the Bear.

At this point I suddenly realise that I missed the spiders in the Monster Phase - and also remember that the Knight is only on 2 Health, so probably wasn’t the best person to hold the door! The spider scuttles up and almost inevitably bites him for 3 points of damage, taking him out of action. If only he’d used an action to drink the mini Healing Potion in the hilt of his sword (that heals 2 points of Health), but he’s so much slower than the rest of the gang that he ends up using all of his spare actions running to keep up!

Finding himself unusually alone and on 1 Health, Tim chugs his own Healing Potion and again tries to cast Grenade on the Bear. Again, he fails badly enough that he hurts himself for 1 point of damage - lucky he had that potion or he would have taken himself out of action!

Congregating in the middle of the board, the Apprentice sends the zombie to engage the spider now looking hungrily at the Captain over the body of the Knight, and while he originally planned to cast Leap on the Apothecary to catapult him vaguely towards the table edge and escaping with the last Treasure Token, but I realised that where he hadn’t activated yet this turn he’d actually get further under his own steam, so the Apprentice instead casts Grenade near the spider, finally succeeding st killing something with it.

The Bear attacks the badly wounded Man at Arms (which reminds me, I must remember to apply wounded penalties to models on 4 or fewer Health), but is cut down, leaving no monsters except the Golem left on the board.

The Apothecary scrambles down the fountain and legs it as fast as he can away from the Golem, and everyone else consolidates to facilitate making a fighting retreat while protecting the spellcasters. The plucky Warhound runs off in the opposite direction, towards the leftmost board edge, trying to draw the Golem away from the rest of the group while they make their escape. As he does so, a powerful Ice Toad hops onto the board just ahead of it.

In the next turn, the Apothecary books it off the board with the last Treasure Token, while the attacker makes an incredible long ranged shot and takes the Ice Toad out of action - unfortunately no one is near enough to harvest it’s webbed feet for spellcasting components, but sometimes the risk just isn’t worth the reward. 

Tim attempts to cast Control Construct on the Golem again, but this time it is resisted, and in response the Golem absolutely obliterates the Warhound with a thrown rock, before stomping up to poke at it’s broken body with it’s huge stone fists. The Apprentice then attempts to cast the same spell, and cuts to empower it to 18, and the Golem is controlled again! The Apprentice sends it stomping off in the opposite direction, and the gang use this chance to make good their escape.

Post-game:

Both the Warhound and the Knight survive - phew!

The Captain gains 30 XP, not enough to level up again yet. Tim earns 332, capped at 300, enough to gain 3 levels. He boosts his Will by +1 (as both Health and Fight are at their maximum, and he vaguely remembers his Mortal Enemy having a spell that requires a Will roll), learns the spell Wizard Eye from a Grimoire in his vault, and then makes the spell Brew Potion easier to cast, as they need to start replenishing their supply of Healing Potions! He should probably invest in a Giant. Auldron for his base, with that in mind… He had originally considered making the spell Control Construct easier to cast, as his immediate future includes plans to go and Control a Construct, but figured that the way the spell works the higher you roll the better, so making it easier to cast on the Golem is slightly counterintuitive.

Rooting around the dusty corners of the Treasury where the gang make their base turns up 11 GC, and the treasure gathered during the game turns up an assortment of lose change, a Grimoire containing the spell Bone Dart that can be used to improve that spell as they already know it, and a magic crossbow. He initially considers selling that last item, but instead stashes it in the vault - he had a cross bow user in the gang before who died, so maybe will again if someone else gets unlucky… all in, once the Captain has taken their cut, he is left with 194 GC, still not enough to invest in a Giant Cauldron…

Next time - Tim figures he’s probably got the hang of it now, and is surely a powerful enough practitioner of terrible magics that he can probably definitely succeed in bending the Golem to his will where so many others have failed, so he should probably go and do that…

Man at Arms, the updatening

Having played a decent amount of Frostgrave recently, I had gotten it into my head that my Man at Arms mini was borrowed from the retinue of Tim’s Mortal Enemy, who in turn just borrowed some minis from my Game of Thrones Starks. As he’d been fairly pivotal to my success recently, I set about updating his model, as I felt bad that he was a proxy (and sooner or later Tim’s Mortal Enemy is likely to reappear, and would need him back). 

So last night, I dug out a bunch of sprues and set about rebuilding him. I tried to match the pose and equipment, just updating his shield initially, but then I also decided to give him a nice kettle helm, because they’re cool:

Like the original, he’s a Fireforge body with Gripping Beast Viking arms. I had originally planned to give him a shield from the Frostgrave Cultists sprue, as he’s in the employ of a Necromancer, but they were much smaller than I remembered so he got a Fireforge shield instead. Also, I’m not sure if you can see it or not, but there was a slight casting defect on his groin, which I fixed with green stuff.

He’s even got a scabbard and pouch, just like the original mini.

Then I made the mistake of reading my own blog trying to work out why I had initially grabbed a mini from the Mortal Enemy warband rather than making a new one, and realised… I didn’t. The Wolf shield carrying Man at Arms was in Tim’s gang first, and is even narratively relevant to the campaign, as it turns out Tim hired him on the spot when he saw Tim leaving his sorceress mistress’ bedroom tucking something into his pocket. I’d apparently just forgotten this! In my defence, due to my intermittent gaming time it’s been over a year since the Mortal Enemy actually made an appearance on the table…

So I guess he becomes either the first mini of a Barons War project, or maybe the first House Bolton trooper in my ASOIAF project (which admittedly I do want to add to for the first time in at least a decade, to make some usable forces). Or perhaps both, when he gets to the painting table.

In other news, I also cracked the plastic on the boards in Sedition Wars, to see whether they might be useful for a possible 2026 project:

Fountains (of Wayne?)

Although the next scenario in the ongoing adventures of Tim the Necromancer doesn’t actually require a specific piece of terrain (unusually, most of my gaming delays are from having to build and paint something in particular), as it was described as being set in a ruined garden clogged with statuary and fountains, I figured I could dig out a GW Azyrite Fountain that I’ve had sat on it’s sprue for a while and get that painted relatively quickly:

It’s a GW piece, so there are a number of skulls and the word Sigmar on it, but not so many that it’s stands out when used in a non-GW-approved fashion. Building it without the weird orrery on top that it originally comes with helps it blend in more, I suspect. I was originally planning to paint some varnish in the bottom of it to make it look wet, but chickened out at the last minute and decided to leave it as a dry pool.

And her it is, being set up for the next scenario: 

What’s next? Watch this space…