A little ballista and humans for fantasy games

In my current drive to finish stuff that I have … and I have been looking around eBay for things … slightly tempted by some 40k terminators or sternguard, but not enough to sound with cash. Anyway I did a couple of conversions on some Fireforge medievals I have had lying around as crew for a ballista for the human Kings of War army. 

Obviously this needs basing and a little something to balance the piece on the left of the ballista - not sure what but the space needs something there. 

While i was painting these I took the opportunity to paint a couple more of the Order of the Dragon support troops - well thugs or something similar in terms of Frostgrave/Sellwords etc.

These are ok - the conquest miniatures Norman head on the swordsman is a little bit soft in terms of details. But these are just support for the knights. I would like to get a couple more figures for this little warband - which now stands at 10 - 4 knights (including the leader), 2 crossbow men and 2 spearmen. I was thinking a ranger type and another appropriate henchman type - but I’m not sure and I only have Celt or Barbarian sprues about at the moment. I glad I painted these as I need to up my game in painting small units, individuals as I have a number of these in the to do … ready to paint queue.

Morts

A few Heroes .....

So in between the Argonauts being done I was working on 3 Viking heroes by warlord games which I was given for my birthday and 3 very old Runequest figures I have had on the painting queue for years ....

I still have to varnish and finish off the bases - but I thought I would show them off. 

The Vikings could be used for SAGA and the Runequest figures could be adventurers in Sellswords and Spellslingers (or more likely they will sit in the painted cabinet for years). 

Morts

Painting the old metal ....

So with the extra time I have gain through the social distancing I have made some small head way into the metal stash ....
First up a Ral Partha - Dark Lord, Evil King.

I’m not sure if I done the reds right, but I didn’t want to do the cliche black everything.
Yesterday I went through some old boxes and found about 30 Chronicle/Grenadier/Citadel Hobgoblins and Orcs.

So I fixed and painted up the Chief (Eeza Ugezod from the regiment of renown - the rest of the command group will turn up in a regiment as will some of the Death Commandos) and Shaman - really enjoyed painting these oldies!
I have gone for a purple skin tone so they are “black” Orcs - painted some wolf riders like this a while ago. Still got a do a shield design and am planning a symbol on the back of the shaman.

Morts

Sellswords and Spellslingers - Protect the Village.

After about a years break we managed to play a game of Sellswords and Spellslingers. I dug out the previous characters that we had created last year. Steedo had Jackal, a rogue and Brutus a burly fighter. Snake-eyes had Houdicar the wizard and Malco the fighter. I had Brunhilda another fighter, Debs the healer and new boy Roger Redcap (replacement for Woody who died last game.

The scenario we played was defend the village - which was being terrorised by a Frost giant.
The game started with the giant appearing in the northwest of the table and our magnificent seven patrolling the perimeter .... Apart from Jackal who was in the WC and Brutus who was sleeping in a  wagon. Houdicar was luckily standing in the field in the path of the giant ..... Snake-eyes activiated his wizard 3 times ready to unleash a tiro of fireballs at the lumbering giant .... This could be a quick game ....but unfortunately the fireballs turned out to be just enough to light a cigar - real hamlet moment. The rest of the heroes rushed around the buildings to inception the giant and rescue villagers, with Roger loosing off a few arrows as he went! Apart from Jackel who started playing with his oil flask ..... until he remembered that (we read the rules) he needed to light the flask, so he wandered into one of the buildings to get a flame from a cooking fire.

We ran through the activations for the heroes again, with the giant getting closer, but this time Houdicar was successful with his fireballs - causing significant damage, Roger getting some hits in with arrows and Brunhilda slashing and hacking the giant - eventually taking him down. Jackal was disappointed not to throw his oil flask ......
Other notable events were the rescue of 1 villager by Malco, and the finding of a rope by Debs - but both actions gained an extra XP. But a good win for the magnificent seven (including Steedo's characters, who did .....).
Sellswords is a really nice RPG light which I/we should play more - perhaps solo. We all had a good laugh and the game had some tense moments - Steedo tried to inject some role play to his characters which was nice.

Morts

The Necromancer's Tower

So Snake-eyes and Steedo came over for a game, so I decided that it would be another go with Sellswords and Spellslingers! As our second game we chose the EXPERT scenario The Necromancer's Tower for a number of reasons:

1 - I didn't have any goblins (or lizard men or ratmen) available for some of the others.

2 - Steedo is still scared from the beating he got from the Orcs last time out. 

3 - I did have plenty of Skellies and stuff.

After the last game Steedo decided to go with 2 characters a Brute (Brutus) and a Rogue (Jackal). Snake-eyes followed suit with a Fighter and a Wizard - named after passed D&D characters ( but I can't remember the names at the moment). I continued with my warband I started in the previous game with a replacement Fighter - Brunhilda. 

TL - initial set up, TR - my warband advancing towards the tower - I should point out Snake-eyes had started out very well lots of successful activations, only for Brunhilda to fail all three of her activations  - getting caught in a trap and bringing a whole load of Skellies down on Snake-eyes Wizard ... Who did a cracking job of killing them. 

BL - The parties close in on the tower, BR - Snake-eyes Fighter has smashed down the door to the tower to find it filled with Skellies and set off the Necromancer firing energy bolts on the party ... and levatate beer out of the top of the tower!

TL - Jackal is surrounded by ghouls and put out of action, meanwhile the party, well mainly Brutus fought through the Skellies and took on the Necromancer. The most challenging part was getting through the door! With Snake-eyes fighter tripping twice I think. TR - the wizard is surrounded and taken down. BL/BR - the Necromancer is down and the party start exiting the tower. With the Necromancer we had to roll for each Skellie a 1 improved them, 2 or 3 did nothing and a 4 they crumble to dust.... So what does Snake- eyes roll! 

Once we killed the Necromancer we decided that no more Skelllies could be placed (no power to animate them) once the last Skellie was dead the ghouls would lose interest and run away. Brunhilda with her Whirlwind of Death taking out a whole load - but unfortunately Woody the woodsman from my gang was killed ..... All the other characters put out of action will be back for the next game.

Another good game of Sellswords and Spellslingers - Steedo and Snake-eyes parties are complete with some silver, spells, scrolls, potions and 8XP to spend. I have to created a new ranger type for my party (and I got some of the above). RIP Woody ....

The game was very tense - it went from this seems easy to we might not make it. I think we were lucky with how the cards came out - very few Wandering Monsters came out until the end so the ghouls did have much of an impact. The Skellies seemed to be rather easy to kill. 

Hopefully another game soon.

Morts

Through the Badlands - Sellwords and Spellslingers

DK, Steedo and myself got together to play the first scenario in the Sellswords and Spellslingers book. 

This was also an opportunity to use the table with minis for the first time. 

The table is set ....

We all produced parties of three PCs - well Steedo picked the dependant negative trait so he ended up with 4! Basically we all had a wizard of sorts and a couple of fighters types as bodyguards. 

The initial set (TL) up for this game put a lot of foes on the table! And mainly on Steedo's side of the board. TR shows the situation after the first turn - which involved some spectacularly poor dice roll on the PCs part, so plenty of wounds taken and very little movement across the Badlands! This could be a long night! DKs wizard has been taken out and is in a coma! No fire balls from him then. 

We also realised that we had taken a lot of anti-missile defence, but the Orcs weren't throwing or shooting anything - d'oh.

BL - more bloody Trolls and my party all have 2 hits out of there 3! But finally getting some hits. This was where the "free disengage" on my "weak" Spellreader came in very useful as she escaped a Troll. 

BR - Steedo has had a PC put out of action, but his leader figure has gone back and killed a troll to rescue him. His Spellcaster has also gone back to rescue her dependant - very in character. There must be some XPs for this ......

So some final shots of the game - mainly of Steedo's party. TL the Spellcaster has cast Deathcloud and taken out two hordes of Orcs, as she runs to retrieve her child. Meanwhile Steedo's other characters has been cut down - who's going to rescue them? 

TR she reached the child - who recovered a bit -2 on all rolls only to put out of action by an ambushing Orc - tears in the eyes yet? 

Bottom picture - the child injured can't carry his parent (or anyone else from the party) makes a break to the northern edge..... Successfully fights off one Orc, only to be hacked down by another ... Cue the sad music and tears!

To be fair pretty cinematic - good roleplaying Steedo. 

I didn't take mainly pictures as we were having fun and a laugh at the poor dice rolling and desperate situation the parties (mainly Steedo's ) were finding themselves in. 

But to summarise DK managed to pick up his Wizard and carry him off the board, earning 4XPs for the scenario and then 1XP for his Dwarf (carrying the Wiz off) and 1XP for his Elf for killing a monster. All the party off well done DK. 

My party left their fighter to die and just legged it off the board 4XP, so I have create a new character.

Steedo with his excellent roleplaying, got no one off the board, his party are either slaves to the Orcs or lunch (as is one of my characters). He gets nothing, apart from the joy of creating a new party.

The scenario is tough - the Orcs were on us from the start and we would have been better off with just a pair of characters as the number of rolls we were making meant we were making the game harder with each failure to activate. But it was fun, which is the most important thing about play a game. 

Hopefully to the table again soon. 

 

Morts

Sellwords and Spellslingers - something new.

Well I've now sorted out the cards for Sellswords and Spellslingers. 

Must resist buy Kobolds - although Reaper Minis do some nice cheap ones in the Bones range. 

I was going to laminate the cards, but I haven't printed the backs (yet) and it would have been a bit of a pain to do. Cutting the cards out was a faff to do and having to do it 3 times for laminating (front, back and laminate version). So I bought sleeves which means I can put the backs in at a later date. 

One thing I wish I'd done was print on better quality paper as the stuff I have used is a little thin and almost see through. 

The plan is to get this to the table soon for a trial game. Sellswords and Spellslingers character generation is similar to Rogue Stars (not surprising really as the same author), but the games are co-operative and  competitive respectively. They also both scratch the RPG itch like Frostgrave. Both Rogue Stars and Frostgrave need to get to a table soon .... 

Hopefully a game report in the next week. 

Morts