Tag: 15mm Fantasy

A Few Additions

I am slowly working through the basing of a few batches of figures painted over the winter. I’ll post them as I finish them, here are the first few.

Two crossbow-armed dwarves, classic Citadel figures from the 80s that recently received a re-paint. The guy holding the crossbow up was the original figure for my first ever D&D character, Athor. He’s almost old enough to qualify for a vaccine jab! Painting them as veterans seemed appropriate.

Next, a couple of very large rats from the Reaper Bones range. When used with 15mm figures they’ll be absolute monsters.

Another Reaper Bones figure below, this one is an Undead Dwarf.

Finally, the remaining unit for my previously-posted 15mm Sci-fi Friendlies force (based on the Dorsai novels). These are militia fighters, from CP Models.

More soon…

15mm Buildings for Dark Ages and Fantasy

I recently bought some resin models from ebay to add to the few I already had. This prompted a long overdue re-paint of the thatch on the older buildings, which were a bit bright and yellowy for my current taste. Some bases also needed a bit of work, so getting the new ones in

Scratchbuilt longhouse, from many moons ago

Next I want to add a watchtower and some wattle fencing. Hopefully soon…

Frostgrave in 15mm – Pics from a 2019 game

Happy New Year!

I just came across these pictures from a 4-player game played back in July 2019, which I don’t appear to have posted. I thought it would be a good way to get going with the blog again this year.

This was a basic free-for-all style scenario with treasure to grab and opponents to back-stab. Lots of fun was had and hopefully we can get this group back together again sometime for a re-match. Each visiting player painted and brought their own warband, which was a very good effort considering no-one really had any 15mm fantasy figures beforehand.

The game was played on a 4’x3′ table, using my water base and canal features for the first time. Some of the pictures show fog and wall spell effects in use, and gems for treasure.

I’ll try to get back to more regular posts in 2021. It’s not a new year’s resolution, just an general intention!

Recent Games 2 – Rangers of Shadow Deep

This continues to be an entertaining and challenging game. A recent 2-player session, with a ranger and small posse each, saw us rattle through 5 of the scenarios from the main rulebook. Casualties were relatively light, but brushes with death commonplace!

Next time round we’ll start on the Convent Mission.

The bridge guard game, Orcs substituted for Gnolls:

 

The stairway down, fly holes and difficult ground to negotiate:

 

 

Frostgrave in 15mm – A 3 Player Brawl

What better thing to do the night before Partizan than stay up late playing Frostgrave! Andy and Jase were staying over and we had a blast with a very entertaining and slightly chaotic 3 player game.

I think we had a Summoner, an Enchanter and a Chronomancer, but I could be wrong. Andy brought some of his recently painted (and very nice) figures, and we set to in a generic grab-the-treasure and generally-screw-the-opposition scenario.

The table:

We played with a few preferred house rules borrowed from the wider Frostgrave player community (such as random encounters occurring on a 14+ when a treasure is first picked up). Somehow this resulted in a very enjoyable series of monsters appearing behind Andy’s warband! It was certainly a baptism of fire in his first game – a Giant Worm, a Bear and several Rats all decided they needed to pick on Andy. Me sending a summoned Greater demon towards him (his Barbarian was getting too close for comfort and, well, it seemed like a fun thing to do), and generally flinging Imps around the table was my contribution to the chaos. Jase concentrated on nicking most of the treasure and dishing out whatever punishment he could whenever he got the chance.

Some in-game pics:

Lots of spells were cast, and nearly as many were mis-cast, causing a lot of injuries to wizards and apprentices. In the end everyone survived with modest casualties and got hold of some loot.

Hopefully we’ll get a chance to have a re-match with these warbands at some point in the future. It was great fun –  we wouldn’t have got to bed so late if we hadn’t spent so much time laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Defence of Arnor – A Dragon Rampant mini-campaign

I’ve finally started my Middle Earth campaign, which will be an on-going series of linked games set in the mid-Third Age. The background is the fight for survival of the declining kingdom of Arnor, or rather its one remaining splinter state, Arthedain, against the Witch King of Angmar and his allies.

The idea is to play games of Dragon Rampant (with a few minor scene-setting tweeks), both solo and 2-player. There’s no campaign map or ordering troops around, just battles and minor book-keeping to record who the faction leaders are and how they’re progressing (or not).

The objectives are to have fun and get a bit of immersion in Tolkein’s world. Arnor in the T.A. 1650s offers lots of scope for different forces, alliances and troop types, so I can free-form things in whichever direction I choose to go.

 

Lord Finaroth gallops out to turn back a border incursion by Rhudaurim raiders. Despite his heroic efforts he was slain by an arrow in the second game, giving his enemy some useful victory points.

No orcs or other nasties on the table yet, just men in a classic good vs evil confrontation.

 

Helgmar, a Rhuadar Chieftain, leads his savage hearthguard on a raid. His unit has routed in both the first 2 games, costing him victory points and loss of face, but unlike his initial opponent, at least he’s still alive.

Figures are from various 15mm Dark Ages and Late Roman era armies. I have plenty of fantasy figures to introduce over time, and am working on some Arnor royal troops for when these initial minor border clashes turn into something more serious.

The Chronicle so far:

# Scenario & Location Arnor Angmar
1 ‘Take them head-on’

March Lord aims to stop a Rhudaur incursion on the border

Ruins of Caer Molir watchtower

 Lord Finorath (Might 10, Aggressive)

Attacker. +6 Might

 Helgmar (Might 10, Energetic)

Defender. +0, Might, routed
2 ‘No Quarter’

Rhudaur chieftain seeks to restore his reputation by killing his adversary

The Weather Hills north of Amon Sul

 Lord Finorath (Might 16, Aggressive)

Defender. Slain by an arrow. +1 Hero

 Helgmar (Might 10, Energetic)

Attacker. +3 Might, routed. +1 Standard bearer
3

next

 ‘Ride Now’

With Finorath’s force destroyed, a nearby border patrol is outflanked and attempts to retreat

The Weather Hills north of Amon Sul

 Ealdorman Branost (Might 10, Proud) Helgmar (Might 13, Energetic)

 

Bold – won scenario, otherwise drawn

Finally Some Gaming

A recent house move has disrupted projects, painting and gaming plans, but it’s all been worth it. The new games room is mostly sorted, and last weekend Jase and I managed to fit in a couple of co-op games of Rangers of Shadow Deep and a game of Sci-Fi Rampant. Everything was in 15mm.

Rangers scenario 1 – we did pretty well with our shiny new Rangers and their companions, bar the odd guardsman being taken out by a rabid rat.

Sci-Fi Rampant (which is Dragon Rampant played straight from the book, but with a lot of thought going into the representation of the troop types we want to use) was great fun as always. It presents a very different tactical challenge when both sides have a lot of shooty units. It was a close game but on this occasion the force with armour upgrades won the day.

Now I need to get some painting done, as there hasn’t been any since January and there are deadlines looming!

 

 

Rangers of Shadow Deep – First Go

I’ve had some fun today with Joe McCullough’s new game. It uses the Frostgrave mechanisms so it’s been pretty easy picking them up (despite the lack of a QRS or playsheet…!)

I’ve got a lot of 15mm fantasy stuff – scenery and figures, but it’s still been a challenge putting the scenario settings together. Actually it’s a nice departure from the norm, and the scenarios themselves are very varied and challenging.

I created my Ranger, Vantaniri, and recruited a few companions (one each of Rogue, Tracker, Archer, Guardsman, plus Fido the Warhound). The first mission saw the Warhound slaughtered by a giant rat, while the rest of the team kicked evil ass pretty well.

Nasty giant spiders got Fido II in the 2nd scenario, while Vantaniri and the boys torched the spider nests, etc.  Everything was going swimmingly, although the good die rolls couldn’t last forever.

Here he comes, bounding and panting with doggy enthusiasm. Oh dear.

The next mission, which I’ve not yet finished, is proving very tough. Getting past some Gnoll bridge guards involved a combination of sneaking, swimming and getting chopped up pretty badly. Luckily everyone made it through, thanks to the recovery rolls, but we were carrying some residual injuries going into the tower that’s the main mission objective.

There’s time pressure once in the tower, with a turn limit for crossing each of the initial (very large) rooms. Leaving a man down in each of the first 2 rooms, it’s a slightly beat-up team trying to make it through to the end game. Will it be enough?

I’ll be finding out post-turkey 🙂

Critters

I haven’t managed to paint much recently but have tinkered with a few more 15mm fantasy bits and pieces.

I say ’15mm’, but actually these were mostly either 10mm or 28mm, but that’s the beauty of fantasy! I put in a couple of small orders, to Element Games for some Reaper Bones figures, and to Pendraken for some of their fantasy range.

The Bones figures:

Giant rats done:

I’ve also painted the scorpions, along with 3 from Pendraken, which are a good match size-wise. The bat swarms and 3 of the spiders are also Pendraken, all nice figures, and the bigger spider is actually from a 15mm range (Demonworld):

I still have more to do – you can’t have too many nasties in a dungeon crawl can you?

Ruins, Generously Donated

The very kind Count Belisarius sent me these plastic ruins that were surplus to requirements. They’re going to fit in very well with my 15mm Frostgrave setting.

They arrived as assembled kits, in shiny black plastic. I based them on cork tile and added some rubble and patches of plaster to blend them in with my existing scenery. I also covered over a couple of electrical cables, presumably they’re originally designed for W40K or similar.

They then received a matt black undercoat, followed by dark grey, light grey and white dry-brushes. This was very quick to do, so they’re all finished within 48 hours of arriving.

Thanks Andy! 🙂