Dungeons and Dragons: Our Traveling Companions

Over the course of our Out of the Abyss 5e campaign we have amassed a number of traveling companions.  Most of the time these characters are just hovering in the background but even so I wanted to have minis to represent them.  Saying that you're traveling with this big group and actually being able to see them are two very different things.  Some of these I painted but a majority are prepaints from the various D&D lines.  Either way, I really like the minis that I was able to find so let's meet our "friends", shall we?

Prince Derendil

A refined and sophisticated fellow, Prince Derendil is an elven prince that was cursed, turning him into a Quaggoth.  As long as he remains in the Underdark the curse will continue but if he can return to the surface... in theory the curse will be broken?  Maybe?  None of us are really buying this at this time but the few times he's been involved in a fight he just decimated people so we're happy to keep him around for now.

This cuddly fellow is a Quaggoth miniature from the Rage of Demons line.  I had considered adding the collar that his character portrait shows but he really has been a minor character for us so I decided to just leave him as is.

Jimjar

A gambler through and through, Jimjar is a deep gnome that has been trying to get us to make a bet with him since the first time we talked to him.  So far he has been one of the less troublesome companions that we broke out with us... though he might have died recently... except he's still with us...  Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Jimjar was one of the tricky minis to find as there just didn't seem to be any good deep gnome sculpts.  Ultimately I decided to go with the gnome trickster from the Blood War line.  Sure his skin is the wrong color but other than that he fits the bill so I'm good with him as is for now.

Ront

Seeming to be your generic "smash first, talk later" orc, Ront has the distinction of also being a coward.  While running away from an earlier combat, he was captured by the Drow and sent to the lovely day spa that is Valkenveld.

Since Ront was just a generic orc warrior, I decided to go with the orc sergeant miniature from the Aberrations line.  There were several other choices that were pretty good but this one particularly caught my eye.

Shuushar

A pacifistic fishman, Shuushar was one of the hardest minis to pick out.  There aren't many kuo-toa sculpts out there and most of the are armed.  After quite a bit of digging I stumbled across this sculpt and knew right away that it fit perfectly.

While he is listed as a kuo-toa whip in the Night Below line, this mini looks far more priestly which is perfect in this case.  Very happy with this figure and I'm glad that I stumbled across it.  He was a noncombatant the whole time he was with us but our DM did such a good job with him and his Spongebob style voice that I just had to add him to the group.

 Eldeth Feldrun

A shield dwarf scout from Gauntlgrym, Eldeth was the first of the companions to approach us when we reach the "luxury resort" of Valkenveld.  Of course the DM actually said that she was a dwarven shield maiden, not a shield dwarf, so I instantly thought of her as some kind of defensive fighter.  I headed over to the Reaper site and quickly found the perfect figure for her.

This is Freja Fangbreaker sculpted by Werner Klocke.  This mini perfectly captured what I thought a shield maiden would look like plus I was thinking about using her as a replacement character if Jaaren died so I wanted to make sure it was a figure that I liked.

Buppido

A mad derro who is convinced that he is a god and that we should all worship him... man, does he just get under my skin.  In fact I wanted to kill him since we first ran into him because he is just that annoying.  So why did I buy a figure for him?  Because he became our DM's favorite character and it was only right that he be represented as well.

Drawing from Reaper again, this is the derro mage by Derek Shubert.  I honestly have no idea if Buppido has any magical abilities at all but the pose and overall feel are perfect.

Those familiar with the campaign might notice that there are several characters missing.  We managed to loose a few on our travels so I haven't picked up figures for them yet.  Two of them never even made it out of Valkenveld (Topsy and Turvy) so I probably won't worry about them but Sarith Kzekarit was as close to a friend that one can be with a drow.

Sarith and Jaaren quickly reached an understanding that we all needed each other if we were going to survive and he was key in getting us to the Neverlight Grove.  Unfortunately we realized on the way there that something was possessing him in some way and in the end I felt it was only right to end his suffering.  Our DM still talks about how awesome it was for us to say prayers over his funeral pyre so someday I'll probably add him to the group as well.

Snowman's 2018 Year In Review!

I just rolled out of bed and thought "I haven't done a year in review in a while. Why not do one now?" only to see that the last one I did was for 2013.  Yoozah!  Explains why I don't remember how this is supposed to go.  Let me see...

Minis, Minis, Everywhere...

Total miniatures bought... hmmm... more than I had originally thought

Total miniatures painted... a few dozen or so?

Terrain pieces "built"... 2

I haven't kept track of these numbers at all (there's no easy to enter fields for this on BGG.com) so I can't even hazard a guess about totals.  I have an almost completely painted army for Konflikt 47 (just need to finish painting some US heavy infantry along with some proxies I have for the super soldiers) but unfortunately they've just been sitting in the carrier most of the year.  K47 hadn't really caught on as much I had hoped around here, even with a strong Bolt Action community, and our new home made the trip to the gaming store further than I was comfortable traveling with a potentially unreliable car.  We were finally able to get the car into the shop for some much needed maintenance but she's still acting up so she needs to go back in, but thankfully we think we've got a handle on what's going on so it shouldn't be too bad.  Finger crossed anyway.

Looking back, I've actually picked up a fair number of minis for other games including Mars Attacks (the base game plus the Martian army set and some more Martian minis to round things out), Wrath of Kings (I currently have enough minis to field small armies for three of the different factions), and at least 750 points for three different armies for Beyond the Gates of Antares (a game that I'd hoped to push locally but then we moved and the car started getting worse).  Yeah, so a lot more than I'd originally thought.

The downside is that I haven't been able to do much with them.  Life is always a thing and between still trying to unpack and get things settled in our house (it really is getting ridiculous and I'm ready to just chuck the lot), my wife unexpectedly switching jobs, me cross-training at my own work, my daughter becoming a drama geek... well, things have been very busy.  My goal is to smooth out some of the hiccups that we are dealing with and finally get us moving forward on an even keep again.

And How About Those Boardgames?

Total games played... 61 recorded but its actually more

Unlike my miniatures, our boardgames have been seeing more regular action.  A friend of ours starting coming over for Monday game nights (school work permitting) so that has meant more action at the table for us.  He's super competitive but a really good guy so its been fun exploring more games with him, and I'm looking forward to more Monday night gaming in the year to come.  The question now is which games hit our table the most?

Coming in at number five with five plays is No Regerts, the game of tatoos and poor life choices.  I'd Kickstarted this game and we've had fun getting it to the table.  It's a fairly simple game but there are some ways to quickly turn the tables on your opponents so you never know when someone is going to hit you with a curve ball.

At number four with six plays is Ghostbusters Protect the Barrier.  A mass market reskinning of Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters, this game is a lot of fun but holy crap its hard to win!  We've literally been one die roll from clearing the hotel only to have a cascade of card draws set off a haunting chain reaction that ends the game.  Even so its been a ton of fun and I know we'll be getting it to the table more in the future.

Number three with seven plays is one of our old standbys, the Resistance.  Its a game of lying and false accusations, what isn't there to love?  That said I have heard a review where they didn't like the game as they felt it bogged down too much but it sounded like they were kind of overthinking it.  For us this has always been a quick game, even when I've had to explain the rules to new players.  I really think that the key is to not take it too seriously and just enjoy the ride.

With ten plays is Sushi Go Party.  I enjoy Sushi Go and the extra options that Party brings to the table really add to the replay value.  It does make the game a little more thinky as you need to look at what's in play and adjust your strategy but that just makes each game a fresh experience in my mind.

Finally with a whooping fifteen plays is Unusual Suspects, the game where the witness to the crime doesn't know what the suspect's face looks like but somehow knows everything else about them.  This is another one that based on the reviews I read about it can be taken far too seriously.  Its just a game so have some fun with it.

And there we have it!  Overall a its been a good year full of ups and downs but we are finally moving in the right direction and I'm looking forward to the challenges and opportunities the new year will bring.

Workbench: Breaking Out The Astro Granite!

A friend of ours had come over for game night a week ago and while looking for something to play asked "What's Blood Bowl?"

I told him it was a fantasy football game with miniatures and he said "Okay, let's play."

Now all of this would have been fine if I had played the game within the last... oh, twenty years maybe?  Unfortunately the copy that I have is the second edition of the game (long before blocking dice were even a thing) and technically it actually isn't even mine.  Even so, having someone actually ask me to play... well, there was only one thing to do; download a copy of the most recent Living Rulebook.

For those of you that might not know, Blood Bowl was first created by Games Workshop ages ago.  They have had it meander into and out of their store as they revive the game for a bit before letting it disappear again.  In this case however, Blood Bowl never did just fade away.  Even when GW wasn't supporting the game, there was a very strong community still supporting and even growing the game.

Eventually GW seemed to realize that this thing that they created all those years ago was still alive and kicking so they brought it home so to speak, releasing the latest edition in 2016 with some minor changes but largely embracing the latest version of the fan supported/created Living Rulebook.

Needless to say it was fairly easy to find and print up a copy of the latest rulebook online.  Next I decided to "tackle" the board.

The latest edition of the game bumps the base size up from the traditional 25mm base to a 32mm base.  I don't know the official reason but it does seem to allow for more dynamic poses, plus they added a hole to the base so that you can put the ball onto the ball carrier's base.  The old copy that I have won't allow for the larger bases but it is made of not-so environmentally friendly Styrofoam.  The really sturdy stuff, not like you'd find around a burger at the drive thru.

As you can see, it's not the most eye catching thing.  In fact some of the marking are almost impossible to pick out so I decided it was time to start painting.

The first step was a coat of dark grey followed by two more coats, each with a lighter shade of grey.  This made the field easier to read but since I'd already gone that far it only made sense to take it the rest of the way.

The latest edition of the game marks off the wings on the sides of the field so I marked these right onto the board and I just had to pick out the logo.  I mean seriously, it would have been wrong to just leave it grey!  I also picked out the sidelines and end zones... well, just because really.  And I was going to stop at this point but... well, I might as well paint the end zones too, right?

And there it is in all its glory!  I could have tried to do labelled team end zones but I'm not quite that crazy; blue and red will work for me.  This also matches up nicely since the plastic minis from the game are blue and red.  Of course the orcs are blue while the humans are red which really makes no sense but what can you do... except paint all of them too!

No, I haven't done that.

Not yet anyway.  It still might happen, but we'll have to see how busy I am this weekend.  Ideally, I think I'd like to push around some Antares or Mars Attacks instead but time will tell.  Oh, and I still have to make the block dice too.  Time to dig up those wooden cubes I've got lying around...

Random Updates: What?!? It's Been How Long Since I Posted?!?

Wow.  I had no idea it had been this long since I updated.  Things have been pretty busy for me as I'm still cross training at work.  To pull the curtain aside a bit, I work for a steel fabricator as a draftsman and for the past month and a half or so I've been cross training in the shop.  Normally I had access to a computer during the day so I can write up a post during lunch time.  Being downstairs though means no computer hence the dry spell.  The blog is not done as I still have more random bits of hobby and such to spout into the interwebs but things might continue to be a bit slow until about mid January.

Even with this long term lull, I've actually noticed some serious spikes in the number of views that I've been receiving which is awesome.  Of course looking at where the traffic is coming from... I'll just say that people take the Sin City part of the name to heart and leave it at that.  So for those of you coming here looking for gaming related stuff, awesome!  Glad to have you here and I hope that you check back once things get back on track (aka I miss my desk and I can't wait to finish my cross training).  As for the people coming here looking for... well, other things... hope you enjoy the minis?

As for what's in store, I've been able to squeeze in a tiny bit of hobby over the past few weeks but most of my time has been focused on changing around my hobby space.  My wife told me that I should just turn what was going to be our office into my room so I've been working on getting things in order on that front.  Lots of shifting stuff around plus unpacking still more boxes of random stuff uncovering all manner of things (I had forgotten that I owned a respectable sized Ork army for 40k).  

I'd mentioned before that I found more of my Traahiri mercenaries for Antares and now I've added some transports for my Sulia mercenaries.  Not entirely sure if they are the right size to count as a T7 but that's what I'm counting them as for now.  Just need to get some paint on them and order some large flight stands then they'll be good to go.

As for other games, I've got some paint on my Mars Attacks ruins and I'm pretty happy with how they're turning out.  I haven't started on the minis themselves yet but in time...  I'm also interested in revisiting the Terminator Genisys miniature game as well since I just heard that the next Terminator movie is due out next year but with James Cameron running the show again.  Just need to grab a tracked Hunter Killer and I'll be all set... for now... mwah ha ha ha haaaa!!!  Oh, plus there is still Wrath of Kings lurking in the background.  I have the solid core for three armies in that game and the rules look interesting so I've got to give it a try sometime.  Ya know, in all the free time I seem to have.

On roleplaying front, things have actually been moving along at a steadier pace.  My wife, daughter, and I are part of a semi-regular group and we've been having a blast with it.  I've even managed to collect most of the minis for the party since we are currently dragging around half a dozen NPCs as we try to find a way out of the Underdark.  Most of them don't even have an active part in the session beyond dialog but I really wanted to have them all.  Kind of like Poke-Mon, just gotta get them all!

And so that's a quick synopsis of what's been happening for the past month.  Once I get back to the office things will get back on track but until then please bear with me.  Until next time...

Antares: So That's What They Are!

After some more internet digging I was able to figure out which line my Traahiri mercenaries came from; Reptoloid marines from the Galactic Wars line made by Ahketon.

Traahiri mercenary front

These miniatures are pretty basic but I think that they will work nicely for my purpose.  I haven't had time to get a lot done with them, but the first squad is about half done.

Traahiri mercenary back

In addition to the three squads of regular troops I found, there were also five Reptoloids in power armor which I'm going to use for a command squad.  This means I'll be able to field at least a 500 point scouting force (using the Freeborn Adventurers list) and I might even be able to stretch them out to 750 depending on the support options that I throw in there.