Painting - Dungeon Saga - Warlord of Galahir

So got a fair bit of painting done over the last week, still working through Dungeon Saga stuff. I have the first expansion about half way done now. This one features Orcs and Goblins instead of Undead which is pretty cool.

Heroes:

First up are the 2 new heroes for this set, a Salamander Fighter, and a Dryad or some kind of tree man Druid. I forget what exactly the book calls that race.

I painted the dragon guy the colors of a salamander which seemed cool, and he has a leather harness which I decided must be to hold some armor in place, so I did a few bits as metal that could as easily been more scales. The druid is just basically 2 different wood colors. I really liked these guys they are a bit different the the usual heroes so I thought that was cool.

Goblins:

Then I painted the 6 goblins in the set. The plastic in this lot was a good bit harder then with the undead, so I liked these models allot better. Much less issues with bent weapons and such, but maybe that is just because they are not just bones. A few places where the detail is a bit thin but they are struggling to get some cool stuff with a single piece cast I am sure.

So there is that lots, the green skin is a mix of Caliban Green and Snot Green, with Caliban as the base and more and more Snot added in. The other stuff is mainly normal leather and rusty metal colors.

Mawbeast:

Finally I have a pair of big steroid dogs called Mawbeast.

These guys are kind of static, but the big toothy grins are cool so I think they are alright. Need a few different looking things to break up all the green skins anyway.

I am about half done with the set now just have 6 Orcs, 2 Trolls, 2 Orcling bases and the boss to go. Hopefully should ahve that done in a week or 2.

Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 250 (Frostgrave)
Painted: 187 
Total: -59

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Dungeon Saga

Hello Folks,

So something a bit different today, I am not sure if this technically counts as a battle report but I am going to toss up some pictures and such anyway because I feel like it! We got together yesterday and decided to try out a few games of Dungeon Saga, on account of I had the base set painted. The plan was to try an Old West game, with Warhammer: Legends of the Old, as Serge had some cow girls painted to try out, but there wasn't time so will go for that next time.

Game 1:

Well we went for the first 3 scenarios, the first 2 of which are introductory ones to teach the mechanics fast and get used to the characters and all of that. The basic story is that there is a Dwarf Hold which has become filled with undead for reasons I can't recall and the heroes have to go beat them up. There are 2 ways in so the 4 split. In this first mission we have the Dwarf Fighter, and the human Barbarian, who just have to barge down this hall and smash down a door to break in. There is just a few skeletons to stop them.

They move and attack on there turn, and then there is an overlord turn, I was the Overlord this time, and he gets to make a few commands to move and attack or raise skeletons from the bone piles. You also get a few cards with different abilities, here they were just more raises or commands, but there are more interesting ones later. In this mission the heros only loose if one of them is crippled and win if they beat in the door, but in other missions the cards are also a time limit. Depending on how bad the skeletons get beat they either become bone piles again, or are just removed.

In the end they fight down the hall and kick in the door no problem.

Game 2:

This one is a bit blurry sorry.

For the second game we have a Mage and an Elf Ranger sneaking in the other entrance to the hold. There is a bit more exploring in this mission and now the door is magically locked so the mage has to use a spell to open it. These characters are easier to wound, but have strong long ranged attacks. To start the mage has opened the first door and the Ranger has crossed over to fire some arrows.

I made more skeletons and moved them up to keep on the pressure. But they were able to open the door without any problems.

These games were pretty fast, around 30 mins I would say. But they introduce all the rules and get you playing fast.

Game 3:

Then we moved on to the first of the real missions. A much bigger place this time as the 2 sets of heroes try to meet up and push further in. Now I have all the skeletons to use and there is a treasure. This mission has a time limit also so there is only 12 or 15 turns I forget and the heros need to open the last door before it runs out. They have no idea how far in that might be and only get to see more of the dungeon as doors are unlocked.

Right from the start the fighters start to get bogged down fighting all the skeletons in the big room, but the Mage and Ranger are making good progress.

I was able to get a bunch of skeletons to surround the Barbarian and the Dwarf. The Dwarf has high armor so is really hard to hit, but with the outnumber and from the rear bonuses I was able to start putting some wounds on the Barbarian. But the Range and Mage team were rushing around to give some support. I was mostly shooting the archers at these heros and got a lucky hit every now and then.

Another blurry pictures but all the heroes are rushing for the door now, the fighters had to give up on killing all those skeletons and the Barbarian is starting to have a bunch of wounds.

The mage opens a chest and get a healing potion to keep the barbarian alive and some magic armor for the elf. But when they open up the next room it's full of Zombies!

The zombies can't come back but they are a bit harder to kill and get bonuses for mobbing people. The heroes are able to kill them and delay them, using the 'feet to stone' spell to keep the Armored Zombie from having to much fun. On their very last turn with 2 heroes 1 wound away from being crippled the Mage breaks last arcane lock on the door and win.


In the end I found this to be a fairly simple but quite fun game. The heroes have to battle down and fight some cool monsters. It was better then I was expecting. Have played the DnD Castle Ravenloft game a few times which is similar, but I think I like this better. So quite happy with Dungeon Saga in the end, the models are fun to paint, and the game is fun to play too. Quite good to change thigns up from the usual once in awhile.

But obviously I need to to better with the pictures. My new phone has a flip case, so I find it allot harder to hold to take clear pictures.

Thanks;
Mike

Dungeon Saga - Base Game Painted

Ok so been very busy painting like mad, over the last week and the weekend, and last night I managed to finish the base game off completely! So is a few pictures of all the painted models.

Zombies:

These guys came out pretty good I thought. I used the Vallajo effects set which has a painting guide for undead. The base is a mix of German Camo Brown with Rotten White added in, and then more white for a few higher dry brushes. The I did a few wash splotches with a green ink and a brown ink. Then you paint a ring of coppery red around the eyes and do the eyes. The fresh blood effect I used for the wounds and around the face a bit. Finally they have one for dried blood, vomit, and a mouldy green color which I put on in splotches. I thought zombies flesh would be a pain but it was actually pretty cool.

Armored Zombies and Skeletons:

More of the same for these guys basically. The armored zombies are not that great of a model, but they do look like they are shambling which is kind of cool. But the effects kit has some good stuff for making rusty weapons and such which was kind of fun.

Zombie Trolls:

Then I have the pair of zombie trolls. These are much nicer models, lots of details, and the plastic is much thicker so it doesn't feel all bendy. They have big rocks to mash people and intestines leaking out, good fun. Just did the same method as the other zombies. I thought about maybe trools should have a different base color of skin, but it's more fun like this.

Dwarf Skeletons & King:

Next on the list is the Dwarf skeletons and their king. These guys are pretty good but not amazing. The King's hammer is a bit bent, but it's behind so I don't think that is a big deal. They were asking allot to get a single piece model with this especially since the hammer is not connect except at the hand so that is a big undercut. I am somewhat curious what keep their beads on, but best not to ask to many questions to skeletons, and to be fair they need it to seem dwarfish.

Zombie Troll Shaman:

Here is the Zombie Troll Shaman (allot of titles?). These guys is pretty fun with the skeleton face that has a tongue hanging there and no jaw hah. Same method as the other zombies plus he has a leather coat and some straps. In retrospect the strap holding the tooth unto the cane is to similar colored to the wood but oh well.

Banshee:

With the banshee I tried to do the same thing as I had with the ghosts but with a purple wash. But I didn't have a purple wash so I just watered down a purple paint. This was only moderately successful, and then I did wash which made it pink. So I decided to just go with it and painted the girl as a zombie rather then as a ghostly type person. Worked ok but not amazing.

The Dread Necromancer Mortibris:

Finally I have the Necromancer, this model is just lame if you ask me. The skeleton he is raising up on the base is super cool, but then the guy is just sort of standing there and he has like no details. Kind of feel like they were a bit lazy here but what are you going to do. I decided to make him human looking rather then undead, since I had done enough zombie flesh by now. To spice things up I made his spell book flesh colored, and tried to make it look like it was leaking blood. Still I don't think the heroes will have much trouble chopping this guy in the face.

Group Photo:

And here is a group shot of everything in the base set to round it out.

Pretty good looking group of stuff for a board game, and was allot of fun to paint. More and faster then I would have ever guessed! So I am quite happy with that. I think allot of it is doing something different, and you only have 2 copies of every guy at most so keeps things moving along.

Of course I still have allot more stuff. I am thinking to move on to the Warlord of Galahir (Orcs) Expansion, I haven't really done Orcs before so could be fun. Also I have learned over the year that when you have good flow on a project the worst thing you can do is suddenly change gears, so I will prob  keep on with this as long as it is fun, or until it gets all finished (hah not likely).

Be sure to let me know what you think of this lot, hopefully will get to test out the game soon. I will be bringing it home for Christmas to play with my buddies there at the least. Could be a few stuff that can be sued for Frostgrave as well, especially with the Litch expansion being released. Actually there is a bunch of dungeon furniture that is included so I should paint that also, maybe there is a dungeon terrain in my future.

This is also bringing my painted number above 160 for the year so that is cool.

Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 238 
Painted: 179 
Total: -59

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - D-Day Global Campaign

Hello,

So yesterday Serge and Bernhard showed at my place to play a flames of war game for a Normady campaign that they are doing. It was 21st Panzer attacking some Canadians in Counter Attack. I have some blurry photos of the lists so we will make do with that:

Counter Attack is a bit of an odd mission, the defender has to defend 2 objectives, but one of them starts outside of their deployment zone. This means that they either have to move, or defend it with reserves only. The attacker is a bit far away from the open objective, so they also have the choice of trying to dig out the defended objective. Either way they don't count until turn 6. I guess the idea is that the attacker will get on to the objective, and then the defender will have to counter attack to get them off!

So to get things started we have the Canadians dung in on the left with some 25lbers, mortars and infantry, and the 21st Panzer on the right with Panzer IVs and rockets and Armored Infantry. They were trying out the super heavy rockets that have 1+ fire power, but aren't guaranteed to fire every turn.

The Germans moved down the road mainly, and sent some recon units way up by the far woods to threaten the objective early. Then some more tanks and the infantry double up behind the village, gambling that no Canadian Shermans would show up on turn 1.

But they did! Making quick work of the shrot Panzer platoon. A few 6lber anti-tank guns popped up in the woods and fired on the big platoon but only got a bail, even the tank destroyers didn't fair any better.

Now the Germans got a big ballsy in my opinion. The Panzer IVs mainly moved around the village, leaving just 2 and the artillery to deal with the tank destroyers. Granted they are trained and in the open. The rockets dealt with 2 given their amazing firepower, and the tanks killed 2. Against the Shermans they were a little less effective.

The Canadians moved up the remaining 2 Shermans to attack the Panzer IVs, deciding that 2 shots for 4s was better then 4 for 5s. Sadly neither they nor the 25lber artillery were having any luck, the anti-tank guns did manage to get a kill, but never the less thing started to slide back in favor of the Germans.

The Germans started advancing again, but this time carefully waiting for the next set of Canadian tanks to show up. Which they did, but this time facing the Panzers in less ideal conditions and didn't have much success, the artillery was likewise unsuccessful.

On the German turn the 5 or 6 Panzer IVs fired on the 3 Shermans easily destroying all of them, so the Canadians conceded, deciding there was no hope of getting their infantry over to the objective in time.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Dungeon Saga

So time for another update, got a fair bit of painting done this week actually. Last summer I pledged for the Dungeon Saga kickstarter from Mantic, I thought it would be a cost effective way to get a punch of fantasy stuff to paint for a bit of a change. Well that bucket of stuff finally came in recently so I have been painting some of the stuff from the core game, good to change things up now and again.

As I kind of expected the the quality of the models is kind of uneven, the smaller normal monsters like skeletons and stuff like that are made from cheap plastic that is not very strong so they are quite bendy, the big monster are a bit more like bones material but they are big so it works out, and the characters and boss monsters are made from a more normal grey plastic that is much better so they are a higher quality. So on average not bad, you get some cool stuff and some middling to bad stuff. But they are all single piece plastic models or come pre-assembled. They are meant to be components for a board game and that is what they are so fair enough.

So anyway that being what it is here are a few pictures of the ones I painted so far:

Barbarian + Dwarf Fighter:

These ones turned out ok, I like the dwarf allot more thou.

Wizard and Ranger:

Pictures came out a bit blurry for some reason, but these are better I think.I decided to try the ranger in Autumn colors, mainly I used the SS paint set hah bit it looks alright I think.

Then I moved on to some monsters, the core set just has 4 heroes (there is also like 3 expansions so there is more don't worry hah).

Ghosts:

These are the best of the monsters so far, I highlighted them white and then went for a wash to make them ghostly. The white is the normal method to give the shading, then I wasn't sure if a blue or green wash would be better so I did one of each. Let me know what one looks the best!

Skeletons:

No you can start to see the mediocre quality, the one on the right is quite bent, both facing down and the weapon is bent. I straightened it with the hot water trick which worked for awhile, but he eventually just moved right back. But that is the only one that is super noticeable, and it's just a skeleton so not the end of the world. I did a bit of green wash in spots on these guys as well to make them look moldy, I would probably say the leather looks to clean but that is ok I guess. I might go back and make the eyes glowy red but maybe not.

So that is where I am at so far, there is still some zombies, armored skeletons, undead dwarfs, undead trolls, and ect to go in the base set. Then there is an Orcs one, Demons, and a big dragon. Not sure all that will get done if I am honest but I will keep plugging away so long as I am having fun. Been watching the Wire again while doing these guys.

In addition to this stuff I also decided what my next serious project is going to be, and that is to clean off the shelf of shame.

This is the shelf on my desk where started but unfinished projects end up. You can see how the newer residents are allot blacker then the older ones due to less dust. So the next project is to paint all of this stuff to clear it off. There are some crusaders, frostgrave, last few old west guys, WW1 ect... The crusaders have been there since before I moved so more then a year at minimum hah. You can also see that I have cheated by adding a few un-opened boxes!

The crusaders are a bit annoying since they were started before I moved to magnetic bases, so I guess they need to be re-based before work continues. So it's a hard life for them.

Paints Used:

The only note i am leaving for myself here is how the dungeon bases are done, as this is going to be going for awhile and I want to remember so they can all be the same:

Paint Black
Dry Brush Stormvermin Fur
Dry Brush Dawnstone
Liquitex Black Ink in the cracks between stones
highlight Neutral Grey
Highlight 50/50 Neutral Grey / White Mix


Pledge Status 2015:
Bought: 238 
Painted: 163 
Total: -75

Thanks;
Mike

Ottawa Miniatures Gamers - Saga Tournament

Hello All,

So this past weekend I ran a Saga tournament down at the club, we had 8 participants which I thought was pretty good, with a variety of armies and some nice terrain. We offered a prize for the person who wins, and also for the person that brings the best table of terrain, in order to encourage the participants to provide the terrain and make it easier for me, as I am a bit lazy.

We played 3 rounds and the scenarios were as follows:

• Clash of Warlords (Kill the enemy leader)
• Champions of God (Most Slaughtering victory points wins)
• Homeland (Attacker must push defender out of 3 buildings)

The choice of the third scenario was perhaps a bit controversial, but I choose it because it is different intentionally. Basically the Defender has a pretty big advantage in most cases, but the players must bid how many points they are willing to defend with, who ever bids the lowest will be the defender, roll for it in a tie. So if both players bid high then you are giving yourself a big chance that you will have to attack a dug in defender. So the bid is almost more like how many points are you willing to attack! I find that interesting, but it is a bit much to ask for people that haven't played that scenario before in a tournament.

The armies were as follows:

• Vikings x3, 1 with Harald (I think)
• Milites  Christi
• Mutatawwi
• Anglo Saxon
• Crusaders
• Samurai

I took a bunch of pictures so I am just going to through them up with some labels when I remember / see fit.

Round 1:

Anglo Saxons get ready to face the Milites Christi

The lines clash

Saxons attack the Knight Commander

Mutatawwi line up vs the Crusaders outside Acre

After a few Suicidal charges there are less Mutatawwi troops

Vikings and Samurai

Lots of Vikings get ready for a showdown

Round 2:

Now the Knights have to travel to Japan and fight the Samurai

Vikings face off against the Saxons

Many warriors die

Now the Vikings line up outside of Acre

And the Crusaders try to teach the other Vikings a lesson

Round 3:

Pictures are getting more blurry now for some reason hah

The Vikings try to kill Harald in his homes

The Samurai fight some Vikings around Acre

The Knights attack a Viking Town

And the Saxons try to burn down the Mutatawwi

Which they turn out to be good at

In the end the Vikings with Harald and the Varangian guard were the winners, and I decided the viking village in the last picture for round 1 was the best terrain.

Thanks;

Mike