Painting - Hasslefree Stuff

Hello All,

Towards the end of last week I got a few miniatures I picked up for Hasslefree during their Brexit sale. Been looking at their stuff for awhile so this was finally a good opportunity to pull the trigger. They have some really nice stuff, mainly the newer stuff I guess. Anyway I picked up some guys for Frostgrave.

Normally I would probably wait until I had a bit more done but this is all of these guys and I think they are pretty cool so here they are.

Amalthea:

First up a new wizard.

Dynamic Lenore:

And an apprentice.

Jeanna:

A Templar, I thought the face came out really well on this one for whatever reason.

Grond:

Lastly there is this half ogre guy, call him a treasure hunter?


So there you have it a few new models for Frostgrave. I was excited to paint these so actually got everything I ordered done pretty quick, plus some Frostgrave is coming up so good to have some freshly painted stuff!


Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 239 
Painted: 259
Total: +20

Forgot to add the pledge status so had to do an update.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Samurai - Bandits

Well no Wednesday wargaming this week due to summer vacations and such, but I got a bit of painting done so we can have that for an update. Have been working on the next North Star Ronin set, this time it is the Bandits. Which means that only the Bushi (Samurai) set is left!

I was to lazy to change the mat I had set up, so in the winter this time it seems.

Peasants:

First a pair of peasants with farm tools. There job is mostly to get killed I guess?

Bandits:

Angry Bandits, some with spears and a bow and a gun.

Lieutenants:

A couple of more important guys to boss the lower ones around, another gun and a big naginata. The guy on the right is described on the box as being naginata with medimum armor, same as the guy on the right, which seems like a bit of a stretch!

Bosses:

And finally the Bandit Leader on the left, and a Ronin on the right. These guys must be very successful Bandits as they are quite well dressed!

Very pleased with how these guys turned out, especially the last to. The black and yellow is pretty cool if you ask me.

Had a good time painting this set, don't have any upcoming games planned or anything just because I felt like it. Only have the Bushi set left now, but that one may have to wait a bit. I think I am going to paint a couple of Gnolls for frost grave while I am waiting for some decals to do their mon.

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 235 (Nickstarter Gnolls)
Painted: 255
Total: +20

Forgot to add the pledge status so had to do an update.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Frostgrave

Hello Folks,

Time for another battle report! This time Mr. Stan came over for a game and we decided to play some Frostgrave. I set up the table as you see while he worked on his Wizards homework. My original idea was to use the dungeon saga tiles to set up an underground crypt and try out some of the breeding ground stuff, but I forgot about that until after I already had this done, so oh well. We went for the mausoleum where you have to enter 6 huts and maybe fight a ghost to get treasure, and choose 6 of the straw roofed buildings, and the center most crypt. But fighting ghosts is boring so instead we made the monster guaranteed and picked a list of 6 cool bad guys and rolled to see which one. This included some crazy stuff like a werewolf and even a wraith knight!

So it was my Illusionist and his buddies up against a Necromancer and his cronies, or maybe it was us against the monsters!

Turn one we just advanced to start getting into position, I had some archers and an apprentice up on the platform, and a few thieves and what not spread out down below.

Here is the end of turn 1, archers up to the edge to fire arrows, most other guys hiding.

Next turn we started fighting a bit, the Necromancer moved into the open a bit so I had my wardog bowser charge in and take a chunk out, ending up doing like 9 damage making Mr. Necro think twice about sticking his neck out. My Apprentice pushed back a treasure hunter that would have murdered my poor pup back out of range.

A big bad wolf charged out to engage my Infantryman and stop him from collecting treasure, he murdered my theif that was there, but died to the infantryman who was left wounded. This is around about the time we started picking up treasures and things started to go wrong. There werewolf is just to the right of the forest and has started to kill, there is a wraith knight somewhere fighting a zombie, and my treasure turned into a mimic chest (used ice toad stats) and ate my other theif!

Now we are mostly fighting monsters really. I used my apothecary to bait the mimic into the open last turn, so this turn killed him with arrows and took the loot. The Wraithknight is somehow continuing to fail to kill a zombie, but the were wolf is just killing everyone he fights! Mean time I am still killing all the Necro guys I can for spite based reasons! At one points we thought a guy had killed the werewolf, but then realized he was wounded and at -2, so instead the were wolf ate him hah.

This turn I was able to finish off the werewolf with arrows, since he had a 20GC bounty. Mostly we then started to limp away with the treasures. My mage tried one last shot with bone dart to prevent a treasure hunter from getting off the board but failed.

I went for a third treasure, risking the yeti since only he and a zombie as left, but got the zombie and shot him. In the end I got 3 treasures, and the Necromancer got 2. No soldiers died, but my apprentice who went down trying to cast an imp to annoy the Necromancer got a smashed leg!

We rolled on the Litch treasure table, felt like we had earned it after that! Got some interesting stuff like a 2 handed weapon that knocks people back 3", and a set of amulets that lets a wizard use a soldiers los to cast once a game, that seems neat. The Necro got a rose and a bottle that has a wraithknight in it! That seems crazy dangerous.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - SAGA - Trojan War

Hello Folks,

So time for another battle report. Playing some Saga again with our Greek stuff, one last time for awhile I guess. But since the campaign is over we decided to swap out the fan battle boards and try some different ones. I went for the Anglo-Danes board, wanted to try something different and haven't used that one much if at all, and the Trojans went for the Vikings, with Harald and the Varangian Guard.

We played Clash of the Warlords, so first warlord to die is the loser. We were playing on a 4' tables so extended the deployment zones to 18" to keep things 12" apart.

Here is the inital set up, Harald and the Varangians in the middle with 2 units of warriors way out on the flanks, and I had a big mass of guys. I keep my front units, except the warlord due to no choice, back an inch or 2 from the line so it would take 3 moves for the Varangians to fight me. They along with Harald charged straight in for my warlord, and nearly killed him, 12 hearth guard get allot of dice, I had 4 or 5 guys in range to take hits and 3 of them had to die. Then they killed off a unit of my hearthguard, so not a great start.

Not real keen to fight the Guard due to their high armor, so I decided to try and get allot of fatigues on them to get them exhausted, and then use the exhaustion ability to kill them off 2 by 2. I had to sacrifice another unit of hearthguard, but got them to 5 fatigues and used one for exhaustion leaving them with 2. Sadly the Vikings have some real good options for removing fatigues so were able to get them back down to 2 on their turn and pressed the attack again.

This time they went for my warriors and I got a bit lucky and killed 4, not quite loosing all my guys. Harald then tried to take out my Warlord alone, he was a bit stuck being out of range for the hearth guard to take hits, but within 6 of my guy so he had to charge so this was the best option. But we got a draw so he had to fall back 4" leaving him open. This gave me a change to strike with my other group of warriors, and I got 7 hits out of 9, which turned out to be just enough to kill him after saves.

So very nearly a loss for me but managed to turn it around with a bout of unreasonable luck!

Trying out different battle boards and trying to find the best combos of abilities is the best part of Saga, so I quite enjoyed this one. Dungeon Saga again next week end.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Koryu Buntai (Fencing School)

Hell Folks,

Time to update on another painting project. With the Greeks finished, for now at least, I decided to do some Samurai in 28 because why not. Going through my box of unpainted Samurai stuff I found some of the boxes North Star did for Ronin. I ended up getting all of thse since they are quite nice, but only finished the Monks so that seemed like a good thing to do. Also I had just gotten the new Painting War magazine on painting Samurai, so good for inspiration.

Initiates:

Master & Senior Initiates:

Full Groups:

So there you have it a bunch of unarmored Samurai types. Some of these models I think are quite, others I am not super keen on. In particular I'm not crazy about the master, he is the red guy look downwards a bit, and just doesn't fit in some how. But overall they are cool, and I am happy with how they turned out. These Northstar boxes with 9-10 guys are a good set as it gives you a few guys to paint but not enough to get annoyed with. I wish they would support them with a few extra packs so you could mix in some options.

Well let me know what you think of this lot.

At this point I really should do some more By Fire and Sword stuff, or paint some WW1 stuff. But instead I am going to continue on this and do the Bandit Buntai, gotta strike while the iron is hot!


Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 199
Painted: 245
Total: +46

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - By Fire and Sword + 1 last Greek

So got a bit of painting completed over the long weekend, finishing off my Imperial Infantry Regiment, and a quick shot of the new Greek warlord I had painting for the last Trojan War day. Not sure what will be the next big project but I started working on one of the Northstar Ronin sets I had, so that will be done soon hopefully.

Greek Warlord:

So there is the last of the Greeks for me, at least for awhile. He is the other half of my Warlord commanders pack, with a spear from the Victrix box and an LBMS decal.

Imperial Infantry:

Then I have the infantry, been working on these for a few weeks actually since there was quite allot of bases of muskets, so I was doing them in batches of 4 stands so it wasn't so tedious. Here is a shot of the new arrivals.

I had thought the banners were just printed on paper, but Serge pointed out that they are actually stickers! so that flag was allot easier then the previous ones! Here is a shot of them mixed in with the previous ones to get a look at the full set.

Quite a nice set if you ask me, it is not really accurate for them to be so uniform. But I find it looks good and it makes them easier to paint and play with sometimes. So that is how I did it. Holy Romans are Imperial yellow, and Swedes will be blue!

The set has all the spears as brass and comes with nice bases flags which is great. The models are well sculpted, but the casting could use improvement. Some of the guys may have messed up feet or faces stuff like that.

This is pretty much a full list for the Outpost Skirmish force I think it is called. You can also have a few small cannons I think three. I ordered some from Wayland games but they are taking forecer to even ship, but that is what I have come to expect from Wait-land so fair enough. Was a fair bit cheaper then the US By Fire and Sword store.

We have a Renaissance day coming up at the club in August so I probably will try and get another skirmish force ready for that.


Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 199
Painted: 250 
Total: +51

Thanks;
Mike

Trojan War Campaign - Final Day

So on Sunday we had the last day of the Trojan war campaign at the club, had a pretty good turn out of 7 people despite the long weekend.

Game 1:

For the first round I had to face off against Nestor and the GReeks to bring them back in line. We played sacred ground with no interference from the Gods. 

For my first turn I moved up towards the terrain as fast as possible, it's really important to get in their soon so you don't get behind on points.

The Greeks followed suit and by turn 2 we both had some guys in the zones to start collecting points. You get victory points at the end of your opponents turns for having people in there.

By turn 3 we had all kinds of troops in there and fights were starting to happen. I sent my hearth guards and warlord against the enemy hearth guards in the middle and killed them to a man.

Nestor's troops retaliated by pushing me back out of the hill on the right, but in return I was able to kill his guys on the left. SO I was starting to rack up more points per turn now.

Nestor's Warriors tried to assault my hill in the center, but they were unable to take it. This pretty much sealed the deal for me.

A fairly strong victory for me, but not quite enough for a major victory, I think we didn't realize there were modifications to it in the campaign document until after. But oh well. I had a pair single hearth guard out wounded but no big deal.

Game 2, Seige of Troy:

To round off the campaign we decided to have a big multiplayer game based in Troy, or as near as we could toss it together with what was at hand. We had an uneven number of players 4 Greeks and only 3 Trojans, but we went for the Homeland scenario hoping that would balance out a bit. The idea here is that we have to capture every building by killing the Trojans inside, if there is even a single one left at the end we would loose.

As you can see we have lots of guys spread all around. Greeks on the left side. From the bottom up we have Menelaus, Nestor, Ajax and Achilles. I forgot who the Trojans were, but none of their big heroes showed up to defend the city!

We got to work with brutal efficiency, at the point we all had the hang of killing Trojans. The Greek side had won more battles throughout the campaign so we had allot more powers from divine interventions to through around. This makes you allot more killy for a single fight so things happen faster then normal.

I wiped out the Lykians in the open and headed for the temple, while Nestor retook the Trojan Horse. The Amazons round around in the center and tried to kill people, but had not a ton of success. Up by the main city Ajax and Achilles were causing allot of trouble. They both died before then end, but their troops were able to mop up those buildings.

Before long every Trojan was killed, leaving us the city to burn. 

So there we have the end of the Trojan War campaign. Allot of fun, if not super balanced all the time. Good times had by all thou.

The next campaign is a WW2 desert event, but I will be looking forward to more Saga.

Thanks;

Mike