Wednesday Night Musings VII

Victorian Science Fiction: Colonial Japanese Ninjas
As I mentioned last week, I am gearing up to play in a local Victorian Science Fiction/Colonial campaign. The group that does it has written a pretty extensive background to include Martians, Venusians, and all the Great Powers in the middle of the Northwest Frontier.

I have started to assemble and paint all the lovely models my wonderful and amazing wife gave me for Christmas, and I have completed my first section, composed of five Ninjas. They were made from Wargames Factory plastic Samurai and Ashigaru, with guns "donated" from my Tamiya 1/48 WW2 Russian Infantry (they also donated two Maxim machineguns as well.) I have had that kit floating around forever, I am clearly not going to ever build them, so I may as well start cannibalizing it for parts!

Ninjas with guns... almost as much fun as Nuns with guns

Quack!
Also something I mentioned last week, I am in the process of converting my Duck Wizard's Apprentice for Frostgrave. I have been actively participating in WizarDecember, but the Week 4 deadline was extended until the end of the month due to holiday craziness. And then it occurred to me: WizarDecember is running through the end of December. I am in the fifth week of December. I am working on a Duck Apprentice. If I can get the little guy done before the new year, I can actually have five entries for the WizarDecember painting challenge. Assuming I can step away from my Colonial Japanese and Boxer Rebellion miniatures, of course.


The Week
There is still holiday craziness happening. I am trying to make some evening time to do some online gaming with Bashytubits and Mike. I am really going to try to run a Frostgrave game with the kids before they go back to school. I am assembling and painting my Japanese Colonials, Boxers, and Frostgrave checklist. Maybe a trip to California for the New Year if we can hitch a ride (running out of time fast on that one!) Next week life returns to what passes as normal for us, so hopefully we will settle down and make some better progress instead of running around in circles.

Death Cult of Hueymakt, Part 1

This was going to be a post back in May 2015 on my El Principado de la Comadreja blog. I did all this writing and didn't want to just abandon it, so it is an extra here on Tumbahelada De Punkrabbitt.

Once upon a time, I thought I was going to be playing Brink of Battle, and wanted a new Warband. I was also pursuing a solitaire Glorantha/Runequest project. I decided to combine the two and start a Duck Warband. There are a few figure manufacturers out there that make anthropomorphic ducks, but they are mostly very comical. Not so from Rebel Miniatures, who produces some wickedly mean looking ducks.

So, I ordered the ducks from Rebel during their Spring Sale. The box contained ten of them, broken down as a wizard, two archers, two with clubs, two with spears, and three with sword and shield. They were very clearly meant to be Adventurer ducks and not soldier ducks, as they mostly had backpacks, pouches, and even unlit torches with their gear as well. But I wanted some kick-ass Bronze Age Soldier Durulz to fulfil the visions in my head about Glorantha. Clearly, this was going to take some work.

I have been saving spare parts from my various hobby endeavours for years, and a quick check showed that I had quite a few leftover parts from my plastic Amazons and Persians. In particular, I had hoplite helmets, swords, hoods, spears, and some nice crescent shields. So I attacked my fledgling Durulz with clippers and putty, then attaching all of the necessary pieces to realize my vision of Warrior Ducks.

Now, when it came to painting these guys, I did not want typical duck colors. No white with orange bills, no black with orange bills, no green heads with yellow bills... I wanted duck colors that challenged the stereotypes. So I Googled "duck head" and went through several pages of images. The most unusual that would translate well to my tiny models was brown feathers and a blue-grey bill. A similar search for duck feet revealed that mostly, ducks have orange or yellow feet. How boring! And so, armed with this zoological knowledge, I set out to paint my feathered pinions. Minions. I meant feathered minions.

The three archer ducks (yes, three, Rebel Mike was good to me) got basic green clothing because they are hunters for their village. The warriors I tried to tie together thematically with black greaves, bracers, and shoulder wraps, but I wanted them to have individual colors for the rest of their outfits. The leader was assigned yellow, which is sadly a pain in the ass to paint, but when paired with black is associated with suicide in Freudian psychology. So, he is wearing suicide colors and has a glowing Death rune on his shield (interesting thing about Gloranthan runes, the Death rune is a cross.)

So that is the story of how I became the proud owner of a 28mm duck warband for fantasy wargaming.

Wizardecember: The Hero

Ooleekoo
This gal (yes, I checked) was originally meant to be my "The Beast" entry for WizarDecember (based on my own brief of The Maiden, The Monster, The Hero, The Beast.) But as Punkrabbitt shaped up to be a villain rather than a hero, and "The Monster" entry was already filled with goblins, that only left "The Hero" role to be filled. She is the Wizard of my Glorantha-themed Morokanth Warband.

Ooleekoo is a Morokanth shaman, essentially a sentient tapir native to Glorantha specializing in spellcasting. The Morokanth herd semi-intelligent humans called gern (also called "herdmen) in the same way that humans herd cattle. While this practice puts the Morokanth in general at odds with humanity, Oleekoo and her Apprentice (no name yet, I haven't even started modelling her) are noble of spirit and are trying to recover dangerous artifacts from the city of Frostgrave to protect others, who might harm themselves trying to operate them. The two of them keep a group of trained gern to fight for them while they loot, er, explore the ruins.

This is how Ooleekoo started out. I know, right? Totally time for a makeover!

From a modelling perspective, this is one of the most complicated conversions I have undertaken in a long time. I have used techniques and materials that I haven't tapped into for possibly fifteen or twenty years. I started with a soft plastic tapir from a Safari Toob Rainforest set, and used a variety of materials to dress it up, including scrap fabric, electric wiring, actual model pieces from my bits box, aluminum tubing, modelling putty, and beads.

First, apply a little foundation...

The Morokanth have been described as being black or grey; I decided to go with grey because, honestly, I am getting a bit tired of black (the kids' Elves, the Dwarf Witch-Lord, Punkrabbitt.) I had a vision for the clothes (cloth? back drape? cape?) and accessories, and it turned out almost exactly how I had expected it to.

Ooleekoo, Morokanth Shaman

No black used at all, but some very dark brown.

A face only a mother could love.

I was not sure whether I should go with a 25mm base, which she barely fit on to but would allow more flexibility in the game, or a 40mm base, which was roomier but would be too wide to fit through any of the narrower areas in the terrain. In the end, I went with the 25mm base more because it is the same height as the rest of the bases I am using, while the 40mm base has enough of a height difference to be noticeable. Things like that really bug me.

These are the guys I am going to use for my gern herd.

Warlord games makes a nice unit of Celtic fanatics, suitably nude for gern. I may need to do some head swaps for the guys with helmets, the shields are separate so I can simply not use them, the swords can be replaced by clubs, and those spears will become sharpened sticks. I can also add some beards. When I get around to buying them, that is.

Well, that about wraps up WizarDecember for me. I am not sure what painting challenges will be issued next month that may be relevant to Frostgrave, but if they are, I accept the challenge!

Wednesday Night Musings VI

Happy Holidays!
Whatever it is that you celebrate during the winter, I hope you enjoy your celebration. I have been a little busy with holiday craziness to actually get stuff done for gaming, so I thought I might catalog my up and coming projects just to see where I am at.

Frostgrave To-Do List
I have been working hard on Frostgrave for two months now... I have a lot of stuff finished, but there are still a few outstanding projects lingering about that I want to wrap up. So, in no particular order, here is what I have left to do:

1) Finish the Apprentice for the Duck warband. I have the figure ready to convert, it will probably take me all of 20 minutes to build and another 20 minutes to paint.

2) Punkrabbitt's warband: I have located the figures I want to use, most are already painted and just need to be rebased. This will be a proper Chaos warband.

3) My wife's Egyptians. I used some leftover figures to convert a couple of Treasure Hunters, found a couple of dogs, a Wargods cat statue to use as a small construct, and a mummy as a zombie stand in that all need to be painted. I am unsure which direction she will want to go in spell choices, so I want all options available for her.

4) Paint up the beasties. I have trolls, spiders, wolves, and a gorilla that need painting, and a Frost Giantess that could use some touching up to add the "frost" since I painted her as a forest giant for a D&D game a long time ago. Still looking for a good, very cheap snow leopard  miniature.

5) Play a game of Frostgrave. Seriously. I haven't played a game yet.

6) Finish Ooleekoo's warband. I need to convert another Morokanth as an Apprentice, and a bunch of naked dudes as gern herdmen. It will run me about 25 dollars, so I am going to have to hang out around a casino and mug someone drunk on their way out.

7) More scenery. I can always use more scenery. Especially the scenario-specific stuff (which I haven't made any of yet.)

8) Summoned/Created minions. Three sizes of Constructs, three sizes of demons, and a zombie all need to be located, painted, and based. I know I have figures for all of the above hiding somehwere, it is just a matter of finding them and getting them done.

That will give me (including wife and kids) eight warbands along with the critters and scenery required to play the game in many different ways. And once I am done with it all, I can figure out the next crazy set of warbands I want to paint up. I have ideas, oh yes, dreadfully silly ideas...

Colonials And/Or Victorian Science Fiction
One of the local gaming groups runs a Victorian Science Fiction/Colonials campaign, and I have decided to join them. My wonderful and amazing wife supported me is supporting me in this by providing a Japanese force as a Christmas gift. Since I could not find 1860 Japanese troops at a price we could afford, I am instead using 16th century Samurai and Ashigaru plastics from Wargames Factory which, while very historically inaccurate, will score many style points.

During a pilgrimage to Storage, I found 41 Boxer Rebellion figures from Old Glory. The box they were in indicated that I have had them for at least 10 to 15 years, and had probably gotten them as part of a trade, since they neither based nor primed in my style. But enough to field a small Boxer force to play more at Colonials. I painted up three of them quickly as a command group and made some flags from internet images.

Finished Boxer Command, with printed banner.

They use a revision of the Battlefield: Evolution rules, which were derived from the Starship Troopers rules, and they include Bugs as a force. Bugs are stupidly expensive on E-bay these days, but Genet Models  has some cardstock templates for Goliath Bugs, which work out to something similar. I photoshopped the intermediate-sized one to have wings, for use as Hopper Bugs.

Hopper Bug Cardstock Model Prototype

Ooooh... pretty wings!

Anyways, that's it for this weeks Musings. Friday or Satyrday I will have my final WizarDecember entry, Ooleekoo the Morokanth Shaman, posted.

Wizardecember: The Beast

Punkrabbitt, The Beast
When I started the WizarDecember painting challenge, I set up my weekly parameters as The Monster, The Maiden, The Hero, and The Beast. Originally Punkrabbitt was slated to be The Hero. However, as I developed the idea for a new Punkrabbitt, it became increasingly apparent that this new iteration of my gaming avatar was not going to be very heroic. As in, not at all. Feral, aggressive, and vulgar, this is not the usual Punkrabbitt. Almost an Anti-Punkrabbitt.

I started with the usual suspects, a body and a rabbit to start with. In this case, Reaper's Wererat Matriarch and Ironwind Metals' Thumper Archer. I replaced the head, tail, and feet on the Matriarch with those of the Thumper, and also replaced the hands with some leftover plastics. I then added a staff which was a plastic something with an impaled head I added on top.

Reaper's Wererat Matriarch

Ironwind Metals' Thumper Archer

The painting was pretty straightforward. Brownish skin, tannish fur, and black clothes. The staff was done in Pearl Black and highlighted by adding Pearl White to it. I am extremely pleased with how this model turned out. Not quite as cool and awesome as Post-Apocalyptic Punkrabbitt, which I converted and painted at the absolute peak of my abilities, but darn close.

Punkrabbitt, the Beast...

If you have been following this blog at all, you will have noticed that I usually do complete Warbands for Frostgrave to go with my Wizards. I just don't know who I want to be the Apprentice, or even the Soldiers. I am thinking of a Chaos Warband-style group, with some heavily armored warriors, nasty beastmen, and maybe some other weird stuff. But I'm not sure yet.

...complete with the fluffy tail.

As happy as I am with how she turned out, this model has a general nastiness about it that I may find difficult to share with my family. Time will tell if he shows up on the table against my wife or kids...

Wizardecember: The Maiden

Annoyingly high winds prevented me from finishing this WizarDecember Week 2 entry until well on our way to the finish of Week 3, but it is finally done. I just can't slip out onto the patio and spray a few layers of Dullcote when we are having 25 mile-per-hour winds with gusts up to 35 mph! I have tried this before, and seen some beautiful paint work get caught in an updraft and carried to who knows where.

This set of figures is not mine, strictly speaking. They are commission work for my kids, and I am being paid in game time with them. I bought them each a box of Games Workshop Elves for Christmas back in 2012, and while they assembled and painted a few each, they never really got around to doing anything with them. So I offered to take their unassembled models and create a Frostgrave warband for them that they could share, on the agreement that if I did so they would play a few games each with me. Their painting brief to me was black, a particular green, purple, and metals in gold not iron or silver. The rest of it was up to me.

Of course, a box of High Elf Spearmen and a box of Wood Elf Archers do not a Frostgrave warband make, as there are no Wizards or Apprentices. So I donated those models out of my collection... my plans on GW armies isn't really going anywhere at all right now! I have had Queen Alarielle kicking around since she was released with her Maiden Guard back in 1997 and never got past priming her, and a Wood Elf Mage dating back to the 80s which has been stripped and repainted more times than I can remember...

Queen Alarielle as the Wizard. Lots of black, lots of gold, almost no green, but purple gemstones. Pearlescent purple!

The Apprentice. With the hood, she ties in to the rest of the warband more thematically than the Wizard, with better representation of the green and pearlescent purple.

The Rangers. They were built from High Elf bodies and legs with Wood Elf heads, arms, and capes. I am rather pleased with how they turned out.

The Archers. Straight up Wood Elf Bowmen, with purple belts but mostly black and green. I assembled more of these than I needed for the intial warband, so the kids can swap things out and try new combinations of Archers and Rangers. I learned to hate them as i assembled them.

All together now! By design, resulting from discussion with the kids, everyone is a ranged combatant. The plan is start with two Rangers and two Archers in addition to the Wizard and Apprentice, and if the rangers are not sturdy enough in the game, one or both of them can be swapped out for Archers in later games.

And that's it until Satyrday, when we meet The Beast.

Wednesday Night Musings V

Stupid Wind!
Really, all I wanted was to be able to Dullcote my WizarDecember Week 2 entry... 25 mile per hour winds,with gusts up to 35 mph since last Friday has kept me from being able to do so until this afternoon. I haven't had time to do any pictures yet, but since I finished my Week 3 entry today I expect to be doing pictures tomorrow.

Glorantha Again
Last week, I posted a bit about Glorantha and my Ducks and my plans and all that good jazz. As I was looking through my various Warbands, I noticed that first one I did last month would work well as a Gloranthan Warband. It really does have "Lunar" written all over it, doesn't it? Greek helmets, red shields, spears... and a perfect first opponent for my Ducks. Hmmm... now I need to actually finish my Ducks! Really, only a Wizard and Apprentice, but still...

Also, I have started conversion work on my Morokanth Wizard, for painting next week as my WizarDecember entry.

Scenery
How much scenery is too much? I have enough to cover my 2'x2' board twice over, and still have plenty left over to build. I've been a bit busy this week, so no new terrain this week. But here is what's in the cardstock queue...

Not only a LOT of cardstock projects, but arranged in an attractive pattern.

Best Wife Ever
A few years back, I painted up a semi-historical New Kingdom Egyptian warband statted for Song of Blades and Heroes as a gift to my wife, with the cunning plan that she would actually play the game with me. As it turned out, she wanted to put them on display with the rest of her Egyptian display items, and forbade them from being used for gaming. Since we have moved to our smaller home, these miniatures have been living in a box in the closet due to lack of shelf space. In any event, I recently pulled them out and asked her if she would like to try playing a game of Frostgrave with them. She quickly agreed, but did not want me to touch up any of the chipped paint nor re-base the one model that had been for D&D. I want her to have a little more in the way of Warband options than is currently finished, so I have a few more models to finish for her and we will be playing a game!

She and I also  recently did some re-arranging of furniture and re-organizing of the bedroom. In her infinite wisdom and general goodness, she designated a shelving unit to be solely for my hobby stuff. I don't have too many finished miniatures here at the house, so the top shelf is currently DBA and Frostgrave forces, the next two shelves are scenery (at least until I need the shelf space for finished miniatures,) and finally books on the bottom shelf. You can also see some of my model airplanes hanging from the ceiling (another one of her suggestions.)

Best. Wife. Ever.

Future Plans
I've got four Warbands for Frostgrave finished, four more in the works, and I am still rolling hot on wanting to get them done. But I know I am going to want a change of pace soon. I have been feeling the urge to start painting my DBA Persians again, and a local gaming group has invited me to play VSF Colonials with them. So, while this blog will remain Tumbhelada de Punkrabbitt, in January I will be posting occasional forays into other genres. You have been warned!

Wednesday Night Musings IV

Glorantha!

Back in the day, I played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons because that is what my friends played. There were some other games out there, but we had all invested in AD&D so that is what we played. I was the only one looking at the other options, and that was more curiosity than any real urge to try a different system. There was this one game called Runequest, which had a weird fantasy setting called Glorantha, a Bronze Age world where elves were actually mobile plants and the closest thing to hobbits were anthropomorphic ducks. I was okay with cat people and centaurs in my fantasy games, but duck men? I passed on Runequest.

Not a duck to be taken seriously.

As it turns out, with 35 years of hindsight, I had passed on a good thing. I have lately looked back into Runequest, its various editions and improvements over the years, and oddly enough, at those very ducks that turned me off from it in the first place. See, the ducks seemed like Donald-Daffy-Howard analogues when I first looked at it. As it turned out, the ducks of Glorantha called themselves Durulz and were portrayed in the setting as grim, fatalistic warriors stuck living next to the Zombie Swamp, with a mystical connection to the Death God. These were ducks who wanted very badly to kick serious ass against the undead that regularly invaded their home and also the Lunar Empire who had offered bounties for duck kills.

Ducks that will kill your sorry ass and eat your innards for a snack.

The only problem being, by the time I realized that Runequest was a great set of rules, with a great setting in Glorantha, and that ducks are not what I had expected, my RPG days had passed me by. I pretty much only do tabletop miniature gaming these days (also computer gaming,  but that doesn't count for the purpose of this.) So, I was looking for some duck miniatures that I could build a small army from, and also a fantasy rule set that would allow the creation of a custom force so I could field those ducks.Rebel Miniatures produce a set of wicked looking ducks, not cartoony at all, and I was hooked. So I ordered some during their Spring Sale, did some amazing conversion work on them, and was set to play.

Slightly out of focus, but we can deal with that, right? Right?

After an abortive attempt at using my ducks for Brink Of Battle (my gaming group disintegrated before I ever had a chance to seriously play,) I boxed them up and took them to Storage. But recently, when I looked at Frostgrave, I realized two very important things: 1) my Durulz warband would be perfect for Frostgrave, and 2) Frostgrave is the perfect rules set to play some Glorantha skirmish games. So, my various plans for all sorts of Glorantha-themed Warbands has a chance to see the light of day once again!

An entire duck village... dedication, I tell you.

Wizardecember: The Monster

The Monster
 Here we are with this week's Wizardecember challenge entry. A Goblin Shaman, meant to head another Frostgrave warband, this time around (predictably) Goblins. Goblins are not really monsters per se, more like little nuisances you need clean off the bottom of your boots. But, like my Dwarf Witch-Lord and Minions, I had a batch of these from Battle For Skull Pass or whatever it was called. I also had five of the little buggers half painted from about five years ago, so it was pretty quick to finish up a warband of these annoyances.

These are MY mushrooms! They are MAGIC!

^ A straightforward paint job, quick, simple, and to the point. I have never been a fan of the GW-style greenkin goblins. so the warband is done up in more of an earthy yellow.

If he's got the mushrooms, he must be the guy in charge!

^ And there you have it, ten of the little cretins. No Apprentice here, eight Men-at-Arms and a Ranger for maximum support of one greedy little guy.

Wednesday Night Musings III

Wizardecember
A painting challenge for Wizard miniatures, you say? And me needing to paint up some Wizards to add to existing groups of figures to create yet more Frostgrave warbands? How can I not be a part of this Wizardecember? 4 weeks. 4 Wizards. YES!

Punkrabbitt
Every time I start a new game and/or genre, I get around to a setting-specific Punkrabbitt figure eventually. So far, there has been Space Pirate Punkrabbitt (for Vor: The Maelstrom), Steampunk Pirate Punkrabbitt (for Warmachine,) Post-Apocalyptic Punkrabbitt (for Dark Age,) and War Of Spanish Succession Punkrabbitt (yes, really!) Now that I am into this whole fantasy/Frostgrave thing, my mind has turned to figuring out how to create a Punkrabbitt model with a difference.

Four Punkrabbitts: the poorly Photoshopped comparison edition

My Punkrabbitts have always been warriors of one sort or another, armed with a formidable melee weapon in one hand and a ranged weapon in the other. Short or tall, thin or plump, they have always exuded the masculinity of their genre. In Frostgrave, the character types are Wizards (generally without guns or tricorns) or Apprentices. And Punkrabbitt is not anyone's Apprentice! So, clearly a Wizard is in order. And while we are at it, let's make him a her, just to switch things things up a little. Is it an affront to my masculinity to have my personal icon in the game be female? No, of course not. Almost all of my World of Warcraft characters are female, and if I recall, most of my D&D characters back in the day were female, so why not have Punkrabbitt be female?

As I look at the four Punkrabbitt incarnations so far, one thing strikes me: they are all so nicely dressed, almost like they are a part of the "polite" society of whichever genre they represent. If I am doing the Opposite Day version, it calls for something savage, something feral, something vulgar, something cast out from civilization... and I know just the miniature to use as the basis of my conversion. This is going to be awesome!

Hopefully for Week 3 of Wizardecember...

More Scenery
I have not been idle in the scenery department. Behold!

^ I made a 2'x2' game board for playing games on. It is 2" thick white insulation foam, painted with Folk Art "Coffee Bean." I will be adding flecks of lighter and darker colors at some point.

^ Archways... excellent for making a mess of the board.

^ Another crypt, this time with better interior walls, a recessed floor, and more snow.

^ A small obelisk... there is a large obelisk coming soon. There is a piece that goes between this obelisk and it's base to make it much taller.

^ This is the other piece of the obelisk, in this case it is serving as a fallen something, with some adjacent snow. Gotta love the snow.

^ The ruined tower... the second and third floors are removable, so it can handle some interior action.

Okay, so that's all I have for musing upon this Wednesday night. Check back Satyrday for my first Wizardecember entry.

Dwarvember Week 4

Ah, well, here we are. Week 4 of Dwarvember is upon us, and against all odds and reason, I have managed to finish the Challenge. Not only did I manage to complete an entire Dwarf project in one month, but I also managed to create a second Warband for Frostgrave in the process. This one was not easy... I didn't even join this Challenge until the middle of Week 3, so I had some catching up to do.

^ First up for this week we have three Dwarf Infantryman. They were originally Miners from The Battle For Skull Pass boxed set from Games Workshop, but I wasn't a big fan of the candles on the helmets. So I clipped them off and added some stray parts from Ye Olde Bitz Box. I also managed to get the problem in painting the purplish skin sorted out from last week. I may need to revisit those riflemen...

^ The Barbarian. Barbarians are supposed to have a 2-handed weapon, but this guy has two hand weapons. I am sure my opponents will allow this slight variation to slide on by. Right, guys?

^Finally, the Dwarf Witch-Lord. This started out as the cannon swabber from the aforementioned Skull Pass set, but I modified him just a little. The helmet is a Beastmen standard from the first plastic Beastmen boxed set that GW released long ago. The cape is from GW Wood elves, the sword in the sword pommel in the sheath is from GW High Elves, and the staff is a Hunnic standard from Essex miniatures. I have had it kicking around for about 22 years now, I remember buying it in San Diego a couple of years before I moved to Las Vegas Sin City USA.

^ And now, the whole Warband. Clearly the Dwarf Witch-Lord is going to be a Witch in Frostgrave game terms, but I haven't quite figured out the details yet.

So there it is. A Dwarf Warband for Frostgrave, from start to finish in roughly a week and a half. Viewers might notice a wholesale lack of anyone resembling an Apprentice. This is deliberate on my part, I want to try a variety of different playing styles in Frostgrave, and The Wizard With No Apprentice is a part of that. Wish me luck.

Please check out this week's Mo'vember entry as well.

Mo'vember Week 4

OK, so this is it. I finished the Mo'vember challenge! I created an entire Warband for Frostgrave, and I had one moustachio'd (well, bearded anyways) miniature for each week of the month.

^ So first up, we have the requisite Beard guy, a Thug in Frostgrave terms. He just has a little beard, but he has awesomely long hair in the back to make up for it.

^ Next up we have two Men At Arms. Like the Archers from last week, they have black footwear, white pants, black tunics, and white crests on their helmets. The red shields complete the tricolor for the core of the Warband. Astute viewers will note that these two guys take the total number of members to 11... due to some brain damage, I can't always math quite right, and my initial addition allowed the second Man At Arms. In practice he will be replaced by the Dog shown last week, until such time as I can afford to hire the extra Man At Arms.

^ Here we have Antigone, the Apprentice of the Warband. Red dress, white apron, black hair... clearly a Warband member! I couldn't resist this figure, not when I first bought her when Reaper Bones was released, and not now that I have a use for her. Look at all those healing potions she is holding!

^ Finally, we have the Wizard herself. Callista isn't completely deccked out in Warband colors, but she's the boss and gets to make the rules! Another of the Reaper Bones figures I bought a couple of years ago, she was fun to paint in a fairly minimalist style. There was enough detail to really go to town with, but this is a gaming piece, not a contest entry (wait, isn't this part of Mo'vember?) so I wanted her to look good on the table, not close up.

^ And this is the whole Warband, ready to play. I haven't quite sorted out the details of Callista as an Elemental Wizard yet, but hopefully I will have the details soon.

Don't miss checking out my other project this month, the Dwarvember Challenge.

Wednesday Night Musings II

Scenery? Scenery!

OK, so last week I was speculating about scenery, and since then I have made some cardstock ruins and snow patches/drifts for my game board. Rather than rambling on about it all, I will let the pictures do the talking:

The snow patches are just rounded shapes cut out of foamcore board with the cheap christmas village tree decorations glued down onto them. On a few, I also used some plastic scenery from one of the Lord of the Rings games from Games Workshop. I even used the foamcore to add a little snow to one of the ruined buildings.

R.I.P. Favorite Paints
While I was finishing up my Mo'vember and Dwarvember entries for this week I finally saw the bottom of the bottle of a few of my favorite Delta Ceramcoat craft paints.

Brown Iron Oxide
Second Lightest Lavender
White
Favorite Gold

We salute you! I already had a bottle of white ready to replace the dying one, but the rest I will need to make a pilgrimage to Joann's Fabrics to obtain replacements. And some more black, because I know my black is running low.

Satyrday
This coming Satyrday (or maybe even Friday) will see the poting of my final entries for both the Mo'vember and Dwarvember painting challenges. Everything is finished, I just need to take some pictures and write up some blog!