Artefacts From My Gaming Past 5 - Even More Orc's Drift

I don't just find old minis or games as I tidy through my accumulated 'stuff'. I recently found more photos taken when we played the multiplayer Bloodbath at Orc's Drift campaign may years ago.  You can find a bit more about that here.

These photos were taken at the first session, where we played the first three scenarios on three separate tables.  

Kachas Pass

The aim here is for the elves to hold off the orcs long enough to escape, helped, hopefully, by reinforcements from the woods.  The lovely stockade was provided by Bodvoc.

The Orcs advance on the Kachas Pass outpost

Nearly at the gate

The Rock Giant Guthrum Mane leads the assault, in the compound the defenders have to deal with an escaped half orc spy

Ashak Rise

Meanwhile, the dwarven outpost of Ashak Rise is gripped with gold fever.  No heroics here, when the orcs appear the dwarves just want to load up their gold and go.  The building is the 'Rough Inn' from the Tragedy of McDeath pack, I still have it, it's overdue a bit of restoration and a better paint job.

Orcs on the horizon, and Hobhounds at the river bank

The dwarves and their mules flee down the road

Linden Way

The garrison at Linden Way must hold out long enough for the villagers to escape.  I still have two of the buildings.

Guards in the watchtower nervously look out on the advancing orcs

The action moves into the village

Orcs attacking the villagers

Sadly I can't remember what the outcome of any of the games was.  If I had to guess, I'd suggest that the elves at Kachas Pass successfully held out, it's difficult to shift elven archers from a defended position.  The dwarves at Ashak Rise look to be escorting their gold off, but it doesn't look good for the villagers of Linden Way in the last picture.

If you want to see some pictures of the final battle at Orc's Drift, you can find them here and here.

I hope you found this nostalgia trip interesting, it certainly brought back memories for me.

More Miniature Photography

I was so pleased with the results of the photos taken using the new backdrop that I decided to do more photos.

These are minis that have been featured on my blog before, but I'm taking the opportunity to get better photos.

One point, the hydra was photographed in daylight, these were all done in the evening with room lights on. It certainly made a difference, with the photos being much cooler and bluer. Still, I was able to alter the colour balance and get better colours.

The three wood elves first seen here 

Half the dwarves 

And the rest from here.

And Flosi and Praetorius 

Despite altering the colour balance, I'm not quite as happy with these, I'm posting them because I think it makes an interesting point about light levels and quality. I doubt I'll retake these again, unless I suddenly get a better way of photographing minis.

Lesson learned, photograph in the daytime.

75K!

Well, not long ago I posted I'd reached 50000 views, and only a short while later my blog is over 75000. 

I'm aware that not all the views are genuine, but given how a topic is followed through various posts, I think many are. It's nice to think that people around the world are reading my words and sharing my hobby experiences.

Big Thank yous 

I'd like to thank everyone who reads it, especially folk who come back to see what's new. If you leave a comment, you're a real star, these show that fellow hobbyists are directly engaging with my content.

If you want to go even further, share my content with other hobbyists, and maybe think about subscribing.

Looking Ahead 

That out of the way, where is the blog heading in the future? I don't imagine there will be any major new projects. Whilst I'm not winding down my hobbying, I am reassessing what I paint and what I play. I'm part way through a massive sort out and clear out of all my stuff, as I've discussed in several posts recently. I suspect that in a few months time I'll have a smaller collection, but one that's far more useable and (fingers crossed) with far more painted minis.

Oldhammer, or Old School, has been a big feature recently. However, this is a bit of a vanity project. Realistically I can't see myself going back to the original rule sets, but the minis may find a use in Dragon Rampant, and small groups of minis are always useful in skirmish games like Fistful of Lead or Frostgrave. I've also recently got interested in trying Rangers of the Shadow Deep. I'm sure that I'll find a use for some of the Old School minis, but it will also prompt me to get some of the VPoURB* done. I'll be trying RotSD with the MEGAforce once I've got the requirements for the first scenario done.

The VPoURB is an issue. As part of the sorting out exercise I'm once again looking at minis for D&D. Sadly, at the moment, I don't have a face to face group going, and I'm not sure that's likely in the near future. As I discussed during lockdown, I do seem to need a vague target for my hobby activities (even if it's just to ignore), and there just doesn't seem to be one for all this stuff.

To compound the issue, there'll be a big box of the latest Kickstarter Bones arriving soon.

I recently spent some time in Anglesey (highly recommended) and a couple of things are inspiring me to get back to my Trident Realm. Two of the things that have stumped me with this army are colour schemes and basing. A trip to the Anglesey Sea Zoo gave me some colour ideas, but I'm not sure if I can match them. It should be possible to get something close though.

I'm thinking the pale blue fish in the background.

As for basing, this looks about right to me.

Red Wharf Bay - Littoral zone

A sandy base with some patches of water and raised areas of grass.

Well that's plenty to be going on with, I wonder what I'll have achieved by the time I get to 100 000 views?

*Vast Pile of Unpainted Reaper Bones**

** Not all Reaper Bones, though largely. There are some of the WotC prepainted minis saved from the cull, some Heroclix minis, and assorted other bits and pieces.

Oldhammer Wolves

Evil Cavalry 

As I continue to clear through the piles of old minis, I'm putting to one side anything that I think will fit my Oldhammer project.

I recently found these three wolves, along with a handful of goblin wolf riders, so I decided that a unit of three (to be later expanded to six) would be a great addition to Team Evil.

The models are two Marauder Miniatures wolves, MM32 (W1) and MM34 (W1) and one Citadel wolf 4787/9 wolf 1

What Colour is a Wolf?

I've done some googling, and miniature painters seem to choose either greys or browns for wolves. A bit more research into real wolves showed me far more variation than I thought possible. 

Still, the choice is largely greys or browns, with further choice in lighter or darker colours (bellys tend to be light, and the top side, especially the spine is dark). 

In the end, I decided not to try to copy any particular wolf, but make up my own wolfy colours.

Now I have painted wolves before, you can see my 10mm wargs here and here. I also painted some of the Marauder wolves years ago to use in roleplaying )I can't remember how long ago, but it was third edition D&D). I still have one of these for reference.

Painted MM32 (W2) looking a bit the worse for wear

In the end I decided to go for greys. I think this will contrast well with the green skin of the goblins and the browns and tans of much of the equipment. Besides, if I ever do any orc boar riders, they will be browns.

There was one small problem, one of the wolves has lost it's slotta tab, but careful drilling and pinning allowed me to have a wire to attach it to a base (I'm using slotta bases as a temporary measure).

Tabless MM 34 (W1)

Three Painted Wolves 

The wolves were primed with Vallejo Surface Primer, then a base coat of Vallejo Game Color Wolf Gray on the underbelly, legs and flanks. 

Then I overbrushed VGC Fortress Gray moving up the flanks, leaving plenty of the Wolf Grey showing.

Then a smaller area of the flanks and the top side was painted in VGC Cold Gray.

Finally the very top, from the forehead down to the tip of the tail was painted in Vallejo Extra Opaque Charcoal Gray. 

The detailing was pretty simple; claws and fangs were VGC Khaki, highlighted in Bonewhite, then Off White. The edges of the ears were painted in Wolf Gray. Gums were Charcoal Gray with a bit of black mixed in, the snout was the same darkened Charcoal Gray. Pads on the paws were VGC Dwarf Flesh. I finished by running a bit of black wash along the spine.

I'm delighted with how these wolves have turned out. I've already stripped the paint off the previously painted model, and found another unpainted Marauder wolf to add to the pack.

The Riders 

The goblins were pretty straightforward, but I'll give them their own post, including the completed wolf riders.

Experiments in Miniature Photography 1

When I showed my Oldhammer Wood Elves I mentioned that I was working on improving my photography. As part of that I've tried a couple of different backgrounds in my light box.

New Backgrounds

Both are sheets of thin EVA 'craft' foam. My intention was to find a smoother surface to avoid the phone camera focusing on the backdrop rather than the mini (sadly, my eyes don't pick this up well until I've enlarged the picture).  I chose a pale blue and a pale grey colour to see if they would work, and what difference the different colours would make.

Comparative Shots

So here are shots of an old hydra that I painted many years ago with pale blue and pale grey backdrops.

The Verdict?

Well, I think the new background certainly make a difference.  The focus is much clearer on the mini, and there's no 'background noise' to distract the eye (or the autofocus!).

What I find particularly interesting is how much the colour of the background affects the colour of the mini.  The blue makes the hydra look warmer.

I like both these effects, but I think I'll stick to the blue for most things.  What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

The Hydra

The rather impressive hydra is a C29 mini designed by Trish Carden.  I've got a few of her Marauder sculpts, and they are generally excellent, though there was no deliberate plan involved in buying this.

I painted the hydra many years ago to use as a D&D monster.  It has a satin varnish finish, and it needs at least a coat of mat.  I suspect that underneath that slight shine there is more damage that needs sorting, and perhaps I should put it on a bigger base and texture it to match my current basing style.

Board Games Night - Cascadia

The Monday Evening Gaming Association (known informally as MEGAforce) tried a new board game last night, Cascadia.

The game at the scoring phase.

The aim of Cascadia is to create the most sound ecosystem using habitat tiles and placing wildlife tokens on them.

There are five different habitat types (mountain, forest, prairie, wetlands and river) and the hex tiles usually contain more than one type. 

There are five wildlife types as well (Grizzly Bear, Roosevelt Elk, Red Fox, Chinook Salmon and Red-tailed Hawk), and the habitat tiles have icons to indicate which wildlife token can be placed on it, but only one token per tile.

Five cards are drawn at the start of the game to determine the points scored at the end, so using the recommended starter cards we got points for placing pairs of bears in adjacent tiles, for placing long 'runs' of salmon or for placing hawks not adjacent to other hawks. Some of the other cards impose quite tricky conditions for scoring.

There are always four tiles and four wildlife tokens for a player to choose from, drawn and placed in pairs. These are usually taken in the pairs but can be placed separately in a player's ecosystem.

Once each player has placed twenty tiles the game finishes and points are totted up. 

Firstly the points from cards are added.  I adopted a fairly scatter-gun approach to placing my wildlife and definitely didn't make the best of it. I did benefit from trying to make large habitat zones which did my points total a lot of good.

All in all a great game. The concept and play is simple, but there are hard choices to be made when choosing and placing stuff.

I'll currently place this firmly in A tier, though I suspect once the more complex victory cards are used it might edge into S tier.

Cascade is produced by Flat Out Games, Grim had a Kickstarter version of the game.  The rules include a solo version, and works for 2 to 4 players in group play.  There seems to be some sort of campaign or quest system in the back of the book, but I didn't explore this.  There is some good scientific information about the habitats and creatures used in the game as well, making it informative as well as entertaining.

Oldhammer Elves part 2

I've actually finished painting something!

I'm aware that we're nearly a quarter of the way through 2024, and I've not actually posted anything newly painted this year. This is probably because I've been so caught up in thinning out the minis that I've not allowed myself the time to get any finished.

The First Elven Unit

Back in July I showed the unpainted models for the first unit of elves for Team Good. I've had to revise that slightly. The elves were a mix of 'Wood' and 'High' elves, and didn't quite work as a unit for me. I got part way through them and stopped.

I've managed to obtain a few more old school elves since, and I now have enough for six of this more Sylvan style. I thought I might as well finish the three I'd started before beginning anything new (besides, I'm also part way through painting something for Team Evil).

A (Very) Reduced Model Unit

4210/13 Bow 9, ME 31 (02) - Sylvan Elf, ME 31 (01) - Sylvan Elf

That tactical rock needs some lighter tones.

Initially I painted the grip and tips of the bow as metal, but I though that some sort of horn or ivory might fit wood elves better, besides, I've seen compound bows like this at the Royal Armouries.

So here they are. Individually each one was a joy to paint, and I think that's significant. My dwarves were each painted as individual models with no intention of them being a unit. Perhaps I need to be a bit looser in approaching the elves as well?

I enjoyed keeping to the vague brief of "the greens and browns of the forest" while avoiding having them too uniform. I can't really give exact paint recipes as everything tends to get mixed up on my wet palette, but I gave each elf light green hose and a dark green jacket or tunic. The collars were all reddish brown, based around the rather nice Vallejo Model Color Orange Brown. 

I feel that the contrast between hose and jacket on ME 31 (01) could be greater, and perhaps ME 31 (02) is a bit dark overall. I may go back and touch up a few details at a later stage, but for now I'm calling these done.

The bases were textured using Geek Gaming Scenics Plains of New Zealand mix.  I added more grass tufts to bring out the 'nature' side of the elves.

Oh, and I'm experimenting with my photography again.  I've gone back to my fold up light box, this time using my newer phone.  I think there's an improvement, and I like the effect of the blue background. I think I need to find something without the fabric texture though, as the camera has tried to focus on this and my eyes don't pick that up until I enlarge the pictures.

Birthday Zombies!!!

As is the custom, T'Other One had complete freedom of choice for the Monday game nearest his birthday. He chose Zombies!!!  from Twilight Creations. The object of the game is to be first to reach the helicopter, while, obviously, avoiding being eaten by zombies.

The town layout is drawn randomly from a tile deck, there are event cards to play, giving equipment or hazards for the other players and health and bullets to be found in many of the named buildings. We've played this a few times, notably for T'Other One's stag do. 

This time we added the Mall expansion. The Mall is discovered somewhere in the town, and the helicopter pad is on the top of the Mall. It has its own tiles and event deck.

The helipad is revealed (lowest left) and it's full of zombies 

'Eaten' players respawn in the town square tile, meaning it's a long plod back towards the helipad, we ruled that respawning at the entrance to the Mall was better. I think all of us had to respawn at least once.

There was a good bit of card play, such as doubling the number of zombies on the helipad (snigger),  but by eleven o'clock we were sort of helping each other by clearing zombies out of the way.

T'Other One's yellow pawn about to respawn. So close. Gosh, I wonder why there are so many zombies on the helipad?

In the end Grim (blue) managed to get through. 

Zombies!!! is a fun Beer and Pretzels game with many expansions. I suspect that regular play needs these expansions to add something fresh, we certainly enjoyed the new cards.

Every time I play it I think the mechanics could easily be adapted to exploring an infested space station, a sort of more random Space Hulk type game.

Space Ork Super-attack Onslaughter Dreadnought

I've been very slowly building up a small Rogue Trader era Space Ork force, you can see the first ten painted minis here.

I'm not really collecting them for any reason, other than the sheer joy of revisiting my younger days, and I've no real goals. But one thing I really wanted was one of the original Ork Dreadnoughts. There's something so impractical about the design that I find really appealing, I mean, how does it even walk? It must need to swing from side to side, making accurate shooting nearly impossible. Mind you, these are Orks (though the BS of the Dreadnaught is surprisingly high).

They do crop up occasionally on evilbay, but always at a much higher price than I can justify.  I've seen some that I swear must have been built around a Faberge egg, so I had accepted that there would be a Dreadnaught shaped hole in my Space Ork force.

A Lucky find

But when recently browsing the FLGS (the same one where I got the Space Marine bits shown here) I saw this on the rack 

This is the Dreadnaught with the expansion kit added. It comes with a Heavy Flamer and a Heavy Plasma Gun, because in those days, orks used the same weaponry as the Imperium. It is missing a few bits though, the Gretchin pilot, the banner pole, and most significantly, one of the weapon mount arms.

Dreadnought - Seeks arm

Still, I bought it, hoping to cobble something together for the missing arm.

Then next day I found this on eBay, and for a reasonable price too (£3.50 plus postage*).

Not one but two weapon mount arms, and a lascannon

Now I have a complete enough Dreadnaught to build and paint, and a spare Lascannon. I might even magnetise the weapons so that I can swap them out.

Now this wasn't as cheap as when originally released (£3.50 for the basic Dreadnaught and another £2.50 for the expansion pack), but I consider it a good purchase, and, perhaps, a little reward for clearing out so much stuff recently.

Painting it (eventually)

I need to strip the new arm and the lascannon, and, as I mentioned, I'll look at making the weapons swapable.  I may even extend this to the one Ork with Heavy Weapon, in his case, a Missile Launcher.  I'm not sure what colour scheme to go for though.  The original models, both in White Dwarf etc and, IIRC my own, tneded to wards bright reds an similar.  It might be nice, given the khaki on my ten Raiders, to go for a similar sort of colour, it being Armour after all.  If you've any suggestions, please leave a comment.

I don't seem to be doing much painting at the moment, various other things, both hobby and otherwise, are taking up my time, but I'd like to get this done fairly soon. There are a few more infantry I'll paint first though, as I have a vague plan for my Space Orks.

*I'm baffled by this. Individual arm mounts sell for upwards of £8, and I've seen Lascannon fetch over £10. It does all seem to be genuine stuff.

More Crimson Fists

When I painted the first squad of Crimson Fists I mentioned that I was hunting for the missile launcher in the 'loft of shame '. Well there's been no sign of any more marines up there, so I was pretty much resigned to never completing them. They are available on evilbay, but they command very high prices, far above what I can currently justify.  So it looked like this project was at a dead end.

Discovery

Recently I was browsing a box of second hand minis in my FLGS* and found the following;

Three more partial RTB01 marines, including a missile launcher and a flamer (originally glued on to the arm of the newer metal marine bottom right). I've got plenty of the bits needed to complete them, so now I can assemble enough Crimson Fists for The Battle at the Farm. But I'll strip them first.

Stripping Plastic Minis

If you read my posts on stripping, I'm using Dettol as its far kinder to plastic.  Unlike the earlier trials I'm leaving the minis in the Dettol for several days, before dunking in washing up liquid for a day or two longer, then after scrubbing clean (and it gets the paint off very nicely), in Isopropanol, to make sure that all the Dettol etc is gone. 

I have heard that methylated spirit is also a good solution, but I've yet to try it. For now I'll stick to what I know.

Not More Marines?

Given my previous post discussing selling off minis, it may seem ironic talking about getting more. Well I have a double defence. I'll be sorting through Warhammer 40K stuff soon, and that means getting rid of a lot of the more modern Space Marines. Also this post was actually started some while ago, so the purchase of the above was long before the current cull and they are all stripped and cleaned up ready for assembly and painting.

These original RTB01 Space Marines are definite keepers for me, or at least, a tactical squad of them are. I may well sell off any surplus, though they are such fun to paint.

*Actually, one of three in Huddersfield, though it's my favourite.

The Joy of Slimming (the Minis Collection)

I realise that it's been weeks since I last posted. I've not been idle, but I've done very little painting. In fact, I've finally got round to seriously addressing the minis pile, a job that I've tentatively been toying with for quite a while.

Can you have too many minis?

Like many gamers I've bought far more minis over the years than I've painted, (I've boxes of RPG stuff that's never seen a paintbrush, and don't even mention Trident Realm) and of the painted stuff there's a fair bit that I know I'll never need again. I'm not great at keeping my stuff well stored, so it's always been easier to just shove stuff to the back of the loft of shame, but I'm determined to finally sort this out.

I've recently come to realise that having all this stuff is actually harmful. It's a psychological burden that can take the joy out of the hobby. I've had episodes over the past few years where I the thought of painting minis filled me with dread. Very much a first world problem, I know.

I want to bring the joy back into my hobby and dealing with the horde of stuff is my best first step. 

What to thin 

I'm going through everything. I'm deciding what use I can get out of it, and if the answer is little or none, it goes.

As an example, I've collected minis for D&D for decades. As a result I have many different types of the same creature. I have kobolds from the early days (Minifigs), official kobolds from TSR,  prepainted WotC kobolds of several different styles and sizes, and at least three different styles of Reaper kobolds. Witness my efforts to find the perfect orc for another example. The same applies to practically all the humanoid races, undead, beasts etc, and even dragons.

I only need one style of kobold, orc, etc, so I have a lot of spare minis that I need to ge rid of.

How to thin 

I've started with the RPG stuff, collecting together as much as I can find then sorting by type. These go into ziplock bags, such as a goblin bag or a zombie bag. These are then stored in Really Useful Boxes by type, so a box of undead or a box of fiends.

Next I decide what I don't need/want. This is a very rough sorting, the intention is to further sort once everything has been looked through once. As an example, I'm hanging on to a lot of the WotC prepainted minis as they cover creatures that just aren't available elsewhere, such as decent Displacer Beasts, but a lot of humanoids and PCs/NPCs are much better in Reaper Bones. 

The actual disposal of surplus stuff is mostly through eBay or specialist Facebook sales groups. I might not get top prices, but so far just about everything has sold.

As of the end of January I've sold on over 400 of the D&D prepainted minis and over 100 Reaper minis that don't fit in my collection any more. I've also cleared a few boxes of minis games, such as Bluebird Toys' Havok, oddments of GW bits, such as the old plastic WH40K trees and far more Heroclix minis than I thought I had.

What's next?

I've plenty more of course. I've just started on wargames stuff. Here I'm going to have to make some difficult choices. I know that just keeping a few of something will lead eventually to regret (if only I'd kept that one particular mini or unit I'd have a great army). It's going to have to be "lots or none at all", as Bilbo might say.

As an example, I've loads of Forge Fathers, originally I got them for Deadzone, then I added a lot of the then new plastics when Firefight came out. Now I'd still like to play Firefight, but I've got plenty of Marauders and Enforcers, so all the Forge Fathers will go. Keeping a few, for, say, a Deadzone team, will just lead to me regretting selling the rest off and/or me buying more.

Lord of the Rings minis are next for sorting, and I have a plan for what to keep. Then hard choices over what Kings of War armies I want to concentrate on.

If all this sounds a bit 'anti hobby' it's not meant that way. I've been doing a lot of work on the online D&D campaign, and I've even done a little bit of painting. However, I hope that once the exercise is complete I'll be a lot happier with the hobby.

23/24 Janus Post

The traditional look back and forward hobby post for the New Year.

Firstly it's fair to say that my hobby effort has been erratic last year. It's a sad fact that as you get older, so do friends and family, and you find that the numbers decrease, or readjust. 

I've been far more active musically in 2023, but I still managed to get hobby things done as well.

Gaming in 2023

Whilst I'll always think I'd like more gaming, I didn't do too badly last year.

I managed some Kings of War, finally getting my Kingdoms of Men force to 750 points for a four player game with Bodvoc and the rest of the SADdos (sadly my last game with Phil).

I got a good amount of MESBG-ing done in a Battle Companies campaign with my son.  The intention behind this was to sort through our huge collection of MESBG minis and thin the collection considerably.  This is becoming a theme, and will be an important factor in my hobbying going forward.

Monday nights gaming is now dedicated to board and card games, though we reserve the right to do a few one shot RPGs.  I've played Aliens, Era, Sushi Go! Azul, Moon and several others.  Generally they've all been fun, special mention must go to Era, Azul and Moon.

Sadly my D&D campaign was paused due to schedule problems, but I have started a game to introduce two new players to the game. This is progressing well. It's all online, due to geography, but I've been kept busy designing stuff for it. One day I'd like to be able to rerun an old adventure, simply so the majority of the work would already be done.

I played a couple of games of Galactic Heroes Star Wars style, trying out the Hero rules to see how well they fit for Star Wars (pretty well).  It confirmed how good the rules are for this sort of skirmish game, and also how much I wish I'd concentrated on 28mm rather than 20mm.

I also had a game of Fantastic Battles using 6mm minis.  This allowed me to play Fantastic Battles without the restrictions we placed on ourselves for the Middle Earth FB lists.

Painting in 2023

Painting wise I did a few 'Oldhammer', or 'Old School' minis, and I came up with a way of organising them, or is it justification for keeping them?

I got a bit more done for my Kingdoms of Men army, and I think it's time to get the initial 500 points up for sale, as was the original intention.  I also got around to basing (most) of the orc army I painted in lockdown.

I painted up a group of Haradrim for the Battle Companies campaign.  With only a bag of unpainted (and often broken) Harad minis at the start of the year, I now have 15 infantry and 2 cavalry painted. I'm at the point where I know, more or less, what of my Harad bag I'm going to keep and what I can get rid of.  

I also painted some more terrain for the games, GW's nice Ruins set.

A new project was 6mm Fantastic Battles. My first army is dwarves, and with a combination of stuff I did many years ago and newly painted minis I have 1000 points already.  Again the reasoning behind this was to see what 6mm fantasy I had and if it was worth keeping.  I had been thinking about more generic fantasy games of Fantastic Battles, this allowed me to use minis I already had, and, again, thin out the collection.

Other Stuff

I also decided to review the first few copies of Hachette's Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer part-work.  These have proven to be popular posts, and I've enjoyed writing them.  Thanks must go to Bodvoc who split the cost of the magazines, without which I'd not have done more that the first two or three issues.

I began 'Island 23' my version of the popular 'Dungeon 23' stuff that sprang up last January. As with a lot of other bloggers, I couldn't sustain this beyond March, and towards the end the entries were sporadic. However, I still have the file, and there are some good ideas there that I shall revisit. 

2023 saw my blog garner a lot more views, passing the 40 000 and 50 000 marks (currently standing at over 56 000).  I'm both astonished and delighted by this.  I must be doing something right.

The Future

Looking ahead into 2024 I'm starting off by finishing various projects from last year (and earlier!). 

Here's a list of some of the things I'd like to get finished, in, as they say, no particular order.

Finish painting six companies of dwarves and a couple more characters. This is to give me 1000 points of newly painted stuff.  I already have pretty much all I need to get this army to 2000 points, probably with a few interesting options, though I suspect a small order to Irregular is in the future somewhere.  I'll be selling off a lot of the armies and part armies I bought back when I first collected 6mm, so I'll finish up with less stuff, have an army I can use, and, hopefully fund any small additions.

I'd also like to get at least one more army done as opposition, and terrain is, of course, something else I'll have to address (indeed I'm already collecting bits for this).

I have a few more Haradrim to paint, partly to model changes to my Battle Company and partly to give me a good base for playing other MESBG stuff. I'd like to play through the journey books at some point, though I'd probably use Fantastic Battles for the larger games such as Pelennor Fields. If I thin my collection down to meet this goal then I'll have cleared a lot of stuff out.  Of course, once Harad is sorted, there's the other factions to attack.

As mentioned above, I'll get the Karpath Kingdoms of Men Ambush Force up for sale soon, and I suppose I should look at replacing those units so I still have a force to bring to battles. I think I've got enough unbuilt minis to replace the Ambush force, though I might go for slightly different units. I've also got plans for some more units to eventually expand the army to around 1000 points.

I've currently got five orks part painted to add to my slow growing Ork army. I doubt I'll ever play 40K. What I've heard about the latest edition hasn't changed my mind, but maybe, one day, Grimdark Future? Besides, I'd really like to have a go at scratch building some vehicles.

As mentioned above (and ad nauseum in earlier posts) I'd like decent terrain for my games. Ideally I want to be able to play good sized games without always using my old GW Realm of Battle. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's looking a bit tired now and even switching the boards around, the layouts eventually seem a bit samey. I've no idea how I'd replace it, space precludes having a 4ft x 6ft board. This is going to take a bit of pondering.

Possibly the biggest project, though easily broken down into small sections, is a complete overhaul of my RPG/D&D stuff.  I've given a lot of my various floorplans away to local gaming shops and I'm looking around for a system to replace them.  My current leaning is towards the Crooked Staff stuff (I made up some of the ruins here, and have a few of his Dungeon Tile files as well).

I'm going through my RPG minis and deciding what to keep.  I have a lot of different styles of, for example, goblins and kobolds.  I've even painted several different goblins and kobolds, but which ones will I use, and how many do I need? There's no quick or easy answer to this, but for kobolds I think I've settled on the most recent sculpts from Reaper. I've already got sufficient, though I do need to do a bit of weapon swapping. This frees up all the previous versions of kobolds (yes, even the ones I painted here) including a lot of the WotC pre-painted minis. 

I may well put the kobolds near the front of the painting queue soon.

I'm hoping that I'll make some good progress with all this. There's always going to be the risk of new projects, Warpath is one that springs to mind, Kickstarting soon. However, I doubt I'll get much interest among my gaming friends, so I should be able to avoid it.

So if I'm setting any goals for 2024, its just one very general one.

By this time next year I'd like to have more minis painted and games played with them, and considerably fewer minis overall.  This last point may be difficult, as Bones 6 is due to land this year, but I'm sure that with focus I can manage it.

Dungeons and Dragons Adventurer Magazine, a Baker's Dozen

Last time I told you that I'd bought my last issue of Adventurer. However, I needed a new set of dice (a present for my son-in-law) and they had a copy in at the local newsagents. The cover price is close to that of a decent set of dice and I didn't have to wait for delivery.

So here we go, a bonus review.

Sage Advice

We have a second article on time. This discusses how different movement rates affect distance travelled and the differences between fast normal and slow travel.

Curses looks at a few of the ways that characters can become cursed. Given the wide variety of curses in the game, the effects of a curse are glossed over. Importantly it also addresses common ways of removing curses 

Character Creation

This issue introduces a new character, a Dragonborn Barbarian. Last issue we had an introduction to the dragonborn race (though no rules as such) this time we have the standard introductory page on the class and a page each for first and second level features. As is standard, any potential choices have been made for the pre-gen character.

Better Roleplay looks at adding quirks to your character and how different drives can influence how characters interact with the rest of the world. This is good advice, though as a DM I shudder at the thought of every player choosing an 'amusing' character quirk

Lore

We have a page on The Weave, which is where magic comes from in the Forgotten Realms setting and a page looking at the pantheon most commonly used in the Realms. This latter is intended to give players some choices for their characters to follow. It very nicely suggests how characters in a world with many different gods with different portfolios might interact with them.

Freebies

The dice are a nice silver and blue and come with their own dice bag. There are also character sheets for the barbarian at first and second level. As an extra bonus freebie there's a large sheet of card printed with a dungeon floor texture on one side and a plainer texture suitable for outdoor encounters on the other side. This is 21 squares by 25 squares, and is the same thick card as the map in issue two. This is an excellent addition to any DMs equipment, though actually using minis and floorplans has yet to be covered. Personally I'd recommend photocopies to allow a DM to cut out individual rooms or perhaps some form of laminated sheets for using whiteboard or dry erase markers.

Conclusion

This is certainly one of the better issues. The articles continue to gradually roll out the rules, and I've expressed my understanding of that necessity and my frustration already.  That said, there are some good points, such as a character's relationship with multiple gods.

The encounter is another very good one too, more details below.

The extras really make this issue. I'd looked on both Fauxhammer, to see what the freebies were and Hachette's website to try and work out what the articles and encounter were likely to be. None of that mentioned the dice bag or the floor plan.

Encounter Chasing Shadows

As hinted last issue, the party have left Phandalin behind them and are on their way to Neverwinter. 

This encounter gives them the opportunity to foil a nasty little scam which is well presented. Bonus points for suggesting that the villain should try to escape if found out, and there's even mention of including them in future adventures.

Definitely one of the better encounters, and another that I'm going to steal.