Painting Table Saturday 36 + Hasslefree Ogre

It's Saturday... Painting Table Saturday! This week I recieved a special package from the UK. More Hasslefree miniatures! I'm a fan of Kev White's sculpting, especially his fantasy range.

Some of Kev's miniatures take me back to my early days of gaming, in the glorious 80s. One such miniature (HFM001) Mjolnir Haxelfrei, a mercenary ogre and Kev's first Hasslefree sculpt. It was bigger than I thought and required some heavy duty pinning!

This is one big miniature!

Inspired by this drawing from Dragon magazine?

The resemblance is uncanny!

Hasslefree miniatures in the front ranks.

Even the shield is pinned, through the wrist, for strength.

Almost done! Tune in again soon for some more ogre action... that shield is really going to shine!

Thanks, as always, goes to Sofie! To my fellow painters, enjoy your weekend and God bless you!

Adeptus Titanicus

The little blue men are Space Marines.

Monday night, game night and what a night it was! Lewis brought out the big guns, laying out a real blast from the past with a game of Adeptus Titanicus. Phil and I had different secret objectives although the main mission was "not blow up."

For those of you who have no idea what Adeptus Titanicus is:

Adeptus Titanicus was the first game introducing the Epic system. You control a number of Imperial Battle Titans, while your opponent controls some Chaos Titans. You reenact battles from the Horus Heresy. The Titans are modular in design and so you could adapt the armaments of the Titans to suite the battle you will be fighting. - Boardgamegeek.com

The game had plenty of 'yay-boo' moments. Phil certainly had better luck with the dice. I rolled far too many one's and two's for my liking. Despite this, I managed to take out two of Phil's Titans. I also took out one of my own - a tactical move that didn't pay off but was hilarious anyway. After a hard fought couple of hours, we came out even with a draw. Adeptus Titanicus was the real winner on the night. Thanks Lewis for an awesome game!

Lewis hosts an awesome game of Adeptus Titanicus.

Imperial Battle Titan.

Ace of Spades and Iron Fist. Lewis loves Motorhead!

Void shields up.

Chaos cometh.

Shoot first, maul later.

Chaos Titans on the move.

The day will not save them and we own the night.

Fire fight!

Here comes trouble.

Death to the false Emperor!

Full frontal assault from close range.

My Ace of Spades holds the line.

Phil's Titan misjudges the gap and gets stuck.

My Titan is merciless.

An old school shoot out.

In an effort to cause collateral damage to Phil's Titan, I destroy my own crippled Ace of Spades.

Phil can't quite make the shot.

Draw!

My best roll during the night.

Clear of the rubble, Phil's Titan makes a mad dash.

Collecting an operative from the building and a pummeling from Iron Fist.

Incapacitated, Phil's Titan suffers a humiliating defeat.

Let's play hide and slay!

Painting Table Saturday 35 + Grenadier Wizard + Vi-Perdon

Hallelujah! It's Painting Table Saturday and that means some peace and quiet, while watching the football World Cup. Netherlands vs. Costa Rica. What a game! Extra time and a shootout. A win for the Netherlands.

I continued painting an old Citadel Fighter Lord, or Lord of Battle, Theophilus. His winged helm may have been inspired by the 4th of July. Then some snakemen distracted me. In particular, a Grenadier Vi-Perdon. It looks somewhat like a Yuan-Ti or Snake Man. The gaming group have been coming up against these lately so it was about time I painted one.

I also completed a very rare Grenadier Wizard, casting a spell. Phantasmal Force perhaps?  The grasping hand of a plastic Troll (from a D&D boardgame) replaces the long lost fist (or was it a monstrous head?), emerging from the billowing green smoke.

God bless you all and enjoy the weekend. As always, thanks to Sofie!

Basic Rules for Dungeons & Dragons 5E

Tiamat 5E.

The 'Basic Rules' for the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons are available for download as a free PDF. I'm not the first to post about this. It's all over the internet on various RPG blogs and after giving it a good read through, I'm posting the link here also.

There is a lot to like. As I've already commented, it's great to see credit given to the creators of the original game (E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, with Brian Blume, Rob Kuntz, James Ward, and Don Kaye). There are also some kudos thrown at more recent contributors, some of whom most D&D bloggers will recognise, for their work as consultants. For example, Zak S and RPGPundit. Apparently, according to their respective blogs, this came as a shock to many. Now to be fair, I follow both of their blogs and in my opinion, each can come across as 'a bit of a dick' at times. However, there is no denying they care about the game and roleplaying in general. So, bravo Wizards of the Coast!

Rather than wax lyrical about what I like (and don't like) about the new rules, I encourage you to download the game and have a read yourself. Meanwhile, I'm going to start designing a cover for my copy. Remember, as always, the game is what you make it. 

One Page Dungeon Compendium 2014

So, it has come to pass that the 110 entries of the One Page Dungeon Contest have been compiled into a mighty compendium. Lo! Here it is, the 2014 edition, compiled by Random Wizard.

Included in this volume is my humble (and hasty) entry. I liked the idea of entering a dungeon I had recently created for the Blackhawk campaign. In fact, I used the experience of running a Dungeons & Dragons tournament adventure at the New Zealand Festival of MindSports as inspiration. I ran an afternoon session each day, with a dozen players on Saturday and eighteen on Sunday. There was some good stuff that didn't make the one page entry, such as man-eating chests, an inter-dimensional gate and the initial sneaky orc ambush.

Beneath Castle Blackhawk.

The one thing I got from looking at the other entries is just how big D&D is when it comes to creativity and diversity. The variety of dungeons is immense. It's well worth a perusal, for the wealth of ideas alone. Some are just so darn pretty too!

This is my entry. It was a last minute effort but it has a certain charm. I will definitely enter again next year.

Anyone else out there up for the #1pdc challenge? You may want to start preparing early for 2015. The information you need to know is on this page.