Rashaar Warband for 'Carnevale'

Hi Everyone!

A few years back I picked up the starter box for 'Carnevale', you know, as one does when one already has loads of other game systems to play. I'll take a page out of the Orange Toddler's playbook and blame someone else for clearly what I did myself. So, I blame Jamie and David as, over the years, they have posted some wonderfully painted miniatures from the game and I thought, 'Geez. This is essentially parkour street combat in 18th century Venice with some Cthulhu vibes thrown in... Well, pass me an espresso, and take my money!'

So here are my efforts with one of the factions: The Rashaar. 

The Rashaar unashamedly draw upon Lovecraft's Innsmouth creepy-watery mythology of Father Dagon, Mother Hydra and their Deep Ones. So lots of aquatic nasties to take advantage of Venice's network of canals. The Rashaar are also slavers, so they can call upon the unwilling support of poor unfortunates to assist them in their nefarious plans. A damp, villainous crew to be sure.

I have to say I wasn't really feeling it with these models. That's entirely on me as the models themselves are great. I simply ran out of steam with them. Thankfully they're not very complex, so I managed to get a lot done with the airbrush and some light brushwork.

I think they'll be fine on the tabletop, and they help set a colour palette for any upcoming additions to the faction.

Thanks for dropping by for a peek!

- Curt

'Rodentovsky's Mischief' - A Warband for 'Burrows & Badgers'

Hey There!

Last spring my good friend Byron introduced me to 'Burrows & Badgers'. To be honest, I wasn't expecting too much, thinking it would be a cute game, but nothing to take too seriously. A skirmish game in a world of cute anthropomorphic animals? Maybe fun for one-off games, but no real legs to it, right? Well, I was proven wrong. 

The core game elements are simple and straightforward, but the system as a whole is quite nuanced, having a few key mechanics that really make it sing. The other thing that makes it a winner is the depth to how you can build and develop your warbands, making them unique and building a narrative. It has a bewildering number of creatures to choose from for your warbands, an astonishing depth to its magic system, a wide variety of weapon's and armour, powerful skills, and even rules for building your warband's den (think of the charm of Bilbo's hobbit hole, but with an armoury, apothecary and archery range thrown in and you get the idea). It's pretty amazing, and I recommend it not only as a great game to play, but also as a terrific example of quality publishing. The 272 page hardcover rulebook is both beautifully designed and wonderfully illustrated, making it a pleasure just to flip through and enjoy.

Our group recently started a B&B campaign which is proving to be a lot of fun. We have six warbands battling it out, three Royalist troupes and three fighting for the Freebeast Union.

So, for my second entry this season, I have a warband for the Freebeasts. This is 'Ratatevsky's Mischief'. 

Warbands in B&B can be as small as three creatures, or as many as ten. Players have 350 Pennies to build their beginning warband. The bigger/more powerful the creature, the more they cost in Pennies. As I knew several of the guys would create some low model-count, heavy-hitting troupes, I decided to take a different path and maximize numbers. Mice are the least expensive creatures to recruit, so I thought I'd try to 'flood the zone' with these little fellas in the hope that their increased numbers would allow me to take objectives, soak up casualties, while still being able to swarm for attacks. (By the way, a group of mice is called a 'mischief', which I thought was too charming to pass up so I worked it into the troupe's name.) All of these figures are 3d prints from 'Dragon Trappers Lodge' on MyMiniFactory.

This 'Mischief' of mice is led by a Great Grey Rat, Anna Rodentovsky. I really like her rakish, rapscallion appearance.  Anna sports a fencing blade and has a lot of sass.

Anna's second-in-command is Maizy the Mage. Like magic users everywhere, she's a bit of a glass cannon with a few powerful spells, but is otherwise quite fragile. 

The rest of the warband is split evenly between four close combat mice and four with ranged weapons. The models here have crossbows, but they are serving as proxies for calivers in the game. (Calivers are ferociously powerful in B&B, and having four of them will give a bit of pause to opponents who wish to move carelessly in the open.)

This is a warband that requires a good amount of luck and timing to work, but nonetheless can take a bit of punishment. Time will tell if they prove themselves worthy on the tabletop. 

For those who have read through this whole thing, I thank and applaud you! I hope to have a few more creatures for Burrows & Badgers over the coming months, but we'll see where the brushes take me. 

Again, thanks for stopping in and have a good one!

- Curt

'Simon', 'Sophie' and 'Anonymous' - Three Hapless Trolls Turned to Stone

Hello everyone! 

The Painting Challenge has started and so I present to you my first entry: Simon, Sophie and Anonymous, three hapless, grumpy and now calcified trolls who now provide shade for travellers, corners and crevasses for moss, and a nice place for the birds to nest and tend to their ablutions. 

These models are 3d prints from MyMiniFactory. They turned out a little ropey here and there, but being trolls-turned-to-stone I figure they can be a little rough around the edges. 

As their current state is, um, well, stone they were a fairly straightforward paintjob. A few passes with the airbrush, some drybrushing, washes, LOTS of tufts and BOOM, done.

For a bit of fun I put on a couple birds' nests on their shoulders. 

These three will provide a bit of additional character to the tabletop when we play our fantasy games.

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

A Trio of Villains for 'Hametsu'

Hey There!

This trio of villains is for our Hametsu adventures. Two bosses: a Shikigami a Nogitsune, and a Oni Captain. In Hametsu the Bosses enter play when the heroes find enough clues to their whereabouts, and/or when they've dispatched the lower-level minions. As you'd expect, the Bosses are VERY tooled-up and are designed to provide a unique and tough end-game for the players. 

First up is the mysterious, willowy and floaty Shikigami. This is a 3d print from the very talented Cobra Mode. I really like how elegant and otherworldly this model is. Its been sitting on my paint desk for months while I pondered how to approach it. In the end I decided to keep it simple, with just a few bold colours, trying to mimic with its robes opening flower like a tulip. 

For its war fan I used the airbrush to put in an unstructured rising sun motif along with kanji script on each side symbolizing Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. 

The Nogitsune (Spectral Wolf) is from DM Stash on MyMini. Again, another beautiful sculpt. Fairly straightforward paintjob on this guy. Fun to work on with all the deep-set textures, a veritable playground for Contrast paints. 

Finally we have the Oni Captain. Another 3d print from Cobra Mode. He has a sort of a Hell Boy vibe going on which I just ran with. 

Yeeash, that Kanabo he's toting is something else! You're not going to walk it off if he taps you with that thing.

A final shot of the three villains set against some heroes that I painted last year.

Thanks for dropping in for a visit!

- Curt

Ned & Norri - The Giant & The Faerie

Hi All!

Today I have another set of figures from the talented folks over at Westfalia Miniatures. 

Here is a foraging giant ('Ned') and his faerie friend ('Norri'). I imagine Norri being very annoyed with Ned for messing with the poor cow, and so is giving him a bit of the cold shoulder. 

I loved this model from the first time I saw it online and had to get one (Listed as the 'Fey Giant' sculpted by Boris Woloszyn). I'm glad I did as it seems to have gone OOP on the Westfalia website, but perhaps I'm just not looking in the right spot. It's a bit of complex kit and so had been languishing in the Pile of Possibilities for a few years. I uncovered it again this summer and resolved to get it done during this Challenge.

Most of this was airbrush work, with some of the details brought out with a brush. I'm quite happy with how his skin tone turned out, as I wanted something akin to the greyish trolls in the LotR movies. I had a bit of fun experimenting with spot-shading using contrasting colours. Anyway, I'm happy to have them done up and in the cabinet.

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Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt

Five Denizens from Mork Borg

Hi There,

Kawe from Westfalia Miniatures has been a supporter of the Painting Challenge from pretty much the beginning, in fact he was a participant himself, creating some terrific work for visitors to enjoy. As many know, Westfalia began focusing exclusively on Napoleonics, then moved on to pulp subjects, and now concentrates primarily on dark fantasy and sci-fi.

I always try to jump in to support each of Westfalia's Kickstarters and these five figures are from one of their earlier releases. They're lovely boutique minis sculpted by Boris Woloszyn and themed around the wonderfully strange and creepy world of Mork Borg. For a few years I've been GMing some out-of-town friends using Mork Borg and the Roll20 app. We've been having a lot of fun with it as the system is very rules-lite, encouraging on-your-toes creativity, which often makes for some very funny (and bloody) game sessions.

Anyway, here are five denizens from the grim world of Mork Borg:

The Gutterborn Scum

'C'mon my pretties! There's work to be done...'

The Heretical Priest

This fella looks like he's been huffin' a bit too much from the 'mystical censer'.

'Skelly Jo'

'What? The horns are too much, eh?'

Wrat

'Come now, let's all sing the chorus together...'

Wretched Royalty

'The world may be descending into rack and ruin but I'm still on the top of the heap.'

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

Such a Good Boy - Cerberus of the Third Circle

 Hi there!

'Gluttony' is the Third Circle of the Abyss. Dante describes that it's guardian is a giant three-headed hound named 'Cerberbus'. 

Most of the models for Cerberus has him in some kind of ferocious pose, whereas I wanted something more of a guard dog vibe. I found this model on Thingiverse which, while a bit soft in detail, fits closer to what I had in mind.

This was a fairly fast job with the airbrush using a variety of ink layers to give the beast's coat a bit of depth (Panzer Grey base, lifted by adding IJA Light Grey Green. Then highlighted with increasing levels of white being added. Finally the shade areas were shot in with Shylish Purple Contrast for a more spookly look.) Eyes/socket areas were sprayed in with light grey and then glazed with yellow and orange.

I think he just needs a scritch behind the ears (all six) and some treats and he'll be quite chill. Now, how to leash him...

I'm sure I have a treat in my robe somewhere...

Cheers!

- Curt