Descent Lieutenants

Here are the Lieutenants (villains) our heroes must overcome in the first wave of Descent second edition releases. My understanding is that these are plastic recasts of first edition metal figures, and are closer to 25mm. There is certainly some scale creep going on in later Lieutenant sculpts! Contrast Flesh Tearers Red has a good showing here.

Descent Lieutenants

Belthir, mercenary dragon hybrid

Sir Alric Farrow

Lord Merick Farrow

Lady Eliza Farrow

Baron Zachareth

Splig, self-declared King of All Goblins

Journeys in Middle-earth: Dwellers in Darkness

 I picked up a few characters for JiME:

Supplicant of Morgoth

Ursa

Ollie the Cave Troll

Dwellers in Darkness

I think they came out OK and were quite nice to quickly paint up. I like the sculpts but I'm not sold on the names Ursa and Ollie.

Journeys in Middle-earth: Shadowed Paths monsters

I've finished off the assorted monsters from JiME: Shadowed Paths. I rebased the bigger figures on 40mm MDF.

Balrog

The Balrog was featured last month, and I'm still really happy with him.

A Balrog of Morgoth

Cave Trolls

I used a dark blue-grey for the scaly bits, which I quite like.

I have two Cave Trolls

Orc Taskmasters

"Where there's a whip, there's a way!" Orc Taskmasters

Pit Goblins

Pit Goblins

Shadow-men

I think they've named these after a throwaway line in Return of the King about the oathbreaking Dead of Dunharrow:

None of the people of the valley dared to approach [the Stone of Erech],

nor would they dwell near;

for they said that it was a trysting-place of the Shadow-men...

Shadow-men

Nameless Things

Similarly, from The Two Towers:

Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

Whilst painting the Nameless Things, I thought they looked like an a cappella trio, and now I cannot un-see this.

Nameless Things

I'm not inspired by the concept, but I think they're handy generic monster models for other scales and settings. May their painting cleanse the world.

Giant Spiders

I was inspired by Mr Hunt's spiders. All the lines on the legs were more frustrating to paint than I expected!

Giant Spiders

Spawn of Ungoliant

Another oddly fiddly model to paint. Pretty satisfied with the final outcome.

Spawn of Ungoliant

Not a huge fan of the egg sacs

Journeys in Middle Earth: Villains of Eriador

I picked up a pack of evil characters for FFG's Journeys in Middle Earth. I painted them the same as their minions.

Villains of Eriador

Gulgotar is an orc chieftain.

Gulgotar

Coalfang is a warg pack leader. I like her arrows and scarred eye. I rebased her on a 40mm base. I literally gave her black fangs; does it work?

Coalfang

Atarin is an evil wight or wraith or some such. My colour scheme of metal and ghostly cloth is not a resounding triumph, being a bit bland.

Atarin

I've now played through two different campaigns of about a dozen scenarios each. I really appreciate the different scenarios; they are quite varied and interesting (certainly when compared to the repetitive grind of Blackstone Fortress). The underlying mechanic of card-based skills and tests is quite nifty.

I'm not a fan of playing 'as' Aragorn, Legolas etc. When you whiff an attack it doesn't ring true, unlike if you were playing as, say, a generic ranger or dwarf. I think Imperial Assault handled this better, when named characters could turn up and ask for your assistance.

I do look forwards to more campaigns, more heroes, and more villains.

Eucalyptus Bowl 2019

I took my Slann team to Eucalyptus Bowl 2019 last weekend. This was the 15th Euc Bowl, and there were 61 coaches over the weekend.

The Dunwich Hoppers

Details: 125kGp including skills, 6 matches, resurrection, 2 days, Swiss format. My team: 4 catchers, 8 linefrogs, 4 rerolls.

The winner's trophy has been reimagined in this spectacular shield. The logo is fully 3D. Spoiler- I didn't win.

Day 1.
Match 1. Redcard's Undead.

Redcard is a strong player, with a strong team, and I wasn't surprised at taking a 2-0 loss. I finished with only two players on the pitch... I did kill a Mummy, but it regenerated.

Frogs try to stem the Undead advance

Match 2. Gergiy's Vampires.

Gergiy flew his nerd flag high, dressing as a vampire in evening wear with a white bowtie and cape. His team was a mixture of manufacturers, with some old-school vampires and victims. Vampires can be challenging to coach (as I found at Euc Bowl 2013) and I was a little bit surprised to lose 3-0.

Vampires and Thralls and Frogs, oh my!

In these first two games I just couldn't seem to succeed in any of my dice rolls, which happens occasionally.

Match 3. Luis' Slann.

It's a frogathon! I was looking forwards to this frog-on-frog action, but again, the dice seemed to betray me. I hesitate to blame the dice, as to an extent you place yourself in positions where you need to roll them, but compared to the ease with which Luis was hopping about and hurting me, I was just tripping over and hurting myself. Despite the 4-3 scoreline, it felt a lot more one-sided. I hadn't met Luis before, but he was a good bloke. After three losses, roll on Day 2 and a reversal of dice karma!

It's a Frog-Off!

Day 2.
Match 4. Rabid's Goblins.

Rabid is a very strong coach, and was running the tournament. He had a lovely pirate-theme goblin team. He gets to play the poor inexperienced sap at the bottom of the rankings if noone else is available- and that poor sap was me! He asked me what had gone wrong for me, and I shrugged that the dice weren't really working. Then he watched amazed as I then failed at least half a dozen basic dice rolls... and he took me apart. I suffered a crippling ten casualties... another 3-0 loss.

Arrr! Pirate goblins against all four remaining players on my team...

Match 5. Hypnotoad's Khemri.

Finally, the dice gods got bored with me and wandered off. I had a much more 'as expected' game against Hypnotoad, which was very enjoyable. It was a good match between his slow but strong team against my faster but weak side, and I pulled out a 3-1 win with a cheeky two touchdowns in the final two turns.

Mummies surround the ball

Match 6. Pronax's Humans.

Like the previous match, my dice behaved in a more average fashion and I had the kind of game I had been expecting. I was 3-2 up and got a bit overconfident at the end, and almost gave away a touchdown. I was very relieved to pull out a second win.

Sharknado!

So, two wins and four losses. Overall, I came equal 40th out of 61 coaches. I would have expected better but was relieved it wasn't worse! I don't like blaming dice, but when you literally fail everything you try to do on a 3+ over and over, you get a little demoralised...

It was great to see old friends again. I haven't played Blood Bowl since last Euc Bowl, and was a bit rusty. I'd consider Slann again with some changes- in particular, taking a Blitzer with the Guard skill. I really needed all four rerolls.

Journeys in Middle-Earth: the bad guys

I'm on a bit of a fantasy kick recently, what with Journeys in Middle Earth, SAGA: Age of Magic, and Game of Thrones (no spoilers please!). Here's the baddies from JiME:

Ruffians

Goblin Scouts

Orc Hunters

Orc Marauders

Hungry Wargs

Wights

Hill Troll

I enjoyed batch-painting these figures in their bite-sized quantities. I used Army Painter Oak Brown and Leather Brown with Vallejo 337 Highlight German Black (which is a dark brown) as three brown colours in rotation for their clothing and equipment, then Army Painter Gunmetal to weapons and armour, then Army Painter Strong Tone wash. I did the orcs and goblins with various green/ brown skin tones. I did the wargs following my 'How to paint wolf pelts' guide. I really appreciated the Hill Troll; he's got great muscular anatomy. I added a 40mm base to the wargs and troll.

Journeys in Middle-Earth

Mansions of Madness: Sanctum of Twilight

I picked up another expansion for MoM recently- it came with four figures that were quick and fun to paint.

Charlie Kane is the avuncular, charismatic, and helpful politician.  Modern popular culture teaches you not to trust politicians, but he is the exception and decidedly a Good Guy. He's is a very useful figure for all sorts of games.

Charlie Kane

Lily Chen is ready to crane-kick those eldritch horrors right between their squamous rugosities. She gets bonuses for being unarmed. Her traditional dress ended up being more orange than I had intended. Reds, yellows, and oranges are the hardest colours- I think I'm getting better at yellow.

Lily Chen

The Wraiths can shift through walls. I rebased them on Renedra 40mm rounds.

Wraiths

I've had a few games of MoM recently, which have been fun. We actually won!

Mansions of Madness: Streets of Arkham

I've painted up the figures from the latest Mansions of Madness expansion, Streets of Arkham. The quality of the sculpts has greatly improved compared to the first edition.

First, the investigators. Tommy Muldoon is the rookie cop. He's got something of a young Peter O'Toole going on in his cheekbones.

Tommy Muldoon

Finn Edwards is a bootlegger. His face is great, but didn't photograph well. I tried to paint him carrying a bottle of illicit whisky, which was tricky.

Finn Edwards

Diana Stanley is the former cultist with a heart of gold. Her face is a little featureless, unfortunately. I gave her green details, as most of my Cthulhu stuff has green in it. I quite like how the candle flame and wax look.

Diana Stanley

Marie Lambeau is a jazz singer who learnt about monsters and spells from her grand-mère in the bayou. A lovely sculpted face.

Marie Lambeau

Not all the foes they face are supernatural: the hired guns with their derby hats became some clichéd Irish hitmen under my brush. I enjoyed layering their trenchcoats.

The skeletons are suitably 19th century with their watch chains and waistcoats.

My favourites are the Star Vampires. These are invisible creatures which can be heard faintly tittering, and become visible by being filled up with their victims' blood. They're a chaotic mess of teeth and tentacles- perfect. I based them on 60mm bases.

Star Vampires

Finally, the Lloigor. It is some sort of invisible reptile thing, and I'm not really fond of the sculpt- it is a monster designed by a gaggle of schoolkids. It's got two legs, four arms with claws, four arms with pincers, eight eyes, a pincer on the tail, armour on the back of its neck, floppy looking spines- it really reminds me of the Black Beast of Arrgh! I persevered with multiple thin layers of grey, and am satisfied with the outcome. It's big- I based it on an 80mm mini-disc.

Lloigor