Painting...

 

Finally got back to some painting.

Added an extra rank to my test TYW Scots which I think looks better.

Then finally finished off some Bones fantasy figures for Frostgrave which have been almost complete for a while - just need to finish the basing.  There are a couple more to finish as well.

Frostgrave Campaign: Game 2 - The Mausoleum

 

Played the 2nd game in our Friostgrave campaign using the Mausoleum I got painted this week.  Was a close game with skeletons proving strangely hard to kill.

Judicious use of the Fool's Gold spell that lets you steal a treasure from someone carrying it and move it 4" let me steal 2 treasures off Nick and get 3 treasures off the board. 

Need to play more often to remember the rules better...

 

More Frostgrave Scenery

 Not been that well this week - probably Covid as it seems to be going round but did manage to finish off another scenery tile for Frostgrave.

This is the diorama base that comes with the Reaper diorama "Dragons Don't Share".  I've left the holes for the dragon to stand in so I can still use it as a display piece when I get round to painting the figures for it.

We have started a Frostgrave campaign amongst three of us at the Guildford club so I have an incentive to exapnd on the terrain choices.

A Frostgrave Game (Finally!)

 I finally finished off the scenery and played a game of Frostgrave at the Guildford Club last night.

Kept things simple and pregenerated a couple of Warbands.  One and Elementalist and one an llusionist.  They each had 8 figures: Wizard, Apprentice, 3 thugs, a thief, Archer and then either a treasure hunter or a barbarian.  Played the standard 5 treasure markers on a 3 x 3 table.

The game was fun and I came very close to getting the third treasure off the board before my luck ran out and I lost my final soldier.  I only had my Wizard left in the end (the Treasure Hunter and Thief had made it off the table with treasures).

We are playing another 3 sided game in two weeks.

Frostgrave Board

 I finally have enough terrain 3d Printed to fill a 3' x 3' board for Frostgrave.

Now, if it stops raining I can get the last bits undercoated and painted.

Using LOTR figures to make up the soldiers I think I also have enough figures for 2 bands for a playtest game as well...

Been a while

 I caught Covid for the first time shortly after my last post in April and it made me fairly ill for a couple of weeks.  it also knocked my rhythm out and I really lost my "mojo" for doing anything on the hobby including painting or terrain making.

I did managed some more terrain just before I got Covid.

This shows a 2' x 2' board with the terrain so far.  I have since painted a couple more ruins so getting close to having a 3' x 3' board ready for a game.

I also added some initial roads to the hex terrain - as I realised I needed some roads that could go over hills.

I finally played a game on the hex terrain last week - a One Hour Wargames FPW game.

I have been doing some commission work and have been making some Toy Soldier style Zulu Wars terrain of a fort and a wagon laager for Anthony as well as working on some movements trays, etc for people at the Guildford Club.

But I have struggled to get on with anything of my own.

The painting table as a bunch of 15mm ACW buildings to be finished, 40mm AWI and some 25mm Marlburians that need blacklining but I can't raise the enthusiasm at the moment.

More Terrain

I didn't go to Salute unlike a lot of people.  I last attended the rather washed out 2021 running a particiaption game and couldn't raise the enthusiasm to go this year.  There isn't much I wanted to buy and it is impossible to talk to traders at Salute which is the main reason I go to shows nowadays - to catch up with friends in the industry.

 Currently on a terrain painting kick and haven't managed to get any figures finished for a week or so.

I bought some XPS foam tiles from Firedragon Games which are pressed with a flagstone pattern.  Good service and tiles are £2 each and will save hours of etching foam with a biro!

The tiles are 11" across (285mm) so I am using that for my tile size with the intention of making 9 tiles initially and then expanding to 16 for a 4' x 4' (ish) table.

Here is a test painted tile:

Which has been washed with Supershader Black and then drybrushed in various greys up to an almost white.  Really brings out the tiles quite nicely.

Also shown are repurposed LOTR Balin's Tomb scenery as scatter terrain which have been drybrushed lighter and had snow painted around them.

So, 8 more tiles to paint and 9 to stick to lasercut MDF tiles, then I can layout some terrain and see how much more I need to do.

More Frostgrave Scenery

 I found this temple in a box while looking for some other things.  I made it over 20 years ago for a Dinosaur Hunting participation game in Darkest Africa run at Valhalla...

I've sprayed it and snowed it up a little to use in Frostgrave.

Test Snow

 

A quick test of drybrushing and snow effects on the ruins for Frostgrave.  Has come out okay, I think.

Frostgrave and Fantasy Skirmish

 I have always been interested in fantasy gaming having played a lot of RPG games in my teenage years and the desire to play Dungeon Crawling games has never really gone away.

I have tried a few different boardgames and have Heroquest whch is painted and I have nearly finished a 3d board for it, but it is a little too simple and nothing else has grabbed me.

I have collected a lot of Reaper Bones figures over the years from various Kickstarters and managed to paint very few of them.  I think part of the problem with deciding on a games system is that most systems are so open-ended that I don't really know where to start (or end) and I have never quite managed to get things together.

I was idly surfing the web when I came across some Frostgrave reports and scenery builds.  I was aware of the game and had not bought into it when it came out as it seemed a little too limted - being based around a single wizard and his party of an apprentice and 8 soldiers.

This time, however, I realised that this limited nature could be a good thing!  It gave me a basic framework of a very small number of figures to start gaming with and Frostgrave now has supplements that cover dungeon crawling and solo gaming.

So, I have bought the rules and a couple of supplements and dug out the Bones figures I had painted and rebased them.  

As you can see, I haven't managed to get many painted over the years since the first Bones kickstarter!

I am also intrigued by building a 3' x 3' board to play Frostgrave with other people as I have never built a winter scenery collection and it strikes me as an interesting challenge.

I have discovered the Ulvheim 3d files on Thingiverse and have started printing out a number of the ruined buildings and second stories - they are really nice models and cost about 90p each in materials (but can take up to 9 hours to print!)

 

 Two of the buildings with 2nd floors and a Bones figure for scale.

I have also ordered some flagstone sheets and  an Amera Moulding pyramid and river sections to add to the board.

I'll document here how I get on, but I think painting a couple of fantasy figures between other stuff will make a nice change of pace.