Thanksgiving Update from the Great Khan

Mongol Month hasn't been a great success for me largely due to the fact that I have been sick for most of it. Cold, followed by the flu, it's been a miserable couple of weeks; once again, I blame my kids for bringing these sicknesses home from school :) Still, I had hoped to be more inspiring for my contest over the course of the month and I have dropped the ball. I haven't even done much gaming-wise except play some Civilization 4 and design a medieval town in the Sims 2 for a D&D campaign; complete with NPCs that have interactive relationships, I don't know why I never thought of this as a tool before.

I have been reading blogs and trying to keep up with the OSR, D&D Next and general gaming news, but I just haven't been compelled to do any commenting on anything until today. Today I figured, since I have the time and I am feeling better and it's been over a week since I posted anything to my blog, I thought I'd mention a couple of things.

First- I got my free miniature from The Assault Group for “Liking” their Facebook page. I really thought it wasn't coming, that I had missed a deadline on that or gotten lost in the shuffle or something because it had been so long since I had “liked” their page for their free mini promotion; as it turns out they mailed it in September. I am guessing customs held things up. Anyway, serendipitously, it's a Mongol General miniature and he's pretty cool. 28Mm scale and way more detailed than I am accustomed to seeing in a miniature from a wargaming manufacturer. Definitely RPG standards of quality there. Maybe I just don't buy enough 28mm wargaming minis.

Second- I just found out that there is an Up Front Kickstarter running. Up Front Was Avalon Hill's Squad Leader card game. I loved that game and I am going into that Kickstarter hard. I have the original version and all of it's expansions and I have been waiting for someone to bring it back into print and expand it some more. My original has been played hard and is starting to get a bit ratty and buying just a replacement set without expansions is generally more expensive than going all in ($125.00) on the Kickstarter. If you like Squad Leader, WW II games or fast paced card games I recommend this one.

Anyway, if you are in the US and you are celebrating Thanksgiving- Happy Thanksgiving!

New Contest Sponsor

Just in- Mick Leach from Easternfront Studios (Makers of fine Metal and Resin miniatures) has just agreed to sponsor the November Mongol Module Contest with prizes for first, second and third place.

The "Odin" from their "Myths of Legend" line.

Some More Miniatures

I got my wife involved in painting with me today while the kids were at school and we were both home sick. These are mostly old Grenadiers, but there is a Ral Partha, a couple of new Warlord Minis, and a couple I don't remamber.

The group shot, work by both of us, everything done today plus one guy Mona did a while ago that I don't think I posted a picture of.

Front and back of a Middle Earth Elrond mini that I first painted back in the 2nd edition days, he got some retouching today. He was my super bad-ass single classed Elven Mage back in the day.

A Warlord Mastiff, Mona painted this one. It reminds me of our Mastiff Harmony that died in July.

Another dog from Warlord, this is the small dog that comes with the "Celtic Civilians" pack. Mona painted him too, took her all of about two minutes.

A Grenadier Cleric, another one of Mona's pieces, this one was extensively redone from her earlier paint job that had been damaged over the years.

This Elf I originally painted years ago, but Mona restored and improved upon today, so I don't know who to credit. Maybe she gets an assist? I don't recall the manufacturer of this mini.

Front and back of another old Grenadier Cleric that Mona painted years ago and restored/extensively redid today. We dug a lot of old lead out of storage and were appalled at the state it was in.

This Ral Partha Cleric I painted today, he was my big project for the day.

Mona painted this guy months ago, we named him "Lorenzo" after the lantern bearer in our last D&D campaign. I could not remember if I had shared his picture yet.

Another old Grenadier Female Cleric painted by Mona years ago and fixed up today. We plan to seal these tomorrow and mount them on bases but other than that, they're done.

So, maybe tomorrow I'll get a Mongol mini painted up, I have a few primed and ready to go now, but no real Mongol content for the blog today. I am striking while the iron is hot and getting some minis painted up, who knows when the mood will strike the folk in my house again and Mona will let me take over the kitchen table for days at a time?

Some Miniatures

Warning- NO MONGOLS TODAY

My kids, Dalton and I painted these before our D&D game on Sunday. They are mostly old Grenadiers, I think the Viking is Heritage.

Group Shot.

Second Group Shot.

This was Dalton's first ever miniature, I wish I had a better camera or was a better photographer, but neither me nor Mona could get a good shot of her.

This was my 14 year old daughter Ember's first ever miniature. I think it shows real promise and we got a pretty good shot of this one, both front and back.

This was my son John's second mini ever. He has shown a lot of improvement just because he slowed down and didn't try to do too much with it.

This was my first miniature in at least 20 years start to finish. I started a couple earlier this year and lost confidence part way through, this guy I persevered on and finished. I am largely happy with the result, although I liked the back better than the front and none of those pictures turned out good. Not terribly thrilled with the color scheme either, but he's pretty much done.

A Viking dude I painted up just because I am running a Viking campaign. The pictures are blurry, and the black wash didn't pull out as much detail as I was hoping for, but he is an ancient miniature, from like the late 1970's I think, so I guess that'll happen. 

Four shots of the last mini I painted, I was feeling pretty confident by then and dry brushed on brighter metal over the main color, then black washed to get some shadows, but I don't think either mine or Mona's photos really captured the effect. I was pretty happy with the way this guy turned out, despite the fact that I broke most of his tail off when I tried to trim some mold flash off.

These guys just need to be based and they're done. We painted up several more that morning too, but not to completion. When those ones are done, I'll post those pictures too. Hopefully I'll have learned how to use my camera a bit better by then.

Three Days In...

And I haven't got much to show for Mongol month yet. I have some ideas, but getting them down is a little rough right now. I am working on a Steppe Nomad type class for Labyrinth Lord (B/X D&D) and I keep adding too much to it and needing to scale it back. I am a bit of a Mongol fanboy I guess.

Anyway, I have been doing some refresher reading through the Mongol section of my library to keep things fresh for me, and I got this book in the mail from Amazon today-

I kind of like these "Life in the time of" type books, so I am a little surprised I never had one for the Mongols, although I guess they are a bit of a specialist topic.

Anyway, between writers block and fanboyism, I also tried to find some decent mongol type miniatures to paint up for Mongol month, but I keep coming back to The Assault Group and they're a British company and therefore pricier than I really want to go with for wargame quality miniatures, so anyone who can point me elsewhere would be a real help.

Anyone got anything Mongol oriented they'd like to see? Any questions they'd like answered? I am planning on visiting my longtime collaborator Darryl tomorrow and we are the go-to Mongol answer guys. I think we should put together an adventure featuring my, as yet unmade, Steppe Nomad class and post it here for you all to use and enjoy. Maybe as a finale to the Month? That would give us time to come up with something cool. I don't know, I'll ask him what he thinks tomorrow. I am tired and rambling more than usual, so good night everyone!

October is Mongol Month

I declare it to be so, for no other reason than I need a focus to bring me back to writing regularly and drag me out of my depressed state. I figure it makes a good focus because I haven't already done it, I know a lot about the Mongols and their history, but haven't really applied it to gaming particularly, and it'll drag me back to work, tangentially anyway, on my Oriental Adventures project - at this point I think I should start calling it a magnum opus, but that may be presumptuous. That said, I do refer to myself as "The Great Khan", so I guess we can expect a bit of presumption from me. I digress though.

September was a long, sad month for me. My sister's memorial service is next Saturday at my parent's church and I hope that by saying my public goodbye that I can start putting some of this sadness behind me and get back to some of the productive uses of my free time that I had in the past. I did start designing a new RPG the other day, almost by accident, because I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake up my wife. I think it's a pretty good start, but we'll see where it goes; if it amounts to anything good I'll present it here for everyone to check out.

So, I'll try and get back up to at least a couple of posts a week here and this month will be filled with Mongol themed goodness. I'll also have the results of the Viking themed One Page Dungeon contest within a day or two when I hear back from the other judges on their final opinions.

Lastly, does anyone know who manufactures good Mongol/Steppe Warrior miniatures these days? 28mm is preferred, although 25mm is acceptable usually and I'd also prefer a US manufacturer or at least a US distributor to keep shipping costs down.

I'll be gaming today...

So I thought I'd share some stuff I got in the mail this week and never got around to showing you all-

I never bought this back in the day because I had the first edition version and it worked fine, but this was a good deal.

This is one of damned few female Mongol miniatures out there.

Still shrink-wrapped Clan War Oni. 

And the miniatures with the worst packing job I have ever seen, they were in a box, in a zip-lock bag with a few styrofoam packing peanuts surrounding the bag. These are the EBay pictures, one of the spearmen is pictured with a broken spear shaft. When they arrived here four were broken and all of them were bent badly.

I got something else too, but it has to wait until I get pictures of it to show you, so there's a cool surprise coming up! If you all ask nicely in the comments maybe my lovely wife Mona will dig out the digital camera and take the pictures while I am gone today.

Some New Stuff

I still haven't had a chance to start 43 AD, because my wife is still sick, but I got this gaming stuff in the mail recently-

I was actually thinking of Mona when I bid on this Dragon Army Expansion, because that's the clan she got when she took the Clan test on the AEG website. The test appears to be gone now, but it's been an amusing point of contention between us because her Clan and mine, the Lion, were at war in the online L5R RPG I was playing on Facebook - Emerald Empire - until Facebook shut down all the games that didn't meet certain criteria. Her clan actually burned my clan's stronghold to the ground with magical fire. Anyway, this and the next one were both still in the shrink wrap, sweet deal.

I always figured that as a Mongol enthusiast I'd end up being a Unicorn Clan player in L5R,  since they are the most Mongol like. They even have a Khan, but apparently they don't match my personality. Still, with this set I can make four different clan armies to field once they get painted up.

I don't think I have anything else from the Last Unicorn Games Star Trek game system, but I figured since it was going cheap and I was getting the two boxes of Clan War miniatures (probably, you never know when you might get sniped), I'd save on shipping anyway; so I gave it a shot. I thought it would be more of a "Rogues Gallery" for this system, but it's actually a detailed system for playing non-Star Fleet characters. It's got some stuff I can use in it and I got it cheap.

A Wee Update for Today

I spent most of my day at doctors appointments for myself and Ashli, so not a whole lot got done here today. I got some cool stuff in the mail though.

This Crab Army Expansion, for instance, is pristine; the shrink wrap was taken off but the miniatures are still in their protective plastic wrapper, and the seller included an extra copy of the rulebook, which is nice.

Same seller, I already had one of these, but I figured if I got it on the minimum bid and saved on shipping it'd be worth it. I did and it is. Also in pristine condition, better than my other one.

These guys I am actually a little worried might be beyond my ability to put together. My hands are huge and manual dexterity is not one of my great strengths, great strength is. Fortunately, my lovely wife Mona has volunteered to do the job for me, although if it goes like her volunteering to paint my miniatures this may take a while.

I also got this from Amazon, I may be over-preparing for my 43 AD/Warband dual campaign. My busy appointment schedule this week means I'll have plenty of reading time while I am in waiting rooms though, so I guess that's a plus...