Spooky Scary Skeletons

    For October I like to paint up something suitable for the Halloween Season. I already painted up the core set of Don't Look Back in February because what's scarier then winter in Canada, am I right? So the next logical step should have been the Nighthaunt Broken Realms box I picked up two years ago? Nah, it's a horde of skeletons, most that were bought earlier this year. 30 from Oathmark's skeleton infantry range, 20 from an old GW kit I picked up awhile back and 8 from RuneWars, the reanimates. For a total of 58 miniatures.

    First pictures are of the GW range. These surprised me with how posable they can be if you aren't concerned about fitting them into a rank and flank square. They also look good with the other skeletons in the group albiet from slightly thicker bodies, maybe like a beastman or a nurgle blightlord. I also am detailed about the options for a flail and the scimitar instead of straight blade. Grave guard are on my short list of additions I would like to add to this undead army. The warcry box for Legions of Nagash contains 1 necromancer, 5 grave guard and 10 skeleton warriors. I would prefer more guard, but that might be the best option unless I want to pay $60 for 10 grave guard, which I am not that into.

    Next up is the Oathmark Skeleton Infantry. The set comes with four options for weapons, sword/axe and shield, spear and shield and bow with arrows. Axes being less numberous then swords I mixed the two together and did ten of each weapon type. Each sprue has 5 of each weapon (besides axes) so I have plenty of spare skeleton arms which can be used for base decorating or kit bashing with other Northstar miniatures, like the undead, cultists, gnolls or knights boxes that I have. Oh boy do I need to get on those! Wargames Atlantic has their own skeleton infantry box that I almost picked up instead. Their skeletons look similar to the GW models which I didn't feel like I needed to double up on as I had 20 to paint already.

It's a living!

Sometimes you pick up the wrong arm in the heat of battle.

    The Runewar aniMATES, brought back to life to share a pint at your local pub, at least that's what goes through my mind when I hear their name. The necromancer must have been lonely drinking alone. Runewars miniatures seem to be on sale most places I shop, they were picked up on my last board game bliss order at the beginning of the year. Their size and small amounts of armour would make them stand out as a hero or special in song of blades and heroes or other such games. Definitely some nice miniatures in that range, and is being phased out so there might be more joining my ranks in the future.

The animates and Oathmark Skelestons

A graveyard full of bodies

    That's my scary contribution to the month of October, I have some frostgrave zombies and the Sorrowmourn Choir Broke Realms box to add to my undead army in time. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Now that I have my painted out of the way, I feel a bit better about sharing what I have bought in the last few months....

Character of the Month - Orc

 So I actually this miniature close to finished in August, but got side tracked and didn't put the small amount of time on it during the season of scenery. Gotta work on this challenge now, this one will be for July. I have 5 more to finish before the year ends or maybe just two more as it's A character a month challenge after all.

Dictating the narrative with his snowy base, another two pack from Wizkids 72560 Orcs. This is a full Orc, no human in this one. 

Time to get going on the 5 more?

Shadows of Brimstone - For a Few Dark Stone More

     We picked up from the campaign we started way back in May. That is to say that we continued our paused mid session game with Rachel joining at the halfway mark. SoB makes it easy to add player mid way with it's scaling difficulty by using the next tier of monster cards available. With 3 players, the game gives you a free revive, as if you had a had extra life instead of the 4th player. To fit Rachel in, we just removed our revive token.

Hmmm.... I was going add some pictures of the play through but it seems I might've deleted them off my phone to make room for Rosie pictures. 

After clearing the summoning circle of enemies, the daring adventures pushed further into the mine. A stench intruded on the party's olfactory receptors, the marshal shines the lantern into the room. They pause, gasping as they see a massarce unfold before their eyes. Several bodies were scattered about in various pieces. Seeing as I lost or deleted the pictures I took, here is my daughter's reenactment. Okay, I didn't actually ask tell her that, it was just a rare moment she laid on the ground beside me. Normally she doesn't do that, you know the sitting still thing.

    This room drained sanity while in it, but also let us search for extra loot. Our adventurers must have smelt dark stone on the other side of the wall because one of the events allowed us to use our whole turn to smash the wall which would guarantee a clue on the next tile we reveled. Rachel usually leaves us to explore the two times this card has shown up and in hind sight, maybe triggering the final boss beside the corpse sanity draining room wasn't the super best idea. 

    The final encounter was a Goliath (think Cthulhu's prettier step brother), a handful of Stranglers and I believe tentacles or void spiders. The Goliath drains sanity for being on the same tile or adjacent tiles to him, which with the room of 1000 corpses, spelt a bad time for the party. We all ended up going insane. I thought would be the end of our characters, but instead the horrors of the mines escapes, destroying a random amount of buildings in town.

    This was temporary for our next visit, we rolled 3 destroyed out of 6 I believe. Everyone who was knocked out also had to roll on the Madness table. These insanities can be cured at the church, which I believe my brother Shawn was able to do. Lloyd Bristle, my character got Delusional, which makes the next rolls on the madness table worse and gives a -1 to Exorcism rolls at the church. Meaning that I could die trying to curse myself of it if I rolled a 1. A bit of delusion didn't hurt anyone, it's better then death. 

    We all levelled up, gaining new abilities, picking one of three paths to potentially follow or mix them up as you go. Once done with our town visit we started the second mission, but didn't get too far. 

    That was in September and since then I painted up the Doc, both genders, and the Undead Gunslingers and his outlaws. We also haven't played again since, but when we do we will have to prepared for some ranged enemies!

    Was thinking Rachel would be interested in playing the nurse, but she seems to be enjoying playing the Saloon Girl, beside the connotation that her character is a sex worker. 

Billowy smoke for effect

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Uh, I don't know, actual content in like three months? I have my poor buying habits, what I have been playing and painting to cover. Also what next for the rest of the year.