Stegosaurus Barbarian

     Okay, so I am participating yet again in the_goodground 's hobby challenge called Paint an Adventuring Party. This time I was hoping to get my entries in on time and all 12 of them finished! Well, I am off to a good start seeing as this will be my January entry being posted on February 1st!

No matter! Here is my Stegosaurus Barbarian, from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter 5 Fantasy Dinosaur series. I figured I would continue the trend of painting up a dinosaur miniature in January. I glued one of the arms earlier making it a bit difficult to pain up, but I think he turned out good, I am not the best yellow painter out there.

If I had a hammer....

I'd hammer all over this land

    Here is Pelgwis Ambletrek from last January, you think the Barbarian suspects that he is really a gnome in a very finely crafted mechanical armour? 

    Probably not, Stegos didn't have much of a brain, and neither do barbarians, besides there is more hammering to be done!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I had a great idea for my birthday, we are renting out a room at the library (due to cat allergies and naps) and was going to just play random board games. What I might actually do is paint up a few more cars and terrain for Gaslands. Plan is to run a scenario with a war rig or monster truck, something bigger, trying to escape the board. While the other players are trying to prevent it. I'll need a few more terrain pieces as well as a war rig and a single car. For some options, I might paint up 4 extra cars. Time to get to work, the event is less then two weeks away!

Adventuring Party 2022 Wrap Up

     I finished off two more miniatures for the paint an adventuring party challenge that is ran by the_goodground on Instagram they were basically finished last year besides varnishing. That counts! right?

    On the left is Azura, Halfblood metal from Hasslefree miniatures and a metal Reaper Bones Townsfolk IV on the right. The townsfolk was picked up at Dragon's Den in Saskatoon when they had half off their metal reaper miniatures to make way for the Wizkids miniatures. When I base coated the townsfolk, I thought the colours clashed with each other. Now that he is finished, it doesn't look that bad; a backstory was forming in my head that he was blind so he didn't notice what he wore or that he was poor and just wore whatever he found. In the end, he is just a hip old thief. The other townsfolks in that set had been painted up for Rangers of Shadowdeep before the baby arrived.

    With that I have completed my adventuring party, it wasn't done within each month or even enough for the full 12 months but it was a fun challenge to be a part of. Here is what I got finished, they all decided to have a party on the gate to Helm's Deep there was cake.

    Nine out of twelve ain't that bad, hoping this year to complete the full twelve and one a month. I did enjoy thinking of backstories, but then got busy/lazy and a painted miniature wouldn't get posted till the next month to give me more time to write their story. 

    The challenge is also to paint up several different classes and races, which I was more focused on in the beginning of the year, but then starting picking miniatures I liked the look of instead. As far as model distributors go, I feel I am very fond of Reaper Miniatures, usually their metal minis, as they are usually big and chunky for good detail. Wizkids are quick to paint up, I bought a lot so I better get used to them!

Next on the Hobby Desk

Looking forward to 2023, what should I play? What adventuring party will I paint? The Fellowship? Seven months for seven members, the year of the hobbit! 

    

Droning on...

 Before Christmas I finished off three Plague Drones that have been sitting on my half finished heap of abandonment. When I first started them, I wanted to magnetize their fragile legs and rider for more easy transportation to games. At some point I broke my hand drill bit and ran out of magnets, so they languished in the miniature prison called The Heap.

 No longer, these prisoners of their owner's apathic ways have come to an end!

Despite my fussing about with magnets I decided to only magnetize the limbs on two of the drones. The one with the dynamic pose, is clearly the one I just glued. Really like the pose, but boy is it going to be tough to transport. 

Shelf of Plagues

Here is a shot of all the Nurgle Daemons I have, oh and some plague skaven behind the big fella. 

I have a few more nurgle units to paint up:

• 5? Or 10 putrid blightkings (some might turn into kitbash fodder, could see 15 work for a slaves to darkness mortal)
• lord of plague
• Gutrot Spume
• Bloab Rotspawner (might need to actually magnetize this model to make any three of the brothers) 
• 3 nurgles
• of course three MORE plague drone of nurgle

I believe that's all... at least for AOS nurgle. I do have more skaven but they are clan rats. An idea dawned on me that the clan rats could worship one of the four gods, instead of the horned rat. Could give features of their chosen god if the Island of Blood models lend themselves to kitbashing.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Couple more models left to show off from 2022, then onto hobby resolutions!

Ooo Shiny!

 So I bought a lot of miniatures, like what am I doing!? I mean I know miniatures are cool and playing new tabletop systems is a fun experience but I should at least PLAY the games I buy. But no, I picked up all sorts of random unrelated miniatures. 

I am always looking on the buy and sell Facebook page for Saskatoon and Regina. Which now I have stopped looking or at least tapping the proverbial brakes instead of just jumping on everything. 

One of the individuals on there was selling a load of dark elves. I justified this purchase as it would a good fit for all sorts of skirmish games or specially Warcry. But I didn't think it was this much for how much they were asking!

I was expecting 10 archers and 20 spearmen, looking back on the message they were saying he had a least that many plus extra! And of course, no deal is complete without me getting a few lizardmen. 

This dark elves isn't going to be the HEAD of a major corporation anytime soon!

Looks like I have:

24 dark elf spearmen 

11 dark elf darkshards 

12 glade guard? 

4 high Elf shadow warriors?

5 dark elf executioners

High Elf mage 

Eldar Bonesinger

    I have been following Leadballoony's blog. he has been doing a 'Realm of Warcry' campaign, in which the warband is randomly generated from the tables found in Realm of Chaos: Lost and the Damned. Since reading about this, I have been rolling up chaos champions with the people I support at work as fun little activity to do while it's cold outside. 

    One I rolled up was a Dark Elf that rolled immense as a trait, which brought me to the idea of this Dark Elf corrupted by nurgle, wishing to be a more of a girthy presence. I'll have to go through my bits and see if I can start making this champion a reality.

    With the new starter set of the Middle-earth Strategy battle game coming out, I got a bit of FOMO and picked up the older Battle for Pelennor Fields box set. I know the rules might be a bit outdated, but I found the models in this box a much better deal then the new one. (I also wasn't into the dynamic posing of the heroes). As for the models, the forces of good have 45 and the forces of evil have 38 (two being the witch king on fellbeast and a troll). The new Battle of Osgiliath has 27 and 26 respectively between the two side. Once I get the fellowship painted up, I think I will try to track down the Quest for the Ring mission book, which takes you through the key moments in the hobbit's journey to Mt Doom.

    I might've gotten a targetted ad for Barbaric Splendor, which had 50% off their model range and claimed to be going out of business. Which doesn't seem to be the case anymore, I will assume that I single handedly saved the business with my purchase. I picked up 7 as follows:

• Desdire
  
• 2 x Jeyra
• Llama Queen
• Kaegan
• Katja
• Thorn

Jeyra and Thorn could be tribe leaders for PrimeEvo, I liked the sculpt of Jeyra which is why I bought two. I am sure I can figure out a kitbash to make them a bit different from each other. The Llama Queen I bought because I have a saber tooth tiger from Hassle Free miniatures that she could be a rider on.

    On the buy and sell facebook page, I found someone selling off two forces of Bushido. The Yutei Clan and the Temple of Riso. Should be a good start to learning the game.

Bushido Lot from Facebook

Temple of Ro-kan

    Temple of Rokan, is located on the Rokan mountain. Masters and monks hone their skills at summoning powerful spirits and harness the fury of natural elements to fight back against the darkness.

Cult of Yurei

    Cult of Yurei are worshippers of the dark god Yurei, giving his followers the power to control life and death. Though they might think they aren't bound by fate, to his will, every puppet has a master.

    The blister packs contain two Cult of Yurei: Yugio & Rokuro; as well as one Rokan: Master Akari. From the small amount of reading and videos I watched, a standard game of Bushido is 100 pts. The Cult box as 99 and the Rokan box has 70, giving me options with the additional blister packs. Master Akari boosts the Rokan to 90. 

    The seller was saying he didn't have time to start another profile, which a second baby on the way. Hopefully I can find time to paint these two factions up and get some tutorial games in. Looks like he bought two factions that thematically would appose each other.

    Alright, I think that's it? I do have some Kingdom Death pin up miniatures coming in from Aliexpress, but those won't be here till like February. Boy do I need to slow down on my purchasing and get some games and painting in!

Next on the Hobby Desk

Some miniatures that I painted to round out 2022!

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.