Jujosz - Character of the Month (April)

         Oh boy, dragging my feet a bit with these Character of the Month entries. This will be my April entry, Jujosz is a metal reaper miniature. I was opposed to basing him on the square base he came on, but I just thought I was being basist, all bases look good on the tabletop... besides those shitty Wizkids flat discs. 

    Vindex, a town of wealth, for those that had it, was paradise. The rich owned the City Watch, making sure their position on the top would never falter and keep their hands clean of any criminal activity. The wealthy elite would compete against each other, three families are paramount in Vindex. 

    Xilmaris, a pure bloodline of Drow elves, they control the refining factories that dot the outskirts of the town. Workers are paid barely a living wage, it is also common for petty criminals to work off their debt to society in the factories. Speak to the right foreman and for the right price, they can send one of the workers a message for you in the form of "accidental" maiming in the workplace. Of course, some of these incidents might go sideways resulting in death instead.

    Ahjkar are preoccupied by keeping up appearances, this family of Rakshasa might look young but they are centuries old. The secret to their youth is harvesting genetic traits from other species for elixirs. They sell off potions that have short durations, which makes sure customers return frequently. Through experimentation, they have found the Drow prove to have several traits of worth, especially full breed Drow, which has fueled many family feuds between the two houses. 

    Liloxora are dishonored Tieflings, outcasts in their own race they are mercenaries for the highest bidder. The Xilmaris would use a nepotism model to support their own business, hiring those members of the family that lacked empathy to be Captain of the Watch. These soldiers would economically bully society, keeping the peace in Vindex and sniffing out an "enemies of the state."

Jujosz

Zombie rave in the dungeon

    Jujosz had the unfortunate luck of being born in Vindex, his family was tied to the city. His father worked in the refinery and mother was a blacksmith. Fleeing from the raids on smaller towns, they found work in Vindex, raising their family. Jujosz, was the youngest of three, discovered his talents for healing at the age of 6 (about 20 in human years). Sharing it with the community in the slums of Vindex.

    The Ahjkar took notice of his skills, he was offered a position as a cleric at their shop. Spending time with the lower levels of the community he knew that the Ahjkar were not to be trusted. He refused, and while he was praying at the cloister, he was captured. Forced into service for the corrupt Ahjkar, tending to their weak experiments, keeping them alive to extend their harvesting of genetic material. Will Jujosz be able to escape his captors?

    This miniature is from the metal line of Reaper Miniatures called Dragonman Cleric, T'kay. I have had it for awhile, really like the look of this sculpt. I also have his Fighter friend, Kar'Drakir unpainted, so maybe he will show up in one of the Character of the Month entry. I recently watched Fantasic Mr. Fox, so I think the idea of three families that ran a town sunk into my story.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Well, I hope it's the next Character of the Month as it is the end of May! I do have the Glottkin to a good place to call it finished. Tomorrow is the last day, might as well use the time to add any finishing touches to it.

Shadows of Brimstone - Core Set

 In April, I finished off my City of the Ancients Core Set for Shadows of Brimstone, yes, definitely not very timely with this post. At the end of last year, I had two heroes and the Goliath to finish off. I painted up the female Drifter for good measure, not in the core set, for Rachel to play. 

All the beasties in the starter set

Goliath

Drifter (expansion), Gunslinger and Saloon Girl

    While painting the Saloon Girl, I realized her hat sits flat on her head in all of the artwork in and on the box. The sculpt looks more gothic lolita then what is portraited on the front of the box, or maybe that's me, either way, she has a jaunty hat in my version.

Reenactment of a "Holy Shit" moment in game

    Wednesday night, my brothers, Shawn and Nathan, Rachel and I played the tutorial scenario for Shadows of Brimstone. We started by creating characters, Shawn went with the Bandido, Nathan the Gunslinger and Rachel the Saloon Girl (mostly because I didn't print off the Drifter's character sheet). I was the U.S. Marshal, a character I played previous in a Solo play. Everyone gets a personal item to flesh out their character, Rachel's Saloon Girl had a journal as a personal item that will probably tell of the horrors we encounter, and as a warning to those who find it should we fail!

First Exploration, a summoning circle, well, time to go home

    The summoning circle has it's own Advanced rules, which we ignored for our first run of the game, a lot of the tiles have additional rules. I do like how you can ease yourself into learning the game and bring in more rules as you get more familiar with the basic mechanics.

The first, and only fight we had. 

Gunslinger Nathan unloaded his deadly pistol into the first Night Horror

Dynomite from the Bandido took out the last two, with some help from the Saloon Girl and Slinger

    Not much fighting in our first game, which was fine as some of the fun was scavenging on each tile. These are random events that add flavour to the adventure, like how Nathan's character found a dead body at the entrance of the mine full of bandages. We started calling him a mummy, as he had 3rd bandage token from character creation.

    On the second tile, one of the events was called Tracks in the Dust, letting our party smash down a seemingly dead end. This would guarantee a clue on the next time, collecting two clues would lead us to Dark Stone and the final encounter with the horrors.  So of course that's what all the characters did besides Rachel, who wanted to explore (and her strength wasn't very good anyways.) Along her journey she meant a prospector and a room full of steam, both could have led to encounters, instead had some loot. 

    While fighting the Night Horrors in the final battle, I used my inflated ego (my Marshal's badge) to buff everyone's shooting or combat. This must have went to my character's head, as even with 3 shots for my shotgun that rolls D8 (instead of D6), I got three 1's on my dice. 

    I didn't get any experience points for killing the horrors, but exploring, scavenging and healing others all give you XP. So healer characters can still level up with the more aggressive characters. The game also scales nicely, potentially adding 2 more characters to a game, though our kitchen could barely contain a small map with four players.

    I have a few expansions that I really want to get at, but I already have a Glottkin to paint for May. Was very tempted to just assemble one of them anyways, clearly, I trying to find anything to distract me from painting the Glottkin. But the real monster of May is the gray tide, oh and procrastination! 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I did get some painting in on the Glottkin, probably should show off some of my work on it as well as post my Character of the Month for April & May (once I actually pick one and finish it!) The backstories are bogging me down a bit.

    

Monster May(hem) 2022

    This year I will be participating in Angry Piper's Monster May(hem). He has been running it every year now for quite sometime. And every year there are some mind blowing entries. Take a look at some amazing work by theses fellow bloggers. 

    The basic premise to the challenge is to paint your monsters! The more beastly and yearning for wanton and destruction the better. It's just the beginning so contact the angry piper if you are looking to add your blog/ Instagram for his shout out of all the beautifully ignorant rampaging creatures throughout the month. I will also post my progress here throughout the month.

    A couple years back, I started work on my Glottkin with the idea of using it as a wandering monster in Warcry. Not wanting everything in my Nurgle army to be green, I opted to paint in blues and purples. This model has been toppled off of its pedestal as ugliest mother trucker in Nurgle armies after the new battletome came out last year, replaced by the Hygienically Challenged One. Points wise, The Glottkin is almost double the points, now that's an odor some players would find offensive! But hey, I was smitten by this putrid chunk of a rot it might as well get used in games.

I bought him off eBay around 3-4 years ago, it came assembled. To be honest, I haven't painted a model this big, and if I did, I would vastly prefer subassembly. So I am finding starting this project a bit daunting.

My baseline for the Glottkin

    Lots more basecosting to go, might get a bit distracted with smaller monsters throughout the month. My Idoneth Deepkin fit perfectly into this challenge, sea elves that harvest souls of the living to survive. Teclis' Monsters, if you will. 

     The Glottkin is actually a literal name, representing three kin with the surname Glott. Otto, who wields his dad's scythe, who was a farmer. Ghurk once tall and handsome now is a beast of burden that carries his brothers on his back. And Ethrac a powerful Socerceror of Nurgle. This has basically stayed the same into Age of Sigmar. I never played Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but I do have some of the faction rule books that I flip through from time to time. When I read about the World-that-was, I find myself wanting to know more about it.