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.

To me my X-MEN!

    This is my latest project for Super Mission Force, the key players in the X-men Animated series (also costumed as such too.) The whole gangs is here, bad eyes, blue fur ball, poor anger management man, bamph guy and sparks teen.  After painting these up, I noticed that I have been focusing mostly on super heroes, and don't have all that many villains. In SMF, it's up to you to create your heroes, picking out abilities and backgrounds. Archetypes can be standard or special. Four standard heroes on each side would be balanced. Specials are Paragon, which is equal to 2.5 standard archetypes. Powerhouse which is 2 standard archetypes and Super which is 1.5 standard archetypes. There is also Street-Level, two of these equaling a standard archetype. 

    

    With this customization, I could have multiple levels for each hero. Jean grey is a powerful psychic as a standard Archetype, but when she transforms into the Phoenix her powers are godly, making her into a Paragon Archetype, usually this means, mashing of the standard archetypes together.

Main cast of the Animated Series

Carnage jumping out of the bushes

Full Marvel Repainted Heroclix

DC repainted Heroclix (also foot soldier)

Stan Lee makes a cameo as a civilian

    Stan Lee was prolific for his cameos in his own universe, appearing in the animated series, LEGO games, the comics, movies, everywhere. So why not have him in my SFM game as a civilian to be rescued? It's basically cannon!

 

Jain Zar, Storm of Silence

    Jain Zar was part of the Minivember Challenge of 2020 which wasn't finished on time for the challenge. Since then, it has been sitting near or on my hobby desk. I would always think, "After this project you are getting painted." but there always another model that would conveniently show up to bump it off the queue. Not anymore!

"I bring only death and leave only corpses."

    While painting Jain Zar, I was listening to her audio book which really helped inspire me to continue to paint her. Then I finished the book and moved onto Soul Wars. Which, of course, drove me to painting more Age of Sigmar. 

Iybraesil Howling Banshees

    

     These are howling banshees that I painted up for minivember as well, painted with a blue bodysuit, the colour of the Iybraedil Craftworld. If I want represent the Craftworld properly, that being a matriarchal society, I will need a female Autarch as a leader. As luck would have it, GW just made a new Autarch sculpt, a quick look a the sprue tells me you can indeed model her without a helmet on... only $50... YIKES! I bought an old sculpt awhile back, I'll more likely repaint it blue if I was interested in following the lore. I would also need more Howling Banshees, as Iybraesil cultivate a large number of their shrines. I do have more to paint, but they might be of the resin variety. 

    What I do have, are WAR WALKERS! Two metal and one plastic, these will one day grace my hobby desk. Not at this moment, but they will be my next Eldar paint project.

Voronwe Fenzana

    

    Clearspell was a continent of prosperity, coveting knowledge over all else. Wizards were regarded with reverence, the council would look to their sages before coming to important decisions. Voronwe was one of the high wizards who would seek out esoteric tomes, experimenting with arcana knowledge that most thought was lost to the ages.

   Financed by the council, Voronwe, along with his pupils set out to seek such a tome. Long ago, there was a great war between the elves and lizardfolk that dwelt in the dark caves to the east of Clearspell, much of the magic of that era had been lost for centuries. These caves had been vacant for generations, which emboldened the adventurers. Delving deep into the caverns of the reptilian foes, this was not the case. For their service to their dark god never ended, nor their hatred towards the elves. Clawed feet were heard as their search found them in their ritual chambers. Voronwe desired knowledge, not a battle, they quickly picked up any tomes that might be useful and left. 

    Returning to Clearspell, Voronwe was eager to study the ancient knowledge. Once opened, the book was enchanted with a spell, a relic of the age of war. Voronwe could feel his body changing, becoming frail, gaunt. He looked to see that he had be transformed into a liche. Cursed to harvest souls of the living to have eternal life.

Voronwe needed to gain the favour of the lizard gods, Sess'innek, a demon lord, if he was to reverse his current form.

    This model is the Liche & Mummy from the D&D Wizkids, they are alright miniatures for the price. I prefer Reaper Bones with their harder plastic. Not the most fleshed out backstory, hopefully I can take a bit more time for the next one and also post it on time!

March Wrap Up

    Some projects are quick, and some take a lot of time. My Corpse Wrack Mausoleum was a long project it was such a beautiful piece of terrain, do I make it old? New? both? What colours do I use? I started out by spray priming all of the terrain blue. Then I wanted to get it on the table for a Warcry campaign Rachel and I started two years ago. I had jumped ahead in how I normally paint, highlighting the base colour on terrain before going into more finer details (skulls, so many skulls!). 

    When I picked it up again in January, I had to highlight over some of the details and such I had previously painted as well as watch to not get any on the roof. This just slowed the painting down, even the fences weren't evenly silvered. The blue spray was a Rustoleum can, painting GW silver over it wasn't the best idea, repriming with a brown solved that, just taking more time then I was hoping. Next time I just need to do it right in the first place. 

    I feel good with the final results, last year I 3D printed some gravestones, these will eventually be added to the crypt or to the nighthaunts that have been tormenting my hobby desk. A couple of the mausoleums don't have bases, this might be a future project, but for now, I am putting this crypt to rest.

    With mausoleum and the Azyrite Townscape, I will have plenty of options for Warcry and at least a table worth of terrain for Age of Sigmar.

    Only painted three heroclix to completion in the month of March, from left to right, Gorilla Grodd, Sabertooth and Giganta. Gorilla Grodd is a super intelligent ape with mind control powers, most of his schemes revolve around turning humans into apes. This particular sculpt has him holding a human skull, fitting for a primate bent on the downfall of the human race. Sabertooth is a mutant with superhuman strength and a healing factor. Unlike Wolverine, Sabertooth embraces his feral side. Giganta I decided I would start using different colours for the different comic universes, Marvel - red, DC - blue. Works for now, might be changed into different factions, Legion of Doom or Brotherhood of Mutants down the road. Using 32mm bases for the super heroes, debated on using 25s for civilians and heroes that didn't have super powers, but that seems a bit much. If you are giant, you get a bigger base. 

    As a distraction while painting up the mausoleum, I made a small camp for Don't Look Back using a CD and some terrain I bought with the Reaper Bones Kickstarter. Most of the scenarios use a camp as the starting area for players. I originally planned to do urban terrain for Super Mission Force, but I could make forest type terrain that would work for SMF, Don't Look Back AND PrimEVO.

    I have a couple more scatter from the Reaper Bone miniatures, but they are more urban, could make for good objectives, like getting to a pay phone to call for help.

I finished my Character of the Month for March as well, post to come for backstory.

Character of the Month for March

 

 I also picked up the Lord of the Ring's Fellowship, off eBay as well, no pictures due to laziness. Reading on Cheaphammer about his Quest of the Ringbearer got me interested in the game.

    I found someone selling some Warcry Cypher Lords and Iron Golems, enough to field both in Warcry but what made it really worth it was these two. A character and a cultist from Blackstone Fortress. The Darkoath Warqueen would have went for more then half of what I payed for the lot, if I bought her individually.

Darkoath Warqueen and Cultist (BSF)

Iron Golems 

Cypher Lords

Some were broken, nothing that the bit box can't fix.

    Every other weekend, I would bring some board games to my work to play them with the guys I care for. We played Scooby Doo Escape from the Haunted Mansion, a coded Chronicles game, read a story and solve puzzles. Each character had one verb attached to them, Shaggy was eat, I tried to eat everything needless to say.

    Rachel and I played another game of Targi, I had to convince her that it was still a new game, instead of hopping to brand new games, we can really learn one for a bit so it sticks. Not much different then our last game, it ended with 5 points between us 39 for Rachel and 34 for me. 

 The other game in the "Old Pile" was Lords of Waterdeep. Nathan came over to play with us. We had to reread the rules, but it came back pretty quickly. Rachel destroyed us, being a nurse, she is used to multitasking. She had 152 points, I came in second with 123pts and Nathan with 118 pts. I went online to check what a high score would be on this game. Some forum posts mentioned the app and that they wouldn't play mandatory quests on one another, both which would muddy the numbers. 

Rachel's winning grin

    Rosalind had her first birthday on the 25th of March! Can you believe it? One year?! How fast as that! As a birthday treat, we went to the library to play with toys and pick up books to read on the potty. The central library kid's area was all ours, but it would have been nice for Rosalind to play with kids her age, maybe figure out this walking thing that humans do. 

Rosalind's favourite toy/walking aid

    Rachel made a cake for Rosalind on the day after her birthday (she worked on her birthday) and we had the family over to celebrate. Jon is bad at taking pictures, good thing Rachel is here to save the day!

Uncle Shawn and proud chin Rosalind

A boot is my very favourite gift

Grandpa and Grandma with the birthday girl

The girls dressed up, papa did not

First tastes of real SUGAR

Rosalind in a dress for her birthday party

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I am almost finished off some X-men heroclix repaints, just putting the finishing touches on the bases. Once this batch of clix are done, will transition to creating hero sheets and terrain for Super Mission Force. I will write up a story for the Character of the Month of March.

Darcy Rothchild

 

    

    This doesn't looks good, already late on Character of the Month. This is February's Character of the Month. I just needed some sunlight for a quick photo which seemed to take me all month to remember to do. Not as stylish as last month's photos, but time seemed to slip away on me.

    As a Dutchess of a small province,  Darcy Rothschild, fit in well enjoy enough. Her teenage years were filled with learns on etiquette, royal lineage, courtship and all the other mundane aspects of being part of an oligarchy as well as fencing, horseback riding and archery.

    Up holding diplomatic relations with other provinces saw her travelling throughout the land. On a visit to the capital, Yarmouth, she disguised herself to blend in with the locals, secretly desiring to learn how to handle seacrafts. If she was ever caught, she would be outed from the royal bloodline, being a service that is thought to be beneath her. Darcy craved adventure and to have her own crew aboard a Galleon.

    Aboard, the Stoic Defence, she met Kaxire. A tiefling who showed her essential skills in navigation, sea warfare and sword fighting. Darcy learned it was life or death out on the sea, pirates play for keeps. Darcy became close with Kaxire, she didn't want to leave her second life and Kaxire was the only one that knew about her other life. The Dutchess had to keep up appearances, so she had to leave, but told Kaxire she would be back, giving her a sending stone to keep in touch. How long would Darcy be able to keep up this facade?

    Darcy Rothschild is a human fighter for this character of the month. The figure is a Wizkids Wave 4 Pirates, they do come with a very slim disc for a base, but I wanted to make the characters of the month on similar round bases. 

Next on the Hobby Desk 

    Character of the Month for March! Should be finished painting in time, haven't started a background for them yet. I will also have a March summary for games and painting I have finished.