Ill-mannered denizens and more furnishings

Terrain building and monster-painting continues as another week of the hardy fantasy bug still has it's talons in me.

In addition to my newly painted Goblin warband, I also did something this week that I previously though impossible with my lack of skill: I did a headswap conversion on a 6mm mini! It looked so-so in the metal, but with a dash of paint it improved quite a bit:

I call him the Albino Knight, modelled somewhat after Elric. I couldn't paint runes small enough to make his sword look like stormbringer though.. He is built from a Dark Alliance Destroyer, with the head donated from a Dark Elf Sorceress.

Enough of patting myself on the back, I have some more things to show you today:

The next set of dunegon furnishings. I have kind of gotten an idea-drought at the moment, so I might end up making some terrain for outdoor locations while I figure out what else to do.

A fountain. Could be magical, could also be poisonous. Helpful or harmful, you won't know until you drink from it..

Seing the exellent pieces put together by Stroezie, I just had to do something similar. A bit crude, but my putty-skills are still firmly in the beginners section :)

A few gates, colored for convenience. I intend to make matching keys for them as well, to keep the heroes busy.

A few more tables, with bits! A wizards table, an few potions and candles on the next and one with a helmet and a dagger on, to go with the armor and weapon-racks to make a armoury. 

Stacks of books. Not all wizards are orderly and neat, these piles can work both as cover and searchable points of interest.

A few stone tables, with a set of benches as well. Even monsters and heroes need to sit down from time to time..


As I mentioned earlier, I also have the latest warband all painted up:

The whole band. Turned out to be a few more than I had planned, but thats just what happens sometimes.

The 3 potential leaders of the warband.  

The Boss, carrying a skull-smashing morningstar. 

The Champion, Wielding a great-axe. 

The Witchdoctor. Rarely the leader of a band of their own, these scheming magicans often rule a band as a puppetmaster, controlling a stronger, but dumber goblin.

Archers. 

Spearmen. 

The warriors, these fellows got some different shield designs, some their own, and some others stolen from unfortunate victims.


Thats the lot for today, but I did just finish a Dark Elf warband yesterday. They will be uploaded as soon as I sort through the photos. Work on the fantasy-fan rules are coming along, they will be more aimed at warband skirmishing action than dungeon-crawling. But don't worry, as I believe I mentioned, I have something in the works for crawling as well!
There may be a little more sci-fi on the horizon as well,as I just looked through a set of rules out for playtest by Ivan of NWG.

Til next time!

Testing out the dungeon some more

Last week I managed to squeeze in 2 sets of playtesting, one solo and then one with my friend Fredrik.

I feel like basic mechanics for combat resolution are sound now, it's just a matter of balancing skills and items to get the desired difference between a grizzled veteran, a  peasant with a pitchfork and mosters of all sorts. As it stands now, the standard 1 kill 1 shock die makes everyone too equal, and it just doesn't fit my idea of heroic fantasy, but it does work well for more realistic games.

I have tried increasing the number of dice you get to roll and re-roll with some skills, equipment and benefits, but I don't know how many dice is too many just yet. For example: when I ran these games, the warriors equipped with 2-handed weapons were rolling 2K 1S with one re-roll, simulating the higher damage capacity of their weapons, and the one re-roll representing better training.
 This worked out quite well for the most part, but after the fact I'm not sure if one re-roll for the entire game was enough, I might need to make it once per combat, or even once per round to make it more useful..
Future testing will have to determine this. As the mod stands right now, I think that the moment when small warband skirmish is possible isn't too far off. I need to balance up the skills for the characters and heroes so that I can finish the progression charts for them, and I'm thinking of making a list of traits that can be used to define non-humans where needed. 


Enough about my thoughts, there are some photos from the testing:

A set of brave heroes, a balanced lot containing a warrior, a priest, a wizard and a ranger.

The dungeon. 

The fighting in the first room dragged on for quite a bit, the monsters just wouldn't stay down. When running dungeon scenarios like this one, I might leave the bog-standard monsters without a save, just to speed things up a bit. Then again, the extra re-rolls I'm going to try out might solve the problem in and of itself.

After some tough fightning the party moved along, into a hall of pillars. In an alcove, there were 2 skeletal guards, waiting to pounce on unwary intruders. The already wounded warrior went OOA in this fight, and the priest sustained a wound before they had dispached the sentries.

Reaching the last room, finally reveals the necromancer, the foul creature they came to slay! Fierce fighting breaks out, magic missiles streak through the air, the wizard wounds the foul necromancer, and an arrow from the skeletal archer wounds the ranger. 

 Ultimately the necromancers fate is sealed when the priest charges forth, and with a swing guided by the divine, he ends the abomination. 1 OOA and 2 wounded heroes wasn't too bad, but for my own games I think that the priest will have to receive some sort of healing skill, to make longer adventures possible. Maybe I'll introduce healing postions as an item and possible treasure as well..


From the second playtest I don't have as many photos, since I was busy teaching Fredrik the basics of Fivecore while we played.

The first real threats are spotted. 

Fighting ensues.. 

  And a pic from a small test set up to try out a few skills under controlled circumstances.

This second playtest lead to the both of us sitting down to discuss what we could do differently, to make it a better game. We are both great fans of Diablo and similar ARPG games, and while I'm happy with adapting FiveCore for my own games, my friend felt that there are some inherent limitations to the system once you start to ramp things up to dragons, trolls and other epic opponents. I too would like to be able to emulate some of Diablo's dungeon-bash feel, but with a party rather than single character forcus.
 As a result I will also start working on a separate set of rules based on an entirely different mechanic,
but I will of course endeavour to finish my mod before, so I can share both! :)

My terrain tray has started to fill up, lots of pieces for sci-fi and fantasy both, but pending paint it's still some time off before you get to see anything..


Til next time!  

More dungeon furnishings

I barely had time to get started on my sci-fi and post-apoc terrain before I got sucked right into fantasy-land again.. Since I had planned to test out some ideas for a FiveCore fantasy mod, I decided to make a few more pieces of dungeon furnishings.

A thanks to Stroezie for the treasure-chest idea, and general inspiration!

The set. 

Piles of stones, from collapsed walls, used as barriers or when sombody manages to smash a wall really hard.. 

Pillars, great as cover, or just to fill out a big open room. I originally designed these so they would go in a great hall or boss room. 

A couple of treasure chests. I'm currently working on piles of treasure as well.  

Even monsters need to eat, and these fireplaces works well for both denizen and delver. They might even be used in the camps of some wastelanders.

Sleeping rolls. Again, something that won't look out of place in several different settings. 

For those scenarios containing undead, mummies and the like, these tombs with powerful runes on them might contain treasure and magic items.. Or it might contain your doom..


I had planned on showing off the Goblin warband as well, but realized I had run out of bases! As soon as new ones arrive there will be another update, hopefully with some post-apoc and sci-fi scenery as well!

More Mayhem

Last week something quite rare occured, I played a game with a friend rather than a solo game!

He had shown some interest in my different projects, and Mayhem in particular, so we set up a quick and simple game. He commanded the Undead legions, and I brought out my freshly painted Goblin horde.

 

All of the photos are taken with a mobile camera, so the quality is a bit iffy, I do apologize for that!

 

Setup, and the first turn of movement.

 

My troll crashes into his skeletons, causing disorder, but he is quickly struck down by the undead Blackguard (black and red shields).

In an epic confrontation, the spider cavalry charges, and destroys the dragon.

The mosh-pit, this protracted engagement lasted most of the fight, ending only when the stubborn goblin archers finally fell to the undead onslaught. 



Everything was looking good, the cavalry had come upon the flanks of the undead, but when they charged, disaster struck! Both sides rolled a 1 for the combat score, meaning they both were destroyed!

Continuing the trend of mutually assured destruction, the undead wraiths clash with some of the goblin warriors, and they end up destroying eachother too.

 The battle was not going my way, with the loss of cavalry and almost all my spearmen, along with half of my archers, I managed to bring my opponent to this breaking point, but we both kept making our break checks.
 After a few more turns I finally conceded defeat, having left my last few units too far back to do any good this late in the battle.

It was a fun game nevertheless, and nice to play against a human opponent! His interest piqued, we have set a date for another game, planning to try out a dungeon crawl.

Wastelanders on the fringe?

When I first heard that there would be a post-apoc version of FiveCore, I got really exited, and wasted no time picking out a couple of models. Most of these are supposed to pull double duty, filling similar roles in FiveParsecs as well as their primary role. 

The full tally, I might have gotten a bit exited about this after all the fantasy models. 

 With his improvised zip-gun/shot spear, Abe has caught more than one raider unawares.

 

Mike had to go through a lot to make it as a merc, but his hard work has made him one of the most sought-after guns-for-hire in the zone. 

Survival in the wasteland often comes down to how good your scavenging skills are, and Dimitri has a knack for finding useful things.  

Trent knows much of the unchartered zone, a knowledge that makes his services as a tracker costly. 

Looking for any tech of the old world, Zeb wants to uncover secrets from before the fall. 

His ill-fitting armor and clothes are hand me downs from the man who raised him.  

A relic of lost tech, the deathwand carried by Riggs is the envy of his settlement.   

The next group is one of the factions of the wasteland, a military/Brotherhood of Steel-type group.

They are known as the Knights.

 

A captain carrying a tracker, a piece of advanced Tech. 

Knight-brothers, armed with advanced heavy assault rifles and composite armor, 

mended with pieces of steel.  

The heavy weapons Knight, carring a flamethrower.

 

 

Another faction of the wasteland is the Order, religious warriors hoping to impose order and law in the wasteland. 

In the last stages of the war, biological, chemical and atomic weapons were deployed. This obviously had some serious reprecussions for all life. Most things died, but of the ones who survivied was changed, some more than others. Ghouls are one of the more common ones, both men and beasts suffer ghoulification, making them into zombie-like creatures.  

I also painted up a few civilians while I waited for my next set from Prf-CinC, they may look harmless, but looks can be deceiving..

A small truck, mostly intended for the fringe (sci-fi), but it might find some uses for the wasteland as well.

One of the thankfully quite rare Tiger Scorpions, a mutated monstrosity that roam the wasteland, escaped from some sealed lab from before the war, or maybe even a product of mutation and forced evolution..


This will hopefully provide enough models for me to play a few rounds when I aquire the playtest rules, but I of course have a few ideas for more creatures and a few more wastelanders as well!
A few pieces of terrain for both the dungeon and the wasteland are waiting for paint, and I keep coming up with several more all the time.

But this is it for now, til next time!