More Conan sword fodder

Here are some of the more civilized opponents for Conan's sword to subjugate; five guards and a captain. Might do some characters next.

What lies beneath

Decided to do some quick postings to keep my interest in the the blog going. Here's some tentacles I've just finished from the Conan boardgame.

Doesn't time fly...

Doesn't time fly. I have been engrossed in a few new deliveries lately which seems to have eaten my time. I have been keeping up with some communication on Twitter. It's been so long that when I came to post this, my app, Blogsy, no longer worked! The main target of my gaming affections has been the boardgame Conan from Monolith designs. Put simply, lots of painting and playing where posssible. Here are some piccies...  

 

 

 

 

 

Scratchbuilt dungeon scenery

Through sorting out the piles of 'stuff' in the wargames shed, I decided to dispose of some boardgames that o didn't want, and wouldn't have any resale value. After rummaging through the the contents, I found some playing pieces which I thought could form some part of statues or something. At the same time we were getting rid of some of Wills' baby toys, including some play blocks. After some gluing, heavy paints and some weathering, here are the results...

I'm really quite happy with the results. I feel they will fit in nicely with my Super Dungeon Explore stuff, or Open Combat. Got a couple more bits to finish.

 

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It's been a little while...

For a change I've been doing more than thinking where the hobby is concerned. Here's a little of what has been happening recently.

I spent a day with Ed and one of his friends (hi John) learning a little about Infinity. I think there is a great system here which requires some determination to learn the subtle variances of all the different unit types and equipment. For me though, all this thought is quickly eaten up during the game. The sample scenario Ed and John played lasted only three turns by design. There was a lot of nudging and jockeying, which erupted into an almighty firefight in turns two and three, with not many models standing to record their stories on the Viacom. Here's a few snaps...

We finished the day's play with a little more open combat. Our initial dabbling of figure stats were refined as we played more games. My initial thoughts about my undead band were developed a little, as the Zombies were not strong enough to have an impact, even after my necromancer had drained the will power of the opponents. So, the loss of a zombie to improve the fighting qualities of those that remained was helpful.

We played a scenario that required investigating some treasure chests and removing them from the scene of the battle. An interesting action in the first game, where a titanic struggle was had at the centre of the board, where both factions fought for the final prize.

By contrast, the second game ended very quickly when one faction found both prizes early on their side of the board, and made off with the trophies. Again, a few piccies.

Finally, and here has been the biggie, I stumbled across some ACW rules called 'Altar of Freedom'. Now, I haven't played them yet, but they do look rather cool. So much so, that I will do a separate posting about them.

What this has meant has been a flurry of activity for myself, Daz and Ed. Daz already has a Federal army painted and Ed is enthused to paint up some Rebs, so I thought I would do a 'shabby sheek' revamp of some old scenery boards for an old school club.

I'm rather happy with the results and pleased to still have all my fingers after a lot of electric jigsaw cutting! The look is simple, but will be in keeping with the small 6mm scale. I'm so pleased that it has also encouraged me to re look at my 6mm WWII kit to use with the 'look sarge, no charts' rules bought last year.

In between all of this I've played some boardgames with Will and one of his friends. The old pleasure of 'The Hammer of the Scots' was passed onto the younger lads, with their interest not surprisingly wavering during an unusually complex game to their normal experience. The game finished with an unusual last gambit of William Wallace and Norse raiders trying to catch Edward I alone in the far reaches of Northern Scotland, after a large battle of Edward pacifying a few remaining nobles; you can decide the outcome!

A busy old time,with a big shout out to homebase 'village green' colour paint and some spray cans!

 

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Tonight's other royal rumble in the 'open combat' arena

Some quick piccies of Daz's Northmen taking on all comers. The lords of Valhalla favoured his blades, as the warband tore through both mine and Ed's tawdry mobs!

 

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First games of 'Open Combat'

Tonight's session laid out before us was our first go at Open Combat. Ed's kickstarted rules have encouraged him to lead several sessions of the game. In preparation, here is the warband that I brought to the table:

My original thoughts were to screen the necromancer with the shambler's and have him 'top up' the skeletons and Flesh golem; possibly taunt some unsuspecting mortal into a rash attack on the Golem. The skeleton's could scare their opponents before throwing themselve's against the foe - Jason and the Argonauts style...well, that was the plan! Here's the battlefield

The game went smoothly, with only a little reference to the rules for the special rules. The interaction of intimidating undead and low minded beastmen allowed the poor attacking skills of the zombies even out the aggressive attacking abilities of bovine foe.

Zombies were chopped down early on in the encounter, but they did distract their opponents long enough for the necromancer to lower the attacker's minds to zero (halting attack and defence ratings)

In the end, the shamblers did enough to whittle away the fighting prowess of the beastmen, with an ungodly archer being the last to fall.

The game played quickly with the action very quickly heating up. I quite like the fact that the zombies could'nt hit for toffee, but took a while to hack down using a relatively high defence. By contrast, the skeletons attacked furiously, but were brittle in defence. Overseeing the action, the necromancer played a timely intervention just enough to turn the tide in favour of the dark arts...

 

 

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Reaper Bones Chimera

There are still a sizeable amount of Reaper miniatures to finish painting, and this figure is probably why there hasn't been much progress. Somehow, it was not fun painting this monster.

I think it's because each component animal needed it's own colour scheme and I had difficulty blending in each part, particularly the scorpion's tail.

The main body had several highlights and washes to try and tone in together the lion flesh (not helped by an initial too dark wash of sepia brown). Well, it's finished now and will probably be as bad tempered on the table as the frustration I had in finishing it! Well, best keep it fed...

 

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