The Halloween Display

Most of last week and all of the weekend, our living room, hallway, and conservatory (used as main entrance) has been decorated for Halloween (our daughters both had several parties to attend, and some of the friends of the oldest one were coming here to prepare).

When entering the conservatory, this was the sight that met the eye:

Our living room (that dark thing in the corner of the first pic is a clàrsach).

On the sideboard, I had placed a lot of my horror-related painted minis:

A lot of those headstones were painted tyhe last week, and I shall take a separate photo with those for my 'October Output Post' one of the next days.

2019-05-22: Age of Fantasy Skirmish, 2nd Game

With short notice, I managed to get a Wednesday gaming appointment with Emil, a former workmate who has a taste for fantasy and sci-fi, and we played the same 150 points forces used by Ulolkish and me Monday.

We rolled up 3 Objectives, and I won the Roll-off and thus the initiative for the first Round.

In all the mayhem and excitement, I forgot to take pics after Rounds 1 and 2, but my plans worked fine, as my Necromancer actually raised some Zombies... 😏

The Gondor archers managed to take out two Skeletons in cover at one point in Round 2 or 3, and all in all the dice were behaving less stubbornly than usual.

The raised Zombies worked a treat, blocking the Gondorians from attacking the Necromancer and guarding the Objective on my left, while my Skeleton Horseman swept around the entire battlefield to threaten the Objective in the far tower ruin.

ON Turn 4, another mob of hungry shamblers clawed their way out of the ground near the threatened objective on my left, and effectively decided the game for me. Below is the final lay of the land, the game ending 2-1 in favour of Argonor.

Conclusion:

I like this game very much! It is simple, fast-flowing, and a newcomer can pick up the rules along the way while playing.

Wizards are very powerful in small games, being able to cause a lot of turmoil with their spells. Next game I shall turn up to 200 or 250 points, and maybe I shall build another Lord of the Rings themed warband to face off against the Gondorians - Mordor Nazgûl and Orcs, or Haradrim could be interesting choices.

I have repaired my two Knights of Minas Tirith (painted for Battle Companies years ago, and shattered when a box of (painted 😡) minis tilted over and hit the floor) - at least I hope the one with a horse's broken leg will prove well enough welded by the Poly Cement; the other one, a conversion, just had to be glued to the horse. I also may opt to field a Boromir, Captain of the White Tower, as a Hero alongside the Knight of Dol Amroth.

2019-05-20: Age of Fantasy, First Game

An entire table of Ziterdes ruins!

Ulolkish and I played the standard basic game with the recommended starting forces of 150 pts. each, and rolled up four objectives to place on the table.

The Mortal Gods bases are just for convenience, as most groups are 3 strong.

In all my eagerness, I forgot to take a photo of the initial setup, but it was pretty straightforward. I won the roll off, chose table edge, and moved first on the first Round.

In the first couple of Rounds, we forgot to make Fear Tests when my Undead came into contact with enemies, but all in all we rather quickly got to grips with the rules (especially considering we just played four hours of God of Battles).

I very quickly seized 3 of the 4 objectives, while the last one was contested.

The Necromancer tried raising some Zombies, but without any luck.

Skeleton Horsemen apparently are made of glass (or very brittle bone) - after killing one Gondor Fiefdom Warrior off at impact, my lone rider hit the dust. Argonor kept muttering incantations, but nothing happened...

I managed to seize the fourth objective, but was about to loose the one in the center of the board.

Which happened soon enough. My lacking ability to roll more than 2 on a D6 still kept Argonor from bolstering the ranks of the Undead with some not so fresh meat.

On Round 4, a lone surviving Fiefdom Warrior leapt for the objective on my far right, and managed to seize it - and Argonor finally succeeded in summoning a bunch of Zombies, which kept the objective in the building on my left from being taken by some Warriors of Minas Tirith.

End Score: 2-2 - a fitting end for our first foray into One Page Rules!

I showed OPR Grimdark Skirmish to Ulolkish afterwards, as I think it quite possible that we might dust off some of our old W40K minis for a scrap now and then, knowing we can set up and play a game in less than 1½ hours, and he seemed to agree.

Some More WIP Stuff...

I am rebasing some minis I painted a very long time ago (hence the dubious paintjobs on some of them) for various purposes, as I now want to use them for Sellswords & Spellslingers.

The Heresy Vampire below has lived a haunted life - first he lost his head, and then, recently he had a metal bear fall on him, damaging the paint on his left sleeve, so in addition to finishing his new base I have to reconstruct the paintjob...

This bunch is waiting for a black undercoat, but I am not going spray them, until I have finished painting that blasted female Barbarian for Lea's Sellswords & Spellslingers party!

With my current mojo and speed, I shall probably not paint more than one or two minis before 2019 - unless I focus on models I can speed-paint with block'n'wash or drybrushes. December is a bitch to get through when working every second weekend, and still having kids around, methinks...

Where Wolf? Here, Wolf!

Another biggie I have had on the prepping station for far too long is this Werewolf.

I put extra filler on the base, and also noticed that I need to rough up the edge of the washer (for the paint to adhere better).

He should be usable for a lot of games/settings when I get him done, SS&SS among others, so I think it is about time to get him ready for painting.

I have more than enough minis to paint for the rest of Spring, it would seem, so I hope my back eases up a bit, soonish, so that I can actually sit down at the painting station for a couple of hours in a row, instead of, like today, just doing some basing on one mini at a time - things take forever that way...

I Just Beheaded a Vampire!

I started rebasing this 'Night Stalker', but the vice seems to have applied too much pressure to the head, and the glue did not hold.

Although I originally paited it for Strange Aeons, this mini is a no-brainer for my Christmas Wars project; pure evil, and a worthy opponent for the Forces of good!

I shall get his head re-attached one of the next days, and until them, stay tuned, as I have more to show later this evening!