Minis looking for a good home

Do you like minis? Do you want more minis?

Do you like these minis?

I posted a few years back that I was given a full army of historical minis. The are beautiful, and they are painted, but I never use them, and I am in dreadful need of space. So, it is with a heavy heart that I am looking to offload these miniatures to whoever wants them.

The only catch is that you either come get them (which if you are in the Montreal area shouldn't be an issue) or you pay postage.

I will pack them up as best I can and post them anywhere on the planet. I will also give a quote before sending them, so you know exactly what you are going to pay.

This post in particular gives the background as to what they are and where they came from.

Please help me find a home for these minis, and give them a second life. They are just gathering dust, and I need to make space. I'll likely be posting similar posts with links to other minis and books I am having to sell for the same reason.

Effincool Minis Halflings

Next up for this winter's challenge, Effincool Minis halflings from their last Kickstarter. Done so as to be able to build a halfling warband for Frostgrave with these guys when they arrive.

These guys were a joy to paint. Full of character. The only change I had to make was change the flagpole for a brass rod, but that was super easy to do. I did think about more freehand on the flag, as it's a nice empty space, so if I'm inspired, I'll go back and add something there.

There's also a couple of cavalry figs and ponies that came with the Kickstarter, but they're not even assembled, as they are no use in Frostgrave, and I'm a long way from using these in any larger scale battle games. Unless I find some opponents to try out Dragon Rampant with.

In the new year, as well as starting off with Rogue Stars, I want to get back into Frostgrave too, and these'll be perfect for the bulk of the soldiers, and my captain.

Frostgrave Archers

I've managed to get enough people interested in Frostgrave at my FLGS to run a campaign. We're now 3 scenarios in to the Thaw of the Liche Lord Campaign, and it's going well.

Since the game requires so very few figures, I have given myself the very humble goal of finishing off 10 minis for my warband as soon as possible. I have painted up plenty of wizards, but I'm lacking in completed soldiers.

I had previously panted one archer, among the first batch of minis for this game, but I never run with just one of these guys, the ranged support they provide really helps in this game where you don't really want to get too close to the other player, you want to get in as close as you need to to get the treasure, at least at low level games. So one archer is never enough. These two will therefore take their place in my warband as more archers. I do run a ranger too, so one of these will proxy as a ranger till I find a more suitable miniature for that (Bad Squiddo Games order already made).

These two are from the same WFB 3rd ed Bretonnian blisters as the previous one, so some real Oldhammer minis here. I think two of them are indeed Perry brothers sculpts. I'm not sure about the other one, as he has much bigger Oldhammer style feet/boots. not the dainty Perry feet.

I'm now at 7 members of the warband fully painted, and two (my captain and second Treasure Hunter) at a pretty advanced stage. I do however need to get better minis for my thief and ranger to complete the band I currently play. I've also ordered a Rangifer, which I intend to run too, as I have passed all the in game requirements. After all that, I'll have plenty of choice of soldiers for my 10-man-band.

I'm trying not to set such grand goals for this year, as I did last year, as can be clearly seen by the frequency of my updates, my painting time has been rather sparse so far this year, but to have 10 minis for Frostgrave is the bare minimum I expect of myself. I'm also planning a couple more, so I can run different soldier types. I'm also trying to get through one or two of the bad guys for the scenarios too, so expect to see a Liche and his allies here soon.

SO like I said, no hard goals as such, like the Khador Caster Challenge of 2015, but a softer more attainable goal to get me to the painting table over the summer months.

As always, the camera picks up a bunch of flaws in the paint jobs, so I'll be going back over the eyes of the first mini, amongst other things, now that I've seen them through the unforgiving lens.

Frostgrave Warband

I've gotten in three games of this now, and there's quite a buzz in the local meta over it too, so we look like we're heading towards a campaign.

With that in mind, I finished off a few of my minis. One of the things I love about this game is that it is the perfect use for my Oldhammer and Reaper minis, that never see the daylight often enough. These go well with the Wizards I have already painted.

Treasure Hunter
The sole recent purchase for this game. This is a Reaper mini, and by that token, a touch taller than the others, with the others being classic Citadel minis, and therefore much nearer to actual 25mm. He is also not on a slotta base, so that too adds a bit of height.
In game, I do like these guys as they are fast, but can also handle themselves in melee.

Knight
This is another old skool Warhammer mini, from a pack of knights. I'm not sure if they were originally labelled as Bretonnians, or something else, as I bought them a good 20 years ago, if not more. I've had a look for him on the various Citadel collectors sites, but I can't find him, so if anyone has any more info, I'd be happy to hear it!

This guy is the tank of the group. With a shield spell on him, he really can take a beating, although he takes his time to get where he needs to go.

Archer
This one is a Bretonnian. As a Perry brothers sculpt, it would of course work for Medieval armies too. Perfect for Frostgrave and WFB too of course! I may have to go over the face again, as the white of the right eye seems to be smudged. Bloody cameras! As you can see, he is from teh same retinue as the Knight above, although I do not really intend for the whole warband to have one colour scheme, it does help if I want to field them in other games later.

I have two of these guys in my warband for now, and they have a magic bow each now, so they'll be sticking around for the forseeable.

Frostgrave Wizards

In the build up to some games of Frostgrave, I dug out some of my old Warhammer minis, as they fit in perfectly with the theme of the game. I'll post more on how the system plays once I get a couple of games in, but there seems to be quite a few local players who are interested. Enough to make it work, as it relies as much on the campaign side of the game as it does on the one-off scenarios.

The first of the minis I have completed with Frostgrave in mind was painted up as a shamen/warlock in the browns. The autumn leaves on the base just seemed to bring this out better.

When it came to the second of these two, I went with a more winter theme, fitting in with the Frostgrave esthetic. I especially like his staff, it has a real Oldhammer look to it. Just comical enough.

The theme continues if we place these two wizened gentleman next to another completed miniature, who isn't strictly Oldhammer, but was pained up with a Bretonnian army in mind. When the three are placed together, we have Summer, Autumn and Winter. I have already selected a great mini to be Spring, and that will also do as an apprentice for Frostgrave, as these minis are all far to old to still be apprentices!

These minis may have taken me away from this years goal fo completing my Khador casters, but at least they got me back into painting after a 6 month hiatus. Back with more minis for this game soon.

In Her Majesty's Name II: Getting a game on!

Summer is finished, and with it, thoughts return back indoors of an evening, towards gaming and painting. As can be seen from my *cough* frequent posts over the summer, I have painted a grand total of zero miniatures over the last four months. I have built half of one warjack for Khador, and mostly put together the new warcaster unit for the same faction. An impressive tally, you must admit. I have also gamed twice in that time. Give or take a match that I've forgotten, as it has been a very long summer.

Do not feel sorry for me though, my time away from the gaming tables has been mostly due to travels, spending time with the family and other fun ways to experience life (with a bit of work some evenings, but I don't mind that so much now and again). So, I hear you all ask, what have I done that is worthy of posting here? The short answer is In Her Majesty's Name. I posted on this game recently here, so if you don't know what it is, go on over and look.


The long answer is a little more detailed. One of my oldest, and dearest friends was over in Montreal a week ago. S and I go way back to High School, and have been gaming together, on and off since then. Unfortunately, I now live in Montreal, and he in Brussels. However, we were in the same city as he was over here for work. I think he is having trouble finding gaming close to where he is, so he was keen to make sure we got a game in while he was in town, We had a quick look through what I had ready to go, and settled on IHMN. I of course have the almost a fully painted set of the Society of Thule, and S has a soft spot for Prussians, so it was an easy fit. For my part, I put together a British Rifle Company, pulling together my Dystopian Legions Britannians for the occasion.

The lay of the land

Neither of us had really read through the rules before, but we boh had a copy, and they really are quite simple (roll 1d10, add skill, take off mods, beat target number). We got together, set up the table, and rolled a scenario from those available in the book, as this is a game that really benefits from playing though a scenario. The rules are super simple, but the complexity and variation comes from the depth of personalisation and characterisation you give the members of your company. Wether its through straight forward character traits, super science of indeed magical abilities. All this makes it a game that borders closely on and benefits greatly from role-playing, hence, the scenario was required. We rolled the 'Bad Jack' scenario, but more on that later.


The game was rather slow to start, as we jockeyed for position on the table. We were both rather concentrated on the left flank of the board, with one or two models each on the right flank. Bad Jack, the mutated laboratory experiment stalking both sides that we had to hunt down, started in the centre of the table. One thing we noticed straight away, was that, as both sides were armed with military rifles fo the most part, we were shooting each other from turn one. We could have had more scenery on the table to make this less of an issue. The second thing was that we had both thought from reading the rules that we would be dropping like flies, as after each shot, everyone makes a Pluck roll. One fail and you're out of the game. In reality, it could be relatively easy to hit someone, but we also seemed to be making an inordinate amount of Pluck rolls, which led us to evolve our game play from one of being in cover and hiding, to getting out there and getting on with it. It did mean that what we thought would be a very quick game, took longer that we anticipated.


The making of the Pluck rolls brings me back to Bad Jack. In the rules, he is given a pluck of 2+, this means on an unmodified roll of 1d10, he is only failing on a 1. Indeed, he has talents that increase this even more, and this brings me to the issue that we had with this scenario in particular, and maybe the game in general. It was almost nigh on impossible to bring down Jack, and other minis in general.

Another slight issue we had was the interaction os S's flamethrower, and my armoured walker. However, this has been fixed in the errata, so no need to go on about it here.

One modification  would make to the rules would be with the volley fire rule. This states that models can club together their shooting to bring down heavily armoured targets, which it does. They give bonuses to hit, however, I could have had all my riflemen concentrate fire on Jack, and yes, they would have hit him every time, but they would have no greater chance of actually putting him down than one alone, as they do not actually modify his pluck roll by any more than one rifle would by itself. This goes for more than just the high Pluck models, anyone facing a volley fire, or for that matter an gang in hand-to-hand, should not only be easier to hit, but have a higher chance of taking more damage. Fortunately, this is a set of rules that encourages fiddling to make it work on your own gaming table, so that is what I will do.

In summary, we liked it. It was a lot of fun, and would benefit greatly from the players putting more effort into the scenario design. This time was just to get us to run through the rules, but if I planned another game (once I convince some of the locals to play) then I would sit down before hand and work through a scenario that fits the companies first. And if I were to replay Bad Jack, he would be very much nerfed!

As a final aside, S left me with a present in the form of the rules for Muskets and Tomahawks. A rules set  have been admiring from afar, but avoiding buying the minis for. Now, I really have no excuse not to. Do I? No, I didn't think so!

...off to buy Roger's Rangers and a bunch of Iroquois...

VASA: Major Kali

May was an okay month for painting,  ut a crap month for getting the posts out with what I've been doing. I think I may be stretched a little with the number of blogs I'm trying to cover on top of all the usual life stuff that insists on getting in the way of painting and blogging. May was also the second instalment of the WM/H league at my FLGS. I managed to play two games in total and painted up two minis for that. That aside, I have been distracted some very old minis I dug out for Void.

In part because of the Viridian Wars blog, and in part just because they are beautiful, and yet simple figures, these are what have been taking up my painting time.My post on Kali on that blog can be read here. It goes into different details that just the painting, so go check it out.

I am very happy with the way she has turned out, especially the two brush blending on the purple, and the way her hair is in the same colours, but clearly separate. I was uninspired by the base she is on, so I have prepped another, and will try to re-base her shortly.

Void 1.0: Viridian Nightshade.

My postings over at the Viridian Wars blog has got me back into painting some of my minis for the game. This is a limited edition miniature, released for Void 1.0. More info can be found on the mini and her background, both in and out of game in the post I made about her here. She's been hanging around in my lead pile since I brought her back from my parents attic a year ago.

Here, I'll just show pictures of the mini, so as not to duplicate the information posted elsewhere.

She came with a normal round 25mm base, which I decorated and painted to match the rest of my Viridians (as is the colour scheme for her uniform) and the second batch of I finished recently, even though her base is of a different diameter. I'm quite happy with how this base blends into the rest