Wooden Bases for Wood Bases

A lot of terrain needed to be slightly repaired after being removed from the vault.  This set of woods has been with me for more than two decades - and this is not the first time they've been remade with new materials after serving until they aren't so convincing models.  The last time I talked about them at the old club, they looked like this.

Low-altitude VTOL chases are daring ventures, indeed.

These trees are DEFINITELY not the same ones featured in those old pics, so at some point between here and there the trees were replaced with these conifers.

Come to think of it, I think these were once snowtopped - but were repainted.  You can still see some of the light snow coloring.  I guess it's some sort of spruce?  I don't know.  It's an alien Yule-tree.

Lizardmen are known to frequent marshes and bogs.  Always be prepared.

A few of these were early attempts at using water effects.  Scummy ponds and bogs are all over the woodlands.  I've still got most of a bottle of Woodland Scenics Realistic Water.  And a bottle of Water Effects.  

I'm going to need to use those on as many products as I can ... OR dispose of them, properly, if they are no longer able to serve their purpose due to some unseen deterioration.  We'll find out, I suppose.

Brave Republic Clone Troopers advance through the trees to assault the Separatist position.

These bases have been through the Eye of Terror all the way to Northern Russia.  Their bases are an eclectic mix of various sorts of detritus that have been used to repair them over the years...and I love them.  All I really did this time was clean a bit of the old turf off, replace any of the trees that had detached (all of them) and then I got lazy and just added new base material where it was needed.

I used a mix of flocks from different companies, and actually used my static grass applicator for what is basically the first time.  It was neat, but requires space and preparation to use.  These small patches of grass really didn't warrant it, I think.  Maybe I need to GIT GUD and then I'll know how to hold the stick or when in the build order statics are applied.

Maybe I'm thinking about it too hard.  Despite their haphazard and languorous journey, they serve perfectly well.  These bases aren't overwrought with various materials that require super-careful handling - they are meant to serve on the table proudly.  My best guess is, I cut that MDF board 22 years ago.

Still Lookin' for Goblins...

** The Mythic World of Urd Campaign Page **

The following entries are taken from GameDoc's session logs on our private social media.  These logs recount the last two sessions we've had, as I've not been taking care of the blog lately due to having gotten married to my longtime partner this week. I'll try to catch up, get current and add some cool other materials some of you may find interesting in the coming weeks.  Until then, here's me thanking GameDoc for allowing me to post his records here on the site!

Still Lookin' For Goblins (07/02/21)

The party continues to pursue the fleeing goblin deeper into the cave complex. Rounding a corner, they encounter a closed door. On the other side, Durgash can hear voices muttering in the goblin language, apparently berating the goblin they’ve been chasing.

Khaine opens to door to find a room full of hobgoblins and quickly slams it shut again. On the other side, they can now be heard shouting orders to form ranks and draw arrows. Khaine knocks the handle off the door with his warhammer and inserts one prong of his grappling hook into the hole. He then pulls the the rope taught and back down the hall, holding the door shut despite the efforts of the hobgoblins to open it from the other side.

The warriors of the party position themselves on either side of the door. Khaine let’s the rope go slack and the door opens. A round of combat follows in which the hobgoblins loose their arrows before Khaine pulls the door shut again. All is calm for a moment until they hear the sound of an axe chopping on the other side of the door. 

Khaine again let’s the rope go slack. Roderick opens the door and attempts to wrest a hatchet away from a hobgoblin, but to no avail. The hobgoblins crowd the door so the party can enter and melee ensues. Both Durgash and Harald are seriously wounded, but the clerics are able to keep them alive.

Khaine managed to snag one of the hobgoblins with his grappling hook and prevent it from engaging in the fight. As hobgoblins being falling to the attacks of the party, some of them lose morale and flee to the back of the room. Ultimately, Khaine’s grappled one is the only hobgoblin left. The party decided to leave the caves with their prisoner.

Before returning to the castle, Harald interrogates the hobgoblin, threatening to hang him if he doesn’t give satisfactory answers. The hobgoblin is dodgy (as goblins tend to be) but informs them that his warband has not only a war captain, but a “booyagh” (goblin sorcerer) and a shaman that divines the will of the Troll King, the exiled archfey that goblins serve. He knows that someone (but not specifically who) has bargained with the Troll King to have this band of goblins clear the forest of humans, dwarves, and the like, and occupy it. He also knows the booyagh has some sort of lab where fire is forbidden. Harald surmised it may contain black powder from the dwarven mine.

Celestina suggests that they hand the hobgoblins over to the wizard Olivier to future aid in his studies of goblin magic. They return to the castle and hand him over to Olivier and then take their rest in the Canopies.

The next day, they receive an invitation to meet with a representative of the castellan. They arrive at the inn and are lead to a private dining hall where they meet the castellan’s chief advisor, Marevak, and aged and battle scarred elf. He inquires about their recent adventures. Since the castellan can spare no soldiers to help them, he offers access to the armory if they need additional armor or weapons and asks that they keep him updated as to what they discover. He will provide additional aid if he can think of anything else.

(Backdated) Pick a Cave, Any Cave (07/16/21)

WHERE ARE THE BUGBEARS?

Durgash and Harald decides that before setting out again, it’s time to buy some firearms. Although the party has been given access to the castellan’s armory, they are not allowed to requisition guns, powder, or explosives.

The party approaches the Irongrit dwarves that are staying in the inn. The dwarves inquire as to their progress on reclaiming their sulfur mine, and the party explains they think there’s a connection between the bugbears who overtook the mine and the goblin activity in the forest. The dwarves have only a limited supply of powder and firearms but sell what they can to Durgash and Harald and the party decides to investigate the mine next.

Rather than travel at length through the forest again, they he’s super the trade-way until they encounter a checkpoint manned by the castellan’s soldiers. They are warned that if they travel farther up the road, they will inevitably be set upon by orcs. Fortunately, from this point they can head into the forest and straight to the mine.

The Roadblock and the Goblin Caves...

After entering the forest, the party encounters a group of centaurs. The centaurs are from further west. Several days ago, a unicorn was spotted in their territory.  Their tribe’s elders took it as an omen of something important to come and instructed a small group of scouts to follow it and see where it led. It led them to this part of the forest, where they discovered the human inhabitants gone and goblins everywhere. 

The centaurs have fought and killed a number of goblins and hobgoblins and are preparing to return home and report wha they have learned. They offer to travel to the mine entrance with the party in case there are more goblins about, but surmise they are too big to actually enter the mine and be of any help. At the entrance to the mine, the party and the centaurs part ways with an agreement to help each other against the goblins in the future if needed.

Inside the mine, the party finds not bugbears, but kobolds. The kobolds are not hostile and engage in careful dialogue with their visitors before sending for their leader, a kobold named Who (Q: Who’s in charger here? A:Yes he is). 

"Who's in charge here?" Harald belted out with as much authority as he could muster.
   "Yes, he is." the kobolds replied.
"I said I want to talk to the Honcho.  Who's your Honcho?" Harald asked again, bemoaning the language barrier.
"Yes, do you know him?" the tiny creatures replied, half-timidly.

Kobolds are creatures of the underworld and they are not in the mine willingly. It seems that the goblin faction, along with a pack of gnolls, invaded their underworld lair and captured their queen, Ligeia. They kobolds are being forced to mine sulfur for the goblins to ensure the safety of their queen. They didn’t take part in driving out the dwarves. The mine was empty when they arrived. They mine sulfur and every few days a group of goblins or bugbears show up to collect a load.

"Yep.  Here's a good spot to watch."

The kobolds agree to not interfere with the party’s campaign against the goblins, but will not rebel or stop mining until they know their queen is safe. The party agrees to try and locate and free their queen.

The party camps out near the mine and sets a watch over the entrance, planning to ambush the next group of goblinoids that come to collect a load. Jessup is ordered to take a position during the ambush but refuses, reminding them that he’s been hired as a valet and nothing else. However he’s open to renegotiating his role and his salary when they get back to the keep.

Sung to the tune of "Rappin'".

After a day and a half, a group of bugbears shows up with two human captives pulling a cart. Harald lobs a bomb at them, but it has little effect on the brutes. However, Celestina is able to put them to sleep and the rest of the party performs a series of coup-de-grace. 

It's not that Harald was trying to kill the prisoners.  It's just that he thought they might die.

The two human captives turn out to be a forester and a former caravan guard. The guard, Dominik, was captured along the trade way during an orc ambush. He is willing to hire on as a henchman if they’ll give him a few days to recuperate and help him arm himself. The two freed captives explain that they were held by hobgoblins and then handed over to the bugbears for the day to haul sulfur back to the hobgoblin lair.

The party hauls the dead bugbears a distance away so that it will appear they never made it to the mine and the kobolds won’t be suspected of anything. They the head back towards the edge of the forest. Along the way they encounter a giant kind of spider called a tarantella. The spider does not appear hostile but Celestina deduces it has a magical nature, so the party elects to kill it and take it to the wizard Olivair to see if it can be harvested or traded for magical items. Fortunately, they quickly gain the upper hand on the creature and kill it.

As they reach the keep, severs questions remain to be answered:

• Where is Ligeia, the kobolds’ queen, being held?
• Where are the gnolls that aided in capturing her?
• How did a captive of an orc raid on a caravan wind up in the hands of the goblins?
• Do the bugbears have a separate lair from the hobgoblins and goblins?
• After spending so much time around sulfur the past two days, can everyone get the rotten egg smell out of their clothing?

Starting with Stargrave (or: How to Get Space-Money)

Stargrave is a new game from Osprey Games, and is one of the latest offerings from the prolific Joseph A. McCullough.  I was lucky enough to get my copy several weeks back, and I've been from one cover to the other checking out the sci-fi goodness.  I am a big fan of all of Joseph's games, which include Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Oathmark and Ghost Archipelago.  The rulesets are elegant, but with plenty of room to expand.  It also helps it's based on a D20, which helps the D&D crowd relate.

Stargrave follows the same vein as Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago.  You choose a Captain and First Mate, then recruit a crew of up to 8 other models.  The rules of the game and the stats of the models are the same as those games, and you choose Powers for your character models based on sci-fi abilities and technology rather than spells or magic.  The game itself is heavily scenario-based, and like it's brethren-in-print is designed for campaign play.  The campaign systems in these games alone make it worth the buy, just to see how it was done.

I was very excited to get ahold of this one.  In anticipation, I really scoured the model range for Stargrave, as three new plastic sets from North Star Military Figures hit with the release.  All three of these - Crew, Mercenaries and Troopers - are fantastic sets, especially if you are just starting a sci-fi miniatures collection.  If you're not familiar with North Star, get that way.  They have tons of awesome plastic box sets for all kinds of troops and / or kitbashes.

One thing I noticed was that Stargrave pretty much takes the ball from Rogue Stars as Osprey's go-to sci-fi game.  It's not that Rogue Stars is an inferior system at all, but Stargrave has more content right from the start.  In addition, the systems are very different beasts and serve different audiences.  Stargrave's system is easier for casual gamers to pick up, as Rogue Stars has some advanced wargame conventions that can confuse new players pretty easily.  I pretty much confirmed this when I saw the few metal minis North Star had released under the Rogue Stars line had been moved to Stargrave.

My problem with Stargrave is that I wasn't sure where it was going to fit in my gaming curriculum.  I am making a move back to narrative gaming mostly, and with my player groups I want to make sure I don't provide too jarring of an experience moving between systems, settings and games.  Unlike Frostgrave, to me, Stargrave didn't stand well enough on it's own considering my sci-fi settings are Star Wars and Warhammer 40,000.  It didn't have a distinct setting, the minis are great but kind of generic (as they are supposed to be - that's a good thing).

The fantastic campaign system begs to be used in just about any sci-fi milieu, however.  We can easily approximate any number of settings with this game, and I can report there has been interest in both a 40k-themed and Star Wars-themed campaigns of Stargrave.  Therefore, instead of embarking on a new project entirely like I did with Frostgrave, with Stargrave we'll be using the campaign system in other settings, with all kinds of different models.

One thing this is prompting me to do is sort out all my random sci-fi minis according to their setting.  Right now I have several cases of miniatures that have no defined system as home. These are random minis I've picked up, made, converted and been gifted I had no place in any army or game schema - until now.  It's finally time to sort them into "40k-style" or "Star Wars-style".  They are currently scattered among several cases, labeled things like "Sci-Fi Heroes", "Sci-Fi Future Wars", "Antares - Concord"...and even one labeled "Stargrave I" with nothing inside it.

Nothing like being able to find the exact mini you're looking for and only having to dig through five to ten cases because your miniature storage filing system is working.