October gaming

While I did not have much time to paint or work on terrain over the past few months, I actually did get a lot of gaming in.

I started a Frostgrave campaign with my son last month and got a couple more games in this month. He's playing an Illusionist and I am an Elementalist. He was whooping me but I've started to catch up.

Here he is looking incredulous that I actually won initiative for once...

I also played in a 3-day Mordheim campaign with a bunch of friends out in Arizona. When I was younger I tried to get in games at the local game shop with friends a couple of times a month, and it was possible to play campaigns this way.

These days, everyone's busy and it's tough to get together regularly even with my local gaming buddies. It's impossible with friends spread all over the country!

So, every year or so we try to get together for a long weekend of gaming. I was a little skeptical about going to my buddy's place in AZ because he didn't have any models or terrain (a slight problem).

However, I was able to fit enough Mordheim warbands for 8 players in my carry-on luggage, and he was able to crank out enough terrain for multiple tables in just a few weeks!

This was a MAJOR gaming coup!!!

Everyone had a blast and he won with his Dark Elves.

Got to get me one of these temples! It was a great find at an aquarium store. Perfect for Frostgrave or Mordheim.

After we wrapped up the Mordheim campaign we played a quick one-day campaign of Frostgrave. It worked out well as I got to try out a different warband than the Elementalist I've been playing against my son. We did a Necromancer vs. a Chronomancer.

The Necromancer Bone Darted his way to victory and got an early lead, which just increased after each game... campaign balance can definitely be an issue in this game system!

It's a fun game though and I've started to like it more as I've gotten more games in. Playing Mordheim was great too though and made me realize that whatever new and shiny system comes out, I will always get the itch to go back and play a Mordheim campaign every now and then!

October terrain

I did manage to complete a few terrain pieces over the last couple of months. I started them in August but just got them done this month since I haven't made too much time to work on them.

I built and painted this colonial church for French & Indian War games. It is an O-scale model railroad building.

It looks OK from the outside. Not great but it was a quick paint job, and I didn't do the interior, although the roof does come off so you can place models inside.

The base I put it on is larger than the footprint of the building, so I think I have to add some landscaping around the building. Probably just some low bushes or flowers would make it look much better.

This house was also an O scale train kit. It came preassembled though, and was even painted. The paint job looked too bright and "plastic-ey" though, so I weathered it with some washed and drybrushed the roof.

This one and a few others I have will be used for the more urban areas in FIW games. It's definitely a nice house, not something you'd find in a clearing in the woods on the frontier. Maybe outside Quebec or Albany. There is a 28mm Conquest British Regular on the porch for scale.

Here is what they look like off the shelf.

This is a corn field I'd been meaning to do for months. I found a plastic plant at IKEA that looked like it's leaves could be used as corn stalks, so picked up a few. These plants should be honored that they sat in the pile for under a year! I spaced out the plants enough so that I can place models in the field.

The field itself looks OK, not exactly like corn but passable. It needs a border though. In hindsight I wish I would have modeled some walls or fences around the edge of the base. I will definitely be using some free-standing walls around it when I use it on the table; it makes it look a lot better.

There's a 28mm Conquest Indian in the last shot for scale.

Finally, I finished a hill that I started years ago. This is a strange shape for a hill, but it's a very specific hill! I built this to go on top of another hill which is built into a table I made a few years ago. The table has a cliff overlooking a beach, and I made buildings to represent the ruined city of Tulum to go with it. This hill goes in the corner and is where the "Temple of the Wind" would sit. Now, I have to build the Temple of the Wind!

I might bring up the whole table from the basement since I've been playing a lot of Frostgrave lately, and a ruined temple city would be nice to fight over.

Halloween! October painting...

Halloween! My favorite holiday! Unfortunately I've been so busy the past few months I did not get to host my usual Halloween Party this year...

The party wasn't the only victim of my crazy schedule over the past few months - I haven't updated this blog in over a month! Which is just as well, since the point of the blog was to keep a log of my painting progress... and there has not been much of this.

I did get a few models done though. These are the last of my Compagnies Franche de la Marine. I had originally planned to finish these 7 models in September as part of my "10 models a month" goal, but only the 3 Reaper models got done.

So with these being the only models done this month, I've put myself at quite a deficit. I am down 7 from September and now down 3 this month... I'm still optimistic though that I can finish the year at or above my target of 120 models.

The plan is to focus on Fantasy models for the rest of the year instead of French & Indian War. I would love to get my Rangers and Grenadiers done for the Brits, but it ain't gonna happen! Those models are too detailed to finish quickly.

I dug through my huge pile of Reaper Bones models (a sub-pile of the lead pile?) and tried to pick out a bunch that could be used to represent the creatures on the random encounter table in Frostgrave. The first supplement is due out in November, and I haven't even finished painting the models for the first book!

Anyway - I think a lot of these models can be painted very quickly. Limited details, not many colors. I spent the last couple nights basing them up and getting them ready. Now I just have to paint 'em!

The only problem is that I also promised my son I would get his Carnosaur model painted for this year's big Warhammer Fantasy game. We play a big game every year at Christmas, no points values, everything on the table! I really have no desire to be working on this guy, but a promise is a promise...