More Sculpting Fun

 I have been sculpting constantly since I started, with breaks on non-work days and occasional delays due to stiffness in my hands and wrist (likely due to the sculpting). I've got a few themes going on of late, as having a theme helps me get into the creative side of things.

The first row of figures represents a few of the aliens that I am working on for my 15mm scifi stuff. These are all Representative of scifi non-combat personalities. The left hand figure is an attempt at making a non-humanoid alien that was not frightening in its appearance. When he is finished he will have some sort of accessories or tech on him. The fellow in the middle started out as an "Alien Panhandler" but ended up looking like a "Space Monk". He has a particularly Jim Hensen look to him. I blame too many episodes of Fraggle Rock. The last figure, missing his arms and the rest of his clothes is an attempt at doing a more action-posed figure. He is in a full on run and will be useful as some sort of objective marker like a bounty or spy or some such. I am continuing the theme of aliens and hope to continue to create an ever-growing number of spaceport denizens ala Star Wars. Only the one in the center is finished.

The next row of figures are for 28mm scale. The two pics on the left are a WIP of a small troll figure. He is hunched over a sack, coveting its contents. I have yet to sculpt his arms and the hair that will cover his head. I plan to use him as an objective marker in some "Saga" play historical Dark Ages gaming.

The figure on the right is a dwarf to go along with my 28mm Vikings. He is not a dwarf in the fantasy sense but a dwarfed human. Unfortunately my camera has drown out his grizzled old features. He too will be used in the "Saga" historical games which will incorporate minor legendary and mythic elements.

I am still learning a lot as I go along and have had a few setbacks as I tried to run before I could even crawl, figuratively speaking. Those of you who have expressed an interest in being able to buy the Uhul miniatures will be interested to know that I have submitted them for consideration by 15mm.co.uk for possible inclusion in their SHM (Self Help Miniatures) miniatures.line. I am waiting to hear back from them, but if they like them, and the figures are are able to be cast, they will be available for purchase. Here's crossing my fingers.

Take care and Happy New Years!

-Eli

Christmas Report

Santa was good to me this year. In addition to various other goods and goodies, I got some real gems. With everyone mellowing out after a late night and the flood of gift-giving, I thought I would take a moment to share some of my spoils with you.

A buddy in my gaming group who does a lot of thrift store shopping and always makes really good scores found a copy of the D&D Basic set in really good condition. The box is a bit dinged but the content are barely even cracked. It include a perfect copy of the rule book as well as a lovely complete B2. The only thing missing from the box would appear to be the original D10 and the crayon.

The Fiend Folio is another nice gift from the same friend. It's in perfect condition. I already had one, my original copy from back in the day, but it was worn, dirty, marked in and just generally loved. Fiend Folio holds a special place ion my heart as it was the very first D&D product I owned.

The styro cutter is something I have been wanting for a long time. This will come in handy working on the various foam board projects I'm been wanting to do but just never had the right tool to get started. I've have great access to foam insulation board, but no way to cut it effectively! Now I do.

Muwahahahahaha!

The last really noteworthy items are a pare of Alien Legion trade paperbacks. The first is Volume 1 of the Omnibus Edition of the series. I loved this series when it came out. I read it and gamed it using a variation of the D6 Star Wars system back in the day. I wish I still had the pages upon pages of new characters that my friends and I made up for our gaming enjoyment. Alas, I was never one of those organized people who still has tons of stuff from their childhood and youth. The Tenants of Hell trade paperback combines the original materials from the Tenants of Hell mini series and the Jugger Grimrod one-off.

On a side-note, I am considering an Alien Legion port of the Stars Without Number system. The Old School feel of those rules and the detailed sci  fi setting materials seems perfect for as wide open a setting as Alien Legion was.

I hope everyone else had as fun a Christmas as I did. Everyone ended up thrilled with their gifts this year and I don't think we had a single dud under the tree.

Merry Christmas everyone!

-Eli

Merry Christmas From The Adventuring Emu

Hey all,

Thanks for making it yet another fun-filled year. Though things have slowed down around ISLP, you have stuck with me and continue to visit, despite fewer postings making it on to the blog.

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and that Santa brings you everything you wanted and perhaps a few things you never thought you'd want but realize they are awesome just the same (those are best for me).

Have fun and stay safe!

-Eli

Reinforcements Arrived

The miniatures hobby is not dead at ISLP. In fact I continue to support ongoing projects as well as new ones. Among some of the more recent arrivals are the above three boxes of AT-43 TacArms that will be joining forces with my other TacArms miniatures after being converted to 15mm combat walkers. You may recall these walkers from a post done ages ago  where I talked about these conversions, but I've included a quick reference pic just the same.

I have also received several plastic Wargames Factory Saxons which I am converting for use as Vikings. These are receiving some green stuff hair and beard enhancements to make them look a little more Scandinavian and less Anglo-Saxon. I would have ordered actual Viking figs, but they were horribly back-ordered. To help with their conversion, I also picked up a lot of 40 round shields on EBay.

Fun stuff to work on.

-Eli

Video Games as RPG Settings - Joust

I'm sure we have all done it before - taken a video game and worked it into an RPG or let it inspire us in our game play. For me one of these games is Joust.

Though Joust is just a side-view action game the graphic elements paint a rather vivid fantasy setting to build from. In the game you have floating islands of rock suspended above molten lava. Battling in this skyscape you have valiant knights mounted on flying ostriches which must be magical as ostriches are flightless birds. These knights fight evil knight mounted on giant vultures who have a form of reincarnation as they respawn from eggs that are cast off when they die.

Menacing this environment are a giant pterosaurs that swoops through, attacking those foolish enough to end up in its way. Add to this the lurking trolls that inhabit the molten lava below, ready to reach out and snatch those foolish enough to fly too low.

So, how does one create a setting for a game out of this? I'm sure the creators of the setting had some sort of vague back story to it all, but I'll be damned if I know what it is nor do I really care. This project is about developing a setting of my own inspired by the video game.

The aerial elements for this setting immediately conjure up for me an elemental concept. Perhaps the Joust RPG setting can exist in some sort of demi-plane suspended in and around the various elemental planes. In this realm, various elemental forces collide and meld to create the strange phenomenas such as floating rocks and flying ostriches. I shall call this realm, Haraz.

SETTING

Haraz has existed as its own space for eons and is populated by a race of man-like beings who for all intents and purposes are humans. These men have no special abilities other than an affinity for the realm that they call home. They are reliant on their special mounts to traverse the multi-levelled regions of Haraz or other such things as flying ships and other magical conveyances which are easily engineered in this realm due to its close connection with the Elemental Plane of Air.

Kingdoms in Haraz are made up of collections of larger and smaller pieces of floating land where communities and strongholds are built. In some areas, these rocky air islands exist near enough to one another to be connected by bridges and causeways. This is how larger communities and cities are created. These communities are often surrounded by walls for both defense and the safety of their inhabitants. Poorer or smaller communities will often use wood or rope barriers instead.

Agriculture is maintained in areas where water trickles in, not through natural streams and aquifers but as incursions into this elemental melting pot by forces from the Elemental Plane of Water. Grains and fruits are grown in orchards and fields fed directly by these water sources or, in more developed regions, by magnificent aqueducts which also serve as causeways for grounded travel between islands. Herds of animals are almost unknown in Haraz as livestock bigger than a pig or goat requires too much space to maintain. Instead meat is acquired through the hunting of the various wild beasts that populate the skies of Haraz.

Flocks of birds, schools of strange skyfish and even pods of lumbering sky whales provide ample opportunity for hunting and skyfishing. Air boats and sky ships ply the skies harpooning, netting and otherwise catching these creatures. This can be dangerous work as the skies are also home to dangerous beasts such as the parapus and the great terrorsaurs.

Bellow all of this are the vast magma seas where Elemental Fire and Earth meet and meld into a bubbling, roiling flow of hot death. Known as The Flow, this inferno is home to its own creatures, most of which are avoided as certain death but with a few just valuable enough to temp Haraz's inhabitants down to attempt their capture or kill. Most notable among The Flow's inhabitants are the great lava trolls, humongous beasts which lay in wait to reach up and drag unsuspecting or foolish prey down to a fiery doom.

SKY KNIGHTS

Defending the realm of Haraz are various orders of Sky Knights. These brave souls are part noble warrior part aerial daredevil and only they have the skill and spirit to ride the strange Aerstriches - strange ostriches possessing the power of flight.

Sky knights have several ranks through which they move as they grow in skill and notoriety. Errants are the most common and in some ways the most important of these ranks. They are young, brave and more numerous than more senior knights and tasked with venturing far and wide through the skies of Haraz where they serve the folk and seek adventure. In many ways these Sky Knights Errant are the only Sky Knights that the common denizens of Haraz will ever encounter and often serve as messengers from the larger communities and kingdoms as well as add-hock law officials.

Above the Errants are the Lancers who form units of cavalry housed at strongholds. These warriors are more militant, having mastered their mounts and worked out their wild  Errant spirit. They have begun to train in the arts of warfare and stand ready to defend the Realm of Haraz and their kingdoms. Lancers are often deployed to meet substantial threats within the borders of Haraz and often hold fealty to a particular realm withing the demi-plane.

The highest massed order of Sky Knights are the High Shields. These warriors have demonstrated their mastery in personal combat and warfare alike and have gained experience through decades of service in the realm. These warriors form an elite core, held in reserve at the courts of the various lords of Haraz's many kingdoms. They ride out only in defense of their kingdoms.

Game Mechanics: Sky Knights could easily be done as fighters or paladins in most game systems. Fighter types would be strictly militant warriors while Paladins might be tweaked to reflect a certain elemental flare as opposed to a traditional divine warrior. It might also work to have some sky knights built as Rangers, especially those who decide to maintain their careers as Errants and never enter the higher orders of knighthood.

NEXT TIME

Next time I'll look into the various creatures and threats to be found within Haraz as well as a sample realm or two.

I hope you have enjoyed the start of my interpretation of the Joust video game as an RPG setting.

Take care,

-Eli

I've started another OSR game recently. This time I'm playing with my oldest daughter, her dad (she's a step-child, technically), and his girlfriend. Overall this is a group put together for her benefit with the adults being there to back her up.

Anyhow, the first adventure I ran them out on, I decided to go big and have fun with a serious dungeon crawl. I went with this map (shown right) that I found on A Character for Every Game. This is an amazing dungeon with a lot of interesting character and some complex twists and turns.

As of the end of the first sessions they had entered the dungeon through stairs at the middle of the lower part of the map and fought their way past the hobgoblins, goblins, and kobolds that were standing guard in that first cluster of rooms. They barricaded the well after hobgoblin reinforcements tried coming up it and had just headed westward where they encountered an ogre supported by a shaman.

We had to end there but we had a great time and using this wonderful map made my job as DM all the more entertaining.

Game on!

-Eli

WIP Dropship Conversion

I cranked this quick kitbash out while ago. After spending an eternity trying to find a good sized Batman Tumbler that I could easily cannibalize, I pulled the upper shell off and proceeded to slap this and that onto it. The engines are various prescription bottles. The overall vehicle includes kid's candy dispensers, 15mm WW2 weapons and assorted straws, tubes and other bits and pieces. It should be noted that this is before I paint it and that it is not a solid construction. It will never hold up to close scrutiny of close inspection, but it will look good sitting on the table.

The ship is supposed to represent an armored dropship or lander of some sort, perhaps even a mercenary/pirate pinnace or similar type of ship. The oddly angled rocket pods are supposed to be remote rocket mortars for supporting troops as they disembark from the ship. The figures shown are three of 15mm.uk's space mercenary figures.

 Enjoy,

-Eli

Brytenwalda - New Free Dark Ages Skirmish Game

So, I got scooped on this by Chad over at Maximum Rock & Role-Play but I figured it was worth commenting on just the same. Brytenwalda, written by Victor Gondra, came up as my buddy Chuck and I were searching for free rules sets to use while scratching an itch for some 28mm Dark Ages wargaming (more on that when I have something to report). Downloaded, printed, and skimmed through the system looks pretty cool. The basic rules (17 pages of actual rules) are written with the Age of Arthur in mind, operating on a warband scale. This is not army on army but more like armed bands duking it out over parcels of land and the like.

Presented here is a brief, at-a-a-glance review of the rules. I feel obligated to say that I have yet to play these rules and so this is solely based on reading through the rules. 

Unit Statistics

Stats are kept simple and abstracted - Movement, Combat, Defence, Quality, Talents, and Solidus. The first four (M,C, D, C) are all qualitative scores expressing the relative combat ability of the troop type. It should be noted that there are only two stat lines in the game conscript or veteran with all units having one or the other. These are given more character through the use of talents.

Talents are where some of the less mathematical qualities of the troops come into play. These abilities are expressions of abilities and equipment of the troop type such as shields brutality, ferocity, etc. Each of these talents is either a prerequisite for some sort of rule, a modifier to a rule, or a rule in itself. As an example, only troops and characters with the shields talent can form shield walls.

The last is Solidus (S) which is less a game stat and more a points cost. It's name comes from a form of currency used during the age and adds a nice bit of character to building a warband as you now get the idea of the financial cost outlay your warlord is looking at.

Warband Structure

Warbands are built up from four neat and tidy army lists (they cover two pages) offering Romano-British, Saxon, Scots-Irish, and Picts. These provide the ratios and the talents associated with particular units.

Units in Brytenwalda take the form of one of four types depending on their size - team (3), group (6), band (9), and horde (12). Units are made up of one of either conscripts or veterans. Further classifications as infantry, archers, or cavalry, heroes and chieftains are also used.

System

Brytenwalda has the usual sorts of rules for hand to hand and shooting. The initiative system is not "I go/You go" but rather a reciprocal sort of affair. The player who wins initiative that turn gets to move a unit, then his opponent, rinse and repeat.

There are some fun bits of character to the system such as linked shooting and the ability to add pressure to a defeated unit to help push it into retreat, but the most interesting thing in the system for me is the command rules that require units to receive orders to do things in the game.

The order rules are pretty cool, requiring you to issue commands to units. But it is not a given that a unit will respond properly to these commands and as such a comprehension check is required otherwise the unit continues acting on its last orders. This adds a cool fog of war element.

Scenarios

Brytenwalda is a scenario-driven game and come equipped with six canned scenarios. The following scenarios are included, each with their own sets of special rules and victory conditions -

1. Pitched Battle - A straight up fight
2. Loot and Plunder - Attacker must sack an objective location.
3. Bridgehead - A king of the hill scenario.
4. Relic Raiders - A loot race scenario.
5. Ambush - Nuff said!
6. Kidnapping - Like Loot and Plunder with the objective being a person in the building.

Scenario play is complimented by a simple campaign system that provides methods for linking scenarios, determining the fate of fallen unit and heroes as well as the spoils of war, replacing lost warriors and improving your warband . There is also a system for "Glory and Renown" which allows units to get special campaign-related abilities.

Creating New Units and Warbands

Even this small set of rules includes an appendix which provides points and guidelines for creating new troop types for use in the published warbands or for creating new types of warbands. The nice thing about this points system, unlike some systems allow for build your own units, is it is also the the system used for the published units. This is all done in the spirit of allowing you expand Brytenwalda to include units and warbands not covered in the rules or even in the Arthurian Age at all.

Conclusion

I really like the look of these rules. They are a good set for just throwing some miniatures down without being cold and academic. They allow for character on the table, though not so much that play should be bogged down. Also the inclusion of sample scenarios, campaign system, and unit construction rules is a HUGE plus for me.

Take care all,

-Eli

ArmChairGeneral: WTNW Core II FINAL!

At long last. After a year of everyone putting their hard work into it the When the Navy Walked Core II final edition is done!!! There is a color and a black and white pdf that I will be putting up for download on Wargamevault soon. In addition, BOTH the color and the b&w versions will be available for print on demand thanks to the efforts of our illustrious graphics layout guru! The final version of WTNW Core II features stunning original artwork by Eli Arndt and Arsenale Shipworks, full color photo spreads of VSF games in progress, a full 10 army lists depicting all of the great powers (except Japan), Quick Reference and Command Point Expenditure sheets, alphabetized Edges and Flaws and the History of the When the Navy Walked alternate Earth setting!

Read More: ArmChairGeneral: WTNW Core II FINAL!

ArmChairGeneral: WTNW - Conflict on Mars Scenarios

We have some exciting news here at ACG!

There will be two versions of the book available for download from the wargamevault site, one black and white giving the game a more rustic look and one color version. The color version will also be available as a print-on-demand! Both versions feature the full rules and original artwork Quick Reference Charts and Army Turn Tracker charts to maintain your command point expenditures. This final version of the Core II rules has 10 army lists including Two British, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, French, CSA, USA and the Turks! It also includes the army build system and a blank army roster that you can photocopy at the back of the book.

Read More!

ArmChairGeneral: WTNW - Conflict on Mars Scenarios

Sculpting Pics

I have been trucking along, but I am afraid that I cannot seem to make pieces that look as good in pictures as they do in person. I'll post them her with the one sugestion that you try not to view these too big. I'm not trying to hide anything, but blowing the pictures up too much really doesn't do my amatuerish sculpts much justice.




Uhul (Owl Humanoids) - Warrior, Chief, Warrior, Warior