Pootling Around in Felstadt

 Hi!

I've been humming and hahing about Frostgrave for a while now. On the one hand, it's been around for a while and gets a lot of support, be it supplements, new miniatures and lots of folks playing it. On the other, I'm not sure I want to play the actual game as its just not quite my cup of tea. I'd prefer to have a more Mordheim style sort of a thing that doesn't focus quite so much on the mad wizards blasting each other with spells.

What I do like is the background that's lightly touched on, that a previously lost city has been rediscovered and bands of adventurers flock to it to explore and plunder the place.

I'm thinking of doing a somewhat toned down version with my bold adventuring party, led by Miss Fisher delving into the forgotten ruins in search of lost relics of a previous epoch and fighting all manner of villains, scoundrels and monsters!

I don't know if it's going to be set in the frozen wastes of Felstadt or in the post apocalyptic ruins of Aeroth or even the stinking boggy mess of Stump but I think it could be quite a fun mini project, especially if I use Brutalquest as my ruleset and build some characters loosely based on the Miss Fisher Mysteries, much as I did with my Inquisitorial team for Rogue Trader.

With this in mind, I nipped to my local model shop and picked up a box of Frostgrave Soldiers and have put the first sprue together to create a bunch of mercenary types to use as friend or foes for Miss Fisher.

I'll post some pics of my progress in the next couple of days but the figures are just what I needed to get out of my hobby slump as they are really easy and fun to paint, especially as I picked up a couple of Army Painter Speed Paints 2.0 at the same time which I've found to be really handy in getting figures done quickly but still looking good!

Once I've got the first five done, I'll post my thoughts on them and see how the project proceeds!

In the meantime, All the best!

Richard's Wargaming Remedy

 Hi!

I've been having a bit of a ponder upon my recent hobby block and have sat down and written up a list of what has worked for me and what succeeded in getting me back into the swing of things.

Here's the list as it stands:

Use 28mm Scale. It's got the largest selection and while it's getting more expensive, there's still a lot of pretty cheap but characterful figures to be found. While I do love 15mm, it just lacks the character of the larger figures and I've been really struggling to paint the smaller scale stuff lately.

Use Planet 28, Brutalquest or my own hodgepodge ruleset. They're rulesets I've used for all sorts of games and are easy to play and great fun without a tomes worth of rules, tables and gumf.

Low figure count is king! The above rules only require a handful of figures a side be it 2-4 heroes or villains or a small group of goons and underlings. This allows me to create a warband quickly and easily and lessens the perils of hobby burnout.

Make games strongly narrative! Make the games a loose ongoing campaign but don't get too bogged down by the details. A game should be fun but not be a slave to making sure all the details are stuck to.

Strong visual element! Allow me to use my creativity to flesh out the setting, characters and narrative of the whole thing. This is a really enjoyable part of the game, drawing character portraits and whatnot.

Space is Limited! My gaming space is at most 3'x3' but at present my gaming table is packed away so 2'x2' or even my pinboard board size should still make for engaging and enjoyable games.

Budget! Get the most you can get out of a tiny budget. £15 a month should be ample.

With all this in mind, I think I'm going to re-investigate Inquisitor Fisher and her retinue. I'm thinking of finishing off her retinue and other characters but want to recreate other iterations of her in fantasy, historical and whatnot.

She's based on Miss Phryne Fisher from the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries that we binge watched during the lockdowns and has a host of brilliant characters that could be easily be transferred into other settings and I'm rather keen to bring her back to the centre of my gaming as she's somewhat a totem of a brilliant series of games that I played over the course of years!

I've also been playing The Wandering Library of late which is a roll and write solo rpg which I've then built up into a scrapbook of sorts which has been rather fun too so I'm planning on doing this to create a journal for my adventures.

I'm going to be doing a bit of a rummage of my collection to see what the state of my sci-fi stuff is and see what I've got and what I still need to work on before moving onto either fantasy or 1920's pulp. 

Hopefully I'll put together an update soon with some further musings but in the meantime, Thanks for reading my ramblings and all the best!

Kind of Stuck

 Hi!

Apologies for the lack of updates but I seem to have got myself into one of my occasional hobby slumps where I just can't seem to find anything that I want to sit down and paint.

I've picked up and put down a ton of different things but can't seem to find anything thats really getting my attention or indeed interest which is most infuriating but something that does seem to happen from time to time.

While miniature gaming has kind of left me cold, I've been enjoying pottering around with some solo rpg's which is giving me a bit of creative freedom but I do wonder if I need to have a bit of a small gaming project that will get me back into the swing of things.

Over the last few years I've been more than happy going my own way which has been awesome fun but I do think that a bit more focus on a small project could be just what I need to rekindle the wargaming side of my hobby.

I'll have a rummage and see what I've got that could possibly do the job but I'm currently unsure what to do!

Fingers crossed, I'll get myself sorted out and post without a months delay but in the meantime, all the best!

The Lurgy Strikes Back!

 Hi!

I've been feeling decidedly rough over the last few days and have just been sent home from work as I was feeling (and apparently looking!) awful. I'd thought I'd just got a cold but when I described how I felt, one of our customers suggested it might be covid. 

When I got home I rummaged out the test kit and lo and behold I do seem to have the dreaded lurgy!

Sadly, I'm not feeling up to doing much but I have managed to get some more drawing done for my Stump project over the last week or so with a selection of character sketches and vignettes of the world of Stump so I figured I'd post them up here:

Assorted denziens of Stump

I'm not sure I'm going to be getting much done today but we'll see how things go...

The world of Stump

In the meantime, All the best!

Inspiration Overload

 Hi!

We've got a guest coming to stay tomorrow so I've spent much of this last week clearing out our spare room/man cave/library and am desperately trying to avoid spotting yet more projects that I want to start up or re-explore as I see more fascinating books that I had forgotten that we owned.

I have managed to get some more doodling and inspiration materials from a recent visit to Hawkstone Park in Shropshire. Its a mad collection of 18th century follies, hills, caves and possibly ancient copper mines. Handily it also has more than its fair share of interesting stumps too!

Not only that, there's some really interesting cave faces that look like they may actually be inhabited by tiny people too:

I've also picked up a sprue of Perry British Napoleonic riflemen, Wargames Atlantic riflemen and some Warlord armoured Saxons and have begun the rather fun process of kitbashing some suitable figures that I'll try and get painted once our guest has left.

I'm rather excited to crack on with the project and see where it goes but I don't want to abandon some of the other bits and bobs I've got kicking around so I may end up switching between projects to stop myself from getting bored or the dreaded loss of hobby mojo!

I doubt I'll be posting again before next weekend but in the meantime, All the best!

Stump 28

 Hi!

We've returned from our hols down in Shropshire and I'm feeling rather inspired to crack on with a bit of a project related to my last post.

I've been trying to get some sketching done and have begun putting together some of the vague concepts I've got floating around in my head that I want to try and develop out a bit.

The world of Stump was once a planet spanning forest, each tree unimaginably vast but this verdant wonder is no more. At some point in the immeasurable past, the forest was felled and all that remains are stumps surrounded by scrubby vegetation, endless bramble thickets and rot.

This decaying landscape is not barren of life however. Humans and numerous other beings inhabit the wastes and somehow manage to thrive despite the bleakness of their surroundings. Nobody is quite sure how humans got there, some say they've always inhabited Stump, others believe the Fae had a hand in it as some obscure punishment to humanity for what they did to their original homeworld.

Whatever the reason, humans now call Stump home and do what humans do best, fight, squabble and try to kill each other. As such each stump settlement is a tiny fiefdom of its own with their own cultures and unique societies. 

 

While most of the populations of the stumps remain safely within its massive, decaying wooden interior, much like termites, digging down into the roots of their home to mine iron, copper and tin, each stump has more adventurous denizens who venture forth from the relative safety of their home to explore the dangerous gloom of the forest floor.

Down in the undergrowth, untold dangers stalk, scurry, creep and flit amongst the great roots and tangled ferns but for the bold, treasures can be found as the stumps need guards to patrol the narrow trackways between settlements from Wildling raids or Fae marauders and there's also the ruins of lost civilisations to be explored too.

Coupled with unnaturally large insects, rival Stump settlements, the ghosts of the past, the life of adventurers is often brutal and short but for those who survive, they gain the right to go forth and settle a new Stump.

The Stumps vary in size from tiny homesteads that are occupied by a single family or group of adventurers up to mightier towns and cities that may hold thousands of citizens. Each Stump has a unique culture but for their collective safety many will band together into loose confederations and alliances of those in the vicinity (when they're not fighting amongst themselves). 

Thus far, I've put a few initial thoughts together about the setting alongside the doodles and assorted photos to help set the scene and have sketched out a few potential forces to get me going using a variety of plastic historical and fantasy ranges.

I'd considered doing 15mm but I think I'm going to stick with the small skirmish style of Brutalquest but using cheap plastics as they're actually cheaper than the other options which is so strange but it will allow me to keep converting and kitbashing stuff and I'm planning on sculpting the odd figure here or there to add variety!

We shall see how I get on but I've really enjoyed pootling around with the setting and will be continuing fleshing it out over the coming months as its a rather interesting process and I want to keep the creativity going!

I suspect it will be a very slow burn sort of a deal because I'm always busy but the opportunity to keep plugging away at this be it a RPG or with a rpg and who knows where it will go but in the meantime, All the best!

Tree Stump Settlements

 Hi!

We're about to depart on a well deserved holiday down south for a week where I suspect we shall be catching up with some relaxation, reading and perusing of National Trust properties as well as peeking into the odd bookshop but before I trundle off, I thought I'd post a bit of randomness to get the inspiration going.

Over the last couple of years I've become fascinated by the odd moss covered and decaying tree stumps that we often pass while out walking and have begun photographing them as they're oddly beautiful.

Beyond their odd beauty, I find myself pondering their similarity to the South American Tepui or tabletop mountains that Professor Challenger explored in the Lost World but in a much smaller scale. 

Some of the tiny but lush vegetation looks surprisingly like trees and it gets me to pondering creating some sort of setting where a once mighty forest of unimaginable scale has been reduced to a wasteland with the stumps of once mighty trees thrusting up from the surrounding desolation. 

Small settlements of beings could inhabit them, creating tiny fortifications to protect themselves from the creeping beasties that live on the ground level and gliders, airships or even insects could be used to travel between them. Possibly some of the closer ones could have great bridges build between them and tiny fields that are hidden in the secluded interiors could provide inhabitants with their daily needs.

What adventures could be had when the inhabitants of the stump islands descend to the ground level with its fungal forests moss and endless ferns while searching for safe passage or rare herbs or exposed mineral deposits. Could this endless morass of greenery conceal untold dangers to be fought in defence of their homes?

Now I need a new project like I need a hole in the head, especially as there is absolutely no way I can reasonably recreate the cliff like landscapes and outcrops, I doubt I'll do much more than keep taking snaps of these strange little outcroppings and musing on what tiny civilisations could live on such things.

With that said, I may end up doing a series of illustrations and fleshing out the idea a bit into a bit of an RPG type setting as it could be rather fun and a satisfying thought exercise in its own right, possibly giving me the excuse to crack out the pens and start doodling some outlandish bits and bobs!

We shall see what ideas I can come up with over the coming week and I'll post any progress when I get back. If nothing else, I may end up incorporating it into my ongoing Colostle solo RPG campaign and its a rather fun and fanciful change from my usual stuff and will hopefully act as a bit of a palette cleanser before I get back and continue with the assorted 6mm, 15mm and 28mm miniatures I've been working on.

It never ceases to amaze me how inspiration can be found in such unlikely sources but I suppose its one of the bonuses of wandering around some ancient woods on ones day off!

I doubt I'll get chance to post much over the course of the week but I've got a backlog of completed stuff that I'll try and get photos of when I get back that will hopefully be of interest to folks but in the meantime, All the best!