Brutalquest Campaign Turn 2: Arrival at Stone Acre

 Hi!

So I've managed to put together some bits and bobs for turn two of my Brutalquest campaign so without further ado, on with the adventure!

Following the run in with the Revenants in the Debatable Lands, Sir Dunston's party have finally arrived in Stone Acre, the only settlement of any real size between the border and the Priory at Ottery St Catchpole.

Stone Acre Map

The fortified village is up in arms as multiple sightings of shambling monsters have been reported by outlying farmsteads and several more isolated smallholdings have been utterly destroyed.

The party is greeted by Bunny Goodbody (any jokes will result in being smacked around the head by her) the local representative of the Farpoint Adventurers Guild. She inhabits a rather ramshackle tower on the north west of the settlement where she tends her vegetable gardens when not hunting monsters.

Bunny Goodbody

She entreats the party to aid with hunting down the monsters as the local militia are preparing to go out to try and put an end to the threat permanently. Bunny will be accompanying them with her trusty war mallet, Carrot Smasher and says she'd appreciate some experienced fighters and a magic user to back her up as the militia are a bit hopeless.

Mindful of his promise to Lady Sylvia to aid her quell unrest in Longmyre, Sir Dunstan agrees, much to the cackling agreement of Rumblebum and long suffering sigh of Bodkin.

Albert Firkin, Stone Acre Militiaman

The party is then introduced to the militia, led by Albert Firkin, a farmer who has taken up arms in defence of the village. He points out that due to an obscure bylaw, no Stone Acre Militia member may carry a blade so the militia have to make do with heavy maces provided by the Mycologists Guild which look oddly like mushrooms themselves. 

Stone Acre Militia Men

The militia is keen to do their duty but afraid of the nameless monsters they may face out in the rolling hills and rocky outcrops of Stone Acre and are more than happy to have Dunstons' party along to help and even offers a reward of one gold for each monster slain and free bed and board while in Stone Acre.

With plans made, the trio retreat to the only tavern in the village for a good meal and well deserved nights rest before venturing forth to do battle with the revenant menace and help protect civilians who will need to be gathered from their homes and brought to the safety of the walls of Stone Acre.

I've got figures finished for civilians as well as Brother Maynard who will be making an appearance further down the line as well as Bunny Goodbody herself and have also just about finished half a dozen militia men to accompany the party on a larger skirmish in the coming week

Civilian Shenanigans

Bunny Goodbody and Brother Maynard

I still need to make some more revenants and some carts but I'm getting closer to being able to play the next game in the campaign which will see the militia and adventurers trying to defend a wagon train from monsters!

We shall see how they fare as no doubt it will be like herding cats! Until then, All the best!

Brutalquest Campaign Turn 1: An Unexpected Encounter

 Introduction

Sir Dunston's party has departed the small border settlement of Rook Moot and is headed north along the old road towards Stone Acre on the first leg of their journey to Longmyre. Following an uneventful day's travel and just as the light begins to fade, Sir Dunstan is planning on calling a halt for the night when suddenly a foul stench fills the air. From the shadows ahead, shambling forms emerge from the gloom and the party is faced by its first challenge, a pack of Revenants shuffle towards them!

The Battlefield

The battlefield is 2'x1' but for larger scales. please do use 3'x2' or larger and represents rough grasslands with piles of boulders, the odd ruin and some trees. The pathway leads across the board from left to right and to win the game, the adventurers have a couple of options, they can try and avoid the Revenants or be a bit more heroic and charge in. The heroes deployment zone is the blue rectangle on the left while the Revenants deploy on the right hand side.

The Forces

Sir Dunston and co

Sir Dunston is a knight armed with a longsword and wearing chainmail armour. 

Bodkin is a retainer armed with a shortsword and wears leather armour

Rumblebum the wizard is armed with a staff and has heavy robes which is better than nothing. He can cast lightning bolt.

Vile Revenants

The revenants are mindless creatures which will move towards anything they can sense and will attack anything they encounter along the way. Until they sense a foe, they move randomly using a direction dice and D6 for how far they move. 

In combat they use their claws and teeth and if they get a double roll on the D100, they sink their teeth in and do double damage!

The Game

I decided to give the decaying Revenants more of a chance of sensing foes if they moved quickly or made noises so Dunstan and co could try and sneak past but if they ran, fought or did pretty much anything else, there was a fair chance they'd be spotted and set upon!

I used Brutalquest with a D100 dicing rather than D10 as I rather like the more granular effect it has and it suits a small skirmish. 

Similarly I only gave the Revenants 10 points of damage each as I tend to use NPCs and mob type monsters as speedbumps or inconveniences and try to give the heroes something to worry about with either sheer numbers or by adding a more powerful mini boss to up the danger level.

As this was the first game in the campaign, I thought I'd go easy on my heroes. How little I knew...

The game started with my adventurers cautiously moving forward towards the narrow point of the table, keen to avoid attracting all the revenants into a choke point where they'll be stuck. Fortunately the shuffling deadmen don't immediately spot the party and two even bump into each other and begin savaging one another.

Spotting one off by itself and despite the urgings of his companions, Wizard Rumblebum jabbers a spell and with a crackle of energy, a searing lightning bolt flashes from his staff impacting the near by Revenant and reducing it to smoking ash. 

Unfortunately this alerts all the other undead and they begin shuffling towards the party. Sir Dunstan, uttering many swears under his breath bundles the cackling wizard off towards a narrow gap that Bodkin has spotted and is heading towards.

Unfortunately the Revenants begin approaching from both directions and Sir Dunstan and Bodkin draw their swords, determined to carve their way through the mob in front of them before the second group which is approaching from the rear.

In the swirling melee that follows, Sir Dunstan bellows his battlecry and decapitates his foe with a single stroke but bodkin fumbles and the Revenant begins to chomp on him. Supremely confident due to his previous spell, Rumblebum decides to cast another lightning bolt but flubs it and the bolt of electricity strikes poor bodkin instead!

Things are looking grim but a smouldering and chomped on Bodkin fights on, managing to dispatch his foe but before they can recover, the second group piles in. Bodkin goes down under a pile of clammy undead flesh and Dunstan piles in to rescue his minion. 

Perhaps trying to redeem himself, Rumblebum casts another lightning bolt and manages to actually hit his target, blasting his target from its feet and allowing Dunstan to hack down the last foe and drag the still smouldering and well chomped form of Bodkin from the corpses.

Post Game

In Brutalquest, you earn Brutality Points which you can use ingame to buff your attacks and so on or save them to improve your stats after. I had thought that I'd be able to upgrade my characters after a simple game but I ended up using all my points to kill off the Revenants before I got overhwelmed!

I rolled on the injury chart for Bodkin and he did survive but is unsurprisingly traumatised by his experience and has a minus 10% to his stats for the next 3 games.

Following the game, I rolled to see if I had any further encounters using the table I found on Five Leagues from the Borderlands and met an itinerant priest called Brother Maynard. The kindly fellow gifted the still traumatised Bodkin a healing potion so it was a bit of a win! 

Brother Maynard heads towards Rook Moot to warn the villagers that the undead are abroad while Sir Dunstan's party continues north towards Stone Acre.

Campaign Book

It's taken quite a bit to get this battle report put together but it's been rather fun and hopefully I'll get chance to post a second turn of the campaign soon but in the meantime, All the best!

Brutalquest Campaign Introduction

 Hi!

I've been trying to get this post done for a while but I had a massive event to organise at work and haven't had chance until now so without further ado, here's the beginning of my Brutalquest Campaign!

Introduction

Lady Cynthia of Longmyre has been having to deal with inheriting her father's domains following his rather mysterious death. Now bands of bandits have begun marauding throughout Longmyre so she has sent the call out for brave adventurers to help discover where these desperate villains are operating from.

As such, Sir Dunstan of Rook Moot has answered the call and along with his lowly footman, Bodkin and the cantankerous wizard, Rumblebum have departed from the small settlement they call home and are heading north along the old trade road towards Longmyre...

Longmyre

Longmyre

The county of Longmyre is a rather out of the way place bounded to the north and east by a mountainous region and the Copper Tail River to the south. The western border is heavily forested with the mysterious Greenwood and the Moss.

The capitol is Longmyre a bustling market town in the north that sits on the Longmere, a long, deep and cold lake that gives the town and county it's name.

The county is currently at its lowest ebb as the neighbouring barony of Voskovia has taken the Red Tower that guards the East March of Longmyre and it is only a matter of time before Baron Vosk orders his forces to cross the Copper Tail river and invade. 

Lady Sylvia is desperately trying to raise forces to meet the Baron but the constant harassing of her settlements and travellers by bandits, no doubt supported by Vosk, has seen her forces spread thin.

She is not without support though as the Nuns of the priory of Ottery St Catchpole and the March warden of Farpoint have allied with her and even now, bands of sturdy frontiersmen and women are training in the northern part of the county and the Longmyre Longstriders, her frontier guard are doing their best to hold back Vosk's scouting parties.

To make matters worse, the southern kingdom of Arcady is currently experiencing a civil war so aid from the supposedly allied kingdom is unlikely to materialise.

Character Portraits

Now I've been working on my tiny troops that will allow me to run a mini campaign without spending a fortune but felt that they needed a bit more character so decided to make some character portraits along with gear charts and next thing you know, I've got a bit of a scrapbook for the campaign!

Sir Dunston's Party

Sir Dunston is a freelancer who was once employed by the old Duke but has spent the last few years in near exile in the small border hamlet of Rook Moot but Lady Cynthia remembered his years of faithful service and has requested his aid in dealing with the bandits. 

He is accompanied by his faithful but rather long suffering retainer Bodkin and the hedge wizard Rumblebum. 

Sir Dunston has chainmail armour and a longsword, Bodkin has leathers and a short sword while Rumblebum has a staff and heavy robes and can cast Lightning Bolt. None of them have any skills yet or other equipment but I'm hoping to see them develop over the course of the campaign!

Gamewise, I'm using Brutalquest with a few modifiers to speed things up and my next post will hopefully showcase the first game of said campaign in which Sir Dunston and co encounter some unpleasantly stinky denizens of The Debatable Lands!

In the meantime, All the best!

Charity Shop Finds and Zombies!

 Hi!

I've got a much needed weekend off work and am about to head out to the local farmers market and craft bank in Blairgowrie but wanted to post a quick update!

We were in a local charity shop the other day and I spotted theses mighty tomes for the princely sum of £11.25:

Now I've no real intention of playing either 3rd edition of Age of Sigmar or indeed 9th edition of 40k, but I rather liked the look of them, if for no other reason than to add to my ever growing rulebook collection. 

As an aside, it's fascinating to see how Age of Sigmar has moved from a pamphlet rulebook when it was first released to a 300+ page tome in three editions. I suspect I'll be using elements of the background and factions in future projects and the artwork is pretty good too!

As for 40k, 1st and 2nd edition are the go to for me but I do have a 4th edition rulebook as I'm drawn the the streamlining they did, much like 2nd Edition epic and Epic 40k and at some point I do want to give it a try but that's for another day I think!

Possibly at some point, I would like to collect an army for 1st edition then upgrade it to 2nd edition and finally 4th edition as beyond that, 40k seems to become a sprawling beast with so many rules that I suspect I'll never get my head around, but I do have a more recent tome to add to the mix if I'm feeling bold!

Note: When I was about to post this, I discovered much to my surprise that I had a tag for 8th edition 40k. A quick peruse of said post had me tooting about how it looked really interesting and possibly a return to something a bit closer to my interests so maybe I should have a bit more of a look into 40k 9th edition than I'd initially thought!

In other news, I also picked up a copy of a very old rulebook from ebay in the form of Raven by Harlequin Miniatures!

I had picked up a copy of this in the 90's from Macs Models in Edinburgh and had obsessed over collecting and making armies using it and found the artwork by Pete Knifton to be awesome but the multi-base nature of the rules off-putting for a Warhammer gamer. I'd sold my copy off when I went to university and had a massive clear out so was really happy to add it back to my collection for a couple of quid.

Re-perusing the rules has made me realise it's possibly more suited to smaller scales, either 15mm or even 6mm which I'd not considered at the time and I'm quite intrigued to see how it actually plays. Sadly I've been unable to find any examples of anyone actually playing the game but would love to hear of anyones thoughts about it if they have!

Finally, I've got some more tiny troops made for an upcoming Brutalquest campaign!

Zombies!

Made using my typical beads and EVA foam style they're going to be menacing my adventurers soon. I also made a hulking zombie thing using a number of wooden beads and a bit of EVA foam for details and had great fun slavering it in red paint to give it a suitably gribbly look!

I've already played out the first game and it was a bit more touch and go than I expected and I'll post the battle report in the next day or so and am looking forward to playing game two! 

I do need to make some more art cards and whatnot for my characters which will add to the flavour of things and I should be able to post an update presently with much more detail of what I'm doing.

Hopefully I'll post more shenanigans soon but until then, All the best!

Longmyre Reinforcements and Dark Age Obsession

Hi!

I've managed to get my unit of Longmyre militia painted up and based so thought I'd post them up here with some ponderings on one of my other interests, namely the Dark Ages.

Before I head off on a tangent, here's my Longmyre Militiamen:

Longmyre Militia

Constructed from Frostgrave Soldiers, they're pleasingly characterful and suitably grubby for a small, poor and unimportant Duchy sitting on the frontier of the civilised world.

I had been thinking of bulking up their numbers to do a Dragon Rampant style army of them but feel that 28mm is currently better suited to smaller skirmish games so they'll be seeing action in games of Brutal Quest, Song of Blades and Heroes and the likes. I've sent off for some grass tufts as I wasn't 100% happy with the bases of my Orcs so there's still a little work to do to finish them off but we'll see how they look once their bases are complete.

Longmyre Militia clashing with Orcs on the Frontier.

With that out of the way, I thought I'd have a bit of a look at another project I'd started a couple of years ago and then promptly forgotten about, the mythical Dark Ages!

Dark Age Adventurers

Looking back at this stalled project, I had an absolute obsession, collecting books, sourcing miniatures and all sorts of other madness which saw me paint a couple of small bands and then real life got in the way and I immediately forgot about the project.

Now here I am, four years later and thinking about getting it back up and running but this led me to think about how I want to do it and realised I wasn't sure exactly what I was wanting to do with it. I've never been one who can stick to any sort of historical accuracy in wargaming, preferring fantasy and science fiction over historicals but I do find myself drawn to this fascinating period of history which saw the foundation of what would become England.

On the one hand, I'd love to have small skirmishes with bold warriors braving the wilds to face wild beasts from another age, marauding Norsemen or even the odd Fae incursion but at the same time the prospect of mass battles between warring kingdoms or trying to drive off raids from the Vikings also has real appeal!

But what to do! I don't have the amount of time, space, budget or frankly focus to paint up large armies of 28mm figures so a compromise may be required, namely scale. I do think I'll keep painting small 28mm scale warbands of up to maybe 10-12 figures but I want to make use of Lion Rampant to represent larger scale conflicts between raiders, norse and all manner of other stuff and my recent acquisition and painting of some 10mm Risk figures has got me thinking that maybe I can make some larger warbands in 10-15mm scale.

There are quite a few companies out there who produce lovely stuff in smaller scales and I love the appearance of larger numbers of figures (which happen to be cheaper and take up much less space and less time to paint!) on the battlefield.

I'm not going to go mad and buy a ton of stuff but I do think I'm going to dip my toe and pick up a pack or two of figures to see how I get on as I reckon I can make a Lion Rampant army for £25ish quid in 10mm scale which isn't too pricy and would allow me to build several different armies cheaply.

I've still got a bunch of plastic 28mm scale figures to paint up for skirmishes or incorporate into my Longmyre project but we'll see what I can come up with in the coming months!

In the meantime, All the best!

Orcish Reinforcements!

 Hi!

I've finally got round to taking some pictures of my slowly expanding Orcish horde with their newest addition, the Butcher!

Orc Butcher

As with the other figures in the warband he comes from the Hall of the Orc King box that I picked up earlier in the year and have slowly been painting my way through and alongside the big spiky chap from my earlier post, he's been the most fun to paint.

The Warband thus far

Of all the figures in the set thus far the Butcher has probably had the most details but was still a pleasure to paint and actually took less time to finish than the archers did. I've got a second one to paint but have been distracted by other mini projects that have struck my fancy over the last week or so.

Butcher, Gorath's Chosen and Brewmaster

I've been quite motivated hobbywide, despite having limited time and have just finished a 54mm scale Viking chappy who will need basing alongside my 10mm Risk stuff and the Longmyre militia who have been done for a while now.

While I've not managed to concentrate on any single project, I do seem to be making up for the lack of focus by just pelting through whatever catches my fancy at present which is keeping me from getting bogged down and losing interest.

I've also rummaged out my Stump conversions and am eying them up alongside the Dark Age Brutal Quest project I started the other year and am footling around with several other bits and bobs which seems to be my method for actually getting anything done. While it means that completing any single project in a timely fashion is not really working out, I am pleased with the fact that I'm blasting through all sorts of bits and bobs that have been sitting for ages!

I'm going to try and get my Longmyre dudes based up alongside my Viking this evening (if I can find a 40mm round base!) and will post pics tomorrow if all goes well but in the meantime, All the best!

Longmyre Progress

 Hi!

I've got the day off work and have managed to get the pics taken of my Orcish raiders that I'd picked up a couple of weeks back.

The miniatures themselves are chunky plastics made from a Restic type material which does take detail quite nicely with the only downside being that the mould lines are a wee bit difficult to clean off as they need carving rather than filing.

Style wise, they're maybe a bit more realistic than the older GW style cartoony Orcs but they will do the job for a low fantasy setting like Longmyre!

The Orc Gladiator is quite a nice piece and the set comes with two identical sculpts so I'll have another one to add a second higher level fighter to encounters.

The spearmen are nice figures and the first I painted of the miniatures in the set. There's enough detail to make for an interesting and satisfying figure to paint without it getting overwhelming. I believe the figures are digitally sculpted and it does showcase the issues with the medium as the spearmen's faces are a bit soft in detail and I feel it's the case of what looks good onscreen doesn't always work too well in physical form, especially with plastic casts.

Saying that, they're still nice additions to the bestiary that will give me some goons for my heroes to do battle with.

The archer is possibly the most intimidating of the figures of the group which is interesting as he seems more physically imposing than the spearmen or gladiator. Again the face has a bit of soft detail around the mouth that gave me pause on what was supposed to be what. With that said, he does look great once painted!

I've played a couple of skirmishes using Brutal Quest with them against some mercenaries and while they've lost both times, I've come to fear the archer as the amount of damage he does when he hits is absolutely brutal (no pun intended!) so think that I'll be limiting how many I'll be featuring in most skirmishes so they don't unbalance encounters.

In other news, I've sent a bunch of games that I've got the PDF of to get printed and bound with the idea of playing some more small simple skirmishes and re-exploring some of the games I played years ago but have fallen by the wayside over the years and plan on posting a wee review of each once they arrive.

Longmyre Frontier Watchtower

The setting of Longmyre continues to grow and I'm looking forward to delving into the project as the months progress and I'm now needing to paint a few hero types to do battle with the marauding Orcs I've painted!

Fingers crossed, I'll get another few Orcs painted over the coming week but in the meantime, All the best!

Brutal Questing Five Leagues

 Hi!

I've got the first four Orcs from the box I picked up earlier this month nearly finished but I've been perusing my copy of Five Leagues from the Borderlands with the vague idea of using it as the basis of my Brutal Quest campaign.

I do love the campaign system that the game has and the rules for games themselves are pretty nice and simple but fun but the only snag I've found is that I'd need to get a chonk more miniatures painted than I'm able to so I plan on smooshing the two rulesets together to allow me to do something a bit more modest.

I've used the system to create my adventuring area and am working on populating it with some interesting denizens, locations and whatnot over the next few weeks.

Longmyre

At present its looking like the town of Longmyre is being menaced by Beastkin and Bandits as the enemy within and Orcish raiders as the enemy without and its going to be up to my heroes to do some investigating and fight the assorted villains to secure the region.

Lady Cynthia

Our patron is Cynthia, the ruler of the small and rather inconsequential fiefdom that consists of winding rivers and cold lakes, wild moors and not much else so the sudden outbreak of disorder and unrest seems to have sinister undertones, possibly fuelled by the nearby kingdoms of Arcadia and Dulac whose constant feuding seems to be spreading to the otherwise peaceful Longmyre.

Already several farmsteads in the Barrens to the south have been torched by bands of roving bandits and now Orcish raiders have been sighted to the north from their usual stomping grounds in the Near Endless Plains.

Longmyre Moors

I've tied this all into a mini RPG I've been pottering around with too as Cynthia has her hands full dealing with a corrupt mayor who seems to be working with the underworld and her house troops are thinly stretched patrolling the wilderness so she's decided to hire us to try and discover what is behind the unrest and hopefully deal with it.

Its a bit of a ramshackle affair but the project is already seeing me playing games, creating background and even painting miniatures and generally enjoying myself so fingers crossed, I'll be kept busy throughout the year pulling together some suitable miniatures and then playing out an ongoing hybrid of RPG and Miniatures game coupled with ongoing worldbuilding and whatnot.

While I'd love to go for all physical miniatures from the get go, I do think that I may have to incorporate some paper standees to get me going as my painting is very slow and I suspect that its going to take at least a couple of months to get enough stuff painted, even for a small project so we shall see what I can do in the meantime to actually get some games played.

Hopefully I'll get the fourth Orc finished tomorrow and have them all based up for my next day off and will keep updating as I go but in the meantime, All the best!

Brutalquest Project: Hall of the Orc King

 Hi!

I have been footling about trying to settle on a suitable project to start the year and happened to be perusing Game in Perth when I spotted they had several boxes of Epic Encounters in their sale. 

A little pondering later I ended up picking up a copy of Hall of the Orc King for £25, reduced from almost £40.

Aimed more at the RPG crowd, it none the less has 20 chunky Orcish types along with a built in campaign that suits the sort of narrative driven approach that I'm trying to do.

The set comes with nine different sculpts which are of a decent quality, especially as they worked out at 80p each with a mixture of troop types, characters and even some rather nice cavalry to add a bit of spice to encounters.

You get four Orc cavalry mounted on bears and wielding bows and short stabbing spears. while each sculpt is identical, I plan on doing a wee bit of conversion work to them to give them a bit of individuality and they're surprisingly nice figures to boot.

You also get three archers and three spearmen. Fairly workmanlike poses and sculpt quality but should be fairly easy to either sculpt on a hat or do a head swap. I'd actually like to have had another basic troop type with something like a sword or axe but I can always add to the mix at some point in the future.

The first of the specialists are a bit odd, Orc Brewmasters with a barrel of Orc Ale on their backs and spiked tankards to thrash people with, the second specialist is a Gladiator who comes with a pair of swords and a bad attitude.

Next up are the heavies, a pair of half troll types with spikes growing out of them and heavy flails and two Orc Butchers who wouldn't look out of place as 15mm scale Ogres. These two sculpts are probably my favourites of the set as they've got tons of character and I'm really looking forward to painting them.

Finally you get the Orc King himself and a Shaman to back him up. Interestingly, for the key characters in the set, they're pretty dull but will give me some characters to lead my Orcs on Aeroth. I suspect I'll do a head swap on them and eventually upgrade them to something more interesting but as already mentioned, they cost 80p so I can't grumble too much.

As a whole the boxed set is well worth the cost and comes with a battle mat and campaign book too which is nice (although the infantry figures are based on 30mm rounds and the map is gridded for 25mm which seems a bit silly). 

The sculpts themselves are pretty nice and look like they'll lend themselves well to a coat of paint and the plastic they're made from is better quality than some manufacturers as none of them have wobbly bendy weapons and the sculpts have an interesting level of detail without being too busy.

I'm hoping to paint up some basic boys to act as villains and plan on chipping away at the set as a whole over the next few months until I get the lot done and if I add say a few Gobbos and an Ogre or Troll to the mix, I think I've got enough stuff for a nice campaign in the making.

I'm hoping to get a sample figure painted up in the coming weekend to see how I get on with them and will post an update when I've got it done but I'll be keeping my eye out to see if Game do any other sets in their sale (I'd been sorely tempted to pick up some Heroquest supplements they had in the sale but I've not got the core set yet so thought it may be a bit silly to get add ons rather than the basic game).

We shall see if this rather random addition to my collection helps in the hobby slump but I'm quite interested to see how I get on with them and would recommend folks take a peek in their local shops to see if there's any bargains to be had...

All the best!