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!

Planet 28 Papertech Gaming

 Hi!

Just a quick post today as we're heading out for the day. 

I've managed to play a couple of games of Planet 28 using my standees and following a bit of soul searching about not using 'proper' miniatures, decided that the fact that I've actually managed to play a few games outweighs the fact I'm not pushing lead or plastic figures around a table.

The board I'm using is about 16''x24'' and pretty heavily covered in terrain to give my cardboard warriors something to hide behind and I had a really enjoyable time, first with two a side and then with four which I think is the maximum this size of board can cope with as the action got bloody very quickly but it resulted in a quick and decisive game with some really exciting moments.

Farpoint Salvage

My salvage team held the field both times but it was a close run thing as the mercenary team had heavier firepower than the crews pistols and it was more luck than anything that saved them. One got badly cut up by a warrior woman wielding a machete while the second got shot in the face with a shotgun but rolled high on his armour and their accurate pistol fire ended up forcing the mercs to retire.

Mercs

I'm really enjoying being able to put together a full warband of 8-10 figures in a single sitting and actually see them in action and am hoping to put together some action packed games in the not too distant future and plan on creating some theme packs for folks to try out using Planet 28's open licence to present a warband with stats, a little bit of themed terrain and portraits and backgrounds for each.

It may involve one release every month followed by a mini campaign featuring said forces duking it out over some shenanigans too.

Speaking of which, I've made myself some Leviathan style Goblins:

Yes they look nothing like traditional Goblins but its how I think of the desert dwelling Gobbos of Aeroth!

I've still got a few more to finish off so I've got a full enemy list for Five Leagues from the Borderlands but I'm quite pleaded with how the little guys have thus far turned out and I'm really looking forward to trying out Five Leagues too!

Hopefully I'll get the force finished soon and get chance to put together the second enemy for my warband to face as well as some roadside villains too but thats a post for another day so in the meantime, All the best!

Five Leagues from the Borderlands: Aeroth Style!

 Hi!

I've been having a hankering to delve back into fantasy gaming as I've concentrated almost entirely on the sci-fi side of things for a while now but my ongoing tinkering with solo RPGs has got me to thinking of dipping my toe back into a fantasy setting.

With this in mind, I looked through my collection and was rather surprised by the dearth of fantasy stuff in it. I've got a handful of odds and ends and enough of my own sculpts to play games like Brutalquest which only need two or three figures a side but I've really not got the time to spend sculpting lots of stuff so after a bit of head scratching I've put together some papercraft standees.

Unlike my previous attempts which were quick and easy fixes with artwork only on one side and no careful trimming, I researched some of the rather fantastic stuff that folks have done on the web and decided to try doing front and rear artwork as well as cutting them out and I do think its a huge improvement over the originals as they both make better visual representations on the board and don't stand out like the older stuff I've made.

Coupled with some heavy black outlining, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out and look forward to making some more, namely villains!

I must admit that I am getting close to capacity in my display cabinet for miniatures so suspect that this approach is going to be making more of an appearance over the coming months, especially as the hobby budget is still pretty much non existent. These guys will be able to be kept in a small box and stored safely ready for use.

I'd hummed and hahed about making some tiny troop style heroes but while the little guys are fine for mass battle or large skirmishes, I feel they were sorely lacking in the character I'd want for my warbands. Similarly I'd looked at 15mm scale but was surprised to see that the cost of the tiny guys is actually more than a similar number of plastic 28mm figures from ebay and as already mentioned, I don't have the spare cash for that!

These are my first attempts and I've tried making some of the poses a bit more dynamic and I'm really enjoying the experience of trying to push my drawing as well as looking at a more complete view of my adventurers.

I'm hoping to get my enemy figures sorted out asap so I can try working towards getting a game at some point in the next few weeks and I've decided to have a try of Five Leagues from the Borderlands by Modiphius as I've watched quite a few videos of it now and really like how the game builds a narrative of a small warband exploring an area and facing a variety of foes and it looks like quite a bit of fun too!

I'm still planning on using Brutalquest as its such a great wee system but I want to keep working on exploring my collection and feel this is a good opportunity to do so.

I'm not discarding 'proper' miniatures as my sci-fi collection has tons of stuff to use and play a myriad of games, factions and whatnot but I do rather enjoy being able to combine my love of drawing with my hobby!

Hopefully I'll have another update in the next few days showcasing some villains and if I get the process down right, I'll include some sheets of characters and villains for folks to download but until then, All the best!

Birthday Gubbins!

 Huzzah!

I turned 43 this year and I've been gifted some awesome bits and bobs and now just need to find the time to actually read them!

First up, there's two solo skirmish wargame/rpg hybrids from Modiphius in the form of Five Parsecs From Home and Five Leagues From the Borderland. I've actually got the first edition of Five Parsecs but haven't really used it but stumbled across some videos of battle reports on Youtube and liked what I saw and the fantasy edition looks pretty cool too!

Essentially the two games are based around the exploits of a small group of adventurers which take on jobs, quests and fight an assortment of random encounters whilst gaining experience and I'm really keen to give the rules a try as it looks like just the sort of game I'm interested in playing.

Next up, there's Table Fables II and Arcane Artefacts and Curious Curios!

I've been a fan of Table Fables for a while as its a wonderful resource for creating all sorts of random goodies and the newest volumes look like they'll be getting regular use in my solo rpg sessions too (once I have some spare time to do anything with them!)

Finally there's the Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide that my wife picked up for me. 

I must admit that I was initially unsure what I'd do with it but its been a really fascinating and entertaining read which has given me some good ideas for a mini campaign I'm hoping to find some time to put together.

Combined with my other bits and bobs, I seem to be compiling quite a nice library of rulebooks and other handy resources for my own games and I'm really looking forward to getting myself sorted out to start a project but I suspect its going to be a while before I get the opportunity as work has been super busy and the commute has resulted in me being knackered when I get home but hopefully once things settle down, I'll get on with putting it together.

I'm hoping that all this awesome reading material will result in inspiration and some painted miniatures and battle reports once I digest it all!

In the meantime, All the best!