From The Painting Table #18

Another mix of recently painted minis for me to showcase today.  I've not had a greatly productive year so far on the painting front if I'm honest, I'm getting a few bits and bobs done, like those shown below, but no projects getting completed or even that many actual units (although there is one of those below), on the plus side I'm still getting a lot of games in, I suppose you can't have everything.......

Starting today with these Masai villagers from wargames foundry.  These were an xmas present from my sister (along with some Masai warriors) and are a welcome addition to my growing 'Darkest Africa' collection.

This is an interesting mini, from the dawn of Warhammer 40K, a 'Sensei'.  These are the immortal sons or descendents of the Emperor and are invisible to physic powers, the Inquisition naturally see them as a threat.  

An actual unit with gaming purposes now, 10 Nurgle Plaguebearers, which will see use in Warhammer fantasy, Warhammer Quest and potentially KIngs of War.  I'm always apprehensive of painting daemons, especially the skin ones, but I think these came out OK in the end, they still look a little to clean though and not disgusting enough.

 Below are a couple more plague spreaders, but this time for the Skaven.

 

Finally we have this 'Lizard Sorcerer' from the old Darkworld boardgame.  He's not the greatest mini but is being added to my Warhammer Quest collection to act as a stand in for a Liche.

Reaper Bones Great Mummy

A little while ago now Reaper ran an insanely successful Kickstarter for their new 'bones' range of soft plastic fantasy and sci-fi minis.  I was very tempted to join in on the Kickstarter, but in the end the international postage put me off.  Ever since then I've been meaning to pick up a couple of pieces to see what they're like.  Our recent obsessive playing of Warhammer Quest has given me the excuse to add a 'Great Mummy' which stands in as a Tomb King in our dungeons.

What arrived is shown above, a slightly squashed soft plastic figure.  It appears to be similar plastic to the Mantic Mars Attacks stuff that I got recently.  The squashed problem was easily solved by immersing the figure in nearly boiling water.

The detail is pretty good, better than I was expecting to be honest.  Although looking through the range the sculpting quality does seem very variable.

Next I based and undercoated the mini.  I used my normal enamel undercoat and it came up very shinny and a little bit tacky, I was a bit worried at this point that it wasn't going to take the paint well.

However once I got painting all went well and I got the result you see above.  Overall I'm really quite pleased with this chap, Reaper Bones figures are very cheap and the range is massive, as I mentioned before the quality does vary, but there's a lot of useful figures to be got, especially for filling up dungeons.  Also being soft plastic they're quite hard to damage.

One last point is that he was a bit bigger than I was expecting, towering over my classic GW mummies.  I'm not sure if this is standard for the range or not, it might be because he is a 'great' mummy.  Monsters come in various sizes anyway, but a towering bunch of humans might look a bit odd compared to other manufacturers if this is standard size.

Wargames Foundry Greek Mythology Figures For Warhammer Quest

I've slowly been collecting foundry's Greek Mythology range over the last few years and a few weeks ago I placed another order for two of the larger monsters; a Hydra and a Chimaera.  I had an extra incentive to buy them, for as well as being added to my Greek collection they are also intended for use in Warhammer Quest. 

As you get to higher levels a lot of larger monster appear and I only really had a couple of Manticores to represent them all.  As well as being cheaper than 'official' GW models they are also a lot smaller, which wouldn't normally be an advantage, but when you're fighting in the close confines of a dungeon smaller minis are actually a win.

The Hydra

 

The Chimaera

 

 

Wargames Foundry have this really wonderful policy of throwing in a couple of free minis with orders, this time I got a free Gorgon and a free Harpy.  I already had the Gorgons in my collection and as there are only three gorgons in Greek myth this bonus one has been painted up for Warhammer Quest too.

 

And finally this Harpy, who can't be used in Warhammer Quest, but does make a welcome addition to the Greek collection.

 

From The Painting table #17

Hi there everyone, it's been nearly a month since my last post, I suppose I've not had much too say, I've still been playing a LOT of Warhammer Quest, and as I write this our party has reached level nine and we've slain our first Bloodthirster.  I have managed to get a bit of painting in here and there as well and I've a few new minis to show off.......

These are the first of my four striders for Deadzone that I've painted.  I reckon these are really rather excellent generic sci-fi walker minis.  These are for the Enforcer faction so are assembled 'vanilla' but the kit also came with options to make Rebel or Plague versions as well (I have one of each assembled and undercoated but they're a long way from being finished).  As with a lot of my Deadzone stuff these have a dual-use and will also feature in my Imperial Guard army for 40K as 'counts as' sentinels.

Also for Deadzone is this merc Aqissiaq who is a Syphr who has caught the plague.

 

Now we move to Warhammer Quest, starting with these 6 Nurglings that came with the set of Plaguebearers that I'm painting at the moment.  They're designed to be added to the Plaguebearers bases to add a bit of character, but as individual Nurglings are one of the monster you can face at mid-level I left them separate.  They also worked as a nice test for the scheme I'm using on the Plaguebearers.

 

This is an old Wood Elf Wardancer model that I took out of my Wood Elf army and repainted and rebased for Warhammer Quest.  As our time with our current party is coming to an end we're starting to think about our next party and have decided to try an all elf party, which we think will provide a greater challenge.

Also for Warhammer Quest is this classic Warrior Priest mini who is in use in our current party.

 

Switching to Warhammer fantasy now we have a couple of champions for my Chaos army, a Pestigor champion (above) and a classic 1980's Slanneesh warriors of Chaos champion (below).

This Month I Have Mostly Been Playing.......... Warhammer Quest

I've not been posting much recently, partly because I've not been buying much new stuff, or indeed painting very much, somewhat shockingly I've actually been using my hobby time to play lots of games!  Well technically one game, but many times.  That game is the absolute classic Warhammer Quest.

It was around mid-December after a discussion about the forthcoming Dungeon Saga from Mantic Games, the idea of a game of Warhammer Quest was mooted, always keen for a good dungeon bash I happily headed upstairs to get the box.  Two months and many dungeons later we've just reached level 6 (of 10), we've been playing at least once and often twice a week in sessions lasting between 5 to 7 hours.  I can't remember the last time I've done so much gaming in such a small space of time.

A hairy moment from this evenings game

I love Warhammer Quest, I think it's the best game from Games Workshop that I've ever played, and my copy of the game is one of my most prized possessions, but why is it so good?  I think it comes down to two things, one is the co-operative nature of the game, it makes a nice change for you all to be on the same side for once.  The key mechanic I think though is the one of random dungeon generation, you never know what room, monster or event is coming next or where that crucial objective room is.  This does mean that sometimes it all gets a bit much and you get swamped by masses of monsters and die horribly.  This is especially true at lower levels before you have a cart load of useful treasure items trailing behind you.

The other great thing is that even with the basic boxed game you have three distinct ways of playing.  The first is to grab the four warriors out of the box roll up a random adventure and off you go (almost certainly to your doom).  The roleplay book contains two more ways to play, the first is a 'roleplay-lite' game which allows you to level up your warriors, visit settlements and face tougher monsters, all using random tables and cards and without the need for a gamesmaster (this is the way we always play).  The second mode of play from the roleplay book is the guidelines for a proper full on roleplaying game with gamesmaster and pre-determined dungeons, this isn't for me, but adds huge scope for those with the energy and vision to create those adventures.

A starting party of adventurers soon to meet their fate

 

Another thing the roleplaying book provides is an extensive bestiary of baddies from the Warhammer world for you to smash your way through everything from Snotlings to Bloodthirsters.  Rules are provided for greenskins, skaven, undead, chaos, dark elves, chaos dwarves and a whole bunch of generic monsters.  These are arranged in monster tables so the monsters get harder as you progress up the battle levels.  This is important as it keeps the challenge fresh, every time you level up you end up facing new monsters with new abilities that need different tactics to beat, you have to think hard as by this point you've grown attached to your warriors and don't want to see them die. 

Even with the variety provided by the monster tables I've found in the past that enthusiasm tends to wane around level 6 (which is where we've just reached), which leads me to what was meant to be the point of this post;  Whilst the monster tables are very well done and provide a satisfying range of stuff to kill from start to finish there are two areas that start off fine but after the twentieth dungeon start to feel a little unsatisfying and repetitive, the dungeon rooms and lack of treasure variety.  Well I've gone and done something about it......

The new treasure deck nearly 12cm high!

Everyone likes to get cool treasure items, and in Warhammer Quest the clever use of the right items can make all the difference, however there are only so many in the basic game and you soon start getting the same stuff over and over again.  GW actually published a lot more treasure cards, three packs you could buy separately, plus a few cards in the lair of the orc lord and catacombs of terror expansions and even a few in white dwarf.  I've printed them all off and put them in deck protectors and the main treasure deck now has just under 170 cards in it, which should keep us going for a while!

More importantly for me are getting hold of some new dungeon rooms, whilst I love the way the dungeon generates randomly, I've always found it a bit unsatisfying that all the corridors and dungeon rooms in the main game are exactly the same, I've always felt the rooms especially needed a little bit of simple differentiation to give them that little bit more flavour.  I think GW knew this as well as both the lair of the orc lord and the catacombs of terror included some new rooms and corridors that started to add that simple variety, and I'd managed to print these rooms off some time ago, but I was still hankering for more.  So after quite a bit of searching and killing an ink cartridge or two I've expanded my room selection quite considerably.

Adding a bit more flavour to the random dungeon bash

 

There's a lot more rooms out there than I've printed off, but I've been quite picky.  I didn't want anything too radical, a simple special rule or new shape per room is fine.  Also I rejected a lot of rooms which although I thought the rules were fine the artwork just wasn't good enough (not that I'm claiming I could do any better), I wanted it to look natural next to the rooms that I already had.

As I was doing all this I realised that it was really about time I painted the plastic doors that are used to link the rooms together, I haven't spent too much time on them though.  Just a quick spray with the grey can and then a coating with black wash.  I  might come back and add some more details later, they're hardly works of art, but they do look a lot more 'natural' when playing the game and it's something I should have done years ago.

Warhammer Quest also provides a good excuse to pick up a few random fantasy models and still be able to use them without needing a whole army.  The Manticore above is a new addition to my collection, more for practical reasons than ooo that's a nice model reasons.  It's a plastic mini from an old boardgame called Darkworld which was a heroquest type thing.  This one came in a job lot off of ebay and is slightly damaged, and although I already have a better metal GW Manticore model this one fits on a 25mm base which makes it far more practical in the dark confines of a dungeon.  He will find himself representing a lot of cockatrices, gorgons, griffons, hippogriffs and even the odd Manticore over the next few weeks.


I'd just like to finish with a few recommendations of the websites that I found the most useful when looking for extra stuff to expand our games with:

Beyond the Grey Mountains
Quests of Legend
Warhammer Quest Chronicles
Warhammer Quest Museum

Classic Citadel Mummies for Warhammer Quest

Whilst we've impatiently been waiting for Dungeon Saga to arrive we decided to fulfil our Dungeon craving by returning to an old favourite, Warhammer Quest.  This uses the Warhammer fantasy range extensively and most of the monsters that are encountered I can draw straight from that collection, occasionally though something pops up that we have to proxy, Mummies were in that category, until now that is.

I got these four classic mummies off of ebay, these are over 20 years old and are from a time before Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings had been separated into different armies.  I remember them coming out not long after I started collecting Citadel minis actually.  They're a little two-dimensional, but I think on the whole they hold up pretty well to todays standards.  As my Undead army is Vampire Counts I've given them Warhammer Quest specific bases as that's the only game I can see them being used in.

From The Painting Table #16

Another showcase of my latest eclectic selection of painted minis for today.  December was inevitably a busy month and I really didn't achieve much on the painting front at all, but what I did manage to do somehow was play a lot of Warhammer Quest....

Which leads me nicely to this chap, who is of course a classic citadel Chaos Warrior who has had a repaint and a dedicated Warhammer Quest style base rather than my normal green flock.  The party also contains a pit fighter, a wizard and a warrior priest.  Both the pit fighter and wizard have dedicated Warhammer Quest minis already so expect to see a warrior priest in the near future.

Next we have some additions to my Darkest Africa collection courtesy of Foundry, on the top a couple of British NCO's from their Boer War range and on the bottom an explorer both on and off a donkey.

 

Staying with Foundry somewhat randomly we have here two ancient Greek Hoplites, why? I really don't know except that I fancied painting them.

 

The last Hobbit movie was an enjoyable movie if admittedly not a masterpiece like the Lord of the Rings movies were, and it gave me the urge to paint a few more middle earth bits starting with this Tauriel.  I was quite pleased with the result until I photographed it and now the hair is looking way to bright so I will have to try and tone it down a bit somehow.

 



Not going far from Tauriel at all we have these wood elf archers from GW Lord of the Rings range, but who would of course happily work fighting along side Tauriel and Legolas in a Hobbit game.

Now to the first finished minis from my second wave Deadzone kickstarter package.  I started with a few Enforcers, which for some reason I really enjoy painting, from left to right we have an enforcer captain, Sgt Howlett and an enforcer with fusion gun.

 

Finally we have these two plague corrupted enforcers.  I've a veritable mountain of Deadzone stuff still to paint and of course I am eagerly awaiting the imminent arrival of wave 3.