Corrupting the Youth of America, One Miniature Game at a Time!

 Anything I can do to get the young'ins to play something other than computer games, I will:

Finishing up June

 Just some more pictures of figures to reduce the lead pile. Tomorrow, we head for the Motherland (Chicago) to visit family, so I won't have the time or the ability to do any hobby stuff. Maybe I will get in another D&D game like we did when we were there for Christmas.

This is Sir Trebel (pronounced: Tra-bell). He is from Khurisan's late Medieval range. He, like Sir Partner and Sir The Man were originally heavily-armed, LEGO characters that fight bad guys and various monsters such as zombies. He is a late joiner for my fantasy skirmish battles with my son. His coat of arms looks like it came from a high school varsity jacket, but it was my son's design. His motto: "When there is trouble, call on Trebel!"

I thought I had already posted this guy, but maybe not. Copplestone barbarian riding a bear. 

This guy is a 28mm Reaper Miniature ogre. He seemed perfect as a giant for 15mm. He had a lot of flash on him, but being made out of a soft plastic, it was easy to remove. 

Last but not least, a warrior from Splintered Light's Heroes of Might set. I figure he's make a good commander to lead a unit of polearmed infantry. I wasn't sure if his armor was metal scale armor or quilted padded armor. I went with the scales. 

Battle of the Tan Plateau

 For the past month, I've been painting like a fool to get the pile down. It was inevitable that I hit painting burn out, so I decided to have a battle. It was a quick, throw it on the table game. I picked Hoards of the Things. Probably not a great decision as far as the number of figures on the table, but I wanted something where I didn't need to prepare forms with stats on them. So here is the battle report. 

King Ivan sat alone on his throne watching the fire slowly die in the late evening. His knightly companions were all out on various adventures and quests, and all he had for company was his faithful hounds. Suddenly, the doors to the great hall opened and two guards let in a peasant, clearly exhausted and covered with wounds.

"My king," gasped the peasant, "a large body of Orcs have come down from the north! They are attacking villages as the go!"

King Ivan called in his subordinates. "To arms! Muster the garrison, send messages to my vassals, and prepare my horse and armor! We ride at dawn!"

He called to his falconer. Giving him a small paper with a note on it to tie to a bird, he said, "direct your swiftest hawk to the Eleven kingdom.  There, the mighty wizard Dangolf  the Dazzling should be among them." He hoped that Dangolf would receive the message and come at once, hopefully with reinforcements.

Two days later...

The royal army arrived early in the morning and deployed on the field on top of what is known as the Tan Plateau. Scouts had reports the huge Orc army heading up onto the far end of this very flat plateau. 

On the far right was a company of royal spearmen led by Sir Philbert:

On the center right, King Ivan placed his knights. At the forefront was Prince Valiant, a mighty champion of previous battles:

King Ivan commanded the knights:

Just to the left of the knights were the royal archers commanded by one sergeant Giles of Ham-on-the-Rye:

At the far left flank was the company known as the Guild of Turnip Farmers from the county of Ompfsk (known for their turnips, beets, and other root vegetables) armed with flails. They were led by mighty mercenary captain, Jeff:

As the morning mist cleared, King Ivan and his men saw the great Orc army marching toward them in the distance: 

The royal army was dismayed. Among the hoards, was a giant ogre:

Snarg the Obnoxious, chef of the Orc Tribal Confederacy laughed a orcy laugh and turned to his sorceress and main squeeze, Gristleena and said, "this should be a breeze, my love, we outnumber the humans 2 to 1. We will have them off the field in no time!" She cackled but said nothing:

The Orc army swiftly rolled toward the humans (high pip rolls for the Orcs; low pips for the humans). The Ogre roared as he ran out in front of the Orc line toward the knights:

"I shall smite the foul brute!" cried Prince Valiant as he charged at the ogre:

Sadly, it did not end well for Prince Valiant who was knocked aside like a rag doll (it was even up Hero vs. Behemoth, but the dice rolls were not in the Prince's favor):

Instead of causing fear, the sight of Prince Valiant's apparent demise enraged knights to attack and kill the ogre: 

Meanwhile, the rest of the units move toward each other. The archers of both sides get into range, and begin to take shots, but they have little effect on the opposing armies. The turnip farmers attacked the Orc archers as the Orc line busters hurtled themselves against the royal archers. A unit of orc warriors moved slowly (Orc army now getting low pip rolls) to flank the turnip farmers:

Suddenly, from the humans' left flank came Dangolf leading a company of Elf archers!

The wizard casts a spell that sends forth a yellow blast of lightning towards the Orc unit:

Check out the classy special effects!

*Crack!* *Sizzle!* the Orcs are dead!

Meanwhile, the Orc unit led by Snag and the knights collide and the spearmen are attacked by the Orc archers and a company of warriors that flank them:

"Oh Snap!" Realizing that she had yet to cast any spells, Gristleena tries to, but there are too many Orc warriors in her way and is unable to do so (magic users can only cast spells from a distance in HOTT). For several rounds, the melees were inconclusive.

 Back on the Human left flank, the turnip farmers defeat the Orc archers with the aid of the Elves' support fire, and the royal archers manage to push back the Orc line breakers several times: 

Things did not go any better for the Orcs on the right side. The Snag's unit finally fell to the knights and the royal spearmen held their ground and managed to cause both attacking Orc units to flee! 

Seeing that things were falling apart, Snag turned to Gristleena and said, "baby, it's time to go home." and wisely called for a retreat. 

King Ivan contemplated going after the routing Orcs, but decided against it. The Humans rejoiced at their victory! There were few casualties and the land was once more safe. The turnip farmers turned to go back home to their turnip farming. Prince Valiant, while seriously wounded, was still alive and taken back to King Ivan's castle for a long but full recovery. 

Postgame Analysis:

The Orcs started off really well as far as pip rolls. The number of pips rolled determines how many units get to move. There were able to move in very quickly. However, once in combat, they really rolled terribly compared to their human opponents even when they had more pluses. Too many times, they would roll a one. HOTT, as well as DBA, is more suited for smaller armies, not much more than 10 units (bases of figures) on a side, where each base acts as a unit. They are really designed for relatively quick battles.  I've been playing DBA on and off since it first came out, but never really gotten into the rules, and I suspect I won't with other rules that treat bases as a single, independent units. They are too abstract for me.  I might replay this battle with other rules or try again with HOTT using only much smaller number per side. 

Rock Trolls

It is finals time at my college, and with the pandemic, it has been very chaotic. My "boss" the department chair, who was in the army for about six years says I am suffering from combat fatigue. Not to sound whiny, but the administration is so worried about the students' mental health...faculty, not so much. There's been nights where I'm up until midnight or so grading and there's been nights where after my parental chores, I say, "to hell with it!" and call it a night. On some of those nights, I've been doing a lot of painting. I seemed to have swung the pendulum back to fantasy figures. Maybe it was due to the painting challenge I had with an old college friend, or maybe it's just more relaxing to paint an warrior than a tiny AFV. Also, my focus has been on painting things so that my son can I can game. Little by little, he seems to be more interested. 

These are probably the fastest figures I've painted. Splintered Light rock trolls. I got them as part of a Kickstarter. I had no clue how I wanted to approach them, so I painted them gray and that was that. Maybe took about 20 minutes, if you don't count waiting for the wash and the the spray coat to dry, and then overnight to let the flock dry.

Numbering bases for 3mm armies

 This weekend, I started numbering units of my 1/600 armies for my Bovatopia campaign. I didn't get too far, but this is an example of how I'm indicating companies and platoons:

Three companies with four platoons each

Company of M48A5s

For my 1/300 microarmor, I number the infantry bases with numbers. These are too tiny to do that, so, I am using colors to denote company and a yellow tick mark to indicate platoon. I use Fist Full of TOWs organization of units. 

Dwarf Painting Challenge

 Facebook is a pretty good way of keeping up with old (real) friends. In fact, the whole reason why I signed up with Facebook, was to keep up with my friends from my graduate school days at the University of Kansas. I come to find out over time, that one of them is a big D&D gamer. Had I known that way back in the day, we probably could have did a lot of gaming. A couple of weeks ago, we challenged each other to a paint contest, or really a painting swap. We picked out a 28mm figure from Reaper Miniatures, painted it, and then sent it to each other. As I was ordering mine, I ran across another Dwarf who would make a nice companion/partner in crime/girlfriend. I thought I'd surprise my friend with this extra figure. Below are the results.

His miniature:

My miniatures:

He opted for a base of sand, which was courtesy of  Lake Eerie. The skull came from a GW set of a 100 skulls. I used MDF bases that I had lying around for a long time. I wanted a dungeon effect, so I used this rubber stamp that I had bought awhile back and pressed it into polymer clay. For best results, according to the company that makes the stamp, you are supposed to use Green Stuff. I don't have any, but the polymer clay work just as well. 

We ended up with different interpretations, though it was funny that I had originally thought to paint much of my dwarf's armor in blue metallic, but then decided not to go with that. I enjoyed the challenge, but it reminded me of why I don't game in 25/28mm scale anymore. 

She said she was on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan

 March came in like a lion for me and still is roaring at me...more like screaming at me. A lot of health issues have popped up, but not for me. My mother has been in the hospital for the third time in two months. A friend from work and the husband of another friend from work both have been hit with cancer.  In terms of work, I am running out of steam. Between dealing with administrators, other faculty, and students who won't do their work, I am so done. Remote and hybrid learning is a joke, and the administrators feel that its business as usual during this time of pandemic. The only bright spot is that I got my COVID vaccine last Saturday and will go in for my second one on March 27. 

I have not done a whole lot hobby-wise. I have no energy for it. I've managed to do a few things. For now, I give you 15mm fantasy Dwarven Princess Leia from BVG. The photo is not up to par, but it is what it is. I wasn't too happy with the face. Unlike a lot of other miniatures from BVG, her face lacks detail. She will likely join other Dwarves in future skirmish battles with my son.