Back to Bones, Briefly

My box of Bones from the second Kickstarter arrived yesterday, so I decided that I had better prepare by finishing a few more of the Bones from the first Kickstarter. I think it's safe to say, at this point, that I could run fantasy skirmish games or Dungeons&Dragons with tactical displays ad infinitum...

In this first shot, the Burrowing Horror in the front is a new figure, with the balance from Bones I.




In this second shot, the basilisk, third from the left, is new, and the remainder are from Bones I.

More painting

I finished off another pair of figures today. The dual armed fighter is one of the Reaper Bones; not one of my favorites, but I'm trying to expand my Song of Blades and Heroes warbands. The djinn is a Reaper metal figure.

One more Bone

I managed to finish off one of the easier Bones today, so my annual total will be at least a little higher than I posted earlier this week.

Fantasy progress for the day

In addition to finishing off some Saxons today, here seen with the flocking and final varnish coat, I also finished a handful of figures from my Bones stockpile.





The curious base to the right is a Reaper 77099 "Nightspecter". I'm thinking it might be used as an objective marker on the table (or a wall of skeletons).





The green lady was done up that way in acknowledgement that most people thought she looked like an alien due to manufacturing issues (one of a handful of problematic figures from Bones I).

The barbarian on the left was a speed painting exercise, at about at hour.

Clearing the desk the good way

I had some time to paint today while my SO was off to a chorus rehearsal. I've mentioned lately that I've been trying to go with the flow, so today it turned out that I started clearing the desk of some physically large fantasy pieces that have been occupying space for a couple of months. The griffin, the dragon, and the Cthulhoid thing, along with the lady with the two swords, are all Bones from the first Kickstarter. The wall and the thing clinging to it (a 'tentamuerte') are Dark Platypus pieces from the 2012 Tentacles and Eyeballs Kickstarter. Back to Dux Bellorum Saxons this week, I think...

Scuffle at the Great Stone Head

Chris Palmer came by yesterday for a session of Song of Blades and Heroes. The forces were composed primarily of Reaper Bones miniatures, although I did have a couple of Reaper metal figures in my warband.

I set up a basic terrain layout, with a two-contour hill topped by a couple of ancient statues. While we didn't have a narrative in mind, it appeared after the fact that my team of adventurers must have showed up looking for treasure, and found the place infested by undead and magical creatures. My 300pt warband consisted of a leader, a magician, two elite archers, a barbarian, and two basic warriors.




For the first game, Chris's band consisted of a spectre, a ghost, a fire elemental, and four skeleton warriors (including two archers). The ghosts and element are among Chris's more recently painted figures, and he wanted to give them a try.




The great stone head, by the way, is an antique piece of plaster scenery from the 1980s, from a long defunct company called "Otherworld Artifacts", not to be confused with the current Otherworld Miniatures.




Chris and I are still learning the tactics for Song of Blades and Heroes. The first game started with a little back-and-forth struggle, and I thought that I was about to lose when I rolled three ones in an activation to attempt to get one of my rangers to stand up and avoid being slain by the spectre. However, Chris's luck was running even worse than mine, overall, and the ranger both survived the situation and eventually slew the spectre. Some close-in sword work dispatched the skeletons, and it was time to reset for a second game.




I figured that I was doing well with the human adventurer, so I re-used that list, and Chris replaced the undead with a band of savage orcs lead by a warlord. The situation the second time around went downhill quickly when I inflicted a gruesome death on the lead orc, which caused a morale check which sent three figures, including the warlord, fleeing off the table. The next casualty caused another morale check, and that left no orcs or goblins on the table. We decided that it was time to call it a day.




Chris commented that he should probably shape his painting queue with an eye toward tactical utility. I suspect that increasing familiarity with the rules will change our ideas of utility, as well...

Last figures for 2013?

We'll see if I finish anything else today. These two are intended to address a gap in my Song of Blades and Heroes human warband identified last game: I had no ranged weapons.

Pre-D&D painting

In anticipation of a holiday revival game, the kids helped me paint a few Bones for characters we'll be using. I finished the Bathalian on the left while we were at at, but the other three, left to right, were done by me, Norman, and William, respectively, all start to finish since last night.

Song of Bones and Heroes

I had an opportunity today to have Chris Palmer over for some gaming. We have both been painting Reaper Bones since the first Kickstarter was delivered. In the interest of providing some inspiration, we decided we would have a go at Song of Blades and Heroes. As games go, it has several advantages. It's intended for small groups of figures, amenable to including all manner of figures, and fairly simple in mechanics.

This was only the second time I've actually played these rules. Norman and I did a test run of these over a year ago.




In anticipation of the game, I finished the bases of the paper model building groups I was working on the other week. As expected, warping of the inn base is an issue. I'm going to need to google around and see if anyone has posted solutions for keeping large pieces of foam core board flat...

Working on the scenery and some social requirements left me short on time to review the rules. That meant that the first game was a little slow as we worked through rules lookups. The second game was better, and I'm sure I'd have the key provisions memorized by the third or fourth game.

As an aid to learning, we kept the scenarios down to simple encounter battles. The first game involved a band of 4 very expensive elves against a band of nine ordinary orcs supported by a hill troll.



I thought things were off to a good start when Chris send an elf sneaker around to attempt to eliminate my troll. Any plan can look good with die rolls like the 1 vs. 6 shown above.

However, I read a recent review of the game which pointed out some issues when one side has an all-elite band because of the activation die roll mechanic. Chris's elves all had a quality of 2, which meant they seldom failed at activation, where my standard orcs frequently failed, passing the initiative back to Chris. This is where some additional experience with the rules would have helped; adding a figure with the "leader" special ability would have helped my orcs considerably.



In any case, Chris's elven hero was invincible, and gradually hacked his way through most of my orcs. After being reduced below half strength, a morale roll caused my wounded troll and one other orc to flee, so the other two decided to call it a day.

We reset the board and tried again with two different warbands. Mine was non-compliant (too many points in special figures), but we decided to go with it anyway. I had six mixed humans supported by an iron golem, and Chris had a medusa supported by a half dozen skeletons. I only got one picture from the second game, being distracted by the need to finish quickly.




I almost thought it was going to finish too quickly, as Chris's first volley took out two of my figures. However, his skeletons were more fragile in melee than he expected. So, despite dropping my wizard with another arrow, my fighters and golem made short work of his skeletons. Bereft of her minions, the medusa apparently remembered an appointment elsewhere.

These were fun little games, and I look forward to an opportunity to read the rules more closely, and try another session soon.

Beetles

It is expected to be a busy day today, but I had the chance to start with a little miniatures project. These beetles and beetle swarms are part of my Reaper Bones package. I had a look around on the net until I found a picture of something called a garden chafer beetle, which had a nice metallic green and copper color scheme.





I also did a quick weapon conversion on a Bathalian (mind flayer) to convert him from a fantasy to an SF character, just for my amusement.

Orcs and an Elf

Since I was in the mood to paint today, I decided to go with it. If inspiration continues I hope to get an NQSYW unit on the table soon, but in the meantime it's fantasy.

My old friend Chris Palmer has been blogging about his attempt to paint an entire Vampire box of Reaper Bones. We've agreed to do some skirmish gaming with the figures soon. So I started this morning with some utility orcs:





This gives me nine in three styles, which should be fine for a 300 point game.

After that I indulged in an experiment. Norman asked me some years ago why we always depicted summer wood elves. We discussed possible color schemes for other seasons, and gave them unit names. So here's a try at a battle mage of the Winterbranch Guard:









iPhone pictures aren't the best, and the flash seems to have exaggerated some of the contrasts, but it gives the idea.

Furlough Work

Despite being off from work for the US government shutdown this week, I've been a little too busy to post.
The good news is that I've had time to work on the mass of Reaper Bones fantasy figures.




Here was the first batch.




After that I did a group of scorpions, seen here before the basing was finished.




This morning I painted this dwarf wizard in a continuous little campaign.
The SecDef says he wants us back Monday, so I guess the painting frenzy may be wrapping up. I hope to get a few more things done tomorrow.
Other catch up reports soon, I hope....

A bit of this and a bit of that...

I've finished the painting on the Bones warmup, and have the basing in progress as seen here. These are utility paint jobs, so no close ups today...

In addition to the Bones, I also finished off an NQSYW artillery crew, and both versions of the Tentacles and Eyeballs "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing".

Making Soup

...or at least boiling Bones.

It is scheduled to be an overly busy weekend, but I wanted to try to build up a little momentum on the Reaper Bones project.

I decided to start with a couple of easy paint jobs, so I pulled out a stone golem and a dozen giant rats as a warmup. I also unpacked the second Vampire box to ensure that everything was there. Since it was, I packed things higher on the priority list back up in ziplock bags, and dropped the remainder into a box to deal with later.

I then tried the recommended method of straightening pieces, which is to immerse them in nearly boiling water, fix, and then drop them in an ice water bath.

The ettin below was easy, with just the club end bent. Here is the before:





Here is the after:




This Chonoscope figure was crushed flat, but sprang back into position immediately in the hot bath.




This exercise improved my overall confidence in the process.

By the way, I mentioned yesterday that I had one figure with flash issues in the first box; the duplicate in the second box was fine, so I'll guess that problems are occasional and random with molds rather than systemic with particular molds.

Reaper Day

After many months of waiting, my Reaper Bones Kickstarter package arrived yesterday.





Irene told me to smile maniacally, so I did my best. I spent about two hours unboxing and inventorying. It looks like I got everything expected, plus a few extra bits. Finding the painting time will be the key.




Some of the Bones are bent, so I am hoping to find time tomorrow to try the hot/cold reset technique.

Meanwhile, I still have Historicon preparations, and a delayed battle report from the 29th...

Recent Fantasy Painting

I recently finished a few more figures in my fantasy update project. These are all from Reaper. The three orcs are volunteers in an experiment; they are Bones figures sprayed with my usual Krylon matte varnish to test materials compatibility. The bard to the left is just in case I can get my original D&D group together. I am painting "old" versions of each of their characters.

More Bones etc.

I had the opportunity to do some painting this evening. Pursuant to my interest in the current Reaper plastics Kickstarter project, I finished off a test group of three orcs. Well, almost finished... The orc on the right has had the spear replaced with brass wire for a standard, but I have not decided what sort yet. The orc in the center is slightly reposed to add the left hand dagger; also a little test. Apart from the spears not wanting to stay straight, probably acceptable for bulk grunts at low real costs, there isn't anything to complain about.





I also finished up a beggar that came in the pack with the blacksmith I particularly wanted.