My Shrinking Lead Pile

I have probably waxed on about my philosophy of keeping my unpainted items to a minimum so I can shop for new lead guilt free (almost). I have had a pile of fantasy figures kept in a couple of cardboard boxes in various states of paint and disrepair for many years (I am thinking 12 years). I purchased the bulk of the figures from my friend Brian along with a copy of Warhammer Quest. I never played the game but have slowly been organizing the figures for use in fantasy skirmish games like Song of Blades and Heroes, fantasy battle games like Sword and Spear Fantasy, and now D&D. D&D is very much a skirmish game when it comes to combat.

I went through my card board boxes and inventoried my pile into smaller piles. I then put the piles into ziplock bags, sorted by type. I have found this to help me get motivated to paint them as I just need to grab a bag and plop it on my painting desk rather than look at the mess of figures in the boxes.

My big project this weekend has been painting my Orcs. I do not have enough for an proper army, but have enough for a proper swarm in D&D. What D&D game would be complete without a proper war with the orcs. They are ready to unleash on my players for Saturday's game.

Orc Archers - GW and Heroquest I think

Black Orcs - GW and a rebased Mageknight guy

Orc Warriors - I added the shields - GW

 Boar Riders - These guys are old 40k figs but convert over well enough

These are dark elf figures from the Legends of Drizzt board game. They are very slight in comparison to the orcs but this fits with the Elven ness

Harpies - no idea on the make - Reaper maybe

All in all a good weekends production. 25 orcs painted and based.

Gamefest

I have been busy and managed to take some pictures of the gaming events from this week. I started the weekend by going to a meeting of my local Society for Creative Anachronism group. My son and I are interested and will probably start attending regularly. We planned to make helmets as a start to making combat armor for upcoming events. Fun! I asked about getting a Norman nose helmet and the blacksmith said it would not be a problem.

Not my helmet but very fun to wear

Saturday afternoon I went to my local game club and played an XWing shoot ‘em up. I was Poe Dameron but got shot down with no kills. Lots of fun and a great and simple game. The more serious players have researched good combos and card synergy for boosting their abilities. I felt a little outgunned and would have preferred a straight flying game.

Saturday night, I went to Zak’s awesome game room for a 15mm start to our Chain of Command campaign. I played the Germans trying to prevent a breakthrough by the Americans post D-Day. I started out well, driving off his infantry as they tried to approach. I took a lot of casualties unfortunately and this will impact me in future games. Zak sent in his 2 Sherman tanks to break through my lines. He revved right through the middle of my position and I blasted off every Panzerschreck and Panzer Faust in my possession. When the smoke cleared, his tanks were unscathed and I limped off to my next defensive position in the campaign. Fun and challenging game with Zak and I experiencing equal levels of command frustration. Sorry for the lack of pics but when games are intense I often forget to document them!

3 pics of pregame table

 The Sherman escapes!

Sunday afternoon, we had our D&D game. I had built some fire elements from hot glue and tinfoil and had a blast unleashing them on my players and their town. The players were creative and managed to eliminate the threat but not before there were many casualties and burned down buildings.

Large Fire elemental threatens the Village of Grommit

 Bonfire in the town square becomes a portal

 Dwarven Druid tries to extinguish the unnatural fire

 The Thegn's stable set alight!

 Grommit is ablaze

 Players confront the Elementals

 Tuesday night I went to Marty’s place for a standard game of XWing. I have been wanting to fly a “Tie Swarm” This is a list of 8 Tie Fighters of poor quality. The plan is to overwhelm the enemy with numbers rather than skill. I had fun fighting Marty’s Rebel list of 3 XWings and 2 AWings but in the end I was forced to retreat after only inflicting one casualty. There is a reason my pilots are rated as academy pilots. They have much to learn and so do I. Learning to fly 8 ships without hitting each other and asteroids is a big challenge but one I hope to master. Good learning game.

insert theme music and laser blasts

Whew. Busy but fun weekend with three games and a social engagement. Looking forward to next weekend!