Market Garden Elites

I have been busy painting and once again changing direction in my pursuit of this hobby. The weather is improving and I am enjoying the outdoors more. This has meant less time for the game table. D&D continues to be fairly successful. I had my first player death. I was excited to get my Orks on the table and the encounter was a little over powered. 6 archers 6 swordmen, 3 boar riders and 3 bosses. The players were joined by six 0 level guards but they were almost wiped out in an ambush. The Dwarf Barbarian got criticalled by an arrow and then criticalled again with a "00" result on the crit chart. That means your dead. I told the player he had an arrow in the eye and was out of the fight. After the fight, I gave him the choice of taking the die roll and dying or just lose the eye and recovering. He opted for the death result and gave a suitable speech before exiting the scene for the last time. I had just finished a new figure for him. Now I will have to make it a memorial statue...

RIP Tordek

In other news, I spent a feisty week in Cuba from which it took me an additional week to fully recover.

When I got back, I picked up my paint brush and finished of my British Airborne figures from Black Tree Design. I watched some Youtube for advice on painting camo. I think they came out fairly well and plan to get them on the table soon.

3 sections for Chain of Command

 About 60 models total

 Flamethrowers and gunners

 Vickers MMG

 Extra SMG guys

Fuzzy pick of officers, sniper, PIAT and mortar 

All together

Next up, Centaurs and Beastmen for Dragons Rampant...

Latest projects

Well it has been some time since my last post. I have been remaining focused on my D&D game. We are coming up on session # 8 in the campaign, which is 7 more sessions that the average D&D campaign lasts, a fact I am well pleased with. To that end I have built some of the terrain on my list that I developed when I first started down this road. Other fun things left on it are scatter ruins, a boat, a variety of traps and webbed up woods.

I also got started on my Christmas present of Black Tree Design WW2 figs to bulk out my collections in 28mm. German specialist troops done. Next will be tackling 50 British Para and trying my hand at camouflage smocks...

German MG34

Orc swordsmen

PanzerSchrek and loader

German MG34

German MG34s

Orc Cavalry

Orc Patrol passing the players at night - They decided discretion was the better part of valor...

Dead Centaur on the road

PanzerSchrek and loader

The Troll that did in the Centaur

Trouble at the Gates of Whitehall

Swamp creature and harpy causing trouble

Mg34 and loader

orc patrol

Ulrich the peasant helps the players out

Portal with tea light in the base

Shrine to Pelor - built by the party Cleric

Throne for court intrigue scenes

campfire with tealight and bedrolls for travel

The last game the players traveled from a small village to the capitol Whitehall. They battled a hungry troll and a harpy trying to lure them into a swamp monster's feeding pit. They avoided a large orc patrol. When they arrived in Whitehall, they had to bribe the guards to get in because their party contained a Dwarf and the king is on poor terms with the Dwarfs and has an alliance with the local orcs.

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!