My First Hirst Arts Dungeon

[Mental note: I want to kill blogger. Grr! I've had this post freak out on my a couple times - FYI]

Hi All,

Here are some pictures of my first fieldstone dungeon. My build is based on approaches and ideas gleaned from two sources: Caveman on the HA boards and the build over at the Grognardia blog. My approach here is not to create whole dungeons but rather to have a rolling dungeon that can build two to five rooms at any given time. In terms of aesthetics, I didn't want a "clean" dungeon. I wanted an antiqued, dirty look with moss between stones, the odd blood splatter, and other marks that show something or someone was lived there.

I used excalibur and the three colour approach advocated by Bruce. However, I washed the entire dungeon in a thin coat of Army Painter Quickshade to both weather it and seal it at the same time. I then lightly drybrushed medium gray over all the pieces and dullcoted. I've tried take pictures using both the mircroscope and the telescope (so to speak) to show how some of the specialty pieces fit together.

I'll prpbably post more on the construction of this build but if you have specific questions feel free to let fly in the comments.

Miniatures: Otherworld Skeletons

As you know, I've been painting Otherworld goblinoids with reference to the AD&D Monster Manual. To take the odd break I've also painted the first set of Otherworld Skeletons and the occasional PC. Here are some pictures of the second set of OW Skellies. For my skeletons I prefer a straight-out-the-ground-fresh look rather than a bone white. My frame of reference here are Harryhausen's Skeletons from the climactic movie scene in Jason and the Argonauts (see below). I have additional undead in the next blog post.

Miniatures: OW and GW Undead II and PCs

Here are some additional undead and PCs.

I painted up a set of old GW armoured skeletons. Some weeks ago a commentor asked for a comparative shot with an Otherworld skeleton and here it is (sorry it took so long, life has been kicking us in the butt lately). I would say the size is relatively the same. My only fault with the OW skeletons is that they are a wee bit thin. Great for the display case but one would have to be careful if you gamed with them. I also included two Citadel knights and an old Ral Partha cleric I picked up at Gencon. Damn I love that RP miniature. I ordered that one specifically after I noticed it on The Chainmail Bikini blog. These are painted in generic fashion to fit whatever the players want.

Stay tuned over the weekend as I post my first complete Hirst Arts Dungeon! I'm pretty excited to show you the fruits of my labour.

Cheers.

BEHOLD! (Part 2): My Otherworld Hobgoblins

Here are my Otherworld Hobgoblins.

Tomorrow I'll have some Undead and PCs.

BEHOLD!: My Otherworld Kobolds!

Here's my Otherworld Kobold Warband. You should be able to click twice for close-ups.

Stay tuned in the next couple days for Hobgoblins and Undead!

Enjoy.

New (Old) Red Box Character Sheets (Yeah, I know it's 4E)

Looks like some retro character sheets have been prepared to go along with the launch of the new (old) Red Box.

Yes, I know 4e is heinous in every way but the character sheets and portraits are cool.

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drrep/2010August

Recap: My Gencon Labyrinth Lord Game

As you know I attended Gencon this year. This was my second Gencon and since I've been DMing for most of my D&D life I thought I'd try to run a game.

I created a senario last year called The Burial Crypt of the Bandit Queen running Labyrinth Lord. I played the senario twice prior to Gencon. The first group were "successful" but the game was a bloodbath. Of the 8 PCs and hirelings who entered the final battle only 3 PCs survived. You can read the details of that adventure in my previous posts. The second group timed out before we could finish the entire senario.

I tweaked the adventure only slightly by adding additional traps, one room, and changed another. These made the adventure more interesting.

The table consisted of 5 players including my buddy I grew up playing D&D with in public school. That was the first time we played together in probably 25 years. So it was special game in that regard. The rest of the group were a great bunch of guys, including the author of Saturday Night Sandbox. A couple had played together and they all had a great sense of humor. My friend and I had just come from a Reich of the Dead game with a bunch of pricks (they lost [EDIT: rules-lawyers who sucked the fun out of the game), so it was really nice just to sit back, play, and have fun with a group of guys with exactly the same gaming interests and sensibilities.

There were a couple interesting developments in this game. The first is that the party found a secret door in the first room and chose to go through it rather than head down an open hallway where there had been signs of activity. The second, was that random monsters kept cropping up: giant rats in the well room, bandits behind the party, etc.

At the chasm bridge, the party tried to send a human across until I reminded them that he couldn't see. The then unwisely decided to send Kerthanis the elven wizard with AC8 instead of the dwarf in platemail. Half-way across, poor Kerthanis was attacked by stirges and died...face-down on the rope-bridge :)

The final battle was a difficult one, The Bandit Queen was a special monster - a spell-casting ghoul - who called her 8 skeletal minions to defend her when the party entered. Again, this was a challenge, but by that time both the fighters found platemail, healing potions, and a longsword +1, +2 vs. Undead, so it's not like I was too harsh, Mhuahahaha.

The rolls just did not go the PCs way, time and time again they missed needing only one more hit to drop the Bandit Queen, and so the adventure resulted in a TPK after 2 hours. Huzzah!

Overall, I had a lot of fun. I hope they did too.

What a great group of guys to game with. They were awesome.

Enjoy the pictures:

My Gencon Recap in Pictures

At this exact moment I have more pictures from Gencon than I do time to blog about them individually.

I also caught a cold at the convention and feel rather crappy.

So, here's Gencon 2010 in pictures:

THE MAIN GATE THURSDAY MORNING:


THE 2010 RED BOX




COLONIAL BATTLEFLEET: KINGONS ON THE NEUTRAL ZONE!!!


KLINGONS: IT WAS A GOOD DAY TO DIE!!!


REICH OF THE DEAD


KROID ASSCLOWN GOES FOR THE FULL-FRONTAL ASSAULT...AND DIES


MY BUDDY AND I CLOSE THE DEAL ON THE AMERICAN GIs


SOME GOBLIN KING THINGY


MY LABYRINTH LORD GAME: I'M DMing (A specific post on this when healthy)


A FANTASY GLADIATOR GAME: MY BUDDY IN COMBAT WITH A GOBLIN


VICTORY AS MY CHARACTER (SPARTACLES) SEALS THE DEAL AND ENDS THE GAME


WINGS OF WAR FURBALL EVENT: SADLY MY BUDDY GRABBED THE SOPWITH CAMEL. I'M IN THE GERMAN TWO-SEATER


THE WOW FURBALL HAD 29 PLAYERS!!! CRAZY STUFF.

Off to Gencon

I'm off to gencon first thing tomorrow.

I'll post a recap with pictures when I return.

Cheers.