Isle of Dread, Chapter 4: Camp raid

In this fourth chapter of our Isle of Dread-campaign the camp of Malcon deWitt and his group was attacked by a mysterious patrol of amazons and tribesmen. The attacking patrol was on its way back to the heart of the island, where their stronghold is placed within an ancient, ruined temple. On their way they discovered Malcon’s camp. Curious as to the origin and plans of these strangers the amazons decided to kidnap a member of Malcon’s group in order to interrogate their victim at a later stage.

When the amazons attacked the camp Malcon and most of his men were out hunting and collecting fresh water. There was only four members of the party back in the camp, facing the attackers. However, their fellow travelers heard their cries for help and rushed back to the camp, attempting to get there in time. What no one from the hunting party knew was that a giant constrictor snake pursued them back through the jungle. While the returning hunters thus rushed to the rescue they were at the same time attacked from the rear by the giant monster.

In the end Malcon and his party succeeded in fighting off the attackers. They also managed to capture a tribesman and an amazon and thus had the opportunity to question them as to what was waiting for them in the heart of the island. more about this in the next chapter.    

The rules for the scenario were quite simple. Beforehand we rolled which four models from Malcon’s group would be left in the camp during the attack. Rasmus, playing the camp group, luckily rolled all characters, which certainly made it difficult for the attackers. Malcon and the rest of the hunting party would return on a 5+ (rolled on a D6), tested at the start of each turn.

The giant snake would enter the table the turn after the hunting party came onto the table. Again, Malcon was lucky, and entered the table in the second turn of the combat, which all in all made it rather difficult for the tribesmen and amazons as their momentum more or less was nonexistent. As a side note I can mention that all the amazons were each equipped with one dose of magic Koka Powder. The powder could be imbibed during the Magic Phase and give the model one extra action that turn.

The aim of the attackers was, as said, to kidnap a victim and drag a model off the table. We thus established that when fighting you could roll to knock unconscious or to wound as normal. When hitting to knock unconscious the opponent would count as having double wounds; hence you will note some small red dice on the table.  

This is what the game looked like. We were playing in a slightly underlit basement, which shows in the pictures.  

The 6×4 table we played on

The peaceful camp just prior to the attack

Jolly and Ricco hear something approaching the camp and prepare themselves for trouble

The patrol of amazons approaching the camp through the underbrush

Malcon, Peter and the men-at-arms rushing back towards the camp

The camp. One of the soldiers is moving the two pack mules away from the action

Amazons approaching

Bringing the mules into safety

Tribesmen advancing together with the amazons

The giant snake following the trail of Malcon and his men

Ricco hiding in the bushes in order to sneak around the approaching enemies

Jolly Drake shouting the alarm

The hunters rushing back to the camp

amazons and tribesmen entering the clearing where the camp is located

Tribesmen charging forward

The giant snake

Ricco all of the sudden found himself in deep water

Jolly face to face with a fierce amazon

Ricco fighting off tribesmen

The hunters returned in time to protect the camp. Malcon’s hound Kenza was the first to charge the enemy

Ricco slays the last tribesman

Jolly having downed an amazon with two lucky shots from his sling

Kenza, the hound, suddenly was surrounded by enemies

Peter the Melancholic was the first to discover the giant snake hot on their heels

One of Malcon’s loyal fighters face to face with a tribesman

The enemy pushes into the camp

Ghimar, the barbarian, and Malcon charge into the tribesmen and amazons

The situation was looking dire

Amazons attacking

Peter joins the struggle to help

The enemies proved no true hallenge to Malcon and Ghimar

The snake killed creeps forward into the camp

Fighting all over the camp

The snake takes on its second victim

Ricco and one of the fighters did what they could to hold back the tribesmen

Malcon started to chase off the last of the attackers

The snake was inside the camp now

Mopping up the rest. Malcon attacked the snake and sent it back into the jungle

A few, old gobbos

Here’s three old, early 80’s pre-slotta gobbos finished a while ago. They look rather different from each other, however, the Ral Partha one on the right is really the odd one out. This one is, of course, sculpted by Tom Meier; an old favorite of mine. While painting the Meier goblin it suddenly dawned on me that the little chap is going commando, so to speak. You can almost see it in the photo. Tom Meier sculpted a number of trolls with a bare bottom, but I didn´t know that he did the same with at least this goblin. Perhaps he did more; semi nude orcs? Elves?

I really love these old goblins and the sense of wicked menace they convey. Particularly the Meier goblin is really oozing grim evil, but the other two have something of the same. Most will probably prefer the humor Kev Adams brought to the greenskins, but I really dig this early stuff.

 

  

… and his name was Guthrum Mane

As you perhaps may have seen, I have been very slowly painting the miniatures belonging to the Orc’s Drift campaign and in fact, I was really considering this project finished as I have finally given up on finding the Hagar Sheol miniature. While painting the minis for the campaign my little gaming group has played all scenarios except the last one. The first scenario I think we even have played three times and I have been using a very nice old, giant for this, serving as the drunken Guthrum Mane.

There is little chance for me playing the scenario again anytime soon, but some time ago I got hold of the mini suggested for the campaign as Guthrum Mane and he has now been staring at me from his cave in the lead mountain for a while. Finally I succumbed to temptation and painted my Guthrum in order for him to join his fellow minis from Orc’s Drift.

The mini, as you probably all know, was one of the first, if not the very first miniature sculpted by Kev Adams to be put in production by Citadel back in 1985. It is listed as a ‘giant hill troll’ and despite the rather crudely sculpted face I really love this mini. It has so much cool old school oddness to it. I love the lumbering pose and general dismal look, topped by the mask-shaped knee protector all kept in a not too cartoony style.

Guthrum has been painted by many and you will find a lot of great Guthrums on the web. I followed the idea of others and put him on rocky ground. It suits the model nicely. all in all i am very pleased with how he turned out. Now he can return to his cave and wait for some action to come his way.   

I hope you like him.

 

The Curious Case of the Goblobber

Ok, this may be old hat to you, but I recently noticed something odd concerning the Goblobber while flicking through the 3rd edition rulebook for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Now, we all know what the brilliant Goblobber and crew from ’87 looks like. A masterpiece by Michael Perry from the golden age of Citadel captured splendidly on the box art for the war machine. 

The glorious Goblobber as we know it

However, on p. 105 of the rulebook we see the Goblobber with the bow-part mounted reversed. What is this about? It is clearly the same model as the one from the box cover. Did something happen to the model between the two photos? Was the bow loose and mounted wrongly by the photographer when taking the picture for the rulebook?

The Goblobber as seen on p. 105 in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook p. 105.

This is certainly curious. I started googling images of the Goblobber and while most people have assembled their ‘lobbers with the bow in a traditional way, such as this one, brilliantly painted by Jaekel.

The Goblobber painted by Jaekel

But I also discovered this by Orclord on the Stuff of Legends page.

Orclord’s Goblobber

Here the bow or crossbeam is also mounted the ‘wrong’ way round and the caption for the image even comments on this without further explanation.

What is this about? Is there a connection here? how this did happen twice? I am puzzled and I clearly have too much time on my hands when having time to ponder such hobby oddities. Does anyone of you Oldhammer scholars have some info to share concerning this, which can shed some light on the matter

Again, sorry if this topic has already been discussed to death on Facebook or some other forum.