Circle of Blood – Night Battle at Mercal, scenario 1

A few weeks ago, before everything was shut down here in Denmark, we had the chance to play the first scenario in the Circle of Blood campaign published by Games Workshop in 1997 for WFB 5^th ed. and written by Warhammer luminaires Tuomas Pirinen and Jake Thornton. I don’t play 5^th ed. but the campaign is easily transposed back to our retro universe of WFB 3^rd ed, which I thus did.

The campaign basically consists of four linked scenarios; three minor encounters and one grand finale. The backstory revolves around the so-called Red Duke – a vampire knight banished to his grave centuries ago in Bretonnia. The Red Duke has now risen again and seeks to overthrow Aquitaine and have his revenge on all mortals. It is up to the knights and men-at-arms of Aquitaine to prevent The Red Duke from gathering his forces and butchering the realm.

The outcome of the first three scenarios has a direct influence on the last, final battle, which gives a nice sense of continuity to the proceedings.

The first scenario is dealing with the necromancer Renar, who has travelled to the village of Mercal, where a number of The Red Duke’s knights are imprisoned by magic in a moldering mausoleum. The inhabitants of the village have been able to gather a small force to defend the village and graveyard from the undead and they thus stand ready when the dead arrive to reclaim their lost comrades. The undead force is, of course, spearheaded by the necromancer Renar, while the defense of Mercal is led by the so-called Holy Knight Albert Lainnon and his second in command Jean-Paul Fabez.

Renar the Necromancer

The Holy Knight (to the right) and Jean-Paul Fabez (to the left)

In this first encounter a few special rules apply, which I twisted slightly to fit our 3^rd ed. rendition of the campaign. First of all Renar instantly wins the battle if he is able to cast the spell Summon Undead Hero while in base contact with the mausoleum. Secondly The Holy Knight Albert is in possession of the blessed Shield of Virtue, which prevents any necromantic spells to be cast within 6” of him. Finally the scenario takes place at night. Each turn 4D6 is rolled to determine how far in inches the Bretonnians and Renar can see, which of course applies to charges, casting spells and shooting.

I was initially a bit concerned with this scenario as the forces begin very close together and it seemed like a fairly simple thing for Renar to scurry up to the mausoleum and cast his spell. Measured in distance only he would be able to win the scenario in two turns. However, it proved really difficult for him and I must say, that this really is a fine little scenario with a lot of tactical elements as well as a fun narrative. The magic of The Holy Knight’s shield prevented him from simply casting his spell and the undead had to kill or drive off the knight before they could succeed. This they also nearly did, but in the end the Bretonnians won the battle by killing Renar.

The setup suggested in the campaign

Our rendition of the setup

It was a close and really exiting battle played in little over two hours. The darkness definitely worked to the advantage of the undead, rendering the Bretonnian archers almost useless and making it very hard for the knights and their mounted retainers to make use of their long movement range. This could easily have been won by the undead, but the Bretonnians won, which means that The Red Duke now has to rely on the named characters from the scenarios, as he is not allowed to include any additional heroes in his army during the last scenario, whereas the Holy Knight will fight again during this last combat.

If interested, these were the rosters we used: The Holy Knight_roster and Renar_roster.

This is how it all looked when presented in a bit random fashion:

 

 

No Siouxsie but definitely a Banshee

Here’s a quick and dirty paintwork I finished some weeks ago. A banshee produced by Ral Partha for the Ravenloft boxset released in the early 90’s for TSR. The minis in the box were all nicely sculpted by Dennis Mize in 25mm. For some reason however, the banshee in the set is rather large, 28mm in fact, which makes her fit perfectly with my other ethereal spirits.

I have had the set since it came out and the banshee was laying around in my lead mountain with her original 90’s paintjob from back then. I am soon to play a scenario with undeads and thus decided to revisit the model and include her among the ghosts featured in the game.
As I said, the model works well, and the sculpting is well-crafted. My only quibble with the mini is in fact her long hair down her back, which seems a bit underdeveloped. There is a lot of wasted potential here for some dynamism, enhancing the ethereal nature of the model.

As you can see I went with a more modern GW approach to the painting, which works well, I think. I really like this ghostly style and it is fast to produce, which only makes it better. It is, by the way, fun to see what happens to the model and how fast it looses its ghostly feel when painted with multiple colours.

Isle of Dread, Chapter 5: Grave robbing

Just before Christmas we managed to get in another session in our Isle of Dread campaign. This time the scenario had the character of an encounter, leaving it up to Malcom and his party for how long they wanted to stick around. The story went something like this:

Malcon and his group are still trekking northwards trough the steamy jungle, heading for what they suppose is an ancient temple ruin in the heart of the island. While some riches and much experience has been gained so far, the trip has also begun to take its toll on the party, and two members of the group have died so far.

While scouting ahead the little halfling thief Jolly Drake discovered what he believed to be some sort of old burial ground. He also found a cave in the rocky hills leading into a tunnel. Hurrying back with this message, it did not take long for Malcon to decide that it might be a worthwhile little detour. He thus decided to leave the barbarian Ghimar and two men-at-arms outside the cave, guarding the pack mules and Azza, an amazon the party has taken as a prisoner during the last encounter, and now bringing along as a potential information source or leverage.

In and down underground they went and things soon proved difficult, as the place was guarded by undead creatures. The group succeeded and plundering some treasure, but a host of walking skeletons caused problems and when a huge, undead creature all of a sudden awoke from its slumber, things looked dire. Nevertheless, Malcon and his group succeed in dissolving the undead giant in what only can be characterized as a very close shave. They had collected some gems, a scroll with some spells and a magic cloak, which they decided was enough. The group left the crypt, only to discover that another fight had taken place outside the cave opening, where small kobold-like creatures, armed with slings and clubs, had attacked the men guarding the entrance to the cave. Also here things went in favour of the group, but the pesky little creatures killed one of the men-at-arms, making it a bitter victory for the group, who now could continue their journey northwards. spelunking

So, this was the story in this session. A fun game, which took place at two different tables. This made things slights chaotic, but also fun, as the situations were very different.

As you can see, the “dungeon” was very primitive. It was really just pieces of painted cloth with some dirt here and their. Nothing fancy, but it worked, and may not win any prices for ingenuity, but it was an easy way to get the party below ground, without spending too much time prepping for the scenario. If you fancy sending your minis below ground, I would certainly recommend this type of dungeon, as it gives slightly more than merely painting the thing on paper, but only requires a minimum of extra effort.

This is how It all looked.

The table with the entrance to the cave

The “dungeon”

Malcon and his party going spelunking in the ancient crypt

Ghimar standing guard

Plundering an old grave

Kobold-like creatures sneak up on Ghimar and the two other guards

Ghimar defending the their equipment

More action in front of the cave

The restless dead rise

The dead are coming for the intruders

Peter the Melancholic looking for treasure

The dead are closing in

Still fighting outside the cave

The skeletons are putting the pressure on Malcon and his men

Something ancient stirs in the crypt

Ricco, Peter and Kenza run out to get Ghimar down underground but soon decide that there is no time and return to the cave

Malcon has no choice but to face the giant creature

The final battle in the crypt

Soldiers of Misfortune

Ten Skeletons marching through the Deadcember sunlight. Nine of them are of course the original Citadel plastic skeleton warriors released in 1988 (I think) to general acclaim. I normally don’t care much for plastic and resin miniatures but I can only second those who still today consider these skellies some of the best skeleton models ever produced. In the back of the group the keen eye will see a later, slightly larger generation of skeleton which I guess was released when the Vampire Counts army came about as a concept.    

I have a quite large collection of plastic skeleton of diverse generations and almost all of them have been glued together and painted by their previous owners. The somewhat fragile nature of these models makes them difficult to strip and repaint but I’m quite pleased with the way these guys, which are the first skeleton warriors I’ve painted for years, turned out.

Up next I’ll conclude my Dolgan Raiders series.

Cheers

Martin

Ghouls ’n Ghasts

OK, this is going to be my last post about ghouls for a looong time.

What we have here is the most recent ghouls sculpted by the illustrious Paul Muller. They are produced by Otherworld Miniatures and my favorites among all the ghouls I’ve shown over the last posts. Well, technically, its three ghouls and three ghasts – but in the dark all undeads are grey, right?

Ghouls

What I love about these minis is their strong personality, the fine, delicate craftsmanship and the eerie slenderness of particularly the ghoul bodies. The monk is a person darling of mine though. The ghasts remind me a lot of the Ral Partha ghouls produced around 1991-92 and they would fit nicely together if the scale had been the same. It’s not though.

Ghasts

And speaking of scales, it’s interesting to note that these Otherworld undeads are the only ghouls so far that stick to the 28mm scale. The Citadel ghouls blow the scale completely with their heroic dimensions and the Heresy ghouls also creep somewhat above the scale. Somehow this bugs me but this is probably just me being cranky about contemporary miniatures being too big in general.

Two of my Ral Partha ghouls. The third one from this set sadly broke his legs and now eagerly awaits a resurrecting treatment to joins his two friends

Thus a big hurra for Otherworld and their lovely, if pricey, ghouls and ghasts. And cheers to Paul Muller – what beautiful sculpting this is.

Bravo, Mr. Muller, bravo!

Next post it gets proper old scool again.

Cheers

Martin

 

 

Ghouls night out

I have been painting a lot of ghouls lately, as I said in the previous post. This batch is 12 ghoulies from Games Workshop. In fact it’s the last metal ghouls they produced and in my opinion some of the best from the company. I believe they were released around ‘99. They’re not as good as the little group Citadel ghouls from the mid-80’s, but certainly better than their pot-bellied cousins from the 90’s or the plastic horrors currently available.

They were sculpted by Paul Muller, the ghoul master, and he did a great job. They are certainly similar to the ghouls from Heresy, if slightly larger and somewhat more benign. In fact several of these ghouls have slightly goofy facial expressions and Muller clearly attempted to tone down the horrific elements in the ghouls, making them a bit more child friendly. This is a shame, but they still look great.

I painted the skin slightly darker this time and had no gore fest, but stuck to the same look in general, which I think works well enough. I did a few weapon swaps and conversions, such as the standard, in order to have 12 individual models.

Any thoughts?

 

I’ll be back soon with, you guessed it, more ghouls!

Cheers

Martin

 

 

 

A Feast of Friends

I have a thing for ghouls. I love the Lovecraftian ghoul mythology and I’ve been collecting different ghoul miniatures for some time now. Next week we’re going to play an Oldhammer scenario entitled In the Hall of the Ghoul King and of course this has given me the opportunity to do something about some of my ghoul miniatures.

I’ve actually been spending quite some time over the past weeks painting ghouls and what you see here is the first batch. The great Ghoul Tribe from Heresy Miniatures; an absolutely splendid pack of minis which perfectly reeks of splatter horror films and grisly cannibalism. Pure comfort food for a horror buff like me!

The ghouls were, by the way, sculpted by the ghoul master himself – Paul Muller. A sculptor who’ll be featured again over next posts when I show you some of the other ghoulies I’ve been working on. I’m not sure when these ghouls were produced but probably sometime around 2000 but here I may be mistaken.

Usually I’m no big fan of dousing my miniatures in gore but following the lead from the miniatures presented on the Heresy webpage, I couldn’t resist going all the way and soak mine in blood as well. This gave me a chance to actually experiment with painting blood, which in fact was quite nice, but I’ll probably not be doing stuff like this again for some time.

 

Mamma Blessed

 

Brother Froth

 

Baby Feast

 

Brother Grub

 

Brother Lick

 

Brother Tongue

 

Brother Milk

 

Brother Smile

 

Brother Kill-Kill

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers

Martin

Problem solved!

By the help of the good people on the Lead Adventures Forum my ‘mystery piece’ is no longer a mystery. As it turns out it indeed is a Grenadier model, produced in ’87, for the Dragon Lords series of boxed sets. This one is entitled Encounter at Kohmar-Lolth. A great name isn’t it? Very Robert E. Howardian. The piece was sculpted by Andrew Chernak.

As I suspected two torches and even a crystal ball on a pedestal is missing from the throne. I’ll definitely have to try and make something similar once I get going at the model. As you can see from the picture below a lot of other stuff was also included in the original box, which apparently never made it into the collection I acquired last year.

I’m actually looking very much forward to get started on this model now. Keep an ey ut for the lich king of Kohmar-Lolth on this blog!

Ghouly trolls… or something

These three, large chaps are trolls from the illustrious Canadian company RAFM Miniatures, a company whose miniatures until the age of the Internet was something I solely knew from the pages of Dragon Magazine where they would usually be promoted and scrutinized in the “Through the Looking Glass” section. All three trolls were, to my knowledge, produced around 1988-89, but here I may be mistaken, as my knowledge about the company is a bit sketchy.

In September we’re going to play a scenario entitled “In the Hall of the Ghoul King” (more about this later) and the lads you see here will be serving as ancient, gargantuan ghouls who over the centuries have grown to enormous size on a diet of flesh, bone and marrow supplied by their elusive king.

I rather like all three models very much, but the horned one is my favorite. The miniatures is perhaps a bit crudely sculpted, but his face and oddly hulking posture combined with the long, thin limbs gives the mini a scary, almost surreal look. The two others though are great as well. I love the face and fat belly of the club-wielding one and the last, crouching troll-ghoul looks perfectly rotten. Nice! All of them had quite a lot of flash and some very obvious mold lines and they thus demanded quite a lot of prep-work before I could paint them, nevertheless I must confess, that I’m pleased with the result.

 

My favorite of the lot sold as a Plague Troll

 

This one is sold as an Undead Troll

 

This last one is simply sold as a Troll Warrior

 

A close-up of the bases