AHPC Coruscant Good vs Evil Encounters

Second post for me today (ok, actually the second this week on this blog) and I will be hopping from Perelandra to Coruscant with my take on good and evil RPG encounters.

Wizkids Bhuer Hag on the left and Stag on the right.

On an earlier post, my stag got some positive comments.  I obviously liked the sculpt so much I bought two of them, so I went with a white stag on the second.  

I am not as thrilled by my results as with stag #1, but it'll do.  In my experience white animals are actually various shades of off-white which is the effect that I went for.

The White Stag has a place deep in Celtic Mythology and appears in any number of stories, including Arthurian legends, Harry Potter and Call the Midwife!  In my Beowulf RPG campaign he might be a Noble Beast that can provide assistance to my heroes if they prove worthy.

I won't be accepting any treats from this old dear!  She's got a lovely Disney villainness  vibe to her.

I'll share my best hag related story, which actually came from real life.  While visiting my dad, he and my step mum took me to Chichester Theatre with their octogenarian friends to see a production of MacBeth.  It turned out to star Patrick Stewart, who none of my elders had heard of!  It was in the round and we were in the front row at stage level six feet from the action.

A set of 5 Oathmark Revenants, not nearly as nicely done as Millsy's

My adventurers had an epic graveyard fight with a super-revenant plus two regular ones.   Two of the party were saved from death by followers (a nifty Beowulf second chance mechanism) and the other two were almost in the boat.  

I really like the ancient Celtic vibe to these sculpts, they fit into my Beowulf setting as tomb guardians and the like very nicely.

Finally a set of 4 Wizkids woodland critters that have been cluttering my work bench.  I don't like the  regular timber wolves nearly as much as the Winter Wolf I painted earlier, and was disappointed that they are in the same pose.

However, the fox has a good sculpting pose to him/her.  reminds me of my favourite book from childhood, Harlequin the Fox.

Challenge veterans might remember that there was a badger themed location a couple of years ago.

Points wise there are a total of 11 figures of various sizes (the hag and stag are quite large) but all in 28mm scale.  For simplicity I'd suggest averaging them all out to 5 points a head for 55 base points.  If the Snowboard approves, the Coruscant bonus brings this up to 75 points total.

I think that the hag, white stag and 5 revenants could all count towards the Fantasy Side Duel lost cause.

AHPC Dark Age Ring Fort

 

Advance and be recognized

 

If all goes to plan, this should be the first of two posts from me this week.  Having been thrown way off schedule by my bout of COVID at the start of my teaching semester, I've decided to bin the challenge locations and focus on the stuff I've got ready to paint on the workbench.  

All of the pieces lined up.  Four straight sections, three curved sections, two gates and two end caps.

Backside view of the whole array.

I had two largish modular terrain projects planned for this year's challenge, the modular ruins posted a few weeks back and this Dark Age Ring Fort.  It's a set of 28mm pdf kits by Sarissa Precision. As with all the Sarissa Kits I've worked with it was a joy to put together, an easy hour of punching out, applying glue and clicking the bits together.  And yes there are two camps regarding terrain, those of us who enjoy making scenics and those of us with irrational phobias towards terrain brought on by extreme emotional trauma while in uteri.

My Gripping beast warriors on the ramparts.

This sort of works would protect villages, towns and manors all over Western Europe from the early days of the Roman Empire into the middle ages.  it's inhabitants might be Celts, Saxons Franks, Danes or Scots-Irish, but the basic plan remained constant.  Sloped earthen ramparts topped with a fence or palisade and flattened off on top to make a fighting platform. 

 

Close up in better light to show the kit details.  The wood work was painted with washes of raw or burnt umber over a parchment base.  The ramparts were painted dark earth tones with ground cover applied and bushes to hide major flaws.

Most Sarissa kits come with doors, but oddly the gate houses did not come with gates.  I bodged some together using left over doors from other kits.  I did one gate open and one gate closed.

The roadway and fighting platform are done with fine railway ballast firmly cemented in place (thanks for the tips Curt) and overpaid in earth tones

The pair of gates in the open position are to narrow to full close of the entrance, but modeller's license and forced perspective means that can be ignored.

The kits are marketed as 28mm but the walls and gates seem low compared to my GB figures.    As with most war-games terrain it's a matter of balancing the differing vertical and horizontal scales and looks ok on table.  Anyway, I'm not sending it back!   

I see a ton of uses for this on table.  First off for my Beowulf RPG when we go on TT.  Also it will fit my El Cid armies nicely and can be morphed into other eras easily.  I now have a pretty good tied collection of terrain to cover Dark Age Britain, and so I think that I need to build Sub-Roman armies and enemies to fight over it!

Points wise the ramparts measure 36" long, 3" wide and 2" tall.  That's a perfect terrain cube for 20 points.

AHPC Forest and Swamp Fauna

 After an unexpected two weeks of painting at the start of the Challenge due to canceled travel plans, I promptly lost two weeks after coming down with COVID.  I am just getting back at the paint brushes now and banged to finish off some bits and bobs that were 95% finished three weeks ago.  I have a bunch of 28mm critters from Wizkids aimed mainly at TTG based on my Beowulf RPG campaign.

A Troll, a bear, a stag and two boars walk into a clearing.

First up is the Troll.  Like my goblins, I left his basework rocky and without greenery so that he could operate underground.

He really should see a Dermatologist about those warts.

 For variety, I used some autumn foliage as well as green to represent the fact that some bushes aren't as healthy and turn colour earlier than others.  I'm not sure I am sold on it.

One of my players decided it would be a good idea to pick a fight with a sleeping bear in a barrow so he could get the treasure.  Results were predictable.

Boars are a pretty iconic Dark Age challenge, and are tasty eating too.  

There's some pretty good detail on these Wizkids sculpts and I am quite pleased with how the Stag turned out.

I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole checking colouration on Red Deer.

l have been quite pleased with the Wizkids sculpts, good detail and many of them paint up nicely.  The regular forest fauna will do double duty on TTG RPGs and for historical games.  I like to use animals as dummy markers.  "Captain those suspected French dragoons turned out to be a deer and a couple of boars".  Points wise it's always a bit of a challenge with non-human figures.  I'd suggest treating the Troll as a 54mm foot figure (he is about that tall) and the others as 28mm foot figures, but will accept the Snowlord's judgement.  No location points on this lot as I've completely lost the plot on that front and don't want to do a Ray fitting a round peg in a square hole.  The Troll would count towards the Fantasy duel. 

AHPC XII: Little Red Riding Hood for Perelandra

 This post went Live on the Challenge Blog on January 16th, so my time references are a bit off.  The got the test on the 10th, and result on the 11th.

I have a small post for this week as I've been down with COVID.  I woke up Monday feeling absolutely wretched and got my self off to the drive thru testing centre and got my positive result Tuesday evening.  I've been a much bigger than normal waste of space since then but had these minis pretty much done before hand.

One of the tags for Perelandra is temptation and that's what the Big Bad Wolf offered Red traditionally.

My version is a little twisted as Red is another female goblin.  I am not sure i want to know what's in that satchel of goods that she has for Grandma.  She was originally going to feature a drab cloak like the rest of her goblin gang, but I was working on the Winter Wolf at the same time and had a "you know..." moment.

I think in this case that Red is mischievous enough that the danger from temptation might be for the wolf.  A milk bone and a belly rub might be the long slippery evolutionary slope downhill to a Pug that can't get up on the couch without help and gets dressed in a new costume very holiday.

Both figures are 28mm and from Wizkds. Curt has been scoring the goblins as 20mms for 4 points but I don't know how to score the Winter Wolf, who is one big puppy.  Perhaps as a  equivalent to a 28mm cavalryman?  The base points can be added to my FantasySide Duel score.

Finally I thought I'd share a bit of my family lore about protecting your daughters.  In the mid-1950s my grandfather was English Department Head at Dalhousie University with two daughters (my mum and aunt) at home and finishing degrees.  As Head he hosted visiting guest authors and poets, including the likes of Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen (who was just starting out).  The works of these two were considered so scandalous that the two daughters were banished from the house the night that Irving and Leonard came to dinner.   

AHPC XII: Ruins at Arda

The planet Arda carries a Fantasy theme, so I've gone with this Giant attacking a tower in 28mm.  Just for fun note that the top two levels of the tower are removable allowing me to do this.

In an homage to this classic DnD module...

Ok let's break down the components here.  

First up is the Giant, who is a Wizkids Stone Giant in 28mm scale.  I will note that the figure is about 90mm from sole of foot to top of head and that the tower he's standing next to is 6" high (152mm) for comparison.  I will leave scoring him up to the Snowlord.  In the Beowulf adventures Giants are more generic than straight DnD, but I tried to keep to the Stone Giant Theme.  It's a nice sculpt with facial features midway between an Easter Island Moai and Grace Jones.

Backside view as I am thinking that's the view my adventurers want to see!

Next up are the human foes who are from the Gipping Beast Arthurian (mostly) and other ranges.  I painted the fighters up to represent the Comitatus of a local Warlord, using the red tunics and shields with double headed dragons to provide a unit theme.
.  

I will come back and touch ups he shields but wanted to get these posted today.

The seventh figure is the Merlin figure who has a lot of the age old mystery to him. I love the metal bird on his staff, is it the Eagle of the Ninth?  Seven 28mm figures is 35 points.

These are good solid Beastie boy figures, lots of individual differences.  They can serve in Beowulf adventures as friends, foes or neutrals as required.  I my also do some Sub-Roman Britain skirmish games using Lion Rampant or Dux B.   

Finally we have the Ruins which I am revealing in full glory below.  This is a Sarissa Ruined City set consisting of 8 modular bases that can be rearranged as suits the scenario or decided in to smaller ruins.  I figure it can serve as a Roman ruin in Beowulf, or a generic ruin for other RPGs os Moonstone for later period historical games.  The total set covers an area 8" by 16", and is mostly 3" tall except for the tower which is 6' tall.  My math makes this exactly 2 cubes of terrain for 40 points.

Arrangement 1

Arrangment 2

Arrangement 3

Points wise I cout up

• 35 points for the humans
• 40 points for the 2 cubes of ruin
• ? points for the Giant
• 20 points for the Arda location
• Merlin and the Giant should count against the forlorn hope of the Challenge Duel

Having completed four planets on the Outer Ring, I am ready to explore the Middle Ring and all step on one of the Warp Maelstorms either side of Arda to see where I end up. 

Female Goblin

 This female goblin archer wishes to book a trip on the Star Yacht arriving at planet Arda.

This is another pointy eared goblin figure from Wizkids.  There are lots of little details packed into these little sculpts.  This figure was being photographed last week to go live when I realized that she had a mail shoulder cape and needed to go back to the work bench.  It turns out that my iPad camera has sharper eyes than I do. 

I kept with the same muted tones and stony basing as with the other goblins.  Challengers in the know might have figured out that Wizkids packs these figures two per blister and that there may be another female goblin looking for passage late on..

That's 4 points for the 20mm figure plus 20 bonus points for the Star Yacht.  The 4 base points counts towards the fantasy duel not that it's going to help against Curt's paint bombs.  My journey through the system looks like this so far.

AHPC X11 Pointy Eared Goblins

 

I am continuing a clockwise orbit round the outer rim with a stop at Vulcan, with he brief of something logical or pointy ears.  Well nothing logical about this crew but lots of pointy ears.

I have 4 28mm scale Goblins from Wizkids.  These have a real old school feel to them and delightfully mischievous faces.  I kept the paint schemes muted and minimalist but there is a fair amount of detail on these little charmers.  They wouldn't pose a serious opposition to an adventuring party in an open fight, but they are not likely to get into to fair fight are they? They could be a major pain in the tuccus sniping from behind rocks or in a forest.

Normally I put some foliage clumps on my bases but this lot might just as easily be found in caverns or dungeons as on the surface so went for plain rocky effects.  They are sold as 28mm figures but are vertically challenged, so I'll look to the Snowlord for points (maybe treat them as 15s?  he counted them as 28s)

Here's a shot of them surrounded Father Padraig to give an idea of scale.  Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

if we treat them as 15s, this is 8 points for 4 goblins plus 20 for Vulcan making a total of 28 points.  The 8 base points should count for the fantasy side duel.  That's four posts in the first 10 days of the Challenge, when I am normally hard pressed to get one in- a combination fo cancelled travel plans, frigid weather and staying healthy over the Holidays.