Greetings on All Hallow's Eve

Hope the evening won't be too intolerable with nasty little children begging for sweets on your doorstep - unless you're into the whole Trick or Treat thing. Personally I stopped answering the door round our end when it turned out that most of the youths (I sound a right miserable old bugger don't I!) were all aged around 15-16. I suppose at least they weren't littering the place with their empty cans of Diamond White... yet.

Anyway, as I've had a grand day out with the kids and dogs following a Hallowe'en around Brimham Rocks, I thought I'd round the evening off for them by carving up some pumpkin lanterns.

Kev Adams pumpkin lanterns that is!

In other news, the next trans-continental, world wide, absolutely fantastic, internetz spectacular, remote game of Warhammer 3rd ed between me and my opponent Airbornegrove26 is nearing the startline...

Many thanks to Gaj and Dreamfish for all their work behind the scenes!

The Slann riders are also all tarted up with weapon swaps and additional banners and feathers, and are primed and ready to be painted.

Small Bones and a Whole Bag of News...

Right, finally got round to photographing the Warmaster skeleton archers and horsemen I'd finished up earlier this week.

 Its been a long and busy term and my eyes seem to become defective in the evenings - assuming a  lead-like weight and tendency to shut involuntarily. Sleep I think its called and damned inconvenient!

Any how, here's the start of the Baron Kraust's grand Undead horde in 10mm.

Archers - as the Warmaster Undead units are based on the new (well to me at least!) and annoyingly Egyptian in style Tomb Kings armies, a few of these skeletons sport slightly more exotic head gear than your average re-animated Old Worlder might. Muted colours hopefully don't make them stand out too much and I'm happy to live the results than try any conversions at this scale!

The level of detail always amazes me for such small minis, although the arrows look more like bolt thrower ammunition!

Must admit that I found basing a bit fiddly - any old Warmaster hands with any labour saving tips out there would be much appreciated.

They scale up rather well with the Copplestone 10mm fantasy range - here you can see them lined up with the Half Orcs I painted up for the last Lead Painters League over on the LAF.

I really like the Undead cavalry models - again loads of nice detail and they look generic enough to look like ex-Old Worlders.

 I went for a brighter scheme with the red cloaks than I might have for 28mm minis, which seemed to work quite nicely. A few touches of verdigris on their bronze helmets and armour gives a little contrast.

Again they scale up nicely with the Copplestone 10mm - this time with the Horse Tribe cavalry.

Hey, wait a minute - those are no Uruks! 

I am hoping to eventually use the Horse Tribe chaps as some kind of Norse cavalry - perhaps a Mercenary border force? The stat line for the Marauder Horse from the Chaos army list looks like it would fit quite nicely.

I'm looking forward to a week off for Half term next week with the kids (Mrs T has gone back to Uni so I have been entrusted with their general care and maintenance!). Hopefully, in between day trips with them and the dogs, and some more dungeoneering in Hero Quest land, I'll get some more painting time in.

Lots of interesting things coming up while I eagerly await the bits and pieces I need to finish off my Slann Cold One Riders.

I've been asked to paint a few lovely old minis for Thebinman over on the LAF as part of his fantastic Mordheim project - more of which later...

I've nearly finished prepping the Fighting Fantasy Orc that Phreedh kindly sent after our Giant race. I just need to sort out a new weapon for him and luckily I think 90's GW scale creep and stupidly over sized weapons might well help me out here!

Also Brent from Bombshell Games has been back in touch with news of a new system for a fantasy skirmish game and a mass battle game for 10-15mm minis he's working on. If its as fun as Havoc was then I'm in for a treat as I'll be having a go at some more playtesting - so keep your eyes peeled for some more battle reports in the coming months. I'd like to finally get round to playing his OP4S rules too so I may well be dusting off some of my epic Space Marine stuff too.

Finally, more gaming news - the honourable gents, Dreamfish and Gaj have been hard at work putting together another game of 3rd ed to be played via the magic of the internetz! The other two games they have run,  Its Fun to Slay at the Wyemm Seeyay and The Shadow of Koles Lorr,  were very successful and the reports make great reading.  Bridge over the River Chai promises also to be a thoroughly entertaining game and what's more I get to play the baddies! Good luck to my opponent Airbornegrove26!  

Trial by...

... Heroquest!

This afternoon I sat down and played Heroquest. First time in years I think.

What is more I did so, having been inspired by Mr Rab's post over on the LAF (more here), with my son. I had been saving Heroquest, with the idea of sprucing my old set up and painting all the miniatures, for when he was older,  but I thought what the heck - let's see how he gets on.

Both my kids (4 year old son and 2 year old daughter) have expressed interest before in Daddy's monsters, often eager to see what new creatures are lurking in the parcels that pop through our letterbox with some regularity.

I'd asked him earlier in the day whether he'd be interested in playing and I took the fact that he jumped up and ran to the door, shouting "Can we play the game?" when I came back from walking the dogs  to be a good thing. As you can see K, his sister was quite keen too!

So I got my Quest book out and prepared everything to play the first mission - The Trial. Both of the kids were excited to find the treasure and get the evil Gargoyle, Verag.

Movement proved to be a good opportunity for some adding practice, totaling the score from 2D6, although it took a little while before H understood he couldn't just teleport to any room he wanted to - not sure he got the idea that doors and monsters and the like only appeared when his character could see them. Next time I may set out all the doors and blocked passages first to help him visualise where he can go.

And so the intrepid hero set off with his Dwarf and Wizard (the Elf unfortunately had snapped off his base many years ago, as had the barbarian's sword) in search of gold and derring do. H soon got the idea of the simple combat system Heroquest has, although not necessarily the survivability of his characters! Soon we were down a Dwarf at the hands of an enraged Fimir and the Wizard was down to his last body point with a Chaos Warrior on his tail!

The success of the quest was balanced on a knife edge, one bad dice roll away from disaster... so I brought the swordless Barbarian on as reinforcements! With some timely use of Fire of Wrath and Ball of Flame the wizard saw off his pursuers and the Barbarian caught up to add his muscle to the expedition.

Having looted all the treasure chests he could find, H turned his attention to locating Verag and slaying the foul beast - a task he approached with some relish! Unfortunately the Wizard had fallen in a rather uneven combat with a Mummy so the Barbarian went it alone...

After a bit of a tussle with Verag's Fimir and Chaos Warrior bodyguards (K got stuck in with the die on their behalf!), H the Barbarian stood before his mighty foe, broadsword at the ready... and killed him in one combat round - rolling 3 skulls!

So how did the little tyke enjoy his first foray into dungeoneering?

Well his favourite bit was killing the Gargoyle and finding the treasure, although he wished he could have done more magic before the Wizard met his untimely end.

Oh and he wanted to know when we could play again - Result!

While I'm on a Heroquest vibe here's a great new series of videos that tickled me, featured on the marvellous Ye Olde Inn's Community Blog on Heroquest, which I've been lurking on for a while.

Right - off to finish basing some Warmaster skeletons...

A Miniature world in Miniature...

Just received a very nice parcel today from fellow Old Hammerite, Skarsnik and Old Lead, of Opponent Finder and Citadel Giant fame. Bumped into him over on the LAF flogging a few bits and pieces and was most interested in the Warmaster stuff he had going. One very good deal later (thanks again mate!) and I was the proud owner of this little lot - apart from the rule book which I acquired a while back and has made interesting bedtime reading for the past week or two.

Here Come the Girrr...

...irrrls,

Da-da, Da Da, Da-da, Da-da-da, Dah, etc.

Apologies for invoking that grossly overplayed and vaguely irritating tune, beloved of TV advertisers everywhere along with a certain High Street Chemist.

However, I invoke it with good reason, as here, indeed, come the Girls!

There are more ways of skinning a cat...

... You could just try Miliput and leave the poor animal alone!

To the Victor go the Spoils...

... and my good pal Phreedh has certainly spoiled me with this unexpected and very kind prize for winning our little Paint a WFB Giant competition!

A Slann's Best Friend...

... is his lizard of course!

Or at least his Cold One Warhound to be specific.