A Strange Day

So,

Today was a strange day, you see Rob and I were going to throw down a game of Bolt Action today. He rolled over here around 10:00 this morning with his stuff and I had cleared the table off to play. But our discussion was not about Bolt Action, but of our up coming Black Powder ACW game. We talked for about an hour or so and it was all about the ACW game. I then told him that I wanted to play Bolt Action, but would rather be playing Black Powder.

It seems that the Bolt Action game is just.. well just okay. Both of us agree that it is a good game, but it has us both feeling like we are missing something from the game. I mean it just doesn't really have anything that sort of grabs you and wants to make you play. I don't know, I want to be excited about this game, but it is just not doing it. Now when I played Battelground, Arc of Fire and some others, those games made me want to play more games. But Bolt Action has me feeling like there should be more, sort of like drinking a flat soda, it taste the same, but is flat and therefore not the same.

So instead of playing a game, we did an early lunch and hit up two local shops, Crusaders Retreat and Imperial Outpost Games. Rob picked up a Wargames Factory box set of Vikings and I did not find anything even though I had money to spend.

Also tonight seems to be a bit strange as well, for the first time in a while I am able to work on a few things for myself instead of for others (the next commission was primed and drying). So I decided to work on a little surprise belated Christmas/Birthday gift for my brother. Way back when, I used to play AD&D and we had a nice small little group of players. Well as a prerequisite for our AD&D games, I had the players buy miniatures of the characters. Well that was a long time ago and I just recently (last year) found the old metal figures. So I decided last year that I would re-paint them up and give them to my brother as a gift. Well I got busy and it never happened.

But about a month ago I figured I should try again to get this little diorama completed for my brothers birthday on June 26th. So here is a little shot of what got done tonight as well as what I have planned. First up is the overall diorama, it is mounted on a Gailforce 9 60mm base and has five figures on it, representing four characters coming down a spiral staircase and one monster ready to pounce on them (as it always seemed to happen in games).

To Boldly Go

First up is the spiral stairway that my friend John over at Plastic Legions did up for me out of Hirst Arts castings. I e-mailed John the week before Adepticon to see if he had anything like this lying around. Luckily for me he did and he packed it up and sent it out to me, thanks John!!

Got to have stairs!

Next up is my buddy Don Gow's character, Dijion Boarhog, a fighter that seemed to carry everything he ever found with him on his character sheet. This model is an old Citadel miniature thief model from the mid 1980's. The model used to be mounted on a old Hex base and once I took it off the base, I noticed just how small the figure was next to the old Ral Partha models. So I cut his boots off at the knee and added to boots from an old Bretonnia archer and pinned them onto the Dijon here, could not have the fighter being smaller than the elves!

Dijon Boarhog with some new shoes!

Next up came my brothers character, Krrf Oakleaf who was a thief.(Krrf is the name of a drug from the story Thieves World). This is an old Ral Partha model from the mid 1980's as well. Krrf did not need anything but to be removed from his cast on metal base. Oh and you will notice that I have already stripped the models some what because the paint jobs were terrible. I should have taken pictures of them before I stripped them, but that was done last year, trust me, they were bad!

Krrf in all his glory

Next up is Pathos the Cleric, This was another character that my buddy Don ran along with Dijon. In the game, he was the healer and pack mule since that was how Don played him. Got extra stuff, give it to Pathos, he did not care, heck his deity was Boccob, known as the Uncaring. It was funny, when Don would ask me (the DM) by having Pathos pray to his god, I would always give him vague answers since he did not care! This model was from the Ral Partha 3 stage pack and I still have the other two figures from the pack.

Pathos, the great uncaring pack mule!

Lastly we have Blackmoor, a dark elf Fighter/Magic user played by my buddy Jeff Ott. This is another old Ral Partha figure and Jeff wanted to play something different, so he asked if he could play a dark elf. I think he started playing this character right before the Forgotten Realms books came out about Drizzt, I can't remember now. This is another one of the Ral Partha 3 stage models as well.

Blackmoor being all magical!

Last figure on this little diorama is an old Grenadier Beholder out of box 2012 Dwellers Below set. It is one of the first monster miniatures I used in a game and looks perfect hiding under the stairs, plus it fit under there as well. I picked this model up in the mid 1980's as well and it is an oldie but a goodie.

I see you!

So there you go, you get to see what I am working on for myself right now, stay tuned as I will be posting pictures up along the way of the painting and finished diorama. I just hope I can get it done by June 26th...

TK