Kickstarter Roundup: Dungeons and Hussars

There a pair of Kickstarters I'm following, one just wrapping up and one just getting started: Dwarven Forge's "Game Tiles" and Wargamer's "By Fire and Sword".  More details after the jump.

Dwarven Forge

I've drooled over Dwarven Forge's resin dungeon terrain for years, but the incredible cost has always kept them out of reach. When Dwarven Forge announced their Kickstarter with much more affordable sets, I jumped in without hesitation. I have a huge number of Reaper Bones fantasy figures on the way, I've had a good time with Song of Blades and Heroes, and I've ping ponged between historical and fantasy gaming for the last 10 years. I know I'll get a chance to put these to use.

The Kickstarter is down to the final hours, but check out the free stretch goal addons they are throwing in when you order two sets or more:

I'm splitting multiple sets with friends plus adding some additional packs for enough tiles to cover a good sized gaming table. Something like this:

There also a number of excellent painting videos showing how easy it is to drybrush these tiles yourself. The Dwarven Forge "Game Tiles" Kickstarter ends April 30.

By Fire and Sword

I know nothing about 16th century Polish warfare, but I'm being tempted solely by the gorgeous rule book produced by Wargamer for their "By Fire and Sword" rules.

It appears to be quite a tome, and there are already fully armies for the factions included in the rules. Unlike most Kickstarters the product is already ready to be shipped, and Wargamer is using the funds to ramp up the English translation of the rules that have been in Polish for a number of years.

The English rules were released at Salute (I'm hoping to find a review of them soon), and it appears they are geared for both small skirmishes and large set piece battles.

The figures are in 15mm, which is a bit off putting (I have some 15mm Eastern Front WWII terrain that might be able to pull double duty, but 15mm isn't a scale I am heavily invested in), and I already have enough projects I'm juggling, and I 16th century Eastern European warfare is going to be a tough sell for my game group, but I'm thinking of getting the rules just to read and compare to other sets. I stil have time to decide as the "Fire and Sword" Kickstarter ends May 20.

Incredible terrain set ups for fantasy campaign

I saw this link pop up on reddit and finally got around to watching it. This guy has filled his basement with elaborate terrain set ups for his groups rpg games. Even if you don't play role playing games you should check out these diorama terrain set ups. Awesome stuff!

Architects of War Dark Ages Buildings

Architects of War was running a show special at Fall-In for a bundle of dark ages terrain I couldn't pass up. I painted up the Daub and Wood A-Frame and Timber A-Frame to go along with my wattle fences in anticipation of some SAGA. My thoughts and progress pics after the jump.

I'd heard the bare resin was resistant to paint and even typical game primer, so I hit both buildings with Krylon tan camo primer.

After priming I painted both buildings up with my standard terrain paints: cheap student artist acrylics and sample paint pints from the DIY store. I gave the exterior wood of both buildings a base of very dark gray (80% black + 20% gray) followed by several lighter mixes of gray. The exterior plastered walls were given a two coats of successively lighter shades (50% light brown + 50% bone white followed by 20% light brown + 80% bone white).

I took a look at a lot of photos of thatch roofs. As the light gold or tan of fresh thatch is exposed to the elements it gradually turns gray with lighter ivory highlights. I went for a slightly weathered look for my thatch. It took several different shades of drybrushing to get the effect I was looking for:

• 75% black and 25% gray base 
• Dry brush 50% black and 50% gray 
• Dry 20% brush black, 40% gray, 40% light brown 
• Dry brush 10% black, 45% gray, 45% bone white 
• Light dry brush 50% gray, 50% light brown 
• Light dry brush 50% gray, 50% bone white

Lit By Fire: Interior Light Effects

Other examples of these buildings I've seen included fully painted interiors. There's a lot of detail within the buildings that paints up nicely. The effect though, seemed as if the player was literally a giant lifting the roof off of the building and peering inside. I wanted to suggest something different, using paint to replicate the lighting situation so it felt as if the viewer was looking through the roof to the dimly lit interior. 

I started by giving the interior a spray coat of black primer, followed by a spray of tan primer centered on the fire pit at the center of each dwelling.

I went back and added more definition and shadows with straight black paint. I drybrushed the edges of any interior elements facing the fire pit with orange followed by a light drybrush of yellow on the items closest to the pits. 

I was pretty happy with the effect, which looks more realistic in dim light (but doesn't photograph as well).  I really enjoyed painting both buildings up. There's a ton of character and tiny details, and getting both buildings looking decent was easy. A+ Architects of War!

Renedra Wattle Fence

I knocked out a pack of Renedra wattle fences this weekend. I thought the little "feet" used for basing might look a bit goofy, so I gave each length of fence a base. To make sure the fence ends could join up seamlessly I left the bases a bit short, leaving a baseless gap on the ends. I might go back and tidy that up, but seen at normal playing height those gaps aren't noticeable. The pic above only shows a few lengths of fence, but the pack contains enough to create quite a large enclosure for dark ages livestock or a village.

I have a few more bits of dark ages terrain I want to get finished up before moving on to the actual figures. I'm looking forward to finally jumping into SAGA and maybe extending those warbands into full on 1st Crusade and Sicilian Norman armies for Hail Caesar. Black Friday is coming and I'm already starting to collect a list of wargame deals for the holidays, hoping to find deals to flesh out these nascent dark ages armies. I'll post whatever I find in case you are interested. Do you know of any hobby or gane deals coming online for Black Friday?

Desert Wasteland Wargame Terrain Cloth Tutorial

I've been upgrading my terrain scenics lately: woods, buildings, walls and other items that sit on top of the table, but I've been holding out on updating the terrain board or cloth that our miniature wargames are played on. I toyed with the idea of creating terrain boards, but after seeing some impressive terrain cloth tutorials (Of Metal Men's, Jeff Knudsen's Terrain Cloth and Balagan's Felt Cloth for example), I decided to tackle one myself as part of my Flocktober projects. Hurricane Sandy and Fall-In delayed completion, but pics and a tutorial after the jump.



I was wary of jumping right into a costly "rolling farmland" flocked terrain cloth without a little experience under my belt. I have some sci fi games I wanted to dust off and figured I could use a desert wasteland terrain cloth for them. Plus, sand is cheaper than grass flock.

Materials

I used the paint shades suggested in Quindia Studios awesome desert terrain board tutorial, namely Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, Bleached Bone and gray. As described in the Quindia Studios article I brought in paint samples to the local DIY store which they matched then and provided water based acrylics in "sample" pints. Very easy and very cheap.

 
I also picked up a 5'x5' canvas dropcloth and some bathtub calk in various shades of brown, tan and cream. I had to resupply during this project, so here's a full list of the materials I ended up using:

• 1 canvas drop cloth ($7)
• 5 pints of paint ($2.50 each)
• 4 tubes of calk ($6 each)
• 1/3 bag of sand
• calk gun, wide paint brushes, palette knife, mixing tray and gray paint I had on hand.

Initial Terrain Cloth Sand Base

I spread the cloth on my work table and got to the business of spreading the tan calk and smearing it into a thin layer with a palette knife (I later switched to using my finger for tricky spots which seemed to work better).

I sprinkled the wet calk with sand and then used one of the other calk tubes as a rolling pin to smooth out the sand and make sure it had a firm bond with the calk.

After the entire table was covered in sand and calk, I waited for it to dry overnight before removing all excess sand.

Completed sand layer

Painting the Terrain Cloth

Next I used a heavy layer of scorched earth and bubonic brown as the base paint, mixing and blending colored patches to give the terrain cloth a natural variation. At one point I was running low on paint and began using a diluted solution of paint and water as a "wash", which looked great even when dry, but wound up not providing the extra fixing strength that a proper coat of paint did. I wound up going back and giving a few coats of paint to the entire cloth to ensure full coverage and to get into tricky area.

Base coat of scorched earth and bubonic brown.

I tried a number of different calk colors, including a lighter tan calk to match the light sand color I had in mind for the table, but this ended up being a poor choice. I thought a dark brown would look too "wet" for an arid cloth if it showed up where the sand had worn off, but the light tan calk I chose really draws the eye when it peeks through crevices in the sand. If I did this again I'd stick with a dark brown calk for the entire mat.

Drybrushing

After allowing the base to color to dry and went back and drybrushed with various shades of bubonic brown, gray and bleached bone.

Beginning the gray drybrush on the left side.

Completed drybrush

Overhead view with a few test pieces to show scale.

I'm happy with the final terrain cloth and looking forward to getting some games played on it. Placing foam hills beneath the cloth allows it to fold and bend into realistic hill contours. We already put it to use with our Halloween game just before it was completed and it worked really well. One word of warning, the amount of sand and calk on this table makes it heavier than I expected. I fear a larger 9x5 cloth is going to be a pain to move by one person if it uses the same sand and calk method as described above.

There are a few other additional terrain pieces I'd like to make to match this terrain cloth such as the rock formations in these tutorials: Chicago Wargamers Rock Formations and Baueda's  Desert Terrain tutorial

"Song of Blades and Heroes" Halloween Brawl

I've been trying to pull off a Halloween themed game night for years, but never managed to get my act together. I was determined to finish up a final Flocktober project in time to run a Halloween themed monster bash using "Song of Blades and Heroes" this year. All of the spooky carnage after the jump.

Setting up the Halloween Skirmish

Other than a few brief solo plays or test runs with my son, this was my entire group's first trial of "Song of Blades and Heroes", a fast play set of skirmish rules for fantasy gaming. Each model has only two stats: quality (a score they need to roll on a d6 to do anything) and combat (a score that is added to their single combat roll). Figures are modified by special abilities that let them alter the rules, but keep the overall rules overhead to a manageable limit.

I put together five different warbands and let our group pick their favorite. Each warband deployed within a "long" distance of a table edge closest to the player's beer.

Bob's "Risen" (a vampire, four ghouls and four wolves) skulked near the Warehouse. Mike's "Cult" evil priest and two human archers summoned three demons (using smilodon warrior stats) in the Demon Circle. The Other Mike took a bullet for the team, setting up his "Hunters" (two clerics and three undead hunters) in The Woods, and helping his 6 year old son set up his "Cursed" (a mummy, 8 skeletons and a giant scarab beetle) skitter forth from the fields. I set up my "Stitched" warband (an alchemist magic user and four golems) in the Barrens.

The Cult takes cover behind their unholy stones.

The Hunters break camp to stalk something other than their usual big game.

The Stitched golems mill about awaiting orders.

I pulled stats from the rules when possible, but used the online warband builder to create a few custom creatures. After the game we realized there are a few more restrictions regarding warband construction regarding leaders and tough models, but everything seemed to work out ok for this initial play.

A Song of Blood and Horror

The initial moves saw the Hunters head towards the road to open long range fire on the Cursed skeletal minions of the mummy, who shambled out of the weedy fields towards the town. The Cult, caught between the vampires and monstrous Stitched, took up a defensive position within the Demon Circle.

The dapper vampire commanding the Risen sent his ghoulish minions forth to battle the Cult, but was unable to whip his wolves into a battle frenzy. By only using a single die to activate each wolf, they failed to move more often then not and spent most of the game lagging behind. One poor pooch spent the entire game in his starting spot (chasing his tail no doubt).

Having played Mike countless times, I knew he'd need to be double teamed and destroyed before turning my attentions to lesser threats. I sent three of my Stitched golems and their alchemist leader towards Mike's cultists. He shifted his forces in response, ready to drive off attacks from two fronts.

On the other end of the table, the Hunters methodically whittled down the Cursed skeletons. All five Hunters were lethal against undead and made short work of the rattling bones. Emboldened by their success they raced across the road to take the mummy and giant scarab on in melee.

The skeletons for their part noticed a ladder leaning against the side of the large gate ruins on the outskirts of the town.

They spent the rest of the game climbing to the top of the gate.  There was quite a breathtaking view up there! Tactically, that may not have been the best choice.

And then they opened a bungee jumping outfit.

Meanwhile, the Cult was managing to fend off the initial rush of ghouls, but things were looking dire for them. The main assault of the monstrous golems began. Distracted by the brutes, the Cult barely noticed the dapper fellow in the top hat nonchalantly rounding a boulder with an open path to their flank.

With the narrow entrances to the circle, the Cult managed not only to hold off the monsters but force a morale check by ripping one of them to shreds. The entire band was close to the table edge and when their leader fled from battle the remaining golems were forced to make checks seeing only one remain on the table at the end of the round.

"Blah! Blah! I'll fight you vith both hands tied behind my back!"

All was not lost though. The European gentleman turned out to be the Risen's vampire, and went into melee with the five remaining cultists. The undead bloodsucker held his own for several rounds before finally succumbing to the onslaught. When the vampire was slain, his wolves retreated into the wilderness.

The Hunters finished off the mummy but discovered a new threat. With my last golem bearing down on them, the Hunters took a page from the Cultist hand book and found a defensive position in some standing stones.

How tragic.

The Cultists raced across the field to finish off their last remaining foes. With time running short though the Hunters were forced to concede the field.

The victorious cultists possess the desolate town. Lucky them, I guess?

Quick Review of Song of Blades and Heroes

I really enjoyed Song of Blades and Heroes.  It was fast, each figure type had enough unique characteristics to make it interesting, and while this was our first time playing there was very little rules referencing. When the game was over I wanted to jump back in and play again, but wives were a-callin' and we needed to wrap up. Overall the rest of the group had positive comments and were up for future games. We had five independent teams, all of us were new to the rules, and we were coaching a child through the game and we wrapped up within 2 hours. That bodes well for future plays.

I'm sure we screwed some things up, but I'm hoping the latest edition of the rules clarifies some of our questions. I'd really like to play a long term campaign with Song of Blades and Heroes, but life is pretty rough at the moment and I'll have to console myself with the odd game here and there. Still, I'll likely pick up a few of the expansions in hopes of rolling SoBaH out once the Reaper mini extravaganza arrives in the Spring.