Norse Kaiju

 Haven't had much hobby inspiration lately, but I did eventually paint some big monster types for Of Gods and Mortals. The Frost Giant is, I think, an old Reaper mini. The Fenrisulfr is a plastic toy, and the Jormundgandr is a plaster knickknack that was $2 at Goodwill. Gripping Beast plastic vikings for scale.

 

This pic also has a Thor converted from a... Goliath Barbarian?  

 

more objectives for Primavera Occulta

 Treasure chests are all well and good, but I wanted a few more objectives with a little more character...

The Caryatid Column (statue lady) is the only unconverted purpose-built item here, from Reaper. The goat statues are little knicknacks tied around the necks of a certain beer brand that unfortunately I cannot recall the name of, based on pennies. The emerald tablet is the butt end of a plastic fork, with some "carvings" poked onto the surface with a knife. The skeletons are made from the Warlord Games (formerly Wargames Factory) skeleton infantry sprue, which is also the source of the horned skull. The pedestal for the horned skull is a pushpin.

Objectives for Primavera Occulta

Here are some basic objectives for Primavera Occulta, the Renaissance skirmish game I've been posting about. I eventually plan to make some less generic ones, but these will do for early playtesting. The idea is that some objectives need to be claimed by a Mental test, others by a Physical test, and some can be claimed by either. So, if the objective is in a grave, it's purely a physical issue of digging it up to claim it. If it's a pile of treasure or an open chest, it's a mental test to sort through the trinkets and find the esoterically-valuable piece. If it's a closed chest, it's either a mental check to pick the lock or a physical one to bust it open. Not sure which of these the candelabra is, but I like how it looks.

These are all Reaper minis, except the gravestones which I believe are 4ground.

With an eye to playtesting, I've actually re-written the basic rules to use a standard 52-card deck. The extra complexity of the Tarot deck will be necessary for the campaign system and a more advanced magic system further down the line, but for playing through the basic mechanics there's no reason to restrict my potential playtester pool. And speaking of which, if you are interested in trying out these rules, let me know at thaddeus.urban[at]gmail.com and put "primavera occulta" in the subject line.

Halloweekend 2016 pics

The weekend before Halloween I had some friends over for a bit of historical/horror Mordheim. Warbands from all over Europe had been pursuing witches and vampires, and all the monsters had converged on a remote Carpathian town for unknown, but presumably dire, purpose. The hunters formed a makeshift alliance, and assaulted the village from all directions to cleanse the evil gathered within.

Mystery Project: demystified!

It's a new Guildball team!

Sorry to disappoint anyone hoping for more historicals, I'm working on some stuff, but it's all pretty much stalled until I can get ahold of some proper spraypaint.This is harder than sounds, because it's illegal to sell spraypaint in the City of Chicago, and the game store I sometimes go to outside the city doesn't stock it, and the art supply store they directed me to only had spraypaint in some weird expensive formulation that smells a little better then normal spraypaint but also clogs faster than any other brand I've ever seen. Soon, though, hopefully!

So, here they are, the Candlestick Makers Guild.

Some backstory: The team is inspired by a dumb joke I couldn't get out of my head. When I started working on the Butchers team, I mentioned that I was looking forward to the release of the Bakers and Candlestick Makers, a reference to the nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub. In addition to creating this team, I also have plans to convert a Brewers Guild team into a Bakers Guild Team, mostly just by adding chef's hats and converting weapons.

Now, Guildball is a very carefully balanced game, with lots of synergies and trade-offs built into each team's options. It would take a huge amount of work to actually design a new guild team that would integrate into the existing game without being over- or under-powered. So, both of my "new" teams are just going to use existing rules. The Bakers are just going to use the Brewers rules along with their models.

But I had to get more creative with the Candlestick Makers. The existing team that has the most to do with smoke and fire and metal is the Alchemists, but their miniatures didn't look at all what I had in mind, way too steampunk. So I'm using Alchemist rules, but converting Reaper Fantasy minis to represent the players. I tried to make each Candlestick Maker at least a little bit reminiscent of the Alchemist whose rules they use, both in appearance and name (though the naming is still a work in progress for some of them).

Here is the "starter set" of fire guy, season one captain, and other lady. Their alchemist counterparts are Mercury, Midas and Calculus, so I want to call them Menorah, Tarnish and Candelabra, but the way the conversions and rules worked out don't really support those names. In practice, I'm probably going to call that middle dude Jean Valjean because it totally looks like he's just stealing that candlestick...

These are Vigil (based off Venin, a skinny spooky guy), Draco (Naja, a mascot cobra), and Girandole (Vitriol, a lady with a big thwacking stick). I may remove Draco's wings, since Naja can't fly, but overall I am quite pleased with how these three turned out. I suppose this is a good time to point out that a bunch of these conversions use pieces from the "Treasure and Candleabra" Reaper mini pack.

Here is Kirion (Katalyst, big muscular guy), Snuff (Smoke, same model), and Alloy (Compound, big fat guy). Snuff is the only actual Guildball model on the whole team. She's a great one-piece mini, only converted by adding a snuffer to her left hand. The original mini is releasing smoke from an alchemical flask, I wanted to suggest that this one is generating smoke from a snuffed candle. Even her cowl/hood thing matches the aesthetic that the rest of this team seems to have.

I haven't decided on a color scheme for sure, but I think white and yellow would look neat. No one else in my group has a team colored like that, and yellow is an obvious color for a team associated with candles, and when researching different styles and traditions of candle-holding devices, a lot of pictures also had religious vestments in those colors. So actually, I guess I pretty much have decided on a color scheme...