Koyote

Okay, it's someone else's turn.

The Dark Arts are dark. If Brad was a practitioner of the 'puppy-rainbow-unicorn-mancy,' it'd be a different story.

Except for the bases, my "reserve" unit of 4 warriors is done. The autumn leaves saga continues... The AMMO autumn leaves and basing materials that I ordered from Kings Hobbies & Games (over 3 weeks ago), are still on back order, so I cancelled my order. Kings Hobbies refunded my order immediately and with no hassle, which I greatly appreciate. Thanks KHG. I placed a new order with the manufacturer in Spain. My order shipped the next day and I expect to get it early next week. The expedited shipping from Europe cost me a bit more, but buying products directly from AMMO is 20% less expensive, so it is essentially a wash. Because of the savings and larger variety of products to choose from, I went a bit crazy. I added to my order some of AMMO's grass mats material, tufts, shrubs, ferns, and meadow flowers. I have tufts from a few manufacturers, so it will be interesting to compare them to AMMO's products.

Wow! Looks awesome.

No thanks. My melancholy is too deep. I think I'll just stay home tonight and sob while I paint my Britons.

They've also announced Thulsa Doom and Valeria from Conan the Barbarian (1982). And Ragnar and Lagertha from Vikings. And Mike, Dustin, Will, and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things. Noticeably absent are Lucas and Eleven. WTF?

As with ZBP, I'm 'all in' on this one. One of the many cool things about this expansion is the number of tribute models to celebrities, performers, and icons who have passed away. Prince George Michael Muhammad Ali Freddy Mercury Lemmy from Motorhead. Carrie Fisher (Episode IV pose combined with Episode VIII maturity and hair)

Sig, I'll play.

As I noted in an earlier post, my preferred distribution for my 3 points of warriors is 10, 10, and 4. If the game goes well the unit of 4 warriors spends the entire game where it was deployed. If the game goes less well, it spends the second half of the game in a "strategic retreat" in order to preserve the SAGA die that it generates. This small unit doesn't see much action, but that doesn't mean it has to be an easily forgettable unit of grunts. To jazz up the unit, I assembled it from cool command models that I couldn't fit into my other units or baggage models. Perhaps this unit represents the century's aging centurion and his bodyguards. Except for their bases, the first two models are done.

Except for their bases (I'm still waiting for those damn leaves to arrive), I've completed another 6 warriors. I now have two painted units of 8 warriors, each with a Decanus (or the Romano Briton equivalent) and an infantryman holding a draco. The 6 point warband that I've been playing includes 3 points of warriors. Because I've been fielding 1 point of mercenaries (typically Guides), in order to generate 6 SAGA dices, I need for my warriors to generate 3 SAGA dice. I've experimented fielding them as either three units of 8 warriors or two units of 10 warriors accompanied by a unit of 4 warrior that hides in the rear. I've found that a unit of 10 combined with their Briton defensive orders can take (and deliver) a pretty good hit and remain combat effective, while the units of 8 warriors tend to struggle. Right now, two tens and a four is my preferred configuration.

That is terrible. I am so sorry. Heartbreaking. :(

My Nickstarter Ulterior Motives deck and terrain pieces arrived last night. When I cycle back into Frostgrave, these are going to be a great addition to the game. the 40 Ulterior Motives cards provide players with secondary objectives. Because these objectives may grant players extra treasure and XPs, during set up, only 5 treasure tokens are placed and at game's end, wizards gain only 40 XP for each recovered treasure token. Also, since many of the Ulterior Motives objectives require a player to get one of their models to a certain location on the table, warbands are deployed within 1" of their starting board edge. There are two types of objectives, Secret and Reveal. Since many of the objectives are tied to the placement of an additional piece of terrain, a marker, or a creature, Secret objectives cards include a short list of Red Herrings. These are additional pieces of terrain or creatures that the player places on the table along with his or her true objective. Clever. For example, the Last Meal card is a Secret objective. A thief has run off with your magic ring. Before you could catch him, he blundered into a pack of zombies and was killed. The players must now destroy the newly reanimated thief zombie, recover the ring, and exit the table with it. To conceal your true objective, after terrain and treasure tokens have been placed, the player holding the Last Meal card places on the table a a gateway and a statute along with his true objective, a zombie. The player holding the Last Meal card receives 10 XP if a member of his warband destroys the zombie and an additional 20 XP if a member of his warband picks up the ring. If the ring is recovered, the player may select any one of the magic rings found in the main rulebook.

Awesome!

In the original version of the image you were holding a shotgun, but Steven Spielberg caved to pressure from parents' groups and ordered Kacy to replace the shotgun with a cell phone from 1982. ... Lame.

Not just any Wizard, but a black-hearted warlock and a summoner of malevolent entities. Disclaimer: No emos or Sherberts were harmed in the making of this image.

Apparently, the Jim-thing had an accomplice in its plot to rig the 2017 Kublacon Game Design Contest. Using super-duper advanced (and TOTALLY realistic) digital photo enhancement software available to every law enforcement tech-geek character in American TV crime dramas since the late 90s, I was able to extract an image reflected in the Jim-thing's pupil at the time the photo was taken. The results are startling.

If you open in Photoshop and hit 'undo' a second time...

It's very suspicious I tell you, ve-ry suspicious.

Except for one pose (which is poorly scaled), the Footsore Miniatures wolfhounds are quite nice. Nevertheless, once I got to see them in person, I realized that none of the poses are quite right for what I have in mind. Plus, I wanted Mordred's doggies to look a bit more vicious. After searching around a bit more, I decided to give the Malifaux Guild Hounds a try. Neither their armor or breed matches that of the Roman war dog (dobermans were first bred in Germany, 1,400 years after the fall of Rome), but their scale, poses and best of all, viciousness are all spot on. Will I be forgiven for this anachronism? Who knows. Do I care? A little, but I really like these models, so my Britons may end up including two time traveling canines.

Is it just me or does Jim's head look like it was added to this image with Photoshop?