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According to the folks on Reddit’s r/MarvelCrisisProtocol/ there’s a Deal of the Day sale at Game Nerdz: the Marvel Crisis Protocol Core Set for $59.98. Heck of a deal on an excellent game. Perfect for introducing any non-miniatures gamers that you happen to be quarantined with to the hobby.

What bitz are you looking for specifically? I don’t have a copy of HeroQuest, but I might be able to suggest alternatives. (Also, allow me to make the requisite reference to the best part of HeroQuest...!)

Fat Dragon Games, the creators of your giant slug, have a 50% off sale on their whole inventory on RPGNow until the end of May... So the STL file for said slug is only a $1.00 right now. I’m not sure if you have a 3D printer or not, but for a buck, you might as well grab the file. Then if you want to add more slugs to your army, you’ll just need to find a public library or a maker space with 3D printers (or bribe a friend who has one).

Sacrifice the mead and brownies as burnt offerings unto Grandfather Nurgle. You can turn the kiddie pool into an altar. Perhaps you might please Him and He will move on to some other realm.

Princeps Firefly of the Legio Freedonia.

Jaunty mustache.

It’s weird; When this started, I went total beast-mode and hammered out project after project and project. But last week and this week I just... didn’t feel like it. I mean, I got more done in those first two months than I had in the last two years, so I can’t really complain.

🎼 Got blood on your face, angelic grace, waving your banner all over the place... 🎶 🎶 Singin’ we will, we will, assault you! 🎶

Most of the game mat companies also offer mousepads...

The first proper miniature done with my new 3D printer an earth elemental wizard critter. He’s kind of adorable...

I made a thing! It’s a useless thing, but it’s mine! The very first test print on my new 3D printer. It’s a 20 x 20 x 10 mm lump of plasticized corn starch, but it’s got three (3!) whole D. That’s one D more than any square my other more primitive printers could make!

My birthday-present! It came to me on my birthday, my precious.

When Building a Kingdom in Oathmark, you basically get to create your own army list. The way it works is that you select a number of territories from the lists given in the book. Each territory has a different Rarity rating and will give you the potential to select certain Characters or Units. The very first territory you pick is your Capital and must be a Human City, Dwarf City, Elf City, Goblin City, or an Orc City. Your chosen Capital determines the race of your leader and will strongly influence the rest of your choices. However, when building your kingdom you have potential access to every territory type in the game. I've decided I want to make a traditionally villainous fantasy army of mostly Goblins, but I'm going to throw in a few allies of other races for fun. So I will start with Region One, the capital. For this I will pick the Goblin City. Goblin City gives me access to one Goblin King or Advisor, one Goblin General or two Goblin Captains; one Goblin Champion; one Goblin Spellcaster (or first or second level); and an unlimited number of units of Goblin Soldiers, Goblin Spearmen, and Goblin Archers. So, right away, you can see that having a Goblin City will give me most of the basic building blocks of a Goblin army... After picking my Capital City, I have to choose two Territories for Region Two. These can be any territory belonging to the same race as my capital or any territory belonging to another faction. The limitation here is that it must be of Rarity Two or lower (and out of faction territories count as being one Rarity higher). So for the most part, Region Two territories tend to be either "in faction" choices or they will be a City of another race. I've already got access to most of the basic building blocks of a solid Goblin core thanks to my Goblin City, but I'd like some Goblin Slaves to bolster my numbers and a second Goblin Champion to help keep the lads in line. As per usual for fantasy games, Goblins are lousy troops individually and thus rely on large numbers and hearty heroes. I'll pick the Slave Camp, giving me access to Goblin Slaves and Goblin Slave Slingers... They're wretched troops, but they're dirt cheap. For that second Champion, I'll need to pick Smithies. I note that the Smithies also give me access to Orc Warriors and Orc Linebreakers. Orc Linebreakers are nasty heavy infantry... Hmm. Next comes the three Territories of Region Three. These can be any in-faction territory of Rarity 3 (or less) or any out-of-faction Territory of Rarity 2 (or less). The Goblin City gave me access to one lower level Spellcaster but I think I want to bring a second, stronger Spellcaster. To access a Level 3+ Goblin Spellcaster, I need to select a Dungeon terrain. I'd also like some artillery to soften up the enemy before they come to grips with my weak battleline, so I'll take the Ruined Villages terrain and gain access to Goblin Light Catapults and Orc Heavy Catapults. But this level of rarity really opens up my options for out-of-faction choices and I want to pick something that will surprise my opponent. Goblins are the weakest troops in the game, so let's pair them with some of the toughest: Human Heavy Cavalry and Human Cavalry are unlocked by the Plains territory. Plains are Rarity 2, but they're on the Human faction list... So they're essentially Rarity 3 for me. Perfect. Lastly, I have to make four choices for Territories in Region Four. Here I can choose any territory on any terrain list with no limits on Rarity... The trade-off being that these will be the first territories to fall to the enemy if I loose campaign games. So its generally a bad idea to pick Territories that will give me access to core units, but the lack of a Rarity cap also means I have access to the most rare territories and the most powerful units. Decisions, decisions. First things first, I want to be able to field a Giant... Why? Because Giants are cool! So I'll select the Rocky Mountains territory and get access to one Giant. So I take two... Because two giants is better than one! I've already decided I'll have some Human Heavy Cavalry, but they're expensive and it'd be nice to have a Human Champion to lead them. That means I need a either a Human City or an Iron Mine. The Human City, like the Goblin City, gives access to a lot of basic troop types and the Iron Mines give access to Human Champions, Warriors, and Linebreakers. I'll opt for both a Human City and Iron Mines. Options are good. So, to sum up, I have a city of goblins, full of slave camps and hellish industrial furnaces, in the middle of a blasted plain full of ruined villages built atop ancient ruined dungeons. All ringed in by tall rocky mountains, where a city of human sellswords wrestle with giants to secure their iron mines. No doubt, all driven into battle by the whips of their masters. Groovy.

My Deathwing army was a mix of Terminators from the Assault on Black Reach and Dark Vengeance starter sets, the 8th Edition Deathwing kit, and one or two pewter termies from way back in Second Edition... There was definitely some scale creep over that span.

It has indeed. They released a bunch of “campaign” books that had new mission types and could be run as a series of linked scenarios to tell a story. Plus several supplements that expanded the game: Sellsword, which introduced rules for experience-gaining Captains (basically a Fighter instead of a Wizard) that could be added to your gangs; Dark Alchemy, which expanded the rules for potions, and Arcane Locations, which gives additional options for your gang’s headquarters. Then there was the spin-off game, Ghost Archipelago, which moves the action to a tropical island and replaces the Wizards with Inheritors – basically Fighters with superpowers. It sounds weird, but it works. There’s a Frostgrave Second Edition due out this August. According to the author, it’s not going to be a radical shift, mostly it will add in a lot of the supplemental material, rebalance some of the spells, and cleanup ambiguities. Ghost Archipelago is apparently not being added...

From the early days of the Cabin Fever Painting Frenzy, but still one I’m really proud of Marvel Crisis Protocol’s Captain America. He was the final model of the core set I painted (and I even bought and painted the Hulk first too) because I was worried – okay, I was downright frightened! – of screwing up his star-spangled shield. It is the most important thing to get right with him and to make it look right you’ve got to get those curved lines clean. The camera picks up a few little imperfections that the naked eye doesn’t. I pushed myself with Cap and am happy with the final result... But the model I’ve had the most sheer fun painting was M.O.D.O.K. He’s just such a great, classic Jack Kirby design and the sculptors managed to capture the balance between menacing and goofy that the character should have. Painting the “fart cloud” was fun, plus it’s always great to use colors like purple and yellow that normally don’t see use. But it was his big giant head’s big giant face with a big giant sneer meant I got to play around with blending skin tones and shades that I normally don’t (and can’t) do on a normally sized figure. Heck, I’ve even made M.O.D.O.K. my Facebook avatar:

So this project will no doubt be great for RPGs and such... But oh my Zod, it is PERFECT for Oathmark: Edit to Add: I backed this at the Gold Level with the Epic Cities add-on. It’ll still be a few weeks before they release the files, but I’m looking forward to it.

I prefer to think the Order of the Bloody Rose was actually named by a lowly scribe adept who misunderstood what one very frustrated Grand Ecclesiarch was muttering to himself when he couldn’t get a certain plant in his garden to grow.

Lies! Foul lies and sorcery! Black magic! Witchcraft! Heresy!

This years theme is Everyone Versus Nurgle.

One word, my jovial orcish brother: Frostgrave.

I wouldn’t mind the Rohirrim, but the army of the dead figures don’t interest me... I also greatly prefer Oathmark or Saga to GW’s LotR rules. LotR:SBG isn’t a bad game (in fact, it’s probably one of GW’s best offerings) but I’ve always found it a bit too weighted in favor of heroic characters over rank-and-file troops. This is a perfectly reasonable way to emulate the films, so I understand why they wrote it that way, but it ain’t my preference.