Orctober 2024

I last did something special for 'Orctober' in 2021 when I managed to paint a couple of Ripper Suits for Deadzone,  some 15mm orcs and I started a 10mm Mordor army for Fantastic Battles.
This year I think I'll do some more orcs, it's not like I haven't had practice recently.

But what? Simply painting more Old School orcs is a bit too much like the rest of the year (though I do have some nice pre slotta orcs to do sometime). 

Orctober Suggestions
I had a couple of ideas; more Rogue Trader Orks, or some 6mm orcs to oppose the 6mm dwarves that I painted for Fantastic Battles.

The Rogue Trader Orks would be ten more to bulk out the ones I did back in 2022. It would give me some special and heavy weapon support, and if they go well I'll add in a character mini or two. It would give me enough old school orks for a skirmish game, and if I got those done, I've a Dreadnought and even a buggy to paint.

The 6mm orcs are from Irregular Miniatures and have already been painted and are currently based up for Hordes of the Things. As I said regarding the dwarves, this puzzles me, as I've no recollection of ever playing HotT in that scale). But I'd like to get them painted in my current style. I might even simply try a wash and a highlight. If this works, I can get a second 6mm FB army done. I've got lots of them, including cavalry, artillery and monsters. I've also got loads of goblins, but I think I'll keep those as a separate force.

Further Suggestions
Chatting with Bodvoc he added a couple of other suggestions. Post a picture a day from my orc collection (this seems a bit like self promotion - says the chap publishing a blog) or build some orc terrain. I do like making terrain, but I tend to need some impetus to get round to doing it. A challenge perhaps?

And a Decision
In the spirit of compromise, we are combining my 6mm orc idea (you'd already guessed that from the photo below, hadn't you) and Bodvoc's terrain idea. What's more, he's joining in with elves to give me the extra impetus to finish this (an early Nelfember project?)

So by the end of October we both aim to have 500 points of Fantastic Battles 6mm finished, along with a piece of terrain.

This should be fun, but first I have to work out a list and see if I can repair and update the painted orcs or will it be 'Strip and Start Again'?

Some of the painted 6mm orcs

#ORCTOBER

Artefacts From my Gaming Past - Aquila Lite-Man

All the RPGaDAY stuff got me thinking back to my early gaming days. This coincided with me finding an old mini from the seventies.

There's not a lot to say about this mini itself, except that it's probably one of the oldest minis that I still own.  I don't know why I painted it purple either, but it seems to suit the rather unearthly look of the thing.

It's from the Minifigs Science Fiction range and Lost Minis Wiki identifies it as SF 18 Aquila Lite-Man from the mid 1970s (it appears in the 1975 catalogue). 

I can't remember why I bought it, though it might have been some sort of wraith in early D&D (which would date my purchase to around '77-78) but it brought memories flooding back, and that's what these Artefacts posts are all about.

Way Back in the Mists of Last Century (provide your own wibbly-wobbly SFX)

I bought a few of this range back in the seventies on rare and much anticipated trips to the Model Railway Supermarket in Bradford. There was no plan to buying them, I just got minis I liked the look of.

Back then, shops selling minis were rare, and often the minis were just a small section among other hobbies, such as plastic kits, model planes and railways (much later Something Wicked was also like this). 

I always found model soldiers fascinating, going right back to plastic Britain's soldiers, but the opportunity to buy the smaller lead ones was very rare. 

I do have vague memories of a shop in Scarborough where I bought some Highlanders, and there was a shop in Howarth called, appropriately, Land of Gondal*, which had a good selection of historical stuff.  I remember them having a table of small cardboard boxes, each with a code for the particular mini and the relevant mini inside.  Very trusting. 

My first trips to the shop in Bradford were true expeditions. A bus to Bradford, then a long walk (well, to my young legs; it was over a mile and a half each way) to the shop. We later worked out which bus to take, but it still felt special.

I first went there to buy some of the Minifigs Mythical Earth range, and my remaining handful have the title of oldest minis still owned, but they are for another post.  I even remember seeing small books with the words "Dungeons and Dragons" on them, but I ignored them, I was there for the lead.

There would have been a good number of cabinets of historical minis, and a few of the then new fantasy minis.  I remember some of the ranges even now.  Minifigs produced Mythical Earth, the Science Fiction range and a Sword and sorcery range that were to Conan what the Mythical Earth minis were to The Lord of the Rings.

As I moved from Middle Earth wargaming to D&D the trips became more focused on RPG minis (hence Aquila Lite-Man).  I was no longer making the expedition with my parents but with the gaming group from college.  They were rather raucous journeys!

Enough misty-eyed memories.  Now I'll have to think of something to do with the Aquila Lite-Man.

*That's right, Gondal, not Gondor.  A no-prize (or possibly a self-administered pat on the back) if you comment why it's appropriate.

Kerwin the Rogue

As part of the 'Grand Sort-Out' I found an old character mini recently. Kerwin the Rogue.

Kerwin was one of the pregens in the fourth edition Starter, Keep on the Shadowfell. One of the players chose him, and another chose the pregen dwarf fighter, Kathra. I seem to remember that the rest of the group rolled up their characters, but these two players missed that session.

We used one of the WotC prepainted plastic minis at first (they did specific minis for both Kerwin and Kathra), but there was also a small range of better sculpted metal mini. I had at least two of these (the other one was Sovelis, half elven bard).

Sadly, Kerwin met an unfortunate end in Specularum. He fought the law, and the law won.

I stripped the original paint job and removed an added crossbow, which reflected the character's equipment, but added nothing to the looks of the mini.

I gave Kerwin a muted paint job. He is a rogue after all. I rather enjoyed the challenge of painting brown clothing but making different areas distinctive. The red headband is a nod to the original prepainted mini, and the red piping echoes this.

The blue trousers are simply because I wanted a dark colour to help with hiding and I thought an extra colour would look good.

I've now given Kerwin back to the player, something I like to do when a character mini is no longer in play.

I must apologise for the poor quality of the photos. Two of my lights had run out of batteries, and I didn't have any spares.

Kerwin's player is a rather good photographer (much better than I am), so hopefully he'll share some pictures, in which case I'll post them here.

RPGaDAY 2024 Review

RPGADAY 2024 Review 

Well, that was fun! 

It's been an interesting experience, and helped me think about what I play and why. It may even affect what I play in the future, particularly relevant with D&D 24 looming.

I'm not really surprised that I sound like an old school Grognard, but it's refreshing to see that I've mentioned more than just D&D and Call of Cthulhu. I like to think that I've dabbled in a few lesser known titles, though I've been reading a few other entries, and there are some truly obscure games out there.

I've definitely come to some sort of understanding of why I play games, and what sort of games are likely to appeal to me. 

Despite no longer being in the world of work, time seems as precious as ever, and inevitably I have to compromise when it comes to RPGs. 

In the past I've run several different games on different nights, using different systems (running D&D in both 4E and 5E was a challenge). I can't really do that anymore. The cognitive load is greater than I want to give these days.

I've realised that I don't enjoy a game if I feel I'm lost in the rules. I know that I might make poor choices within the game, but I want them to be my poor choices, not just because I don't understand the details of the game rules.

I appreciate that there's bound to be a period when I'm learning a new game, but, much as with my wargaming, I'm wary if something new comes along. Do I already have a game that does the same sort of thing? If so, is it worth learning something else new?

I've also realised that I like playing in games where the players act as a group to achieve a goal. I'm all for personal goals and motivations, but I've a personal dislike of games that set the players against each other. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this style of game, just that they aren't for me.

And if I'm playing a fantasy game, I want it to feel heroic. 

Honourable Unmentioned 

I realised that I've played quite a few different games over the forty plus years that I've been roleplaying, and many of them haven't been mentioned. 

Here's a list of the ones that I can remember.

So, in no particular order;

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 

Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game 

Runequest

Fiasco

Shadow Chasers (and various other Polyhedron magazine games)

GURPS

Tunnels and Trolls 

The Arduin Grimoire (or is this just a D&D supplement?)

Dragon Warriors 

Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying

Basic Roleplay System (the OSR clone)

Traveller

True d20 (the Pulp version, not the Mecha version. I regularly get asked to run this again)

Microlite d20

Warrior Cats 

SAGA roleplaying system 

Star Wars (the WotC d20 version)

STOCSlite

Maelstrom 

Lone Wolf (RPG based on the game books)

TORG (both versions)

Empire of the Petal Throne 

Beneath the Sands (devised by a fellow player/GM at the FLGS)

MERPS

Maybe some of them will get a mention next year.

#RPGaDAY24

Lidl Hobby Drill

Just a quick post to mention to UK readers that Lidl are currently selling a pin vice and drill bit set for under £6.

The forty bits range in size from 0.06 mm to 2.5 mm and there are left and right handed bits for each size!

I can't vouch for quality, but that's a lot of drill bits.

Board Game Night: Wingspan

The MEGAforce was down to just two this week, but we ploughed on and tried Grim's latest game, Wingspan by Stonemaier Games.

The end game

How to Win

The aim of the game is to have the best collection of wild birds, measured by a value given on each bird card, plus a couple of personal goals drawn randomly at the beginning (one of mine was to try and get lots of birds with eggs on their cards at the end of the game, Grim was collecting birds with small wingspans, nominally passerines). There are also changing goals each round for extra points, and some birds have the ability to cache food or 'tuck' other bird cards - presumably they predate them or perhaps mob them and drive them off.

Game Play 

Each turn players take it in turns to either play a bird card in the relevant habitat (costing food, and potentially eggs), collect food (randomly rolled with special dice in the 'bird box/feeder' dice tower) from the forest, lay eggs from the grasslands or draw bird cards from the wetlands. Doing any of these last three actions also triggers abilities that any birds played in that habitat have.

The game is played over four rounds, each consisting of a number of turns, initially eight, reducing by one each round.

Stand outs 

The action economy system is great. Using small cubes to gain actions, but losing one each round really focuses you on your endgame.

The 'bird box/food tray' is a fun addition. Not completely necessary, although you do need to differentiate between food dice available and those which have been claimed, which it does admirably. Fortunately it does fit in the game box simply by separating the tower from the tray.

Minor grumbles

We found the starter deck, designed to help new players learn the game with four pre determined turns of the first round, more of a hinderance than a help. But we've learned that lesson, and we'll probably not use them with future new players.

For a game with an ecological focus, there's a lot of plastic. Plastic eggs, plastic trays for the various components.  There has been a move towards wooden or card components in many games recently, that would have been appropriate here.

And being an American game, the birds are all North American birds, though some birds do have a wider range than just North America. I'd like to see a more international supplement.

*EDIT* apparently there is a European supplement, along with several others.

Overall 

There's more to the game than my brief description, and initially it seemed rather complicated, but by round three we were pretty sure of play and were building strategies. 

I'm certainly looking forward to playing again, hopefully with the rest of MEGAforce, although it did play very well as a two player game.

I'll place this firmly in A Tier, with the understanding that this may move up or down slightly with repeated play.