Old School Miniatures Orc Chariot with Boars

A while ago I showed my recently acquired Old School Miniatures Orc Chariot. It's a nice model, but I wanted a boar chariot, not a wolf chariot. Fortunately, I bought a pack of boars at the same time for just this purpose.

The boars are slightly smaller than the old GW boars, but I'm fine with that. I might look at using the spares as mounts, if I can find suitable orc riders. 

The Old School Miniatures Orc Chariot, comin' right at ya!

Preparation 

The boars have no harness or other equipment, so I decided to add a bit of something, just to make them look right as chariot pulling beasts.

I wound some thread around their bodies at the point where the chariot yoke would be attached. I also gave each boar a bit, one required drilling a hole in the mouth to take it. The bit is simply a piece of wire, bent at the end for reins to fasten on to.

One of the boars had a bald patch on its rump, this was quickly fixed with a bit of greenstuff (the slotta bases are simply for easy handling during painting).

The boars ready for chariot pulling 

Building The Chariot 

There's not much flash, and what there is is easy to clean up. Assembly was straightforward, only four pieces, not including beasts and crew. I found that gluing the wheels a bit away from the body looks better, but there's still a bit of axle sticking out. 

I wanted to add some blades, an option in Warlord's of Erehwon, and I think also in Warhammer. I pondered using spare blades from the old Fantasy Regiment set, but they were far too big. In the end I chose curved knife blades from the Oathmark goblin sprue. I cut a slot in each the end of the axle, and they fit right in. 

Fantasy chariots usually have scythe blades curved the other way, but the knives were sharp on the outside of the curve. I could have easily shaped them, but I don't think orcs are that bothered by convention. Besides, it works to push victims out of the way, making for a slightly smoother ride. Orcs don't go in much for suspension.

The chariot built with added blades

Painting the Boars 

I started with a coat of Vallejo German Green Brown Surface Primer, then a wash of Army Painter Strongtone everywhere except the rope. 

I wanted the crest and along the spine to be much darker, nearly black at the top, so I tried a wash of AP Darktone on these areas. Unfortunately, this just looked a bit wishy-washy, so I gave the same areas a coat of Vallejo Game Color Scorched Brown while the Darktone was still wet. Much better. 

There's a temptation to paint the hairless bits in pink, but a bit of research suggests that wild boar tend to be dark grey.  So a coat of Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Charcoal on the ears, trotters and pads, and lips.

Finally I gave all the fur a light dry brush of VGC Earth, just to make the fur seem more realistic. 

Painting the Chariot 

Painting was straightforward.  After priming and picking out the various metal bits,  I gave all the wood a base coat of VGC Desert Yellow. Then it all got a wash of Strongtone before picking out a few of the planks in different Speedpaints.  I find this adds just enough variety to the wood.

Then I decided that the front of the chariot should be black,  so VXO Charcoal followed by a black ink wash. 

The Crew

These were painted in much the same way as the rest of my Oldhammer orcs. I kept with the idea of them using spoils of war, so some of the colour choices echo previous minis.

Finishing Touches 

The base was cut from PVC Foamboard*, 50mm x 100mm and rounded off at the corners (it cuts very easily). I stuck a piece at the back of the base for the wheels to rest on and cut small pieces with slots to take the pegs on the boars.

The boars were glued in place, then the base was textured to fill in around the extra bits of foamboard using acrylic modelling paste. I sprinkled sand on the wet filler for a bit of extra texture, then the whole lot got a coat of builder's sand. 

The base was then painted, drybrushed and flock etc added. 

The chariot was then pinned onto the base and pinned into the boars.  I disguised these latter pins with some plastic skulls, much more orcy decoration than fluffy dice!

Finally, I used more thread attached to the bits and threaded through the driver's left hand for the reins; fiddly, but worth the effort.

The chariot nearside

Eat our dust

Offside 

I'm very pleased with the chariot.  Its a nice model and paints up well. The little touches, like the reins and the skulls, help personalise it. 

I might at some point get another, I built this with the crew provided, but it might be fun to change them, either replacing or converting some of them. The main chap looks wonderfully goofy; check out the size of his skull, not a lot of room for thinking in there! He makes up for it with his impressive ears though.

The chariot is available from Old School Miniatures, the boars are available separately in a pack of four.

*This isn't the same sort of foamboard used to make model buildings, it's plastic throughout, and much tougher.  It's used in signmaking, among other industries, and can be bought as offcuts.

Artefacts From my Gaming Past - Initiative Tracker and Game Board

These don't look particularly exciting, but they were an important part of my roleplaying, including the long-running D&D 4E campaign. 

Game board and Initiative Markers

The little name tiles were used to track initiative.  They are magnetic and we used a metal note board, changing the order each combat, and sometimes during combat as folk delayed and similar. 

Whilst fairly humble, this board and the tiles were present every session from Winterhaven onwards.

The surviving names are Fyodor (NPC bard, briefly run as a PC and finally retired in favour of Switch, halfling rogue), Kathra (dwarf fighter with a complicated life and death story arc), and Ozzie (multiple resurrected wizard and school founder).  The red edged tiles originally simply read Creature 1 etc.

If the initiative tracker has been around for years, then the board is even older. 

I made it from one of the fold out paper mats that came with the first D&D Miniatures Game Starter Sets back in 2003.  It's similar to the card sheet included in an early Adventurer Magazine.

I glued it to 3 mm thick card salvaged from the skip at work and covered the surface with clear sticky back plastic. It handles both dry erase and wet erase markers.

The total size is 22 inches by 34 inches and it folds down to a quarter that size. 

It saw use in the Miniatures Game as well as during my 3/3.5 edition days and well in to 4th edition. Although I was printing out floor plans - I remember one of a wizards' tower from B10 Night's Dark Shadow (an excellent adventure), designed on Dundjinni, and printed out on many sheets and with lots of ink - but for most play this board did the job, and even provided the battle ground for the siege in the first chapter of B10.

It's real strength lay in the ease of sketching out an encounter area or battle-map on the fly, which helps avoid the DM's feeling of wasted effort if the players avoid an encounter with ready made floorplans.  It's quite liberating.

As always, this artefact post is really more about the memories than any actual value of the artefacts. These remind me of the fun I've had playing role playing games over the past many years.

Do you have any gaming related stuff that you've used over many years?

*EDIT* I just found a couple more trackers,  soon I'll have the full party.

Dungeons and Dragons Eight Week Project - Summary and DMs Comments

To finish off the D&D8W posts I'd like to give a brief idea of what I was aiming for, and, perhaps, what I might do differently next time.

As I mentioned previously, this was the first time this particular group had played face to face. Indeed, although everyone knew some of the group, there were first time introductions for several members.

It was great to finally meet up. Some of the players had never seen each other before, but there was a very friendly atmosphere from the beginning.

The Adventure 

I used the five room dungeon structure for the Crypt and I felt it worked very well. It was my first time consciously following this model, though I suspect I've included many of the elements in the past.

I'm not sure if Zarrel retreating to her crypt quite counted as the Reversal and I think the players were expecting to face a tougher final form. I'd have had her retreat to regenerate, but she never got the chance; the party can deal out a lot of damage now if they work together. 

Also, we were getting close to six o'clock, the nominal finish time, and another big fight would probably have been rushed.

Harrow's desire to face the vampire while her Spectral Guardians was still in effect really drove the pace, which was excellent. In case you're wondering, yes, she did have another third level spell slot, but she's keeping it free for any required Revivify.

Looking back, I missed the chance for some monologue from Zarrel. She's got a back story that she could have referred to, but I'm sure there are hints to it elsewhere. 

This is something I'm guilty of, not giving the opposition enough to say. I tend to get caught up in the tactics. To be fair, the party rushed in, spells blazing, and she wasn't around very long anyway.

Zarrel herself wasn't taken straight from the Monster Manual. That would have been too tough. Instead, I took the Knight stat block, boosted it slightly, and added features from the Vampire stat block that seemed to me to fit the story.

Non Scenery Prep

I prepared 5 x 3 index cards for every player's spells (they all have some spell casting ability now). 

I also made magic item cards, class and race features cards and spell slot cards. I noticed that the spell slot cards weren't used, but everything else was.

All this needs something to hold it, and I found wooden boxes at The Works (a UK chain selling discount books, crafts and other sundries) that nicely hold the various cards, dice and a mini or two. 

Harrow's box with just some of the cards

Harrow shows there's plenty of room

Roland's box with mini and cards 

The Deck of Discord 

The adventure as written is based around the Deck of Many Things. I've no problem with this as background in the original, but I decided early on in the campaign to switch this for something else. 

Partly because the 'find a card and get a minor extra power' is very fourth edition and doesn't transfer smoothly to fifth. Partly because it doesn't seem to quite match up to how I imagine the Deck to work.

There's also the fact that I lent my deck from the original adventure to someone many years ago and never got it back.

So I came up with the Deck of Discord. A very Chaotic artifact. It's purpose is to spread Chaos and change the behaviour of creatures. The powers are much more nebulous than the Deck of Many things, though the party have witnessed at least one instance of a card being used directly against them. 

Roland has been gifted a platinum box by Bahamut, with instructions to shut the cards away. So far they've done this, and resisted any and all temptation to use them.

All this means that I needed a Deck. 

There's plenty of options to buy or print off the internet, but I wanted something all my own.

I'd already sketched out some of the cards, or bone plaques as we are describing them. I'm aiming for a sort of 'Medieval' look in art style, though I admit, its very vague. 

I even found another wooden box, again from The Works, but sadly my existing cards didn't fit in, so that meant redrawing them all again, this time sized to fit and on white Mounting Board so they have the right sort of thickness.  

Sadly I didn't have time to paint the box silver, but I think the thing works as a prop.  Perhaps too well:  The players are keen to keep the plaques locked away, so other than a brief inspection, they never got examined all session!

The Deck of Discord 

Where Now?

The 'Heroes of Nentir Vale' will continue to adventure remotely; their quest to reclaim Gardemore Abbey is progressing nicely,  though there are some factions that they still need to deal with (including a potential one that they are unaware of!).

It would be nice to direct them elsewhere; a couple of characters have backstory hooks that could lead east, and there's plenty to explore there, including another official adventure, though in this case I'd be borrowing background stuff than plot.

I'm certainly hoping for another live session, but not for a while perhaps.  I'd like it to be another important goal, but I'm not sure what that's likely to be yet.

But, Minis?

You've seen the character minis, the skeletons and the zombies (which didn't get used, they were for an earlier version of the Garrison, but the Heroes have already done that area online), now here's Zarrel herself. 

Zarrel Gardrinsdottir

Zarrel again

I wonder if any of that gear is worth anything?

I didn't want to go for the standard Gothic lady vampire mini, this girl's a fighter, and should look like one. In fact I avoided undead minis altogether and used the Reaper Figure Finder for something elven looking.

Shardis, Female Elf Rogue (SKU 77741) was exactly what I wanted, and I already had the mini from one of the Reaper Bones Kickstarters in one of my boxes of unpainted minis.

I deliberately gave her very pale skin, VGC Elfic Flesh, and her clothing is based on VGC Jade Green, with dark green for the undertunic and yellow leggings.

So that's my random thoughts about a great fun gaming experience and the prep I did.

I'm busy getting the next online session ready, always working on the next one. I'm also getting something painted for my Old School orcs, which after working to a deadline for this is kind of relaxing.