If I May Draw To Your Attention...

Free Dungeons

Various dungeon YouTubers have once more got together to produce free five room dungeons on their channels. 

It's organised by Daði on Mystic Arts, and there's a full run down of the available dungeons on his site. 

While you're at it check out his channel too, and hunt down last year's adventures as well. 

The Call Of Cthulhu 

Julian Simpson's Lovecraft Investigations is my favourite reimagining of Lovecraft's work. The first four series are available on BBC Sounds, and I believe that some of his wider 'Peasant Green' stories are as well. 

Going forward, the stories are being independently produced and are funded on Backerkit. They've already done a documentary about the life of Alistair Crowley, and are now continuing the story with an investigation based on The Call Of Cthulhu. 

If you're at all interested in Lovecraft's Mythos, at least check out the stuff on Sounds, you might like it. 

You can find out more about the campaign on Backerkit, they've already unlocked bonus material.

Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?

As I mentioned earlier, we are trying a series of different games throughout August.  Last week we tried the Savage Worlds Test Drive 'The Wild Hunt'.  It went well, although the amount of story to get through was a bit ambitious for a two hour session (I suspect it is designed for a four hour convention slot), but with a bit of editing it fitted and everyone had fun.

Last night we played Cthulhu Wars, T'Other One's massive board game.  I have played a couple of times before, but this was the first time I had played it with five players (self included), and my first time with Hastur/The King in Yellow.

That's a lot of monsters (and Great Old Ones)

By the end of the game just about everything was on the board.

Ultimately we had to rush the ending, though we did get a result.  I won, though if we had had more time to finish up properly I suspect that either Shub Niggurath or Nyarlathotep would have beaten me.

Good fun though.

Next week Frostgrave.

A Question of Scale

Today I finally found some of my old Call of Cthulhu miniatures.  I bought quite a few of these old Grenadier sculpts back in the 80's, though in the end we tended to use the silhouettes provided in the old boxed set.  I even expanded my collection with some of the Citadel Gothic Horror range.

Looking at them they are nice sculpts.  Clean detail, especially with the Grenadier ones, the Citadel are less fine, with a realistic look that, for me, fits the subject matter.  I also have some of the creatures, but they haven't surfaced yet.  

Still, plenty to go at for building Threshold teams if and when I get round to Strange Aeons.

Then I put them next to the exorcist I painted for SA.

Oh Dear.

Well I suppose it has been something like 30 years, but even so.  The exorcist is on the short side next to some of my Reaper Bones too.

I can just about/nearly get away with this, after all, people are different heights.  But I am still a bit disappointed that the scales are not a little closer.

More Mythos Madness

Two Mythos kickstarter campaigns have caught my attention.

Firstly a relaunch of the excellent Delta Green background.  The rules have been rewritten and lots of new material, as well as reissues of old stuff, will be available.  Better still it will be available in December, possibly beating Call of Cthulhu 7th edition.

Also a whole new set of supplemental material for Cthulhu Wars.  I played a couple of games of this recently, and found it great fun.  Helped perhaps by my having Great Cthulhu himself controlling the earth in the second game.

Check them out while the stars are still right.

Something Gribbly This Way Comes

I have just about completed the first two of the Strange Aeons starter pack of minis.
Firstly the bonus exorcist figure.

It's a long while since I painted anything 'realistic', so I simply googled 1920's fashions to get some idea of colour palette.  Paints are a mix of my old GW colours and Vallejo paints.

This wonderful gribbly is one of the lurker models, it fits in nicely with some of my D&D pre painted minis, and in fact will get to see some action in tonight's D&D game.

I haven't yet decided what to do about basing these.  I may go with my standard round bases with flagstone or similar texture on top, but this seems a bit odd for the Threshold agent.  If I go for the more traditional sand texture with static grass they will fit in less well with my fantasy figures, though i can see little call for  a 1920's exorcist in D&D.

they also need some form of protection, probably a coat of gloss followed by a coat of matt (or a spray of anti shine), though the monster might look quite good in gloss or silk, as though it is oozing moisture.

Cthulhu Wars

I tried Cthulhu Wars for the first time last night.  A friend of mine (The Other One) backed the kickstarter and duly received a humongous box of stuff.

The game looks good and plays well, though we were a little shaky to begin with.

The Yellow Sign and The Crawling Chaos

The Black Goat of the Woods

Mighty Cthulhu 

The aim of the game is to dominate the earth with your Great Old One, which you achieve by amassing power to build gates and summoning monsters.

The two player game has four factions on the board, and I suspect it would flow easier, and be more competitive, to have more players, with one person per faction.

Still, a good game, and one  that will probably be great fun once we have the rules fully learnt and more players to join in.  The pieces are great; well designed and cast, and probably have many other uses outside the game.  Now if only I could get a separate faction of my own.....