Boglanders 3

 We were away visiting family over Christmas, but I managed to get a little bit of painting in between packing and unpacking!

First up, the Boglander's Royal Colour Party! 

The cyclopean Chief Smelter eyes up his lunch, bog rat pie (a speciality of Boglander cuisine).  But he had better watch out for that mutated toad or it'll have his pie, maybe his leg as well! Exposure to noxious marsh gas has caused some of the bog toads to mutate into ferocious monsters. The Chief Smelter was obviously inspired by the paintings of  Hieronymus Bosch......

....as was this bizarre pair, the Onion Knight and his companion! 

I'm loving these little Boglanders!

More Boglanders

 No gaming until the end of the week, so I have had a go at painting some more of the little Boglanders from Ramshackle Games!

Uzric Kobwart, Supervisor of the royal copper smelting workshops, inspects one of his furnaces.

Uzric in a sacred grove of the Unnamed Gods. Uzric is also a toad-summoner, a rare skill possessed by a few Boglanders. It is a  skill more useful than strangers might expect, an adult bog toad is the size of a pit-bull, with a temperament to match. 

 The Supervisor of the royal copper smelting workshops with his escort of King's Bodyguards, the rust of their armour denotes their veteran status.

I having a lot of fun painting these, Curtis has created some characterful minis.

A First Look at Boglanders!

I finally got around to unpacking my latest Kickstarter, Boglanders from Ramshackle Games. I have quite a few odds and ends of Ramshackle products in my collection, I love the quirkiness that Curtis puts into his designs. When I saw the ad for Boglanders I was hooked, but what would I use them for? Fantasy, Gothic Horror, VSF or Post Apocalyptic? Well it turned out my dilemma was easily solved, because Curtis was providing separate arms with medieval, black powder and futuristic weaponry!

These photos show the figures in their bare resin, as they come out of the box. They need washing and trimming before painting.

 The whole kit and caboodle, 45 individual figures, over a hundred arms and 36 tokens (plus a few other odds and ends).

The Boglanders are certainly a trifle bizarre, such as the Royal party shown here, with the Royal Pulmentumancer and his augury-reading stew!

Most of the figures are armless, which lends them to various uses....

...futuristic sci-fi or post apocalyptic...

...black powder/VSF...

...or fantasy!

This is a trial run at painting one of these models. The chap was a bonus model, I can see him in a VSF/Steampunk game.

Or maybe something post-apocalyptic?

Some of the brilliant collection of little critters which come with the set, I can see multiple uses as assorted gribblies in different genres!

I'll post more of these as I get them tidied up and painted, I can see them giving me a lot of fun!

Sellswords and Spellslingers New Qaarra Campaign

 Mark, Colin and Henry came over the other day and we started a new Sellswords campaign. It's been difficult getting all four of us together at the same time, but we were surprised when we realised that we had finished our last campaign in the summer!

Some fool of a mage had been playing with Chaos magic and gotten himself obliterated for his pains, unfortunately in the process he had set off a rather unpleasant chain of events. All manner of corpses (and worse things) are now crawling out of the ground and plaguing the good folk of Nor'hold. 

Our band of heroes have been tasked with clearing out an old burial site. The town alchemists have devised some cunning chemical inflammatory devices to burn out the old barrows, destroying everything inside. It will take two actions to prime the device and throw it into each barrow, however these are unstable, so cannot be moved once primed without unfortunate consequences for the carrier. 

The gang are up against skeletons and Spectral Knights, long dead heroes with strong armour.

There are 4 barrows, one on each side of the table and a circle of standing stones surrounding a rather ominous looking altar in the centre of the table.

With lots of undead wandering around. At this point Henry realised that he had a problem. All his original party had died over the course of the previous campaign and their replacements were still a little green compared with Colin and Mark's veterans. As both the others already had Fireball in their repertoire, Henry's new spellslinger had gone for Frostblast as an offensive spell. When he read the notes he realised that the undead were immune to his spell!

A Things Could Get Worse card came out early, which meant that the stone circle was bathed in a pale yellow light. The circle now became a magical "dead zone". No spells would work within the stones, nor could any magic pass over it, like teleport or magical attacks. A bit of a problem when you have two spellcasters with Fireballs and an archer with a enchanted bow!

Colin quickly solved this problem for his wizard, by rolling a 1 to cast a spell and losing all his mana for the rest of the game! 

His fighter moved up to the closest barrow and decided to rob the place before burning it. Fortunately there wasn't anything nasty waiting just inside the door and he scooped up a rather nice looking set of knives.

Henry's spellslinger, having decided to keep out of any fighting, made a run for the next barrow and set it on fire at once. However on the way across, one of his party spotted an old leather bag with turned out to have a potion of some sort in it.

Colin's fighter now added arson to his many crimes, the objectives seemed to be a little too easy to achieve?

Just as well they had burned two barrows because they now realised that the barrows were spawning points for more spectral knights! Two turning up at this one in quick succession. The Scenario Event card also came up, with meant that a succubus now appeared on the old altar.

From everything looking great for the company things had quickly turned as the PCs were over run my multiple spectral knights and the rather pissed-off succubus.

Henry's unfortunate archer found himself attacked by two spectral knights. Despite only having a knife he valiantly damaged one of the creatures before he was cut down.

Two groups of skeletons now blended together into one massive horde that bore down on the party. Having set fire to a third barrow, Colin's spellslinger beats a hasty retreat!

The party managed to hold the masses of undead off whilst Henry's spellslinger snuck around to the last barrow and set it alight. The party scattered in all directions to escape, Colin managed to scoop up Henry's fallen archer on the way and drag is body to safety. 

The casualty made a full recovery, so no deaths this game. It had been a very close thing at times, a couple of in-between fight healing sessions had been required to keep some of the party on their feet.

Sellswords Close Quarter Battles Campaign Completed!

 

Ian came over for a day of gaming on Sunday, which allowed us to play through the last two scenarios of the Close Quarter Battles campaign for Sellswords and Spellslingers. 

Our heroes had successfully stormed the bridge to gain access to the citadel in the previous scenario, now they must free prisoners held by the rioters, whilst the rest of the White Daggers storm the keep.

The table layout. Our party have just entered from the bottom edge, the prisoners are held in the tower at the top left.

A pack of some nasty creepy crawlies has come up from the cellars and attack Heimir, but he swiftly chops them up!

An early set-back, the Scenario Event card comes out and the rioters fire the roof of the building.

Some poor activation rolls see the flames start to spread!

Sarmand and Heimir get closer to the tower and Heimir chargers into a band of rioting street thugs.

But as he valiantly despatches them, the flames just get fiercer!

As Sarmand engages a second horde of thugs, Heimir charges the guard holding the tower's door.

Finally, Lanroth starts to catch up with the others.

Heimir is wounded but cuts the guard down and starts battering on the door.

The wooden gives way and the first of the captives emerges from the smoke. 

As more of the prisoners are helped from the fiery tower, Heimir fortunately has a healing potion, so drinks it before he moves to cover the approach of Merlow, the rioters leader. Unfortunately this exposes him to the bowmen on the walls, arrows thud all around him, but he dodges or blocks them with his shield.

As the final two captives emerge, the tower's fiercely flaming roof collapses! Just out of shot Heimir cuts Merlow down but is now badly wounded himself once again.

The party start to lead the captives across the courtyard to safety, dodging arrows as they go.

More thugs appear, but Lanroth covers the escape of the last captives, dropping two of the thugs with well aimed shots. A group of gladiators, freed by the rioters, also arrive, but they are too far away to stop the party escape with the last captive.

Great fun, a nail biting experience as the fire spread with surprisingly speed, we just got the last prisoner out in time. If he hadn't had the healing potion, Heimir might not have made it to the end of this scenario!

Now a break for lunch and beer, enjoyed in the garden on a unseasonably warm October day!

On to the final scenario, can we save the Governor from the evil cultists?

The Citadel's inner courtyard, the party are entering from the near edge.

The mesmerised Governor and other officials stand around an eerie green bonfire, the chanting cultist high priest looks on. We had a deck of 15 playing cards for this scenario, every time a PC fails an activation roll, we turn a card over. If it is a picture card, one of the court officials walks into the bonfire and the Governor does so if the joker turns up!

Some poor activations sees one of the officials slowly walk into the blaze and be consumed!

We have the help of three White Dagger apprentices, in the top left, who have fought their way to join us. We sent them off to distract the various groups of thugs and rioters, to allow us a chance to get at the high priest. They started off well, they were charged by a horde of thugs and swiftly killed all of them!

But not before another court official walks into the fire!

The apprentices charged another group of thugs and, although one of them fell bravely, then despatched all of them as well. With many more foes approaching, the survivors beat a retreat, drawing the enemy after them....

...and away from us! Heimir, Lanroth and Sarmand now had a clear run at the high priest, "just" three cultists stood in our way.

Heimir charged the first cultist, wounding him.

Then finished him off after a swift exchange of blows.

But another victim walks into the blaze.

Lanroth now has a clear line of sight to the high priest.

But another official goes up in green flames.

Heimir engages the cultist closest to the high priest.

But more thugs turn up and advance to protect their master. Lanroth takes aim at the high priest and releases an arrow, but his bowstring snaps! (I rolled an 1).

Samand engages the other cultist, taking a wound but dealing one in return. Lanroth quickly restrings his bow (past experience means he carries several spares!), shoots and wounds the high priest, but now hthe priest's magic shield comes into play, giving him a bonus against mundane attacks for the next three turns!

Sarmand takes out his opponent, while Heimir and his foe battle on, neither able to gain the upper hand. Lanroth tries for 3 activations and fails one, but it's not a picture card! He shoots twice more...

...and two arrows thud into the high priest's chest! (This time I rolled 18 and 20!).

It's all over, the fire dies down, the mesmerised citizens and guards return to themselves and the last cultists flee. The Governor is saved in the best Hollywood tradition, just two cards remain to be drawn!

We have had a blast playing this campaign. The scenarios offer a variety of challenges, with opportunities to roleplay if it's desired, but no need if that's not your thing. Close Quarter Battles has a depth of detail that we only just touched on in this campaign and I hope Damien will write a sequel. If he does, I will certainly be buying it!