Return to Gothic Horror with Fear and Faith

 I had Kirstie and Ian around on Friday, so I threw together a quick 3-player scenario using Ganesha Games' Fear and Faith rules in my Gothic Horror setting. I realised that i had not put my scarecrows/pumpkin heads on the table since I bought them on Ebay over a year ago, so I thought it high time to get them bloodied.

Three factions, A Vampire, a Warlock and a Witch. Each have a bride/daughter/sister trapped in a demon plane and need to carry out a ritual to release them. Unfortunately, when they reach the site of the portal, they discover the other parties are also there and fisticuffs ensue.

The table layout. The ritual must be carried out at the altar stone in the centre of the table (2 actions and pass a successful Q roll). First one of the three standing stones must be activated (1 action Q test) to generate the magical energy required and direct it to the ritual caster. Once "switched on" the energy could be diverted to another caster in the same way.

The Witch and her artificial animations (ME). Only her magic can harm the vampire and her minions have a high Q score, so will be difficult to command. On the positive side, they are hard to kill.

The Warlock and his followers (IAN). The Warlock has magic, his henchman is a vampire hunter with wooden stakes and holy water vials, plus one of this minions is a huntsman with a crossbow and a supply of wooden bolts, so lots of ways to kill a vampire here. The other minions are average quality thugs for hire, so nothing special.

The Vampire and his enthralled Cossack guards (KIRSTIE). The Vampire is the most powerful character in the game, but his Cossacks are just average sword fodder.

The warlock's followers rush forwards, one of them reaching one of the standing stones.

Another gets to a second stone, just ahead of a cossack.

Another cossack gets to the third standing stone.

I on the other hand roll appalling dice and by the third turn I still have not even got all ny artificial creatures off the starting edge!

Kirstie rolls much better dice and while my forses are dithering, activates a standing stone.

Shooting is not so good however, two attempts to shoot the Warlock minion by the central standing stone miss by miles!

One the other side of the table, having switched on the energy for the Warlock, the musketeer moves up to get a shot at the one creature I have been able to get moving.

The Warlock rushed into the centre of the table, but then, feeling a bit exposed decided to move back and let his minions do the fighting.

The Vampire hunter charges one of the cossacks, joined by the thug with the pitchfork.

The second cossack charges in to help his colleague. A frantic melee ensues, with both cossacks being knocked to the ground, by scambling back on their feet before the coup de grace could be delivered.

The musketeer hits my pumpkin head. It's a kill, but because it wasn't an aimed headshot, the creature is only knocked down.

The Vampire moves forward to survey the carnage.

Finally a turn with reasonable dice rolls and two of my creatures charge the musketeer befor he can reload.

The next turn goes badly for Ian, one of his minions is killed by a cossack....

...while another is killed by my creatures.

Allowing another pumpkin head to move up and redirect the energy to my witch.

I had my Witch in the centre of my forces, where she could influence the most creatures and try to get them going. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed this cossack who had crept forward and took a long range shot at the Witch. It shouldn't have been too much to worry about, there were lots of minuses for the shooter.

But Kirstie rolled a 6 and I rolled a 1!!! The only result that could have killed the Witch, so I was out of the game. The huntsman took a shot at the Vampire with his crossbow, but missed.

While the huntsman was reloading and seeing that the Warlock and Vampire Hunter were busy elsewhere, the Vampire took a chance and rushed up to the altar stone. It was down to who activated first, if Ian gained the initiative there was a chance for the huntsman to reload and shoot, as well as the Warlock moving up and casting a spell. But Kirstie won the initiative and the Vampire easily passed the rolls required to  cast the ritual and open the appropriate portal.

A win for the Vampire and a definite big loss for the Witch! The Warlock lives to try again when the start are next in alignment for the ritual, so he will be back in a few years!

A lot of laughs were had, some beer was drunk and we all had a great evening.

Boglanders 4 plus some footpads

 I have managed to get a load more bits and pieces from the Boglanders painted.

Here's a group photo of the latest bunch!

With 63 different arms in the set, I wanted to be able to keep my options open for some of the minis. I like the idea of being able to swap arms around as required for different scenarios or genres.

So I am experimenting with this stuff, Tacky Wax. It's used a lot by railway modelers to place items in static displays, so that they can be re-positioned as needed. I thought I would give it a try and see if it holds arms firmly enough for use in gaming.

And here is the result.

This one is a really weird mutant that seems to be a bonus mini, it certainly did not appear in the original listing on Kickstarter. I felt he/it? has a post-apocalyptic vibe so I've chosen appropriate arms for that. I can see him appearing in a Mutants and Death Ray Guns scenario sometime soon.

Back to fantasy, these are the Wicker Wearers, a cult of warrior poets. (Boglanders are renowned for their bad poetry). Their armour is fairly effective, made from the roots of Bog Willows which as almost as hard as iron.

A collection of Bog Toads (a "Knot" apparently). 

Some of the food tokens, I am sure I will find a use for these.

A fine assortment of treasure chests, eagerly sort by adventurers of all kinds....

....of course they need to watch out for mimic monsters!

Just for something different, I painted up a few Eureka cut-purses and footpads that had been sitting in my painting pile since I undercoated them last summer!

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!

Gothic Horror - Part 2

 The five factions were the Nosferatau and Dracul vampire clans, the Scarlet Fangs and Rd Clws werewolf packs and the human Monster Hunters.

Victory points were assigned for each monster killed by your faction (no points for killing mere humans). Each monster faction had a particular enemy who scored bonus points for each kill. The humans scored bonus points for each monster faction wiped out, no matter who was responsible, after all they just wanted to clean the streets!

Werewolves rampaging through the streets of Venicia!

                             

The Red Claws started the mayhem straight away, charging into the Nosferatau clan. It was a little premature as the result was the Red Claws pack leader being surrounded and cut down by the vampires. With a second werewolf was killed it looked like an early bath for the Red Claws player!

But, then a lucky blow killed the Noseratau Elder and the balance started to move the other way. The two factions would remain in a brutal slogging match for the rest of the game.

Scarlet Fangs face off against the Dracul Clan. After the Dracul put one of the werewolves down these two pussy-footed around each other for the first half of the game! They spent more time glaring at each other and name-calling than anything else!

Which was just as well because the human hunters were finding it difficult to get going! They spent a lot of time milling around the central plazza (lots of failed activation rolls on my account!).

Finally the Scarlet Fangs pack got stuck into the hunters. The Dracul Clan had bravely hidden in a house allowing the werewolves to finally bypass them and get to the humans.

The Dracul Clan finally decided to show thei faces and risk getting their nice dresses dirty, after the Scarlet Fangs and killed the best Vampire Hunter!

It turned into a three-way brawl in the plazza....

...which resulted in the Scarlet Fangs being wiped out! Half the hunters were also dead, along with one of the Dracul vanpires

In the meantime the epic Red Claws/Nosferatau streetfight ranged on.

One of the Vampire hunters thought about cahring in, but decided it was better not getting involved!

Finally it was down to a single Norferatau still standing, but still the fight carried on. Both sides were finding it impossible to roll killing blows, so just knocked each other backwards and forwards.

At this point the Dracul clan decided that their previous tactic, stabbing the Starlet Fangs in the back whilst they were distracted fighting someone else, had worked so well they would try it again. But the Nosferatau and Red Claws promptly found their dice mojo and killed a Dracul each, wiping the clan out!

Having worked out how to kill vampires, the werewolves now made short work of the last Nosferatau. The Red Claws were victorious, the city of Venicia was theirs!!!!

Apart from the four humans rushing towards them, of course (a minor point!). They briefly considered ripping the impudent humans apart, but as silver bullets pinged around their ears they decided it was a good time to leave.

A clear win for the Red Claws with 9VPs. 

The Hunters actually came second with 6VPs.

The rest of the factions varied from 2 to 5 VPs each, but as they were all dead it was a moot point anyway.

A lot of fun was had by all.