Gailbraithe

The website has changed and the Figure Finder and Search seem to be completely broken. I can't find anything anymore. The Search function is especially terrible -- I searched for "giant winged" and the only result I got was "Giant Eagle." I was trying to find one particular model, a very human looking male devil with wings and a sword who is like twice as tall as a human. Can't recall his name, can't find him anywhere on the site. It's very frustrating. Is there any way to go back to the old site?

I'm currently running a Fantasy HERO campaign, Ravagers of Rhûne, and I painted up some models for my players to represent their characters. Lars Ragnarson is Ulfgar Hjalmarson, a warrior from the frozen isle of Jaegerland. His people are the Iceborn, who once terrorized the northern lands under the leadership of their living god, the Frozen Lord. Centuries ago the Frozen Lord was slain by the hero Simon, and the Iceborn were forced into retreat. Now they are divided people, with the Iceborn of the Stormfjords clinging to their ancient bloodthirsty ways, while the Jaegerlanders have tried to join society by embracing the religion of Simon and giving up their warlike ways. Ulfgar is a hold out, beholden to the old ways, who left the Jaegerland to travel the world in search of adventure and battle. Ulfgar is descended from a line of berzerkers who served the Frozen Lord, and years ago Ulfgar underwent a ritual to awaken the frost giant blood that lies dormant in his bloodline. As a result he can give himself over to the "frozen rage" -- granting him tremendous strength and power, as well as immunity to cold and ice-hard skin. This Devin Dunhaus conversion is Rutger Ahon, an orphan raised in the city orphanages of Magath, Rutger has never known any family and draws his entire identity from his loyalty and service to his home town. He once served as a marine in the Magath Free Company, then when the Free Company was brought low by the machinations of the Great Noble Houses, Rutger became a spy in the employ of the Lord Mayor of Magath. He was instrumental in uncovering a secret cult within the rank's of the aristocratic elites and crippling the power of the Great Houses, which allowed the Lord Mayor to regain control of the city. Rutger currently serves the Lord Mayor more openly as the Master of the Greyshields, Magath's city guard. Ezren, Iconic Wizard is Sihyaa al-Ni. A former member of the Magisterium, a conclave of good wizards aligned with the Holy Church of Simon, Sihyaa was forced to resign due to the machinations of a rival wizard, but his dismissal is widely seen as a miscarriage of justice and he remains popular with many members of the Magisterium. Sihyaa has gone into private practice, which he finds dreadfully dull, which is why he keeps allowing Rutger Ahon to drag him into various misadventures. Velmarius Elazarin as "Mite". Mute, dressed in dirty rags, and prone to random twitches, Mite is easily mistaken for a mentally deranged beggar or vagrant, but he was not always like this. He has no memory of who he was, and only vaguely understand what happened to him -- the prisoner of an evil sorcerer, his mind was used as a conduit to communicate with beings from beyond this reality. Sharing his mind with such bizarre alien intelligences left him amnesic and deranged, but also altered his mind and granted him access to incredible psionic powers. Even stranger, he no longer eats or sleeps, and does not even seem to age, sustaining himself entirely on psychic energy.

Anyone playing this game? It just came out recently from Osprey, they of the beautifully illustrated guides to historical armies, and is part of a series of new games they are releasing. Frostgrave is similiar to Mordhiem in that you create a warband, level them up through game play, and the whole game is set in a ruined city -- in this case, a city of permanent winter. The big difference is that the leader of your warband is always a wizard, and only your wizard gains levels. They have eight different schools of magic for your wizard, and he begins play with 8 spells, and can have an apprentice who casts the same spells. The cool thing about the game is that you can use any models with it, and Reaper makes everything you could ever need -- in fact, the official line of Frostgrave minis, from Northstar Figures, is missing a lot of the units, so you'll practically have to turn to Reaper. This is my warband: You can have a maximum of 8 soldiers in your warband, plus your wizard and apprentice. I have six because my wizard and apprentice can cast Animal Companion pre-game, which adds a summoned animal to your warband who takes up a soldier slot.

This fellow right here: I swear this is a Reaper miniature, but I can't find him in the catalog. Out of print?

Andrea is a man. He's Italian, and Andrea is the Italian equivalent of Andrew.

You did a great job on the eyes, and I like your Glimmerdusk Ranger a heck of a lot more than mine. I just have to paint Starfire and Rockgut and my SDE collection will be fully painted -- including Van Drak's Manor, Caverns of Roxxor, Vandalla, and the Herald of Vulcanis.

I used OpenOffice Draw to do the layout, and the GIMP for some image manipulation.

That sounds hard to arrange. In a previous campaign, one I might return to, the party traveled through time (into the past) to retrieve a lost key, and the wizard who helped them do it ended up getting dragged off to "somewhere beyond time" by the Time Lords to serve out his punishment. The players were really quick to sell him out and let him take all the blame, and I always thought it would be fun to bring that wizard back seeking revenge. And, of course, his allies would be selected from throughout time. Dinosaurs, cowboys, Space Marines, whatever.

...don't you think Michael Stipe has better things to do than put your toys together for you? I mean, I know they broke up, but I don't think they've fallen that far.

That's the only reason I didn't buy it. Well, that, and the whole I can't afford to be spending a thousand dollars on a flag because I'm not a millionaire thing.

I have no use for a naked succubus on a motorcycle in my campaign, but now that I have UL Sophie, I have reason to find a way to work one into my game. It's going to be harder justifying the Nova Corps soldiers, but that's why they invented Time Travel.

I had to look that up. That's the politest way of saying "slathered in paint" I've ever seen.

I think this was actually the tenth or even twentieth miniature I painted. It's hard to say, because I lost all my miniatures in 1995, except this guy who I found in a totally random box sometime around 2004 while I was helping my mom organize her closets. I know my first miniatures were the Ral Partha ElfQuest minis (I had the Wolfriders set and the MadCoil set), but I think a box of Space Marines was my second purchase, and this guy came from that. His bolters were cannibalized for other projects. Wow. Is that phenomenally bad or what? In my defense I was 11 years old, I was using Testor Enamels, and I was using a Testor's disposable brush, which is only nominally better than painting with your fingers. I was trying for an autumn camouflage. It...didn't work.

I just wish he'd taken my suggestion to offer a larger size as a stretch goal. I'd be happier if it was in the 36"x24" range, but it will still be a welcome addition to my gaming room.

My pledge is pretty complicated. Vampire Level Cases (2) Nethyrmaul Undead Paint Set Marine Paint Set Forces of Nature Demons Hydra Steampunk Dragon Cthulu Ebonwraith Fire Giant King & Queen Fire Giant Warriors (2) Frost Wyrm Jabberwock Kaladrax Reborn Mythos Monsters Pathfinder Dragon Spider Centaurs Undead Giant Vermin (2) We Be Goblins Deep Dwellers Fire It Up! (2) Urban Legends Sophie Upgrade

Entirely from the SBH calculator. Any similarity to the templates is purely coincidental. I kind of stopped working on the project, because basically I'm flaky (and the bigger it got, the more painting it required), but if people are interested I could put some more work into it and finish the project. If I do that, I'll probably remove all of the non-Reaper models, and add in some more Reaper models. Make them match their Warlord armies a bit better.

That's my favorite rule in the game! That's where all the strategy comes from; it's all about knowing how to marshal your forces, how hard to push them, and perhaps most importantly -- what order to activate them in! ----- Okay, so sorry for how absolutely HUGE these are, but they're life-sized. These are some "army lists" I'm developing for Song of Blades and Heroes, to make it easier for my friends (esp. non-wargamer friends, as SBH is an awesome intro to minis wargmaing) to pick up the game. The idea is that each player picks a force and gets five to eight models for their starting force, and then can recruit new models to their force with Victory Points (which can also be spent to buy Advances, with each army having a limited list of advances to choose from). Once these are all done, I'll print them up on cardstock and laminate them, so each player can just grab one, pick up a tray with the associated models, and jump right into the game.

Tommorrow, June 10th, the Pathfinder Chronicler Anthology Volume III, a collection of fan-written, professionally edited short stories set in the world of the Pathfinder RPG, goes to press. One of the stories contained within is "The Beast of Blackwater Bog," written by yours truly. It's not much, just a little five page story that I didn't get paid for, but it's also a dream come true for me. And it's a dream I've had since I was 10 years old and read my first short fiction piece in Dragon Magazine. This is my first ever submission for publication, all of my previous work having been published on fanfiction.net. But this is different of course, because the publishers of the anthology don't know me, don't care about me, and feel no obligation to help me. They just liked my story enough that they wanted it for their anthology. And that feeling, of knowing someone else genuinely liked your writing enough to spend their own money to publish it...that's the best feeling there is for a writer. I just wanted to share my excitement. Yay! Okay, carry on as you were. (Edit: If you click on the fanfiction.net link it will take you to my profile, scroll down to see my stories. Please be aware that I wrote all of them several years ago before I took a serious writing class, and so they're kind of rough.)

Hmm. I seem to be rather lucky when it comes to Sample paints. According to my account manager, I've placed 13 orders directly with Reaper, and I currently have 7 bottles of Sample paints. I'm batting over .5!

I don't want to be a sourpuss, but I am a bit miffed about the Reaper kickstarter. I dropped $450 on the KS, and consequently I am apparently going to be one of the very last people to get his stuff. Meanwhile guys who donated a quarter of what I donated already have their toys. I totally understand why that is, but it still chaps my hide. Especially since I needed some of those minis for a game I ran, and if I'd got my Vampire level when I was supposed to, I would have been set. As it was, I ended up having to buy the metal versions. Which means when I do finally get my bones, it's just going to irritate me again, because there will be about 20 miniatures that I will never, ever need but paid extra for. I basically don't even care anymore. I've lost all sense of excitement, it's been entirely replaced with frustration and annoyance, and I don't even want the miniatures anymore. Honestly, if I could just have my $450 back, that would make me so happy. As it is, the box will eventually show up and I'll just be mad at it and feel like an idiot for wasting so much money. Between this and the months of delay on the Red Box Kickstarter, and Indiegogo not successfully completing my donation to Otherworld (which means I missed out on $100+ in savings and some exclusive minis), I'm just sick of this whole thing. I will not be supporting any kickstarters, indiegogos, or other crowdfunding games in the future. Blech.

The absolute best bandits money can buy are from, surprise surprise, the Evil Empire. Games Workshop's Empire Militia contains 20 plastic human warriors in light or no armor (depending on how you assemble them) with a mix of light melee weapons, bows, and crossbows (and flintlocks if you like, but you don't have to use them). Even if you're real picky about how you assemble them, you can get 10 great looking bandits out of the box. I don't have access to a good camera at the moment, and my lighting rig isn't set up, but here's a cameraphone pick of some Empire Militia I painted up to serve as bandits in a Kingmaker campaign I'm running: Sorry for the poor quality, my phone sucks. I've used these same figures, with different paint schemes, as Pirates, Zhentarim Soldiers, and other assorted forms of riffraff. I'm on my fourth box of them. Easily one of the best releases in the history of the miniatures industry.

I'm not really into anime or anything like that, but I did pick up Super Dunegon Explore and all of the expansions. (Currently 8 models away from finishing the whole damn collection). There is something inherently funny about cute little skeletons and video-game sprite like characters. It's a nice break from the normal grimdarky, dark heavensy sort of stuff I normally paint.

I stated up the Winchester boys back during the Season 2 to 3 break, so many years ago. I ran a one-shot set during first season that involved an Oregon town settled by Irish immigrants, a mysterious series of drownings, and a selkie. The best part was the boys being attacked right outside their motel room by a giant black horse (the selkie in its true form). I used D20 Modern to stat them up. I think they were both third level. Sam was Smart 1/Fast 1/Dedicated 1. Dean was Strong 1/Tough 1/Charismatic 1. I gave Sam a special feat called Premonitions. I don't remember much else, and I don't have the files anymore.

Cool. You're 1/8th of the way to having a spider.

Twil, I don't know you and I've never seen you around here before, but I want to welcome you to the boards and tell you that you just put yourself in my personal Top 5 Reaper Forum Users with this post. It's not enough to merely "like" your post, no, I must go a step further and personally congratulate you. This an erudite, informed and well-stated critique. About Dogs Playing Poker paintings. That sir, deserves applause. Bravo, good sir. Bravo.