(Finally) Back to the Dungeon

Over a year ago, I showed you lot a map of my version of the Lost Temple of Laun Phien (link), and we finally got around to playing through it.  Last night a small but plucky crew headed out into the grasslands to explore/loot the haunted barrow mound of a long lost norseman berzerker king.  Remember them?  These are the guys chased out of the empire by the evil wizard Bargle.  They are on their way to raising an army to march back and overthrow him - overthrow him onto the sharp end of a pointy stick.

A warrior, cleric, and two elves set out from Cornerstone Keep, and after a couple days stumbled onto a band of orcs tormenting a poor wounded wolf.  They saved the wolf, now named Toby, and descended into the dark a few days later.  They scared off some skeletons, fought through traps, discovered lost libraries and laboratories, and were thoroughly confused by the ever changing nature of the caves.

[I had an egg timer set for 10 minutes - every time the bell rang, the dungeon configuration changed as discussed in the link above.  Searching for secret doors, which takes 10 minutes, the same thing happened and the timer reset.]

The kids figured out what was happening pretty quick, but they haven't made a concerted effort to figure out the pattern just yet.  For their first foray, they were just glad to find the way out.  Here's the map they came up with.

Two hours after entering the dungeon, they confronted the spirit of the norse king - a skeletal figure in horned helm who put down the warrior and cleric and wolf, before a rain of silver arrows dropped him into a burbling vat of black poisonous tar.  The plucky heroes loaded a couple of grand in gold onto their mule, Jerry, only to find that the quick walk back to the loot had once again changed.

Tired, hurt, and running low on food, they made their way back to the Keep where they fended off the queries of other would-be grave robbers, rested up, divvied up the gold, and generally prepared for the next big adventure.

First Ever Milliput Conversions

Well now, here's a thing.  Two part epoxy putty for conversions.  Let's start with something small and easy - adding helmets to armored orcs from 15mm.co.uk's Space Viking line.  How hard can it be?  I've worked with small details.  I've spent hours working with clay.  I've even read two whole tutorials on this.  It'll be a breeze.  It'll be a snap.  It'll be...

Lumpy

Cue the foghorn "wah wah" sound effect.  Oh what price hubris.  These helmets are okay and suitably orcy, but man are they lumpy.  This can be fixed with a few coats of paint to smooth them out, right?

Halfway there

Oh, also, the only milliput the local friendly gaming shop had was some sort of terracotta, so I'm using "red dirt stuff" instead of green stuff.

Let's just close out with a comparison shot to make this post worth something.  These armored boys tower over the dwarves, and are hefty compared to humans, so this should work out okay in the long run.

Size comparison

Boring Update - Hedges

Meh.  As far as terrain goes, this is nothing special.  Just some green scrubbers clipped, mounted, and painted up with yellow highlights.  They're a bit small, even for 15mm, so we're looking at soft cover, minor effects on movement.  

If you really need a joke, feel free to write your own Monty Python shrubbery joke.  I'm just glad to have this under my belt so I can start something I've never done before - conversions with two-part modelling clay.  Woot!

Space Dwarf Platoon

Thirty infantry and two light mechs.  That's a good sized force for a game.  In addition to the mechs, this force has six heavy weapon troops, four squad leaders, and a platoon leader.

Thinking about it, one of those three rifleman attached to the command squad would make a good communications officer.  That's going to require some green-stuff for a comm back-pack.  This looks like a great time to step up my conversion game.  This force could use some crew served weapons, too, so there's another opportunity for green stuff and one of a kind figure conversions.  Anybody know how many crew served weapons is reasonable for a platoon like this?

This force contains space dwarves from three different manufacturers.  Here's a comparison shot:

Rebel, Hasslefree, 15mm.co.uk

As you can see, the 15mm.co.uk figures are a bit bigger than Rebel's, but they are the command squad, so they should be.  They are also more beardy than Rebel's dwaves, but that's a good thing, too.  Those rebel figures are the right size for dwaves, but suited up they could be anything.  Having some actual beards sown in the mix helps establish the character of the force.

Now, about those mangalorcs...

Space Dwarf Specialists

Now we're getting to the fun stuff for my son's space dwarves.  They've now got a command squad to go with the four regular squads.  These six figures are part of 15mm.co.uk's line of Space Vikings.  The great thing about 15mm.co.uk is that, unlike most manufacturers in the 15mm scale, they sell just about all of their figures in single packs.  Which means you can get a six man command squad with just the right mix of figures, like these.  There are tons of figures out there that I'd love to have, but will probably never get because I'd wind up with three to nine useless figures.  Shame really.

Another manufacturer that sells single figures, and bless them for it, is Hasslefree.  Of course, they sell the big-25's, so it's not such a big deal.  What is a big deal is their extensive range of big-25 space dwarves which includes dwarves in power armor with mix-and-match arms.  These guys are perfect for 15mm scale mechs.  That big chest cavity is the perfect size for a 15mm dwarf pilot, and the proportions are stubby - just the sort of thing you'd expect from dwarves.

Mech I, on the left, is an assault specialist with heavy chain-fist and pistol.  He can slip through narrow alleys to get close enough to rip open all but the heaviest armored vehicles.  If there aren't any narrow alleys, that chain-fist can make one using the nearest building for raw materials.

The figure on the right, Mech II, is the heavy support.  The twin mounted heavy gatling guns can deal with most vehicles and lay down a heavy covering fire that should keep all but the bravest and dumbest ground-pounders face down in the dirt.  The left hand is available for fine work like flipping light vehicles, knocking down small trees, and chucking enemy soldiers into the next county.  Good times.

Looks like the Mangalorcs have their work cut out for them.

Painted the Town

Just a couple of quick shots of one layout showing the whole town.  This should give you an idea how the paint scheme for the houses is bright and varied, but hangs together as a whole.

Gimme some time, and I'll lay it out with all the trimmings to give an idea what the games themselves will look like.

Last Buildings

Various life adventures stalled work on the one box sci-fi terrain, but we're back in business.  The last three buildings are all painted and clear coated.  Two small buildings and the big old factory-style behemoth wrap up that phase of construction.

The balcony cover on that big building looks pretty plain for now.  Those blank areas above the orange doors are reserved for signage, but that will wait until the billboards are ready.  That way they can all be installed at the same time, and they'll all have the same look about them.