Mordhiem: undead dipped in Blanch source

I've had a half finished blog post sat around for a few weeks now but haven't been able to make any progress on it ... So struck by sudden inspiration I've painted some undead in a Blanchicu style, hopefully this will jump start my productivity and get that other blog post done (a Sculpting tutorial on ogre faces)

This all started when I brought the Warhammer Underworlds starter set to teach some friends, and I decided to get some paint on the skeleton warband

After base coating them I slapped on some zealot yellow and a bit of pallid bone both from the army painter speed paint range, 

After the zealot yellow I then slapped on a layer of fire giant orange speed paint mixed with contrast medium to thin it down a bit, the result was a very evocative orangy yellow, after this had dried I then picked out the cloth with a red speed paint and the leather wood and fur with a brown speed paint.

Happy with the results I started painting other undead from my minitures collection in a similar style first a lich and a skeleton knight that I got from ral patha minitures, 

As well as some mantic zombies I had sitting around half painted,

This is a good starting base for a mordhiem undead or restless dead warband, I'll have to find the time to play a game or two at some point, anyway I've been quite productive lately so I should have another blog post to cobble together soon as well as potentially some ttrpg content again.

Reviving the Blog for reeeellllzys

Ok I know I said I was reviving the Blog about 3 months ago or something but as usual life got in the way/ my own struggles with motivation tech literacy dyslexia excuses excuses etc etc, but I've been busy on the wargaming front and I should probably share it all in a big post before I forget.

Firstly old worlds is upon us and I'm in the thick of it (already signed up for a narrative event scheduled for a month's time and I was planning on taking things slow and steady 😅) I've picked warriors of chaos since I remember them being a small model count elite heavy army (they don't disappoint in this regard)

Chaos warriors in the process of slaughering dwarf miners, mark of nurgle came in clutch this turn

The main bulk of my army comprises around a group of chaos warriors and some marauder horsemen (along side some super cheap chaos hounds) 

In terms of special and rare units I decide against chaos ogres (having had them underperform spectacularly in a test game, I believe they probably better with multiple ranks rather than just 3 models) 

And instead I've gone all in on a spectacular chaos giant with both scaly hide and regen 6+ 

Two heads are better than one, still to be painted but was a ton of fun to convert I love the giant set with a passion lots of nostalgia 😍

Leading this force will be a dynamic duo of two classic chaos warrior models, a chaos warrior with scythe and snake tongue as a chaos lord (very strong stats and good leadership for a general) and one of my most prizes minitures the fantastic chaos warrior in bone armour as a chaos sorcerer lord (absolutely broken in old worlds especially with lore familiar)

The narrative event also allows for a small force of unreliable mercenaries, since warriors of chaos are notorious for having no ranged units I've spent the entire budget for mercenarys on a unit of goblin archers, a goblin bolt thrower and a goblin shaman 

All goblin minitures where purchased from ral patha minitures Europe (not sponsored but I could be in future 😉)

 My overall first impressions of oldworlds are largely positive and I look forward to playing it more in the near future (and using it as an excuse to purchase old miniatures, maby the real old worlds was the lead we got along the way) 

In necromundea news I've been chugging along with my local clubs campaign slowly and steadily increasing in power, I've also been trying to convert some models and figure out what gangs might be fun to do in the near future. One such gang high on the list is the slave ogryn gang, in fact I've been experimenting with sculpting ogryns and ogres and have some petty satisfying results to show.

This model is a mutant ogryn based off one of the old ogryn models acquired by my brother years ago (and subsequently forgotten about so their mine now, I'll return them once he returns my goblin netters and orc shaman that he's convinced is his) in these pictures you can see the green stuff head and mutant arm I added to the model, I'm rather pleased with the result and they look stunning with a big of paint on them 

A bit of glazing makes a world of difference and I'm excited to use this model on the tabletop once it's done (and I have enough credits to actually buy it 😭) but this isn't the only ogryn/ogre sculpting project I've been working on, I've also been trying to sculpt a chaos ogre and ogryn servitor from scratch recently.

 

Im hoping to have more sculpting projects to show in the future as my skills improve, and possibly a guide on sculpting old school style ogre faces (so I don't forget again how to do so 😛) on top of ogres I'm thinking of trying some beastmen since they seem fun to ally in to chaos warrior army, 

That's enough rambling for one day, I'll try to keep blog posts regular with small wargame related projects from now on, now if you excuse me I have about a dozen wargames Atlantic giant spiders to assemble 💀.

Reviving the blog

Ive been looking to get this blog going again for awhile, unfortunately struggled to get something written, ive just decided to write a quick blog post to get back into the flow of things, let anyone who's been waiting for a post know that somethings are on their way and to clarify what direction I see this blog going in the future.

Firstly despite this blog being inactive for serval months there was a spike of views in September (I have no idea what caused this but I imagine its a good sign?) in fact i think it was probably the most views this blog has ever seen in a month

In terms of direction of future content ive been struggling to keep engaged with ttrpg content, so have little to write about in that regard, I will attempt to get some more of this content going again in the future but this will probably have to wait till the new year (unless I can throw together an interesting charismas one shot or something worth making a write up for)

In the wargaming front ive been every busy, joining both a Necromunda campaign  and Xenos Rampant campaign, painting and collecting a fair amount of interesting miniatures and even getting some sculpting in. I'm planning on posting some more wargame related content on this blog in the near future as i have many projects on the go worth sharing. 

So this blog ain't dead yet

My Necromunda Projects

Been a little quite at the moment, ive taken a quick break from ttrpgs as I go through changing jobs and getting used to a different schedule. one thing ive been working on a few months however is getting some stuff together for the scifi skirmish game necromunda. And let me tell you as someone who's been in the wargaming hobby for the majority of my life (almost 2 decades and I'm not even 25 as of writing) feels like the perfect game.

Necromunda provides a fast paced and exiting game with boatloads of customization options and different tactics and playstyles, and most importantly this means an excuse to convert like hell, converting has always been my favourite part of the wargaming hobby and is an activity I find immensely rewarding, this blog post will mainly be a gallery of some of my favourite converted models ive made in the past few months as well as a bit of a chin wag about necromunda and wargaming in general.

So first on the block is the nice and easy flagellant converts, the empire flagellants set is one of my all time favourite sets, and that's with the fact that i never collected an empire army, i originally brought a box of flagellants back in 6th edition 40k when for a signal edition the Penal legion made a come back for imperial guard (dead again in 7th rip) and since just having a few units of veteran guard is kind of boring (I didn't have enough pocket money to afford a full platoon back then) i used some spare las gun arms from the old guard set and slapped them on some flagellant bodies, the effect while simple worked wonders. in the current day I'm able to combine flagellant bodies with another fantastic set that's come out more recently, the necromunda hive scum set

I cant say enough about the hive scum set honestly, though seemingly limited to just 4 models the amount of head and arm variety allows for a wide wide range of combinations and the arms fit well with alot of diffrent sets like the gene stealer sets or many of the house gang sets,

Necromunda has a lot of narrative room to play around with, it encourages you to make unique characters to represent your gangs leaders or bounty hunters and this uniqueness gives a blank check to the creative energies of the player, 

Converting is in many ways somewhat necessary for necromunda, not all options are available in official sets so if you want a specific weapon load out represented on your models you'll need to grab your hobby knife and glue,

Other gangs might require converting more heavily than others, you could easily play with the house gangs using the standard sets and upgrade sprues but if you want to play something like the Ogryn slave gang your either buying 3 copies of a massively underwhelming set or your converting (small lose it is probably one of the most restrictive gangs with a single range option that sucks...)

One Thing im trying to work on is learning to sculpt models from putty, been serval months since i started learning and i think ive come a long way, sculpting is very slow paced compared to cut and stick converting so trying to stay motivated enough to finish a model when it kind of looks like a blob is a bit hard, though its extremely satisfying seeing the image in your minds eye stare back at you as a solid object. 

A squat ive been working on

Ill try to share more stuff on the blog in the future, i think there's a lot of cross over between ttrpgs and wargames (especially when looking at early iterations of both) so i think it would be pointless to limit the scope of hobbies i write about (this is already a self indulgent blog for organizing my thoughts after all no quality here) I have also got plans for starting up a few necromunda games so i might throw up some battle reports after some games.

Min Maxing AD&D: AD&D character options hit different

So one of the common wisdoms of the OSR is that you cant min max in OSR games, like most common wisdoms this is completely untrue. The issue itself is that old school games are too alien to the modern ttrpg mind that great pilgrimage of knowledge seem necessary to reach understanding ( but since i have already climbed mount osric and consulted the great sage EOTB, i guess i can just tell you the esoteric secrets, i mean who's going to stop me?) 

in this post i will begin to unravel the multitude of character options and meta knowledge that should give you the head start in reaching AD&D nirvana, most of what i write will be in reference to Osric since that's what ive been running reading and digesting over the past month or two, there are differences between Osric and AD&D but most of what im talking about should be similar enough that the advice will still be useful. A lot of the difference of minimaxing in old D&D is while new D&D min maxing is largely a solo affair AD&D characters are nothing on their own compared to them being part of a smart and coordinated team, if you stop thinking about D&D characters as a individual and more as part of a whole things start to click together a bit easier (might go into more detail on this in a future post just thought it needed to be mentioned here)

So firstly lets kill a meme (an always enjoyable task) are Demi humans worse than humans in AD&D? no are you out of your mind? they're better, a flat out a better option 9/10 times, especially these days where sadly most games wont go the distance, the main thing people get upset about is level limits which is usually discussed completely out of context and with no understanding about some very key mechanics, namely 

1. demi humans get tons of special abilities from level one, these abilities by themselves are valuable boons to a character, stuff like an increase to hit with certain weapons, +4AC Vs large creatures, dark vision, +4 Vs poison (which considering poison is one of the most common instant death effects out there is huge) and a laundry list of known languages (very useful when you have to negotiate with a orc tribe for the release of your captured friend, this isn't a game just about combat non combat stuff can massively help you survive and thrive)

2.multi classing, you know what's better than being a human mage? being an elf mage who can wear armour and use weapons because they are also a fighter, you know what's better than being a elf mage fighter? an elf mage fighter that can also scale walls better than spider man, multiclassing is good so what's the downside? level limits, these don't matter if you aren't playing beyond like 9th level anyway (which is probably the majority of games these days) and really only effects you in the magic and Thac0 department anyway, personally I think your more likely to be able to get an elf fighter magic user with its better armour and hit points to 9th level than a human magic user so the trade off of high level magic is really not that much of a loss, there's also the fact that every demi human can level unlimited in thief, which provides some hp and saves improvement's at higher levels while also giving you cool thief skills (without sacrificing the abilities of the other classes your multiclassed in)

3.Human classes have level limits too, well assassin and druid do but you get the point, hell you can play a half orc and get to max level in assassin, you can play a half orc and multiclass assassin to max level and fighter to level 10!!!!! an amazing option how can humans compete? (probably with the ranger)

another thing worth mentioning is dual classing, this is an extremely interesting option humans get access to kind of like their version of multi classing, where as a demi human can level in 2-3 classes at once splitting their xp between their classes the human levels one class at a time but can switch to another class and start levelling in that instead (as long as you meet some quite high requirements, the process is also not reversible so if you where a level 5 fighter you cant then level fighter any higher), this comes with the draw back that your thac0 increases and saving throws while levelling this new class are set at that classes current level while your hit points stay the same,if you use your other classes ability while levelling this new class you don't get xp so this is a very difficult endeavour where you basically have to earn your reward (made a bit easier by hopefully having some magic items and higher level allies to carry you through the adventure) upon reaching one level higher than your original class with this new class you apparently get the ability to use both classes abilities (so basically you can be a fighter magic user without the level restrictions just with a lot more work and time investment, if your going to play in the same game for 50 years with the same characters this is probably the option) 

so what if you just want a quick boost to your character at low levels is it possible just to start as a fighter and switch to a mage after one or two levels to have the benefits of a fighters hp pool? yes as long as you meet the requirements (AD&D character gen is quite forgiving and there are ways to increase stats in game though mostly down to finding certain magic items or drinking from magic fountains and using wishes) so if you get a raw deal at character gen don't give up hope for them, i think one thing that can be taken from this post is that AD&D is about the journey not the destination and damn is it one wild journey.

So i think that's where ill leave it, i think some more posts like this looking into the old school meta would be fun (future subjects could include but are not limited to, why chivalry will save your life or the risks of murderhoboing, why you should use consumables as soon as convenient, use wishes quickly and effectively etc) AD&D is a game of tremendous depths due to its many sub systems so there's a lot to talk about and it will be an excuse for me to dive further into the mechanics of the game (since i need to learn them for my game anyway). also was thinking about reading through some old fan zines from AD&Ds height like old dragon and white dwarf issues, since AD&D is the same game as when they where published I'm sure they are a treasure trove of advice tips and tricks (already peaked at white dwarf issue one there's some real fascinating articles in there)

Mega Dungeon inspiration,

So happy new year, one of the things ive seen pop up around new year is Dungeon 23 the idea of making a mega dungeon over the course of a year, coincidently i also need to build a mega dungeon for my AD&D game so i might as well join in (though i might need the first 2 floors finished alot sooner than other people doing this challenge) i quite enjoy the art of dungeon building and its really something i need to ease myself back into again.

I think its worth talking about a few dungeons or mega dungeons from fiction to give a little inspiration to people making their own, as they are good examples of how to describe these environments as well as establishing what sort of tropes dungeons tend to follow, for me the biggest examples come from Swords and Sorcery fiction (where tomb robbing is a frequent past time).

Firstly Conan being a barbarian and often a thief has many great examples of such dungeons, on of the first comes from the second Conan story published "The Scarlet Citadel" this is a fortified palace fortress built into a mountain side but the interesting part is within its dungeons, these are the domain of the citadels sorcerer who traps prisoners and his inhuman creations in the lightless tunnels of the dungeon, Conan encounters many strange creatures here like a giant snake a half frog creature with the voice of a woman and a strength sapping vine, the only entrance is also impossible to open from the inside a serious problem for Conan. Next we have the story "Slithering Shadows" in which Conan stumbles apon a large palace that turns out to be a entirely self contained city full people in a drug induced slumber, each building within connects to other buildings through a series of secret doors and corridors, within the depth of these tunnels lies the slumbering god of the city that occasionally awakens to eat the inhabitants of the city, this sort of city will come up again a few more times later as well.

I think i should mention "Rouges in the House" as one of my favourite Conan stories, its by no means a mega dungeon but has some fantastic trap ideas, in the story Conan, the man who hired him to assassinate a high priest and the high priest he was hired to kill are all trapped in the priests house trying to out smart the priests ape man servant that's gone insane and started killing indiscriminately, it features contraptions like a tube of mirrors that project an image from the room at the top of a set of stairs to the bottom of the stairs (to allow remote viewing) a portcullis that automatically closes behind someone and sets of an alarm, a corridor where thick glass blocks each end and poisonous powder is dropped from above.

"People of the black circle" features the assault of a sorcerers fortress while his apprentices and magical servants attempt to use all their magic tricks to defend it, one of the most striking parts of this is a sea of poison gas with a thread running through it, by staying on the thread you are magically protected from the gas (this just screams trick or trap room), "Jewels of Gwahlur" is the next story to feature a prominent dungeon, in the form of a ruined city with a tunnels network bellow, there's also a funny part where a slave skilled in acting pretends to be the undying saint of the city (which could be a great interaction as part of a rival faction of thieves for a dungeon) its also notable because the creatures that conan faces in this story are magical servants that keep certain parts of the city maintained and guarded replacing the robes of the real saint when they degrade etc which is a great idea for a mega dungeon especially one ruled by a mage or powerful creature. 

for the last two Conan stories there's a brief part in "Hour of the Dragon" where Conan enters the pyramid of Set a massive pyramid with a maze of corridors and chambers containing unknown horrors of the night, pyramids and other grand tombs are great inspirations for dungeons as they usually contain some form of anti tomb robber traps (as well as mummies in D&D having mummy rot which is pretty nasty) And lastly for the Conan stories we have "Red Nails" a perfect example of a mega dungeon, it is another self contained city like in slithering shadows that is split into multiple levels with a massive crypt beneath it containing all manner of magic items buried with the city's former sorcerous residence. dwelling within this city is two tribes of humans that have waged never ending war for 50 years Conan of course joins forces with one of the tribes to help them with their war, this is a great example of the much talked about faction play which mega dungeons due to their size are very well suited for (as you can fit many many different factions within)

moving on from Conan now we move to the "Farfrd and the Grey mouser" series which has a few fantastic examples of dungeons though most are quite brief so ill skip them, one example that pops up in a few stories is the cave of Ningauble of the seven eyes the patron sorcerer of Farfrd, this magical cave is infinite and connects to other planes of existence, Ningauble is a keen collector of artefacts and rumours so there must be something of value within these caves. The next location of significance is in the story "Adept's Gambit" in which Farfrd and the Grey Mouser travel from their world to earth during the raign of Alexander the Great, they are cursed by a sorcerer and end up foiling him and go to his masters castle which is know as "the castle called mist" this is a colossal castle that both externally and internally is shrouded by a cloud of thick mist, many strange items are held within from a shaven bear cub (why is this here? probably for a ritual or something) to smoking scrolls cooled by the mist that erupt into flames once the mist is dispersed. Next is yet another self contained city whcih is PERFECT mega dungeon fodder much in the same way as Red Nails was with "The Lords Of Quarmall". In this story Farfrd and Mouser are unknowingly hired as champions by the two warring hairs of the city of Quarmall, the city is mostly subterranean split into a surface keep ruled by the king of Quarmall, the upper levels controlled by one of the hairs, a ever shifting no-mans land and lower levels controlled by the other hair(there is also mentions of even lower and ancient levels that contain the remnants of the elder ones) the city has many interesting features such as mushroom farms, large crypts and even giant fans to suck air into the lower levels of the city, its a fantastic story that i highly recommend one of my favourite.

Lastly for Farfrd and the Grey Mouser i think it would be good to briefly mention Lankmar bellow, a city of sentient rats beneath the city of lankmar,  one interesting concept in mega dungeon design is the idea of sub levels, these are area between or to the side of a mega dungeon that may be hidden or difficult to enter and can have additional challenges and treasure to the main dungeon, D&D has a few spells and potions that allow you to reduce your size so why not make some sort of sub level that's only accessible via shrink spell or potion? there's really unlimited possibilities for sub levels and they can be a fun change of pace to break up the standard dungeon crawling of mega dungeon, think of them as bonus/hidden levels from video games.

lastly for this post, its hard to discuss inspiration in D&D without talking about "the Dying Earth" this is a world full of mega structures, few feature prominently in the stories but non the less a great source of inspiration, to summarises briefly a few fantastic dungeon ideas from this series you have a colossal museum built to contain the entire history of man (in a world set thousands of years after that of today, that's alot of histoy....) a tomb city sealed with thousands of hand picked humans of exemplarily ability kept in stasis (that are being eaten one at a time by a tribe of cannibals) gigantic tombs that contain millions of perfectly preserved corpses, and ones that are being used as a source of stone by a local village and a city controlled by a sorcerers brain in a jar. Dying earth is a fantastic read i highly recommend it, one of the most imaginative fantasy worlds out there and beautifully written.

That's all for now will try to get more dungeon stuff up in the future if people want it and illl probably make a write up of the first few sessions of my AD&D game in the near future, i don't think i have any new years resolutions this year, mainly its just "carry on from last year" but there's some projects im interested in doing (including trying to play more wargames, idk how much people who read this are interested in that but i might make some blog posts to do with that in the future) also been trying to read more scifi currently on Larry Niven's "Ringworld" 

XP attrition, the slow death of an OSR Open table game

XP rates isn't a subject you see OSR talking heads mention too much, i guess its more on the technical side that is often neglected in ttrpg discussion, I do feel there is plenty of discussion to be had in this regard expressly in OSR spaces which could defiantly benefit most from this line of thinking.

Firstly Xp is a form of progress, the more xp you have the higher level you are and by extension more powerful, players in xp based games could quite fairly judge their progress in a game through their levels as resources can be lost and expended along the way and some games may have more of an episodic quality to them than more story path focused play. There may be those who reject xp as a form of progression seeking to keep their games within the level 1-3 range indefinitely, personally i find this form of gaming frustrating and unrewarding but it is largely irrelevant to this discussion, all of what will be written in this blog post assumes the standard xp for gold system of OD&D, B/X or AD&D are being used and looking at it from a purely game play perspective.

So now that we should be on the same page the main subject of this post is to discuss XP attrition(or the more funny term XP Cucking), which I will define as xp that permanently leaves a game. As the title suggests this mostly has to do with open tables with inconsistent players and the general boom or bust gameplay of extended dungeon crawling, I feel that this could (pure speculation) be one of the factors behind a open table game running its course and fizzling out due to lack of enthusiasm on both player and Dm side (been there many times)

Firstly the main candidate for XP attrition is characters leaving, this could be characters dying, players becoming too busy and having to leave the game or people who turn up for a odd session and decide its not for them, this is generally a perfectly organic thing with no malice behind it (Allegedly) but should be something DMs are aware and keep an eye out for, some player loss is generally inevitable these days and honestly something ive come to expect (not everyone who clicks interested on a event will show event planning 101). Around mid level when res spells and items start being more available a dead character may no longer be "lost XP" which is generally good given the amount of time it takes to get a pc above the 5th or 6th level range, but these spells usually have limitations so not 100% guaranteed. 

Second common issue is too many characters, this could be a boom in your open table where you have a dozen players for a session or maybe the hiring of npc henchmen or pc backup characters, this is the death by a thousand cuts (of xp) generally if you have a pc count over 6 you should probably not allow players to bring more than one character, remember that henchmen and fighting hirelings get a share of xp and loot and REMIND players of this fact whenever they hire them make sure your using the loyalty and hiring rules for henchmen to prevent them becoming just the instant win button of expendable body's to throw at a situation, in games using some form of 1:1 time like in a west march style game, where characters might be out of action for a few days while adventures are still available players will naturally want alternate characters to allow them to experience more of these adventures, its worth noting that these are probably the most invested players in such a game so punishing or restricting such behaviour is probably unwise for the long term health of the game. Its worth keeping note of the number of PCs and hench men from session to session so you have a general idea of the average characters per sessions for you to stock future dungeons with an appropriate amount of monsters and treasure (remember that these games generally assume a base player count of 6) 

Thirdly there is xp lost through level drain, this is particularly nasty though generally not the most common thing, especially low levels when most open games struggle to get momentum, but its worth noting as a hazard for when the game gets into mid level. 

Lastly i think i should mention that i generally fall on the more Monty haul side when stocking dungeons, these games tend to have limits on levelling more than once a session or rules like training which places a time cost onto the act of levelling up, there is also the fact that these games EVERYTHING can be taken away at a moments notice (really liking item saving throws btw 😉) from level drain to breath weapons to landing on that healing potion you were saving for a rainy day, attrition is a part of the game, a lot of the time its about being fair with rewards and punishments don't go out of your way to stave the party there's plenty of mechanics that do that already.

Anyway just something to chew on and have a happy new year, looking back at the numbers for this blog i think i managed an average of around 3 blog posts a month though this was far from a consistent out put, for next year im probably going to try putting out posts more consistently and staying productive to avoid creative slumps.