Duskling Ambush!

 24th Day of Palesun, 1293

We were once again patrolling the outskirts of the city.  Some of the local farmers had reported to the town watch that their livestock were acting scared of something, so we went to investigate.

The first few farms we visited, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  But then we heard cries of distress in the distance.  We approached as quickly as we could while still trying to be cautious, and found a farmer, wounded and under attack from dusklings!

(Out of character:  Please excuse the shoddy quality of the farmer mini.  It is a prepaint, and not my fault.)

We quickly dismounted and prepared for battle.

The warband advanced cautiously.  

The dusklings, however, raced forward with unexpected speed.  It was clear we needed to move more quickly or the enemy would finish off the wounded farmer.

With only three enemies visible, we got overconfident.  But then Eleseth walked right into an ambush of five more dusklings!

From there, things got chaotic.  I went to try to rescue the farmer, while the rest of the warband attempted to deal with the newly arrived enemies.  After a long back-and-forth fight over a wall, I finally took out the first of the enemies, though I didn't come out of it unscathed.

Things rapidly went downhill from there.  My companions starting going down one after the other.  Wilfred healed my wound, and I immediately took another.  I made it to the farmer and bandaged myself, but then more dusklings came after me.  It was a close thing, but I was in the end victorious and opened a path to escort the farmer off the battlefield.

Dobbin attempted to provide covering fire, which allowed Wilfred to escape.  In the end, though, Dobbin's arrows couldn't stop so many foes, and he was overwhelmed.

Fortunately, we had defeated enough of the dusklings that they too were more interested in escaping than pursuing us.  Once they had left the area, we provided first aid to our fallen companions and managed to get them back to town.  Their injuries were extensive, though, and Dobbin wouldn't have made it without giving him some of our precious store of silverleaf.

30th day of Highsun, 1293

I haven't been able to keep up with this journal, because with half the company out of action, the rest of us have been worked hard to earn our keep.  We did hear rumors of dusklings taking prisoners, which possibly explains their attack on the farm.  I hope to go and mount a rescue expedition there soon, but Dobbin is still recovering.

With everyone else back to fighting-shape, though, we plan to check out the abandoned mines that are nearby.  Foolish?  Perhaps.  But lately, the town guard has been mocking us... Sometimes behind our backs, but sometimes right to our faces.  "What kind of adventuring company leeches off the town guard for months at a time?"  I feel we must do something to prove ourselves to them, and our shepherd friend Samuel apparently lost a few sheep in that area.  Hopefully we can do him a favor, and raise our esteem at the same time.

To Battle!

Setting Up

As with all things in Five Leagues from the Borderlands, there are a number of random variations when you set up a battle.

The battle was a random occurrence when we did a Ride Patrol adventure action and encountered Signs of Danger.  In that entry, it says to determine a random threat, which turns out to be "The Ruin Within."  We then set up a Meeting Engagement (the most common type of battle), but also using the Unknown Enemy rule.

Because we're fighting The Ruin Within, we roll on the enemy table for that threat and determine that we're fighting a Deserter Squad.  The enemy stats and any additional rules are determined by that selection.  I won't go into detail on the stats, but the relevant special rules are that there are +3 enemies over usual, and that one basic trooper gets upgraded to a sergeant.

To get the actual number of enemies, we roll 2d6 and take the higher, which turns out to be a 5.  Then we add the +3 to get 8.  (If at this point there our warband outnumbers the enemy, they have a minimum of 1 less than our warband size of 6, but that obviously isn't an issue here.)  The unknown enemy rule then kicks in, and says that the enemy numbers are reduced by 3, but they get a marker that can turn into 1 to 5 enemies when it is spotted.  So, depending on luck, we might be fighting more or fewer enemies than we expect.

The next roll is to see if they have a leader with them, and it turns out they are accompanied by a lieutenant.  Putting everything together, we start facing a lieutenant, a sergeant, 2 bow troops, 2 melee troops, and the unknown enemy marker.

Next, we figure out the objective of the scenario, which is to Fetch Something.  We decide that we come across the group of deserters suspiciously poking around a copse of trees, and as we're patrolling for activity out of the ordinary, we go in to investigate.  The ex-soldiers don't take kindly to the attention and resist.  We set up the battle kind of to our liking, and get something like this:

Our warband is on the near edge, and the enemy on the far side.  Just as a note, almost all the minis used for our heroes are temporary... I decided to use stuff I had previously painted that don't *quite* fit the characters rather than using unpainted models that are more accurate.

Also, the unpainted (giant) crow model toward the upper left is the unknown enemy marker.

We're playing on a 2'x2' board, so combat is going to happen quickly and brutally.

The Engagement Begins

If I'm honest, I didn't take good notes about how the battle played out.  Here are some of the highlights, just based on my memory.

Nothing much happens the first turn.  People advance, trying to stay in cover, and the ranged characters fire off some shots that miss.  (Reviewing the rules, I don't think they should have been able to fire at all, but in the end it doesn't matter.)  The unknown enemy marker advances toward the center of the table, and because the table size is so small, it is instantly identified and spawns 3 more troops.

Our leader wades right into the thick of those three enemies, and due to a combination of good rolls, having a +2 combat skill, and getting counter attacks with his spear, ends up killing all three of the enemies that just spawned.

(Ignore that Garrick Thomson is represented by a Greek hoplite, please.)

Nothing much happens on the right side of the field; potshots are taken back and forth that miss, and the melee troops jockey for position.

Back on the left, Eleseth attempts to join the fray, but doesn't have nearly the skill or luck of Garrick, and she pretty much immediately goes down.  Garrick has a couple of bad rolls, but still continues to more than hold his own against the remaining enemies on the left.

We decide to make a play for the objective and grab the macguffin in the center of the table.  Wilfred creates a wall of flame to keep the enemy lieutenant at bay and allow one of the followers (Campbell, I think) to run up to get it.

From there, it is pretty much cleanup.  Dobbin finally starts hitting with his bow, and ends up one-shotting the lieutenant.  (Very lucky, since his toughness save was 5 or less on a d6.)

We hold the field, and carry our spoils off the table.

Resolution

After the battle is over, we deal with the aftermath, both good and bad.

We get one "adventure point" for a victorious ride patrol encounter, and an additional one for defeating a lieutenant (poor guy never even got to attack).  These are used to progress the campaign in various ways... Most importantly, we can use them for chances to lower the threat levels of the enemies.  Two isn't enough to do much with, so we bank them for later.

Because Eleseth went down in the fight, we have to see how badly she is wounded.  We get a "serious injury," which means that we roll 2d6, choose the higher, and she is out of action for that many turns.  In another stroke of luck, we get double ones.  We feed her a tonic to reduce her downtime by a turn, and she's immediately back in action.  

All our heroes get 2xp; one just for participating, and another for winning the encounter.  Dobbin gets a bonus 1xp for killing the lieutenant.  No one levels up as a result of this, but Dobbin and Eleseth are only 1 more xp away from it.

Rolling for loot, all we find are two "misty waterflower" consumables, which help people recover if poisoned.

As an additonal bonus, a local was so impressed by our battle prowess that he wanted to join our company.  We decide to allow him, and Ansel joins us as a loyal follower.

Speaking of followers, they don't get xp like heroes do.  Instead, each time they survive a battle, they get to roll to see if they learn something.  If lucky enough, they can become heroes.  Kurt has a flash of insight and becomes a hero, but doesn't gain any advancements.  Campbell was too focused on the treasure, and learns nothing.

I kind of decided that heroes have last names, and followers don't.  So, Kurt earns a last name of Coleman.

We roll for end-of-turn news, and apparently nothing interesting is going on.

Back in Town...

I probably should do journal entry format for this, but I just don't feel like it this time.

Sadly, I don't remember what the random event was.  It was inconsequential, since it affected something that we weren't planning on doing anyway.

We choose to help the town guard, since we still can't afford to pay upkeep.  We also send Dobbin to train, giving him the last xp point to level up.  His advancement is either an agility point or a toughness point.  Since he shouldn't be hit all that often (we hope), we choose the agility.

We also send people out to gather information for our contract.  Eleseth easily makes the expertise roll, Wilfred succeeds at the wits roll (even though he has no particular skill with it), and Campbell flubs the speech roll.  Only two successes are necessary to fulfill the contract, and the warband gains 2 gold marks and another adventure point.

We check our connections, and because we now have a friend, he helps us out with a story point.

We still only have 3 gold marks, which isn't enough to buy anything useful, so it is off to make another ride patrol.  Unfortunately for variety's sake, we get a lot of the same results on the tables... another unknown enemy, fetch something fight.  The enemy type is different, though... we get "Duskling Warbands," and the specific group is "Prowling Renegades."  They have a bunch of special rules, which could make the encounter more interesting.  Further, there are far fewer of them (depending on what we roll with the unknown enemy), but they are individually more difficult foes.

We'll see how it goes in the next session...

Events Leading to Adventure

Background

The flow of Five Leagues from the Borderlands is that you do "Preparation" in town or camp, by going shopping, doing odd jobs, hunting for food, and the like.  Some random events happen while you're doing this.  Then, you go out adventuring.

Adventuring may involve traveling to a new location, exploring a feature of your current place, or just riding around to see what is happening.  Typically (but not always) this will result in a combat against a group of npcs.  

One of the most fun things for me is to create a narrative out of all the randomness.  This isn't going to flow well like a short story, so I think I'll mostly structure it like Garrick's journal.  When I specifically go out of character to explain the game effects, I'll mark it as such.

12th day of Palesun, 1293

We finally arrived in the valley.  The cold on the trip through the mountain pass was terrible on my old shoulder wound, so I haven't been making regular entries here.  Things should be warmer at the lower altitude, so I'll be back to keeping my records.

Of course the blasted fey-blood wasn't bothered by the cold.  She kept bouncing around from rock to rock like she was a child at play.  She's lost some of that energy now that the rest of us aren't freezing, which makes her a lot easier to deal with.

As we approached the village of Mahn, the ever-watchful Dobbin pointed out some kind of an entrance in the side of the nearest mountain.  I could barely see the thing even after he pointed to it, honestly.

There was a shepherd out grazing his sheep, so we asked him about it.  He told us it was an old silver mine that was abandoned after the veins were played out, which was decades ago.  Every once in awhile some idiot goes there hoping to discover a new vein and strike it rich, but they never return.  Who knows what has taken up residence in there now?

We bid farewell to the shepherd, and headed into the village.  We're a bit low on coin, so rather than checking into an inn we reported to the guard barracks.  A lot of these frontier settlements are in need of extra bodies to patrol the streets and surrounding areas, and are willing to give some basic room and board for people willing to help out.  Luckily, that was exactly the case here, and we bedded down for the night.

(Out of character) The group travels to Mahn, and when traveling to a settlement there is no need to make a random travel check.  We do still get some news, which after a few random rolls leads to a new delve.

13th day of Palesun, 1293

We spent most of the day exploring Mahn as we patrolled the streets as temporary members of the guard.  Things were a little bit busy, since apparently today was a big market day as goods were delivered from Kethra.  We looked at a lot of stuff wistfully, but in the end we could only afford a bit of used armor for Campbell.  As our newest recruit to the company, he hasn't had a chance to really gear up, and I want to at least give him a fighting chance.  Literally.

We spent the evening in the barracks drinking with the other guardsmen and swapping stories.  We didn't really learn as much about the area as I'd have liked, but it is always good to make nice with the locals.

14th day of Palesun, 1293

Today, our duties took us on patrol outside the city.  We ran into the same shepherd that told us about the mine, and since everything seemed quiet, spent awhile chatting with him.  I found out his name is Samuel, and he owns the biggest flock in the area, so he's constantly moving around.  He definitely seemed eager for some human contact, and I get the feeling he meets a lot of the travelers that come through.  He might become a valuable source of information on local happenings.

As we headed back into town, we noticed that a large military force was also out patrolling, which probably explains why everything was so quiet.  It does make me wonder what our purpose in going out was, though.

(Out of character)  A typical preparation turn involves a random event, which in this case was that there was a market day.  Then you choose two actions to perform: we assisted the town guard so we don't have to pay upkeep costs, and met the locals drinking to get a "story point" which is a resource used to help out when the dice go against you.  Next, you can sell stuff (nothing to sell, yet) and buy an item, which was us getting the armor.  After that, you can "research" to either check connections or try to discover a hidden location.  The group is a long way from being ready to go after a hideout, so we check connections... but we don't yet have any friends and nothing happens.

(Out of character) Our adventuring phase is to go out on a "ride patrol," which typically results in a combat encounter that is easier on the difficulty scale.  This time, we only encounter a "chatty herder."  We can either ignore him and go for another encounter, or talk to him and make a friend.  Since we've already been burned once by not having any friends, we add him to the list.  Finally, with no battle, the only thing remaining is the news, and a random roll gives that the local army has been patrolling.  This would help with travel, but the company will be staying in this area for a bit so it doesn't matter.

15th day of Palesun, 1293

We set out to patrol the village again today, and some cheeky sod nicked our purse.  We didn't have much coin to begin with, but we lost the last of our gold marks.  I guess we'll be on guard rations for awhile more.

16th day of Palesun, 1293

Eleseth, Dobbin, and I continue to patrol the settlement, but I sent Kurt and Campbell out to do some odd jobs and try to make some cash.  Being totally broke really limits our options.

I also sent Wilfred to talk to the city council to see if there was some job we could do for them.  Apparently, they've noticed cultists in the area, and want to know more information.  We'll ask around town, and if we can rustle up enough news we can earn a bit more money.

17th day of Palesun, 1293

I brought everyone together again to ride a patrol outside of Mahn.  No sign of Samuel today, but we encountered some suspicious individuals poking around a small copse of trees.  Dobbin with his amazing eyesight noticed that their armor is the same style as the military folk we saw a few days ago, but much more unkempt...  Probably deserters.  

Well, this is how we earn our keep...

(Out of character):  Event:  Pickpocket, lose 2 gold marks, which is all we have.  Our town actions:  help the town guard for free upkeep, and do hard work to make a gold mark.  We skip past the buy/sell phase, and our research turns up a contract to investigate a settlement.  Fortunately, the random settlement turns out to be Mahn, so we don't have to travel anywhere to do it.  

(Out of character): For the adventure phase, we again go on a ride patrol, but this time get a battle encounter.  There are several steps to rolling up an encounter, but I'll save that for the next blog entry after we've actually done the fight.

Multiple Attempts at Planning (i.e., map)

Deciding What to Do

The first thing I looked for when I knew I needed a map was a free online map tool.  Honestly, I don't even remember the name of the tool I first considered, but it was garbage.

I then looked into YouTube tutorials on making your own maps, and found a great one, by JP Coovert.  He seems to have something of an artist background, and a real passion for D&D and in particular, D&D maps.  Here is the video that really inspired me, but he has several others that would be useful if you want to hand-draw your maps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1XEVzX5cxg

The thing was, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how problematic drawing the map by hand would be.  As you play Five Leagues from the Borderlands, you discover more places and add them to the map.  You also eliminate camps, clear out delves, and so on.  What is important on the map will change, and it seems nearly impossible to have something that both looks good and allows for expansion.

So, I went back to looking for digital tools.  The one that every place seemed to bring up was "Inkarnate."  I spent a half-hour or so playing with the free version, and I pretty much hated it.  It absolutely can make beautiful maps, but it was unintuitive for me to use, and seemed to require a lot of effort to get even the simplest things done.  Even worse, I'd find a tool that I'd like to use to add something to the map, and it would be locked behind the pay wall.  Now, I don't mind paying for a product, but having to pay for a subscription to use even pretty basic features bothers me.

In the end, I bought "Wonderdraft" for a one-time price.  You can get decent-looking maps in a tiny fraction of the time it would take me using Inkarnate, and I think that with practice you can get stuff that looks just as good.  I'm not constantly being hounded to pay, and I can add and remove things easily as the campaign progresses.

Without Further Ado...

With less than an hour of playing around, I have a fun map of the area my warband will be adventuring in.

World Building

 Picking Spells

In the last post, when I created my Five Leagues from the Borderlands warband, I hadn't yet chosen spells for my mystic.  Mainly, I wanted to re-read the rules and spell descriptions.

In 5LB, spellcasters are mainly support.  There are no fireballs or other attack spells.  Instead, they can help their allies, hinder their foes, and alter the battlefield.  I've always liked this kind of wizard, but it does leave me with "everything is cool" syndrome.

I only get to pick two spells, and then get three more randomly.  After some consideration, I'm taking "Heal" as my first spell.  Even though it is limited to one cast per combat, anything that can help keep warband members alive a bit longer is a must-have.

The second spell I went around and around with, but I settled on "Barrier."  Being able to create cover wherever it is needed sounds amazing to me.

Now, the random rolls... 

(01) Antidote makes a warband member immune to poison and venom for an entire battle.  Situational, but probably very useful when appropriate.

(06) Barrier... er, reroll (46) Heal... bah, reroll... (100) Weaken.  Makes some enemies easier to deal with.  Another very situational spell, it looks like.

(43) Guidance.  Allows an ally a reroll during the next round.  Powerful if done at the right time, but tricky (or impossible) to know what the right time is.

At any rate, I look forward to seeing how this works out.  Having a mystic definitely allows for some creative play instead of just "run at the enemy and hope dice work in your favor."

Settlements

The next part of setting up a 5LB campaign is to start making a map of the area.  I'll draw something up later, but to start I need to know the major features that are in the area.

Rolling on a table gives me 0 hamlets, 2 villages, and 1 town.  Each of these gets a special trait.

The village of Ree turns out to be a nomadic camp, while the village of Mahn is a trading hub.

The larger town of Kethra is a market town.

I'm imagining a synergy between these three places.  Mahn is the closest to more civilized lands.  It serves as a gathering place for adventurers heading into the area, and also accumulates loot from those same adventurers.  It is the primary place for goods to come into the area, and treasures to head out.

The people of Ree wander in search of fish and game.  Anything they find beyond their needs gets taken to Kethra, which is connected to Mahn via a river.  In that way, the nomads can barter for goods they can't manufacture themselves.

Threats

There are three major groups threatening the area.  While there is the option to roll randomly, for this first campaign I'm going to pick based on models that I already own (and some of which are painted).

There are two "foes within," which lurk within the human realms.  I choose "The Ruin Within," which means bandits and brigands, and "The Whispers from Beyond," for fights against undead and cultists.

For "foes without," I go with Duskling Warbands.  While previously I said that dusklings reminded me of dwarves, I think I'm going to use orcs for these enemies.

I'm going to make the dusklings the primary enemy of the campaign (threat level 6), and both of the foes within will be threat level 5.  The goal of the campaign (which I highly doubt I'll achieve) is to reduce all three of those threat levels to 0.

Each of the three enemy groups will get both a camp and a hideout on the map.  The camps' locations are known, but the hideouts will be hidden and have to be discovered later.  I imagine that we have heard rumors of the general area where the groups are based, but we'll have to investigate and search to actually find the places.  That is a problem for future Garrick, though...

Other Stuff to Find

A few other interesting locations need to be added to the map.

There is a "delve," which is a multi-level tower/dungeon that can be explored.  In the past, there was another town in the area, called Lorba.  It grew to the point where hygiene was a serious problem, and the residents attempted to start a sewer system.  While digging, they broke through to a cave system.... and the inhabitants didn't take well to being disturbed.  Foul things decimated the town, and retreated back underground.  Rumors tell that the town coffers were full before the attack, and that coin has never been found.  

The map will also have an "unexplored location," which could be anything from a monster lair to a magic woods to a lost community.

Next up is to put all this stuff onto an actual map.  The map is mostly fluff, since you get from any location to any other in one "travel action."  Still, it adds to the immersion and makes it feel more like a world.  Once I get that drawn, I'll make another blog entry for it.

Preparing for the Borderlands

Background

Five Leagues from the Borderlands (5LB) is a solo (or cooperative) fantasy miniatures game.  The player(s) create a warband of adventurers who go on missions, fight enemies, rest in towns, and try to fight against encroaching enemies.

The game is a sequel/companion to Five Parsecs from Home (5PH), which has a science fiction theme to it.  I briefly attempted to play 5PH, but it wasn't my cup of tea.  First, I don't have many SF miniatures, and more importantly, it just was more frustrating than fun to me.  You randomly go on missions, and most missions are just too difficult for a starting crew.  So, I'd get wiped out, not get any rewards, and ended up further and further in debt.

5LB may have many of the same problems, but you have a bit more agency in what you attempt.  When starting out, you can go on simple patrols rather than seeking out much more difficult encounters.  You can eventually fight abominable monsters, explore dungeons, and just in general have more choice as to what you're doing.  There is also a more established goal: there are three major threats to civilization, and you're trying to prevent them from becoming too strong.

More importantly, I have many more fantasy miniatures than SF ones.  

I don't know if it will be any less frustrating, but I'm going to give it a go.

Races

In 5LB, you have six choices of race for your characters.  While most character attributes are determined randomly, race is one of the few things you can pick.

There are humans.  They don't get many bonuses except that they are the only race that can have a "will" stat of more than 1.  Also, of course, it is easy to find minis for human adventurers.

Fey-blood are somewhere between your typical fantasy elves and the trickster fey.  They also have ties to "the endless winter," which gives them a frost power.

Just like in Dungeons & Dragons, halflings are a total rip-off of Tolkien's hobbits.  About the only difference is that in 5LB they get bonuses to ranged weapons.

The other three races are a bit more unique to 5LB.

Dusklings are a warrior race that like the dark.  I get a dwarven vibe from them, but that could just be my imagination.

Preen are bird-folk.  I'm going to ignore them for now because I don't have any appropriate miniatures.

Ferals are animal-people, generally cats and wolves.  I may eventually paint one of these up, but not at first.

For a starting warband, you have 4 heroes and 2 followers.  I have some minis in mind, so I'm going to choose:

2 human heroes

1 fey-blood hero

1 halfling hero

2 human followers (initial followers must be human)

Human Hero 1: Garrick Thomson

Humans can be any of the following backgrounds:  Townsfolk, Noble, Frontier, or Zealot.  In addition, any race (but only 1 per warband) can be a Mystic.  For this character, I have the image of a standard "town guardsman" in mind, so I'm going to go with Townsfolk.

Once your background is chosen, you roll a d20 for each of four different categories:  capabilities, mentality, possessions, and training.  There are charts for each to see what you get.

Capabilities (15):  Speed and Combat Skill increase

This is fantastic.  Any time you get two increases it is great, and it really fits with my image of him wanting to get into melee combat.

Mentality (15): +1 XP

The worst thing on the chart, but also by far the most likely.

Possessions (18): Item

The exact item will be determined later.  I would rather have gotten a weapon or even some money, but hopefully it will be fine.

Training (15): +1 XP

What is with all the 15s?  Again, I'd rather get anything else on the table, but with 2 xp Garrick will at least be very close to leveling up.

I'll also declare Garrick my "avatar."  I don't like that name for it, but he is basically the warband leader.  He gets a free will and luck point, and a d100 roll of 17 says that he is a veteran with the scars to prove it... +3 XP.

So, he has a total of 5 xp, which gives him an advancement roll!  67, which is another combat increase!  Garrick is quite a powerhouse.

Human Hero 2: Wilfred the Wanderer

I want a mystic, and it is easy to find good human mage miniatures.

Capabilities (6): Casting increase

This is the most likely result on the table, which makes sense.

Mentality (9): +1 Will

Again, fits the character.

Possessions (5): Mystic Item

This isn't quite as cool as it sounds.  There are only two choices, and they are both limited-use items.  I can either get 2 items that let Wilfred cast an extra spell (you can normally only cast 3 spells in an encounter), or 3 items that let him cast two spells in a round.  Both seem useful, but honestly to be really good you need both types.

Technically I choose later, but I'll go for the extra spells, since I expect that would be more useful than burning through the limited spells more quickly.

Training (5): Alchemy skill

Now this is nice.  Basically, during down-time Wilfred can attempt to make more of the item that allows for extra spells.

Fey-blood Hero:  Eleseth Morningfrost

Fey-blood heroes must be outsiders.  I'm imagining this character to be a finesse melee fighter.

Capabilities (4): Agility increase

Not as good as a combat skill increase, but fits the character concept.

Mentality (16): +1 XP

Meh.  Again, worst result but most likely.

Possessions (17): Item

I don't think I'm supposed to be getting this many items.  Starting to get worried.

Training (2): 1 skill

A d100 roll comes up 31, which means that she has the "Expertise" skill, which makes her good at avoiding traps.  She is starting to feel more like a rogue than a melee fighter, but close enough.

Halfling Hero: Dobbin Kingsley

Halflings must take the Frontier background.  Given the natural bonuses to ranged weapons, I'm picturing an archer here.

Capabilities (17): Agility and Combat Skill increase

Fantastic, and probably the best roll for the character concept.

Mentality (18): +1 Luck

Luck helps when a character goes down in battle.  Given how deadly combat is, it is likely to happen, and this can keep Dobbin around a little bit longer.

Possessions (4): 1 Gold Mark

Yay?

Training (9):  1 skill

The d100 here is 89, for Wilderness skill: hunting and foraging for herbs.  Definitely makes this character sort of a mini-ranger.

Followers:  Kurt and Campbell

Followers don't get to do all the interesting customization.  It is just a simple roll to give them a bit of character.

Kurt (03) is an aspiring scholar.

Campbell (53) is an outcast drifter.

Weapons, Armor, and Items:

Without going too much into the details of how the game works, here is what the above characters end up with:

Garrick gets partial armor, a helmet, a shield, and a war spear

Wilfred gets light armor, a sling, and a light weapon.  (He'll also get spells, but I'll select those in another blog entry.)  He also has 2 "congealed strands," since he's the only one that can use them.

Eleseth gets partial armor and a fencing sword.

Dobbin takes light armor, a self bow, and a light weapon.

Kurt gets light armor and a standard weapon.

Campbell just gets a standard weapon, and no armor.

As a whole, the party gets 4 gold (3 base plus the 1 extra from Dobbin), two doses of silvertree leaf, 3 bandages, and 2 tonics.  These will be divided up as needed.

Miniature Rescue

In Which I Partially Redeem Myself

Let's start with a little background.  "Miniature rescue" is a term used when taking a poorly-done model, possibly damaged, and trying to get it up to a higher standard.  It is often done when buying used models, as there are a lot of unskilled hobbyists out there, and also things can break during transport.

In this case, I'm just trying to repair a model that I've always hated my work on.

Malifaux is a miniature-based skirmish game, set in a mish-mash setting of steampunk, Victorian England, the old west, and horror, with some other stuff thrown in for good measure.  It is a wild, crazy world, and the game has one of the most tight rulesets for competitive play that is out there.

I'm not a competitive player.  I'm much more into painting and trying to have fun rather than trying to devote my life to learning the abilities of 200 different models and how to counter them.

There is a local player who is really into Malifaux.  He plays in national tournaments, and usually makes at least the top 3.  He has tried to drum up a local scene, but hasn't had much success.

Despite our completely different outlooks on games, I have agreed to play against him on Sunday.  I painted up some Malifaux models in the past, so I was digging through my models to see what kind of a squad I could put together.  The problem is, the rules are transitioning into a new edition, and the stuff I painted before doesn't work together any more.  I had painted an "Outcast" model which used to work as a mercenary, but now he doesn't.  So I needed something to replace it.

One of the reasons I stopped painting Malifaux was a bad experience.  I really liked the look of Colette's crew, and I painted up Cassandra.  She is supposed to be a beautiful performer and swordswoman.

I don't know what it was, but at the time I couldn't make her look like anything but a mutant muppet.

There are 3 or 4 major problems here.  Most horrible are the eyes.  I tried several times to get them right, and at the time that was the best I could do.  Second is the hair.  Not only is the color off, but barely visible in the photo is that I somehow got gold paint all over the side of her head.  The contact between the model and the base is minimal, and she kept breaking off and requiring more glue, so there are huge globs of it visible.  The fourth, more arguable mistake is that the highlighting probably doesn't go far enough.

I had a bout of insomnia last night, and decided I'd do what I could to try and fix the problems.

I painted over the top half of the face, and started over.  I probably should have shaded the eye sockets before painting the eyes, but I was sort of able to get a black rim around the eyes by pooling some black wash into the eyes and then wicking the majority away.

I painted several layers over the gold, trying to cover it up.  The problem is that metallics are really hard to cover up with acrylic paint, and yellow has poor coverage over anything.  Putting those problems together, I had to do paint over paint over paint to get it done, and by the time I was done there was almost no definition left to the hair.  I did my best to paint some definition back in, and I was more successful than I thought I'd be, but I'm still not completely happy with it.

For the glue globs, there was  only so much I could do.  I painted over them, and least they somewhat blend into the base now.

I took some of the highlights further up, and smoothed some rough places out.  I could do more, probably, but I'm much happier with this now.  It isn't perfect, but I'm not ashamed to put the model on the table like I was before I did the corrections.

Zooming in, it still looks pretty terrible, honestly.  I think it is time to move on to something else, though.

Finishing the Set on a Sour Note

Bilbo and Beravor

I'm not sure what it is about these models, but I'm just not happy with them.  Maybe it is the eyes, which I worked and worked on, but couldn't get right.  Maybe it is Bilbo's dagger, which after trying 6 things, nothing worked right.  Maybe it is just that I'm tired of this project, and ready to move on to something else.  Whatever it is, working on these felt more like a chore than fun, and I probably rushed a few areas just to get them done.

I don't think they are terrible, but I don't think they pop out enough when viewed from a distance, and when you look close you can see some problems, particularly with the faces.

The upside is that no one seems to care about these characters, so their quality doesn't really matter.

In the end, while these models aren't my proudest moment, I'm happy with the whole set.  I got 31 models done in about five weeks, which is a pretty breakneck pace for me.  There are things that could be improved, but I think I managed a good balance of speed versus quality.  There is always something cool about playing with a fully painted game, and being able to say "I did that."

Bring on the expansions... just not immediately.  

Just a Troll Post

In Which a Task Long Dreaded Turned Out Easier than Expected

I've mentioned several times that I had no idea what to do with the Journeys in Middle Earth troll model.  The skin would have to be different from any that I've done before, and I was intimidated by that..

Well, a YouTube painter who goes by the name of "Sorastro" recently put out his guide on painting this model.  I didn't really follow his guide, but it gave me enough inspiration to jump in and try some stuff.  In the end, it turned out to be a fun model to paint, and it was very quick to do since most of the model is the same flesh.

The skin tone didn't really turn out the way I was going for.  That being said, I like how it ended up.  One of the things I experimented with after watching Sorastro's video was mixing in some tonal variations.  There is a bit of red mixed into some of the facial areas, and some green mixed into the occasional shadow.  These are hopefully subtle, but I think they add to the visual interest of the model in a way that I don't think most people would notice.

I almost screwed up his left foot.  I have no idea how it happened, but there was a big smear of basing paste over it.  I caught it just as it started to dry.  I was able to clean most of it off, but there is still some residue if you look closely.  But hey, a troll walking around barefoot is going to get some mud on his feet, right?

I probably overdid the blood effects on his hammer, but it isn't so bad as to go back and redo it.

Now, on to the last two minis, then I can work on a different project...

Gimli and Aragorn

Two More Heroes Join the Fray

I've had these miniatures painted since last week, but I was just too lazy to take photos.

Two more models for my Journeys in Middle Earth set are done.  Now there are only two more heroes (Bilbo, and Fantasy Flight Games original character Beravor), and the troll.  A painter that I occasionally watch on YouTube recently did a video on the troll, and while I don't think I'll follow his scheme exactly, it gave me enough inspiration to break through my painter's block.

Anyway, not really much to say here.  On to the photos.

I mainly decided to do these because I'm getting bloody tired of painting brown.  That also influenced my color scheme; I deviated from the concept art because there were too many browns there.

I really like the way Gimli turned out.  Aragorn, I'm a bit less happy with.  I still think he is fine, but there isn't as much contrast between the cloak and the shirt as there should be to make the model really pop.

On both models, I kind of phoned it in for the lower portion.  The boots are just black and then a drybrush of gray, for example.  However, I want the viewer's focus to be on the face and upper portions, so I don't feel too guilty about it.

Starting the Heroes

Long Winded, Lots of Pictures

I've mentioned at least once that there is one more enemy to do to finish the set, but I'm going to hold off on it for a bit.  First off, I've never actually used the model in a game yet.  More importantly, I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with the miniature.  Now, that is pretty common when I work on models, as I kind of experiment as I go.  However, for whatever reason, this model strikes me as challenging, and as it is so big it is going to attract attention.  I'm going to hold off and work on other things for a bit, and so I started the first couple of heroes.

I thought it would be interesting to at least some of you to see the steps involved in painting a mini, to the tabletop standard that I usually go for.  Here is the finished product, and you'll see bit by bit how I got there.

I chose to work on these heroes first because their color schemes are so similar.  Both are elves, so they have similar skin tones, both are dressed brown cloaks, and they shop at the same boot store.

Before I do any painting, there is a bit of preparatory work to do on the minis.  It may be a surprise, but the first thing that I did was take a drill and make a hole in each base.  The reason for this is that I've found the best way to store my miniatures is using magnets.  

I didn't bother trying to get good lighting here, but I hope the photo gets the idea across.  The case is vertical in the picture, by the way.

I used to store minis in foam, but either the model fits loosely in the foam and rattles around, which can rub paint off, or it fits snugly, in which case paint can rub off when inserting or removing the mini.  It is sort of lose-lose.  Using magnets, the paint never touches anything (except my fingers), so there is a lot less risk of damage to the paint jobs.  Also, it is just easier to see every mini and know exactly which ones to pull out of the case.

A lot of minis have a recess under the base where a magnet can be glued, but these are attached to solid disks.  I could remove the models from their bases and glue them to something else, but that seems like a lot of effort, and instead a couple minutes with a power drill leaves a perfect space to insert a rare earth magnet.

With the magnets glued in, the next step is to wash the miniatures.  Sometimes I'm lazy and skip this step, but I've also gotten burned before by not doing it.  You see, when models are created, the molds are coated with "mold release."  It is similar to something like WD-40, and prevents the plastic from sticking to the mold.  The problem is that depending on how much remains on the model, it can also keep the primer from sticking to the plastic.  A simple scrub with dish soap and water, and then it can be left to dry.

Next, I prime the model.  Paint doesn't stick well to bare plastic.  A primer is a special layer that is designed to bond to plastic, and also give it a "grainy" surface that makes paint adhere better.  There are advantages and disadvantages to any color used to prime, but through experimentation I've found I prefer a dark gray.  My current primer of choice is Rustoleum 2x Ultra Cover "Flat Gray."  I wish it were just a touch darker, but this is the only primer that I can regularly prime in one attempt.  Every other primer I use, I hit the model, let it dry, and find massive areas that didn't get primer.  I retouch, and then repeat 2 or 3 times until I'm satisfied.

The last thing is to attach the model to a handle to make it easier to hold when painting.  I just use old pill bottles, and use dollar-store foam mounting squares to stick them on.

After all these steps, the models look something like this.

For these models I decided to start with the eyes.  Eyes are really tricky, and can either make or break a mini, so much so that it is often best to just leave them out.  (See the previous ruffians for an example of that.)  Because I'm still pretty bad at doing eyes, it is best to work on them first, so I don't screw up other things as I'm fumbling with trying to get them right.

I start by painting the eye sockets a dark flesh color, in this case Citadel's "Bugman's Glow."  I don't care if I go too far outside the sockets, as I'll be cleaning this up later.  I then took an off-white (Citadel's "Screaming Skull") and watered it down a lot.  Instead of trying to paint the eye, I pretty much ended up dribbling it into the socket, and then cleaned up the edge using the Bugman's Glow.  Finally, I took a black ("Abaddon Black") and thinning it as little as possible to allow flow, painting vertical lines down the middle.  When painting a mini, it generally looks better to have the irises a little further toward the outside than is really natural, because otherwise the mini ends up looking cross-eyed.

If you look closely, the eyes aren't perfect.  Elena (the female) has an eye that looks a little blobby.  Honestly, though, given the size, these are pretty good, and few people would ever notice.

On to the flesh tones.  As these are elves, I want them to be very fair-skinned.  So, other than the eye-socket stuff I've already done, I'm starting with what I'd normally use for mid-tone on the skin (Citadel's "Cadian Fleshtone").  I paint the faces and hands with this.  Other than avoiding the eyes, I go pretty fast with this, and don't worry much if paint gets on other parts of the model.  I keep the paint thin, the brush wet, and build up the color through multiple coats to try and keep the paint smooth.

Next, we add some tonal variation to the skin.  I start by putting a wash (Citadel "Reikland Fleshshade") into the areas where there are recesses... the ears, the fingers, and so on.  After that dries, I start highlighting with Citadel "Kislev Flesh," going over about 60% of the fleshy areas.

After looking at it, I decide that some of the transitions are too harsh, so I mix the Cadian and the Kislev flesh paints together and try to smooth them out a bit.

One final highlight, a mixture of Kislev Flesh and "Pallid Witch Flesh," kept do just a few prominent areas, and I'm calling the flesh tones done.... for Legolas.  I want to do another couple of things to Elena.

I don't tend to put a lot of makeup on my fantasy women, but I wanted to do just a bit to make her more feminine.  A mixture of Cadian Fleshtone and "" is applied to the lower lip, and a touch of P3 "Skorne Red" is mixed with Kislev Flesh and thinned down a lot to apply some blush.  I tried to keep both of these very subtle.

With the flesh tones done, I next want to work on the cloaks.  There are areas of the cloaks that are very hard to reach, so I'd like to get into those recessed areas before doing much else.  I think starting here I'm not going to take so many pictures.... This post is already longer than most people will read, and when things *don't* go well, I'm desperately trying to fix them instead of thinking about stopping to photograph.

For Elena, I decided to go with a fairly neutral-brown cloak.  The process went something like this:

Basecoat of P3 "Bootstrap Leather"

Shade of Citadel "Agrax Earthshade"

Decide I don't like the effect, and instead mix Bootstrap Leather with Citadel "Rhinox Hide" and try to put in the shadows manually.

Decide the shadows still look like crap, and do a *ton* of back and forth between 3 different shades on the spectrum between Rhinox Hide and Bootstrap Leather trying to get them to look decent.

Move on to highlights with Citadel "Steel Legion Drab," and then mix in "Zandri Dust" for a final highlight.

Again, go back and forth a bit, before finally saying "I give up, good enough."

Legolas was much the same process, just starting with P3 "Bloodstone" to have a more reddish-brown cloak.  I did try to do a bit of two-brush blending, with limited success.

Shirts are next.  The concept art colors are very muted and difficult to distinguish.  I'm reading it as Legolas having an olive, and Elena having a bluish-gray.

At this point, the models are really diverging, while I thought they would be very similar color schemes.  Such is the way mini psainting goes...

For Elena's shirt, I mixed Citadel "Dawnstone" with P3 "Cygnar Blue Base" to get a nice blue-gray.  That served as a basecoat, and I added more Cygnar Blue Base to do shadows, and Citadel "Ulthuan Gray" to do highlights.  That wasn't enough contrast, so I did a final highlight of pure Ulthuan Gray.

The ribbing, I started with Citadel "Incubi Darkness," but it really bled together with the previous shading.  So, I did a stark edge highlight with Dawnstone to try and separate the regions.

The trim at the bottom was also originally painted with Incubi Darkness, but I decided to switch to Rhinox Hide for more contrast.  I highlighted with some of the browns on the palette from the cloaks, and I've lost track of exactly what I used.

To break up the colors, I wanted the belt to be bright.  I started with P3 "Rucksack Tan," (I think... the label has come off the pot), shaded with Agrax Earthshade, and highlighted with some P3 "Moldy Ochre."  I'm really not happy with how this turned out, but in terms of composition I think I made the right choice.

For Legolas, I did a base coat of P3 "Ordic Olive," and then mixed in some Citadel "Sotek Green" and "Screamer Pink" to create a highlight.  For a second highlight, I just added some Ulthuan Gray to the mix.

Edging was some Rucksack Tan and Moldy Ochre, again.

I'm not sure if Legolas is supposed to have bare arms, or if he dresses in layers.  I chose layers, and so the tiny bit of cream showing was done with Zandri Dust and Ushabti Bone.

At this point, I doubt anyone is still reading, and I really want to get these models done, so I'm going to wave my magic paintbrushes and get the models finished.  I'll come back with photos to talk about the basing.

And, through the magic of asynchronous communication, they're done.  I've started by applying a layer of Vallejo "Brown Earth" Earth Texture.  This is basically a paste that you can spread around the base to give it an earthy, muddy look.  It has enough adhesion that I can stick a couple of aquarium rocks into it as well.

Next up, the rocks get painted with Citadel "Mechanicus Standard Gray" and the whole base, including the rocks, gets a drybrush of Ushabti Bone.  I'm rushing a bit to get these models done, and I don't let the paste completely dry, which causes problems, but I fix them as best I can and move on.

Next, the bases get a generous wash of Agrax Earthshade, and then I paint the rims black.

As a last step, I glue some "Gamer's Grass" tufts onto the base, and then you get the final product from the first photos.

If you made it this far, let me know either in the comment section below or on facebook, if this was at all interesting.  I have a feeling that my next couple of blog posts are going to be more along the lines of "I painted a thing!"  If I do another detailed post on the painting process, it will focus on on particular area rather than the whole mini.

Painting Ruffians is Rough

A Bit of Theory, A Bit of Whining

As usual, feel free to scroll down to the pictures, and I won't be offended.  If you want to read a little bit about the process of painting miniatures, and why I found these models to be so difficult, then here we go...

Miniatures can be painted to different standards.  I can't even start there, though.  Let's back up and talk about what a painter has to do to paint a good-looking miniature.

When you look at an object, you may immediately register a single color, but there is a lost more going on that that.  Look down at your shirt.  Specifically, find some place where the fabric has bunched up a bit.  Now, your shirt may be one color, perhaps even white.  But if you look into the deepest part of that wrinkle in the fabric, it probably looks almost black.  The fact is, the interplay of light and shadow means that you never get something completely one color.  It is always a range of different shades and intensities.

Because of the scale of a miniature, there won't be those harsh shadows.  If something is painted a single color, there will be very little difference in shade.  It will look flat and unrealistic.  So, a painter has to "trick" the eye.  Some areas need to be darkened to look like shadows, and others brightened to look like they are being hit by light.  While there are other skills are involved, in general you can tell how good painters are by how well they implement this tonal variation.

Now, let's talk about how to rank the quality of a paint job.  Exactly what constitutes each standard isn't completely well-defined, but after giving it more thought than it probably deserves, the way I rate them is by how many steps it takes to do each region of color.  This ties to the above, in that usually the steps are making some areas shaded and others highlighted.

"Unpainted" is pretty obvious.  Whether bare plastic, or just primed, these are models that have yet to have any serious work done to them.

"Battle Ready" is a term that I first saw from Games Workshop, and it basically means 1-2 steps done for each color.  The colors are blocked out, and maybe a wash is done over the areas to get some quick shading done, but there hasn't been a lot of care given to the model.

"Tabletop Standard" is probably the most nebulous, because it means different things to different people.  However, I basically consider it to be 2-4 steps done for each region of color.  Some small areas may only get a base coat and a wash or a single highlight, but most should either get two levels of highlighting, or a shade and a highlight.  Important areas like the face should get a shade and two or three highlights.

"Studio Quality" is what is used for photography for books and packaging.  Typically, it involves around five steps per region of color.  The way I most typically see it done is to start with a mid-tone, then add a shadow, and then inside the shadow add a deeper shadow.  Then, add some highlights, and again raise up a portion of the highlighted area even brighter.  Often these are done with some sort of blending process to get the transitions to be very smooth.

"Competition Quality" may only do the same number of steps as the studio quality, but in some way takes it up to another level.  This may be intricate patterns added onto a cloak, or "object source lighting" to make it look the light is coming from a glowing orb or other light source in the mini.

At any rate, when I paint, I'm strictly going for tabletop quality.  I do try to push for the higher-end of it (rarely does anything only have 2 steps, and I will push some areas to 5 if I think they really need to draw the eye), but I know I'm not a studio-quality painter.

So why do I bring this up?  Well, for whatever reason, these models have felt like the standard number of steps I'd do for a region just isn't enough.  Things I'd normally leave with 2 steps, I have to push for three.  Things where three steps should look great, I end up doing four, because there just doesn't seem to be enough contrast.

Add to that the fiddly straps on the legs (I could write two or three paragraphs on those), and I just felt like I was working, and working, and working, and getting very little done.

In the end, I think the problem is that I painted these to the same level as I probably will do the heroes, which doesn't make any sense for trash enemies.  Oh well.

I did the fair-skinned ones first, so I'll start with those photos.

One of the minor things I did was give each one a different hair color.

I have far less experience painting dark skin.  In fact, I was thinking about it, and I can only recall one other model that I've painted with African-toned flesh.  So, this was rather an experiment.  I think they came out really well, but I now need to experiment with a lighter black skin, since these are very dark.

I felt much more limited on hair colors, so there are two with black hair, and one with gray.  I actually like the gray one much better.  Once again, it comes down to contrast.

There is one more enemy model to do (the troll), but I think I'll hold off for a bit before tackling it.  I'm not sure what to do with it yet, and while I consider it further, I'll work on getting the heroes done.