by Lilljonas

By Jonas

Thanks to the wonders of modern science, I'm now armed and ready with a vaccine-induced resistance to a certain virus. That means, among other things, that I can finally join the club's Frostgrave circuit! But before presenting my halfsized heroes, a proud tradition has been the addition of more terrain and NPC monsters to our Frostgrave boards. Today is no exception.

I don't often buy pre-made terrain, but I picked these up second hand from a gentleman in the UK together with some Orcs & Goblins. This set is even still in production, if we'd like to add some more.

I like that not all of them are overtly screaming FANTASY, so a few could double as terrain for historical games. Building terrain is fun, but sometimes it's nice to be able to just spend an evening painting and having a bunch of terrain done. They are nice straight out of the box, but I added some tufts, foliage and some yellowing static grass to make the ground more organic looking, and I think that pays off. A gem of a kit in the GW range, I'd say.

These terrain bits also add some flavour. The road sign was part of the walls kit, while the dwarven piece is from the old Battle for Skull Pass starter set. We'll see if this is a sign of some Dawi things to come...

Giant rats turned out to be a nuisance in some previous games, greviously maiming some warbands. Unfortunately we had no minis for them, so these rats from Ral Partha Europe are a tribute to their exploits on our muddy town. I ordered a whole bunch of animals from Ral Partha that will be added later. Some sculpts are even older than me, but they still look great.

Beware. The rats have tasted blood, and they liked it.

On to the Halfling warband:

These intreprid explorers are ready to hit the city, though they're also made and painted so that they can fill out the ranks in my Warhammer Halflings army. 

The wizards are from the lovely range of TTcombat. I painted these straight out of the blister, no conversions this time. 

The thieves are Wargames Atlantic plastic halflings. I wanted the thieves and thugs to have very specific themes to tell them apart, so they are mostly beige and green and have bags made out of greenstuff to carry all the loot.

The thugs got their own theme. These are also based on Wargames Atlantic, but I green-stuffed puffy sleeves on their left arms, swapped the heads with some Perry and Warlord Games heads, and gave them some nasty weapons that I got from Mirliton. Finally I painted them with more reds and browns than the thieves.

For shooting soldiers, these were also based on Wargames Atlantic with some more head swaps (the right one's head is scratch sculpted. The crossbow is again from Mirliton.

Finally some beefier close combat backups, these are also a mix of Perry bits on  Wargames Atlantic minis, with the armoured soldier having his entire armour and sleeves sculpted on with greenstuff.

With that, I feel pretty well prepared for my first attempt at Frostgrave. At this point, seeing the town grow and the new minis our club members bring to it is fun in itself. 

By Jonas

As seen in my previous post, a chance find became the starting signal for my old school Orcs & Goblin army. Unfortunately you can't rely on stumbling over large work lots online to finish your army, so I needed a plan for how to go forward. After mulling it over while stripping paint, I realized that I had three routes in front of me, and currently I think all three might be worth attempting to varying degrees.

This is maybe the most obvious one - keep an eye out online for deals, and gradually grow the army. Unfortunately I'm a bit disadvantaged here, as the second hand Warhammer market is a lot smaller in Sweden compared to say, the UK or the US. On the other hand it means that it is quite feasable to keep track of what's out there - checking the auction site Tradera regularly and following the main miniatures trading group on Facebook will cover most of the market. But with so low volumes, this leaves everything to chance as to what will crop up, at what price, and if anyone else calls dibs on it first. So this can't be my only strategy if I want to end up with a playable army.

This cropped up as I rummaged through my old bits, and found a bunch of Skaven bodies and legs from when I converted a box of them into a Blood Bowl team. If you think about it, converting a bunch of Skaven bits into, say, a Night Goblin would not be impossible. It might be worth keeping an eye out for random bits that can be the basis for conversions and sculpting practice. Again, painstakingly sculpting Goblins from scratch is not a solid solution for a 40+ mini unit. But it could be an interesting addition.

This leaves the option of getting new, yet old looking, minis. The more I think about it and search for options online, the more sure I am that this will be a part of my army construction. Not only are there several companies that makes O&G minis that looks just like they would fit in the 90's look, I might even warm up to parts of the more recent GW range as I go along. We'll see! Here are some interesting options I've found this far:​

If you know any more miniature makers that would fit the old school vibe, I'd love to hear from you. I think combining these three avenues of collecting will be the best way to get a characterful, fun and unique army in the end.

By Jonas

This year has seen a sudden surge in Fantasy activities at the club. With several members digging out old miniatures from storage, it was just a matter of time before the nostalgia would be too strong to resist.

Lately I've been thinking about returning to my first tabletop love, Orcs & Goblins, at some point. They were my first real tabletop army, a collection that started when a teeny lad version of myself spent his Christmas money on a 4th edition WHFB starter box in the middle of the 90's. Needless to say, I always imagined going more for an old school look than the current range from GW. The goal would be to model and paint the kind of army that I did not have the skills or dedication (or funds!) for as a teenager.

However, a sudden work lot on a Facebook group turned the project from something in the distant future into something that turned up at my door! 

This turned out to be a solid foundation for an Orc-heavy army, with three big piles of orcs: metal orcs from 85-92, metal orcs from 4th ed and some of the half-new multipart plastics.  There are also various goblins (including some from 85-92) to bulk out the core options.

On top of that there are some savage orc boar boyz, two pump wagons, a giant, a doom diver and some other random  minis. There are also several character minis, including my childhood hero Morglum Necksnapper!

Most minis were unpainted or primed. While all the metals will need to be stripped and re-primed, some of the plastics had solid primer coats (though some had a bit of mold lines). I could not resist taking out some of the plastic goblins to test out some skin tones, I don't think I've painted proper greenskins in 20 years!

This army is going to be a long term project. I plan to paint up the core units and then work on what I want to complement it, instead of just haphazardly buying things online. Though I am pretty sure there will be some of that as well. The army has some strange quirks such as not a single one carrying a shield, which means I will have to source a ton of suitable shields. I'm also looking at some current companies that makes old school looking greenskins, such as Knightmare Miniatures.

Until next time: Waaaaaagh!

By Jonas

My clubmates continue their Frostgrave adventures. This time they decided on the scenario where a big step pyramid takes centre field, with a golden statue that randomly affects the two closest models each turn - smiting one and healing the other, decided by chance. For that we needed a step pyramid.

The scenario describes a plain pyramid with three levels, but I wanted something with a less rigid shape, something more interesting. I found my inspiration in the ancient structures to the east of Egypt instead, in the mighty ziggurats of Ur:

This structure was too big to just copy, but a simplified version led me to make this:

Before I go into how I made it, I also finished some more monsters for scenarios or random encounters. 

More Reaper Bones, this time a scary big centipede monster as well as some spider swarms and a ghoulish giant tick.

The Cerberus is from Mantic Dungeon Saga, while the white gorilla (with wings?!) and the genie are from Reaper Bones. The genie is of course just a mage with blue skin, but don't tell anyone.

Finally some more undead. Two more ghouls from Reaper means we have enough to cover for the scenario with four ghouls, and the skeleton and undead troll from Mantic will be useful for random events.

I started by liberating some scrap XPS from the club's remaining XPS hoard. These bits were not at all even, and again I curse the fact that it's almost impossible to buy sheets of XPS in Sweden that are not super thin or three inches thick. I divided the 75mm XPS sheets with a knife to keep it from being ridiculously thick, but that left me with a lot of uneven and wonky bits. I also thought that the design needed something more, it looked a bit boring.

Aha! Two big menhirs at the entrance made a huge difference. I ended up making them of clay instead, but I think they saved the design. This was an important lesson for me, don't be afraid to play around with the design before you're locked in. Moving around some parts or adding something extra can really change the overall look of a piece of terrain.

The bits had so huge gaps that there was no way I could just etch stonework into them and make it work. Instead I decided to try something new, and got some air drying clay. A lot of it. Tip: you can use rolled up balls of aluminium foil to etch stone patterns into clay, just like in XPS foam.

Two evenings later, and I realized a big weakness of clay. Thin layers of clay on top of a solid material cracks easily. Thick layers of clay on top of a solid material cracks a lot easily. 

Etching stonework patterns into the clay helped, as the clay can expand into the carved patterns, but I ended up using a lot of PVA glue later on to keep the clay in play where it was starting to break off.

I added a lot of platforms on the side for pure gameplay reasons. They messed up the design a bit, but wargaming terrain is often a compromise as you want it to be usable. A good tip is to always keep a few minis at hand to test if they fit and can balance on the terrain.

Half a kilo of clay later, I started to add some sand and cork for debris.

Spackle paste was added on the base to cover up the gaps and give some texture.

After basecoating the temple brown I almost broke down as it looked like the most delicious temple of the dark chocolate gods I've ever seen. I was literally trying to keep myself from drooling at this point.

I was working on a deadline, so I had about two evenings to paint it. First day I spent putting on various beige and grey shades, picking out some stones and doing some very very rough lighlights. 

Second day I took out my box of flock, static grass and tufts and went to town. I started with tufts, then added flock in the corners around the temple, and finally a lot of static grass on the hill that the temple was sitting on. Finally I made some bushes using foliage glued to floral wire and doused in liberal amounts of wood glue, medium and varnish to stay in place. Finally I gave the entire thing a heavy coat of matte varnish using a spray can, to keep all these flimsy materials from rubbing off too easily.

Click below for larger pics of the final results.

And that's it! Less than a weeks work, and our fantasy town now has a spooky derelict temple. Rumour has it that there's a lot of other buildings on the way, so who knows that will be next on our Frostgrave adventures. 

​Cheers!

Frostgrave has a lot of scenario specific terrain. Our fantasy terrain collection is very lacking compared to our historical terrain, which means that we often don't have a suitable terrain piece. On the other hand, it can be a great source of inspiration to work towards, and each booked game night can turn into a deadline. 

In this case, the clubmates had settled on trying the Summoning Bell scenario, with three wizards duking it out. While the pandemic situation didn't allow me to join, I set out to participate through making some terrain and more NPCs. 

I didn't have much materials at home, so popcicle sticks, cardboard and some XPS foam had to do. Looking back, the popcicle sticks were too wide. I also exaggerated the proportions to make it easier for gameplay, but I think I went too far on some parts.

My initial plan had the hut standing on four stilts, but it ended up looking more like the type of towers we use here in Sweden for hunting moose. Switching in a ruined stone foundation helped a lot. 

Before painting it I honestly thought it looked really bad. However, you should never forget that some paint and some tufts/green stuff helps a lot! Adding the ladders also made it look better.

The end result was not really as my initial idea, but it's a success in that we have one more painted fantasy terrain piece. I've also learned some lessons, which is a success in itself. For next house, I'll make sure to get wooden coffee stirrer that should make for much better dimensioned planks.

The bell needs more monsters to summon as well! I'm gradually working my way through the NPC list.

The second batch of monsters

First out is my favourite of the bunch, an undead rat ogre that will fit the bill of a werewolf. This is a Reaper Bones mini.

Three more Bones, an armoured skeleton, a vampire and a ghoul.

I found some more Mantic minis from Dungeon Saga, a wolf (?), a skeleton and some zombies/ghouls.

Finally I knocked out a few simple treasure tokens.

This means that we're slowly populating our Frostgrave city. I think we've reached a point where NPCs is not as high a priority as making more suitable terrain pieces.

By Jonas

Frostgrave differs a lot from both the historical and fantasy/sci-fi games that I've played before in that fighting against the environment itself is a significant part of the game. While a cool idea, it also means that it calls on you to muster NPCs that can turn up as random events or as part of the scenario. Quite a few NPCs. 

Luckily I have a lot of random stuff in my attic that I've never gotten to use. So with the random events list in hand, I dug through my old Reaper Bones kickstarters and other lost treasures. This is the results of the first week of painting where I focused on the most common encounters.

These skeletons, including some armoured ones, are from Reaper Bones first and/or second kickstarter. I've read that the newer Bones are of higher quality and not as bendy, but these are a bit hard to get the details to really show. So I gave them a quick paintjob, going for speed as they'll play the part of generic mooks anyway.

More Bones, this time mummies that will count as zombies and an undead construct consisting of a pile of swarming skeletons.

The wraith is from Mantic's Dungeon Saga, while the ghoul is yet another Bones mini. I have three more ghouls waiting to be painted, which will be needed for one of the scenarios.

The random critter brigade is lead by a troll from Dungeon Saga, flanked by spiders (the beetle will count as one too), a worm and an imp. 

A couple of evenings of speed painting led to 20 NPCs done, and now the list is starting to look green. I have sourced maybe half of the entries left, so I'll get to work on them while trying to find good alternatives for the others. Cheers!

I recently started to learn to sculpt, primarily to make a halfling army. This project suddenly took a secondary role when some clubmates started to play Frostgrave. Everyone immediately jumped at the chance to field necromancers and other evil mages. With a ton of new activity, from terrain building to impulse buys of warbands, I could not resist joining the bandwagon.

With the small figure count I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to make something unique from scratch. Something that's hard to buy. Something that could stand up to the growing threat of the undead. So welcome, dear reader, to let the chill crawl down your spine as we dwell into the...

He has a small apprentice that carries his books and magic scrolls. This guy is tiny, with the haunched stature he's just 18mm to the top of the head! It's hard to tell from the pics, but he's holding a backpack full of scrolls and books in place with his hands.

While the mage is confident in it's skills, you never know when a bunch of undead monsters get close and personal. A steadfast duck knight flanks the less burly adventurers, ready to keep them at a sword length's distance. 

Overall these ducks have been a ton of fun to sculpt, so now I have a whole line of armatures waiting to be turned into new members of this adventurer troupe. 

By Jonas

Warhammer Underworlds is more of a board game than a classic tabletop wargame. However, the opportunity to paint up the handful of miniatures that each "team" consists of is a nice idea, and great for when you want a break in a big project.

Greenskins were my first army in any tabletop wargame, as I formed up ranks upon ranks of identical goblin spearmen from the 4th edition starter box for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. So it was hardly a surprise that I picked up the Orc warband of Ironskull's Boyz as my first purchase.

I wanted to paint a pretty classic colour scheme, and went with a mostly red one. The camera is acting up on me so the pictures look slightly more orangey than they are in real life. Reds and greens generally work well together, and I decided to use white to break up the two colours on the henchmen, and black and blue on their leader. That means that they still look uniform while the main honcho still stands out.

Initially I tried using golds and steel colours instead on various henchmen's armour plates to differentiate them, but that looked really bad. It was a reminder for me that you should not be afraid to go back and adjust your paint scheme if you are not satisfied. With so few models as these you can experiment quite a lot before committing to your colours and do the fine details.

I wanted the leader to stand out from the rest, so instead of a plain cape I gave him a ragged flag, taken from some unfortunate victim of his crew. This was a reminder of how little I practice freehand! The phone camera also acted up a lot for me, so I ended up getting a grey sheet of cardboard for a background instead of the black I used before. It helped a lot.

These three gentlemen got similar painting schemes, but with some different details to keep them interesting.

On Basha here I tried a slightly different skin colour, toning from green to an almost human flesh. It worked OK I guess? Still not sure if I prefer it to an all green look or not.

Even though I haven't been able to get a first game in yet, I picked up a new warband at my local game store this week. This time it will be a hunting ogre and his cat companion, as well as some tiny greenskins that might be assistants, might be bait, or maybe just portable snacks? Who knows! I can totally see these warbands becoming addictive.

Cheers!