We Don't Need Another Hero

I've already painted two versions of Aragorn and Legolas, so why on Earth have I done another version each?

Well, a couple of reasons really.

The first is simple, I have the models. I still have about a dozen Lord of the Rings miniatures knocking about unpainted after I lost impetus when Matt ruined everything by drowning Frodo in a swamp.

To address this issue I've joined in another 'Tale of four...' series on Arbitorian's YouTube channel, with the aim of putting together a 500 point force for the newest version of the game, culminating in an event in February.

Looking at the motley assortment of heroes I have, I've decided that the best fit would be for me to paint up a 'Men of the West' list featuring Aragorn, Legolas, Gandalf, Merry, Pippin and a handful of Men of Rohan.

I'm not sure if I'll actually go to the event for several reasons: I don't actually own the newest version of the game (and don't intend to buy it); the event is in London; and I think this list is likely to be a bit rubbish.

This is a shame because otherwise there is absolutely no reason to have second cloaked version of Legolas.

At least he's painted.

There's a slightly stronger reason for having another Aragorn as this model is the armoured Battle of Helm's Deep version of the character.

I still intend to play through the Helm's Deep scenarios in the War in Rohan book, and so he will be useful then

The astute amongst you (which is both of you) will probably be aware that this is the wrong model for Aragorn at the Black Gate in the Men of the West list.

I don't care. He's incredibly unlikely to ever be used in that context and this flimsy excuse is getting things painted, which is something I need to do as I keep buying and printing new models.

Acquired: -94

Painted: 520

Lead Mountain: 218

The Big City

It makes sense that not every part of 18th century Venice is going to be filled with ornate, brightly coloured villas. There must be some poorer areas as there are in any city at any point in history.

My latest addition to my Venice board build does something about that.

I'm working on a basis of expanding my board as I go, and for each building I print, I am printing enough street tiles for it to stand on.

Technically, I could have go away with just printing two more this week, but four gives space for people to walk and fight.

The house itself comes from a designer called Terrain4Print and is actually a free sample pack (look for 'Italian Village' on the usual platforms) of STLs which include this piece, the 'medium' house, a shed, some walls and a 'big' house.

I've made a point about the size descriptors as this is a chunky building that eats a hefty amount of filament (the mind boggles as to how much the 'big' house uses), standing 5' off the street, and allowing 6" jumps if you chain jump off the chimney pot (this can be important in Carnevale).

It's not only a large building, but there's also a noticeable scale difference between this and the Hartolia Miniatures buildings I've already done, with this building being more in scale with the Carnevale range. 

However, it is a very serviceable building and I like the chipped plaster effect and smaller, less ornate windows, giving very much the impression of a poorer residence, or even boarding house.

The difference in style actually works to my advantage in dealing with the difference in scale as it doesn't make sense for these building to be side by side, so if I keep them apart on the board.

The doors are the biggest giveaway, so the yellow house could even go next to the new building as it's doors aren't that visible. I will have to keep it apart from the red building.

I'm not sure if I'll print anything else from the pack (maybe the shed), but I suspect that the next set of additions will allow me to put together a serviceable 2'x2' table.

Acquired: -98

Painted: 518

Lead Mountain: 216

A Plague On Both Your Houses

Work on expanding my Venice set up to a useable board for Carnevale continues with the addition of a second house, more street tiles and a couple of other surprises.

This printing lark is infectious.

The second house is from the same bundle of STL files I got from Hartolia Miniatures and is very much in the same style, only it's a single unit rather than two, and printed with a separate balcony, stepped porch and roofs.

I do like this building although scale issue with it being a little small is more noticeable than with the first house as the doors (which are the most telling feature) are much more visible.

Additionally, and frankly a bit weirdly, the fit of the parts was nowhere near as good and so gluing the piece together was much more awkward.

However, the balcony is a much more accessible feature than on the first model and the pitch of the roof is less precarious for models intent on attacking from on high.

I'm taking my lead on painting from the cardboard buildings that came in the starter box to try to capture the right feel, although I've gone for more pale grey than white on the stonework.

Additionally, I've done another four street tiles for it to sit on, which is causing Venice to expand and allowed me to start to add my MDF bridges to the set up.

As I was printing all of this. I came to the end of a roll of filament, and so, not wanting to waste it, I decided to print a barrel and a crate (found on the Bambu Handy App), which came out fine.

The top of the barrel was a bit plain, and so to add some visual interest I added a rat from one of the Frostgrave sprues I have knocking about.

The rat also added to a theme, given what else I printed.

This is a Plague Doctor I gained the files for from the Carnevale MyMiniFactory tribe. I wanted to experiment with whether my FDM printer should handle these files that were clearly designed for resin, and the answer was yes...to an extent.

There is a rather messy bit on the back of the cloak under the fold, and I cut off the lower part of the cane and replaced it (in fact I came close to replacing the whole hand). Also, the jack if a face and slightly ragged look helped out, along with the mainly black colour scheme.

However, the outcome was a pleasant surprise, especially as I'd had a bit of a disappointment with my subscription to the tribe.

On the MyMiniFactory page the November download included bases, which. In the advertising, look exactly like those I've been using. Obviously I thought this would be a great way to save money.

However, it turns out that the files are for bases that look nothing like those shown and I was a touch annoyed.

And yet, learning that I should be able to print at least some of the miniatures I get files for has softened me to this disappointmen, as has learning that the big building I got files for actually fits on my build plate.

I'm going to stick with the tribe as my version of Venice grows, but I'm going to keep a close eye on whether I feel like I'm getting value for money, which probably means at least two useable steps each month.

Acquired: -106

Painted: 513

Lead Mountain: 216

Night Terrors #2: Horror at the Drive In

After the first episode of the Night Terrors feature pack for 7TV, I was keen to get on with the second installment, and. As regular readers will be aware, made sure that I had everything I needed should the opportunity arise to get another game in.

Needless to say, the opportunity arose.

Whereas the first episode of alien artefacts and FBI cover ups was clearly inspired by films like E.T. and other 'kids on bikes' tales of youngsters in genuine peril from adult dangers, the second episode directly draws from the B-Movie horrors of the 1950s of the kind actually being shown at the drive in.

Strap in for an all out creature feature.

The story picks up with the captured alien being transported by Operation Blacklight to a secure location.

Unfortunately, as the motorcade passed the Moonlight Drive In, the aliens psychic emanations latch on to the heightened emotions of dating teens at an all night monster movie marathon, causing the celluloid horrors to crawl out of the screen to attack.

The terrified teens subjected to this attack were as follows:

Lisa Armstrong, straight A student (star)

Troy Bryers, high school quarterback (co-star)

Albert Jefferson, Drive-In manager (co-star)

Vincent Ash, rebel without a cause (extra)

Kimberley McKenna, Cheerleader leader (extra)

Lori Reynolds, outcast new girl (extra)

6 Teenage Moviegoers (extras)

Any resemblance to teen characters appearing in other sci-fi or monster related franchises is entirely due to the limits of my miniature collection.

The movie monsters would appear in each act as different films appeared on the silver screen and disgorged their villains into the drive in.

Human Fly (co-star)

3 Giant Flies (extras)

3 Giant Maggots (extras)

2 Clouds of Flies (extras)

Giant Ant Queen (co-star)

2 Giant Soldier Ants (extras)

3 Giant Worker Ants (extras)

A Gigantic Spider would be superimposed in layer during post-production through the use of specialist Finale cards.

ACT ONE - Frankenfly (1956)

Screams ring out across the drive-in as huge mutated flies and maggots start emerging from the screen, shortly followed by the movie's villain: the human-fly hybrid, Frankenfly.

Whilst some run in panic, and others fail to notice due to being 'otherwised engaged' in their cars, some of the teenage patrons are perplexed by the creatures, especially the human-fly hybrid, asking each other if it's just the janitor in a mask.

Meanwhile, as others stand dumbstruck, quick-thinking valedictorian and 'girl most likely to leave this dump of a town', Lisa, immediately realises that she needs to shut down the projector and rushes to the managers office to take action.

New girl, Lori, spots Lisa and, recognising someone with a plan, follows.

Over in the centre of the lot a furious melee erupts. Top jock, Troy, and bad boyy Concentrate in the thick of the action, whilst Kimberley back flips into the fight.

Lisa reaches Mr Jefferson who explains that she needs to use his keys to turn off the projector at the fusebox.

Lisa grabs the keys and runs. Seeing the weird new girl in front of her, she tosses the keys to her shouting extremely clear instructions in the manner that won her the inter-state debating competition. Twice.

Surprised to be even acknowledged, let alone included by the high and mighty Lisa Armstrong, Lori grabs the keys and runs, yanking open the fusebox and ripping out everything she can.

The image on the screen briefly flickers and dies, the mutant flies start to fade and a smug. Self-satisfied smile starts to form on Lisa's perfectly formed face until there's a whirring sound and the picture returns.

Mr Jefferson shouts, "it's the back up generator! Behind the diner!"

Realising they are fighting a losing battle, Vincent, Troy and several others behind to back away from the mutated flies. Unfortunately, Vincent's date, regretting being impressed by his leather jacket, falls behind and is literally swarmed to death.

Frustrated, Lisa spots that preening pom-pom (but admittedly athletic), Kimberley McKenna, and the very, very muscular (concentrate Lisa!) Troy heading for the diner and formulates a new plan.

"New girl. Lori, isn't it? Get the keys to the jocks. They'll move quicker than us."

ACT TWO - Atomic Mandible Massacre (1954)

As one horror come to an end, a new one begins, and giant ants begin to scuttle out of the screen.

More teenagers succumb to the swarm whilst Vincent, wielding his dad's gun, starts popping slow moving maggots.

Having took instructions surprisingly well from the weird new girl, Kimberley flips into action, taking the keys as fast as she can to the generator.

Always able to read a play, Troy sees what is happening and acknowledging that he's not currently calling the shots, and goes long behind the diner.

Back in the car park 'Troy's date' (that's all she's credited as) is overwhelmed by the mutated flies.

However, as the creatures devour the unfortunate spandex-clad eye-candy, the are distracted long enough for Vincent to squeeze off two shots, blowing the head of the hybrid apart.

Nevertheless, the Ant Queen and her brood. Acting with inhuman intelligence, we're already on the move.

Lisa finds herself beset by swarms of flies but fends them off with clever use of her hairspray and a lighter.

In case anyone asks, she found the lighter on the floor. It definitely wasn't hers, mom.

After turning off the back-up generator only to find that the monsters were still coming, Troy goes into hero mode, grabs the keys off Kimberley and makes a run for the fuel store. Intent on burning the screen.

However, he runs straight into an ambush laid by the Ant Queen, almost as if she knew what he would do.

Suddenly, a cartwheeling vision in red somersaults into the fray, stamping on the head of one ant and cheering, as she had done many times before for Troy to go all the way (at least that was the rumour).

With well practiced skill, Troy slipped his guard and made a dash for the end zone...erm...I mesn fuel store.

ACT THREE - Night of the Death Weaver (1958)

The film now changes again, the screen lit by an ethereal light not emanating from the projection tower and massive spider's legs behind to emerge.

Even the ants and flies briefly stop to stare in horror.

But not the malevolent malice of the Ant Queen, who chases Troy down like a six-limbed linebacker and dragging him down, the keys sent sprawling into the long grass.

The girls find themselves cornered, but rather than falling into helpless despair as the femme fatales in the movies, the spirit of sisterhood kicks in and they employ every means at their disposal (sarcasm, hair flicks, side-eye, cutting insults and death stares) to kick some ant ass.

But the Queen's rampage continues and as Kimberley and Lori fall, Lisa finds herself as literally the final girl and prepares to fight for her life.

But suddenly, the creatures all around her begin to shimmer and fade. Unbeknownst to Lisa the cause of these horrid events has moved out of range, saving her and a few others, but taking the horror on to a new location.

A distraught Lisa limps over to her new friends and checks to see in they are still breathing.

Roll credits.

***

That was a really fun and engaging game. The asymmetric objectives made for a fun challenge and although I'm not entirely sure that completing the task of reaching four objectives and burning the screen is doable in only seven turns, the final result was very close, with only a point in it.

I liked the staggered arrival of enemies themed to different films and handling the spider through finale cards was clever.

The next episode sees us rejoining Teddy Tucker as he makes it to his school where the roleplaying club are for some reason still there after midnight and things take a decidedly fantastical turn.

The Land That I Forgot

Some years ago, I engaged in a solo campaign following the events of the Marvel New Avengers comic books using a range of co-opted and converted miniatures (along with several of the better Heroclix sculpts).

The adventure saw the heroes join forces to prevent a supervillain prison break, before heading off to the Savage Land, where they encountered several dinosaurs and...nothing happened...

...until now!

Basically, the next stage of the story would have seen the Avengers ambushed by the Savage Land Mutates, but I just didn't have the appropriate miniatures.

In theory, I could have used a motley collection of beastmen and mutants, but the Mutates are a specific collection of characters and I wanted to do them justice.

Fast forward to the last few weeks and I found myself painting my Danger 5 miniatures from Crooked Dice and watching the first series again when I was reminded that the model I'd bought to represent one of the Mutates could easily pull double duty as a Danger 5 villain.

That character was Sauron.

No, not that one. This one.

Sauron is a mutant with the power to absorb the life force of others by touch, but if he absorbs mutant energy, he turns into a pterodactyl.

If this seems a silly idea, that's because it is. It's so silly that the only other time I've seen a pterodactyl-man is in Danger 5, the silliest TV show in existence.

The model is a Heroclix sculpt which took very little effort to paint, and only a small amount of boiling water to get the wings in shape.

I used another Heroclix model for the wolf man mutate Lupo. The model is actually a DC villain called Hyena, rebased and repainted grey.

Technically, Lupo seems to have some sort of white hood around his head (making him look like a panda) and white briefs (which looks like a nappy) in many images, however, not in all of them and that's enough for me. The original design for Lupo actually had him just as a barbarian type with big hair and fangs.

The final member of this trio of terror is the imaginatively named Amphibius (presumably because he's amphibious), a frog-like mutate.

The model I've used is a rather ropey Kuo-Toa from the D&D Miniatures Game by WizKids. It's spear also needed hot water to bend it into shape, and the model needed flash trimming.

Not a great result. But more than enough for my purposes.

These were more a mini project to do whilst I was printing the next house for my Venice board and I've no idea if I'll return to my campaign. But I am tempted to see if I can cobble together a few more of the Savage Land Mutates.

Acquired: -113

Painted: 506

Lead Mountain: 216

Little Venice

I mentioned in my previous post that I'd made the decision to put together a proper board for Carnevale and I've been making some headway.

I've managed to put together enough terrain to fill a single 12"x12" tile and it gives an indication of just how much I'm going to need to do to fill a 3'x3' board.

Admittedly, not ever part of the board needs to be full of buildings, and I am planning for at least one tile to be open water with only jetties, piers and boats allowing passage, but I do have a job ahead of me.

First up is the building itself which is a paid for STL from a company called Hartolia Miniatures that I accessed through Cults 3d, but they are on other platforms.

This printed up really well with only a couple of minor issues: I ended up with a couple of broken pillars (you can see if you look closely) which could have been prevented if I'd added brims for stability.

 Additionally, I could probably have done with scaling the print up a touch to allow 30mm bases to stand on the balcony. Finally, the pitch of the roof is a little steep for Carnevale, but blutack and varnish will fix that.

For painting I relied on contrast and sponging. I may revisit it with a dryer sh, but I never really want the terrain to be the star, so I probably won't.

The street tiles come from the Carnevale MyMiniFactory tribe and are really functional and fast to paint.

I'm not rushing to print an paint all of the tiles that I need as I suspect some other styles and shapes will be released in time.

For now, I am going to print one building at a time and just print enough tiles to support them, meaning that I can adapt as my city grows.

Finally, I've added another proxy model to my Vatcan force, which is currently unplayable due to having too many heroes.

This is a Heroclix model of Spoiler from the Batman comics, a model which I owned three of. One got added to my Batman Miniatures Game collection, a second ended up in my Freedom Force project and this one got drafted into a Guildball proxy team.

A bit of a paintwork tidy up, a new base and a splash of purple and gold did the job of bringing her into the Vatican as a Redemptionist (a fanatical member of the ominously named Knights of Silence). She actually looks more like an Inquisitorial Agent, but I didn't have a hand crossbow to give her.

I've now started on printing my second building, which will be a touch smaller, but I'm looking forward to how this develops.

Acquired: -113

Painted: -503

Lead Mountain: 219