Macedonian Cavalry

Todays purchase via eBay is a unit of Macedonian Cavalry which I got for less than a pound each.

I am currently restoring my very old 25mm Greek army and I am a bit short of cavalry. These will bolster their numbers nicely.

They are part painted so I'll have to strip them before repainting. Some of the riders are painted quite nicely enough and would only need a touch up but I would find it difficult to match the paint job for the rest of the unpainted figures.

I hope to blog their transformation which starts tonight with a soaking in Dettol. This can take a few days to take effect depending on the type of paint used and whether there is a varnish coat.

Watch this space!

Half an hour later they go into a tub!

To be followed by some Dettol!

Keep watching (nothing for a few days).

Teutonic Order Army in Progress

I am currently painting up an army from the Kallistra Medieval range.

http://www.kallistra.co.uk/

They are the Teutonic Order and I have chosen them largely because I like their simplistic colour scheme which is also easy to paint as I would wish to get them into battle as soon as possible.

Also, at £5 a unit they are fairly cost effective if you buy them in groups of six blisters at £6 each with one of them free (well done Paul Kerrison).

This is as far as I have got so far. In the foreground three units of knights flanking five units of spearmen in two rows. A command stand to their front, a unit of crossbowmen on foot with a further two units of mounted crossbowmen in the distance. Bring up the rear are some more mounted commanders on a painting stick.

The Knights of the Order, four bases of 4 mounted figures per unit.

The Spearmen, four bases of 8 figures in two ranks per unit. A few bases include a mounted commander for aesthetic reasons.

The Grand Master with his personal standard bearer.

Crossbowmen awaiting their static grass.

Mounted Crossbowmen awaiting landscaping on their bases.

Finally some more Commanders awaiting more paint!

My choice of a gloss finish is largely to offset the heavy handling these figures will get as I hope they will be a popular gaming choice with my playing group. I have also stayed with a very simplistic style for their tunics, white, nothing but white with back crosses on white shields. Yes I know there is a bit more to the Teutonic Order but these are for a 'game' and not a 'fully historical simulation'.

I hope to try out several different rulesets with these figures. My initial forays will be with a cutdown version of Hordes and Heroes by Kallistra using my extensive collection of Heroscape tiles. This will restrict me to using one base per unit with a mini D6 to note its proper strength of 1 - 4. I'll get four times as many units though.

If I decide to buy a set of Hexon II tiles then I can revert to unit sizes as per the Hordes and Heroes rules.

I also hope to try out these figures with Warmaster Ancients. I am already quite an experienced player of Warmaster from a few years ago so it should not be difficult to pick them up.

I would write a set of my own if need be or I could modify a set of Bob Corderys Portable Wargame rules.

Watch this blog for developments.

Dungeon Details

This is a series of maps which I used in my role as Dungeon Master to entertain my playing group as they explore the dark and dangerous depths of the Six Pack. The title name will become apparant when the final level is reached.

The entrance to the level is marked by the red triangle and the first thing the Adventurers spot is a lifeless body lying on the floor. Searching the body reveals a fragment of a map which bears little resemblence to where they are. The Adventurers have an immediate choice to make. Turn Left or turn Right? Looking Left offers them a couple of doors and a corridor disappearing into the darkness whereas looking Right is just a corridor disappearing into the darkness.

The obvious thing to do is to explore the rooms beyond the two doors but the Adventurers know that I am occasionally cunning and devious and may well decide to ignore the two doors and turn Right anyway. This path leads down another set of stairs towards a fairly dangerous combination of Hazard Room, Chaos Sorceror, millions of (well 18 really) Snotlings and a further bunch of Chaos Warriors. The upside though is that if they are successful they will earn lots of GLOD.

Retracing their steps, paying attention to the map they should be drawing will take them back to the two doors and the darkness beyond. Perseverence will reward them with a variety of challenging combats, some more map fragments, an awful lot of GLOD and finally a set of stairs down to Level 2. The timescale so far has covered several weeks of playing time with a number of trips back to the surface to lick their wounds and spend their money.

The Adventurers by this point will have worked out an effective Modus Operandi. Before anyone opens a door there will be a Fighter on the left with a long reach weapon, another Fighter on the right with a long reach weapon. An Archer or two further back with arrows drawn, someone looking the other way in case of an ambush and a Wizard pondering Fireball or Run Away! The chap who opens the door is usually a Dwarf, armoured to almost invulnerability who smiles whenever a really big monster appears. It takes more than just a cunning plan to break them down.

 Level 2 starts off with the familiar Turn Left or Turn Right scenario but soon expands into many more doors, rooms and challenges to master. The adventure itself can take off in a direction uncatered for as many of the results from Hazard Rooms are unpredictable, even to the Games Master, all part of the fun.

Level 3 brings a new challenge to the Adventurers, the Round Room. Their, by now, well rehearsed Modus Operandi is potentially disrupted by the turning nature of the Round Room. Once beyond the rotating peril familiar territory comes into view, or so they think when exploring the barrels in the room a portcullis drops from the ceiling and a wall collapses bringing 10 Chaos Warriors into play. Of course some of the Adventurers will be behind the Portcullis and others will not. There will be a frantic series of grunts and groans as some of the Adventurers lift up the Portcullis allowing others to fight or run away as needs be.

The final set of stairs leads through a series of not too demanding rooms, lots of GLOD and then a long, long corridor with lots of doors. At this point I announce to the Adventurers that they must select a door each and enter alone to face whatever is there. The final room has a number of causeways defended by a large monster with a bodyguard or two or ten. This is the lair of the Six Pack and is the scene of the climatic last combats of the Quest. Tough for the Adventurers but not impossible.

Dungeon Doors

Here's how the doors work.

This is one of the 5 x 5 rooms.

The centre panel in each 5 square section of wall slides out.

A door can be slotted into the gap.

The doors have a v-shaped grove on their vertical edges.

The vertical edges of the gaps in the walls also have a v-shaped grove cut into them. When they are being made I glue a length of cotton bud into the groove which dovetails neatly into the groove of the doors. The wall pieces also have a v-shaped groove.

With the walls being made from 5mm thick foamboard it is very easy to make the v-shaped groove during construction. Just make sure the glue is dry before putting wall back in place before the plaster wash and paint coat.

When designing the dungeon each 5 square section of corridor wall or room wall has a lift out section which can be a wall, or a 'secret door' or a real door. The 'secret doors' can only be revealed under certain conditions.

Dungeon in a 'Tardis' box

OK, here is the 'Dungeon Box'.

The box measures 22 x 15 x 11 inches, that is 56 x 38 x 28 cm for my European friends.

The box has a number of internal divisions.

The centre row holds all this. Four walled rooms measuring 5 x 5 squares, three walled rooms measuring 10 x 5 squares, a round room measuring 5 x 5 (roughly), a pyramid 5 x 5, fifteen additional floor areas measuring 5 x 5, one with a fish pool and 3 x 3 floor with toothed and horned skull motif.

Every wall has a lift out section in the middle of each 5 square section which can be swapped out for a door.

The open side section of the box holds all the long walled corridors, either 15 x 2 squares or 10 x 2 squares. There are lift out sections for additional doors as desired.

The third section of box has a number of smaller boxes which contain all the smaller bits and pieces, corners etc.

All in all the box holds everything and a wee bit more that you can see in the above picture. The table is 6 x 4 feet. In the immediate foreground are a few boxes holding some of my dungeon figures. These boxes fit neatly inside the 10 x 5 and 5 x 5 rooms for storage. There is still spare capacity for more figures to be stored.

All the walls, floors and doors are made from scrap foamboard (check your local recycling centre) with additional detail made from cardboard. Walls and floors are given a plaster wash and an acrylic paint job before a heavy coat of varnish. The whole setup is made to be handled.

The square grid to which the dungeon is scaled to has 32mm squares. Allowances have to made for lost space when a wall is present down a corridor edge where the squares are a bit smaller. As long as the outside edge of every feature is a multiple of 32mm, usually 160mm or 320mm then everything fits together just fine.

In a Dungeon Far Far Away

My playing group have had many adventures underground whilst playing games of Advanced Heroquest.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1758/advanced-heroquest

This game from the Nineties is very customisable and I have made many quests for my group to follow. I made a picture record of one of these games as the following clips will show.

The scene starts off with a little bit of story telling:

The party is lead down the steps into the dungeon by a pair of Dwarfs (not related), then a couple of Elfs partnered with two Human warriors and finally a Wizard bringing up the rear. My dungeon is largely scratch built out of foamboard and cardboard whereas the original game only had two dimensional floor plans. This made the atmosphere surrounding the game much more aesthetic. To avoid too much of a tunnel syndrome while playing a game I made all the corridors with only one wall showing which allowed players to see what was happening more easily and also made storage a lot better. Anywhere you see a floor edge against the black undercloth you can assume that there is a wall equivalent to that of the other side.

As the party progresses through the tunnels the Game Master (me) lays out the next corridor section along with any visible doors. Occasionally the corridor would open out into a more open space or even found to be occupied by monsters.

Whenever there are combats there are casualties, usually amongst the monsters but sometimes a Hero takes a serious hit and goes down. Healing Potions and Restoration Spells can help a lot here and the party will accumulate Treasure and 'GLOD' as they loot the bodies of the victims.

My playing party has a tradition of never using the word 'gold' in our games; we always use the expression 'GLOD' whose origin is buried in the annals of our long and distant past.

Games were played over several weeks and months and allowed the party to leave the dungeon from time to time to lick their wounds and more importantly spend their GLOD on new weapons and armour. Character improvement was also maintained as the various Heroes tried to minimise their weaknesses. Sometimes the party would lose and gain members as the picture above shows a subsequent foray into the depths.

Combats were sometimes a bit lopsided but the rest of the party were never far away. In the picture above you can see an Elf bravely engaging a number of Orcs while a Wizard offers support from the doorway. In the top left corner there is a Warrior keeping an eye on the adjacent corridor in case more monsters sneak up.

But when Push comes to Shove they all get stuck in except perhaps for the Wizard who can be a bit of a pansy in Hand to Hand combat.

One of the bonuses of exploration is that various useful items get found, in this case a map which might show the way to greater rewards. It is up to the Party to figure where they are in relation to the map.

The map and the scroll from the start of the adventure were printed on standard photocopy paper, torn about a bit to lose the straight edges, crumpled up, dipped into cold tea, flattened out and ironed by a conveniently placed spouse. This treatment adds a little bit of character to the experience.

One of the dangers of exploration is displayed above, I'm sure I heard the Stunty mutter 'Rats' as he expired. The player will no doubt re-appear at a later point with a different character.

Right enough, here comes another Party to continue the exploration. The players make a map of their travels as they go so that they don't spend too much time going over old ground. Getting disoriented in a dungeon is not a good way to earn a living.

Aha, here is a Maiden just waiting to be rescued. They'll have to deal with a few Orcs first.

 Later, after a flurry of arrows the Maiden looks away as one of the Heroes goes down. The players are armed with cards for each arrow in their quivers which have to be handed in when firing takes place.

It is a pain to make a mistake during a game like this but I forgot to play the Goblin Spinning Fanatic when the Heroes were all bunched up. As it happened the Dwarf flattened him with a single blow.

At this point the Party descends to a lower level to find a well guarded room with lots of doors to who knows where!

A Warrior cautiously open the door while the rest of the Party watch out for any ambushes. It seems that he has nothing to worry about. Note the other unopened doors. These pieces slide in and out of carefully constructed gaps in the walls. The Party will no doubt explore them later. It was wise not to open too many doors at the same time.

The Warrior seemingly is going to have his hands full if he keeps on rushing ahead alone.

Fortunately the rest of the Party realise the danger and close up.

The Warrior does indeed take a serious hit but I'm sure that a passing paramedic (Wizard) will have a magical elastoplast handy.

The Wizard is getting to be a dab hand at this Fireball lark, and not too soon either.

I think he's getting cocky now!!

It is rumoured that the Stake-Out Gang are in the area. As it happened the Party had already discovered a cache of magic arrows. These arrows turned out to be Arrows of Morr (purely randomly) which automatically kill any Undead that they hit. It is one of those little chance happenings that a dungeon designer cannot plan for. It seems that my digital camera wasn't to hand when the Party slaughtered the gang leaving no survivors.

After dispatching the undead gang the Party found a staircase upwards into daylight. A ruined temple on a grass covered green was in sight although ominously guarded by armoured warriors in red. The Chaos Warriors formed an Undying Guard who miraculously reappeared nearby whenever the Party killed one. This was going to be one fight that the Party would struggle to win.

Stern orders to fall back were heard from within the Temple. The Party advanced cautiously forward as the doorway to the Temple was left unguarded.

Inside the Temple the Party found a Wizard who said he was trapped inside the Temple by the Chaos Warriors outside. They would obey all orders except that they would not allow the Wizard to leave the Temple. He said he need to be carrying his magic Sword of Power to make the Undying Guard fully obey him but the sword had been lost somewhere in the dungeon above.

I have such a magic sword piped up one of the Heroes. 'Mine' said the Wizard as a Battle of Wills was fought out in front of the Party. The sword changed hands several times until the Party grew wise enough to slay the Wizard who bore an uncanny resemblence to a well known and feared Necromancer.

So ended that chapter of the Advanced Heroquest world.

As I said earlier the whole of this dungeon is scratch built and I would be happy to explain the construction methods if a demand exists.