Works in Progress

 I've had a couple things moving at various speeds on my workbench this week.

First things first, I've finished a 3D-printed raised pumpkin patch that my wife Gina got me as an early anniversary present:

This will be a nice piece of scatter terrain, adding a pop of color to various skirmish games. 

I received an order of villagers from Midlam Miniatures, to provide Innocents for my hunters in Devilry Afoot to protect. I also got a plague doctor to serve as an additional hunter, and a trio of gnomes who will be sinister "Red Caps" in game. These have all been cleaned up and based. 

I started painting a horse and cart I got from Wargames Foundry as a Christmas gift in 2023; this will be a piece of scatter terrain most likely in Devilry Afoot.

Words fail to convey the thrillingness of this photo.

Finally, I have, well...gotten distracted. I blame Merijn over at Another Wargaming Blog: His recent goblin posts have drawn my attention back to my long-neglected Orcs & Goblins. I've got a fair amount of infantry, a few Wolf Riders, plenty of Chariots and a few big character models that are awaiting paint. And I've bitten the bullet and started looking at advice for list-building. I'd like to play a few games where my loss isn't a foregone conclusion before the end of the first turn, you know? 

One of the pieces of advice I was given, at least for Warhammer: The Old World, was putting my general on a big monster. That, I can do! Going into my project box, the first thing that came to hand was my Orc Shaman on Wyvern. This was a Marauder kit from the 1992 that Games Workshop reissued last year as a brief made-to-order offering. I snapped it up pretty quickly, and then had to scramble to change the delivery address when it took longer to produce than expected and was arriving after our move. It was a huge relief when it arrived! 

Assembly was a bit tough, and I hope I can get away with only one pinned joint, in the neck. I know this figure is prone to drooping due to all that weight being concentrated in the left ankle, so I dug into my bits box and fished out a tomb stone from Reaper Miniatures (it had come packaged with a zombie I bought probably 7 years ago). It ended up being the perfect height to rest the raised right leg on, so hopefully that will help stabilize it. 

After this photo was taken, I finished assembling the Wyvern as well as the two pieces that make up the saddle, keeping the saddle and rider separate to paint individually before final assembly. I'm going to probably scatter a few snotlings around the base as well for added visual interest. 

Transporting it to play games with is going to be a risky endeavor, I'm sure.

Devilry Afoot: First Playthrough

With everything I needed to play out the first scenario in the Devilry Afoot book - "A Discovery of Witches" - painted and varnished, I was eager to get the game on the table today. Even more excitingly, I've got a couple friends coming into town next weekend for a day of skirmish gaming, and they're both interested in giving this a go as well. So I definitely needed to get the game on the table and get a feel for it! What follows is a slightly simplified and condensed version of how the game went: 

"A Discovery of Witches" finds us on the outskirts of the sleepy village of Dunny-on-the-Wold; a coven of three witches has gathered for nefarious purposes, and a heavy storm is rolling in. The Dunny-on-the-Wold Neighborhood Watch has mustered to try and eliminate these witches before the storm hits. 

Today's heroes:

• "Frother" Martin, a Religious hunter with a sword, Bible and dog. He has the skill Theologian, giving him a bonus to quoting scripture at the forces of Darkness, and his dark secret is that he is a Sadist. 
• Goodwife Patience, a Goodwife hunter with a pistol and torch. She has the Devout and Swift traits, and her dark secret is that she is Doubting her faith. 
• Dr. Hessalius, a Scholar hunter with an axe, torch and three vials of Holy Water. He has the Academic skill, giving him extra funds between games, and his dark secret is that he is Wolf-Bitten, and secretly a werewolf. 

Things were off to a rough start for the hunters - Martin advanced towards the witches and was attacked, dying instantly to a witch's dagger. 

His dog sat by his body, barking at every witch that got close, for the rest of the game.

Patience tried repeatedly to shoot the witches, but missed every shot. Dr. Hessalius was charmed repeatedly, having to spend actions slapping himself out of it over and over again. 

Patience shoots at a witch disguised as a wolf.

Things started to get real messy when the witches began summoning Imps. Rules as written, you can have a maximum of twice as many imps as there are witches remaining on the table; I only have three imps painted, so I capped it at one imp per witch. 

One of the witches made it into the farmhouse, killing the inhabitant; once finished, he turned his attention to Dr. Hessalius - and again, rolled well enough to strike him down instantly with a mortal wound.

To her credit, Patience did manage to overcome her doubts long enough to quote scripture with enough vehemence to send an imp scampering away for a few moments, but ultimately she was overwhelmed, succumbing to the fangs and claws of swarming imps just as the rain began to fall.

So that was a big fat loss for the Dunny-on-the-Wold Neighborhood Watch! The witches emerged completely unscathed, quickly stripping off their robes for a celebratory nude dance-off in the Dark One's name. 

Overall, I liked the game, even if I didn't win; I felt like after turn 2 or 3 I didn't need to look things up in the rulebook as much, and was getting by with just the quick reference sheet and the bestiary entry for the witches. 

Monsters in Devilry Afoot are guided by a simple "AI" - for each witch, roll on a chart divided into columns for "A human is within 6"" "monster has been shot at since their last activation" and "all other situations." As the author is careful to note, monsters are irrational and act in irrational ways; I think I had two instances where a witch attacked, failed to wound, and then fled rather than press the attack. It may not have been the logical action, but it did give the heroes some breathing room. If the witches behaved rationally, the game might have been over in three turns instead of six. 

I liked the mechanism for determining initiative as well; tokens drawn from a bag is a pretty common one (Bolt Action and Sharp Practice both come to mind) but this is the first game I've played that uses it. I had a turn or two in this game where the witches activated twice back to back before any hunters activated and that was a challenge for sure. 

I'm looking forward to getting another game in soon; I may change up my selection of hunters (maybe some muskets would help even things up) or bump it up to add a fourth hunter to the group and see how things go then. 

Devilry Afoot: Witches and Hills

 A few more figures finished for Devilry Afoot, and starting on some terrain pieces. I should be able to get my first game in this weekend to get a feel for it!

First up are a trio of Witches - these are Cultist miniatures, sculpted by Kev Adams for a company called Dark Fable, which is sadly no longer around, its founder Mike Burns having passed away a few years ago. They are now available through Dragon Bait Miniatures in the US, along with Dark Fable's incredible line of Egyptian miniatures. I went with a simple scheme of grimy slightly-grayish brown robes and black hoods. 

Next, an incredibly sinister goat from Pulp Figures; part of an occult accessory pack I got a while back as part of Bob's "Arcane Academics" Kickstarter. This was a very simple paint job, spray black, drybrush dark gray, pick out horns and eyes. It will serve as a Pact Devil in game. 

Next up is going to be terrain. I've got STLs for a few Tudor-style cottages as well as a blacksmith's and watermill that I need to take to my friend Dave for printing. My wife got me a few pieces of scatter terrain - a pumpkin patch, pigsty and village well - as an early anniversary present that need assembly and painting, and I bought a "Battlefield in a Box" hill a few weeks ago after watching Big Lee's video on the subject, which needs flocking.

My wife is astonishingly good to me.

I've gotten the pumpkin patch and the pieces of the well primed (though the well does seem a bit overly large), and I want to get a piece of MDF to glue the pigsty to to keep it secure and in one piece once assembled. I've even got pigs for it! 

Tonight, however, I stopped procrastinating and started flocking the hill. 

 The hill arrives as just a brown-painted resin lump with some dirt texture that's been drybrushed, with the idea being that you flock it to match your home table. This is a mix of two different shades and coarsenesses of railroad flock from Woodland Scenics - $15 a bottle, which will last me years and years at the rate I go through it. This is the same mix I use on all my miniatures' bases these days, applied in patches over a "dirt" layer of flock. 

I have placed a couple orders to round out my bestiary for Devilry Afoot - zombies, bogeymen, a barghest and some redcaps, as well as a collection of innocents for them to threaten. So between that and the figures finished, it's time to update the tracker again. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 113

Figures Painted in 2025: 116

Devilry Afoot: The Dunny-On-The-Wold Neighborhood Watch

 I've finished my first batch of ECW figures for Devilry Afoot, painted (except for the dog) 90% with speed paints as part of an effort to try and get myself more comfortable with them. I may have to give "slap chop" a try; I think just speed paints over white primer doesn't give me the look I'm used to and like. The human figures are by Bloody Miniatures, while the dog is from Dunkeldorf. 

In game, these will make up a good percentage of the pool of heroes available; I've decided that my games of Devilry Afoot will primary take place around a small, ignored village on the Suffolk marshes called Dunny-on-the-Wold, which makes this bunch the D-o-t-W Neighborhood Watch. I haven't given everyone names yet, but intend to.

Left to right: Innocent bystander, Squire Root, faithful hound Snuffles, and Goodwife Patience

Left to right: "Frother" Martin, Captain Tennille, unnamed musketeer, Dr. Pimpel-Poppere

Figures Purchased in 2025: 90

Figures Painted in 2025: 120

Pride Miniatures 2025

 For the past couple years I've painted a miniature with colors themed around one of the various Pride flags during the month of June; it's not something I choose to make a big deal out of, but I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself. This year I decided to push myself a little harder and paint three. I pulled a trio of female space pirate-types from Diehard Miniatures out of my stash and set to work; I decided this year I would paint the Bisexual, Lesbian, and Asexual Pride flags. 

Asexual Pride - black, white, gray and purple.

Lesbian Pride - a range of oranges and pinks with white accents

Bisexual Pride - blue, purple, and pink.

Above and beyond recognizing Pride Month, it was an opportunity to use some colors that I don't use all that often. Of the three, I think the Lesbian Pride figure came out the best, and I'm especially proud of the tattoo I freehanded on to her left forearm - a Labrys axe, another symbol associated with the lesbian community. 

Bases still need to be finished, but I'm pleased to have completed the figures themselves before the end of the month.

Figures Purchased in 2025: 90

Figures Painted in 2025: 112

Fistful of Lead: Under the Blood Moon

 I finally got another demo game of Fistful of Lead going at my local game store, Harlequin Hobby, today. A guy was nice enough to drive out to Buffalo from Rochester for it, and in a few weeks' time I'll return the favor and drive out to Rochester so he can run a demo game of Test of Honour for me, which I'm looking forward to. 

I put on the scenario "Under the Blood Moon," out of the "Tales of Horror" expansion; I played Werewolves, and my opponent took control of Lefty LaRue and his band of intrepid Canadian monster hunters. 

As an aside, right after I got things set up, one of the Warhammer 40K players in the store came over, examined the table, looked directly at the cover of the Fistful of Lead rulebook, and asked me if this was Trench Crusade. I tried giving him the spiel of what Fistful of Lead was and how it played, but his eyes glazed right over and he wandered away pretty quickly. Ah well.

Half the hunters (in this case, Lefty himself, Sgt. Blaine of the RCMP, and a trio of stalwart but largely-ineffectual Mounties - a Grunt Group, in the parlance of the game) were in the cabin in the center of the table, while each turn after the first my opponent would roll to see if the remaining two (Quinn the Eskimo and Frenchie Sinclair) would arrive by the main road. Meanwhile, my werewolves would be trying to get into the cabin and eat the delicious hunters and lumberjack family inside. The game would end automatically at the end of the 7th turn as the sun rose and drove the werewolves away. 

The first few turns were a bit of a stalemate; the werewolves rolled abysmally while trying to break down the doors to the cabin, and my opponent rolled really high while trying to bring his reinforcements on to the board. Once Quinn and Frenchie arrived, however, they quickly started stacking Shock and Wound tokens on to the leader of the Werewolf pack.

I didn't take a lot of pictures during the game.

Two of the lesser werewolves ended up fleeing the table due to poor Recovery rolls while trying to shrug off the Shock tokens they were accumulating from the rifles of Lefty and the Mounties, and the pack leader actually succumbed to his wounds while trying to stand back up. With the sun rising at the end of the 7th turn, Lefty and Quinn finished off the last werewolf. One Mountie had fled the table due to a failed Recovery roll, and one had been eaten by a werewolf, but the named characters in the hunter group were all unscathed. 

All in all, a really good game. My opponent and I agreed that if I'd succeeded in breaking down a door into the cabin on turn 2 or 3, the game likely would have gone very differently and might have been a win for the werewolves. He had a great time, and said he'd likely be adding Fistful of Lead to his library. So a day well spent! 

More Figures For Devilry Afoot

 I've done some digging to pull figures out of my leadpile that can work for Irregular Wars' Devilry Afoot, and here's the first batch of them finished. I've started experimenting again with speed/contrast paints to move things along, with I think decent results. 

Farmer by Wargames Foundry, Andre the Giant-sized thug from Dunkeldorf

"Dulcima, Mooning Peasant" from Lucid Eye. She'll be a Pact Devil in Devilry Afoot, luring in the unwary with her charms.

Imps from Reaper Miniatures

Ghouls from Heresy Miniatures

I've also received an order of Hunters from Bloody Miniatures - beautiful ECW sculpts that arrived with barely a whisper of flash on them, and even more impressive, every sword and musket arrived ramrod straight, nothing needed to be bent back into place despite a very speedy trip across the Atlantic to my doorstep. 

Look at that - that helmet is cast completely hollow. I didn't have to clean any excess material around the nasal bar. I didn't know casting something that complex that cleanly was possible! 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 90

Figures Painted in 2025: 109