Perilous Tales Refresher Game

 With me running Perilous Tales this coming weekend at Wargames Among the Warplanes, I thought it best I run myself through a refresher game to make sure I knew what I was doing! It's not an endlessly complex game but it never hurts to remind myself how it goes. It also gave me an opportunity to try out the character cards I made for the assortment of heroes I'd selected.

In Perilous Tales, figures are divided into two types: Leaders and Teammates, with the number of each appearing on the table being dependent on how many players are involved. Playing solo, you have one Leader and four Teammates; if two players are playing a co-op game, each of them has one Leader and one Teammate, while with three players everyone has two Teammates and no Leaders. I made eight character cards, each with both a Leader and Teammate version of each character.

My wife supplied the index cards out of her colorful stationary collection, saving me a trip out to the store. I also had her select five characters for me, and decide which one would be Leader. 

So we ended up with:

• Billy Ray, the Mechanic (Leader)
• Lisa, the Veterinarian (Teammate)
• Larry, the Lousy Bum (Teammate)
• Cliff, the Mailman (Teammate)
• Klaus, the Thug (Teammate)

I got the table set up, and selected my villains: the Gargoyles, who are a fun and unusual menace. They operate like the "Weeping Angels" in the modern incarnation of Doctor Who - if two heroes can draw line of sight to a Gargoyle (there's two in the villain roster), it's incapable of moving. If they manage to successfully hit a hero, it's an automatic kill, and they are accompanied by bat swarms that limit heroes' line of sight. The villain roster also includes "Darkness Falls," which once activated limits line of sight to 6" for the remainder of the game. 

The heroic objectives were to Kill the Masters, Flip the Switches and Call for Help. The environmental hazards were Putrid Stench, Utterly Horrible (everyone in 6" takes a Horror Check at reveal) and Earthquake (everyone within 6" falls down automatically at reveal). The Threat Markers (covering both the villains and the environmental hazards) were arranged in the "Aggressive" pattern as determined by a die roll. 

I'm going to cut to the chase.

This game did not go well for the heroes. 

FIVE of the eight Threat Markers revealed at once. Both Gargoyles, a Bat Swarm, "Utterly Horrible" and "Earthquake" all went off at once. 

"Go ahead, Klaus. Try flipping the switch."

Klaus and Billy Ray were taken down by Gargoyles almost immediately. Lisa, Larry and Cliff spent most of the remainder of the game getting swarmed by bats as the Gargoyles crept forward slowly but surely. Cliff, especially, kept getting swarmed by bats, failing Horror Checks, falling down because he was being swarmed, and then getting up, getting a new swarm of bats on him, failing another Horror Check, and falling down again. He was up at down like three times. All three of them were killed "death by a thousand cuts" style by endless bat attacks. 

The heroes were all wiped out and didn't score a single victory point. 

I haven't laughed this hard during a war game since last Wargames Among the Warplanes when the taco truck got weaponized. 

I do think I may have unwittingly penalized the heroes with the big moving truck in the middle of the board. The heroes might have been able to do more against the Gargoyles if that hadn't been protecting the villains from heroic line of sight. I may replace that with the taco truck or leave it off all together. 

All in all, the game took about 45 minutes so I may be able to squeeze in more games on Saturday than I'd originally planned. Or I can wrap up early and finally play that Biplanes vs. King Kong game! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 158

Figures Painted in 2025: 139

Finished: Orc Shaman on War Wyvern (Marauder Miniatures 1992)

 I haven't figured out banners for him that I like, but I'm calling this figure done for now.

This feels like a recruitment poster for being an orc. And honestly, I think the finished figure came out even better than I'd hoped; the yellow skin, the fade to red on the tail, the striping, the tigerskin saddle, the orange mohawk on the helmet, the tarnished bronze bits. I feel really good calling this a centerpiece model. 

I'm counting this as five models for the purposes of tracking - the wyvern, the rider, and the three "Lesser Goblins" on the base. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 115

Figures Painted in 2025: 121

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

Boo!

 I've been progressing very, very slowly on the Wolf Tribe, with a lot of time spent going back and doing touch-ups or finding recessed areas I've missed. Between that and the "15 different shades of brown" color palette, I felt like I needed a quick and easy win at the hobby table. 

I think my second Tribal warband, my Northstar Neanderthals, are going to be done almost entirely in speed paints just to make the process faster. 

A dip into my Pile of Opportunity later, I pulled out "Borley, Male Ghost" from Reaper Miniatures' Dark Heavens Legends line of metal figures. Sculpted by Bob Ridolfi (my absolute favorite sculptor for undead figures), I reckoned it would be a fast and easy paint job.

Over a coat of white primer, I painted the entire figure with GW "Nilakh Oxide.". This is a fairly thin blue-green, intended for creating verdigris effects on metals. Over white, it functions like a wash, pooling pigment in the recesses. Once that had dried, I gave the whole figure a light drybrush of Reaper "Misty Gray" before giving the eye sockets a light glaze of GW "Bloodletter" (an out of production glaze). I picked out the eyes themselves with Reaper "Phoenix Red" and finally dotted the pupils with my old bottle of Vallejo "Golden Yellow." 

I think overall he looks like a glowing spectral figure, with extra-glowy red eyes, and I'm really happy with how he turned out. 

So what's next? 

I've got a few games of Fistful of Lead on the schedule at my local game store in the coming weeks, and I think I'll need to paint 2 or 3 figures for those. 

I've also picked up the PDF of "Devilry Afoot," a solo/co-op folk horror game from Nic Wright at Irregular Wars. The 17th century setting grabbed me more than The Silver Bayonet's Napoleonic era, and I do love my solo games. The ghost I've painted above join the bestiary for this game; I've got Ghouls, Vampires and Werewolves already, so I don't need much more than just Witches, Revenants and Innocents (NPC villagers for the player-characters to rescue) to add. 

Despite not intending to order anything until next payday, I had a bad day at work yesterday and responded by ordering a couple packs from Bloody Miniatures to represent my Hunters. C'est la vie. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 90

Figures Painted in 2025: 86

Finished Goblin Regiment

 I'm trying to work down my leadpile, and this regiment of goblins has been staring at me waiting to be finished since October. I painted the first dozen back in 2021 as part of the Old World Army Challenge, then came back to them last year to try and round them out to a regiment of useful size for Warhammer: The Old World. I got bogged down last year with seven figures left to go to reach my target of 40 figures. 

Tonight, I finished those last seven figures, giving me a unit of 39 goblins with a full command, accompanied by a shaman. There's still a few shields to paint and affix but overall I'm happy calling them done. The figures are a mix from Knightmare Miniatures, Harlequin/Black Tree Design, and Midlam Miniatures, all sculpted by Goblinmaster Kevin Adams.

My favorite figure in the unit is a bit of an easter egg in the back row - a goblin eating a meat pie (with a rat tail hanging out of it) and apparently burning his tongue on it. 

I've also knocked out a trio of treasure markers - I'm going to be running some demo games of Fistful of Lead on March 8th at my local game store, and I've put together a simple scenario with groups of orcs squabbling over the division of loot following a battle. I'm hoping I can lure a couple people in. I forget where the treasure pile with the shield and chest came from, but the other two are from Reaper Miniatures - and all three have been in my bits box for the better part of a decade. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 40

Figures Painted in 2025: 47

Perilous Tales: Wolves in the Streets

 I'd left my set-up from last night's game in place on the table, and was able to have a second game of Perilous Tales tonight. I removed the ponds and added a bit more scatter; I kept my crew of heroes largely unchanged as well. After selecting the Wolf Man as tonight's villain, I used the recommended method of selecting my objectives, by drawing cards.

The results that came up were "Set the Explosives," "Call for Help," and "Destroy the Idol." A narrative began to suggest itself...

The Las Lobos used to be just another street gang. Then they stole the Cursed Idol of Ish-Kabibble, and things got...hairier. The Las Lobos were soon living up to their name, possessed by wolf spirits and terrorizing anyone who approached the blocks they claimed as their territory. A group of concerned citizens have taken it on themselves to deal with the Las Lobos once and for all - destroying the Idol, dynamiting their hideout and calling the police to clean up the mess. 

Our heroes began to advance across the board cautiously, with Maria moving ahead to trigger the nearest threat marker - a wolf darting out in front of the bingo hall and lunging at her. 

Maria disengaged and stepped back, shooting at the wolf before Jean-Baptiste finished it off. Moving forward, Larry triggered the next threat marker - another wolf, quickly dispatched.

Maria continued towards the pay phone to begin calling for help, while Billy Ray hefted his wrench with an eye towards smashing the Cursed Idol. Unfortunately, Maria triggered three threat markers at once - all three of which were Perils instead of Villains. I drew three cards to see what they would be; "Unsteady Underfoot" (revealer has to make a skill check or be knocked prone), "A Thousand Cuts" (revealer takes a skill 3 attack), and "Creeping Horror" (skill checks at disadvantage). All three of these are persistent Perils, creating a zone surrounding the payphone AND the Cursed Idol where anyone entering has to check against being knocked prone and has disadvantage on that check, AND potentially takes damage. 

Let's call that a ruptured sewer line to cover all three Perils. 

Larry and Cliff both failed Horror checks and started to retreat towards the starting board edge, while Maria advanced towards the pay phone and Billy Ray approached the Idol. Jean-Baptiste approached the taco truck to plant explosives but failed to do so before another wolf lunged at him. 

Meanwhile, Cliff quickly ran afoul of a Young Werewolf, quickly getting bitten:

Billy Ray took a swing at the Cursed Idol, but in so doing drew the attention of the Master Werewolf.

The Master Werewolf swung ineffectively at Billy Ray; meanwhile Maria and Larry managed to plant batches of explosives. 

Cliff, stumbling back from the Young Werewolf, managed to shoot it enough times to kill it. 

Larry ducked around the fight against the Master Werewolf to try and plant the final set of explosives, but failed to do so before time ran out. 

So let's tally up points! One point for all of my team members surviving, another for my leader surviving, another for the "Thrown Together" template. Two points for the two bundles of explosives planted. And another three points for team members alive after the successful Call for Help. That's 8 points! That qualifies as "A Tale Fit for the Telling," and I'm pretty happy with that. 

I might manage another game on Saturday, but we'll see how things go. 

Perilous Tales: Storm Warning

 With my wife Gina's encouragement, I got the table set up tonight for another game of Perilous Tales from Planetsmasher Games. With the release of the rulebook at long last, a return to this solo game was long overdue. Somehow I'd gone more than a year without playing Perilous Tales, with the last game being cartel soldiers vs. gargoyles in July 2023. 

I set up an urban table with a battlemat from Mats by Mars and a mix of 3D-printed and precolored MDF buildings. Selecting my villain, I got inspired and added a few ponds from Monster Fight Club to represent flooding in the streets. A few vehicles and some scatter rounded things out, and my heroes would be the five armed civilians I posted yesterday. Perilous Tales now offers team templates you can apply to a group of heroes, and I chose "Thrown Together" -- the leader can no longer use the "Pep Talk" or "Call Over" actions, since the rest of the crew doesn't have a history of trust with them, but the group gets +1 victory point when the game is over and results tallied. 

I chose objectives, instead of generating them randomly, and gave myself "Call For Help," "Obtain Evidence," and "Escape." So my heroes needed to reach the pay phone and call for help, take a photo of the Villain, and then escape off the villainous board edge. 

And who is that villain? The Swamp Fiend, here portrayed by a Reaper Bones Gator-Man. He'd previously appeared in another game of Perilous Tales. Tonight, he was less a Swamp Fiend and more a Sewer Fiend. 

With the streets of Anyville, USA flooding and a torrential storm rolling in, Jean-Baptiste and a handful of fellow citizens cautiously began to investigate strange shadowy shapes lurking and mysterious bellowing noises. 

Unfortunately, Cliff the mail carrier triggered a profoundly noxious belch of trapped gas from the sewer (peril, "Putrid Stench") that hung over the bingo hall. As he staggered back from the smell, he drew the attention of two shadowy figures...

An alligator and, worse, a hulking alligator-humanoid hybrid, lunged. Cliff was dead before he hit the ground. Jean-Baptiste shot the alligator twice, killing the brute, while Larry took a shot at the Sewer Fiend. Billy Ray, the mechanic, charged towards the Sewer Fiend with his wrench, and Maria tried to skirt along the front of bingo hall to reach the pay phone to call for help. 

Another alligator spawned and attacked Maria; she managed to slip out of combat and try to make it to the pay phone despite being injured. Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste tried to take a photo of the Sewer Fiend but fumbled it, and Billy Ray tried his best against the Sewer Fiend in hand to hand combat. 

With Maria in trouble, Larry tried to make it to the pay phone as well; more alligators spawned, and Maria was quickly eaten while Larry (possibly protected by the stench of BO and despair radiating off his stained undershirt) managed to make it to the pay phone.

Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste managed to snap a photo of the Sewer Fiend and tried to sneak past it to safety.

"Yeah, hi, I'd like ta report some big bitch gator-man in downtown Anyville..." Larry's phone call was interrupted by a humanoid figure in white coveralls and a respirator emerging from the shadows.

"The experiment must not be interrupted," the figured intoned in a muffled voice. 

"This just ain't my day," Larry thought to himself as the alligators convened on him.

(I needed to spawn two additional minions when Larry called for help, but all my painted crocs were already on the table, so I improvised. What experiment is he talking about?)

A second coverall-clad figure appeared in the doughnut shop and began silently observing Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste gave him the slip and managed to take only a glancing hit from the charging Sewer Fiend. Escaping from combat, Jean-Baptiste took off running for safety. But will it be enough?

So let's add up those victory points, shall we? Jean-Baptiste successfully took a photo of the Sewer Fiend and was alive at the end of the game, so that's 3. He escaped off the villainous board edge, so that's another 1. We called for help and not everyone was dead at the end of the game, so that's another 1. And my leader was alive at the end of the game, that's another 1. And +1 VP for the "Thrown Together" team trait. So that's a score of 7, which is "Adequate!"

I always enjoy Perilous Tales, and I'm so glad to see Mike Hutchinson return to it and put out a finished version. I like the addition of team templates, and I like that Perils are now officially randomly determined instead of tied to specific battlefields. I miss some of the Villains that didn't make it into the final book, but I can recognize the utility of restricting it to 10; maybe there will be a supplement at some point to bring back villains like the Blob, Triffids, the Witch and the Robot Master. 

The idea to have the streets be flooded - even if it was largely just a cosmetic thing - came from my favorite horror movie of the last decade, 2019's CRAWL. A fairly "simple" but well-done killer animals film, it's the story of a woman and her father trapped in a rapidly-flooding house during a hurricane, menaced by voracious alligators in their efforts to reach safety. Once I knew I wanted a city streets battlefield and I'd be facing alligators, I immediately thought of CRAWL and nearly derailed my plans to play tonight in favor of giving it a rewatch. 

Gina has suggested I keep the table set up and play another game tomorrow - and yes, I agree, I did marry very well! I've left the scenery in place, though whether I get a game in tomorrow night or not remains to be seen. It might have to wait until Friday. 

Either way, this was an evening really well spent, I'm happy to be playing Perilous Tales again and I'm very happy with the finished rules. I highly, highly recommend taking this game for a spin. 

October Progress Report

 I'll be honest, I've slowed to a crawl with the goblins. I've painted 16 over the past month, but I'm kind of feeling burned out and maybe sludgey towards the orc and goblin project right now. Some of that is, I just painted 16 goblins and a giant and I'm ready to do something else for a bit. Some of it's that anything I paint is going right back into storage as soon as it's varnished because we're having trouble finding space in our house for me to put a display case and put my army up on display. It's a small house and other things have gotten prioritized; things we might have put downstairs in the basement otherwise have to be upstairs for my wife to be able to use them - her MS has left her with nerve damage in her legs that makes walking up and down stairs challenging for her. At this point, if I get a display case it will probably end up in the basement next to the laundry area. C'est la vie.

Goblins aren't much of anything to look at, but I am well pleased with how the giant (Bert from Old School Miniatures) has turned out:

And I've also painted the first two figures for wargaming with samurai:

The figure in the blue kimono is "Toshiro, Male Ronin" from Reaper Miniatures:

And his companion is an unnamed ronin from Bad Squiddo Games. Yes, her kimono is based on the Arizona Green Tea can.

They kind of have a "winter and spring" vibe that I think means I'm going to end up painting a "Summer" and "Autumn" ronin to go with them. 

Sons of Mars - solo play

Over the past week, I've dug out the gladiators I painted back in 2018, glued some shields back on and refreshed some bases (the texture paste I applied back in 2018 never made me happy, so I flocked over it with some ochre-y fine grain flock) and started refreshing myself on Joe Veltre's "Sons of Mars," a game of Roman gladiators. I'd played it a bit back then, and painted a ton of gladiators with the idea I'd run some demo games and maybe get a league going at my local gaming store. That never worked out because the people at the store who would have gotten into this all bought into "Arena Rex" instead. C'est la vie. 

A buddy of mine was asking about getting a game of something going, and most of my terrain has already made the move to my future basement. Fortunately, Sons of Mars doesn't require much in the way of terrain, so I decided to refresh myself so I could get it going with him next week. I've played through a couple of 1 v 1 solo games, and today I decided to do something a little bit bigger.

I rolled up some obstacles for the arena - two walls and two braziers of fire - and set up a 2 v 2 game. On the Blue team, we have Spartacus, a Thraex or Thracian gladiator, and The Unmitigated Gaul, a red-haired Dimachaerus - a wielder of two swords. The Red team was represented by Ursus Major, a large Provocator (known for their staying power in the arena) and Curio, a Velites - a lighter class of gladiator typically armed with javelins or a gladius and a light shield. 

Spartacus charged Curio, and the Unmitigated Gaul charged Ursus Major. The fighting pushed back and forth, with Curio trying to get away from Spartacus and Ursus trying to shove the Gaul away from him. The fighters inflicted minor wounds on each other, but largely clashed swords without major effect. 

At the beginning of the third round of combat, the Emperor was getting bored of the shoving contests, and ordered a very large bear released into the arena to spice things up. 

The bear charged Curio, clawing ineffectively at the nimble gladiator. For a few moments, Curio and Spartacus struggled with each other, each man trying to put the other between himself and the bear. 

The Gaul and Ursus clashed dramatically, ignoring the bear and their fellow gladiators, but as the fight drew on, the Provocator in his heavier armor began to tire, and the more fatigued he got the faster the Gaul's swords seemed to swing. With a dramatic flourish of swordsmanship, the Gaul cut the Provocator down just as both Spartacus and Curio broke away from the bear. The bear, bloodied and enraged, charged the Gaul.

Man and bear roaring with fury, the Gaul and the bear wrestled back and forth, the Gaul sinking his blades again and again into the bear's powerful body. Finally, the beast slumped to the arena sands. The Unmitigated Gaul had won out!

While this was going on, Spartacus, playing to the crowd to increase his favor, cornered Curio against one of the walls, and tried to push him into the wall and knock him prone. The lighter Velite held his own however, his blade clashing dramatically with Spartacus', both men tiring as they struggled against one another. However Curio managed a few good hits on the Thracian, leaving Spartacus clinging to life as he tried to continue the fight.

Fistful of Lead wound tokens here representing Fatigue.

With the bear slain and Spartacus struggling with the barely-armored Curio, the Gaul charged into the fray. His charge crushed the Velite, providing a flawless victory to the Blue team.

The Blues have won every solo game I've played this week; Murmillo v. Retiarius, Secutor v. Thracian, and now this one. It was almost not such a clean-cut victory; Spartacus was 1 Vitality point away from dying. I like how dramatically the fortunes of the gladiators can swing. A gladiator can be getting beaten badly one round and rally and come out the victor in the next. On paper, the Velite should have been easy for a tougher gladiator like a Thracian to take down, but in practice it was a little more difficult. Different classes of gladiator thrive with different tactics, and you have options you can pursue to make it easier to fight a difficult opponent. It's got a nice beer and pretzels lightness to the system, while also rewarding smart tactical play. 

I'll probably play through a few more solo games this week, and then next weekend I'll bring them over to Rick's for my first actual game against another person since February 2020.