Fistful of Lead Fantasy: Battle for the Goddess

 I've had cavemen on my mind lately; between seeing people painting Lucid Eye figures on Facebook, and David Sullivan's posts on his blog about the game Tribal, I've been itching for some stone age action. So I've placed another order at Lucid Eye for a copy of their "Savage Core" rules and some Ice Age-ready Amazons, and ordered Tribal 2nd edition with a tribe's worth of Bobby Jackson-sculpted cavemen. In the meantime, I got out some Lucid Eye "Neolithics" cavemen I painted last year, along with some "Cult of the Cyclops" cultists from Forge of Ice. Going through my terrain box, I found a Venus of Willendorf-style idol from Reaper Miniatures, and a scenario was born. 

A lush, isolated valley holds the ruins of an ancient temple, and with stands the Goddess - a fertility idol of untold age and potency. Two sinister groups - one, the Cult of the Cyclops, led by the vicious and conniving Kandar-Itaa; the other, a gang of thuggish prehumans led by a terrifying and alien Pterro-Man - have converged on the valley, both with evil intentions towards the idol. 

 

The Pterro-Man, with its second in command, Chief Mu-ok Man-God and his tribe, sought to perform a ritual at the feet of the Goddess that would give the Pterro-Man greater influence over other tribes of prehumans, bringing them under its evil sway. The Pterro-Man can fly and exert hypnotic influence over humans (in proper Burroughsian fashion), while the cavemen have an assortment of traits making them much more vicious in close combat.  

 

Meanwhile, under warlock Kandar-Itaa's direction, the Cult of the Cyclops seeks to corrupt the Goddess, ensuring that there would be a huge increase in the number of cyclops mutations born across all the kingdoms of the Hollow Earth. Kandar-Itaa himself has spellcasting powers, Urgu the Cyclops is large and frightening, and the rest of the cultists are armed with bronze swords and studded dinosaur-leather armor.

 Both groups began to fan out as they moved towards the Goddess; before long, Urgu and one of the cultists encountered Torg the Hunter and a lesser tribal warrior, while Kandar-Itaa blasted Mu-ok Man-God with a Searing Bolt. The ape-man chief, writhing with pain, lost his next activation, while Urgu bashed Torg to death with a huge, roughly-shaped chunk of obsidian. 

 

 

 

The smell of blood drew a huge predatory dinosaur into the valley, where it beelined towards the first humanoid it saw: Jaal, one of Mu-ok's tribal hunters. Jaal managed to stick the gigantic beast with his spear, and another tribal warrior raced to assist.  

 

The giant dinosaur quickly ate both Jaal and the lesser warrior, striking fear into the hearts of both the Pterro-Man and Mu-ok Man-God. The Man-God lived up to his name and shrugged off the fear, charging the dinosaur...and getting eaten. The dinosaur, sated, stalked off. 

 Meanwhile,  a pair of tribal warriors charged Urgu and a nearby cultist, savagely beating them with clubs until both the cyclops and the cultist fled the battlefield. 

The Pterro-Man, rattled by the dinosaur eating so many of its underlings, was not able to put up a strong defense when Kandar-Itaa and his followers arrived in the temple. The Pterro-Man died shrieking under the hacking bronze blades of the Cult of the Cyclops, while Kandar-Itaa himself polluted the mystical power of the Goddess. A new, darker future dawned for the tribes and kingdoms of the Hollow Earth...

All in all a great game, and a fast one too; I think this one was over in about four turns. No complaints here, because I got a late start playing tonight, so I'm very satisfied with how this one turned out.

New Terrain Haul

Last month, my wife wanted to buy me some terrain, and we were specifically looking at Black Site Studios' prepainted MDF buildings. They'd announced a trailer park, which seemed like a lot of fun, and we decided on adding a couple extra pieces as well - namely, a bingo hall and some dumpsters for scatter terrain. 

Everything arrived the other day - an 8 1/2 lb (3.8 kg) box! And not a moment too soon; my neighbor's seven year old son is Mr. Popularity, so all the kids in our apartment complex gather at our unit to play, and my priming box almost became a target for Super Soaker practice last week. Having things prepainted is going to be a godsend I think. 

I assembled the dumpsters last night to give myself some relaxation post a very long and stressful work week, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. The kit gives you two dumpsters, each comprised of 10 parts - base, four sides, a hinged lid, two side handles and a pair of casters underneath. Everything fit together beautifully, took glue just fine, and the final construction is really sturdy. The hinged lid works perfectly, and as a bonus, a figure on a 25mm round base can comfortably be placed standing inside the dumpster.

Peekaboo!

I'm hoping to spend this weekend getting the Bingo Hall assembled, because I think that will be a very fun addition to my wargaming tables.

Taco Tuesday

 Not much the report here, but I did finish up a 3D printed food truck, from Corvus Designs, for my modern games. My wife bought it for me as part of my gift for our anniversary last month. The color scheme is inspired by our favorite local Mexican restaurant - they have a food truck that they use for events and catering jobs that has a yellow, green and red-violet scheme. I shifted the red-violet to just straight up bright red. I think it'll be an eye-catching piece of scatter terrain, or even a battlefield objective. After all, who says no to a taco?

G.I. Joe Project Update

 I haven't posted about it much, beyond a couple of play reports, but the GI Joe in 28mm project I started back in January 2022 is still ongoing and still getting updated here and there with new figures. The other day I got everything I've painted to date for this project out on the table and grouped for a photo shoot. I realized I should post them here as well.

Lifeline, Duke, Scarlett, Rock 'n' Roll, Shipwreck

Alpine, Snake Eyes, Breaker, Flint, Lady Jaye, Cover Girl

Mutt, Junkyard, Gung Ho, Low-Light, Sgt. Slaughter, Spirit, Roadblock

Tomax, The Baroness, Xamot, two Cobra Commanders, Destro

Storm Shadow, Major Bludd, Scrap-Iron, Wild Weasel, Copperhead

The Dreadnoks: Ripper, Zarana, Zartan, Torch, Buzzer

The Crimson Guard

Cobra Troopers, including officer, RPG, and field medic

Perilous Tales: A Rough Night in Devil's Gulch

 I finally finished the Sarissa "Atomic Gas" gas station, and was eager to get it on the table, along with some recent scatter terrain I've done - some trash bags and a couple of pallets of cocaine from Miniature Building Authority and a humvee from Crooked Dice. Looking over the painted miniatures I had immediately available, a game of Perilous Tales began to present itself.

Years ago, I ran a B-horror movie review blog, watching and reviewing hundreds of horror movies over a period of about 7 years; why I stopped is too long a story to tell here, and not particularly interesting, but one thing I fell in love with during that project was 1970s made-for-TV movies. While the crown jewel of these is probably "The Night Stalker," starring Darren McGavin and introducing the world to Carl Kolchak, one that I really enjoyed was 1972's "Gargoyles," starring Cornell Wilde and Bernie Casey as the leader of the gargoyles. It's most notable for being the first film to feature the work of Stan Winston, who would go on to work on movies like "The Terminator," "Aliens," and "Jurassic Park." Now, Perilous Tales offers up Gargoyles as a villain for games; I had some gargoyles painted up. And I had some desert terrain pieces available. 

While the film mostly follows an academic as he races to prevent the gargoyles from producing an army, I decided the cartel members I'd recently painted from Brigade Games' "Drug War Z" line would be my protagonists this time around. 

So I had my set-up: a cadre of cartel soldiers, sent on what they believed would be a routine pick-up, instead encounter monstrous gargoyles at an isolated gas station in the American Southwest. Objectives would be Forbidden Knowledge (collect an esoteric artifact that one of the villains drops when slain), Flip the Switches, and Escape.

left to right: Marcus, Javier, Carlos, Ramon, Hector

The cartel members advanced slowly towards the abandoned humvee and scattered cargo of cocaine. As they began to fan out, Marcus spotted something beyond the cactus patch - a winged humanoid figure, standing stock-still.

He opened fire, but barely grazed the creature, which seemed to teleport closer in short bursts every time he blinked. Meanwhile, a ground tremor knocked Hector and Ramon off their feet.

The sound of gunfire brought out a crazed, sunburned man in a pith helmet - an archaeologist who had been working in the desert and fallen under the gargoyles' sway. He swung wildly at Marcus.

The crazed archaeologist eventually fell beneath the fists of Marcus, Javier and Hector as the gargoyle slowly advanced towards them. Meanwhile, Carlos and Ramon circled the back of the gas station, encountering another gargoyle, standing frozen, glowering at them, just as night fell.

Carlos knocked over a weird stone obelisk, the destruction of which seemed to bother the creature. He and Ramon then opened fire on the beast, wounding and eventually killing it; the creature dropped an odd golden statue depicting a four-winged demonic figure. Shoving the statue into Ramon's hands, Carlos told him to get out of here, and to take the statue back to the cartel.

Carlos then circled past the gas station towards the next strange obelisk, disturbing a swarm of bats in the process. To make matters worse, a second swarm almost immediately showed up. Weathering the bats' onslaught, once they'd had their fill Carlos pushed over the second obelisk and left, following Ramon back towards the cartel headquarters.The bats then moved on to harass Hector and Javier.

Marcus, Javier and Hector, meanwhile, were doing their best to kill the gargoyle crouching on a pallet of carefully-packaged bricks of cocaine, but were ineffectual at best; at least they had the benefit of the creature not being able to move while being observed, and even in the darkness of night they were close enough to keep the gargoyle contained. Eventually, however, the threat just became overwhelming, and the scene fades to black.

So that was a good time! We got two of the three switches flipped, and two heroes off the board, including one carrying the Esoteric Artifact; technically nobody died, so we scored some bonus victory points there. I'll be honest, when the second gargoyle and "Darkness Falls" both triggered at the same time I expect it to be a wash; the gargoyles are hard to kill because they have a lot of hit points, and darkness limits heroes' ability to observe (and thus control the movements of) the two gargoyles. Somehow I managed to keep at least two heroes close enough to pin the gargoyles down for the entire game. It was a nice hour and a half this afternoon and damn, that table set-up looks good if I do say so myself! I'm really pleased with the growth of my terrain collection, and this gas station is definitely worth the almost-four weeks I spent  slowly building and painting it.

WIP - Sarissa Precision "Atomic Gas"

 Call it a Gas Station, Petrol Station, Fuel Parlor (someone probably calls it that), it's a must for any urban or post-apocalyptic table. My wife was kind enough to get me Sarissa's "Atomic Gas" Gas Station for my birthday last month, and I've been slowly working on it over the past few days.

the catalog image, non-derelict version

 

I say slowly because the weather's been really uncooperative, with days and days of smothering humidity punctuated by torrential rainstorms. Which has made getting things primed extraordinarily annoying!

Worse, I'm nearing a point where I'm going to have no choice but to stop until the weather cooperates; I don't want to glue the walls together until I have plastic sheeting glued into place for the windows, and I don't want to glue the windows in until the walls are varnished (so that the varnish doesn't frost the windows). And I can't varnish the building when the humidity's sitting at 86% for 12-15 hours at a time. So I'm painting as much as I can, getting the paper flooring glued down, and obsessively rechecking how the parts fit together. 

I'm also working on some furnishings (purchased from Miniature Building Authority) as you can see here - out front there's a locked cage for propane tanks (not yet primed), as well as a reach-in freezer filled with bagged ice. Inside, I've got a top-down freezer filled with ice cream (placed in impulse-buy range of the front counter, just like in the gas station up the street from my apartment) and a vending machine:

There's a bit of a story here - "Big Red" is an American cream soda, only available in certain markets, mostly around Texas and Kentucky. The flavor is frequently mistaken for bubble gum, but is apparently a mix of lemon and orange oils and vanilla - and it's awful (or at least, a not-easily-acquired taste). My wife's father loved Big Red, and more than drinking it, he loved tricking other people into drinking it. I'll never forget his booming chuckle as he watched me take an unsuspecting sip of it. 

So presented with the flat expanse of the front of this vending machine, I knew I wanted to paint something, and while looking at photos of '90s era vending machines I remembered this syrupy nightmare drink, and decided it would be funny to have a vending machine filled with nothing but Big Red (and a discontinued variant, Big Blue) awaiting the unwary, thirsty customer. The red also pops against the green-and-white scheme I chose for the gas station as a whole, drawing even more attention to it. 

Looking at the weather forecast, I don't expect to be able to do any more priming or varnishing until Friday at the earliest; I might try assembling a delicate resin chair to put behind the counter, and I'm waiting on a resin cast toilet to arrive to put in the back room. I'm hoping I can maybe have *most* of the gas station done by next Monday.

Donut Worry

 For my birthday last month, my wonderful, lovely wife bought me a few pieces of modern terrain - a 3D-printed donut shop and a couple of MDF kits. I ordered some resin furniture from Miniature Building Authority to complement them, and started in on the donut shop, though found myself switching gears to paint orcs last month pretty vigorously. Picking up Majestic 13, and needing to be able to field urban tables, gave me the impetus to finish up the shop (and having a head cold that's left me too foggy-headed to play a game has certainly not impeded my painting either).

Two notes: One, I'm very grateful that Reaper Miniatures sends out free bottles of "Breast Cancer Awareness Pink" in every order during the month of October, because I'm pretty sure I went most of the way through one bottle painting the interior and the sign. 

Two, "Big Nick Was Here" is a bit of a personal in-joke. I didn't want to paint overly-raunchy graffiti in case I ever have occasion to set up and run a modern skirmish at a convention, and early in the Pandemic I was looking at playing Zona Alfa solo, re-localized from eastern Europe to the American Southwest (to better fit my collection of cacti and desert hills terrain). So Nicolai, the bandit leader from the first scenario in the book, became the American biker "Big Nick," with a Mark Copplestone biker figure painted as such. You can see him here. He's such a characterful figure that I'd welcome any opportunity to put him on the table. While it's hard to justify a group of player-character Hell's Angels in Majestic 13, and there's no option for civilians to be running around the table complicating fights, I'm sure Big Nick will find a way on to the table again soon - even if under a different ruleset. Either way, his mark's here. 

I'll get the building and furnishings varnished tomorrow afternoon, and then Tuesday I'll cut some clear plastic sheets to size and glue them into the windows and glue the furniture down. And then it's play time!