Paint Table Saturday: Black Phillip of Frostgrave

So this Wednesday I've got a Frostgrave match scheduled against my friend Tom, and I've decided to bring out my Goetia-style Summoner warband, the Diabolists of Belphegor to try and best him.  Tom has years of wargaming experience on me, but as I'm just looking for a friendly game, it doesn't faze me.  I did, however, try to reflect on what I'd learned from my last match-up with Tom, and adjust my merry band of hellions appropriately.

As I played around with different combinations of figures, weighing my options based on what I had painted, I kept coming up with a deficit - two slots left in my available ten, and enough gold to make filling those slots a matter of honest debate.  I had a couple options, including going with a smaller force composed of higher-value troops or buying and painting more figures to fill in the gaps.

I decided to pay a visit to my Friendly Local Gaming Store, Just Games, last night, and peruse the racks of Reaper figures and see if anything jumped out at me.  And jump out at me something did!

I've gone with a very traditionally occult/Satanic look for my Summoners (and in my repeat use of this warband, and especially while painting this figure, I've had to repeatedly reassure my girlfriend that I'm not some secret Satanist), and a Reaper Bones "Beastman" popped out at me as having a very Baphomet/Goat of Mendes sort of look to him.  And thus "Black Phillip" joined the Diabolists!

He looks a bit more blue here than he does in person - I basecoated the areas of fur and bare skin with black, then highlighted with drybrushes of Reaper "Stormy Gray" and "Cloudy Gray," then drybrushed the horns and picked out the belt and arm bands in "Lonestar Leather."  The loincloth is Reaper "Blood Red" to tie him in with the clothing worn by the rest of the warband, as are his eyes.  His lips and gums are "Dusty Rose", his teeth "Yellow Bone" and the axe handle "Leather Brown," matching the crossbows and weapon hafts used by other members of the warband.  The base is coated with "Army Painter" medium grit, then a layer of their snow flock.

The last coat of varnish is drying on him now, and on Wednesday he'll be ready to follow the wizard Belphegor into glorious battle.

Frostgrave Fiction: The Diabolists March

Belphegor, Wizard of the Black Ring, sighed and waved a thin, bony hand.  Uttering a few words in a language most men would blanch to hear, he tore open a small hole in the Material Plane, from which emerged a small, unctuous demon of the variety commonly called "imps."

"Hail, Belphegor, Master of -" the imp began, before being cut off with a wheezing gasp as it was impaled through the back, gigged like a frog by Oriax, Belphegor's apprentice.  The younger man smiled behind his cowl, and held the still-squirming demon over the glowing coals of their fire.  Foraging for supplies amidst the ruins of Felstad had proved fruitless, and Belphegor was forced to rely on sorcery to conjure meat for his band of mercenaries and cut-throats.  Eating the flesh of demons seemed to have done the men little harm, though the knight Barbatos' skin had turned an unearthly shade of red and he had grown horns and a tail; likewise, the warhounds Belphegor had purchased now sported horns and tusks, their skin red and hot to the touch.  But it was of little matter.

The crunch of booted feet on the snow outside sent every hand to a sword-hilt; when the wool blanket strung up as a curtain over the ruined wall pulled aside to reveal the florid face of Big George, one of the tavern-brawlers, the crew of mercenaries relaxed as one.

"What news from your scouting trip, George?" Belphegor said quietly, drawing his cloak more tightly around himself and, instinctively, feeling for the weight of the iron-bound grimoire at his hip.

"A new warband enters Felstad," Big George said, catching his breath.  "Dwarves.  Big beards, smelled of lager. Not more than ten of them."

Belphegor stroked his chin.  While he wasn't certain Big George could count higher than ten, he liked the idea of being able to get the drop on an unprepared, untested warband.  Maybe they had supplies he could help himself to.  He surveyed the motley crew of hellions in front of him, mentally calculating the strengths and weaknesses of each.

"Mademoiselle Zenith, Black Phillip, Big George, Johnny Seven-Fingers, Bull and Ace.  You will accompany Oriax and myself into Felstad.  We're going to give those dwarves a proper welcome to Frostgrave."

The shaven-headed albino woman looked up from polishing her sword and grinned wordlessly, her teeth glinting red in the firelight, and the goat-headed half-man bleated greedily, eager to gorge himself on the steaming entrails of fallen foes.

Belphegor stood, stretched, and winced; the bitter cold of Felstad did his rheumatism no favors; why couldn't it have been the sand-swallowed city, bleached under an unforgiving sun?

***

I have a Frostgrave match coming up next week - a rematch against Tom, who I played with awhile back using two warbands I'd painted.  Tom's got his band of dwarves ready and the free time in his schedule to devote an evening to gaming, so we made plans for Wednesday night.

When I got home from work, I took a look at my warbands, thinking about which to bring to bear, and I decided I'd take the Diabolists of Belphegor out for another spin.  I'd tweaked the army list a little bit since Tom and I's last go, and I tweaked it a little bit more tonight.  I think I've got a fairly well-balanced force that can deliver a beating to Tom's dwarves.

Famous last words, right?

I've got one new figure to paint this weekend, and I'll be sure to take pictures at Wednesday's match.

Kickstarter Notice: Forge of Ice's "Sleepy Sentries and Sleazy Merchant"

I figured I should give this one a plug here, since I am backing it (and doing so a bit higher than I had originally planned for), so here goes:

Forge of Ice, a small miniatures company based out of Alaska, is running a Kickstarter to fund a production run of their latest figures, a set of six guards (two alert, four asleep at their posts) suitable for various "Lost World" and "Sword & Sorcery" settings, along with the fat, sleazy merchant they work for.  Various other figures from Forge of Ice are available as add-ons.

I'm currently backing it for the four sleepy guards, with the two Snake Priestesses as my add-ons.  I say currently because I believe some stretch goals are still to be added as well as additional add-ons.  So I may be adding more to my pledge before the Kickstarter ends (just two weeks left!) and adding more figures to my order.  We shall see.

Samurai Archers Rebased

I recently picked up a pack of Reaper Samurai figures from their Dark Heaven line of metal miniatures - I saw them on the rack at Just Games and couldn't say no.  And I immediately began planning *yet another* Frostgrave army.  I haven't decided yet if I want to go with Sigilist (for the calligraphy connection) or Enchanter (for the almost mystical amount of work that went into forging a katana) as my wizard's school, but I do have an army list drawn up, one composed of, appropriately, Seven Samurai.  Just about the only thing I needed to track down was a pair of appropriate archers.  Nothing I was turning up on Google appealed to me, so I put out a call on the Frostgrave Facebook group, and a kindly gentleman offered me a pair of samurai archers, from the "Legend of the Five Rings: Clan Wars" miniatures game, now long out-of-production, for $3 apiece plus shipping.  I swiftly took him up on this, and they arrived yesterday.

Today, I trimmed away their metal tabs (I'm not a fan of slotta-bases), cleaned up the flash and mold lines that I could find/access with my X-acto, and glued them down to my preferred bases, 25mm Renedra flat rounds.

I can't keep the cat away long enough to open the porch door (our apartment has a screened-in porch where I do my priming) and prime these fellows, so hopefully tomorrow morning I'll get them out there and get a quick coat of primer on them.

I think with this I'll have all the Frostgrave warbands I intend to paint - I have a primed-but-unpainted Witch warband based on the 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN, these samurai, the Choosers of the Slain, the Undying Host of Sutekh-Ra and the Diabolists of Belphegor.  How many more warbands do I need?

Don't answer that.

I might hold on to the Seven Samurai and the Cult of Set warbands until the Painting Challenge begins this year.  I think that might be a good beginning to my participation this time around.

Frostgrave Warband: The Choosers of the Slain

I've had these ladies primed and ready to go for almost a year now, and I'm very glad to have finally settled on a color scheme and gotten them painted.  I picked up the two packs of Valkyries from Wargames Foundry at their Christmas sale last year.  I was a little disappointed to find a couple of the figures miscast, but I had enough to build a warband, using Reaper's Ice Queen as a Wizard, and if I need to I can pin new swords to the hands of a couple of the miscast ones - it looks like in all cases not enough metal made it into the mold, and so I've got two holding just hilts, and the figure I've chosen for my Apprentice was originally holding a spear, which in this case has become a staff.

Left to Right: Brunhilda (Apprentice), the Ice Queen, Sigrun (either Knight or Templar)

Hildr and Gunnr, a pair of Infantrymen

Hlokk, Olrun and Herja, three Thugs

Geidriful and Goll, two Thieves

I normally don't do eyes, but I think I want to go back and try to do a couple of them, and I definitely want to give Brunhilda and Sigrun's lips a touch up.  Same with Geidriful and Goll's nipples, I suppose.

I should probably do another layer of snow on the bases as well.

Cthuesday: Consumption

It occurred to me that I haven't posted the write-up of last week's game.  We ended up having a few last minute withdrawals, and so we ran with only two players.  Which was a new situation for me - I don't remember the last time I ran for a table smaller than three players.  Possibly never.  The scenario did not exactly go as I, or author Brian Sammons, intended, but everyone had fun nonetheless so that's what matters.

Dramatis Personae:

• Roxanne Bennett (played by Kai), an African-American stage magician
• Janet Whitley-Rose (played by Julie), a widowed woman using her money to hunt ghosts

While driving on the Aylesbury Pike, sometime after their investigation of the Corbitt House, Janet hit a woman who stumbled out of the fog with her car.  Investigating, they found the woman dead - of blood loss; one of her legs had been sawn off, with a belt in place as a tourniquet, which had loosened during her flight.  The woman had been using a broken broom handle as a crutch.  Her tongue had been removed, the stump cauterized.  

They decided to wrap the woman's body in a blanket and stash it in the backseat of the car for now.  

Following the woman's bloody trail through the melting snow and mud, they found the burned out shell of an old two-story house, and behind it, a shack built of reclaimed wood.  Inside the shack, a horror show; a pyramid of ten skulls, their eye-sockets stuffed with mementos of the corpses they'd been taken from.  A bloody bed, ropes hanging from the bedposts.  A grisly hacksaw on the ground, a flayed torso hanging on the wall.  Finding some bloodstained luggage, tattered but once-nice, Roxanne piled the skulls inside, along with the hacksaw.  Checking outside, they found a still-wet bloody knife in the snow and a man's booted footprints, which they followed in the direction of Arkham before losing the trail in drier ground.

Returning to the car, Janet and Roxanne decided the best course of action would be to drop the body and the bag of evidence at the police station as discreetly possible and leave.  

This is where things began to go wrong.  

Pulling up the curb in front of the police station, Roxanne tried to kick the three bags and the corpse out of the car without attracting any attention - and failed, bringing the police running.  She tried to casually throw her registered handgun into the gutter discreetly, and failed, the gun discharging and shooting out one of the tires on the car.  

I've never seen players roll so many 95s and up in such quick succession in Call of Cthulhu before.  

The two women were brought into the station and questioned separately about how they came to be in possession of a woman's corpse, minus one leg, and a bag of human skulls, by detective Michael Cooper.  He assured them that he believed their story, and was calling in a local doctor to give them a once over before they were released to go home.  

Dr. James Bell, a black-bearded gentleman, gave Roxanne a once-over and suggested giving her a mild sedative to help calm her nerves.  Roxanne recognized this as a line of BS and the "sedative" he mentioned as a paralytic.  She jumped him, trying to strangle him with his own stethoscope.  Bell threw her off and made for the door, but was caught blind-sided when Roxanne threw a chair at him.  Bell stunned, Roxanne picked up the syringe of paralytic, shook it up real good to ensure the presence of plenty of air bubbles, and emptied the syringe into Bell's thigh.  

Cooper and Janet burst into the room almost simultaneously.  Roxanne explained that Bell must have had a stroke, quietly kicking the empty syringe into a corner of the room.  Cooper tersely asked the two women to wait in a cell while another medical examiner was called.  

Janet and Roxanne eventually dozed off in the cell, at which time Cooper entered the cell quietly (both players failing their Listen rolls by drastic amounts once more) and casually murdered both of them, caving their skulls with a nightstick wielded with superhuman strength.  He quietly moved the bodies to a waiting hearse, where the local undertaker delivered the two bodies back to the shack for rendering by the cannibal secret society's sociopathic chef.  

Alpha Blue: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Death Star

Saturday afternoon I ran a short session of Alpha Blue, Venger Satanis' silly, sexy sci-fi RPG, for a group of three players at my local game store - I'd been expecting more but had an exodus of players within the last 24 hours before game.  It happens.  As it stands, our dramatis personae was as follows:

• Alkar Mull, medic-turned-bounty hunter
• Zorgo Bonesnapper, 4' tall lizardman and pimp
• Astroduke-in-Exile Nedra IV, interstellar conman and swindler

Given that Zorgo was played by my sister, Nedra by her boyfriend, and Mull by a 14 year old, I jettisoned the sexual elements of Alpha Blue and just went for silly.  

The adventurers were in the process of passing through customs to get into Alpha Blue when a ship came careening in, bouncing off the deckplates of the landing pad skidding to a stop just feet from the wall.  The hatch blew off but no one emerged, so the three decided to check it out for themselves.  They found the pilot, Blake Rogers (according to his Spacer License; Zorgo helped himself to the 300 credits in Rogers' wallet) still strapped in, stoned out of his gourd on plutonium nyborg, surrounded by empty gallon-size ziplock bags.  "You know your perspective's fucked so you just gotta let your hands fly like you're sober," he mumbled to Zorgo.  

Checking the rest of the ship, they discover he was carrying a cargo of O-Rings destined for the robotics plants on Astrotech V.  Deciding these had no value to them, they called Med Bay to have Rogers sobered up and go on their merry way.  

A few hours later, they get called to the captain's deck; the captain, a fat, shirtless guy with a nose ring and a three-foot blue mohawk surrounded by empty bottles of Old Space Granddad, absent-mindedly picked at his belly-button as he laid out the situation.  

"So, like, you guys remember that guy that came in stoned, right? Rogers or whatever? Like, there's some unfriendly dudes outside looking for him, and nobody knows where he went - he checked himself out of Sick Bay an hour ago."

Flipping on the view-screen, he shows the adventurers an enormous alien battle-cruiser outside; a

picture-in-picture screen showed the captain of that ship to be a Brain Bug - a hippo-sized mass of pulsating grey-matter, with a wet, sphincter-like mouth surrounded by eye-stalks.  Dozens of mind-controlled humanoid slaves surrounded the Bug, operating the ship and massaging the folds of its oversized cerebellum.  

Speaking through one of its slaves, the Bug demanded that Rogers and "the information he carries" be turned over at once - if he is not delivered within one Standard Galactic Day, the Bug will drop a polynuclear warhead on Alpha Blue.  

"It'd be cool if you guys could find Rogers," the captain said, "and I could like, give you a reward or whatever."

Checking the Med Bay, they learned that Rogers was heading for the bar level, and Zorgo pulled up a listing of all the nyborg bars in Alpha Blue, turning up three.  They split up, each checking one of the bars.  Alkar Mull found Rogers up to his eyebrows in snortable powder, running up a tab longer than he was tall.  

Sobering him up, they learned that the Brain Bug had been chasing Rogers for some time, demanding the location of something called "the Loc-Nar." Zorgo recalled that this was a fabulous, legendary jewel that had passed from tyrant to tyrant, conqueror to conqueror.  While Rogers had never heard of this thing, he did vaguely recall clipping a derelict space-yacht; maybe that's what the Brain Bug is after?

To find the yacht, they'd need to check Rogers' ship's black box.  Unfortunately, the ship had already been dismantled and taking down to Reclamation.  The Reclamation Supervisor, a 3' tall carroty alien, was very susceptible to bullying, however, and gave the adventurers free reign to search for the black box in the scrap-heaps.  

Just as Nedra laid hands on the black box, the Brain Bug fired a "warning shot" that disabled the station's gravity well - with the gravity turned off, the adventurers (and all the scrap) began to float around the room.  "Swimming" through the air and pushing off against pieces of scrap, they manage to make their way through the halls to the docking bay.  

Plugging the black box into Zorgo's shag-carpeted space ship "The Shaggin' Wagon," they figure out where the space yacht was and which direction it would have likely drifted in.  Transmitting the wrong coordinates to the Brain Bug, the adventurers hired a slightly larger ship than the Shaggin' Wagon and took off the salvage the yacht themselves.  Before leaving, they turned over Blake Rogers to the captain - the new captain, a man with a cat for a head (a full cat, not just a cat head), who explained that the old captain had choked on vomit and died.  

[Aside: I was really disappointed that no one got the Spinal Tap reference and questioned whose vomit it was that the captain had choked on.]

They found the yacht, "The Temptress," with little difficulty, entering it through a hole in its side; Zorgo immediately began dreaming about converting the yacht into a new base of operations for himself.  Inside, they found a half-dozen freeze-dried rich jerks, and began helping themselves to the jewelry still worn by the corpses.  In the hands of one, Zorgo found a green glowing gem the size of a Space Grapefruit. He grabbed it.

Immediately, the gem woke up, identifying itself as "the Source of all Evil in the Universe, Eternal and Imperishable." Mull replied sarcastically, and got zapped with a bolt of electricity from the sphere.  The sphere mused that the gathered adventurers were too weak to serve it as anything but bearers, demanding to be taken to a greater power - the Brain Bugs, the Krylon Protectorate, or the Knights in Black Satin, all would do.  When the adventurers continued to dicker, the Loc-Nar decided to give them another demonstration of its power, reanimating the six freeze-dried rich jerks as Space Zombies and ordering them to attack.  

The adventurers made quick work of the zombies, at which point the Loc-Nar declared that a greater power had come for it, and began to float out the hole in the side of the ship.  The Brain Bug battle-cruiser had arrived, and the Loc-Nar was making a beeline for it.  

Nedra jumped to the controls of the yacht, managing to pull enough juice out of its old batteries to charge the thrusters.  Maneuvering the ship around, he set it on autopilot aimed directly for the bridge of the Brain Bug cruiser.  Setting the thrusters to fire, the adventurers escaped back to their own ship, where Zorgo immediately failed to make the jump to Hyperspace.  The yacht impacted the cruiser, setting off a chain reaction of explosions.  Trying again, the adventurers managed to escape to light-speed just ahead of the expanding explosion, heading back to Alpha Blue for some much needed R&R.  

I never know how to gauge the length of a session in a new RPG, and this was no exeption; I'd anticipated two and a half hours of play and we were done with the adventure in an hour.  Everyone had a good time though, and it gave me a palate cleanser before the very dark session of Call of Cthulhu I'm running tomorrow, so it's all good.