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Fountains

July 10, 2015, 2:22 pm
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As I was painting these fences, I was also working on some other scenery items. As it happens, they were all fountains, or other water-bearing structures.


These first two are Reaper bones pieces, a "Well of Chaos" and a "Water Weird. They are a bit oversized compared to Sven, of course, but I think they look okay. The "weird" has been modded so it doesn't loom quite so tall over Sven.


Subtitle: "The Joy of Drybrushing." The texture on the stone made these a breeze to paint: several layers of gray, a bit of brown, some gold on the details, and a blackwash.


The water is just some white glue, with a couple coats of Future Shine. Looks pretty good here, though I had some trouble with this method on the 1/72 fountains below. I think it works here because I only needed a few thin layers of glue for it to look like water. The water flowing from the tap is also Future Shine, mixed with a bit of black paint.



This piece was cast in blue plastic. To make the "Weird" more 1/72 compatible, I chopped off part of the base and took about half the height off the water elemental. The stonework was painted using the same techniques above. The water got much the same treatment as this large water elemental.


Here are a couple fountains from Italeri's "Urban Accessories" kit. These are actual 1/72 scale models; If the models above were 1/72, they'd be about this size. The one on the right is built per instructions. The one on the left has a lion head taken from Hat's "Jungle Adventure" set; I'm pretty sure I got the idea from Paul. I had to fill in some gaps with putty, which looks a bit rough, as does my attempt at highlighting. The water is again white glue with top layers of Future Shine. Unfortunately, I had to use more layers of the stuff to fill the basin, which despite my patient applications meant that the glue doesn't look very clear.


Finally, the small well on the left, from Imex's excellent "Southwest/Alamo Accessories" kit. Not much to say, but I think it looks very nice. On the right is an Italeri desert well, which I discussed previously, along with some other sources for 1/72 scale wells.

Let's wrap up with a quick discussion of other 1/72 scale fountains.



This piece is a resin cast from Airfix, designed for WWII games but perfectly suitable for other genres. The box shows a sort of spigot that's not included in the kit; the hole in the top basin is part of my attempt to install one. A similar piece is by Armand Bayardi. It's a bit more expensive and harder to find, and whether you get it direct or from Michigan Toys (only store I found that has it), the shipping is awfully high. Still, it's a very nice-looking piece.

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Demon-strations

July 23, 2015, 2:43 pm
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While we're waiting for the latest Bones Kickstarter to end, I'll finally share the demon mods I've been working on.



This crew is made up of various Caesar Miniatures knights, most with demon heads from CP models. The green head up top is a Caesar goblin. The tails are pieces of florist wire. If you do a project like this and know anyone into flower arranging, ask to borrow just a piece, which is all I needed for all these tails.


Other demonic critters. The big guy is a World of Warcraft board game piece, with a hand and trident from a GW "Mines of Moria" troll. The demonette is a Caesar elf with bat wings from a Safari Ltd. "Good Luck" mini. Her tail is a paperclip, which is a lot harder to bend into shape than the florist wire. The other guys are Twilight Creations demons: one got a head swap, the other a head repose.


I finished painting the female demon and goblin-head. You can see that I added some horns and a little goatee, made with the tiniest, fiddliest bits of Milliput I ever hope to work with. Superglue plus a layer of Future Shine to seal will hopefully keep these bits attached.


A view from the back, showing off the wings and tails.

I'm making pretty good progress on the other demon legionaires when I actually have time to paint. I hope to have them finished in a month or so.
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1/72 =! HO (an informative diatribe on scale)

August 11, 2015, 7:23 pm
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Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I am sort of a pedant about scale (and other things, but let's move one). One particular bugaboo of mine is the rather widespread use of HO ("aitch-oh", the popular model railroad scale) as a synonym for 1/72, the favored scale of this blog. I have seen this use in forum posts, eBay auctions, even commercial sites, but it is not at all right. The National Model Railroad Association defines HO as 1/87.1 scale. HO scale figures are about a head smaller than 1/72 figures. They are simply quite different scales.

Left to right: a D&D 32mm cultist, Sven and another 1/72 figure, a Star Wars MicroMachine (which I believe is OO-1/76 basically HO scale), a Preiser HO passer-by, and a Splintered Light 15mm rogue.
So how did they get mixed up? Let's look at the history of model railroad scales. Model trains used to be much larger. German manufacturer Märklin had trains in 3, 2, 1, and 0 scales, with 0, or "O", being the smallest at 1/48 scale. O scale is still in use and is now one of the larger modern model railroad scales. When machine technology advanced to allow for smaller model trains, HO scale—that is, "half-O"—was invented and became popular in both the United States and continental Europe.

In Britain, though, they had a bit of a problem. Their real-life trains were smaller than those in the U.S. or in Europe, such that if they wanted to build model trains in true HO scale, they would have to be physically smaller than what was possible at the time. Their solution was sort of odd: they used HO scale tracks and wheel spacing, but they put larger scale cabs and cars on top of these. Buildings, figures, and other scenery were also in this larger scale. They called this scale OO, which like HO also essentially means half-O, and which is defined as 1/76 scale. (Astute readers will note that having different scales for the wheels and cabs means that OO scale is not really proportional to real-life trains, and indeed OO trains do have sort of a chunky look.)

Maybe you can see where the seeds of confusion sprung. In the sense that HO and OO models can run on the same track, one could say that the two scales are compatible. And in the sense that 1/76 is really similar in size to 1/72, which was already being used for military models, one could say that those two scales are also compatible. But it's a category error to say these two different senses are the same sense, if you follow me. Nonetheless, if OO scale was said to be compatible with both HO and 1/72 scale, if in different ways, it was only a matter of time before someone made the mistake of claiming that HO and 1/72 were compatible as well.

I have know direct knowledge of this, but I suspect that someone was Airfix, for a few reasons. Airfix was a British company and would have been more exposed to OO scale than, say, Atlantic or Revell. They were around when these new model railroad scales were gaining popularity. And they actually put "HO OO scale" as a description on their old boxes, which reveals that they thought the two scales were compatible in size—entirely incorrect, as we have seen.

Pic credit: 7 Wonders
A lot of this I got from the Wikipedia articles on HO and OO scales, which are good places to start if you want to know more about these scales. Now that you know the difference, maybe you can spread the word and make this scale pedant's life a little more restful.
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Temple of Elemental Evil board game minis

August 26, 2015, 1:38 pm
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Many of the minis featured in this post are for sale. Please check out my sales page!

I'm a fan of the D&D Adventure System board games as a source of cheap unpainted plastic minis. They are in heroic 28-32mm scale, much larger than the CFM-approved 1/72 scale, but are often readily adaptable. Temple of Elemental Evil is the first such game released since the new version of D&D was published. Today I'll show most of the minis in the box, even those that aren't particularly good for 1/72, as non-1/72 fantasy fans might be interested in these. Remember that Sven the 1/72 comparison viking is exactly 1-inch/25mm tall from foot to crown.

Heroes. Regular readers may recognize these as unpainted versions of the new DnD starter set minis. The female dwarf makes a decent if stocky 1/72 human, while the halfling looks a bit like a dwarf rogue in 1/72.
Monsters, ranging from the ridiculously huge gnoll to the nearly-human-sized troglodyte and doppelganger figures. The bugbear in the middle is just about right for my idea of a 1/72 scale bugbear. I like the blue salamander and the "flying" firebat on the right as well.
Cultist, who naturally inhabit the titular Temple of Elemental evil. Each sculpt represents a different element: from left to right, water, earth, air and fire. Clearly too big for 1/72.
Elemental monsters, also apt for the ToEE. Left to right, a hideous fire elemental (looks more like a mud elemental!), earth, air, and water. I'm a sucker for translucent plastic minis like these. This water elemental is a little larger than the one from the Legend of Drizz't game (source).
The ettin. A smaller Reaper Bones ettin is on the right for comparison. If the D&D ettin were scaled down to 1/72 size, it would be about the size of the Reaper ettin.
Not pictured is the flying black dragon mini, which like the firebats above has a cool clear plastic "flying" base. It's not super-large, no bigger than the blue ettin shown above.
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Dungeon Forge in My Pocket: small-scale fantasy minis Kickstarter

September 2, 2015, 1:09 pm
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Via CFM reader Carl is this intriguing Kickstarter. Dungeon Forge In My Pocket is an attempt to make a truly portable dungeon crawl for fantasy RPGs. It sort of reminds me of Rob Dean's Portable Fantasy Game project, and like PFG it relies on smaller-scale minis to accomplish it's goal.

Which scale is a bit of a mystery if you go by the Kickstarter description, but I asked Raúl the designer, and he kindly responded, "The height of a miniature of a human is fed up 20mm." Sounds to me like he means 20mm from toe to crown, around HO scale, which as we learned last month is a bit smaller than 1/72, the preferred scale of this blog. On the other hand, the dwarf is 15mm tall according to the Kickstarter page, while the minotaur (a stretch reward) is 25mm. As it happens the 1/72 dwarves from Caesar Miniatures are also around 15mm, and a 25mm minotaur would look human sized in 1/72. So while the humans may look a little small, there's plenty of potential for adaptability if you want to use them for 1/72 fantasy gaming.

You can see that the full set includes minis, dungeon tiles, and terrain, all cast in resin. The figures I'm a little ambivalent about; they seem a little static, like they were chess pieces or something (Carl says the style is reminiscent of the classic board game HeroQuest, so that may be why). Plus they are mostly for figure types I already have in 1/72. The terrain, on the other hand, is excellent; a variety of great pieces, all seldom seen in 1/72.

12€ (about $13.50 plus shipping) gets you the figures and terrain shown above, plus some duplicates. To get the tiles, case, and stretch goals, you need the 36€ level (about $40). That may wind up being a really good deal, depending on what future stretch goals are like.

The project comes out of Spain, for what it's worth. This is the designer's first Kickstarter, but he's already met his modest funding goal, and he already has prototype models of everything instead of 3D concept art, both of which are good signs. There's a week left of fundraising, so there's still plenty of time to jump in!
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Miscellania

September 18, 2015, 7:48 pm
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Pic cred to Sam.
To pass the time until I finish painting those darn demon minis, I thought I'd share some miscellaneous items. Please read to the end, as I've been toying with some new blogging ideas I want to gage interest in.

First, a reminder to please check out my sales page. Current items for sale include lots of D&D brand minis, mostly unpainted from the Temple of Elemental Evil board game, but a few prepaints as well. There are also still a few Reaper Bones available, plus some 1/72 figure sprues and a few other items.

Plastic Soldier Review has a very helpful new post about 1/72 figures in board games. Lots of interesting finds. "Risk 2210" is an interesting find for those looking for sci-fi figures in 1/72. Also, I didn't realize that "Age of Mythology" publisher Eagle Games'"Defenders of the Realm" was 1/72; I just sort of assumed it was 28mm. This pick seems to confirm it, though.

The red and the small dark gray figures are Defenders figures. The larger ones are from Talisman, I believe. See here for more.
Speaking of board games and scale comparisons, I'd been meaning to share this tidbit about BattleLore and 1/72 compatibility since the new edition of the game came out.

The third guy from the left is a Caesar Miniatures 1/72 adventurer. To the left of him is a 1st edition BattleLore figure; to the right are two 2nd edition figures. One way or another they close but not quite 1/72, still probably quite adaptable. See here for more.
[Update: I knew I forgot about something. So I stumbled upon this blog post from last year about GAMA, a game publishers trade show, and found this image.


Look familiar? I asked the folks at Twilight Creations about it, and they said they hoped to have these bags on their webstore soon, and in distribution by the end of the year. Something to keep an eye on, especially since the Bump in the Night board game is out of print and a bit hard to find.]

Finally, an idea that I've had for blogging. I know that many of you readers aren't necessarily gamers, but I used to mess around with rules and hacks for roleplaying games. I've been thinking about some of those rules lately and would kind of like to share them, but I don't know if there would be any interest, hence the poll below. d20-ish OGL fantasy, to give an idea. If enough of you answer honestly, it would give me an idea of whether or how to proceed, so I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

(The poll should be embedded above, but if not, it should be found here.)
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Struggling With My Demons

September 26, 2015, 2:38 pm
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See the end of this post for more about my reader poll. Also, check out my sales page, please!


I finally got the demons done, about a month later than forecasted. It's not that they were especially hard to paint, though it did take me a while to settle on a color plan (short version: red). It's just that Real Life, dread foe to all hobbyists, reared its head. No one big thing, but lots of little things.


Again, these are mostly Caesar knights with 15mm demon heads from CP models. Tails are dramatically bent florist wire. The middle guy above has a goblin head, also from Caesar Miniatures.


Another set. I think the metal armor looks good for "demon legionnaires." The red fabric/quilted stuff looks fine, though I'm not sure how diabolical it looks.


The two big guys above are Twilight Miniatures demons, with one head swap and another head reposition. The female demon is a Caesar elf with bat wings taken from a Safari Ltd. "good luck mini."


Comparison with Sven. There are a lot of different materials used in this project: plastic bods, metal heads, wire tails, rubber wings. I wasn't sure how well paint and primer would take to all these, but they seem pretty cohesive. I'm particularly impressed with how well the CP heads work with 1/72 models, despite being made for smaller scale minis.


Uncompleted is this big guy, a World of Warcraft board game piece with a pitchfork from a LotR Mines of Moria troll. The trick is the red detail, which I somehow thought could be painted in its own color. The fact that it's raised makes it a little easier than you might think, and I know any blackwash I use can hide some of the sloppiness. Still kind of a big job, so he'll have to wait a bit longer.

So I'm going to run my poll a little longer. Thanks to respondents so far. The majority seem interested in the idea of RPG rules related posts, but there is a substantial minority that is uninterested. This suggests maybe starting a new blog, except most of the "yes" votes want to see them on this blog. So maybe I'll start a new blog but be sure to mention new posts in this space.

Anyway, the poll is below again. Please answer if you're a regular reader and haven't done so yet. Also, sales page!

(The poll should be embedded above, but if not, it should be found here.)

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Dollar Tree Halloween scenery for fantasy gaming

October 21, 2015, 2:58 pm
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Tis the season! To raid dollar stores for cheap horror-themed bits for gaming! I picked up some resin bits at Dollar Tree several weeks ago, including some figures. The figures are way too large for 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog, but at $1 for a set of three figures, I decided they were worth getting to experiment with.



As you can see, the painting is awful, but the poses and detail aren't terrible, so I think they hold some promise for repainting. I have them in groups of three, as per the 3-pack they came in; that is, each group was purchased as a single set. In the northwest, some mummies and a gargoyle. Northeast, a creepy tramp, witch, and werewolf. Southwest, two mad scientists and their assistant. And in the southeast, a Frankenstein-esque monster, some sort of goblin-person, and another creepy tramp or possibly a scarecrow. Again, most of these are too tall compared to Sven the 1/72 comparison viking (that gargoyle isn't bad, though), but they seem like they'd be great for more conventional 32mm figures. (Note that Sven is exactly 1" tall from foot to crown.)


Here are some scenery items, $1 each at Dollar Tree. The gazebo and gate are from last year, but they are selling basically the same pieces this year. I think they are a little too tall for Sven, though I can't imagine anyone broader than Sven fitting through that narrow gazebo doorway. The mausoleum on the right is more like it, if I can think of something to do with that spider on top.

Chris Palmer recently painted up some of the scenery items Dollar Tree sold last year, and I think they look pretty nice. Repainting can do a lot to reclaim the value of these pieces. When I bought these a few weeks ago, the folks at the store said they were already selling fast, so unfortunately I don't know if they are still in stock. If they are, get them while you can, or wait until next year!
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Introducing Heartbreaker! RPG-design sub-blogging here at CFM!

November 16, 2015, 2:29 pm
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A while ago I mentioned/threatened my interest in blogging about my purely amateur interest in role-playing game design here at Cheap Fantasy Minis, which I am calling "Heartbreaker" for reasons explained below. When I asked you guys, those who responded mostly said they'd be interested, largely preferring that I keep all my blogging here at this familiar blog. Still, there were plenty of responders who admitted to being utterly uninterested in such blogging, so being the solicitous fellow I am, I had to come up with a way to please all camps.

So my solution is to start with a brief item pertinent to cheap fantasy minis, then continue below the fold with the game design stuff. It could be news, or a cool blog post or forum item, or some other such thing. So let's start with the news:


I had thought that Caesar's elf set was more or less defunct, but I'm seeing clear signs of resurrection. Caesar's new store lists them as in stock. So does Taiwanese seller Always Model, which seems to have a close relationship with their fellow patriates at Caesar Miniatures. Other retailers list the set as "in stock soon." Interestingly, the Caesar dwarves are now the set that seems to be harder to find. Still, it's good to see that Caesar is still interested in the older sets of their fantasy line.

Now onto the RPG-design stuff:

Shall we do the obligatory "what is an RPG" section? Very well, but I'll make it quick. A role-playing game, as you might guess, is a special sort of game where you play an imaginary role in an imagined world. In many such games, most players play a character—fittingly called a player-character or PC—with various game-related skills and abilities represented by numbered scores. These skills are tested at various times by random die rolls, which are modified by the character's score in the particular skill. When these skills are tested is usually the providence of one particular player, often called the Game Master or GM. It is the GM's job to tell the story and provide scenarios in which the player-characters can be tested, with the PCs having some liberty to change the story based on the actions they choose to undertake. A critical aspect of RPGs is that they are adversarial but not competitive. While these games pit the GM and PCs against each other, the goal is not for one side to win, but for both sides to do what they can to tell interesting stories.

I indulge in this familiar exercise in part for curious readers who may not really understand RPGs, but also so that experienced role-players have an idea of where I'm coming from. For example, you may notice that my description seems a tad focused on mechanics. What about all the great storytelling aspects of RPGs, the level of personal detail players put into character creation, or that GMs put into the worlds they design? Isn't that what people typically remember and love about RPGs, and not how many points they put into their fight-with-swords score?

It is! But I'm not sure what I as an armchair-RPG-designer ought to do about that. I'll put it this way: there are a number of newer games that are designed to tell a specific story. The premise seems to be that since story and not mechanics are what people remember, we should start from story and go from there. I have no problem with this, which can create some very interesting and even compelling play experiences. But by definition, if you take this approach, you create a system that can only tell one kind of story. It's the whole point of this kind of design philosophy. I would rather create a system that doesn't presume to dictate the type of story being told, leaving that decision up to the players.

Ah, you say, but doesn't the system necessarily dictate the sorts of stories told? If your system has a bunch of combat options and little else, doesn't that make it poorly suited for a game of diplomatic intrigue? Doesn't it risk becoming either ungainly or simplistic if it tries to do everything equally well. Perhaps. It calls to mind something else I think about when considering RPG design: the difference between a robust system and a complex one.

Robust in this case means a system that can cover a lot of actions. If your PCs can do lots of different things in interesting ways, or if your GM can tell lots of different stories, that system is robust. Complex just means having lots of different rules. The opposite of robust is simple, while the opposite of complex is easy. The story-first games I mentioned above are often both simple, in that what you can do is circumscribed, and easy, in that they are therefore relatively easy to learn. And lots of games that aim for being robust also wind up being complex for what I suppose are obvious reasons.

But a robust system needn't be complex! Or at least, they needn't be as complex as they often are. Let's pick on the ur-RPG as an example of what I mean, a little phenomenon called Dungeons & Dragons. I imagine nearly everyone has heard of the fantasy adventure game D&D, even people who have never heard of role-playing games. Now, I mentioned that in RPGs, characters rely on scores in particular skills to progress in the game world. Now that we are thinking in terms of robustness versus complexity, we might imagine that these skills work in the same general way no matter the sort of skill. But this isn't always so. In most versions of D&D, combat skills work one way, using magic works another way, using psionics—basically just another sort of magic—works yet another way, and using other sorts of skills works a fourth way still. None of these skill uses works in anything like a compatible way. They may as well be different systems, they are so unalike.

Why did the designers do this? Because they weren't thinking of complexity and robustness as different things. They thought that because the system needed to do different things, they needed different sorts of rules to cover them. But perhaps the same sorts of rules can cover all these things, or at least similar enough rules that you don't make understanding all the rules harder than it has to be. With a little thought, you can have a robust system without being unduly complex.

Simple vs. robust, that's a design choice. Ease vs. complexity really isn't. No matter how simple or robust your design goals, complexity must be reduced.

A final word about why I'm calling this project Heartbreaker. RPG cogitator Ron Edwards has an old essay on the subject of D&D imitators and what he perceives as the many opportunities such games missed. The title? Fantasy Heartbreakers. Since despite my criticism above I am likewise interested in making a D&D imitator, I take the name for the similar mistakes I wish to avoid, but will probably make anyway!
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Giganticisms (and Bugbear-icisms)

December 4, 2015, 3:15 pm
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Time for a new project, yes? Actually this is one I started a while ago but am just getting around to featuring. You may remember these nifty Tim Mee cavemen. They make great 1/72 hill giants, no modification necessary. But I just couldn't leave well enough alone.


The red guys are the cavemen. The gray heads are bits from one of the Warhammer ogre sets, acquired via Hoard o Bits. The green bod is a World of Warcraft board game ogre. The white is a Reaper Bones ettin. The Warhammer heads are great, but they have big gaps in back that I had to fill with glue and putty. They are arguably a little bit too large, but I think they look pretty good. Here's a shot of them primed.


I also have a few more bugbears I'm working on.


These are all D&D boardgame pieces with some mods. The left is a Temple of Elemental Evil bugbear with a Warhammer bit for a shield. The middle is a ToEE hobgoblin with a headswap. The right is a Wrath of Ashardalon orc with arms from the same bugbear that gave the hobgoblin its new bugbear head. This last figure has a close cousin that I already painted; the armswaps are so it doesn't look entirely like a clone.

Here they are primed, along with another old D&D bugbear I just got for pretty cheap.


Painting? Who knows?! It's the holidays, which are of course busy, but maybe not as busy as they could be this year. Stay tuned!
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Heartbreaker: rethinking the critical hit (plus new Alliance minis!)

December 11, 2015, 3:58 pm
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Time for more of Heartbreaker, my sub-blog about my purely amateur interest in d20 fantasy design. Again, I'll start with a quick news blast for the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturists here who don't care about RPGs, then I'll continue with the meat below the fold.

Via VK.com's 1/72 group, here are some intriguing pics from Alliance, one of the two big 1/72 fantasy hobby miniature lines out there.

     

The description the Alliance guys give for these is interesting. When they were making their Amazons sets, they were thinking of whom the Amazons might fight and came up with the figures on the left. They describe them as Conan-esque (the Russian word for barbarian transliterates as "varvar," by the way), though they look a little like Chaos warriors to me. The figure on the right looks more like how I wished Alliances Amazons looked—less cheesecake, more Joan of Arc. Not many details on when or how these might show up, but they are very interesting.

Now to the RPG stuff. Just click the "Read More" link below the "You Might Also Like" stuff.

My preliminary Heartbreaker post was pretty squishy—big on theory, light on substance. Now begins some actual substance. Let's begin with the critical hit. d20 players are very familiar with how these work, and even non-gamers may have heard the term "natural 20.""Natural 20" means when you roll your twenty-sided die (or "d20"), and a "20" shows on the die (instead of the die roll + modifiers equalling 20). This usually means that you automatically succeed at whatever you were testing, no matter what the actual result. Likewise, rolling a "natural 1" often means automatic failure, again no matter how good the roll might be otherwise. These results can be called "critical successes" and "critical failures." When attacking, a critical success might also result in increased damage, while a critical failure might mean you've dropped your weapon, accidentally stabbed an ally, or worse, depending on the caprice of your gamemaster.

You can see why these rules were put in place. No task is so impossible that success might never transpire through a stroke of luck. And no hero is so competent that he might not suffer the occasional setback. But it seems that a 5% chance of fluke success or failure is a bit much to ask. Even I might play the lottery if there was a 5% chance of winning, and I don't believe anyone would ever step on a plane if it had a 5% chance of crashing. Luckily, there's a way to capture this idea without such wildly swingy odds.

Remember that in d20 games, you roll to beat a certain score, called the Difficulty Class or DC, that is higher or lower depending on the difficulty of the task. Let's redefine "critical success" and "critical failure" around this concept. A critical success is a result that is more than twice the DC of the task at hand. A critical failure is less than half the DC. So I'm attacking a goblin with a defense DC ("AC", for you D&D veterans) of 10. If the result is higher than 10, I've succeeded, but higher than 20, and I've critically succeed and get double damage. Huzzah! But if the result is lower than 5, I've not only failed, but critically failed, and stab myself in the foot. Curses! You can see that a character with a really high attack score is going to get double damage against that goblin all the time, which is already pretty neat and obviates the need for "minion" rules and suchlike. But how would even a mean peon ever score a critical failure?

Let's add a rule that I've heard called the "exploding 20." This isn't my idea, but it goes like this: When you roll a natural 20, you roll the d20 again and add the result to your total. So your modifier is +8, let's say. You roll a natural 20, so your total so far is 20+8=28. You roll again because of the natural 20 and get, say, a 13. So your grand total is 20 (initial roll) +13 (second roll) +8 (your modifier)= 41. Fantastic!

Likewise, you can have an "exploding 1" where if you roll a natural 1, you roll the d20 again and subtract the result from your initial total. So in the case above, if instead you started with a natural 1, your grand total is 1 (initial roll) -13 (second roll) +8 (your modifier)= -4. Against our goblin with a defense DC of 10, that would meet our definition of a critical failure. Better go see a podiatrist.

You could, if you liked, allow for an infinite chain of exploding 20s, creating the theoretical possibility of infinitely high rolls. Let's call this a "chained explosion." You could do the same for exploding 1s, but I find that the most sensible approach—by which natural 20s explode after the initial natural 1—is kind of hard to explain and usually overkill, as 1 -20 +modifiers is usually enough to guarantee critical failure anyway.

Here's another wrinkle; D&D players will know that for certain weapons, you can get a critical hit even if you don't roll a natural 20. A rapier, for example, might do double damage on any natural roll between 18 and 20. Let's call this a threat range of 3. A magically "keened" rapier does double damage on a natural roll between 15 and 20; it has had its threat range increased to 6. If you roll in your threat range, you have rolled a threat.

For our new system, we should say that any natural roll in a threat range should explode. A threat range of 1 works just like our "exploding 20" above, triggering a reroll as described, but a check with a threat range of 3, like an attack with a rapier for example, would also trigger that reroll on an 18 or 19.

We should also consider the opposite concept. An error range of 1 works just like the "exploding 1" above, but an error range of 3, perhaps for an attack with a cursed or poorly-made weapon, would also trigger the reroll for a 2 or 3. If you roll in your error range, you have rolled an error.

Skip this paragraph if you get the concept and don't care about precise mathematical definitions. But for the sake of precision, let's define a threat range of x as any natural die result between [21 -x] and 20, and an error range of x as any natural result between 1 and [0 + x]. A roll within a threat range triggers a threat, a reroll with the result added to the total, while a roll within an error range triggers an error, a reroll with subtraction instead.

Here might be a good place to add that if you are going to use the "chained explosion" rule, the error or threat range of the second reroll is always just 1. That is, if the threat range is 3, and you roll a natural 19 and then a natural 18, the first roll explodes but the second doesn't. Also, if you roll a 1 on the reroll after a threat, you don't then trigger some sort of error within the threat check. That's just silly.

And here's one more quick idea to really expand our minds around the implications of this new way of thinking, which I got from the surprisingly good Swashbuckling Adventures book. You can increase the threat range of any check by up to five, but you also increase the error range by the same amount! So you can gamble to increase the odds of a success or even a critical success, but with the increased chance of critical failure.

So where does this leave us? We basically now have four possible result types for any check: success, critical success, failure, and critical failure. We have the related concepts of threat and error ranges, though it should be noted that you can have a critical success without rolling a threat or a critical failure without rolling an error (and you can roll a threat without getting a critical success!). This makes the simple d20 check a lot more interesting than simple success or failure. But what might these results actually mean in the game? We'll consider that next time!
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New Year's News

January 23, 2016, 4:02 pm
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Belated Happy New Year! Auld Lang Syne, etc. My new year's resolution is to paint those darn giants and bugbears, something I'm sure I can do before December (they say it's healthy to set obtainable goals).

I was going to do another Heartbreaker post, but I'll save it for later as I have a few news items to share. First is a note I got from Hannants' nifty watchlist feature, saying that Caesar Miniature's elves are back in stock. These were clearly the best 1/72 plastic elves on the market, much better than the weird, gangly specimens from sole competitor Alliance, but they were out of production for years and getting hard to find. What was once lost is found! They've also restocked Caesar's nifty undead set, and they still have their goblins, ratmen, lizardmen and zombies sets in stock, but their sets of dwarves, orcs, and adventurers are sadly missing and rather hard to find. That said, seeing how the elves were eventually restocked, we may eventually see those sets again. In any case it's good to see Caesar is still dedicated to their fantasy line.

Next is not exactly news, but I wanted to share a couple somewhat recent 1/72 releases that I thought were well-suited for fantasy gamers. The first are these Roman Senators from Strelets.

Pic from Plastic Soldier Review
Dudes in robes are always welcome. They could be wizards, NPC patrons or, for the "Julius Caesar Act III" figures, even assassins.

Next are these fellows from Red Box.

Pic from Plastic Soldier Review
"Russian War Monks," in infantry and artillery flavors. The linked reviews do a good job explaining why Russian Orthodox monks ever had to take up arms, but for our purposes, more dudes in robes! I see these guys perhaps as cultists, or maybe as some wizardly order. Maybe some of those muskets could be modded into magic staves!

Speaking of Red Box, my last item is a teaser pic from Red Box's Alliance line, posted on the 1/72 wall at VK.com.


Those Turkish cavalry figures are from an upcoming historical set. But hey look, trolls! Big trolls, big enough for you "normal" fantasy miniature fans reading this. I don't know any more about them, but I just like seeing that Alliance is still cranking out fantasy ideas for their line.

So there you are. Lots of cool stuff available, or soon to be so, in the world of 1" tall plastic fantasy critters. Hopefully I take time to do more painting soon as well. Happy 2016!

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Heartbreaker: Attack!

February 11, 2016, 3:05 pm
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It's another installment of Heartbreaker, my amateur RPG design sub-blog here at CFM. Remember, 1/72 fantasy news first, then under-qualified RPG-design musings below the fold.

Today's news is again from the 1/72 miniatures wall at VK.com. We've been following upcoming sets from Alliance, Red Box's fantasy line and one of two manufacturers of plastic 1/72 scale fantasy figures. Here's a short but dense blurb with some more news, run through Google Translate:

"The promise of fantasy sets - it Amazons, Barbarians, a la Conan, trolls (4 sets) and Balrogs and orc Catapult."

We also get a new shot of the aforementioned trolls:


Good stuff! We already knew about the new Amazon, barbarian, and troll sets, but the "Balrogs" and orc catapult are news to me. One imagines the Balrogs as larger demon figures, like from the Lord of the Rings movies that Alliance is clearly borrowing from, but I suppose they could also include smaller human-sized devils. The catapult will also be interesting. I'm looking forward to more pics!

Now the RPG-design stuff. Just click the "Read more" link below.

Last time at Heartbreaker, we talked about expanding the idea of critical hits so that they have a few more possibilities. This expanded notion means that any check can have four results: failure, success, critical failure, and critical success. It might be worth reviewing some definitions from last time.
  • You earn a threat if you roll within the threat range of a particular die check. Earning a threat means rerolling the d20 and adding the result to your check.
  • We can define a threat range of x as any natural die result between [21 -x] and 20. So a threat range of 1 means a natural die result of 20 earns a threat. A threat range of 3 means a natural result between 18 and 20 earns a threat.
  • You suffer an error if you roll within the error range of a particular threat. Suffering an error means rerolling the d20 and subtracting the result from your check. An error is the opposite of a threat. Threats are good; errors are bad!
  • We can define the error range of x as any natural result between 1 and [0 + x]. So an error range of 1 means a natural die result of 1 suffers a error. An error range of 3 means a natural result between 1 and 3 suffers an error.
  • Any check has a difficulty class, or DC. A success means a total result (d20 + modifiers) that exceeds the DC. A critical success is more than twice the DC. Note that earning a threat makes a critical success more likely, but you can get a critical success without earning a threat, or earn a threat without getting a critical success.
  • A failure means a total result that does not exceed the DC. A critical failure is half or less of the DC. Again, suffering an error makes getting a critical failure more likely, but the two outcomes are not dependent.
If none of this makes any sense, do reread the last installment!

If it does make sense, you may still want to know how these concepts might apply in a game. Let's apply them to one of the basic encounters of any d20 game; combat. Not every RPG features combat, but I feel pretty sure that combat is central to any d20 system. The d20 concept evolved from classic Dungeons and Dragons, and D&D evolved from wargaming, so combat-free games aren't the best fit for a d20 system.

The basic ideas of d20 combat are probably pretty familiar even to those who've never played D&D. The attacker, lets say a player-character, has an attack score and an amount of damage for a particular attack, usually a die roll of some type. The defender, let's say a GM-controlled monster, has a defense score (often "Armor Class" or AC) plus a number of hit points. The attacker rolls to beat the defender's AC. If he does, he rolls to see how much damage he does, and the defender subtracts the result from his current hit point total. If the defender runs out of hit points, it dies or is disabled.

This system is pretty simple, but it wants for realism. One imagines high-level characters and creatures with a lot of hit points trading direct blows with mortal weapons and not being at all affected, until one arbitrarily collapses in demise. One wishes for alternatives, and some do exist. The most promising alternative for our purposes is the Toughness Save, an idea I got from Green Ronin's True20 system.

I've been trying to speak in generalities in these installments for the sake of those unfamiliar with d20 games, but here I'm going to have to introduce some specifics, namely the idea of Saves. Most d20 games have three saves; Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Fortitude deals with resisting physical effects and Reflex the ability to dodge and avoid such effects (we'll talk about Will saves later). Fortitude seems to describe roughly the same thing as hit points, and Reflex the same thing as Armor Class (minus the armor). So let's scrap hit points and AC and use Fortitude and Reflex instead. The idea is that when attacking, the player rolls two dice, one for actually making the attack and one to see how much damage it does. And when defending, the player also rolls two dice, one for Reflex to see if he avoids the attack, and one for Fortitude to see how much he resists damage.

That Fortitude save against damage is basically the Toughness Save from True20. True20 features a rather complex damage track that tells you what failing these saves means at various times, but we can actually simplify things a bit now that we have the idea of four flavors of success and failure in mind. I'm going to call this Fortitude save a Damage Save. Here are the possible results of that Damage Save:

  • Critical Success: The attack deals no damage.
  • Success: You gain a hit.
  • Failure: You gain a wound.
  • Critical Failure: You are dying.

Simple right? Except gah, what's this wound and hit business? More terms to learn? Don't worry; they're pretty simple. A hit means that you increase the error range of future Damage Saves by one; the more hits you suffer, the higher the error range until they can be removed. Hits represent scrapes, glancing blows, and other lucky breaks that don't slow you down but can add up to trouble. A wound means that you increase the penalty for all future dice checks by 1. Wounds are more serious injuries that are harder to shake. An easy way to measure hits and wounds is by handing players white or red poker chips (cheap dollar store plastic ones are fine). When the damage is healed, they just hand the chips back.

(Skip this paragraph if you don't care about potential ways to vary this idea. But we could make combat grittier by increasing the penalty to 2, or make it more heroic by making the penalty only apply to Damage Saves and not to all checks. I like the idea of damage having actual effects on one's character, but some players don't like the "death spiral" similar systems feature. But it's optional either way.)

So for succeeding and failing Damage Saves, we've got two different types of damage, both of which impact future Damage Saves in various ways. I get that, you are saying to yourself (hopefully!). I also see how hits and wounds both make critical failure and "dying" more likely, whatever that means. And I see how the error range of these Damage Saves increases based on the number of hits you've suffered. But what's with critical successes equaling no damage at all? And why haven't we talked about threat ranges at all?

Both these questions have the same answer: The threat range of your Damage Save is determined by the armor you are wearing.

As a designer, one thing I'll have to keep clear in my mind is the difference between increasing a bonus (+1 to your check!) and increasing the threat range of a particular check, and why I might pick one over the other for a particular effect. I think that increasing the threat range generally means taking advantage of equipment or some other resource. That's certainly the case with armor. You can almost picture it; if rolling a twenty-sided die is like getting a weapon swung at you, then hitting that threat range range is like your opponent hitting the spot where your armor is doing the most good, like you're some sort of dart board and the dart-thrower just hit a "1." Light armor might have a threat range of 2 or 3, while strong armor could go as high as 10, though it would have other drawbacks.

Now we see what the results of a Damage Save really mean in the game.

  • Critical Success: Your armor absorbs the attack, or you otherwise roll with the blow. No effect.
  • Success: The blow glances off you, leaving you shaken but for the moment unaffected. You gain a hit.
  • Failure: The blow connects, dealing a significant injury. You gain a wound.
  • Critical Failure: Your accumulated injuries have caught up to you, or you have suffered a particularly grievous blow. You are dying.

It's worth pointing out that if you are dealing damage instead of receiving it, the results of that Damage Check are basically the opposite of a Damage Save. Just switch "success" and "failure" above, and replace "you(r)" with "your opponent('s)."

There are other issues that I haven't addressed here, like what attacking and defending are like, and just what dying means. Next time!

(By the way, if you are reading and enjoying these Heartbreaker posts, do let me know! I'd like to hear what people think of these, or if I'm just lecturing at myself.)

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My Giant Ego

March 7, 2016, 4:24 pm
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Hello completed-project-town. It's been too long!


Hill giants, or possibly ogres. I was never too sure of the difference. They are mostly Tim Mee cavemen, mostly with headswaps from some Warhammer ogres. Conversions were described previously.


Tim Mee bods, Warhammer heads. Because the heads had some large gaps in the back, I had to do some sculpting, which I think turned out well. The back of the rock hurler's noggin in particular looks pretty good, I think.


These two are a little different from their Brobdingnagian brothers above. The one on the left is an unmodded Tim Mee caveman, the best sculpt in the set, I think. On the right is a World of Warcraft boardgame ogre with a Warhammer head. The berserker-rage head-uptilt was sort of an accident, but I think it works.


The ettin, or two-headed giant, is a Reaper Bones sculpt. More complex than his monocephalic comrades, but a lot of fun to paint. I don't know why it's carrying fish on its belt.

Comparison with Sven.

I'm fairly pleased with these. One regret is that my usual black magic-wash looks a little sloppy here. If I used a brown wash they might look a little neater. Another issue is the figures, and here we see the difference between toy-quality and hobby-quality minis. The Tim Mee bods are great figures, but many lack a lot of deep detail. The point of the magic wash is to bring out those details, so with such details absent, the wash often just sort of flowed and pooled. I think the Warhammer heads and the Reaper ettin look a lot better since they are just better models, even if they are plastic. Still, that's the tradeoff between price and quality, and speaking as the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist I have no regrets!

Unusually, I don't have a new project cued up. I have lots of options but no clear ideas. So I'll let you guys decide!



A poll should appear above; if not you can find it here. Let me know what you think!
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Bugbearable puns

April 6, 2016, 2:29 pm
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I know these puns bug you, but just bear with me.


Here is a small troupe of bugbears. These are various D&D minis and game pieces, modified in various ways. The one mod not mentioned in the linked post is the second-from-left, which was carrying a bizarre hafted weapon that terminated in a fist which itself was holding a second dagger. Maybe those who know their D&D lore could explain it, but I just don't know. At the last minute I thought it was too goofy and hacked and repinned the blade so it looks a little more normal.

Comparison time. The bugbears are a little smaller than what's shown, since they stick out from the background a bit. My 3.5e Monster Manual says bugbears are supposed to be 7 feet tall. That comes out to more like 30mm. These blokes are more like 8 feet tall or taller, but I think that's fine. If they aren't obviously bigger, they're otherwise just another flavor of orc.

Here's a final shot, including the other two D&D bugbears I've painted so far.

"Oh sorry, wrong room number."
I'm hoping the spate of sluggish posting here has ebbed for now. I've got one other surprise project completed, and I may soon have another to show off. Plus more Heartbreaker RPG stuff, and the results of that poll to contend with. Thanks for reading!
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Big Tree and the Big D

April 16, 2016, 1:39 pm
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See, I told you I'd pick up the blogging pace. Two posts in one month; it's an Easter-liturgical-season miracle! I've a couple new minis to share, plus some fellow mini bloggers I'd like to spotlight at the end. Read this entire post, I say!

Let's start with this bloke:


It's a Reaper Bones "Spirit of the Forest." The poor fellow remained untouched except as a repository for unused brown paint for too long; I actually think this is less dignified that mouldering in the "lead mountain of shame" (or in my case, the "plastic tor of chagrin"). He deserves much more respect than that.


A closeup of some details. A lot of the really great paintjobs of this figure feature charming red toadstools, but I thought that sort of thing looked a little too cute. I went with more natural earth tones and greens for a more naturalistic look, at least as naturalistic as a pile of animate vegetation can be.


From the back. Lots of details adorn this figure, and I'd have gone mad trying to distinguish all of them. I focused on fungi, leaves, and vines, and let drybrushing do the rest.


Comparison with Sven, who remember is one inch tall. Reaper's larger minis always seem like they are looking down on my 1/72 figures, which I like a lot. A subtle effect is that the treeman's head and fists are a lighter shade of brown than the rest of him; it's the same color that you see on the vine around his right foot. I think it helps those features pop a bit without looking like they were deliberately highlighted.

Now the next surprise project. Remember this fellow?


He's ready.


It's a big demon from the World of Warcraft boardgame, with a trident borrowed from a Mines of Moria troll. What was holding me back was all the detailing on his armor. "Sure," I thought to myself, "how hard can it be to paint the raised areas a different color?" Ugh. After the initial rough highlighting months ago, it probably took me two hours of futzing with red paint, then gray to cover mistakes, then red to cover the mistakes I made trying to cover the mistakes I made before, in a maddening circle of persnicketiness (By the way, Autocorrect thinks "persnicketiness" is a totally legit word, but has reservations about "boardgame."). Eventually I had to choose between settling and going insane; I think I made the right choice.


Here's a closeup show the extent of the detail work. It also shows how my "magic" blackwash, while good enough for the tabletop, isn't going to win me any prizes. I've done something I thought I'd never do, which is buy some actual quality hobby paint, in this case a dropper of flat black from Vallejo. I'm hoping it makes my washes a little smoother and less splotchy.

Here's the comparison shot with Sven.

Worst prom photo ever.
And here he is with the treeman, for some reason.

Caption contest.
I mentioned blog sharing, which I wanted to spotlight as I've recently updated my blogroll. Most of those guys don't need me to promote them,  but a few stand out as special friends here at Cheap Fantasy Minis. First is Sceavus' 1/72 blog. Sceavus contacted me a few weeks ago to share some very cool fantasy conversions he's done, and I thought he should blog about them. Do check them out! Here's an example:


Next is Automato's Stroke of Meh blog. He's got some great D&D boardgame minis painted up, among other projects. Despite his self-deprecation, he's a great painter; much better than I!


Finally, here's Umpapa's blog. Umpapa does more modern/scifi stuff and less fantasy than I, but we're both interested in finding non-historical options for 1/72-20mm scale. Plus he's a pretty good modeler too!


These are folks who I think deserve some special attention, but everyone in my blogroll is great, and folks like Sam, Paul, and Kris have been really supportive. Really, everyone who has ever commented here or at one of my posts elsewhere, or who's bought something from me, or sent an email, or linked here: it's great to know that my ideas are interesting to a few people! You all really do make hobby blogging worthwhile. More stuff coming soon, I hope!
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Heartbreaker Next, plus blog blogging

April 29, 2016, 7:33 pm
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I've gotten into D&D 5th Edition lately, aka "D&D Next," and since I find it hard to encounter a new system without messing with it, I've been doing a lot of homebrewing. So today's Heartbreaker breaks the thread of recent installments, as I'll instead show off some of what I've been doing.

But first! Those of you with blogs know of the carbuncular irritation that is referral spam. I thought it had largely subsided here at my humble micro-acre of the web, but like Hydra, or fever blisters, it always seems to come back. It appears that the only way I can filter it out is installing Google Analytics. I kind of hate to do this, since I believe it means installing cookies on visitors' computers. Rest assured if I do go down this path, I'm not trying to spy on you or steal your data. I'm just trying to make blogging a little less annoying for myself, and possibly do my part to put a stop to these guys. If you have concerns, do let me know.

Also! I may spin the Heartbreaker stuff off to a different blog in the near future. I know I said I'd keep everything in house, but if I'm going to do more homebrew stuff, I'd kind of like for it to have its own space on the web. I'll link to new Heartbreaker posts at this space if I start a new blog.

For now, new Heartbreaker stuff below the fold. But first, how about some news? A few upcoming sets have caught my attention. New producer "Linear-A," which seems to be the crew from "Linear-B" breaking off their relationship with Strelets, have an upcoming set, "Folk of Judea," with lots of great looking civilian figures. They've also announced a set of "Silk Road" figures.


Strelets has another neat civilian set in the pipeline, "Norman Army Camp." Lots of interesting poses to look forward to.

Brief RPG design stuff below the fold!


This will probably only make sense to those of you familiar with D&D 5th edition, or at least D&D in general. I've been futzing with various class redesigns and have been sharing them at ENWorld. I've got two projects in the wild so far. "The Quarry Ranger," one of the endless parade of homebrew ranger class hacks homebrewers have emitted. And "The Hierophant," a cleric with the mechanics of the warlock class. Maybe I'll do some design diary type stuff here, but for now, please follow the links if they might be of interest, and feel free to leave a comment at ENWorld, or if not, here. I think you should be able to view the files without an ENWorld account, but if not, let me know and I can host them on GoogleDrive. Thanks!
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Using "Magic Water"

May 11, 2016, 4:13 pm
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Hey all, before we begin, I thought I'd officially announce something a few of you have already noticed: I've spun off Heartbreaker to its own blog. Now I've got a place all on its own to share my quite unqualified thoughts on RPG design and homebrewing. I've already got a firecracker of a screed posted by way of introduction, followed soon by some hopefully more measured thoughts. I've got a link on the sidebar, so you can always see when there are new posts just by visiting this page. Or feel free to follow the new blog!

Today's topic: water. As though two hobbies weren't enough, my dad and I have started to build a model railroad. Ostensibly it's for my son, but let's not fool ourselves: this is a hobby at least as much for the adults as for the kid. We actually were model railroaders when I was growing up, and in fact my love of figure painting comes from painting HO scale Preiser people for our layouts. Anyway, this time we're trying a few things we've never tried before, including modeling water. Prudently I decided to make a little diorama to give making water a go, and it occurred to me that miniaturists and wargame terrain makers who read this blog might get something out of my experiment.

The key product is Magic Water, a two-part resin specifically designed to model water. I bought my package at a local hobby shop, and you can also order direct from the manufacturer. It's $35 for the regular size (a smaller size is available for miniaturists), and the guy who makes it is the only distributor, so you aren't going to find a lot of discounts. But it won't shrink or yellow, dries clear, and doesn't eat styrofoam, which makes it superior to similar two-part resin products.

So here's how it went:


If you're wondering about the white ridge in the middle, that's my bad attempt at modeling rapids; more on that later. You can see that the rest does indeed dry clear and looks very wet and watery.

I made a 1 foot square base out of two layers of extruded styrofoam. I used a box cutter and a dull breadknife to cut the foam and shape the terrain before gluing the two layers together. I used joint compound to seal everything; this was a misadventure, as the compound had gone bad, something that I didn't realize could happen. So you know, if joint compound smells like rotten eggs, don't use it, and throw it out right away! In addition to being gross and perhaps dangerously unhygienic, this wasn't even entirely necessary, but at the time I didn't realize Magic Water wouldn't eat foam. It did serve the purpose of sealing the gap between layers, something that a bead of clear caulk would also accomplish. This is necessary because Magic Water is very devious about finding any gap or cranny to flow into while it cures.


This photo show how profound the illusion of depth can be with this product, as the layer of Magic Water is only a few millimeters thick. I painted the shore and part of the riverbed brown and used black for the rest, blending together the two colors along the outer edge. This does a good job of simulating shallow water near the banks and deeper water in the middle of the river.

I mixed the two parts together in a disposable cup as per instructions. Mixing is pretty tedious; the instructions say to mix three times, five minutes at a time. I dammed the edges of the river with green painters tape (which turned out to be wholly inadequate; next time I'm using perforated metal plates and clear caulk. Be sure to do your pour over some kind of drop cloth in case of leaks!). I then poured along the the middle. Magic Water is self-leveling, so you don't need to do anything to spread it around; in fact you should ensure that your pour surface is completely level so it doesn't pool. You may see some bubbles; I believe the instructions say these will pop on their own, but you can also pop them by blowing on them gently with a straw while the resin is still liquid.

The instructions say the resin will cure completely in 24 hours at 70˚ F. My setup was in a basement near a door during a spate of somewhat chilly weather, so it took more than twice that time. Do wait at least 24 hours before seeing if it cured, and use a toothpick or other fine instrument to test it. Fully cured Magic Water is totally hard and not at all sticky, and you don't want to handle it before it cures lest you leave fingerprints.


Magic Water resembles clear, still water when it cures. I experimented with stippling some clear acrylic gel to create some ripples. The effect isn't too bad for a first try but could be more natural. Apparently you can create some larger wave effects with these resin products by blowing with a straw around 8 hours into the cure time, as shown in this helpful video. I also tried modeling larger rapid waves with the acrylic gel, but unlike the ripples it never dried clear. I probably should have used smaller layers instead of one big glob of the stuff.


Messing with the acrylic gel left some unsightly brushmarks on the Magic Water. Fortunately I was able to erase them with a layer of Future Shine, as this admittedly obscure photo hopefully shows. You can see those brushmarks on the right; on the left they have been removed. The Future Shine does leave a sort of border, so you may have to cover a lot of water surface for a realistic effect.

Mini figure posts coming soon, as well as more RPG stuff at the new blog. Do stay tuned to both!
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Guards and Bandits and Bondic

August 13, 2016, 4:40 pm
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No I'm not dead, real life vs. hobby time, etc. Let's move on:

I finally got a chance to take some pics of my next project, these bandits and guards.


The bandits are a mix of Hat's reissued Airfix "Robin Hood" figures and Zvezda's medieval peasant levy. The guards are mostly Caesar medieval soldiers, with a couple Accurate knights (acquired in a trade with Mike) thrown in. Most are out of the box, but I indulged in a few mods.


Fantasy guards are often depicted with polearms and crossbows for some reason, so I tried to select the Caesar figures that were so armed. This only left a few available poses. The answer: headswaps, plus some knifework to remove scabbards and the like for variety.

The bandits didn't need as many mods, but some of them that would otherwise have been wielding scythes and similar peasant weapons got armswaps (a scythe-wielding bandit seemed very strange!). Here you can see my new fascination in use. Normally when doing mods like this, I'd use wood glue to fill any gaps. But lately I've been experimenting with a newish product called Bondic, and I'm pretty happy with it.
Bondic is a non-adhesive bonding agent that's sort of magical. It's a solution with various plastic elements as the solutes. These plastics tend to form a solid, except the solution prevents them from doing so almost indefinitely. Zap the liquid with a UV light (the orange device in the pic above) after applying it with the pen-like tip, though, and the solvent evaporates. [edit: I didn't have this exactly right. See my comment below] The result is a solid mass of plastic in about four seconds where there once was a liquid. Magic!

I've found all sorts of household applications for the stuff, but the relevant use is for filling gaps in modded figures.



I also made up this bard-type figure, using an Imex pioneer figure for the torso (Sean did something similar, but I can't find the post right now).


You can perhaps see that the gaps around the arms of the gray Zvezda figures have some clear plastic around them. The base of the tan Hat fig also has some to fill the visible part of the hole in the washer I used as a base. That's the cured Bondic in use. The big advantage Bondic has over glue for this sort of thing is ease of control: you can add as little as you need, it tends to flow into crevices, and you can always build up applications if you need more. It's also a lot more durable than glue, as it's solid plastic. Just remember that it can't be used to glue things together like adhesive, but for filling visible gaps it's hard to beat.

I also took some shots after priming, just so you can see how it looks painted. No gaps!



I'm still in the middle of a big freelance job, but hopefully I'll have more time to work on figures soon. Thanks for checking in!
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New Alliance minis!

September 15, 2016, 4:22 pm
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We've been awaiting these sets for a while, but Redbox just recently put up previews of many of their new sets. Check out the new "Modern Amazons" and "Cimmerians."


The "Modern" part seems to simply mean the opposite of "Ancient" or "Hellenistic," as these have a more generic look that Alliance's previous Amazons. I had half a notion that "Modern" might mean something like "appealing to more modern, edified ideas about women in fantasy;" I think it's safe to say that's not the direction Red Box took the line. These are still pretty heavy on the cheesy, chainmail bikini side of things.

But let's look at the figures:


It's always hard to tell with the low-contrast red that Alliance uses for their preview shots, but the figures are certainly consistent with the battle-stripper look of the box art. They don't seem too egregious, though, and may be adaptable for more sanely dressed female fighters. And I can see that this previewed, super-sensible figure is in the middle of the bottom row of the first set, so maybe they won't be so bad. But I'm not really thinking too much about that now, because holy smoke, unicorns! That's right, the cool Amazon mounts that were previewed ages ago have materialized, and they're more bizarre and wonderful than I expected. Stags! Felines! A gorram dinosaur, for goodness sakes! Here's hoping Redbox puts out an "Amazon mounts" or "Exotic mounts" set, similar to their wargs set. It could see a lot of use for all kinds of modeling beyond fantasy mounts.

Let's move on to the "Cimmerians," Howard-inspired barbarians with a definite Chaos look to them:


The box are features a generous gamut of barbarian archetypes, from bare-chested Conans to horsey steppelords to the bundled-up Viking type in the middle. The figures are similarly variegated.


Two foot sets, unlike just one for the Amazons, presumably because they've already released an Amazon foot set. Again, a mix of shirts and skins here: I actually like this, since more variety means more use from a single set, but they'd certainly make a ragtag unit! Also, lots of horns, spikes, and oversized weapons, perfect for fantasy Chaos warriors. Note the shaman-guy in the bottom left of Set 2.

Cavalry:


Normal mounts this time, though unsaddled. Again, pointy bits and crazy arms galore.

So far I like these. The Cimmerians could see a lot of uses in fantasy gaming. The Amazons disappointingly seem once again to be a little heavy on the cheesecake, but the crazy mounts make up for it. I haven't seen them available on Hannants yet, but I look forward to it!
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