Terrain – Walls

Last year I kept some corrugated cardboard packaging with the idea of using it to make walls. This month I got them out to start give that a go. I’ve got a one-shot adventure with an attack on a small fortification, and decided rather than just have a flat battle map, it would be fun to actually have 3D walls.

The base for all of these are fairly solid lengths of corrugated card, 2cm thick. The smallest are 3.5cm high, with most being 40cm long. The larger pieces are range up to double that height.

I started with three of the larger pieces, cutting some damage into two, then using PVC to glue paper along three of the ‘exposed’ sides. Once dry these got a quick spray of black then white paint. I’ve found that this gives a nice blue-gray colour. I then filled gaps with bits of paper and PVC, or moulding paste. Sand and small broken shell pieces (I have small stones but didn’t want extra weight on the top) were glued into the damaged sections and then more black and grey paint over that.

I cut two of the long pieces into 4, 5 and 6″ lengths (approx 10, 13 and 15cm). Nearly all my RPG’s use inches, so its easier measuring stuff for tabletop that way. This time I filled gaps after gluing the edges, and before spraying. Once dry I went over ALL the walls with a grey wash to darken or lighten parts as appropriate.

There’s a fair bit of work that’s gone into these, but they could certainly be more detailed. If I get really bored at some time, I could draw (or paint) bricks onto the sides. As it is, they don’t really need to be anything but basic walls, and they’ll serve their purpose on the tabletop. They are solid and sturdy enough that they won’t fall or blow over, and you could stand a figure on the top of most of them without it falling off.

I still have more of the cardboard, including a few “taller” and thinner pieces, so I can make more walls (or a small building?) in future. Combined with my rock and rubble pieces this gives me a variety of terrain to enhance my RPG’s.

My next terrain project probably should be plants. I’ve been collecting bits for trees and bushes, but I’m hoping to get some more parts so I can make a set of similar pieces, not just a dozen almost completely different plants.

Lastly, here’s a pic with some figures for scale:

 

 

 

 

Painting Beastmen #4

At last! I’ve finally sat down and spent some time to complete the detail on my Beastman Shaman.

This guy is a metal GW figure: 3002/1 Beastman Shaman 1 (1993). I had the feeling I’d bought him at the same time as the 3 Bestigor but its way too long ago to remember. It’s a well sculpted figure, with great detail.

He has “fushia” robes, and the same viridian green and crimson red that have been used on the other beastman (some more obviously than others). A pale grey/flesh mix for skin, like the large plastic guys got.

There’s a lot of fun detail on this figure with skulls, horns, wrappings, necklace of teeth, etc. I’d done all the base colours – flesh, leather, wood, robes… and only when I got to shading and highlighting the staff and axe handle did I notice the skull faces on the staff itself. The actual skulls on the staff were annoying – I really think the middle one could have been left off to make it less cluttered. In case you weren’t sure, that’s a hand with claws holding the final ‘human’ skull.

I went a little overboard with shading the robes (particularly at the back), but I’m happy with the effect. It almost seems like they are slightly mouldy which I think suits the figure.

….and finally a group shot with all 13 figures! I’m pleased to have them all done, and very happy with the final result on all of them. (Only took me three months!)

Painting Beastmen #3

Originally I expected to have my last four Beastmen all painted up between Christmas and New Year. Everything else in life, particularly rounds of hot and humid weather (not conducive to me wanting to paint) in between cooler and wet days had me doing a bunch of other things instead. My final painting count for 2023 was 30 figures. Considering I only got 8 done in 2022, and that I’m quite sure everything in my figure boxes are 99% painted now, I’m quite happy with that total.

2023 did at least finish with some gaming here. Two friends came over and four of us played both a game of The Witcher: Old World, and a no-player-death round of Zombicide: Black Plague just before fireworks started.

These metal figures are Games Workshop “Bestigor” (1997, #105301-1053-3, Michael Perry) that I bought in one blister-pack. I’m mostly impressed that each has a different armour – they aren’t simply the same figure in a slightly different pose. They were good to paint. Black on all the armour, flesh with a hint of brown for the skin, then silver (mostly dry-brushing on chainmail and scale) to bring out the armour. I did start with fushia on the belts (since that’s been a colour I’ve used in some way on all the beastmen) but changed that to red part way through, highlighted with a hint of orange. I was amused to note that (like the last batch) two of these have their ears within the curve of their horns, but at least it doesn’t look like they’ll go deaf if those horns keep growing!

This leaves a metal shaman that I bought at the same time as these three. Robes and flesh are already done, so he’s mostly painted. I’m planning to get him finished over the weekend, but I wasn’t going to wait to photograph the four finished just in case that doesn’t happen.

 

Painting Beastmen #2

I made an effort yesterday to spend some time finishing the second set of Beastmen. This was mostly arm-bands, eyes, belt detail and the cloth on the halberds.

I enjoyed these, a mid grey skin colour, different browns for hair and halberds, and then black wash over the skin and weapon hafts. I spent a fair bit of time with light browns, a reddish-brown or a hint of orange to brush over hair and a flesh-brown mix for the muzzles and hooves.The heavy shading brings out the detail, and I’ve done very little highlighting. The horns were a bit fussy to work with as I was aiming for a pale brown/cream colour. Not exactly what I wanted but close enough. [The horns curve INTO their ears – very strange idea there!] The armbands all got a mid-brown and then a second coat in bronze, copper, gold, green or red. This (plus the two colours on the halberds) give a bit of variety between figures.

These figures are Games Workshop #2767 Plastic Beastmen (1992-95) that I bought as a set to use with Warhammer Quest about ’94-95. I was mostly buying sets of plastic figures that appeared on the monster lists, and getting a few metal figures to stood out as champions and leaders. On the Monster Lists, it was typically 1d6+2 Beastmen, or 1d3 Beastmen Champions, and so on.

I went looking for a box image of these today and it looks like they were sold with shields in one pack (of 8) and without in another (set of 10), probably depending on the year or country sold. I don’t remember why I only have six. (Did I buy a box of six, swap 2 with a friend…) I have those shields on their sprues and some of the decals. At the time I was using them I didn’t paint the figures I had, and didn’t glue shields on any to keep things simple. Now I feel the shields provided are too large to use effectively with a long, two-handed weapon. I have smaller shields but I really couldn’t be bothered painting them now… maybe next year.

All in all, I like the way they came out and I’m ready to move on to the last four metal figures!

Monkey Magic… and other Roleplaying

My painting has been derailed by game writing recently, even though I’ve nearly finished another six beastmen!

Last weekend ago my gaming group (well, half of us) got together for the second of a 2-session game based on ‘Monkey Magic’, the Japanese TV series (1978-80). Nearly all my players (and myself) saw this when it was first broadcast in Australia in 1981, and watched it again when at University about 1989. (Yes, this shows my age. Only one of my gaming group is under 50!)

I used an AD&D Oriental Adventures adventure from Dungeon Magazine converted to a slightly simplified version of d20 Oriental Adventures. (It would have been simpler to just stick with AD&D, but more about that later.) We had a lot of fun with this, and everyone had fun playing the characters like it was the TV series. It’s amusing that my wife knows the mythology of Monkey better than any of us, but has never seen the TV series the rest of us know so well. We plan to watch a few episodes this weekend so she can see what the rest of us experienced.

Prior to Monkey, we’d played a second Paranoia one-off. One player hadn’t been able to join in the first game, and he loved it. The group is happy to do more. We had a non-game discussion afterwards that included mention of Judge Dredd. I later decided that a Paranoia game based in Mega City One with the players as Judges (Rookie Judges in this case) would be fun. That one-off game is at least half written. Over the last week I’ve converted my Monty Python and the Holy Grail one-off to Paranoia too. That adventure is much more suited to the faster play, and potentially chaotic nature of Paranoia than the cut down Pathfinder version I’d previously written. Since both systems work of a d20 mechanic, its been a fast change-over.

I already had a soft spot for systems like BRP (Basic Role Play – used by Call of Cthulhu) which is similar to Paranioa. Both are basically skill based systems, using one dice roll (mostly) to deal with player actions. They aren’t simple systems, but they do tend towards a faster & easier game play than d20 games (whether based on 3rd Ed, 3.5/PF or 5th Ed) and I’ve realised that to some extent I miss AD&D for the same sort of feeling. As much as I enjoy the variety available in the newer versions of D&D (and the system variants like the d20 Conan one-shot we haven’t played yet) playing the game tend to get slower at mid to high levels as everyone has so many options when it’s their time to act.

When I write one-off games now, I’m looking for “simpler” (but not basic) systems we haven’t played before, or going back to RPG’s we used to play – especially if they aren’t as complicated as some of the modern ones have become. It’s much better having players paying attention to what’s happening and being more involved, rather than have them glance at their phone or bring up something non-game related! It’s also good finishing at a reasonable time and being able to sit around and chat, than trying to bring an adventure to a close because its getting very late (or early).

Painting Beastmen #1

About a week ago, I dug through my miniature boxes looking for what might be the last group of unpainted figures that I own. I located three small groups of Chaos Beastmen. There’s thirteen in total. I’ve been doing certain things in batches – flesh, weapons, armour, and so on, then decided that one group was mostly done and focussed on getting them finished.

These three are Chaos Beastmen, produced for the Battle Masters game (1992) by Milton Bradley. They were given to me by a mate who bought a bunch of BM stuff. (I don’t think he got a copy of the whole game; I think he just got a lot of the figures.) He also gave me a few of the Chaos Warriors from that set too – painted back in Jan 2021. I already had a number of GW beastmen, but these offered a distinctly different figure for Warhammer Quest, which we were playing a lot of at the time. They are a little smaller than my other GW Beastmen, but being more bovine (all my others are goat-men) they stood out if I needed champions as opposed to standard beastmen.

This are fairly simple sculpts, (the loincloths don’t have properly defined edges), but in the end simple things like hair on the lower legs and actual definition around all the teeth adds a lot more to them painted that you would see on the original black plastic. Lots of browns, flesh and yellow ochre for highlighting hair and face detail. Loincloths went through three colours, staring with a light olive as contrast against the flesh (looked terrible), then simply red (a bit too dark) and so highlighted the red strips with orange. I looked through my GW decals for something chaos and small enough to fit. The red of the arrows on the black doesn’t stand out much, but the white skull at least draws your attention to the shield. Orange edging to the shield was a late idea to contrast with the black. After taking the image I had to go back and add a little pale flesh to the nose of the bloke on the left, and remove that small green stop on middle left hoof. I think in the end they have actually turned out better than I expected, but I glad I didn’t spend any more time on them.

I’ve realised while working on these that my ideas on basing have been slowly changing over the last decade. Originally, basing for me was gluing the figure to the base, and painting the base black to hide any other paint or glue marks. (Maybe filling the gap in a slotta base too.) All of my pre-painted figures had basic black plastic bases, and I was just going along with that style. Slowly, I’ve started to add detail to bases, most commonly sand or small stones, and occasional other stuff (bones, shields, leaves, moss, are a few things that come to mind), especially on bases larger than 25mm. Sometimes I’ve gone with a colour other than black on the base, though I realise I still like a black edge. Some of the bases I was using for these were already green and I thought that looked good under the darker flesh of the figures themselves. A matching colour also helps a group of figures stand out from others while drawing those individuals together – so all 13 of these beastmen will have green bases.

3 down, 10 to go!

Challenge Ogre: “Paint what we’ve all got!”

Here’s my Challenge Ogre for the “Paint what we’ve all got” Sept challenge by Roger at ‘Rantings from under the wargames table‘.

The figure is a great sculpt by Dave Stone, and being larger than most of my usual figures made it rather easier to paint. The figure stands just over 6cm high (65mm with base).

I had planned a basic flesh for his skin, darkened with a brown wash, but didn’t like the look of the original coat. I mixed some brown into the flesh and went over it again. I was much happier with the brown skin. Other colours got added, changed and more detailed over the last few evenings, and then a good wash with brown (mostly skin) and black (nearly everything else), before getting into detail. This was bones and tusks, shields, straps, etc making sure that I was happy with the way things looked.

On Friday evening I finished off the eyes and then started basing. It was sunny on Sat morning and I was sure everything was dry/set, so went over the rocks with some greys, brown wash and then outside for a spray varnish. Photos today to finish the project.

Here’s an image which gives some scale: A typical human soldier, with the challenge ogre, and a pre-painted D&D Ogre and Hill Giant (WotC WizKids). He’ll likely see use as an advanced ogre, half ogre (half giant) or hill giant and look much better than the mass-produced figures in any game he’s used in.

There should be at least a dozen of people doing this (not counting Roger or Dave) from a look back at voting on what to paint. It’s going to be fun seeing what everyone else has done at the end of the month. Roger – thanks for organising this, it’s really been worthwhile (even with the postage cost), and Dave for such top-tier work (and packing and mailing) on the figure itself so that this could happen.

Painting for a Sept Challenge

During the week I had a figure arrive from England just in time for a September painting challenge. This will be different from other challenges as it’s not a paint a particular theme (like scenery, orcs, terrain or monsters with three eyes) – it’s everyone painting the same figure.

It’s not a mass produced Citadel or Bones mini either. This one was chosen by vote, and was sculpted just for the challenge by Dave at Wargames Terrain Workshop. I got it cleaned up, glued and sprayed yesterday. It’s a nice sunny weekend, just right for some painting. I’ve very much looking forward to seeing what everyone involved comes up with.

 

Mission Improbable! (Paranoia One-shot)

Grenade explosion – one player dead. Reading a piece of paper – another player taken off to interrogation & termination. Then we started the Mission Briefing! Welcome to the world of Paranoia – where you can’t trust your own team-mates let alone anyone else in Alpha Complex. Certainly not the ‘The Computer’ that runs the supposed utopia!

Most of my gaming group got together yesterday. We haven’t had more than 5 players (out of 7) for a while, so have mostly been doing one off adventures with RPG’s that we mostly haven’t played before. All have a connection to a movie or TV series. Last month I ran a Battlestar Galactica session using the StarGate RPG (2021, based on D&D 5th edition); this time it was “Mission Improbable” using Paranioa (XP, 2004).

Paranoia is a skill based system, and everything works on a d20 roll. (No other dice used) While players have a “service group” (organisations that build/service/supply the Complex everything it needs) there are no classes as such. I looked at a bunch of “starter” adventures for Paranoia and discarded them as too complex, and/or too long for a one-shot where no-one really knew the game. I did grab a section each from two adventures and then wrote the rest of the session around that.

One of my players had played a long time ago, but it was new for the rest of us. I’d heard about it for decades, and have been wanting to try a game for a long time. Each of the four players chose a character based on service group – one of each of the 8 in the game. I explained skill rolls, basic equipment and quick run-down on Black/Red clearance colours. Then we went straight into the game. I’ve abbreviated Player names to a single letter with R (Red Clearance) and the clone number. Clearances are (in order lowest to highest) Infrared (Black) – Red – Orange – Yellow – Green – Blue – Indigo – Violet. (Players are all Red: S-R-1, A-R-1, G-R-1 and ZZZ-1.)

Game Summary: Everyone was called out by name to report to Briefing Room SPD-30-C12S to be given mission instructions. They found a dim room and a very upset person hiding under a counter. After trying to talk to HANS-O about his fears of being eaten by mutants and scrub-bots cleaning citizens he suddenly pulls out an activated grenade. Player S-R-1 was uncertain of what to do, the other three all ran for the door. The explosion vaporises HANS-O and kills S-R-1. Player ZZZ-1 notices that the room is actually SPD-30-C125. They eventually get to the correct location at the same time as S-R-2 (second clone). Inside, a brightly lit room has a small table with a printed sheet on it, a big screen, a long counter and a Blue guard. (I start sticking signs up around the gaming room) A-R-1 starts reading the page, while G-R-1 looks over his shoulder – but quickly declares “I’m not reading any more of this!” Green citizen COLE-G enters the room, and introduces himself, notices the paper on the table and sends the guard to get it for him. “Hmm… has anyone read this?” A-R-1 is arrested by guards and taken to Detention for interrogation after reading information above his Clearance. “Has anyone else read this?” (No, no!)

A message from the Computer is given that covers: the range of clearance colours; obedience to higher clearances being required; terrorists, mutants and secret societies are treasonous… Be happy! Serve the Computer! I then handed everyone the second page of their character sheet which lists their mutation, secret society, rumours and a secondary mission from either their Society or Service Group. I was disappointed that no-one mentioned out loud that they were a mutant/society member so that I could shoot them. It was only AFTER the game that (at least) one player realised that EVERYONE was both a Mutant and a member of a Secret Society – and thus a traitor right from the beginning!

A-R-2 arrives to join the Mission Briefing: Some-one has stolen a war-bot from Tech Services. Get it back undamaged, arrest or terminate the commie terrorists that stole it. Report first to PL&C for equipment and weapons, then R&D for mandatory testing of “extra-special equipment”.

They went to R&D first by mistake and had their requisition form refused, but selected an item each from the eight offered: ZZZ-1 took Rocket Boots, G-R-1 took a Tangle Spray (can immobilise multiple targets!), A-R-1 a Dynaknife (precision laser cutting tool), and S-R-1 got Poison Spray (Bio-poison in a line or cone!). Then back to PL&C (Production, Logistics & Commissary) where most took multiple barrels for their laser pistol (6 shots each), grenades, misc weapons, and odds and ends like a bull-horn, knives, gas masks, a mirror, snacks, first aid kit, and self-stick bandages.

Sector HTY where the bot has been tracked to: This turns out to be a mostly Orange clearance zone and there’s no sign of any disturbance or a large bot. No-one suggests entering the orange corridors (treason!) and they start making skills rolls to talk to other citizens, or search for data on terrorists or bots. They learn that neighbouring sector HSY had a group of low clearance citizens blocking a busy intersection with a large inactive bot, and a black maintenance tunnel that will get them there. On the way they hear odd noises from a storage room. Within are three red citizens with a bunch of pet-bots, one of which appears to have just been shot. G-R-1 and ZZZ-1 enter with S-R-2 and A-R-2 hanging back at the doorway. After curious and stilted conversation with the three who first claim that everything is fine, then to be fixing the pet-bots, one raises a laser pistol and shoots at ZZZ-1. The other two reveal a laser pistol and a crow-bar. S-R-1 rolls a malfunction with her laser but throws it into the room before it explodes, wounding the bot destroyers. After lots of descriptive combat misses, all three opponents are “Down” (unconscious) with minor wounds to the players. They report the three for treason and help themselves to the weapons. A-R-2 heals his fellow troubleshooters with mixed results.

At the intersection in HSY they find signs of damage on walls, and talk to anyone who will listen before finding two Black Power Service workers repairing wiring. They learn that a group got a large bot stuck in one corridor, then once freed went down another passage. At this point G-R-1 sights four black citizens with red masks approaching – three with large metal buckets, and one with a shoulder mounted cannon. An electrical burst from the cannon fries a security camera and G-R-1 uses his bull-horn to complain about destruction of property and demand they surrender. When they continue to advance yelling slogans like ” Doom to the Capitalist Oppressors”, he shoots them with his tangle Spray, wrapping the Gauss gun-wielder and two others in sticky threads. The fourth Communist throws his bucket at S-R-2 and she narrowly avoids being covered in bright pink paint. She responds by using her Poison Spray – the nozzle on the end of the device flies across the space and hits the first commie in the head. The poison gas within the device comes out uncontrolled in a cloud surrounding S-R-2. She and the others near her manage to hold their breaths and/or get gas masks on without suffering ill effects. ZZZ-1 starts to think that he doesn’t want to try out his Rocket Boots. The last attacker draws a Blaster, and is then dropped by everyone else. A-R-2 uses his Dynaknife to cut the Gauus gun free. G-R-2 tries to repair the camera, but makes it worse. They’d like to hold on to the Gauss gun and Blasters. They call for security, reporting the Communists. G-R-1 reports ZZZ-1 for holding onto the Gauss Gun (it’s above his clearance) and ZZZ-1 is arrested with the Communists. A-R-2 accuses G-R-2 of treason (property destruction) to The Computer. G-R-1 responds that surveillance will show that he didn’t damage the camera, but was trying to repair it. The Computer vaporises A-R-2 for treason – falsely accusing a citizen of treason!

ZZZ-2 and A-R-3 joins them as the group reach SDA-GD-3 which is a huge vault door flanked by Blue guard-posts. A large ovoid bot on treads (with armour plating and turrets) is moving slowly towards the door while red and black citizens trade laser shots with Blue guardsmen. A number of bodies lie on the ground unmoving. The terrorists are directed by an orange citizen. G-R-1 uses his bull-horn to tell the attackers to stop. They instead scatter to engage both the guards and the PC’s. Orange yells at one of the Red’s to “Send the bot at the new guys”. Most of the PC’s seek cover from boxes, doorways, or corners and start shooting anyone they can see. The bot reverses and start firing lasers everywhere – even against the surprised terrorists. G-R-1 sticks his tangler spray to a grenade and throws it. The range is extreme, but by adding in all his “Perversity” points* he gets +8 on his roll. A-R-3 grants him a +2 with his points. The roll is very good, and the grenade slides right where it was aimed. It immobilise one target and ‘Maims’ a few more, with light damage to the war-bot. (Comments on “undamaged bot” are made.) A-R-3 convinces ZZZ-2 to try a Combat-Quick tablet (Experimental drug) which boosts his “violence” skills and doubles his attacks. With him firing twice at the terrorists and the wounded guards getting a few hits, the remaining terrorists are all downed. The bot launches a thick white mist around itself that also hides Orange from view. ZZZ-2 changes laser barrels, struggling not to simply shoot anyone still standing. (Drug side-effect) When the mist starts to clear, the bot fires lasers again, not doing much more than a Snafu to anyone, and ZZZ-2 takes down Orange. A-R-3 had hid in a side passage, waiting for the bot to get closer, then jumps onto it and tries to shut it down. G-R-1 reaches him as S-R-2 moves up. G-R-2 is useless with Bot Programming but uses his skill at ‘Make a device go beep’ to lock the bot’s systems up, emitting continuous beeps. S-R-2 joins them and with a lucky roll shuts the bot off. They report recovery of the bot and let the wounded guardsmen take custody of unconscious terrorists.

They get the bot moving with them and take it to Tech Services. Here they are asked what happened and after some confusion on both sides, learn that they have returned a slightly damaged Hazardous HD Cleaning-bot. The War-bot put in for maintenance wasn’t stolen – it had been moved to a side room while someone was assessing it. A new tech recruit realised a bot was missing and panicked thinking they took the War-bot. The PC’s return their assigned weapons, take back the R&D gear – with some fined for not returning anything, and one for not testing it. Then its debriefing… a brief, uncomfortable one-on-one with the Computer involving a form-fitting chair, a metal cap and electrodes. Back together in the original briefing Room they are asked similar questions about being happy, being effective on the team, was equipment adequate… and then dismissed. The Computer is happy in that the mission was successful. The Warbot has been found and returned in the same condition that it first arrived at Tech Services and the traitor’s responsible were arrested or terminated!

Perversity: Players get points for keeping the game moving, announcing fun actions, or doing something entertaining to the GM and/or other players. You can then use them to add/subtract from your or other players rolls.

The system encourages quick decision and keeping things happening. The only point play slowed down was when the PC’s tried to decide how to spend the credits assigned for the mission on equipment. The whole session probably ran for 3½ hours, not counting the break for dinner in the middle. It’s quite normal for us to spend 5 hours on an RPG and get much less accomplished. It didn’t hurt calling an earlier finish to the night than usual, and I know if/when we play Paranoia again, I could include more in the adventure. We all had a great time, and the group is happy to do it again.

Errata: Over the week since playing, I have written two adventure overviews for future Paranoia: “Logan’s Fun” and “The Younger Games”. Anyone should get where that second idea is from, but you’re showing your age if you know the first one!

Painting – The Witcher: Old World #3

This post is way overdue in that I finished painting these figures last month, but have only now gotten around to taking pictures of them. These are all for the Wild Hunt Expansion of The Witcher – Old World board game.

This expansion is a co-operative version of the game where you play 8 turns of the game against a selection of standard monsters and the “hounds”, then you go into a boss-fight against one of the four wild hunt members. Each “boss” has a different ability that triggers during the standard turns, and different attack / defence abilities during the final fight. You choose which member of the Hunt that you wish to face and the level of difficulty for the game, ranging from “Just the Story” (Easy) to Death March (Very Hard).

From left to right: Nithral, Imlerith, Caranthir, Eredin.

Each figure has a rules card for the game with an image showing mostly their upper torso. Most of the images are quite dark and don’t show much in regards colours or detail, except for Nithral and Eredin. I did find lots of great images online from the PC game Witcher 3 (Wild Hunt) and used these to influence my colour choices. Nithral’s armour has a distinct blue-metal look on the card, and Eredin has red ‘leather'(?). I decided I wanted a distinct colour for each figure and went with green and purple for the other two.

Witcher Lore: Called the Wraiths of Mörhogg by the islanders of Skellige, the Wild Hunt are thought to be a horde of undead that roam the sky during storms and are an omen of disaster. They kidnap souls to join their group. It is later learnt that the Wild Hunt are actually elves from other dimension, where they are the dominant race, crossing dimensions to gain slaves. They wear armour that looks skeletal and use magic to appear as specters.

The hounds of the Wild Hunt are minor monsters that can be encountered during standard rounds, slowly increasing in power (rank 1 to 3). They are much easier to defeat than standard monsters but dealing extra damage to them during a fight weakens the boss at the end. The game card shows them as blue and certainly not canine in appearance. I used a mix of blues and blue-grays to get lighter and darker looks. Lots of shading and highlighting to bring up the edges on their scales or hides, or whatever they have! The sculpts aren’t quite as good as I’d first thought. The rocks underneath them merge somewhat into the figures and its not clear where one becomes the other in some cases. I’d wanted a blue-black rock affect (like stellacite from the monoliths) but needed a contrast so went with greys.

I’m very happy with the end result for the four leaders, not so pleased with the hounds. I spend a lot more time than expected trying to get the idea in my head into reality and didn’t quite make it. They’ll do for what they are.