Dragon Rampant warbands [more poleaxes and a dwarf smith, 19th March]

[Severian]

Here are a pair of Essex orcs, on tuppences sabot-based as a HOTT warband element (60x40 rather than 60x30, but never mind); I have another four of them almost done, so can probably use them for Dragon Rampant as well.

In the first instance, though, they'll be great goblins alongside my random goblin hordes (which are slowly coming together...).

Also a reaper wolf; he's on a 50mm round base, sabotted into a 60x60 base as a HOTT beast element.

The element bases are a bit long-winded to make, but I reckon it'll be worth it in the long run, because once I've got a set of them, I can more or less swap anything into the sabots. That's the plan, anyway...

[Hobgoblin]

These are great! Good work on the sabot bases, too. The patience involved is far beyond me, but the resultant versatility is a handy thing to have.

I think that Essex orc with the horned helmet is perhaps the best of that range - a really terrific figure. You've certainly done him justice!

[Severian]

Here, with apologies for the long delay between posts, are a pair of recently finished Citadel orcs. They'll be part of my very slowly mustering HOTT hordes, and any other goblinoid army I get round to fielding.

In fact the majority of my HOTT dwarf and goblin armies have been sitting in their sabot bases on my gaming table for a good few weeks now: but I've been too busy or distracted with one thing or another to get round to taking any pictures, let alone finishing the last few remaining mostly-painted figures.

Most of my painting &c time has been hijacked by early-middle imperial romans and their German opponents (which I may post elsewhere if I'm ever happy with them...).

Anyway, here as I say are a brace of orcs: both had lost their weapons, which I replaced with plastic polearms from the eminently useful Wargames Factory orcs box. The first guy (with the polearm advanced) was the axe-held-upright one; I thought he looked just as plausible like this, to be honest. I have a few more of the same model, also axeless, from the same ebay lot and may experiment further.

If the weather, my dreadful photography, and the children's school holidays all align favourably, I'll try to get some better pictures up. Should be done with more goblins soon in any event.

[Hobgoblin]

Excellent! That's a great skin colour. The guy with the upright polearm is one of only two types of FOT orcs that I've never been able to lay my hands on. I don't think I've ever seen that particular head before, on any body.

Nice use of the Wargames Factor polearms: the axe-wielder actually looks better with a polearm, I think. It makes his slightly awkward pose more natural, somehow.

Slow mustering is an inevitable feature with HoTT hordes, alas - it takes roughly double the time to produce 1 AP that it does to produce 2!

[Severian]

Thanks! I'm very fond of these old orcs: their endless variants just add to the fun, I think. I owned a fair few as a schoolboy, but those are long gone. Great fun discovering them broken amidst ebay bundles now and repairing them.

The upright polearm guy is certainly the more plausible of the two, in their original forms...

My horde mustering problem (in fact, my painting problem generally) is mainly one of distraction: stuff sits 90-95% done on my painting table for weeks or months whilst some other shiny thing occupies my time. But I've decided not to worry about that and just enjoy the journey as it happens.

[Severian]

Here are a few more goblins, from Alternative Armies. The last picture also shows the two FT orcs, in what I hoped was a better light (don't think it is). I should try to take better photographs, I know...

Anyway, a few more to do and then I'll try to get a shot of my assembled hordes and other HotT elements. There's another pair of Essex orcs up next...

[Hobgoblin]

Great stuff! I hadn't realised they were so small.

Very keen to see the Essex orcs. With your sabot bases, you've always got the option of using the big Essex chaps as blades, the FTO fellows (who're fairly big themselves) as warbands and the small ones as hordes. On the other hand, a variety of size and shapes helps the "horde" look along: in HotT, I think it's not so much the quality of the individual fighters as their organisation that matters when distinguishing troop types.

[Severian]

Thanks again! yes, they're small...

And here are the Essex orcs. The spear guy was done ages ago, but his companion loitered almost done for weeks until just now. They're in a 60x40 sabot; their versatility is a bit constrained by the size of their bases, though, which need tuppences; most of my figures are on pennies.

And, for fun, here are another couple of goblins I finished last week; and a group shot to round it off.

[Severian]

Just back from a week away, during which I roped the children into a couple of games of Dragon Rampant; great fun, if a little tactically unsophisticated, at least as we played it...

Here are a couple of the excellent Nightfolk figures painted up for my two smallest ones (2 and 4) to use (both as single model elite foot units); their elder brother, who is 6, managed a whole dozen dwarves (heavy foot). Their mother had some bronze age warriors (bellicose foot). Opposing them, I had a ragbag assemblage of giants, trolls, goblins and wolves.

Anyway,here they are. Apologies as ever for the terrible photographs. The figures themselves are splendid; these were quick paintjobs, but I'm happy with how they turned out. Bases need finishing off.

[Hobgoblin]

Just back from a week away, during which I roped the children into a couple of games of Dragon Rampant; great fun, if a little tactically unsophisticated, at least as we played it...

Sounds tremendous! I have similar plans for a mini-D&D holiday campaign this week. Dragon Rampant, I've found, is great for younger participants because of the buckets-of-dice element - even if 12 dice are a challenge for small hands.

The Nightfolk look terrific - great work on the face of the antlered gentleman, and the teddy bear is just an out-and-out winner!

[Severian]

Thanks! The Nightfolk figures are enormous fun: they responded pretty well to a simple block-ink wash-highlight effort. I've a few more hanging about unpainted or half-painted; I may dig some more of them out.

Yes, the children were very taken with DR: the eldest had played it a bit before, and picked it up again very quickly. He's now busily dragooning his siblings into improvised wargames with various lego spaceships...

I found a biggish dice cup helpful for small hands rolling a dozen dice.

Good luck with the D&D. Which version are you going to use? I recently found my old early 80s Basic and Expert books (the first RPG I ever owned) and have been mulling over introducing them to the children (or at least the older two) sometime soonish...

[Hobgoblin]

Good luck with the D&D. Which version are you going to use? I recently found my old early 80s Basic and Expert books (the first RPG I ever owned) and have been mulling over introducing them to the children (or at least the older two) sometime soonish...

Thanks! We're going with Whitehack, a newish take on the original set of rules. It streamlines the rules exceptionally well. I only ever played AD&D as a child, and I struggled to understand the rules even then: I GMed Runequest, which was my starting point, as well as Dragon Warriors and various other things. D&D always seemed bafflingly abstruse to me, with its AC and THAC0 and levels, whereas RQ made it very plain what was happening (a loss of limbs, generally).

But Whitehack clears everything up very well and builds actual roleplaying into the rules: for example, if you can explain why your character should be good at something from his or her background, you get a better mechanical chance of succeeding.

I've already done a fair bit of RPG stuff with the kids: Dragon Warriors (which they love), Tales of Blades and Heroes (great for when they have their friends round, as it bridges the gap to miniature games very nicely and RQ (one-player adventures with my elder child). My wife was talked into Heroquest Glorantha last year and surprised herself by enjoying it, so she's pledged do do her bit in the D&D game too ...

[Severian]

Whitehack looks very interesting - many thanks for that, I may well explore further...

I played AD&D before anything else, and yes, it was a bit baffling. But the Basic rules do a good job of stripping out a lot of the complexity whilst keeping the flavour of the original. I also have a fondness for the illustrations and so on. But I agree that RQ is a much better system, and greatly preferred it once I came across it; but by that point, I think, most of my RPG accomplices had moved on to other things. Anyway, I still have my old and now very shabby D&D, AD&D & RQ books, and a pile of old White Dwarfs with scenarios &c, so may well inflict them on the children at some stage. I'm reasonably hopeful my wife can also be drawn in...

But Whitehack looks as if it might work as a way in. I had thought about using Otherworld Skirmish (which I have), but somehow it doesn't quite work for me. Not sure if it's the tokens, or the cards, but for some reason I never quite got it.

Time for another rummage in the lead pile, I think. There are a good few mostly-done Red Box goblins and a big resin Wind Elemental (Scotia Grendel, maybe?) that ought to be finished soon...

[Severian]

Well, after a long fallow period, I've finally managed more or less to finish some figures - a few reaper bones giant rats for whatever putative dungeon crawl I eventually get round to devising for my children.

Not the world's greatest paintjobs, but by way of an experiment - my rather hamfisted attempt at preshading and tinting/washing, with thanks (and apologies!) to Hobgoblin for his helpful explanations and tireless examples...

Anyway, thought I should post something, however unexciting, just to try to get things moving again. More interesting stuff to follow soon, I hope.

[Hobgoblin]

Great stuff! Those aren't hamfisted efforts at all: those Bones figures have pretty soft detail at that size, which limits what you can do with them. Glad the explanations were of some help.

If you nabbed those free Dragon Warriors rules, you've got a perfect set-up for some simple dungeon crawls. Whitehack is a more elegant iteration of the D&D rules, but DW gives you some very child-friendly magic (in Whitehack, you have to design your own spells). Tales of Blades and Heroes is also excellent - it produces the most colourful combat encounters of the three, because it has all the tactical elements of SoBH. From my recent experience of GMing for kids, Whitehack is the best overall (because of the way it encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking), TBH is the best for one-shots, given its dynamism and wargamy aspects, and DW is great because of its brilliant scenarios and satisfyingly "zappy" spells.

One thing I've found that works well is having some helpful (if not friendly) weird creatures for the players to talk to and conspire with near the start of the adventure. I had a giant talking pumpkin eager to devour its goblin masters in our big TBH game at Christmas, and the worm fellow who would trade information for gold (which he swallowed) yesterday. Both worked a treat in a Labyrinth (or Alice in Wonderland) sort of way.