Plynkes' Five Leagues Thread

[Doug ex-em4]

They are 3D printed ones I bought from an Etsy store. There are loads of people selling 3D printed terrain stuff on that site, it's worth a look.

Thanks for that - popped over there and ordered some. You’re right about the useful stuff and some relatively cheap mats as well, a bit of a revelation.

Doug

[Plynkes]

To begin with I wasn't so keen on the printed stuff, tends to have tiny little ridges all over. But you really don't notice it once it's painted and on the table, and the prices are pretty good for the most part too. There are some quite nice fantasy terrain pieces on Amazon as well as Etsy.

[Little Odo]

I am really enjoying reading these adventures - keep it up.

[Plynkes]

Morgaunt scouted ahead, following the strange tracks. Before long she returned, and the others noticed she was scowling.

"An ogre or a giant, I'm certain of it. Seems to have made its lair near an old abandoned tower."

"Well then," mused Sir Godfrey, "we should probably give it a wide berth and get back to the quest." Iago nodded at this, as he was impatient to follow up on his prophetic dreams.

"There's probably a bounty on it", piped up Wicklow the mystic, grinning. All eyes turned to him as he smiled and rubbed his hands. They didn't take much persuading. The lure of coin for some, glory for the others, did the trick. They gathered their things and set off towards the lair Morgaunt had spotted.




Upon reaching the area, Wicklow volunteered to scout out the place and try and find the creature, claiming that his people had a knack for not being seen or heard, so he was the best choice. He was keen to nab the reward he had imagined, and also to be able to brag about being a monster hunter in the ale-houses of Grimhold.








The Halfling carefully crept forward, and soon noticed piles of gnawed bones and patches of blood on the grass. Corpses littered the area. Wicklow jumped with surprise as one of them moved. It was a wounded survivor of a previous attempt to slay the monster. After a brief introduction he directed the poor fellow back to his comrades and continued to scout. The survivor was one Wilbert, an unfortunate adventuer. Despite his wounds he volunteered to help the party. Luckily they had a spare sword, as he had lost all his gear in his encounter with the monster.

The gathered adventurers waited impatiently for the halfling to return. Soon they heard him yelling at the top of his voice, surprisingly loud for one so little.

"Monster! Monster! Monster!" So much for stealth. Then they heard another voice; booming, bestial and terrible...






"Fee! Fie! Foe! Funt!
I smells the blood of a short-assed runt!"

Wicklow had disturbed the creature, and any hope of surprising it was gone.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed, darting off as fast as his little legs could manage.





Thankfully his comrades, including the wounded Wilbert, were all dashing forward with their weapons drawn, shouting curses at the monster to distract it from the diminutive mystic.






Iago and Sir Godfrey were the first to make contact. Iago bravely slashed at the creature's legs, driving it back with pathetic plaintive cries of pain.







Next came Lenore and Wilbert. Wicklow had ceased fleeing, and had turned to join the fray too. As Lenore charged forward, the monster regained its composure, and lifted a mighty boulder above its head. Letting out a great roar it brought the rock down on Lenore, crushing her under it! Sir Godfery leapt into action as its attention was on Lenore, however one swift kick from the creature left him crumpled on the ground.

"Noooo! Take this, you devil!" screamed Wicklow, trying to plunge his short sword into the ogre's flesh, but a casual back-handed slap sent him flying into the air, disappearing out of sight into a clump of bushes.

Oh dear. It seems this monster-hunting lark isn't as easy as they thought. Does anybody have the number of a reliable witcher?







But never fear, Iago Loyola is here! This week it was his turn for an heroic moment. Springing forward in righteous and furious anger his sword sang, slashing open the guts of the beast before it had the chance to do more harm. As its snake-like intestines poured steaming all over the ground, it whimpered and sank to its knees. With one clean stroke Iago then beheaded it.

Ha! Turns out monster-hunting is a doddle after all. That's something noteworthy that Iago can put on his CV now.







Victory was secured, but it was time to count the cost. It so happened that Wicklow had merely been knocked unconscious, and Sir Godfrey had suffered a nasty bang to the head, but one that he would soon recover from. Lenore however was grievously hurt, possibly with multiple broken bones. She would not be partaking in any adventuring for quite some time, if at all. This news dampened the mood somewhat for the group, perhaps it had not been worth it after all. But Wilbert had been impressed, and asked to join the merry band. Without hesitation his request was accepted. The more the merrier, especially when you already have three adventurers not fit for combat.


The next day Wicklow's hunch was confirmed to be true. After many locals (and more than one of their own monks) had been devoured, the Celestine mendicant order had posted a bounty on the ogre. It was only two gold marks, but the halfling said that was nothing to sniff at.

"Enough for ale and strumpets, eh, Nev?", he quipped, nudging Neville with his arm. Neville, sharing Wicklow's taste for those two things grinned and nodded.

Upon collecting their reward, the monk that paid them, one Frater Sandro, was so impressed (as he had given up any hope of the monster actually being defeated) that he expressed a desire to join the company. It was time for him to go on his 'fighting pilgrimage', something these mendicants are wont to do, it would seem. Iago was happy to have a fellow man of faith join them, hopefully he might have an improving effect on Wicklow and Neville's moral laxity.

As they continued their journey they saw a notice board at a nearby crossroads. The guild-masters of Grimhold had issued a contract request. Even though they had other stuff to do, it couldn't hurt to look into it. Grimhold was on their route, after all.



So, two new party members have joined. I really must get painting. We need figures for Brom, Wilbert and Frater Sandro now. Hopefully I'll post the pics of them soon.

[Doug ex-em4]

Our warband’s next Adventure is bearding a monster in his lair so this is a particularly interesting AAR. That’s some monster you faced although he did show a certain delicacy of language in his poetical challenge - the last word could have been so different.

On to the fight. Very close-run thing. I notice no mention of ranged weapons. In our upcoming monster game, I’m suggesting our band deploys as many missile-men as possible, not very brave but this is real life. Right? How many Turns did you have? Our last game was only 4 but it seemed full of incident as does yours.

A shame about Lenore but Wilbert and Sandro are definite pluses. Does Sandro come ready equipped?

Enjoyed the account a lot.

Doug

[Plynkes]

- the last word could have been so different.

Hehe, I was thinking that. Definitely wouldn't have got past the profanity filter.  It used to be the only word that you couldn't say on on LAF, but that seems to have changed. Damn AI changed what I originally wrote so I had to put 'short-assed.' If you try to type the British version of that it changes it to 'short-bothered.'

So I can say 'arse' but if I put a D on the end it becomes 'bothered.' That's crazy.  I am going to start using the phrase 'short-bothered' from now on, I think.



Despite being the easiest monster, the ogre has a nasty bite. His 'Counter-attack' ability is what laid low three of our party. You'd best be careful facing yours. Morgaunt was flinging arrows the whole time, but for once she was entirely ineffective. So ineffective that I completely forgot to mention her in the write-up.  In previous games she has been a godsend, but I guess this week it was Iago's turn to shine.


As far as I remember there is no turn limit on a monster hunt. You kill it, get killed by it or run away, and that's about it. Can't remember how long the battle was, not very long.

Sandro came with a light weapon and nothing else, so we need to get him something better.

[Vagabond]

This all sounds splendid,  great write ups and a strong story line developing.

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Excellent AAR. As Doug said, we are tracking down an ogre tomorrow, so very interesting to see how you set about it.

I hope your new recruits are made of the right stuff!

[ced1106]

> Despite being the easiest monster, the ogre has a nasty bite.

Good to know. Love its paintjob and glad you succeeded!

How are you all deciding what Adventure to choose? 5L is interesting because you're pro-active, rather than having an encounter that happens to be balanced. One of my parties figures they might as well go on a Quest (to win fabulous prizes) and another is content to hunt for pelts in the woods so they can replace a broken bow!

[Plynkes]

It kind of depends. We haven't started pursuing our main threats yet, but the game keeps throwing random stuff at us that feels like it needs dealing with, and that distracts us from what we were currently dealing with. We were on a quest but accrued two occurrences of an event that means we get less Adventure points after each battle (it was up to -2 points). That's why we went and faced the spider-cultists. Wiping them out got rid of one of those -1 modifiers.

Then we found the monster lair, and just felt like doing a monster hunt. The next battle, however, is going to be against one of the Threats, and we don't have any choice about it. The Enemy Plans table has decided that we're about to be attacked. Things are getting real at last. So while the game mostly sits back and waits for you to come to the threats, they can come to you with the right (or wrong) rolls.

Initially we were just looking for easy-ish things to do to gain experience. I think that phase has come to an end now, though.

[Plynkes]

For various reasons things went quiet over the summer, but I'm mostly back now and hopefully we'll be able to get some more games in soon.

I finally got around to painting some of the new blood we have recruited along the way...




We now have dedicated figures for Brom, Wilbert and Frater Sandro. Wilbert and Sandro are newcomers. Wilbert is the fellow we rescued from the monster, and Sandro is the monk who had posted the bounty, who then joined us to go on his 'fighting pilgrimage'. But poor old Brom has been waiting for a figure since the very first game, ha ha. Hope he likes it.







So this is what the whole party looks like now. I really think we need to stop picking up strays along the way. It's nice to have some team mates sitting on the substitutes' bench in case of injury, but perhaps it is getting a little out of hand now.



Finally for now, I painted up this fella...



The game doesn't really need treemen types, but I figured we could use him next time we have to face a troll, a giant, an ogre or something like that. It's an old pre-painted D&D figure that my friend gave me about twenty years ago (!) as I was into the LoTR game back then, and he thought I might need an ent. I tarted him up a little bit, the original paint job was actually pretty good for that type of thing, but I wanted to enhance him a smidge.

[Doug ex-em4]

"Enhance him a smidge"…! He’s had the arse enhanced off him to kingdom come and back - he looks fantastic. And the crew are splendid as well.

Glad you’re back on this. In the meantime we (Mad Lord Snapcase and his cringing followers) are many weeks into our campaign. His Lordship is a couple of games behind in posting AAR’s but he’s a busy man.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you get up to next.

Doug

[Plynkes]

Yes, I must catch up with your exploits. I've been a bit remiss in all matters pertaining to the hobby for a little while.

[blacksoilbill]

That treeman looks great.

[Plynkes]

Time to introduce the first of the main threats of the campaign: The Mano Rosso, the reason being that the dastards attacked us on the road to Grimhold.



They are a mix of metal and plastic Frostgrave figures, plus a couple of Foundry Ancient Germans. All good fun to paint. While I still don't really dig the somewhat tedious business of assembling plastic figures, I do like all the Frostgrave plastics I have acquired so far. Love the flexibility they give you, and they also look great.

Here's what I said about the Mano Rosso back on Page 1:

The Mano Rosso
The chaos of the Defamation has led to widespread banditry. However, some groups are more of a threat than others. The Mano Rosso are an organised network of bandit gangs, led by the mysterious bandit king known as Il Ragno (We are using The Ruin Within threat for these, who are basically bandits and brigands so a good fit).

On our way to Grimhold to pick up the contract we saw on that notice board a while, back, we were attacked while in camp. Perhaps they had heard of our exploits and thought we might have some easy plunder they could scoop up, or perhaps it was pure coincidence. Who can say? Anyway, before we arrived in Grimhold we would face a tough fight. A tough fight Sickers and I played on Saturday last. A report will follow as soon as I have sorted out the photos.