On The Painting Desk: Heroquest- Kellar's Keep

 

I am back on the Quest. After a brief detour for some Persian Chariots and some Roman Gladiators, I am back to Heroquest.   My loyal readers will recall that I picked up Kellar's Keep and wrote a quick review of it.  Therefore, before I can get to playing it I need to paint up all the models for it.  Thankfully, it is not as intense as Against the Ogre Horde as far as models go.  

Kellar's Keep is focused on saving the King and his army from being besieged by Zargon's forces.  The besiegers are tribes of Orcs and Goblins along with the occasional henchmen and the forces of Dread.  Therefore, the miniatures in this pack are basically re-treads of some of the sculpts from the Core box.  You get 8 more orcs, 6 more goblins, 3 more Abominations, a wooden door and an iron door.  Not that much to paint really.  

As usual, I am planning on painting them all up with my Speedpaints.  I am trying to match my Core set for the most part.  To do that, I start by undercoating them all with Grey Seer spray.  Then, a dark grey wash, followed by the white drybrushing.  This has become standard practice for my Speedpaints as it yields strong results.  

I decided to start off with the Orcs.  Per the last time, I made use of Malignant Green as the flesh color.  From there, I used the Graveyard Grey for their armor to give that cast iron look.  I spent some time looking through my paint colors.  I did not want to duplicate the Red and Blue tabards I made for the past group.  Instead I used  Zealot Yellow, Cloudburst Blue, a Purple, and a Absolution Green.  Finally, I used a combination of Pallid Bone and Runic Grey on the weapons.  When it was all done, I washed them in light tone, and painted up the bases with Runic Grey and a black rim.  

Ready to be spray varnished, I took them outside the next day and gave them a spray.  One problem, I didn't use my matte varnish.  I accidentally sprayed them with Grey Seer again!  FETH IT ALL!  I had to go back in and start over again with half-painted dudes.  Thankfully, it was much quicker to fix than the initial paint job.  Here they are again, this time properly matte varnished......

They ended up usable.  The lesson here kids is always double check before spraying and focus on what you are doing.  I was thinking way too much about some work stuff and paid a heavy price for my negligence.  

Here they are mixed in with the original Orcs from the Core set....

  ..... they mix together just fine.  Perhaps the new ones are a tad darker?  That took me over 100+ HQ models painted this year!    

Then, it was time to go onto the next batch, the Goblins.  I have not really enjoyed painting these little dudes.  Something about them just bothers me.  I started with the same Malignant Green flesh as the start.  Then, it got a bit tougher.  I wanted to keep some of the Magic Blue from the originals, BUT I did wanted them all to look unique.  No duplicate paint jobs.  I had to go back and look closely on what I did last time.

Not much to say about these little guys.  I used Magic Blue as a unifying part of their clothing.  Then, I used a variety of colors to finish them off, mostly natural tones.  I used Crusader Flesh, Hardened Leather, and Sand Golemn.  For metallics I mostly used Runic Grey or Graveyard Grey.  I sprinkled a few  Metallic Speedpaints in for good measure and a bit of the glitter.  The bases were standard Runic Grey with a black rim.  

For the Abominations, I had to go back and re-read how I did them from the last time!  I didn't recall.  I did the same basic steps.  I painted the plates Wizard Orb from my basic Army Painter sets.  Then, I used Absolution Green on the flesh of the model to give a somewhat two-toned look.  For the fins and eyes I used Zealot Yellow.  The loincloths I used different colors to again try to be able to differentiate them.  The weapons were Runic Grey, Hoplite Bronze, and Pallid Bone for he blades, again with each being different to help identify unique Abominations in game.  Then, it was standard basing.  

The last thing was to paint up the two doors that came in the set.  Nothing fancy.  One is off wood and the other is iron.  These represent where some missions begin or end.  Therefore, I want them to be somewhat unique from the other doorways in the game.   

Oooooohhhh, spooky. 

Here are the old "in with the new'!  I mixed up my Core Set and my Kellar's Keep all together to see how they looked.  Not a bad mix-and-match if I do say so myself.  I always get a bit nervous trying to go back and recreate a color scheme instead of doing it all together when the memories are fresh.  

So, still to do for the year are an Anglo-Saxon army and the Return of the Witch Lord for Heroquest.  I have to admit, not having to assemble the models makes these Heroquest models pretty quick, fun, and easy to paint!  We'll see what comes out next! 

Until next time! 

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Battle Report: Under the Martian Yoke- Holed Up for the Day

 

It has been a while, but I wanted to revisit the solo-campaign I had started for Under the Martian Yoke.  We have been following our plucky survivors of the Martian assault.  You may recall, that in this world, the Martian Invasion of Orson Welles in 1938 was real!  The East Coast of the United States was soon devastated by the invaders.  Our unlucky band managed to survive the initial invasion and have now been left to survive in the blasted remains of the Martian controlled territory.  

Luke had heard them moving around all night long.  He and his companions had gone out into the night to search for food, water, or anything else they could use.  They had slunk out of their cozy farmhouse and went searching.  They couldn't see much in the darkness, but it seemed safer.  The Martian had been active in the area.  He had seen Tripods moving on the horizon, and heard the strange hooting of their war horns in the air.  

As dawn came, he knew they had to find some cover to hole up for the day.  It was too hot for them to be moving across country in the daylight.  They were not going to make it back to the farmhouse yet.  He had planned the route with Annie's map to take them near a speck of a civilization.  Just a little cluster of buildings on the map.  Not even a town.  

He crouched in the bushes and scanned the area.  The main building looked like a good place to hole up.  No sign of Martians, but the line-of-sight wasn't great in the early breaking dawn.  He glanced up and down the shrub line, and saw Tommy, Annie, and John all looking at him expectedly.  

He gave a big gulp, decide to try to look as confident as he could, and gave the signal to move out.

The Survivor Band

This game only allows you a band of 4 survivors.  Mine is made up of Copplestone Castings Gangster range.  They make great pre-war civilian figures for this.  

   

On the left is Handsome John.  He is a criminal archetype and survived by running for the hills when things went south.   

Activation    Aimed    Suppression    Fight    Brawn    Brains    Nerve

5+/2                6+        3+                    4+        8+            9+        7+

Cool Customer

- Pistol, Knife, Canteen of Alcohol

- Duck and Weave- Shooting attacks have a -1 TN when he has moved. 

Next is Tommy Wilkins.  He is just a kid, and survived when a building collapsed on his family.  He managed to dig his way out, but no one else did.  

Activation    Aimed    Suppression    Fight    Brawn    Brains    Nerve

3+/2             9+                8+               6+          4+        7+          5+

Pitter Patter of little feet, Fear of Enclosed Spaces

- Improvised Fight weapon, Satchel, Good Shoes

The lady is Annie.  Annie McCall is a devout believer, trying to process what exactly is going on.  She was part of an ambushed evacuation, and forced to flee.  

Activation    Aimed    Suppression    Fight    Brawn    Brains    Nerve

6+/2              7+            5+                   9+        8+          4+         3+

Pray, +3 Experience

- Pistol, Map, Bandages, and Knife

Last up is Luke Goodson, the leader of this little band of survivors.  He survived when he was suddenly knocked unconscious.  

Activation    Aimed    Suppression    Fight    Brawn    Brains    Nerve

5+/2              7+           6+                    4+       8+           9+        3+      

Do As I Say, Do Not Be Afraid

- Knife,  Canteen of Water, Flares

- Revolver is out of ammo and left at Hide-out

Scenario

The survivors left their farmhouse to go gather supplies.  However, Martian forces suddenly became active in the area and the group needed to get to cover quickly.  Using Annie's map, they found a small cluster of local buildings and made a break for it. 

There is 1 marker in the center of the board.  It is inside the tire store building.  All survivors need to be within 4 MU of the marker by the end of the game. The game also starts at a higher danger level.  

This game is happening at Dawn. 

Finally, there are 2 Green Gas clouds in the area floating around the table.  The game is starting at Danger Level 9!    

Set-up

The area is 36 by 36 MU with 1 MU equaling 1 inch. 

There are three buildings clustered around the center of the board with a road cutting diagonally across the game play area.  There are also scattered trees encroaching on from the board edge in the upper corner, and some groves near the house. 

The survivors decide to deploy along the west board edge nearest to the house.  

I am not going to go over every turn, but a high level overview of the game as it progressed.  It is too hard to play and record on a turn-by-turn basis without breaking some of the immersion and fun!  

This start out looking good for our little group of heroes.  There are no foes and they skulk their way towards the objective building. Tommy can run pretty freely, nd does so to get to the building.  However, things quickly take a turn for the worse, as a really poor Danger roll brings a Martian Black Dust launcher onto the scene!  Yikes!  

The Martian Tripod made a bee line for Tommy and tried to grapple him with its tentacles.  However, the kid was too nimble and managed to avoid them.  However, the Tripod also used its Black Dust Launcher on Annie and Luke.  They were quickly down coughing and gagging from the evil smoke.  Luke manages to pull himself to his feet.  

Tommy manages to get away from the Tripod and run for the building they are going to hole up in.  However, the door is locked!  This proves to be a deadly obstacle as the Tripods Heat Ray cuts into the area Tommy is in and sends him Unconscious and Possibly Dead.  The Tripod then scuttles over to downed Annie, and their tentacles put her to Unconscious and Possibly dead as well.  Ouch!  With Annie and Tommy down, Handsome John turns and starts running for it! 

A new Martian Shocker arrives on the opposite side of the town, and heads towards Handsome John.  The Tripod manages to see Luke over the building and hits him with a Heat Ray, he is knocked Unconscious and Possibly Dead.  He then targets Handsome John in the woods and Heat Rays him Unconscious and Possibly Dead as well.

That is a TPK from 1 Tripod!  Yikes!  Good thing they have some supplies in inventory!  The Danger Level ended at only 18- Yellow!   

Post-Game 

Thankfully, the survivors went into this game with 11 Food, 14 Water, and 2 Scrap.  They are going to need it!  

All of the Survivors went Unconscious and Possibly Dead, so they will all need to roll on the Injury table.  In addition, none of them can perform post-fame actions! 

• Tommy- Shellshock so their Nerve is +1
• Annie- Eye injury so +1 to Aimed Shoot rolls
• Luke- Nerve damage so +1 Shoot for Suppression shooting
• Handsome John- Body Injury so +1 to Grit tests

Ouch.  However, Handsome John ended the game running away, so they also suffer from a Psychological injury as well.  

• Handsome John- Fear of the Dark

Sadly, no one gains any new experience from this session.  This leaves everyone at this level:

• Handsome John- 4
• Annie McCall-  8
• Tommy Wilkins -  8
• Luke Goodson - 8

Oh dear, since they can not post any scouts, the Martians manage to locate and destroy the groups hide-out!  They loose their farmhouse and all their stash!  Oh no!   This is bad, as going into the depravation phase no one has enough food, water, or scrap!  They are all deprived!  They will each have the following effect: 

• Every Game without enough food = +1 TN for Brawn and Fight (Max 10)
• Every game without enough Water= +1 TN for Brains and Nerve (Max 10)
• Every game without enough Scrap= +1 TN for Shooting and Grit (Max 10)

This was a very bad outcome for our plucky band of heroes.  Can they recover next time, or are they doomed?  Only time will tell! 

Luke woke up with a start, and immediately regretted it.   His head screamed at him with a  searing flash of red across his vision.  He immediately grabbed his head.  However, the pain told him that he wasn't dead.... yet.  

He stumbled to his feet, and tripped over the great tear in the ground the Martian Heat Ray had made.  The upheaval of the earth had apparently sent him sprawling clear.  He rushed over to where he saw the ragged form of Handsome John.  A splash of water from his canteen woke him up, and he immediately groaned.  

"I don't want to go..... where am I?" then John immediately curled up and groaned.  Luke made his way to Annie, and was relieved to find her sitting up and wrapping some of her own bandages around her head.  There was a bloody mark where her left eye was.  Tommy has been buried in some rubble as the eave collapsed on him, and he frantically pulled himself out, his eyes darting.  Luke was pretty sure that if he had been completely free, the boy would have dashed off in terror, and he would never see him again.  

The small band of scarecrows managed to stumble along the edge of the road.  They had a hand on the one in fronts shoulder to guide the way.  They stumbled along, and a trip that had taken a single day the night before, took them three.  

Luke was eager to settle down in the farmhouse and pop open a can of salted pork.  They didn't have enough food with them for three days out.  His stomach was reminding him of that.  They rounded the bend in the small tree-lined road leading to their hide-out, but something was immediately amiss.  The smell of burnt wood filled the air.  

Where their old farmhouse once stood, was just a smoking crater.  A few, burned and blackened supports stuck up from a torn and soot covered earth.  The farmhouse was gone.  John let out a long, deep, guttural moan.       

Until next time! 

 

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Wargaming on a Budget- Making a Game Board

 Welcome back all. 

Many of you know that I had a long period of my life where wargaming was barely part of it.  I was locked out by cost!  This period led me to lean into something I call DIY (Do-It-Yourself) wargaming, or wargaming on a budget.  It is still a part of the hobby that I hold onto closely in my heart.  

A while ago, I had a short post about how to Wargame on a Budget to make a board look good.  I want to go back and revisit that idea.  Lately, I have been playing games of Games Workshop's Kill Team game with the True Crit Gaming Guild.  Thankfully, one of our members managed to get in good with the local GW Rep and get us some good resources to start, but we soon outgrew the couple of boards we got from them.  Therefore, we needed some more 30 x 22 inch boards for our Kill Team group!  

I decided to step in to create some terrain for myself, that I could share with the group on game day.  I actually started this process by using a 6x4 city terrain mat from Cigar Box Battles.  It looked great, but was much bigger than what we needed for a game of Kill Team.  I also used one of the group Project Social days to make a reasonable set of DIY "futuristic city terrain" out of found materials and printed accessories.  

Amazing what some cheap big box acrylic paint, styrofoam, printed images, and a good mat can do!

However, I wanted to try and build a quick and easy board for Kill Team that was modular and called back to the Gallowdark/Space Hulk boards.  However, I wanted to do it all with found materials only.  Today, we will take a look at the first major step in that project, we are going to make the 30 x 22 inch game board.  

The first challenge was that Kill Team used a 30 x 22 inch game board, when a standard sheet of Foam Board or similar display boards were 28 x 22.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I am almost 100% sure the size difference was not an accident.  Therefore, I had to hunt for an alternative base.  I managed to find it with a big box of corrugated cardboard. 

I traced out the size I wanted, and cut two pieces of 30x22.  Why two pieces and not just 1?  Well, corrugated cardboard will warp.  Therefore, to prevent warping, I cut out two pieces and glued them together with simple adhesive.  This was to just give the board some additional strength.   

Those of you old grognards out there will probably recall an old article G-Dub did called Cardboard City.  This was around the time of the first Cityfight Codex.  Well, that article had a great tip for using cardboard.  

To cover the unsightly edges, you needed to cover them with masking tape!  Brilliant.  That is the next step of our board! 

Once that is done, now comes the fun part!  Time to detail!  Go out and find a whole bunch of boxes from cereal, oatmeal, and various other products that use that thin cardboard.  You know the stuff!  

Cut this out into a variety of small squares and shapes you like.  Take regular adhesive and glue these all over the top of your board.  In addition, find any other fun little items that strike your fancy such as straws, tongue depressors, sand, sprue bits, bits of screen, whatever!  Go crazy!  Use these to detail the board by gluing them to the playing side of it.   You want to make it look like more than just a flat piece of cardboard.  However, you want to put enough on, but not too much.  You don't want it to get in the way of putting your terrain on top, just enough to give your piece of board some texture and favor when you paint it.  

Once all of that is done, you are ready to paint.  First step is to give it a simple undercoat of grey primer.  This can be any old primer since you are not trying to make a detailed piece.  No need to use the expensive stuff you use on miniatures here!  Give it enough coats so the colors from any original packing material does not show through the primer.  

Once it is primed, you can go about giving it some rough coverage.  The easiest way is to either use spray paint or some cheap big-box acrylics.  It works best if you use a color that is a bit darker than the original primer.  Then just slop it on messily and let it dry for a few hours or overnight.  Then, go back and highlight the texture pieces with a lighter color than you used as the primer, again just using cheap, large brushes and big-box retailer acrylics.  

Now that those two steps are done, you are ready to move onto some detail work.  Again, no need to do anything fancy here.  Just use cheap big-box brushes and acrylics to paint out some details to make the base board POP!  Some red here, some green there, a splash of metallic colors on some sprues, etc.  Enough to give your board some character, but not overshadow the terrain or the models you are going to put on top of it.  

Congratulations, you now have a 30x20 play board for your games.  It is just big enough where you can easily carry it around and store, with just enough detail to make it look good.  If all goes according to plan, this probably took a weekend or two.  Plus no one else has a game board like yours! 

Next time on Wargaming on a Budget, we will start to build some simple walls to put on the board for quick and effective terrain!  Keep the materials you used for this project, as you will be using them again for the next phase!         

Until then! 

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Review: Kellar's Keep- Hasbro/Avalon Hill

 

Hail fellow adventurers!  Join me as we continue our quest.  A quest worthy of heroes.  A Heroquest?  Those who have been following the blog for a bit know that I received the new version of Heroquest as a gift, and have managed to paint the entire Core set. From there, I purchased and reviewed the Against the Ogre Horde set.  I have also managed to paint that entire expansion up as well.  Therefore, I cast my wandering eye to the future and decide to pick up my next expansion for Heroquest.  This time, I decided on,,,,,

Why Kellar's Keep?  I picked up Against the Ogre Horde because the idea of adding some ranged enemies intrigued me.  The Ogres were just a bonus.  The new hero was also a bonus.  I do want to keep expanding my collection of potential heroes.  However, this expansion does not offer any new monsters, any ne heroes, and not much in the way of special rules or rules enhancement.  So, why did I pick this one up next?  

For a simple reason.  At the end of the original Heroquest campaign ......  

************* Spoilers Ahead!**************

.... <Takes a deep breathe>....

No really, spoilers ahead...... don't read further if you don't want to see them.  I mean it! 

Where was I?  Oh yeah, at the end of the original Heroquest campaign, all is not right in the world.  The Witch Lord has arisen, and the King's army went off to fight Zargon's forces.  Newsflash, the battle did not go well for the King and they remnants of the King's army had to flee and get holed up in Kellar's Keep.  

At the end of the campaign, the Heroes are offered a choice.  Do they go forth and put the Witch Lord back in his tomb once and for all, OR do they go and help the King and the beleaguered forces against Zargon at Kellar's Keep?  Therefore, if you want to continue your adventures and games the players get to choose.  Therefore, it is useful to have the Quest Packs that keep the story going! 

************ End Spoilers!****************

Okay, we are back to our regularly scheduled blog post about Kellar's Keep.  So, we established there are not any new enemy units, no new rules, and no new heroes.  What DO you get for your gold coins than? 

Grab your three best chums, your gear, and all the loot you managed to haul off from the last adventure and let's go dungeon crawling!  

Things I Liked

The idea is that the King and is army are under siege in a Dwarven fortress.  Obviously, the heroes can not go through the front door and save the day.  They need to find a way to sneak into the Keep.  They do this by locating parts of a map within parts of the dwarven stronghold behind enemy lines, re-uniting the map and going inside.  A pretty good hook for a Macguffin hunt and dungeon crawl.

This expansion adds the simple idea that instead of stairways, the players enter through a doorway and leave through a doorway.  They do not always get to rest and re-arm between adventures.  

The game also adds a few "expendable" items like scrolls.  These allow any character to cast a spell using the scroll.  However, they are a 1-use wonder.  There are a few other similar artifacts.    

I do love that the back pages offer the map keys and a blank board map.  They are encouraging you to try to make your own dungeon levels and quests.  Love it.  I need to check out the App and see if they let you build them there.  

Iron for In, Wood for out

Things I Did Not Like

There is not a lot of flavor text to set the scene for each quest.  Perhaps it is not needed, as they are rather straight forward.  After all, this entire thing is a Macguffin hunt.  However, that being said I would have loved a bit more.  

The "boss fight" is a Gargoyle immune to spells.  Kind of lame as it negates the special abilities of two models right away.  It is also on the edge of a cliff, so the fight will keep most players out of the thick of things, so multiple player parties might not have much to do.  

I think when Hasbro "re-vamped" this Quest pack, they should have made a couple of custom models for the undead Dwarven Kings and maybe the boss monster of the fight.  Just using a normal Gargoyle is kinda lame.  I might have to dig into my model collection for something a bit more.... unique.  I also think a "statue" miniature would have been much better than a cardboard token.   

Meh and Other Uncertainties

The new quest book has about 10 quests of various lengths.  Some seem pretty short, others are more robust.  The new cardboard tokens like the straight stairways and short stairways allow for more variety to get in and out of dungeons.  They seem pretty good quality, and Grin's Crag is a good first step to try and evolve the game out-of-the-dungeon  

Boulder...... trap..... very cinematic.  

The game has two new plastic 3D doors, an iron one and a wooden one.  The Iron is the entrance to some levels, while the Wooden is the exit.  Nothing spectacular really, but again adds more dimension to what you can create for your own dungeons. 

There are 17 miniatures.  Just re-boots from the boxed set.  8 Orcs, 6 Gobbos, and 3 abominations.  That said, I am not sure you would every need more than what the core set has to offer on any of these Quests?  I probably missed why you need all these new Greenskins to play this Quest Pack.  

Repeats from the Core set

Final Thoughts

I do love the conclusion of this Questpack.  It feels suitable for the source material.... i.e. Grimdark..... but in a kid friendly way.  It is a Pyrrhic victory and set-up more heroic adventure will be needed to stop the spread of Zargon's evil.     

That said, it is a bit "underwhelming" and I can see why it does not cost nearly as much as the Against the Ogre Horde box.  It is about half the size in minis and new stuff.  However, the new ideas it adds are useful, and it does continue the story based on the Heroes choices.  I personally think this could have been available as a downloadable Questpack online without the minis.  When I am done getting these guys painted I will have 20 Orks, 12 Goblins, and 6 Abominations.  I will now have enough Greenskins for some pretty epic HQ clashes!   

Now, we just need that re-release of Battlemasters so we can have some epic Heroquest/Battlemaster cross-over games!   

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