Slime

DIY slime made from hot glue.

Not exactly fungi, but they are initially for the fungal/Shroomfolk faction.

The Funks of Shroomsbury

OMFG I painted! 🤯
OMFG Blogger got an update! 🤯

It's been a complicated year and there's a lot of change. As the wind & snow moved in to our part of the world, I decided to take a day OFF from most other responsibilities and just slack for a while. I painted for the first time since the couple of convention figures in July. Prior to that, I had painted a figure in March, and my OWAC entries in January & February. So it's been a slow hobby year.

I've been going over my ideas for another solo fantasy campaign, flip-flopping from wanting to try Five Leagues from the Borderlands and going back to Sellswords and Spellslingers. In the process, I've also been thinking about setting & theme and decided to lean into the fungal faction I've been dabbling with for the past few years. I've had the Midlam Miniatures Mushroom Folk on my table for a while, and they were a perfect fit for one of my proxy ideas for 5 Leagues campaign. So here we are...

The Funks of Shroomsbury!

Most are from Midlam Miniatures, except for the hunched over figure on the far right (3d print picked up at the anime convention in July), the little gob-shroom near the center (Gin Fritter/Armorcast), and the infected human (Satyr Art Studio wizard's apprentice with converted shroom sprout.)

Yes, I'm a fan of the Cadfael mysteries and couldn't resist the awful pun. ;)

Vapor Gaming - My Unrealized Ideas and a Lack of Hobby Time

A rambling, reflective update after an absence of some months. Reformatted because Blogger sucks on mobile.

I dropped out of the Old World Army Challenge after the second month and haven't really painted or done any gaming related stuff since then. In fact, lately I haven't done anything much more than work, try to manage family stuff, and keep my head above water.

I'm trying to figure out some ways to get my painting/gaming mojo back but nothing going on yet. Got me thinking about my many vaporous gaming ideas over the years.

* I bought Tether, a journaling RPG, with the intent of playing it with my wife. But we haven't started yet. But she bought a journal, and I bought some ink pens. I still hope to start sometime.

* I brought Dark Tomb on a couple of work trips and have left it on my desk on occasion as a reminder to play. But still haven't tried it yet.

* I've made just as little progress with Rise.

* I've thought quite a bit about some of the solo miniatures gaming ideas I've had over the last few years but haven't got very far.

• Five Parsecs From Home.
• Five Bananas. I don't feel like I ever "finished" the campaign. It just sort of fizzled as I ran out of free time. I also feel sad that I didn't keep up with documenting it here. I did only slightly better on Instagram, Just realized I never even posted a pic of the fully painted crew here! I will need to fix that. It was very enjoyable while it lasted, and got better the more I played!
• Five Units From a Place - Crew of the LAGWAFIS. I had a "serious" crew rolled up and painted, but wanted to try the game out with the Five Bananas as a joke before I got attached with them. Not sure if I will return or start over with a new crew or go back to the Bananas. (I have since painted a new figure to replace Egon in the pic below.)
  
• Five Leagues From the Borderlands. I enjoyed Five Parsecs, so I bought Five Leagues but haven't played yet.
• Five Leagues From Eternity. Mortal survivors in a war-town world dominated by undead, daemons, and the primal fungi-based life that were awakened by the destruction.
• Five Leagues From the Little Country. A small skirmish idea based on my "Alt-Hammer" setting and the Jackrabbit Trading Company.
• Sellswords and Spellslingers.
• Plain of Thieves. I had a warband, backstory, and homebrew campaign mostly written out regarding a band of goblins on a mission to take back their artifacts, which had been stolen by a bunch of thieving "adventurers" and scattered among the human dominated lands.
• Old Hammer New World. I'd like to do a campaign set in the new world as described in 2nd & 3rd edition WFB publications, with some of my own additions.
  
  
• Miscellaneous.
• Warhammer -1313. Hasn't really solidified, not sure what rules to use, but still like the concept.
  
  
• Lichemaster. I've considered playing the various Kemmler campaigns/scenarios solo using WFB3 but using proxy figures since I'm not that lucky.
• Vengeance of the Witch-blaster. I also had an idea for an alternate parody-ish game based on Vengeance of the Lichemaster but involving some dwarven smugglers, the half-orcs they stole from, and an enthusiastic but slightly dimwitted witch hunter and his mob of misfits. See also, "Beers Un-numbered."
• Alt-Hammer / Jackrabbit Trading Company / Anabasis / Kings of Old / Zogmar. I have a bunch of backstory as well as several campaigns of battles outlined. But I never worked out good solo rules for larger scale gaming nor do I have any opponents to play with.
• Drachenfels. I'd like to work him into either a solo skirmish or a campaign to add to the others above.
• Meat Hating Robot Pirates. Has never moved beyond a concept and painting a bunch of robots.
• Rangers of Shadow Deep. Bought & read the book, thought about playing. Painted some infected trees and webbed victims.
• Planet 28. Bought & read the book, thought about playing.
• D&D. Still sometimes think about trying my hands at the modern game with small group of family & friends. I haven't played since 2nd ed.
• Giants! I wrote some rules for games of brawling giants but never tried them out. Just now thought that I could add a Dragons! add on.
• OMFG (Of Mercenaries, Fighting, and Gold. Many years ago I had an idea for games between "regiments of renown" using a "game before the game" bidding system to integrate with various fantasy battle rules.

I've sat down to paint a few times since February, but haven't done anything other than a single color basecoat on some Shroomfolk. I did prep some figures for painting. But all I've really done since dropping out of the OWAC was paint a few figures at an anime convention we took my kid to over the summer (where they had a painting table). I'll have to dig up some photos, I've been horrible about posting here vs. IG.

Return of the Cold September

Return of the Cold September

Eldar Pirates

Old World Army Challenge 8

After taking a year off the OWAC (#7) I'm back for The Ocho in 2025. This year I'm returning to the Crew of the Cold September project from OWAC4, Eldar Pirates based (loosely) on the Eldrich Raiders army list from Chapter Approved: Book of the Astronomican plus the subsequent White Dwarf articles that followed.

Instead of copy/pasting the full text here here, I will direct you to the intro & monthly entry pages. 

Intro:

https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2024/12/zerotwentythrees-eldar-pirates-intro.html

January:

https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2025/02/zerotwentythrees-january-eldar-rank.html

February:

https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2025/03/zerotwentythrees-february-eldar-rank.html

However, here's a few preview photos.

Since it's been a few years since the previous project and they've been hidden in bins since then*, I created a quick ID guide using the OWAC4 images to help me remember how to paint the new infantry squads! There are slight variations in the "uniform" on the different green squads. The two "heavy" squads below have identical color schemes, now that I'm looking at that I should have made some minor variation. 

New Year 2025

Happy New Year!

A couple of quick updates.

First off, my goal for a vampiric Deadcember was a pretty big flop. But I did get this lovely couple and their pet bat painted.

Second, I've decided to get back to organizing pages of painted miniatures. I started this years ago. The links are at the top, with figures organized into categories. But a lot of the photos are old and piecemeal. The Dragon page was done recently, and the Half-Orc page is mostly newer photos. And the Five Parsecs faction page has been my big project for the past year and a half. But I'd like to work on revising some of the others with better photos & organization, and creating pages for some of the unrepresented factions (wood elves, trolls, etc.) 

I started today with a small one: the Shroomfolk!

Deadcember 2024 - The Plan

My plan for Deadcember 2024 is to paint these (mostly) old vampires. And the one dreg, because vampires need a minion. I also have a couple of newer "accessory" figures to go with them (not pictured,) a bat and a dire wolf.

No Flesh November, Spooky Stragglers, and Travel

First up, some stragglers from my spooky painting spree in October.

Following up on both Spooky Season and my previous update regarding Warhammer -1313 skirmishes, I decided to paint some sKELTitons. Essentially just old Citadel plastic skeletons with metal Gallic shields. Since every month at the end of the year needs a named theme I've dubbed it No Flesh November. ;)

Aside from doing a little painting, I've been doing a lot of work. But that has also involved some travel which gave me a chance to take up a few side quests including a weekend in southern New Mexico. I started off in Amarillo, TX...

...and made a quick morning stop at the Cadillac Ranch where my painting skills were no match for the intense wind blowing across the field...

...I had planned on having lunch at the Midpoint of Route 66, but the cafe was closed, so I settled on standing in the middle of the road at the Midpoint before heading off to get some work done and then flying to El Paso. 

After a day of working there, I popped up to NM Saturday morning, racing around to national and other sites before returning to El Paso for a flight home. In the course of my continuing Adventures I...

...visited the "world's largest pistachio" at a tourist stop near Alamogordo, and bought a bag of piscahios to help sustain me through the next two days 😁...

...stood on a 5,000 year old lava flow at Malpais Valley of Fires...

...viewed petroglyphs, some dating back 1,600 years ago, on the Three Rivers Petroglyph Trail...

...returned to gypsum/selenite desert at White Sands. Unfortunately the back country camp sites are closed. My plan was to sleep on the dunes and see the Milky Way, but it was also very cloudy as well. So I hiked part of the Alkali Flat Trail until the sun started to set, got a hotel room and set off again the next morning...

...and the morning drive took me through Lincoln National Forest in the Sacramento Mountains. There were actual trees in the forest a little further in. And snow! Eventually the land leveled out to the high plains before I arrived at...

...Carlsbad Caverns where I spent a few hours below ground and my image/understanding of "caves" will never be the same...

...on my way back to TX, I briefly stopped at the Guadeloupe Mountains visitor center. I walked the first few hundred feet of the nearby trail just to say I hiked in one more park over the weekend 😉 , but I didn't have the time or preparations to actually hike the mountain! Maybe a return trip someday?

The week prior to my Southwest Adventure I had another, shorter trip to the center of the US. Literally.

...but first a stop at the World's Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, KC. Exciting as that was, the road was calling...

...and it brought me to the geographic center of the contiguous US.

Pretty busy November and I'm grateful that I got to see some interesting sites along the way! Now I will try to return to more direct miniatures & gaming content, and catch up on some Five Parsecs campaign reports. But I have a feeling that my Adventures will influence the miniatures & gaming. I'm already planning a Grav-Attack Ranch terrain project, and have been thinking a lot about caverns, deserts, petroglyphs. I wouldn't be surprised if more new terrain pops up on this blog in the next few months.

One last item, I've updated the format of the blog to allow larger photos to be displayed. This is a bit overdue, as the blog was originally designed for older display resolution. I guess I've been at this for a while! There's still some issues to work out, but that's for another day.

Warhammer -1313 (skirmish thoughts)

 

I previously posted some thoughts for a Warhammer -1313 setting/campaign/project. Years ago. Because I have a habit of coming up with ideas but never following through.*

I am currently revisiting this one. In my head, at least. For now. But I am itching for some fantasy gaming & painting again, so maaaaayyyybe.

I've been enjoying a Five Parsecs from Home campaign (which I am WAY behind on updating here) and have been thinking about fantasy gaming again. So I'm thinking about a Five Leagues from the Borderlands campaign set in the above mentioned Warhammer -1313 setting. I've also thought about this as a Sellswords & Spellslingers campaign as well. I really like the card & combat mechanics of that game. But I also like the additional campaign detail of the Five (units) From (place) series of games.

Current thoughts on factions include:

• Humans. Pre-Sigmar exploration by primitive tribes. This would be my warband and a small number of competing warbands as opponents.
• Fimir. If I do this as a skirmish now, I will switch to the Satyr Art Studio Fomorians and maybe some plastic Heroquest Fimir, so they're on the smaller (25mm) bases vs. the Citadel and homemade conversions I already have on 40mm bases.
• Skaven.
• Drachenfels. Daemons, undead, undeadish.
• Goblins.
• Wood elves & forest spirits.

A couple weekends ago I spent a couple hours walking around the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. The walk gave me a lot of inspiration for making some new terrain representing the marshy portions of the Wasteland!

The wildlife refuge is, well, home to various wildlife. Especially birds. Along with various waterfowl, I spotted a pair of (vocal!) bald eagles. Not a great pic, but I didn't want to get so close that I disturbed them and these are all take with my phone.

So now I am thinking about various ways to create some modular-ish wetlands, dead trees, and other living flora for my small table!

*See also: Kings of Old/Zogmar, Anabasis/Jackrabbit Trading Company, Vengeance of the Witch Blaster, Beers Unnumbered, Wheel and --- Whoa! (this one doesn't even have an entry, but has a big outline, sort of a refinement of law/chaos to life/death/change), and Plain of Thieves among others. But seriously, for most of these I have a bunch of fluff, outlines, etc. written out. Just need to actually DO them.

Overdue Update Pt. 1- Fantasy

It's been 4.5 months since my last update. But I haven't been completely inactive. Just not posting much here. I post pics more regularly on Instagram, probably because it's easier than sitting down at a PC to update this site. And I spend too much time in front of my PC every week for work, so I've also been trying to enjoy the summer & fall outside, before winter hits.

I have actually written and re-written a post about revisiting my idea for Warhammer -1313 and now working it into a solo skirmish campaign. But more on that later. For now, here's a potential warband teaser pic. :D More on that later, as well.

I've mostly been painting sci-fi figures lately and playing Five Parsecs From Home. But I just got an itch for some October spooky terrain & painting a week or two ago. It started with the idea of using some cheap craft store pumpkins for a bit of terrain -- a pumpkin patch. Then I thought of doing a pumkin circle, like a fairy circle, but spooky. Naturally that meant I needed someone to inhabit/emerge from the pumpkin ring realm. I've got a small batch of others partially painted, hopefully finish this week.

I will follow up shortly with some sci-fi posts next. I have been updating the Five Parsecs page here, even if it doesn't show up on the front page/main blog section. So there are more battle reports and painted figures to share. Coming soon! Probably.

Five Minutes from the Grave

Tra La La, Tra La La La

Campaign Turn 1 (part 2)

aka Five Minutes from the Grave

As documented in my previous entry, I finally dove into all the campaign steps for my Five Bananas From Home crew as a way to learn the rules i a lighthearted way. As described, our "heroes" landed on the sixth planet in the Tejas system after some minor difficulties. Bingo hit the starport, got lost, gambled away some of the team's stash, while the other three bananas made plans to meet up with Snork's contact.

Today the three active Bananas hit the econo-lot a the Arlington Memorial Spaceport on a gloomy afternoon. However they found their fake IDs were missing (thanks to Bingo) and encountered a few guards. Not a major problem, right?

Click to enlarge.

Snork's contact is left of the toxic pool. The Bananas are labeled in the background (Fleegle is hidden behind the orange transformer station) and the three guards are in the foreground.

Click to enlarge.

There was a slow start due to limited visibility. There's not a lot of details to be had. The battle lasted about 6-7 turns. First a bit of movement, everybody darting from cover to cover. Snork met his contact, the first part of the mission accomplished. Noe they just had to hold the field in the firefight. The first two turns the Bananas dodged rifle shots while landing a few non-lethal shots. Fleegle had to use his luck to avoid becoming a casualty right out of the gate. But within two more turns it was over.

Three Banana casualties bleeding out in the econo-lot, one unconscious in a gutter somewhere.

A noble start.

Maybe I'll write up the narrative later. Hopefully the next turn goes better.

Post battle wrap-up:

Fleegle: Minor Injuries

Drooper: Minor Injuries

Snork: Gruesome Fate (rerolled) Minor Injuries

Bingo: A Pounding Headache and a scar where his left kidney used to be.