A Quiet Sunday Afternoon

There I was, laid on the sofa, reading a book about The Peasant's Revolt to help me plan my GCSE History when a little voice pipes up. "Daddy, can we play The Game?"

So that's what we did.

It starts off with him playing with the two Warg Riders I made him...

Before we move into the serious business of dungeon exploration, Middle Earth Style. 

The very simplified DnD-style system we're using still requires deep thought...

But the Witch King is finally defeated.

Incidentally, he has named his fearsome uruk-hai warriors mounted on fell wargs. One is called Peanut. The other is called Ra-Ra. 

Better than reading, don't you think?

End of the Summer

The new school year is about to start and this year it is rather special as my eldest son will start primary school.

This summer has been quite nice as, for the first time, he's shown an interest in the things I've been doing. I've even had the chance to do a simple dungeon bash with him which taught him the basic of dice rolling and practiced counting out squares. I thought I came up with the rules but I'm fairly sure my subconscious has kicked up a version of Rab's Knight's Quest work.

In any case, we've had a great time. So to commemorate it, and because this blog is as close to a permanent record as I have, here's a collection of pictures of my son geeking out with his old man. 

It's been a fun summer and bodes well for the future. Thanks for reading as always. 

Dungeon Crawl

Had a bit of trouble painting because the Eldest won't leave me alone. So I grabbed the Dungeon tiles I made, the poly dice I'd bought for him and did a quick dungeon bash.

In the first one, he had to rescue the king's crown that had been stolen by bandits. 

"Can I smack him Daddy?"

Rolls dice. Compares results. 

"He's dead! Does he have the crown?"

Killing people and nicking their stuff. He's an RPG natural. 

It worked quite well as he has having to remember that the different numbers were and which ones were higher and lower than the others. In the space of ten minutes he was more secure with quite a few numbers. 

This morning he asked if he could play again. 

I asked him if he wanted to be a ranger or an elf (I had a few Lord of the Rings miniatures kicking about). He chose a ranger; proof that he has good taste and will avoid namby pamby elves. 

This time he trying to rescue the King's Wizard. 

Opening the door of the dungeon. 

Pondering his next move. 

The next move being, of course, ATTACK!

And at the end of his trail of carnage, he defeats the evil sorcerer and rescue the wizard. 

Again, he made real progress with the numbers so as well as being fun it had educational value. Or at least that's what I'll tell his mother while I buy a load more stuff to stock a dungeon. 

In a hole in the ground there lived...

....well, pretty much every nasty thing I can think of. The first set of dungeon tiles have been completed as a test. 

I'm happy with the look and so now I'll start to paint up the other base pieces and then the specials. I was worried about doors but there's a little niggle in the back of my mind which tells me there may be an answer. 

I've also thought of a way to get over the fantasy hump those bloody Mantic orcs have caused; I simply cannot bring myself to go back to the Orc warband for a while. A package should be arriving from Foundry this week which might cure my ills.... Stay tuned. 

Slow Progress

Not much time for hobby stuff this weekend as the Eldest turned 4 so lots of parties and play times. 

I did manage to get a test tower and wall section of the Simba castle done:

I'm quite happy with the dark grey look. I toyed with sandstone but I think this is more suitable for fantasy. 

I also did the basic colours on some of the dungeon tiles; I've gone for a slight lighting effect on them which I think works well: 

More pictures of those as they develop. 

Building

I was in the process of building a dragon and then... Well, let's say there was an issue with the drill bit. 

And under my thumbnail. To cut a long story short, the drill bit is broken which means I can't finish pinning the dragon. 

So onto other construction matters. 

First, the dungeon. The rules are coming on nicely as are the tiles. A couple of more rooms and we'll be ready to paint. 

The other thing is having a castle. Every wargamer should have a castle. The problem, of course, is always coat. The new Renedra castle is lovely but - dear lord - the cost!

Allow me to present the Simba castle playset, available from Debenhams. http://m.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/prod_10701_10001_171050908599_-1 

How does it look? 

This is less than a quarter of the whole castle. A QUARTER. 

You can see the nice stone texture, so I imagine it will paint up very easily. The plastic has taken plastic glue very well and the scale is spot on:

It's obviously lacking a touch of detail on the inside but considering I got it for less than £20 how on earth can I complain?

More progress on these next week, I hope. 

Going Deeper Underground

As i mentioned a little while ago, I'm intending to move forward on indoctrinating my children soon. To that end, they recently picked their own poly dice and I've knocked together a very simple set of dungeon bash rules.

All I need now is a dungeon. So based on some advice from the ever creative Harry from Lead Adventure and a quick glance at Stuart Bannister's great tutorial, I've started work:

Some basic planning should - in theory - make the process easier. 

Rock from the garden for texture. 

Checking different base sizes. Looks OK! Also, a bonus goblin fanatic I found. 

First room and a couple of corridors. 

Proof of concept seems sound; so I'll make the basic shapes and then paint some.

Another One Bites The Dust

Well, with the completion of two US rifle squads, that completes all the figures needed for the WW2 project.

The two sides will obviously play very differently as they've been designed as a teaching tool rather than for balanced gaming. I'll post an update and review of the rules for Iron Cross after I've done the first play test.

So what next?

There's still the Orc warband for Dragon Rampant to be getting on with but I still haven't got the taste of those mantic orcs out of my mouth so I don't know if I can face going back that. However, I did find this sitting in a cupboard...

So that's moved to the front of the queue. While we're on the subject of fantasy, of course, there's the matter of my sons to consider. At some point, I'm going to want to start indoctrinating them. To this end, they have just ordered their first ever set of poly dice and I'm currently in the process of designing some dungeon tiles and cobbling together some simple rules suitable for a 4 and 2 year old.  Hopefully this will give me the impetus to do some more generic fantasy miniatures - including some more orcs.

So I would imagine that the next update from me is likely to be a test piece of dungeon tile but we shall see.