Another little side job as the guys I did the Cthulhu figures for were happy with them and asked me to do the six from one of the expansion sets for them. The two new Investigators were fun, and once again I couldn’t bring myself to paint up the four badguys the same.  I think my favourite of the mutated arms is the one where it looks like the flesh tone is trying to reassert itself.

It’s amazing what you can do with a 30 part kit of Oathmark Light Human Infantry from North Star and the spare parts you invariably have after making other kits.  Again these are for 5LB and between two different threat lists I needed quite a range of missile weapons, but still had enough for two sets of melee troops, and five different leaders/personalities.  There are even two more left (not painted yet) I will use for my next Warband!   The group above are as they come from the sprues, as are the leaders below and the archers later on. These shields are in the kit too but as 5LB assumes most melee enemy don’t have shields, I ony use them on leaders (to remind me they can parry). These spears were added though as I like some variety in the melee troops, plus Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde uses units of six, so these will be flexible for that. The hooded heads are on the sprues and I only needed three for archers, so I just had to use them. As per the Gnolls, the slinger ...

  I’ve started working on some sections of dungeon/paved streets.  Sculpey polymer clay rolled out to 5mm thick, cut to sizes that are multiples of 25mm (my preferred size for bases), then rolled with contoured rollers purchased from a seller on Etsy, cooked, and painted with Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 Ashen Stone.  Not looking too bad for a few hours effort, but might do some dry brushing, I will ponder before spraying with varnish.

Today I tabled a force from my Viking army against a Reptile army using a playtest version of the Fantasy rules Knyghte, Pyke and Sworde by Ivan Sorensen. The two forces were balanced (five units of six figures) and for this first game kept as simple as possible with all troops at the basic level and with just a Captain and two Fighters as the leaders.  I’ll be introducing more elements of the rules in each game, but this first run was to look at the missile, melee, and bravery rules. Vikings: Shield Troops - Viking Hirdmen  Missile Troops - Archers Skirmisher Troops - Slingers Levy Troops - Bondi Fanatic Troops - Berserkers   Reptiles: Missile Troops - Snakemen Archers Skirmisher - Reptile Archers Charger - Big Lizards Levy - Snakemen Great Weapons - Tortles+Crocs Turns 1 and 2 were spent moving and getting used to each side taking an action in turn rather than the whole army acting together. Turn 3 though and all hell breaks loose.   It started with the V...

Next up I know Ivan thinks of the Gnawlings as Ratmen but I went Gnolls. 20 in a box set from North Star so again enough to cover the whole Threat list.  First up the melee troops: The three with shields are the leaders and I liked the look of the heavier weapons so just had to include a few of those: Finally, the missile troops.  In the box you get the crossbows and archers, but the lists call for slingers, so a little kitbashing using left over Slingers from a Victrix Dark Age set was called for:

  5LB is great for being able to use whatever minis you already have to hand, and what you’ll see throughout my battle reports is pretty much a different looking unit every time.  That said any single battle really only needs less than a dozen minis for the enemy (and of course only six for your Heroes and Followers.  As long as you can tell which mini is the Leader, and can easily tell any ranged troops from the melee troops, you are all set. I like a little variety for the twelve units you need for each Threat, and I do like ranged units to have the right weapon, so I go a little further, like with the Faceless in another post.  Here though is a good mix for the whole Duskling Threat using a single box of plastic Orcs (North Star Oathmark Orcs). First we have six archers: Then ten melee troops, with a nice mix of hand weapons: Then to allow for some variety in the melee troops, I also did ten with spears: Finally, at the top of this post are (from left to right) a ...

  The first 20 turns of my solo Five Leagues from the Borderlands campaign are now documented on the 5LB Gunnar’s Diary page.  This brings me up to date not just with that campaign, but with everything I have been doing since October 2023.  All posts from here will be fresh.

So for those that haven’t played 5LB, one of the enemy lists is called The Faceless - “A great and terrible kingdom is preparing to unleash its armies across the land. Wearing closed-face helmets, the grim legions advance under flags devoted to their animal totems.” The list has 12 units, which in this case needs a mix of light and partial armoured troops, crossbows, slings, and unit leaders. From the mix of figures you can see in these photos, I can make them all. The figures themselves are all Victrix but using five different sets - Vikings, Unarmoured Early Saxons, Norman Crossbows, Athenian Hoplites, and the Greek Hoplites heads.

  New page now up for all my work on terrain and scenery.  I hope it inspires.

  Lets start by getting it right out there that my painting style is what people often refer to as ‘Tabletop Ready’.  It looks better at a few feet away on the table than it does blown up in a photo. This is no accident, I consider myself to be a gamer who won’t “play grey” rather than a miniature painter.  The aim is to get miniatures on to the table, not into a cabinet, so I often reach a point where I say “that will do”, or “it’s on the back, nobody will notice”. I should say I am in awe of some of the work I have seen.  The painters who can make a model seem real, who make metal out of non-metallic paints, who do eyes that express character by putting 10 different colours on, who do lighting effects, etc.  That’s not what you’ll find here, ever.  I use Army Painter Speedpaints, and love them, no apologies for that.   I have realised this in turn spills over into my other hobby choices.  I haven’t done anything historical because painting to a ...

In my head there are three distinct aspects to tabletop wargaming; rules, miniatures, and terrain. I fully expect to be talking about all of this in two different ways, through Posts and Pages. Posts will be like this one, short and to the point, when I have one. While Pages will be longer reads, jammed with pictures and detailing a particular project or a campaign. When I put up a new page, I will signpost it by a post. I will try to label posts sensibly so you can home in on stuff if you are more interested in one aspect than others and as an aid to my own memory, here are what the Labels mean: Gaming will be for talking about rules or showing After Action Reports (AARs) from games, and look out for some house-rules and some playtesting (when it is stuff I am allowed to talk about) Painting will be for anything to do with miniatures, both painting and kit bashing, so expect lots of photos.  I warn you now, my style is what people often refer to as ‘Tabletop Ready’, so it looks...

  I’m sure this will be a familiar sight to many that do their gaming at home! The Vikings unleashed their secret weapon and even the Necromancer and his undead warriors found they still understood the meaning of fear!

  Meet Gunnar and the starting members of his warband for a solo narrative gaming campaign using the Five Leagues from the Borderlands rules by Ivan Sorensen.  At pointing of writing this post I am now 20 turns into the campaign and I have added two pages to this Blog, one showcasing the miniatures I have painted for this game and the other tracking the battles of the campaign.   I hope you find these interesting and if a solo fantasy campaign sounds like your idea of fun I can heartily recommend these rules.  Once you get to grips with the combat system, a typical game can be set up, played, and packed away in a couple of hours.  The campaign stuff is fun and gives you stuff to do away from the table, and of course it’s a great excuse to source and paint minis.  Though you can play with just six for the warband and can proxy the enemies with around a dozen figures. There is also a Facebook community that is really inspiring and helpful for new players. ...

These posts will bounce around a little as I catch up with the past nine months of output and add new stuff directly here, this one is current as I only finished these miniatures this weekend.   I was wondering how I could keep enjoying painting minis without constantly spending money and without filling the house with minis I would hardly ever use.   Then a few weeks ago I mentioned this to a Boardgamer at work who offered to let me paint the minis that come with the Lovecraftian game Mansions of Madness.  This was an interesting challenge as until this point everything I had done was open to my own interpretation, but these had a mythos of their own and accepted colour schemes, not to mention that the Investigator characters came with cards that show at least the upper half of the character! Here’s how I did, and the guys who play the game seem happy, so yay! First up the 8 Investigators, it was actually fun to try and match the cards and then envision what their lower ...

For some reason, I can't just ‘fight’ a wargame, I have to have some sort of scene setting.  Many get this from re-fighting historical battles, but for fantasy games I need to make up my own setting.  I hadn't really been able to label this behaviour until I became aware of Ivan Sorensen -  Nordic Weasel Blog  - and his term "Narrative Gaming".  Anyway, my first project on returning to gaming turned ambitious almost immediately with the decision to make six armies to fit in the different factions of SAGA: Age of Magic and then run a bunch of games pitting the Viking Horde against the other five with a bit of a story running through it all.  I documented this all on LAF but will document it again on some pages here over the next few days.

Back in October 2023, I took a look at my life and realised that outside of working I had nothing much I enjoyed doing and I was pretty much wasting my weekends away.  I recalled my long ago love for tabletop wargaming and roleplaying, and wondered whether I could rekindle that. Long, long, ago I played Napoleonic 15mm (Prussian), some Vietnam skirmish, 25mm Medieval skirmish, and even some ACW.  Later I discovered D&D and Traveller (a science fiction roleplay system) which then lead me to Games Workshop and working with the team on games like Space Hulk and Dark Future and getting stuff published in White Dwarf, that eventually lead, in the early 1990s, to my game designer credits on Space Hulk Campaigns, second edition Space Hulk, and the Warhammer Quest supplement Lair of the Orc Lord. Somehow though, building a ‘proper’ career put all that behind me.  Not only the game design, but even the painting and gaming just got forgotten about.  Looking back I can’t ev...