Miniatures Monday

A fearsome hill giant prepares to smash his foes to jelly with with his mighty war club!

Today's miniature is a hill giant from Grenadier Miniatures dated 1985.  I picked it up from the bargain bin at Games Unlimited sometime around 1990 and have been waiting to paint it for many years.

It is fitting that my 300th post would be a Miniatures Monday post. :-)

Google for the win

A fun little side benefit of having a Google+ account. :-)

Miniatures Monday

Keeping with the Runequest theme, here is another miniature that while not an official Runequest mini certainly could pass for one.

The Muppets: Cårven Der Pümpkîn

Writing

To everyone participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, good luck!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Have a safe and happy fright night!

Miniatures Monday

Today's entry is from a long way off and a long time ago.  All the way from Glorantha back in the 1980's.  It's one of Ral Partha's official line of Runequest miniatures.  Runequest is one of those games that while I've owned multiple editions of it, I've never actually played it.  I may need to check out the new 6th edition.

 

Dwarven Forge Dungeon Tiles

Yesterday, my Dwarven Forge Kickstarter dungeon tiles arrived.  I had pledged for three sets of the painted ones and have really been looking forward to their arrival.  As an aside, kudos are in order to Dwarven Forge for hitting their planned ship date of October 2013.

Shipping box from Dwarven Forge

Treasures within!

The box that they arrived in was about the size of the box for one of their smaller sets, but was packed full of goodness.  Some of the selling points for the new tiles were that they were to be lighter and more durable owing to the new Dwarvenite (aka. PVC) material from which they are cast.  These arrived packed closely together in small cardboard boxes rather than in the large styrofoam trays that the resin sets shipped in, and I didn't break my back getting them in the door.

Comparison:  Original Resin cast on the left and the new Dwarvenite cast on the right

Bases:  Felt pads the resin cast and none on the Dwarvenite cast

In terms of size, the tiles match up nicely with the existing resin casts, but they are stylistically a bit different with square brick walls instead of oddly shaped stones and floors that are more similar to those found in the old cavern sets.  The new tiles also don't have adhesive felt on the bottoms like the resin tiles did, so you may want to invest in your own if you miss that.  The paint jobs on the new tiles is acceptable, but not as nice as the old ones.  This isn't a complaint, rather just an observation.  You are free to get the unpainted sets and paint them yourself if you don't care for the paint scheme.  As I understand it though you have to be careful about the paints that you use and some won't adhere well to the Dwavenite (PVC).  For more information on painting the tiles yourself, check out this link at the Dwarven Forge website.

Floor differences:  Resin on left Dwarvenite on right

I don't plan on doing a durability test, but the new tiles are definitely lighter.  For the two pictured above, the resin cast weighs in at 2.6 ounces while the Dwarvenite cast weighs 1.9 ounces.  Overall I'm pretty pleased with the new tiles.  I don't feel like I have to treat them as gingerly as the old ones, and they were certainly cheaper.  I'll have to give them a test in actual play before I render my final opinion, but I have a feeling that they will work out quite nicely.

Miniatures Monday

 A daring knight braves the frightful depths!

This miniature is from the old part of my collection.  It's from a long extinct company called Wizards and Lizards, and I bought it somewhere between 1983 and 1984, so it's made from lead, and it's also true 25mm scale.  It sort of makes me feel like playing Pendragon.

Happy Birthday Ursula K. Le Guin

To one of my favorite authors, and one of the few who writes back, Happy 84th birthday!

Wow, has it really been 35 years?

The ABC Sunday night movie on 17 September 1978 was Battlestar Galactica.

That hardly seems possible...

Voyager 1: Farewell and good luck

One of only two vehicles left with an 8-track player and a record player. :-)   http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

Miniatures Monday

A gigantic barbarian warrior stands beneath the blazing sun in an ancient ruin!

So I took a clay golem miniature (a copy of last week's miniature) and made some slight modifications, adding a sword.  The result was an ridiculously huge barbarian warrior.  Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

Never trust NPCs :-)

This Knights of the Dinner Table comic sums it up nicely. :-)

Savage Worlds: Creating a Character (Step by Step)

This week, we will create a character for savage worlds.  So that we can see how the same character looks across game systems, we will once again be creating Korgrym the Unrelenting, barbarian hero extraordinaire.

In Savage worlds, you first begin with the character's race.  Korgrym may be savage, but he is still human, which means that he will start with one free Edge, which we will explain later.

Savage Worlds characters have five attributes:

Agility - How nimble, quick, and dexterous the character is
Smarts - How smart the character is
Spirit  - How much wisdom and willpower the character has
Strength - How physically strong the character is
Vigor - How tough and resistant the character is to disease and harm

Attributes are associated with dice.  the Larger the die, the better the attribute.  Each attribute starts out at a d4 in each attribute and has 5 point with which to raise them.  Each point spent raises the attribute to the next larger die, d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12.  No attribute may be raised above a d12.

Korgrym is strong, and tough, and quick, but not very bright, so his starting attributes are as follows:


Agility -    d6  for 1 point
Smarts -   d4
Spirit  -     d4
Strength - d8  for 2 points
Vigor -      d8  for 2 points

Now it's time to choose skills.  Each character has 15 points to spend on skills, and each die type costs 1 points, starting with d4 as long as the skill is less than or equal to the attribute that it is linked to.  Korgrym chooses the following skills:

Fight -             d8 for 3 points
Climbing -      d8 for 3 points
Riding -          d6 for 2 points
Stealth -          d6 for 2 points
Intimidation - d6 for 2 points
Swimming -    d6 for 2 points
Survival -        d4 for 1 point

Next, we figure Korgrym's Derived Statistics.

Charisma is 0 unless you have Edges or Hindrances that change it.  We haven't chosen Korgrym's Edges or Hindrances yet, so we'll say that is 0 for now.

Pace is 6" for humans

Parry is 2 plus half of Korgrym's Fighting skill, so it's 6.

Toughness is 2 plus half Korgrym's Vigor plus Armor, so for now it's 6

Now, it's time to chooses Edges and Hindrances.  Edges are special powers/skills that can be purchased by buying flaws or Hindrances.  Each character may take 1 Major Hindrance worth 2 points and 2 Minor Hindrances worth 1 point each.

For 2 points the character can:
   Raise an attribute one die type, or
   Choose an edge

For 1 point the character can:
   Get another skill point, or
   get additional starting money equal to their starting funds (normally $500)

Korgrym decides to get the maximum amount of points possible and takes 1 Major Hindrance, and 2 Minor Hindrances.  For his Major Hindrance, Korgrym takes:

Bloodthirsty - He can never take prisoners, and suffers a -4 Charisma penalty if his bloodthirsty ways are known

For his Minor Hindrances, Korgrym takes:

Illiterate - since he can't read or write
 and
Outsider - to reflect his status as an outland barbarian

In exchange for these Hindrances, Korgrym raises his Spirit by 1 die to a d8 and takes the edge:

Loincloth Hero - which allows him to make a free soak roll against damage whenever he is unarmored.

Korgrym's final abilities are:


Agility -     d8
Smarts -    d4
Spirit  -      d4
Strength -  d8
Vigor -       d8

Charisma    0/-4
Pace            6"
Parry          6
Toughness  6

Fight -             d8

Climbing -      d8
Riding -          d6
Stealth -          d6
Intimidation - d6
Swimming -    d6
Survival -        d4

All that is needed now is to buy some gear and go adventuring.  Here is Korgrym's final character sheet: