First session of our 2025 DnD Campaign - Finn's perspective

Finn’s Recounting of the Night at Aalborr’s Event 

(See also First session of our 2025 DnD Campaign for Inez'view)

The prison was never quiet. Chains rattled. Someone coughed. Voices in the distance. Finn leaned against the bars of his cell, watching the warden make his rounds.

Warden Halrick Greaves had the strut of a man in power. Two jailers shadowed him like royal guards. One of them—a mean-faced bastard called Arvin Quill, too eager with his club—lingered near Finn’s cell, giving him that look. The kind that said, Go on. Give me a reason.

Finn put on a slow, lazy smile, offering no affront. Quill seemed disappointed. He always went after the smaller inmates.

Finn glanced down at Roslynn, perched on a loose stone near his foot, nibbling at something. He nudged her gently with his toe.

“You ever been to a proper party, Ros? Not this sorry excuse for a gathering—I’m talking fancy invitations, free drinks, and folks too rich to know better.”

Roslynn twitched her whiskers.

Finn grinned. “Well, let me tell you about Aalborr’s big party. I reckon he and our warden here would get along famously.”

He stretched out, settling in against the bars like he was in some cozy tavern instead of a damp prison cell.

“When that green invitation found me, I figured it was a mix-up. The Slynts don’t get invites—especially not ones that scream money. But hey, I wasn’t about to say no. Free food, maybe a few marks to pickpocket, and some laughs. What could go wrong?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Turns out? A lot.”

 

The Drunken Badger

The Drunken Badger was packed, rich folk dolled up like peacocks at market. They stuck out in Nook—too clean, too soft. Finn had barely made it through the door before some people started squinting at him like they might recognize his face from a wanted poster. But whatever.

Then he spotted Inez, painted up like a porcelain doll, and figured this wasn’t just some random get-together. Jonathan showed up too—man of faith, looked lost, like he’d wandered in by mistake. Aalborr, that smug bastard, made sure they got separated from the posh crowd. Green envelope, green table. That’s when Finn knew they weren’t there for tea and biscuits.

He leaned in conspiratorially toward Roslynn. “Now, Roslynn, when you’re in a room full of rich folk wearing their finest, with their attention elsewhere, you don’t listen to what’s being said—you spot your marks. But maybe I should’ve paid attention.”

The floor disappeared beneath them.

 

One second, Finn was standing with Jonathan and Inez. The next, he was eating dirt in the dark. They’d dropped into a massive underground cave, glowing and eerie, the air thick with damp earth and something... off.

Finn rubbed his chin. “First thought? Where in the Nine Hells are we? Jonathan lit up the place with magic. Second thought? Wow—up close, Inez looks...” Inez caught him glancing down her dress.

“In my defense, Ros, it was right there. If you put your wares on display, don’t get mad if they get noticed!” He scratched behind his ear, smirking. “She disagreed. Slapped me good.”

Old Finn absently touched his cheek, as if it still stung. “She had a good right arm; I’ll give her that.”

 

A Cave of Fools

“We’d landed in a big pile of dung, Ros.” The trio stood at the edge of a cavern, surrounded by mushrooms. A lake stretched across from them, and beside them, a raised platform offered a way to circumvent the first patches of fungus.

They started exploring, and Finn climbed onto a small platform. Jonathan triggered a mushroom into trembling, releasing an awful screaming sound, attracting a walking mushroom guard—a big, angry one, armed to the teeth. At Finn’s urging, they sneaked away before it could reach them.

“But we didn’t know where we were, let alone where to go.”

Mushrooms that screamed when you got too close, a giant mushroom guard, and then—the damn raven.

“Big, black, beady-eyed. That thing started squawking, and I swear it said something. Not natural.” Finn’s grin faded slightly. “And book girl? She wanted to feed it crumbs. Like we were having a picnic in the cursed mushroom tunnels. Jonathan was all for it too. And me? Well... sometimes you gotta let idiots be idiots.”

“And speaking of idiots—Jonathan wandered straight into another mushroom that released some spores and started screaming about spiders.”

Finn exhaled slowly. “Imagine a grown man flailing at the air, slapping himself like he’s covered in invisible demons. That’s what I was working with.”

“Inez must have gotten the taste of slapping men, ‘cause she tried to slap him out of it. Didn’t work. Now, you know I never go anywhere without a good bit of cheese. Had a nice old Smuggler’s wedge with me—tastes like heaven, smells like a troll’s armpit. I stuck that under Jonathan’s nose. Woke him right up. Might’ve been too strong, though—he bumbled straight into the next mushroom, and this one froze him and Inez both like statues. Drooling statues.”

 

Finn glanced at Roslynn, shaking his head. “So, there I was. A lone genius in a cave of fools.”

Since the cheese was too potent, he doused Jonathan with cold lake water, which sorted him out.

“Now Roslynn, I don’t want you to think ill of me, but my cheek still smarted from Inez’s opinion of me noticing her dress. I may have suggested to Jonathan that I didn’t wake him up with water, but with piss, and that he needed to step up and piss on Inez. You know. Like for jellyfish stings.”

Jonathan wasn’t having it. Went the boring route—more lake water, no piss. Worked, but Finn still thought his way would’ve been faster.

“The old folks from the Shambles always insisted the tunnels were haunted. When you are there, you need to be alert, else you may disappear without a trace. Down by the lake, there was this little dragon hovering around. At least, I think it was a dragon, could’ve been an illusion. I swear it spoke, but the sound came from behind me and it didn’t seem friendly. None of us were in the mood to find out if it was real, so we pressed on, following the raven.”

 

The Jelly Door

Then came the jelly door. It was this weird, wobbly, hazy thing full of objects. They tried everything to open it—Inez cast some magic, which did absolutely nothing. Finn tried to work the lock with his tools, but it was like sticking a spoon into a bowl of porridge.

Finn let the others figure it out and took a step away to take a nibble from his cheese wedge and mull it over. Finn had seen a lot of doors in his life—locked ones, trapped ones, ones that led to very bad decisions.

Then he noticed something.

The objects weren’t just floating randomly. They were arranged. Like—Finn smirked. “Like a belt, Ros. A proper bandolier of blades. Which meant...”

He reached back into his pocket, pulled out a wedge of cheese, and flicked a slice at the door.

“The jelly ate it!”

 

Finally, their altar boy had a breakthrough. Jonathan conjured water from nowhere, and the door started to dissolve. Finn grinned.

“Now, Ros. I knew what had to be done. I turned around, made sure Inez wasn’t too close, and let loose. My piss blasted that jelly door wide open.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Halfling ingenuity, Ros. It’s a gift.”

 

It worked. The door dissolved. And, sure, Inez was fuming—she got some splashback—but the door was open, wasn’t it?

The items floating inside were what he thought: four blades. He flushed them off by the lake, both to clean them and to take a moment to inspect them alone. Three were regular daggers. But the fourth? Special. It had a weight beyond what it should.

“You make your own fortune, Ross.”, Finn said tapping his temple.

“Nice.”

A Game Rigged from the Start

The next room was creepy as hell. Completely empty with a tea party set up for three with a sign that said, “What’s missing?”

“Inez was useless, sipping bad tea while Jonathan and I solved the puzzle.” The door leading to the next room wouldn’t open, but when Finn turned the knob, the teacups started to rattle. Seemed like everyone needed to be at the table. Inez and Jonathan drank the tea, and they seemed ok enough.

“Now I was starting to feel a bit puckish from all the action, so I tried the scones which were amazing! Reminded me of raisin bread and were particularly enjoyable. Turns out we were the missing pieces. Figures!”

Finally, they made it back to the inn. Turns out, Aalborr’s little party was actually a race—and they’d come in dead last.

Aalborr’s damn Aarakocra goon rubbed it in, cracking jokes about halflings and piss. He told them to escort Inez home and not to “get fancy.”

Finn flicked a crumb to Roslynn, watching her snatch it up. “Still can’t decide if that night was a disaster or a triumph. Probably both. Inez owed me for getting her out of those spores, even if she didn’t see it that way.”

He stretched out again, letting his head rest against the bars.

“But one thing’s for sure, Ros. Men in high places don’t get there by being the strongest or the smartest. They get there by keeping the game rigged. Aalborr, Greaves—same trick, different table. And me? Just another coin in the pot.”

(Continued at Intermezzo: fluff happening between sessions #1 and #2)

First session of our 2025 DnD Campaign

20250110 Session #1 (as told by Inez, gnome wizard to be)

(See also: First session of our 2025 DnD Campaign - another view for Finn's view)

Dear diary,

Last night was the most incredible night of my life! It started some weeks ago when the invitations of Aalborr arrived at our house. In bright colored envelopes they stood out from the letters, receipts and other papery stuff that comes in daily into my fathers office. Mine was green, obviously different from my parents' yellow ones, so my father tried being funny stating that this probably meant that I was invited for the childrens party. Ha ha! Little could he know..

Together with my parents I arrived at the Drunken Badger Inn yesterday evening. Had to wear my best frock and my mother instructed the maids to polish and paint me up earlier that day, so that I could make an impression on the sons of the rich Gnome families. Took most of the afternoon, but I did look good though! ‘If charm were currency, I'd be running the whole bank!’ would my father have said. During this torture session I managed to smuggle my secret booklet into one of the many pleats and even a small dagger, which could come in handy if one of those Gnomish heirs would become too amicable like last time.The higher the prestige, the further the fingers tend to wander...

But things went quite differently this time. After walking in and greeting our host, my spouses and I were split up, as this was what the coloring was all about. And instead of at a children's party, I found myself joined with Jonathan and Finn at a table; the two halfling rascals which I wrote about in earlier notes. A pleasant surprise, though apparently our earlier, supposedly secret, meetings had not gone as unnoticed as I would have hoped. Nook is such a small gossiping town! Though I hope the story of me meeting two halfling men has not reached my parents, dear diary..

Arriving at the table, I tried to pretend not to know them and introduced myself formally, which surprised Jonathan a bit and made Finn roll his eyes at me. Before I could explain myself, a loud noise and yelling announced that host Aalborr was starting his opening speech. The Drunken Badger crowd started yelling and laughing about stuff I could not fully get, just confusing parts about racing and mushrooms not being a party. Hardly seeing anything of the main stage and having my sight blocked by all those towering humans, did not help either. And then I saw even less as all of a sudden the lights went out and the floor under us fell away!!

Seconds later I sat on the floor of a dark cellar with the two halflings next to me. The priest somehow lighted up a dart he was holding, illuminating the room. How did he do that, I wondered, having failed so many times myself to cast the simplest of spells without success? I looked in awe at the shining dart, then in wonder at the landscape that it revealed, then in anger as I noticed Finn taking a peek at my cleavage! A fast slap ended that, before I could lift my dress back into a less revealing state while standing up. 

So there I was, together with two halfling male companions in a dark cellar. If my father had known this would happen, he would have me locked up in the attic of our house! For a short while we stood there looking around at the bizarre landscape, mainly filled with huge mushrooms, with the contours of a lake in the near distance. How could all this fit in the cellar of the town's inn? 

We started working our way carefully, the damp and wetness making the floor slippery.  Climbing a small platform we triggered one of the mushrooms into trembling and even producing an awful sound. This we're not the kind of mushrooms sold at the Nook markets! We sneaked away as this seemed to attract a mushroom guardsman. Still don't know if this was one of Aalborr ‘s men in costume, or a genuinely angered fungus. We decided not to find out. Luckily this armed monstrosity did not follow us further.  Enough admirers for one day!

At the top of the platform we met a raven. Somedays I follow mobs of these birds flying over Nook through the windows of the solicitor's office until someone notices  and forces me back to my tasks. Though my halfing fellows did not like it much, I just had to try to connect to this corbie! Magically the bird and I seemed to be able to understand each other and when I asked it to help us find the way and feed it some bread, it took off pointing us the right way. At least I was convinced that was its message. It took some discussion with the boys, but after Finn did some ‘I know the right direction thief trick’ the halflings finally agreed to follow the bird.  

With the help of the light source of Jonathan we walked further, Finn taking the lead. At least he was now looking out for troubles instead of peeking at me. It would have been an easy descent to the lake side, if  not for that priest Jonathan stumbling into the mushrooms. The first one just made him hallucinate about spiders. Finn and I managed to snap him out of that. But the second one left him paralyzed and drooling. And even worse, trying to push him further, I touched the same boletus, and there I was, not being able to move, slobbering like some of my fathers aged, nearly dead customers. And it was all the fault of Jonathan! (Of course diary, I know that’s not fair, but that annoying priest.. and me being even more annoyingly stupid...)

Standing there helpless and stupid, Finn came to our rescue, or so it seemed. Throwing some water from the lake into Jonathan's face, he succeeded in freeing him of the spell of the mushroom spores. But then, diary you won’t believe it, this fiend of a Finn tried to persuade Jonathan to urinate on me as a way to set me free of the spores’ ban!! Luckily for me, the priest turned out a much more decent fellow than I expected that a halfling could be, flat out refusing to do this. In the end he helped me out by filling his hat with water, then tossing this over me. You can imagine what this did to my make up and dress! Now I was furious at them both!

Before I had the time to decide to thank or kill the halflings, they took off, and I followed them to the lake, irritated (just a bit). To find there a lovely small dragon, hovering over the water.  Though I still don’t know if it was just an illusion. If it was an effect of the spores or a trick being played on us? The dragon, either appearing close by or far off; its voice coming from behind the listener or from its mouth, depending on who of us was interacting with the little beast. We dared not to find out what was happening, deciding to make progress instead of unraveling this riddle. 

But more riddles would cross our path. Following the path pointed out by the raven, we came to a strange gate. Not made of wood or iron, but of a substance not that different from the puddings that our cook produces on high days. This jelly was more or less transparent, revealing what looked to be some small weapons inside. As our attempts to open the gate without touching the jelly failed, I tried to cast a spell from my hidden booklet. Amazing myself (and probably the halflings as well) I managed to pull this off, summoning an invisible creature to open the door for us. However, the gate was little impressed by the creature. However, I was shaken by this combination of accomplishment and failure, hunkering down to regain some energy. 

Meanwhile the halflings were making more progress. Once more, throwing water seemed to be the way forward, dissolving the doors slowly. Then the two companions murmured and giggled amongst themselves,  upon which Jonathan stepped a bit away and Finn opened his leather jacket. Luckily, for several reasons, I stood some steps behind them, because Finn started pissing on the jelly doors! Though I had heard stories about halfling men, this was not peeing in any way I had ever seen or imagined. The poor doors were blasted away and drops of piss flew around, landing on my shoes and dress! Once more I could not decide to hate him or thank him. 

Later on Finn shared a knife that fell out of the jelly to both Jonathan and me, and even had the wit to clean these before handing them out.  And Jonathan and I accepted,  that because of his magical urinating abilities demonstrated, he was allowed the additional slightly bigger dagger. But that did not make up for spoiling my dress and shoes! 

Moving through the now cleared doorway, we heard noises indicating that we were getting closer to the inn where our adventure had started. Opening the door at the end of the passage, we hoped to find the great room again. Instead we entered yet another room with yet another door.  

Placed in there was a table with three chairs, the table set up for a high tea for three (well, not in a way acceptable at our place, but still.). On top was a sign reading “what’s missing?”. Diary, once more I have to give credits to my halfling companions for resolving the riddle. As I was sipping tea from a magically filled cup, just to find out that this tasted awful (and hoping that this was not caused by drops of Finn’s magic spilling over), the thief and priest somehow managed to convince the door to open. 

Looking through this last door we found ourselves finally back at the Drunken Badger again, obviously having missed the main part of the festivities. Aalborg was asleep on his chair at the main stage, the guests still around either asleep too or too drunk to notice our arrival. One of his bodyguards, the big Aarakocra, smirked at the halflings and me, mockingly telling us that we were the last of the groups to arrive, having lost the race. Apparently magic screens at the walls of the inn had shown all guests, at least those that were interested, our adventure in the cellar.  “I really enjoyed your achievements, small ones”, he ended with a smile (if a beak can smile), “Now you two half wits, escort the lady home, and try nothing fancy!  And please, keep her dress clean of piss this time” were his words pointing us to the door. “And you little lady, next time wear an odor a little less pungent if you wanna charm the Gnomish gentlefolks.” Well, dear diary, next time this oversized vulture visits my fathers office, I will get revenge and pull out one of his feathers! 

And so, dear diary, this is how the night and my adventure ended. The two halflings escorted me through the empty streets of Nook. We had a short and a bit awkward farewell. Not the romance my father is worried about (more the kind of romance my mother is warning about), but certainly not the romance I was looking for!

Upon returning I found the house quiet and was able to enter through the servant entrance without being noticed. This morning my mother ordered my dress to be disposed of (For certain she had watched our adventure at the magical screens!) and me to my room, adding that she had not deserved such embarrassment. Later on I overheard staff members making jokes and innuendo about halflings, piss and worse...  

It’s been a few weeks now since I wrote to you,  my dear diary. Since that evening I haven’t seen Finn or Jonathan. My parents grounded me and my days are filled with tasks at the office and extra lessons at home in Gnomish Decorum (if such a thing exists). However before going to bed I put some bread crumbs (stolen from dinner) outside my window, hoping to lure a raven to visit me.

Well diary, so far, I’ll hide you with my spellbook, and hope to write soon!

(Continued at Intermezzo: fluff happening between sessions #1 and #2)

Battle of Hürtgen Forest

Last Thursday I played a game of Flames of War (FoW) (version 4) against Guus under supervision of gamemaster Lex. Guus is working on a FoW incarnation of the Windhundpanzerdivision; to test the first batch of his freshly painted troops a setting and scenario in line with their history were chosen.

The setting was inspired by the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, in which the Germans fought American troops in the last phase of ww2. In our case however it was my Tsejcho-Russian tank army that would try to drive off the defenders of das Reich. Lex had worked out a scenario based on the 'No Retreat', with some tweaks. And he was also our very hospitable host, rules official and just judge.

Like always I had prepared properly and read Lex' instructions intently (right...). However, one of those minor tweaks, stating that the attacker (me) was not allowed to use air support had somehow missed me. This was not a big thing, since I had expected to fight a panzer army (never heard of the Hürtgen battle before) I could now replace the Sturmovik points for tank riders, which would hopefully come in handy against all the infancty Guus had selected.

The other major setting for this battle was that almost the whole table would be 'forest' (the 'FoW type' of forest being indicated by the shade of green of the playing mat). My tanks would have a hard time driving through let alone fighting infantry!

In so far this was a historicly correct setting the battle worked out fine, for Guus and the Germans that is. Guus deployed his force dug in, waiting for the invaders, panzer IV's and HMG's in reserve and a small but important scouting group forward (in turn 0). My tank force of 15 T-34's, 3 SU-85M's, a pack of T-70's(!) and 4 BA-64's were deployed in a way to make most use of the one road on the board. My idea was to make use of my recce to spearhead a force of tanks up that road, but Guus clever use of his recce prevented this (wonder where he got this cunning plan from..?).

This meant my main force of a small and big contingent of T-34's were 'blocked' by the recce unit and stuck on the lef flank. To put some pressure on the other side I sent the T-70's and BA-64 there, trying to manouvre past the dug in troops there.




This plan did not work out too bad, except for some small problems: The smaller group of T-34's did not manage to get past the three stands of recce, the main force did smack through the other part of the German recce unit, but this took (too) much time. Moving through woods means bogging down a lot, taking (too) much time. Failing armour saves against artillery fire (PAK 50!) takes (too) much losses, even if you have a Russian number of tanks.
Medals (hero of the motherland!) went to the 'little ones' of my army: The BA-64 and especially T-70's made a heroic quest through the woods, around the left flank of the Germans just in time to pin down the defending infantry and PAK's to support the final all out atttack of the main unit on the trenches.

However Guus' dice rolling was not up to Guus' normal high standards, hitting, destroying and bailing enough tanks to force a break off of the assault :-)


All in all a very good start of the year and a return to the Flames. Can't wait for the next engagement!!

2019: the year of existing games with new rules

New years resolutions are the starting point for new initiatives and restarting long running items like this blog.
We started the blog to combine all our wargaming efforts. TO show what games we are playing and to keep track of campaigns like the Mordheim campaign we were running for a long time. Somewhere in 2016 this blog stopped a bit. All other new media were taking over quick sharing of information and with facebook groups, very large groups of like-minded people are reached. On the other hand these quick sharing media (also the use of twitter and the likes) do not give a solid medium where all efforts are in one place. This is one of the reasons that we want to restart our blog. Let's see if we can do this again, because sharing our ideas on this platform always proved to be an interesting one. Personally I think that writing a blog gives you more time to consider things and to explain more what the thought process is behind a specific game, squad list, opinion on a ruleset, selection of miniatures to paint and why you are painting/converting them as you are converting them. The fact that you have more time and more specs to elaborate is quite a good thing opposed to volatile media. Therefore, let's start the blog again with fresh gusto. We will share all our discussions and thoughts we have during our gaming nights or during a run that I do weekly with one of my gaming friends. Running is the ideal way of pondering on rules, coming up with new battle systems, miniature ideas and what to try next week. Even coming up with compete new games happend once. The downside of doing this while running is that during the run it seems great and everything is complete, after the run this tends to be forgotten so soon we never get back the great idea that we thought we had during the run :D.
What to expect the coming year? We are busy with a lot of Kill Team. Expect more of that. We have terrain and warbands painted and games being played. New terrains are on its way ranging from strange forests to industrial hives, warbands are popping up everywhere (I am busy with a set of Harlequins). With speed GW is putting out new add-ons to the game we find it hard to keep up, but we try!
Next to Kill Team we tended to play a lot of zombicide! Great boardgames now even with a lot of miniature painted! Last Crisis event in Antwerp I bought a couple of player add-ons I need to try in the game yet!
Maybe we go so far as to revive our Warhammer miniatures in one game or the other. 9th age might be tried or a skirmish ruleset in fantasy setting, maybe even AoS 2.0 rules, who knows!
X-wing was a game that was played a lot but stopped the last year with the 2.0 ruleset coming in. Also last Crisis event I bought 2 upgrade kits for the empire and scum to see if we can revive the game into the new ruleset. I already saw a lot of new rules making it almost a new game in my opinion. Upgrading the collection took me some time by the way! Making sure all the ships I have are upgraded and also finding out that sometimes you have more ships then the upgrade set provides. Also finding out that the empire upgrade does not upgrade the first order flyers (needs a new upgrade) etc. etc. But with the upgrade in place I want to fly some ships with the new rules and if OK I will by the other sets as well. Good stuff!
What else.....ah....just thought of the good old Flames of War miniatures lying around somewhere. I have and Italian army waiting to be played. I want to give that a new go with again a new ruleset.

Closing off I thing this is the year of trying out new rulesets for old games and existing miniatures. This gives me a bit of a retro feeling which is nice but the danger is that the new rules "are not the old rules". On the other hand being open minded about it and using the old mini's once more is a good thing, let's go 2019! You will read all about it in this blog!

Have transports - will battle/flee

For some time now playing wargames does not make it on the agenda. Except for the occasional game of X-wing, no other games were played and painting miniatures stalled as well. For various reasons I could not set myself to either go to tournaments or setting up a local game.
Though I really like X-wing, I miss the feeling of a 'big battle' and the painting and building of the army up front. Luckily I found the 'why we fight'-podcast which addresses Flames of War players and their struggle to stay motivated (amongst other stuff). So I decided to start a new project, one that was connected to playing but without the 'hard' connection to an army list or battle: I would paint all the FoW transport units that I had collected and not used or painted in games. Wonder if not using transports is (one of the many) reason(s) why my generalship is so faulty at this game?

All in all it turned out to be a very pleasant exercise. In boxes lying around a nice collection of vehicles was found: Sd Kfz 7 halftracks and trailers to move heavy 88 guns around, Kfz. 70, Kfz 15 field cars, a small collection of Kübel- and Schwimm-wagens and a ZIS-5 truck. The latter being a Zvezda model, were the rest were all Battlefront products. Somewhere in the middle I realized that crews would make a nice if not essential add on, so I started a search and rescue mission for those. Found a lot of battlefront miniatures and a few plastic soldier ones. The style and scaling of the two did not really match, so I used the PSC's for one field car (and then placed a roof on top so they're fully painted and out of sight...) Results shown below, comments and tips (also on how to use them in 'battle') more than welcome!

Perhaps the one I'm most happy with! After painting vehicles and crews I placed the crews starting with the drivers and distributed the rest over the vehicles. Only to find the next day that this one was missed in the last step and only got a driver. Looking around I found some Peter Pig minnies that I purchased at last Crisis. These two fitted in theme and in the car, however, they were standing. In the end this works out real nice (I think). They give an impression of being lost on the battlefield with all plans gone wrong or worse.. Same feeling I have most of the time when playing Flames of War :-)

The Zvezda truck was the first in line because it had been staring me in the eye for some months after I had constructed it. It can be used as 'beute-wagen' or in my Tsjecho-Russian lists. Though not as detailed as Battlefront ones, it still is a rather nice model.

The 88 guns come complete with halftracks and lorries for transport, however most of the time these guns spend their time stationary on the battlefield (and for good reason). I therefor painted the lorries as 'snowed in', being left behind close by the guns.

The tractors are in my 'normal' style, doing serious work behind the lines. The crew is painted in HEER/Luftwaffe style in line with the gun crews.

Two 'old' Kfz. 70 transports, still around in late war to carry my Waffen SS troopers.

Mud and snow were created by a mix of Tamiya and Woodland Scenic products.

Last but not least the light brigade: Three Kübelwagons and one Schimm'er. The size of the Panzerschreck bazooka's compared to the cars makes me wonder if they're really in proportion or wether this is caused by 'heroic scaling'.

Not another game...

I miss working with plastic…I really, really miss working with plastic. I don’t miss Games Workshop, not at all, but I miss what it used to represent to me. I don’t want to get into a Games Workshop discussion; the rules system, pricing or miniature aesthetics are no longer for me. I dislike that it is that way, but in the end it is what it is. In leaving GW behind I’ve gained and lost something. A world has opened up since stopping with Warhammer. There are a lot of really cool games and miniatures out there. Since the coming of AoS we (meaning me) have started up Frostgrave, X-wing and Infinity.

Frostgrave came and went in our group. It was great working on a warband and the ruleset was very good. But in the end it didn’t get the traction in our group like previously Mordheim and Warhammer got and we’ve moved on. A shame, but again it is what it is.

I love X-wing, this is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Not being a huge Star Wars fan is not a problem, the way this game plays has gotten me enthusiastic like nothing before it. I don’t think I’ve ever played wargames as regularly as nowadays. However, it does have a downside: it doesn’t require much hobbying. Everything is build and prepainted, though we have repainted some of the ships it is mostly a gaming-game (?). So that allows to have a game on the side and that game became Infinity. Infinity miniatures are all metal. They look great, but the fact that they are metal and pricy means that I’m less inclined to take up a saw and start cutting into them. And this is finally where we get to the point that I feel I’ve lost something.

What I miss is how in Warhammer you could immerse yourself in the background of an army and make it yours. I was a beastmen player and especially in the 6^th edition when chaos was one big army you could basically do anything miniature-wise. I made all types of centigors, mountain beastmen, swamp beastmen etc.  

The different plastic kits allowed you to mix and match and the only limit was your imagination. Or sometimes skill; I’ve ruined a good amount of miniatures before my conversions succeeded. :D

Anyways this is what I’m starting to miss. Just sit down with a couple of sprues of plastic and stuff from your bitz box and figure out what you can do to make your warband or army visually interesting.

So what’s the answer you ask? Why start another game off course and an historical one at that!

Since the fall of Warhammer everyone in our group is looking around for what is out there. Sometimes we discuss the different rulesets, such as Dragon rampant or Saga! Now I’ve never considered Saga before, but because I’m a huge fan of the TV show “Vikings” I started looking into the ruleset. And to my surprise I found that I really liked the system. But what army to take?

I looked at Normans, Franks and Irish, but in the end I settled on Norse-Gael. I visited Dublin a couple of years ago and liked it a lot. The old centre of the city was build by vikings and the image of vikings in a city trying to keep the Irish out always stuck with me. Since these are in essence the Norse-Gael I decided one them.
With a box of Gripping Beast dark age warriors and a box of Viking hirdmen I have enough to make 88 warriors. So there is enough room to start kit bashing. With greenstuff I can add Gaelic elements to the minis. All in all I have high hopes for this game and my hobby spending hours.

Stay tuned for a SAGA blog on these pages.

Trial game of Frostgrave

Last weekend for the first time in over half a year my beastmen saw some action again, not in a GW-game but in my first game of Frostgrave (the whole AoS-thing had really put a downer on my desire to game and/or hobby but now Frostgrave has sparked my enthousiasm again)!

I used my Beastmen as a Witch warband with my Shamans as wizard and apprentice, Ungor raiders as archers, Gor as thugs, Beastlord as a knight and my Razorgor as a War hound. One of the great things of the game is the liberty in using mini's from other systems and from different races in your warband (basically race etc. don't matter as long as it's clear what hireling type your miniature represents).

We played with 7 people at Arjan's house and here are the two tables that he laid out in his living room using terrain that we normally use for Mordheim:

I played Ludo and Arjan on the table with the trees (Sigilist and Thaumaturge warbands), the other 4 guys played on the more open table. One observation we made is that the game plays better on a table with more terrain. 'Cause on the open table ALL 4 mages got magic missiled/shot out of the game(!) while on 'our' table you had to work to get line of sight.

The scenario we played was 'The Silent Tower' in which you can find a special treasure on top of a 3-story tower that is surrounded by a magic null-field: no spells can be used by or aimed at anyone that is inside the tower. Also magic items don't work in the tower. There were 4 other 'normal' treasures placed on the table as well.

As for the game itself, I'm happy to report that the Beastmen Witch-band won with claiming 2 normal treasures besides the treasure in the tower! :-) Key to my victory were 2 utility spells, Telekineses (that allows you to 'pull' treasure towards you) and Teleport (that allowed my Wizard to quickly escape to the edge of the board with the scenario treasure).

Here are some piccies of the battle:

Overview of the table with my ungor archer climbing on top of a tower to get a good overview of the city:

Members of the Sigilist warband advancing:

A Gor thug running off the board with a treasure:

My wizard claiming 'the bounty' (harhar) on top of the silent tower:

Getting out of the tower's null-field before Teleporting to safety:

To summarize: I had a lot of fun with Frostgrave, the D20 system makes for fast paced and often brutal combats. And even though it's Wizard-centric it isn't all about blasting your opponents off the board but also about utility spells to win the scenario objectives. Finally the fact that you only need ~10 mini's for a warband that can be of any system/race makes it very accessable to existing and new players. I've already gone through my old pile of lead miniatures to put together new warbands, probably going for something Viking-themed next!