Voyage of the Pandora

With all of us now working from home, self isolating or whatever system is in place trying to stem the Pandemic, I had someone come to the door.

Imagine my surprise when my friend Bruce was standing on the walkway, & after greeting me, pointed to a small parcel he had left on the step. It seems Bruce was determined that we keep our group gaming during this time.

My first thought was OH...a play be email campaign. But upon removing the items within the envelope, it was soon discovered that this was a solo affair.

Bruce took the original counters & made his own versions of them, creating much nicer & easier to figure crew, creature & equipment counters. Your provided with the choice of either a 10 year (45min), 20 year (2 hr) or 30 year mission. Your given your space with various planets you will be able to explore.

I would start with a 10 year mission. 

You must then roll a d6 to determine the Intelligence of each crew member. The higher the dice, the higher the Int stat.

Now I must state that this is a system from the Grognard Wargame era. Even with Bruce giving us a set of crib notes, I was soon to be a bit boggled with wording....

Anyway off I went. The Pandora flew to the nearest planet - Mephisto.

The game works with a list of 232 paragraphs, each numbered. As you perform various things, you consult the specified paragraph to determine the situation.

I orbited Mephisto & determined that the Gravity was Light, Atmosphere Normal, Geology Active, etc. There are counters to track this. You will also be informed that if you wish to explore there are 3 locations you may get by the roll of a die.

This is where it gets convoluted. You decide what you want to take down to the surface on your shuttle. The shuttle has so many portage points of equipment & people it can take to the surface. However once there you will then send out your group. I went with the Ground Survey member with 3 pieces of gear & 3 supplies. Supplies will be used once you reach a certain threshold & roll a die.

I decided I would walk. Now it states that the hex you land in must be explored. Each time I search or move it consumes time (in hours). Based on the chart it would cost me 3 hours to explore my hex.

There is a chart that you roll on to determine which paragraph will be read. There are generally 3 listed events per paragraph based on what terrain your in. If none of the 3 fits your location, you get to perform an Expedition Action. 

As this is the result I got, I moved to the next hex (costing a further 2 hours) 

I got the same result again & now found myself entering the cave, which is where I was headed anyway.

I discovered an energy creature, which I opted to try to communicate with. Its a good thing I didn't have a robot with me, or he would have been damaged by the electrical surge of the creature.

Due to its lack of intelligence I was able to capture the critter in an E-cage. 

From there it was back to the shuttle & up to the Pandora. This took me more than 45 minutes just to get through 1 expedition. I am sure once I play more, it will move faster.

This finds me with 5VP for my first year of the voyage.

I will be contacting Bruce to get some clarifications & hopefully get further into my voyage next week!

Frostgrave Barbarian Wizard/Shaman

Here we have the Northstar Miniatures Barbarian Wizard or Shaman, however you prefer.

This is a metal miniature, quite nice, though a bit of flash needs scraping & there are areas which are a bit of a trouble to get at. Otherwise an excellent miniature, complete with fetishes & charms.

My latest discovery of sorts, is for doing wood. Previously it would be a dark brown with lighter drybrushing. Now however I've been using a light (in this case Barn Wood) followed by the GW Contrast paint Gor-grunta Fur. I find it makes a nice mottling effect.

She will of course be added to the list of those needing another anti-shine treatment once a product is found. Up next I am working on the apprentice figure.

Frostgrave Barbarians Shiny & New

I've completed another 2 barbarians from the pile. The left one being plastic from the Barbarians Box set. The right hand, javelin wielding fellow is a metal figure from the Northstar Frostgrave Barbarian line.

Alas, as with most people, it seems a never ending struggle with Matt (Anti-Shine) sprays. These guys are still somewhat shiny...ugh! I find it dissapointing that companies don't stick with a proven formula. The continue to 'improve' their recipes...with the sad result that they fail.

So this leads me to ask fellow bloggers if they have a proven anti-shine product. With the current state of affairs, this may prove problematic to get, but there are a couple local stores that are still offering curbside assistance to get product.

Up next, I am almost finished a Female Barbarian Shaman/Mage. & of course many more barbarians!

Thanks for visiting.
 
 

Frostgrave - Barbarians...of course

I had hoped to have had these 2 done on Sunday, however I got the call to head into the office to grab the surface pro & monitors so I could set up to work from home. That pretty much ate my Sunday afternoon. 

However now that I am home, I am able to spend a bit of time during my lunch hour to get some paint on them.

Here are the next 2 barbarian figures for Frostgrave, from the Northstar Miniatures Plastic multi-part set

I built them as a Trap Expert & Man at Arms version. A Trap Expert you say? Well its plausible that someone will want to play a Barbarian band & lets face it, their hunters would need trap skills to snare & trap game.

So as we continue to Physical Distance ourselves, I have a great many more Barbarians to come.

Chaos Beasts Herdstone

This past Sunday's painting consisted of completing the Warhammer Chaos Beasts Herdstone.

This plastic kit was a fairly simple build, though I did have to do a bit of putty along the side seams.
 

There were a couple of small pieces I didn't add as I needed to have this ready for Sunday's game. I will likely add a bit of rusting to the chains to finish it off.

As is typical of GW products..there is a multitude of skulls, though I suppose with the theme, it does work. There are also numerous weapons laying about the base.

The firepit, consisting of burning skulls, I tried to use some yellow on the inside walls to show the glow.

 Lots of details on this kit, which took me my whole painting session to complete. 

With our next Campaign game this coming Sunday, I hope to get a few more Barbarians completed.

The Adventurers - Temple of Chac

For our club night, I brought out The Adventurers - Temple of Chac. Dan, Bob & I played.

Yes before we begin, I still need to paint this set up! So here is the Temple of Chac...very Indiana Jones & even has the huge rolling rock.

We start by entering the Wall Room. Each turn, 3 cards are flipped to see if the walls move inwards. At the same time, the rock will begin to roll on its course to eventually sealing the temple. In this first area, we can search for treasures in each of the 4 rows, as well as decipher a glyph for use later in the Lava Room. The glyphs deciphered will show those which are trapped.....the hard part is remembering what they are as you only get to look at it for 5 seconds.

So we got through that area easily enough, the boulder is beginning to roll.

Dan made the mistake of running back into the wall room to decipher a glyph, but was caught by the boulder. First death...

I then stepped on a trapped tile & plunged to my death in the lava!

Each player has in effect, 2 characters. Should the first die, the 2nd can enter once the boulder opens the secret way. Both Dan & I brought in our 2nd characters....however Dan stepped on another trapped tile. Meanwhile Bob was hugging the boulder corridor trying to pick the locks on wall vaults.

Bob ran across the old wood bridge, 2 of the boards shatter... Bob manages to get out. Thus ended game 1.

We set up for a 2nd game. Once again at the entrance. Of note is that each of the characters has a unique skill that can be used once during the game.

Woah! The walls enclosed much faster this time around!

I run ahead to reveal the lava room tiles.

We did quite well in the lava roo, until Dan stepped on a trap.

 Just our luck, with Dans return, he rolls enough for the boulder to take out both Bob & I. Oh did I mention, when you die, all your treasures are lost too.

 This round, we all had to hit the river to try to get ahead of the boulder....alas no such luck, we were all trapped inside.

OK third times the charm. Here we go again

Once again, Dan finds the trapped tile.

The boulder took a long time to get around, giving us all lots of opportunity to snag treasures & make for the exit.

Poor Bob, didn't quite make it. On the last turn the boulder crushed him...I think we could see his arm reaching for the exit from under the rock.

Thanks guys for coming out. This is a fun little game, that took us about half an hour to play a game.

Frostgrave - Barbarians

Seems I've used that subject before. As indeed I do have 3 more Barbarians painted up for use in Frostgrave.

However this round, I've got a Reaper Bones Conan figure, Northstar Plastic Barbarian Archer & a multi-part metal Ragnarok (Confrontation) miniature

I was a litte concerned with the Bones miniature, as there didn't seem to be a lot of definition. However once the Army Painter dip was applied, it helped immensly.

The Confrontation miniature is from this box set. So you can expect to see the others make their appearance too!
 

So that's it for all I got painted during my Sunday paint session. As can be guessed, there will be more Barbarians coming, as well as a terrain piece I want to use in our next Campaign scenario!