Orktober, 1 Week+ In. Plus Fightgame Stuff!

 Ahoy!

Just giving a lil' Orktober update. I started on the first day, and I've knocked out a few models in the first week! Two were done with speedpaints in a classic way(some drybrush zenithal, 1 coat of speedpaints), and two with 'double-chop'(or, double-glaze over grisaille; basically a drybrush zenithal, dark speedpaint coat, a smaller, bright drybrush, and then a lighter speedpaint coat for more richness.) One was done a little more classic(the Leader with the two swords). Mostly sticking to my Army Painter Fanatics/Speedpaints for these so far, with the occasional dip into a Scale 75 metallic or Citadel paint. 

I do plan on rocking a couple of grimdark ones at the end(grimdark-style oldschool over the top minis? Why not see how it turns out?), but for now here's the finished ones! With, of course, green bases. I couldn't do these in anything else with good conscience. 

The Leader Waaagh! (From Ruglud's Armored Orcs, circa about '87. All of these following ones are done from that box.) 

Leader:

Speedpainted Four:

Here's another Trooper, and two Rogue Trader era boyz, all also done more in the traditional style(acrylics, washes, some effects paints.)

 

Currently I'm working on a Trooper that I'm gonna attempt in the more grimdark style. They do have the goofier over the top appearances, but I think I might be able to go into the direction of the old Warcraft 1+2 orc art for that, which seemed to marry that darker style with more exaggerated features. Another is also probably going to float that way since he'll be done in Zorn colors(close to it, at least), using just 4 colors from the Army Painter's John Blanche set(The Darkness, Sunburst Ochre, Ivory White and Fiery Vermillion). The Darkness I personally count as the 'black' of the Zorn palette-it's a cool black(it's really a black-blue-green), but those extra pigments kinda help with mixing(the traditional Zorn black IS a cool black, FWIW, that ends up as a bluish-grey when mixed with the ivory), so I think it works. 

I am allowing myself 1 metallic, 2 washes and an effect paint from the JB set(Heavy Metal, Grimdark Shadow, Voodoo Shade and Grim Rust) to polish him up with, but the limited palette sticks. (Voodoo Shade and Grimdark Shadow are dark yellowish and black washes respectively, so they actually do fall pretty nicely into it.) This guy will be the one that falls out of the stealth mode-I can get a *kinda* purplish color with the red, but vermillion was the better pick between the Blanche reds, and it's quite warm, so doesn't quite work out too much, but I'll see if I can pop on some embellishments with it. 

There will be 3 more boyz(I do have a Goblin from the set but maybe he can be an honorary member at the end), which I will still decide how to do them. If I finish before the end of October, then I'll probably do up the Goblin for funsies and start assembling new models. November I will be doing a lot of fantasy stuff(I think I'll do some dwarf models here and there for No-Shave November), otherwise no real theme, I got some nice new Reaper Metal Miniatures, 3 old White Lions of Chrace and a Korhil Lionmane(also metal) model, though I think I'm saving most of the elves for December(Elf on the Shelf.) But no real set lineup, I'll probably do a couple elves in November too, and whatever else I get my hands on. 

I am also considering a Starter Set Challenge. This is where I grab a starter set(I will be getting the Army Painter one), and put it through the wringer painting not only whatever comes with the thing(if anything), but also painting up some other models using what's only in the set, plus a couple of mundane, around the house items a new painter might have(a water cup, a paper towel, sand for bases since I'd think a lot of people might have some kind of glue in a drawer somewhere.) This is to partially review a set, and to give myself some practice, too! The Army Painter Starter is only 30-35e depending on the shop, a real steal, and while I have most of the colors in it, I can always use extra black, white, brush-on primer(for those cold days), and Strong Tone wash, all of which get a lot of use from me. Between those and the missing color(I think I am only missing Ultramarine Blue at this point), and the miniature(worth a few bucks alone) and a brush(another fiver, even if it's just a basic one), I think it's not too bad of an investment. (One goes through a lot of black and white for mixing.) 

I do have one more piece that wasn't Orktober, and that was a frost-based Death Commando! I did a lot of tweaking, and while I think the effects could've been better on him I'm pretty happy overall. 

Fighting Game News?

Yeah, fighting game news! So you might've heard of the game 2XKO, the ill-fated Riot League of Legends fighting game. With a lot of development issues over about a decade, they decided to release it F2P, which I think was the biggest mistake overall, though perhaps well-meaning. It ended up getting news of being made evergreen not long ago, with just one last character-servers would stay up, you can play offline, they'd unlock a bunch of stuff and so on. So it'd be playable, but no longer get active development. 

It had a small but dedicated playerbase(I think it could've done better with better marketing and a lot of other stuff, but I think that would need a postmortem from all involved), but I will say for me, the roster was quite lacking. LoL has way too many characters to fit in, but it was a small launch roster with a lot of Arcane characters(Netflix series-wasn't really my cup of tea, I'm a bit more old school with LoL, tho my fav character IS one from the past six years....more on that in a minute.) The choices were oft seen as a bit questionable-there are a lot of really fitting characters for a fighting game on LoL's roster(Lee Sin, Sett-AKA the best boy, who's literally the boss of a FIGHTING ARENA, like he's straight up a Fighting Game character), and so on. Samira is suitable-a Dante-esque character who goes stylish, and she was going to be the final release. 

Well, lo and behold, one weird site leak later and it seems like the developers rallied, and in six months managed to make The Boss himself(after some vague tweets about every fighting game needing a final Boss-yes, that's his nickname), Sett, and get him on the roster, and he is glorious, and I'm totally going to be playing him. 

He's basically a giant wolverine-man with super strength who is one of the best brawlers in the land. He fights with good old bashing, kicks, slams, and stomps and he has charisma out the ass. His parry is him pointing at himself. He can armor through supers. They basically copied his kit over and expanded on it. Kudos for the devs for managing that perfection soon and I hope he is gloriously busted like in OG fighting game ways. 

I wish this would've happened at launch, but I am a 'better late than never' type. 

Alrighty, that's the update for now, probably back fairly soon again! 

'til next time!

Orktober Begins!

 Welp, it's October, which means Orktober! 

I'll be bringing forth a bunch of old-school metal minis for this, including some old Rogue Trader Space Orks, along with some of Ruglud's Armored Orcs, and some other odds and ends from the late 80s and early 90s. 

I am aware there's some non-orks here, but I was doing a big priming, so wanted to include them. They'll be painted after Orktober though! 

I'll be painting up these boyz in a variety of styles, though I think they will be the Hidey Boyz, which means purple and you won't be able to see them. 

Will update when I start actual painting! 

Some More Minis(Including metal!)

 Besides the other projects I had been working on(which I know I just uploaded the blog yesterday, it had been in my drafts for awhile-it's just how I write), I mentioned briefly I think that I grabbed a metal model from Reaper, as it's been awhile since I painted one(I think my last one was a saber cat from Grenadier last year, before that, it was those Ral Partha goblins or whatnot in the '90s when I tried it out.) 

Boy, did I miss metal models and I am immediately ordering a bunch more of them. They have a charm to them that I don't get from plastic. I'm not anti-plastic, I mean I even 3D print FDM minis-I'll paint them, resin, any plastics, whatever. I have some plastic that I can mess with from parts boxes that I might assemble something of again. I'll still end up painting on lots of plastic, FDM and resin in the future. 

But I am definitely loving metal again. I'm also on the lookout for some of those classic Ral Partha figures themselves(I know some marketplaces can sometimes have them.) The heft, the feel, the details, and they do paint a little differently, too! 

Here's some pics of the projects! The first is the resin model. (The character's name is Kalreth Blackstar, a half elf fighter/cleric of death, though I mentioned it, an AD&D 2e character.) The character typically fights with a morning star and shield, and carries a scythe(while 2e clerics were usually limited to blunt weapons, different mythos clerics could sometimes have access to other weapons, and for death clerics, this is sickles and scythes.) I think the eye and fire works for a nameless death deity(though in an AD&D game he'd follow whatever world he's in.) 

Style wise I went for 'double grimchop' or whatever you want to call it; zenithal drybrush over black(a darker grey and a lighter grey for a better transition), then dark speedpaints. Then a nearly white drybrush over that(more on the top parts), and some lighter speed/contrast paints. Then I did some diluted enamel wash(Villainy Ink Decrepit Filth), and some Goon's Grime on the lower parts so it looked like dirt. Metallics are normal acrylics(I didn't have the right speedpaint metallic colors I needed for him.)

I am very happy with how he turned out! I put him on a 32mm base for easier play(the other is on 40 but it's for AD&D, it doesn't really matter). And due to doing lots of painting the past couple weeks, I liked how much faster he got done. 

Here's the metal miniature. He's done in traditional acrylics; I didn't use enamels(I know back in the day enamel paints were often used! But I went sorta old-school style acrylics.) I did use some wash and such. I wanted to do autumn forest bases for both, I was in that kind of mood. He doesn't have his shield here, but his morning star looks more like a morning star and less like a club with nails in it. 

And yeah, these were so much fun, once again, and painting this metal brought me back enough that I really can't wait to do more. (I do need some better storage for these things, though....) 

So yeah, just wanted to do an update with these, too! I'll be getting back to some Heretics here, and then I think I'm gonna be doing a lot of fantasy models for the rest of the year. Being I've been naturally painting faster these days I am feeling a lot more productive with it, and I hope to be able to score a big metal mini fantasy lot or something from an auction or marketplace. 

Anyway, 'til next time! (Still hoping for starting that AD&D 2e game in the next months...)

Some Speed painting(and just quicker painting), A Mini-Challenge(and other stuff)

 After having spent the better part of six months doing two units worth of decently-to-extensively kitbashed characters, the entire Court Of the Seven-Headed Serpent Warband(one Wretched, three Yoke Fiends, three Hell Knights, a Sorcerer, Pit Locust, Hunter of the Left-Hand Path, Praetor, Desecrated Saint, and a bonus Sin Eater mercenary), and five custom Night Lords(which were even more kitbashed from the ground up from several kits), as well as five bonus Heretic Troops(not really kitbashed, but still), all painted in the very grimdark style, I needed to take a breather for a bit and do something simpler. (I did use a couple of days to do some extensive color testing for what I wanted to do for the Artillery Witch, where I finally got my colors ready, thanks to a bunch of wraiths, who will be repurposed as colorful AD&D enemies, as well as John Spacemarine, a test model who gets reprimed and painted all sorts of crap.) 

Grimdark style is my favorite style to paint in(though my current Heretic army is going to be kitbashed a lot less-the Warwolf will see the most of it, and I have some light modifications done for a few other models already but it's mostly just pre-weathering this time-but I'll be using all the cool oils, effects paints, pigments and enamels as I do), but like anything, I find I can't just do the One Thing, All Day, ALL the time. While 'Eavy Metal doesn't appeal to me(my body rejects edge highlighting like it's a transplanted alien limb), I do like just a nice ol' panting session, I like drybrushing and speedpaints(hell laying down acrylics and washes and *drybrushing* highlights is a whole other story), and I decided to combine both of these for what I'm calling 'a tribute to the old days', and also combining this with some practical painting for what I hope to be that upcoming AD&D 2e game over the fall. 

So I decided to do a semi-little 'challenge' for myself as a palette cleanser, but also to practice some stuff that may have fallen out of practice over the past few months(or just to see how far I've come otherwise). No real 'rules' to this, but I mostly was painting Brite Minis(seriously go check these out!), who have a very sorta old-timey Ral Partha feel to them, which of course were the first AD&D minis I ever touched, even though I only slapped paint on a stark handful in the 90s. 

I don't have a resin printer(I live in a flat with a family, it's just not feasible, so if I need resin, I order), but these print very, very well on an FDM at .2 and .06 layer lines, with some good filament(and some parameter tweaks.) After priming, they're great, and for AD&D 2e enemies, NPCs, and spare minis if someone wants one for a character, they're about perfect! (I also ordered some metal Reaper minis recently, since I haven't painted metal characters in years, but that'll be another blog post.) Old-school looking, perfect vibe for AD&D, so I think they were about perfect for the semi-challenge/palette cleanser I had in mind. (I did print out a couple of Hero Forge minis I had, too, for fun, and with the new printer settings, they came out pretty good.)

I did go into this with some goals. No numerical goals(like, I had no 'model count limit' or anything, but the idea was to:

-Paint as many models as I could, without reaching 'burnout speed'(as in, paint as many models as I could during the week that was at a pace where I was having fun doing it)

-Practice a few techniques

-Tribute the old nostalgic figures I grew up with

-Practice just...painting faster in general. Not by rushing necessarily, but learning how to better prioritize my brain-stack of tasks needed for the job, which I am kind of bad at, and I think that's why it took me months to do what I did(I procrastinate a LOT)

-All while getting stuff to a nice, table-ready status(with lower-level monsters being much simpler than PCs, bigger monsters, NPCs and so on.) 

-Practice coming up with on the fly color schemes without overthinking. I don't mind being excruciating when it comes to certain special models, but I wanted to work on 'just picking stuff that worked.' 

And I'll say I think I did all of this! Mostly, I did use a lot of speedpaints(which combined well with the challenge of trying to keep them 'old school' looking), but in doing this I got to practice brush control(speedpaints actually require a steady hand; remember they are translucent paints, and you can't paint over mistakes as easily), as well as my drybrushing, which is actually quite an important part of speedpaints. While you can 'slap-chop' a miniature to table ready status very fast(spray prime, zenithal spray, 1 coat of speedpaints, done), there are methods to getting the base drybrush/underpaint layer done in such a way that you can start doing stuff like doubling up on the drybrushing, using other colors, and so on. (The 'slapchop' technique is really glazing color over grisaille, which has been done for hundreds of years. Hell, even minipainters of the old days did a variant, only they used watercolors-historical wargamers in particular used this from time to time.) 

Also practicing blending on a troll, with classic acrylics. (He'll be a level...5-ish enemy. They have 6+6 HD in AD&D 2e but in those days once the mage got the fireball/Melf's Meteors they become a lot more reasonable.) 

But all in all I got lots of table-ready minis done and it felt very good to get a load of them done. I wouldn't say they are display pieces for the most part, but importantly they are practical and will be easy to pull out for some AD&D whenever the time is right. Speedpainting is fun and figuring out different combinations of drybrush colors underneath was fun, too. (I didn't go nuts with bases-usually just a prime, speedpaint, overbrush, and done, but for 'better' characters I jammed on a tuft or rock or something. I might be tempted to do a more old-school diorama, though.) 

I think it's kinda nice to do little things like this when painting to mess with other styles that you might not if you specialize in one. Like, someone who lives in NMM and volumetric perfection to practice for their Golden Demon may well have some fun doing some grimy grimdark stuff now and again in between. Someone who is used to spending a ton of time on 1 or 2 models might have fun doing lots of easier ones, and so on. In my case as someone who spends months on a couple of units, it was quite fun to go more old-school. 

Also it's kinda cool to see what sort of habits I end up leaning on. Besides procrastination and getting distracted, that is. I DID learn that that, indeed, eats up more painting time than I'd like. Having to make choices quickly I think sorta helped focus that a bit. 

Here's some pictures of the various minis just sort of posing! They came out in various states of quality. Some depended on the prints(some prints came out rougher, especially in the faces; I had some older filament, and have recently gotten some better stuff and have been tweaking the numbers to get them tighter and tighter), others the color choices, but all in all I think the goal of 'Table Ready AD&D Enemies, Hirelings, Henchmen, and Spare Minis for People Who Might Want Them" is a success.

Also during this time I expanded my Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 collection more. Unfortunately I am at the point where buying a set doesn't make sense financially; I have over half of the speedpaints, and the medium-size set they have has too many copy colors in it already. I did also grab a few good Citadel Contrast Colors(okay I know they're Warhammer paints now but it's always gonna be Citadel to me), that don't quite have that perfect equivalent. Contrast Paints come in pots and are like 2+ euros more, but they have some fantastic colors(I love Frostheart and Aeldari Emerald, and I grabbed some other goodies that help.) Even when I go back to heavier acrylics, I've been using speedpaints as a supplement, since they are very versatile-glazing, washing, effects, the whole nine. 

I also think I learned that swapping around things in between more extensive kitbashes is a good idea. I DO plan on doing the Carcass Front box, especially the Naval Heretics since I have an idea for a frozen Northern variant of them, and this one might be a bit of a big project, depending, so interspersing some metal AD&D minis in the middle of that sounds actually quite nice. I'm not sure of that yet. 

Right now I had started the other Heretics, and I'm doing a mix of traditional and speedpaints for them(with enamels and the like.) As I said above, I feel myself able to paint faster(and neater!) having taken this two-week experiment. I kinda suggest folks try it out! I don't agonize AS much at the moment, and I feel like I can come up with cool ideas for them faster as well. I don't necessarily need to paint super-fast, but there is that nice blast of serotonin when you finish a model up in a decent amount of time, and I like the reward button feeling.

Here, I'll even post the WIPs I have of the two Anointed(one is an Avarice-Mammon-based one, a really evil royal, hence the gold and purple, the other is based on Grynewaht, an NPC from FFXIV's Stormblood, who isn't a hell dude, he was just a bit of a dumb antagonist who ended up WAY over his head.) 

And yeah, I AM working much faster these days, without rushing. I think doing that speedpaint 'Ral Partha Tribute' challenge somehow helped me a LOT in becoming more productive with stuff! 

Anyway, I'll be back showing off a couple more minis! Like, probably when I'm done writing the blog. 

How I came back around to AD&D 2e

 I've talked about it a little here and there some time back, but I am so much loving AD&D 2e again nowadays. I grew up with this one(technically my first game was 1e, but I was like 8, was given a character and had no idea what I was doing), but 2e was what I cut my RPG teeth on, as have a lot of folks my age. And while I thoroughly enjoy some modern systems-I had my fun with 3.X stuff(is that even modern anymore? It came out in 2000, IIRC, so with 26 years between then and now, that's as much time as the OG in 1974 and the original 3.0, so probably not), Starfinder 1e is probably one of my fav of the newer systems, and I have had some real fun games of Pathfinder 2e-I am finding myself sorta pining for those old, nicely modular mechanics. 

I think there's a few reasons for this, and I was trying to get them together. I think I somewhat managed. 

The 1989, First Edition PHB on my floor. Along with some random bits, dice, and a copy of Dark Medieval Times which is a suitable soundtrack for such. 

1. Sometimes I think you get in the mood for Less Is More. I think this is a big crux of it. A lot of modern games actually grant tons of wishes and requests that we had back then when we were younger, and then some! Lots more playable races that aren't 'special cases' like the Complete Book of Humanoids; a lot of modern games DO have the 'Normal Spread', but even the normal spread is more extended now, and then there's so many more, which while still falling under more uncommon types of races or ancestries, are less 'taboo' to bring in. 

The old days, of course, had some of these special cases. Sub-races of the demihumans became a thing, the aforementioned Complete Book of Humanoids, hell, 2e even had an entire campaign setting called the Council of Wyrms where everyone was playing dragons. 

There's also like, a plethora of classes or whatnot nowadays in newer games, and all the other stuff. Characters start OUT as straight-up heroes. Not the 4d6 drop low 'heroic stats', which were more just averaging 13 to 15 in 2e with very few bonuses, but straight up heroes. You're EXPECTED to have at least one max stat at the start in Pathfinder 2e, and AD&D 5e caps PC stats at 20, and you come out of the gate sometimes with a 17 or 18(after bonuses, if you use point buy, or even UP to 20 with rolling.) Back then, we'd always try our best to houserule stuff to allow folks to get better stats. 

As time went on though, I feel like all the stuff we used to houserule in becoming the norm made the 'norm' less...something. It's like having a favorite dish that requires you to get this one thing from a restaurant but then add some of your own spices to it, but then every single restaurant in the city starts selling it, and then more places sell it, and then this is just "the norm" now, and then it kinda takes OVER the restaurants since that's what more modern people want, and you kinda miss when it was just something special. 

"But Azzy, can't you just play new games like old?" Well, see part 2. Plus, when games give me things, that aren't 'optional'(technically everything is optional in a TTRPG but you know what I mean, I think? Speaking purely in what's provided from the rules framework, and going from there), I don't like to take them away, because games that *start* with stuff, and then get them taken, feel much worse than games that start with some things, and have optional rules to add on. Maybe it's mental, but it is what it is. I can mentally adjust to playing one game of AD&D 2e just using the corebook, DMG, and MM with no optional rules, then go to another table that brings in the optional Complete books with all the optional rules, hit another table that uses the base 4 class Complete books and some optional rules, and then bounce back pretty easily, because subconsciously I know that the framework is built on those 3 books. It's a me thing here(this post is purely me discussing what I like about AD&D 2e.) 

2. The games have a lot of fun mechanics, while not being completely overloaded with them...but it's still not rules-light.

FWIW, I like some crunch. Rules-light stuff is fine for oneshots or whatnot for me, but otherwise I kinda need some things to mess with. AD&D 2e has this, and it has it in a great way; the base game is fairly moderate in terms of crunch(I'd consider it a middle ground game), but you can make it so modular with optional rules. A lot of rules that are 'normal' nowadays were optional back then-even critical hits. Yeah, I don't think I ever played an AD&D game without crits, but they were definitely optional(and a lot tamer back then, if played by the book, but a lot of GMs I knew buffed them. I think they're fine as is-double the weapon die, then add extra bonuses.) Death at -10 was optional(also used all the time.) Encumbrance, even *proficiencies* were optional(also pretty much always used to my memory-hell, we used to give both 2nd skill and non-weapon profs, I still do.)

Go through the PHB and DMG and you'll see all kinds of optional rules. and they even have *levels* of them, like Encumbrance. Again, I think starting with a solid skeleton and then adding on what you want, feels way better than starting with a well-loaded thing and then flaying stuff off of it. See above; the game can be played so many different ways. 

3. It's not based on big setpiece battles. 

Again similar to 2, I notice new games have this habit of making even like, normal battles just these big setpieces that can take most of the night. It's *about* the tactical combat(to be fair, D&D started out as the Chainmail wargame, so that part connects! there was a time where D&D was kind of about that tactical combat. Even 1e still had remnants of it, which was why a dungeon like Tomb of Horrors was sort of a big thing at the time.) 

Once again AD&D 2e shows it's colors as incredibly modular here. if you want to play the game like an old-style wargame, it's possible to do that; if you want to go completely theater of the mind, you can, or if you're like me, have cool looking minis and monsters and terrain, but play it faster and looser with the battles. Maybe just count basic distances and ranges, and 'okay, yeah, there's something like a tree you can hide behind' or 'there's a hill here, yeah you're far enough above to get high ground bonus', but not razor-technical stuff. 

Quite a few modern games are based not only heavily on more strict measurements(again, almost wargame like from the older days), but also the abilities are built far more...mechanical. Like even non-magical classes have abilities that feel supernatural or out there or like 'powers', and everything is balanced extremely tightly, and there's even 'patches' for TTRPGs nowadays(yes, these existed before in the form of errata...but there was something different about it.) I know that modern games try to get the role-playing aspect in, but there are times where I feel like they are pressing heavily toward a more gamified feel somehow. (Yes, again, D&D was based on a wargame, but I'm just trying to figure out why it came around full circle.) 

4. The Settings!

2e had a plethora of settings. My favorites were Greyhawk(1st) and FR(2nd), but Birthright was really neat(it was almost GoT-ish), Ravenloft is a classic, and even dipping into a little Planescape and Spelljammer was neat. I admit I'm not a Dark Sun fan, but I've never really been big on post-apocalyptic stuff at all; it is something that, besides Hokuto no Ken and Vampire Hunter D, just does not stick with me. Cyberpunk I love, post-apocalyptic wasteland stuff, not so much. But 2e has so may cool setting box sets and books(I'd love to own some of the box sets again) that for me it's a mighty selling point of them. Plus there was still Mystara, and I also found this game to be extremely great for just writing your *own* adventures in. 

I can't quite put my finger on it, but some newer games feel somewhat more tied to their narratives. It's absolutely, 100% possible to still write your own worlds in these, but I know when I've talked to fellow DMs, there's more moving parts to it. Often nowadays games have a lot of abilities, builds and backgrounds baked INTO the games' base settings so heavily that you need to go back and refluff stuff, or sometimes just change it entirely. AD&D 2e was written to be as setting-neutral as possible in the core books(players themselves would debate if Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk was the 'de facto' setting, with FR somewhat pushing ahead in these old forum discussions, but the DMG/PHB were close to setting neutral.) This makes it easy, again, to plunk all your own stuff in without having to really refluff *anything.* 

There's probably more reasons that I'm not thinking of, but these all came to mind pretty easily. Oh, the books look mighty nostalgic, too. I mostly really enjoy how the PHB is written(see below, though.)

2e is by no means perfect. The books sometimes come off as written a bit strangely; I'm not sure why the DMG needs to keep reminding me that 4d6 drop low makes super heroic characters(it...really doesn't, the average scores are around 12-14, with a bit of a higher instances of low-bonus scores than the others, but it's not that extreme), and that I should try to browbeat the players into accepting bare minimum scores(I really never understood that part of the DMG.) We even liked playing the occasional old-fashioned 3d6 in order game of 'Ordinary people becoming heroes', and as I said above, I think some of the very modern games overcorrected by *expecting* players to always have their prime stat maxed. But 4d6 drop low, or the Method 6 point buy, hardly made OD characters in 2e in our experience. The Monster Manual, to boot, is still filled with some real 'Fuck You' monsters in it. The 'DM is having a Very Bad Day' monsters. In newer games, these monsters are generally just loaded with a lot of numbers. Back then you had level-draining monsters by like, level 5. Kinda bullshitty, I know, but admittedly I didn't lean too heavily on these until later on(and we did houserule in saving throws for these.) 

The RAW also tended to be awfully strict with alignment, which we quickly loosened up in home games. Chaotic Neutral became more of a free spirit(which to be fair, became the main way to describe CN in 3e and beyond), instead of the 'crazy person' 1e/2e used to use, and Paladins definitely had an easier time(they had to stay LG, though there were some houseruled variants of NG and CG ones over the years.) We loosened things up enough to make in-party fighting less a thing. 

There were other odds and ends, like the Identify spell taking forever and a day, and Wizard spellbooks being a bit on the convoluted side(we generally ruled, for simplicity's sake, that you could cram a whole lot of spells into one or two spellbooks rather than the insanity the book suggested.) 

But all in all, I just found that nostalgic urge to come back to the old times. Plus I've been painting up a bunch of minis from Brite Minis, which have a wonderfully Ral Partha style vibe, and I've been doing it in sort of that old-school style(albeit with speed paints), for what I hope to be an upcoming game later this fall, so there's that. I do love many new TTRPGs, and play them when I can, but lately I've just needed to dive back into the days of the Group of Hearty Adventurers(aka: the GoHA.)

I'll be back, btw, with a report on how that 'I'm Just Painting a lot of old-school looking tribute minis' goes soon! 

Night Lords Completed!

 It's been a minute(about a damn month) since I updated this blog, so I figure I can now do a drop here! (I did say 'updated when I feel like it.' I would make a terrible content creator. Not that I would WANT to be.)

So in some basic news: minion has started school yet again, I am back to being a bit busier, FFXIV Evercold looks amazing and I've been playing that more again in evenings, and I'm still painting every night, for at least some time. Also, I have yet to hear an album better than Via Doloris' Guerre et Paix, yet this year so it becomes ever closer to my AotY award.

But here are the Night Lords! I don't get a whole lot of time to tabletop game, and that time is spent more TTRPG than wargaming, and wargaming is more skirmish based on the odd time I do it, and these would never be legal in GW rules but they'd be played casually with friends. Mostly they'll play the role of 'AD&D 2e Enemies' or something, or a table OC or whatnot. 

It's a unit of 5, I named them and gave them little quirks. Apologies for the picture quality; I am still rearranging my space to get A. A new art desk and B. A better picture corner. 

First up is the leader, Radek Farkas. He's a big, black metal looking lad with corpsepaint. (3 of these have long hair attached for that grimdark aesthetic which as most know I enjoy a lot and is my main painting style.) 

Second is Lucian Kovács, his 2nd in command. He might be a little crazier. Around his waist is some of that hand-made skin cloak material. These two look the most 'corrupt'. 

Dorian Stan is the 3rd guy and he's kind of obsessed with medieval style stuff for some reason. Slightly cleaner armor, goes with an axe, and has a hand made skincloak as his accessory. 

This guy is Andrei Zurvat, who went all in with the guns(this is a very melee-heavy group except for him, though he does have the bayonet.) I guess because he chose Ork Boyz as his primary rivals, he likes the dakka. 

(I don't know where his other pictures went, I thought I had more!) 

   

Finally there is Atilla Herczeg, the lightning claw specialist, who is also pretty crazy probably.

And a few group shots of the gang! 

These guys were built from 4 boxes(5 if you count the Deadwalkers), and a paint list that is very long(including oils, enamels, speedpaints, regular acrylics, effects paints, pigments). I have the latter scribbled down, I might list it in another blog later if I get around to typing it up. I think I mentioned it last month, but the boxes used were Night Lords Nemesis Claw Kill Team, Chaos Chosen 40 and AoS, and Chaos Possessed. (I'll be seeing what else I can make after this, but I'm taking a little break from Warhammer based models for now, save for using a couple for test colors.)

This was a hella fun project to get to personalize. For now I'll be probably working on some AD&D minis from Brite Minis, who does these awesome, almost Ral Partha-like miniatures that seem perfect for old school tabletop, and I'll probably be messing with the drybrush-speedpaint combo for them since I've been wanting to practice the grayscale drybrush(or, well, grisaille, which it's been known as for centuries. I wonder if the inventors of 'glazing color over grisaille' would recoil knowing it's now known as 'slapchop', lol.) This is mostly to serve as a palette cleanser and to mess with some other styles before I jump back into the Heretics, which I have lined up. (I have been doing a lot of color testing for the Artillery Witch, and I think I have my scheme for her, I know the Priest is going to be inspired by the Dark Bishop from DD: Dark Arisen, and I have a bit of an idea for one of the Anointed that is a shout-out to FFXIV in terms of kitbashing.) Also think I wanna do some terrain building again, since it'll give me more excuse to try to get the bi-weekly(I'll take monthly at this point) AD&D 2e game off the ground. I've been cooking a 2e-based blog talking about it a bit(the game itself, not the still not existing campaign). 

Oh yeah! Speaking again of FFXIV, here is that chort color scheme I was messing with. I think this is going to be good for when I get around to Great Unclean Chort. Eventually. For some reason.

Even threw together a little Clyteum-inspired basing scheme. Being a Lord of Plagues he looks more menacing than our round boi but I think the color scheme works shockingly well for a Nurgle bunch. 

Alrighty, and with that, I think I dropped enough stuff here for now, I'll hopefully update this again sooner than later this time. I'd like to try to update this thing more often but you know how it is.

'Til next time!