Happy St Patty's Day!

(Painting) Gnomish Miscellany

It's been different chaos, but the same type of week for me.  My mother-in-law is in the hospital for a yet another fall, a definite broken hip, and this time my wife has gone from trained medical professional yelling to actually being worried.  That has created a somber mood when we aren't in the midst of our frenetic family schedule, which explains why when I did get the chance to game with the girls after hospital visits and hockey games with out of town friends, I simply wanted to veg on the couch.

I did managed to spend some time Sunday night and cleaned up the bench yet again to try to prep for Cold Wars.  No surprises for the armies I'm bringing, but I need to clear out some of this lingering minor projects to work on some assembly line needs for the game table.

First off, is one of the German Gnome Militia with Pitchfork representing the 27th German Infantry known as the Leinenkugels:

From Brigade Games

He's the second figure in the unit I've finished, although it's been a three and a half year gap between them, but I have no idea how he arrived on the bench. 

Just so I have this referenced somewhere on the blog, I’m using Americana  Leaf Green as the base color.   I know at least that the local and chain craft stores have shrunk their Americana selection, so I hope the two bottles I have for the bench will last me before I discover that shade may or may not be out of production.

Second is one piece of a set that's lain stagnant, the actual mortar from the German Gnome bratwurst mortar team.

Number three is my first refurbish for the year, the bugler for the famed German Rabbit Cav. Originally painted by Jim Stanton, I got the unit to touch up and re-spear.  They lived a rough life on the tables of many an HMGS con, I'm going to go a little heavy on the lacquer to improve their chances of survival.

Finally, I have a quick preview of a long term project.  When I got my small pledge from the Old School Minis Alpine Dwarf Kickstarter, I qualified for the stretch goal of a space dwarf sitting on a military crate, cigar in one hand, rifle in the other.  I don't know how useful he would be sitting down on the job as he lead some Gnomish Space Marines, but he does fit in the Dust Tactics fighter I grabbed on clearance last year.  It's not perfect, but the idea of a Gnomish Space Marine flying an open cockpit fighter, all while smoking a cigar, seems perfect.

The military crate he sits on will be finished first, and probably will see action in the third episode of the pulp game.

What's Up for This Week?  Cold Wars, and the pile of promises I need to finish for Friday morning, but that's more of the written word than painting persuasion.  Currently in the revised queue are some more Transnitrian Scientific Republic test vehicles for OGRE, a few leftover German gnomes, and then I can focus on the first assembly line painting in awhile:  Spanish-American US Infantry, and a another step closer to finishing the German Schutztruppe. 

Apathy of the New Releases (Mar '18)

Initiate selfish rant: My monthly Apathy post, listing the choice items out of the latest Game Trade Monthly has been a pretty consistent process.  Usually the next month's issue comes up in PDF on the 10th, and I try to get the post up for the 26th.

For the month of February, I waited and waited for issue #217 to appear on the downloads, but nothing appeared.  Issue #216 is hiding in the downloads, but the common link for the most recent GTM hadn't been updated since #215!  Someone needs to update their website, pronto! 

Monday, I ended up swinging by the FLGS and lo' and behold, hardcopies of the issue were on the counter. 

Once I persused the pages, I understood why they were "hiding this from me."  Lots of promotional articles, and not much in the way of primo "This will keep the store in business" merchandise getting solicited.  In fact, this might be the largest assembly of heavy duty chit-based wargames in the GTM since I started reading it with issue #1. 

Viscount Eric's Want List
Nuttin'

My Money-Is-No-Object Want List
Avalanche Press
Second Great War at Sea:  Tropic of Capricorn .................. $59.99

One Small Step Games
Putin Strikes: Putin's Northern War ..................................... $49.95

The Imaginary Store (The Pegleg Gnome) List
Adam's Apple Games
Truck Off: The Food Truck Frenzy ........................................ $25.00

Atomic Overlord Press
New Tales of the Yellow King ................................................ $16.95

Chaosium
Alone Against the Dark: Solo Play CoC Mini-Campaign ....... $14.95
Petersen's Abominations: Tales of Sandy Petersen ................. $39.95

Compass Games
Red Star White Eagle:  The Russo-Polish War of 1920 ........ $79.00

Creative Good Companies
Catan: Adult T-Shirt (Red)  S-XXXL
Catan: Adult T-Shirt ("No Wheat Means Defeat")  S-XXL
Catan: Adult T-Shirt ("Stinkin' Sheep")  S-XXL
Catan: Glass Pints (x6)........................................................... $66.00
Catan: Seafarer's Magnetic Bottle Opener ............................ $19.00
Catan:  Vinyl Die-Cut Decal .................................................. $ 6.00
Catan: Vinyl Refridgerator Magnet ....................................... $14.00
Catan: Wood Base Sets .......................................................... $ 7.00 ea

Days of Wonder 
Memoir 44: The Battle Map Series II - V2 ............................. $28.00

Evil Hat Productions
Greedy Dragons ...................................................................... $12.99

Fantasy Flight Games
Star Wars: Imperial Assault Skirmish Map: Mos Eisley ........ PI

GMT Games
Cataclysm : A Second World War ......................................... $79.00
Hitler's Reich ......................................................................... $69.00
Fort Sumter: The Secession Crisis 1860-1861 ...................... $42.00
No Retreat: Polish and French Fronts ................................... $60.00
Skies Above the Reich: Air War Over Germany 1942-45 ...  $89.00

Goodman Games
Mutant Crawl Classics RPG: Farrah's Fantastic Fragments... $24.99
Mutant Crawl Classics RPG: Marvel's of the Mustachioed Magician ........ $24.99
Mutant Crawl Classics RPG:  Slipcover HC ........................... $59.99

Green Couch Games
Before the Earth Explodes ..................................................... $20.00
Best Treehouse: Forest of Fun ............................................... $30.00

Green Ronin Publishing
Shadowtide:  A Blue Rose Novel .......................................... $15.99
Modern Age RPG:  Basic Rulebook ...................................... $34.95
Modern Age RPG:  World of Lazarus Campaign Setting ...... $34.95
Ork! The RPG, 2nd Edition ................................................... $29.95

Looney Labs
Anatomy Fluxx ...................................................................... $16.00
Get the MacGuffin ................................................................. $10.00

Osprey Publishing
Frostgrave: The Grimoire ..................................................... $20.00
Frostgrave: The Maze of Malcor .......................................... $25.00
High Society ......................................................................... $20.00

Paizo Publishing
Pathfinder Adv Card Game: Ultimate Intrigue Add-On Deck ... $19.99
Pathfinder RPG: AP War for the Crown #4 - City of the Lion's Eye .... $24.99
Pathfinder RPG: Flip Map: Carnival ........................................ $14.99
Pathfinder RPG: Pawns - Ruins of Azlant Pawn Collection .... $24.99
Pathfinder RPG: Player Companion Blood of the Ancients .... $14.99
Starfinder RPG: Flip-Mat Starship - The Sunrise Maiden ....... $19.99
Starfinder RPG: Pawns - Pact Worlds Pawn Collection .......... $24.99

Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Savage Worlds RPG: Fear Agent ........................................... $29.99
Savage Worlds RPG: Seven Worlds Campaign Book ............ $39.99
Savage Worlds RPG: Seven Worlds Setting Guide ................ $39.99
Savage Worlds RPG: The Goon ............................................. $29.99

Plastic Soldier Company 
15mm Cold War Soviet Infantry .............................................. $27.97
15mm Leopard I ...................................................................... $27.97
15mm M60A3 .......................................................................... $27.97
15mm M3 Stuart Honey .......................................................... $21.53
Great War:  French Army Expansion ...................................... $60.00
Great War:  Centenary Edition ................................................ $90.00

Wizards of the Coast
Magic the Gathering CCG:  Challenger Deck Display (8)
Magic the Gathering CCG: Duel Decks Elves vs Inventors (6)

WizKids
Marvel Dice Masters:  Avengers Infinity Campaign Box .......... $39.99
Marvel Dice Masters: Justice Like Lightning Team Pack .......... $ 9.99
Marvel Dice Masters: Kree Invasion Team Pack ....................... $ 9.99
Warhammer 40K Dice Masters Orks Waargh!  .........................  $12.99
Warhammer 40K Dice Masters Space Wolves ........................... $12.99

Ballad of the Pigeon God #49: When in Rowand, Hit a Gnome

9 DecDec 1071, On the road back to Eding, Lake Apotheosis, Kingdom of Crosedes
On his way back to Maless Manor, Talis Makolin ran into his compatriots, Mellandria and Echelon.  He tried his best to explain the information they had learned about Count Zabty, as well as one of the weapons that they knew were hidden in White Plume Mountain.  This helped explain why Velandro had gone off on his own to Rowand City to search for the mysterious paladin, and somehow prevent them from questioning what Talis had done for most of the month.  If Talis read their body language right, him roasting chestnuts by the fire at the Chateau d'Echelon for the past three weeks was unacceptable.

They decided against their better judgment and headed to Rowand City to reunite with Velandro.

20 DecDec 1071 - Rowand City Kingdom of Crosdes
The weather had become passable again once the worked their way down to the southwestern corner of Crosedes.  It was cool, overcast, and not a flake of snow was nearby.  Once they reached the city, they found Velandro with a gnome named Dimitri Kobblecraft.  Echelon immediately asked Velandro for the password, and the cleric may have paused a second or two, forcing the cleric to stab him with his trident.  This quickly jogged Velandro's memory he yelled the password and all was well, save a collection of town guards who were alerted to the ruckus. 

Echelon demanded they test Dimitri to ensure he was not a spider person.  Talis tried to be practical, recommending that someone cast some evil detection magics, but Echelon and Velandro insisted that they had to bring him near death to truly test him.  To that end, Velandro hit Dimitri in the head with his mace.  The watchful town guard promptly arrested everyone and threw them in jail.  Velandro tried to give a feeble explanation that the guards simply refused to believe.

Dimitri Kobblecraft - Gnome Cleric

21 DecDec 1071 - Rowand City Kingdom of Crosdes
"Fortunately for Dimitri is a very kind or very stupid person and convinced the guards that we were his friends and they let us go."  - Talis Makolin

While holed up in the city prison, Velandro filled them in on what little progress he had made.  Zabty was mentioned with the same information as the sages in Omsjik.  It seemed that the Crosdean line of the Counts of Rowand decided to actively ignore their past.  No statues, no historic buildings, and a very haphazard write-up of the Ferasean history.  Rowand had a history of being a distant and corrupt domain within the empire, and had many gaps in rulership. 

While investigating Zabty, Velandro encountered Dimitri, a gnome cleric from Masgoth, who favored legends and conspiracies.   Dimitri introduced himself with facts about "The Dread Lord" that the group already knew, so Velandro and him traded tales.  At this point, any allies against the King of Crosedes and the impending apocalypse would be a good thing. 

Dimitri and Mell left the violent boys to go shopping.  Shopping was uneventful, but on the way back to the inn, some catastrophe happened at a grain mill in the city limits and an avalanche of grain half buried to duo (completely buried the gnome).

After using the help of bystanders to escape the grain, a strange brown-skinned man approached them.  He introduced himself as Petit-Singh and offered them dinner in return for a few minutes to here of an adventuring opportunity.

They grabbed the others for dinner, which, after scouting the location, everything appeared to be legitimate. Petit-Singh said he was acting for Lady Genevieve de Sephora, mother of Prince Etienne of Nouvelle Avennion in the Principalities of Emron.   The Prince had recently died and his mother was convinced that he could be brought back. 

The heroes would normally be doubtful of such crazy talk, but Singh (a) offered an obscene amount of gold to help  and (b) Mellandria had a delirious look of glee on her face, knowing quite well that it could be done.

4 UnDec, 1072  - Port of Golgonoza, Principality of Appresca
It took two weeks of travel through the Gnomish Kingdoms of Masgoth to get on a ship and sail to the Principalities of Emron.... via the port city of Golgonoza.

12 UnDec1072  -- Estate of Genevive de Sephora, Principality of Nouvelle Avennio
While the hills of the Gnomish Kingdoms were tough to travel, the hills turned to mountains that rivaled Skyforge and back down into rolling foothills in Nouvelle Avennio.  Another week of travel put them at the front gate of the palace of Genevive de Sephora.

GM Notes: The great search for Count Zabty seems to be going nowhere... and the lure of gold far away from the possibly intrigue of the King was enough for our heroes to drop everything and travel to one of the Principalities in Emron, and take a roundabout way of doing it. 

It's hard to believe that a modern fantasy country like Crosdes doesn't have a direct route from its capital and the largest city in it's south, but the Gnomish Kingdom take up a large swath of the territory, and they only wish trade routes that start/terminate with them, and none that travel through.  With future cooperation, a new road could shave a two days' ride off the journey... or even a direct route into the Principalities.

NEXT #50 - The Curse of Amber

(Kickstarter) Freedom Squadron for Savage Worlds

More crazy Kickstarters of things I didn't know I needed. 

SpyGlass Games, in conjuction with Evil Beagle Games, has launched a Kickstarter for Freedom Squadron, a high-octane "Love Letter to 80's Cartoon Action Heroes," using Savage Worlds.

I'm not seeing red and blue lasers, but the artwork does bring back memories of weekday afternoon cartoons and some epic battles in the backyard.  I also need to look into Venon Assault, the boardgame whose background and artwork is the direct inspiration for this game.

Knowing about this is half the battle... pledging is the other half.

(Kickstarter) Flying Circus - An RPG Powered by the Apocalypse

The interesting RPG concepts continue to roll in this month.  With tons of early 20th Century aircraft miniature game, why didn't someone realize an RPG was needed, and why wasn't it already a hack of the Apocalypse World engine?

Flying Circus: an RPG powered by the Apocalypse, fills that niche quite nicely.

From the Kickstarter itself:
Flying Circus features 8 character playbooks, a detailed air combat system, and the ability to freely customize your plane or even scratch-design new aircraft from a set of layouts, components, and materials. It uses ten-sided dice for resolution, twenty-sided dice for certain random elements, and a combination of tokens and printable aids to track game elements.

The game combines the elegance of Powered by the Apocalypse with unique and detailed systems for designing and flying a wide variety of aircraft. You can take to the air in conventional wood-and-canvas biplanes or build unusual vehicles resembling the wildest designs of early flight. The result is a system with enough meaningful crunch to sink your teeth into, while still boiling down to a set of simple moves that can be understood at the table.

The game is set in an industrial-fantasy world, where aircraft and air travel are central to life and the fantastic and magical lurks just below the surface. It casts the players as mercenaries trying to hold the world together after the collapse of civilization. Running a company of cutting-edge aircraft in the post-apocalypse is expensive and dangerous, and you're always one mission away from either fortune or ruin.

A Mousling Hamlet for Under Ten Bucks!

Last month, the corporate masters at my job announced that we would be moving next year from the leased office building downtown to a yet-to-be-constructed complex at a nearby office park.  It's a bittersweet change.  My commute stays the same, although the pothole-filled stop and go driving to get out of town gets replaced by an all-highway drive.  Contracted maintance has also been an issue for those of us who liked the building between 55 and 75 degrees, as well as just routine repairs.

The biggest loss for me is the ability to wander to and fro around the downtown without jumping into a car (which remains in a covered parkade).  The loss of delis, drug store, and a Barnes & Noble within walking distance, but with a few recent finds, the new dollar store on the square is added to that list. 

It's been a long time (at least a couple of Christmases) since I found some wargaming steals at the dollar store.  This week, a quick jaunt to check out supplies for the upcoming Easter game scored these beauties...

Disregard the nutcrackers and promotional gnomes in the background

The doors for the little buildings are too small to be actively used in a Gnome Wars game, but they do seem to be proportionate for mouslings. 

I'm still picking up some more Russian/Ukrainian farm buildings, but for a buck apiece, these certainly flesh out the mouse village in my mind.