Heroquest !

Hello! Today a long post to share my last hobby/gaming moments which are revolve around the famous Dungeon crawler, Heroquest. Hasbro reedition is fairly good and I was charmed by the plastic furnitures. So, coupled with my fantasy miniatures collection, I saw an easy way to introduce my kids to miniatures games with a bit of retro fantasy role playing game. 

Kids and wife have a very low fantasy rpg/wargame culture and my main objective is to present them a dungeon crawler with an easy board game rules system and a touch of rpg create o good ambiance . Heroquest is a very good tool to achived this task. 

Role playing Game : The point is to let my gaming group discovered the way to play a cooperative game and introduce a new concept : the Game Master. Meaning, the guy hidden by a screen who represent the game/background/rules/map/monsters/etc...  I take the time to give background for evey mission, I also give description of rooms and key actions. To stimulate the rpg description skills of the adventurers, I reward them with bonus die when they provide a good description of death blow, jump over trap, etc... But the rpg style stop here, players haven't the opportunity to refuse a mission or kill a npc, it's a quite linear story.

Necromencer Bastillon

The board Game : Here, I would like to introduce another new concept to my gaming group : The fog of war. In the same way of the old Dungeons floor plans. To do it, I covered the board game with black pieces of card board. Pieces are maintained in place by Black balsa borders than I sticked on the board. I progressively remove the black pieces function of the adventurer progress. I machined the bottom of the doors with a dremel thus I can stack them on top of the balza borders.

Balsa borders

Machining with dremel

HQ board fully covered

Plastic furnitures : The range of furnitures developped by Hasbro is probably the key factor of my compulsive buying. I completed with a mix of ebay Item and things from my own collection to obtain a full set of material for dungeon crawling.

DM material

Foam from Feldherr range

DM set up

The DM screen : The one supplied in the original box never really inspired me. A rpg screen must provide to the adventurers a good supportfor their imagination, when the GM describe a situation. I took 8 pieces of fantasy art from the early period of J. Blanche. Those had a huge influences on my imagination in the 80's and I hope they will also work on my gaming group. 

The screen have a technical interest as well regarding the capacity to give precious information to the GM during the game but for HQ this aspect is very low. I used four horizontal A4 sheets.

In game pictures : We  play HQ games on sunday afternoon at bi monthly frequency and since the summer period we started to run some games on friday evening. I prepare a final scenario for the end of August in order to prepare the worst moment of the year for kids... The return to school!

Classic sunday afternoon

Chaos Citadel

In game picture

Dream up!

Orcs lair

In game picture

Kids appreciate evening game!

Rpg moment!

LED candles

Squats! New kick-starter in coming

Hello folks, I gave and hand-up to a friend of mine to illustrate his Kick starter for a new range of Squats. Kick-off planned in the next days, so I'll update the blog as soon as it online. Moto-bikes and the warwalker are uncommon and give new opportunities for a squat army, other models can be used as Characters. Models are fun to paint, I  applied the classic colors scheme from the 80's  plastic boxe cover art. Which is still a good standard, in my opinion.

***Edit*** check this link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196016430/heroes-dwarfs-future ***End Edit***

Other topic, I will post a long article in the next days regarding my last works/gaming sessions of Heroquest. Pictures and modelling tips will be shared, See you!

Genestealer attack!

Votann league is a lie!

battle field riders

An heavy weapons support is always appreciat on battle field

World Eaters : Cannon of Khorne

Hey! The Cannons of Khorne are one of the most hideous engines of destruction created for the Blood God Khorne by the Chaos Squats. Huge carriages of blackened steel ornated with brounze skulls, Cannon mount a single heavy tube banded with brass and steel flaring towards a gigantic gaping muzzle. Cannon of Khorne rumble into battle driven by great pressure engines which push them forward on creaking wheels. The charge a Cannon of Khorne fire is dawn from energies of warp space, directed as a skrieking meteor of flame which melt flesh from bone and burns bone to ash. It take a considerable time for a Cannon of Khorne to build up energy to fire. As it does so hellish glow grow in its maw and deep rumble issue from within.

This Epic Chaos engine was bring to 28mm scale by the Armorcast studio during the 90's. My only reproach is the Khorne runes design on the sides and the lack of small details. So I remove the runes with a dremel and replaced them by huge naive skulls inspired by those from the rear side of the Lord of Battle. Also added some giant nails and chains.ails and chains.

Original Epic concept

Armorcast design

Revised design

World Eaters : Enslaved Daemon

Ahoy!! Another Daemonic engine added to the Legion but this time it's about a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, enslaved. This servitor of the youngest Chaos God was submitted after his defeat during a challenge against my Khorne's Daemon Prince. The Keeper of Secrets is maintained under control by an powerfull rune on is head, Chaos squats have combined the mutilated body of the Daemon on a custom legged engine.

This model was fully based on things I found in my bit boxe, scratch building. Crabs Claws come from the French North beach where I spend my spare time with familly during summer.

World Eaters : Rhino!

Hey! I built this serie of Rhinos with different frames (Predator & Rhino) of incomplete items found at low price on ebay. The main objective here is "personalization", obtain something a bit different then the classic rhino by using tiny half pearls and elements from previous projects. The overall aspect is fairly good, I think :) 

I know, it's a bit classic or regular for chaos vehicules but spiky/skully Rhinos aren't my cup of tea, so we will said those vehicules were freshly looted to Imperial troops. I applied a red/black /orenage camo to increase the RT feeling and also because I love this way to paint vehicules. 

World Eaters : Troopers!

Hello folks! Quick update to show some Marines I painted last weeks. I added these new lads to complete my collection, no specific gaming needs. You probably recognize those sculpted by Dave Andrews, a bit bigger than classic RT Chaos Marines. I slightly re-oriented and/or changed arms to get out of "in the plan" position. 

I also relooked some slaaneshy Marines in True Chaos Marines of Khorne :) basique heads swap, nothing more. To finish, I gratified these minis by a couple of WE metal shoulder pads I founds on eBay last years at a decent price, still possible for patient people.

I made 3 objectives markers with  several pieces which remain in my bit box, last parts of the projet recycled! I seeking on eBay (again!) to find some dead Marines from RT range in order to made more markers but prices are too extravagant... I give up!