The infected trees

From the book:

"Examining the bodies of the zombies, along with the other clues from the village, left little doubt. The village had been attacked by some horrific species of giant spider, whose venom reanimated the dead. Thankfully, such creatures move slowly. Likely, they will have retreated to the nearest shelter to slowly feast upon the missing villagers. Your duty is clear. Taking just enough time to patch up your wounds, and make a quick pyre for the dead, you set off after the spiders, following their faint, but unique tracks. After nearly a day’s pursuit, the tracks lead into a small forest. Chances are the spiders are not too deep in the woods. You must find them, destroy them and any nests they might have made, and, if you are lucky, rescue any survivors."

 

There are 5 coccons to check (yellow tokens) and 5 giant spiders (from Halloween). Our heroes have to explore the cocoons, burn the infected trees and rescue as many survivors as possible.

The barbarian checks the first coccon and meet a zombie who is quickly dispatched by the archer.

On the right the Ranger meets most of the giant spiders.

A new infected tree is sighted, together with one more giant spider and a treasure.

After killing the first wave of spiders our heroes register another cocoon, but it is too late for the unfortunate victim.

 The barbarian takes down two spiders all by himself but after that he got trapped in some spider webs.

Seeing the area cleared, the archer boldly advances and rescues another villager.

Lo and behold! After spending several turns trying to escape from the sticky spiderweb, the barbarian falls into a new one.

Another survivor is saved.

Again it is too late for one of them.

With all the monsters eliminated, the heroes proceed to burn all the trees before it is too late.

After killing 8 giant spiders and 1 zombie and exploring all 5 coccons and burn the 5 trees, the party got a total of 83 points of experience, reaching 100 points enough to raise some stats and skills.
 

The deserted village

I am revisiting Rangers of the Shadow Deep but in 1/72 scale, my favourite one. I am using miniatures from Caesar, Dark Alliance, Hät, Zvezda and I am also printing those that are not available, like my Ranger character and his dog which are 28mm downscaled models.

Another new thing I'm introducing is a different move and combat system as I am not fond of d20 system.

So the starting band is my Ranger and his four followers, his wardog, a barbarian, an archer, and a conjurer that are visiting a deserted village in search of Aventine, a veteran ranger who disappeared three days ago. The yellow tokens are clues to explore and two of them are inside locked buildings.

My ranger and his trustworthy dog hasten to check the closest clue hidden in the building but they are stopped by giant rats and zombies!

The barbarian charges alone one of the zombies while the archer shoots at them from the centre of the village. The caster runs to help my ranger.

The barbarian easily dispatches with one mighty blow one zombie and then dashes back into a new one to help his comrade.

But more enemies are coming and they both suffer injuries.

 

 

The caster search in the building but only finds some herbs. Disappointed, the ranger rushes towards another clue and he finds a mutilated body with strange bite marks that he does not identify.

Time is running so he quickly goes after the next clue while he dodges zombies, and lets his dog deal with them.

The caster finds a survivor hiding in the bushes!

The ranger is attacked from behind and results wounded by a giant rat.

 

 

He falls back and heals while his dog deals with the evil creature once again, and then he investigates the clue in the tress and finds a treasure!

Time was up before the caster and the survivor could reach to the last clue, and they neither find Aventine nor his sword.

The ranger (I have to put names to all the membes of the band) got 74 experience points and his followers two points each. They also get a healing potion and some iron bark powder.

The alternative combat system responded very well so I am sticking with it for the incoming encounter.

20 mm Witch Hunter

I have this Witch Hunter printed for my 1/72 skirmishes.  I am going to use it for Rangers of the Shallow Deep as it is quite similar to the one in the cover of the rulebook. I also have a Witch Hunter's mastiff printed to walk with my hero on his adventures.

 I will also have printed all creatures I'll need for RotSD that I won't be able get on soft plastic 1/72 miniature ranges.

I love this model since it is got released long ago as it is such a classic one.

Here you have a comparative shot with one Ranger from Dark Alliance and you can see how out of proportion is the Witch Hunter, especially in head and hands, but this is something you can only notice when you put a proportionated 1/72 figure next to it.

 

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Cave Squiggs for Mordheim

We are starting a new campaign in Mordheim so I painted these cave squiggs (3d printed) to finally finished my Orc warband.

There is nothing like the old Orc miniatures with that funny evil look!

And here is the full warband but damn! I forgot to include the Troll.

DBA II/11 Gallic army

It's painted for DBA 2.2 and 3.0, but I have to paint one more base of cavalry (waiting for their shields).

As Essex did not send me any command miniatures, I had them printed. These are from Cromarty. Sadly the primer spoiled the miniatures as it left their surface like sand.

These are the chariots. The horses are a bit small but I quite like them overall.

This is the full army including a camp that I also had printed.

And here you can see face to face the Gallic vs the Republican Roman army, also with a printed camp.

For somebody from the 70-80s like me, 3D printing is like magic!

Someone may be interested in comparing old metal figures with new resin printed ones. I'd say they mix rather well.

The resin ones have more proportinate heads but I think the bigger ones get better effect from distance.

Here's another comparative picture with foot units.

Now let's see if I can lure somebody to play a few games with them. Cheers.

Chaos Sorcerer on horse

I needed a fast moving spell casting platform for TOW so I painted this guy. It is a 3d print from an old GW's Chaos Sorcerer and I hope he will bring me joy on the battlefield.

 

African huts

I made three huts for my 1/72 skirmshes in Africa. I used three small can of Pringles, a brown paper folder that I "borrowed" from my job, some palm tree branches from the garden where I work and some toilet paper to give texture to the walls of the huts.

I made the roofs and doors with the folder and start glueing little branches from the palm tree.

Then I realised I should have painted the roofs first :(

This is how they turned out. I could have painted some white symbols on the walls and maybe add green, red or blue on the doors as well, but I went for the easiest and fastest way and I think they are OK. After all they are just huts.