Project '93 - Taking Stock Pt. 1

 Happy Sunday, It should always be a fun day, better than Monday.

I was not expecting such positive feedback from the Oldhammer Community when I shared this project on the Facebook Groups. It is a great motivator moving forward.

Before I did anymore painting or purchases, I thought it would be a good idea to take an actual inventory of what I had purchased already. I have been buying random bits and bobs over the last 5 to 6 years.

After cleaning off the dining room table after last night's D&D Game. I went through my office and literally opened every drawer, box, miniature case and cabinet. I had packed stuff all over the place. 

This gave me a good opportunity to do some clean-up and re-organizing, which was badly needed.

(I actually found a good chunk of an all metal Eldar aspect warrior army and a Falcon Tank still in the box. I also found my Karl Franz on Deathclaw [NIB, not shrink-wrapped]. I am thinking about putting them up for trade)

So this is what I ended up with:

Looking through the models' I got stuff from the late 80's to the early 2000's, 30 years of miniature history. I am not a miniature snob and I have no issue mixing all of these different generations together. The only thing I will not include in this army are the later orc sculpts (post 2000's) as they radically changed how they looked and their vibe just does not jive with what I am doing.

The original 4th Edition Box Set had 32 goblin spearmen and 32 goblin archers.

I actually have all 32 spearmen but only 25 archers, I am short seven, but I already have a deal to get what I am missing. You can see the ones I painted from last year and there are some on my painting desk not pictured.

The 4th Edition Box Set also had four Cardboard "Miniature" that came with the box:

• Orc General/Shaman on Wyvern
• Wolf Chariot
• Orc Rock Lobber 
• High Elf on Griffon (not doing elves)

I have acquired two of three so far:

I would like to find some actual goblin wolf chariots but they are still just as hard to find 30 years later.

The Orc Leader on Wyvern is a different story, there are three version that came out and there are a couple of Third Party Sculpts that could also fit. The 80's and the early 90's one is crazy expensive on the resell market. The later 2000's one is not much better, The 3rd party sculpts are much more affordable.

Now the late 80's stuff I acquired

I am thinking of using the Forest Goblin Command with the 32 Goblin Spearmen, giving me a solid 7x5 Infantry Block.

The Doom Diver is just going to be fun to paint. I am thinking of basing it on a 50mm x 50 mm base.

The Night Goblin Net Team are fun models but depending with what edition you play they are either their own unit or an upgrade for a Night Goblin Unit.

In addition to this blister I actually have a number of loose metal night goblins with flails and clubs

With the four in the blister, plus the 3 with flails and 2 clubbers, I got a 9 in total and if I add a command group, It would give me a unit of 12.

I also have two metal night goblin command teams. one is going with the archers to give me a big block of night goblin archers or two smaller groups If I don't field the net and club team.

Options, Options, Options Huzzah

In every White Dwarf Battle report I ever read with gobbo's in it they always had a wolf rider unit. This to me was one of the most expensive units to get because you only got one per blister and they did not sell a box of them.

I managed to get three of the 90's versions and four of the 80's versions, plus a 80's standard bearer and musician,

This give me a unit of 9 and I am looking at a champion for this unit.

Not Pictured is a unit of 10 wolf riders (2000 era) with command that I won a bid on and are currently being shipped to me

Last but not least for the old school trip are the goblin fanatics and my lone ogre.

Six Gobbo Fanatics to seed in my night goblin units and a Ogre Standard Bearer that was a gift from a friend. It is really nicely painted too.

I am go to need to make a part two for the rest of the stuff later.

Cheers

.

Project '93 - The Beginning

 Hello Internet,

So after some thought, I have decided to blow the dust off of this old blog and start posting again.

It has recently come to my attention that 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of my introduction to Warhammer Fantasy Battle and fantasy wargaming. 

Last year I had found some old monopose plastic goblins and I decided to try painting them using newer paints, techniques and tools. They came out really well.

Now I am thinking of re-building and painting one of my very first armies, Orcs & Goblins.

Back in 1993, I was just a poor kid living on the eastside of Atlanta. My family was poor and we had little money growing up. If it was not food or clothing, it was a luxury and if I wanted it I had to go and work to earn it. 

I remember seeing the 4th edition starter box at a local gaming store and I started saving my money. It took a while but I finally got enough money scrapped together and I was able to being it home.

Back then I knew next to nothing about modelling outside of the snap-rite model kits I got as gifts.

I did not know about priming, scraping, acrylic paints, basing or flocking.. 

I started off with Testors gloss enamels and brushes. 

Needless to say my early armies looked terrible, but I had a lot of fun painting them and playing the game. 

Over the next three decades my painting and modelling skills have gotten a lot better, but sadly over the years I had to trade and sell a lot of my older WHFB miniatures. I eventually stopped playing WHFB around 2008. WHFB kind of died in Atlanta and there was no place to find new players or places to play.

Over the last five years I have been picking up the random Oldhammer Orc & Goblin miniature here and there.

I realize I have enough miniatures, I can actually rebuild my very first army with some enhancements.

I am basing these on their original 20mm bases and not for the upcoming relaunch of WHFB The Warhammer: The Old World.

I have a large collection of wood elves I plan on basing for that game. 

The Plan

Phase 1 - Collecting and Building the Original Models from the Box Set 

• 32 Goblin Spearmen
• 32 Goblin Archers.

Phase 2 - Collect and Build the actual models for the cardboard pieces from the Box Set

• Orc lord/shaman on Wyvern - Have my eye on one, never owned this one
• Goblin Wolf Chariot - 
• I never could find one of these in 1993, 
• I ended up with the Grom the Paunch miniature which I have acquired NIB recently
• Orc Stone Thrower - Acquired

Phase 3 - Collect and Build additional units to add to the army. (I actually have most of this already)

• 7th Ed Goblin Spider Riders
• 4th Ed Goblin Wolf Riders
• 4th Ed Goblin Doom Diver
• 4th Ed Orc Warriors
• 4th Ed Orc Archers
• 4th Ed Black Orc Warriors
• 4th Ed Goblin Lunatics
• 4th-7th Ed Trolls

Painted Terrain

 

The Vanilla Campaign : Session Zero

Post Session Report

I managed to get through the first session without completely fucking it up, barely.

Hindsight be 20/20 it is clear to me that I should have done somethings differently.

Since this was technically session #0 it was a good opportunity to get all of the bugs out.

The biggest issue was the character creation portion of the night. Some of my players jumped right into it and created their characters. Some of the my players struggled. I found myself answering the same question over and over again, very frustrating.

Once we passed that hurdle, it was the intro to the campaign. If I am being honest, I tried hard to set the mood with ambient sounds but I just don't feel I did enough to bring the city to life.

What is the Vanilla Campaign?

The theme of this campaign is back to basics fantasy. A vanilla fantasy campaign world using the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game as the base rule-set with some optional and house rules bolted on.

All characters were to be randomly generated with no backgrounds (backgrounds for each character are going to be revealed in-game via random rolls).

All the characters have come to the city to join the Guild of Adventurers. They have to pass a try-out in the very first game to join the guild,

What is the Setting of the Campaign?

The Valley of Valor

The valley is 2,827 sq. mi. of rolling hills, dark forests, grassy plains and deep lakes. Many call the valley home, but civilization is sparse. The valley is organized under the leadership of the Lord of the Valley, but the settlements are so scattered that his Bannerman often have high levels of autonomy.

The peoples of the valley are divided into three distinct groups: Humans, Demi-Humans & Sub-Humans. Humans are the most numerous of the races, but they are in decline. The common folk tend to be illiterate, ignorant and superstitious; the high-born are often literate, arrogant and self-serving. Elves are rarest of the demi-humans; they are viewed with fear and awe by the common folk. The few elves left in the valley can be found in Rock Maple Wood. Dwarves are not as rare as elves; common folk have many tall tales about dwarves, many are untrue. Most dwarves live in Giants Reach. Halflings are uncommon and are considered oddities by people who have never seen them before.

Sub-Humans are composed of many different sub races, such as orcs and goblins. Giants, ogres and trolls are their own separate race known as the Joten.

Clerics are held in high regard as servants of the gods, while magic-users are held with fear and suspicion as demon worshippers. Many magic-users pose as sages, alchemists or soothsayers.

Giants (including Ogres) are real and greatly feared, Dragons are a myth, and no one has seen one in over 1,000 years.

Most people have never encountered a true monster or something supernatural, they are regulated to tall tales and fables. Most people have encounters with wildlife and various humanoids.  

Campaign Deities:

·         Solaris: God of the Sun (LG)

·         Luna: Goddess of the Moon (CG)

·         Terra: Goddess of Earth (N)

o    Old Man River (N)

o    The Ploughman (N)

o    The Water Maiden (CG)

·         God of Chaos (CE) – Vacant

o    Orcus, Demon Prince

o    Demogorgon, Demon Price

·         Aegis: Goddess of Darkness (LE)

Campaign PC Races:

·         Human

·         Stonefolk (Dwarf)

·         Moon Elf

·         Hillfolk (Halfling)

Campaign PC Classes:

·         Fighter

·         Cleric

·         Magician (M-U)

·         Thief

·         Fighter/M-U

·         M-U/Thief

Campaign Organizations:

·         High Council – Court of the Lord of the Valley

·         Fraternal Order of Adventurers

·         Temples of the Sun, Moon & Earth

Campaign Languages

·         Low Speech (Common)

·         High Speech

·         Stone Tongue (Dwarven)

·         Tree Speech (Elven)

·         Old Tongue (Dead Lang)

Min INT of 12 or Better = Literate

Campaign Social Ranks

·         King (Vacant)

·         High Lord (Vacant)

·         Lord of the Vale

·         Marshal (West Hold, East Hold, Lakeland)

·         High Captain

·         Captain

·         Bannerman (Lowest Level of Nobility)

·         Yeoman (Non-Nobility)

·         Peasant

·         Thrall

The Great Office Remodel

My wife noted that I was not using my office very much.

One of the reason why was it was not very well organized.

So we decided to remodel the closet and the difference it made was amazing.

There and Back Again

Once again, I have neglected my blog. I tend to do this when real life takes over and I have time for little else. Blogging is a luxury of time.

It has been over a year since I posted anything which is kind of sad.

After a four month break, I am getting behind the DM screen again and I am going to be running BFRPG for the first time.

ACK Campaign

In that year, I was finally able to finish my campaign They Stood Against Evil, the second of my Generational Known World Series. The campaign has a epic ending and with the heroes defeating the big bad and setting up the next campaign which I have dubbed They Stood Against Chaos.

They Stood Against Darkness - B/X D&D

They Stood Against Evil - ACK

They Stood Against Chaos - 5e D&D or 2ed AD&D or Sword & Wizardry (*)

(*) I leaning towards this

There is a in-game time jump between each campaign of 50 years, this way players can play the children and grandchildren of their previous characters or new characters.

The side of effect of this, is my players really tend to think about things like legacy and will seek out spouses and try to have children.

Other News

One thing that has changed is I, along with my wife, are now the Directors of Table-top RPGS at CONjuration, our local fantasy con.

We have been attending for seven years and we have been running Rpgs games for six.

Every year we run more games and have more players and it is awesome, if not a bit stressful.

This past year I ran my very first miniature paint and take using Reapers Bones, I have over 20 people show up.

Outside of my Saturday Group, The Crimson Blades, my Sunday group the N. GA DCC group is continuing to go strong.

Miniatures & Wargames

I am trying hard to get back into painting and have managed to get some stuff painted.

I am also now getting into Star Wars Legion with my friend Stelios which is very cool.

I hope to post picture of what I have painted

Character Portratis

The Holidays have come and gone and the time has come to get this blog rolling again.

As a tradition, my game group exchanges x-mas gifts and this year two of my players did something really cool.

They found an artist named Allison Howe who they commissioned to draw sketches all of the player's characters in my ACK Campaign we have been playing in for the last two years.

As the DM I got a group sketch, it was one of the coolest gifts I have ever received,

Now without further a due, The Light Bringers. 

Ivanova Hastinov - Half-Elf Female, Black Swan Maiden (Paladin) of Fionnghuala, Heiress Presumptive to Leadership of the High Elves

Lozen the Lioness - Thracian Human Female, Blade Dancer of Ianna, Courtier of Ivanova's Camarilla 

Avery Aileanach -High Elf Male, Spell Blade

Garrick Aileanach - High Elf Male, Night Blade, Ivanova's Spy Master 

Oberron the Reborn - Dwarf Male, Dwarven Fury, Son of Oberron Trollnose, Courtier of Ivanova's Camarilla 

Damien, Son of Ulf - Danish Human Male, Champion of the Saint of Swords