Orctober

Happy Orctober Fest!

So Orctober is on us again and I hope very much that once more you will put aside cares for Chaos, desires for dwarves or even urges for undead (unless they are orc undead I guess) and spend a month obsessing about orcs or orks. 

Why I hear you cry. Well first of all I love orcs, they were my first miniature army and are just your best all round bad guy. Secondly around Orctober I always get into gaming doldrums, selfishly a month concentrating on my favorite army sounds like a good plan. Also I really need to make sure I paint some orcs each year, my orc collection is by far my largest and I have some catching up to do in the painting department.

 Finally no other race lends itself to the race/month combo quite like Orctober so it would be a crime not to celebrate such kick-ass serendipity. Oh and finally, finally people seamed to enjoy the theme last year.

So like last year I'm probably going to post out a prize to one random author of a orc or ork (I'll even include other goblinoids at a push) related blog or forum post.  The post should identify itself as part of Orctober and link back to this initial Orctober post. It should also be a meaningful attempt to add something to the community no simple, I like orcs now enter me into a prize draw posts. New material as well guys please. I'll accept anything as meaningful if effort has gone into it art, stories, discussions, reviews, painting, reports and anything else that I think is cool after having seen it.

The prize up for grabs will be somewhat dependent on the communities response. I'm still not decided on that fourth box of Rudlugs, I want to give it away but something stops me. I think I want to be sure they will go to a good home.

So if the community knocks my socks off they will be up for grabs. Even if not I can promise like Paul last year, some vintage lead for someone. One of my first Orctober tasks is to sort through my collection the Orc diaspora in my garage is shocking.

If anyone wants to join in and spread the love by all means offer your own prizes up!

One more thing. Zhu has kindly allowed us to use his painting from last year as a sort of banner for the month see the top of this post. Stick this in the top of any Orctober post you make and we will all know you are joining in.

OK first task, organise my orc collection.

Oldhammer Quest the game.

Just a quick post to show off some photos of the game I just enjoyed with my fellow East Anglian Oldhammerers (well they're almost all from Bedfordshire). OGRE as we call ourselves met at my place, that's Erny's non-virtual place, for a bit of dungeon bashing.

We used 3rd ed rules and randomly rolled level 5 characters against a dungeon of nasties GMed by myself. I've tweaked the rules and at some point when play testing is done I'll stick them on the blog if anyone is interested. Enough of the wittering here are some photos.

Bat swarm, the ranger has to burn a fate point.

The adventurers make Short work of WPs swamp Troll.

Goblins are quickly dispatched.

Then they find the dungeons...dungeon.

Orc sleeping quarters. Murder hobos stop only to loot the bodies.

Well after a brief fight.

The thief opens the door on some of Snicket's rats

At the same time the elf finds another bat swarm.

What's cooking?

They breeze through goblins.

I should have taken more dungeon eye level photos.

How the game ended, area cleared two doors to open.

And just because I forgot to show all the guys when they came over here is Zagor from Otherworld in his Fighting Fantasy blister pack.

Oldhammer Quest.

On the 18^th of this month I have invited the local Oldhammerers of OGRE (Oldhammer Gaming Ring East-Anglia, we love our cheese us Oldhammerers) to join me for a delve into the bowels of the Oldhammer world.  I’m currently bashing together the additional rules and guidelines needed to run 3^rd ed as a dungeon bash/ adventure game and will post my efforts up here when done.

In the meantime here are some shots of the terrain the action will take place on:

And here is a link to the various adventurers who are stepping forward to brave all the terrors of the dark.

Forum posts. 

 Adelmo Ladro

The making of the BOYL14 siege game.

You've seen countless photos by now but I honestly can't believe you could appreciate the magnitude of the game unless you were there, unless you were playing even. Where do you even begin to describe a game of the magnitude of the BOYL14 Siege game? Initially meant to be a scenario involving the sallying froth of the defenders of Avalone against the Siege engines arrayed against them it rapidly developed into something on a much grander scale on the forum.

I think it may well be worth having a little look at all the work that went into putting this extravaganza on for so many people to enjoy.

When we arrived at the Foundry site midday on the Friday we discovered a Marquee which was unexpected. There were two massive tables, I didn't think to measure them they were massive. Given the cloths I put on them I would guess they were about 6' wide by 10 to 12' long. Unlike the vast majority of the foundry tables they were covered only by a grey green cloth not the usual foundry textured ground. Never mind all we needed was a large table because at the last minute I decided to bring both my green cloths along this covered just enough of the table to allow us a huge area of grassed land in front of the walls of Avalone and behind the walls the table stayed appropriately grey.

The field of battle, we have just finished setting up the terrain and the troops are being added.

Paul's fields and hedges.

Mr Rab's Tower.

Paul, Golfang1 on the forum, began filling the area outside the city with his fields, hedges hills and trees. He also added some siege works to the defenders side in front of the city walls. I added to this my own hills and a dirt road that I use for 15mm games, it served well enough as the road to Avalone. When Thantsants arrived he added more fields and farm steads to the mix and Mr Rab who turned up late was able to add a tower from his own lovely collection. A special addition to the setup was a stone wall.








This wall was horror of horrors unpainted, though it didn't look too bad in the bare grey metal. The reason for including was not only did it look great but it was contributed by Bryan himself. They were the masters for a never released set of stone walls that were to have come out at the same time as the Mighty Fortress.

The road to Avalone.

Harry's houses with Bryans wall in the background.

The city walls themselves were mainly my own, painted the day before, I got RSI drybrushing that lot. I included the small keep I had converted in the walls and had the breach I had also converted waiting to be used. Thantsants walls and gate were more than enough for us to add a gate house to the main entrance and an extra wing giving the wall a serious length to be exploited by the forces of Chaos. Again Bryan had left out the metal masters for the Mighty fortress and was a little disappointed we hadn't used it in the walls. My bad , I even explained it was because they were not painted. "Elitist", Bryan replied. Left me wondering if he used to game with bear lead back in the day, surely not?

More of Harry's houses.

Thantsants set of gates infront of my own providing the gate house.

 The houses inside the city were supplied by Harry, my Brother Snicket, Thantsants and myself along with the cobbles which were hypocritically unpainted. More on the source of these cheap and excellent cobbles another time.

My brothers Elven tower.

So there we have it Seven people contributed to the terrain alone for this game. I thought it looked awesome though a bit of me knows we can do better.

Pre-BOYL post, some other stuff I got painted.

Here is Graf Von Bonk originally of Middenland. After painting his shield I realised it had a striking resemblance to a logo from my youth hence his name and Province of origin. Remind me to tell you the account of how he rescued the griffon he rides from certain death at the hands of raving fanatics. Yep that would be the Middenland Bonk Griffon Saver Account.

Next we have those Templars. Their Grandmaster has a fiery temper indeed they call him Blitz for just this reason. To rid the main temple of this tiresome Brother and his five angry followers they were sent on a missionary exercise to Avalone. So here are Großmeister Blitz und der wütende fünf. I'm sure you can imagine a white line of these charging down to deliver the steel tipped message.

I originally did these with just the hearts on but they looked wrong so added the poor attempt at a tangle of roses. Oh we'll it is important to try.

Last here are those houses from a couple of posts ago painted. I must go pack now.

More Helblitzen for my Imperial army.

Whilst the various power brokers of Avalone maintain their own forces to provide for their own security the Council does see fit to provide at least minimal policing upon the streets. Another example of the council looking after the good of all unlike the despots of less happy places. This force of men provides street, slum and sewer  patrols with the power to apprehend any causing disturbance, they are bestowed the right to bear arms in the shape of a halberd and the right to wear a hat of scarlet, the badge of their office.  The contract for this force by tradition goes to the guild of night watchmen and sewer jacks, who happily enough take a red hat as their guild badge. The head of the guild is currently Gustave the Mustache named for his finely cultured facial hair. A Wastelander from the Imperial side he does tend to favor oldworlders of Imperial decent in his force though Bretonnians and even Tileans have found their place.  Known affectionately as red caps or the filth they are universally loved and loathed. In times of war their activities are restricted to within the city policing for disturbances and manning the walls as needed.

Apart from Gustave these figures are all Foundry reissues of old citadels, Gustave is an original. I went with the colour scheme shown in the colour, “plate” in Warhammer armies as the main halberd using figure is clearly portrayed, but for variation changed the colour of the smock on a number of the figures. I converted a number of the figures holding an ornate pitchfork in to halberds using weapons from Essex Miniatures and citadel that were available at the time these first came out. I also did some head swaps.

Apologies for a couple of the photos, I took them last night on the iPad, must locate the camera after the holiday! Only now at work do I see how blurry a couple are.

Property developer, classic warhammer fantasy town houses.

My wife booked a last minute holiday for last week so although we all enjoyed ourselves I lost a precious week of painting. I’ve also been stressing, probably needlessly about having enough houses inside the city. I have quite a few of the Conflix houses that at the time of buying were reasonably priced. They are clearly inspired by, in some cases built directly from, the plans by Pil Lewis and Dave Andrews in white dwarfs all those years ago.  What do you think?

Well given I already had some in that style I thought it would be a good idea to resurrect another old project. Back in the day as a 13 year old I built a couple of town houses, I remember being very satisfied with the results but not pleased with how long it took. Those original two buildings survived, if in a collapsed state and a couple of years ago I started rescuing them. The walls had been made from in one case corrugated card in another the card from the back of an A4 refill pad. The corrugated card was still usable but the other had warped. I stuffed the warped building with polystyrene and it became usable once more. The roofs were appalling with incredibly large roof tiles. I re-tiled one roof with card tiles of a suitable size and there the project lay dormant. I have now done the second roof, buying in laser cut tiles from Fenris Games. These are a tad expensive at about £5.99 a sheet which did for this roof but the Conflix houses go for about £28 now so not terrible.  they were quick to use with a hot glue gun too. I like how the look. I repaired the timbering and added some cobbled plasti-card. Just an afternoons work and they look good.

 This is the first one, new roof, new chimney (the pots are map pins), new base but the walls are original 13 year old Erny.

The second with the Fenris tiles added. I've already undercoated the polystyrene chimneys to stop them melting when I spray the houses.

Off for undercoating then.