Frostgrave.. a start

Now, there's a good chance that I'll never actually play this game. (I have yet to get a game of Lion Rampant, despite finishing my Retinue a while back).. but I was hit by the cosh of inspiration last week and sometimes there is as much joy in the planning and building of a project as there is in playing the game. (?) Having a week off work helped ;-)

Anyhoo.. I was ordering something else on Amazon, and on a whim, having read a little about it (for example, on Tom's blog), I ordered the Frostgrave book. I don't really 'do' fantasy but perhaps secretly I've always looked back in fondness at those days of Tunnels and Trolls with my brother..

As I read the book, I realised that here was an opportunity for some proper 'bashing'.. so started on a number of smaller projects as part of the bigger one... a common thread here is thrift*!

Firstly, scenery. The game is set in a frozen ruined city. I decided to make use of some thin ply rescued from a set of trashed bedroom furniture for the bases, and with hot glue gun and masking tape at hand, set to cutting up and sticking together a load of corrugated cardboard walls. 

cardboard, tape and emulsion

I splashed some greyish emulsion over the pieces to help bind it and keep the masking tape in place, then applied some textured spray paint that I picked up from B&Q - this was an experiment and I quite like the result. Finally, a dab of white emulsion around the bases and voila - cheap and simple, but hopefully effective, terrain pieces!

Textured paint and white emulsion

Next up, figures. Being short of any fantasy figures, I did order a couple of suitable 'wizard' Reaper Bones figures from eBay, these have yet to be painted but were pretty cheap and I'm quite impressed.

For the 'soldiers', I had a number of Fireforge figures left on the sprues, along with a few spare metal dark ages types. With the plastic figures, rather than mess about with greenstuff, I had great fun adding packs, capes, heads and various other modifications using various sources ranging from Greeks to Russian WW2! About half of these are painted up..

a motley crew

Roman helmet plume

Prussian Fusilier backpack

Fireforge figure, with Greek cape and French Hussar head!

Whilst preparing the soldiers, I also dug out some English Heritage gift shop figures which are now painted and based up as statues for my frozen city!

Finally, when I last saw my brother, he handed me a box and said that there were some 'tanks or something' inside - he was having a clear out. Turned out to be a right little mixture of figures, including a group of old Orcs. I think these may have been Asgard. Most likely bought from Tabletop Games (we used to live not far from the old shop). The paint was pretty faded but I figured these could be revived. Rather than completely re-start, I've tried to keep the theme intact, the shields are untouched for example.. but I've re-coloured and added some shading and highlighting as well as re-basing. I haven't tried to repair the broken weapons. Not sure these will see any use in Frostgrave, but I like them and they have been with us for many years!

*The cost of the Frostgrave project so far..

The rulebook - £10.00

Textured Spray paint - £7.95

Gale Force 9 snow - £3.00

4 wizardy figures (ebay) - £10 (ish)

So.. altogether about £30 for the rules, all the scenery and two factions/warbands. Not bad!

Tidying up the Arthurians

An upcoming possible big thing at the second Partizan show has kicked my backside into gear and I've spent a little time tidying up the Arthurians that I had re-based a while back.

Quite a few figures had lost their spears, and the bases were a bit messy. These figures have been re-based so many times, and this will definitely be the last for them. They are all Gripping Beast figures, mostly purchased ages ago (probably more years than I think) after reading the Cornwell Arthur books. 

They were originally based up for WAB and organised to the 'Fall of the West' supplement before James and Steve released their Arthur book.

They are all on 120mm unit bases, great for games of To The Strongest! and also for Hail Caesar or Dux Bellorum  (most of the units have integral dice frames).

Some skirmishers to finish off.. but these others are pretty ready I think.

(I'm not going to start re-painting shields and try to touch up too much)