Frugal postings

Finally managed to scribe a my first proper post to contribute to "A Year of being Frugal". The one month mark since I signed up to contribute was looming large. I've a few more practical postings in the pipeline - it's just a case of getting through the small projects and taking the accompanying photos.

Anyway have a look at it and the other fine articles (by others) and as always feel free to add to the experience.

Monster Mash

Having just painted a new SoBH warband it was only natural the ArabianSquire would want to play something completely different -  Firefly Games "Monster Island". We were joined by my brother, ArabianOtherknight, so a 3 way battle ensued.

For the first set-to the monsters chosen were ElectoTron (Robot), Kajiro (Not-Godzila) and Komukade (Insect). The Island Terrain included a central swamp area, a handful of geysers and a pletora of trees & (blue) rocks. Not-Godzilla started at the top of the picture.


Everyone made a move to the center of the table (avoiding the swamp)

Kajiro and Komukade tangled first, exchanging blows, with ElectoTron slowly making its way round to join in.

With the giant dinosaur distracted the robot sneaked round behind him and hacked him down, out of the fight, with a savage Razor sword attack.

Komukade then took advantage of the celebrating Robot to grab and throw onto a geyser. Fortunately it didn't errupt. 

After an exchange of ranged attacks (rocks thrown by Komukade and an electric blast from ElectoTron) Electro came into Hand-to-hand, and with the advantage of it's powerful swords cut down the giant insect to rule the island.





A second match up was decided with different monsters this time. The combatants were the MegaKong, Giant archnid Macrocheira and the armour plated dino Steg-a-atora. 

Steg-a-tora moved to the hill crest to roar his challenge over the island. Macrocheira responded by cocooning him in it's steel-like web and moving in to grab whilst the dino struggled to release itself. 

MegaKong closed in and threw an uprooted tree at the pair, but missed.

The giant spider responded by throwing the grappled Steg-a-tora at the giant ape, and before the dinosaur could respond it was pushed into the geyser, 

which this time went off. Fortunately Steg-a-tora is built like a tank and it survived the watery assault.

The spider rushed over to and piledrived MegaKong into the turf, letting Steg-a-tora recover and sneak round the back for an attack.

Poor Macrocheira ended up as the filling in a monster sandwich and it was crushed.

MegaKong moved forward and grabbed Steg-a-tora. The armoured dinosaur was no match for the awesome strength of the mighty ape, and over the next 3 rounds, despite it's desperate thrashing, was held and squeezed to its end.

Mega Kong reigned over the island....until the next challenge.

They Came Out Of The Swamp

As mentioned in my previous post, I'd discovered enough painted figures to almost make up a varied Swamp themed warband. Well, one quickly painted cheap toy dinosaur toy later it's here for inspection.

• 8 x Lizardman Warrior (52 pts) Q3+ C4 Amphibious Tailslap
• 1 x Lizardman Leader/Champion (82 pts) Q3+ C4 Amphibious Tailslap Leader/Tough
• 1 x Giant Lizard (44pts) Q4+ C4 Animal, Amphibious, Big, Clinging, Tailslap
• 1 x Fishman Warrior (23 pts) Q4+ C3 Amphibious
• 1 x Frogfolk Shaman (36pts) Q3+ C1 Amphibious, Magic-User, Slow
• 1 x Frogfolk Spearman (32pts) Q4+ C2 Amphibious, Acrobat

Figures are some old OOP Games Workshop Saurials, WoTC D&D figures & the aforementioned cheap dino toy. Again I've put down stats instead of a roster for flexibility. Also note I've given the option to have my bone helmeted lizardman as a leader or a champion. There are some old (but unpainted) GW Skink archers on the shelf somewhere that I could paint up for additional Lizardman skirmishers. But considering that up to 4 days ago I didn't have any warband I'm pretty happy. One design note is that Lizardmen are pricey points wise so I'm not going to get many of them in a standard 300pt battle!

Unleash the small child in you.

There's nothing like an enthusiastic 8 year old to get things sorted. A few home chores had meant that my son  and I couldn't make it to the local gaming club meet (which is on Saturday mornings). So with my blessing, along with the odd condition, Arabiansquire was let loose to play in the hobby shed. The previous home session where we tried a roleplaying lite turn to the gaming must have left an impression as instead of the usual huge neverending mass battle, he constructed a varied band of adventurers and a series of scenarios to play through. A few back and forth trips back to the house to check on "Song of Blades..." stats and he was away and entertained for a couple of hours. The next day I managed to join in for the last couple of skirmishes - a woodland battle and a final assault on a castle.

All good fun, but the main point here is that the castle had been a bargain buy around 3 years ago and had never witnessed the roll of a single die until the wee lad had raked through some of my boxes and unearthed it for play. He also managed highlight a couple of mini's from an ebay job lot I bought ages ago which, when combined with a few other long lost figures, will almost make up an new themed warband - one of my 2010 pledge points. Double bonus! So it just goes to show - unleash the small child in you, dive into those dusty boxes and re-discover your once prised purchases.