Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old



Using Sellswords and Spellslingers, along with bits and bobs lifted from other rule sets or invented on the spot, we set about to some dungeon delving in Middle-earth.

Scott made up some custom dice to procedurally generate the rooms and their contents. We used the walls and doors offered by UrbanMatz and some furniture from HeroQuest and Mantic's Terrain Crate line. The front porch, as Tolkien might have called it, of our dungeon was a cozy goblin dining hall. Before dealing with all the goblins lounging around in there, a curious hobbit started exploring further until running into a corridor full of the Necromancer's minions - including a terrifying Morgul Stalker!



The frightened little hobbit slammed the door back shut and, with a couple of his hairfooted friends, desperately tried to hold it closed while the goblins screeched and pounded on the other side.

Meanwhile, another curious hobbit found himself face-to-face with a slavering warg! The plucky little fellow managed to stick the beast a few times but the other members of his fellowship could not save him from its snapping jaws. Poor little blighter.

Back on the other side of the dining hall, the goblins managed to smash down the door - just in time to be greeted by some grim Dwarves looking for a fight. The Morgul Stalker was unexpectedly tough but the Dwarves overcame him in round after round of furious mêlée.

Pushing on, the fellowship discovered a gruesome torture chamber. But everything was still and peaceful ... I suppose that only made sense considering we had slain six Moira Goblins, six Mordor Orcs, four Morannon Orcs, five Dead Marsh Specters, a Warg, and a Morgul Stalker in the first couple of rooms. Well, actually it was more than that as we had to recycle enemy models after a point ...

The surviving fellowship rummaged through the goblins' plunder, finding little of value. We really need better loot tables.

Charging through the only other doorway, our brave Men, Dwarves, and Hobbit beheld a terrible sight ...

A Cave Troll holding court over a horde of chattering Moria Goblins!

Strangely, this combat was a total breeze. I think we are going to need to make up original monster cards to better represent Lord of the Rings content rather than just using the ones available for Sellswords and Spellslingers via Wargame Vault.

It was getting late but we generated the next room and its occupants just to see what awaited. More Dead Marsh Specters, some Army of the Dead type guys, and a Barrow White. I wonder if it would have been as thrilling as the fight against the Morgul Stalker or a let down like the Cave Troll.

And here's an overview shot of the dungeon generated by the end of the session.



WWX: Armoured Justice, Part 1

So much is going on these days, mostly thanks to Games Workshop. Kill Team as a stand-alone skimrish game, a re-release of Adpetus Titanicus, and a new edition of my all-time favorite Lord of the Rings The Hobbit Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game - all in a single summer! It's hard to believe that back in June I seriously thought I would be getting back to Robotech RPG Tactics. Well, Kill Team has taken up a lot of hobby time since then and now I am working on a Mordor army for SBG. But it's also time for a bit of a sidetrack ...

Warcradle Studios is the publishing arm of the British online retailer Wayland Games. As I understand it, Warcradle was set up when Wayland purchased the Wild West Exodus ("WWX") brand from Outlaw Miniatures, itself founded to publish WWX by Romeo Filip of Battlefoam fame. Warcradle has been reworking the first edition that Outlaw put out in 2013 but a new hardcover rulebook remains elusive. This might have something to do with Wayland more recently also acquiring the Dystopian Wars brand from now-defunct publisher Spartan Games, as WWX 2E is actually now set in that universe. In any case, WWX 2E is currently playable out of an A4-sized softcover rulebook that can be purchased alone or with a starter set that also includes miniatures, dice, and tokens.

All of this to say, WWX remains in a somewhat transitional state. Even finding pics of models (as opposed to renders) can be tough. So I thought I would post the figures I am currently working on from the Armoured Law Posse Set. This set comes with Morgan Earp (who is the "Boss" of the warband), as well as some robot deputies and dogs. The dogs are in plastic but everything else is resin. The resin figs are extremely crisp and I didn't have any trouble with them. The plastic dogs suffer from a lot pf mold lines and some sprue channels located less than optimally.

I'll Be Back ... Er, I Am Back

This blog is definitely NOT dead. I've just been ... busy? ... eh, more like, overwhelmed by life. Among other things, we managed to buy a house (1:1 scale). Now it is time, once again, to turn back to smaller scale endeavors ...

The mat is the vinyl 3'x4' from Warlord Games, initially made for Project Z but WLG also recommends use with Mr. Cavatore's ill-fated (but excellent!) Terminator game. Recommendation accepted!

The buildings are in the ubiquitous "nondescript MDF ruins" style - these happen to be from Wargames Tournaments who do some nice bundle deals. I wanted to see if I could make them look a little bit more interesting than what I have usually seen. I used cheap-ish texture spray paint (two cans was sufficient for twelve pieces) and generous amounts of Vallejo sepia, with some heavy drybrushing (with cheap toll paint) as well as some select ink details, plus a few signs and posters.

The fence is from 4ground - I think it was made for Dead Man's Hand. I can no longer find it on the 4ground website. What I have laid out here represents one pack. 4ground made two different packs one that was just straights sections (seen here) as well as another with a gate section.

As I mentioned, I'll be using this for - among other things - playing the Terminator Genisys miniatures game. Here you can see some of the (frustratingly poor, IMO) Resistance figures, unbased and unpainted. Hey, I just assembled them last night!

And across the mat we find a patrol of T-800s. Hidden in a giant pile of gaming stuff somewhere or another, I have the awesome Project Z Spec Ops Compound kit, which would make a great centerpiece on this mat.

Pretty happy with how this is turning out. I just need to see about getting some car wrecks and miscellaneous scatter terrain. Stand by for further pictures when the set up is game-ready.