eBay: THE Citadel Giant, 2021 edition

 Holy Deep Pockets, Batman! Someone shelled out $1,600 GBP ($2,270.64 USD) for this complete in box copy of THE Citadel Giant. I mean, just look at it. All the pieces, unpainted, unassembled and in the original box. Color me jealous, for sure. And since we're talking about a miniature (heh) that is nearly 40 years old, limited to 1,000 models, and originally sold for $25-30 GBP, this is just going to keep going up, up, up in price.

Congrats to the new owner, I'm sure this bad boy will be a centerpiece in your collection.

I Forged a Hero!

OK, so I used Hero Forge Custom Miniatures to create my own custom mini using their library of virtual bits and bobs. I know they've been around for a couple of years now, but I recently began shopping for a new mini to represent my human bard and had not had much luck finding what I was looking for.

I tried my go-to guys at Reaper, and while I did find a couple of options, I decided to keep shopping. I looked at more than a dozen manufacturer's websites and a LOT of minis. In the end, I didn't find anything that fit my needs. I went back to Reaper and narrowed my selection down to 2-3 models, and then weighed the pros and cons of picking one and customizing it. Still not entirely satisfied, it was at that point when I decided to check out Hero Forge.

The interface is intuitive and easy to use for a first time user. On the left side of the screen you have your main menu: Species, Head, Body, Clothing, Gear, Base, Mount, Pose, Color, Booth, and Buy. Most of the Species are currently geared towards fantasy races, but there are a few alien and robot options now. When you click on a menu choice like Body, a sub-menu appears that lists all the options for that category. There are a lot of options! You are only limited by your imagination and ability to mix and match.

The Color menu allows you to "paint" your mini so you can get a better idea of what it will look like with paint applied. Then, presumably, you will click on the Booth menu so you can create tokens and portraits of your hero (these are premium options).

And then it is time to Buy. And this is where you get hit in the wallet. A single hero in the base plastic is $20. Premium Plastic is $30, Color Plastic is $45, and Bronze minis are $100. If you have your own 3D printer, you can purchase the STL file for $8 (currently $4). I opted for the $20 base model, because it was my first time using the service and I had nothing to compare it to. By the time you add in tax and shipping, the total was closer to $30. But what the hell, I had recently sold a rare mini and made a tidy profit, so I decided to treat myself.

Here is Geddy, my human bard in my friend's 3.5 campaign. We have been playing on Roll20 since the outbreak of the pandemic, so he may not see use on the gaming table in our current campaign. But I still wanted to have a representation of him as I envisioned him. I chose a pose that has him doing what he does best: singing! I'm also trying to decide if I want to modify his spear and turn it into a longspear, which is what Geddy actually uses. He likes to stand behind the fighter types and stab away at the monsters.

 

I wouldn't mind buying another Hero Forge model again, perhaps in the next higher grade of plastic for comparison. But first I need to paint up Geddy and see how he turns out before I cross that bridge.

Clear Acrylic Base Saves The Day (And The Mini)

My fantasy miniatures have always been game pieces, to be handled and used from one campaign to the next. Some of my favorite minis are 30 to 40 years old, and have seen extensive use. And while it's true I've always been protective of my lead, and have given my friends truckloads of grief over the years whenever they dropped or knocked one over, I don't blame them for most of the damage. I blame the manufacturers! A lot of old school lead have ridiculously tiny bases. Citadel is one of the worst offenders, and a lot of their pre-slotta minis suffered from this issue. One of my favorite old elves is FA14v1 Elven Hero with Sword. But his base is so tiny, he might as well have been sculpted in the prone position. Another favorite, FA1v1 Fighter in Plate Mail with Sword, was constantly toppling over. In fact, he fell over so often that he was the first figure I ever attempted to re-base. All I did was glue a small washer to the bottom of his base, but it sure kept him from tipping over every time the table was bumped.

But what I didn't like about the washer solution is that in my eyes, it just didn't look right. Not aesthetically pleasing. In the mid to late 70s and early 80s, I wasn't educated at all about miniatures beyond the basics (paint with enamel paints, boom, done). Sure, later in life I finally learned intermediate and advanced painting techniques, how to customize a mini, and how to make cool bases.

So my problem was what to do with my vintage lead that had been lovingly painted or re-painted in some cases. I want to use them in games, but I don't want to see my work slowly erased, one chip at a time. And that's where Green Stuff World's clear acrylic bases enter the picture. They currently come in round, hex, and oval shapes, with sizes ranging from 25mm to 55mm in clear, blue, and red. I would like to see them in squares too, but for now these will do.

I glued a Grenadier wight and a couple of old Reaper skeletons to some round 25mm bases as a test. And let me tell you, they all passed the test! Just don't glue too close to the outside edges of the mini's base, at least if you are using glue that doesn't dry clear. I'm really looking forward to adding these clear bases to a bunch of minis that really need the support, especially my hordes of Heritage Dungeon Dwellers. I'll post more pics down the road as I make progress with this project.

What do you think? I'm happy. My goal was to get more minis on the table, without causing unnecessary damage to them. And I also wanted to save time, because I really didn't want to spend the time gluing them into recessed bases, building up the voids with filler, and finishing them with sand, grass, rocks, etc. and painting the bases. These clear acrylic bases look great, and I only need to glue each mini to the base. A great solution, and in my opinion, great results.

Grenadier Storm Giant (Lightning Master)

A couple of days ago, I finally began to compile the master inventory list for my miniatures collection. It's a somewhat daunting task, considering we're looking at 40 years of minis both old and new. As always, I only have myself and my procrastinating ways to blame.

Today I was going through my Shelf of Shame, consisting mostly of projects ranging from partially painted, primed, or prepped and awaiting primer. In particular, it was the shelf that holds my favorite subject---giants!

I picked up this Grenadier storm giant and began to look him up on the Lost Minis Wiki. No luck. The Stuff of Legends? No dice. How hard can this be? I know my way around minis, know how to narrow down searches, who the various experts are on the various lines, etc. But WTF, here's a giant that I KNOW is Grenadier because it says "Grenadier @ 1992" and "SM13" on the base. Google shows a few pics of this fella, but still no conclusive ID. I FINALLY found his proper designation after about a half-hour of poking around.

Turns out he's not a storm giant after all. He's a LIGHTNING MASTER. He belongs to Grenadier's Fantasy Legends line, product number 3104. Hopefully if any other collectors stumble across him and want to know his particulars, they will find this blog post and not spend a bunch of time searching in vain like I did.

I should note he can also be found in Terence Gunn's excellent book The Fantastic Worlds of Grenadier. The mini is pictured on page 96 and is listed in the Product Appendix on page 118.

Picture credit: The Lost Minis Wiki

RIP Uncle Duke

Bruce Seifried, better known as Uncle Duke to the miniature and wargaming community, has passed away. I never met the man, nor did I have the pleasure of participating in his legendary games. I did have two small personal interactions with him, however. The first one was in 2011, when I purchased a Heritage Panzertroops Humber armoured car from him via eBay. He was kind enough to sign the blister card, and also sent a business card. The second one was in 2014, when I asked him several questions about the very rare 25mm Uncle Duke miniature. I was very appreciative of his time and answers.

The Historical Miniatures Gaming Society has posted an obituary here.

Godspeed and thank you for your massive contributions to miniatures and wargaming.

eBay: THE Citadel Giant

DISCLAIMER: This is not my auction, I but thought it was worth noting.

This auction appears to be (and the reason I say appears to be is because I do not see any pics of the contents) for a complete, NIB Citadel Giant. You know, THE Citadel Giant. The starting bid is $850 USD and there is already a bid on this huge hunk of lead. Makes me wonder if any other deep-pocketed collectors are going to join the fray?

Ral & Partha's Excellent Adventure (or Guam and Back Again)

I've mostly been buying single figures or small lots here and there for the past couple of years, trying to fill holes in the collection and generally avoiding large lots - the lead pile is already huge and I really don't need to make it bigger. But an eBay seller recently had a dozen or so lots of old-school goodness, and a few were just too tempting to take a pass on so I went ahead and bid on several, and ended up winning three.

What caught my eye in two of the lots were some Citadel AD&D minis, specifically four bugbears and six norkers. The rest was a great assortment of Heritage, Citadel, Grenadier, and a smattering of Ral Partha, Superior, TSR, and others. I've long desired to replace my Heritage bugbears and ogre that our first DM absconded with decades ago. And now that our new 3.5 FR campaign has kicked off and we are once again 1st and 2nd level, I decided my DM would benefit from a new batch of old low-level monsters to throw at us. I'm nice that way.

Citadel AD&D Bugbears

Citadel AD&D Norkers

Heritage ogres. Yellow one needs a medic.

Heritage bugbears, how I've missed you so!

That's when the fun started. I won two lots on January 23rd, and the third on January 28th. The third lot was in my hands on January 31st, perfect condition, no worries. The first two lots, shipped together, should have been at my house by the 27th, but that did not happen. The USPS decided my minis needed a vacation, so they sent them to Guam and Hawaii. WTF??? I copied & pasted the tracking history at the end of the post. You can see that the package left Missouri on January 24th, and was en route to the west coast. The last "In Transit to Destination" was on the 27th, and then nothing until the 31st when it shows up in Guam. From there, it heads to Hawaii, and then finally to Washington.

I was excited when the tracking info showed that the package was on my doorstep on February 5th. I opened the front door to find that there was no package after all. Are you f*cking kidding me? My guess is that it was delivered to a neighbor's house by mistake, as I have had items that weren't mine delivered to me by mistake in the past. Sure enough, today - two days later - the package shows up on my doorstep. Finally!

The box was pretty beat up, not a surprise considering it traveled in the neighborhood of 13,000 miles instead of the expected 2,100 miles. I said a quick prayer to the lead gods and opened the package. The seller had very creatively packed the miniatures into four plastic ice cube trays, and wrapped each one in bubble wrap. This should have been good enough for the anticipated domestic trip, but alas did not hold up to the rigors of pan-Pacific travel. A handful of minis where rolling around loose in the box, having been dislodged from their ice cube tray nests.

After unpacking and taking inventory, the final tally was six broken minis and two missing minis. The broken minis can be repaired, but the missing pair (a couple of Baaz Draconian warriors from the TSR Dragonlance box set) are gone forever. I hope they ended up in Hawaii, so they can enjoy the sand, surf, and sun. I don't know how USPS managed to drop the ball on this one. It's not like the zip codes are close (98072 compared to 96913), so I guess we'll just chalk this one up to human error.

After I have a chance to sort through these beauties, I'll be selling the leftovers in much smaller lots on eBay or Facebook. They all deserve a good home, and not just sitting around my hobby room in a plastic bin with all my other lead orphans.

• Delivered, Front Door/Porch
• Feb-05-2018, 17:38 PM, WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Out for Delivery
• Feb-05-2018, 08:20 AM, WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Sorting Complete
• Feb-05-2018, 08:10 AM, WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Arrived at Post Office
• Feb-05-2018, 05:30 AM, WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility
• Feb-04-2018, 22:04 PM, SEATTLE WA NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• In Transit to Destination
• Feb-04-2018, 12:57 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• In Transit to Destination
• Feb-03-2018, 12:57 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Departed USPS Regional Facility
• Feb-02-2018, 23:57 PM, HONOLULU HI DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
• Feb-02-2018, 18:21 PM, HONOLULU HI DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• In Transit to Destination
• Feb-02-2018, 12:45 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• In Transit to Destination
• Feb-01-2018, 12:45 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Departed USPS Regional Facility
• Jan-31-2018, 21:45 PM, BARRIGADA GU DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
• Jan-31-2018, 00:38 AM, BARRIGADA GU DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• In Transit to Destination
• Jan-27-2018, 12:07 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• In Transit to Destination
• Jan-26-2018, 12:07 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• In Transit to Destination
• Jan-25-2018, 12:07 PM, On its way to WOODINVILLE, WA 98072

• Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
• Jan-24-2018, 20:07 PM, SAINT LOUIS MO DISTRIBUTION CENTER

• Departed Post Office
• Jan-24-2018, 17:04 PM, BALLWIN, MO 63011

• USPS in possession of item
• Jan-24-2018, 12:20 PM, BALLWIN, MO 63011

Reaper Resin vs Reaper Bones

I love Reaper Miniatures. Great miniatures, great company, great customer service, and an outstanding community. For player characters, there is something for everyone. Our last party was all Reaper, and our new party is once again all Reaper. And the selection of creatures covers pretty much everything in the Monster Manual and then some, so the question is usually how much should I spend?

Some folks don't like to mix scales, but that's not a problem for me. True, some of my venerable 25mm Ral Partha orcs look downright tiny compared to a Reaper DHL 28mm adventurer, and many of the old Heritage and Grenadier sculpts lack the same level of detail as contemporary minis, but I don't look at my collection like that. I buy what I need and I buy what I like, scale and sculpting differences be damned.

To date, I have resisted the siren call of Reaper Bones. I didn't participate in any of the Bones Kickstarters, and did not consider buying any individual Bones minis. While I am a huge fan of how incredibly affordable Bones are, I still prefer the feel and heft of a solid chunk of metal. Another plus for Bones is the light weight. I'm sure I could haul around a lot more Bones than metal minis and still have to carry less overall weight. Finally, Bones get high marks for potential durability. How many weapons and limbs have snapped off a metal mini due to an unfortunate fall off the table or from the ham-fisted handling of my fellow gamers? A lot.

Which brings me to the other day. I was looking for new giants, and I saw the Bones Frost Giant King. That pretty much melted my resolve (no Will save allowed) so I went ahead and bought him. And while I was at it, why not buy another frost giant? Ned (my DM) knows my philosophy is "you can never have too many giants" so I also picked up Boerogg Blackrime in all his resin glory. While both the eBay listing and the Reaper website state Boerogg is resin with metal accessories, my NIB copy is resin with resin accessories. Just an observation, not a criticism.

He followed me home, honest!

Standard Reaper packaging vs Bones

I have been reading up on Bones over the years, mostly on the Reaper forums, but also on various blogs. The first-hand accounts of my fellow painters have been very enlightening with regards to Bones, from priming (to prime or not to prime? That is the question), hardening (some substances can cause Bones minis to stiffen up to varying degrees), and converting (easy, given the soft nature of the plastic). The reason I looked at ways to harden Bones is because I'm NOT a fan of how soft and bendy the king's sword is. If I cannot get it to retain a nice straight form, then I'll have to consider lopping it off and replacing it with a resin or metal blade.

The various bits, side-by-side.

Boerogg Blackrime

Frost Giant King

You can see how much bigger the King is.

So I have removed the giants from their packaging, cleaned them with dish soap, a toothbrush, and cold water, and let them dry. Next step will be to assemble them, clean up any imperfections, and get busy painting! I will leave that for next time, one article for the Bones giant and one for the resin giant. If any of you folks have advice you'd like to share, your input is much appreciated. Thanks!

New Year, New 3.5 FR Campaign

OK, so we actually played on 12/30/17, but let's not split hairs, shall we?

We wrapped up our long-running (2009-20017) 3.5 FR campaign last year in New Orleans. New characters were rolled up on 2/25/17, and then we took a long break to allow our DM time to decompress and regroup for another tilt. It seems only appropriate that we ended one campaign and started another to coincide with my birthdays, does it not? Here is our new party:

Human fighter
Half-drow cleric
Human rogue/sorcerer
Gnome rogue/wizard
Aasimar druid

The new campaign kicked off with our intrepid adventurers enslaved by drow in the Underdark! We were captured individually (at least my druid was alone when ensnared by a goblin trap and captured by some drow, so I'm just assuming the rest of us met similar fates). We slaves led predictably miserable lives as miners and laborers, doing our best to survive each day as we toiled for our harsh masters in Llurth Dreir.

We escaped our captors when we were attacked by some mind flayers and their humanoid minions. While the slavers were busy fighting off the incursion, we broke our shackles with tools and sheer strength and fled down a tunnel. It was a small gaggle that fled, with the five of us plus three orcs, three dwarves, and a human. Our armament consisted of some light picks and clubs.

The tunnel led to an open cavern at the edge of an unknown Underdark sea. As we were scrounging for food and water, some sahaugin raiders emerged from the sea and set upon us. The sea devils probably thought we looked like easy prey, but we fought with the frenzied determination of slaves who had no wish to return to that life. We prevailed, although a few NPCs died during the melee. Some tridents and a net were added to our arsenal, although we cut up the net in order to fashion a crude rude so the chimney in the ceiling above could be explored by our sneaky type.

Pressing on, we were attacked a second time by yet another band of sahaugin while crossing a narrow fjord. The fight whittled down our already meager resources, along with more dead NPCs. We added more tridents and another net to our equipment pool, and our fighter donned some seashell armor taken from a dead sea devil. It is the equivalent of banded armor. Perhaps our biggest score was the discovery of a spellbook looted from the dead sea devil wizard. It is waterproof, of course, and has a read magic spell that cycles through several languages on the page in real time! What this means for us is our rogue/wizard will now be able to cast his arcane spells that he was previously unable to use.
As we continued to work our way through the endless tunnels of the Underdark, we caught a break when we discovered an illusory wall that concealed a small, worked crawlspace that led to some stairs going up. We rested and recovered on the stairs, and then made the 1/4 mile trek up them until we reached a landing that branched off and continued up.

Sahaugin shell armor?

At the top of the stairs, we found the remains of an ancient city that was buried below ground and mostly covered by a lake. The side passages at the landing led to areas that were sealed off, as they were obviously below water level. So we entered the lake, swimming to and from stalactite and stalagmite alike, until we reached the top of a tower that was poking up from near the middle of the lake.

There wasn't much to see in the tower, as the lower levels were magically blocked (to keep the water out). In the one interesting room we found, the statues therein turned out to be very helpful! The warrior, rogue, and arcane caster statues are some sort of automated trainers, so the fighter and the hybrids were able to train up to level 2. The cleric and my druid were not so fortunate, but every little bit helps, so not to worry.

We left the tower and found a passageway that led upwards. A tower rising up through the ground alongside a river was discovered and explored. A pitched battle with many, many goblins was fought and barely survived. Pretty much the only reason we didn't perish was due to the fact that everyone was carrying a dose of healing goo (I think it came from some fungus that one of the dwarves was able to identify and harvest). As we somewhat foolishly continued up, an encounter with a few drow was enough to exhaust our spells and give us reason to leave the structure.

Drow. I hate these guys.

Our last encounter for the session nearly proved our undoing (again). We entered a cavern complex that was the lair for a tribe of goblinesque barbarians. Soon after we routed a small force of natives, reinforcements arrived from two directions, forcing us down a third passage. And OF COURSE that led to a dead end! Time to hold the narrowest part of the tunnel and make our last stand.

But how did we escape? Well, tucked back at the far end of the room attached to the tunnel was a creature that resembled an earth elemental. The elemental was shacked to a circle of runes on the floor and held by bonds of energy, it appeared. With nothing to lose, we attacked the bonds with our weapons and freed the elemental. It summoned the six of us (one lone dwarf remained out of the original count of 7 NPCs) to its side and whisked us away from certain death, right through the very earth itself!

Turns out the elemental was actually an earth genasi who was captured by the goblin things. He brought us to the hidden refuge of Earth's End, an enclave that is a haven for creatures of the earth and for a few friendly allies. There is no physical passage in or out of the area, so you need natural or magical abilities to move freely through the earth to come and go.

Once we rested up, our host was able to get us directly to the dwarven city of Iltkazar, where we leave off until next time.

We achieved our two main goals: escape captivity and survive the perils of the Underdark. I imagine we will be able to get portaled or safely escorted to the surface from here. There is a total of 66sp and 30gp in gems to share, along with the armor and weapons we liberated from drow, sahaugin, and goblin. Isn't it funny how a few simple upgrades make your 1st level characters feel almost invincible? Well, when you go from no armor to chain shirts and banded mail, and from light picks and clubs to tridents, a rapier, daggers, a shortbow and hand crossbows, you sure feel a lot more secure. There is also a magic cloak and three potions to identify.

Superior Models 1/108th scale Tanks and AFVs

After several years of searching, I finally secured a couple of WWII Russian tanks from Superior Models. They are 1/108th scale (1 inch = 9 feet) so pretty much 15mm (which is 1/107th scale). They go back a long way, originally created under the Comet brand during WWII as identification models for the U.S. military. Comet sold the molds to Superior in 1962, and then Superior sold them to Custom Cast sometime in the 1970s. Quality Castings picked them up in the 1980s, and sold them to 19th Century Miniatures in 2002. Whew! You can still buy them from 19th Century here, but they are newer, refined versions of the original castings. Plus you can also buy post-WWII AFVs if that's more your speed.

First up is the KV-1b (5200). The T-34 usually gets all the attention when it comes to WWII Soviet tanks, due to many factors: ease of production, speed, armor, and firepower. Early on, the KV-1 was more than a match for the German light and medium tanks with their small caliber and short-barreled main guns. In the end, the T-34s advantages (half the weight, twice the speed, same or better main gun, lower cost) doomed the KV series. But they served their roles well, and should not be overlooked.

Next is the T-34/85 (5206), which was very poorly packed for mailing and did not arrive intact, with only a small piece of the main gun barrel rattling around in the box. I'm going to attempt field repairs in my depot and replace the missing barrel with small brass tubing. I'll post that as a follow-up once it happens. When the Soviets upgraded the main gun from 76mm to 85mm, the T-34s could now engage Tigers and Panthers from the front with an increased chance for success. The German tanks still had the advantage of range, but if you have the numbers, speed, and maneuverability of the T-34, you can close the gap and overwhelm your foe.

And this is what they look like side-by-side. I'll have to dig through the lead pile for some Heritage Panzertroops 15mm tanks and take a comparison shot.

Background information was obtained from the following sources:
Alnavco's History of Superior Models (PDF)
87thscaleinfo's Authenticast page (has the Superior product list and codes)
TMP's info pages (Comet, Superior, Custom Cast, Quality Castings, 19th Century Miniatures)
19th Century Miniatures (their Quality Castings 15mm AFVs)

New FR Campaign = New Characters to Paint!

In my last post, we wrapped up our long-running FR campaign. A brand-new FR campaign is spooling up, which means I get to pick and paint a new batch of characters for us to field against the DM's never-ending hordes of monsters. Once again, I'm going with Reaper minis to represent our band of intrepid explorers. Our new adventuring party consists of a druid, fighter, cleric, sorcerer, and a rogue. Here's some WIP pics, and my apologies for the quality. They are quick snaps from my phone.

with flash

no flash

My druid is the first 3E/3.5 tree-hugger since we started playing this ruleset. I can't recall the last time anyone played a druid, so I'm pretty sure we're talking way back in our 2E days. I'm really looking forward to this! At first I was going with 03484 Karlov Diedrich, Wizard because he just looks like a druid to me. I ended up choosing 03201 Damian Helthorne, Bandit because my druid serves Mielikki, and her druids are allowed to use the same weapons and armor available to rangers. So yeah, he looks more like a ranger than a druid, but that's my aim. Oh, and he's Aasimar, just to be different.

Dino is playing a human fighter, so I picked 03317 Kale Nolan, Heroic Warrior for him. He's been sitting on the lead pile, based and primed, because I knew I would use him sooner or later. His skin is too yellowish right now, but I'll work on that. Don't want him to look like a pirate with scurvy!

Matt is the medic this time, and 03365 Argonnite, Elf Cleric will be his half-drow cleric. I love the fact that Argonnite came with a weapons sprue so you could choose from a sword, mace, or bow. Maybe I'll stick a small spider on the base, just to remind him Lolth is not happy about a male half-drow cleric running around.

Steve wins the Best Prepared Dude Award for this campaign. Not only did he pick out and purchase 03381 Satheras, Elf Warlock on his own, he even told me he wants me to paint his sorcerer in a more neutral palette. That foiled my plans to paint him up in lovely shades of lavender and salmon.

The rogue pictured is 03062 Darnath, Male Elf Thief. That was before Craig decided his rogue is going to be a gnome, so I narrowed my choices down to 02959 Marius Burrowell, Gnome Thief or 03099 Klaus Copperthumb, Dwarf Thief. Klaus just arrived in the mail yesterday, so he'll be getting based and primed this weekend.

Oh, and I'm also working on some critters for Ned! Don't want the DM to feel left out. I'll post those WIPs next time.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - End of An Era

A couple of weeks ago, The Dudes traveled to New Orleans to celebrate my 50th birthday in grand fashion. We lodged in a house that was the definition of character (see it here on airbnb) and was within walking distance of the French Quarter, although Uber rides were cheap and convenient. For touristy stuff, we did the airboat ride (Airboat Adventures) and visited the National WWII Museum. Thursday night was our big bar-hopping night, where we started off with a great dinner at Cafe Amelie and then hit 3-4 bars to listen to live music and partake of adult beverages. Best venue of the evening had to be The Maison, where we were treated to a rollicking set by Dysfunktional Bone.

We had a slow start to our Friday, but hey, we were on vacation. We decided to get started on our adventure, which involved us traveling to the Astral Plane to seek out and destroy the Lich Queen of the Githyanki. Real ho-hum stuff, right? OK, so let me back up and do some 'splaining. We rolled these characters up back in 2009. Yep, you read that right, 2009 - this party has been rolling for eight years! Of course, we only play a handful of times each year due to the fact four of us live here in Washington and the other two down the coast in California.

Between levels 1 and 20, we managed to end up quite high on the Red Wizards of Thay shit list. Oh, there were others too, but we had a full-blown Hatfields vs McCoys going on with the Thayans. They would stalk us, ambush and harass us, and we would repay the favor with forays into Thay, raid their caravans, and finally end up part of a massive drow raid that descended upon Thaymount and did major damage to the leadership caste. I think they might be holding a grudge for that escapade.

And then strangely enough, an emissary from the Red Wizards reached out to us because they wanted our help. Wait, what? Faster than you can channel your inner Adm. Ackbar (It's a trap!), we learned that Szass Tam, the Grand High Poobah of the Red Wizards, was scheming with the Lich Queen of the Githyanki to launch some sort of coordinated strike against Faerun. The other zulkirs weren't too keen on this solo endeavour by Tam, so they thought enlisting us (and the Red Sword) would put a stop to the plans without betraying themselves to Tam.

So that's how we ended up on the Astral Plane inside the Lich Queen's palace, fighting powerful Githyanki, gith/dragon hybrids, a legless Githyanki warlock, a two-headed red dragon (!), the Lich Queen herself, and some guy named Szass Tam. I'm pleased to report we were able to vanquish our foes in what was some of our best gaming to date. At least it was great, right up until the point where Szass appeared. We failed to destroy him (and yes, we had his phylactery) and my wizard/archmage Garrity was snuffed out by a Sphere of Annihilation. Luckily, our resourceful son of Moradin was able to do some of that cleric shit and bring me back. So Tam escapes and lives to scheme another day, but we did destroy the Lich Queen (permanently) and thwart Tam's plans of conquest.

What next? Well, for all intents and purposes, our high-level campaign is over. Ned reserves the right to continue this campaign down the road, but for now we are already looking ahead to starting over. I've compiled a small stack of character templates so once we determine our ability scores and hash out who plays what this time around, I'll be good to go. And I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to play this time around - a class I've never played before! Should be fun.

I'm sure Ned could write a dissertation on running high/epic level campaigns, but we would all agree that 20th level encounters take much, much longer. Buffs, immunities, SR, dispells, counterspells, the list goes on and on. I'll write my own thesis on the archmage sometime, but his high arcana abilities were very flexible and a lot of fun to use. Huge thanks to Ned for all the time and sweat he expended on the campaign, and for putting up with all the shit and shenanigans we put him through.

Of course the best part of the campaign is simply spending time with my best friends. We've rolled a lot of bones, drank a lot of beers, gave each other copious amounts of shit, and I love them like brothers. Wouldn't have it any other way.

PS - phylactery is apparently a hard word to pronounce for most of my party. And since they know me all too well, even if they wanted to pronounce it correctly, they butchered it just to stick it to me. Dickheads.

Grenadier's TSR Lizardman Logo Mini - SOLD!!!

$2,605.00 (USD). Two thousand six hundred and five dollars. That's what some deep-pocketed collector shelled out tonight to own this miniature:

(photo credit: Paul Stormberg)

Grenadier produced a small handful of these lizardman minis in 1977 and gave them to some TSR employees when they were attempting to secure the rights to produce official AD&D minis. This is what Paul Stormberg of The Collector's Trove has to say about it:

"According to Jeff Leason this miniature was a promotional figure given to the very few employees at TSR in 1977 to curry favor with the company and get the lucrative miniatures license from TSR. The rest is history, as Grenadier went on to create some of the most memorable miniatures as part of their Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons line. Occasionally, spare copies would show up in The Dungeon! Hobby Shop.

The Lizardman Logo miniature for TSR was copied from an illustration inside the front cover of D&D Supplement I: Greyhawk by Greg Bell. The miniature is very exacting in detail and is a virtual copy of the original drawing. Clearly an effort by the Grenadier sculptor to show off his talent and win the license for his company. Amazing!

The Lizard Man is 70mm tall to the top of the weapon and 55mm from head to toe! The bottom is engraved, "TSR Lizzard Man ©1977".

The only other times I have seen this miniature at auction was in 2004, when The Collector's Trove ran it's first auction for Dave Sutherland III, and then again in 2007 when The Collector's Trove ran an auction for TSR employee Kevin Hendryx. However, this is the first time I have ever seen this miniature for auction where it is still in it's original packaging!

A piece of gaming history! Don't let this one slip away this miniature is a true crown jewel for the serious TSR and miniature collector!

This item comes from personal collection of Jeff Leason!"

So there you have it, a miniature that actually deserves to be tagged as rare. This makes three copies that have been sold by Paul (all from former TSR employees), and I have seen three more owned by Acaeum members (two collectors, and one former TSR employee). I wonder how many others might be sitting around gathering dust or hidden away in a box somewhere?

Something old and something new!

It's been forever and a day since I last posted (August, if you're keeping track). But I've been busy in the past couple of weeks, painting some Christmas miniatures and assembling a piece of movie heavy metal (I'll go into those topics in the near future).

First, something old: Today I received my 54mm Wandering Shaman by Broadsword Miniatures. I was eyeing some Broadsword giants that had been on eBay, but ended up with the Shaman. It was only $22.46, which is about the same as an Otherworld giant (the 28mm ones, not THE Otherworld Giant).

The first thing I thought of when I saw the Shaman was Allanon the druid from the Shannara books. I think it would be too easy to paint up the Shaman as a wizard or necromancer, but I'm thinking dark and subdued earthy tones would look great. And if I'm feeling really ambitious (ha!) I could even take a stab at a monochromatic scheme.

Moving on to something new: I finally have some Otherworld giants! These have been on my wish list pretty much since they were released, but the prices have kept me at bay. But the good people over at Northumbrian Tin Soldier are clearing out their Otherworld stock at 50% off, so how could I NOT finally buy some giants? I picked up the Giant Alliance (Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire), a Cloud Giant, and a Carcass Scavenger (carrion crawler) for $76.11 USD including shipping from the UK.

It looks like the giants are all gone, but there are still some Otherworld bargains to be had at NTS. Oh, and if you are a fan of the movie Time Bandits, check out the Time Robbers line of minis. "Mom, dad, don't touch it! It's evil!!!"

This haul brings my Otherworld collection up to 8 now. 5 giants, a carcass scavenger, a gelatinous cube, and a purple worm.

Wingnut Wings 1/32 Scale WWI Aircraft from Weta Workshop

If you like large-scale (1/32nd) World War I military aircraft models, you might want to check out Weta Workshop's lineup under the Wingnut Wings brand (yes, it is owned by Peter Jackson, who is a scale modeler and fan of WWI aircraft, go figure).

I built more than a few WWI fighters when I was young, all in 1/72 scale. They all met glorious pyrotechnic ends, crashing and burning (with gasoline-fueled assistance) and sometimes exploding (thanks to firecrackers) when I deemed them at the end of their shelf life (missing pieces or otherwise broken beyond salvaging).

The Fokker D VII was always a favorite of mine, especially in the crazy lozenge camo scheme:

But I thought the Albatros D.Va was even sexier, with the graceful flowing lines:

So if I was going to drop some bills on a Wingnut Wings kit, it would no doubt be their D.Va:

I currently have way too many unbuilt kits sitting around to justify picking up one of these, but who knows, one day I may cave in to temptation if the price is right.

The Fantastic Worlds of Grenadier is back!

A Kickstarter for the revised print edition of The Fantastic Worlds of Grenadier by Terence Gunn has gone live!



If you are a Grenadier collector and missed out on the original print edition, now is your chance to pick up a copy for only $35 (USD). And even if Grenadier isn't you focus, I'm pretty sure most miniature enthusiasts would be happy to own this book.

Best wishes to Terence for a successful KS campaign!

Reaper Marsh Troll (2609) by Bob Olley

This Reaper Marsh Troll is another great example of why I love painting Reaper minis. There are  always a couple of details that reach out and grab you, even if at first glance it looks somewhat pedestrian. Let me explain: OK, we have a troll moving through a swamp. He's not running, attacking, roaring, or anything dynamic. He looks like he's moving with a purpose, looking ahead, and not necessarily looking for trouble.

But check out the fish he's carrying! When I first saw it, I pictured a large, colorful Asian-style carp, and pretty much knew that would be my chance to add some color to a mini that has a decidedly monochrome look about it. The troll's claws/nails are brighter than the rest of his body, pretty much the only contrast on the troll. So I went with vibrant reds, oranges, and purple on the carp. There's even a bit of gold on it that doesn't really show up in the pictures, but it's there. And I used some nice light greens on the base to add a bit more color as well.

Here's a closeup of his face. I thought about giving him some black hair, or even bright green, but in the end decided against it, if only to stay consistent with his overall look.

Have a great weekend!