Saturday 17 September 2011

For Sale: Fighting Fantasy box set 2003

I'm auctioning off this beauty on Ebay:
Fighting Fantasy: Box Set 1,2,3,4 Wizard Books 2003 (Edit: relisted)

1. Warlock of Firetop Mountain
2. The Citadel of Chaos
3. Deathtrap Dungeon
4. Creature of Havoc




I still much prefer the old Puffin covers, but this is slick smart set it a very tough shiny card slipcase. Ideal for collectors of the 2003 period of FF.

Runequest Games Workshop Character Sheet 1982

RQ sheet by Games Workshop in 1982
This post is inspired by Mr Duncan recieving a delicious copy of RQ2 (Chaosium) in Dandy in the Underworld.
I'd been  meaning to scan in a copy of the this character sheet for some time.  I think I bought a A4 pad of them in Game Workshop (copyrighted at 1982) so it's possible that there were really for the next edition.  The major difference between this and the sheets in my copy of RQ2 is the removal of the Power stat block.  When I first saw the D&D3 character sheets they immediately reminded me of the sheets from RQ and CoC - mainly because of the inclusion of skill lists and lined blocks.

I was considering blanking most of the lines on this character sheet to make it more accessible to novice players (like the old D&D Basic sheets), but I'm not so sure now, especially where the weapon and armour blocks are concerned.  Just google "Runequest character sheet" and you'll find all sorts of variant goodies out there.  :) 

I've given up trying to understand the numbering of the different editions of Runequest - although I found this history useful (but I can't find a mention of the GW 80s UK hardback rewrites for RQ and Advanced RQ).  There's talk across the frequencies of a sixth incarnation.

My only copy of Runequest (not counting a downloaded version of the Mongoose SRD) was picked up in the early 80s (1984 I think).  To this day I have no idea if the pile it was from was seconded stock or second hand, stickers had already been applied and then removed, the most recent print date inside was 1980.  It was just a little battered, so probably second hand.  Certainly, it's still one of my oldest gaming possessions to date.

To my Basic D&D trained eyes it looked complicated and yet the tables were fascinating.  At the time RQ was seen as an attempt to be more "realistic" in combat than D&D or AD&D, because it had hit locations, fumbles and criticals, but AD&D was still king (according to the polls in White Dwarf at the time).  Only in really recent years did I discover that one of the OD&D supplements contained very similar hit location rules and monster body types.  I genuinely thought that hit locations were a Chaosium Runequest invention, perhaps it was a simultaneous development.  To me RQ did look more complicated roll by roll, but I realise that the edition I own is possibly far simpler than D&D3-4.

One of the problems was the order of the rules in the text.  We sometimes forget how sophisticated modern rulebooks are when it comes to introducing basic mechanics (or the "dumbing down" of rules ;) ) whilst also functioning in a logical way for reference.  However, there were a few inspired "example" side boxes, where we followed an adventurer called Rurik on his quest to acquire runes of power (a strangely specific objective).  Also the emphasis on characters having to be in Cults confused me.  On first reading it seemed like a desert world of clerics.  Also, I was very into creating my own worlds, and this edition seemed to be fused with the Greco-Roman themed Glorantha.  If I played it now I would certainly have more confidence to "re-own" the game and bend it to my personal whims.

Anyway, here's the photos of my cherished but under played copy of Runequest:

Runequest - Chaosium 1980 - colour cover
Same rulebook without the dust cover

Tis lovely, no? :)

Friday 16 September 2011

Chibis Ate My Dungeon

Human Paladin
-Super Dungeon Explore-
Soda Pop Miniatures
A lesson I keep having to re-learn is that my bias and prejudices can be reprogrammed in an instant by a consistent aesthetic (cool believable pictures in games).

It's difficult to recollect how strange the art for Pathfinder first seemed.  I'm mean it looked really strange, and that was even after I'd seen the art it the relatively new D&D.  After years of hoarding the heavy paged black and white rules for AD&D, it was in great contrast touching those luxurious colour magazine pages of D&D3, every one with an art border.  Even nonsensical inter-dimensional monsters seem real and plausible, once shadow and camouflage was added.  Gnomes and bards actually looked cool.  *Headspin.*  I think players, designers and publishers always have to remember that even the apparently silliest of ideas can take on a machismo when treated with respect by a good artist.  If someone says "d20 Space-Rabbit-Samurai", take a deep breath and think about how mutable the mind is when faced with the right art work.

Naturally, it also depends on a reader's influences from other media (films, comics, console games).  I'm sure that some of today's players go a bit misty-eyed at the thought of musket-toting C18th pirates in their quasi-medieval game, possibly because a certain franchise of films made them seem wickedly dynamic. Judging by some recent releases in the figures and games world, some players are drawn to sword wielding mice and badgers - I'm not quite turned on by this yet, but I know that deep in my heart, given little hard sell, that I'd enjoy playing a cavalier character like Reepicheep (sp? from Voyage of the Dawn Treader) but I possibly wouldn't admit this to my close friends just yet.

As a child I hated the idea of kids as lead roles in action films.  In games and films I preferred to identify with grown-up heroes (i.e. Indy vs. Goonies).  However, later in life, the Legenda of Zelda games came along and well, to be honest I was always a bit disappointed when Link has to grow up and you have to play him as an adult (which sort of works in terms of the themes of innocence vs. experience in The Ocarina of Time - or am I over-analysing?)  So from that point, I was finding it acceptable to play anime-manga influenced graphics of a boy hero with a slingshot.  He aint Conan, but he's still an unstoppable Stalfos killing machine!

Back to pirates, or more specifically, muskets and flintlocks.  Guns (or "gunnes") in fantasy RPGs and tabletop wargaming, for that matter.  I reckon that this is a subject which can divide a room at a convention.

Don't worry, I'm not going to get into talking about ray guns from 'Barrier Peaks here. ;)

Basically, I think I'm a genre-ist (re. like racist but with game settings), but an ill informed one at that, which means that I half-believe that guns, or even canons, have much of a place in Middle Ages battles.  Actually, it's turning out they did.  As a younger player I didn't care much for pole-arms either.  Hand-crossbows send a wave of worry over me.    Somewhere in my mind Arthurian fantasy and the Battle of Hastings combined are what influence my view of battles in games like D&D and Tunnels and Trolls.  Glorious combat is done hand-to-hand with swords and shields!  Most of what I read now says that battles throughout history were determined victoriously through archery/primitive artillery  and surviving infantry meeting with pole-arms, shield wall smashing and general meat-grinding.  So essentially my view of combat beyond court melee is deeply flawed.  My concept of the rate warfare technology advanced is a bit hit and miss as well.  

A little while back I bought Warhammer Quest with character and expansion packs.  However the dual pistol wielding Witchhunter rarely made it out of the box - aesthetically and genre speaking he fell too much into a later period of (quasi-fantasy) history.  I could almost cope with the steampunkified Skaven.  Fortunately WHQ didn't contain the infamous Dwarven 'Copter, which would have been more than I could bear.

Final Fantasy VII on PS1 broke my prejudice just a little, but still the mixture of swords, guns and even lasers seemed a bit much.  "But hey, it's fantasy" people say, "mix it up!"  But to me it didn't feel right, and I think that might be just down to art from traditional sources.  Siegfreid wasting Fafnir with a gatling gun wouldn't work for me ... at the time.

History aside, pirates and flintlocks came from a different story set.  But the artificers, alchemists and mechanical races didn't go away - "High Magic" embraced the simpler explosive arts.  The Warforged of Eberron looked at me with warm bejeweled eyes, beckoning me onto strange energy driven steam engines.   I crawl back to the 1980's D&D Basic fantasy world of a few classes with simple weapons.  In Fighting fantasy, even missile weapons seemed like a hassle.  No bows?  Harsh.  You just can't beat metal armour, grit and swords.  If I DMed again, maybe I'd get rid of crossbows... too mechanical.

Even the pictures of the dwarf with the dragon headed musket in D&D3 (&3.5) and the section on Gunnes in T&T didn't fully sway me.  Despite both having special rules for making the devices explode on players - which added a whole gamble to the arms race, I just couldn't accept these infernal hell rods in my fantasy worlds. 

Okay, you get the idea, but we must flash-forward to the Now -just to prove who stupendous fickle I am.

Several weeks of playing the PC game, Torchlight, have converted me utterly to pistols and muskets.

Acting upon a recommendation on Facebook from a fellow Diablo (I) fan, I downloaded the demo on Steam and hammered it, to the point that my partner, taking pity on me, ordered a full copy from Amazon.  For the reasons of usually having an older computer and never paying the full price of a computer game, I often discover games , a few years late, when they hit the budget lists.  Torchlight came out in 2009, I believe Torchlight II is imminent in release.

If you like single player dungeons, I recommend this game, and I also recommend stockpiling muskets, blam-blam!  The world iso-metric world is just medieval enough, with a touch of brass clockwork and gorgeous colour themes.  Flipping from massive axes to muskets seems to appropriate here (in that misproportioned way that works for tabletop miniatures and characters in fantasy games).  It was the look and the feel of kick-back which makes it believable that a muscley hero would use a flintlock.

So there you go.  Headline: "Issue-with-genre collector opposed to firearms in FRPGs now totally accepting of musketty-blunderbusses"

(I still think the flamethrower in Deathtrap Dungeon was an abomination, mind.) 
Demos and trailers and full game available from:
(for Torchlight on Amazon see adverts on right)
 
It's a visual thing.  The game sold me the concept.

Now, here's a larger leap.  For years we've been playing chibi style characters in computer and console games.  But are tabletop gamers ready for chibi miniatures and a whole 3D game?

Super Dungeon Explorers!
A game where having a
"big head" is essential.
I'm following this site with interest:
Soda Pop Miniature's Super Dungeon Explore.
It caught my eye initially because I somewhere there was the mention of "modular" board sections, which I'm a real sucker for, but so far I haven't found much about the board itself, or the quality of gameplay, mainly just the figures are making the news. 

The figures do indeed look supberb, and are certainly from that new generation of figures designed on computer. The base scale measurement is 32mm - but how that translates into the actual height of these figures, I'm not sure.

I'm guessing that you have to really like that level of caricature in order to invest in the whole series.   The style extends to the dungeon props, chests, for example (see photo)

These figures, like the banished muskets above are growing on me.

I'm falling in love with that dwarf,
-is this natural?

Which shall you open first?
(photo courtesy of Board Game Geeks site)
Kobold Art
Putting the "cute" in "brute"
.

Has anyone seen this game in action at any of the conventions?

The conclusion of this particular post is really that I don't like change in the look of my games or rulebooks even, but in the end I'm complete gimp for cool art and graphics!


Thanks for reading (or for just clicking on the pictures ;) ).

Speaky Geekery, Lulu and HB10 RPGNow!

Woah. A week or so can fly fast. Quick cast *Slow* - No! No! That's a *Haste* spell! :o

Forgot-to-mention-and-you-may-have-already-heard:...


Speak With Your Geek Out

This week was Speak With Your Geek Out Week, which I think is a conspiracy to remould the internet back to a time when people didn't use it for other horrible norm things, like chatting, sharing family photos, actual news and health advice; when talking about programming, games, sci-fi TV, overdue thesis (and perhaps just a little porn) was all the internet actually was (apart from the top secret DARPA stuff, which let's face it must have been filled with mysterious tech-specs and was therefore, by definition, geeky) - Okay generalising again. :) I'm still very confused about the whole geek-nerd thing - but social acceptability and the validation of occupation (professional and hobby) is still big brain work for me on daily basis. But apparently at this age my unresolved adolescent anxieties are actually just the usual rumblings of a midlife crisis (although I don't remember a confident adulthood, so to speak - it might be a British thing, a cynical suspicion or guilt of  being in a "team" and general "fun"). Anyhow, admitting to your peculiar, more geeky hobbies or at least finding a similar social niche online is what the net, for many, is actually about. I guess it's not so much an "outing" of geeks online (who are already there, blogging, Plus-ing and Liking) but a celebration of the wonders of secular obsession. There. I think I've talked myself around.

You're walking along in the desert, leaving GenCon behind you. You see an overweight Furry in full costume on his back, belly baking in the hot sand, trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping...


;)


Here's our chance to "Take a stance against baiting nerd rage and stereotypes of geeks." :)  Ah, but much like the abusing the Popular People's Front of Judea ("Splitters!")  I think I'm very guilty of the baiting nerd rage, as it helps define and defend my little fortified corners.  Divide and conquer? Nah. Specialise, divide and divide again!  Experts hate company (but that's nerdism, right?).  Does not a universal love of geeks only re-inforce the walls of the ghetto?  I'm not sure where I was going with this.   Maybe Speak with Your Geek Out is about sharing, networking, grouping and perhaps just a tiny amount of shopping and selling, which I approve of in general, so it's all good.  So share your geekery with the world!  Get your Geek Out! (It's a sort of rude joke, right?) :)
 Facebook Event | Speak With Your Geek Out Blog Site



 

Shopping!

Lulu Codes
20% off books - Enter code SUMMERBOOKS - Save up to $25 - Offer ends 9/30/11
(or 30/9/11)

September Sale
20% off any order
Enter Code: SEPTEMBERUK305
For US the code is almost certainly:  SEPTEMBER305
Test it out before agreeing to pay at Checkout...
Many Bothans died...
Go to Lulu.com





Happy Birthday RPGNow!

RPGNow is celebrating ten years of success this month and we wanted to take a look back at the most popular titles from each year going back to the beginning!


Check out the most popular titles on RPGNow, still for sale, from each of the ten years.

Another post will follow very shortly ...

Sunday 11 September 2011

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land -Red Wasp Design- Screenshots

Call of Cthulhu:
The Wasted Land
by Red Wasp Design
(Chaosium link here)
I still think that World War I is an absolutely fabulous setting for encounters of the Mythos kind (previous post on CoC:The Wasted Land).  The disposability of mankind in the First World War is subject which still which disturbs most people who take the time to reflect, especially upon the sheer statistics of death involved.  Artists during and after the Great War questioned social structures, their supposed superiors and even religion.  Self doubt and nihilism is futile ground for the cultists of the mighty Cthullhu and his brethren.  This was a period of unparalleled voluntary and compulsory sacrifice for crown and country.  Discoveries and scientific invention was perhaps encouraged on all sides.  Mustard gas and machine guns, the mud and death.  Who knows what secrets there still are sealed in vaults and hidden in mass graves, what really happened to the platoons that disappeared in the mud?

Ye Gods! :o Now I just want to play some happy 1920's jazz...  It's Sunday.  Talking about the monstrous grimness of the Fields of Flanders seems to come easy on a Sunday, whilst I wait for the pounding guns of Monday work to start.  Anyhow, I think it would be a good idea to set Cthulhu somewhere around 1914-18.  In a role-playing context the players could be in the 20's but they have to role-play flashbacks to hideous encounters they'd actually blacked out from memory.  Shell-shock may not have just come from shells. ;)  Of course, it might be a less than the sedate style of CoC game where dissembling cultists and dusty libraries preside; and more the shotgun-blam-blam flavour of game where the corpses of dead soldiers becoming zombies, controlled by other beings, feeding on the horror that's already in the trenches.  So think tentacles, mud, gas and rifles that jam.

Captain Hill faces off against the
Dark Young
Under agreement with Chaosium, Red Wasp Design, who specialise in games for portable devices, have done just that, set CoC in the Great War.  I haven't seen much back-story yet, but without reading too much into the press releases and feeds all of the basic background elements for a believable scenario are there plus perhaps a little taste of conspiracy.  The infer it's point and tap shooting-crawl through many richly designed locations.

Naturally, it would not be Lovecraftian gaming unless fear itself was a applicable factor for characters.  It's relief to read it's not just a straightforward shooter:  "As the characters fight these legions of horror they will have their sanity eroded away"

Death or Madness?!  Which will prevail first?  Mwhahaha.
A Dark Young, twisted offspring
of the deity Shub-Niggurath
“Lovecraft and his peers created really iconic monsters that tap into our deepest fears. As huge fans of his stories, we've worked really hard to transfer the essence of these alien horrors into a game form. We're blending the core ideas of the classic role-playing game along with our experience of gameplay design all wrapped in our new 3D engine to craft what we hope is a gaming experience of malignant evil!”
- Tomas Rawlings, game designer, Red Wasp Design

The investigators are surrounded by
cultists and the undead
The screenshots here (sent courtesy of Red Wasp Design) are taken from the Standard Definition (SD) iPhone version of the game.  I've taken the liberty of doubling the dimensions to make them blog friendly, since some contain text of interest.  Higher definition versions of the game on other platforms may also be available later (but I could be wrong about this, because the press release was mainly focussing on the iPhone at this stage).  I'm guessing that since that this game is in development certain graphical aspects may change (again, please note that I've enlarged the screenshot graphics - click on thumbnails)

If you're a fan of the new Pelgrane Press Trail of Cthulhu, or own the Chaosium editions of the RPG, this game may make a welcome distraction for those commuter blues  -as get off the train and turn up to work with a long stare, muttering about the "dreaded corpses of the Bosh" and how you're nearly insane from blasting the fearsome "Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath".  I'm guessing no-one will offer to make you a coffee for a while.

A weapon information screen
On the other hand, you may like your Mythos to be mysterious and distant, or perhaps prefer your Lovecraft to stay firmly on the printed page.  In that case The Wasted Land perhaps will seem a little overbearing.  However, there just might be a kernel of campaign source material in there.

I see you in that pen-n-paper games library you've built, next to the forbidden secret tomes you found in that strange shop which went out of business straight after you bought them, .... I know you're curious!

Curiousity is good, right?  What harm can befall a person who merely seeks to expand their knowledge and experience?  Surely sanity is not such a high price to pay...

More Screenshots - (click on thumbnails)
Moving a unit in-game
.
A character information screen
.
A player unit shoots at an
attacking German
An animated corpse, undead creatures made from a 'Reanimation' serum
(they probably just want a hug to stave off war-provoked existialism)

A final release date, pricing and other information has yet to be announced by Red Wasp Design, but you can be kept in the loop via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/redwaspdesign ), Twitter (@redwaspdesign) and on their site ( http://www.redwaspdesign.com )

Friday 9 September 2011

It's worse than that, he's 45, Jim!

I'm trying to play on the quote: "It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim" - it sort of works, I reckon. *grin*  But don't worry, Star Trek is way too old now for it's midlife crisis - which may have started with the original motion picture starring TJ Hooker (back in '79)...

It doesn't seem that long ago that the only definitive information on the web were actually about Star Trek, and proper "old" Star Trek to boot. The original series of Star Trek turned 45 yesterday dated to the first airing of the episode "Man Trap". Of course, that's without acknowledging the Captain Pike pilot episode, which was not aired and turns up in tiny bits in The Menagerie (as does Pike)... but it didn't get shown, so fair enough.  Pike packed some proper looking rayguns, I mean "phasers" (ahem, correction, Captain, "PHoton mASER"s -later revised to "PHASed Energy Rectification"), which is probably why Star Trek handguns are differentiated by type and number, or maybe it's just that the big ones with the handles were Type 2s and the tiny ones were Type 1 (?), but then there's the Mk 4, etc.

Erm... I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about ... it's Friday evening and I need my tea, which was probably about the same time I watched the repeats of Star Trek as a kid.

I knew it wasn't a exactly Star Wars, and slightly later I found that fans who defended of the original series and condemned Star Wars more than a little bit scary.  My first awareness of sci-fi conventions was through laugh-at-the-nerds biased media reports about beige tops, false ears, red miniskirts, homemade tricorders, but somehow the Trekkies came over as more dedicated than the minority who dressed up as Tom Baker in Doctor Who.  Cool scarves though.  The Star Wars kids just hadn't grown up enough by then to be booking out the community halls and setting up stands covered in collectable toys.  Naturally that came later ... Anyhow, for me as a kid, Star Trek was ace because it had spaceships, planets and aliens and occasionally someone or something got shot, possessed, turned to into a pile of dust or snogged (ew, kissing should be forbidden on starships!).

Back then I never realised that the name "Trek" was linked to Westerns, despite the fact that the town, prison sets and desert locations may have been recently occupied by stetsoned-wearing actors.  I'm sure those locations were economic as opposed to a series like Firefly which actually has cows in the opening titles - I mean that really is a Western In Space.  Kirk my have brawled like he was in a saloon but he was certainly not a cowboy (he didn't wear a hat or ride a horse or chew or spit or ask for sarsaparilla).  Okay, well, there was a bit of fast-drawing going on...  Oh dear god, Star Trek may have been much more Bonanza-like than I have ever wanted to have admitted to. Don't destroy my childhood!  :o

But I digress.

There's a whole history of Star Trek in board games, figures, computer and RPGs, not to mention direct influences on other non-official games, which I will leave that to other experts and cataloguers.

However, in the spirit of this birthday I will share with you the following links to not-quite-but-very-like-Star-Trek products.


On Lulu.com:

Starships and Spacemen
-Lulu soft cover-

(If link is broken go here)
Goblinoid Games reprint of the 1978 edition of Starships and Spacemen. I haven't tried out the mechanics of this game but it's a genuine delight to read, especially when you know that it was written a couple of decades prior to ST:TNG, it lacks that post-modern cynicism and takes it's source material seriously, but not with fervour.  It is a aware of many of the contrivances like time-paradoxes and teleportation  in Star Trek and converts them with grace into controllable game plot devices and hooks. It's also absolutely not GDW Traveller - the main sci-fi RPG from the time. 
(Check out JM's observations on Grognardia)

Recent sci-fi RPGness on DriveThru:
Cosmic Patrol  - I know this is more Flash Gordon than Star Trek and that there's probably quite a few sci-fi games on DriveThru which more closely resemble 60's-70's sci-fi TV, but when I think of Kirk slugging it out with the lizardman (a "gorn"?), and ogling Orion Slave girls or dreamy romantic nurses, sci-fi pulp doesn't seem a light-year away.  Certainly when you separate Star Trek from the very serious efforts to link it to hard science, and strip it down another couple of layers, there's a hero brawn vs. mad scientist (or artificial/alien intelligence) one week, followed by near zenophobic defence of civilisation from the machinations of devious Huns and Mongols (Klingons).  So just for purposes of this paragraph, Star Trek is pulp adventure - where the insides of rocket-ships look like submarines (which in Star Trek they did, sort of ...) and planets are populated by primitive Amazonian beauties.


Talking of Amazonian ...

Here's a two picture slide show of Fighting Fantasy: Starship Traveller via an Amazon widget.





This book, for me (computer games aside) is one of the closest experiences I've had had actually being in Star Trek.  Actually, the circumstances the crew of Voyager find themselves in is pretty similar to the background Starship Traveller, basically lost on the wrong side of the galaxy, trying to find a short route home.  When I was playing the other Fighting Fantasy books I found Starship Traveller was a bit too much to manage, but more recently I've found myself enjoying steering the crew and spaceship, choosing who gets beamed down - with some of the crew being definitely more disposable than others. ;)
By the way, I have a couple of battered copies of the Puffin editions (not currently listed on my second-hand game books page) which I'll part with for a handful of credits or a mug of Romulan ale.  No seriously, email me at billiambabble(at)yahoo.co.uk if you really want to play Starship Traveller.


Recently spotted in blog-land:

The fast play "Far Trek" RPG beta rules are now available at Sword & Shield - which I haven't analysed thoroughly yet, but it looks like a lot of fun! :)   
Go Boldly!


My energy-banks are now low.  Switching to emergency life-support and returning to Starport.

This post was mostly illogical.

Thanks for reading!

Sunday 4 September 2011

My forever love for the work of Russ Nicholson


I adore Russ Nicholson's line work.  Even the inn behind this dwarf is utterly enthralling in it's intricacies. :)
Follow Mr Nicholson here:  http://russnicholson.blogspot.com/
Image borrowed from this post.

Sci-Fi Watch Station - Dave Graffam Models

Watch Station - Dave Graffam Models
(image davegames.net )
Whilst I'm on a paper modelling kick it would be wrong to not point to this new bargain release. :)


It looks pretty straightforward to assemble and is currently a mere $3.95 (USD) on RPGNow, DriveThru and the Wargames Vault.

Industrial, weathered modular hardware. Perfect for sci-fi wargaming and RPGs.  I'm suddenly reminded of Quake II  the above ground sections of the terror forming colony on LV-426 in Aliens.:)

Watch Station Paper Model
$3.95 on DriveThru
 (*insert own memorable Aliens quote here*)



Saturday 3 September 2011

Okumarts: Free Cut-out Figures

Iconic -slightly Japanese- orange hobgoblin and primitive hyena gnoll.
With added attitude.  Drool optional.


Free Download on DriveThru
It seems I was a little over eager in celebrating the the artistic genius of David Okum's boar headed old-style orc figures when he's now giving a new set away for free!
(we likes free, frees the bestest price)

If you don't mind having "repeats" in your printed figures you could pretty much populate a whole low level D&D dungeon with the classic representations of a hobgoblin, gnoll, orc, bugbear and a little guy who could probably double as either a goblin or kobold.  The five stout adventures also included are a magic-user, elven archer, axe wielding dwarf, a monkish cleric and a properly armoured fighter.*

The figures are double-sided.  Trimming requires a careful hand but the black border allows for touching-up where edges don't exactly meet.

* Definitive Plate Mail AC3 with Shield (+1)
Equipment includes pouches and burning torch
Moustache compulsory until reaching "name" level
whereupon a stronghold is built with shaving facilities.
(I really like this guy)

Incidentally these figures can be adapted for use with my Inked Adventures bases for minis -inspired for use with figures designed by artists on the Cardboard Warriors Forum. I find this very exciting because I'm a big fan of illustrated dungeon scenery and figures, and my future games will have to employ the Darkfast Classic Fantasy range.

Five stars and all that.  Even if your not into printed minis download it just to appreciate the art.  Congratulations and thank you again to Okumarts.

Games Designers' Workshop -Labor Day Weekend Sale

Clicking on any image will take you to the GDW page on DriveThru
(does not link to individual products)


I received this email today.  I just had to share. ;)
Okay, I originally posted it on the Adventures and Shopping Facebook Page but it was feeling a bit lonely there, so I let it into the main blog. :)
The GDW / Drive Thru RPG Labor Day Sale! 
Now through Monday / Labor day, we have everything in the GDW DriveThruRPG Store on sale at 40% off. It doesn't matter if you want Traveller, 2300 AD, Twilight, Dark Conspiracy, or whatever from GDW, its ALL on sale at 40% off. We made it easy: no coupons or discount codes: everything is 40% off. But this sale ends Labor Day. [*]
(*That's Monday 5/9/11 for the non-US folks among us)
I may have a little browse for old Traveller PDFs.  Boarding a Scout ship with Jump-4 capacity now ...
Short-cut GDW Products Page on DriveThru:
http://bit.ly/GDWlaborday2011
Apologies if you're reading this well after the Labor Day weekend.
- Jump-Drive Failure -
Find a starport or don that Vac Suit for EVA emergency repairs.
Clicking on any image will take you to the GDW page on DriveThru
(does not link to individual products)