Too little, too late?

A recent announcement by Spartan Games on their blog, on the support for their Dystopian line of games (Dystopian Wars and Dystopian Legions). Legions was the only one of their games that interests me, as I'm really not into the smaller scale games. I'm really not sure what this means in terms of game support, which has been lacking for years now, but I'll be keeping an eye on this none-theless.

Dystopian LegionsDystopian Legions is now four years old and whilst more niche, we know that it has a following every bit as dedicated as Dystopian Wars, albeit somewhat smaller.  We are changing how we sell the product line, and will do everything to continue supporting the game and its loyal players.
We have therefore decided that all of the Dystopian Legions product line will be available via mail order from our online store only, also taking effect from October 31st 2016. By selling it as an entirely mail order product line, we can make it easier for customers to expand their armies with individual models and lower pricing by not needing to cater for packaging or trade discounts. This is a bold move for Legions, but one that we feel will strengthen the game in the highly populated 28mm scale miniature gaming space in which it competes.
This is the start of a number of exciting changes for Dystopian Legions which will firmly put the gaming control in the hands of its players. The greater customisation of purchase options will allow gamers to choose exactly how they want to play with their miniatures, from small squad-based adventures to platoon level actions!

So, all minis are available individually. This is cool I guess, as there are some sculpts I do not have that I don't want to buy a squad box just to have. This will also make the minis more tempting to those that play other games (like In Her Majesty's name), but I think it just means they hope to sell minis without having to give games or rule support. I rather feel that the second edition of this game was rushed out, unfinished then left high and dry as Spartan got their hands on the HALO IP. The reboxing of the miniatures and how the squads were built in game was also something I think was botched. Here's hoping the shipping isn't the issue that kills this to gamers outside of the UK.

Into the New Year

A belated, but Happy New year to you all! May 2016 see the reduction of our lead pile to a manageable level!

As I look back on last year in terms of my blogging, it seems to have been a game of three halves. I started the year full of good intentions, as I'm sure we all do. I had the plan to paint all my Khador casters, in my Khador Caster Challenge, and it did start well, with one a month done up till June.

Unfortunately this was when the second half of the year kicked in, otherwise known as Summer, and both painting and gaming fell to the wayside.

The last half of the year was when I got back into some gaming with some Osprey Games. Firstly with IHMN, then with Frostgrave.

And that's where this year is blending seamlessly into the last, with more Frostgrave, as there seems to be some real energy behind this game, both online, and in my local gaming group. It is also a game that has really inspired me to delve back into my lead pile and dig out some old gems that would otherwise never get played with, which is what attracts many to the game. I received the Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign book yesterday, and have read through it, and I must say it seems to make some fun additions to the game, so I'm looking forward to running through this campaign soon, while interest is still high.

2015 was the year when  the "Colore ton Monde" painting challenge finally closed it's doors, but it was also the year that The Viridian Wars blog opened, as infrequent as posts there may be.

I don't really like to have posts here that don't have any pictures, but I don't yet have anything new that is ready to post, so I went back through last years minis, and selected a few to repost here.

Onwards to 2016. What will it bring to my gaming and painting table? Well, I do not have and grand plans, unlike last year, except to finish a full warband for Frostgrave. Which will only happen if I stop painting wizards, as I only need two of those, even if they are such pretty miniatures...

There is also a painting class, here in Montreal in a week or so, so maybe I'll head over for a day of that too, knock some of the rust off after the slow painting of the last part of last year, get me back on track.

Happy 2016 to you all!

A couple more games of IHMN

British Gun-Line

In an effort to clean out my draft folder on the blog, I'm finally getting round to writing up and posting about my last couple of In Her Majesty's Name games. Mostly because the local gaming scene is now in the Grip of Frostgrave Fever, and I want to get on to posting about that.

Run for the Steamship

I had two more games of IHMN, and I finally think I'm getting a handle on it. The first of the two games was with the same force as I had previously used, that is my British Army redcoat army, Mike, my opponent played the Society of Thule. We played the 'Death at your Heels' scenario, running across the board to get to the boat and away from the In this game we messed up a lot of the rules, (to both our benefits). I lost on scenario, but it was a lot of fun, and a fast game, as befits the scenario.

Zulu Rifleman takes aim

The second I decided I was bored of the gun line type of Company I had been playing, and I wanted to try out the Mystic rules, which are a very big part of the Pulp side of the game. To this end, I put together a Company that was mostly Ankhenaten and crew from the main book, with a few Zulu warriors from the Heroes Villains and Fiends Companion, mostly because I had the figures for them. My opponent put together a Mongol Horde army, with lots of Cavalry to come right across the table at into the thick of it.

In the end, I won, but mostly because Mike forgot a bunch of rules on his Leader model, who should not have gone down anywhere near as fast as he did. The Mystic rules really make it a different game in a lot of way, but still within the same genre and feel as it is if you play without.  I must admit, Ankhenaten with two mummy priests, all who have mystical powers was rather a strong combination.

Ankhenaten and Crew

Lots of fun, but I'm not sure when I'll get the next game in, as we're all a bit too busy with Frostgrave, but more on that soon.

In Her Majesty's Name II: Getting a game on!

Summer is finished, and with it, thoughts return back indoors of an evening, towards gaming and painting. As can be seen from my *cough* frequent posts over the summer, I have painted a grand total of zero miniatures over the last four months. I have built half of one warjack for Khador, and mostly put together the new warcaster unit for the same faction. An impressive tally, you must admit. I have also gamed twice in that time. Give or take a match that I've forgotten, as it has been a very long summer.

Do not feel sorry for me though, my time away from the gaming tables has been mostly due to travels, spending time with the family and other fun ways to experience life (with a bit of work some evenings, but I don't mind that so much now and again). So, I hear you all ask, what have I done that is worthy of posting here? The short answer is In Her Majesty's Name. I posted on this game recently here, so if you don't know what it is, go on over and look.


The long answer is a little more detailed. One of my oldest, and dearest friends was over in Montreal a week ago. S and I go way back to High School, and have been gaming together, on and off since then. Unfortunately, I now live in Montreal, and he in Brussels. However, we were in the same city as he was over here for work. I think he is having trouble finding gaming close to where he is, so he was keen to make sure we got a game in while he was in town, We had a quick look through what I had ready to go, and settled on IHMN. I of course have the almost a fully painted set of the Society of Thule, and S has a soft spot for Prussians, so it was an easy fit. For my part, I put together a British Rifle Company, pulling together my Dystopian Legions Britannians for the occasion.

The lay of the land

Neither of us had really read through the rules before, but we boh had a copy, and they really are quite simple (roll 1d10, add skill, take off mods, beat target number). We got together, set up the table, and rolled a scenario from those available in the book, as this is a game that really benefits from playing though a scenario. The rules are super simple, but the complexity and variation comes from the depth of personalisation and characterisation you give the members of your company. Wether its through straight forward character traits, super science of indeed magical abilities. All this makes it a game that borders closely on and benefits greatly from role-playing, hence, the scenario was required. We rolled the 'Bad Jack' scenario, but more on that later.


The game was rather slow to start, as we jockeyed for position on the table. We were both rather concentrated on the left flank of the board, with one or two models each on the right flank. Bad Jack, the mutated laboratory experiment stalking both sides that we had to hunt down, started in the centre of the table. One thing we noticed straight away, was that, as both sides were armed with military rifles fo the most part, we were shooting each other from turn one. We could have had more scenery on the table to make this less of an issue. The second thing was that we had both thought from reading the rules that we would be dropping like flies, as after each shot, everyone makes a Pluck roll. One fail and you're out of the game. In reality, it could be relatively easy to hit someone, but we also seemed to be making an inordinate amount of Pluck rolls, which led us to evolve our game play from one of being in cover and hiding, to getting out there and getting on with it. It did mean that what we thought would be a very quick game, took longer that we anticipated.


The making of the Pluck rolls brings me back to Bad Jack. In the rules, he is given a pluck of 2+, this means on an unmodified roll of 1d10, he is only failing on a 1. Indeed, he has talents that increase this even more, and this brings me to the issue that we had with this scenario in particular, and maybe the game in general. It was almost nigh on impossible to bring down Jack, and other minis in general.

Another slight issue we had was the interaction os S's flamethrower, and my armoured walker. However, this has been fixed in the errata, so no need to go on about it here.

One modification  would make to the rules would be with the volley fire rule. This states that models can club together their shooting to bring down heavily armoured targets, which it does. They give bonuses to hit, however, I could have had all my riflemen concentrate fire on Jack, and yes, they would have hit him every time, but they would have no greater chance of actually putting him down than one alone, as they do not actually modify his pluck roll by any more than one rifle would by itself. This goes for more than just the high Pluck models, anyone facing a volley fire, or for that matter an gang in hand-to-hand, should not only be easier to hit, but have a higher chance of taking more damage. Fortunately, this is a set of rules that encourages fiddling to make it work on your own gaming table, so that is what I will do.

In summary, we liked it. It was a lot of fun, and would benefit greatly from the players putting more effort into the scenario design. This time was just to get us to run through the rules, but if I planned another game (once I convince some of the locals to play) then I would sit down before hand and work through a scenario that fits the companies first. And if I were to replay Bad Jack, he would be very much nerfed!

As a final aside, S left me with a present in the form of the rules for Muskets and Tomahawks. A rules set  have been admiring from afar, but avoiding buying the minis for. Now, I really have no excuse not to. Do I? No, I didn't think so!

...off to buy Roger's Rangers and a bunch of Iroquois...

In Her Majesty's Name

One of the things I have always promised myself is that if I were to take a break from blogging, for whatever reason, I would not apologise and make an 'I ain't dead yet" type of post So this post is definitely not one of those. What it is, however, is a draft that has been sitting in my folder for almost a year, waiting to be posted. Well, recent events have conspired for me to finally have a game of In Her Majesty's Name, so I am putting this up here as a prelude, to the post match report of that game. This is not a review of IHMN, there are plenty of those about elsewhere, but it is some of the reasons why I bought the game system. So without further ado, I'll get back to blogging...

Ooh, look!  Shiny!

Whilst I have been very clearly in a steampunk phase of gaming over the last year and a half, what with all these Dystopian Legions models, I was taken by the newest set of rules from Osprey books, In Her Majesy's Name. One of the reasons I bought it was that it is available on amazon.ca, therefore, however much I like and support my FLGS, I don't have to wait any time at all before the book is delivered to my door. It does help that I was ordering another Osprey title, and the fact that this is published in the same size and format to Osprey's other titles was just the icing on the cake for me.

It is 1895, and the world is in turmoil. The Great Powers compete for resources and the latest technology, and an undeclared and secret war rages between them all. This is the battleground of the Adventuring Companies. These clandestine agents of the Great Powers operate in the shadows, matching skills and wits in pursuit of the newest scientific formulae or powerful occult artifacts.

In Her Majesty's Name sets these Adventuring Companies against each other in one-off encounters and in longer narrative campaigns. Companies are usually comprised of 4-15 figures, and two players could easily play three games in an evening. The rules have been designed to allow maximum versatility for the player – if you can imagine it, the system will help you build it. There is, however, a wealth of ready-prepared material covering weird science, mystical powers, and a range of pre-generated Adventuring Companies, including the British Explorers' Club, the Prussian Society of Thule, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Légion Étrangère, the revolutionaries of the Brick Lane Commune, ancient Egyptian cults, and the mysterious Black Dragon Tong.

There are a few things I like about this system. Firstly, it is a skirmish game. I like me some skirmish games me! One of the other things I like is that, although there are a wide range of pre-made factions and builds to choose from, all the points costs for building your own are included (indeed, there's a free pdf here to help with this). This makes it very easy to make new factions, or modify existing ones to match the models already in your collection. To which end, I think it will be relatively easy to make and Adventuring Company to work with my Dystopian legion models, and equally well with the other steampunk minis in my collection, who were, until now gathering dust on the shelf.  Additionally, since the level of steampunk detailing on the minis that are supplied for the game by North Star Minis is relatively low, there is also the opportunity to use historical minis with no problems at all. This opens the door to my Zulu band making the table.

The addition of the horror element to the game, through Prussian zombies, Egyptian mummies and great white apes, is also a fun way to go.

For more information, you can go to the author's blog, where there are pages with bonus material, and IHMN fiction.

In addition, if you are looking for miniature suppliers to go to for steampunk minis, you need go no further than this post on the Dulce et Decorum Est blog, where all the manufacturers are listed.

IHMN: Society of Thule, Dr Kobalt

Here is this month's miniature for the Colore Ton Monde painting challenge. Again, an early finish this month, and again, this is leaving me with plenty of time to get on with painting my Dystopian Legion Light Dragoons (those guys are taking forever for some reason).

Dr Kobalt is Count von Stroheim's personal artificer, and the brains behind the Tod-truppen. His Arc generator means that any Jager that fall in his vicinity are raised again as Tod-truppen.

This month's theme was archaeology, but it could also be stretched to cover scientific types (there are not many straight archaeological miniatures). Therefore, this guy fits right in.

Colore ton Monde August: Archaeology

It's that time of the month again (i.e. the beginning) where we see the results of last month's painting challege, and start another. July's entries can all be found  on facebook here for those of you who have such technology.

My entry was posted a while back (I was organised last month), and can be found here.

This month's challenge is as follows.

* Archéo-truc *

Le mois d'août est le mois de l'archéologie. Pour le souligner, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle représentant un scientifique, un chercheur, un explorateur, etc. Vous pouvez aussi peindre une antiquité, un modèle que vous avez depuis belle lurette.

*Achaeo-thing*

August is the month of archaeology. To emphasise this, we invite you to paint a model representing a scientist, researcher, exploreer, etc. You can also paint an antique, a model that you've had for a long long time.

The first mini that sprang to mind was Proffesor Pendrake, but I've already painted him for a previous Colore ton Monde, so he's out. A quick look at the paint queue struck glod, as there's a scientist member of my Society of Thule IHMN crew sitting at the front. I would rather have found something more archaologically slanted, but science counts.

I am also tempted to go into my recently recovered boxes of old minis and see what I can dig out. There's some gold in there that might be fun.

IHMN: Society of Thule, Count Friedrich von Ströheim

Got the brushes out last night, and came across this guy at the top of the lead pile, and I figured he fitted perfectly with this month's Colore ton Monde challenge, so job done!

Count Friedrich von Ströheim is the leader of the Society, and as such is clearly the star of the show. He, along with the Tod-truppen, mean I am now half way through painting this faction, at least as it comes in the box, as I have bought a bunch of other Jäger minis to boost their numbers if need be.

 

I may go back and add something to the base, and the face leaves a lot to be desired (mostly due to casting issues on the right side behind the pipe), so that will likely be redone. There's a nice big line through his shoulder that I missed too that I'm rather annoyed about, but hey, it's table ready.

I'm also swithering whether to go back and paint the helmet black instead of silver. Any thoughts?

With the challenge out of the way, I'm free to get on with whatever, but I think I'll try to get the rest of this faction done. I've mostly finished the base coats on the Jägers, which only leaves 2 more to go.

Colore ton Monde June

The results from last month are here. Please let me know if you can see it, as it's now on Facebook, rather than blogger, and I don't know what the access is. There was no real theme for the month, and we were left free to paint whatever. I chose to do the Tod-truppen for my Thule Society for IHMN.

As has been posted on the Club Chaos Facebook page, the theme  for the month of June is as follows:

* Le temps des boîtes *
En juin, beaucoup de monde sont dans leur boîtes, se préparant à déménager. On emballe, on emboîte, on protège. Pour le mois de juin, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle "en boîte", que ce soit une armure lourde, une combinaison étanche, un transporteur de troupe, ou toute folle déclinaison que vous créerez.

*The Time for Boxes*

In June, lots of people are in their boxes, preparing to move house. We wrap, we box, we protect. For the month of June, we invite you to paint a "boxed" model, that could be in heavy armour, a diving suit, a troop carrier, or what ever other crazy variation you create.

I have a troop carrier for my Britannians sitting waiting to be painted, which takes care of that!  Sorted!

Finally, there are two other little things I would like to mention. First off, Ubique is running a wonderfully unique give-away on his blog, so for more details, click here. Obviously, it is not in my interest for you to enter, but I really do feel it's worth yours.
Secondly, I have rather generously been nominated for a Leibster Award by Ian, who had some very kind words to say about my blog, so I shall be posting my response to that shortly.

In Her Majesty's Name: The Society of Thule, Tod-truppen

This month's Colore ton Monde challenge was to paint a mini. Any mini. Man that was a toughie! I'm not being completely facetious here, as the guide to what to paint each month does help. I have a huge lead mountain to scale, and sometimes I need a little help with which direction to take next. So you might say the Colore ton Monde challenge is my Sherpa!

Finally, I decided upon some minis I bought back in the UK in February, The Society of Thule.

A recent sale of old stock by North Star Figures led to be buying a whole bunch of 1866 Prussians. This was not due to any intention of actually gaming the Austro-Prussian war, but as use for other Victorian gaming, either to be converted as Hannoverian troops for my Dystopian Legion Britannians, or as Prussians to game with in IHMN.

The last week has therefore been less painting and more model prep of these guys, and the Thule boxed set. I was surprised to see and feel that the North Star minis came with a lot of mold releasing agent still on them, so they needed a good scrub before basing and priming.

I have been trying to paint the whole lot of the Jägers, both from the IHMN box and the batch of 12 North Star Jägers, but that was taking too long for me to have any figs actually finished in time for the end of the month, so I decided to just get on and finish some of them, so as to have something to submit to this month's Colore ton Monde. Of all the minis, the Tod-truppen were the simplest to do, with less kit than the rest of the troopers.

I'm not entirely sold on the fact I went for green skin on a green uniform, but it does go with my current trend of limiting my palette.

Hopefully the rest of the contingent of Jägers will follow shortly, with the rest of the Society of Thule hot on their heels (there are 3 other character models in the box).

Trip back to the old Country, Part II

Earlier this month, I had a second trip back to the UK in almost as many months, this time for a happier occasion (more weddings, less funerals, but you'll have to look elsewhere for the pics of all the kilts).

I will however use this picture from my visit. It will of course be clear to you all why this Glaswegian relic of a former age has geek cred.

This time, a much shorter time spent in my parents attic, but with more space in my suitcase. Fortunately I had put things in order on the previous visit, so only had to pick up a couple of boxes and stash them. I also found out that there's a new games cafe opened in Edinburgh, right next door to the flat I sold there not a year ago! Why couldn't that have been there at the same time as me? Anyway, on with the haul.

First off, the things I picked up from storage:

Urban War rules (in magazine form). These were too heavy for the last trip, but with all the UW minis I have brought over, I figured it was time to have the rules to hand. Of course, I have access to pdfs (downloads here), but I do prefer paper versions, despite the space they take up.

Void TAV MKIII resin kit. This is more for Void than for UW, but I do so love the mini, and I intend to use it in some fashion for UW even though I don't think vehicle rules for the game exist (I'm sure it won't be too hard to house rule something). The kit i have differs slightly from the one pictured in the link.

Empire Army. Lastly I picked up 2 boxes of old school WFB minis, mostly metal, with a few plastic pikemen in there for good measure. These will be used for my Bretonnians, and/or Empire, in the case of any local WFB gaming. I say army, but really it's all infantry, as I left my few knights and artillery pieces. There will surely be more pictures of these in the near future, especially as there are some nice oldhammer minis amongst them.

Whilst there, on a quick visit to Static, I also bought:

MacBeth. I have had one eye on SAGA for a while, even going so far as to painting up some Vikings, but the release of a Scots faction, with a leader as infamous as MacBeth at the fore could not be passed up. Of course the real MacBeth and the Shakespearean version are not to be confused, as it seems the original version was actually quite good at the king thing.

Napoleonic British Peninsular war Officers. There's always room for more Napoleonics. I'm sure these can be used to back up various of the rank and file figures I already have, be they riflemen or highlanders. Planned for use in Drums and Shakoes or Sharp Practice.

Highlander Missile Troops (bow and musket). From Warlord, these are kind of multi use,

I also bought and had posted to my parents house, some Prussians from the war of 1866, when North Star were selling off their old stock to make way for new sculpts I think. I'm sure I can put them to good use in something Victoriana, for example, as troops for IHMN. The Jaegers from this batch are already prepped and primed and in the process of being painted, so more on them soon.

A visit to WH Smith's meant I picked up the trio of magazines (Wargames Illustrated, WSS and Miniature Wargames). The first two I can get here, eventually, but the third is not an option. I was less impressed with Minature Wargames this issue (I have only read two issues), as it held less of direct interest to me.

To round out the wargaming related purchases, I picked up another book on Churchill at a discount book store (there's not enough of those over here), this time more on his political career than his military career, but it fit with my other current reading. Be on the lookout for a review of Young Titan soon.

My my, the summer just got a whole lot busier with all this stuff to work through!

Back from Blighty Bearing Minis

I have just returned from a quick trip back to the UK. Due to the circumstances of my visit, I spent the whole week at my parents house, rather than touring around visiting everyone. This allowed me to spend some time on their loft, looking out and going through my old stuff. Much of which I brought back with me.

I am now in re-possession of the following minis:

GW

House Escher for Necromunda
Wood elves and Sea Elves for WFB.
A couple of Humans that could be either Empire or Bretonnian
Regiment of Renown: Avenging Knights of the Cleansing Flame (Nominally a human unit, but works as High Elf, or even Melnibonean, and seriously, what a name!)

Void

VASA troops for Void (any version)
Also a couple of Syntha, Junkers and Viridian troops in there too (but not enough for a big force)

Urban War (or any of its current incarnations)

Triads
Koralon
Viridians

Whilst I was out there, I also picked up Heroes Villains and Monsters for IHMN, and the Minis set for the Society of Thule, which of course I could order here online, but the Pound is strong against the Canadian dollar so it made sense to buy in pounds rather than in Dollars, and I didn't have to pay shipping.

I left behind a bunch of WFB minis, including High Elves and Empire a dragon and other monsters and a Bloodbowl team, as well as the larger robots and vehicles I have for Void and all my Flintloque/Alternative Armies stock. These can be picked up at a later date, or posted out.

So, all in that's me equipped (or in some cases better equipped) to play 5 new (or old) games that I didn't have the minis for before. I call that a win.

I also brought back my old GW case, which is great for skirmish games, and much easier to take back and forward to the club with my minis of choice in, rather than my larger Army Transport case (Which is great for larger minis, so will still see great use for Warmachine and Hordes). Here are a couple of pics of what it was full of.

Just as an aside, I carried this case through security as hand luggage. I expected to be stopped and have it opened at the x-ray machine, either at Glasgow or Heathrow, but I walked through both times without issue. I was surprised. Maybe the X-ray attendants were gamers.

I'll be posting more pics of some of these that have been painted in the following weeks. I was surprised by the quality of some of my older paint jobs. Despite the fact that my techniques have changed and improved, I think I spent much mire time per mini back then (I painted eyes, something I have since let go, and I didn't use inks or washes at all). Then it'll be on to re basing them, as my basing skills at the time for the most part included swamping the base with Goblin Green, and sprinkling on some green flock (I rarely even plugged the slot on the base).

Whilst there, I also picked up some magazines in W.H. Smiths. The Wargames Illustrated and Wargames Soldiers and Strategy I could have picked up here in time, but Battlegames Magazine is not one that I have seen this side of the Atlantic (maybe someone wants to do something about that). It has something different to offer ovber the other two in the type of articles it prints. Maybe I should post a review of it too.

Meanwhile, back to finishing off this month's Colore ton Monde challenge. Just as well I managed to do the bulk of that before I left, as painting time this last week has been an obvious no-no. 

Colore ton Monde: August, Damned Bugs!

For this month, I decided to take a pretty straight-forward translation of the challenge, and paint some actual bugs.

After adding the insta-mold bugs, I went back and added some green-stuff cuffs to the man on the floor, thereby making him fit in better with my Britannian force, who will likely be facing off against these little mites, if only under another game system than Dystopian Legions.

The base colours were added, but I felt the beetles didn't really stand out against the blue of the trousers.

To which end, I decided to take them one step further, and make them proper Ancient Egyptian Scarabs, with a little gold plate. That way they will function perfectly as part of my Egyptian force for In Her Majesty's name. Which will of course face off against my Kingdom of Britannia riflemen, under a different name.

Job done!

Colore ton Monde, Aout: Damned Bugs!

The results are in for the July challenge. They can be found here. Some nice minis on display. I especially like the Iron Man paint job on Pulp City's Iron Train.  My entry can be found here.

This month's challenge is:

Satanées bébittes

Pour le mois d'août, nous vous invitons à peindre un truc nuisible, comme on en retrouve temps dans nos campagnes à ce temps-ci de l'année. Insectes, xénos, damnés: le thème est large et vôtre à interpréter.

Damned Bugs!

For the month of August, we invite you to paint a nuisance. Like we sometimes find in the countryside at this time of year. Insects, Xenos, damned: the theme is large and yours to interpret.

For this challenge I'm taking a very literal translation. I took this guy, from Reaper miniatures. I figured it would work for a swarm of scarab beetles. Why would I want a swarm of scarabs? Well, that's a question for another post (although one of the labels of this post may give a hint). However, by itself, it wasn't very swarm like. To which end, I sculpted a discarded pith helmet (another clue), and a few more beetles to add to the swarm. I was thankful the victim seems to be in rather modern clothes rather than fantasy gear, as that suits my purposes very well.

Horray for Instant Mold! 

Also, for those of you who are not yet followers of the blog Trouble At T'Mill, Mike's doing a prizedraw for his 50th birthday. Head on over and enter!