Ravenloft

A new D&D 5e campaign - Ravenloft

After a long hiatus from gaming in general, I am slowly getting my act together and becoming involved in my hobby a bit more.

Out of the blue, a few weeks back, I got an invite from my old RP Haven gaming buddy RM. He asked me whether I wanted to play in a new D&D 5e Ravenloft campaign due to start at the beginning of April. As my life is slowly coming back together again after a couple of really horrendous years I jumped at the chance.

RM put me in touch with the DM, who outlined what was required characterwise, and I duly conjured into life Meegosh Krackle - Gnome Wizard extraordinaire. JD, the DM, mentioned that he had managed to get hold of a little gnome figurine, so Meegosh will come alive on the tabletop too. The game will start with all characters at 5th level, so I am expecting a reasonably tough campaign. I cannot wait to get started.


What with my son's interest in the GW side of things (Bloodbowl and Warhammer fantasy), my latest purchase of Adventures in Middle-Earth, and now some 5th edition D&D, I can truly say that my interest in gaming is coming back again. I have started reading gaming blogs again and now want to get some painting done, but I need to make sure my eyes are up to the job - I have yet to try out those new glasses I got last year specifically for painting.

I have just had a week off work (enforced due to having worked over my 55 day quota for the last quarter), so I used some of that time to sort out loads of minis that I began painting last year. Now I just need to sort out some paints - one of my cats had the audacity to pee all over my gaming stuff last year and I had to throw away dozens of paints, brushes, scenery items and even a few miniatures due to the overbearing stench of ammonia. Even after several washes, a good soaking, bleaching and so on, the smell just would not fade; the only place they could go was the bin. Unfortunately a lot of the colours I used on my Gondor, Rohan and Easterling miniatures last year are not replaceable since GW changed their paint ranges. Not sure what to do here - do I try to hunt down pots of the old paint range in hobby shops, find out if anyone stocks them under a differemnt banner or try to find a nearest match?

Hopefully the blog will get a little more love over the coming months and I can finally get some of those Lord of the Rings miniatures painted ready for the gaming table and their first actual game (Dragon Rampant, Battle Companies, Adventures in Middle Earth).

Blood Bowl and other stuff

Blood Bowl

Over the last couple of months, my youngest son (now aged 9) has really got into gaming in a big way. He had been watching numerous YouTube videos and then he asked me for some figures. I bought him a stack of second hand Lord of the Rings minis but these weren't quite what he wanted. So, for Christmas last year and his birthday this year he was bought a load of Games Workshop miniatures (after he had purloined my Night Goblins). The boxes he has got so far are as follows:

• Box of Night Goblins
• 4 Ogre Leadbelchers (second hand)
• 8 Gnoblars (second hand)
• 8 Snotlings (second hand)
• 4 boxes of 3 Chaos Warriors
• Box of Age of Sigmar Chaos Warriors
• Box of Age of Sigmar Forest Goblin Spider Riders
• Box of Ogre Warriors

All of these have been de-sprued and glued up except for the last box of Ogre Warriors - due to his age, I will not let him near a pair of side cutters and glue, so I have done this for him. I am due to make the Ogres for him sometime later this week.

Anyway, whilst his interest has grown in "The Games Workshop Hobby" he has diversified his interests a bit whilst waiting for the weather to turn so we can get in the garden to undercoat his Warhammer miniatures. He has now got into Bloodbowl. He had saved up his Christmas money, birthday money and pocket money to buy himself the boxed game - he is determined in his goal if nothing else, as the box set cost him £65!

I broke open the very heavy box a week or so back when he brought it back from his mum's and took a look at what was on offer. Inside the box you get...

• A rule book
• A double-sided pitch (one side human the other orc)
• 2 quick play sheets
• 5 sprues of plastic figures and gaming aids (ruler, markers, line out grid and scatter grid)
• 2 dugout cards
• 2 sets of dice (one for each team)
• A pack of cards

I started reading the rules the other day but my son managed to get a quick play session in at the GW store closest to his mum's. He also got in a painting session and an Age of Sigmar overview too, along with several more sessions lined up in a children's loyalty scheme GW do called Crusader (I think).

Anyway, whilst I struggled to find time to read the rulebook, he just dived straight in and made up his own game based on the run through he had at GW. He is loving it and is constantly telling me the scores of each match he runs (every day after I pick him up from the childminder).

I am not a great fan of GW's canon (except Lord of the Rings and a little bit of Warhammer Ancient Battles back in the day) but I have to take my hat off to their customer service and support. My wife is not a great fan of gaming full-stop, but even she got involved on one of the trips to GW and painted a Space Marine - she actually admitted to enjoying it!

Back to Bloodbowl though - I am hoping to get the rules sorted and get a game played in the next week or two with my son, and we may get a league going with his older brother too - the girls aren't interested at all. I have been out of gaming for a while due to lots of personal circumstances mentioned in previous posts, and this may just prove the catalyst (along with a new D&D 5e Ravenloft campaign I am due to start in next week) to get me going again with my miniature gaming.