Dragon Warriors - 2:11

Back In the Hall of the Trickster (12^th June 2013)

The Dragon Warriors

Aethelfrith – Thane

Sir Erich of Barton – Knight

Hillson – Warlock

Nazir al Khalid – Barbarian (NPC’d)

Solaran – Elementalist (NPC’d)

Karban Telos – Sorcerer (NPC’d)

The Hunt (Days 34-35 (114-5))

Sir Erich, Karban the sorcerer, and Aethelfrith returned to the ship to find the mad man still gibbering on in his own language and no sense had been made from his ramblings so far by the rest of the crew. They reported their story to the rest of their companions and discussed what they had found. They decided that the following day they would try to appease the Trickster with sacrifices and then settled down for a good night’s rest.

The following morning the party rose early – there still hadn’t been any sign of the Bloody Bitch or her pirate companions. This time, Sir Erich, Aethelfrith and Hillson the Warlock decided to go hunting for the fresh meat that would be used as an offering at the Trickster’s table. They spent all day hunting but came back with only a handful of shellfish and some edible lichens.

The next day they decided to try extending their search for meat a little further away from the ship but, as luck would have it, a small herd of caribou turned up for a drink at the fresh water pool below the waterfall in the cove where they had anchored the ship. The three companions decided to trail the herd as it left and after about two hours travel, they finally caught up with it. They stalked up on a trailing member of the herd, a magnificent stag, and got to within the distance of an easy bow shot.

Sir Erich and Aethelfrith let loose their shafts at the beast. Aethelfrith’s arrow flew true and struck the caribou square in the flank. This startled the creature and it started to run, but as it was unaware where the shaft had come from it fortuitously headed straight past the party. Hillson was able to jump out from his hiding place and scare the animal back towards the warriors, thus enabling them both to put another arrow into its flank. This frightened the stag even more but shock and loss of blood had by now slowed it enough for Hillson to catch it and deliver the killing blow. They skinned and gutted the beast and returned to the ship with the hefty haunches of fresh meat.

The Trickster’s Hall

The adventurers quickly collected the other offerings from the ship and headed back towards the hall under the mountain. Once within the illusory confines of the feasting hall, the party headed to the central fire and roasted the caribou meat. This took a while, but they waited patiently until it was properly roasted.

Once the meat was cooked they made their way to the end of the hall where the main seats were. Once there, they presented the cooked meat and some mead to all of the places that were set. They also took a quick look at the water offering they had made a few days before. It did not look like it had been touched since their departure, so they poured it away and replaced it with mead.

They waited for a while but nothing seemed to happen. Feeling a little foolish they decided to start singing a few feast hall songs and attempted to entertain what they hoped were their invisible hosts. Again, nothing seemed to happen. As it had been a few hours now since they had last eaten and the smells from the roasted caribou had permeated their senses, they decided to eat what was left of the offerings. They took the remaining part of the meal that had not been used for the offering and walked to what they recognised as the human table and plonked themselves on the mead bench set at it. As soon as they arrived within the vicinity of the table they could hear the faint sounds of merriment and feasting. They decided to try joining the feast with their own food and drink but touched nothing of what was on offer; the sounds of the party did not become any clearer. They discussed who should start to eat and drink from the table offerings and it was quickly realised that Hillson would be the best to do so as he had a sharper wit to avoid the Trickster’s illusions and the two warriors were strong enough to drag him away from the table should another elf or similar appear to attack them.

Hillson began by drinking some of the mead from the table and instantaneously heard the feast in full swing. The shadowy figures around him came into full vision and he became a member of the drinking and feasting fraternity at the table. He felt the magical tug of the illusion but would not be drawn into its clutches. The two warriors asked him how he felt and what he could see and he responded to them with clarity. They prompted him to try the food and see what happened then. He did so. The pull of the illusion became stronger but he was still able to resist its allure and report back to his companions what he observed. He could understand all that the feasting warriors were saying even though it was not his native language, and even got involved in a few bragging and drinking games with them.

The warlock kept up the feasting and drinking for an hour or so, but as nothing unusual had happened he decided to slowly wean himself off of the illusory victuals to see if the sounds of merriment faded again; it didn’t.

As the night wore on, Aethelfrith and Sir Erich started to become a little bored watching their companion enjoying himself so decided to call a halt to the proceedings. The illusion hadn’t worn off for Hillson even though he had stopped eating a good few hours before. The party decided that around midnight they would get Hillson away from the table if nothing happened at that hour.

The hour of midnight came and went with no change to the pace of the feasting, so Hillson stood up to leave the mead bench. As soon as he stood up, the merrymakers at the table fell fast asleep and a booming voice sounded out from behind him (that only he could hear). A huge, ugly man stood up in the distance and started yelling for everyone to be quiet whilst holding onto his ears as if in pain. The ogre of a man locked his eyes on the warlock and charged at him yelling a war-cry.

Hillson had the presence of mind to cast a defensive spell upon himself before the creature got to him. However, Sir Erich and Aethelfrith were closer and struck the brute with their magical weapons; neither seemed to have any effect. Hillson swung his weapon at the troll but missed just as Aethelfrith remembered some of his ancient lore. He yelled at everyone to strike the brute with their fists rather than weapons as it looked like Grendel had come back from the dead. The two warriors made their blows connect solidly but the ogre struck Hillson regardless, ignoring the hits from the two stalwart companions. The blow startled Hillson but did not penetrate his thick mail armour. Hillson cast another defensive spell and then threw himself into the brawl. All the while Grendel was pummelling Hillson, the two companion warriors struck at the ogre with their fists. Finally, the man-troll could take no more of the punishment, staggered a little and then fell to the ground where his body dissipated to a smoky haze.

Other Worlds (Day 36 – the early hours)

After their encounter with the Grendel being, the party decided to take a breather and headed back to the main table at the end of the hall as they could not work out exactly what was going on at the feasting tables.

Time was running out quickly now so they decided to be a little hastier in trying to work out what was going on. Hillson, now wanting to get back to his bed on the ship for a good sleep, asked his companions to watch out for him and promptly sat himself upon the chair with the well sigil carved upon it. His thinking was that it may be something to do with knowledge and who better to sit upon it than someone versed in the arcane arts? As soon as he touched the seat he disappeared backwards into it, far too quickly for either of his companions to stop him. Sir Erich grabbed hold of the end of Aethelfrith’s spear and sat upon the same chair. He too was whipped backwards through the chair; a hapless Aethelfrith was dragged through on the end of the spear he was still holding onto tightly.

Hillson and Sir Erich found themselves sat upon a log with Aethlfrith stood in front of them still holding his spear. He quickly whipped around to make sure nothing was behind him and saw that they had all appeared in a glade within a forest. In front of them was a well with two small pails beside it. Stood beside the well was an old man dressed in good quality clothes; obviously some kind of wizard or wise man thought Hillson. The warlock hailed the man in the language of the feast hall (somehow he could speak it fluently) and said that he was lost. The man replied that the party were indeed lost as the woods carried on forever in every direction. He said that they had to make a decision - They could either give him an eye each or answer his riddle to get out of there and back to their own world. Sir Erich managed to recall something he had heard when he was a child from the tales his mother told him at his bedside. He asked whether the old man’s name was Mimir, the Wise One. The wise man chuckled but only repeated his offer.

The party decided they would try to answer his riddle. Mimir pointed to the two small buckets beside the well and said that one has a capacity of three pints and the other a capacity of five. He wanted them to give him exactly four pints of water from the well. Whilst Hillson and Aethelfrith scratched their heads and tried to get their minds in focus for the challenge, Sir Erich was already there with the answer – those fairy tales told to him upon his mother’s knee were at last coming in useful for something other than as cautionary tales. He immediately took up the five pint pail, filled it to the brim with water and poured it into the three pint bucket which he then tipped away. Then he took the two pints left in the five pint bucket and poured that into the three pint bucket. He then refilled the five pint bucket, tipped out one pint to fill the three pint bucket again, leaving exactly four pints in the five pint bucket.

Mimir was impressed at the speed with which the knight solved the puzzle and placed a small vellum-wrapped package into his hand and asked the three companions to sit back down upon the log. The party complied with his request and were instantaneously transported back to the chair in the Trickster’s Hall, somehow not falling on top of each other. Sir Erich’s curiosity got the better of him, and he un-wrapped the vellum package despite Aethelfrith’s warnings. Inside the package was an eye.

Dragon Warriors - 2:10

Here is the write-up of last night's adventure...

In the Hall of the Mountain King (29^th May 2013)

The Dragon Warriors

Aethelfrith – Thane

Sir Erich of Barton – Knight (NPC’d)

Hillson – Warlock

Nazir al Khalid – Barbarian (NPC’d)

Solaran – Elementalist (NPC’d)

Karban Telos – Sorcerer

A Strange Feast Hall (Day 33 (113))

Sir Erich, Karban the sorcerer, and Aethelfrith quickly tied up the madman and carried him back to the ship. They tied him to the mast, and Sir Erich decided he would stay back and attend to the bedraggled man whilst Karban and Aethelfrith went back to investigate what was buried deeper within the hill. Hillson the warlock decided he would join them as work on collecting provisions was going on quite well without him.

The three adventurers returned to the buried palace and made their way to the foyer. At the top of the stairs they saw a huge double-valve studded oak set of doors. Aethelfrith set his shoulder to one of them in anticipation of it being very heavy, but it glided open quite easily.

Upon entering the room beyond they saw that it extended for a mile or so into the distance and was around half-a-mile from side to side; in no way should it fit under the hill it was positioned beneath. To either side were two sets of tables and benches and a further set of ornate chairs were set to another table at the far end of the hall. The smell of cooked meat and ale, and the very faint sounds of a feast in full swing wafted towards the adventurers, reminding them that they were due for their next meal. The tables and benches appeared to be normal sized even though they were a great distance away. In the centre of the room was a large fire, its heat could be felt from where the party stood. Obviously this was some kind of illusion which Aethelfrith backed up by pulling from his mind an old childhood memory of home – the hall and benches reminded him very much of the description he was given of the Trickster’s Hall.

“The Trickster’s Hall, a staefheall built to gigantic, even godlike, propor­tions and said to lie somewhere in the mountains of Thuland.”

If this was indeed the Trickster God’s hall, then he expected his mind to be playing tricks on him.

Karban asked Aethelfrith to throw a stone to see how the illusion worked, but the stone flew exactly as it should do and made the right sounds and bounces when it landed. As the hall seemed to be quite harmless, the adventurer decided to investigate the nearest set of table to their right. As they drew nearer, each of them saw their companions slowly turn into what they could only imagine elves would look like, but they themselves remained human looking. The closer they got to the tables the more they could hear the sounds emanating from the tables and realised that the voices were definitely not speaking any known tongue that any of them knew.

Karban decided to investigate further, so he jumped up onto a bench to see what he could find out. As soon as he sat upon the bench, food and drink appeared in abundance upon the table and the voices around him gathered in strength. He took a few mouthfuls of food and then threw a chicken leg at Aethelfrith to taunt him, but nothing could be seen by the warrior; he decided that either his mind was playing tricks on him or the sorcerer was mucking around. The sounds at the table became stronger in Karban’s ears and he was becoming more and more tempted by the fare on offer. He took a sip of mead and boasted of its taste and quality to Aethelfrith. The Thane remembered a little more about his childhood folk tales and shouted a warning for the sorcerer to be careful of what he ate and drank. As the warrior voiced his concern Karban snapped out of his reverie and made to leave the mead bench and table. As he started to slide off of the bench, a shadowy shape beside the sorcerer quickly took shape and looked at him in horror.

A cry of “Human” rent the air as the elven warrior grabbed his shield and spear and gave chase to the rapidly retreating mage. Aethelfrith saw this and ran to interpose himself between the escaping sorcerer and the elf warrior. He stabbed the elf with his magical short sword causing it a great deal of pain but the elf ignored him in its single-minded pursuit of Karban. Hillson, aware that combat was about to become a reality cast a spell of quickness upon himself and ran to intercept the elf. Unfortunately he arrived at the melee just after Karban had been stabbed by the spear the elf was carrying. The skill of the elven warrior then turned Aethlefrith’s blade, and his next strike at the elf then hit his companion. Karban crumpled to the floor an inch from death. The elf quickly turned about and headed back towards the table, quickly disappearing as he got nearer and nearer to the festivities held there.

Hillson quickly moved in and healed his companion but it took a few more spells from the warlock and then the sorcerer to move him away from death’s door.

The Trickster’s Table

The adventurers quickly made their way away from the elven table towards the large fire in the middle of the room. As they moved away from the table, their elfin looks slowly dissipated and the adventurers appeared normal to each other again. On their approach to the fire, it appeared to be six feet high no matter how far they were away from it and the heat it gave out was as it should be if it was a real fire. The wood on the fire appeared to be burning normally and the heat at its heart was as hot as a normal fire. The party decided that this sense of scale was another illusion cast by the Trickster in his hall.

They left the fire and made their way towards the second set of tables and benches on the right hand side of the hall. The nearer they got, the more they could hear the feasting going on, but this time they did not change shape. They assumed that if the first table was for the elves, then this set of tables must be for men.

The adventurers continued their journey on towards the more ornate table and chairs at the far end of the hall. This table and chairs was larger than the other two sets, and rather than benches there were seven individual chairs; all wooden except the much larger central one made of what appeared to be gold. As they got closer to the table they noticed that each place had wooden utensils (plates, goblets, bowls etc.) arrayed in front of it, except for the central chair that had everything the same but in gold.

The companions looked around the chairs to see what was between them and the wall at the end of the hall and noticed that each had a sigil upon it; the golden throne had a fire sigil, one had a bow, another a wave, a well, a boar, a lute, and one that they couldn’t quite make out at the time – symbols of the old gods, with the fire sigil being that of Loki the Trickster. Karban, decided to see if the golden throne could be moved so enlisted the he of his companions to try to move it. It did not move at all; even if it was made of solid gold it would have had a certain heft but their efforts realised this was also something magical.

Failing in his efforts to move the throne, Karban decided to try sitting on the cushion on the seat. As it was quite high (giant-like in proportion – Aethelfrith thought it could fit a frost giant like the one he had met in the forests outside of Worsted) he needed to be boosted by his companions and it was this that probably saved his life because as soon as he sat upon the gilded cushion flames began to burst from the chair around him. Aethelfrith and Hillson quickly pulled their companion off of the chair before the flames could grow large enough to harm him.

Wondering what the trick to solving the puzzle might be, Aethelfrith placed his bow upon the chair that had the bow sigil carved upon its back. Nothing seemed to happen but the way he placed the bow meant it touched the back of the chair in an unusual way. He picke dup the bow agin and thrust it at the back of the chair. It appeared to enter into the chair back as if it was made of clay and then started to bend. Karban reported that even though a good foot of the bow had entered the back of the chair, there was no sign of it coming out of or affecting the back.

Aethlefrith removed his bow carefully and then tried it on the next chair with the same results. The party realised that things were becoming more complicated and as they were becoming quite hungry too, they decided they would leave the hall and return the next day with their other companions to see if they could shed any further light on the mystery. As it was, they still had a good twenty minute walk to get back across the huge hall to the entrance on the far side.

Return to the Ship (Day 33 – late evening)

They decided to go back to the entrance via the left hand side (or right hand side from where they were now standing) so that they could investigate who the other tables represented. The first table had them slowly grow as they approached the benches and they quickly assumed that this was a giant’s table. The last table in the hall had them shrink and take on the appearance of dwarfs.

After what had been a good three or four hours, the adventurers left the hall in the rapidly encroaching twilight. They hurriedly made their way back to the ship to be greeted by their companions and a newly awakened mad-man.

Dragon Warriors - Session 2:9

I had a fairly busy week last week, so I was unable to put up the adventure write up. However, I was able to complete this yesterday just before last night's session, but didn't quite get time to actually post it. Anyway, here is the prose for last week's adventure...

A Safe Haven (22^nd May 2013)

The Dragon Warriors

Aethelfrith – Thane

Sir Erich of Barton – Knight

Hillson – Warlock (NPC’d)

Nazir al Khalid – Barbarian (NPC’d)

Solaran – Elementalist (NPC’d)

Karban Telos – Sorcerer

A Second Attack (Day 31 (111))

The wind picked up during the night and the cog made better time on its journey out of the Bay of Glissom. A sail was spotted on the horizon during the early daylight hours which appeared to the look-out to be following the stolen vessel.

As the day wore on, the sail on the horizon began to grow larger until it could be seen for what it was – a pirate galley under full oar power. By the estimation of the captain, the longship was due to catch the slower moving cog by the end of the day. The adventurers set to work on planning a defensive strategy for the inevitable boarding action which was to come.

Towards the end of the day, the sky slowly darkened to a deep blue hue, and the stars began to twinkle in the firmament. The pursuing vessel had moved to within a mile or so of the cog. All of the captain’s manoeuvres had proven to be in vain, but had bought the party some extra time to contemplate their fate. As they prepared for the boarding action, the flying figure they had seen the night before left the long boat and headed towards the cog. All hands were called upon the deck.

The beast with the skeletal, reptile-like horse’s head, scaled body and four-taloned feet headed directly for the cog on leathery wings. Its passenger, intent on casting some strange magic upon the party, made arcane movements from the saddle but was not put off by the arrows shot at it by Nazir. Suddenly, a shadowy, armoured figure appeared upon the deck of the ship; it was the Bloody Bitch herself. The adventurers and crew ran to combat her. Fully surrounded, she was unable to make any of her attacks find their mark, but this also affected the adventurers and crew as they seemed to get in each other’s way. After several moments of furious combat, a few blows eventually fell upon the pirate queen, but this did not deter her from renewing her attacks. A bolt of energy from Hillson, the Warlock, finally felled their assailant but as the body hit the deck it began to immediately fade and turn to smoke.

Failed Negotiations (Day 32)

No more attacks came during the night, so the captain and his crew attempted to use every subterfuge they could think of to evade pursuit under the cover of darkness. But this was to no avail as the long ship was still only a mile or so to their rear when the darkness was replaced by the rosy fingers of the oncoming dawn.

The reptilian beast took flight again as soon as the light was good enough. This time, Karban the sorcerer tried to parley with the Bloody Bitch from the crow’s nest of the cog. The negotiations went nowhere as the pirate queen said that the party did not have any means to bargain with. During the conversation she let slip that without this boat, her crew and the special map (which the party had decided not to steal for Antonio Guaires) she could not find an old Fomorian War Galley which would help her control all the seas. If they could help her with obtaining that vessel then she would forget the animosity between them, let them keep the cog they were on and let them go free. The sorcerer just laughed at her predicament which angered her and she began to cast a spell. Sir Erich, who was nearest, let fly an arrow at her flying mount, hitting its right wing. The beast screamed its rage and began to fly away from harm just as the Bloody Bitch let loose with a bolt of lightning at the ship which killed both the captain and one of his crewmen. Just before it got out of range, the sorcerer managed to shoot the beast with an arrow from his precarious platform in the rigging, and Hillson, the warlock, cast a flame onto his arrow that struck the beast for a third time.

A Secret Cove (Day 33 – late afternoon)

This turn of events seemed to rattle the pirate queen, because the following morning there was no sign of the pirate vessel that had been tailing them for the last few days. The crew had been up all night manoeuvring the cog towards land (after a swift sea burial for their captain and fellow crew member), and during the day they looked out for a safe haven. A few hours just after noon they espied a small cove and put in.

The tall rock walls hid the cog from view from the sea, and they weighed anchor just shy of the small, sandy beach contained within. A waterfall poured from the cliffs above into a small rock pool just off to one side. The crew began to repair the damage to the ship, sent out a party to collect water from the rock pool (it was fresh water) and any food they could lay their hands on within the immediate vicinity of the ship.

Sir Erich, Karban the sorcerer, and Aethelfrith jumped into the shallows and waded ashore, both to supervise the crewmen and to stretch their legs. Whilst they supervised the loading of the water butts, they noticed a set of human sized footprints leading away from the rock pool and up the single path that led up the cliffs. They told the crew that they were going to investigate the footprints and to not leave without them. They would also look for food on their trip to the top of the cliffs.

When they got to the top of the path they laid low as they surveyed a wide vista; undulating tundra and the occasional pine tree as far as the eye could see. Off to one side they saw a wide scree slope, towards which the footsteps led. They agreed amongst themselves that they would follow the trail as the person may either need rescuing or have information that could help them.

They left their vantage point and headed towards the slope, but the trail became lost amongst the loose stones and pebbles. After searching around for a few minutes Karban spotted a way into the hill under the scree. The path led into a small, dark tunnel. The sorcerer cast a quick spell upon himself that allowed him to see in the dark, but this did not help the two warriors, so they both lit a torch and followed the sorcerer’s lead.

After just a few paces, the tunnel turned a corner and the small party of adventurers found themselves before a pillared colonnade with steps leading up to a vestibule of some sort. The whole of a palace-like building (judging by these first impressions) had been covered by a rock-slide sometime in the distant past. In the space before the grand structure, they spotted a small cooking fire off to one side and a dishevelled, scraggly-bearded man tending it. Spotting the adventurers, he drew his sword and waved it at them in a menacing way whilst shouting at them in a strange language.

The sorcerer moved into the opening a little further and the man showed no hesitation in launching an attack on him, gibbering incoherently all the time. The two warriors moved in to attack the fellow with the butts of their weapons in order to subdue rather than kill him, and it only took a matter of moments to put him out of harm’s way.

Hunter Orcs on Fell wargs

After saying that I hadn't bought any gaming gear for a while, I went down to my local shopping centre (Blue Water in Kent) yesterday and partook of some retail therapy. I needed to buy some new clothes for work (something I haven't done for about 2-3 years now - I generally do not worry about clothes until they start to get holes in them) and my youngest needed a few items as he is growing so fast. We popped into a few shops and whilst my wife was looking at girly things in a variety of places I decided to take a wander into Games Workshop. I had a couple of vouchers burning a hole in my wallet, so I spent them on some new figures from The Hobbit range and some of the new paint range.

I picked up several of the new paints (I will try them out soon and give my verdict) and a box of the Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs.

In the box you get:

Six half sprues of orcs and fell wargs - two of the half-sprues are repeated - to make up 6 orcs on wargs with two casualties
Six GW bases to mount the miniatures on

Each warg comes in 4 parts - 2 body halves and 2 head halves
The orcs (lower body) are part integral to the wargs, have a separate torso, head, and left and right arms. There are several variants of each to make a very diverse force, so it will take several boxes before the same warg rider needs to be built.

The sculpting is very crisp and very fine - the methodology has come on leaps and bounds since the early days of the Riders of Rohan and Warriors of Gondor. GW are doing a great job with these figures IMHO.

My only question for this box set is why GW didn't sculpt the riders separately from the wargs? That said, GW sell separate wargs, so I can only assume they will not contain any orc parts and maybe are different poses to those in this box? Perhaps they sculpted the wargs first, tooled them, and then sculpted the orcs on them and tooled them again? I am interested in finding this out.

I really like these minis - much more so than the original hyena-wargs that went before (but that's not to say I didn't like those minis). My only criticism is the weapons - I am not a fan of crinkle-cut blades, and there are far too many of them in the box for my liking.

Overall, I would give these a 8.5 out of 10. Alex bought the Elven Cavalry recently, and those are well worth a 9.5 - they are fantastic sculpts. Maybe I can get him to paint them soon as he has already glued them up ready for undercoating, so I can give a brief overview of that set too.

Painting and Gaming Update

It has been a long time since I have posted any of my painting efforts. Everyday life has become more hectic as the kids grow up and want to do their own things, work gets busier and busier, and other things impinge on my precious free time.

I have been slowly getting some paint onto a batch of Norman Knights, so I will start to put those up on the blog in the next few weeks as I complete them. I also have a handful of other half-finished minis that will get my attention in the coming weeks too. I really need to focus and start getting stuff together to actually use in a game. My main aim, originaly, was just to reduce the lead mountain. I have been fairly successful in doing this but I still have several hundred minis to go. I think I need to plan a campaign game in which to use as many of them as I can, and maybe start painting them to a theme in readiness for that game. I must admit my preference is for fantasy games, but all the historicals I have painted should come in handy to some extent to use in that type of world too. Maybe my ePBM plans for AD&D will be the perfect vehicle - now just to get the time to do it.

My only real gaming time recently has been the Wednseday night RPG bash at the club. I am thoroughly enjoying this bit of weekly downtime and look forward to it every week. I enjoy writing up our adventures and publishing them here on the blog for all to see. Primarily it is a reminder to the players of what happened the previous week, but also as a reference as to what went before. I hope the rest of my readers enjoy hearing about the adventures of our trusty band of companions.

For my long-term set of now very remote gaming friends I was due to start a second incarnation of Doggerland just after Christmas. Unfortunately I did not get the chance to polish the rules and create the map (now impossible due to my PC crashing irreparably a month or two back and losing my working copy of Photoshop - I cannot get it to reload onto a Win 8 machine). I was also thinking of getting an ePBM AD&D campaign going but, again, this suffered due to my PC crash and now lack of time. The AD&D campaign will probably be the easiest of the two to run as I have everything ready to go except buy-in from the players.

Looking back over the site for the last few years I have noticed that this year I have not bought anything for my hobby. The last couple of years have seen me spend about £300 per annum; divvied up it comes out as around £25 per month - not a huge sum in the scheme of things. I have seen a lot of old school style minis on a variety of blogs and sites recently which I would like to add to my collection - at a rate of about £25 per month I should be able to get some coherent forces put together when combined with my existing unpainted lead. Lots of goblins/orcs/trolls, dwarfs and humans should give me the basis of a good fantasy campaign. Although I prefer very anthropocentic fantasy (which is why I am anjoying Dragon Warriors so much), I can't run a campaign without a good force of evil baddies from the netherworlds. I think I will have to investigate all the online retailers who sell the old Asgard, Nick Lund etc. style miniatures to add to my forces.

One thing that strikes me as missing from my particular part of the hobby is a decent magazine that covers all aspects of it. Sure, there are magazines aimed at the historical market (Miniature Wargames, Wargames Illustrated and Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy), but I personally find them limited in that they rarely have fantasy content I can use. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy them for what they are namely - historical gaming magazines. Some of the battle reports and scenarios could be adapted for fantasy but they don't give me the same feeling as the old dungeons I could find in the old White Dwarf or Imagine magazines of the late 70s and 80s. I am unaware of any paper fantasy gaming magazines that caters to my tastes and, unfortunately, I find that the latest White Dwarf is just a catalogue of new releases for Games Workshop plus a battle report or two. Lots of eye candy but, for me, no actual substance since they relegated Lord of the Rings to just a few pages every now and then. I have only bought one or two copies in the last three years as a result. I yearn for the old-style magazines that threw adventure scenarios, new magic items and thoughts on gaming at you every month.

This turned out to be a little more long-winded than I originally set out to write, but thought trains are often like that. Hopefully, I should have more stuff to get your teeth into over the coming few weeks. Maybe I will start my ePBM campaign going by writing up the origins of the adventure to whet my players' appetites? Who knows? This hobby is so changeable for me that I rarely know what I will be doing from one week to the next.