Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago - the Postman Rang Once

I've been eagerly awaiting the postman today, because I was really hoping that my Ghost Archipelago Nickstarter would get delivered and, just before noon the doorbell duly rang. I'd had an email on Sunday from Annie at Bad Squiddo to say that it had been packed and sent, so it wasn't really that much of a surprise.

Anyway, what was in the box?

First off, I love the personalised Bad Squiddo postage sticker.

And here is Annie's personalised delivery note, the obligatory Gunny Pets and a complementary fruit tisane teabag. Thanks, Annie! I'll drink it later.

Now, on to the goodies. First, the rule book, the accessory pack and the book of Ghost Archipelago stories (for some bedtime reading!).

Then, there is the box of plastic crew figures, of which more later.

And the crew sheet, which I expect I'll have to scan and print off, so as not to deface the original.

Now, here are the shiny toys. Top left are the four female crew figures, who are lovely castings. Moving anti-clockwise, there is my chosen Heritor and Warden (I went for a female Stormwarden), the Pirate Queen (she is spectacularly good) with her pet giant iguana, who is clearly going to have to be called Iggy Pop, three one-off add-on figures from Northstar, five resin tokens and, in the centre a Bad Squiddo Ghost Archipelago badge. I've not cleaned the figures up, just trimmed off some of the more obvious bits of flash, but overall they are pretty clean castings and have bags of detail that will look brilliant once painted.

Next, here is the contents of the plastic 28mm crew box. Four sprues of bodies, heads, arms, weaponry and whatnots, which is what one would expect from a Frostgrave box. Plenty of opportunity here to create a characterful and hopefully unique crew for your games. There are also two sprues of 25mm diameter bases. There are plenty of weapons options; swords, axes, spears, bows, crossbows, club etc and some small buckler-style shields, plus quivers, pouches and other bits and pieces. I am rather drawn to creating an Arabian Nights styled crew, because that is the look of the metal female crew members too. Plenty of thinking is required here, though.

Almost at the end now, so here is the contents of the accessories box, the game cards and a special Blood Burn die for recording the decreasing health of your Heritor.

Last but not least, here is a sample of the excellent artwork in the rulebook. From an initial flick through, the art is of the usual high standard we have come to expect from Frostgrave.

So, what now? Should I get started on these, finish off my Congo miniatures or make a start on my "My Last Sunrise" Vampire Hunters and Undead and supernatural minis? The lead mountain grows apace .......................

Four female wizards

I've just photographed my latest figures. I've been working on these over the last week, taking my time and gradually building up the shading. 

They are four female wizards by Reaper Miniatures from their Dark Heaven Legends range. I bought them, once again, from Bad Squiddo Games. Annie's customer service is excellent. Everything I've ordered always arrives really quickly.

These really are very nice castings, hardly any flash at all and loads of detail. I decided on a brighter colour scheme than my previous Frostgrave figures and I spent a lot of time trying to bring out the best that I could from the lovely details in the drapes and folds of the clothes on each wizard.

Here is a rear view;

These really were a lot of fun to paint.

I've already decided that the pair dressed in blue ought to form a Wizard/Apprentice relationship, with the one holding the book as the senior partner and therefore the two in red and green will be another pairing.

It somehow seems appropriate that the red and green pair should be Elementalists, although they don't have to be, and the blue couple could pretty much be anything, not necessarily Sigilists (because of the book).

I am thinking now that I should buy a box of plastic Frostgrave soldiers at some point, to create separate warbands for each wizard pair, ideally with a unifying colour scheme. Red and green would work nicely as the livery for one retinue of fighters and a predominantly blue scheme would be ideal for the other band.

A quick painting update

I've been working on a few things in the last week or so, so I thought that I'd post a couple of photos.

First up are two female magic users;

These are from Bad Squiddo Games and are by Otherworld Miniatures. The figure on the left is my first female wizard and the one on the right, actually a female barbarian adventurer, is her apprentice.

I chose to give them a dark colour scheme as I decided that they would be followers of the dark art of Necromancy. I think that this is in keeping with the overall dark nature of my initial set of warband figures.

They are both carrying torches. I thought that it would be a nice touch for the senior necromancer to have her torch producing magical blue illumination.

The other thing I've been working on is a set of 28mm resin Jump-Off Points for Chain of Command. When I bought the rules, I took the opportunity to buy the Full Bundle, which included these JOP markers. As I am working on using 15mm figures for my CoC project, I didn't really need these, but I thought that they would be a nice thing to paint and I could always sell them on eBay once they were finished.

Women with guns ............................

I recently painted up four female archaeologists for a Call of Cthulhu game at my wargames club and this gave me a taste for painting larger figures. Anyway, following on from the success of the previous game, we have another one planned for this weekend, a mash-up of Call of Cthulhu and A Very British Civil War.

A couple of weeks ago, I got started on some suitable figures and the first ones I painted up were these;

These (above) are six VBCW female militia figures from Ironclad Miniatures plus four female French Resistance figures from Dixon Miniatures WW2 range. This would give me a basic squad of ten for the game. However, I also needed an HQ group of five figures and my eye was drawn to the excellent Bad Squiddo range of female miniatures and the ones I really thought would work were the Dangerous Dames (2) set by Pulp Figures (below).

I wanted figures that I could use in other settings as well as just for this particular game and these are really nice models. 

It was my original concept for the VBCW setting that my figures would be part of an anti-government feminist revolutionary socialist militia and I think that the main group of ten work well for that particular concept. The other five are far more generally useful for different settings, especially Call of Cthulhu.

Anyway, they were good fun to paint and I am looking forward to seeing them on the table. I'll take a camera along to the game and hopefully do a bit of a write-up of the proceedings.

....and now for something completely different.

In a break from my usual 15mm figures, and also from my ongoing projects, I bought some 28mm figures from Bad Squiddo Games, which is owned and run by Annie Norman, a.k.a. The Dice Bag Lady. 

In her own words "Bad Squiddo Games provides gamers and painters around the world with the largest selection of female miniatures out there. As well as manufacturing my own line, I carefully hand pick stock from over 50 different manufacturers."

She goes on to say that "The number one aim for Bad Squiddo Games is to create and supply the miniatures that would have made the hobby far far better for my 10 year old self. To welcome more young girls and women into wargaming and miniature painting, as well as providing diverse options to the entire gaming community. And yeah – cool toys!"

I think that a look at her catalogue on the website shows that she is definitely achieving her main aim. Lots of lovely shiny stuff to tempt all sorts of gamers.

Anyway, I am a huge fan of the horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and when I found out that my club would be putting on a Cthulhu Mythos-themed game, I started looking at the kind of figures that were around. We were all invited to submit a named character for the forthcoming game, which I have done, and this made me look around to see what was available in case  I might want to have a particular miniature to represent her in the future. 

I decided on the set of Four Female Archaeologists by Copplestone Miniatures.

Here they are, as I painted them;

From left to right they are; Dr Laura Carter Ward, Prof. Jacqueline Thomas, Dr Marie-Claude de St. Aubin and Miss Catherine Broadbury.

Archaeologist biographies

Dr Marie-Claude de St. Aubin
Research Fellow in Transdimensional Architecture
Faculty of Metaphysical History
École Nationale des Sciences Arcanes
Bordeaux, France

Originally a mathematics graduate and amateur archaeologist, Dr de St Aubin first developed an interest in prehistoric megalithic sites and the geometry of such sites while undertaking her Mathematics DPhil at Oxford. Her research, published some years after completing her doctoral thesis, was entitled “The night sky and sacred geometries of pre-historic sites in south-western France” and attracted the attention of Professor Markus Mazur of the University of Krakow., an expert in prehistoric alignments and obscure cult practices. This led to Dr de St Aubin taking up a post of research assistant to Prof. Mazur. Developing her interest in archaeology, Dr de St. Aubin returned to France and studied the subject at the Sorbonne.

Dr de St. Aubin is known for her archaeological studies at a number of ancient sites in Anatolia, the Caucasus and the Levant. Her work on early Bronze Age ritual sites found near Carchemish in Syria, which identified them as being sacred to a number of obscure and arcane deities, although unknown to the general public, is widely considered in Arcane Studies circles to be the definitive study of the cults of a number of previously unknown deities, two who have tentatively been identified as Azathoth and Nyarlathotep, in the Bronze Age Middle East. A noted polymath and linguist, Dr de St Aubin has spent the last three or four years translating a copy of The Necronomicon from Mediaeval Occitan into modern French.

A keen horsewoman, Dr de St. Aubin has represented France internationally. She is also a former national pistol champion and Olympic-standard modern pentathlete.

Dr Laura Carter Ward `

Senior Reader in Advanced Arcane Studies

Faculty of Social Sciences

Miskatonic University

Arkham, Massachusetts, USA

Originally forming her doctoral thesis, and later expanded into a three-volume study, Dr Ward’s groundbreaking work on the subject of prehistoric chthonic cult survivals in the Graeco-Roman world is widely considered to be the authoritative text on the subject. Her work on the relationship between the Pnakotic Manuscripts (Koine Greek translation) and the Enochian texts of Dr John Dee is considered to be a classic example of Arcane Anthropology.

First joining the staff of Miskatonic U as a research assistant to the late Professor Ferdinand Ashley, Dr Ward was later Curator of Arcane Incunabula and Manuscripts before taking up her present duties. She has undertaken lengthy fieldwork in the Andes, Polynesia and Tibet. Dr Ward is currently combining her academic duties with field research into the Witch Cults of 17^th century New England and their links to similar cults in Europe.

Dr Ward is a former champion fencer and a keen amateur photographer.

Professor Jacqueline Thomas

Head of Archaeological Sciences

University of Brichester

Brichester

Gloucestershire, UK

A History graduate of Cambridge University, Prof. Thomas undertook post-graduate research at the University of Göttingen and later completed her doctorate in Archaeology at UCL. Professor Thomas is considered to be the world’s leading authority in the subject area of pre-Druidic cult practices in the British Isles and has published a number of works on this subject. She is a visiting lecturer in Arcane Archaeology at both Miskatonic University and the École Nationale des Sciences Arcanes, where her Summer Schools are always well-attended. Her most recent publication is “Pre-Bronze Age West Semitic Cult Survivals in Mediaeval Palestine and the Crusader States”. She is also known for her archaeological investigations at Megiddo and elsewhere in the Middle East. Her recent identification of a site 75km north-west of Sakaka in Saudi Arabia as a candidate for Irem of the Pillars has been controversial, but some authorities who have examined cult objects and inscriptions excavated from the site are supportive of her claim.

Miss Catherine Broadbury

Parapsychological Investigator

Broadbury Manor

Upper Melchett

Somerset, UK

Although not a professional anthropologist or archaeologist, Miss Broadbury is well-known in specialist circles because of her work as an assistant to her late great-uncle Professor Sir Henry Exham, the famous Egyptologist and Professor of Hittite Studies at Brichester University.. A graduate of St Hilda’s College Oxford with a Master’s in Classics and Ancient History, Miss Broadbury is fluent in many languages and has written a number of books on popular history, archaeology and the paranormal. A prominent debunker of fraudulent psychic practitioners, Miss Broadbury is widely-respected in the field of Arcane Studies for her breadth of knowledge and familiarity with obscure cultic practices. She has carried out unspecified investigative work for certain agencies of the British government.

Miss Broadbury is an accomplished pianist and horsewoman and has represented the UK internationally at the long jump and 110 metres hurdles.