Lockdown challenge complete

 This is the part of painting I like the best, when I've painted models :)

These where nice models to get me back painting with, as there is not a lot of detail on them & only required a few colours.

There was not a lot to be done to these tbh from where they were at in last weeks post.

Just 3 coats of GW's black wash on the wings &

1 on the fur, which was then give a cream drybrush.

Then it was a tip of red on the nipples, dot the eye's &

put them on to clear bases, I might at some point change some of them to flying bases, but for now I'm calling them done.

Once again my thanks to Dave Stone for setting the challenge & permitting me to take part, as it has gotten me back painting :)

At the start of the year I painted what was for me a fair few models, but I think I've learned something from that & painting these models & I think it might be of help to ours who like me are not big into painting.

The thing is with a lot of us, we pick a setting we're going to be gaming in or an army we're going to be using & then set about painting what can be a lot of very similar models, now I don't know about you guys but for me that's a mistake as I end up getting board.

So with that in mind next up are these 5 Cowboys. 

Their from Black Scorpion, a company who's models I really like & while they're a lot more detailed then the Harpies, I can console myself with the fact that after their painted (hopefully by the end of December) that I can then paint something different again out of the pile of shame.

I know you guys are probable thinking that only 5 models a month Frank, yep but that leaves me some time to be working on other stuff like terrain, plus if I can stick with the plan 5 models a month over a year will be 60 models. 

That's a wrap for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)

Move Tone News November 2020

Good evening & welcome to this month's news, I'll start with a little challenge N&D are taking part in, that was set up by Dave Stone over on his wonderful blog https://wargamesculptorsblog.blogspot.com/

If you've never visited Dave's blog I recommend hitting the link above but don't forget to come back :)

The challenge is to paint a squad but Dave kindly agreed to let me paint any set of models I wanted, now as you most likely know I'm no lover of painting & the challenge is what I need at this point to get me back at it.

I've had these Harpies for a long time & went with them over lots of other models I have a long time as I thought they be simple enough to paint as there's not a lot of detail to pick out.  

I removed the bases & primed them white

Then put them on temporally on bases for painting, now painting might be to strong a word for what I do as most of it is done with washes. 

So as they stand now their base colours are done, thanks to the three bottles below.

Don't worry this is not me trying to give lessons in painting, the reason for this is as a record for me in case I ever want to paint more of them, as I've a very bad habit of not recording how I paint things & than have a terrible time if want to paint more.

The flesh was done using the first bottle, the hair & fur the second & the wings the third, the flesh will be left as is while the fur & wings will get more washes.

The challenge runs until the end of the month so expect another post on these that will have closer pictures to show the finished models.

 While I'm on painting, I painted these 4 cultist a while back, but instead of going for blue or purple robes I just went for a plain brown, the reason for this was to keep with the name I gave, The cult of the Friary Tuck :)

On to other stuff & I think I'm going stone mad, & you'll think so two as you see the below pictures, which are still very much so a WIP

I've been building roads but not just roads but roads with stonewalls,

& what set of roads would complete without a bridge ?

I have some other straight done to this stage as well, the crossroads piece I did with one side at a 90% angle & the other off at a different angle, I also intend to some curves & bend sections.

Another thing I've want to do for a very long time is an Egyptian set & have also mad a start on that as well :)  

My original idea was to do this as a fixed set but at the time I couldn't work out how to do it & so done the temple of the beastmen set instead that was seen in hollow earth.

As with the roads this is still very much a WIP  but will not be done as a fixed set.

but I'll bring you update on both projects as progress is made on them. 

In late news, to day seen the release of a new ed of Larger then Life from THW & N&D pick it up, now I'd a quick look over it & while it doesn't seem to have the same depth to it from a story telling point of view as Director's Cut, it does have some new things that I like & will be using, I'll do more of a review of it at another time, but know that this new ed really pushes the use of the battle-boards style of play.

Well that's it for this month's news, so its a goodnight from me & a goodnight from him as always my thanks for dropping & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)

LTL, Jungle Blade review

In the final episode of the Jungle Blade Mystery I didn't do a designers note (sorry Joe) but I want to do a review on how using Large then Life the Directors cut the story came together & how I intend to use it to drive stories using other game systems.

Now before I go on I want to explain that their are in fact two LTL books, the first is Large then Life & is soon to be released by THW. The second one, which is the one I have, is The Director's Cut. Now I know nothing of the first one, The Director's Cut is very much an RPG but imho not a great table top game.

That said what the Director's Cut offer's is a very smart way to build a story due to its tables, the first two episode of the Jungle Blade Mystery show me what I think is the major fault of the game & at the same time what makes the game work.

Episode 1) After working out was was to be achieved over all & in the hope for solving my first clue by finding a person of interest, I set up the table to play out what is called the Advance the story scene, for the time of day & local there was 1 PEF on the table & as unlike in other THW games the PEF, don't move, so you could if you wanted to just avoid it in most cases if you wished.

After crossing the table, inter acting with the PEF I arrived at the target building, so if an action game is your thing so far this is a none event.

Entering the target building, I'd no defining moment & the person of interest wasn't there, all that effort for no result right ? well yes & no, while there was no action don't forget I'm building a story so time to put the little gray cells to work.

To add a bit of mystery & intrigue I decided that the Theatre was close & that while they'd been told that Miss Benavides had gone there for a meeting this wasn't the case.

Episode 2) Opened with what is called a travel scene, when moving about be it from one part of a city to another or to the back of beyond you do a travel scene.

Now the travel scene is an idea I really love & is a peach when it comes to story building so I'll explain how they work. If in say a jungle & your just moving from one part to another, you just roll to see if you've a confrontation along the way, but if your traveling far, say Newyork to Cairo then you roll to find what kind of transport you taking, think the aeroplane scene from the Temple of Doom & you'll get the idea of what can happen.

While episode two had a bit of action that took place in the alleyway thanks to the travel scene the main part the advance the story scene ended the same as in episode one, no defining moment & no person of interest, now maybe its just me, for as a gaming pal of mine once told me "It's not that you roll low Mr Frank, its just that you can never roll what you want" LOL

Time to get the gray cells going again, now in an advance the story scene you'll either be looking for a person or an object, so I decided to hedge my bets & have the person of interest having been taken by the bad guys who were after a book he had, so the story works no matter which result I got on the roll.

Episode 3) Again we were looking for a person of interest, by now I was playing this as a pure RPG.

The PEF's turned out to be of no interest which given that Karl is very good at what is called Talk the Talk was no surprise, Talk the Talk is how you inter-act with NCP's.

This time however  there was a defining moment, a defining moment is basically a PEF inside a building & as luck would have the first NCP I rolled up was a political type, which happens to be what Miss Benavides is, the rest of the NCP's were to be the others in robes in the final scene, a fact that I didn't cover when got to it.

Not only did we get a defining moment this time we also manage to have the person of interest show up, now when you find a person of interest you do what is called a questioning test, with the result of the test determining how many clues you get, a very good result will get you two clues, a good result will get you one, while a very bad result will become an ambush, which means you have a confrontation.

At the end of an advance the story it is also possible that instead of gaining a clue you'll have lost one, "What" I hear you say "How can you lose a clue ?" well a clue could be anything not just information.

Again we'll turn to Dr Jones to help us out or maybe be it should be Dr's Jones, you remember that little notebook that Sr sent Jr that was then taken from him by the Nazis ? well that would have been losing a clue.

Episodes 4 & 5) By now you've all got a good idea of the basics of how things work, but there are still somethings I want to cover, E4, was more of a filler episode & plus I wanted to add another member to the team, so I rolled for an NCP which is how you do it & got a Hollywood type, what the hell good would he be for an investigation ? that was my first reaction, but while Director's cut will give you the parts of the story you still have to mould it, that's what makes it great.

Giving what was to come, braking into a secure lockup how could I fit the NCP to the job ? then I had an idea, make him an escape artist & given who Karl was I couldn't really go for a safe cracker as I could of if said Karl was a P. I. like I said the game gives you the parts it up to you to put them together.

E5 was another advance the story & this time the NCP's gave me something I could use, I already knew form the open seen that the big bad was a Business Magnet & as the first NCP was a business magnet it was time to interduce Harris the villain of the story, when the two NCP's turned out to be a cop & a P.I. the pieces started to fall nicely into place, it would just depend on how the lockup played out.

To get into the lockup I'd Paul our escape artist take a mental challenge to open the locked door, & the defining moment  turned out to be bad guys working for the big bad, now normally you'd play this out before searching for an object or looking for the person of interest, but I want to do it differently & add a bit of tension (one of the joys of solo gaming) so Karl & Paul went into a little office & I rolled a d3 + 3 to see how many turns Paul would have to try open the safe before the bad guy reached the office.

Again Paul had a mental challenge but I made it harder, as it turned out he'd 4 turns, one was used to get to the safe & as it turned out he open it in his first try.

I decided to have it make a loud noise when it opened & have the bad guys take a test to see if they heard it, which they didn't, so a turn to find the book in the safe & it was time for Karl & Paul to get out of dodge, another test for the bad guys this time to notice them on the way out, which they did & the fun started.

As away of bring things to ahead I'd Esther kidnapped.

Episode 6 The final scene, by now I was playing things more off the cuff then by the book, but wanted the grand finally without playing out the getting to the target building were in doing so any NCP's would be bad guys, but like I said above in most cases its possible to just avoid them.

Had things gone differently in E5 & the lads been captured the story would have been different, but as they hadn't Esther's kidnapping set the tone, I had Karl take a test to see if he'd spot been tailed back to his apartment, which he did & while it had no bearing on things, Kirkwood' test to sot the tail outside watching did.

There wasn't a lot different test wise to the other scenes above & given what this story was about I didn't think the my final revenge scene fitted into things, what's a my final revenge scene you ask ?

Well poor Diana Rigg getting riddled with bullets just after becoming Mrs Bond &, you get the idea.

Final thoughts & going forward, over all I was really happy with how this worked & feel I learned a lot from it & got good ideas.

1) While I enjoyed it I don't think doing radio shows is for me, so it will be back to movie's :)

2) I feel that for me any story should be done in a max of 5-6 parts, that's not to say I mind reading someone else's that's longer, its just when doing my own I find my interest starts to drop after that, plus I don't want to be bogged down in something for to long.

3) Releasing the episodes over a short period means its easier for the reader to follow.

4) Adding things like time limits or spot checks are great for solo gaming & gaming over all, as they add a certain amount of unknow & tension.

5) When things start going in a certain way run with it, I'll explain what I mean, when I'd played out the opening scene, I'd a vision of this tail ending somewhere in Peru, but that wasn't to happen & I don't believe it took from the story.

Using Director's cut with other systems, for a long time I've had trouble trying to find a style of solo gaming that I'm happy with, Pulp Alley, 45 Adventures & others all had things I like but also things I don't like.

A blessing with solo gaming is that you don't have to stick to any given ruleset, Director's cut adds something I think is missing in a lot of games & that's a chance to fail. When I played out the Perilous Island campaign I was always going to get to the end even if I lost every game, if I was to play it out integrating Directors cut I might not even make it to the island.

Tables, tables, tables, Director's cut like all THW games is full of tables & is what is at the heart of what makes their games works, now to make them work in a different game.

I'll use 45 Adventure stats & make a stat line for Karl, & then try out a few things.

Karl  Brains 5 Willpower 4 Brawn 4  Guts 7 Heater 4 Shiv 5 Dodge 4 Speed 4, abilities can enhance these stats but I'm not getting into that.

Finding an object, in Director's cut you roll 2d6 with the lower score been the difficulted factor, then you'd roll 3d6 against the Rep of the star, any score equal or lower then their Rep would be a pass, next you roll 3d6 against the difficulted factor score, with any equal or lower been a pass, a 6 will always fail in both above cases, then go to the tables to find what the result is.

Here's how I do it in 45 Adventure, to find the difficulted I do as above, I've rolled a 4&5 so it 4.

Next I'd roll 3d10 for Karl using his Brains stat of 5, this means that any dice score of 5+ will be a pass, I rolled a 7,1 & 10, giving Karl two passes, now I roll another 3d10 using the difficulty score of 4, this means any 6+ will be a pass, I rolled a 2,2 &4 passing none, so Karl won the test by 2 so found the object & solved 2 clues, if on the other hand the above rolls had been the other way round, Karl would not have found the object & triggered a trap.

I could do the same thing to try solve a plot point in Pulp Alley.

As this post is already long I'll do one more test before I finish up, this time a reaction test to been shot at, for this I'll use Karl's Guts stat which is 7, now your think 7 is high so he'll most likely pass, yep but in 45 Adventure as you take damage your stats go down, plus if I was playing Director's cut as Karl is a star I could just choose to pass 2, 1 or 0.

I'll roll 2d10 & score a 1&6 which means he only pass 1 as it turned out, meaning if he can he'll return fire & if he can't he'll duck back.

Now its all well & fine me sitting here & doing a couple of tests but will it work over all ? well as they say the prove of the pudding is in the eating, so stay tuned :)

That's it for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed :)       

The Jungle Blade Mystery Act 6

                              Nickel & Dime Productions, proudly presents Radio Days

               Starring Donny Wayne as Karl Timperman & Mary Coyne as Easther Lebelle

          If you like tails of daring deeds & high trills go somewhere else, if not then stay tuned. 

The guy doing the tailing was good & in the rush hour traffic Karl nearly didn't spot him, it was a little after 5pm as Karl turn into the underground  carpark of the apartment block were he lived. On entering the apartment the first thing he did was lift the phone, but there was no dial tone the wire had been cut.

Paul "So we're been watched & the phone line is out, what are we going to do now ?"

Karl "There's nothing we can do until we're contacted, so why don't you make some coffee while I look over this book to see if I can make head or tail of what's going on" 

Karl's Spanish wasn't great but from what he could make out of the book it seemed the kind of thing that you hear about those weird cults getting up to, as it was about blood sacrifices & life eternal, the only solace Karl could take from it was that it stated the sacrifice had to be of true blood, & as far as he knew Esther hadn't a drop of Latin blood in her body.

At 7.15pm there was a knock on the apartment door & Karl & Paul race to it, ignoring the piece of paper on the floor Karl pulled opened the door & stepped out into the hallway, but it was empty he ran to the lift at the end & noticed it was going down.

As he turned to go back to the apartment, he seen Paul coming towards him with the piece of paper in his hand.

Paul "It says we're to head west on the interstate out of the city & turn off at junction 4, it's about an hour's drive & we've got 45 minutes to get there"

Karl "Well they certainly thought of everything, no time to get some help, come on we better get moving"

With the rush-hour traffic finished it didn't take long to get out of the city & once on the interstate Karl put the pedal to the floor. With the time just coming up to 8pm & the moon rising full & bright in the night sky they came to junction 4 & turned off, about 100 yards from the junction there was a flash of lights & a car pulled out in front of them & drove on ahead.

Paul" Guess we're to follow uh"

After a while the car turned off on to a side road before turning again through a pair of rusting gates, Karl followed it in & through the tree lined dirt track got his first glance of what looked like a ruined church, the car in front came to a stop in a clearing in front of the old ruin & Karl stopped just behind it.

Then a man got out of the car & walked back to Karl's, in the moon light Karl caught a glimpse of metal in his hand.

Karl & Paul exited the car & it was then that Karl realised that it was one of the men that he'd seen earlier talking to Harris out at the lockup.

When he'd finished frisking them & had taking their weapons & the book, he tied their hands behind their backs before indicating with his gun they were to go into the church ruins, what they seen on entering was a very Mcbeth looking scene, with six people dressed in long robes, but the most amazing thing was that lying on a stone slab that must have once been an alter was Sharina Benavides.

Of Esther there was no sign, after the pair had been tied to a stone column one of the robed figurers made it way over to them, pulling back his hood revelled it was Harris.

Taking up the book Harris " How kind of you to bring this over with you Mr Timperman"

Karl" Where's Esther Harris ? & if you think you're going to get away with this your mad"

Harris not a bit fazed by Karl's remark " You think not ? & don't worry you'll get to see Esther when we're finished here, just before O'Brian here shoots you all & informs the police how he'd been hired by Miss Benavides as a bodyguard but had arrived too late to save her"

Pulling up his hood he turned & walked back to the alter & opening the book started to read out loud.

No sooner had Harris started the reading, then Paul went to work at freeing his hands & in next to not time had not only his hands freed but also Karl's, then whispering Paul " I'm going to loosen the rope holding us to the column just enough as it should give way under any pressure"

A moment later Karl felt the tension on the rope slacken but it stayed in place, now all they needed was something to distract O'Brian who still had his pistol aimed at them. 

Then just as Harris was about to bring the blade down on his hapless victim who had remained lifeless on the stone alter all this time, the moment presented itself in the sound of a gunshot rang out somewhere close by.

Quick as lightning Karl was free of the ropes & leaping at O'Brian, as the two men clattered to the floor the gun went spinning from O'Brian's hand.

While Karl was dealing with O'Brian, Paul was rushing for Harris & reached him before he could bring the blade down into Benavides heart, all of this played out to the sound of gunfire coming from outside of the ruined church.

As Karl & Paul grappled with Harris & O'Brian the rest of the robed figures bolted out the doorway, but they soon returned, but now they were at gunpoint, then one last gunshot rang out only this time inside the ruin before a voice called out "Okay gentle that's enough fisticuffs for now" 

As armed man move towards them Karl was amazed to see that the man who had called a halt to things was none other than his good friend sergeant Gavin Kirkwood.

Karl now free of O'Brian who was been cuffed by one of the men, walked over to Kirkwood & shaking his hand, Karl " While I welcome your timely arrival Gavin, how the hell did you end up here ?"

Gavin "Well known you like I do Karl I knew you wouldn't heed my warning to stay clear of O'Brian, so after I end my shift, I rang the detectives branch who I knew were still keeping an eye on him to get the lasted-on O'Brian's doings. I then tried to ring your place only to fine your phone was out, with my suspicion aroused I drove over to your apartment."

"However, when I got there, I notice Dugi Freeman an unscrupulous P.I & a friend of O'Brian's sitting in his car outside seemly watching the place, so I keep driving until I came to a phonebooth, from where I rang the detectives again & told them what was going on,  we then set up cars at each end of your street & when you set off, we followed but we couldn't take the turn off as we noticed the lights flash you for fear of been spotted what delayed us in getting here & we very nearly missed were you'd turned off, only one of the driver sotted the tyre marks in the mud at the gates"

Karl" Well it's better late than never, but tell me have you guys found Esther anywhere around here ? as I'd guess it was O'Brian snatched her earlier while we were out at Lambert Bradshaw's lock-up, who by the way is also missing."

Gavin "Fear not we found them both out in a van outside, with Bradshaw a bit messed up but nothing to serious"

Then as if right on cue Esther came rushing in through the doorway & seen Karl ran over to him & flinging her arms around his neck said "Oh Karl, you're my hero" 

As this was a very long episode, I won't do a designer note, but fear not I will post a review where I'll go over all the main points of the story & how certain things were played out.

Well, that's it for this post, as always my thanks for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed 🙂