the safe hΘle

another year in the books and ever so close to the five year anniversary next year. just thinking of spending four years playing with the same folks (mostly) and running with the same characters that we all made and love, is amazing. i cannot wait for our group's fifth anniversary i will have to plan some kind of remarkable campaign or even an incredible encounter that brings everything together. but for now our fourth year is written and we have come a long way in our short time together. a year later felt like only a short time because we had fun and had a great time together. we created a whole new group for them as we do for new players but yet as time went on, we had an idea for even more characters so another group of PC's were created. and yes i ended up making more PC's and NPC's of my own. i've expressed in the past that i enjoy writing up these yearly reports, because it documents our growth and the changes we have gone through over time. i originally star...

the wild western buildings i have bought from Atomic Laser Cut Designs are really nice and easy to put together but there is one thing that kind of bothered me for some time now. and that is they all pretty much look the same. besides the location of the front entrance and the way the front of the building looks, they all have the same "face." and yeah i figured it's better this way for production and easy for the company to churn out product but it's kind of bland. don't get me wrong i love these and the price is great compared to other 28mm buildings. so ever since i got my Deth Wizards figures completed i was sucked back into the wild west genre again and started watching western movies and began ramping up some loose projects i want to complete, so Rita and i can play some wild west tabletop. and after we played our last few games i looked at my buildings and wanted to remodel them and give them porches like you see in the movies. i thought about how i would r...

since showing Rita the game of Ruthless, i never cleared the game table. and we had some time off together once again so we had some fun with a late night game. and since there was the wild west terrain still out, i told her to set up a little town and we ended playing some Fistful of Lead: Reloaded. simple game of law versus outlaw. i played as some bank robbing criminals who were looking for a way out of town, and Rita played as the long arm of the law. we haven't played Fistful of Lead in such a long time i figured it would have been nice to dust off the rulebook and give it a go. the table set-up Rita made. trying to get out of Dodge! my poor girl with a rifle and i kept rolling 1's which is out of ammo and turning around and sacrificing a turn to reload. this happened to me three times with this particular character. after Rita quietly positioned a lawman up on a rooftop, i did the same equally quieter. but in the end i would lose him to a rifle shot. in the Reloaded rules...

back in January when i was supposed to get some of my MotU miniatures painted for a painting challenge i got a little distracted and came across a game that was simple and yet fun even for solo play. i went through the rulebook and counted all the AI characters for all the scenarios and made a list. i would have used my D&D figures for the priests and the paladins but i did not have any normal civilians as villagers for the game. so i go myself a box of Frostgrave cultists and soldiers and did a little kit bashing. after doing that i figured might as well do the rest so at least all the AI heroes would look somewhat uniformed and in scale with one another. rangers. the rangers are made out of the soldier sprue. priests. the priests are made out of the wizard sprue. the priests are equipped with hand items and wands. paladins. these heroes are straight out of the knights box. wizards. i gave the wizards staves or small hand items. wanted to separate the priests and the wizards apart...

few years back i came across a tabletop game called Ruthless, a wild west skirmish game with literally 2 pages worth of rules, to me that sounds great. a simple game with simple rules with lots of potential fun to be had. over the two years since i found Ruthless i've been distracted with other games, pile of shame to be dealt with, and the Dungeons and Dragons group. on a rare occasion Rita and myself were able to spend a few days off from work together and i took the opportunity to show her Ruthless and in the end we had a fun time. to make it simple we both had four figures equally armed. two had revolvers, one person had a shotgun, and another with a repeating rifle. Rita played the group of characters i made for my ongoing Perilous (western) Tales campaign. i played as a group of outlaws looking to take out her leader and rob the local bank or attempt to. a fellow sneaking along the general store front, while a confrontation is at hand in the alley. my sharpshooter lady trying...

after several weeks of freezing weather, crap work schedules and finally feeling a little bit better, i got what i could get done for the PWYG challenge. i do feel like i should have done more but real life took over. some time i will eventually get my last two MotU factions painted, but don't hold your breathe on it. towards the end of February i found a new game called Deth Wizards, which totally changed my decision on what to paint because i bought two boxes of Frostgrave miniatures. one box of soldiers and one of culstists. i did do a bit of kitbashing between the plastic sets. the female wizard on the left i want to use as a new necromancer for a new horde for Deth Wizards. she is from the Wildspire Miniature line. i clipped the top of her staff and added a scythe blade from a classic warhammer skeleton plastic sprue. the fellow on the right is an old metal figure that i am not sure about the manufacturer. some thieves and rogues from the Frostgrave cultist box set. a few rang...