Huge lot of Dungeon Crawl Classics on Tanga

Tanga.com is offering up 11 separate Dungeon Crawl Classics modules from Goodman Games for the bargain price of $31.99 + shipping. They're written for modern editions of D&D, but that's never stopped me before. This deal's only good until the end of today, May 21.

A horribly imbalanced game of DBA with 20mm soft plastic figures

I got together with a friend last week to play my first game of De Bellis Antiquitatis, the well-known ancient/medieval wargame commonly abbreviated as DBA. We liked the game, but we fielded very, very imbalanced armies consisting of the entirety of my 20mm-scale Hundred Years War collection, with each player using half of the figures...hardly a strategic army; more like a mishmash. Our game stagnated at some points for sure.

I've played a lot of wargames in my day, but they've mostly been single-figure affairs, where each guy stands on his own base and attacks separately, etc. DBA uses stands of figures representing hundreds of even thousands of combatants, enabling players to fight out some really big battles.


The problem with our game is that I had painted up way too many sword-and-shield infantry (known in the game as "blades"). These guys are elite troops, and most of the English and French army lists from the Hundred Years' War give each side no more than 2 or 3 of these units, because they represent dismounted knights. The bulk of the army is supposed to be composed of basic spearmen, longbowmen and mounted cavalry.

So we had waaay too many blades on each side, which resulted in the game turning into a massive slugfest in the center of the table. Again, this was because we were using only what I had painted up. I'm sure the next time we play, we'll be able to assemble much more balanced (and historical) armies from my collection.

I leave you with these two images, showing the downfall of a battalion of stalwart English longbowmen to a group of thundering knights. The game actually has rules that make longbowmen potent against mounted knights, but we misread them and the bows were slaughtered. That was the beginning of the end of the game for me, although I made my opponent pay dearly for his victory.

Painting with Fire — RIP Frank Frazetta

I watched "Painting with Fire," the documentary about Frank Frazetta's life and career, and resolved to one day visit his museum in Pennsylvania. Sadly that pending visit now won't include a handshake with the artist himself. Frank died today of a stroke, according to various sources.

The website of the Frank Frazetta Museum has some interview footage of Frank from March 2010, which is pretty amazing considering his frail health lately.

So a cleric walks into a club...

Question for all you old-school DMs out there: How would you handle this scenario?

My 1st level cleric's mace breaks, so he drops it, draws a dagger, and attacks a charging orc.

What happens? Does the cleric auto-miss? Does his dagger break? Does he instantly forget all his spells for the day?

See, clerics are prohibited from using anything but blunted weapons—which I find to be a very "gamey" decision foisted onto the cleric class for no other reason than to balance clerics against fighters. The idea that holy warriors can't bring themselves to spill the blood of their enemies—yeah, that's crap. If you've got a job to do, you'll hardly turn up your nose at the most common weapon in the entire game (sword) to get it done. Or something.

But still, within the paradigm of "imagine the hell out of it" old-school gaming, how would you referees deal with a cleric player who insists that his character tries to attack with a sword? Or uses a dagger to cut the bonds on a captured prisoner? Or picks up a cursed sword and puts it in his backpack?

I'm genuinely curious, because Mike/Chgowiz and I came up with a neat little workaround to deal with this scenario in his Dark Ages campaign. It removes the gamey aspect of the restriction that I find distasteful, while not overpowering my cleric character. I'll post the details on that later, but I wanted to hear DMs' responses first.

Miniatures review: 6d6 Fireball's Quorakons

Recently I painted up three Quorakons kindly provided to me by Chris over at 6d6 Fireball, a publisher of old-school-themed miniatures and adventures. Quorakons are a race of four-armed simians that use primitive weapons and enjoy a tribal lifestyle. Adrian Wood (also part of the 6d6 Fireball team) actually put together a free 10-page PDF detailing their entire culture, including its social composition and battle capabilities. The stat block is a bit dense for me, but it's easy to jettison the extra baggage to get down to the old-school essence of these humanoids.. It's definitely worth checking out if these miniatures pique your interest.

The PDF is packed with story ideas, some of which occurred to me while I was assembling and painting these figures. The Quorakons use stone weapons, right? So how would they react if the PCs arrive and are willing to trade their steel and iron hardware for access to the Quorakons' tribal mystics?

The figures themselves were a ton of fun to assemble. They arrived with empty hands and two extra sprues full of primitive weapons (clubs, spears, javelins and stone axes). I started putting weapons in hands, and before I knew it, each of these Quorakons were holding three weapons. Overkill, you say? Well, if you've got four arms, why not use 'em?

The one on the far right in the photo above is also holding a dead rabbit—a little treasure I had kicking around in my bits box, waiting for the right miniature to pin it on.

Anyway. As far as the paint job, I wasn't all that pleased with how the fur turned out. I got impatient while painting them and rushed through my typical fur painting process (slowly building up lighter and lighter colors). So that's why the fur might look a little garish.

The best part about these miniatures are the simian faces. Designer Rob Grimly did a superb job capturing the ape-like characteristics of these fellows.

As far as criticisms, the chieftain arrived with a small chunk of metal missing from his ornate feather headdress. Chalk it up to casting issues, I guess. You can see it missing in the second photo. He also had a rather odd hole or gap in his chest, where all four arms would sort of come together in his torso, which I can also only assume is the result of some casting problems.

Really, though, these guys were a lot of fun to paint up. The PDF is icing on the cake, as it really makes the Quorakon culture come alive. Even if you don't use 75% of the stuff that's included in the free supplement, there's still enough added value from 6d6 Fireball to make these guys several steps up from your average Monster Manual denizen.

Check out the packaging on 6d6 Fireball's minis

I'm going to be reviewing some miniatures that were sent to me by Chris at 6d6 Fireball. They arrived last weekend, and while I've not been able to paint them up yet, I did have a chance to admire the cool packaging. Check out the box for the Quorakon War Party.




And how about that one-sentence descriptor: "Four-armed, stone-weapon using apes with a rich culture." That's brevity that even the most old-school of referees couldn't help but admire.

I really dig little boxes and storage units, for some strange reason. So doubtless this box will get put to some shrewd use long after I've painted up the Quorakons and posted the photos here.

Dogs with Laser Eyes Eat Pat's Minis

Pat's recently been showcasing his miniature painting and construction skill, much to the delight of our readers. As his sometimes GM, it seemed appropriate to remind him that his characters can't always experience success. So, Pat, this is what the cruel universe will surely do to all the armies you so painstakingly create.

(Many thanks to my brother-in-law, Pear Bear, who photoshopped this pic! There's clearly a reason he enjoyed his first foray into rpgs so much, that big nerd. FYI, the dogs are Pear Bear's, and are lovingly named Athena and Megatron.)