The Druid, a first edition tale of yore

Beginning with a tale of yore, my first dungeons and dragons character Schmuckley Shillelagh, and eventually continuing with observations on the evolution of the druid through its many incarnations, this tiresome, long-winded series of articles is a tribute to the class of characters known as the Druid.

My fascination with the druid began in an unlikely way. Watching a television show from the 70s, M.A.S.H. at one point, the shows funniest character when asked his religion on a military form responds that he is a druid. He was my favorite character, played by Alan Alda, who has gone on to become one of my least favorite actors, but as a child I idolized his flippant form of cutting humor, barbed with truth, so I went to the encyclopedia, and found that druids were an ancient religion who worshipped trees, namely the oak.

Do not worry if your job is small
And your rewards are few.
Just remember that the mighty oak
Was once a nut, like you.
(anon.)

This poem was taped to the wall in my childhood bedroom, left over from a birthday card perhaps, and between the druids, and this poem, I became a tree hugger. It was only natural that my frst d&d character should be a druid.

At the beginning of seventh grade, after a year of trying to learn dungeon mastering with my friends, junior high brought me in contact with a new friend who had learned to play with his older, wiser brother. He had a tackle box of lead figures and stacks of books to prove it, including notebooks full of house rules. He also wanted to be the dungeon master, and I was only too happy to oblige as we formed a new larger group of friends throughout our first year of middle school. Roge was a great friend, and a great dm, a little stiff at times, but very smart and earnest. Eventually the group would divide its time between him and I as the dungeon master, until I eventually became the full time dm. I looked him up on the internet one time and he was pastor of a small church in a rural town around here.

Roge was lucky enough to dm the Dragonlance campaign for us, but that was a year or two later, and my character was the duelist Alec Le Font. His ability to parry the death blow was legendary and he also was a disguise expert – before there were skills! Another famous Roge campaign was our Star Frontiers game, where I played Yossarian the Yazarian, a goggle wearing flying monkey man mechanic or something. One additional coolness factor of this game was that we played through the 2001 and 2010 adventure modules when they first came out, like right after we saw the movie 2010, which also corresponded to around the time 2001 was released on beta-max or laser disk or some other incredible new technology. Anyway it was big, and fun in a weird way. Fodder for later tales of yore, all, but for now we must discuss the druid.

Schmuckley Shillelagh was a druid who lasted for a year or so of regular play, and which saw him raised to seventh level. He wielded a scimitar, because they were awesome, and he wore a tray that held potted plants, like a beer seller at a ball game. schmuckley’s specialty was plants, and his token move was to hurl a potted plant at an enemy and cast the spell entangle. by this means he brought verdure and growth to the dankest of dungeons. I used to imagine all the different species I would power-plant through the use of entangle.

Schmuckley disdained the use of metal armor, and even metal weapons in fact, except for the scimitar whose curved blade is sickle-like. He carried a sling for the occasional ranged attack, and kept a staff, or walking stick at hand. The scimitar sheathed until attacked. His cudgel was useful for his namesake spell Shillelagh.

The druid was neutral, and attempted to maintain the balance between law and chaos, good and evil. Schmuckley would not kill an unthinking animal if it could be helped. Nor would he set fires to living plants, to y comrades chagrin whose usual answer to all problems was to set bigger and bigger blazes. I was literally protecting the forests of this fantasy realm. Schmuckley came to hate the use of fire due to these barbarians he travelled with.

Other spells of note include Goodberry, once the Unearthed Arcana came out and Heat Metal. The aforementioned Shillelagh was great in conjunction with Faerie Fire which Schmuckley was using long before drow made it popular.

As he grew in level, Call lghtning became a favorite, and Tree was better the Feign Death. Produce Flame, Warp Wood, and Obscurement were a lot of fun to use.

This was the druid I grew up playing, and he formed the foundation of a lot of ideas, including a life-long love of trees, and for the look and smell of mistletoe. Protecting the innocent and the neutral, by means of heating metal, warping wood, and calling down the lightning, calling woodland beings, and handing out healing berries (that keep!) to allies in need. Schmuckley had no animal companion, but would befriend the natural creatures through every area he passed.

He would speak with owls whenever possible and would sniff the ground to learn of its passers-by. Schmuckley loved fresh soil and believed it to be a healing agent. He would astound villagers with his knowledge by proving it with a demonstration. He would find a child with a recent bee sting and make a mud pack. It would draw the stinger out as the mud dried, proving the healing qualities of good fresh soil.

He never turned into a bear that I recall because he had other offensive tools like Flame Blade, but he was known to turn into a bluebird or a fox a time or two before he was retired (it was my turn to DM the Temple of Elemental Evil) to live out the life of a hermit in the bole of a great oak tree in the center of a grand old forest.

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Reaper Mini Kickstarter – Too good to pass up

SO I signed up to help crowd-fund the Reaper Miniature company as they transition away from metal to new unpainted plastic miniatures with their new “BONES” line-up. They asked for $30,000 for the initial 30 miniatures, and when I signed up, they had just broken the one million dollar mark with five days left. Incredible, but what is really amazing is what they offer to those who sign up for the $100 “vampire level” Reward. It started out with around 60 miniatures from their Bones line, but as they keep breaking new records of pledges, 100k, 200k, etc. they keep adding new miniatures to the reward which is currently about 180 miniatures, all for the $100 vampire pledge. If you love miniatures you have got to check this out. The KickStarter ends this coming saturday.

Heres the website: Reaper KickStarter

Two things to keep in mind. First and foremost, this is going to be quite a painting project! And also, these have not been made yet, that is what this project is funding, and so the expected ship date for many of these miniatures is spring of 2013, almost 9 months away. One last thing, if they break $1.2 mil they are adding a second set of five local yokels, oh yeah! Without further ado, here is the pirate booty:

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Old School Remembrances of the First Edition AD&D Fiend Folio

Well here I go, lets see how much fortitude I have, there being over 100 monsters in this book. I get a kick reading others tales of their great games and characters of times past, and writing about it too, apparently.

One thing I have been reading on the webz lately is a kind of consensus that the Fiend Folio is somehow lesser quality than many of the core ADnD products. I was frankly shocked to realize this, since I recollected using it often in the early 80s. Leafing through the book, I was re-inforced in my own personal opinion of its high quality, as I could recall encounters using most of the creatures were involved.

To add some objectivity to the experiment, I leafed through the MM2 next, and I had a sense of de-ja-vue 25 yrs, as I sat pondering those freakish monsters in my youth trying and failing to feature many encounters with them, in comparison. The modrons especially. Not all of them, I definitely had at least one cat in my games. But the Fiend Folio was second, after the Monster Manual in usefulness to me. I also happen to love the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh series of modules, so perhaps I am anglo-philific or something.

Another idea that struck me is that I simply had the Fiend folio before the Monster Manual . I know I had the core 3 first, and that the FF I had was used, but the MM2 was store-bought. I started playing in 1982, during recess at 10 yrs of age, and the first adventure I dm’ed, using the Expert box set was Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Thus began a dming career that lasted until our group broke up in 1989. 2nd edition was just coming out when we split, and our campaign was not diluted by it, but we embraced the Unearthed Arcana era (except for comeliness) and I used basic dnd game elements with impunity. It all went downhill from there…

For the 7 years I dmed 1st edition adnd, we played through one main campaign, a couple secondary campaigns, and literally hundreds of campaigns that would last from less than a session in length to the span of a few months. For each of the campaigns I would compile tables of random encounters which I would keep in a notebook. These were of all types and varieties and helped with my somewhat improvisational nature as a dm – required for a group of PCs who would constantly stray from the path, usually on purpose. Many of these encounter tables featured monsters from the Fiend Folio, such as:

Aarokocra than and now

AARAKOCRA

Has there ever been a better avian race? I think every mountain pass and rocky tor the PCs ever passed were inhabited by some nest/tribe/civilization of aarakocra. Often times the savage battle that broke out when the aarakocra dive bombed the party from surprise would end in dialogue if the party were able to get them to listen to reason. After the party convinced the avians of their good intentions, they would get embroiled with the aarakocra against some evil avian race, which he aarakocra warred against for aerial territory in the mountain passes.

Their connection to eagles was another favorite element to use, including rocs. I always used them as a highly noble race, but also savagely predatory and territorial. They were animal-like in those areas, but had a strict code of honor. Once in a campaign they were used as enslaved warriors and the characters were forced to fight and kill them until they were finally able to save the few who were left, lol. Big favorite and definitely not very rare in my campaigns.

IO have always wanted to update the Aarakocra to 4e, and even at one point sent in an article idea to WotC describing a delve that involved a war between barbaric tribes of Aarakocra and Kenku over the rights to a certain ravine. The Aarakocra were above, and the kenku tribe lived on the ground, forever at war. Needless to say, no response, but I still think that it would be awesome, maybe I will give it a full write-up some time. I just love the aarakocra (and the kenku!)

Updated to add: The aarakocra made an appearance in the Dark Sun Creature Catalog, where they were turned into vulture-men,and lost a little bit of their noble luster along the way, but became pretty cool ferocious dive bombing raptors from the sky.


ACHAIERAI

Ok, i Have to admit this is a pretty hokey looking monster. A bi four legged ostrich type thing or something. They were definitely very rare in my campaigns and I can only remember one time using these monsters. Mechanically they are unique, as their central body and legs have separate hps and acs. The PCs are given the option of attacking either, and if they lose a leg they will attempt to limp away on three.

This set up is really perfect for a comedic encounter. Imagine for a moment getting attacked by a flock of four legged fifteen foot tall flightless flamingos. When they flee they release a toxin that causes insanity for 2 hours for the PCs who fail their save vs poison. As the first one crawls away at 2″mv with only 1 leg left, the other 2-8 continue to attack and some of the party descend into insanity. I seem to remember not using the feeblemind rules but rolling a 1d6 to determine effect, at least one of which was attack allies. Usually my game had too much comedy already, so I didnt go for this approach very often, but at just the right time, this encounter can make a pretty big splash. Especially if you have some appropriate miniatures (blob of pink play-doh on top of 4 toothpicks should do it.) so the players get the idea of attacking the legs. This encounter works perfectly on the edge of a lake, or in a grotto, water should be near, and maybe some wooden bridges or a monastery. Think humungous ornamental guard-birds, that are evil, very evil.

ADHERER

This is one of those wandering monster in the underdark type of thing. I cant think of may times I used these, but I think they were usually as a trained pet or slave, and they would be sent in to “collect the weapons”of the party before the main threat, drow mostly, charged into the now weaponless front lines. the cheese factor of these is pretty high, and there are better monsters able to denude the party of their arms. Their similarities to mummies can often surprise the party, but their similar vulnerability to flame and magic missiles offer hope to the party, and a chance for the wizard in the party to help out the warriors. However the boiling water bit, as far as I know, never was played up. Maybe if I had glue expert amongst my party of players, we might have had some fun with boiling water, but alas.

ALEAX

OK these bad boys are simple and sweet. In a half page, Fiend Folio, tells a dm all he needs to know about how to put an overly self-righteous PC in his place. It is not to be used lightly, or often (unless you want to!) but he Aleax is the perfect one on one duelist for any PC. It cannot be perceived or damaged by any but the intended foe, and it is an exact duplicate of the character you plan on unleashing him against. Even though it says religion, I used him as a manifestation of alignment, and would send him in when some one breached their alignment code under certain conditions. This is slightly different than their description which casts them as aspects of specific deities, but that image of the shining alignment color (er colour…) from which they emerge is just too cool a concept.

The only time I can remember using an aleax was against a low level character, 2nd or 3rd, and it was in an arena environment, so it lost some of its “divine retribution” element, but was still cool. I wonder how many other “mirror-image” type of monsters there are in ADnD?

The two unique features of the aleax which make it an in-exact copy of the PC are its regen and its vulnerability to criticals. The regen especially meant that it was almost always a losing battle for the PC, but at low level a win is possible with some lucky rolling, and the loss is not so terrible with regards to PC wealth. I was never evil enough to unleash one of these on a high level pc, which would be a battle of epic, tragic proportions should it ever occur. I would love to see a head-to head battle between an aleax and an 18th level core ADnD PC.

ALGOID

Hmm. Well, yah, Im drawing a blank here. I can’t say that Ive ever used these, or even really contemplated their use. I went through a phase during our summer-long “underdark campaign” the year Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide came out, 1986. In that campaign I had all sorts of fungal, and especially mushroom underground gardens and forests, but never saw fit to use Mr Algoid here, nor in all the swamps the PCs constantly found themselves in. They fought shambling mounds, myconids, and all sorts of plant people, even a few I made up, but never this guy. I guess his mix of defenses and resistances and vulnerabilities always seemed a little too slap-dash to me. Movin on…

AL MI RAJ

Very rare my left foot! These basically replaced the common rabbit of my game world, and any time a PC would mention hunting for rabbit or what-not while out in the wilds, there was a good chance the party would stumble upon a warren of 2-20 of these who would “attack for no good reason” and much slaughter would occur which would end with uniocorn-rabbit stew. Unfortunately, no PC every took one to become its boon companion, which is too bad, and might have been part of the reason they kept encountering them.

The Al mi raj is just a darn fun little monster, and having each pc attacked by 1d6 of the things is great fun. And I haven’t even begun to make the Monty Python references…

APPARITION

These undead are hard core. They are insubstantial (meaning they cannot harm or be harmed on the prime material) except for the 1 surprise round in which they attack (1-6 on a d6). They attack the character ability scores, and can cause a character to have a heart attack and die on the spot. And they don’t even need to roll to hit. Hard core. They even have 8 hd and an AC of 0 in case a PC manages to get an attack.

It was only as I got older that I discovered a life-long love of the undead. In my youth, I used plenty of undead when I dmed, bu I never experimented with different types than the standard. I can think of all sorts of great ways to use the Apparition now, but for whatever reason, I do not believe I’ve ever used him in the old days. This monster would make a perfect big bad in an adventure through a haunted mansion or something. Part of the quest could be a method to damage him in the ethereal plane. Or even a haunted place festering with apparitions! Shoot, I wonder if these have been updated.

ASSASSIN BUG

Funnily enough, this creature spawned two new creatures in my games back in the 80s, neither of which are as written. The first time the party encountered them, they were much as written, they cam upon a bunch of them in a clearing at mating time or something. i completely changed the egg-laying bit, and just had the females swoop in to deliver a rot grub after a successful attack by the males. The rules for egg-laying are pretty nifty, and span weeks ending with alien-like assassin flies chewing there way out, that was not the type of game we were playing at the time. However, dive-bombing females ready to disgorge a rot-grub into paralyzed flesh was in like flynn!

The idea of assassin bugs was too cool to leave it at that. The picture alone inspired a second type of assassin bug, this one miniaturized and not much larger than a regular fly. It carried a more potent poison (sometimes a needle was tied with magical thread to the bug) that would paralyze the lungs and heart of whoever it attacked. The true 007 style assassin bug.

ASTRAL SEARCHER

No I didnt use this one, in fact I dont think I noticed him at all until now, maybe because there was no picture, but the more I think about it, the more I think hat full page spread two pages back is actually an Astral Searcher. Until now, I thought it was an aleax, but im still not 100 percent sure.

I could see a case made for these lost souls, perhaps while traveling in an extra-planar adventure. Being beset upon by a horde of these fairly weak, yet dangerous monsters would seem apt. I normally shied away from anything psionic after some disastrous attempts to incorporate the 1e psionic rules early on. While these guys are not technically psionic, they have that mentat feel about them. That said, again given the proper circumstances, say while crossing the river styx, or finding a strange island in the astral sea, these monsters would fit. The body-stealing and personality-destroying just creeps me ou a bit. For me, there were always better “astral” creatures than these kill-joys. And the random personality upon taking over a PCs body is just a little too much.

We have broken through the letter A and are now blazing along. Next up is

BABBLER

This simple monster is actually kinda confusing. First of all the name of this beast does it no favors. It is named for its rudimentary language, which sounds like babbling, no special attack or game-able reason for it. next, the picture looks well, uh pretty much like a t-rex. its large like a dinosaur, but only 8 feet tall, so maybe it is more like a velociraptor or what’s this, it spells it out, its like a gorgosaurus which a Google image search confirms. The third confusing thing about the babbler is its description. It sounds like a basic killing machine but the description leads one to believe that babblers lead lizard-man raid. Strange. However, when one considers that lizard men are typically low intelligence, and babblers are average (with high cunning) it begins to make more sense. The confusing nature of the Babbler keeps it from being used to its fullest extent. If you are flipping through the pages for a good monster to use, the babbler will always be overshadowed by the bonesnapper a few pages further in, but its a shame, because the babbler is a pretty spiffy monster.

The babblers were introduced to me in the wandering monster table of U3 The Final Enemy. This “Saltmarsh” series of modules was one of my all-time favorites and I ran U1, U2, and U3 on multiple occasions. The babblers in this module are enemies of the lizard men, who fear them, perhaps because it reminds them of their not so distant past of loving man flesh? Well thought out, but since no party I ever played with had lizard me in the party to detect the babbler, I was able to use their quite excellent surprise sneak attack ability. They are able to quickly and stealthily slither on their bellies up behind their prey and attack “as a 4th level thief” doing double damage AND gaining + to hit. Not too shabby.

I cant remember using them for their intended purpose – leading manflesh-hunting parties of lizard men, which would have been a pretty awesome encounter, I can see it now. A marsh in foggy low visibility weather. The lizard-men brandishing spears and clubs form a loud line, while a pair of babbler slithers to the flanks of the party. The wizard would be toast. Good solid monster. Even its name is not so bad after all, since it gives it some mystery instead of calling it a Slithering back-biter or something equally mundane.

Incidentally the gorgosaurus is a generically average dinosaur in the MM1, though it has a cool picture and includes the chance to roll 7d4.

BAT, GIANT

Wow, this is where the giant bat is tucked away? It seems like MM2 has giant bats, ah yes, the true giant bat the Mobat. The bat presented here is actually little more than a bat of unusually large size. I think giant might be a little bit inflated for a bat with up to 4 hp and a wingspan no greater than 5 feet. Personally I wish these almost useless bats would switch names and be called the mobats, and give the true goblin ride-able giant bats of the MM2 their proper due.

This dwarf giant bat has a couple redeeming factors. For one, it has a 10% chance to give rabies, and also that one in ten are of the slightly tougher 1 hd variety. Pretty blah, but if you ever need to have a bunch of big bats mucking up the place, these are the ones to use. Small giant bats.

A demon out of Filipino myth

BERBALANG

These monsters, these legends of print, date back even before the Fiend Folio, appearing in he british RPG mag White Dwarf, first, and have appeared in every version of the game up to 4E’s MM1. With a huge entry, the berbalangs life cycle is described, including its hidden trance states and its astral projection. This is a weird monster that would be great appearing in one of the planar traveling campaigns. Now that I have the web, I have learned that they are a creature of Filipino myth, and are actually pretty cool.

The Berbalang also benefits from having some of the coolest artwork in the book, both he hovering berbalang in a trance, and the incredibly gory picture of a berbalang devouring the entrails of what appears to be a fallen adventurer, while in silhouette, another berbalang flies off with a captive in its claws. In short these monsters are some bad mo-fos, and the fact that they can be this bad-a$$ and still only 1+1 hit dice means that ay group is fair game.

Be afraid, PCs, be very afraid of the berbalang, he will kill you in his dreams while he devours you in yours…

That’s it for today folks, but I will be back soon with another installment.

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Everyone else is doing it and now me too

Chessex Pound o Dice

I had to break down and get a pound o’ Chessex dice. At least two other people in the group got a bag over he holiday season and my jealousy knew no bounds. Plus, I needed to replenish the barrel o’ dice I keep at the table for those unfortunates without dice of their own. This pound just about doubled my collection. It is a pretty nice set, mostly of multi-color solids. tons of D20s including a series of grey and yellow high rollers.

I also love the pair of huge blue six-siders, one translucent, the other solid. They will be our new initiative dice.

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Roll Them Bones

I'm a star!

Its all about the dice, its all about rolling the dice. It is about success and failure and that moment when the die is ricocheting off a book and heading towards the edge of the table and you don’t know if your character is alive or dead, until BAM, you roll them bones and find out. Dungeons and Dragons is a game best played with equal parts imagination, decision making, and random chance. The more dice rolled, the more random chance can influence the game, and provide the epic stories with something neither the players, nor dungeon masters can: the unexpected.

It is no mere coincidence that players of the game hold their dice in reverence. Some players pray to their dice before important rolls, while others will toss a bad dice into the inferno, or worse, at their dungeon master’s head. Why have them if not to use? If I can keep my players happily rolling dice, then they haven’t the time or incentive to launch the pointed solids my way.

Many people talk about playing dice-less games (shudder) and about minimizing the affect of random chance on the game. To this I say: pshaw! We are not writing a book, nor are we acting out a play. We are playing a GAME. And a game needs mechanics that can allow unexpected results. This is not always true, for example there is no random chance in chess. (And indeed some of the longer 3.5 battles have felt more like a chess game than a bloody head chopping melee.) But if you look to wargames, there is not a single one I know of that does NOT have some type of randomization. I am here to tell you that the more you roll them bones, the better your game will be. Fun, funny, surprising, Epic failures and jaw-dropping victories is what you get when you relinquish control of the story to the great randomizer in the sky.

Now then, this is all fine and good, but let’s look at the particulars. Everybody rolls dice to hit, and usually for damage. (I have heard of people who houserule their game in such ways as doing average damage, on a successful hit, or even auto-hit! To forgo dice rolling. To this I say, you are doing it wrong, sirrah!) But opinions vary and there is no one true way. My only argument is that it is never the dice that slows down play, it is the human factor. Even the time adding up modfifiers is not specifically the fault of the dice so much as the system. Success versus failure can and should come down to the roll of the dice whenever possible.

Roll for anything and everything is my belief. Crossing a slippery surface, hiding from the king’s guard, telling a joke (with an appropriate bonus for role playing) should all include die rolls. I encourage my playersto roll dice as often as possible, sometimes (but not always) for the most mundane reasons! The first person who has never tripped over their own feet while walking sown a completely unobstructed hallway can tell me that I am wrong in this. Rolling a d20 for anything and everything has one additional benefit, a cherished one:

Critical Success and Failure
In a game of random chance, there is a moment for epic glory, and there is a moment or something else… epic fail. D&D is built upon the sacrosanct d20 and all that its roll can represent. From glory to shame, from landing on a dragons head, to spilling wine down the bodice of the queen, and all levels of success and failure in between, the d20 is the undisputed ruler of the ice in dungeons and dragons, and the more chances there are to use it, the better. I have no qualms with having my charging monsters take a nose dive at the fee of the players when I roll 1′s in battle, and I like to increase the drama and tension out of battle too, with the critical success and fail rules. A 1 always fails, usually spectacularly, and almost always in such a way that it requires MORE work to undo the damage. A natural 20 is a spectacular success, often earning especial glory for the creature who pulls it off, and often making any further tasks easier.

Anything should be possible. Even the craziest ideas an be summed up with: give it a try, if you roll a natural 20, then we’ll see, but if you dont’t, then look out!

Higher is Better
Rolling 1′s and 20′s throughout the game session doesn’t necessarily determine what does and doesn’t happen during a game session, but it can provide a measure for the difficulty. When using skills, not only does a clear cut success/fail take place when targetting a specific defense, but the roll can also indicate a general level of success. Take stealth for example. If a rogue rolls a stealth check, and get a 15, then he is at a certain level of stealthiness where he can be seen by those with a higher perception, and not by those with a lower. In the same way, rolling a certain number on a skill check announces how well the character achieves in the activity.

In this way any die roll can be used to determine any level of success. From a flip of a coin, to percentile dice, the roll quickly shows not only a pass/fail, but also quality of skill use.

Everything Else
I make my players roll for everything, well everything I can get away with, like falling damage. Sure, why not! The p;ayers bought, covet, and love their dice so much, why not let them roll. Or another example is if a character has dominated a monster I have them roll the to hit and damage for that monster. Roll them bones, say I. The more clattering of dice is happening at the table, the more chance of chaos, an I am an agent of chaos.

However, No one likes to see their beloved character slip on a banana peel every twentieth step, and it is easy to draw these guidelines out to make characters roll for very single little step they take, but that is not the intent – only when it matters is a key concept. Roll the dice early and often.

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Old School Gaming Retrospective

One of my earliest deviations...

Recently I found myself down in the garage opening the musty old chest I call my “game box.” This old thing contains pretty much all the surviving game material from my pre and post pubescent years. Besides the Dungeons and Dragons material, which is all stacked and shelved nicely nearby, this box is a chaos of papers, books, maps, tokens, and stuff from other games that we played back in the day. “The Day” means from 1982, when I started playing D&D during recess in 6th grade, until my junior year of high school, where certain other things got in the way of playing. During these 5 or 6 years of intense gaming, we played D&D almost constantly, completing at least 3 full campaigns, including two that I ran, and another DM who ran the complete Dragonlance saga (with our own PCs rather than the famous characters from the book.)

Yet in the midst of all the dungeons and dragons, there were always other games happening. Some were one night stands, others were played when the full group couldn’t meet, and yet others were just short or long escapades and side treks into other role playing games. Sifting through the old trunk full of loose papers and books, it brought back many memories of these other games, which I thought I would share, since I am feeling in a little bit of a reminiscent mood. In the early to mid 80’s, there were a plethora of role playing options, and my group and I tried out many of the best, and worst, games of the era, but the fun and memories we shared together makes all of these games worthy gems.

Whether or not they are ever played again, at least we can look back and enjoy them for what they were at the time. A fun alternative to D&D, and a chance to widen our experience and learn of different genres. I hope you enjoy this brief retrospective on some of the great RPGs from the golden era of role playing.

Even as I was still trying to figure out D&D in the summer of 1983 we were trying out another game by the name of Champions. This was a superhero game, and a favorite of Monte, a big brother a few years older than us. We idolized him for his early RPG roots, and had tons of fun playing in what we called a sandbox game. We never spent too much time with the rules, and indeed we usually played outside in the grass, and used the terrain around us as our campaign world. Sticks, twigs, grass, and piles of dirt became out stomping grounds during these “pick up” games that were basically little more than us little 10-12 yr old kids showing up and gathering around Monte while he led us through adventures I have no memory of whatsoever. Besides all the outdoor fun, about the only other thing I can recall from this time period are the character sheets, and how much time we spent drawing our heroes on the stick models provided.

Champions was a game of great fun, and for our tender minds, this game was all about imagination and had very little rules clutter. In many ways, this was one step removed from playing cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers. Much like at recess where certain obstacles could only be overcome by a trip to the monkey bars, in these young games, our childlike playfulness was barely kept in check by Monte, who allowed us to explore like children. It was a great way to learn role playing games, by playing, and only allowing the rules to show up in small unimportant doses.

Monte also had the Traveler books, but he warned us that they were more advanced, and that he would not deign to teach us to play, since we were kids and morons. That didn’t stop us from trying though, and we spent many long hours with his little black books, trying to roll up characters. As far as I can remember, we never once had a character survive the generation process, and eventually came to believe that Monte was right, and we were to moronic for that austere game. Thus was Traveler just a flash in the pan for us, and we never gave it a second chance. (good riddance.)

Ah Julie

During the summers growing up I would often go to Pensacola Florida, and 1983 was no exception. My dad was away in Europe for the first part of the summer vacation, and so I spent vast amounts of time playing role playing games with my new young step-mom. (I fantasized about her being closer to my 12-13 years than my dad’s 30+ but that is a tale for a different time, and probably a different blog altogether.)

Pensacola had one of the greatest hobby stores. I wish I could remember the name, but it was right down town, near the music store where my dad worked, and along with the nearby arcade, going to the hobby store was one of the highlights of summer. Much of my arsenal of RPG goods was bought at that store, including the game Toon and Toon Strikes Back. It was also where I picked up my mega-mat, after seeing it one year and saving up for it the next.

Toon was the role playing game Julie and I spent the summer playing, sitting around on the living room floor. It was loads of fun, and the thing I remember most about it was the “Chutzpah!” rule. Apparently you needed a lot of chutzpah to play that game, and we hammed it up as much as possible. I don’t even remember any of the characters. I was the gm, and there were some other kids who would occasionally play with us, but the majority of the time it was me and Julie laughing it up.

That shop in Pensacola was also where I picked up the next game on my list, James Bond 007. What originally drew me to this game was the awesome equipment. They had chapters of the most beautiful British and European sports cars, each of which was decked out in the best spy equipment. I remember seeing Aston Martins that could travel underwater and Ferrari’s with rocket boosters. Spy pens, computer watches, robotic crocodiles, it was all in there, and it even had adventures made from the best movies. I owned Goldfinger and Doctor No, both excellent in quality and content. The maps were incredible, and the adventure was made to be played through either as James Bond, or with a party of other heroic super spies. I especially remember the rules for seduction in that game, with great NPC characters such as Pussy Galore.

Three other games that were also popular about this time, but that no one in our circle of gaming friends was able to procure, were the TSR games Gangbusters, Boot Hill, and Top Secret. These 3 semi-realistic historical role playing games were mentioned in the AD&D DM guide, and were always on our lookout list, but it never happened. Too bad. One game that did happen was TSR’s post apocalyptic heart breaker Gamma World. What a game! I loved this game, and would pull it out any chance I could. It was about this time that I discovered the wonder of the post apocalypse from movies like Mad Max and The Day After, as well as everyday life, where our school held “nuclear war” alarms, and a big siren would go off every couple of weeks in our neighborhood. The Day After was filmed in my hometown.

The 80’s was a very strange time. As the Cold War reached climax, the nation was in stark terror of a nuclear war, and every time an airplane flew over, it sounded like it might be an ICBM missile streaking towards evil Russia. Gamma World, and the other post apocalyptic games we played, such as Aftermath, helped us through this time, and gave us the courage to face these dark days, and even allowed us to fantasize about overcoming them. With robot dogs and crossbows.

Speaking of Mad Max, I would be remiss if I weren’t to bring up Car Wars. For a long time, this simple little game held our attention as much as D&D, and I can remember one summer I spent building a complete RPG rule set onto the small book of rules for automobile combat. This game inspired us in our post apocalyptic fervor and was probably the second most played game after D&D. We even played mini campaigns with our characters and cars. I can not under-state how influential this game was to me, and to our fledgling group of gamers. Doing a bootlegger’s reverse was considered the epitome of awesome. Incidentally the movie Deathrace 2000 was as influential to our Car Wars gaming, as Road Warrior was to our Gamma World.

gurps

During the course of our journey through the role playing greats of the 80’s, we also spent a fair amount of time doing other geeky endeavors. One of these endeavors was close combat with duct tape and foam covered wooden weapons. (my Bohemian Ear Spoon with a duct taped roll of paper towels on the end was a masterpiece to behold – or wield.) Through the local Renaissance Festival we were introduced to the Society for Creative Anachronism and this gritty combat led us to favor more detail in our combats than D&D was used to giving us, and led with flirtations into other sorts of games, like GURPS man to man for one. Aftermath also had a hit location chart and short turns, and we were drawn to these sorts of games at the time.

To this day I still remember the circular arguments about how to specify hit locations for non humanoid enemies, ugh. However, it is good to see that the later iterations of D&D agreed with us that a one minute combat round was too non-specific, and like we did during our realism kick, rounds are now shortened down to a few seconds apiece. You can thank me later.

Yossarian the Yazarian is the one on the right - its goggle time baby!

I have yet to mention one of our greatest diversions. Star Frontiers (also from TSR) was a sci fi game that appealed to all of us. It was mostly like D&D which was a boon, and its cast of races was of such magnificent imagination that there was a race for each of us to enjoy. I personally played Yossarian the Yazarian during our Star Frontiers Epoch, and we were lucky enough to have our other DM Roge run us through the Star Frontiers inspired adventures 2001 and 2010 a Space Odyssey. That was one weird movie tie-in related set of products. (Must check ebay for these.) As far as I can remember it was also kind of lame. I probably felt that way because I couldn’t have my flying monkey man go up against HAL 9000.

So far I have mentioned only the role playing games I played growing up, but throughout the tenure of the Midwest Gamers, we played wargames nearly as much as all other games combined (except D&D which was, is and always shall be king.) For tactics, Squad Leader couldn’t be beat, and for grand strategy, a favorite of ours was NATO. Other games included a completely epic WARGAME based on the novel Dune, and a few small “pocket” wargames, such as one about the Alamo, or another one about barbarian tribes. I owned the solo wargame Ambush! And when the movie Platoon came out, they dutifully released and we dutifully bought a somewhat bland wargame based on that movie.

Another game we played towards the end of our decade of hard core gaming was Twilight 2000. I played an east german hottie double agent named Nadia in the game and two things I remember from the game are all the beautiful descriptions and depictions of weaponry. (I still love that Swiss G11.) One other iota of trivia – Twilight 2000 introduced us to the successor to the jeep, called the HMMVW or “Humvey” for short, and it was an ubiquitous vehicle in the game, we all drove them. Years later I would see the actual vehicle, though it was called the “Hummer” for short. If you call it a “humvey” people will look at you funny. So I give credit to Twilight 2000 to correctly calling the future of the jeep, but they lose a point for getting the slang name wrong.

Moral of the story: you never forget your first hummer.

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In the Grim Dark Future, We All Play Warhammer 40K

Space Rangers to the rescue!

This weekend my son ( whom readers may know as DM JB JR on Wednesdays) bought the Warhammer 40,000 Starter Kit “Assault on Black Reach.” Warhammer – both Fantasy and Sci-Fi 40K – is a tactical wargame that uses miniatures of the same scale as Dungeons and Dragons, i.e. one figure takes up 1” and represents a single unit. There is also a role playing game that goes by Warhammer FRPG. Games Workshop, out of Great Britain, has been producing Warhammer for over 20 years, and it has achieved a fair amount of fame over the years. The lore is rich, gritty, and expansive. It is the pinnacle of painted miniature wargaming.

My only experience with Warhammer has been massively multiplayer computer game of the fantasy version. This is my first experience with the science fiction themed Warhammer 40,000 franchise, but I do have lots of wargame experience stretching back all the way to my Squad Leader filled youth. This will also be my first experience with miniatures wargaming, something I have been interested in trying out. Wanting more war in my gaming has led me to search for a fix, and until now I was eyeing the WW2 scene, specifically Flames of War vs. Axis and Allies Miniatures. I think those will now take a back seat due to my son’s fortuitous purchase.

When my son first came to me with the idea of spending $90 of his birthday money on a new game, I was hesitant. That is a lot of cash to be dropping on something untested, but after a few conversations on the subject, and a few weeks of waiting for it to be in stock and thinking about it, he was still sure, and so I relented and let him pick up the game. There is a good feeling that comes along with supporting our local game store, Basement Games in Zona Rosa, and the store is heavily into the Warhammer scene, so it was a perfect fit. (Now I just have to convince my wife to let us spend two evenings there per week inste4ad of one!)

About the Box
The Starter Kit comes with everything you need to start playing, including two introductory armies – the Space Marines and the Orks, which must be assembled and painted. The box also comes with the complete rule book, miniaturized down into soft-cover digest size, some dice, a few burst and range templates, and a thin but colorful booklet that gives stats for the included armies, as well as painting guides and other unit information.

The last book also doubles as a “Codex” which is a guide available for each army, and is a must-have item for anyone running an army. Luckily, my local game store loaned me a copy of the Orks Codex, but we don’t have one yet for the Space Marines. The included “codex-lite” seems to have everything we need for the included units, so it will work until we expand beyond our starter armies.

The box contains no maps, map tiles, or terrain of any sort. When I asked about this, they informed me that you could use anything as terrain, and indeed some battles featured entire rooms where the terrain was whatever happened to be lying around. It uses a system of measuring and line of sight that allows for this. There are also plenty of terrain features that can be bought or made. Personally I have had a hankering to play in a Staligrad style camapaign of a series of block by block urban street fighting engagements, so I plan on seeking out or making some awesome urban terrain for a planetary conflict I am calling Planet Stalingrad.. I wonder how the mechanics of the game deal with “destructible” terrain.

We's da Totin' Goffs, meat want!

The Miniatures
The figures come in plastic on sprues like most modern models, and have plastic 1” (or larger) bases. These sets are known for their “ease of construction” and in most cases only one or two gluing were necessary. One thing I am learning about Warhammer is the love of customizability of the armies, and for the orks at least, there were a multitude of heads, arms, and bodies to glue together in whatever combination one preferred. This results in a completely unique army, where even in a group of many of the same unit, each one will look unique. I was surprised about this, and it has become one of my favorite things about the game so far. I relish uniqueness in all things.

The Empire army did not seem to have quite the same level of customizability as the Orks, but we can make up for that with unique painting schemes, like my son has done. He chose the Imperial Space Marines as his army of choice, leaving me with the Orks. I am ok with that choice, and though I usually prefer armies of quality over quantity, I am looking forward to playing with a different strategy than usual. I love these Orks, and have decided my army will be a sub-set of the Goffs who call themselves the Totin’ Goffs. The theme appears to be mainly black/white chessboard pattern. Maybe I will try and come up with a black/white skull symbol.

The Game
So I have never played the game, and really haven’t even broken open the manual other than to peruse the pages, so I have no idea how the game plays. Right now we are in the stage of getting our armies glued and painted, tough we plan to start playing as soon as we can, and paint isn’t required for that, so who knows, we may have a game on soon.

Battling on the Crystal Seas of Planet Stalingrad

Well we had our first game, or at least the first two rounds of The Battle for Planet Stalingrad Phase 1 the Beach head: Capturing Dzherizinsky Nuclear reactor on the Crystal Sea.

Captain Nob-Slaughter charges and takes out an entire squad of Nobs with his power sword. He leads his company by example.

A squad of ork boyz attacks the heavily armed walker and a lucky shot puts it out of commission quickly. The orks rip into it like its dinner time.

Well that was out first game, and it took about an hour and a half, mostly of looking up each rule as it came up. Most of the rules are straight-forward and make a lot of sense. It hard to get used to hit-wound-save and the rules for vehicles get a little confusing, but I think in genereal, it is a game that will be second nature once the rules are internalized. I love the “true line of sight rules:” Put your eye at miniature level, ad see if you can see the enemy target.

There area few areas Im not sure about. like how to keep track of wounds on multiple units, and other fiddly bits, but luckily we will have a crash course in learning the game this Saturday. The son and I will be heading to Basement Games, our local game store (and host of our weekly D&D Encounters) where Saturday is Warhammer Day. Hopefully we will get to play a few battles, even if we are too newb (or our armies are too small) for the tournament.

There you have it. We have opened up a Pandoras Box of fun I can tell already.

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A Geek in Geekland – Planet Comicon 2011

This Saturday saw some friends and fam gathered at the yearly Planet Comicon event for Kansas City. It was a great gathering of geekdom, and a big mixed up over-populated auditorium full of fandom, shopping, and gazing in wonder at all the amazing sights. One of my favorite things about conventions are the costumes, and I vow to have one for the next convention, but for now we can look at some of the great costumed characters out and about.

I was going to chat with Supergirl but her boyriend gave me the evil eye.

Who you gonna call? Thats right, it looks like our cleric Ria (short for Maria Guadalajara) is willing to consort with just about anyone to turn the undead, even these fellas. They are looking pretty good.

Here we have a trio of villains being held at bay by a young heroine ensign with her laser sword. That mook on the far left really looks pathetic.

There were droids, and the small child watched them with concern. The laser sword she wields was a big hit and many were the duels fought this day.

The iron men were there that day, escorted by their aid de camp.]

Order was maintained at all times by a stiff imperial presence.

But even among the imperial officer corps, love can bloom.

But there were people of many species, shapes and sizes, like this little jawa.

When I asked to take their picture, this young padawn was with her friend jawa, but she stepped away and then got all bashful when I said I wanted her picture too. Shes in the big leagues now with those jedi robes.

This strange tusken raider turned jedi also claims to once have been an emperor of the galaxy, but Im not so sure about that. Next to him stands my son, dressed as Alexander Anderson.

I always suspected Scarlet and Cobra Commander had a thing – the whole sinister plot to take over the world was merely the by-product of their tempestuous relationship.

I had to ask the father if I could take a picture of his kid with Kickass, it just looked so hilarious The kid was pretty doubtful of the whole situation.

The family that dresses up like star wars…

Does this guy know he’s got a yoda on his back? Yoda, what are you doing back there?

And of course I must show off all the amazing plunder. There was a ton of great stuff to be found. I spent way too much money, but every seller was willing to cut a good deal. No offer we proposed all day was turned down, for the merchandise.

For the artists, and there were a huge amount of artists of all types present, I never bartered. Shown are one of the two auographed Walking Dead prints, which were wildly popular this year, I was happy to see. If I were richer, I would have bought a lot more artist stuff than I did, and at first I was sad, because I wasnt able to buy something from them all, but I found that just talking to them, and commenting on their work was also rewarding. I cant buy your stuff but hey I can tell you how much I like it! Most of the artists seemed happy to talk about how great their work was, and after awhile, I realized we were a just a bunch of nerds hanging out with the stuff we loved. I totally support the many talented artists, and it is good to see that there is a place for them to flourish.

Accidentally left out of my loot photo was the single biggest find of the day, the elusive McQuarrie concept stormtrooper. I have been searching for this for years without luck – until now. I mean, come on, its a stormtrooper – with a shield and lightsaber!

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Building the Huge Red Dragon Ydraiggoch

A while back I was the lucky beneficiary of a friends box of unpainted minis, stowed away in a closet since the very early 90s. Beside some utterly cool PC miniatures, the big prizes in the collection were a pair of Ral Partha dragons. One was the White Dragon, showed off here, and the other was this huge red, from the age of dragons campaign setting. These dragons were known for having unique looks and lots of personality, since they were meant to be player characters. This miniature is dripping with character, from its glaring expression, grasping claws, and upright position, the malevolence of the dragon is palpable.

Council of Wyrms Red

Here we see it as I got it – partially painted but apart, with some built-up glue buttresses that needed to be removed. I actually had no idea it was a red dragon, and it wasn’t until I did some research that I found out which particular campaign the sculpt recalled – being atypical in its horn and facial formations. Seeing it apart, I was worried the dragon might look strange, sort of like a giant dragon-man, and those huge horny claws – just wow! But my concerns were completely unfounded, as we will see once it is together.

I briefly mentioned my gluing techniques in my article on the white dragon, but to sum it up, I use gorilla glue for most gluing, often with a tiny dot of superglue to hold it in place while the gorilla glue hardens. This dragon is an especially difficult challenge for gluing, as it comes in 7 separate pieces. The gluing process took all of a week to complete, because I made sure one section was FULLY dry before starting on a new section. Word of advice – patience leads to success, try to hurry the process along and I can guarantee there will be issues. On my first night gluing I had both arms together and foolishly decided to push my luck and add the wings – it would have saved me two days! Instead it cost me a day when I knocked off the arms trying to position the wings and had to let it ALL dry, then scrape the glue of and start over the next day. Trust me, do a small bit and move on until it is dry.

Because of the nearness of the wings to the arms and neck, it is important to clean each area of excess glue before starting on the next section. Gorilla glue has a tendency to expand in big bubbles as it dries, but I have found a brand new blade in an X-acto knife is perfect for cleaning up this and any other flash. It is important to keep the blade new and sharp and replace often, as dull blades do not cut or clean as well, and can lead to accidents. You don’t want to put any more pressure on these seams than you have to, so be careful while cleaning up the excess glue. This will expose open areas and gaps that need to be filled, I use a tube of the stuff that looks like model cement in the model aisle, contour putty I believe it is called.

Glued, based, filled, and ready to paint

Once the model was completed, I attached it to a huge base I happened to have thanks to the 43 thousand fey crocodiles I have out of the latest miniatures set – blue dragon, hydra, and catapult will be mine if it takes 43 thousand MORE crocodiles to get! Last time I was using a large base, but these fey crocs are easy to cut off their bases and for such a big, heavy miniature, the stability of a huge plastic base is worth the cost of a trashed huge. Then I added some “rubble” from my WW2 diorama supplies – bricks and broken rocks to make it look like the dragon might be standing on a collapsed wall, and painted it all black. I was originally going to go over the rubble with grey, but for now decided to leave it black. Maybe Ydraiggoch lairs in a coal mine, I don’t know!

Has there ever been a pink dragon?

Then it was time to prime, and I chose fuschia. Part of me wanted to call it quits after the prime coat – that is one swank looking pink dragon.

I used a different method of painting this time, I call it the Layer Method. No washes or drybrushing this time, I simply start with the lowest darkest colors first and work my way up to lighter, higher colors until the whole thing is painted. For example, for the dragons golden breast, after the primer, I covered all areas that would be gold with a thin mixture raw umber. Over the umber I painted classic rich gold, a little thicker mix than the umber, and in the corners, and against the edges, I left some umber showing. This is sort of the reverse of doing a wash. Instead of doing a wash after the main coat, I pre-darken the areas with an under-coat. The result is that the main colors are more vibrant in the end. Finally, I took my lighter titanium gold and lightly touched the raised portions and forward edges, highlighting. For a red dragon, I wanted to keep the vibrancy.

I used a dark red for the under-layer of the dragon, and cherry red on top. For his jewelry, I used copper since I was already using a bunch of gold. I added a choker to the dragon to hide the glue line around his neck, and added the blue gems to the jewelry to help set it off. His claws and horns I did in white, and only his tongue I left in the original fuchsia primer.

The Huge Red Dragon Ydraiggoch in all his Glory

This dragon was a great joy to build and paint. The gluing was difficult, and not without its problems, but it can be overcome with patience and gorilla glue. I think I have improved with this dragon and have become somewhat addicted to building and painting dragons.I may need to go online and find another for my next project. I am not sure of the status of Ral Partha, but I have heard some mighty good things about Reaper minis.

Bohemian defends his territory against huge Ydraiggoch

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Miniatures – Building the Bohemian White Dragon

One of my first dragon experiences was in TSR Endless Quest Book #2 the Mountain of Mirrors as a kid. The cover depicts a frost giant and a white dragon. Weaker and not as smart or large as the other dragons, the white makes up for its inadequacies with extreme cunning and savagery. Ive always rooted for the underdog, and I guess that extends to underdragons. (Unterdrakken in german)and so my love of white dragons was sealed. I don’t remember the plot of the book, or even the dragon itself (turns out its name was Fang and it played a fairly minor role) but I added a white dragon soon afterwards to my dungeons and dragons game. The characters killed the dragon of course, in epic fashion.

meow

Many years and many white dragons later, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a new, sealed official AD&D White Dragon by Ral Partha, manufactured sometime in the late 80’s or very early 90’s. A friend gave me a shoebox full of miniatures that had been collecting dust in his closet for years, and this was one of the highlights. Join me while I build and paint Bohemian the large White Dragon.

I should re-iterate that I make no claims to being a professional miniature artist, or even very good. My focus is on doing things Quick and Easy, and using what little skill I have to best advantage. Thus if it looks like I am taking short cuts, I am! If something looks poor or below average, it probably is! The beauty of this project is that even with inferior skills, little time, and patience, but a lot of fun, I was able to create a fine looking dragon.

Out of the Box
The dragon comes in packaging typical of miniatures from that time period: a clear plastic box glued to a cardboard back. A square of gray foam helped protect it and it did its job, 20 years later and it looks as good as new, though the plastic was a little dented and crushed. The dragon came in 4 parts – the body, each wing, and a length of curling tail.

The first step was to rinse it in soap and water. This is one of those tricks I recently learned that never occurred to me back when I was a kid – preparation goes a long way towards making a better final product, and the rinsing helps the glue and paint stick better. After that I spent a bit of time cutting away any flashing or extra metal. I probably could have spent more time doing this and sanding down some seam lines, and other preparatory cleaning. There are a few spots on the dragon that could have used more work, but my laziness and impatience won out, and I did a minimum of cleaning up the metal. Notice the dragons fore-claws for a good example of flashing that should have been removed.

claws

After the prep, it was time to glue. I have sad memories of youthful hours spent in a dizzy haze of model glue as I tried unsuccessfully to glue lead miniatures together, often with thicker and thicker buttresses of model glue and with very little success. Very few of my miniatures that required gluing were ever completed satisfactorily, and usually wound up in the bottom of my mini tackle box, broken apart as they were when I got them. I did not want to make that mistake again, and in the proceeding years I have discovered a substance designed to prevent this unfortunate occurrence. In the civilized world we call it Gorilla Glue. This unearthly adhesive and a bit of super-glue would do what layer after layer of model glue could not.

Gorilla Glue (white) has the advantage of rock-hard adhesion. It however has a few disadvantages such as a 30-60 minute drying time. I overcame this problem by adding a tiny speck of superglue to one area of the surface I planned on gluing, and covering the rest with a thin film of Gorilla Glue. The superglue bonded in a few seconds, and held the dragon parts firm while the Gorilla glue set up. It worked flawlessly, and when the dragon was finally together, the strength of the bond is such that I am not worried about the wings or tail coming loose.

The other possible disadvantage of Gorilla glue is that is expands A LOT as it dries. It can form huge bubbles and if one is not careful in the amount of glue one uses, it can completely distort the angle and precision of the items being glued. Trimming off the excess glue can be done during the drying process and as far as the bubbles go, where they are not on the model (like the base) they can be pressed them down with the flat of a knife or the back of a paintbrush. The bottom line is to use very small amounts for detail areas where the items need to be in a precise position, and monitor the model during the drying process for any adjustments.

The final step to preparing the white dragon is to give it a base. In the old days, the idea of bases other than whatever stub of metal the miniature came attached to was foreign to me. In the days of 3rd edition (and now 4th) the idea of the 1” or larger base has grown to the point where I feel all miniatures should be on a base that is appropriate for the size of miniature. Small and medium miniatures are on 1”square (or round) bases, while large miniatures are on 2” bases, and huge miniatures on 3” bases, etc. When deciding where to get a base, I need look no further than the recent “Essentials” boxed sets, which contain cardboard tokens for use as an alternative to miniatures. Alternative to miniatures? What nonsense is this? I will take a large token from the new Red Box and paste the G-D white dragon miniature to it, how is that for using the new lame gaming fad, tokens? It turns out the box had a perfect large white dragon token to use.

The dragon now stood tall, wings outspread and tail whipped, on its new base, ready to be given the color of life.

The Bohemian White, fiercely savage and cunning in execution

Optimal Prime
Another thing I have learned to do as an adult which I completely disregarded as a youth was the idea of priming. For years I bemoaned certain colors or types of paints going on splotchy, not covering areas evenly, and generally being a pain to get a good coat of paint over an area. Only years later (while modeling plastic tanks) did I make the discovery that putting on a base coat actually alleviates this very real problem! With a good base coat, the miniature becomes easier to see, imperfections and tiny details stand out better for the brush, and the even coating of the primer allows all colors, even the thinnest metallic, to cover beautifully and fully.

There are many opinions about base coats, but because I like to keep it, quick, simple, and easy, I use a base coat that is similar or identical to the final color of the miniature, when I can. In general, the lighter colors are best for priming, and for usual multi-colored miniatures I have developed a light gray base coat I use for most. For this dragon, the choice was obvious: arctic white. The paint was thick and a bit on the chalky side, but even stark white, this dragon was already looking pretty sweet.

Once the dragon was primed I let is set for a few days to insure the paint was completely dry (which should take only a few minutes to a few hours at most) and also because I wanted to look at it for a time while I decided how to go about finishing it up. Oh also, the weekend was over, and it would have to wait until another weekend rolled around before I could spend more than a few minutes admiring it and actually get to work finishing it up.

Painting the Dragon
The painting of the dragon was incredibly quick and easy, and only used about 4 colors, but before I go into this, just a note on paints. In the past, I had numerous tiny glass jars of enamel paints. A trip to the local hobby store was enough to make me realize that I would not be able to invest the many dollars required to get even a small collection started. The tiny bottles each cost over $3, and that would not work, especially since I needed EVERYTHING – brushes, thinner, etc. On the advice of a friend, I moved on to the cheap acrylic section, where I was faced with a wall of colors in larger tubes. These paints were approximately 10 times the amount of paint, for a fraction of the cost. Most of them were under a dollar.

If I had one complaint about the paints, they do not seem to mix as well with each other as my old enamel paints. I don’t know the reason for this, but often times, when mixing, I was left with an unattractive brownish miasma. This led to a second (and third) trip to the hobby store where I picked up more and more variety of color, to reduce the amount of mixing. Luckily there are literally thousands of colors of every tint and hue at the store, so regardless of what color you want, there are at least 5 to choose from.

So far, my methods have been quick and easy. During the gluing process I added simple. Now, with the paint purchase, I am adding one more trait to my list: CHEAP. The whole initial investment for my paint studio was under twenty dollars, as shown in the picture. This included 8-9 paints, 5 brushes, and a pallet. I am not including the Gorilla glue in the cost, and it was actually one of the most costly items. Good glue is not cheap.

I painted a second oat of white over the dragon, then I used three other colors. Periwinkle for the inside wings (I almost went with fuschia, tough call) I thought about making the outside of the wings another color, either periwinkle if I went fuschia on the inside, or light grey to accent the periwinkle, but in the end I left the outer wings white. It is a white dragon after all, and I wanted him to be white on white. The other colors I used were a vibrant blue for its eyes and tongue, and I painted its claws and teeth silver. Thus was the dragon painted, but not yet complete. Another couple of steps remained.

Finishing Up with a Wash and Dry
Let me just say up front here, this is my weakest point. I am not good at it, and after years of trying to get WW2 tank models to have a “weathered” look, I have to say that I am a complete failure. That said, even doing a bad job of weathering looks better than not doing anything, so I wash and drybrush as best I can.

Between the painting and the wash, I let at least a day pass. I know that the paints theoretically dry in minutes, but practice has shown me that when using water, newly applied acrylic is very susceptible to damage. Even a day later, if your brush is wet enough during the wash, some areas can be washed away, especially big protuberances and large flat areas. Here is what I do, I mix black (or occasionally some complimentary dark color) and I dilute it until it is as thin as water. Then I dip the tip of the brush into the paint, dip the tip into a glass of water, and lightly touch the tip of the brush to the area I want shaded. If I have done it right, the paint will flow out of the brush and into the crevices and corners near where I touched, and it will dry giving those areas an outline of black. If the paint is too thick, it will just glob up where you touch the brush to the miniature. If it is too thin, it will dry clear and be a waste of time.

Once the wash is done, I move directly to the drybrush. I can see the finish line, and don’t want to wait another day for drying, so I push on through. For a drybrush, I will take a lighter version of the color I want to focus on (this is hard to do on a white dragon, nothing is lighter than white, so I used white.) I get a little paint on the brush, then wipe most of it off on some paper, and lightly hit the raised and flat portions of the model.

When I was planning this paint job, I was intending on drybrushing silver on the rims and edges of the larger armor plates of the dragon hide. But as I started drybrushing, I realized white would be better. I didn’t want to make this dragon look anything like a silver dragon, and the white drybrush helped bring out the dragon darkened by the wash. I think the end results are acceptable, if not perfect. A better ‘finisher’ could have made this miniature really stand out, but I am happy with the results.

Protective Sealant
You thought we were done, but there is always one last step. In this case, it is the varnish, or protective sealant. This paint will not last long on a handled miniature without some sort of coating. They come in all shapes and sizes, from spray on to brush on, from matte, to high gloss. After experimenting with a spray matte, I was also extremely disappointed with the spray finishes. One quick squirt and a tiny miniature would be dripping with the stuff, and it would harden weird and in some cases even cause the paint to run.Im not so sure abou matte, either, it never felt totally dry, and it had no shine at all. I went back to the store and found a brush-on satin finish which I am delighted with. It gives just enough shine without making the dragon look like he is glistening wet.

There you have it, Bohemian the White Dragon from egg to major malevolence in just a few QUICK, EASY, SIMPLE, and CHEAP steps.

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