Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, part II - Painting some minis

Complements of the Season, one and all.

I have something of an announcement. Not about Rift City, that'll come along at some point, I'm sure.

No, more momentous than that. Some paint has been introduced to some minis. I play D&D about once a month. It's ages between my bouts of painting, it's a much rarer event.

Please bear in mind these are 'rescue' paintjobs. They were partly painted, but there was no proper undercoating done, mostly just painting onto the bare grey plastic. I've tried to use as much as feasible of the original paintjobs while still sticking to my idea of trying to paint them up 'Bakshi-style'. Also, the photos aren't great, so apologies for that.

So, here are Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, in costumes at best 'reminiscent' of their 1978 garb.

Something like Bakshi's version of the Fab Four

However, I do have a confession to make. Having mistaken Merry and Pippin throughout the film (for most of it, I thought Merry had dark hair and wore brown, and Pippin had blondish hair and wore green), I finally sorted out which was which and assigned the right colour-scheme to each character.

Then, unfortunately, I then mistook the minis. I thought Merry had a raised hand (holding a stone) and Pippin had his hand (also holding a rock) out in front of him. But coming to check the costumes for the Jackson version, I see Pippin has a scarf, as does the mini that has the raised stone, that I have now painted as Merry.

Oh well. Not much to be done about it now, I feel. There's a little more to do on these fellows but they're getting there.

The next four are also rescue-jobs. They're painted up as the Jackson movie versions, more or less. Again the paintwork I'm painting onto is not great. Getting really up close there's still a few places with no paint, especially under people's chins. But in the end these are never going to be great works of art. What they might be is fun to play with on a table. That's the main thing

The Jackson... Four?

At least Sam still has his pan in this iteration!

Oh, and I definitely have two Boromirs. One of them will be a Leader of Men in a vaguely Game of Thrones-inspired project. More on that in due course...

Rift City Session 37-40 reports - happy third birthday!

Five bold adventurers took up the call for the 37th Rift City Campaign session. This was the third anniversary of the campaign as we started in August 2017.

Marching order was:

Berg (5th Level Dwarf)

Galan (5th Level Elf)

Gibbet (6th Level Thief)

Brigham (5th Level Cleric)

Shazam (2nd Level Elf)

Shazam hasn't been to many sessions recently and is therefore trailing a little in levels.

The party decided to head back to the cave entrance they explored last time. This is a little further on from where they have been going most of the time, they hoped it might mean more loot as the caves would have been raided less often.

They found their way in OK - nothing else had taken residence in the main room behind the cave entrance. Previously they'd encountered Carrion Crawlers there but this time it was empty.

Pushing on they came to a room (I think this one also had Carrion Crawlers in last session - this area contained a little nest of them) where there was a doorway they had not previously tried. I can't remember whether Gibbet found the trap but couldn't disarm it, or didn't find the trap (Gibbet in this session was really successful at not finding traps - made all his rolls, I think, on untrapped doors - but very bad at finding the traps on the doors that had them) - either way, an axe-blade swept out when Shazam tried to go through, and the noble Elf was no more.

I have a houserule called 'Elementary Staunching' that I've used in the last 4 campaigns I've started and discussed several times before on the blog (such as here). It is intended to make combat a little less catastrophically dangerous for PCs by giving them a chance to survive at 0hp until the rest of the party can at least try some battlefield first aid. 

But... the party didn't do it. I'm a little surprised by that. Essentially, the view expressed was 'we're happy for Shazam to die because that way he's replaced by a higher-level version'.

That isn't the way this is supposed to work. Because of the stricture not to allow too much level-mixing, I ruled that new PCs begin at the lowest level in the party. I also have an 'exploration bonus' to XP to represent the exploration of new territory: this is based on the average that PCs need to reach their next level. Low-level characters drag down that average somewhat and make the bonus smaller. The upshot of the interaction between these two rules that it makes sense (from a certain point of view) to allow low-level PCs to die in order to boost the experience of high-level PCs.

That is not supposed to be how it works at all.

Anyway... Shazam died, and the PCs found a new, much higher-level, adventurer, Kraghelm the Dwarf, back at the town. I think this rule is potentially going to break the campaign.

More stuff happened. Oh, boy did it happen. But, actually, it's months ago and I can't remember what.

What I do know is that the party also went adventuring in session 38 (in September), where they visited the Bath-house of Blibdoolpoolp once more, and fought their way down corridors they've never visited before, in the furthest parts of Level 1. They do have a habit of attacking everything though, even things that aren't threatening them. Poor crystal statues...

In October (Session 39), they went down to Level 3 through one of the areas that they've been before. Marl was able to join the PCs for this one which was nice, as Marl hasn't been for ages. A highlight was a room with levers which they played about with until they opened a door. I think they sussed that the other levers opened other doors, but not that they were standing in the control-room of a prison complex. It didn't matter, they killed the prisoners (who were werewolves) anyway.

For the November session (session 40) Berg, Galan, Brigham, Gibbet, Karensa (who joined us for the first time in several months) and Kraghelm ventured down - in that order. They decided they'd dare to venture round the bend in the road and try their luck in a cave round there. That's supposed to be the scarier dungeon entrances, though I'm not sure completely certain what level they were on.

It didn't necessarily go well. Ascertaining from the number of statues in a cavern that there might be a Medusa about, there were in fact three of them. The PCs got surprise luckily but but even so, Kraghelm and Karensa were turned to stone and Gibbet bitten before the fight was over. Gibbet made his poison save so he was OK in the end (a bit hurty from the bite) but with no way to turn Karensa and Kraghelm back to flesh (you can't do that as a wizard until 11th level, apparently) the PCs lashed a rope round Karensa and dragged her back to town so Galan could claim she was legally dead and he was her heir. The statue of Kraghelm was left in the Medusae's cave...

The legal wrangling took as long as the adventuring. Galan also declared that as he now had 20,000gp in portable wealth he was off - as one of the characters that ages ago gave up a family secret, Galan has bee trying to amass some treasure to restore his family's fortunes and marry his lady-love. Her family blocked the marriage alliance when Galan's family was ruined. He's hoping a bunch of cash (and jewellery, gems and a few magic items) might allow the clan to re-establish itself and regain its influence. 

The net result is that there's going to be a lot of new PCs in coming months!

Bakshi's Lord of the Rings

I re-watched it yesterday. Not seen it in 40 years, and I have to say I think it stands up pretty well (Mrs. Orc and Orc Minissimus disagreed and gave up round about Lorien I think).

It has got me thinking. I have a few 'spare' LotR minis that have not yet been painted up. Due to having a couple of different sets (a Mines of Moria set and a box of Heroes of Helm's Deep) and then a few random ebay purchases I have in total (as far as the Fellowship goes anyway) 1 plastic Gandalf, 1 plastic Boromir (for certain - I think I may have another in a different box, maybe 90% convinced of that); 2 Legolases (1 plastic, 1 metal); 2 Aragorns (1 plastic, 1 metal); 3 Gimlis (2 plastic, one with a broken weapon, 1 metal); 2 plastic Merrys; 3 plastic Pippins; 3 Sams (2 plastic, one with his pan broken off, 1 metal); and 4 Frodos (3 plastic, 1 metal).

I definitely have some spares is what I'm saying... so I think I shall paint some of them up in colours matching the Bakshi versions - though to be honest, several of them have been partly-painted anyway. I definitely started painting the metal Legolas and Aragorn figures back in the day (The Two Towers was released in 2002 so it's quite likely I've had some of these figures for upwards of 15 years). Checking on the others, I think I remember at least putting some paint on Gandalf, but the plastics of Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and one of the plastic lots of the four Hobbits have been painted to a greater or lesser extent, and not by me.

The almost-complete paints somewhat resemble these outfits:

Sam, Merry, Frodo, Pippin, from Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring

Painting them up Bakshi-style might be easier with the Hobbits than with some of the characters. The clothing worn by some of the characters is not really so similar (well, Gandalf is pretty much the same) but the Hobbits aren't massively different. Aragorn and Boromir, definitely different. Legolas and Gimli, pretty different. The Hobbits' clothes are similar, without being identical.

Pippin, Sam, Merry and Frodo, I think about to hide from the Black Rider, from Bakshi's Lord of the Rings

Essentially, they wear breeches, shirts and waistcoats, with green cloaks over the top (Bakshi doesn't have them given new cloaks in Lorien, but that doesn't matter, I'm painting up 'Moria' Hobbits anyway). Unlike the others, Sam doesn't wear a shirt-and-waistcoat combo, he wears a sort of tunic or smock. The modern GW Hobbits (I'm old enough to remember the original GW Lord of the Rings range from the '80s - in fact, I have a few of those too, in with all my 'Oldhammer' minis) are obviously designed to be faithful reproductions of the Jackson film versions, so they wear jackets as well as waistcoats, and the waistcoats themselves have a considerably higher neck-line than the Bakshi depictions. So I'll have to use a bit of creative licence with transferring the information.

Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry, at the Prancing Pony, from Bakshi's Lord of the Rings

The notes I made (with occasional corrections to something I misinterpreted in bad light):

All Hobbits wear dark green cloaks

Frodo - red hair, brown tunic waistcoat, white shirt, dark brown trews, black belt, brass (gold?) buckle

Sam - black dark brown hair, red-brown tunic, dark brown trews

Merry - blondish hair, tan mid-green waistcoat, white pale green shirt, mid- darker green trews

Pippin - brown hair, tan waistcoat, yellow shirt, lightish mid-brown trews

This was after getting Merry and Pippin confused, but afterwards I sorted out which was which. By the time I thought about this, it was difficult to tell Merry and Pippin apart, Merry had already gone for his walk in Bree and Pippin had dropped the stone down the well. I should have just waited and got some images from the web.

So that's the next task I've set myself, getting them painted, the Hobbits first. I shall have to paint over the blue breeches one of them has already been given but it will be fine I'm sure. Whether paint will touch any of the rest of the Fellowship in the near future remains to be seen. From one point of view, it is unfortunate that both Legolases have been painted, at least to some extent. I don't intend to repaint the plastic Legolas to match the Bakshi version, and I'm definitely not repainting my metal Legolas that I painted all those years ago. A bit of a touch-up maybe, but not a total repaint. Perhaps I can paint a different Elf for the Bakshi version, I have plenty. Trying to work out how to paint Gimli, however, in fairly different clothes, will be a bit of a challenge. Aragorn too, their costumes are very different. But maybe instead of the greenish palate of the Jackson Aragorn, I will paint one in more russety tones. But for the ones that are at least partly done, I'm going to finish them Jackson-style.

Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli, at the death of Boromir and the breaking of the Fellowship, from Bakshi's Lord of the Rings

So that's it - painting of LotR characters. There should be an update 'soon'... whatever that means...
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Rift City vague update

Where does the time go?

The Rift City campaign is continuing - due to social distancing, it's happening on Discord. We're still getting together once a month to dungeon the heck out of the caverns of the Rift. The PCs (now mostly around 4th-5th level) are currently beating up an area of Level 3. But, somehow, I never get around to doing the write-ups. Part of the problem is that I make fewer notes running the game on Discord and it's harder to reconstruct in the end. But really I'm just bad at this.

Lyracian, who plays in the campaign, has written up some of the sessions on his blog. Some recent sessions, only partly covered by me, can be found here:

Sessions 30-33 report

Session 34 report

What happened in Session 35? Well, the PCs were exploring the same area of Level 3 as in Session 34. One peculiar thing was that they found a room that contained four curious devices that seemed to be a bit like a cross between a chair and a covered bath. Three were empty but one contained a (possibly sleeping, possibly dead) occupant. The PCs prised open the lid, and the occupant woke up. It was a male Elf, who seemed somewhat bemused. There was also a cat in the ... sleep-chamber... which also woke up. Berg tried to kill it but the Elf cast Hold Person on her, and then berated Galen and Karensa in somewhat archaic Elvish about keeping their servant under control. It seemed the Elf had travelled in the sleep-chamber with other companions, but also inside another metal ship, a great distance from another star. What the PCs made of all of this is anyone's guess, but the Elf announced his intention to see the world of two suns (news to the PCs, they only know about one) and find some Elven leaders to find out what had been happening since he arrived. The Elf PCs at least should be starting to suspect that somehow he's been asleep for a very long time indeed...

This is the 36th session coming up. We've actually missed two while I was working away at the end of last year, so technically it might be the 34th session actually run, but for accounting purposes it should be Session 36 I think. We started in August 2017 after all, and thus have been running for 3 years now. I'm quite pleased that we have managed to keep it going - but I'm looking forward to it being face-to-face again!

Rift City - Sessions 30 and 31

Well, it finally happened. After two and a half years, we had a gaming session that I didn't write up before the next session. Working away is certainly taking a toll on both gaming, and blogging about gaming.

We have had two more sessions of the Rift City campaign, and should be having another on 8th March. On Jan 112th, because I had the 13th off work, we met in our pub venue of most of 2019 in the evening. However, as I can't have the Monday after the second Sunday of every month off work, we're holding them earlier in the day at the moment. Also, because we haven't found a public venue that will take us on Sunday afternoon, we held the last session - and will be holding the next - at the house of Galen, Berg and Karina's players.

Only, Karina's player isn't Karina's player any more, because Karina succumbed to some poison in session 30. So, for Session 31, a new Cleric called Willow joined the party.

The party is currently exploring an area of Level 2 away from where they've been before, running into angry apes, shriekers, bandits and Orcs, and gaining a bit of loot of course. Then they found a way down to part of Level 3. There the PCs encountered a high-level Cleric, but with judicious use of a blinding spell they rendered him relatively powerless while they chopped him up. They've done a bit of exploring but it's pretty inconclusive as yet - perhaps just as well, I'd not expected them to go that way and haven't built much of Level 3. Where they'll go next session I'm not really sure so I'm just hoping I can stay one step ahead.