Halflings and Dinosaurs

D&D, RPG

Back when I got the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide I was pretty excited by the introduction of Ghostwise halflings in a side box on page 110.

Particularly the following sentence that gave them mounts.

“Clan warriors known as nightgliders bond with and ride giant owls as mounts.”

Who wouldn’t want to be a halfling with a giant owl to ride on?

Ok I maybe a little bit biased. After all I love playing halflings. They are my favourite species in D&D. A carry over from being a Tolkien/LoTR fan.

It gets better being a Ghostwise halfling because their wisdom ability score gets a +1 bonus on top of the usual halfling attributes. Plus they get Silent Speech. Which allows them to speak telepathically to any creature within 30 feet of them.

Then I came across this Dragon Talk video that blew my mind.

Halflings with dinosaur mounts!

That’s frickin cool. It doesn’t get cooler than that.

And all I have to do is run a campaign in Eberron.

I love the opening quote from Eberron: Rising from the Last War for halflings on page 27.

“ZOMBIES? MINOTAURS? THEY DON’T SCARE ME A BIT.

But a howling halfling warrior charging in on a clawfoot raptor? Most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

-Sir Danton ir’Lain, Brelish knight”

These halflings sound badass. Which I always thought they were. This just validates my opinion.

I love the fact that the halflings are nomadic and have close ties with their dinosaurs.

The halfling monk I created many many posts ago would be amazing once changed to fit in to Eberron. Give him a dinosaur mount, and as suggested in the Eberron book theme the monastic tradition around dinosaurs. Maybe name the fighting style after the dinosaur mount that the monk has.

I also like the idea of taking the Silent Speech of the Ghostwise halflings and making that specific to dinosaurs. Something the Eberron halflings developed as their bond between them and the dinosaurs strengthened over the generations.

Oh this has got me so excited about Eberron now and halflings.

Unable to Install

apps, rant

Today I’ve gone through the process of transferring stuff from my old iOS device to a new one. One of the joys of free upgrades. Luckily Apple have made this a painless experience that just requires the two devices to be close to each other.

However this process highlights my main point or one of the major ones I have for board games that rely heavily or can only be played using an app.

Two app versions of board games I paid for are no longer on the App Store. So therefore no longer installable on the new iOS device.

Plus two official companion apps for a couple of board games have disappeared from the App Store.

The Crossroads app I’m not surprised by due to the recent change of ownership of the IP from Plaid Hat to FFG. Will FFG take ownership of the app and bring it back to the App Store? Who knows.

The Sub Terra app is just typical ITB. It took them much longer than promised to produce the app on iOS, and for it to disappear is just what this company are like.

I was very surprised by the disappearance of the two board game apps. These were paid for. I’m not sure why these have gone. It makes me a bit angry that these have gone. I paid for them.

But it highlights just how fragile things can be with apps.

Imagine if these had been required to play the actual game (in the case of the two companion apps they enhanced the experience). The games would be unplayable.

The likes of Ignacy Trzewiczek have dismissed this argument. They see it as a none issue. I find this approach as insulting in a way. It ignores the harsh realities of life and particularly software development.

But I’m not going to go over an old argument again. Except point made.

A First Look at the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit

Cyberpunk Red, first look, RPG

Over in the video game world they are eagerly awaiting the release of the next instalment in the Cyberpunk franchise (which just happens to have a guest appearance by Keanu Reeves in it).

In the meantime we in the ttrpg world get an early look into the world portrayed in the new Cyberpunk game with an updated release of the Cyberpunk RPG, called Cyberpunk Red. Before the main rule books drop for this update we got treated to a starter kit or as the publisher R. Talsorian Games call it Jumpstart Kit.

The Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit came out in the later half of last year. Since before Christmas last year this starter kit has been sold out in the UK. Every now and then I’d trying finding a copy. Hoping that it had been reprinted and sent out to stores. But nada. So a month ago I reached out to R. Talsorian Games over Twitter about it being out of stock in the UK. After a couple of interactions it came to light that there were copies winging their way over the Atlantic to Asmodee to distribute. Patiently I waited (pretty unusual for me I know) looking for Asmodee in their weekly new releases pdf to announce a restock of the starter kit. Sadly it did not appear.

I reached out again to the publisher and this time they pointed me in the direction of a retailer that had copies! You guessed it, I made use of this information and ordered a copy. Which brings us to this post.

So for your money what do you get in the Jumpstart kit?

For starters there is the cut down rule book. Remember this is a “taster” of the full experience. It’s meant to give you an idea what the system is like. Plus the full rules haven’t been published yet.

The other book inside is the world book. This gives you background info on the setting for Cyberpunk Red and adventures to run.

Two double sided maps.

Six dice – 2d10 and 4d6.

Six pre-generated characters that can be customised.

Cardboard standees.

Finally a rules reference sheet.

I really like the pre-generated characters that come with the Jumpstart Set. There are stats on one side (some of which are chosen at start of play by the player to help personalise the character). On the reverse side there is background info and art for the character. These are nice and the personalisation of them helps the player feel more connected to the character. That’s pretty cool.

Why other RPG systems don’t provide a rules reference sheet I don’t know. But this is a really nice and welcome addition to the contents. So you can guess I really really like this.

Another thing I like about this Jumpstart Kit is the battle maps and standees. Another addition that you would think other starter kits would have.

The one thing I dislike about the Jumpstart Kit is the included dice!

I just don’t like their design. I get that they wanted to produce something that would appear thematic. But these are literally unreadable for some of the numbers especially on the d10. These are a big let down and something I’ll never use.

As starter sets go I like this one a lot. It’d be nearly perfect if it weren’t for those dice.

The nice thing about this Jumpstart set is that if once I get it to the table and I don’t get on with the system for whatever reason I can re-use some of the content (maps and standees) with say the Genesys RPG and the Android setting.

Like the Android setting if you are looking for inspiration there are plenty of tv shows and movies that can be watched. I did a list a while back here for Android.

Some inspiration for Eberron Adventures

D&D, Eberron, RPG

I caved and got my grubby mitts on a copy of the D&D source book that came out last November Eberron: Rising from the Last War.

Eberron is “a war-torn world filled with magic-fueled technology, airships and lightning trains, where noir-inspired mystery meets swashbuckling adventure.” (quote from here) A kind of fantasy meets modern world type setting, almost steampunk like in nature, magicpunk!

When I found out about the lightning trains I instantly thought about two movies as inspiration for an adventure or two.

The first was obviously the movie based on the graphic novel of the same name, Snowpiercer (also now a tv series as well). This could almost be a campaign setting! Definitely this is multiple sessions to tell the story. Sadly the other movie that sprang to mind was the Steven Seagal sequel Under Siege 2.

Another couple of movies that came to mind after that were The Commuter and Murder on the Orient Express.

Another movie to watch is Captain America: The First Avenger in particular the train heist where Cap and the Howling Commandos attempt to capture Zola and Bucky dies.

I also thought of Firefly episode 2: The Train Job. Where the crew of Serenity are hired to pull off a heist on a train.

I’ve not even started to think about inspiration for the pulp adventure or noir intrigue. Although one or two of the above sources of inspiration could cross over into those descriptions as well.

The airships is something else to look into for inspiration and I have one or two movies that come to mind for them as inspiration but I’ll save that for another post.

Another Skeleton Dragon Miniature Update

D&D, miniatures, miniatures painting, RPG

For those that have been following the last couple of posts and my attempt to paint the Wizkids Rather Big Skeleton Dragon will know I wanted to do something outside of my comfort zone for the base.

I had the idea that the base would look cool with some skulls on it. You know like the remains of previous victims.

My memory recalled that there was indeed a product out there in the big wide world that was just skulls. I’d seen it on the shelf of my FLGS.

After a brief google search I found what I was looking for, and I had indeed remembered correctly. Within minutes the box of skulls was ordered and on its way.

With the skulls in my grubby mitts this morning (the joys of next day delivery) I knew I wasn’t going to do the base in a style similar to the box cover.

I chose a range of different sized skulls and therefore species that I glued to the base in some sort of “pleasing way”. Ok there was no real plan for their placement.

Once dry I applied a white primer, which then also had a skeleton bone colour base coat applied over top of that when that had dried.

The knowledge that I will eventually be applying a flock to hide the mess on the base is comforting.

Now I need to do some more waiting before I can do the wash.

Skeleton Dragon Update

D&D, miniatures, miniatures painting, RPG

I said I’d post with the next stages in painting the dragon skeleton. So here I am keeping my word.

After the wash had dried I dry brushed the bone with the skeleton bone paint. I then used a matt white to dry brush around the bone joints to bring them out more, plus along the spine. I also applied the white to the teeth.

I finished the painting off by applying a red tone wash to the teeth, and certain horns and claws.

The base needs flocking now. But I’d like to do something more than my usual primitive attempt.

Skeleton Dragon Rises From The Grave

D&D, miniatures, miniatures painting, Uncategorized

The latest addition to the skeleton horde arrived this morning.

Unusually for me within seconds of it arriving it was out of the box and having paint slapped on it!


Ok this isn’t the most complicated paint scheme for a model. The majority of it is Army Painter skeleton bone colour, and the skin on the wings I did as Army Painter leather brown that I made lighter by mixing in some white.

That lighter tone took it almost to the bone colour.
I now have to wait until the wash has dried to do the highlights.I’ll post again with the finished that.

Boom, Slash, Splash!

Funkoverse


The new Funkoverse sets are hitting stores (mainly US ones it would appear) and some crackers they are.

The movies Jaws and Back to the Future provide the characters for the two 2 pack sets, and the tv series A Game of Thrones provides the characters for the 4 pack set.

I was particularly after the Jaws set because it was going to provide the final part of the first team I wanted to play. But we know the AGoT one will join the collection at some point soon (particularly after you read below).
Next month also sees the release of the Wonder Woman 2 pack set. Which although not a big Wonder Woman fan I am looking forward to.

I think I’ve said previously the attraction to me with Funkoverse is not that it has a competitive scene like similar style games. But that it’s all about having fun, throwing your favourite characters together and playing.
And that’s the inspiration for the team I’m calling Boom,Slash, Splash!

I just thought it would be cool to play Jaws, along side the raptor and t-rex.
There had been some indecision about what item to use and which character would hold it. In an ideal world you’d use an item that synergises well with the abilities of one of the team.

But after reading the pdf rules of the A Game of Thrones set I may skip picking an item to use and use the new thing they introduced in that set companions.

Companions are similar to items, and you can’t have both on a team. You either have a companion or you have an item. In the actual set the companions are represented by tokens and not an actual figure. But this being funko and a popular IP the Ghost companion can be replaced with a figure (using the ghost model from the keychain funko do).

So just for fun this team will use the ghost companion instead of an item.  Which would technically add a woof/howl to the name of the team. But I’m not going to because ghost isn’t a main character.
I have no idea how this team will play. But it sure as hell will look cool on the table.

Some D&D Arrivals

D&D, magic, miniatures, MtG, RPG

Wow six days since I’ve posted on here. That’s nearly a record. But understandable considering the world we currently live in.

Over the last few weeks I have got some D&D related reading material in.

The first being Volo’s Guide to Monsters. It nearly was Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, but the chapter in Volo’s on monster lore for some of the more popular monsters like beholders, goblins, orcs, etc is what swung it for me. With the lair maps for the relevant monster these are instant adventures/encounters you can call upon at any time.

I’ve been a fan of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing blog for a while now. Being able to look up a monster and get some tactics for it that is not just attack until dead or run away, making them more intelligent, challenging and believable is a great thing to have.

And although this book is a collection of the blog postings that have been revisited, corrected, expanded and some new monsters, just having them in print and handy is a great reason to buy this.

Finally as promised Mythic Odysseys of Theros has finally hit the FLGS. The alt art FLGS exclusive cover is gorgeous. And foil! Sadly the promised double sided Theros map didn’t make it to the FLGS at the same time. With no hint of when it will arrive. Which as far as I can see means extra cost to the FLGS to send them out to customers. I knew WotC would manage to screw things up for this somehow.

With the new wave of Wizkids minis hitting stores I took the opportunity to buy a miniature to add to my undead horde now it was a reasonable price to get. I’ll reveal more about that mini in another post once it’s here and painted.

At the same time I ordered another Minotaur skeleton by Wizkids. Which I didn’t realise was pre-painted.

A bit of a result that. Saves me the job of doing it.

But the amount of packaging was ridiculous. So much waste. Wizkids could easily have used half of the amount. It’s instantly gone in the recycling bin.