HeroQuest with a 6 years old - Part 3

Follows from Part 2, where we left the Evil Knight escaping from the Magician and his Zombies.

So far my son had been all about exploring the Dungeon, but now something clicked in him and suddenly he felt an urge that we all experienced in the first days of our roleplaying game - the  desire to loot. So, leaving the Magician and his minions behind, he went to the Magician's apartments and started checking every piece of furniture, collecting everything he liked - namely gold and a couple of Healing potions that fixed his critical condition - and discarding things he deemed useless or dangerous - a short sword and a phial of holy water. He also found a black stone, shining of strange colours, and upon touching it he regained all his spells!

Now healed and recharged, the Evil Knights prepared for the final battle.

Eventually, the Magician came back to his quarters and, upon realizing his archenemy was there, unleashed his Undead minions on him. 

The Evil Knight was still missing one room to explore, a room strangely locked with a bolt from his side and a peephole. Watching through the latter, the Wight saw an Elf, who immediately shouted at him: "Let me go! Free me! Whoever you are, I'll help you fight the Magician!".

 

 

My son gave some consideration to the proposal - the Elf was good, while the Knight was evil, after all. Could he trust him? As the Skeletons neared, he opened the cell door and jumped inside. With the Elf on the right and the Evil Knight on the left, everything that came through that door was quickly cut down.

This turned out to be a good decision, because somehow the Knight managed to score zero skulls (damage) when attacking in three different turns. The Skeletons were all killed by the Elf, who now proceeded to charge the Magician, left alone (blue arrow). But the Magician was cunning, and cast a Pass through Rock on himself and escaped in the side corridor (purple arrow).

It looked like the Magician was escaping! But the Evil Knight had his own spell restored by the Black Stone and so he could also cast Pass through Rock and block the Magician's flight (green arrow). The evil spellcaster turned his back and ran the opposite way (purple arrow).

The Magician moved 6 squares, and the Evil Knight rolled more than that, reaching him on the second round of chase. The Elf, running to help, was intercepted by the last Zombie standing.

"I got you!" With a blow of his longsword to the back, the Evil Knight cut down the Magician! His reign of terror is over!

The Knight walked back to the Elf, who managed to get rid of the Zombie, and confronted him.

"So... can I go now?" asked the Elf.

"Yes, a deal is a deal" said the Evil Knight "and thank you for the help!"

"Thank you for freeing me!"

Off the Elf went, out of the dungeon. The Evil Knight look around in the silence that followed: he was now, once again, Master of the Dungeon and Boss of all Evil Things!

That was massively fun! My son loved it and I also enjoyed playing it, as if I was a kid myself. Sometimes, I must say, jaded player can bring your hype down, but green ones, to whom everything is new, makes a GM's job really fun.

We'll play again soon. I hope you enjoyed reading this and found some good ideas for your next Dungeon crawl with the little ones!

HeroQuest with a 6 years old - Part 2

Follows from Part 1.

Here's how the game played. The Evil Knight descended into the Dungeon from the central staircase and went for the west door. As soon as he saw the Mummy he decided to go somewhere else, and walked around the room exploring the corridor. The Mummy, tasked with guarding the Western Section of the Dungeon, did not follow.

The Dungeon's Eastern Section hosted the Goblinoids, and a Goblin guard immediately charged the Evil Knight, and was easily dispatched.

The Knight opened one of the doors leading to the Goblins' Rooms and, upon finding two Goblins, he decided to escape and fight somewhere else. As one of the Goblins died, the other thought wiser to escape and warn the Magician, so he went straight to room H.

The Evil Knight followed into the Throne Room, where he saw his mortal enemy with the Goblin and his Skeleton guards. The Magician immediately escaped into room J, bringing his guards and leaving the lonely Goblin to delay the Evil Knight.

After slaying the Goblin, the Knight went to the study finding only the Skeleton guards; he cast Veil of Mist and walked past the Skeletons, reaching the Magician's bedroom. Unfortunately for him, the Magician was not to be found, but instead he had summoned two Fire Sprites.

Surrounded by enemies and with no Magician in sight, the Evil Knight decided to leave altogether, and cast Pass through Rock.  This brought him into the Treasure Room where the Magician was hiding, and again back into the Throne Room, from which he escaped into the corridor towards the Eastern Section. Frankly I don't know what my son was thinking, but I just played along. I assume he only wanted to explore the Dungeon at this point.

The thing is that now the Magician decided to gather all his minions and give chase. It was him, two Fire Sprites, two Skeletons and four Zombies from Room G. A fierce battle erupted in the corridor: luckily the Evil Knight could face one enemy at a time here.

But the enemies were many and he was alone, and wounded. At this point the Evil Knight cast Swift Wind, escaping out of sight of the enemy, who gave chase. However, although he apparently headed for the Eastern Section, he detoured and took a corridor back to the Western Section. The Zombies, not being particularly bright, just went east.

I thought funny that one of the Zombies, going to the end of the corridor, decided to enter the last room, which was of course the Spider Room. The critters jumped on him, not minding that his flesh was a bit stale, and quickly had the upper hand. My son thought this was massively funny and felt very smart that the monsters killed each other off.

While the Magician and his Zombies were looking for him, The Evil Knight quietly returned to the Magician's apartments. What happened will be told in Part 3.

HeroQuest with a 6 years old - Part 1

One of the best things about being a dad is to introduce your children to your hobbies, and enrich the bond between each other with the passion for nerdy things. This is how my elder son received a copy of HeroQuest for his sixth birthday.

For him it was love at first sight, but figuring out how the game actually works isn't that easy, especially since he can't read and count well yet. Under my guidance we played a number of solo games that were more role-play than board game, but he enjoyed it - still it was still an early phase where he would just explore rooms and run away from monsters, and fight only when he was cornered. I don't want to say that he was missing the point of the game, but in a way he did not understand yet the full range of possibilities available to him.

This was until the Covid19 quarantine - on an Easter weekend we managed to play an actual extended game that was really fun for both of us. For the benefit of other dads, I will record that here - hopefully it will give you some ideas on how to run a fun game with a child.

The Story

I asked my son to pick a character to play and give him a name. After some consideration, he picked a Wight and named him Evil Knight.

Then I asked him a story seed - why is the Evil Knight entering the dungeon. My son told me that he wants to be the boss of all the evil ones - again. When asked who is the current boss of the evil guys, my son picked the Necromancer, and named him Magician.

The story was clear now - the Evil Knight, once the Lord of Evil Things, had lost his position to the Magician. He wanted it back, so he entered the Dungeon to confront his nemesis.

In terms of Statistics, I had to generate a rather powerful character since the Dungeon is played solo, so here is it:

The Evil Knight
Wight
Movement 2 dice
Attack 3 dice
Defence 3 dice
Body Points 8 dice
Spells:
Swift Wind (Doubles Movement)
Veil of Mist (May move through enemies)
Pass through Rock (May move through walls)

The Dungeon

I built an easy dungeon in my mind, defining details as I went along - the picture below was drawn with HeroScribe after the game was finished. The dungeon is very simple - my son rolled the starting room with 2d6, and it was the central room. On one side I decided that the Magician lived, surrounded by undead minions. On the other side, he lodged his Goblinoid mercenaries. In one corner of the dungeon I placed an abandoned room full of independent monsters - the spiders.

Here's the Legend:
A - This is a practice room for the Goblinoid mercenaries. A rack full of rusty weapons is the only element of furniture.
B - This room houses two Orcs, the leaders of the Goblinoids.
C - These three rooms house two Goblins each.
D - This abandoned room has become a den of spiders. They will attack anyone entering.
E - A large room houses a temple to the Gods of Death, guarded by a Skeleton.
F - The sacristy of the temple contains ceremonial vases and a chest containing two random treasures.
G - This room contains 4 Zombies. This is where the Magician keeps them when he doesn't need them.
H - The Magician's Throne room is where he meets with his Goblinoid minions. Two Skeletons stand guard to the door behind the throne.
I - The Magician's study holds a big desk full of scrolls and scribblings. If searched it yields a Potion of Healing
J - The Magician sleeps here: the room only contains a simple bed.
K - The Treasure Room is locked with a door that can only be opened with a key found on the body of the Magician. It contains two chests, each yielding two random treasures, a cabinet, yielding one treasure, and a Black Stone. The Black Stone is obviously magical and, if touched, will restore all the Spells of a Magic User.
L - A Cell, closed by a door that can only be opened from outside, holds a prisoner, an Elf who was captured in the Dungeon. The prisoner, upon hearing the sound of battle, will plead to be freed and will help the Player against the Magician.

In Part 2 we will see how the game played...

GW Lord of the Rings Castellan of Dol Guldur - painted as a Wraith

 

I am not a fan of the later GW Lord of the Rings miniatures. The earlier Citadel release, in the '80s, had a great flavour. The later one, in the 2000s, retained too much of the movie aesthetics (which I generally revile) and could not be redeemed even by the Perry Brothers' sculpting skills. On top of that, the scale does not match figures from any other producer, including other lines of GW.

However, there are a few figures that shine out of the group - almost all of them original GW creations. One of these are the Castellans of Dol Guldur.

They are essentially low-powered Nazgûl, Wraiths that animate empty armours and old rags. The influence of John Howe's style is obvious.

Now, I do like John Howe, I just think some of his stuff - namely the full plate armour - suits better the Warhammer world than Middle-earth. That's why I painted this guy here to be a Wraith in my home-ruled Restless Dead warband for Mordheim.

It fits as a hero into the retinue of Lavinia von Enzebsurg, which we presented here. This is why he sports the colours of the once-Gräfin, rather than the dull black we associate with undead. I think he came out alright.

Size-wise, he's bigger than Oldhammer miniatures but as an evil hero it's not too much out of place.

Bears Head Miniatures Undead Ogre

Bears Head Miniatures is a British company run by Philip Hynes. They started business around 2017 with a remarkable kickstarter about Undead, which I promptly backed. I'm a big fan of unusual Undead, you see, and Bears Head was just offering those: Dwarfs, cattle, minotaurs, peasants giving the middle-finger and butchers holding human heads. It was great. This is the first of their miniatures that I post on my blog, but others will follow. So without further ado: the Undead Ogre.

Now, I know its proportions do not follow those of the usual Oldhammer Ogres. It's too tall and too proportionate. But how cool is it? Caught in the moment preceding the swinging of his ball and chain, screaming his blind rage. Half naked and with bones coming out of his leg and shoulder. It's a great piece.

It's so great I decided to make specific rules to use it in Mordheim, within my Restless Dead warband. Here they are:

0-1 Large Zombie
50 gold crowns to hire

This large undead creature may have been an Ogre, a Troll or similarly sized humanoid monster that has been reanimated shortly after death to serve a Necromancer.

M 5

WS 5

BS 0

S 4

T 4

W 3

I 2

A 2

Ld 5

For any other purpose, the Large Zombie is treated like a regular Zombie.

If you try it, let me know what you think!

Lavinia von Enzesburg's Retinue - a Mordheim Warband

This warband was first put together to antagonize the Coldwood Smugglers, for the simple reason that I had a number of spare Undead to use. I choose the Restless Dead" rules to build it and I must say it came out alright, and it is actually quite fun to play.

The leader of the warband is of course his Majesty the Liche King, C18 Undead from 1983 (sculpted by the Perrys, I suspect). I found this beauty on eBay, already painted, at a ridiculously low price some time ago. It's really beautiful, but since it is really small compared to the rest of the warband, I decided the Liche King is actually a Queen. What follows is the story of how she came to the Wasteland.

Lavinia von Enzesburg was the only daughter of old Graf Maximilian. At her father's death, she inherited vast lands in east Stirland, to rule with her husband, young and handsome Udo, at her side. However, Lavinia was not interested in lands or husbands: her one true love was knowledge, which she had pursued since early childhood under the tutelage of many respected teachers. History, astronomy, mathematics were her daily bread, but the field sheloved most of all was magick. Her father had first forbidden this, then allowed some simple rudiments to be taught, but when he finally died Lavinia was free to pursue the study of magick under several famous teachers. She would spend most of her time studying, delegating government to her council. Her husband did not complain: blonde-maned Udo had always been more interested in the company of men than women, and he often scoured the country on wild hunts with a number of young and merry companions. All seemed well, until the Black Year came: storms striked first, flooding the country and ruining crops; famine followed, and then plague spread through every village, taking its grim toll in lives. 

Lavinia, avoiding council meetings, was oblivious to the gravity of the situation until it was too late: one day an army of peasants wielding torches and pitchforks laid siege to her castle, raising as their grim standard the impaled corpse of her husband Udo, a shameful reference to his sexual habits. Only then did she realize how unfitting her council was to rule, a flock of corrupted sicophants who had grown rich and fat off the power she had entrusted them with. The peasants were calling for their heads and a new, more fitting lord, in the person of her cousin Luther the Just, standing among the rebellious scum in his gold-inlaid ceremonial armour.

Lavinia had never been good with people, talking to them or understanding their motives, but she was used to be in charge and she would not bow to any mob of rioting curs. The fat was in the fire, but she would not go down easily: someone else would pay for this, and dearly.

She fried the first speaker of the rebels, the town mayor, with a bolt of lightning, just to remind everyone of what she was capable of, and stated she would only negotiate with her cousin. Luther was a reasonable man, and he was happy enough to receive the title of Graf from Lavinia, along with lands and castles she did not care for. The former Gräfin was exiled in a remote manor, well provided of lands and revenues to sustain her for as long as she needed. Anonimity and isolation would be a benefit, not a punishment to her. The bloodthirsty mob was satisfied when they were allowed to unleash their rage on the councilmen, and that evening their heads were mounted on pikes on the battlements of the castle.

Dunkelulm was a good abode as any to Lavinia. She had space for her studies, a selected few servants and no courtiers to distract her. Those were happy years for her - no one would stay awake to spy ar the strange lights at night coming from her windows, nor wake her up during the day for boring social activities; no one raised questions about the teachers who would visit her. In a way, Lavinia had too much freedom, perhaps. Someone was concerned for the corpses disappearing from the local graveyard, but then those people disappeared. A few priests came to visit and left in a hurry, terrified by nightmares and visions or forced to flee after infamous accusations were made on their good names. For Lavinia, the years at Dunkelulm were fruitful: she delved deeper and deeper into her magick studies, and her fascination for forbidden knowledge and the dark arts grew out of control, even her own. Lavinia's descent into darkness was slow but steady, until one day, in her old age, she achieved the ultimate goal of the scholar of the dark arts and the necromancer - lichehood.

Unlife was not much different than life for Lavinia, who had been a night ownl and a reclusive for years. Now, however, she could no longer meet any outsider, nor could she conceal her immortality. She then took an apprentice, a young man with a basic education and a fascination for the dark arts: Adalbert Keller. After a few months she adopted Keller as her heir and by the end of the year he announced his adoptive monther's death. A mausoleum, built in the hills behind the castle, would be her resting place.

The mausoleum was now a perfect place to be for Lavinia: she needed no food, no sleep, no air and no light, only quiet. It was surrounded by a hunting lodge where no one was allowed and conveniently linked to the keep of Dunkelulm by a tunnel. Adalbert Keller, now Adalbert von Enzesburg, lord of Dunkelulm, was the proxy of Lavinia and her tool to keep her unlife of research quiet and funded.

Liches have few needs indeed, but one thing they cannot do without are the spells that bind together their black souls and their rotting corpses. Such powerful spells are not eternal and need to be regularly renewed and fuelled with raw magickal energies, normally found in specific places of power, where the leys of the earth cross and the winds of magick meet. Such places are never unguarded, though: within the Empire, the local Inquisitions maintain permanent lodges of witch hunters there, and out of the Emperor's bound there are creatures and monsters that feed off the steady flow of energies. Lavinia is now getting weaker and tired, and she needs a new ritual of undeath: weeks ago, while she was looking at the stars to divine future events, she observed a rare phaenomenon, the fall of a rain of comets, which she traced to the borderlands between Marienburg, Reikland and Middenland. There, in the ground, she knows, there are pieces of stars made of pure magickal energy: each shard could easily fuel a single ritual, and so she set journey for the Wasteland, gathering her retinue for the long and dangerous trip.

 

During her life Lavinia was rarely able to move without the protection of her loyal guards. In unlife, she keeps them around: Captain Ulrich Krieger (Grave Guard), Dieter, Irmingard, Friedrich and Karl (4 Skeletons), all built from the Vampire Counts Skeletons set from GW.

The Necromancer Adalbert Keller is the only living person Lavinia trusts, and the only link between her and the world of the living. He travels with her mistress, now garbed as a travelling scholar, and drags behind him 3 zombies reanimated from bodies of travellers and villagers found along the way. Keller is completely submissive to Lavinia and is constantly fawning at her feet, hoping to receive one day the secrets of High Necromancy. Keller is a GW Necromancer and the Zombies are also from a GW set.

GW Zombies (1999)

I've decided to take a very big step in my Warhammerer career, that is to jump from single miniatures to units, and that's because I want not only to use them in my WFRP games, but also try and play some WFB and Mordheim (Age of Sigmar not sure frankly).

I already painted some Goblins and it went good, so now I purchased a box of zombies.

They were an interesting set, quite iconic and recently replicated in the mobile game Mordheim, of which I'm a frequent player. They have a funny look at first, very unrealistic and disproportionate, but overall very Warhammer-y.

However, what I really liked about them is the degree of customization that is possible, something that convicned me to paint each of them separately. This took several months, but it was fun playing with poses and washes to represent blood, bruises and rot. The specimen above is particularly funny, as it's wielding another zombie's leg as a weapon.

With minimum effort, it was possible to add some extra detail like gowns for those zombies that looked more feminine.

This is probably one of my favourites, holding a severed limb in his mouth.

And this one is holding two severed heads, possibly elven.

For the skin, I painted all of them in Zandri Dust, and washed with a selection of colours: Seraphim Sepia for old, dried zombies; Athonian Camo for the younger, still rotting ones; and Reikland Fleshshade for the recently dead, still holding some blood under the skin. I also experimented with Drakenhof Nightshade for a drowned, bluish look. After the first wash I applied plenty of spots of Agrax Earthshade, Carroburg Crimson and Druchii Violet. It was very time consuming but it paid off in terms of dead look.

GW Necromancer (2010)

Like the Evil Warrior, the Necromancer is another of the archetypes of Fantasy. Pale, sickly, old, disgusting and hateful, he is one of the evillest characters. Some authors have given him a twist by linking him with the Mad Scientist and namely with Dr. Frankenstein: he may be an unappreciated genius, and may be driven by noble motives. But still, he's unquestionably evil.

Gamew Workshop has had a long love affair with Necromancers since the days of Heinrich Kemmler, but in 2010 they came out with this piece, whose author is unknown to me but deserves all praise, because he has done an excellent job. This is possibly one of the best and most iconic miniatures ever sold by GW.

Its dynamism is perfect: the hunched back, the tattered robes pulled by a wind, the sword at the waits, coming out of the robes, the book hanging from the shoulder. And then the symbols: the staff shaped like a pastoral, but with skulls and fetishes hanging from it; the broken teeth; the skull in the hand. And the simplicity: just remove the silly collar (like I did) and the figure could pass for a classic one, and not a bit over the top like so many other sculpts from the period.

What more can I say? This is going to be a nice leader for any Undead army or warband in my future games. Lovely piece!

GW Vampire Counts Skeletons / Skeleton Warriors

The set of 10 Skeletons, a classic from Games Workshop. It used to be named "Vampire Counts Skeletons" and, with the new AoS, was renamed "Skeleton Warriors" and rebased with round bases. I don't know from which year this set dates, nor who designed it, but it's a good set: plenty of options for personalization. Lots of fine details, from the quaintest ones (which I favour: coffins converted to shields, broken weapons, jawless or cracked skulls) to the silly ones (impractically big helms, shields with death symbols, oversized swords).

I quite enjoyed setting the models up and painting them. Here are a few of them:

Sigfried the Cruel was a servant of the Necromancer, his champion. When he got killed, his master brought back his remains, to wield again his weapons. The bastard scimitar could now be wielded with one hand, so the Necromancer fitted a shield with the bones of one of his enemies, also brought back and condemned to be bashed by enemies in order to protect Sigfried. The Necromancer always loved irony.

Eric Wildcharge was a reckless warrior and died the good death on the battlefield. The Necromancer brought him back. Although mindless, Eric still has a tendency to bellow challenges (even without voice) and to point his sword at the enemy champions.

Eleonora di Roccamara was the daughter of a prince and when her puny husband would not ride to war against the enemy, she would. A fearsome warrior, she still fights in undeath.

Gaston the Brave was fearless. So fearless, one day he challenged a giant. With one swoop of his mace, the giant smashed his shield and his head. But still Gaston got up, with a little help from the Necromancer.

This jolly fellowship is going to company the Necromancer is a few games of Skirmish. Will post something soon!