Caves of Chaos: Sticky Sweet and Rotting Flesh

Session 6 was played on 9/12

Io the thief
Gizzard Wannabe the Wizard
Theiss of Gond, cleric
Tiptoe the thief
Boots the ranger
Amnyuthist the halfling

The party hires Garwood and Kask and head back to the swamp, aiming to finish off the lizarmen mound. On the way, they meet a dozen warriors headed to the keep. They’d just come from the mound, and report that they’ve looted and burned it. The 2 groups continue on their way.

Deciding that a trip to the swamp is a wasted trip if they don’t do anything, they begin to stomp around, hoping to turn something up. Something, in this case ends up being a giant bee. They follow it at a distance to the hive inside the trunk of a massive dead tree. Not wanting to try to fight them, the party has Wannabe put them to sleep. Io then squeezes into the hive and collects some of the honey. Tiptoe follows and collects a little, but a bee makes its way out from deeper in the hive and attacks. Tiptoe is hurt, but runs for it.

They make it back to the Keep, soggy, but with some honey that Wannabe thinks has some magical healing properties.

The next day they hire Gyg and Vlad and head to the caves, and explore the goblin caves… finding them empty?!? Well, almost empty. 4 dead goblins rise up and attack the party. Vlad and Garwood don’t survive the encounter. They take the bodies, and bring them back to the keep.

Gains: healing honey
Losses: Garood, Vlad
Kills: 4 goblin zombies, 1 giant bee

Reaper's Baba Yaga's Hut

 Back in the fall of 2023 I started working on Baba Yaga's hut. It came assembled, and while the chicken legs are great, I wanted to be able to use the house on its own. So I started the process to remove the legs in a way that I hoped would allow me to use them in the future. Ideally I'd be able to put the house on the legs and take them off as needed. They were very tight, and practically soaked in super glue, so I knew this was going to be a process.

First I boilded some water in a pot we no longer used for cooking.And while the water was heating up, I got some heavy duty gloves.

Into the water it goes. I think I ended up soaking this thing half a dozen times total. After each soak, which got the legs wobbly soft, I would take it out of the water and pull as hard as I could. That was enough for one leg, and it popped off, but the other leg I had to get my xacto knife to cut at the glue

Eventually I got there! 

Of course there was then so much water in the house itself, I needed to let it drain. 

But I could get the legs back on! Success! 

It would then be more than a year before I actually started to paint it. 

It started with a coat of Brown Liner, followed by Redstone Shadow for the walls. 

The roof was a succession of Desert Stone, followed by Desert Sand dry brushes, which were also done to the walls. I wanted this looking as dusty, rotten, and in desperate need of some TLC as it could. 

I went lighter on the roof support beams, and then began splotching on Olive Drab, followed by Olive Drab plus more and more Pure White

Then it was onto the windows. I made sure to repaint them with Brown Liner to get them dark and clean up any stray brush strokes from earlier steps. and then hit the glass parts with Kraken Ink. Initially I kept the highlight on the broken edges of the glass small, but it didn't look as good as I wanted. 

So I made the glass less dark overall, and that worked. 

Finally it was adding a few details to the doors and the chimney, and it was done!

Actually painting the hut only took a few evenings worth of work. Dry brushing once the main colors are blocked in made it go really quickly, and then it was just a matter of going back and cleaning up the details. 

Now I just need to do the base and the legs so it can be a proper hut for Baba Yaga!

2024 in Minis

Another productive year, with 122 minis painted (including some terrain) 65 of them are Reaper minis, which is just slightly more than half. As my goal for the year was to paint more non-Reaper minis, I'm going to count that as a win! 

 

Further breaking it down, about 10% of the minis are sci-fi, a stat I want to bring up for 2025. Once again Undead are also sorely underrepresented, though there are a good number of Demons.  I'm also happy to have put a good dent in the old WotC Chainmail minis collection I've got.

 

And that doesn't count the 19 trees I make and painted this past summer! Adding them in brings the total up to 141, which would be my best year since I started tracking it.

As for my other goals from last year:

• BFG Tau fleet - Never touched. Didn't paint a single spaceship in 2024
• Frostgrave & Stargrave figures - Success!
• LotR Sauron - Never touched it.
• Baba Yaga's Hut - I painted the hut! I have plans for the base & legs, but I'm not there yet. 

The other fun thing about this year's work is that after I put them away after taking the picture, I ran out of space in my figure cases. So I just ordered another one that should get me through this next year, assuming I keep up my average painting rate.

I don't know if I'll manage more than 100 minis next year, but it isn't just about the numbers! It's being happy about what I got done, and this year, I am. It wasn't all great. I had some issues with the white spray primer I used on a lot of the Frostgrave minis I worked on, which made them chalky, even after a wash with isopropyl alcohol. Of all the minis, I think I enjoyed getting the Chainmail Drakes done the most, but it's hard to pick one, or even one group of minis as my favorite.

Anyway, for 2025 here's what I'm thinking:

• BFG/Other Space Ships - no particular goal, just paint some
• More Frostgrave/Stargrave Minis!
• LotR Sauron & Ring Wraith on Fell Beast
• ~50% non-Reaper Minis
• Build & Paint some Sci-Fi Terrain
  

Caves of Chaos: Swampwalk

 Session 4 was played on 8/29

Venus the Halfling
Io the thief
Gizzard the Wizard
Theiss the cleric
Gloin the Dwarf

Checking the tavern, they find 5 caravan guards interested in going for an adventure. Especially for a gold piece a day each! Rather than return to the caves, the party decides to explore the swamp and look for the lizardman encampment. Venus the halfling scouts ahead. Wandering for many soggy hours, they deal with numerous bug bites, and spot a variety of wildlife before they see signs of the lizardmen.

Eventually they do find the lizardmen mound, and in the heat and humidity of the late afternoon the lizardmen guards are sluggish and don’t spot the party. Gizzard uses his sleep spell to ensure that they can approach the mound unbothered. They quickly dispatch the sleeping lizardmen, and then fight the ones from inside the mound that try to come out to get the party. Sadly for the lizardmen, because of the narrowness of the mound’s entrance, they aren’t able to mass against the party effectively and after a couple more deaths, they just close up the entrance till the party goes away.

Checking over the corpses, they find one was wearing a heavy gold chain around it’s neck. They take it and head back toward the keep. On the way they spot 7 skeletons marching through the muck toward them. Theiss holds up her holy symbol and sends the skeletons running back into the swamp.

Gains: gold chain
Losses Kril the man at arms
Kills: 6 lizardmen

December ‘24 In Review

In the least shocking turn of events, I’m ending the year with a cold. I thankfully didn’t get it while I was visiting family for the holiday week, which was a joy. Watching the kid tear through the wrapped presents was a lot of fun. We also watched the ball drop with him (at 8pm) and toasted the new year together. A happy and (relatively) healthy end to the year.


Gaming
My Caves of Chaos game has wandered off to explore away from the caves. I’m going to need to fill in the map around the keep and the caves to let them wander. Thankfully that ties into the #Hex25 I’m starting today!

Stonehell was on pause this month, and Lanse has been running a terrifying game of Mothership. It’s nice to get to play, as always, but I wonder how long we’re gonna make it before it all ends in death?


Miniatures
A productive month. I didn’t get any painting in during the holiday, but in spite of that, I got a lot done before the end of the year. I’ll be doing a year in minis review later, but for the month, this is what I wrapped up!

Too many big things to fit it all in the lightbox!

I’m especially happy to have done the 2 scifi terrain pieces. They’ve been collecting dust for a while.

The necromancer diorama that I started a year ago has seen some more progress… For something that’s only 2 minis, It’s really going slowly. I need to just finish it up.

Media
Star Trek Lower Decks (season 5)
Silo (season 2)
Ghosts
Muppet Christmas Carol
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Secret Level
Arcane season 2

Loot
This month’s loot was my reaper christmas order. There were just too many freebies to pass it up, plus with the credit I get from doing the reaper challenge league, it was half as expensive as it would have been otherwise.

 

I also got in my Painted Wastelands setting book for OSE. Haven’t even cracked the plastic wrap on it yet, but I’ll post something about it after I do.

Goals for January
Keep up with all session reports
#Hex25

Mothership: Advent Dawn session 1

On some backwater planet, Ossie Marcial, SpaceTuber and  Teamster specializing in computer repair and zero-G industrial equipment (hover forklift certified) goes looking for work. His viewership numbers are about as good as this blog does... in other words, lousy!

I love each and every one of you who do reads this blog!

Needing cash, he signs on to help recover a derelict ship. A couple other lucky souls ended up on the team, though apparently through less than voluntary means. 

 Ossie and the other members of the advance team are jolted awake from their cryosleep and get the lowdown on things from Chl03 PAX-70N, aka Chloe. The android tells us that we're approaching the Advent Dawn, a massive ship built around the Company's experimental inter-dimensional drive engine. Looking out at the ship, its resemblance to a tentacled monstrosity is purely coincidental. 

Ossie introduces himself to the other team members, Adalberto Loony, a fellow teamster specializing in demolitions, and Stirling Blackwood a xeno-biologist. What exactly are we going to find on the Advent Dawn?? Chloe tells us that she has already been on the ship, and that we should avoid anything that looks like a moving ooze. Solid advice... also that her prior visit isn't going to be super helpful in getting to the bridge as apparently the inter-dimensional drive causes the interior of the ship to rearrange itself... Fun...

The shuttle docks, and they take their first tentative steps into the Advent Dawn. Hacking the first terminal they come to, Ossie gets some basic, but not really useful info from the ship. Wandering the halls they eventually come to a med bay. It's filthy. Ossie tries to hack the computer here, but it reaches out to touch him in uncomfortable ways. Doc Blackwood checks the computer and find that a human (?) brain in a jar is hooked directly up to it, with a pair of floating optic nerves and eyes in the jar looking back at him. Everyone agrees this is a hard NOPE, and head back to the corridors. 

Not too much further into the ship is a lab, with a number of clear tubs with embryos taking up most of the space. There's also a crying android with a large gun mounted to its shoulder, and the head of another android active on a shelf... the head looks remarkably like that of Chl03... and she insists that it IS her head. The crying android wants Chl03 to stay with him. Ossie tries to talk the droid into coming with us, as no one in the party is of a pay grade high enough to authorize turning her over. He almost goes for it, but then threatens violence. Ossie tells the droid to take Chl03, and as the droid passes Ossie to grab Chl03, Ossie pulls his gun. 

Terrifyingly Adalberto pulls a grenade...

Stonehell: Questions... and Answers

Session 274 was played on 11/24/24

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 9 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

Back in the sepulture, the party pauses to discuss their options. Do they really want to take on a powerful mage that they know next to nothing about? Should they take on the Three Eyed King? Since neither question had a good immediate answer, and didn’t need one, they teleported back to the manor.

Kicking back for a couple of days, they then return to Stonehell, heading to Rocky for some answers.
Q1: Do you know anything about the plated Mage?
A1: Yes
Q2: Please describe the strengths and weaknesses of the Plated Mage
A2: He is undead, and physically weak
Q3: How can we destroy him, and banish him forever?
A3: Lightning and other electrical powers

Having the best answers they think they can get, they return again to the manor to prep… But prep for what??

Gains:
Kills:
Losses: