The first Halfling

 

With the Dungeons and Lasers dungeon tiles put away, the next thing on the hobby desk is a Halfling Blood Bowl Team. With the new edition out and plenty of folk playing GW games in Nottingham, it seems like a nice little project. I don't have the new rulebook yet, nor any Treemen, but I want to get these assembled before getting anything else.

I've gotten my first Halfling assembled. I also cleaned the mould lines on the coins, turn markers and balls that come with the team. There's a couple more Halflings I've started on too. It's been a while since I assembled any GW miniatures. The last one I tried to do was one of the Inquisitor characters, and they were incredibly fiddly and awkward. This halfling was a joy - three parts, relatively limited mould lines, and brimming with character once done.

The trick now is going to be setting up a regular schedule to put some time into assembling models. The aim for the next year is to try and be steady with progress. I have a lot of ambitious ideas, and I need to put time into the hobby to try and achieve them.

Dungeons and Lasers Prismacast Caves

I finished removing my Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers Caves set from the sprues, and thought I'd report back on it. I spent a little time playing around with the layouts, and learned a whole bunch. This shows more or less the amount of tiles you get in the retail Caves set. I've only put walls on one of the rooms at this stage, but it gives you an idea of what you get.

Bear in mind when looking at all of this that all I've done is cut these tiles off the sprue. They come pre-painted - as I understand it they're painted by machine - and the paint quality is as good as I'd likely be bothered to do on some dungeon tile terrain!

The tiles come with moulded points to add connectors which join the tiles to each other and the walls section. They go together quite easily, and it's a firm connection so they don't come apart as you move them about.

Here's how a small room might look once you've made it up. The holes can be used to add walls, or you can add a simple grey peg to fill the space if you want it to be an open area.

You then add walls on to finish the effect. The curved pieces are two parts that fit snugly together before you push fit them into the relevant connectors. You can put them on the sides, or create a wall across the middle of a room if you wish.

At the time of writing, you can buy this set unpainted for £75, or the painted one for £95.

I will caution that it's quite a bit of work to set them all up - you need a little bit of oomph to get each connector to go together, and when you're doing a bunch of rooms, it gets tiring quick! I gave up on getting everything out at around this point - I'd definitely started with the intent to put walls on everything. 

I also got three smaller "themed" sets too. Given the aforementioned loss of oomph, I didn't get everything out - but I wanted to give an impression of the kind of thing you get. This is the spider set, which has narrow bridges held together with strands of web, and tiles covered in web and egg sacs. 

You can see the "Deep Mines" set floor tiles in the bottom room. There's also a bunch of walls with cool crystals that come with it that I did fail to photograph.

The Deep Mine set has two pairs of these stairs up to a pile of gold and treasure. This could be excellent set dressing for an abandoned mine, or perhaps a dragon's lair.

I also got the Goblin Lair set, which has this great little mini hut / building that attaches to tiles. I just attached it to the standard Caves tiles at this point, but you also get a whole bunch of themed tiles for a Goblin Lair too.

The goblin lair tiles are a lot more rickety, with lots of planks with gaps and detritus on the stone floors. I think if you were using either the Spider or Goblin sets you'd probably want to have a black cloth underneath the set to represent the gaps. They definitely weren't quite working on my white table.

The goblin set came with a handful of details like this dead dwarf that you can plug into some of the connection holes to add extra detail. There's not enough for every hole, but it's good to add a little variety.

With my experience putting these together, I certainly wouldn't want to try and assemble them on the fly for a randomly generated dungeon, or as I went according to a map. Assembling a whole large dungeon map also seems like a bad idea from an effort to reward point of view, though I could see an exploration set piece with something to mask sections being quite fun.

If you're actively using these, you probably want to either have some pre-constructed for a fight you're expecting to have at some point, or be pacing your games so a fight starts just before a break or at the end of a session so you can set up for the start of your next one. They do take some serious time to put together and I'd practice doing it a couple of times before committing to doing it on the fly mid game.

I think it's worth noting that you both need quite a lot of tiles, but also get quite a lot in a box. With all the above out on the table, I still had all the below still to use. I got mine through the Kickstarter, but one core set is likely plenty for most standard encounters you're putting together.

If I was going to expand what I have, I'll likely be looking at their older sets that have been converted to Prismacast that are designed as humanoid built dungeons rather than a cave network.

One thing I do need to think about is a better storage solution. I've thrown everything into one big Really Useful Box, and this is Not The One. I was at least smart enough to put all the connectors in sealed plastic bags which helped a bunch, but I think they need sorting by floor tile and wall, and by set.

It was taking me far too long to find the right bits, and it added to the already quite extensive job of putting a layout together.

I'm not sure what the right storage widget is to make this work, but if anyone can think of the perfect solution, please do let me know!

Nottingham Gaming Fayre Bits and Pieces

 

I picked up a few bits and pieces at the Gaming Fayre last weekend. Nothing major, as I have plenty to be getting on with. First up is "In the Land of the Sundering Flood", an RPG by Mammoth Miniatures inspired by the writings of William Morris. I knew of Morris as a designer and didn't realise he was also an author, so I'm looking forward to have a read through this and maybe researching his bibliography too.

I got an excellent "please don't make me take this home" deal from Mammoth on these bits of eldritch ruins and this "dragon" - who is wingless and thus obviously a wyrm. 

I also got a free turtle person and gnome from Krakon games. They are both delightful.

I'm hoping to get all these bits prepped and assembled over the Christmas break so they don't end up just vanishing into the stash. But first, I have more Dungeons and Lasers to clip out!

Work in Progress Wednesday - Terrain Connectors?

 

I finally got to the point of having some hobby tools out, and decided to start with the Dungeons and Lasers Caves Kickstarter. This is very fancy pre-painted RPG terrain produced by Archon Studios. I backed the Kickstarter and thought it would be good to get it all off sprue, and into some much better storage boxes.

My logic was to start with the simplest job - clipping out the terrain connectors. Doing a third of the add-ons connectors took up all the time I had that hobby evening. Whoops! Still, it was good to get something done, and its always best to start with eating your vegetables...

Nottingham Gaming Fayre

 

Yesterday I ended up on a little expedition to the other side of Nottingham to attend a "Gaming Fayre" I'd seen advertised on social media. It didn't seem to be heavily advertised so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

It was held in a brewery and tap room, and I sadly failed to get any good photos of the giant tanks around the venue due to a lack of common sense. There were quite a few small stands there. There was a gaming club from Arnold I've been meaning to check out, Krakon Games, Mammoth Miniatures, Ramshackle Games and Warp Miniatures.

Krakon Games had free samples to give away, along with a crate of miscasts you could fill a bag up with for future kit bashing mischief.

They then had a display of a whole bunch of their range, and the giveaway bags had a link back to their shop.

Mammoth Miniatures had a more extensive selection of their things - both miniatures and books. 

I'm a huge fan of Mammoth's aesthetic. The miniatures have a very "home made" feel, and there's a very deliberate art style too. I had a good chat with them about their art inspirations, which range from William Morris to Moebius.

Ramshackle Games, meanwhile, had a small demo table, where they were running participation games. I didn't manage to grab a time myself - too busy chattering away to people. He also had a few bags of bits and pieces for folk to buy, including his excellent anti-Brexit art project.

I failed to get photos of the Warp Miniatures stand, or the gaming club stand. But it was a fun little event. It was about the right size to run from 12 - 5pm. You could drop in for a bit of the time and see everything, or take your time and grab a pizza and a beer. The date of the next one hasn't been announced yet, but I'll try and mention it here when it is.

Two different instances of Infinity

 

I was lucky enough to spend a couple of afternoons playing Infinity in the past week. A couple of folks were keen to get a demo of Infinity, and we arranged to meet at The Dice Cup. I've also signed up for a campaign down in London with HATE as I can get games in online using Tabletop Simulator, and I had my first campaign game.

I'm deeply grateful to Yashar who offered some excellent advice for structuring some demo games. One player was interested in JSA, and the other Bakunin. We ran a first skirmish with three Keisotsu against three Moderators. We then added a Daiyokai and a Penitent Observant, along with the Lieutenant rules. Finally, we wrote two 150 point lists to add a few more rules in and had a small three turn game.

Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I'm hoping we'll get more games in shortly.

Meanwhile, HATE is holding a new narrative campaign, and I've signed up to play with my Shasvastii. I'm not in London as much, but Tabletop Simulator exists. For the first round, I got paired with Yashar for a mission of "Area of Interest", one of the latest season of ITS missions. Yashar returned with their beloved MRRF.

I ended up losing 6-3. I learned to fear the Vystrel, a new defensive piece in Ariadna. I also learned a whole bunch about the challenges of diagonal deployments and how much longer ranges are because of them. I'm incredibly stoked about the new season as a result and my brain is now wanting to play more games to learn more about how these new missions play.

Planning some actual miniature hobby

 

With the realisation that I'd been too busy to use up my holiday allowance this year, I have the week off. The eBay clear out continues. The unpacking continues. I've got two games of Infinity booked, so we may see a battle report of some kind if I remember to take enough pictures...

But I also really wanted to start getting into getting some miniature assembly done. First up on my to do list is a Halfling Blood Bowl team. With the new edition out, I'm sure there will be some folk interested in getting some games in.

More experienced players of Blood Bowl may be asking where on earth the Treemen are in this picture. Well, I haven't bought any yet! The new rulebook and the team's Treemen will be the reward for getting the rest of the team assembled and ready for paint. I'm not daft enough to try and play Blood Bowl with a Halfling team without any Treemen...

I also could really do with getting my Dungeons and Lasers set off sprue and into a storage box. They're pre-painted, so it's not really an "assembly" job, but it's something that will take time.

As a potential bonus, I found this box of assorted Frostgrave sprues. I may be joining a Pathfinder campaign in the new year, so knocking up an assortment of generic baddies could be a fun little side project.

Now, where are my clippers?

The near meditative practice of having a clear out

As I packed up this week's eBay sales to head out to their new owners, I found it becoming strangely restful. There was a certain preciseness to the routine of packing the item, taping up the box and carefully affixing the postage label.

This whole thing was probably reinforced by the rain drumming on the conservatory, and my impulsive decision to re-listen to Pablo Honey all the way through. The soundtrack to my adolescence's kitchen chores was bound to put me into some kind of mood.

...

Of course, this whole thing has been thrown out of kilter by my getting distracted part way through writing this, unpacking a box of rugs, then finding a key box of scenery, my Frostgrave warband, my currently assembled Malifaux and most importantly, my Infinity token box.

I'm writing this on Sunday night to be scheduled for Monday evening, and currently my brain is in full excited "we're back in business" mode while it really needs to be drinking a nice mug of mint tea, chilling out and getting ready for bed.

And my mind drifts back to Pablo Honey and "You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts..."

Clear out first steps

 
So, I've finally gotten started on my clear out on eBay. There's a pretty eclectic mix of things for sale, and a pretty good reason for the eclecticism. I have a lot of stuff to get rid of, and this round of listing represents some easy wins. I had a box for eBay sales, and as I was unpacking, if I found something I wanted rid of, it went in the box.

There's some trends to this batch, too. First up are souvenir items I'm either not using any more or have never really used - the bags and the art print. There's then a bunch of stuff for out of production games - cards, dice and so on - that someone might have a use for, but if they don't sell they're either going in the recycling or the Big Bucket of Dice. There's a Magic the Gathering playmat from when I was trying that out in 2015, and then a handful of Infinity figures I have duplicates of because I needed two of some things for the number of armies I have.

In short, there's nothing here that's hard to deal with - I won't be mad if it sells for a small amount, and I don't have emotional investment in it. The only work was taking the photographs and writing the listings. The next box of stuff is more of a muddle, and may take me a little more work to go through...

Do feel free to have a nose through my eBay listings if you read this soon enough. You're not just getting something that will make you happy, you're helping make me happy passing on things I'm no longer using...

Infinity October 2025 Rules Update and Me

Corvus Belli have dropped two massive updates for Infinity this month. They've returned several factions that hadn't been given rules this edition into play, updated a lot of army lists to get some better balance, and updated some rules to make things clearer or less unbalanced to play against.

On top of this, there's a new tournament mission pack, where all the old missions have been replaced (only the most recent three were kept), and a bunch of new ones added. As someone who's taken a few months off the game, I'm feeling a little bit like the meme from Community where the guy walks in to chaos having just gone to fetch the pizzas.

OK, White Company is probably the easiest here. "Officially" the faction had no changes, but a few profiles they borrow from other factions got considerable glow ups - Blockers, in particular have moved from something I only took to see what they could do, to likely a regular inclusion in lists. Taowu gained a Chain of Command profile, and there were a couple of other light adjustments. I might even try the Anaconda at some point.

My Shasvastii got caught in the blast as the vanilla Combined Army took a well deserved balance adjustment to Ikadrons. Their points moving to 11 and losing Flash Pulses is entirely fair, but they were helping prop up the quite weak Shasvastii. Some of the Shasvastii characters got some changes or some new profiles. Victor Messer is definitely better, and the Jayth / Gwailo fireteam gained a keyword to make getting the link bonus easier.

Combined Army, meanwhile, got a bit more of a thorough overhaul. Several Shasvastii and Next Wave profiles got banished to their own factions, cheap order profiles became a little harder to come by, and a few of the regularly taken big scary pieces got a bit of a rework that I think actually makes them a little better overall.

In the land of my other NA2 factions, Druze changes were negligible, Ikari gained a Tohaa profile (the Kiiutan Imposter), and Dahshat similarly only got a couple of minor profile changes due to them being shared with other factions.

In the land of Nomads, the biggest change is officially NA2 - Star Co, the mixed Nomad mercenary company, returned. They're fine. There's basically no changes or they'd mess up the Nomad balance. Meanwhile Nomads got basically no changes. A couple of new profiles that were lacking a bit of oomph got some slight changes, but that was about it.

The changes don't affect me a huge amount. I am loving them, though. In a lot of my factions I've got a couple of new or reworked profiles to play around with and see how they change how the faction works. That said, I'm likely to start pretty conservatively with some simple Direct Action missions and some models I mostly know as I try and remind myself how to play...

Dolmenwood Review

 

My Dolmenwood Kickstarter arrived last week, and I've taken some time to go through it and write a few thoughts on it. I originally planned to write this on Sunday evening. At about 7pm I sat down to have a quick scan through the Player's Book . . . and then it was bedtime.

I'm glad I didn't write the review on Sunday evening, because as I read through, and talked to a few of my friends over social media, I picked up a few nuances my initial scan read had missed.

Dolmenwood is both a game and a setting. The game is in the style of early D&D, with nine classes and six "kindreds". Attacks and skills seem to be quite a shallow progression, while hit points start very low with a dice per level and low modifiers so  the increase feels a lot steeper. I haven't had time to learn the spells yet, so I'm not sure how much they increase the power level.

The setting is a fantasy medieval realm, with a mix of mortals and fairies. As you may pick up from the name, the majority of the published setting is set in a large wood. It's ruled over by mortal nobles, has more civilised and more dangerous areas, has fairies, witches and monsters.

The game runs off three books - a Player's Book, a Monster Book, and the Campaign Book. The Player Book has all the player facing rules, the Monster Book does precisely what you'd expect, and the Campaign Book includes the GM guides, a detailed world guide including locations, NPCs and factions. I cannot emphasise enough how massive the Campaign Book is. It's more than twice the size of the player's book. I also got a book of maps with a mix of maps that are of use to the GM, and a bunch you can show to the players.

My Kickstarter Pledge also included four pre-written adventures. At least some of these have been previously published for Old School Essentials and D&D 5e. I had a scan through Winter's Daughter, which was a good starting adventure that gave a good indicator of how you might want to organise your own adventure if you were making your own.

It's an excellent adventure that's got a big "fairy tale" vibe. It's dripping with character and style. It feels very accessible and like a good starter.

I also got a canvas map designed to be player facing, and two canvas referee maps with all the secret information you need. I am unsure why I got two referee maps - it was in my pledge manager automatically at my pledge level.

The map is huge, and shows the real depth of Dolmenwood. It can be played as a hex crawl exploration, and this is where it's real "unique selling point" is. Every single hex has a write up in the campaign guide (though obviously, I've not read every single one, so I don't know what the balance of "places of interest" to "featureless swamp" there is. But there seems to be quite a lot there.

I also picked up the Adventuring Party box with a bunch of miniatures, because I am a sucker.

There's eleven miniatures in the set, with a mix of the different classes and kindreds. There's a bit of a shortage of goat people, short moss people and little bat people miniatures, so it's particularly useful for those.

The dice and dice bag fills me with joy. The highest number on each dice have little mushroom symbols on. They include 3D6 so you can roll your starting stats. The dice bag has some lovely embroidery on, and feels like a much nicer material and better quality than the Critical Role dice bag I got a while back.

Dolmenwood is selling you a dream. It has the potential set up for a massive long running campaign with your friends, in person, with beautiful in person props and miniatures. It recommends you run with six characters, whether that's six players, or having retainers and hirelings to make up numbers.

But the recommendation of numbers alone makes me want to run the "perfect" Dolmenwood game with six players - a sandbox where it's based off the goals the players come up with rather than a fixed plot arc or specific threat for them to try and defeat.

I don't have a local tabletop group yet, and you'd not want to jump straight into a massive commitment of a campaign like this. You'd want to build up to it.

But the dream is there. 

Flesh and Blood Pre-release, and thoughts on pacing

 

On Friday evening I headed down to The Dice Cup for the Flesh and Blood "Super Slam" pre-release. The new set has a bit of a death match / wrestling theme, and two of the four heroes are the class I play - Guardian.

I had a bunch of fun, winning two out of my three games, and got a bunch of cards I'll be able to use later. However, it turned out that sorting these cards out, so I can return the cards I don't need to the store "commons" box next week, took up a good chunk of my hobby time this weekend.

I got as far as "getting the box of stuff for eBay" out in order to take photographs and get started, but once I'd finished sorting household tasks, it was late Sunday and I stood a real risk of wrecking my work week trying to get it done.

While circumstances conspired to cause there to be a few more household tasks than usual, I should have been able to foresee the time that sorting cards would take up, and maybe not have decided that Sunday would be a great time to cook a roast rather than a stir fry.

So it's an important reminder that while you might at first thing that things beyond your control are impacting your hobby time, there's still plenty of stuff that you do control, and choices you make that get in the way of you having more time for your hobby.

The hobby of moving boxes around

 

My weekend was pretty caught up with washing up and laundry, which is not really the stuff of hobby blogs. But there's a reason why my time was spent on house stuff rather than fun stuff.

The house move is nearly done. I've been engaging in what a recent Knights of Dice YouTube video kind of referred to as "the hobby of moving boxes around". We still need to sell the flat, and the new house is full of boxes that need sorting and surplus stuff selling, but soon, soon, we'll only be heading down to London for work rather than for work and working on getting the flat ready for sale.

Still, I did manage to fit in a trip down to Bad Moon Café to play some Flesh and Blood the last time I was down. It remains my hobby sanity lifeline, but remains challenging to photograph. So have this painted junction box from South London instead...