Fantasy Wargame Dungeons Rules

I'm reserving this space for the Dungeons rules, once I have a good first draft ready to post.

Dungeon 3: Haunted Forest

Another dungeon planned but not yet executed. The only critters I have for it are a few DDMs and some Chainmail guys:

You got your owl in my bear!
You got your bear in my owl!
Two great tastes that taste great together... and then rend you limb from limb while you're helpless with laughter.



Crazed Minotaur Cultist:



Dire Boar:



A pack of Hyenas:



For the Master Adversary, I want a 'Dark Druid' type... I'm thinking Reaper's Vulthus Oathcroak will serve nicely.

Dungeon 2: Vampire's Castle

What's D&D without Ravenloft?

I don't have this map ready yet, but it shouldn't be too hard to at least draw up a floorplan. I'm building on 3' x 3' foam boards, with a 1.5" grid, which means 24 x 24 squares.

I do have some un-dead critters ready to go:

Reaper's Flesh Golem:



Mage Knight Metal Wraith:



Mage Knight Metal Shade:



Mage Knight repainted Stalking Skeleton:



Reaper pack of Skeleton Archers:



For the Master Adversary, I have Reaper's vampire mage Morrdha.

Dungeon 1: The Underdark

My first (and only, so far) scratch-built D&D map for this scale. My terrain skills are still in their infancy; fortunately, it's not hard to make half-decent cave walls.




Toxanimer strikes down an Abyssal Maw:



Elisha menaced by a Displacer beast:



Tristana versus the Caller in Darkness:

Lizardfolk lounging around the Black Water:

Critters in the caverns:

The Master Adversary contemplates further wickedness:

A Carrion Crawler... crawls:

D'Khul, Mind Flayer:

Carrion Crawler (Reaper's Charnel Grub)

Repaint of DDM's Caller In Darkness:

Chainmail Abyssal Maws:

Chainmail Displacer Beast:

A pair of Ghouls:

My first Reaper dragon, the Nachtlufte:

Colorful feller, ain't he?

Doggie Break

Time for some pics of my other loves:

Berger:



Zoe:

"We're so cute! Give us Crunchy Bones!"

D&D Heroes

The core idea of my D&D game will be that one player controls the Monsters (like a Dungeon Master) while each other player has a team of 4 Heroes: a Fighter, a Mage, a Cleric and a Rogue. The Hero players will score points by killing Monsters and recovering Treasure (or rescuing Prisoners, or what have you). Also, one of the Monsters will be the Master Adversary... and there will be Dragons. Oh yes, there will be Dragons.

Each of the Hero types is going to have (at least) 3 classes. Fighters will be Knights, Barbarians, or Archers.

My first Knight, Sarno Stonechild:



This guy is a repaint of the D&D Minis Stonechild.

Mages will have 3 classes: Wizard (buffs/debuffs), Sorcerer (direct elemental damage), and Druid (bit of both).

Toxanimer, a Sorcerer:



Loremistress Tristana, a Wizard (Witch?):



Archmage Valdarynn, another Sorcerer:



And Elisha Lightsedge, a Sylvan Elf Druidess:

Clerics will come in 3 flavors: Hospitallers (healers), Paladins (fighter/clerics) and Monks (buffs).

Tolzar, a Hospitaller and priest of the sun-god Pelor:

Rogues will have 3 classes: Thief, Ranger and Assassin.

Ridley Darkedge, a Thief:

I'm still mulling over the mechanics for Heroes, but right now I'm leaning toward starting them at 1st Level and advancing to 3rd (meaning a player needs 8 level-ups to max out his party). Third-level Heroes will be tough enough to take on Master Adversaries and Dragons; lower-level, not so much.

I'm thinking each class can have its own point system that it spends on uses of special abilities (thus giving a way to limit the more powerful ones). Fighters will have Action Points; Mages, Spell Points; Clerics, Faith Points; and Rogues will use Skill Points.

More to come as I work it out.

Dungeons and Dragons

My dad is into model trains. One day, when I was in my mid-teens, I went with him to the local hobby store. On the way through the store to the train section, I happened to find a display of unpainted metal fantasy miniatures. The sculpts were amazing... every little detail was articulated, every fang, every link of the chainmail, every scale... I was instantly smitten.

Thus began my love of miniatures. I bought a few and started painting right away (Grenadier models, soon followed by Ral Partha). Eventually, my curiosity about these critters led me to Dungeons and Dragons - I got the Basic (red box) set as a holiday present, and ran with it from there. I roped my brother and his friends into playing, and for most of my high school years, we had a decent-sized group going.

I didn't keep it up much after high school, and ended up selling most of my minis. I would get back into the minis hobby a bit here and there, until the Mage Knight game came out. This game used pre-painted plastic minis with a set of rules for battling them against each other. Right up my alley! So I played MK for a while... and then Hasbro came out with the D&D Minis game. Here were prepainted minis of classic monsters from my high school days, plus DDM was just a better skirmish game. When Mage Knight switched to a 'new' (worse) format, I switched to DDM (and got my brother into it as well).

I played DDM on a tournament level for a few years, and eventually had a complete collection (don't ask how much money I spent). Then the unthinkable happened - DDM also switched to a 'new' (worse) format, and I dropped the game like a hot potater. I sold off my vast collection, except for a few of the cheaper models, and focused on painting and terrain-building.

Now, I'm working on creating a minis game that fuses the best aspects of DDM, Mage Knight Dungeons, Basic D&D, and mechanics of my own design, and mixes it all into a fun, playable game. It's... a work in progress.

But at least I have minis for it!