Mind Games

 Welcome back to the Vault! Hobby time has been incredibly limited this week, bar the very welcome Friday night D&D shenanigans of Immerel and company. (High level adventurers we may be, but it looks like we've been duped. Again. At least it wasn't by a group of giant monkeys like last time, so that's good I guess.)

I keep a notebook where I can scribble down hobby and gaming ideas; occasionally the muse will strike, and if I don't note it then inevitably I'll forget it. Currently I'm trying to come up with some 5th edition character concepts which may eventually get elaborated into fully fleshed PCs. The aim is to sketch out a character per class, so if the opportunity comes up to play something I've got a head start on what I'd like to try out.

Really Useful Model Storage

 Welcome back to the Vault! Saturday's planned activities (not gaming related) were cancelled due to the ridiculous amount of rain that fell from the sky, but there were some definite hobby-related silver linings in those overlying clouds!

I picked up a paint brush for the first time in what must be weeks, and started laying down the base colours onto the Noxious Blightbringer, aka THE BELL MAN; when I've made some more progress I'll share some pictures.

The family also had a trip to the local DIY store. I do like a visit to the local Wickes or B&Q not because I enjoy all those jobs around the house (I don't, I'd rather be painting Plague Marines than walls), but because you can find hobby/modelling related bobbins. 

I wanted to pick up some more storage boxes for the ever growing model collection to replace tatty old cardboard boxes. I have a number of good quality figure cases with foam for transporting armies to events, but that's an expensive way to store everything. And so I tend to store a lot of models in cheaper (but still robust) containers, and swap around the contents of the figure cases when I am going to the club for example.

My preferred brand are the Really Useful Boxes; these come in a variety of sizes, and some are more useful than others for our purposes!

Big Guns Never Re-Tire

 Welcome back to the Vault! Regular readers will know that the most common posts here tend to be pics and words of the latest gaming model I'm painting, be it a Plague Marine, monster for D&D, terrain or whatever. For today's post I thought it would be fun to revisit one of my first ever Warhammer 40,000 projects; the Vindicator tanks which formed the backbone of my Lightbringer Space Marines army lists waaaaay back in 4th edition.

The Bard Stones Part Two

 Welcome back to the Vault! In today's post I'm going to expand on the previous Bard Stones post, again inspired by my friend Chris's blog. We've homebrewed a spell and set of rules for allowing Bards to enchant crystals to store Inspiration dice, so it seems appropriate that there's a poem to help aspiring Bards remember the properties of the various gemstones. Perhaps this verse is the Verbal Component for the Stone Singing spell?

"Lapis blue and turquoise healing,

Amethyst and quartz revealing,

Onyx black will keep from harm,

Hematite to ground the charm,

Quartz of rose for friends and love,

Moonstone is The Lady up above.

Malachite will bring you wealth,

Bloodstone, Agate, Jade for health.

Jet and Amber our delight,

As we meet in darkest night,

Stones of Earth, stones of power,

Serve us in this magick hour…"

Pestilential Painting: The Foetid Virion Part One

 Welcome back to the Vectorium once more! Today's post will be fairly brief as I have to confess the lure of lighter evenings and sunny days has kept me outside and away from playing games (bar the weekly D&D) and the painting desk.

I have taken the opportunity to prime the next set of Death Guard models; a set of Elite Characters which can be fielded collectively on the tabletop as the Foetid Virion. (This suitably nurgley-gothicy term simply means a Death Guard force can field up to 3 such characters in a single elite choice provided each is unique).

First up is the Tallyman.

Pestiliential Painting: The Third Outbreak

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! Another couple of fruitful painting sessions has resulted in the completion of my third squad of Plague Marines. OK, the basing remains outstanding but long term readers will know I tend to batch my bases up over a few units any way!

This is a great milestone as it means I've now completed a Battalion. That means less in 9th edition compared to previous versions, but psychologically it's an achievement; I've got 2 HQ choices, 3 Troop choices plus sundry other units so know I can spin off in all sorts of directions. 

This is my fighty squad, led by a Plague Champion rocking a Power Fist.

Bard Stones

 Welcome back to the Vault! I've been spending some hobby time painting base colours onto another Death Guard unit and I'm pretty sure you don't want to see *more* pictures of half finished 40k models, so today's post is something different.

My friend Chris has been posting some articles about various properties associated with different gemstones. I've been on a bit of a D&D campaign planning kick recently and the articles got me thinking about incorporating some of this information into D&D.

Gemstones have long established associations with magic in table top RPGs:

• As expensive components (e.g. diamonds and pearls) for powerful spells in D&D
• To power and store magic (Power Crystals and True Stone) in Runequest

These gemstones are rare and/or expensive (no doubt because of such uses!) and I'd like to explore something more "every day" that makes use of more accessible stones and crystals. By making the material more common place it helps build flavour into a campaign setting, but also gives those boring "semi-precious stones" worth X gold which turn up in loot piles much more interest. So let's get cracking!