Big Progress Post

Map for my latest play-test campaign.

It’s been a very long few months since January. In the hobby realm, I got a copy of Oathmark by Frostgrave author Joseph McCullough. The system is d10 based and looks to scale nicely. I also picked up some Oathmark dwarf minis and they are absolutely my favorite dwarf minis I’ve seen.

The Oathmark rule book for visual.

Dwarf spearman, archer, and swordsman. I love the kit because they wield more than just axes and hammers!

All my Oathmark dwarves with their Reaper minis king.

A pic of my dwarf king up close.

Meanwhile, I’ve also continued work on my adventure game, and generated up this map for a little campaign to test out multiple facets of gameplay. The white hexes are yet undiscovered lands for the party, the idea being that the filled in map portions were given by the merchant guild they were serving to escort a caravan. 

It gives me a nice world to work in and play around with. The Iron Hounds have escorted 2 caravans and are now camping out in the gatehouse of a ruined castle. They will attempt a delve soon. I am running this play test campaign in 1:1 time, so if I don’t have time to sit and play for hours, it’s a little treat of classic adventure gaming that only takes between 5-30 minutes.

For example, on their first quest, the Iron Hounds encountered a group of bandits led by a rogue lance (who I lovingly named Dastard the Bastard). They defeated the brigands by forcing a morale check, and Dastard escaped to rob someone another day.

 

The whole encounter took me about 15 minutes to play out (with setup!) due to its small size, and I was able to resolve the aftermath quickly enough. The whole “day” of adventure was completed on my lunch break. That might sound too fast, but that kind of accessibility is what I need some days.

The small play moments give me time to digest each segment and think about how they felt and whether or not they were fun, made sense, or felt worth the time. That’s been valuable. I’m considering adjusting a few key details with combat, and I’ve finally found a satisfactory solution to several problems.

Finally, I painted up my Kasrkin sergeant mini. He is present with plasma pistol and chainsword next to two infantrymen.

I will likely add yellow hazard stripes to his chainsword in true 80’s fashion, and I still need to paint some cool markings on his shoulder pads.

I did my best with a second-hand mini. He’ll never see action in a game of 40k, but may one day battle in StarGrave if I ever buy the rules. Maybe the classic Laserburn? Definitely my own home made games, few as they are for sci-fi.