Return to the Dungeon!

 After a gap of several years, I finally managed to make it back to the Old Buckenham Bone Crushers today.  The kids spent the morning playing with all my dungeon parts and then Number 1 Son accompanied me to his first ever wargames club meeting.  A game of Heroquest seemed the easiest option for a novice gamer to pick up without too much difficulty, and I hoped that the scenery and minimal rules would keep his attention focussed.

Lots of dungeon!

The adventurers will start at the bottom of a spiral stair, with a choice of two different directions.  This photograph is from my planning.  During the game, dungeon sections are only placed on the table as they explore...

Adventurers enter top right.

The adventurers stick together, heading into a large hall containing 3 Goblins who are rapidly dispatched.

The hall, once the Goblins have been slain.

A search of the treasure chests revealed a healing potion and some gold coins.  The barbarian is surprised to find a Goblin hiding in the chest he opens!  The Goblin leaps out and cracks the barbarian on the knee with his club before being slain.

Through the archway.

Off the large room is a storage room and scriptorium with an Orc and a Goblin.

Into the scriptorium.

Our heroes pile into the room and get stuck in to the Orcs.

Attaaaaaack!

With the Orcs dead, the heroes have a good rummage in the cupboards and on the desks, finding a shield, more gold and another healing potion.

Pillaaaaaage!

Out of the other side of the room, they encounter a Beastman but he proves no match for the master of swords.  After taking an extraordinarily long time (lots of very poor dice rolling) to break down the doors either side of the vestibule, our heroes uncover a store room and a prison cell.

He doesn't look too well.

The occupant of the cell is sadly beyond help, but he has some treasure our heroes steal, before leaving his corpse for the rats...

Leave him for the rats.

After a lengthy trudge along the corridors, pausing only to slay a skeleton, the adventurers discover the evil wizard's bedchamber.  A Chaos Champion guards the entrance.  After a brief scuffle with the master of swords leaves the champion injured, the wizard mutters an incantation and finishes it off with a blast of fire.  The Chaos Champion gives an inhuman scream as it is consumed by the flames and the charred armour clatters to the flagstones, its occupant now nothing but soot.

The Sorceror in his lair!

The Chaos Sorceror sends a lightning bolt fizzing down the corridor but fails to injure the master of swords or the barbarian.  The master of swords takes a mighty swing at the Sorceror, dealing him 3 wounds.  The barbarian assists and the Chaos Sorceror is no more.

Must be some treasure in here.

Although there was more dungeon to explore, time was short so we decided to call it a day now that the Chaos Sorceror had been defeated.  Venturing further into the dungeon would have revealed the Sorceror's summoning room and a large hall adjoining, plus another room off that.

The complete dungeon.

At the opposite end, near the entrance stair, was the treasure room with its brightly patterened red and yellow floor.  

Complete dungeon - exploded view.

I usually take a couple of photographs for reference before a game, one being an exploded view to make it easier to see which pieces I need.

Another view of the complete dungeon.

 Finally, a couple more photographs of the scriptorium and the main hall.

Main hall (and Goblin).

Scriptorium.

 I'm hoping I might manage another trip to the club soon, but this time with the wait measured in months rather than years!

Some beds for the dungeon.

In addition to my recently printed library cupboards, I thought a few beds would be useful for my dungeon.  These are designed by Curufin, there are 5 different designs but I just printed one of them as designed, plus a mirrored version.

The "red bed".

I used burnt umber on all the wood areas, then drybrushed with burnt sienna on the headboard and footboard and taupe on the uprights.  Pillows and sheet were white, with some Vallejo bleached bone for shading.  I bought a couple of Army Painter Speedpaints recently and thought I'd try them out.  I used Blood Red for the blanket on the first bed.

A chance to test out speedpaint.

As with the library cupboards, I hollowed the object with a 2mm shell and punched a number of holes in the base for resin drainage.

Holes for resin drainage.

I used the Speedpaint Cloudburst Blue on the blankets for the other bed.  I'm not sure how good an experiment this was, they'll probably work better on more textured clothing but they still look OK on the beds. You can see the colour graduation anyway, though I should have been more careful to avoid the dark pool on the blue bed cover!

The "blue bed".

I was lacking any double beds in my dungeon furniture, so these are a good addition that will certainly come in handy.

This is a mirror-image of the red bed.

Curufin also created these more rustic beds, suitable for a barracks or perhaps a more luxurious prison cell.  He has included straw palliasses to fit on the beds, but I'm going to scratch build some instead.  I painted them using Wilkinson's latex emulsion tester pots, Java Bean for the base, drybrushed with Nutmeg Spice or Coffee.

More beds.

The beds come with either long or short posts, so you can use them as normal beds or bunk beds.

Obviously warped!

These were printed a few months ago and they've clearly warped over the intervening period, though some more than others.  I've since worked out that this happens to objects printed flat on the build plate, therefore including the longer-cured base layers.  As the upper layers cure more over time, they presumably contract more, thus causing the curving.  Lifting the object off the build plate seems to help, and it also gives the space for the hollowed objects to drain freely.

Bunk beds rather less warped.

Curufin also makes more luxurious single beds similar to the double beds, but I already have a few in the dungeon.

Scratch built from balsa and milliput.

I have a couple of beds I scratch built from balsa wood and milliput.  I was particularly pleased with the animal skin covering I sculpted on one of them.

Hirst Arts plaster cast bed.

 Hirst Arts mould #59 Unique Inn Accessories includes a plaster bed which is designed to fit perfectly into a Hirst Arts cast dungeon, I have a few of these.

Library cupboards

One of the designers that I regularly admire items from on Thingiverse is Ecaroth.  I decided to try printing the sample items from his library set to see if would be worth purchasing the entire pack.

Cupboards in the corner.

The sample includes 3 cupboards, one of which is a corner unit.  I painted them with a burnt umber base coat and a heavy drybrush of burnt sienna to give a richer, warmer tone than my existing dungeon furniture.

Cupboards separated.

To save on resin, I hollowed the cupboards leaving a 2mm shell.  I punched holes in the back and base to assist with the resin drainage during printing.

Printed hollow with plenty of drainage holes.

They match well in size with my Mantic Terrain Crate scenery, so I could easily print some more and paint them to match those.  By mirroring each design, you could have a total of six different cupboards.

Comparison to Mantic Terraincrate shelves.

In summary, I think these cupboards have turned out great and I will certainly be purchasing the full set from Hero's Hoard in due course.  They'll be a great addition to my Hirst Arts Heroquest dungon.

Dungeon library - Mantic terraincrate review

One thing that my Hirst Arts dungeon has been lacking is a decent library.  All evil wizards need a good supply of magic spell books, gazetteers, atlases, arcane manuscripts etc.  I've been thinking about constructing one for years but haven't had a chance to sit down and do all the cutting out of balsa for the bookcases, cardboard for the books etc.  Fortunately Mantic Games have come to my aid with their Terrain Crate library, a set of which I recently picked up along with their torture chamber furniture, both for about half price.

Painted above, from the box below.

The bookcases are a hard plastic and come pre-assembled and pre-painted in a dark brown.  Mould lines are minimal but they still benefit from a quick clean up with a razor blade or very sharp craft knife.  I gave mine a good scrub with warm water and washing up liquid before painting in my usual "dungeon wood" colour scheme.

A small library.

The set include 2 complete sets of bookcases (3 wide, 1 narrow, 1 corner), a desk, pile of books and a ladder.  The torture set includes 2 complete sets of an iron maiden, trolley of equipment, rack, table, coffin, sarcophagus and skeletal remains.

Book cases and desk.

The bookcases have nice chunky detail that takes drybrushing well.  Although I repainted them completely, a quick brush of light brown would be sufficient if you wanted a fast, easy improvement.

Torture equipment and cupboard

Some of the torture equipment is a little fiddly and needs to stand in hot water to straighten out slightly warped legs etc.

Ready for the next victim!

Detail is excellent, especially on some of the torture equipment.

A few ominous stains on that wood...

Due to the moulding process, there isn't much recessed detail, eg under manacles and chains, but it's probably tougher than resin would be and lighter and cheaper than metal.

Cupboard and shelves.

Bookcase.

The books are varied in size.  Although they don't have any spine detail, it's easy to add some with a dab of gold paint.

More bookcases.

I'd give the library set a B+ (good detail, comes ready-assembled and painted but quite chunky and a few mould lines to clean up) and the torture chamber set a B- (also excellent detail but mould lines again and also some warped legs on the rack, turture table etc.)

Here be dragons...

I bought these dragons a few years ago but they languished forgotten in a box in the loft until a week or two ago.  They were about 50p each from a gift shop which was closing down and I thought they would be pretty good repainted in a suitable colour.  As purchased, they had been daubed with a huge amount of coloured glitter but as I had hoped, it came off pretty easily with warm water and an old toothbrush.

Note the little patch of glitter remaining on its back!

 They look pretty good in their original colours now the glitter is gone!  They'll make excellent denizens for my dungeon.

Once more into the dungeon...

 Well, my hopes of having more games and posting a bit more before Christmas haven't turned out as planned, but never mind!  I have at least managed a bit more dungeoneering down at the Old Buckenham Bone Crushers.

Goblins guard a small treasure pile.

 Wizard, Halfling, Swordmaster and Elf venture into the depths.

Up the stairs and over the bridge.  Look out!  A Chaos Warrior!

 The Swordmaster proves his worth, killing Goblins and Chaos Warriors.

The Elf's bowmanship takes down an Orc.

 Deeper into the dungeon they explore.

Uh-oh... Chaos Beastmen!

 Chaos Beastmen prove cunning!  One moves menacingly towards the |Elf, swatting arrows from the air with his might sword and chuckling menacingly.

Our heroes could be in trouble!

 It was all a distraction!  While the Elf's attention was focused, another Beastmen crept round the side and now lunges to the attack!  Halfling and Swordmaster try to hold off another Beastman.

What's the Goblin guarding in that urn?

 Eventually the Beastmen are slain.  Is there any treasure they were guarding?

Death of a halfling...

 An ignominious death as the Halfling finds a magnificent suite of plate mail in the cupboard, but is crushed to death as it falls on him. (He drew the plate armour equipment card but also a TRAP card).

Can zombies read?  He seems interested in this book.

  Fortunately the nearby Wizard was able to revive the Halfling with a healing spell, so the quest continues.

Hmm... lots of doors, which one to open next?

Soon, the Halfling finds himself in a corridor full of doors. Which one to open first?

The library!  Oh, and some Beastmen. Oops.

The first door he tries reveals the library.  Unfortunately there are currently a couple of Beastmen here and they don't look happy at the intrusion!

Ker-splang!  Never stand on the decorative tile, always a trap!

Disposing the the lurking zombie, the Wizard ventures into the room, discovering the hard way that one should never stand on the decorative tile in the middle of the room.  It invariably causes a spring-loaded spike to thud into your leg.  Ouch.

Oh dear, shouldn't have opened that door!

Despite his injury, the Wizard does his best to support the rest of the party.  He uses his Genie spell to open one of the doors the Halfling discovered.  A big, steel door that the Swordmaster was not strong enough to break down.  Removal of the door reveals WHY it was so strong - it was holding in a Cockatrice.

Rraargh! Cockatrice attacks!  Can the swordmaster hold it off?

Freed at last, the Cockatrice lunges for the nearest target - the Swordmaster!

Erm.. no, it's killed him.

The rending talons and slashing beak of the Cockatrice prove too much for the Swordmaster who collapses to the floor in a welter of blood and shredded armour.  Before his death he just managed to weaken the Cockatrice for the combined attacks of the other heroes to finish the beast.

The evil wizard is revealed!

After a brief pause to regroup,heal their various injuries, re-animate the Swordmaster and share out the loot from the Cockatrice's treasure room, the heroes approach their final objective - the Evil Wizard in his lair.

Our heroes pile into the undead hordes.

Bursting through a side door, our heroes pile into the skeletal bodyguard.

The swordmaster dies.  Again.

Skeletons are smashed to smithereens, but alas!  The Swordmaster succumbs once more beneath their blows.

Skeletons gang up on the halfling.

Now the Skeletons turn their wrath upon the Halfling but this pause give the Elf his chance.  Prising open the Swordmaster's cold, dead lips, he sloshes in some healing potion and his companion springs back to life!  Our heroes press home the attack, destroying the last of the skeletons and slaying the Evil Wizard before he can escape.

The evil wizard is defeated.  Let's read his magical tome.

Evil defeated, the Halfling is curious.  What is this grimoire upon the Evil Wizard's desk?

Aak!  Eyes bleeding, brain hurts... aaaaagh!

The words seem to move around on the page.  The Halfling concentrates harder, staring intently at the page.  His lips move as he mutters the strange words under his breath but it quickly becomes hard for him to see as his eyeballs fill with blood and he suddenly collapses, convulsing, to the floor.

A lesson for all - do not meddle with the arcane magicks of the Evil Wizard!