From NoelW: The Chamber of Darkness: 20 Shades of Grey (121 points)

And a voice comes out of the Darkness, saying: “About ruddy time, too! Could Grimvizaj have cut things any finer? Go on, they’re over there somewhere. Get to it!”

Titchy perceives dimly (I think I mention that’s how he usually perceives things, but, fair play, he is in almost total darkness) a tall, spiky, shadowy horseman, barking commands.

From across the room there’s a flash of fire and something like a wasp with its tail on fire comes flying past him.

“Get to it, I say!” insists the horseman. “What are you waiting for?”

“If you were to get off your high horse for a moment and explain…”

Dimly (got it?) Titchy perceives the horseman dismount and advance towards him menacingly.

“I’m sorry if the situation is over your head,” snarls the spiky shadow, “But we’re under attack here!”

Bang! Another inflammable wasp whizzes past.

“And,” he continues, “as you’re the ruddy reinforcements – Top Secret, hush hush, but definitely not illegal in any sense, state of the art constructs Grimvizaj has just sold me – at the cost of an arm and a leg, may I say (but, fortunately, not mine) – is it unreasonable of me at all to ruddy well expect you to do your ruddy job – “ Bang! “and ruddy well do some reinforcing!”

“There’s no need to talk down to me – “ Titchy begins…

Woof! (Can dogs laugh?)

“We’re not reinforcements, we’re just passing through on our way to the Larder.”

“Well, good luck with that. The Larder is currently a no-go area. It’s been barricaded by dozens of these ruddy men with their ruddy firesticks. It’s all we can do to stop the rest coming up from The Aquifer to join them.”

“Ah - " suggests Elfbow, “we've made a wrong turning, no doubt."

“We should go back to Grimvizaj,” says Merlissa, edging back to the door they’ve just ocme through.

“Oh, come on,” snarls Getrude. “Where’s your fighting spirit? We’ve come this far. Keep Questing and Carry On. What’s a few fireworks? Look at Gerald. Does he look scared?”

Staring at Getrude’s staff, they have to admit, he hasn’t a splinter out of place. 

“Mmm, fireworks,” mumbled Gnawbone. 

“Look – even Gnawbone is ready to rumble.”

“Er – “ the shadowy figure held his spiky arm before them. “As you do - er -rumble, please watch out for our lads, won’t you?”

“Our lads?”

“Your reinforcees. Nice chaps. Grey, faceless, no mouths. They don’t say a lot.”

“Clerihew will have some company at last.”

“If they look grey, odd and slightly mis-shapen, they’re the good guys. One of Grimwaj’s bargain experiments. All I could afford. Our last line of defence…”

“And the bad guys?"

"Anything in a uniform. Anything with a wand of fire. There’s a fleet of them off the coast somewhere – been sailing for nearly a year, it seems. Come from a ruddy place some call Challenge Island. Others call it the Refuge of the Damned…”

“They’re after the Greatest Treasure the World has Never Seen!”

“Quite possibly. Apparently their Island was invaded just over a year ago by a plague of mad warlords, who all left random troops in weird uniforms all over the place. Once they’d finished fighting amongst themselves, they realised it was their manifest destiny to do similar things to any other indigent people they could ruddy well find.”

“You don’t get more indigent than us!”

“Precisely. Anyway, Grimvizaj was at that time running a very lucrative sideline in sorceress enhancements. He had apparently inflated balloons for the witches on Challenge Island more than once. And he may have become a little overfriendly with one of those dear ladies…”

“Nonsense!” cried Merlissa. “He wouldn’t dare!”

“… and somehow let it slip that hidden in the Chambers of Challenge is the Greatest Treasure etc etc. In a matter of months, we were beset with these rapscallions with their firesticks and their painfully natty uniforms. More of them every day. Grimvizaj, has been desperately making new monsters as fast as he can, charging me through the nose - or, in one case, for the nose…”

“Bless his little cotton socks,” murmurs Merlissa.

“But virtually every monster has been slain or has fled to the darkest deep depths of the dungeon. Er, Chambers. But now the invaders have broken through to the Larder they can simply take one Chamber at a time till they come across the ruddy treasure. Our only hope is that some brave adventurers can make it to the Altar of the Snowlord, raise him from his long slumber, so he may ruddy well deploy the might of his dormant Power.”

"Well, good luck with that," says Elfbow. "If we come across any, we'll let you know."

“It's a disaster!” cries Titchy. “They’ve sealed the Larder. It’s the end of the world! What will we do without snacks?”

“Then,” cries Getrude, “we must imitate the action of a tiger, gird our lions, make ourselves unbearable and follow Gerald into the fray!”

Gerald wags at the darkness like an angry umbrella.

At once a rapid rattle of ricochets broke out, leaden wasps zooming around the chamber as if their nest had been smashed with a hammer, and five grey figures flee towards them.

“Get back, you ruddy cowards!”

The spiky creature clambers onto his spiky horse and rides into the fleeing figures.

“How about we imitate the action of a very sneaky tiger, and sidle round the wall to that glow of daylight over there?” suggests Elfbow.

“Two words? First word rhymes with ‘spud’? 'Good'? Second word? A short aircraft?

“'Plan'? 'Good plan!'”

“Woof!” says Scruff.

“Fire?? Works???”

***

The latest Frostgrave expansion, The Red King, introduces nullmen, who are “nearly featureless humanoids who shine with an unearthly grey light”, never communicate and appear to move without clear purpose. These seemed ideal for greyscale (which I’ve never before attempted) but I had no models. So I downgraded some plastic Zulus (one Warlord and 4 Perrys) by shaving, filing and liberally spilling polystyrene cement. I figured that these strange creatures would nevertheless communicate with each other and, if their movements seemed odd to ordinary people, then maybe they were indulging in some form of elaborate communicative dance – so I positioned the limbs of the models as oddly and dynamically as I could.

I tried several approaches to greyscaling – zenithal priming, a series of washes and, finally, black undercoat followed by lighter and lighter drybrushing. To be honest, I’m still not happy with the results, but they’ll do.

The Lord of Ruddigore is GW’s old Voice of Sauron model, on foot and horseback.

The “invaders” are 12 Perry Napoleonic Spanish, painted as the Volunteers of the Isle of Leon. I mentioned last year that I’m slowly building a Spanish Naps army, but my guiding principle is to get as many pretty uniforms on the table as I can. I do love a man in uniform. I won’t mind seeing their backs frequently in games, if they’re prettily arrayed, and these black uniforms with sky-blue facings will be a nice contrast with the white and yellow of other Spanish units.

The black figures, of course, are highlighted with grey, so I think I can count all 20 of these figures as Shades of Grey.

18 x 28mm foot figures: 90 points

1 mounted figure: 10 points

I think we generally give additional points for flags (saving your reverence, y’r Minionship): 1 point

Chamber: 20 points

TOTAL: 121 points

Plus 2 Squirrel points and 61 points in the Napoleonic side challenge.