From Barks: Giant alien fungi (40 points)

These are from a Mantic Terrain Crate. You can mix and match different alien jungle bits to your heart's content, and there are gaps for 5mm magnets. I matched rather than mixed, and stuck them together with hot glue, then hid the gaps a little with some quick Milliputting, and mounted them on MDF circles. They're decently tall, between 5"-8". I painted them with Army Painter SpeedPaints; Maggot Skin & Sand Golem; Howling Sand and Dusk Red. I also did some smaller ferny bits. 28mm figure for size.

7 tall fungi, 3 small ferns

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These are some great looking alien terrain bits Barks.  While they are simple paint jobs, they are highly effective and look great!  Great colour choices as well, the yellow and purple help with that whole alien feel.  

I am going to count each of the large ones as about the same as a figure and then the 3 small together as the same.  So you are getting 40 points for the lot of them.  Great work.

- Byron

From PeteF: Kickstarter Fantasy Terrain - New Acquisitions (40 points)

 

I'm adding to my list of things learned on The Painting Challenge: Do not try to prime stuff with a rattle can when it's cold. 

Woefully underprepared for this year's challenge and in a post Christmas food & booze haze I thought it would be a good idea to at long last get started.  The Front Desk & New Acquisitions section presented, nay demanded, that I begin to chip away at an oversized kickstarter package that arrived earlier this year.

This fantasy terrain is from Mantic and part of their Terrain Crate line.  The kickstarter was for a generous amount of terrain and I rather regret doubling down on the fantasy terrain as they were also offering some nice looking sci-fi stuff.

I decided to go with magnets so that the terrain pieces will fit in a smaller container and can be mixed and matched into various odd looking constructions.

Since Osprey hasn't yet published an official fantasy terrain colour scheme, the next challenge after messing up the priming, was deciding which paints to use.  I decided to go all in on red tones for the plate corally thing and go for purple plus complementary colours for the bulbous planty object (with teeth).  But first I had to paint black brush on primer over the failed rattle can white.

This was "planned" to be a quick paint job with speedpaints/contrasts but the priming hiccup meant a more traditional layering approach. 

I can use this stuff for both fantasy and sci fi tables - especially once the whole crate is done - there are many many more of these strange looking animals and plants (or fungi?).

It was fun to get back into the swing of painting as work and life in general have got in the way of reducing the height of the Pile of Potential (Ed: didn't you mean Shelf of Shame?).

Summary

This looks like about 1 terrain cube's worth so:

1 terrain cube: 20 points

New Acquisitions Bonus: 20 points

Total: 40 points

Always wince when I hear spray can mishaps due to cold.. almost like PTSD for myself there! But you salvaged the prime aspect wonderfully as the finished pieces look amazing! The teeth terrain especially with all the yellow fangs ready to strike that squad that ventured off the wrong way! Also great to see them magnetized as that will open up so many options for you. Great job!

As for terrain cube.. sure.. sounds about right to me there.

Kyle 

From NoelW: Snowlord’s Treasury: (32 points)

They run and they run. They run heroically back through the Hall of Heroes. They run beastily back through the Lair of the Beast. They run all the way to the Snowlord’s Treasury where, surprise, surprise, they find – wouldn’t you know it? – Treasure.

“Is this the treasure that launched a thousand ships?” quips Titchy.

“Never mind that. Find something to beat off angry animated bags of bones.”

“How about this?” says Elfbow. “Looks awfully familiar to me.”

He points to a golden statue. A statue, it would seem, of Merlissa.

Getrude laughs.

“Her spell must’ve backfired. Instead of turning gold to air, she’s turned her to gold.”

“I didn’t know magic could pun.”

“It can in this story, or haven’t you been paying attention?”

“What about the Spear of Density?”

“It surely won’t have turned itself into something, would it?”

“It’s there. On the floor.”

“I’d better just check it still works,” says Elfbow, pointing it at the statue of Merlissa. “She’s as two faced as a pair of lizards. So, let’s see…”

With a tap of the spear, the statue instantly dissolves into:

“There must be something else magical amongst all this golden rubbish. Something really powerful that will incinerate bones in a blast of celestial power and doesn’t require a pant-wetting elf to wander over and poke them with a stick.”

“I’ve found this,” cries Titchy, holding aloft a half-eaten Wensleydale buttie. “It may not be the Greatest Treasure the World has Never Seen, but it’ll do me.”

He wolfs it down in one. And what instantly happens?

Absolutely nothing.

“Bit of an anticlimax,” mimes Clerihew.

“You don’t need to mime any more, Clerihew. We know you’re not really a Trappist.”

“Sorry,” he mimes.

“Woof!” says Scruff.

“I know they’re only bones, Scruff. But they’re far too many bones, even for you. Besides which, every time you bring one down, it’ll just spring back to life.”

“There’s only one thing that can help us,” says Getrude. “The Snowlord. We must abase ourselves before his altar and hope he’s not either hibernating, inebriated or over-indulged on Easter eggs (especially as it’s nowhere near Easter yet).”

“I can hear them coming. We’ll have to fight our way through to get there.”

“Then fight we will,” cries Elfbow. “Ladies first!”

“Alternatively,” says Titchy, “we can fill our pockets with this gold stuff, and get the sorceress to help us to the Altar. Then, hopefully, we can lay all this treasure at his feet and it will be his disposition which alters.”

There’s a rattle of bones at the door. Sand begins to flow through the cracks.

***

One pile of treasure is Terrain Crate, the other Wizzkids.

The lizards are from the old GW Lizardmen army, and another of uncertain origin.

Scoring: I guess 1 point each for the treasure pieces, 5 each for the lizards, and 20 for the Snowlord’s Treasury.

Total: 32 points

From NoelW: The Laboratory (22 points)

“This is a nice change. No nasty monsters, tricky statues or men with nasty explosive sticks trying to take our heads off.”

“Just rows of odd instruments and a weird looking roundabout in the middle of the room. Merlissa, do you know where we are?”

“It is an ancient laboratory, where the Astromancers first began to plot the stars. That is an orrerry.”

“With one too many syllables, if you ask me.”

“Can we use it?” asks Getrude. “Can we find out how to defeat these pernicious invaders we keep running across?”

“Or locate the room with the Greatest Treasure the World has Never Seen?”

“Worth a stab.”

“There’s a lever.”

“Woof!”

“Yes, I know, Scruff, but Gnawbone’s gone off on his own now. We’ll just have to figure out how to pull it by ourselves.”

Getrude grabs the lever, pulls. There’s a whir of orbs and planets, gears and chains. A brass arrow shifts across a map of the known universe (that is, the Chambers of Challenge and Challenge Island). There’s a little green stick man in one corner. Using a digital interface (i.e. her finger) Merlissa moves the little man onto the map. It grows larger, and larger, pictures of the many rooms they’ve visited scrolling before their eyes. 

Until they light on one that’s unfamiliar. What looks like a mass of tangled straw, with bones sticking from it, and something unidentifiable trickling across the floor.

“The Lair of the BEAST”, says Merlissa. “We’ve not been there. Yet.”

“The beast?”

“No! The BEAST! With REALLY BIG LETTERS! And, ideally, BOLD ITALICS and a couple of really offensively large exclamation marks!! It’s where the greatest monsters in all the land gather for purposes no-one has every successfully escaped from to report on. It looks like your precious Gnawbone, now he’s a monster, is heading there to join them.”

“Ah,” says Elfbow. “Then, probably, perhaps, all things considered – I guess he’s managing quite well on his own. Doesn’t need our help, is my guess.”

“And what’s through that door behind you, Merlissa?”

Merlissa considers the exit in question, a solid oak door set squarely in the far wall.

“What, that door there? Hmm. I’m not sure. Let me enquire.”

She peers intently at the orrery, then glances at her crystal ball.

“Whoa!” she says, after a moment. “I see great danger. Could be a Rakshasa. Might be a pack of rabid wolves. Yes, definitely dangerous Encounters of the Furred Kind. Looks like we really don’t want to go in there. Unless….”

“Unless what?”

“Let me borrow that stick of yours, elf. I need to check something.”

Elfbow pulls his glittering spear away from her defensively.

“What, don’t you trust me? Didn’t my infinite knowledge of that pointy stick just save our lives in the last room?”

Elfbow squints suspiciously at Merlissa.

“Ok, then,” she says, shrugging. “You try it yourself. Just tap that door with the stick. I’m absolutely sure there’s no real chance of peril.”

“Here you are,” says Elfbow, tossing the spear to Merlissa. “But I want it back, mind.”

Tentatively Merlissa approaches the exit. She raises the spear as if to strike the door, then stops as if she has suddenly noticed something, bending towards the door handle, quizzically. Then, of a sudden, she grabs it, twists, pulls, and steps into the doorway.

“You stupid elf, I knew I’d persuade you sooner or later. This, you pointed ear leaflover, is the Spear of Density. It can change any substance to any other substance at the tap of a tap. With it I can make gold as light as air, and carry the entire Snowlord’s treasury back to my master, Grimwizaj, and he will at last give me the nose job I desire! And this, to answer your question, is the door to the Snowlord’s Treasury! Rhinoplasty here I come!”

With that she sweeps through the door, slamming it behind her. Elfbow rushes after her, but it’s too late, the door has been turned to solid stone almost as impenetrable as the elf’s head, inseparable from the walls around it.

"I knew she was up to something," screeches Elfbow. "I knew it. That scrawny-lipped scryer is as two-faced as a pair of lizards."

And at that moment, just as you’d expect, in the corridor behind them there are sounds of approaching gunfire …

***

Next, and, ideally, with more than undue haste, I'm hoping for a sorceress. Anyone seen one passing by?

The orrerry is by Terrain Crate. I wish I'd seen Sander's before painting mine, as he had a great idea for a worn out version, to make a virtue of the bendy plastic. Mine isn't supposed to look worn out - it just does! I like the rendering of the planets, though.

Scoring: 20 points for the Laboratory and perhaps 2 for the Orrerry? Total: 22

From PeterD The Snowlord's Treasury (25 points)

For the treasury I've got three pieces from a Terrain Crate pack of various treasures.  I picked them up at my FLGS for this room.  I've done a few bits from Terrain Crate and like what I've seen, they are cheap, effective , cleanly cast and paint up nicely. 

I tried a cobblestone effect under the crown's plinth.  Not over thrilled with it, I should have glued on card or pdf bits before mounting the plinth.

The ubiquitous pile of chests and scrolls.  Lots of uses here for my Italian Wars, El Cid and SYW projects.

The sword in the stone.  Not sure that I can find uses for this or the crown.  I did enjoy  playing with textures on them.

I estimate these bits as 1/4 of a terrain cube so 5 points plus 20 for the room gives me 25 for this post and I'm lined up for the Lair of the Spider.

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Any Cap'n worth his salt starts drooling at the sight of piles of treasure! I likes the pile of chests and scrolls in particular :-)

Cap'n Wednesday

From NoelW: The Armoury: 82 points

Somewhere in the dimly perceived depths of the Chambers of Challenge Merlissa is squinting into her crystal ball. She sees a party of five adventurers, flee the Gallery of Ancestors and slam the door heavily behind them as a collective noun of statues creaks into life. She sees them stumble into the Armoury. She smiles to herself.

The Armoury is filled with orcs rampaging around like gorillas on tequila, gathering helmets, breastplates, vanbraces, ordinary braces, bucklers, swashbucklers, buckets, bascinets, bows and bright shiny beads, falchions and halbeds, scimitars and poignards, and the occasional pointed remark and heaping them in an untidy pile in the centre of the room.

“At last!” cries Titchy. “A pile of Treasure!”

Everyorc stops what they’re doing, and turns round to view the newcomers.

“I mean,” says Titchy hastily. “There’s plenty to go round isn’t there. Lots to do. Why don’t we lend you a hand?”

Casually he picks up an odd dagger and tosses it to the base of the pile.

It falls well short with a deafening “Ting!”

The tallest orc, Gnawbone, (why yes, it is he!), scowls then growls. Menacingly the orcs close in on the five adventurers.

“It’s us, Gnawbone. Don’t you recognise us now you’re two people tall?”

The orcs continue to advance. With added menace.

Merlissa’s smile has become a grin.

But at that moment a clamour arrives from the far side of the chamber, coming from the exit leading to the Hatchery. Dozens of soldiers bearing white shields stream in, shouting their battle cries and immediately laying into the orcs.

“We need to get out of here!” screams Elfbow.

Merlissa’s smile is now wide enough to be classified as at least two grins, if not two and a half. This is going to be better than anyone could have expected. Soon there will be five ex-interlopers face down amongst the gorgets, sallets, cuisses and poleyns. And the blood.

She watches Elfbow stumble over a stray guisarme, falling against the pile of armour, which crashes down with a crash, surprisingly. Reaching out to stop his fall, he grabs a spear. A golden spear. 

No! 

It cannot be!

Not that golden spear!

Not the Spear of Density!

Merlissa shrieks in horror, and is so startled by her own shriek that she drops her crystal ball. 

"Didn’t foresee that, did you?" flashes the message on the ball as it rolls away.

That spear shouldn’t be there. And it most definitely shouldn’t now be in the moronic hand of a stupid elf. Now, whoever kills the adventurers, that spear will end up in someone’s hands. The wrong hands. She can’t have that. She hates the idea. Grimvizaj would really hate the idea.  

Oh, botheration! Just when everything seemed to be going so well. Forget that plan, then. Come up with a new one.

Time for a sorceress, it would seem.

She can imprison them in the Oubliette. They won’t survive there for long. Then she can retrieve the spear from Elfbow’s moronic, etiolated, bony hand whenevr she feels like it.

Who would have thought it? The Spear of Density!

***

Not much to say about this post. The 12 Republican Romans are more of the same Victrix minis, except their shields are white rather than the black ones previously posted. The pile of treasure is from Terrain Crate. I tried to straighten the bend bits using warm water, but the straightening does not seem to have taken.

Scoring: 

12 x 28mm infantry: 60 points
Armoury: 20 points
Pile of treasure: 2 points? (it stands about 35mm high)

Total: 82 points 

From NoelW: The Shrining: (Shrine) (42 points)

 “Follow Gerald!” screams Getrude, waving him before her. “In here!”

“We don’t want to go in…” Merlissa begins, but Gerald shoves her in the small of the back and she staggers into a cavern glowing with a blue light and filled with resounding sounds of ominousness.

“Looks like a good place to search for a you-know-what,” suggests Elfbow. “Glowing walls and all that.”

“The glow is coming from that object over there. Where that circle of people are standing.”

Indeed, a small semicircle of austere and pious people were making strange gestures around a glowing object in the corner of the cavern.

“Someone else who likes charades,” Elfbow observes, as Clerihew edges towards them, and begins gesturing expansively.

“Woof?” asks Scruff.

“It might be,” Titchy scratches his stomach. “But I’m not keen on eating things that glow.”

“Look here,” says Getrude, pointing to a plaque embedded in the glowing stone. “What does that mean, elf?”

“Monstrum quondam, monstrum futurus,” says Elfbow.

“I know what it says, leaf-fondler. I want to know what it means.”

“Exactly what it says, I guess.”

“It’s a stone,” says Titchy. “And there’s a sword in it. And all these people are worshipping it. So, clearly, it’s a source of madness and the sign says “Beware of the quondam in case you’re made futurous.”

Clerihew shakes his head in exasperation, mimes quickly to the others in the circle, and then turns to Getrude, gesturing furiously.

“Five words. First word. A little word? ‘The’. Second word. ‘One’? No, lots of ones. Two?”

“Twenty.”

“One and one and one and one and…”

“Ones? Once!”

“The once? Does that even make sense?”

“Third word. Little word. ‘And’? Yes – ‘The once and’. Fourth word. Two syllables. Something’s coming. It’s not back there, it’s coming from the opposite direction, way over there. Miles away. He’s peering into Merlissa’s crystal ball. First syllable. He’s holding his nose. Something smells. Something really smells. Phew!”

“Second syllable. He’s eating something. More than eating. Chewer. Chew. Phewchew?”

“The once and phewchew?”

“Fourth word. It’s big. It’s really big. It’s a monster! Oh, 'monstrum' means monster.”

“The once and phewchew monster?”

“Once and future, dolt. What was once a monster, will be a monster again.”

“If someone pulls the sword from the stone, then they’ll become the monster they once were. Only guessing, of course.”

“Look!” says Gnawbone, suddenly bright eyed. “Lever!”

“Don’t let him pull it!”

But Gnawbone tosses the simpering clerics out of the way, grabs the sword and pulls. The cavern glow blazes into eye-shattering fire. There’s a roar more raucous than a balrog trapped in a particularly toothsome balrog trap.

And, when the glow is gone, so is the sword.

So is Gnawbone.

***

A simple post this time: the four clerics are Perrys, from their Crusades range. These are nicely characterful figures. I’ve painted them with different robes, so they can probably have a role in almost any period, including contemporary games. Here they are without the blue glow:

 

And now they take a curtain call:

The sword in the stone is yet another Terrain Crate piece. This is proving a really useful set for the Chambers.

Scoring:

4 x 28mm figs: 20 points
Magical sword of incredible magnificence and unknown puissance: 1 point?
Shrine: 20 points

Total points: 41

That's a pretty chunkily-sized sword, so I'll give it 2 points (my generosity may have been swung by your use of the word "puissance")

Tamsin

From NoelW: Enter the Larder: (139 points)

 “At last! At last!” Titchy squeaks like an excited chew-toy. “We enter the Sanctum Sanctorum!”

“Keep it down, Titchy, They’ll hear.”

 “Over all those fireworks they’re letting off? I don’t think so. No, Gnawbone. Heel!”

Getrude gestured at the barricade across the only door: a pile of boxes, bags, torn scrolls and chests. With their weapons leaning against them, a dozen men in blue coats are firing their weapons into the room beyond.

“Yes, Clerihew,” Getrude mouthed. “Two syllables. Pour foot? Tip something out? Tip toe!”

Clerihew raised his thumb approvingly, and began to creep across the room.

“If we’re quiet, we can cross the room and leave without them noticing us. If only there was another way out.”

“Tiptoe? Leave? We’re in the heart of the Chambers of Challenge, the very epicentre of all that matters in the world. The Larder! Here we will find the target of our quest, the Greatest Treasure the World…”

“...is getting particularly fed up with,” growled Elfbow, “Yes, we’ve heard it all before. But what good will it do if we're surrounded by men with sharp knives and those wretched gun things?”

“It’s just a Larder,” mutters Merlissa, looking around.

“And what do larders contain but food,” continued Titchy. “And what is more magical than food? Nothing! The Treasure must be here. That great pig could be Henwen, the fortune telling pig of Penwigion.”

“Or it may simply be bacon in waiting. And I suppose that constipated goose in the pantryman’s arms is preparing to launch an infinite stream of golden eggs?”

“It might be.”

“Or it might just be developing a taste for sage and onion. And now you’re going to tell me those bananas are the Forbidden Fruit from the Garden of Eden, or the Golden Delicious of the Hesperides?”

“Might be.” Titchy scowled. “Well at the very least - let me get one of those scrolls. You can see from here they’re all recipes.”

“They're recipes for disaster, that’s what they are.”

“Could still be tasty...”

There’s a sudden flurry of gunfire, as grey shadows mass on the far side of the barricade. Merlissa takes her chance, grabs the pantryman.

“Tell us how to get out of here,” she snarls.

“Follow the dogs,” he hisses. Or it might have been the goose. "They’re lead you out of here.”

"Woof!" Scruff agrees.

Three dogs on their hind legs are carrying trays cross the room, ignored by the men with guns. They pantryman lifts a sack from the floor revealing a trapdoor hidden beneath it. Opening it, the dogs descend, quickly followed by Merlissa, Elfbow and Clerihew, with Getrude dragging Titchy behind her and the rest of the party clambering down a dark staircase, gunfire getting quieter behind them.

***

That completes the first level of the Chambers.

For the Larder I searched out a few oddments of food I could find hidden in various places in the far too extensive unpainted collection. The pantryman is a goose seller from, I think, early Citadel figures. The pig is Reaper Bones and the three dogs as waiters are Mithril figures, Beorn’s servants. 

The pile of chests is a particularly good Terrain Crate model, as is the trapdoor. The bananas are Wargames Foundry.

The defenders of the barricade are a unit of Continentals from the Revolutionary War (or AWI) made by the Perrys. I’ve painted them with the Pennsylvania 4^th in mind, as the same uniform can be used for several other units, too. However, I’m not entirely sure about the blue I’ve used. Most of the sources I’ve seen favour a dark blue, rather than the mid blue I’ve chosen. I may decide  to give them a further dark blue wash. 

The two flags are from Flags for the Lads.

Scoring:

23 x 28mm figures: 115 points
Flags: 2 pts
Terrain bits: 2 pts??
Larder: 20 pts

Total: 139 points

And 2 more Squirrel points.

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Well that is quite a characterful submission and I love the narrative. Sadly my Beagles are more up for scoffing anything they can find as fast as possible, vice serving their beloved master...  Your Continentals from the American Mutiny Revolution are lovely and I really like the mid blue jacket colour - a bit faded to show their experienced service supporting the new Republic, and the extra brightness will look great on the table I'd wager. Good stuff Noel!

Cap'n Wednesday

From NoelW: The Golem's Haunt (61 points?)

 “I told you it wasn’t ‘the Construction Chamber," squeaks Titchy, breathlessly running down the corridor. "It was so obviously ‘Deconstruction Chamber.”

“Well pardon me for failing my postmodernism GCSE.” Elfbow mutters to himself, as he swings open the door to the next room.

“Quite right,” says a voice. “This is the Construction Chamber. Welcome to my House of Unexpectedly Drastic Surgery. I am Dr Grimwizaj."

"A tuck here," Dr Grimwizaj continues, "a tweak there, a radical readjustment of unsightly orifices, perhaps a little tentacular enhancement. Our motto is 'We can make a new being for, from or of you.'”

“I think we’re all happy being the beings we are, actually.”

“We could get rid of that unsightly lump for you.”

“No thanks. That’s Titch. We might need him.”

“Well, what about you, madam? Surely there must be something you’d like raised, lowered, tightened or unnaturally inflated? We’ve a special offer at the moment: bob the nose, remove that sarcastic look, relax the itchy trigger finger – we call it the ‘Lady Sarah.’ For no particular reason…”(1)

“No, nothing, thank you. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Can you do anything for Gerald?” Getrude proffers her staff tentatively. “He’s not what he was.”

The mad scientist-cum-beautician squints at the staff.

“So what was he, precisely? A clothes prop? A splinter from a giant’s toothpick?”

“He’s the mightiest warrior that ever wrestled dragon or bested basilisk.”

“Ah, yes, I see that now. Obviously practically perfect in every way. Nothing we could do for him, I fear. However…”

The doctor squints narrowly at Gnawbone.

“…perhaps there is something you can do for me. I see this – er – gentleman has several organs he barely uses. I might do something with the brain, which seems largely untouched. If I could find it. Or those ears. They appear almost entirely superfluous… I could give you a good price.”

“Hey!” objects Gnawbone. “I need my ears.”

“Both of them?”

Gnawbone considers carefully.

There’s a sudden explosion of sound in the next room, as if a barrel of fireworks had unexpectedly decided to end it all.

“I didn’t do nuffin’!” Gnawbone exclaims.

“I didn’t do anything,” Elfbow corrects him.

“Me neither,” says Gnawbone. “Look, there’s no lever anywhere.”

“Don’t worry about that little bruhaha next door,” smiles Dr Grimwizaj’s. “It’s a dangerous place. We have to entertain the rejects there.”

“You give them a fireworks party?”

“It’s very simple. What we take apart in the Deconstruction Chamber we then manipulate with art and artifice here - ” he gestures to the tray of knives, spanners and unguents – “Any occasional fatty deposits or excesses of flesh are, of course, stored in the Larder – absolutely nothing wasted, we’re very Green here, positively verdant – and on the rare occasions when an unfortunate project fails to achieve its target aspirations, the under-successful experiment has to be – er - despatched next door.”

“You have a larder?” exclaims Titchy. “There’s a larder! Which way?”

“Same door. But, as we’ve established, you don’t want to go through there.”

“You’ve already had second breakfast in any case,” observes Elfbow.

“So what? It’s nearly time for prebrunch snacks,” Titchy scowls. “Besides which, now we know there’s a larder, we know where we’ll find the Greatest Treasure the World has Never Seen.”

“I want to see the fireworks,” Gnawbone’s eyes glaze over, as he edges towards the door.

“What exactly do you make here?” puts in Getrude.

“Anybody and everybody,” Grimwizaj says. “Build a Bear. Manufacture a Mannequin. Generate a Golem. Fabricate a Frankenstein. Let me introduce you to my latest very special constructions? They’re really quite remarkable.”

With that gesture which Clerihew believes is religious, Grimwizaj whips aside a curtain to reveal seven glittering creatures. Constructions. Machines. Entities. Strangely lifelike, their bodies are fabricated from gold, half-concealed in swirling cloaks of dark blue.

“Look at that,” says Gnawbone. “They’re dressed just like Merlissa.”

"Woof!"

“How dare you!” Merlissa responds, “My gown is completely different. I am stylish. I am a doyen of haute couture. Look at me, Gnawbone.” She twirls. “Look at my stars and moons. And my blue is Dark Azure, nothing like their Midnight Sky.”

“Fireworks…”mutters Gnawbone. “Fireworks…”

She twirls again.

“No, Gnawbie, I don’t think we need to go in there. Do we?” She glances at Grimwizaj.

Gnawbone staggers towards the door whence further bangs can be heard.

“Don’t let them through, Merl – I mean, whoever you are. Who are you? Obviously I’ve never met you before.”

Merlissa scowls. Grimwizaj abruptly distracts everyone by brandishing his surgeon’s cleaver delicately.

“Step away from the door. I think I’ll take those ears after all!”

Raising his hand, the underqualified surgeon grabs a fistful of air and suddenly the seven glittering entities lurch towards Gnawbone.

“Turn them into versatile components and redistribute them across the room.”

“Grrr!” mutters Scruff, leaping on the nearest golden creature and biting into its vessels, wires and cables. In a great spark of blue lightning, the dog is flung against the door and an explosion of darkness bursts into the chamber.

“Now, that’s not friendly,” snarls Getrude. “Get them, Gerald!”

In less time than it might take to note that the chamber could soon resemble a close reprise of their encounter in the previous chamber, with fists and futtocks flailing, bodies colliding and more than enough blood donated for Dr Grimwizaj to construct a complete, if multi-ethnic, vampire, that’s exactly what it becomes. Golden beings are thrown everywhere, dismembered, membered, unremembered.

But every time one of them hits the floor, it rises again, unharmed.

“We’re not doing too well…”

At that moment, Gnawbone casually leaves the room, wandering through the doorway into darkness.

“Fireworks!”

“After him! Quick!”

Heroically the party flee as fast as they can into the darkness of the next chamber. There’s a quick flash of light and a series of bangs like a dozen doors being slammed in rapid succession. One of them is the door to the Construction Chamber.

Clerihew mutters a few silent gestures and the door seals itself. On the far side, it sounds as if Grimwizaj and his creature-things are less than well pleased.

On this side, the darkness is completely filled.

With darkness.

***

(1) Obviously this is a work of friction. Any resemblance to any person or persons livid or dead is entirely coincidental. 

I’ve put this scifi group together thinking of Stargrave, the promised futuristic variant of Frostgrave expected in April. I’m excited about that game, which seems to be designed around the idea of astro-scavengers, so this is a band of upmarket recyclers, whose primary goal is to recycle themselves, one hinge at a time.

Four of the seven constructs are from GW Killteam,

one is an assassin figure from GW’s 40K earlier days,

and the other two are odd figures picked up from a Bring and Buy somewhere in the days when my son collected any and every odd sci fi figure he came across that he felt I could afford.

The good Dr Grimwizaj is a special figure from the Partizan Show in those glory days of the wonderful Kelham Hall. I think his surgeon's kit is particularly well done. His tray of constructive instruments is another Terrain Crate piece.

SCORING: 

8 x 28mm figures: 40 points
Tray: 1 point?
Chamber: 20 points

TOTAL: 61 points

Plus 1 Squirrel point.