Praise the Sun! \[T]/

I have painted the whole of my Dark Souls the Board Game miniatures and want to take the opportunity to show them off.

Caution, this post is image heavy!

The design brief I had for myself was to follow the video game art as much as possible and to favour DS3 over the others (as that is where most of the generic models are from, such as the hollows). However, some things look in digital art than physical miniatures, so I did make some changes where it looked better to do so (such as the Silver Knights cloaks).

All models have been gloss varnished for protection while gaming and then a matt varnish over that to remove the shiny finish of the gloss.

Anyway, on with the pics.

First, the Hollows:

The Hollows miniatures do not have a huge amount of detail on them and, to be fair, they dont need to; they are basic enemies. I went for the DS3 colour scheme as they are the DS3 hollows character models (personally, I would have prefered the DS1 hollows).

Next, the 'Anor Londo' enemies - Silver Knights and Royal Sentinels.

The Silver Knights, in the video game, have brown cloaks, but these did not look interesting so I opted for this blue-green colour. The Royal Sentinels do not have this brown-red colour on them but I thought it made them more interesting than just white and gold.

Now, the Mini-bosses.

The Outrider Knight (or Frost Knight, as it is better known). I tried to make it 'frosty' as an overall effect by highlighting the armour with a mix of silver and white. Along with the sword blending I think the knight does look somewhat 'cold'.

 The Titanite Demon is pretty straight forward and he is simply one colour (as sort of 'metal-stone' effect). However, I made it a little bit more interesting by adding the blue colour to his face and catch-pole. 

The Belfry Gargoyle has been kept close to the video game colour scheme, with the very verdigris bronze armour. 

The Winged Knight has a standard colour scheme, complete with the heraldry on his surcoat (which I have painted in an abstract way, but it works as long as you don't stare too closely... 

And now, the main bosses.

The Dancer of the Boreal Valley was interesting to paint. The model is aweful out of the box as it looks like she is falling foward (both of her feet are close together). The current theory was the model was changed to fit it in the box (though SFG blamed Bandai). Anyway...

I changed the model to be taking a half step forward and it looks loads better (still not anywhere near as good as the the concept model we were shown).

In the game, her cloak is very thin and transparent but I settled on white. Her sword is meant to be on fire but the model is weird and has no flame on it, so I just ignored the weird pattern on top of it and blended it like fire.

I think she turned out ok, all things considered.

Ornstein and Smough; is there a more iconic Dark Souls boss as these two?

Lets deal with the elephant in the room; Smough's bollock helmet. Smough does not have a bollock helmet in the game; there is a bulge, but it is a single bulge and not a pair of bollocks.

Anyway, lets move on. These two are pretty awesome miniatures (excepting Smough's very heavy hammer and the haft cannot bear the weight). 

The main colour for these is gold, so that is what I did; did not want to play about with the style of these two. The gold turned out a little more muted than I expected it to; would have prefered one shade more yellow gold. But I think they look good. I painted a little more red on Ornstein than the model suggests (because the model does not follow the video game fully; Ornstein has a ragged red kilt under his armour). 

That is all the enemies, now for the heroes.

I followed the game art as much as I could with the heroes and I think they look pretty close to their video counter-parts. I like the way they turned out (how many shades of grey can you get on 1 miniature?!).

And a bonus figure.

This is a Reaper Bones Blacksmith but looked quite good as an Andre miniature. Keeping my eye out for a firekeeper.

No doubt there will be more Dark Souls miniatures posted when October rolls around...

Now burglary?

Gloomhaven Warehouse

After our slaughtering of 2 innocent tribes, we thought it might be an idea to help the City Guard before Jekserah convinces us to do more aweful things in the name of hard cash (the Scoundrel would prefer the cash; morals are over-rated).

Living Bones

We expected to find the warehouse empty but it was actually filled with undead. Great. 

So this was Jekserh's plan all along; to take over Gloomhaven with an army of the dead? And we helped her do it by getting thos scrolls from the Black Barrow... I guess this is a mess we need to help clean up.

After fighting our way through the corpses, we eventually come face-to-face with Jekserah. She seemed unhappy with the fact that we were no longer in her employ and so set her bodyguards on us before fleeing through a window.

Inox Bodyguard

We were able to defeat the huge Inox (after some heroics from our own Inox) but Jekserah was gone by that time. 

Argeise said that there was a Seer that could help track her down and we found some evidence of an old Temple of the Seer near the mine Jekserah had wanted us to rob. All good leads.

This man has lost his brother

Later on we were also approached by a man who had lost his brother while out hunting; he knew we travelled a lot and wanted us to keep an eye out for him in future.

Current Opportunities

Crypt of the Damned - find out more about the power of Gloom

Vibrant Grotto - quest for the seer

Frozen Hollow - quest for the seer

Temple of the Seer - a lead on Jekserah

So, we kill innocents now?

The Toxic Moor

The sacred tree and the drakes

We decided to investigate the Toxic Moor; our Inox wanted to help protect his sacred tree (the one in the stinking swampland). So south we went.
When we got there we were approached by a large inox tribal woman who implored us to protect her sacred tree (nope, she was not blue...) which was apparently surrounded by mating drakes that were burning the tree as part of a mating ritual. You cannot make this stuff up.

A horny Drake

We fought our way through the drakes and saved the tree before it burnt down. The grateful Inox women then presents us with some healing potions from the sap of the tree as thanks.

Made us feel all warm and fuzzy inside doing a good deed.

It didn't last...









Inox Encampment

A Vermling clearly up to no good.

So, our next destination was the Inox that had been attacking Jekserah's merchant caravans. On the way we ran into a tribe of vermlings that were dancing and singing around a large bonfire.

So we attacked. Because what else would you do to a group of Vermlings that were doing no harm?
Turned out to be a bad idea as we ended up arriving at the Inox Encampment wounded and poisoned. But it was fine because all the Vermlings that were enjoying themselves by singing and dancing were all dead. Serves them right. Or something.

An Inox tribesman

Continuing our current trend for slaughtering tribes people we fell upon the tribe of Inox at their encampment and began cutting them down.
We fought our way to the cave at the back of their camp that they were very keen for us not to get to; obviously they are protecting something valuable!

And they were; their now scared and crying children and the food they had stolen from the caravans to feed them. Yes, we are bad people. The worst.

We started to think that maybe this Jekserah was leading us astray...








Back in Gloomhaven

Jekserah and her bodyguard

We met with Jekserah and received our reward and she seemed totally unconcerned with the plight of the Inox tribe. In fact, she had another job for us; she needs us to travel to a Diamond Mine an retrieve a large diamond. The whole encounter left us ill at ease, but she did pay well.

It was then we were approached by Argeise, a city guard, who informed us that Jekserah is indeed up to no good and the guard have had their eye on her for a while. Argeise would like us to break into Jekserah's Gloomhaven Warehouse and see what she has there and maybe find some evidence that would incriminate her?






Current Opportunities
Crypt of the Damned - learn more about the power of Gloom
Diamond Mine - steal a large diamond for Jekserah
Gloomhaven Warehouse - search Jekserah's warehouse for the city guard

Four misfits were sitting in a bar...

So, we started playing Gloomhaven. These posts will be used for my group to keep track of the story progress as there seems to be a lot going on.

There will be spoilers if you have not played - be warned!

Lets get right to it.

The World of Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is a new city in some uncharted territory where adventurers, mercenaries, freebooters and misfits of all stripes come to make their fortune. You play one of these such folk who, though out for themselves, recognise that working in a small band is the best way to get opportunities. 

Inox Brute

The Sleeping Lion Inn

The four misfits consisted of a Human Scoundrel, an Inox Brute, a Saavas Cragheart and a Quatryl Tinkerer. All were nursing a mug of ale and wondering how they were going to make some cash.

We were just the right sort of desperate ner'do'wells that an enterprising sort could take advantage of...

Quatryl Tinkerer

Savaas Cragheart

Human Scoundrel

Jekserah and her Inox Bodyguard

The Patron
They were approached by Jekserah, a Valrath merchant woman and her 2 Inox bodyguards. She had a job that needed four expendable idiots to retrieve some documents stolen from her by a group of Bandits.

The Black Barrow

a Bandit

The misfits, calling themselves Gloomhaven Four Security (G4S), shook down some scum and found that the thief and his men had set up base in the ominously titled Black Barrow.

After fighting through swaths of bandits they never found the thief, but they did find a way deeper into the barrow, to the Barrow Lair.

They also found a map in a chest pointing to a large ancient tree in the south. The Inox Brute had heard tell of the Vibrant Tree on the Toxic Moor in the Lingering Swamp, it is sacred to the Inox. Sounds like a great holiday destination.

The Barrow Lair

Bandit Commander

Encountering a few archers which were easily dispatched, they kicked the door in to find the thief; a large bear of a man, armed to the teeth and the mysterious ability to raise the dead. Great.

The Bandit Commander preceded to call on the rotten remains in the tombs with whatever black magic he possessed.

G4S fought their way through and the bandit leader was cut down before he could summon more dead men to overwhelm us.

The documents they needed were snatched from the leader's corpse. Most were in a language that cannot be read but there were ominous drawings of corpses with magic sigils in them; these 'documents' looked more like magic scrolls. There is also a map of the countryside and a location marked as Crypt of the Dammed to the north, that may as well of been labelled 'source of evil power'...

Gloomhaven

Before more bandits (or worse) arrived, a hasty retreat was made, back to Gloomhaven and their reward from a pleased Jekserah.

She had another job (it appears the expendable idiots might have some use). This time, some Inox had been raiding her caravans; she wanted them sorting. They dwelt in an Inox Encampment in the forest to the west.

The Urchin

Later in the market they met some guards harassing an urchin and decided to step in with 'do you know who we are!'. The guards did not know who they were and made them pay the kid's fine; oh well, maybe the kid will prove useful at some point...

Current Opportunities
Toxic Moor - dungeon map
Crypt of the Damned - learn more about the power of Gloom
Inox Encampment - raiding Jekserah's caravans


See you in the next update.