Relic Knights Objectives

Placeholder for quick pics.  Article to come.

KD:M - Monster Assembly

No painting lately, we've been too busy playing Kingdom Death: Monster.

We have been assembling the monsters "just in time", but this week I pushed ahead and finished all the monsters (just seven of them).  For the survivors, we try to make one new one per game, made to match the kit someone is using.  For the other three on the hunt, we use a close match.

Here's the team shot:

Close ups of the monsters.  Screaming Antelope and the King's Hand.  (We've got the Antelope!)

The Butcher, the King's Man and the White Lion. The Butcher and the Lion are in the bag!

The Phoenix. By far the largest, but not the hardest fight. We'll get him soon.

The Watcher. This will be the final battle in the core game.

Here are some of the survivors. Red is wearing the Skull Helm and Honey is the ambidextrous dual axe wielder.

I only have to finish these 18 sprues!  Then the expansions arrive. 11 more monsters and 20 more survivors.

Good Hunting!

Scenery

Simple scenery

Gloomwych Lantern Year 2: First Hunt - The Adolescent White Lion

The story of Gloomwych continues. 

The departing survivors share out their new gear.  Red ties her headband and swings her axe, Coal tosses his darts from hand to hand, Ash and Chestnut mock fight with their bone blades.

The rest of the settlement watches in silence as the band disappears into the dark.  An Aromatic Breeze lets them know they are on the trail of a White Lion, but its smell overwhelms Ash and he slips into a waking nightmare.  The Sea of Golden Grass looks like a place to hide and wait, but a young White Lion has the same plan and pounces on the group from behind.

Grasping at Coal, Coal rolls to one side and the Lion lets out a Terrifying Roar.  Ash and Red lose their minds to the fear of this beast and everyone takes a step back.  Coal stumbles over a rocky outcrop, but there is nothing useful in its cracks.

Chomping on Coal’s head, he is knocked to the ground.  The others move back, trying to regroup.  Ash hides in the long grass, Red loses herself a little as she pulls at the carcass of a long dead survivor, but his mummified body has been picked clean.

The Lion’s Claw cannot find a target as the band hides in the tall grass.  Only Coal’s darts can reach the target, but they are too weak to be effective.

Two more swipes of the Claw and Ash has his Rawhide Vest torn to shreds as he ducks the head blow.  Putting his momentum behind his blade, Ash wounds the Lion twice, the Femur and Shoulder.  Red’s Axe follows the blade, deep into the flesh of the beast’s Flank and slicing its Heel, knocking it down.  These are both deep, bloody wounds.  Coal’s darts whistle through the air and one lodges deep in the Lion’s Ear.  It’s deafened!  Chestnut cuts the monster’s Tail, it tries to lunge away, but cannot get up.

The Lion shakes itself, stands and Roars.  Three step back, the horrors they’ve seen make the open roaring maw seem like nothing, but Ash loses his grip, going into a terrible Frenzy.  Standing and shouting at the beast, he takes blows to his arm and chest without even noticing.  Coal throws his darts, misses until the Lion steps on one, driving it deep into its Paw, chipping a Claw off in the process.  The Lion is down again.  The band moves back in for the kill.

There is a flurry of Claws and blades.  Ash is hurt and on the floor, Chestnut stabs the Fleshy Gut, Coal is swatted to ground, and the Lion grabs Chestnut’s head in its mouth and tosses her aside.  More flailing until Coal can see a clear shot with his darts … but it’s just a Clever Ploy by the Lion who lunges at Coal and tears the back of his throwing hand with its claws.

The Lion Roars and Roars again, driving the survivors back. 

Looking up the Beast chases towards Red.  She feints and gets behind the Lion, swinging her axe between its legs.  Blood and organs scatter as the axe bites deep.  The Lion, almost done for, turns and hits her in return.  She dodges away as Ash drives his blade into the creatures Straining Neck for the kill.

In shock, the survivors gather their resources and head home.

As the weary band approaches Gloomwych, they can see all is not well.  Cracks split the ground, releasing a noxious gas, but also releasing an especially sharp stone from the ground.  As Lantern Year 2 dawns, the mad screaming starts, an unearthly noise surrounding the camp.  Red struggles to reassure the settlement and become the Orator of Death, but the sounds still drive everyone a little crazy.  They can only imagine what could be making the din as it fades away.

A group discusses how they should rule the settlement.  A Symposium is founded and they know this group will guide them better in the future.

With more knowledge of the Lion, the settlement builds the Catarium to tan and sharpen the Lion’s parts.  From the pelts they craft a flowing Coat and heavy Helm, knowing the thick fur will protect them.  A Cat Gut Bow and long Spear will let them fight from a distance.  But best of all, a potent drink is distilled from the Lion Testes, allowing Ash to enter his frenzied fighting state.  They are ready to hunt again.

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Wow! 4 criticals and two frenzies.  The symposium does nothing for us now, but we can control our innovations much better.  Ammonia, here we come. 

Gloomwych: Settlement

The story of Gloomwych continues. 

Stumbling through the dark, the band of four hears pitiful grunts nearby.  Rounding a bluff, they find 8 people huddled in the dirt, beneath the glowing yellow light of a Lantern Horde.  Honey pushes through the group and caresses the warm pile of light, then turns and with great courage, speaks the first words of Language.

Hearing the bravery in Honey’s voice, all 12 people begin to work together and their name the scrapes in the ground they call home “Gloomwych”.  Over the next weeks, the 4 survivors help build the first Locations, the Bonesmith, the Skinnery and the Organ Grinder.  They arm themselves with Bone Blades, a Bone Axe and Bone Darts.  For protection, they fashion a Rawhide Vest and Headband.  As the days pass by, their resources dwindle to some White Fur, a Curious Hand and a mighty pair of Testes.  Honey tells the people of Gloomwych they must head out into the dark again and replenish the stores.  Poor blind Snow stays with Honey, as Red and Coal help Chestnut and Ash take their names.  They disappear into the dark.

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With 4 survivors and 12 resources, we felt pretty good.  We used 3 innovate to create the first 3 locations and because we lost all the founding stones, the next action was to make 4 weapons.  That left us with no Bone to innovate, so we made little armor from the basic hide and kept all the special resources.  We wasted the last endeavor.

Here we made an error.  Instead of recording and archiving the leftover gear, we put the cards in a little deck somewhere safe.  This meant that when we drew cards in the next game, there was less White Fur and no Testes.  We’ll get it right next time.

Gloomwych: Prologue

This is the on-going story of Gloomwych, our second settlement. Darkholm died out very quickly and we thought about playing in Hero Mode, but it seemed like too much of an advantage.  So we created our own custom mode: Free Rolling: 10 rerolls allowed, maximum one re-roll per Hunt-Showdown-Settlement cycle.

The story of Gloomwych continues here. 

I have resin minis coming and I am going to paint those.  I'll come back and added colour pictures sometime!

White Lion Prologue

Four survivors awaken in a dark corner of the world.  They know their names are Snow, Honey, Coal and Red, not that they can speak this aloud.  Across the barren field, they blink and stare at each other, when suddenly a massive Claw tears Coal’s hand and chest.  

Honey panics and throws a nearby stone at the blur of fur and cuts the Strange Hand that is wet with Coal’s blood.  She feels a surge of strength as she sees the others grab more stones.  Emboldened, the group surround the monster, but their attacks are wasted.  Their lantern light reveals the White Lion.

A Powerful Swat just misses Honey, and the band throw themselves on the Lion again.  A Clever Ploy by the Lion makes Red slip and it bites down on her face.  Her eyes fill with blood as she’s knocked to the ground.  Snow reaches from behind and tears open the Lion’s Soft Belly and its innards trail on the floor.

The Enraged Lion Chomps on Coal’s head.  At the last second Coal dodges, but he does not think he can pull off a move like that again.  Another charge from the group and Honey bites through the beast’s Femur, slowing it slightly.

The Lion Sizes Up Coal, but cannot connect.  Snow whacks the Lion’s Shoulder with his stone, but the fur is too tough and the Lion leaps forward in surprise.  Red and Honey chase up behind and Honey does terrible damage to the Lion’s Fleshy Gut.  Drenched in blood, she’s lost in the horror of the moment and has the look of Insanity about her.

The White Lion swipes with its massive Clawed hand at Snow again.  He dodges but is just caught by the claw, slitting his eye.  As he stumbles, he realizes he’s blind on that side, a disadvantage in any fight.  Honey and Red are also down, so Coal is alone in the fight.  Taking a mighty swing to distract the beast from his comrades, he cuts the Lion’s Straining Neck.

The Lion opens his jaw to Chomp again, but can see no threats.  Bemused, it sniffs the air, knowing his prey are still around.  Now he has their scent, they know they must act.  Snow throws his stone and cuts the beast’s Brow.  The pouring blood will hinder the Lion’s attacks.  Coal throws his stone and gasps as its spinning edges slice clean through the White Lion’s Fuzzy Groin.  The Lion’s Testes roll to Coal’s feet.  The Lion glares at Coal, promising revenge, but fails to see Red’s stone as it arcs towards its Temple.  The crushing blow caves in the Lion’s skull and he falls, twitching, and dies.

The band collapses together but knows they must move on before they are detected by the next fearsome creature in this nightmare world.  The group scavenges the beast for usable parts and carry off 12 hunks of meat, skin and bone.  They leave the sharp stones embedded in the Lion’s carcass as warning that they will fight for their survival. 

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We thought we were doomed when the Lion became Enraged so early on, but a few lucky hits and we had him on the ropes.  I think we got lucking with the lion missing us.  We panicked a bit and used all the founding stones to end the fight.  Our hope was that with more resources than normal (due to the criticals) we would be better off with 4 survivors and 4 endeavor than we would be if we kept some stones.  It just paid off.

Candy and Cola

Candy and Cola are iconic figures from Relic Knights by Soda Pop.  There are so famous that other games companies have included them in completely unrelated games - we have Candy and Cola miniatures for Kingdom Death, for example.  Even in Relic Knights, Candy and Cola make several appearances and I actually have 3 different version of Candy.

This version was a Kickstarter bonus.  All the factions were given an "alternate universe" version of an existing character.  These were not normal part of the faction, this version is part of Cerci Speed Circuit and Candy is normally a Prismatic and they were all dressed as famous anime characters.  Initially, these were "cosplay characters" but by the time the game was released, they were called Darkspace characters and their studio colour schemes were altered a little from the anime originals, a copyright/licensing/trademark issue I guess.  Still, we all know who these guys are!

So here's the Darkspace Candy and Cola painted to match Street Fighter's Chun Li and Ryu.  This is a characteristic pose of Chun Li from Street Fighter, a popular video game.  Also Candy's abilities in Relic Knights match Chun Li's fighting style.  It's a really good copyright infringement crossover:

I am really pleased with little Cola, but Candy's face will need to be repainted.  Honestly, the sculpt is not great (it's a bit flat) and I am not a free hand painter.  Her sheer stockings defeated me too.  But they make a cute pair based up together.

Royal Wrecker

I painted the Royal Wrecker for my Relic Knights Cerci crew a while ago and wanted to come back and touch it up.  I guess it's been long enough for me to know that's not going to happen!

I'm not good at shading the large flat panels and often end up with too little contrast.

Here's everyone together:

Relic Knights - Game 3

Our papercraft table top is growing!  It's been fun playing Relic Knights on more than just a tablecloth.

We had some more scenery on the table for game 3.  It is not quite finished - I have not colored the folded seams yet - but it fills the table and already looks good.

In this game, the Cerci Speed Circuit biker gang raced around the table top, sabotaging objectives quickly, setting a new lap time record.  They settled into pounding the Star Nebula Corsairs primary objective and finally destroyed it as the space pirates started to wipe the biker chicks off the table.

Another win for Cerci!

Starting positions:

Rin hides!  No, she's sabotaging that objective:

Sue moves out!  Kate has brought a knife (and a bomb) to a gunfight!

Rin takes the high ground.  Unfortunately, she was killed before she could get in position to shoot:

The biker chicks crowd the SNC's primary objective.  The Wrecker was destroyed during this skirmish, but Sue destroyed the objective for the win!

10 VPs for Cerci!  Anarchy (secondary), Lap Time (faction) and then Tear It Down (primary).

Monster of a Mini

I'm back after a bit of a break.

I painted Kenobo for our Relic Knights Star Nebular Corsairs force.  It was much harder than it looked.  I did not clean it well enough (I am not sure that is possible).  The red Noh skin is tricky to paint.  The blending is wonky and the NMM is not good.  But he is painted and now we have two 50 pt forces!

Go Pirates!

Relic Knights $10 Game Board

We have started playing Relic Knights again!  Woohoo!  I have to start painting more Relic Knights minis.  Bummer, I am behind again!

Here a shot of Game 1:

It was fun, but plain.  I searched for some free papercraft scenery and here's the result in Game 2 (just a few days later):

It was so much more fun to play.  This really was less than $10 to print at Staples and less than 2 days to assemble.  Great fun!  Thanks, TopoSolitario.

Kingdom Death - First Brush

Okay!  I think the Survivor Pinup from Kingdom Death is as good as it is going to get.

Kingdom Death: Monster is one of the first Kickstarter Games I pledged for.  Two years later, it's still not here, but this summer looks likely.  The campaign went nuts and raised more than $2 million.  Production for all the expansions added while money was flooding in are blamed for the delays, but the owner has put a lot of effort into creating high quality minis.

The game pieces are made from the same hard plastic (polystyrene) that model airplane kits use.  These are expensive to make and rare for games, but they are very high quality.  The hard plastic retains a lot of detail.

The company also raised money for the game with limited edition resin miniatures.  These were made in a revolutionary way at the time - all digital.  They are very popular and sell out in hours.  As well as resin game pieces, there are "pinups", characters from the game re-imagined as 1940s-60s style pinups.  They are pure collector pieces and are not used in any game.  Love them or hate them, they are very popular.  KD released a boxed set of 8 made in the same plastic as the game, and I got these to start practicing assembling and painting them.  Here is how they come - just like a model airplane, but smaller.

In the game, 4 "survivors", 2 men and 2 women, fight various monsters, collect bit and pieces and craft them into armour, weapons and other items.  You assemble the minis to represent the armour & weapons you have.  Perhaps I spent too much on the game (my wife was pushing me!)  but I have kits for more than 66 different survivors.  I really need the practice to get them put together.

So enough intro, here's the pinup:

Here are some different angles to show her face and head gear.

She on CMoN if you want to rate her!  Click on this link and pick a score in the red box on the right.

I deliberately painted a darker skin tone.  The four survivors as shown in the game have very different skin tones, so I need to be able to get some variety.  Also, I have painted a lot of pale skinned anime women lately.  I am not sure I like how it turned out ... she's a bit muddy.  I also tried using a limited palette, because I have never done it before.  Most of the colours contain VMC Flat Earth.  Hey, I said she looked muddy.

I tried non-metallic metals (for the second time).  NMM means using normal paints for metal, not metallic paints.  You need really strong shading skills and good colour theory to pull it off.  Look at the pole axe blade, the lantern, the gold helmet and bangle to see if I pulled it off (almost, but not quite).

But I have to say, I am pleased with the result and I think it's a really cute mini.

Feedback is welcome in the comments.