I love collecting, painting, converting and scratch building terrain. I even get to play a game once in a while. I'm a big fan of gamification as part of teaching - I'm an elementary school teacher.
This blog covers my hobby work and 'teaching through gaming'.
In Guilders: A Life In Shadows the guards will get better and more dangerous as the criminal guilds cause Alarm during the game. First is the Town Watch, simple local militia armed with batons and staffs.
When the Overall Alertness (the stacked Alarm from during the game) reaches 10, better guards will start to spawn onto the playing area. These are City Guard, actual trained soldiers from the barracks. These are armed with real weapons and good armor.
With stats as good as most Guilders and better armor, they are a bad thing to fight. And if a guilder is taken out of action, from a City Guard they roll on the injury table after the game. That adds a risk of stat decreases, long times bedridden or even death.
Fighting Town Watch will only leave them in jail and fined.
The miniatures
While waiting on the excellent city guard from Dungeons and Lasers, I've kit bashed my own. Making them distinct from town watch I've used bodies with metal armor. Perry Miniatures and some old Warhammer bits.
For their bracers I've gone with metal instead of leather colors. And for helmets I've been using Perry and Bretonnian bits, for a cooler look (compared to the simply skull caps of the townwatch).
Half the city guard have been armed with swords and Oathmark shields. The other half I've armed with halberds, for that classic guard look.
The plan is (in time) to add even more guards, enough for actual Oathmark regiments.
I've painted up a bunch of interior for the TTCombat Inn that I've made. This is a mix of all manner of bits.
The tables are Mantic Games Dungeon Saga and Terrain Crate, so is the bar. The barrel stacks is a mix of bit box, christmas decor and Renedra. The large resin barrel is from Dunkeldorf.
It was all base coated in different brown nuances and then painted after that. Fairly quickly done.
There's a scenario in Guilders - A Life In Shadows that has interior play in an inn, so had to get some stuff done for it.
There's all manner of different bits and bobs on the tables. Some are warhammer, some from Dunkeldorf and other random bits I don't know where is from. There's some Terrain Crate as well.
I do like the round tables from Terrain Crate. But it's a bit weird that they warp. Even after hot water treatment they bend the wrong way.
The fireplace and wine racks are terrain crate. The bits added to the fireplace is dunkeldorf, Anvil Industries resin candles and terrain crate bottles.
Only added a few pieces here and there to the bar sections.
The dwarf mugs, from an old warhammer dwarf kit. Excellent bits, I've used almost all I had now. The is a bit stable, used in countless conversions over the years.
This is a fairly small blog post. We're planning to start playing some Frosgrave again after New Years, with to fairly new players (they're mostly 40k competetive types). Looking forward to going back into the frozen city. Out last campaign was all planned out, but got halted when covid spiked again.
I've bought a cool 4'x6' mat from Tiny Wargames for larger games, that will come in handy in 4 players. It also offers some cool different 3'x3' setup options, as there's a cool river on the mat. It's actaully a Stalingrad winter mat of something like that, but perfect for Frostgrave.
I actually ordered two large bridges from TTCombat, wider and longer than the ones below. But unfortunately they send me the wrong ones. Six of these smaller ones. TTC of cause send the right ones afterwards, and they let me keep the first ones.
This was a really simple job. Quick assemble, grey spray paint. A bit of snow flock and then the regular 60 cm away light white spray paint.
There's nothing like a bit of cool scatter terrain for any board. A few statues will do a lot for Frostgrave or any dungeon board you might have going. I was gifted these small statues from a friend. He's gotten some aztec ruin terrain from Rampant (The Dungeons and Lasers guys), but a lot of the stretch goals wasn't for that.
A quick grey base coat, drybrush and a few metal details. A bit of bling for fantasy gaming.
I've bought and build a ton of MDF for my Guilders - A Life In Shadows board. I want a densely packed 3'x3' board. MDF have the advantage of being cheap and really quick to put together. The real work comes afterwards when upgrading it to a higher standard.
I've done a quick youtube video earlier, covering the plans for the city board.
Let's start of with showing the finished result. All the WIP stuff will come below.
The Peacock Inn
A little nod to the excellent King Games Dunkeldorf line of miniatures. A huge building, perfect for the Guilders scenario Tavern Brawl.
Painting has been done mostly with cheap acryllic paints and some spray paint base coating. I really want some color in my city. The roof and brick parts were base coated red, the ground floor grey and the top stories brown.
I've been taking note of the timber framed houses and the colors used on the walls and timber.
To add some life to the city I've been putting flower tufts beneath all the windows. I bought pretty much one of each from Gamers Grass and Army Painter. I was surprised to how little flowers I actaully needed, so I figure I'll have enough for the rest of the city.
I also added some moss and grass here and there at the ground floor, addeign a bit of life and color to the grey area.
The Inn is named after a Peacock, so I wanted to have some bright peacock colors on it. That's why I went with the green for windows and blue for doors. It looked absolutey out of place in the beginning, but a layer of homemade brown wash (acryllic paint, dish soap, water) muted the colors neatly.
King Games (behind the Dunkeldorf Miniatures line) was really kind and send me a few metal Prancing Peacock signs. But they were a bit too small, so I'll use those for road signs instead. I went online and searched for peacock inn signs instead. Found some fitting ones, printed those and glued them to cardbaord. It's an easy way to add high level detail to something like MDF.
I have chimneys on nearly all the buildings in my city. And I want to add smoke to all of them, it'll add a lot of life to a city. I have a bag of old teddy stuffing saved just for this. Took out a bit and super glued it in place.
I also added some small daps of super glue on the roof, so I could add green sawdust flock to it. Makes it look like a bunch of moss patches on the roof. Looks good.
On the brick chimney and the stone ground floor I've given it a bunch of different drybrush colors. It's a quick way of getting some color play on it. I've also picked out a few single stones here and there, but not too many. Frankly I didn't want to spend time on that, and the drybrush effect painted horisontally workds well enough.
Upgrading the MDF
A cool part of the Palaza Valteria kit is the roof, it's not as steep as many others. Models will be able to keep their balance on the roof and that's a really big part of the Guilders gameplay. A big problem with MDF is the flat surfaces - and when playing we are looking down on the terrain - so many flat roofs.
I cut some long strips of thin card. Cut some easy roof tiles in it with a lot of small triangle cuts. It's fairly quick work, though it looks like a hassle. Make sure to make broad strips, so there's plenty of glue area on each strip.
For the top strip I made a doublesided one, for a nice clean finish at the top. For realism one should cut individual stones, But I really couldn't be bothered. I like this clean finish and it'll be a lot more sturdy this way.
I've added a few details to better let the miniature climb around. To the front of the building I've added a half-roof made as above. Drilled a few angles holes in the MDF and added some BBQ sticks for support. There's also some window boxes on the sides of the building (room for a single miniature on those). I think those boxes are from the Streets of Venice balcony set - otherwise I don't know where they are from.
The vibe I'm going for in the entire city is like Baldurs Gate, the old game. Those tudor style houses there. Stone / brick ground floors and timber frames above that. I made the timber framing on the in with popsickle sticks (though thinner coffee stirrers might be better).
To add the plaster that's on the walls between the timber framing, I've bought some pre-mixed polyfilla Tree Filler. It's a bit of a weird consistency. I've thinned it a tiny bit with water and added a big bunch of PVA glue. Gave a better thickness and the glue will make it bind even stronger.
It's easy enough to add, use an old brush - because it will be messed up something terrible afterwards. When painting this you can easily go the base coat / drybrush or base coat / wash way. The texture makes it easy.
On the ground floor level I want it to look like stone. So I've cut out some bricks in two different thichness of card. I used added them here and there. It really does a lot after painting. Minimal and quick work, when you're not aiming for precision.
Most of my city will be made from different TTCombat WW2 houses. Those houses all come with a chimney stack for each end of the house. That left me with enough parts to Frankenstein a chimney on the inn as well. Added card board brics to this as well, like above.
The chimneys are another good Guilder feature, letting your miniatures find some cover in the heights.
Here's a photo of the build after the base coating and some simple drybrushing. It really looks god aweful. Never ever underestimate the power of brown wash. All my terrain gets a layer of my hoemade stuff. Wonderfull the effect it has.
Thank you so much for reading through this. Please support the Guilders project (and the blogging in general) by dropping some likes om all the various SoMe stuff.
Time to share some of the kings men. This is the Town Watch the first type of soldiers the guilders will face in any Heist, these are the troops starting on the board at setup. There's two two tiers of soldiers above these.
The Guards in Guilders are controlled by an 'AI' written in the rules. They react to Guilders and the Alarm they cause. There's a flow chart to go through for each guard to see how they react. We've been spending a lot of time in playtesting with this.
Figuring out if it worked and if specific scenarios broke the AI. Currently the guard rules have not seen any tweaking for the last couple of games - so they work pretty well now. No situations have come up, where it wasn't clear what they should do.
The full rules for guard behavior is on p.13 of the rules - or check out this QRS for guard activation.
Town Watch
Little more than poorly armed commoners. The town watch is only paid a few coin, their real pay is the benefits: Meals when on watch, a decent coat and a pair of boots. The Town Watch patrol the street, talk to people, tend the streetlamps at night. Neighbors with clubs really, looking out for their neighborhood.
Many Town Watch have dogs, good companions when walking the streets at night. Someone to talk too and they have a good nose for finding anything hiding the shadows.
The bits: My first town watch models have been build mostly with a mix of Perry Miniatures European Mercenaries and Oathmark Humans. The quaterstaff clubs have been made with either Perry halberds or Oathmark spears. The club heads are from all manner of different kits. The torches are from various frostgrave kits. Some might be from the folk rabble from Fireforge.
For the heads I've been deliberately going for open helmets and homely faces. I want a clear difference between these and the City Guard.
Painting: I've gone blue and white for uniforms. I already have a bunch of guys like this for Oathmark and Lorenthia in RoSD. So slowly it'll gain numbers for full Oathmark regiments.
I've added some large brown areas on torsos and bracers, to clearly mark these guys as lightly armored.
The dogs are from the stash. Two of these are plastic board game miniatures from Reichbusters by Mythic Games. One is a metal dog from Offensive Miniatures, part of a police set. Got those for Last Days.
The full rules for crowds can be found in the rules on p. 15 and p. 28: LINK 1.42 beta
Loot
The entire board in Guilders have Loot. All buildings, civillians and crowds have a Loot I token - this is petty cash mostly. If a thief steals a Loot I, they will be able to cover their upkeep and perhaps put a small item or few coins in the guild treasury.
Buildings with Loot I need to be lockpicked (a skill availble at start for thieves) or smashed (will cause alarm and bring guards).
Then there's Loot II and Loot III which will bring in a lot of extra cash and items for the guild.
Crowds (NPCs)
Crowds are a 3" round base with miniatures (I use three on mine). The standard scenarios have 4 crowds (two placed by each player) and some single civilians. A crowd has a single Loot I token.
Crowds can be pickpockted or knocked down (one is stealthy the other will cause alarm and bring in the guards).
Crowds (and single civilians) move randomly at the end of each turn. In Reality's Edge (cyberpunk game) the crowds moved very little and often got into a 'bump' situation. Hit terrain, move rest of movement the other way.
In Guilders crowds move d10" in a random direction. They don't bump into stuff, but move around it continuing in the direction rolled. So they won't end up static.
Guilders can move into crowds (hide from guards), covered from shooting and will then move with the crowd when they move. So it's a good way for a thief to stay on target (free moving) more actions for trying to pick their pockets.
It really is quite fast moving all the civilians. Roll d10, use the top as direction, move crowd.
A concept in the game is Overall Alertness. The more Alarm the guidlers cause, the tougher and more guards will enter the board. When Overall Alertness gets to 15 (the guards are hostile at this point) the crowds and civilians will stop moving randomly. They will then move directly towards the nearest board edge instead (running for their lives, as there is obviously a lot going on in this part of town). Guilders can still be inside a crowd base - it's a good way to escape the board.
Number of civilians
So in a standard game of Guilders, you will need 4 crowd bases (12 models if putting 3 on each) and 4 single civilians - so a total of 16 civillian models. Nothing stopping you from making a crowd with a herd of sheep, a crowd being a small wagon etc. Important part is that it's a 3" round base really.
Crowd bases
I'll drop a post about making crowd bases later. Made with cardboard and xps foam. But here's a quick shot of one before painting. Made with small holes for the civilians, so they wont fall off.
Time to get something done on this blog again. Finally got around to finishing up a building, so that I have a decent background for the painted miniatures.
First up is the guild I'm currently using for playtesting Guilders - A Life In Shadows. It's the Eastwall Cornerclub Clubbers. I initially armed them all with clubs, so they could simply bash down civilians and take their stuff.
So far they are around 4 games into a campaign.
A guild can always field 10 miniatures in a Heist, but can have an unlimited large roster to pick from. Not shown on this image is another street urchin that joined me while two others were down sick with the flu.
Here's my Guildmaster Mr. Fairweather surronded by his Enforcer and their Shadow Priest.
Martha is the guild Enforcer, the best fighter a guild can field. My enforcer has been tooled up for bloody close combat situations, she's armed and armored for it. The miniature is from Dunkeldorf Miniatures, I've converted her a bit. Added a shield/punch dagger from an old pit fighter miniature and two dagger/sword bits from the box.
Mr. Fairweather has been build as a jack of all trades character. He has Alchemy and Doctor, two skills two use after the games. He also has the scout skill, so he can move a bit extra into the board when the game starts. Getting closer to important loot.
The miniature is from Dunkeldorf Miniatures, I've painted him before as a coach for my Bloodbowl humans. I've converted my guildmaster a bit, adding a belt made from paper, som pouches and weapons. The hat is from an old empire GW bit.
Dusk Autumn is the guilds Shadow Priest. I've used an old Grima Wormtongue model i had lying around. The shadow priest has some neat little tricks he can do on the battlefield, including silencing otherwise loud civilians.
Two-Toes the Scum and two street urchin Beetle and Bug. These are cheap guilders and can be added for free if the guild is low on members. Two-toes has a crowbar and the packmule skill, he's just bashing doors down and carrying off cheap loot.
The street urchin have a very low upkeep and a great at evading the guards, grapping a bit of loot and then getting out safely. Can't do much else good though.
I don't recall where the small kid models are from, the scum is a 3d printed miniature gifted from a friend.
Thieves! The working heroes of any succesful guild. This guys are the way to gain Pick Pockets and Lockpicks when starting out. I've had three from the start and used their first level to make sure the had options to both pick pockets and locks.
Beth is an unconverted miniature from Fantasy Series one by Blacksite Miniatures. I do like these miniatures and a lot of them are ending up in Guilders.
Cian is another thief. This lovely oldschool resin miniature reminds me of the elf from Hero Quest. It's sculpted by Andres Steeldragon, a valued member on the Discord Community. He's had several miniature cast up and now sold by Ramshackle Games.
Last of my thiefs are Gottlieb, the is another Blacklist Miniatures model. Gottlieb is also a member on the Discord and have 3d printed me a lot of nice miniatures.
This is Lillie Lasander an acrobat and excellent wall climber. Acrobats are great chracters for getting quickly up on the roof tops. She's gotten the lockpick skill to do so stealing from roof windows and balconies. The miniature is damn cool, so I got the character a hand crossbow just for that. Another unconverted Fantasy Series 1 miniature.
To round out the guild is a sharpshooter. Durkar is good with a bow and can start the game already hiding in the shadows. This can really setup a nasty overwatch position for the guild, as Durkar has the sniper skill, she can be really deadly when shooting from the hidden status.
Durka is also Fantasy Series 1, a thief. I've added an ungor bow and arrow from GW beastmen. The hands are a bit on the large side, but that only shows in close up photos. It's not really noticed in real life.
