The Road to Horisont pt 1

Good things can come from a weird situations. Back during isolation I setup a Discord server (more words on that in this blog) - which has turned into a growing creative community and have gotten me some new friends. 

Well one of these new friends is Torben, a fellow Danish hobbyist and a good guy. We've been talking a lot of Discord both in The Garage and during Patmocon that ran back in those isolation days. 

We seem to have the same mindset when playing a game - fun, well painted models, non-competetive, story-driven gaming. Lots of smaller skirmish and indie games. And after hours of hanging in voice chat, we figured we had probably met in real life. 

Back in the day there was a small Danish convention called Horisont. A gaming convention for all the small indie games on the scene and a place to showcase new or homemade systems. A key thing about Horisont that I remember was 'no 40k and warhammer fantasy' - because those systems have enough room and tournaments in Denmark. Torben and I both attended that old convention. Unfortunately Horisont has been around since 2016 - and despite going to differnet RPG conventions, there's not really a place just like it. 

So we thought we wanted to do something similar. A weekend of hobbying, lots of different game systems, cool boards. A place to connect the skirmish scene, that's scattered all over the country. 

We wanted to meet hobbyist, mostly known from online commuties, look at cool stuff and get as many games in as possible.

And we figured 'why not resurrect Horisont?'. We're aiming for that same old feel. 

We were lucky enough to get permission from the old organizers and will be running the Convention through an RPG Club named Føniks (Phoenix). 

It's great fun for me to be organizing something like this again, it's been years since I've been in that kind of chair. 

Location is locked down, a cool free venue in the middle of Denmark. The cost for the convention will be held at an absolute minimum - because we want as many people to join as possible. So what now? 

Well... people are cool. The hobby community is awesome. Right away lots of people have said 'I'll join and would love to demo X system'. Voluntary hours are being poured into website design. It's awesome! So the website and sign-up will open very soon. 

... and that seems to be how a convention is made. From now on and until October, all my hobby time will go towards Horisont Con. I will be painting warbands for demos and try to hammer out as much terrain for new boards as possible. 

I can currently setup a jungle board, a modern board, a post apocalypse board, a huge classic fantasy board, a frozen city board, a farm board and an industrial board. And I'll be bringing all of it to Horisont. It's all here.

Be October I would love to also setup a full 3'x3' dungeon board, a dessert board and a military base board.

And Frostgrave 2nd edition is soon coming, will need a few new buildings for that - because it's my home. 

Personally I'll be running demos in Frostgrave and This Is Not A Test. I'll be looking to get my first game of Relic Blade and A Song Of Ice And Fire. Would love to play some Last Days and Reality's Edge as well. 



 

Terrain: Trucks and bus

So I went into a grocery store to buy some milk - and found these awesome big toys! I've actually been wanting some trucks like this for a long time, to go with my gas station to make a proper truck stop.

Usually I get toys for terrain from thrift stores or markets, but these were cheap enough for me to get them. Another super simple job of getting them ready for the board. A layer of matt varnish (otherwise wash won't really work).

Drybrushed some browns on the edges and wheels, picked out a few metal details and then gav the entire thing a thick layer of brown wash.

It's on purpose I didn't smash them up completely, because I want them to work with cyberpunk and modern games - not just post apocalypse.

Got this bus at the same time as the trucks. Great little piece, a good line of sight blocker to add on the modern boards. Lucky trip for milk this one.

Unboxing: Terrain Crate 2 by Mantic Games

I went ahead and got myself three boxes of Terrain Crate 2 when it was on kickstarter. Figuring I could use lots of the pieces in most of the settings I play: Modern, Cyberpunk and Post Apocalypse. There's even some of the bits that'll fit into Frostgrave - gonna use them there at least. 

Anyways. Back when the kickstarter time in the door, I did an unboxing video. It's up on youtube, so making a post here on the blogger for good measure. 

Reality's Edge: Apps

There's a ton of different apps in Reality's Edge. Some of those apps can have a miniature presence on the game board. You could actually use tokens instead, but we figured miniatures is a nice way to go.

The way we've come up with, to make an easy spot if something is an app or not is on the base. We use clear bases with some white/black patterns for apps. The models themselves are either transluscent or painted in bright shiny colors. 

Iduro app - Lemmy the Legend as an app, absolutely guaranteed to bring in a crowd.

Another Idoru app, made from an old Nastanza miniature from Deadzone, I have a new version from Star Saga. Basecoated the miniature white and painted it using washes - than added a gloss varnish layer to end it.

Black ICE made ready for the Electronic Redundancy scenario. A Reaper Bones transluscent miniature, had a layer of clear varnish spray first and then red wash.

White ICE, four Reaper Bones transluscent adventurers, base coat of clearvarnish spray and then a layer of blue wash.

Unboxing: Dunkeldorf Miniatures - The Prancing Peacock

Disclaimer: Kinggames.dk send me this stuff for free, no strings attached.

Got lucky and was send a couple of review pieces from Kinggames. Kinggames is behind the line of Dunkeldorf Miniatures. 

I've backed the first kickstarter and have used (and converted) a bunch of the models for Rangers of Shadow Deep and Blood Bowl. 

Here's a quick unboxing video of the stuff they send me. The video also contains a comparison with lots of other fantasy miniatures and other fantasy terrain pieces. 

You can check the kickstarter out here. 

Terrain: Army Vehicles and radar

I've already upgraded a whole bunch of toys for the different game systems I play. I have this plan to build a full military base. For that I needed a truck, which will also see use in some Walking Dead scenarios around Woodbury.

And as part of my 2020 summer plans, I want to build a ton of military base terrain. Towers, sandbags, hesco bastion and so on. But here's the start for the project at least.

I found a good toy and did a bit of work on it. This first one is a generic army truck, usable for every country. I also got some specific Russian vehicles for use in Zona Alfa.

Scratch the entire thing with sandpaper to make paint and wash stick better.

Use masking tape to cover any glass, metal and wheels you don't want base coated.

Painting the truck

Give the truck a spray of OD green. Then give the entire thing a thick layer of different washes. I've been using both strong and dark tone for this one. Only base coated this one because the green seemed off, it wasn't close enough to that military green.

Russian truck
When gearing up to playing some Zona Alfa I went online to find some russian military vehicles. I have mostly humvees and other very american looking vehicles. Found an ebay seller with some cheap toys, actual models of real vehicles.

These were better in color, so only gave these a mat varnish and a thick layer of wash.

BTR-80 (not really)
This is another toy. A BTR-80 is a Russian armored personel carrier, so it was an obvious must have for the Zona Alfa board.

This is actually a german APC it turns out, so it was wrongly labelled on ebay, but nevermind that.

 It's another quick wash job. Actually there's a few pieces on it that could have been picked out (shovels, axes etc) - might go back an do that one day.

Sarissa Precision Radar

Got this kit on black friday when Sarissa had some very good discounts on their kits. I still have plans to make a large military base and is slowly adding pieces for it. 

This little kit is super cheap and easy to put together. A simple OD green base coat, grey base and a dusty layer of brown. Done. 

Oathmark: Goblin Spearmen and Goblin Champion

Goblin champion

I got this model to work as a goblin leader for Vanguard (planning to use the Dungeon Saga goblins and trolls). I've never gotten around to Vanguard, but I decided to paint him as a champion for my Oathmark army of greenskins. 

The miniature is actually sculpted to have a bare stomach and a smaller round plate. I didn't like that look, so decided to paint him as wearing a bigger full torso armor plate. Doesn't look as comical that way. 

Goblin spearmen

When getting in to Oathmark I decided to do the army on as low a budget as possible. So after looking in a sale group I got a huge lot of LoTR orcs. Terrible painted and some with missing heads and weapons. 

When building the models I've made sure to use as many different spears and shields as possible. Each model has a different shield. 

When painting I've made sure that each model had some red (the army color), and different brown and grey areas as well. These are not as elite as the Linebreakers, who had full red uniforms. 

When painting mono pose miniatures this is also a good way to break up the monolook. I used different browns, greys and red on different areas. Also made sure to use different hair colors and 6 different skin tones. 

In the end the regiment is a mix of GW LotR, dungeon saga and Oathmark miniatures.