Reaper Bones #18 - Furniture

I bet that there aren't that many people who have painted their Bones furniture.

Crypt of the Vampiress (Bob Ridolfi SKU:02990)

Crypt of the Vampiress - Buy your own

This is a neat little Gothic Horror set which also comes with a female vampire and the treasure chest which I painted alongside the mimic in episode of this series.  You can buy the pieces individually:

• Sarcophagus - SKU: 77137
• Treasure Pile and Candelabra - SKU: 77138

The Well of Chaos (Bob Ridolfi SKU: 77136)

This is a pretty foreboding miniature and with a name like The Well of Chaos I had to fill it with blood.  I did have visions of lighting this with an LED from below (which I still might do) so I filled the well with a mix of 5 minute epoxy (Araldite) and a tiny bit of red paint.

The stream of blood is simply a strand of fibre optic which is fixed into two holes one in the well and one in the spout.  this is then coated with the red epoxy.

The Altar of Evil (Bob Olley SKU: 77139)

For such a scary sounding mini this is pretty uninspiring but it has a big enough cavity that I can run fibre optics from the skull eyes to a green LED.  Should liven things up a bit.

The Dias (Me SKU: free to download from Thingiverse)

In order to light up these minis I'm going to need a battery compartment and to be honest these two items need to be elevated for dramatic effect.  I designed a 3x4 inch dias to accomodate both miniatures as seen in the crypt photo above.

Bones Progress

Reaper Bones: 245 - Painted: 63

Related Posts

• Reaper Bones #1: The Marathon Begins - Where I paint a dozen Giant Rats.
• Reaper Bones #2: Kobolds, Are They Dogs or Dragons? - Where I paint a dozen kobolds.
• Reaper Bones #3: A Carcase of Skeletons - Where I paint a half dozen skeletons.
• Reaper Bones #4: A Shuffle of Zombies - Where I paint five zombies.
• Reaper Bones #5: Introducing Shaina Coppervein, Dwarven Orc Hunter - First PC mini.
• Reaper Bones #6: Mimic, Treasure Chest and How I re-base my Bones - Where I paint furniture.
• Reaper Bones #7: Fire Elemental Meets Novelty Lamp - Where I hack a mini with LEDs.
• Reaper Bones #8: Flaming Sphere LED Tealight Hack - Another mini LED lighting project.
• Reaper Bones #9: Elliwyn Heatherlark, Gnome Bard - Another PC mini.
• Reaper Bones #10: Horace "Action" Jackson - A Baddass disco dancing Motherfucker.
• Reaper Bones #11: Pirate Captain Thorin Stoneheart - A Swashbuckling Philanthropist. 
• Reaper Bones #12: Monstrous Menagerie - Clay Golem, Eye Beast, Griffon, Owlbear, Marsh Troll
• Reaper Bones #13: Giants - Male Storm Giant and Female Cloud Giant
• Reaper Bones #14: More Monsters! -Ape-X, Female Demon, Two Golems, Oxidation Beast
• Reaper Bones #15 - The Road Warrior - Mad Max
• Reaper Bones #16: A Patrol of Orcs - 5 orcs out to get you. 
• Reaper Bones #17: Some Personalities Some Characters, NPCs or maybe a villain or two

A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - T is for Tunnels and Trolls

T is for Tunnels and Trolls and Flying Buffalo

My first exposure to Roleplaying was actually Tunnels & Trolls. My Dad came back from one of his working trips with a photocopy of the Weirdworld solo module and I voraciously lapped it up. This was back in the day when Flying Buffalo (the company formed in 1970 by Rick Loomis) released their T&T solo modules as spiral bound A4 booklets making game piracy a fairly simple task.  Perhaps that was the point, what's good enough for Microsoft is good enough for Flying Buffalo.

The pages were full of great images like the entrance to the dungeon itself and new and strange words words like myriad.  As you can imagine it made quite an impression on my tiny growning brain.

The entrance to the Madhouse which was solo adventure #6 Weirdworld

I had no rules and I had no idea how to play it, I just treated it as choose your own adventure book before I even knew what one of those was.  Later on I would experience my first group session of the game at a games club in my home town of Bradford.  The DM using the a very early boxed set version of the rules with the little yellow booklet.

Our relocation down to London in the mid 80s coincided with the release of the Corgi edition paperbacks and I picked one up in a local Virgin Games store (remember them).

Core Rulebook	The Amulet of the Salkti Arena of Khazan	Catif D'Yvoire Beyond the Silvered Pane
The City of Terrors	Gamesmen of Kasar Misty Wood	Naked Doom Deathtrap Equalizer
Sword for Hire Blue Frog Tavern

The Corgi editions are really memorable.  They had amazing cover art by Josh Kirby and were published in a standard paperback formfactor at pocket money prices.  The main competition at the time were the Puffin Fighting Fantasy books written by the Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson of Games Workshop.  I preferred T&T because there was a bit more meat on the bones and I remembered the fun I had playing in that group game back in Bradford.

They are very collectible and hold their prices but they are very available when you search for Tunnels Trolls on eBay.

Flying Buffalo have of course continued to publish games and still exist today.  Their products were always on the fringe of the hobby never taking themselves too seriously but they were always popular.


My Collection Includes:

Corgi Edition Core Rules	5th Edition Core Rules	Grimtooths Traps Too
The Hole Delver's Catalogue	Maps Cities Book 1	Sword for Hire Blue Frog Tavern
The Amulet of the Salkti Catalogue

Availability of Flying Buffalo is good and they tend to be on the cheaper side of RPG collectables. I aim to reacquire all the Corgi adventure books in the very near future. Search for Flying Buffalo Products on eBay.

---

The AtoZ of UK RPG in the 80s

1. is for Adventurer Magazine
2. is for Beast Enterprises
3. is for Citadel
4. is for Dungeon Floors
5. is for Elric of Melnibone
6. is for Fighting Fantasy
7. is for Games Designers Workshop
8. is for Heavy Metal
9. is for Indiana Jones
10. is for Judge Dredd
11. is for Knightmare
12. is for Large Box Games
13. is for Mayfair Games
14. is for Northern Militaire
15. is for O
16. is for Pondsmith (where's my flying car Mike?)
17. is for Qadim
18. is for Robots
19. is for Steve Jackson
20. is for Tunnels & Trolls
21. is for UK Series of AD&D Modules
22. is for V
23. is for White Dwarf
24. is for X
25. is for Y
26. is for Z

Miniatures Monday Goes Old School Saturday

I normally leave my mini posts until Mondays to show off the latest update on my Reaper Bones Painting Marathon progress. 

Well, I thought I'd spice it up and share a few of my other projects which have recently been completed (thanks to a spot of spring cleaning during lockdown).  Normal service will resume next week.

Vintage Citadel "Fiend Factory" Balrog - FF5 C31

An iconic miniature from the Fiend Factory range, this imposing winged demon has been one of those bucket list minis that I've been holding onto for some time.  Finally he has a paintjob worthy of the sculpt and this just makes me want to find more of these vintage "pre slotta" base Citadel minis to paint.

Citadel Fiend Factory Balrog (FF5 C31) - Buy your own

Thrud The Barbarian (LE12)

Readers of vintage White Dwarf will recognise this pin headed barbarian.  Created by illustrator Carl Critchlow he was White Dwarf's long running comic strip from issue #45 to issue #105.

An obvious pastiche of Conan the Barbarian, Thrud was entirely played for laughs and Carl has continued to draw him outside of the pages of White Dwarf in his own Thrud The Barbarian comic.

This is my Thrud's 3rd paintjob only possible due to the chunkiness of the detail (I never bothered to strip him of his previous paintjobs).  I am half tempted to track down the other 4 Special Edition Thrud miniatures Citadel have made over the years.

Citadel Thrud The Barbarian (LE12) - Buy your own

More 15mm Madness for Judge Dredd

Whilst I was tracking down the origins of my Mega City One Citizens, I came across some quite stunning minis from a range of manufacturers which are frankly fuelling my obsession with small scale skirmishes.

HOF Media Team - What good is a Block War without good media coverage?  This 10 pack is perfect for that front-line news media team.  Lets hope they don't stand too close to that fuel truck.  Whoops too late...

HOF69 Draccian Lord and Warriors - Tell me that these aren't Kleggs!

If you are going to have Kleggs then you need to have Klegg Hounds

Splintered Light Komodo Dragons

Passable Klegg Hounds

Khurasan Miniatures - A veritable smorgasbord of different and very useable sci-fi miniatures I have fallen in love with their Marauders who make for a perfect Mega City One juve gang.

Khurasan Miniatures 15mm Sci-Fi Marauders (END100)

Khurasan Miniatures 15mm Sci-Fi Marauders (END101)

Khurasan Miniatures Planet 15 (Cinematic Range)

Cursed Earth Muties or residents of Jed Clampett Block (Redneck1)

I aint fraid of no Ghosts! - (Spirit Punters)

Anyway that's more than enough to be getting on with for now.

The Empire Strikes Back is 40 Today

My Star Wars relationship began with The Empire Strikes Back.



Whilst I am assured that I was taken to see Starwars at the tender age of 4, I don't really have any recollection of the actual trip to the movie.  However, I spent days watching and rewatching a VHS copy of the movie which had been taped from a Yorkshire Television broadcast one christmas, complete with The Two Ronnies advertising the Atari 2600.

The summer holiday highlight that year was going to the cinema in Filey to see the movie.  I had already been primed as a few days earlier I had begged for a copy of the comicbook novel.  I won't go into detail about what a mind blowing experience that was.  Later that year I got a couple of action figures (the only ones I ever owned).

Comic Paperback

Han Solo Hoth

IG-88