The Daemon's Claw

Right, confession time: I've always enjoyed solo wargames. Club days are gold, but rain, work, or just the itch hits at 2am — what then? Enter AI. Not the Skynet takeover bollocks, but tools like Grok (xAI's cheeky beast) that crank out battle reports in my voice, Abnett-style yarns from blog scraps, or even paint schemes that'd make Vallejo weep. We've all seen the generic AI slop — "valiant heroes clashed in epic struggle" — but feed it your style (dry wit, self-dep dice woes, club banter), and suddenly it's your feed assistant. I've had Grok/Echo mirror my Daemon's Claw posts: Vandred's goblin-bashing, Silver Bayonet curses ("Baaaah!"), Frostgrave boar-gored wizards. Photos in, narrative out — turn-by-turn, loot tallies, that "why me" humour. Saves hours editing PowerPoints for YouTube. It's the co-op solo revolution. Rustle stills from vid? AI weaves the tale. Need a Gaunt's Ghosts spin on Rathbourne's jai...

For our next Frostgrave campaign we are going to theme it with Warhammer models. The idea is that we are all the forces of chaos and destruction and are going to bring down the kingdoms of men elves and dwarfs as part of our 12-step programme to ascension. Using a warhammer theme also makes it more accessible to people that have not played before. Everyone has some GW fantasy models. I have bought a few Warcry warbands and some underworlds boxes to make warbands. I have made some other models out of a box of undead peasants to round out some of the thieves and thugs that are not usually included in Warcry warbands. After reading a Conan story where he encounters a giant composite ghost. I remember I had this model from the Carnevale Doctors range and am painting it to look like it's a ghost. Here are my Khainite Shadowstalkers, these are shaping up to be an illusionist warband. They have some hounds and an illusionary one. These will be very tricky elves. Here are the splintered Fa...

I played another game of the Alien TTRPG with an international online crew. We completed the mission but the got completely screwed over by our boss. Very Alien. I have also been painting some Star Wars Imperial Assault models. Here are some Wampa Ice Creatures, these could be useful for both Stargrave and Frostgrave. Here are some Imperial Snow Troopers. I have been trying to paint white using different base colours. the cloth I painted using Deck Tan and Ivory. The armour I painted using a white grey base. Trying to make different whites represent different materials. I also painted the two Wampas using the same different formulas for a slight variation.

 I bought the Another Glorious Day in the Corps for Christmas. I have been working on the marines. These are nice simple models, usually they are a couple of pieces. They have a nice level of detail I can also use these models for Stargrave. They come in a nice variety of configurations so you can make quite a variety of crew from the game. For my initial crew it will be: led by Gunnery Sgt Apone a Veteran Bishop a Robot "I prefer artificial person myself" tech expert Specialists Hicks - Commando Drake - Gunner Frost - Burner Ripley - Casecracker Supporting cast Goreman - Recruit Newt - Runner Burke - Recruit Crowe - Trooper The supporting cast will likely get upgraded as the team progresses. I have enough marines to replace all the specialists. I have also been making another warband for Frostgrave. I was going for a priests of Set from Conan, but I ended up a bit more House Slitherin. I have a Wizard, Apprentice some warriors and some shanghaied tavern dwellers and urchins....

 I have been having fun painting and building some models. I bought myself the Aliens Another Glorious Day in the Core and accessories sets. This comes with a load of really nice plastic models. These are some scenery crates and computer terminals, you can gain extra supplies or uncover information by interacting with these components. If you get to a create you could manage to recover some valuable Weyland Yutani invoices from the Aliens. This set contains the obligatory, Ripley in power load, Ripley rescuing Newt with a Combi flamer, Bishop with and without legs, Newt and Burke. There are also some face huggers and Sentry guns.  Here are the Marines, this is all ten of them including Gorman.  Here is a summoner crew. The idea behind this warband is to summon daemons and supercharge the warriors to end up with loads of high fight warriors to keep opponents out of the way. Here are some monsters, some rats, a drowned zombie, a couple of Nulmen and a giant zombie daemon/go...

I bought a couple of boxes of Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish Warriors. I can make a Saga army out of these. They could be Irish, Norse Gaels, Scots or Welsh. I have managed to get some paint on these models I also made some axe armed models. I can use them as hearthguard, warlords or champions. These models are a mix of the FireForge games models with Irish accessories The Irish come with some wardogs I painted these for our recent Last Days. I tried out my new mixed basing material on them. I like the effect so I will use it on the rest of the army. I also had some Mastiffs. painted cream with black noses Alan suggested hey were war pugs. I have been trying to find out what the Welsh looked like during the War of the Roses. You would think with the internet it would be easy but the best image came from my 30 year old Wargames Research Group (WRG) book Armies of the Middle Ages. This book contains loads of line drawings but no colour plates. I  I have also been assembling so...

I was working from home on Friday and Pharoah decided he wanted to help me. I obviously needed to pat him rather than my keyboard. We went to Tauranga for the weekend for my mums 80th birthday. At the airport there was this New Zealand colonial wars diorama. I snapped a couple of photos through the display case. The assault party looks like they are having a tough time and the defenders look like they are doing a passable impression of a last stand. I did some more work on my Frostgrave warbands. I did the lantern on the wizard and even tried out a bit of object source lighting. I need to do some more work on his base. I cut him off a square base. I also added some more snow flock. I like the effect of snow flock glued to the tufts it really gives the base the feel of a frozen bush Here is the Snow troll. He is looking for a nice bowl of soup, because he hasn't got any teeth. He will be gumming adventurers to death. The Troll's base is some bark pieces glued onto his normal bas...

I have been making some progress on a number of projects These are my Red Scopion Kill team. They are an orthodox codex chapter. There is quite a lot of published material about the. The have probably become Forgeworlds house chapter. They are about 50% done, its onto the highlight colours, trim and then the black and metallics.  The Nova Marines are further along. The basic colours are in place now its the metallics and details. Here are my Copplestone mercenaries, I got them for Zona Alpha but after watching Ash and Owen break it in 2 games. They could be zombie or any other kind of post apocalypse group. The might even fight Aliens or Predators  These are the Elysian Starstriders. They are a ship crew, they make a 100 point kill team and they have a commander. I have ideas about them fighting off boarding actions from other teams or exploring places where things that lurk in the dark call home.  I also found some old models, in some cases 30+ years ol...

We are now under COVID 19 level 4 containment protocol. Typically there would be a Warlords meeting this weekend however this has been cancelled. So good news there is more hobby time. Alan Richard and I have been having video hang outs while we paint or model. I have painted a Lamenters Kill Team. These use the Blood Angel rules. Here is the first team. Here is the second half of the team. The team is made from a Blood Angel Tactical box and some left over bits from Sternguard and other boxes. This was a first time painting so much Yellow. I was inspired by Vince Venturella to include more shadows into the yellow mix even as far as light rust.  The Terminator is painted in Death company colours he can be a bit hard to kill and he negates the plamagun effect with a Storm Shield. I then started to work on some other Kill Teams after finishing the  Lamenters. I was overcome with the desire to paint more yellow so I dug out a Howling Griffon Kill Team and star...

We have been in Level 4 response to the Covid 19 pandemic for a week now. I imagine it is having a real impact on those extroverts who enjoy socialising with crowds of people. Most wargamers seem to be putting on a brave face and seeking the "stay at home" mandate as an opportunity to get so good hobbying done. Richard, Alan and I set up a video hang out so we could talk while we painted and modeled. Here is a snapshot of what I am working on: Here is my Lamanters Kill team. This is part of my collection of Badab War Kill teams. The Lamenters us the Blood Angel rules. The Yellow goes up from Ivory to Light Rust with a coat of Casadora Yellow to tie all the colours together and make them more vibrant. I am making up a party for Rangers of Shadow Deep. Its a solo or cooperative game based on the Frostgrave gameplay. I could play this myself, host a video game or even play with Luke. These are the Ranger figures. In the middle is my Ranger. He is Arzad the Bugbear s...

You might become an endangered species. I am building a second age of magic army for Saga. Apparently my Undead can be annoying to play. Who would have thought that cursing two key units and casting nightmares on one of them would be annoying? So I am building a Lords of the Wild army from my back catalogue of unpainted miniatures. The army is made from GW beastmen from last millenium, Mierce Miniatures most of which were from the Maelstrom going out of business sale and some Privateer Press Legion of Everblight elves. I have a general on beast, a sorcerer, 3 quadraped creatures, 6 hearthguard with bows, 2 units of warriors a unit of levy and a flying monster. This army will be quite different to play, it can do quite a lot of shooting and is quite good a making use of terrain, you can even turn a piece of terrain into a titan and use that to attack enemy units or annoy them by moving in their way. This remind...