Dwarf Ranger

Huzzah, an actual mini for Mik's Minis in 2010! I had said I had a fig on my work desk that just needed basing, and well here he is. I had picked up some of Gale Force 9's snow flock a couple of weeks ago to use for my Viking project, so I thought I'd try it out. I know you can use detergent or whatever, but it was kind of an impulse buy.

Since we actually have had some snow, a rare thing around here, I thought I'd combine the two. Indoors, when I applied the GF9 to the fig's base I wasn't too thrilled, it looked like he was standing in salt, but looking at these pics, it's identical to real snow.


The fig itself is from the defunct Rackham metal line and was one of the Tir-Na-Bor Dwarves. This fig, like the others, is nothing short of amazing. The detail and style put into these is great and I hope my meager paint job can convey this and do the fig justice. Simply put, it was a fun figure to paint, and kind of hard to screw up when you're done because it already looks so good!


It was tricky to paint much so green but in different shades...

The title says 'Dwarf Ranger' and thanks to the massive slab of a sword, made from a precious green stone, I went with the name 'Jade'. There's a backstory about Dwarves named Jade carrying around large, 'final fantasy' style swords in my book that goes way back, but I'll spare you the details. Anyway, I whipped this character up as part of a Savage Worlds game we played, set in the world of Warhammer Fantasy.

It's really two great tastes that go great together. The richly detailed world of Warhammer Fantasy gives players and GMs a lot of room to kick around in, then add a great system like Savage Worlds and you've got a pretty sweet setup. We only played the one game, but I'm hoping for more, especially since I painted up a fig for it! Also, since it's the Warhammer world, there's a hint of a plot twist that the sword might actually contain a vein or two of Warpstone...

A Look at Savage Worlds

As promised from my last RPG post, pitting disgruntled Star Wars rebels whooping up on some deserving Imperial scum, here's a little more in-depth look at the rules we used, and not necessarily the game we played itself. Savage Worlds is one of those games that has garnered good reviews and a positive following over the years. A newer edition (Explorer's Edition) has emerged which is said to have fixed some minor issues, tweaked others, and overall fine tuned what was already am award-winning RPG engine.

Savage Worlds is set up as a generic system tailored to meet whatever genre demands the players require. To help it along in defining certain areas to game in, companion rulesets are out there to cover the weird west Deadlands, sci-fi future, weird war two (so hot right now), pirates, and even the New World (among many others). There's a fantasy companion as well. The best part is, the core rules themselves are just $9.99, in full color!


Character creation was incredibly fast and easy. The above, handwritten sheet was for the Star Wars game we did, and took up, maybe, a fourth of the page. It's very self-explanatory, and the fact that different dice are used to represent your skills is easy and intuitive for someone new to the system. The higher your die type, the better you are at that attribute. Using above Krynn Kora as an example, his dexterity is fairly high at d8, and both smarts (intelligence) and spirit are decent enough at d6. As you can see, vigor (overall health) isn't that great at d4. Your die types are bought with points, so there's only so much you can bump up, and the higher one stat becomes, the lower another conversely becomes.

Skills are handled with a points buying system as well, and the skills tie directly into your attributes. With the above example, I took 'gambling' as a skill, which is tied to the attribute smarts (d6). I could go as high as d6 (my attribute) with the gambling skill if I wanted easily enough. I just wanted to have the skill though, not necessarily be great at it, so I just bought it to have it on paper at its lowest value. Using skills untrained altogether is a much tougher prospect to succeed with. If you look at 'shooting', tied in with my dexterity (d8), the skill is higher than the attribute. I was able to buy it up to my max attribute of d8 no problem, but to go beyond that I had to pay double for each level of progression. This system works well to favor skills that are tied in with your natural attribute strengths, but allows flexibility enough to give a character with a low attribute to still have a high skill related to that attribute. Such as the high smarts technician still having a decent fight (agility).

You'll find that you don't quite have enough points to really make your character the exact way you want, so you can pick up hindrances. Hindrances come in two varieties; minor and major. Depending on what you take, you'll get more points to use towards both skills and starting attributes. For me I took two minor ones; "wanted" and "phobia". These were fairly generic, and the rulebook offered many, many hindrances to choose from. There are also benefits called edges you can choose from too, however these cost points, but give neat stuff.

Gameplay proceeds as pretty much any regular RPG, with an exception being in initiative "rolls" which uses a standard deck of cards instead of dice. It was a neat change of pace, but I didn't feel it was necessary. Also you get 'bennies' for each character, we used poker chips. These work in the same manner as action points and/or re-rolls. The rest of the game goes along the same lines, and puts the action squarely in the hands of the players. Because of the intuitive and light nature of the rules, it seems that there should be less prep time on the part of the GM's, with more time spent on story and less on stat crunching. Also, even with brand new players, you can focus on gameplay, and worry less about rules.

I only played the one game (so far) and it was set up as a one-shot adventure as well. Though, having never even seen the Savage Worlds rulebook in person before, I basically didn't miss a beat. Character creation was easy to grasp and make whatever you wanted to, and flexible enough where we had three entirely different characters at the table in short order. The rules didn't feel limiting at all, and I didn't feel like I was constrained by them throughout the game. As my character interacted with the story and made decisions, everything just flowed together and made for an enjoyable and less complicated romp than other systems.

Inglorious (Lego Star Wars) Basterds

The Rebels

So one of the more recent members to join our gaming group in the last couple of years, the second Chris (Chrispy) stepped into the shoes of our long-time GM, Rucht, who had the audacity to move out of town. Chrispy "allegedly" likes running games, and for a group in sore need of a GM, voila. So the other day he had an idea, he had just seen Inglorious Basterds, and he happened to be getting some of the nifty Star Wars Legos around the same time...put two and two together, and you've got one heck of a set up for a one-shot RPG! We went with the Savage Worlds rules, which I have always heard good things about, but never had the chance to actually get to play. More on them later, but they lived up to the hype.


Krynn Kora, Kel Dor Bounty Hunter

I really wanted to play a Gand Findsman, but we didn't have the stats, so instead of fudge the stats I opted for another facemask re-breather race, the Kel Dor. If you're playing a Star Wars character, you've got to play a bounty hunter, right? I played him as a hunter who had worked for the Empire, but after his last assignment, instead of a paycheck, the Empire put a bomb in his ship's engine. He managed to escape, just barely, and he tried to collect his payment nonetheless. All he has wanted was to be paid, now it's personal.

I tried to split my skills and stats as best as possible, staying well-rounded, but not being a jack-o-all-trades. I went decent smarts and agility, and favored 'hunter' type skills such as streetwise, piloting, and shooting; and a little repair and tracking too.

I opted for a red flight suit ('cause all cool bounty hunters wear their flight suits everywhere, like Bossk!), and some decent armor too. He wears not only his facial methane re-breather, but a mask as well for extra intimidating power! He wears blast armor and a visored helmet. For weapons he carries a pair of heavy blasters with a holster on each leg, and on a magnetic plate on his rear armor he keeps a blaster carbine tucked away (take your pick, either Halo style or Mass Effect). In a boot he has a vibroblade, and on his belt up front a pair of grenades. I've been using orthodontist rubber bands lately to create bandoleers and such on my minifigs. I find that Brickarms' grenades "clip" perfectly to these rubber bands, and I'm able to stow extra gear and weapons like I have on the left.



Lieux Gherrhig, Duros Assassin

Chri3' character is of the Duros race, mainly because we had Duros stats, and his mini-fig favored their look. The neat thing about Chri3 is that he shows up with his own mini-figs...or is he stepping on toes? Just kidding, haha! I never did catch his background, I just know his character is younger than average and trying to get in on a career that favors his deadly skills. I think he was working for the Empire, and much like my character, they gave him the shaft instead of a paycheck, apt reason for him to join the upstart Rebellion.


Dib Dub, Sullustan Sniper

Andy opted for a Sullustan, and in an unprecedented move, spoke as a Sullustan! That's right, throughout the night, heck, at about 98% of game time, Andy spoke in gibberish. Before the game he remarked how there's always that character in the Star Wars movie that you can't understand on screen, and there's zero subtitles, but everyone else seems to know exactly what they're saying (Chewbacca, R2-D2, Nien Numb...). Of course it was up to us to interpret, which can lead to many humorous situations. To his credit, Andy did begin to pantomime his desires after a while, since you can only 'misinterpret' the alien so much.

Did you know Sullustans, although completely bald, are "fabulous hairdressers"? Neither did we, but according to SW canon they are. Andy worked this into his background, as a former carnival sideshow attraction who performed amazing acts of sharpshooting and daring stunts. His access allowed him to travel the galaxy, entertaining Imperial Dignitaries. If at times, a shot went errant and took one of said dignitaries out...so be it. After a while the Empire caught on and Dib Dub became a wanted man, err, alien on the run.


Chri3 whips up another solid character profile sketch

As I slid my character sheet over to Chri3 in our Dark Heresy game, Andy did likewise this time around. "I want a Sullustan with an Elvis pompadour!", once again, ask and you shall receive. Since Dib Dub is bald, we concluded his hair was a weave.


Massacre at Krayt Ridge!

The Rebellion gave us a ship, an arsenal of weapons, and free reign to go cause as much havoc on the Empire as possible. Of course, if caught we were on our own, without backup or rescue coming...ever. Using our unique skills, we are able to conduct a guerrilla war of terror-filled wetworks. Our first target was an Imperial Moff, holed up on backwater Tattooine with a Twi'lek dancer. It is about a year after the "farm boy blew up the space station", so many Imperials were keeping low profiles, like our Moff target.

Our original plan, okay, my original plan was to capture the dancer, implant explosives in her, then detonate her when she was in close contact with the Moff. We had a 21-b medical droid on board, named 'Rusty', but we didn't know if it was up to a complex procedure like that. Plan B was to attack the night club, car-bomb style, but using an explosive-laden Dewback or Ronto (or both!) instead, park 'em next to the nightclub, and 'splode them.

First we were itching for a fight, and needed to draw some of the Imperial troops away from the city. We were going to find a Sandtrooper patrol and bushwhack them. We also wanted to make it look like an attack by Tusken Raiders, so first we had to find some Raiders to bushwhack. Following their Bantha tracks proved easy and we found a large group of them preparing camp. Dib Dub roared the engine of our rented landspeeder into their midst with wild abandon, smashing many aside. We jumped out and began to efficiently dispatch the rest. Our R5 unit was freaking out at the atrocities it was witnessing.

Once we had enough bodies and weapons to plant at the scene of the next battle, we took off once again, Krynn Kora using his tracking to locate an Imperial patrol.


Massacre at Carbunkle Canyon!

We had time to lay out an ambush, so put the pile of Tusken Raiders in the middle of the patrol route. We also parked our R5 unit there as well. Dib Dub dug in some distance off with his combination Force Pike / sniper rifle, the Duros hid behind some rocks, and my character buried himself under the sand, close to where the bait was laid.


As we had hoped, seeing the pile of Tusken bodies, and a fully functional R5 unit to boot gave the troops enough pause to stop and investigate. On queue the rebels opened fire on them, catching them in a crossfire. Dib Dub's single shot rifle bucked on its bipod and he sent energy bolts into the Sandtroopers' repulsorcraft. He took out the driver in a single shot and hammered away at the others. Lieux Gherrhig emerged from cover, firing his carbine on rapid fire, pinning down those troopers he didn't outright dispatch. Krynn Kora emerged from the sand right next to the craft, drawing both heavy blasters from their holsters and began firing on the troopers. Honestly, dual-shooting wasn't that effective, and Chrispy reminded me that I didn't have to shoot two pistols at once...but where's the fun in that?!?!


Die Imperial scum!

The Sandtroopers had much more bite to them than the Tusken, but it was the righteous might of the Rebellion that prevailed (and our bloodthirsty ruthlessness). We placed the Tusken bodies around the site and created a convincing looking battle that pitted the sand people against the Sandtroopers. All the while our R5 beeped and whooped in surprise and shock, having seen far too much carnage for his sensitive droid feelings. We had to have a "little talk" with the astromech, just to make sure we were all on the same page...and if he dared repeat anything that he saw, we'd slag him and toss him out an airlock.


"Listen here you little pile of bolts..."

The battle we staged worked as more patrols were sent to investigate, and even more sent on wider patrols around the city. A crack team of troopers was even sent out to bring the Tusken to justice. This left the Mos Eisley garrison basically empty, and all the Moff had left to him were a handful of guards when we made our move.

We took two Dewbacks and loaded them down with saddlebags of explosives. Each one was tethered off on adjacent corners of the night club where we knew the dancer to perform and the Moff to frequent. Dib Dub set up on the roof top across the street with his rifle, Lieux lurked in the alley out back, carbine ready, and Krynn Kora waited on the sidewalk across the street with the R5 unit. The Dewbacks erupted simultaneously, sending thundering shockwaves through the streets and lighting up the night sky with columns of flame. The mud brick walls, though reinforced, buckled and collapsed under the explosion.

Sandtroopers and patrons stumbled out the door, deafened and choking with smoke and debris, the former hastily stripping off their helmets to gasp for fresher air. This made Dib Dub's task on the rooftop even easier as he placed his precise shots time and time again. While the walls still crumbled down, Krynn Kora leapt through the hole in the front, pistols drawn and picked off Imperials as he searched for the Moff. Lieux came through the back, doing the same, cutting a path through the panicked with his rapid-firing carbine.

Bloodied and crippled, but still very much alive, the rebels found the Moff and drug him out into the street. Sirens could heard in the background, and panic gripped the streets. Dib Dub joined Krynn and Lieux and the three exacted their own brand of justice then and there, pausing only long enough to drag him to the garrison and string him up on the door. The three rebels, their astromech droid, and a newly found friend made their way through the streets to the docking bay that held their ship as troops descended upon the ruins of the nightclub.

The modified light freighter roared out of the atmosphere, fast enough to avoid the Imperial cordon that was slow to form. Krynn Kora piloted the controls in the cockpit with Lieux riding in the co-pilot's seat. Behind them sat Dib Dub, his fingers drumming on the metallic head of the R5, which involuntarily shook, or beeped, or both at sporadic intervals. The R5 unit was clearly past the edge of his sanity threshold. As they cleared the gravity well of the planet, the form of a scantily clad and curvaceous body entered the cockpit from the rear as the tentacled head of the Twi'lek dancer poked into view. "So, you boys got any food on this boat? I'm starving..." The R5 unit shook once, and let out a long, low whistle.