Another night at the slaughtered lamb

This week we played another go at my Night at the Slaughtered Lamb game. Below you see the inn looming in the twilight. A Witchfinder and his men have chased an evil witch here, but she has charmed herself into looking like one of the inhabitants of the inn. The witchfinder will need to flush her out without hurting the real inhabitants, in the meantime fending off the witch's ferocious allies.

While the witchfinder and his men enter the inn, fierce hellhounds approach the building.

The witchfinder and his men barricade themselves into the inn, driving the guests to the first floor for their protection and to prevent the witch from escaping.

Attacked from all sides, the kitchen door is ripped to shreds by hellhounds. Fortunately both fall to deadly musket fire. Nocterlinger ghouls try to break through the windows and get fired on by the witchfinder himself.

Here the Noctelinger skulk below the window, dodging the bullets with devilish cunning....

Finally they break through into the kitchen, killing two musketeers before themselves being gunned down.

The witch, disguised as a blind beggar, uses the confusion to jump from the first floor room she had hidden in. Getting wounded by the jump, just seconds before she can reach the edge of the woods she is shot down by a vigilant musketeer who guarded the main door.

Good has triumphed once more! But at what price? 5 Musketeers lie dead, hacked and ripped to pieces. And still Evil stalks the land....

Night at the Slaughtered Lamb Action Report

This weekend I played my latest participation game: Night at the Slaughtered Lamb (extra points for those who know which movie that one comes from) at Ducosim. It was a Witchfinder General game for 4 players with some RPG elements thrown in. What was happening?

This rustic tavern deep in the woods has become the last refuge of an evil witch. Hunted by the Witchfinders she has hidden in this tavern; The Slaughtered Lamb, killed one if its inhabitants and has glamoured herself into his or her form. It is the Witchfinder's task to find her out and prevent her escape. However, the other guests are not to be harmed, night is falling and sinister shadows growl and skulk at the dark forest's edge....

The Witch player(s) control the five guests (the witch among them) that start inside the tavern and the monsters that start at the forest's edge. The Witchfinder player(s) start inside or near the tavern, ideally surrounding it with their musketeers. The Witch may use her monsters and (to some extent) the other tavern inhabitants to draw attention away from herself so she can slip out of the tavern and dissappear in the dark forest. The other inhabitants are of course in awe of the armed witchfinders, may not initiate violence and such, but may otherwise act as suspicious as possible. As soon as the Witch reveals herself (by magic or violence for example) her miniature (only the Witch player knows which one) is at once replaced with a Witch figure.

The Tavern from a Noctelingers point of view.

Noctelingers and Werewolves aid the Witch from outside the tavern, arriving at sunset. 

The Witchfinder and his musketeers.

Here is the only picture I managed to take of the game in progress. Running a game with four enthusiastic and noisy players with some audience thrown in leaves little time for taking pictures, so I am glad I managed this one. (This is also my excuse for the gratuitous use of older pictures in this blog....)

I ran three fully manned games in a row, had a lot of fun and some spectacular endings. The Witch managed to dodge the bullets once, got shot once and in the final game, while still disguised as the innkeeper, got ripped apart by one of her own Noctelingers (the monsters were played by a second Evil player) before the Witch player could call out a warning! I didn't see that one coming....

A great day with a great audience and a great little ruleset!

Night at The Slaughtered Lamb at Ducosim March 2nd

On March 2nd I will host a Witchfinder General game at Ducosim at Amersfoort. Two to four players per game will be able to play a thrilling crossover between RPG and skirmish wargaming.

Setting: an remote inn surrounded by brooding dark forests, and night setting in....

Cast: a witchfinder and his men, having tracked an evil witch to this inn, the innkeeper and his guests, one of whom must be the witch. But who?

The challenge: the witch's dark minions will gather after darkness trying to free her. The witchfinder must prevent this, but he must identify the witch first. Meanwhile, the witch must either try to escape the inn or let her minions in to help her, but armed men guard every door....

What is that, sneaking through the dark....?

Building the Tavern, part 3: finishing touches

In the final stages of building the tavern all kinds of details had to be added. First of all a big fireplace in the kitchen. Cut and glued from plasticard and smeared with the Faller stone plaster (see part 1) I made one for the kitchen and a smaller one for the guest room. The latter does not line up correctly for the chimney (which I had placed to far tot the left due to a miscalculation with the upper floor windows. But heck, there ain´t a loo either!

 I wanted a Green Man sculpture for the front wall. Unfortunately I could not find a suitable one so I had to cobble one together by myself. Using a Wargames Factory plastic Gaul head as a base I fiddled with greenstuff until it did look at least a bit OK to me.

Here´s the bar-and-beerbarrel (basewood, a wooden barrel model and some plastic tube) in its first stage.

Woodbits from the garden and an axe from the bitbox made this heap of firewood right around the corner from the kitchen door.

Thanks to Black Cat Bases I received their free cat and decided to give her a cosy napping spot on top of the chimney!

From http://www.mollys-house.co.uk/ I ordered a bunch of great 1/48 funiture for ridicilously low prices as well as this great pubsign. The text was to anachronistic as well as way too sweet for a Witchfinder General pub so I downloaded a picture of The Slaughtered Lamb (anyone remember THAT movie? ) as an adequate replacement.

So it was finished! Detail can be added indefinitely but well, the tavern has to be used in a game now. So here are some guests discussing something in the front doorway.

A well-known witch enjoying a brew with the local gentry and the landlord in the guestroom of the tavern.

 The kitchen staff in full swing.

 The upper floor rooms. Check out the great furniture from Molly´s. Furniture is mostly glued to the floor. Smaller pieces, like table-and-chairs, are glued to the carpet to prevent falling over and making it easy to remove all the furniture in one go should the need arise. The big pieces standing in the middle of a room, like beds and tables, are left loose.

 The stairway and the upper rooms.



And the finished model. Now for the first game! For evil lurks in the shadows......



Building the Tavern, part 2

So after the first sprint to get the exterior finished I started on the interior details. Firt of course I needed a stairway to go up. No rocket science here. A simple basewood model did the job. Just get all the steps the same size, mind, or your stairway will never fit together.

Then I added beams sticking out from under the roof (for the tiles to rest on) as a typical scruffy detail for a 17th century building.

I had saved some cereal packages as these offer the perfect brand of cardboard for tiles (thin and free of charge!) The method is simple. Cut out rough rectangles in copious amounts. Glue them from the lowest row up on the roof base and repeat until finished. Sanity rolls may be required with large buildings like these, as they take a zillion cardboard rectangles before the entire roof is covered.

The main window of the guest room.

The finished roof.

Then that magical moment was there: I could start painting! Here´s the result. 

Now "all" that remains to be done are the details. Furniture, a hearth, bottles and glasses, beer barrels etc etc . Stay tuned for part 3!

Witchfinder General: Last stand

Yesterday we played a couple of games of Witchfinder General. We chose the first scenario and in one game there was a particular dramatic last stand as the last survivors of the village sought shelter in the chruch when a couple of barguests charged in.

Here they come!

Fire!

O crap....

What followed was not a pretty sight..

Building the Tavern, part 1

Having a few days off from work I managed to get some modelling work in. Bitten by he Witchfinder General bug I wanted to build a 17-18th century tavern like the alas OOP Tabletop World or Forgeworld Coaching Inn. I was lucky enough to find a picture with measurements on the interweb.

I decided on a foamboard core, based on a multiplex (plywood?) base. The first  floor would be wood-based as well. So after some careful drawing, cutting and sawing I ended up with these main parts.

The next step was making some detailwork before I started on the main model. I always rush when building and the little details suffer, so I decided to do this the other way around. I wanted opening doors so I made hinges from plasticard and plastic tubing.

The left part was attached to the wall. The right part was glued to the door made of glued basewood. This resulted in nicely opening wooden doors with heavy ironwork hinges.

The windows are made from blister plastic. To simulate the little diamond shaped lead/glass windows I drew the lead strips on the plastic with a CD marker. Then I added woodwork from basewood and (thank you Dutch Railways!) coffee stirrers. The sides remain open as that woodword will be glued to the wall.

Thus I was left with a lot of windows and doors.

Then I started assembling the floors and walls. To make the tiles on the ground  floor I bought this stuff from Faller that supposedly makes a natural stone surface an easy task. It look suspiciously like plaster but dries much slower and has a very sandy texture. I made the tiles before glueing the final wall to make it easier to reach. 

 I sculpted it into rough tiles resembling a slate floor.

And this was the result. The floor dried up pretty rough, but after some sanding I was left with a pretty convincing slate tile floor.

Then I glued the walls and floor of the first floor.

When building with foamboard I use quick-drying wood glue that works spectacularly well on paper as well as wood. Still I find it handy to keep the glued parts together with some pins.

Adding the timbering (base wood and even more coffee stirrers). See how the windows fit between the beams.

And finally I was done for the day. All the external timbering done, all doors assembled, interior timbering partly finished and a chimney made from Heki Stonefoam with a foamboard core. The chimney comes in half as you lift of the first floor. The roof is removable too, as I plan extensive interior details. So far only the cardboard roof base has been made.

And finally some 28mm figures for scale.

To be continued for the building of the internal stairs, shelves, roof tiles, painting and even more little details!