Cursed city terrain
As a follow up to my Blackstone Fortress terrain post, I’m sharing the atmospheric terrain that I sometimes use in Cursed City. Unlike Blackstone Fortress, Cursed City doesn’t use terrain within the game. I’m fine with that, the boards look great. Also, what kind of ranged attack would rats, bats, and zombies have? Cursed City is a sword-forward game. I’ve seen some people completely wall-in their boards. For some reason that doesn’t appeal to me. I have other fully walled games, but I like the unclutteredness of the CC board. So I use a few printed files scattered around just for fun. Mainly tombstones. https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-halloween-diorama-pumpkin-head-and-more-for-28-mm-32-mm-miniatures-192316 (crypt-flat.stl) https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-modular-cemetery-set-214060 https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-gothic-ruin-185114 https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/cursed-city-style-pillar https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3706098 https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/architecture/headstones-for-tabletop-gaming Honorable Mention Halloween base: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-halloween-base-188781
Warhammer Quest at 30
It’s finally happened. 2025 is the 30th anniversary of the original Warhammer Quest. WHQ ’95 has had a pretty remarkable run. Other games from that era are still going strong as well. Necromunda and Mordheim come to mind. WHQ had a gangbuster year in 1995, but that was it. Two big box expansions, nine boxed hero expansions, three treasure card packs, roughly forty White Dwarf and Citadel Journal articles, and three Deathblow magazines (that largely reprised White Dwarf and Citadel Journal articles). But that was it. 1996 saw no additional content and game support burned out. All-in-all, pretty well supported, but ending all too soon. Talk about coming in with a bang! And also ending with that same exact bang. As I’ve said before, I wish I bought a copy back then. But I was exiting the hobby and it was substantially more expensive than any of its already pricey…
Da Red Gobbo
Not only did I print the cards for A Most Un-Silent Night, we got it on the table! Right at the end of the holiday season! There may have been some rule bending (breaking) to get us across the silly finish line. Not much paint on these minis, but we got a game in. I even whipped up some Gnawty Snufflers to have in the game. Pretty fun and even a bit stressful! Those reinforcements keep pouring in. Relentless! Here was my first look at it, last year: https://cutandassemble.com/a-most-un-silent-night
Radukar!
We did it! We beat Radukar! It took us years, but we did it! Spoiler alert below… Spoiler alert!! Don’t read unless you’ve completed the core game. There was definitely a difficulty curve to the game. The middle was where it was the hardest. We breezed through the Ven Alten triplets, and Radukar didn’t put up too much of a fight either. The final three vampires charged us on turn 1, and we chopped them all down. Second and third turns we got into positions, there were no reinforcements. Fourth turn we start shattering philactries. Radukar is now on the board. We smash 3 philactries, and attack Radukar, he’s down to one wound remaining. Radukar activates and attacks two heroes, stunning them. Jelsen is last. He rushes into the Nightguard room, smashes the philactry, runs out, shoots at Radukar and misses… With the final destiny die, he takes carefully aim…
Gorechosen Schemes
I’ve been on a bit of a Gorechosen/Combat Arena kick lately, and just started painting the models. Here are some great paint schemes. I need to pick a basing scheme too. I don’t plan to go all-out like some of these painters, they’ve outdone themselves! The Khorne models are a bit “samey”, but these painters have done a great job of differentiating the minis. I especially like the blue Skulltaker by Next Level Painting. It’s a little funny that even some of the newest things in my collection are a bit old now.
Painting Silver Tower
I just finished nine models for Gorechosen and I’m already looking at the next project. Next up is painting the minis for Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower and I wanted to estimate how tough it’ll be. The number of miniatures tells you something, but not the whole story. So I went through and graded the miniatures based on the perceived rigor necessary to paint. Here’s my grading scheme: I’ve already painted Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City, and I agree with my method. Cursed City minis were somewhat more demanding than the Blackstone models. Shadows Over Hammerhal doesn’t have as many figures, but they’re all either quite detailed or are heroes. I like painting, but I also like having models painted, so I’m heartened that Silver Tower doesn’t look as arduous (fun, but arduous) as some of the other sets. Everything is primed and ready go, about half have a base color…
Cursed City – Carried Items
Recently I completed the core Cursed City game. My group never made use of the Carried Item slot on the character card. It was a mystery the whole time. Spoilers below! After finishing the game, I read every Crisis in the Quest Book. Read no further if you wish to avoid crisis spoilers. We wondered what we were missing. Turns out, not too much in terms of game effect. I wish there were more of these/or that the odds were better of hitting them. It’s a fun and mysterious gimmick that we would have enjoyed. The odds of hitting the first part of these little side quests aren’t super great. We never hit one. Then, you’d have to have a hero carrying the item on the board, which isn’t guaranteed, there are eight heroes in the box + all the expansion characters now. THEN you have to get a lucky…
Fun write-up about Advanced Heroquest
The author’s experience is starkly different than mine as a young person with a copy of AHQ in hand. https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/pauls-most-important-gaming-memory/ I’m glad someone enjoyed their experience with AHQ, because my experience was a letdown after the wonders of HeroQuest. My brother and I were ready to take on AHQ after playing dozens of rounds of HeroQuest. But the box contents were… underwhelming. Warhammer Quest 1995 remedied that situation, though at an out-of-reach price tag. So! As an adult I figured I’d give AHQ another try. And, it was pretty much the game I remember. Lots of emptiness ending in abrupt death. In stark contrast to HeroQuest, where you’re slaying monsters all day, if you run into a monster in Advanced HeroQuest, they will quickly and quietly stab you to death in the darkness of a long forgotten hallway. Your character will spend their last moments counting how many arrows remain…
Sellers Remorse
I tend to be careful with what I buy so I don’t often sell a ton of stuff. I had bought some Blood Bowl teams to use in Blitz Bowl. Each Blitz Bowl team is essentially half a Blood Bowl team. So I sold them. I sold them without looking at Blitz Bowl 3rd edition. Bonehead move. A goblin team in 3rd Edition is 6 goblins and a troll. So all I would have needed was a cool troll model for a complete team! Ugh! So I thought it was funny that the half skaven half goblin team only came with 6 goblins. A goblin team in 2nd Edition Blitz Bowl is 8 goblins. Then I thought, maybe I’ll just collect a vintage goblin team. *Checks eBay prices* Yeah, maybe not. I don’t want to spend $15 per gobo for a team I might play once or twice. I’ll probably…
New priorities
I’m trying out a new hobby priority: No More Unassembled Models! My M.O. has been: I’m thinking about cutting out a lot of middle and get models ready to paint or play more quickly. I’m not sure how much value there is for me to have unassembled models that I can’t do anything with except hoard like dragon treasure. In fact, maybe that’s what I’ll call pre-usable models. Dragon Treasure. A dragon can’t spend gold, drink out of jeweled goblets, or wear filigreed armor. And I can’t play a game with models on sprue, or unbased lead. So I kicked it off without really thinking about it this past October. I had two spooky unassembled Blitz Bowl teams that, checks-watch, I’ve had for years! Time is literally flying. I asked myself: do I assemble both now or save one for next year? In my generally morbid mindset, I replied: What…