European distributor

I finally found a European company that sells Super Dungeon Explore stuff!

Www.battlefield-Berlin.de

there's an English option on their site, so hopefully I'll get my models a lot quicker! Still no UK retailer though...

Kobolds!

No updates for a while, mainly due to being back at work! The kobolds arrived on Monday, and they're lovely!

no issues with clean up or assembly. The dragon priest has a very thin contact point at his wrist, but it's nothing a tiny blob of green stuff doesn't solve.

Painting wise, these guys aren't going to get the same level of attention as the heroes, because...well...they're the baddies and they're supposed to die in droves! And I wanna get playing! More soon

PAX east previews

Sodapop just posted pictures from a gaming convention called PAX east, where it looks like the game got a lot of attention. Also, the pictures include some sneak peaks:

the dragon from the sculpt on Leonard dill's site, and what looks like a little dragonling. They look awesome!

a great big troll/ogre? Look at his massive hands! Also, those two things either side look suspiciously like kobold warrens to me! Therefore i'm gonna hold off making my own for now, I might just make some tokens or 'hole in the floor' pieces for now

Dungeon done....geon

it's done! Finally I have a whole board I can use, Walls and all! I can't wait to play on this, hurry up and arrive kobolds!

look at it's majesty!

here's an idea of scale, it's quite a sizeable dungeon! Maybe one day I'll add some little treasure piles and skeletons to some wall pieces, to add to the ambience

also, I don't think I mentioned, I do all this from my iPhone, as my mac is currently broke. I've been fiddling with photo editing apps, as I want to do colourful battle reports when I get some proper games in. Here's a rough little draft of what to expect. The paladin moves to the treasure chest and finds...a piece if magic armour (although technically in the game he'd get a relic from the chest, but whatever)! Meanwhile, the rogue benefits from a potion! Happy days!

Now all I have to occupy my time between now and the kobolds arriving is trying to come up with a decent kobold warren!

The almost done-geon...

Spurred on by being ahead of my painting schedule, and having made dice, obtained counters and gotten generally excited about SDE, I stayed up late and made the rest of the wall pieces for the dungeon

me being the "make it up as you go along" kinda guy I am, I changed bits of my design again. Instead of making four, five and six square long Walls, I made them all in ones and twos. It makes them fit together less seamlessly, but they don't keep falling apart like the longer walls do, and they are a lot more modular.

I also made a decision on the doorways. The arches look great, but they're a pain to build, a pain to store, they keep breaking, and they get in the way of the models. So I made this super simple doorway. I'll eventually change them over as the arches break but I'll keep the sturdier ones for now

of course I couldn't resist setting the whole thing up to see how it looked. There's a lot of rough edges on the corkboard that needs shaving down, so it'll fit together a lot smoother when that's done. Overall I'm very pleased!

now I just gotta paint this lot. I don't really mind if the Walls are a little crooked, as it's just a model. It doesn't really have to keep out floodwater and the occasional tunneling dwarf.

the heroes are let loose! Where is their opposition? Somewhere over the Atlantic taking forever to get here!

Heroes finished!

Hoorah! However the photo doesn't seem to want to upload nicely...I'll get it fixed shortly

Paladin almost finished

Just a quick update on the paladin, I ran out of time trying to finish him today. Just need to finish his arm and sword, then he can join the rogue and it's just a case of waiting for the kobolds to arrive!

You rolls the dice, ya takes your chanches...

SDE doesn't use standard dice, that is, they have six sides, but they're not numbered 1-6. Instead, you have different coloured dice, each has different values. For instance, a green die is more likely to score a high roll than a red, but the red die is better than a blue. This is a really cool system that worked well with the doom boardgame, as it avoids the whole "he who rolls the most dice, wins" thing, and also allows for some unexpected results. The end result is that even mega-tough heroes can have a bad roll, so the game isn't as predictable.

However, there are no dice in production yet, I assume they'll come out with the full game release. In the meantime, sodapop have included a conversion chart in the demo rules (I.e red dice:1=potion,2=nothing,3=one star,4=one star,5=two stars,6=three stars. I found this tedious and annoying when I was having a quick test of the rules, so I decided to make some dice in the interim.

I ordered these blank coloured dice from www.thediceshoponline.com, really inexpensive (compared to custom made dice, which are ridiculous in price)

with the aid of a gold permanent marker, I marked up the dice with my meager drawing skills, but they do the job and already using the dice makes the game more fun. Ta-da!

Bases

I can't paint by artificial light, so the paladins going to have to wait till the morning to be finished. So I decided to make a little step by step on the bases I'm using.

The bases are from dragonforge, check em out at www.dragonforge.com, I bought enough for all the heroes and kobolds

first, spray the whole thing with humbrol sea grey

pick a couple of flagstones, and give them a watered down GW scorched brown glaze

pick a few more, and give them a GW badab black wash

give the remaining flagstones a watered down GW catachan green wash. Be neat and make sure the colour stays within the tiles and doesn't mix with a neighbouring colour

next, drybrush the whole thing very lightly with GW fortress grey. Drybrush in two directions, diagonally to the way the lines of the tiles are facing

Drybrush even lighter layers of GW kommando khaki then GW rotting flesh

paint GW devlan mud into the cracks. I actually used a medium sized brush and let the wash run onto the edges of the tiles next to the cracks, this gave it a more cartoony look I think

finally, paint the lip with GW black. Voilà! They are ready to recieve an SDE hero or villain!

Counters and markers

If there's one thing I hate when playing a game, it's endless note taking and memorizing of everything that has happened/is happening. Fortunately, you can keep track of absolutely everything in SDE with counters, so I set out for some nice ones.

at the top are the treasure chests that came with my heroes, they're fairly self explanatory.

The tokens are Eldritch Gems from a company called EM4 miniatures. They are over at www.em4miniatures.com but I found these at a local gaming store for £1.50 for a tub of 25 in each colour.

Blue is wounds, Gold is loot, red is fire and turqoise is for potions.

The only thing I don't yet have a marker or counter for are the kobold warrens. I've no idea if sodapop are planning to release a sculpt for it, but as it's going to end up on the game board, I guess it should look nice. I'm going to have a think as to what I could make for it. Here is the sketch on the stat card

Today's work: progress on the paladin

this little guy is a lot of fun to paint. His original White armour didnt work out so well, so he got a bronzey-gold outfit instead. Just need to finish his skin and his cloak and he's a done deal! Especially happy with the blue hair

Daemonkin rogue finished

Here she is, again the photos are the best I can manage with my cameraphone

a bit closer and a bit more out of focus...

here she goes owning a rather empty dungeon... The base is from dragonforge by the way

next up, the paladin, and by Jove for the first time in my life I'm ahead on my painting schedule!

SDE sneak peeks

Wow! I just happened upon the website of SDE sculptor leonard dill, there are pics of his sculpts for the SDE barbarian, Druid (with awesome bear form) a sorceress, and a great big dragon!

www.leonarddill.com

The heroes have arrived!

Never fear! The heroes are here! That is, the paladin and rogue.

I opened the blister packs to find the models were cleanly cast and the detail was crisp, although you can tell by looking at them that they'll be very different than any model I've painted before. There are lots of flat areas etc

I had no issues with assembly. Both models came in two pieces, I left the paladins sword arm off so I can paint his armour. The rogue has a seperate body and head. The treasure chests that come with each model are made of resin and have that lovely cartoony look

everything got cleaned up, washed and a black undercoat. I prefer White but i never seem to finish models I undercoat White.

here is today's progress, unfortunately I only have my phones camera, these were the best pictures I could get. I'm quite happy with the eyes

okay! Hopefully by the time I finish these guys, the kobolds will arrive!

Dungeon finished!

Hooray! Doors and floors completed! I still need to make another door and the Wall sets, but I think I can take a break and play some games before I build those!

Painting the doors then, first, give I gave it a coat of that wretched humbrol spray.

next, I gave it a really watered down wash of scorched brown

then, I gave it a watery wash of catachan green

When the whole thing is dry, it gets a drybrush of kommando khaki

finally, a drybrush of rotting flesh

Here's the whole thing

and a models eye view

now I gotta get playing some games!

Painting the dungeon

Okay, feels like i'm on the home stretch now!

First off, I gave the pieces a coat of humbrol sea grey spray. I was a bit dissapointed with this, as although the colour was fine, two cans that cost me £4.99 each wasn't even enough to do the floor tiles, so now I need to make another journey and spend more money to do the doorways and Walls. I wanted to use GW roughcoat but apparently they don't stock it anymore

next, I used a cheap airbrush to spray the pieces with a wash of GW scorched brown. This was very watery, probably the same consistency as dirty brush water. This is to give the pieces more of a tone than a colour, it's just going to rest in the subtle recesses of the floor tiles

when this was dry, I repeated the process with GW catachan green, but I sprayed from a different direction than the brown

Next, I drybrushed the whole thing with GW kommando khaki, having first patched up a few bits with GW adeptus battlegrey. There's a few tiles I used a touch of black spray around the edges, to cover where the grey had missed (couldn't use the grey, as it was run out). This gave a few of the tiles a darker look, I'm ok with this, it gives the rooms a bit of individual character whilst they're quite plain.

and the final stage, a very light drybrush of GW rotting flesh. I love this colour for rock and stone, it's a really soapy, alkaline colour that works for all kinds of stuff

I think what I need to do is leave the pieces be for a few days, as they obviously hadn't set properly when I was handling them, few pieces shifted about or needed reattaching.

Learning points for next time:

1)buy more grey spray if I'm going to use humbrol

2) spray the cork tiles black before attaching the pieces, saves time and ugly gaps later.

3) leave the damn pieces alone for a while!

Now mr postman, hurry up and deliver my heroes!

Basic dungeon built! Hooray!

The cork tiles came this afternoon, so I set about building the floors and doors, enough to play the game when the miniatures arrive!

Here are the pieces, 9 floor tiles and 8 doorways. It occurred to me after taking the photo, I actually need 9 doors! I'll make another soon...

so here is the demo board layout as per the demo rules (minus 1 door)

I used the Walls I've already made to demonstrate how the finished product should look. There's a few rough edges on the cork tiles that need shaving down, hence the rough fit, it will be tighter and neater when it's done

okay, I'm off to stock up on paint!