The Goblin Hordes Arrive

I haven't done much eBaying in recent months, but about 2 weeks ago I finally broke down and made a purchase. I won 3 separate auctions for some painted Heartbreaker Goblins. These were painted by John the OFM, a well-known poster on TMP and fellow HMGS East convention attendee if memory serves me correctly.

Heartbreaker figures were a competitor to Citadel back in the 80's and are now out-of-print, but you may be able to hunt them down in various backwoods haunts on the internet. Many of these gobbos were sculpted by Kev Adams, known affectionately as "The Goblinmaster" in minis gaming circles for his excellent goblin ranges. Here's a link to a reference site for the Heartbreaker line. You can also order OOP Heartbreaker figures from Ral Partha Europe.

First off, are some Goblin Spearmen. These guys are very cool looking, with classic old-school goblinoid features, and are probably my favorites of the bunch.

Next up are some Goblin Archers. They're also quite neat. I especially love the guys with the pointed helmets, and they're worthy of gracing the front-rank of any Archer unit. I got enough of these little shooty buggers to form 3 or 4 regiments of Heavy Archers for use in my Sword of Severnia wargame.

...looking to shoot down some fat Dwarves and pansy-livered Elves....



And last but not least is a warband of Goblin Swordsmen. These fellas come in 2 varieties. The ones shown here (helmeted) are the best of the two sculpts and fit in really well with the archers and spearmen character-wise. There are also some non-helmeted gobbos (not shown). They're okay and remind me a little of the goblins from the old BattleMasters game from Milton Bradley, but they seem smaller and less fierce than the other gobbos.

So there you have it. A quick look at some of the troops that will be joining the Trolls, Redcaps, and Giants in the goblinoid army of Zidda Zobba.

Mmm.... roasted dwarf chops! Nuthin like 'em!

Zen Again: Midgard Models

For those miniature wargamers out there who like me, enjoy purchasing nicely painted miniatures on eBay to add to their collections and supplement their own painted models, I wanted to alert you to the fine work done by Midgard Models (eBay is = midgardmodels).

These guys are located in Venezuela and do a great job painting fantasy miniatures and offering them at reasonable prices on eBay. I've bought several pro-painted minis from them in the past, including 2 recent purchases that I'll show right now.

The first, and most recent purchase, is an Orc General (or Hero) which is absolutely fantastic. Here he is in all his grisly glory...

I believe he's a Citadel (Games Workshop) model, and he'll make a fantastic Orc General for the marauding Odessian armies in my Sword of Severnia wargame. He's quite an imposing presence on the tabletop, sized more like a Troll or Ogre than a standard orc. The rock-like base is exquisite.

My second MidgardModels purchase (from 8 weeks ago), was this splendid Troll Lord...

He's a Reaper model and would serve as an excellent Hero. The shading and highlighting, terrific basing, and nice blend of colors makes him really stand out.

Both of these models were marked as "Master Painted" and were in the $20 to $25 price range, which is reasonable for expertly painted special characters of large size.

So if you find yourself short on time to paint, or overwhelmed with way too much stuff to paint, you owe it to yourself to check out some of the minis for sale on eBay. Prices and quality vary widely for painted miniatures on eBay, but I gladly recommend MidgardModels for nicely painted figures at fair prices. Expect to wait around 3 weeks to get your figures if you live in the USA since they're coming from South America. But it's well worth the wait.

Oh Thanis, How Lovely art Thou Skeletons

I've done a little dabbling on eBay recently, although not too much as I've been spending most of my free time preparing for my rotisserie baseball auction coming up on April 5th.

I got sniped on some nicely painted WarGods Spartans (damn West Coast auctions just kill us East Coast folk who don't stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning), and backed off a couple of other really nice fantasy minis that wound up selling for fairly expensive prices. I just can't see paying $75 bucks or more for one masterfully painted 28mm mini unless you're a very serious mini collector and intend to show these little gems off in a display case somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for high quality and I admire the top-of-the-line masterworks, but I want to play games with my figures too. The thought of having 3 or 4 heroic minis, worth a collective $300, get chipped or broken during a wargaming session is too much for my fragile mind to bear.

I did end up winning one auction, however, and this little pewter lass is a real beauty. Her name is Thanis the Bonecaller, and she's a female necromancer from Reaper Miniatures. She was painted by Mark Engle (KimEngle is the ebay id). Here are some pictures of this gorgeous mini:

I've got to admit that I've never thought of a necromancer as "sexy" before. Typically, they are gaunt, fallen wizards adorned in tattered robes and often with a hefty case of "face rot". Thanis is more along the lines of a succubus, beautiful yet deadly. She could also serve as a "good" (non-evil) necromancer or witch, raising fallen soldiers to fight on behalf of a noble cause (similar to the dead coming to the aid of Aragorn in the Lord of The Rings)?

All I can say is, "oh Thanis, how lovely art thou skeletons". You slay me girlfriend.

Big Game Hunter

I've been at it again on eBay. Previously, my buying focus was 90% miniatures-centric. That's because I'm a tabletop wargame enthusiast and collector of miniatures / toy soldiers. But lately, a new beast has crept into the sights of my Big Game Hunter's scope: board games.

Recently, I got an out-of-print board game that's been on my wargames wishlist for quite some time: Battle Cry. This is a classic 2-player wargame about the American Civil War by the very talented game designer, Richard Borg.

Battle Cry was the first game in Borg's command & colors wargame series, which also includes Memoir '44 (WWII battles), Command & Colors Ancients (ancient/medieval warfare), and Battlelore (fantasy battles).

I own Battlelore, which is really no big surprise since the fantasy genre is my favorite. But I also enjoy historical games as well, and since my ACW games consisted of the old American Heritage version of Battle Cry from the 1960's and Gettysburg from Avalon Hill (which I've never played -- anyone who wants to buy an unpunched edition, I've got one for sale!), I felt it was high time for a fresh look at the period. Plus, the new edition of Battle Cry is really a classic and a worthy addition to any gamer's collection. The trick was finding this game for a reasonable price. I've seen it sell for well over $100 on eBay, and more frequently fetch bids in the $65 to $80 price range as the norm.

So color me pink that I was able to buy it for only $42 plus nine bucks for shipping! I can't wait to try out Battle Cry, and will be adding it into the mix of 2-player games that I'm planning to play over the next 3-to-6 months.

The second board game that I recently acquired via eBay was Lionheart. Truth be told, I didn't really know much about this game until I saw it on eBay. The game's subject matter (medieval warfare) is a personal favorite of mine, but what really interested me was a combination of a chess-like game with cool looking miniatures. I'm a big fan of Feudal, an underrated 3M classic, so anything along those lines piques my interest.

Unfortunately, the reviews of Lionheart on BoardGameGeek were mediocre at best. But after reading several reviews, the game's mechanics seemed easy enough to tweak and the plastic minis were very enticing. I figured that if I could get this game for $10 or less, I would have some extra minis to use for other wargames, as well as a fun little game to tinker with and improve through the use of my own design variants & house-rules.

So I held out and was able to snag Lionheart for $5.50 plus nine bucks shipping. That was another satisfying purchase for me. There are definitely good deals to be had on eBay if you're willing to dig around. I'm still waiting to get this game in the mail, but it should come in within the next few days or so.

Until next time hunters, may you bag some big game!

Game Finds on eBay

I'm what you might call a "Spurt eBayer". I spend 2 weeks buying a batch of fun stuff on ebay, usually wargame miniatures or board games, and then I cool my jets for a month or two.

My buying frenzy usually ends once my Catholic guilt kicks in and I begin to worry about how much I just spent. That $50 I just plunked down for a unit of beautifully painted lizardmen could feed a homeless person for a week you know! But damn... There just aren't many material things that fire off the excitement center in my brain like the beauty of well-painted toy soldiers or the allure of a well-designed, richly themed, and thought provoking board game. Everyone has their guilty pleasures. Games, especially those with a high toy factor and artistic flair, really hit my soft spot.

Recently, I succumbed to the Siren's Call of games as I was browsing through the voluminous pages of goodies that are sold on eBay every day. I've got roughly 80 games on my wishlist of boardgames, card games, and wargames to acquire. So there are plenty of games to hunt for. While it's true that you can buy just about anything on eBay, where it really shines is in the hard to find, lesser-known, and older games that have gone out of print or have been relegated to the backshelves in most game stores.

Of the 4 games I bought recently, only 2 of them really fall into the hard-to-find or lesser-known categories. These games included:

• Monkeys On the Moon ($7.50 + ship, ranked 878 on BGG)
• Battleball ($10 + ship, ranked 827 on BGG)

Monkeys On the Moon (by Eight Foot Llama) is a humorous card game involving, you guessed it, monkeys in space. How can a game with that theme NOT be fun? This is one of those games that I would buy just for the title alone!

Battleball (by Hasbro) is a game of futuristic, sci-fi football with cool looking pre-painted plastic models representing your players. It's kind of a "Blood Bowl Light" in some respects. It should go over quite well with some of the younger folks in our game group.

The other 2 games I purchased are much more well-known, but are still a few years old and thus, good targets for bargain hunters. They are:

• Attack! ($7 + ship, ranked 1225 on BGG)
• Nexus Ops ($15 + ship, ranked 131 on BGG)

Attack! is a World War II era wargame of world conquest by the now defunct Eagle Games. Proponents of this game often describe it as a better alternative to Risk and Axis & Allies, especially when played with the Expansion set which provides for a meatier game. So I'll definitely be looking to buy the expansion for this one. The components look pretty darn neat and sure beat the old wooden cubes that we played with when playing Risk "back in the day".

Nexus Ops is a sci-fi wargame from the new incarnation of Avalon Hill. It's a very highly rated game on BoardGame Geek, with attractive components (glow in the dark, bug-like aliens) and a modular hex board. Although "heroic fantasy" is my favorite theme for a game, I also enjoy sci-fi and this game should scratch that itch.

It should be quite obvious from these 4 purchases that theme is a critical aspect of any board game for me. That's where scores of "Euro" style board games fall short for me; they usually offer quick play and elegant mechanics, but the theme is often an afterthought or exceedingly boring.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of really good Euros out there which mix good design with a good theme. I'm not anti-Euro by any means. Games like Tikal, El Grande, Through the Desert, Blue Moon, Manhattan, and Modern Art are all on my wishlist because they merge cool themes with elegant game play. But when push comes to shove, I'm probably an American gamer at heart. The lure of immersing myself in a theme and the "game as storytelling" is something that I crave and which American style games and wargames typically do better than Euros.

Thanks eBay... I'll be seeing you again soon!