Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

You probably already know, but to the few who don't, the latest Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter launched a few days ago, and is already off a great start. For more information, check out the link for Reaper Miniatures Bones 5 on Kickstarter. Previously, I passed on their Kickstarters for one reason only (2 actually): my painting skills are so poor and I don't think I would ever paint everything that comes in the core set in my lifetime. I occasionally picked up a few of the add-on sets in the past if it was something specific and unique that I wanted. On the other hand, this Kickstarter, like everyone of their previous ones offers a great value. With many (but not all) of the various stretch goals adding more value to the basic core pledge, you end up seeing your price per mini going down significantly by the end of the campaign. And on top of that, the add-ons give you some unique options for an additional extra cost, nice if you want larger quantities of something in the...

It's been quite awhile since I posted here, and almost as long since I've done any miniature painting. Let's try to change that starting today! During an email exchange with some of the players in my current campaign, one of the more experienced mini painters gave out some handy painting guidelines, tips, and tricks. But I just had to add my own commentary to the discussion... Use an Xacto knife to clean up any flashing.   [Use Xacto. Cut yourself and scream.] Wash the miniature with soap and water; rinse thoroughly and allow to dry completely.   [Wash your cut in soapy water and reuse it to clean the mini.] I use a pair of small vise grips to hold the tab at the bottom to avoid touching the miniature while painting it. Paint the whole thing black; I spray the black base coat. Make sure you didn't miss any, touch up as required. Pick 3 major colors; more than 4 looks busy. [ Pick three colors, then realize they dried out since the last time y...

Not only will 2014 bring us the new addition of Dungeons and Dragons, but it also seems more miniatures are also on the horizon. Seems WotC has made a license deal with WizKids to create new pre-painted plastic minis for D&D. WizKids first came on the game scene with their game Mage Knight. Mage Knight was a tactical minis game that featured pre-painted minis on a dynamic base that showed the mini's abilities. More recently WizKids have been creating pre-painted minis for the Pathfinder game system, in addition to their own game, which includes a super hero version of Mage Knight (called Hero Clicks) and a Star Trek ship-to-ship combat game that debuted at last year's GenCon. While I like the idea of WotC partnering with WizKids, I think the quality of what they are producing is so much better than many of the WotC-produced minis back in the day, it's also sad to see them taking a page from the Paizo page-book. Back in the day, TSR often partnered up with c...

Recently, while prepping for an upcoming D&D session, I was re-reading the module (I always review the 3 or 4 encounters I think the party will get through during an upcoming session) and I noticed two things: the seemingly underpowered opponents the module was calling for, and the repetitiveness of the encounters. The previous session, my players ended up having 2 of the three battles that evening against stirges, which I don't think are interesting enough to take up 67% of the combat. It just so happened that the party went from encountering them in a room, to the main lair where the rest of these fantasy-mosquitoes hung out. In retrospect I should have gone "off script" and changed up the encounter, running something else in that second room, and had the stirges menace both groups, or moved the stirges' lair to another room, or dropped them all together. That's sometimes one of the downsides to running pre-made modules, and I'll talk about in anothe...