D&D 5e: Return of the Lazy DM

As I have been suffering from Man Flu for last three days about the only thing I have been able to do is read. I have never bought any reading matter related to D&D other than rulebooks so when I noticed this book being suggested reading I decided to get a copy downloaded.

I would like to point out at this moment that I do not work for or have any connection with Sly Flourish in any form, just incase you were wondering.

I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole concept of the Lazy DM, the book is a smashing read and very easy to get into, especially when sneezing and coughing are the only other viable activities open to one.

Areas covered are: review character, create a strong start, outline potential scenes, define secrets and clues, develop fantastic locations, outline important NPCs, choose relevant monsters, select magic item rewards.

It breaks down how to create both adventures and longer campaigns without spending most of your spare time, whats that? labouring over pages and pages of notes. Practical ideas for carefully explored stages of creating adventures clearly set out make the book very useful indeed. So much so that when it is produced as a physical book I will be buying that too.

If you have the original Lazy DM, then the inclusion of secrets and clues, which prompted the rewrite, is well worth buying this new version for.

I can't recommend Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master enough and I will be using it from now on to inform my planning of games, cheers Sly Flourish.

If you click on the picture above it will link you to Sly Flourish's website.

D&D 5e: New Playing Board

This is the new 2ft square board, like the two smaller boards I made earlier, where I cut the squares into the 12 mm MDF with a Stanley knife. Not terribly struck by the wash I used here, may have to be altered.

This is the pre-washed second side of the board.

This is the B side of the board, so to speak, before I had applied the home made wash. I was going for a more temple type feel here and I wanted a more varied square size. 

These are some pictures of the washed board. I really watered the wash down this time and it worked much better.

This picture is just the board up against a box I made a few years back, was meant to be for my armies but now its used as candle container, Mrs Daxio loved it that much.

After looking at the original colour of the more grey board I came to think it wasn't actually grey enough and that the wash I had applied had made streaks that didn't look good, so I spent a while dry brushing a very light grey over the top in the more busy areas.

Much happier with how this looks now.

D&D 5e: Yulmanda's Bears

0With Yulmanda having reached 5th level as a Druid she chose Conjure Animals as her newest spell.

I knew she would choose to conjure Bears so got some ordered from Mighty Lancer games and then spent a few hours painting them up for this weeks game. They proved to be very useful and protected the whole party, although one did die in the process.

All I had to add was a base to each to make them a little larger and removed the head and tilted it to give slight variation on the basic miniature. I filled the gap with GS and worked in some marks to create the fur.

Mrs Daxio thoroughly likes them :-)

Industrial Terrain

Have recently been working on some new boards for D&D and realised that they could be used in a variety of games. Mainly I have been making a new 24" square board for D&D with a set of legs to raise it for ease of play. However I came to realise it could be used in many wys.

The legs to raise the boards are just card tubing that had a part for our campervan delivered in recently, at the moment painted black and topped and bottomed with non slip matting. 

Not sure how to paint these yet as they are for several games and could cause problems.

All the other terrain you will have seen before, I was a bit surprised at just how much I have produced over the years.

Not much else to say other than I also recorded a film as I had all this set up, may post a  day or two when its all sorted. 

Also can I say a big thank you to all the people who have looked in on my site over the years, I have just had my 100,000 view, cheers :-)

Saga: Vikings V Anglo Danes

A week back Mick and myself got together and played another round in our ongoing series of battles between the Vikings and Mick's Anglo Danes. It was a six point game and we played at the WWarriors GC, using my Frostgrave 3' by 4' mat and some terrain I had recently donated to the club.

Will not be going into lots of detail explaining which saga abilities were used or which tactics. But will mention a few moments and let the pictures tell the story.

I used the Vikings to push forward so that the ADanes had fewer options basically.

I know Mick likes to sit back so I came forward to him.

I was very lucky with my save throws against the ADane shooting.

Picked up some fatigue along the way, but managed it OK.

I tried to split the ADanes in two, deal with one flank then attack the other, hopefully weakening their stronger flank.

By this point, partly through aggression and partly by luck I had managed to dampen the right flank.

The ADane Hearthguard charged into my Bondi.

Bit of a set back here as the ADane Hearthguard did 4 wounds, and subsequently the Viking Berserkers charged and destroyed both themselves and the ADanes. 

What a senseless waste of life (Been watching Monty Python)

In the final moments the ADanes realised they didn't have enough solid units left to mount an attack and the game was declared for the Vikings. However the ADanes had started to use some of their saga abilities to add and use fatigue to their advantage and in the next game it really comes to the fore. Will post soon.

Victory to the Vikings.