Infernal Drummer.

Another Grenadier Miniature from the Skeletons - Raiders of the Undead set:

Not one of my favourite miniatures from the set, probably why he's taken so long to paint, but a nice figure none the less.
From a dungeon crawling point of view he could provide a drums in the deep vibe to the subterranean environment I suppose.

More Boney Goodness.

Yet another very reasonable eBay purchase, this time a Grenadier Miniatures Skeleton Knight c. 1986:

He joins the ranks of what I consider the recently deceased, equipped as they are with the standard D&D pseudo- medieval arms and armour:

Once again a good quality sculpt from a bygone era with nice animation & weaponry in reasonable proportion.

Tsathoggua.

All the way from the nighted depths of N'kai:

I picked him up along with a job lot of other RAFM Call of Cthulhu miniatures for a bargain price, it was a bit of a punt really having had very little to do with this range before, but they aren't bad at all.

Doubt he'll ever make it to the table as intended as I don't use miniatures for Call of Cthulhu, but he will make a superb demon for old school D&D when I get round to it.

Armoured Skeleton.

Another 1980s offering from Grenadier Miniatures, a very nicely sculpted Skeleton Knight:

Really like this figure & frankly you'd struggle to find anything remotely as good these days, I particularly like the realistically proportioned battle-axe.

Grenadier Miniatures Skeleton Buccaneer.

Found this miniature on eBay last year & got him painted up last week as a bit of light relief.

I always thought I was familiar with Andy Chernak's skeletons but this is yet another that I don't remember, perhaps we didn't receive all Grenadiers output here in the U.K. Nice sculpt though.

Reviving the Retro Dungeon.

After a brief sabbatical from all things dungeon related 2013 has seen the Retro Dungeon project gaining a little momentum again.

Firstly I've scored some more Ral Partha 'gold' in the form of an AD&D miniatures Bonesnapper:

Not one of your classic AD&D creatures by any means but a useful challenge for lower level parties. I have fonder memories than most of these creatures from the Fiend Folio probably because I purchased this instead of the Monster Manual when given the choice, a decision that I never rectified. Anyway a really excellent sculpt, well up to modern standards. The base details are a particularly nice touch.

The second & more interesting piece of news is that my mould maker is currently processing the moulds and masters for my Torchlight Fantasy Products clone:

A small selection of the prototypes.

I'm hoping to get these into production around March/April when the weather starts to warm up & I can  use the workshop for casting. The current plan is to offer the pieces for sale in sets of 12 pieces for around £25. I won't finalise the composition of the sets yet but I'm inclined to offer a basic set with corridors & rooms, a corridor set & a room set with a few extra features, pillars etc. Starting out this way I can use a common box size for all sets to standardise postage & packaging.
Still got to come up with a catchy product name but along the lines of Crypts of Darkness, Buried Vaults etc etc. Any sensible suggestions gladly recieved.

Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

My quest for the perfect starting point for an Old School campaign is still underway, stymied somewhat by too much time at work & other less important distractions. I did however manage to pick up that rarest of things a low level AD&D module the titular Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

I must admit this one has up to now slipped under my radar, but at £2 on eBay seemed worth a punt and on receiving & reading it my optimism seems well founded.

First up are the nefarious goings on of a cult in a small rural settlement which should give plenty of opportunity for investigative roleplaying so the PCs can get to the bottom of things & then a short trek through marshland to confront the Reptile God in its lair- a two level dungeon.
For my money the adventure is a tough ask for low level characters but help is available through the agency of a higher level NPC, my personal taste would be to reduce the difficulty level a little and let the players take the glory for themselves, down the line this should allow for a little more prestige in the eyes of the townsfolk rather than just looking like hangers on the coat tails of the local big cheese.

Now how to convince a bunch of jaded forty somethings to give up their limited spare time to commit to a couple of weekend sessions to play this through.