Aghast at Radagast

One of my players has a magic-user with a raven as a familiar.  We play with miniatures, and although I've got several wizard figures, I thought it would be cool to try and find one with a raven.  A few minutes on the internet turned up Radagast from Games Workshop's LOTR range.  If you'd asked me to guess the price of this single 28mm metal figure, I would have said £4, maybe £5.  The actual price is a shocking £7.70 or if you're in the US, that'll be $12.25 please.

I checked a couple of other places for prices of metal figures and, imported Reaper ones are £3.50 or £4.10 each, for most adventurers, and Otherworld Miniatures charge £10/£11 for 3 human-sized figures.  I then turned to ebay, and snagged a part-painted Games Workshop Radagast for £1.47 + postage.

Although I'm not a fan of Games Workshop, I might buy some figures and scenery pieces from them, but they seriously need to sort out their prices.

The Hunter

When I'm thinking up encounters in adventures, I often delve into natural history books for ideas.  Ocassionally, I have the good fortune to come across something inspiring first-hand.  This morning, that happened when I came very close to stepping on this beast.  He might be just a common house spider, but when you close up to him, you can clearly see he is a beautiful killing machine.  He sits just outside his lair, wating for a small insect to wander by, and then he strikes in a flash and drags his prey back into his cave.

I've got some notes on giant spiders that I keep toying with for the magazine, but just haven't got them quite right yet.  Seeing this fellow has given me the inspiration I needed to go back to them with rekindled interest.

Open Doors

I've got various scribbled notes on dungeon doors, but they still need a bit more work before they are ready for inclusion in Oubliette.  This week, I got some more inspiration from news coverage of London looters being arrested.

Here's what you get when you roll a 1 to open doors:

Open Doors Success

and here's what happens when roll a 6:

Open Doors Fail

These also made me think about including rules for metal rams and wrecking bars as tools in the dungeon.

Looters Return Stuff to Games Workshop

For the benefit of overseas readers, we had some bad riots and looting in England last week.  On Monday, I was away from home, but thankfully not anywhere near any of the trouble hotspots.  During the afternoon, I walked past a branch of Games Workshop which was closed and  I instantly reasoned that it was one of there infamous one-man shops which closes so that  the poor guy running it can go to the toilet.  As I peered through the windows to see what they had on display, I joked to my wife, "I bet the looters give Games Workshop stores a wide berth".


Today one of my friends sent me this which made me laugh out loud.  I've talked about Games Workshop before and said that I would write a follow-up piece after visiting a store.  This has proved difficult as I've not managed to find one open during normal retail hours.

Examples of Miniatures Painted with Quickshade

In the latest issue of Oubliette one of the reviews is about a product called Quickshade.  As mentioned in that review, here are a few photos of the miniatures which I varnished with Quickshade.  

The figures were all rescued from my dusty figure box in the loft and date back to the 1980s.  In descending order, they are: DA1 Dwarf Thief by Asgard, FM63 Ogre by Asgard, and Half-Orc Cleric-Thief by Citadel.  

I have a few more figures to paint in the next month and I intend to post some more photos to give more of a step-by-step guide.

Oubliette 6 Print Edition Out Now

The print edition of Oubliette Issue 6 is now available to purchase from lulu.com

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out, and particularly like the glossy coating they apply to the cover.

Lulu also has all the back issues of Oubliette along with a compilation edition of the first four issues.

Oubliette 6 Hits 1,000 Downloads

It's just one week since Oubliette Issue 6 was launched, and I'm delighted to report that over 1,000 copies have been downloaded already.  That smashes the results of the previous issue and there's still a few weeks of the giveaway to go.


I'd like to thank everyone who promoted Oubliette Issue 6 on their blogs. Your support and enthusiasm have been instrumental in helping us spread the word.  Thank you also to those who downloaded the mag and liked it so much you bought the back issues.