Author: Aron Clark

da’Worm & Co.

Aron Clark5 Comments
yep, this is a thing. . .
Painted sample by R. Wheeler

What’s all this, then?

I’m very pleased to announce a new line of miniatures, which I’m affectionately referring to as da’Worm & Co. I’ve always wanted Wormy miniatures and none were ever produced, so I’ve made my own.

Set 01 is priced at $40 each + at cost shipping ($9 for domestic US) and includes:

  • Wormy himself with cigar and pool cue options
  • Ace, cyclops
  • Hambone, cyclops hound
  • Irving da‘Imp

Contact me by September 28th to place your order, after which time no additional orders will be accepted. That means Set 01 is available in very limited quantities.

Please note: this is strictly a fan based – at cost effort, and offered for direct sales only. Funds raised will recover sculpting and casting costs, any remaining funds will be used to produce additional masters for this line, which again will be sold at cost. Shadow cat anyone?

These miniatures are hand sculpted, cast in metal, and are designed to scale with classic 25mm and modern 28mm miniatures. Photos should provide a good sense of scale.

Set 01 Assembled
Compared w/ 25mm Grenadier
Compared w/ 32mm Warduke
Contents of Set 01
Painted by M. White
Irving w/ kit bashed nose and teeth, by M. White

Newsletter

To keep our supporters up to date we now have a newsletter distributed via e-mail and archived here.

Newsletter 01.pdfDownload
Newsletter 02.pdfDownload
Newsletter 03.pdfDownload
Newsletter 04.pdfDownload

County Road Z1ed

Aron Clark1 Comment
Still from “Return of the Living Dead” – Prisma Gothic filter

…2022

I stumbled on miniature game County Road Z being played in 15mm at Pacificon. I quickly sourced the rules and set them aside for a someday project.

…2023

Again at Pacificon, flea market delivered a large zombie wargaming collection in 15mm and I committed to hosting a game soonest.

…2024

I studied the rules, prepared a quick reference, and hosted a game for friends at Kublacon.

…today

The following are on offer in a workbook that collects:

  • a quick reference
  • an X / Y sheet
  • a random survivor generator
  • a 3×5 character card

Some thoughts

County Road Z (CRZ) is a fine little game from a first time indie publisher, Jordan Heckman – Earthbound Games. Looking forward to seeing what comes next.

CRZ at its heart is a solo or co-op miniatures wargame; but I can see room here for multiple players participating in something closer to an RPG.

Game play is nicely segmented into a tactical game of fighting off the living dead and a strategic game of resource management.

There is a virtual tabletop version! No miniatures, no space, no time – no problem – play online when you can.

My copy of the rules and supporting assets are based on v1 and should be compatible with the latest Modipus version, v2.

v2 is described as being a new layout for the same core rules, but with new settings – equipment – monsters – and so on.

I’m unlikely to pick-up the latest version of CRZ, but feel free to get in touch and request any edits that are linked to v2.

Five-O

Aron Clark3 Comments

Fifty – I’m Fifty

Today I’m celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. I’m 53 myself this year and my experience with the game goes back over forty years. It’s strange to consider how this one game of imagination has impacted me on the whole, and I’ve written some about that here:

A Gift

My fascination with The Lichway adventure continues and today I’m happy to release a new copy edit of the adventure. Tomorrow I’ll run this adventure for a friend’s birthday celbration.

You can download this copy edit here.

Original art by James Richards

Print Copies

The last of the print copies were distributed at North Texas RPG Con ‘25. There is a small chance that there are still a few copies still at Black Blade Publishing. That means there are 99 copies in circulation + my own personal copy. There are no plans for another print run.

Acknowledgement

My own copy edit of The Lichway is not the first, there is a very fine effort from 2023 which you can find here. Please let me know if there are other such efforts so they can be linked here.

Get Ready to Play – Salute of the Jugger / Blood of Heroes

Aron Clark3 Comments
Ruger Hauer – Blood of Heroes still; Prisma Udine filter

Wait a minute…

Salute of the Jugger is the original name of the cult favorite – Blood of Heroes? Apparently it’s true and all these years I’ve been denied 10 minutes of this sci-fi cultural phenomena. Bah, another botched US release.

I hadn’t thought about Blood of Heroes in a long, long while; but today Alessandro Piroddi released a play-test version of Torque Arena. Skimming the design log, “this sound great!” Download the pdf:
“Yes, yes, interesting.”
“Ok I want to try this.”
”Hmm… what miniatures could I use.”
“Nothing in the collection that’s really suitable – drat, that’s going to take me a while to got to the table.”

Sudden Inspiration

Steeling my nerve for a web search for suitable post apocalypse miniatures, I wondered if I could find any standees like the old Steve Jackson Cardboard Heroes. Then quickly realized I could just make some:

  • Image search for “post apocolypse standees”, saving 10 suitable full body images – I opted for teams of men and women
  • Convert the image to black and white, “lift the subject from iOS Photos App”, saving it as it’s own unique photo
  • Load the lifted image to iOS Prisma App and apply the Udine filtered – applying filters like this can help give disparate images a common look and feel
  • Layout 20x40mm standee template in iOS Curve App, which I’m using for technical drawing
  • Drop the new filtered and lifted subjects into the standee template, et voila

You can grab these custom standees here, or try your hand at the same. What follows is a brief photo journal of the process. I will report back here on my progress with the play test. Thanks Alessandro for sharing your ideas with us!

I’ll report back soon on my play-test experience.

Best Laid Plans

Aron Clark2 Comments
“Maus” by Art Spiegelman

123123…4

The new year has come and gone, and I’m not entirely too sure what day it is – thanks in large part to some extended time off from my regular 9-5.

As is tradition amongst my tabletop gaming friends we consider our hobby plans for the new year, describing projects we plan to take on or commitments to finish things long overdue. In an attempt to organize whirling ideas I have for my own tabletop games in ‘24 I’m applying some principals from my professional world.

In short, I’ve set broad goals for myself and defined some projects that fit into goals, with a simple task list that I can organize week over week. If projects are not on the list, or doesn’t fit into one of my goals, I don’t work on them. All the crazy ideas that pop into my head I collect in a separate list which can be considered if and when I have some spare capacity.

There’s a good chance this could work well for me, and if you’d like to take a look at how this concept is shaping up here.

Let’s Review

‘23 was a fine year for my tabletop gaming efforts. I have continued regular games both online and in person, but with little data to show for it (above methods should help in the next year’s analysis). This blog continues to grow with 2,220 visitors in ‘23 (up 31%), the most popular post being Holmes & Clark with 1,110 views.

Post volume is still low, with on 4 posts in ‘23 (down 40%). So perhaps that’s something that needs more attention.

I did experiment with tracking my miniature purchases and completed output in ‘23, but by the summer I had fallen out of the practice of tracking such things. However, it still seams a reasonable excercise and one I’ll attempt again in ‘24. Find those details here.