Pathfinder Owlbear 'Beaky' Miniature

Picked up a couple of these recently and they are an impressive figure. I have a great and abiding love for owlbears ever since I had them eat a number of player characters back when I first DM'd B2 keep on the borderlands. I enjoyed the Reaper Bones owlbears from their first kickstarter though they are a bit on the wing as it were...

Not my paintjob as I suck at painting. These were truly fun to paint though. I found them a little unbalanced without adding some support in the way of pennies glued to the bottom. But getting back to 'Beaky' this a huge miniature. Here is a comparison photo to show some scale with a diminutive Drow mini from WotC and a much larger Orc mini from the late lamentable Combat Hex Middle-Earth game.

This is a proper big-ass owlbear and I can use it with both my pipsqueak WotC series of minis and the much more visible to my bad-eyesight Reaper Bones and larger scale.

I can only echo the following sentiment, but these have scratched my owlbear niche nicely for the moment.

White Dwarf #8 Cover Art

Cover Art By Derek Hayes

Definitely not fond of this piece of work. A matter of personal taste as I don't care for the kind of distorted rendition of form and perspective that I see in this artwork. I can't draw worth a penny but I have no problem criticizing other people's attempts. I can live with that and I still don't like this cover.

Dungeon Command - Curse of Undeath - 1st look

Very old news to everyone but this is the first time I've cracked open one of these sets. The series can supposedly be expanded by the 4 larger box set/ stand-alone games Castle Ravenloft et al. The set itself is small but the minis are impressive. The map pieces look nice but a bit monotonous with their dark drab green omnipresent (at least with this set). The small scale of the WotC line is generally annoying. I like painting reaper bones and making use of the many and varied minis from other companies. WotC has screwed that over for the most part with their smaller scale, but that was no doubt the idea.

Wormy Reference Guide - Dragon #12

Summary:

Wormy is busy stumping the dwarves who came to retrieve their stolen bowling balls, but in this strip we get the view from afar. Frank and Dudly mark their first appearance in this strip but more importantly Dudly's removable eyebrows. As the boys make for an escarpment for a better view at a safe distance and with some cover in case of apple-eptic seizures on Wormy's part they can clearly see him in pursuit of one of the surviving dwarves who is fleeing in a blur of speed.

References:

Apple-eptic:
A fit or seizure
Panels 3

Dudly :
A troll with removable eyebrows armed with a reliable mallet. Companion to Frank
Panels 1-6

Dwarves:
Well one nameless dwarf with a good turn of speed.
Panels 5

Frank:
A troll armed with a cudgel. Companion to Dudly and seemingly on friendly terms with Wormy
Panels 1-6

Frug:
A type of dance that seems to involve a good deal of stumping.
Panels 1

Wormy:
Our hero seen first stumping dwarves then in high pursuit of a surviving dwarf who is managing to outdistance him. Wormy is a pyromaniac in the opinion of the trolls
Panels 1,3,5

White Dwarf #7 Cover Art

Cover Art by John Blanche

This is the first of the full color covers with fantastic artwork which regularly blew Dragon Magazine out of the water. This is perhaps a touch more surreal than many of their later illustrations but it has a touch that brings back fond memories of Rock albums and poster art from the '70s. I love the little green guy with the Cylon-style helmet and miniature glaive.

Wormy Reference Guide - Dragon #11

Summary: The rather musically inclined dwarves confront Wormy in his front yard where he challenges them to a Dragon's Conundrum, a riddle-game, for their 22 purloined bowling balls. Wormy confounds them and proceeds to squash the Rockeaters to a jelly.

Dragon's Conundrum:
A riddle-game, though likely the end result will always be Wormy stepping on the opponent regardless of the answer.
Panels 3

Dwarves:
Appearing to be about 8 in number, at least before Wormy steps on them, their wing-helmed leader threatens Wormy with his Falchion before he accepts the challenge to a riddle-game with our green-skinned hero. They could probably have down more damage with their singing.
Panels 1-3,5,6

Falchion:
A broad, curved sword with a cutting edge about a foot down the back as well as down the entire front edge. Not what the dwarf-leader appears to be wielding.
Panels 2

Rockeaters:
Wormy's name for Dwarves
Panels 2

Snooker Balls/ Bowling Balls:
It is revealed that there are 22 in total though they do not make a visual appearance in this issue.
Panels 3

Summer Leagues:
Apparently the dwarves bowling leagues, cancelled due lack of bowling balls.
Panels 1

Wormy:
Wormy deals easily with the small troop of dwarves. His riddle-game challenge appears no more than an amusement though he may have honored the bargain and returned the bowling balls if the dwarves had guessed right. He may have also wanted an excuse to get the drop on the dwarves and avoid any potential for ankle related injuries.
Panels 2-4,6

White Dwarf #6 - When Bugbears had Pumpkinheads and Donkeys had Packs

A nice review of Archive Miniatures. The sculpts were incredibly crude but I loved that Pumpkinheaded bugbear. Mine are long gone, dumpstered along with all my early RPG material and my first Cohabitation, my books, records and any clothes I wasn't wearing at the time.