The Gathering of the Clouds, Part 2.

The Middle Earth project is going well so far- I've just finished the basing on my Iron Hills Dwarves and Wargs!

*Dwarf warriors form-up around their Captain (Oathmark miniatures by Northstar) as Wargs (Otherworld Miniatures Wolves) burst from the trees!

 



*Being quite a militaristic culture, I went for a fairly 'uniform' look to my Iron Hills Dwarves using a palette of red, black and off-white!

 



I know Tolkien mentions the Dwarves being armed mainly with two-handed mattocks in the battle- however the Oathmark Dwarves don't come with this option so for now I've gone for the good old fashioned spear and shield for one unit and sword/axe/hammer and shield for the other!
After much searching, I came across an excellent range of 'Dark Age Dwarves' by Conqueror Miniatures- I ordered a pack of their Dwarves with two-handed hammers, and these have just arrived today (along with the models I will be using for Dain and his hangers-on), and they look like a great match scale-wise for the Oathmark plastics!

*The Hound of Sauron surveys the battle (Otherworld Dire Wolf).

 



Right now I have a Great Eagle (the GW plastic kit) to finish off and then it's on to yet more Oathmark Goblins!..

*The forces of the Free Folk so far (Hopefully not long now until the Oathmark Elves are out!)...

 

*...And the army of the Shadow as it stands- soon to grow in numbers!

 

As always, cheers for reading! I'll be back with a finished Eagle in the near future, along with some musings on what figure ranges I'll be looking at for future Middle Earth painting!



The Gathering of the Clouds, Part 1.

I mentioned a big new painting project in my last Post- this will be a Middle Earth collection, based on Tolkien's stories and the imagery in Cubicle 7's outstanding The One Ring RPG sourcebooks rather than the movies. This is something I've always wanted to do, and it seems like the time is now right!

So, throughout this Post you will see my collection so far- Men of Esgaroth plus Beorn, versus Goblins from Gundabad and a Troll. Following closely behind these in a later Post you will see my Iron Hills Dwarves and Wargs.

*The forces clash over an outpost on the shores of the Long Lake!

Apart from the Old West, the Dark Ages is my favourite historical period to game in- so for figures I will be mainly looking at ranges from this era (plus a few Ancients where applicable!).
Apart from this, I'll also be using Northstar's Oathmark plastic fantasy figures for much of the 'non-human' stuff, amongst others- in short, this will be an opportunity to pick and choose all kinds of interesting minis to suit the needs of the project!

*Bard and his Bowmen hold the hill (Gripping Beast plastic Late Romans)...

I had a good think about scale and also which rules I would use- after much deliberation, I settled on 28mm (though 10 and 15mm were in the running) as the extra detail and character were a no-brainer! Rules-wise I will be using Dragon Rampant (with a couple of 'tweaks' for extra flavour) as it's fun and quick to play, while being sufficiently open-ended when it comes to designing units. As the figures are mainly individually based, I could also branch out into Saga, Open Combat, Song of Blades and Heroes or even GW's Strategy Battle Game!

*...While a Goblin Shaman and his minions storm the lower slopes (Oathmark plastic Goblin Infantry)!

The downside of choosing DR is that it's not really intended to represent 'mass battles'- I reasoned that I could look at a given battle as described by Tolkien and break it down into several separate scenarios, with each being just one 'snapshot' of the larger battle- of course, a little gamer's licence could also come to the fore as required... For example each individual figure could actually represent several warriors. Broad brush-strokes will be the order of the day!

*A clash of the titans (Reaper Bones Ogre, and a DeeZee- I think- cave bear).

To kick off the collection, I decided to focus on the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit- this would give me a nice spread of interesting troop types and characters as a foundation for later. I will also be looking at the wars between Arnor and Angmar, the Battles of the Fords of Isen and eventually work my way up to the 'big daddy'- Pelennor Fields!

*Another shot of the forces of the Shadow...

 

*...And another of the brave Men of Esgaroth (plus friend!).

 

Finally, I'll leave you with a quick question about Beorn- I like the model I'm using right now, but I wonder if he could be bigger still? Most of the artwork I've seen seems to shows Beorn towering over the other fighters- to this end, I picked up a pre-painted variant from Ebay. What do you think- is this fellow too big, or more appropriate?

 

 

Cheers!





Dracula's Painting Part 2- The Revenge!

During my recent extended period of Internet 'downtime', I managed to get some more figures painted for my steadily-growing Dracula's America collection...

I may be bringing some of these along with me to the demo game at Partizan in May- I always feel nervous handling the fantastically painted 'official' miniatures!

First off, we have my Shadow Dragon Tong Posse:

*I tried to give my two Guilao (the spearman on the left and the central swordsman) a 'ghostly' paint-effect on their arms to give the feel of them being partially ethereal- not sure how well it worked out, but it was an interesting experiment!

Followed by the second of the new Factions from Hunting Grounds- The Forsaken:

*Not sure if the photo shows it very well, but I'm very pleased with the painted-on weathering- if you look closely you might see a few elbows and knees (even a few toes!) sticking out of the clothing- the fellow bottom left also has some tears in his sleeve... The Trooper on the far right has both a mounted and dismounted version.

Next, we have a rag-tag band of Hired Guns, including the Wargames Illustrated Django and his portable gatling gun (kept in the coffin when not in use, of course!). Getting to write rules for using him in DA was a real treat!

*I'm particularly pleased with how the Stitch Doctor turned out- a deceptively simple miniature that was a joy to paint- I used several different skin tones on various parts of him to try and give him a 'patchwork' look, but again I suspect my camera-phone doesn't really show this very well!

And finally, my Unwelcome Guests. These were great fun to paint- especially the Jackalope, which I've been wanting to paint up for ages now! Thanks also to Ash at Guerrilla Miniature Games for the inspiration to paint the Hellhound up as a skinless monstrosity.

*The only one of these critters that is not an 'official' DA figure is the Vampire Ancient on the right- this is a 'Vampire in Manbat form' by the excellent Heresy Miniatures!

So, that's everything new for now- I have some more Apaches close to finishing (to replace my tiny wee Foundry ones who are looking a little bit small compared to everybody else!), and then I'd like to turn my hand to the new Northstar Plains Skinwalker Posse...

I'll be back soon with the first offerings for what I hope will be my big painting project for this year- something I've been wanting to do for many years...

Welcome To The Jungle

The old ones are always the best, right?

Cliched Post-headings aside, what follows is a quick report of my first game of Ghost Archipelago.
I would be using my 'Sinbad-esque' Northstar Crew, versus Andy in command of my own Sohei warrior-monks (originally for Warlord Games' excellent Test of Honour!).

As this was a demo game, we played the basic scenario- a brief explanation of the differences between GA and Frostgrave, and we were off!

It began with both Crews predictably advancing towards the central treasure at the sacrificial pit- Andy's peasants having a little trouble crossing the water separating them from the 'mainland', and drawing the attentions of a shark!
I split my Crew into two 'teams'- my Heritor Suladin leading one and his brother Omar (my Warden) leading the other. Omar's group split off and circled around the pyramid towards the treasures lying on some small islands, while Suladin forged on through the jungle towards the sacrificial pit.

Andy's Crew meanwhile advanced in force, with a 'firebase' of musket-men (counting as Crossbowmen) left behind to garrison some ruins that overlooked the treasure islands on his right flank.

One of my two Archers had a clear shot at the rival Crew as they made land-fall, but the enemy Heritor snatched the arrow out of the air!

Meanwhile, one of Andy's Infantrymen- afraid to cross the water surrounding his starting position- was ambushed by a venomous Snakeman! Perhaps embarrassed by his earlier hydrophobia, he took out his frustrations on the scaly creature and battered it to the ground over a couple of rounds of combat...

|*Green D6 used to track  the Snakeman's remaining health.

My other Archer (from Omar's team) had climbed the pyramid, and so now had commanding views over the whole battlefield. Unfortunately for me he did little but harass the enemy for the rest of the battle- until a pinpoint musket shot finally tumbled him from his precarious perch!

With my missile support proving ineffective, Suladin ordered his men to fall back to the pyramid with their treasure while he attempted to hold back the encroaching foe- in his first close combat of the game he Sprinted into melee with Andy's other Infantryman and promptly Critted the poor soul! He would go on to take out the enemy Warden and another peasant... Heritors are great!

*Natural 20 recorded here for posterity- it will never happen to me again...

While my Heritor got his hands dirty, I was playing it cagey on my left flank- the treasure was right there across the water, but Andy's formidable firebase of teppo-armed peasants was giving Omar and his lads pause... I buffed my Pearl Diver Tok with Omar's spells and then sent him on a daring amphibious assault mission- the water protecting him from the worst of the enemy fire and buying time for Omar and the others to make a mad dash across the water to the island!
Tok even managed to reach land, outflank the peasants and shiv one with his obsidian blade before an Infantryman (with a natty new pair of snakeskin boots!) got involved and clubbed him to the ground unceremoniously!

Continuing the aquatic misadventures, one of Andy's Crewmen attempted to escape from the mainland with the golden idol he was carrying- he got halfway across the water and promptly failed his next swimming test! The hungry shark from before obviously had a taste for peasant as it took a chunk out of him in the Creature Phase- the fresh blood in the water attracting yet another shark! In his next turn, the unfortunate swimmer failed his test again and the two ravenous fish closed in and chewed him up in short order, the idol sinking down through the red waters...

*Smile, you sonofa...Aarghh!

To cheer Andy up, his musket-men had recovered from Tok's surprise attack and opened up on Omar as he tried to reach the treasure on the small island- they had already downed his remaining Crewmate! Omar survived their fusillade (barely), and limped towards the water with treasure tucked under his arm. Slowed by his injuries and the weight of all that gold, he was caught by Andy's Heritor and (despite actually winning the first round!) cut down for his troubles, while his brother Suladin could only watch from the jungle, powerless to help!

And so the dust settled- both Crews had been mauled severely, but both had come away with a fair amount of loot! Even though this wasn't a Campaign game, we went through the after-game process just for fun. Everybody survived, and various magic weapons and herbs were discovered- I even managed to find a coveted map-stone with a roll of 20; you just know that I'll never manage that again when we play a proper Campaign!

Overall, GA is great fun- a nice change of environment from the dark ruins of Frostgrave and a chance to paint up some exotic characters and creatures! While Frostgrave is brilliant, GA really feels a little slicker! After playing, we had a long and enthusiastic discussion about ideas for Crews, and Andy went away with plans for a Spartan-inspired force. My next Crew is sat in the painting queue as I write this, and will be a band of greedy (and extremely sun-burnt) Vikings!

I'm Still Alive!

Howdo folks- just a quick Post to confirm that I'm still here! I've been having internet issues the last month or so which are now (hopefully) sorted- so all being well you can expect regular Posts here and on the good old LAF again!

Rest assured that I have been keeping busy on the gaming front during this period of radio silence...

Cheers!

Jonathan