Arnor Lives! Plus of course some rambling...

With the weather (only slightly) curtailing my wanderings in the Great Outdoors, I have been back at my painting desk feverishly churning through my army of Arnor for Dragon Rampant, plus a couple of units for Angmar. I'm relieved to report that they are now complete! Next year I'll be looking to Rohan and Isengard and the Battle at the Fords of Isen, and then it's on to Mirkwood...

I'm still getting in regular gaming of course- though my tastes (and those of at least one of my gaming groups) are leaning more towards RPGs of late- the ubiquitous D&D (3.5 edition) of course, but also Call of Cthulhu, with the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play waiting in the wings...
My favourite type of miniature wargaming has always featured strong narrative elements (take Dracula's America, for example!), but I feel that this aspect is dominating my gaming more and more, and will likely become the focus of my miniature collecting/painting going forward- expect more 'stories' rather than 'battle-reports' on here in the future...
On this subject, I recently discovered the fantastic 'Nightfolk' range of miniatures by Northumbrian Tin Soldier- brilliant, whimsical figures with an old-school feel that evoke the influences of my childhood- films like Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, and the art of Brian Froud! Taking advantage of the recent sales, I picked up Sly Ralf's Boys and the Foggy Peak Goblingtons sets- who knows where this will end?

On the game design front I'm tinkering away on a few RPG systems of my own- who knows if they will ever see the light of day beyond my circle of gaming friends, but I'm enjoying the process regardless- and that, my friends, is all that matters!

I'll leave you for now with a few photos of a clash between Arnor and Angmar, somewhere on the North Downs- and as always, apologies for the fuzzy camera-phone photos! I am also thinking of making a more suitable backdrop for my photos- my living-room doesn't quite evoke Middle Earth, does it?!

The battle lines close-in...

 

Plucky Hobbit archers harass the barbarians of Carn Dum from the flanks!

 

Riders of Arnor intercept Wargs trying to outflank the Arthedainian shield-wall.

 

The Orcish hordes!

 

King Arvedui and Malbeth the Seer face down the Witch King himself and his fell spirits.



The Gathering of the Clouds, Part 5

Just a quick Post today, to show you my finished Mirkwood Elves contingent!

These are the new, long-awaited Oathmark plastics and they are very nice indeed- understated (for Elves) and practically-attired for battle!
No idea what the runic pectoral disc is about, but to my mind it helps to set the Elves apart as a unique culture with their own, alien aesthetic...

*Mirkwood Spearmen form up for battle.

As I think I mentioned previously, I wasn't too keen on the shields you get with the kit as they were a bit too 'War-Hammery' for this project; the kite shields really do the job though.

Colour-wise I went for the predictable 'Wood Elf' palette of greens and browns, but decided to go for bronze on the helmets and armour trim- I'll save the silver for High Elves (if/when I get around to them)!
Likewise I went for a selection of 'Celtic' hair colours, and used three different tones of green (though they don't really show up that well in the photos) to make them appear less uniform and a little 'Wilder, and less wise'...

*It wouldn't be Elves without archers!

Tonight the Ingleton lads are coming over for a game- this will be more of a play-test of the first Scenario for the Battle of Five Armies, which I am breaking down into three Scenarios to better suit the smaller scale of the Dragon Rampant rules.

*Another blatantly staged photo- Elves ambush Goblins along a forest road. Typical Elf propaganda!

Expect a report on how it went in the next couple of days!

The Gathering of the Clouds, Part 4.

The end is in sight!

Last week I managed to finish Thorin's Company and Bilbo Baggins; and over the weekend I got Bolg and his Guard completed as well- all that remains is for my Oathmark Elves to arrive, and that will be the last contingent for my Battle of Five Armies project!

Some of you may have already seen Thorin's lads over on the Lead Adventure Forum, but for everyone else here are a few shots- I went for fully armed and armoured figures to represent them as they might have looked during the Battle, and I also multi-based them as I'm classing them as Elite Foot rules-wise (such units are traditionally 6 models strong, hence six bases!); I have plans for individually based figures in hoods and travelling gear in the future...
You might have noticed that every Dwarf also bears their 'hood colour' somewhere about their person, as noted in the Unexpected Party chapter of The Hobbit!

*Thorin (centre), Fili (L) and Kili (R) (all Oathmark).

 

*L-R: Dwalin, Balin. Dori and Nori (Oathmark and Conqueror Dark Age Dwarves).

 

*L-R: Bifur, Ori, Gloin, Oin (again, a mixture of Oathmark and Conqueror Dwarves).

 

*L-R: Bilbo, Bombur and Bofur (GW, Foundry Norse Dwarf and Oathmark again!).

 

 

Opposing our brave Company of Dwarves we have Bolg and his Guard- these are all Oathmark Goblins! Again, these will count as Elite Foot during the game.

 

 

*Couldn't resist staging this shot of Bolg's last moments!

"Er, pointing at him won't do us much good, Chief!.."

 

 

I'm itching to get on with actually playing a game now- I happen to be off work next week, so hopefully I can rattle through the Elves and have an AAR to share in the next couple of weeks!

 

Meanwhile, I have a pile of stuff ready and waiting for the next phase of my Middle Earth project- Late Romans/Romano-British to represent the battered defenders of Arnor, GW Warriors of the Dead for various Evil Spirits, and some Ancient Britons as the men of Carn Dum- throw in the Goblins I already have, and that should give me a good cross-section of the Legions of Angmar!



The Gathering of the Clouds, Part 3.

I'm back, with another update on my Battle of Five Armies project!

What with the improving weather, much of my spare time lately has been spent tramping the hills and dales around my house- but I've still managed to paint up some new stuff none-the-less...

First off was my Great Eagle- this thing is huge, but since it's a plastic kit it was nice and easy to build. You can actually make two Eagles from the GW boxed set, but for now the other remains on the shelf unpainted. I'm looking forward to seeing it swoop through the ranks of Gundabad very soon!

*The Great Eagle crashes into a mob of Gundabad Orcs, while the Grey Pilgrim  himself looks on.

Speaking of which, I've finally churned through the rest of my Goblins in the form of two Units of Warriors with various hand weapons- once again, these are the Oathmark plastics from Northstar!

*The forces of the Shadow as they stand so far- this little lot should cover all my Goblin requirements for future Middle Earth projects...

Last of all was Gandalf himself- this is a re-paint/re-basing of an old GW model I had lying around, and I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out.

*A closer look at my Great Eagle and good old Gandalf the Grey- probably my favourite Tolkien character!

This week the new plastic Elves for Oathmark went up for order, so I immediately bought a couple of boxes plus the metal character models for my Mirkwood contingent. The only thing I'm not so keen on in the kit are the shields, which look a little too 'Warhammer' for me- so I've ordered some kite shields from Gripping Beast to replace them. These have the benefit of giving that 'Dark Age' feel I'm after; plus they look a little bit like leaves, in keeping with the Elven aesthetic!

In the meantime I have Bolg and his guard plus Thorin's Company (and Bilbo!) assembled and ready for undercoating- after all that is completed I think it will finally be time for some games of Dragon Rampant!

After that? Maybe a quick trip to Sub-Roman Britain via Dux Bellorum before it's back to Middle Earth for the Angmar/Arnor wars...

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...

Dracula's Painting

I've managed to get a fair bit of 'official' stuff painted for Dracula's America over the last few days, ready for next weekend's inaugural Ingleton Wargames Weekend (organised by my good friend Andy and the kind folks at the Wheatsheaf pub!).

This is just a quick Post while I try to figure out exactly what I'll be doing for the participation game of DA I'll be running on the Sunday...

*My Congregation Posse, plus Unique Summons- I had a lot of fun paining these guys- lots of referencing snake-skin patterns! The Temple Snake (centre-right) was converted with a human skull-head to match how I originally envisaged the thing, and it's patterning is based on a diamondback rattlesnake! The Vessel (top left) was converted with twisted paperclips (inexpertly) sculpted over with greenstuff to try and give the impression of spiritual energy lifting him off the ground. I'm also particularly fond of the grassy tufts added to the back and shoulders of my Swamp Baka (centre-back); this was a last-minute idea that I think finished the model off nicely!
The rest of the Posse was painted in fairly muted, naturalistic colours to help them blend in with their swampy environs- apart from the bright white 'skeleton' paint on my Houngan Arcanist.

*The finished new Wolf-Form Skinwalker (a Frostgrave Barbarian Warhound, I think!) faces off against a mob of Zombies (from Northstar's Horror Stories range).
I'm especially pleased with how the Wolf turned out- again, lots of referencing images of Grey Wolves from books !

Back soon with a DA Game Report!..

Back in the Saddle...

A belated happy 2018!

After a well-earned rest following the madness that is my job during the festive period, I finally managed to catch up on the far more important business of gaming.

I wasn't completely idle, however- managing to snatch an hour of painting here and there meant I made some headway on my Ghost Archipelago stuff, and I even did some extra work on my Dracula's America Posses- getting some more hapless mooks finished for the Twilight Order and Red Hand Coven, plus starting a new Wolf-Form Skinwalker model for my Apaches...

*The new recruits.

*Some WIP fresh blood on it's way to DA!

*My Heritor Crew...

 

*...And my GA menagerie so far...

 

*...With more on the way!

During my break, I also got some extra rules material for Dracula's America under my belt so expect to see that in the future; either on the Osprey Games Blog or in magazines such as Wargames Illustrated!
I've also started a new, super-secret Dracula's America-related project that I'm very excited about, but I can't say much more as it's still extremely early days and it hasn't actually been officially green-lit by Osprey yet...

Er, looking back on what I just wrote, my break wasn't actually that much of a break really!

My first game of 2018 was an introductory game of the excellent Lion / Dragon Rampant- I've played both versions of this game many times over the last couple of years, and thought it was about time I introduced it to the Ingleton lads!

*The Armies advance towards each other as some pigs look on from the fields!

We broke out our SAGA Warbands for use in this game, and didn't really worry overmuch about army composition or coming up with a fancy Scenario- we just picked rough 24 point Retinues of the models we fancied using and then got on with the business of killing each other!

*My Viking Warlord and his Hearthguard (foreground) calls out his rival (on the left, waving his sword about) in the centre of the field.

As usual with L/DR, the game swung one way then the other; with both sides experiencing the highs and lows of dicing for activations- Team Awesome's legendary ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory saw us narrowly defeated in the first game. Since everybody was enjoying themselves, we pushed on and played a second game- this time, myself and Andy were utterly crushed in embarrassingly short order by Tony and Tom's much more decisive warriors.

*My brave warriors take the farm from a handful of enemy archers in the first game. The pigs are ours!

*In the second game, our warriors on the right flank are run down and massacred by enemy horsemen while our archers (and a few bemused cows) look on!

As the dust settled, L/DR was unanimously declared a great success by the Ingletonians- we will be playing more of it over the coming year, I'm sure (talk even turned to collecting Game of Thrones armies for it...).

Here's to a great new year of gaming!

Oathmark Dwarves and the Shattered Realm.

It's always good to start a new project and make some progress through the pile of unpainted miniatures in the store-room (otherwise known as The Pit Of Shame) at the same time!

So today I cracked open my box of plastic Oathmark Dwarves from Northstar, and put together my first Party of models for my own fledgling fantasy game, Shattered Realm.

I love the 'old-school', Tolkienesque vibe of these models! In this day and age of World of Warcraft, Age of Sigmar et al, it's nice to see what are basically stout, bearded little Dark Ages warriors instead of stubby walking tanks with a bit of beard poking out and wielding unfeasibly huge, steam-powered axes (not that that kind of thing doesn't have it's place, of course...)!

*A group shot of the Party as they set off for the ruins of Gharzulgrint- affiliated to the Guild of Stonesmiths, this gives the Heroes access to Melee, Brawn and Shooting Skills.

In fact, I love them so much that I've also just pre-ordered the Goblins in the same range, and will be picking up a box of the Elves and humans when Nick gets around to doing them...

As these will mainly be used for small-scale Skirmishes, I used parts from the Frostgrave Soldiers set to give them more of a 'wandering adventuring Party' feel- backpacks, bed-rolls, coils of rope, lanterns etc. These combine really well with the Oathmark sprues with minimal effort!

*The four Followers- the basic hirelings that give the Party some bulk. L-R we have the Archer, Agbert the Taciturn; 'Handsome' Roldo the Thief; and two Warriors- Ogri Whitebeard (with lantern) and Young Snorri.

You'll notice that I've used the square 25mm bases provided, instead of the round ones more usually seen in Skirmish games- simply because I want the option of being able to use them in Oathmark once that game is released...

*The four Heroes- in Shattered Realm, Heroes come in two types: Leaders and Comrades. These are the 'main characters' of the game, and are the ones who will level-up during a Campaign.
Here we have, from L-R: 'Red' Gutrikk; my Leader Ranhulf Finehair (the disgraced second son of a Northern Jarl); the inscrutable old Raven-Priest known only as Munin, and 'Big' Bjarni Hjostelriksson (brother of Roldo).

As for my own game, Shattered Realm- well, as you might have read on an earlier Post here on the Blog, this is going to be my pet-project based on the core rules of Dracula's America- but with several tweaks to better represent the sword and sorcery setting! It will be minis-neutral, so you can use whatever fantasy stuff you have to hand, and will allow for 'mixed' Parties that share a Guild Allegiance rather than a 'Race' (so Elves can work alongside Orcs, for example)!

I hope to figure out how to get a PDF up here for folks to look at and/or download very soon (though if anyone reading could help me out with how to do this, that'd be much appreciated!). The core rules are there, as well as the main Campaign system; plus a simple narrative Scenario for one or more players to get used to the gameplay (yes, I hope to make the game work for Solo-play!).

Hopefully I'll have a Shattered Realm game report to share with you soon, at the very least!

Skinwalker Tribes- Apache!

This week, I have mostly been painting Apache for Dracula's America!

The Skinwalkers are my favourite Faction besides the Dark Confederacy, and since my switch to 28mm Old West instead of 32mm I've been waiting to get painting these guys!

*The Posse so far- including a Wendigo for Summoning and the Wolf Beast-Form for my Boss.

This Posse has been built using the 'Desert Tribes' Theme from the forthcoming Hunting Grounds supplement, so a little teaser for you here!

Using this Theme, all foot models (including Bear-Form Skinwalkers!) have a Move rate of 5" to represent their more elusive tactics- it doesn't sound much, but over the course of a game it can let you cover much more ground than other foot-sloggers (it's only 1" less than a horse, after all!) or go that extra distance to find cover...

The other wrinkle is that you are limited to only a single Skinwalker- I went for the Wolf-Form, as it's my favourite of the two!

*My Boss, Bodaway- in both human and Wolf guise! The Wolf-Form is simply a Frostgrave Werewolf.

However, you do gain the help of a Shaman instead. This fellow comes with Banish as standard (Skinwalker Tribes sure do hate those Abyssals), and I chose Summon and Shadow-Dance; one of the new Skinwalker-only Powers to give my Wolf a little extra protection against Shooting.

*My Shaman, Taklishim, and his Summoned Wendigo- this is a conversion of the North Star model, bent so it is leaning forwards in a more threatening pose with green-stuff mouth and fur and Mantic plastic zombie hands! Taklishim himself has swapped his spear for a rifle from the Old West weapons set from Colonel Bill's.

There are also Themes for Plains and Prairie Tribes and Woodland and Mountain Tribes in the book...

*The rest of the Posse- L-R: Eskaminzim, Dasodaha, Askadodilges and Bimisi. All my Apaches are from Foundry- they are at the smaller end of the 28mm spectrum (if you get what I mean!) compared to my other stuff, but are so characterful that I don't mind.

The Firemakers are finally out for blood in 28mm scale!