Elves march to war

At long last, the elves are honoring their oaths and marching to war to help their dwarven allies (yes, dwarves and elves can be allies, in fact they form the Old Alliance... with the occasional violent disagreement). Their main purpose is Oathmark, and they're based on 25mm bases for that purpose, but I rarely hesitate to reuse armies for other systems as long as the basing works.

The thin green line is thin indeed, and yet their long lives mean they can be the best and most disciplined soldiers there is. In fact, what's seen above would be a 1500 point army (so 60% of a "full" army) and some extra characters for Oathmark.

Leading the band, we have princess Tahlviathas of the Sharp Blade and prince Caerviathus of the Swift Arrows, flanked by two captains. Tahlviathas is a kitbash of Oathmark Elf Infantry and Shieldwolf Shieldmaidens, her captain is almost pure Oathmark plastic, while Caerviathus and his captain are both Oathmark metal models.

Elves rarely march without magical support, and have indeed not one, but two mages with them. Also, the head ranger, who will range out before a battle and scout both terrain and enemies, but may or may not participate in the clash (which is a long way of saying, I had an extra Ranger left over, and decided to paint him). The female mage is from Frostgrave Wizards II, with another Shieldwolf head, while both the male mage and the ranger are Oathmark metals.

The elves are almost defined by their expert bowmen (and women), darkening the skies with steady streams of archers. Most of these are ordinary citizen Archers.

Few, however, stand apart from their fellows, and join the Royal Guard (led by Caerviathus), or the light Rangers. But if need be, these can still go back to the ordinary archer companies, stiffening their fellows with their vaster experience. Oathmark plastics, either Elf Infantry (if they have chainmail) or Elf Light Infantry, aside from Caerviathus himself.

Of course, archers need some protection, or they'll get run over by any old orc who manage to distract them. To prevent this, elven citizen Soldiers form a frontline. Oathmark Elf Infantry is a very useful kit indeed.

The elven host also contains a few Pathguard, the Soldier equivalent for the Rangers, scouting ahead during the march, and either fighting from terrain or joining the ordinary Soldiers during battle. Oathmark Light Elf Infantry, almost as useful as the ordinary infantry, and eminently kitbashable with it.

Few elves master horses, but those who do, form a hard-hitting lance for the host, sweeping in from a flank and rolling up the enemy battle line, lead by a Champion. Another, surprisingly easy, kitbash. Fireforge provided the horses and bodies, while arms, weapons and heads are Oathmark Elf Infantry (very useful, I had these left over from the Archers).

Finally, oaths are nothing without proof of their swearing. And what bether proof, than the raising of standing stones, which can serve as border markers as well as proof. On one side, the elven mark.

And on the other, praise for the dwarven king who ordered it done. These were scratchbuilt using cardboard and basing materials, mostly. Surprisingly easy and surprisingly good-looking (even with my not that stellar runic handwriting).

As a fun note, the elven army has already been fielded once in Oathmark, as:

Prince with Gold String Bow (Caerviathus himself)

Mounted Champion

Spellcaster (lvl 2, with Trueflight and Mystic Shield)
3x5 Soldiers

4 Archers (the guards for Caerviathus)

3x5 Archers

4 Cavalry (with the Champion)

It ended in a bloody victory for the elves, with a bit more than a third of the force still standing, and the quip I made before ("I hope you're prepared to fight in the shade") proved quite true. Would have been a bigger margin of victory if my cavalry hadn't suffered a case of rubber lances, causing only a single casualty against the enemy human cavalry while charging (and loosing 4 of their own), but such is war.

/Fool out.

SAGA - Jomsvikings enter the fray

Been a bit too quiet a bit too long here. I blame it on finishing a whole load of projects earlier, meaning I had nothing half-way done for a bit. But things have been chugging along, and now I have something finished. Specifically Vikings! (Technically a Jomsviking warband for SAGA: Age of Vikings).

This is the better part of a Victrix Vikings set, leaving me with just a few unarmoured bodies (and that, because I cheated a bit), and a whole lot of maille. I'm sure I'll find some use for it, somewhere.

First up, we have a unit of ordinary warriors, as is standard for SAGA. Slightly more than a single point, 10 strong in fact.

The second unit of warriors are equipped with Great Weapons (or dane axes, as they're also known during the viking era), for a bit more punch. As with the previous unit, 10 strong for slightly more than a point.

The final unit of warriors is significantly smaller, only 4 man strong, round out the warriors to an even 3 points total, and giving some fun tricks for SAGA (mostly a "safe" SAGA die). This is of course just the standard configuration, it can be changed around if necessary.

Then there is the Hearthguard. As is my standard, I'm running units of 6, for a bit more punch but not all the eggs in one basket. First unit is all normal.

Second unit has, once again, dane axes for some more punch. These are a bit more difficult to change around unit sizes of than the warriors, since they have quite distinct armaments. Thankfully, I have that load of mailled viking bodies lying around, which should take care of that problem.

Finally, the Warlord. Except there's two of 'em. Since Jomsvikings in SAGA have a choice of arming the Warlord with a Great Weapon (dane axe) or "the usual", I decided to build two. The left over one can always be used for some kind of hero, is the thinking. Certainly didn't help that the Victrix pack held some awesome bodies.

If I'm fielding both the Warlord and a Hero, it might be a good idea to be able to keep track of who's who. To help with this, I had a friend design this sabot base, that will easily fit around a hero base, with magnets to keep things in place.

And just like that, we have a clearly marked Warlord, next to an "ordinary" hero.

As said, the Victrix kit had some awesome bodies, and these two are probably my favourites in pure badass-ness. I will have to think up alternative uses for the pair that I have left un-built, because they almost scream to be used.

As said, I cheated some with my warriors. Part of that was these two, I had two bare-breasted gallic warriors (also from Victrix) lying around. Adding on weapons, heads, shield and some belt stuff from the Viking kit, and I got something that looks quite fitting (sadly, I can't claim this idea original, Victrix had a picture showing something very close to the left fellow on their presentation of the Viking kit previously... but it does looks good).

Finally, I didn't bother painting all the shields, but got shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios, to try out. I will have to say, these worked excellently, even with my at times hamfisted painting. These five are probably my favourites among the lot, but they all look good (and didn't have me tearing my hair out while trying for intricate designs on the shields).

Next step, after expanding the hearthguard contingent, will probably be to get more warriors, 4 berserkers, and some levy archers, so that they can also be used as ordinary Vikings. Of course, these can also easily be expanded to 8 points for SAGA: Age of Magic. Just add a spellcaster (I have several, although I will probably want to build a specific one, more viking-themed, for these), and a giant, 4 berserkers (these pop up again...), or some expanded units (and that hero seen above), and you're there.

And yes, the runes are more than random squiggles. It's the younger futhark, translating what all the bases say will be left as an exercise to the reader ;) 

/Fool Out, that's one more thing of the new years resolution list.

Oak & Iron has finally arrived!

After some slight delays (a missed containership, a new year, and a global pandemic,if I've managed to keep things straight), it is finally here. The Oak & Iron kickstarter, the new game from Firelock Games (the Blood & Plunder folks). Since it got delayed for Europe, it's not quite the new hotness any more, but I found myself quite excited when I got it none-the-less (certainly helped by the fact that I've conciously not followed the game much on social media).

Doesn't look all that much, does it? Still, the art is pretty to look at, that's always nice.

But we're not here to look at pretty boxes. What's in them, you ask? Well, let's have a look.

First up, we get some nice cardboard markers, rulers, and tokens. Good printing, but not something to get overly excited about. More exciting is almost the gaming mat included in the box, with a very nice bright blue Caribbean sea printed on it. Surprisingly good quality, but then this is in part sold as a full game in the one box, and you need a gaming mat for this (unless you want it to look truly bad).

Next up, more cardboard, some flat but quite beautiful terrain. Double-sided, too, allowing for either fog banks or islands, or rocks/shoals for the smaller parts. And very easy to get of the cardboard squares as well (yes, the big island fell out by itself when I picked it up the first time).

And it matches amazingly well with the included gaming mat. The advantage of designing everything at the same time and place.

Finally, the thing everyone's excited about, the ships. You get six ships in the core box, a Light Galleon, Corvette, Sloop, Brigantine, Fluyt and a Petit Frigate. These ships should all be familiar to players of Blood & Plunder, who might own larger versions of these (and I'm not kidding about that, see further down).

Not shown is the 30 page rulebook and a small trees worth of cards. All of which I will probably memorize, if I know myself right.

Of course, all the ships in the core box are a bit... not compensatory enough. Men of War include some heavier girls, with the 4th, 5th and 6th Rates (the 4th rate being a true Ship of the Line, while the 5th and 6th still counts as Frigates). And yes, the 6th Rate looks suspiciously like the 6th Rate I haven't yet managed to paint in 28mm for Blood & Plunder.

And of course, you get tokens (shown) and stat cards (not shown) for these ships as well.

And if you want some true compensation jokes, look at the Ships of the Line, for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Rate. All of them are humongous. How humongous, you ask? Suffice to say, most of the ships are incredibly light, but the 1st rate have some honest weight to it, to the point that it amazed me when I first picked it up (as a happy coincidence, after having looked at the Sloop directly before that, for maximum contrast).

The last box is smaller, with only a Sloop (upgunned, of course) and something converted to be close to a 6th Rate (the infamous Queen Anne's Revenge). I find it oddly amusing that this box contains so much revenge, Blackbeards Revenge, with the Sloop Revenge and the ship Queens Anne's Revenge... someone's looking for revenge, all right.

Of course, also included is the expected tokens and ship cards, but also a captain card for Stede Bonnet. And yes, I'm very tempted to use the Revenge for my ordinary Sloop, simply because the rigging looks awesome.

All in all, that's a moderately sized fleet that now enters the painting queue.

The details on all the ships are exquisite. Just look at the tiny gun carriages on the Sloop. I'm equal part excited and terrified for trying to paint these. (Mast removed so that it's easier to see everything)

Talking about details, the sides of the Brigantine share an amazing amount of detail with the 28mm version, including the curlies on the fore and aft deck railings. I might have to invest in some truly tiny brushes for this.

The stern of the Petit Frigate looks familiar to anyone who's looked at the Blood & Plunder ships. I am eternally amazed at the amount of details they've managed to fit in there.

And now for something that isn't just a down-scaled version of a 28mm ship (if only because the thought of this one in 28mm is terrifying, and my back hurts just imagining carrying it). The 1st Rate. 

Look at all those cannons! (Masts again removed for ease of viewing)

The decks also look incredible, with capstan, stairs (that at least look reasonable), and a whole lot of cannons.

And with a massive, and at the same time exquisite stern, too. I probably shouldn't paint her first, I need practice before that.

I did say the 1st rate was huge (in case the fact that she barely fits onto the base isn't a clue). Here she is next to the Sloop, once again for maximum contrast.

Now I just need to 

• Paint all of these
• Read, learn and understand all the rules and cards
• Figure out how to give them interchangeable flags (because I want them to have full flags, and of course they need to be for the correct nation I've elected to play this time)
• Figure out how to transport them all. Because while they're small, at the same time, they're not.

Any advice welcome

/Fool Out, slightly overwhelmed

Rangers of Shadow Deep Ranger and Companions

A friend introduced me to Ranger of Shadow Deep (the same friend as usual, he's a bad influence on me), a solo/co-op game from the same author as Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago (and pretty much the same ruleset, as well, so was very quick for me to learn). As usual, it is sold as "need very few miniatures", at least as long as you have friends like mine, who can offer all the monsters. And since I have been eyeing the new Fireforge fantasy plastics for some time, this sounds like an excellent excuse to get a few (12, to be precise) and build up and paint. And since they're so few, I can try to stretch a bit further than usual for me (so more than block painting and a brown wash all over...)

First up, some villagers can always be useful, for rescuees if nothing else (although the fellow in the middle with the torch could also make a good Recruit).

Then there is Bob and Bill, the local guards (Bob serving as a Guardsman with his Spear, while Bill is more of a Man-at-Arms), as well as their boss and the local Captain, William-Roberts (Swordsman).

Few villages make do without competent hunters and Archers. The first one is Astrid, armed with a longbow (well, all bows are the same in the game, but this one is decidedly longer).

Since archery should be reasonably common (and darn useful in the game), there is also Justin, the second Archer, with a shorter hunting bow.

Of course, the Archers are still ordinary villagers when they're not hunting. If you want someone comfortable at all times in the surrounding forests, you want Gerry, the local Tracker.

Of course, with the recent unpleasantness (the catastrophe of the Shadow Deep as people less english would call it), it's not just the locals around any more.

Theobald is a Knight-Errant, always looking for enemies of mankind to slay and to prove his worth (and making his way towards them slowly, by dint of heavy armour). And, of course, a Knight in game terms, although he also makes a not half bad Ranger.

Angus might not have any need for proving himself, but is still duty bound to help out where he can, to stand between the light and the darkness, protecting the former and holding back the latter with a moderately humongous sword (and a smaller one, for more close-in work). In game terms, he's a Templar, but just as with Theobald, he can easily jump up to the role of Ranger.

Finally, the driving force that makes people march together instead of rushing away all over the place, the Kings Ranger himself, Reginald. Electing to go with an axe instead of the more common sword both to reduce how much he needs to carry, and in acknowledgement of his father the lumberjack. And, of course, with a bow, because you don't always want the gribblies to have a chance of chewing at you...

All in all, a small village's worth of companions ready to brave whatever the darkness throws at them. Although I might have to expand them with some sneaky fellows, and perhaps someone with a more arcane bent. And a dog or 5.

Of course, that does not mean they will see play any time soon. Most likely I'll be using Dreng the Dwarven Cruise Missile, and his trusty Crossbow-Dwarf Annie. They've already braved the Shadow Deep once, and are ready to do so again, with any companions brave enough to follow them. (These two are, for the record, not painted by me, but by Mattias Bergström, the same friend who got me into RoSD, and Frostgrave before that. And also, the very nice fellow who let me use his terrain for backdrop for these photos).

/Fool Out