Björn Grendel's Unberogenes. Wrap-up

The army as a whole 

 

...ALL ROADS LEAD TO REIKDORF...

It's finally finished. 8 long months of preparation, construction, painting, stress... and it's done.

Now that we've reached the end, I can say it: this army is the first and only army I've ever finished!

Let me explain:

Of course, I've painted armies before, for myself or on commission, but for the first time a project meets my personal standards of completeness.

1- Planning on paper from the start.

Since I had to present the project at the end of December, this was the first time in my modeling life that I analyzed the models in my collection, decided what and how much to buy, and assembled the different units in an organized way before starting. Usually, like many of us, I buy what I like when I feel like it or what I need when I can, but not this time.

2- A playable army.

An important aspect, but equally difficult to achieve: a finished army is a playable army: therefore, with a minimum number of characters, basic regiments, etc., but also with some competitive units and some extras, such as the battle standard bearer and some pieces with an extra punch. I've often painted projects like this, especially on commission, but in my personal collection there are more loose pieces than organized armies. This is one of the few.

3- No backlog.

And here's the real news! Having planned everything in advance, squeezing every model and buying only the bare minimum, I find myself with NO extra unfinished models! Of course, this doesn't mean I don't have a pile of shame. On the contrary, my pile of shame is higher than ever. It just means I have nothing left to paint for this specific army. Not even a single humble warrior... even the leftover bitz are no more than a small handful.

4- The parts make the whole.

I've met some of the previous requirements before in my modeling life, especially when working on commission and painting the entire set, or when preparing an army for a battle, or maybe when you just buy a couple of boxes to start a new faction and finish them in one go... but this is truly the first time I've managed to meet all these requirements at once, and I did it FOR ME! It's an incredible, overwhelming feeling. Like when you finish a good book and you're left with that mixed feeling of satisfaction and emptiness... but you can't wait to read another. And I can't wait to start the next project, another army for the next OWAC!

Now I'll let the images do the talking, but first, one last fundamental consideration:

This project has another great record. It made me want to play again, and it also got my wife and children involved. We planned a table together, created some basic scenery elements, and even played a few introductory games. The family loved them and slowly started painting some miniatures themselves. I never thought this challenge would yield such incredible results. Most of the time, we played by splitting this single army in two, to play smaller battles with the new miniatures, and this forced me to tackle another BSB, and here it is.

Tried to match the first One in shapes and colors.

The base model is Valerie Duval from the old Warzone range, a model I found damaged beyond repair in a batch many years ago.

Pic for reference

Catachan arms slighty shaped.. fit and wonderful.

With a little putty work, I think she's more than fit to carry the army's secondary banner. She's super confident, tough, and fit, like a true Barbarian warrior should be.

Fierce and proud!

I love her, and she's turned out to be one of my favorite pieces. I'm not entirely happy with the freehand on the shield, but I decided to settle for it.

Now onto the beauty shots.

And some more...

The Hunt begins...

Chariots racing around the village

Björn and Dragor planning the next raid.

Redmane warband leaving the gates.

Björn's warband protecting the village from and orc raiding party.

The nobles speeding through the fields to join the Battle.

Orcs! The messenger brings word of the incoming invasion.

The outer outpost must be fitted for defense.

"Here you are!"

Queen Griselda, mother of Sigmar, praying to the Gods of Mankind 

Sigmar and Ravenna, back to back against the green tide.

Protecting Foamhenge from the ravaging orcs 

Points, let's talk about points:

As I said, I'm not at all familiar with the third edition rules (I'm a 5th edition guy), and I don't think I've fully grasped how to calculate points, especially for characters and the unit command group.

But here it is, as I thought at the end of December. The value is probably much higher than that (with the command groups and hero options), but it would probably also be illegal in the composition of individual units and the hero/core/special/rare ratios.

*) name (count as): equipment. Points

-----------Heroes and command: Total 467--------

1) barbarian leader (Chaos champion): 2 hand weapons, heavy armor. 130pt

2) barbarian leader (Chaos champion): two-handed weapon, heavy armor. 130pt

3) barbarian leader (Chaos champion): hand weapon, shield heavy armor. 129pt

4) barbarian banner bearer (chaos champion): hand weapon, army banner, heavy armor. 178pt

----------------Rank and files: Total 1106-----------------

1) barbarian warband (20 chaos thugs): 2 hand weapons, light armor. 180pt

2) barbarian warband (20 chaos thugs): hand weapon, shield, light armor. 180pt

3) barbarian cavalry (10 mounted chaos thugs): hand weapon, light armor, shield 180pt

4) 2 barbarian chariots (8 marauder horsemen with heavy armour ).  376pt

 

5) barbarian hunting party (10 chaos thugs): hand weapon, light armor, bow. 100pt

6) barbarian hunting party (10 chaos thugs): hand weapon, light armor, shields, javelines, (throwing axes).       100pt                          

Total.  1.573

I left out the second BSB, the warrior queen, and the additional plastic models, which weren't planned at the start of the project.

I would have liked to prepare some extras, some surprises, maybe a large monster or an additional unit, in this final month, but I didn't find anything I really liked, so I limited myself to making some new scenery elements. Over the last few months, I've built a more than decent collection, as you can see from the photos. In total, we have:

- a couple of new forest bases

- a village of huts and shacks

- a chief's longhouse

- a modular log fortress with a gate, walls, and towers

- an entire stone circle, more than properly named Foamhenge

- a rocky hill, the first of many

- and above all, a regulation-sized table to host our games in the studio.

That's all, I think. This time too, I got carried away by excessive verbosity. I'll definitely be back next year with a new, incredible project (but I don't know which one yet). In the meantime, keep painting.

 Stay true, stay oldschool.  🤘🏼

From this...

...to this!

Björn Grendel's Unberogenes. Warrior Red warband. Month three rank and file.

 

The Road so far....

March. Third month of the challenge, the lead pile is still very high, so I took courage in both hands and faced one of the two main infantry regiments. Warriors. This time we get to the heart of the matter, the military class par excellence, which represents the core of the Unberogenes forces: professional fighters, certainly not farmers or artisans with weapons. To represent them, I chose the largest and best-armed models among those available, (throwing in also a well armed barbarettes for good measure) many with necklaces and jewels that better represent their social status, the miniatures with the most beautiful and largest weapons, with shields and helmets. I made two units of 20 models (ABSOLUTELY ALL METAL) And here the difficulties began.

Only one barbarette in this unit (but my daughter's favourite.

First of all, the models themselves: the sculpts. Although really beautiful, the Copplestone Barbarians come with a relatively low number of poses. I don't know if they were originally designed for a specific game system, it would seem so, given the very limited variety of weapons they possess. In detail there are 5 poses of barbarians with axe and shield, 5 poses of swords and shields, 5 poses of two-handed weapons and a certain number of mixed poses, with two weapons, or command group.. so I did some calculations and came to the following conclusions:

Damn, my phone camera really sucks....

WHAT IS A BARBARIAN: it is undeniable that there is a huge difference between the barbarians of our history and the barbarians of the fantasy world. The former were nothing more than foreign populations compared to the great empires that faced them for the first time. The latter, on the other hand, are a type of individual, mostly, transversal to all races and cultures of the fantasy world. My miniatures, specifically, are mostly based on the concept art of Frank Frazetta, a well-known illustrator active since the 70s and enjoy that old way of doing fantasy that we all love (Conan the Barbarian above all). It is easy to see which people and cultures of our history have influenced the design of that type of barbarian: half-naked bodies, tattoos, furs and jewelry, simple but refined weapons, consideration for strength and honor, essential lifestyle immersed in nature: it touches the heart of all humans equally…

Beefy, savage, half naked and bronze helmet..

ADAPTATION TO WARHAMMER FANTASY : the barbarian this sense does not fit well with the world of Warhammer. Wanting to force a comparison we can think of a warrior of the first iron age (for example a Celt) transported to a world evolved up to about 1500, that's why I chose to move my setting back to the first age of myth, the dawn of Sigmar. I am aware of the fact that, according to the official lore, the saga of Sigmar should be set in an era more similar to the early Middle Ages, let's say about the 9th century but immediately after the "rule of lore" I follow the "rule of cool" so the unification of the scattered and weak human tribes fits perfectly with the figure of the barbarian who emerges from the wild lands to build an empire (and again the thought of Conan is a must).

GENERAL COMPOSITION: this army is not designed for the game, at the moment I am no longer an active player but only a passionate collector, but I am used to conceiving armies for warhammer 6 edition, and for this challenge I have to adapt to the 3, so I adopted a transversal approach in the composition: melee units in regular regiments, with a 25mm square base, ranged skirmisher units on 25mm round bases, heavy cavalry on standard 25*50 square bases. Heroes, monster characters and miscellaneous will go on the bases that best accommodate them by size or theme and they will always be fine for the rare times that I still play Heroquest or Mordheim.

Speaking of wich.. here a metal recast of the original Heroquest barbarian.. and his granpa.

INDIVIDUAL UNIT COMPOSITION: in January I presented my skirmishers: I already mentioned the reason why I divided them by social class and armament: historically and logically, moreover, archers and light infantry had different tactical roles, as in the Warhammer game, so I kept this grouping, and I didn't care about using a common color scheme for the individual units, painting whoever I wanted as I wanted. 

Remember those guys from january?

For the warriors the issue was more thorny: the lack of poses forced me to a lot of conversions and modifications, or to very small units or to units with too many identical models; so I simply took all the models available and selected them so as to form only two large units of 20, but without duplicates within each.

Crappy pics as Always. Im still trying to be consistent with my poor setup 

This leaves me with two units armed with mixed melee weapons, but I think it fits the concept of a barbarian warband, mixed, chaotic and tribally organised. To paint them I have chosen a colour theme, rather than a common heraldry, mixing geometric freehands with actual drawings, runes and skintones without worrying about any consistency, other than a general abundance of red colours. Rulewise they will always count as lightly armoured (to represent their physical resistance) and with a full command group. As for weapons and shields, I will simply place the models armed in the correct way at the time (for example all shields) in the front ranks and all the others in the back ranks, who will then be removed as casualties first, while my opponent should always have a WYSIWYG view of the front rank.

Hand weapons and shields 

Two handed weapons 

Two hand weapons 

Those brave barbarian warriors, pointwise, counts as

20 Chaos thugs: light armor, hand weapon and shields (or 2 hand weapons or great weapon)...                                       180 points

Banner 

My favorite champion so far..

To this first group of warriors I also added a Valkyrie, freely inspired by the “evil queens” of the 80s. Im pretty sire i had already seen her headress in a movie i swear, but i cant Remember were. Maybe was in Red Sonya or something like that.. please let me know..

Bonus pics... Did I said Frazetta? Here Is my omage to his art 

"Against the Gods"

Ok, at least I tried 

I would say that for this month it is more than enough, I have written too much. See you next update with a mighty flock of nobles on horseback.

Stay tuned and stay true.