Battle of Horn Gate

Today we played a jolly game set in Prax, using modified To the Strongest! rules, at Broadside in Sissinghurst.   It went very well and there were some hilarious incidents.  One poor young player drew a string of Aces, culminating in the loss of his general who I had nicknames Acus Maximus.

Above massed bison riders and below the Lunar centre, screened by expendable scorpionmen allies.

Above, the Bison riders tended to get the better of the exchange.  Below a view from the sable rider camp.

Above, Batty made a brief appearance; lots of people can over to talk about him.  Below, the sable tribe's ancestors turn up to lend a hand.

The magic rules worked pretty well and I have some excellent suggestions that Ian made on the way back, to digest.

The Broadside show was really excellent and I'm sure we'll be back next year!

Scorpionmen WIP

A really terrible shot of some Rapier Miniatures scorpionmen that I'm working on for my recently-revivified Gloranthan project. These were given to me by Sebastian Rogers c2005. I'm completely re-painting and re-basing 2016-stylee, on deep-unit sized magnetic Bat Bases. So far they are just blocked-in, but I hope to field them at Broadside on Sunday.

In other news, I have a piece on Caesar's Legions in the latest WI; enjoy!

Fazzur Wideread and Euglyptus the Fat

This is a recently refurbished command stand for my fantasy gaming using "To the Strongest!" set in the world of Glorantha. It depicts the Lunar general Fazzur Wideread remonstrating with his commanding officer, Euglyptus the Fat, at the battle of Building Wall. The battle was a disaster for the Lunars and Euglyptus was either poisoned or drowned in a barrel of lampreys (depending on who you read) shortly thereafter.

Sable Clan

These are mate Ian Notter's Sable Clan.  The Sables ride and herd Sable antelopes across the plains of Prax, and are pro-Lunar, so we often use them as allies for a Lunar army. There is a lot of work in this army; Ian needed to drill and mount each horn onto each antelope, which I gather was neither a quick nor an easy job.  

Above are the bulk of the tribesmen. We treat the closer-formation cavalry as lancers, and the others as bow and javelin-armed skirmishers.  Below is a close-up of the Khan.

The Shaman, above, is summoning spirits, and the giant blue sable below represents the tribe's founder, who may return in time of extreme need, along with spirits.

Above is a view of their camp and a herd. There's a lot of detail in these- have a look at the sable children play-fighting, below, and the woman with papoose on the left.

I do hope you have enjoyed these.  In a few days I will post some photos of some of the small independent Praxian tribes.

Bison Clan

There was a lot of interest in yesterday's Praxian post, so I thought I'd show some close-ups of Ian Notter's lovely collection of nomads (shot against the vintage "Nomad Gods" board game).  Today- the Bison clan.

Above the mass of bison riders, mostly mounted on Westwind bisons.  These weigh a ton!  Below is a close-up of the khan.

Above is the bison shaman and a summoned spirit and below the tribe's founder.

Above, bison herds.  I have an idea that these could be stampeded within the game, perhaps moving somewhat randomly.  Below is the bison camp.

I love the care that Ian put into these; almost every mini is a conversion, and the tepees are scratchbuilt.  Tomorrow I'll post photos of the Bison clan's Sable foes.

Back to Prax

In days of distant memory, long before I got into Ancients, I used to do a lot of Gloranthan gaming with a group of friends known as the "Glorygeeks".  We used the Hordes of the Things rules, and later Command and Colors to run battles set in the Runequest world of Glorantha.

I thought it would be a lot of fun to get some of the old models out and try them with a slightly adapted version of my "To the Strongest!" rules. The majority of the figures are from Ian Notter's collection. It proved pretty easy to fit all of the troop types in- the Lunar mages of the Minor Classes became cannon, for example, and the Rhino Riders cataphracts. 

I played the progressive (=evil expansionist) Lunar forces, with their Sable rider allies, fighting against Ian's coalition of reactionary (=freedom loving) Praxian nomads.  My left consisted of the Sable riders; more skirmish-y than their Bison-riding foes, and moreover half of the heavier sables were "lost!" off table, to boot. Below the chief and his shaman look down from the hill upon a rather scary buffalo herd!  All photos are clickable.

My right had a screen of Lunar infantry (the Red Dragoons and Steel Sword Legion) protecting no less than three units of Minor Classes spell casters. You may be able to make out the summoned "Lunes" that will shortly be driving some of the nomads (and Ian) insane.  On either flank of the line are a pair of War Triceratops, with archer crew.  Opposite the mass of crimson soldiery is the lighter Praxian wing; Pol Joni horse-riders (looking very much like native Americans), the Pavis Royal Guard on their zebras, a combined unit of Ostrich riders and the virgin Yelnorans on their unicorns. On the hill are the Baboon Troop and some Rhino riders are in reserve.

I'll briefly describe the game.  In the first turn, the Praxians rode forward and fired a withering volley at the Lunars. The very first arrow...

...seriously wounded the Lunar commander, who retired form the field, calling for a healer. In the first Lunar turn the furious mages launched wave after wave of Lunes against the Praxians, and one unit after another was driven screaming from the battlefield (I was phenomenally lucky).  

    

To cut a long story short the ponderous Bison advance pushed the Sables back, and flanked them; it was looking pretty hairy on my left.  However the Lunars drove all before them and were threatening the Praxian camp, and the nomads decided to "leg it" whilst they still had a chance.  

My shooting and spell casting was incredibly lucky, not least because there is a roughly 1 in 12 chance of the mages (= cannon) driving themselves insane up each time they cast a spell! We had a very enjoyable game, washed down with a delightful bottle of Trivento Argentinian Malbec. After the game we have both started to plot expansions to our Praxian forces, of which more, anon.

As well as being a fantasy game, this was unusual because it was the first time we played with numbered chits, drawn from a cup, instead of playing cards. You may be able to make some out in the photo above. They worked really well and I'll start selling them from the To the Strongest! shop in the next week or so. 

Command & Colors + Glorantha

Mark Sims of Crusader Miniatures was suggesting on TMP that it would be good if we adapted C&C to be useable for fantasy games with our Gloranthan minis; well we already did!  I thought it might be fun to show some of the photos of a game I put on with Greg Privat of Gloarmy, and friends, at Salute in 2007.

We slightly amended the Command and Colors rules, to permit magic and very large creatures, such as the Crimson Bat and GonnOrta the giant.  We represented some of the major spells with effects, such as meteors for the Crater Makers and a pillar of fire for Cragspider.

Greg's impressive Gonn Orta model was converted from an Incredible Hulk toy.  Another impressive model was Greg's Moonboat (just visible on the right in the photo).

The mine was stunning.  It stood around 5 foot high, with a sound track and a lighting system of its very own.  Its only function was as a backdrop to the game.  If anyone wants to make an offer for it, it's in my cellar (in London); drop me a line and I'll forward it to Greg.

Above left, Gonn Orta and the Bat slug it out. 





And who can forget Nick Speller's Zombie whale?






There are many other photos on Greg's site under Articles, and many of the miniatures are featured on Greg's Miniatures Blog.

Gloranthan Army Miniatures Encyclopedia

Mon ami Greg has set up a blog where he's going to store images of figures painted/converted for the world of Glorantha (the world in which Runequest was set).

A lot of images of very nicely painted miniatures will be going up there.   It should be a great Blog!

http://gloranthanarmy.blogspot.com/

Beat-Pot Aelwrin

Beatpot Aelwrin led a slave revolt against the Lunar Empire.  He gained his name from his use of kitchen implements as weapons (his cauldron helmet and a cleaver which you can't unfortunately see in this photograph).  He was later converted to the Lunar Way by Jar-eel the Razoress. 

Conversions from Foundry miniatures.

Gunda the Guilty

Gunda the Gunda the Guilty is the daughter of a valkyrie who was conquered and raped by a cruel philosopher. When she was 12 she claimed by combat her first pack of wolf-pirates. She escaped is a close friend of Harrek (the chap with the polar bear skin).  IIRC her magical spear means that she absorbs the guilt of anyone she kills with it.

Lance and Laser model; Foundry viking companions.  I use her as a hero, in HoTT terms.

Shaker Temple Quakebeasts

These are the quakebeasts of the Earth Shakers, shown yesterday.  When they beat their tails on the ground, the earth trembles!

The riders are converted Tin Soldier Scythians (a nice and somewhat overlooked range), and the beasts themselves are from Schleich.  The bulk of the Tarsh Exile soldiery are provided by my Pictish army, which I'll show another time.

Cannibal High Priestess of the Shaker Cult

Here is the gigantic high priestess of the bloody Maran Gor Shaker Cult travels in her processional wagon, drawn by six blind cave oxen and escorted by her virgin cannibal cultists.

The Shakers make the barren ground around their temple fertile, by ploughing the corpses of victims into the soil.  They defend their realm by summoning massive earthquakes, and eat parts of their captives to gain their magics. 

All the pictures are clickable.

The model is based on http://www.celtic-webs.com/theunspokenword/books/wf.html

I built the wagon from the bitzbox and greenstuff.  The oxen are converted from Front Rank.  The chains are silver (strictly should be copper, the cult metal of earth religions).  The queen herself is very heavily converted from a Reaper Rat King model. 

At one stage, my son Jack dropped the completed but unpainted model; did I swear?  Yes I did!

The cultist miniatures are converted from Foundry, Citadel, Shadowforge and Gripping Beast. They were superbly painted for me by Nick Speller; the colours he chose are especially effective!

Tomorrow- the Shaker quakebeasts.

Harrek the Berserk

Harrek in Gloranthan terms is a superhero; the equivalent of JarEel from the earlier post.  His sentient polar bear-skin cloak is the skin of a god.  I depicted Harrek in the act of bursting through a Lunar Phalanx. 

The mini is Lance and Laser.  He has seen a lot of use; in HoTT terms I used him as a Paladin because of his magic resistance, alongside Prince Argrath and Gunda the Guilty (and supported by 5 Riders and a flyer).  The three hero line up proved very effective and helped me win at Berkeley in'05.

Pimp my Dinosaur

This is Hugg'e Brrr, a Trachodon mage from Dragon Pass.

In Glorantha the different types of dinosaur have different qualities.  The Trachodons, in particular, are highly magical, so this is, surprisingly, a HoTT Magician element.  Hugg'e was thrown together one night whilst I was watching Starsky and Hutch, hence his unusual name and pimp chic.  The miniature is a lightly converted Copplestone dinosaur.

Sir Ethilrist

In the Dragon Pass Game, the dapper and puissant Sir Ethilrist is the leader of the fabled Black Horse Troop, and once looted Hell.  My model has him riding the legendary Hell Hound that he brought back with him. 

This model was very easy to make; my mate Ian found a prepainted Hell Hound, that needed a minimum of work, and Sir Ethilrist is a nice old GW knight from the bits box.  Needs a pennant.

When I get back to Gloranthan gaming, I'll need to model the black horse troop.  These guys ride on demonic (vaguely draconic) steeds, has to be a suitable model out there, somewhere...

Werewolves; Gloranthan style

This unit represents the Telmori tribe of Dragon Pass, bursting from concealment in a forest (the picture is clickable).   There are a full tribe of these, and they are invariably allied to Sartar.  Each Telmori is twinned with a wolf brother, and many Telmori are cursed with the ability to magically transform themselves into wolves.  The magic of the Telmori, like that of the Lunars, is cyclical and they are at their strongest during the full moon.  They only use stone weapons.

The big wolves are lovely old Grenadier critters, and the Telmori themselves mostly Black Tree or Foundry Picts.  The fully-transformed Temlori is an old TSR Ravenloft mini.

I'm really proud of this unit; I am ashamed to say they've only been on the table once, at Salute in '06, and this is the first time I've got around to photographing them.

Storm Walkers

These are sky-clad flying Runepriests and WindLords of Orlanth, and a Sylph, from my Gloranthan armies.

Foundry minis, and a lovely old Citadel elemental.  Click for tattoos!

Looking at these, I find myself thinking how good they would look as a larger unit.  Much of my Glorantha stuff was done as single elements for HoTT, but these days I like units with bigger footprints and may return to expand them at some stage.

Very Very Heavy Cavalry

Dinosaurs ridden by Dragonewts

Triceratops family

Brontosaur with Sartarite crewman

These are a few shots of some of the dinosaurs from my Gloranthan Collection, which last saw action at Salute in 2006 with Greg's Dwarf Mine terrain.  The top two are Schleich, many of whose dinosaurs are very convertable to 28mm gaming (see also my Triceratops on the Glorantha thread).

I keep finding old models I forget I even made; perhaps the War of the Ring rules will help me to get them onto the table, soon...

War of the Rune

These are pictures of a game we played last week, using my Spartans and Assyrians as Lunar Empire surrogates, to clash with Ian Notter's Praxian Sable and Bison clans.  All the pics are clickable.

 Praxians on the left; Lunars force marching forward on the right.

Massed Bison Rider clan

Pesky Sable Clan, with their nasty bows

My one success was managing to catch the stationary Bisons with my Phalanx

We used GW's War of the Ring rules.  I'm cautiously impressed with the old school nature of these; massive units, buckets of dice.  Not rules to be taken especially seriously, but the potential for a fun game there; the huge units looked damn good, too.

The outcome?  I had some success against the Bison clan, but the Sables shot me to pieces during the approach.