The saga of Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson

 

Hi folks. It's been quiet here as I have been up to my eyeballs in various things. I did manage to take some time out a couple of weekends ago for a fun trip to Cumbria to stay at the awesome Moorforge Viking Settlement. I then didn't write this write-up as Blogger was messing the photo order about and I couldn't be doing with that. But I find myself with half an hour to kill so here goes...

This is the big longhouse at Moorforge, where we were playing a pair of linked Norse-themed games of WFB3 to celebrate Steve's birthday. In the distance and below you can see the half longhouse where we were sleeping. The building to the left of it in the photo below is a reproduction Icelandic forge. Very cool.

As you can see, it was pretty dark, smoky and on the chilly side (though we dodged the snow by a couple of days). As a result my photos aren't the best, but are atmospheric at least.

After a night of moderate snoring, flatulence and excursions across the field to the loo we awoke fresh and ready for gaming. Well, ready for Steve's immense breakfast anyhow! If anyone knows how to cater for a wargaming crowd it is Steve!

The Saturday morning game was a small skirmish/roleplay-type affair with Norse champions and their retinues trying to win the support of their countrymen and stake a claim to kingship. In Steve's words-

The remote kingdom of Arsenduvnaewar is unfortunately also a troubled one. The passing of King Skagi the Grimacer has left no clear heir to the throne amongst his various bickering descendants, legitimate and illegitimate both. So tangled is the usual web of revenge, madness, suicide, betrayal, murder, blood oaths, fratricide, cannibalism, incest and intrigue that often occurs in situations like this, that a particularly vicious feud has erupted and the various factions of the Arsendirs are on the brink of outright civil war. Matters are not helped by the threat of neighbouring clans maneuvering to muscle in and take advantage of the power vacuum - the crows have started circling even before the carrion litters the battlefield…

Then one fateful and stormy night, the great Longhouse of Faenshølet, with its empty throne and divided court, was visited by a most ominous and unwelcome guest. The clamour of drunken squabbling and brawling was soon cut short by the sonorous voice of a hooded stranger, who had crept so silently into their midst. Going only by the name of Dáinn, the deathly and hunched figure intoned the most grave of ultimatums - should no suitable champion step forth to unite the kingdom, he would claim the throne and lay waste to all with his legion of Draugr. None dared raise a hand against the necromancer and his exit left the hall cold and silent as a tomb.

This new threat, once the hangovers and sore heads were suitably nursed, had the effect of focussing and uniting the Arsendirs. Potential champions, with and without legitimate claims to the throne, began to step forward and supporters coalesced around them. The Elders, thankful of a possible way out of the bitter feuding, also saw the opportunity for some serious housecleaning in the kingdom. The people of Arsenduvnaewar had long been plagued by all manner of creatures and no one had ever really done anything about it - too strong was their love of strong liquor and infighting.

A decree went out that any champion who could perform a sufficient number of heroic deeds to clear the kingdom of its endemic Trolls, Giants, Dragons and worse, would be crowned the new King. Of course the new King’s first job would be to deal with the Necromancer, Dáinn, but that was glossed over as much as possible so as not to put anyone off…

This was to be the first outing for the Bronze Age Miniatures I picked up from Fenris and the Foundry Norse I got at BOYL this year. Despite starting painting them in September I only just managed to finish them the weekend before and even then it was a bit rushed. I have in mind that these are the anti-Slaine forces to my Horned God themed barbarians, so went for full face helms and armour wherever possible. The big chap matches the Foundry Horned God figure for size and I picked up a Bronze Age dwarf to be the anti-Ukko. Obviously this guy is a complete gentleman. I called my hero Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson after encountering face to many Thor-related names in the Scandinavian sagas I have been reading this year.

My band did not fare well in the first game. Their initial encounter with some dryads in the forest left them depleted and they had to seek aid from a Fimir witch and her reanimating cauldron. This appears to have further damned the warriors who went on to lose their champion to a Jabberwock, pick entirely the wrong giant to try and befriend then fail completely to even give themselves voluntarily to a trio of hungry trolls. By far the lowest saga points of any warband present I am proud to say. But it did not end there! Oh no...

For the second game all the would-be kings united under the leadership of Chris/Erny who had pulled off a mighty haul of saga points in the first game. At least, for the moment we were united. Against us was Steve's foul necromancer with his boggy allies (run by Andrew). This would be an opportunity to get all 600 points of Norse on the table and give those undead a good kicking.

I set up in the trees on the right flank of the undead, ready to send my berzerkers in. Now, there was a bit of confusion over the berzerkers in this game... that being due to my not spotting the misprint of the berzerker profile in the WD army list. Despite it's being pretty obvious. Thus both my forces and Dave's benefited from 3, yes 3, attacks per model. Oops.

With a bone giant, a massive unit of cavalry and several nearby units of skeletons to run on into I was pretty confident by berzerkers would be bogged down rather than looking for targets. Oh no, not the case! 

Avoiding the giant initially I charged around the back to deal with a couple of screaming skull catapults. I figured I couldn't do much to the giant and wanted to be of some use before I inevitably got charged by it at the start of the undead turn. With the help of Brunhild and her shield bearers, however, the giant was soon dispatched. With Dave's berzerkers collapsing the skeleton horsemen (unlucky instability roll) and the skeleton archers just out of charge range my wild ladies began scouting around for another target... and my regular troops hadn't quite run far enough to avoid their gaze!

Luckily an intervention saved the regulars. We all had secret event cards to play when we liked. One of these allowed a rival candidate king to assume control of half a unit. By playing this Dave was able to turn the wild ladies' furious charge into a furious row as half the shield maidens turned on the other. Much slapping and hair-pulling ensued as all other troops got out of the area, fast!

Elsewhere on the table a rebellion had unseated the king. As the undead horde fell apart (literally) the rivals began to stake their own claims. Using my own event card I was able to teleport Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson into the fray just as Alex's chaos champion reached her abnormally long and sucker-tipped fingers to grasp the crown.

A duel ensued, but the two combatants were clearly evenly-matched. In the end an alliance was proposed, solidified by the marriage of half-giant and freakish aberration of chaos. Our children will no doubt be beautiful. A surprising end for Saturday's underdog!

 

The saga of Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson

Shadowy deep woods

 

Sorry it's been a long while. I have been working on a lot of things for Oakbound of late, the first of which is something rather pretty.

Those familiar with The Woods in its previous iterations will know it has a strong RPG leaning. The background actually began as an entirely separate roleplay game which failed to materialise. I love the RPG elements of Warhammer 1st and 2ns edition, Rogue Trader, Confrontation and Inquisitor. The shortcomings of skirmish games like Mordheim, Necromunda, Frostgrave etc. are, to my mind, that they set out on a scale which lends itself to narrative roleplaying but limit players to combat actions. The big intention with The Woods ruleset was not to do that. Interaction in other ways should be just as core to the game, in fact more so, than fighting. The current Woods rulebook has a section entirely for roleplay and the first supplement, Barrow Ring Burning, was a roleplay campaign. BUT...

There is definitely a gulf between most roleplayers and most wargamers. Oldhammer seems a decent bridge (for reasons I have touched on above) but for the most part never the twain shall meet. I therefore decided last year to strip out the RPG rules and expand them into an entirely standalone system. I have been doing the same with the Skirmish rules with the help of the very capable rulester Roderick Hamilton. Developing the two separately but consecutively has allowed them to grow into their own distinct, uncompromising entities but have a shared heritage and set of principles. They feel like the same world, they can still be played alongside one another with the same statlines etc. 

Deepwood Shadows, as the RPG is titled, is intended to run as unbroken narration. No dice roles, of course. This does mean a bit of work for the GM (or Fateweaver), cross referencing character stats with a difficulties chart as the players elaborate on their attempted actions. It's well worth it though as the result is an act of communal storytelling that is quite wondrously immersive. Combat and some semi-random events are controlled by the drawing of runestones from a 'wyrdbolg' (fate bag). The stones in the bag can be manipulated to make it more or less likely to draw a particular result. The runes also have a flexibility of interpretation allowing them to act as story prompts rather than definitive outcomes.

I'm also very excited to be doing card screens, player dashboards, character sheet pads and token sets for the game. These elements were so far out of budget a couple of years ago but thanks to Thunder and a couple of years of advent calendars we can finally invest in beautiful play aids! Now I just have to work out how to store them... The books (three of them!) also contain a load of all-new art from Christian Schwager, Tony Hough and Jimm Odell. Sumptuous pen and ink illustrations in the best tradition of game book art. Christian has done a stonking cover as well, ably showing the perils lurking in the shadows of the deep wood.

The game will be launching at Dragonmeet this year and in the Oakbound store before Christmas.

Shadowy deep woods

The Mighty Dark Winged Avenger

Just over a week ago at BOYL I was honoured to have my painting submission selected for the top of the 'Judges' Choice' category (which became the diorama category due to the number of diorama entries this year). I put something in the case every year just to show willing, but it's been 10 years since I last placed with anything so it was a nice treat to have this selected.

The vignette is my homage to the late great Bryan Ansell who we lost last year and whose commemorative BOYL miniature takes centre stage in the composition. I wanted the piece to be about the continuing legacy that Bryan put in place so he stands in the mid-ground and the road down from the citadel continues beyond him where others have taken up his banner and helm to carry forwards.

The background of the scene is, of course, a tribute to the John Blanche Hrothyogg's Tower painting which is shown on the banner. I know this isn't actually the Blanche painting which inspired the Citadel castle logo (as featured on the banner top, originally the staff from Bryan's left hand) but the similarities are there and I think it's a better picture. The model castle actually came from a Christmas cracker many years ago, I modified it a bit to better match the painting. The adventurer on his way up is a 15mm figure I got in a bulk lot sometime ago.

Having removed the staff from Bryan's hand I replaced it with a sculpted version of the 3rd edition Warhammer logo. Having made a full-size one for Diane a couple of years ago it seemed fitting to make a miniature one too. His right hand holds a small six-sided die, a nod to Bryan's insistence that GW's wargames should use the kind of dice that people would already have in their homes from Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders etc. The judge apparently remarked that it was a sign of a good sculptor to be able to pull off a perfectly square, tiny dice with evenly spaced holes. I did admit to Garth when he told me that it's a stock 5mm die! I also added wings to tie in with the 'Dark-Winged' title from the Warhammer Armies book and resculpted parts of the cloak. The colour scheme of the three chaos warriors is taken from the Chaos section of the Armies book. The small shield should really be on the middle level, it's a bit too small to scale well with the foreground figures.

The chaos warriors in the front work well to force the perspective as they're chunkier than the Bryan tribute sculpt. The sculpted heads were my attempt to honour Diane and Marcus as the bearers of the legacy, but how well the likeness comes across (and how flattering it isn't) I am not sure, so maybe we just say it's a pair of gamers bringing the helm and banner to the next generation.

The Mighty Dark Winged Avenger

The Big Orange Book Battle

BOYL this year was a thing of highs and lows for me. The absence of dear friends made it an odd experience, but also new friends were made and a project I had long wanted to pull off finally happened thanks to the work of Paul Golgfag Douglas, Tim Ewin, Steve Thantsants Beales, Mike Broadsword McGuinness and Brother Meredith. These fine folks gathered all the necessary figures to field the mighty armies shown on the Duke's table in the 3rd edition Warhammer rulebook. Including no fewer than three Fighting Fantasy ogres! I think you'll agree it's a pretty good approximation.

Note how Tim got the size of his dwarf banner spot on. Mine was a tad puny by comparison!

If, like me, you have ever wondered what the view was like from other angles, here goes!

Now all that remained was to fight the battle and see what happened! 

The mighty elven war chariot rumbles down thr far flank...

...directly towards a band of rowdy snotlings. 

The goblins' chariot also moves up, but waits for a pack of rabid chaos hounds to cross the road in front.

On the near flank the dark elves prepare to meet the zoat and bearmen whilst the elf dragon lines up for a swooping attack upon them.

Stupid trolls bog down the balrog (gargoyle) advance. The skeleton horde prepares for its terrifying charge across the defenders' line.

At the gates of La Maisontal the black orcs try to force entry through the breach but are held back by furied Taalite cultists.

Hoping to clear the way for a grand chariot assault, the boars attempt to mow down the puny snots. The green meanies prove a stubborn barrier.

Skaven do what skaven do, fleeing from the charging giant. The giant then does what giants do- attempts to jump onto the unit and falls on his arse!

Sneaky orcses attempt to find a side way into the abbey, scaling to the high level and dropping through open windows into the courtyard.

Bagrian blasts the black orcs and dragon ogre into oblivion with a vortex of chaos. The abbot has been playing with his black arc again I see! Terrified orcs abandon their flanking attack and run for the hills, but the remaining black orcs stand firm at the gates.

Having incinerated the war wyvern in a fell charge, the dragon swoops upon the giant, chasing it from the board. The long wheel round begins!

In a similar swoop attack the eagle strafes the dadark elves, then the bearmen and zoat finish the job.

Wood elves look on, bereft of a foe, whilst on the far side of the cottage their kin are torn into by the pack of chaos hounds.

The advancing wildcats trigger a fanatic release. The whirling maniacs roll straight over the snotlings, flinging them left and right but doing little actual damage. Crushing the boars and their handler they cannon on into the chariot, smashing it to kindling!

The undead advance clears the stakes, suffering minimal damage and scaring away the militia and a whole unit of ogres. Despite losses on the near and far flanks the evil forces look to be obliterating the centre.

The bearman/zoat team continues its unstoppable rampage, wiping out ranks of Harboth's black mountain boys and routing the unit. The black orcs stand firm but the chaos hounds turn tail and flee! Their behinds are peppered by arrows from the relieved elves.

The elven general refrains from pursuing Harboth's fleeing orcs and redirects his attention at the hemmed-in chariot, slaying one of the wolves.

A change in the fortunes of the undead. Not only do the dwarfs refuse to flee, they counter charge through the defences, pushing the skeletons back. Unable to manoeuvre for a flank attack the minotaurs are left ineffectively misaligned and fumble their assault. The treeman plants itself in the path of the death riders and its impervious limbs crush the bones of rank after rank of the skeletal riders.

The orcs which fled from La Maisontaal recover just in time to mount a flank charge on the frenzied Taalites, but the raving monks are holding their own!

As the trolls continue to stand around stupidly the balrogs push past to engage the giant as it struggles to its feet. Unable to hurt the daemons with his club he opts to grab one and fling it into the others, causing a smattering of fiery damage. Enough to make them test instability and vanish in a puff of smoke!

Cut off by the river, the hounds rally just in time. They ready themselves for another savage charge.

Harboth and co manage to escape their pursuers, but continue to flee for their lives.

A volley of arrows from the elves destroys the chariot crew, causing the hounds to break again, this time plunging to their deaths into the flowing waters. The black orcs finally get boots on the bridge, but fail to make it to the classic image.

Having completed its long turn, the dragon returns, torching the skeletons in its path. Seeing this, the fleeing men at arms just about pull themselves together and get their arrows notched to deal with any survivors.

Stalwart dwarves overpower the dwindling undead horde.

Surrounded by unbreakable stunties on all sides, the remaining core of the evil army crumbles.

 Thrud queues for the lavatory.

That was a lot of fun. At the start we thought the forces of good would be hard-pressed to survive, and initially it seemed that might be the case. However the game swung around such a lot with each turn it was really hard to call. In the end though the solid core of stubborn dwarves, enraged clerics and terrible bearmen won the day. The forces of evil lost their wyvern early on, but the loop the dragon had to take to get back in the game balanced that out. The elven chariot was ignominiously but gloriously obliterated by fanatics, whilst its evil counterpart was so stuck behind slow-moving black orc rabble it couldn't get anywhere.

Really enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone who contributed models, scenery and time to playing it. Special thanks to Tim for taking the terrain boards home and freeing up studio space for me! The grand plan was to take reproductions of all the photos in the book whilst it was set up... but of course time ran away with us and we didn't manage, never mind eh?

The Big Orange Book Battle