Sunday All-Day session at LBWS

Last Sunday was one of our all-dayers at Lincombe Barn Wargames Society. We had a pretty good turnout and there were plenty of games being played. 

They ranged from Peninsular War Sharp Practice, via HoTT, Saga: Age of Magic, Warhammer Ancient Battles and an unknown AWI game to Alien Squad Leader.

We actually played through a short HoTT campaign, with a variety of armies (Barbarians, Pirates, two lots of Orcs) invading an island continent and fighting both against the defenders and one another. This was rather successful and we will probably do something else along these lines again in the future.

If there are any wargamers in the Bristol area, or even a bit further afield who would like to play regularly on a Sunday afternoon, we are located at Lincombe Barn, Overndale Road, Downend, BS16 2RW.

Just another Sunday at Lincombe Barn.......

.............and this week, many of us were practising for next weekend's Hordes Of The Things tournament.

Personally, I welcomed the opportunity for a few practice games, because pretty much the only time I play HoTT is in January each year. This year, I decided to use my Warhammer Fantasy Averland-themed army, which I put together and painted in 2017. Obviously, I won't be using all 48pts, because the tournament uses standard 24pt armies.

Anyway, on with the eye candy. I didn't take many pictures, but I did want to show my army in all its black and yellow glory;

Here are a couple of pictures of Nick's Meerkat army;

And here is another one of my Averland troops against Matt's Dwarves;

Elsewhere, non-HoTT players were enjoying such things as Saga, Seven Days To The Rhine, Alien Squad Leader and 7TV Pulp (which reminds me that I really must stop collecting figures for the game and start painting the ones I already have);

All in all, it was a pretty busy Sunday afternoon, which always seems to be the case when we end up in the smaller room.

How did I fare in my five games of HoTT? Well, probably better than I'll do in the actual tournament. I won three and lost two. I think the blend of troops I've chosen is fundamentally OK, I just need to remember that Warbands destroy Blades and Spears if they win the combat, and that you shouldn't expose your General to the risk of getting flanked and then losing in the subsequent combat .

Not played Saga in a while, until Sunday ...............

................ so here is what happened.

I got totally annihilated.

So, I'll show you the pictures of my Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens, acting as generic Vikings and then just chat about the game a bit.

OK, so what actually happened? Well, the simple answer is that I rolled rubbish dice over and over again. My Saga dice rolls only gave me the rare S-shaped Sol (Sun) rune once in the entire game and when I really needed to roll high in combat I invariably failed to do so, thus losing my Hearthguard and Warriors to little effect. I also failed to realise until it was too late that the brown felt square in the final photo represented an area of Hard Cover, which meant that my bow Thralls had difficulty in killing off any of their opponents, but the Anglo-Danish archers killed off my Shieldmaiden Legendary unit without any difficulties at all. Perhaps charging across the table with gay abandon wasn't a good idea in the first place. They disappeared almost as quickly as my Berserkers usually do.

It didn't help that my opponents were Anglo-Danes, who seem to always defeat my Vikings, even when I use the board to boost my attacks. It seems to be one of those cases where the two boards tend to cancel one another out, leaving the dice pixies to decide who wins.

Still, it was nice to see my Shieldmaidens on the table again, I really love these figures. I think I'll love them even more when I start using them in Saga: AoM, but I need to get my mounted Shieldmaidens painted first.

My Saga: Age of Magic Otherworld warband is complete.

As mentioned in an earlier post, here I decided that most of my Warriors would be made from the North Star plastic Frostgrave Cultists box set. Well, I finally finished them off over the weekend just gone, and here they are;

As you can see, there are two groups of eight, all wearing a red/purple/lavender theme, with hooded faces. They are not all equipped the same, some have spears, others swords, axes and clubs. Some are carrying shields. Most of the shields are from the Cultist box, but there are also a couple of oblong shields from the Ghost Archipelago Snake Men set and also one or two small targets from the Perry plastic late mediaeval European Mercenaries box. I wanted these guys to have an almost uniform appearance but also have a degree of individuality, and I think that I have succeeded in this aim.

So, now they will have to make an appearance on the tabletop, and their first outing will be this coming Sunday at the club.

The saga AoM Otherworld band grows

Having completed all the big hitters and large models for my Saga Age of Magic warband, I am now getting on with the rank and file troops.

I want to keep a daemonic feel to this part of the force, so both the Hearthguard and one group of Warriors (upgraded to Hunters) will be non-human and will keep to the red/purple/bronze/brass colour scheme. The models I am using are the plastic Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago Snake Men by North Star. This box gives you the opportunity to make 20 figures, and as I have made up six Hearthguard and eight Hunters, I have six left to use later, when an opportunity presents itself.

First, here are the Hearthguard, who I have equipped with Heavy Weapons;

Yes, I know one has a spear and shield, rather than a two-handed weapon but that is just for a bit of variety. It is a heavy spear, OK? Here they are from the other side;

Next, here are the Hunters, who cannot have heavy weapons. I have therefore given them a variety of swords, small axes and other blades. Here they are as the full group of eight.

And below, as two groups of four;

It isn't particularly easy to see the difference between the two types, apart from the difference in weaponry, but the Hunters are actually slightly lighter in colour, being painted over a Skeleton Bone undercoat, with the Hearthguards undercoated in black. I used a variety of Windsor and Newton inks here as glazes and washes, to try and bring out colour differences.

I think that these creatures really fit my overall theme nicely and definitely look like the denizens of a different plane of existence, bred for battle by daemonic sorcerors in the service of daemon warlords.

So, the warband is getting closer to completion. All I have to do now is get working on two more groups of eight Warriors, who will be humans, members of a daemon-worshipping cult. These will also be made up from North Star plastics, this time using the Frostgrave Cultist box. That will be a job for next week, I think.

He's big, he's red, he's got horns growing out of his head

Yes, he's another daemon, and he will be a Behemoth in my Saga AoM Otherworld warband. Of course, he could also play a role in Frostgrave and other games too. He is a multi-purpose monster.

He is from the North Star Frostgrave Bestiary, where he is listed as a "Major Demon". I don't think that anyone could realistically argue with that! The actual figure stands around 5.5cm high and is a two part model with a resin body and a metal head. To make him appear even more imposing I decided to base him on a rocky outcrop, so that he can really tower over the opposition's troops.

Here he is from behind;

This rear view really shows off the whirly patterns etched into his hide. I decided that I wanted these to glow with magical power, but not for this to dominate the figure. Therefore some parts of the patterns are glowing gold while others are just showing up as darker patterning.

I decided to keep the red/purple/brass/old gold theme I've used already, but I wanted him to be a lighter shade of red, so I gave his fleshy parts a glaze of Burnt Sienna Windsor and Newton ink after painting.

The base is made from dense blue insulation foam, roughly carved into a rocky shape. I glued on ballast of varying sizes and then gave the whole thing an undercoat with grey paint mixed with PVA glue. This was to ensure that when I spray undercoated the whole thing with black primer the propellant wouldn't eat into the foam.

Once painted, I added a few tufts to the rocks for a more natural effect. Once again, I am really happy with the results. I think that this warband is shaping up nicely.

Here he is again, with another figure for scale;

My female wizards certainly seem to have a pretty casual approach about standing around rocky objects and chanting. In true pantomime style, I feel it is essential to shout out the traditional warning "He's Behind You!"

More Saga: Age of Magic - my Unstable Portal

An Otherworld faction warband takes an Unstable Portal as its Sacred Ground.

I spent some time looking for an actual portal to use, but nothing I saw really excited me much. However, I am a huge fan of H.P Lovecraft, as I have mentioned before, so a portal might just be an eldritch stone with strange otherworldly angles and mystical geometries, so this beautiful piece "The Living Icon" from Fenris Games was exactly what I was looking for. A stone monolith with actual eyes and carved tentacles? I mean, who could resist it? Certainly not me, for sure.

I can thank my lovely partner for this piece, she bought it for me as a present. Also, I can thank Fenris Games for posting it out so quickly, which meant it came in the post on Thursday. Of course, it immediately went straight onto my painting table.

Each face of the Icon is different, so I simply had to photograph each one;

I've added in a female wizard to give an idea of the size of the piece. In this final shot, I think she might be getting a bit too close. What is that book she is holding? Surely not a copy of the accursed Necronomicon? Who knows what will happen when she finishes her incantation? 

This was an absolute joy to paint. It is a single solid piece of resin with no cleaning up required. I undercoated it in Halford's grey primer and when it was dry, gave it a wash all over with diluted Windsor and Newton Indian Ink (black, of course). Then I did a progressive series of dry-brushings in paler and paler grey. Finally, I finished off by painting the eyes, which were finished with a wash of Windsor and Newton Brilliant Green Ink.

The base was a simple and uncluttered case of varying sizes of sand ballast, with some cork rocks, finished with some murky dark green flock, which I also allowed to creep up onto the lower surfaces of the monolith. 

Once it had been spray varnished with matt varnish, I went over the eyes with gloss varnish, using a brush.

To say that I am happy with this piece is an understatement. I absolutely love it. I can see it being used for more that just Saga AoM. It cries out for a Cthulhu game setting, maybe using 7TV's forthcoming Pulp rules? Who knows?

More Daemons .....................

............... for my Otherworld Saga AoM band.

These are going to be my Creatures, clearly bipedal ones. I've had these figures hanging around for absolutely ages. They are from Alternative Armies, I think, and I bought them because I had an idea for a possible Alien Squad Leader army in which I thought they would work. In the end, I changed my mind about the army and they've sat around waiting to be useful. Now, their moment has arrived.

I decided to keep to my red colour scheme for my daemonic entities with these guys, but vary it slightly by adding orange to the palette.

As you can see in this shot, they are basically just giant mouths on legs, which seems pretty daemonic to me and are the kind of thing that are best left in a different dimension, not being summoned by accidentally reading a spell in a hoary old tome found in a dusty and forgotten corner of a library in an old house with a bad reputation.

Here you can see them from above, showing how I brought out the scaly plates on their backs in orange.

I am going to use this gravelly base concept for the whole army and I decided to use this yellow. orange and red foam stuff to suggest some weird alien fungus thing.

The next part of this army project depends on me glueing North Star Snakemen and Cultists together, so I'll have to get on with that next week, as I have some other odds and ends to finish off first.

Demons .........................

...........or maybe Daemons.

I suppose it all depends on how you prefer to spell it. Personally, I prefer the latter spelling. Anyway, with the arrival of Saga: Age of Magic, I suddenly have a need for daemonic entities from a parallel universe, because the faction that I want to play is the Otherworld one. I really like the idea of entities from another dimension emerging from a portal into the world of mortals (which includes goblins, orcs, dwarves, elves and whatever else takes your fancy, including the no-longer living, recently-buried and not-exactly dead) to wreak death, destruction and evil designs upon the locals.

It took me a while to work out exactly what I wanted the force to look like, but I liked the idea of there being a human component, obviously members of a Cult dedicated to the worship of dark deities who need willing acolytes to open portals through which they can gain access to entry no normal space and time. Yes, I've been a huge fan of the works of H.P Lovecraft since my teens.

So, I need cult members to act as footsoldiers, lesser daemons, dread creatures, a monster, a sorcerer and a daemonic warlord.

I looked at a lot of possibilities, but kept on coming back to the Frostgrave plastic cultists box set, mainly on the grounds of cost, but also because they look really good. I love the hooded figures in their tattered robes, just the thing for arcane summoning rituals on a blasted heath somewhere, no doubt accompanied by the eerie cries of whippoorwills.

I've also decided that the Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago plastic Snakemen would work really well as lesser daemon troops, especially as I want to take a unit of Warriors upgraded to Hunters. Snakemen with shields or with heavy weapons would also make good Hearthguard.

While looking through the available monsters in the Frostgrave Bestiary on the North Star website I found a couple of figures I really liked and I bought them, together with the already-mentioned plastic box sets.

While working on my Bad Squiddo Dwarf Warrior, I also got working on a couple of major figures for my Daemonic Otherword warband.

First, the Warlord.

I did consider using him as a Behemoth (one of the Monster classes) but he isn't really big enough for that, but I reckon that he looks like a pretty good Warlord, and that sword definitely qualifies as a Heavy Weapon. He's clearly got the muscles to wave it about in a menacing manner, as his back shows. He's absolutely ripped;

The other creature that took my fancy was the Ghost Archipelago Hemata, a kind of Snakeman with four arms and a snake body instead of legs.

Now, he (or maybe she, it isn't easy to tell, really) could quite easily be the Warlord, but I also need a Sorcerer and I've decided that a snake daemon sorcerer would fit in well with the Snakemen component of the army, so this is going to be my warband's Magic user. Here is the rear view.

I am going to stick with a red-based colour palette for the daemonic part of the force, with the cultists in grey robes with some red bits to tie it all together. 

My warband is going to have a fairly standard composition;

Warlord

Sorcerer

6 Hearthguard

1 Behemoth

3 Creatures

2 groups of 8 Warriors

1 group of Hunters

It is the same line-up as the Black Dwarves of Neggaruth warband in the rulebook in terms of groups and individuals.

I have ideas for the creatures and the behemoth, which will be revealed in due course.

I'll also be able to use both of these in games of Frostgrave too, so it is a win-win for me.