The Dwarfs of Whatever

So despite my opinions on the Oathmark Dwarfs in my previous blogpost I soldiered on and assembled the whole box of figures. The problem was I had no clue what rules I'm going to use with these figures. Now the actual rules doesn't matter as much as the army lists for said ruleset which dictates how many figures you need in a unit and how many figures you can have a maximum of.

My top contenders for the rulesets are, in alphabetical order:

• Dragon Rampant
• Dux Britanniarum (with the unofficial Dux Arda mod).
• Oathmarks
• Warlords of Erehwon

I'm actually not counting Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game because I think they sort of jumped the gun with the Hobbit movie rules, and I have no interest in forking out £35 for the new rulebook to see if they have changed anything, and then £35 for the army book of each army I want to play. (I'm not criticising their business model but I already buy the big expensive books for 40k so I'm thinking enough is enough.)

I arranged the figures into units while assembling them.

Oathmark Dwarves, a review and some thoughts.

As a long time dwarf afficionado -- the fantasy literature kind of dwarf -- I was very curious when Northstar brought out a set of plastic dwarves. The set is in the same vein as their Frostgrave plastics, but geared towards unit building rather than skirmish warband. Thus it contains a whopping 30 miniatures (compared to the 20 in a Frostgrave box) but with more limited equipment options.

The box art. Nice innit?

Apparently the nice Mr McCullough of Frostgrave fame is writing a set of fantasy battle rules for Osprey, due out later this year, but the figures were released in 2018 already. There are also goblins, elves and human sets out already.

A mousterious package arrives...

So this package landed on my doorstep. Or in my mailbox, but you get the meaning.

Nice little Thank you sticker inside the lid, and lots of bubble wrap! Weeee!

It turned out to be that Oathsworn Burrows and Badgers kickstarter I backed. Oathsworn did a royal screw-up and delivered all the stuff one month before the planned completion date. Those guys must be amateurs. (Real pros like Flying Frog Production let their customers wait more than three years for their stuff.)

But what's inside?

All your base are belong to... swine?

I was not much impressed by the scenic bases GW had released before christmas, but the hero bases recently released piqued my interest. As my FLGS was out of the 40k one I bought the Fantasy version to review.

(Note: the sprues are really the same size, some sort of trickery with the photographs have ensued.)

The first sprue. Some interesting stuff, lots of skulls.

Second sprue. The giant sarcophagus lid on the right was what drew my eye originally.

Fun with magnets!

I'm becoming more and more fond of converting stuff with magnets. It's partly because I can't make my mind up about the various options available, and with magnets you can swap around parts between games.

I do realise this increases the list or army building time since if I just build stuff to a fixed specification I can't change my force between games that much. On the other hand my games are few and far between so I usually don't remember how my figures are kitted out, this way I can do the army list first and then change the figures to suit.

October is... where the bleep did October go???

Previous years, October has been Orktober... or Tanktober... and I've seen some people this year that has treated October as Dreadtober. For me October is Gonetober.

Not as in "I'm gone" or "Where have all my hobby time gone?", but as in "Dang October is gone before I figured out what October is this year". You could say that October became Culttober since the Genestealer Cults were released at the end of September and I spent the beginning of October building hybrids...

A couple of old metal Acolytes that have borrowed arms from their DW:OK brethren.

I had aquired an extra set of Deathwatch Overkill genestealers. While gorgeous they have very repetetive poses and equipment. However I bought one of each hybrid box that were released with the codex and all the extra options in them allowed me to convert the extra set of DW:OK figures.

Lots of loot! Part one: The Dice Bag Lady delivers!

At the beginning of the summer Koen put in an order from the Dice Bag Lady for some of her female soviet figures, and I joined in to save postage. Because of reasons (life, the universe and everything) we didn't manage a hand-over until just recently. 

Anyway, not wanting to start a full-blown Soviet force, I bought a pack of tank riders and a sniper team. Since I have an Italeri Sherman that is the wrong version for my brits I'm thinking of painting it up as soviet and making a diorama out of it.

DiceBagLady soviet female tank riders.

Kneeling Sniper team.

A first foray into Open Combat.

Hi gang.

Our small but intrepid gaming group decided to try out a summer campaign of Open Combat. All very short and sweet, five players each meeting the others twice. So everyone plays eight games and as it should be able to get two games in one session we can hopefully bring the campaign to a successful end.

Open Combat is a generic "Sword and Shield" skirmish ruleset with built in campaign rules, published by Second Thunder. It has lived a while in PDF form but was released as a hardback rulebook recently following a very successful kickstarter. When I say "Sword and Shield" it's because while it can be used for fantasy figures it doesn't have any special rules for those typical fantasy staples like short and burly dwarves, firebreathing dragons and magic wielding spellcasters. The system caters for any figures though and since you decide the stats of your figures yourself you can use fantasy figures, but to call it a fantasy system is a bit much. Simply put it's an excellent and open combat game -- hence the name.

The Rulebook. At least a picture of it from the Second Thunder webstore.

When creating your warband you simply look at your miniatures and decide their stats -- as long as you use the same number of Renown (or points) as your opponent the game will be balanced. There are five stats: Speed, Attack, Defence, Fortitude (hit points) and Mind. Each point in each stat costs one Renown. If you want some equipment like a sword or bow that costs one Renown each too. Skills like Intimidate or Shield Bash also costs a Renown. If your model has armour and you want to reflect that simply increase Defence. It's deceptively simple but tactically very clever. You can simulate spells by giving your magic user ranged weapons for magic missile type spells and relevant skills for boost or mind attack spells -- things like Leap, Raise Skeletons or Heal are missing though.

The Voluptuous Vixens from the Village of Voluptuous Vixens. Yes the name is a lure to attract easy prey.

One problem with a totally free environment is that my view of how tough or effective different figures are can differ from my opponent's which causes a slight disconnect -- I might think that an Attack value of 5 is average and give that to my support figures while my opponent thinks that 5 is very high and gives it to his main fighter figure -- the game still works and will be balanced since my opponent will have more figures than me, but seeing the club-armed peasant hold his own against a knight will feel a bit strange perhaps. With that in mind the rulebook does contain a lot of sample characteristics and sample warbands with explanations about their design philosophy.

Kickstarter loot! W00t!

The thing with kickstarters is that when they arrive you hardly remember what you ordered or even what kickstarter you backed! I do know some big campaigns have longer production times and some kickstarters get delayed, but it's starting to get to the point where every little scrap you get feels like a victory! I'm looking at you, Shadows of Brimstone with your "Wave 1.5 shipping" shenanigans.

It's almost like opening christmas presents, except you know it's not socks.

Well, a package slip arrived a couple of days a go but I didn't have time to pick up the parcel until saturday. So, what is in it?

Heroines in sensible shoes size comparison

Lasgunpacker asked to see comparison shots so I grabbed some figures I had lying about. No Age of Sigmar stuff though... I've put the Heroines on suitable bases to get them to stand on the same level as the other figures, some of which have integral bases, some have slottabases and some have both.

First the Warrior heroine next to a Frostgrave cultist, then a GW drunken dwarf and the Dwarf heroine, last the Elf Heroine next to a Frostgrave soldier. 

As you can see the Oathsworn figures are of a similar size but more realistically proportioned.

I also found this Hasslefree figure and couldn't resist putting him with the Soldier's Wife from Warlord Games and the freebie Villager.

"How can I get out of this!"

Apologies for the murky pictures!

Happy Gaming!

Heroines in Sensible Shoes review

Ok, so this is the second kickstarter from Oathsworn I pledged to, and boy do they not know how to run a kickstarter.

• They included an extra figure and a resin Dragon's nest as a "Thank You" to the backers -- not a stretch goal, but just as extras. Ok, functionally it's the same as a stretch goal but they didn't have to include them since they never said "Everyone gets extra stuff when we reach so and so much money."
• Despite the extra stuff included I recieved my pledge in time. Unacceptable. The first time they were a month late, even that was ridiculous. It's simply not how Kickstarters are done.
• The figures looked exactly like the pictures we were shown during the kickstarter. No change of design, no change of material. Surprise!
• Clear communications during the casting and sending out processes so everyone knew what was going on.

I'm joking of course, but it's refreshing to see a company using Kickstarter as it was originally intended and then actually delivering what was promised and on time.

For those of you who don't know what it's all about the figures are depicting female adventurers wearing sensible and practical adventuring gear. No chainmail bikinis, no high heeled boots, no slashed dresses revealing shapely thighs... just what women would wear if they had to go explore a dungeon and fight monsters. I don't want to make this into a feminist debate, but the thing is that these figures are needed. Have you ever roleplayed with a bunch of your male friends and suddenly a girl wants to join? Yay, you think! Awesome! But the only female figures you have are a half-naked barbarian and an evil elf sorcess with high heels striking that Angelina Jolie at the Oscars 2012 pose?

Yes that pose.

Sure, I like a bit of eye-candy. But there has to be ordinary figures too. And there are, they are coming, but those cheese-cake pin-up models are still the majority of female figures out there. So the Oathsworn Heroines in Sensible Shoes kickstarter was very welcome and fills a niche that's not yet full. Which about a 1000 backers also thought, as they backed the project. Compare that to their earlier kickstarters which gathered the interests of about 300 backers at most -- 207 for the Dwarf Brewers that I backed previously.

Enough soap-boxing, on to the miniatures.

Life... and lots of things...

Hi gang.

First I'd like to apologize for my absence, it's been a long while since I wrote anything. This is because my personal life is going through some changes, and therefore my hobby time has been quite limited. When I have had some spare time I have used it for hobbying and to a some extent gaming, not writing on the blog.  Here, have a kitten as compensation.

Anyhoo, I'm still buying stuff in hope of better times to come. Here's what I have been up to, in no particular order.

Snow White and the other eight dwarfs

I hope I don't get sued by Disney over this one :-)

The end of the year is fast approaching and it's time to finish those nearly completed figures and get them up on the blog for the end of the year tally. First up is eight dwarfs from Avatars of War to go with the first eight I painted a while ago.

Insanely hairy vertically challenged homicidal hammer wielders

Thaw of the Liche Lord unboxing

I got a package from the Dice Bag Lady today which included my Thaw of the Liche Lord loot. It's not as much of an unboxing as it's not a box, it's a book, but it came in a box. You get the idea. More interesting perhaps is that I'm also taking a look at the cultists also released.

Enjoy!

Feeling Frosty

I suppose none of you lot has missed this new game called Frostgrave? Well, if you have it came out about a half a year ago from Northstar Military Figures in collaboration with Osprey.

The cover of the rulebook, (c) Osprey Games 2015

Frostgrave is set in an ancient city which was buried in a magical blizzard hundreds of years ago. The city has begun to thaw and you play a Wizard venturing inside the city in search of magical secrets and treasures. You compose a band of followers to accompany you and your apprentice into the city, where you clash with other wizards and the magical inhabitants and monsters already present in the city.

Trollololol :-)

Well, while thinking about Kings of War, reading the rulebook and fiddling with an online army generator, I remembered the goblins from the old Battle for Skull Pass box I bought in oh, 2006 or something... If I remembered correctly there would be a fair amount of gobboes in there. A quick google confirmed that yes indeed, there were over 60 goblins, ten spider riders and a troll in the box.

Lots of goodies back then. Sure, everything was monopose, but it was still a decent set of figures.

While the dwarf units are a bit uneven in size, the goblin units are the exact size of Kings of War Regiments. Even the picture on the back of the box puts all the heroes out by themselves like Kings of War instead of inside the units. It didn't take long to enter the units into the army builder and here's what I got:

• Sharpsticks (Goblin spears)
  Regiment(20) - 95 pts
  Regiment(20) - 95 pts
• Spitters (Goblin bows)
  Regiment(20) - 85 pts
• Fleabag Riders (spider riders)
  Troop(5) - 95 pts
  Troop(5) - 95 pts
• King (Goblin Big Boss) - 90 pts
• Wiz (Goblin Shaman) - 45 pts
• Troll Bruiser - 125 pts

A total of 725 points if I split the riders into two troops, which coincidentally is almost the recommended starting points in the KoW rulebook. Just add 25 points of magic items and I'm there.

Gearing up for Kings of War

Well, after getting the finger from GW in the form of their Age of Shitmar ruleset I have been thinking of other rules to try out. Open Combat seems like a good and well produced skirmish set, but I like to maneuver blocks of troops around as well. Fantasy mods of Saga or Hail Caesar has come to mind, but as I don't play very often I don't want to have to tinker and house rule a lot. I downloaded the free Kings of War rules and they seemed to be what I wanted. Some novel ideas - to me at least - like no figure removal enticed me further and I bought the gamers edition of the rule book. This is without all the background of the hardback book but with complete army lists compared to the free rules.

A unit of Dwarf Shieldbreakers for Kings of War. Why do leaders have to stand in that come at me bro" pose.

I have been playing Dwarfs since Warhammer 3rd edition but Games Workshop essentially killed off my interest in them with their latest army book and figures. Too silly for my taste. I still don't like Mantics bucket-headed dwarfs, but the GW figures are worse IMO. Getting blasted by magic in every game without any effective countermeasures also helped, so I turned to Chaos. But my love for short, hairy things didn't end there, and I continued to buy Dwarf figures from other manufacturers like Avatars of War instead.

So long and thanks for all the fish - being a rant of epic length.

(Disclaimer: Some of the pictures on this page is (c) Games Workshop and is used without permission for discussion purposes only. No challenge of copyright is intended.)

I guess it hasn't escaped anybody that Games Workshop are doing a new version of Warhammer. Like Microsoft they have dropped the numbering system (except that Microsoft is counting again, just not correctly) and gone for a brand name instead. Sort of like Ikea.

Funny cause it's true.

But instead of Warhammer Bönkfjordnurpur it's called Warhammer Age of Sigmar and is a big change from the previous version. (If you haven't heard about it, go check it out, the link is above.) Now it has divided the internet gaming community in two halfs, each about as rabid as the other. It's hard to say which group is the largest though, and I don't doubt that GW will sell tons of boxes and call AoS a success.

The new Logo.

First, I understand why GW is doing this. I'm not opposed to change, I'm just opposed to stupidness. And change for change's sake. I think GW are grasping after straws. They need to reinvent themselves. The Hobbit license has failed so miserably that GW didn't even put out a boxed game for the third movie and hardly any models. Most of GW's sales are related to either the hobby in general (paints, etc) or Warhammer 40k. So something needed to be done with Warhammer Fantasy.

Hastur, Hastur, Halteres...

It was birthday around two weeks ago, and those of my co-workers that share my miniature addiction bought me a present! Oh goody!

Mmmm... a box of luuurv.

I've always been fond of Nurgle and I had been oogling the new Nurgle Plague Drones for some time, which my co-workers noticed. So they bought me a box of mutated bloated giant flies carrying Plaguebearers on their back. Nice.

Avatars of War's Corruptors of Apocalypse

What's in a name? that which we call Nurgle
By any other name would smell as sickly sweet;

(Apologies to the bard for paraphrasing the famous quote from Romeo and Juliet)

A plague on both your houses!

Anyone who's into Warhammer would recognise these figures for they really are, Chaos Warriors, or Chosen of Nurgle to be more precis. Even though Avatars of War claim to have their own game I doubt anyone is using these figures for anything else than Warhammer. A quick look on their page also reveals that they have character figures for War (Khorne), Pestilence (Nurgle) and Torment (Slaanesh). They also have some Marauder characters and a lot of Dwarf, Elf, Daemon, Undead, Orc and Human characters.