The perils of adventuring in the Badlands

Here's another little diorama I shot using my Renedra ruins;

I think that all the minis here were from North Star, including the plastic Ghouls and Zombies who are part of the Frostgrave "Undead Encounters" set of originally Mantic figures. The Grey Wizard is a Copplestone figure, the Elf warrior an Oathmark one and the rest are all Frostgrave minis. The evil Necromancer is a resin cast that was the subject of a North Star painting competition a couple of years ago (I took part, but didn't win).

Clearly, the Necromancer is a powerful spellcaster, seeing as he is able to unleash his foul underlings in daylight. Let's hope that the mysterious Grey Wizard has a few useful spells up his voluminous sleeve.

The camera and other details are the same as in my previous diorama post, in case you are interested.

I shot a few more similar scenes that I'll post every now and again.
 

Bad Squiddo Undead Things

Well, I've been busy today! I was up before 7 a.m because the dogs were being loud and excitable and I've been at home all day waiting for a parcel delivery, so I thought I'd paint some things that have been lying around for ages. 

All four are Bad Squiddo 28mm figures, and I have to say that they are terrific figures to paint.

First, there are two renaissance skeletons; a Landsknecht Doppelsöldner and a fine gentlewoman, maybe a countess or duchess.

I really love these. They are so animated and full of character.

I decided to try and get a few hints of rust on the Landsknecht's armour and double-handed sword and I think that it has worked pretty well.

Both figures were undercoated in black and given a top-down zenithal blast with Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray. I then used a combination of paints and drawing inks to build up the colours. I am really happy with the end results.

The other two figures are Mummies.

These were given the same black undercoat and skeleton bone zenithal treatment and I then built up the finished effects with dry-brushing and dark brown drawing ink. They were pretty quick to complete but I think that they will work well on the table.

These will be good for all sorts of horror and pulp games, as well as 7TV Fantasy and Pulp. I cannot recommend these figures highly enough. They are excellent.

Anyway, even after all the painting, basing, spray varnishing and photography, my parcel still hasn't arrived.

Bah!

 

7TV Fantasy - some evil characters take the stage

Having completed a few characters who we can broadly think of as "good", here are some of the villains of the series, in the form of two evil sorcerers and some skeleton warriors raised from their graves.

First, the two sorcerers;

On the left is Tartaro the Necromancer, once a living human being and now an Undead Liche, a sorcerer whose entire existence depends now on the incantations and rituals he learnt long ago in the Lands of the Dead in the far North. Tartaro lusts for a legendary arcane treasure, The Black Skull, which he believes will allow him to regain the form of a living man without losing his mastery over Death, but this has always eluded him. Many believe that this artefact no longer exists but Tartaro is featured in a number of episodes searching for it, but without success.

The wizard on the right is Morgos the Dark, who is described in one episode as a Master of Thelemic Magick and the possessor of the Book of Abramelin the Magus. Clearly one of the writers was plundering the works of Aleister Crowley, which may have accounted for the popularity of the series with a lot of far-out hippy followers of Crowley.

Morgos is often portrayed as the great adversary of Pandolfo the Celestial Wizard and this struggle is played out in a few episodes, especially in Series Two, but Morgos is also the sworn enemy of the Grey Elves of the Great Forest who, long ago expelled him from his mystical fortress on the western coast of the Enchanted Kingdom, forcing him to find a new home in a Dark Tower in the Mountains of the East.

Morgos works his evil schemes in many different ways, using different intermediaries from the different communities of the Kingdom, but most often employs the avaricious and cruel Goblins of the Mountains or various members of the Guild of Torturers.

Tartaro, on the other hand uses supernatural beings such as Ghosts and Banshees, as well as raising long-dead warriors to carry out his bidding. Here are four such Skeleton Warriors.

All of these figures are from the Oathmark Undead range, available from North Star.

Frostgrave Reaver Wights.

This is a fun coincidence. Yesterday North Star Military Figures posted this  piece on Facebook. It relates to the forthcoming Perilous Dark Nickstarter and discusses a new undead nasty, the Reaver Wight.

If you read the article it explains all about Reaver Wights and suggests ways of portraying them in  our games of Frostgrave.

Funnily enough, a few weeks ago I put four figures together from the last sprue of Frostgrave plastic cultists I had left over from my Saga: Age of Magic Otherworld project, and here they are;

Now, I reckon that they fit the bill perfectly, being pretty similar to one of the North Star illustrations of how to represent the creatures using existing Frostgrave sets of figures, so it seems that my desire to use up a few odds and ends has chimed perfectly with the next chapter in the development of the Frostgrave universe. This makes me very happy.

Another Sword and Spear Fantasy Sunday

Yesterday (3rd March) we had an all-dayer at the club and five of us played a kind of Round Robin friendly tournament of Sword and Spear Fantasy using 1000pt 15mm armies. Each battle was to last six turns. The forces involved were;

Clive:  Undead

Owen: High Elves

Brian:  Orcs

Nick:   Desert-themed Meerkats

Me:     Hyborian Barbarian Horde

Some games were tougher than others, in the sense that some were incredibly violent and lots of units were eliminated, but all the games were good fun.

The scoring was a bit haphazard, such things as killing off generals and captains didn't score any points so winners and losers were judged solely on the army points value of the units they eliminated. 

As things turned out, Clive topped the table and I was second, but that didn't really matter. The most destructive encounter was the battle between Clive's Undead and my Hyborian Horde. I almost ended up with a crushing victory as my cavalry crushed Clive's right wing and proceeded to roll up his line, but the resilience of the Undead meant that I snatched a narrow 27-25 win. I'd like to have a rematch, because they are a tough opponent.

The important thing I learnt was that you really cannot afford to let your cavalry get charged by other  Impact cavalry, because you will end up with a big gap where your impressive strike force used to be.

I am also thinking that I might have to add my archers to my Heavy and Medium Foot units, to give them a Reduced Shooting capability, rather than using separate bow-armed units (except for Skirmishers). It could help in Melee.

Anyway, here are the pics.

Warband - first ever game with the Undead

It seems to be ages since I first bought my Undead Army from Pendraken and almost as long since I painted them up.

Anyway, last Sunday at the club gave me an opportunity to get the little guys on the table, in a Grudge Match battle scenario against Richard's Dwarves. In a Grudge match, the opposing commanders hate one another and have to join in combat to try and kill the other. In this scenario, both commanders are also rated as Impetuous.

We both fielded just over 500 points of troops. Here is my centre. The large purple dice shows my command points (CP) and the orange one my magic points (MP)

Here are Richard's Dwarves.

Here is my army. Just out of sight at the bottom are my Skeletal Riders.

Both forces began to advance. My plan was to use my Riders to clear the hill and sweep round to try and roll up Richard's line. It is nice to have a plan, although they seldom work.

Richard has Dwarf Noble Riders and Rangers on the hill.

I start realigning. My initial deployment was awful and needed changing. I need to get my Undead Lord into combat, but I also need to keep him supported on either side.

We get into combat. Richard hits one of my Riders units in the flank, and then my Zombies outflank his attacking unit.

The green jewels indicate that my Necromancer has successfully cast "Dominate the lifeless host", giving Hero status to all my in-range units. I use this spell a lot in the game, because, to be honest, the Undead need all the help they can get.

The commanders get into battle. This is the important part of the table. Everything else is secondary. My Undead Lord has the Powerful and Regenerate attributes. I think he'll need them.

Both leaders stands start losing casualties. This could go either way, but at the moment, my CP rolls are not too bad.

This is just as well, because elsewhere my line is under stress. These bony warriors really cannot take much punishment.

The Dwarf Rangers see off my Riders. Oops. 

But the combined power of my Zombies and the other Riders unit, cause a Dwarf unit to rout.

My only hope of winning is to defeat the Dwarf commander. Unhappily, my good CP rolls dry up but my repeated use of the "Dominate the lifeless host" spell at least gives me a chance.

The turning point comes when Richard gets two initiative rolls in a row, together with high CP and MP rolls. He uses "Spirit of the stone guardians" and "Granite Aspect" in successive rounds of play. With my Fear attribute rendered powerless, the Dwarves start to dominate and before long my Undead Lord is down to 0 MO and crumbles away into dust. Victory to the Hill Dwarves.

So, what did I think of the rules? 

Overall, I liked them. They are easy to pick up and the mechanisms are pretty simple to use. There are a couple of points that seem odd, such as units that are flank attacked don't get to turn and face their opponents after the first round of combat, but you get used to that. The action was pretty quick and you don't spend ages faffing about before getting into combat. I think that with a couple of more games under my belt, I'll find more things to like and, probably one or two more annoyances, but my feelings are pretty positive really. I like the unpredictability of the CP and MP system.

As for my army, well, what can one say about the Undead? I've never come across a set of rules where they are all-conquering and invincible, mainly because they need a lot of magical support to get keep them going, and we all know how unreliable magic can be in wargaming. On the plus side, they are fun to play with, mainly because you never know what will happen next. I'd have liked to be able to field my Wraiths and Spirits and my Catapults, but we were limited to a smaller army size because Richard didn't have any extra Dwarf units to field. 

North Star plastic Undead Encounters figures

I've had these figures lying around for about a year now. I assembled and undercoated them last September and then set them aside while other things leapfrogged them in the painting queue. However, I did do bits of work on them here and there and just before I went away on holiday I set some time aside to finally finish them off.

First, here are three Zombies, four Ghouls, a skeleton erupting from a grave, a skeleton Giant Rat and a marker. I enjoyed painting these, lots of scope for decaying skin tones and exposed rotting flesh and organs. 

Secondly, here are ten skeleton warriors. These were also fun to paint, with a liberal application of Light Rust wash which is actually intended for vehicles, but looks pretty good on their weapons and armour.

All these figures started off with a coat of Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray and the rags and skin tones were built up with blended colours. Armour was gunmetal, brass and copper dry-brushed onto black. Finally, before finishing them off with rust wash, they all got an inking with Windsor & Newton Peat Brown. Once everything was dry, I did the bases with black railway ballast, which was dry-brushed in pale grey and then they were spray varnished.