Army the First: Humany Humans

So moving back to contemplation of another army after finishing the Ice Wolves Ogre war band/luncheon party, (which it is not!!!!) and the question occurs. How close to a workable completed army must one get before being distracted by the latest tv show, miniature release etc? 

Quite close as it turns out...but the fact remains that ogreses are massive and sometimes the thought of starting to paint another great lump of angry flesh, or unit of, just seems a bit too up hill. Damn my lack of follow through....

So let us be distracted by the humany humans of said proposed world...The pervading idea behind this army was a low fantasy human force, late dark age to mid-medieval perhaps but definitely nothing fancy or magical.

These individuals represent the poor working men rather than professional soldiery. A militia of part time fighters called up as and when needed, fit and hail by the nature of their lifestyles and more than willing to answer the call to defend their homes and families as their fathers have done before them. Many will have seen action/guard duty of one form or another so they are not quaking conscripts, these men stand with their friends and brothers for duty and for honor. 

Of course they could just as easily be a force of filthy, thieving rebel scum, revolting against the rule of their liege lord under the leadership of a self elected and self aggrandizing robber baron, fit for nothing but the gibbet and the noose...depending on the needs of the moment and of the game.

So what do we have in the magical penthouse of delight? An attic full of shame and half completed projects...

Quite a bit as it turns out. Northstar Miniatures will be our go to manufacturer for this autumn (its now summer!) project namely their Oathmark range but the good fellows of Fireforge will also take a starring role.

As it turns out there will be more than enough odds, ends, partial and un-started boxes and sprues  to  attempt to complete more than a single force. Four spring to mind from the preliminary rummaging alone. 

Two standard humany human forces, one reskinned from the previously started Fireforge force of sub-knightly types, another from the oathmark range and a third barbarian army/raiding warband based on the avalanche of victrix sprues that have been collected and squirrelled away for times of need.   

So more than enough to keep your average low impetus wargamer/figure painter happy and frustrated for the foreseeable future and far away from completing the original ogre army, which is not that far from the finish line, and which started all this nonsense in the first place.

The silver lining of all this is that THE RULES (title to follow), mostly written and mostly ready, will only be dealing with the smaller end of the skirmish world. Proposed forces will probably contain no more than 30 figures max and most likely quite a lot less, so that should bring the painting schedule nicely into the realms of the highly unlikely rather than the outright impossible.  

And so to some finished articles. (You actually have some?) Oh yes! 

More than half the infantry of sub-knightly types, based on the Fireforge north men range, have been successfully repainted and supplemented with a unit of similarly reskinned militia along with two units of cavalry. 

The above storage solution took everything we learned from the ogre storage box and will allow for another unit of twelve infantry, on the painting pile, plus two more units of cavalry, not yet near the painting pile, rounding out the force quite nicely. 

Cheers all 

The Solving of the problem of Six Armies

Following hot on the heels of the problem of five armies that had seemingly been solved and put safely to bed, the great wargaming brain in the sky has now come to a decision that the five should now become six and decided what those six armies should look like. 

Army the first, will be the human army already started and in fact nearing completion, in the blue and black livery based on the Fire Forge Northmen range. A stolid, perhaps aging knightly, semi-nightly order that will include a small cavalry section.

Army the second, will also be a human army in black and white livery based almost entirely upon the oath mark human range. Either set as a mercenary retinue, a baronial warband or some sort of rebel force that will be larger by one half than Army the first, so in any proposed siege situations these fellows should be the attackers. They will also contain a cavalry section which gives the option of combining the two cavalry units into a much larger fully mounted raiding force of twenty eight odd horsemen, (drools at the thought of such a sight on the field, quails at the thought of the work involved).

Army the third, will be the afore mentioned White Wolf Ogres (pending).

Army the fourth, will be another human force. This will be the possibly huge, possibly cavalry supported, barbarian force made up of a number of different ancient sprue types from Victrix and converted to a more or less fantasy feel with the weapons left over from the oath mark goblin army, see below.

Army the fifth, will be made up of oath mark goblins, of which we have about 30, reinforced with the orc heavy infantry (which despite their name seem far closer in size to the goblins than the orc light infantry) to give them a bit more punch. The kits will be blended together using solely armored orc arms and heads. In the testing faze this gave the goblins a much more hunched and apelike appearance, which gives a much more threatening feel to the stances. Cavalry for these evil degenerate types will probably consist of the giant mutated boars rescued form ebay and languishing since, these should make for suitably intimidating war beasts with the addition of fighting platforms for archers and long spear wielders added to them. This will most likely be all the cavalry for them because I don’t have anything else beside horses, as the wolves have been stolen for other reasons. 

Army the sixth, will be the dwarfs of the oath mark variety. They will be converted using arms leftover from Fire Forge Northman sprues, swords, spears and bows. The armored dwarfs will be converted with the leftover arms from the oath mark human heavy infantry, both single hand and two handed weapons. Cavalry will be the converted goblin wolves as I can't find any horses that don't look vaguely ridiculous with a dwarf sat on them this will also feed nicely into a bit of lore as to who is praising the wolf god correctly, the dwarfs or the ogres.

So that’s six.

And we haven’t even thought of an undead army yet, though we do have a embryonic proto force hiding in the attic of doom which will probably be centered around some I-kore undead and barbarian figures.

But even these transplanted goalposts don’t include the West Wind orcs, which we have in the region of 70, straining the floorboards of the penthouse of delight.

Onward to the next disappointment.

Cheers all.