Warhammer: the Old World is pretty fun

 Got halfway through a game of Warhammer Old World yesterday, it really does feel like a solid balance of the various WHFB editions I grew up with. This is my third game this year, after more than a decade of zero Warhammer gaming (unless you count using Mordheim rules with historical minis).

Between combat and panic, I'm now down to a third of my army (possibly closer to half if I clutch out some rally attempts at the beginning of my next turn), but while my opponent hasn't taken too many hits yet, there are three fanatics right in the center of his army.

Hoping to wrap this up Thursday, it'll be an uphill struggle for my greenskins, but stranger things have happened!

More Dwarfs

 Making good progress on my Warhammer Old World dwarfs.

Lots of war machines and warriors, and a few miners and thunderers, left to go. 

It's gonna take so much purchasing and assembling to get my orcs and goblins to the same point level.

Grimdark Peasants / Flagellants

 Despite the gap in my blogging, the last few months have been pretty productive from a hobby standpoint. I just haven't felt super motivated to blog about it because it's mostly been Warhammer: The Old World miniatures with very few conversions or kitbashes, and while I'm pleased with how they look they just aren't really unique enough that sharing them would be a priority.

 But I did just finish something else that does feel more interesting to share, a set of "off-brand" flagellants made almost entirely out of Wargames Atlantic kits.

 

While my "official" Old World armies are based using the new standards and comprised entirely of GW miniatures, I've always liked the idea of doing fantasy wargaming with my historical armies as well, so I wanted to make some flagellants that can help transform my Italian Wars collection into an Empire of Man type force, or at least a witchhunter Mordheim gang, when the situation arises.

Since many of these flagellants are built around WA's Baron's War levies and Dark Age unit builder, they blend well with the less fantastical peasants I built last year. 

 

Warhammer: The Old World

 After well over a decade in storage, decided it was finally time to start rebasing my Warhammer miniatures for the new rules. Here are 500 pts of Dwarfs, to be followed soon by 500 pts of Night Goblins. I have enough in my collection to get up to at least 1000 pts of greenskins and probably 2000 of dwarfs 

Both these starting armies are mostly single-piece plastics from the Battle for Skull Pass box from a while ago. The dwarfs are further supplemented by old metals from the 90s and early 2000s, while the goblins are reinforced by plastics from the current Gloomspite Gitz range. Once I've played a few games with these, I will buy more orcs and goblins, and perhaps some dwarfs to round out their units.

Ukrainian Cossacks by S. I. Shamenkov

 Finally scored this beauty from Helion & Company. It's a real tour-de-force, covering everything from gun calibers to earring styles!

It does look like a lot of my miniatures are pretty inaccurate, so I'll have to decide how comfortable I am with a "Hollywood" Cossack army, roughly on par with Braveheart or 300 for realism. Of course, any miniatures that don't make the cut for historicals are still welcome on my Pulp and Fantasy shelves!

A Comprehensive Cavalcade of Cossackish Clubmen

 Here are my new peasants mixed with my old peasants, 125 angry Eastern European farmers. Quite pleased with the overall effect.

 

In this pic, I added a command base and some skirmishing musketeers to make it a proper rebel rabble battalia. 

 Probably my last peasant pics for a while. Next up, maybe Tczew casualties, maybe Trench Crusade, maybe more Of Gods And Mortals.

a Plethora of Peasants

 Here are the Peasant Levy / Dark Age unit builder mashups for my Khmelnitsky Uprising angry serf rebels.

First are seven of them that I just kinda think turned out neat. The Baron's War peasant arms don't quite match the Dark Age bodies but it's not a huge problem

 

These three guys sport looted German-style gear from Warlord Games' ECW/TYW plastics.

I wanted at least some to be in more casual, non-attacking poses. These guys could be objectives or civilians in a skirmish scenario, or even staffage for the terrain.

 

These four are armed with maslaks, a pretty region- and period-specific weapon for the poorest of peasants and tatars, just a horse or donkey's jawbone attached to a stick. I use the curved blades from the old Wargames Factory Persian Infantry to represent the jawbones, and greenstuff for the little straps holding them in place. 
 

 

 

And here are the rest. The heads are almost entirely from the Dark Age Unit builder, with greenstuff fur added, but there are also a handful off Gripping Beast heads and even a few Wargames Factory Persian heads.

 

Later this week I hope to get some pics of these guys mixed in with all my previous peasants, for a proper hoard of rampaging rabble! 

Peasant preview

 I've been meaning to for a while, but I finally bought a box of Peasant Levy and a Dark Age unit builder from Wargames Atlantic to combine into Eastern European rebellious serfs. The former has some delicious peasant weapon arms, including a variety of axes, billhooks, pitchforks and flails, while the latter has oodles of basic bodies and hairy heads. 

 I just took a handful of pics here for scale comparisons and to give a sense of the greenstuff usage this involves. These guys should go great with the Gripping Beast conversions and TAG minis that make up most of my previous peasant hordes.

 

Norse Kaiju

 Haven't had much hobby inspiration lately, but I did eventually paint some big monster types for Of Gods and Mortals. The Frost Giant is, I think, an old Reaper mini. The Fenrisulfr is a plastic toy, and the Jormundgandr is a plaster knickknack that was $2 at Goodwill. Gripping Beast plastic vikings for scale.

 

This pic also has a Thor converted from a... Goliath Barbarian?  

 

Of Gods and Mortals - Dark Ages

 I've been working on adding some mythological type characters to my Dark Age collection. I've had the OGAM ruleset for a while but it always vaguely bothered my that all the factions, while possessing iconic gods and heroes, barely (if at all) overlapped chronologically. So I've been using the point-buy system to create some gods and saints for a specifically 900 AD ish set of factions.

I'll come back around with more detailed stats later, but here's a preview of three 900 point forces.

Here I Stand

 Here I Stand is a boardgame of Early Modern Europe, combining military, theological and diplomatic action into a very complex card-driven map-based game. My brother rounded us all up and learned the rules, and also put together themed music playlists and drink options. It was a blast.

 I decided to chip in by building miniatures to replace the standees that represent the military commanders on the board. I initially thought there was just one per faction, but there's more! I did have a couple preexisting minis that were relevant, but I had to do a lot of converting. It got a little rushed but overall they turned out quite well enough for the group.

 

The game standees have tiny portraits, so I explored Wikipedia and sometimes Google image search to get fuller pictures of the individuals in question. I did get a little creative to distinguish some of the plainer-dressed commanders.  Fun fact: Montmorency's tennis racket is not an anachronism (except maybe very specifically in the details of form, he was Francis' tennis buddy), but Dragut's telescope predates their actual invention by decades. 

 

 The game itself was a blast! We called it at the end of turn 5 or 6, since it was 2 in the morning, and my Ottomans had the most VPs (by one!) at that point, but I doubt I would have won if we played to a proper game end. 

I did feel bad about the Papacy not having any commanders to model, I had meant to bring some of the Catholic minis from my previous post so the Papal player wouldn't feel left out... but it turned out he had a better way to represent his faction: 

A little late for the conclave but...

 I painted some Catholic guys, these are Perry miniatures for late-Medieval or early Italian Wars, but I'll also using them into the 1600s for my Poles.

I've got all these and a bunch of Orthodox guys, but only like one or two Protestants, my Swedes need spiritual guidance too!

Cossack infantry

 Cossacks from Old Glory, I greenstuffed shirts and hats on some of them.

 Old Glory minis are a bit on the small side, but I think they mix fine with the TAG and converted Perry minis I've used for previous Cossacks.