I’ve spent some time lately returning to my fantasy dwarf heartbreaker army — The Expedition to Hearthspire. This army has been in existence, either in concept or on the actual tabletop, since the late 2000s, when I scraped together a handful of dwarves to play A Song of Blades & Heroes with my old game club back in Chicago.
Since then, my collection of dwarves has increased consistently. Models became units. Units became a small army, then a larger army. Now I’ve got a fairly vast collection of painted dwarves, ready to undertake the quest for the ancient city of Hearthspire. Here’s the latest family photo, taken last month when I mustered the whole group for a game of Hobgoblin with John.
After that game, I felt inspired to paint up some reinforcements to further bolster the dwarven throng. Hobgoblin is an old school rank-and-flank type of game that encourages large armies. So I assessed the current state of my dwarf army and identified the distinct need for some elite, heavily armored dwarven infantry to anchor the center of my battle line.
I found what I was looking for in a big box full of various units and figures from Scibor Monstrous Miniatures – one of my all-time favorite makers of chunky, characterful dwarf models. (Yes, it’s true, I have so many Scibor kits in my dragon hoard that they have their own dedicated box.)
These guys were a lot of fun to paint up. I’m not always fond of bare heads (something about my lack of precision and patience when painting faces) but these guys weren’t too difficult.
I painted these guys up over the summer, and they’ve yet to see the battlefield. I’m sure they’ll eventually take to the field in a game of Hobgoblin – I played a session earlier this year with John and got my butt kicked. (And I convinced myself the reason I lost is because I didn’t have a sufficient critical mass of armored dwarvess. Problem solved!!)
Stay tuned for more content in general from Comrade’s Wargames. After a long drought, I’m easing back into the saddle to share more quality hobby content with my tens of readers.
Last month a new game landed like a hand grenade right in the midst of Comrade’s Wargames – THE DOOMED, the new apocalyptic sci-fi skirmish game from Osprey Publishing, written by Chris McDowall.
My group had been eagerly awaiting the release of this game. The premise sounds delicious – warbands of grimdark sci-fi soldiers battle across a benighted planet overrun with nameless horrors. The setting is not defined in great detail, but it seems clear that THE DOOMED is aimed at baroque sci-fi, the sort which features demons, inquisitors, cyborgs, cultists, and motley bands of hardened soldiers. Sound familiar? It certainly tracks with what we’re all about here at Comrade’s Wargames.
We got in a game toward the beginning of October, so I’ll intersperse some photos and impressions of our game throughout this post. Here’s the setup for our game: an abandoned laboratory.
THE DOOMED (sorry, caps lock just seems to pop on whenever I type the name of this game) is a skirmish-sized game meant to be played on a smallish table filled with terrain. The maximum size of any warband is eight models – no more than that. There are 4 flavorful warband lists to build your forces. In addition to two opposing warbands, every game features a Horror – a chaotic monster of some sort, usually with a few weaker minions nearby. Each Horror has its own set of special rules that govern its behavior on the battlefield and the behavior of its minions. Along with the Horror, each scenario also specifies some nexuses, which are basically “weak points” on the battlefield that must be defeated before the main Horror can die. Imagine egg sacs, or power stones, or prey carcasses … as long as those exist, the Horror is effectively “shields up” and largely invulnerable. The nexuses must be dispatched in order to defeat the big boss.
As you can imagine, this was an absolutely delightful game concept. Player-vs-player, with the added twist of a rampaging spoiler faction that operates under its own set of rules. To be clear, THE DOOMED is not intended to be a competitive game. Instead, it is designed to represent savage combat between warbands where the greatest threat is probably not the opposing player … it is the Horror that stalks the tunnels, slaying without prejudice or preference. The game is designed to promote collaborative gameplay alongside traditional matchups. Will you join forces for a turn or two to punish the big bad, and then go back to gleefully slaughtering the opposing warband? Who will break the gentlemen’s agreement first?
Our game got underway with some cautious exploration by both warbands. Inquisitor Ash, commander of John’s contingent of feudal sci-fi guardsmen, led her warriors to examine the first laboratory.
Meanwhile, my Dark Mechanicum warband led by Ozmas Hyperfane, the Sanctified Ferromancer of the Sixth Liturgy, filtered into the abandoned science facility by another route, which unfortunately brought them into close proximity to THE DEVOURER (i.e. the Horror that we selected for this scenario). The Devourer activated and promptly began pursuing my Dark Mechanicum warband.
One of the most innovative aspects of THE DOOMED is that there are no movement rates or weapon ranges. You basically nominate a model, describe where you want to move, and then roll a dice vs. your figure’s Quality to see if you are successful. If you succeed, you move directly to that point. If you fail, your opponent places your model anywhere along the route you described. Yikes! Ranged combat operates similarly … everything is understood to be in range, so the only real limits are line of sight and intervening terrain and cover.
I’ve played games like this before, and they really require – nay, demand – an incredibly dense terrain setup. Thankfully, that happens to align with our interests here at Comrade’s Wargames, and we are blessed with a wealth of beautiful handmade terrain to adorn our battlefields. Just something to be aware of it as you’re reading through THE DOOMED rulebook.
Even as the Devourer closed in and its devilish minions spawned at random points throughout the battlefield, my warband tried to remain focused on the objective, which was to occupy and seize two of the three laboratories. The labs themselves had a variety of nasty rules in effect to make them into truly deadly combat zones.
As the halls rang with the sound of desperate combat, somehow Ozmas Hyperfane barged his way into one of the labs and encountered a puddle of viscera which represented one of the Devourer’s nexuses. Aha! Its weak points were revealed!
Before Ozmas could stomp the goo puddle, he had to dispatch John’s feudal guardsman. Thus our first player-vs-player combat was joined!
THE DOOMED has a fairly simple combat resolution system, so it was easy to get up to speed. Weapons have straightforward profiles emphasizing the number of dice rolled to attack or the number of dice rolled to deal damage, along with a special rule or two. The rules system in general seems to play second fiddle to the voluminous sections devoted to the various Horrors, their lairs, their henchmen, and their in-game capabilities. Truly, this is a scenario-based game, and the star of every scenario is The Horror.
The Devourer quickly picked up the scent and smashed his way into the laboratory to confront Ozmas Hyperfane. The confrontation was decidedly one-sided – the poor cyborg was smashed into pulp and wreckage by the enraged beast. Oops … there goes my leader! How could I possibly carry on without this key piece of my warband?
Meanwhile, Inquisitor Ash and her cohort of goons was doing a good job of clearing and securing the other labs. Demonic dogs (spawn of the Devourer) continuously menaced her and her warriors as they struggled to gain the upper hand. More critically, they were responsible for destroying the final two nexus points, thus making the Devourer vulnerable to lethal attacks.
And about that Devourer … to put it mildly, he decimated my warband, slaying them almost to a man. Temporarily out of targets, the big guy stepped out of the laboratory – and into range of my cyborg railgunner, who proceeded to pop him at range with a series of spectacular dice rolls, followed by whiffed defense rolls by the Devourer, which snuffed out the big guy and ended our first game of THE DOOMED.
This was a tremendously satisfying game that brought together several of my favorite tabletop gaming concepts: skirmish sized games with warbands comprised of unique models, AI-driven NPC factions, and objective-based scenario play. John’s terrain was lovely, and his newly painted Devourer model (plus those demonic dogs) was a real treat to get onto the battlefield. The game itself is definitely designed to encourage some fun kitbashing and DIY terrain creation. The massive list of unique Horrors in the rulebook, combined with an equally comprehensive array of scenarios, ensures that we’ll play this one again soon … and that no game will be precisely the same.
We got together earlier in September for a game that could very well represent the grand finale of our Grimdark Future campaign.
Recall that we launched our campaign (The Cauldron) at the beginning of 2023 as an escalation league, wherein each player would start with a handful of models each and play smaller skirmish games of Grimdark Future Firefight, slowly adding more models as we went along through the spring and summer.
I’m happy to report that this approach proved to be a smashing success! We all stayed motivated to build new armies, one unit at a time. At our height, we had 8 players participating in monthly games. Now we’re approaching the end of 2023 and we all have decent sized armies that have gained some experience on the tabletop…mission accomplished, I’d say!
So, this game was a bit of a bookend for our highly successful campaign.
We had 4 players for this game, and everybody wanted to bring some of their larger, more expensive models (tanks, mostly), so we decided to go for a larger 2-vs-2 team game. We set the game in the upper reaches of Ardent Maxima, a hive city on the planet Gamma Euphorion Prime that was in the process of falling to the forces of darkness. Daniel’s newly painted Realm of Battle terrain tiles provided a stunning backdrop for this game.
Chaos Space Marines from the Death Guard legion had allied with Genestealer Cultists boiling up from the depths of the underhive to push the defenders of the Imperium back to the very highest levels of Ardent Maxima. After the destruction of the monument to St. Deneia in last month’s game, the Imperial defenders retreated to link up with their Eldar allies.
The forces of the Imperium and their Eldar allies made their stand in a vast plaza that had been defiled by thick, fibrous tendrils of fleshy matter. The origin of these throbbing purple members was unknown – were they some organic artifice of the Genestealer Cult made manifest, or perhaps a symptom of a planetwide plague delivered by the followers of Nurgle? No one dared ask.
John’s Imperial Guard took to the field alongside Josh’s Eldar – or Aeldari, if you prefer. They had some hard-hitting units, but they would be hard pressed to counter the advance of the forces of evil as the game got underway.
The game began with some long-range firepower as the armored vehicles opened up on each other. My Chaos Predator (a new addition to my army, nice!) dug in behind a makeshift barricade and unloaded its weaponry on the distant shapes of a couple Leman Russ battle tanks, barely visible behind the haze of dust and smoke.
With a roar of combustion engines, Daniel mobilized his fleet of trucks and began advancing on the objectives. Cultists wielding a variety of improvised weaponry scaled the crumbling masonry of a shattered building and brought fearsome firepower to bear on the Imperial armor.
The cultists’ advance brought them crashing headlong into the Eldar vanguard. With a guttural howl, the cultists swept into the frail, spindly looking space elves, blasting the infantry apart with heavy caliber weaponry and rending their grav tank into utter wreckage.
On the left flank, the foul daemon engines of Nurgle roared to life, following the cultists as they advanced to seize an objective located athwart the rusted TECHNOBRIDGE.
Even as the Death Guard daemon engines were pressing their advance on the right flank, realspace flickered and frost scabbed the pitted metal flooring as reinforcements arrived from the Warp: a foul Daemon Prince of Nurgle and a trio of battle-hardened Blightlord Terminators.
These lumbering behemoths arrived in the Imperials’ backfield and immediately commenced sowing havoc and despair. Terminators are jacks of all trades in Grimdark Future – OK at everything, great at nothing. Their mere presence had the desired effect of ratcheting up the tension. The defenders’ line appeared fragile – would it falter??
Ultimately, the TECHNOBRIDGE did not fall to the forces of Chaos. It was defended, at great cost I might add, by Eldar Dark Reapers led by Maugan Ra, backed up by the reliable firepower of the two Leman Russ tanks.
The defense of the TECHNOBRIDGE seemed to stiffen the spine for the Imperial and Eldar defenders, and they mounted a late surge against another objective located within a ruined multi-story building.
The timely arrival of some Imperial Guard Stormtroopers/Kasrkin/Tempestus Scions, backed up by the graceful shape of the Eldar Wraithlord, put the objective into serious jeopardy. There was only one solution – pulp those stormtroopers into a fine red paste by driving Daniel’s rockgrinder truck through the middle of the them! Yee-haw!
This action was followed up by a volley of fire from the Chaos Predator, which had been serving as effective fire support for most of the game.
With the endgame approaching, the Predator rumbled out of its fighting position and motored toward the central objective, located amid some puddles of toxic waste (dangerous terrain, in the parlance of Grimdark Future).
That bold advance was enough to seal the victory for the forces of Chaos. This was a very close fought game that definitely could have gone either way up until the final turn. Those are the best types of games – the ones where both sides are competitive until the very end.
So, this may prove to be the final game of The Cauldron, our grimdark/Inq28 campaign that has inspired a frenzy of painting and terrain building over the last 10 months. If you haven’t read through our past battle reports, do yourself a favor and take in the majesty of The Cauldron on Comrade’s Wargames. You’ll be glad you did.
These models were originally released a number of years ago, primarily for the Japanese market, and they were only recently released earlier this year in the USA. They’re packaged and sold as individual blind boxes that contain 1 random miniature from the 8 models in the series.
I bought a couple of these guys and then traded for a few of the others. I ended up with a duplicate of the standard bearer guy, which gave me an opportunity to convert up the surplus model. He’s the guy on the left in the photo below.
But here’s the interesting (and slightly silly) backstory: I’ve actually owned these models before, back in 2020. When they were released for the Japanese market, they were commonly sold as a sealed case containing one of each of the models in the line, including the Malignant Plaguecaster that appeared less frequently and was sort of a chase rare. I bought my sealed case in December 2020 and then promptly lost interest in my Death Guard army for a while.
Over the next two years, the Death Guard Heroes set went out of print and started to command a premium price on the secondary market. I did a sober analysis of my still-sealed box – did I really need more Plague Marines? Would I truly get around to building and painting these guys? I wisely decided to “sell into the hype” and made a tidy little profit on my box.
I figured that was the end of the story, yet here we are – I’ve re-purchased those same models (for a much more reasonable, non-premium price, I must admit). BUT! I’ve also finished painting them, so I win in the end.
Anyway, it’s a silly little story that just goes to show how much I enjoy regular, run-of-the-mill Plague Marines as the backbone for my Death Guard army.
As a bonus, here’s one more Plague Marine that I painted up around the same time. He’s converted from one of the Chaos Space Marine Chosen from the Dark Vengeance boxed set, with some extra bits from my Putrid Blightkings leftovers.
Pull up a chair, dear reader, for a personal story from our local game group.
You may have read about our friend Paul, one of the founding members of our local game club (The Majestic Gamers). I met Paul shortly after moving to town about 7 years ago.
At that time, he was just starting out in 40k, and we got together for some games. Paul shared that he experienced periodic tremors in his hands, ranging from barely noticeable to more debilitating. In spite of this, he persevered with his newfound hobby and painted up three gorgeous 40k armies that have made regular appearances on Comrade’s Wargames over the years, as well as countless skirmish warbands for Warcry, Shadespire, and other games. Truly, it was an inspiring example of someone overcoming a physical impairment to achieve spectacular skill in a creative hobby.
Paul’s magnum opus is probably his Tyranids army, which featured heavily into our 40k narrative campaigns. Here’s a couple photos from our gigantic Apocalypse game back in 2018.
Last year, Paul let us know that his tremors had become more pronounced, and the doctors had diagnosed a more advanced condition. He begrudgingly acknowledged that his painting days were likely over.
Around this time, the new Leviathan boxed set came out, and the rest of us in the Majestic Gamers had a brilliant idea – we would acquire the box set, divvy up the Tyranid models, and paint them up to fit in with Paul’s existing Tyranid army! His army would get a huge boost and we’d all get a chance to splash some paint on those cool new bugs. Daniel handled the purchase and distribution of the Leviathan box – thank you, Daniel!! Splitting up the painting amongst 5 people meant we all got a manageable numbers of models to paint up.
Here, then, are the fruits of our labors, which were delivered to Paul earlier this month. HUGE thanks to Rian, John, Parker, and Lawrence for lending their artistic skill and expertise to this project, and to Daniel for purchasing the box and handling logistics.
(Tip: If you click on the first photo, you’ll launch a fullscreen gallery where you can flip through each photo in sequence.)
Keep in mind, that’s five different people offering their own personal interpretation of Paul’s paint scheme. I think we did pretty good, all things considered! Shout-out to John for printing up those crystal pieces that we all used on the bases – that really pulled everything together in a cohesive manner.
But Wait, There’s More!
The story doesn’t end here! When we presented Paul with his newly painted Tyranid reinforcements in August, he shared with us some wonderful and heartening news: he is planning to have a procedure done that will help control his symptoms and hopefully get back some quality of life.
Yes, we immediately cracked jokes about Paul becoming a literal cyborg. Ah, the miracles of modern medicine. The procedure is planned for next month (September). So don’t throw away those paintbrushes, Paul – this hobby isn’t done with you yet!
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