I really like picking cheap job lots of miniatures on swap forums like Reddit and Facebook and various second-hand retailers like Mindtaker. I appreciate the challenge of picking up where someone else left off (or else just picking up the pieces) and trying something new. It doesn’t hurt that this stuff is usually priced to sell!
With that in mind, I got ahold of some rather fun and zany Plague Marine conversions a few weeks ago and decided to put some energy into finishing them off proper.
The guy had started by splicing them together with the lower torsos of plastic Plaguebearers, setting the stage for some gruesome half Marine/half daemon conversions.
I jumped right in and started finishing up the paint jobs. I had some fun by using contrast paints to create a pink/yellow gradient on the legs, plus some additional blood and gore details to make them really pop.
These models had already been augmented with all sorts of nifty extras bits from various plastic kits – I spotted some Putrid Blightkings bits in there, as well as some 30k paraphernalia.
I also played around with some simple gore effects using hot glue pulled with a toothpick, then painted with gloss red to make it suitably goopy. Nothing special, but fun to go over the top on some already ridiculous models.
So that was a simple rescue of a job lot that made its way to my workbench recently. Look for these guys on the table in our next game of Grimdark Future!
Earlier this month we gathered for a game that really pushed the limits of our table space and our comfort level with the Age of Fantasy rules. We planned a 2-on-2 team game, wherein Vincent and I joined forces with our two mighty dwarven armies to oppose John and Daniel, who were fielding an unlikely alliance of humans (John) and vampiric undead (Daniel).
After dabbling in a few introductory games of Age of Fantasy, we felt ready to tackle a larger game, so each player brought 1,000 points to the table, for a raucous game totaling 4,000 points among the four of us.
We set this game in Realmlight, the “new world” lost continent that is being rediscovered after several failed colonial expeditions in our Uthdyn fantasy setting. The mysterious ruins on this battlefield may offer hints as to the fate of the explorators who came before … whoever controls the battlefield at the end of the day can plumb this forbidden knowledge to their heart’s content!
Behold these epic photos of our deployment zones, teeming with stout warriors, grim spearmen, and cackling skeletons!
First up: rank upon rank of stalwart dwarf warriors, ready to plant a flag in Realmlight and defend their new homeland against all invaders.
Vincent and I talked over our army composition before the gsame. I volunteered to bring the “big guns” – a battalion of artillery – and he filled out his roster with heavy infantry. It was the classic “hammer and anvil” approach. Did it pay off? Read on and judge for yourself!
We didn’t quite figure out the fluff behind why John’s humans would ally with Daniel’s undead warriors, but there had to be a good reason, right?
John’s humans were supported by two units of cavalry: chivalrous knights and the fearsome pegasus riders! These two hard-hitting units affected the game even before they hit the table, as they forced Vincent and I to constantly second-guess our deployment choices.
Daniel’s undead army consisted of several blocks of infantry backed up by a fearsome vampire lord, a terrifying skeletal dragon, and a ghastly unit of undead cavalry.
With so much cavalry on the opposing side of the battlefield, it appeared at the outset that the stout dwarves were likely going to get outflanked and run down amid thundering hooves and flashing lances! Let’s see how things developed…
As with our previous game of Age of Fantasy, we opted once again to go with the “Ebb and Flow” rules for the turn sequence, wherein we drew colored poker chits from a sack for activation. As before, this prompted some incredibly exciting and unpredictable moments!
On the first turn, John’s 20-man unit of spearmen had a tasty prize in sight: this ancient monument to the conquerors of old. He sent his troop of soldiers atop the stone platform to seize the objective and reinforce it with a wall of spears.
On the other flank, the dwarves smiled grimly and hefted their axes, preparing to meet the teeming undead hordes in a narrow bottleneck created by a ruined wall and a crumbling stone tower.
Between the two of us, Vincent and I had not two, but three units of Iron Warriors. These heavily armored dwarves boast the most potent defensive statistics in the whole game. In fact, none of us really knew how powerful their defense would be…these units would prove to be incredibly troublesome for the opposing undead legions.
And of course, in the backfield watching all of this unfold were the dwarf artillery units, ready to engage in a long-range black powder duel to the death.
In truth, 3 of my 5 artillery units didn’t do a whole heckuva lot this game. The bombard, which could shoot over intervening terrain and deal fearsome blast damage, didn’t hit anything the entire game! But the multi-barrel organ guns made their kinsmen proud by delivering fearsome volleys of fire turn after turn.
Things got interesting on turn 2, when (after a full turn of tiptoeing and tap-dancing to stay out of range of my artillery) John committed his horse-mounted knights to a wily skirmish action. His bold maneuver prompted an immediate response from Vincent and me – we had to deal with this threat; we couldn’t just let him go prancing around in our backfield.
Sidenote: the Ebb and Flow activation rules really encouraged all manner of bold, kinetic activity on both sides of the board.
And that wasn’t all. The pegasus knights swooped in at an opportune moment and absolutely shut down my entire artillery brigade. Granted, they got peppered with hot lead the next turn, but still … mission accomplished.
So the dwarves pivoted to deal with the cavalry that was thundering across the field, and in doing so that allowed the undead to advance several units and take up positions to oppose the dwarves.
It was really shaping up to be a big mess … we had strong infantry units angling for the best charge lane, vampires lurking, ghouls flailing, and a big ol’ skeletal dragon spewing death and destruction.
Here’s a look through the ruins at the ranks of advancing dwarves as they edged closer to the undead lines. Looks like something out of a Warhammer rulebook, circa 1989!
This glorious set-piece arrangement quickly devolved into a howling melee as the dwarves charged into the massed spears of the skeleton horde. Daniel sent his two leaders – the vampire lord and the ghoul king – wading into the scrum to support the undead infantry.
Both of these guys proved to be absolute beasts in combat and single-handedly chewed up their way through some units. But the dwarves were not falling fast enough, and the game was speeding toward its conclusion.
Even the mighty pegasus knights, their hooves drenched in the blood of the dwarven artillery crew, found themselves in an improbable situation when they were charged – and routed off the table – by the dwarven runemaster. (In game terms, they were “wavering,” which meant that any subsequent attack or charge would finish them off.)
Ultimately the dwarves held on long enough to prevail in this game. The undead horde had failed to slay enough of them in the killing fields near the stone tower, leaving the survivors able to reform and contest the central objective.
All in all, Age of Fantasy gave us another fun game full of memorable moments and photo-worthy finishes. For now at least, all of the One Page Rules games seem to scratch our itch for generic 28mm fantasy battles as well as grimdark sci-fi games.
And while the published army lists and units are satisfactory, there’s also some interest in tinkering with the list builder and creating some custom units. Thankfully, the raw points calculator is scheduled to be released later this year through the OPR Patreon. Until then, let’s roll some dice!
One of my goals for last year was to finally get some paint onto my Nurgle daemon prince. I’ve had the model itself for a few years — it’s the Wargames Exclusive Chaos Rotten Prince of Daemons. A very cool model, with lots of biomechanical details that put him firmly in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium
I didn’t have a ton of free time last year to tackle this model, and I particularly don’t really like painting large centerpiece models (they stress me out, and this hobby is supposed to be a stress reliever, what!). So I dithered for awhile until I remembered that I had some cash sitting in my Paypal account, just collecting dust, and it hit me — I could have someone else paint this sucker up for me!
So, I commissioned a paint job from a painter I found online whose style matched mine pretty well.
I present to you Krummholz the Twisted, daemon prince of Nurgle.
I’ve known this guy’s name for years, well before I got the model itself. I keep a note open on my phone where I jot down all sorts of cool words and names that might make their way into my narrative games. I always name my champions and unit leaders and even vehicles and warbeasts, so I’m constantly on the hunt for names and phrases with gnarly, death-metal affectations.
Krummholz is a German word that describes the stunted, crooked trees that grow at the very top of windswept peaks and cliffs. They are constantly battered by gale-force winds, never able to grow up straight and strong. Ever since I heard the term, I knew it would make a great name for a hunched, monstrous daemon prince.
In my narrative, Krummholz is a former officer in the Death Guard legion who has long since surrendered his humanity in exchange for the fecund gifts of Nurgle. He leads the Maggot Magnates warband and has been particularly active in planning and executing the massive encirclement operation in Warzone Endymion. If we ever play out the mini-campaign that I have been developing in my head, Krummholz will be a key participant.
This model turned out very well and overall I was pleased with this commission. It’s not something I’d choose to do regularly, but it was a nice splurge during a year when we all needed to practice a little self-care.
Just a quick post today to share some photos of some new units for my dwarf army. Astute readers may know that I have a long-running dwarf throng composed of figures from a wide variety of companies and manufacturers. I really enjoy blending different sculpts and designs together under a (somewhat) cohesive paint scheme.
First up is a unit of heavily armored dwarves. These figures are from MOM Miniatures, a boutique studio located in Spain. Vince and I went in on a group purchase last year to save on shipping costs.
These guys check all the boxes for me: heavy plate armor, expansive beards, and a variety of two-handed weapons. They’ll be right at home battering down the barricades of a goblin encampment, or marching in lockstep through a narrow canyon defile.
Up next is a dwarven sharpshooter, also from MOM Miniatures. This guy will serve as a ranger or maybe even an engineer-type role in my army. He’s on a slightly larger scenic base which makes him really stand out alongside the rank-and-file troops.
Lastly we have a real gem of a figure, and I can bear-ly contain my excitement to show it to you.
This dwarf bear rider is from Scibor Monstrous Miniatures, and it’s a hefty piece of resin!
I’ve adored Scibor’s delightfully chunky dwarf models for a long time, and just last year I painted up some figures for my army. The golden armor scheme really makes these guys pop on the battlefield, and I knew I wanted to try it out on this bear cavalry guy.
I’ve already got one bear rider on a polar bear in my army, so this guy’s mount got a more traditional boreal ursine paint job. And by that, I mean: it’s a brown bear.
There are tons of little details and design flourishes on this model, such as the severed orc head and the slash marks on the bear’s flank. But my inner 12-year-old wouldn’t let me write this post without pointing out that this bear model is, ahem, anatomically correct. A quick visual check confirms that Mr. Bear is a male.
So if, like me, you hadn’t yet checked “paint bear scrotum” off your miniatures painting bucket list, be sure to check out the lineup of bear cavalry from Scibor Monstrous Miniatures.
That’s it for now! These guys will march to the battlefield soon enough in a game of Age of Fantasy, or Saga, or Dragon Rampant, or … you get the idea.
Earlier this month we gathered in John’s garage war room to cross swords with Age of Fantasy, the rules-lite iteration of classic fantasy wargaming from One Page Rules.
Given how much we enjoyed last month’s outing with Grimdark Future: Firefight last month, it seemed like a logical progression to explore Age of Fantasy. As the name implies, Age of Fantasy is a slimmed-down ruleset that supports Warhammer-lite gameplay, with nifty army lists approximating all the major races and factions from the classic tabletop game. As a bonus, it also includes rules and army lists for most of the newer factions from Age of Sigmar, if that’s your cup o’ tea.
For our game, we set up a 2-vs-1 match whereupon John and Vince combined their human and dwarven forces to take on my bloodthirsty chaos army. This was my first time getting my entire chaos army on the table since I began piecing it together a year or two ago, and I was really chomping at the bit to lay it all out there on the table and bask in the blood-soaked glory.
Please indulge, if you will, these photos of my seething chaos battle line as it took to the field.
John’s human forces and Vincent’s dwarven milita were similarly arrayed, though I noted a concerning lack of skulls and spikes on their side of the board, as well as 100% more pegasus knights and bear riders.
We set up 5 objectives per the standard scenario in the rulebook. I wrote “rulebook” but One Page Rules is not joking about its name; the core rules for Age of Fantasy occupy less than two letter-sized pages, with the full rulebook encompassing scarcely more than a dozen.
The rules are spare, but they do a great job capturing the flavor and tone of a typical game of Warhammer. You’re still rolling dice and counting bonuses and removing casualties and cursing the gods when things go terribly awry, but Age of Fantasy seems to strip away a lot of the bloat that plagued most modern editions of Warhammer.
And so, amid the clatter of spears and the scrape of boiled leather, our game got underway. We opted to use the “Ebb and Flow” rules for the turn sequence, meaning we put a number of colored poker chits equal to the number of units in our armies into a sack, then took turns drawing a chit to determine unit activation order each turn. It was great fun, but it also set up some high stakes moments, because when one side sees several of their chits come up in a row, they know that means the opposing player will have a series of unopposed activations coming later in the turn.
With bloodlust in my eyes, I sent my forces surging forward.
Did I mention I had zero ranged combat in my army? It was all melee, so the only direction to go was forward.
On the right flank, a unit of Putrid Blightkings plodded through the muck, churning the soil beneath their steel-shod feet/hooves. They seized the first objective: a recently abandoned campsite with a roast pheasant still sizzling on the spit. This hapless game hen would become the focal point of absolutely insane butchery as the game unfolded.
With a little help from my chaos sorceress, I managed to goad my unit of Centigors into charging a unit of crossbowmen that had just finished unleashing their arrows into the flanks of my chaos knights. The Centigors thundered in amid a storm of hooves and spears, laying waste to the crossbowmen …
…before finding themselves on the receiving end of a devastating counter-charge from John’s winged pegasus knights!
Nothing like a good ol’ charge/counter-charge bloodbath.
As these maneuvers were playing out, we again remarked on how Age of Fantasy captured the spirit and general gameplay mechanics of classic Warhammer. Sure, we weren’t flipping through army books and cross-referencing arcane rule interactions, but the general spirit of the game definitely emerged as block of troops wheeled and charged and fell back.
By this point, we were about two turns into the game, and the chaos cavalry was advancing up the left flank to menace the dwarf handgunners. The center of the battlefield was dominated by several units of Vince’s heavily armored dwarves, backed up by a fearsome artillery piece.
Over at Waypoint Pheasant (the campfire objective marker featuring the oversized chicken tenders), John was making a determined defense with his block of 20 spearmen, led by the inimitable Grand Marshal Bartholomieu Begovic (standing tall on his ubiquitous supply crate).
The spearmen had a special ability that allowed them to inflict fierce casualties whenever they receive a charge, which really had me scratching my head about how to crack this particular nut.
Ultimately, I had to commit three units to the fight in order to pry John’s spearmen off this particular objective. The final sledgehammer came in the form of a devastating charge by my chariot, which circled around and took the hedgehog on its flank. (Age of Fantasy doesn’t have unit facings, so flank charges exist only in my imagination, but it seemed fitting here.)
The arrival of the chariot tipped things in my favor. A series of spectacularly poor morale rolls from John resulted in Marshal Begovic fleeing the field with the surviving spearmen! Discretion was the better part of valor, it seems, and our dear Marshal didn’t wish the get bloodstains on his pantaloons.
The Ebb and Flow activation rules we were using for this game continued to present unexpected and extremely fun decision points. Both sides had the opportunity to pull off “combo activations” to push the advantage. By the end of the second turn, repeated ativations by the chaos army had finally seized the initiative, culminating in this devastating charge by the chaos knights against the surviving members of a dwarf handgunner brigade.
The demise of the handgunners meant that there wasn’t much to stop the knights from rolling into the dwarves’ backfield, slaughtering the artillery crew and disrupting the reserves that were waiting to plug the gap in the main battleline.
We concluded that the game was in the bag for me, and the two allied players wisely decided to quit the field and retreat to their strongholds.
Age of Fantasy provided a great game worthy of the history books (for me, anyway, since I was the victor). It is a very playable, rules-lite game which seems like it can easily accommodate some very large armies without a lot of complexity or rulebook flipping.
The Ebb & Flow activation rules (optional in the Age of Fantasy rulebook) were absolutely electrifying. I understand they also form the core mechanics for games like Bolt Action and Warlords of Erehwon.
By the end of the game, we were already sketching out ideas for larger games featuring more gloriously painted miniatures from our collections. Stay tuned for more!
Comrade's Wargames 