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Grimdark Future: The Scouring of Hundvolst

Posted by Comrade on October 13, 2025
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I’m slowly working through my backlog of photos and content that I’ve been meaning to post over the last year or two.

One such info dump is our annual 40k Apocalypse game, which took place in December 2024. We used Grimdark Future for our ruleset of choice, since it was quick and easy to pick up and play; it has served our group well over the years.

For the game, Paul and I set up a narrative scenario featuring the siege of Hundvolt, an Imperial feudal world that had unfortunately drawn the attention of the evil factions operating near Warzone Endymion. Here’s the capsule blurb we came up with:

The feudal world of Hundvolst has suffered mightily under the yoke of the Imperial tithe. For
decades, village elders have watched as their sons and daughters were conscripted and
shipped off planet.
Now, the war has come to Hundvolst. Invading forces led by Heretic Astartes and foul xenos
scum have laid waste to the planet even as Imperial defenders mount a dogged defense. Mighty
armies churn the verdant soil of Hundvolst, reducing the planet’s forested hills and idyllic
villages into charred rubble.
The invasion is reaching its apotheosis. Imperial Navy ships, operating under a directive from
the Ordo Malleus, have taken up station above the benighted planet. In mere hours, they will
deliver the Exterminatus unto the cursed planet, scouring the surface of all life and rendering it
inert and lifeless – such is the Emperor’s divine wrath.
As the sun sets on Hundvolst, ragged Imperial units fall back to their evacuation sites. Several
plucky force commanders stage a daring raid to liberate the knucklebone of St. Theodosia the
Spiteful, seeking to spirit the saint’s relic away from the doomed planet and keep it from the vile
clutches of xenos and heretic alike.

The scenario was intended to give us a reason to set up a weird mash-up of a feudal low-tech Imperial world being fought over by monstrous sci-fi war machines and armies. We wanted an excuse to set up a battlefield with our immense shared collection of gorgeous Tabletop World resin fantasy buildings, for one thing. We combined those with Daniel’s Sector Imperialis tiles to create a pleasing aesthetic.

The game itself was absolutely massive, with each player bringing about ~5,000 points of their respective factions. It was a glorious stew of beautiful models, vehicles, monsters, and war machines. All fully painted, as is our standard approach here at Comrade’s Wargames.

The cathedral in the building above housed the main objective — the knucklebone of St. Theodosia the Spiteful. The factions were competing to see who could seize the knucklebone before the virus bombs of the Exterminatus arrived to turn the surface of Hundvolst into a primordial soup of biological matter.

Here’s a peek at the action inside the cathedral. It was a bloodbath as the forces of Chaos tried repeatedly to gain control of the sanctuary, only to be pushed back by the combined guns of the Imperial Guard and Adeptus Sororitas!

To be honest, I’m a year removed from the blow-by-blow action of the game, so it’s all a little hazy. I know we had some hot daemon-on-tank action, as seen below, followed by a gallant last stand by a gas mask-wearing commissar.

The streets nearer to the cathedral were choked with tanks as the heavy armor maneuvered for position. Troops scampered from cover to cover as the steel behemoths traded shots. The stone and thatch buildings provided tempting positions for heavy weapon squads, too.

The defenders of the Imperium — Astartes, Sororitas, Custodes, and Astra Militarum — mounted a brave defense, selling themselves dearly even as the clock ticked down toward the planet’s doom.

As the night wore on, the defenders rallied again and again in the face of the unending onslaught. But the forces of Chaos would not be denied their prize. Slowly, through gritted teeth and white knuckles, the defenders were pressed back and the attackers surged forward.

The battle reached its culmination as the forces of Chaos seized the knucklebone and began an extraction from the cathedral. Alas, this extraction turned into a rout as the combined forces of the Sisters of Battle and Imperial Guard fell upon the vile Heretic Astartes.

In a surprise no one saw coming, the defenders of the Imperium seized the holy relic, and an extraction squad managed to make it to a waiting Valkyrie gunship which lifted off mere moments before virus bombs rained down on the planet’s surface.

The image above shows the rearguard defending the landing site until the Valkyrie could escape. And then — a curtain was drawn back on the poor feudal world of Hundvolst, and no further missive is recorded herein about the fate of the world. Perhaps in a thousand years, Imperial surveyors might return and divine some clue about the ultimate fate of those trapped on the surface when the virus bombs fell. Or perhaps not.

Conclusion

As in years past, Grimdark Future gave us a great game that kept everyone engaged and rolling dice until the bitter end. We brought food and drink and enjoyed a meal together about midway through the game, as is our tradition with these end-of-the-year Apocalypse sized games.

And seeing as how I’m writing this in October, it’s a good reminder that we have just a few months before the next Apocalypse game. I’ll try to come up with a suitably epic scenario and tabletop setup, so stay tuned!

Shadow War: Armageddon Battle Report & Review

Posted by Comrade on October 10, 2025
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We have a penchant for old-school gaming here at Comrade’s Wargames, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I’ve been eager to try out Shadow War: Armageddon ever since I came across some blog posts and Youtube videos about how it’s been rediscovered lately as a diamond in the rough.

Now, don’t get me wrong — Shadow War isn’t an old game, per se. It was released in 2017, just before the debut of the revamped 8th edition of Warhammer 40,000. But it’s imbued with a certain old-school sensibility that appeals to me greatly. How, you might ask?

  • It’s essentially a re-skin of the venerable and popular Necromunda skirmish ruleset, which itself is derived from 2nd edition Warhammer 40k.
  • In my opinion, 2nd edition 40k is a lousy ruleset for army-scale games, but it’s ideal for skirmish level games, where each players controls about a dozen (or fewer) figures. The super granular statline for a typical figure makes sense when you’re only controlling a handful of dudes.
  • It’s one of the last (if not possibly the last) of GW’s one-book-is-all-you-need titles. The main book contained everything: core rules, army lists, advanced rules, campaign systems, etc. There were no extra books to buy, at all, ever. (Now you can see why GW has no interest in this type of approach.)
  • The core rulebook contains a dozen army lists covering most 40k armies, making it trivial to get players of all stripes interested in trying out the game.

Lately, as the increasing cost of models and rapid pace of rulebooks and supplements has increased the barrier for entry to the Warhammer hobby, players like me have been rediscovering older rulesets like Shadow War: Armageddon. To further illustrate the Venn diagram for you: I’m an avid enjoyer of One Page Rules, so I’ve never really been a participant in the current GW treadmill approach to game editions and rules supplements.

Anyway, enough of that preamble! You came to hear about the game, right?

John, Jim, and I got together last weekend to try out Shadow War: Armageddon. The core book doesn’t explicitly include rules for multiplayer games, but we are seasoned veterans of the wargaming hobby, so it was simple to adapt one of the rulebook scenarios to incorporate three players, all competing to accomplish little mini-missions on the tabletop.

I set up a dusty, windswept desert battlefield replete with craggy rock formations and rusted industrial equipment. Here’s a look at the setup.

We played on a 4×4 battlefield, as advised in the rulebook. Weapon ranges are fairly short, and we concluded after the game that a 3×3 battlefield could easily have sufficed, even for our three-player game.

John fielded his grubby little Imperial Guardsmen, and Jim brought a stupendous number of Orks – 11 figures in total, I think. Contrast that with my Inquisitorial warband, which numbered 6 models. Yikes! Here’s a look at our factions as we started the game.

Prior to deployment, each player received a randomly determined mission objective.

John’s Guardsmen were trying to get across the board and exit from an opposing player’s deployment area.

Jim’s Orks were trying to blow up a tank of promethium (the 40k equivalent of natural gas + gasoline + napalm, all mixed together and used for a variety of purposes).

My Inquisitor was trying to isolate and assassinate the Ork warboss.

The game started with John’s Guardsmen moving purposefully through a narrow defile on the left flank of the industrial facility. They used the overwatch rule from Shadow War: Armageddon to great effect to cover their approach.

Waiting to meet them were Jim’s Orks, of course! He couldn’t just let those Guardsmen jog across the field unopposed.

The upcoming clash in this dusty back alley was one for the books. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, Inquisitor Coteaz sent his warband up onto the central terrain feature — a craggy bunker defended by a trench and topped with (you guessed it) some promethium tanks.

From this perch, they could watch both of the opposing warbands as they jockeyed for position in the outskirts of the facility. I knew the Orks had to come my way to accomplish their mission, but I also didn’t want Jim to have to face John’s Guardsmen alone! So, in a burst of tactical genius, I split up my forces. You’ll see later how this played out for me.

But first — back to that alley. The Guardsmen were creeping along, covering their advance with overwatch, when suddenly a mob of Orks burst forth and charged them in true orky fashion!

It was an absolute bloodbath for the Orks. We learned a lot about the casualty system in Shadow War: Armageddon. You aren’t outright dead when you take a wound, but most of the time you’re in very bad shape, with just a slim hope for recovery on the battlefield.

Over by the promethium tanks, a brawl was developing as Jim charged his Orks up to assault the trench line. I had two models available to defend — Interrogator Lysander Frost and Virgil the Huntsman, who was armed (fortuitously) with a flamethrower.

As this bloodthirsty scrum was developing, Jim’s warboss bravely stepped out of hiding and entered the fray. He started by throwing grenades, then decided to wade into combat and try to draw off some Inquisitorial acolytes.

As it happened, the warboss ended up within charge range of Inquisitor Coteaz! This was literally my game objective — slay the opposing leader! I couldn’t let a chance like this pass by.

Throwing caution to the wind, Inquisitor Coteaz raced into combat against the warboss. For a turn or two, it was a fair fight… we traded blows but no one seemed to gain the upper hand. Once some more Ork boyz joined the fray, things went sideways quickly for the Lord Inquisitor.

Here’s his final stand, just before he was cut down in single combat.

Luckily, his broken body was spirited away by Interrogator Lysander, to be healed and restored to the Emperor’s service.

In doing so, Lysander’s attention was taken away from the Ork boyz scrambling up the hill toward the promethium tank. Oops!

All it took was a tiny little distraction to seal the deal for Jim’s Orks. This silly Ork warrior blew up the promethium tank in a fiery explosion, ensuring victory for the greenskins even as the Imperial factions retreated to lick their wounds.

Feedback from the guys for Shadow War: Armageddon was generally positive. “It definitely scratched an itch,” was how Jim put it after the game. SW:A had all the accoutrements that would normally turn me off from a GW game: super granular stats for figures, weird corner case rules like ammo rolls and crawling 2″ per turn when wounded, inexplicable wargear missing from the army lists.

But I’ll be honest with you — it works. The whole package plays smoothly and is imbued with a healthy dose of nostalgia. The clunky parts are a glorious love letter to earlier editions of Warhammer 40k. And it’s such a small scale game that you just don’t mind flipping through the rulebook to uncover mundane rules for grenade deviation or melee attacks on pinned models.

For me, the most appealing factor is the “one rulebook is all you need” approach. The rulebook is out of print, but PDFs can be found without a lot of effort. And that’s it — no further buy-in is needed. The rulebook contains army lists for nearly every 40k faction you might want.

So we’ll be playing this one again, for sure. In fact, we’re already discussing a campaign to see how our little warbands can level up and improve their position. Stay tuned for more!

Hobgoblin Battle Report and Review

Posted by Comrade on August 8, 2023
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Last weekend John and I got together to try out Hobgoblin, the forthcoming miniatures wargame from Mike Hutchinson (creator of Gaslands). Hobgoblin aims to be a mass battle fantasy wargame that combines old school rank & flank maneuvering together with a handful of speedy, modern game concepts. The overall goal is a game that lets you use all of your cool fantasy miniatures, arranged in big blocks of troops reminiscent of classic Warhammer, but streamlined to the point where you can play a game to conclusion in a couple of hours.

It’s a tall order, for sure! “Rank & flank” is not at all synonymous with “fast playing,” in my humble opinion. So I was intrigued to see what Mike had in mind as I cracked open the early access PDF. Hobgoblin had a successful Kickstarter earlier this year to produce a nice hardcover version of the rules, and the early access rules have been distributed and updated for backers (such as me) to play around with until the final release comes along.

John’s House Begovic infantry marches to war!

From the outset, Hobgoblin has a lot of the signposts that appeal strongly to me as a non-commercial, primarily indie wargamer. Among them:

  • Use any miniatures you want.
  • No specialized army lists – both players build armies using the same list of common units, plus a couple dozen special keywords for flavor.
  • Your cool toy soldiers always get to fight back, even when they’re in the process of being wiped out.
  • Only complete units are removed as casualties, no individual model removal.
  • Only the overall size of the unit matters – the individual figures don’t matter, so you can go nuts creating unit fillers, mixing & matching figures from your collection, etc. A block of “heavy infantry” could be 10 spearmen in chainmail, or 3 steam golems, or 1 young dragon perched on a rocky outcropping on a scenic base.
  • Along those same lines, the overall sizes of the units are flexible enough to accommodate most bases and movement trays. A typical infantry unit, for example, can be 100mm – 200mm for its frontage, and anywhere from 40mm to 160mm deep. Anything that fits within that spectrum works.

Although there’s not a lot of lore present in the early access rules, it’s clear that there is a ton of lore lurking in the shadows, waiting to be foisted upon us whenever the complete rulebook is published. The tidbits that are present – a vast, subterranean world of endless caverns, bizarre ecosystems filling the sightless depths, bone-grinding magic that feels utterly alien – are absolutely delicious, and definitely leave you wanting more.

For our game, we decided to try a small game at 3,000 points per player. At that threshold, we were both able to bring 8 units. I pulled out my vintage all-metal Skaven army that I built a few years ago. (Well, almost all metal…I acknowledge that the plastic kits for the Doomwheel and Warp Lightning Cannon are fantastic and much easier to work with.)

This game was a great excuse to field my vintage all-metal Skaven army!

John brought his ever-growing troop of sad sack humans led by a despised field commander and a cowardly wizard. (Yes, cowardly and despised are both keywords that you can select for your units. These are both negative keywords, so they actually give you more points back for your army when you select them!)

Rank upon rank of beautifully painted miniatures … tabletop wargaming at its finest!

We rolled randomly to determine our scenario and overall terrain setup using the fun battle generator available online. We ended up with some ruins, a couple hills, and two large impassable towers in the center of the table. These two towers would serve to channel our forces into the central killing field. This definitely accelerated the carnage but also prompted some mind-numbing unit movement as we edged our gigantic rectangles of troops around these impassable obstructions.

An early clash led to some mismatched expectations: the heavy cavalry successfully charged the Doomwheel, but the Doomwheel hit back and wiped out the horsemen!

Hobgoblin uses a modified IGOUGO turn sequence, where players alternate casting spells, shooting, and then moving their units. In general, both players are active and engaged throughout the turn; you’re never more than a few minutes away from having a decision to make for one of your units.

Magic spells cost mercury, which is a resource that gets replenished at the start of each turn. You can hoard it between turns to save up for big spells, and you can also use a mercury token to re-roll a single combat dice. Spells always happen – there’s no rolling to see if it’s successfully cast. If you can pay the cost in mercury, your spell is going to kick off. It’s a fun, old-school effect that has the effect of keeping a sense of inevitability about magic for much of the game. Spells happen. Deal with it.

Fortune cards provide each player with a small number of one-off effects and save-your-ass resources that come in handy throughout the game. A typical fortune card might heal a unit, or grant a bonus in your next combat, or let you reposition a unit prior to fighting. You start with 4 Fortune cards and receive 1 additional each turn.

Ratmen shooters wielding clunky, hand-cranked weapons of doom!

Shooting is intentionally de-emphasized in Hobgoblin. Part of it is due to the lore – this game takes place in a sprawling underground grotto lit only by torches, watchfires, glowing runes, luminescent fungi, and other eldritch sources of illumination. In an environment like that, a unit of archers just isn’t going to make a big impact. From a mechanical standpoint, shooting can only ever inflict 50% casualties (measured in doom tokens) on a given unit. Shooting is very much designed to be a harassing mechanic that is employed from the flanks as the armies march toward each other for the massive, inevitable clash in the center.

And clash we did! There’s no innate benefit for charging into combat, so if you want to fight an opposing unit, it’s not essential that you be the first one to initiate the engagement.

My horde-sized block of light infantry attracted a lot of attention during the game. The large size made it difficult for me to maneuver additional units for support!

My horde-sized unit of light infantry was the single largest unit on the battlefield from a footprint standpoint, so it attracted a lot of attention as the game developed. As my Skaven horde began to get enveloped by enemy units, we encountered perhaps the most divisive aspect of Hobgoblin – the fussy wheeling and shuffling and repositioning that forms the heart of the rank & flank movement system.

Another look at the horde of light infantry. They’re being engaged by two of John’s units: a squad of heavy infantry (with the banner) and a squad of light infantry.

If you like rank & flank movement and lament its absence from many modern wargames, then you will appreciate when Hobgoblin is trying to recreate. For my part, I learned that I don’t miss rank & flank movement. LOL! I never played classic Warhammer and so I don’t have an innate affection for large squares of troops wheeling around the battlefield.

I particularly dislike the uber-awkward model placement that results from shuffling giant movement trays full of models in half-inch increments.  I’m talking about trays of models perched on terrain with giant gaps underneath, or unit trays hanging off the edge of a sheer cliff because that’s how far you were able to move this turn, dammit! I very much subscribe to the “moving diorama” philosophy of wargaming, so aesthetics are important to me throughout a game. Hobgoblin lets this pendulum swing a bit too far in the direction of “gameplay over aesthetics” for my tastes. That’s really my one gripe about Hobgoblin.

Another example of engagement. The red-clad heavy infantry unit of ratmen is touching the opposing light infantry unit with just one corner, but that counts as engaged. No squaring up in Hobgoblin!

The combat resolution is extraordinarily satisfying – most units roll 10 dice and consult a chart to see their target number. Hits result in doom tokens, which accumulate throughout the turn but are only resolved at the end of the turn, after all units have had a chance to move and fight. Units that receive too much doom are defeated and remove from the battlefield – and their demise results in *more* doom for friendly units that witnessed the gruesome spectacle! Cascading doom situations really help push the game toward its inevitable, and gnarly, conclusion.

Fortune cards and mercury tokens provide a small measure of unpredictability – in our game, my giant Skaven horde had accumulated a whopping 26 doom tokens, more than enough to destroy it in the Doom Phase, but I had a Fortune card that allowed me to ignore the doom tokens for one crucial turn. As it turned out, this was enough to let the Skaven hold down the bulk of John’s units long enough to win the game.

John and I definitely miscalculated some of the rules interactions as we embarked on our inaugural game. And we learned a lot about the intended function of various units in the army lists. At the conclusion of our game, we both discussed ways we could have adjusted or fine-tuned our army lists to better reflect the sort of army that we wanted to bring to the battle.

All in all, Hobgoblin is a super solid addition to the pantheon of mass battle fantasy games. I’m not crazy about the rank & flank movement, for reasons that I’ve articulated a few paragraphs earlier. Frankly I’d love to see a skirmish sized game using the Hobgoblin game engine – limited list of units, doom tokens, fortune cards, all of it – and just eliminate the rank & flank stuff.

We’ll be playing this one again soon, so stay tuned for more!

Art Gallery Reception

Posted by Comrade on July 26, 2023
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Here’s another milestone for me – last month, I officially took part in a curated art gallery at my local community center! This was a gallery for folks who are affiliated with the center; I teach miniatures painting classes there, so I was eligible to participate.

I entered a diorama showcasing a band of dwarven warriors mounting a hasty defense on the perimeter of a small settlement. An undead vanguard was emerging from a nearby forest, so the stage was set for an epic battle! A couple of my beautiful resin village buildings from Tabletop World made an appearance. I wrote a few paragraphs of free-form narrative lore to help put viewers “in situ” in the diorama.

It was a plumb location, right in the main lobby near the public entrance! All models and terrain was built and painted by me. Astute readers will notice some familiar faces in the setup!

The most challenging part of this installation was finding a suitable pedestal with a protective plexiglass cover on top! I called around to a number of local art nonprofits, community theater, library, etc. before finally striking gold at my local historical society! They had a large, well built plinth in storage, and they were happy to lend it to me for the duration of this exhibit.

Anyway, I’m properly chuffed at the somewhat silly idea of finally taking my place among the pantheon of “real artists.” Of course, I know that there are no gatekeepers on what constitutes art, and that anyone with a lick of creativity can claim that mantle. Still, it’s fun and rewarding to display my stuff in public (for 2 months, wow!) and help people expand their notions of what exactly “art” is.

Warhammer Skirmish & Mordheim Scenarios Converted to Song of Blades & Heroes

Posted by Comrade on May 23, 2022
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I’m doing a bit of public service here by re-publishing the beloved fan supplement entitled (you guessed it) Scenarios from Warhammer Skirmish & Mordheim Converted to Song of Blades & Heroes.

The original PDF supplement (all 172 pages of it) was created by James Diemer and hosted on his now-defunct Hour11 Wargaming blog. The supplement has been gone from the Internet for at least a few years, maybe more. All that’s left is a wasteland of broken links on gaming blogs around the world that had been inspired and energized by the crackling creativity in this massive tome of scenarios.

Of course, I had already downloaded a copy to keep handy on my computer. Little did I know it would become a rare artifact! I reached out to James via the email address in the scenario document and asked for permission to re-post this supplement on my blog. He never responded, but judging by the generous notes from the author on page 2 of the document, I don’t think he will mind.

So there you have it – a legendary lost resource has been rediscovered! This supplement takes Song of Blades & Heroes – one of my all-time favorite skirmish games as well as the game that single-handedly kickstarted my resurgence in this hobby – and adds in all of the glorious Warhammer and Mordheim scenarios you remember from your younger years. Share it, adapt it, enjoy it … above all, have fun with it!