Blood on the Snow- a tribute

 

You probably know that the wonderful human being that was Matthew Street departed this world last year, leaving a hole bigger than I could possibly describe. For the last few years he had been planning to run a big communal game of Blood on the Snow, an early Warhammer scenario, at BOYL. He had done artwork for it (see above) and planned a scenario booklet to accompany the game. He'd also begun painting forces for it, which you can find on his blog "News from Hell before Breakfast".

Matthew's human fighters are shown above and below. Sadly, ill health and life pressures meant that progress stalled a few times and the planned game never took place. At his funeral a bunch of us vowed that this year BOYL would see Blood on the Snow in his honour, using his miniatures. Now, here's a bit of a sticky problem. Matthew had collected a lot of figures for the game. Most of them were unpainted and in clearly labelled boxes. These we distributed, aiming to paint a unit or two each. After the game they would be auctioned off to support Matthew's partner. Unfortunately, nobody has seen or knows where the painted figures are. They don't seem to have been among his stash of lead. There are plenty of figures to run the scenario with (except in some quarters where I believe Matthew had hoped the designs he was doing for Old School Miniatures' Kev Adams goblin range would fill the gaps) but it seems a shame not to field the models he painted himself.

Against the possibility that his works of art turn up, I decided to try and keep the selection of figures I had taken to work on matching the colour scheme and look Matthew had selected. Teal and white uniforms with red accents and a brooding, high-contrast look. I am pretty sure he worked over a black undercoat and likely used oil washes. Being an artist he was also very picky about his paint choice. I wasn't, just using my regular Foundry paints and Army Painter washes. I also stuck to my usual grey undercoat as I wanted to do the selection justice rather than use it as an excuse to experiment. There are some lovely Citadel sculpts in here (mostly Foundry rereleases) and they were refreshing to paint after months of my own sculpts. I did try to go heavier with the shading and black-lining than usual on them. It used the last of my Citadel Expert Paint Set black ink, but worth it in Matthew's honour.

This is a unit of 20 militia and 20 archers, all mixed sorts selected from Matthew's bags of options. That's twice the size of the units listed in the scenario, but I know Matthew wanted to up-scale the game. He also had plans for dwarf slayers riding wild boars and more greenskin shenanigans, but those are in the hands of better modellers than I! I did, however, also take a unit of dwarfs to paint in the event that the Streety originals do not surface. More on those in another blog post.

Blood on the Snow- a tribute

Wot? No post?

Two months without a word?

Dearie me, I'm sorry about that.

I have been very busy. As soon as everyone got back from their Christmas break my work announced a big restructure of Technical Services which, on the face of it at least, looks like a bunch of redundancies looming. At last count there are 9 other people in the running for my job, so let's say it's not been the most fun time. Added to other bollocks that's ongoing, it's not been the best start to a year. BUT! I have been putting the final touches to something cool. Behold!

Shivershield!

This is the new iteration of The Woods skirmish game. Think of it as Woods 3rd Edition, but without the RPG stuff (which got expanded and went into Deepwood Shadows, released before Christmas) and the Battle bits. We all know 3rd editions of things are the best ones, right? My mate and former housemate Roderick and I have been working on this for the last 2 years so it's amazing to see it finally come to fruition. With the successes of two advent calendars and Thunder Under Mount Silence, I have been able to invest in cardstock and go all-out on a boxed starter set. Something Oakbound could only dream of when 2nd Ed came out in 2019. It's packed full of tokens, templates, dice, screens, trackers and, of course, miniatures! 20 of them, all new sculpts, enough for two full warbands to start slugging it out. And if you've already got your warbands ready you can just pick up the rulebook, a glorious full-colour hardback full of lovely, glossy pictures.

Release is scheduled for Salute, with pre-orders now live and a big ol' article in Wargames Illustrated (probably the April edition). Over the coming months I will be posting some videos on Oakbound's channel about how the game plays, but for now let's just take a look at some scenes from the world. Amazingly enough we now have at least one of every miniature covered by the book, so plenty to pick from when setting up some shots. If you're interested in how these photos were taken that'll be the subject of March's members video over on YouTube. Enjoy!

Tuatha defend their home from a bucca assault. 

This is the terrain board I'll be taking to Salute for demo games this year.

A gnawloch scout creeps up on an armoured fae warrior.

A pixie battle bard summons elemental spirits to join the warband.

Leprechauns and a spriggan ally ambush unwanted goblins in the hill country.

Bucca emerge from a coastal tunnel to find their way back to sea blocked.

A myeri warrior shows you how to run around in the mountains.

Fenfolk on the march.

A cludbur militiaman tries his luck with a sling against the armoured carapace of a woldlouse.

A nuckelavee charges out of the marsh to confront the guardian.

Fae hounds break from the cover of the trees.

Wot? No post?

The last day of deadcember

 Well, it's been a busy ol' month, but I did find time to slap some paint on this chap.

He's from the Celtos range of course, the best fantasy range ever, and I believe a glorious Kev White sculpt.

Happy new year all!

The last day of deadcember

The saga of Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson

 

Hi folks. It's been quiet here as I have been up to my eyeballs in various things. I did manage to take some time out a couple of weekends ago for a fun trip to Cumbria to stay at the awesome Moorforge Viking Settlement. I then didn't write this write-up as Blogger was messing the photo order about and I couldn't be doing with that. But I find myself with half an hour to kill so here goes...

This is the big longhouse at Moorforge, where we were playing a pair of linked Norse-themed games of WFB3 to celebrate Steve's birthday. In the distance and below you can see the half longhouse where we were sleeping. The building to the left of it in the photo below is a reproduction Icelandic forge. Very cool.

As you can see, it was pretty dark, smoky and on the chilly side (though we dodged the snow by a couple of days). As a result my photos aren't the best, but are atmospheric at least.

After a night of moderate snoring, flatulence and excursions across the field to the loo we awoke fresh and ready for gaming. Well, ready for Steve's immense breakfast anyhow! If anyone knows how to cater for a wargaming crowd it is Steve!

The Saturday morning game was a small skirmish/roleplay-type affair with Norse champions and their retinues trying to win the support of their countrymen and stake a claim to kingship. In Steve's words-

The remote kingdom of Arsenduvnaewar is unfortunately also a troubled one. The passing of King Skagi the Grimacer has left no clear heir to the throne amongst his various bickering descendants, legitimate and illegitimate both. So tangled is the usual web of revenge, madness, suicide, betrayal, murder, blood oaths, fratricide, cannibalism, incest and intrigue that often occurs in situations like this, that a particularly vicious feud has erupted and the various factions of the Arsendirs are on the brink of outright civil war. Matters are not helped by the threat of neighbouring clans maneuvering to muscle in and take advantage of the power vacuum - the crows have started circling even before the carrion litters the battlefield…

Then one fateful and stormy night, the great Longhouse of Faenshølet, with its empty throne and divided court, was visited by a most ominous and unwelcome guest. The clamour of drunken squabbling and brawling was soon cut short by the sonorous voice of a hooded stranger, who had crept so silently into their midst. Going only by the name of Dáinn, the deathly and hunched figure intoned the most grave of ultimatums - should no suitable champion step forth to unite the kingdom, he would claim the throne and lay waste to all with his legion of Draugr. None dared raise a hand against the necromancer and his exit left the hall cold and silent as a tomb.

This new threat, once the hangovers and sore heads were suitably nursed, had the effect of focussing and uniting the Arsendirs. Potential champions, with and without legitimate claims to the throne, began to step forward and supporters coalesced around them. The Elders, thankful of a possible way out of the bitter feuding, also saw the opportunity for some serious housecleaning in the kingdom. The people of Arsenduvnaewar had long been plagued by all manner of creatures and no one had ever really done anything about it - too strong was their love of strong liquor and infighting.

A decree went out that any champion who could perform a sufficient number of heroic deeds to clear the kingdom of its endemic Trolls, Giants, Dragons and worse, would be crowned the new King. Of course the new King’s first job would be to deal with the Necromancer, Dáinn, but that was glossed over as much as possible so as not to put anyone off…

This was to be the first outing for the Bronze Age Miniatures I picked up from Fenris and the Foundry Norse I got at BOYL this year. Despite starting painting them in September I only just managed to finish them the weekend before and even then it was a bit rushed. I have in mind that these are the anti-Slaine forces to my Horned God themed barbarians, so went for full face helms and armour wherever possible. The big chap matches the Foundry Horned God figure for size and I picked up a Bronze Age dwarf to be the anti-Ukko. Obviously this guy is a complete gentleman. I called my hero Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson after encountering face to many Thor-related names in the Scandinavian sagas I have been reading this year.

My band did not fare well in the first game. Their initial encounter with some dryads in the forest left them depleted and they had to seek aid from a Fimir witch and her reanimating cauldron. This appears to have further damned the warriors who went on to lose their champion to a Jabberwock, pick entirely the wrong giant to try and befriend then fail completely to even give themselves voluntarily to a trio of hungry trolls. By far the lowest saga points of any warband present I am proud to say. But it did not end there! Oh no...

For the second game all the would-be kings united under the leadership of Chris/Erny who had pulled off a mighty haul of saga points in the first game. At least, for the moment we were united. Against us was Steve's foul necromancer with his boggy allies (run by Andrew). This would be an opportunity to get all 600 points of Norse on the table and give those undead a good kicking.

I set up in the trees on the right flank of the undead, ready to send my berzerkers in. Now, there was a bit of confusion over the berzerkers in this game... that being due to my not spotting the misprint of the berzerker profile in the WD army list. Despite it's being pretty obvious. Thus both my forces and Dave's benefited from 3, yes 3, attacks per model. Oops.

With a bone giant, a massive unit of cavalry and several nearby units of skeletons to run on into I was pretty confident by berzerkers would be bogged down rather than looking for targets. Oh no, not the case! 

Avoiding the giant initially I charged around the back to deal with a couple of screaming skull catapults. I figured I couldn't do much to the giant and wanted to be of some use before I inevitably got charged by it at the start of the undead turn. With the help of Brunhild and her shield bearers, however, the giant was soon dispatched. With Dave's berzerkers collapsing the skeleton horsemen (unlucky instability roll) and the skeleton archers just out of charge range my wild ladies began scouting around for another target... and my regular troops hadn't quite run far enough to avoid their gaze!

Luckily an intervention saved the regulars. We all had secret event cards to play when we liked. One of these allowed a rival candidate king to assume control of half a unit. By playing this Dave was able to turn the wild ladies' furious charge into a furious row as half the shield maidens turned on the other. Much slapping and hair-pulling ensued as all other troops got out of the area, fast!

Elsewhere on the table a rebellion had unseated the king. As the undead horde fell apart (literally) the rivals began to stake their own claims. Using my own event card I was able to teleport Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson into the fray just as Alex's chaos champion reached her abnormally long and sucker-tipped fingers to grasp the crown.

A duel ensued, but the two combatants were clearly evenly-matched. In the end an alliance was proposed, solidified by the marriage of half-giant and freakish aberration of chaos. Our children will no doubt be beautiful. A surprising end for Saturday's underdog!

 

The saga of Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson