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

The Reign of the Lichemaster, games day 2- La Maisontaal!

 

And so, the time had come. Time to get my recreation of the 3rd ed rulebook table (built by Wayne 'the Duke' Millard) out for a big game. A confrontation between the forces of Kemler (ensconced in La Maisontaal following his success in the scenario Vengeance of the Lichemaster from the Citadel Journal) and an army from Talabecland seeking to reclaim the abbey for their patron deity.

For many months after the sack of La Maisontaal by Heinrich Kemler no word of the deed escaped to the north of the Grey Mountains. As the Lichemaster began to grow his undead hordes by raiding highland villages the rumours began to spread of a terror in the hills.

Witch Hunter Ivan Hellspring was returning from a pilgrimage into Bretonnia when he heard of the disappearance of Duke Tancred and his entourage. Tracing their likely route and finding the wrecked homesteads along the way, he eventually came to the ruins of La Maisontaal and beheld from a distance the horror squatting there. The Witch Hunter galloped rapidly to Talabheim to confer with his peers, hoping to raise an army from Talabecland that would care enough for the fate of the monastery to rid their patron god’s shrine of the necromantic heresy.

This is the army that has marched to La Maisontaal to confront Kemler in a grand battle before the abbey gates.

Deployment. A straight fight between the Empire and Undeath. All the possible extras had been negated by the outcome of the previous day's games so this was a case of army lists as written, go!

Imperial Centaurs march down the Empire right flank. Wait, exclaim the Undead generals, is that a unicorn? Why yes, it is. Nasty for Undeaders that can be...

A view from the picturesque hamlet of Smallsbury.

Battle lines drawn up, with the dead monks of La Maisontaal defending their home, the ex-Bretonnians of Duke Tancred occupying the middle ground and Kemler with his Frugelhofen campaign troops down the far end.

Who puts catapults behind the only massive trees on the table?

The dead villagers of Frugelhofen don't want no livin's in their new abode thank 'ee kindly.

Such concentration from the Empire players... Tactics or just a pretty heavy drinking session the night before?

The Estalian Inquisition, a troupe of witch hunters and a swarm of angry peasants ready to march on the abbey, pitchforks and torches in hand.

As the core of the skeletons shamble forwards  the sole artillery of the Empire line tears them to pieces.

Hand cannon and crossbows overcome their nerves to further decimate the advancing skeletons, providing extra reinforcements for a bit of necromancy later on.

Thumped by Screaming Skulls, the great cannon start to wilt. The undead knights successfully charge and rout the Imperial archers, over-running into the nearest cannon crew and ending up perilously close to the pistoliers.

Below La Maisontaal the red paladins of the Estalian Inquisition, lead by Cardinal Kum Fitcher, attempt to send the ex-monks back to their graves.

The breach is held.

Deciding to keep well away from the unicorn, Kemler and his cronies charge across the river to join the fight in the centre of the table. Ranlac the Black, riding his chariot beside the Lichemaster, has a whole bunch of his master's Magic Points enshrined within his banner.

Left without his Centaur escort, the general on his unicorn scouts for a suitable target.

And espies the dead dwarves of Gimbrin's Mine.

The fight at the abbey is fierce. Bagrian slays the cardinal but he and his unit are destroyed by the red paladins. The witch hunters advance towards the breach in the wall. The peasant mob stops two skeletal chariots in their tracks before the missile troops can be mown down.

The Krellingtons block the road out of the village.

Combat is joined in the middle of the field as Empire troops lock spears with the bony masses. 

Two fresh units of skeleton warriors and one of skeletal cavalry are summoned forth to fight again.

The angry mob storms the abbey.

The witch hunter commander slays the resident Wraith and reclaims the holy site for the Empire. Will he allow its rededication to Taal or insist on a shrine to Sigmar?

The Empire line begins to crumble as units break and flee.

Halberdiers hold the bridge, denying the left flank to the undead.

Bad light, hangovers and long trips home called an end to proceedings. La Maisontaal had been retaken, cleansed of the abomination. Kemler and his lieutenants had lost plenty of troops but lived to fight another day, fleeing once more into the wilderness. There would be some sheepish faces around the Empire camp fires that night (and a strong smell of drying urine) as explanations for cowardice were given. The an emissary would be sent out to find the reason the dwarfs had failed to give their support...

The Reign of the Lichemaster, games day 2- La Maisontaal!

Men at Arms

Recently I have been returning to my Heroquest collection to add a few more figures. As you'll likely know, the metal prototypes from Heroquest are my particular holy grail quest. Many months ago a fellow collector and Heroquest fanatic messaged me to say he'd found a spare casting of the prototype Man at Arms from Wizards of Morcar/Advanced Quest (Dark Company), also released with Frozen Horror in the USA. Only one problem...

At some point the plume had been cut off for conversion purposes. Here you can see the complete figure with the butchered 'spare' next to it. No problem, I reckoned I could fix that.

Searching through the Empire pages of the 1992 catalogue I located a plume that looked the closest. I then took a silicone mould of just the head of the donor model and cast a resin copy. I used modelling putty to fill in the curve a bit more to match the intact prototype plume, cut it from the resin head and pinned it onto the prototype model. Job done.

As you can see the prototype model (second from right) takes the same plug-in weapons as the released Ersatzsolder and Helblitzen models. The tabs on these figures say 1991, Advanced Quest came out in 1992 and Wizards of Morcar in 1993 so it's likely the plug-in weapon concept was already in place for Warhammer and adopted into the Heroquest release. The prototype figure is just a different head on the same body as the Helblitzen figure to the left of him in the picture above.

Having painted so many matching uniforms for my Empire army I couldn't face another batch painting session. Since these are mercenaries and their attire is very different (supposed to represent Tilea, Estalia and regions of the Empire itself I presume) it was a fun opportunity to go to town with bright colours and patterns.

The regular released soldiers in these pictures have been made up with the different weapons permanently attached, just painted to match. Perhaps each player's own mercenaries will be colour coded? Of course I only had the one of the prototype figure so a system for swapping the weapon was required. The pin into the body serves as a locator but not much else on these metal models, unlike the plastic ones where it holds enough to easily swap the weapons in and out. 

Fortunately there's enough flat space on the ends of the models arms for them to be drilled and some small magnets to be inserted, with the reverse on the weapon options. I don't feel too bad about drilling into a rare prototype figure as he'd already required fixing with the plume transplant. Besides, it allows the model to actually be used and is invisible once the weapon is attached.

So here's what the weapon options look like side by side. I take it this chap is meant to be a Tilean. He certainly looks it to me. Sad that you couldn't buy packs of just the one body type since the uniforms are so different a mixed unit doesn't look nearly as good as one with just the single type in.

The heavily armoured Helblitzen, always my favourite of the four released.

This guy looks Nuln-y to me, but that's based on a very limited knowledge of the Empire since I never really cared much for official Warhammer fluff. 

An Estalian?

And here's what a full set of the prototype models would look like.

I've got another prototype on the painting table at the moment, and scouts on the lookout for more, so further Heroquesting developments very soon!

Men at Arms

Empire in Flames

 Well it has felt like it the last couple of days...

One of my favourite things is batch painting the same uniform over and over again.... um, no. I am a skirmish/single figure painting man so why on earth do I always challenge myself to big armies? No more I tell you... well, after the Night Goblins anyway. As well as doing my Chaos bits over the last couple of months I have been adding to my Empire Army. 160 figures in 60 days isn't bad going, especially as my actual time available for painting has been severely limited. 

The new additions are 20 spearmen, 25 crossbows, 20 halberdiers, 22 longbowmen, 22 swordsmen, 21 longswords, 20 hand cannon and 6 banner bearers with attached colour parties. The army is unique among my armies in that over three-quarters of the miniatures in it are my own sculpts. I started Oakbound with the original intention of sculpting alternatives to figures I couldn't afford or find and casting them up to create armies. What actually happened was I sculpted and cast them but then sold them to buy the original figures I wanted... not a bad business model but I did want to realise an army with the original plan.

30 heavily armoured Halberdiers (Fae Martial figures from Oakbound, now available in bulk packs if you're interested...)

30 Heroquest men at arms and a Microarts Nobby Nobbs. 

30 Lunn Spearmen and 15 Lunn Swordsmen made up of leftover leaders from spearman sets.

15 Advanced Heroquest Henchmen and some Perry sculpts. These crossbowmen are original Citadel ones with slotta tabs, at BOYL last weekend I picked up a pack of 7 more of the Foundry release to make the unit up to 10 so still need to get those painted now the weather has cooled off a bit.

Colour parties (command squads from the Lunn Spearmen), ECW leaders on unicorns (because why not?) and a YeAlchemist war altar. All the heraldry is taken from family names connected with mine and places I have lived. The ECW models scattered throughout this army also have some significance as 'pro-painted' collectables I bought from various ECW re-enactments and museums I visited as a kid now stripped and getting more attention than they ever did.

Some requisite Empire firepower, another ECW set I 'rescued' from being display pieces. I purchased two more cannon from Foundry that will be added to the battery once painted up.

And on to most of the recent additions. These are all units made up of four body sculpts with 7 interchangeable weapons in the manner of the plug-in HQ plastics and their Citadel counterparts. If you'd like some they are going to be available from Friday through the Myrcipean Mercenaries Kickstarter. The aim is to create figures that can very easily supply the large units needed by an Empire force without the hefty price tag of vintage GW models or resorting to non-plumed historical alternatives. First up, 20 Hand Cannon.

20 Great Swords.

20 Crossbows.

20 Halberds.

20 Bows.

20 Swordsmen.

20 Spearmen. The plan is to give me decent choice of every type of weapon available to Empire footsoldiers in 4th edition, even if there are some types that are significantly less 'effective'. After all effectiveness has never really been behind my choice of troops and isn't the Oldhammer way. :D

Swordsmen showing off their fancy shields.

So just a final reminder that if you'd like to build your own mighty Empire force on the cheap you can! All metal and traditionally sculpted of course.

MYRICPEAN MERCENARIES

Empire in Flames