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?

Leprechaun Love

 

Sometimes projects just roll, sometimes they need a little push. Tableaus from Talamhlar, the new book for The Woods, is something that has been in the works for a few years now and falls in the latter category. It needed some impetus to get finished. That was provided in part by booking a table to do demo games at Beachhead this coming weekend. I wanted to take the opportunity to do another table rather than recycling the same Woods terrain again. A fantasy Necromunda setup based on the lost boys' hideout in Hook and Lothlorien has been on my to-do list for a while and with Tableaus featuring rules for scenic woodland elements this seemed like a good crossover to give me the kick to finish writing.

I know everyone will say "oh, Endor", but really the Ewoks were far from my mind in creating it. My influences are (as I said) Hook and Lorien, plus the woodland adventure trail I used to love playing on as a kid and Puzzlewood (used for parts of the Endor shoot, so there is a connection after all) in the Forest of Dean. This is a 3' square table with the intention that all elements can be used in a modular way in conjunction with my other terrain pieces.

A part of the setup was on show at Reveille in November, so you may already have seen the trees in person. If you're in the south coast area and can get to Bournemouth for Beachhead this weekend hopefully you'll get to see more and maybe have a play on it. If not it should be featured in an article for Miniature Wargames Magazine in the coming months.

The Acorn (Oakbound's newsletter) has been running a short series on making the forest. There's also some video footage of it along with my ramblings on the YouTube channel.

I wanted to try and include all the terrain features mentioned in Tableaus on this board- Ropes, ladders and rope ladders, rope bridges, walkways, railings, slides, swings, ziplines, wasps' nests... Actually the only thing I have left to fit is the zipline. I had planned something magnetised, we'll have to see what I have time for before the weekend!

Yes, that is my latest Bob Ross imitation lurking in the background... I like it more with subject matter in front of it!

The subject for the weekend's scenario (as featured in Tableaus) is Cuda's Well, a magical spring that the Leprechauns hold sacred and are guarding against intruders. Their opponents are trying to snatch a wineskin of the water and make it out of the trees alive. For their part the Leprechauns are forbidden to kill in their sacred grove, so they either have to wait and attack in the scowles (Gloucestershire word, look it up, it's worth the effort) or try their tricksy pranks to deprive the enemy of its prize. 

Leprechaun Love

Gaming with actual people!

 

I got to play some games with people 

in person

in a wood

its was great. :)

Better late than never, here are my selection of photos from The Woods in the woods, the first Oakbound games day. After such a long time painting in solitude and trying to make games work on a digital platform is was excellent to get some friends together in a Covid-safe (and beautiful) environment at Wild Woodland Celebrations near Nailsworth and play some tabletop adventures.

The players gather around their rulebooks... This was the first, second and third time playing for most players! It's very satisfying as a publisher to see lots of copies of your own books floating around. 

Whilst they figured out the rules there was a little 'shrine' of Oakbound past and future to look at. The first edition books alongside WIP future releases and John Sibbick's original cover art.

Roddy's huldraugur were the bane of many players' bands. Those armoured buggers with glaives are bad enough but the boars did more than their fair share of brutalising. They got their comeuppance though, at the end of the day a barguest went on a spree and gobbled down quite a few little piggies.

Mike considers his options and makes his play...

One of my favourite moments of the day was when Harry's speedy bucca almost swiped the objective at the end of turn 1 only for Mike's sneaky tricksy leprechauns to nab victory from his fishy grip! 

Sneaky owl positioning allows the leprechaun to drop to safety on top of the beehive hut, then levitate off with the prize.

The fishmen are none too pleased!

Andy's gnawloch muskets proved as deadly as predicted, but after a long struggle backwards and forwards Matt's myeri managed to pull off the win.

Harry deliberates- spooky fish or shouty fish skills?

Richard's piper was messing with people's minds, allowing an allied kelpie to run amok amongst its foes.

There was a photo booth on hand for showing off warbands. I was running some tuatha boars for the day, but I'm afraid they didn't manage much success against the demons of the fens!

Harry's bucca raiders, speedy, slimy, grippy fish!

There were two myeri clans present. Here are Matt's, with a kelpie from Bears Head Miniatures and a lovely Drao mystic converted from a Tiarna.

Richard's clan featured Oakbound and Krakon models alongside a Citadel classic, a unique take on a kelpie and (later on) a hungry barguest. Lovely raven familiar for the Draoi.

Gnawloch muskets of the lookout for prey. They earned the badge 'ratling guns' after a series of devastating orders!

Richard's myeri attempt to catch the slippery fish! The Scotia Grendel and Fogou Models terrain really gave the boards some excellent character.

So many shrooms! Matts' myeri make it very clear the tuatha attempts to seize some of their land is not welcome.

The terrifying Peru Peru dance! All together now lads, "Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!"

Gnawlochs put their objective safely behind the firing line.

War Pigs!

Harry watches his shoal caught in a pincer movement. 

Matt's Kelpie holds the ancient temple by scaring off all-comers.

Last game of the day- a 4-way fight on a double-size board.

Much deliberation over the best way to abduct fae. 

Plus fire! 

and Barbeque! 

Lovely way to end a really fun day.

Gaming with actual people!

Elvses!

I finally got around to getting some photos of the Goodwin tribute wood elves I had a go at last year. These will be on Kickstarter next month as "wardens of the woods". They were fun to paint and look pretty nice alongside my genuine Citadel elves, heads slightly bigger but I think they style is complimentary.

Elvses!

A kind of fellowship

 

One of the good things that happened in 2020 was getting a bit of time and motivation to sculpt along with Rob Inglis reading Lord of the Rings. I know I am not alone in having Tolkien to thank for the considerable proportion of my life currently spent in worlds of fantasy! I also suspect I am not alone in having my image of Middle Earth cemented by listening to the BBC radio play and looking at the art of Alan Lee. The pictures that play in my head as I read or listen aren't well represented by the films (about which the less said the better) and as a result there aren't that many miniatures that capture them either, so I thought I would have a go myself. Last week I got to spend some time painting them whilst listening to the radio play which was a very pleasant experience.

Gandalf is the archetypal wizard right? The way I see Gandalf isn't actually based on an illustration of Mithrandir himself but on an Alan painting of Odin, and I have taken this quite closely as my inspiration. Because it's not an official Gandalf figure I have had to make some changes, he has a raven familiar and a hand on top of his staff (nods to the Odin/Wothan myth) and represents Weithand the Wise from the Mythic Heroes Woods supplement.

Hobbits/halflings tend to be represented in miniature as fat, with short legs and big heads. There are some good reasons for this. One is that it's hard to make slender models that are very small and also detailed, another is that they have been interpreted as comical characters in many derivative versions of Tolkien's world. My own picture of Hobbits is based very firmly on Alan Lee's illustrations from The Hobbit- paunched but not 'fat' and with quite slender, proportionally long legs. I have tried to do similar. The result is that they are a bit taller than many manufacturers' halflings whilst still shorter than a regular 28mm human. Not entirely to scale as I envisage them but the best I could get them and still have them cast ok.

Legolas is a wood elf, a type which has now become fixed in high fantasy terms but which has largely centred around the elves of Lorien rather than Mirkwood. My elf bowman is also based on an Alan Lee drawing, this time one of the Tuatha de Danaan which features in the Faeries book. He's rather more wild-looking, not so clean and refined as a 'regular' silvan elf. After all in The Hobbit the elves of Thranduil's court get up to some trickery not befitting of the elegant elves of the Golden Wood.

For dwarfs/dwarves the image in my head is wonderfully captured by Paul Bonner's illustrations. Kind of Scandinavian with their cloaks, moccasin-like boots and beards. He's smoking a pipe, of course.

In my head Boromir is dark-haired with a beard. Not a bushy one like in Bakshi's film (so much right with that movie, so much wrong with his viking Boromir!) but a groomed black affair. The armour of my bold warrior is based on the illustrations of Charles Keeping in an illustrated version of Beowulf my English teacher in primary school gave me. I still have it and it still has pride of place on the bookshelf! He's armed with a spear, a much more practical weapon and trvael-aid. 

So there we are. My kind-of fellowship for my dark age fantasy world. If anyone is interested in picking up a copy The Grey Company will be on Kickstarter at the beginning of February: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oakbound/the-grey-company

A kind of fellowship