Warmaster

DVD-terrain - "homeless" Church homeless no more :-)

2012-02-13T00:58:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
That sweet little "homeless" church just kept begging for a base - so I whipped this one up. Turned out pretty well.

Still need to "dirty" up the gravestones (and yes, the tumbled down stoen was on purpose, and in no way because I managed to superglue it in that position and couldn't get it loose again....).

All the best,
Kasper

World of Tanks

2012-02-09T02:22:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
I know this is mainly a blog devoted to Warmaster (medieval and other variants) but this game is just so much fun I need to share it! Its World of Tanks (free download) and anyone with any kind of interest in tanks should try it - good quick fun and did I mention it is free?

I uploaded some of my recent gameplays to my Youtube account so you can get a quick feel for the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zmhGfEOKmo&list=PL5D12EEFE2E4FE0A7&feature=view_all
Or just view this single game - shows some of the possibilities in the game, actually takes a fair amount of thinking to succeed in the game - not just quick reflexes :-).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhniCToDk5E

All the best,
Kasper

Homeless Church

2012-02-04T05:54:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
During the latest "terrain-building-spree" I managed to paint this little sweet church, but didn't make a base for it. So at the moment its called the "homeless church" :-)

Excellent detail on the little thing - I especially enjoy the little cross in the bush.

Oh, and we did get to play a game last week - pure slaughter/madness, but great fun - picture report coming shortly.

All the best,
Kasper

New trees and other terrain pieces

2012-02-02T00:12:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

As I seem to have a knack for forgetting what brand and where from I purchase things this is mostly a "forget-me-not" note to myself :-).

I recently bought some stuff from Angelbarracks (excellent delivery speed);

10 straight sandback sections (which I use as walls).

10 Gates (2 in each so 20 gates)

4 wooden fences (two in each so 8 of those) for more obstacles

and, best of all, 11 new trees made by KM - three fir and the rest deciduous. They are really nice, perhaps on the small side.

And then a pot of paint from Coat D'arms. New brand for me, wanted to try them out and have had trouble finding a good "woody"-brown that doesnt dry out or get clumpy too fast.

All the best,
Kasper

Heroquest miniatures

2012-01-30T01:59:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
something completely different, this time!
A long time ago at a fleamarket we found the excellent game of Heroquest. All the minis were included and as we have had quite a lot of fun playing the game (the wife, my eldest son, and myself) I figured I would paint up some of the minis - very nice quality considering their age.

Two Fimir.

A dreaded "Chaos Warrior".

And a couple of fearsome (?) Goblins :-).

All done in a single painting session a few months back...

Best regards,
Kasper

DVD Terrain - 6mm / 10mm Terrain

2012-01-30T01:50:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
A group shot of the three finished "DvD-terrain" pieces. They should brighten up any battlefield .-).

All the best,
Kasper

Farm 2 on a DVD - 6mm / 10mm Terrain

2012-01-25T01:45:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Another of the DVD-terrain pieces I made and painted last week. Again a solitary farm, lacking any defences for the forthcoming conflict.
This one isn't completely done, but I had the camera up and running and thought I had better take a picture lest I forgot to later. The dirt needs a bit of flock and the cows could do with a bit of dirtying up - unless the farmer just washed them?

Again, I have completely forgotten who made the farm - it was another of those weird grey clay things.

Turned out alright I think :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Farm on a DVD - 6mm / 10mm terrain

2012-01-23T02:22:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Another of my "dvd-terrain" pieces made last week. A sweet little farm - totally unprotected for the forthcoming war.

Again - I have completely fogotten who made the farm itself (a one-piece resin cast) which was so-so. A few more details would have been nice, but once painted up it looks ok. From a distance. If you close one eye.

The trees are some I bought on Ebay from China - ultra cheap and a bit too unnatural green but, again, from a distance and all that.

Hope you like it - it should look alright on the field of battle :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Warmaster battle coming up!

2012-01-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Our next battle is rapidly approaching and these be the rules of engagement:

(ANY COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOMED!)

Warmaster Scenario: Seize and Control:

In any larger siege the control of nearby resources is of the utmost importance for all involved. This scenario represents a large foraging army sent out to places of import near such a siege where they encounter the opposing army. Both sides seek to gain control of the strategic objectives on the field of battle, perhaps more important than inflicting casualties.

1250 points (min/max limits as for 1000p).

Three armies, all fighting against each other.

Deployment: Hidden setup, 20cm in.
Special rules:
Skirmishing moves (i.e. skirmishers gets a free move after all deployment has been done, the one with the most skirmishing units begins).
Artillery Master (i.e. our old favourite Special Character - tons of rules - this game he will be bringing an organ gun for free).
Infantry Special (i.e. if infantry are within a particular piece of terrain at the time of an order are given to them see throughout the terrain piece. E.g. an infantry brigade can charge within a city if they are inside it when the order is given.).

Map:

Red denotes deployment zones and blue the four objectives.

Victory Conditions:
Normal victory points will only be used to decide a tie, and break points are not applied.
After each player's turn he will be awarded one point for each of the four objectives he is in control of.
To control one of these a player must have scoring troops (i.e. not skirmishers, artillery or troops belonging to the Artillery Master. In addition characters and units reduced to one stand cannot control anything, as is the case with confused units) within the boundaries of the objective and be the only player to have troops in the particular objective. If a player controls an objective he will be awarded one point; i.e. up to three points by each player may be grabbed each turn.
After the battle the points will decide who won the game.
In addition 2 points will be awarded for bringing the enemy to their break point and 2 for killing/capturing the enemy general.

All the best,
Kasper

Church on a DVD - 6mm / 10mm Terrain

2012-01-20T00:17:00.000-08:00

Hello,
the first of the finished dvd-terrain pieces (begun here) is this church. It is made of some type of grey clay that I was a bit worried about painting but in the end it turned out very well, at least I think so :-). The church does look a bit "new" and could do with some weathering, but perhaps the congregation just finished repainting it before war came to their neighbourhood?
(Actually - looking at the pictures I seem to have forgotten to "weather" most of the gravestones as well - must be new graves?)

The gravestones are of this type:

A nice little set - I kept some for the next church in line.

The tree is one of the lovely ones produced by Heki (I think) and the hedge was a cheap buy from my local train-hobby store. The fence-thingy id from Irregular Miniatures (and I just bought 10 more of those :-)).

All the best!

Kasper

6mm / 10mm Terrain on DVDs

2012-01-18T07:27:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

In order to make even more small sized terrain to make the battlefield more realistic I went through my "bits box" of terrain and found a lot of unused buildings and "bits". So during a relaxing evening I put some of it on DVDs as they would provide me with a nice sized base that was readily available and could quickly be duplicated.
Here are a couple of pictures from the early stages - finished pictues will follow soonish:

Really nice church - and a lot of pva glue :-).

The church in the background with a bit of hedge and colour while two farms are shaping up in the forefront.

A brilliant (but small) resin church that I've been waiting for a good occasion for using - and the church seemed to call out for a large tree...

More trees on one of the farms and a wind mill popped up :-).

I think they've turned out well so far - and hopefully they'll be visible in the forthcoming battle report...

All the best,
Kasper

Overcoming Obstacles IV

2012-01-11T01:35:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
the last of the obstacles finished last week;

This one turned out particularly well - looks like something you would expect to find close to a forest or similarly. A few strips of logbarriers from Irregular Miniatures and one lovely tree - Noch?

A short strip with a hedge - used up the last of my hedge-supply. At least of the good stuff - the quality and look of this one is perfect, but I can't remember where I bought it from... alas my memory is failing big time.

A few of Irregular Miniatures Gun emplacements - they might be too small once the Kallistra Cannons occupy them but the rest of the time they'l look fine, I hope.

Next up will be a few small towns/churches I've been working on and I really should get a lot of roads done - I need about two meters of road to really clutter the battlefield!

Oh, and we have a new game scheduled for the 31 - so expect a battle report sometime in early feb.

All the best,
Kasper

Overcoming Obstacles III

2012-01-10T02:05:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
A few pictures of the terrain I recently finished.
Again the object of these obstacles was to create somthing that could either work as obstacles or simply "pretty up" the battlefield somewhat :-).

First up is a simple fence - made by Irregular Miniatures, if my recollection isn't completely caput...

A log-barrier.

And a wall made up of those wonderful walls I bought a long time ago and have now forgotten who produces, unfortunately. These are really high quality and look brilliant - if anyone knows who produces these I would love to know!
Edit: I think these might be Irregular Miniatures' "straight sandbag section"?

All the best,
Kasper

Overcoming Obstacles II

2012-01-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
I managed to sneak in some hobby time today and get some work done on the obstacles I begun a week ago.
Here is a short preview of the results - with the Artillery Master proudly displaying his Organ Gun in the middle:

Most of the terrain are N scale (or ca. 6mm) while the minis are ten mm. I know thats a bit weird but it really looks more "correct" on the battlefield in my opinion and works really well footprint-wise.

The object of these obstacles is to preovide some nice looking "clutter" for the battlefield - although they could be used as obstacles and thus given defended status to infantrye etc, they are mainly just there to break up the "flatness" of the battlefield. I hope and trust they will work.

Heres the first of the obstacles - a stone (I naturally had to paint it as I didn't think it looked enough like a stone :-)), a small tree from Heki or Noch (damn I wish I had more of these!) and a few sections of the same wall as the Master is deployed behind. I've forgotten where I got these from and if anyone could help me out with a name I would really appreciate it!

I'll be showing close ups the next few days so stay tuned in breathless excitement!
:-).
All the best,
Kasper

Wishlist for Christmas

2012-01-06T04:19:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
these are going on my wishlist for Christmas! What? It has just been X-mas? But Id idn't get any toys! Not fair!
Oh well, I'll put them on my "wouldnt it be great to have enough money to buy this"-list, then.

These are made Anglebarracks and are stunning little scenic bases that are well suited for their line of 6mm buildings. Just look at how sweet they appear - and you can even buy them pre-painted!

A Spanish hill town and a walled town....

Prices are from 35 to 65£ for base and all the houses etc. Very nice and high quality, by the look of them.

All the best,
Kasper

Warmaster and Rick Priestley's new home

2012-01-03T00:55:00.000-08:00

Hello all - trust you made it through New Year safely!

Due to certain unmentionable elements in the gaming industry, the God-father of Warmaster (both fantasy, Ancients and Medieval), Warhammer, and a personal hero of mine, Mr. Rick Priestley, got a new homepage/blog during Christmas. (Actually I'm not entirely sure if he is aware of this :-)).

No longer able to update the former nexus of internet-warmasterianism (http://www.rickpriestley.com/) a few brave men (I suppose) have set up a new blog that will, hopefully, become the new place to be (or read) for all Warmaster purposes. This is where yous hould go for enw army lists, rule FAQs and clarifications, etc.

I really hope this blog succeeds as there are quite a few minor adjustments needed to both the most ancient army lists and the newest (in my opinion). I.e. a Hittite army is so completely different from a Teutonic Order list that there is no way they could play level game.

Anyways, I urge you to go there and if possible contribute or just let your clicks show that you appreciate the site.

The address is: http://www.ricks-warmaster.com/index.html

All the best,
Kasper

Overcoming obstacles

2011-12-21T00:57:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
after a long draught on the hobby side I finally got some stuff done yesterday evening. Not much but it may be the beginning of a long and fruitful winter :-).
In our last game I realised that there are three things I need in order to make the field of battle look better; more road, obstacles, and something to clutter the tabletop to make it look more natural (these would probably not have any effect on the game - purely visual).
So the first obstacle to overcome were the obstacles... (see what I did there? :-)). And here are a few pictures of the first stage of them:

There are also two defended areas for the artillery to park in - of no benefit ruleswise but it should look better :-).

Most of the metal pieces are from Irregular Miniatures while the trees and hedges are from Heki or Noch - wonderful stuff.

The two odd objects - which I really hope you recognize - were bought in a small shop in San Francisco recently for the prize of 1 dollar combined. I hope that with a little tender love and care they will end up as somewhat amusing pieces for the battlefield...

All the best, and a merry christmas to all,
Kasper.

2500p Medieval Warmaster Battle Report - "Seize and Control"

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
As promised here are the battle report of our latest Warmaster Medieval battle.

The Scenario

The full rules of the scenario (even though they are quite short) can be found here: http://warmasterdk.blogspot.com/2011/11/seize-and-control.html. But basically it is a scenario where at the end of each players turn if he controls one of the three central objectives (the hills, city, and forrest) he receives one victory point for each.

A quick note on the scenario: It worked well, gave Infantry a large role to play and was easy to keep taps on. Perhaps a few minor adjustments - it seemed weird that confused units could control an objective (even as rare a thing to happen) and perhaps introduce a rule to represent some random insurgence could throw units out of objects - local militias getting angry at loosing all their food? i.e. on a six the controlling units are moved outside of the object?

Army lists:

The Black Teutonians of Wales (Teutonic Order)

2500p - BP: 13 - Commanded by Uffe
Grand Master, 2x Lords
6 x Brother Knights (How do ya like mechanised medieval armies, eh? Bloody tiger tanks!)
3 x Crusader Knights
2 x Light Horses
7 x Crossbowmen
8 x Spearmen wih pavisses.

The Glorious House of York

2500p BP: 22 - Commanded by Kasper
King Richard, 2 x Lords
3 x Men-at-Arms-Mounted
4 x Currours
2 x Hobilars
12 x Shire Bill, 5 with stakes
8 x Shire Longbows
6 x Irish
5 x Peasants
2 x Heavy Cannons
1 x Organ Guns

Deployment:

A few notes on my depoyment (i.e. York's) may be in order; the infantry were supposed to swarm the objectives on the flanks and sacrifice themselves while the cavalry and cannones were there to try and deter the Teutonian monster cavalry from participating. The Irish were the principal sacrificial troops to open up a path for the rest of the infantry while the peasantbrigades were there to fill up objectives with cannonfodder...

Three shots of the Yorkian deployment

And two of the Teutonian lineup (Buuuuh-Hiss at the unpainted lead!)

Turn 1 - House of York

First turn saw some placing infantry moves. In the center a full brigade managed three order rolls and firmly entrenched themselves upon the hill, daring anyone to come and dislodge them. On the other flanks more infantry moved up, marred by the first of many blunders this game. A few barrages of the british longbows drove the Teutonian Light Horses backwards dazed and confused.

Yorkian infantry bravely occupy the hill...
Victory Points: 1

Turn 1 - Teutonic Order

The countermoves were impressive; infantry swept forward on each flank while a strong brigade of feared Brother Knights moved rashly forward into a position from where they were threatening the entire right and centre of the Yorkian army.

Victory Points: 0

Turn 2 - House of York

Deciding something had to be done Richard III boldly led the charge of all the Men-at-Arms Mounted into the Brother Knights. Although casualties were high on both sides the Yorkians were triumphant destroying whole unit and causing much damage besides. They were able to just push the combat behind the line of sight of the remianing Brother Knights (BK4) hoping to survive a few hours more.

The Irish on both sides used the oppurtunity to sneak unnoticed into both flanking objectives and start looting.

Cavalry collides in a massive frenzy

A stand-off on the right flank

Final positions in the centre

Victory Points: 3

Turn 2 - Teutonic Order

Never fearing a combat the Teutnian charged in: succeding in many fansy order rolls botht he Brother Knights and the infantry behind them entered the fray and caused many bold Yorkian knights to die. On the other flank the infantry brigade tried assaulting the village but were thrown back by the defending Irish.

In the centre the brave York infantry were assaulted by hundreds of knights but, due to a miracle, managed to repel them and, although heavily damaged, held the centre hill.

The Teutonian might charges in..

... and are thrown back after serious fighting.
Victory Points: 0

Turn 3 - House of York

Deciding to try a bit of longranged destruction the Yorkians held their ground, except for a unit of Hobilars who together with the remains of the M-a-A destroyed a unit of Brother Knights before withdrawing.

The longbow and Cannon shots drove the tattered remians of one Brother Knights unit back (BK3).

A view from behind the Yorkian lines
Victory Points: 2

Turn 3 - Teutonic Order

Angry and even more angry the Teutonian might rumbled forward and killed every single infantryman on the hill, causing it to turn red with blood.

The Yorkian infantry are thrashed.
Victory Points: 1

Turn 4 - House of York

While the right infantry redeployed to take some crack shots at the centre cavalry the remaining M-a-A charged an inviting flank of the Teutonian cavalry line. Causing disappointing casualties they decided to hang in there. While they were fighting cannons and longbows caused massive confusiont o the other Teutonian cavalry units in the centre - buying their comrades another hour to live in. In a similar sacrifice the Hobilars moved in front of several units to protect the falnk of the MaA.

The long line of Teutonian cavalry are hit in the flank by Kig Richard III's finest knights.

And the Irish are busy pillaging the village.
Victory Points: 2

Turn 4 - Teutonic Order

Moving in for the kill the Crusader knights almost destroys the remaining MaA but the preceeding round of artillery fire had left many of the units dazed and now they were still in disarray.
oth infantry sides failed their order rolls as all eyes were upon the decimation of the nobility in the centre.

Victory Points: 1

Turn 5 - House of York

In an effort to save their comrades the brave Currours charge in and push back the Teutonian knights, many of whom die slipping on the bloodsoaked hill.
Infantry divisions redeploy and start shooting at the backside of the Teutonians.

The Currours charge in to rescue the remaining Men-at-Arms.
Victory Points: 1

Turn 5 - Teutonic Order

As the Teutonian knights slaughter the Currours the infantry are boldened by their efforts. The Master Gunner finally decides to do something and moves forward, as do the infantry brigade on the right, although they fail their attempt at charging.

Victory Points: 1

Turn 6 - House of York

Deploying th elast of his knights, Richard III orders the Currours to charge the centre where they destroy and push back the remaining Teutonians. More infantry move forward to secure the hill, while the Irish fall back a few meters to remain hidden in the forrest.

The last mounted reinforcements are deployed by the Yorkian general

Victory Points: 1

Turn 6 - Teutonic Order

To save the day the remaing two stands of Brother Knights charge in to clear the hill. Although they fight amazingly in the end the masses of Currours bring them down. The Infantry tries to roll up the falnk of the Yorkins but the order didn't make it to the spearmen (at least thats what they would claim afterwards...)

Witht hat the game ended - a game where the cavalry almost obliterated each other and the infantry had a strangely quite day at the front. Of the nine heavy knight units the Teutonians fielded only one remained and only one stand from the seven the York side fielded. While most of the light horses were still alive the sound of dying horses must have been intimidating (and one could not say that no animals were harmed during the production of this battle report :-)).

In the end ten units of cavalry and four of infantry died upon that hill - it must have been soaked in blood!

The last Brother Knights charge in to tip the scales

Victory Points: 0

Victory Points and Casualties:

Total Victory Points

Teutonic Order: 3

House of York: 10

Teutonic Order:
6 x Brother Knights [!]: 870
2 x Crusader Knights: 270
½ x Light Horse: 35
Total: 1175

House of York:
3 x Men-at-Arms-Mounted: 405
3½ x Currours: 385
2 x Shire Bill: 90
2 x Longbow: 90
Total: 970

Final thoughts

House of York:

Well the "men of the match"-award should defintely go to both brigades of Irish who more or less won me the game on Victory points by controlling two objectives almost throughout the game. As for the rest of the army I feel it performed well - the cavalry was able to compete with the scary Teutonian Brother Knights and even (through some lucky charges) managed to wipe them all out - albeit at heavy casualties to themselves. Their job was to keep the Cavalry away from my infantry, and in that they succeded.

The role intended for the infantry was to seize and control, which they did - perhaps a bit sluggish and many units never reached a suitable location to start shooting from, but thats all due to the die.

The cannons on the other hand is a bit of a "Hmmm". they did manage to kill 2/3's of a Brother Knight unit and sow confusion in another turn but is that woth 150points? Well I guess it sis (but the organ gun is gone forever :-)).

All in all a great game; won by infantry but through the workings of the cavalry and a bit of heavy support fire from the artillery - just as it should be :-).

I'll let Uffe explain what went wrong on the Teutonian side of the battle. One thing I should mention is that although many command rolls were missed if he had focused more on getting the infantry into the city and the forrest the Victory Point difference would have been much lower but I guess he got focused on the cavalry battles in the centre - which were bloody fun as well :-).

Hope you enjoyed the report - these beasts take an enormous amount of time to compile so I hope it is worth it!

All the best,
Kasper

Flagdownloadspage: full of win!

2011-11-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
I just wanted to bring to your attention a certain page on ye internet. This contains several full sheets of high detail, well drawn, and (best of all) free banners to download. They look excellent and covers several historic eras; I was drawn by their banners for the House of York but noticed American Civil War and the 30 years saxon war as well.
http://grimsbywargamessociety.webs.com/flagdownloads.htm
Give it a look, now there are no excuses for not having historical correct banners for all units!
Here is a small preview of the quality:

There's a ton of work gone into each sheet so it is very nice of them to allow these to be used free of charge!

All the best,
Kasper

Seize and Control

2011-11-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday was the day where we finally played another game of Warmaster Medieval - its been around four months zero gaming on that front.

There will be a full lenght battle report sometime during this week but I can say it was an intense, bloody, and fun game - it is not an exageration to state that all the horses of the House of York and the Teutonic Order were slaughtered!

The scenario functioned well - it would need no alterations.

I'll leave you with a picture of the hill that would become so incredible bloody.

All the best,
Kasper

Finally: a game!

2011-10-31T04:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
after many looong months of no gaming it seems we shall be having us a fancy Warmaster game next weekend!

The scenario will be something along these lines:
(ANY COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOMED!)

Warmaster Scenario: Seize and Control:

In any larger seige the control of nearby resources is of the utmost importance for all involved. This scenario represents a large foraging army sent out to places of import near such a seige where they encounter the opposing army. Both sides seek to gain control of the stretegic objectives on the field of battle, perhaps more important than inflciting casualties.

2500 points (min/max limits as for 2000p).
Deployment: Hidden setup, 20cm in.
Special rules:
Skirmishing moves (i.e. skirmishers gets a free move after all deplouyment has been done, the one with the most skirmishing units begins).
Artillery Master (i.e. our old favorite Special Character - tons of rules - this game he will be bringing a unit of Crossbowmen and an Organ Gun for free).

Victory Conditions:
Normal victory points will only be used to decide a tie, and break points are not applied.
After each player's turn he will be awarded one point for each of the objectives he is in control of.
The objectives are the central hill, forrest and city.
To control one of these a player must have scoring troops (i.e. not skirmishers, artillery or troops belonging to the Artilery Master. In addition characters and units reduced to one stand cannot control anything) within the boundaries of the objective and be the only player to have troops in the particular objective. If a player controls an objective he will be awarded one point; i.e. up to three points by each player may be grabbed each turn.
After the battle the points will decide who won the game.
In addition 2 points will be awarded for bringing the enemy to their break point and 2 for killing/capturing the enemy general.

Map:

All the best - and of course a battle report will follow...
Kasper

Im Westen nichts Neues

2011-08-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

Hello all - and a big welcome to the newest followers: great to have you onboard.

While everything is a bit quite at this blog for the time being (mainly due to the "summer" and work related issues) I would like to point out a list of relevant articles for 10mm (and 6mm) posted here: http://grandscalewargaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/10mm-and-6mm-articles-in-wargames-press.html

I wish I had access to those magazines. If you do read any of them, please let me know if anything really intriguing are mentioned in them - especially new rules :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 38 - Harpy family picture

2011-07-28T02:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I almost forgot a few pictures of the unit of Harpies - all together ready to wreak havoc on dwarven cannons or elven Repeater Crossbows (actually they most often ran away from carrions - but thats another tale :-)).

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 37 - Harpy Banner Bearer

2011-07-26T01:20:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
the last of the command group - the banner bearer. The banner itself really turned out well and provided an interesting focal point for the group of Harpies. It also allowed for some different symbols than on the other Skaven banners.
Hope you enjoyed it - next up will be some warmachines.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 36 - Harpy Command Group

2011-07-11T04:16:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I can't remember if they were allowed to have one, but I couldn't resist adding another banner and command group to my unit of Harpies. The photos below are of the musician and the champion, next up will be the bannerbearer.
The musician really turned out well and still looks pretty imposing :-).

And the champion also looks like he would love to smack you into next week...

Hope you enjoyed them.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 35 - Harpies or Beastmen

2011-06-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
As I mentioned I really hated the GW-harpies so I grabbed some of my old Beatmen models and granted them a mutation of Wings. They worked brilliantly (although lining them up could be troublesome) as the old Beatmen were some of the best models ever made by GW.
Anyways - here are four of them:

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 34 - Harpies II

2011-06-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

Hello all - continuing on with the harpies here are the last of the bad old GW harpies. One has been given an oversized claw which is from an old Ral Partha dragon - he looked very mean, and was usually the last to get removed fromt he unit :-).

Oversized claw of dooooom! :-).

Mean looking thing!

All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 33 - Harpies I

2011-06-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I realize this is not legal anymore but back when I played Skaven one would never, never, go to war without some Harpies. These were almost the only solution to warmachines a Skaven army had and without them the big units would just get shot to pieces. So the trick was to use the cheap Harpies to harass and destroy. I loved them - so diverse.

Anyways - these are the first members of my trusty Harpy unit. Unfortunately GW released these horrible minis and I bought a pack of them before realizing just how horrendous they were. They look ridiculous and trying to rank them up was impossible. On top of that, their wings always fell of during a battle. Always. So after painting these I used some of my old beastmen and gave them wings - worked and looked much better - they will be up next time.

Anyways; allow me to present the first three of the ugliest GW minis ever:

Although bad minis - I still quite like the paintjob :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

New Painting Station - DIY style - Part II

2011-06-15T03:22:00.000-07:00

Hello all - finished the painting station /setup that I begun a short while ago: h ttp://warmasterdk.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-painting-station-diy-style-part-i.html

Here is a pictures of the finished thing:

Works like a charm and didnt cost a penny :-).

And the old one, just before it is destroyed:

All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 32 - Rat Ogre family picture

2011-06-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

Hello all - a family shot of all the sweet little rat Ogres waiting to be released and rip the throat out the enemy:

They look so sweet and cuddly - don't they?

Next up will be the harpies.
All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 31 - Rat Ogre

2011-06-09T00:51:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
the last of the Rat Ogres is today's treat:

All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 31- Rat Ogre / Headsplitter

2011-06-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Another of the vicious Rat Ogres on todays show-and-tell :-).
Back when I played Warhammer these beasts were overpriced and more or less useless (especially in a horde skaven army as I played) but they seem to be well worth including in ny army today. Makes me happy :-). I used to include a small unit in larger games just for fun. They would never do much but they were painted and looked great.

If I remember correctly this one is called Headsplitter and was from Blood Bowl. But he is also one of the best Rat Ogres ever made, so he got a chance to show his skills on the field of battle as well :-).

Again, I do wish I had chosen a different colour for the spikes than the red but that was the thing fifteen years ago :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Great free game: World of Tanks

2011-06-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

Hello all - just to let you know about a great game I found online: World of Tanks.

This game is by far the best free online MP experience I've ever had.
If you like tanks and to have fun, give this game a try (it was almost bugfree from release and made by Russians - those points alone should make you interested...).
I've been having a blast :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 30 - Rat Ogre

2011-06-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
another old Rat Ogre from the pack. Two mutations have blessed this one - an old scorpion tail and some kind of Skevn transformer weapon. The last was from my old transistor radio, if I remember correctly...

Looking at these beasts really brought back how much of an improvement they were when they were made. The old ROs are really pale in comparison.

All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 29 - Rat Ogre

2011-06-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

Hello all - nothing fancy, just a fierce Rat Ogre:

This rabid Rat Ogre seems to have stolen the mace from one of the very early and very small Marauder Minotaurs.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 28 - Rat Ogre / Boneripper

2011-05-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
well I guess I should get busy posting more Skaven pictures if I ever want to finish that project :-).
So to begin this second half of the lineup, Clan Ressak proudly presents Boneripper, bodyguard of Thanquol himself. Or as the case was he was most often used as a Rat Ogre "champion" as special characters were never allowed. Sadly.

His left arm has been replaced with the claw of one of the very old Citadel Scopions - seems to fit pretty well with the rest of the mini. Although it could use with some repainting on the joints.

The only thing I really do not like today about the paintjob on this Boneripper is the red. Still too inspired by the Red-period of Games Workshop nineties, I guess :-).

Cool mini. I remember when he was announced - the difference between him (and the other newer rat ogres) and the old mono-dimensional rat ogres was unbelievable. One of the best skaven lines ever produced.

All the best,
Kasper

New Painting station - DIY-style - Part I

2011-05-29T05:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

well instead of more rats I 'll show you some work-in-progress pictures of my new Painting station. I made a similar one two years ago but it does not fulfill its job as well as I could wish anymore. The old one can be found here: http://warmasterdk.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-painting-rack.html. It was made during a weekend of much thinking but I still have found quite a few ways of bettering the design. And as we have changed the shelves next to my work area it was too big in all dimensions and as a result was irritating me.

So, while I was babysitting my two boys (they might not be babies anymore but sometimes they act like it...) I began the new paint rack. It is half the size of the old one, but can hold as many paints - due to optimizing the space. Theres is also a few modifications. I have found that it is batter to have the brushes in the back, instead of the front, and more room was needed for half finished minis to be kept in.

In the front row there is room for the last Games Workshop paints that I have left, while the rest of the holes are for Vallejo paints.

The shelves beneath the holes.

Almost finished in its new home. Seems to fit perfectly. Not bad for a few hours work :-).

It should be done in a few days, providing I find some free time to paint the bugger.

Best regards,
Kasper

Rat-on

2011-05-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
seeing as there is little action on the Warmaster front I will shortly continue the pictures of my old Skaven minis... until then I found this brilliant picture to entice you all :-):

Now that is a fearful Abomination!
Best regards,
Kasper

Warmaster Battle Report - 500p Wacky Warmaster - Game Two

2011-05-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

Hello all – it is time for the second battle report from our ”Wacky Warmaster” evening of mayhem (the first report can be found here). Again, Battlechronicler was buggy so only pictures, sorry.

This time around the armies were Teutons (as always :-)), The House of Lancaster and an almost purely Spartanian Greek army.

Deployment and force composition looked like this:

My Spartan army, consisting of 5 x Spartan Bodyguard, 1x Sacred Band and 1x Skirmishers (the naked dudes)

The Overpowered Teutons had three units of Brotherknights (!) and one Crossbowmen unit…

The Lancaster army consisted of 1 x Mounted Men at Arms, 1 x Currours, 1 x Men-at-Arms on Foot, 1x Shire Bill (dressed up as Vikings…), 2 Shire Longbowmen, and reroll upgrade for the general.

The Lancaster-army managed to get first turn (which we normally regard as a curse) and after some consideration moved hesitantly forward, sending the knights a bit towards the Teutonic side.

They in turn moved the crossbowmen forward, but failing all other orders.

In my turn I had brilliant luck with the orders and managed to get the largest brigade, consisting in four units of Spartan Bodyguard into action. They charged boldly into the combined ranks of Shire Bill and Longbowmen, Confident that they were bad-ass. And besides THIS IS SPAAARTAA!

The combat was indeed short and the entire brigade was wiped out with only one casualty on my Spartanians. Did I mention THIS IS SPAARTAA!?

Unfortunately I had overextended a bit and this allowed the Mounted Men-at-Arms to get a somewhat lucky and very surprising flank charge on my Spartans.

Amazingly (not really because THIS IS SPAARTAA!) the elite cavalry were pushed away in a drawn combat – allowing the Spartans to set up for a nice combo charge next turn.

In the meantime the Teutons advanced, and finally charged the Currours, wiping them out and continuing into the remaining lancasterian infantry.

By the end of turn two, the only remaining Lancaster unit on the field was this sole infantry stand, wherein the general was busy trying to hide.

In my turn I decided to see if the flank charge on the Teutons might swing things my way.

But unfortunately the mass combat involving all three sides ended in a somewhat inconclusive draw.

Amazingly the sole surviving Lancaster until did make it to their own turn where they could flee as the Broken cowards they are…

In the Teuton turn the Cavalry wasted little time and charged into the somewhat isolated Spartan Bodyguard.

The bodyguard survived long enough for another brigade to come to their help. Unfortunately they only managed to slightly dwindle the numerous knights.

These retreated from the combat to set up for the final charge.

This charge was against two Spartan Bodyguards on a hill (defended terrain) and when the Crossbowmen also charged into the side of the Spartans (allowing another stand to fight) I was pretty confident that the fight would go my way. Unfortunately I bummed all my rolls managing only a single hit while the Spartans were cut viciously down, despite their higher ground.

And so this was almost a glorious day for the Spartans, but unfortunately they just couldn’t handle the three Brotherhood Knight units well enough to kill off the straggler and get into the crossbowmen. This would have made the Germans flee. Alas.

At least both armies managed to get revenge upon the Lancaster Army, played by the guy who clearly won the first Wacky Warmaster game. So that was sweet.

And a glorious victory for the Teutons – brilliant and decisive cavalry charges all over the place!

The Spartan bodyguard is rock hard and a brilliant unit – in a brigade they are almost unstoppable. Unfortunately they encountered the sole thing that might stop them and the Spartan army had to join the House of Lancaster on the hasty retreat from the Brotherhood Knights.

Casualty list:

Per’s Lancaster: Everything except one stand of Men-at-Arms on foot and the general = 425 and Broken!

Kasper’s Spartans: 3x Spartan Bodyguard = 240 and Broken!

Uffe’s Teutons: ½ Brotherhood Knight = 75

I really hope you enjoyed these reports enough tot ry the concept for yourself – the Wacky Warmaster idea is really fun and provides much opportunity for entertainment!
Best regards,

Kasper.

Warmaster Battle Report - 500p Wacky Warmaster - Game One

2011-04-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

So – Wacky Warmaster. Two games. How did it go? It was brilliant :-).

We managed to play two fun and fast games in four hours with plenty of time for word-bashing each others and drinking plenty of beer.

The rules were basically that each player made two different 500 points lists from any army list but without any of the normal min/max stuff and a free LD 9 general.

Although I feel most of the lists could have been even wackier it was fun to try this out – so much so that our next gaming night will be featuring the same rules – so Wacky Warmaster II :-).

I was planning on doing the whole battle report thing on Battlechronicler – but this hitherto brilliant free program seems to have a serious bug at the moment and wouldn’t let me do any reporting. So instead this will be a picture heavy brief walk through of the first battle. The second will follow soonish.

The armies drawn for the first game were my KaBooom army (all cannons), an infantry heavy Teutonic Order list and Imperial Romans:

My Kabooom!!! (4x Heavy Cannons and 4x Normal cannons)

Uffe’s Teuonic Order (1x Brother Knight, 2x Light Horses, 3x Crossbowmen, 1x Spearmen)

Per’s Romans (1x Vet. Legion, 1xLegion, 2x Archers, 2x Cavalry, 1x Onager, 1xPortent)

First, please say “Hi” to the gang!

From the left it is Uffe (aka Lenin, always plays Teutonic Order), Per (aka grumpy, usually plays Cathagians but thinks the grass is greener elsewhere), and my two sons (aka Wacky and Wackier).

Oh, and the wifey also sneaked into a picture, and that is me on the other side of my eldest son.

The first two turns were dominated by my Heavy Cannons raining down shots left and right, destroying stands and causing tons of havoc.

This was worsened by the Romans failing all orders and the Teutons getting so confused by the heavy cannon balls that they couldn’t get out of the starting boxes.

All going according to my master plan!

Unfortunately the Teutons kept trying to advance, and got the Light horses into a threatening position.

Luckily I managed to blow them away, but my position was by now severely out of order and both opponents were concentrating mainly on my poor cannons. (Maybe I was shouting KabOOOM a bit too loudly?).

And then disaster struck.

A single unit of Roman Heavy cavalry manages to get within striking distance and with a couple of lucky orders charges right into my artillery bunker.

And in a few seconds half my army is shredded by angry Roman elite cavalry and I break. Sadly. But I had great fun shooting all those shots.

By now the Roman player had redirected most of his army towards the Teutons, who were shellshocked and kept failing orders, even though they desperately needed to redirect their facing and get stuck into the enemy.

Unfortunately they do not manage to do so and are instead charged by the Roman cavalry.

The Brother Knights in the background played no role in the game as the Onager early on managed to get an angle wherein it would force them into impassable terrain (forest) whereby they would become auto-confused. They never moved forward in the entire game…(cowards).

After a few rounds of combat the depleted Teutonic Crossbowmen are forced to surrender and the Roman Cavalry have won the day. Almost by themselves having destroyed and broken two armies!

A resounding victory for the Romans.

My own force was great fun – but apart from sowing confusion not that effective. I never destroyed an entire unit and only took out a stand here and there (3x Light Horse, 1x Vet.Legion, 2x Crossbowmen) and, as predicted, once someone reached my cannons I was destroyed quicker than something very quick. The other forces were nice but still fairly balanced and they had fun as well – the Onager is a brilliant piece of artillery but if the Teutons had just had a bit more luck with their dice rolling the game would have been much closer!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and please do try this concept of Wacky Warmaster at your club, home, airport – it is absolutely wicked fun and promises to become even more so in the future :-).

Best regards,

Kasper

EDIT: Forgot the casulty list:
Kasper: 2x Heavy Cannons (150), 2½x Cannons (125) = 275 and BROKEN!
Uffe: 2½x Crossbowmen (140), ½ Light Horse (35) = 175 (and almost Broken!)
Per: ½ Roman Heavy Cavalry = 40
Thats pretty impressive!

Wacky Warmaster - more lists

2011-04-26T00:45:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
two more lists for tonights Warmaster bash - not the wackiest but one is hard as rock and if you knew the guy who made the lists you would appreciate just how different the second is from his usual armies. Four infantry units is something he would normally avoid fielding in even an 1500 points army....
:-):

Band of Brothers:
3x Brother Knights (3x145)
1x Crossbowmen (1x 45)
total: 490 and a BP of 2 (!)

Band of Searchers:
1x Brother Knights (1x 145)
2x Light Horses (2x 45)
1x Spearmen (pavisse) (50)
3x crossbowmen (3x 55)
Total: 500 and a BP of 4

Looking forward to the last lists and the bash itself :-).
Best regards,
Kasper

Wacky Warmaster - the first lists

2011-04-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
as mentioned earlier we are having a bit of a wacky warmaster bash. The rules can be found here, but it is really just 500 points of units from one army list but with no rules.
I finished my two lists yesterday and here they are:

List 1 - "This is SPARTAAAA!"

5x Spartan Bodyguard: 400
1x Sacred Band: 70
1x Skirmishers: 30
500 points with a BP of only 3 (inspiration credit goes to Simon, thanks!)

List 2 - "KaBOOOOM!"

4x Heavy Cannons: 300p
4x Cannons: 200p
500 points with a BP of 4.

Two very diverse armies... If you do have any quick feedback or ideas, please do tell - there is still time to change the lists :-). The tactic of each should be evident - see any elephants shoot them down or kill them with your superior skills.
I think those are the two hardest and weirdest and wackiest lists that I could field. Gonna be fun! I will be back with the other four lists...

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 27 - Clanrats

2011-04-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
A few more skavens - this time some clanrats or nightrunners. I really loved those plastic sets - it was so much fun putting those rats together and the diversity was brilliant.

Beware the flailing rats!

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 26 -

2011-04-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
well if 13 is the sacred Skaven number - wouldn't 26 at least carry some importance for the little critters? If so I guess we should feature something special for the 26th post in this cavalcade of old models...

A dead skaven! That must be pretty special - something not seen everyday in Skaven society. Oh, wait, actually there would probably be more dead skaven lying around than cheesy Lizardmen armies at a large tournament. Anyways, I have no idea where this casulty model is from but I have always appreciated that instead of just being dead, the rat is clearly dead in battle - he is missing his right arm and clutching the remains of a spear in his chest.

The scavenging vermin move in to feed on its larger and more evolved cousin.

Not that special I know but I am running out of pictures that have been uploaded. I guess I will have to bring up a new batch from the basement soon.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 25 - Skaven Heroes

2011-04-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

A few heroic (if such a thing is possible?) Skavens today.

The rat on the left is (apart from the rather huge Skaven head, which makes me regret not having known about Green stuff at the time :-)) mainly one of the oldest models I own. It came with the first roleplaying Game I ever read and owned (I think it was called "Drager og Dæmoner" (Dragons and Demons) and was made in Sweden?).

With the starter set came this rather small fighter. the head was terrible but I have always loved the pose - so I guess that was enough for me to give him a new head, and let him be a unit champion.

The other guy is again a Harlequin model and once again a brilliant model. A lot of character in him and I love the epaulets on his shoulders. The sword.... well apparently it wasn't only GW who sculpted massively overdimensioned swords :-). With one of the newer barbed swords he would look excellent I feel.

Oh - and just for fun - here is an old cowboy model - probably the first human I painted. Not the best skintone, looks a bit zombie-ish...

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 24 - Skaven Sorcerers

2011-04-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
A few more Skavens today - two more of the sorcerers that I think are from the old Harlequin fantasy line, now apparently sold by Black Tree Design. "Ver'men" they are called. I cannot find them on their website so perhaps the moulds broke or something similar.
These are small but very nice models and, at the time, provided a cheaper alternative that also provided some diversity to the Skaven.

Pretty gloomy characters, but very nice. Unfortunately one of the horns have broken of.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 23 - Clan Eshin

2011-04-10T03:24:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
as the weekend disappears so do the Eshins are performing their evil deeds...
Wasn't that an artistic introdution? Let's just see a two more of my old nightcrawlers and a group shot:

The one with a club and net has always been a favorite of mine - looks more likely to maul someone in a backstreet than to sneak around. Even the eyepatch is cool :-)

Brilliant models.

Best regaards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 22 - Clan Eshin

2011-04-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hello all - while I would still love suggestions for the "Wacky Warmaster Challenge", there is plenty of Skaven images to get through, so to speak.

This time it is time for those deadly ninjas of Clan Eshin. I alwys loved how the authors got ninjas into the warhammerian and Skaven lore - a lost clan, heads east and becomes ninjas; simpel and effective :-).

The old models (the ones below) were really diverse and each felt "alive", i.e. had equipment and a style that set him apart from other vermin. I really enjoyed that. Also they do not look like organised soldiers at all, the ninja "warfare" style is really predominant.

I love how individual these two are (even though it clearly is the same model used as a base). The barbed net is brilliant and so is the sling - although that is a pretty massive slingshotstone :-). What was the rule for nets? Extra armour save or something?

More Eshins next time.

Also, I found this LLH cartoon which really represents my attitude towards GW. I really want their minis but, golly, they are expensive!

Anyways, all the best,
Kasper

Wacky Warmaster - 500 points of radical thinking

2011-04-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

Greetings all!

Apart from reliving my years of collecting Skaven, I am a warmaster player at heart. So, given that I am teaching at the University of Greenland for a few weeks and do not have the time to do any serious wargaming, we decided in our small gaming group to do something different for a quick evening worth of Warmastering.

The idea is that instead of playing one, normal and time consuming, game we will have some fun with smaller armies. Back when we began Warmaster we had a series of evenings with 500ish point armeis, just to get into the rules and armies. And these were brilliant fun - fast and furious, and very unpredictable.

So we are back to 500 points, but this time with a, perhaps foolish, twist.

The plan and challenge for "Wacky Warmaster" is that we will play two games, using two different armies.

These armies should be below 500 points (but with a free LD 9 general) and apart from having to choose from one armylist, no further restrcitions apply!

So, for instance one could field 500 points worth of warbands, Falx units or something similar.

My question is: what would you field? What army would be the best and most extreme that you can dream up?

My thinking at the moment is that the armies should be extreme; i.e. only one thing, but taken to an extreme.

Current suggestions and ideas centre on armies of two elephant units and some light cavalry; only mounted English Longbowmen or perhaps only Roman elite legionaries.

I do have one or two secret ideas that are currently on the top of my list - but there are spies ("Spies, Spies everywhere, I tell you!") on the internet so I might keep them secret until the day arrives.

But I welcome any wacky and fun and efficient ideas - so set free your imagination and let me know what you dream up. The games will of course be featured in battlereports on this site - so if your armylist is picked you might see it in action as well :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Reaching new hights (with Chain Mail Bikini Babes)

2011-04-03T05:47:00.000-07:00

Hello all - a small pause in the Skaven horde of pictures today.

Yesterday evening I checked the always entertaining Google Statistics for this blog and, lo and behold, the site has reached a cornerstone in any blogs existence: over 10.000 visitors (not pageviews which is a lot more, naturally, but visitors).

I am pretty happy about all your visits and would like to thank all of you and especially the ever-increaing number of people who decide to follow my ramblings. I hope they do not bore you and the last months detour into Skaven-models have not scared anyone away.

When work permits I will return with more Warmaster Battle report - Google knows, the net needs more of those!

Chainmail Bikini Babes, and I do hope I have not offended anyone - these are merely a service to all those who stop by the blog to find exactly this. And to lessen their disappointment :-). And to compensate everyone else for having had to look at a picture of a freezing me below. (Thanks to armourdude for sharing the picture).

There are of course some pretty interesting facts hidden in all the statistics from Google. The one I giggle the most about is that the fifth most common search words that lead people here are some combination of "Bikini", "Babe", "Chainmail" and "Amazon". While I enjoy a bikini-babe as much as anyone else, the few posts I did concerning the fun little painting excursion into the Amazon 10mm warriors (way back) still generates load of hits.

How disapointed most of them must feel when they look at my bad paintjob on "babes" the size of their fingernails :-). But, should any of them have become addicted to these pages I feel like rewarding them with a picture of a pair of sisters who definately may be called "Chain Mail Bikini Babes" (and Google knows there are a lot of them on the internet...):

But the most popular posts are by far the Warmaster battle reports and judging from the time you guys spend on those pages it really seems you read everything on them - so our mistakes are made public, but I hope they entertain and perhaps lure a few more people to the Dark Side of wargaming (10mm).

Even though I always hope for a few more comments, I must say that I really appreciate those who do comment and the number of page hits and the comments that are made, really encourage me to continue this blog.

I also noticed that while the "western"-countries do dominate the picture of where vistors come from, there are quite a few visits (and not only Bikini-babe-visitors) from more exotic areas such as North Korea, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. If any readers stems from such countries, please drop me a line about how the gaming situation is there and how you stumbled across this site.

The blog author, on top of a mountain outside Nuuk. The highest and coldest point I have been in a long while - nicely coinciding with the 10.000th visitor to the blog. BTW - that thing I am holding? It is a Geocahche, a brilliant little worldwide game that I really recommend checking out if you do not know it (Geocaching.com). The bottle represents a little tresure someone hid on top of the mountain half a year ago, and I became the first to find it - pretty proud about that :-).

Anyhow - thanks for all the visits, comments and a good year of blogging - I hope you will all continue to enjoy this blog.

Best regards,

Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 21 - Grey Seer and Slaves

2011-04-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all - more Skavens!

This time it is "only" Grey Seer Lord Snik-Snak, the religious and factual leader of my old Skaven Clan Ressak.

Although he is pigmentally-challenged he is a Grey Seer (as he will tell you in a very, very violent way). He suffered the change in skin after a failed ritual and was thrown out of the "guild" due to his lack of Greyness. As a result he has become even more of a religious maniac and has more or less taken over the entire clan as his own, leading it in a very fanatical way.

Ive always¨loved this model (I think it is an old Grey Seer - but very aggressive in its stance) but wanted one with additional handweapons, often a magic sword or similar, and had to do a few hand swaps.
EDIT: The cold must have gotten to my brain - this is, of course, the old Thanquol model (cool special character and brilliant rules).

At the time I quite liked the horns (tyranidoid origin if I remember correctly) but today I would judge them as just a wee bit too large :-).

As a "Aprils fool" day- special here is a shot of a champion and standard bearer from one of the slave units. BTW I would love if someone could tell me what the new rules are about these slaves - I keep hearing something about them blowing up?

Thats it for today - its -10 degrees (plus a strong wind) and snowing here in Nuuk, Greenland, and I´ve decided to climb a mountain tomorrow! Wish me luck!
Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 20 - Clanrats (former Bloodbowl minis)

2011-03-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

Hello all - the last Skaven who was forced into serving the army instead of pursuing his lifelong (yet very short) dreams of becoming an All-Star in the Blood Bowl world.
And if I may say so myself - he is a pretty impressive little rat - I wouldn't mess with him!

He looks ready to pound on anything that survives that heavy rifle of his.
I really can't remember where that handgun is from - perhaps one of the Gorka-Morka models?

And finally a group shot of the former BB "Team Ressak" which instead of trampling on skulls in the arena now gets to wreck havoc on whole armies at a time :-).
"Say Cheese!"

Best regards,
Kasper.

Old Skaven Madness - part 19 - Clanrats (former Bloodbowl minis)

2011-03-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hello all - for very weird and unmentionable reasons I happen to be in Greenland for a couple of weeks, so these Skaven pictures are sent to you curtesy of the Greenlandic University´s network :-).

Continuing the theme from the last post of examples of how I converted some of the excellent Blood Bowl Skaven into rank and file clanrats. These three rats are more of a martial art character than the former, needing no weapons to bash in the brains of any opponents.

I think the logic is that if you, as a Skaven, manage to survive on the Bloodbowl pitch then a mere battle offers little danger :-).

They arnt really converted but the rat on the left has been modified somewhat and is now delivering a vicious kung-fu kick to the groin of any cowardly elf who comes within range.

Again, these are nice minis that spices up any boring clanrat unit :-)

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 18 - Clanrats (former Bloodbowl minis)

2011-03-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Continuing the theme of converted Blood Bowl minis into rank and file soldiers for use in a Skaven army, I found these in my collection:

All were originally Blood Bowl minis but have received additional weapons, apart from the brilliant claw model on the right.

The left one is dual wielding a pair of Chaos Warrior axes while the other has received a bow from an orc and a fine headpiece marking him as a dependable archer (at least according to Skaven standards...). I think it is from a very old Dark elf (if I remember correctly, it was one of the crew of a RBT).

Cool minis that gave some diversity to a clanrat unit :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 17 - Skaven Gunner

2011-03-23T05:39:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
More skaven? Yes!

One of my favourite conversions because it is just a simple hand-swap but looks pretty vicious.

The old but brilliant BloodBowl Skaven stole one of the infamous Dark Eldars weapons and is now a threat to be reckoned with. The Eldar carrying the weapon was free on the cover of an old White Dwarf and the weapon was ideal for use with Skavens.

I think he saw service with my Gutter runners (which included a fair amount of Blood Bowl Skavens converted to serve in the clans frequent wars), perhaps this is a modern version of the poisoned sling shot :-).

Simple but effective, and the weapon does have something Skaveny about it :-)

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 16 - Skaven Engineer / Sorcerer

2011-03-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Another Skaven character worked his way up from the basement and demanded being shown on the blog.

This time it is a warlock engineer with his trusted warplock rifle. Having little or no long range shooting as a Skaven army, I loved the option of giving characters these guns. It might just pick of an enemy model or two (wardancers or other troublesome skirmishers) and thereby paying for itself, but it also gave me something to do in the early shooting phases.

The model itself is the old "Skaven sorcerer with warplock pistol" from late 1988 or 1989. The barrel has been extended slightly (inexpertly) to produce a rifle instead of pistol but otherwise it is a brilliant model from the early waves of Skaven. That wave really defined the Skaven for me and still ooze of character, more than the modern models do in my opinion.

"I'll Kill-Kill you now and next turn your neighbour!"

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 15 - Deathmaster Snitch

2011-03-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

A few pictures of another of my old Skaven miniatures - this time its the Deathmaster! Not only the best name ever in the Warhammer world, it is also one of the best Skaven models ever made. He just incorporates the entire race and the evil assassin twist is always nice.

For some reason this version of the model (I think I have three of these models) has been modified a bit. He served as a Gutterrunner champion or similar and if I remember correctly he had an option for flails - or else I just enjoyed flails at the time :-).

The upgraded Snitch - with warpstone flails :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 14 - Gutterrunner champion

2011-03-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Is there anything on the other side of the number 13? I guess there must be so another picture coming up of my old Skaven models.
This time it is part of the Clan Eshin wave; a Gutterrunner champion who must ahve been too close to the warpstone on a mission or two.

Six arms - must be vicious in a hand-to-hand combat!

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 13 - ASB, Chieftain and lucky charms...

2011-03-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

Hello all - holy thirteen! What Skaven to show on this most august number?
I think I'll present another Army Standard Bearer - this time with a banner:

The clan name (Ressak) was the main clan I fielded in battle and have served me well. I think the Standard bearer is the old Maurauder one with an additional very heavy axe from the Chaos Warrior set - looks like he could take care of himself (which a Skaven ASB never could :-)).

A pretty sweet banner if you ask me :-). The head is an old dinosaur head from a competing wargame that never really took of but made some vicious dinosaur-like mounts for Orcs - I'll show some of them later. The central part of the standard itself is from the old Chaos Dwarf Tenderizer, I think. Edit: Nope it is the old "bow" from the Orc ballista or whatever it is called.

Might as well show the Chiefftain standing next to the ASB (weighing the base down). He is one of the old models and still a favourite of mine (my general is also based on this model) - there is just something commanding about the model that I have always liked.

and finally just for fun:

These little buggers (half old goblin archers and Skaven heads) used to be my lucky charms - guarding my dice and being useful for remembering stuff. They might be a little bit wacky :-).

Anyways - hope you guys are enjoying these models (a few comments would be nice :-) ).

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 12 - Army Standard Bearer

2011-03-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

Hello all.

Just a quick look at another Skaven from my collection. This time it is the (almost) finished conversion that was meant to be my army standard bearer. Apart from the standard itself he is done, and looks pretty vicious ;-).

The bits? A lot :-). The lower body is one of the oldísh Maurauder Stormvermin standard bearers, the upper is an old Chaos Warrior while the tail is from the horrish gargoyles (I think).

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 12 - Mutated Seer

2011-03-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
What rats should we view today? How about some crime pictures of one mutated Skaven seer? He probably took one too many warpstoone token and got a bit more mutation than he hoped for.
He does seem to function and his scary appearance should help keep those pesky skavenslaves in line.

The bits are the old head of the a beast of Nurgle - I love the bizarre cross between a snail and an octopus and how it reflects the creation of the demons as mirrored by the old fantastic tables of mutation and animal types in the Realm of Chaos books.
Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 11 - Rat swarms

2011-03-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hello all - more Skaven pictures!
Today I present some of my old ratswarms. I do not know how they are in the current edition but when I played it was unthinkable to not include at least a couple of these in any army.

The models are mainly Games Workshop but the big rats are from some other company which I have forgotten the name of. The snotling does look like he is having fun and a great hammer it carries as well :-).

I really should take a day off and base all these rats - it would make them look much greater. That was one of the continous frustrations of my Warhammer days - I never could find a basing method that I liked. But today, with all the flock available on the internet I shoudl just buy a brand and get at it. Any suggestions?

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 10 - Seer Bodyguard

2011-03-10T02:44:00.000-08:00

Hello fellow rat-lovers! We better get some of the infantry done as well - there are a lot of them.

The models below are made up of some of the plastic sets that came out just as I stopped playing but the flexibility they offered was just amazing. They made all the conversions I had been doing easy and I loved it. Especially after the plastic sets that I "grew up" with wherein the clanrats were as bland and boring as could be and the shape made conversions difficult.

They might look a bit more like apes in their bodyform but I was in love with them anyways and the ease of building crazy stuff was amazing to me.

This is a unit of Temple Guards - the bodyguard of my Grey Seer. I can't remember if it was mentioned in the Skaven background or if I made it up, but my Seer had his own bodyguard made up of light coloured (as opposed to the overpriced Stormvermin - the bodyguard of the clan lord) tough battleproven Skaven. Well as much as you could expect of skavens :-). To represent their superior fighting skills I madly combined them with the Chaos Warrior plastic set and had a load of fun with that.

First the champion, standard bearer and musician:

And the final shots of the entire unit - sporting all their captured equipment. This is about half the unit and when pushing the bell around they looked impressive - really representing the elite bodyguard who had been in a lot of fights.

All the best,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 9 - Skaven Knight

2011-03-09T02:20:00.000-08:00

Hello all - we must have more Skaven madness! So todays old Skaven is a knight chieftain - who seems to have stolen the armour of a poor brettonian knight. There used to plenty of options for mounting chieftains on monsters (which was not such a great idea) and I have made several mounted heroes but this guy always brought a smile to my face - he just looks so pleased about himself.

I´ll have to paint one of my old monsters for him to fit onto.

He deserves it, having waited so paitiently in that awkward position :-)

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 8 - Ratogre Warthrone

2011-03-08T04:18:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Returning to the ever devious vermen I give you: The ratogre war-throne.

Even though this was before all the nice updates available in this edition of Skaven, I always felt that my general could use a little something extra. He always looked a bit wimpy compared to the vampire and chaos lords he encountered.

So I made him this war-throne to stand upon and yell at his hordes (preferable from behind the lines).

The parts seems to be (apart from dusty...) the backrest from a doomwheel, a very old dragon head (with green stuff one horn broken off) as well as a few bits and pieces.
Still looks good and when I manage to find the old general I'll let him ascend and grab a few pictures.

Best regards,
Kasper

Warmaster Battle Report

2011-03-07T04:34:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

As much as I am enjoying revisiting my old Skaven models we should not forget that the main purpose of this blog is the wonderful game of Warmaster. And as we managed a quick game I thought I might present a selection of pictures from this entertaining little game.

We decided on an anarchic gametype where we had three sides of 1250 points that were all at war with each other. We have tried this before and it presents remarkably few problems while allowing for some serious murderous fighting :-).

There wont be a detailed report but I'll briefly write below each picture what was going on - especially on my flank where the most blood was shed (as bloody usual :-)).

Here the evil despot, the Grand Master of the Teutonian army, is clearly trying to terrify the young Ottoman Sultan by seeming as casual as possible while the Turkish horde keeps growing on the table.

The Ottoman Turks setup - using Carthagian troops (so thats not Hannibal but Suleiman the Magnificient :-)).

Army contained: 1x General, 1x Leader, 2x Shepharis and 1x Kapikula (Heavy Cavalry), 2x Janissaries, 2x Akincis, 5x Azabs, 6x Vassals, 1x Cannon and 1x Heavy Cannon (1250 and a break point of 10 (20 units).

Most flanks had some of the terribly bad infantry while the artillery was placed in the corner, Janissaries facing towards the river and the Heavy Cavalry held in reserve.

The Teutonian forces - cleverly or cowardly (or perhaps a mixture of both) deployed far backwards to see what the opponents decided to do. Only the ArtilleryMaster seems eager to get into action. The rest is comprised of 1x Grand Master, 1x Magister, 3x Brother Knights, 2x Crusader Knights (five heavies ... auchie!) and 2x Light Horses, 2x Crossbowmen, 2x Spearmen (with pavisses).

The valiant and brave (Must add more adjectives later .-)) House of York, once again deployed in magnificent style - ready to defeat the evil opponents! (My army if you werent sure .-)).

1x King, 1x Leader, 3x MenAtArms Mounted, 4x Shire Longbowmen, with stakes, 4x Shire Bill, 6x Irish Warbands and 2x Peasants.

After a couple of turns the Ottomans have entrenched themselves within the village and it's fields. The Yorkian Men-At-Arms move slowly foward to try and clear some of the useless Turkish infantry away...

On the other flank the Shire defensive units have moved forward, but the Irish are still hanging back - drinking probably. The Infantry are not looking forward to receiving the charge of all the Heavy cavalry units in front of them - but for some reason the order to deploy stakes have yet to arrive...

The Yorkian cavalry were unsuccessful and get caught by cheap infantry front and flank - but manage to sneak away - though heavily damaged. It does serve to open up the flank...

Teutonian indecision allows the Yorkian infantry to deploy stakes and to get Irish support from the nearby woods - ready to charge any horses that are thrown back by the impresssive defences...

Ottoman and Yorkian Heavy Cavalry fighting. The Yorkians win by pure numbers but here something weird happens as the Turks are pushed ff the field and thereby survives - very infuriating and the first time we have met the less than perfect rule of returning units from having been pushed of the board. We might need a houserule here :-).

The Yorkian aggression is punished by the Turkish counter-charge, more or less crippling both sides cavalry units and leaving only stragglers surviving.

More Nastyness...

On the other flank a single Brotherhood Knight unit managed to charge (the central one was pushed back and lost a stand due to lucky longbowfire thereby making a combined charge almost impossible due to the sneaky Irish who had moved within 20cm but hidden behind the hill. What a sneak that Yorkian player must be! :-)). But it was thrown back and murdered by hundreds of angry infantrymen venting their fear on the expensive brotherhood knights.

Chaotic cavalry fighting on the Yorkian/Turkish flank continues. Here the Yorkian have managed a charge in the flank of the newly rearrived Turks as well as some cheapo infantry mopping up.

The survivors of the flank. The remaining Yorkian cavalry have decided that the huge Heavy Cannon is a more tempting target than another charge at the tough Kapikula. They, of course, utterly destroy the cannon.

Last turn and the Teutonians massacre a lot of Yorkian Infantry but too little too late (although they quite enjoyed it, I am told. The Cavalry that is. The dead Infantry did certainly not enjoy it!)

Meanwhile on the other side of the battle the Teutonian Cavalry finally managed to break through the Turkish defences in the last turn. They have had a strong position, defending the river banks and throwing back the cavalry charges a few times. and managing confusion every other shooting phase. But finally the cavalry push them back and the Turkish line folds from both flanks as the Yorkians and Teutonians envelop the heathens.

A great game - a couple of anxious turns were we tried to decide what way to send our armies before it turned into mainly a cavalry battle as they were the only units to make it through the defensive gaps etc.

The final results were as follows:
Teutonian losses: 1xBrotherknights and ½ a unit of Light Horses: 180 (Bloody coward won!).
Yorkian Losses: 2½ Irish, 1Longbow, 1½ Bill and 2 MenAtArms: 475p.
Ottoman Turks Losses: 1 Kapikula, 2x Shepharis, 2xAkincis, 4Vassals, 3Azabs: 665 (and BROKEN!)

And even though the Ottomans have since tried to disprove the fact that they once again fled the field, they indeed did so - because even Skirmishers count towards break point - when they have an armour save (and Akincis save on a 6+.....).

Anyways - a bloody fun and, well, bloody game :-). It is a brilliant ruleset and with some comrades it always ensures a pleasant evening.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures,
Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 7 - Globadiers

2011-03-06T04:12:00.000-08:00

Hello all - I thought I might as well finish the Skaven Globadiers by showing the last few of them. These are all models from the 1989 line of Skaven - where they had unfortunately stopped giving the rats individual names: So these are simply named as an Clan Skryre Globadier (the left one, who looks like a Plague Monk - whom I have supplied with a new hairdo), and another Clan Skryre Globadier which to my mind looks a lot more sinister than the modern one, and lastly a Grey Seer model from the same year. The Grey Seer seems to have turned a wee bit green - must be all the warpstone...

Just to finish todays post here is a more massive globadier rat - seems to haven been a collaboration between Clan Skryre and Clan Moulder that created this monster. Perhaps in an effort to throw the bloody globe further?
The Giant Rat (which I have no idea where stems from) is in my mind one of the best Giant Rats ever made. Looks bloody vicious!

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 6 - Skaven Sorceror

2011-03-05T03:55:00.000-08:00

Hello all - more skavenatious pictures today. I think I will show my Skaven sorceror - apparently he got trained by some Dark Elves instead of the normal vermin road to magic. Thats why he dresses a bit funny, compared to your normal, everyday contraption-wielding engineer.

Pretty cool little rat :-).

Again - if anyone knows what company produced this I would love a link or other information.

EDIT: Thanks to Dreadaxe I've found out that he is a "Zahranian Ver'men Shadow Mage" and is named Soerik by the company selling him (Black Tree Design). Still a cool little guy.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 5 - Globadiers

2011-03-04T03:29:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

More Skaven today! This post presents two quite converted Globadiers (of the modern type - these are still the current models, right?). Or perhaps psycho-robot-rats would be more a appropriate title :-).

I never really got them to work but almost always fielded a few just for laughs and as they were cheap it added an additional dimension to the games (and even more friendly fire :-)). These two guys were subsequently used as blitzers in a Bloodbowl tournament, hence the numbers.

As for parts - I havn't the faintest idea, but they look like I sprayed them with superglue and dipped them in my bitsbox before painting them. I think I can spot a few very old Space Marine shoulder pads and a powerglove from the old plastic SM set, some gargoyle parts and a chainsaw from an orc - and of course a lot of spiky bits :-). The thing on the arm - I have no idea!

I think they turned out allright..

Anyways, stay tuned for more Skaven (I still got about 3000 points of painted Skaven to present .-)).
Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 4 - Warp Fire Thrower

2011-03-03T03:33:00.000-08:00

Hello all - a detour from the Plague Monks seems to be in order.
Instead I present one of my old and heavily converted Warp Fire Throwers.

This is a cpnversion of an old dwarf bull centaur (if I remember correctly it was the one pushing the Tenderizer) and the top part of the skaven with the gun part. Both parts are pretty old, I guess. The tank was from the back of the unlucky skaven slave who got to carry the warpfire while the tube is simply some wire.

Warpfirethrowers was by far my favourite part of the Skaven army (and yes - this was way before Ratling guns etc) and even though they would always blow up - and everything else within a wide diameter - they would also crisp the opponents favourite troops. Great fun :-).
Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 3 - Plague Monks

2011-03-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

Hello all - today we continue with a few of the old rank and file Plague Monks. This was always one of my favourite units but the paintjob always caused me problems. These have been painted the traditional green, a deep purple and other "uniforms" while I tried to decide what colour they should. Eventually they ended up being black with a yellow line (to represent how often they let me down :-)). In my opinion this looked both visually nice and threatening. Tehir swords are bone coloured (perhaps a bit too bright) but it worked well with the dark colours and was part of the background fluff for my clan of Skavens. I really hope I can find this fluff somewhere...
Edit: I found a pdf of the spring catalogue from 1986 when the cental plaguemonk was first sold as part of the very first Skaven wave of models. Apparently he was called "Spyne Blightmaster" - thats a pretty cool name :-). Sculpted by Jes Goodwin - best Skaven sculpter ever.

Some of these are quite old plague monks while some were the current ones when I stopped bying the ever tempting GW-models. Three of these are from a different miniature company that I simply can not remember the name of - perhaps it was a French company? If you do know this then please let me know!

If I remember these were usually fielded in a big block of 30 PM with 15 (max) plague censor bearers in front. I loved watching them rip apart expensive stuff - especially my friends high elven cavalry :-).

Old Skaven Madness - part 2 - Plague Priest

2011-02-28T01:02:00.000-08:00

Hello all!
Continuing down memory lane with a revisit to my old Skaven - Clan Ressak.
Today's vermin is my plague priest - I used to love these characters as they were the only ones that could actualy fight and kill something...

Im really not sure what parts were used, but I think I can identify a Grey seer (maybe the one from the Screaming Bell?), Lord Skrolks staff and the gun hand from a Doomwheel driver. He is sporting the last uniform version that my "Monks of Madness" (my main Plague monk unit) were painted in and the yellow was hell to paint on top of the black but looked pretty good with thrity of them lined up.

Check back as we continue with more Plague Monks before deciding what else to show :-).
Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 1 - Plague Monk Banner

2011-02-27T04:57:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

Skaven!?! I hear you utter in surprise and ridicule, but yes: Skaven!

Twenty or twenty five years ago I began playing Warhammer and did so seriously for at least 15 years (e.g. a ton of competitions and at least a game every fourteen day). After this period I still enjoyed painting and converting these 28mm figures.

The result is a Skaven army that includes ancient models, an absurd amount of conversion and about a million manhours :-). But unfortunately also a Skaven army (about 7000points) that I have not really seen in ten years due to my dislike of the last couple of Warhammer editions ("Herohammer").

This complete lack of interest (or rather feeling a great sadness every time I saw their containers in the basement) has somewhat disappeared due to the new edition of Warhammer that stresses the type of armies I enjoyed (huge blocks) and the new Skaven models. But no, I probably wont be laying any Warhammer games but I decided to take out the old rats and take a few pictures of them - which resulted in a nice afternoon of reliving old days :-).

I´ll start out with the banner bearer and champion from one of the Plague monk units as the banner really sums up my skaven army :-).

The Banner bearer is the old plague monk banner bearer, while the champion is a combination of a jezzail champion and a globadier hand, and a couple of horns to finish him off. The banner proudly presents a minotaur head - probably one that they have recently killed. There used to be some more stuff on top of the head but that seems to have fallen off.

I hope you´ll come back and see more of these Skaven as I share them over the next weeks.
Best regards,
Kasper

Report on the "The Battle of Marignano" scenario

2011-02-23T01:40:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

I know its been silent around here but while preparing for a Warmaster battle in the near future I found out that I have not reported on how our first test run of the Battle of Marignano scenario went.

And to be honest it was a blast - one of the best scenarios we have ever played. The game was intense and shifted back and forth. The Swiss side had almost given up hope of accomplishing anything by turn two when a small division managed to pummel their way through and by sheer cunning (and a bit of luck) managed to seize the camp and win the battle. The battle was fierce especiallyas the french cannons continously blasted the Swiss into confucion and back towards their deployment making a steady advance almost impossible for the cumbersome pike-blocks. the victory was helped by the French commander of the rear guards slow deployment which allowed the swiss pike blocks to get there in the end.

Good advice would be to spread out the pike blocks as quickly as possible while the French should really focus on defending and keeping some cavalry in reserve for destroying anything that gets too enar the camp - remember your objectives :-).

The victory points reflect the close battle: 500 points of Swiss losses to 475 French (mostly cannons and crossbowmen).

It was really close - which is a sign of a good scenario and I am pretty happy with the forces and objectives.

We did discuss a few changes to bring a better sense of balance to the game which I will share with you:

*We would suggest to reduce the distance between the hill and the river to no more than 15cm (instead of 25).

* The player objectives might need some more work - e.g. the amount of troops that Bartolomeo d'Alviano needs to destroy are too high, maybe reduce this to 200 points. The cavalry charges and defence objectives worked well and really brought a purpose to each force. Maybe one of the Swiss captains can get the objective of clearing the river of any remaining defending infantry.

* One change we discussed but could not agree upon was the "Light Horse with Commander Robert III, de la Marck" This was a major pain for the invading swiss and should rightly be so, but maybe using "normal" light horse stats would improve the game a bit.

Anyways, I really recommend trying this scenario if you can manage to gather 4-6 players - it was a real blast and we shall definately try it agian in the future.

There is no real battle report as my computer broke a couple of days before this game but there are a few pictures:

In the early morning light the Swiss surge forward to push back the defending French

Intense fighting in front of the river

Yet more Swiss are blown apart by heavy French fire

A view from behind the French camp

The Swiss have circumvented the hill and have taken the camp!

Final positions - only a handful of pike units made it to the hill but it was enough for a swiss victory in a very counterhistorical victory

I really hope you will try this scenario and if there are any questions do not hesitate to contact me!
Best regards,
Kasper

Celtic Chariot Spokes

2011-01-12T00:09:00.000-08:00

Hmm, in the great chariot dispute of 2011 the question of how spokes in ancient British/Celtic times has surfaced and I found the picture below which might show this. It is from a reputed book so I hope it is accurate. I do like the intricate golden work done on the spoke. The chariot itself looks plain weird - much more like someone stole the local baker's cart and went for a joyride...:

Probably more detailed than I could do on the small Pendraken Chariots I bought from Ebay but it does provide an excuse to use a different colour than brown for the spoke...
Best,
Kasper

More Ebay

2011-01-04T00:58:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
been a bit quite during december as I couldnt keep up with work anf family demanding too much time. I did manage to spend some more money on ebay (I have decided that these will be the last purchase in a long time - I have more lead than I could paint in a year).
These are more infantry units (which I always seem to need) with nice detail and variation which for me equals painting fun.

10mm Pendraken Ancient British Chariots x 1 Pack. (310253725213#)

The first batch was10mm Magister Militum Viking Bondi:

10mm Mediaeval H.Inf - I think these are Magister as well?

And two packs of 10mm Pendraken Ancient British Chariots- just because I have never painted any chariots :-). I am still not a fan of Pendraken but at least the horses look fine here.

All that (five packs) for 12 pounds, including shipping to Denmark! How am I supposed to avoid buying from Ebay???

Guess thats it - happy new year and all that,
Best regards,
Kasper

New 10mm roman miniatures from talented Steve Barber

2010-12-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Even though this site is a bit quite at the moment due to christmas and similar time consuming stuff I was really pleased to see that one of the best miniature companies in the 10mm range just released some Caesarean romans:

These are from Steve Barber - the minis I have from him are brilliant. That roman army just seems more and more needed :-).
Best regards,
Kasper

2nd unit of Scottish Pikemen - 10mm Kallistra Miniatures

2010-11-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Another unit of infantry ready for action. This time it is the brother unit to the last one I posted and these are the same models - Kallistra 100 years war Scottish Pikemen. It is probably only myself who will ever notice but these two units are painted in a mirrored paint scheme and look great lined up next to each other.

The actual base paint job was done a few years ago but I went back to them and added a lot of detail such as the crosses etc. Strange how small stuff like that really makes the finished models look much better.

I hope you like them :-):

Best regards,
Kasper

Scottish Pikemen - 10mm Kallistra Miniatures

2010-11-10T00:45:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Another unit of infantry ready for action. This time a unit of Kallistra 100 years war Scottish Pikemen thatis a very interesting unit as it is split between half and half of aggressive and passive stances. This allows for what, I believe, looks like a very realistic pike unit. But do judge for yourself :-).

This unit has a "brother" unit consisting of the same troops but with an inverted colourscheme. They will be up next :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

Walls from Javis Premier - 10mm terrain

2010-11-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Been at a conference in Rome for fourteen days so didn't get anything useful done :-). But I did manage to finish these nice walls from Javis Premier Terrain which I bought a long time ago on Ebay.
I decided to use them as stand alone terrain to designate trenches, walls and other linear obstacles that are not cities or forrests.
The quality of them are excellent and once I remembered how to work with resin they were very easy to paint (black with to consequetive drybrushes of grey to white).

I am quite pleased with them and so is the Master Gunner who has taken up a defensive position behind them :-).
Best regards,

Kasper

Character stand - 10mm Games Workshop

2010-10-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
another hero joins the ransk to leade the army to victory. This was actually an attempt to see if I could make realistic rocks - he formation in front og the hero is cork broken into pieces and painted. Looks pretty realistic to me.
The hero - with his mighty warhammer (got to love GW and their supersized weapons) - is a character from t he empire character pack as are his two companions.

All in all a nice character stand but it needs a little something extra - maybe a banner. I will have to d something about that :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

New scenario - The Battle of Marignano

2010-10-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

(Update: Go here for a postbattle discussion and some changes to the scenario)

Howdy!

So for our next battle I think it is time for a historic scenario! These are always fun and provides the game with a little "something" else :-). And this scenario has been chosen to allow our group to experience something we have not really tried en masse before - the Swiss pike...

Francis I Orders His Troops to Stop Pursuing the Swiss

The Scenario - The Battle for Marignano

In a few words this is the battle in which the sofar unbeatable Swiss, inspired by the Pope, launched a surprise attack on the camp of the young French king Francis. After a bloody battle the Swiss had been defeated and an end put to their conquest of Europe while the French star was rising.

Background history (long - but beneath it are short motivations for each player, the armies, deployment maps and special rules)

The Battle of Marignano was fought during the phase of the Italian Wars (1494–1559) called the War of the League of Cambrai; and took place on 13 and 14 September 1515, near the town today called Melegnano, 16 km southeast of Milan. It resulted in a victory for French forces. It was one of the most savage and (for the Swiss) decisive battles of the age. It pitted on the one side the French army, composed of the best armored lancers and artillery in Europe; and led by Francis I, newly crowned king of France and a day past his 21st birthday. On the other the heretofore invincible Swiss Mercenaries of the Old Swiss Confederacy, considered the best infantry in the world. With Francis were some German landsknechts, bitter rivals of the Swiss for fame and renown in war; and arriving late his Venetian allies.

Louis XII of France had lost Milan after the Battle of Novara in the summer of 1513. Here, Maximilian Sforza, self styled Duke of Milan, and his army of mercenary Swiss gave the French a good licking by a surprise attack on the French camp. Almost at once Louis XII began plotting for its recapture. But, whatever his plans were, he did not to see them come to fruition - he died at the end of 1514. Dynastic struggles being what they are, it was not long before the sword was taken up again by his successor, Francis I. In June 1515 Francis left Paris at the head of an army mustering 30,000 combatants. Crossing the Alps via the Col d'Argetier pass the French emerged into Italy outflanking the Swiss who had been sent to oppose him. The Swiss withdrew to Milan and the French followed up until they came to Marignano (10 miles from Milan), where they encamped, then entered into negotiations with the Swiss to sell Milan to Francis. Up to half of the Swiss took the money and departed back to their Cantons.

The prologue to the battle was a remarkable Alpine passage, in which Francis hauled pieces of artillery (including 40 or 70 huge cannons) over new-made roads over the Col d'Argentière, a previously unknown route. This was, at the time, considered one of the foremost military exploits of the age; the equal of Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. At Villafranca the French, led by the famous Chevalier Bayard, surprised and captured the Papal commander, Prospero Colonna, in a daring cavalry raid deep behind the allied lines. Colonna and his staff aside, the French seized a great deal of booty on the raid; including 600 horses.

The capture of Colonna, along with the startling appearance of the French army on the plains of Piedmont, stunned the allies. The Pope and the Swiss both sought terms with Francis; while the Spanish allies enroute from Naples halted to await developments. The main Swiss army retreated to Milan, while a large faction, tired of the war and eager to return home with the booty of years of successful campaigning, urged terms with the French.

Though the parties reached an agreement that gave Milan back to the French, the arrival of fresh and bellicose troops from the Swiss cantons annulled the agreement; as the newly arrived men had no desire to return home empty-handed; and refused to abide by the treaty. Discord swept through the Swiss forces till Matthias Schinner, cardinal of Sion and an arch-enemy of King Francis', inspired the Swiss with a firery harangue on September 13; reminding them of what a smaller Swiss army had achieved against as powerful a French army at the Battle of Novara. Schinner pointed out the enormous profits of victory, appealed to their national pride, and urged them to immediate battle. The effect was prodigious. The suddenly enthusiastic Swiss sprang to arms, issuing forth from Milan in disciplined but frenzied columns.

The Swiss encountered Francis's forces at the little burnt-out village of Marignano; on a featureless plain. A treaty signed, the French were not expecting battle. Francis was in his tent, trying on a new suit of armor; when scouts reported the coming of the Swiss. The French army quickly jumped into action, forming up in three divisions: the vanguard, posted slightly forward and on the right under Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, the Constable of France; the central battle, commanded by the King, slightly trailing the right; and on the left and even further back the “rearguard” commanded by the Duke of Alençon. Each division was a combined arms force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery.

Massed in front of Francis’ center division was a grand battery of seventy-two field guns; guarded by the infamous Black Legion, or Black Band. These were German Landsknecht mercenaries who had refused to return home; instead serving loyally under Francis. Also with the king's division was the Chevalier Bayard and his company; the foremost lancers in the French army (and perhaps Europe).

Close on sunset, the Swiss approached the French in three divisions of their own, each a dense mass of pikemen. They had no artillery or cavalry; and had learned in past actions that a rapid advance into the enemy would sweep all before them. At Marignano, the battle began with a “forlorn hope” detaching from the Swiss vanguard phalanx; and with lowered pikes charging the grand battery in front of the King’s position in the center. Their intent, justified by experience in other battles, was to quickly overrun the French cannon; and then turn them upon their owners.

At first the Swiss attack succeeded in driving back the landsknecht defenders and capturing a few of the guns; the speed of the Swiss advance rendering their fire ineffective. But Bourbon’s cavalry from the French right counter-attacked their flank; driving the forlorn hope back to the shelter of the Swiss vanguard. The pursuing French horse were themselves routed by the oncoming Swiss mainbody.

Smoke and the coming of night obscured the battle; in the moonlight and confusion, the outcome hung in the balance. Furious French cavalry charges, often led by the king himself, with Bayard by his side, succeeded time and again in throwing back temporary Swiss gains. Many of the foremost French commanders were wounded or killed in the desperate night fighting; including the Prince of Tallemont, son of Louis II de la Trémoille, who died with sixty-two wounds on his body. The Black Legion counter-attacked and threw back the Swiss; only to be repulsed in turn. Bayard had to cut his way through the Swiss phalanx to rescue the Duke of Lorraine, stranded in the dark amongst his enemies. In the darkest hours, the fighting stopped; and both armies extracted themselves and reorganized.

At dawn the battle commenced again. In the French center, the grand battery had been reassembled. Opposing them, the Swiss had reformed their largest phalanx. Encouraged by the evening before, the Swiss once again lowered pikes and charged the French guns. This time the grand battery was ready for them. Massed cannon fire tore bloody furrows deep in their ranks; slowing the advance. But the undaunted Swiss continuely closed ranks and pushed forward. Again, the defending German landsknechts were driven back; but the massed fire of the guns at point blank prevented the Swiss from pushing forward beyond. Still another French cavalry charge, this time led by Bayard, forced the attacking Swiss to give ground. Baffled by the artillery but as yet undaunted, the Swiss refocused their assault against Alençon’s left-wing division. After making some headway, this attack too was thrown back. In his report later to his mother, King Francis would boast that “Thirty brave charges” were hurled by the French gendarmerie against the stubborn Swiss. Only the mid-morning arrival of allied Venetian forces commanded by the condottiero Bartolomeo d'Alviano, turned the tide against the Swiss. Their attacks repulsed everywhere, their ranks in bloody shambles, they grudgingly gave ground and withdrew.

The battle was a decisive victory for Francis. By the peace of Noyon (1516), Milan was returned to France. The Swiss returned to their cantons and never went to war against France again. Marshal Triulzio, veteran of every war for the previous forty years, praised Marignano as the “battle of giants”; and that compared to it all previous battles in his lifetime had been “child’s sport”. King Francis considered the battle his most cherished triumph. “I have conquered those whom only Caesar conquered” he had printed on the medal he ordered struck to commemorate the victory. On the battlefield following the victory, King Francis requested that he himself be knighted, in the ancient style; by the hand of none other than the Chevalier Bayard.

Marignano established the superiority of French artillery and gendarme cavalry over the until-then invincible phalanx tactics of the Swiss infantry. French success at Marignano, however, eventually galvanized opposition in the divided peninsula, and turned the European balance of power against Francis I. In the meantime, however, Francis gained the city, and more importantly, the Castello Sforzesco within it, the strategic key to control of Lombardy. There Massimiliano Sforza and his Swiss mercenaries and the cardinal-bishop of Sion retreated, only submitting when French sappers had placed mines under the foundations. The French regained Milan, and Massimiliano went into luxurious exile with a French purse of 30,000 ducats.

Shortly after the battle, Francis met with Pope Leo X in Bologna to discuss the return of Milan to France - a meeting at which Leonardo da Vinci was also present. There, Francis persuaded Leonardo to accompany him back to France, and granted him the Clos Lucé manor. The retreating Swiss army seized the upper-Lombardy province of Ticino to cover their retreat, leaving a rearguard to preside it, later it was incorporated in the Swiss Confederation as the Canton Ticino, remaining to this day an Italian-speaking enclave in Switzerland.

The Truce of Nice

Battlefield and deployment:

Scenario special rules:

First Turn: The Milanese army gets the first turn.

Terrain: The ground around Marignano is undulating arable farmland cut up by drainage ditches and canals, and dotted with small villages. The French had chosen the site of their camp well; it was naturally fortified (see deployment map) behind and between some of the drainage ditches. These counts as stop-and-go terrain, meaning a unit must stop and be issued another order to pass a ditch (unless retreating/advancing in combat), , cannot be crossed in a retreat/reform move, and gives defended status for infantry.

Landsknechts and Swiss Pike engage in a fierce battle

Special Units:

Black Band: The landknechts of the French are solid infantry (3-3-5+) while a single unit in the mainward should be chosen as the core of Black Band who are (3-4-5+).

Chevalier Bayard: One unit of Gendarmes in the Mainward should be chosen as the core of the famous Chevalier Bayard, who are (3-4-4+).

French Artillery: The Swiss may capture the French Artillery if they so wish. If an artillery stand is defeated in combat by infantry the Swiss player may convert the unit of Pikemen into artillerymen. These will crew up to three connected artillery pieces from the beginning of the Swiss players next turn. They cannot be converted back (their cohesion etc is to far gone) but will not count as destroyed untill they are so in combat/shooting as per the normal rules for artillery crews. The cannons may be recaptured in the same manner by the French and so on.
The artillery on the hill next to the town of Zuido have a superior firing position and may shoot across friendly units.

Victory Conditions:

The Swiss win if they have one or more units of Swiss Pike within the French camp at the end of the battle, anything else is a French victory, the size of which is decided by victory points as normal (eg. the Swiss does not manage to reach the French camp but wins in victory points = small victory for the French, draw in victory points = normal victory for the French and the French wins in victory points = a massive victory for the French.)

THE FRENCH ARMY
Historic forces:
The Cavalry Screen: Commanded by Robert III, de la Marck, so called Floranges.
1,500 light cavalry, mainly composed of mounted crossbowmen with some Stradiots.
The Vanguard: Commanded by Charles de Montpensier Duke of Bourbon.
1000 Gendarmes, 3000 French crossbowmen, 4000 French pike, many heavy and light guns.
The Mainward: Commanded by Francis I King of France.
1000 Gendarmes, 6000 Landsknechts (Black Bands of Gueldres), some guns.
The Rearward: Commanded by Charles de Valois Duke of Alencon, called D'Alencon.
500 Gendarmes, 3000 Landsknechts, 3000 French crossbowmen.

2500 points Warmaster "translation":

The Cavalry Screen:

1 Light Horse with Commander Robert III, de la Marck

(70 - use Teutonian Light Horse stats to represent the presence of de la Marck)

The Vanguard: Commanded by Charles de Montpensier Duke of Bourbon.

(Noble 80)

(3x French pike 60 = 180)

(1 Heavy and 2 x Cannons = 175)

(3x Crossbowmen = 135)

(2x Gendarmes = 270)

The Mainward: Commanded by Francis I King of France.

(King = 100)

(2 Heavy Cannons = 150)

(1 Cannon = 50)

(4 Landsknechts inkl. the Black Band = 240)

(2 x Gendarmes =270)

The Rearward: Commanded by Charles de Valois Duke of Alencon, called D'Alencon.

(Noble = 80)

(Gendarmes = 135)

(2x Landsknechts = 120)

(2x Crossbowmen = 90)

French Total: (810+900+290) = 2000

The Army of Milan:

This army was predominantly composed of 15,000 or so Swiss. These seem to have formed up in their usual three wards deployed en echelon with an advance guard. They were accompanied by a few hundred Italian men-at-arms and some light guns. The latter both took position on the right.

The "Forlorn Hope": 4 x Pike with noble (380)

1 x Italian Men-At-Arms (Light): 60

1 x Cannons: 50

First Ward, led by Marx Röist: 8 Pikes with Noble (660)

Second Ward, led by Maximilian Sforza: 8 Pike with Noble (660)

Third Ward, led by Cardinal Mattheus Schiner: 8 Pike with Noble (660)

Milanese Total: 2470

Army notes: The Milanese have a seizable advantage and much better initial deployment but hard scenario objectives. In turn the French have a disrupted deployment and fewer points but have the advantage of defended positions and time on their side. Should be close :-).

Individual Player Briefings:

Francis I (12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death.
Francis I is considered to be France's first Renaissance monarch. His reign saw France make immense cultural advances. He was a contemporary of Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, with whom he was allied in a Franco-Ottoman alliance, as well as of Henry VIII of England and of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, his great rivals.
Motivation: The real king of history used this victory to smash the Milanese, Swiss etc once and for all, paving the way for his personal fame to be praised over much of Europe. This was in part done by participating in the charges done by the famed french Knights.
Individual Victory achieved by participating in three cavalry charges (by attaching himself to a cavalry unit and charging with it on three separate occasions) - be careful and choose well, in order to avoid death and being known as an idiot for ever after...

Charles de Montpensier Duke of Bourbon. (February 17, 1490 – May 6, 1527) was a French military leader, the Count of MontpensierDauphin of Auvergne. He commanded the Imperial troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in what became known as the Sack of Rome in 1527, where he was killed. Already distinguished as a soldier in the Italian Wars, he was appointed Constable of France by Francis I of France in 1515, and was rewarded for his services at the Battle of Marignano (where he commanded the vanguard) with the Governorship of Milan.However, Francis was uneasy with the proud and wealthy duke, and soon recalled him from Milan and refused to honor his debts. Charles was further angered by the appointment of Charles IV of Alençon, the King's brother-in-law, as commander of the vanguard during the campaigns in the Netherlands, an office which should have been his

Motivation: Being an up and coming leader of the French army this is your moment to shine! You have been entrusted with the vanguard and to defend this sorry ditch - which you must do at all cost.

Individual Victory achieved bystill having infantry units defending the ditch at the end of turn three.

Bartolomeo d'Alviano (1455–1515) was an Italian condottiero and captain who distinguished himself in the defence of the Venetian Republic against the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian.
The son of Francesco d'Alviano and Isabella degli Atti, Bartolomeo fought very early in his life in Central Italy, serving the Papal States and, in 1496, the Orsini family against pope Alexander VI and the Colonna.
In 1503, hired by Ferdinand II of Spain, he was determinant in the victory at the Battle of Garigliano over the French army, which started the Spanish domination over southern Italy. In 1507, together with Nicolò Orsini, was hired by the Republic of Venice. The following year he defeated the imperial Army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in Cadore, at Mauria and Pontebba, conquering Gorizia and Trieste. In the same year Pordenone also fell and the Serenissima assigned its seignory to Alviano himself. In 1509 (the year he began the construction of new city walls at Padua), however, he was crushingly defeated at the Battle of Agnadello, being also wounded in the fray. Alviano was charged of the result, as he allegedly attacked the enemy without the authorisation of Orsini, then commander-in-chief. Captured by the French, he remained in jail until 1513. In 1513, after the alliance between France and Venice against the Duchy of Milan, he was freed, and later fought under the French commander Louis de la Trémoille. He was defeated at Vicenza by the Spanish viceroy of Naples Ramón de Cardona.
Later Alviano again conquered, and sacked, Pordenone, which in the meantime had fallen again to the House of Habsburg. He was subsequently a protagonist of the French victory at Marignano (September 1515), in which he attacked the Swiss mercenary with a corps of only 300 knights. Later he managed to conquer also Bergamo, but died in the October of the same year during the siege of Brescia. (Not correct photo...)
Motivation: No-one ever really appreicated your impressive charge as much as they should have! You must do better than the first time and cement your name along the other great cavalry leaders of history!
Individual Victory achieved by destroying more enemy army points than you ahve been entrusted with eg. you need to destroy more than 300 points of enemy units.

Marx Röist Bürgermeister von Zürich (1454-1524)

(Not correct photo...)

Motivation: Well the Swiss are unstoppable - but unless you prove so, you will disappear from history! Even Wikipedia will know nothing about you apart from your name! Smash the French, make sure your troops are first inside the camp and you have won - Wikipedia will shout your name across the internet!

Individual Victory achieved by having the troops who enter the French Camp.

Cardinal Mattheus Schiner: Matthäus Schiner (Schinner) (c. 1465 – 1 October 1522) was a Swiss bishop of Sion, Cardinal, and diplomat.
He was born in Muhlbach in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland, the son of the lord of Martigny; his uncle Nicholas Schiner, later Bishop of Sion (Sitter), gave him his early instruction. He embraced the ecclesiastical career, and eventually became parish priest of Aernen (1496), and canon and dean of the cathedral of Sion. When his uncle resigned, he was made Bishop of Sion (20 September 1499). Schinner's diplomatic skill and his influence over the other Swiss cantons allied with Valais made him the right hand of Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X in their efforts to unite Italy and expel the French. In 1511, as a result of an alliance brought about by Schiner, the Swiss made two unsuccessful campaigns against Milan. As a reward for securing this alliance, he was made Bishop of Novara and also cardinal in 1511. In 1512, as papal legate for Italy and Germany, he was appointed commander of a Swiss and Venetian army, drove the French from Milan, and established Maximilian Sforza as duke. However, as Louis XII again captured Milan after the death of Julius II, Schiner one more took the field at the head of the Swiss Confederates, and defeated the French in the battle of Novara (1513). The Duke of Milan rewarded Schiner with the margraviate of Vigevano.
When under Francis I of France the French recrossed the Alps, Schiner led the Swiss troops, part of which had retired, at the unfortunate battle of Marignano (1515). In 1516 he raised another army with the aid of England, but was unable to regain Milan. He now sought to attain his end by an alliance between the pope, the emperor, England, and Spain, for which purpose he went himself in 1516 to London, but the reconciliation of the Swiss Confederation and the emperor with France made the alliance abortive.
Motive: The Swiss Pike are unstoppable - but half have left and unless you manage to stop the hated French all your possessions and gains will vanish, as will your legacy. Unless you take the camp and put an end to the young weakling of a french frog-king - and if your forces are the ones to enter first that might make you the most well-known grandmaster of Sion of all time (which is very impressive...).
Individual Victory achieved by having the troops who enter the French Camp.

Maximilian Sforza: Maximilian (Massimiliano) Sforza (1493–1530) was a Duke of Milan from the Sforza family, the son of Lodovico Sforza. He ruled between the occupations of Louis XII of France (1500–1513), and Francis I of France in 1515. He was imprisoned by the returning French following their victory at the Battle of Marignano.

Motive: The Swiss Pike are unstoppable - but if they are stopped then you will spend the rest of your life in prison - motivation enough for you? And if your troops are first inside the Froggies camp - that will make you more amous than any of the other Swiss leaders...

Individual Victory achieved by having the troops who enter the French Camp.

("Inspiration" from http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/ who used C. Oman's The Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. Marignano 1515 by Moraitis, Pacou & Erskine (Lance and Longbow Soc.). Renaissance Battles 1494 - 1700 Vol.1 by Peter Sides) and of course Wikipedia....

New 10mm character model - the Master Gunner

2010-10-11T04:25:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I decided to do a few more character stands as the few ones I have were some of the earliest 10mm I did. What couild be more naturalt than to do a stand representing the Master Gunner, who has become a more or less recurring character in out games (e.g. rules here and battle reports here and here).

As a master gunner I felt he needed some artillery on his base and the rest just sort of happened :-).

The minis are a leader from Kallistra as well as artillery crew and the Army banner bearer while the gun si a "hellblaster from Games Workshop.

The roses on the banner are water transfers - I think from VVV, but not entirely sure. And damn those were fiddly small things!

All in all I am pretty satisfied with the result and he does seem to be the type who would say something along the lines of:

"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
- Frederick the Great

Hope you like him...
Best regards,
Kasper

A great resource for scenarios

2010-10-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I just stumbled upon a great resource for scenarios - seems to be for Warmaster but they could be adapted for anything. I always enjoyr eading other peoples house rules and special scenario rules so I was pleased with these. Especially the link for Bencon seems a treasure.

http://www.dragonsford.com/warmaster/default.htm

A picture - just because each post needs one :-).

And that is a pretty impressive line of bowmen!
(Found here: http://www.dragonsford.com/warmaster/photos/March%20Grand%20Battle%202007/index.html).

Best regards,
Kasper

New Cheap Unit Bannerpoles with Flags (DIY)

2010-10-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I have been searching for a way to do banners for my units. As I have trouble sticking to one army and I really like to play different types of armies each time I cannot make permanent banners. So I needed some way to make bannerpoles, banners and something that would stay with the unit all through a game without ruining the base.

My solution is this:

These banners are made from something I found in a local hobby shop. The thing below were intended for small paper snowmen as glasses. Cheap as well 1£ gives me twelve poles.

They are metal and each provides two banner poles once they are cut in two.

With banners printed out and glued on they look like this:

And with the magnetic bases of all my units they will stick even when the unit is lifted from the table:

The whole thing is quick and easy, inexpensive and will allow me to have several sets of banners (e.g. for a House of York army or a French Ordonnance army) to switch between depending on what army I feel like playing. It will also allow me to have an army where the banners proudly display each unit and its origin - something I have missed in the past.
I might even find something appropriate to glue onto the top of each and paint the pole a more wood like colour with time :-).

A few pictures of the end result:

Hope you enjoyed my new bannerpoles - I am quite pleased with them :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

Our army lists

2010-10-05T00:25:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I just wanted to show how we do army lists... After the last battle I took this picture because I was struck by the thought that these army lists were pretty nice :-). So apart from sharing them with you I would love to see how you go about doing army lists.

These are the Black Teutonians of Wales, The French Ordonnance of Charles III and The Ottoman Turks of Suleiman the almost Magnificient.

Best regards,
Kasper

New 10mm buildings from Bend Sinister

2010-10-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

A new (?) terrain company Bend Sinister just posted some nice pictures of their new buildings. Apparently these are for Napoleonics but that wind mill is pretty sweet...

Best regards,
Kasper

New Banner

2010-10-01T02:44:00.000-07:00

Howdy - just wanted to draw your attention to the blog's new banner:

This is a shot from our last battle (the gunline of a French Ordonnance army) and I just felt that it more or less incorporated all the aspects that I enjoy wargaming - painted minis, terrain, visual pleasing battle lines and of course beer :-). The only question is "it the glass half full or half empty"? or in wargaming terms "am I winning or losing?".

Hope you like it - any comments are appreciated - and I would also like to thank Aureliozen for snapping the picture - after he took over the job as designated photographer the quality of battle pictures has incresed significantly!

Have fun,
Kasper

Kallistra - 10mm Large Siege Guns

2010-09-30T02:13:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Who doesnt like to paint cannons? And super large impressive siege cannons? Well I do and these were bought recently from Kallistra - called Large Siege Guns. And they are truly large - quite impressive looking on the battlefield and ideal as representing the Heavy Cannons of Warmaster.

Quite satisfied with the paintjobs - as always great quality from kallistra although I would have preferred a bit more detailing of the cannons themselves. I tried giving one of them a transfer (think it was a veni vidi one) but am not sure if that worked - looks a bit bland.

Best regards,
Kasper

Irregular Miniatures - 6mm Two wheeled ox cart and oxen

2010-09-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
I bought these a long time ago but didn't realise just how quick they would be to paint. Luckily I had them next to the paiting station when the disaster with the brown Vallejo paintbottle happened and as a result these were done in under half an hour. Two "two wheeled ox carts with oxen from Irregular Miniatures. In 6mm but works fin with 10mm as equipment carts etc - they have been wlaking behind the Master Gunner the last couple of battles - making sure his "special" gun powder arives safely.

Simple and nice figures, not a lot of details but for 50p for the two of them it is a pretty low price.

Best regards,
Kasper

New cheap 10mm Castle

2010-09-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
While shopping for new fish for our aquarium I noticed this small castle in the junk box. It is actually really detailed once you look beyond the tacky paintjob and I think it might make a fine little 6 or 10mm castle.

So far I have given it a black shading on the walls and a new base - and it looks like it will turn out alright :-). More pictures later. But not bad for 3-4£ :-).

Best regards,
Kasper

The Next Generation of Wargamers...

2010-09-27T04:10:00.000-07:00

Hello all - now this is a sight that warms the heart of an old wargamer: to see the next generation having fun with small minis and shuffling them around on the terrain.
My son (age six):

And before you offer critique regarding the cannons placed behind a hill - apparently these are able to richochet through the gap and almost all units on the enemy's side. Damn I wish mine could do that!
Best regards,
Kasper