ORCTOBER - Challenge Compete (Just)

At the beginning of October I set myself the challenge of painting up 500 points of orcs for Fantastic Battles using my old 6mm Irregular Miniatures collection.  Bodvoc agreed to join in with elves, as he has quite a few.

To make it easy on myself I chose to use my already painted minis and see if they were worth salvaging.  With a bit of a wash and some extra highlighting they turned out fine.  

I did have a bit of a setback with the samples I tried first.  When I last showed them they had had an initial wash to deal with the rather bright and flat painting.  

But then I gave them my standard 'orc wash' of 50:50 Army Painter Soft tone and Strong tone washes.  This gave a far darker effect than I was looking for, but a bit more highlighting helped rescue them.

As I was working through my already painted stuff, I knew that I wasn't going to produce a particularly effective army.  I was able to look at most of the painted stuff and see how I could use it, giving me something I can add to in the future.

The Finished Army 

So here it is, my 6mm orc force.  Using the traits I'm experimenting with, it works out at 673 points.  This is, of course, subject to change as I try them in battle.

Characters, the larger 20mm diameter base is the Warlord, the middle sized base (actually a button) are is a captain on wolf, and the single minis are two rogues, one orc and one warg.

Warriors, these five companies are made up of strips and part strips from the orc command, archers, warriors and spearmen.

Wolves, these two companies are wolves I painted ages ago.  Their strips are wider than most of the infantry, so have been cut up to allow repositioning and to provide the lone warg 'rogue'. I now paint my wolves/wargs much darker using a palette of greys, as seen in my 10mm LotR Mordor army.  I may repaint these at a later date (this is also why I didn't get the wolf riders ready, I wasn't sure if I should repaint the wolves.

Artillery, these companies were previously painted, I simply gave them a wash and added a few highlights. I do want to revisit these to add some ammunition (boulders and giant bolts) to the bases.

Chariots, one of these four companies was already painted.  I retouched the paintwork and painted up the other three from scratch, can you tell which one was the original?

Trolls, these were painted up from scratch, and are done more in the style of my larger scale minis.  They have a lot of character, and I can't decide what the little orc riding the trolls' shoulders is doing.  Is that helmet some sort of control device?  I have to admit that the reason I did these was to garner some easy points in the challenge.

Terrain Too

The challenge included producing a piece of themed terrain.  I struggled with this, partly because 6mm themed terrain doesn't always work well when the minis are based in companies.  Forts with battlements look odd with a 25mm wide wall walk.  I'm also short of any 6mm terrain, so it seemed a bit indulgent to work on something that only one army would get to use.

But then another root through my box of 6mm stuff turned up 4 huts.  I'd painted these years ago, but I've completely repainted them and they'll do nicely as an orc village.  I haven't based them yet as I want some slightly bigger bases to add a bit of extra decoration, like looted standards and other trophies. 

Future Additions?

Initially I planned to rescue some orc archers for a company of bows, but I decided to include them in small numbers among the warriors to represent the irregular nature of the orcs and explain the minor short range shooting attack they have.  I will rescue more of the archers and base up some dedicated companies of bows.  I also have a couple of companies of wolf riders which I never finished, they will have to wait for now.

I've also got some of the Man-Orc range, which make suitably impressive 'elite'.  None of these are painted yet, but they'll make great Formed Companies of slightly better quality troops, and I can take advantage of the different weapons options rather than just lumping lots of different types in an irregular company.

I've got a lot of 6mm goblins which are already painted. When I did my dwarves I also based these up as an opposing force. While they are well enough painted, the strips are difficult to cut up to give an irregular look. I'm not sure if they should be a separate army or a part of the orc army.

So that's another Orctober challenge done, and it's got me well on my way to having another Fantastic Battles army. It also makes inroads into the Lead Mountain and helps me decide what to keep and what to move on. Like the dwarves, I'll probably aim for 1000 points, perhaps with a few options. I've certainly got sufficient 6mm fantasy stuff for this, and I've several more armies to start too.

If you want to see how Bodvoc did, his elves are on his blog.

ORCTOBER - Restore or Start Again?

One of the main reasons for choosing 6mm orcs for an Orctober project was that I have a lot already painted (loads unpainted as well, of course) and I wanted them to have a purpose. Now these were done many many years ago. I can't remember when, exactly, but Bodvoc and I collected the 6mm Irregular Fantasy range way back in the late eighties or early nineties.  We adapted a set of 6mm SF rules from a wargaming magazine.  I still have a copy of our rules, but as I recall, they never quite worked.  We spent so much time play-testing them and altering them, that we never got round to actually just playing and enjoying them.

Our rules worked around using the 5 minis wide strips that Irregular Miniatures were making at the time.  So my orcs were painted up as the strips.  At some point later I must have experimented with using them for Hordes of the Things, because quite a few of them are stuck randomly on card bases that match that system.

Later still, Bodvoc and myself used 6mm for some battles using Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargaming.  I started afresh with these, painting up a goblin army that will, one day, be rebased for Fantastic Battle (probably).

Rescuing The Old Orcs

The orcs are painted very much in the style of the time, check out the photo on my initial Orctober post to get some idea.  I undercoated everything in Goblin Green, then just added a few details for weapons, shields etc. I'd like them to look a bit more like my current style.  I think I've done a better job in 6mm with my dwarves, but do I want to start again with the orcs? 

Not if I can save something from the paint jobs the orcs already have.  

Time for some experimenting.  I've stuck fifteen orcs of various kinds on to a lolly stick to see what I can do.

A Wash and (Dry) Brush Up?

The first experiment was giving the orcs a wash of equal parts Army Painter Strong Tone and Dark Tone.  This shades the minis and tones down that garish eighties orc skin. 

 

The test orcs after a wash

They already look better, but can I do anything more?  Despite the wash they still look a bit 'flat'.

When I painted my dwarves I realised that just a small amount of extreme highlighting made a big difference at this scale.  This is the essence of my method for mass painting most minis these days, just taken to the max.

I tried drybrushing to pick out details, but it didn't work very well in 6mm, its too easy to obscure the detail I want to accentuate.

But very careful application of a few highlights works much better.  There's more control, and it allows me to change some of the colour choices I made all those years ago.  I don't need to add much to really make them 'pop'.

The test orcs after highlighting

I'm happy with how they look now.  Perhaps not quite how I'd paint them if I were starting from scratch, but certainly good enough, and, importantly, I've shown that they are worth saving.

they'll get a wash (the usual Army Painter Soft Tone/Strong Tone mix) before being based.  I'll add a few bow armed orcs in the mix as irregular troops in Fantastic Battles have some short range missile attacks.

Now on with the rest of them.

Unit Identity

Previously I'd tried to give the orcs shields with unit symbols on them.  You may notice crossed bones and a blue moon among other shields in the photo earlier (and if you look carefully above after the wash).  Now I'm not going to copy the shields I've used on the Orc's Drift tribes, but a variety of different shield colours across a unit does give a pleasingly random look to the horde, which is what I'm after now.

#ORCTOBER

ORCTOBER - Planning the 500

Before I start painting 500 points of orcs, I want some idea what that will consist of.  The Fantastic Battles rulebook includes a goblin list, and I've previously worked out a list for Mordor (and Gondor) troops for our 10mm Lord of the Rings games, but I want a distinctive feel to the army, and neither of these quite fit what I'm looking for.

Nic Wright's excellent Fantastic Battles (my battered first edition copy)

What a Piece of Work is Orc
I want my orcs to be a bit more like the typical fantasy wargame orc.  Big, hitting hard, but with discipline problems.  The rule book goblins (and my Mordor orcs) have Unreliable as their species' trait. If your not familiar with Fantastic Battles, this means that they are slightly more likely to suffer pre-battle mishaps, and if there are no commanders near are more likely to do their own thing in battle.

To more closely model the old WFB Animosity rules I'm using the Belligerent trait from the additional rules (available on the Fantastic Battles Facebook page).  This gives them a bonus in melee, but with a chance that they will attack their own side.  

But the point of the exercise is to enjoy painting tiny orcs, and I'm in danger of getting too nit picky over points and balance.

Wish List

Instead of looking at details of the stat lines and traits, I'm better off deciding what minis I want to paint.  

I'll need a Warlord, and at least one hero.  As with the dwarves, I can make these up from various cut up infantry and cavalry strips.  There are some individual characters in the range, but I'm not sure if I have any of them.  

Although I doubt I'll need a shaman yet, I can use odd individual minis for that too.  Perhaps even a human wizard, either the evil genius behind the orcs, a la Saruman, or someone co-opted for their magical knowledge, and who is ambitious enough to overlook the orcs' less pleasant side (and their lack of hygiene).

I want some infantry, probably a mix of the spear and sword armed orcs. I don't see them as organised or disciplined enough for spear phalanxes, and they will be irregular. 

I might include a unit of tougher (or at least better equipped and organised) troops. I have some of the Man-orcs, and they'll do nicely. They'll make up an elite (or at leas regular) core of the horde eventually.

I don't expect much from orc archery, especially compared to the arrow-fest that Bodvoc's elves will have, but a company or two will give at least a bit of a threat.

Cavalry are more important, and I can have both orcs on wolves and wild wolves. There's also a nice orc chariot model that I'd like to include.

The last thing on my wish list is some form of monster. I've a few options here; trolls, ogres, a giant, not to mention more exotic creatures.

So out of that lot I'm going to cobble together some sort of list, but, as Bodvoc suggested in a recent comment, I'll aim to paint nice units and then choose the army. I've plenty to work with after all, and lots to expand with once I've got this lot finished.

Fantastic Battles is available from Irregular Wars, no relation to Irregular Miniatures, whose minis I am using for this project.

#ORCTOBER

Orctober 2024

I last did something special for 'Orctober' in 2021 when I managed to paint a couple of Ripper Suits for Deadzone,  some 15mm orcs and I started a 10mm Mordor army for Fantastic Battles.
This year I think I'll do some more orcs, it's not like I haven't had practice recently.

But what? Simply painting more Old School orcs is a bit too much like the rest of the year (though I do have some nice pre slotta orcs to do sometime). 

Orctober Suggestions
I had a couple of ideas; more Rogue Trader Orks, or some 6mm orcs to oppose the 6mm dwarves that I painted for Fantastic Battles.

The Rogue Trader Orks would be ten more to bulk out the ones I did back in 2022. It would give me some special and heavy weapon support, and if they go well I'll add in a character mini or two. It would give me enough old school orks for a skirmish game, and if I got those done, I've a Dreadnought and even a buggy to paint.

The 6mm orcs are from Irregular Miniatures and have already been painted and are currently based up for Hordes of the Things. As I said regarding the dwarves, this puzzles me, as I've no recollection of ever playing HotT in that scale). But I'd like to get them painted in my current style. I might even simply try a wash and a highlight. If this works, I can get a second 6mm FB army done. I've got lots of them, including cavalry, artillery and monsters. I've also got loads of goblins, but I think I'll keep those as a separate force.

Further Suggestions
Chatting with Bodvoc he added a couple of other suggestions. Post a picture a day from my orc collection (this seems a bit like self promotion - says the chap publishing a blog) or build some orc terrain. I do like making terrain, but I tend to need some impetus to get round to doing it. A challenge perhaps?

And a Decision
In the spirit of compromise, we are combining my 6mm orc idea (you'd already guessed that from the photo below, hadn't you) and Bodvoc's terrain idea. What's more, he's joining in with elves to give me the extra impetus to finish this (an early Nelfember project?)

So by the end of October we both aim to have 500 points of Fantastic Battles 6mm finished, along with a piece of terrain.

This should be fun, but first I have to work out a list and see if I can repair and update the painted orcs or will it be 'Strip and Start Again'?

Some of the painted 6mm orcs

#ORCTOBER

6mm Fantastic Battles: Dark Elves vs Dwarves

Bodvoc came down for a game of Fantastic Battles, the first outing for both our 6mm armies. We had around 1000 points each; I suspect that we will be adding to them soon.

We played a straight up fight since the armies were new, and I'm very rusty with the rules.

Bodvoc set up the terrain, it was all his as I'm still putting together a 6mm terrain set.

The field of battle. This is prior to rolling for Mishaps, but they were relatively minor, just a few outbreaks of disease resulting in a bit of Resolve loss

1000 points of Naughty Elves 

999 points of Doughty Dwarves 

The Dark Elf skirmishing flank makes for the Avenging Hammer. Both main battle lines advance

The Dark Elves' main battle line advancing

And the Dark Elf skirmishing flank

The Dwarves flawed deployment in two lines

The centaurs have done some damage to the Dark Elf infantry, but the dragon charges them, aided by the lizard riders.

The two hosts start their long drawn out melee

More units join on either side

The Avenging Hammers finally take out the Giant Lizard, seeing this the Scouts flee as well

I didn't take any more photos after this point, but the right hand Dwarven Shieldwall fell to a combination of lizard riders, infantry and witch-elves, and the Dwarven artillery were wiped out by the remaining scout company and accompanying rogue.

Sadly we ran out of time, far too much chatting and looking through my collection of 6mm stuff. 

We called a halt at the end of the fifth turn. The dwarves had lost seven companies to the dark elves' three. I'll willingly concede, though we felt the big melee in the centre could go either way with an extra turn.

Bodvoc certainly handles his army very well, I'm very much getting to grips with mine. For some reason I didn't put my Warlord or a Captain into combat, and when they were in combat, such as the ill-fated captain with the centaurs, I forgot to add their dice, those extra dice would certainly have helped. Both of us managed to get units stuck, blocked by others in front. I deliberately set up in two lines, with my elite behind the 'ordinaries'. Rather than having a tough reserve that swept in just at the critical moment, I ended up trapping my best units, they were too close to manoeuvre around the melee to play any part, so I never got to see how well they could perform.

I suffered some bad luck with dice (six dice needing a 4+, only one hit), and my magic was laughably bad, failing the first three spells. Shieldwall on formed or elites is powerful, and I'm tempted to add it to the City Watch. I do need some sort of annoying skirmish type companies, probably Rangers.  I've also got plans for some ROUS's and eventually the DFC.

So an excellent game, the 6mm stuff looks great, and the rules work well (except Blink - I hate Blink). I'm looking forward to many more.

The Dark Elf version of events is here. 

6mm Dwarven Command for Fantastic Battles

It's done.  I've got 1000 points of dwarves ready for Fantastic Battles, and nicely in time too, as Bodvoc and I have scheduled  a battle for Wednesday.

Left to right;  Clan Elder (Captain), King (Warlord), Hero (another Captain) and Runesmith (Magic User)

Now admittedly six of the companies were painted many years ago, and I plan to paint up some more clansdwarves to replace them, but it's good to have a solid core to expand later.

Most of the minis are taken from either the Dwarf or Dark Dwarf command strips.  The king at the front of the Warlord group is a Dark Dwarf character and the chap of the pony is a Dwarf character.

The Runesmith is just one of the dwarves I hacked off a command strip to make one of the other character stands.  His altar is carved from a bit of plastic sprue.  I like the result, though it is a bit large.  I'll be using the same technique if I do any more Runesmiths.

I also painted up a second company of centaur archers.  As these started off unpainted I took the opportunity to cut the strip up a bit more to emphasis their irregular nature.  It's not always possible to do this with the Irregular 6mm strips, but I like the effect when I can.

Where's next for the 6mm Fantastic Battles project?  I'd like to get a second army done to 1000 points, both to give myself some variety and to make it easy to demonstrate the game to potential new players.  I'm also desperately short of appropriate scenery.  I've a few small trees of the 'bottle-brush' variety left over from my earlier forays into 6mm, but they need basing.  I have ideas for a mat of the right size for Fantastic Battles in 6mm (50cm x 75cm), and in the process I think I'll do some hills.  I'm also investigating some suitable buildings, but more on that if and when it seems feasible.  I feel I should get those six companies of clansdwarves done first though to bring the whole army up to the same standard.

Recon Haul

I had a fun look round Recon, the early December Wargaming show in Pudsey. Previously it was run by the Wakefield and District Wargames Club. Now The Pit Gaming Shop runs it. I'm not sure what difference this makes, though I noticed that some of the regular traders were absent.

I went with a very clear list of wants; 6mm scenery for my Fantastic Battles dwarves to fight over, the latest Clash of Kings book, and a pack (or two) of Reaper Bones ghouls/ghasts for my D&D collection.

Well, best laid plans and all that. Still, I came away with some nice Oldhammer stuff, something for the 10mm Fantastic Battles in Middle Earth collection and my son got a great piece of roleplaying scenery.

The classic Citadel Skullchucker, it even includes the pile of skulls, an often lost component

Beast of Nurgle, sadly missing one leg

The Eagles are coming!  10mm 3D prints from Explode the minis

Lovely stagecoach for D&D, and also ideal as an objective for many skirmish games

It was also great to catch up with various gaming friends, and I admired some great looking games.  This Aliens game was probably the best looking, complete with dropship!

In all, a great show, and I had lots of fun.  I bought a realistic amount of stuff for painting, and got some nice out of production minis.

Final regrets?  A couple.  I could have got a classic dwarf organ gun, though it was missing a couple of parts.  It was more expensive than the Skullchucker, and I already have a war machine for Team Good in my Oldhammer project, albeit for elves.  There was also a pack of Black Tree Design orc boar riders, quite Oldhammer in style, but these are not hard to get hold of, and it was the Beast of Nurgle or them.

6mm Fantastic Battles Dwarf Progress

I've made further progress on my dwarf army. I've got some more companies painted, and I found the missing stuff from years ago, which I've temporarily based.  I now have close to 1000 points ready to play, though I have yes to finish any characters.

Nearly 1000 points of dwarves ready for war

The newly painted stuff has increased to give me three companies of City Watch armed with pikes, four companies of crossbow armed dwarves and a couple of Avenging Hammers.

When I tot this lot up using my version of the list in the Fantastic Battles book I've got close to 1000 points, and that's without any characters.

The newly painted stuff

Four companies of crossbows, some companies reversed to show the cloaks

The City Watch and the Royal Guard, again with some reversed to show cloaks

Centaur allies and Avenging Hammers

Then there are the dwarves that I painted years ago, which I've temporarily based to get them game ready.  I've got some unpainted strips too, which I'll paint first before redoing these, a kind of 'new paint jobs for old' system.

Four companies of Clan Militia and two groups of Clansdwarves

When painting I find it helps to tell little stories about the minis as that helps me decide what to paint.  The White Mountain Kingdom Dwarves use a heraldry I designed many years ago for a 25mm dwarf army.  Essentially a white triangle on a blue and green field.  The blue represents the sky and the green the plains.  The triangle is the White Mountain itself.  These dwarves are all dressed in blue jackets or equivalent, and green trousers, those these are not usually showing.  The kingdom consists of different clans each owing allegiance to a Clan Elder.  Each clan has an associated colour which is shown on any cloaks.  Clans can have several units, but I'll try and vary the clans across the army as I progress.  The Capital City is home to the Royal Palace.  The King's Guard, King's Hunters and City Watch are all elite units with purple or white cloaks.  These units are made up from Irregular's Dark Dwarf range, and complement the ordinary Dwarf range nicely.

Next I need to get the Dwarf King, some Clan Lords, a Rogue and some Rune Smiths done, though I've made a good start on them already using some of the individual characters from the ranges, and some bits of strips that I've cut up.  I'd like to do some Rangers too, but I've no spare crossbows.

I'll be well over 1000 points then, and the initial target was .  I hope to eventually stretch to 2000 points, which should be doable, though I might need a few extra bits from Irregular to do so.  I expected to find some painted crossbows, but there weren't any, and only two Avenging Hammers is odd, I'm sure I had more.  Also I notice that they now do handgun armed dwarves, very tempting.  However, before expanding the army too much I should look at some opposition.  Probably goblins, as I have quite a few already painted to a standard I am happy with.

6mm Dwarves for Fantastic Battles

As I mentioned previously, I'm putting together some 6mm Fantastic Battles armies using minis from my pile of shame.

I have decided that one of my first armies will be dwarves, partly because they are a relatively elite force, so I shouldn't need too many, and partly because I have quite a few already painted; they just need basing for Fantastic Battles (besides, they make great opposition for Bodvoc's Naughty Elves, and my orcs and goblins, if I ever get around to them).

Building the Army

Now Irregular do both Dwarves and Dark Dwarves, and of course I have quite a few of both. The former are one of their first 6mm armies. The detail is subtle, and they are slightly smaller than their dark kin, but overall they fit together pretty well.  None of my Dark Dwarves are painted.  No doubt when I bought them I intended them to be an army in their own right, but Fantastic Battles has lots of options for troop types, and I reckon the Dark Dwarves will provide the elites for my dwarves.  They give me pikes, crossbows and halberds in addition to spears, axes, crossbows, heroes and artillery from the original range.  

Looking at the sample Dwarf Kingdoms list in Fantastic Battles, I  can match a lot of the troop types there.  It does include Outcasts, which are basically berserkers.  I've never been fond of this trope for dwarves, but it would be nice to have something a bit different, so I'll include some Rangers whose job is to keep the trade roads open. These can easily done using a mix of the axe armed dwarves and the crossbows.  I'm not sure about Miners, it would be nice to have something to make use of the new Emerge trait, but I'm not sure what minis to use.

I'll use the Dark Dwarf Halberdiers as Royal Guard and the Pikes as City Watch.  I'm tempted to paint up some of the Crossbows as hunters to guard the royal family and fetch delicacies for the kings' table.

The Dark Dwarf command strips should provide the Warlord (The Dwarf King) and his various Captains, and the older Dwarf range will provide the bulk of the army; Clansdwarves, Clansdwarf crossbows and Militia (using the spear armed dwarves)

I'm short of anything fast though, I did think that the Irregular range included dwarves on ponies, which would give some sort of cavalry, but I was mistaken (probably confusing the 6mm range with the 15mm range).  So I decided that my dwarves, who I'm calling the Dwarves of the White Mountain, ally with the centaurs of the plains.  After all, the centaurs have to get their horseshoes from somewhere, and where better than from the best smiths in the world?  The centaur range gives me centaur archers and centaur spears/lancers.  I'm tempted to go with the Classical image of bucolic wine drinkers and give them the Stimulants trait.

I'm even tempted to make some crude stone constructs for Earth Elementals to add something a bit bigger to the list.

The Biggest Army starts with a Single Company (or three)

I've rebased some of the stuff I already painted (though a lot of it has gone missing - it'll turn up eventually).  This is a temporary measure while I paint up unpainted stuff, and I'll gradually replace the older dwarves, which will then be brought up to the current standard.

Rebased Clansdwarves

And how they looked before.  I think I must have based them for Hordes of the Things at one time, but I've no recollection of that project

So far I've got two companies painted, though the centaurs were already undercoated and drybrushed brown, so just needed a few little details.  As they are light troops, I cut the strip up to make a less ordered company.  The Dark Dwarf halberdiers, which are now the Royal Guard, were fun to paint, and pretty quick too.  There's enough detail to pick bits out, but not so much that your trying to paint belts or buttons on everything.  The White Mountain uses green and blue in it's heraldry, with a white mountain in the middle on flags and standards (where big enough for such detail).  Units get a distinguishing colour as well.  For the Guard, it's their purple cloaks, though of course I haven't shown this in the photo below.

Dark Dwarf Halberdiers (Royal Guard) and Centaur archers awaiting base finishing

6mm Fantastic Battles

When I did my look back at abandoned projects to celebrate 50,000 views I mentioned a couple of pre-blog projects.  One of these was 6mm fantasy using Irregular Miniatures range of figures.  Bodvoc (or Merlin as he was then known) and I first tried writing our own rules based on, if I recall correctly, a set of SciFi rules from one of the wargaming magazines.  It used a combination of ordinary d6 and average dice*.  I recently found my notes, and I may type them up just for nostalgia's sake, though I doubt we'll be revisiting them for actually play.  While there was nothing wrong with them , we never quite sorted any form of points costings, so battles could be a bit unequal (there is an argument for unequal games being more 'realistic', as few generals would willingly engage in battle unless they felt they had an advantage, but for testing new rules, balanced games are important).

Anyway, the project died off over time, but we revisited the scale years later (2015) with our fantasy version of Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames Rules.  This was fun, but it came at a time when our gaming opportunities were limited by time and distance, so it eventually died off, to be replaced by another bright new shiny game, no doubt.

Now I'm in the process of thinning out my collection (I know, again. But this is a more comprehensive exercise involving looking through all my possessions, even books and music!) and either using or getting rid of stuff.  No keeping stuff on the off chance I might get around to it sometime in the future**.  So what to do with the 6mm fantasy?

I enjoy Fantastic Battles, and have quite a bit of 10mm stuff which is painted up for Middle Earth gaming.  However, there are certain aspects of the rules that don't have a place in our vision of Middle Earth, and I do like the idea of games that aren't set elsewhere, with armies and abilities that don't belong in Tolkien's world.  I'm not rebasing my 15mm Kings of War stuff, and I'm not planning on buying a load more minis just for this, but I've still got the old Irregular Fantasy minis in my garage, some of them are even painted!  Sounds ideal.

Bodvoc has already experimented with basing some of the Irregular Dark Elves for Fantastic Battles, so we have a standard base width of 25mm.  I happen to have quite a few of the Renedra 25mm plastic bases and they are ideal.  Now all I have to do is find the 6mm stuff, decide what to do first and get painting.  I should have quite a few dwarves, orcs and goblins from the previous projects, so that might give me a good few just to base up.  Alternatively I might decide that they are all so awful that I need to start again, so off to the pile of shame to start digging.

* A staple of pre GW wargames, average dice were numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, giving a narrower spread and emphasising the middle results.  They tended to be used for regular troops as they were more predictable.  Irregular troops used a standard d6, with the possibility of extremes.

** I am, of course, aware of the irony here. If I hadn't kept the 6mm fantasy just on the off chance, I wouldn't be doing this project.

More Frostgrave

I played another game of Frostgrave against Grim the other day.  This time we played The Keep, using the splendid teleportation discs made by JP on his Tales of Frostgravery blog.  We decided to keep to the first edition rules for now and continued with our warbands from last game.
Hakon was without some of his better soldiers, the knight and the tracker, wounded and resting for the duration, and a thug and a man-at-arms who died in the ruins last time.  He hired a templar and an infantryman to make up for their loss.  Orangorn had been spending on various potions and scrolls to give himself an advantage, but how well would his planning pay off?

The scenario is an interesting one, with four teleportation discs, each with a treasure on it.  There is a 75% chance that a disc will teleport anyone stepping on it to another random disc.  This gives a wizard an experience boost if he or she is personally teleported by a disc.

The ruins of the keep

Orangorn's warband.  Note the crossbowman on top of the arch

Hakon's band ready to explore

Opening moves, Orangorn's woman-at-arms is the first to try one of the discs

The core of Hakon's strategy.  Keep a magic and missile base, while the rest go after treasure

Thugs from both sides begin claiming treasure

Orangor's new knight faces the blinded templar

Orangorn's thug grabs a treasure, while a rat menaces Jonrik

A great fun game. We felt the scenario really added to the experience.   Highlights included Halfdan Pushing the crossbowman off his arch right at the beginning of the game.  Hakon taking out the bold (wo)man-at-arms who's experiment with the disc took her right in front of the wizard.  No time for fancy spells, Hakon took her out with a wallop from his staff.  One of my archers also got a lucky critical against the new knight.  Hakon himself braved the teleport discs as well, and after a failed try, they took him right in front of Orangorn and the battered crossbowman.  Fortunately, the game ended (time constraints, alas) at the end of that turn, so we assumed the two wizards stared hard and menacingly at each other, then backed off.

It certainly didn't go all my way.  Once again Orangorn made good use of Wizard Eye, and this time proved adept at Blinding Light.  At one time three of my soldiers were blind, and with casting numbers of 17, 17 and 20, I was lucky to get even one back in play.  Worse, one of the blinded solders was my new templar, who I had high hopes for, with Strength giving him a bonus, along with an Enchanted Weapon and Fleet Feet (which I mistakenly cast after he was blinded, having forgotten).

Some of Orangorn's spending had been on teleport potions, which proved doubly interesting when used to teleport onto a teleport disc.  We couldn't decide if it helped or hindered, but it certainly made the game great fun.

In the end I had put four enemy soldiers out of action, for the loss of one.  Fortunately everyone survived, though my Infantryman will have to miss the next game.  None of us actually got treasures off the table, but I had claimed three to Grim's one.  We have house ruled that in such circumstances we get the treasure value, but not the experience.

Hakon gained sufficient experience to rise to level 6, thanks mostly to his trip on the disc and taking out the woman-at-arms.  Orangorn has got to level 5.  Hakon did well treasure-wise, though he was disappointed to find that both grimoires he found contained spells he already knew.  He has traded both of them for one grimoire with a new spell.

I'm not sure when we will get another Frostgrave game in, but this has been a great couple of games, and has helped cement Frostgrave as one of my favourite fantasy skirmish systems.  I'll admit to wondering if I could use the new Fistful of Lead fantasy rules instead of the actual Frostgrave rules to give a similar experience, but I think I'll stick with this.  I will, of course, play the fantasy FfoL anyway, in fact, Bodvoc and I are planning a game for October.