Warbands

It should be no secret to my reader(s) that I like skirmish games.  The small size of the forces is a definite plus; you can get playing that much sooner.  I also think it's easier to tell a story within the game, as the miniatures are more like personalities.
Frostgrave is one such, and a while ago I showed my warband made up of various prepainted minis, mostly from the old WotC D&D line.  This warband was only ever meant to be a 'get-me-by' until I got round to painting one from scratch.  Now I am well on the way to finishing two warbands, on the grounds that its easier to show the game to someone with a warband ready for them to play.
For 'reasons' I am theming each warband; this is what I have so far.

Warband 1 'Sons of Empire'.  These are made up of old GW figures, mostly the rather excellent Empire Militia (formerly the Mordheim humans).  These minis are ideal for Frostgrave, although perhaps they need a scarf or something.  They will also do for Ghost Archipelago, and D&D as well.  this picture shows four of the thugs, before I remembered that thugs are supposed to be unarmoured.  I'm sure if I make it clear what the are, no one will mind.

More of the 'Sons of Empire'.  (l to r) Another thug, a knight, borrowing a torso and shield from the Empire command options on the spearmen/handgunners sprue, and two archers.

Warband 2, 'The Men of the North'.  These are Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors and Archers.  (l to r) two thugs and two archers

More 'Men of the North (l to r) knight and three thugs.  More Gripping Beast.

The Men of the North will, of course, fit into my Blood Eagle games as well, so they are nicely versatile.  No wizards yet, they and their apprentices are still on the painting table, along with reinforcements for both bands.  That's the problem.  Once I start thinking of ways to show the different soldier types, I can't stop.  Already both bands have thieves, men-at-arms and infantrymen on their way to being finished.

These aren't for Frostgrave though.  That said, there's no reason why not.  This is the sample goblin warband for the alpha rules of Kings of War: Vanguard.  I rooted around among my KoW goblins and found what I needed, along with some reinforcements from Dungeon Saga.  Just about all these will find a place in my KoW collection as well as being good for Vanguard, so yet more versatility.

I like the look of the rules so far, and want to try them soon, though I have a DeadZone campaign to finish off first.  I suppose I should get an opposing force as well.  At around a dozen minis that shouldn't be too hard.

Vanguard Is Launched

Mantic Games' latest kickstarter, Vanguard, a skirmish game linked to their highly successful mass battle rules, Kings of War, has just been launched.

The starter pledges allow you to choose either Basileans or the new Nightstalkers.  Further warbands, including the intriguing Northern Alliance, have been teased.

The game also comes with terrain chosen from the Terrain Crate range.

Fun With Foam (part three)

The walls are finished enough to decide what worked best.  They are still to have textured bases, but the painting is all finished.

Cheap foam board, engraved side

Cheap foam board, embossed side

Thicker foam, engraved side

Thicker foam board, embossed side 

Pink foam, embossed side

Pink foam, engraved side

Whilst the pics don't show the colours to the best (rubbish lighting) the amount of detail is clear.

The pink foam holds the detail much better than either of the foam boards.  Even the embossed side, where I relied just on the texture created by the roller, holds reasonable detail.  An extra drybrush would bring this out further.

Both foam boards hold the detail reasonably well when I engraved the detail in further by going over the lines with a pencil.  There is little difference between the two, and if I had to make a choice it would be down to the thinner foam board as it was much easier to peel the paper off.

Neither held the detail particularly well when I relied just on the roller without any added depth.  In fact in both cases I found it difficult to see the detail once it had had a black undercoat, making picking a few individual stones out quite a chore.

In conclusion, I will stick to the pink foam as long as I have some.  An alternative would be the cheaper thinner foam board.  Where possible I will engrave the detail deeper into the foam (a good task for dull telly programmes), but in a hurry, or for very large pieces, I can make do with just the texture from the roller.

The eagle-eyed among you will not that I managed to mix up the pieces, so two wall each have a side of cheap foam board and a side of thicker foam board.  This doesn't alter the results.

Someone suggested on FaceBook that I could use heat to expand the detail.  I have seen this used on EVA foam to create excellent armour and props for LARP.  A cut is made in the foam surface then heat applied.  The foam shrinks back deepening the cut.  I might try this as an extra experiment, but the roller compresses teh foam rather than cutting it (unless I have added extra depth), so I am unsure if this will work

Fun With Foam part 2

Following on from part 1, the walls are now assembled with a coping added.  To speed things along I used hot glue rather than PVA. The coping was just a strip of pink foam, textured with a ball of foil, and some gaps cut in to show individual coping stones. 

They were then based on large 'craft sticks'.  These are essentially large lolly sticks 18mm wide and 149mm long. 

The walls  have been primed with a mix of Mod Podge and acrylic paint to both toughen the foam and provide a dark undercoat.

Pink foam, engraved side.

Pink foam embossed side.

Cheap foam board engraved side.

Cheap foam board embossed side

Thicker foam board engraved side.

Thicker foam board embossed side.  For some reason I couldn't get a good coat on this, maybe some of the adhesive from the card was still on the foam?

It's obvious that the engraved side (where I went over the embossed lines with a pencil) gives more depth to the detailing, but will the difference be enough to justify the extra stage?

Next time I'll get them painted up and we will see.

Kings of War: Vanguard

Mantic have just released the test rules for their new skirmish game set in the Kings of War world.  If you check the Mantic blog and sign up for the newsletter you should be able to get it (it might be on their blog by now)

A quick read through suggests that it plays like a combination of Kings of War and Deadzone, in a good way.  This could be great fun, and I'll get some of my Dungeon Saga minis out and put together a force to try the rules out.

The Kickstarter starts on Tuesday november 1st.

Fun With Foam (part 1)

The ruined watchtower textured with Greenstuff World rolling pins seems to have gone down well, on FaceBook at least.  Posting it sparked a lot of suggestions and questions, so I have decided to do a bit of experimental crafting to answer a couple of questions.

The Black Magic Craft video that inspired me suggested that foamboard might take the impressions at least as well as pink or blue foam.  Given that it's generally easier to find, I thought I'd try it out in a comparison test.

I am making three walls, each around 150 mm long, to fit on a wide crafting lolly stick.  Each wall is 20 mm high, though I will add some sort of coping on the top.  One wall is made of two sheets of pink foam, each 5 mm thick, one is made of two sheets of cheap foam board about 3 mm thick, and one is made of two sheets of better quality foam board around 5 mm thick.

Each wall is two sheets thick, partly to avoid the tendency to 'iron out' the pattern on one side when embossing the other, and partly to allow me to treat each side differently.  One side of each wall will simply be embossed with the greenstuff world rolling pin, the other will have the embossing emphasised with a knife and/or sharp pencil.  I am interested to see if merely using the roller gives enough definition when everything is painted up.

The first problem was the thicker foam board.  It was tricky to strip the outer layer off.  even soaking for a couple of hours didn't do the trick.  Perhaps hot water would work?  Or maybe a heat gun?  Eventually I peeled most of it off and had to slice the rest away, leaving a chavelled surface.

The six strips cut to size and embossed.  Cheap foam board at the top, then pink foam and thicker foam board at the bottom.

The six strips after pencil work on three of them.  Again cheap FB at the top.

The samples are currently drying after being glued together ready for the next stage.

Terrain Progress

Yes, I know,  it's been a while. A combination of real life and starting (but failing to complete) many projects has kept me from posting.  But enough excuses.  This blog was supposed to encourage me to finish things, so here goes.

I hope to start a Frostgrave mini campaign soon.  My D&D group have expressed interest, so I've been getting stuff ready, whilst sorting through the myriad boxes of old figures.  This got me to look at older minis with a view to painting up some warbands.  Part of the idea is to have stuff that will do for more than one system, so a Norse themed band was a must to work for Blood Eagle as well.  More on these later, as I am short of a wizard or two.

Terrain is also a big part of both skirmish games and roleplaying.  I have made cardboard ruins (DM Scotty style) before, and even used pink foam with brick carved in.  Then I watched this video from Black Magic Craft.  Soon a couple of rolling pins were winging their way to me, and I am impressed with the results.

This ruined tower or watchpost will make great scenery for Frostgrave, and any other skirmish game I happen to try.  I am still not sure about adding loads of snow to truly 'Frost' it.  That restricts its usefulness.  I'll try to resist adding too much in the way of vegetation though, so it still hints at a cold climate.

In other news, I just got my copy of Ghost Archipelago.  This looks at first scan to be great fun, but I'll concentrate of FG for now.

Also Mantic Games have announced that their Kings of War skirmish game, called Vanguard, will be kickstarted beginning November 1st.  There is more information on their blog (see list below).  One very nice feature is that it is designed to tie in to larger Kings of War battles, so the results of a Vanguard game might affect the resources available for a KoW battle.

I'll get some pictures of the Frostgrave warbands up soon.

Oh, and a 'no-prize' if anyone recognises the inspiration for the watchtower (though I've changed a few details, such as window shape).