Progress: Battlemasters Chaos Warriors

Let`s be honest: Smarthpones don't produce great photos. (Or is it only my Samsung phone?) They offer you to make pictures 4000 pixels wide and when you open these big images on your computer screen it is easy to spot that all you got is a pixel salad. All that brings me: I have to downsize the files to upload them.

The decals on the shields (from Games Workshop) are almost as old as the miniatures. They've been lying around here for ages. Finally I use them with miniatures I originally bought them for. Another happy ending.

The next ones in the pipeline.

A Battlemasters Remake

Battlemasters Box 1992, Milton Bradley (MB) & Games Workshop.
Maybe the biggest ever Wargame-in-a-box

Remember that I said I would go back to the early nineties if possible? Her I am, going back to "simpler times".

Not that I liked the Battlemasters game so much. I was never a friend of random troop activation and that game did unit activation with cards. I think what you do or plan in a game should not depend on randomness. To me it is stupid to make wargames a lottery. Complete randomness - the fights are of course also solved by dice and so all results are random - produces a complete unpredictable game and makes any planning and tactics obsolete. I am not a chess player, but I am sure that none of them would sit down to play a game over which they have no control. Always strange to me that wargamers tend to accept this. The question is: who plays with whom? Do you play the game or does the game play with you?

But what I liked was the simpleness. Moving troops from field to field without measurement, getting fighting results without looking at result tables. Fast gaming without too much effort and with a good pace. And of course the style, this 90s Citadel-Warhammer style.

While I was painting some of the minis that I bought 4 years ago it came to me that a rebuild/my own version of a hex-field-fantasy-boardgame, with new rules, expansion and a nice playmat with some terrain features could be made very easy. In fact I can produce this very quick and I get a very handy game that can be used occasionally and may also be used by non-wargamers who would never touch a complicated game. 

I looked around and it seems I am not the only or the first one with this idea. I found a lot of pictures of nicely painted Battlemasters minis, some people made new playmats, even 3D prints of the minis are on sale (!) and there are fans who created complete hex-field gaming tables with terrain that do not look different from other fantasy wargaming tables.

So, why not? I made a list. I always make lists.

ToDo / Thoughts

Miniatures

1. Paint all the minis I have
2. Add missing minis via Ebay (mostly the evil ones)
3. Look what else in my collection fits in size and style
1. Add an Elves faction (already present but are unpainted)
1. plus self casted 32mm High-Elves and Wood-Elf archers from Prince August moulds
1. Magicians
2. Champions & Heroes
3. Dragons / Monsters
4. War machines / Catapults / Guns
5. Chariots(?)

Basing

1. Mount the minis on single bases
1. They need less space, can show the size of a unit and can be used as single minis in other contexts.
2. Build unit bases on which the single bases can be placed (maybe magnetic)
1. But I don't know if I am going to use Unit-bases

Terrain

1. Playmat painted on awning fabric (sturdy and can easily be rolled)
2. Buildings
1. Tower/Castle keep (done)
1. Expansion-Elements to transform it into a bigger castle
2. Maybe one or more extra pieces, or another tower
2. Bridge
3. Palisades and/or walls
4. Houses / Farm (?)
5. Temple / Shrine (game ojective ?)
3. Hills (spanning 1 field, 2 fields, 3 fields)
4. Unpassable Terrain
1. River (tiles)
2. Swamp
3. Mountain(s)
4. Piles of rocks
5. Trees / Woods

Markers

1. Do I need them?
2. But if needed...
1. Damage (Minis are single, can be taken out...)
2. Explosion / hit by catapult or gun
3. Effects (fog, fire, poison, magic,...)
4. Ammunition (for guns, catapults?)

Rules

1. Forget the old rules
2. Write new rules
1. Reduce randomness to a minimum (fight)
1. I go <-> You go system (Is it OK for Chess? Then it's OK for you.)
2. Dice : 20-sided dice
3. Safe throws only with (very limited) magic support
2. No tables
1. Everything is resolved by dice
3. Add tiny set of magic rules (limited by ressources)
1. Surprise actions
2. Ressurection / Repair (see safe throw)
3. Attack / Special effects (fog, fire...)
4. Teleportation / Magic gates (...?)
4. Three Level System : Soldier - Champion - Hero
1. Bonus/malus system based on qualitty, weapons, support
5. Solve the Reinforcement problem
1. To prevent setting a player back for the rest of the campaign after the first lost battle there have to be rules for reinforcement at special places and/or a point-system.

Not complete of course, just a quick overview.

Haul from the Fleamarket at the local Wargames Club

Fleamarket at the local Wargames Club in November. I always find some nice old stuff. (Yes, late, but at least I took photos.)

I had seen these Warhammer Wood Elf Warhawk Riders before but really believed they were from the early nineties because the riders are very small. My memory deceived me, they are old but not that old. I finally found them in a Games Workshop catalog from 1997 (but not in earlier catalogues). The horses below them are from Minifigs, Aureola Rococo Series, (ARH4 Knights Silver Rose Horse). Sadly no riders. And a cave troll from Lord of the Rings (GW).

These unicorns and riders are also from Minifigs, Aureola Rococo,  Mortals & Male Warriors (ARXC1, the horse ARH5). All a little bit damaged but nothing that can't be fixed. I think they make good companions to Brandor the Avenger, they look very similar. Unicorns where a thing back then. Two ogre spearmen without weapons from Ral Partha (02-149) and some Chainmail Gnolls.

Plastic Undead Chariots (Warhammer?) bought from someone who had about 20 pieces of them on his table. Or more.

And a sci-fi bridge from Mutant Chronicles for my invisible and still "undefined" sci-fi project. 

Contrast Colors and a visit to a local Wargames Club

Some weeks ago a friend invited me to come over for a paint session. He introduced me to the (for me) new Contrast Colors from Games Workshop and so I tried them on some Reaper Miniatures.

Here are the (not completely ready) results. The lizards where primed and then simply painted with "Contrast Ork Flesh" and "Contrast Mantis Warriors Green". No washing, no shading. The giants leather jacket (can't find the name of the mini) was painted with "Contrast Snakebite Leather" and the nice leather effect came immediately. Again, no other paint, no further work step. The Troll was painted with another contrast color I can't remember and then washed with "Strong Tone" from Army Painter. Most of the painting was done in a few minutes, details came later.

I must say that these paints are an astonishing product. They may not be suitable for all kinds of miniatures and used too much may result in creating a very specific look, but chosen to paint some parts of minis can bring nice effects and speed things up. I am definitely going to try more of the contrast colors.

And while I was visiting him, I took a photo of his painting place. Like a lot of the younger generation he is all into the Kickstarter and 3D-Printing thing. Which will become (or is?) the biggest threat to the business model of Games Workshop and the like I think. When he started printing I was very skeptical but he has his 2nd printer now and the quality of the miniatures is really high.

  

On that Sunday we also visited the Club he is a member off. They reside in a large bunker and during the Covid crisis the club grew from about 30 members to around 100 members. At the moment they are in progress to double their space and furnish another floor of that building.

One of the three(!) playing areas.

Part of the building and painting area. They also have a special room for spray priming.

Progress report : Isenstein archers

Imperial Archers from 'good old' Warhammer Fantasy make up the first unit of Isenstein.

The archer is a Citadel/Warhammer model from the mid 90s. In the annual catalog from 1995/96 it is the archer No. 4. Back then, every piece from the Warhammer range had an order number and it was possible to order exactly the minis you wanted. It was also possible to order every single piece, loose arms, parts from warmachines or monsters. To me that was the golden age of Games Workshop.

I always hated the slotta bases with the diagonal openings so I mounted the archers straight on the square base. Means pinching off the holder bar at the bottom and filing the underside of the feet. The gap in the base was closed with an matchstick glued in place.

The holder bar shows something interesting. The figure is named 'FORSTJAEGER'. That is a pseudo german word because 'Forst' means wood and 'Jaeger' is the word for hunter but this combination of both words is not eligible in german. So the real meaning could be a 'forest ranger' but I can't remember that the empire had any unit like this. Forest rangers seemed to be more a wood-elven thing.

Something is missing in the linup above. A Lord who has only a unit of archers and nothing else would be in trouble soon. At the moment I don't know what minis I can add to make the picture complete.

The only ones I have that seem to fit are henchmen from Advanced Heroquest that I once bought loose on a wargamer flea market. In fact there is one here in the area twice a year and usually you can buy a lot of Warhammer and Games Workshop stuff there. Too bad. If the event comes back my fantasy armies will nearly be ready I think.

Don't know if I should use them in this context. I do not want to put the light blue color on them, a color scheme like this here would suit them better.

By the way, they share the same fate that a lot of plastic miniatures face : The material is a little bit brittle nowadays. The bodies are still ok but the weapons are not so durable anymore.