Fistfuls of dice

History The north is an unburnished and desolate land that calls to those seeking safety from the responsibility of their actions. Murderers, agnostics, fraudsters and even worse seek to lose themselves in the wide wastes of the north. They try to leave their identities behind and begin a new, safer, life in the uncharted north. For some this is easy. One murderer is usually indistinct from another. One thief the same as the hundreds of other cutpurses and cat burglars. Not so for Ardent sant Gusté who came to the north from the city states to the east. Ardent was fleeing his comfortable home in the city of Treste not because of gambling debts or an enforced infidelity but because he was une Fantôme de sang or a vampire. Ardent sant Gusté was not only a vampire, and a long-lived one at that, but had been, before his rapid fall, the head of a coven of vampires. Life in the city state of Treste had been easy on Ardent and his ‘family’. They had political power, connections and, they ...

My friend Brian dropped by today and we played a game of Moonstone pitting my newly acquired Fauns against the Goblins. The Fauns were fielding Hoff, Mr. Toodles, Jayda, Jackalope, Gloom and Wendigo. The Goblins consisted of Dim & Dimmer, Viscous Syd, Doug the Flatuent, Shabbaroon, Beaky Bobby and Grub. This was the first game that I have played (other than teaching games) where the Goblins have fielded Dim & Dimmer and I was excited to see how well he worked. The goblins were painted except for Shabaroom. The Fauns were all unpainted. Brian accepted a drop of Moonstones that was very beneficial to one side and so when I won the rolloff I picked to be the early bird and deployed in order to take advantage of that. I placed Jayda in some terrain on the left of the table with Mr. Toodles closer to the centre along with Hoff. Gloom and the Jackalope were on the right to take advantage of some nearby Moonstones. Brian deployed with Shabbaroon and Doug more centrally located and S...

My current distraction from my original wargaming projects (thanks ADHD) is a 10mm fantasy project. My intention is to use Fantastic Battles but I also took a look at the Warmaster Revolution rules. Most of the 10mm miniatures that I am looking at are based to match standards for Warmaster. So either long strips at 40mm or short strips at 20mm. I am trying to figure out how to base these models on a 40x40mm base for Fantastic Battles when I thought "what about basing them for Warmaster and using 2 40x20mm bases for a company?". I used to play a lot of Warmaster. In fact, for quite a few years, it was the only game I played. I moved on to other things once I began to hit a wall in terms of how much fun I was getting from the game. If you played Warmaster in the past you will be familiar with the tactic of hitting an opponent in the flank with narrow based models like cavalry or Chaos Hounds and then destroying the unit over a long series of combat rounds. One of the local W...

I have been on a bit of a 10mm kick recently. I blame my unmedicated ADHD (long story) for making me hop from project to project like this. I was checking out some of the Forest Dragon 10mm miniatures with an aim to create some stats for the Wild Elves and Chaos Dwarf models that they sell.  I was feeling a bit constrained by what I had available. Part of it was that a Chaos Dwarf army, as defined by Games Workshop, has a lot of Orc and Hobgoblin troops in it. I liked the idea of Hobgoblins but I really did want an army that had more hardened troops in it. I finally realised that I could just build whatever army I wanted since the Fantastic Battle rules didn't have any set army lists. I was stuck in an 'army list' mindset without thinking that I could just use whatever miniatures I wanted. 

The last few days have been a bit of a flurry of assembling Undead and Ork models. The number of Undead I have is staggering and I still have some models to assemble. The Ork army is a slower build as many of the models are the older Mantic PVC 'plastic' and they come with mould lines that you could shave with. I am currently assembling a few more Ork chariots as well as a character model mounted on a chariot. After that I will assemble the giant and also try to get some archers to help fill out a force.  As I am building models I have been taking some time to test out the Age of Fantasy rules from One Page Rules . Age of Fantasy is a simplified fantasy ruleset in the same mould as Age of Sigmar. There are no ranks, the rules are a bit simplified and it has the same feel. It is a quick game, most games only last four turns, and there are a lot of optional rules you can add on to customise the game to your liking.  I built a small Halfling force as well as an Undead force t...

In my previous post  I discussed which games I was going to be trying to play as well as which armies I was going to start to build. The Undead army that I picked up is most assuredly going to be one of them. I was hoping to then build a Halfling force but I lack a  number of more elite units. The models I have are mostly basic troops and the basic troops in a Halfling army are typically trash. I need a second force that can give the Undead and their wide range of monsters a good battle. I do still want to expand the Halfling force I have. Especially with the awesome miniatures that Max Mini produces . Sadly though I can't really play a full game with just the Halfling models I have. Even a game of Saga: Age of Magic, which has a much lower model count, isn't really viable since I don't have anything that would work as possible Hearthguard .  When I purchased the Undead I also got a smaller Ork force made primarily with Mantic Ork models and some figures from Shieldw...

Winter in Edmonton is, for me at least, not a time of the year that involves a lot of activities outside my home. So when winter starts to make its impact felt I usually start to plan what my hobby activities are going to be for the upcoming inclement months. I don't ski, and I don't really like the cold in general, so the next four or five months are going to provide me with a lot of time to devote to hobby projects. The plan Over the many years that I have been gaming I have found that I really like fantasy wargames far more than sci-fi games. And after I started playing Oathmark I discovered that flank-and-rank fantasy games were more my style than games like Age of Sigmar.  I recently stumbled upon a significant deal for an large Undead army. The models are all from Max Mini's Necropolis Undead range and there are enough figures to produce several different armies for several different systems. There are actually probably more miniatures in the set than I can possibly...

 For whatever reason, I find it difficult to embark on a new project without writing about it. Something about the process of writing helps me process and codify the tasks I have and the steps I need to take. I also seem to be able to think through problems better when I process them with an 'inner monologue'. I used to do the same thing in university when I was taking exams. Talking to myself to solve the problems presented to me. No matter the reason for it, I have decided to start a new blog for my Winter 2024 fantasy army building project. I used to have a blog that I used for exactly this type of thing but I deleted it a few months ago because, due to the extreme age of the blog, it had become a long list of incomplete projects or painted armies that I sold in the midst of an ADHD-driven fevered pursuit of 'something new'. Hence the need for a new blog.