Fistfuls of dice

It goes without saying that Oathmark , by Joseph McCullough, is my favourite rank-and-flank wargame. It is also the one game that has disappointed me the most in terms of gameplay. So the news that there is a second edition of the game coming has pushed me to start planning to rebuild my Oathmark armies. Some thoughts about Oathmark So before I get into the gist of this blog post I thought I would do a short explanation of why I love Oathmark but don’t play it currently. At its core, Oathmark is a rank-and-flank game that has enough movement and manoeuvre in it to provide strategic choices, characters to add capabilities and options without overwhelming the game and magic. It is a fun system that can create some very fun and interesting narratives. It has more structure than the Age of Fantasy Regiments rules but less additional chrome and ‘fussy bits’ than Warhammer Fantasy. Also, and I don’t know that this gets said enough, the books for the game are wonderful. Great art througho...

In my last article I touched upon some of the changes to the Warmachine business model and miniature production . A wargame is more than just getting your models to the table though. The rules are, obviously, a critical part of the game experience. So lets look at some of the changes that have been made to the Warmachine rules and talk about how they will impact the game. But first… One issue that has followed Warmachine through its various iterations is that it is a complicated game. The core rules of Warmachine are no more complex than Warhammer 40K or Age of Sigmar. Perhaps even less so given the number of different phases that those games have. Movement and combat are quite simple but managing Warjacks and Warbeasts is slightly more complicated. Nothing quite as bad as Infinity though. Where Warmachine does require a bit more processing power on the part of the gamer is in the interaction between things such as abilities, spells and feats. This was especially an issue in MK II ...

I had been a Warmachine player since the game was released and played a significant number of games during the MK I and MK II eras of the game. I was more of a casual player but I had an extensive Cryx army as well as a Magnus mercenary force and a smattering of Cygnar miniatures. While I loved my Cryx army, and played it quite a bit, I was never really very good with it. To be honest, I think I won more games with my Magnus force than I ever did with the Cryx despite playing the Cryx much, much more.  While I truly loved my Cryx models I was woefully bad with them. That never really stopped me from getting them to the table though. How can you not want to play steampunk undead powering their army with the souls of the people they kill? I tried to continue to play the game when Mk III was released but the local gaming scene I was in was highly focused on competitive gaming. I am not a tournament player. I don’t have the mindset for it and I really don’t have the core competitive n...

There are usually always new games coming out. It is what makes being a gamer fun and having ADHD a total nightmare (Look! Shiny! New!). The latest new-shiny is a mech based 28mm wargame from new company Best Hobby called Zeo Genesis . The game will be funded via gamefound starting at the end of April. Zeo Genesis is a sci-fi skirmish game that focuses on small teams based around a single mech miniature and from 0 to 3 Support models. The mechs come in three sizes with the largest being bigger than a Primaris Dreadnought from 40K. It has been developed to be played on a 3’ x 3’ or 4’ x 4’ table and the focus of the game is having big mechs shooting and punching each other with Support troops at the edges of the battle. Bell of Lost Souls has an article discussing the game with some good photos of the models. The playtest rules and army lists are available to download from the Zeo Genesis so you can have a look at the game as well as two factions. Here are a few things that have ...

And so begins the second chronicle of my adventures in playing Fantastic Scuffles . Last time on this blog we looked at the two new parties that would be partaking in this game. Now it is time put models and dice onto the table and see who triumphs. Note : this game is being played with a set of the Fantastic Scuffles rules that are still in development. Things will certainly change between the date of this post and the release of the rules. Also, I will forget things. Anything odd you read here is probably me not remembering a rule. Changes : if you read the previous blog post you will note that the Relic Hunter party has changed slightly. After some ‘mathhammer’ it was decided that Modesh the Fair’s Holy Hammer Minion/spell effect would start the game on board and count as part of the party’s points. Not being a Sage meant that it could potentially take two or three turns for Modesh to summon the Holy Hammer. This was a lot of time to take to summon a 9 point Minion. Summon was ...

So with the first Fantastic Scuffles game done and dusted , lets move on to creating two new parties and bring them to the table. Warriors of Ages These models started out as a warband for Warhammer Underworlds from the Gnarlwood starter set. Called the Sons of Velmorn, this is a small band of five skeletons with a fairly large warrior model (The Prince), three smaller skeletons and an undead king (The King) with crown. This will be a simple party. Protect the spellcaster and smack things that need smacking. The entire party is equipped with Medium Armour so they will be difficult to wound. The King The King will be a Sage and will have to use one of his abilities to overcome the -2 spell casting roll that his Medium armour brings with it. Happily this is just what the Holy Orders trait is for but it might not be appropriately named given the circumstances. I also give him Erudite to make it easier to cast spells. This only leaves two slots open for spells which I use for Empowe...

So with a game in hand, I took some time to look over the two parties I had initially created for Fantastic Scuffles with an eye to improve them based on game experience. One of the features of a game such as this that I enjoy is that you can rework your force without having to buy new miniatures. Not that buying new minis isn’t fun but I don’t believe that you should be required to do so in order to change your gaming options. The Wild Hunt Skaeth, the centaur leader of the party, didn’t change any of his abilities but I did remove the Mountable equipment item. Given the size of the table that the game is played on (2’ x 2’) and the Movement values of the characters I created I don’t see the need for anyone to ride on Skaeth’s back. Althaen the archer remains the same except that I changed the Long Bow she was equipped with to a regular Bow. The Long Bow has a very long range but you can’t Concentrate using it to improve your aim. The Abyssal Dwarves had 9+ and 10+ Shooting Defe...

The first thing you need to know is that this is less of a battle report and more of a series of impressions and thoughts. This was my first game with Fantastic Scuffles and, as first games go, it had its share of mistakes and forgotten rules. You read the rules. You build a force. You put it on the table. You suddenly forget how to do an attack roll. It wasn’t actually that bad. The truth is that the rules, and the army building, is all theoretical until you put your minis on the table and start checking for LOS. That trait which seemed awesome when you read it in the rulebooks seems less unbeatable on the tabletop. The warband you created doesn’t mesh like the complex Swiss watch you thought it was. Hence this being a set of impressions and first thoughts. Please note that this post is based on a very early version of the game. It will most certainly change as it develops.

The next warband for Fantastic Scuffles are the models from the Skaeth's Wild Hunt set for Warhammer Underworlds. I got this from one of the Underworlds starter sets and while I played it a few times it wasn't really the sort of game I was interested in. The models are quite nice though with their Wood Elf/Centaur aesthetic. As opposed to Argash's collection of miscreants and hobgoblin scum, the Wild Hunt are elite troops. I also want to try to expand the number of traits that I am using in this warband. Building the warband One difference with this warband is that the miniatures imply actions that the models are taking. One is armed with a large bow, another has a huge horn and a third is leaping over some foliage. The war band's namesake, Skaeth, is a centaur armed with a large spear and is posed mid-leap. In comparision, my Abyssal Dwarves look like they are waiting in line for the coffee machine. Sometimes the miniatures help you write a story. Other times the ...

I have been lucky enough to be asked to have a look through a very early version of the Fantastic Scuffle rules from Nic Wright . They are based on his recently released Devilry Afoot rules. Now, I am not really a big fan of horror games but I do like a good fantasy skirmish game. So when Nic mentioned that the rules were going to be in testing soon I put up my hand and tried to get his attention . The game is more of a narrative fantasy game. Unlike something like Age of Fantasy Skirmish you are creating stats for characters, for units that have distinct characteristics. Your Warband ‘leader’ is the leader based on the skills you give them but mostly because you create a narrative whereby they are in charge. There is no ‘Leader’ attribute. I am not sure if this is the type of game for everyone but it is certainly something I like.

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.