Last week Frostgrave
arrived and I’ve been reading it and the kids and I have been getting pretty
excited about trying it out! So of course I spent my time painting something
completely not useable in the game… (unless they’re wandering baddies… I
haven’t gotten to that section of the rules…). The arrival of Frostgrave and
the current reading the kids and I have been doing about the medieval world has
got me thinking about all sorts of fantasy and medieval skirmishing using A
Song of Blades and Heroes or Song
of Arthur and Merlin or Lion
Rampant (and soon Dragon
Rampant!)…
A few years back my friend John gave me
all his old Skaven miniatures – figuring he’d likely never play Warhammer Fantasy Battle (for which he had collected them) again. I
rebased
a bunch of them for Hordes of the Things a few years back, and from
time to time have been painting some of the ones that never got painted – and
repainting some that had been – to put together a small warband of them that I
could use for some sort of fantasy skirmish game. Recently John as been making
grumblings about checking out Age of Sigmar and getting back into fantasy skirmish
gaming. I thought I’d try and get a second warband of his old Ratmen finished
to give back to hims and see if I could get him to try out A
Song of Blades and Heroes…
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version):
Batch #1 (for John) – these are
all old Games
Workshop figures.
Some Character figures for his
warband a leader and a Poison Wind Globadier… not sure what to classify the
latter as… perhaps a magician? Give him one of the new spells out of Fightin’
Fungi - something that can be thrown and has an area effect…? I think
there was a fireball or fireblast or something similar that would fit the bill.
Ratmen… I think these may have
some from HeroQuest…?
More ratmen – these came from
the first ever Games
Workshop plastic fantasy
figures – the one where you got 10 Dark Elves, 10 Wood Elf Archers, 10 Dwarf
Warriors, 10 Skaven…? Was there something else in that boxed set…? Does anyone
else remember the bos set I’m talking about? It was kind of useless – who would
want all those things together. John was running the Wizard’s Corner at the
time (Saskatoon’s original game store) and would order boxes of them in – open them
up, keep the skaven, and sell all the others separately…
More of the same, but converted
to slingers.
Batch #2 – additions to my own
Ratling warband.
Wizard/Poison Wind Globadier-types
Hero/Leader with a Warplock
Jezzail and a Ratling Pack Master (with the whip)
Ratlings with Polearms
Ratlings with sword and shield
(or sword and dagger)
Light Skirmishing Ratlings
I've added some pictures of my complete Ratling Warband (so far...) to the 28mm Medieval and Medieval Fantasy Gallery (scroll waaaay down, past all the Humans...).
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
I have some Halflings to finish up on my workbench… then I
might get back to some 40K stuff… or stuff that might actually be useful for Frostgrave…?
Or I might work on some more historical Medieval stuff…? I have a feeling soon
I’ll be working on a few English Civil War figures I have to try out Flashing
Steel - as the kids and I will be on to that era of history in a few
weeks…
That ten of each Warhammer boxed set would obviously be pretty useless for Warhammer players, but it would work pretty well for modern skirmish gamers, buy the box plus a couple of metal character models for each army and you're good to go.
ReplyDeleteAlso perhaps it was intended for the Warhammer RPG? It would give you a nice mix of baddies for your characters to encounter.
Also was it this perhaps: http://www.solegends.com/citboxes/pbs3whfbregs/index.htm
THAT's the one!!! I knew some one out there would know where to find it quicker than I would! Thanks!
DeleteGAH!! Orcs and Goblins! I KNEW I was forgetting something (and how could I have forgotten those - I STILL HAVE SOME!?)
You are absolutely right - they totally would be perfect for the modern fantasy skirmish gamer looking to set themselves up with with a few opposing forces to do demos or host games or even run RPGs with lots of figures!
I'm pretty sure they were meant for WFB - and the reason GW did it like that was because it was one of their first forays into plastic and moulds for plastic are expensive and to set up six different moulds for those figures would have been prohibitively expensive at the time. I have a feeling there were probably lots of stores that did the same as the Wizard's Corner and in bigger centres - where there are actually clubs - clubs might have organized buying stuff together to split up...?
They look great! Looking forward to hearing your take on Frostgrave and how you like it compared to SoBH.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteFor now I'll say, I like them both - for different reasons - and will probably end up using both for different purposes... I hope to get a game of Frostgrave in within the next week (perhaps over the weekend!) and I'll be able to expand on that in the game report.
These look soooo coooool!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Nick! These old GW Skaven are pretty neat - though you can't see it on most, they are festooned with little pouches and bags and ropes and stuff that makes them look as though they are ready for adventuring!
DeleteNice work Tim, I still have quite a few of those old GW plastic sprues complete with figures. Think I popped a couple of the goblins for my HOTT army, just to get different stances. They are also the ones that had all those plastic shields which you pushed over that large nub on the hand, it then became the cap of the middle of the shield.
ReplyDeleteThanks Terry. Yeah, I have lots of those nub/shield boss era figures too (all three of the sword and shield Skaven above have those shields). Some were okay, if they had round viking-like shields or ever Norman-ish kite shields... it made a little less sense on later medieval-looking shields and so one had to try and shave that boss down so it would be flush with the surface of the shield.
DeleteGreat looking Ratmen, Tim. I've shied away from non-human factions in the past, but these are very, very enticing. I'm looking forward to Dragon Rampant, but might have to pick up Frostgrave to see what all the talk is about too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dean! I'm also looking forward to Dragon Rampant! I also want to have another go at Lion Rampant - I tried it out with the kids when I first got it, but haven't managed to get in a second game yet!?
DeleteFrostgrave looks fun. It has a very Mordheim-esque feel to it (which I played a lot of back in the day). I'm hoping to get in a game or two this week and will hopefully get to posting game reports shortly thereafter.