Oathgrave

60. I´m not dead (yet)

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Thu, 29 May 2025 09:34:00 +0000

3,5 years since the last time I wrote something on my blog... Long time. But I´m not dead, and I didn´t stop playing games, crafting terrain and painting miniatures, just the free time got short. Yeah, Covid years were the golden years for the hobby... So I had to cut from my hobby doings and sorry, but this blog had to be let down. I don´t say, that I have more time now, or that I will write regulary, I just wanted to give a sign of life (not that I expect any interest for this...). A lot of things happened in this 3,5 years, so here is a short summary of just the most important ones:

I found a game, which completely conquered our (the kids and mine) hearts and mind: Bushido! Its a small skirmish game (4-10 miniatures per player), set in a quasi-japanese fantasy world, and its fantastic, probably the best skirmish game ever (for me)! Why, you ask? Because:

The setting is lovely, rich and various (and a matter of taste, but I just love it!)
13 very different factions: ninjas, good monks, evil monks, undead and deamons, onis (ogres) and bakemonos (goblins), tengus (bird-people), pirates with shark-people and crab-people, criminals with sumo-fighters and courtesans, spider-people, samurai with snakes, samurai with bears, samurai with dragon, "kurosawaesque" samurai and a lot of different ronins
Balance is great, especially if you count in the different playstyles of every faction
The miniatures are fantastic, detailed, but not overly detailed, dynamic, with a very high production quality, here are some pictures of some of our warbands (not all of them were ready at this stage):

Rules are a bit overwhelming at first, but still great, with a very unique and fun dice-system
It just needs a 2´x2´ (91cmx91cm) space
The developers are active, new releases are coming every time and they are constantly in touch with the community
The community is great, helpful and very-very kind (extra shout-out for the austrian players!)

We now have 2,5 (Imperial, Rebel and criminals of the Shadow Collective) FULLY PAINTED Star Wars Legion armies (photos are bad, but I don´t have better ones at the moment)!

I´m developing my own game! It´s a fantasy skirmish game about hunting monsters (and each other), with an unique activation-system (as I know). I had already a bunch of playtest games with my sons and the system works pretty well, but it still needs a lot of tuning. This takes an awful lot of time because the amount (or better, lack of) free time I have, but I hope that I can go to the public playtest with the local community end of this year. And it´s written in german, which could be a great advantage in my region (and for the playtests), and a great disadvantage elsewhere, but let see how it develops...

What were you doing in the last 3,5 years?

59. Weather and daytime effects in Oathmark

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 20:25:00 +0000

Wargames basically want to simulate a real world with all its features, so we don’t need to jump to another dimension or time (and gather troops, supply them, kill a lot of living creatures, risking the life of a bunch of other ones, including ours) to test our tactical and strategical skills (and sometimes, maybe have a little fun). Of course this simulation is not perfect, but some very obvious, real world features are missing in a lot (I wouldn’t risk to say the most, however I think it would be true) of rulesets. Are in these other worlds or times no day and night? No seasons? No weather?

But they are important! Battles in day are not the same as by night, and in summer not the same as in winter… Oathmark has halfway something that simulates weather conditions: strange and catastrophic events. This is a feature which comes to life, if there are double (or quadruple) initiative rolls, and then makes various effects. The latest supplement, Bane of kings had for example a winter themed strange and catastrophic events table. To be honest, I never used these tables, but I think, it would be possible to make a weather themed selection from these tables, and use it so to simulate weather effects. It would be an easy way… But the probability of these events is pretty low (1/10 for double and 1/1000 for quadruple, assuming that my math skills are good enough), and their effect can be drastic (or lets say, cathastrophic). This is like there would be almost always a beautiful, sunny day, but if not, then its minimum a tornado.

Wanted some more permanent effects. And I wanted to have season too! Because a snowstorm is rarely followed by a heatwave… And not to forget about night and day! So wanted to make house-rules for all this. Is it possible to combine all this together? Definitely yes! Will it work on the table as it supposed to be, and wont it ruin the fun? I have absolutely no idea! But here are my rules, feel free to try them, or just gather some inspiration from them: (A hopefuly functioning link)

The document is meant to be self-explaining, but here is a short manual:

Roll a D10 to determine the season: 1-3 = winter, 4-6 = summer, 7-10 = spring/fall. Example: 8 -> spring/fall
Roll another D10 to determine the actual weather conditions from the table of the actual season. Example: 5 -> fog
Player A (who started to deploy the armies) chooses the starting hour. Example: 23h
Player B (the other one) rolls a D10, and may add or subtract the same or lower value from the starting hour. Example: 6, chooses to add, so the result is (23+6)-24=5h
Combine the effects of weather and daytime. Example: effects of fog (Limited sight 12" and limited Command radius of 2"), and daybreak (which coms from the hour table of the actual season; S-1).
The hour switches at beginning of every turn 1 hour forward. Example: secund turn will be 6h, so day with no effects.
If a double initiative roll occurs (as by strange and chatastrophic events), the weather may change with a new D10 roll (like in step 2.). Example: 2 -> rain, so new effects come in, instead of the ones from fog.

I hope that these house-rules are easy enough, to give them a try!

(I would name the artists, who made these beautiful artworks, but they are unfortunately without any name on the internet...)

58. Lessons learned

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 14:00:00 +0000

After the short but boring and not really necessary summary from last week (thanks for Your patience), let’s get to another, much more interesting anniversary theme: What would I do otherwise, if I had to start over?

Not that I would really regret anything (except maybe the first point…), but I wrote a small list about:

No Reaper Bones: until lately, Reaper was my go-to manufacturer for bigger miniatures. Its cheap, most designs look really good and quality is (most of the times, but not always) good enough. But that material… The problem is not with the soft details and the frustrating deburring, but how it reacts to paint. Its more or less well known, that their plastic material doesn’t like the solvents from spray cans. And I used spray primers on them, so its my fault. Well, maybe, but:

I used Army Painter spray cans, which should be a bit more compatible than others.
I primed them very carefully, from bigger distance, so that most of the solvents can evaporate before reaching the surface.
I brush primed them with Vallejo primer before. (Why You ask? Because this primer seems to be a bit hydrophobic, what I don’t like. And I think, it should protect the material against the spray-solvents)
I varnished them with spray varnish at the end, but it shouldn’t be a problem, because there are some layers of paint between the plastic and the solvent vapor.
I have two miniatures, which were not even near any spray, and still…

All of them got sticky with time. And I hate it! I put a lot of time and effort in them, and they are just f*cked up. No more plastic Reaper Bones (Bones Black seems to be better, but it may turn out bad with a little bit more time…! This is the only point, what I really regret.

Mass battle games in small scale: The only mass battle game we play is Oathmark, and we started it in 28mm scale, because of more reasons:

Northstars line of Oathmark plastic boxed sets is very good and affordable.
28mm is the most popular scale, and it has the widest selection.
I wanted multi propose miniatures to use them in more rulesets (for example Frostgrave and Oathmark), and to use the same terrain pieces in every possible game.

But mass battle games need a lot of miniatures. And painting a lot of miniatures is simple very time consuming (especially with my painting speed…). Smaller scales need much less time (and storage space!). Yes, the selection is smaller, but with 3D printing getting more and more accessible, that should be just a small problem. If I had to start over, I would choose something like 15-10mm (20mm=1/72 is not small enough, and 6mm is already microscopic for me). But, maybe I would have collected bigger armies, so at the end I wouldn’t have win anything… Or just go with cards only?

More MDF terrain: I love making terrain (more than painting), but again, time… MDF sets can look quite good, are very quick to build and are pretty cheap. I would use more of them. Why don’t do I, You ask, because I can still continue with them? Because I think the most important on a good looking table is not the quality of the single terrain pieces, but the style homogeneity. In my opinion, a table with very different looking pieces looks like that everything was just thrown on it, I simply don’t like the look. And as I have already scratch build pieces, Im afraid, that they would be just too different… But Im still getting slowly into MDF buildings, however not for every use.

Concentrate more on less: I just have too many different systems, and I have no time to build, paint and play them all… It would have been better to start slowly… But this hobby has no brakes. And which of my systems would I cancel? None of them! They are all good in their own way, I want them all! But it would have been better to give a system more time to settle. Having that many parallel running projects is fun (because I can choose to continue what I ever feel like) but at the same time pretty frustrating (constant feeling of nothing ever will be ready). Starting slower would have been a better choice…

But with all the bad things, Im very happy that I started to realize my old dreams! Its never too late for a happy childhood!

57. Year One

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 12:38:00 +0000

Time flies by (even if doesn’t feel like that while being at work). I started this blog already a year ago…

Let me make a short summary:

365 days
56 entries
17710 total views (thanks to YOU all!)

What You liked at most:

Future of Oathmark (882 views): I would like to think, that it shows Your interest in Oathmark! The ruleset is really good, it deserves recognition, and I hope that Joe McCullough will continue the series! Long live Oathmark!
Oathmark elf cavalry (655 views): The conversion seems to be pretty popular, after that I saw other gamers did similar conversions. Im a bit proud! I hope, they will be painted someday…
Chariots for Oathmark (306 views): Not a conversion but a scratchbulid, but I think it shows, that these kind post are interesting for You. Aaand, there is painting already in progress!

What I liked at most:

Conversions (like the elf cavalry before), scratchbuilds (like the chariots before) and sculpting (like the homemade Treeman / Ent and Earth Elemental / Golem. I love to make them, but they take the most time investment… So there are, and unfortunately, there will be not a lot of them…
Im not a great painter. Not even good, more like worse-than-average… But there is one paintjob, where Im really proud of: the big bad blanchitsu behemoth. Its far away from being perfect, there are tons of other, much better blanchitsu style miniatures. But I still think, that I captured a very strong atmosphere with it. I can smell the rotting, musty air around it!
I love terrain building, it’s a little bit underrepresented on this blog, but I think, that the modular wooden fort was a pretty successful (and relatively quick) project (Part 1 and Part 2).
I really like mind-playing with home made rules! It’s most of the times completely useless, but still… So I made a lot for Oathmark:

Mixed units
Gnolls and Snake-men
Treeman / Ent and Earth Elemental / Golem (the rules)
Black powder weapons
Some general troop types
And siege rules are coming, but it’s a pretty complex task to make them…

And what does the futer hold? Im only sure in one thing: another year…

56. New faction in Star Wars Legion

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 19:37:00 +0000

It’s still not a news channel (not to mention that these news are 2 weeks old...), but Im pretty excited about this one: Atomic Mass Games (after taking it over from FFG) announced a new faction to Star Wars Legion!

The prayers have been heard (mine too), and galactic scum will be available in the game: Shadow Collective! It may not be a complete faction, just a sub-faction, and not exactly as I imagined before, but these are still really good news! There will be Pyke Syndicate soldiers, Mandalorian Death Watch, Falleen fighters from the Black Sun:

And of course some characters, for example Darth Maul (that photshopped glow effect is a little lame...):

As said, this is all great but… Let me be a bit unsatisfied: the Shadow Collective was formed by (among others) Darth Maul in the Clone Wars animation series, and so it’s more connected to the Clone Wars era. But why not a bit more general, or I may say, classical (yes, Im old enough to love the original trilogy at most) criminal troops, like weequay pirates, gamorrean guards or tusken raiders?

Or the rest of the infamous headhunter pack: Dengar, IG-88, Zuckuss and 4-LOM?

I really hope, that AMG won’t stop here, and will continue to publish new sets for this faction! And if that happens, I my start my own army…

The complete announcement is here to watch!

55. Back to Business

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 13:40:00 +0000

As may be recognized, I wasn’t publishing on the blog lately. Im still alive, and Im still into wargaming, but there where different things that prevented me from blogging. I don’t think, that anybody would be interested in them, but it’s my blog, and I do what ever I want to do here, so...

I was on holiday (it was really needed)
Did a lot of sports (I mean a lot on my scale)
I had an urgent, big, nasty work-project (most of it its done, so the highways can be a bit safer)
My workplace moved farther away (so I have to cycle a lot more to work, which makes me more tired in the evenings)
I felt with my bicycle (since then I have skin on my knee again)
I was hit by a car (I was basically unhurt, but still... everybody please, look in both directions before you drive away in a crossing, because, for example a cyclist could come)
Im looking for a car (because cycling to work is fun, except bad weather, falling, getting hit by a car, and so on)
School started, and my older son is gone to a junior high (and we had to learn the route by train, and I accompanied him for a week)
I had to move out of the hobby room (because my kids slowly want to be more separated from each other, and we have limited number of rooms)

The last one had a really big impact on my hobby time, because now I have to pack everything back and forth, if I want to paint or build something… And that’s not good, but I will have to live with it.

But Im back in business, next post will come soon!

54. Mixed units in Oathmark

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 10:24:00 +0000

Last time I promised, that I will post about my homebrew rules for mixed units in Oathmark. And promises have to kept!

The latest supplement for Oathmark, Bane of Kings added a pretty cool new feature to the game: different formations. Altough, I was a bit disappointed, because I missed mixed formations... Mixing units with different weapons, let it be ranged and close combat weapons (like bow and spear), or defensive and offensive (like shields and two handed weapons) can have advantages. That was used in historical warefare, as well as in fantasy stories or in tabletop gaming. Some examples here, an elven unit from the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with staff weapons and bows at the battle of Dagorlad, where Sauron was defeated:

And here a classical unit from Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the dark elven city guard, with crossbows and spears:

So there is place for mixed formations on the Marches! But how? First of all, it should work as the formations: after building a special territory (lets name it, in lack of better: Practice Grounds), maximal 4 mixed units can be formed (basically 8 small units can get the ability, and can be merged into 4 units). Now lets see the rules (I tried to keep it simple but interesting and useful):

Cost is +1 points per figure (as they wont such bonuses as by other formations)
For 25x25mm based miniatures only (available just for infantry)
Max 2 unit types
At least 1 rank for both unit types
An action is to switch ranks back and forth
Can split and join, as in the core rules
Cant use other formations
Always the front unit fights, and always the front units takes the damage (even if attacked from flank or back)
Move stat is always the slower one of the two unit types
All other stats apply for the front unit
Special effects for moving (like Nimble) only apply, if both units have them
Special effects for fighting (like Brace) only apply for the front unit
Special effects for morale (like Courage) apply for both units
Loss count independent for unit types (so can be 5+5 bowman and 5+3 spearman)
Rank bonus on Target Number only for same unit ranks (the former 5+5/5+3 unit gets a bonus on TN after 2 ranks) if the units are from different types (ranged+melee)
Rank bonus on Target Number for all unit ranks (a mixed unit of Soldiers and Linebreakers of 5+5/5+3 gets a bonus on TN after 3 ranks) if the units are from same types (ranged+ranged or melee+melee)
Rank bonus on morale, and calculations for flank and rear attacks, all ranks apply (again, the former 5+5/5+3 unit gets the bonus for morale and flank attacks after 3 ranks)
Only 1 character is allowed
Character is bond to 1 unit type, it gives fight bonuses only to that unit (for example champion die), but Command and Death of the Officer applies for the whole unit

It seems to be complicated but I think, the logic behind it is realitevly simple:

Moving always the worst, as they have to move together
Fighting (except rank bonus if units are from same type ranged/melee, and combat dice for flank/rear attacks) always the front unit, as they are in the front
Morale (except activation to avoid overpowered upgrades for cheap units) always for all, as they are still one unit

To be honest, I had no time to test these rules, but I think, that they would work. I hope You found it useful!

53. Oathmark: Bane of kings

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 08:10:00 +0000

The time has come, I finally arrived to the third and latest supplement for Oathmark: Bane of kings! Does it have a new faction, as in Oathbreakers? No. Can it still be better, then Battlesworn? Yes!

The core if this supplement is time. It’s a bit more foggy concept, then water and undead before, but it’s still recognizable (even if not in every part). The book starts with special formations (nothing to do with time), which is in my opinion a great addition to the core mechanics of the game! It works with new terrains: You have to purchase a new territory, to give the new abilities for up to four units (it has also additional point costs for the unit). Now, You can use Your troops, in a bit different way, and that results a lot of different combinations:

Shield wall: the classical formation for units with shields, bonus on the defense, but disadvantage on the attack, applies only for the front facing and can be switched on and off.
Javelin storm: the unit is equipped with javelins (or lets say any throwing weapon), it gives a bonus on attack for the first charge.
Phalanx: another classical for spearman(-dwarf, -elf, -goblin, -orc…), bonus on the attack in the front facing, but disadvantage on the sides and the back, and it’s permanent.
Square: that’s something more fresh, the unit has only front facings (with 5CD), but loses its rank bonus for attacks (but not for morale) and receives a massive disadvantage on the move stat, and can be switched on and off.
Skirmish: a formation for shooting units (why only for them?), gives the ability of moving normally in any direction and shielding in exchange for Fire Over and Aimed Fire, but can be switched on and off.
Chariot unit: it’s a bit of exception, because it only gives the ability of forming units from chariots (otherwise they can only be used as unit-of-one).

There are some new units too! First some animated statues from stone: Living statue, Colossus and Animate Idol. These are some pretty though units, but beware, all of them are bound to spellcasters! So You have to take good care of the wizards / mages / priests / warlocks / necromancers, or else these crumble to pieces immediately… The other new units are chariots for every faction! Yeah, my work was not unnecessary! They are especially welcome for dwarves, as they had no cavalry at all, and orcs/goblins, as they had no heavy cavalry. And of course, chariots can be chosen for characters too, which can make them much more hard to kill (it comes handy for the spellcaters…).

Until now, there were only some clues of the main theme of time (animated statues are ancient creatures, an chariots are an old, forgotten technology on the marches), but now it’s time for time to come! (sorry…) Kingdom events is the title of the next chapter, and it simulates time going by between the big battles of the kingdoms. After all battle, there is a possibility to roll for different events, which happen after it, and can be either good or bad for the next battle: a new king can be born, a new mine can be discovered, the harvest can be very rich, but also a traitor can rise, a plague or a flood can come. These can give a very nice, narrative addition to the battles.

There are of course new, winter themed military expeditions. These are very nice, narrative, short campaigns with a unique territory as a prize (they can be achieved only through these expeditions). To follow up the winter theme, there is a new strange and catastrophic event table with bitter cold, hungry wolves, avalanche, and so on (I never used these tables, but it may be funny). Finally there are some, very useful (Double damage against enormous creatures? The Union of Dwarven Slayers approve!) looking spells too.

Cons:

A mixed formation (for example spears and bow) would have been nice. I already wrote some house rules for them… (You will find it on the blog later)
The skirmish formation is more useful for shooter units, but why isn’t it available for melee units (just a quick fix by house rules)?
Chariots (except the activation value, and a F-1 by the goblins) are the same. Some more differentiation (why does the elven chariot has the same shoot stat as the goblin one?) would have been nice.
The main theme is not entirely useless for single battles (You can roll before it, to give it a slightly different taste), but only really shines in narrative play. As do the military expeditions.

Pros:

Formations are great additions, gives a lot of combinations with a plus tactical layer.
Chariots are useful, mostly for dwarves, orcs and goblins, are great upgrade for characters, and could be a center piece for an army.
I love the animated statues, good to have them. And they can be used as stone elementals too (so my homebrew rules for them got useless, but I would be happy, if all of them would get useless this way).
With kingdom events its possible to create a complete history of Your kingdom, which sounds fun!
Military expeditions nice. Again. Who wouldn’t want to have some mini campaigns?
Some of the new spells are really great!

In summary:

Bane of Kings is a lot better supplement than Battlesworn, but is it as good as Oathbreakers? Well, it depends on… It has no new faction. If You wanted to play with undead, than Oathbreakers is definitely better suited for You. But if You don’t play undead, Bane of Kings has a lot more useful things to add. So without any nit-picking, Battlesworn is skippable for most people (except collectors like myself), Oathbreakers is a must buy for undead players (and recommended for others), Bane of Kings is not a must, but strongly recommended for every Oathmark player! The formations, chariots, animated idols and new spells are great additions for everybody, narrative players will have a lot of fun with the kingdom events, and military expeditions are always good to have!

Next time just a short post about my homebrew, mixed units!

52. Oathmark: Oathbreakers

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 05:56:00 +0000

Oathbreakers was the second Oathmark supplement, and it was a big one! Not because it was thicker or printed on larger pages, but because it introduced a brand new faction: Undead!

The main theme were of course undead, so lets take a look at different types:

Revenants: they are undying warriors, who are bond to the world with curses or oaths. They are strong, fast (M6 in heavy armor!) and disciplined. There different characters/units are: King, Prince, General, Captain, Champion, Warrior, Linebreaker, Cavalry (in heavy armor), Chariot (a resilient tank with limited maneuverability). And all the characters can choose an undead horse as a mount, or a chariot, which can make them really fearsome!
Necromancer: the spellcaster! But beware, an undead kingdom can either have a Revenant King or Prince as a leader, or a high level Necromancer, but not both of them (a max. 3rd level spellcaster is available for everybody). That makes an interesting choice at the kingdom building. They aren't undead, but they can choose to be one (a lich), and can have the same options as the revenant characters (undead horse or chariot).
Skeletons: the expendable part of the undead army. They are hard to control, bad at shooting, bad at fighting, but really cheap. They weakpoint is that without a spellcaster, they vanish immediately... So go for the necromancer, if they are against them, and protect the necromancer, if You are with them (although, technically any other spellcaster is good enough for them, but I would skip that possibility)! The available character/units are: Champion (without any options for any mount), Soldier, Spearman, Archer.
Warmachines: its the first army, which has a catapult (although only a light one) and also a ballista in the army list. And the operator-skeletons somehow learned how to aim...
Ghoul: a fast, nimble unit with D9! Beware the woods!
Wraith: a small (25x25 base), fast, nimble, and very resistant (without any magic, the can be attacked with a maximum of 2 dice) ghost. A really unpleasant enemy...
Corpse Fire: an undead, regenerating flamethrower! Thats pretty cool! But beware, they are also controlled by the necromancer, as the skeletons.
Vampire: the most popular undead of all times. And thats fair, because it can fight, it can cast spell and it can teleport! A very strong unit for a very strong point-cost.
Barrow Worm: A humongous, undead worm. Its a very dangerous and horrific creature (with Nimble!), but it is very hard control, and its bond to the necromancer. With that awful activation value, I would recommend it only to players, how can stand the fact, that 15% of their army does most of the time not that the tabletop-general wants.

The next large part of the book is about legendary heroes. These rules make the characters may collect experience, level up, and gain one-time (per battle) use abilities, called heroic traits. They are gained pretty slow (depending on the point value), and cost pretty much, but are at least interesting. For example: CD5 (independently from shielding) in one attack, or two additional dice for spellcasting. Would be worth to transfer some of these to elite units, instead of the boring rerolls...

The military expeditions are similar, to the ones in Battlesworn (but this time, they aren't that wet): 3 short campaigns with connecting battles, where the outcome gives a little bonus for the next one, at the end, the winner gets a unique territory. There are some new, undead themed strange and chatastrophic events (which I never used before), some new, interesting territories, and of course, the spell list for the necromancers.

Cons:

There are a lot of different types of undead there, but I still miss some classicals: mummy, zombie, giant bat, skeletal or zombie dragon, etc. But who knows, maybe later?
If you don’t play with undead, well, half of the book is not meant for You.
Leveling up heroes seems to be very slow, and because of the system, as more expensive the character is, the slower it gets. And its pretty expensive.
No photos with the new Skeleton Infantry from Northstar (Revenant Infantry was not available at the time). But, as mentioned before, Covid probably pretty much changed the schedule…

Pros:

A complete new faction (with its own spell pool)! Thats a huge pro!
Undead aren’t necessarily evil here, they can mix, like every other faction, and that’s great for diversity, story-telling aspects (just think of Dead Men of Dunharrow) and the game balance also.
However I miss some types of undead. There are some different ones, with fresh breeze from the crypt: Revenants, Corpse Fire, Barrow Worm.
Heroic traits look pretty interesting.
New military expeditions are great again! Its obvious, that the author really excels in the narrative part of the game.
There are some new territories, available for everyone. And having more options in kingdom building is always welcome.
There are no new photos from the new skeletons, but there are a lot of beautiful new artwork.
The usual printing quality.

In summary:

It’s not only a much better supplement, then Battelsworn. It’s a great supplement! If You want to play with undead, its obviously a must buy. But if You don’t (like I), I would still recommend it: the Military expeditions are still very nice addition for narrative driven games or campaigns, the rules for legendary heroes are interesting useful (not like the elite troops), as are some new territories, and all that stuff for the undead faction is still a great read (and who knows, maybe You get the mood to add a new unit to Your army…).

Next time comes the brand new supplement: Bane of Kings!

51. Oathmark: Battlesworn

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 21:16:00 +0000

I’m still not getting a review writer, but as the already 3rd supplement is published for Oathmark, I thought that I make a short series about them. Let’s start with the first one, because (to spoiler my post) its leaves a better feeling at the end if we get the worst things first. And Battlesworn is the worst of the Oathmark series…

The core of Battlesworn are elite forces of the marches, but I would say that most of the book is built around water. The rules for elite forces is kept very (I mean way too) simple: they get 1/2/3 rerolls (per game, not per turn!). Aaand, thats it. Yes, that was all. And that for +10%/+20%/+30% point costs, which seems pretty overpriced for me…

Also new rules for engineers (for every fraction except undead), who can build and destroy covers and bridges (1. water). That’s a nice addition, with a plus tactical tool for the tabletop general, mostly for defensive situation and moving over impassable terrain (would have been nice if they could build roads across rough terrain, or chop out woods too…). There are simple rules for using two different sizes of ships (2. water): fighting from them, but more importantly, to embark/disembark from them. With those rules You can create a wide range of interesting narrative scenarios, which is always nice to have.

In the next part there are, watchacallit (quote from Mel, the terrain building legend), military expeditions. Its practically a short campaign of battles, where the armies may get a small bonus, depending on the result of the previous battle, and the kingdoms can get unique rewards (territories). The military expedition in this book is built around (guess what) water: there are lakes and rivers on every map (3. water). In the appendix is the description of the unique territories, some new, water dwelling creatures (4. water), and at last, some new spells (mostly connected to ships, so 5. water). And not to forget about new strange and catastrophic events (which occur, when the initiative rolls are doubles or quadruples, but honestly, I never used them before), mostly water themed (a sudden flood, for example, so 6. water).

Cons:

Rules for elites are a welcome addition to the game, but these are overly simple and they are much less useful as the point cost would suggest.
Engineers could have more functions, and could maybe be a bit tougher: the low armor value and the lack of shielding makes them very vulnerable. And so it’s questionable if they will survive until the point where they can be useful.
As a lot of rules are related to water, You will need a lot of special terrain to be able to use them.
I could have imagined a bit more new creatures and spells.
There is a lot of reused artwork in the book… That’s a disappointment. (But if You look carefully, You can find some hints for the future...)

Pros:

Building and destroying bridges and covers is a great tactical addition.
Rules for using ships is quite easy to use.
Military expeditions are a great addition for story driven games.
Printing quality is great, as is used to be at Osprey.

In summary:

This supplement has some interesting additions, but overall, it’s by far the worst in the Oathmark series. Elites feel so simple, that it adds almost nothing to the game, engineers could have more options, new spells and creatures are also too few. Rules for ships are nice, but I think there are not too many players with the needed terrain/ships to really use them. Military expeditions are great, but only if you want to play more narrative, or a campaign, and it’s only a small part of the book. So, with a bleeding hearth, but I must say, that if You aren’t a collector of the series, or don’t have a lot of water-terrain in Your collection, skip this book…

To be fair, I have to mention, that this supplement was planned for later publishing. The first supplement should have been Oathbreakers, but Covid hit… Im sure, that a lot of the cons comes from this unfortunate twist.

And to end this post a bit more positive, all the other supplements are better. A lot better!

50. Long time ago in a galaxy far away...

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 20:19:00 +0000

…I promised myself, that I wont start anything new, until I don’t finish my open projects. I kind of kept it (kind of… but that’s another story). But it looks like that I vaccinated my kids with attraction towards tabletop gaming. And Star Wars (do you see the double meaning of the title?). And those two things can only lead to one destination: Star Wars Legion.

Disclaimer: It’s not my project! They decided to get into it, they bought it from their own saved money (okay, I added a bonus Boba Fett and Chewbacca, but I’m allowed to get a bit weak sometimes..). And I will help them to paint it, but wont do it instead of them (unless they completely lose their interest, and I wont be able to watch those miniatures...).

Let’s get a quick overview of the system: It’s a big skirmish game on a 6x4 foot table, the minimum size of 800 point (which is much more than the starter box has…) means around 30 miniatures per side: the mandatory leader and 3 full basic trooper units (6x3) are 19, and let’s say, an additional lieutenant +1, a special unit +6, a support +2, and a heavy unit +1. So it’s not about a half dozen AT-AT´s shuffling towards the enemy lines, there are some smaller vehicles (the biggest is an AT-ST), but mostly troopers (scale is a bit taller than 28mm, but true scale). It uses a lot of cards, tokens and special dice (typical for FFG, see Descent), a 4x6 inch measuring rod, and 3 different sized (and awkward-to-use…) movement templates. It has alternating activation with a twist coming from the command cards, uses morale, covers, terrain. Im not a review writer, but the first games were fun, so I can make some pros and cons already:

Cons (I like to start with the bad news):

Star Wars + FFG = expensive. Not a GW level of expensive, but still pretty much expensive. The starter box has a nice value, but after that comes the avalanche: a character is around 12-15€, a unit of troopers around 25-30€, and the big vehicles for around 50€. So a 800 point (which is again, the recommended minimum size) army is around 180€ (with the half of a starter box). Again, its not GW, but there are cheaper games (although not in the Star Wars universe).
Lots of special dice (I like the maximum of 4+1 D10 concept of Oathmark a lot more)… But not enough (what?). Because the dice amount of the starter set is not enough. An attack of a full trooper unit needs 5 of the same dice, and there are only 3… With another box of dice, it could be okay, but its 15€ again. The card on the picture needs 6 white attack dice, but there are only 3...
Lots of tokens. The problem is not that bad, You don’t need to lay the gaming table with token tiles, because there are unit cars, tokens can be on them. But still there are a dozen different types, and their appearance is not self-explaining (I think it could have been better designed…), you have to learn them. Who could say what do they mean (and these are not even all the tokens...)?
The movement templates are a pain to use. I can understand the logic for vehicles, but absolutely not for troopers. It would be much easier with a measuring tape. Or rod, which is actually in the pack…
The rulebook is a kind of meh… Not really bad, but a good rulebook is not like that: the structure is not user friendly. And there is an almost 100 page rule clarification and explanation online… That’s a bit too much.
There are a bunch of games which were published by FFG, and then suddenly abandoned without support, left to die. Star Wars Legion is pretty new, and it looks successful, but the time will come, when FFG won’t get enough profit from it, and then…
Star Wars universe has a big handicap for tabletop games: there are only two sides to choose from. There are no elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, goblins, undead like for example in Oathmark, and basically any other tabletop game has a lot of factions: WH40k, Age of Sigmar, WFHB, Middle Earth SBG, WarmaHordes, Conquest, Songs of Ice and Fire, Kings of War, Warpath, SAGA, Dragon/Lion Rampart, Warlords of Erehwon, Beyond the Gates of Antares, not to speak of the historicals… Star Wars Universe is so, You have to take it as it is, but I love to have a lot of factions… However, I could imagine a third, neutral faction with headhunters, smugglers, mercenaries, criminals, weequay pirates, gamorrean guards, tusken raiders... Sooo… FFG?
Where are the ewoks? Star Wars has a lot of different species! Where are they in the game (except wookies)? There are some sporadic appearances, mostly on the rebel side, but still around 95% humans…
The game needs a lot of terrain. The fun is pretty limited, if two sides are shooting at each other in the middle of a desert, and a 6x4 table can be huge, if You want to fill it... I would say, that it needs (at least almost) the terrain-density of skirmish games, but on a 2-2,5 times bigger surface. A small band-aid to this is, that Star Wars universe can use any terrain.

Pros:

The miniatures look really good. The poses are dynamic, and although the used PVC-like material has its limits regarding the quality, the results are very good. And at the end, as You see the platoons of stormtroopers fighting with the rebel scum on Your table, You just don’t care about softer details, and awfully placed mold lines!
I love unit cards! Its so much easier to use them, as to turn the rulebook pages back and forth. Of course, it limits a bit of the unit composition, but FFG solved the problem with even more cards: additional troopers, heavy weapons, grenades have their own cards. It may sound like a chaos of cards, but its not, it works good! Unit cards for every game! Although, they need space...
The rules hit the sweet spot (for me at least), they are not too complex, but not to simplified either.
Its alternating activation. I don’t like the waiting in I-go-You-go systems…
Command cards can give another tactical layer to the game. But only if more units are used, the starter box is not enough to exploit the possibilities.
The starter set includes some terrain pieces. Not much, but more than most starter sets.
There are only two sides, and too few non-human species, but at least there are two different periods to choose from: the Clone Wars with the Republic and the Separatists, and the Rebellion with the Rebels and the Empire. (I think they could be mixed without technical problems, so theoretical there could be four factions, but that feels just wrong…)
Its Star Wars!

It may sound that the game is not bad, but not that good. Well, it isn’t perfect, but as soon as You understand the basic rules, get a bit used to the tokens and that movement template, Your reward will be Star Wars on Your table! And that feeling of getting sucked into the game, is what matters after all! (Warning! Unpainted miniatures and unfinished terrain pieces!)

49. Painting zombies

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 17:41:00 +0000

The second easiest to paint miniatures are (after skeletons) probably zombies. They don’t need too many colors, can be dirty, so the basics of painting them are pretty easy. But unlike skeletons, where bone is bone, so the colors are pretty similar for everybody, zombies can be imagined in much greater variation. I would like to present here my interpretation, which fits my picture of them, but as said, the process could be used with other colors to.

I don’t want to detail again, why drybrushing works here exceptionally well, just a short summary of my skeleton painting guide. The surfaces are big, so no need to worry about hitting everything with the brush, details can be painted later, the light texture, what drybrushing can leave behind wont bother anything, because zombies are dirty, and I don’t think, that zombie skin would be very smooth…

Lets get into the process:

Priming with a light color (Skeleton tone is my lighter primer, so I used it)
Basecoating with the desired zombie-color, or if You have the right colored primer, this can be skipped (I mixed a sick looking pale tone from of green, white and skin-tone)
Wash with a brownish wash (I used Reikland Fleshshade, but no need to be afraid, that it will look too alive, next step will take care of it)
Full body drybrushing with the original base coat color (its important to make the drybrushing after the wash here, because the wash would act like a filter and change the color, which comes sometimes handy, but not here)
Zenital drybrushing (so the brushing movements should only be from top to bottom, and not cross or reverse) with a lighter version of the basecoat, to highlight the upper parts
Painting the exposed flesh and bone parts (I used carmine red and ivory)
Wash the exposed parts with a diluted, purplish-red paint (It should be denser than a wash, but thinner than a paint, and should only go in the recesses of the exposed parts, so it gives nice contours to them)
Paint the rest (clothes, eyes, teeth, weapons, etc.) as wished
Varnish (its not a must, but it protects the paint, and so the invested work)

In my opinion the right base color, the drybrushing and the purplish-red wash gives zombies a really good look, and it’s a pretty quick process to. A small additional hint: pale colored skin with pale colored clothes (I used light gray) gives the zombies an almost monochrome look, where the exposed parts (contoured with the heavy wash) really pop out! Here are my results with Mantic zombies/ghouls (yes I know, I should be more careful with removing the mold lines…):

I still have an undead painting tutorial in my mind, so maybe next time...

48. Big bad blanchitsu behemoth

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 14:14:00 +0000

Grimdark is written on the flag of GW (between a lot of skulls and £-signs), but who really made this style, was John Blanche (as a GW employee), so its also called blanchitsu. What does it mean? I dont want to write an essay about its core elements (as if I could...), if you're interested in it, I would recommend to read more about it, for example here. But just a sort summary, that we can go on: its a dirty, dark, sinister looking (okay, lets call it grim) painting style.

To be honest, Im not inconditionally fan of it. Its certainly looking very cool on individual miniatures, or on small groups. But I think, that a whole army painted like this looks like a big, dark mess. As more miniatures You have on the table, the more variety You need to be able to distinguish them. And blanchitsu its not about the variety... But about a lot of other things, so I wanted to try it too!

The first step was to find a fitting miniature for my experiment? No! The process was actually the other way around: I had a miniature, and was thinking about a fitting paint scheme for it... It was Bobby Jackson's amazing sculpt, the Maggotcrown ogre juggernaut (thank god its not made of the bendy, soft Bones Plastic, but the much better Bones Black). After long-long courting (I didn't knew for what I should use it), I finally ordered it. As it arrived, I was very happy about it, but still hadn't any clue what it should represent on our gaming table. An undead ogre in full plate armor...

The more I thought about it, as more sure I was, that I need to convert it somehow... I finally decide myself, made some plans, grabbed a knife and some green-stuff:

I cut the skull, and used only the front side of it, from eyebrow-line to the upper teeth.
I sculpted a helmet from green-stuff, with the skull-part as a visor (inspired by General Kael from Willow). I tried to keep the top part in the style of the whole armor, and used chainmail as a chin/mouth guard.
I had to cover every part, where the rotting flesh was visible. I started sculpting chainmail in the joints (armpits, crook of the arm and ham).
A full plate-glove for the hands would have been too complicated, so I just sculpted some plates, as it were worked on a leather glove.
For the heels (why were they uncovered?), I sculpted some claw-like armor, which rhymes on the front of the feet.
As the last step, I removed that coffin shaped besagew, and replaced it with a cool-looking round shield.

And I was really happy with the result! Now it can be a lot more than an undead ogre in full plate armor:

An legendary ogre champion in Oathmark
A major demon, or an evil kind of large construct in Frostgrave
Some big bad evil/undead monster, for example an undead ogre in full plate armor

As I had my miniature, I was able to start painting! My goal was not particularly blanchitsu, but the result was very much it! I wanted a very dirty, rusty armor, but was not sure about using my easy rusty iron method. The surfaces here were simply too big, my result would have been too rusty, or too shiny, but not dirty, and realistic. So I had to figure out a new, advanced method:

I added some rusty texture to some parts of the armor (with Typhus Corrosion, but some other fine texture paste could also do the job).
Basecoated everything, with a rusty tone (mixed an orange-brown tone, not too dark, but not too vivid either).
Now comes the important part: speckled (fine, perpendicular stamping with big, soft brush and a small amount of paint) a dark grey on the armor. It should cover the most parts, but the rusty basecoat should be visible in some places.
Drybrushed it with a darker metallic color. Dont be too heavy with it, most parts should still look dark grey, but it should have some metallic shine.
Used a black wash over the whole miniature (pooling is not a problem now, it just looks more dirty).
Made (or at least tried to make) some fresh damages, scratches on the armor with a fine brush and silver paint.
Made some rusty spots and streaks, to get a less uniform look.
Highlighted the edges with rugged lines. If these lines are too smooth, the edges will look too even. But if they are rugged and uneven, the edges look jagged, damaged, and this is what I wanted.
A lot of back and forth between 4. and 8. until the result was pleasing...

I like it very much! But as the miniature is a full-metal behemoth, full iron would look too boring. So I picked some places and painted them like aged bronze, because bronze-oxide (verdigris) makes a very nice contrast with iron-oxide (rust). The method was very similar:

Verdigris (I mixed turquoise, light green and white paints) basecoat.
Drybrush with bronze.
All-over dark brown wash.
Selective verdigris wash (the former paint diluted heavily).
Highlighting edges and scratches with bronze.
Back and forth as usual.

It may not be the best bronze method, but on these smaller surfaces, it works well enough for me. You may wonder, that its all nice, but where is the grimdark, where is the blanchitsu? Its in the results...

You may say, that its not that realistic with the lot of too dark colors and the too shiny edges, and You may have right. But You know, realism is not a core element of blanchitsu, and there is a rule about all other rules: rule of cool. And its certainly grim, dark and cool, isn't it?!

Special thanks to Ana Polanscak, whos work gave a lot of inspiration!

47. Seventyfive

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 20:26:00 +0000

I know, this is not a real post, but I achieved a very important point this week: I varnished 75 miniatures! 75 ready! 75 less to paint!

There are plus 5 miniatures, which needed re-varnishing (were too glossy). But also 10 forest pieces (where varnish should help prevent the foliage from baldness). Content is coming!

46. The easiest, quickest and most versatile terrain pieces

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sat, 12 Jun 2021 10:33:00 +0000

The title is a little bit of a clickbait, but just a little bit… Because what I made lately is really-really quick and easy to make (took me maximum 10 minutes per piece), and its usable not only for different genres, but for different scales too! What could be more versatile than this? But what could this magical terrain piece actually be? Well, the solution is: a rock! Like a real rock!

I don’t want to claim the idea to me, that actual rocks can be used as terrain pieces in tabletop gaming. Of course they can, but the most of us still don’t use it. Because real rock is mostly too plain. It doesn’t really fit in the table, looking like it’s on the top of it instead being part of it. They can be sharp, and damage the gaming surface. And they are heavy. But with just a tiny-little care, all of this can be improved (well, except the weight, we have to take it as it is).

Lets go step by step:

If You want to be very strict, this step can take a lot of time, but a bit more loosely interpreted, it’s the point zero. You have to get the rocks. We go often hiking, so it was absolutely no problem for me to get some fitting pieces. But what rocks are fitting? The most important thing is, that one side must be relatively flat, and this flat side should be the widest/biggest. So when you put the rock with this side down, it looks like a little mountain. Another important thing is the size, but I will write about it a little later.
Rocks are mostly dirty, they have to be washed, and dried. Washing don’t needs to be very thorough, just get the dirt and any loose pieces off. If You are impatient like me, and want to dry it quicker, use a hairdryer, or the oven. But be aware that porous stone can store water, and if the temperature is to high, this water can evaporate quickly, and the rock piece can explode from the steam pressure! So to be safe, please don’t use higher temperatures than 70-80 C degrees!
Theoretically You could stop here, because the rock are ready to be used. If You choose the right ones, the form takes care about the natural look (like the table would embed it). But it can be improved further! At first, it shouldn’t waggle, and shouldn’t damage the gaming surface. Therefor I made a stable and soft stand from hot glue: just put it on the flat, bottom side (in such amount, that no rock part should stick out of it), and then push it on a flat surface, covered in parchment paper (it shouldn’t stick to it). Unfortunately, the hot glue probably won’t stick enough to the rock. So remove it carefully, put superglue on the surface, and put it back (it should fit like a puzzle piece).
The last thing to improve, is the look. And that has to be done carefully, because, a rock is pretty scale agnostic, but to keep that feature, the improvements also has to be like that. That means, if You put anything on it, what the human brain can correlate a size to (like a tree or a house), this independency is gone. Of course, if you don’t mind that, You can do what ever You like. But to keep it, the visual improvements have to be like that too! So here’s what I’ve done:

Glued some small chunks of coarse turf on the more horizontal surfaces. In small scales (for example 1/700 of Black Seas) they look like tree clumps, and in bigger scales (the usual 28mm), like small plants.
I painted the lower edge and some other parts green, with smooth borders. I just purchased Moss Deposits from AK (its an oil based green paint with a very matte, and a bit textured finish), and with this, the process was very easy. But I think, that with diluted acrylic paint, similar results can be achieved. These look like in small scale, like algae-coated stone (on the lower edge), or grassy patches (on more horizontal surfaces), and in bigger scales like moos or lichen. Additionally the lower green size can help to blend the rock more into the table (if its not something like a desert).

Here are my results, at first with 1/700 ships.

And here some fun pictures with 28mm miniatures.

They may be not perfect, but for the amount of resources spent, its in my opinion an excellent result. Of course, there are a lot of ways, to improve it further (painting, basing), but I think, that’s the sweet point. From here on, much more work is needed to get a little better results (or worse, as I tried to amplify the little cracks with oil wash…). I hope I got You (and Your kids) new motivation to collect rocks!

45. Trees and bushes

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 10:58:00 +0000

Last time I wrote about modular ruins, now I want to take a look on my trees and bushes. It might end up being a pretty short post, or like a showcase. Because Im mostly not really satisfied with my results... So to write a tutorial about bad methods may not be very useful. However a "How not to make it" could be edifying...

At first, what ended up not that bad. The bushes and fallen trees:

The bushes were pretty easy to make. I cut some bases out of PVC foamboard. Unfortunately I made them square shaped, and that doesn't help to blend into the table. Regular shapes may work for artificial scenery (like the ruins last time), but not for natural pieces. Doesn't matter, its not that bad... I carved a small, long heap out of XPS foam, glued it to the base, and stuck small branch pieces into. It serves as a skeleton for the bush, so short wire pieces would have been fine too. With acrylic paste (or the much cheaper: wood-filler) I blended the borders of the XPS core into the base, and after drying I painted it (primer and base coat in one with a mix of water-PVA glue-paint in a roughly 1/3-1/3-1/3 , as by the fortress). At the end, I applied some sand and static grass around the base, and then glued on (PVA) the actual bushes: preserved moss. At the very end some scenic glue (diluted PVA) on it, and its ready.
The fallen trees were even easier. Just glued some oven-dried branches (I found some beautiful pieces, full with lichen) on the bases, and than basically the same process as before: blended them in with acrylic paste, primer-basecoat (but not on the branches!), sand-grass, a piece of preserved moss on one end (to have heavy cover in one end and sight-blocker on the other) and scenic glue. I really love the natural look of these.

Now comes the worse part: my trees... First of all, I searched for some branches, which seemed to fit the scale. After that I glued (and screwed, with a small wood-screw, which gives a lot of stability to bigger trees) to a base. The base was small (Mistake 1, its not very stable) square shaped (Mistake 2, doesn't blend in) PVC foamboard, without beveling the edges (Mistake 3, doesn't blend in). Then came the painting, just a regular, something brownish-geryish with dark wash and light drybrush. And then the foliage... On two trees I used the same moss (flavored with a little bit of static grass), as before, and they turned out ok.

But at the other two, I wanted to be very smart (spoiler: didn't go well), and used preserved lichen as smaller branches, and then dried parsley with spray adhesive. Big mistake. The parsley looks good, like small leafs, its green, and its cheap. But it wont adhere... I tried scenic glue, spray adhesive (again) and innumerous layers of varnish, but nothing helped... Those trees are like a snails: they always leave a trail behind. Anyway, here they are:

The basing was the same, as before. I may upgrade the base sizes of the first ones, but the second ones may be the first parts, which I will throw in the garbage bin...

44. Modular ruins

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 14:53:00 +0000

I think we can agree, that terrain is the second most important (physical, because, You know, the rules...) thing in tabletop games (very closely after the miniatures, and far before banners). Until now, all my terrain was only shown in the background of the photos (except the part 1 and part 2 of the modular wooden fort), but now I'm planning to write some posts about terrain. One obvious choice is making it in chronological order, so lets start with a very versatile terrain pieces: modular ruins.

Such ruins can be used as ruins, which is pretty obvious, but not just like that. If I need to represent a bigger building on the board, I just use these as the layout of it. If I need a smaller dungeon, or a cave, I use them as the sidewalls. So they are really very universal, and so maybe the most important terrain pieces. I made 3 pieces from 4 types of them: long wall, short wall, inner corner, outer corner (+ a tower and a giant statue, but I will detail them later). The exact size is not that important, but if You want to use them combined (for a larger building), it helps, if the lengths are multiplications of each other. For example my long walls are twice as long, as the short ones, and the short once are (half as long es the long ones, hehe…) as long as one inner or outer side of the inner or outer corner piece. The heights are made so, that some parts can be used as heavy cover (a general rule for that is more or less to cover more then a half of a miniature), some as full sight blockers. I left out light covers (generally somewhere between 0 and 50% coverage), because that can be made with gaps between two parts too. I don’t want to give a detailed description of the production process, I basically followed the great video from Black Magic Craft Jeremy. Here are the results:

I also made a bronze statue from a toy lion (such toys are perfect for making statues, because they don’t need that sharp detailing, that miniatures would need). Here I made a big base from a single piece of XPS foam and draw the lines on it with a dull pen (it would have been better to draw it with a thin marker, then make a shallow cut with a knife and then draw it again with a dull pen, to evade those ugly, ragged edges). Then I cut, textured (the good old tinfoil-ball method) and weathered (just broke away some parts) some tiles for the top and the stairs (which is again a single piece of XPS). Then I simply glued on the lion, and painted it. The painting of the stone parts is the same as by the ruins, and for the bronze statue, I again followed Jeremys tutorial. At the and I added a lot of different plants (as by the ruins), including a big creeper (which is made from kitting-string, maple seeds, tons of patience and flavoured with some swearing…):

The last part of my ruins is a tower. And its not only a tower, it’s a modifiable tower! The first floor is mad of the same bricks, as the ruins, and the same tiles as the statue, with a doorway, made of special bricks. The trick comes at the second floor, which is detachable, and can be placed in any orientation. How I made it? I wont tell, but not because I’m that evil, but because what I made is simply a bad design… If I would make it again, I would just cut the top of the firs floor, ad the bottom of the second floor straight. Anyway, there is another little detail, the stairway, which is made of a small, round wood-beam (I used beech, but please be smarter than I, and use balsa instead) and popsicle-sticks, and can be mounted in any orientation to fit the second floor. Afterwards I wouldn’t say that this option is absolutely necessary, but it’s nice to have. Painting, again as by the ruins (wooden parts: brown base, black wash, grey drybrush), and added a lot of plants for a really ancient and abandoned look (my favorite detail is the little tree on the top, with the roots growing trough the wall):

That’s all for now, next time: something else!

43. Descent showcase

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 21 May 2021 12:47:00 +0000

In the last post, I showed some solutions for storing and organizing ideas for complicated (dices, tokens, cards, tiles, miniatures, other thingies) board games, especially for Descent (Journeys in the dark second, and so on...). Since then, I received a lot of requests, to show my painted miniatures... Actually not, but I will show them anyway.

Please, be gentle with them, they are my first painting attempts. So they are even more far away from any aesthetically pleasing results, then my recent paintjobs. I will try to take them in chronological order (as far as I remember it right).

Barghest: I thought at first, that it will be the easiest to paint something, thats not too small, and is full with fur. Because painting fur on (beginner level) is the easiest thing to do: a basecoat, a drybrushing, and it looks decent. And I was right! If You are a beginner, or a beginner is asking You for advice, for the first thing to paint, the answer is obvious: something furry! Note, that the rims of the minions are grey, and thee of the master is red, and there are some minor differences int the color scheme too, for easier distinction on the board. And, however, its not really visible on the photos, but I made some doggy footprints in the mud, and it was fun!
Goblin archer: One of the ugliest sculpts with the worst molding quality... Even a bloody amateur cant make a big disappointment here, isnt it? Ok, they are small, and so harder to paint, but they hardly can get uglier. At the base, I wanted to show some forest terrain with real branches (and lichen), stones and not-real bushes.
Goblin witcher: They were witcher, before it was cool (although not the same type)! They genuinely ugly, the only thing to like on them are the chicken feet on their staffs. Here I made some mushrooms out of epoxy putty (no, not Milliput or Green Stuff, but some repair putty from the DIY store), because they cant bear their own appearance without some narcotics...
Cave spider: Again, not a big deal, mostly fur, some (eight, if right) black legs. The only hard to paint things are those eyes, but they are really hard. Not to paint a dot, but to paint eight dots in the same size and in regular pattern... I added some fun here with a skull design on their abdomens (minions: tan, master: red).
Fire Imp: I was getting more confident, so I tried painting flames. I think that the result is pretty decent, but at what costs? How many hours I spent on glazing, and glazing, and glazing... Now I think I could make this much faster, but it was part of the learning process.
Zombie: After my confidence was gone, I wanted something easy again. The zombies are also pretty ugly, and honestly, what can go wrong while painting zombies? Will they be ugly? Will they look dirty? Who cares? Here was the basing the fun part again! My son had the idea to put gravestones on them, and I found it excellent! So I made some of that repair-putty, and think that they actually look better then the zombies themselves...
Rat swarm: A heap of fur. The grandmaster rat is albino the one, and I made some skulls for the base. Not much more to say.
Merriod: Well, the hardest job for Descent so far. They are big, they are flat, so I tried (and faild) wet blending here. In my opinion its really one of the hardest exercise to paint something similar. As expected, it didnt turn out so well, as I was hoping for (even with a lot lowered expectations...), so I had to find another way to make those surfaces interesting. So I glazed stripes, white ones on the tentacles, and reddish/blueish ones on their back, and I think that the results may be not good, but still acceptable. The best part here was the base again! A made a little diorama of an underground lake, with (real) snail-shells, (fake) skulls, and my first ever resin water.
Doors: Although the are no miniatures, I wanted to get away from those cardboard standies, so I sculpted these from air drying clay and popsicle sticks. From a bit of a distance, they arent that bad. But because of the time consumption, I made only two of them. More will come, well, sometimes in the distance future... And I made some chests instead of search tokens too, but forgot to make pictures of them. Next time.

Declaration: most of the Descent miniatures are pretty good looking, and the ugly ones in this list are over-represented, because I wanted to learn on them, so I started with them.

And whats left? Not much, only a giant sized, full box...

If You are interested, how these miniatures can look with a professional paintjob, I strongly recommend the excellent video series from Sorastro, with breathtaking results!

42. Storage of Descent (tokens, cards, tiles, dices, miniatures...)

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sun, 16 May 2021 18:58:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my introduction, my first ever tabletop game I played was Frostgrave (because my love for Warhammer before was only platonic), and I just had boardgames before. But there is a missing link... A game which lures board gaming people to tabletop games, I think that the proper terminus technicus is "gateway game". A game in a fantasy world with stories, heroes, monsters, villains and, the most important miniatures: Descent (Journeys in the dark second edition).

Its maybe the worst time to come out with a post about Descent (I dont want to write the whole official title every time), because the game is hibernated... A new version (according to the publisher, Final Fantasy Games, its not a new edition, but a new game) is coming in august of 2021, and the supplements are official unavailable (except possible stock somewhere, and the 2-5x priced secondary market). So why am I writing about it?

The game is still awesome (although not perfect), its not without any reason the origo, the frame of reference for every dungeon crawler game today.
Descent has a giant fun-base, it will survive for a long time!
I want to write about storage, and the solutions can be used for every other similar board game.

I spoiled the theme just before, but lets talk about the "why" a bit longer. One of the biggest disadvantage of complicated games (let it be tabletop or board game) is the preparation time before a game. There are tons of miniatures, markers, cards, tiles, dices and so on, which are stored somehow, but belong to the table while gaming. And this step, between storage and gaming, can be a misery, so hard, that it can even discourage from gaming... There are different ready-to-use solutions for the problem, but they are mostly not perfect for a game with a lot of supplements (and if You have Descent, you want a lot of supplements), and they are always pricey. But with a bit of creativity it can be solved cheap and good!

First of all: cards and tokens. You can certainly craft some cardboard inlay in the original box, but its much easier to use a bit-box from a DIY store. It may cost time to find the perfect one, but there are so many different types, that Im pretty sure, that everybody can find something. The best are those types, where the inside can be adjusted. And one little hint: put something under the cards, it will be easier to grab them.

Next stop: miniatures. I already wrote a post about it. A little difference here is, that Descent miniatures are ready built, with proper sized base, they are all made of plastic (they are light), ande they are mostly not that big. So, self adhesive magnetic sheets, which I dont like for tabletop miniatures, are a cheap, quick, and good enough solution here. Just glue such sheets in the box, others on the miniatuers, and its ready.

I store smaller things (like end pieces, doors) and big cards (the character cards in Descent dont fit in the bit-box) in the original boxes. It would be smarter, to make an inlay, but they are not so many, that I would need it. If You need more separation here, lock-bags are Your best friends! And I separate the actual (in the campaign used) characters, with class and item cards, so they can be taken out quick.

And I saved the best for the last! Its a bit more specific, because not every game uses tiles, but Descent does, moreover, they are numbered. Still, if they are just in some box, it takes a lot of time to search for the necessary ones... But just put them in transparent envelops (I use one bag for two tiles, separated with a piece of paper) and then in a ring binder (I can just hope, that I use the proper english words for these things), You basically have a book of them, with numbered pages! Its a very easy, cheap, and really-really quick to use solution!

With these hints, You can prepare a Descent game in 10 minutes!

41. Painting eyes

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Mon, 10 May 2021 13:57:00 +0000

Now comes just a short, but important topic about the eyes (Go for the eyes Boo, go for the eyes!).

Painting eyes is probably the most intimidating to do for a beginner like me (I mean in around 28mm miniatures, because I wouldn’t bother with eyes on smaller scales). As I’m not a particularly good painter, moreover, I would rather say worse than mediocre, so I was searching and experimenting to find the easiest process for it. Long story short, here is what I found out (I draw some pictures, because it’s much easier to see the essence so, than on photos):

Paint the face with skin color.
Paint the eyes white/ivory, but no need to be very precise, two blobs are ok.
Draw the irises, but not with brush, with fineliner (a marker with a very fine tip, I use 0,1mm). Black gives here the most contrast, but other colors can be used too (in this scale would be hard to make a difference between pupil and iris, so I make just one dot). Here is important, that the direction of the look is determinded by position of these spots so care must be taken to avoid silly looks. Alternatively a small brush can be used too, but dont bother making circles: just draw a line in top-down direction. Overhanging parts will be fixed in the next step, just watch out, that the line thicknesses should be the same.
Paint the lower and upper eyelids with the skin color. Try to make it in one, easy stroke, for that, the consistency of the paint should be right: too thin, and it runs everywhere, to thick, and it’s like drawing with chalk. The trick is, that its much easier to paint the eyelids in two strokes, where You have to take care only for one edge of both strokes, than to paint the small, white part, where everything should fit.
Use a wash on the whole face, but take care, that it shouldn’t pool on the eyeball. On a good sculpt, that gives a bit better definition to the eyes, making a darker outlines.

And remember, if I can paint eyes, everybody can!

40. Banners for Oathmark

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sat, 01 May 2021 19:38:00 +0000

If you imagine a view of a tabletop wargame, what do you see? I bet, that the first two things, what you think of, are the painted miniatures, and the terrain. Obviously, these are the most important. But what is the third thing? Thats a harder question... At first, but after thinking a while my answer is pretty clear: banners!

A medieval or fantasy battlefield looks without banners a bit naked. Look at this painting of Battle of Grunwald, how would this look without banners? Especially in a rank and flank game, like Oathmark, banners help a lot to have an overview about the units on the field. And honestly, they look cool.

So, if we can agree about the need of banners, we can jump to the point, how to get them. You can buy some, of course, on the Northstar page, there are a lot of beautiful options. But they are not really cheap, end at the end, you need to fit them on the figures somehow. So its not an instant solution, there is work with it too. But creating own banners is much cheaper, so lets take a look on the two steps of making banners:

Design
Physical realization

At the design, there are two possible ways:

Copy something existing
Design something individual

The easier (and for historical wargaming the main) is to simple search on the internet after banners. There is not much to say about this, except maybe two things:

Count together, how many units you will have, and try to find as many banners in the same style. Because differing designs could look lame on the table.
Dont want something too detailed, because you will have to print it on a small piece of paper, so small things wont be visible anyway.

The other way is much more fun! But how to do it?

If you are an artist, you can draw your own.
If you are not an artist (what is probably the bigger group), you will need aid for it... There are some banner designing software around the internet, you can select the most fitting for you. My choice was Worldspinners heraldry artist. Its pretty simple to use, the are enough options for pattern, color and symbols. If you want your design in high resolution, you have to sign up. But honestly, for this usage, a print-screen is enough.

(And a quick general advice: I think, that its the best, when the colors of the banners match the of the miniatures.)

So, we have the banner, doesn't really matters which way, but only in digital form. Thats good, but unfortunately not enough... Lets look at the steps:

For this, you still will need a PC... Actually its an optional step, but make the next things much easier. The flags should be double sided, so with any drawing software, we need something like this. It will bend around the pole, so it has to be a bit longer then needed, I filled the gap between the two sides with colored squares:
Print it! It sound easy, but it has to be the appropriate size... Well, thats a try and error process. But at the end, it will succeed.
At last, something to touch! Cut it to the proper size around the edges.
Take your ready painted miniature with a flagpole, put a little (very little!) bit superglue on it, where the banner will be. Dont forget to dry fit it before, and its better to bend the middle of the flag before (but not a sharp bent, try to bend it around the pole). Glue the paper to the pole, and only to the pole.
Take a glue stick! Yes, a glue stick, because its for gluing paper, and this flag is made of paper. Other glue types wont do it right: superglue makes the whole thing sticky, PVA glue is too wet and paper doesn't like that. So put glue on both (inner) sides of the banner.
Put a piece of tin-foil on the banner, and bend both sides on it! Watch for being symmetric, all edges has to be more or less flush.
Push both sides together between flat surfaces for a while.
Now cut around the edges with scissors. If the edges were not flush, cut it, somewhere between.
Now comes the magic! Make the flag wavy. Just bent it as you like, as you imagine a wind blown banner! Because of the tin-foil, it will hold the form (with a bit of springback). But its easier to bent it as long as the glue is not completely set. After it is, its not impossible, but a bit harder to do.
Its time to fix the edges. Wait for the glue to set, and then prime the edges. Unfortunately thats not optional, because acrylic paints doesn't stick well to tin-foil, but a polyurethane primer does (I use Vallejos surface primer). After the primer dried, you can paint the edges with the proper (not like me...) color. Maybe a little blending in with diluted paint helps.
Varnish. Matte. Fabrics usually arent glossy (unless you want something magical). And then put your unit together, place your freshly baked banner bearer in the front line, and enjoy the view!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but Im too lazy to grab my good camera while crafting, so this was made with smartphone.

39. Chariots for Oathmark

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 11:53:00 +0000

As I already wrote in my post about future of Oathmark, there should come chariots for all races in the upcoming Bane of King. These are especially great news for orcs and goblins, as they have no heavy cavalry, and even more for dwarves, as they have no cavalry at all (but humans and elves don’t need them that much, as they are very similar to their heavier cavalry units). As my sons have these armies, my brain immediately started to rev up!

I watched pictures about goblin and dwarf chariots, searched for possible pulling animals and defined the basic conditions (assumed that they will be similar to the undead chariots in Oathbreakers)… Let’s start with these:

It should fit on a 100x50 base (but if it’s a bit bigger, its not that big problem)
Place for miniatures with 25mm base (I don’t have any spare miniatures, and so it can be used for characters too)
Avaliable pulling animals with possibly different poses (it turned out to be hard or not to reach…)
3 chariots are needed (to form whole unit)
1 bigger chariot with place for 2 miniatures (mainly for a character and a coachman, and possibly 2 pulling animals)
2 smaller ones with 1 miniature and 1 pulling animal (to spare time and money)

As for the design, I wanted for the goblins a primitively fabricated chariot, made from rough materials, and visibly not created to last for eternities. And spikes, a lot of spikes! For them, the choice of animals was easy: wolves from Northstars Goblin Wolf Riders. I wanted a more precise, carefully engineered and with aesthetic sense made chariots. While that process I was hit by the muse (or kissed by the inspiration?): the Oathmark dwarves have that wiking-like look, why not make their chariots like longboats? I loved that idea, but was afraid from the realization… Anyway there was the question of the animals left.

I could imagine bears (although they are not really conventional pulling animals), some kind of bull/bison/buffalo, big enough rams or some huge boars/hogs. After long, really-really long search, because of size and price and availability issues, I ended up by Reaper. Their dire boar looks good, has the right size (there were other options which I dumped because the lack of information about their size), is cheap, its available (what a foul I was…), although it has only one pose. Its not perfect, but still good enough.

Just a quick note, because at the beginning I was not aware of another hard to solve problem: wheels. I wanted to make my own somehow. Mistake. I wasted a lot of time with making shitty looking, amoeba shaped things, which were not even near to be good enough for usage… I turned with my problem to the public, and was quickly helped out on Lead Adventure Forum by some very nice people: Irregularminiatures makes some good looking and cheap spoked cart wheels (and they have some beautiful and pretty cheap cannons too!).

I started to order everything. Apart from some post-brexit delivery times, went everything ok (my son was very happy about the leftover wolf riders). Except the boars… Long story short, I bought all the stock from german online stores (1 piece), and later all the stock from Reapers UK-store (3 pieces). Just needed 4-5-6 weeks to get them…

Anyway at some point of time, I could start to build. I don’t want to describe the whole process, just want to make a short summary.

Goblins

The chariots are constructed from barbecue sticks (like my wooden fort), used as simply chopped logs. I just spuerglued the proper amount of right length sticks flat, on backing paper (so that the glue doesn’t stick), and assembled it from such panels. The base was the biggest panel, with a long stick(s) in the middle or at the sides (the pulling pole, if that’s the right wording for it). Had to be aware of the size, to be able to fit miniature bases on it. The main chariot got a wall from 3 sides with a light U-shaped front, the smaller ones just a flat, slightly angled wall in the front. The axle was also made from barbecue sticks, and I had to drill the middle of the wheels, to fit on them. I added spikes too. Lot of them. And the axle ends are also spiky.

At the end, I reinforced the whole thing with superglue and natron (sprinkle natron on the proper place, drib a bit on glue on it, it sucks the glue up, and creates a hard material) from the underside, because the contact surfaces were too small. The wolves got some harness, made from thicker, soft, cotton strings, which with I played a lot, to find a right looking pattern. As the basics were done, I hade to bind the wolves to the chariots, glue them on a base (just cutouts from hard, PVC foamboard, with glued-in magnets), and add some details: a leftover dinosaur head from Reaper (as a trophy), a flagpole (made from toothpick), a lot of goblin shields (looks good, and makes the boring surfaces interesting) and some various skulls.

Dwarves

Well, that was a much bigger tinkering challenge… Because wiking boats (and practically almost every other boat) has curved side. To make that, was not just cutting and gluing things. I had to find the proper raw material and then bent it properly. As coffee stir-stick are cheap and thin (as thinner, the easier to bent), I choose them. The bending process is not that complicated, the wood has to be saturated with water (best with hot water or steam), which makes it more flexible, and then dried out in the needed form. The easiest way is to put the stick in water, bring it to boil (few minutes should be enough), take out the sticks (DANGER, its hot!), and put them and array them in a fix form, where an empty jar with the right diameter works best. And what’s the right diameter? It depends on so many things, it’s the best to try…

If the bent stick are dry (and hopefully in the desired form) its time to glue them together with around 1/3 overlap. The best way I found, was to group them for a better form-fit (some might be bigger than others), clamp two together (with enough clamps to close all gaps between), drop superglue between (avoid the clamps). After bonding remove the clamps, and clamp another stick to, and go on until the width (the height of the chariot sides) is reached. At the end there should be a long, arched part made from overlapped stick, which can be cut with a small-teethed saw (the superglue makes the wood to hard to cut with a knife).

The cutted length depends on the size and form of the chariot (remember, there should fit 1 or 2 miniatuers on 25mm bases in it). I used balsawood rods as the corner and end-points, an cut it to fit between. Then I superglued the planks and the rods together, and on a thin balsawood card, and trimmed around. Now there is the upper side of the chariot, but it needs an underframe. That was easy, just glued balsawood rods together in a shape that seemed to be all right (axle and pulling pole(s)). To glue the wheels on it, was also easy: I just pressed the wheel into the balsawood, it created a deep imprint on it, which was a very good surface for the superglue.

As the main chassis was ready, came the decoration: round shields form various sets, crossbows with quivers, a flagpole (again from a toothpick) with a dragon-flag (from a GBP set), some other ornaments, and a spearhead-shield combo on the wheels. That was fine, but still no animals…

I made a harnish on the boars in a (at least for me) believable form from green-stuff, as it would be a leather strap, and put a small chain on it (pulled into the greenstuff while it was still soft). Now, the chains had to be attached to the chariot, but how? I decided to make some greenstuff coverings on the ends of the puling-poles, pressed some blades (trimmed two handed axes) and ornaments (head of the former mentioned dragon flag) in it, and glued the chain-ends to it, and the boars became some additional protection. After putting them on the same bases, the scratchbuild was ready.

How I will paint them? And an even bigger question: when I will paint them? Well, the future is in haze, but as soon they will be ready, I will post them!

38. Photographing miniatures

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 12:18:00 +0000

Let’s talk about miniature photography a bit. Most of us feel the need to make pictures from our (at least according to our opinion) nice painted miniatures for various reasons: to show the community or friends, to create nice scenes, or to have pictures in our pocket of our beloved ones. In any case, it is better to have good photos as bad ones… And there is not that much effort needed to make a giant jump in the quality of this pictures, just a little care, and some tools (price range from really cheap up to where no man has gone before…).

Above You can see my setup, where except the camera (a Panasonic GX9 with a no-name macro ring and a Panasonic 14-140 lens, which I had before), nothing is really expensive.

First thing first, I can state with completely clear conscience, that miniature photography is not about the camera. Newer middle class smart phones can deliver a good enough image quality. If properly used. But what is proper use? Well the two most important pillars here are: lights and a steady camera.

Warning! I try not to use technical language here, but there are some parts, where avoiding it would be too cumbersome.

And remember, this is not a photography blog, and I am not a photographer. These are just basic things I learned on the way.

Chapter 1: The Lights

Lights are very important, because without them You cant have a good picture (You know what “photo” in “photography” means?). It will be a dark, unsharp stack of pixels with weird colors. You have to have enough lights on places You want to show (so a strong and adjustable source is needed), with the proper color (which is, unless You want to intentional something other, like natural sunlight) and without harsh, disturbing shadows (it has to be soft, not like a spotlight). And I bet You have this type of light source just there, on Your painting desk (and if You don’t, you should): a painting light. Its stand is adjustable, the light is soft and strong enough, and it is (it needs to be) near sunlight.

If you somehow don’t have such a thing, or don’t want to use it (but again, it’s the best and easiest way to do so), there is another cheap solution, a softbox. Its basically a big, soft light source, perfect for photography, and its cheap and easy to build (but can be tricky to adjust the placement): a big plastic box, with the cheapest bulb-socket in it, lined with tin-foil (to direct all the light in the direction to the open side), with a daylight bulb and covered with thin, white paper.

The bulb is by far the most expensive part of it, but its important to have an around 5500-6000K color temperature lamp, that mimics sunlight. Or else you will have too blue, or too orange colors.

And how to direct Your light source? Basically start from above-front (top light is like natural, and front light is needed for the camera) and play around, until You find what You like.

There is one other little trick, if you want more light, or even more shadow somewhere, and You cant reach it with your lights: take a white paper for more light, or a black paper for more shadow, and set up next to the miniature but out of the frame. These things are called light/shadow bouncers and they amplify or reduce the repelling lights, which can create better lighting or more contrast on the picture. There is a short and very good description about this on Lead Adventure Forum.

Another method to have good lights on Your miniature is a so called lightbox. It’s a box where the object is placed in the middle of all around soft lights. If you like those catalogue pictures, with natural background, that’s the easiest and quickest way to go, buy one or build one.

But if you want something more versatile, want to make pictures about bigger things (like a building or a monster), or want to create realistic scenes, then go with the above mentioned lights.

Chapter 2: The stand

The next point is a stable camera. So You have Your miniature with proper lights on proper places and You take a picture. But what a horror, You don’t like it. You have to take another one, but from the same place, so You can adjust whatever You want. If You aren’t a robot (which I assume), You can’t do that with a handheld camera… You need a stable tripod, with which You can make the same placed pictures, until You are happy with the result. Another advantage is, that Your camera wont move, swing, tilt, shake while making the picture, which basically (don’t want to go too deep in the technical explanation) results a better, sharper picture, under every circumstance.

Even the cheapest, smallest, foldable tripod can be enough, the only really important thing is, that it has to be able to securely carry the weight of Your device. If You have more place and more money, a bigger tripod can be better, simply because its height: its much easier to make bird-view or eye-height pictures with it.

Chapter 3: The backdrop

So there is the miniature on the picture, most important things are done. But what else is on the picture? As the miniature pretty surely wont fill the frame, there has to be something other: the background. If You satisfied with a messy painting desk as a background, its ok, but when not, You will need something... If You want to concentrate on your miniature (like a catalogue picture), You will need a white, a black and a gray backdrop (because some minis look good on a dark background, some on a light, and sometimes on a neutral middle). The cheapest way is to buy colored cardboard. And that’s it.

If You want something more interesting or realistic in the background, You will need some pictures… The easiest and cheapest way (except simply using a monitor, but I never tried that) is to find some nice, big (with a lot of pixels), free to use pictures on the internet, and let them be printed big (for a single miniature A4 can be enough, but I would recommend something bigger). My 60x40 pictures cost around 6€ a piece… So can I have more of them without ruining the family budget.

Once You have Your backdrops, you have to use them. Well, I don’t know any all-resolving trick for it, just make them stand upright somehow. I clip them to a stiff board, and adjust them as needed. It is very important, that the backdrops surface reacts with the lights, and can create nasty glittering. You can get rid of it with adjusting the angles of the backdrop. For me, a negative angle (so forward leaning) works the best, which makes the placement even more tricky… This is how I do it, but again, its far away from the best solution.

I also use some terrain pieces on my photos to amplify the perception of depth and to create some additional visual interest.

Chapter 4: The camera settings

Once You have everything perfectly in place, time has come to take that picture finally. Todays cameras (and smartphones) are smart enough to make good pictures in full-automatic mode (some of them don’t even know other modes). But sometimes the camera doesn’t make the picture what you want to make. Therefor here is a little list, what are the possibilities of improving Your picture with manual adjustments:

Manual Focus: The camera tries to figure out, what is the most important thing in the picture, and tries to focus on it. But sometimes its wrong. With manual focus, You can really focus on, what You want. If you cant get a sharp picture, maybe the subject is too close, so try to move it further away.
Manual Aperture: Aperture (in this case practically) means depth-of-field, which means how many things will be sharp on the picture. If You want to concentrate on the miniature and want to have a blurry background, You will need big aperture (which means small value), If you want more things sharp, then You will need small aperture (big value). But remember, if the background is too sharp, you can lose the perception of distance and space.
Adjusted White Balance: You use Your best lights, but the picture feels still too cold or too warm? Then You have to adjust the white balance: try to make white things look white, and that should fix all other colors too.
Adjusted Exposure: You set up Your lights the best You could, but the picture is too dark or too bright? With adjusting the exposure (which makes the picture darker or lighter) the problem can be solved.
Limiting the ISO value: The picture feels noisy, like You had bad reception on your TV (Who remembers those times?)? Your camera is trying probably too hard to make a quick job, and want to use a too sensible “film”, and therefore it captures some false information. But Your camera is on a stable tripod (right?), so You can use the lowest ISO value (means that the sensor needs more time to capture the image, but with less failures).
Self-timer: If You push the trigger on the camera, even on the most stable stand, it will vibrate a bit, so can make blurry pictures. Therefore I recommend You to use self-timer. Even 2 seconds are enough to reduce these vibrations to an insignificant value. But you have to let the camera go after pushing the button…
Image Stabilization off: Image stabilization is good, but now, because of the tripod and the self-timer, You wont need it. You can turn it off. Theoretically it shouldn’t matter, but sometimes the results are still a bit crispier without it (but just on a tripod!). Another small advantage is, that without it, the battery lasts longer.
Automatic Shutter Speed: All points above were there to take out the control of the AI´s hand, and make exactly the picture, what You wanted. But there is one point, where is much easier to let the machine calculate, and that is the shutter speed, basically the time, as long the camera makes the picture. With the aperture and ISO You changed the parameters in the imaging equation to your needs. But the last part of the puzzle is the shutter speed. We could calculate it, test and try it, but it’s much easier to let the camera make it right. And because of the stable camera, shutter speed can go as far as needed.

Chapter 5: The attempts

There are dozens of other things to care about (composition, effects, retouching, etc.)... But whit this post, I hope You have the basics to make the good enough pictures. You will figure out the other things with time and experience. Just grab Your camera, set things up, and do it!

37. Frostgrave sets in Oathmark (with bonus rules for Gnolls and Snake-men)

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 19:02:00 +0000

As my sons got 2 boxes of Frostgrave for Christmas (Gnolls and Snake-men), it was urgent to build them. But building without planning gets not 100% usage of the possibilities... Making a Frostgrave warband from 20 miniatures is not a big deal, but what else is possible? Using them in Oathmark is a pretty obvious offer. But how? First step of this planning is to set the limitations:

As the miniatures are clearly not heavily armored, there wont be any Frostgrave Knights, Templars, Marksmen, Warriors. And as there are very few spears, there will be no Spearman for Oathmark.
A full unit of minis, armed with the same weapons would obviously close out the usage as a mixed Frostgrave warband, so lets set a "First Row" principle: the equipment of the first row of the Oathmark unit sets it origin. So, if the first row is filled with soldiers, then the whole unit is considered as a soldier unit, independent from the remaining miniatures.
An Oathmark unit needs a Banner bearer, who is not usable for Frostgrave.
The fomer two preferences set, that four similar armed minis are needed to set the first row (plus the banner bearer).

From a set of 20 miniatures, these rules give the following combinations for Oathmark (OM) and Frostgrave (FG):

1 OM Banner bearer -> equipped with a long spear / flag pole.
4 OM Soldier = 4 FG Man-at-Arms -> equipped with hand weapon and shield.
4 OM Linebreaker = 2 FG Barbarian + 2 FG Infantryman -> equipped with two handed hand weapon and the Infantryman gets a shield on the back to differentiate them. Yes, linebreakers should be heavily armored, but they are the only one, who use two handed weapons.
4 OM Archer = 2 FG Archer + 2 FG Crossbowman -> equipped with bow or crossbow.
4 OM Militia or Slave= 2 FG Thief + 2 FG Thugs -> equipped with knife or hand weapon.
3 free to use for FG (I would recommend to make Rangers and Treasure Hunters, as they are the most used specialists in FG).

With these conditions and the "First Row" principle, its possible to have a lot of different Frostgrave soldiers (except the heavily armored ones), and four different Oathmark units (Soldier, Archer, Linebreaker, Militia or Slave). These were the plans, but we didnt follow them so strictly, but only small changes happened.

The Gnolls got one more Archer and one less Crossbowman (my son wanted so), and a Ranger, a Treasure Hunter and an Apothecary (crow is from Mantic undeads) from the remaining 3 bodies.

My other son wanted to have a pair of Wizards. So we made an Appertience/Thief (with a knife) and a Wizard/Apothecary (with a staff). Some skulls (from Zealot Miniatures) helped to give a witchy (does this word exist?), shamanic look. The Snake-men also got a Ranger and a Treasure Hunter, as recommended.

So, we have our Gnolls and Snake-men. They are designed for Frostgrave, so not a big surprise, that they fit there. But Frostgrave is race-independent (its utophisticly tolerant), and Oathmark isnt (what a shame). And there are no Gnolls and Snake-men in the basic rules... How to deal with this? The easier way is to use them according some existing race (in my opinion Orcs fit best for both).

The harder one? House rules! Its hard to describe them with the special abilities from the rules, so lets make new ones. My results:

Snake-men Soldier A5 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D10 / CD1 / H1 / Pts17

Special: Shielding (1), Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: hand weapon, shield, light armor
Terrain: Jungle village

Snake-men Archer A5 / M6 / F1 / S1 / D10 / CD1 / H1 / Pts17

Special: Fire Over, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade, Poisoned Arrow
Equipment: hand weapon, bow, light armor
Terrain: Jungle village

Snake-men Swamp Scout A5 / M6 / F1 / S2 / D9 / CD1 / H1 / Pts19

Special: Aimed Fire, Nimble, Water Walk, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade, Poisoned Arrow
Equipment: hand weapon, sling (blow-pipe)
Terrain: Jungle village

Snake-men Temple Guard A5 / M6 / F3 / S0 / D11 / CD1 / H1 / Pts21

Special: Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: two handed weapon, heavy armor
Terrain: Ancient Temple

Snake-men Champion A5 / M6 / F4 / S0 / D11 / CD3 / H1 / Pts68

Special: Shielding (1), Champion, Magic Items, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: hand weapon, shield, heavy armor
Terrain: Jungle village

Snake-men Priest 1 A5 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D9 / CD3 / H2 / Pts60

Special: Spellcaster (1), Shielding (1), Fire Over, Magic Items, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: hand weapon
Terrain: Ancient Temple
Spells: Nautral, Orcs and Goblins, Elves

Snake-men Priest 2 A5 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D9 / CD3 / H2 / Pts130

Special: Spellcaster (2), Shielding (1), Fire Over, Magic Items, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: hand weapon
Terrain: Ancient Temple
Spells: Nautral, Orcs and Goblins, Elves

Snake-men Priest 3 A5 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D9 / CD3 / H2 / Pts270

Special: Spellcaster (3), Shielding (2), Fire Over, Magic Items, Cold Blood 1.*, Poisoned Blade 2.*
Equipment: hand weapon
Terrain: Ancient Temple
Spells: Nautral, Orcs and Goblins, Elves

Snake-men Priest 4 A5 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D9 / CD3 / H3 / Pts400

Special: Spellcaster (4), Shielding (2), Fire Over, Magic Items, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: hand weapon
Terrain: Ancient Temple
Spells: Nautral, Orcs and Goblins, Elves

Snake-men Priest 5 A5 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D9 / CD3 / H3 / Pts540

Special: Spellcaster (5), Shielding (2), Fire Over, Magic Items, Cold Blood, Poisoned Blade
Equipment: hand weapon
Terrain: Ancient Temple
Spells: Nautral, Orcs and Goblins, Elves

Gnoll Soldier A6 / M6 / F2 / S0 / D9 / CD1 / H1 / Pts14

Special: Shielding (1), Charge (1), Part of the Pack, Howling Charge
Equipment: hand weapon, shield, light armor
Terrain: Gnoll Kennels

Gnoll Archer A6 / M6 / F1 / S1 / D9 / CD1 / H1 / Pts14

Special: Fire Over, Charge (1), Part of the Pack, Howling Charge
Equipment: hand weapon, bow, light armor
Terrain: Gnoll Kennels

Gnoll Hunter A6 / M7 / F2 / S0 / D8 / CD1 / H1 / Pts15

Special: Nimble, Charge (1), Part of the Pack, Howling Charge
Equipment: hand weapon
Terrain: Hunters Hall

Gnoll Big One A6 / M6 / F4 / S0 / D9 / CD1 / H1 / Pts19

Special: Charge (1), Wild Charge, Part of the Pack, Howling Charge
Equipment: two handed weapon, heavy armor
Terrain: Hunters Hall

Gnoll Champion A6 / M6 / F4 / S0 / D10 / CD3 / H1 / Pts60

Special: Shielding (1), Champion, Magic Items, Charge (1), Wild Charge, Part of the Pack, Howling Charge
Equipment: hand weapon, shield, heavy armor
Terrain: Gnoll Kennels

Gnoll First One A6 / M6 / F4 / S0 / D10 / CD2 / H2 / Pts170

Special: Command (1), Shielding (1), Champion, Magic Items, Charge (1), Wild Charge, Part of the Pack, Howling Charge
Equipment: hand weapon, shield, heavy armor
Terrain: Hunters Hall

The new special abilities:

Cold Blood: No moral test modifier
Poisoned Blade: In combat, if at least 1 dice is 10, the unit cause a bonus damage (even if it didn't hit)
Poisoned Arrow: In shooting, if at least 1 dice is 10, the unit cause a bonus damage (even if it didn't hit)
Part of the Pack: If there is any other unit from the same race in 6 inches, +1 Activation
Howling Charge: Charged enemy must make morale test (no modifiers), if lost -1 Fight

As with the new special abilities and the characters I got further away from the official rules, there is more uncertainty in the balance as in my post before. So I cant guarantee that the point values really fit... But give it a try, and tell me, how it went!

36. Polishing Oathmark

noreply@blogger.com (BZ) — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 19:36:00 +0000

I stated a lot of times how much I Oathmark like (just take a look on the title of my blog). Although, after more then dozen various battles (unfortunately we dont have the time to play that much), I think, there are some small parts of the ruleset, which could use a little polishing. So I did it (all of the following is a correction according to my mindset and experience). These are only small changes of the existing rules, there are no new rules, and there shouldn’t be a significant impact on the game balance. The only exception are the army building limitations, but this is only an option for some battles, and if used, it should serve a better balance, not a worse one.

1. When building an army, following limitations has to be applied:

Min 50% basic troops

Basic troops (below point value 30):

Every Spearman
Every Soldier
Every Archer
Every Warrior
Every Linebreaker
Dwarf Border Guard
Dwarf Militia
Human Ranger
Human Militia
Human Mounted Ranger
Elf Ranger
Elf Pathguard
Elf Huntmaster
Goblin Slave
Goblin Slave Slinger
Goblin Wolf Rider
Goblin Wolf Rider Scout
Wolf
Ghoul
Halfling Border Scout
Hound
Gargoyle
Engineer (for every faction)

Why? Because without any limitations, the armies can be unbalanced. Fighting against a full army of charging Heavy Cavalry, or just Dragons and Knuckers is no fun. This is less the case, if using Kingdom building, where the rules limit the availability of the units, then in a simple, use-what-you-have battle. Therefore I would recommend it as an optional rule for these types of battles.

2. Elf Mounted Rangers have CD 2.

Why? Because every mounted unit has CD 2, and above that, Elf mounted Rangers are pretty expensive.

3. Spells range is limited to 32 inches.

Why? Because without that, spellcasters can be too stationary units, especially if they can be placed on high ground. 32 inches are still pretty far, so it shouldn’t be as big limitation.

4. Artillery cant kill a character in a unit.

Why? Because a lucky hit at the beginning of a game could ruin a side completely. And if a rain of arrows from sniping elves can’t kill a character, then why should a falling rock?

5. If Target Number (TN) is higher then 10, with every 10 rolled comes a second roll, where TN-5 means a hit. So if TN is 12, the second roll will hit on 7.

Why? Because the original rule (in the second roll the Target Number is always 8) doesn’t takes in account, how much the TN is higher then 10. And so has every combat against highly armored units a very low hit chance. With TN-5, the hit on 8 is for example 2 rows of Goblin Slaves against a Dragon.

6. If there is any border-situation regarding the rules, roll a D10, and it will be in favor of the first side if 1-5, and of the second side if 6-10 is rolled.

Why? Because here are some situations, where the decision is on the edge. Its much better to simple roll a dice, then to argue, and lose the fun.

If this post seems to be a bit lazy, you're right, it is... But I think that these refinements are important, and can really increase the gaming experience a bit!