Fantasy Warriors Tower, a Rockpile and a Mystery

Despite the mechs that need to be finished before Adepticon, I procrastinated some more and made some medieval fantasy scenery.

First, a dirty pile of rocks. It's just a repainted vinyl/plastic toy I found.

It's flat on the back, so you can place it right up against another piece of terrain. Looks slightly odd, but at least it's detailed.

I want to know where this is from. This was originally a toy of some sort, probably a display for some character, but it lacks pegs to hold up an action figure. On the bottom it says "2003 NLP Inc. Marvel Ent. Inc." It has a speaker and battery compartment on the bottom, and one of the rocks is a button. Unfortunately I've got no mini-batteries to try out the sound. If you know what it is, please let me know in the comments.

My second project was a tower that Pat gave me last week.

As it happens, this tower is a bit of gaming history. It was made in the 90s by the company Dragon Castles Inc., and was sold through Grenadier as part of the "Warlord Keep" set for their "Fantasy Warriors" game.

It was also likely sold separately through game stores, since I and others recall seeing it in game stores back in the day. Thanks to the crew on The Miniatures Page for helping discover the source of this tower.

It's made of wood and was covered in that spray stone stuff that is textured and grey with black flecks. It looked more like a toy, but as it was already textured, I just gave it a black prime followed by brown, tan and bamboo colored drybrushes. I did the same on the roof, minus the second and third drybrush color.

The roof removes and there are two wood doors that can be slid out. You can see the original grey color inside the tower.

And to answer the question all fantasy gamers will have. Yes, it's even taller than a Marauder mech!

Well, the tower turned out pretty good, which leaves us with a tip for the budget gamer. I've passed up a fair amount of cheap second-hand terrain covered in this faux-rock finish, which to be honest looks a bit dated and not really up to par with current terrain techniques.

Now I know that it's a great surface texture that's easy to update with just a few layers of paint.

Don't forget to chime in if you have any ideas about the origin of my mysterious rock pile!

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

February/March Painting Pledge Update

Starting last month, Chicago Skirmish Wargames started a monthly painting pledge. Participating members provided a photo and description of models that they planned to build and paint during February.

Here are the results, and the follow-up pledges for March.

Karl’s Pledge 
Karl’s pledge for February was to complete the three mecha models below, built and based for our 28mm scale Mech Attack game coming up at Adepticon.

• 1/72 Dougram "Ironfoot" aka Battletech Thunderbolt 
• 1/100 Macross "Tactical Pod Glaug" aka Battletech Maurader 
• 1/200 Macross "Destroid Monster" 

Karl didn't finish painting on theses, however he did manage to crank out an enviable amount of model progress for the month. His output included the following:

• Assemble three Kryomek Strider mechs
• Build 11 sci-fi shipping containers 
• Kitbash a truck to carry the containers 
• Basecoat everything

He plans to complete these models in time for Adepticon on March 20. The photo below represents his completed February work, and serves as his pledge for March

Tim’s Pledge 

Tim’s February pledge was as follows:

• 15 Ronin from Rezolution
• 13 Delaque from Necromunda 
• 8 fusiliers from Confrontation with conversion work 

He made good progress on the February models. The Confrontation models were pulled from the list as the amount of conversion required and difference in stature meant they did not pair well with the Necromunda and Rezolution figures. The photo below represents both Tim’s painting progress and his March pledge (note the addition of the Reaper Bones figure):

Mattias’ Pledge 
Mattias wins the fabled, elusive (and mysterious) invisible CSW gold medallion for the February pledge by completing absolutely everything on his list (much of it figures for other club members!).

• Josh's pirate islands 
• Karl's giant 
• Tim's 5 ogres 
• A small medley of fantasy figures that have been undercoated for nigh on a year 
• Four statues made from old busted high elves 

Moving into March, he plans to paint the models pictured below. The front five are the actual pledge, a mixed group of fantasy missile troups. The back five, a mutant sci-fi warband, are "stretch goals.

Mike’s Pledge 
Mike did not have a chance to post photos of his initial pledge, but he completed a mountain of work during February as demonstrated in the photos below. It will be interesting to see the volume he completes for March!

Jon’s Pledge
I pledged to complete the following:

• 10 Sedition wars troops 
• 1 Fusco Construction Yards (FCY) Dervish Mech 
• 1 Antenociti's Workshop hover tank 
• Finish details on a customized chariot with riders converted from a Chronopia Sons of Kronos Chariot and a Malifaux "Izamu" model for bronze/clay statue samurai army 

I made limited progress, and only finished the bronze chariot/Izamu model (basing outstanding) for my bronze\clay statue army.

I also completed assembly on a five-man squad of custom-converted DUST Axis troops (rebasing on 25mm bases, and using Dreamforge bits for conversions to give the models a slightly more sci-fi look). No photos of these guys yet! Here's the chariot.

For March, my time will be limited for gaming and modelling. I plan to complete the following:

• Test model with paint scheme for chaos dwarf army troops
• Test model with paint scheme for sci-fi Axis army troops 
• Complete 3D printer kit build 
• “Stretch goal” if time permits -- additional cavalry and cannon models for the Bronze Statue army 

Final results of actual progress will be posted at the beginning of April!

--Jon, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Open Combat: Battle for the Old City

Earlier this month a few of us met up for our second go at Open Combat, the fast-play skirmish ruleset from Second Thunder. The game is currently in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a printed edition, so we were eager to try out the rules a second time. Our first session of Open Combat featured three small side-by-side games, six players in total, which gave an excellent overview of the simple-yet-tactical mechanics and gameplay.

Last week's session was our first attempt at a multiplayer game. Karl, Tim and Mattias showed up with appropriately evil warbands (I was fielding my newly painted chaos ratmen), so we crafted a scenario whereupon the four warbands converged onto an eerie deserted city, its populace fled in terror.

The four warbands were jockeying for control over four key locations: the Guild Hall, the Blacksmith's Forge, the Forest and the Old Town. These locales were more or less distributed evenly across the battlefield. We used the "Confrontation" deployment rules, where each player took turns placing individual figures anywhere on the map, no closer than 8 inches to another opposing figure. Using this method, we were able to seize strategic locations and put ourselves in position to fight it out rather quickly, which is always nice.

Karl's red-armored chaos knights deployed near the forest. Tim's orcs (led by a fearsome armored man known only as the Death Dealer) took up positions near the two elevated walkways. My chaos ratmen seized the Old Town (the raised section of buildings) and the Guild Hall (large multi-story building in the center rear). Mattias's Wyrdwold riders occupied the long street between the Guild Hall and the Old Town.

Here's how the battlefield looked at the start of the game. (Note the snazzy custom-embroidered CSW dice bag in the background of the first pic! Tim made that!)

We used a simple card activation system to inject a little uncertainty into each turn. As the game began, each sector of the battlefield saw its own conflicts develop. Tim began moving his troops along the walkway to engage the chaos ratmen in the Old Town section.

The movement rules in Open Combat don't allow friendly figures to move "through" each other, so my armored rat was able to bottleneck Tim's advance along the ledge quite nicely...for a little while, at least.

Elsewhere, Mattias's grim horsemen thundered through the streets and clashed with the ratmen occupying the Guild Hall.

The battle for the Guild Hall (which lasted for most of the game, with plenty of negotiation and backstabbery along the way) showed one of the minor weak points of Open Combat -- the lack of any established army lists or premade units.

Since we were building our armies in a vacuum using a point system that didn't really have baseline stats for a typical human soldier, I ended up building my ratmen to be slightly beefier than Mattias's cavalry. We agreed that this felt weird since the stats we came up with didn't match up with the way the miniatures looked, at least in comparison. Our lists were perfectly balanced at 200 points each, but in single combat, my ratmen were more deadly than his chaos warriors -- many were slewn over the course of the game, and Mattias gleefully announced each fallen warrior by name.

Over by the Blacksmith's Forge, Karl's chaos raiders met the rest of Mattias's Wyrdwold raiders in a desperate scrum.

As you can see, things got ugly pretty fast. But the bulk of Karl's force was committed to the forest, and they formed up to present a red-armored wall against the probing attacks of Tim's orcs.

Here's another panoramic shot, showing Karl's chaos raiders closing in on Tim's orcs in the foreground.

And here's what happened moments later, as the fight developed under the walkway.

As we approached the endgame, Mattias realized he should have deployed his horsemen closer together, as they were individually annihilated in the deserted streets of the city. With the streets around the Guild Hall cleared of foes, my ratmen celebrated on the steps.

Elsewhere, Tim pressed his attack in the elevated Old Town section, slaying the armored rat and leaving just a couple of rat spellcasters as defenders. Open Combat lacks an official section for magic, but the game designer intended for players to use a variety of psychological skills to represent magic spells and other effects. We've found that this works well, as there are "skills" that represent plenty of things that might otherwise be covered by magic. In this little clash, my rat wizards tried to destroy the orcs' Mind statistic, but Tim happened to have an orc shaman who buffed his buddies by boosting their Mind stat whenever I attacked it.

Here's the final scene at the Old Town, where my sneaky rat managed to race across the battlefield and climb halfway up the ladder to relieve his beleaguered fellows ... alas, the game ended at that point.

We took stock of the victory conditions and found that Karl had won a clear victory by controlling the Blacksmith's Forge and the Forest. I came in second place by controlling the Guild Hall.

Afterward we reflected on Open Combat. As with our previous  musings, we were pretty much in agreement that the core game is solid and quite playable, but it lacks many of the peripheral elements that go into a full-fledged fantasy wargame. Of course, this is by design -- the game is intentionally designed to be 100% generic and useable for a variety of historic and fantasy genres.

But we at Chicago Skirmish Wargames are definitely among those players who would gladly pay for a dedicated fantasy supplement with rules for magic, armor, monstrous abilities, racial characteristics, dungeoncrawling, etc. Here's hoping that Second Thunder has something like that on the release schedule this year!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Power Legion: Rumble in Gotham

Last week Tim, Terrence and I gathered at my house to play Power Legion. This was our second go at the system and I think we're getting the hang of it.

I played the two squads of Gotham City police, Tim fielded the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin, and Terrence controlled a band of nasties including Mister Freeze, Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Clayface.

This evening was a double debut. My Chicago police officers made their first appearance as did my recently completed urban buildings, built from heavily modified Dust Tactics "Warzone Tenements." The finished product seemed almost tailor made-to represent Gotham.

The streets are paper printouts from Fat Dragon Games and were provided by Terrence, who also wrote out most of the battle report you're reading. Most of the heroes and villains are rebased Heroclix.

As the scenario began, the villains dashed out after a heist to meet Gotham’s finest waiting for them in the streets.

Batman and Robin joined the fray from the rooftop, with Batman hurling a batarang at Mister Freeze while Robin watched from behind waiting for his opportunity.

Shortly thereafter, the Dynamic Duo found themselves brawling streetside with Clayface and Catwoman.

Batman swung into combat with Catwoman but misjudged her agility and got knocked down for his trouble.

A police sergeant, seeing how futile bullets were against the molten monster, jumped into a squad car and rammed into Clayface. He failed to damage the creature and only succeeded in giving Clayface a weapon!
The villain laid about himself with the car, smashing friend and foe with reckless abandon.

 
The vindictive yet alluring Harley Quinn was much more interested in the police officers. She dodged their fire and took one officer down with her pistol. Taking a cue from the Sergeant, the police used their other squad car to much better effect, running down Harley Quinn and taking her out of the fight.

Without the cover of the squad, one officer moved indoors to keep firing.

Eventually, Clayface connected with his Crown Vic bludgeon and took Robin out of the fight.

Batman was knocked down again, but the villains were unable to take advantage even after Batman fumbled his activation roll. The villains closed in on the Dark Knight, and with Batman having been down for several turns, we called the game, ruling that if the sidekick was KO'd and the hero was at the very edge of defeat, it was time to cut away until the next episode.

After all, what's more classic than a Batman cliffhanger ending where the baddies have our heroes on the ropes? Adam West would be proud.

As before, we found the game to be a lot of fun. However, once again armor really dominated, as it was difficult to overcome. Clayface proved virtually indestructible, and it was nearly impossible to give the coup de grace to a fallen Batman.

We bandied about a number of suggestions, including armor being degraded one level each usage, or just not using much — if any — armor next time we play Power Legion.

One final note about the police. Being "normals" makes them quite weak. In order to have a lot of them in the game and make them useful, we gave each member of a squad a colored dice (a D4, ouch) and rolled the entire squad together. The player of the cops selected which order to play the cops in.

This resulted in no "fail-outs" for the police squads, though quite a lot of individual police were unable to activate due to low rolls. This method greatly sped up the police player's turn. It made the police slightly more useful, but it definitely didn't elevate them from their place as mostly ineffective supporting cast.

The armor issue didn't seem to have degraded our enjoyment of the game, which still provides a fairly fast-moving superhero battle. Not counting setup, table talk (the rarely-seen Mike S stopped by for a pleasant chat and some terrain exchange) and teardown, our three person game took about two hours. That's not ideal for a group that tends to prefer one hour games, but it's not bad at all for a three player game with four distinct groups (two squads of cops) while we were still essentially learning.

Superhero games have a limited following in the club, so while this might not be a regular game, it's safe to say this is definitely something we will return too.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

The Warband Project, Part One

 
Since becoming involved in Chicago Skirmish Wargames, I’ve made it my mission to collect a diverse array of fantasy miniatures from a variety of manufacturers and game lines. Because the games we play don’t require any particular set of figures, I've been able to pick up pretty much any old miniature, kit or blister pack that caught my interest over the years – safe in the knowledge that eventually it would hit the table in some sort of skirmish battle.

Now I’ve come to a sort of retrospective point. The last five years of collecting, painting and gaming has left me with a huge collection of battlefield-ready fantasy figures. Some are veterans of many campaigns, with unique characters and legendary battlefield exploits. Others haven’t yet tasted the fury of battle and await their first chance at glory.

Here, then is the Warband Project – Part One: my attempt at categorizing and showcasing the many warbands I’ve put onto the battlefield over the last five years of gaming with Chicago Skirmish Wargames.

This list is by no means exhaustive. Many figures remain carefully packed away in figure cases, awaiting their moment on the battlefield. This particular post also doesn’t include my dwarves and undead collections – both of which have grown to the point where they are armies in their own right, suitable for skirmish gaming or Kings of War-scale mass battles.

Defenders of the Battle-Forge

This warband was inspired by the adventuring crew featured in an old-school AD&D/OSRIC campaign I played years ago. My character, Kjeld the Battle-Priest, explored the wilderlands with a motley band of fighters, treasure-seekers and ne’er-do-wells. Eventually Kjeld attracted a small group of followers, based around his Battle-Forge in a frontier village. He is the bearded guy with the big hammer in this photo, and he’s surrounded by his porters, hirelings and stalwart allies.

Vaxion’s Black-Hearted Brigands

Where there are heroes, there must also be villains. Vaxion is a highwayman by trade and has attracted the dregs of society to his grim cause. These guys are ideal for any scenario where you need some basic bad guys to harass and interdict another player.

Raiders of the Edelmark Sewers

There are … things … lurking in the tunnels and drainpipes beneath the city of Edelmark. This warband is just a snapshot of one such group that took part in an incursion onto the streets of the unsuspecting city. A foul troll leads the way, followed by stinking, chittering ratmen, along with a putrid swamp monster. Who knows what else lurks in the ichor-spattered corridors of the Edelmark catacombs?

Duke Baldric’s Overland Escort

When Duke Baldric makes his months-long circuit to inspect his frontier holdings, he is accompanied by a trusted escort of hard-bitten warriors. Led by Duke Baldric (ahorse, with the winged helm), Sir Hershel and Terfidor the Azure Mage, this warband was originally created for a scenario where they had to escort Duke Baldric across the battlefield. Since then their numbers have grown (or shrank) based on the number of fighters that Duke Baldric was able to muster over the years.

The Cursed Horsemen of Frostvale 

In the wind-scoured wastelands of the far north, where snow-frosted trees cling to craggy mountains and men wrap themselves in furs the year round, a band of horsemen sallies forth to raid the barely civilized lands to the south. In their wake, men whisper of a terrible curse that lies heavy upon the warband -- and of unspeakable barbarity that grips the fighters in the heat of battle. Woe to those who spy the Cursed Horsemen of Frostvale at the gates of their village of an autumn evening!

These are horsemen of chaos, definitely evil, probably cannibals, who occasionally ally with the Scourge of Longrieve (see below).

Findrel the Navigator and the Moonbeam Company 

Findrel (the armored elf in the center with the upraised hand) has been part of my collection for years, but I never had a decent group of elven warriors to send into battle alongside him – until now. The cavalry and infantry figures were commissions from a speedy contract painter and arrived just a few weeks ago. As such, the Moonbeam Company has not taken part in significant battles to date.

The story behind the warband is that they are the crew of a majestic elven sailing ship called the Moonbeam that was abandoned off the coast of Qaarra after a storm many years ago. Since then, they have been investigating reports of a spectral ghost ship glowing in the moonlight, which appears on an ill wind all along the troubled shores of the continent. Will they ever find their way back to their vessel?

Grubb’s Bonecrushers

Sometimes you just need some orcs or goblins to stand between the adventurers and their goal. Grubb's Bonecrushers fulfills this role admirably. In my mind, they're hobgoblins, sort of halfway between orcs and goblins. These are some of the oldest minis in my current collection, having been painted back in 2009 or so. (Hardly ancient, I know, but still....)

The Scourge of Longrieve

After the doom-cloud had swept across Qaarra and the fearful population had been left to quake and mourn, the mysterious Leathern Gate in the northern mountains opened once again, briefly creating a portal between Qaarra and the Wyrdwold. From the grimacing doorway came the Scourge of Longrieve, a band of raiders, cutthroats and foul creatures bent on looting the jewels of Qaarra. They broke like a wave upon the idyllic village of Longrieve, earning their name through senseless butchery and slaughter.

In game terms, this was my attempt to make a true chaos warband for last summer’s SBH campaign. I tossed together a whole bunch of disparate models: a mindflayer, a sorceror, two gnolls, an orc, an anti-paladin, maybe a few others. It was a lot of fun to get them all on the battlefield together.

The Hour of the Rat

When the Clock of Omens strikes thirteen, families know to bar the door and place their heaviest cook-pots atop open drains and sewer pipes. For it is the Hour of the Rat, when the chittering hordes surge from the under-depths, led by fearsome chaos ratmen armored in scavenged mail and plate, and wielding blades of corrupted steel. They visit the surface world to raid for treasure and slaves -- but the day may yet come when these ratmen do not slink back into the catacombs at dawn, but instead stay to rule the realm that they have conquered.

This is an old-school Skaven warband composed of some vintage Citadel miniatures. They can easily ally with the Raiders of the Edelmark Sewers or the Scourge of Longrieve for larger scenarios featuring chaos foes.

That's all for now! I'll be back soon with the next installment, featuring an assortment of warbands drawn from my undead and dwarf armies, plus some leftover figures that don't currently have a home.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member