Blood on the Snow- a tribute

 

You probably know that the wonderful human being that was Matthew Street departed this world last year, leaving a hole bigger than I could possibly describe. For the last few years he had been planning to run a big communal game of Blood on the Snow, an early Warhammer scenario, at BOYL. He had done artwork for it (see above) and planned a scenario booklet to accompany the game. He'd also begun painting forces for it, which you can find on his blog "News from Hell before Breakfast".

Matthew's human fighters are shown above and below. Sadly, ill health and life pressures meant that progress stalled a few times and the planned game never took place. At his funeral a bunch of us vowed that this year BOYL would see Blood on the Snow in his honour, using his miniatures. Now, here's a bit of a sticky problem. Matthew had collected a lot of figures for the game. Most of them were unpainted and in clearly labelled boxes. These we distributed, aiming to paint a unit or two each. After the game they would be auctioned off to support Matthew's partner. Unfortunately, nobody has seen or knows where the painted figures are. They don't seem to have been among his stash of lead. There are plenty of figures to run the scenario with (except in some quarters where I believe Matthew had hoped the designs he was doing for Old School Miniatures' Kev Adams goblin range would fill the gaps) but it seems a shame not to field the models he painted himself.

Against the possibility that his works of art turn up, I decided to try and keep the selection of figures I had taken to work on matching the colour scheme and look Matthew had selected. Teal and white uniforms with red accents and a brooding, high-contrast look. I am pretty sure he worked over a black undercoat and likely used oil washes. Being an artist he was also very picky about his paint choice. I wasn't, just using my regular Foundry paints and Army Painter washes. I also stuck to my usual grey undercoat as I wanted to do the selection justice rather than use it as an excuse to experiment. There are some lovely Citadel sculpts in here (mostly Foundry rereleases) and they were refreshing to paint after months of my own sculpts. I did try to go heavier with the shading and black-lining than usual on them. It used the last of my Citadel Expert Paint Set black ink, but worth it in Matthew's honour.

This is a unit of 20 militia and 20 archers, all mixed sorts selected from Matthew's bags of options. That's twice the size of the units listed in the scenario, but I know Matthew wanted to up-scale the game. He also had plans for dwarf slayers riding wild boars and more greenskin shenanigans, but those are in the hands of better modellers than I! I did, however, also take a unit of dwarfs to paint in the event that the Streety originals do not surface. More on those in another blog post.

Blood on the Snow- a tribute

The saga of Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson

 

Hi folks. It's been quiet here as I have been up to my eyeballs in various things. I did manage to take some time out a couple of weekends ago for a fun trip to Cumbria to stay at the awesome Moorforge Viking Settlement. I then didn't write this write-up as Blogger was messing the photo order about and I couldn't be doing with that. But I find myself with half an hour to kill so here goes...

This is the big longhouse at Moorforge, where we were playing a pair of linked Norse-themed games of WFB3 to celebrate Steve's birthday. In the distance and below you can see the half longhouse where we were sleeping. The building to the left of it in the photo below is a reproduction Icelandic forge. Very cool.

As you can see, it was pretty dark, smoky and on the chilly side (though we dodged the snow by a couple of days). As a result my photos aren't the best, but are atmospheric at least.

After a night of moderate snoring, flatulence and excursions across the field to the loo we awoke fresh and ready for gaming. Well, ready for Steve's immense breakfast anyhow! If anyone knows how to cater for a wargaming crowd it is Steve!

The Saturday morning game was a small skirmish/roleplay-type affair with Norse champions and their retinues trying to win the support of their countrymen and stake a claim to kingship. In Steve's words-

The remote kingdom of Arsenduvnaewar is unfortunately also a troubled one. The passing of King Skagi the Grimacer has left no clear heir to the throne amongst his various bickering descendants, legitimate and illegitimate both. So tangled is the usual web of revenge, madness, suicide, betrayal, murder, blood oaths, fratricide, cannibalism, incest and intrigue that often occurs in situations like this, that a particularly vicious feud has erupted and the various factions of the Arsendirs are on the brink of outright civil war. Matters are not helped by the threat of neighbouring clans maneuvering to muscle in and take advantage of the power vacuum - the crows have started circling even before the carrion litters the battlefield…

Then one fateful and stormy night, the great Longhouse of Faenshølet, with its empty throne and divided court, was visited by a most ominous and unwelcome guest. The clamour of drunken squabbling and brawling was soon cut short by the sonorous voice of a hooded stranger, who had crept so silently into their midst. Going only by the name of Dáinn, the deathly and hunched figure intoned the most grave of ultimatums - should no suitable champion step forth to unite the kingdom, he would claim the throne and lay waste to all with his legion of Draugr. None dared raise a hand against the necromancer and his exit left the hall cold and silent as a tomb.

This new threat, once the hangovers and sore heads were suitably nursed, had the effect of focussing and uniting the Arsendirs. Potential champions, with and without legitimate claims to the throne, began to step forward and supporters coalesced around them. The Elders, thankful of a possible way out of the bitter feuding, also saw the opportunity for some serious housecleaning in the kingdom. The people of Arsenduvnaewar had long been plagued by all manner of creatures and no one had ever really done anything about it - too strong was their love of strong liquor and infighting.

A decree went out that any champion who could perform a sufficient number of heroic deeds to clear the kingdom of its endemic Trolls, Giants, Dragons and worse, would be crowned the new King. Of course the new King’s first job would be to deal with the Necromancer, Dáinn, but that was glossed over as much as possible so as not to put anyone off…

This was to be the first outing for the Bronze Age Miniatures I picked up from Fenris and the Foundry Norse I got at BOYL this year. Despite starting painting them in September I only just managed to finish them the weekend before and even then it was a bit rushed. I have in mind that these are the anti-Slaine forces to my Horned God themed barbarians, so went for full face helms and armour wherever possible. The big chap matches the Foundry Horned God figure for size and I picked up a Bronze Age dwarf to be the anti-Ukko. Obviously this guy is a complete gentleman. I called my hero Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson after encountering face to many Thor-related names in the Scandinavian sagas I have been reading this year.

My band did not fare well in the first game. Their initial encounter with some dryads in the forest left them depleted and they had to seek aid from a Fimir witch and her reanimating cauldron. This appears to have further damned the warriors who went on to lose their champion to a Jabberwock, pick entirely the wrong giant to try and befriend then fail completely to even give themselves voluntarily to a trio of hungry trolls. By far the lowest saga points of any warband present I am proud to say. But it did not end there! Oh no...

For the second game all the would-be kings united under the leadership of Chris/Erny who had pulled off a mighty haul of saga points in the first game. At least, for the moment we were united. Against us was Steve's foul necromancer with his boggy allies (run by Andrew). This would be an opportunity to get all 600 points of Norse on the table and give those undead a good kicking.

I set up in the trees on the right flank of the undead, ready to send my berzerkers in. Now, there was a bit of confusion over the berzerkers in this game... that being due to my not spotting the misprint of the berzerker profile in the WD army list. Despite it's being pretty obvious. Thus both my forces and Dave's benefited from 3, yes 3, attacks per model. Oops.

With a bone giant, a massive unit of cavalry and several nearby units of skeletons to run on into I was pretty confident by berzerkers would be bogged down rather than looking for targets. Oh no, not the case! 

Avoiding the giant initially I charged around the back to deal with a couple of screaming skull catapults. I figured I couldn't do much to the giant and wanted to be of some use before I inevitably got charged by it at the start of the undead turn. With the help of Brunhild and her shield bearers, however, the giant was soon dispatched. With Dave's berzerkers collapsing the skeleton horsemen (unlucky instability roll) and the skeleton archers just out of charge range my wild ladies began scouting around for another target... and my regular troops hadn't quite run far enough to avoid their gaze!

Luckily an intervention saved the regulars. We all had secret event cards to play when we liked. One of these allowed a rival candidate king to assume control of half a unit. By playing this Dave was able to turn the wild ladies' furious charge into a furious row as half the shield maidens turned on the other. Much slapping and hair-pulling ensued as all other troops got out of the area, fast!

Elsewhere on the table a rebellion had unseated the king. As the undead horde fell apart (literally) the rivals began to stake their own claims. Using my own event card I was able to teleport Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson into the fray just as Alex's chaos champion reached her abnormally long and sucker-tipped fingers to grasp the crown.

A duel ensued, but the two combatants were clearly evenly-matched. In the end an alliance was proposed, solidified by the marriage of half-giant and freakish aberration of chaos. Our children will no doubt be beautiful. A surprising end for Saturday's underdog!

 

The saga of Smiorgasbjord Thorsonsson

Undead artillery

 

For the Big Orange Book table recreation I am putting on at BOYL this year I require 5 skeleton bolt throwers and crew. I don't actually know what these bolt throwers are, I guess they could be historical? In any case I wasn't going to spend ages tracking them down when Alternative Armies produce a perfectly serviceable undead bolt thrower, and have just released a bunch of skeletons which work perfectly as crew. 

I built balsa wood stands for them and bent the bow arms to make them look a bit more similar to those in the picture. There's a nice lot of skully detail on these but I decided to just base coat and wash them to give the dark, nondescript look in the original photo.

The Alternative Armies weapon pack designed to go with the skeletons with open hands includes a bunch of spears. These work quite nicely in size and shape as a supply of fresh bolts.

Whilst I was at it I made this 'enhanced' skull chucker. The free see no, hear no, speak no skellies AA were giving away a few months ago all made me think they were going "oh no!" so I wanted to use them for something suitably dramatic. The idea being that the fourth crewman has been a bit close whilst the gun fires and has rather gone to pieces as a result. It's not quite as I imagined, I find myself a bit short on skeleton parts again! But it's quite fun nevertheless.

Undead artillery

The raised dead

 

The Oldhammer Community is full of lovely people. I know I don't have to say that, you know it's true, but it's worth affirming. The number of people who are still (in these days of giant ebay prices) willing to give stuff away in the name of a good cause is such a great endorsement. Such a thing happened to me recently. I happened to mention in the course of one of my youtube videos that I'm hoping to put on a game at BOYL this year reproducing THAT table from the 3rd ed book:

Now, there are several people bringing models from their collections to do this. One thing I had failed to find, though, was a load of the skeleton army plastics that occupy so much of the battlefield. They're also the best plastics ever produced of course! Lo and behold a lovely gentleman passed me a box at Salute. Expecting a dozen or so skeletons I thanked him and put the box aside to open when I got home... it's busy at Salute. Imagine my surprise to find almost an entire skeleton army in the box, mostly fully assembled! What a gentleman. I reckon alongside some I had already and a proxy unit of 'other' skeletons that gets us well on the way.

Here they are, building rank on rank, with a handful of Alternative Armies recent releases supplementing them. The colour scheme is approximated from the photos in the book, along with the iconography.

I haven't done a banner for them yet as they'll have a 'temporary' banner for the game. After that they'll be used whenever Kemler raises fresh skellies for my undead host.

One of the (many) benefits of the skeleton army box sprues was 1 in 4 scythes. That means you can make that required unit of grim reapers from the 3rd ed armies list. 

There were seven skeleton horsemen along with the foot troops so I've painted those up at the same time. I already have quite a chunky unit of horsemen in the 'dead bretonnians' section of the army, but I wanted to round out this unit to 1o so I picked three of the least knightly-looking from the previous unit and repainted the blue and white into green and yellow. Kinda tempted to do a host more as I much prefer the yellow/green...

The raised dead

Imperial Beasts

Hi all. Sorry it's been quiet here recently. I've got lots of good stuff coming I promise! Anyhow, remember those Imperial Beastmen/Phagons I did during lockdown? Well a good matey is having a 40th birthday 40K extravaganza shortly for which I needed a warband so I decided to do something with the Urban War Viridian riding beasts and Knightmare Miniatures cyber minotaurs that I've had kicking around for a while.

 

Imperial Beasts

Infamous dwarfs!

You know how my dwarf army was finished? I lied.

To be fair I had always intended to add a unit of Longbeards. The Marauder Longbeards have a special place in my heart since a mate bought a blister of them when we were kids. They seem like the ultimate depiction of dwarfs  and are very much what was in my mind when sculpting my own Cavern Guard (of which more to come). Just before Christmas Harry and I met with the most excellent Mr Matthew Streety in Reading Wetherspoons for a day of sheltering from the storm and playing board games. Both fine gentlemen had little lead gifts... Longbeards! Christmas painting coming up. But how to get a decent unit of the little guys? They're not exactly easy to pick up, people are understandably holding onto such treasures.

Fortunately another packet arrived before the holidays... the Infamous JT dwarf Kickstarter! Long awaited this one, not that the fulfilment was slow- one of the fastest turnarounds I have had the pleasure to witness. No, these guys were a long time getting to KS due to a few issues, but I have kept my eye on the project as they're absolutely beautiful models. They'd do nicely as the rest of the Longbeard unit.

You may notice the old Marauder gentlemen have wildlife perched on their heads. Well, much as I like the flat helmets, I wanted them to match the heraldry of these swanky gentlemen. Fortunately I was able to find enough small critters to squat on their bonces. Meant to do a hare on one but somehow couldn't find a spare, oh well, a couple of duplicate beasts no terrible thing.

I'm keeping these photos smaller than usual. Back at the end of November my DSLR has some issues and it's currently off being (hopefully) fixed. However, around the same time my phone also started having problems so I got a new one with a fancy camera. I've been using that instead for these pictures. Not bad, but the autofocus, autoshutter, autoaperture etc. meant I didn't have an awful lot of control. Plus I had to get the camera really close so haven't been able to take a unit or comparison shots that I would like. Maybe when my real camera comes back. 

There were a few characters in the Kickstarter which I wasn't really bothered about since I was looking for troops, but I enjoyed painting them anyways. A festive fool which I decorated in the same colours as the Longbeard heraldry to keep it bright but complementary. He'll be called Merrylion.

A female dwarf without a beard... maybe she shaves. In the army she's going to be the cousin of the general, King Grimmson.. so she's Lady Grimmsniece and the other dwarfs call her Mortissue. Apparently she likes her cosmetics.

Then there's this elegant gentleman. The second wizard in the force now, let nobody say the dwarfs don't know how to magick. Merlin would be an appropriate name.

As well as the Longbeards I picked up the dwarfs with bows as a small ranger/scout party. All the models are great, with just the right level of detail/kit to give interest without being too busy. They scale really nicely with the Marauder, Macrocosm and Assault Group models. One day I'll be able to do a side-by side shot.

Infamous dwarfs!