Painted 28mm Undead army and thoughts on fantasy rules

 So I just finished painting a small Undead army. I had ordered an GW Flesh-Eaters start collecting box and a Flesh-Eaters Warcry box to add to my existing collecting of old painted metal characters and a bunch half-painted zombies I had bought years ago.

As always they are painted in my very simplistic style, which in this case meant almost entirely with contrast paints. The metal characters were either painted by my brother 25 years ago or bought painted at some point. I finished the zombies using contrast paints as well. And all the bases were painted and flocked.

None of the miniatures are a work of art, but they are painted now and ready to play with.

At the same time I have been thinking about what rules to use for gaming with the army and fantasy in general (non-LotR). While I used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battle and loved the setting and lore, I really dislike some of the core rules, in particularly the lack of Command & Control and the IGOUGO system.

Age of Sigmar doesn't really do it for me either, but I had a few other rulesets that could be used. That was Sword & Spear Fantasy, SAGA Age of Sigmar and Dragon Rampant. I think all of these rulesets have interesting and C & C and activation mechanics and could be great fun to play. I had only played the historical versions of these rulesets and those were great games. So I was eager to try the fantasy versions.

One thing the 3 sets have in common, is that they are very open to what miniatures you can use. They have various defined troop types that you can tinker with, so they can fit your collection. The idea is then to be inspired by Warhammer themed armies, but used within the various rules.

After having read all of the rules and thought about what sort games I was interested in, I realised that Sword & Spear Fantasy would probably not be the best for 28mm, as it is more aimed at large battles, where heroes, monsters and magic have a more limited impact. 

I did try out a Dragon Rampant solo game which went rather well, and I have set up another game to play in the coming days. I have created a small narrative around these games, that I hope to expand on in the future, both with Dragon Rampant and other games.

I have ordered some SAGA dice, and when they arrive, I will try a solo SAGA Age of Magic game. They will arrive with some skeletons, that I have ordered to expand the army and to use with yet another ruleset, that I am eager to try: Oathmark.

When I read these rules I was instantly drawn to them. If WFB had used rules like these I would probably still have played Warhammer. I love the activation system, the rules mechanics and the narrative aspect of the rules. Fortunately I was able lure my regular gaming friend Steffen into the game as well, and we are both in the progress of painting and preparing armies to do battle with. 

Unlike the other rulesets, Oathmark, has a defined universe and are as such not a toolbox to create your own fantasy world and armies. This, however, doesn't prevent you from being a little creative about what miniatures you use for the various troop types. For now, there are only a handful of fractions/races and some different monsters, but hopefully they will expand on those in the future as well.

So there should be some interesting fantasy gaming going on in the future, both solo and otherwise. Plans are also to expand the fantasy collection, although I'm sticking to my creed of not playing with anything unpainted, which is a long way from how I used to play Warhammer.

Painted - 15mm WW2 early war Germans - Chain of Command

 Tomorrow I'll start the CoC pint-size campaign Taking the Gembloux Gap against my regular opponent Steffen. I'll be playing the Germans, and therefore had to paint up a German platoon.

As always I have used my simple style of painting by using a base spray, doing a few details and wash. This means that not all the miniatures has the right colour details, but from a distance I think they look just fine.

The platoon consists of 2 senior leaders, 3 squads with 10 men each and a mortar team. I also painted some support choices which includes 2 Pak 36, a sniper team, a demolition team and a forward observer.

I already have a good selection of armoured vehicles painted and ready for the campaign, so I am quite prepared to start the campaign. I will write up reports of our games as they happen.

Painting - End of January painting challenge

 So January has come and gone. As mentioned earlier my friend and I tried to do a challenge where we had to paint at least 15 minutes every day. While my friend unfortunately had to drop it due to outside events, I actually managed to do it.

I did have one day where I couldn't paint because I was away on a small trip. Although I actually had taken some painting stuff with me, I had forgotten some things and so couldn't paint one day. I also had one day, where I only did a lot of priming, but I still accepted it as a good day.

My small box of painting stuff for my trip. Unfortunately I still forgot some important items

In conclusion the challenge was very good and worthwhile. It did show that even 15-20 minutes of paint will provide some progress. And even more importantly it actually proved to be motivating in several ways. There were days where I initially thought I wouldn't paint more than the 15-20 minutes but then ended up spending even more time.

Baccus Marian legionaries used as Pontic imitation legionaries

When my friend and I talked about the challenge we speculated on how much we would end up getting painted. In truth it was less than I imagined. But even so I will call this a great success.

I had planned to kind of continue the project, but extending what I could do in the 15-20 minutes to also include assembling miniatures or terrain, painting terrain or other relevant hobby activities. Unfortunately I have some issues with my shoulder at the moment, so this week all hobby work has stopped momentarily.

Here are the bases I have painted in the final weeks of January.

4 bases of skirmishers with javelins

4 bases of skirmishers with javelins

4 bases of imitation legionaries (bases not done)

Painted - 6mm Pontic Thureophoroi

 As part of my January painting challenge I have been painting some 6mm Pontic Thureophoroi, which is medium infantry. Most days I have been painting more than the 15 minutes a day I am required to. It was, however, very nice to have some days where I just painted the minimum 15 minutes, and still felt I made some progress.

I paint 8 strips at a time which corresponded to 2 bases. Normally I would do such a batch on an evening.

They are painted with GWs contrast paints apart from some small metal paint on the spear tips and on the shields. Although I look for inspiration various places I just try different colours and hope it looks good. I finished a total of 8 bases which is 4 units in Sword & Spear. Afterwards I actually realized that on the Spanish and Roman medium infantry bases I only had 12 figures on, so I made a small mistake putting 16 figures on these bases, but it doesn't matter that much.

Next on the painting cue is some Pontic skirmishers.

Painting - January Painting Challenge

My friend, Steffen, and I have started a painting challenge in January, inspired by a Youtube video by Storm of Steel Wargaming(who I believe was inspired by another video). The challenge is to have painting session of at least 15 minutes every day in January.

For me the purpose of the challenge is not that I expect to paint 15 minutes every day for here on and forth. By rather to acknowledge that in periods where my painting motivation is very low, just doing 15 minutes some days will still mean something. I suspect we all have periods where we don't paint as much as we would like to. And then, rather than get too disillusioned about not painting, simply doing as little as 15 minutes worth of painting once awhile will hopefully help the situation somewhat.

I have no specific painting project I'm going to work on during January. Rather I will just paint what I feel like. So this first week I started of with 2 bases of 6mm Pontic cavalry. At the moment my painting motivation is rather good so I will most likely paint more than 15 minutes a day. But I have had a couple days with only about 20 minutes of painting, and it actually felt rather good, that I didn't feel like I needed to do more.

First day of work. Just painted the horses.

Second day I added a bit more colours.

Third day they were done apart from the base.

Next couple of days I worked another 3 strips.

On the sixth day I was done with both bases.

It has been a good experience, and I really can feel the appreciation of not thinking I need to paint a lot more and for longer time. So it will be interesting to see how much I get painted in January.

Painted - Chaos Blood Bowl team

 The very last thing I have painted in 2020 is a Chaos Blood Bowl team. I was eager to get them done to finish of a rather good painting year (probably the best thing to be said about 2020).

I have used my standard simple painting style with a mix of GW contrast paints and Copper metallic for the armour. I probably should have done more with bases, but I got a bit lazy. The most important thing, however, is that they are painted and ready for a game.

8 Beastmen

4 Chaos Blockers

The Minotaur

Group photos

Painted - 15mm WW2 Germans

This weekend I started playing my first Chain of Command Pint-size campaign with my regular opponent, Steffen (more on this in a later post). I had to paint a few things to get ready for the campaign and such events are great motivation to get it done.

I needed a few more infantry men, as the Panzer Grenadier platoon in the campaign is slightly different than the regular German infantry platoon I already had. So more LMG crews were painted, some engineers and a Panzerschreck team.

In all 29 soldiers were painted. The sharp observer will notice that there are only 28 miniatures in the pictures below and that's because I had forgotten to paint one LMG. Fortunately I discovered this 2 days before the games, so I did get him done.

I also painted 4 Schwimmwagens and 3 Panzer IV H. Usually you would only need one of each in games of Chain of Command, but if I have more models I always try to paint them, so I can use them in games with other rulesets. I will probably paint some crew for the 'wagens at some point, but that is for another day.

 

WIP - 15 WW2 Germans

After a couple of idle months I finally managed to get some painting done again. A friend and I are planning to do a Chain of Command pint size campaign, and I'll be playing the Germans. 

I have a painted late war German platoon, but it is made according to the main rule book, which is different from the campaign platoon. So I need to paint some more Germans.

Last night I painted the first 10 models. I have a very simple painting method, where I spraypaint the models in a base colour, paint a few details, a wash and then some base flocking. It will not win any painting prizes but it is good enough for me and my battles.

I used Plastic Soldier Company's German Field Grey as base. I don't do any camouflage patterns, and I don't mind using the models for whatever type platoon I'll be playing, even though it will not be historical accurate. I just don't have the painting patience for that.

When all is done I'll take some more pictures 😊