Subedai’s Fantastical Fighting Forces

I finished painting the remaining Night Goblins from the Knightmare Miniatures range so my warband is expanded and as complete as it currently can be. Thinking ahead for Saga, I can field three units of warriors, three trolls (I assume there will be some monster/monstrous creature slot), a shaman/wizard and the warlord.

While looking for any release info or beta rules that might be floating around (no luck there), I did come across a fan made project called A Fantastic Saga. Haven’t tried it, but clearly a lot of work has gone into the expanded rules and fantasy races that are available, so definitely worth checking out. Using the Kobaloi list, I could field my Night Goblins as a 6 points force.

Knightmare Miniatures recently ran a Kickstarter to expand their mostly Kev Adams sculpted Greenskin Wars range. I used that opportunity to pick up the new Doom Goblins and a few more wolf riders and feral goblins.

Alongside the four goblin warriors that I am still working on, the Doom Goblins received a new leader in the shape of this big bruiser carrying a massive morning star. Might makes right in goblin society, so there wasn’t much discussion regarding his role amongst the expanding tribe.

I think Kev Adams is doing some of his best work at the moment with this range so I really need to catch up with my painting. Also still looking forward to Saga Fantasy, although a generic goblin list would probably not do justice to their variety. Thinking about play testing the Doom Goblins as Saxons.

Edit: Since I received a question on my blog about how the horns sticking out of the hood were painted, I thought I’d add my technique here as well (all paints Citadel unless noted):

1. Paint horns in Balor Brown
2. Apply wash with Seraphim Sepia
3. Paint lines from the tips downwards with Army Painter Skeleton Bone
4. Paint shorter lines from the tips downwards with White Scar, staying within the patterns from previous step
5. Apply a bit of Agrax Earthshade around the base of the horns and within the inner curves for shading

I finished the cavalry arm of my Tomb Kings army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle by adding a second rank to the spear armed skeleton horsemen.

The horses are very old sculpts since GW never saw fit to replace them. For the riders, I mixed up parts from the original plastic skeletons with the Tomb Kings releases. As previously mentioned, I added horse blankets made out of tissue paper to give the models a bit more heft and have the riders stand out from their mounts better.

For future expansions of the army, I have two units of five horse archers each built and primed but first up is a squadron of chariots.

While doing a roll call of my various work in progress armies for Warhammer Fantasy Battle I came across a mostly finished herd of Beastmen Gors that required a few updates. I drybrushed the bases brown where they were grey before and repainted the edges in my now standard Gorthor Brown.

I also found that I was one warrior short since I intend to use the previous leader of the herd as a Wargor in the 1,000 points force. Since I had a spare model from the Marauder Miniatures MB09 Beastmen Regiment with a missing double handed club, I converted that figure by giving it an axe and shield from the plastic Citadel Chaos Marauders. About half of the other Gors also received shields from that set, as none of the regiment was equipped with any.

Some of the Beastmen had previously been converted to wielding two hand weapons, while the remaining ones were now given shields from the Ungors plastic set.

Having recently picked up more infantry for my Tomb Kings I felt it was time to continue painting the already built and primed forces that are making up a 1,000 point core army using Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th Edition.

I don’t enjoy painting undead horses much more than life ones hence I had kept back the cavalry and chariots. The first five of a ten strong regiment of horsemen with thrusting spears are now finally done and I’ll keep working away on the second half interspersed with other projects.

I’m using some overarm thrusting spears for the unit to add variety and indicate that they are not fighting as knights with lances. The musician carries a metal horn in snake form that was part of an early version of the Khemrian infantry. I also equipped the horses with black saddle cloths made from tissue paper to give a heavier feel to the models and prevent the bone-on-bone look.

I have finished another four of the medieval demons produced by Antediluvian Miniatures. This lot is carrying handgonnes, a sort of cannon on a stick that originated as early as the 13th century. In game terms, where appropriate blackpowder weapons might be missing, I’ll use the crossbow rules to represent them.

We had our initial clash of arms playing Frostgrave in a Warhammer Old World setting. My mate picked Night Goblins with a Summoner while I took the Undead lead by a Necromancer. Wanting to familiarise ourselves with the core rules, we played a simple scenario with six treasures up for grabs. We also chose our spells without the need for additional templates or figures to represent them, so they were mostly direct damage or buffs.

The Night Goblins deployed in a horde in the left corner of the 3×3 table while I split my forces up into a group lead by the wizard and a second with the apprentice. While the Night Goblins initially swarmed over the first treasure pile, I sent my two thugs to search one each and attempt to carry it to safety.

The first major skirmish erupted when a group lead by my apprentice clashed with goblin fighters in a house ruin containing more treasure. With an infantryman dispatched through a fireball from afar and a second being cut down by a lowly goblin thug, I lost this fight and any hope of a win.

While one of my thugs escaped with a treasure undisturbed off the Eastern board edge, the second was threatened by the slavering squig. I managed to intercept it at the last moment with a man-at-arms, but failed to kill it. Shortly after, the Night Goblin apprentice blew up its own squig with a fireball, presumably to roast it in preparation for the victory banquet.

With just yards to go, my second thuggish zombie was brought down by a flurry of arrows, dropping its treasure token.

The Night Goblins now had control of the table, and my skeleton’s charge against the apprentice failed to wound him. Shortly after it was smashed to pieces, and my surviving Necromancer decided to slink away into the darkness.

With a final treasure score of 5:1 for the Night Goblins and a kill ratio of 6:2, I failed to capitalise on my early gains and positioning. Already being outnumbered, delegating two thugs to treasure carrying duty from the start was probably not a good decision in hindsight, though I very nearly got away with a second treasure while the goblins had secured none thus far. I had expected the main combat to swing my way, but the loss of an infantryman at the last moment through magic and the quick defeat of the second destroyed my main fighting force.

Frostgrave is definitely a very killy system, fittingly reminiscent of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. A high attack roll will not only often win the combat but also directly cause a maximum amount of damage, and it is quite possible to lose soldiers through a single strike or spell. Especially with consistent rolls of 20. Thanks, blue die of death.

This week will see me dusting off my copy of Frostgrave to finally have a game. A mate and I are planning on getting a campaign going, hopefully recruiting along the way.

Rather than setting the story in Felstad, we’ll be drawing on the background of the Old World however, so it is more akin to Mordheim with wizards and various fantasy races. As gangs, I am therefore drawing on my existing Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies without having to paint everything from scratch. For the first gaming session I put together Night Goblins, Dwarfs and Undead, only needing to finish painting a shaman and warrior of their respective armies which had been long overdue anyway.

While there are no different racial characteristics and stats in Frostgrave, I selected the war bands to reflect some of their archetypes. The Dwarfs are fewer in numbers but with better equipment and stats due to their troop types.

For the Night Goblins I am mainly using the Kev Adams sculpts by Knightmare Miniatures, reinforced by some Citadel figures from my Warhammer Fantasy Battle army.

The Undead are raised from my Warhammer 3rd Edition forces, with zombies representing thugs and skeletons other troop types.

How these work as gangs in Frostgrave, we’ll find out. A drawback of using “soldiers” from other armies is the lack of figures representing certain character classes like thieves, but with a bit of artistic licence and kit bashing I could add them where needed. In any case I would want to stick with classes to fit a certain fantasy race, and where that is the case, miniatures will also be easier to find.