The Empire Responds to the invasion of the Uruk Hai

This project has been a pleasure to bring together. It has been cheap, dirty and quick. But it looks just fine. Its crudity and speed of assembly has been masked by the process of layering details and spray finishes. It becomes a backdrop to the real focus of the board, the miniatures. Much of the supremely detailed and high end finishes on some boards leaves me flat when I experience it in anything like real world situations, it’s too detailed. But for photographs and dioramas the high end finishes are breath taking and leave me droooling. But to game and experience as a gamer? Too much going on for a game, I get lost and lose miniatures in it. So for gaming, this system is perfect, it shows a scene while emphasising the playing pieces. The miniatures.

I’m never going to paint these, I shall spray them in group colours and perhaps add dots for those troops who need to be distinguished in some way. It’s going to be my jobbers set of easy evening gaming. A proper posh version of risk. Everything I wished risk was. That way it won’t detract from my passion for 28mm.

This whole lot plus a couple fantasy additions pack into the core push of pike box. It takes up such a small amount of space.

I’ve heard it asked before but it has only resonated with me recently. A friend said he doesn’t want to invest in a dead game.

When is a game dead? It struck me he was talking nonsense on stilts, covered in Jam. Is Chess dead? It must be, I haven’t seen the original company supporting their chess creation? But I do suspect people are playing it. Expanding on it. Enjoying it even!? The strangest of thoughts, enjoying a game that has outlived its creators. What next, reading books by dead bastards too? I only read books that are supported by the living, speaking for myself. Necrophilia is outlawed after all.

Im playing Warhammer. And having a brilliant time with it. I have recruited 4 new players to my game and they are all local bods that I’ve bumped into through various life situations. Fellow parents at my children’s school, old friends that like playing board games and want something different. Work colleagues, suggestions from my wife who was told a friend of her friend has a husband who has warhammer on his shelf……etc etc. only one two out my 6 players have done and like doing the hobby side. The other four love the social and enjoy a game that is different from the others they have played. There are some others on the periphery who are interested too, who may want to buy proxy models and download or buy old copies of the rules.

The game is a blend of 4th Ed (early 90’s) and 6th Ed (early 2000’s) with some group house rules adopted from various other games. All of which are this mystic dead game status. But we play it. We invest in it. We enjoy it. How the fUck is that dead!?!

If it’s the hype of newness you want then that is subjective as this old game is new to all these others who bring different playstyles to this old game. I very much doubt that these people have played this game in all its iterations and variations, all its factions with all its scenarios and tactical situations and challenges. If they found a group of people who like it and are willing to play more than the bland, here’s an army either side, they are ‘balanced’ (whatever the hell that kettle of fish means) and they clash head on. Boring. What about the all the variations from history you could drag in? All those battles and engagements from history which where never, ever, at all, balanced. Use your imagination for Feck sake!!!

So we played gaslands instead. 🙄

What would Uruk hai heavy cavalry look like? Wargs are wolves by nature and their backs would not take the strain . So some form of oxen? A horse from the black numenoreans? What would they be armed with? Would it be more Cataphracti in style or Roman heavy cavalry type or later knights?

My army could do with one unit of heavy cavalry and it should be Uruk-hai flavour.  I could test out a spare warg rider and blend it somehow?

Also my empire baggage train is coming along nicely and I’m onto the very last kislevite, the Tsar Queen on polar bear! Brilliant.
With the baggage train has come some learning, I was googling war wagons and seeing £150 and thinking no. But during the google something came up, war wagons where real things. Muskevites had them. The Chinese had them and some medieval Europeans had a version of them. I didn’t know this I always thought it was GW high fantasy! I now need to make my religious wagons rules that reflect war wagons in history and make two war wagons to go with my train. 1st corp seem to have a couple nice ones as do an Spanish company for 35 euro. Where else may have some?

Converting, to the Undead.

Put down the Prana-bindu training manual, discard the Zen-Sunni scriptures and throw out your Orange-Catholic Bible. It’s time to stop worrying about the impending Butlerian Jihad and concentrate on converting to something more sinister. Let’s adulterate a landsknecht or two and go down Dead avenue.

Bring out your Warlord games skeleton sprues, take a moment, meditate on their possibilities.

One voice says”Zweihander, get the hat on that skeleton head”

Another voice says”the skeletons right arm is perfect to insert in the baggy sleeve”

A third voice pipes up” Yeah! And shove a spare skeleton spear through sknechte’s chest, it’ll prove his deadedness!

A smaller 4th voice “we where asked to do the dishes, she said she’d like us t…..”

In Chorus “SHUT UP 4! No one asked you now bog off and get the glue!!”

Satisfied 4 is now in his place, Voices 1-3 put their snippers back to the skeleton sprue.

Being that most minis are now hard plastics, conversions have never been easier. Just taking harmoniously scaled bits and pieces , from disparate sprues, and applying poly liquid glue can do some marvellous work. Some gap filling coming along for free of course. This is so when you chemically bond these plastics, with said liquid glue. It makes the plastic go all gooey in a good way.  It blends the pieces together somewhat.

So having made a plan from observing the two sprues that I wish to meld together. It’s time to gather my tools. Most important is the thin, flat sided snippers or clippers. The bevel cutting edge being on one side only and the reverse side being totally flat allows you to cut away portions of a model with great control. The rule is always cut away less than 50% of the waste side from the wanted piece. This ensures the wanted piece is supported by more plastic than the unwanted piece. Preventing it from buckling or sheering off from the force of the cutters. Sneaking up on the final cuts, with your flat side towards the keeper piece of the model, is definitely sanctioned by the Bene-Gesserit for optimum results.

Handy to have is a pin vice drill, OR BETTER YET! A powered micro drill (time to rub your upper thighs vigorously. Ohhhhh there is NOTHING, more medical proven, to safely raise one’s testosterone, than placing your hands on your tools.)

Jason’s ‘Argonaut top tip 👍’, is to drill little holes in the Landsknechts limbs where you intend for skeleton limbs to protrude. You can then cut  the Skeleton limbs 1 or 2mm longer than needed and liquid poly glue the heck out of the hole before inserting the stolen skellies bobs. Super strong joints is then achieved!

You’re also not waiting, FOR ALLLL ETERNITY,  to fiddle a tiny bone into position waiting for the glue to go off. Your drilled socket allows positive location of the small component and the friction fit means you’re able to move on before the tempestuous launching of miniatures at walls.

🤕many of the men have become casualties under similar conditions. It’s safer for everyone to keep things running smoothly.

Another use for the drill is to hollow out hats to fit over Bobbies head. Sometimes the head needs a little trimming here and there (flat side of snips to the wanted part 🫵, yes I’m talking to you!).

A hobbyist can also use the edge of the drill

To do some simple scoop carving, take care here though! No real pressure is needed. If you do,it can jump up and bite. Drills bite very thoroughly. Or snap and bite! ‘Anglo Saxon dictionary with plasters on standby🫡 SHIELDS TO MAXIMUM!.’

A better bet is to hold your component with a pair of pliers. Any ‘missed opportunities’ then leave their stamp on the pliers. Blood grass and mud stains on a sofa get you funny looks and many a raised eyebrow.

Finally, drilling holes through torsos, armour and heads can really convey some narrative to a piece. Especially if you don’t clean up the exit wound of the drill and insert a weapon to show how something died. Great fun to be had in Sadists imaginarium.

Finally you can add little flourishes by damaging the armour and clothes with drill tip, knife and snips to appropriately age or weather the undead fella.

If you’re particularly skilled (read: show off git, whose parentage I shall question quite readily) you can sculpt some details with green stuff and putty. Tatters to clothing, broken straps to armour, additional strapping etc etc.

After a little practice, the world is your mollusc. Plenty of interesting units can be had using the skeleton components along with Warlords ranges online. The Perry knights make a great basis for characterful dead gents. The landsknechts, in any form, are better for skulls and dead man’s hands. Medieval plastics blend beautifully with the mark of death.

If you want to tackle metals then i would employ the same techniques but with more care and patience. Metals require a bit more  delicacy and time, but turn up nice results. The habit which has taken me is to just do head/hands or feet on metals and the more flamboyant conversions on plastics. Just quicker that way.

I’m just lazy I guess.

Singing:

“190 skellies on a sprue, 190 SKELLLLIEEES, you take one out,

Snip it about,

189 Skellies to do!!”

I love those skeletons. It would take a team of ex soviet scientists a full day of unsanctioned methods to figure out the true depths of why that is. It’s the harryhausen feels. It’s the excellent design of the sprue to give so many options from such simple components. But most of all it’s the hard historical grounding given to these fantasy creatures.

I like my fantasy to feel REAL. Sure you make your chosen abstraction, magic, breath fire, looks like a Rottweiler…..in this case they’re dead. As dead as dead Tom. But that’s it, end of rule breaking. No more. Then you take the idea for a walk to do as much as you can to make it work. Proper proportions, these skeletons feel like they would fit inside a landsknechts meat-suit. The weapons are good historical representations and the transfers on the shields are a joy. This allows me to immerse myself in the world. Lord of the rings is excellent precisely because it draws from a rich seem of historic truths and literary traditions to make it feel REAL. Even though the details are entirely made up, like Uruk hai armour. It would work if it existed, the orcs are not steroid hulks, they just look like strong men. Real. These WOE skeletons are from the same breed of thought and superb because of it.

I’ve bought many sprues from warlord and adapted them to my fantastical desires but none have been so adaptable as the warlords of Erehwon skeletons.  I have managed to make this whole army from 1.6 boxes of the Children of the hydras teeth set (with tons of spares!) I’ve got 1.4 sets left to make up and I can’t wait.

Right off the sprue, I can make 4 combos of spearmen with shields for 4 slightly different feeling regiments. Same for the swordsman’s and there are arms for bowman. Fabulous Darling!

But wait,  there’s more dribbling to be done…. they fit other sprues perfectly for conversions, because they are proportioned correctly for 28mm historics. I can take the spare pieces from my landsknecht missile troops and rob them of the quarrel pouch and crossbows to make a skeleton crossbow regiment. I can even combine them with older medieval historic crossbowmen to make a real flavourful regiment. The great joy for me was the pikes however, the skeleton sprue is made from a type of polymer that allows them to be bent quite freely without breaking easily. I don’t need to heat them up or use solvent glued to melt them. Just get my hairy paw and bend it. This has allowed me to pose them pleasingly to be in a proper pike formation, and I can give them Greek helmets from the spares from warlords Greek sets! The pikes do need weighing down a bit as they can be top heavy with brass rod pikes. But again the sprue comes up top trumps, hollowed out square bases are included that fit a five pence piece perfectly on the underside. Queeny’s dearly departed visage not obscured of course! (Cue salute 🫡)

When it came to painting them it was so crisply full of detail, that a fantastic effect can be had with washes and dry brushing. So quick to do and the shield transfers take subsequent stains and washes very well without shifting, so they can be weathered very nicely. I found an aged bronze effect most pleasing using army painters stuff.

I’m currently working on some foot knights that are undead, using spare components from these skeleton sprues. And a siege cannon crew. And some chariot crews. I may even do some Bat riders with skellies stood up on their backs like Celtic wild riders. But that could be a little high fantasy for me.

I would love to get some conversion kits. Perhaps other weapon options such as halberds, Sweihander swords, different shields maybe the odd armour piece or variant helmets to fit to skulls. Or skulls with morion helmets or landsknecht hats, pistols, arquebus etc. just to speed up conversions.

But most of all, I would dearly love a couple horses so I could convert some cavalry or baggage carts. Maybe? Uncle Warlord?? Just some teeny tiny metal conversion kits🤞

Not asking for the pike and shotte Generals Coach to have a conversion kit of skeleton screaming rider with raised wip and a mysterious fanged fellow stroking the cheek of a poor, helpless, scared, bound and gagged victim on the inner seats of the cab as a conversion kit!? No indeedy.

Buuuut……horses. I think the riders can be easily made out of the Erehwon sprue as the plastic bends so beautifully. So who does decent skeleton horses?