A New Year is an opportunity to move forward. But I think it’s also important to look back at what you’ve achieved in the last one.
I’ve only just recently returned to the hobby. These are my tentative first steps. I managed to work on a few different projects from around September to December 2019.
I’m still trying to find my feet with the building and painting. I’ve noticed that, as a kid, I didn’t really have any fear of just splashing paint on and experimenting. Getting back to the painting desk all these years later, I’ve probably been guilty of being over cautious. That’s something I need to work on in the New Year for sure.
Anyway, I’ve been focused on building forces for 2 games I’ve gotten really into since my return – Open Combat, and Kings of War.
Both these games are in the medieval/fantasy genre, so I can pretty much use my minis in both of them too. I’d just need to stick the round base guys on square movement trays in KoW, and come up with some “counts as” stats for them.
I’m not interested in tournament or “serious” play, so I decided simply to use the KoW system to start building 2 generic armies, a “good guys” and a “bad guys”. As much as I love the KoW rules, as well as the general ethos of creators Mantic, I never really bought into their lore. I prefer to mix in my own worldbuilding endeavours with elements of the Warhammer Old World I grew up with.
Anyway, here’s the bits and pieces I’ve put together so far.
This warband of rabbits and hares are by Oathsworn Miniatures, created primarily for their game Burrows & Badgers.
This village militia are mainly made up of Midlam Miniatures, but their leader (I’ve named him Raving Rufus) is an old Citadel Miniatures Empire Flagellant.
This little warband are from Knightmare Miniatures‘ Pantheon of Chaos range. I love the aesthetic of their minis, very oldhammer-esque. I bought a good deal more but have had a lot of false starts with the paint jobs.
My greenskin ankle biters warband are predominantly Citadel snotlings from many moons ago. The standard bearer is from the Knightmare Miniatures‘ Green Skin Wars range. The little guy charming the snake came as a freebie with an order and I can’t for the life of me remember where!
The early core of my “bad guys” army. Lots of old Warhammer stuff here, Chaos Warriors, Plaguebearers, Chaos Spawn, a Champion of Nurgle, and a Beast of Nurgle. Using my greenskins here too. Note the square movement tray I built to house them in games of KoW.
For my “good guys” I bought a few boxes from Perry Miniatures. Lots of medieval French/English soldiers, ranging from mounted knights to men-at-arms and archers.
As you’ll see from the pics, I managed to get my hands on some incredible terrain too. This stuff adds a whole extra dimension to the gaming experience, and is a million miles better than anything I could hope to make myself.
And yes, my miniature painting is very much in the “rookie” stages. Most of the stuff I see posted online looks world class. It’s amazing what some folks can do with a paintbrush, but I figure they didn’t get that way overnight. 2020 is a new year and an opportunity to put more time and effort into learning, improving, and getting stuff done 🙂
Happy New Year everyone!