Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age ...Part IV: Louis' Tale

***Editorial Note*** this narrative story was originally posted in sections along with a detailed battle report.  As the length of those reports got to be a bit excessive I opted to remove the narrative bitz and lump them into a separate post here along with some of the images.

The battle report sections can be found here:  Part I Part II Part III

Louis' Tale

The dust caked Louis' throat as the marched.  The feet of the men and horses in front of him stirred the dry dust from the road surface, and the rest of the column quickly became coated with the fine powder.

...And still they marched.

The Marquis had gotten himself, and the Grand Armee, into a spot of trouble, somewhere off to the east.  And now Louis and his comrades were tasked with bailing him out of his mess.

Rumors had trickled back through the villages about the viciousness of the fighting, along with a trickle of wounded and broken men. Occasionally a dispatch rider returned to the garrison with official news and orders from the Marquis himself... 

It was just such a rider that brought the order that had set Louis' unit in motion along with the other companies of men from the Garrison of Rhenes.  He and the other tired, dusty, men had been in motion, seemingly non-stop, for the past three days.  They marched from sun up till nearly dark passing through tiny villages, rich pasture land and rolling hills.  Their halberds and shields growing heavier with every step.  Ahead, to the east, there was war, but here the late autumn sun shown on fields ripe for harvest.

As it grew dark each day le Sergent had found them a field or copse to collapse in.  No fires were lit.  Hard bread and a hunk of cheese were the only sustenance they had, though Louis had managed to procure a mug full of the fortified wine that one of Toby's boys carried in barrel on his back.  Both food and beverage were wolfed down quickly before Louis fell into exhausted sleep, the aching of his blistered feet temporarily eased by the potent wine.

The next morning found them on the road again.  They were approaching yet another small village, really just a cluster of a few buildings and their associated fields.  Louis and his fellow halberdmen were in the middle of the column with a small cavalry unit and a unit of archers with their deadly bows to their front.  Behind were the unit of spearmen, the Rouge Cerf (Red Deer or Bleeding Harts) and finally Toby's lads with their hunting bows and potent wine.

Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age ...Part III: Game over!

**Editorial Note** Since its initial posting, I have modified a few things and added some details to this post. I also moved the Narrative section to a separate post all together, combining it with the other narrative section from the preliminary post.  The new Narrative section can be found HERE

Hi all,

I'm back with the third and final part of my Battle Report covering my first game of, and initial thoughts on, Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age.  While I've yet to finish my story and the report...I think that the very fact that this single game has inspired me to write such a lengthy and detailed battle report...as well as an associated Narrative...should give you some idea of what of how much I like this new rules system.

Anyway, more on that later.  Lets catch up the story with our battle report. 

The first and second installments of this report can be found here: Oathmark Post I and Oathmark Post II.

Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age ...Part II: Game on!

***Associated Narrative Post HERE ***

Hi all!

After the big build up of the last post lets jump right into the game and see how it plays out.  Just a reminder that this is a follow on to the previous post which laid out the background and army selection for this game.  In these posts I am presenting my initial experience and thoughts about Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age.  The intro post can be found HERE.

Turn One

Right away I knew it was going to be and interesting night when I rolled for the very first initiative roll and wound up with this insane tie....

Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age ...Preliminaries

**Editorial Note** Since its initial posting, I have modified a few things and added some scenario details to this post. I also moved the Narrative section to a separate post all together, combining it with the other narrative sections.  That can be found HERE

Preamble

I've got a little something different for you all today...rather than the latest figures I've painted I'm going to share with you my recent exploration of the new set of a Fantasy Mass Combat rules, Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age.

This new set of rules is put out by Osprey Games and written by Joseph McCullough (creator of Frostgrave).  While I am a die hard WFB 3rd edition fan, I do have interest in a set of mass combat rules that are more simplified and fast moving.  I've dabbled with Dragon Rampant, and Donnybrook but was not over joyed with either and they both had more the feel of a large skirmish game rather than a small unit battle.  Oathmark is the first new set of rules that I've tried that I think will "feel" more like what I'm looking for.

BOYL 2019....I finally made it! (Pic Heavy)

(Note: this is in no way a comprehensive description of the events going on at Foundry and Warhammer World over the weekend...If I failed to mention you or your wonderful game I apologize...no slight intended...you know I love you all!!! :) )

Well...Its a festivus Miracle!!  I've finally found a way to attend a Bring Out Your Lead (BOYL) event!!  BOYL was the first and is largest of the purely Oldhammer events that happens every year.  It was first held in 2012....and every year since then I have been dissapointed to NOT be able to attend.

...But that all changed this year!  Due to some unexpected life changes in the Blue household the opportunity presented it self and I jumped at the option to attend.  This decision was made rather last minute (2 weeks before the event) but I was able to get a reasonably priced ticket and impose upon my friends Airborne Grove and Bulldog Lopez for transportation and a place to crash.

My BOYL experience actually started at Warhammer World were I joined a number of other Oldhammer compatriots for fantastic Rogue trader Realms of Chaos Warband Rumble...hosted by Colin.

The Last of Averland

Hi all,

I've been in finishing mode for the last few days...trying to clear my table for a larger challenge on the near horizon.

One of the things that has been lingering on my painting desk for wwwaaayyy too long is the very last few figures of a commission that I've been "working" on for a very patient member of the LAF.  These are the last three figures for a largish warband of puff and slash figures that I have painted in the traditional colors of Averland...Black and Yellow.  The rest of the Warband can be seen HERE.

I've got the "not at BoYL" blues! ...Let's build units! Part II

Ok... So the gobos weren't quite enough...

...after them I dug into my wood elf box.  As some of you know I was asking for assistance in picking a leader for one my units of wood elf spearmen on Facebook the other day.  Long story short....I've settled on the guy holding the giant sword for a leader...so let's look at that unit first.

Glam: My Oldhammer Day Golden Gobo Entry

Hello,

Time for a proper painting thread....it sure has been awhile!

As we are all now aware, the end of August saw the first of what I hope is many Oldhammer events...though this one will be hard to beat.  The Bring Out Your Lead event was held at the Foundry facility in Nottingham England...it featured all manner of Old School goodness....great games...displays of many epic figures and armies....discussions with some of the artists and games designers that made the games we all love so much unique... in short it sounded like a fabulous time.

Sadly it was in the UK...

....and I am not...sigh.

So in a desperate effort to participate on some level I painted up a figure and shipped it off to jolly old England so that it could compete in the Golden Gobo contest at the event in my stead.  Thankfully Thantsants was kind enough to act as caretaker and transporter of my figure to and from the event.  I received the figure back from his trip to the olde world a couple of weeks ago but have only now had the time to take quality pictures.

I chose to paint the, to my mind, iconic wood elf wardancer Glam who was sold as the Champion to the ubiquitous Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers RoR.  As you know my heart lies with the dwarfy species of the Warhammer world...both Chaos and otherwise.  So the choice of a Wood Elf for this contest was a bit of a stretch for me...in fact I don't know that I had EVER painted an elf before this one...but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed painting this figure and can't wait for the excuse to paint a few more like him.  Jess Goodwin's talents as a sculptor are very well represented in this figure and have really captured my imagination.

...anyway...here is the final product.  Below you will find a discussion of how he got to this point.

Alright...lets step back to the beginning.  Here we have Glam in nothing more than his Dark Gray primer and with a base color of VMC Chocolate Brown (872) applied to areas that would end up being gold, wood or leather.

Here he is with most of the base colors in place.  For the skin I base coated with the old GW Foundation Paint Tallarn Flesh with a bit of brown mixed in.  The hair is Vallejo Panzer Aces Light Rust (301). Glam's Pants are another military color...VMC German Fieldgrey (830).

I highlighted the pants by adding Citadel Foundation Dheneb Stone to the Fieldgrey...I highlighted it up pretty far......too far in fact...

Glam was wearing a pair of faded out Dockers...sigh...(luckily I didn't take a picture of this travesty) So... in a bid to save this situation I quickly gave the pants a coat of heavily watered down Reaper Green Ink mixed with Delvan Mud.  This seemed to even the pants out a little and brought some green back into the cloth.  Crisis averted! 

I find that the Reaper inks are quite glossy as you can see in places where it pooled like at his ankle cuff.  While this annoys me, and looks weird, I try to remember that the matte varnish at the end will even all that out.

Highlighting of the flesh continues by adding Dheneb Stone to the base coat color

And more Deneb Stone is added to the flesh.  The hair was highlighted by adding a rich yellow to the Light Rust base color...I would tell you what that yellow was called...but it was months ago and I don't remember...:)

 

Next I got some base colors on the metal portions (Bolt Gun Metal, ancient Armory Gold Paint) and finally added some off white to his teeth and eye balls... that helped him seem a bit more life like. I also started to pick out some of the finer detail like the fletchings on the arrows and the scabbard for his dagger. 

Note here that I painted the Oval decorations on his "belt" and wrist guards black.  I had originally thought to paint them metal but at this point I decided that they should look like gems...so I went with the black base color.

From that black base coat I highlighted the gems up through grey colors to bright white...remembering that that the shading of a gem is backwards from normal shading....the light actually collects at the bottom of gems instead of on the the top. 

(In hindsight I probably should have gone a little heavier with this highlighting to make the gems a bit brighter but I'm still happy with the result.)

....at this point you're saying  "Hey Blue....why are your gems grey scale?!?!"

...good question.

....this is where the Tamiya Clear Red (X-27) comes in....this is a neat product that is available in a  number of different colors and is great for getting realistic and quick gem effects with little effort.

A fairly heavy "drop" of this was applied to each of the "gems" making sure to cover the entire surface  Since this paint is clear, the greyscale shading shows through the glossy red coating and and provides for realistic gems with minimal hassle. 

Please keep in mind that this is a solvent based paint...this is not your friendly acrylic paint.  Use a throw away brush (I know you have some kicking around too...from the looks of my painting desk I think I have every brush I've ever owned since I starting painting in the 80's!)  Also...Don't try to clean your brush in your regular water mug....you'll just get your mug all gummy.  And for God's sake keep that paint brush out of your mouth! :)

After the gems all I did was add the pupils to his eyes...highlight and wash the Gold and Silver portions.... matte varnish everything (except the gems!) and then applied my normal basing technique.

There is one part of this model that seems "not finished" ...and I would like to have your thoughts on ...I need ideas on some sort of decoration for the scabbard of his dagger...right now its just yellow...and flat....and begging for some sort of freehand... 

I suck at freehand...particularly on something this small!

...I tried a few things and they just came out looking sloppy... but I'm willing to try again!

If anyone can suggest some examples of simple, elfish, looking designs (line art?) that might be appropriate here I would love to hear about them.

All in all its was great fun to paint this guy up and to have him represent me at the Oldhammer Day...I certainly look forward to painting up some more Goodwin Elves in the future...(those Mounted Personality figures are high on the list!)

Thanks for watching!

Cheers,

Blue