Longmyre Militia Based

 Hi!

I'd mentioned a while back that I'd ordered some static grass tufts for my Longmyre project and they've arrived so I had a bash at finishing the basing of my Longmyre Militia which I'd painted recently.

Longmyre Militia

After a bit of perusing on the interwebs I found Phoenix Game Studio on Ebay who offered some nice multi length tufts in different colours so I gave them a bash, getting three different colours.

All the Grass Tufts!

I must admit that I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, some of the tufts may be a wee bit on the long side but it does match the wild moorland that Longmyre sits upon and the different colours and lengths of tuft make for an interesting final result that doesn't look too uniform.

Longmyre Militia vs Orcish Raiders

Compared to the patchier and more uniform colour of the Orcish raider bases that I'd done last, I think this looks quite a bit better and I'd recommend Phoenix Game Studio in future.

Here's a quick pic of some of the Roman earthworks at Ardnoch in Perthshire to give an idea of the kind of terrain the Longmyre denizens will be tramping over:

Roman Fort at Ardnoch

Lots of scrubby grass, gorse and pine makes for a far more interesting surface than the perfect green mowed lawn style of classic Warhammer (although I do have a real fondness for such a setup!) 

Longmyre moors

While Longmyre itself is a mixture of moorlands and woods, there are several other locations that I want to develop the scenery for including the Barrens, a rocky wilderness to the south and the Moss, an area of gnarled temperate rainforest that lies to the west of the Longmyre region. Hopefully I'll get more chance to flesh out these areas and keep adding characters to them as well as scenario ideas and whatnot as worldbuilding is rather a lot of fun.

The Barrens

At present, I have a rough map but want to make a proper medieval style one, possibly subdivided into different regions as if drawn by different people or indeed cultures but that is an art project for another day!

The Greenwood

I've been slowly working on a separate blog for Longmyre with the intention of porting over all my bits and bobs for background and a guide which will eventually form the basis of a campaign with various factions, scenarios, settings and whatnot but its a long term sort of thing which is definitely not ready to share yet as its a bit of a mess.

The Moss

Once I've got it ready, I'll post a link up here on the blog and see how I get on but for the meantime, I'm cracking on painting miniatures as its been very satisfying!

All the best!

Longmyre Reinforcements and Dark Age Obsession

Hi!

I've managed to get my unit of Longmyre militia painted up and based so thought I'd post them up here with some ponderings on one of my other interests, namely the Dark Ages.

Before I head off on a tangent, here's my Longmyre Militiamen:

Longmyre Militia

Constructed from Frostgrave Soldiers, they're pleasingly characterful and suitably grubby for a small, poor and unimportant Duchy sitting on the frontier of the civilised world.

I had been thinking of bulking up their numbers to do a Dragon Rampant style army of them but feel that 28mm is currently better suited to smaller skirmish games so they'll be seeing action in games of Brutal Quest, Song of Blades and Heroes and the likes. I've sent off for some grass tufts as I wasn't 100% happy with the bases of my Orcs so there's still a little work to do to finish them off but we'll see how they look once their bases are complete.

Longmyre Militia clashing with Orcs on the Frontier.

With that out of the way, I thought I'd have a bit of a look at another project I'd started a couple of years ago and then promptly forgotten about, the mythical Dark Ages!

Dark Age Adventurers

Looking back at this stalled project, I had an absolute obsession, collecting books, sourcing miniatures and all sorts of other madness which saw me paint a couple of small bands and then real life got in the way and I immediately forgot about the project.

Now here I am, four years later and thinking about getting it back up and running but this led me to think about how I want to do it and realised I wasn't sure exactly what I was wanting to do with it. I've never been one who can stick to any sort of historical accuracy in wargaming, preferring fantasy and science fiction over historicals but I do find myself drawn to this fascinating period of history which saw the foundation of what would become England.

On the one hand, I'd love to have small skirmishes with bold warriors braving the wilds to face wild beasts from another age, marauding Norsemen or even the odd Fae incursion but at the same time the prospect of mass battles between warring kingdoms or trying to drive off raids from the Vikings also has real appeal!

But what to do! I don't have the amount of time, space, budget or frankly focus to paint up large armies of 28mm figures so a compromise may be required, namely scale. I do think I'll keep painting small 28mm scale warbands of up to maybe 10-12 figures but I want to make use of Lion Rampant to represent larger scale conflicts between raiders, norse and all manner of other stuff and my recent acquisition and painting of some 10mm Risk figures has got me thinking that maybe I can make some larger warbands in 10-15mm scale.

There are quite a few companies out there who produce lovely stuff in smaller scales and I love the appearance of larger numbers of figures (which happen to be cheaper and take up much less space and less time to paint!) on the battlefield.

I'm not going to go mad and buy a ton of stuff but I do think I'm going to dip my toe and pick up a pack or two of figures to see how I get on as I reckon I can make a Lion Rampant army for £25ish quid in 10mm scale which isn't too pricy and would allow me to build several different armies cheaply.

I've still got a bunch of plastic 28mm scale figures to paint up for skirmishes or incorporate into my Longmyre project but we'll see what I can come up with in the coming months!

In the meantime, All the best!

Orc Reinforcements

 Hi!

Well we're rapidly approaching the end of February and I've got the second batch of Orcs finished and begun work on the third and as it's a lovely morning, I've managed to get some decent photos of them!

Orc Archer, Gladiator, Beermaster, Spearman

I've almost finished the low level stuff with a single archer to paint and have begun work on some of the character and boss type figures from the set.

The Warband thus far

The figures have been really nice to paint and I've actually surprised myself by not losing interest in the project but just keep chipping away at it and it's been really rewarding to see a decent sized Orc warband start to form. 

Beer Master

The character and boss type models are rather fun and I did have some interesting ideas for how I'm going to represent the Beer Master in games.

Beer Masters Barrel of Bugmans

Using a mixture of speedpaints to block in colours before highlighting and shading has sped up the process somewhat and brought the best out of the models themselves and hopefully I've managed to avoid leaving any mould lines on the figures as they're a real pain to clear off the soft plastic but despite this, they do paint up pretty well, if I do say so myself!

Speaking of which, my favourite figure thus far is the big mutated chaps, of which you get two in the set:

Gorath's Chosen

I've not quite finished his base yet but he's an intimidating figure and I spent quite a bit of time painting him but figured he's worth the extra effort.

Many washes were done on his skin and armour followed by a wee bit highlighting to give the impression of rusted and battered armour over his uncouth hide.

As you can see, he's a chunky guy who towers over the already large Orc infantry figures and will make for a fantastic boss type of character to really challenge opposing warbands.

Longmyre Militia about to have a very bad day.

Once I've got the big guy's base done, I'm moving onto an Orc Butcher figure who also has loads of character but think once he's done, I may take a break to paint something else as that will mark 50% of the box being complete and I want to try something else, possibly reinforcing the Longmyre militia with some extra troops as they're decidedly outnumbered at the moment.

I also want to start work on some characters, adventuring parties and whatnot so I can actually get the campaign up and running so we'll see how we get on in the coming weeks but until then, All the best!

Longmyre Holiday Sketchathon!

 Hi!

I'm off on my hols and have taken a small sketchbook with me to doodle out some ideas for my Longmyre campaign.

Now while adventurers do all the glamorous stuff like exploring dungeons and saving the day, the bog standard security for the region is being performed by the lowly Longmyre Militia commanded by Captain Stone Ward, a curmudgeonly old fart who drinks too much but can be relied on in a scrap.

I've based their appearance on the Frostgrave figures that I painted last year:

I'm planning on reworking them a bit to do NMM as I was never that happy with the metallics and their bases will be getting redone to match the style of the Orcs who they will be fighting. 

Before we headed down south, I did manage a quick game of Song of Blades and Heroes for a bit of a retro experience and it was pretty good fun and I may use it again in the future for simple skirmishes (with a few modifications to make combat more decisive!). The game saw the militia facing an equal number of Orcs but taking a pasting as my leader, Captain Ward failed to activate at a critical moment and got shot for his indecision which saw the rest of his company turn tail and flee.

The Barrens

Ward is made of sterner stuff though and still managed to drag himself off the battlefield and is recuperating in Longmyre but his militia have proved not up to the task of dealing with the Orcs who have ventured south from the snow covered endless plains that forms the northern border to Longmyre.

I've been mirroring events from the real world for the setting too as we had a storm earlier in January which has then wreaked havoc in Longmyre and unexpected visitors, travelling and a trade war are also going on in the game which has proved to be a rather fun way of developing the setting in an organic fashion.

The Caravan Route

Once I get back from my hols, I'm hoping to get some adventurers painted up to represent the Farpoint company as well as working on getting more of the Orcs painted and ready but the fact that everything seems to be combining together rather nicely has kept me very much more engaged than I was expecting and I'm compiling a bit of a journal to represent notable events that take place in Longmyre as the year goes on!

Hopefully I'll get more doodles done over my holidays and be able to showcase some actual games too but in the meantime, All the best!

Longmyre Progress

 Hi!

I've got the day off work and have managed to get the pics taken of my Orcish raiders that I'd picked up a couple of weeks back.

The miniatures themselves are chunky plastics made from a Restic type material which does take detail quite nicely with the only downside being that the mould lines are a wee bit difficult to clean off as they need carving rather than filing.

Style wise, they're maybe a bit more realistic than the older GW style cartoony Orcs but they will do the job for a low fantasy setting like Longmyre!

The Orc Gladiator is quite a nice piece and the set comes with two identical sculpts so I'll have another one to add a second higher level fighter to encounters.

The spearmen are nice figures and the first I painted of the miniatures in the set. There's enough detail to make for an interesting and satisfying figure to paint without it getting overwhelming. I believe the figures are digitally sculpted and it does showcase the issues with the medium as the spearmen's faces are a bit soft in detail and I feel it's the case of what looks good onscreen doesn't always work too well in physical form, especially with plastic casts.

Saying that, they're still nice additions to the bestiary that will give me some goons for my heroes to do battle with.

The archer is possibly the most intimidating of the figures of the group which is interesting as he seems more physically imposing than the spearmen or gladiator. Again the face has a bit of soft detail around the mouth that gave me pause on what was supposed to be what. With that said, he does look great once painted!

I've played a couple of skirmishes using Brutal Quest with them against some mercenaries and while they've lost both times, I've come to fear the archer as the amount of damage he does when he hits is absolutely brutal (no pun intended!) so think that I'll be limiting how many I'll be featuring in most skirmishes so they don't unbalance encounters.

In other news, I've sent a bunch of games that I've got the PDF of to get printed and bound with the idea of playing some more small simple skirmishes and re-exploring some of the games I played years ago but have fallen by the wayside over the years and plan on posting a wee review of each once they arrive.

Longmyre Frontier Watchtower

The setting of Longmyre continues to grow and I'm looking forward to delving into the project as the months progress and I'm now needing to paint a few hero types to do battle with the marauding Orcs I've painted!

Fingers crossed, I'll get another few Orcs painted over the coming week but in the meantime, All the best!

Brutal Questing Five Leagues

 Hi!

I've got the first four Orcs from the box I picked up earlier this month nearly finished but I've been perusing my copy of Five Leagues from the Borderlands with the vague idea of using it as the basis of my Brutal Quest campaign.

I do love the campaign system that the game has and the rules for games themselves are pretty nice and simple but fun but the only snag I've found is that I'd need to get a chonk more miniatures painted than I'm able to so I plan on smooshing the two rulesets together to allow me to do something a bit more modest.

I've used the system to create my adventuring area and am working on populating it with some interesting denizens, locations and whatnot over the next few weeks.

Longmyre

At present its looking like the town of Longmyre is being menaced by Beastkin and Bandits as the enemy within and Orcish raiders as the enemy without and its going to be up to my heroes to do some investigating and fight the assorted villains to secure the region.

Lady Cynthia

Our patron is Cynthia, the ruler of the small and rather inconsequential fiefdom that consists of winding rivers and cold lakes, wild moors and not much else so the sudden outbreak of disorder and unrest seems to have sinister undertones, possibly fuelled by the nearby kingdoms of Arcadia and Dulac whose constant feuding seems to be spreading to the otherwise peaceful Longmyre.

Already several farmsteads in the Barrens to the south have been torched by bands of roving bandits and now Orcish raiders have been sighted to the north from their usual stomping grounds in the Near Endless Plains.

Longmyre Moors

I've tied this all into a mini RPG I've been pottering around with too as Cynthia has her hands full dealing with a corrupt mayor who seems to be working with the underworld and her house troops are thinly stretched patrolling the wilderness so she's decided to hire us to try and discover what is behind the unrest and hopefully deal with it.

Its a bit of a ramshackle affair but the project is already seeing me playing games, creating background and even painting miniatures and generally enjoying myself so fingers crossed, I'll be kept busy throughout the year pulling together some suitable miniatures and then playing out an ongoing hybrid of RPG and Miniatures game coupled with ongoing worldbuilding and whatnot.

While I'd love to go for all physical miniatures from the get go, I do think that I may have to incorporate some paper standees to get me going as my painting is very slow and I suspect that its going to take at least a couple of months to get enough stuff painted, even for a small project so we shall see what I can do in the meantime to actually get some games played.

Hopefully I'll get the fourth Orc finished tomorrow and have them all based up for my next day off and will keep updating as I go but in the meantime, All the best!