The Four / Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Reaper Miniatures as used in SAGA Age of Magic.

 These are the Four  Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Reaper miniatures, which are actually five figures as I added in the Reaper Harbinger figure.

 

Above Reaper: 1) Plague, 2) Harbinger, 3) Pestilence, 4) Famine and 5) War

I have recently used these figures when I was playing SAGA Age of Magic (AoM) with the special Undead options for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In SAGA AoM the four horsemen are: Death, Conquest, Famine and War.   As you can see the Reaper designations shown above and SAGA AoM designations don't match exactly. Nor do they match to the Biblical descriptions (see later on).

 I picked riders number 2,3,4 and 5 pictured above to use as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as designated by SAGA AoM: Death, Conquest, Famine and War.  I use figure number 1 on at the far left on the wolf as an alternate SAGA AoM Four Horsemen figure as: Conquest or War. 

 

Bolt Action September 18, 2020

Catching up on posting some games from the past few years.  This was the first Bolt Action game I had played for some time and the first time back at the games Club since the COVID-19 pandemic lock-down began on March 13, 2020.  This game took place on Friday September 18, 2020.

My German Paratroops (1940 Uniform)

My outnumbered elite German paratroopers facing  hoards off lesser quality Soviet troops.  A classic quantity versus  quality game.  

SAGA Age of Magic: Iroquois versus Undead August 23

 SAGA Age of Magic Game: Iroquois Warband Versus the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

 After a long enforced break from gaming due to the Covid-19 social distancing rules I got my first game in since early March 2020, on August 23rd.   It was a two player  SAGA AoM game with my Undead Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse warband fighting a friend's Iroquois warband.   With the long lay-off from using the rules we were a bit rusty so it was slow going at first and we made a few mistakes. Nonetheless it was good to get back to playing SAGA and to put some of the figures we has been painting on the game table.   

Fighting toward the end of the battle

 

Warlords of Erehwon

Another new Fantasy rule set I purchased, the Warlords of Erehwon by Rick Priestley.  It is for "warband" size games of 5 to 12 units (5 to 10 figures each on average) or between 500 and 2000 points, which would translate to around 30 to 100 figures so smaller games than mass battle fantasy.

It looks very promising, and I have always enjoyed Rick Priestley's rules including: Black Powder, Hail Caesar, Warmaster, Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) 3rd and 6th editions.  Warlords of Erehwon are well supported by Warlord games, the author and a Facebook group. Unlike certain other games is it not structured around army lists based on figures exclusively made by the publisher.  Plus the army lists are included with the rules, so no army books to buy.  Rick is adding new warband lists for online download plus the information is provided for players to create their own lists, for example the author sent me a guide on how to create a Dark Elf list (IMHO they should have been in the rules originally).  In addition to the rules and figures you will need d10, pin markers with numbers and Warlord Order dice as the rules do not use the traditional IGOUGO turn sequence.  The point system looks similar to WFB 3rd and 6th Edition so I can see these rules working with the Mighty Empires WFB campaign rules.

Here is a summary of the rules from the Warlord of Erehown rules from the  publisher.

God of Battles

I bought of copy of  God of Battles by Jake Thornton (published 2012) from Wargames Foundry some time ago.  It is a rule set for using 28mm figures in "mass battles" involving between 50 to 200 figures per side which encompasses war-band size battles and small mass combat battles.  I have been recently looking it over an it seems to offer some real promise.  In particular the turn sequence of alternating between players units rather than having one side move and fight all its units then the other (traditional I Go You Go). This seems to be a trend that is catching on as I believe a recently released mass combat fantasy rule set called Oathmark also uses this turn sequence.  Units in God of Battles fight as units not individual figures (avoiding buckets of dice)  but casualties are recorded by removing individual figures. The Army lists for God of Battles do not entirely fit my figure collection as it is based on Foundry 28mm fantasy figures rather than Warhammer Fantasy Battle Citadel miniatures which make up most my collection is (plus some Reaper, Grenadier and other miniature manufacturers). However the rules are designed to be flexible and allow the use of miniatures by any company.   There is a work around solutions for the lack of a Dark Elf Army list as those figures work for other lists in God of Battles.  In particular the intriguing new army lists such as the Sea Elves and the Godless Hordes.  There are also no extra army codex books or special dice to buy!

I still plan to keep playing SAGA Age of Magic while using  God of Battles for larger mass battles.  I am also waiting the release of Shadow Storm (Hail Caesar Fantasy) another mass fantasy battle rule set.

The designer's notes for God of Battles can be found here:

https://quirkworthy.com/2013/01/25/god-of-battles-designers-notes-which-armies-to-include/

Unknown Citadel or Marauder Elves - Oldhammer

Three Citadel or Marauder Elf figures

The centre figure looks to be a Citadel C09 female Dark Elf Mace Girl sculpted by Bob Naismith  for Warhammer 3rd Edition from around 1986-1988.  The other two female figures look to be of a later  vintage, possibly made by another company like Marauder (an off-shoot of Citadel) and not  Dark Elves?

Kings of War Campaign

  Update April 22, 2020 Fantasy Map Campaign Idea- Online

March 30, 2020: Since we can't get together due to the physical isolation required by the Covid-19 virus outbreak.It seems like a good time to resurrect my idea from February 27, 2017 for a Kings of War (KoW) campaign but now as an online Fantasy campaign using either: KoW, Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB)  Mighty Empires,  SAGA Age of Magic (AoM) or Hordes of the Things (HOTT) rule systems.

All of four of the rules systems above have campaign systems for their fantasy worlds, but some work would be needed to make them work for an online campaign.  There are PDFs for the WFB Mighty Empires and KoW campaign rules available online but for SAGA AoM and HOTT the campaign rules are in the actual hard copy rule books only as far as I am aware, but there may be PDFs available online somewhere.

The first challenge would be creating the map, I do have paper tiles from Mighty Empires I have downloaded that can be used to create a map.  There is also the KoW campaign map below  for  "The Winter's Flood" designed for a Mantic campaign in 2017 that could potentially be used if I added some grid references.

The WFB Mighty Empires system is the more developed rule system having been around since 1990 and the full original version is 64 pages.  This version and shorter ones can be found online, and I have a hard copy and PDF of the 64 page version and the shorter ones.  The longer version is likely the best as it will have more detail on the board game / campaign aspect as we won't be able to play the actual miniature battles generated by the campaign. The rules have a system for determining the outcomes of the battles without a miniatures game.  Here is a link to the 64 page PDF.

https://www.fysh.org/~katie/wargames/downloads/mighty_empires/

 A short version.

http://athenost.blog.free.fr/public/040101_Campagne_DW/mightyempirescol.pdf

Let me know if you are interested?  

More details below including three updated links as of April 22, 2020 of two sets of modified  Mighty Empires campaign rules designed for KoW and a blog:


ttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1NwBKyIzdf3_ye-OxVUdkVMo1jPP8KsYIckb3z1gfiv0/edit


https://github.com/UltraSalem/mightykingdoms/blob/capitals/mightykingdoms_full.pdf

Assembling and repainting the Jabberwock

I bought this poorly painted Jabberwock, with one of its two wings broken off, via  eBay that I plan to strip and repaint.

Jabberwodk as he looked when I started

 What will I use him for?   Possibly for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition as a Dark Elf Monster or in SAGA Age of Magic as a scourge monster for my Dark Elves.   But back to the assembly process.

Paint Removal made easier with a Sconic cleaner and Super Clean Purple

Since I buy a fair number of poorly painted miniatures off eBay  that I strip the paint off to repaint I also spend a fair bit of time removing the paint.  Over the years I have tried a variety of different removal agents listed from mildest to most toxic / caustic: Simple Green, Rubbing alcohol, acrylic brush cleaner, Super Clean Purple, Poly-S paint remover, spray on paint remover or furniture stripper, acetone and lacquer thinner.    The more toxic substances (oven cleaner, spray on paint remover and Lacquer thinner) seem to work best but they are dangerous and unpleasant to work with.  Some cleaning liquids work better than others depending if the figure was primed with solvent based paint, or if enamel or acrylic paint was used and varnish.  In terms of effectiveness balanced with not creating a toxic hazard Super Clean Purple has become my go to choice, with oven cleaner for really stubborn paint coats. You need to wear gloves with all of them plus adequate ventilation and / or a respirator mask for Oven Cleaner and the more toxic liquids.  There is often a considerable amount of scrubbing that needs to be done with an old toothbrush or other stiff brush plus digging out paint from crevices with a dentists tool or etching tool. It also usually takes 6  to 24 hours including soaking time.

I was curious if the sonic cleaners I have read about would make the process easier.  So I purchased Magnasonic Professional Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner with Digital Timer and used it with purple Super Clean liquid in the bath to see how it would work on an old figure I wanted to strip.

Dark Elf Skin colour

Interestingly when I look at the background information on Dark Elves in the third edition WFB rules it talks about them wearing dark clothes, but I don't see any reference to their skin being any lighter than other varieties of elves (Wood and High Elves).  The implication being to use the Citadel Elf Flesh colour produced at the time (late 1980s and early 1990s). Most of the pictures in White Dwarf supported this idea. However by the time the 4th Edition codex came out in 1995 there is a reference to Dark Elves having pallid flesh although the pictures still showed typical elf flesh.  The move to really pale flesh did not seem to happen until the next Codex for the 6th Edition in 2001 primarily with Witch Elves and harpies and continued in the 8th Edition codex in 2008 and for AOS.  Basically the Dark Elves have gotten paler over time.    

In the past I have used Citadel Elf Flesh washed with the Citadel or Reaper flesh wash (reddish brown) and then highlighted with a mix Elf Flesh and white.  With the latest batch of Dark Elf figures I am painting I want the skin colour to be a little  paler. I am not going to re-paint finished figures in regiments or heroes as all races can have variations of skin tone, just thinking of this for new regiments and heroes.

Citadel C13 General with my current Dark Elf Flesh colour
 with a base coat of Citadel Elf Flesh

Dark Elf General and Sorcerer

My next Dark Elf Old Hammer painting project (actually running simultaneously with painting the remaining crossbow Dark Elves) are some late 1980s command figures: a Citadel C13 Dark Elf General on a Cold One with a matching foot version and a mounted Citadel Dark Elf Sorcerer on a Cold one.

Citadel C13 Dark Elf General on Cold One

Citadel C13 Dark Elf General on Foot

Citadel Dark Elf Sorcerer C21 "Addlecore"

More Dark Elf figures: Harpies

These are the Citadel Iron Claw Female and Male Harpies sculpted by Bob Olley and produced sometime between 1988 and 1990 for Chaos and / or  Dark Elf armies in Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) 3rd edition. They would also work well for Greek mythology based games or SAGA AOM.  Back in the early 1990s I bought 2 blisters of them giving me 4 harpies, they were pricey then but I wish I had bought more as they now for for inflated prices on eBay.  There were originally 4 different versions but only 3 were released with wing variants. Anyway they are now finally painted and ready for the gaming table. Take a good look at the faces (more on that later).

Front View

Back View