A leap year wargaming post!

Didn’t post anything this month, mostly because it’s been a dry month for hobby purposes. I couldn’t resist posting on February 29th, though: what a chance!

These days I finally watched Band of Brothers, the TV series about the U.S. Army E-Company during WWII, produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg a couple of years after filming Saving Private Ryan. It’s a very evocative series, I actually loved it since it’s realistic, entertaining and involving at the same time.

Screenshot from the third episode, Carentan

Ending 2023 with some hobby musings

Here we are, 2023 is ending. It was a very intense year for me and my wife since we became parents of Beatrice in August, but I'm kinda happy of how my hobby projects are running on, and ready for a new year.

2024 is gonna be a GREAT hobby year, since it will mark the 15th anniversary of our first dip into the hobby world - and for "us" I obviously mean Grimbeorn, Michele and me. Grimbeorn and I are ready for an intense year of hobby celebration, and we're preparing a list of things we want to achieve. We're experts in making lists and then forget about them, like any true wargamer; however, this special occasion must be appropriately celebrated.

Getting (Grimbeorn) ready for #sporktober

A few days ago, my pal Michele (Frontlineminiaturist) sent to Grimbeorn and me a YouTube video which launched a challenge for the month, calling that #sporktober. It's a mix between spooktober and orctober which challenges people on social media to paint an Orc or Undead miniature, and the youtuber chooses a 90s style of painting on one of the Skeletons from the Cursed City range. I leave here the link for the video 👉 YOUTUBE 📺

Michele challenged us to do the same. This isn't exactly part of my Orctober goals, but I wanted to join the ride so I said yes (maybe it will be a chance for me to revamp my painting desire). Grimbeorn said he didn't want to participate, but he'll be our judge. However, he asked if we could send him some info about this 90s style of painting. I was thinking about the info to send to him, but the fact is that I'm kinda nerdy when talking about the history of various Warhammer editions (I'm nerdy just about that, as you can imagine), and so I thought that my info for Grimbeorn could became a whole post.

And so, my dear Grimbeorn... this is for you!

Musings on solo wargaming

During the last year my pal Alexander dragged me in the world of solo wargaming. Talking about that, my best fantasy solo experience in gaming, a part from videogaming, were my beloved game books such as the Lone Wolf series by Joe Dever. Absolutely the best in town.

Lone Wolf in the original majestic illustration by Gary Chalk

Thanks to Alexander I experienced the fantastic solo wargaming books by Mike Lambo, a series of rules written for playing in various settings, all solo. They’re really well conceived and finely written, and we nearly finished one of the books, Ghost in the Jungle. More on that in a subsequent post.

So, since I bought HeroQuest I started to imagine a way to play HeroQuest solo. The official app would be a perfect way to do so — but Grimbeorn and I started the campaign together with the quests from the core box, and I don’t want to spoil our journey by playing that in advance in solo mode. On the internet there are several suggestions and mods I could look for, but they’re often complicated, need to print cards and stuff and assume you have one or two expansions in your collection, which I have not (for now).

On the way of building my setting for Solo HeroQuest, I needed to keep things easy. I needed some inspiration. And it came once again from Alexander, who is a game designer himself (even though he’d laugh reading this) and told me about a miniature game, new to me, born to be played both solo or co-op, with a nice and simple system to manage the bad guys: Rangers of Shadow Deep.

I read the rulebook and I honestly really liked the system and the setting. It kinda has a Lone Wolf vibe, too: all these Rangers and the dreadful and mysterious Shadow Deep phagocytizing the land… woah. I pitched Grimbeorn on trying that too, as always — I used a comparison between RoSD and Knights of the Old Republic, the epic roleplaying videogame set in the Star Wars universe in which you explore and fight with an interchangeable party of companions.

Knights of the Old Republic is one of Grimbeorn favourites ever. I really like it even though I never finished the game — Grimbeorn hates me

In the purpose of both try out RoSD and find ideas in developing Solo HeroQuest, I started my journey in solo miniature wargaming by prepping my first RoSD game.

Musings on tabletop dungeon crawlers - Warhammer Quest vs HeroQuest

I've always been keen on dungeon crawlers, since the first Diablo came on my PC. Even if during our rolegame sessions we never really played lots of dungeon-type situation, in our WFB campaigns there were often typical dungeons in which the Hero must survive to achieve some narrative objectives. Years ago, thanks to a former friend, we used the tiles from Advanced HeroQuest to create this dungeons. Then I printed something similar (in monochrome to economize; I still have and use those), and we even tried the original HeroQuest, which I really liked even if we played just few games.

Random Diablo pic just for pure love

Hobby musings about Fantasy Crusade campaign

The Crusade has begun!

We're gathering the armies and the models we need, and we're starting to plan our hobby schedule for the months to come. For me, the Crusade is the opportunity to inventory my collection and decide what to build and paint by setting some affordable goals for the near future. Actually I already have an ongoing inventory file which I update with all my purchases, my thoughts and my plans. In addition, I'm a hoarder, and so I constantly (and with pleasure) buy new minis. However, given the fact that I paint very little, and most of my collection is unpainted (when not unbuilt!), I find myself with loads of miniatures still in boxes or anyhow not painted, and we always play with lots of proxy models or directly dies or empty bases on the battlefield.

Golden Demon, help us!

This isn't really a tragedy for us: we've always been more gamers than painters, and only in recent years we started enjoying more the hobby side of Warhammer. These days we want to bring our hobby a step up, and we already gave it a try by starting a little escalation league between us during 2020 (you can find my last deed about that here). We followed the rules for WHFB 7th Ed. Warbands, wanting to build and paint an entire 500 pts force of Dwarves (for Grimbeorn) and Skaven (for me), plus some scenery each. It went... well, quite bad, actually, or rather we played very little and only him managed to paint everything on the list. I'm still stuck on my damned Warp Lightning Cannon and its crew. Bloody rat-things...

After this experiment, we never tried anything new of the kind until now. We didn't paint almost anything from our Warhammer range (however I painted other things, such as DBA or my beloved Mordheim tokens), and we had in mind this Crusade idea since last Christmas. It's now time to give it a go.

***

So, I know I'm not a fast or constant painter. Even so, I want to build a Crusade army (or various Crusade armies) which gives me the will and the motivation of being painted, a little at a time, with no rush and a lot of fun. I decided to concentrate of this three upon my WHFB armies:

• Orcs & Goblins
• The Empire
• Warriors of Chaos

I built a 1000 pts list each, and gather all the models I need in a specific box.

As you can see, most of it is unpainted, and something still needs to be built. There will be a lot of work behind the Crusade, and I'm ready for it. Just some general thoughts about my selections:

• My collection is absolutely not bad (at least for my goals). For The Empire and Orcs & Goblins I have at least up to 3000 pts of stuff each, whilst for Warriors of Chaos I can reach around 1600 pts in total. The Crusade starting list, with its 1000 pts, is just one third of my big armies, and I have a lot of miniatures still in storage. However, when choosing 1000 pts I still find myself with a very little portion painted, when none at all

• Related to this, all these years of hobby I bought loads of minis but I always play using the same old ones. Obviously, if I barely build and paint will be so. I honestly realized that during the arranging of my Crusader armies, and it was the most interesting thought about this project. So the first step of the Crusade will be the hobby phase in which I prepare my minis for battle, at least building it all
• In fact, in general, lots of my miniatures are still on sprue or in box. Even if unpainted, the Crusade is a nice chance to build and reorganize my miniatures for these three armies, create some useful trays and prepare to deploy everything on the battlefield ready when needed
• Anyway, I voluntarily chose for my Crusader armies some miniatures I still haven't got. Just few models each, but so I can buy something new I will use or need to complete my existing units. A leopard can't change its spots...

Just some random thoughts I realized while managing my Crusader armies, but I want them to become the ground rules in this new adventure.

So, for starter, I reorganized the Crusade box:

More about the specific armies in next posts!

Musings on GW's Kill Team

At the beginning of September, my mates and I purchased the latest edition of Games Workshop's Kill Team, the skirmish game set in Warhammer 40K universe. We tried it later in October, and we essentially loved it. Everyone but Frontlineminiaturist, indeed, but more on that later in this post.

The set up of our first ever game. As per the core box, Death Korps of Krieg confront Ork sneaky Kommandos.

Veteran Guardsmen are a real treat for the eyes.

One of our friends already painted his Kommandos: nice!

Grey buildings and green skins match perfectly together.

What did we like? Grimbeorn and I, who particularly talked about this new system in the past months, appreciated the general division of the game in three clear phases, the action system which allows the player to mix and match the actions of his operatives freely on the battlefield, the alternate activation of the miniatures but overall we loved the campaign system.

On our second game, Grimbeorn fielded the Orks and I tried Death Guard (my 40K army). The heretic Marines lack in all the trickiest special rules the opponent has, but they're nice to play too! Disgustingly Resilient is a real pain in the ass (for the enemy eheheh 😈).

The Kill Team Compendium allows you to deploy Kill Teams from every 40K faction, and eventually it woke in us the desire to create every single one of them. Just like the Mordheim fever, we have too much hobby in our hands.

Another Orks vs Death Guard match for Grimbeorn and me. We played a lot to understand the mechanics and complete a game in all the four turning points (aka turns).

We also tried some multiplayer games, without great adaptation from the core manual and first campaign book (the second has already been published but we didn't get it yet). They run smoothly, even if they're sensibly longer than just two players game. Obviously, a more skilled handling of the rules always comes to help!

We mainly played the scenarios from Octarius, the first campaign manual. It's a nice setting, with a cool story and some good side objectives in the scenarios. Also, it provides detailed map with pre generated terrain, making it really simple to set up and start playing.

Experimenting a four players game on two joined regular battlefield: Death Korps (with Grimbeorn's unmistakable square bases), Death Guard, Ork Kommandos and Chaos Space Marines. A very long (too long) game, it was nice but we just accomplished the first turning point in one hour and a half.

Frontlineminiaturist's new entry: Chaos Space Marine! Previously he tried Adeptus Custodes (which are a really tough opponent, as always).

Some criticism came from Michele about the fighting system, which according to him doesn't count properly model's armour. Truly, hand-to-hand combat in Kill Team focuses on the model's ability to fight rather then his defences, so he's kinda right; however, we appreciated the dynamic and think that more armoured models do not suffer from disadvantages in combat.

In 2022 we want to play some Kill Team, alongside our usual hobby commitments, and possibly to expand our collection (I already have plans on an Imperial Fists Kill Team, as you can see here). Grimbeorn built everything in the core box during last December, and we want to do a speed painting session of the various scenics soon. I mostly finished them, so... it's a matter of time.

My built Kill Team scenic elements. Only the oil pump missing! Then I'll prime them black and proceed with Grimbeorn on the speed painting.

Hobby ho! New year's projects spotted 🔭

Happy 2022 from the Lair's crew! Davide, Michele and me look forward to the new year, ending a 2021 with lots of hobby, above all lots of gaming, which remains our main focus as wargamers.

So, fast check of our last deeds from past December.

Focus on Kill Team for Grimbeorn: here are his Death Korps of Krieg from the Octarius box. On square bases? Yeah, you know that he's an old WFB wolf...

Building was the main interest for Grimbeorn during 2021, beside gaming. The Kill Team's models and scenics are just the latest task on his workbench!

2021 was a fruitful year for Frontlineminiaturist! Recently we discovered the SAGA system (more on that later), and he purchased his Viking warband immediately. Here are his berserkers!

Nice and charming Viking standard bearer.

Just to let me and Grimbeorn begrudge him, Frontlineminiaturist painted and completed his two Mordheim warbands. The Averlander are his proud (and our purge on the battlefield. Damned may be their bows!)

Last but not least, his Frank army for DBA 15mm is almost ready and magnetized. Lots of hobby during this last month!

What about Amarok (aka me)? My last deed was this Imperial Fist I painted to join a little local painting contest. I'm very proud of him, even if I could always do better. I wanted to try a dirty look on this mini, and I'll start building and painting a Space Marine Kill Team soon!

I finally manage to prep this set of walls and fences I love from my WFB first times. Ready for speed painting!

So, I am a teacher, and on our last day in school I taught my students how to play a little DBA game fielding Caesar's legions and the Gauls, our last topic from our Classics program. It was really fun for both boys and girls!

We closed 2021 with some gratification, but what about the future?

On Christmas 2020 me and Grimbeorn listed some good resolutions for 2021. Honestly, I wasn't really good in fulfilling them, so I'll lower the shot for 2022, hoping to complete the tasks I have in mind.

Here they are, Amarok's top 5 hobby good intentions for 2022:

Edit: I'm updating this post with new links when and as I fulfill my goals.

1. Paint at least one DBA 10mm army;
2. Finish painting my 500 pts Skaven Warband for WFB (I started them in 2020, contesting with Grimbeorn and his Dwarves);
3. Build and organize my Orcs & Goblin collection (I purchased some new minis I still need to clean up and stock;
4. Play more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay;
5. Manage our blog, which turns 1 on January 13th for the English version and 2 in March for the Italian version and general concept.

See you in the next few days for updates!

Again, happy new hobby year from us 🎲

Grimbeorn, Frontlineminiaturist, Amarok

There's still life in the lair... 💀

It's been ten months since my last post; the Italian blog benefits from some more attention, but with October (whoops: Orctober, obviously) me and my pal Grimbeorn decided to give most credit to this version of the Lair, and start posting mainly here.

So, what have we been up to? Some scattered thoughts:

• 2021 has been a bad year for true hobby so far, although it has been a good time for playing
• I kept on in buying minis. Then I started to think about painting minis, but I couldn't find the time or motivation, so I let off steam by buying other minis. Result: my pile of shame increased A LOT (but I have LOADS of cool miniatures to concentrate on)
• Me and Grimbeorn played a lot of our Wolf of Vengeance WFB Campaign, and we're going on aiming to end the adventure during the winter
• Me, my mate Frontlineminiaturist and some other friends played some Crossfire games. I still haven't talk about this wonderful game here in the Lair, so I want to do that soon
• We're still playing a lot of De Bellis Antiquitatis, but concerning our seasonal projects we're not really up to date. However, we manage to buy two armies for The Empire strikes back project, East and West Frankish. Michele (= Frontlineminiaturist) is a damned faster and better painter than me, so he's almost finished with his models (I hope to post them here soon)
• Remaining in our DBA topic, we tried a new game written by a friend of us, called Rise of the Phantom Lady, a miscellanea of DBA, HoTT and fresh new thoughts for a strategical fantasy wargame. I will talk about it in the future, and as a beta-tester I'm really appreciating the setting and the mechanics
• Recently, with our newly formed gaming group, we started to play the new edition of GW's Kill Team. Well, I really really like the game so far, and even if my box is still untouched (and Grimbeorn hates me for that) I plan to give more attention to this setting in the near future
• Last but not least in the wargaming field, during last spring we manage to play our Mordheim introductory tournament, which was a great success: one of our newbie friends won the final battle with his Nuln Gunnery Academy warband! It was really fun, and we plan to give it another shot in early 2022 (we're now focusing on Kill Team, calling it a "Space Mordheim" sort of thing. Yeah yeah, we know this term is really about Necromunda. Nerd.)
• Talking about roleplaying, we have something in mind concerning Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, as always, and with Frontlineminiaturist as our master me and Grimbeorn are wondering in the darkest alleys of the City of the Damned, searching for the son of a noble Nuln family...

A lot in the pot, isn't it?

In conclusion, I hope to return to the Lair with a lot of enthusiasm and will to share our projects. May this become the hobby diary I started it to be.

But, has 2021 been really a bad year for hobby? Oh yeah, indeed. However, in May I join a little contest in a local store, proudly presenting my one and only attempt to Blanchitsu. There's a lot of work to do, I didn't win anything but I really enjoyed painting this Stormcast: that's enough for me to keep on digging in this amazing technique.

And I have another little contest going on: in the Mordheim Italian Facebook Group we run a monthly competition, and there are no doubt about the topic for the present month...

Pay the toll to the Troll!

I'm gonna post some updates about this guy.

See you soon!

Amarok