Warhammer Old World Empire Halberdiers Made to Order
I love that Games Workshop are bring back some of the old oldhammer style Warhammer Fantasy miniatures as Made to Order for Warhammer the Old World. One of the most recent batches was a number of Empire infantry units – halberdiers, archers and handgunners – all painted in a lovely yellow and red for the Made to Order photos.
I had a go at recreating this look on one of the halberdiers. I am slowly working my way through a unit – but the puffed landschekt style sleeves are a little slow to paint :(
Also included an old photo of some originals from 4th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle – one a halberdier in the colours of Hochland and the other a handgunner in the colours of Talabecland.
Hope you enjoyed my attempt at painting up one of the Warhammer Old world Empire Halberdiers made to order miniatures.
Seems like the mists of time now, but it was last year that I started getting these green guys painted up. Since then I have been very quiet about it on this blog, but I have actually made good progress as well as getting distracted and painting other things as well! But anyway the initial Orc and Goblins Batallion box is nearly finished – I have 25 orcs and 40 goblins painted, as well as two Orc commanders – one on a boar and one on foot with battle standard. Just working now on the Orc Boar chariots and the last 5 orcs!
So here’s a picture of the army so far and also in action in a small battle against some unpainted Dwarfs!
You get a good view of the radiator too! Some extra WFB 3e wolf riders off to the side too! The battle standard bearer isn’t in these pictures but will get a photo of him added.
Following up on my last Old World project post for the Orc and Goblin Tribes, the goblins were eventually painted – actually quite some time ago now. I finished a whole unit of 20 including full command group. Here’s the five I had primed last time fully painted up!
See the last post here – I think these painted up quite well and I’m very happy with them. Will post some details of how I painted them and the full unit anon!
Firstly apologies for not posting for a while. My last few posts were about my Old World project – which has actually moved on, so I will post some updated photos at some point!
Recently I have been thinking about campaign rules for ancient and medievals. I thought the best bet would be to start with something simple, but a step up from a very simple ladder campaign where you just fight a series of battles and tally up the victory points at the end. I came across the campaign rules in DBA. DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) is a great wargame for a quick battle so this would be ideal for a campaign as I could get the battles completed. There are official DBA campaign rules in some of the books and in Hordes of the Things, but like many things DBA somehow the simple is made complicated by the way it is presented and written :) So I had a go at summarizing the rules in a more simplified way – really as an aide for myself for when I play my DBA campaign – solo by the way at the moment. I left out a couple of things such as Allies and Supply – they felt like they were a bit overly complex to start with.
DBA Campaign Rules
Map and Number of Players
Between 3 and 6 players seems to be ideal. Each chooses an army – hopefully same historical period, but could be a what if set-up.
The cities are connected to each other as per the diagram below, but this can be altered to look more like an historical map – see the example below as well.
DBA Campaign map from DBA 1.0From Tim’s Wargaming Blog https://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/2012/02/dark-age-dba-campaign-some-thoughts.html
Starting Positions and Army
Each player has 1 Capital and 2 other cities
1 player controls central city as well
Starting Army 12 Elements – reduced to 10 if no battle during a year.
Turns
Year divided into 3 turns – Spring, Summer and Autumn
Before starting each player secretly notes location of their field army. Revealed as they take their turn or if invaded.
Each player then rolls to see who goes first and turns taken in order.
End of year return to winter quarters – must dice if crossing the sea.
Recruitment – at the start of each subsequent year can replenish 1 element from reserve for each city controlled. If not possible to have 12 elements then use Hordes to fill the gaps.
Movement
Armies move 2 nodes per turn as long as cities controlled by the player.
If moving by sea roll for each section and on a 1 they lose d6 elements – losing mounted elements first. Then decide to continue or not.
Allies
Ignore rules for thes for now.
Supply
Ignore for now.
Invasion
Defender chooses to send field army to fight a battle or to stand siege.
Battle Results
Elements destroyed transferred to reserves.
Elements leaving table return to army straight away.
If general or camp are lost then loser losing 2 further elements due to demoralisation.
If defender is defeated then lose their city and must retreat to nearest adjacent city. If that his not possible then army is destroyed.
1 prestige point gained by the victor per element destroyed or retreated off table minus their own elements destroyed or retreated. First player to take a camp gains 2 prestige and also 2 prestige for destroying general.
Sieges
If Defender doesn’t fight with field army then siege begins. Attacker takes city on a 6 if defender garrisons with field army or 5 and 6 if no defending field army.
Defender field army destroyed if city taken.
Attacker loses 1 element if fails to take the city.
Siege can continue until winter. Each turn the change to take the city is increased by 1.
On subsequent turns a besieged field army can sally out but not retreat.
Winning the Campaign
At the end of a pre-determined number of years each player counts up their prestige points – 3 for each city under their control. If a players capital is taken they are out of the game and their cities become independent. Independent cities can be besieged.
Just a small update to keep the Warhammer The Old World Project fresh. The 5 goblin archers I started with the other day are now primed using Vallejo brush on black primer and I have given the bases a coat of Vallejo German Black Brown Camo – my standard basing base colour! And the bases have been edged with Steel Legion Drab.
Now to decide the paint scheme! My first consideration was the skin tone. Green of course, but what kind of green. I toyed with the idea of a light green – as seen on Age of Sigmar Orruk Kruleboyz – but decided that might look a bit weird with a mass of rank and file troops, so I will be sticking with a fairly standard green. Ideally aiming for something like this from the Warhammer website:
Other colours are probably going to be quite muted greys and browns. I toyed with the idea of them wearing Khorne red trousers or shirts, but decided that might look a bit too garish. Anyway the first 5 goblin archers will be a good test of the colour scheme and can always change it up for the rest of the army.
Welcome to my Warhammer the Old World Project. This is a series of posts that will follow my journey as I build an army for the new game.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Oldhammer as it is now known was one my favourite games back in years gone past – 2nd and 3rd edition games or Orcs Drift and McDeath were what I grew up on. So excited to see that Games Workshop have gone back to the Old World with a new rules set. From what I can tell it’s a mash up of a number of different variations of Warhammer Fantasy Battle with some new nods to historical wargames in there as well.
Anyway to cut to the chase I decided to build a new army for the game. With some trepidation I decided to take the plunge and go for the new basing rules – 20mm is now 25mm and 25mm is now 30mm for instance. I didn’t like the idea to start with, being used to my old metal 1980s miniatures on 20mm and 25mm bases, but when I saw the actual size of the figures I can understand why, not sure how they actually managed to get them on the old smaller bases – the figures are the same ones as were produced for 6th edition I think.
Orc and Goblin Tribes Army Project
So where have a I started? As modestly as possible I aimed to create a 1000 point Orc and Goblin Tribes army, with the aim of being able to play some small games at home or to play bigger multiplayer games with friends, and then at some point expanding it out to 2000 points. 2000 points seems to be the sweet spot from what I can see so far.
So the starting point for that was logically the Orc and Goblin Tribes Battalion Box. First off I decided to start small and simple and build 5 of the goblin archers. They come 5 to a sprue, so building and painting 5 at a time seems the most logical thing to do. Here’s the first 5 built and with some old Citadel sand recently glued on. Next step will be priming and then working out what paints to use!
First time with these miniatures and although I love my old 1980s orcs and goblins a lot these newer ones have a goofy comic book charm of their own. I think I am going to enjoy painting them.
As my Warhammer The Old World project gathers pace I will be posting about how I painted the miniatures and also the units and army list I will be playing with. Hopefully these updates will appear on a regular basis!
Thought it would be fun to post some of the photos here from the playtest I did for the Battle of Morlaix for Trial by Battle. This scenario includes a number of special rules – including pits and ditches that get filled in once crossed – you can see that in the later photos the cardboard ditches have gone! Please note that the collection of miniatures used are not particularly correct for the period – mixture of a number of medieval figures – mostly later Wars of the Roses and some older Citadel figures. All worked fine for the playtest though and shows that a full scale battle can be played in just 3’x3′!
Enjoy!
The French begin crossing the stream. The English are deployed behind ditches at the other end of the table.
Near the end of the battle – only two units of English archers are left. A second wave of French are about to cross the stream.
Here’s another historical scenario for Trial by Battle. Bit of an obscure one this time …
You can also download the scenario for Battle of Hastings 1066 as a PDF: Battle of Hastings 1066.
Battle of Hastings 1066
Perhaps the most famous date in English history and one of the most famous battles of the Middle Ages, the Battle of Hastings will be familiar to many people. The background is simple. King Harold of England was resisting the invasion of Duke William of Normandy who had recently landed on the south coast of England. King Harold had marched quickly south to respond to the invasion after beating a Viking invasion force at Stamford Bridge in the north of England. He brought his elite huscarls with him and recruited other men on his way south.
Harold chose the battlefield well: a defensible hill (Senlac Hill) flanked by brooks and dense vegetation on each side with a steep slope to the rear of his position. William had only one option – a frontal assault up the hill. There are a few different versions of what happened in the battle, but it seems that the initial assaults were repulsed by the English. In their enthusiasm some of the English left their position on the hill to pursue the Bretons, Normans or other French allies down the hill. There they were cut off and destroyed by Norman cavalry. This may have been an intentional tactic by the Normans or an accident, but whatever the explanation it served to weaken the English forces on the hill. The Normans tried similar tactics to draw off more of the English and progressively weakened them until they launched a final all arms assault on the English and overwhelmed them. King Harold was either shot in the eye by an archer or killed personally by Duke William. And thus, a new phase of English history began with 1066 and all that.
Objectives
The English objective is to resist the Norman attack. They can sit on their hill and defend for the whole game if they wish. As such the Normans have a time limit in which to achieve a victory by breaking the English army. If the Normans have not won within 10 turns, then the English win the battle.
Forces
English
2 Foot Knights Units – Huscarls
4 Infantry – Fryd
Normans
2 Mounted Knights
2 Infantry
2 Archers
First Turn
The Normans take the first turn.
Battlefield
One third of the battlefield should be taken up with a large sloping ridge on which the English army is deployed. No other terrain is necessary given the scale of the battle on a 3’ x 3’ table. A suggested layout and deployment is provided below.
Deployment
See the map above. The English can deploy on the large ridge on the north side of the battlefield before the battle. Duke William’s army enters from the table edge on their first turn.
Special Rules
There are no specific special rules for this scenario, but it is strongly suggested that the New Optional rule Cavalry Disengage is used:
Cavalry Disengage
All Cavalry can disengage from melee with foot units after the first round of melee with that unit. They need to take a Unit Courage Test to do so. If they fail, they take 1d6 hits which may cause them to take another Unit Courage Test to avoid being removed from play. They will also remain engaged with the enemy unit.
Additionally Light Cavalry may disengage from Cavalry of any type.
Duration of the Battle
Until one or both armies fail an Army Courage Test or 10 Rounds, whichever is first.
Victory Conditions
An army wins when the opposing army fails an Army Courage Test and they do not. If both armies fail an Army Courage Test the battle is a draw. If the Normans have not won by the end of Round 10 the English win.
You can also download the scenario for Battle of Hastings 1066 as a PDF: Battle of Hastings 1066.
Unlock with Patreon
