Armies of Greyhawk 10 - Irongate and the Iron Hills

A double post today, as herein resides the lists for both Irongate and the demihumans of the Iron Hills. Happy gaming!

Armies of Irongate and the Iron Hills (.ods file, hosted by Mediafire. IrongateIronHills1.0.90.ods).

Armies of Greyhawk 9 - Onnwal.

Gentlemen and Ladies! Please be upstanding for the newest of the Armies of Greyhawk project army lists. Today's subject is Onnwal. I wish you happy gaming and good luck with all those dice rolls!

Coming soon are the forces of Irongate and the Iron Hills.

Armies of Onnwal (.ods file, downloads from Mediafire. Onnwal1.0.90.ods).

Armies of Greyhawk 8 - North Province.

Huzzah and yay, it's time for another of the AoG posts. About time, I know. So, here we have details for the forces of the North Province. Up next will be Onnwal, and Irongate soon after that.

Incidentally - I've noticed there's been a spew of blogs going offline lately, including the most excellent Axe n Hammer blog . If anyone has any information or insight into that, I'd be most grateful for a mail (silent(spam)silver(spam)hawk(spam)@googlemail.spam.com) or comment. And yes, you'll have to remove the appropriate cans of spam from that to make it work.

Armies of the North Province (.ods file, downloads from Mediafire. NorthProv1.0.90.ods).

Armies of Greyhawk - Commanders.

Someone asked me, "what about fortified camps and commanders for the lists?".  To begin with, all the fortified camps and commanders cost the same amount across all the various army lists so that takes the decision out of my hands, as, frankly, I've tried to stick with their own formula for costing troops, therefore their values are fine with me. A player familar with Field of Glory (the system for which the Armies of Greyhawk lists are built) and in possession of any of the source books will see the exact same options for the Fortified Camp and the commanders in the various officially published army lists.  I didn't think it was necessary to include the commanders and Fortified Camp options in every list, as they're universal across all of them.  I also didn't feel that it was really in my purview to dictate which armies could or could not have a Fortified Camp - I would rather leave the option to each individual player and each particular scenario that they wish to partake.

However, I suppose I should include something here just as a self-important indication of how I personally add command and camps to my lists. That and in the hope of converting a few more players to the Field of Glory/Armies of Greyhawk fold.

C-in-C
Inspired Commander / Field Commander / Troop Commander      -   80/50/35 points 

Sub Commanders:
0-2    Field Commander       -    50 points
0-3    Troop Commander     -    35 points

0-1    Fortified camp             -    24 points.

Armies of Greyhawk 7 - Sunndi

Hooray! It's time to get posted another list in the increasingly famous (SEVEN! Count them, an average of seven downloads each!) Armies of Greyhawk series.  Thank you all for the support and links and continued interest in these things! Anyway, before I go off on a tangent that really should be covered in it's own post, let's get to posting that list.






Armies of the County of Sunndi (.ods file, downloads from Mediafire. Sunndi1.0.90.ods).

Armies of Greyhawk 6 - Idee.

Still trying to make up for the terrible lack of updates for the past few weeks, herein you'll now will find a bonus update!  Please to be finding yourself the most glorious order of battle for the forces of Idee, being the latest update to the developing Armies of Greyhawk - Field of Glory project. Coming up next time is the County of Sunndi.

Armies of Idee (.ods file, downloads from Mediafire.  Idee1.0.90.ods ).

Armies of Greyhawk 5 - Almor.

Finally, after many weeks of frustration without my computer, I can release the latest in the Armies of Greyhawk series. Today, I present the forces of Almor for your edification. Over the next week or two I'll be adding a couple of extra army lists, Idee and Sunndi among them, to make up for the dry spell.  Sit tight, we'll get there in the end!

Armies of Almor (.ods file, downloads from Mediafire.  Almor1.0.90.ods ).

Armies of Greyhawk 4 - Nyrond

Welcome to another of the series of Armies of Greyhawk posts. As promised, this time under the spotlight are the forces of Nyrond. As a feeble excuse of a 'bonus' you'll see (if you grab the file) that both the regular and 'reserve' Nyrondese forces are present.

The forces listed here are under my newer-implemented scale, so unless you went and downloaded the new-releases of those files, you may think these forces look huge by comparison. So GO GET THEM NOW.

Armies of Nyrond (.ods file, downloads from Mediafire.  Nyrond1.0.90.ods ). 

Armies of Greyhawk 3 - Great Kindgom.

A touch late from my self-imposed deadline of one a week, but after thinking more on things mentioned in my previous post (and selfishly enjoying a long weekend with the wife) I think getting this up today isn't so bad after all.  I've gone through all the previous posts and updated them to the new standard scale I was thinking about. I think it makes much more sense that way, and hope those of you reading and downloading these will agree. Links for that are below. I'm fairly satisfied with the scales as they are now, so I can be pretty secure in saying that I won't change formats again. I'm done with that sort of tweaking, at least.

Anyways. This week, I present the armies of the Great Kingdom. Once the greatest force of law and good, and now... Well, if you're interested in this you probably already know! Behold, links for the clicking! Next week will be Nyrond.

GREAT KINGDOM 1.0.90 DOWNLOAD (.ods file format, downloading from Mediafire.)

SNOW BARBARIANS 1.0.90 DOWNLOAD (.ods file format, downloading from Mediafire.)

ICE BARBARIANS 1.0.90 DOWNLOAD (.ods file format, downloading from Mediafire.)

FROST BARBARIANS 1.0.90 DOWNLOAD (.ods file format, downloading from Mediafire.)


The old links from previous posts will remain - I don't believe in deleting content once it's out there, but I doubt very strongly that I'll be doing any other lists to that scale.

Armies of Greyhawk - Thoughts.

In starting a project, one is inevitably immediately drawn into the enthusiasm and excitement of new work, new challenges and the prospect of creating something memorable. Alright, at least I am. It's the same with a painting project, a writing project, a chain mail project or anything else I set my mind and turn my hand to. The thoughts about difficulties and problems that will arise within the work usually come a little bit later on, after the initial adrenaline rush passes.

Such is where I'm at with writing these Armies of Greyhawk lists.

No worry should arise about my not finishing what I have information for, or what I've promised various people I'd do. I'd sooner saw off my left hand than go back on my word, but the more I look at information about the various forces and factions, the more I'm drawn in to something of a quandary.  Many of the forces are truly grand in scale, with thousand upon thousand of armoured, beweaponed warriors standing ready to do their sovereign's will. Then there are smaller ones, where a force might total three thousand or so at most. So my thoughts have been about just where the balance of scale for soldiers per base should lie, given that I want it to have something of a cohesive theme and balance within the Field of Glory rules.

Originally, I aimed for something measured by the thousands.  Roughly 12 bases per two thousand men. This works fairly well and is practical for the larger armies - Nyrond, Great Kingdom, the various Thillonrian tribes, etc. It doesn't however, work very well for a force like that of Sunndi. And worse still for one like the Sea Barons or the individual Bandit Kindoms' forces.

So, now I'm considering re-writing the ones I've done so far down to a more manageable scale for all concerned.  I'm leaning towards something like 85-90 men per base (give or take) to allow 12 bases per thousand, right now, but I certainly need to think on things more.  Sure, it would make modeling the complete Nyrondese standing army something that only a madman would try to accomplish (*ahem*), but it would allow a much greater flexibility in both writing and playing with the lists. This, I feel, would make things more fun for people that might actually play with these lists

Armies of Greyhawk 2 - Ice & Frost Barbarians!

It's time for the second installation of the Armies of Greyhawk lists that I really should spend more time working on.  I decided I should throw these two together into one post because, well, they're really rather limited in options and very similar in 'feel'.  Worry not though, as the lists themselves (bare though they are) have remained separate.

It behooves me also at this point to post a few words about my sources of inspiration and information and explain why I've not really gone into any detail on the 'fluff' and background of these armies.  First off, I'd suggest that everyone interested in seeing the posts that most inspired me to doing this go take a look at Grendelwulf's excellent blog. Sort by Field of Glory tags and you'll catch an absolute eyeful of excellent information that is helping me write these with some form of reasonable and accurate detail. Anything I could post here on these various nations backgrounds are already available right there, and he deserves the page hits and plaudits more than I do! And, considering I don't have access to the issues of Dragon with the original articles in, the work he's put into it already has truly been invaluable, and I'm very glad he was happy for others in the community to put their two coppers in as I have done.

Secondly, another plug for the Greyhawk Grognard. His continued support, his knowledge and his ability and willingness to answer the questions of someone that, while enthusiastic about Greyhawk for a very, very long time was a complete and total nooblet to the actual information has made the project into a set of lists not just for my own satisfaction, but also into something that I hope a great friend will find of worth as well.

Right. Enough gushing. More bloodthirsty northerners!

ICE BARBARIANS CLICKY (.ods, Open Office file)

FROST BARBARIANS CLICKY (.ods Open Office file)

Armies of Greyhawk 1 - Snow Barbarians.

Alright, as some of you (all two, I suspect) will know I'm slowly working on things for a 15mm scale Field of Glory-based army that will come to represent the various and eventually combined forces of the Barbarians of the Thillonrian peninsula for the ongoing Armies of Greyhawk project. I plan to write up all of the main players of as much of Oerth as I can as time progresses, and am somewhat optimistically aiming for one every week or so. Updates will be here as things move forward. We'll see exactly how much gets finished in the future, I suppose.

The listings and options for each force are comprised through a combination of studying available troop compositions, reading background and histories of the region concerned and then applying some rudimentary knowledge of historical warfare and military usage of different troops to come up with something that makes some sort of logical sense as a viable battle-ready force from that perspective, too. Of course, this approach might not please everyone, but I personally am quite pleased with the first few lists I've drawn up.

Questions and comments are, of course, always welcome and I sincerely hope that other wargamers will find some use in the lists as presented, or simply as inspiration for their own lists.  I will also note that these lists are provided by me "as-is" and they are never to be taken for profit or other publication without at least getting my permission first. Other than that, please download them, play with them, use them, edit them for your own personal use to your heart's content but most of all just enjoy them.

Here, now, I present the first "neat" draft of the first army list completed, that of the Snow Barbarians:

CLICK THIS LINK (Downloads from Mediafire. It's a .ods Open Office file type. Just think Spreadsheet.)

Edit: Link updated to 1.0a, because I forgot to include some notes at the bottom. Whoops!

Trees, a talentless hack's guide.

In the spirit of Christmas (and the beautiful blizzard of frozen doom that it brought the poor residents of New Jersey) I thought I'd post up a few snapshots and a brief how-to guide of just how I go about making bases and bases of little trees for the eventual prettification of vast hordes of 15mm Greyhawkesque soldiery. As always, it's accompanied by pictures. Do the clicking thing to embiggen!

Stuff wot I uses:
Woodland Scenics Fine Turf (yellow grass).
Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf (yellow grass).
Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow.
Woodland Scenics PVA (they call it is "Scenic") Glue.
GaleForce Nine Clump Foliage.
Foamboard. Any thickness works but I prefer 4-6mm for stability.
Trees. I forget the brand, but I picked up a buttload of them for about $20 that required assembly.
Old, Coarse Brush (I use an ox hair brush for glue duties).
Acrylic primer and paints.
Excel craft knife.

Step One!
Starting with some ordinary foamboard, I cut rounded shapes of varying sizes to act as bases. Aim to have them big enough for anywhere between three and five trees to fit comfortably.  I them trim the sides to have them slope.  It can help to draw outlines first, but I only very roughly follow the lines I draw anyway.  Once you have some smaller shapes, cut some larger ones to act as bases for two, three or four of the smaller bases, this handily allows you to remove a few of the tree stands to allow units to be better positioned 'inside' the woods while still marking out the shape of the woodlands with the larger base underneath.

Step Two!
Affix a number of trees to your small base. You can do this either with standard superglue or use the PVA. I used PVA as it's slower setting and gives a solid bond to the foamboard. Depending on the trees you use, you may have to drill holes into the foamboard, mine came with bases ready to affix, so I took the easy route and simply glued them right on top.  Once they're in place, apply a liberal primer coat to the whole base, sides and all. I use grey primer for this, simply because white would be too frustrating to keep track of on top of already white foamboard. You can use brown, grey, even black if you prefer. Any neutral colour will work, just try to pick one that won't ruin the topcoat colour you plan to finish with.

Step Three!

Once everything's dry, apply a base coat of the general colour your bases will end up. Deserty bases will be yellow-brown, general grassy bases green, ash wastes grey, etc. Go with your instincts and stick to mid-tones and less bright and vivid colours and you probably won't go too far wrong. Even if you do, then don't worry, just let it dry and drop the tone or outright change it with another colour if you prefer.



Step Four!
Here's where the glue and the enormous messes come into play. It's my personal favorite part of making terrain, too. FLOCK! Take your painted bases and place them on a sheet of flexible card or heavy paper then apply a liberal coat of 50/50 watered down PVA glue. With the entire base (and sides) covered, scatter on flock directly on top of the board. At this point, it's OK to smother the whole base, let a mountain of flock build up, and try to ensure every last inch is utterly covered and entirely buried. Don't worry about it getting in the trees or all over everything else, that's why the paper was there! Put the whole thing aside and let it dry for two to four hours at minimum. Personally, I prefer to leave it overnight.










Step Five! 
Dig out your flocked base and tap the excess flock clear! Blow it a couple times if you have a clear area, but be prepared to have to vaccum afterwards. Tip the flock from the paper back into your containers, card or paper is easy to bend to funnel back nice and neatly, too. A good mantra to keep in mind when using flock is this:  "Apply more than you'll ever need, then whatever's still stuck down after a year will stay for life."  It's true, too - expect to lose flock as you handle them even long after they were done. You can apparently avoid this by applying a layer of spray adhesive after you're done, but I admit I've never tried it myself, so I cannot vouch for it's effectiveness or it's effect on flock and other scenic bits and bobs. If you have used it, please do let me know in the comments! 

Now, if the one coat of flock is good enough for you, then you can quite easily leave your newly finished tree stands to live happily ever after like that. I, however, had other plans!

By repeating step four, I built up different coloured, textured layers of grasses, then affixed some undergrowth using some scenic clump foliage. This gave me a pleasingly interesting base with some details going on between the trees. But still that wasn't enough for me. This is terrain being built specifically to go alongside my Snow/Ice/Frost barbarians from the Armies of Greyhawk project...  "Why should I leave it without any snow?" I thought. Thus came another step four, only this time I also applied glue to the trees and bushes beneath using downward strokes of the brush, trying to hit only the upper facings. Another being buried in flock (this time a beautiful white) and voila! We are finished.



(BOOT NOTE: I'm not sure if many Americans even know what PVA glue is. The two hobby shops I tried gave me blank looks, but the Woodland Scenics "Scenic Glue" that I decided to experiment with is actually PVA-based adhesive. Use it, because it's great. No, I don't work for Woodland Scenics, but their terrain stuff is dirt cheap and kicks ass. I've never used Elmer's Glue, but I've been told that it will probably function in much the same way. If you do know any other glues that are PVA-based, or work the same, put them in the comments!)

Chain mail and dice.

 I find it heartening that, in the seven or so weeks since I posted last on this here blogamajig I haven't had a single person ask me "how come you don't post?". This is a good thing, because it means my insulting mannerisms are clearly working at an acceptable running capacity!


So just what the hell have I been up to in all that time? Making chain mail dice bags, mostly. I've also been cleaning up and priming some more 15(18)mm Dwarves, stealing some of my wife's 15mm Normans for a diorama and priming up a half-dozen bases of Saxons Frost Barbarians for the not-very-top-secret Armies of Greyhawk thing I probably mentioned and linked before.

First, I finished off the dice bag I had been meaning to make for myself for ages and ages. Finally my played-with polyhedral collection grew too large for my little wooden dice chest, so I finally had motivation.  I put together a pretty decent little bag out of stainless steel, pics enclosed.  The thing can handily hold six complete sets of standard sized polyhedral dice, and probably a metric assload (which is 2.2 old imperial assloads) of standard wargaming d6ers. I finished it off with some leather thong. Explaining what I wanted by leather thong in a store, however, created a whole world of amusing embarrassment. Ah, the joys of cultural misunderstandings when trying to speak English to a New Jersey native!

Three pictures there, one of the 'start', mostly for a curious friend who knits and was all intrigued by how it's done. The second is of the finished, empty dice bag and the third is a happily stuffed bag ready to go out gaming. Probably with other loose dice bags that play first edition, because I'm getting suspicious that my dice bag is a bit of a hussy. During the last session I was at three different people took dice out of it! What a tart.

On the theme of dice bags, I also made one for my good friend Mjolnir as a form of weregild for missing his convention-run Pendragon game at the last minute. The others at our table seemed suitably interested in it, and if anyone that happens to be reading this wants one then either let me cross you somehow and therefore have to make one in repayment of my disastrous failing or buy one from me!  *hint hint*  Yes, yes, shamelessly commercial of me I know, but the more people want my bags the more awesome a massage gift I can get my wife for her birthday... And she really does deserve awesome, as she will certainly tell you.

Hmm, no other pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it that I've been occupied with stuff.  I'm starting to be distracted by video games quite a bit lately, which is sad because you never finish video games with something tangible in front of you like you do with chain mail or painting. Still, I must say that Fable 3 really, really is hilariously good fun, and worthy of being a distraction.  When I'm done with distractions though, I'm starting to get the wargaming terrain itch, so I think the next few projects after the Norman/Saxon diorama, and hopefully painting up a few Saxon bases, will be some hills, forests, maybe some rough terrain pieces for Field of Glory/Armies of Greyhawk type stuffs.

You may also notice that a common theme with me is thinking of a hundred things that would be really cool to do and then ultimately doing only about four of them. I require people getting on my back about doing stuff, clearly.

FINALLY!

After a week of feeling like crap, then losing my camera battery charger (and having a dead battery) I finally have something to show, and yet after all of the wait it's still only a small handful of miniatures. Still, I have to say that I'm really quite happy (and, dare I say it, proud?) of what I get to show off. 

First up, here's the first of the 15mm figures I've ever painted. It's a special gift piece I did for Joe, a good friend and DM of the AD&D campaign I play in (and steal inspiration from). Behold, Ranger Joe!





The others done to date are a base worth of 15mm heavy Dwarf Infantry, which will be based and possibly used under the FoG/modified FoG rules and are painted in colours appropriate for the armies of Greyhawk.They're finished, though they're not mounted on their appropriate base simply because I was mind-fartingly stupid and didn't think to get any with my order! As they stand, they'll sit on the cardboard I PVA'd them onto to paint them until I get bases. Besides, finishing basing them will give me another reason to post an update!

Next up on the painting table, aside from the Blood Bowl teams that are STILL not done, are a trio of Battletech mechs. A Warhammer, a Centurion and a Victor. While I'm still grumpy about various sounds coming out from Catalyst, the miniatures are certainly pretty.  In addition to those are a pair of 1:1200 scale age of sail Royal Navy ships (a First Rate, Royal Anne, and a Fifth Rate, Phoenix, which are likely not to be finished soon, damn rigging...) and a few more bases worth of Dwarfs.  Told you I have miniature ADD.