Assemble The Men: Test Mini & First Character

As you read previously, I had found my theme: Friedrich, the Fox Lord, has chosen a life of virtual exile. His lair lies in a forgotten patch of the Great Forest, known as Vergessenwald, in the far north of Talabecland, near the border with Kislev. There, he is assembling a growing warband of mavericks, miscreants, and sell-swords. Each man has, for his own personal reasons, chosen a life of war and opportunism, far from the great merchant cities of the Empire.

So what next? Some like to finesse their army lists. I’m much more impulsive and decided to dive straight in with a test model. The roster can wait for another day.

The first on the field

If you’re starting out in the hobby, it’s tempting to want to paint up a whole unit in one go. Resist the temptation! Take a bit of time to try out your colour scheme; it will save you a deal of inconvenience if you’re not happy with the result (repainting a whole regiment is about as disheartening as the hobby can get).

Looks familiar?

The men of Talabecland wear quartered yellow and red clothes in the “puff and slash” style - shamelessly pinched from the Landsknecht. Though Friedrich’s men are outcasts and fugitives, they are proud men and retain their province’s colours. Besides, if you are on the run, you’re not going to blow precious money on new clothes, when it could be spent of drink and tavern wenches instead!

The colours of Talabecland from the 5th edition army book

In my first post, I confessed how much I used to struggle with yellow. This made a test mini more crucial than ever. After 3 attempts, I managed to get something which vaguely resembled a smooth yellow finish. It's worth pointing out that - with the exception of grey and silver - I work all my colours up from a base coat of brown. This may seem like a slightly odd choice, but the reason is a simple one: I love rich and earthy colours. My colour palette is also pretty limited. This forces me to mix colours and helps give the army a united tone.

Yet even once my third attempt was completed, I wasn't entirely satisfied. I had a go at painting the contrasting colours in the slash. It took away a bit of the depth, as it means filling in the recesses, but bring a splash of additional colour. Should I stick with it? I decided to put it to the vote on Instagram.

A resounding 88% chose the contrasting colours. Thanks, guys; you've added countless hours of painting to the army! To be fair, it does look better. 

I'm still not 100% satisfied with the yellow, though. At some point soon, it will need revisiting. Nonetheless, as I had my scheme sorted, it was time to get stuck in!

“He’s a bit of a character…”

One cool thing when coming back to the Old World after a decade away is that you discover loads of bits and pieces which you forgot you had. When I originally intended to get back into it, I had bought the (then new) General of the Empire box. It came with really generous sprues which had torsos and legs for 1 mounted character and 1 on foot. I had assembled the mounted one (and will resurrect him as Friedrich the Fox Lord himself), but the foot one was still on the sprue – with loads of weapon variants and accessories!

The Empire General box - a lovely little set, full of useful spares!

The Old World of Warhammer is full of characters, who each bring… character to the game! It was time to introduce the first character to my force.

As I hadn’t worked out an army list, I decided to cobble him together however took my fancy. Friedrich’s crew being a rag-tag bunch, I wanted a feral-looking character. One of the heads was bald, with a great big bushy beard – perfect! Add to that a couple of spare bottles from my bitz box and a ridiculously over-sized Warhammer, and I had a suitable character. All he needed was a fox-fur cap to emphasise with the - you guessed it - theme.

Spare bits and a little Green Stuff can make quite a change

I searched through my list of Germanic first names and settled on Maximilian. Why? Because I love alliterations and knew this man looked mad. Thus was born ‘Mad Max’ Maximilian, Keeper of the Gate.

‘Mad Max’ stands (or rather slouches against a barrel) watch at the gate during the night, challenging all who venture near for the password. Unfortunately, old Max is a bit too fond of Kislevite vodka and makes up the password for each new visitor. Many a man from Friedrich’s company has had to spend the night sleeping in the cold and perilous woods outside, having failed to talk sense with Max.    

The garrison so far

The first spearman

Now, time to settle down for a weekend of hobbying!

Steppe Back Onto The Battlefield - 3-way Battle Report

I promised in my first post to take you through my test figure progress and introduce you to a certain drunk gate-keeper; and I shall. But I hope you won’t mind me taking you through today’s events. Why? Because today was the first day in over a decade that my forces ventured onto the battlefields of the Old World!

Servants of the Dark God of Extasy

My adversaries were another Joseph (the organiser of the “Bring Back the 6^th” tournament) fielding his fierce Ogre army and Niklas (of “The Old World Lives” podcast fame) with his dreaded Kislevite cavalry force. I could hardly have asked for better qualified tutors to reacquaint me with the 6^th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules.

I decided to field my old Chaos Mortels army – which I had never actually tested in a proper battle. Its theme is a wartribe from Norsca called the Sarls and dedicated to the perverse god: Slaanesh! As I was really into Braveheart at the time, I applied liberal doses of tartan and tattoos.

Meet Hamish the Hairy

The setting was the steppes of Kislev, where a raiding Chaos wartribe happened to invade at the same time as a group of hired-sword Ogres decided to turn on their Kislevite paymasters.

We settled for 1,000pts list. Mine looked more or less like this:

• Domnall the Deviant - Aspiring Champion of Chaos with Mark of Slaanesh (Immune to Psychology) and Battle Sword (+1 Attack)
• Fingal the Frisky - Level 2 Sorcerer of Slaanesh with Dispel Scroll, Familiar (knows 1 extra spell) and Mark of Slaanesh (Immune to Psychology)
• 20 Marauders with shields, light armour & full command
• 14 Marauders with shields, light armour & full command
• 5 Marauder horsemen with musician
• 3 Ogres
• Hamish the Hairy - Giant

Triumph & Treachery

As there were 3 of us, Joseph suggested using the Triumph and Treachery rules.

For those who haven’t heard of it (which included me), it is a simple but fun add-on with 3 key aspects:

1. Trick cards: each player gets given a set of cards to use. These can be played at any time and allow you to do things like block an enemy unit from shooting or covering part of the battlefield with oil, thus forcing everyone (including your own men) to re-roll their dice to hit.

2. You can only choose one enemy per phase and can’t attack the other.

3. To keep track of victory points, you get tokens when you destroy an enemy unit or one of your trick cards pays off.

First blood

I choose to deploy in a corner behind woods where I could hide from any nasty shooty things, like a Galloper Gun and a Scrap-launcher.

To my left were Joseph's Ogres and in the middle of the opposite table side Niklas' cavalry rode onto the field. I definitely wasn't nervous about how many horses seemed to be pointed my way.

No one was going to gain victory points by standing around, so I split my force (I know! I know!), sending my riders, a marauder block and both heroes towards the Kislevite horsemen (OK - so maybe I was a little nervous). My reward came in the shape of an arrow taking out one of my riders.

I decided to give Niklas a taste of good old Chaos magic. Unfortunately, my sorceror bungled it and found himself on his back (appropriate for Slaanesh!) and unable to cast for the next turn.

A change in the winds of Chaos?

You may notice Bronzino and his cannon on that small hill at the back. Well... guess what happened next. Niklas' estimate was perfect and a cannonball hit the ground right in front of my sorcerer. Deep breath!

And how lucky was Fingal the Frisky?! The cannonball got stuck in the mud and didn't bounce! Final would live to try another spell.

If you're wondering at this point why you haven't heard much of the Ogres, the fact is that so many Kislevites with pointy sticks were riding towards me that I decided to deal with that threat first while using the woods to protect my giant and other marauder unit's flank.
It seemed Niklas had chosen to focus on one enemy at a time, leaving the Ogres to march as quickly as possible across a very large field.

The large block of Kislevite lancers tried to charge into my marauders, who at this point should have been wetting themselves. But my luck was about to turn. One of the cards I had been dealt was Caltrops, reducing the horsemen's charge distance by half. Failed charge! The look on Niklas' face was priceless. Finding yourself within charging distance of infantry when it's no longer your turn is every cavalryman's nightmare. I swiftly made the most and charged in with my Ogres and marauders.

To put the boot in, Fingal the Frisky cast Perverse Control on the unit, meaning they could not strike back. I won't go into detail. Instead, I'll let you make deductions on how lethal the combination was.

Before

After

Late to the party

Over on the other flank, the Ogres finally reached me. Joseph's Butcher, ogres and - incredibly - gnoblars all inflicted serious losses on my biggest marauder unit, which promptly fled the field. The Hamish the hairy giant swung his cleaver, but the ogres ducked and got out harm free.

Back to the Kislevites, who sent 2 more units of lancers crashing into my right hand unit. Luckily, my Champion is Stubborn, so my men held - as tough marauders should!

There were too many details and fights to recount, but as our time was running out, we had to call it a day. This was the state of the battlefield at the end of it.

It's fair to say that both Joseph and Niklas suffered from some bad luck. 

If Niklas hadn't chosen to go for me first and got bogged down on that end of the battlefield, Joseph might have stood a chance of scoring more points, as a number of his units didn't get to fight.

If I hadn't had the Caltrops card, I have no doubt that Niklas' lancers would have ridden down my marauders and torn a hole through my right flank, with spare units to mop up the rest of my men or to redirect his attacks towards Joseph.

The Final Score

As the shop was about to close and our turn 5 ended, we counted up the bodies.

Niklas had scored 5 tokens, Joseph got 7 and - to my surprise - I had amassed a whopping 12! 

Suffice to say that, having gone into my first game in years hoping not to embarrass myself, I was thrilled to come away victorious. 

Slaanesh, your humble servant honours you!

All that remains is for me to thank Joseph and Niklas for their patience in reteaching the rules to me and for giving me such a great game.

Now... Where did that pot of yellow paint go? I have a Talabecland army to paint!

Rolling (Dice) Back The Years – One Gamer’s Journey Back To The Old World

Two decades ago (ouch!), as a spotty teenager, I discovered Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I remember being spellbound by this whole new world – the Old World! Impulsive by nature, I chose my army based on one picture: the cover of the Empire army book. I should naturally have been a Bretonnia player, as I love high medieval England, but for some reason the Empire just spoke to me.

But then what's not to love about this?

Flicking through the book, my first unit was chosen on the basis of one single photo of a Talabecland handgunner.

The colours were so bold and the gun looked so cool! I immediately bought a unit and painted it up. It proved both exciting and frustrating. Yellow was just too hard to get right (find out if that has changed over the coming months) and I soon switched to paint the rest of the army in the easier Middenland blue.

As real life took over and Games Workshop got obsessed with selling huge units and expensive war-machines, I drifted away from the hobby. It felt like the fun had been taken out of it. Where were the days of A Tale of 4 Gamers?

The inspirational and ever popular series first appeared in UK White Dwarf issue 218. 

But in late 2018, with nostalgia kicking in, I decided to go back in time and do my teenage-self justice by realising the dream of painting up a Talabecland army. This has also coincided nicely with meeting some of the friendly 6^th edition Warhammer players from The Old World Lives (check out their podcast!).

The Theme’s The Thing

Wargamers tend to broadly fall into 2 categories: 1) those who love tactics and will optimise their lists & 2) those who are all about what we fondly call “fluff” – that is to say theme. I’m firmly in the second camp and will (to one former opponent’s delight) happily throw away a tactical option in order to enhance the theme.

The overall colour scheme had been established by the fluke of falling in love with one photo in the 5^th edition (my first) army book. Red and yellow it would be. But themes go way beyond colours. A uniform is nothing without a story. So where to start?

Walking in the woods in autumn, with brightly coloured leaves falling all over the place and the wind howling through branches is one of my favourite pastimes. My Talabecland force just HAD to be based in the woods. Where, though? Perusing the Old World map, you will see that the promisingly named “Great Forest” covers most of the Empire. Should my base be near a main city like Talabheim or the Empire’s capital Altdorf?... No chance! Give me secluded woods near a remote border any day! Besides – that’s where all the action happens!

My Chaos war tribe is from a patch of land in Norsca near Kislev. It therefore made total sense to establish a force just within the Empire, where they might risk frequent encounters as the war tribe raids through Kislev (those Kislevite horsemen will always let them through instead of fighting like men!). So I chose the narrowest strip of Talabecland, sandwiched between Ostland to the West and Ostermark to the East, with the steppes of Kislev just above.

Vergessenwald - the forgotten forest in the northern border lands of the Empire

If the army is set in a forest, their symbol has to be an animal, right? So which animal? Again, the choice came from a personal fondness. Though I lived in France for many years before returning to England, the heraldry of my home town – Leicester – had stayed with me. A fox it would be! And along with the symbol, it would prove a great excuse to sculpt loads of fox fur! (Disclaimer: I don’t fox hunt in real life)

Eagle-eyed footy fans will notice the design is pinched from a certain team

Of course, being so remote, this part of the Empire is bound to attract all the wrong types, from outlaws fleeing the Emperor’s justice to work-shy drunks and all-round dodgy characters. This will give plenty of conversion opportunities.

What’s In A Name?

To make a name for yourself, you must first have a name. After much trawling through Germanic names, I settled for Friedrich.

The great thing about the Old World is that the cartographers don’t give much detail, leaving gamers free to fill in the gaps. As Friedrich lives in a secluded part of the Great Forest, “Vergessenwald” (forgotten forest) seemed appropriate.

Thus was born the legend of Friedrich, the Fox Lord of Vergessenwald!

Keep checking this page to see Friedrich’s warband grow and defend the Empire from marauding war tribes, as I seek to rekindle my love of the Old World in true Tale of 1 Gamer fashion!

Next time: see how my test minis went and meet a bearded gate-keeper who’s a bit too fond of Kislevite vodka…

You can also follow my progress on Instagram @foxlordpaints