Warmaster - Norse Army

I've been working on my second Warmaster army on and off between other things for about a year. 

After searching through the lists, and doing a bit of research on available miniatures, I decided on a Norse Army. 

Kalistra have a great selection of 12mm Barbarians in their fantasy range, and they also have Vikings in their Medieval range. They are very reasonably priced, and nice miniatures too. I sourced a Giant and some figures suitable for Giant Bears from Copplestone Miniatures, the war mammoth was from Alternative Armies and some Giant wolves and Valkeries from Magister Militum.

So I now have two fully painted Warmaster Armies... I just need to find a local opponent and get them out on the table!

Some useful links:
WARMASTER REVOLUTION (Current free rules and army lists)
WARMASTER PODCAST
WARMASTER Facebook COMMUNITY
KALISTRA - 12mm Fantasy miniatures
COPPLESTONE - 15mm Barbarians etc (Giant and Bears were from here)
MAGISTER MILITUM - (10mm Wolves and Valkeries)
ALTERNATIVE ARMIES - (War Mammoth)

Here is the finished army:

BONDSMEN - Kalistra Barbarians

HUNTSMEN - Kalistra Barbarian Bowmen

BESERKERS - Kalistra Vikings

JARL and HEROES/WIZARDS - Kalistra Barbarian Command Characters

JARL - Kalistra Barbarian Command figure

WEREKIN - Copplestone Bears

CAVALRY - Kalistra Barbarian Horsemen

CAVALRY - Kalistra Barbarian Bison Riders

ULFWERENER - Magister Militum Fantasy wolves

HUSCARLS - Kalistra Vikings

VALKYRIES - Kalistra (left) Magister Militum (right)

WAR MAMMOTH - Alternative Armies

STORM GIANT - Copplestone Giant

HORN OF RESOUNDING - Kalistra Barbarian Chariot with Horn crafted from Milliput.

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Burning Light - Part IV

For the fourth part of the "Burning Light" campaign mission for Rangers of Shadow Deep... we have moved up the other staircase above the Hospital to search The Abbess' Quarters...

(There are some spoilers here - so if you are planning to play through this mission yourself, maybe don't read this until after you've had your own game experience...)

   

All our heroes were feeling pretty healthy at the start of this scenario - they didn't take many hits in the last one, and most managed to heal up to full health. Our team has been bolstered by two extra members since the beginning of the mission, so now we have:

Alfie's Team:

Arthur - Ranger (level 6)

Malvolio - Conjuror

Fern - Guardswoman

Hattie - Recruit

Brutus - Hound (rescued in the first scenario)

My Team:

Jennifer - Ranger (level 6)

Archibald - Archer

Seb - (a character from the Bloodmoon mission who is now a companion)

Geoffrey - Warhound

St.Doneera - Ghostly Warrior Priestess (who joined us in the third scenario)

The set up for The Abbess' Quarters - It's a large room with very little furniture. They live a Spartan life these nuns! 

As we ascended the other staircase up from the hospital, our heroes found themselves in a large room. There was a desk on the other side, some bookshelves, and a couple of doors to smaller rooms to investigate. There was a very bad smell, a large hole in the roof... and three giant flies coming at us across the room!

All our guys emerge from the stairs into the room...

Some good dice rolls for shooting meant that we managed to take out all three flies between us in the first round before they could get anywhere near us!.. We then decided to split up into groups to investigate the room: Seb headed towards one of the bookcases, Jennifer and Archibald went towards one of the doors, St.Doneera and Geoffrey towards the other door, Malvolio and Fern towards the other bookcase, and Arthur, Brutus and Hattie made for the desk... this was when two more giant flies came down through the hole in the roof and landed in the center of the room..

Archibald killed one of the flies with one shot... Jennifer missed the other one, but Geoffrey the warhound was nearby and ran over and finished it off... everyone moved nearer to their objectives as two more flies came up the stairs behind us...

As we spread out to investigate, two giant flies come up the stairs behind us...

Whilst Jennifer struggled to open the locked door of one of the small rooms, Archibald shot another one of the flies. The other fly moved towards Seb as he was the nearest hero. Meanwhile Seb was climbing up and investigating a bookcase. He had seen something shiny at the top of it... he succeeded his climb roll and found an interesting artifact! It will give him a bonus to his armour when fighting undead for the rest of the mission... and it will be worth some XP if he survives and still has it at the end!

Two more giant flies appeared in the centre of the room and attacked Malvolio and Fern... they were both wounded by the flies before Geoffrey and St.Doneera could run and help. Between them they eventually killed them both - but it was tough going!

Jennifer and Archibald struggle to open a door.

As Arthur, Brutus and Hattie made it to the desk, they discovered the source of the terrible smell - the body of a dead Nun... The deceased Nun suddenly stood up and attacked them - at the same time vomiting up a cloud of nasty insects that tried to sting everyone that was nearby!! As they were in a group, they managed to gang up on the Nun easily, and put her out of her misery before she or the insects could do much damage... Jennifer and Arthur were still struggling with their door... and Seb descended from the bookcase and ran at the giant fly wielding his warhammer over his head!

St.Doneera made it over to the furthest door, and Malvolio and a wounded Fern got to the other book shelf. This was when a sinister black cloud wafted into the room - everyone had to make a health roll to avoid catching a disease! Luckily everyone was ok. St.Doneera discovered that the door she was trying was unlocked. Inside the room there was a bed. Occupying the bed was a huge bloated wriggling grub. Filled with absolute disgust at this unholy abomination she rushed into the room and stabbed it with her golden sword. The sword struck metal... making a really lucky roll to avoid even more disease, she ripped open the fetid body of the white grub to find a holy chalice inside it!

Arthur, Brutus and Hattie approach the desk...

Whilst this was going on, a red mist rose up from the floor of the room engulfing the giant fly that Seb was fighting, and seemed to invigorate it and make it even more dangerous.

Malvolio searching amongst the jumble of books on the bookshelf found an old diary, which may be useful later on in the mission? We will have to wait and see...

With all the possible points of interest searched, we decided to all turn back and make our way back to the stairs before anything else bad happened... this was when a giant spider scuttled out of a hole... luckily for Seb it ran over and pounced on the giant fly that was attacking him and dragged it back into it's den!

No more creatures were on the table... everyone did double moves towards the staircase. A large wolf burst out of the furthest small room and chased after our heroes as they were about to descend the stairs... we were pretty sure we would all make it down the stairs before the wolf got to us. And we all did apart from Malvolio. The wolf just caught him at the top of the steps. He turned and bashed it with his morning star. Rolling high -  that was the end of the wolf. Malvolio slipped down the stairs after the others - glad to be out of this stinky place...

Giant Flies attack!

We were very lucky on this part of the mission - we passed some difficult dice rolls, avoided a lot of potential disease, found some interesting stuff, and got a decent amount of XP - enough for us to both upgrade our Rangers to level 7! 

Fern and Seb were both injured, but we had an unused healing spell, and made a couple of successful survival rolls - so after that they are not doing too badly as they prepare for the next stage of the mission... "The Herb Store"...

...

I created all the floorplans for this campaign using the fantastic free resources available from

  2 minute tabletop.

Wizards

Northstar - Frostgrave Plastic Wizard

Reaper miniature

Northstar - Metal Frostgrave Elementalist

Northstar - Frostgrave Plastic Wizard

Northstar - Frostgrave Metal Sigilist

Here are five wizards I've been working on over Xmas... they will all be used in up coming games of Frostgrave and/or Rangers of Shadow Deep...

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Burning Light - Part III

We have moved up the stairs to "The Dormitory" for our third scenario in the "Burning Light" campaign for Rangers of Shadow Deep...

   

(There are some spoilers here - so if you are planning to play through this mission yourself, maybe don't read this until after you've had your own game experience...)

Our crew were slightly battered from our encounters with the spiders in the Hospital... we didn't find anything to help us heal up in the last scenario... so most of our characters started slightly damaged.

At the start of this game, all our team had to roll individual climb rolls, If they failed, then they wouldn't make it up the broken staircase until the start of the second turn... Only two of Alfies' guys made it up the stairs, and all of mine apart from Seb got up in the first turn.

As we entered the room, we found a smashed up hospital dormitory, with three large holes in the floor.. cobwebs were everywhere...and three giant spiders started towards us from the corners. On the far wall across from the stairs were what looked like four chests... but the only way to get to them was to cross some thin precarious walkways of damaged floor...

The table floorplan for the game... end of turn 1.

The special rules for this scenario were that if any of our figures did a double move and ended their actions within 2 inches of one of the holes, they would have to make a special roll. If they failed, the figure would fall down the hole through the spider webs down into the hospital.. they would not be injured, but they would be out of play for the rest of this scenario.

In the first round, one of Alfie's characters Fern fell straight down a hole. After that we decided to just do single move actions and play it safe at least for a few rounds to try and get over to the chests safely. Meanwhile the Giant spiders were getting closer. 

My Ranger Jennifer, and Archibald her archer companion took out the first giant spider with their bows before it could get to them. At the end of the first round the event card caused one of the three walkways to collapse... we rolled a D6 to see which one it was... it was the top one on the furthest edge... a spider was halfway across it, but it passed it's move roll and made it back to the slightly sounder flooring...

As our teams split up to creep across the walkways, we managed to shoot both the other spiders as they approached... and then at the end of the second round two giant flies came up the stairs from behind us... Alfie's Ranger Arthur and Brutus our new doggy friend took on the Flies and managed to finish them off together without taking any damage..

At the end of the third turn a "Tortured Soul" materialised in the corner near the staircase and started following Arthur across the crumbling walkway...

Another Giant spider appeared near the chests, we shot that one too!

Arthur tried multiple times to put to rest the Tortured soul, but he didn't manage to do it.

We made it to the chests in round 7. Seb opened the first chest. It was unlocked... but unfortunately there was nothing of use in it.

Jennifer my Ranger smashed open the next one with a successful strength roll... she found a strange idol made of clay, she made an Ancient lore roll and discovered that it was a miniature sculpture of a specific deity. If the idol survives the whole mission it will be worth some XP! 

The third chest was opened by Archibald... there was a book in there written in runic symbols. Archibald failed a "read runes" roll. - he decided that the book must just be poetry or something and discarded it. I hope it wasn't anything actually useful?!

Hattie, one of Alfies'  characters picked the lock on the fourth chest. In it there was a painted icon of St.Doneera the warrior priestess....And then something miraculous happened....there was a flash of golden light, and an apparition of St.Doneera was there in the room with us!! - She mysteriously pointed in a specific direction (perhaps a clue?) and then she drew her golden sword and has joined us for the rest of this mission!!

With all the chests investigated, and no creatures on the table apart from the Tortured Soul, we decided it was time to leave, and everyone jumped down through the cushions of spider webs to the hospital below....

We were really lucky in this scenario, we didn't take any damage at all, and we managed to get to all the chests and open them before we ran out of time. All our guys will be back to full health for the start of the next game.

 Alfie has decided that for the next scenario we are going up the other stairs from the Hospital... up to "The Abbess' Quarters"...

...

St.Doneera

I created all the floorplans for this campaign using the fantastic free resources available from

  2 minute tabletop.

TT Combat terrain for Frostgrave

I got myself this mdf terrain set from TTCombat for Xmas. It is the DERELICT ENCLAVE set.

TTCombat have some excellent MDF terrain. They are really substantial, and very good value for money. The kits don't come with physical instructions, you have to download the pdfs from their website - but they are very easy to follow, no text just images - kind of like lego instructions.

I checked out the various Fantasy terrain sets they do, and I liked the look of this one the best - mainly because I thought it would fit in nicely with my homemade Frostgrave terrain, and bring in some more platforms and an extra level for our warbands to run around on.

This kit was easy to make, and I really enjoyed putting it together. This particular set is modular, so you can plug it together in a variety of ways... 

I spread a little bit of wall filler over the parts where the joints are to disguise them a bit, then painted the whole thing with dark and light grey emulsion (tester pots from B&Q) to match the Frostgrave Terrain I have already made...

All the modular bits...

Just one of many possible configurations... 

The set mixed in with some of my homemade terrain in our latest Frostgrave game.