59. Weather and daytime effects in Oathmark

Wargames basically want to simulate a real world with all its features, so we don’t need to jump to another dimension or time (and gather troops, supply them, kill a lot of living creatures, risking the life of a bunch of other ones, including ours) to test our tactical and strategical skills (and sometimes, maybe have a little fun). Of course this simulation is not perfect, but some very obvious, real world features are missing in a lot (I wouldn’t risk to say the most, however I think it would be true) of rulesets. Are in these other worlds or times no day and night? No seasons? No weather?

54. Mixed units in Oathmark

Last time I promised, that I will post about my homebrew rules for mixed units in Oathmark. And promises have to kept!

53. Oathmark: Bane of kings

The time has come, I finally arrived to the third and latest supplement for Oathmark: Bane of kings! Does it have a new faction, as in Oathbreakers? No. Can it still be better, then Battlesworn? Yes!

52. Oathmark: Oathbreakers

Oathbreakers was the second Oathmark supplement, and it was a big one! Not because it was thicker or printed on larger pages, but because it introduced a brand new faction: Undead!

51. Oathmark: Battlesworn

I’m still not getting a review writer, but as the already 3rd supplement is published for Oathmark, I thought that I make a short series about them. Let’s start with the first one, because (to spoiler my post) its leaves a better feeling at the end if we get the worst things first. And Battlesworn is the worst of the Oathmark series…

48. Big bad blanchitsu behemoth

Grimdark is written on the flag of GW (between a lot of skulls and £-signs), but who really made this style, was John Blanche (as a GW employee), so its also called blanchitsu. What does it mean? I dont want to write an essay about its core elements (as if I could...), if you're interested in it, I would recommend to read more about it, for example here. But just a sort summary, that we can go on: its a dirty, dark, sinister looking (okay, lets call it grim) painting style.

47. Seventyfive

I know, this is not a real post, but I achieved a very important point this week: I varnished 75 miniatures! 75 ready! 75 less to paint!

There are plus 5 miniatures, which needed re-varnishing (were too glossy). But also 10 forest pieces (where varnish should help prevent the foliage from baldness). Content is coming!

40. Banners for Oathmark

If you imagine a view of a tabletop wargame, what do you see? I bet, that the first two things, what you think of, are the painted miniatures, and the terrain. Obviously, these are the most important. But what is the third thing? Thats a harder question... At first, but after thinking a while my answer is pretty clear: banners!

39. Chariots for Oathmark

As I already wrote in my post about future of Oathmark, there should come chariots for all races in the upcoming Bane of King. These are especially great news for orcs and goblins, as they have no heavy cavalry, and even more for dwarves, as they have no cavalry at all (but humans and elves don’t need them that much, as they are very similar to their heavier cavalry units). As my sons have these armies, my brain immediately started to rev up!

37. Frostgrave sets in Oathmark (with bonus rules for Gnolls and Snake-men)

As my sons got 2 boxes of Frostgrave for Christmas (Gnolls and Snake-men), it was urgent to build them. But building without planning gets not 100% usage of the possibilities... Making a Frostgrave warband from 20 miniatures is not a big deal, but what else is possible? Using them in Oathmark is a pretty obvious offer. But how? First step of this planning is to set the limitations:

36. Polishing Oathmark

I stated a lot of times how much I Oathmark like (just take a look on the title of my blog). Although, after more then dozen various battles (unfortunately we dont have the time to play that much), I think, there are some small parts of the ruleset, which could use a little polishing. So I did it (all of the following is a correction according to my mindset and experience). These are only small changes of the existing rules, there are no new rules, and there shouldn’t be a significant impact on the game balance. The only exception are the army building limitations, but this is only an option for some battles, and if used, it should serve a better balance, not a worse one.

35. ...and rules for them

Now that I have self-sculpted miniatures in acceptable quality, I also want to play with them! In Frostgrave, the golem can be used as a construct, and the treeman as a giant, so I can check off one of my main systems. And in the other one, Oathmark, they certainly can be used as subtitutes for some monsters from the official rulebook, like an Eachy and a Giant for example. But that would bleach out their individual character a bit… So home-brew rules are needed!

34. Sculpting miniatures...

Warning! This post can be disturbingly long!

Without a long an meaningless introduction, I just start here: A little after I started painting miniatures, I felt the need to try out sculpting. But as it looks way harder than painting (at least if the result should be more or less acceptable), I had to find something, that’s easy to do. Human figures are obviously not that, because the body proportions has to be correct, the face has to look good, and there are a lot of small details… So actually it’s maybe the worst thing to start with. But I you find the worst case, you just have to invert it, to find the best! So what’s the inverse here? It has to be big, faceless, and with arbitrary proportions. Basically a formless blub… Okay, it would be easy for sure, but I wanted maybe a bit more refined thing… Something humanoid, with hands and legs, but without undefined proportions (and face). Actually an earth elemental (or rock golem) is quite a good start, because its simply some kind of humanoid form, with rocky surface! Like this one (from DevianArt):

33. Oathmark Halflings!

Im not planning to make a news channel out of this blog, but now, I have to make an exception. Because there are great news for every Oathmark fan! Joe McCullough announced on his blog, that halflings arrived to the Marches!

32. Black powder weapons in Oathmark

Oathmark setting is in technological terms like european early medieval: there are no crossbows (which I wont accept, because dwarves have to have crossbows, so I made house rules for them), not to mention black power weapons. But what if… What if once somebody would invent a magical powder, which explodes if ignited? And what if somebody puts that powder in a tube, and throws a rock on before igniting it? What if the kingdoms of the Marches would get primitive black powder weapons? Maybe it doesn’t fit the initial idea of Oathmark, but as its just a house rule and not a must, I don’t see big problems here (if You want to use house rules, just agree it with your opponent, if not, You can use your miniatures as archers and catapults after all).

31. Modular wooden fort II.

Let’s continue last week’s project with building the more complicated parts!

The tower: I made it 1 floor high, and a floor is for 28mm miniatures approximately 50mm. So, for the walls, 100 and 110mm long sticks are needed (50-60mm as for the walls plus 50mm for the floor). But there has to be doors and windows! Placing the doors for the best versatility is according to this example (and sketch):

30. Modular wooden fort I.

Back in business! After a short break, last weekend I got back, and finally started doing something. I decided, that I will work through my open projects (hopefully all of them...). The first step was not painting (at least for now), but building terrain. A little time ago I started to build a modular wooden fortress. I had two reasons for it. The first one was that I started to write siege rules for Oathmark, and I need to have something to try them out. The other one was, as I saw a youtube video on the TWS channel, which show a very quick way to build wooden fortifications. I basically built the same with some modifications.

First step was planning (as always), I had to decide the main dimensions. My insulation foam (XPS, extruded polystyrene, but it can be made of the cheaper EPS, expanded polystyrene also) is 30mm thick, so the embankment, where the miniatures will stand, will have that height (by the way, in my siege rules, there will be different walls, depending on their height, material, and number of ranks, that has place on them). The battlement is an additional 20mm and (because of the serrated form) 30mm higher. The width and depth was also not a big question. It will be a pretty small wall (the smallest one according to my rules), so it is enough if a single row of Oathmark unit has place on it. The width is at least 5x25mm, so I went with 130mm to have a bit space.

27. Avatars of war

Once upon a time, I was in my local gaming store, just buying my regular, pseudo-necessary stuff, and there was a sale. As You might know, the sales in the local gaming stores are one of the greatest powers on earth. There were such stuff, I never know I needed, but suddenly it was irresistible…

It was a sale of Avatars of War miniatures. They make beautiful metal and resin miniatures in the best WFHB aesthetics. They are a bit on the more expensive end of the market (12-13€/human sized miniatures), but they are really lovely especially with nostalgic googles. I always adored these minis, but as they were so expensive, and they didn’t really fit to my other miniatures (they are bigger, with more heroic proportions, and they dwarves are twice the size of an Oathmark dwarf). But now! For the price, I bought almost everything what they got (and Im still angry about the stuff I left there...). Lets take a look on them one by one.

25. Future of Oathmark

Oathmark is a relatively new game (published in April of 2020), so it has a (hopefully) long future ahead with a lot of new stuff coming. In this post, I want to take look in that future. Lets make the sequence according to the certainty, beginning with the already announced things and ending with the wishes...

Bane of Kings, the next supplement book, will be published in June of 2021. It will focus on the effects of time on the kingdom. What does that mean? Plagues, new alliances, deaths of leaders and rise of new ones. Sure, but what does that really mean? I dont know, but Im very curious about it (already pre-ordered it)! There will be some other new rules: formations (for example: phalanx, shield wall, skirmish line). I think, this will be a very good addition to the basic rules, it can add a new tactical layer to the game, without becoming too complicated. And new military expeditions (wit new scenarios), as already usual by the Oathmark supplements. I also read some rumors (dont ask where, I cant remember), that maybe all races will become chariots (I hear some dwarfs cheering!)...

24. Oathmark human army II.

Now let’s continue with the characters. I had no special source they are all made of the same sets, as the units (with one exception):

• Mounted king: with sword on a barded horse
• Mounted wizard: I used here a head and the hands form the Frostgrave wizard set, on a horse and body from a Perry knight. Tried to grind the armor plates from the legs, but the body is not so obviously armored, so I let it be. At the end, he got a giant (and ugly sculpted) cloak, made from epoxy putty (like the mounted elven wizard).
• Mounted champion: heavy armor, giant axe, and a separated body part form an enemy