Polish units for a Kislev style army HC!-FAN

More 10mm miniatures, this time I've completed (if there is such a word in wargaming) a Warmaster Kislev style army for the HC! Fantasy game I'm throwing together.

Economical as always these troops will also be available to fight a Renaissance battle against an Ottoman Turk army, once built, in Pike & Shotte. A

All Models are Pendraken either their 16th C Polish Renaissance range, or their 12mm Fantasy Monster Bears, I went for the unarmoured variant. 

One of the bears may in due course end up as a transformed Wizard, truly there is no end to the madness.

The Hussite War wagons are from Pendraken, Medieval Late European range.

 

Winged Hussars, why else would you have the army?

Zaporozhian Cossack / Axemen

Bear followed up with Polish Horse Archers

Hussite War wagons, two stands make a unit/base positioned either in columns 30mm wide by 200mm long or in Laagered position as in the bottom image 100mm wide x 60mm deep.

See also

Arabic Army for fantasy, HC or even P&S
Lizard Men For Hail Caesar - Lost Children of the Fallen Gods
Orc army based up  rebasing for HC Fantasy

Arab Units for HC!-FAN

I like to consider using armies in multiple scenarios.

These Arabic fighters are destined to fight in a Fantasy HC! version of Warmaster. 

Via a reality warp they could fight Medieval Crusaders in a Hail Caesar! Battle or even skip a century and fight  allied/levied troops with the Ottoman Turk Renaissance Armies in a Pike and Shotte game.

The flags are homemade.

Elephants are from Newline Designs and the Arabic masses from Pendraken Dark Ages

Large Fan Elephant unit with two single based for HC and a command Elephant base.

Heavy Cavalry with a Commands

Medium Cavalry Unit

Arabic Infantry with a command base

Arabic Archers with a command base and a Skirmish line to the front.

See also

Lizard Men For Hail Caesar - Lost Children of the Fallen Gods
Orc army based up  rebasing for HC Fantasy
Polish Army for P&S and a little fantasy  Kislev

Tracking Wounds and Stamina - Why are there little poles on your bases?

 Wound markers - Why are there little poles on your bases?

Picture above says it all without the waffle.

We all need to track wounds and there are many ways of doing it. Dice, coloured or numbered counters are some options and most of the time they are positioned next to the unit and so often left behind when the unit moves. The solution is to balance the marker on the base I've seen discs balanced between ranks of troops and I want to cry.

We were using small dice green indicating wounds, replaced with a red die when they were shaken. These also get left behind and worse would get knocked so five wounds became one. Using dice holders gave mixed results, some too tight you can't get the dice out, or too loose and fall out.

Then we started playing a lot of Hail Caesar! and it soon became clear we had to identify which units belonged to an HQ, to stop errors in command.

SWMBO required a trip to IKEA and I saw a cheap version of Hama beads 'PYSSLA' and the solution came to me.

Use the beads at one rear corner to denote wounds using the current colour system, use the other colours on the other edge to denote HQ and its units. 

This is a 10 point Stamina version whilst HC goes up to 8 stamina I allowed for the possibility of 10 stamina. (Fantasy version with Monsters). 

Each red dice represent a point where the unit might be shaken, depending on what its stamina is 4, 6, 8 or 10 use red or if unit has a higher stamina value use the pink, orange or black token at that point instead.

Basing my Lizardmen

 I wanted to have a tropical feel with a rich grass base with pools of water and spikey plants.

I usually base my models by placing them on the wet filler, a plastic based filler needs no glue and is almost instant, a sand based filler needs a little Copydex and left overnight to dry. 

The pools of water are rather simple. 

I left areas with no filler or scrapped it off, painted the flat area white, then some Ice Blue, any light blue will do, then Aethermatic Blue as a patchy finish, looking for a patchy algae bloom. 

Finally PVA glue twice, sometimes a with a 2nd coat of Aethermatic Blue between the PVA layers. I then painted the earth a medium brown as I intended to cover most of it I didn't do my usual Iraqi Sand dry brush.

I couldn't make my mind up if I was going to flock before or after I added the plants, in the end I did both but preferred the before. 

If you flock after doing the plants you may end up flocking the plastic and or leave bare earth under them. In temperate basing I think bare earth works, I didn't want it in my jungle bases I wanted rampant growth, but for the swampy light infantry units I wanted a little earth showing

Doing the plants - for sources look at Using plastic plants, sources and application

My spikes were made using elements from a Topiary ball, 

I used either elements 1 or 2 cutting off one part (3) then cut that in to three parts (4) or sometimes 2 by not cutting at 'a' to give me a taller piece.

I drilled 1mm holes to plant them, especially for the long pieces (at the back right in image).

However, if I wanted to achieve the short stubby spikey bits I had to drill 2mm and even 3mm holes to pull through all the stems so I only had the leaves. (Front and sides in the image.) 

Be very careful when drilling, especially with brittle 3D prints, fortunately the glue back together well.

I'd often start with a small size to lead the way, then use larger bits, testing the piece I wanted to pull through using large bits up to 3mm and usually using pliers to pull them through.

When I had the right size hole I'd use loads of superglue gel locating it amongst the leaves where they'd be squeezed together, look at the last image see all the plastic. Before I started doing this excess glue the elements were falling out.

When it was set, I'd cut off the pulled through excess and push in more super glue.

You'll be picking superglue off your fingers for a while, frequent washing during the process helps. 

Be very careful your gluey finger doesn't touch the painted model. I tended to do this a little at a time wondering if it was worth the effort.

Lizard Army confront a Tomb Kings Horde, HC!Fantasy - 1st Play Test

 Lizard Army confront a Tomb Kings Horde

First play test of the two armies with a new rules system.

Essential I've created HC! army lists for Warmaster armies and magic. My victim played the Tomb Kings whilst I played the Lizardmen.

Simple game no scenery just line up and charge to test the points allocations, unit creation and magic rather than an indvidual's skills

Result was a resounding win for the Tomb Kings who lost nothing whilst the Lizards lost half the army. Christoph (aka the victim) was delighted with the result and felt the game played like Warmaster without some of the detail that sometimes bogged it down.

I forgot the photos through the game but over three turns not a lot happened as my command rolls ensured half my Lizard army never moved.

Turn 1
I advanced the right wing and fired some shots at the Tomb Kings. The Tomb Kings waited for my arrival with some positional changes as the commander had realised he'd set up incorrectly and fired at the Lizards. Casting Doom and Despair on the Kroxigor who could now only stand and stare

Turn 2
The Skinks in the right wing of the Lizards charged the Skeleton Infantry and were pushed back becoming disordered and were pushed back to their death in turn three. The Terradons flews behind the Skull chucker and fired shots at it whilst the Stegadon advance slowly forwards.
The left wing of the Lizards failed their command again, whilst the Tomb kings facing them advanced a little & cast spells and fired. The middle division joined in attacking the right wing of the Lizards.

Turn 3
The Lizardmen on the left were in combat or failed commands and the division on the left flank also failed. This was just very poor rolling 10+ and blunders, whist break tests were rolling under 7s with excess casualties taking them lower. 
The Tomb kings facing the unmoving left wing of the lizard fired and finally the Lizards moved, backwards as they failed their break tests.
On the Lizard's right wing the Skeleton Infantry polished of the skinks and swept into the Salamander unit destroying it. The centre and cavalry from the right wing of the Tomb Kings charged into the Stegadon which was destroyed in combat. 

The game ended at the end of turn three as half the Lizard army left the table.

Note:
The Tomb King archers had depleted the stamina of the Lizard units so they were almost shaken when the were attacked.
Magic throughout had been as haphazard as it ever was in Warmaster.

I believe I got the stats for both armies about right but I'll need to ensure the General is played as a CIC rather than being in charge of a division, so a little rule tweaking will be required and both the below lists would have an extra Hero HQ.

The Lizard men army was about 1K Warmaster points.

The Tomb Kings also about 1K points

Why did the Lizard lose when the Tomb Kings didn't even lose a unit?

It was one of those unbalanced dice rolling games that happen every now and then and a lack of HQs on the Lizard's side only made it worse.

The Lizard army failed 80% of its command rolls and 80 of it's break tests, whenever a 6 was required, a 1 was rolled and when a 1 was required a 6 was rolled. I could not believe the luck, rolls to hit were failed morale saves failed. The Lizard player (me) usually enjoys great luck with the dice, not today.

Meanwhile the Tomb Kings did what they do shrug off everything, but in addition made far more morale saves and shrugged off brake tests.