Frostgrave OATHMARK GOBLIN INFANTRY

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Notes: Because Oathmark limits all troop types to no more than 4 units of each, the largest WOTR army possible in Oathmark (using the above constraints) would be sixteen units: 4 Archers, 4 Human Spearmen and 8 other units, of which no more than 4 can be cavalry and no more than 2 can be heavy cavalry. I have actually given the Halfling Slinger a slightly better shooting ability than their Goblin comparators (a 1 as opposed to 0) as the Halfings are so good with this sort of weapon. Activation, then, is hugely important. And herein is one of the really interesting aspects of gameplay: different fantasy races have different activation stats. As you might predict, elves are more responsive than goblins, with humans between the two. Fighting a historical game, then, where both sides would (I guess!) be human, means that the activation stat is largely taken out of the game, especially if we ignore magic as well (some spells can affect activation) and so a big part of Oathmark’s dynamic would be lost. PROXY

The only Dragons that can be used are Glaurung and his spawn, however none of the first Dragons could fly. Glaurung can command armies, though, and has two specific stages to his abilities.Oathmark has some similarities with departed versions of Warhammer. It’s a “rank and flank” game which uses figure removal from units which get rank bonuses and have stats lines that remind of many fantasy games, including not only Warhammer, but games like Dragon Rampant. In other words, the basic approach is quite traditional, easily understood by both novice and expert. In addition to their stats line, units also may have Special Abilities applied to them. These do amount to a toolbox of sorts– several of which seem entirely desirable for historical games. Fire Over (shooting overhead) or Nimble (no movement penalty for Rough Ground) might be given to skirmishing troops, for example (skirmishers do not exist as a distinct troop type in Oathmark), Brace would help represent pikes ( Oathmark only identifies spears, which automatically get Brace) and so on.

I’m also not that interested in so-called “balanced” games. I find asymmetric and scenario-driven games much more rewarding and more realistic. Oathmark unit specs can be treated as “hypothetical” historical units, and pitted against each other on that basis, (e.g. a large army of units with poor activation faces a small army with good activation: Persians against Macedonians, say) whilst several of the scenarios also offer plausible historical possibilities. I think this is a great mechanism for historical gaming, and one well worth adopting/adapting and, moreover, fun to experiment with, though it’s probably unlikely to lead to real historical insight...These are great miniatures for those looking for something different and a fitting prelude to the arrival of the eagerly anticipated rules system. The goblin infantry won't stay alone within their dark green skinned ranks, as North Star has previewed wolf riders in summer, and these will come in plastic, along with a few metal command models. And their release is set for January 2020! Add in a few engines of war (catapult or ballista) and you got yourself a proper range for fantasy mass combat - at a reasonable rate. I am just missing a bit of gubbins, some looted goods, a horn or drum for the musician, a severed dwarf or elf head for the banner, simply bits. Because if you go for the army project, your banner men and such will look pretty similar, unless you add a few parts from other kits (yes, with the overall plastic range that North Star offers, there are quite a bit choices, still next to the spears was a bit of room for such things...). Rangers of Shadow Deep, for example, has spawned individual fan versions (called “reskins”: an appropriately dark description) for universes such as Star Wars, post-apocalypse, WW2, Inquisitor, Dragon Age, 40K, Victorian Sci-fi, Judge Dredd and Call of Cthulu. We are getting to misty parts... But there is still one clue: the book art. If you look closely at the book, you can notice, that the box arts are also included in it: double sided prints, with more, differently armed figures. But there are also such pictures, what we haven'tseen on plasticboxes. Yet... I think, that its pretty likely, that we will later! Here is a list of the double sided, box-art-like pictures from the books, with my tip on the possible sets: Dark Ages figures of all sorts are a good match for orcs, I think - the Irish and Goths look like great bases for more primitive orcs, the late Romans would make a fine base for more militaristic orcs, the Afghans or Persions would make fascinating bases for orcs, hobgoblins, goblin-men, or half-orcs!

Anyway, as you can see, the plastic kit comes with swords, axes, daggers, spears, bows and more allowing you to make a diverse range of units for your Oathmark armies. Do you have a favourite combination of bitz yet? Metal Orc Miniatures Lead The Way This is where our first problem arises... In the Oathmark rules, Goblins and Orcs are distinct races, with the usual range of troop types, however, in Middle-earth, Goblins and Orcs were alternative names for the same creatures, so – to counter that – I will be using the stats for both races from the rules. The reasoning behind this being that the ‘Goblins’ are in Tolkien, just smaller, less powerful Orcs. So these first stabs clearly show that Oathmark is perfectly serviceable for at least some historical armies. My personal feeling is that exploring possibilities like this is a fun element of our hobby, though others may feel that using unit descriptions which are “more or less” right is not really historical gaming at all. There’s a debate to be had here along the familiar “isn’t all wargaming fantasy?” line, but I’m not going in that direction in this brief article.

Grand Order of the Wombat

Human heavy cavalry: will be included in the Human Cavalry box (although I dont see any heavy cavalry on the possible box art), or will it became a separate set? If a separate set, will it be the same size as the former ones, or its time for smaller boxes (because 15 Human Heavy Cavalry is a really huge and expensive force)? Or maybe some metal/resin casts with separate horses and riders, maybe separate hands+weapons to combine? Halflings, wizards, and other characters: Wargames Atlantic's halfling militia are about the closest thing going out there to Tolkien-style hobbits in plastic, but they seem to me just a little too close to a formal army than it seems proper Shire hobbits might form up into, and Mantic's equivalent are in a similar boat - again, YMMV. I've seen some nice (GW, I think) metal halfling militia that look more like Shire farmers gathered into ad-hoc mobs - wish there were a plastic set like those! Why, you may ask, mess about with a perfectly good fantasy rule system for historical games when there’s already more historical rulesets around than could conveniently be counted? My reasons are these:

The key problem with any such adjustment is that there’s no clear statement of how troop stats or characteristics equate to points, so players will need either to ignore the issue of exact equivalence between armies, or to playtest adjusted points for altered units until both sides are reasonably happy with the outcome. My way of doing this is to play a game using the standard stats as given for every unit except one, or at the most, two experimental units, so I can gather evidence on the impact of those adjustments in comparative terms. (This phrasing makes it sound a little like a controlled experiment. It’s not, of course, if only because dice are involved. But it does limit variability a bit, so you can at least get a playtester’s sense of whether your tweaks are radically unbalancing). The Goblin Slaves kit can be used alongside your greenskin armies in Oathmark but they would also be a solid fit for armies in other games as well. The joy of Oathmark is that you can mix and match which Fantasy factions fight for your kingdom so you might find a use for these!I felt honour bound to use my Oathmark goblins and I also deployed my new Vendel Goblins, all in (to me at least) big, chunky 15 figure units. To my delight, none of them totally embarassed themselves in their first game. The Oathmark archers, played as orcs, actually finished off Mike's Rangers and the spear orcs got a couple of good charges in. My Vendel goblin archers managed to kill a few of the enemy too, which made them very happy. Sauron's human warriors: Wargames Atlantic's Afghans and Persians might make some splendid Easterlings - the human armies summoned in from the far-eastern corners of Middle Earth to lead the Orcs in war and conquest, and I've just be reminded that Victrix makes some great war elephants/olifaunts that ought to be perfect for that sort of project. You can give them dynamic poses, that fill 25mm round bases or rank them up to a proper regiment on 20mm squares. Both options work quite well, and due to the vast options of weaponry (and the beat-up hand weapons are a proper choice for goblins) you can build multiple types of regiments from this set, so it's a proper core choice beyond Oathmark for similar games like Kings of War or Saga Age of Fantasy if you like. Due to their slender build, the goblins could even be used along with the true scaled miniatures of the Lord of the Rings, maybe not as goblins, but as Mordor orcs or such not a bad choice.