Frostgrave OATHMARK GOBLIN INFANTRY

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This article is written in that same spirit: it outlines some exploratory ideas for using Oathmark to play historical games. Of course, many players have been using their existing historical collections to flesh out their fantasy armies in any case, but what I’m interested in here is how useful the system might be for purely ‘historical’ rather than ‘fantasy’ gaming. 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... I’m a big fan of those games. I particularly like Joe’s approach in encouraging players to adapt his game systems to fit their own preferences and contexts. It’s a refreshing, open approach which many gamers seem to respond to, recognising that we’re not all the same, we have different interests, habits, pleasures and resources, and that gamers want to treat a system like a toolbox through house rules and so on. Similarly the ‘fluff’ accompanying Joe’s games is generally indicative rather than definitive, enabling players to create their own variant worlds to greater or lesser extent. I think we are trough with the missing units. Regarding monsters and artillery, I wouldn't make any prophecies, because there is only one official monster, and zero official artillery available. Thats to few to draw any lesson from it. And the characters?Northstar has a lot of metal miniatures, the tooling for metal casts is relativelyeasy to make, so there is everything possible! Although the game has not been designed as a toolbox of optional rules intended to be selected according to taste, I can see no reason not to approach it that way, given how it works. I suspect Mr McCullough won’t be too unhappy with people adapting his mass battle engine for other contexts. Oathmark is, however, a pretty tight system, so any tinkering with stats risks distorting some aspect of game play. Even so, if your intent is precisely that – to distort it in a particular direction (in this case, towards something more useful for a historical battle) – the obvious route is to raise or lower particular stats in a unit profile to create profiles you feel more appropriate historically. Doing this effectively means you’re no longer playing Oathmark as written, but a variant of your own devising, so I suggest you play a few games first, with any suitable figures, without changing any stats, just to see how units handle without such creative adjustments.

This was also the first time the Balrogs were sent against the Elves. Although they weren’t involved in the early stages of the battle, I will discuss the characters and possible stat options at the end of the article. The Glorious Battle I see regular wishes for "pig-faced" orcs from gamers who remember old '80s fantasy, like this illustration from an old D&D edition, and the DFC toys that rip the illustratoin off: The following units are available to a Goblin leader. I will leave the word “Goblin” out of each entry as it can be assumed that all of the standard units in this list are Goblins. I also make mention of their armaments in case you want to see if the model types match up with the army you own or your preconceived notions.North Star has started to release the plastic and metal miniatures designed to accompany the forthcoming Oathmark fantasy battle rules from Osprey Games. The new Goblins are a new take on old school designs. In the last issue, Mr Green gave us his take on Tolkien’s Elves, Dwarves and Humans from the First Age for any use in Oathmark rules by Northstar . This time he goes all evil! Ed .

Northstar's Frostgrave hard plastic kits for wizards, knights, soldiers, crewmen, barbarians, and tribals are a great source of miscellaneous adventuring gear and figures, and can be used for sources of bits for customizing humans, elves, wizards, and more or less human-sized orcs/goblins pretty easily, and can be used to customize dwarves and hobbits with varying amounts of modeling work to make them look right (since weapon-holding arms tend to be shorter than typical human arms!) As the Goblin list elements for this army are purely the soldiery, I suggest instantly reducing this list by removing Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 11. This leaves us with class 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10. I suggest at least 60% of the army should consist of these class, with at least 50% of those being from Class 7, 8. And the other 50% being from class 9 and 10 and with most units having a Champion (Class 5) in command. 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! When he next appeared Glaurung was fully grown. Consequentially, he can now breathe fire, and – additionally – he may have a unit of two other Dragons under his command, however these do not have the breathe fire ability. Wolfish-heads for wolf-man armies on the same sprue: all the better to march with an undead or beast-man army with - a lot of great old horror and sci-fi was achieved with human actors wearing elaborate bestial masks or makeup!These are great miniatures for those looking for something different and a fitting prelude to the arrival of the eagerly anticipated rules system. I won’t go into the history of Morgoth and his war against the Elves as Tolkien did it a lot better than I can. However, I will try to keep the various options for forces chronological for the times, and loosely based around the major battles of (what are collectively known as) The War Of The Jewels, of which there were five. Within this chronological framework I will introduce the various creatures, and character types that can be used as commanders as they appeared in the histories and the make up of the forces that they commanded, as with the last article there will be no distinct ‘army list’ for these forces, merely suggestions of suitable force make up. So with that starting point in mind I fished out my copy of the Oathmark rules and saw what was available. Looking at the Spiders first, there is actually a Giant Spider listed: There are some subtle nuances in the design which are interesting. Champions can do some cool stuff, but they aren't overpowering. Generals have interesting command rules. Units within 6 inches of the general's unit get an extra activation dice so are less likely to fail, but also if the general's unit activates then he can immediately activate up to two more units within 6 inches, letting him deliver quite a decisive punch in the middle of the normal each side takes turns activating units. 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: