The Empire Responds to the invasion of the Uruk Hai
Recommendations: 1455
About the Project
I have spent a few years building a large terrain board, some small armies and one large army of Uruk hai. I now want to build up another army to match the size and force of the orcs (Uruk hai) and goblins (Moria). The only two forces I have of any scale is undead and Empire, my mates have some empire too so I shall do my empire principally. And we can use the allies from other human provinces during games to top us up in points as high as possible while the forces slowly come together. Though I may get distracted from the slog again from time to time. This is now part of the process! So expect: undead, Men of Numenor , Eregion Elves, Morian Dwarves and maybe even some dungeon saga. Possibly a small bit of sci fi too as I’ve wanted to get on to my Aliens from the film for ages! But mostly, FOR THE EMPIRE!!!! And dogs of war…..
Related Game: Warhammer Fantasy Battles
Related Genre: Fantasy
This Project is Active
New rulesets? Why bother?
It’s no secret, I do not like learning new rules. I’ve tried to pick up the Hail Caesar rulesets, I just look at the pretty pictures and read the history side of things. I cannot be arsed to learn the rules. A major mental block occurs and I just put the lovely books to one side.
Then I came across Warhammer ancient battles. It was as if a Christmas tree had lit up in my head. It’s allllll the same
Rules as the old warhammer. Completely suitable for 4th through 6th edition. All the stats and special rules just lift out and drop perfectly into my games and best of all I pick it up intuitively, with next to no effort as I already have this framework burned into my soul from years of play.
A few of the supplements give extra depth and nuance with some additional flavourful rules like Parthian shot for your skirmishing light horse archers. Testudo, extra weapons options, war wagon rules, extra artillery options, more formations and more troop types and abilities. More than I can ever faithfully get through in a lifetime if added to the plethora of Warhammer supplements over the years. It’s given me a new lease of life in my fantasy wargaming, I’ve been able to invent my own troop types for classic races and do so with authority, integrity and good fun.
I don’t need new rules. I don’t need to
Teach my mates any new rules. I don’t need to rebase or adapt any of my miniatures!!!! Huzzah!
I am going to Incorporate the war wagons from WAB into a mega game in April of warhammer fantasy. And some rules for pike block formations with abilities for light horse to add extra dimensions to fantasy gaming.
I’m forced to consider the point of new rules. If you have an existing ruleset, all be it ‘out of date’ or extremely well known and well trod. If you get extra pieces to add in to a well established, large player base ruleset without having to by and learn a whole plethora of stuff from the ground up then does it really matter that it’s not a ‘perfect ruleset’!?
Does it matter if it isn’t as streamlined as many designers now would want? I don’t think it does. I think the merits of knowing the code rules and having plenty of people already with familiarity and miniatures ready to go more than out weighs the detracting factors. I’m only going to learn hail Caesar/kings of war if the collection gets soooo unwieldy in scope that I want a super paired back rules system to pop at quickly. But I really don’t care about ‘quickly’ so far. I like the intricacy and layering of these elements. It’s a great flavour generator in games.
Perhaps I’m just classic in my tastes
What a spiffing resource, with rules I know intuitively due to my pedigree. 
Cracking extra details to add in to fantasy.
With a classic 1980’s games master publication to teach me the lost skill of running a games mastered wargame. I’m thoroughly convinced that this style of play is worth dredging back up in this time of pick up and play. There is so much potential fun with this method. Maybe if I drag my whole collection to that special place in the north west of Europe I could run a special massive game for the Irish we love so well to play and promote this classic way of having fun?! What you think?Some details
Made myself some units of outriders as I don’t like the massive looking multi barrelled guns of the old miniatures. I used plastic rod and glued bundles of 7 together to make a 6 barrelled effect at a more believable scale. Made them into pistols and carbines.
I’ve used 100% contrast paints on these fellas, but I must be doing something wrong. Some of the contrasts seem to work fine, but others elude me. The yellows are a bit sketchy and some of the browns are not ideal. Not sure I like my paint scheme on the pistoliers or the outriders. But they are complete, and I’m not re doing them.
Gathered the canon and mortar into batteries. Love the look of them.
Very pleased with the Hussite war wagons. The crew and crossbows are all contrast paints but turned out great! The unit of red Stradiots joining the Kislev force (love the Kislev) are contrast paint too. I’m not convinced on the tzarinas banners, I think I need to re paint them like the purple ice wizard in the Kislev foot troop unit. 
Steam tanks part 2
The steam tanks head out with wagon train in support. I’m particularly pleased with the smoke and the cannister shotte casualties on the main tanks base. The casualty is one miniature cut in half and the two sides used as two corpses. The models stand too proud of the ground if they aren’t reduced like this.
Close up of cannister shotte.
The main pair
The last base for steam tank number 3 (on its way), the one with the Hellblaster. I got excited by the idea of leaving tread marks. So I avoided putting glue in the wheel areas trailing behind and added flesh wash to the grooves and this is what I’ve got. Then I thought, people and orcs would run right? They would leave their weapons in the rush too. Said weapons would get crushed. So crushed weapons.2 out of 3 complete for the steam tanks.
Look at the smoke, I love the smoke. This is the strange wool that comes in the Perry miniatures boxes. It is scratchy nasty stuff that has more rigidity than cotton wool. It seems to do just fine as smoke. I made the banners using a home inkjet printer. Now I’m thinking about the engineers. I really like the blue on the tanks and I reason that red jackets would stand out nicely on these lords of steam.1st corp Hussite war wagons are ace. Best one is the cannon!
I don’t usually like resin, but I approve of resin for the wagon and metal for the cool details and horses. I still get the heft and sense of value I want from handling a miniature. Well done 1st corp.
Just got to base them and hook up the horses with jewellers chain or something. But these are the last of my wagons fully made up. Just got to paint the bastards now…
