Greek Warband Roster

The Greeks are defending their homeland against a numerous and deadly enemy. Fortunately they've had quite a bit of practice fighting each other and are mostly better armed and trained than their enemies. It's not going to be easy though.

If you haven't played with these rules before this is what you need to know: a low quality value is good because you need to roll over it on a d6. A high Combat value is good because you add it to a d6 roll. Special rules generally do what the name implies.

A starting warband is 300 points and you can't spend more than 100pts on personalities.The point limit will increase as the campaign progresses.

New units will also appear throughout the campaign.

A note on colour schemes
Since Spartan, Athenian and Corinthian hoplites could all end up looking very similar, please use the following colour schemes so that everyone can tell them apart at a glance.

• Athens: White helmet crests and/or tunics
• Corinth:  Black helmet crests and/or tunics
• Sparta: Red helmet crests and/or tunics

Amazon Archer Points 26 Quality 4+ Combat 2 Special Rules Good Shot, Shooter: Medium Amazons fail to understand why other Greeks need to get close to the enemy to kill him. Amazon Princess - Personality Points 66 Quality 3+ Combat 3 Special Rules Leader, Steadfast Amazon Princesses earn their rank by being outstanding fighters and leaders. Amazon Warrior Points 20 Quality 4+ Combat 2 Special Rules Free Disengage Mobility is a great advantage in battle and these warriors excel at it.

Athenian Warrior Points 21 Quality 4+ Combat 2 Special Rules Dashing, Shieldwall Athens produces fine warriors who are eager to enter the fray against their enemies.

Corinthian Hoplite Points 20 Quality 4+ Combat 2 Special Rules Heavy Armor Corinth is a rich city and its soldiers have the best equipment and a bad attitude. Priest / Priestess - Personality Points 56 Quality 3+ Combat 2 Special Rules Cleric, Free Disengage The gods have sent out their favoured servants to help fight the unliving minions of Xerxes.s

Spartan Warrior Points 29 Quality 4+ Combat 3 Special Rules Shieldwall, Steadfast Trained from birth as warriors, Spartans are fierce warriors and seldom flee from battle.

Greek slingers Points 21 Quality 4+ Combat 2 Special Rules Shooter: Medium The Greeks place little value on ranged combat but they do deploy slingers as skirmishers.

Spartan Hero - Personality Points 78 Quality 3+ Combat 4 Special Rules Hero, Shieldwall, Steadfast Spartan leaders are combat masters even amongst their own warrior culture.

Athenian Strategos - Personality Points 58 Quality 3+ Combat 2 Special Rules Dashing, Leader, Shieldwall Strategoi are experts in manoeuvring their troops for best advantage a fact that has won Athens many victories.

Corinthian Achon - Personality Points 46 Quality 3+ Combat 1 Special Rules Heavy Armor, Leader A Corinthian Archon is a merchant with a hint of patriotism. Whilst efficient he generally leads from the back.

Bronze Warrior Points 24 Quality 4+ Combat 2 Special Rules Artificial, Heavy Armor The gods have blessed some of the temple statues so that they help to defend the land against the invaders.

Centaur Points 42 Quality 4+ Combat 3 Special Rules Big, Long Move Half horse, half man and not happy about the invaders disturbing his drinking sessions.

Nymph Points 33 Quality 2+ Combat 0 Special Rules Coward, Distract, Forester Whilst these beautiful natures spirits are hardly warriors they do have an uncanny ability to distract the enemy at critical moments.

Satyr Points 28 Quality 2+ Combat 1 Special Rules Dashing, Forester Half man, half goat and normally very drunk. Satyrs are wild creatures who you don’t want to invite to dinner.

Satyr Archer Points 30 Quality 2+ Combat 1 Special Rules Forester, Shooter: Medium Some Satyrs are too lazy to get close and thump the enemy. They just shoot them instead.

Wrath of the Gods: Victory Points

Players will gain Victory Points for themselves so that we can see who is winning individually  Perhaps more importantly we will total the Victory Points for the players on each side to see which side ultimately wins the war!

To track VPs we have a Facebook Group. You need to report games played and won there so that they can be tracked. For painted miniatures, you need to post what you have painted ideally with a photo. If you can't post a photo then two other people need to post that they've seen them.

Painted Miniatures: 1 VP per model

Miniature games are much more fun when the models involved have been painted and based so whilst you're welcome to play with unpainted figures there are considerable VPs available if you do paint them.

To score victory points a model must have at least four colours on it and be based. Modelling sand, flock and resin bases are all fine types of basing. The quality of your painting is not judged only whether you have met the requirements.

Playing a game against a warband from an enemy faction: 1 VPs

Both the winner and the loser get points in this way. Playing a game against a warband from your own faction does not gain you points because we want to encourage people to fight the other side. :-)

Winning a game: 2 VPs

Pretty self explanatory, I think. You get this even if you play a warband from your own side.

Ogre Gladiators from Black Tree Design

Greetings fellow painters, just a quick post to show the results of my labours at the painting table over the weekend. These two ogre gladiators will be terrifying my players in an RPG session soon. 

The figures are from Black Tree Design. They were fun to paint and I was pleased with how the armour turned out. I rushed them a bit towards the end to get them finished which is why the swords don't look great.. I ought to go back to them but the rest of my lead mountain is calling me.

Scale shot with a handy Reaper human

 This figure got a bit more attention than the other so here's a close up.

How to pin miniatures

What is this pinning you speak of?

Pinning is a skill that most miniature enthusiasts pick up at some stage; essentially it's a method of securing a limb or other item to a miniature.  It's used in situations when superglue is not strong enough to hold the model together which is pretty often in my experience of superglue and metal minis.  The pin takes much of the weight of the appendage and takes the strain off the superglue. When done correctly it gives you a very strong bond.

Although it's particularly important when working with large metal models, even human sized figures may require it on occasion. Dynamically posed figures that come in multiple parts are frequent candidates for pinning. Since plastic and resin are lighter than metal it isn't often necessary with figures made from those materials.

Okay, so what do I need?

Superglue, a pair of side cutters or clippers, a metal paper clip and a pin vice. A pin vice (or vise to our American cousins) is a simply a small hand drill. You can get them from hobby stores, GW, Amazon and doubtless other places. IF you expect to be working with metal miniatures frequently then they're a good investment.

Tools: side cutters, paper clip and a pin vice.

Pinning an Ogre Gladiator Step by Step

Our test subject today is an Ogre Gladiator from Black Tree Design. Although the arm socket is well designed the arm is quite heavy and will be much stronger if pinned.

1. Prepare the figure
Clean any flash and mould lines off the figure in the usual way and then dry fit the figure and check that all the parts go together smoothly. If they don't, you won't be able to pin them properly as the glue won't take. File them down or otherwise remove anything that is in the way.  You may discover at  this stage that there's going to be a gap between the two parts. If this happens, fear not as you can fill it easily using green stuff after you've pinned the model.

Dry fit the figure and make sure the parts go together smoothly.

2. Find a pin and a suitable drill bit
An ordinary metal paper clip makes a fine pin.  If you have to pin something particularly heavy, you could use a bigger and therefore stronger paper clip. To find the right size drill bit, line the paper clip up with prospective drill bits until you find a match. A slightly larger drill bit is okay as the super glue will fill some space around then pin.

Find the right size drill bit for your pin by lining them up

 as in the picture.

3. Drill the holes
Pretty self explanatory this bit. Some miniatures are made of a harder metal than others so the effort of drilling can vary. I prefer to make the holes deep rather than shallow but be careful not to drill all the way through the arm and into your finger; it hurts. Yes, I speak from experience.

It's normally possible to line them up by eye but at times you may want more precision usually on very wide surfaces. There is a method for this but I didn't need to do it on this figure and forgot to include it as one of the steps. I'll do in another post soon.

Holes drilled into the arm and the body.

4. Cut and insert the pin 
Using a pair of clippers cut off a short length of paper clip. Cup your free hand around the clippers as you do so to stop the bit you cut off flying across the room.

Without gluing anything insert the pin and fit the pieces together. If the pin is too small, cut a new one. If it's too long you'll see there is a gap between the pieces as shown in the picture below. When this happens, it's generally best to simply deepen one of the holes until it fits snugly.

Cut the paper clip and check it fits in the socket.

5. Glue it together
Superglue the pin into the body and allow it to dry. Apply superglue to the pin and the area around it and put on the arm. Again leave it to dry. And that's it. Job done. :-)

Miniature pinned at last :-)

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Thanks for the +1 and happy pinning!

Showcase: Space Dwarves - Hasslefree Grymm

Thanks to 40k's genesis as a spin off from Warhammer Fantasy Battle space orks and knights are pretty common among sci fi minis. It's a little odd then that dwarves were few and far between for many years after GW wrote the Squats out of the 40k universe. Happily that isn't the case any more. For my tastes, Hasslefree's Grymm are some of the best space Dwarves out there and there's quite a bit of competition these days. I like the clean sculpts wnd the and the modern sci fi look. Anyhow, a while ago I painted some up for use in a Sci Fi role playing game I was running.

Painting wise they were fun to do and quite straightforward. I spent a bit longer on Kraggs and the pilot as I anticipated them being named NPCs in the game. The main point of interest was that this was my first experiment with the Games Workshop texture paints for basing.  I was quite pleased with results and they're very easy to use, you just paint them on. I did do a couple of coats though.

The Grymm advance across unknown terrain

Kraggs leads his troops forwards

Grymm trooper takes aim...

The civilian pilot looks around nervously.

Kragg the squad leader hefts his axe.

The Grymm deploy sentry guns for additional fire support.