Fantasy Series on the Horizon

WIP shield design for the new fantasy series.

Hello all, long time away I know, but big news on the horizon.

With two books under my belt (Gunner the Beagle) I turn to my on again, off again fantasy series. For background, I started writing it in 2007, and looking back? My writing from that time frame is horrible to say the least. Since then I've grown a bit in terms of ability, but realize I still have a long way to go.

With all that said, I've begun again.

After wondering what I really wanted my fantasy series to be, I've spent the last six months researching and preparing while I finish up my stories about Gunner.

The working title for the first book "The Dragon's Brood" is targeted at around 400-600 pages and is going to be in the vein of the Jack Wythe Arthurian Saga in terms of number and length of books. I'm still pondering a overall title to the series, but nothing is definitive yet. If all goes well this could be as many as ten books to round out the whole story.

For inspiration I'm drawing from Jack's excellent series as well as a number of other sources from books, to movies to songs. Case in point I'm rereading Beowulf (see here) as you don't get much more to the heart of the time frame than that.

Some high level points:

• A fantasy world of my own devising.
  
• While dragons are in the title of the first book, its not about dragons as the main focus.
• Technology roughly corresponds to the "Dark Ages" of Earth's history, specifically Anglo-Saxon England, the Viking Age to the Norman period.
• A point somewhere between, low and high fantasy.

With all this said and looking at the outline,  Let it Beagle Media will be publishing the first book in the last quarter of 2025. To start especially this blog will be the vehicle for announcements.

I feel the timeline is doable given my writing output when I'm engaged and focused. There some unique features I'm doing with my advance readers but more on that a latter point.

I look forward to everyone coming along for the ride.

(As a side note, the shield above is me noodling around with ChatGPT. This book will not be AI created nor the art. For art I have an excellent book designer who is already working on concepts.)

Warhammer Levies, next to useless, but fun to paint!

"Go and get um' lads! There is only one and there are thirty of us, what could go wrong? CHARGE!!!"

All too often the biggest, the baddest and the most cool units in Warhammer get all the attention. After all that kick ass unit that wins you game after game gets the glory, as it should. But this post is not about those glory soaked units, in fact we're going to talk about the other end of the unit spectrum: levies!

We all know about the High Elf Dragonkin in 3rd Edition Warhammer, the Daemons of Khorne or even the incredible stat lines of vampires (see below) or treemen. So instead, how about levies! In this case a peasant levy from the 3rd Edition Bretonnian Army list in Warhammer Armies.

Before we get into it, first things first, the stat-line for the unit, in this case, Rascals (sorry about the low light photo of the entry):

BBBBLLLLECCCHHHHHH. WS2, BS2, I2, there is no way around it, levies are bad and not in a good way. Their only redeeming feature (if you can call it that) is that they are cheap at 4 points per model. Spears and shields costing .5 points a piece don't really do much to bring them up to even being remotely useful. On top of that they are compulsory troops (yes White Dwarf #137 had a revised page for the Bretonnians, but going with this for now). 

Add to this the rules from the Warhammer Fantasy Rulebook on page 99 shows that they have a special mob formation meaning they cannot expand or contract frontage. Basically the unit formation they appear with on the first turn? That's what they are going to go with the whole battle, no changing it.

So the natural question is what are they good for? The answer is really not much. On the battlefield I suppose one could use them to tie up a unit for a round or so, but the opposing player would have to be fairly dumb to get caught up in that. Barring that? They add a lot of character to a game and perhaps that is the best way to look a them.

Painting and unit composition: Aside from one brigand Games Workshop model as the leader, the rest are from the Old Glory Revenge line of medieval miniatures with a fair amount of weapon swaps from various GW sprues like the zombie and empire regiments. In a way these minis capture the look and feel of peasant warriors far better than what I could get from GW when they still did Fantasy Battle in the late 6th through 8th edition days. In fact they are fairly close to the minis of 3rd Edition at the time in terms of look and feel. Hand weapons were a bit to small, perhaps a consequence of GW over-sizing their weapons? But otherwise the proportions are a match.

I especially liked how the "front rankers" and the axe-men came out in terms of painting, and the leader most of all. I imagine him as a brigand who somehow got himself "elected" leader of this rabble and forced onto the field of battle when he would rather be in a tavern! The pitchfork minis all came out well too. Now there is a weapon! The Sword of Khaine, bane of the Elven race??? BAH, PITCHFORK!!!

In terms of color scheme I deliberately kept the color palette limited and muted, trying to make them look muddy and dirty rather than bright. I used a lot of dark washes and slathered it on deliberately, from there it was minimal highlights. Overall I kept it to various shades of brown, tans, a bit of green here and there and black. After I took the photos I noticed a few things and I am touching up the standard/totem banner. Its a bit dodgy in spots and needs a bit more attention in my estimation.

Actual usage: Well... never really on the tabletop. As I was the only "non-evil army" player in the gaming group back in the day, I was the only one that would have conceivably fielded these guys, but as I was just scrapping together models to get a force on the field, I didn't. This is in spite of the fact that the first army I fielded was in fact Bretonnians for a few games before I converted over to Empire (in the early days we ignored the compulsory units to a degree for the first few games as we were assembling armies). Fortunately, I kept all the models and added these guys to the force a few years back.

Looking through Warhammer Armies I did actually use levies once, but never made it to the field. As I note here in our forays into Warhammer Siege using my Empire army, I fielded units of Landestrum, (aka Empire levies) for forage and support. I didn't have models representing the units at the time though as it wasn't really necessary: they were only ever on the strategic map.

Finally, in terms of the armies that can field levies, out of the 12 (the 12th being the Norse in White Dwarf #107) they appear for the following: Empire, Bretonnia, Skaven and Slann in Warhammer Armies. In the case of the Slann, there are the Jungle Braves listed as a levy and the human slave unit which has the same stat line as humans, but a point cost akin to levies. Skeletons and zombies have comparable stats in the Undead army, but their special rules make them a different in terms of play. One could make the argument that goblins and snotlings are close in the Orc and Goblin list, but not quite exactly levies per se, certainly with the snotling rules. Gnomes with their crappy Toughness of 2 for the Dwarf army are likewise close, but I don't think I ever even saw a single gnome miniature from GW. As such highly unlikely anyone ever fielded a unit, definitely not in my Dwarf army which grew to be quite substantial.

In the mercenaries and ally contingents section, the pygmy allies for the Slann are close with their S2, T2. The halfling ally section is similar as they likewise have S2, T2 in their stats, but make up for this with a BS4. If I ever get around to a Slann army and ever get around to a pygmy ally contingent, I'd bump their BS to 4 just like the halflings, makes sense to me for the same point values. The fact that levies aren't a fixture of that section stands the reason: whether hiring mercs or getting allies to your cause, one is usually not getting the dregs of a societies warriors; certainly not in the case of spending coin on mercenaries. 

NOTE: From above, vampires in Warhammer? Forget sparkly Twilight vampires; check out the stat lines in 3rd Edition Warhammer, holy crap! Even the Level 5 ones kick ass, wow. Perhaps a post for another time.

A Dark Ages Fortification

Just like the fortifications of Normandy at the end of the Dark Ages a fortress in the mold of robber knights looms from the forests in the World of Warhammer? (more on that below). But indeed a wooden palisade filled with mossy beams and wooden stakes to ward of would be attackers and a fortification of an earlier time..

Spiky! just for an attackers benefit that is.

I know I said in a post in December that the next castle I create will be something akin to the Warhammer Mighty Fortress from days of old. While that is still true, I also decided to finish this up from its start nearly one year ago. 

The fort you now see started out as nothing more than me noodling around with my glue gun, x-acto knife and a punch of sticks whittled to points to represent a palisade. I really had no other plans than testing it out and trying a few things with the Sculpey modeling clay to see how it might set after being baked in the oven. Nothing spectacular were the results and it sat for a bit. 

Then for some reason I started adding more and more and constructed the gatehouse which was the most time consuming and he towers with the basis of them being 1/2 gallon milk carton. From there I continued to add as it came into my mind and based on a motte and bailey construction type of Dark Ages fort.

Got to have a side view.

After the first wall which was nothing more than the initial twigs sharpened and glued I realized that due to the curves of the sticks I'd need to double it up, so the second row was added. From there it was a simple matter to glue in the supports for the walkway and cut the sticks to fit and then length wise generating two pieces each to glue to the platforms. The base against the bottom of the walls switched from the a fore mentioned clay to the R4 foam. After that it was a simple matter to glue down the rocks and stocks and add the wooden stakes. I say simple but to be honest it was very time consuming.

The towers were constructed much the same and as I noted above 1/2 gallon mil cartons that I cut down to the correct size. Once it was the right size I added the bass wood to each corner and glued it down to the base. From there it was just adding the horizontal parts and a heck of a lot of Popsicle (craft sticks) cut down to size, round ends snipped off and sanded. I came up with the idea of the beams jutting out after I had completed the tower construction so unfortunately I had to cut, sand and glue each one individually. That was almost as time consuming as whittling the palisade walls.

The gatehouse was probably the most complex part of this project. The roof is removable and was designed that way from the start. The bigger issue was the frame that it sits on seemed to fight me every step of the way. Eventually through trial and error I got it to work out. I also had to add a heck of a lot more reinforcement to the beams then I thought I might need, it also required a lot more bass wood to built it correctly. Like the towers, I didn't think of the jutting over-beams until after it was finished. 

No easy ways in here.

The last part that was constructed was the central tower. Here I really goofed and didn't make the wall on the motte wide enough as it were. For while I was using a tower that was based off of Shackleton Scotch box. In the end that was just too wide. So I used a liquid egg carton instead which has a smaller footprint to it. Even this presented a challenge as the carton was a bit too short. So all I did in the end was grab another one and added it to the first to get the requisite height.

For which gaming system you might ask? Well it could be for almost any really. Seeing as a I play Warhammer I'll most likely use the rules from Warhammer Historical: Shieldwall, The Age of Arthur, Fall of the West or even Siege and Conquest. Hell I suspect even Warhammer Siege should "work". One other thought is

Gatehouse with the roof off.

SAGA which I will freely admit I don't know much about.
For those interested here is the materials list for what you see to make this, all common items one probably already has lying around the painting/gaming area if you are like me.

• masking tape
• white glue
• super glue
• hot glue (from a glue gun)
• cardboard
• poster board
• foamcore board
• 1/2 milk cartons
• Shackleton Scotch cardboard boxes (helps with the progress...)
  
• toothpicks
• balsa wood
  
• bass wood

• 

  It disassembles for (somewhat) easier transport.
  

  R4 residential foam (Home Depot sells it in 2x2 squares)
• Popsicle sticks
• rocks
• stones
• twigs (lots of cutting with the x-acto here, you'll need a fair number of blades!) 
• wall spackle (for covering up holes)
• circular wooden pieces for the shields
• paint
• brown (earth) flock
• green flock
• static grass
• escutcheon pins (for the main gate)
  

That's all it really is, nothing too crazy for when one is creating terrain and simple to do. Really what it is about is time and perseverance. Any big terrain piece like a castle with take months to complete if you want it done well.

After I took the photos I realized i still needed to add the wooden shields to the rearward towers and the main tower. They are glued now, just need to prime and paint them.

The main tower

Overall I'm pleased with it and through the painting the wood is a bit lighter than I envisioned and I have been toying with the idea of a mid-brown wash on it to dull down some of the brightness but am still not sure I want to go that route. 

UPDATE: since I created this post I have applied one brown wash to the the whole structure but a few of the towers need a second coat of wash.

For paints its really nothing more than: dark drown, medium brown, light brown, black ink, off white (called sandstone) for the lighter sections, blue for the windows and a light brown wash for the light parts to make it look a bit dirty and "lived in."

Future plans include finishing the court-yard and some suitably Dark Ages type buildings.

3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Dwarf Mercenary Contingent

The Entire Dwarf Mercenary Contingent

I've been working on a ton of terrain and will have a number of posts on the blog soon covering that. But looking at the backlog of minis I have on my painting desk I've made a conscious effort complete and clear it. I took stock and noticed I still had a lot of dwarfs to paint. And this was after painting 8,000 points of Chaos Dwarfs! So with that in mind and my plan to have separate minis for each ally and mercenary contingent in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army book I got to work.

My Warhammer Fantasy Battle Dwarf army grew out of the need for me to be my own ally. By my own ally I mean as I've noted on the blog before everyone in the gaming group back in our 3rd edition days already had all the "evil armies" picked, that left me to start with the Empire. So when we played really BIG battles like Jeff's Orc and Goblins and Dave's Skaven vs my Empire I needed allies. As a result I had to purchase and then paint a lot of minis. I bought some of Dave's dwarf crossbowmen and that was the nucleolus of my Dwarf army that is now probably close to 5,000 points.

So rather than keeping adding to that army I decided to use the minis for a dedicated Dwarf Mercenary contingent. I get the Army Rulebook was designed so that in the Allies and Mercenary contingents could be used via just allocating minis from the main army one might already have. I also think it was a strategy to sell minis for armies that a player might not otherwise buy otherwise. With this in mind I've set out to create Ally and Mercenary contingents for all of them listed! A tall order I know. 

Back to the Dwarf Mercenaries. The minis themselves are mainly from the awesome Battle for Skull Pass boxed set which I had bought two between 2008-2010. Mainly, these were for my 5th-8th Edition Chaos Dwarf. I also got a great deal on a Dwarf box set at Games Day 2008. Thus between these two sets I had enough left over to utilize for the mercenary force even after being used for four units of Chaos Dwarfs. This accomplished another part of my goal: clearing the painting table..

As I assembled the mercs, I realized I had everything I needed to fill out all units listed from odds and ends:

• 1 Dwarf Mercenary Commander (I used a leftover metal Hammerer model I had lying around.)
• 6 Mercenary Dwarf Sappers (Battle for Skull Pass miners. These guys obviously fit perfectly.)
  
• 19 Dwarf Mercenary Warriors (Battle for Skull Pass warriors.)
• 1 Dwarf Mercenary Artillery (a cannon from the Milton Bradley Battle Masters game; crew is a Dwarf Engineer model I painted years ago, an leftover dwarf artillery crewman and one dwarf mini I "Frakensteined" out of a punch of spare parts).

Dwarf Mercenary Warriors & Commander

While a separate force from my Dwarf army, one thing I did consider was the color scheme. My larger

Dwarf War Host is primarily green and yellow for colors, I decided to do the same with the mercenary
force so if I wanted to use them as part of the larger force I easily could do so. Despite being a seperate force I like the flexibility. In fact with almost all of my armies and contingents I make them so they can span multiple editions as much as possible.

I've talked about it on chaosdwarfs.com before in my chaos dwarf blog about how sometimes units "fight" and the painting can be a pain, or chore. That was definitely the case with the crossbowmen. They were also originally assembled as a Chaos Dwarf crossbowmen. So not only did I have to modify them, but had to do a bunch of green stuffing and scrounge up enough pieces to make a unit. The painting was painful and seemed to take forever.

In contrast the dwarf warrior unit went together easily from assembly to painting, likewise with the miners who function as sappers and the cannon and it's crew. All of these guys were enjoyable to paint.

Dwarf Mercenary Warriors armed with crossbows

The armies in 3rd edition Fantasy Battle that can utilize Dwarf Mercenaries are much what one would expect: The Empire & Bretonnia; High Elfs are too snooty to user mercenaries and Wood Elfs don't employ mercenaries at all. All the rest either don't employ mercenaries or are "evil" and thus the Dwarfs would not hire out to them. Oddly the Norse Army list (as featured in White Dwarf #107) doesn’t allow for Dwarf mercenaries either. Now of course its not like I'm breaking any rules for an edition and its usually just Willmark Jr and I playing but I could see them used for Norse. It's also odd that the Dwarf Army itself can't hire them. Personally I'd hand waive that one if the battle called for it.

Because of this, in practical terms it's not the most useful mercenary or ally contingent on the table top in terms of utilization, but one I wanted to complete to "clear the desk".

Further a field I have now a fairly large Old Worlder Mercenary contingent (using some Old Glory minis, don't tell GW!) that is nearly complete in terms of collecting the minis. Likewise the Old Worlder Ally Contingent is rounding to form. Dwarf Allies, Dark Elf Ally are High Elf Ally are all likewise underway.

The Army of Nippon, a castle fit for a Daimyo

Boom, and juts like that.... well not really just like that as this was a lot of work the castle of the Army of Nippon is finished. What started back in the winter of 2013 is complete seven long years later. When I say complete there is still some more stuff to add here and there (mainly the moats) but ready for warfare. 

In terms of the moats I'm working on getting a darker shade of blue/green to make it look murky rather than the "bright" blue it currently is.  An old broom is providing the rushes that I'm gluing down with my hot glue gun in small dabs.

In all its fairly practical as the roofs are removable in the manner of a doll house and the interior is painted. 

One of my oldest friends and one of the people I gamed the most against in the 3rd Edition days brought up a great idea of running some smaller games where ninja have to fight samurai! This is a great idea as I have plenty of both (although the last two samurai of my quest are surprisingly frustrating to get!)

Now that it's finished? It's time to clear it off the gaming table as Willmark Jr and I are looking to get some 3rd Edition Warhammer games in over the upcoming holiday break!

As I noted previously, next for terrain is a more traditional European style castle in the vein of the Warhammer Mighty Fortress. (good right up on the GW kit here). It's going to be a bit smaller in terms of footprint to fit on the table and more utility for siege games. 

Like drawing inspiration for an actual Japanese castle for the Nippon one, I'm drawing from England for the next one, in this case, Harlech Castle in Wales. 

Also of note this will be the 2nd traditional style castle I made for Warhammer. The original one was the one we used for our games of siege way back in the day. It's long since gone. It survived many moves over the years and n various storage closets/rooms when I was living in apartments. Somewhere along the way from my last apartment to my first house it was lost or damaged or maybe both. Sadly, no photos exist of it either.

So onwards to the next project, toothpicks, foam core, cardboard, masking tape, glue, hot glue, thin cardboard, milk cartons, scotch cartons, Popsicle sticks and paitence are all that are required. Hopefully this next one doesn't take me seven years to finish.

Painting the Nippon Castle

It's been quite some time since I posted on any progress for my Nippon Castle (or anything in general  on the blog). So with that in mind it's time to show some progress. I completed the construction on the castle around the first of the year and have been working on painting it off and on. I was looking back through the photos of it and it appears that I started working on it in 2013 as outlined here, it's well past time to wrap this up. IMPORTANT NOTE: the painting on this is very much WIP.

The castle started out as just the base keep itself and the layout inspired by Kakegawa castle in Japan. As with any castle in Warhammer and at the 25-28mm scale its bound to be on the larger side, there is really no way around this. 

The great thing about a project like this is that for those who want to create something like this for their own armies, whether a Nippon one or not is that its really not that expensive. The castle is really nothing more than the following: cardboard, white glue, super glue, craft sticks, balsa wood, tooth picks, masking tape, and duct tape.The base of the castle proper and the walls are formed from foam-core boards to keep it light. While it might not make the base as strong as say plywood, it does save on weight.

So with all that in mind, in order, the following are complete in terms of painting:

* the outer walls

* the towers

* the moat sections

* both gatehouses

Now, a note on when I say complete: the large area painting is done, as is about 99% of the detail painting. With the moats there is still a bit more that has to happen with the water area, but those are pretty well finished. I anticipate having to do some more detail here and there to truly finish it up.

For the towers there is still a bit of work to do on the removable roofs. I'm also not sure if I want to add a contrasting color like blue to them. The idea of the color also applies to the roof on the main keep.

So what is all this leading to? My goal is to get this complete by the end of the year. I've been working off and on a traditional European style, Empire castle in the vein of the old Warhammer Mighty Fortress which will be smaller and a bit more practical for Siege games. The Nippon castle has also been going on for seven  years, time to finish it up!

Only snag is simultaneously to this I'm also working on clearing the considerable backlog on the  painting desk.

Top 2 Inspirations for a Nippon Army (and a few others)

Inspiration for actual Games Workshop Asian inspired materials were hinted in the mid to late 1980s, but never delivered on. Nippon and the east in general is mentioned it in the 3rd Edition Rule book, had an Ally section in Warhammer Armies, but then it ended with the advent of 4th Edition Warhammer and the changes it entailed. It is important to note that 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy roleplay did have a Nippon list that with a few tweaks is quite usable.

Fortunately the world of the internet allows for this constraint to be eliminated. 

In Warhammer Nippon (Nihon) is analogous to Japan of our world, duh right? What it is NOT? Its not... mythical China. This can't be overstated because all too often in Warhammer circles I hear suggestions about a Nippon army that would make it more like Cathay... If I wanted to create a fantasy Cathay army out there there is a number of resources, but not the point of this blog post.

So in no particular order here are two of the best inspirations for a Nippon themed world and Nippon army that can help, in my opinion of course.

Shogun- The book written by James Clavell and the TV series are both excellent. It is a pseudo historical in the telling of the late 1500s and the unification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu the first Tokogawa Shogun in the form of "Toranaga".

Shogun is the quintessential TV Mini series of the 1980s and in six parts. Richard Chamberlain starts as Pilot-Major Blackthorne. Blackthrone is based on the real life exploits of an English sailor who was shipwrecked in Japan in 1600, William Adams.

Shogun covers nearly all aspects of late 1500s Japanese life from teh peasants to ninja to the start of the geisha, betrayal, honor, bravery as well as romance. The ambush of bandits at night in a village, ships, ninja! The only thing it lacks is the actual Battle of Sekigahara which it all leads up to.

The rising tension of the plot makes an excellent backdrop for Nippon vs Nippon battles or perhaps more likely as I do: reasons for mercenary Nippon to go and plunder the Warhammer World.

Ran- (pronunciation of "Rhan" to our western ears, at least mine) the movie by the legendary film maker Akira Kurosawa. Ran is essentially King Lear, but far richer in the telling. Ran is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, I agree. Any Top 10 movie list in the All Time category that doesn't include it is no Top 10 at all.

Ran is rich in its visuals and massive in scale. I think perhaps the only true way to do it justice is to see it in a movie theater (which I never have, but would love too).

A side note is that Ran has one of the best soundtracks for any Asian inspired game. I listen to it often when working on one of my Nippon army projects.

Ran is indispensable to a Warhammer gamer interested in a Nippon army as it has literally all the right army units on display throughout (remember I use the 2nd Edition Nippon list for 3rd Edition Nippon armies).
 
Other good sources include but are not limited to:

Oriental Adventures by Zeb Cook (1st Edition AD&D)- a lot of grogs have a hangup about this work, tell them to pound sand... A lot of people seem to want it to be "epic China" which its not... I think the rules are quite well done, especially considering the time frame.

Kobu of the Two Strings. This might seem surprising, but I found this extremely well done.

The Seven Samurai- many people don't realize that they HAVE seen this movie in the form of the movie the Magnificent Seven. The soundtrack of The Seven Samurai is great too. Oh and it also inspired George Lucas with the droids in the original Star Wars trilogy too.

Japan- Memoirs of a Secret Empire- a documentary narrated by Richard Chamberlain, so short ( I wish this was 40 hours long!) but it is excellent. Its not really a secret, but meh its just the title.

As a postscript: this should not be taken that I dislike a Cathay army or its inspirational sources, far from it. I think epic China is a fine topic and if I ever did an army inspired by it I'd go with something like Kung-Fu Panda! Panda bear warriors would be very cool ;) Clay Warrior golems, river dragons, etc