Oathmark - Building an army

As a kid, I would spend hours planning army lists for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I particularly loved the Warhammer Armies, 3rd edition book because it contained the lists for all the races in the game. I would never have the money to make most of lists but that was not the point. I loved making army lists. When I picked up the Oathmark book, I turned straight to the army section and started looking at the troops that could be taken and how to build an army. I am hoping this can be my new Warhammer Fantasy Battle (Oathmark - is this my new fantasy Battle game?)

In the game there are effectively two ways to build an army: choose troops from a single terrain list, or build a kingdom, which allows certain troops to be taken. In theory, you could ignore these rules and just take which ever troops you like to a certain points limit and just have at it. For this article, I am going to look at the two main options. 

The single terrain list 

In many ways, the Oathmark game has been built to play campaigns. It can, however, be played as one-off games, but the campaign system underpins army selection. To build a one-off army, a maximum points allowance is chosen. Then you need to choose from one of the six races in the game (Orcs and Goblins, Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Undead or Halflings). Each race has a terrain list, which tells you the units that can be taken.  

Once you have established the units that can be taken from the terrain list there are a few restrictions to how your army is selected. Each army can only have one general, although you can have more than one king (I cannot find anything to say otherwise). The next restriction is that you cannot have more than four of any type of unit. After these two restrictions, the next item to consider is the unit size.  

To discover the maximum size of a unit, you need to know the size of the base for the miniature. Base size is important in Oathmark. Miniatures on 25mm x 25mm bases (infantry) can be in units of 1-20. Miniatures on 25mm x 50mm bases (cavalry) can be in units of 1-10.  Miniatures on 50mm x 50mm base (monsters) can be in units of 1-3. Large monsters on 100mm x 50mm base are always in units of 1. 

As an example, in a Goblin army, I could take 80 Goblin Spearmen, in four units of 20 miniatures. If I wanted to take any more Goblins, they could not be spearmen, but I could take soldiers or archers. In a similar way, I could take 12 trolls, in four units of 3 miniatures.  

Now, I think it is worth mentioning here that heroes can join units. If they join a unit, they cannot leave the unit during the game. Importantly, the unit a hero joins needs to one less than its maximum size. For example, a units of Goblin wolf-riders could have a maximum of 9 miniatures, rather than 10 to accommodate a hero joining the unit. 

Overall, this is a relatively straight-forward way to build an army.  

The kingdom building list. 

The Oathmark game is set up so that an army can include miniatures from different races. You could have an army containing humans, dwarfs and halflings. The idea here is that you build up your kingdom using the various terrain lists. As you can only take so many pieces of terrain, then the troops available to your army are limited.  

The kingdom building approach is guided by the narrative campaign element of the game. My first impressions are that it will produce nicely balanced armies and allow players to take a range of miniatures from different fantasy races. I also like that can really customise my force and develop the background to my kingdom at the same time. 

I am not going to go through how to build a kingdom (I will get around to writing an article soon) here, as the process is a little complicated but, in the end, you get to choose a total of ten terrain types. This will give you a good range of troop types but not all of them. In addition to the troop types you can take, the restrictions and unit sizes I mentioned above still apply.  

What else have I noticed about army building? 

There are no minimum requirements when building an army. There are no units you have to take. You do not need to take any heroes either. The one exception is that an Undead army needs to have a spellcaster, if they have units in the army with the special rule, spellcaster control. I do think that to play this game, the armies need to be built as intended. In otherworld, using the kingdom building system. This might mean that initially, you just build a kingdom with one of each of the terrain types from a single terrain list. This will then provide you with some maximum amounts of each troop type for you army. 

All armies need a good range of different types of troops, preferably in maximum sized units. The army will also require heroes. In this game, some heroes are good fighters, others are good commanders, some are both. Heroes cannot win a battle on their own they need help from troops. Having stated this, the heroes will significantly improve the effectiveness of your troops. Another type of hero is the spellcaster. My initial thoughts on the spellcasters are that they are nice additions to the army but that you should not invest heavily in them (unless you have an Undead army). I intend to write more about spellcasters in a future article. For now, I think the highest level spellcaster you should use is a level 3 wizard. 

When building an army, you spend around 25% of your points on heroes and the remaining 75% on troops. While this is not a rule in Oathmark, this is my feeling based on many years of experience.  

The first army I intend to build. 

I am intending to build a Goblin army. I have never had one before. I am going to build a very basic kingdom using the Orc and Goblin terrain list. 

*My capital city, which determines my general's race.

** I took two rivers to give me access to 12 rather than 6 trolls

*** The dark forest is from the elf terrain list, but allows me to access giant spiders.

This kingdom will give allow me access to the following troops types:

• 1 goblin king or goblin advisor
• 1 goblin general and 2 goblin captains or 4 goblin captains
• 2 goblin champions and 1 goblin champion or 1 orc champion
• 2 goblin spellcasters level 1-2 and 1 goblin spellcaster level 1-5
• Goblin archers, spearman and soldiers
• Goblin slaves and goblin slave slingers
• Wolves, goblin wolf riders and wolf rider scouts
• Orc warriors and linebreakers
• 12 trolls
• 6 Giant spiders or 6 Wulvers
• 2 light goblin catapults or 2 heavy orc catapults

Now that I have my troop options, my goblin army will be built around a core of goblin spearmen and archers (goblin infantry miniature review). I then want some fast-moving cavalry. I already have some wolves from an old Warhammer army, so these will be part of the army. I also need some heavy hitters. For this role, I want a unit of trolls. The rest of the army will be made up of heroes. I want Goblin Advisor to improve my troops hitting power and their chances of activation. I would also like to include a Goblin Champion for some additional hitting power. Finally, I would like to include a spellcaster, but I want this wizard to be of a lowish level to keep it cheap. I am initially trying to build a 1000 point army. As such I do not need all the troops types from my kingdom, but they are available for the future.

For this first army, I am going to use Age of Sigmar Gloomspite Gitz. I am going to keep them on round bases but use movement trays to provide the correct footprint for each unit. By keeping my Goblins on round bases, I can also use them in Age of Sigmar. 

If you have any questions or thoughts, please drop them in the comments below. Bye for now.