JonGrantMiniatures

  In 1990, I read the Hobbit for the first time. A tale of a band of dwarves, who set off on a quest to retrieve their lost treasure from a dragon. At the same time as reading this book, I had just begun my first foray into miniature collecting and as such I was drawn to the dwarves. In my first few years of miniature collecting, I tried to build a dwarven army, but unfortunately, I never had the funds and so it was never built. With my discovery of Oathmark, I have developed a certain amount of nostalgia for my younger years. On top of this, I have been building a goblin force. So, it only feels right, that the ancient enemies of the goblins get to battle against the dwarves once again.   To build this army, I wanted to use the Warhammer third edition Armies book to guide my troop choices. Back then an army needed to include a certain number of troops for the dwarves it was 40 warriors and 20 crossbow men (dwarves). This was a good place to start. I began by build two units of ten

When I started collecting miniature, way back in 1990, my first miniatures were Dwarves. At the time, these were all metal miniatures for Warhammer Fantasy Battle and as a kid I could never afford many. As a result, I was never able to afford an army. With my discovery of Oathmark, I am now able to build my childhood Dwarven army. Paints required: Chaos Black spray Gun Metal (AP) Plate Mail Metal (AP) Shining Silver (AP) Dark Tone (AP) Strong Tone (AP) Soft Tone (AP) Weapon Bronze (AP) Balthasar Gold Bugmans Glow Cadian Fleshtone Kislev Flesh Mephiston Red Mournfang Brown Rhinox Hide Skrag Brown  Deathclaw Brown Doombull Brown Dryad Bark Gorthor Brown XV-88 Tau Light Ochre Steel Legion Drab Karak Stone Khorne Red Evil Suns Scarlet Wild Rider Red Carroburg Crimson When I painted the miniature, I effectively worked on four distinct sections: the amour, the faces and beard, the leather work, and finally the coloured cloth. Additionally, the shield was painted separately from the rest of t

Early on, when I started writing this blog, I wrote a several articles on probability in Warhammer Underworlds. Since then, I have discovered Oathmark . Oathmark uses D10 for all its dice rolls and I am interested to see how easy (or hard) it is to cast a particular spell.   To begin with I need to explain how magic work in Oathmark. Each race has access to spellcasters. Each spellcaster has a level. The level dictates two aspects of the spellcaster: 1. How many spells they know, 2. How many dice they roll when attempting to cast a spell. It is this second component that I want to consider.  My questions are:   What is the best spellcaster level to take in my army?  What are the best spells for each level of spellcaster?  Casting a spell When a spellcaster attempts to cast a spell, they roll a number of D10 equal to their spellcaster level.  Example. A spellcaster (2) would roll 2D10 when attempting to cast a spell. Whereas a spellcaster (5) would roll 5D10.   To successfully cast a sp

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered Oathmark, a mass fantasy battle game . Liking the look of the game I bought a box of the Goblin Infantry . I made the first few miniatures up as Goblin Soldiers with hand weapons and shields. I also think these miniatures would work well for Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game from Games Workshops. Paints required: Chaos Black spray Leadbelcher Mournfang Brown Skrag Brown Skavenblight Dinge Stormvermin Fur Dryad Bark Khorne Red Evil Suns Scarlet Abaddon Black Steel Legion Drab Baneblade Brown Karak Stone Army Painter Strong Tone (Note Agrax Earthshade is not an equivalent!) Rhinox Hide Doombull Brown Balthasar Gold Zandri Dust Dawnstone Administratum Grey Xereus Purple The miniature was undercoated with Chaos Black spray . The metal on the miniature was then dry brushed with Leadbelcher . I was not careful with this dry brush, as the next stages will tidy the miniature up. Next, I applied all the various basecoats to the miniat

One of the core ideas of Oathmark is the creation of a kingdom, from which to build an army. This army can then be used in one-off games or in conjunction with the kingdom in a campaign.  The Kingdom To create a kingdom, you need to use the kingdom chart, a circular diagram divided into 15 regions. These regions are arranged into 5 concentric circles. I have colour-coded the regions on the kingdom chart. The colours represent: Region 1 made up of 1 section - Red Region 2 made up of 2 sections - Yellow Region 3 made up of 3 sections - Green Region 4 made up of 4 sections - Blue Region 5 made up of 5 sections - Purple The first choice that is made is the city, that occupies Region 1 (the red region). This is the capital city for your race. The options are a: Dwarf City, Elf City, Human City, Orc City, Goblin City, Curse Burial Ground or Necropolis. By choosing one of these 'cities' you determine the race of the ruling royal family for your kingdom and the race terrain list from w

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