Frostgrave OATHMARK GOBLIN INFANTRY

Product Information

I felt honour bound to use my Oathmark goblins and I also deployed my new Vendel Goblins, all in (to me at least) big, chunky 15 figure units. To my delight, none of them totally embarassed themselves in their first game. The Oathmark archers, played as orcs, actually finished off Mike's Rangers and the spear orcs got a couple of good charges in. My Vendel goblin archers managed to kill a few of the enemy too, which made them very happy. In this article I have used the plural ‘armies’ rather than ‘army’ because – over the 600 years of the first age of Middle-earth and the wars that raged in Beleriand – Morgoth fielded several armies, each with different commanders and each with slightly different structures, depending on the needs of the campaign at that moment, and I will cover each of these and apply them to particular battles. In the last issue, Mr Green gave us his take on Tolkien’s Elves, Dwarves and Humans from the First Age for any use in Oathmark rules by Northstar . This time he goes all evil! Ed .

The Oathmark - Battles of the Lost Age range is a project by Osprey Games and North Star Military Figures, with Renedra covering the casting. I didn't buy this kit nor did North Star gave it to me for review purposes, I traded it from the travelling box HANS!. That is the reason why the box is a bit beat up and the sprue of square bases is missing. Notes: Libyan skirmishers should really be javelins, but there are none in Oathmark. My list is probably Gaul-heavy but that’s merely a personal preference. And you might think four heavy cavalry too few but, in fact, 4 HC can be as effective as 5 in Oathmark, though obviously a little more vulnerable to casualties. I have actually given the Halfling Slinger a slightly better shooting ability than their Goblin comparators (a 1 as opposed to 0) as the Halfings are so good with this sort of weapon. You could use the same Captain stats for their commanders as a Goblin Captain or Champion. Their Terrain would be a Halfling Village. CONCLUSIONSCasting is very well done. Low amount of mould lines, nice details, no flash and a properly filled sprue with lots of options. Each sprue covers 5 different bodies, enough arms to equip the infantry with either hand weapons and shields , spears or bows and quivers, 11 different heads, and a banner pole incl. banner top.

The goblin infantry won't stay alone within their dark green skinned ranks, as North Star has previewed wolf riders in summer, and these will come in plastic, along with a few metal command models. And their release is set for January 2020! Add in a few engines of war (catapult or ballista) and you got yourself a proper range for fantasy mass combat - at a reasonable rate. I am just missing a bit of gubbins, some looted goods, a horn or drum for the musician, a severed dwarf or elf head for the banner, simply bits. Because if you go for the army project, your banner men and such will look pretty similar, unless you add a few parts from other kits (yes, with the overall plastic range that North Star offers, there are quite a bit choices, still next to the spears was a bit of room for such things...). So with that starting point in mind I fished out my copy of the Oathmark rules and saw what was available. Looking at the Spiders first, there is actually a Giant Spider listed: In this, the second part of the Armies of Beleriand, I will be giving you possible options for creating the Armies of Morgoth for use within the Oathmark rules system (Morgoth is, of course, the chief evil within Tolkien’s created realm and all that came later seem to be his minions, servants, slaves and so forth. Ed .). It is my intention to use the statistics and points of equivalent racial types that already exist within the core rules, and, where applicable, assign a suitable statistic that also already exists in the rules, to a race or character that exists in the First Age of Middle-earth. In this way a player can chose these options without any need for house rules or alternative stats.

SAURON

Trolls, ogres, giants: It looks like Wargames Atlantic's upcoming Classic Fantasy trolls would be the perfect Tolkien-style trolls, but they don't seem likely to be ready until later this year. Fortunately, these are popular fantasy gaming standbys and pretty widely available in plastic today: Reaper makes some great, inexpensive Bones plastic trolls and giants in the mean time, and other companies like Games Workshop and Mantic almost certainly have some plastic trolls and/or ogres kits of their own that would work well enough. Sauron's human warriors: Wargames Atlantic's Afghans and Persians might make some splendid Easterlings - the human armies summoned in from the far-eastern corners of Middle Earth to lead the Orcs in war and conquest, and I've just be reminded that Victrix makes some great war elephants/olifaunts that ought to be perfect for that sort of project. I think we are trough with the missing units. Regarding monsters and artillery, I wouldn't make any prophecies, because there is only one official monster, and zero official artillery available. Thats to few to draw any lesson from it. And the characters?Northstar has a lot of metal miniatures, the tooling for metal casts is relativelyeasy to make, so there is everything possible!

Notes: Because Oathmark limits all troop types to no more than 4 units of each, the largest WOTR army possible in Oathmark (using the above constraints) would be sixteen units: 4 Archers, 4 Human Spearmen and 8 other units, of which no more than 4 can be cavalry and no more than 2 can be heavy cavalry. Again, from this I suggest eliminating Class 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9. I would suggest an Orc General (Class 3) as the Army commander with a bodyguard made up from class 11, the rest of the 40% of the whole army I would make up from Class 7, 8, 10. As an addition to these I would add an option of a Troll unit, using the standard Troll statistics from the rules. Sauron was the chief lieutenant of Morgoth and – like his master – he preferred to work through others and rarely took to the field of battle himself, however when he is present, he will be in command of the army. Sauron was a shape shifter and was known to use a couple of different guises: for variety I will list the three major forms he used below and the different abilities he had in each form.

Nord's Painting Saga

Elf dogs: there was an Elf Hunt Master miniature, but only as a special offer, and without dogs. There could be a separate box for this, but honestly, I dont think that its really needed... Northstar has some metal dog/wolf miniatures, so if the Elf Hunt Master would be released as a normal miniature, anybody could make a unit with combining them. I’m also not that interested in so-called “balanced” games. I find asymmetric and scenario-driven games much more rewarding and more realistic. Oathmark unit specs can be treated as “hypothetical” historical units, and pitted against each other on that basis, (e.g. a large army of units with poor activation faces a small army with good activation: Persians against Macedonians, say) whilst several of the scenarios also offer plausible historical possibilities. I think this is a great mechanism for historical gaming, and one well worth adopting/adapting and, moreover, fun to experiment with, though it’s probably unlikely to lead to real historical insight...

If you buy this boxed set in retail, it costs 25 GBP for 30 Goblin infantry and includes a sprue of square bases as well. Oathmark and the Middle-earth setting are both perfect for ‘narrative’ based games, ones with a specific scenario and goals for each army, and this is how I normally play my games (see my earlier article on scenarios). If however you do wish to play a points based game, the Oathmark points system works well for Middle-earth in so much as it gives the Orcs and Goblins lower points than the Elves, Dwarves and men and, as such, the army fielded by an evil commander will always ‘outnumber’ the good player’s army in a physical sense. Other than as stated all the normal rules in Oathmark are binding with these lists. Immediately following that first battle, the Noldor arrived in Beleriand with the intention of battling Morgoth, and they fought the second battle. This one was known as the ‘Dagor-nuin-Giliath’ (Battle Under Stars): this battle was fought by the forces of Feanor against a third large army that was sent against them by Morgoth. For this battle the basic Morgoth forces should be the same as those for the First Battle but with the addition of Balrogs: Demons of Might. Orcs also roamed around Beleriand in the later years as forces without specific character commanders, and the make up of these forces can contain any combination of Orcs or Goblins you may chose with the addition of Trolls, with an Orc general in Command.

In which I blog about my miniature wargaming and whatever else takes my interest!

Ent tree-herders, giant spiders: Mantic's Kings-of-War "Forest Shambler Regiment" seem a bit pricey to me, but might be the only source of plastic Ents that I know of. Wargames Atlantic's giant spiders are a great source of Tolkienien spiders, but their legs are bit fiddly to assemble - bring some patience to the table for this kit, once assembled, these are beautiful spider models! Reaper Bones spiders are available for those with less patience, but can look a bit chunky in a toy spider kind of way.