I’ve continued to work on WOOD via Zoom games. Development is coming along okay. There is the typical tension between those wanting to complicate to game to account for every nuance of a particular vision of fantasy battles (whatever that means) and trying to keep all the mechanics consistent and streamlines.
The start of a recent WOOD Zoom game in which the undead faces off against humans.
I don’t have my own fantasy armies. In the past any fantasy figures I painted were for role playing games to were instated into GASLIGHT games. So, I have been working to create a hobbit army.
A regiment of hobbit musketeers.A closer look at the musketeers
These hobbits were 3D printed on my resin printer. I think I prefer metal figures, but printing figures is a cost effective way to build up an army very quickly.
Heavily armored hobbit cavalry.The whole “brigade” of hobbits: 3D printed hobbit heavy cavalry (top left), old Heritage Lord of the Rings hobbit cavalry (center top), 3D printed hobbit spearmen (top right), and musketeers (center bottom).A close look at a 3D printed hobbit ranger I am using as my general.A final look at the hobbit brigade. You can see the paint scheme on the badgers of the 3D printed cavalry.
I am currently working on three regiments of hobbit infantry in Italian Renaissance style dress from The Assault Group.
The crewmen of the Munchkin balloon. Though it only has three figures, the rules state that it takes five hits like an artillery battery.
The LAST set of Ozz figures I had to paint is this balloon. I am awaiting the dire Lions, Tigers, and Bears, but until they arrive, I am out of Ozz figures. In late Summer I had three linear yards of bags of Ozz figures. I have been knocking out one or two units a week.
A closeup of the balloonA long shot of the whole balloon and its stand.
The balloon kit comes with the lucite rod. One of the things I like about this kit is that the rod goes up through the gondola to the balloon. The gondola is actually suspended from the balloon by the lines (wire). I have built other airships over the years where the base is connected to the gondola and then the lines actually hold up the balloon. The Old Glory balloon seems more stable. The gas bag is made of a very light foamy resin. This reduced the weight on the end of the moment arm. I glued the base that came with the kit to an old CD, which provides enough stability.
I have been working hard to finish the last of my Wars of Ozz figures. If we are ever allowed to peacefully assemble again, I want to have every Ozz figure painted to use in demonstration / participation games at conventions. A few months ago, I had three linear yards of Ozz figures to paint. The last of them are the summoning bell (pictured above) and the Munchkin balloon, which I hope to complete later today.
I have also recently completed a few other Ozz figures to get to this point.
Impkin Infantry RegimentImpkin artillery batteryGnomes. This is a faction that will be released later in the year and is not available to the public yet.A final unit of Winkie cavalry, mounted on ZilksGillikin infantry fighting giants of the Albine mountains.
In addition ot figures of Wars of Ozz, I am painting up a couple of fantasy armies for Wars of Orcs and Dwarves (WOOD). WOOD is an adaptation of Wars of Ozz (WOZZ) for general, massed-battle, fantasy games. I haven’t traditionally done much fantasy gaming. As we were testing Bear Yourselves Valiantly, I relied on Chris Palmer and Dave Wood to provide figures for the play tests. I used to think I had a lot of fantasy figures “back in the day.” In getting ready for WOOD games at conventions, I realized that I only had enough figures to make three units, hardly enough for a massed-battle game. Most of my fantasy figures were individuals for role-playing games or G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. So, I have started to assemble six players worth of figures.
Roomans. These are old Ral Partha figures from the late 1970s or early 1980s. I really like these figures, but they are out of production, and they were only made in two poses of pikemen. Ductaurs: I ordered some plastic centaurs. When they arrived, though advertised as 28mm, the seems a little small to me. I had some extra duck heads from Star Hat Miniatures, so I did a quick head swap. I am happy with the results, but I fear the plastic weapons are going to be too fragile for gaming.
So far, for WOOD, I have a very complex spreadsheet that can be used to “stat out” units for WOOD. The idea is that players can bring whatever armies they have. (Apparently a large number of gamers were orphaned when GW discontinued Warhammer in favor of Age of Sigmar. So WOOD has not back story or lore. This means instead of providing pre-approved army lists, I need to provide a mechanism for players to determine the costs of the units they want to use. In addition, my friends have been creating army lists with WOOD stats for armies from other gaming systems.
