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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 30, 2020 23:29:15 GMT -9
Kings of War: Elves vs. UndeadPrintable armies representing the noble Elves and the foul Undead, both crafted by Jeff George, face off in Mantic's Kings of War.My entry in the Papercraft in Action category this year is a bit unusual. Instead of creating a static diorama of buildings and terrain, I've created two full armies for Kings of War, a tabletop miniature wargame published by Mantic Games. Why Kings of War?Kings of War is a fast-playing, player-friendly miniatures wargame that's been around for more than a decade. It is known as a "rank-and-flank" game, in which models are organized into units which march and attack in rigid, rectangular formations. This is in contrast with Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, which is a squad-based wargame in which units are made up of separate models mounted on individual, round bases. Mantic has made a couple of key decisions in creating Kings of War that make the game especially appealing to modelers like us: First, individual models are not removed as units suffer damage--the unit is removed as a single piece when it's routed. Since units are either all on the board, or all off, models can be attached to large bases that hold the entire unit, which can be finished as a miniature, mobile diarama. And second, although Mantic does sell models for most of the factions in the game, they don't require that you use Mantic-made models to play. Unlike Games Workshop, which requires that you use official GW models to play in GW stores or other official events, Kings of War allows any models that can be readily identified and which are mounted on regulation-sized bases. When I decided I wanted to try out a large-army miniatures wargame, Kings of War was an obvious choice. I already had most of the models I'd need to make my first army--Elves--in my existing collection of printable miniatures. I assembled the Elvish army last winter, planning to play against other Kings of War players at my local club and FLGS, where the community was perfectly happy to play with their plastic armies against my cardstock force. When Covid-19 locked us all down, I eventually decided to build a second army, so I could play by myself or against my 13-year-old daughter at home in our basement gameroom. Although I have purchased official plastic miniatures from Mantic to build an Ogre army, I figured I could make another cardstock army faster. Combing through my existing cardstock mini collection, I realized I already owned plenty of excellent figures that would work in a Kings of War Undead army. I knocked out the Undead army in a few weeks of evenings between June and July of this year. Crafting Kings of WarI'll present the two armies in separate posts in this thread, but before I do, I'll briefly lay out my process, in case anyone's interested in following in my footsteps. The figures are printed using an Epson EcoTank inkjet printer on Staples' house-brand 110lb. white cardstock. I use a thin but complete layer Aleene's Tacky Glue--a particularly thick form of white glue--to laminate the fronts and backs together. I find this method makes for miniatures that are almost as vivid and much, much stronger than minis printed on photo paper. When I had a to make a large unit using a single figure, I often used GIMP to alter colors and tweak poses, so that the individual models in a unit looked a bit less uniform. I used techniques I've described on my printandplaygamer blog, and I'll call out particular modifications when I present the units in each army one by one. The bases are constructed from chipboard and XPS insulation foam. I begin by using Aleene's glue to laminate medium-weight chipboard to one side of a slab of XPS foam. I usually use half-inch-thick foam, but if I'm planning to carve a particularly tall rock or other feature onto the base, I occasionally use one-inch-thick foam. I stack a few books on top of the chipboard-and-foam sandwich to assure a complete bond, and let them cure overnight. Then, I use a long-bladed utility knife to trim the laminated base material to the regulation dimensions for the various units, according the rules of Kings of War. For example, a troop of 10 infantry is mounted on a base that's 100mm wide by 40mm deep. The features on the bases are either carved into the XPS foam, or built on top of the foam using bricks or stones made from--you guessed it--more XPS foam. The bases for the Elf army are mostly large rocks on a grassy field, so they were mostly carved out of blocks of foam using long-bladed utility knives and X-Acto-style hobby knives, then sanded to their final shape with an emory board. The ruined walls and buildings on the Undead army bases, on the other hand, were generally built up using bricks cut out of XPS foam, glued together with more tacky glue. Most of what I know about working with XPS foam, I learned from Jeremy at Black Magic Craft on YouTube. I highly recommend his channel for terrain crafting techniques. For texture, I used fine pool-filter sand to flock the grassy sections of the Elf bases, as well as some portions of the Undead bases. The larger stones in the texture of both types of bases are kitty litter (clean, of course!). I decided against static grass and tufts, because I knew these models would get handled a lot in gameplay, and wanted them to be very durable. Once carved or assembled and textured, the bases were primed with mixture of Mod Podge and black craft paint (another Black Magic Craft secret), then painted using several shades of cheap craft paint from Michaels. The Elf bases were base coated with brown--which you can still see on the rims of the bases--then drybrushed with a series of green and tan craft paints, starting with dark green and working lighter. I applied home-made brown-black wash between the first and second shades of green. The order of paints was: brown basecoat, dark green drybrush, brown-black wash, medium green drybrush, light tan drybrush, light green drybrush. The Undead bases were painted in a similar process, using a range of gray tones: deep gray basecoat, dark gray drybrush, the same brown-black wash as used on the Elves, medium gray drybrush, light tan drybrush, fog gray drybrush. The final painting step was to go around the edges of the bases one last time with either brown or deep gray, to cover any stray wash and drybrush strokes. Once the bases were painted, I mounted the figures by cutting slits in the foam, applying a tiny bit of superglue to the mounting tabs on the figures, then inserting the tabs into the slots. It's critical here to keep the amount of superglue minimal--it doesn't take much to hold the minis in place, and too much glue can eat away the XPS foam. Once the minis were mounted on the base, I counted the unit model as done. I may or may not spray them with a mat varnish eventually, but aside from that, they're ready for the game table. The Field of BattleFor purposes of appearance, the photos in this collection depict a much more crowded environment than you would normally see on an actual Kings of War table. I've chosen to cram units and terrain closer together, so that you're not looking at vast expanses of empty battle mat. That being said, most of the terrain shown in these illustrations has been used on my Kings of War table, just spread out a bit. Since the same terrain pieces show up over and over again in my photos, I'll quickly give credit to the creators now. The houses, stone walls, wooden crates and mausoleum are all from kits created by our own Dave , known to the wider world as Dave Graffam Games. I'm particularly proud of how I've assembled the stone walls to be infinitely reconfigurable, and at the same time very stable, but that's a subject for another post. The 2D boulders are from printableheroes , as are the 2D trees I modded and scaled up into the 2.5D trees you see here. You can get mirrored-back versions of all his minis for free from his Patreon campaign, or kick in a buck or three to get proper backs, as well as recolors and reskins. Marshall's Patreon is one of the best sources for cardstock fantasy miniatures on the internet. The wooden cart in a few of the Elf army shots was created by Papierschnitzel, known in our little family as lightning . It's part of a larger collection of carts and wagons which can be acquired through DriveThru RPG. The Papierschnitzel Patreon campaign has a ton of great free material, as well as added benefits for paying patrons. The battle mat in all the photos is the Highland RPG Encounter Map by Loke BattleMats, also on DriveThru RPG. I had it printed on banner vinyl by VistaPrint during one of that company's frequent 50%-off sales. It's durable, attractive, and I understand you can write on it safely with wet-erase markers, though I haven't tested that myself yet.
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 30, 2020 23:29:34 GMT -9
The Noble Host of ElvenholmeAn Elven army for Kings of War, created by Jeff George using printable miniatures by several artists.My go-to fantasy race is dwarves, and when I resolved to make a cardstock army for Kings of War, the first unit I made was a troop of Dwarven Shieldbearers. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that my amazingly vast printable miniature collection was surprisingly thin on military-looking dwarves, and that constructing an entire army of dwarves was going to take a great deal of scrounging, modding, and original artwork. Elves, on the other hand, I had in my collection in abundance, so the path of least resistance, for the first army at least, was with the fair folk. Kindred ArchersA horde of 40 Kindred Archers, along with another 10 organized as a single troop.The iconic weapon of the elves is, of course, the longbow, and I knew I had a good supply of excellent elvish archers in Wood Elves set, from okumarts ' Darkfast Classic Fantasy line of printable miniatures. The troop of 10 Kindred Archers to the right in the photo was the first elvish unit I assembled for Kings of War. To stretch the four archers in the Wood Elves set, I recolored each figure's hair in several shades, and flipped half of the figures horizontally before printing them. I used the GIMP photo editing application to perform these mods, using techniques explained in tutorials on my printandplaygamer blog. The horde of Kindred Archers to the left rear of the photo was assembled much later than the troop, after I'd improved my process. Most Kings of War troop types are available in several unit sizes. Infantry like Kindred Archers, for example, can be fielded as 10-man troops on 100mm x 40mm bases; 20-man regiments on 100mm x 80mm bases; 40-man hordes on 200mm x 80mm bases; or 80-man legions on 200mm x 160mm bases. Notice the seam running through the middle of the base of the Kindred Archer horde. That horde of 40 archers is actually made up of two separate 20-man regiments, on separable bases with terrain designed to blend together when the units are placed next to one another. It's very common for Kings of War players to build their units in pairs, so they can join them together as a single unit of the next larger size. But it took me some time to figure out that I could design my paired units as single, continuous dioramas. In the following photo, we can see the two regiments separated as distinct units: The same Kindred Archers models, this time fielded as two regiments and a troop.Elven Bolt ThrowersElven Bolt Throwers, considered war machine units in Kings of War. When I began pulling together models to make my Elven army, I quickly rediscovered squirmydad 's One Monk Elven Ballista model in my collection. This model was such a perfect match for the elven Bolt Thrower in Kings of War that I have to wonder if it was deliberately designed for that purpose. In any case, I recolored the blue war machine green using GIMP, assembled two of them, and mounted them on the mandated 50mm square bases. I added two rogues from okumarts ' Darkfast High Elves set to each as crew; I don't recall if David offered them in green outfits, or if I had to recolor them, but I'm sure I did recolored their hair and flipped them to mix up the poses. Since war machines are always fielded as single-weapon units, there's no need to design the bases to fit together. Kindred GladestalkersTwo troops of Kindred Gladestalkers, accompanied by an Elven Prince or King.Kindred Gladestalkers are elite elven warriors, stronger in melee than typical elven infantry, and more lethal at range than run-of-the-mill Kindred Archers. On top of that, they have the Pathfinder and Scout keywords in Kings of War, making them fast and stealthy commandos. To reflect their dual expertise in melee and ranged combat, I represented Gladestalkers with a mix of archers and bladesmen from okumarts ' High Elves set. They are accompanied by a noble elf in full plate armor, which I mounted on an individual 20mm square base, to be used as either an Elven King or Prince, both of which count as heroes in Kings of War. Note that the Gladestalker bases don't blend together seamlessly. I made these units before I realized I could pair troop dioramas to make a regiment. Although it would be perfectly legal for me to push the two units together and treat them as a single regiment, they wouldn't look as nice that way. If I find that a regiment of Gladestalkers is more useful than two troops, I'll probably just a new pair of troops on combineable bases. Stormwind CavalryTwo troops of elven cavalry on stags, accompanied by an elven noble on a warhorse.The bonus material in okumarts ' Wood Elves set includes four wood elves mounted on stags--two in chainmail with spear and shield, and two in forester's garb with bows. Elves on stags were simply too cool not to use as the cavalry in my elven army, even if Mantic's official miniatures mount their elves on horseback. Elven cavalry comes in two flavors in Kings of War, which match David's stag riders perfectly. Stormwind Cavalry heavier and harder hitting, but lack bows, matching Okumarts' spear-wielding cavalry, while Silverbreeze Cavalry are faster and more nimble, and attack at range with bows, just like the mounted archers in the set. Accompanying these stag riders in my photo is a noble elf in full plate on a war horse. He's mounted on an individual cavalry base, and can be played as either a mounted Elven King or Prince. While I was making these two cavalry units, I realized that in Kings of War, two small units could be pushed together and played as a single, larger unit. I realized that with the troop on flat ground in front and the one coming over the boulder in back, the two bases sort of blended together into a single diorama. <Light bulb!> From this point forward, I began playing with designing units in matching pairs. Forest Shamblers and a Tree HerderA regiment of Forest Shamblers, under the command of a Tree Herder.One exciting aspect of Kings of War is that most factions have the option to include some pretty fantastic monsters in their armies. Sentient trees are a natural fit for an elven army, and with okumarts ' Darkfast Tree Folk kit, my elves would carry on that tradition. Forest Shamblers are Mantic's version of Ents, and they count as Large Infantry, so just six of them form a regiment, occupying a 120mm x 80mm base. The Kings of War version of Fangorn is the Tree Herder, a monstrous hero on a 50mm square base. The smaller individuals in the Tree Folk kit were perfect as Forest Shamblers, but the Tree Herder was a bit too big for a 50mm base as David drew him. To make him fit, I scaled him down in GIMP, and made him a bit thinner from side to side to preserve as much height as possible while fitting both of his gnarly feet onto the base! Forest Shamblers are expensive, irregular units, so I've only made the one so far. If they turn out to be particularly effective, I can always knock out another regiment to add to my elven host! Kindred TallspearsA horde of Kindred Tallspears, commanded by an Elven Archmage.Having assembled archery, elite, cavalry and fantastic units, I figured it was time to knuckle down and make some regular infantry. Knowing I was going to have to cut out dozens of figures to make these units, I'd been putting off the task of making large infantry units, but by this point, I was feeling confident that this was a project I wanted to complete. To make Kindred Tallspears, I again dipped into okumarts ' Wood Elves set, pulling out the armored spear-wielders. Once again, I stretched the poses by flipping half of them horizontally. I also gave them several different hair colors, though on these figures you can really only see the hair from the back! Accompanying the Tallspears in this photo is an Elven Archmage, a potent spellcaster represented by a figure from David's High Elves set. I'm pretty sure this pair of regiments was my first attempt to deliberately made to fit together to form a single diorama when combined into a single 40-man horde. I got better at this later on, fortunately. The next photo shows the two regiments pushed together to form a horde. Two Tallspear regiments, fielded as a single horde.Hunters of the WildA regiment of Hunters of the Wild, using figures by Printable Heroes and Paper Forge.Hunters of the Wild are an irregular heavy infantry unit. Currently, the Hunters models are out of production at Mantic Games, so I wasn't sure exactly what they were supposed to look like. Googling around a bit, though, I found that most Kings of War players were using scary tree-spirit figures, like Games Workshop's Sylvaneth Dryads, for Hunters of the Wild. Following that concept as closely as I could with the miniatures I had access to, I decided to take my Hunters in a more fey direction. Instead of a single type of creature, my Hunters units would include a variety of forest spirits. Anchoring the unit I built are three Forest Spirits from the Paper Forge Patreon campaign. I used three color varieties provided by Paper Forge, but printed them at three different sizes to add variety to the model. They are accompanied by Paper Forge's Forest Vine miniatures, spiraling, thorny vines that I also printed in various sizes. Filling out this little diorama are several Dryads and Twig Blights from the Patreon campaign of printableheroes . The models are mounted on a regulation Heavy Infantry troop base, 125mm x 50mm, but because some of the miniatures I used for this unit are quite small, I wound up needing 13 figures to fill the base, instead of the official count of 10 for a troop. This is fine, though...the only rule on model count for scenic-based units is that there be at least 75% of the standard model count on the base. Fielding an Elven ArmyMy goal at the start of this project was to assemble enough models to field an Elven army for a standard, 2,000-point game of Kings of War. It's impossible to say exactly how many points are in this army, because point costs for a given troop type vary by the size of units on the list, as well as the artifacts, spells, and other special abilities assigned to each unit. For example, if I field 40 Tallspears as two regiments, they cost 140 points each, but combined as a horde, they cost 230 points, only 90 points more. That being said, by the time I've added special abilities to them, I've got at least enough elves to make a 2,000-point army. Whether it's a good 2,000-point army, only time will tell...
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 30, 2020 23:29:49 GMT -9
The Vile Legions of the Unrestful DeadAn Undead Army for Kings of War, created by Jeff George using printable miniatures by various artists.I crafted my Elven army to play Kings of War with the guys at my Monday-night gaming club and our friendly local gaming store. I'd just gotten it into the 2,000-point range in March, when New York went into lock-down, so I never got to play it. With no face-to-face gaming for the next several months, I had to get by with weekly D&D games on Roll20.net. But as spring turned into summer, with Covid-19 still keeping us all stuck in our homes, I realized I had three assets I might be able engage in order to start gaming again: a table-ready Kings of War army, an otherwise-untapped archive of printable miniatures, and a bored 13-year-old daughter! If I could muster another army for Kings of War from my mini collection, maybe my daughter would be desperate enough for entertainment to learn to play a wargame! I scanned my archive, looking for an assortment of figures that could add up to a coherent army. Sadly, my dwarf inventory was no better than it had been six months earlier, so the bearded, axe-swinging ale-swillers were still a non-starter. But I realized I had lots of great undead miniatures from several terrifically talented artists, and decided to pull together a cardstock army of the living dead. WerewolvesA regiment of werewolves, led by a Lycanis hero.One of the first Undead units I assembled was a regiment of werewolves. Werewolves are Large Infantry in Kings of War, like the Forest Shamblers in the Elven army, so it takes just six of them on a 120mm x 80mm base to count as a horde. I made my werewolves by recoloring the lycanthrope included in okumarts Garafrax: Forest Dark set in several wolfy shades. Since they are supposed to be much larger than mortal men, I scaled them up a good bit before printing them out. Even so, I stuck one extra werewolf on the base, over and above the normal six, just to be sure the diorama looked full of toothy danger. The alpha werewolf in a Kings of War army is a Lykanis--a Hero unit on a 40mm large infantry base. For mine, I used the werewolf mini from chiefasaur 's Trash Mob Minis Lycanthropes Theme Pack. He was the perfect size for a 40mm base exactly as published. With the werewolves regiment unit, I shifted from carving the base terrain out of a single piece of foam, as I had with the Elves' boulder-strewn meadows, to constructing stone ruins using XPS bricks. Although I didn't divide my werewolf horde into two three-man regiments, you can see the general aesthetic of this army already in the werewolves' base, and I'd use stone ruins like these to join paired units soon. A Horde of GhoulsA horde of ghouls, led by a pair of ghasts.I suppose I wanted to get a horde of basic infantry out of the way early on this army, instead of putting it off the way I did on the Elven project, so my next troop type was ghouls. There are some swell ghoul minis available, but printableheroes ghouls have long been a favorite of mine. Marshall has released several variations on his male and female ghoul designs over the past two or three years--with and without weapons and cult insignia, with arms in varying positions, and in several colors--and I have them all on my hard drive. I knew I'd need a lot of ghouls, so I spent a couple of hours in GIMP, swapping and repositioning arms to vary the poses in my horde of corpse-eaters. For leadership, I created a couple of Ghasts "heroes", using the ghast figure from Paper Forge. In practice, I'll probably never field two ghasts at the same time, but I had extra minis and bases available, so I put together two Ghasts anyway. By this point, I was getting serious about pairing my units to form larger dioramas. I carved the slope of the earth on both bases to match, and laid a broken stone wall across the seam where the two bases met. Then, feeling cocky I suppose, I switched the two bases end-for-end, and put another ruined wall across that seam as well. Not only can you push these two Ghoul regiments together to make a horde, it doesn't matter which ends you join up--it works either way! This made me insufferably proud of myself for at least half an hour, though I fortunately spent that half-hour alone at my basement craft table, so I didn't annoy anyone before I could get over myself. The next photo shows those same ghouls, split apart into two regiments. The same ghoul horde, deployed as two separate regiments.Goreblight and Revenant KingPrintable Heroes' Graveyard Elemental as a Goreblight, along with a Death Knight as a Revenant King.My Goreblight is just about my favorite among all the models I've made for Kings of War. I've loved printableheroes ' Graveyard Elemental since Marshall released it, though I've never found a good use for it until now. Officially, a Goreblight is a giant abomination of rotting, undead flesh, rapped in chains and sporting extra heads and arms, but with its Crushing Strength, Cloak of Death, and Shambling gate, the Graveyard Elemental just seemed to fit perfectly. The Goreblight is the only Monster unit in the Undead army--though many more are quite monstrous!--so it's the only big unit that goes on a 50mm base. To really sell the idea that this creature was cobbled together from dozens of corpses, I created its base as a little chunk of cemetery, complete with an open grave, headstones, and a mourning angel statue. I specifically bought the Cemetery set from Kev's Lounge to get a suitable selection of memorials for this guy. You can't see them in this photo, but there are more headstones on the base behind him. To lead my undead infantry, I used the Death Knight, also from printableheroes heroes, to stand in for the Kings of War Revenant King. I'm not sure if this figure will see much play--he may get sidelined to make room for more dynamic hero units--but I love the artwork nonetheless. Revenant CavalryRevenant Cavalry, led by a skeletal centaur commander and standard bearer. One area in which my miniature collection was deficient was in mounted undead. To fill the cavalry slot in my Undead army, I went shopping on DriveThru RPG. Mayhem in Paper, run by our own squirmydad and also known as One Monk Miniatures, has a huge array of printable miniature units suitable for wargaming. As a roleplayer, I'd never needed full military units before, but now I needed them badly. To form my Revenant Cavalry units, I purchased One Monk's Skeleton Dark Riders Regiment, and assembled them into two troops of five undead horsement. Since I'd already assembled One Monk's fanciest skeletal riders into Revenant Cavalry units, though, I was at a loss when I needed to find figures for mounted skeletal heroes, including mounted versions of the Revenant King and Undead Army Standard Bearer. Surfing through the One Monk offerings on DriveThru RPG, I tripped over what still seems like a brilliant, if unexpected, solution--undead centaurs! From One Monk's Skeleton Centaurs set, I was able to select a sword-bearing armored centaur to be my mounted Revenant King, and a centaur standard bearer, to be serve as my mounted Undead Standard Bearer. Perfect! I'd decided early on that I wanted my undead cavalry units riding over an ancient roadway, rather than picking their way through ruins or headstones. So I cut the half-inch-thick XPS foam on their bases back to about 1/4 inch, and carved a paved roadway into the surface. I used an X-Acto to cut the stonework into the foam, letting the knifeblade penetrate two or three millimeters. Next, I textured the stone surfaces by pressing a wad of aluminum foil into them. Then I ran a dull pencil through all the cuts to open them up and bevel the edges. The last step in carving the roads was to use a blunt tool to press some of the stones down into the foam, to make it look like some of the stones had begun to sink after centuries of weather and hard use. When carving the roadways into the bases, I set the two troop bases together to form a single regiment, and I set the two individual bases side-by-side because...well, no reason, since they'll never be deployed as a single unit, but at least they'll look nice sitting together on display! Two troops of Revenant Cavalry, deployed as a single regiment. Note how the roadway spans bases of adjacent units.MummiesA regiment of Mummies, led by a Cursed Pharoah.Although the rest of my Undead army is decidedly European in flavor, I'm still pretty pleased with my regiment of Egyptian-style mummies. The rank-and-file mummies are made from four figures in okumarts ' first Darkfast Dungeons expansion set, Realm of Shades. I did my usual routine of flipping and re-tinting to make those four figures look like more. The Cursed Pharoah is female mummy queen from the Trash Mob Minis Undead Theme Pack, by chiefasaur . I love the regular mummy in the Trash Mobs set, but there's just the one of him, so I opted to work with the four mummies in the Okumarts set instead. I didn't feel like mummies fit on the same sort of ruined-cemetery-style bases that I'd been using for my other Undead units, though. So I had to come up with a look that fit Egyptian mummies, but wouldn't look too out of place amongst the rest of my undead units. I hit upon the idea of carving stone tiers into the base in a design that evoked a pyramid, then painting it in the same shades-of-gray color scheme of the rest of the army. Again, I shoved the two raw bases together and traced out my design with an X-Acto blade, then textured it with the aluminum foil ball and etched the lines between the stones with a dull pencil. The design spans the two bases when arranged to form a regiment, and still looks good when they are split into two troops, so I'm happy with how they came out. Twenty mummies, deployed on the left as a single regiment, and on the right as two troops.WightsTwo regiments of ghostly Wights, led by a foul Necromancer.Wights are key units in an Undead army. They are significantly faster than most infantry units, and they have the Fly keyword, allowing them to move right over terrain that would hinder or block most other units. With Crushing Strength and Brutal, they charge in fast and hit hard, but they are weak on defense. The Armored Wraith figure from printableheroes is perfect to represent these ghostly combatants. Since I wanted to keep my Wights in the blue-green color range, I started with the blue and green variants Marshall offers, and re-tinted them to make a second shade of each color. Kings of War classes Wights as Large Infantry, requiring only three models on a 120mm x 40mm base to form a regiment, but I thought diorama looked a bit empty, so I placed five figures on each regiment base. Accompanying them in this photo is my Liche King hero, created using one of the color variants of Printable Heroes' Lich. The bases of the two units each support one half of a small stone ruin, perhaps once a mausoleum of some long-forgotten lord. I've included a birds-eye view with the two units pushed together to form a Large Infantry horde, so you can see how the little ruin fits together. A small, ruined mausoleum unites the bases of these Wight units.Undead DragonThis Undead Dragon dominates the battlefield whenever he appears.The centerpiece of my Undead army is unquestionably my Undead Dragon. Although I waited to assemble this model until I'd worked out my Undead army aesthetic, and held back revealing it to you until the very end, I always knew I'd be featuring chiefasaur's amazing 2.5D model from the Trash Mob Minis Dragons kit. Technically, he's supposed to be a "Vampire Lord on Undead Dragon," but I figure as long as I don't give him any of the optional, Vampiric spells, no one will complain. His Icy Breath and Crushing Strength make him plenty scary, even without a bloodsucker on his back. The Undead Dragon is specced for a Titan-sized base that's 75mm square, so I scaled him up 15 or 20% from the original, published size. Standing over five inches tall and spreading his wings to either side, he fills his base and towers over every other unit on the table. To give him a properly majestic frame, I constructed a broken stone archway on his base for him to stride through. Constructed of XPS foam and coated with two layers of Mod Podge, the archway is surprisingly sturdy. All in all, this skeletal wyrm is clearly the king of this Undead army, at the very least! Onward, creatures of the night!In all honesty, my Undead Army probably isn't quite complete yet. Although with enough artifacts and special abilities, it can probably make it to 2,000 points, it probably has more characters and irregular units than are allowed in an army of that size. I have 60 skeletal warriors and 40 skeletal archers cut out and waiting to be based. When about three of those five regiments of regular infantry are ready, I'll unlock enough hero and irregular troop slots to let me field the special units I've already assembled. I also plan to put together a couple of the Bone Throwers from Trash Mob Minis to use in place of the official Undead war machine, the Balefire Catapult, which will look great and add some long-distance punch to my undead battalion. But even so, I've got plenty of Undead units table-ready to start playing 1,000- or 1,500-point games, which is more than large enough for my daughter and I to use while we learn the rules and strategies of this exciting game!
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Post by factoria tabletop on Aug 31, 2020 4:02:30 GMT -9
woohohohoh what a nice post!!!! well done!!!
all this pics will be saved on my references archieves!! cheers
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Post by okumarts on Aug 31, 2020 5:29:19 GMT -9
Wow, this made me feel the same way I did when I first printed and built my elf set and thought giddily, "I have an army of Elves!" Nicely done!
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 31, 2020 5:33:09 GMT -9
Wow, this made me feel the same way I did when I first printed and built my elf set and thought giddily, "I have an army of Elves!" Nicely done! So where's my army of dwarves?
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Post by okumarts on Aug 31, 2020 5:35:57 GMT -9
Wow, this made me feel the same way I did when I first printed and built my elf set and thought giddily, "I have an army of Elves!" Nicely done! So where's my army of dwarves? Funny you should mention that because The Dwarves of the Iron Hills is planned for October.
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 31, 2020 6:29:04 GMT -9
So where's my army of dwarves? Funny you should mention that because The Dwarves of the Iron Hills is planned for October. David, you just made my week!
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Post by jeffgeorge on Aug 31, 2020 6:39:49 GMT -9
Word of caution to anyone making large posts like these:
SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN!
I had entered the entire Elf Army post, with all the text, pictures, and captions, when the forum software hiccuped as I tried to enter the tag of a forum member who created some of the minis I used in the project. I got dumped out of the Create Post screen, back into the regular page for the thread, and two hours of typing and formatting was lost. Gone. Two hours of sleep I'll never get back.
The second time, I saved the post and re-opened it after each subsection--basically, right before I inserted the next photo. Proboards spit up on me once more while I was working on these posts, but that time, I only lost about five minutes' work, so it was much more bearable.
Bottom line, if you're posting something that took you more than ten minutes to compose, save your post every ten minutes or so. You won't realize how important that is until you neglect to do it!
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Post by lightning on Aug 31, 2020 20:37:05 GMT -9
That is one impressive and most enjoyable post! Love the pics and also your writing!!! Very well done. I even learnt one or two things reading. Thanks for sharing!!!
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Post by marzman on Sept 6, 2020 10:04:42 GMT -9
This post shows just how beautiful paper minis can be. Good job, this should be a reference for everyone on what paper minis can do and be
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Post by Patĉjo on Sept 21, 2020 13:12:16 GMT -9
Holy mackerel! I am very excited to get into Kings of War via paper minis and it is super reassuring to see it done so well. If you'll pardon a silly fear, I was worried about not having minis all from the same artist and it looking odd. While most of your stuff does come from Mr. Okumarts, the stuff that doesn't melds in flawlessly. I also found your How-To for GIMP on the blog incredibly helpful! You've really given me inspiration and I'm excited to get my forces off the ground!
Thank you Mr. JeffGeorge
(now where to find abyssal dwarfs...)
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Post by squirmydad on Sept 21, 2020 18:56:01 GMT -9
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Post by Patĉjo on Sept 23, 2020 3:37:33 GMT -9
I really like your 2.5d flying creatures, the "flight sticks" are very crafty (tips on how to reinforce?), I'm also a sucker for 3d vehicles.
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Post by squirmydad on Sept 23, 2020 11:47:35 GMT -9
I really like your 2.5d flying creatures, the "flight sticks" are very crafty (tips on how to reinforce?), I'm also a sucker for 3d vehicles. I like to mount flight sticks "through" a piece of foamcore, glue the bottom flaps to the underside, and wrap the flightstick around a popsicle stick or double up on the layers of card. I'll try to remember to take a picture when I get home tonight.
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Post by Vermin King on Sept 23, 2020 12:41:20 GMT -9
I have been known to cut strips of clear plastic packaging to do the same thing. You just want to make them thick enough to support the weight
EDIT --
I should have said 'wide enough'
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Post by cowboyleland on Sept 23, 2020 19:54:28 GMT -9
I fold the plastic packaging I use for flight stands 90 degrees. It stiffens them up while keeping them thin.
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Post by jeffgeorge on Sept 25, 2020 9:39:29 GMT -9
Holy mackerel! I am very excited to get into Kings of War via paper minis and it is super reassuring to see it done so well. If you'll pardon a silly fear, I was worried about not having minis all from the same artist and it looking odd. While most of your stuff does come from Mr. Okumarts, the stuff that doesn't melds in flawlessly. I also found your How-To for GIMP on the blog incredibly helpful! You've really given me inspiration and I'm excited to get my forces off the ground! Thank you Mr. JeffGeorge (now where to find abyssal dwarfs...) Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad the GIMP how-tos were helpful. The elves are heavily okumarts because David has two sets of elves - one wood elves and one high elves - in his Darkfast Dungeons line that are dressed in similar outfits, to make them look like a military force. I'm actually not that into elves. I did the elf army first for two reasons--first, I knew I already had lots of matching elves in those two sets from Okumarts, and second, I had that elven ballista from One Monk, which I knew would make a perfect Kings of War elven bolt-thrower. I would have preferred to do a dwarf army first. Unfortunately, though I have lots of printable dwarf minis, they aren't dressed as a military force. There are lots of great minis out there, by many talented artists, but printable minis tend to be aimed at players of D&D and other RPGs, who want them to look as different as possible from one another. When you're putting together an army for a large-scale miniature wargame, you need dozens of models in matching uniforms, which just isn't what most artists are currently producing. I tried making a dwarf army by recoloring a wide variety of dwarf minis, but it was taking too long to recolor all the different minis I needed. By changing to elves, and using the two Okumarts sets as a foundation, I was able to get a table-ready force together without too much digital kitbashing. I pulled the undead army from a wider variety of artists, but in most cases, I was working from a very small selection of original models. This necessitated more recoloring and in some cases, re-posing (especially the ghouls from printableheroes, on which I repositioned the arms of several figures). So the undead army took me longer to make, largely because there was more GIMP work to get the units ready. I was also a bit more ambitious with the basing, so that added to the labor involved in that army, but I believe the extra effort paid off. All that being said, there are a few artists producing printable minis with wargamers in mind. The One Monk/Mayhem in Paper lines from squirmydad and aaron are particularly strong in elves, undead, and ratkin. creyates was starting a line of historical 2.5D minis suitable for army games through Patreon, but his campaign seems to be offline at the moment. You can find some of his armies by searching here on Cardboard Warriors as well; he had some really nice Vikings and similar dudes. And Antohammer is coming on fast with a line of fantasy minis suitable for army-style wargames; I think the best way to find his stuff is over at Wargame Vault. Since Antohammer is doing a lot of figures suitable for proxying GW armies, it wouldn't surprise me if he came out with your Abyssal Dwarves soon! There are probably other artists working on printable armies as well, but those are the ones that spring immediately to mind.
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Post by Zephalo on Sept 26, 2020 8:36:31 GMT -9
... I would have preferred to do a dwarf army first. Unfortunately, though I have lots of printable dwarf minis, they aren't dressed as a military force. There are lots of great minis out there, by many talented artists, but printable minis tend to be aimed at players of D&D and other RPGs, who want them to look as different as possible from one another. When you're putting together an army for a large-scale miniature wargame, you need dozens of models in matching uniforms, which just isn't what most artists are currently producing. I tried making a dwarf army by recoloring a wide variety of dwarf minis, but it was taking too long to recolor all the different minis I needed. By changing to elves, and using the two Okumarts sets as a foundation, I was able to get a table-ready force together without too much digital kitbashing. ... Antohammer has published a set of dwarven infantry: F-0012 - fantasy Dwarves InfantrylinkGreat set for starting a dwarven army. Greetings, Zephalo
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Post by thehobbybox on Sept 26, 2020 16:15:16 GMT -9
very inspiring project. I will look into this ruleset. Thanks
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Post by squirmydad on Sept 26, 2020 17:48:23 GMT -9
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Post by Antohammer on Sept 28, 2020 21:59:11 GMT -9
dwarves.... very well i take note :3 .... anyway .... jeffgeorge when will we see the second part of the undeads? i want to see ranks of skeletons!!!!! and a battle report!!!!!
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Post by creyates on Sept 29, 2020 18:20:05 GMT -9
super cool!
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Post by aaron on Sept 30, 2020 14:27:15 GMT -9
Holy mackerel! I am very excited to get into Kings of War via paper minis and it is super reassuring to see it done so well. If you'll pardon a silly fear, I was worried about not having minis all from the same artist and it looking odd. While most of your stuff does come from Mr. Okumarts, the stuff that doesn't melds in flawlessly. I also found your How-To for GIMP on the blog incredibly helpful! You've really given me inspiration and I'm excited to get my forces off the ground! Thank you Mr. JeffGeorge (now where to find abyssal dwarfs...) Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad the GIMP how-tos were helpful. The elves are heavily okumarts because David has two sets of elves - one wood elves and one high elves - in his Darkfast Dungeons line that are dressed in similar outfits, to make them look like a military force. I'm actually not that into elves. I did the elf army first for two reasons--first, I knew I already had lots of matching elves in those two sets from Okumarts, and second, I had that elven ballista from One Monk, which I knew would make a perfect Kings of War elven bolt-thrower. I would have preferred to do a dwarf army first. Unfortunately, though I have lots of printable dwarf minis, they aren't dressed as a military force. There are lots of great minis out there, by many talented artists, but printable minis tend to be aimed at players of D&D and other RPGs, who want them to look as different as possible from one another. When you're putting together an army for a large-scale miniature wargame, you need dozens of models in matching uniforms, which just isn't what most artists are currently producing. I tried making a dwarf army by recoloring a wide variety of dwarf minis, but it was taking too long to recolor all the different minis I needed. By changing to elves, and using the two Okumarts sets as a foundation, I was able to get a table-ready force together without too much digital kitbashing. I pulled the undead army from a wider variety of artists, but in most cases, I was working from a very small selection of original models. This necessitated more recoloring and in some cases, re-posing (especially the ghouls from printableheroes, on which I repositioned the arms of several figures). So the undead army took me longer to make, largely because there was more GIMP work to get the units ready. I was also a bit more ambitious with the basing, so that added to the labor involved in that army, but I believe the extra effort paid off. All that being said, there are a few artists producing printable minis with wargamers in mind. The One Monk/Mayhem in Paper lines from squirmydad and aaron are particularly strong in elves, undead, and ratkin. creyates was starting a line of historical 2.5D minis suitable for army games through Patreon, but his campaign seems to be offline at the moment. You can find some of his armies by searching here on Cardboard Warriors as well; he had some really nice Vikings and similar dudes. And Antohammer is coming on fast with a line of fantasy minis suitable for army-style wargames; I think the best way to find his stuff is over at Wargame Vault. Since Antohammer is doing a lot of figures suitable for proxying GW armies, it wouldn't surprise me if he came out with your Abyssal Dwarves soon! There are probably other artists working on printable armies as well, but those are the ones that spring immediately to mind. I had started a dwarf army based off the Card Hunters original design and style, it seemed popular and easy enough to emulate at the time. it's just been sitting around for ..... what like 4 or 5 years ... I guess I could pick it up again in my spare time if anyone was interested?
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Post by cowboyleland on Oct 1, 2020 6:35:13 GMT -9
I don't need 'em, but I think they look good. (I LOL'd at the nipples on the armour. Oh, the memories )
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Post by jeffgeorge on Oct 22, 2020 6:18:21 GMT -9
I had started a dwarf army based off the Card Hunters original design and style, it seemed popular and easy enough to emulate at the time. it's just been sitting around for ..... what like 4 or 5 years ... I guess I could pick it up again in my spare time if anyone was interested? OMG, yes! I love the Card Hunters style. I'd kill or die for printable versions of the "official" Card Hunters minis; these would be absolutely the next best thing.
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Post by jeffgeorge on Oct 22, 2020 6:28:51 GMT -9
dwarves.... very well i take note :3 .... anyway .... jeffgeorge when will we see the second part of the undeads? i want to see ranks of skeletons!!!!! and a battle report!!!!! I've got 60 or 80 skellies printed and cut out, but I haven't based them. But with the ongoing Covid situation, it's not possible for me to actually play against an opponent, so there's less pressure to work on Kings of War. The Papercuts deadline gave me an incentive to get two armies "finished", but unless I can somehow entice my 13-year-old daughter to play her first wargame, there's not another deadline in sight. Even if I can get my daughter interested, I think Song of Blades and Heroes or Rangers of Shadowdeep would make a better first-time mini-wargaming experience than a "big" game like Kings of War. What's on my workbench at the moment is my big pile of plastic from the Rampart terrain Kickstarter, which landed on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago. I've got most of it assembled and primed, and I'll be painting it next. I've also got a Warhammer Underworlds warband half-painted, and about a thousand paper minis for D&D to print. So I'm a bit backlogged before I get back to Kings of War. If I had an actual face-to-face game session on my calendar, my priorities would likely shift. But for now, I'm just working on getting minis, both paper and plastic, ready for play after the pandemic eases enough for my club to start meeting again.
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Post by jeffgeorge on Oct 22, 2020 7:47:31 GMT -9
Holy cow, 2010 was a fat year for the Forum Hoards! There are several sets there that lend themselves to army-level wargames, including dwarves, goblins, kobolds, undead (undead horses and chariots!), several kitsune/fox sets, a big red dragon, earth elementals (part of the Dwarf army in KOW), desert nomads, a catapult, cannons, Aaron's elf ballista, and tons more. Definitely worth a look for anyone working on assembling paper minis for a big wargame!
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Post by Antohammer on Oct 25, 2020 6:36:48 GMT -9
AHAHAHAH i m forcing myself to avoid kickstarters lately.... or at least to stick on roleplay books.... but i must admit that i m waiting for the new box of mythic battles..... the new one will be set on norse mithology.... so damn ..... more money to waste.... and tons of plastic that i ll never paint .... i already have too much boxes of shame.... T.T .... anyway .... i m very curious to see a song of blade battlereport let me know if you need some custom miniatures
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