My progress in June had been on the lower end. I did make a lot of progress but most of what I did was start work on assembling several different miniatures. Progress is progress, but except for stuff I've already publish about, nearly all my progress was with incomplete models. Nothing I want to show off at this time. So instead I will talk about all the armies I have plans for.
I've gotten the opportunity to get involve in a lot of new games recently. With a growing need to collect and paint new miniatures for these games, I've almost forgot the main purpose of this blog, which is to be the place where I can publish the narratives surrounding my war games. That aspect of the blog is something I haven't work on in a while. One reason I've delayed writing fiction was because many of my ideas required a better miniature collection. This was further complicated with the death of Warhammer Fantasy as I was no longer sure what game I can find people to play with. I crafted my mythological world by mixing concepts from Warhammer Fantasy (or rather concepts I thought were from Warhammer as I got some of them wrong) with some of my own ideas. I figure it would be fairly easy to swap to a different game. I was wrong. Finding a game system that thematically fits what I've already developed, that also excites me to want to play it and have local players interested in it is much harder to come across than I thought. This is the problem I have with Of Gods and Mortals. OGAM is a game I enjoy a lot and I have a lot of local player willing to play it. However it really does not fit into my setting. Aspects of classic mythology, sure. Armies made entirely from a single mythology and lead by a god causing havoc on the land, not so much. Trying to decide what force I wanted to play in OGAM was difficult because I wanted whatever I build for it to also be used, if possible in my narratives. What I settled on what take models from several different armies to have something playable, but not necessarily a complete force of itself. It might look like a single army when I'm done but whether that is the case because all its parts are from the same faction or just a happy accident remains to be seen.
So between deciding on an Of Gods and Mortals force and discussing doing a Frostgrave campaign, I figure I should list all the different miniature armies I plan on building. Many of these armies are not apart of the Chaos Magic Mythology narrative that I've started here. However the ones that are apart of it I want to explain how they fit into that narrative. There are a few armies I had plan on building but are now off the table. I will mention the ones I can remember at the end.
Team Yankee - Earlier this year I was still planning on having three Team Yankee armies. 120+ points of West Germans as my main army, exactly 100 points of Soviets and then going back and redoing my Americans. However I no longer see myself doing three armies any time soon. I rarely play Team Yankee anymore and it is hard to justify investing in three armies when I have so many other games I want to play as well. When I do get to play, I mostly enjoy it. So for now, the only Team Yankee army I will be working on is West Germans and once I get to around 120 to 140 points, I will probably be done with Team Yankee for a while. I would love to do more with Team Yankee but it doesn't make sense for me at this time. And it figures I decide this around the time Battlefront release rules for playing big Team Yankee games. It should go without saying but none of Team Yankee is apart of my Chaos Magic Mythology.
Battletech - I almost forgot about BattleTech. Its also not apart of my Chaos Magic Mythology, though at some point I might make a space mythology for the sci-fi games that I play. I see all my current BattleTech models to be apart of a single force and will paint them up as such. I don't see myself investing a lot into BattleTech though I do see myself getting a vehicle here and there. I'm also will be playing in a campaign so BattleTech deserve to be on the list.
Relic Knights- Given I know very like about the factions and their playstyles in Relic Knights, I plan to only have a single Relic Knight army, Roh Empire. The Roh Empire reminds me of my Chaos force and if I end up not liking the game I can still use the models for something Chaos. In fact, I have even more of an incentive to work on Relic Knights now. My Of Gods and Mortals army will use two Relic Knight miniatures. I plan on painting my Roh Empire force in a similar way to my other Chaos stuff. Relic Knights is not apart of my Chaos Magic Mythology but I may be reusing some of its miniatures in the Mythology anyway (OGAM isn't apart of it either).
Sisters of Battle - The newest edition of Warhammer 40k has interested me enough to return to it. Even though I'm interested in most of the factions in the Warhammer 40k world, this time around I will only be working on one force, Sisters of Battle. Or to be more accurate, a force who's core will be Sisters of Battle. I will be adding Sisters of Silence and maybe the Adeptus Custodes to my force, but the rest of it will be Sisters of Battle. Outside of maybe grabbing the Talons of the Emperor box in the fall, I don't see myself buying much for this army this year. I have 10 year old models that I've never finish that I can work on. Will probably have to proxy my first few games to get a feel of what to buy next after finishing the old models. Sisters of Battle is not apart of my mythology either.
Chaos - My Warriors of Chaos army is where this blog started. At first I didn't have a narrative behind the army, I just added to it without regards to any story. I later develop two narratives out of the army once I started playing campaigns. I didn't bother restraining my narratives to models I own. As such both armies look quite different from not only each other but also my actual miniature collection. Towards the end of Warhammer Fantasy, I started collecting with an eye to making key aspects of the narrative have model representation. These two armies (Chaos King Amirren and Arkyrian Cabal) were meant to be the backbone of my Chaos Magic Mythology, but I could never build on their narrative because campaigns kept ending early. With Warhammer Fantasy officially discontinued and my desire to find other games to play, my Chaos forces are frozen for the time being. It is unlikely that I will get to play with them anytime soon so it doesn't make much sense to work on models for it at this time. Getting miniature versions of units I mention in the narrative will be the first things I will work on when I go back to Chaos.
Poison Army - My Poison Army is in a weird position in my mythology. I haven't develop any kind of narrative for it yet. The Poison Army came about from my desire to play something similar, yet different for my first army with Age of Sigmar in mind. I might even have multiple different narratives for it, also like my Chaos army. I consider the Poison Army to be an completely different army from my Chaos force even though a few units are in both. I have an idea for a Skaven campaign that will be sequel/side story to the unfinished Border Price Campaign. I will be using the Poison Army in said campaign and it should be the Poison Army's first entry into the my narrative. Now whether the campaign will shape the identity of the Poison Army remains to be seen. The answer will depend on the results of the campaign. Sadly that campaign wouldn't be able to start until I get a lot more done with the Poison Army first. Since the Poison Army is one of the armies I'm currently investing in, I hope the campaign will be able to start sooner rather than later.
Elven Nation - An Elven Nation has been in the background of my writings for a while and future plot points will have them take on a more prominent role. That said, I don't have any plans to start on an army outside of picking up a random unit to practice painting or something to that effort. But if I get involved in a new game (which has happen a lot in the last 4 months) and elves fits in that game as a playable force, then it is possible the Elven Nation will see a sudden appearance on the table top. For now, I just have an unit of archers to paint.
Fae - When working on my setting, I wonder if fairies and other fae creatures should be apart of the Elven Nation. As I flush out in my mind various nations' role in the story, I realize that the two should be separate entities. Allies, but separate nations. When I decided to get into Hordes, I felt a Fae force was the closest nation in my fiction that would fit the Circle Orboros. The more I look through Circle Orboros available units, the easier it was for me to get a clear picture of what the Fae army look like. This doesn't mean my Fae army was identical to Circle Orboros. While there are some overlap with miniatures I see little to no reason to do conversion, Circle Orboros also had miniatures that didn't fit my version of Fae. Not to mention I also thought about miniatures from other games that would flush out this army. I was planning on building a Circle Orboros army but that is on the back burner due to other games taking up too much oxygen in the room. Once I get done with some current projects, I will get back to Fae/Circle Orboros. It is also possible that Age of Sigmar suddenly becomes my main game and my Fae nation would make a perfect second army in AoS.
Thylalon - The knights from Thylalon is going to be the protagonist in my Holy Moon stories. Thylalon started out as my Bretonnian Army. But I quickly develop concepts for Thylalon outside of Bretonnian. Warhammer Fantasy ended right as I was starting to build this army. With an uncertain future I haven't touch it since. More than any of my other forces, I've been looking for another game that I could play my Thylalon knights in. But the only thing I found with an Arthurian Legend favor was Saga and its another historical. Saga is a game I'm looking to get into down the road so I have reason to work on the mundane aspects of Thylalon. I will still be on the lookout for more traditional fantasy games to use my knights in.
Samurai Nation - The idea was to have a country inspired by Japanese culture and separate from the events of previous campaigns, to have its own campaign that will setup who's who in the land. After that, one of the Chaos King's generals was going to sail to that land and invade it, creating a host of storytelling potential. However, due to Test of Honour, my Japanese miniatures have progress much further than the rest of my stuff for the Chaos Magic Mythology. While I could do a samurai campaign relatively soon, the invasion part wouldn't come for a very long time given there was suppose to be at least 2 or 3 campaigns worth history before said invasion happen. With Warlord Games release new Test of Honour stuff, I might have to change my planned story arc. In any case, my Test of Honour miniatures will be going strong for the foreseeable future.
Shieldmaiden - My Shieldmaiden Knights started out as a desire to have a miniature force of all female warriors, regardless of rule set. I didn't have a story behind them and I didn't care if I could used them in a game. When I started this hobby, outside of using proxies for testing, I only wanted to use the official model for the war games I played. It did feel right to me to use another company's model to play their game. Nowadays, I'm far more willing to any model I feel is appropriate to what I'm trying to represent. Not only that but I'm sometimes modeling with an eye towards using a miniature for multiple games. This change to my outlook is what makes my Shieldmaiden Knights idea a possible gaming force. Also realizing that the Shieldmaiden Knights was similar to Sisters of Battle help inspire me to develop what their proper place should be in my mythology. Now that I have some understanding in how they are organize and why, I have some guidance on how to collect and build them as an army. Which comes at a perfect time as I want to use them in a Frostgrave campaign. Given that Frostgrave is a skirmish game, I only need to paint up a handful of figures which will allow me to ease into a full army later. I'm also have a short story idea which I can use to kick off the campaign and introduce who the Shieldmaidens are in the setting.
And those are all the armies I am currently working on or could be working on any in the future. It it's a much bigger list than I initially thought and I'm glad to be able see everything like this. I do want to mention the armies I was planning to build at one point but are no longer a consideration. The first is my Flames of War German army. I was even planning on getting something for it this year, but chance my mind for more Team Yankee Soviets instead. But the death knell of my German army came with Version 4 of Flames of War. V4 looks like a great system but it is way too similar to Team Yankee while also being vastly different in key ways killed it for me. I recently visit a Team Yankee forum and I could see several players confusing the two systems. Now I just heard rumors that Team Yankee will eventually fully adapt the V4 system. If that does happen then I don't have a reason to stay away from Flames of War and my Germans, providing my time is completely taken up by other games.
The two other armies I was planning on building were both Warhammer Armies and they both died with the transition of 8th edition into Age of Sigmar. One was a pure goblin army. I've never been fond of orcs but goblins always had a place in my heart when I want to be evil. Chaos was the only army I had for the entirely of 8th edition and after years of only playing Chaos I finally wanted to start on a second (and third) army. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to do goblins or Bretonnian or both. The story behind it was that a god-like being of death empowered goblins to kill their orc slavers and to worship it. I was inspired to make it after playing the expansion to Diablo 3. The army had a lot of ideas but when Warhammer became far less important to me, I had to cut it. I would love to work on it again but I just have too many other things that is more important to the mythology, plus the many games I'm playing that isn't apart of the mythology. The other army I cut was a 3rd Chaos army. This army not only would have had it own separate story but I would have start building and converting it like I didn't already have a ton of Chaos. I wanted to start with a short story and then continue the tale by playing narrative battles and more short stories. The same process I wanted to do with Holy Moon. But alas with me playing less Warhammer I really didn't need another Chaos army plus the Poison Army sorta took it place. I had almost completely forgotten about the 3rd Chaos Army and the goblin army until I started writing this piece. They both had great stories behind them and conversion I want do with them. Perhaps I will be able to revive one or both of these armies. Who knows what the future will bring.
And that's all I have for my army plans. I'm sorry I haven't updated in over a month but this article took me far longer than I could have imagine to write. I've had troubles writing before but rarely has it been this bad. I won't have a progress review of July because I spent most of the month working on this. Sorry again, and thank you for reading.
