Frostgrave OATHMARK GOBLIN INFANTRY

Product Information

North Star Military Figures is lining up a brand new set of plastic and metal miniatures for the awesome Oathmark: Battles Of The Lost Age. A new set of 28mm Fantasy characters and troops are going to be popping up in July. For unit Formations, I suggest forming the largest units possible with all types, with a minimum of 15 figures but mostly the maximum 20. As you can see this is a very large, and brutal force with little finesse, however – at this time – Morgoth was attempting to overthrow the smaller Sindar and Silvan Elven forces with pure weight of numbers and this army reflects that. Halflings, wizards, and other characters: Wargames Atlantic's halfling militia are about the closest thing going out there to Tolkien-style hobbits in plastic, but they seem to me just a little too close to a formal army than it seems proper Shire hobbits might form up into, and Mantic's equivalent are in a similar boat - again, YMMV. I've seen some nice (GW, I think) metal halfling militia that look more like Shire farmers gathered into ad-hoc mobs - wish there were a plastic set like those! Ghoul: Well, I dont see any feasible combination with other unit types here, and a separate set, just for Ghouls is unlikely. Maybe a smaller box, if there ever be smaller boxes. In my opinion, the most likely here, is a cooperation with Mantic, as by the Frostgrave Undead Encounters set. They are all 28mm in scale so it's just a case of making sure that weapons and such match. A lot of the metal characters would be great as replacements for the main characters of Middle-earth too!

You can give them dynamic poses, that fill 25mm round bases or rank them up to a proper regiment on 20mm squares. Both options work quite well, and due to the vast options of weaponry (and the beat-up hand weapons are a proper choice for goblins) you can build multiple types of regiments from this set, so it's a proper core choice beyond Oathmark for similar games like Kings of War or Saga Age of Fantasy if you like. Due to their slender build, the goblins could even be used along with the true scaled miniatures of the Lord of the Rings, maybe not as goblins, but as Mordor orcs or such not a bad choice.There are some subtle nuances in the design which are interesting. Champions can do some cool stuff, but they aren't overpowering. Generals have interesting command rules. Units within 6 inches of the general's unit get an extra activation dice so are less likely to fail, but also if the general's unit activates then he can immediately activate up to two more units within 6 inches, letting him deliver quite a decisive punch in the middle of the normal each side takes turns activating units. We are getting to misty parts... But there is still one clue: the book art. If you look closely at the book, you can notice, that the box arts are also included in it: double sided prints, with more, differently armed figures. But there are also such pictures, what we haven'tseen on plasticboxes. Yet... I think, that its pretty likely, that we will later! Here is a list of the double sided, box-art-like pictures from the books, with my tip on the possible sets: 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...).

As you can see Sauron is a very powerful character, however he will not involve himself in direct physical combat if he can avoid it Northstar's Frostgrave hard plastic kits for wizards, knights, soldiers, crewmen, barbarians, and tribals are a great source of miscellaneous adventuring gear and figures, and can be used for sources of bits for customizing humans, elves, wizards, and more or less human-sized orcs/goblins pretty easily, and can be used to customize dwarves and hobbits with varying amounts of modeling work to make them look right (since weapon-holding arms tend to be shorter than typical human arms!) Engineers for every race: I dont think, that it will ever be separate engineer boxes. Only a few from them are needed, and the different races mean different sprues... Or a combined sprue? Because there would be no need for so many weapon options, means, there would be more place for bodies. For example 2 bodies from every race (including orcs and goblins) and some weapons? Sounds good, but not very likely...For a First Age ‘evil’ army you can use whatever structure you see fit, and you can use the core Oathmark rules stats for most units straight out of the rules, however there are some creatures and characters that need to be added which are definitely not listed within the Oathmark lore. Dark Ages figures of all sorts are a good match for orcs, I think - the Irish and Goths look like great bases for more primitive orcs, the late Romans would make a fine base for more militaristic orcs, the Afghans or Persions would make fascinating bases for orcs, hobgoblins, goblin-men, or half-orcs! Rank-and-file human warriors: I think it's tough to beat Wargames Atlantic's versatile Dark Age Irish, the upcoming Dark Age Goths, and Late Romans for a starting place: these make splendid Middle Earth humans. Your mileage may vary, but I think most Dark Ages human warriors by various companies tend to look very Tolkienien, with only some historical kits outside that range fitting well with Middle Earth. You might also get some mileage with Northstar's Oathmark human infantry, but these seem a bit bland and static for my taste.

For any battle fought during the Siege of Angband I would again suggest using the same forces as the Third Battle but with the optional addition of ‘Wolf Riders’ from the standard Oathmark lists to replace 10% the Normal Orcs, this reflects the more mobile forces used to raid during this time. 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. North Star Military Figures dropped another fun little teaser this week for what's coming to Oathmark, the mass battle Fantasy wargame from Osprey Games. A new set of plastic Goblin Slaves are on the way to add to your armies.

Contributors

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. Faction of Nature with fauns,dryads, centaurs, unicorns, giant eagles, treants (because it would fit the folklore of the Marches, I already made some house rules for some of them, and more is on the way)