Oathmark - Who's Playing?

[Historiker]

@Andrew: You're of course correct about the orc-size in regards to middle earth!

Maybe I am just waiting for the bigger orcs because the orcs belonged to my failed attempt at getting into Oathmark the first time before the game was even released. This ended in be basing, painting and assembling the goblins horribly. There simply was no passion in it, which is completely different this time. I might have a small small-goblin-trauma  ! Might still get myself some Wolfriders though.

Hobbits would of course be a nice addition (and I do remember a Halfling-Army on the Oathmark FB page) but as far as I recall the first chapters of the Lord of the Rings the historical occurrence of Hobbit armies was pretty limited to their lands. I might therefore only build the occasional Hobbit and sneak him into the other armies.

[Historiker]

@Jack: No halflings in the rules as of now. In terms of producing miniatures they also would be way down the line because there are still a lot of the core-boxes to be produced (Human and Elf cavalry  ).

The production schedule however may yet surprise people, as we for example now saw with the Undead. Quite interested to see whether skellies will be the only undead in plastic or whether we will see more diverse stuff.

[Andrew_McGuire]

@Andrew: You're of course correct about the orc-size in regards to middle earth!

Maybe I am just waiting for the bigger orcs because the orcs belonged to my failed attempt at getting into Oathmark the first time before the game was even released. This ended in be basing, painting and assembling the goblins horribly. There simply was no passion in it, which is completely different this time. I might have a small small-goblin-trauma  ! Might still get myself some Wolfriders though.

Hobbits would of course be a nice addition (and I do remember a Halfling-Army on the Oathmark FB page) but as far as I recall the first chapters of the Lord of the Rings the historical occurrence of Hobbit armies was pretty limited to their lands. I might therefore only build the occasional Hobbit and sneak him into the other armies.

We seem to be alike when it comes to both our perception of and experience with goblins (at least of the plastic kind - I endeavour to avoid real ones, difficult though this can be, at least in my area). On the release of the Oathmark figures I merely bought a single sprue, assembled the figures more or less at random (not even matching the mail of the left and right arms) and thoughtlessy used double-bitted axes and scimitars because they were there. Other than the metal dwarves, I didn't buy any more of the range until the book was released much later, when I finally bought the original goblin infantry box. This time, prompted by John Treadaway's articles in Miniature Wargames on building his Oathmark armies, and various LAF posts on the correct appearance of Middle Earth orcs / goblins, I took it a lot more seriously. I now have about 32 correctly armed and accoutred orcs (some of the advance force having gone missing, while I don't have all the right parts to complete other figures) and, better still, an idea of what I intend to do with them. The fact that the rules made sense as I read them,and made me want to play the game, had a lot to do with this.

With regard to Hobbits, I want an excuse to get the WA set, which appears to be excellent, as well as the metal ones by Mark Copplestone I have somewhere. I'm not too concerned about following the strict history of Middle Earth, I just want to have the option of using my armies in that setting. I also intend to create my own setting in parallel, which will still have a Tolkienesque aesthetic, particularly as far as the non-human races are concerned. I have no interest at all in using over-sized, over-muscled, mushy pea-coloured orcs (with or without tusks), bazooka-toting dwarves (with or without mohawks and piercings), and the like. (This is not to denigrate people who do; it's just that there are already plenty of games for them, which I trust serves to reduce strain on the already over-stretched NHS).

[Mr. White]

I'm not looking for strict Tolkien-fealty, as I'm certainly going to put some of my own spin on some of these models too.

What's 'WA' btw? as in the "WA hobbit set"

[Hobgoblin]

I'm also going for a Tolkienesque feel to my (largely notional) armies, which is why I've removed the horns form the goblins' helmets and don't use the scimitars. However, in Middle Earth terms, the goblins are the size of orcs, meaning that the forthcoming orc models won't fit in if they're any bigger, which they presumably will be.

I've been wondering about the Oathmark orcs too - though, happily, my decidedly non-Tolkien Lund orcs fit right in!

Curious about the scimitars, though: they're very Middle Earth (apart from for the Isengarders, that is)!

[Sir_Theo]

I'm not looking for strict Tolkien-fealty, as I'm certainly going to put some of my own spin on some of these models too.

What's 'WA' btw? as in the "WA hobbit set"

Wargames Atlantic

https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/classic-fantasy/products/halfling-militia?variant=31045178490978

[Andrew_McGuire]

I'm not looking for strict Tolkien-fealty, as I'm certainly going to put some of my own spin on some of these models too.

What's 'WA' btw? as in the "WA hobbit set"

Wargames Atlantic. They call them halflings, no doubt for copyright reasons.

https://wargamesatlantic.com/products/halfling-militia?variant=31045178490978

P.S. I see I was beaten to it. I hate to delete a post, though, particularly  after correcting countless typsos.

[Andrew_McGuire]

I've been wondering about the Oathmark orcs too - though, happily, my decidedly non-Tolkien Lund orcs fit right in!

Curious about the scimitars, though: they're very Middle Earth (apart from for the Isengarders, that is)!

It's been a very long time since I read LotR. I'm pretty sure it was John Treadaway who commented that scimitars don't cut it, so to speak. One of the MW articles stated that Tolkien describes the orcs as having straight swords, though this may have been a specific reference to Saruman's soldiers, who are also said to be somewhat larger than orcs of Mordor, if I recall correctly.

[Mr. White]

Undead heroes:

[Hobgoblin]

It's been a very long time since I read LotR. I'm pretty sure it was John Treadaway who commented that scimitars don't cut it, so to speak. One of the MW articles stated that Tolkien describes the orcs as having straight swords, though this may have been a specific reference to Saruman's soldiers, who are also said to be somewhat larger than orcs of Mordor, if I recall correctly.

I'm always up for a bit of orcish pedantry!

Tolkien specifically uses the word scimitars to describe orcish swords on at least three occasions (he refers to them as "bent swords" too). Here's an instance from The Hobbit:

"The Wargs came ravening and down came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel."
("The Clouds Burst")

And here are a couple from LotR:

"By both the doors they could now see that many bones were lying, and among them were broken swords and axe-heads, and cloven shields and helms. Some of the swords were crooked; Orc-Scimitars with blackened blades".

("The Bridge of Khazad-Dum")

"There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs: and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men."
("The Departure of Boromir")

That last quote's the first clear description of the Isengard Uruk-hai, but the point it's making is that these goblins have gear that's atypical for their kind. Aragorn says that their equipment is more like that of Men.

The Isengarders do seem to be bigger and stronger than the other orcs (going principally on Eomer's statement: "Great Orcs, who also bore the White Hand of Isengard: that kind is stronger and more fell than all others."), although perhaps not much bigger than the soldiers of Mordor; Grishnakh and Ugluk are together contrasted with the smaller Northerners, and the big chieftain in Moria (one of the "black Uruks of Mordor", clearly) seems to be the biggest individual orc in the whole book. And Tolkien is ambiguous on whether the Isengarders pull ahead of Grishnakh's troops (Uruks of Mordor, we can safely presume) because they're hardier or because Grishnakh has some scheme in mind.

There is also at least one orc in Cirith Ungol with a short stabbing-sword, so scimitars aren't the only orcish swords in Mordor, but they do seem to have been the norm.

Those undead heroes look good!

[Andrew_McGuire]

Thanks for the quotes. Clearly I over-generalised. Now I know who my orcs are fighting for, anyway.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Interesting photographs, though I am trying to stick to plastics.

I can understand releasing one or more boxes per supplement (surprised there was nothing for Oathsworn).

However I do wonder about how the Oathmark book in-fill boxes will go (I was hoping for some human and elf cavalry).

Not bothered about the orcs really...

Oathmark and Frostgrave would seem to have a great deal of synergy, but there seems to be minimal interaction (almost as if they were released by separate companies). There may well be legal reasons (but as the lead author is the same...).

I would almost expect demons in Oathbreaker.

[Mr. White]

the synergy is interesting. it feels like Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep have more synergy between the two...and those are published by different entities.

Oathmark and Frostgrave are both from osprey and northstar.

But perhaps they just wanted a different feel for Oathmark. I dunno.
I do know that I'm not really interested in Frostgrave besides using a few of its models for Oathmark.

[Historiker]

It's really interesting for me too. I first stumbled over Northstar Miniatures because of the Frostgrave range and soon found out about the Northstar / Osprey CoOp.

For a few years I had then tried to establish Frostgrave as my system of choice but somehow the real passion was not there. I think I wanted to like the system because on paper it was perfect for me and for a long time I had only minimal gaming space.

Now that I have more space I have realized that I actually like Oathmark way more and will probably focus entirely on that project with only interludes of painting something else. With that in mind I am absolutely fine with these two products being very different in style. I have to admit though that I do like the Rangers of Shadow Deep Miniatures as Commanders for Humans and maybe even elves.

[aircav]

Well after following this thread, I jumped in and ordered the rules & have received them.

So far I’m impressed with them.