Oathmark - Who's Playing?

[Ogrob]

If I never get to take advantage of the kingdom campaign rules... how good are casual/pick up games?

Just fine, and you can happily construct a Kingdom just to have to make army lists from without playing a campaign.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

If I never get to take advantage of the kingdom campaign rules... how good are casual/pick up games?

Not quite sure what you are asking?

You can use the kingdom system to design your army list(s), or just assemble your forces based on what you have got.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Oh, and Northstar have sprue shots of the plastic Oathmark skeletons on their Twitter feed (have a look at the website soon).

Look better than the Mantic ones,

Not sure about the shields though.

[SirRoystonPapworth]

Skeletons next. That's a real disappointment. I was hoping that the human cavalry would be next, as every other race has two boxes, logic would have thought that would have been the case before embarking on another race...

[Mr. White]

Have they shown orcs yet or only goblins available?

EDIT: painted skeletons

[Ogrob]

No orcs previewed yet, but I'm expecting them to be pretty soon. I believe human cavalry come next, and after that it might be orcs.

[Historiker]

When I first heard about the skeletons I intended to get some, but now I am fully committed to the classic Tolkien style again and have now use for undead. Should I ever arrive at a project status which calls for the Dead Men of Dunharrow I will have a look at them.

Really looking forward to the orcs however and wondering what design direction they will take! Honestly I was quite surprised when I read that they would produce distinct orcs along with the goblins.

If the orcs are a bit bigger and more straight in posture than the goblins I will probably get some of them. Also wondering about the design of the weapons on the orcs as I expect that they won't just replicate the goblin scimitar look.

Oathmark is slowly but surely shaping up to be the plastic range I was waiting for.

[Historiker]

Right after I wrote this I thought of how I would build the LotR Oathbreakers by combining the Human Infantry and the heads from the skeleton sprue. Could use more flowing garbs however. Maybe we will get some non-fantasy wraith-warriors from Northstar one day.

[Hobgoblin]

The skeletons look grand - I really like the Bronze Age details like the horned helmet and that socket-fitted axe.

I've been having a flick through the rules: admirably clear so far. I'm also pleased to find that my Nick Lund orcs will slot nicely into the various orc troop types: I've got 12 archers, 5 warriors, 10 linebreakers and 10 soldiers ready to go, plus a variety of foot and mounted commanders. It's a shame that there aren't orc wolfriders (other than commanders), but my Chronicle wolfriders can act as goblins in Oathmark terms (bigger riders but smaller mounts than the official models).

To oppose them, I can field a mix of chaos warriors (human warriors), goblins and dwarves for the time being, perhaps with some beastmen rabble thrown in as goblin slaves or something, and gnolls as orcs.

I like the 25mm-for-all approach to infantry basing, which avoids the Warhammer-style oddness of having identically sized half-orcs and hobgoblins on differently sized bases. I'm now debating whether my trolls and ogres, etc., should go on 50s for this game or 40s for others. Decisions, decisions - I'll see how the first game or two goes before deciding, but the uniformity of 50s and 25s is appealing!

[Hobgoblin]

Reading through the rules, I was struck by the presence of a 'tacit figure scale'. This is an interesting Warhammerism. Rick Priestley mentioned in an interview that Warhammer essentially worked on 1:10 or 1:20 or something, but there was a deliberate distortion to include powerful character figures as 1:1.

Oathmark does the same, I think. The book explicitly states that one figure represents one man (goblin, whatever) - yet that doesn't really make any sense with a rank-and-flank approach. You couldn't realistically flank a group of 10 men and expect them to maintain a 5 X 2 formation if otherwise engaged. The Saga-style or Rampant-style "everyone fights" approach clearly makes more sense if small groups of fighters are charging each other.

This isn't a criticism of the rules, though; it won't have any effect on how the game plays, and I'm looking forward to playing it. But I wonder what the reluctance to state a more figure scale stems from. Warhammerish tradition? Or is the concept of figure scale inherently off-putting to younger players, perhaps? I think I might have found it a bit strange when I was a kid. Or is it just that it's easier to assume that a hero figure is just the one guy, not a leader plus an elite bodyguard?

Anyway, just an observation!

[Mr. White]

Reading through the rules, I was struck by the presence of a 'tacit figure scale'. This is an interesting Warhammerism. Rick Priestley mentioned in an interview that Warhammer essentially worked on 1:10 or 1:20 or something, but there was a deliberate distortion to include powerful character figures as 1:1.

Oathmark does the same, I think.

So, Oathmark does 1:10 or 1:20 infantry and 1:1 for heroes or am I misunderstanding?

[Hobgoblin]

No, Oathmark is ostensibly 1:1. The rules explicitly state that one miniature = one man. But the whole structure of the game (rank and flank) is predicated on much larger groups of men.

Try to envisage a formation of 10 men holding a strict 5 x 2 formation when another 10 charged into their flank! It wouldn't happen!

So my point is that Oathmark - like Warhammer - uses an unstated figure scale. For the game to have any claim to realism, those 10 men must 'really' be 100 or 200 or whatever - numbers that would require care to maintain formation and manoeuvre.

There's nothing wrong with this, and it's not a criticism of the rules. It's an interesting design decision. I just find it odd that the underlying assumption is unstated - as if announcing a figure scale (as pre-Warhammer games generally did - Chainmail, for instance) would put people off. Perhaps it would!

I've been glancing over the rules again during work breaks, and I reckon I can get another force on the table to combat my orcs by tomorrow. It might have to be a motley crew of goblins, humans and dwarves, but it'll do until I expand the dwarvish and human ranks!

[Mr. White]

Got it.
Like you said though, whether each mini = one person or each mini = 10 people, the game will play the same. It's a small thing to just say they models are 1:10 or 1:20 at our home tables.

Looking forward to your AAR.

[Andrew_McGuire]

I'm also going for a Tolkienesque feel to my (largely notional) armies, which is why I've removed the horns from 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 also been wondering whether halflings will be included. As figures are obviously going to be produced for every race included in the game, and there is already an excellent set from Wargames Atlantic, I suspect that pure business Realpolitik may play a role here, meaning that the little chaps may end up being excluded.

Neither of these issues is unsuperable to anyone intent on fielding Middle Earth armies, or something resembling them, but it is perhaps something to ponder.

[Mr. White]

What would exclude halfling models from being produced?
Are there halfling units in the rulebook?