The Coldwood Smugglers - a Mordheim Warband

I've been interested in Mordheim for some time but after visiting BOYL 2018 I met some guys who really encouraged me to pick up the game and I've been hooked since that time. This is the first warband I put together: the Coldwood Smugglers, based on the rules for the Stirwood Outlaws.

What follows is a rather long and tedious description of the warband members and their story.

In the Imperial Calendar year 2504, a revolt quaked the free city of Marienburg: the poor were protesting for the increasing prices and the corruption in the government, and soon a leader emerged among them: Johan Hess, a wealthy merchant who had never been involved in politics before. Hess set fire to the masses blaming the ruling council and the Elves for all their problems, and soon violence erupted as the mob assaulted the Elven Town, causing its inhabitants to flee Marienburg abandoning all their properties. The Stadtsraad was quick to admit Hess among its members and make it head of the Directorate. Nobody could expect that a year later Marienburg would be significantly poorer and more corrupt, and ruled by a madman who had the guts to crown himself Emperor of Marienburg. But by that time, all those who could oppose Johann I had been either banished or killed.

The van Noort family were among those who had suffered the most: small traders, they used to buy Indhyan spices, Cathayan tea and Arabyan cotton from the Elves and sell it in the villages of the Wasteland. Without the Elves, all these goods were either unavailable or too expensive to sell. Frederick van Noort, on the verge of bankruptcy, saw no other option that to contact the brothers de Houtman, shady smugglers that helped him get the goods he needed from the ports of Norden and L'Anguille, where the Elves still traded.

This worked, for a time. But one night the wardens fell on the smugglers and captured Jakob and Gert de Houtman. They never came out of the black cells of Rijker's Isle: however, a few days later the guards came for their band members, who escaped after a bloody skirmish. That same day Frederick van Noort was arrested.

Young Olivier van Noort, Frederick's son, was left to lead the family. Vowing vengeance against the Mad Emperor, he left Marienburg. With the help of Fastradil, a former business partner of the van Noorts and survivor of the Elven revolt, Olivier was able to negotiate passage of goods from Hargendorf in Nordland to the borders of the Wasteland through the secret paths of the forest of Laurelorn and its western fringe, known to locals as the Coldwood. To move the goods he hired some woodsmen from the border villages, people with no allegiance except for themselves. This is how the band of the Coldwood Smugglers was born.

Olivier van Noort - Bandit Leader
Eldest son of Frederick, Olivier is only 24 years old. He had a privileged upbringing but in the last two years he discovered what a hard life really is. Determined to save his family from ruin and do what he can to fight the Mad Emperor, Olivier is now running the smuggling and sale of exotic goods from Nordland into the villages of the Wasteland. Olivier is armed with his family's heirloom, a steel two-handed sword with a gilded hilt. The miniature is Citadel's Strider from the Fellowship of the Ring Boxed Set BME1, issued in 1985.

Pieter de Grote - Champion
Pieter is the biggest fellow in his village, a burly woodsman wielding a two-handed axe with strength, precision and rare viciousness. Pieter is not nice and few people like him, but least of all the representatives of the law: he has spent a good time in a cell, just because he would not stop a brawl when the guards showed up. Pieter met Olivier in the woods one day and the young merchant, instead of being intimidated like everyone else, asked him if he wanted to make some extra money carrying heavy bags. Pieter was enthusiastic, and in fact he helped recruiting the other woodsmen, for whom he acts as representative. Pieter's miniature is a MM62 Marauder Villager from 1989.

Kees de Houtman - Petty Thief
Kees is the youngest of the brothers de Houtman. When his brothers Jakob and Gert were taken by the city guards, he narrownly escaped with his life. Now fighting the Mad Emperor has become his main objective. These days he helps Olivier run the business, supervising the smugglers and the moving of goods in the Wasteland. Cornelis's figure is a Citadel C04 Mugger from 1986.

Kiliaen van Rensslaer - Priest of Stromfels (Manann)
Old Kiliaen has been a member of the de Houtman gang for many years. Through his life he's been a cut-throat, wrecker, smuggler and moonshiner. Fifteen years ago, after he survived a shipwreck, he had strange dreams and decided to become a priest of the forbidden cult of Stromfels. Today, he is widely considered a giver of blessings by the criminals of Marienburg. He has a bad drinking habit but the brothers de Houtman always kept a place fot him in the gang, and he is grateful to them for that. He helped young Cornelis escape from the guards and now follows him, well aware that the guards have his name on their black list of most wanted. His miniature is a Citadel C04 Thief from 1983.

Gerbrand de Kort - Marsksman
Gerbrand the Short is a hunter. Middle-aged, poor, ugly, short and curt, he has no wife and few friends, one of them Pieter. He agreed to join the band hoping for a better life and a decent old age. The miniature is a Citadel ME25 Rangers of Ithilien from 1985.

Werner de Lange - Marsksman
Werner is a hunter. Word is that he used to be a gamekeeper when he was young, but he was sent away by his master for some misbehaviour. A tall man, Werner does not love to talk too much: his words are few, direct and often harsh. He has no friends and spends most of his time alone, but Pieter and Gerbrand went to look for him and he accepted eagerly to be part of the new enterprise. Miniature is a Bretonnian Bowman from the 1990s.

Klaas de Schrander - Marsksman
Klaas is a young hunter, well known in the village for being shrewd, patient and clear of mind. He has no intention of living a life of hardships in the wood and hopes to put some money aside to start a new life somewhere else. The figure is a Citadel ADD7 AD&D Ranger from 1985, sculpted by the Perry brothers.

Without shield

With shield

Roel de Rood - Marsksman
Red-haired Roel is one year younger than Klaas and a good friend to him. He comes from a large and dirt-poor family of woodsmen and would like to bring home some decent food. Unlike Klaas, Roel is more of a romantic and idealistic and enjoys adventure for the sake of it. The figure is a Citadel ADD7 AD&D Ranger from 1985, sculpted by the Perry brothers.

Without shield

With shield

The Warner - an experiment in kitbashing

Whether you like GW or not, you have to admit that their customer experience is great. If you collect anything from their products, you are always welcome to a great variety of events. My favourite is the kitbash: you bring a set of your own, and they allow you to fish into a large box of spare bits for 5 minutes to chose 10 bits, which will be used to kitbash your set.

There is usually a nice crowd, at least in my local shop, and it's always interesting to trade bits and exchange ideas and tips, as you build your Frankenstein monster during the afternoon.

My first kitbash happened during Christmas holidays a couple of years ago. I purchased a very basic set, the Chaos Sorcerer Lord.

Image from GW website

It's a simple, cheap and versatile figure that can be easily expanded with random parts from other sets. Unfortunately, I wasn't very lucky with the choice of bitz - besides some WH40K stuff that I avoided, the box contained some really old white metal Orcs and several sprues from the Arakhnarok and Durthu sets. I managed to put together a good number of twigs and a horse skull, nothing more. There was nothing remotely chaotic to take.

Eventually I decided to focus on the base rather than the figure. I swapped the head with the horse skull and an arm with a twig, and set it on a dead log riddled with spiders. To help it stand, I added an extra branch with greenstuff, following instructions from the guy sitting next to me - I learned a lot from him!

Still, I could see the people around were not impressed - I had to work a lot on this to make it passable. Paint it and work on the base, that is.

The result is not too bad, hopefully. I am quite happy with it, especially since it pushed me to try new things - greenstuff and forest undergrowth. 

The Warner is meant to represent a construct, a scarecrow made from the dead remains of a Chaos sorcerer, set by the powers of the forest to warn intruders of the peril ahead. It can't do much except stand, make eerie sounds and make his eyes glow, but it's enough to change the mind of a lot of hunters and trappers. Not particularly useful in a battle, but it could make a nice encounter in a role-playing game. I might even let it act as a focus for a magical creature, e.g. a giant spider, who might speak through the Warner without revealing itself to the party.

What's your experience with kitbashing? Any useful tips?

Fantasy Visuals: John Blanche - Part I (the '70s and '80s)

Mona and the Moonman, 1980s

John Blanche is undeniably one of the most influential artist of Warhammer. No other artist had a comparable impact on the visual language of every Warhammer setting, from Fantasy to 40K to Mordheim to Age of Sigmar.

There isn't a lot of information on John Blanche's biography on the internet: he doesn't keep, like many artists do, a personal blog, or even a shop where third parties sell his current works. The following is all I could collect from a handful of interviews on magazines and prefaces on books - feel free to correct or update information if you know more.
 
Blanche was born somewhere in England on 26th October, 1948 from a a working class family. While displaying an early interest for artistic things, he grew up in an environment that was not supportive, and had only his spare time to dedicate to art, often doodling on scrap pieces of paper whenever he could. Eventually he managed to attend an Art College and it was only during these years, in the '60s, that he was exposed to fine arts and a positive attitude towards pure imagination, embracing the new culture of the time. Yet he recalls his teachers ranged between the two opposites of a stubbornly practical attitude, more focused on business opportunities than art for art's sake, and intellectuals, more interested in the ideas behind paintings than the paintings themselves.

During this time Blanche discovered the Lord of the Rings and the Fantasy genre, and quickly decided that, as a grown up, he would rather draw monsters and mythological creatures rather than do advertisements for commercial products or be, as he called it in an interview, an "existentialist".

The first job he landed after college was hardly exciting, and yet at the same time perfectly fitting to the character, as Blanche was hired as an assistant to a taxidermist working in a Georgian manor house. Not long afterwards, feeling more confident in his skills, Blanche moved to London and here he got in touch with Roger Dean, already an established artist, who helped him with counsels and contacts.

In1977 Blanche started working as a freelance with Asgard miniatures, founded by Bryan Ansell, as an illustrator and miniature painter. He also designed a miniature, the Trunkhand Tuskoid, still sold today by Viking Forge.

Trunkhand Tuskoid, Asgard miniatures

In 1978 Bryan Ansell, who had moved to Games Workshop, hired Blanche as one of the freelance artists in the team: John started pianting several covers for D&D products and White Dwarf issues, for which he painted the very first colour cover in the Summer of 1978.

In that same period Blanche received a commission for five illustrations for David Day's "A Tolkien Bestiary", published in 1978.

In 1979 Blanche single-handedly illustrated "The Prince and the Woodcutter" by Henry Wolffe, with a series of beautiful tables.

In 1986 Games Workshop's HQ relocated from London to Nottingham. Blanche moved to the East Midlands, received the new position of Art Director and started working on what would become Warhammer 40K, first published as Rogue Trader in 1987. From this point he became less and less involved with Warhammer Fantasy, for which he still created some colour illustrations that, even if not really connected to the game, managed to become iconic and shaped the image of the setting.

Voodoo Forest / Pirates (1986)

"Terror of the Lichemaster", 1986

The Enemy Within (1986)

Knight Panther (1986)

Hrotyogg's Tower (1986)

Skeleton Horde (1986)

Khare (1980s)

Swamp Dragon (1980s)

Ignorant Armies (1989)

After 1986, Blanche dedicated most of his energies to the new futuristic setting of WH40K, defining its visual language and themes. At that same time, White Dwarf started the popular column Blanchitsu, where Blanche would give tips and advice on painting and converting miniatures.

The Emperor on the Golden Throne (1987)

"Adeptus Titanicus"

Coke Runner (1980s)

Genestealers (1980s)

These years are full of notable pieces of art from Blanche, both paintings and miniatures: one of the most famous is the Three-headed Minotaur with the Mona Lisa banner, which he entered in the competition at Games Day 1987 and won him the top prize. This is one of the few pieces that changed the way people looked at and painted miniatures.

Possibly from the late '80s is also the Undead Horde diorama, still on display at Warhammer World, a true masterpiece.

Image from Eldritch Epistles blog

In 1989 Blanche published a book collection his previous works for Games Workshop, together with fellow artist Ian Miller, under the title Ratspike. Now again this was a milestone in British Fantasy art.

John Blanche's style was absolutely unique: he drew inspiration from a myriads of sources but then combined them in something utterly new. Among his artistic influences he counted Rembrandt, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymous Bosch, Leonardo da Vinci, pre-Raphaelite Edward Burn Jones, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, the Robinsons, K. Friedrich, Géricault, Gèrome, Jim Burns and Patrick Woodroffe. And these are probably only some of a longer list. 

Blanche's style has sometimes been defined "Gothic Punk", as it combines elements of romantic gothic horror with punk aesthetics from his time. "To me fantasy is much darker than American High Fantasy, certainly more violent, and more oppressive. But it's also very real," he said. "I didn't see fantasy being occupied by shiny characters, it was all very Dickensian. Fantasy denizens to me all look like Fagin. Everybody has an eye-patch and a wooden leg, dirty fingernails, and worn clothes. And thereby lies the strength of it. It is evocative, there is so much background there, the universes are so strong."

His early work relied heavily on technical drawing pens combined with washes of watercolour. Later in the '80s he switched to inks and acrylics, and although he tried to imitate traditional oil paintings, he rarely used oil colours at all. 

When painting something, he would often put together a set of visual references collected independently, by sketching them first and then transferring them on art board. After building shades with pencils or pens, he would then switch to a limited selection of inks and acrylics, often yellow, red and white (he would very rarely used blue). Following this, he would spend considerable time building glaze effects - these give a special light to his work, but are sadly lost for the most part when such works are printed. As a last touch he would occasionally add elements with an airbrush, especially as mist and haze in the background. Lastly, he would add random elements with quick, freely applied strokes of brush, airbrush or by just dripping pigments on the board.

Blanche has sometimes compared himself to medieval illuminators, the painters of miniatures, and indeed he is famous because his average work is very small - smaller than A4 in size. 

Continues on Part II.