At the HAVOC gaming convention in Marlborough, Massachusetts I ran four games – two Wars of Ozz and two Feudal PatrolTM games between March 31st and April 2nd. Hopefully shortly, I will be sharing some of my own pictures and a few links about HAVOC in future posts – BUT FIRST…
My first Ozz game was on Friday night, and I had a full table of 6 players – all new first-timers to the game. During that game, one of my players, my friend Bradley Gosselin, took copious notes and photos of that game. I noticed him doing this and assumed that he wanted to really learn the rules. To my humble surprise, he said, no, he was hoping to do a battle report and that I would be welcome to using it in my blog! It’s not often that one of my players does me such an awesome honor – and so – thanks Brad – here is your wonderful report – I could not have done better!
Game Set Up
There were two brigades facing each other – Winkies and Munchkins. Each base/stand of troops or artillerist taken out is worth 1 point to the other side. The deployment is randomly determined.
Turn 1
Turn 2
Turn 3
Turn 4
So, in the end the Munchkins prevailed over the Winkies! Thanks Brad for all the work on this (and he might have more on other HAVOC games – stay tuned). The players had a good time and really picked up the rules quickly.
The game was quick and bloody (as it’s supposed to be). Though both sides did well – the Munchkins did a wee bit better.
With it being my late winter-early spring “wargaming convention season”, I have been working on multiple projects simultaneously. As I mentioned in my last post Jungle Bases from Wargames Terrain Workshop, I’d be sharing a post on my Winkie cavalry which I finished recently – along with the Winkie Brigade Commander on his specially-shaped MDF base.
All are riding Zilks, which are carnivorous huge birds. The SKU# is OZZ305 and can be seen here. The figures come in two pieces (rider torso and a zilk combo rider’s legs combo). I had ordered/selected OZZ304 during the Kickstarter a while back, but got shipped OZZ305. The OZZ304 SKU is for the Winkie Heavy Cavalry – but they are the same price and I had no problem with having them in my brigade. There are 10 figures based on five 2″ square bases, plus the Regimental Commander on his own MDF base.
The Winkie Light Cavalry costs one point less than the Winkie Heavy Cavalry (6 vs 5) – and only loses one point of Melee (8 versus 9) and Elan (8 versus 9), so it’s still a pretty potent unit to have. Plus, I needed a Brigade Commander which came in the Kickstarter, so all is good by me.
According to “The History of Ozz”, after the Madness Bombs fell at the end of the Last Great War, Ozz was founded. East of the Emerald City, Evora the Wicked Witch of the East, conquered and molded the Winkies into her own fighting force. Winkies are believed to be mutated humans, perhaps even descended from genetically-created super soldiers at the end of the Last Great War.
As for the Winkie Cavalry, according to The Wars of Ozz:
After Evora lost her first battle to goat-riding raiders from the Great Endless Desert, she suddenly wanted cavalry. Perhaps inspired by the Madness, she had a vision of zilk-riding lancers sweeping down on her enemies. There were only two problems with this. First, the Winkies were not a mounted people. Second, nobody had ever thought of riding a zilk – – and with good reason. Zilks or “terror birds”, weren’t ridable – they were giant, carnivorous, two-legged birds of the high mountain valleys. Simply getting close to one was risking death.
Of course, after a few executions, nobody wanted to tell Evora it couldn’t be done. An expedition was mounted and a herd of zilks was corralled and broken to saddle. The Winkie survivors had the honour of being the first commanders of the Zilk Squadrons. For the rank and file soldiers being promoted to Zilk trooper is seen as a punishment rather than an honour. Everyone knew a terror bird would find a way to kill its rider sooner or later. Since drilling was almost impossible and the riders could barely get their mounts to cooperate on the field, Zilk regiments were and are poorly trained. Still, if the riders can get them to go in a straight line, the Zilks can land a charge with a powerful impact.
As discussed on previous posts, the Winkies (the orcs of the Ozz world) consider melee as their preferred means of combat. No missile weapons here!
I began prepping the unit back on Monday, February 13th by cleaning up and filing off as many mold lines as I could without taking off any details. I then washed the figures with soap and water to remove any oils left over from the casting process. I decided to paint the riders and the mounts separately as I thought that might be easier given the proximity that the Winkie lances would be to the Zilk mounts. After drilling with a pin vise, I carefully put small balls of poster tack into the wells where the riders would be affixed – so as to prevent any primer from compromising future glue adhesion when I was assembling them. I then applied primer with an airbrush, followed by a wash of Citadel “Nuln Oil”. As usual, I will list all the paints I used on this project at the end of this post for those interested in that sort of thing. There were 82 this time!
One different approach that I took on for this project was to have every zilk be painted totally differently from every other zilk in terms of a painting scheme. To accomplish this, I chose a range of pastel craft paints from Michaels and mixed them with Vallejo Thinning Medium. These are shades that I would not normally use – and I used these pastels for the legs and necks, and married those to other paints (mainly contrast and speed paints) on the beaks, claws and feathers. I used a lot of different paints here! For that reason, I definitely needed another Excel spreadsheet – like this one:
Let’s move on to some WIP. Click any picture to get a better view.
WIP shots…
The Winkie Light Cavalry Regiment and the Brigade Commander at the start of the project.Here the figures are prepped for priming – note I used some ad hoc drilled out popsicle stick jigs (with poster tack in the holes) to hold and work on the riders until their mounts were done and I had painted the lances.Zilk progress on 2/19Winkie progress on 2/19
Below is my progress through 2/20:
With TotalCon37 looming, I pushed as far as I could before I needed to pack the car with all my Aztec, Maya, and Conquistador stuff. When I returned, I jumped back into working simultaneously on them and the Jungle Bases.
By 3/1 I had the riders mounted and had readied the figures for varnishing.The varnished (and dried) figures are glued to their bases and ready for flocking.
I chose a variety of tufts and grasses for flocking – plus some small rocks from near my driveway that I washed. After that, all I needed to add was the 20th colors – purple just for Roger!
I finally found a way to glue the guidon close to the pole – with these tweezers as clamps.
Now that you have seen the WIP, how about some…
Eye Candy
Winkie Brigade Commander
This figure had its own mount – and is free to have in your force in the game. The Brigade commander will have attribute tabs (which is why there is a tab well at the back of the figure). Early on I decided to freehand the stripes on all of these zilk-mounted warriors. His colors are unique in the brigade – I went with a red and yellow theme here.
2oth Winkie Light Cavalry Regiment
There are 5 stands of 2 figures each plus a regimental commander – and I tried to pose, paint, and arrange them as differently as possible. As with all zilk-mounted regimental commanders the one here goes on an MDF stand with a removable tab for an attribute tab in the game if needed. All have white hats per The Wars of Ozz.
Regimental Commander Stand
Stand 1
Stand 2
Stand 3
Stand 4
Command Stand
Group Shots
The WLCR in line with the Regimental Commander in front and the Brigade Commander in the rear.Side view or the WLCR in column with the regimental commander up front.Angled shot of the group giving an idea as to the color variations when grouped together.
I thought by having these with a lot of color that they would be wonderful attacking the Munchkin Light Cavalry!
This completes (for now) my Winkie Brigade. Next, I will be moving on to the Land of Harvest faction as well as some terrain for Ozz. But first, I am going to Cold Wars – where these Winkies will see battle!
Winkie Brigade (less apes) in a boxYes, another spreadsheet showing what I have for Winkies.
And yes, I still have more to come…
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS WINKIE LIGHT CAVALRY REGIMENT & THE WINKIE BRIGADE COMMANDER:
Regimental MDF base from Old Glory/Wars of Ozz Miniatures
Mounted Brigade Commander MDF base from Old Glory/Wars of Ozz Miniatures
Elmer’s PVA Glue
Paper clip wire pieces
Gorilla Glue
1 1/4″ x 1″ steel base from Wargames Accessories (#FOW1)
2″ square steel base from Wargames Accessories (#21)
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Gloss Varnish”
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte Varnish”
Black Sharpie pen
Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Red Tufts” (flocking)
Small stones
Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
Winkie Flags from Buck Surdu printed on card stock
Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures’ range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and the figures are available from the following two places:
Whenever I think of seeing the classic 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, on TV in the ’60’s as a kid, I think the most striking aspect for me was appearance of the Flying Monkeys. Of course back then, our TV’s were not always in color, so I did not even know that most of the film was even in color for a few years! Still, those aviator primates were impressively done for 1939 movie and scary enough for me at 4 or 5 years old.
Now, the world of the Wars of Ozz is not the same as that tread by Dorothy. In this world, the Winkies have allies in the form of Lesser Apes and Great Flying Apes due to the efforts of Evora:
One of Evora’s diplomatic coups was convincing the King of the Flying Apes to send her tribute in exchange for leaving his land in the Cold Barren Mountains unmolested. By their agreement each year he sends a number of Great Flying Apes and their cousins, the Lesser Apes, to serve in her armies and follow her commands for the course of the year. While it might seen like a very unfair arrangement, it has kept the rest of the apes safe from her armies, provided an easy way to train his soldiers, and given the old ape king a convenient way to manoeuvre his rivals out of his lands.
Wars of Ozz, section 2.2.2.4, page 25
Both of these ape regiments are available to any force in Ozz, BUT they are cheaper to incorporate into Winkie Brigades. Therefore, I just had to add both to my current Winkie forces – and potentially others in the future if they can pay. The Lesser Apes and Great Flying Apes cost the Winkies 4 and 6 points respectively, while costing other factions an additional 2 points each for each. The Great Flying Apes ignore any terrain effects, and can of course fly over an enemy, land, and try to hit the enemy’s rear. They also will be useful in attacking the Munchkin’s Aerostat Corps Balloon (mine is in the painting queue as well). The Lesser Apes move through woods with no penalty.
As they are kin, I thought it made sense to share both of these together in one blog post.
I decided to paint both regiments at the same time so that their colors could be somewhat aligned. The color theme that I chose for both was purple. While Gillikins are very purple, I thought that a bunch of “grape apes” would look decidedly different on the tabletop versus plain old brown or grey. I ended up experimenting with two paints a lot here – Citadel “Dreadful Visage” and “Ratling Grime” contrast paints. I found that “Dreadful Visage” used over white left a nice shade of purple – more like a light glaze. I also used it over other shades of purples and the “Ratling Grime”. The “Ratling Grime” is more of a cross between dirty black and brown – and I liked it as a base to dry brush over with “Warpfiend Grey”. I also used purple contrast paints and inks. Overall, this gave me the purplish look I wanted.
Besides, the Lesser Ape figures have tails – yet look otherwise like gorillas. They are deployed on 5 two-inch square bases in groups of four figures. The Lesser Apes are SKU #OZZ309, and are made up of twenty 28mm ape figures in several different poses.
The Great Flying Apes are SKU #OZZ308. The figures are large 28mm scale figures deployed one per each two-inch square base. Their faces and poses are varied – but are more dog-like or baboon-like. They needed assembly (two pieces). As you’ll see, I took the approach of painting prototypes for each type of ape and adjusting their looks to suit me.
Below you will see some WIP shots, and then some eye candy diorama-type shots. The units were both primed earlier on January 7th, but the painting and flocking mainly went from January 20th to January 27th. This was again was a good pace for me (25 figures in 7 days). Below you’ll see the WIP shots – click on any to get a better view.
WIP shots…Lesser Apes
My process for the Lesser Apes was to try to paint up a few and see what I liked and what I did not with end results. I ended up going with a mandrill look on their cheeks – which I liked a lot better than my initial more monocolor try – though painting vermilion and white lines on little ape cheeks is a bit tedious (but rewarding too). As I painted these, I also started one of the Great Flying Apes so as to align their color schemes. I used a various assortment of purples and purplish grays – all are listed at this post’s end if you’re interested in that.
January 20th progress on prototype stand – no cheeks yet.By Jan 21st, I had 6/20 painted – but I thought they needed more than the yellow fangs…White and red mandrill cheeks and brows were added on Jan 21st and I went back and corrected the previously painted figures to this scheme.January 22nd progress – 6 fully done and 4 more partially.Jan 23rd close upJanuary 23rd progressJanuary 24th progress – 14/20.Jan 25th – all are painted minus varnishingAfter varnishing a few figures in this pose I added some “earth” texture paint under their left legs.January 27th – done and ready for eye candy shots!
Lesser Apes Eye Candy
I arranged these such that each stand had different poses in different positions. There are 5 stands of 4 figures each.
Stand 1
Stand 2
Stand 3
Stand 4
Stand 5
Lesser Apes Group Shot
The Lesser Apes in line formation.The Lesser Ape Regiment in column formation.
On to the WIP shots for the Great Flying Apes – click on any to get a better view.
WIP shots…Great Flying Apes
These are very large figures!
January 23rd work.January 25th progress – note the different poses.Close up of January 25th progress on one figure.Later on January 25th, I collected rocks from near my driveway (the non-frozen ones), and began to add them and some texture paint to the bases.Then on Jan 26th I applied the varnish to the model. I used a craft metallic purple paint for the armor – and I like how it came out.A panoramic shot of the finished figures before I removed them from the poster tack/specimen jar combos.
Now for more eye candy – this time for the Great Flying Apes!
Eye Candy Great Flying Apes
Stand 1
Stand 2
Stand 3
Stand 4
Stand 5
Great Flying Apes Group shots
Panoramic shot of the Great Flying Apes in line formation.The Great Flying Apes in column formation.
Family Photo!
A gathering of Apes!
I appreciate your taking a look at this post – as always I appreciate your interest and readership – and hope that this kept you entertained. This makes 52 Wars of Ozz figures that I have painted for January, and 146 since November.
And yes, again, I still have more to come…
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THE LESSER APES AND THE GREAT FLYING APES:
Please note that any paints used on both Ape units in bold, otherwise they were just used on the Great Flying Apes except as annotated.
Gorilla Glue
2″ square steel base from Wargames Accessories (#21)
Poster tack
Vallejo Premium Primer “White”
Vallejo “Flow Improver”
Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
Citadel “Nuln Oil” (wash)
Vallejo Model Color “White”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Sigvald Burgundy”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Contrast Medium”
PS Model Color “British Brown Drab”
Citadel “Daemonette Hide”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Dreadful Visage”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Ratling Grime”
Citadel “Warpfiend Grey”
Vallejo Game Ink “Red”
Army Painter “Purple Tone” (wash/shade)
Vallejo Game Ink “Violet” (on Great Flying Apes only)
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Black Legion”
Vallejo Game Ink “Yellow”
Citadel “Seraphim Sepia” (wash/shade)
Vallejo Model Air “White Grey”
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Luxion Purple”(on Great Flying Apes only)
Craftsmart “Amethyst” (on Great Flying Apes only)
Vallejo Model Color “Vermilion” (on Lesser Apes only)
Citadel “Contrast Paint – Snakebite Leather” (on Great Flying Apes only)
Citadel “Blackfire Earth” (texture)
Elmer’s PVA Glue
Assorted small rocks and stones
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Gloss Varnish”
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte Varnish”
Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Purple Tufts” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures’ range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and the figures are available from the following two places:
Progress continues on my Winkie brigade. This time, I added both Evora the Witch and a Winkie Infantry Regiment to my Winkie forces.
Evora is a “named witch” in the game and costs 3 points. With that, she comes with her own advantages. First, she can act as an overall leader (at above brigade level) with the attributes of “Decisiveness” (this gets an additional activation die in the die pool which increases battlefield flexibility and options) and “Organizational Skill” (which allows her to give pre-game 4 extra points to a subordinate brigade for units or allies) . Second, she comes with free spells – four in fact:
Fire Ball – as an offensive spell
Blood Lust – allows her to force a unit to close with the enemy by automatically passing their next Test of Elan.
Poppies – allows her to create a 6″ square field of poppies that would cause any unit passing through to lose half its movement.
Fear – this is cast on an enemy unit and would cause that unit to lose either a point of Elan or Resolve (spell caster’s choice) on its next activation.
Having automatic spells is helpful as an “unnamed Wizard/Witch” costs 2 points and has to randomly roll for spells – or buy more with points if the rolled ones are not what the player wants. Evora is metal and 28mm, with a SKU of OZZ300.
According to “The History of Ozz”, after the Madness Bombs fell at the end of the Last Great War, Ozz was founded.
Sometime after Ozz was founded, things began to change. Rumours reached the West that a group of mysterious women had appeared in the east. By all accounts, they had powers to rival the Wizard (of Ozz)…The first witch to appear was Evora in the far east. With her power, especially her ability to raise legions of skeletal soldiers, she quickly dispatched the disunified Winkie warlords and forced the Winkies to submit to her rule…
Wars of Ozz, section 1.4, page 9
In addition to Evora, I also have added a Winkie Infantry Regiment (WIR), which I designated as the 21st. This 21st WIR joins Evora, the Winkie Sharpshooters, and the Winkie Light Artillery Battery in my Brigade.
As discussed on previous posts, the Winkies (the orcs of the Ozz world) consider melee as their preferred means of combat. As for most Ozz regiments, this Winkie Regiment (21st WIR) (SKU #OZZ302) has 21 figures in total. They are on 5 bases – 4 figures with spears per 4 stands, plus 4 figures on a single command stand, along with a regimental commander stand (MDF) riding on a zilk. The 21st WIR is 28mm in scale, and the figures are metal. It is worth 5 points.
I began prepping the unit back on Saturday, January 7th by filing off as many mold lines as I could without obliterating any details. I then washed the figures with soap and water, and then primed it. After this, applied a wash of Citadel “Nuln Oil” wash. As usual, I will list all the paints I used on this unit and Evora at the end of this post for those interested in that sort of stuff (and for my own use for later reference as well – I do like to refer back when I need to recreate a painting scheme).
The Ozz rules say that the WIR are:
“Very irregular, usually khaki trousers, but coats vary by regiment, but yellow is very popular. Armed with melee weapons only”
Wars of Ozz, Table 4-3, page 83
I decided that a few of the mold lines were too much for using khaki and so I decided a dark gray would work better. I also decided to go with black sleeves and yellow caps and shirts. For Evora, I went with a yellow and purple scheme. For the zilk, I went with a deep purple look. The 21st WIR figures had fur caps of two different types, plus three different kinds of armor – to include cotton armor like I had on my Aztecs and Conquistadores (and the Winkie Sharpshooters).
This time I did take more WIP shots), which I will share below, followed by some eye candy diorama-type shots. I managed to finish the unit to include flocking by January 16th, which was a good pace for me (22 figures in 9 days).
On to the WIP shots – click on any to get a better view.
WIP shots…
The group after getting scrubbed and dried.Mounted for painting on the specimen jars.Showing the group after priming with some already washed with the Nuln Oil.
January 10th progress – trousers and sleeves.January 11 progress – skin base, armor, and hatsClose up of January 11 progress on a Winkie infantryman
More progress was made on January 12th below, especially on Evora and the zilk:
January 13th saw more work on highlighting, shading, and touch up. Evora still needed more paint too – all are as shown below:
On Saturday evening (January 14th , after my game with Chris), and on Sunday the 15th, I moved to finish the painting in preparation for varnishing and flocking:
Done and ready for glamor shots!
I ended up airbrush varnishing the 21st WIR with a both an initial gloss then a matte varnish so as to keep the colors bright but not shiny. I finished varnishing on January 15th, and mounting and flocking on January 16th. I chose the 21st Regiment flag for them because it was purple and 21 is 3 x 7 – so maybe three times lucky? Time will tell. As for mounting and flocking, I followed the same processes as I did for the Winkie Sharpshooters. The only real problem that I encountered was that the flags were a bit too big for the standard bearer’s staffs – but not so problematic that I felt the need to redo them. I used blue and brown sharpie pens to hide the cut white edges of the banners. Regarding the size challenge, yeah, I could have reprinted them, but I think the Winkies wanted not to have their banners smaller than the Munchkins (the Winkies subscribe to the “bigger being better” theory, especially with regards to the Munchkins). With that note, on to…
Eye Candy
Evora
I did enjoy painting her a lot. The yellow and purple gave her a distinct look, plus I love that she wears a Munchkin skull on her belt and has one on her staff.
21st Winkie Infantry Regiment
There are 5 stands of 4 figures each – 4 are similar and one is a command stand with an officer, 2 standard bearers and a drummer (for IRO our resident blog buddy drummer). Once again, I varied the flocking slightly but distinctly – with the hope of having some congruence among the bases and still some uniqueness for each individual base. The zilk-mounted regimental commander goes on an MDF stand with a removable tab for an attribute tab in the game if needed.
Regimental Commander Stand
Stand 1
Stand 2
Stand 3
Stand 4
Command Stand
Group Shots
The 21st Winkie Infantry Regiment in line formation with the Regimental Commander in the rear.An angled shot of the 21st Winkie Infantry Regiment in line formation with the Regimental Commander in the rear.The 21st Winkie Infantry Regiment in column formation with the Regimental Commander in the front.The 21st Winkie Infantry Regiment in column formation with the Regimental Commander in the rear and accompanied by Evora the Witch.
Next, I will next deviate a bit from the Winkies and work on their notable allies, the Great Flying Apes and their cousins the Lesser Apes. Gotta have flying monkeys after all right? After that, I have the Winkie Cavalry (on zilks) to round out the brigade.
I appreciate your readership and hope that this was of interest.
And yes, I still have more to come…
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON EVORA AND THIS WINKIE INFANTRY REGIMENT:
Please note that any paints used on both Evora and the infantry are in bold, otherwise they were just used on the infantry.
Gorilla Glue
Paper clip wire pieces
3/4″ steel washer (just Evora)
1 1/4″ x 1″ steel base from Wargames Accessories (#FOW1)
Regimental MDF base from Old Glory/Wars of Ozz Miniatures
2″ square steel base from Wargames Accessories (#21)
Elmer’s PVA Glue
Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Red Tufts” (flocking)
Black Sharpie pen
Blue Sharpie Pen
Brown Sharpie Pen
Winkie Flags from Buck Surdu printed on card stock
Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures’ range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and the figures are available from the following two places:
Last Saturday (January 14th) I was lucky to be able to have a game of Wars of Ozz with my friend Chris Comeau. We had each built brigades for the game – I had a Munchkin brigade of 27 points, and Chris had a Gillikin Brigade of 27 points. It was my first Ozz game outside of a convention, and it was Chris’ first ever. We decided to use the “Meeting Engagement” scenario on page 93 (section 6.1.4) with no terrain so that we could focus on playing the game and familiarizing ourselves with the rules. As I said, I have played several Ozz games with others who are more familiar with the rules, but I thought we could get more out of a simple set up. We had hoped to play in the new garage, but a nasty coating of ice on the stairs outside forced us into my cellar.
For scoring, each infantry or cavalry base lost would count as a point for the opposition, as would each artillery or individual figure taken out.
I will attempt here to provide a “cinematic” account of a pretty cool game – pictures do it best – though my cellar’s lighting was not optimal. Click on the pictures for a better view.
The Order of Battle
Chris’ Gillikin Brigade consisted of 5 units, 1 individual (Arella), and a Brigade Commander:
The deployment instructions call for each side to roll a die for each unit and individual, with the Brigade Commanders being placed in any desired zone. These units and individuals are then deployed on each side of the tabletop in six 10-inch deployment zones. The zones are centered on the middle of the tabletop, and no more than two units can be deployed in each zone (if you roll a number a thirds time you re-roll). We elected to have all of my units deploy first, then Chris’, but we could have also alternated our units. The results are seen below.
The initial deployment.
Both of our cavalry units by chance ended up on the far end of the tabletop. Munchkins are great marksmen, but not so great in melee – and they move somewhat slowly (short legs!). So, I decided to try to organize my forces around my firepower, but realigning my troops took a few turns as my two infantry regiments were in line and next to each other. Of course, there was no defensible terrain.
Chris decided to close on my positions while I reorganized.
This is the north end of the tabletop. On the left, one of Chris’ Gillikin Regiments moves up – it had luckily received a “Swift” characteristic at the game start – so it moved fast and Chris had them in column which gave them additional movement versus being in line. He moved up his medium battery to extreme range. His Skeleton Regiment moved up in front of his second Gillikin Infantry Regiment, which had his witch, Arella, close and behind the skeletons.Meanwhile, I tried to align my forces on the north end to maximize firepower. My wizard, Zoraster, was on the far southern end with my light cavalry. This realignment went slowly.The swiftly advancing Gillikin Infantry Regiment went straight for my artillery battery, while in the background, his battery prepared to fire at long range. I was not too concerned as at long range he needed to roll a “1” on each of his 5 D10 shots to hit me. My ease was misplaced as you’ll see.Full view of initial movements.The Gillikins charged my gun, but failed to have enough movement. This left them out of breath and disordered at close range. My gun was at this point however aimed at the Gillikin battery, but the prospect of disordered enemy infantry in column right in front of me was too tempting. I rotated the battery and fired at the Gillikin infantry, immediately destroying one of its five bases (each base takes 4 hits before being destroyed). The Regimental Commander does not count as a combat base. That action only pushed them back and kept them disorganized.I subsequently activated again, and this fire at the Gillikin infantry exacted three hits on another base.
On the southern end of the tabletop, a cavalry battle ensued. Chris similarly moved up his cavalry, while I kept mine ready to screen and engage with their carbines. I was able to fire at his approaching goat-riders, and that disrupted that effort.
My cavalry carbines disrupt the Gillikin goat-riders attack.
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A mid-battle tabletop view. My forces are consolidating – if slowly. So far, I am holding my own.
Then, the Gillikins managed to reform their cavalry and with a good activation roll were able to charge my cavalry – my reaction test was to countercharge at reduced efficiency. The Gillikins lost another base, and damaged mine slightly, but as I was near the tabletop edge, I was in danger of having them eliminated. The Gillikins managed to hold it together, reform again on yet another activation, and hit my now-disorganized cavalry, routing them. They had one chance left to rally, but that would depend on the activation sequence of the dice. I had Zoraster nearby, and one of his spells was an automatic rally – I just needed him to act before the Gillikin goat riders hit the fleeing Munchkin cavalry…
That did not happen in time. The Gillikin cavalry hit the Munchkins, and my cavalry ran away and headed for greener and safer pastures. This left my right flank open to a weakened but still deployed Gillikin cavalry – that Chris kept at a safe distance from any of my remaining musketry for most of the rest of the game.
My cavalry is pushed back to the tabletop end.The Munchkin Light Cavalry is routed – one chance to reform. Then the Gillikins drove them away.The Gillikin cavalry is on the right. Zoraster, having been denied the chance to rally the Munchkin cavalry, moved to the safety of the rear of his remaining infantry and the medium battery.I managed to get the infantry regiments in adjoining line formation facing the approaching skeletons. Unfortunately, Chris’ medium battery began hitting my battery, taking out one of its 5 bases (on left).
Seeing this, Chris reformed his infantry that had previously taken damage from my battery. Chris kept up his attacks with his medium battery – and despite being at long range, took out another two bases – leaving my battery nearly wiped out (2 out of 5 figures left). My medium battery gunners routed, abandoning the gun. The Gillikins sensed victory, and advanced, hoping to spike the gun and gain another victory point. They made it to the very front of the battery base.
The Munchkin gunners rout, abandoning the gun.
This time luck went on my side. Zoraster successfully threw a rally spell and the gunners were able to reman the gun and fire at point-blank range at the Gillikin infantry, sending them skedaddling!
Before the rally, the Gillikins hope to spike the gun……but the Munchkins rally, reman the gun, and drive off the Gillikins, who would flee the battlefield for good.
Then, unfortunately for me, the Gillikin Medium battery finished off my Medium battery with another hit.
Munchkin Medium Battery, RIP. Only the gun remains – while the Gillikin Infantry that it had dispatched run away.
I was down to two infantry regiments, plus a brigade commander and Zoraster. Zoraster successfully cast an “Uncanny Marksmanship” spell on Colonel Tik-Tok’s Infantry Regiment – which made their fire more effective against the advancing skeletons. Eventually, the skellies routed and disordered through the Gillikin Infantry Regiment following behind them.
After multiple musket volleys, Colonel Tik-Tok’s Infantry routs the skeletons.
Chris then moved Arella around and threw three fireballs at Zoraster’s Guard Infantry Regiment’s flank, finally inflicting two casualties on one base (the first two shots failed). Zoraster, with a “Heal” spell, then attempted to recover these losses.
Zoraster moves behind Zoraster’s Guard Infantry Regiment to try to cast a “Heal” spell.
On a D10, he needed a 7. He rolled a 10, which is a “catastrophic spell failure” 8 or 9 just fail). Then I needed to roll a D20 on the “Spell Failure” for the catastrophic failure (i.e. rolling a 10). I rolled a 14, with the result :
“The spell fails but a friendly unit of woodland creatures joins the player’s army at the beginning of the next turn”.
Page 109, Wars of Ozz Spell Failure table
I had no idea how to adjudicate this – and I phoned Chris Palmer – who also had no idea if it was a joke result or not. In any case, as I had no stats for any such unit, we treated the failure as benign.
But Huzzah! I got another activation, to try the same action again! Good!!
ARGH!!! I rolled ANOTHER 10!!! Catastrophic failure #2 in a row!!!
Rolling on the “Spell Failure Chart”, I rolled a 20…the worst possible result..which said:
“Catastrophic failure: The spell-caster’s head explodes into a cloud of straw, bran, pins, and needles, killing him or her instantly. Remove the model from play.”
Page 109, Wars of Ozz Spell Failure table
Well, THAT was unfortunate!
The death of Zoraster.
The remaining Gillikin Infantry then charged into Colonel Tik-Tok’s Infantry Regiment in melee. After a couple of rounds, the casualties mounted on both sides. However, the Munchkins ended up taking too many casualties (including the now-attached Brigade Commander) and were wiped out. This left me with just Zoraster’s Guard Infantry, which tried to turn and avenge Tik-Tok’s loss.
Zoraster’s Guard Infantry (not well-named as now Zoraster was dead) tries to turn and hit the Gillikin Infantry.
It was not to be. Arella successfully hit the last regiment with another fireball in its rear and the resting goat riders finally made their move and charged into the rear of the regiment. This wiped out my last unit.
The games end – with my last regiment (Zoraster’s Guard Infantry) being driven down by goat riders.
Wow, what a game. It had more than a few twists and turns. In the end the score was 21-15, so the Gillikins were not unscathed. Still, it was a Gillikin victory over the Munchkins – nice job Chris! Hopefully we can throw down again soon and we can each get another brigade done too.
Postscript
After the game, I decided to take Dave Stone’s suggestion and add some blood to the wells of the artillery sabot bases for both the Munchkins (shown here in this game) as well as my Winkie Light Battery. The Citadel “Blood for the Blood God” paint did serve this purpose.
Munchkin Medium Battery with painted wells.Winkie Light Battery with wells on sabot base painted for blood.
Any good brigade in Wars of Ozz games will need a bit of artillery. As I mentioned in my last post on the Winkie Sharpshooters, Winkies (the orcs of the world of Ozz) are much more interested in fighting hand-to-hand in melee with a foe versus shooting a weapon at one. Winkies are not overly bright in general, and certainly are not very educated. According to the Wars of Ozz rulebook,
“…Winkie artillery is something of an afterthought. Numerous battles and sieges have shown the usefulness of a strong artillery arm, but it is simply not a glorious or honourable role according to the Winkie mindset. Few Generals are chosen from the ranks of the artillery. Chieftains’ sons would much rather be leading a regiment of spearmen or jaegers. The artillery requires too much thinking, the guns can’t compete with the workshops of the Munchkins, and there is too much heavy lifting to be glorious. Consequently, the commanders of the batteries are an eccentric lot. They range from brilliant to simply odd. Except for the master gunners, most of the crew are conscripts secretly happy to be well back from the front line.”
Wars of Ozz by John R. “Buck” Surdu, Section 2.2.2.5, page 25
I therefore decided to have a Winkie Light Artillery Battery (WLAB) for my Brigade, and save some points for other troops. This unit (#OZZ306) has 5 figures plus the gun in total. I use an MDF sabot base for all of the figures and the gun similar to the Munchkin Medium Artillery Battery that I completed earlier. The WLAB is also 28mm in scale, and the figures are metal. It is worth 4 points versus a regular Winkie infantry unit which costs only 5. In the game, light artillery has a short/long range combination of 6″/18″ versus that of a medium battery which is 8″/24″.
The WLAB are supposed to have red coats, with white vests and trousers. Of course, being Winkies, the carriage of their gun had to be yellow. To me, their uniforms evoked a British look with the red coats. I again felt that the Winkie fur caps HAD to be black (but I think I’ll be changing some future Winkie units’ headgear on that score).
I began prepping the unit back on December 22nd in anticipation of my end of year surgery. My goal for the mass priming was to have some more units ready for painting in early 2023. I started painting the WLAB in earnest on New Year’s Day – and managed to complete the battery on January 5th.
This unit also qualifies as my second entry for for Dave Stone’s “Paint What You Got 2022/2023” challenge. As is my custom, I will list all the paints I used on this unit at the end of this post for those interested. This list really is mostly for my own use for later reference as well – I do forget stuff on occasion – and this listing has saved me on multiple occasions when I need to repeat a painting process! First, I’ll share some (well a few) WIP shots, then some eye candy of the WLAB.
WIP shots…
I mostly followed my usual process – but here are some photos of the WIP below. I primed back on December 22nd in a mass-priming exercise as noted earlier. The rest of the WIP photos are from January 1-January 3rd.
Primed on December 22nd. I waited until New Year’s Day to work on them.January 2nd progress.January 3rd progressJanuary 4th progress – almost done with flocking here.
I finished the flocking on January 4th, which left me only to add a wisp of smoke (a shred of painted pillow batting from one of my smoke markers) – to the match wielder on January 5th – and the WLAB was done. On to…
Eye Candy
The WLAB is on an MDF sabot base – that I also magnetized for easy transport and playability.
Group shots
The WLAB with the gun in limber position (facing backwards) and a crew member removed to show the neodymium magnet. Each crew member lost results in a combat die being lost.Top view with the gun unlimbered.Head-on view.Front right view.Front left view.Rear view.Good view of the WLAB.
I am definitely going to continue to build my brigade of Winkies in 2023, as well as more Ozz goodness. I have now completed 104 of my 268 planned figures for the game – so I have a ways to go. It’s only slightly fewer figures than my Spanish Conquest/Mesoamerican period stuff, but hopefully it will go quicker.
And note to Roger of Rantings from under the Wargames Table, yes, Roger, I do have an Excel spreadsheet for all these figures! Like Roger, I hope that you will stay with me on this path. And also check out Roger’s blog too.
As a second side note – and another recommendation – coincidentally my Aussie buddy Luke (IRO – the Imperial Rebel Ork) is also working on some black powder fantasy stuff for his Turnip28 project. Think anthropomorphic marsh rutabaga trolls (try to say that three times quickly)and Napoleonic zombies. So, he’s doing black powder fantasy as well. He’s even getting into sculpting for it – so I recommend you check him out. He’s done some cool artillery that you can see here and here is his sculpt post – both of which are outstanding, but there is a lot to see on his blog. His stuff is more grim dark than Ozz, but very cool, and it’s quite interesting that we are on a similar wavelength at the same time cross-globally.
Lastly, I had planned for this post to be about a 2022 roundup and my 2023 goal setting – but that will be the next one sometime this week (sorry Roger – but I do promise at least one Excel shot next time for both you and John from Just Needs Varnish! (another fine blog indeed).
I that roundup post, I’ll review and hold myself accountable for my 2022 predictions and goals of a year ago. I did fall short in some areas, which I am hoping to improve upon in 2023. I will set my 2023 goals in “blogging stone” as well. I am really going to push myself to finish as many Ozz figures as I can until preparing for conventions or even (shudder) playing a game take up more time – after all I need to game sometimes…
And I still have more Ozz stuff to come…
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS WINKIE LIGHT ARTILLERY BATTERY:
Gorilla Glue
1/2″ x 1/2″ square steel bases from Wargames Accessories (#16)
Artillery Battery MDF sabot base from Old Glory/Wars of Ozz Miniatures
1 1/4″ x 1″ steel base from Wargames Accessories (#FOW1)
Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Red Tufts” (flocking)
Pillow batting (for smoke)
Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and the Wars of Ozz figures are available from the following two places:
Now that I have a full Munchkin Brigade (as you saw in my last post), I needed to start building a worthy opponent. I decided to go with the Winkies – the orcs of the Wars of Ozz. Yes, the “oh-eee-oh” dudes from the movie.
My first unit ended up being atypical – as Winkies normally don’t think much of firearms and missile weapons (or those who wield them in battle). The Winkies consider melee as their preferred means of combat. Still, they do have some artillery, and as shown here a small contingent of troops armed with muskets to provide some firepower. My Winkie brigade will eventually have melee troops, light artillery, and Zilk-riding cavalry (zilks are giant ostrich-like carnivorous birds that Winkies capture and train as mounts – though they are known to eat fallen enemy and their Winkie riders alike). I’ll also have some Great Flying Apes, some lesser apes, and their witch Evora. I am trying to get as many as possible done so games can begin, and to that end I am batch-priming and batch-painting as many units as possible.
Back to the WSR – just like most Ozz regiments, this Winkie Sharpshooter Regiment (WSR) (#OZZ303) has 21 figures in total. They are on 5 bases – 4 figures with muskets per 4 stands, plus 4 figures on a single command stand, along with a regimental commander stand (MDF). The WSR is 28mm in scale, and the figures are metal. It is worth 7 points versus a regular Winkie infantry unit which costs only 5.
I began prepping the unit back on December 12th – and was hoping to finish by the end of the year – which I did today, December 31st! This allowed me to accomplish two things. First. I got to break the 200 level of painted figures for 2022 (I actually painted 202 in 2022 with the completion of the WSR). It also allowed me to enter this as my first (and definitely not the last) unit for Dave Stone’s “Paint What You Got 2022/2023” challenge.
The Ozz rules say that the WSS should have “forest green” coats and khaki trousers. And because Evora just loves yellow – a healthy amount of yellow on all Winkies. The WSR figures had fur caps of two different types, plus three different kinds of armor – to include cotton armor like I had on my Aztecs and Conquistadores. I tried to mix them up them on each stand/base for a more varied look. I worked on the muskets first as I wanted them to be very distinctive of the WSR. As I felt that the fur caps HAD to be black, I made the Winkies’ hair to be a bluish grey over w white highlight so as to better stick out from underneath the dark headpieces. I needed to work around Christmas and and scheduled sinus surgery on 12/28 to complete them, so I am happy that I did. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, there is a marathon showing of the movie “A Christmas Story” which influenced me and played a part in some of my choices of colors that you’ll see below. A hint, “pink nightmare”…
More on this in a bit!
My goal is always to achieve a good tabletop standard – and you can be the judge about that. As usual, I will list all the paints I used on this unit at the end of this post for those interested in that sort of stuff (and for my own use for later reference as well – I do forget stuff on occasion). First, I’ll share some WIP shots, then some eye candy of the WSS.
WIP shots…
Primed in white and ready for painting on December 22ndAfter priming, I added a wash of Citadel “Nuln Oil”, then dry brushed in white. The figure on the right has not been dry brushed yet and is shown for comparison with the one on the right which has only been washed on December 23rd.
Then came Christmas! After all the festivities, I knew I only had a couple of days to get the unit mostly done before I had my sinus surgery. That surgery would consist of my surgeon drilling out my internal sinus openings so I could drain better – as I have been plagued with increasingly worse headache episodes all year. Yes, this was done under anesthesia and more drugs. The headaches DID get in the way of both golf and miniature painting, as well as all of the simultaneous sinus infections I was having, so this was necessary.
December 26th progressDecember 27th progress
Then it was time to get my head drilled on December 28th. All went well, and recovery is coming along as expected, but I was in no shape to paint!
December 28th – my head was pretty swollen – even more than usual 😁. Normally I don’t have a head like Peter Griffin from “Family Guy”.
Did I mention that as part of this procedure the surgeon applies cocaine? Yup, and I’m pretty much just a beer guy so…yeah…
Anyways, I was back painting on the 29th, and made good progress by the 30th. One remaining major issue for me was how to paint the regimental commander’s zilk. Remember, Winkies look down on missile weapons, and I can imagine that the better-looking zilks would go to the cavalry and the regimental commanders of melee weapon-bearing infantry. I also had Ralphie’s rabbit suit in my mind subliminally, plus add in any residual cocaine…
And I ended up with a bubble-gum pink and purple zilk…
Now, I am not sure how I feel about it, but it’s done now! Wars of Ozz are supposed to be colorful anyway – and hell, I had had that pink paint for a while without ever using it. I ended up airbrush varnishing the WSR with a gloss then a matte varnish so as to keep the colors bright but not shiny.
Base preparation on December 30th – the figures needed extra care for mounting if they were to look good. You can see the Wars of Ozz picture from the web store that I printed off as a guide underneath on the right.
As for mounting, I wanted the bases to have an appropriate look – with muskets facing forward and in parallel. Once the varnish had dried, I removed the WSR from their specimen jars. Then, I needed to use small bits of poster tack on the figures’ actual bases/bottoms – and a sharpie to trace out how they would fit on the 2″ square steel bases. Then I applied an initial flocking around where the figures would not be. After that had dried, I glued the figures carefully to the steel bases and added multiple grasses and flocking to the steel bases and the regimental commander’s MDF base. This took up most of the effort on the 30th as I added three types of grass plus flowers to give the bases depth and to not just see the shapes of the figures under one layer of flocking. It’s probably overkill, but I do prefer to have nicer bases. The flocking was done on December 30th. Then, it was flag time.
Most (but not all) regiments in Ozz have standards to apply to a couple of figures on a command base. One would be for the faction, the other would be for the regiment. These are available on the Ozz Facebook page as free downloads. When I looked for the WSR, there was no specified flag! By luck, my West Point buddy (and author of the Wars of Ozz rules) Buck Surdu had called me to check in on me post-surgery, and told me he would fix that – and boy he did as you’ll see below – Morin’s Sharpshooters! Hmmm, Buck, does this mean I ride a pink Zilk?
Thanks Buck!
As New Year’s Eve is today, I printed off the flags and finished the WSR. I also made a new backdrop for taking photos of the Winkies as I thought they needed a darker and less friendly look than I gave the Munchkin regiments. You’ll see that below in…
Eye Candy
There are 5 stands of 4 figures each – 4 are similar and one is a command stand with an officer, 2 standard bearers and a bugler. I varied the flocking slightly but distinctly – hoping to have an overall match while having some uniqueness for each base. The pink zilk-mounted regimental commander goes on an MDF stand.
Regimental Commander Stand
Stand 1
Stand 2
Stand 3
Stand 4
Command Stand
Group shots
The WSR in line formation with the Regimental Commander in the rear.The WSR in column formation with the Regimental Commander in the front.A side view of the WSR in column formation with the Regimental Commander in the front.A right side view of the WSR in another line formation with the Regimental Commander in the front.A right side view of the WSR in another line formation with the Regimental Commander in the rear.The WSR about to fire!
I will continue to build my brigade of Winkies in 2023, as well as more Ozz goodness. I hope that you will stay with and/or join me on this journey.
My next post will be a 2022 roundup and 2023 goal setting one. There, I’ll review and hold myself accountable for my 2022 predictions and goals of a year ago. Hell, somebody has to do it!
There, I will set my 2023 goals as well.
I wish all of you a very Happy New Year – and please know that I am very appreciative of your readership and support!
Still have more to come…
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on Wars of Ozz games, figures, units, and other related projects – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THIS WINKIE SHARPSHOOTER REGIMENT:
Gorilla Glue
Paper clip wire pieces
1 1/4″ x 1″ steel base from Wargames Accessories (#FOW1)
Regimental MDF base from Old Glory/Wars of Ozz Miniatures
2″ square steel base from Wargames Accessories (#21)
Black Sharpie pen
PS Model Color “British Brown Drab”
Elmer’s PVA Glue
Army Painter “Battlefields Grass Green” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefield Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Field Grass” (flocking)
Army Painter “Battlefields Meadow Flowers” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Pink Tufts” (flocking)
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “6mm Dark Forest Purple Tufts” (flocking)
Winkie Flags from Buck Surdu printed on card stock
Blue Sharpie Pen
Brown Sharpie Pen
Again, as you may want to check out the Wars of Ozz figures range – there are two places to get them (and I make no money from this btw). The game rules and figures are available from the following two places:
Mark A. Morin 