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In 2020, during the lockdown, I started a modest project. I wanted to build a medieval army with plenty of color like the old Bretonnian armies I remembered from White Dwarf when I was a kid, even thought the Warhammer Fantasy was gone and Bretonnians had been dropped from Age of Sigmar. I decided to use the handful of old Bretonnian lead figures, along with some of the snazzy modern metal casts of medieval knights and men at arms, to make an army for Lion Rampant, which was getting played by a group in San Antonio, where I was living at the time. I also wanted to use the same models for our budding Frostgrave campaign. With that in mind, I got started on a cadre of archers and knights, as well as a couple Sorceresses. I based them on 25mm circular bases because they looked nice, but they also turned out to be quite a useful choice later.

Not long after the project had gotten rolling I got the chance to try the (at the time) new game Oathmark. Oathmark uses square 25mm bases for infantry. By making unit trays to match my 25mm circles, my army (Which I had begin referring to as my ‘Anyhammer’ project) could march out for a game of Oathmark unchanged. I thought I hit a snag when an online friend offered a game of the classic Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition. In that version (most versions in fact) of Warhammer, Bretonnian and Empire infantry were on square 20mm bases. Too small to hide my 25mm circles. However, the Chaos list (not “Warriors of”, it was just Chaos back then) had a big allowance of Chaos Thugs with a wide variety of weapon options. These miscreants went on 25mm squares. By fielding them as mercenaries and recently joined chaos devotees, my Anyhammer men at arms could serve here as well.

I hope the words above give you a sense for how I started on this project and where it is headed. I plan to lay out my thinking on this project as it developed over time. It is one of those undertakings that is never really complete. While I work on other things and take breaks from it, I keep coming back and adding to it. Its ability to adapt to game after game ensures it will never really lose relevancy no matter what rulesets come and go. Imagine my surprise and amusement when The Old World was released (was that in 2024?) and all the human infantry were mandated to be on 25mm bases. Made me seem far cleverer than I actually am.

I love the splash of color, great stuff.

The magic circle really jumps out.

Thanks. I started with supporting terrain as I got more into Frostgrave. I focused on buildings mostly. And honestly I could still use a few more.

Later I gave Kings of War a try. I believe it was the midst of 3rd edition Kings of War to be precise. Since all that was really required to make my models usable were the appropriate trays, it wasn’t hard to get rolling. Kings of War is one of those games with very strong feeling champions and detractors. I fall firmly in the middle here. From a hobby point of view, the flexibility of the unit’s in terms of modeling is incredibly freeing. There is nothing stopping you using just the models you want to, and even in the numbers you prefer for the most part. Conversions can range wild and counts as units are common place. The game it also pretty clean and plays with pretty little by way of arguments once you know what you are doing. However, it is a game of some gotchyas due to how precise things like charge angles are, and having assessed whether a unit can or cannot charge, and being wrong can easily lose you a game. It is common to see lots of templates and lasers on the table. The community is very welcoming, but also very serious. Lastly, because it is so easy to make armies due to the loose wysiwyg requirements, you can be sure that any unit perceived to be strong or undercosted will appear in droves.

I started off with a Kingdoms of Men army, which was pretty easy to get up and running thanks to what I had already done for Oathmark and Lion Rampant. I painted a very large boar, to stand in as a mammoth, and a giant to give my humans some fantasy flavor. Later I reorganized the same models into an Order of the Green Lady army, which is a bit like a what if bretonnians were merged with the wood elves, as far as faction flavor goes. I decided to lean into my red and yellow scheme, and instead of green leaves on the treemen and such, I went with fall colors. The Order of the Autumn Lady was born.

A very nice paint job on your army. Definitely don't stop on this.

Wow, where is that boar from? Amazing model.

He is a 3d print. I couldn’t tell you who made the file now. Its been a long while.

Fantastic model, looks like one of the beasts from Mononoke Hime

I might have immediately started calling him Nago.

Once I reorganized the army from Mantic’s rather generic ‘Kingdoms of Men’ into the Order of the Green Lady (scratch out to read Autumn Lady), the army received significantly more fantasy additions. To be fair to Mantic, Kingdoms of Men list exists to allow new players to try the game with whatever historical or human fantasy minis they have at hand, and in this case it worked exactly as intended. However, once I had a feel for the system I wanted something more thematic and effective. So I made the switch.

The Order has access to more magic, sone elementals and fantastic creatures. I added a sprinkle of all these, and whenever possible used treants to represent things. Those models were sone of my first attempts to kitbash 3d printed models, and I learned a lot from the process.

After did a few events while I was playing Kings of War, culminating a couple pretty large ones. I added some more fantastic beasts, and repainted an old tower to spice up my display board.

This all looks amazing!

So last year, I decided I had enough troops painted that I deserved a fortress for them to defend, I did a great deal of looking around and settled on an old castle kit by Hudson and Allen. It is a very old mold, and some bits weren’t always the sharpest, but, it has a wonderful non-standard lived in look that other plastic kits can’t match. It even has a preconstructed destroyed wall section, and destroyed tower, complete with rubble. I can sub those in when needed for battlefield damage. The sections can be arranged as a sturdy keep or as a long curtain wall. It is a luxury item that takes up a lot of storage space, but it is at least a versatile one.

That is a gorgeous castle, is it still in production?

Search ‘Vatican Enterprises’, I think they still make it.

Thanks!

https://www.wargamescenics.com/2.0/index.php?page=catalog_toc

Some more shots of the inside of the fortress.