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Wednesday 26 September 2012

A Little Taster...

So I've been thinking a bit more about how I'm going to weave the story of an individual hero as he, or indeed she, wends their way through the world, recruiting warbands, raising armies and generally doing the hero-y type stuff one would expect.

The original painting used as the box art for Mighty Empires - The Battle of Alexander at Issus, by Albrecht Altdorfer, 1529.
As an example I'm going to use Baron Kraust - a character I've already fleshed out somewhat, although I might relocate him to some backwater fiefdom somewhere in the northern reaches of the Empire.


The Baron's journey would start at the mouth of the old barrow as he emerges newly clad in his chaos armour. A series of small skirmishes would ensue, using the WFB 2nd/3rd ed. or maybe even the Havoc or Skulldred rules, as he makes his way back to wreak revenge upon his rebellious peasants and raise an undead army. In between games he may be rewarded with chaotic followers as his power grows - might make my own random tables for this or possibly dip into Realms of Chaos. Typical objectives at this stage would be searching out well stocked cemetaries, raiding local militia's armouries and perhaps even seeking out magical artefacts, weapons or the last resting place of potential Undead heroes.

Did you know I was a bit of a fan of Renaissance Art?
One of my favourites - Pieter (the Elder) Brueghel's Triumph of Death.
Should the narrative take him near the coast, there may be scope for a Man O War game - either as he is forced to raise Undead vessels or steal Empire ships to escape being cornered by a superior Human force, or to use the sea to better transport his army to a particularly enticing target further down the coast.

Another atmospheric piece that captures my mind's eye view of the Old World - Brueghel again, with  The Conversion of Saul.
As the Baron's army grows and becomes a more serious threat to the Empire I would turn to Mighty Empires to plot his moves and fight the ensuing larger scale battles using Warmaster. Should things get particularly titanic I could always use the Mighty Empire's combat system! As has been suggested by Mattias in my last post, particularly key moments such as messengers trying to get through to forces on the flanks with vital orders, surprise attacks on artillery and baggage trains and desperate last stands as the General's personal retinue fight to protect their commander could all be played out as cut scenes in 28mm.

Not added captions to my pics before - quite fun!
Here we have Brueghel's Suicide of Saul.
So how would Kraust interact with other characters and armies I have in my collection? Well, in the initial small scale skirmishes as the Baron is finding his feet, he may well find himself raiding the same settlement that an up and coming Orc Chieftain has set his sights on. The same Orc Chieftain may well then go on, depending on the outcome, to either continue his own dearest raidings or retreat to lick his wounds and find a Goblin tribe or two to subjugate, in a separate series of sirmish games. As the Baron continues his (hopefully) meteoric rise to power, our Orc Chieftain, who by now should have a goodly sized horde following him, might well decide to throw in his lot with the forces of Undeath in a major assault on the Empire - cue Warmaster!

Detail taken from the Battle of Alexander at Issus.
Similarly, the Baron could run into a small Wood Elf scouting force, out hunting Orcs (a tangled web we weave!) and, again depending on the outcome of that skirmish, earn himself a sworn enemy. Should the Elves be defeated, our ambitious Elf Lordling would be well within his rights to swear an oath of revenge and raise an army to track the Baron down. Who knows, a desperate town militia may well be forced to call on our Elf Lordling for aid against the Baron, or other threats as yet unkown - not to mention a beleagured Empire's call to arms to its allies in its hour of need.

More detail taken from The Battle of Alexander at Issus - you could spend hours pouring over this painting!
As you can see the possibilities are many and varied, and with the aid of maps to plot the locations and travels of my main protagonists the narrative should write itself!

Lastly I'd like to pick your brains if I may. Do any of you good folk know if GW released any other minis for Mighty Empires other than these -



Specifically I'm after army banners representing other races - siege weapons and scenery I'm hoping to track down or use proxies from other 2mm/6mm manufacturers.

Edit - just nipped upstairs and compared the army banners from the Mighty Empires boxed set with my 10mm Copplestone Orcs and they're not a bad size match. I think the way forward might be to make up some pieces using 10mm minis from the likes of Pendragon and Kallistra.

Oh, and as a final thought, if you thought I was mad - check out this good fellow's mind bogglingly ambitious project!

I am absolutely in awe at the amount of work this is going to entail, the progress that has been made so far and how brilliant it will look when its finished.

Mr Law, I salute you and good luck with your tile hunt!


16 comments:

  1. To my knowledge, those are the only Mighty Empires releases. God, I wish I hadn't sold that game...

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    1. Never sell anything!

      Unless you've got two of it.

      And then get in touch with me first ;)

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  2. As far as I know those were the only releases. Your project sounds very ambitious and I wouldn't know where to start but look fwd to watching you have a go.

    The Mighty Empire Games I played as a youth were a lot of fun...but you realized quickly how fragile armies really are and became shy of battles pretty quickly.

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    1. Cheers Blue - yup its a biggie, but then again its going to be very open ended. Once I've painted enough minis for the next skirmish/battle I'll think up a scenario and play it. I'm hoping that it'll sort of unfold as I go along. If I get bored of painting Elves, well then I can switch to some undead and then have a game within the context of the big story so far, using the two forces. Think stream of consciousness campaigning!

      I can understand you getting battle-shy - that should make me think hard about the narrative behind the various characters and the reasons why the have committed their forces.

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  3. It sounds pretty great. I think you have the full range there.

    We're running a mighty empires campaign over at Campaignhammer. I created the map in photoshop, then got a large format print of it, laminated that and hey presto, map! Cheating, I know, but at least the online map and board look the same. We use Warmaster minatures for mighty empire pieces where appropriate, an idea I got from the General's Compendium, and they work quite well.

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    1. Cheers Mr S - that sounds like a cheaty (and therefore good!) idea. I was messing around with the map tiles (the old cardboard ones) today in an effort to approximate the coastline of the Old World - a printed map is going to be a lot easier...

      Did you overlay the hex pattern on your map? How big did you get printed?

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    2. I did overlay the hex pattern. I printed it so that each hex would be the same size as a mighty empires tile. I guess it was about 4' x 2.5' or so.

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    3. Cheers - might look at getting this done professionally a bit further down the line...

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  4. A fantastic idea and one I shall follow with very great interest.

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    1. Cheers - should keep me going for a little while!

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  5. Feel free to check out my blog as I have started down the path you are talking about.

    https://thestarforge.wordpress.com/

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    1. Thanks - I've been enjoying your graphic novel style posts for a while now. Fun way of presenting your stuff.

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  6. Looking forward to this mate(:

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  7. There are actually more miniatures, check out these items: http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Mighty_Empires_-_Unreleased

    Some of them are on eBay right now, pretty cool stuff, though way too expensive IMHO

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    1. Those are nice - the adjective, unreleased, always sends a cold shiver down my spine in terms of pricing!

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