Björn Grendel's Unberogenes. Wrap-up

The army as a whole 

 

...ALL ROADS LEAD TO REIKDORF...

It's finally finished. 8 long months of preparation, construction, painting, stress... and it's done.

Now that we've reached the end, I can say it: this army is the first and only army I've ever finished!

Let me explain:

Of course, I've painted armies before, for myself or on commission, but for the first time a project meets my personal standards of completeness.

1- Planning on paper from the start.

Since I had to present the project at the end of December, this was the first time in my modeling life that I analyzed the models in my collection, decided what and how much to buy, and assembled the different units in an organized way before starting. Usually, like many of us, I buy what I like when I feel like it or what I need when I can, but not this time.

2- A playable army.

An important aspect, but equally difficult to achieve: a finished army is a playable army: therefore, with a minimum number of characters, basic regiments, etc., but also with some competitive units and some extras, such as the battle standard bearer and some pieces with an extra punch. I've often painted projects like this, especially on commission, but in my personal collection there are more loose pieces than organized armies. This is one of the few.

3- No backlog.

And here's the real news! Having planned everything in advance, squeezing every model and buying only the bare minimum, I find myself with NO extra unfinished models! Of course, this doesn't mean I don't have a pile of shame. On the contrary, my pile of shame is higher than ever. It just means I have nothing left to paint for this specific army. Not even a single humble warrior... even the leftover bitz are no more than a small handful.

4- The parts make the whole.

I've met some of the previous requirements before in my modeling life, especially when working on commission and painting the entire set, or when preparing an army for a battle, or maybe when you just buy a couple of boxes to start a new faction and finish them in one go... but this is truly the first time I've managed to meet all these requirements at once, and I did it FOR ME! It's an incredible, overwhelming feeling. Like when you finish a good book and you're left with that mixed feeling of satisfaction and emptiness... but you can't wait to read another. And I can't wait to start the next project, another army for the next OWAC!

Now I'll let the images do the talking, but first, one last fundamental consideration:

This project has another great record. It made me want to play again, and it also got my wife and children involved. We planned a table together, created some basic scenery elements, and even played a few introductory games. The family loved them and slowly started painting some miniatures themselves. I never thought this challenge would yield such incredible results. Most of the time, we played by splitting this single army in two, to play smaller battles with the new miniatures, and this forced me to tackle another BSB, and here it is.

Tried to match the first One in shapes and colors.

The base model is Valerie Duval from the old Warzone range, a model I found damaged beyond repair in a batch many years ago.

Pic for reference

Catachan arms slighty shaped.. fit and wonderful.

With a little putty work, I think she's more than fit to carry the army's secondary banner. She's super confident, tough, and fit, like a true Barbarian warrior should be.

Fierce and proud!

I love her, and she's turned out to be one of my favorite pieces. I'm not entirely happy with the freehand on the shield, but I decided to settle for it.

Now onto the beauty shots.

And some more...

The Hunt begins...

Chariots racing around the village

Björn and Dragor planning the next raid.

Redmane warband leaving the gates.

Björn's warband protecting the village from and orc raiding party.

The nobles speeding through the fields to join the Battle.

Orcs! The messenger brings word of the incoming invasion.

The outer outpost must be fitted for defense.

"Here you are!"

Queen Griselda, mother of Sigmar, praying to the Gods of Mankind 

Sigmar and Ravenna, back to back against the green tide.

Protecting Foamhenge from the ravaging orcs 

Points, let's talk about points:

As I said, I'm not at all familiar with the third edition rules (I'm a 5th edition guy), and I don't think I've fully grasped how to calculate points, especially for characters and the unit command group.

But here it is, as I thought at the end of December. The value is probably much higher than that (with the command groups and hero options), but it would probably also be illegal in the composition of individual units and the hero/core/special/rare ratios.

*) name (count as): equipment. Points

-----------Heroes and command: Total 467--------

1) barbarian leader (Chaos champion): 2 hand weapons, heavy armor. 130pt

2) barbarian leader (Chaos champion): two-handed weapon, heavy armor. 130pt

3) barbarian leader (Chaos champion): hand weapon, shield heavy armor. 129pt

4) barbarian banner bearer (chaos champion): hand weapon, army banner, heavy armor. 178pt

----------------Rank and files: Total 1106-----------------

1) barbarian warband (20 chaos thugs): 2 hand weapons, light armor. 180pt

2) barbarian warband (20 chaos thugs): hand weapon, shield, light armor. 180pt

3) barbarian cavalry (10 mounted chaos thugs): hand weapon, light armor, shield 180pt

4) 2 barbarian chariots (8 marauder horsemen with heavy armour ).  376pt

 

5) barbarian hunting party (10 chaos thugs): hand weapon, light armor, bow. 100pt

6) barbarian hunting party (10 chaos thugs): hand weapon, light armor, shields, javelines, (throwing axes).       100pt                          

Total.  1.573

I left out the second BSB, the warrior queen, and the additional plastic models, which weren't planned at the start of the project.

I would have liked to prepare some extras, some surprises, maybe a large monster or an additional unit, in this final month, but I didn't find anything I really liked, so I limited myself to making some new scenery elements. Over the last few months, I've built a more than decent collection, as you can see from the photos. In total, we have:

- a couple of new forest bases

- a village of huts and shacks

- a chief's longhouse

- a modular log fortress with a gate, walls, and towers

- an entire stone circle, more than properly named Foamhenge

- a rocky hill, the first of many

- and above all, a regulation-sized table to host our games in the studio.

That's all, I think. This time too, I got carried away by excessive verbosity. I'll definitely be back next year with a new, incredible project (but I don't know which one yet). In the meantime, keep painting.

 Stay true, stay oldschool.  🤘🏼

From this...

...to this!

Björn Grendel's Unberogenes. Warrior Blue warband. Month six, rank and file.

Barbarian warriors ready to face the enemies from inside

 

Alright. We've finally reached the end. A six-month ordeal for my first OWAC, a challenge I wasn't entirely prepared to face. But here we are.

I am fully aware that this is by no means the end of the project, I am aware that next month requires another wrap-up post and I am aware that I still have a couple of things to prepare before the end, however as far as the army itself is concerned I can say that I am finished, I have finally painted everything I had planned.

Before letting the images speak for themselves, I would like to make a final consideration on some aesthetic choices of the project, clarifying some points that I have left out:

Ethnicity, material culture, art and symbolism.

To obtain a certain variety among the models I tried to paint a certain number of different skin tones, but always trying to represent a native Central European population, so generally light skin and more freedom in hair color. The Umberogenes tribe obviously represents the equivalent of the Franks in our history, furthermore it is impossible not to notice the similarities with Conan and the Cimmerians so I added many characters with red and black hair.

To better represent a believable culture, however fantasy, I chose models as similar as possible in sculpture and equipment, as long as I stuck to the Mirliton line it was pretty simple, but adding models from other companies I had to choose the most similar ones in design. 

I also decided to divide the army into two distinct warrior clans, with a Red and Blue theme (Age of Empires anyone?) but to better represent the individualism of the warriors and the future birth of human heraldry I wanted to paint the shields in the most different way possible, mixing geometric patterns with shapes and freehand without a shred of coherence. The difficult thing was the desire to still recall a central European culture but without using recognizable symbols and art, so yes runes yes symbols, but making sure that they did not represent true concepts of our history, no real meaning, no patronage to any deity of our world, no connection to a specific historical culture. for this reason I mixed elements "stolen" from very different peoples, taking inspiration from all of them and representing none of them and yet obtaining something recognizable as ancient and barbaric.

Hence the choice of colors, and the overall design of the miniatures. Choice of simple weapon was mandatory, we covered this topic before, and obviously the lack of steel armor, the majority sporting bronze gear more for showing off status than practical use.  Only Nobles or very rich ones having enough incombe for early but well crafted maille.  Similar to the weapons, many really good and ornated pieces of steel for the wealty, other simple pieces of cr.. for the others.

Last consideration fo the practice of headhunting: someone pointed out to me that it is usually associated with negative and evil factions, especially in the fantasy world, but I do not believe this is the case. In our reality today it is undoubtedly a deplorable practice, when in use, but in the past it was not always so, but quite the opposite. Many ancient warrior societies made it an honorable practice and even certain rites of passage and personal or public victory were linked to it. In our case I simply decided to leave these macabre trophies already present in the sculpts and I added only a few more justifying them as a sign of respect for the worty defeated foes rather than a way to distespect the dead and taunt the living. Remember that in my intention this army represents a faction of "good guys" although wild and brutal warriors. The only regret is not having included enough female characters. There has been much discussion about the presence of women in the armies of antiquity, but in my opinion the barbarians of the fantasy world would be the ones in whose ranks there would be the greatest number of female warriors: young shieldmaidens or hardened veterans. Unfortunately I have not been able to get the number of models that I would have liked, but I leave the door open for the future; who knows, maybe I will integrate many of them into the regiments already present, or maybe I will recruit a unit of only women, perhaps tied to a particular oath or female warrior cult...

Those 2 are ment to be consorts so they fight better and always die together..

Matching colors, weapons, tattoos..

The simplest and ugliest shields of all

A special mention goes to these models: the bald warrior was painted a couple of months ago for the Red Warband, and the beautiful barbarette was intended for the Blue one. However I couldn't adapt her to the Blue theme, so I left her ginger and retouched an earlier Red warrior to make the swap.

In conclusion: those brave barbarian warriors, pointwise, counts as

20 Chaos thugs: light armor, hand weapon and shields (or 2 hand weapons or great weapon)... 180 points

As always I plan to place the models with specific weapons at the first rank and remove the others gradually

Fron rank: weapons and shields

Front rank: 2 hand weapons 

Front rank: twohanded weapons 

Last but not least the command.  Nobles on foot banner and hornman.

That's long enough. Cant wait for the next month's wrap up!!!

In the meantime 

Stay strong, stay oldschool.

....................................................................