Greg's Muster of Hochland

Greetings to all fellow challengers!

Let the muster for Hochland begin...

My name is Greg B, and I am a member of the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  Our little gaming group has a very broad taste in gaming, with (generally) weekly games that will take in everything from Napoleonics to 30k/40k to Ancients to Team Yankee to Zombies to the World Wars and just about everything in between.  When I look back every year, it's a pretty eclectic lineup of games that fills up the reports in our group's blog, and I'm pretty fortunate in that respect!

Humble Hochland...hopefully we'll keep it goblin-free....

But one game that has fallen away from our regular gaming is Warhammer Fantasy.  This is kind of sad, because it was Warhammer Fantasy that served as the context for my very first meeting with Curt and Dallas, the core protagonists of the Fawcett Avenue gang, back in the 1999/2000 time frame.  Oh wow, did we play plenty of fantasy back then! Heady days, great memories...I played the "Emperor's Guard", with two units of Greatswords, two units of Knights and a couple of cannons. Dallas STILL hates that bunch :)

The edition I never truly was able to play...

And then, over time, Warhammer Fantasy...did what it did, with stranger and weirder figures, odder revisions to the rules and finally...whatever the Age of Sigmar is...no need to re-visit sad stories and bitter reflections on GW's clown-college level incompetence here.  But my good friend Dallas would always mention "Oldhammer", and send me links to try and inspire me.  As my paint brushed sawed away at various Napoleonics and 30k figures and Warsaw Pact figures, the notion of Oldhammer always percolated in my mind, but never quite to my painting table. I couldn't find figures I felt would be enjoyable to paint.

I cannot wait to paint this figure as part of this Challenge...I mean, look at the bird! He looks like a total bad-ass...and kind of nuts!

Then, via the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I got to know Iannick.  Not only was he keen on Oldhammer, he was a fount of further inspiration, along with great sources of links to Oldhammer-calibre figures. I ordered a few figures from the relevant sources, and the project awaited a flame of further inspiration....and so Iannick came along with this Challenge...

Foundry figures, awaiting primer and the start of the Challenge...

Thus I will use this as a chance to start an Oldhammer Empire force.  Of all the Empire provinces, the one that stands out in my mind is Hochland.  It's heavily forested, kind of remote, with dark, foreboding woods that chime very much in my mind with how I like to think of the Empire, and considered it in my younger days when I couldn't afford the figures but read all of the books. Even better, Hochland sports Christmas-like colours for its forces, so the season of the Challenge will give me a lift. And finally  the Elector Count, Aldebrand Ludenhof, is a little off his rocker and rides around with a hawk on his hand. Sounds like my kind of dude!  Have to paint him up!

The Elector Count awaits, with a couple of test models,

In terms of edition, I'm aiming for 3rd edition.  I never did get to properly try it back in the day.  While I will miss out on some favourites like Flagellants, in the 3rd edition the Empire could have pikemen! Awesome! I will rely on the metal figure still available from Wargames Foundry to provide the bulk of my figures, sprinkled with a few characters of legit GW vintage (with a huge thanks to Iannick!).

So, roughly speaking, I'm hoping to paint:

• Count Ludenhof
• 10 Crossbowmen (mandatory selection from the 3rd edition Empire list)
• 2 groups of 10 handgunners
• 1 unit of 30 Pikemen (!)
• 1 unit of 20 Halberdiers
• 1 unit of 10 Knights
• 1 Great Cannon

That should shoot me well past 1000 points...we'll see... this will be the Muster of Hochland, ready to protect the humble province from the vile attentions of creatures like goblins, and other foulness the Old World has to offer...the greatest threat to this target will be my own maddening mind, which tends to flit about.  I can sometimes attain intense focus on a given period or setting for quite some time (hence the 300+ painted 30k figures), but you never know when I will suddenly "need" to paint another unit of Mahdists for my Sudan collection, or decide that now is the time to start collecting for the Franco-Prussian War. Yes, I'm that annoying guy. Sorry.

So we'll see...best of luck to all the Challengers, and thanks again to Iannick for roping me into this!