So in the late 80’s I was introduced to Wargaming and I’ve never looked back!
John Blanche Original Diorama
I saw a picture of the diorama above followed by pictures of Orc & Goblins and I knew that’s what I wanted to do, a massive Orc & Goblin Army… And so my journey began!
Through the 90’s I bought lots AND LOTS of Orc and Goblin Miniatures from a variety of sculptors/companies and played Warhammer weekly. During the Summer we’d get a huge 12ftx6ft table out of my friends garage and set it up on his drive and play huge multiplayer, good -vs- evil games! My passion for Orcs & Goblins remained but I refined my collection over time to only include newer painted Citadel Miniatures.
The Death of WFB and the Dawn of AoS – this was a turning point for me… I decided, fool heartedly, that I would sell my WFB collections and begin a brand new AoS project. The OG were gone and in their place was a Flesh-eater Courts army! I have never regretted a decision to sell an army more than this, and when Warhammer: The Old World was born I said I’d never do games in the Warhammer Fantasy setting again! I instead pushed all of my attention into Kings of War by Mantic Games.
Fast forward to 2025 and I found myself eyeing up the OG again and so my passion for Orcs & Goblins was reignited once more… A Warhammer: The Old World – Orcs & Goblins Troll Horde army was born! The Rise of Waaaaggghh Red Sunz began, led by the enigmatic Orc Warlord Rol-snik The Trollfather.
When they were little, Rol-snik liberated 2 baby Trolls. Naming them Granor & Swammi and raising them as his own, they rose to power and developing magical abilities. They attracted Trolls to Waaaaggghh Red Sunz and so the army grew in stature and prowess.
GranorSwammi
A big block of Rol-snik’s Big ‘uns, joined by the army’s Battle Standard and an Orc Weird Nob marches alongside the Troll Father…
Scouring the Border Princes area of the Old World, ahead of the Main Army are the Sun Runnerz, units of Wolf Riders and a unit of Wolf Chariots…
The Sun Runnerz – Wolf RidersThe Sun Runnerz – Chariot Boyz
An army needs a Baggage Train, something for the army to be defending and so I built this little diorama where the wheel has well and truly fell off the wagon. You can see an orc tracker pointing out the approaching enemy while an orc blacksmith shrugs and asks “what do you expect me to do about it?”
This rounds out my return to the OG, I accomplished this army relatively quickly through the use of AK Play Markers and washes and I’m really pleased with how the project turned out. It has led me down a classic fantasy rabbit hole but I think my next Fantasy project will be a 10mm Mass Battles game as part of my “Year in miniature” projects of 2026… I’m looking at you Argatoria!
So some of you may know that I am a MAHOOSIVE K-47 fan and have several fully painted armies, but when the new edition landed in 2025 I knew I had to do a winter Axis Army set on the Eastern Front… This would need to be an army I could complete quickly, speed paint if you’d like due to lack of hobby time at the time and so the Sturm Division 312 marched into existence!
The core of a Konflikt ’47 army is the Assault Platoon, the boots on the ground and you must select 2 advanced or specialist units as it’s backbone, the weird in the WWII. I chose to focus on Stahltruppen and Shrekwulfen!
Next up is your choice of Platoons, I went with an Armoured Walker Platoon comprising of a Panzer IV-X “Panzerlaufer” Command Vehicle and 2 Vogelspinne.
Following this up I added an Artillery Platoon comprising of a Schwertruppen command team and Panzershreck decked out in mki power armour, a Schwerfeld Projector & a Super Heavy Anti Tank Gun both with a tow for repositioning.
Last up I added an armoured platoon compromising of a King Tiger with Super Heavy Rail Gun & a Puma-X
As you can see I’ve gone for a heavy weathered look, with whitewashed armour. I achieved this with the use of heavy chipping medium over their original tricolour pattern. Once dried, I applied an off-white over the entirety of model and then removed areas of the white once dry. When this had settled I softly airbrushed off-white over these exposed areas to simulate areas of the whitewash thinning over time. AK Dioramas Dark Earth, Ice Sprinkles and Snow were added at the final stage.
I wanted to add the impression of the Vogelspinne being nimble and pouncing, a stark opposite to the lumbering Panzerlaufer. To aid in this storytelling I posed the Vogelspinne’s accordingly and on the Panzerlaufer I added stowage and begleit riders.
Hope you like my new edition/new army, I have a new one planned for 2026 and additions to this one so keep checking back for more updates – 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕴𝖗𝖔𝖓 𝕵𝖆𝖗𝖑
So at the start of 2024 I announced my Hobby Resolutions/Pledges for this year over on my Social Media Pages but for those who follow me here I shall add them below:
As you can see at the very top is my New Year/New Army for 2024 Pledge…a MASSIVE project for Kings of War, The League of Rhordia/Kingdoms of Man project!
So this army is also a project to showcase the possibilities to build and paint an army that you have envisioned from the ground up and this is because Kings of War is miniature agnostic so I have trawled the world wide web for miniatures and STL’s from various companies that I feel fit the unit titles/descriptions. The graphic below shows some of the companies that I will be getting miniatures from for this project.
While I await the arrival of miniatures I set about creating the multibases for the units and thought I’d showcase a tutorial on how I went about it…
And below is a selection of the other bases I’ve made so far…
Keep checking my other Social Media Accounts as well as here for more updates on this project!
Calling all Rank and Flank Fantasy Wargamers, my Kings of War Events for this year are live. Join me at Board In Brum for Tournaments, Campaigns & Educational Bootcamps for Beginners.
This game of Fantasy Rank and Flank invites all players, unlike an Old World EVERY army is tournament legal (even those using models from other manufacturers), it was designed by gamers for gamers, has a friendly global community, and it’s easy and affordable to get started. 𝙋𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙥 𝙨𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙆𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙒𝙖𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 Mantic Games!
So most of you will have heard of the game Warhammer 40,000, or 40k for short, but do you know the story of the blood crazed lunatic with butchers nails in his head that the Chaos god of War & Slaughter took a liking to? Well Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters Legion, was transformed by Khorne into a Daemon Primarch of Khorne, his Avatar of Destruction!
Moving forward from the ashes of the Horus Heresy and recently he has emerged once more to wreak havoc upon the Imperium of Man, the Red Angel is here…
A Dream Commission
𝕊𝕋𝕌𝔻𝕀𝕆 ℂ𝕆𝕄𝕄𝕀𝕊𝕊𝕀𝕆ℕ 𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗨𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘𝗥: Games Workshop 𝗚𝗔𝗠𝗘: Warhammer 40,000 (40k) 𝗔𝗥𝗠𝗬: World Eaters 𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗟𝗘: Angron, Daemon Primarch of Khorne 𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗗 𝗕𝗬: The Iron Jarl Ironskull Gaming Studios
A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of painting my first Primarch Miniature for Warhammer 40,000 having only previously painted these venerable leaders of the Emperor’s Legions for Horus Heresy and I loved it! The scale of these miniatures are awesome but I’d only dreamt of painting a Daemon Primarch, the biggest and baddest of all Primarchs… That is until recently when the Angriest of Daemon Primarchs arrived as a commission!
This mini is truly stunning and a joy to paint… Even if there are a gazzilion skulls to paint! Previously I painted a Bloodthirster and a Daemon Prince of Khorne for the same client so shouldn’t have been surprised to receive this commission but I truly am astonished every time someone chooses my services for such epic minis! Well enough babble from me, may I present to you Angron “The Red Angel”, Daemon Primarch of Khorne!
So the cat is out of the bag, the Cruel Overlords and True Masters of The Void have Dominated my painting desk… Which is apt really as that’s what they do to the Denizens of the Void, The Nightstalkers!
So rewind to this time last year and I set out on a journey into Kings of War by Mantic Games choosing to work on an Ambush Army of Nightstalkers… Little did I know that roughly 1 year later I’d be getting ready to unveil their Masters, The Twilight Kin!
A massive thank you goes out to Mantic Games for sending me the new kits ahead of their general release date so I could work on them, it is such an honour to be chosen to show off my take on these stunning kits!
So the Miniatures are hard plastic and the detail is truly phenomenal! The kits go together really well, but if like me you have sausage fingers I’d highly recommend using a pair of good tweezers as some of the parts are small and can be a little fiddly.
I decided I was going to build these with a view to making a story driven set of Multibases and as such the units are not full model count, in fact they are well below the PMC suggested but I always go by the rule of cool and try and make sure the bases still look full!
I decided I was going to build a Regiment of Corsair Voidwalkers and then I realised I had a few spare which I could combine with a leftover sprue of Reapers/Tormentors from my Nightstalkers project to make a Regiment of Corsair Wranglers (I chose to use the Reapers as I’d seen the unit that Mantic advertised, however after reading the rules I now believe that it should have been Tormentors but it still looks cool).
The Best Of Both Worlds
The best thing about having these Twilight Kin units is that I can bolster it into a full army with the addition of some units, heroes and Monsters from my Nightstalkers army! So I’ll need to grab hold of an Ambush Starter & the Characters Set and then I’ll have a 2300pts Twilight Kin Army!
With the same mantra in mind I built a Regiment of Void-Skiffs, putting 2 of the models on the Multibase this would leave one which I then decided I’d build as a Captain on Void-Skiff. The conversion was an easy one with just a head and an arm swap which both came from the Corsair Voidwalkers/Fleetwardens/Wranglers Sprue.
Not sure it will be the most competitive list but should be fun and a nice addition to the growing collection of forces of Pannithor! Check out the rest of the Twilight Kin range HERE!
Yes you read that right…Firefight, the award winning Sci-fi game set in the Warpath Universe by Mantic Games is about to get upgraded!
Today, over on their blog, Mantic Games teased what is to come over the rest of the year for Firefight, which is a firm favourite hear at 𝕾𝖐𝖚𝖑𝖑𝖘 𝕳𝕼! Deciphering the Roadmap (pictured below) we will be getting a rules update, new 2 player set and new vehicles for a fair few factions in August… Is this the fabled “Tank Battles” play mode that Ronnie hinted at as far back as last year’s open day? We are hoping it is was we think a vehicle baby game mode would be awesome… Picture tank formations, air wings, etc bringing mayhem to the to battlefields of the Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere… Pure carnage!!
Following on from that we have more vehicles and an update to the Mantic Companion, November the New Terrain Crates and Mats hit general release and closing off 2023 we’ll see new releases for Enforcers! What an exciting time to be a Firefight Fanatic and if you aren’t already, go check it out here!
Mantic Games are running a Global Campaign later this year for their flagship Fantasy Mass Battle game Kings of War. The Shadowed Horizons Campaign focuses around the frozen North of Mantica and the City of Chill where raids from the Evil forces are a daily occurrence but more recently there has been an onslaught of Nightstalker attacks. Is this foreshadowing the arrival of a darker evil? Will the secret of the great power Telenor holds as a close guarded secret be revealed or fall into evil hands? Only the results of the Global Campaign will reveal!
To take part you need to pick an allegiance, either good or evil and ready at least an Ambush sized army to play…if only there was a group to help spur us on in building, painting and playing a new Kings of War Ambush army…well this is where Blackjack Legacy steps in to save the day!
Over on Facebook there is a shiny new group issuing a challenge, a challenge to do just that…introducing The Kings of War – Blackjack Legacy – Slow Grow Army Challenge 2023 and we are going to join in…say hello to new versions of our existing Ambush armies or totally new ones from 𝕴𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖐𝖚𝖑𝖑 𝕲𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌: 𝕾𝖐𝖚𝖑𝖑𝖘 – 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀.
The first challenge is up in the group and is simply:-
Welcome wearied traveller, today is our channel’s announcement of the 𝕾𝖐𝖚𝖑𝖑𝖘 Team’s chosen forces for the #summerslowgrow which we are doing as part of the amazing BlackJack Legacy Kings of War Slow Grow Challenge 2023 in conjunction with Mantic Games in preparation for their Shadowed Horizons Global Campaign!
You may have noticed that recently we added a new 𝕾𝖐𝖚𝖑𝖑 to the prestigious Ironskull Gaming team and as such five of us will be working on new Kings of War Ambush Armies and are as follows…
The Iron Jarl – Northern Alliance – “to go as opposite as I could from my Nightstalkers I started at the end of last year, I’ve chosen to focus on the Tribes People of the Northern Alliance… I mean how could I resist the new plastics… Dwarfs riding giant ravens, who wouldn’t!!!”
Wargaming Old Guys – Abyssal Dwarfs – “forging alliances with the dark forces of Pannithor seems to be my thing so how about those evil Dwarfs bringing terror to the North!”
palette of war – Riftforged Orcs – “I mean have you seen the Storm giant!! I fell in love with that model when I first experienced Kings of War at the Mantic Open Day last year and so I knew when called to battle for a new faction it had to be this army!”
𝕬𝖈𝖊🔥 – Empire of Dust – “I know, I know I did those for my last build BUT I’m in love with this army and have decided to revisit it with a new Ambush list which when combined with my previous one will grow my army towards the 2300pts mark!”
Alchemy Reigns Uk – Undead – “loving the Gothic Aesthetic, I knew I had to start with the Undead Army… Regiments of Skeletons, Revenants & Soul Reaver Vampires marching through a crumbling graveyard was right up my street…I mean it’s the only way to go, right?”
Follow our progress and/or join in the fun of the Slow Grow Challenge… the fate of Mantica depends on it!
Check back for more 𝕮𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖑𝖊𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕾𝖐𝖚𝖑𝖑𝖘 updates for Kings of War coming soon!
Fickle Dice Games (FDG) is a little known 3D file creator for wargaming. As far as I can tell they are concerned with creating content based around their own game and thus are busily beavering away creating content for their Gloom Trench 1926.
Gloom Trench 1926 is a weird world war style game set in the unending despair that is World War One…if it never ended. In this gloom ridden foggy world of despair, the main participants of world war one are continuing the war with a range of new experimental and conventional weaponry. This opens up a wide possibility of the imagination for different unit types and weapons, with the progression into the demonic. It is worth noting that the rules are experimental and are available on their website for FREE (at the time of writing this).
Fickle Dice Games asked the Ironskull Gaming Team if we were willing to do a review of their new upcoming kickstarter Gloom Trench 1926, more specifically their new trench system. As, out of the all collaborating channels in the Ironskull Gaming Team, here at Wargamingoldguys I have the most experience with 3D printers and so I volunteered to do the printing and review these STL’s. The Gloom Trench 1926 Trench system goes live on kickstarter 12th July 2023.
Now I am not a novice at 3D printing but up until recently (<12months) I was just using an Ender 3Pro, but for this I will be using my resin printer.
Before we start getting into the nitty gritty of the stl’s I would like to say that to do these prints I am using an Anycubic Photon Mono 4k, so it’s a resin printer on the relatively cheaper end of the market. I am using the stock settings as that has produced some very nice results for me and I use a layer height of 0.04mm as I have tried 0.02mm in the past but I haven’t really noticed enough of a difference to warrant the extra build time and wear on the FEP sheet. I thought this would be good to get out there to start with as to highlight that I haven’t done anything special to get these prints completed.
The slicing software I am using is Chitubox version 1.9.4
So now that’s all sorted lets jump into the files. In the download you will get the following
6 pre-supported files
11 unsupported files
NB/Now since actually downloading the files, printing the terrain pieces, and writing this blog (it only took about 1 week) FDG have come back to me and said they have now got all the files as pre-supported files
With these building blocks, it should be enough to build a nice trench system the size and scale is only limited to your imagination, available print time and the resin available. The modular bits contained within the file are: 1 Long Section 2 short sections 1 90° bend 1 small 30° bend 1 reverse 45° bend 1 45° bend 2 end pieces Small set of sand bag Trench ladder
Now by this stage I am chomping at the bit to get some gcodes produced and get the resin flowing.
So I started with the unsupported small straight. I did this at 20° to the build plate and used the auto generated supports. No I know what you are thinking “why use the auto generated supports” well it comes down to it that I haven’t had much issue with the auto generated supports before and it does save a bit of time.
Now from the first print there was a slight warp front to back of the print. Now the obvious reason for this is the supports not being substantial enough for such a big component. So I repeated the print of the same component using the pre-supported file supplied.
Now as the name suggests these come with the supports already generated and the supports vary in thickness throughout the STL, so it looks like it has actually been thought about. The small straight came out fine. The larger straight still warped slightly but not massively and all the other parts came out like the small straight, so I am more inclined that it’s the fine tuning of the printer settings rather than the provided files.
The pre-supported files print very well and if you are a complete novice (or veteran alike) and you just want to get some cool looking trenches on the table to battle over then that is all you need. The supports on the pre-supported files look like they could be optimised a little bit but it’s all down to effort over value added. I wouldn’t bother mucking around with them just to save 5ml of resin here and there as the results that I achieved were very good for very little effort.
Now, one of the things I really like about the files provided is that all of the pre-supported files have near enough hollow sandbag mounds. This saves a relatively large amount of resin over solid components. I think that you would want to print a few sets of these to have an imposing trench system to fight over, so this saves you a hefty chunk of material in the long run.
A couple of the smaller angle components are solid resin. I did redo the smaller angle with the hollow function with appropriate drain holes. This did not affect the form or print quality of the components.
Once I got how I was going to print them sorted I went about optimising the build plate to maximise the productivity and reducing the print time. I found that the majority of the time I could fit two components on the build plate without too much issue.
As shown by the printed components below the detail on the individual modules is quite nice and the guys over at FDG have got just the right amount of detail into the terrain to give them the feel they need. It is worth noting that printing all the components once took approximately 80% of the 1kg tub of resin used.
As a side note this set is meant to be able to be printed on a FDM printer so I did a trial of the short length and overall I am really pleased with how it came out. I used my stock Ender 3 Pro and apart from a slight adhesion issues the print turned out nicely. There was some layer lines at the top where the step change was more noticeable. I used 0.16mm layer height as that’s what I print most of my terrain at to keep the print time down but if you were willing to reduce your layer height and increase your print time these would become less noticeable.
So what are my critiques??
One thing I did notice is that there are 11 different unsupported components and only 6 supported files. Some of the small angles, the sandbags, and ladder are not included as a pre-supported stl files. Though they are not that difficult to generate supports for, so its not a show stopper. As noted earlier this changed right before publishing this blog. So now all of the files come pre-suppported which is great.( i kept this in here to show progression and how the guys at FDG are continuously thinking about these type of things).
There are only 9 different sections to the modular trench system. Depending on your plan and amount you are going to print of the trench system, will depend if the trenches start to have that same look. I don’t know what the guys at FDG are planning, if they are planning for an expansion pack for additional sections to allow a bit more variation.
The two angled sections that are solid could have the stl updated to reduce the amount of resin used in the print (i.e. hollow)
Overall the details are crisp and pack just the right amount of detail for terrain on a busy battlefield. The advantages of using this trench system for terrain out ways the critiques raised earlier on and would add a very nice feel to any battle field. I know they are designed to have a WW1 look to them but they are scaled to match 28mm-32mm scale. Below are some different manufactures models to scale against. There are some Warlord Games, Mantic, and GW.
While the trench system fits better with the historical and the grim dark sci-fi there is nothing stopping you from using the trench system in any historic era after and inc WW1 right all the way through to the high-tech future.
I would recommend this kickstarter if you are into your 3D printing and looking into a trench system for your board as things like this always do better with economies of scale, and no one ever wants a small trench system to fight over. It might also be worth going to check out their other 3D printing offerings to fill the trenches with some great looking fighting men also from their Gloom Trench 1926 range.
The Finished Product
Here’s some painted examples with miniatures from a Weird World War II game for scale and to show how the Kickstarter will lend itself to fans of other weird world war, trench based and grimdark games…
Click Here to be notified on the Kickstarter Campaign Launch!
That’s right, we want all The Damned Range…that’s The Damned by Wargames Atlantic & MiniWargaming which as of today (30/5/23) is live as a campaign on Gamefound.
The Damned is a new range of highly detailed, multi-part, hard plastic Post Apocalyptic sci-fi miniatures! These awesome miniatures are 28mm heroic scale to be used in your favourite tabletop games.
We were so privileged to be sent a Preproduction Brute Miniature from the upcoming range to paint up and woah were we blown away! I was tasked with painting this super cool miniature and have to say the detail captured in the sculpts is absolutely stunning and as such it was an absolute dream to paint! Choosing to break away from the Promo/Studio colour scheme of red and metallics, which lean towards the Khorne Cultist/Renegade Guard vibe, I opted for Blues and Yellow/Browns for a nod towards another Chaos Deity and their Renegade Militia the Tzeentch Cult of Change.
This range has vibes that make them perfect alternative models for those found in Warhammer 40k Lore, they also make perfect miniatures for any Trench or Grim Dark setting sci-fi game! Check out our video below:
The Gamefound Campaign
They hope that, with your help, they can bring a total of eight highly detailed and versatile hard plastic kits to life.
If successful this campaign will first unlock four new hard plastic sets for The Damned: Infantry, Weapons Teams, Brutes, and Command. A series of stretch goals will unlock a load of additional hard plastic frames and full sets including textured bases in a variety of sizes, Outriders, Hounds, Artillery, and a full multi-sprue plastic vehicle! As a backer there is an impressive list of freebies you can get if the Campaign reaches certain stretch goals, these only get better the more your pledge is for…hence the title of this article, check out the below graphic from Gamefound…
So in short, this is an awesome new range of miniatures that will work for a wide range of Sci-Fi, Near Future, Apocalypse game settings. so what are you waiting for? Click the image below to get all of The Damned miniatures…you know you want to!
