Oh Brother, Where art thou?

Last time on Until Somebody Loses an Eye. . .

Old models, new models.  Learning to pay more attention to the details of ebay listings.  So now what do I do with all this cavalry?

If only there were an army that fit that profile - lots of cavalry.  Maybe even a good army (as in not evil) since they are so outnumbered.  Uncharted Empires to the rescue.

A lot of the armies in Uncharted Empires are based on fantasy armies that some other company used to make for a massed battle game on a world that is now - well Bill Murray puts is perfectly in the classic 1981 movie Stripes

Thus was born the brotherhood.  One of the kingdoms of men that was nearly destroyed by the infant sea after the defeat of winter. With water magic bound into their armor, they watch the Abyss, swearing to defeat their fiercest enemies as penance for failing to protect the world.  (ok, I really want to give the Kings of War Rules committee great credit for the great backstories they gave to the armies in this book - tying them in tightly to world of Mantica.  Great work guys!!!)

So back to modelling reality.  I had sixteen knights and hobelars.  That naturally led me to look at a brotherhood army.  A little juggling of units (the archers were originally going in the KoM army), I was able to create a second army out of the Ex Illis miniatures.  (My FLGS last year had a battalion box of Brettonians in their discount box for months - I didn't grab it because I wanted my demo armies to be all Mantic models - but when Uncharted Empires came out the personal restriction (at least for armies in that book) no longer applied.  Of course by then it had been snapped up by someone for the great deal it was).

First up, is, of course, the Order of the Brotherhood.  These knights are what you think of when you think of a brotherhood army.  Regiments of knights thundering across the battlefield.  I had eight of these, but when basing them the front rank ended up a little more spread out than I planned, and seven is still PMC after all.

Order of the Brotherhood Regiment

One of the coolest units in the old Brettonian army were the Pegasus knights - mounted warriors on flying steeds.  Of course the brotherhood has them - as the Order of the Forsaken.  Guardians of the Forsaken Isles, they watch over what remains of the Brotherhood's old kingdom.

One challenge I had was to make several units of cavalry unique, even though they were essentially single pose models.  Well in all of the Ex Illis sets I acquired, there ended up being four of the angel hero - which directly translates to big wings thus with some greenstuff, I had a unit of three pegasus knights order of the forsaken.

Order of the Forsaken Regiment

I didn't just want to repeat the same unit - so decided to do a troop of the Order of Redemption. These are irregular, but since they are inspiring they fill that role in a demo army (and their regeneration(5+) is not shabby either.  The angel hero was wielding a sword - so easy enough then to give them swords instead of lances - as well as to throw a banner on the back of one of them.  They thus look (at least to me) sufficiently different that, once identified, people should not have an issue with them.

Order of Redemption* Troop

So that was 15 of the 16 knights - now for some of the Hobelars.  These of course were villein cavalry - with the pose of the horses though I really felt they needed nimble, so they became reconnoiterers.  While I had a lot of models, I ended up only being able to fit one troop into the list. These kept the lances (unlike the Kingdoms of Men versions, who were swapped out with bows)

Villein Reconnoiterers Troop

Building the list, I did feel the need for some ranged attacks (I don't like having demo lists that 'skip' a phase of the game), and they needed at least some infantry - so a regiment of archers.  I would have preferred two troops, but that would have cost 55 more points than I had available.  Also I needed more villeins, or else the Brotherhood special rule "Valiant" would be wasted (Rallying(1), but only for villein units - i.e. the knights give courage to the peasants).

Villein Bowmen Regiment

I like throwing in a hero to each list, and giving the a wizard helps to show off magic.  She comes with heal(2), but I upped that to heal(4) and also gave her lightning bolt(3) for when no one needed healing.

The spell casters for the brotherhood are the Devoted (i.e. damsels).  I took one of the many fairy heroes I had, cut off her legs and mounted her on one of the hobelar horses.  A bit of greenstuff to extend her dress down the sides of the horse and smooth out the transition as well as trim off the bedroll and saddle bags, and she was mounted to fit the theme.

Devoted on Horse

With all of the sets, I ended up with 8 of the Soffrances - the big monsters for that game.  The brotherhood have their own monster - the forsaken beast - so while the model is a little small for a Height 4 monster, it is still something interesting to fill out the last of the army.

Forsaken Beast

So I managed to go from being mad at myself for not paying attention to the ebay listing I bought to suddenly having yet another demo army (of course this is a demo army I still have to paint!)

So my plans for the conventions next year are

• Finish the Basilean army that was my friends christmas present LAST year
• Kingdoms of Men - finish the 3 new units
• Brotherhood army
• Empire of Dust army
• Ratkin army (I have at least 2500 points of rats, and play tested them for Uncharted Empires)
• Roman Historical army
• Barbarian (Celt) Historical army (ok, I'm "letting" my son paint this one up for the historical league).
• and this doesn't include painting any of the new stuff from The Walking Dead kickstarter or the Warpath Kickstarter.

I guess it is a good thing I don't actually have a social life. I had better get off my lazy butt and get painting!

Because it is all fun and games . . .