Oldhammer Dwarves In Oathmark, Pt I

Welp, it's finally time for Oathmark. 

Since it's original announcement in late 2017, it was an exciting time to get back into fantasy rank & flank since Warhammer Fantasy's destruction just a few years earlier. Kings of War was on the rise as the "signature" fantasy mass battle game, but to me was overcrowded by competitive gamers and lacked a lot of theme and story-driven gameplay. Campaigns being one of Oathmarks key features was enough to drag our group finally into it. 

Although Northstar does create their own miniatures for Oathmark, it's clear the author (Joe McCullough) wrote the rules to be figure agnostic, allowing players to use whatever is in their collection much like in his other system Frostgrave. I've never been much of a fan of plastic kits, and hate to say Northstars plastics are among some of my least favorite - not because of their themes and modularity which I find quite nice, but because of the soft detail on the plastics. 

Hence, I've decided to go the "Oldhammer" route for this Dwarven army I have chosen; white metal figures only, tons of character, tons of history. 

Oathmark makes a point that the world is set in a "dark age", where gunpowder, plate mail, and even technology like crossbows haven't been created. Thankfully, given it's "create your own narrative" type formula, our group has decided not to worry about this and is allowing things like crossbows to be used as regular bows, figures to be wearing heavy armor and the like. 

It doesn't go without mentioning that Oldhammer figures nowadays are increasingly difficult to come by, especially for a large sized force. Naturally we'll see to substitutions.

Reading through the Oathmark rulebook initially I saw there was a lot of promise for spearmen units, although figures of that type were very limited in scope even during the Oldhammer days. From what I can tell, only a handful of variants were ever produced, with the Marauder "Landschneckts" line being one of the most popular and most rare. Seeing these figures online throughout the years I knew this would be a perfect opportunity to get my hands on some and paint them up. With a little handy eBay sniping, I was finally able to find some and make them my own! 

Next, following some solid recommendations from the Oldhammer group on Facebook, I was pointed to The Assault Group for their Imperial Dwarf line sculpted in an Oldhammer style, who had plenty of spearmen in the Landschneckt style - nice!

Assault Group Dwarves

Once my order had arrived the time had come to begin the mass of metal assembly. The major core of the army has been cleaned, based, and almost ready for priming, and I found The Assault Group figures an absolute pleasure to work with. Deciding on colors and a process for painting such a large batch of figures is up next, and I'm excited to get started. Until next time! 

Humble Beginnings for the Dwarves of Oathmark; TAG Dwarves (Left), Marauder Landschneckts (Right)