Warhammer 3rd ed: The Artesia Project

In the previous post, I talked about the versatility of 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It was my first love. The first war game rules I ever owned (though if I remember correctly, I'd played Blood Bowl, Space Marine and 40K long before I actually played my first WFB game). It's an extremely versatile system, and though the last thing I need right now is ANOTHER project, I've decided to resurrect the old Artesia project I've left in hibernation for years.

Essentially, I intend to create two armies representing the major factions of the Artesia universe as created by Mark Smythe. Well, that's what I'm telling myself to make the project seem less intimidating. What I'm actually talking about here is six, smaller (relatively speaking) armies that can be combined into two massive armies. On one side: Artesia and her Daradjans, the Middle Kingdoms and the Mercenary Forces allied to the Middle Kingdoms. On the other side: the Sultan's Army, The Dumeghal and The Islikid King Cyrus with his host of Demonic and Undead servants.

Modelling the Armies:

This will be a massive undertaking, which I expect will take many years to complete. Fortunately, I already own a great many of the miniatures I need for this project, which will bring together many of the diverse miniatures currently languishing in my great lead mountain.

Defenders of the Middle Kingdoms:

So far, my plan is to use the Perry Miniatures' War of the Roses  plastics  to form the bulk of the Daradjan, Mercenary and Middle Kingdoms armies. I already have these in my collection, so the initial outlay won't be too expensive. The plan is for the initial batch of Billmen, Crossbowman and Hackbutters to go into the Middle Kingdom's army (gunpowder exists in the Artesia universe, but doesn't feature much. However, as siege guns exist I can extrapolate that Hackbutts do too) while the Pikemen and Archers go into the Daradjan contingent. The plastic horsemen (not that I own any yet) will go into both factions. Note that the Mercenaries employed by Daradja will be included in the Daradjan faction, not the Mercenary faction.

The Middle Kingdom's contingent will be mostly later Hundred Year's War figures, most likely featuring another huge wad of Perry Miniatures. I'll only be doing very, very limited work on them for the time being, because they will be (beyond any shadow of a doubt) the  second most expensive sub-faction of the lot.

The Armies of the Phoenix Court:

The Sultan's Host, mostly late crusade/early Ottoman miniatures, has the dubious honour of being the most expensive as it will have twice as many points as either of it's two allied factions. In other words, it will be the biggest army in the project.

The Dumaghal will be interesting. They're knights in the service of evil. They're armour occupies a sort of mid-way point between classic full-plate and chaos-warrior baroqueness (but without the spikiness). I'll have to think long and hard about how to handle them.

Finally, the Islikids. My undead/demonic host. The Islikid himself I'll probably run as a WFB 3rd Lyche. His cannibal-undead (don't ask me to spell the setting's name for them) are described as ghouls, but given that they're intelligent, wield armour and weapons and are immune to non-magical weapons, I'll probably run them as Wights, give them a few levels of Shock Elite to make them decent fighters, and remove the instability rule. These guys will form the core of this small, but expensive army, accompanied by various mindless, ethereal or demonic nasties.

Multi-Faction Games:

So, in large games with all six factions present, the army organisation will look this:

Daradja and the Middle Kingdoms:

Middle Kingdoms (1,500 points), Daradjan Allies (1,500 points), Mercenary (1,000 points). The Daradjans will use the ally special  rules, the mercenaries will use mercenary special rules.

The Pheonix Court:

Sultan's Host (2,000 points), Islikids (1,000 points), Dumaghal (1,000 points). The Islikids and Dumaghal will use the allies special rules but will count as a single allied contingent rather than two separate ones.