OATHMARK EXPRESS
Building armies under duress: Part 1
By John Treadaway
Above. Dol Guldur Great Orcs.
During the recent heavy lock down period Kev Dallimore
and I managed to cooperate  on a joint personal project
whilst managing to keep socially
  distant. It was hard on us
both so the question is,  why did
  we do this?
Having both been inspired by the release of the new
Oathmark rules by Osprey   (and written by Joe
McCullough) we thought about   playing a few games and
wondered what we’d use to   do this. So we did a quick
assessment of our individually   owned fantasy ‘armies’:
Kev’s was more recent than   my own but largely
comprised bits and pieces,  whilst my own – while
extensive – was like something   out of the ark: it’s over
forty years old and contained   a lot of aged Minifigs,
Kriegspiel, Citadel, Chronicle   and Ral Partha from the
period. It’s also in need of some
  TLC...
MOVING ON
Fun as all of that stock take was, we decided that we
needed a fresh approach.  The new plastic Oathmark
figures from North Star and  Osprey seemed like a good
starting point so we looked at  the boxes in the range and
what we had available between   us and made some plans.
 
The first decision to be made was ‘background’ or – dare I
say – ‘period’. Did we want  to do build armies based in
the Author’s bespoke Oathmark   background or did we
want to base it on something  else? Or could we do both?
We decided to generate units  that didn’t break any of the
tenets or rules within the Oathmark
  system and therefore
could be used as (for want  of a better term) ‘straight’
Oathmark Armies. However,  we wanted to theme them
as something different that we   both enjoyed: they were to
be firmly Tolkien based armies   and were to be true to the
Lord of the Rings,  the Silmarillion
  and so forth. The
books, obviously, rather than the
  films...
WHO, WHEN & WHERE
So – after a general theme (Oathmark  friendly and
Middle-earth) – the next decision
  was ‘period’: what slot
could we find in the canonical
  material that would enable
us to field two decent sized  armies from the figures
available? We postulated a  point in time we called an
‘Interwar period’: some period
  between the White
Council’s forcing of The Necromancer’s
  withdrawal from
THE OATHMARK ARMY LISTS
Middle-earth Armies for the Interwar period 2940TA to 3019TA
FORCES OF EVIL
Orc Commander (General) 250pts
10 Dol Guldur Great Orcs (Line Breaker) 180pts
10 Dol Guldur Orc Warriors (Orc soldier) 130pts
10 Uruks of the White Hand (Line Breaker) 180pts
10 Orc Spearmen of the White Hand
(Orc Spearmen) 140pts
10 Mountain Goblin Archers 100pts
10 Half Orcs of The White Hand (Orc Spear) 140pts
10 Half Orcs of The White Hand (Orc Spear) 140pts
5 Goblin Warg Riders with Spears 100pts
Dol Guldur to a time slot just before the actual War of the
Ring. So, roughly around 2940   to 3019 in the Third Age.
 
Location wise we also thought that the Anduin river
between the Misty Mountains  and Mirkwood would give us
a splendid spot for conflict. For
  the good guys there are
Elves available from both Thranduil’s 
  realm in Mirkwood
plus, perhaps, Lothlorien as well
  as men in the shape of
local Beornings and Dwarves  from the Iron Hills. There
could also be Lakemen and   Rohirrim if we went far
enough, geographically speaking,
  but for the latter we
didn’t have any suitable mounted
  figures (yet) so that was
all moot.  
For the combined forces of bad guys – the Axis of Evil, if
you will – there could be the  Orcs of Dol Guldur  (greater
Orcs and lesser Goblins in the   service of Mordor); Orcs or
Goblins from the Misty Mountains 
  (lesser breeds, for the
most part, but good cannon  fodder); Wargs (and Goblins
mounted on them) also from   the mountains; plus the
beginings, perhaps, of Saruman’s
  clandestine forces.
These would be made up from   Uruks and Man Orcs (or
Half Orcs) which we thought  he might be serupticiously
testing the water with. Of course
  we could also have
spiders, trolls and a bear but…  well, maybe that’s for later!
 
WHAT COULD WE MAKE?
With those forces in mind that I’ve outlined, we looked at
the Oathmark Boxed Sets   that we had to hand and
assessed what we might be able   to achieve in the time we
had available. We had one  box each of Goblin Wolf
Riders; Humans; Dwarves; Armoured
  Dwarves; Goblins;
Armoured Elves plus a couple   of frames of the new Light
Elves.  
 
We wanted three things from this project: two armies or
around 1500 points; all of the  troop types covered; and we
wanted them quick. Our two builds
  – performed safely and
separately, of course, taking  advantage of a necessary
drop off on the way to a supermarket
  for food – needed to
happen in a single weekend!  A similarly speedy painting of
these figures would come later,   and this will be covered in
the next article, but those were  the objectives: within the
constraints of what figures we   had and the time we had
available, it was fast and safe! 
 
FORCES OF GOOD
Elf Commander (General) 329pts
10 Beorning Militia (Human spearmen) 130pts
10 Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard
(Line Breaker) 200pts
10 Shielded Dwarves (Dwarf warrior) 170pts
10 Light Wood Elves with Bows (rangers) 250pts
5 Armoured Elves with Bows 120pts
5 Armoured Elves with Spears 110pts
5 Armoured Elf Warriors with Swords 130pts
5 Armoured Elf Guard – double Armed
5 Goblin Warg Riders with Scimitars 100pts (Line Breaker) 150pts
5 Goblin Warg Archers (Scout) 120pts Total 1589pts
Total 1580pts

Above. Dol Guldur Great Orcs.

PICK AND MIX
As we wanted a greater variety of figures than what we
had available in the boxes, we   thought about doing some
mix and match. For example,  we wanted to use the Goblin
sprues for regular Orcs and  Goblins (albeit quite large
ones) but, for the Great Orcs,   Uruks and Half Orcs, we
wanted something different.  Uruks are described by
Tolkien as ‘almost man height’   with round shields and
straight swords. The Half Orcs    are used as spear or
pikemen by Saruman and, I’ve   always thought, are one of
the differing racial ‘mixes’ that 
  Saruman attempted (them
being, perhaps, slightly more   ‘man’ than ‘goblin’ in his
breeding experimentations than   the Uruks were). The
Great Orcs  – like Sauron’s commander
  Grishnákh in the
Lord of the Rings – are   described as shorter than
Saruman’s Uruks but very   broad and powerful. Our
conundrum was, how to achieve   this variety with the
models we had?  
 
The answer was a series of head, arm, weapon, shield
and body swaps. Where possible,   this was done with
simple plastic-to-plastic, ‘cut   and stick’ (with liquid-polly
cement) but – where necessary   – greenstuff ribbon epoxy
putty was used to fill gaps. Typically
  this was needed on
awkward head transitions (or  should I saw ‘orc-ward’…).
For example the Goblin heads  – which stick onto a peg on
the shoulders of the Goblin body – don’t fit neatly onto the
dish shaped shoulder/neck interface
  that features on the
human bodies or, for that matter,
  the flat interface on top
of the dwarf bodies: all the  heads stick on in different
ways and this leads to gaps.  
Fortunately Tolkien’s Orcs are quite hairy so a green stuff
blob was employed as both  a glue and then teased out
into straggly hair with sculpting
  tools and a scalpel, which
worked well to hide gaps –and   gaps there certainly were!
We also used putty to add extra  fur and hide some gaps
on the wolves/wargs and to  mask the odd bisected body
join – specifically where the two
  halves of the head meet –
but more of that later.  
Greenstuff does have its limits though. Sometimes –
especially if you have a ball of
  greenstuff ‘on the go’ for a
while as you perform your   ‘Doctor Frankenstein’ style
surgery – the putty can go  off enough to lose it’s initial
stickiness. Then, a head that   looks to be stuck on well
using just the putty, might well
  drop off later in handling
and clean up – as some of ours   did! Fortunately, the two
halves of the join – the underside
  of the head and the
greenstuff ‘socket’ it sat in –  are a perfect ‘male/female’
joint and stick back together  seamlessly and tenaciously
with a drop of super-glue.  
 

Above. Half Orcs of The White Hand (Orc Spear).

WHAT DID WE DO? • The Dol Guldur Great Orcs have Dwarven bodies –
the straight, chainmail bodies of   the Dwarf set – with
Here’s a list of the ‘cut and shunt’ performed: helmeted Goblin heads. The  arms were all Goblin arms
  with axes and heavy weapons,   plus Goblin shields.
• Uruks had Goblin bodies and heads, plus
Armoured Dwarf, round shields   with human straight  
• In all of these units we tried to make leaders look a
sword arms (with the odd one   from the spares box: Kev little different (as is required by the
  rules) so, for example,
found a Ghost Archipelago  sword  arm that worked very the Great Orc leader (Grishnákh’s  brother or something…)
nicely!).   has a heavy Armoured Dwarf    body and Dwarf arms, just
• The mannish Half Orcs have human bodies to make him look exceptionable.   Extra colour and texture
including their square shields;  a mix of arms – some was also added on leaders –  horse tails on Orc and Uruk
human and some Goblin but   all with spears – plus Leaders, and plumes on the Elves,  for example.
Goblin heads, and all needing  some putty work to make  
• The Warg riders were assembled pretty much
them fit. Some of the heads for
  both these and the Uruks straight from the Wolf Riders box   with a little remedial
came from the Goblin box but   some also came from the putty work. There’s three units:   five with bow (as Scouts);
Wolf Riders  box – you get a  lot of spare heads which is five with spears and five with   scimitars. The leader is
great!   identified by having a pillion  hanging on for grim death:
  not a fighting advantage as much   as an uncommon act of
kindness!  
 
Above. Orc Spearmen of the White Hand (Orc Spearmen).

• The Goblin units are pretty much straight from the three units are equipped as a sword, spear and bow unit.
box though with head and spears   sometimes selected  
• The Light Elves are Elf Rangers and built pretty
from the Goblin Rider box just   to add variety, and some
much straight from the sprue by Kev.
 
given Dwarf shields.  
 
  • The Dwarves have had a little work, which we split
• The Beornings have the Human bodies and heads
between us. I swapped armoured   dwarf and unarmoured
but with the plain, round Dwarf   shields and are
dwarf arms around a little and  I added the boar helmet
exclusively spearmen. Shields  aside – with an Armoured
crests (and I added a special  big one for my leader with
Dwarf shield for the leader  – they are a pretty straight
the boar from the standard attached
  to the dwarfs helmet
build, but then they are generic,
  low ranking men: they
for a really obvious command  figure) but they are all fairly
could be the older, remaining   Rohirrim infantry such as
standard.  
were left in the defence of Helms
  Deep, or Lakemen just
 
as easily so they are deliberately
  quite generic. • The Leaders for both armies got the most work and
  Kev did those: the Elven leader  has an upper body from
• The four units of armoured elves are similarly just
an Armoured Dwarf  added to   an Elven lower body with
built from the box. I did a little work
  on the double armed
elven arms and weapons and   a Frostgrave cloak (from
guys to get a variety of poses   and weapons – the leader
the female soldiers set) again  taken from Kev’s capacious
has a battlefield trophy of an  orc scimitar in his left hand
spare box (and which fitted  surprisingly well). The Great
from the Goblin box – but  the only reason they are
Orc  leader also has an armoured
  dwarf  body  (the
double armed is to signify them   as the Kings Guard (in the
whole thing, though) plus a head,
  shield, and long scimitar
list they are categorised as ‘Line
  Breakers’) but the other
from the wolf rider box.  
 

Above. Dol Guldur Orc Warriors (Orc soldier).

Above. Uruks of the White Hand (Line Breaker).

Above. Mountain Goblin Archers.

Above. Goblin Warg Archers (Scout).

Above. Goblin Warg Riders with Hand Weapons.

Above. Light Wood Elves with Bows (rangers).

Above. Beorning Militia (Human spearmen).

Above. Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard (Line Breaker).

Above. Shielded Dwarves (Dwarf warrior).

Above. Armoured Elf Guard – double Armed (Line Breaker).

Above. Armoured Elf Guard – double Armed (Line Breaker).

Above. Armoured Elves with Bows.

NEXT (PAGE 2
There are plans for other add-ons to the forces:
Kev has a very nice new   Oathmark Wingless
Dragon  for a cold drake  that he’s itching to use
but that would have to be  balanced by something
like Beorn for the good guys
  (and he’s not short of
bears...). However the next
  step is, of course,
painting: they must get a   paint job and we’ll cover
that in part two. Pandemic  or not, the day either of
us put an army on the table
  unpainted is a day
that just isn’t going to happen.
  Even if we have
paint in separate houses  and – eventually – play
the game two metres apart!
 
 

Right. Elf Commander (General)

and Orc Commander (General).