Like a lot of other gamers, I enjoy Richard Borg's Commands and Colors games,
including the latest offering from
Days of Wonder BattleLore.
The game is a 2-player board game in which each commander uses cards to activate units
and send them into battle.
Unlike the earlier Commands and Colors games
(Battle Cry,
Memoir '44, and
Commands and Colors: Ancients),
BattleLore introduces a magic system where lore is used to cast spells,
create creatures, and perform all sorts of abominations.
To the right, the Hill Giant is simply smashing in his pink fur lined decolletage.
Days of Wonder really outdid itself with the production quality of this game:
heavy mounted map board, wooden dice, lavish rulebook, and hundreds of plastic miniatures.
The miniatures are medium gray, medium hard styrene, that just cry out to be painted.
As regular readers know, I have been infected with this madness and present my
first painted units, the heavy infantry shown to the right.
Since there are so many miniatures, I intend to paint them quickly with a table-top quality paint job. The heavies at right are primed with black, dry brushed with Games Workshop metallic "Boltgun Metal" acrylic paint, and Vallejo Carmine Red for the surcoat.
On the right is a photo of the completed light infantry. I decided to spend
a little extra time on the shields. For the heavy units above, I printed some
heraldry from War Flag on white decal paper
from Bel Inc., and applied the decals
to the shields. Here is the heavy infantry
shield decals file. All told, the 16 men took about 3 hours. It would
have been 2 hours if I were a little more proficient with my PaintShop Pro
graphics software.
The light infantry have an original shield design inspired by the BattleLore graphic designs. Here is the light infantry shield decals file. Simply print at 600 dpi (or 50% at 300 dpi). You may want to make them slightly larger if you want the decals to wrap around the shield edges. Test the sizing on normal paper first.
On the right is a photo of some medium infantry advancing to invade your town.
As in the game, there seems to be an innumerable amount ready to do battle.
Actually, there are 72 of these figures included in the game, the biggest
single figure type count.
Notice that like the light infantry, these sinister warriors are all left-handed! That certainly will confuse any dexterous enemy.
Once again, there are some custom medium infantry shields with a BattleLore theme. You can download and print as you like.
Here are the light bows performing a little target practice on each other.
Note the green color scheme to help identify them as lights.
Since these folks have no shields, they were a little easier than the infantry.
Here are the heavy cavalry. Again they have heavy cavalry
custom shield decals. The graphics are all variations on red, white, black, yellow,
and the cavalry graphic from the game. It is tough to make out due to JPEG
image compression, but the shields really do have tiny stripes and checkerboard patterns.
Here are the medium cavalry. They have medium cavalry custom shield decals.
The graphics are made with both blue and green so they can be either medium or light cavalry
depending on their banner. I also painted them with some blue and green to fit in with this idea.
Here is a photo of the Goblinoids. To the center front are the cavalry riding
their lizard creatures. I painted each lizard with a slightly different color,
like a chameleon. On the left are the heavy infantry and on the right are the bows.
In the back are the medium infantry with their copper colored armor.
They all have a slightly different yellow grass colored base to make them easy
to spot on the battle field.
Here are the Dwarves. The heavy infantry in red are in the center.
The cross bows are to the right. On either flank we have 3 units
of medium infantry. These folks took a long while to paint
because I went to the trouble of painting the tartan checks.
The bases are medium gray with green to simulate hard scrabble ground
and to make them easy to spot.
Here is a photo of the 3 monsters available as of this writing.
The black widow spider is on the left. The Hill Giant is simply smashing
in his pink fur lined decolletage.
And the earth elemental, with his molten fury rises up on the right.
Don't forget to paint the lore cups. This paint scheme took all of 5 minutes.
Paint black. Dry brush with gold. Paint tiny gem stones around the middle.
Here is an overview of the beginning of a battle using various figures.
It is based on one of the later scenarios with a few variations thrown in.
Here is a close up of the left flank. Notice the banners got a paint treatment too.
I painted the flag staffs dark brown and the pennant staffs light brown to help
distinguish them.
The banner edging is also painted, and this really helps distinguish units during a game.
Another glorious close up from the right. Will the goblins be able to hold a
heavy cavalry attack?
Will the bow men on the ramparts be able to repeal the
heavy infantry in their plate armor?
Will the brave and steadfast dwarves be able to take down
the Hill Giant who is simply smashing in his pink fur lined decolletage?