Witch Hammer – Bleeding Ostermark

Unfortunately the good pace I maintained so far has slowed down to a crawl due to the fact that I have started studying again. That is of course something I am very happy about and it will hopefully lead to new opportunities in the future, but we are here for the Warhammer, not my life as a student.

The Witch Hammer project is looking quite solid at the moment, I would even argue I have enough miniatures finished to play the first scenarios any day now.

I wanted to take a closer look at the League of Ostermark for this project and fortunately my friend Stu over at Liber Malefic recently wrote about the state. At the time of the Witch Hammer the Wars of the Three Emperors rages on across the Empire, the dream of unity is dead and lost. The nobility of the Empire have descended into fratricide, ignoring the raising threats from the goblinoids and the growing darkness in Sylvania. In these times Ostermark lies bleeding and broken, the aristocracy and rulers killed by Sigmar’s descent into Mordheim and the ensuing madness. Filibuster expeditions from Stirland and border ruffians from Osterland rake the border communities and the soil is grey and dead, for how can anything green grow when the earth is drowned in blood.

Unfortunately it’s not possible to have a “command squad” like in 40k, but that won’t stop me from doing it anyway. the Bloody Baron definitely needs a retinue of nobodies and hangarounds, with a few professional soldiers to guard them. I plan to use a couple of metal greatswords as the soldiers, I acquired a few through Wargaming Bazaar and then use all sorts of miniatures to form a soldier’s court for the baron.

Magick is strictly forbidden and only a fool would dare to deal with witches, warlocks and wizards. But Keklu-Karl is a dollomancer and no mere conjurer, for a small fee he will grant the Baron magickal dominance.

State troopers form the heart and core of any Empire army and the Baron has managed to raise a few regiments of veterans. They are all based on the classic Empire Halberdier, but with new weapons, heads and small trinkets. It’s been a real pleasure working on them and they are so fast to paint. Their leader, von Tegerhof, will probably be promoted to a captain as I want the challenge of turning one of them into a champion (or should I say sergeant as champion feels more appropriate for less civilized armies). A musician has also been built but remains unpainted.

Thanks to an old friend I got my hands on even more Mordheim zealots and they will be used for a small regiment of swordmen, but also as border ruffians terrorizing the hamlets near the border to Ostland, the perfect set up for a game or two. I have again managed to convert a leader and a musician, but not yet a bannerman. Hopefully I will have some spare time to paint them soon.

That’s pretty much everything for this time, maybe there will be a better update next time.

-Alexander Winberg-