Erin. Nemedian Warband

 

The edges of the glade could be seen, a paleness filtering through the green shade between the trees. In the half light figures emerged, even the least of the them stood  near 7ft and upon their heads great antlers crowned them, a nobile union on man and beast

Despite their size they moved lighty, strong legs and hooves dancing between root and leaf, yet bearly disturbing the world around them. Dark fur with flecks of browns and dark tans, woven kilts in earthy shades with flashes of copper desgn and ornament. 

In cloven hands rested finely crafted weapons, great bows, bright copper blades and shields that swirled with art and colour. 

At their fore moved Berach of the oaken antlers, counted hero and leader by right of his strength and deeds. 

Around them the woods had stilled, the faint scent of decay and dark magic invading the air. Berach raised his club, its polished copper claws glinting, and signaled the charge. 

His fianna moved as one and the warband went out to meet the Half Dead that had been raised against them.

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As 2025 draws to a close I have been reviewing my ongoing projects, progress and plans for 2026, amongst the list is my Erin Project. This sadly has been on a Start Stop for the last couple of years as I have been caught up with other projects and bouts of overthinking when I wanted to start but could not settle on a paint scheme and ended up doing nothing for fear of getting it wrong!

I have been able expand my warbands from my inital starter Formarians and Sidhe to the other races Fir Bolg, Milesian and Nemedians. My hope is to leap forward next year with fullty painted warbands, some terrain (Round houses) and actually get some games on the table. I had previously made a couple of videos on my youtube channel and will add to those as the project picks up again.

Determined to make a start and see some progress for the year  I have settled on painting up the Nemedians. The figures are currently out of production with Alternative Armies but I was lucky to pick these up secondhand.  Already undercoated all I had to do was base and go!

the Full warband so far...

Hero and Shaman

The Hero holds Claws of Nemed, claw shaped clubs with bronze claws.

Archers

(I had lost one set of antlers so he has become a young warrior)

Nemedian warriors with bronze weapons and shields

Shield details

The Fianna of Berach of the Oaken Antlers

The warband emerges from the woods, stones marking the head of the path and the edge of the Nemedian realm

Warband stands guard around an ancient Dolman

Alternative Armies Erin range as well as there other extensive miniature and game collections can be found in the link below:

Alternative Armies Erin

Relics. Britanan 2024 Review

With the new year and the annoucment by TTcombat that they will be restocking the Relics range and promoting the game I have decided to go through by collection and tally up what I have. This will give me a chance to plan some painting and see what gaps there are to fill and what better faction to start than the Britanans! 

My Britanans are a mixture of old Tor Gaming and Ebay joblots so some still carry the paintwork from previous owners and represent quite a eclectic mix

Sergeant-Majors

Including the one I have painted and the limited Edition issue I have found myself with  9 Sergeant Majors!

The sculpts are a step up in character detail from the standard troopers. They are a nice opportunity for personalisation with multiple weapon options and a nice open waistcoat that could be individually patterned. 

Troopers

Including the unit i have painted I have 4 units of Troopers. Nine pupperts strong, the Trooper unit is the main force for the Britanans. I plan on painting/repainting two for my main army, oen as a standard unit and one with a headswap fro one of the Maverick Boys so they look moire like 18th Century Marines to use with the Ship/landing party

The last one will be for the breakaway Continental force which will be with blue jackets

Grenadier Troopers 

With the painted units I have five units of Grenadiers of three figures each plan on keeping all of these for the main army though I might see how they look with a headswap to addd them to the Continental force

Highlanders

The unit comes with six figures but I seem to have a couple extra which I am going to use for a highland themed Colour Party. As I live in Cornwall I might use a Cornish Tartan

Colour Party

Two colour party sets which I will works with eh 18th Century British army tradtio of two flags for each regiment, one for the Kings Colours and one for the Regiment. One will have the Britanan Crown and needles and teh other I will come up with  for the regiment ( and a name for the Regiment!)

Marksmen

These come as unit of two, not sure if i have lost one or just had an extra in one of the job lots I picked up. Plan on painting one unit for each army, not sure about the extra one yet

Puppeters

In the lore the Britanans were originally a human race that appear loosely based on mid 17th Century England but with access to magic.  A great calamity befell the world before the game is set and killed  off the majority of humans which is why they have used puppets for their forces. Some humans have survived and the Puppeters are described as broke survivors touched by madness.  

Dragoons

Two Units which I had started to put together when I was finishing off the Heavy Dragoons.

The paint scheme for these units will be based on the British Dragoons that were featured in the film The Patriot. One will be the fictional uniform and the other from the real regiment. 

Fielding these and the Heavy Cavalry will make quite a glorious Charge!

I plan on getting another unit of Dragoons and switching their heads for those from the Maverick Boys for my breakaway independent puppet Faction, the Continentals. 

Hunting Dogs, Ltd Edition Sergeant-Major and St Nik

A pack of 4 hounds but no huntmaster but could convert one of the Sergeant-Majors into one. One of the limited Edition Sergeant-Majors which has been TTCombats only new release so far, though they had showcased several other Britanans a couple of years ago which hope to see released! 

The last one is one of the OOP Mercenaries, St Nik of which I already have one painted. 

The base for an terrain/feature piece is a Fisherprice ship. As the Britanans are a island race all there interactiosn with the wider world must be via ships to the mainlanad. My plan is to convert this into a Bermuda Sloop inspired Britanan ship and man it with one of the trooper units.

Wooden Fort

This started out as a Medieval fort kit from Zvezda Models and the inital build and conversion I have posted elsewhere on the blog. Its about done, will add some ivy, a new front gate and some banners to fly the Kings colours. 

Painted Britanan Experditionary Force

Sergreat-Major

Grenadiers

1st Trooper Unit

Bomber

1st Heavy Dragoons. The Life Guard

2nd Heavy Dragoons. The Blues and Royals 

Old World Army Challenge VI - Leader

July Entry for my Old World Army Challenge

 Old World Army Challenge

Old World Army Challenge VI - Rank and File Orc Spearmen 2

June Entry for my Old World Army Challenge

Featuring the second half of my Orc Spearman block and also the lesser Goblin unit posted earlier

 Old World Army Challenge

Old World Army Challenge VI - Bloodbath at Orc's Drift

 As the year draws to a close the call went out again for the next Old World Army Challenge and one I have eagerly signed up for again!

The Challenge won't start properly until January next year but beyond adding my name to the starting line there is still a lot to get ready from actually deciding what to build and Introductory blog post to the all important prep. Last Year was my first year and the best bit of advice I received was to Prep and plan! Figures cannot be painted but they can be build and based and undercoated. When you are going through a whole army, this has saved a huge amount of time and pressure on each month, being able to have it all laid out and see each month as well as progress really helped me survive the time.

When I looked at last year my Slann and Bloodbath at Orc's Drifts projects were in my final list but were pipped by my Marines. This year I have decided to take up my Bloodbath Project and use the Challenge to get more of it done, and make up for the lack of progress on it this year!

Excluding the building which are an ongoing part of the project and some additional Orc warmachines at the bottom, three bolt throwers and two Snotling Pump Wagons which will make some nice bonus builds. The layout shows all the figures (bar three Orc archers which seem to have wandered off!) for the Scenario.

So far I have completed three of the Command Cards:

The Vile Rune Orcs with Fangor Gripe, Guthrum Mane and Silas Meel

The Dwarfs of Ashak Rise with Borinn and Snorinn Fimbul

The Engineers of Ozrim Chardz and Osrim Chardz

I have also made a start on the Linden Way Militia Card, completing most of the Villages and Mayor Leofwine 

But the bulk of the cards remain, with the two elf unit cards and one human character card to complete 

Ferndale Snart and his Patients. Still needs three more injured/casualty figures as the dwarf in a sling is a stand in

Brommidir and his wood elves ( I might try and replace these with more metal Wood elves)

The Wood Elves of Kachas Pass with Erdolas Thringal

On the Orc side, cards outstanding are:

King F'yar and his F'yar guard which are figures from Rugluds Armoured Orcs

The Kwae Karr orcs with Magyar Ironfist and Bagrash (to find/ buy three more archers)

The Severed Hand Orcs with Hagar Sheol, Grashak Kra and his Hobhounds

Next will be deciding on the force to assemble for the Challenge. 

Orcs, Human/Elf or a blend of the two?

 

Erin. Restart 2022

 Erin is one of those projects that keeps eluding me, real life or other projects ( OWAC, gaming group games etc) pull me away while the figures sit on the edge of my desk as a reminder. 

Alternative Armies started refreshing the range last year with new painted versions on their website, which have been done to high standard and really show off the quality of the sculpts, and also started releasing new figures which have really caught my attention and fired my interest back up.

Alternative Armies Erin Game of Celtic Myths

With redoubled effort, the rule book has been on my bedside table and the figures back on centre table!

The new official figures inspired me to switch my collection to the cartouche bases so my already completed Half Dead have been rebased, this has also given me an opportunity to add some more detail like picking out the maggots on each figure.

The rest of my collection has followed with a full rebase/basing...

One of the features available in Erin is a range of special terrain which has an impact on the game in various ways. with 11 to pick from I decided to start creating some between basing

The Cairn of Memory

The Dolman

The Ogham Pillar

The Anchor Stone of Mil

Elatha's Gateway to Places

The Cairn of Bricriu the Posion Tongue

The pieces on my woodland board