Battle Hosts

Hwæt ho, fellow Miercenaries!

Penda here with your weekly dose of Mierceness, which today comprises new battle hosts, some lovely artwork and even some talk about The Future of Darklands. What more could you want of a Friday?

New Battle Hosts

This week I've been sorting out new battle hosts for each kindred and stripping out the old ones; the advent of the amazing material that is Grey Wulf resin - and the change in graphics style! - had made this necessary, but I'd just not had the time until now.

The Fomoraic (Cursed Herd) Gabrax battle host

If you didn't know already, battle hosts are a great way to grab everything you need for a flexible Darklands army at a great discount (usually around 60% off the individual RRP and 50% off the ‘set’ RRP). They usually include a couple of commanders, a sorcerer, some infantry, some ranged infantry, some monstrous infantry and a big monster, as well as the Darklands Quick Play Guide booklet - so in short, they're a great way to get started on your Darklands journey, or expand your existing kindred!

Now, most of the new battle hosts are a mix of Grey Wulf and cast resin, with a few that are Grey Wulf only, but as time passes and resculpts are completed we'll make sure most of them are Grey Wulf only. This ensures costs are much lower  for you - if a host is Grey Wulf only, it's around £129.99 to £149.99 - but whatever the cost, they're a great deal.

Speaking of deals, I'll be adding all the battle hosts to this new webstore next week (they're on the old one now), and I'll be running a special 25% off discount (as well as the normal discount!) at some point to get people interested, and there may well be a new Quick Play Guide too. More on that another day.

Starter Commands

I've also stripped out the old starter commands; if only because I don't have the time to do the graphics, and also because I don't think they're relevant now - when you can get a battle host for £99.99, and the price of Grey Wulf miniatures, they're kind of unnecessary.

That said, I may well do some kind of two-player starter set with a couple of commands each at some point.

Monthly Battle Host Releases

We are, of course, releasing a battle host of mostly new releases each month these days, and they will be at the special rate of £99.99 for the 25 that are on offer. Once those 25 are gone - and that includes those people that have subscribed to the WARLORD Grey Wulf Battle Host item - they will be gone forever, so get them quick!

Most of the new release battle hosts won't become a battle host for that kindred, mind; battle hosts are intended to represent an army that is typical for their kindred, and not to focus on some of the more esoteric host choices each kindred may have. That said, each realm should get one battle host in time.

Next month's battle host, as stated last week, will represent the Fomoraic kindred and the Baalor realm, and includes lots of lovely fatties sculpted by Ivan Flaman - including the new, never before seen Boaab (affectionately known as The Builder to his mates), an ograx warlock!

Boaab the Builder, new Ograx Warlock, complete with icy hand. He comes with bald head and be-iced skullcap head options!

Choose your Ograx Weapons!

The Fomoraic (Baalor) Ograx Battle Host will include:

• Shieldwall Haakon, Ograx of Baalor Tain on foot
• Shieldwall Haakon, Ograx of Baalor Tain on Srónocx
• Great Axe Haakon, Ograx of Baalor Tain on foot
• Two Axe Haakon, Ograx of Baalor Tain on foot
• Boaab, Ograx Warlock
• Graadon's Mob, Shieldwall Ograx of Baalor Unit
• Gonraad's Mob, Shieldwall Ograx of Baalor Unit
• Raado's Mob, Shieldwall Ograx of Baalor Unit
• Skaag's Mob, Ograx Ravager Unit

That's quite a lot of big fat blokes for the battle host price point - so to ensure we don't go broke, for both the digital and physical versions of this battle host, you must CHOOSE whether you want the shieldwall, great axe or two axe versions of the ograx; each gets the items shown above in bold (so Haakon on his woolly rhino, Boaab and Skaag's Mob), but the items shown in italics have to be chosen by you.

Simply send a mail to contact@mierce-miniatures.com with your weapon preference and I'll do the rest.

If you don't let me know which weapon preference you want, you'll get the great axe version - and if you do want the other ograx, they'll have the usual 25% off individually anyway.

Previous Monthly Battle Hosts and the Kickstarter Backlog

We began the monthly battle host release journey a while back, but it only fully got into gear in a physical sense in June with the Byzantii (Legio II Var) Legionarius battle host. We're still working on those guys - that deal was insane to be honest - but we do hope to have those finished in the next couple of weeks, which means we can then get on to the mallax from July, the hydrar from August and the Jutes from this month.

Please bear in mind that the monthly battle hosts produce many of the miniatures from various kickstarter projects that we haven't produced yet (and this will be the case for some time - up until May next year I think) and so a lot of people have already ordered those miniatures, in some cases years ago. We do have to prioritise those people before anybody that orders the monthly battle host, and that is really the source of the delays; for example, we've only just finished the Norse jötnar and Ysian melusine releases.

TL;DR - what I'm saying here (and I'm trying to be as honest as possible) is that there's a delay for the monthly battle hosts, at least for the physical miniatures; but we are catching up, and we hope to be caught up - and maybe ahead of the monthly release game - by the end of October.

For Brutal Beasts backers, pretty much everything should be produced for you by the end of the year. A long time, I know; we are, of course, thankful to you all for your patience! All I can really say is, we're doing our best with the staff, equipment and money that we have.

The good news is that the Kickstarter backlog itself should be sorted by May next year; there's not that much left to do. This year has broken the back of it, really, and while we've still got a fair bit to produce the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel. Once that tunnel exit has been reached, we'll have some amazing new miniatures for you!

Ramble On

That's enough rambling from me today... until next week, I'll leave you with Talorc MacUuid, the high king of the Fortriu realm of the Albainn, drawn by the very exciting talent that is Quinn Colvin...