Mongols! .....and Fighting Fantasy!

Part 1 MONGOLS.
While getting some needed re-stock items for my hobby (25mm renedra bases mainly) I decided to get the Fire Forge Mongol sets. They are awesome. What's not to like about the Mongols. They look cool and have an incredible history of war and conquest.

No armoured dudes in the box despite the cover art.

No armoured dude in this box either.

I had this idea that they could be used in Saga as a Steppe Tribes faction that came in a Wargames Illustrated. They are not really Mongols in that system. But this does not bother me as I can also use 'Lion Rampant' to game a Mongol miniatures force.

I did a little reading and research about Mongols on the net but decided some immersive historical novel inspiration is required. Like the adventures of Uhtred in Bernard Cornwell's series did for my Dark Age collection. I found it with Conn Iggulden's Khan series. As of writing this I am reading Book 3 and really enjoying them.

Lots of blood, fire and woman lamenting in these books. Lots and lots of wargame inspiration!

However on reading the novels I see the evolution of Mongol warfare from inter tribal fights to a large united army. Also is the evolution of change in the way of Armour (inspired by the Chinese they go to war against). Mongol warriors with body armour and also horse (or Mongol Pony) armour and also mounted lance style tactics. I was really happy to discover that FireForge has in the Pipeline exactly these types of Mongol warriors. I thought I would be stuck with tribal warfare with limited options to extend beyond this as I couldn't find many producers of decent armoured Mongols to lead my Khan's forces around my table top steppes. I also have a preference for plastic and at 28mm Fire Forge may be one of very few producers.

Wahoo! Armoured Mongols! In progress from Fire Forge.

I am really looking forward to acquiring the heavy option for a Mongol force. I usually prefer the same maker for an Army.














Part 2. Fighting Fantasy
Long time ago in an awesome time they called the Eighties. A book was released that was the beginning of many a gamer. A type of of book that put the reader in control of the plot by the decisions they made. The reader was placed in the position as the books hero and, had stats and, had to fight and, roll dice and,....and it was super awesome fun. I once had a look around the web to see if any of these books could still be found now that my daughter is a serious reader. I recall enjoying them at a similar age to her now and perhaps this sort of retro thing might give light entertainment. She just finished the Hungry Games series. Blah, blah, blah..Movie...blah, blah, blah.
But she is yet to enter......... THE FOREST OF DOOOOOOOMMM!

Yaaaay! Doomy!

Anyway I didn't locate any thing but I came across this very recently...

Now with extra DOOM!

The book has now been somehow transformed into an App. No doubt some sort of technological voodoo magic has allowed this distortion of the natural world to occur. It's not just a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy either. The illustration have somehow been coloured with nefarious inter dimensional optical wizardry that we will never understand after studying magic for a thousand years. You don't even need dice to roll as somehow the shaking of the magical tablet device will reveal a random number on cubes of fate.
If you don't know.... the original series of books are from the imagination of the founders of Games Workshop. You might have heard of them. Little known wargames hobby company. Makes miniatures that go pew, pew! in a galaxy 40 thousand years away.
Anyway I got a bundle with 2 other books/app thingys and am going to adventure the fantasy out of them. Get the fight out!

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi) lost in a forest.