Pride of Lions Playtesting: Hobgoblins of The Jade Flame

David McBride from Splintered Light a producer of 15mm scale fantasy miniatures (LINK) is working on the 2nd Edition of his fantasy battles game Pride of Lions, offering a selection of army bundles for those interested in participating in the Playtesting for the game. These armies provide a mixture of very interesting figures and at 15mm scale represent a very approachable and interesting hobby project.  

The game is played on 2x2 foot squares and focuses primarily on the aftermath of a magical apocalypse in a fantastical world, where the worst excesses of warlocks and other magic users has scoured the traditional fantasy world and left the barbaric tribes of monsters which most of us will recognize (trolls, orcs, beastmen etc) to inherit the remains, not all of the 'civilized' peoples are gone but as mentioned, are greatly depleted in scope and capability. I thought this was a particularly interesting setting and I needed to take a hiatus from 40k for a bit, thus I decided to participate in this playtest. 

I picked up 3 warbands,  those being Hobgoblins, Black Root Bog, and Pig-Faced Orcs, in addition to these warbands I wanted to work on 2x2 boards specific to each one's native territory.  The first of the warbands that I opened up was the Hobgoblins, which included a unit of firey hellhounds, human barbarian infantry, and monstrous flame giants to accompany the metal-clad lines of hand weapon/shield warriors and spear-armed infantrymen. The hobgoblins and their attendant allies and creatures represented one of the more well-equipped and well-armed warbands in the game and I felt that as a result, they must have a territory appropriate to supply this wargear.  I settled on a desecrated Dwarven hold as their territory and went with a simple dwarf icon in the center of a stonework grid.  

An admittedly simple motif, but one that I hope to use in other games and other scales as well.  

Playing around with some potential scatter and Hobgoblin paint schemes this evening. My plan is give the dwarven pillar a similar baleflame green cast as the burning skull held by the wizard. Given the decisive lack of foilage in dwarf mountain-homes, clusters cursed rune stones felt like an interesting alternative to provide scatter for the board. 

Stay tuned for more of Warhammer 40,000's narrative battle reports with Part 3 of the Hamlis Valley Campaign, and for other updates on the Pride of Lions Playtest.

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