Hailing from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, via Zambia, Nick Eyre and his family settled into the ‘Lead Belt’ that is Nottingham (so called for the number of toy soldier manufacturers in the area) when he was in his teens. A keen reader from an early age, having already read JRR Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, by the time of the move to Nottingham Nick had progressed to Tolkien’s ‘Silmarillion’. He collected Airfix toy soldiers as a boy, delving into model kit making, and it was Nick’s love of Tolkien that led to his discovery of wargaming. Insipred by a mix of ‘Miniature Wargames’ magazine, Games Workshop, and their fantasy wargame Warhammer, Nick was hooked on all things wargaming, models and RPG related. A position at Loughborough based wargames company Skytrex followed, thus kickstarting a career in wargames for Nick. Roles within Games Workshop, Tabletop Games, Alternative Armies and Harlequin Miniatures/ Icon Miniatures/ Black Tree Miniatures followed. Then, in 2003, Nick launched his own model wargames company, North Star Military Figures.
North Star Military Figures & More! A Talk With Nick Eyre… Part 2 (continuing from Part 1).
Being an avid reader myself, with my preferred genres ranging from biographies to fantasy to horror (I’ve just reread John Wyndham’s ‘Day Of The Triffids’ for the umpteenth time and I am currently reading through Henry Wolff’s ‘The Prince And The Woodcutter’ (illustrated by John Blanche)), I was interested to find out more about Nick’s literary direction and expand on his enthusiasm for JRR Tolkien.
Nick Eyre: I am a keen reader. I was reading at an early age, I still recall reading my Enid Blyton books at the age of 5 – 6. As a kid I had read anything I could get my hands on. I was a particular fan of CS Lewis’ Narnia. I also read a lot of history, which stood me in good stead with my chums when ‘playing out’, I’d hand them all dustbin lids and planks of wood to suggest we played Romans and Britons instead of Cowboys and Indians. Like all kids in the 1970’s, I read comics a lot, I loved The Beano, etc, but I collected Marvel Comics, the Star Wars and Planet of the Apes series and bought 2000AD from issue 1 onwards for years.
Reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was a big influence in my life. After reading ‘The Hobbit’ then ‘The Lord of the Rings’ at the age of 12, I picked up the ‘Silmarillion’ straight away, and read it twice. Over the years, I have read just about every one of Christopher Tolkien’s books of his father’s notes, many of which are nearly impenetrable! In my teenage years I did move onto a lot of other fantasy fiction; probably every ‘Conan’ published by the 1980’s, all of Moorcock’s ‘Elric’ series and a good number of his other works.
But as an adult, apart from Middle-Earth, I have found fact to be stranger than fiction. I tend to get into a wargames period, and read everything I can on it. So for example, about 10 years ago the Spanish Civil War became my obsession. The first books I read were the histories of the war, Anthony Beavor and Hugh Thomas both wrote quite thick volumes of books that covered it well. Then I would pick up books on specific subjects, like the International Brigade, the Foreign Legion, the Condor Legion, etc. Then it would be on battles and campaigns, the ‘Siege of Toledo’ was a particularly good book. Then I would look for literature of the period, this was my introduction to Hemmingway and Laurie Lee, and reading more of Orwell’s writings, ‘Homage to Catalonia’, in particular. I would also pick up any modern novel set in the Spanish Civil War, Victoria Hislop published one right in the middle of my ‘froth’ that I picked up.
By this point, briefer histories, like Osprey books, just didn’t ‘cut it’ anymore, I’d know more about what they’d left out, never mind what was in it. So I would cast the net further afield, the biography of George Steer was a good example. He was a journalist who reported the bombing of Guernica, but that was only a chapter or two in his book, the rest was his experiences in the Abyssinian War and World War Two. The good thing about this absorption of knowledge is that it spills out into the figures North Star makes, the rules we work on, the figures I’m painting and with the Spanish Civil War, it was in a two issue magazine article I wrote on the Battle of Jarama. Currently, that single subject focus is on the American Civil War, if you want to know about Butternut, I’m your man.
Released in 2015, Frostgrave: Fantasy War Games In The Frozen City is a fantasy skirmish game in which different wizard led warbands battle it out in a quest for greater magical knowledge and abilities. While Osprey Games provide the rules and literary supplements for Frostgrave, it is North Star Military Figures that design and manufacture the official miniatures. I asked Nick why he felt the game was so popular among fantasy wargamers.
Nick Eyre: Why has Frostgrave been so popular? First and foremost, it’s a good game. When people enjoy playing a game, and start telling their friends, it’s better than any contrived marketing campaign. Frostgrave is quick and easy to pick up, around the launch a bunch of North Star’s chums would demo the game at UK shows, and people only had to play a quick 1/2-hour game and they’d leave smiling, already planning their wizard’s warband. Frostgrave ticks a number of popular gaming boxes. It’s got a bit of RPG in it, it’s a familiar D&D type world where your wizard and his warband have a degree of post-game character advancement. It’s a skirmish game, so wargamers don’t have to invest a great deal of time into building their armies. And because Frostgrave is ‘figure neutral’, people often built their first warbands up from the figures they already had. But even though you can use any figures you want in Frostgrave, the Frostgrave figure range has been a massive reason why the game is so popular.
The figures are great, the design team is a who’s who of miniature designers: Bob Naismith, Mark Copplestone, Bobby Jackson, Mike Owen, Mark Sims, Giorgio Bassani, Michael Anderson, Nick Collier, Alex Huntley, Richard Kemp, Jason Weibe and apologies to anyone I’ve forgot. The metal Frostgrave range is a great set of models, classic Fantasy figures in a cold northern setting, but it’s the plastic figures that have really grabbed hobbyists imagination. For the first time ever, we have given gamers a large series of inter-changeable classic fantasy figures. In the words of North Star’s Kevin Dallimore, “having a selection of Frostgrave plastic kits is the closest you can be to a figure designer without learning to sculpt.” Frostgrave players can easily build up a completely personal and unique warband for their games, and importantly we’ve tried to have as many female figure options as male figures.
Osprey Games have published a big series of supplements for the game, all written by the original author Joseph McCullough, that keeps people excited and interested, and we’ve supported that with constant new figure releases. One other factor, one which will bore gamers, is the sales and marketing power of Osprey Games and North Star. Many game publishers create a game, then need sales people to push it into the marketplace. Osprey and North Star both already have an extensive network of shops and distributors around the world that we sell to every week. Frostgrave was an easy addition to our catalogues and that accessibility really helped spread the word.
Released earlier this year, Oathmark is the latest joint venture between North Star Military Figures and Osprey Games. Dwarfs, Elves, Goblins and Humans already have a selection of North Star box sets and metal blisters. With the games’ first supplement, Battlesworn, lined up for release later this year, there are plenty of new North Star Oathmark models yet to be unleashed.
Nick Eyre: What’s next for Oathmark? I feel like we’ve hardly started. Joseph McCullough has already written supplement 1 which introduces the Undead into the Oathmark world, and he’s planned to carry on with that. In regard to the figure range, we began 3 years ago on this project and have a release schedule that stretches on years ahead. In essence, there will be a plastic box set supported by metal characters for every troop type in the book. I don’t know if we’ll achieve it, but that is the plan. There are two box sets planned for the Undead, and the other sets on the work bench are Human Cavalry, Dwarf Light Infantry, Elf Cavalry, Orc Infantry and Goblin Light Infantry.
In addition to the fine selection of Frostgrave and Oathmark miniatures North Star Military Figures produces, the company also has a number of other ranges, from ‘Fantasy’ to ‘Horror’, ‘Africa’ to the ‘Spanish Civil War’.
Nick Eyre: I sold on the 1/48th scale figures many years ago, so I don’t want to dwell on them too much. They are the reason though for the name. It might seem odd for a company making Fantasy figures to be called North Star Military Figures Limited, but it’s because the first ranges were 1/48th scale WW2 metal figures. I wanted to make a range that would appeal to WW2 wargamers, but would also be useful to 1/48th scale model makers. This fell by the wayside as so many of North Star’s other projects grew faster and demanded time and money invested in them.
North Star 1866, 1864, The Menagerie and 1672 all have the same genesis. I bought existing ranges and expanded them. The 19th Century figures I bought from Helion Books, and the 1672 range from Copplestone Castings, he marketed it under the name Glory of the Sun.
North Star Africa came from scratch. When our friend Chris Peers wrote the game Death in the Dark Continent, a wargame set in late 19th Century Africa, we all loved it straight away. We already had the Copplestone Castings Darkest Africa figure range in our catalogue, so the first armies we put together to play test the game were the Ngoni and a German Naval Landing Party. In conversation with Chris, I wanted to make a range of figures for this game we were enjoying, but not just do Zulus and Mahdists again. I chose to make figures of the tribes I was familiar with growing up in Zambia, tribes like the Matabele, the Bemba and the Ila. Chris’ rules were so detailed, these tribes and their opponents were already in the army lists. I wanted to make the warlike Matabele first, Chris lent me some splendid source material, including a particularly great book from Zimbabwe with drawings of the Matabele warriors we used to make the Elite Warriors and Chiefs. Although the range is small, it comprehensibly covers the Matabele armies. At first they were a Zulu off-shoot, their chief Mzilikasi fleeing from a vengeful Shaka Zulu. As they travelled north into modern day Zimbabwe they retained their ‘Zulu’ appearance as it inspired terror in their opponents, but they had to adapt their kit as they didn’t have access to the same sources as the Zulus in the south did. An example being they could no longer make the monkey-tail kilts, so developed their own Matabele kilt. As the 19th Century progressed they acquired more firearms, and used the ceremonial kit in battle less, so by the time of the Matabele Rebellion of 1896 they were in a mix of European and African clothes firing Martini Henry rifles.
The next figures to be made were opponents to the Matabele. Two of the neighbours the Matabele terrorised were the Ila and Bemba in Zambia. I was familiar with the Ila’s traditional tall ‘hair spike’ from my youth, and typically Chris had a collection of photos of them in full regalia we could give to the figure sculptor. The Bemba according to Chris were an extension of the East African Ruga Ruga culture, musketmen who were influenced by Arab dress. So our Ruga Ruga range can be used by armies from Central Africa out to the coast of East Africa. They were a warlike culture, and in cases practised extra behaviour which is why a couple of the figures are wearing the flayed faces of their victims and totem masks.
The European opponents of the Matabele were the British South Africa Company, Cecil Rhodes’ private army. They marched into Matabeleland with cannons and maxim machine guns and massacred the Kings Impis, setting up Rhodesia. They didn’t have it all their own way, the attack on the Shangani patrol was Africa’s ‘Little Big Horn’, and three years after the BSAC ended the Matabele kingdom, they had to fight a 2nd war as the Matabele tried to re-establish themselves and remove the Europeans. In this 2nd war, Britain had to send Imperial forces to help, forces commanded by a certain Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement. Again with this figure range, it’s not massive but I wanted gamers to be able to field the different units and some of the characters involved. North Star making figure ranges for Osprey games like Frostgrave has diverted resources away from expanding the Africa line, but new figures will be added as time goes on.
Muskets & Tomahawks is a range of figures that we got into in the same way we have with Osprey Games. I’ve known the owner of Studio Tomahawk Alex Buchel for a long time, we are a major distributor of his Dark Age game Saga along with the Gripping Beast figure range. Alex asked if we’d like to make the ‘official’ range of figures for Muskets & Tomahawks and I said yes. Rather than make a full French and Indian War range, with all the different troop types that fought in the war with command groups, artillery etc, we are just making a skirmish range for M&T. So for example our British Regulars are just 8 figures skirmishing led by an officer. We won’t be doing Regulars marching in formation, with drummers and flags bearers, instead we’ll concentrate on doing another skirmishing group. This is an exciting project as Studio Tomahawk plan to make Muskets and Tomahawks a skirmish game for the whole Black Powder period, not just the wars of North America. There will be a colonial supplement and a Napoleonic supplement to follow.
In part 1 of my blog feature on Nick and North Star, Nick mentioned that one of the eras of wargaming that he has never become too involved with is the Napoleonic period, I asked him why this was.
Nick Eyre: I’ve avoided Napoleonics for one reason. We just don’t have enough time in our lives to do everything. The Napoleonic Wars are so massive, one could spend a lifetime and never complete the armies and read everything about them. So I’ve never allowed myself to get drawn in. As a boy, my Dad ran a cinema in Zambia (a part time voluntary thing) and he’d run the films on a Sunday afternoon to make sure they worked before the proper showing that night. I’d sneak into the auditorium to watch them sometimes, never knowing what was coming up. One Sunday I snuck in, just at the point the forces sent to arrest Rod Steiger were cheering along the hill sides. ‘Ooo soldiers’ thought I, and I settled in to watch ‘Waterloo’. I staggered out exhausted two hours later, what a big screen feast for a young boy’s eyes, the cavalry charges, the British squares, the field littered with dead at the end, gasp. All I wanted then was the Waterloo play set from Airfix with the La Haye Sainte Farmhouse model. I got it and loved it. But that was the high water mark of my Napoleonic enthusiasm. Since those school days I’ve played Napoleonic wargames with other peoples armies, including a really big campaign organised by Alan Perry recently, but never made it my period.
As Games Workshop’s Warhammer game had played such a big part in Nick’s wargaming hobby previously, I was interested to know why he had moved away from playing the game system by 1990, not to return to it. I questioned also if Oathmark shared any similarities with Warhammer.
Nick Eyre: The answer is woven into the life I chose. I left Games Workshop to work for a little Nottingham company called Table-Top Games. They were older than Citadel Miniatures, and offered a wider selection of periods than just Fantasy, though they at that time had ownership of the famous Asgard Miniatures. When I started working there, I fell in with the now sadly departed Chris Robinson, a chap who had cupboards full of 15mm Ancient Armies and a 24 foot wargames table. Every Wednesday was Ancients night, and it started with Shock of Impact, then WRG 7th Edition but when DBM came out we all embraced it enthusiastically.
Oddly during this same period I was doing a lot of RPG’s. When you combine regular gaming nights of Ancients, RPG’s and a new relationship with the future Mrs Eyre, you just don’t have enough time for everything. Although Chris had hundreds of beautifully painted armies, I still wanted my own, so I painted in this period a 15mm Pict army, a HYW English Army and an Arab Conquest army. I didn’t stay with Table-Top Games too long (though I stayed gaming with Chris for years after), as I was invited to join a new company called Alternative Armies. Although this was a Fantasy/ Sci-Fi miniature manufacturer, it still veered away from Warhammer gaming, one example being I was very interested in Celtic Mythology at this time, especially Irish Mythology, and there was a drive to getting them to make a Celtic Myth range, so that was much more interesting to me than the Warhammer World. I’ve not gone back to it since.
I have tried lots of other Fantasy Battle games over the years, nothing has grabbed my long term enthusiasm though I enjoyed them all. I’m super keen to get into Oathmark once this Virus is over and can start meeting up to game again. I’ve got all the figures painted up (not by me), so it’s just not having an opponent that is stopping me.
Oathmark isn’t Warhammer. The only connection I can see is that in the original meetings with Osprey, I said one of the things I loved about my early Warhammer gaming days was I started with a few figures (5 Orcs, 20 Goblins, a couple of monsters) but 6 years later I was playing the same system with armies a couple of hundred figures a side, all ranked in regiments of 20-30. We should aim for Oathmark to do the same. A gamer can buy one box of our plastic figures and get a game playing an opponent with their 30 figures, but the system can still cope with games where players have 150-200 figures each. That’s it really, and the fact it’s a game of Fantasy regiments, all based individually moving in blocks of course. The Oathmark ‘world’ owes nothing to Games Workshop’s worlds at all.
Stepping away from the direct gaming side of things, I asked Nick whether or not he had any current painting projects under way, miniatures, scenery or otherwise.
Nick Eyre: Right now, nothing. I’m all or nothing unfortunately. Last year, I was spending 2-3 hours a night (longer at weekend) painting American Civil War figures, mostly Rebs. Loved every minute, surrounded by Don Troiani illustrations, Blue Grass playing on the Laptop, but when I got to having more figures a side than I could use in an evening’s game, the drive to keep painting died off. Everyone at North Star really got into Gaslands, the car combat game, earlier this year. I re-modelled a couple of Hotwheels cars, and painted Mad Max and a V8 ‘Last of the Interceptors’ car. But then nothing. I’ve stuck two flags on a couple of American Civil War figures during the lock-down, that’s all.
To be continued… Part 3 HERE.
Painting Cobb’s Legion by Nick Eyre HERE.
Follow Nick Eyre on Facebook HERE.
Official North Star Military Figures Facebook page HERE.
Official North Star Military Figures website HERE.
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