Irregular Wars Wargaming

Every so often, as a palate cleanser, I return to my Érineach Preservers, custodians of the craic in the grim dark future. Born of nostalgia, raised on whiskey, and released onto the galaxy, these subversive space marines bring me a combination of joy, satisfaction, self-loathing, and a wonder at how many potential wargamers have been put off over the years by edge highlighting and panel lining space marines!? Here are the latest additions to the little battle force - previous posts can be found  October 2023 ,  November 2023 , and  February 2024 . Initially built with This is Not a Test  in mind, I now have far more than I could ever use for that. Nostalgia draws me back to the one true edition of Warhammer 40,000 - 2nd edition, but I'm not yet convinced it would be worth the effort of tracking down all the books when there are several very viable alternatives out there. Sure, won't we see in due course?!

Here are just a couple of photos to show that, while hobby time is limited at the moment, playtesting, revising and writing continues for Fantastic Scuffles . Andrew, Jim and I sat down for another three-way encounter last weekend, pitting a band of murder hobos itinerant adventurers, a party of gnomes and woodland critters, and a nest of (admittedly too many) kobolds. We each rolled for our different objectives and set to work. Putting the game through its paces, we tested some practical limits, broke the rules for vehicles (as they were then written), refined ideal game sizes and had a good laugh. Frustratingly, Andrew and I also watched as a gnome transfigured into an owl and flew off the table, completing the gnomish objective and winning the game! 

Here are another seven 28mm Warp Miniatures kobolds, completed to add to my 'horde' party for playtesting Fantastic Scuffles .  These are such wonderful multipart sculpts that allow so much variability in how you build them. The little guy in the middle with a scimitar has had a greenstuff turban and ruby added to his helmet, and the gong-banger is a bit of a conversion incorporating a Red Bard Games shield as the gong, and greenstuff for the strap and the fluffy end of his banging stick. So there are now 22 miniatures in this party - nominally coming in at 250 points, where 100 points (spread over an average of 3-5 characters) would be a usual starter party in a campaign. This kobold party only has three characters (Boggle the Irrepressable, Sir Bert d'Hoomin, and Azeeem the Great One), all the rest are minions. I'm unlikely to get to use them all at once in a regular game, but they give plenty of options, and will be useful as dungeon denizens for dungeon crawling sce...

Last weekend saw another 'big game' ancients clash in Belfast - this time returning to the Hail Caesar rules to accommodate the variability in our approaches to basing. My Seleukids allied with Tony's Carthaginians, to take on Paul's Romans and Karl's Iberians.  I didn't realise it when we agreed to the division of an almost plausible Syro-Punic alliance against Rome and its Iberian allies, but our side may have ended up with dramatically more units - and divisions. That said, I think we actually had less heavy infantry than the other side. The Carthaginians deployed to our right, opposite the legion of Rome. I say legion (singular) as there was only a single division of seven heavy infantry units supported by two units of velites - something that wound prove quite a hard nut to crack. My Seleukids were deployed against the Spaniards and Celtiberians, the field to our front interrupted by a frustrating village and with all the Iberian units focused towards the...

This week we managed to get some playtesting in for the new Devilry Afoot: Edge of Reason scenarios. Jumping forward to the early 19th century, our flawed heroes were pitted against the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and 'Mean Streets' scenarios. Much was learned, a few things were tweaked. Playtesting continues. The stories of the headless Hessian continue to grow in the quiet low lying lands of Westchester County. Ever since the disappearance of the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, the frequency and ferocity of the attacks have increased beyond all reason.  The watchmen are assembled and await only the call to bring them out to confront the phantom. In the first attempt, the lawyer Fitzwilliam was knocked unconscious by flying jack o' lanterns, before the retired soldier Captain Heighty was ridden down in short order by the headless horseman. A very quick and less than successful first attempt at the scenario!   On the second attempt, Capt. Heighty legged it, taking the ...

Returning the the New World, we have an elusive sasquatch the stalk the frontier. This great beast is from Crooked Dice.  Its amazing the rabbit holes you can fall down when trying to determine accurate colours for a sasquatch...

The next two monsters for the Devilry Afoot: Edge of Reason expansion are the abomination and hunchback - both 28mm sculpts from Heresy Miniatures. Inspired by the so-called monster in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (published 1818), the abomination fits perfectly with an early 19th century setting. The hunchback may be more controversial. The abomination's little companion is an Igor in every sense of the word, but Igor doesn't feature in Mary Shelley's work. Indeed, the trope character of Igor is a 20th century cinematic invantion and therefore, strictly speaking, should be omitted from the list of monsters in  Devilry Afoot . However, the titular character of Victor Hugo's 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame , does fit the bill. The profile then, will be inspired by mostly by that character, with just a touch of Igor... 😇 

For the Devilry Afoot: Edge of Reason scenarios I needed some suitable late 18th - early 19th century watchmen or beadles to support (or to arrest) the hunters.  These chaps are from Trent Miniatures' 1798 United Irishmen range. If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend you have a look as there are loads of useful minis for armed civilians and other interesting characters.

After a bit of an epic process I have now finished up a Headless Horseman for Devilry Afoot: Edge of Reason .  What started as a lovely gesture from JB, gifting me a Dragon Trappers Lodge 3D sculpt, ended in tragedy when, several hours into the paintjob, I dropped it and it exploded. One of the pitfalls of buying 3D sculpts off the likes of Etsy is that you can never be sure of the quality of the resin used, and this one was particularly fragile. In a bit of a downer I looked about for a metal headless horseman, assuring myself that the old ways would prove more robust. My first port of call was the Westwind Headless Horseman range. The photo on the Westwind website is a bit small and pixelated, but I gave it a shot and placed an order. Sadly, what turned up could never have been checked for quality control. The rider lacked detail generally, and the head carried in his left hand ended in a detailess blob with a flash line. The horse seems to have been cast with completely mis...