Irregular Wars Wargaming

The 10mm halfling muster of Hearthshire is complete (for now), with enough units to muster a 1200 point army for Lord and Lands  (or, at a pinch, 2000 points for Kings of War ). For the next little while I am planning on working on an army being put together for, and named by, my wee lad, the 'Legion of Super Evil'. Miniatures are from Eureka, Pendraken, Magister Militum, Alternative Armies and Bad Squiddo Games as indicated in previous posts. Bellow I have compiled the individual unit shots that I have put together during the army's creation.

To finish off my halfling army, I needed* some sort of flying monster. I figured a giant owl or perhaps even a gryphon would be the way to go. I didn't really like much in the way of 10mm monsters I saw, and when I expanded the search to 15mm, I saw the Alternative Armies Cockatrice. Well, what more appropriate monster to support halflings, than a chicken-headed one!? ________ *May not have been an actual need. Seemingly related to the Greco-Roman basilisk, the English cockatrice was traditionally a two legged serpent with the head of a cockerel which could turn creatures to stone with a single look. Apparently, a cockatrice was born from an egg laid by a rooster, and it's natural enemy was the weasel... The figure from Alternative Armies comes in three parts (body and two wings). The wings can be positioned an a variety of ways, but I went for the angrey-chicken-running-and-flapping-its-wings look. Although its tail is raised higher, it is 18mm to the eye. It'...

Five more units and a third character for the Hearthshire muster. All are 10mm halflings from Magister Militum. Four of us got together for a multiplayer game of Kings of War last week, using 'the JB amendment' which sees both players rolling to attack in each melee. The armies were 1,500 points each (so 3,000 points a side): the stunty 'Grand Picnic' alliance of dwarves and halflings - we brought the pies, they brought the beer - against an unholy alliance of dark elves and undead. The game was satisfying enough in that we got figures on the table and played to a decisive completion - no undead remained, and but a few miserable elves were left standing after five turns. The most wonderful moment was when my plucky halfling sergeant (Puck Goodfellow) managed to defeat the undead lord on his bone dragon. Now that was a truly epic moment. However,  KoW  definitely still lacks a lot of what I am after in a game. I look forward to trying out  Lor...

Without giving away too many reveals, we have been beavering away play testing the forthcoming expansion for Palaeo Diet: Eat or be Eaten . Once provisionally called 'Tales of Herc the Hero', it will be called the more open-ended Fireside Tales . The expansion takes the form of a narrative campaign of five scenarios. There is a simple system for randomising the landscape of each game, and the first four scenarios have both primary and secondary objectives to be achieved; no two games should ever play the same way.  There are four new beast profiles and reaction charts (bringing the total number of beast types up to ten), and two new ways for beasts to react.  And for those who don't find life hard enough, Fireside Tales introduces optional rules for smelly hominids meaning that players will want to keep downwind of both predators and prey if they can.

From the least tamed borders of Hearthshire, the squire's cousin, Barmbrack Hamfist, gathers support from among the wilder neighbours such as the Treefolk. Luckily, his giant guinea peeg allows him to scurry swiftly through undergrowth and avoid detection for the spies of the shire's foes. There appears to be a dearth of 10mm halfling magic users out there (strange...), so Barmbrack is a bit of a conversion. Starting with a Magister Militum halfing pony rider, I cut him, drilled him, and stuck him with bits of a cut up pin (one bit as a support for his impressive hat, and another for his wand. He was then glued to the back of a spare Bad Squiddo Games guinea pig. If you don't have a pack of those floating around, you should head over and get some! A spot of greenstuffing later, and Barmbrack had some trousers, feet and a hat. Sorted! Only now that he is painted have I noticed the size difference between Magiter Militum halfling pony riders and halfling foot by M...

What is it? Written by Craig Armstrong and published through Lulu,  Lord and Lands is framed as a fast-play, unit based, scale agnostic, mass battle* game. It is written with both historical and fantasy games in mind. As the author says, the game was inspired by Microworld's 6mm fantasy ranges, but LaL is not written in anyway to be restricted by those ranges, nor is is written specifically for 6mm armies. All distances are measured in base widths, so as long as the opposing armies are based using the same conventions, there are no limits to the scale of miniatures used. There is no individual figure removal. Instead, units have set hit points which they can sustain before the unit breaks and is removed from play. Units can be rallied by commanders and can also be pushed back in a melee. There are rules for missile units making closing shots against charging opponents, and rules for evading skirmishers. For me, these are all very nice things to see in a game. There is co...