Irregular Wars Wargaming

Finishing off the posts for 2021, I have returned to revise and expand on my c.1200 (+/- 75 years) retinue of the apocryphal knight, Sir Guillaume le Fauconnier. These hardened 28mm warriors (kitbashed mostly from Fireforge sprues) have not seen a lot of service since first painting them up in 2019. However, in the new year they will form the basis of a small 500 point retinue I plan to build to try out Adny Hobday's Barons' War rules.  Sir Guillaume and his veteran sergeants.  The start of a group of sergeants with crossbows. The first two archers. Two wolfhounds from the Wargames Atlantic Irish warriors box.

This week Andrew and I got our pirate-types on the table for the first time. Between us we have a raft of suitable rules focusing on pirates and swashbucklers, but we decided to use the post-apocalyptic rule set, This is Not a Test , instead. Despite first (post-apocalyptic) appearances, the rules are pretty flawless for pirate themed skirmishes for crews of a dozen or so characters.  Both crews were built around the Caravaners warband roster, but given the flexibility of the rules, they had completely different flavours. We restricted weapons to melee weapons and 'primitive' missile weapons which includes the likes of black powder pistols, muskets and blunderbusses. The only house rule we implemented was to have guns 'jam' after every shot, regardless of die roll, to represent the load time. Despite the impediment this caused, the strength of the musket shots made them still lethal on the table. The crew of the cutter Charlotte , commanded by Capt. Sammuel Blood, docke...

What better way to celebrate the festive season than with a bunch o' scruffy buccaneers!? Way back during the first lockdown I ordered these wee vessels from Games of War (sold as the Sea Dog v.2, and the jolly boat). Before I got a chance to do more than undercoat them, work ramped up and I focused what free time I had in other areas. With a good bit of time off over Christmas, I decided that it was time to get back to them! The larger vessel is the four-gun cutter, Charlotte . I may need to pick up some actual cannon in the future, but for now she just has two brass swivel guns. The cutter comes with that huge area on the stern just crying out to be decorated, so I tried to fill it with her name - for what it's worth I chose to copy TreasureMapDeadHand font. And then added a swirl.  The wee jolly boat is a great wee model and significantly easier to paint!

The final element for my 1000 point Fantastic Battles beastling army of the Red King is a three-company unit of bog trolls. Like the rest of the army, the figures are from Warp Miniatures - this time from the 3D printed beastfolk 10mm range; I had them printed at 130%.  They were, perhaps, the mose enjoyable thing I've painted in a loooooong time. There is great detail and bucket loads of character in each sculpt. The trolls have mushrooms and small stunted trees growing out of their fur; you can imagine them squatting dormant, hunched over for long periods of time, looking like hillocks in the bog until some unwary bypasser disturbs their slumber. I plan on using these chappies as fantastic beasts with the monstrous, shooting and powerful missiles traits to represent their great size, but also their penchant for hurling great boulders at their foes.

 

The Bacchae are an army I have long wanted, but never had to opportunity to build. The flexibility of Fantastic Battles  almost feels like it was designed to facilitate just such an army. Themed around the thiasos, or procession of Dionysos, this force has drawn it's inspiration from the broad palette of ancient literary and visual sources. I kept the units as wild as possible (no hoplites etc) without it becoming a bland swathe of brown as I wanted it to have a timeless feel, so it would feel just as natural fighting against Trojans, or an army of medieval knights. The army uses berserk as a racial trope to represent the intoxicating leadership of Bakchos. They were trialled with the stimulants trait as a racial trope, but I find it easier to remember who can do what this way!  The characters in the army are an exotic bunch. From left to right: a company of dryad magic-users (entangle); Pan, a magic-user (curse); Bakchos/Dionysos, the mage-lord (confusion); and two captains, ...

I recently picked up these awesome 10mm my-little-pack-ponies from RPGPrints on Etsy. I think they are digital sculpts from Varus Miniatures (for whom RPGPrints have a license), but I could be wrong. Regardless, the service from RPGPrints was very good and the quality of the resin used in the prints is up there with Excellent Miniatures as the best I have seen. Intended as a mining cart and pack horse (for dwarves?), I will be using it as a convoy to be ambushed in scenarios for Fantastic Battles . I figure these sturdy wee guys will work well enough for most of my fantasy armies (dwarves, halflings, beastfolk and goblins), although the haughty and elegant elves might have to take a more open-minded approach to their animals than they are used to...

The army of the Red King grows with another unit of Warp Miniatures 10mm beastlings - this time three companies of skirmishing slingers and a captain. I continue to struggle to photograph these guys, but they areally are a joy to paint and I'm very much looking forward to geting them on the field of battle. In Fantastic Battles , I will use them as irregular companies with the skirmishing and shooting traits - and perhaps stretch out to make them fast as well.