Onesie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos - Bingo, the halfling in a bunny suit

I was really pleased to receive Bingo Whackins in the post this week. This halfling in a bunny suit from Imitation of Life Miniatures was the initial inspiration for this warband - all the rest of this crazy is thanks to him. Here he is with his existing colleagues - now complete with their basing done and named; Tessa, Bingo, Meep and Fritz.

Bingo comes with pleanty of hand/weapon options. I opted for a vicious looking baseball bat with barbed wire and molotov cocktail. Stay classy Bingo! Not to be messed with, he'll add some muscle to the warband - the rest of whom are currently either children or guinea pigs!

This is Not a Test - Little Slice of Heaven

Jim has re-entered the wasteland, raising a fresh warband of mutant down-winders to join Andrew and my occassional campaign. This week, he and I played the 'Little Slice of Heaven' scenario, with his muties trying to eject the Flores Minor Rangers from their forward command point, Wastebase-1.

Despite my inability to have won a scenario with the FMRC, I was feeling positive with this one. After two matches, my warband rating was a healthy 525, and Jim was coming on with a starter warband worth only 400 BS. On top of that, my force is practically designed for this scenario; snipers on roof tops and plenty of rough terrain to slow down the attackers.

Sadly (for the FMRC - other opinions are available), the balancing mechanisms for uneven warbands work very well. The scenario allowed for Jim's warband to pick an Advantage anyway - he took 'Bum Rush', allowing him to advance a move before the game started - and to balance the points he took 'Really Good Luck', providing three re-rolls.

In the early turns, every time my lads got a well-aimed shot off, I was forced to reroll it, universally missing on the reroll. When I wasn't doing that, I was jamming weaponry, all the while the muties closed the distance and ended up taking out three rangers on the ground (Point, Snake Eyes and Demo). He took out Hotshot, the FMRC outrider with shooting, and used psychic powers early on to demoralise Sarge, leaving him a gibbering wreck for the engagement.

In the end, the muties entered Wastbase-1 and the final stand was made by BT29 - my new Depend-o-bot - on the ground floor, surrounded by three mutants, while Doc and Heavy fired into the melee from above. With the writing on the wall, the FMRC again were forced to fall back and treat tend to their wounded.

In the  post-game sequence, one of Jim's Mutants, Dex, died. He'd been riddled by mini-gun fire, so it was hardly surprising, although he will be mourned by his brethren. The Mutants did well when exploring the wasteland, hauling in a mass of BS and discovering a working plasma gun.

Among the FMRC, Point succumbed to his injures and died, while both Demo and Point recovered fully, becoming hardened by their injuries. Heavy gained enough experience to upgrade his strength factor, and Snake Eyes increased his movement factor. The rangers did not find much BS at all, but did manage to find a flame thrower for the look pile.

This is the first match where the FMRC will not be able to recruit new members. Indeed, after paying for upkeep, there is not even enough BS left in the kitty to replace Point. The outcome of their next action will be critical in determining their longevity in the wastes.

Onesie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos - WIP Teddy bear kid

The third figure to join the Onesie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos is a wee girl in a teddy bear onesie, 3D scultped by Vaultz. She is just about there - still needs the base completed of course.

Based on the pictures on Etsy, where she is sold as a child zombie, I was planning to do some hand swaps to give her a a couple of pistols, and take away the decayed flesh on her hands. I was assuming she'd maybe come to 22 or 25mm to the eye...

But no. Standing at 21mm to the top of her head, she really is just a little kid.

I 'redistributed' a maching pistol from an unused mini, gave it a green stuff handle, and packed her base a little with green stuff to give a tiny bit more height.

Now, she's a machine pistol-toting tot, terrorising the wastes on the hunt for chocolate!

28mm Napoleonic Württemberg Light Infantry part 2

Well, they have not been quick in coming (six figures over six weeks!), but the second company of Von Bruxelles' Württemberg Light Infantry is now done. I hope to get the remaining two companies out a little faster, but it depends on what life throws me!
 

Onesie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos - WIP Guinea Pig mimic man

The second figure to arrive for the Onesie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos is a guinea pig mimic man from Bad Squiddo Games. They have two simmilar miniatures: this one filled with guinea pigs and another with bunnies. While I am a fan of rabbits - especially vicious ones - I just couldn't go past this figure. Again, I think the figure is finished, but the base still needs to be done.

Thematically in a warband of people wearing cute animal suits, I thought it wound be fun to have a bunch of cute animals in a people suit. 

Equipped with an assault rifle, gas mask, all weather coat and a marigold glove, in This is Not a Test, I  am planning on using it/them as a mutant with blob form. They will need a suitable name like Meep or Squee to seal the deal...  

Onesie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos - WIP Yellow Bunny

While I tinker (and/or labour) away at two Napoleonic projects - 6mm Austrians and 28mm Württembergers - I have taken a notion to build a new warband for This is Not a Test. TNT is such a great game and, up until now, I have very much enjoyed using my sci-fi halflings and 18th century pirates as warbands in different contexts.

Now I am stepping into the post-apocalyptic wastelands proper for the first time and will sproradically add onsie-wearers and other thematically suitable figures to the Onsie Wearing Wasteland Weirdos. The name may need a rethink as the project continues, but it gets the theme across nicely I think.

First up is a young lad in a yellow bunny suit. The miniature is from Copplestone Castings, very kindly donated by Andrew to start me off. This cigar-puffing chap is armed with a pistol and diving knife, along with a backpack filled with all sorts of useful trinkets.

Having gone with a yellow onesie and blue crocs and goggles, I feel that he may end up with a Swedish or Ukranian name - although they are also the colours of my own County Antrim. I think he is finished other than the basing. I have a variety of wasteland base toppers en route to use across all the bases of the warband. 

Fantastic Battles - 28mm siege test

Tim hosted me for a further playtest of the Fantastic Battles siege rules this week, using his great 3D printed castle and our 28mm armies - 500 points of Tim's dwarves, defending against 1,000 points of my Bacchae.

We had to proxy in cut cardboard rectangles for siege equipment, but here you can see the tiny defending force surrounded by the much more plentiful Bacchae. The dwarvern fort was built of heavy fortifications and sported towers with integrated archers. The Bacchae had three sets of ladders (carried by satyrs in the lower part of the photo), a siege tower pushed by maenads (at the top), a mine (off camera away to the top left), and had paid off a traitor inside the fort.

While the mine reached the dwarf walls, they were too sturdily built and it failed to bring them down. Bakchos was luckier with the traitor though who, good to his word, ensured the gates were left wide open. The elite part of the Bacchae - the Indian contingent and erotes chariots - surged towards the bottle neck. Unfortunately, the archer-towers played havoc with the elephant, badly lowering its resolve. It still managed to maul a unit of dwarvern warriors inside the walls, and flatten their captain before succumbing to its own injuries.

Elsewhere, the first unit of satyrs brought the ladders to the walls under a hail of black-powder gun fire and were quickly dispatched in melee, while the single maenad company pushing the siege tower suffered a similar fate. Across the table, Bacchae were falling fast while the doughty dwarves stood fast behind their defences. Eros, captaining the maenads, made use of the Phoenix Bow of Precision to target the dwarvern warlord, causing a wound.

Although they had started to lose resolve across the table, the dwarvern units were far from breaking, while the Bacchae were only two companies away from defeat, with five companies close to scattering and a few more feeling poorly. And at that point, the Bacchae rather stole a victory when Eros shot again at the dwarvern warlord and killed him. Leaderless, the dwarves surrendered and the Bacchae reigned victorious.

Artist's impression showing the death of the dwarvern warlord.