Irregular Wars Wargaming

The industry and commerce of urban life, and its associated dark alleys, sewers, and abundant refuse, creates the perfect environment for rats. The more enterprising urchins of Beerenburg apprentice themselves as rat-catchers and the best learn to bend the city's rats to their own devices.  What better tool to unleash upon the flanks and rears of the enemies of the State? These rats will be used as irregular companies with the swarm, poison and emerge special rules in my burgher halfling army for Fantastic Battles . The rats themselves are from Anvil Industries - the wee rat catcher is an old (1988) Citadel halfling.

Roger and I came too (miniature) blows again this week for a Fantastic Battles match-up between his spooky pirates and my Ziggurat Dwarves. Even at 1000 points, both of us were fielding quite small armies with breakpoints of 8 for the spooks, and 10 for the dwarves. During mishaps, both the dwarvern left and the corresponding ghostly right suffered delayed deployment. One phantom whale was over enthusiastic, while only one unit across the table - the single company of dwarvern highlanders - suffered from disease. Both armies were hoping to play defensively and had far more artillery than is common - four dwarvern ballista batteries vs three ghostly cannon batteries. As the racial trope for the terrors of the deep is 'ephemeral' making them hard to target, and the cannon's ignored the dwarves' beautiful (and supposedly impervious) shieldwalls, I decided to pull out all the stops and quite literally fling the large unit of heavy weapon-wielding Ziggurat Guards forward i...

Within mercantile cities like Beerenburg, the various merchant guilds hold a great deal of influence, effectively opperating self-regulating districts and electing the burghers who decide foreign policy. During times of war, each guild is called upon to provide guilder battalions - or pay for mercenaries to march in their place. In Beerenburg, no guild is more powerful than the Honourable Company of Brewers; their battalions of archer, bedecked in the guild's iconic red and white, are staples of the city's militant ventures. This three-company unit - built for Fantastic Battles as a formed company with the militia racial trope and skilled shooting trait - is made up predominantly of TAG halflings. These are joyous figures with a great range of different scults that are just packed with character - the halfling giving the two-finger salute is a favourite, but also the variety of sandwishes, apples on arrows and other appropriate accoutremonts. For the Brewer's Guild I put ...

Engagement eight of our This is Not a Test campaign saw the Flores Minor Ranger Corps venturing back into the northern greenbelt. There, while salvaging barter script from a ruined settlement, they came across an unknown warband approaching the settlement from the opposite direction. Roger joined the campaign with a new Peace Keeper warband. While the FMRC (deployed along the lower edge of the table) are led by Sarge, a road marshal, Roger's Sons of Morpheus (deployed along the top) were led by Ice T, a hanging judge. The two crews are therefore very different in make-up. Roger's starting crew had the leader and three elites supported by three sacrificial lambs. To balance out 270+ difference in warband values, he took the 'Grin and win' and 'Really good luck' strategies as well as three further sacrificial lambs as supports. The FMRC took up position with Buckshot, Frygga and Ogg on the right, Demo, Point, Snake-Eyes and Pup in the centre behind Hotshot, whil...

I'm please to be able to show off the first two characters for my  Fantastic Battles  Halfling burghers, a troubadour and a meister. I will be using the this charming halfling bard/troubadour from The Assault Group (TAG) as one of the army's magic-users, dishing out plenty of empowering songs to embiggen the tiniest of of swords. Another Anvil Industries rat makes an appearance, this time though he's a white rat who can serve as a familiar (if required), enabling the troubadour to both move and cast in the same activation. The second character is one of the city's meisters, or in this case, a meisterin. Bearing the Three Pints banner of Beerenburg, she will serve as one of the army captains. Her body is a plate armoured dwarf from TAG (more of those to come!), with the head of a Duncan Shadow 3D printed female halfling bedded in with some greenstuff hair. The banner pole is steel rod with a TAG halfling hand and chicken/aquila - the flag itself was designed in Photosho...

Kickstarting my new 28mm halfling army we have a two-company unit of urchin slingers. Every mercantile city-state needs them! In Fantastic Battles , these will be profiled as irregular companies with the 'shooting' and 'skirmisher' traits, along with the 'militia' racial trope. Not exactly what you'd call heavy hitters, but certainly a handy support unit. I wanted to keep them very drab to contrast with the brightly coloured guild units, but not so drab as to leave them dull and boring. Hopefully they hit the spot. The fantastic urchin miniatures are from TTCombat and the wee black rat (ubiquitous in a trading city and the first of many in the army) is from Anvil Industries.

With the release of Fantastic Battles version 1.2 I set out on a wee vanity project to produce a limited run of hardcover copies - identical to the softcover, but shinier! I had them printed at a local printery that we'd use to print books and exhibitions for work. The quality is just lovely in the hand. There were only 20 copies produced; I will number them by hand before sending them out to the folk who have reserved a copy later this week.

2023 is shaping up to be another year full of 28mm projects - still something I find strange and mildly intimidating. As well as my Napoleonic Württembergers and the onesie-wearing-wasteland-weirdos, I have also embarked on a new army for Fantastic Battles, the Halflings of Beerenburg. Not content with agricultural idylls, some halflings (including Beerenburgers) cluster together in merchantile city-republics where the merchant guilds increase their bargaining power with armed force. Over the tail end of last year I started picking up a few bits and pieces, and with the largesse of Christmas, I now have around 800 points including heavily armoured burghers, guild units, urchins, rats and a giant as a decent starting point. There are a couple of 3d printed pieces still en route to flesh out the units, but as each is completed I'll run through the different manufacturers.

Having overcome a major psychological obstacle and completed the first battalion for my 28mm Württemberger brigade, it was only fair to reward myself with their commander, Generalmajor Felix von Bruxelles (sometimes von Bruzelles). Hopefully he inspires the rapid completion of the rest of his brigade in the coming weeks and months. Sadly, I can find very little information on von Bruxelles himself. Before 1812 he was presumably the colonel of the 2nd Battalion of Light Infantry who bore his name. At the Battle of Borodino, he commanded the Württemberg Light Infantry (3rd) Brigade, part of the 25th Division in Marshal Ney's III Corps.  I've no idea if he had brown hair, rode a black horse or stood near a scruffy white dog at any stage, but it all seems plausible. If you have anything more to add to that, please do let me know or point me in the right direction. The general and horse are from Front Rank, scruffy pup from Magister Militum.