Irregular Wars Wargaming

Our occasional campaign of This is Not a Test hotted up this week as Jim, Andrew and I came together for a three-way game of Cold Vengance. The rules were clear - victory points for taking opponents out of action, more for taking out a leader, and a penalty for being the first player to fire a shot. As can be seen in the photo above, Jim's mutants came on from the (my) left, Andrew's mutants were at the top right, and my beloved (and miserably ill-efficient) halfling peacekeepers were in the bottom right.  All parties decided to split their focus between the other two players (more fun than two players picking on one) and the game opened with Andrew's flamethrower equipped mutie emerging from a tunnel (discovered following the Snipe Hunt ) to grill two of Jim's larger chaps. As the warband firing the first shots, Andrew therefore would suffer -2 victory points, but it was fun, it was cinematic, and it was relatively effective. Between the flamethrower and Andrew's...

Poppet is the fifth miniature prepared for the Onesies warband for This is Not a Test . Although she is sans onesie, I think the combination of wee girl in a nightie carrying a toy has a similar subversive vibe that permeates the rest of the crew. The model is a 3D print from Great Grimoire. In game terms, I will use her as a rogue psychic with a lucky bunny. There is no need for guns or knives when you can leave your foes in a snivelling heap with just a thought.

This week JB indulged me with further testing of the siege rules for Fantastic Battles . Using almost all the fortifications made for my by Jim at Dark Architect, we played the largest siege to date, pitching 2,000 points of attackers (my Wylde Elves allied to my Beastlings), against 1,000 points of Fallen Dwarves as the defenders. With the attackers suffering badly with disease ahead of the assault, the failure of the sappers to undermine the walls, and the total lack of traitors to unlock the gates, my lads (and lasses) had a hard old slog getting in under the walls.  Although a beastling levy unit did get ladders to the keep wall, they were broken as they tried to scale the defences. Massed shooting from dwarvern handguns and artillery also managed to bring down the siege tower ... which then fell back on the trolls pushing it. The dwarvern mage-lord, frustrated with inaction, flew his winged bull out of the keep to attack the skirmishing archers. Failing to destroy them in the...

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!

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'...

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!

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!  

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...  

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 u...

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...