More Sci Fi figures

Yeah, I know I said I was finished with 28mm sci fi figures for a while, but I saw something to make me change my mind. Anyway, that was back in September. 

The thing that made me change my mind was me thinking that I needed some non-player characters and general purpose bad guys. Well, a box set from Games Workshop, a company that I haven't considered buying anything from for about 20 years, popped up on a post on Facebook and I had one of those "light bulb over the head moments".

The box in question is for something called Blackstone Fortress, apparently a new GW game. The thing that I liked though was that it offered up a range of figures that might usefully supply me with a few NPCs for my sci fi skirmish rules.

The figures themselves are plastic ones and claim to be snap together with no glue required. Well, they do snap together, but being a cautious type, I decided to use glue as well, just in case.

So far, I have made and painted two Chaos Beastmen and seven Traitor Guardsmen. 

Now, in the past I used to play a fair bit of 40K and I had an Imperial guard army, so these were an obvious place to start. However, these traitor guardsmen are festooned with spiky bits and blades sticking out all over the place, which I think look pretty silly. After all, you could have someone's eye out with an injudiciously-placed spiky bit, so I cut off the most obviously stupid ones.

As for the models themselves, I rather like them. The poses are quite dynamic and the figures appear to be based on the Cadians I used to own. Because they are the chaps who have gone bad, they look a bit ragged and that suits me fine. After all, these are going to be deserters, outcasts, scavengers and hired muscle. I wasn't too keen on a couple of them wearing furry cloaks, but I knew what to do about that.

I wanted these guys to look like a group of guns for hire, deserters from some local system war, but still military-looking. I gave them a combat-hardened look, with the tattered remains of camo ponchos on some figures and, using the unwanted furry cloaks, the remains of some leafy green camo garments on the other two. All of them have camo trousers and helmets. I wanted their body armour to look battered, so overbrushed some bare metal on the paintwork. I quite like their improvised look, which is helped by the curtains of chainmail a couple are wearing.

The two Beastmen are also deserter types. They are far more ragged, with battered armour and torn cut-down trousers, but that also looks good, I think.

At last! Back to the Condotta.

I haven't posted anything about my Papal Condottieri force since the end of May, which is half a year ago, and far too long. What can I say though? Other things jumped the queue and took up all the space on my painting list.

Anyway, I have now finished off a group of twelve Romagnol pikemen, including a leader with a banner and a musician.

The Romagna is a region of Italy to the north of Rome and was in the later mediaeval and renaissance periods usually under Papal rule as part of the Papal States. the name Romagna is derived from the Latin Romania, meaning "land ruled by Romans".

The region was almost constantly at war and parts of the Romagna were at various times ruled by Venice and Florence. It is often claimed the the best Italian pike-armed troops came from the Romagna. Cesare Borgia carved out his short-lived Duchy of Romagna in around 1500, but it didn't survive his downfall in 1504 and the Duchy was reabsorbed into the Papal States.

I have obviously chosen to paint these troops in the red and white livery that the majority of my Condotta troops, apart from the Swiss contingent are wearing.

Once again, these are all Perry plastic 28mm figures, which I really love to work with. They are nice sculpts, with plenty of variations and they paint up really well. In the pictures above, I have chosen to show them in a loose formation of two ranks and also in a tighter column.

I'll obviously be using these for Lion Rampant, but once again, they will also be suitable for Dragon Rampant and Saga: Age of Magic games.

Lagertha, legendary Norse shieldmaiden

Lagertha's tale is recorded in passages in the 12th-century text, the Gesta Danorum, a work of Danish history by the Christian historian Saxo Grammaticus. 

He wrote that "Ladgerda, a skilled Amazon, who, though a maiden, had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman."

Her name is variously written as Lathgertha, Ladgertha, Lathgerda and other forms, all  derived from the Old Norse original Hlaðgerðr, otherwise Hlathgerth.

There is no historical evidence for Lagertha, although Saxo records that she was married to the equally legendary Ragnarr Loðbrók, i.e. Ragnar Hairy Breeches, also written as Ragnar Lodbrok or Lothbrok. Saxo records that, ultimately, Lagertha slew her husband and ruled alone in his stead. However, Ragnar was also supposedly captured by King Ælla of Northumbria, who had him thrown into a pit of snakes, where he perished.

Ragnar had sons who are attested historically, but his own existence is rather debatable.

Anyway, on to Lagertha. This figure is from Bad Squiddo, and comes in a blister pack with a mounted Lagertha, who I will be using as the commander of my mounted shieldmaidens, when I get round to painting them.

So, here is the dismounted version. I have kept my palette quite simple here and it is not dissimilar to the way the figure is painted on the Bad Squiddo website.

Her shield design is a triquetra, somewhat similar to a pagan Norse valknut (which is more usually seen as three interlocking triangles). It is also similar to a simplified Thor's Hammer motif.

Lagertha is going to be part of my Shieldmaiden army, whether that is for Dragon Rampant, Saga or Saga: Age of Magic.

Frostgrave Reaver Wights.

This is a fun coincidence. Yesterday North Star Military Figures posted this  piece on Facebook. It relates to the forthcoming Perilous Dark Nickstarter and discusses a new undead nasty, the Reaver Wight.

If you read the article it explains all about Reaver Wights and suggests ways of portraying them in  our games of Frostgrave.

Funnily enough, a few weeks ago I put four figures together from the last sprue of Frostgrave plastic cultists I had left over from my Saga: Age of Magic Otherworld project, and here they are;

Now, I reckon that they fit the bill perfectly, being pretty similar to one of the North Star illustrations of how to represent the creatures using existing Frostgrave sets of figures, so it seems that my desire to use up a few odds and ends has chimed perfectly with the next chapter in the development of the Frostgrave universe. This makes me very happy.

Big uglies!

These three Big Ugly Chaps with clubs are 28mm plastic figures by Reaper Bones, from their "Black" range. They are sold as Garghuk, Ogre Chieftain but I see them as a variety of jötnar, the plural of jötunn, the Norse name for a range of creatures that are often just called "giants", although in Norse mythology many jötnar appear to be human-sized, the goddess Skaði is a jötunn for example, as is Gerðr, the wife of the Vanir god, Freyr. Odin, the king of the gods is descended from the jötnar too.

Anyway, as well as jötnar being giants, they might also be what we call trolls or ogres too. These figures are pretty imposing, being around 6cm tall, but not really big enough to be a Behemoth.

I am going to use these three as bipedal Creatures in a Saga: Age of Magic Horde warband based around my Bad Squiddo shieldmaidens.

I want to use some mounted figures for my Horde, so I have bought a number of mounted shieldmaidens who I need to get painted, ideally before the end of the year.

If you want to see my shieldmaidens, they can be found in a series of posts, here.

Of course, these could also come in handy in a Dragon Rampant force, too.

Where The Leaf Falls - A BIG Sharp Practice weekend

Last weekend was the latest instalment of David Hunter's ongoing Saindoux Campaign, set in the British and French colonies in 18th century North America and using the Sharp Practice rules by TooFatLardies. (It is probably worth pointing out here that Saindoux is the French translation of the word Lard.)

Anyway, all the usual suspects gathered once more at BIG in sunny (not so sunny, actually) South Bristol for two days of French and Indian Wars gaming.

I'm not going to say too much here, except that the tables were, once again beautiful to look at and the scenarios gave all of us much thought, and more than a small amount of grief. I took a lot of pictures, but the low light levels meant that the ISO level on my DSLR ( a Pentax K70, in case anyone is interested) was pushed out to 128000 and therefore shooting without flash ended up producing grainy pictures, so apologies for that.

Anyway, the first few pictures are from my first game. My co-player had a force of Huron Indians and their behaviour was decidedly odd. First, they spurned an obvious opportunity to advance on the far bank of the river to outflank the British via a ford, instead deploying close to a pair of deserted Mohawk lodges. Then, after a couple of rounds of musketry, they entered the lodges and looted them. I was somewhat nonplussed, but what could I do? They were immune to reason. Things only got worse when the Huron warriors then set fire to the lodges and proceeded to escape with their loot, leaving my French to face the combined British forces alone. Luckily, I managed to kill an escaping British commander, so the French objective was achieved without actually defeating the British. It was only afterwards that I discovered that plunder and destruction was the Huron objective.

So, after Day 1, the French had a strong advantage, but the British hoped to come back strongly on Sunday.

 

This was another WHAT???? moment. The French had to destroy the fort that they had captured from the British the previous day. After accumulating 50 task points, the fuse would be lit and the fort would explode at the next Chapter end, ideally giving the occupants of the fort time to get away. Unhappily, the Tiffin chip came out too early to see any Command chips emerge from the bag. OK, never mind, we'll have another try in the next phase. Inevitably, the very first chip of the new phase was Tiffin. End of Chapter. Ka-Boom! the fort went up, killing everyone inside the building and causing many casualties and monumental levels of shock on those inside the pallisade. The game limped on for one more phase after that, but having achieved the objective, the French withdrew, somewhat shell-shocked and battered.

 

In gaming terms, my high-spot was the way my fusiliers from the Régiment de Guyenne performed. With the close terrain, getting a formation into action was a slow process, but when they arrived, the dice pixies were generally kind to me, and firing Controlled Volleys paid off handsomely, giving Les Rosbifs a series of bloody noses.

In the end, the two days ended with a French victory,  so Hurrah! Mon Dieu! Vive le Roi! etc.

It was another terrific weekend of gaming and I enjoyed every minute of it. Ultimately, though, it isn't about winning or losing, it is about enjoying some excellent gaming with a bunch of friendly and like-minded gamers.