'Rodentovsky's Mischief' - A Warband for 'Burrows & Badgers'

Hey There!

Last spring my good friend Byron introduced me to 'Burrows & Badgers'. To be honest, I wasn't expecting too much, thinking it would be a cute game, but nothing to take too seriously. A skirmish game in a world of cute anthropomorphic animals? Maybe fun for one-off games, but no real legs to it, right? Well, I was proven wrong. 

The core game elements are simple and straightforward, but the system as a whole is quite nuanced, having a few key mechanics that really make it sing. The other thing that makes it a winner is the depth to how you can build and develop your warbands, making them unique and building a narrative. It has a bewildering number of creatures to choose from for your warbands, an astonishing depth to its magic system, a wide variety of weapon's and armour, powerful skills, and even rules for building your warband's den (think of the charm of Bilbo's hobbit hole, but with an armoury, apothecary and archery range thrown in and you get the idea). It's pretty amazing, and I recommend it not only as a great game to play, but also as a terrific example of quality publishing. The 272 page hardcover rulebook is both beautifully designed and wonderfully illustrated, making it a pleasure just to flip through and enjoy.

Our group recently started a B&B campaign which is proving to be a lot of fun. We have six warbands battling it out, three Royalist troupes and three fighting for the Freebeast Union.

So, for my second entry this season, I have a warband for the Freebeasts. This is 'Ratatevsky's Mischief'. 

Warbands in B&B can be as small as three creatures, or as many as ten. Players have 350 Pennies to build their beginning warband. The bigger/more powerful the creature, the more they cost in Pennies. As I knew several of the guys would create some low model-count, heavy-hitting troupes, I decided to take a different path and maximize numbers. Mice are the least expensive creatures to recruit, so I thought I'd try to 'flood the zone' with these little fellas in the hope that their increased numbers would allow me to take objectives, soak up casualties, while still being able to swarm for attacks. (By the way, a group of mice is called a 'mischief', which I thought was too charming to pass up so I worked it into the troupe's name.) All of these figures are 3d prints from 'Dragon Trappers Lodge' on MyMiniFactory.

This 'Mischief' of mice is led by a Great Grey Rat, Anna Rodentovsky. I really like her rakish, rapscallion appearance.  Anna sports a fencing blade and has a lot of sass.

Anna's second-in-command is Maizy the Mage. Like magic users everywhere, she's a bit of a glass cannon with a few powerful spells, but is otherwise quite fragile. 

The rest of the warband is split evenly between four close combat mice and four with ranged weapons. The models here have crossbows, but they are serving as proxies for calivers in the game. (Calivers are ferociously powerful in B&B, and having four of them will give a bit of pause to opponents who wish to move carelessly in the open.)

This is a warband that requires a good amount of luck and timing to work, but nonetheless can take a bit of punishment. Time will tell if they prove themselves worthy on the tabletop. 

For those who have read through this whole thing, I thank and applaud you! I hope to have a few more creatures for Burrows & Badgers over the coming months, but we'll see where the brushes take me. 

Again, thanks for stopping in and have a good one!

- Curt

'Simon', 'Sophie' and 'Anonymous' - Three Hapless Trolls Turned to Stone

Hello everyone! 

The Painting Challenge has started and so I present to you my first entry: Simon, Sophie and Anonymous, three hapless, grumpy and now calcified trolls who now provide shade for travellers, corners and crevasses for moss, and a nice place for the birds to nest and tend to their ablutions. 

These models are 3d prints from MyMiniFactory. They turned out a little ropey here and there, but being trolls-turned-to-stone I figure they can be a little rough around the edges. 

As their current state is, um, well, stone they were a fairly straightforward paintjob. A few passes with the airbrush, some drybrushing, washes, LOTS of tufts and BOOM, done.

For a bit of fun I put on a couple birds' nests on their shoulders. 

These three will provide a bit of additional character to the tabletop when we play our fantasy games.

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

The Alcanti Fellowship and The Birdmen of Catrazza - 10mm Dogs of War

Today I undertake a short return visit to my 10mm Warhammer Fantasy project. Over the past few years I've had a lot of fun creating massed bases of 10mm fantasy units for the Empire, Tomb Kings, Beastmen and Orc & Goblins. 

Nonetheless, my favourite force has to be 'The Dogs of War'. 

First up are 'The Alcatani Fellowship'. Pikemen in Warhammer Fantasy (well, the old version anyway) were very rare, in fact they could only be found as mercenary troops hailing from the city states of Tilea. 

Though vulnerable on their flanks, pike formations can be rather nasty when faced frontally, with many a cavalry commander ruing the day they charged a well prepared pike phalanx. The Alcatani Fellowship are unique in that they don't always fight for money, but often offer their services to fight injustice and tyranny. GW's version of social justice warriors. 

These 10mm fellas are 3d prints from MiniRat Studios. Great little models and they printed-up a treat. They have quite a bit going on with them so not a quick paint, but they look good all ranked up (there are about 85 figures in this unit).

Next are the Birdmen of Catrazza. One thing I really enjoyed about the 'Dogs of War' list was its sly nod to all sorts of Renaissance Italy ephemera such as Lucrezia Borgia's poisons, mercenary pikemen and Leonardo Da Vinci's whacky inventions. The Birdmen of Catrazza are very much along this vein and remain as much-loved models from the original range. 

These are 10mm renditions of the Birdmen from Varus Miniatures. Beautiful models and a real joy to paint. 

For their basing I decided to try a forced perspective with a tiny windmill on a range of treed hills. It was fun to do.

And for a final shot, here is my Dogs of War force to-date, with the Alcanti Fellowship and the Birdmen joining Bronzino's Galloper Guns and Braganza's Besiegers. Getting close to a real force. I just need more pikemen, always more pikemen...

Thanks for popping by for a visit. I hope you have a terrific day!

- Curt

'Thalassa': 6mm Ancient Naval Warfare

Last spring I came across 'Thalassa' while spelunking through 'Wargames Illustrated Online' and MyMiniFactory looking for, you know, cool stuff which demands storage-to-keep and brain-cells-to-learn. 

'Thalassa' is 1:1 game set in the Hellenistic age of Greek naval warfare. It's historical(ish), but does make some allowances for more 'heroic' combat and leans heavily to a 'Sword & Sandals' type of cinematic game. One unique aspect of 'Thalassa' is that all of the models, dice, tokens etc. are available as 3d prints. They are all beautifully done (1:300 scale), very robust. and quite easy to paint (though admittedly one can get a bit lost in the detail). Last spring I printed off a handful of ships, painted them up and put together two small forces for a rousing game with the boys. I then packed them up and moved on to, you know, the Next Big Thing. 

Fast forward several months, and just before the beginning of the Challenge I noticed that there were a few new ship designs put on offer and thought I'd use it as an excuse to platform the game and add a few more hulls to my collection.

So first up are two triremes with thei very recognizable silhouettes. One is a 'Protos' design and the other a 'Ischyros'. Yeah, I dunno, it's all Middle Sea lingo to me. 

These are the classic Mediterranean 'battleships' of the 4 and 5th centuries CE. The level of crafting and technology packed into these vessels would have likened them to a spacecraft to a lay person of that time. Very impressive.

'Thallasa' allows players to customize the type and specializations of the ship's crew. Archers, hoplites, marines, various types of engines of war are all on offer. You just make your selection, pay your points and then 'slot' them into place on the hull. Fun!

You can also modify the hull with various figureheads, upper command decks, shrines, armoured skirting, etc. It's all pretty neat. 

Next up are the smaller-class ships, the Penteconters. One is a 'Tolmiros' design while the other is a 'Grigora'. 

These are the workhorses of the fleets. The vessels which carried the Greeks to Troy and which were crewed by Odysseus and the Argonauts during their Odyssey.  Nimble and quick, they are quite fun on the tabletop, though they can't take too much abuse when compared to their much larger tri-decked cousins. 

I magnetized the sails and masts so they are easy to store and are not so prone to break during play.

Finally we have a siege barge with a huge stone-throwing ballista on its center deck. It's very much a specialist vessel - a glass cannon with one purpose in-mind. 

Still, a very cool model with its top-heavy armament and supporting crane. Fun!

Finally, and not for points, here are two sets of wreckage markers I did up for the game.

One set is meant to depict when the enemy hull as just been split, with significant debris in the water, while the other is to show when some time has passed and most of the wreckage has sank into the deep.

Thanks for dropping by and have a great day!

- Curt

Champion of Khorne for Nick

Hey There!

Nick and I have been doing an annual figure exchange for quite a while now and for this year I promised him something 'Old World' themed. 

So here we have a Champion of Khorne, a model that was released way back in 2004. 

I think I got this guy from a Games Day in Toronto (I went to a few when we were out East), but I can't be sure of that. He has been lurking on my paint desk for two decades now, so I thought it high time for him to get painted, and what better reason than as a gift for a good friend.

You usually see these guys in classic red Khornate armour, but I thought I'd keep him a little more subdued and down-to-earth in brass, bronze and steel. 

I hope you like him Nick (if not he'll happily take your skull).

Thanks!

- Curt