Snobs for Turnip28

I'm thought I'd officially kick-off my Turnip28 project with this post. I imagine this flight of fancy will consume a good portion of my time this season as I wish to get two playable forces completed by spring, if possible.

Turnip28 is a very, very odd dystopian setting; a war-torn world gone mad through the infestation of symbiotic, sentient root vegetables. It's all about turnips, really. Aesthetically, it's a mashup of several historical periods; medieval, Renaissance, Napoleonic, and just a smattering of the Great War to keep it grim and dirty. In Turnip28, opposing forces battle each other over long forgotten grievances, contesting useless objectives, and simply knocking the stuffing out of each other. It's a new player in the GrimDark oeuvre of games.

The rules are pretty hilarious, filled with loads of character, horror and humour.  In terms of figure-overhead, it can be defined as a large skirmish game, probably similar to 'Pikeman's Lament' in scale. In its base form its figure count runs around 30+ models per side. Written by the folks behind 'One Page Rules', Turnip28 is easy to understand, simple to play, while still having enough nuance to keep things interesting..

Over the next few months I'm going to try to complete as many of the game's troop types as I can manage. 

Okay, first up: the commanders! In Turnip28, forces are led by 'Snobs', an overarching term for the game's officer class. Think of the many vacuous, dim-witted, upper-echelon idiots that have controlled European armies over the past millennia and you have a good idea of what we're looking at here.

In the game, 'Snobs' are of two types. First, there are the 'Toffs', the upper-crust half-wits who run the whole show. Players will typically have one Toff as the overall commander of their force. 

I've based my Toffs on hexagonal bases and their Toadies are on square ones for easy identification on the tabletop. I'm thinking I will have one side with red facings (The Rutabaga Brigade), while the other will be yellow (The Fighting Fennel Fusiliers). 

Secondly, we have the 'Toadies', the Toffs' boot-licking underlings, who obsequiously do their better's bidding. The Toadies are the game's subcommanders, tasked with chivying along their reluctant, nervous troops, trying to ensure that they follow the orders given to them and trying to mitigate the disasters that will inevitably come. 

For these Snobs I've relied heavily on 3d models from Knucklebones Miniatures. Such characterful figures and brilliant digital design. I've  embellished them a bit, mostly with head swaps, along with adding some of the ubiquitous flora that infests the world of Turnip28.

Though I really like how other hobbyists have used a desaturated palette and a heavy use of weathering of their Turnip troops, I've decided to keep my figures 'merely' dirty, with a punchy colour palette. Heretical I know, but we'll see how it goes as the project clips along.

Finally, for a cavalry officer, I found a wonderful digital sculpt by 'Romychbrush' in Cults of a Snob on a run-down, wheeled hobby horse. 

I decided it would be fun to have the officer and his brave steed being pulled along by his long-suffering batman. Really, this is the stuff that glory is made of.

A final group shot of the Snobs.

Next up for this project will be the rank and file, but right now I have a hankering to do something for my Great Siege of Malta collection. More on that soon, I hope. 

Thanks for popping in for a look, folks!

- Curt

A Tribekka for 'Maximillian 1934'

 

Vrooom! Vroom! Dakka... Dakka... Dakka.... 

Happy Holidays everyone! 

It's another Painting Challenge, so in Curt's world that means that another new project (or two) has to be undertaken. 

This time, it's 'Maximillian 1934', a car racing game set in a post apocalyptic 1930s, and I thought a perfect candidate for the 'High Adventure Studio' location. 

I have to admit that 'Car Wars' and 'Gaslands' have not always scratched that itch, but I do love the vehicle designs of 1930s period, with their swooping, long-nosed cowlings, narrow spoked wheels and the whacky bauhaus aesthetic, so Maximillian 1934 really appealed to my lizard brain.

I have four cars and a few motorcycles from the range that I'm wanting to get done the Challenge. I figure they should be enough for a spirited race, with several varied vehicle designs for players to choose from. 

So, for my first effort, I present to you this sporty three-wheeled Tribekka. 

I gave it a forward facing water-cooled machine gun and a brace of linked Lewis guns on a rear-facing pintle mount. You know, 'cause these are obviously things you need on a vehicle. 

I built out a mahoosive engine for it and gave it big single, side-mounted exhaust pipe. As the game uses a template to move, and is a bit fiddly with arcs, I decided to base-up this guy and the others that will follow.

As I want the cars to be quite visible on the track, I sprayed it a bright yellow, reminding me of the 'Fun in the Sun' yellow we had on our sporty Ford Focus in our salad years.  

I hope to have a roadster up in a week or two. Wish me luck and thanks for dropping in for a look!

- Curt

Film Crew from the Golden Age of Cinema

Years ago I came up with a simple set of rules to (ahem) set the stage for madcap stunts and the off-the-cuff storytelling found behind the scenes of a movie set during the Golden Age of Cinema.

The rules challenge players to attain ‘Top Billing’ status by either having the most Fame Points by the end of shooting, or by simply being the last character to still be left standing on the movie set. The actors with the top Fame scores at the end of the shoot will have Top Billing on the movie playbill, and be able to bask in cinematic glory - perhaps having a shot at an Academy Award for their unscrupulous efforts.

A 'scene' from our Sword & Sandals game (note the 1.0 version of the film crew)

Previous victims, er, players of a 'Top Billing' game

...and their hard-earned Academy Awards!

The rub is that the actors are often forced to spend their Fame to gain the Director's attention, and so foil the plans of competing actors. With this, the actors have to strike a balance between protecting their accrued Fame while also spending it wisely it to seize the moment in order to burnish their reputations. 

For example, any player/actor can interrupt the action of another by demanding a 'screen re-write'. These re-writes can range from (but are not limited to) choreographing a complex stunt, constructing a scene where another actor looks the fool, or perhaps seizing the camera crew to get a closeup as they give a pithy line of dialogue. 

These 're-writes' are entirely up to the imaginations of the players and always create a huge amount of good-natured fun. In addition each screen re-write can be challenged by another star sparking 'Ego Trips' where the contesting stars bid-up their Fame points to try to convince the Director (GM) why their approach to the scene should be favoured. It's all good, silly fun.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. This film crew is offered by the talented folks over at Eureka Miniatures.  They are a wonderful set of minis, and a real joy to work with. Now I just need to get Byron to make me an acrylic 'field of view' template to fit the round base and I'll be set... 

Happy holidays everybody and thanks for dropping in for a peek!

- Curt