Monday, 30 November 2020

A Tale of Many Things...

...Mostly lame excuses. 

Not a lot going on this week. Real life has kicked tings into high gear in work so that's been eating a lot of my free time, but I have tried to remain a little productive. Mainly through painting a big ol' bunch of Stormcast for a friend. I'm not the biggest fan of shiny, uniformed armies, but thankfully he asked for a dark colour scheme so I had some relief in that department. Here's what I have so far...


...and here's what I have left to do.

I'm hoping to get everything back to him after Xmas if I can.


I also found time to play around with some of Wargames Atlantic's giant spider kits. A bit fiddly, but they look great. I can't wait to get these on the table for a few games of Frostgrave or Rangers.




Monday, 16 November 2020

Roots Muddy Roots

 Well I made it this far without making that pun, but it seems I finally ran out of title ideas. Onto the content!


With the Lockdown in Wales coming to an end and the Xmas chaos of work looming (In some fashion) on the horizon, My house mate and I decided to give the Turnip28 Beta rules a go. We set up some objectives, had a quick discussion over any obvious ambiguities and grabbed some dice.

I took command of the Reekfield Free Company. Deploying the brute sections and the Toff behind the covering walls and hill.


The fodder hid amongst the ruins.


Abe commanded the Gleebland Wanderers. Setting bother regiments of Fodder around the center and then using the Chapel to hold the flank. (The Chapel doesn't have any rules that fit at this stage of development so we treated it as a unit of Fodder with close combat weapons.) 


The Reekfielders advanced in the shelter of the hill. grabbing the first objective and awaited a sign of their foes.


The looming presence of The Chapel is dragged into view of the Reekfielder's rifles.


Through the exchanges of gunfire and harsh words, The Reekfield Brutes take exception to the Wanderer's presence on the field and charge against the mob. Their better skills and fuller bellies winning out against the Geeblander numbers.



The Chapel is also charged by the Reekfielders. The mighty structure is forced back before being shredded by gunfire.#


The Brutes find their celebrations cut short as the rest of the Gleebland rifles come to bare, hidden in the ruins and protecting an objective of their own. 

The Toady Priest tries to defend The Chapel, but only ends up getting trampled by the draft animals as it flees. The central objective is claimed by the Reekfield infantry.


Enraged by the loss of The Chapel, the Gleebland Wanderers open fire on the Reekfield Fodder and obliterate them. A lone Reekfielder is spotted through the smoke fleeing the battle, leaving the objective open in the final stages.


A final desperate brawl breaks out over the last objectives. The battered Gleebland Fodder return to try and regain some dignity only to once more face the vicious Brutes of Reekfield in combat.


The smoke clears and the Reekfield Free Company hold two objectives to one. Though both Abe and I agreed that a further turn would change the out come of the game drastically. I only had a single unit left and my officers were left dangerously exposed. Meanwhile, Abe had an unmolested unit of rifles primed and ready that could easily remove my meagre claims to the central objective. 



In the end, I took the victory, but mostly I really wanted to see how the game played. (Especially as it is very WIP) It is a lot of fun and having been hooked on the themes and modeling aspects since April I was glad to have a set of rules working with them. It is still early days for the development and I know Max is working hard to get stuff finalized, but when it's done I will probably be adding so much more to these armies. 

A final note, during this game, Abe and I misinterpreted the rule regarding orders. We ended up giving the same unit multiple commands from different officers to effectively alpha strike in certain turns. Though we don't think this broke the game in anyway, we are hoping to get a chance to try out the game again correctly. It was an interesting take though.

Tuesday, 3 November 2020

The Garden Show

 So for Lockdown part1 this year I spent a lot of my time messing around with the growing Turnip28 movement that sprang up on my twitter feed. I've been hooked on it since then and have even had the good fortune to talk to Max Fitzgerald via email about getting involved. Since then community has gathered some real momentum and even has rules now (Watch for future posts)

With all that said, it is high time I put up a complete show of everything I've done for the project up to now. Especially as Lockdown II Electric Boogaloo has given me a chance to try out the rules with two fully painted armies. And here they are...

The Gleebland Wandering Garrison

Tasked with the difficult task of protecting a holy shrine, but forced to witness the chapels slow decent into the murky swamps around it, The Garrison took it upon themselves to seek out better foundations for their hallowed charge.... taking what they could salvage of the chapel and it's occupant with them.







These lads ended up as a bit of light infantry brigade, low on baggage and plenty of bodies to dig the Chapel out of the mud. I've plans to add a few light cavalry and some scouting Chaff in the near future.

Reekfield Free Company

A bunch of mutants and thugs with delusions of military heritage. The Company sells it services as defenders of the people to villages and townships for the promise of a  good meal, a warm fire and nothing more. The reality of the situation see's The Company bleed there employers dry of food, beer and patience before being run out of town or (more likely) leaving to richer pickings, leaving the townsfolk to starve in their wake.







Despite their lack of morals, The Free Company are still capable fighters. After all, if some other band of rogues shows up and tries to take what the Reekfielders have already laid claim to, they're willing to get their hands dirty. This lent them nicely to being a more elite force than the Wandering Garrison, boasting larger numbers of well fed brutes.

Next post, an actual game with my 2 finished armies!