revising my Eastern Europe supplement?

Well, it's been about three and a half years since I put together my Eastern Europe P&S supplement, and it's probably about time to start thinking about a second edition. So far, I've just been brainstorming possible new content. Here's some stuff I'm expecting to include:

• References to the Devil's Playground terrain/siege rules. (I'm not going to plagiarize anything, but I will direct readers to appropriate pages of that supplement, as some sections are very relevant e.g. Gulay Gorod, Abatis)
• Rules for Cossack wagons.
• New and variant unit stats for the main book's Polish and Ottoman armies (e.g. Guard Haiduks, earlier Hussars, Voyniks).
• Expanded Dramatis Personae listing (e.g. Ivan IV, Maksim Kryvonis, Devlet I Giray, some Radziwill or other...)
• Historical scenarios
• At least one battle report
• And of course, updated illustrations and typo fixes.

Other stuff, possible but not as certain, might include:

• Fictional Dramatis Personae (e.g. Taras Bulba, Onufry Zagloba, Red Sonya, Baba Yaga, Dracula).
• Additional army lists (e.g. Late Teutonic Order, 16th-c Hungary, 16th-c Astrakhan, late 16th-c Habsburgs, 17th-c Transylvania)
• Overall reorganization, i.e. alternating between the potted history and rule/list segments.
• Modeling/conversion resources.

This new phase of the project is in its infancy right now, but any thoughts or comments would be appreciated nonetheless. Thanks!

Peasant Battalia

God willing, it's going to be years before I paint another Eastern-European peasant.

To recap, they are a mix of Assault Group metals, converted Wagames Factory Persians (so cheap!), and lightly converted Gripping Beast dark age warriors. The GB kit is what I'd recommend to anyone looking to make some peasants of their own. Warlord Games' peasant weapons packs were used throughout, and greenstuff for the hats. The standards are Napoleonic Opolchenie banners found via google search.

HOPE YOU LIKE PEASANTS!!!

BECAUSE HERE'S THIRTY OF THEM! Ack, excuse me, I usually batchpaint in smaller batches, so I'm a little loopy right now. Anyway, except for static grass and torch highlights, this rabble is done as they need to be.

And here's a rabble-rouser to lead them into battle. He's inspired by the historical figure Kuzma Minin, a Moscow butcher who rallied the people of Russia against foreign (mostly but not exclusively Polish) interlopers during the Time of Troubles in the early 1600s. 

Tomorrow I'll finish the peasant standard bearers I'm working on, and then I'll post a battalia shot of all 80 of them.

Lochaber axes

My Mordheim Scots needed some reinforcements too, so I made some warriors with Lochaber axes, which just count as halberds in-game.

"Mordheim" Reinforcements

An order arrived from The Assault Group that I've been quite looking forward too! They may eventually be used to form full units in Pike & Shotte, but for now I'll just be fielding them individually in my historical Mordheim games. I had another smaller one with my brother last weekend, it was pretty fun and we actually got through the whole thing. His Ottomans were able to slay the powerful monsters and drive offer the lesser ones. I didn't have time to take pictures, but there were plenty of dramatic moments, especially when his halberd-wielding champion slew a heavily armored vampire in a single strike! There was also much stumbling and slipping about in the steaming offal which had spilled from the belly of a vile, corrupted monstrosity.

But nevermind that, here's the new minis:

Ottoman Janissaries - Swordsmen with bucklers

Ottoman Janissaries - Swordsmen with Muskets

Russian Sloboda - Warriors with Muskets

Russian Rindi Guard - Swordsmen with Two-handed Weapons

Polish Haiduks - Marksmen with Muskets and Swords

Polish Haiduks - Marksmen with Muskets and Two-handed Weapons

Szlachcic - Polish Nobleman

a new monster

Inspired by this page, I have tried to work out some frustration by converting a topical addition to my 17th-century horror collection. Behold the fleshly manifestation of evil known only as Baron von Trimpf! Hear his ululating battlecry as he leads his horde of writhing monstrosities into battle!

"Machen wieder machen wwieder maccchn wiieederrrrr mmmaaaaaaaaaacccn wwwwwwwww..."

Halloweekend 2016 pics

The weekend before Halloween I had some friends over for a bit of historical/horror Mordheim. Warbands from all over Europe had been pursuing witches and vampires, and all the monsters had converged on a remote Carpathian town for unknown, but presumably dire, purpose. The hunters formed a makeshift alliance, and assaulted the village from all directions to cleanse the evil gathered within.

Sorry, no hobby content in this one

The most powerful military in the world, not to mention any number of intelligence agencies and other federal resources, will soon be under the command of a gibbering fascist. Perhaps I will cease to post here, as I divert my time and money to activism and protest. Perhaps my posting rate will increase markedly, as I delve into escapism to insulate myself from the suffering and misery of my fellow Americans (and, frankly, the rest of humanity). I don't know.

But just in case: been nice knowing you! Thanks for all the views and comments!

Painted peasants

Two more units to go...

easing back into historicals...

You can never have too many peasants! At least, not if you're look to recreate the Khmelnitsky rebellion. Here's a quick shot of some peasants prior to painting. These minis are all Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors, with only a few Gripping Beast Arab bits mixed in. And also some greenstuff obviously. Note the agricultural flails made of spear hafts and jewelry chain.

Mystery Project: demystified!

It's a new Guildball team!

Sorry to disappoint anyone hoping for more historicals, I'm working on some stuff, but it's all pretty much stalled until I can get ahold of some proper spraypaint.This is harder than sounds, because it's illegal to sell spraypaint in the City of Chicago, and the game store I sometimes go to outside the city doesn't stock it, and the art supply store they directed me to only had spraypaint in some weird expensive formulation that smells a little better then normal spraypaint but also clogs faster than any other brand I've ever seen. Soon, though, hopefully!

So, here they are, the Candlestick Makers Guild.

Some backstory: The team is inspired by a dumb joke I couldn't get out of my head. When I started working on the Butchers team, I mentioned that I was looking forward to the release of the Bakers and Candlestick Makers, a reference to the nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub. In addition to creating this team, I also have plans to convert a Brewers Guild team into a Bakers Guild Team, mostly just by adding chef's hats and converting weapons.

Now, Guildball is a very carefully balanced game, with lots of synergies and trade-offs built into each team's options. It would take a huge amount of work to actually design a new guild team that would integrate into the existing game without being over- or under-powered. So, both of my "new" teams are just going to use existing rules. The Bakers are just going to use the Brewers rules along with their models.

But I had to get more creative with the Candlestick Makers. The existing team that has the most to do with smoke and fire and metal is the Alchemists, but their miniatures didn't look at all what I had in mind, way too steampunk. So I'm using Alchemist rules, but converting Reaper Fantasy minis to represent the players. I tried to make each Candlestick Maker at least a little bit reminiscent of the Alchemist whose rules they use, both in appearance and name (though the naming is still a work in progress for some of them).

Here is the "starter set" of fire guy, season one captain, and other lady. Their alchemist counterparts are Mercury, Midas and Calculus, so I want to call them Menorah, Tarnish and Candelabra, but the way the conversions and rules worked out don't really support those names. In practice, I'm probably going to call that middle dude Jean Valjean because it totally looks like he's just stealing that candlestick...

These are Vigil (based off Venin, a skinny spooky guy), Draco (Naja, a mascot cobra), and Girandole (Vitriol, a lady with a big thwacking stick). I may remove Draco's wings, since Naja can't fly, but overall I am quite pleased with how these three turned out. I suppose this is a good time to point out that a bunch of these conversions use pieces from the "Treasure and Candleabra" Reaper mini pack.

Here is Kirion (Katalyst, big muscular guy), Snuff (Smoke, same model), and Alloy (Compound, big fat guy). Snuff is the only actual Guildball model on the whole team. She's a great one-piece mini, only converted by adding a snuffer to her left hand. The original mini is releasing smoke from an alchemical flask, I wanted to suggest that this one is generating smoke from a snuffed candle. Even her cowl/hood thing matches the aesthetic that the rest of this team seems to have.

I haven't decided on a color scheme for sure, but I think white and yellow would look neat. No one else in my group has a team colored like that, and yellow is an obvious color for a team associated with candles, and when researching different styles and traditions of candle-holding devices, a lot of pictures also had religious vestments in those colors. So actually, I guess I pretty much have decided on a color scheme...

Last of the Butchers

(at least until Vet Brisket is released)

Sorry about the terrible picture quality. My phone is on its last legs...

Mini Mystery Project

I have successfully moved, and am making good progress on unpacking. I need a few more furniture items before I can properly get my hobby affairs sorted, but that didn't stop me from picking up some figures for a new mystery project...

More Guildball Butchers

Here are a bunch more guildball players, the entire rest of the Butchers roster except for chain-wielding badass Shank (who needs some repainting) and pig mascot Truffles (who needs assembly and painting). Also the dude in the top hat is not a butcher, despite it obviously being his profession, but is rather a mercenary-type character available to several different teams. Except for the big blond guy's hair, there are no conversions here.

Having played this game a few times now, I think I'm getting the hang of it. If you're looking for a medieval fantasy skirmish game with a fun twist, you could do worse than this.

PS I move to my own place in a week, and I'll unpack shortly after that and resume my hobby activities for real. Can't wait to dig out my Historicals and Warhammer (FB and 40k) armies and Warmachine and...

Army Man

Hi again. Sorry things have been so eclectic lately... I've started working on some WWII figures for a Golden Age Superheroes game I'm planning. So far I've just painted a test figure, but I've got a whole box of Wargames Factory US Infantry and a handful of Warlord Games Metal, as well as a bunch of Bob Murch's pulp figures for civilians, cops and gangsters.

Proof of life

So my friend got me this Guildball team, and I'm painting it, and it's not done yet but it's real close. So since I haven't posted anything in a while, take a look at this shaggy barbarian and his two apprentice butchers.

The default color scheme is a little stark, but I suppose it makes sense that the butchers aren't the flashiest dressers around...

Greetings from Trandosha!

Well, technically, Chicago. I moved back a couple months ago, and it'll be another couple months until I can get a place of my own, so all my armies are still packed for the time being. However, my tabletop rp gaming group will be starting a Star Wars campaign soon. I've already made my character, a Trandoshan Diplomat/Agitator, and I'm pretty excited to play, so I converted up a miniature to represent him on the tabletop, even though the system doesn't really need miniatures.

Anyway, here's En-Johlrass, aka Joe Durasteel, anti-Imperial rabblerouser and all-around cool guy.

His base miniature was a Reaper Bones fantasy rogue character named Dub Bullock, and I just greenstuffed him into a lizard person, and repurposed his knife into a truncheon with a scrap of toothpick. I am, apparently, a wee bit out of practice both with sculpting and painting, but I think this worked out well enough. Although the blue coat might be a bit too much color....

Mortar

Here's the Warlord mortar, with partial crew. I bought the kit primarily for ladle crewman, that I was going to use for the diorama contest. I also previously posted the head gunner as a spyglass-using pirate. Here is the mortar itself, with the remaining crew. I especially like the mop guy, I expect he'll see plenty of use as a civilian bystander in skirmish games. Someone has to clean up the blood after all the swashes have been buckled...