Quar Reinforcements and Terrain

It's just a few weeks until Trumpeter Salute, so I've been working my butt off to get some Quar ready for the scenario I have planned. I already had a few painted, but I needed more to fill out the forces of both sides.

I still love these little guys... every one has its own personality and they look great when painted up.

For the Partisans, I got the 2nd partisan squad, plus the very-quarrish Partisan Wagon. I was especially excited to have some Quar cavalry added to my forces. I have a full squad of Crusader cavalry as well, but they aren't going to be part of the Salute scenario I have planned, so they haven't been painted yet.

For the Crusaders, I added a few specialist teams: a Heavy Shotgun Team, a Cook, a Sniper, plus the (as yet unpainted) cavalry squad and Squirrel Handler.

Finally, I have been building some Quarrish terrain. The environment I have in mind is a pseudo-old-west, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath sort of area, with desert and rock outcroppings.

Since it's the Quar, I built some large hive-like structures, for a termite farm. These started life as coconut-shaped containers for coconut water drinks:

Also, the only trees and forest templates I have are temperate green, so I made some more Quarrish, desert-like tree clusters. I found some sheets of embossed felt that make for cool forest templates, and I painted up some bare pine armatures to go on them:

I also have a few rocky outcroppings, originally intended for aquariums, plus the latex desert mat I got for my Afghanistan games, and a few more bits to fill out my table. I'll take some more photos of the full table once it's set up!

LAV update: figures

You would think that with all the time I spend painting little figures, and ones much smaller than 1/35, that the soldiers I got to put in my LAV-III diorama would have been the easy part. And they were fairly easy to do, but I'm not all that happy with the result.

I had a lot of trouble with the camo, and even after redoing it several times, I think it looks like crap. Then, when it came to the detailing, I tried to get away without blacklining everything, which is my usual method for wargame miniatures, because while the result is flashy, I don't think it's very realistic. The figures look so drab without any blacklining, though, that I had to add some in, but then I think it looks bad in another way.

All that said, I think they are good enough for me to stop working on them finally. I now have all the parts, I just need to build the diorama base, which is something I'm actually looking forward to!

Fleamobile

I've finally managed to finish the Flea-Mobile I bought along with all the ladies for my Watling Street Benevolent Society. 

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to use this guy in IHMN yet. Do I just count him as having spring-boots, or do I build a whole proper Walker for him? I also don't yet know which of my teams he's going to join. I think he would suit Lord Curr's Company best, but those minis are still sitting on my painting table, wearing primer and nothing else.

The model itself is really nice, as you can see, though it's a bit fragile. The left rear leg and the right antenna/feeler thing both broke off in the course of painting, and now that they are held on only by super glue, they are even more prone to breakage. That aside, how can you help but like a proper gentleman riding around on a giant clockwork flea?

IHMN: The Watling Street Benevolent Society

A while ago I spotted a really cool steampunkish miniature that I wanted to get for In Her Majesty's Name. It was from a studio in Poland called Micro Arts Studios and, since I was ordering a figure from all the way in Poland, I figured I might as well make a proper job of it and get a bunch. Happily, my new minis arrived (just 10 days after ordering them) before Christmas, so I had something to play with while I was away visiting family.

Aside from the miniature that originally interested me in the Micro Arts Studios stuff (which I didn't actually get painted this Christmas...) I ordered essentially all the female figures from their different lines. I wanted to have an all-ladies adventuring team, and the minis from Micro Arts provide a really broad range of different types to work with.

The basic idea behind the team is that they are the wives of influential men who were entirely fed up with the limited options available to women in Victorian society, and so have formed a "Benevolent Society" to hide their real activities: fighting, adventuring, and travelling. I considered painting a zorro-type mask on each lady to help hide her real identity, but I'm pretty happy with how they look now and I'm not sure I want to commit to messing up their faces.

The force roster:

And the individual members:

Mrs. Hautbatten - the Inspirational Leader

Mrs. Maxwell - Inventor and Wielder of the Solar Lance

Mrs. Pang - Hypnatrix and Fan-Fighter

Mrs. Dillinger - Gunfighter

Mrs. Stapleton - Gunfighter

Mrs. Mycroft - Riflewoman

Mrs. Barrymore - Mechanic and Watt's mum

 

Watt - The Unstoppable Mechano-Woman!

IHMN Photo-Log: The Return of Bad Jack

I had my regular opponent Bryan over for a game of In Her Majesty's Name last night. Bryan brought his British, and I wanted to try using my Prussians.

The Prussian list in the rulebooks seems mostly balanced to me - the force has some strong points, but it has some serious soft spots as well. One is Dr. Kobalt, who is essentially useless, but necessary because he carries around an Arc Generator. Also, because of the way the Revivificators work, you have four figures (the zombies) who can only enter the fight after their associated figures (the Jaegers) have been killed. So you're paying for 8 figures, but you only ever get to use 4 of them at any point in time.

A set of errata for the game came out shortly after the rulebook was released which re-costed the Prussians significantly, increasing the points value of the Jaegers. This means that I had the choice of either not using all my figures (super lame) or re-costing the figures so that they were weaker. I went with the latter choice and had a bunch of games where the Prussians felt really useless - it's a small list in figure-count terms already, and reducing the capabilities of those figures even more was pretty much the end of the Prussians as a viable force.

To make a long story short, I decided to play with the Prussians as they are written in the original rulebook to see how I felt about them, balance-wise, compared to the erratacized version. Look below to see the results of our fight!



We rolled for a random scenario and came up with "Bad Jack", so it was a race again to see who could beat up Bad Jack and return his corpse to their base for further study!

The Society of Thule emerges from their corner of the battlefield and begins advancing towards the ruined bridge and Bad Jack.

Across the city, the Brits begin making their way towards the bridge also.

The British captain leads the way. He doubtless feels secure enough, with the company's doctor standing nearby!

Von Stroheim and his silent bodyguard Krieg head up the centre, while two Jaegers and Dr. Kobalt (hidden behind the wall) go right.

The British, with their superior marksmanship, take up firing positions in a ruined building.

The captain places himself in Jack's view, using himself as bait to lure the mutant out for a fight.

Bad Jack emerges from the shadows... is that man-meat he smells?

British riflemen charge down the Brits' right flank to set up a crossfire on Jack and the Prussians.

Dr. Kobalt runs to join the two Jaegers on the Prussian right, but stops, astonished, at the sight of Bad Jack loping out from beneath the tunnel to savage the Prussian scout!

Von Stroheim and Krieg rush to aid the beleaguered Jager.

The British captain's gambit of luring out Bad Jack having failed, the Brits fall back on Plan B: shoot everybody from their elevated positions.

More Brits on the Prussian left manoeuvre into firing positions.

Bad Jack charges up onto a piece of ruins but the Jaeger flees, leaving a clear field of fire for Von Stroheim and Krieg.

The British marksmen continue to rain fire down on Prussian and mutant alike.

One Jaeger falls to British fire, only to rise again as one of the invincible* Tod-Truppen!  *invincibility not guaranteed

Dr. Kobalt, true to form, gets shot in the face early and dies like a sucker. With the Arc Generator he carries no longer mobile, the Prussian right flank has to hunker down somewhat, lest they fall out of range of the generator and render their revivificators useless.

The British Captain, having climbed up onto the bridge, descends on the Prussian right side, only to get swarmed by two Jaegers and a Tod-Trupper.

Bad Jack has now worked his way firmly into the Prussian line, so the Prussians surround him and begin to rain blows down on his iron skull.

The British Sergeant takes up a sniper's position atop the ruined bridge.

Another Brit soldier takes pot-shots from the Prussian left.

The British doctor, having already saved the life of one downed soldier, stays close to the rest.

Bad Jack bursts free of the encircling Prussians and leaps upon one of the Tod-Truppen, but his bestial strength has no effect on that which is already dead!

Fire from one of the Jaegers at last finds its mark and downs a British soldier. "No Move" indeed - a fitting, if somewhat ironic, epitaph.

The British captain succumbs to the attacks of the Jaegers. 

The British marksmen, having seen the effects of Bad Jack's savagery upon the Prussians, opt for a conservative, fire-from-a-safe-distance strategy. 

Von Stroheim recalls all the fighters from their positions to surround and bludgeon Bad Jack, while the Brits continue to fire into the fight from the ruined house, the bridge, and other safe locations.

The Prussians lay into the mutant with saber, bayonet, and club-like fist, but Bad Jack shrugs off every effort.

After several minutes of fruitless stabbing and smashing, the Prussians break off fighting Bad Jack and rush the British line, hoping to bring Jack along with them. Jack obliges and attacks a British soldier, while Von Stroheim fells another.

One Tod-Trupper climbs the bridge to engage the British sergeant, but is swiftly chopped to bits.

A trail of blood and destruction leads from where the Prussians first fought Bad Jack to the final melee at the British line!

Bad Jack breaks off from Von Stroheim and the Tod-Trupper who had attacked him and chases down the British doctor, who flees back towards the British base.

A second Tod-Trupper climbs the bridge and manages to dispatch the British sergeant.

At the end of the day, the Prussians emerge victorious, but at high cost: only Von Stroheim and two Tod-Truppen remain alive (if you can call that alive!). On the British side, only the good doctor and one rifleman emerge from the carnage.

So, the Prussians handled themselves very well I think. Bryan thinks (and I agree) that they may still be a little too tough, since they were able to withstand Bad Jack's attacks, as well as British shooting, for the whole game, and come out of it with enough troops alive to win on victory points. It's hard to make a clear distinction in a scenario game like this, though, when there are so many factors besides troop stats that go into deciding a winner.