[RRtK] Teeny, Tiny Toy Soldiers Arrive

Yesterday, my first order of 6mm figures for my Rally Round the King project arrived  from Nic at Eureka Miniatures. I had ordered a selection from the Irregular Miniatures Men of the West range as the basis of the Valgasmaan army, and then spent a couple of hours working out how I was going to base them.

I have decided to use 40mm x 20mm plasticard bases as the frontages match other basing systems, and the plasticard is both thinner, and not likely to curl like card. At the moment, I'm intending to base the heavy infantry four strips to the base, while the pikemen will be six strips to a base (five strips of pike and a command strip). Light Horse are one strip (six figures) while the Knights will probably be two strips to a base.

So, once I had the basing worked out, I had to snip some of the strips to fit everything on the way I wanted them, and then tack-glued the figures to some painting trays. Today, I undercoated everything - I'm pretty impressed with the amount of detail that a wash of watery black undercoat brought out. 

The command strips, top right, has a pair of nicely moulded flags though, at this scale, they're probably about six inches thick. 

The Knights have Maximilian-style metal barding. The lances, apparently, are a point of weakness so I have been very careful when straightening them.

I'm looking forward to putting some colour on these guys.

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While I haven't done any more work on my campaign map, I have had some further thoughts.

The white area in the northern, snow-capped  mountains is a glacier, which is also the source of the Great River. The glacier is called the Rimebeard and is rumoured to be the hold of the Mountain Giants. The province of Jaebelitz, north of Mt Gorfang, has been over run by an army of Beastmen, who are determined to establish their own state. Foranimenagii explorers are attempting to establish a colony on new-found lands to the south of the sea. They will soon discover that these lands are not empty.

[RRtK] Small Beginnings

Arkansan, on The Miniatures Page, asked whether gamers developed their own worlds for wargaming. This was a rather synchronistic question as he is planning to run a solo Rally Round the King campaign, as I am, and I am in the process of developing the initial maps for my campaign world.

The consensus amongst the respondents on the TMP thread was to start out small. The danger of trying to map everything before play begins is that you just keep mapping and never get to play. Having done this sort of thing in the past, I concur.

This time, I started doodling around with an abstract "province", or area, map first.The idea was to establish the relationship between various locations before I actually began the more pictorial style map.

Now, I could have just used the map of Talomir from the Rally Round the King book, but where's the fun in that? As I had Men of the West from Irregular Miniatures, Goblins from Baccus, and Beastmen from Microworld all on their way to me, as well as being rather taken with the City States Country type from the rules, that sort of indicated what areas I needed to develop.

The four lower boxes in the map, above, are the four provinces of the Foranimenagii City States (each province contains a city) which stretch along the northern coast of the sea. In 15mm, I have an Italian Condotta Army and have always been interested in Italian History from the Medieval period through to the Renaissance. I therefore decided that the Foranimenagii States are Italian-ish in culture, are trading ports, and have a reasonable technology level.

Inland from the Foranimen Coast lies Valgasmaa (the four red provinces). Valgasmaa - home of the Men of the West - is a unified, late Medieval-type Kingdom. Three of the Valgasmaan provinces lie along a major river that continues south through a Foranimenagii province, before falling into the sea. The eastern province of Valgasmaa is a rolling plain, bounded along its eastern march by another river. A chain of mountains (the green provinces) forms Valgasmaa's northern border. A pass, to the north-east, leads to a transmountain province, but this province is now independent.

The transmountain province became cut off from the southern provinces of Valgasmaa when a tribe of Goblins moved into the mountains. From Mt Gorfang, the Goblins were able to close the pass and this left the transmountain province to fend for itself.

At this point, I have two potential conflicts - Valgasmaa vs the Goblins, to drive them out of the mountains and reopen the pass to the north; and Valgasmaa's march to the sea, a campaign to secure the mouth of the Great River and give Valgasmaa access to the lucrative sea trade.

Now to fill in the details.

Stage one of the actual map, made in Hexographer

Edit: And here's the map with some work done on it:

Now it looks more like the sketch map

In Which The Blogger Ponders the Future of the Blog

It has been nearly two months since I last posted an update here.

We haven't actually played a game of In Her Majesty's Name since I completed my Selenites. Instead, we've played several games of Ronin, a new Skirmish game from Osprey set in Feudal Japan, and I've started painting up a Buntai (Ronin-speak for a company).

Also, I've discovered a set of Fantasy battle rules from Two Hour Wargames called Rally Round the King, which I really like. As I really can't see myself doing Fantasy gaming in either 25mm or 15mm, I've decided to branch out into 6mm. This is likely to be a solo project as I can't really see my group wanting to get into another period. Fortunately, Rally Round the King has solo play rules.

So, what is to become of this blog? I'm thinking of expanding my gaming coverage to cover all three systems as starting up extra blogs seems like a dispersion of resources. The Endoscope will continue, but there will be other elements in it.

In Which the Blogger Shows Off Some More Figures

I had better luck with lighting and focus when I took some pictures tonight.

Ephraim is a member of the Rotten Row Drainers - a street gang who often provide muscle for Doctor Cornelius' Most Excellent Company. He's from the Irish Brawlers set from Brigade Games.

This is the Invisible Man, being invisible, from the Parroom Victorian Science Fiction range, also available from Brigade Games. The Invisible Man is part of the Extraordinary Personages 3 set. I have shown Doctor Griffith Hugh previously, which is the Invisible Man with his clothes on.

Obidiah is another member of the Rotten Row Drainers, and another member of the Irish Brawlers set from Brigade Games. He is armed with an old hanger or falchion he seems to have picked up in his travels.

From Eureka Miniatures Pirate Range, this chap is the Turkish Pirate Captain. Originally, he was going to be the Turkish Ambassador - one of a number of international figures drawn into the orbit of Doctor Cornelius. After watching a documentary about late Victorian Stage Magicians, I have decided this character is now Swami Yami - Master of the Mystical Mind Arts of the Mysterious East. I have since found that Swami Yami actually exists - on the Internet, anyway.

I follow Scott Pyle's Four Color Figures Blog and recently he announced that he was releasing some Bug Warriors through his little figure company, Aegis Figures. I took one look at the bug warriors and thought "Selenites".

With two head types, and two body types, and eight arm/hand/weapon types, every Selenite can be unique.

I ended up painting the Selenites three different body colours, both for variety and to represent different Selenite castes or nests.

These are great figures and I'm really glad I got them.

And here's a shot to give you an idea as to how large the Selenite/Bug Warriors are in comparison to a standard 28mm figure.

Now, I just have to point them up for In Her Majesty's Name.

In Which the Blogger gets Surveyed

A busy few weeks have eaten my time.

Tonight I had hoped to post photos of four more completed characters but none of pictures I took were in focus. I have also pretty much finished my five Selenites from Aegis Figures, just waiting on some "tufts" to arrive from a local on-line Hobby store called Hobby Supplies. If all goes to plan, I hope to have some photos for tomorrow.

In good news received today, my survey for my Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter rewards hit my Inbox. As I mentioned back in July, I had backed this project to Corporal level and am now looking forward to the arrival of my great-coated soldiers. I also have a couple of officers coming as well, plus a sprue of Arc rifles.

While the standard troops are scheduled for a September release, it appears that the great-coat troopers will be following along a little bit later. I'm really looking forward to their arrival.

In Which the Blogger Plays a Second Game of 'In Her Majesty's Name" Part 2

Last Saturday night, Jonathan, Chris and I got together for a second game of In Her Majesty's Name. John, in spite of being stricken by the lurgy, managed to join us as well.

Chris fielded Selous' Scouts, while Jonathan fielded a modified Society of Thule Company. John deployed Lord Curr's Company while I used a modified version of Cornelius' Most Excellent Company - as posted in my previous post.

After some brainstorming, the following scenario for our encounter emerged:

Mr Singh waiting outside his house on Water Tower Hill.

Mister Amadeus Singh, renowned amateur astronomer, has detected something most singular in the heavens. To fund further research, he has indicated that he is willing to impart this information in return for a suitable gratuity and four Adventuring Companies are striving to gain the Professor's information.

Looking north from the canal towards Mr Singh's house.

Selous' Scouts entered the field from the south-west, docking their river boat beside the Boras Warehouse,

The Society of Thule emerge from the mists by the canal.

while the Society of Thule came out of the canal to the east of the crane.

Looking south towards the canal.

Lord Curr's Company near the north-west house.

Meanwhile, Lord Curr's Company entered the field by the north-west house, near the Park.

Cornelius' Company cross the Old Barrow.

While Cornelius' Company came on behind the old barrow to the north-east, beside the Old Abbey.

Selous' Scouts advance across the rail lines.

Selous' Scouts pushed forward across the railway line, while their machine gunner kept watch from the roof of the Boras Warehouse.

The Society of Thule advance on the Striker Building.

East of the Scouts, the Society of Thule moved up around the Striker Building.

While Curr's Company advanced into the Park beside the Linus Building.

Doctor Cornelius and his Company close in on Mr Singh.

Two of the velocepedes (random steam-powered vehicles) nearly collide outside Mr Singh's house.

Coleman and Roger, the Two Rotten Row Drainers, take up position beside the water tower.

Maxim Destroyanevsky, the Anarchist Marksman, slips into the copse beside the water tower. From there, he downs one of the Society of Thule's Jaegers beside the Striker building, only for the corpse to be re-animated as a todh-truppen.

Selous' Scouts had to scramble quickly across the open ground around the twin railway tracks.

The Scouts then had to dash up the ridge to the Linus Building, even as Lord Curr's Company managed to scramble onto the roof, ahead of them.

Eventually, Selous' Scouts managed to force their way around the western end of the Linus Building, and picked off Curr's men on the roof.

The unofficial truce between Lord Curr's Company and Doctor Cornelius' Company came to an end when Lord Curr attempted to abscond with Mr Singh.

Moving rapidly to Mr Singh's assistance, Doctor Cornelius and Lofty, his Man, confronted Curr, Two-Gun Tess and one of Curr's Minions.

Cornelius' Company were also coming under heavy fire from the Society of Thule around the Striker Building. Both Maxim Destroyanevsky and Seamus O'Tipple where swiftly brought down, even though Maxim was able to pin Von Stroeheim, himself, briefly.

The Society of Thule began to push forward, crossing the road as another velocepede rattled towards them. One of Cornelius' Rotten Row Drainers moved to engage them. Doctor Kobalt, the Society of Thule's Occult and Technical engineer, used the Eye of Odin to peer through the water tower and fire on the other Drainer with his Arc pistol.

A brief battle raged around Mr Singh's house. Lofty Terrified Two-gun Tess, causing her to flee. But he was too quick for her. As he attempted to seize her, Lord Curr and Doctor Cornelius exchanged blows. Their confrontation was quickly cut short by a burst of fire from the Society of Thule's machine gunner, firing from the railway yard. Curr, Cornelius and Mr Singh were cut down by the deadly volley.

Singh's demise pretty much ended the battle - a victory for the Society of Thule on points - with the survivors of Curr's and Cornelius' Companies slipping away into the night.

Here's another photo on the water tower - made by Chris from cardboard. A truly impressive model.

All photos taken by me on my tablet under available light.

In Which the Blogger Plays a Second Game of "In Her Majesty's Name" Part 1

As mentioned in last Sunday's post (which, rather confusingly, was written on the Saturday and referred to events of that evening), we got together for a second game of In Her Majesty's Name. This time, along with Chris and Jonathan, John was able to join us and fielded Lord Curr's Company. Chris fielded the victorious Selous' Scouts, while Jonathan fielded a modified Society of Thule company.

I took Cornelius' Most Excellent Company for a second outing though, this time, with some changes to the roster. Colonel Count Otto von Horsentrappe was absent, while the deadly Russian Anarchist, Maxim Destroyanevsky responded to Doctor Cornelius' call.

	Doctor Cornelius' Most Excellent Company
	AC	Pluck	SV	FV	Speed	Talents				Equipment	Points
Doctor Edgar Octavian Cornelius	8(11)/11(14)	2+	+1	+4	+1	Leadership+2		+2 Iniative		Faraday Coat (AC11 vs Arc Weapons	54
						Erudite Wit		-1 to enemy SV/FV within 12"		Knife - +1 FV/SV, Pluck +0, 6" range
						Martial Arts		+1 FV, +1 Speed
						Intuitive		+3 Armour 1st time shot at
Seamus O'Tipple	9	3+	+4	+4	+1	Leadership+1		+1 Initiative		Brigandine	52
						Gunslinger		Can split SV b'tween guns		2 x Pistols +1SV 9" range, Pluck+0
						Marksman (Pistol)		Ignores Target's cover		Knife - +1 FV/SV, Pluck +0, 6" range
Lofty	9	4+	+2	+5	+1	Tough		+1 Pluck Rolls vs SV and FV		Brigandine	50
						Terrifying		Enemy must make Pluck to attack
						Numb		Ignores 1st hit against him
Maxim Destroyanevsky	9	4+	+4	+2	+0	Marksman (Rifle)		Ignores Target's Cover		Brigandine	51
						Hunter		Can select target in group		Pistol +1SV 9" range, Pluck+0
						Fanatic		Rerolls 1st failed Pluck		Hunting Rifle +4SV 36" range Pluck-2
A Minion	9	5+	+3	+0	+0	Medic				Brigandine	16
										Pistol +1SV 9" range, Pluck+0
The Rotten Row Drainers
Coleman	8	5+	+3	+3	+1					Jack	16
										Club - +1 FV, Pluck - 1
Roger	8	5+	+3	+3	+0					Jack	13
										Club - +1 FV, Pluck - 1
											250

More to come.