[IHMN] In Which the Blogger Receives His Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter Figures

A couple of days ago, my long awaited figures from the Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter showed up in the post.

While not at the highest level of support, I chose two infantry sets and a specialist set.

I also ordered a separate set of energy rifles - these will be Model 1895 Higgs-Rothersey ARC rifles.

The specialist pack for my level of support contains two officers - I wanted the great coat clad officers and troopers as I really like the painted examples on the Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter site. You can also see the head sprues for my infantry sets.

The first head sprue has diving-helmet-like heads.

The second head sprue has these vaguely guards-like crested helmet with breather mask.

I ordered two body types for my infantry - firing line ...

... and skirmishers. I intend to mix the two body types together. I intend to end up with one squad of infantry with the diving-helmet heads - troopers for Captain Nemo - and one squad of infantry with guards-like helmets - Okhrana troopers to be commanded by either Olga Petronova or Feodor Sonavavich.

I will remove the base slottas on these figures and mount them directly on washers, my preferred basing style, as I have done with other slotta base figures.

[IHMN] The Latest Version of Doctor Cornelius' Most Excellent Company

Before our latest battle, I tweaked Doctor Cornelius' Company slightly.

The good Doctor replaced his Faraday Coat with a Brigandine and his knife with a pistol, principally because I was betting that none of the guys would field Arc weapons, and I needed to boost the Company's fire power.

 I gave Lofty the Hands Like Clubs ability, as used by the Yeti in the IHMN rulebook, as this fits his character of the massive bodyguard. In a previous encounter, he had engaged Lady Felicity, of Lord Curr's Company, in fisticuffs and, once she got over his Terrifying aspect, he discovered that he was barely able to lay a hand on her - a rather embarrassing event for a massive bodyguard.

I decided to get rid of the Minion Medic. In the last encounter he had proved ineffective. Instead, I recruited another member of the Rotten Row Drainers - Shotgun Jack - and gave him a shotgun along with the usual Drainers' Club.

The Company as fielded in the King of the Castle encounter:

	Doctor Cornelius' Most Excellent Company
	AC	Pluck	SV	FV	Speed	Talents				Equipment	Points
Doctor Edgar Octavian Cornelius	9	2+	+1	+4	+1	Leadership+2		+2 Initiative		Brigandine	51
						Erudite Wit		-1 to enemy SV/FV within 12"		Pistol +1SV 9" range, Pluck+0
						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	52
						Terrifying		Enemy must make Pluck to attack		Hands like Clubs +1FV +0 Pluck
						Numb		Ignores 1st hit against him
Maxim Destroyevsky	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
The Rotten Row Drainers
Coleman	8	5+	+3	+3	+0					Jack	13
										Club - +1 FV, Pluck - 1
Roger	8	5+	+3	+3	+0					Jack	13
										Club - +1 FV, Pluck - 1
Shotgun Jack	8	5+	+3	+3	+0					Jack	18
										Club - +1 FV, Pluck - 1
										Shotgun +2SV, 12" range Pluck +0/-1
											250

Doctor Cornelius' Most Excellent Company suffered three casualties during the encounter - Coleman, Roger and Shotgun Jack - but they all made their Pluck rolls after the encounter and rejoined the Company. The Company also scored 13 Victory Points - enough to hire another Rotten Row Drainer, or add a couple of rifles, or grenadoes, to the company equipment mix, or perhaps save the VPs until I can recruit another character. Decisions, decisions.

[IHMN] King of the Castle

The stars aligned, John finished painting his Lord Curr's Company, and we convened for another game of In Her Majesty's Name.

We elected to play a King of the Castle scenario - one player's company  defends a central site while the other companies attempt to winkle him out.

We each had a 250 point company and we decided to trial Chris' Campaign Rules. In this case, taking out an enemy leader was worth 5 Victory Points, taking out one of his companions was worth 2 VP and holding the objective - in this case the keep of the derelict fort - was worth 20 VP. All casualties in one's own company would make a pluck roll after the battle, rejoining the company immediately if exceeding Pluck; being out of action for a battle if just making their Pluck Roll; and being deceased or otherwise unavailable if failing Pluck.   

Looking north from Poxly village towards the ruins of Poxly Manor

And so we see the fields outside of the little village of Poxly. Selous' Scouts (Chris) have learned that a copy of  Livingston's Concordium - an account of an ancient treasure Doctor Livingston discovered during his quest for the source of the Nile - was hidden in the ruined tower of Poxly Manor. Descending upon Poxly, the Scouts have been digging in and around the ancient fort but, unfortunately for them, their activities have been noted.

The tower and part of the walls of Poxly Manor are medieval, but the manor was heavily modified during the Civil War

The Thule Society (Jonathan) believes that Livingston's Concordium contains the location of occult artifacts and have determined to seize this book for the greater glory of Prussia. Approaching from the west, they take up position behind the wood to the left of the fort.

The Society of Thule approach the manor through the wood

Meanwhile, Lord Curr (John) and his Incorrigibles have been dispatched by the Ministry to prevent a valuable historical document from falling into foreign and/or unscrupulous hands. Approaching from the north-east, they deploy amongst the orchards on both sides of the Poxly Brook.

Lord Curr and some of his men in the orchard beyond the Poxly Brook

Representing the aforementioned unscrupulous hands, Doctor Cornelius and his Most Excellent Company (your humble correspondent) approach from the south-west, amidst the old maze and folly of the manor house (and beside the village water tower which seems to contain a rather flavorsome red).

Cornelius' Most Excellent Company approach the Manor through the old Maze

Selous' men took up positions within the manor ruin, attempting to cover the approaches, and soon came under a withering fire from both the woods to the west, and from the orchards.

Selous' Scouts prepare to defend Poxly Manor

As the firing grew heavier, and casualties began to mount, one of Selous' marksmen and his medic managed to break out through the south gate and take cover near Poxly Village to the south-east. Cornelius' Company, while approaching the manor from the south-west, lacked the long-range fire power to prevent Selous' withdrawal.

As the Scouts fell back, the Society of Thule burst into the ruined manor through the north gate, even as Doctor Cornelius' men were sprinting towards the south gate. When one of the Jaeger climbed the old tower, Maxim Destroyevsky brought him down with a well-aimed shot. To his alarm, the dead Jaeger lurched into life as a todh-truppen and rushed to block the south gate.

Plucky Coleman, one of the Rotten Row Drainers, attacked the todh-truppen while the not so plucky Seamus O'Tipple ran away, screaming like a little girl.

Cornelius' Company assault the south gate, defended by a todh-truppen. Seamus O'Tipple flees to the left.

Seamus was able to redeem himself by sneaking up the west side of the Manor and gunning down a Jaeger defending the north gate, and the Society's leader, Von Stroheim. As Doctor Kobalt leapt to Von Stroheim's aid, Maxim Destroyevsky nailed him with a superb long range shot.

The demise of Von Stroheim removed his force field projecktor. This meant that Selous' marksman, firing from the trees near Poxly, was able to fell the todh-truppen guarding the south gate. Sprinting across the court yard, Lofty scaled the tower where he was soon engaged with Lord Curr and another todh-truppen. The todh-truppen was swiftly dispatched and the tower remained contested between Lofty and Lord Curr as time ran out and the authorities arrived.

A tense end-of-battle, but as the objective was in contention at the end of turn 12, no one side could claim the Victory Points for it. A fun game, and Doctor Cornelius' Company performed a lot better this time. After all ganging up on Chris, we all turned on Jonathan as the Society of Thule looked set to take the game. That left John and myself to contest the tower at the end.

[RRtK] 6mm Painting Progress

Last week, my first order of 6mm Irregular Miniatures Men of the West figures arrived from Eureka Miniatures in Australia. It took me a little while to work out a basing system I was happy with, but once that was done, the actual painting went pretty quick. 

I ended up using plastic card for the bases and decided to go with a 40mm frontage and a 20mm depth. Generals and heroes are mounted on washers.

Skirmisher Archers are mounted five to a base - 1 strip; Melee Infantry (billmen) are 20 to a base - 4 strips in two rows; Pike are 30 to a base - five strips plus a command strip in three rows; Heavy Cavalry (knights) are eight to a base - 2 strips, although I had to trim some of the strips to fit the 40mm frontage; Skirmisher Crossbowmen are mounted six to base - 1 strip plus a spare pikeman as a standard bearer; Light Cavalry are mounted five to a base - 1 strip.

The General is from the Champions pack which consists of one mounted and three foot Champions. I added a spare Knight as an army standard bearer (I still have to make the standards).

The three pike units look quite impressive when viewed from this angle. I was rather pleased in the amount of detail I was able to catch on this figures, including the archers' hands.

I have another order inbound from Eureka Miniatures to give me more Knights and Melee foot troops, plus some shot. Lined up to paint next are my Goblins from Baccus - though I will need to get some Goblin archers from Irregular/Eureka as Baccus doesn't make Goblin Archers. And after the Goblins in the painting cue, are the exquisite Beastmen from Microworld Games.

[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.

---

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.