Great Magics of the 1890s: In Her Majesty's Name.

This past Sunday the Skirmish club got together and played a three way scenario devised by one of our members.


Each player was given a primary and secondary objective and a starting point.  Initiative was randomized via a small deck of cards.  This deck also included effects such as Dust, Darkness and Wind.

I believe VP were awarded as.
20 - Primary
10 - Secondary
5- Leader kill
2- Regular kill




Our original deployment.  Three companies approach the ruins of an old temple.  Rumors say that within it are objects of great magic.

Central Asian Agency deployment.

Our first moves.

Mongols ride for the cover of the forest, feinting towards the breech in the wall to gain access to the magic items.  The objects are secondary to me though, striking down the enemy and killing their leaders is my primary goal.  Crush your enemies.  See them driven before you.  Hear the lamentation of their women.  Sadly my dogs took a bullet, but being the troopers they are, remain in the game.

Second round, Mongols continue their feint, Jeremy's forces split moving through the gate and towards the temple, I rush my dogs in to attack and pin some forces effectively splitting his forces.  On our right Greg moves his units unmolested up to the walls and proceeds to gain entry into the temple complex.  Dust clouds sweep into the valley causing reduced visibility and essentially reducing ranged weapons.  This favors my units.

Dogs rushing into combat!

Mongol leader continues to move towards the entrance! 

Mongols move into the attack, pressing their advantage of strength into Jermey's now split forces.  The Dust has settled but Darkness has settled across the land causing confusion and reducing ranged combat again.  Gregs forces continue to take up firing positions on the wall while I fight against Jermey's forces in hand to hand.

Result of the close combat results in one of my dogs dying as well as Jeremy losing two of his units.  The Mongol leader pulls Jeremy's two other units away from their search for treasure.


(I think I missed a turn of combat in here, pretty sure I eliminated Jeremy's leader in my leaders first move across the trees, freeing the dog to attack)

The next round sees howling winds sweep down causing a small amount inaccuracy to long ranged weapons, but generally does not effect any of us.  The Yeti also moves into combat to help the war dog.

The Mongol leader leaves Jermey's last two isolated units to cross the trees and enter combat

Greg's firing positions.  This turns poorly as conditions finally favor shooting and he begins to unload arc cannons on us.

The Mongols move in and attack the robot, on moving into combat each Mongol has a +8 to hit, but with only a -1 to pluck rolls they fail to do more than harass the machine.

The next round sees the Yeti free and able to move into combat.  Also enjoying a +8 to attack rolls and a -2 to pluck the group finally brings down the Robot.

(The next round has the Mongols ride out into a line and open fire on Greg's leader, but as he retreats into cover we are unable to score a hit.  Unfortunately I am not so lucky and an arc cannon lights up a horseman and he falls dead)

Now I have two options.  Flee the field as I have no chance of killing the rest of Greg's forces or......Charge into combat against his leader. 

I choose combat.

Our first round ends in s stalemate, and in the second round I lose initiative, but I am able to move my war dog into combat as well.

The unfortunately proves bad for me as his attack kills my leader first before my Mongols manages to bring down his leader.

At this point Greg has not managed to uncover any of the Magic Items, and despite killing a few of my guys my victory point total is higher at the end due to a lot of bloodshed and killing of leaders.  One as an objective and one just as a combat.

Overall it was a fun game with decent rolls on my side, Jeremy was just learning the game and getting his forces split really hurt him, as well as a few rounds of reduced range.  I enjoyed the initiative system combined with battlefield effects.

The reduced range gave me a fairly large benefit I think.  Half of my units don't have ranged weapons and the ones that do, don't use them that much. 

Frontier Cabin

"He hurried down the road, crossed Scalp Creek and came in sight of the first settler's cabin—a, long, low structure of ax-hewn logs. In an instant he was pounding on the door. A sleepy voice inquired his pleasure."

-Beyond the Black River
Robert E Howard.

The following is a build of a frontier cabin, maybe something that might fit into the Aquilonian frontier as found in Beyond the Black River.  In the end the logs on this cabin have a more rounded look than perhaps axe hewn logs should have, but I think it gets the point across.

Experimenting with log texture on foam core.

Dimensions for cabin end.

Dimensions for the main wall.

Main pieces laid out with textured piece.  Paper removed from foam core in preparation for texturing.

Lines were drawn with a ball point pen and then these are pushed in to form the crevasses between the logs using a rounded clay tool.

Textured cabin glued with PVA and pinned to wait for it to dry.

Cabin with 25mm Bones Pirate for scale.  Glue is dry, main structure is complete.  I end up putting in a floor and an interior wall to combat some of the bowing I was seeing in the main walls.  I also reinforced the wall joints with hot glue on the inside.

Simple chimney.  Styrene with ball point pen texture.  The texturing could have been deeper, I lost a fair bit of detail when I painted.

Main cabin now with card roof cut from box can boxes (12 packs).  Doors and windows framed with stir sticks.  Cabin walls painted dark brown and dry brushed with a lighter brown.

Cutting the shingles.

Each shingle was cut and glued on with PVA.

First row of shingles.

Completed side.

Shingled roof on the cabin.

More or less finished cabin with various scatter terrain.  Inside of the cabin has been painted black.  Stone door step has been added as well as a door made from stir sticks.  Ridge beams added along the top of the building to join the two shingled sides, this was hot glued into place.  Roof is removable, if players need to be inside, but the inside is unfinished. 

Aquarium Bushes

This is a pretty basic piece of terrain, simple scatter terrain to give the feeling of underbrush/jungle for 28mm or perhaps towering jungle vegetation in 15mm.

Start with a washer about the size you want to make your plant base, mine were probably 1 1/2" - 2"

Cut a piece of card to fir over the washer and cover the hole.

  

I used hot glue to glue the card to the base of the washer.

Poke three or so holes in the card to accept the aquarium plant stems.  You may wish to texture and paint your base at this time.  I was in a hurry and experimenting so I didn't both at this point.

 

Insert plants into the holes.

Wire the plants into a standing position.

Fill the bottom hole where the stems are with hot glue.  Be careful to make sure your plants don't pop out of the glue as you let it set.

Sample bushes/vegetation around a bridge I am working on.

Central Asian Agency - IHMN

Quite a bit of progress on my company for "In Her Majesty's Name".

First up, a mission statement:

A loose confederation of governments with interests in the steppe regions. Using their collective strengths they attempt to recover supernatural and technological marvels before the West.


What this means?  I am largely ignoring the politics of the steppe region.  In my world the governments there openly fought over their interests in that region, but globally knew the West was a far greater danger and so formed a loose alliance.  Mongols, Russians, Tibetans.


First up:
Mongols.  I have been detailing my horse painting, but as our first game approached I moved onto the riders.




Mongols on their temporary steeds for painting.  Various stages.

Mongols painted and pinned to their horses.  Riding into battle.

Next up:
Tibetans.  I have very few fantastical elements in my force so I went a little more fun with my Tibetan guys.

Yeti with a base coats of various blue colors.

Yetis more or less leady to kick some ass.

Finally:

Russians.

Nothing even remotely close to completed here.  I have on the table some riflemen from Siberia and a female heroine to lead the company.

Central Asian Agency.

Horses.

The clubs next planned set of rules is "In Her Majesties Name".  Essentially a VSF/Steampunk type ruleset.  It is set in the 1890s with the World's powers seeking new technology and artifacts.

My band will be an alliance of those types found around Central Asia, not wholly a government that existed, or that on the surface were talking hospitably in those days.  In the back rooms, in the dark corners, an alliance was reached and a band of Russian and Mongols formed to seeking power for both their people.

The current band is planned as a unit of Mongols (Mounted), a unit of Siberian riflemen (foot), some dogs and a couple of yetis.


The first few posts in this series are going to focus on the Mongol side of things and the first will go over horses.




Basic horse crazy glued to cavalry base and then smoothed out with 2 part putty.



Base with Vallejo Grey pumice added for texture.



Horse blocked out in a Black Brown for a base color.



Horse with color layers built up over the body of the horse. Saddle and reins painted as well.



Black wash applied at creases.



Umber and soft tone washes added to entire model.



Essentially finished model.  Ended up redefining the reins again, as I felt the washes diluted things too much.

Finished horse.