Aren't you a little short for a Huntsman?

Greetings one and all, in a sharp left turn from all the aeroplane themed posts of late; I thought I would go for very, very footslogging fantasy dudes. Short ones to be precise:

These are a selection of Halflings from various eras of Citadel variants. They are masquerading as Huntsmen for my Averland army. With The Moot being practically in Averland it helps the theme of the army to use these instead of the human archers.

Given that most of them are... kinda gormless looking, I figure them for being the easily led and persuaded sorts that might join a northbound expedition. They're also dim enough to not notice that they've mostly been given cast off children's dress-up uniforms, hence the ill-fitting garb. Irritatingly the close ups really don't look all that great, largely because these fellas are only 20mm tall. Suffice to say, they look more convincing in the flesh!

Painting wise, they are mostly the PVP Codified Averlander Scheme with occasional splashes of green to bust up the uniformity and linen shirts on any that have them. Deck Tan is the best colour I've found for this.

Love the fearless leader, clad in armour and with a chicken leg from the supply halfling (the one eating the supplies, he has more in a bag). It has a cartoonish charm. I'm rather taken with these yokels-playing-at-soldiers:

...Not least because of all the fun wee details hidden around the back of the figures. Pots, pans, tankards marked "mine", the whole nine yards. Bundles of fun. Now, I need to address a quick elephant in the room, you may notice that these fellas are based on square bases and in a custom built skirmish movement tray. None of which fits the "new warhammer" of Age of Sigmar. Well, I'm not moving on from 8th edition. I don't really want to rake over the coals of the many, many problems with AoS. If you are curious you can see my views and those of my gaming group over on the Beard Bunker. Here, I'll just say, if you're into warhammer 8th edition, you will find lots to please you. If it is Age of Sigmar (and why not? Each to their own)? Not so much. Anyway, that's all for today, more Averlanders soon!

TTFN

Cedric the Wonder Halfling

I love narrative campaigns, they throw up the weirdest storylines and create characters that you would never have considered otherwise. Take this chap for example:

Behold! Cedric the Wonder Halfling!

In the campaign that we've just kicked off over on the Beard Bunker we combined elements of roleplaying with the wargaming and occasionally had our characters nipping off on missions that didn't require a full army to accomplish. In one of these missions (very early on) we were introduced to Cedric Sneakfoot, a halfling poacher and general naer-do-well who had fallen afowl of the law in Hochland and was being used as a dogsbody with threat of prison as a motivating factor. He was added to our little party as a local liason while we hunted for an artefact that my Dwarfs wanted back rather badly. Tom, who was playing Cedric, doesn't have a warhammer army so this was the best way for him to quickly get involved. Rather than going through the whole thing I shall summerise that Cedric started to get quite a reputation. He felled a goblin chief with his arrows and even leapt screaming onto the back of a grave guard which was threatening a mate of his. By the end of the mission, my Runesmith Dwalin Gravenrune was deeply impressed with the little guy and essentially blackmailed the authorities into signing Cedric over to him as a local liason and guide.

Cedric and Dwalin, bestest buds.

So fast forward through and the second mission had us investigating the ruins of a town when we were attacked by crazed fanatics. Once again Cedric was a sniper extroardinare and slew everything he aimed at with just the right amount of respectful pleading for us to get our rear ends in gear. Given that the dynamic of Cedric and Dwalin was somewhere between Jeeves & Worcester and Alfred & Batman we were having a great time with the pairing. I decided that Cedric would become a permanent part of my Dwarf army working as a slightly over cautious bodyguard to Dwalin. Rules wise we just made him a bow shooting stand and fire monkey with killing blow, he'll sod off after shooting and make himself scarce.

Given that Tom, and therefore the model of Cedric (which is a Reaper Miniatures Dicarus Darksword) live in darkest Devon. I needed to have one of my very own, a quick ebay search and a "warm up the painting muscles after a week away" session later and Cedric is reborn as Cedric Dwarf-friend with fancy new duds and a slightly brighter outlook on life.

This is the kind of thing I meant at the top of this post when I said "create characters that you would never have considered otherwise". There is no way on this earth that I would have thought that adding a tiny halfling dude with a shortbow to my Dwarf army was a good idea before these events. Now? I can't picture Dwalin without him. This sort of thing moves characters from a simple amalgamation of game changing statistics into living, breathing people whose agendas and lives you care about! No longer are you grumbling because your runesmith died and you don't get his nifty "no magic for you" ability. No, now you are reprising an Anakin "Noooooooo" because Dwalin the badass dwarf has been cruelly snatched from this world (only to be rescued and healed up by Cedric no doubt). It really brings the game to life in a way that the slightly more "Chess like" game style of stripping everything down to pure numbers doesn't.  Another example, these guys:

Just normal Quarreller Rangers. Not particularly well armoured (just light armour in fact) and toting crossbows and great weapons. Hitty, but fragile. Well, not in this campaign. These guys have been the absolute Daddy. Kicking ass and taking names wherever they went. Stromni's Wanderer's have become feared far beyond their points/ability calculation should warrent. And thats why I love the narrative element of this game of ours. I'm back to work here folks, and to prove it:

Titan 2 is underway! Until next time folks.

TTFN