Super Tiny Giant Battles Kickstarter

 Hi!

Nick Evans, creator of Brutal Quest and Planet 28 has a new kickstarter going for his rather fun little micro game called Super Tiny Giant Battles and I thought I'd share the kickstarter link here as I've been enjoying Nicks other games so much over the last months.

The Kickstarter can be found HERE and it's well worth a peek as the digital version of the rules is a mere £3.00 which is less than a cup of coffee while the physical rules which comes with paper armies, battle mat and even some dice is £10.

Nick has promised to post up a breakdown on how the game works in the coming days and I've decided to back it for the digital version as I'm looking for a simple set of rules that will allow me to expand my Dark Age skirmishes using Brutal Quest into something a bit more epic and I am a big fan of Nicks rules which are simple but elegant and can easily be modified to allow one to do pretty much whatever they want. 

Coupled with the rather wonderful artwork that evokes old school Warhammer and reminds me a bit of Gary Chalk, Fighting Fantasy and those little illustrations one used to see in 5th edition Fantasy Battle you can't really go wrong!

I suspect I'll substitute the paper armies for some Irregular Miniatures 6mm but I'm really looking forward to seeing how the game works and look forward to getting the chance to give them a spin in the coming months.

In other news, I'm still working on my Brutal Quest painting and have begun work on the last of my Saxon retainers for my adventuring party and even managed to play a quick test game the other evening with two adventurers taking on five lowly bandits. Despite the heroes winning the game, they didn't make it through the encounter undamaged as the bandits managed to wound both before being driven off leaving two of their party dead.

I'm really enjoying the game so far but need to tweak a few things here and there to make it more suited to what I'm trying to do, be it add a few new weapons or downgrade the armour a bit as the heavier armour is nigh on impervious to normal attacks and even with the boost of brutality points, it can be a real struggle to defeat heavily armoured knights. 

Fortunately the Dark Ages featured mainly leather and chainmail so its a limited issue until I get the members of the Byzantine Delegation I've got planned finished...

Still that's ramblings for another day, in the meantime, please do check out the Kickstarter as I've really enjoyed the last two Nick has done and All the best!

Dark Age Brutal Quest Project Part 5: Fyrd and Lost Legion

 Hi!

I've managed to get some photos of the assorted gubbins that I've been working on over the last couple of weeks and have finally got round to posting them here!

First up, there's my Lost Legion:

Representing a cohort of Caesar's XIII legion, also known as the Gemina who were dispatched to Britannia in 55BC in search of a valuable artefact for Caesar and vanished into the mists only to reemerge over 800 years later, these were test pieces initially but I liked how they turned out and have found myself adding a small faction of them to my setting!

I have re-worked them a bit to give them less pallid skin and redone bases to add a more grim and grimy feel to them and am really pleased with their new finish and am now looking to pick up a sprue of Gladius wielding ones as well as a command sprue to give me some leaders...

Next up, there's some lowly Saxon Fyrd:

 

I must admit that I really enjoyed painting them with a limited palette of greens and browns and game wise, they will probably represent lowly levy troops or even bandits and as such I went with a bit of a random mixture of weapons and equipment. I think I need another sprue of them to give me some more options for some low level opponents for my adventurers to slay and am also after a couple of archers to give them some more effective ranged firepower.

One of the best things about playing super small skirmish games is that forces are generally pretty cheap and quick to put together with the Fyrd costing me about £3 and the Lost Legion being free with Wargames Illustrated! 

I'm currently working on getting my Anglo Saxon adventuring party built and painted before moving onto some Vikings and beasts but I'm really enjoying the project and looking forward to getting enough painted to play some games in the not too distant future (once I've got some decent scenery built!)

A Lost Legion patrol clashes with some Saxon Fyrd

Hopefully I'll get the three adventurers finished this week and will post further progress when I do and will start fleshing out the setting to boot. I've also got loads of reading to be getting on with so we shall see how I get on but in the meantime, All the best!

Dark Age Brutal Quest Project Part 4: Down the Rabbit Hole

 Hi!

Well it's been a couple of weeks and I've got a week of holidays under my belt but have found myself having to self isolate as I may or may not have Covid. Huzzah!

On the plus side, I seem to be obsessing over Dark Age reading materials and have been working my way through my assorted bits and bobs and happened across these two whilst at work (pre Covid lurgy!):

I must admit that I'd picked up Kin on a whim as the cover was cool but once I started reading it I found myself drawn into the amazing world of the Dark Ages where history, myth and magic are all rolled into a really great murder mystery with a fantastic cast of characters and it's well worth a peruse as the writing is top notch!

Smile of the Wolf is a blood soaked retelling of a feud in 10th century Iceland and it's also fantastic stuff and give a more personal account of the period rather than the sweeping battles of Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom series.

I've also been steadily painting my way through my Brutal Quest stuff but with a cough that seems to await the very moment that I put paintbrush to miniature to manifest itself so I've had to settle for assembling the Victrix stuff I picked up recently. They're absolutely beautiful sculpts and when compared to the Gripping Beast Saxons and Caesarian Legionaries that I have been working on they're very much like comparing GW plastics from the late 90's and early 00's (Gripping Beast) and modern GW (Victrix) as the level of detail is fantastic and the sculpts themselves are dynamic enough to be interesting without being over the top.

Thus far I have the four test piece Romans completed who will be making an appearance as a lost legion who has spent the last 800 plus years lost in the Fae realms before reappearing in my fantastical version of Britain in approximately 800AD. They've also had a bit of reworking from the photo above and I'm far happier with how they turned out.

I also have the bulk of my Warlord Games Saxon Fyrd done and quite like how they are turning out, especially with their limited palette but I've not managed to get any photo's yet but will attempt to get some tomorrow but I'm also finding myself rather bereft of any suitable Grim Darkage terrain so will need to get some odds and ends put together which will allow me to play a game or two once I have the figures finished!

Once I've got all these elements sorted, I will need to fish out some fantastical elements to add to the mix and have a few bits put aside for the project and will update my blog as I get them done but until then, I'm off to lie down and All the best!