The halflings of Stahnhus town

 

Old School Miniatures with a Foundry pony 

Stahnhus, in deepest Sowcestershire, is a proud community of halflings that has existed for over a thousand years. Their banner bears the stone tower that gives the place its name and the red rose that is the symbol of the town along with the motto 'Floret, Floruit, Floreat', 'It blooms, it has bloomed, it will bloom'.

Westfalia

The tower is home to the Stahnhussars, a chivalric order of knights that roam the countryside on their faithful steeds looking for damsels to rescue, dragons to slay (or at least burgle from) and pints of ale to quaff. 

Metal Magic, now Midlam Miniatures

The knights are quite capable of defending their town from unwelcome visitors, but since they live far into the hidden valley they don't have to very often.

Metal Magic, now Midlam Miniatures, and one Denizen

The eldest knights with most conquests and fullest paunches get the honour of growing beards to show just how awesome they are.

Denizen Miniatures

Old School Miniatures

The Stahnhussars are assisted by their hobbits-at-arms, squires learning the art of chivalry by watching their masters whilst doing most of the hard work in any actual fights.

Wargames Atlantic. The guy on the left I keep meaning to give a pipe!

Heritage/Elan Merch and Westfalia

The wizard Gurkin and his son Spud are popular figures in the town, particularly when Gurkin brews up some of his special fireworks.

Prince August with Wargames Atlantic bits

With the gallantry and adventurous deeds of the Stahnhussars it is not surprising that some of the young townsfolk are a bit taller than their fathers...

Metal Magic, now Midlam Miniatures

Old School Miniatures with a Foundry pony

The mayor, Ripeapple, rides about town on his shire pony Buttermilk. He takes every opportunity to show that he has the biggest steed. The myor is a jovial enough kinda chap but Buttermilk has a deserved reputation for vicious and solicited attacks. There's a good reason she's always put to the front when defending the down!

Old School Miniatures

The Stahnhussars are brave and powerful warriors, but quite often they're too busy gallivanting after quests (and other things ending in ests) to do the actual defending of Stahnhus. For that there's the sturdy halfling militia.  

Old School Miniatures

Bobbin Da Hood and his merry band take any opportunity to go camping in the woods and fields around the town on 'scouting missions' for intruders.

Old School Miniatures

Citadel on a RAFM war tortoise

When the going gets really tough the halflings enlist the support of Cuppa and his pet tortoise Dowser, so called because he can sense water from a long way off. He may not be the fastest steed but he gets there... very little can prevent him! Cuppa secretly wants to be king one day...

Leprechaun Love

 

Sometimes projects just roll, sometimes they need a little push. Tableaus from Talamhlar, the new book for The Woods, is something that has been in the works for a few years now and falls in the latter category. It needed some impetus to get finished. That was provided in part by booking a table to do demo games at Beachhead this coming weekend. I wanted to take the opportunity to do another table rather than recycling the same Woods terrain again. A fantasy Necromunda setup based on the lost boys' hideout in Hook and Lothlorien has been on my to-do list for a while and with Tableaus featuring rules for scenic woodland elements this seemed like a good crossover to give me the kick to finish writing.

I know everyone will say "oh, Endor", but really the Ewoks were far from my mind in creating it. My influences are (as I said) Hook and Lorien, plus the woodland adventure trail I used to love playing on as a kid and Puzzlewood (used for parts of the Endor shoot, so there is a connection after all) in the Forest of Dean. This is a 3' square table with the intention that all elements can be used in a modular way in conjunction with my other terrain pieces.

A part of the setup was on show at Reveille in November, so you may already have seen the trees in person. If you're in the south coast area and can get to Bournemouth for Beachhead this weekend hopefully you'll get to see more and maybe have a play on it. If not it should be featured in an article for Miniature Wargames Magazine in the coming months.

The Acorn (Oakbound's newsletter) has been running a short series on making the forest. There's also some video footage of it along with my ramblings on the YouTube channel.

I wanted to try and include all the terrain features mentioned in Tableaus on this board- Ropes, ladders and rope ladders, rope bridges, walkways, railings, slides, swings, ziplines, wasps' nests... Actually the only thing I have left to fit is the zipline. I had planned something magnetised, we'll have to see what I have time for before the weekend!

Yes, that is my latest Bob Ross imitation lurking in the background... I like it more with subject matter in front of it!

The subject for the weekend's scenario (as featured in Tableaus) is Cuda's Well, a magical spring that the Leprechauns hold sacred and are guarding against intruders. Their opponents are trying to snatch a wineskin of the water and make it out of the trees alive. For their part the Leprechauns are forbidden to kill in their sacred grove, so they either have to wait and attack in the scowles (Gloucestershire word, look it up, it's worth the effort) or try their tricksy pranks to deprive the enemy of its prize.