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...

The halflings of Stahnhus town

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. 

Leprechaun Love

Reign of the Lichemaster- Some characters of note

My final (for now) post of Lichemaster miniatures focuses of some named characters previously not included or with less-than-brilliant photos. The only newly painted piece here is where we shall start...

Kristoffe Earlee, vampiric necromancer lord, was the 2022 BOYL exclusive mini. As a Bob Olley sculpt he naturally divides opinion, but since my Lichemaster is a Bob Olley sculpt it seemed rude not to include him. The intention was to fit as many references to a late-lamented popular actor as possible. How many can you find?

I've shown Kemler himself before, but worth repeating with better lighting and a funky backdrop! As mentioned he's a slightly modified Essex miniature with (I think) a Reaper steed.

Some of the dead dwarves of Gimbrin's mine, including Gimbrin Finehelm himself and Bardak the Loremaster (a modified sculpt by Curtis Fell from an old Circle of Chaos Kickstarter).

The Bogie Bogles and former agitator Grimwald Calico, complete with bomb. The similarity in garb and poses between the Boney Bomber and model given for Calico in the scenario pack can't be accidental, surely? Yes, Corabell has a pet rat.

And finally, my three skull chuckers that don't really fit anywhere else.

Reign of the Lichemaster- Some characters of note

Reign of the Lichemaster: Dead Bretonnians

 

Duc Tancred II of Quenelles rushed to the relief of La Maisontaal... according to the rehash of the Citadel Journal scenario published in Warhammer Chronicles. Unfortunately he and his Bretonnian contingent were also soundly thrashed by the unstoppable might of the Lichemaster and now serve him in undeath. According to my research blue and white is the 'canon' colour scheme for Tancred's forces. Though the pegasus head I have not adopted, opting instead for a classic fleur de lys motif- defaced with Kemler's orange spider/crab mark.

Mostly Heartbreaker (from their Fantasy Armies Packs range) undead archers with a few RAFM and the Fenryll champion (displaced from Krell's chariot) make up the 'more armoured' archer unit. 

Mostly classic Citadel plastic skeletons with a few RAFM and some Mantic heads make up the 'unarmoured' archer unit. Lead by a Celtos (Brigade Models) miniature.

In death all are equal... and so the elite foot knights have been crammed into a unit alongside regular peasant levy. They have crowded together at the front at least!

Celtos (Brigade Models)

More Celtos

A couple of classic plastics with 5th ed skeleton ram heads, drum from an empire model and 'beater' from (I think) a 6th ed regiment set

Heartbreaker (two different ranges), Grenadier, RAFM and Dark Arts Studio

Classic Citadel

It feels like a Bretonnian force would include a fair number of men at arms with polearms so there are two large spear units. A very mixed unit of spearmen with some light armour and shields...

Mantic plastics. They were cheap so I thought I would check them out. Not a fan really, but they make ok rear rank troops for variation.

RAFM and Heartbreaker. I think these older Hearthbreaker sculpts are now available through North Star.

Hooray! More Celtos

And more Celtos

And yet more Celtos

...and just regular spear skellies. Yet more Celtos! Yes, I did score a job-lot of cheap Celtos skeletons... but I also love them very much and would have bought them new (but perhaps not so many!) had I not been able to pick up the bundle. They're mostly just bone and metal so can be really quick to paint, especially if you daub Modelmates Rust on instead of painting the metal as I have done. I did balance this out with quite a bit of highlighting though.

Some RAFM crept into the middle to bulk out the unit. Their stance is so wide that it was better to put 3 on a 40x40 base rather than try to fit them on 20mm squares!

And the chariots. I guess Bretonnians are not fabled for their chariots? But since these are made of bone they were probably raised by Kemler from some remains of giant oxen preserved in the La Maisontaal vaults and men at arms delegated to crew them. The first plastic kit I ever got was a skeleton chariot (long after the awesome Skeleton Horde box had been discontinued) and I remember it being such a pain to stick together. I love the kit, but even with years of practice it is still a pain to keep assembled and fell apart several times whilst painting! Not helped by the substitution of some metal parts it must be said. These were picked up in a lot of broken skeletons so have had some mending and alterations to get them back on the road.

Alternative Armies chariot driver. A RPE skull (I do love them so!) replaces a lost plastic head on the archer.

Machineries of Destruction steeds replace the plastics for variation. The two-headed, three-armed skeleton was like that in the job lot so I kept him.

Head plate from the Black Coach to add some variation to the plastic horse. Mix of Skeleton Horde and 5th ed plastics in the crew, but not too noticeable I think.

Last but not least, Tancred himself and his contingent of knights. Tancred is a Ral Partha rider but I didn't like his horse, I believe that's a Grenadier one he's riding? Could be wrong. He has an attendant wizard (probably Jade judging by the scythe?) and two champions. At some point I may do a Tancred on a pegasus as he is represented in the Warhammer Chronicles book, Grenadier have a half-decent one but it's not quite right... A project for the future, maybe. Between them these heroes will lead a unit of knights and one of mounted men at arms.

Citadel (and a Mantic) on lovely Essex (now available just as horses) and a RAFM steed

Citadel and RAFM (and Mantic) on Citadel, RAFM and Essex steeds

Classic Skeleton Horde undead horsemen joined by later Citadel riders on Esex and Citadel steeds

RAFM on RAFM and Essex steeds

One more to go next week!

Reign of the Lichemaster: Dead Bretonnians