Readers may recall my Fantasy Cliches post last year, it had its' tongue in cheek but it made a clear point; Fantasy gaming tends to stick to fairly narrow tropes. Which is not true of fantasy fiction for example. Consequently I thought I should maybe spend some time on a project that tries to break a few, if not all of those rules.
So what to do, well, Given my present Historical interests, it seemed there was an obvious choice:
Yes, a Napoleonic-esque force. Drawing a little inspiration from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell perhaps, alongside a little bit from several other sources, and lastly a big chunk of my own imagination....
As a tester for an overall style I kicked off with a unit of Scouts, using Perry British Rifleman parts, paired with Russian infantry heads and a French Dragoon sword for their commander.
I went for a winter scheme, as my vision is of Boduria as a rising state in a Eastern European context. Mixing modern Black Powder and military theory, with the old ways of dark arts and sorcery.
Part of this would allow for magic and mystery to be a part of the force, but I wanted it also to feel like an established structure in the military; Hence the Regimental command is a mix of a traditional officer corps and a religious order.
The composition of this elite infantry unit has a rather Transylvanian tone to it perhaps. A young witch is accompanied by monastic cultists and her protective Golem and ever present eyes and ears (bat swarm), as powerful as she may be though, she is junior in command to the Colonel, who military skill, tactical knowledge and discipline are what truly leads men.
This unit is a Perry Russain command figure, two Perry Crusade Monks I had spare, a couple of Reaper Bones models and an antique Julie Guthrie scuplt for the witch. From the old Grenadier range. I think this had sat unpainted in a box since I purchased it in about 1989!
Finally, to begin with, I prepared a unit of Heavy Riders, making sure I broke the rule about humans only using horses as mounts. In fact the beasts of burden here are to become a theme across the army (See the army standard above). Wolves:
Bodurian Guard Hussars ride massive wolf-like creatures, in fact an ugly but effective crossbreed with blood from savage heavy jawed dogs, giving it enough docility to be trained by normal means. True wolves in Boduria are far more massive, and generally only controlled by magical means, and deep bonding with their masters. But more on those another day...
These are a blend of spare parts from several Perry French cavalry sets, combined with the Games Workshop Hobbit series Fell Wargs. All the 'horse furniture' was sculpted with GreenStuff; making these a slow process to prepare.
In the interest of speed I used a glaze technique to paint these models up fast; wanting a good wintry finish I dusted the bases with a frosty highlight and then added globs of fake snow. I hope it gives the right impression.
These three units represent about half of the initial 24pt army, with lots more in the works. Hopefully this project will continue to develop quickly in the coming months; and continue to steer away from the usual fantasy gaming tropes...
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