Rally Your Wallet: Zombiesmith Sale!

The July Sale at Zombiesmith is coming to a close soon.
It may extend past the end of the month, it might not.  Don't risk it.

Time to Rally the Wallet!

Sale code is : summer
That gets you 15% off.

Zombiesmith is one of my favorite of the Independent.. Boutique.. whatever your preferred term is.
They're great. Lots of unique & creative miniatures with a ton of character.

Just click on the Taxonomy tag at left for Quar and War of Ashes. Empire of the Dead too for the voyages of the Starship Wombat crew are mostly aliens from Zombiesmith.

This time around I couldn't resist picking up a bit more Quar, including:

 

Mechanic                                                                Farmer

They also have the new Fidwog :

And the Gwynt : 

(Not on their site yet, see the forum link at the bottom on how to get these)

The War of Ashes game & range are getting fleshed out too. Lots of options and more on the way. 

Four factions currently, with at least one more in development. 

The book is gorgeous. Lots of great art with amusing characters you'd expect from Zombiesmith. 

But I'd say this is probably their nicest book to date.  The background history is original and irreverent:

worth a read on it's own. 

It also appears to be a well thought out game.  Hoping to play in the near future! 

The game is unit based, but units are chosen by selecting a number of 'banners' from the list in the book. 

A banner might be 10 spear & 10 sword and shield, or 20 sword and shield with an elite warrior, or a town watch of a handful of several types, etc. So no points values to worry about.  

I picked up some more to add to my Elvorix and some Vidaar to be an 'opposing faction' for Muppet Saga !

These dark ages 'muppet-like' creatures seem ideal for use with Saga.  And the price is right...

A pack of 10 warriors is $18, command pack of 6 is $12  ...and with the sale even less! 

Not bad for metal minis!  Sure they're simpler than the baroque tendency a lot of minis have lately, but then, these aren't $12 each either. They have a lot of character and the right amount of detail to get the point across.  Very fun to paint too! This is one I did awhile back:

So this fellow will do double-duty as a Linebuck in the Elvorix army and as a 'Welsh-muppet' Warrior in Saga!   Actually very excited to get two playable 'Muppet Saga' warbands finished. 

Here are some other fun minis in their line: 

Look at this odd guy! That's fun. 

Also, if you visit the forum and check out this thread HERE you can get a link & explanation to the items they had at Kublacon that aren't on the site yet! 

The End

Col. Inri Podder, Head Surgeon, Royal Quar M*A*S*H on Luna

So many Quar characters!

Here is another one: Head Surgeon of the Mobile Field Hospital, Colonel Inri Podder.

Podder was 63rd in his class at the Royal Phobosian Academy of Medical Sciences. Though his critics are quick to point out that this means only 17 graduated lower than he did, he counters that of those who are still alive from his graduating year he is within the top 17 now! The life of an army doctor is not without it's dangers.

Podder has made a name for himself not just as a surgeon but as a peerless administrator, a skill requiring one to inflict as much pain administratively as he seeks to lessen medically.

Military forces on Earth's moon must travel for months at a time, far from civilized outposts in pursuit of mineral resources and so must bring their medical treatment centers with them.  Luna is far from a barren world as many suppose, and offers a host of dangers as well as enemy armies and all the standard dangers of combat.

A very minor conversion: this is the Crusader Quar, Caerten Baeden Croix. 

I've removed his rifle, and given him a head from a partisan: a floppy fishing hat. Complete with his cigar he's inspired by two different rather famous fictional Army head surgeons. 

The MASH unit will be this Quar, with some tents and cots. 

I'll be looking forward to painting him but it will be a bit of a wait. 

I haven't had time to paint him yet, been working a lot and getting ready for a trip to see family- having an early Christmas: flying out to Portland tomorrow, so I'll try to get to viewing blogs a bit but probably no updates here until next week. 

Royal Phobosian Quar Mechanic on Lunar Expedition

The campaign for Earth's Moon is underway, with the Earth nations of Britain, Prussia, Belgium, Northern United States, Kingdom of Danemark and the Quar nation of the Grand Dutchy of Phobos sending major expeditions to the planetoid.  Other Earth nations are also making themselves known in various ways.

For background of the campaign and the news reports check out Armored Ink where Alfrik reveals what he's willing to about the behind the scenes.

This campaign has some new additions from the Venus campaign, including a more expanded yet muddled diplomacy... which is both realistic and gets one thinking about the campaign more often than when just sending orders.  I have to say, Earth is showing how primitive and xenophobic their race is, as it seems there is more aggression being leveled at the Quar than the human nations.  It is almost as if these humans think they have more rights to Luna simply because it orbits their planet of birth!  As the Quar of Phobos can tell you, the Barsoomians thought that about their moons and found out how wrong they could be!

This campaign also sees a lot of new character types to add to military forces.
I've built, -some converted- 10 new Quar minis for such characters.
One of them is this one, an inventive mechanic, called a 'Spark' in the setting.

I have to assume a Quar Spark is known as a Quark.

The mini is one of the Quar tankers which, in obligatory VSF fashion, I converted by sculpting some goggles for him.  For painting I went with simple & messy, since he's likely going to be dirty from his work. 

The base still needs some grass on it- I'm going the bases to match the rest of the army -not going to redo all the bases for the moon just because of the campaign!  But I may wait to add the grass until the campaign is over. 

A Rag-tag Fleet: of Quar

There are those who belief that life exists beyond the nations of Earth. That there are tribes of aliens in the inner, and perhaps outer planets. That some of these, the Quar of the moons of Mars, even now, make their way to the great moon of Earth, seeking safety, and to plunder resources for their very survival.

Gaming continues for Empire of the Dead but on the horizon is the next miniatures project: a return to a VSF campaign.This time the location switches from Venus, to nearer Earth's territory: the Moon.  Alfrik has been compiling ideas for the campaign, which will have not only army-scale fighting in 28mm but he's got plans for aeronef (airship) fleet action battles as part of the campaign.  I'm a sucker for anything with ships: spaceships, airships & navies, so this sounds good to me!  Nations of Earth, and my Quar of Phobos,will be staking out claims on the Moon, negotiating, plotting and waging battles.  When will this be?  Not sure exactly, but it's just over the horizon.

-It's continued to be a very very bad week for me, so have had low motivation to do anything for myself, just working on the finishing stages of the Genestealer Cult, but nothing ready to show on it yet, so not a lot of new stuff to share.  So seems a good time to introduce the air-navy of Phobos!

I bought these last year when BrigadeModels UK was having a sale, and I added a couple ships from Shapeways.

(click for larger)

I don't know yet what the campaign will require for number of ships or ship types, but this feels like a good fleet compliment. The majority of the fleet is from the Argentina fleet. I chose them for 2 reasons:
1. British & French fleets,while cool, seem to be pretty popular and I wanted something different.
2. I love the big round shapes incorporated into these ships.  It seems right, considering Quar have big round bellies, or 'puzik' as I tend to call it, having picked up the Russian word since it is far cuter.  but the ships also still have pointed noses,again, just like Quar! Perfect!
Speaking of Russian, the round vessel with 4 guns is a Russian 'aerial battery' which fits in nicely with the round midsections of the Argentinian fleet: just right for Quar.

I added aircraft: some large bombers and fighter squadrons.
I used this basing method once before for space ship fighters, and like it a lot. You get a lot of variety with the individual wire stands.
The carrier model is from Shapeways, and I imagine this is one of the vessels that is space-worthy.
The rest of the fleet is carried or towed by space-haulers to deposit the airfleet into a planet's (or moon's) gravitational field.

Some close-ups: (click for larger)

 I'm afraid I don't remember the name of the shapeways artist or the name of the piece.  But there are a lot of nice items on that site.

The carrier is the flagship, though the one battleship would be pretty significant.

Hopefully this fleet will be battling the verminous humans, who's gluttony is unsatisfied with the most resource-rich planet in the system:  it's time for the other peoples to push them back, contain them and harvest their fair share from the planets and moons of the sun they share in common!

For Phobos!

Inspiration for all rag-tag fleets...enjoy!

Quar: Songs of Our Ancestors: Test Game

I've used Quar in games for a VSF campaign, for Legends of the Old West, and for home-brew games, yet until last weekend I never had a chance to try an actual game of Quar.  At KublaCon, the Zombiesmith folks run late night games of Quar, this time Songs of Our Ancestors, and this was the first time I had a chance to go to that, so I was looking forward to it. I was kind of hoping for a huge mega-battle with lots of participants, but they were running the skirmish game with the new scenarios- which was fine, I'd wanted a chance to learn the game, so this worked out.

Songs of Our Ancestors is the skirmish game for Quar using the Songs of Blades & Heroes game mechanics from Ganesha Games. I'd played the fantasy skirmish version a few times so was generally familiar with it.

I brought my painted Royalists, and my friend Dan had his newly pained Crusaders, and appropriately enough we got paired up to confront each other. Since Royalists & Crusaders have been at each other's throats forever, this was a good mix.  The author of the new scenario book was on hand and set us up with a mission.

My Royalists had a small squad with rifles, a small squad with sub-machine guns and a heavy machine gun team.  They had to defend the two generator buildings at a river.  The Crusaders had a few combined arms squads, including grenades and two satchel charges to blow up the buildings.  we alternated placing the extra terrain: trees & crates, for cover.The field looked like this:

The two structures to represent the buildings on either side of the bridge (the river runs under it and then into a waterfall that goes underground.

I didn't have a machine gun team, and had just 1 submachine gunner, so I borrowed the team (at left and some of the submachine gun squad). the heavy machine gun was set up on the roof.

The Royalists get ready to shoot any Alkynder-lovin sot that raises his head.

The Rhyflers go on overwatch:

And so the Crusader rebels start lobbing grenades:

Guess those troopers will now be watching over from the afterlife. But one survives, he moves around and shoots the Quar with a satchel charge and gets a 'gory kill' and the others run off!

Yay! But they soon recover and send my Rhyfler off to join his mates.

And here is where it bogged down.

The crusaders had grenades.  So he used them: kept lobbing them out, killed my troops when lucky.
So I pulled back and kept on overwatch.  This made him stay behind the crates.  He felt (maybe rightly so) that if he went up to attack the building I would kill him with the heavy machine gun, and he was in overwatch, so if I went to dig him out I would die, but if I stayed where I was, I'd eventually die from grenades.  Since you can go prone in the game, which is a free action, you could stay behind cover, safe from attack, and if the other guy came out, you could raise, shoot, then go prone again. There was no turn limit, so the crusaders were smart to stay put, lob grenades until they ran out (a random roll after the 3rd one) and hope to clear me with grenades. If I retreated to the buildings, I couldn't see out to defend them and he could walk up and destroy them.

I ended up feeling like I had to sit, hope he ran out of grenades before I ran out of Quar, and see if he would walk into my line of fire which hadn't happened yet, and he felt like he had to sit and wait until I failed to roll enough actions to put my heavy machine gun into overwatch, which hadn't happened yet.
So we were both waiting for the other to have bad dice luck.  It was a Catch 22 and didn't really work out.

"Just give me something to shoot" 

Some of the problems were our own ignorant fault:

We set up terrain in a way that made what was nearly a trench war.  Given that, it worked out just right: trench war should bog down to a stalemate where no one wants to move if accurate.  We shouldn't have had all that terrain ready to make complete cover when prone.

We were letting troops that were prone go on Overwatch. They can't, we didn't know, and hadn't questioned it enough to find out.

It is a fun scenario for the story, but needed players more familiar with the game and game options than we were.  I do see a couple problems that I'd want to fix in home games:

1. Going prone should cost an action.  It is a free action, but that causes some problems.  It creates something I remember from 2nd & 3rd Ed. 40k: Pop-Up attacks.  You're safe, you suddenly move out to shoot, then move back safe & untouchable again.  That should cost an action, if it does it makes it harder to do.  Also, if this is allowed, the defense for it is overwatch.  That can work, but that means people will sit on overwatch, which is then countered by the enemy sitting on overwatch to watch them, and soon the gears grind until nothing is happening. But it is fixable.

2.  Every tactic should have a counter.  Overwatch is a defensive tactic. If the only real counter is to go into Overwatch too, then that puts both sides on defense: nothing will happen.  There should be offensive tactics to defensive tactics.  I'd suggest something like 'covering fire': have one squadmate shoot at the overwatching unit, to try to break their overwatch, while another squadmate moves.  That's how it happens in the movies, which is a good guide for the tabletop.

We should have just played "my 10 guys in the woods hunting your 10 guys in the woods" at this point.
I love objective based scenarios, but you do need to have the basics well understood to see potential pitfalls.
A lot of the scenarios are in a linked campaign, which sounds like a lot of fun.  It also means they probably will not all be equal & even, which is fine in my opinion: as long as I know the odds are against me ahead of time I don't mind, since you adjust your expectations, then try to beat the odds. The scenarios do have some specific unit types & equipment, so if you don't have a large collection, be ready to borrow or proxy, or if you have a good grasp of the mechanics and power levels, adjust the troops on each side to what works for your collection.

This scenario didn't work out for us. We got to a point where we had to face that there was not much either side could do, other than wait for bad luck to take advantage of. A learning experience.  But that's ok- I'm still looking forward to playing the game again, change or add options if it is needed.

Some other local people are talking about starting a Quar league using the Songs rules, which would be awesome: I hope it happens!

What I really needed in this scenario was this:

This gun was hanging out on the table behind us, and I had to get a picture!

Zombiesmith Booth at Kubla Con 2012

I tend to be drawn to unique, quirky independent mini ranges. Not that I don't like a lot from some of the big global spanning companies too, but there are a handful of uncommon ranges that reel me in, like World of Twilight, War Rocket, Eureka's Teddy Bears & Pond Wars, and Quar among others. Check the Label list at left for Quar and you'll find a lot of my past Quar.

If you still haven't checked out Quar, or the other fun ranges from Zombiesmith, you should.

I kept looking at the minis for years, considering getting into them, and when they released the cavalry, on those improbable guinea pig-like mounts, and the Royalist faction, I could resist no more.  I still have far more unpainted Quar than painted, and last weekend didn't help that ratio.

Quar are a non-human species, descended from animals a bit like anteaters, with a world and culture similar to Europe around World War I.  They have some very fun, quirky technology and the background is full of humor. They are infectious.

Here is a small look at what they have around the corner (with a sale starting early this month too, so not a bad time to consider purchases!)

To the right of the big Quar statue you can see one of the new factions: Fidwog.  Shorter than average Quar, with a great new mini: 2 Quar on a cav mount, a driver and a machine gunner in back.

Here is a better picture from my friend Dan:

If you find you can't decide between Crusader & Royalist (the two main factions) then Toulmore might be right for you: Once Royalists, now fighting for the Crusade (the anti-royalist cause),they have helmets & uniforms in a Royalist fashion, but the more modern Bogun rifles of the Crusade:

If I hadn't already bought into Royalist so deeply I might have gone this route myself! 

Speaking of Royalists, check out the awesome new beast they get!  This has a driver and two gunners, one on each side. This one was the prototype, the current version has the gunners attached higher and at angles that don't look awkward.  

A shot of two light tractors (tanks) for the Kryst faction:

Sorry for the slight blur, the glass made it hard to get a picture at some angles & the booth was crowded ;)

Check out this chap! A Quar regimental bagpiper! I picked one up, mine will likely join my Royalists, though here he is seen with Crusaders:

Another Quar I like- the Quar photographer! I'd waited a year to get one of these ;)

Zombiesmith also released a fourth book for the Quar, a book of scenarios, with many in a linked campaign system.  Pretty cool!  While there I left my 'Songs of Our Ancestors" Quar Rulebook, a skirmish game based on Songs of Blades & Heroes, with the talented Sequoia Blankenship who does illustrations for the books.  He did an illustration in my book while I was playing in a Blood Bowl Tournament.  

How cool is that?

This is worth the trip to Kubla Con right there. Nice to see the Royalist cause getting some resupply! 

Zombiesmith had some other news outside of Quar. They are developing a new game, War of Ashes.

It is a ranked regiment fantasy game.  For theme and style think Vikings. Now replace Vikings with Muppets. Have the image in your mind? Right... maybe not, but this will help:

There are four factions,

Elvorix:

The minis are thin and graceful. The detail is quite nice and not overdone.  They are thin muppets.  

The skirmishers, in the bottom picture of the two above are shorter than the others.  They also use big armored pig-cow creatures in battle which they light on fire and send careening through the enemy ranks.

The Vidaar:

The same species as Elvorix, but a different culture. They have some tall furry creatures with giant weapons. 

I really like the big guys:

Both Elvorix & Vidaar are designed to have spearmen fight from a second rank, over the shoulders of the shield troops. 

The Jaarl:

The most hard militaristic of the factions.  A lot like Romans, but looking like Ewok Gremlins.

The Kuld:

Cute and odd. Some ride giant snail creatures.  

This range immediately grabbed my friend Dan, which erased whatever resistance I might have had. 

I couldn't decide which I liked most. I was very torn between Elvorix & Vidaar. In the Elvorix favor: the cute little skirmish troops and I liked the round shields better than rectangular shields, also there are some really cool helmets with brush-crests.  In the Vidaar favor: the big muppet trolls are so very cool, I like them more than the pig creatures, since they are fuzzy muppets ;) and the troops are very similar to the Elvorix.  The Kuld are also appealing, but I thought they'd probably end up as a second faction after one of the other two, but which?  Well, when my friend went to get his book with illustration, and I was still playing a Blood Bowl game, he went and bought some Vidaar! Betrayal or Helping me with a decision?  ;)  So I got some Elvorix, one pig and I got a pack of 2 'wookie big muppets' (their real name is Nhilde) to add to my Elvorix! 

I like the minis, so they can defect and join my side! 

Why deny myself the ability to pick all the ones I like best? 

We got to try out the game on the demo table, and it looks promising.  

We also discussed using these for Saga skirmish! So expect to see some Muppet Saga someday.  

Dan is looking to run the Vidaar as Vikings and I am thinking the Elvorix would work well as Welsh. 

Come to think of it, those Kuld have a lot of double-handed weapons... could make for some interesting Anglo-Danes?  Could be. 

This got to be long- there was a lot of stuff to admire and buy! But I think it will be best to save the report of the Songs of Our Ancestors Quar battle for another update.  

This also marks my 300th Blog Post! 

It's all downhill from here! 

Thanks for reading!

And to continue the Muppet fun... 

Enjoy! 

Q-Troop: Quar Defend the Wild West

Last week the Legends of the Old West league saw another sunrise.
In the last league (you can find the reports under the Legends of the Old West tag, I ran Bandidos.
Since it's just the second time I've played the game I wanted to try something different.  The problem is, I didn't have the time to paint up a new posse, and it's always more fun playing with minis you own rather than borrowing some, so making a mental run down of my collection I thought about my Quar Royalists I used in last summer's VSF campaign, for the Quar of Phobos.  Their uniforms are blue... they have long rifles and bayonets... looks like US Infantry to me! Just with rather long noses...

And so, Q-Troop have come to the Old West, to protect the innocent, right wrongs, and.. well, that's for the pulp writers to fabricate later. On to the games...

I used the US Infantry list.  I'd considered using my cavalry and running US Cavalry, but the Gatling Gun tempted me, so infantry it is.  Here is my troop:

Not many to start, the weapons are very expensive.  I took the max characters: a Lt. & 2 Srgts.
The Lt. has a saber & heavy pistol, one Sergeant has a heavy pistol, the other a rifle.  I have a trooper and recruit manning the Gatling Gun ($10 cheaper if you start with it, so I squeezed it in) and two troopers, one with a rifle, one who lost his somewhere along the way, guess he'll be peeling potatoes!

The first game of the night would be against US Cavalry! Guess I wasn't the only one looking for something different! He got a surprising number by taking only recruits after his 3 characters and everyone had pistols.

I expected to outnumber them, but they had 6 to my 7.. not much of a numerical advantage!

Game 1: Take that Hill!

We had a few tables set up, so rolled to find ours randomly, it would either be the open woodland or the crowded town (I was hoping for the town!) we got the woods.

Knowing he had the movement and charge advantage, and that a lot of those trees would mess up my line of firing with the Gatling Gun I set my Gat to have the best field of vision I could find and divided my troop, part to defend the gun and the Sgt with rifle and a trooper to run to the hill on my right, to take cover and try to get some shots at the vulnerable cavalry.

The cavalry crest the hill... steady that gun boys! 

My advancers scout up the hill and prepare to fire.

The foolish recruits head into the Gatling Gun, two are brought down while the riflers on the hill get another.

At one point, he stayed out of range and moved his officers to the side, and I moved the gun up, since I didn't have priority, to threaten them. 

Seeing the repositioned Gatling gun, the officers and a recruit charged up the hill, but my troopers bravely held and even won combat against the cavalry Lt., pushing him back.  The rest of Q-Troop then head up the hill to surround them. At the bottom of the hill riderless horses mill about, grazing. 

The cav then belted out a retreat and galloped away.  

He had no lasting damage and I hadn't lost anyone.  I got enough cash to buy another rifle, some bayonets as well as another trooper with rifle.  My Lt. got another wound (3 makes for good survival) and my Gatling Gunner went up in shoot skill! Ideal! 

Game 2: Stop those Bank Robbers!

As the soldiers of Q-Troop went back to town, as they met the new trooper, checking his transfer papers and supplies he'd brought, a call went out from the bank, it was being robbed! 

Luckily, the Gatling Gun was placed and being guarded just outside of town and most of the troop were in position to try to head off the robbers. But the Robbers had the jump on them, and were using civilians to guard their escape.

The Robbers kept getting priority, so those innocent folks were not getting away. 

A few robbers tried to rush the troops with the Gatling gun, in case those civilians wriggled free, he wanted that gun occupied.  But the gunner leveled his sights and the recruit cranked it wildly! after 16 hits, those robbers looked like so much spilled camp fire beans on the ground.

The robbers had to drop their loot to ensure their escape as the brave soldiers took out a couple more of their numbers.  One of my sergeants was injured but recovered just fine. We were rewarded by the town with enough cash to telegraph for another trooper recruit.  The Gatling Gun loader got an improvement to his shooting skill, so should the gunner ever be hurt, he can take over respectfully enough.  The wounded Sgt has a higher fight value now, the other Srgt, with the rifle has the rifleman skill (reroll misses with a rifle) and one trooper got grittier while the other got an additional wound: both good for survival. The Bank Robbers however won't be forgetting this, they now Hate my troop, so might stand their ground longer in the future.

But for now, the town is safe and peaceful again.

The other table, that I didn't play on: 

The farmstead is attacked by Outlaws! 

Local Cowboys try to come to the rescue, but too late to save the elderly couple, who are gunned down in the back. That's one nasty outlaw gang!  But I'm sure Q-Troop will track them down before too long!