Hansel : Field Marshall of the Ahnenerbe Militant

Frau Totenkinder rarely interacts with the men under her command, or even other high ranking leaders of the Reich.  For this, her mouthpiece is most often Ahnenerbe Field Marshall, Heir Hansel.  He has the natural leadership and charisma that inspire men to follow him unquestioningly. He is recognized as a brilliant military leader, and while there are many and varied stories of his past, no one knows the truth of it... at least, no one mortal.

Hansel fell into Totenkinder's trap somewhere in Bavaria some eight centuries ago.  Many know fragments of his story, but not the true tale.  It is true that he and his sister Gretel... are these their real and original names?  Only they and Totenkinder know for sure, but these are the names written into the consciousness of mankind, so these are their names. To continue... they got lost in the forest and happened, luckily they believed, to find a dwelling.  Here Frau Totenkinder waited for them, in the guise of a kindly old woman.  It is also true that she was prepared to devour them.  And while the physical manifestation of this transformation method appeared to be an oven, the reality is not so simple or so crude.  Hansel however was an exceptionally bright and brave boy, and from a plan he hatched lured the woman into the oven and thought he had secured their escape. In the tale told by men, he did and this is where it ends.  Totenkinder must have reason to let this story be believed.  She of course could not be killed this way, if she is able to be killed in any way.  Laughing, she stepped out of the oven, fixed the children in her gaze and smiled an honestly pleased smile. She was impressed with his heart and mind.  She could use a pair like these two.

Today Hansel lives on, as a minion of Totenkinder. Tall and fair, with his only impairment being a difficulty in breathing, for which he uses an external breathing apparatus. Rumor is, he burned his lungs in a fire, and this is close to the mark. While undoubtedly Totenkinder could repair his lungs, again, it suits her purpose for it to be thus. Now he is in command of the military forces of the Ahnenerbe, second under Frau Totenkinder.
Of his sister and her role, we'll speak of later.

Hansel:

Miniature Used: Hoss Harbinger from Tannhauser by Fantasy Flight Games. Repainted but I liked the color scheme so didn't change it much. 

Goldie & Baby Bear : Totenkinder Minions for WWWII

"It is known that Frau Totenkinder employs various methods to secure servants, though the nature of these methods is not well understood.  It is known that many of the beings in her employ are actually 'extensions' of herself, or her will and as such, being but shadows of her power given shape, can not truly die in any mortal sense. Yet also, there are some servants who are, or where, human.  Understanding these is more complicated.  But imagine a farmer who crafts for his fields a scarecrow.  He takes sticks, straw, cloth and old clothes and makes for himself an image of himself.  This is a poor example of Totenkinder's extensions, but it will serve for the moment. Now imagine that the farmer fashions a scarecrow, but rather than a sturdy stick for it's basis and support, he instead builds his scarecrow around a human being. Imagine this and you will begin to understand the nature of some of Totenkinder's human creations.

These young men and women are no longer so, but are now in part extensions of her will, their soul but one strand of the weave of her creation. Why she does this is unknown.  What difference or advantage there is is known to her alone.  What we can say is these servants, whether seemingly human or otherwise, are of varying power and abilities, but all share one thing in common: they are immortal.  They can be driven of, or even seem to die, but reports of further sightings always occur.  The fact that they appear to be characters from fairy tales and myth is indisputable.  The significance of this however is one of great scholarly debate in the free world.

It is the opinion of this humble scholar that it is we, humanity itself, which gives them a great portion of their power.  It is our imaginings of them from which they draw much of their power.  Every hope & fear of children, the pattern of their thoughts on these characters in a way, feed them. If this is true, then the more we see of them the more we think of them, giving them still more power.  In this machination, how we defeat it I can not say.

Professor Randolf Fitherdollop
Adjunct to the Admiralty by way of Oxford."

Professor Poireau folded the missive and turned to his second in command, the uplifted Chimpanzee, Octavian.  "Well, what do you make of it?"
"Hrumph," muttered Octavian.  "If he is correct then you fight a foe that is as the wind. But a wind in the mind of children."
"Yes, an interesting analogy Octavian." Maximilian Poireau eyed his officer keenly.  "And do you think we're up to the task?"
"We apes?" queried the Chimpanzee, "Oui"
"Right, then let's start.  Here is the file on a pair of Totenkinder's agents, code names Goldie & Baby Bear..."

Goldie is none other than the origin of the tale of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." Human children who fall into Frau Totenkinder's power are weaved into beings of great power and near immortality. They age but slowly over the centuries and if they ever reach old age or if this is impossible is unknown.  While there is no 'wicked witch' in this story, those in the know can see the signs of Totenkinder: the presenting of sanctuary, such as a cabin in the woods.  She carries modern firearms, and fights with long steel claws in a manner like her companion. Baby Bear appears to be nothing more than a common brown bear, but his strength and intelligence are far greater and should not be underestimated.





Miniatures used: 
Goldie: Yull. from Tannhauserby Fantasy Flight Games. repainted of course. Weapon is from the plastic Germans from Bolt Action (Warlord Games)
Baby Bear:  'Werebear' from Otherworld Miniatures.

Totenkinder's Ahnenerbe Flashentroopers

Frau Totenkinder has contrived to give herself a slice of official mortal power.  Not since before the Carolingians has she had such opportunity.  For over a thousand years humanity has been averse to such direct interference by such powers as her, but with the new concepts they are embracing, the mortals are ripe for her to work direct and in the open once again.  She is in command of the newly militarized Ahnenerbe, the department for studies of culture and myth and the powers it can bring... who better than herself to control it?

Though troops are few in number, they have access to the latest and best technology this young empire has created. Most striking of these is the Flashentroopers. Armed with an energy weapon, rather than projectiles, these weapons are particularly destructive.  Just the stuff which Totenkinder may be able to fashion into a new mythos, given the proper time and collective focus of thoughts and fears about them. A minor shaping, but one that could prove useful in time.

These are from Dust Tactics, and painted up nice and fast.  The weapons remind me of the ones the Hydra soldiers had in the recent Captain America movie. 

In game play, shooting works as a simple d6 roll per shot with a 6 being a 'kill' (no save in the open) 5 is a 'wound' (save of 6 in the open) 4 is suppression if shooting 8 or more shots from rifles, or any from machine guns, and 1-3 is a miss.  Typically, Germans have bolt action rifles, which fire just 1 shot each.  American GIs have SARs which fire 2 shots each. An SMG fires 3, LMG fires 4, etc. with point cost for troops being 1 point per die they fire.  I am currently running these as Semi-Auto-Rifles to show their more deadly nature, but what I'd really prefer is changing them to be single shot like the Bolt Action, but change the die results to be: 5-6 is kill, 4 is wound, 3 suppression, 1-2 miss. In 'Captain America' these weapons were especially dangerous, vaporizing any they touch, though the rate of fire was less than the Americans who attacked them. 

But I haven't had a chance to discuss this possible rule with the group yet. So we'll see.  By Probability, the chance of a wound or better is 50% better than a Bolt Action Rifle, where an SAR is 100% better.  Granted, it has a better chance of a 'Kill', but it also has no chance of 2 successes, and it's chance to Suppress is greatly reduced, so I think a point value of 1.5 is about right- probably over costed a bit, but that'd be ok.  

I don't like the suppression rules at all actually.  They make no sense.  It's no easier to suppress with a squad of 3 heavy machine guns than it is with 1 sub machine gun... since it's a matter of rolling more 4s than 5&6.. regardless of the amount of dice thrown, the odds aren't changing.  Oh well, no game is perfect. 

Frau Totenkinder: the lady herself.

Awhile back I explained the background for Frau Totenkinder.  Now she's ready to reveal herself (meaning, after working on a client's project I squeezed in some late time to paint her).  Totenkinder is known by many names and has worn many shapes and faces, though her most common and perhaps favorite is that of an old woman... of questionable kind or unkindness. She is not vain in the mortal understanding, and when beauty is called for, she finds it more useful to employ one of her creations or extensions of herself.

This is 'Baba Yaga' from Reaper Miniatures.  Seemed a good match for my idea of Frau Totenkinder.  

Some of the other characters in this army have more modern looking uniforms (and you'll see them soon) but Totenkinder has no use for outward signs of rank and status.  

Anyone near her can feel the power she is draped in: it is enough. 

"Get them my sweet!"

Frau Totenkinder with one of her extensions, Gingerbread Man.  

More of her characters and human soldiers to come. 

Totenkinder Heavy Machine Gun Troops: Dust Refit & 15mm Use

Here is a shot of some of the first mundane troops for Frau Totenkinder's forces.  Being an extremely elite force, the militant force of the Ahnenerbe, the human troops are going to be very well equipped.  So rather than have 3 man squads for heavy machine guns, I've opted to use the Heavy Ranger Attack Squad from Dust Tactics, and say the armor gives them 3 wounds: so the same amount of shots & damage sustainable as a HMG squad.  These models are supposed to be for the allies in Dust, but that's ok by me.  They're great looking minis and painted up fast... which with the limited hobby time I have, suited me just fine.

I won't be using any rocket booster effects as we don't have such rules, but they looked good with them on, so I didn't remove them.. who knows what use they'll have in the future for other armies & game systems.

Speaking of, I am thinking they'd make nice 15mm walkers!  I got the 'Lunar Nazi' bug awhile back, and think these might be just right for that project.  Here's how they scale with a 15mm mini:

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more!

Conversions for Dwarf Rangers for Lord of the Rings

Last week I had the chance to play Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle for the first time in... well many years.  When you have to stop and do calculations, it's been a long time. I really enjoyed that game, and still think it's GW's best 28mm wargame. Plus I'm a Tolkien junky, so its hard to go wrong.

Digging out my dwarf rangers I decided they needed a captain and a banner to be a viable little theme force.

A lot of the Lord of the Rings plastics are of questionable quality, but in general I like the rangers, a good deal more than the plastic dwarf warriors, and I always liked the idea of a dwarf patrol.

First up, a Captain. Just adding a shield should suffice, since it'd good gear for a Captain and none of the rangers have shields, so he'd stand out as unique just from that.

I used a shield from a Chaos Marauder, trimming and rounding the spike to make it look more like a Saxon or Viking shield. The fact that it has torn leather makes him look even more 'rangery' and like he's been in some recent scraps in the wilds.

The banner would be more challenging.  First, I didn't like the idea of an actual banner.  This isn't a warhost, it's a patrolling force, to scout ahead or defend the borders.  They aren't likely to be waving a flag around.  

So a hunting horn would serve the same purpose and seem much more appropriate I think. 

1. Take one of the rangers with 2 axes and saw his left arm off.   

2. Trim the axe handle down and smooth it to be the horn mouthpiece

3. Cut the axe head off and cut the axe handle down to a bit smaller than you want the horn length to be, before it starts to curve up.

4. Cut the arm at the elbow at a 45 degree angle. 

5. Drill into the body and sink a paperclip into it to be the basis of the upper arm. 

6. Glue the arm to the paper clip and horn to the mouth

7. Use Green Stuff to sculpt a simple horn

8. Use Green Stuff to sculpt the upper arm: it's very easy.

Still to do: smooth the horn and widen the hole and paint them up!

Weird World War II Battle: Final Test Play

On Friday we ran a large game of our Weird World War II setting, to test out the final adjustments and see if it balances out. We had two 300 pt armies of Germans on one side, being Hydra and the Werewolf force against 300 pts of the BLA and 225 pts of Polish.  This would be a more urban battle.

The Polish, at left, had a great deal of captured gear: a KV-85 & T34 tank, three Panzer 38-T's and a couple German transports.  The Belgians brought their newest device: an allied British Firefly outfitted to be a walker. And of course, plenty of monkeys and apes!

 The wolf troops set up in the graveyard, probably hoping to dig for bones before the conflict erupted...
That jagdpanzer was going to be trouble.  And further back in the field the forces of Hydra were arrayed.

The jagdpanzer & panzer IV make short work of the thinnly armored 38-T's.  But not before a Hydra transport was destroyed.

The Polish advance and take up position in cover of a ruined building and a wall. 

The Panzer IV is destroyed from a long shot by the KV. meanwhile the wolves advance. 

The Firefly rounds the corner and gets one shot on the Jagdpanzer: fails to penetrate it's armor, and will be destroyed for waking the sleeping cat next turn.

The Alpha werewolf leaps from the ruined building onto the T-34 and rips it apart. 

He's a dangerous fellow, so don't tease him about his lederhosen.

His mommy dresses him this way.  Says he's a good boy.  

Who's a good boy? You are! Oh yes you are!

This was before Europe had leash laws. 

What we learned: Regeneration was too good and too inexpensive.  It would effectively make immortal super heroes for any who took it.  That is all fixed now.  Still might be a bargain, but since there are ways around it, it might be just about right now. We made the cost dependent on the mitigation of the character, rather than a straight value.  Reasonable since a character with 1 hit point won't benefit from regeneration as much as a character with 5 hit points.  

This is a problem in a lot of wargames that try to have modular or build them yourself characters. 

A classic example of this problem is Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  For as long as I can remember there has been the Frostblade magic sword: 100 points for a sword that is completely normal except for the attribute that a single unsaved wound will kill anything.  '100 points' is a fixed value, but the sword isn't the same value in the hands of all characters.  Give it to a goblin hero and you'll still have a poor chance of killing a dwarf hero. But give that same sword to a chaos lord and you can reasonably expect to be killing dragons. So why does it cost the same points? A 3+ ward save is worth a lot less on a skaven hero than a vampire lord, etc.  

One of the reasons such games are hopelessly unbalanced. 

I'm glad we've been trying to aim for a real balance. It isn't easy, but the results are worth it.