Warm Ale and Mud

As a long time avid Stirlander I want to push back against the poor and useless misconception. Whilst they may be one the poorer of the provinces that does not mean poor. Stirland is the wine capital of the Empire and exports a butt tonne of it. It has a shed load of farmland too. The nobility are old fashioned and rally against change for the sake of it, but that does not mean they don’t collect taxes like all the other nobles of the empire. Wurtbad the capital is no poorer than most of the other state capitals. (see below) I certainly do not prescribe to the notion that a province which has a standing army, trades with the Dwarfs of the World Edge mountains, is the wine centre of the Empire, plies trade along the mighty Stir river and the Old Dwarf road, can not afford shoes for its soldiers. The stir river patrol have cannons on their patrol boats for Taal's sake. It seems just ridiculous even for GW that shoes would be too expensive. Lets compare some troops as ba...

I am a big fan of how things look, but with it being a game there is always that element of playability. I could probably get away with not using movement trays but my wife insists on them. Now the trays themselves I don’t mind too much as I make mine to be fairly unobtrusive: But when the models start being removed then it looks ugly, even when the inside of the tray is painted: So rather than horrible MDF trays showing, I have made some blanks to replace the models with: Much nicer on the eye and helps maintain the suspension of disbelief: Zoom Zigg. 

My WFB games are set in and around a small village and the local counts manor. Whilst all the Warm Ale and Mud story games are low key skirmish games, we do play the occasional more traditional warhammer fantasy battle game, but we still keep it low key by limiting character models, magical items, magic etc. I want games about units and leaders and terrain and places and less about +5 swords of smiting wielded by the Lord of All Men on his immortal Demi-Dragon. Here are the house rules we use for BIG GAMES to try and keep it low key. Character Models Max of 1 level 20 hero Max of 1 level 15 hero Max of 2 level 10 heroes Max of 3 level 5 heroes No Wizards Higher Than Level 15 Only 1 wizard per army. NO MORE THAN 3 MAGICAL ITEMS PER ARMY Magical Armour +1 save modifier   + 25 points Magical armour must be worn by the highest level hero. Only 1 suit of magical armour per army. Magical Weapons    One Ability Only. BLESSED   15 points It has no special powers, other...

I like world building more than playing. I do like playing, but that is more something I do with the things I have brought to life. This playing in turn creates events that have consequences and repercussions which is more world building.  Build, play, the story writes itself. I like to try and immerse myself in the world I make, and this means making it look real. Now dioramas would be the way to go, but then we lose playability which whilst not my focus is still part of the process and still fun. So I need bits and bobs to break up the flat golf course tennis court flat tabletop I use. Set Dressing. Hedges, Walls, Fences, Fields, Trees, Bushes, all manner of odds and sods. If you have seen my earlier posts around the buildings, you will know I like to breath extra life into them. Go the extra mile and all that. I like to do the same with my scatter terrain type stuff. Here are some of my bits of scenery, apologies for these not having the background cropped out like my game repor...

So begins the farmhouse build. I am basing it on the Townscape one. It will be close enough for people to recognise it, but not a faithful reconstruction. Balsa wood for the timber and foamed PVC for the shell/substructure. Superglue being my weapon of choice. Fiddly bits. Then rapid dry Polyfilla for the rendering. It gets messy so I find I need to scrap it off and score the balsa where the filler has tried to make it look a bit more wooden again. Some scrap plasticard for the roof substructure so I have something to rest the roof tiles on. I think the Townscape farm has tiles but I am going a bit poorer what with it being Stirland and am doing wooden shingles again. However the balsa I have is too thick for shingles as it is, so once cut into strips I then carefully slice them down their length to make them about half the thickness. Then after quite a while and just under 400 tiles later... Next up a few extra bits and bobs and then to prime it.

The Blood Moon Boyz. So named by Scrotter Brokenstaff from a prophecy which came to him after he fought a mighty demon, and only through cheating did the demon win and the demons blow broke his staff and knocked him out. Whilst out cold, Scrotter (then Scrotter of the Mightystaff) had a vision, in which when Morrslieb runs red with blood, the warband will be invincible to all. So thus did the warband become known. However since his Mightystaff was snapped by the most deceitful and sly demon, old Scrotter has not been casting much in the way of spells of late, something which is getting on the nerves of Holbrog The Butcher the Warboss of the Blood Moon Boyz. Holbrog has made it clear that “a shaman wot ain’t casting no magic is just a sham, an’ dat ain’t no use to me or da ladz, so you better figga out a way to start doin’ da hexin’ agin or you is gonna be havin’ words wiv my boyz Hak and Slash innit.” So it is that Scrotter and four Blood Moon Boyz are making their way t...

 JOHANNES PERTWEE  Johannes Pertwee owns the largest farm in Heiligsheld. He has both crops and livestock. It sits down river from the village proper. The farmhouse used to belong to the Wechsler family, however several years ago on a particularly foreboding Geheimnisnacht’s eve the farmhouse  was attacked by some mutated ones who wore the skins of wolves. As fate would have it, Johannes was staying with the family helping with the harvest in exchange for coin and lodging. Johannes being a former soldier was lucky enough to survive the terrible ordeal. Alas the 3 members of the Wechsler family were all killed in a terrible fire that consumed the barn in which they were hiding. Johannes does not like to talk about that night much, he says he tried to flee and escape but the skinwalkers had damaged the cart and  he was unable to escape. He had no choice but to fight. He lives there now with his wife and Uli the dwarf.

  FRAULEIN PFIEZELS OLD COTTAGE Fraulein Pfiezel is  rumoured  to be a witch. She lives in her cottage, which is a few hours walk out of the village proper. It can be reached via a small track that leads off from the main road, which can be identified by an old abandoned cart that has become quite overgrown, Rumour aside, we do know that she likes to keeps to herself a lot. On the rare occasions she does come into the village the folks there are deferent and polite. She is often wandering the hills to the north of Heiligsheld or the deeper areas of the woods. She is an accomplished herbalist and is the locals go to for cures and remedies. Her cottage is small, and she has a small herb garden that she maintains fastidiously. On her door is the skull of what the villagers say is a Beastmen she killed for wandering too close. She claims to know nothing about anything like that, and she says it is just a skull she found, probably a sheep or goat or something. She would say th...