Ruins & Ratmen Cards: Necromantic Warbands

Yeah, I cheated with this card -
the pose just did not fit on the regular imageframe.

After a bit of tinkering with the numbers and abilities, - and having a moment of dread as I made some upgrades to my Open Office spreadsheet and managed to make it buggy at the same time, namely it showed no values for some of the Special Rules - here are the finalized versions of the initial Necromantic Warband Troopers and Personalities.


The models themselves are a mixed bag: Zombies, Skeletons and Human Thralls are old Citadel minis, as is the Wight, although somewhat modded. (I have been drooling after the Otherworld armoured skellies, but as of now these will have to do.) All the Ghouls and the Necromancer are from Reaper, the Terror Wolf - really great model - is from Gamezone, the Dread Wolf is one of my own sculpts, and the Vampires are from Foundry's High Elf Nobles range. Elves, yeah. Who do they think they're fooling?

Alright, now they need some opposition, and next on the menu will be the Zealot warbands, with Battle Clerics, Undead Hunters, Paladins, Holy Sisters and Flagellants. Although I need to get the Sisters painted first. And to find - or sculpt - a flintlock musket for one of the Hunters...

I Intended to have each image here individually, but apparently that's not possible

City in Ruins - Ruined Houses Basement

As an addendum to the yesterday's post, here's an alternative basement level with the height of one full story.

City in Ruins - Ruined houses

When I first started making ruined buildings I went for more or less intact ones, with a wall or two collapsed, and partially roofed. Now I want to make some more heavily damaged ones, using the same recipe. I have based my buildings on HirstArts blocks, but actually building whole series of houses using the bricks would mean way too much casting - and would make the buildings much heavier than I would like. Therefore, I usually use the blocks for foundations and detailing, but use foamboard, cardboard and balsa wood for the other stuff. For walls, I usually use 3mm Foamboard. It is sturdy enough, and the thickness is close to 1/8 of an inch that meshes well with the HirstArts blocks.

The plan here is for a simple house with a small amount of the second story left. The 5"x3" refers to the  size of the foundation, so the walls themselves are 1/2" shorter. There's no windows or doors marked on the wall plans, but on the foundation I did leave out the width of my separately cast door piece.

The corner stonework is made from a modified 1/2"x1/4"x1/4" brick, from which the thickness of the foamboard has been filed away. I suppose one could file all the pieces by hand, but for me it was evident I would need a lot of these, and making a custom mold for these was the sensible option. There are great tutorials at the HirstArts site for moldmaking, if one's interested.

Sisters of the Hammer

Here's a trio that has been WIP for a while. Reaper Miniatures' Battle Nuns, with some customized weaponry. My original intention was to have The Sisterhood as a faction of its own in Ruins & Ratmen, but at the moment I think I stick them together with the Zealots, as an Undead-fighting wing. Partly because I don't see the Sisters as varied enough to be a faction of their own, and also it has proven difficult to find figures with similar look. I could make shielded variants of this lot, and they do have the Matriarch figure, but that's about it. Besides, the Zealot colour scheme suits them quite well.

Figure Display Cabinet

Here's a quickie about a figure cabinet I recently made, recycling material from an old drawer that was dismantled. Only trouble is, I could use another one! (Actually, I'm working on a bigger one with scenic backgrounds...)

Ruins & Ratmen - Necromantic Warbands

Here's a quick draft for the Necromantic warband Troop types. I think it's mostly there, but some scores and abilities may yet need some juggling. And of course, since this is the first warband, there may come the need to skew the numbers one way or another. It's all a balancing act, trying to keep any models from becoming overpowering, or useless.

The Reasons Why:
I like my Zombies slow, pondering, and easily avoided, but hitting quite hard. Skeletons, on the other hand, represent reliable veteran warriors, but with damaged equipment, hence the low C score. Ghouls are a little less distracted than Zombies, and I think the Greedy rule was written for them. I'm still debating whether Ghouls are actually Undead, and should they be Evil.

Dread and Terror Wolves Might change a great deal, I might actually give the Ghouls the Long Move and make these more akin to Zombies. Wights are essentially just Skeleton Personalities, and the Ghoul Mage is just that. Initially I thought of it as a Necromancer, but the idea of a ranged Poison spell was too good to give up.

The three Vampire varieties are distinctive enough, and although their Q is not as good as I would have liked, I tried to keep them under PV 100. I'm still on the fence whether the Ghoul Brute should be Personality (perhaps with Leader) or are there enough of them as it is. Human Thralls might seem useless, but should work with the Vampire Witch at least. The Necromancer is a bit bland at the moment (I might give him Drain as Close Combat ability), and I'm wondering if I should include a Bat Swarm to the list, although I have at the moment only one such model.

City in Ruins: Public Wells

Here's a couple of plans for Public Wells, using HirstArts blocks. Features pieces from Gothic Dungeon Builder #45, Small Brick Mold #250, Dragon's Inn Mold #51 (the 'turret' of the well is made from four doorframe halves, with the wall parts sawn/filed away), and Flagstone Floor Tile Mold #260.

The floor tiles with the curb, both rounded and square, are custom tiles I've made to speed up the building of walkways. The roof is made from corrugated cardboard, found from a nearby arts&crafts store, and glued to place with small strips of regular cardboard placed under the front edge, to create the illusion of overlapping. The top is just a roud dowel. Bits and bobs have been added as appropriate, and the whole thing has been mounted on a fibreboard. Painted with acrylics (and the roof is reddish, no matter what the picture might indicate), with a lot of drybrushing.

I actually built the Well N:o 1 a while back, but as I now wanted a companion to it with similar style, it was easier to design the new one while comparing it to the already built one.