Ewok Does Steampunk

I spent the last week building at a pace , I now have all the infantry built for my Malverian faction, an adversary of the Empire and all round cads and rotters.

I just have a few metal artillery crew to paint. I plan to 3d print a couple of fiendish artillery pieces , much like I did for my Black Iron Sigil artillery. Which I need to get cracking with as well!

The mainstay of the Malverian army , these guys will come at you overground supported by Steam tanks , artillery and some hirsute skirmishers.

The Landwehr,these will come at you above ground somewhat less enthusiastically, spearhead the attack if no hirsute skirmishers are available, they are more likely to be supported by a couple of rusty shopping trollies and given a covering artillery bombardment either on their position or slightly behind it to encourage forward motion.

In some backwards parts of the Malverian empire some units still use Napoleonic era musketry.

The ‘Molevarians’ as the average British squaddie refers to these crazy assault troops, these are the soldiers you will see pouring out of the tunnels created by their digger tanks. If you are in a siege against the Malverians, you are probably going to lose.

As if digging bloody great tunnels wasn’t bothersome enough and unbecoming in waging war like a gentleman enough, they also have bloody werewolves.

These aforementioned hirsute lead the attack in any battle they feature in because you try telling them to wait at the back.

To transform out of the lunar cycle they imbibe a disgusting tasting elixir which they down in a stein of schnapps.To quote Brigadier Gen. C.Womble -‘They were the only thing drunker and hairier than the Scots on the battlefield ‘.

So, on Friday I got an email from 5 Parsecs/Leagues creator Ivan Sorenson announcing a new set of rules. A Bolt Action size wargame for Steampunk armies with rules for fighting machines and dinosaurs. I am worried he’s stalking me.

My dinosaurs have finally arrived. These will be their equivalent of the British and Malverian heavy armoured vehicles.

Things have been a bit scattershot, what with a lot of the models still to arrive from Ironclad who had some misfortune just before Xmas.

I have made a start on building and priming various bits and bobs.

I got all the characters and British infantry in metal cleaned and primed.

Then I started on the Zulus.

I had a few days after Xmas, so I got the Zulus assembled and primed.

192 Zulus down. I realised that what with all the artillery and hopefully tanks in the near future. The Zulus are seriously outgunned. So I decided to give them some dinosaurs, because dinosaurs are cool. Fight me if you disagree.

Next up I started on the British Artillery. I also have some electric cannons from Ironclad. I may end up sourcing some Austro-Hungarian or Prussian artillery crew and giving them to the Malverians

So the idea of this Project is two create a steampunk British Army and three adversarial forces, Martians, Malverians and Zulus, hundreds of them.

The British Army, fairly standard Zulu wars redcoat theme and a view naval crew. Ably backed by a plethora of steampunk inventors and adventurers  and tanks and assorted contraptions

Martians, a bunch of tripods, in gaming terms a small amount of super powerful fighting machines.

Malverians – a made up German-Balkan hostile state, they use tanks and tunneling vehicles. I have picked up some Franco Prussian war miniatures from the Perrys which I shall paint however I bloody well like.

Zulus, seriously outgunned on all fronts …so let’s give them some dinosaurs.

Of course, they will need somewhere to fight, so I am doing the streets of London and Gerry will probably bully me into throwing some kind of Rorke’s Drift style terrain together.