Project: Kúrekar

 The nature of the country was, as they thought, so good that cattle would not require house feeding in winter, for there came no frost in winter, and little did the grass wither there. Day and night were more equal than in Greenland or Iceland.
  - from Grænlendinga saga

heathen cowboys

About a year ago, a friend of mine went off the deep end about cowboys. He had some criticisms of Dracula America's timeline and setting (which I'm still not clear about - I'm looking forward to doing some Congregationists once I can convince someone in this town to play it with me), so he pitched a different kind of weird west occult horror game.

I, mostly joking, suggested a Viking cult gang, like some sort of half-century early Heathenry movement, or as if the German Romantics got started early, or if the Norse settlement in Newfoundland had survivors who then wound up in... America? for some reason. It wasn't a very serious suggestion, but I did have a box of cowboys (I really do want to do Dracula's America!) and a ton of Viking bits, so - why the hell not. Let's bash up some silly cowboys, a berserkers with a six-shooter, that kind of thing.

A year later, my friend is no closer to rules or a coherent campaign but, despite my generally slow pace and a thousand other things to do, I spent this week painting up the warband. At the bottom of this post are some notes on converting them to Dracula's America, too.

It got the unpainted miniatures outta my head, I get to show up my friend, and it's a palate cleanse from a ton of grimy future space marines. Pure victory.

We'll do this in order of completion as usual. A generic gunslinger, this fellow is a early medieval sculpt from somewhere (possibly a Warlord viking?) with arms from the Gunfighters from Great Escape games (a great kit). These things go together so smoothly, it's like the world wanted viking cowboys.

This is just a straight-up build from the Gunfighters kit. A really classic Western look - though I haven't really got the hang of jeans.

That reminds me - the basing is from this video tutorial, except all the paints are different.. White undercoat > Rhinox Hide > brown wash (just in case of uneven coverage) > dry Banebade Brown > lighter dry Kislev Flesh. Rocks then picked out in Dawnstone, maybe with some brown washes. Tufts are mostly from Gamers Grass Dry Steppe set.

Mostly a gunfighter, with an anachronistic horned helmet from a Warlord viking. The horned helmet thing (which makes me crazy) got its start in the 19thC, so this is a little joke that these guys don't know as much about their religion as they think they do.

I gave him a faded blue bandana because I didn't want them all to have red bandanas, and I just realised I'd given two of them red ones. I do like a red bandana, though.

i'm always saying we need more nude men in wargaming

This is a Victrix Gallic Naked Fanatic with a six-shooter and a round shield - I'm going to guess from Warlord. I bought a sprue of this Victrix especially for this project and am absolutely in love with Victrix forever - really beautiful sculpts in plastic. The cowprint shield covering is another little joke. I'm very funny.

völva

The body is from Great Escape Games's Gunfighters II kit, which is honestly even better than the first (and not just because 'women'), with better detail and easier fits. The head and arms are from Northstar's Frostgrave Wizards II, also a truly excellent kit. I think I just got a sprue of it for bits. Oh, the bag of bones and hair is from Northstar's Gnolls.

I gave her a bronze dagger with an ivory handle as that's how one seeress is described in the sagas; her gun has a similar handle. Lots of light colours otherwise, implying the use of bone. By this time, I realised that the gang had accidentally acquired a blue/red/white colour scheme.

shieldmaiden

Shieldmaidens are of complex historicity, of course, but it's not a silly fantasy viking warband without some, and it gives me an opportunity to use that lovely Gunfighters II kit. I tried to actually push all of the whites on this lady in different directions, but I think they all wound up very close. that's okay, but it is a bit frustrating.

The shield came about after googling 'American flag viking shield', so my algorithim is almost certainly going to be full of fascist nonsense for a while. It was challenging and fun to freehand, however and wonky it turned out. 3-foot rule!

another shieldmaiden

Another shieldmaiden. I hadn't intended this gang to be read as pure good guys - all the white hats were just because I really enjoy my various 'highlight up from brown to get undyed linen' techniques. So I decided to give her a chocolate hat and a red shirt and the rest fell into place from there.

I was going to try for a Captain America-style round shield, but I can't paint circles (turns out), so I went with the colours of the Minnesota Vikings gridiron team. I keep telling people I'm funny, but nobody believes me.

chief

Been having a lot of trouble with miniature photography lately, and you can kind of see it on the chief here. He's another early medieval sculpt (no, I forget from where - Warlord, I think? I cheaped out!), with a cloak from... somewhere, and Gunfighter arms.

For his vibe, I was torn between a sort of manipulative creep that's gathered together decent folk into his weirdo cult, or a genuine Germanic mystic, a vaguely Odinic figure that really does mean what he's doing. In the end I went in the latter direction, but my initial basecoat of his hat was black, you feel me? 

I intended to push the cloak more grey, but the greens with dull shadows came out really well, so I decided to just leave it the way it was settling. His white shirt does have some vague yellow embroidery and was painted without the usual sepia shadows to show that it's in better condition than the generic gunslingers' sweaty and dust-stained linen.

Shout out to my friend Charlie, by the way, for really understanding the dilemma I was faced with when painting the chief, and helping me nut out the final design. Really useful advice that understood the two directions in which I was interested.

BONUS

gnoll gunslinger

Another friend of mine (three non-blogging friends mentioned in one post! wow!) really likes gnolls. He just loves 'em. So when I had the weird idea for a gnoll gunslinger, and already had all the parts, it was pretty obvious to just make it. And then I found out that it's his birthday this weekend, so this little guy is on the way to him as we speak.

Kúrekar in Dracula's America

The cowboy vikings aren't intended to be very serious and there is very little historicity about them. But Dracula's America includes railway barons who made pacts with the devil, President Dracula, and rebel fascists using necromancy to guarantee that the South will 'rise again'. So I think we can let some Ásatrú cowboys exist a full century early.

Equipment

This warband can use Bow, Spear, Sword. See Hunting Grounds for rules on the latter two.

Mail counts as Boilerplate. (Or can be purely decorative - a mail vest isn't the same as a Ned Kelly-style suit of armour.)

Shield. $2. Always count as a fortified defender in melee combat. Cannot be used at the same time as two-handed weapons (e.g. rifles, bows, shotguns, two-handed axes). May also be used by Native American and Tong warbands.

Specialist Members

Two members of the gang become the following specialists, in the usual manner for Dracula's America posses. If they die, other members of the posse may take on the roles, or new recruits may take the role, in exactly the same manner as for other warbands.

Arcanist

One member of the posse becomes an Arcanist. One of their powers must be Scry. The warband's arcanist can never become the warband leader.

Berserker

One member of the posse becomes a Berserker. This model gains the Lead-Belly and Bull-Rush skills. However, they cannot take any ranged weapons which require two hands to use (e.g. rifles, bows, shotguns). They must move toward an enemy model or bystander in movement phase if able to move and not in melee. If able to, must charge toward enemy model or bystander and engage them in melee.

Notes:

- The Shield might only actually be worth $1. It makes the model much worse for shoot-outs and the benefit in melee is marginal.

- The Berserker has a movement restriction and a weapon restriction, neither of which apply to models like Zombis or Revenants. However, they do get two free skills. Maybe consider giving them Ornery as well.

Kúrekar in Stargrave

Very easy to convert to a Wild West version of Stargrave. I'd make the boss a Veteran, take the Völva as a Fatewinder first mate, and the rest are easy enough to count as various Stargrave minions.

Now, let's see if my cowboy-obsessed pal ever actually does anything with his idea, now that I've made  a warband for it...