After Action Report: Sheepherding in Cist

12 Маиуса 7533 года от сотворения мира

Любимая моя,

Пишу тебе после битвы...

the would-be shepherds meet

Reduced to squeezing slugs for nourishment, our two forces pushed into this slime-green valley, filled with towering pustules, gleaming with noisome sludge, and hungry, open-mawed pools, shifting in trackless swamps. Триста Тридцать Третий Репки Родины, the mighty 333rd Turnips of the Motherland, clashed against the snivelling dirt-eaters of Jimmy's Earl of Slough Feegle's Regiment of Foot.

After literal years of having turnip on the mind, Jim and I coincidentally finished big piles of terrain in the same month and managed to organise a game! Of course, that was two fucking months ago, because my brain then immediately froze on writing the after action report. I gotta work on this.

Project: It's Still About Turnips

 There were worse things than crucifixion. There were teeth.
   - Stephen King, The Strand

action shot of the teeth swamp
(in a forthcoming battle report)

Having finished the Death Guard a few months ago, I decided that the next project would be making some terrain for Turnip 28. I've got mountains of terrain-making supplies, but it's something that gives me a lot of anxiety, being so far out of my wheelhouse. I've been planning terrain for the desert board that my Mantis Warriors would fight over for half a decade, accumulated tons of stuff for it, and am frightened like a little baby.

Turnip provides a way to do this kind of work in a fun, relaxing way, knowing that it's okay to screw up -- that's what the mud is for! Of course, it's still taken me like four years to turn teeth and horrible fingers into actual stuff that goes on a board. In that time, the 'swamp teeth' aesthetic has turned into one of the cornerstones of the Turnip 28 vibe. You see it everywhere - well, fuckers, I had the idea very early! Probably not first, but very very early! I'm just chicken!

cyclopean shepherd stands atop a sunken house
(in a forthcoming battle report)

Anyway, the time finally came to bite the bullet. I snuffled through the rulebook and scenario pamphlet that Max has put together and put together a list of core terrain and a few would-like-to-haves. Some of those haven't eventuated (I wanted to build a sunken windmill and a few terrace houses), but I now have a core list of pieces, which will cover the generic scenarios and some of the weirdo ones:

Impassable Terrain (6x6")

Rotting Fish

Drowned Tower

Defensible Terrain (6 x 6")

Sunken House

Ruin

Dangerous Terrain (9x 9")

Finger Forest

Tooth Pits (in three pieces)

Tooth Bog

Normal Swamps but with Weird Guys (in three pieces)

Walls/Cover (6x1")

Regular wattle fences x2

Tooth walls x2

a pus sheep hangs out at the edge of a tooth wall
from - that's right, a forthcoming battle report

As is traditional, I will go through these in the order I actually finished them. As is not traditional, I'll include a bit more discussion on how I made them and include some WIP photos as we go - so this is going to be a long post!

Project: It's About Turnips

 I actually hopped on the #turnip28 bandwagon when Max FitzGerald first started putting it together a few years ago. I went all in, got several boxes of historical plastics, converted and went nuts with muck and slime and weird little helmets. I got my partner to design some cool banners... and then we just straight-up weren't able to print the damn things.

Триста Тридцать Третий Репки Родины
[trans. 333rd Turnips of the Motherland]

In late September, we finally did it. We painted 'em. I finished another project!

All it took was gluing four pieces of paper down and adding a little muck to them, photographing them and posting them. Managed to do that for Instagram -- but of course I forgot to post anything here...

Those Who Herd

 Another set of miniatures done a few months ago (August!) but which I've not posted here.

grim ol' One-Eye and his rot sheep

I love this sculpt so much, available from Old School Miniatures. Unlike most of the civilians I paint, this herdsman and his nightmarish rot sheep are intended for wetter fantasy or science fantasy settings - I can see them lurking on the outskirts of Mordheim, on the muddy fields of #turnip28, or even being warded against the Emperor's lackeys by my 40K Death Guard.

More photos under the cut.

Those Who Fly

Space. The #grimdark frontier.

two pilots and a navigator walk into a bar...

Thistle has meant that even when I am home and my partner is not, I am not able to get as much work done as I actually want. It's worth it, but a little frustrating. Now that the gnome project is wrapping up, I can concentrate on other projects. Although, having said that, I think I've started... three new ones this week? Don't look at me.