Wooden Wars: The Rat King and His Army!

 Uncle Drosselmeier: “No. No! The spell will be broken if he slays the Mouse King.”

Clara: “...and wins the hand of a fair young maiden.”

Uncle Drosselmeier: “Precisely.”

Clara: “Oh… why are all the fairy stories the same?”

- Excerpt from the Nutcracker

The Rat King flanked by his soldiers!

   

As Clara asks above: "Why are all the fairy stories the same?" - I thought it was high time for the poor Mouse King to have the opportunity to win a few battles, so I’ve leveled him up to a Rat King instead! Bring it on Nutcracker!

The tail is designed to be posed in many positions.

 

Behold - the Rat King in all his Glory!

Tremble in fear of his size, that not-too-clean sword, and that tail!

Since the Nutcracker ballet seems to originate in Russia and trickle on over to Austria and Prussia, I’ve done a mash-up of uniforms for the Army. The King’s is based on the Austrian Officer’s uniform, with appropriate changes to fit for tail, etc. I also went for larger “7 Years Wars” style cuffs, because, well – that’s what they’d do in Hollywood!

The king stands 110mm high from top of base to top of crown- a very intimidating fellow!

Highland Dwarf Clan Lord confronts the Rat king in personal combat!

As I was designing him I gave him a medal and then thought to myself “Hey, I want that medal too!” As a result, the Rat King sprue comes with his medal.

Rat king Sprue with medal!

 

Rat Soldiers

 Like the Rat king, I've upgraded the mice from the original story to rats! The Rat soldiers' uniforms are based upon the Russian style. Simple and clean it’s really a fun uniform to paint in a myriad of colors, and as you can see, the rats tower over the poor wooden soldiers.  

 

 

Rat soldiers with muskatoon and dessert fork arm variants

Rat soldiers come with two arm variants  to set them as a Muskatoon (mousekatoon?) unit, or dreadful Dessert Fork bearing Elite Grenadiers.  Due to their size the standard unit of rats starts at 5 instead of 10, but can be as large as you want.  Imagine a 30 rat unit - pretty much unstoppable in melee!  These bad boys measure 100mm from top of base to top of Shako.

 

Rat soldier sprue with options- and coin!

Aesthetically you can mix troop types in a unit. If you do, that unit is always considered a shooting unit.
Should you choose to build an elite Rat unit (with forks) they do not shoot, but are fast moving  and get extra attacks in melee.



Scale of Rat soldier and British soldier!

Wooden Wars Rules - Variations for the Rat King’s Army

The Rat King’s troops are huge (compared to the standard wooden soldier) and ferocious and as such have some special rules.  

1.     Rat units start at 5 figures on up to as many as you want. With a unit of up to 10 models, keep them in a single line. After that start double/triple ranking them.  You may have a unit with a mix of muskatoon and forks, but it still counts as a firing unit. (Aesthetic note: it looks neat if you make the back rank all forks)

2.     A unit of all fork bearing rats is considered an elite unit (Grenadiers). They are fast moving (move 2 batons per turn in line) and get two attacks in the first round of combat, but there is no Dodgeball save in melee.  

3.     Due to their mass and fur, all rats get a Dodgeball save of 6+ against small arms fire, but not cannon or melee.

4.     Rat Soldier large muskatoons fire a hail of shot at the enemy instead of one bullet. To reflect this, a unit fires 2 balls during firing phase instead of 1. Like with cannon, balls are tossed at the same time.

5.     The Rat King has 4 attacks in melee instead of 3, and always has a Dodgeball save of 5+.

6.     If the Rat King is knocked over (defeated), the Rat Army flees, and the battle is over.

 

When Can I Get a Rat Army of My Own?!

Thanks for asking - These will be for sale starting in December on my Webstore: www.skullncrown.com 

(There’s also a link tab at the top of the blog!)

 

 

Cheers!
Ths

 

 

 

 

 

On the Workbench: Turkish Galley with Firing Marker

 

 “The cannon constituted the war galley’s main battery. All were fixed to fire forward and could be trained in azimuth only by turning the ship…...”
- John F. Guilmarten
(Gunpowder and Galleys

 

Turkish style galley and reload marker- ready for production!

 

Turkish Style Galley

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been busy in Fossywick Shipyards carving away at various ship hulls, working out the best, sturdiest, cleanest way to produce wooden galleys with the most detail. I think I finally have all four ship types and variations good-t0-go and ready for production.

On today’s workbench we have the Turkish style galley cleared for action and showing off the new “reload” smoke marker.  In “Oar’d you glad you have guns!” (working title… ahem) after a ship has fired, upon it is placed a marker to reflect the guns are empty and needs to roll for reloading next turn. I needed a way to clearly show this on the table/ships but don’t want a lot of marker clutter. One night it hit me- smoke markers!  They fit the ships guns (and don’t fall off during movement) and are pleasing to my aesthetic. “Yay” for getting one right!

 

Book learning, Aesthetics and Iteration

I’m not sure which came first: designing a set of renaissance naval rules or the ships. Either way, once it started, I turned to my tomes, consulted learned naval historians, bought more tomes (Yay tomes) and started out on a ton of research and mock ups. I realized that one of the big things making me happy with this project was when I started making my ships in a scale I could see from a distance. You know, like when you look at the game tables at a convention from the door as you walk in.

The models also needed to have the greatest amount (or potential amount) of detail on them while retaining a sleek simplicity. Lastly they needed to be sturdy game pieces to be used in hundreds of battles. These things are a list on my shipyards wall as a reminder of my goals.

 

Vatican Mural or cover of an older Wargames Illustrated?

A Question of Scale

Fun Fact: Did you know that the Renaissance- period Venetian measurement of a “foot” was 16 fingers wide? A “pace” (our version of a yard) was three Venetian feet. If you were lucky, you got the tall guy with the big hands to build your galley!

After much iteration and some amazing failures I decided that 1/300^th would be the gaming scale for my models as it hit all the right notes on my list. Large enough to be seen, detailed enough to be lovingly painted (or looking great just in the wood form) small enough field grand fleets on a gaming table, and, most importantly, I can make them on my Laser-inator!

Turkish crew are actually Irregular miniatures Highlanders!

Special Guest Galley of the Week!

To thank my play testers at the last club brouhaha, I gave them each a galley after the game. The other night one of my club mates (cum play tester) Charles Li dropped by to show me what he had done with his ship! Superb!!!  He even had 6mm (1/300^th scale) Turkish crew. Charles is going to base them and use them as his boarding crew markers. Great work Mr. Li!

 

 

 

 

 

Ali Pasha approves!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Workbench: Oar'd you glad we have guns!

 “Mohamet Scirocco’s ships on the wing near the northern shore of the gulf outnumbered the Venetians. He clearly intended to first to encircle, then to overwhelm them...”
- Jack Beeching
(The Galleys at Lepanto)

Just like the paintings - a scrum of ships!

On the Workbench: Oar'd you Glad We Have Guns!

Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t stray too long from anything naval, and in particular anything with a whiff of the piratical, (cite: Skull and Crown moniker) so it should come as a shock to noone that I’m designing a renaissance naval action game, and (of course) the ships.  This is the first public reveal of what I am currently calling “Oar’d you Glad We Have Guns!”.

 

The rules (currently in Beta but targeted for release in January 2015) are designed to be what I’d call “convention style” formatting.  This means I can teach the core system to you in 5 minutes, get you confidently playing and making n00b tactical mistakes, learning from them and becoming a master of maneuvers and boarding-actions after a few games.   The goal was to have playability in anything from small corsair skirmishes to epic historic battles, with each commander (player) coming away from the battle with a story or two to tell at the bar.

The Knights of Malta open the game for the Holy League.
 

Turks coming around the flank see easy pickings.

A boarding party's-eye view of the battle.

 

Enough talk - show me the ships!

I’ll talk more about the rules and showcase the ship models in upcoming posts.  

For now  - enjoy some shots of a play test of the game in action at my local game club this weekend.  I stress play test in the strictest sense (ie: unpainted stuff, and place holder gaming pieces). Each turn I would pose a series of questions to the ever-patient and talented players as to what just happened during the turn: did it feel right on a gut “that would or would not happen” kind of level, as well as did the sequence and system allow them to do what they wanted to. 

These play tests are really "the-rubber-hitting-the-road" type moments.  As a game designer, I can’t stress how important it is (humbling and sometimes ego breaking as they may be at times) to have play tests with a bunch of different folks when designing a set of rules.  I’m really lucky to have lots of talented friends, colleagues and game club lads to help out.

 

Turkish ships: The markers represent Boarding party crew.

Galleys of the Holy League, with Lanterna and Galleas in the background.

 

The Deadly Galleas.

Yours truly swapping historical anecdotes before the battle.