Wednesday 15 January 2014

The Imperial Cossack Company

Another home grown company for In Her Majesty's Name is my Imperial Cossack Company. Colonel Razin (he has some famous ancestors) leads a disparate group of callous and dangerous agents in the name of the Tsar. First up is his niece, Olga. Beautiful but deadly. Here she is with her uncle.
So ruthless she would shoot her own uncle in the back.
Grigori was raised by bears, and had a veneer of civilisation coated on him by the hunters who found him (and turned his 'mother' into a nice rug). He later found his long lost 'brother' Yuri the bear, who is fiercely loyal and obedient to Grigori. In a hand to hand fight any enemy can expect to be clawed and chewed on... and then Yuri might attack them too!
'Look, Yuri! A smackeral of honey!'
Rounding out the company is Solokha the witch. Sometimes known as the Dark Lady, this beautiful but terrifying woman has various mystical powers - including the ability to reanimate the dead.
Black is always stylish - especially for necromancers
Cossack zombies - one of them is obviously an original gangsta
'Ewwww! A spider!'
The living people are all Artizan Designs figures form their Thrilling Tales range. Yuri is from the North Star Menagerie, and the zombies are Secrets of the Third Reich Soviets. I've replaced the heads on two of the zombies with skulls from the Wargames Factory Undead box, because the heads that came with the figures had forage caps which don't work for the later Nineteenth Century. I'm still waiting on 4 Musketeer Miniatures Great War Russian figures that I ordered to be the pre-dead zeds.

In games terms, I haven't put stats together yet, but I see Solokha functioning like Dr Kobalt from the Society of Thule, but using magic to reanimate dead soldiers rather than technology. I haven't yet bought Heroes, Villains and Fiends which has animal characteristics in it, so in the meantime Yuri will be put together with a number of other traits that might reflect a grizzly bear.  I have now come up with points and stats for the Pharaonic Revivalists, and will post these when I've completed the stats for the Cossacks.
Just one big happy family
Edit 16th January:
The stats for the Cossack Company:

Pluck
FV
SV
Speed
Cost
Talents
Equipment
Colonel Razin
2+
+2
+3
+1
55
Leadership +2, gunslinger, tough, fearless
Brigandine, 2 Mauser pistols (carbine)
Olga
4+
+1
+2
+0
19
Duellist
Mauser pistol (carbine), Brigandine
Grigori
4+
+3
+1
(+1)*
37
Tough, fearless, martial artist*
pistol, Brigandine, fighting knife
Yuri the bear
3+
+4
-
+2
38
Terrifying, berserker
Claws (as a fighting knife)
Solokhna
4+
+0
+0
+0
37
Necromancer, Clouding Men’s Minds
Lined coat, dagger (fighting knife)
Cossack rifleman
5+
+2
+1
+0
30
Bayonet drill
Military rifle and bayonet, lined coat
Reanimated Cossacks
3+
+2
+0
+0
n/a
Numb, terrifying, anti-venom
Lined coat, hands as clubs
Necromancer allows Solokhna to reanimate any dead troops within 3”. They remain reanimated until Solokhna is taken out of the game, or they move more than 12” away from her. (major power + lasts more than one turn + 12” range =21 points).  

Reanimated Cossacks do not start the game, They can only be brought on to replace dead Cossack Riflemen as a result of Solokhna's necromancer power.
Options

  • Any Cossack Rifleman may be mounted on a horse and must replace his rifle and bayonet with a sabre and carbine at an additional 2 points.
  • Any character (except Yuri) may be mounted on a horse at +5 points. They may take the trick riding talent at a further +5 points and may take a sabre at +4 points.

I wasn't too sure how to work out Solokhna's Necromancy, and I've given my breakdown here. I'm open to suggestions.
The company costs 276 points to run with 3 Cossack riflemen.

Re-edit 17th January:
Based on feedback from Craig (the gentleman who wrote the rules) I've recosted the Cossack Riflemen to take into account that they may become mindless zombies. I've also added options for mounting the Cossacks.

Re-reedit 20th January:
After playtesting Yuri has gone through some changes, the +5 per Cossack Riflemen for reanimating them is gone (the 3" distance and then a pluck roll to activate is quite a difficult thing to achieve compared to the automatic reanimation of the todtruppen within 8"). In its place I've added anti-venom.

Nate


16 comments:

  1. Nice painting Nate! Love the Dark Lady!!

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    1. Cheers Ray. Just admire her at a distance for your own safety though!

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  2. Very nice, beautiful colors!

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    1. Thanks Phil. I think I'm getting the hang of lighting and getting better with the camera so that the colours really show out.

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  3. Great stuff. Excellent painting.

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    1. Thanks Chuck. I find that Artizan figures are a joy to paint.

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  4. Lovely work mate. I've got a lot of the same miniatures and it is fascinating too see how different people paint things.

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    1. Thanks Millsy. I think they fit into being late nineteenth century miniatures really well with just a different paint scheme. 'In Russia it is not uniform that changes - it is you that must change for uniform!'

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  5. Splendid effort Sir!
    I have taken the liberty of featuring your work on the IHMN blog and linking back to yours.
    Are you going to add a list of 'Options' for your company?
    Cheers,
    Craig

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    1. Thank you very much good Sir. And I thank you for your advice regarding costings. I will adjust them accordingly this morning.

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  6. Well done Sir - a cracking Company indeed!

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  7. Excellent company. Love the bear man's back story too!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Legatus. The fluff aspect is one of the most fun things about this game so far.

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