Five Games That Made Me The Gamer I Am Today: (5) Flintloque

It might seem a bit egotistical to pick a game that I wrote as one of my five but honestly it's not a case of me massaging my big head! :D

5. Flintloque (1st edition) by Steve Blease & Mac Coxhead (1995)

The idea of historo-fantasy was not new when Flintloque came around, there had been an excellent article in Games Review Monthly magazine that extrapolated the Warhammer world into the Malburian period using the recently released Citadel Marlburian figures as Elves and Empire with 40K Grots having green stuff tricorns added. That idea was filed away in the back of my head as a "one day" possible project but I was surprised when (doing miniatures reviews for Games Master International) a small parcel turned up from Alternative Armies which comprised of an Orc in a Napoleonic British uniform and a Dwarf in a Prussian Landwehr one. 

A quick phone call to (then) Alternative Armies proprietor Mac led to me writing up a set of rules (oddly based on Iron Cow its genesis coming from Battles with Micro-tanks) using the 20 year old percentile firing system! For a couple of years Flintloque burned brightly and grew a fervent fanbase. Unfortunately economic pressures saw the company sold on (and later on again) and whilst Flintloque and Alternative Armies technically still exist it is not what it was for that brief moment in the mid-nineties.

Given the derivative nature of its rules I am not including Flintloque because of the rules system, even though it oddly enough worked well and made for a fun skirmish game. No, it is the combination of fantasy and historical elements in the background which has influenced much of my hobby time since 1995 and my strange fascination in dressing Orcs and Dwarves up in historical military uniforms from through the ages...

Sharke's Aquila

Craig Andrew's has uploaded my annual contribution to his Orcs in the Webbe advent calendar which you can read here.

This year I have gone back to exploring the possibilities of gameworld crossovers with the Orc Rifles from Flintlqoue ending up in the world of Pax Bochemanica where, rather confusingly, orcs wear skirts and carry eagles...

Back to the present wrapping...

67th South Mordor Foot

Whilst SWMBO has had me on bathroom DIY duty this weekend I did mange to finish off a few more miniatures whilst the sealant remover was curing! These chaps are Light Company troops from the 67th South Mordor for Flintloque.

Originally they were slated for inclusion in the second edition boxed set of Flintloque I was working on before I quit freelancing for CCI in 1997 (which is when they last received any attention with a paint brush).

The Light Company section would also have included a "magickyman", an oddball character with some limited magical abilities.

Magic had largely been wiped from the background in the first edition but I was keen to see it come back in some unpredictable and dangerous way that could be just as hazardous to the user as their intended target. I never got around to writing up the rules for "magickymen" but they would have fumbled their spell on the roll of a natural double, similar to a musket misfire (just with direr consequences!).

As you can see from the miniature Mike Owen sculpted, they would have been interesting and unique characters, this one having elements of the Mad Hatter and a patchwork coat.

Finally I finished off the Sharke and Harpy miniatures sculpted for the 2nd edition. IMHO they were superior to those in the original box set and owed more to the background (Sharke being half-elven) than the original sculpts.

Finklestein Dwarf Jägers

Trying to take Tas's advice of doing a little bit each day I managed to finish off these Finklestein Dwarf  Jägers for Flintloque.

Bearing in mind they got to the 99% finished stage last century, it was nice to see them finished (and yes, they were painted in enamels!). They were one of the last sets Mike Owen sculpted and I'm not sure if they were every commercially released as I can't find them on the Alternative Armies website.

This officer of the Krautian Guard is, he was a test painting to see how he looked in a white tunic. By this stage of my involvement with Flintloque I was keen to re-emphasise the fantasy element as I could see no point just recreating the Napoleonic Wars where the only difference was the models "funny faces" (a view I still hold to and IMHO a weakness in the games development).

For a change I based the models on round bases. Previously I had based my Flintloque figures on square ones, but I prefer round for skirmish games and think the GW War of the Ring bases may be a useful option if I want to have regular formations with these figures at a later stage.

Death In The Snow - The Undead

As promised here are some photos of the Deadloque undead. They were part of a large undead contingent used in a participation game at Salute many moons ago. The game was a rolling one with players taking a section of elves and trying to get across the length of the table with the undead units being randomly generated. A lot of fun was had by all though the appearance of the undead lancers always caused panic amongst the elven players!

The skeletons were an old wash/dip technique with sepia brown oil washed thickly over pale sand or ivory enamel. The effect was pretty good although the oils did take a good 24 hours to dry.

The zombie infantry (above) were pretty straight forward but like the elven infantry shown yesterday some of my favourite Deadloque scults by Mike Owen. The Vampire officer is ok, but was too short a model compared to the zombies and in my opinion lacks presence... I was less taken with the "Fleschless Legion", undead dwarves (below) though they painted up nice and added a splash of colour.

The undead peasants were nice models, a little smaller than most of the Flintloque range as I think they used standard 28mm skeletons from the AA fantasy range as the basis for the models. Whilst I really hated the concept of undead peasants in Deadloque (and the short story produced by AA that had them harvesting wheat in the summer - why? It was a Empire of undead ruled by Vampires! Who ate the bread?!!), the models were fun to paint.

Finally the game at Salute needed lots of wolves and I added to the AA models with a variety from various manufacturers to beef out the two packs I needed.

Death In The Snow

As most of England is under six inches of snow I have to report not a flake in sunny Bristol (much to Saul's disappointment) though it is bloody freezing!

Inspired by Iron Mitten's 'It's Snowing' picture, I remembered I had intended to post some pictures of my old Deadloque collection on the blog come winter so here are a couple of pictures of the Elves, some of my favourite Flintloque miniatures, full of character and wrapped up to survive the bitter cold of the Witch-Lands.

The picture above is of the command figures including Etienne Gerard reborn from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories into a legendary Elven commander for the game, below are some of the excellent rank and file (it would be great if the Perry's did a Retreat From Moscow line wouldn't it?).

Hopefully I'll get a chance to post some pictures of the undead tomorrow...