Fantasy Villagers and Townsfolk

Howdy folks! This post is a bit of a random one, but I had great fun playing toy soldiers whilst putting the shots together and I hope that comes through in the pictures at least!

It came about in response to two things. Firstly I have been working on a whole bunch of beautifully Oldhammer-esque Fantasy Villagers and Townsfolk from the Bruegelberg range from Ratnik/Lead Adventure, which I picked up from the lovely people at Magister Militum while I was at UK Games Expo 2017. Incidentally, there is a new Breugelberg KS campaign still a couple of days to go at time of writing, if you fancy it?

Secondly, fellow hobbyist Rusty Painting has been teasing us in the Middlehammer group with work in progress shots of his uber-townscape and it made me think about getting all my fantasy villagers, townspeople, and tavern folk together for some group shots to see how they all looked alongside each other. Sorry that the photos don't all show the minis mentioned as clearly as they might, but many of those have been seen on this blog before.

First up is the "Rat Catcher" from Bruegelberg, who has been painted up in the Dark Blue and Red colour scheme I often use for my fantasy NPCs, partly with a nod to them eventually being part of an Altdorf themed Empire WFB3 baggage train or similar, but also with a nod towards the colours of the Gloucesters medieval reinactment company that part of my family belong to...

I love this model. My paintjob and these photos simply are not doing justice to the sheer number of rats on this sculpt, they are curling around his feet, squeezing out of the sack, and nibbling at his cap. I also like his grotesque-face cod piece, and all the details on his equipment including the massive trap hanging from his belt. Completing this model also coincided with a friend getting in touch to say she wanted to run a game of WFRP (1st edition), did I want to roll a character? Hell yes I did, as long as I could be a Rat Catcher! And so (Jozef) Sykes came into being and should probably get his own blog post at some point in the future...

Next up is "Angry Woman" another sculpt I love, but a name which doesn't quite do the job imho. Partially armoured, armed with a sword yet wielding a ladle and carrying a swaddled infant under her arm tells such a richer story than just "Angry Woman." Not sure "Irate Mother" is much better either, but that is how I currently think of her.

Sticking with the Altdorf/Gloucesters colours, if not the patterns, and with the idea of WFB3 baggage trains, here are a couple of Pay Masters (or Veneticum Mercatori in Bruegelberg parlance). The second one is in the secondary colour scheme of Tan Leather and Olive Drab I have gone for to reflect either rival houses, or maybe a poorer rural possession of the more affluent Blue and Reds? It is a theme that has sort of evolved naturally as I've been painting some of my other fantasy NPCs and villagers, but really came to make sense when I started work on the Bruegelberg set.

 

The "Old Hag" is a sculpt that just screams RPG potential. So many uses from simple crazy cat lady, to full blown gingerbread house dwelling witch. I'm already practicing my character voice deary! Won't you come inside for a cup of nettle tea? Don't mind the smell. The cat's been ill...

The "Plague Doctor". I have to admit I'm not happy with the paintjob on this one. I put a bit more effort than some of the others (which to be honest are just base coat, one highlight and ink jobs, relying on the quality of the sculpts themselves to do the work) but I didn' quite get the grizzly butcher look I was going for with the patchwork leather apron. It's a sculpt with fantastically dark potential for better painters than I though. Don't let the fact I now think of him as the 'Death Womble' put you off.

A couple of peasant "Thugs" now, picking up on some recurring colour schemes again of tan and drab, and a simple blue and grey I use for low lifes. These are among the most striaght forward of the Breugelberg sculpts, and it was a shame that they also showed some of the more pronounced pitting among what was otherwise an OK batch of casts. I think that put me off a bit and I didn't really spend much time on them, but when you see them next to some other likely trouble makers they still look the part.

Another beautiful sculpt and one with som nay talking points, the "Peasant Woman" is well provsioned with fish, sausages, a whole wheel of cheese, and a goodly sized tankard. No wonder she is being pursued by a rat! But she has also lost an eye at some point, but also picked up a pilgrims token on her travels, which she wears on a rather nice floppy hat. Again, bags of character and really good to see such interesting female sculpts.

"The Musician" instantly won himself a place in my D&D campaign, where a disfiguring pox is an important part of the recent history of the area, and his bandaged face and apparently missing nose immediately play into that. I've gone for the tan and olive drab colour scheme again, as this fellow definitely seems more down on his luck than the Altdorfers/Gloucesters.

These next two are the "Durer Peasants" based on the illustration by Albert Durer and a brilliant example of the level of historical referencing that goes into these sculpts. Some tan and olive on the first one, but I got carried away with trying out the different greens I had accumulated over the years, so the second one looks like a badly outfitted robin hood with a basket of eggs...

 

I was keen to see how the Bruegelbergers looked alongside my existing cast of multi purpose fantasy villagers (which includes minis from Hasslefree, Heresy, CP Models, Black Tree Design, Prince August, and some unknown pre-slottas as well as some modern plastics from the excellent Frostgrave Soldiers sprues), so threw together a little scene around a farmstead...

Here we see a small rural scene in the Farmstead at Little Rumping. It looks like the tables are just being set out to feed the workers lunch.

We can see the local official has come to collect the taxes, a rat catcher plies his trade near the tithe barn, and a muscician is just winding up his hurdy gurdy

Peasant famers laden with produce come to lay out the tables for lunch, while the old hag and the Plague Doctor watch on

Work is coming to a hlat in the fields nearby, the local children are causing trouble and fighting again, but who is that gathering on the hill in the background?

They've done it now! They've woken the baby! The "Angry Woman" sets about the Hasslefree Medieval Kids

Some Thugs have teamed up with some (Frostgrave soldiers) peasants from a rival village...

...looking to get some easy loot from Little Rumping!

Of course the problem now is I really want to see what happens next... Ah well, the beginnings of a WFB3 scenario maybe?

Anyway, next up are some two Breugelbergers "In the Tavern", who can be seen here in front of their rputable establishnment, The Green Griffon (which is an old resin set from Grendel which I remember playing with in the early 90's, and which the wonderfully generous AVP Shaun gave me last year after he found it in his mum's attic!) You can see more of teh Grendel set along with some tables from Dwarf Wall(???), and a couple of tavern maids from Hasslefree (actually, I think one of them might be a "Strumpet" but I didn't like to pry)

  

 

 

No Breugelbergers in this next scene, but it does include a whole mish mash of manufactures, including some OOP Citadel Flaggelants. Among my favourites are the One Man Band from CP Models and the female Plague Doctor (also from CP Models, under the Night Horrors range). Also worth a mention are the VL3 Juggler and VL4 Blacksmith from Prince August who are not great sculpts by any means, but at time of writing are available so ridiculously cheaply I almost bought them again!

Finally we come to the "Arnolfini Family" - another example of the level of historical referencing in the range, these two figures are directly sculpted from the famous portrait - which also happens to be the picture my Dad and Step-Mum used to base their outfits on for their Medieval wedding. As you do...

For that reason I have gone for a pretty faithful recreation of the colours from teh painting. Which is exactly what they did for the website too. Sorry that is not very inspiring, but it works for me as it also picks up on the Dark Blue and Red theme. One other thing to note here. Sadly the face of the lady was badly squashed and what little nose she had was either obliterated in the blister pack or was miscast. I toyed with the idea of putting some greenstuff down, but my GS skills are truly woeful and it would have been a disaster, so in the end I have tied it back in to the disfiguring pox in the D&D campaign, proving that the disease is no respecter of class.

These seem like castle or town types to me, so they have been based up appropriately and can be seen below with a cast of more frost grave soldiers (seriously, I love that sprue - not only did I make a bunch of 8 farmers/peasants as seen above, but I got 4 town guards, 4 rogues and 4 Night Watchmen all form the one box), some more Hasslefree fantasy humans, and some scribes from Prince August and CP Models (one of three Dark Age Monks, the others of which can be seen lurking behind the flaggelants in the pics above). The boxes urns and chests are from Black Tree Designs, picked up during one of their regular sales to make them good value for money as either treasure tokens, objectiives or scatter terrain

Night time on the town streets...

The Village Idiot from Hasslefree is wondering who stole the treasure from the urn, and is about to get clocked by a rogue

The alarm has been raised and the Town Guard are making sure no more treasure goes missing!

The Night Watch are on the scene, but these rogues no the narrow alleys well and should be able to make their escape

Meanwhile, oblivious to the trouble outside, the Lord and Lady unveil their new shrine to an audience of scribes and flunkies, including the Minstrel and Dwarf Tavern Patron (who can be painted up to look like Lemmy from Motorhead!) both from Hasslefree

Like I said at the top, I had great fun playing with my toy soldiers for this post. The only down side is that I realised I still have too many more fantasy NPCs on my wants list, and that new Breugelberg KS to consider... damn!

Thanks for stopping by :)