Hussite Wars?

In addition to playing tabletop games and collecting minis I do play video games occasionally. It gives me a gaming experience that I can indulge in a solo way, and in the glorious modern fashion you can purchase them in an entirely digital format so it can be a very impulsive thing. 

If you like a challenging RPG experience.

Thanks to my love of RPG's the Xbox store was quick to recommend Kingdom Come: Deliverance. So I downloaded the title and embarked on adventures a plenty set in the medieval Bohemia, a land riven by conflict at the time the game takes place. This led me into a rabbit hole on Wikipedia to a bit of real history that had evaded my attention until now, the Hussite Wars.

Who's this guy?

The unfortunate fellow getting pride of place in this medieval human barbecue is Jan Hus, the man who lends his name to a religious movement and a war fought to reform the church in Bohemia before the rest of Europe thought they would give it a shot. What's so neat about the Hussite Wars is the use of guns, both for infantry and cannon, and the exciting wagenburg tactics used by the Hussites that allowed smaller forces of lightly armored peasants to defeat larger armies made up of heavily armored horseman. By circling their wagons into defensive forts they could shower their attackers with bolts and shot until they retreated, then the Hussites would sally out with their own cavalry and mop the broken attackers. After learning about this I decided I needed to paint and model some tiny Germans and Bohemians.

Priests and monks from Miniature Figurines Hussite range.

Unsurprisingly I was not the first person to find some excitement in the Hussite Wars as a tabletop gaming venture, a number of companies make some lovely miniatures in a variety of scales. I chose 15mm for its economy and small scale alleviating some space concerns. I'm sure there are a ton of rules to use that could well represent larger battles of the Hussite Wars, but I wanted a skirmish game that would be fun and quick, an excuse really to paint and collect a variety of neat little lead men, Lion Rampant would do the trick nicely for my needs. 

Breakdown of the Hussite Wars

As I often do, I have probably bought too many minis for this project already, and since many of the companies that make minis I like are based in the UK I am stuck waiting weeks between bruising my bank account and putting paint to minis. So what to do in the interim...

Build tiny thatched houses of course.

I've already got a few batches of minis in the mail, and I've painted a number of them already. I've also cobbled together a number of buildings and terrain pieces just for this setting, but I'm only showing you a few quick neat things to be followed up by in depth articles with loads more pictures of minis and terrain.

Still thirsty,

Chris

Still in the Hobby

For a number of years I cataloged my many attempts at building, painting, and collecting minis, as well as my adventures in wargaming with my friends. A number of things changed for me and I shifted my interest from maintaining my blog and working on my hobbies. I moved a fair distance from the place that I had grown up in western North Carolina to coastal Virginia.  For a couple of years my hobby stuff was definitely a back burner kind of thing.

That's not to say that I didn't work on some minis and some games in the interim. I have been participating in an ongoing Warhammer 40,000 narrative campaign setting with my friends, that project alone has seen me collect a substantial amount of Orks and a new Astra Milkitarum force.

These are my Usamlijan Fusiliers.

They specialize in old fashioned lasgun fighting.

But they do pack some punch with the big guns.

And some bruisers too.

I'm sure I'll do a few features on those minis but there are a few pics just prove that there has been some painting in the past few years. There have even been a few large scale engagements, though they are a bit further apart than my gaming activities have been in the past. (Warp transit times between Virginia and North Carolina can be killer.)

My friends and I might not play as often, but we make up the difference with scale.

I thought that I'd brought a lot of minis with me till...

The local Orks showed up.

The relaunch of the blog is just my way of sharing some of the nifty stuff that I've been working on, plus I realized how much I missed connecting with the broader community of miniature wargaming and collecting. Going forward I hope that I can provide some eye-candy, some insight into my process and articles that have more interesting content than spelling and grammar errors.

Still thirsty,
Chris