“Here we go again…” muttered Hugo.
It was one year into a Grail Quest when his master, Sir
Gaston de Perdu of Gisoreux, had another dream.
This time it took Hugo and his Lord's retinue to follow a comet towards a damned city to
collect some “Wyrdstones” to help find the Grail’s location. That was a fortnight
ago and since then Hugo’s little
warband had traveled across a semi-hostile country where they were sneered and
spat at. Then, three days ago a group of
Highwaymen stole our horses while one of the other squires, Pudge, was on guard
duty. Hugo thought the glorious knights *yawn* were
too busy polishing their armor and boots to even notice the horses were in
distress.
The last three days have been the worse. Our fearless leader Sir Gaston, known as “The
Lost”, along with his two cousins Sir Remy and Sir Riker, have been pushing the
group at breakneck speed to this supposedly mythical den of ferocious beasts to
prove their worth. Hugo knew that he and the other
two squires were no better than pack animals to the knights, and the archers
took any chance to “disappear” for scout or hunting duty to get away from
carrying any extra load.
Hugo should know about arrogance. He has been Sir Gaston’s poor squire since he
was a wee lad. Gaston was the 7th
son of manor lord, and the 7th cousin to the Duke. Hugo had doubts that his father was also his
uncle. Gaston grew up spoiled and naïve
to the rigors of the peasants he bullied and looked down upon. Then when Gaston was of age he headed off to many
battles with Hugo by his side. Gaston’s
impetuous wouldn’t have allowed him to survive long if it wasn’t for Hugo
having his back. Scared and loyal, Hugo
fought with more courage and honor in those battles than most of the knights in
all their heraldry and polished armor. Gaston
received glory and a full knighthood to the Realm.
When Sir Gaston decided to leave his small manor (mostly to
get out of doing any sort of work) and go on his quest, Hugo was dragged along
again. Gaston recruited his cousins Remy
and Riker, who were younger than him and had just received their Errantries due
to their noble births. They spend these
days during our trek staring admirably at Gaston, believing every tale and
tripe that comes out of his mouth.
Now the band is just a day away from this city called
Mordheim, or what is left of it. The
stench in the last few hours has gotten worse, and the corpse flies are getting
thicker with each league. The rations are
getting very low, and the constant rehashing of old exaggerated stories from
the Knights was making him long for his humble home and some warm meat pies.
It was getting dark, and the glow of fires and smoke rising in
the distance told them they will be there on the morrow. Somewhere in the distance the sound of an
eerie howl pierced the quiet night.
The knights smiled, praised the Lady, and looked forward to
new adventures and glory. The rest of us
sat praying to any god that would listen and just hoping to get through this
mess.
Our glorious Sir Gaston de Purdu
His "faithful" squire Hugo
Sir Riker
Sire Riker's Squire "Pudge"
Four Bowmen
Sir Remy's Squire Jean-Eric
As you can see I decided to paint up something different. So I took out my old Bretonnian Warband for Mordheim, and put some paint on them.
The pictures were taken with my IPhone since my camera doesn't want to ever hold a charge, so the pics are little washed out with the lighting.
The bases are from Secret Weapon, thanks to the Bull City Wargaming Podcast for letting me know about them. I like using 25mm round bases for skirmish games better than the square bases. If I ever decide to do a Bretonnian army I would just pop them off the bases. I prime them grey and do a quick drybrush with Fortress Grey, then I just used a heavy coat of Agrax Earthshade. I like the heavier coat as I wanted the cobblestones to looked stained, and for the shade to go into the joints. I finished the bases with Wasteland tufts from Army Painter.
I really enjoy painting small warbands and I have a few more on the block that I will be working on. There are a few local gamers who play, but I haven't had the time to get over there to play. Maybe when things settle down I will start my own league *wink wink*
I have the warband completed and will post the rest by the end of the week, I promise. Until then,
Enjoy!
