Thinking About Vanilla and Satyrs

If you follow this blog you'd probably realise that I've been looking at various fantasy rules recently. I've found several skirmish level / RPG types of games that I like the look of and (in some cases) have played & I'm looking forward to playing more of these during the year.

However, I can't seem to find any sort of large battle game that suits me. I've looked at a few and, when it comes down to the very basics, they're all the same. They all have similar concepts, tropes, assumptions etc... For instance: anything having to do with woodlands have to have elves and they have to have lots of archers. Because that's what elves do. Dwarfs are the same regardless of the set of rules ~ Short Vikings who make stuff! No fantasy races mix with others. It's all very Vanilla Fantasy.

(I blame D&D for this homogenization even though I played it for years & years and still have very fond memories).

I'm not sure what to do about this. I want to make a huge army consisting of everything I can think of all mixed together. I'd like to have mixed warbands of whatever I can fit on a base: faeries, dwarves, gnomes, pixies, ogres... Whatever! Some different types of cavalry: knights, centaurs, unicorns... But no rules seem to accommodate this type of army. You have to pick a fantasy race and that's all you get.

I can make this army for Dragon Rampant easily. But while DR isn't limited in scope, it is pretty limited in size so I'd be limited to small or mid ranged battles. Nothing truly epic in scale. What I would like is something like Hail Caesar, big, big games and a simple flexible system. There is a fan made fantasy version of HC, but it too suffers from VFS (Vanilla Fantasy Syndrome). Another system that I like is Dux Bellorum. I think this could work well as a basic system.

Maybe I should just make up my rules. Or try and Fantasize Dux Bellorum.

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Okay, enough of my whinging. 

I made a bunch of satyrs. I always thought the name was pronounced: Sat-Ears but I recently heard someone pronounce it Sate-Ers. I asked my wife who is Greek and she said it a bit differently, but pretty much said it should be Sate-Ers. So I've been saying it wrong for the past 40 odd years.

I'm just going to call them Fauns.

Anyway, these Faun figures are from Eureka Miniatures andI'll be doing some conversion work on them because they want a bit more variety. Part of the conversion work is to make detachable alternative "Certain Parts" as seen on the leader of this little band. I'll also be doing some other poses and I'll do one with a flute and one with panpipes too.

Apparently the thing on the right is a weird standard.

The thing on the left is a massive willy as depicted on numerous pieces of Ancient Greek art.

 A nice group shot of the lads ready to give the enemies of the forest a bit of "What For!"