Puffington Irregulars

Greetings!

Recently I've been working on a massive regiment of 50 Freeguild Militia. Believe it or not, now they're all done.

Sergeant Kelner, the commanding officer of the regiment

Sir Gilbert, an old knight and trusted mentor of the hot-headed sergeant

Puffington Irregulars, a motley lot of variably voluntary warriors from the free city of Puffington

Yup, that's 50 unique armed men built from a couple of boxes of good ol' Empire Free Companies and tons of Freeguild bits. I have to say it did take a while to assemble them in batches of 10, then painting them in batches of 10 and finally making cobblestone bases for each of them in one batch of 50 25mm round bases. Whew!

Want to have a peek at the process of how this regiment came to be? Read on, then...

In the beginning there were two and a half boxes of Empire Free Companies laying around. Add in a sudden, strange inspiration to add half-a-hundred models to an army that's already fully finished... as well as bits from other boxes such as Handgunners, Greatswords, State Troops, Outriders, Knights, Pistoliers and war machine crews. That's how the Puffington Irregulars began to take shape.

A quick online order of hundreds of 25mm laser-cut round bases from Kromlech supplied me with something to stick to their feet. I lined up 50 bases, primed them black and began painting... After an hour or so I had a batch of nice cobblestone bases ready for use!

How were these done? Here's how:
First I took a wide square-tipped brush and slapped some flagstones onto the bases with Dawnstone, adding a few details with Gehenna's Gold (sewers, ornate swirls...) and Sotek Green (mosaic, coloured flagstones...) to break up the monotone black-and-gray a bit. Lastly I washed all over it generously with Nuln Oil, and the bases were done.

Slowly but surely I breezed through the regiment, painting 10 models at a time using a limited palette to speed things up. Unlike my other Freeguild troops, these valiant soldiers are not clad in uniforms boasting gloriously quartered white and red. I decided that was far too time-consuming to do on a massive regiment like this: instead, I used lots of browns and darker red, sparing the white for more special features like feathers and shields.

This simplified colouring, in addition to the motley armament of the unit, contributed to their status as "irregulars". As a huge swarm of Freeguild Militia, these buggers can unleash a hail of fire in the shooting phase with their weapons: that's 51 ranged attacks at 14", hitting on 5's and wounding on 4's. In close combat their performance is equally mediocre with 51 attacks, hitting on 4's and wounding on 4's.

But those stats are before any bonuses are applied. The unit gains +1 To Hit for each 10 models beyond the starting size, up to a bonus of +3. Each ten models also adds 1 to their Bravery value as per core rules. And when a Freeguild General slaps Hold the Line! -Command Ability on them, they gain further +1 To Hit and +1 To Wound that allows them to truly shred the enemies of the free peoples into gory paste!

Weathering 51 ranged attacks at 1+/3+/-/1 to the face makes each and every enemy of Order think twice before crossing the path of these particular plebs!

Some close-ups of individual "volunteers". I loved bashing together different bits in search of personality for each soldier, making some of them appear poorer and less trained, while other got proper weapons and gear to fit their higher social and economical status.

All in all building this regiment was an amazing journey and tons of fun! They have now earned their place in my Freeguild army box, and the faction is once again one of the few I've ever actually managed to finish (finished army = having painted everything I have bought for it thus far). They have yet to prove their worth on the battlefield, but that time will come to pass sooner or later. The Realms are in constant need of their defenders.

That was the story of the Puffington Irregulars! I'll be back with more Firestorm campaign narratives once I get some written down along with glorious battle-pics.