Monday 20 January 2014

In Her Majesty's Name: Steampunk is coming!





Now, of course, the one thing I don't need is to start a new range of figures but I've always had a hankering to do some Victorian steampunk. However, I have never really been that happy with any of the figures I had seen.  Basically, they all seemed too much steampunk and not enough Victorian.  Now, however North Star are coming out with  line that's just right: definitely Victorian but with certain fantastical elements.  They are very much in the vein of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Even better they have been sculpted by Steve Saleh whose work I have always liked.




The new line is to tie in with Osprey's new skirmish rules In Her Majesty's Name.  I haven't been impressed by any of these other Kickstarter type campaigns, especially the much vaunted Gates of Antares one, which suffers from the not inconsiderable problem of not having example miniatures to show, but I signed up for this one straight away.






The advantage of the Osprey/North Star initiative, however, is that they present (splendid) pictures of the first (of what I hope will be many) forces for this interesting sounding game.  I think the ultimate target of £48,000 for this is hopelessly optimistic for a niche subject but, at the very least, you get the four sets anyway although I think the discount for buying all four sets and the rules of £1.79 is a bit mean.  In the last year or so I have been enjoying a number of Victorian steampunk novels; particularly those by Mark Hodder and George Mann and have thought about splashing out on some Victorian figures without finding any I really liked. 



The big problem with the period  is its Victorian (and in my mind at least) urban setting.  Houses suitable for Victorian London are not a popular subject for terrain manufacturers in the way dark ages, medieval, Tudor and Stuart ones are.  That said, somewhere in the loft I have a large ECW period manor house which with the addition of a laboratory in the grounds might work as a setting without too many buildings.  Hmm!




The figures aren't released until Salute in April so I have plenty of time to think about scenery.  I will keep an eye on Scott's blog as he has been doing some lovely work in this area.




Can't wait!

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