Alternative Gnomes

The best laid plans of mice and gnomes gang aft agley, and though a new month has begun, I've not yet completed my Gnomevember work. Some finished painting to come very soon, but first I thought I'd discuss some of the alternative ranges of gnomes that are out there, and whether it's possible to include them in a contingent consisting primarily of C11 Citadel Gnomes.

Here are my findings:

Impact Miniatures

I'm a big fan of their ARBBL chaotic warrior blood-bowl style fimir, and so I thought it a good idea to have a look at their blood-bowl style gnomes. A bought a couple to try them out. Trouble is, they really are on the small side - 13mm to the eye. The head coach, waving his spanner, is a lovely sculpt and will just about fit in because his hat is sticking up enough to make him look the same height as the citadel minis (even though he's shorter to the eyes), but I think the players are sadly just too little.


Ginfritter's Gnomish Workshop

This range has some very distinctive gnomes. I bought 3 of them: Ginfritter the Gnome Illusionist Thief, Ginfritter the Not So Innocent Gnome (with a fireball behind his back), and Rhuud E. 'The Flippin' Gnome, giving the finger. (I didn't go for the flasher gnome who's exposing himself.) Sadly Rhuud E. Gnome is well out of scale (20mm to the eye, and the real problem is that he's just too chunky), but the others are fine (16 and 18mm to the eye).


Reaper Miniatures
Reaper have several different ranges. The bones ones look waaaay too cartooney, and the proportions aren't right for me. Some of them remind me of that shite Tree Fu Tom cartoon off CBeebies.

I mean, in what sense is that a gnome?

Then on the more appealing side, there's some interesting Bloodstone Gnomes - I find the somewhat Lustrian feel of them quite distinctive, although they come across as a little too dark for my purposes. Nevertheless, could be could conversion fodder, and I might return to this range in the future.


However, there was one Reaper fellow I couldn't resist including: Marius Burrowell, Gnome Thief. When he arrived, I discovered he was slightly on the big side (19mm to the eye, though when I rebase him, I'll take a bit off his chunky boots) and not quite the right proportions (head slightly too small), but characterful as anything, and with a lick of paint I think he'll fit in nicely.



Asgard Miniatures
Rummaging through some old lead, I found this guy:

Turns out that he's not a gnome, he's an Asgard dwarf; but he fits in perfectly with the gnome scale (18mm to the eye, just slightly higher than the citadel gnomes but not enough to care about) so he's being repurposed. This range is still available from The Viking Forge, so I may put in an order for some more of these not-gnomes in due course.


I've put in an order for gnomes from two other ranges that haven't arrived yet:

Essex Miniatures

Private W., in a comment on an earlier Gnomevember post, encouraged me to take a look at this fabulous looking range, which can be purchased here. I'm especially keen to get hold of the banner bearer and a musician. They have archers, gnomes with slings, and some extremely quirky minis, like the gnome chariot being drawn by - errrr what is that exactly...?

Pictures of the full range can be found on the Stunties Wiki


Black Tree Designs

BTD have these 3 Gnome Warriors, which I ordered during one of their frequent sales. Was particularly drawn to the fact that they have another dwarf with crossbow to round up the meagre number I have. Will be interesting to see how they scale up.

There were also a couple of ranges I decided weren't worth a speculative purchase: Otherworld Miniatures

I think Otherworld's sculpts are of a fantastic quality, and while their gnomes are no exception, they just don't fit in with the citadel gnome style. To me, this feels more like a scaled down human to a gnome. Too naturalistic, the heads are too small, and at 18mm to the eyes, I think they'd be a bit too tall to fit in anyway. However, I do intend to make some purchases from Otherworld and to drop into their Royston HQ one day to pick up my minis, so I may ask to take a look just to be sure.
Stonehaven miniatures
Some charming sculpts here if you like that aesthetic, but just that tiny bit too cartoonish for me, and I don't really think of gnomes as having ears that stick out THAT much.

Next up, belated painted Gnomevember gnomes!

My son's contribution to Gnomevember

My son has been getting into the spirit of Gnomevember by making some gnomes at school. Do not be fooled by the charmingly colourful exteriors, they're mischievous little blighters. Little bit on the big side for 28mm, but still, he's putting me to shame with his Gnomish productivity.

Elementals, tricksters, or just plain naff? Some Gnomevember reflections on gnomes.

Away from Gnomevember's painting regime, and up north amidst family anxieties, on this Monday morning I retreat into a pleasant world of idle thought and imagination to offer some meanderings on the subject of Gnomes.

Graeme Davis, the designer of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, has celebrated Gnomevember by posting a Brief History of Gnomes in Warhammer. It seems that gnomes were one of those races that just couldn't be left out, but nobody gave too much thought as to how exactly to fit them into the Warhammer World, other than a statline: "Back in 1986, Citadel did have a few Gnome miniatures in its catalogue, so I included stats for them in the WFRP1 Bestiary. I’ve written before about how I tried to include stats for every miniature Citadel had ever made." Gnomes weren't included in the rulebook as a player race, although rules and background were written up in White Dwarf 86, and later reprinted in Apocrypha Now.

There we learn that gnomes are smaller cousins of the (already pretty small) dwarves. They are clannish, don't mix well, and spend most of their time in burrows or cavern networks underneath hill ranges. They like fishing, preferably in underground lakes: "Indeed, the Gnomic skill with rod and line is almost legendary." They have a sharp wit, and a liking for practical jokes; these characteristics have led to their being employed as jesters in royal courts.



So some excellent broad hints as to what they might be like, but thankfully left wide open for us to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations. Thus, here are 3 brief reflections on gnomes and why I think they are important:

1) Like fish through water, gnomes pass through the earth

One of the earliest written references to gnomes can be found in the 16th century alchemical writings of Paracelsus. He sees them as synonymous with pygmies, around "two spans" high, and describes them as mountain people. They are one of four representations of an element: Undines are the spirits of the water, Sylphs are the spirits of the air, Salamanders are the spirits of fire, and Gnomes the spirits of the earth. Each of these beings inhabits their element, breathing it, passing through it; and so too do each of these beings have a particular element as a "soil" in which to grow their food - for gnomes, water is this "soil" (which would explain the fishing rods, I suppose). God created each of these as guardians of their element. Gnomes are the guardians of the earth.

Hence, Gnomes are elementals. Not only do they have an affinity with the earth, a sense of that element being their home, passing through it as easily as fish through water, they embody the essence of the earth and are protectors of it.

2) Gnomes are the epitome of naff

Back in 2013, Ikea produced an advert that featured a middle class couple replacing their garden furniture with generic Scandanavian crap, only to have their garden gnomes fight back against the bland psudeo-modernist aesthetic. The couple are left with no alternative: they must slaughter the gnomes, each and every one.

Some people didn't like the advert and complained to the Advertising Standards Authority. But the message was clear: gnomes are naff. They are suburban, twee, sickeningly cutesy, everything we love to loath.

Maybe gnomes are naff. And that's why the Warhammer World needs them now more than ever. Without rehearsing the old anti-GW arguments, with which everyone's familiar, especially in these "end-times" times, right now in Warhammer everything is big, apocalyptic, grimmer than grimdark, END OF THE WORLD EVERYONE WILL DIE, massive multi-part plastic toys will RISE FROM THE EARTH AND DEVOUR US ALL and there will be SLIME and SKULLZ and WAR. In such a world of idiotic hyperbole, these little gnomes are completely out of place. They're too small. They're kind of cute. They don't conjure up images of endless war and suffering. That's why they are important, and why I'm going to make sure that at least a few of my gnomes have red pointy hats and white beards. Their very presence reminds us of the pathetic aesthetic and stops us getting carried away by a narrative arc so unbelievably hackneyed that it makes Dan Brown look like Dostoevsky.


3) Gnomes are the tricksters of the underground

Gnomes, like their close ginger-haired relatives the Leprechauns, are troubling because we don't know whether to take them seriously or not. Are they mocking us, tricking us, or warning us?

From British Goblins, by Wirt Sikes (1880): Under the general title of Coblynau I class the fairies which haunt the mines, quarries and under-ground regions of Wales, corresponding to the cabalistic Gnomes. The word coblyn has the double meaning of knocker or thumper and sprite or fiend; and may it not be the original of goblin? It is applied by Welsh miners to pigmy fairies which dwell in the mines, and point out, by a peculiar knocking or rapping, rich veins of ore. The faith is extended in some parts, so as to cover the indication of subterranean treasures generally, in caves and secret places of the mountains. The coblynau are described as being about half a yard in height and very ugly to look upon, but extremely good-natured, and warm friends of the miner. Their dress is a grotesque imitation of the miner's garb, and they carry tiny hammers, picks and lamps. They work busily, loading ore in buckets, flitting about the shafts, turning tiny windlasses, and pounding away like madmen, but really accomplishing nothing whatever. They have been known to throw stones at the miners, when enraged at being lightly spoken of; but the stones are harmless. Nevertheless, all miners of a proper spirit refrain from provoking them.

This is the mythology of the "knockers", gnomes of the Welsh and Cornish mines. Good luck or ill omen? The sound of knocking was the creaking of the earth and the timber supports that preceded a cave in. Were they malevolent creatures who caused the cave in? Or well meaning creatures who warned the miners in time for them to escape?

The dark creaking claustraphobia of the mine is pretty anxiety-inducing. And just as I like my fimir to embody longstanding cultural anxieties about the fens and marshlands, I like that the gnomes embody an anxiety about the dangerous underground where they make their home. You do not know whether to trust them or not. They are tricksters within the depths of the earth.


Next up, I'll consider alternative gnome models and how they line up next to the classic C11 Citadel gnomes.

Gnomevember!

Been a while since I updated the blog... to be honest, been in a bit of a hobby slump these past couple of months. It's not so much that I've lost interest, just that the energy expended in the run up to the Oldhammer weekend, and the excitement of the Bring Out Your Lead itself, meant that there was going to be an inevitable crash afterwards. Anyone else experience these post-BOYL blues? Added to which I'm very busy with work (and I'm lucky enough to do work that I love) and that's minimised any time or energy that I haveto get out the paints or get to games.

Part of the problem is that every time I had the urge to do some painting, all of the projects I've planned just seemed a bit overwhelming. So I decided I needed something a bit different, a manageable and interesting challenge to get me back in the game. I was considering doing something for Orctober, but I came a bit late to that. So what works for a November challenge..?


Welcome to GNOMEVEMBER!

One of the most underrepresented of the oldhammer races, gnomes are full of character. Granted, the classic citadel minis can be a bit pricey on ebay, but many of us have a few kicking about, and there are alternatives out there that are worth looking for.

Seeing as I have 13 classic models already (12 citadel, 1 grenadier), I reckon I have a good number to start a small skirmish force/ allied contingent. There are always scenarios that need a few gnomes!

So over the next month, I have a few aims:

- Get some of these wonderfully quirky minis painted

- Explore the mythology of gnomes and get a sense of how they might feed into narrative games

- Get hold of some of the gnomes that are being produced by various companies today, and see whether or not they can fit alongside the old citadel models.

...and maybe even get a game in with them!

Anyone else want to join me in celebrating Gnomevember? Come on, is anybody's oldhammer collection truly complete without a bunch of these wee fellas?

Plague Artillery

"And on the lands near Ida's towers,
A loathsome toad she crawls;
And venom spits on every thing
Which cometh to the walls"
- from the ballad 'The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh'

Well, the unconstrained joy and the sickly hangovers that characterise Bring Out Your Lead 2014 are only now beginning to fade from memory, and soon I hope to type up a couple of battle reports from this most wonderful of weekends. Others have done a sterling job recording what it was like: see Orlygg here and here and see Warlord Paul here. I'm not going to attempt a grand scale review of proceedings, just give a very partial account of the kerfuffles I was involved in, but before that I thought I'd introduce of the newest weaponry at the disposal of Clan Slea: my Swamp Toad Plague Artillery.

In my search for creatures that (literally) ooze all things marshy and swampy, toads and frogs were very high up on the list. In particular, I was keen to exploit the medieval idea that toads spit venom, acid, bile, and all manner of unpleasant things, as clearly expressed in the ballad above, in which a woman is turned into a spitting toad. This theme is picked up in the Fighting Fantasy series in the (rather obviously named) SPIT TOAD, a man sized toad that spits acid into its victims eyes before devouring them - you can find these charming fellas in Island of the Lizard King.


So when I saw the Nurgle Plague Toads that Forge World were producing, I felt they were the ideal addition to my fimir army; and with the size and design of them, they immediately suggested a kind of artillery piece - a sort of plague mortar spewing forth disease and bile onto the enemy. The only problem was the cost - they're not the cheapest things in the world. But then I was lucky enough to pick up a set on ebay in the United States. They weren't offering postage to the UK, but I got them sent to an address in the US and then asked my long suffering wife to bring them back to the UK in her luggage.

For handlers, I've used Bog Raiders from Blood Moon Miniatures. Compared to other fimir-substitutes, these lads are definitely what you might call ripped. They have muscles peeking out from their muscles. It's a bit unsettling, like some kind of dodgy infomerical advertising ab crunchers. For this reason, they don't necessarily fit in with other not-fimir, and I do really REALLY hate the way that they come in so many little bits; having to assemble a single infantry model from 4-5 metal pieces (that aren't even that interchangable) is definitely not my idea of fun. So for that reason, they're never going to get a ringing endorsement from me, although I have to admit they do paint up quite nicely.

The plan for the siege game at BOYL was to have these buggers spreading death and disease among those cowering behind the castle walls. Did we succeed? All will be revealed in the next exciting installment...

The Forgotten Goddess: background for Gauntlet 2014

Some gods are so frequently troubled by the contradictory requests of men that they are driven to madness. Far luckier are those gods who are forgotten, free from men's desperation, untroubled and at peace.

Such has been the blissful fate of the goddess Deva for many centuries; her temples left forgotten, her shrines covered with ivy and moss. The river that bears her name tumbles by carrying her memories to the sea.

Curse the hunger of the indiscriminate. Curse their greed. To the mouth of the river came the Norse, hungry for plunder, ready to strip whatever meagre ornaments still remained in the places dedicated to the honour of Deva. Their desecration has awakened the goddess. From the highlands came the forces of the Earl McSalmond, drawn to the valley at the goddess' will, though they know not what they defend or why. From the great ocean the goddess called the seafaring elves, knowing that they stood ready to protect that which is sacred.

But the goddess' call was not only heeded by those who could come to her aid. The forces of the blood god hear the call and see the chance to desecrate that which is pure. And now the forces of the god who revels in the destruction of all other gods come to play their part - to foil the plans of the blood god or to feast on what remains of Deva's memory?

Cursed be the day that the goddess Deva was remembered. Cursed be those who would not let her rest in peace.



This Saturday, 5 July, four of us oldhammerers - Warlord Paul, Thantsants, VanLoon, and myself - will converge on Gauntlet, the show run by the Deeside Defenders. It's at the Airbus Dining hall, above the Wings Social Club, Broughton, near Chester. If you're in the area, why not join us? (And a couple of us may return on the Sunday too.)

We're each bringing a small force of around 400 points, so that there's at least a fighting chance we might get a couple of linked games in; Paul's bringing his Unwanted of Malal, a wonderful force put together from the plastic kits given to him by the disenchanted. VanLoon is bringing a Khornate force. Thantsants is bringing some Norse, and I'm bringing some mcdeath style highlanders (I'm hoping to also bring Sea Elves for maximum narrative flexibility). Of course, the best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley, so some of the crucial bits and pieces I wanted for conversions to get my highlanders ready haven't come in the post. That said, I still have a modest force and I think with a bit of imagination and lateral thinking I'll have them ready for the fight. I'm very excited to see what everyone else is bringing.

I've come up with the narrative above to give some explanation as to what we're all doing in this corner of Albion, and I've drawn on some of the local place name history to give it some regional appropriateness. (The picture above is of Minerva's shrine in Chester.) Incidentally, if any of you guys can bring terrain that will help with the background - e.g. anything ruined temple or shrine or monument like, and anything that would work for a river/estuary environment - that would be great. But I reckon we can make a good go of whatever people have to hand!

Will the awakening of Albion's forgotten Goddess rip the land apart? Or will she be allowed to rest in peace, freed from the attentions of a disturbed world?

Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

This is the start of an occasional series of musings about the Fighting Fantasy books. I'm going to be playing through them in turn - at least, through those of the series set in Titan, seeing as fantasy settings are my primary interest. I'm not going to type up playthroughs (because that would be boring and involve spoilers), and I don't want to write these as book reviews exactly. What I want to do is take inspiration from each of the books, and to jot down the ideas that they give me for future gaming.

Starting, of course, with the one that started it all, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingtone's The Warlock of Firetop Mountain from 1982.

The real beauty of the book, for me, lies in the illustration. The cover by Peter Andrew Jones is nice, but above all I'm talking about Russ Nicholson's drawings inside the book. The work that Russ Nicholson does here is truly amazing. I firmly believe anybody interested in old school gaming should take some time to study the atmospheric depth of his pictures. To pick up on the theme of technique vs imagination, here's somebody who's a master of his craft - the draughtmanship is exquisite - but whose primary goal is to give us pictures that our imaginations can drink from. With a lot of fantasy art, the effect can be limiting: "oh, that's not quite how I imagined it" or "oh, so that's what it looks like. I guess I don't have to imagine it anymore". What's wonderful about Russ Nicholson's work is that it doesn't do that, it leaves enough mystery in there that you still need to figure it out, and there's always that question: "what lies beyond the next corner". He's not doing the work of imagination for you, he's feeding your imagination, and that's his great achievement.


Ok, onto the text. Love the topographical description in the first entry. Topography is a big part of setting the scene, but all too easily overlooked.

This is a classic dungeon crawl, hacking and slashing your way through, moving steadily onwards and thinking with your sword. Nothing wrong with that, although I guess a bit more depth would be nice, but this was only the first book in the series. Some people have complained that the construction of this kind of classic dungeon is a bit haphazard; all kinds of enemies thrown in with no explanation of what they're doing there, and seemingly random encounters. Why is there a shopkeeper? Why is there a boatkeeper? How does he make his money - who's actually going across this river? Of course, the need to try and give the dungeon some kind of reason is what led to the classic "The ecology of the..." series in Dragon magazine. You can't just stock a dungeon, there has to be a reason to it, an ecology, an economy, and so we get these somewhat bizarre "The ecology of the vegepygmy", "The ecology of the beholder" articles. But I have to say, in defence of the seeming randomness of dungeon encounters in this book, I rather like it. Why do we move from a cavern to a splendidly decorated room with a polished marble floor and portraits? Why is there a little old man in a rocking chair? Why does the Warlock leave the very things that can destroy him lying around? I can't answer all those questions, but I think that realism is just one tool in fantasy narrative. Not everything has to be completely realistic, and at its best these kind of encounters meld into something like a dream sequence... I call this dream realism, a narrative that looks to capture something of strangeness of the dream, with all of the unconscious connections and segues and symbolic wierdness you get in a dream (or a nightmare), rather than being slavishly chained to the "real world" of logical causality.


Then, in the second half of the book (the half written by Steve Jackson - the two authors split the labour between them), you get to the labyrinth. Bloody hell, what a boring sequence of entries!

"You arrive at the junction and this time turn northwards. Turn to 262"
"Some way up the passage you reach another junction where you may either go eastwards (turn to 199) or turnnnnnnnnn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

And yet... and yet... I have to say I actually got lost. Very lost. Completely and utterly disoriented, ended up going around in circles, and it took me ages to get my bearings. It was a frustrating gaming experience, but it was certainly an immersive gaming experience. Really felt like I was going around in circles in a dank tunnel. I'm not suggesting that boredom should be part of the toolkit of narrative gaming (or am I?) but this section, because of the sparseness of the text, because of the circularity of the movement, and above all because of how frustrating it was, really gave me a sense of disorientation that I don't think I've experienced in gaming before. Disorientation and frustration as narrative tools...

The big boss baddie at the end was too soft and easily dispatched, and I was left wondering on more than one occasion why I was so set on killing him in the first place. But the idea of killing him in order to replace him, to become him... and to wait for somebody to come and kill me to replace me and to become me... that's an interesting one.

"The priest who slew the slayer,
And shall himself be slain."
- Thomas Babbington Macaulay, The Battle of the Lake Regillus; recalls the legend of the priesthood of the Goddess Diana at Lake Nemi. The only way to hold the honour was to slay the prior incumbent in a trial by combat. And then to wait...