Witch Hunters

After my last post, getting into the lore of my Super Simple Universal Skirmish System Universe (S.S.U.S.S.U) I received a package from Irregular Miniatures containing my next warband – The Witch Hunters.

While the Dragon Temple remain as the last human empire, remnants of other empires still exist. One such remnant are the roving bands of religious fanatics still devoted to the great god Altros. They blame the fall of mankind on the worship of false gods, and now they seek to rewrite the world in their own image by destroying all monsters and heretics.

I took the Witch Hunters on their inaugural outing against the Trogs and they did rather well, and as any good playtest should tell you, my rules especially the rules for Totems were imbalanced.

I suppose one of the big challenges of writing ‘Universal’ skirmish rules is that you don’t want any one thing to be too overpowered, because you want people to be able to build whatever they want, not have to build their force a certain way to be competitive.

Here’s how I built them anyway, and the minis I used:

My Witch Hunter came from Irregular’s Renaissance range (R81). His hat makes him rather difficult to snap a picture of. I chose to make him a Berserker so he got buffed in melee combat. His job is to stay mostly out of trouble, using his abilities as my leader to redirect those activations.

The Priest is from the Personality range (P22). I imagined the Priest essentially as a mage type, calling down curses and fire from the heavens, however as I don’t yet have any magic rules (emphasis on yet), making him the same as a machine gunner kind of makes sense. His role is to stay in cover, behind the lines and near to the Totem to provide fire support.

Any good Witch Hunter needs a Hound, and this one came from the Animals range (AN15), and you do get two wolves for £1.43 so I’ve got a back up wolf if that’s ever a thing I’ll need. I realise now that Irregular do also sell a Wolfhound (AN37) so I might add them to my next order for a tougher beast. The Hound’s job is to be annoying, to use his/her (I haven’t checked the underside yet) speed to block off enemy charges and to scout around the edges and get behind enemy lines.

The Monk comes from the Religious Rabble range (RR2), he even has a tiny bunny next to him, and his job is fairly self explanatory as I’ve given him the healer class. So he’ll be leading all my charges with wanton care and abandon, Sun Tzu did say to appear where the enemy least expects after all!

These two are from Irregular’s Renaissance range (R21). They’re here to act as a buffer/ meat shield and to keep the Witch Hunter, Priest and Monk safe.

My three Pilgrims are all from the Medieval Range (M71) and are all the same code, which gives you some idea of how varied some of Irregular’s codes can be. These guys serve the same purpose as their more armoured counterparts above, and I’ll switch them out depending on what the Witch Hunters are up against.

Finally the lynchpin of my force and really the reason I went down the whole Witch Hunter route – the burning heretic. They’re from Irregular’s Corrective Punishment range (CP5), although I’m not sure what’s ’corrective’ about being burned alive. Totem’s can’t move or attack at range, so they stay put and buff your other guys. Initially I had it so any friendly fighter within 6” of the Totem could use its Might, but that was a little too powerful (there was an impenetrable wall of pilgrims), so now it just gives a +1 Might buff instead. Whether you give the Totem a higher or lower Might value now really depends on how survivable you want it to be.

So for my 20 point game against the Trogs I took:

Witch Hunter (Leader): Berserker, Might 4

Priest: Gunner, Might 4

Monk: Healer, Might 2

Heretic: Totem, Might 5

Hound: Beast, Might 2

Pilgrims: Warriors, Might 1 (x3)

In retrospect relying on the Priest for all of that ranged support does seem rather limiting, so I might grab a few crossbow men or hand gunners in my next Irregular order too, to swap in/out with the Pilgrims and Armoured Warriors.

I also don’t yet have a rare class fighter for them (monster or mech), which would be a good addition too… maybe something like an enslaved Nephilim would be a good shout, like the sort that appeared in my Crusage project:

Although how the Nephilim fit into my own fantasy setting is unclear…

In my last post someone commented that they liked my leopard spotted robots, unfortunately, I’d already dropped them in a jar of acetone. This was simply because I really liked my robots too, however with the time investment in painting leopard spots on all of them, they weren’t getting any more love or purchases, so now I’m repainting them in a faster camo scheme.