Are you one of those gamers who likes the elites in life, the sort who has 15 Tigers as your late WW2 German army and justifies it by saying it is allowed by the army lists?
Or are you one of those gamers who habitually chooses the Irregular D morale class, unarmoured, deformed and deranged sorts armed with a sharpened lollipop stick? In short, the Crud of my title...
I have met both types.
I think I fall more towards the second category, the "Crud" as I have chosen to deride them. I have several examples of the other category though - Swiss pikemen, Janissaries, knights of various persuasions, 2nd SS Panzer Division, Warriors of Chaos, to name but a few - but they tend to be part of something bigger and wider. For every good soldier in my miniature armies, I reckon I probably have ten Crud.
My evidence for my claim???
- Spartacists - I could have stuck with just World War 1 French and German late war troops, but I had to paint up various Volksturm, Spanish Civil War militia and others to represent the anti-Freikorps elements of immediate post-Great War Germany.
- Napoleonics - if I had been interested in the Peninsular War, it would have been Spanish, but instead, I went for those perennial under-achievers, the Austrians, specifically 1809.
- Swiss pikemen - yes, I have those, but only to fight against my Burgundians and no one could ever call Charles the Bold's army elite. (It certainly isn't when I use it...)
- Fantasy - why have Elves when you can have goblins? Enough said.
- Renaissance Eastern Europe - I could have had the ever tough Poles, the dour and equally tough Swedes...I went for Turks, "poor tactical discipline", "poor quality firearms", etc. to boot.
Like many a wargamer, I suspect, I like life's losers. I much prefer trying to understand why they lost rather than why the other lot won.
So, to the point of all this. I fancy a theme for the next few months, and that theme is "The Little Guy", "The (Soon-to-be) Extinct", "The Crud".
It is time to get the camera out and showcase some of the rubbish I have lovingly created over many years and share with anyone who is interested, whilst I continue to paint whatever takes my fancy, photograph and post on that too.
And, by the way, if you do not believe even now that I do like said "Crud", answer me this single question:
Q: Who else, other than a "Crud-lover", would build and paint a Viking force for SAGA games and start with the levies rather than the Warlord or Hearthguard?
A: No one, I believe. Yet that is exactly what I did and the photos will follow shortly!
All hail to the Crud!
G
I used to own a very nicely painted 25mm Renaissance army for Pavia, BUT, it had to include loads of unit of really crap cavalry, more than 6 units infact. I was loath to paint up let alone spend £100+ on them, so the army had to go. But I then bought the figures in 15mm and painted up loads of the crap units, I'll have to get them out for a game one day????
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