The Silent Assassin

Hello again.

The Dickens Street Runners were introduced top the world a few months back, one of my many ideas for a theme for a warband in "Burrows & Badgers", based, as you might have guessed ort might know, on the characters of a certain Mr. Charles Dickens. The Runners are supposed to represent the sort of nefarious inhabitants of the back streets of East London, so far centred on those in "Oliver Twist" as, not being a Dickens officionado, never having read any of his works, I can at least identify with the 1968 film "Oliver", having seen it several times. However, research can take you anywhere you like and Dickens had a number of unsavoury characters in his repertoire.

So, what do you call the sometime spy, sometime assassin, all the time performer of dirty deeds done dirt cheap, if you will pardon the ACDC reference?

Squeers.

Or "Ssqueersss" if you are the particular adder of that name pronouncing your own name.

Squeers was a nasty headmaster in "Nicholas Nickleby", apparently, but, for my purposes, he is an even nastier character from the dockside area downtown Scarsburgh.

He joins the ranks (so far) of the Dickens Street Runners, who are ready, willing and able to take on the worst the anthropomorphic world has to offer. What they lack in armour I hope they will make up for with cunning, luck and numbers!

The Dickens Street Runners so far: (l-r) Fagin the fox, Tiny Tim the mouse burglar, Sykes the murderous wildcat, Dodger the weasel and the sorceress, Nan-Si.

Squeers, the adder assassin and spy, who lives in the pipes and sewers beneath the streets of downtown Scarsburgh.

The figure is sculpted with segmented armour, which I have chosen to paint as a non-metallic green to add to his camouflage capabilities and because I think some sort of cloth or leather armour better suits his background.

 

The last thing many a poor Town Guardsman or drunken citizen sees before the death bite is an range orb gleaming in the darkness...

I see Squeers not only as a useful addition to the warband, but also the subject of a scenario or two. Perhaps he is hidden on the table, concealed ready to strike, with the Town Watch scouring the area looking for him and he looking to evade them. Perhaps the Runners arrive to contact him as he has some important information, just as a raid from the town authorities is launched into the area. Perhaps he must assassinate a particular figure on the other team's side. Perhaps the Town Watch send an unfortunate patrol into the sewers looking for him and it is them vs him alone, with him able to sneak through pipes and grills whilst they have to stay on the path. Cat and mouse anyone? Or perhaps I should say "Predator and prey"? As with almost all my "Burrows & Badgers" figures to date, he is an Oathsworn Miniatures figure.

G