Breaking News 19/09/04

At long last those nice people at Kallistra have produced the famous Pygmy answer to 'Dubah's Weapons of Mass Destruction'.... yes folks the Palm Catapult! not just using one Palm tree .. but two!! and four crew.  How can those pesky Elves stand against this?

However my two Boy's have made a shrewd investment in two value bags of Wood Elves....hmm! 

So the the arms race cycle continues with the hope that Kallistra produce Pygmy archers soon.....

How it all started! or how I came to love Pygmies

The Fukarwees are a tribe of Pygmies that are neutral in the war between Good and Evil (or at least I like to think so!)  This means I get to fight everybody! Now we all know the Pygmy tribe's name is an excuse for a rude joke, but for those more delicate I will not elaborate, but leave it to your imagination.

The actual truth is that my two male offspring and I plus She who must be obeyed were at Phalanx last September and we happened to pass the sales stand of those nice people from Kallistra Ltd, as soon as my lads saw their 28mm Elves that was that!, a quick Purchase of WRG's Hordes of the Things fantasy rules from a nearby sales stand and we were ready to purchase an Elven Host.

Now this provided a good excuse for Dad to get an army as well, and the obvious and natural choice was 28 mm Pygmies!! 

So we now have the start of our armies, there is no problem for an army structure for the Elves as there is a list in the HOTT rules, however the Pygmies are a little more problematic!  We needed to talk to an expert on the subject, so after a trawl on the Web, we discovered The Stronghold which is probably the best HOTT web site with extensive resources.  This site is maintained by Alan Saunders, so after a brief flurry of e-mails on the subject of the composition of Pygmy armies, we had the following structure for a 24 AP. Pygmy army:   

1 Magician @ 4AP (Witch doctor)
1 Warband General @ 2AP (Chief and bodyguard)
7 Warband @ 2AP (Warriors)
4 Lurkers @ 1AP (Warriors in ambush, Blow pipe types)

Options  Shooters (Archers/Blowpipes), Beasts/Behemoth (Giant Apes) and Riders (Pygmies on Boar Mounts)

One of the things that I do find surprising about the otherwise excellent Kallistra Pygmy range, is the absence of an archer figure?  Historically Pygmy's have always  been extensively bow armed so you would expect to find an archer in the range but we are talking fantasy here!!  Anyway Kallistra are to provide an archer figure soon, with the rumoured addition of an artillery piece based on bent tree technology!! 

For the Behemoth I have used a pack of the 28 mm Gorillas from Wargames Foundry at the extortionate price of £8.50, for three beasts in exactly the same pose.  I suppose you might consider me a whinger but the prices that are paid by the fantasy punters are unreal (pun!), compared to mainstream gaming. I'm not going to get on my hobby horse about figure prices, if a manufacture can find people daft enough to pay the money (I did!), then good luck to them!