"Witchfinder General pics" Topic

Still in the played-one-game-but-am-painting-my-@ss-off stage but I wanted to show you all some of the things I have been working on for Witchfinder General:

See more at pijlieblog.blogspot.com

For the easily offended and/or those who like it instead: be warned since there´s some nudity there……

Cool
who makes those top two human figures?

Very nice, I'm curious about the maker of all the figures.

How did the game play? I've read it's kind of hard to follow the rules.

His blog pictures are
first picture West Wind.
third picture WW, Outpost and Black Cat Bases?
sixth WW and Mantic
seventh WW
eighth Warlord general and Sgt Major/Vendel border reivers?

Enjoyed it! Let me carry on with the who made the figure questions by asking who makes the three women in photo two? Thanks. Richard

WOW! You play such cool games, I like your style sir!

Those are grand! I am very interested in these rules too. Best, Dean

Thnaks for all the compliments. As to the makers you were already close. The figures on the blog are in sequence:

Pic 1: West Wind

Pic 2: LE Crisis convention figure (mage) and a converted Warlord plastic musketeer

Pic 3: Black Cat Bases except the gentleman in red who is made by West Wind.

Pic 4: Warlord TYW pikemen and musketeers and a Black Cat Bases witchfinder

Pic 5: Black Cat Bases

Pic 6: Witch by West Wind, werewolf by Black Cat Bases, ghoul by Mantic and the Hellhound is a converted plastic Warg by GW LOTR range.

Pic 7: Flying witches by West Wind

Pic 8: Warlord Scots lancers and Vendel Border Reivers plus a Count Tilly by Warlord as the Witchfinder General.

Very good, Pijlie. Inspirational. I know you have only played once – but what is your initial view of the rules?

Well, as all first games go it was a lot of leafing through the book (especially since I forgot to print out the QRS) but that aside it was a relatively quick-playing game with a pleasantly challenging interaction of the different factions. Hellhounds and Noctelingers are fast and dangerous and a musket tends to miss a lot, but the pikemen and musketeers can work together as they should.

My force of 10 pike and shot was ripped apart bij 3 Hellhounds and 3 Noctelinger without the witch having to lift a finger, so balancing the forces will take some practice. But I liked it.

I will most likely cut up the QRS in loose unit cards for easier reference and I am fussing over the counters since they are used a lot and I don´t usually like counters on a table.

But I will post more experiences as we play more games, which we surely will.

Absolutely *great*, as a whole as well as for the 'character' of each miniature!
Then, being a devoted fan of the mid-18th C. (the time of the 'Lace Wars') as a games setting TMP link, even for 'Pulp' adventures link, I'm glad to see that one of the 'weary travelers' and several of the witchfinder's followers are in 18th C. dress, as are your (so beautifully done) 'vampires' -if a little traditionalist with regard to fashion :) Indeed you Xposted to the 18th C. gallery, and I see soldiers in tricorne in your general background images…

'Lacepulp' link ('SYW Pulp' link / 18th C. Horror link) is becoming popular, with a new TMP link 'commercial' TMP (link game, 'Carnevale' vesper-on.com hopefully more successful than previous 'A Touch of Evil' flyingfrog.net/atouchofevil/]link).
I'm sure 'Witchfinder General' (as well as 'Witch Hunter: The Invisible World') could be set in some remote area during the 18th C. (the American Colonies, Transylvania…). 'Both 'Chaos in Carpathia' link and 'Strange Aeons' link (even 'extended' TMP link) already proved suitable, and probably 'Malifaux' TMP link could be submitted to the 'translation'. While 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies' YouTube link (as well as 'Hellsing' link) could certainly be 're-enacted' TMP link by the time of Barry Lyndon….

Whenever already wargaming in a suitable period -{the 18th C. for instance }, to set any try with a new genre (Colonial warfare, Horror, Pulp, Sci-Fi link…) in the same period avoids dispersion (the bane of so many wargamers) and saves works and investment: you have to buy and paint only the new 'opposition'.

Micro Art offers three (of course!) witches in the 'Discworld' range link, maybe too… Pratchettian for your purpose? Then, why should a witch have to look like a witch, by the way?

(Taban)
Morgan le Fay certainly does not need a 'witch-looking' figurine! Most 'witches' look like very beautiful women YouTube link.

If I may put forward a suggestion: since your blog covers very different periods and genres, what about *labeling* your posts? It can be done afterwards with the 'Edit posts' utility, and is not a chore as long as there not too many past posts to label. With time your blog will *grow* and become a library of inspiration and references: labels are very convenient and reader friendly to explore such archives, for the 'newbie' as well as for the veteran visitor in search of a reference or image…

Looking eagerly forward to enjoy more: cheers!

For the easily offended and/or those who like it instead: be warned since there´s some nudity there…

The cute, lovely demonette / impette?
For me -each of us has his own prejudices - I'd be *offended* () would she had (bat) wings on her alabaster shoulders:

Not only creatures with such wings -angels, demons, succubi, dragons…- have, just like centaurs, to come from a world where Vertebrates have more than two pairs of limbs (Barsoom?) but, worse, the normal 'arms' lay across the very powerful muscles required to fly (and which are not there, anyway, no more than the large breastbone to attach them).

There are few -very few- 'biologically correct' (= manticore-looking) dragons in movies (Dragonslayer, Reign of Fire) and a great majority of silly constructs. Hope they'll not mess up when designing Smaug…

Cool stuff!

Pijlie,

Are you aware of the Witchfinder General forum and photo gallery at dashingdicegames.co.uk ? I'm sure the author would put up some of your photographs in the gallery.

What is the *real* aspect of a witch?

Imho the very least a competent witch can do on herself is to keep her body young and appealing for centuries -*really*, not by casting an illusory 'glamour'. If unable to do this, how could she turn a prince into a frog / wolf or a damsel into a doe / hawk?
The Church of course proclaims the opposite, but the illusion would be the 'crone / hag' appearance.
In a society where religious and secular authorities want you burned at the stake, if you are not the Queen better to live in some backwater wilderness. And not to tempt brigands and marauding soldiers, better to look old, ugly and desperately poor. Hence the miserable, squalid hut; but in a secret basement a concealed door opens on an underground palace -or is a 'portal' to a lovely, cosy schloss, inaccessible on some mountain top or island in a lake…
YouTube link

Some supporting evidence can be found in very old Swedish songs: in Konungen och Trollkvinnan YouTube link the 'troll' witch is so beautiful that she catches the king's heart [and… lust :) ]: not by bewitchment, since she spurns his advance. But 'troll' in this case is simply a pejorative for 'pagan': in Herr Mannelig(*) YouTube link the squire declines to marry the 'troll woman' *only* because she is not Christian.
'De-humanizing' the enemy is a propaganda trick as old as humankind. It helped that 'pagans' were reputed to use magic, and in old French Fée means 'magical' (there were fay swords -no, NOT Stormbringer!- and fay horses such as Bayard, link ) but 'fay people' can refer to a purely human magician (Morgan le Fay link ) or an inhabitant of Faerie (heirs of the Gallo-Roman nymphs and other spirits of nature + Elves everywhere a Germanic cultural influence set in after the Invasions: Melusine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melusine ). 'Magic users' (Pagans) were mixed up with their minor deities.
Btw, this suggests an unexpected meaning to 'troll hunter': stalking not that:

but this:


___
*: almost 'baroque' (at the beginning) interpretation, fittingly of an Italian translation: YouTube link

Then, why so many witches, and why Fées with time referred only to women? (male 'Elves' were mostly remembered in very old texts -'The Elvish Knight', and the 'King of Elves' re-written by Goethe). Probably because for the Church they were *evil*, and the Woman, Eve or Lilith, is a 'vase of impiousness', a lethal temptress, a potential agent of Satan.
Also because some forms of 'magics' were specially associated with women: they were more seeresses (re the Pythia, the Sibyls…) than seers. This was specially marked in Germanic cultures, where the shamanic seidhr magic (probably of Finno-Ugric origin) was restricted to 'voelvur' women en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lva (males trying to practice it -Odin first- were blamed of 'feminization'; indeed Siberian male shamans often wear women's dresses).
And shamanic magic was deeply associated with shape-changing to animal form (re Loki, 'Thor's little sidekick' on Lapp drums, who got pregnant in female animal form, and the Kalevala). This may for a part explain the 'hybrid' nature of German / Scandinavian Holda en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holda / Huldra en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldra , (from the old Huld seeress en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huld ) a 'background' of shapeshifter making even easier to mix up a magician with a magical being YouTube link .
Not that, just like Morgan le Fay, all these female characters were 'good' in the oldest texts, and turned 'officially evil' later, in the same way as Merlin is 'off the loop' in the most Christianized part of the Arthurian Cycle, the quest for the Grail.
Yet the misogyny of the Church certainly explains why, once deemed *evil*, most magical creatures -mermaids, the Marie-Morganes of Brittany, the Lorelei…- were female: the Temptation, the death of the Man or of his soul, is female.

And, btw, Witches go by three… female characters *have* to go by three: the Moirai, the Furies, the Gorgons, the Graces, the Goddesses of the Judgment of Paris, the Nornes, the Somi Saaraahka, Juoksahka and Oksaahka, the 3 Morrigan, Ériu and her 2 sisters, Morgan and her 2 sisters, the pre-Coranic '3 cranes'… down to Shakespeare's (and Pratchett's) 3 witches and Disney's 3 good fairies.

The mere addition of a tricorne immediately 'labels' a figurine '18th C.' (the Wargame Factory box of 'plastic generic WSS infantry' is an abundant, and relatively inexpensive, source of tricornes and other accessories):
GW Lahmia turned into a 18th C. Fée / witch of sorts:
link

(link)

'Troll' like French Fee can refer both to a magical being' and a witch: beautiful confirmation from the Faroe Islands:
YouTube link
In more 'shamanic' interpretation: YouTube link

The GW vampire lady illustrated is probably OOP, but the current one would not be out of place in a 17tyh c. 18th C. setting:

Relevant movie (?): [NSFW, byw]
YouTube link
YouTube link
'Mark of the Devil' link

Nobody expects the Austrian Inquisition

And then…
YouTube link
YouTube link
at least for Barbara Steele

The 5 Foundry 'Female Revenant Elves' are in quasi-18th C. dress and could easily be converted to witches:

Ahem. Not my ideas of a WG witch, but you seem to have fun, so make yourself at home here ;o)

No bad intent in the hijacking!

'Wiches go by three'

For witch hunting in a Catholic country (Transylvania rockyhorrorshow.net/story.htm ?)
'Nobody expects the Austrian Inquisition'

(add a Traleton 'caterpillar' to C.H's 'Bleriot crosses the Channel, 1909' helmet to make him a Pike&Shot / H&M -compatible leader of the 'militant clergy').

Indeed the witch in 'Sleepy Hollow' did not look as a witch at all. Indeed it would be too easy for the witchfinders / witch hunters (and so beneficial to 'non-witch' people!) if the witches were compulsorily ugly crones in Disney regulations official witch uniform! Then, *seriously*, I fully understand that gaming minis have to display their 'nature', hence that their most distinguishing, essential, features have to be emphasized (re Tin Man Princess Delia tinminis.com/TinManCatalog.htm ). Yet no need to overdo it: why witch hunters figurines have to be dressed as Solomon Kane even in a medieval (D&D) or Early Renaissance (Mordheim) setting? For 'rococo' witches 'medium terms' are available, such as Reaper so called 'Steampunk' witch link

I do agree, Soda Pop Fiametta

would be 'too much'.

Sorry, but I had difficulties to re-locate them:
link