Turnips taking root - more Turnip28

 Hello!

I'm back with a little break in the 40k content to bring you more turnips! As a reminder, Turnip28 is a wargame in the making about a root-based apocalypse causing all kinds of problems and resulting in endless war in the mud with a mishmash of pre-1800s technology. I previously bought some Perry Napoleonic and foot knight sprues and bashed together a small batch of soldiers in this gloriously messy, dirty style.

Now a bit of time has passed, I managed to get a few more sprues and put together this force of the 69th Mordby Mudcrabs:

I used the same methods and paints as before, though after some feedback I added a bit more colour and contrast with some selective areas of extra rust with orange and then the venerable chestnut ink, and some shiny silver highlights - mainly helmets and breastplates. Since the rules of the game aren't yet set in stone, I can't say for sure this is a 'finished' army, but it does fit with the current unit sizes that are being talked about in the playtesting. Let's have a look at them...

These guys are the Chaff - lighter skirmishing units who will be tasked with harassment and distraction. As the name suggests they will probably be pretty expendable. At the moment they come in units of three, so I put together two units of them. They are based on the Perry European infantry mercenaries.

Next are the Brutes, these are supposed to be heavy hitting elite units, that may or may not have been more heavily mutated into root monsters or whatever. I chose to have mine as relatively 'standard', made from Perry Agincourt English foot knights - the Mudcrabs are a fairly practical bunch of scavengers that don't go all in on this 'holy root' worship.

Then we have the Fodder - the regular soldiers, currently coming in groups of 12. I added 8 more to the original 4 to get a full unit, making sure half were firing/poking/reloading and half were shouldering their weapons so I could present the unit as marching forward into position as seen here. These are a fair bit more armoured than the 'standard' Turnip28 Fodder - usually Napoleonic bodies and/or legs with knight helmets, so they might end up becoming Brutes, depending on how the rules end up working, or it might just be for the aesthetics. The armour is so rusty it probably doesn't give much protection anyway!

These three characters are Toadies - the assorted hangers-on with the army that will provide some kind of buffs to your units, or generate more turnips or something. I chose to theme them with each of my unit types, so I've got a big armoured guy with an axe, a moustache and a roughly turnip shaped helmet, a lighter scout type in some kind of medieval camouflage cloak,  and a standard bearer, showing the symbol of the Mudcrabs. I'm particularly pleased with how that came out, I initially mocked up a turnip crab with my very poor digital artistry skills, and Mr Turnip himself Max FitzGerald took the idea for a coat of arms to feature as dressing in an upcoming article, and made an awesome little picture of it, with a skull-faced back to boot. I then copied that for my banner, and I think it turned out pretty well.

The final figure is the leader of the force, the Toff. I figured he would have some delusions of grandeur, wearing a tattered green cloak and a crown of roots. He also fancies himself as a swordsman, though depending on how the rules work, this might not be reflected in his actual ability to fight off hungry root-mutants with muskets!

And there we have it, the (for now) completed force. Aside from adding to any units that get their sizes changed during playtesting, I might eventually add in some cavalry units or artillery, as the rules get expanded upon. I am quite interested in some rusty cannon that's been dragged out of the mud being added to the force, some artillery piece that is just as likely to decimate the opposition as it is to explode and kill it's crew. Anyway, I'll leave you with some more pictures of the assorted minis, including another attempt at copying the marching artwork from the Pateron page. Hope you enjoy, and stay safe!