The Gamekeeper
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 04:38:13 AM

Protecting and managing the forests is an important job and carried with it an important title, Philip Marc was the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests a position established by the Normans in England.

Gamekeeping has a long history in Western Europe with the first gamekeepers protecting deer in medieval royal hunting forests. While game was at times an important source of food, it was an important arena for social interaction, essential training for war,  a privilege and measurement of nobility.

Poaching was a serious crime and to dissuade these opportunists tough men were employed as Gamekeepers and given the rights to protect the forests by any means necessary.

In-game our Gamekeeper can be employed as a Commander of a group of Crossbows improving the group's accuracy and their movement through wooded areas.  Alternatively, he can be included as a command group option sharing his local knowledge to help a commander and his immediate troops to use the terrain to their advantage, such as setting ambushes.

End of Day 9 - Cart Crew
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 04:25:34 AM

Evening everyone, and apologies for not sending you an early morning hello I had to be somewhere very early today and have not long since got back home.

Tax Cart Crew

I do however have something new to share with you from Paul, he has finished the crew for the Tax Cart, a driver and a guard armed with a crossbow.

Once the horses are finished and have been harnessed we will be able to show you the finished 'loot lorry'. I have a couple of fun scenarios where it features planned for the book.

Walls and Fences

We have also taken the time to update both the Wimentun Village and The Hamlet graphics so they actually show all the fencing and wall sections you will receive.  Although we listed what was included it wasn't very clear, sorry about that. I've cut the bottom off the village image to illustrate what I mean.

There are enough sections to replicate the village shown in the tabletop diagram I shared over the weekend, the Wimentun Village physical pledge has everything you need. 

If you have backed for the digital files, you will receive everything to print as many sections as you need/want/like/desire. :D

That's all for now, short and sweet, if you have any questions please get in touch.  I will have more updates for you tomorrow.

Stay safe!

Eustace de Lowdham - The Undersheriff of Nottinghamshire
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 04:25:28 AM

Our setting of Wimentun was a real place, situated near Duneham-on-Trent (Dunham) and mentioned in the pipe rolls. I chose this village to set our campaign in the county of Nottinghamshire, for the obvious reasons, but also because it is a village that no longer exists today. By doing this, I hope to give authenticity to a story of my own making, containing characters who are known to have existed at the time, others from popular stories and others who, quite frankly, I made up.

Eustace de Lowdham

Eustace de Lowdham was a real man born around 1175 to the family of Herbert de Lowdham of Southwell, Nottinghamshire. He went on to become the Undersheriff of Nottinghamshire (1213) to Phillippe Marc, the Sheriff of Yorkshire (1224) and finally the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire (1233) in his own right.  He is said to have passed in 1243 at the ripe old age of 67 so he seems to have lived a full life for the time.

In Death and Taxes, our Eustace is based on this man who has been suggested as a candidate for the Sheriff on Nottingham character in the Robin Hood stories, with him and Marc often being interchangeable. We have made him the leader of the Sheriff's men, his hatchet man if you will, keeping law and order among the villages and hunting down outlaws. His The Barons' War warrior profile will reflect that he is a Commander of a powerful body of men, well-liked by his troops and will have a range of quality choices when building his retinue to collect the taxes.

Sheriff's were powerful men in medieval society and Eustace de Lowdham is no exception. They were the King’s representative in each county and were charged with keeping the peace and upholding the law. Outlaws were hunted down without mercy.

A Look at the Physical Buildings of Wimentun
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 04:25:23 AM

The physical terrain comes in kit form ready for you to assemble.  Why in kit form?  Well, it makes it easier to ship, enables us to individually pack each section and enables you to assemble however you choose, I'm guessing some of you will want to leave the roofs unglued.

A Hovel

This hovel is where it all started as a project, we wanted to be able to produce standard pieces for the period that are attractive, well sculpted and usable in every game.

The Forge

The Forge is one of the bigger pieces we have created, it has been designed with open sides to enable good lines of sight making it an interesting piece in the game. It comes with bellows, a quenching tough and an anvil as well as a choice of coals or flames for the fire. 

Each kit will come with its own assembly guide, have slots and/or plugs at the points of contact and can be assembled using superglue.  After a simple undercoat, the same type you use for your miniatures (Halfords grey spray primer for me!), they can be painted using your usual paints.

Printing the Buildings Yourself

If you are printing yourself, having each item in sections lets you reprint a single piece if part of your print fails. It also enables you to print the files on a printer with a small bed such as the Elegoo Mars or an Epax X1, which is what we are using.

If you do want to print them as a single piece using an FDM printer you can do that too.

We hit £70,000 and the finalised Tax Cart
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 02:15:58 AM

Hello everyone, today we have broken through the £70,000 mark which is just incredible, the response to this campaign has truly taken Paul and me by surprise, in a good way. Thank you!

This is a big deal for us and I am thinking of a way to say thank you.  

In the meantime, we have settled on the Tax Cart which will come with three tax chests, as well as an optional prisoner cage, in case you want to use it to transport captured outlaws.

Tax Cart with Tax Chests

The tax chests are separate pieces so you can choose to glue them onto the cart or leave them loose, they make great in-game objectives. 

Prison Cart with Bars

The bars also come with the Tax Cart giving you options. They slot over the back section and if you choose not to glue them in place you can switch use from game to game. 

The horse team, driver and guard work with either variant which makes this model a very versatile and useful addition to the Kickstarter.

In the next couple of days, we will update everyone on what extras will be included in the pledge manager, we will be using BackerKit again, more on this later.  Not everything from the previous two Kickstarters will be included, as the range is now at a size that it would be unwieldy to do so. However, we will be including figures that will be useful for playing the Death and Taxes campaign.

~Andy & Paul (Hobday & Hicks)