Well, on Saturday while at Salute I took into my hands a suspicious brown paper envelope from one Mr Richard Clarke of Too Fat Lardies. Inside was the rulebook and cards for What a Cowboy, a ruleset that went from “eh cowboys” to “VERY EXCITED” in not a huge amount of time. Of course, this is probably in a large part down to the Mandalorian returning (as well as rewatching the first and best season of it) as well as playing some Red Dead Redemption 2 but something in me got very excited about some rooting tooting cowboy shooting… even if the shooting is blasters rather than six guns.
Of course, I’m going to need some cowpokes Nerf Herders for the tabletop. So naturally Skull Forge Studios was my first port of call and Oh Boy their recent releases are spot on for what I was thinking. Setting wise, I’m focusing on the New Republic era – it seems the most open for Wild West-esque Shenanigans as things attempt to get better run by a Republic very far away and not enough law to cover the frontier. Obviously as part of this Mandalorians were my first port of call, and a variety of them with different guns means I can run the different levels of character What a Cowboy supports. Skull Forge doesn’t have a large range of riff-raff/scum to fight but they did recently release a Heist Crew in cobbled together armour and droid masks.
However, inspired by the Imperial Remnant in Season 1 of Mando and the Lemoyne Raiders I’ve been hacking/shooting/dynamiting my way through in RDR2, I’ve some up with some Imperial Raiders – former Imperial Army soldiers who have be stranded out in the Outer Rim and taken to banditry to keep themselves alive. Just the sort of threat a town might hire some bounty hunters to come and sort out. Of course, there is also the opening to have some Imperial Remnant vs Raiders, made worse if the ISB’s finest turn up on world and clear house (aka, I decide to print some Death Troopers).
A new project means it’s time to actually try out some new processes as well. Seeing as I want to get these guys up and running without much delay, I decided to actually give Contrasts more of a go. In the past, I’ve only use Contrast as a technical paint, adding it to metalics for that matt look. For this test figure (referred to as Cousin in the Andor files which made me laugh), I went with the Slap-Chop Prep (also known as Zenithal Priming but with a brush) and then hit the model with the four contrast paints I have. It’s not perfect, and my attempts to contrast the face made me go back over it with Cadian Fleshtone but this model go hammered out REALLY fast. This is a good sign for a certain other project – I’ll definitely be able to get through my Desert Rats quickly when I get around to them.
Moving forward with What a Nerf Herder though, I’m going to start off by playing the game to learn what I can actually break/adjust to fit in new things to make it more Star Wars-y. Off the top of my head, the main things are going to be using the existing tools to make important Star Wars characters – Mandolorians for example need to be very good and with all their toys without breaking every game. I’m also interested in adding droids (probably less shock but less actions) and of course eventually those damn Force Users are going to turn up. I’ve pencilled down a few ideas on how to give the lightsaber swinging lunatics the option although I forsee them being more Darth Vader in the Corridor in most cases.
Next up, time to paint some Mandos. Maybe even THE Mando.