28) Random Encounters: Katz's Ratzs and the Titmouse

Once again, I was working the Mini Gaming Swapmeet to promote KoW and recruit new players to try demo games. As with previous similar events, I was able to generate interest and get a few people to try out the game. I also managed to sell some old WH40k models that I found in my garage, so I had a little bit of hobby money on me. Toward the end of the event, Elle took over my KoW booth so I could walk around and explore the convention a bit. In a dark corner, by the emergency exit, was a pile of boxes with some tables sticking out of it. There were no lights directly over this booth, and it was situated in such a position that there wasn't any natural sunlight from the windows, either. I didn't think much of it until my friend William pointed it out to me and said,

"Hey, that guy over there has rats."

"Rats?" I replied.

"Yeah. Really old ones. Metal ones. A whole army. For real."

I approached the darkened corner. The merchant peered out from beneath his box fort.

"Katz has wares if you have coin." he said softly.

The tables were covered in vintage metal miniatures, many still in their original packaging. There were classic sculpts ranging from the early 80s to the late 90s from all manner of wargames. Fantasy Regiments, Skirmish games, Historicals, Mech Combat. Minis that I had seen go for obscene amounts of money to collectors on ebay. He had it all.

"Howdy!" I said, "My friend Will said that you had some rats?"

The merchants eyes flickered brightly within the shadows of his towering wares. He pushed two boxes toward me. They contained an entire army of partially painted vintage ratmen miniatures from the 1990s. There were rats with crossbows, rats with swords, rats with warhammers, and best of all, rats on chariots pulled by giant rats!

"Katz's Ratzs..." The merchant whispered, "Once upon a time, back in the late 20^th century, Katz was part of a team that developed a fantasy battle game to compete with Warhammer. The game was published, but never became popular. This is Katz's personal army of Verminion Ratz from Fantasy Legends. You like?"

So anyway, that's how I wound up with a second rat army. Thankfully I managed to sell almost all of the 40k stuff I brought with me to the swapmeet, so it was MOSTLY hobby money that went toward the purchase. I went straight from the swapmeet to the club cookout at Russ's house. The gang was eating burgars and potato pancakes while playing practice doubles games in the garage. I wasn't going to play, but my friends REALLY wanted me to jump in. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought my armies. Unless...

So an hour after purchasing Katz's Ratz, they were being arranged on hastily cut out cardboard unit bases and getting deployed in an alliance with dwarves and golems. I used the Mantic Companion app to throw together a terrible army list in less than thirty seconds, borrowed dice and a tape measure, and commenced to battle. We lost against the Halflings and Ogres, but it was a great game nonetheless!

Over the rest of the month, I devoted what hobby time I could to finishing painting those Verminions of Katz. It went very quickly, since he had already painted their clothes, fur, and tails. All I had to do was paint noses, ears, hands, feet, weapons, shields, etc... The bases were still just plain primer, so I painted them green, and glued static grass to them. To round out the list, I added some weapons teams, a Death Engine Tank, a "Little Rat Wagon" to represent the Tangle, and finally, Titmouse.

Titmouse is a one of a kind kitbash/conversion I did a while back, but had never painted up. I used a Mantic Moloch Daemon body, a Mantic Rat Ogre head, and a bunch of green putty to make this six breasted rat beauty. For game purposes, she is a Ratkin Brute Enforcer, but the model would work equally well as a Broodmother.

In just a couple weeks my new Ratkin army was ready for battle! They would have to wait, though, because I had a tournament to run, first.

The First Annual Interstate Doubles Tournament was held at Three Mountain Games in Reedsburg WI, which is a great halfway point for the two gaming clubs. Three Mountain isn't a very big store, but that's ok. Because this was a doubles tournament, it meant that we would have four players at each table each round, so for our 16 player tournament, we only needed four tables! Everyone had a great time and made lots of new friends. The store owners were wonderful hosts, and we had great prize support from Mantic Games. Lunch was catered by Pizza Ranch, and everyone had as much fried chicken and pizza as they could eat. Two of the Minnesota players showed me how to organize pairings and score the tournament as we went. The whole thing went as smoothly as we could have hoped for and was altogether a wonderful experience! Thanks to my friends in the Wisconsin and Minnesota KoW communities for making my job as a tournament organizer so easy, and thanks to Three Mountain Games for hosting us. I'm excited to finally bring Kings of War tournaments to Wisconsin!