Spring Clean: Halfling Hullabaloo

It was at this time that the Wizard awoke. He wasn’t alone either. It seems the spell that froze the Giants in Stone was only useful as long as the Wizard was in a Coma and as the ancient beings awoke panic spread through the whole Valley as every Halfling rushed to grab whatever they could to defend themselves while Humans and Dwarves stood ready to die for their friends.

The Halflings Aura however didn’t just work on Men and Dwarves but also on Giants, for a Thousand Years the Giants had been at the centre of every festival, party, marriage and birthday in all The Valley and even locked in their stone prisons the Halfling Aura had found it’s way into their hearts and had given them a fondness for the little fellows. It also helped that the bounty had long been over and there was no real point in killing the Halflings, also the food was very good.

With their home secured a group of Halflings, the Three Giants and the Wizard set out to help anyone they could in the chaos of the invasion of Orcs and Goblins. They successfully saved a few small human towns from raiding parties and even managed to save a Dwarf Outpost that hadn’t got the news and were caught off guard. Over time a few men and dwarves have joined the warband who wander around the Kingdoms of Men fighting Orcs and anything else that threatens the peace. While they mostly do this out of the goodness of their own hearts many a Halfling has joined the group to eat the world, to taste dished from the Far East and Distant West while more have joined up just to see if the enemy had any good loot to steal (and occasionally a few allies loot too).

While hardly a major player in the world many a town has a small statue of a Halfling in their town square to celebrate the arrival of this small band of heroes. It’s also true that many a barn door was mysteriously flung open in the dead of the night and a good chunk of the harvest disappeared but most farmers don’t get too furious after all they say, an Orc would have taken far more than just some food.

And so the story continues, the Men are finally managing to halt the tide of Orcs and Goblins flowing into their lands and now just have to deal with the ones rampaging around already. Meanwhile the Halflings, lead by the Wizard and a few colourful Characters continue to wander around the world being very helpful, mildly unhelpful and always adding new types of food and recipe’s to their loot wagons.

My idea is to slowly create a Fantasy World that these guys can “live in” while I can “port” them into other settings like Kings of War or Warhammer Fantasy pretty easily, so I want to keep a roughly generic core of Halflings with my own twist on it that will make sense in other settings.

Now that I’ve got a Banner Bearer I need a Banner for him to um bear.

I’ll try and run you through my thought process as I went along, I’ll print it out tomorrow and see how it goes.

This is the First of the Three Giants that I mentioned in my Part I of the Lore. I will be picking up two more similar although not the same giants next week when I get a chance to head into my local Hobby Shop.

I want to do one as an Earth Giant and another as a Fire Giant. Basically just different Skin Tones and Armour Colours

This group of Halflings left their homes many generations ago and settled in their current home in a peaceful valley. For hundreds of years they remained hidden away in The Valley quietly growing their crops and raising animals. Then after a particular bumper harvest that caused the barns and storehouses to overflow with food and pipe-weed a few insane Halflings set out into the Big Folk World to try and find someone to sell some of it to. The rest of this lore takes place roughly in a Bronze Age.

After a few days of leisurely strolling through the countryside they came across a town of Men who they managed to sell most of the extra food to although far less food than they had hoped to sell, strolling is hungry work after all. The local ruler was fascinated by them and made the grievous mistake of inviting them into his home with the words “My Home is Your Home”. So taking him literally the Halflings stole anything that wasn’t nailed down, piled it into their carts and went off home the next day. When they arrived home the others were astonished, they had managed to get solid gold chalices, marble busts, fistfuls of jewels and even a wizard (bound and gagged) all for a few carrots and some pipe-weed. Over time the Wizard managed to forgive the Halfings for ‘buying’ him and even came to love the foul mouthed, thieving little Halflings and since they had something of a poor reputation in the wider world he was sent out as an emissary to try and mend what relationships he could.

When a few weeks later a group of Men presented themselves at the entrance to The Valley demanding the thieving Halflings return what they had stolen they were treated like bitter customers and turned away by the abusive and foul mouthed guards. The local ruler was so enraged that he placed a bounty on Halfling feet promising to pay by the pair.

Three travelling Giants operating as Mercenaries took up the challenge and went to The Valley to make a fortune in bounties but when they arrived at the (for a giant) narrow entrance they were peppered with stones and foul language. Enraged they smashed down the ‘Big Gate’ and found all the Halflings gathered in the centre of town, farm tools in hand. Just as the Giants were about to wipe out The Valley the Wizard returned, having heard the story of the Giants, and confronted them.

Just as the three turned to face him the sun rose behind the wizard and he harnessed it’s power to curse the Giants and turned all three to stone. Then he collapsed into a coma that would last many years.

Now the wider world had moved from Bronze to Iron but in The Valley nothing had really changed. The humans had become less hostile as time went on and eventually the bounty was forgotten about and trade began again, from the safety of outside the walls this time. The Dwarves emerged from their mountain holds and slowly began to grow fond of the Halfling pipe-weed which helped build an informal friendship between Halflings and Dwarves although again no Halfling was ever let within a mile of anything valuable he might “accidentally” mistake for payment.

The Halflings had little use for this new trend of making things from iron, except for their kitchen tools which they always kept upgraded with the finest metals, all Halfling society was still happily plodding along with Bronze ploughs, bronze weapons and bronze armour. The three Giants remained frozen in stone in the village square and were regularly decorated for festivals and parties. The wizard stayed in his coma and life went on without much changing.

All that changed with a world changing event (In Warhammer Fantasy this could be the Storm of Chaos basically every generic Fantasy World has an “Everything Changed” moment that I can plug into this part of the story). By this time humanity would be about the time of the Early Renaissance and the Men nearest to the Halflings would basically look like Spanish Conquistadors.

In my own little Fantasy World this would be the Kingdoms of Men finally starting to fail in their Wars against the Orcs and Goblins who start sneaking into the realms of humanity and plundering towns and villages. The Dwarves retreated to their Mountain Holds and none ever left them, all except for those Holds who had done long term trade with the Halflings. For reasons no one could explain small bands of Dwarves began to show up in The Valley armed and ready for War claiming they had come to defend their ‘Little Brothers’. The same was true for the towns of men, who also sought safety in their fortresses and cities however bands of adventurers, merchants guards and even a few knights trickled into The Valley drawn by a sense of duty and friendship.

Unknown to anyone the Halflings seemed to have a strange passive magical aura, no matter how foul mouthed or rude they were no one who dealt with them regularly could truly hate them. If you even had the tiniest seed of affection for them over time it would grow and grow until they became like family to you. This was why a wizard kidnapped and abducted quickly became extremely fond of the Halflings and why a rag tag mix of Humans and Dwarves felt obliged to come to the defence of The Valley.

Let me know what you think in the comments

I wanted a quick and easy way to finish off the carts that I could replicate for all the wooden items in the force to keep a unified theme so I settled on a lighter wood for the logs on top of the cart using Aggaros Dunes and the darker Snakebite Leather for the main wood. Then just paint the metal Bronze (That’s a lore point but more on that tomorrow) and it’s done.

When I saw these I bought as many as I could. They are perfect for my Halflings and I was worried that rather than an army of Halflings it would look more like an army of tiny humans but with things like this I can really make it look proper Fantasy Halfling.

I hope you guys enjoy this project and please leave a comment.

I have a bad habit of not taking pictures of things so I’m using this project as a sort of challenge to take a picture at every step and explain to you guys as clearly as possible what I’m doing.

When I saw these I bought as many as I could. They are perfect for my Halflings and I was worried that rather than an army of Halflings it would look more like an army of tiny humans but with things like this I can really make it look proper Fantasy Halfling.

It’s probably best to start this Spring Cleaning with what’ I’ve actually got.

Three Boxes of Wargames Atlantic Halflings
Dwarf Wizard on Pony
Three Pig Carts
A Giant

This is a mix of stuff I’ve had for a while and some stuff I bought last night.

I also plan to get another few boxes of Halflings. The First thing I’ll do is paint the Carts and the Giant then Gandalf before I start slogging through the infantry.

I also want to talk about what sort of force I’m building here and how I want to keep it as generic as possibly while still having a distinct Halfling Theme