The Cats Are Sharp Again
A lot has changed since I worked on the Borderlands & Beyond sourcebook for the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem RPG. For starters, I have also been involved in several other sourcebooks for that same game, including the self-contained Strangelight Workshop RPG that is now available for pre-order.
By far the biggest change, however, is that Privateer Press sold Warmachine and all its various attendant properties (including the Iron Kingdoms RPG) to Steamforged Games last year.
Since then, there hasn’t been any new work on the IK RPG, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing Warmachine stuff. The tabletop wargame is powered by an app, which features all the rules and stats for the various factions. It also boasts a regularly updated library of fiction fleshing out the world and introducing readers to the various characters at play within it.
For the last few months, I’ve been writing regular installments of that fiction, starting with three pieces introducing the new Old Umbrey faction. That’s not really what I’m here to discuss today, though.
Back when I was still working on Borderlands & Beyond, one of my jobs was to create new monsters for the RPG. Among these were several of my takes on certain classic monsters of mythology, with an Iron Kingdoms spin. One of these was a critter called a manticore, which I described (in part) as follows: “In outline, a manticore resembles a large lion or other hunting cat. Seen up close, however, the similarities end. Rather than fur, the manticore is covered in jagged spines of glassy chitin that sweep backward from its beak and end in a tail like a morningstar.”
To no small extent, my introduction to gaming, full stop, was poring over old issues of White Dwarf and trying to imagine the games that these evocative miniatures went to. Eventually, I got into Warhammer, and subsequently into a variety of other things, and I learned to appreciate so much more about the games, but minis have always had a special place in my heart.
I love weird little guys, and the idea of having someone translate one of my creations into one fills me with a sense of childlike wonder, so I was overjoyed when the manticores I had created for the Iron Kingdoms RPG found their way to the tabletop as mounts for the Dreadguard Cavalry.
This is all an extremely long-winded way of getting to the point that SFG recently announced a new cadre – the Dusk Final Hunt, which includes two new warbeasts that are wintery versions of my manticores. Meaning that my humble little spiky cats have found their way to the tabletop in the form of not merely three but now five miniatures – and I couldn’t be happier about it.
