Flicking through the April 2025 issue, I came across an article about a wonderful sounding narrative focused skirmish game that has just been released by Grey For Now Games called Guards of Traitors Toll. There are of course many skirmish games to choose from these days, but what makes GoTT unique (as far as I'm aware anyway) is that rather than trying to knock lumps out of one another's warbands, players control a squad of guards trying to stop or solve crimes committed by the civilian populace of Traitor's Toll.
The city is nominally ruled by Baron Grote, who is descended from the noble House that founded of Traitor's Toll, though it is probably more accurate to say that power lies in the hands of the Lords and Ladies of the four Houses of Merron, Kalinan, Eryka and Grennith. Each House has its' own heraldic colours and players have the choice of pledging the allegiance of their Guards to a particular house by painting them in those colours, though I imagine there's nothing to stop one from playing the role of a mercenary and taking the coin of whichever House suits you on any given play through.
The game makes use of the Wargames Atlantic Classic Fantasy Guards and Villagers miniatures (which I gather were created with GoTT in mind) and game play is designed to be semi-cooperative, with the civilians and ne'er do wells actions taken care of by decks of cards, leaving players free to have their patrolling guards take whatever actions they deem necessary to keep the peace, though being too ruthless will result in discontent among the populace, who will stop assisting the guards and, if you push them far enough, possibly even riot!
Thoroughly intrigued by the article in WI and having had a quick nosey at the Grey For Now website, I grabbed a sprue of the Guards and have to say I'm very impressed with the kit.
Far more talented folks than me have done some very thorough unboxings and sprue reviews, but suffice it to say that everything in the image above, including the wee stack of wargear I made as an objective marker came from a single sprue! Well, almost everything, the bases are Renedra 30mm paved bases which I selected as I felt they fit the theme of the minis really well. Going this route did require a little more effort as the Guards miniatures are cast on 'puddle' bases, but this is nothing that the careful use of a modelling saw and some files won't fix.
To supplement the plastic kits, Grey For Now have a number of resin characters in the works, the first of whom is 'The Drunken Dwarf' who can presumably be used to represent a miscreant in the game, though I mainly picked one up as it looked like it'd be fun to paint up, especially as it's been more than a decade since I last painted a Dwarf if I remember rightly.
The Drunken Dwarf was indeed a real treat to paint, the details and cast were crystal clear with no clean up other than the usual soak and scrub in soapy water that I give to anything and everything that's resin.
He was mainly painted up over a couple of evenings and I'm oddly pleased with how the foamy ale slopping from the Dwarf's tankard has come out as well as the head of his hammer, which I imagine is probably more of a tool than a weapon of war, but with Dwarves, is there really a difference?
On the assumption that I will paint up the patrol of Guards I've assembled at some point, I remembered to take notes while painting the Dwarf's base so I can do them to match - the lesson from The Exiled Dead has been heeded!
If you fancy picking up your own Drunken Dwarf, you can do so here. Until next time, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.
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