Doing it all: In Her Majesty's Name

In The Beginning    

     I have been having a bit of a froth lately about In Her Majesty's Name, the Victorian sci fi/horror skirmish game. This isn't a review but suffice to say that they were published back in 2013 by Osprey and written by Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton of The Ministry Of Gentlemanly Warfare. They are terrific fun (the rules not Charles Murton and Craig Cartmell. I have heard rumours though but we'll leave that there!!!!!...), chock full of derring do heroes (including Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson), wacky scientists, Heath Robinson type vehicles and technology and fiendish villains of all stripe, including Dracula, werewolves and many, many others. 
     
    I had purchased them after hearing good things about them on the Meeples and Miniatures podcast in the hope that I could get my Dr Who obsessed teenage nephew interested in the genre but, sad to relate, that damp squibbed. 

In Her Majesty's Name and it's three supplements.
The first three are published by Osprey whilst Gothic
is a self published book from the Ministry of
Genltemanly Warfare

     However I really liked the game: In Her Majesty's Name just seemed to click with me. I was drawn to the potential it offered, the setting of the late Victorian era, the low tech, clanking, mostly steam driven sci fi and the gothic horror element (I must confess that I am a great admirer of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker's Dracula so the chance to get these characters on the table is too good to miss) and the game itself is both easy to play and great fun.
     Also, crucially, the model count isn't too high so it's not a huge undertaking to put together an adventuring company.
     I had rather thought I had left sci fi gaming behind when I fell out of love with 40K and my opportunities to play both INQ28 (the 28mm verison of Games Workshops's Inquisitor game) and Judge Dredd had dried up (and my nephew had lost what little interest he had in playing the Dr Who Miniature Game which I have a copy of as well as a load of miniatures but I digress) so that was another tick in the box for IHMN as not all my gaming chums like playing historical based wargames.   
     I also saw the chance to breath new life into the figures I had been using for INQ28 so I dug out what figures I had and re-imagined some of them and here's what I have managed to put together so far..

The Imperial Nightwatch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

The Imperial Night Watch; Kapitan Pellen in the centre, Feldwebel
Lutz on his right. Engineer Orff on his left.

     I started with my inquisitor and his retinue. The Gothic supplement is subtitled A  Dark Companion For In Her Majesty's Name and contained within it's pages are 19 new "companies" (each book has a list of "adventuring companies"; your warband if you like) including werewolves, which my nephew was keen on, having purchased himself a boxset of Blue Moon figures from their 28mm series Things That Go Bump In The Night entitled "I Had Such A Howling Good Time"  which contains some impressively fierce looking werewolves and four bold werewolve hunters. So I decided to use my inquistor and his retinue as an Imperial Nightwatch company of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As you can see they include GW  Imperial Guard Steel Legions figures (love these) and a loader from a GW Valhallan autogun, a scratch built chap with a prosthetic limb and Inquisitor, now Kapitan, Pellen. 

      In their back story, the troops are former Jaeger riflemen who have been recruited because of their zeal and courage into the Nightwatch and given the latest high tech equipment. Feldwebel Lutz and Engineer Orff are proven, trustworthy companions of Kapitan Pellen, formerly of the Imperial Life Guard Cuirassier Regiment. 

The Covenant Of The Book

The Covenant Of The Book: Sister Superior Ekaterina Von
Toten-Hosen in the centre. Sister Talla Horgenbost on the left.

     In an attempt to use the rest of my INQ28 figures, I used them to represent The Covenant Of The Book from IHMN Gothic. I had bought two female sci fi figures from Hassle Free Figures (yet another fantastic miniatures producer)  and added the Necromunda figures I had to make the Covenant. Their are still in their INQ28 colours and I'm wondering if I shouldn't strip the paint from the Necromunda figures and repaint them... 

Scotland Yard and the Consulting Detective

Scotland Yard Company. Holmes and Watson in the centre flanked
by,on Holmes left, Chief Inspector McGillicudy and on Watson's
right, Detective Sergeant Perkins

     My Scotland Yard company are from North Star with the addition of three Peelers that I picked up second hand at a wargames show.

Grey Section, British Secret Service

Grey Section of the Secret Service Bureau. L to R, Barney
Stockdale, Neville St Claire, Josiah Amberley, Watch
Commander William Topaz McGonagall, Jabez Wilson,
Hilton Cibbit and Dennis "Dandy" Nichols

     The Grey Section of the British Secret Service. This bunch are led by their Watchmaster, William Topaz McGonnagle; famously bad Victorian poet and, for the purposes of Grey Sections back story, intellectually gifted patriot and former spy in the early days of the Great Game. These figures are another mixed bunch. McGonnagle is the elderly looking gent in the centre.

The Black Dragon Tong

The Black Dragon Tong with the Dragon Lady in the centre,
Master Wu Jen on her left and her pet Yeti at the back 

     North Star's Black Dragon Tong, straight from the box. Lovely figures and an impressive Yeit

The Peasant Crusade

The Peasant Crusaders: Crusade Hetman Grigori Grigorovich
in the centre, Georgi Andrie on the far right 

     In the IHMN Gothic also includes the Peasants Crusade adventure company, from the Carpathian Mountains. I had a few Perry Miniatures Napoleonic Russian Peasants that I had bought for Black Powder as well as six Foundry Miniatures 17th Cossacks that were ostensibly for Mordheim (they were to be the start of my Kislevites band) but I figured all thrown together they could easily (hopefully) face down a vampire or two or perhaps a mad scientist up to all sorts of God forsaken experiments in the family castle so that gave me another adventuring company 

Aerial Mercenaries: Flying Ship Engineer Agnetha Lindstrom,
and Kapitan Reinhardt Dershtardli fourth from right

     In my almost daily trawling of the net for miniatures I spotted the Dick (spotted Dick..there's apun in there somewhere) Dastardly inspired sculpt in Artizan Designs "Thrilling Tales" collection and had to have him for IHMN. Along with him is one of Artizan's Pulp Heroines and three figure that I had converted for non player characters for INQ28 who are now going to made into Sky Pirates of some description complete with flying ship. I will need to do some conversion work on those three though, to make them look a bit more Victorian sci fi, as they look a bit too modern.

Flying ship/gun boat thingy from Blotz. In need of painting and detailing
I added the mast myself  and have a couple of guns to add to it.
I think I'll do this as a Royal Navy flying pinnace then get anther one or two.
They are pretty cheap to buy. .

     Finally for the moment, there are also the non player characters, the poor, benighted civilians who populate the the towns and villages where all the action sometimes takes place; Like quite a bit of my stuff these come from a variety of sources; Warbases and Ironclad Miniatures for the most part.

      So that's what I have built and painted so far for In Her Majesty's Name. in the pipeline are some Russian infantry from the 1904 Russo-Japanse War by Tsuba Miniatures that I bought on a whim as they look really nice, some British Royal Navy shore party figures from Pulp Miniatures who will also crew a flying ship and more civilian NPCs mostly from Warbases. And maybe some werewolves and vampires for good measure.

     I'll update the blog as my IHMN collection grows and, hopefully, get some batreps done too.

Till the next time,

Pip pip,

The General