Month 1, Smilodons at the lake

During the first months the tribe wandered in a dangerouse zone (cell 1.6), the zone was a wooded area, with a lake in the middle, here is a photo

Deployment area

I used the Adventures in the Lost Lands (THW) PEF system, to give some randomness to the enemy troops. 4 PEFs.

Ulrek and his men advanced from the south, going upriver, to the lake.

Some turns later, they met the creatures hanging around the lake

A pair of Smilodons that were awaiting for the deers, that normally drank there.

Ulrek, tell to their comrades to sneak behind the bushes near the lake, but the Smilodon decided to charge against the humans, probably he was hungry. The humans nervous rally round the leader, but one of them decided to charge against the beast, Ulrek, worried about the poor possibilities of the mad man, run to help him against the beast that run to them.

A heavy stroke kill the beast, but the noise of the battle call the attention of the other smilodon, who approached to the humans.

 The humans more daring advanced to the creature, and charged against him...

 Killing him in a unbalanced combat.

 The tribe has sufficient food another month, and they continue their journey to the Big Blue.

Stats used for PRUSEME:

Caveman Leader: Elan 5 Two Handed Weapons Mighty Hero Move 4.
Caveman Shaman: Elan 4 Spear Blessed Cleric Move 3.
Cavemen Warriors: Elan 3 Spear Move 4.
Cavemen Villagers: Elan 2 Spear Move 4.

Smilodons: Creature Elan 5 Furious Claws Rage.

The Luric Lands, a map

For my Prehistoric Campaign, first I needed a mpa, and I wanted something random, for that I was looking for in Internet, but all the maps generators that I found were pay for download, so I decided to make something cheaper, I took a hex grid page from here: http://hexmaps.appspot.com/

And got a page like that: 

Them, I started to roll two d10 dices, the first for the columns, and the other for the rows, deciding that the result will present a mountain terrain or a forest. Them I roll 17 times to got dangerous zones, represented in the image by a yellow tower. When I saw that there were dangerous zone near a forest or a mountain, I added a mountain or forest terrain, for represent a more inaccessible zone. Them I put a seashore on the tenth column, and two dangerous point in the sea, representing the zone where can arrive the invaders. The sanded zones are clear/hilly terrains where the caveman will move without problems.

I use GIMP and some free brushes from devianart.

And I get this map of Luric

The Cavemen will start in some point of the West side, and must arrive to the coast in less than 10 months, I mean, 10 campaign turns. On hex will represent a month of travel.

Let's start the Campaign!

Genetics and wargaming

I am in the first stages of my project of painting some Prehistoric miniatures, and I was thinking about how to paint the bear skins and the skin of the miniatures.

I have two sets of Bear Clan human miniatures from Splintered Light Miniatures, armed with stone axes and spears. All of them wear bear skinned cloaks and trousers, no other trinkets. So if I have 4 models with the same pose, How could I paint them to give the armies some variety?

At the first moment I thought that a go idea could be to paint their skin with a high variety of colors, some black, some, white, and some tanned, and the same with their bear skins I could get some variety of miniatures, grey, brown and black could be the colors for have a lot of miniatures, but after looking for some info throw internet, I had to withdraw this idea, let's take a look about this.

 Supposedly, these men and women lived in some point of Europe, during the late states Würm III period, after the great migrations from Africa.

Blue areas = Iced Areas

 With human settlements, in some place of Europe, arounding Mediterranean sea. They were in the Magadalenian period, with stone weapons, and some settlements, they were mainly hunters and gatherers.

 But the low population density was low, so the genetical exchanges were very low, so the mixture of races is very low, with regular cases of endogamic relations, for that the skin of the miniatures must be painted in a more similar way.

 With the bear skin we are in a similar case, the bast majority of them must be brown, with some of them black or white, but the hunter of this period hunted in determined areas, where the bears will have a similar skins color.

 For that I think that the solution to establish differences will be in using green modeling putty, adding some elements, like more fur, and to paint tattoos to the troops, with a different color for each warband.

 So, the Prehistoric miniatures must be modeled in a high variety of troops, because this period doesn't let to the miniatures painters a wide variety of color schemes for their armies, because of the low skin color varieties, and the natural origin of the clothes (mainly wool and furs) with no usual dye products to manufacture them, normally brown and stained white. To add a touch of color the painter must use tattoos ans decoration on the stands, this period allows imagine a wide variety of colored plants that can grow near the foots of our miniatures


 Let's continue painting my monochrome troops... here is a great sample by  Carmen's Fun Painty Time, of what the terrain can do.