Continuing my theme of brightening the table top I have added more live stock to my farms. I was inspired at Cold Wars by a Sharp Practice game by 95th Division which had many unusual items scattered about the table. George and I talked about it all the way back to the Boston area.
Why geese? Why not! They get in the way of things. They make a great swaking noise and look fun being scattered by cavalry. While most of my birds are domestic, I have included two Canadian geese. After all it is the Niagara campaign.
You need sheep, and a shepard. These are based on sheep at Old Sturbridge village. Janine and I took our yorkee Fritz for a walk there last fall. While he was fascinated by all the animals (and they him) he was particularly interested in the sheep. So I added them to my farm. The Shepard is from Hovels and his loyal dog sits by. Look closely by the sheep and a rodent is scurrying away.
The lady feeding chickens I saw on Der Alter Fritz's blog . Reminded me of our farm program at Minute Man National Historical Park. We had period cows which we used to keep the grass down in the fields. At the Hartwell Tavern we had period chickens. The figure reminded me of a couple of my seasonal staff.
Lastly, we have the family cat. Note he is hard at work keeping the local rodents away from the house!
These were great fun to paint and will look good in the table. Based on a suggestion here I will be putting on a game with small cavalry units chasing each other about and collecting "forage" to bring back to the army. local militia horse will try to protect the locals. The invading horse getg points running off live stock and damaging the farms of local malcontents.
Figures were from either Hovel's or Warbases. Great service and very reasonable priced.
