Turnip 28 - Sons of the Mandrake

The sun barely managed to peak beyond the smoke of still burning fires, but it was enough to deter them from traveling in the open, and so the company wearily trudged Eastward into a line of trees. One of the younger soldiers began singing a marching song in a shaky, weakened voice, but let it die after the third verse when he realized no one was inclined to harmonize. Beneath their muddy boots, twigs and bones crunched. They had fought through this thicket, as they drove the front away from their motherland, and now were following the bullet-filled trees like one follows breadcrumbs to return from whence they came.

Max Fitzgerald is a British Illustrator who produces art for Games Workshop and occasionally other folks, and also happens to be the mad wizard who conceived of #Turnip28 in the first place. His vision as I understand it is a Post Apocalyptic world during the Napoleonic Wars. Soldiers in plate armor, fighting across fields with muskets and bayonets, covered in moss and dirt. Due to the state of things, each soldier has a portable food supply in the tufts growing out of their backpacks. By no means are these weeds tasty, but they have enough nutrients to keep an army marching.

Max's very handy sheet of concepts and root vegetables. Check out his Twitter for more cool stuff!

I ordered a pair of Russian Napoleonic sprues sometime earlier this year. Each of them contained monopose Perry Twins sculpts which meant that they blended together quite nicely, (Warlord and Foundry) and they came out to ten soldiers. Furthermore, I dug through my bits box and came up with some Empire soldiers from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle starter box for 5th edition, who rounded the squad out at 12.

The Mandragoras Filii, or Sons of the Mandrake are recruited from the Raised City beside the Ob river, and are adorned with the heraldry of the carrot. This unit captained by Pyter Sokolov spent four years away in the War of the Twisted Roots, to which the brotherhood pledged three whole battalions. By the end of the conflict, there were barely enough Carrotguard to fill a company, and less than half as many boots to go around.

Until a system comes out for Turnip 28, I'll aim to use the Planet 28 ruleset by Nic Evans. I've been recommended Saga, and would happily consider Flintloque 3e or some Song of Blades and Heroes reskin, but the system I've chosen is specifically designed with narrative play in mind, and I already happen to own it. My aspirations are currently to play a healthy 10-11 mission campaign where we see Pyter and his men in their fight to make it home alive. Their odyssey begins at the end of the a great war, during the long march home...

They had followed the road that led directly back to the Raised City, the same one that had poured them onto the battlefield four years ago. As the woodlands thinned into misty moors, the path had led up a small hill to a cottage that surveyed the country. Pyter double-checked his maps and his men rustled like birds before a storm. They had taken the right path, but it had led to the wrong place...