The following is another extract from the diary of Servo Romano, a Todoroni servant to Michrana "tiny hat" Carlos of the rainbow militia.

 

"I believe I was talking about Carlos's frustrating indecisiveness when it came to his regiments uniform, I remember i prime example of this. He once ordered all of the officers of his rainbow militia and convinced a number of his officer friends across Urop to add at least two feathers to every soldier’s hat, as a plumage of feathers was the new trend in the Ferach capital according to tiny hat's many elven and fashion advisors.

 

On paper this sounded wonderful but we had just been shipped to Catalucia to see some real conflict and it wasn't easy to just pluck hundreds of feathers out of nowhere. I remember him telling a complaining officer to think with an 'abstract mind" and get creative, this led to Todoroni officers and soldiers looting whatever they could from local villages and their personal belongings, feathers from quills, hunters’ arrows, any bird they set their eyes on, hats from fallen soldiers, they even stole from their own allies, anything thing they could get their hands on. I even saw soldiers frantically cutting feathers out of paper or leaves to fill out the gaps of real ones it was madness ha-ha, but there was never enough.

 

One great source of feathers in the Catalucia/Al Garvey theaters of war, though a little more dangerous was dodo poaching. They were starting to be a bit sparse in the Wild due to over hunting for their fantastic meat, but luckily the local goblin and dark elves liked to keep many dodo farms. So, the lads took to raiding these farms to please Michrana's obsession with feathers which would go on to be known famously as his "Feather Phase" of fashion. Unfortunately, after a while many reports came in of poaching on this farm and the allied forces started to defend these dodo farms and many a good toad lost their lives for a pointless cause if you ask me but I'm not the "Artist".

 

Over the months the Todoroni and allied forces got bored of wasting valuable supplies on these dodo raids and stop using so many firearms and weapons, in some raids both sides agreed to terms and were completely unarmed and slowly the dodo poaching became more competitive and almost a sport. I remember once overhearing a group of toads boasting that they won 10 - 2 against some greens greenskins, it was bizarre seeing how people were coping with this insane feather order by Carlos. 

 

It got so competitive the stories of this "game" Spread to the point Carlos himself invited us of the field staff to go spectate a game of this "Dodo Raiding", they were evening betting on the number of dodos the toads could steal. I remember him winning a lot of money that day and major Aniello Maggio Campo, serious toad from the engineer Corp demanding a chance to win his money back in which tiny hat replied "Another day another day… I’m bored of feathers now anyway… the new thing is fur coats and I want us to be the first regiment full of them… where is my tailor?!?! Lorenzo?!? Where are you?!?!!", and that began Carlos's "fur phase" followed by his iconic "purple period".

 

 

This scenario is a two player game played between a Ferach aligned force (preferably Todoroni) and an allied aligned force (preferably Albion, Al Garvey, Catalucia) and set in the Catalucian setting of Flintloque and requires an understanding of the rules and has access to the 3rd edition War in Catalucia book from Alternative Armies to play.

 

The Ferach aligned side are considered the attackers and the allied side is the defenders.

 

The scenario is fought over an allied defended dodo farm/village and the objective is to kill/steal or exit the board with as many dodos and feather counters as possible. The game ending when ALL dodos are killed, off the board, contained in either teams "scoring zones" or either the attacker or defender has lost 75% of their starting team to deaths or exiting the board. Once the game is over both teams tally up their points from the "scoring table" later in this article with the highest scoring team being the winner in this scenario.

 

 

This scenario takes place on a 3x3ft table though can be played on a larger table if you are wanting to play longer and larger games. This scenario is fought over an allied village or farm so the board should ideally represent this.

 

To set up place a small building/ruin in the centre of the board to represent the main farm house, adjacent to this place on the buildings east or west side place an animal pen or 4 fences/hedges/barricades to represent a pen no larger than 6" x 6". The attacker and defender then take it in turns to place one piece terrain on the board until both side are happy with the layout. These pieces of terrain must include at least 3 other small buildings/ruins and a handful of scatter terrain and trees to cover fire. The players then both flip a shilling (coin) with the winner choosing which table edge is their deployment zone (North or south) the defending player must then place anywhere within 6" of their table edge a cart/tent or another small animal pen no larger than 3x3". The attacking player than does the same on their side of the board, these are your teams "scoring zones" and are important to this scenario. Then the teams must alternatively place one team member each anywhere within 6" of their table edge until all models have been placed. 

 

 

Each team is made up of 6 models each for smaller quicker games or made up of 8-10 models for larger and longer games. The attacking side is ideally made up of Todoroni or Ferach allied characters or a mixture of both to represent the background of the scenario and the defenders team is made up of allied soldiers and/or civilians/villagers preferably Albion / Al Garvey / Catalucia. 

 

The players may choose any character/infantry from the "creating a section" part of the War on Catalucia book for their nation but no cavalry or artillery may be chosen. A maximum of two officers/special characters maybe chosen for your team, once this is all done you must choose one model on your team to be the "team captain".

 

Optionally you can play this scenario more competitively like the sport it evoked into in the background section of this article by not using any firearms or even no weapons at all which will focus the game on close quarters and tactically stalling dodos.

 

 

This scenario is all about stealing and poaching Dodos so they are kind of key to this scenario (though alternatives are mentioned later), if you decided on teams of 6 you will need at least 6-10 dodos and if you opted for a larger game i suggest at least 10-15 dodos, though you may add or take away as many as you like for different challenges.

 

These dodos are place in the animal pen adject to the main farm building in the middle of the board. The dodos will remain there until the first gun is fired, combat is engaged or one of the attacking team comes within 3" of the dodos .As soon as one of these 3 things happens each dodo will immediately move 2d6" in a random direction ( use a scatter dice or alternatively use a different on a 1- left, 2- right, 3- forward, 4 -backwards 5-6 players decide alternatively).

 

If the dodo comes in contact with a hard piece of terrain (i.e. wall, building, cart) and ignoring the pen they start in, the dodo will finish the rest of its movement after touching the terrain in the opposite direction they are facing .if the dodo moves off a table edge it is out of the game and can't be claimed in scoring. If the dodo moves within 1" of either teams characters the player controlling the miniature may attempt to grab the dodo on a 4+ on a d6 . If the dodo is not caught it will run past the character and finish its move.

 

After the initial dodo move the dodos will all move randomly again each turn before either of the teams move.

 

 

The point of the scenario is securing the feathers off dodos or "scoring" as it is called in this scenario, this is done in two ways. The first is to kill a dodo and move into base contact with it, once this is done you can pluck the dead dodo of its feathers and depositing these "feather counters" into your teams scoring zone, (by being in base contact) represent this by a dice or dead dodo miniatures. Alternatively, you can keep the feathers along the character until one of the winning/end game conditions happens but by doing this you risk being killed and the feathers being stolen.

 

The second way to score is by being 1"of a dodo and attempt to grab it (4+ on a D6), once grabbed you may move as normal but may only use one arm ( so no two handed weapons), you then may deposit the dodo into your scoring zone and continue with the game or exit off any table edge with the dodo securing scoring points but the character and dodo do not return to the game.

 

Once one of the end game/win conditions occur any alive dodo and feather counters in the scoring zones or secured off board or are on a standing team member are tallied up for each team and cross referenced with the scoring points table.

 

 

It is really important to take note of who and how each score is made, I suggest writing down on your character/section sheet or a spare piece of paper as it will be important in the post-match points scoring.

 

Make note of when a team member scores in the scoring zone, when a character kills a dodo, when a character kills another character or team captain (bonus points for getting the boss) and when a character steals a dodo/feather counter 

 

 

There are a number of wats to deal dodos and feather counters in a game. feather counters can be stolen from any downed/killed characters, once in base contact with these models you may steal all of the feather counters on a roll of a 2+ on a D6, if a 1 is rolled it is considered they hid them very very well and you may try to find them again next turn.

 

You may also attempt to steal a dodo straight from a character’s hands who this is a little harder to the aggressiveness of the dodo and the punches flying from your opponent. Once in base contact with the miniature holding the dodo you may attempt to steal the dodo on a 5+ on a d6 or successfully attack the miniature in close combat first making the steal roll now a 3+.

You may alternatively be super sneaky and steal from your opponent’s scoring zone (I suggest keeping a miniature close by to defend these threats), to do this get in base contact with the scoring zone and choose a dodo or feather counter to steal, if a dodo roll a 5+ on a d6, if attempting a feather counters, you need a 4+.

 

 

When one of the winning/end game conditions occurs cross reference your notes on who scored / stole / killed with the following table, the team with the most points wins the game.

 

- Dodo in scoring zone/off board: +2 pts each 

- Feather counter in scoring zone/off board: +1 pts each 

- Holding dodo/feather counters: + 0.5 pts per character 

- Most dodo kills: +2 pts (only one miniature gets this unless tied kills with opposition)

- Most kills: +2 pts (only one miniature gets this unless tied kills with opposition)

- Most steals: +1 pts (only one miniature gets this unless tied steals with opposition)

- Highest scoring player (in zone and or off board): +3 pts (only one miniature gets this unless tied with opposition)

- Killed team captain: +5 pts 

 

 

There are a few changes that can be made to this scenario to change up the game play and narrative.

 

For starters you can play this scenario with a number of alternative animals/critters you may have in your collection if you don't have alternative armies Dodos (code : 53507M) or even one of alternative armies many great furred and feathered creatures and critters, the Grining skull Pig Dog (code: GRN04) come to mind. 

 

You could also play this scenario without dodos and instead just scatter feather counters around the board and play as normal but discard the rules for dodos. You could alternatively say the feather counters are loot Counters or even food or beer counters (codes : 59543, 59544, 59545, BS16) to change the narrative to more of a village/farm raid story or even some competitive apple scrumping.

 

 

Every miniature you need to represent everything in this scenario can be bought through Alternative Armies.

 

For the defenders miniatures I suggest Valon civilians and villagers (codes: 58102, 54050) are perfect to represent the dodo farmers and I suggest Albion 50th foot line infantry (code: 54520) or 18th Al Garvey foot (code: 53513) or dark elf line infantry (code: 51521) to represent the allied forces defending these dodo farms. 

 

For the attackers miniatures I suggest Michrana "tiny hat" Carlos (code: VEE15) who this scenario is written about and his rainbow militia which can be represented by any of the Todoroni range but I suggest (code: 56505, 56538, 56593)