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| A game of heroes, cards, and vindictive guinea pig action |
Most of the time,
when a range of figures is released, they are either related to a specific set
of rules or they are figures such as historical miniatures for which a wide
range of wargames rules already exist. Rarely, though, a
manufacturer produces a set of brilliant figures for which very few - perhaps
even no - commercial rules exist. Although I have to admit that this will not
be the case for long as a commercial set will be available shortly.
However, that's what
Annie did a year or more ago - and it's taken me that long to get it in a form
worth posting on the blog. Yes, this post is all about guinea pigs.
You've probably
heard of Annie (aka the
Dice Bag Lady/Bad Squiddo Miniatures). If you
haven't, chances are you're not a wargamer, or you've been hiding under a rock
somewhere. I urge you strongly to visit her site, where you are almost
guaranteed to find something interesting. I'll leave you to do that in your own
time. Suffice
to say that amongst many other brilliantly original ideas, Annie has produced
some figures of - yes, you guessed it - guinea pigs, for which you will
probably understand there were until recently very few sets of wargames rules.
That said, after chatting with
Annie I understand that another set of rules is currently in prep for
which Annie's gun-toting guinea pigs, bunnies and cute-animal-driven-armoured vehicles (I told you you needed to visit her web site) are perfect for, but there's no
overlap here with those. The game here doesn't involve guns and such things. Instead,
and proving just
as judiciously violent within the game mechanics, we have a cat and a bunch of
carrots.
This new game (as you may have already suspected from the title above) is
called
Guinea Pig Heroes. It's a simple and (fairly) quick play sort of
race game using a dice and some cards, designed for four players who have no
qualms about being vindictive to each other. I'm not going to bore you with game mechanics here so if you want to pla
y it here's the link to the guinea pig game rules and cards. Yes there are cards too! All free to download and use as you wish, but please do comment here if you do anything with them!
You will need, in
addition to the rules and cards, some
guinea pig figures (get them from Annie -
for every set sold £1 goes to
Glynneath Guinea Pig Rescue). I based my guinea pigs on 1p pieces and textured and decorated them appropriately.
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| Guinea pigs |
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| More guinea pigs |
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| Yet more guinea pigs |
You will also need
figures representing a cat and a bunch of carrots, and a specially marked up
six-sided dice.
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| The cat |
My cat figure is a
Schleich cat, sitting based on a 40mm round base appropriately textured to match the bases of the guinea
pigs. It's a bit big, but that just makes it all the more terrifying if you are
a tiny little guinea pig. Just look at those cute creepy eyes...
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| Mmmm... carrots |
My carrots are made
from green stuff, painted and based on a 2p piece, appropriately textured. These are really not
very difficult to make at all.
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| The special die |
The die I use is a
blank die (available from many, many suppliers) with the appropriate symbols
drawn on the faces with a permanent marker, as required in the game rules.
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| Dice symbols (l-r): 2 x blank, 1 carrot, 2 carrots, 3 carrots, the cat |
You'll also need a table to play on, some terrain, and two things to represent a house and a hutch. Books, paper, beer mats, or whatever will serve perfectly well for all of these things (except the table. For this, you should really use a table).
Basically, the game
is a race to get your uniquely heroic guinea pig from the house to the hutch,
made more difficult by the need to have specific cards in your hand, the
presence of the tempting carrots and the malevolent cat, and the vindictive
actions of the other players. We've play tested the game a few times, and it
works. Once you get the hang of the mechanisms play should be pretty quick and
you can play a game in 1-2 hours easily - though the more players pick on each
other the longer the game is likely to last.
Please download,
play and enjoy - and if you have any feedback at all (even if you think it's rubbish!) please post a reply here as I
would love to hear from you! And
also in the spirit in which the whole concept of wargaming with guinea pigs was
conceived please do consider donating to Glynneath Guinea Pig Rescue as well.
Enjoy!
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| Guinea Pig Heroes |
