Spuds for the Spud God
May 5, 2024 9:24 AM Subscribe
Turnip28 is a miniatures war game by Max Fitzgerald about Napoleonic tubers. An endless war has reduced the world to mud and muck, and a giant mutant root vegetable has spread ceaselessly throughout the land. Misshapen soldiers emerge and sink into the swamps with rusty bayonets and pole arms seemingly supplied by the root stock itself. It is deliciously weird.
You can get the rule book free (from the author), along with the first issue of Swollen Magglet, the official zine of extended lore, art, and rules.
Primarily a kit-bashing game, Turnip28 encourages players to make their own lumps of shambling plastic from leftover bits and green stuff. Or turn sardine tins into Ironside steamers. But there's also a good pile of official STLs for 3D printing, including malevolent beekeepers, militant pigs in bicorn hats, and so on.
You can get the rule book free (from the author), along with the first issue of Swollen Magglet, the official zine of extended lore, art, and rules.
Primarily a kit-bashing game, Turnip28 encourages players to make their own lumps of shambling plastic from leftover bits and green stuff. Or turn sardine tins into Ironside steamers. But there's also a good pile of official STLs for 3D printing, including malevolent beekeepers, militant pigs in bicorn hats, and so on.
Turnip28 is a such a cool thing. It takes some of the Bosch-looking bits of 80s Warhammer, applies them to Napoleonics instead and then doubles down. Even so, Turnip 28 manages a vibe of its own - which Max once described as "very sad, but hopeful". It's like something from another timeline, or a rejected 2000AD pitch.
And it's wonderful that it's managed to seize so many people's imaginations and gain that critical mass of popularity. Simply amazing for an indie mass-combat wargame that directs you to buy other companies' kits and (until recently) had no models of its own.
There's also a spinoff in the works called Swill, about warring Victorian workhouses. The game's not out but the first miniatures are.
Trivia! The 28 in Turnip28 title comes via Inquisitor28 - a fan movement to play (the discontinued 54mm narrative wargame) Inquisitor using 28mm models. The movement empahsises creative modelling and the "Blanchitsu" style. (Named after the legendary artist John Blanche - whose history and influence would require a post of its own.)
Since then appending "28" to something has come to mean doing X, but with weird little guys in the John Blanche style. Cf: the free web publication 28 magazine.
Anyway - Turnip28 is awesome. I even (shameless plug) wrote a fan RPG for it.
posted by Lorc at 9:51 AM on May 5 [11 favorites]
And it's wonderful that it's managed to seize so many people's imaginations and gain that critical mass of popularity. Simply amazing for an indie mass-combat wargame that directs you to buy other companies' kits and (until recently) had no models of its own.
There's also a spinoff in the works called Swill, about warring Victorian workhouses. The game's not out but the first miniatures are.
Trivia! The 28 in Turnip28 title comes via Inquisitor28 - a fan movement to play (the discontinued 54mm narrative wargame) Inquisitor using 28mm models. The movement empahsises creative modelling and the "Blanchitsu" style. (Named after the legendary artist John Blanche - whose history and influence would require a post of its own.)
Since then appending "28" to something has come to mean doing X, but with weird little guys in the John Blanche style. Cf: the free web publication 28 magazine.
Anyway - Turnip28 is awesome. I even (shameless plug) wrote a fan RPG for it.
posted by Lorc at 9:51 AM on May 5 [11 favorites]
may at some point build an army even if I can't find anyone to play with me.
I kind of unwittingly fell into wargaming over the last year, after picking up a random box of Star Wars: Legion minis on sale... Hundreds of hours of painting later, I've got a couple full armies with of minis painted up and a pile of terrain, but have really only played like five games. Most of the other folks I've talked to are similarly in the space of making cool stuff and verrrrry occasionally playing the actual game.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:24 AM on May 5 [1 favorite]
I kind of unwittingly fell into wargaming over the last year, after picking up a random box of Star Wars: Legion minis on sale... Hundreds of hours of painting later, I've got a couple full armies with of minis painted up and a pile of terrain, but have really only played like five games. Most of the other folks I've talked to are similarly in the space of making cool stuff and verrrrry occasionally playing the actual game.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:24 AM on May 5 [1 favorite]
I love this. The impulse to do a GURPS write up of the setting is as powerful as it is ill advised.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:32 AM on May 5 [2 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:32 AM on May 5 [2 favorites]
Do they actually stick rotting root vegetables to thier war game tables?
posted by surlyben at 11:01 AM on May 5
posted by surlyben at 11:01 AM on May 5
It's always been hard for me to suss out differences between pay-to-win collectible card games like Magic and investment-heavy wargames that look beautiful and potentially fun. I got a little caught up in a Star Wars ship-battle miniatures game until I realized that if you wanted to compete with other people you had to pay attention to "the meta" and buy the best ships and play a very constrained game of optimal strategies.
This looks like the opposite of that. I would love to spend hours and hours crafting minis and terrain to play, but I don't have those hours, so I might just pull out some cheap junk and read the rules and bash up a scenario that looks bad but plays fun. If I can get anyone else interested it might spur better junk. But I like that the aesthetic is mud and junk and jank and not good-looking stuff.
posted by rikschell at 11:05 AM on May 5
This looks like the opposite of that. I would love to spend hours and hours crafting minis and terrain to play, but I don't have those hours, so I might just pull out some cheap junk and read the rules and bash up a scenario that looks bad but plays fun. If I can get anyone else interested it might spur better junk. But I like that the aesthetic is mud and junk and jank and not good-looking stuff.
posted by rikschell at 11:05 AM on May 5
Metafilter: doing X, but with weird little guys
posted by scruss at 11:42 AM on May 5 [3 favorites]
posted by scruss at 11:42 AM on May 5 [3 favorites]
What a fun world.
Some of its background:
A thousand years after the defeat of
Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz, the
world has fallen into decay. Endless war
has led to technology stagnating, and
beautiful countrysides have been ground
to a thick ruin under the boots of a million
dead men.
Now, nothing grows. A bizarre and
horrible root covers the land; strangling the
life from the trees, poisoning the water, and
filling the sky with an acrid mist.
Humanity barely endures by harvesting
this disgusting tuber. It twists their bodies
and minds, and infests their thoughts with
divine visions of lost vegetables.
Bizarre religious orders have formed.
They stockpile abandoned weapons
unearthed by the twisting roots.
Marching in column under fluttering
banners, brandishing mud-clogged
muskets and rusted bayonets, they are cruel
parodies of long-forgotten armies on the
march.
Gather your troops. Fix bayonets.
Devote yourself to the roots.
posted by doctornemo at 5:57 PM on May 5 [3 favorites]
Some of its background:
A thousand years after the defeat of
Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz, the
world has fallen into decay. Endless war
has led to technology stagnating, and
beautiful countrysides have been ground
to a thick ruin under the boots of a million
dead men.
Now, nothing grows. A bizarre and
horrible root covers the land; strangling the
life from the trees, poisoning the water, and
filling the sky with an acrid mist.
Humanity barely endures by harvesting
this disgusting tuber. It twists their bodies
and minds, and infests their thoughts with
divine visions of lost vegetables.
Bizarre religious orders have formed.
They stockpile abandoned weapons
unearthed by the twisting roots.
Marching in column under fluttering
banners, brandishing mud-clogged
muskets and rusted bayonets, they are cruel
parodies of long-forgotten armies on the
march.
Gather your troops. Fix bayonets.
Devote yourself to the roots.
posted by doctornemo at 5:57 PM on May 5 [3 favorites]
Shooting in games can frequently suffer from being un-interactive
I learned a new word!
I like tubers.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:59 AM on May 6
I learned a new word!
I like tubers.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:59 AM on May 6
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posted by confluency at 9:32 AM on May 5 [2 favorites]