New Year…. new project… O.K. Who am I kidding I do not need an excuse for a new miniatures gaming project.

I fancy making a little corner of Venice for my gaming table. Starting with a 2′ x 2′ board and building up to a 3′ x 3′ board. My friend Mike has one. I’m very impressed with it and I already have a water mat and some Terra-Former cobblestone boards to form the actual canals and Islands so it’s not like I’m staring from scratch!! I can see a lot of uses for the terrain, including Pulp Alley, 7TV and In Her Majesty’s Name with settings including contemporary Spy-Fi ‘Bond’ style gaming (we have loads of suitable miniatures in our Classic Movie range and a speed boat that I keep forgetting to release) and 1920’s – 40’s Pulp Adventure, I wonder if there will be an area of water big enough to land a sea plane? However, if I’m going to game in Venice it would be perverse not to include Carnevale set in a ‘fantasy’ Renaissance Venice where the world has been torn apart by dark forces and Vampires and Deep Ones join the many dangers of the magical city.

I’ve invested in the Introductory Set which I felt was a bargain from TT Combat @ £35. It includes a mini copy of the rulebook, a 2′ square gaming map, three card buildings, card counters of scatter terrain, dice, tokens and eight resin miniatures to form two initial gangs. I love miniatures, so the first thing that I did was to paint them. I’ll read what they are and what they do latter. I particularly like the Deep One miniature, (he is the fellow with tentacles). I have watched a few You Tube videos explaining the rules. They look pretty straightforward and a lot of fun. It’s a D10 based game. You roll a number of dice depending on your relevant attribute. If it is an unopposed check, 7+ is success. If it is a combat roll, you are looking to beat your opponents dexterity. One of the dice is the ‘fate dice’. This is a different colour and depending on what you roll on it compared with your other rolls it either allows you to perform heroically better, or induces a fumble.

The starting ‘Gangs’ are The Rashaar and The Guild.

The Rashaar are basically HP Lovecraft inspired mythos creatures and minions, followers of the Church of Dagon. There miniatures are the Lesser Rhyll (Deep One with tentacles,), Officiant of Dagon (blue & gold priest type on standard base), Hybrid (kneeling woman) and Cult Enforcer (on larger base).

The Guild are styled around a merchants or thieves guild. There characters are the pilfer (child figure running with purse), Gondolier (red hat), Arbalest (with crossbow) and fisherman (with nets).

Looking through the army lists there are lots of options to field characters such as Vampires, Harlots, Dancers, Butchers etc. that I can use figures from the Dark Alleys range as proxies for until I collect a few more ‘official’ miniatures…. after all I am going to be playing with friends rather than official competitive play (if there is such a thing).

These eight figures are the first eight painted in 2023. They were all painted by priming with Hycote Black Auto Primer. When dry the miniatures were heavily drybrushed using a cheap make-up brush (one I brought myself for the purpose…. not one that I borrowed from Ann!).

Figures were painted using Army Painter Speedpaints plus Army Painter Metalics.

That’s all for now, I’m of to sit in front of the fire and have a read of the rulebook. I will be posting a lot more for Carnevale as I play some games and build some terrain!