The Caitts of Cruithne

Back in 2023, For Oakbound’s “The Woods in the Woods” games day, I fielded a warband I called “The Caitts of Cruithne”. I came up with some back story which I won’t post just yet but fits in with the Woods set up pretty well. They aren’t a completely made up warband cause.. even with the loser old-style of the Woods, it wouldn’t really be that fair to just make up a completely new group like that, though I did get the thing checked out..

Anyway, While the backstory and name was new, the warband itself wasn’t. They used the rules for a Yaltog Caravan. Now, in the Woods, Yaltog are.. I’ll say a weasel-like creatures and there Caravan’s are often gatherings of various people from various races who have been outcast for some reason. Unlike most warbands which when you hire someone from another group can only hire a ‘basic’ character, the rouges of a Caravan can be special troop types. This is in theory, pretty powerful. You can pick the best of from a range of species and troop types.

The full list of ones which can be used as Yartogs themselves, Tuatha (humans), Pixies, Boggarts, Piskeys, Leprechauns, Trows, Goblins, Kobolds, Gnawlochs, Hobyahs, Brownies. That’s pretty large and impressive.

Did my band perform well? hehe.. not amazingly.. I know my game style weaknesses. Same as with my Chess game. I can calculate a few battle plans and strategies but then I don’t notice ALL the possible moves the other players are lining up.. and then when my plans have been disrupted, I have a problem coming up with a new plan which isn’t just more ‘panic’ type. Need to work on that but.. well, I got the bit where you can identify your faults.. just not the way to improve it ^_^

Anyway.. back in 2023, I had this photo taken of my band at the time at the ‘photo booth’ there.

Background and stuff by Geoff from Oakbound, figures painted by me.

My Caitt figures are all from Northumbrian Tin Soldier. I really like the sculpts. Unlike alot of cat-people figures which make them far more human then cat (like scaling down the head to be more human sized then cat sized), they are also a bit bulky which works. due to the head size, they are pretty big lumps of metal, but they still scale with 28mm stuff.

The only problem I’ll say is they are quite unique so don’t expect to get figures that match with them from other companies. And the original ranges that NTS do are … kinda more RPG focused (they do state they are based on the ‘fifth edition character classes of Dungeons and Dragons.’) so you really aren’t gonna get enough figures to make units. However, in some, there are a few types. For example, they did about 9 different warriors so.. make of that what you will. sadly they don’t make as many original figures as I would like but.. probably they don’t sell a well as the normal shop stuff they sell (also, the website has a major catalogue problem.. If you look at their original ‘night folk’ section, you will find Pokémon trading card game sets and Warhammer: Old World stuff which really.. has nothing to do with that.. sigh).

The figures also can be a bit of a pain to customise but possible. The figures above and what they are… lets run down this. I won’t cut the picture up or anything (I do want to do some tiny work on them before June anyway..

Left to Right..

Ketch – Gnawlock Muskrath. Gnawlocks are Rat-men and the Muskrath are ones who have muskets. A very powerful weapon when used right. The base figure was ‘Flynn the Ranger’. I removed his Bow and arrow and replaced it with a custom sculpted Musket I made.. not the best work but good enough, though it means it’s in a not very actiony pose.

Tibbles – Goblin Noaidi. Goblins are a wild range of creatures mostly taken from Goblinoids (basically, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Ogres). the Noaidi is a fate weaver (magic user) so I used Wilbur the Warlock.

Vixxy – Goblin Bogle. A standard low level Goblin. I didn’t get to use the Banner as a banner, so she just holds it for fun.. which is also pretty goblin-y. The original is Izzy the Cleric.

Ormr – Chief Yaltog. Overall leader of the band, the Chief Yaltog is pretty basic with a leather Jack and Wooden Club. This is the The DarkeCatte without the Wings and the Halberd has been replaced with a club from a HQ ogre. I kinda need to redo that cause it didn’t hold and I got a much better version to use for it.

Menes – Tutha Hereman. Tutha are kinda the most basic creatures as they are humans. This is one of the Kitten Guard figures, which are the warriors I said about and work well for basic troops.

Mizzy Muggins – Gnawloch Ledrath. the Ledrath are basically assassins / thief so I picked Vivienne the Rouge.

Unpictured but I also had Baggy, another Tutha Hereman for later recruitment during the day, but never got the points and opportunity for it.

For 2025, I’m planning to be able to attend again and I plan on using my Caitts again. I haven’t quite worked out the line up yet, and I have atleast 1 new figure I’m painting up (and I do have some I haven’t painted yet.. cause.. of course I do. I’ll probably have these characters as the same type all the time cause that makes sense. The figure was chosen to work as such. My main focus when I was making up this list for 2023 was more to give myself a variety of troop types. Where some warbands are limited more, a Caravan has far less limits so can have a wider range.. Though this range does mean some slight setbacks.. going with the theme for them, they didn’t really support each other but acted more individually. Very on theme for cats, but not quite a solid group. So maybe atleast planning how to use some to help support others (Muskrath is great for long range attacks but does it need some protection to help it out for example). There are also a couple of unit types I think might be fun to try out. Hell, end of the day, it’s not about how well you win, but the amount of Fun you have and Big Kitties on the battlefield is fun ^_^

Oh, and often, names and or colour schemes have a reference of some kind. It helps when it comes to working out more complex schemes like this. out of these figures.. I think 4 of them have direct references for the colourings.. I wonder if anyone can figure them out.. one is very VERY easy, and one is VERY easy.. the other two are.. pretty hard.