The STL Trenches

On the cusp of summer, we had another substitute teacher. The morning went pretty much as expected, he handed out the worksheets. The class did not behave well. After lunchtime, he turned off all the lights in the classroom and sat cross-legged right on top of the teacher's desk. Illuminated by what little light could sneak past the vinyl pull-down blinds, he told us about guard duty in the bamboo forest. “You get so jumpy,” he whispers, “you shoot anything that moves. Leaf falls? you shoot it.”“One time,” he confesses, regret and pride warring behind his eyes, “It was just me and him. He had a gun and I only had a knife. But I'm still here and he's not.” We were transfixed, transported through time and space by plain, bleak words to the grim reality of a loss that still haunted the minds of truck drivers and bank managers, written in hard stares and military tattoos. Before or since, I never saw a class behave so well for a substitute teacher. Not even for Ms. Goldberg, who'd pick you up and shake you til your teeth rattled if you talked during math. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.

Soter. “Savior.” That’s the name they gave him after the transformation. They did that to all of the communicants. Gave them latin names. Names that were intended to convey their elevated station. Their possessions, friends, loved ones, and entire lives to that point were to be forsaken and forgotten. Soter had indeed forgotten. When his flesh transformed, his mind had been made anew, a newborn child, an unwritten book. As he stands hulking and awkward just outside of the ring of firelight and camaraderie, he listens to the stories and laughter and wishes he remembered, and wonders what had been “saved” when everything he had been was erased. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.

To the higher-ups, Joan has been a godsend. I mean, as a war prophet the official line is that they are all sort of “sent by God” but she’s actually been useful! Joan is level-headed, hard working, organized, honest, and best of all, she has no idea how unique those qualities are! She would have been promoted years ago if she wasn’t so good at making her superiors look good. Maybe that’s all about to change for Joan. Maybe the right person will notice her competency and she’ll be put in a position to do some real good in the war. Maybe the right person will retire from active duty and Joan will get the promotion she deserves. Maybe, but down in the trenches as she is, Joan will probably become just another casualty to be avenged. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.

“Blessed.” That’s what they’d say. When she’d pick up a calf or sheep and carry it around with her like a doll. “Blessed.” They nodded when she lifted the cart out of the ditch, wrenched a stubborn stump from the field, or tossed a watermelon near 200 yards. The army had come for her eventually, they needed those who were blessed in such a way to fight back the forces of the pit. The army had found that Hill was a poor shot, so they’d given her a big gun that couldn’t miss, firing a field of shrapnel so vast it could fell a whole flock of ducks in a single blast. Hill carried the gun and shot the demons and marched and dug trenches and wrote cheerful letters back to the farm and was blessed. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.

Heinzen has always been a stickler for the rules. Well, for other people of course. He is an exception, a special case. The good he does surely outweighs the bad. He isn’t taking extra rations, he is strategically allocating resources. It isn’t disobeying curfew, he’s taking an extra watch. He’s not leaving his post, he’s performing much needed reconnaissance. Heinzen isn’t fraternizing with the enemy, he’s engaged in undercover intelligence gathering. And Heinzen definitely isn’t in love. Not with that “thing” that he encountered when he tumbled, dazed, into a crater in no man’s land and saw his own horrified expression mirrored in its large black eyes. In her eyes. No, the rules are there for a reason, and Heinzen makes sure that they are (mostly) followed. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.

When the dread forces first threw themselves against the colony’s walls, Lisbet had only been a girl. But her mother had taught her to be brave and her grandfather had taught her to shoot. That very morning the men had handed her father’s rifle and powder horn, along with his boots. The demons hadn’t left anything else worth bringing home, they’d muttered, heads hung low. And so Lisbet had crouched atop the timber wall through sunset, dusk, and midnight. Her mind and body repeated over and over like a holy rite: add powder, wadding, ball, draw the ramrod, ram the ball, pull back the hammer, fill the pan, take careful aim, fire, clean, amen, repeat! As dawn crested the bay and the last of the beasts skittered out of sight among the distant treeline, Lisbet carefully disassembled the rifle, cleaned each part, applied olive oil and bear grease. With practiced and precise movements, hands unshaking even after the horrors of the night, she reassembled the rifle, set it in its place beside the cabin door, and finally slept. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.Check out my other designs for fantasy and sci-fi tabletop games in my shop!

They’d all been so full of hope when they left for the new world. They’d soon learned there were worse things than tyranny. Worse than oppression. There were things lurking in the primeval forests of Virginia that the forces of heaven had ignored too long. Hulking shadows that moved silently among the towering oaks and winged nightmares that blacked out stars and moon. The misbegotten and abandoned offspring of unholy couplings, too wild for even the seven to tame. Saints and strangers alike had found freedom, and with it, fear. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.Check out my other designs for fantasy and sci-fi tabletop games in my shop!

Yeoman with Shield and Shotgun - Something about an August sunset through freshly laid razor wire always makes Demarcus think of home. Those lazy evenings under the spreading oaks, full of roasted duck and belonging. All that changed when Rupert left for the wars. He'd taken everything that was warm and right with him. And he hadn't come back either. It had taken until January for the letter to arrive, but they’d known somehow, in August. They’d felt it. All the color just draining right out of summer. Demarcus will make them pay for that. He’ll make them all pay. This miniature is designed to be printed in UV resin and painted at a 32mm scale. Unsupported and pre-supported versions included.