The Wonderful World of Oz
An Army List for 'Hordes of the Things'
By Rob Marsden
Not a lot of people know that after Wonderful Wizard of OZ L. Frank Baum wrote another 20 or so books about the land of Oz and with other later writers there are considered to be 40 or so books in the 'official' Oz canon. Each littered with a myriad of utterly bizarre personages.
Here is my first attempt at an Oz army with explanatory notes at the end. The characters are drawn from a number of different Oz books rather than the musical.
(I promise to model this army eventually but it would be difficult to find suitable figures in any scale- Milliput I suppose.)
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Paladin @ 4AP (Princess Ozma and the Scarecrow in an emerald chariot drawn by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger) |
1 |
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Hero @ 4AP (The Tin Woodman, Tin Soldier and Tik Tok) |
1 |
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Rider @ 2AP (Jack Pumpkinhead on the Wooden Saw Horse) |
1 |
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Rider @ 2AP (Johnny Quickstep) |
1 |
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Airboat @ 3AP (Gump) |
1 |
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Hordes @ 1AP (Munchkins / Gillikins / Winkies / Quadling) |
4 |
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Shooter @ 2AP (Royal Army of Oz) |
1 |
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Artillery @ 3AP (Cyclone) |
1 |
Stronghold the Emerald City
NOTES:
Ozma is a classic fairytale princess, so stuffed full of virtue it makes me want to spit.
The Tin Soldier looks exactly like the Tin Woodman but with a sword instead of an axe and an officers cap instead of a funnel on his head. Tik Tok is a sort of wind-up robot as seen in Disney's Return to Oz film and features in many of the books
Jack Pumpkinhead is a boy made out of twigs, string and tree-bark, with a hollowed pumpkin for a head. He rides a wooden horse of the sort you use to saw logs against.
Johnny Quickstep is a man with many legs- think centipede Centaur dressed in a tailcoat and top-hat
The Gump is a kind of Moose, but this one is the head of a Gump lashed to a couple of settees with palm branches as wings and a broom for a rudder. Brought to life by magic dust. It is crewed by Professor Wogglebug- an extremely intelligent beetle of human size.
Oz is divided into quarters, each peopled by a race of small humanoids- the Munchkins are well known, the Winkies too- they were the humans enslaved by the Wicked Witch of One-Of-The-Cardinal-Points-Of-The-Compass-Which-I-Can't-Remember. Gillikins and Quadlings are the other two races.
The Royal Army of Oz is a grand old gentleman with a long beard and a musket who guards the Emerald City. He should, perhaps, be depicted with a couple of small boys as apprentices.
The Cyclone is a cyclone- I think it should be classed as artillery because of its annoying habit of dropping wooden shacks on people.