"What If I'm Stuck Being A Bear Forever..?"

"How am I gonna figure out how the whole changing-into-animals thing works..?"

This 35mm scale model of One Man Zoo in his bear form was created using "Elegoo" Water Washable Resin on a Mars 3 Pro 3D Printer and is available as an STL (Standard Triangle Language) file from "C27 Studio". The sculpt is clearly inspired by Arnold Drake and Bob Brown's co-creation for "DC Comics" - Garfield Mark Logan (a.k.a Beast Boy or Changeling), and seemingly designed to be used as an 'alternative' figure for the Batman Miniatures Game rule-set.

Despite being rather unimpressed with this model's small(ish) size, I still super-glued it to an 'official' "Atomic Mass Games" Marvel Crisis Protocol base, as I originally thought the furry beast had been produced in 40mm scale - in line with the company 's other comic book characters. However, that now appears not to be the case, so disappointingly, all their "DC Comics" figures are noticeably smaller when compared to the larger "Marvel Worldwide" characters, essentially ruining any plans I had to mingle them together.

Both the Confederates and Union suffer with early deployment issues

The figure itself was pretty straightforward to paint and provided an excellent opportunity to test out more bottles from "Duncan Rhodes' Two Thin Coats" range. The bear was therefore primed in Ethereal Green, shaded in Necrosis Green Wash and dry-brushed with (more) Ethereal Green. I then picked out all his claws and nose with some Wyvern Green and Logan's teeth with White Star. These areas were subsequently splashed with "Citadel" Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade respectively.

Alongside this rather underwhelming 42mm tall model, I have played my second game of ACW Epic Battles Black Powder over at the Solent Wargamers Club in Portsmouth. As in my first fight I needed to rely upon my good-natured opponent to bolster my Alabama and Florida Infantry Regiments, as well as borrow some additional Confederate cannons. To mix things up a bit we also both fielded some cavalry - which in game can pester flanks and redeploy as skirmishers.

The North's Cavalry unit dismount within some woodland

Having never used horsemen before I thought this was a great addition to the game, and really enjoyed Rick Priestley's easy rules for getting them to perform sweeping gallops along the troopers' lines, as well as the obligatory cavalry charge. Unfortunately, this inexperience did though lead to me somewhat bunching up my initial deployment, with the riders almost colliding with one of my foot regiments as I attempted to form up around a crossroads.

Happily however, things hadn't exactly gone according to plan for the Union either, with the North's four infantry columns squeezing out any opportunity for their artillery battery to open fire without having to navigate some woodland first. This meant for the moment at least, I wouldn't have to worry about President Lincoln's cannons mercilessly pounding away at my forces. But what I didn't take into account was how devastating old Abe's cavalrymen would be once they had dismounted and started sniping at me from the trees.

Johnny Reb's left flank caves in, leading to a desperate clash of cavalry

In fact, once the Yanks were in position firing at my left flank, my Confederate forces were quickly whittled away. So by the time the Union soldiers returned to their horses, I had already lost almost half my force and was facing down a nearly endless line of Northern troopers marching straight towards my remaining men in the centre. This really left me with just one opportunity and resulted into a massive cavalry charge between the two armies' horsemen. It was a close-run clash of sabres and appeared destined to go on for a turn or two more, when my Johnny Rebs shockingly decided to escape the battle and give the field to my victorious opponent.