Fidwog: Champion of Kings

The Quar are a remarkable labour of love, awkward yet martial anteater-like creatures embroiled in an unending dieselpunk war for control of the destiny of their home planet of Alwyd. With a style best described as "grimsical", they occupy a unique niche in the miniatures wargaming world, and deserve to be better-known. And since nobody talented was doing anything about it, it was time for mediocrities like me to step up to the plate. I'm obviously unskilled and untrained, and it's my fervent hope that people who've surmounted the low bar of greater competence than me are inspired and/or horrified by ineptitude to the extent that they produce Quar-related content infinitely superior to my crude efforts.
In the interim, this video explores the recent history of Fidwog, the diminutive fan-favourite royalist holdouts in the east of Alwyd. It's rife with mispronunciations, weird verbal tics, and my weak video production skills are on full display. Rest assured that many even worse line readings ended up on the cutting room floor, sped on their way by fusillades of mighty oaths.
Full disclosure: I've done some paid (but as yet unpublished) writing for the Quar universe, though I don't think we can rule out Josh Qualtieri simply buying it to protect an unsuspecting world from the eldritch horrors that are my attempts at prose. I can promise you that no money has changed hands for this.
You can learn more about the marvelously-detailed world of the Quar and get free PDFs of miniatures wargaming rules for the currently extant lines of 28mm, 15mm and 6mm miniatures from Zombiesmith at rhyfler.com/.
Wargames Atlantic now also produce a boxed game and line of plastic 28mm Quar: wargamesatlantic.com/collecti...
And, if you, like me, enjoy turning toxic goop into miniatures that you're going to get around to painting literally any day now, there's a Quar Tribes on My Mini Factory that gives you loads of new 28mm STLs each month for $10, everything from tractors to extra arms with cigars and teapots: www.myminifactory.com/users/j...
Credits:
Music: Ilya Alekseevich Shatrov's Oriental March performed by the 1st Grenadier Artillery Brigade's orchestra in 1906, via wikipedia.com (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:On...)
SFX: 35mm Film Projector Start, via freesound.org (freesound.org/people/imagery2...)
Special thanks to Zombiesmith discord user "King of Coftyr, Chyyldryc IV" for the musical suggestion.
Special thanks also to Mrs. Procopius, who took our children to Michigan for the holiday, giving me the precious gifts of both time and 72 hours where every single door in the house isn't left open while the air conditioning burns money like HMS Invincible snaffling up coal in pursuit of Graf Spee's squadron.

[@bannawithamic2018]

This universe has captured my heart in a way warhammer hasn’t and idk why.

[@kktallman6257]

I'd say it's the fact that Quar's lore is less concerned with giving you a gritty assortment of tropes and instead weaves an intricate but digestible history with stakes and cultures that can be related to.

[@bannawithamic2018]

@@kktallman6257 Honestly I feel for these little guys

[@moriskurth628]

I'd say it's probably because there isn't any weird, overarching cosmic stuff going on, nor do the creators seem interested in making things as dark and dysfunctional as possible, but keep things grounded. And the factions aren't all weird aliens, roided-up supersoldiers, or extradimensional horrors, they are just nation-states with differing cultures and forms of government, but fundamentally they are still the same people. It's more digestible, and the conflict between the Crusaders and Loyalists much more understandable, with the cor of it basically being the same as, say, the French Revolutionary Wars or the English Civil War, being just "Monarchy vs Egalitarianism", compared to all the Xenos and Chaos stuff going on in 40k. The troops involved are also just dudes. Strange, multi-colored, anteater-looking dudes with a language that reminds me of Welsh, but still dudes, citizens of the nations they fight for. Dudes that, if they had a choice in the matter, would prefer to be back at home drinking beer, rather than manning a trench and staring into no man's land. They aren't all-devouring insectoid monsters or green mushroom hooligans that are fueled by war. And all that with a pseudo-WW1 level of tech with trenches and boxy, primitive tanks, which has its own appeal too.

[@bannawithamic2018]

@@moriskurth628 I love the goofy tanks of the setting and I hope it sticks to the outrageousness.

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

@@moriskurth628 I think you're right on the money here. I do enjoy Warhammer (or at least, Horus Heresy and Battlefleet Gothic), but I got my start with BattleTech (and have done a very small amount of freelance writing for them in recent years), and the Quar have that same feeling of a fantastical setting but grounded in reality. The fact that it's largely the vision of one incredibly talented man who's both created the background and done most of the art, and who clearly knows what he's doing on both fronts is huge too. This is one guy's vision, and he's been working on bringing it to life for twenty years now. And that level of passion is really infectious.

[@Tuesoctloth]

And so, he returns as Quar becomes more and more popular.... godspeed....

[@sanguiniusonvacation1803]

Qaur may have just reached one of those tipping points.

[@sanguiniusonvacation1803]

I just spread your videos to my small battletech community. They find quar to be adorable!

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

Thank you!

[@timothytrichtinger4732]

I want to make a Asian themed Quar army. The body of the Figwod seem like the perfect start

[@bannawithamic2018]

@@timothytrichtinger4732 That’s a good idea

[@grimsicalgames8583]

Sweet!

[@blairrook7268]

If Fidwog had plastic molds I’d be so tempted by them

[@e.l.2482]

Hey since the starter sets seem to be doing well maybe you'll get them soon!

[@ethantaylor9613]

I love these please keep doing them

[@NicoBabyman1]

Quar, quar never changes.

[@juwebles4352]

Considering how coastal both fidwog and coftyr are I hope grimscical dips into what naval combat is like in Alwyd

[@red1964]

I get the vibe (nothing more, sadly) that naval combat is at the pre-dreadnought level, with the battleship being the main unit of combat. According to the fluff, the Coftyran fleet is bottled up in port and most of the sailors are serving in the tank corps.

[@juwebles4352]

@@red1964 Yeah I've read the lore bit but fidwog was able to cross lake morandi into Creevin. The lore said it was done with airships but when you look at a map you have to assume Tok wouldn't just allow fidwog to send the FOD through their airspace so they must have circled around going over either Craesil or Toulmore and if thats the case some form of naval escort would make sense to protect the FOD convoy from crusader sea power.

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

Airships and steamers! There are definitely fleets still extent; the Fidwogian navy has two hospital ships, a dreadnought, two battleships, four cruisers, seven destroyers, three submarines, and twelve torpedo boats operating in support of the FOD troops in Creevin, and we know at least one Crusader state (Inischol) is series of island chains, so presumably they have a navy worth mentioning as well.

[@juwebles4352]

@@Hedgehog_Prime Thats really interesting! In that case they must have crossed through the great canal in toulmore, seeing as fidwog doesn't have a coast line on lake morandi

[@doghou5e]

These are really good and very useful for people new to the world. Keep at it!

[@loadedloaded]

I hope you make more videos as it was your first video that made me look up more about the Quar keep up the good work

[@HelpedBroom]

Just got into Quar, keep em coming

[@simonwilliamnoelmurray9179]

More of this!

[@rambunctiousmedia3350]

When are we getting your lore video for Easky and their Tractors fulla Crusader whup-ass?

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

@@rambunctiousmedia3350 My very tentative plan is to do Toulmore next (synergy with the current Tribes STL release), then Maer Braech, then Creevin, then Easky, but that's not at all written in stone.

[@evilmurlock]

So cool! More lore videos please. I think you are the only one making them

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

@@evilmurlock I thrive in the absence of alternatives.

[@_NIKOS9_NIKOS]

Next step, msking a Quar wiki and tv tropes page

[@mrlegodude96alt2]

Love seeing you step into the void, absolutely hate the film reel sfx, I like the idea but it's just a pain to listen to

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

@@mrlegodude96alt2 Sorry about that, but it goes a very long way towards masking the hiss of my incredibly cheap microphone.

[@mrlegodude96alt2]

@@Hedgehog_Prime It's annoying in the fact that it has those breaks? if it was just a constant background drone it would be fine. Don't feel bad for having a cheap mic man, you've got less than 400 subs it's not like you're making any money, quality is in the content.

[@Hedgehog_Prime]

I'll see what I can do about the breaks.

[@theswarmsquad3606]

*algorithm comment*

[@14pat78]

Legend