Los Devotos del Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte v1

"Blessed Holy Death,

Today I pray for your protection as I begin this day.

You are my hiding place, and under your wings I can always find refuge.

Protect me from trouble wherever I go, and keep evil far from me

No matter where I am, I will look to you as my protector

Blessed Holy Death, you are the one who fights for me every day

Your love and faithfulness, along with your goodness and mercy

Surround me daily, so I will not fear whatever might come against me

Blessed Holy Death my trust is in you

Blessed Holy Death I give thanks to you for your love and protection.

In Jesus’ name, Amen"

Prayer of Protection said by Los Devotos del Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte

Joining this Faction aligns your posse with the Cult of Our Lady of the Holy Death - those Mexicans and Tejanos who have sought the protection and patronage of the mysterious Santa Muerte in these dark and uncertain times.

Generally gathered around a truly devout and seemingly blessed individual, Posses belonging to this faction are drawn towards the conflict playing out in Dracula's America.

Faction Benefit: The Piadosa/Piadoso
When you join this Faction your boss is a Piadosa/Piadoso (Pious One) and automatically becomes an Arcanist for free.  One of their chosen powers must be Summon.  Should the Piadosa/Piadoso die, the replacement automatically becomes the new Piadosa/Piadoso as described above, in addition to their existing Weapons, Skills and so on.

Faction Benefit: Visitación de Nuestra Señora
Los Devotos may Summon the unique entity - Visitación de Nuestra Señora.  This follows all the rules for Unique Summons set out in the Dracula's America core rulebook.

The Visitación de Nuestra Señora appears as a skeletal female spirit, clad in robes and wearing a richly decorated headpiece.

Base size: 25mm
Move: 4"
Grit: D10
Special: Major Entity, Fearsome, Ethereal, knows the Bless and Curse Arcane Powers but does not count as an Arcanist.

After watching (and thoroughly enjoying) the Penny Dreadful City of Angels series I was inspired to put together a Posse themed around Santa Muerte.  I admit that I've taken liberties as I've seen nothing to suggest the veneration of Santa Muerte was really taking place in the time Dracula's America is set, but given the supernatural elements of the game it feels right to me - and includes ethnically Mexican posses which aren't specifically addressed elsewhere in the rules (despite many fine ranges of suitable miniatures).

So, once the idea was fleshed out a bit my mind turned towards putting together a posse - of course I needed a miniature to represent the Piadosa (I knew I wanted it to be a female leader).  I thought about the concept of a relatively novice nun who has been gifted with powers following a vision of Santa Muerte - then the trick was finding a suitable miniature... I eventually found and went for 'Mother Matilda the Blind Nun' from Lucid Eye's The Beast of Birchwood range.  The other 'must' was the representation of Santa Muerte herself in the game - I got lucky and found this piece from a boardgame from some eBay boxsplitter (if anyone is interested it is from 'Court of the Dead; Mourner's Call'):

I'm pretty pleased with these two options - I decided to stick with the lantern for the Visitación rather than convert it to a scythe or something purely for aesthetic reasons!

No posse is complete without a selection of Gunfighters however, so I had a look around at various Mexican/Bandito ranges but ultimately went for a couple of packs from Black Scorpion's Tombstone range.  First up, Mexicans 1:

And to bring a little extra firepower in the form of more shotguns/rifles - Mexicans 3:

As always, the Black Scorpion minis are superb quality.

I'll have to playtest this Posse when an opportunity presents itself - but I think this is a good basis to work from going forward.

Dracula's America - An Unwelcome Guest and a couple of Hired Guns

I picked up the Old West Terrors Leader from Black Scorpion's Tombstone range to use as a Lost Soul Unwelcome Guest:

At the same time I picked up a Female Leader to use as the Hired Gun Belle Bridges/'Calamity', the Loa Spirit possessed gunslinger:

As with the other Black Scorpion minis I have these are really good quality!

Finally, it's possible to take a Renegade Bokor as a hired gun - well, I chanced upon the perfect Reaper mini to use - the Deadlands Noir Houngan:

Hopefully that'll scratch my itch to have a bit of New Orleans voodoo represented so I won't go and get a full Congregation posse!

Dracula's America - Townsfolk Living and Dead

It's helpful to have some Civilian minis for Dracula's America - I had a look around and came across the Tombstone range from Black Scorpion.  These fitted the bill perfectly, so I picked up a couple of packs:

This one features (L-R) a Doctor looking chap, a nicely dressed woman, a barkeep and a blacksmith.

The one features (L-R) a grave carver, a younger woman, a chunky pipe-smoker and an older woman with shopping bag.

The minis are resin and came on slotta tabs which I removed so I could use the same size bases as the rest of my Dracula's America collection.

Dracula's America being Dracula's America though, you can also have zombie outbreaks amongst the townsfolk - here I hit up North Star who have a couple of different packs in their range:

I did get a duplicate pack of the one without the little girl zombie so I had enough of the restless dead to use in scenarios that call for them.