Too Much Lead

KGN: la petite ferme de chèvres - July 1944

2012-01-24T23:49:00.000Z

Gaz and Joe came along to the club on Sunday for a rematch against my Americans, and thanks to his reinforcements he fielded a 362 point force as follows:

HQ

battle group HQ - 3 men 2mv
panzer upgrade 0mv

recon support

sniper 0mv

main force units

panzer IV-G squadron 6mv
extra panzer IV-G 2mv

infantry main force

vet panzer gren platton 16mv
(mounted in sdkfz 251/1)

support units

pak 40 2mv
combat medic 0mv

artillery assets

forward artillery observer 0mv
3x80mm mortors - off table 0mv

totals 28mv

Lots of high quality infantry, but in expensive battle taxis. For my part I went with the following:

HQ

Signals Truck 0mv
Supply Truck 0mv

Recce

M8 Command Car 1mv

Infantry Main Force

Dismounted Armoured Infantry Platoon 8mv

Armour Main Force

M4 Tank Company (9 tanks) 18mv

3x M4 Tank Squadrons (including one M4 76mm in 'A' Squadron)

Artillery

Forward Artillery Observer 0mv
Registered target point (RTP) 0mv
4 High Priority Fire Missions 0mv
1 Low Priority Fire Mission 0mv

Total 27mv

My plan was to use an armoured thrust supported by carefully placed artillery (the Registered Target Point would ensure it would hit exactly where I intended) to try to blunt his attack, figuring I'd need twice as many tanks as the Germans to survive the inevitable losses.

The battlefield was set out as follows, with a mix of bocage around a ruined village, the farm to the west (nearest camera) being undamaged. Woodland and some low hills completed the region.

The Germans entered from the North, whilst the Americans advanced from the South in a simple encounter.

The Germans adopted a simple formation with their infantry to one side of the road and their armour to the other.

The Americans adopted a similar general concept, but lacking infantry mobility, set up it's machine guns as covering fire so the infantry could advance along the hedgerows. My artillery observer retired to the south-eastern woodland where the German's ran up the road in the middle of the field. My signals and supplies held to the rear.

The Germans advanced and allowed the American armour to engage them in a long range shooting exchange; the range was such in fact that the advantages of the German guns were largely negated; they had little chance of hitting and only marginal chances of penetrating the M4 armour.

It was an exchange I was happy to prolong, as I knew I had a resupply option; every miss for Gaz was critical. At this stage I even had a troop of tanks in reserve.

However the platoon of Hanomags was arriving on the edge of the farm and hurriedly dismounting, long before my infantry were really close enough to contest the area. Fortunately I was able to take them under fire from a dug in .30cal; suppressing the western flank of the attack:

The rest of the German infantry pressed home the attack on the farm and the fringes of the village, with the half tracks now acting as armoured cars, my own armoured car having to withdraw.

My artillery seized the moment to lay down the fire of a battery of 105mm howitzers on our RTP; the centre of the junction, few casualties were caused, but the German artillery observer was caught right in the blast and destroyed. He never acted in anger. On reflection Gaz should not have exposed him by getting so far forward, he did the same thing last time!

But at this stage the German infantry attack, supported as it was by light armour was turning the American flank, so armour from the centre was rushed over the counter the threat as Hanomags crashed through the Bocage, all but wiping out one squad - only the plucky Bazooka man surviving.

The Bazooka and an M4 wrought revenge from the Hanomags and their infantry. Elsewhere the Panzer IV's were having little luck in athe long range tank battle and with two tanks lost from their squadron and ammunition low the battlegroup HQ vehicle was called up to support them.

Anticipating this and seeing a chance to outflank the Germans, the American reserve moved around the eastern side of the combat, whilst in the centre the survivor of 'A' Squadron went to resupply. 'C' squadron lost one tank in the advance, but by now the German main force had been forced to retire via the imple expedient of having no armour piercing ammunition left.

The German HQ tank soon fell to the available weight of fire; despite surviving three hits to the front, a hit from the flank finally took it down. The retiring Panzer IV's had precipitated a general retirement by the German armour, and this freed the American tanks around the farm to concentrate on the infantry, now unsupported.

From this point onwards it was largely a mopping up exercise for the Americans, whose superior material supply had proved telling. One of the last casualties being a lone rifleman raked by machine gun fire whilst trying to race across the main village street.

Nevertheless the Germans had inflicted significant losses, with around 20 infantry casualties (including 7 KIA) amongst the Americans as well as the loss of three tanks and the M8, totalling another 12 KIA. German infantry losses were uncertain, but a handful of dead were found around the farm and a half dozen infantry taken prisoner. Losses of three tanks and two half tracks were far more significant to the limited German supply structure, and the loss of a valued company commander would be even more telling.

Gaz and Joe recognised they had been beat, and took away a number of tactical lessons from what was at the end of the day, only their second game ever. The willingness to stand at maximum range and trade shots with little chance of hitting me, when ammunition was so limited was a mistake, and the sacrifice of half tracks in an infantry assault probably cost more than it gained. True they were unlucky to lose their artillery so early, but these things happen. A poorly placed anti tank gun to the north-west could have done so much more in the centre of the battlefield...

Overall a great game with plenty of spectacle, I loved fielding a company of tanks! Here's to the next one; though by the sound of it they will be at the club this Sunday practising against one another.

Blame Thorfin, Apparently

2012-01-22T22:48:00.000Z

Having a lot of free time on my hands last week, I made one of my extremely rare visits to the other Leeds Wargames club, and on this occasion there were games going on and managed to score a place in one. So that's good.

Some of the chaps were having a go at a set of Dark Age Rules, unfamiliar to me, but free on the net, called: Age of Blood. This being organised by Rob of Keep Your Powder Dry.

We each took a small warband, headed out in the search for treasure.

By comparison to Saga, Age of Blood is a very different beast, a far more conventional game, with multiple characteristics for each warrior, varied weapon and armour combinations a traditional action based unit control sequence, etc, etc. In short there is nothing particularly new here.

Whilst two of the other players had a fairly open skirmish around a hill, myself and Mick lined up our men into shield walls and went at it toe to toe; it soon came down to moving down the line in an almost DBMM style, rolling opposed D10's for combats, we quickly worked out how to decided the winner without consulting the rules, which thankfully sped up the process.

The rules at least gave the impression that we were ignoring a lot of potential here, but I'm certain it would require a solid scenario for the best of them to come through. I think they are more suited to a Mordheim-esque, semi-role play, style of game. There are rules for mythical beasts of the Scandinavian world in the rules and a campaign systam that at least makes this a sensible proposition.

Still, as a dark ages skirmish game, I found it old fashioned and slow compared to Saga. However it needs less figures and is free so it certainly has a niche; you decide.

A Grognard's Face-Painting Contest

2012-01-20T14:30:00.000Z

Spurred on by getting my French artillery finished, but in recognition I needed to get my eye back in before attempting a fully fledged unit for my Napoleonics, I plucked a skirmish unit/light company out of the mountain of lead. A unit of Chasseurs a Pied.

A quick trawl of the interwebz soon supplied some painting guides:

Which I put into effect on a troop of six figures (models probably Foundry, but I can't be certain):

Being for the Peninsular there are naturally a couple chaps in local cloth replacements for their regular trews, but not too many patches in what would be a guard formation.

Six figures is enough to be significant in skirmish gaming terms, and allows me to field them as a detachment in Black Powder. During the painting process I thought it would be good to record how I do flesh in detail; a chance for a little photo tutorial. I don't use washes as they take too long and don't provide reliable results, they also feel hard to correct mistakes. I'm more a fan of a good brush, a steady hand and a three-colour layering scheme.

First off, I paint the base tone; a mix of 3 parts Vallejo Medium Fleshtone (860) plus one part Cavalry Brown (982) - a very red brown:

Next, Medium Fleshtone is applied to the nose, cheeks, chin, backs of the hands, fingers and thumbs. One can pick out the ears, lips and knuckles too as you wish. This is done with a 000 brush and milky consistency paint using quick strokes, don't sweat minor mistakes!

Finally one part Basic Skintone (815) is added to one-two parts Medium Fleshtone (to your preference for subtle or exaggerated highlighting). This is dabbed to the tip of the nose, tops of the cheeks, tip of the chin and the top half, thumb and first two fingers of the hand. The aim is to give the impression of a sunlight source from above. Again a 000 brush, but the paint will be a touch thicker; unless you are doing 24 or more figures in a row the likelihood is that the underlying flesh will still be moist, so you don't want a new wet coat to run!

Now it is time to start the hair and eyes. A good dark brown is needed, I use Vallejo Hull Red (985), applied to the hair, sideburns, moustache and as thin line across each eye socket. Still using a fine brush - I'll still be using the trusty 000.

Hair colour can be differentiated here, I like to include a mix of browns, redheads and blondes, with the odd grey haired gent for good measure, in a unit.

Finally it is time to bring the chap to life. 28mm models need eyes! this is why you apply the brown lines though, as it makes it a damn sight easier to define the eyes, and get them to look ok. It also hides mistakes better. over the brown, add a line of white and then go back with a fine brush that holds a good point and add a dot of a milky thick black paint. A tip on eyeballs, don't force the chap to look forwards; if the first eye goes on to one side, try to make to other match it, avoid sending you army in to battle cross eyed...

The chappy above got his right eye first and it dictated his look. With practice, I find this a quick and effective process, certainly less than ten minutes for these six models.

Bradford goes Steampunk

2012-01-19T18:39:00.002Z

It's a week off between the old job and the new for me this week, so I've been occupying myself in as generous a fashion as the finances will allow, which for the most part is not much until the wages of the new job kick in*

Still one of the free options for distraction I was aware of, was the Steampunk exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum; practically on my doorstep. So a quick drive down the road and I was able to take in the displays:

The displays were a mixture of new artistic creations such as the chessboard and flying suit above, and original items from the museum's own collection, that would serve to illustrate the inspiration behind them. I was surprised to find that some of the items I was admiring the creativity of, were infact genuine Victoriana; though clearly most of the guns below are not.

Steam punks love polished brass! As an interesting aside, the officers jacket on the left is a genuine Guard officer coat, attributed to Waterloo, notice how dark in colour it is, not the scarlet of our painting is it?

It's fair to say that Steampunk seems to have a large female following, presumably of Goths who've discovered the visible spectrum of colour (a social minority if ever there was one!); this results in lots of pretty art:

The rest of the museum is more in the lines of your railway buff or Fred Dibnah type, with a fascination for 'ow they did things better in't t'old days; featuring as it does old cars, steam engines mill looms and restored Victorian cottages. All a nice distraction for a couple of hours mind, but for the ardent wargamerist there are also a couple of interesting oddments, notably in the Model collection of Amos Barber:

Being the sort of gentleman who after retirement built models from scratch out of metal; the above being a 6 inch naval gun at about 1/10th scale.

And finally on the entrance are a pair of impressive Napoleonic period fortress guns, at least 24lbr's I'd guess, about eight feet long.

Killed a couple of hours...

*a 75% pay rise, in this day and age especially, is worth waiting for!

7 Wonders

2012-01-18T14:02:00.000Z

The Headingley club has a large board game following, and it's my default when I drag myself down there with nothing planned, to play whatever is on offer. Last Thursday this was a card game called '7 Wonders':

Essentially it is a card based version of Civilisation; wholly unauthorised of course and the designers of both games may well deny it, but that's the best and most accurate analogy I can possibly imagine. After all, each player begins by drawing a wonder to work on, which dictates your nation, strategy and confers advantages; thereafter you play through three periods of development by selecting cards from a deck that is passed around and shared by all the players.

Certain cards are free, and may add to the resources or victory points, or permit other developments later; others require resources to build in the first place, but as a result are usually more valuable, or lead to other developments. Ultimately the aim is to accrue the most points across a variety of stratagems, including science, culture and militarism.

The first game left my head spinning, but it is fast to play and you grasp a lot by simply playing it blind and following others leads, I came second out of four first time out. As that only took half an hour, we reset and played two more times, and though I never actually won, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Games like this encourage the internal narrative, as one imagines your little civilisation developing, in a way that scrabble or chess can't.

Highly recommended.

The retreat at Cha de Biaxo - 1810

2012-01-17T18:04:00.001Z

Jez had set up the scenario for this week's game of Napoleonics, a pleasant novelty for me as I would for a change be fighting blind without a knowledge of what might be going on behind the scenes. Of course this also means putting your trust in someone to come up with a fair situation, and this is always something I'm aware of when writing my own games up. Still at the top of today's post, I'd have to say he did a pretty good job with just a couple of head scratching moments.

Anyway, orders arrived in the middle of the night at General Lilywhite's headquarters to the effect that scouts had identified that the local French division he had been trying to bring to battle was escaping by a bridge over the river there. Lilywhite knew his brigades would not all be ready in time for an early attack, so rather he decided to ensure they would arrive in cohesion during daylight. To that end, he sent his Cavalry brigade and a Flying column of a battalion of Scots and three companies of Rifles to slow up the withdrawal of the French.

The French by this stage had already begun to withdraw from the field; but their numbers were suspiciously low and it was clear there must be other forces in the area.

Indeed Lilywhite's flying column spoke with the locals and heard talk of cavalry movements nearby, as well as rumours of the French mining the town and massacring villagers. The other main discovery of the lead force was booze, tonnes of it apparently! The British advance ground to a halt, until the main infantry Brigades arrived some two hours later in uncharacteristic columns as demanded by haste and the terrain.

Sadly, any attempt at a unified advance was hamstrung by the quality of the British commanders, Hopton in particular - leading the cavalry - was a barely competent half-wit; though the other commanders were in general unsensational at best. Bunting-Smythe's Brigade of militia stiffened by Guards and artillery soon found itself heading in the wrong direction and creating a huge hole in the lines.

At about this point, large sections of the village erupted in flames as the mined buildings began to explode.

The French were organising an effective defence, and appeared to be preparing to blow the bridge behind themselves.

The British cavalry was rushed forward by Lilywhite's personal intervention; and just in time as a demi-brigade of French Dragoons appeared on their right. Thankfully the French commanders were not of the top tier and the French arrivals wuld repeatedly turn out to be lions led by lambs.

Some of the French dragoons charged the British Light Dragoons forcing them to retreat; however they then impetuously ran on in to the Maria Louisa Hussars, expecting an easy victory. They did not get it though, and were destroyed by the Spanish; unaware perhaps of their fury at the discovery of civilian dead in the field...

By this stage Stalybridge's line brigade had entered the village to the west whilst the Militia brigade had found its' way back to the battlefield.

But equally, more French infantry blessed, if only from the British standpoint, with the worst military commander ever to be able to dress himself, had arrived on their left to support the Dragoons.

As the flying column moved through the west of the village they were befell by three miseries; firstly the galling fire of the French on the opposite side of the river; including cannon, took its' toll. Secondly the mine in the convent exploded causing dreadful casualties in the highlanders, who were only yards from the walls around it. And finally the few survivors were distracted by discoveries of more demon drink. when another formation of Dragoons appeared on their left the Flying column was a spent force and began to retire.

Not before a company of Riflemen charged the Dragoons to the right and wiped them out, at heavy loss but with the capture of an enemy Brigadier too.

The Light Dragoons on Lilywhite's right put in a charge on the French infantry, who failed to form square but held the cavalry at bay. The British cavalry returned with Spanish support, containing the enemy but not defeating them. The Line Brigade to the west deployed guns to devastating effect on the Dragoons, leaving only the French Hussars at the bridge as the French cavalry contingent. Yet more French infantry stragglers, including Westphalians appeared.

The Line Brigade managed to advance through the village and continued to harry the French engineers and line units, where the flying column had left off. On the right the Guards pushed through and tried to take on the French lines, which were allowing several regiments to retire.

The French had the better of the engagement but by this time the British were in a position to cut off the retreat, and so the French commander ordered a general disengagement from the bridge, which to their regret had to be left intact.

The British, despite no end of setbacks and some bloodied noses, had managed to seize the bridge intact, destroy a brigade of cavalry and cut off two regiments of French foot. However the loss of the Highlanders, the Light Dragoons and two companies of riflemen was considered a serious blow by the cautious General Lilywhite. The Spanish and Portuguese forces, with the remarkable exception of the Hussars had performed dismally, and in general the commanders had failed to show any grit.

Any tactical victory the British could claim, would strategically favour the French.

A long and closely fought game, Jez felt the a couple of elements could have been improved to make the rearguard action more balanced. The fighting quality of the stragglers was considered too high, being full strength, but this was balanced by the control level of their commanders. Jez rolled a D6+3 on arrival for each of these and as it turned out they were never better than a 'six', even when I made him re-roll a '1' as simply too low!

The mines also proved to be deadly to my forces, but largely due to their exploding once I was thoroughly ensconced in their buildings. Rather more debilitating was the effect of the alcohol apparently lying everywhere, which directly or indirectly caused about as many losses as the enemy.

Still, overall, it was fun not to know all the secrets at the start, and not to have to do all the explaining. Thanks Jez, let's do it again soon!

KGN Reconnaisance and Forward Plans

2012-01-15T18:11:00.000Z

Today I was playing a Napoleonics game at the club versus Jez, and more about that in a future post as it'll come with a lot of photo's; but whilst I was there there was a lot of discussion about the Nightowls direction in the coming year and the shows we would be doing, whilst Mark and Andy had a run through of one of those games.

The club intends taking a new direction this year and getting out there a lot more; whilst we've mainly been known in the past as part of the Gaming Club Network, demoing Flames of War (interminably) and for putting on shows at Gamesday, this year we are moving towards a more varied and historical slant, with plans to appear at Vapnartak, Triples, Partizan, Fiasco, recon and possibly WarTorn and Battlegroup North (attendance at Gamesday is still presumed...) Games should include The Zulu War, my own Yugoslavian project and Kampgruppe Normandy: WW2.

To that end Mark and Andy had a test of one of the scenario's from the rules; Screening Cagny (p.125):

The chaps set up the battlefield as per the scenario, on a 6 feet square table and quickly disposed of two squadrons of Sherman tanks in a race across open fields at the defending battery of 88mm gun. They reset and took the view of a more seasoned commander and sent the Shermans in via the woodland on their left.

The result this time took longer and cost the Germans a gun or two but ended with the same group of destroyed tanks. It is a good scenario to play at shows, as the reset time is minimal and a game can be played with explanation in well under an hour.

The thing, as I keep banging on to the club is, to improve the display terrain; this was a good looking club game, for us, but it would never grace a glossy wargames magazine, and this would be one of the indicators of success. Getting into a rag.

I suppose I'm going to have to take my role in all of this and get involved with another terrain project....

French Line Artillery

2012-01-14T21:36:00.000Z

"God is on the side with the best artillery."

- Napoleon

Napoleon introduced the 6lb cannon to French service after Marengo, where a shortage of artillery and the deficiencies of the previous Gribeauval weapons determined that a new calibre was required. Though in fact many of the initial guns were in fact captured pieces.

Two 6lb guns with crew in a mix of standard uniform and greatcoats.

My line artillery represents part of a battery as it may have appeared in the early period of the Peninsular, though I hold my hands up to the fact that the models, being Perry, are perhaps more appropriate to the later period.

Being my first Napoleonic unit in a good six months, I quite pleased with the results, and I'm inspired to get more done. After all, at some stage I need to add a howitzer to the battery to finish it!

The Suthene Pass 68ad

2012-01-11T22:01:00.000Z

My second game against Richard's Romans continued the theme of a hypothetical rebellion of the Greek states during the year of four emperors. But after the pasting I took in a stand up fight last time, I felt I needed both a force equaliser and a narratively suitable sequel.

To that end another dip into the Charles Grant big book of solutions was deemed appropriate* and scenario 37 'Defile' was selected. Richard's Romans were under the command of General Tyrannicus and his aide Missus; he had six cohorts of Legionaries, two of Equitales and a troop of Scorpion bolt throwers. His limited force was to clear the Suthene pass of all Greek opposition to allow the main force to keep pace with the retreating army defeated previously.

In defence, General Oblivion commanded three phalanxes of Spartan's rescued from the main battle. They formed a single line between the impassable mountains and forest unsuited to formed troops. The infantry's flank was protected by commander Sorarches, leading a mixed force of light troops including peltasts, Cretan Archers and Thracians.

What the Greeks were not aware of was that there was a herders path through the mountains, too small for a major attack, but suitable for a flanking force; the Romans had been tipped off to this and were able to send a force to outflank the Greeks.

So yes, it is Thermopylae, transposed by some 500 years. With that in mind deployments were thus:

Tyrannicus elected to lead only a party of cavalry over the mountains, leaving his Missus to attack the front of the Greeks. Missus decided to form a Wedge with his troops to achieve this.

This vast formation of three thousand or so men seemed like a simple intimidation tactic to the Greeks of Oblivion, but he also recognised the vulnerability of it to sustained attack from the Peltasts of Sorarches. Thus his orders were for the Peltae to concentrate on the head of the formation in an effort to stall its attack.

To Oblivion, and Missus' surprise the bow and javelin fire of the Greeks were immediately devastating, and the Wedge collapsed as two cohorts fled in panic, their Centurions and Optios picked off, killed or captured. Two other units were so badly effected by this that they were unable to make any advance, and the Roman attack foundered.

It was all Missus could do to hold his troops and reform into a smaller wedge, a Pigs Head formation, whilst their Scorpions tried to pin down the Cretans, and their remaining cavalry protected the flank from the deadly weapons of the Thracians.

The fight with the Thracians was a bloody affair, which after initially favouring the Romans, swung to the Thracians once the battle was conducted in the forest.

In the end the Roman cavalry was broken by the fight, but so too, to all intents, were the Thracians.

Recognising what was to come Oblivion drew his Spartans in to a similar formation, whilst the Peltasts and archers continued to harry the Romans.

Missus corralled his troops and led in a typically devastating Roman charge. The leading phalanx was destroyed, and shortly after the savage push of the Cohorts against the Greek left led to another unit being destroyed. Soon only the Chalcidians were left with Oblivion.

At this point the Roman cavalry with Tyrannicus, arrived.

Oblivion had to withdraw, but it was also apparent that the main Roman body had reached breaking point, and Missus had to try and rally his men whilst under the belligerent fire of the Cretans. The Spartans were immune to such trivialities, but not to common sense, their new position in the pass at least allowed them to face all their foes equally.

Tyrannicus had little time left, and could not rely on his infantry recovering, already they were beginning to pull back up the pass. So he had to try to charge the head of the Greek phalanx.

Narrowly, the Greeks carried the fight, though at the cost of Oblivion's life; a junior commander steeped forward, and delivered a counter charge to the disordered Romans throwing them back even further. As the sun set, the Greeks still blocked the pass and the now defeated troops of Missus were in the process of an orderly retreat.

Victory to the Greeks! The Arena for Missus and Decimation for the men of the Eighth Legio.

A great game, that hung on an unexpected knife edge all the way through. When I saw the Roman wedge I assumed it would be over in a turn or two, and my requirement to hold for eight turns looked impossible. But Richards first two break tests for missile fire inflicted disorder, BOTH came up as snake eyes; so both units broke and ran.

At this point with my advantage in firepower and flexible troops it was in my favour, but the sacrifice of his cavalry kept him in the fight, and the dismal fighting performance of my Spartans (never more than five hits on thirteen dice in combat with the Cohorts) left me on the back foot again. In the end the sustained attacks of the deadly Cretans won me the battle as much as anyone, containing and then breaking the Romans. As stated the the Spartan infantry had a 'No Breakpoint' special rule for this battle, to emulate their historical antecedents, but this was balanced by being heavily outnumbered and potentially outflanked.

We both agreed it was an excellent game.

*See Playing Favourites, below

Anima Tactics - Romeo must Die

2012-01-09T21:14:00.000Z

My first game of the year was a return to Amina Tactics after a long break without any games; none since the LWC closed down in fact.

Picking the forces on the day, I opted for my Black Sun faction, as it allowed me to field the Raziel NK-X I painted up last year.

The rest of the 250 levels force was comprised of Clover, Tsubasa, Sophia and Promethea. This gave me a powerful attacking force, with an effective female tactical support team. Conversely Paul, my opponent fielded a Church force of Romeo Exxet, Justina, DamienSaint Astraega and Alis Testarossa. Not a force I'd faced before, and Romeo presented a potentially tough target.

With Paul still quite new to the game, we just set up a simple encounter battle with a notional limit of seven turns. On my advice we did not over clutter the board with terrain, and what there was was mostly of ruins, Paul would see why I advised this. I deployed in a tight cluster as the Black Sun clearly work best in a close group. Paul was rather more spread out.

At first both sides swung around one another in an arc, keeping the actual range between one another fairly equal. Having moved up in support of the Raziel NK-X on the second turn though, Tsubasa was fired upon by Justina, whilst simultaneously unleashing a magical ranged attack on Damien.

Cue Star Wars blaster noise

This drew the Church leader, Romeo forward, and the Raziel was able to engage him with a charge. Damien joined the fray and soon the Lumbering Raziel was proving an imovable object to their unstoppable force, and vice versa.

Astraega stood to the rear dealing out healing. Keeping Romeo in the fight, resulting in the NK-X looking much the worse for wear.

At this point I had gained enough ground with Tsubasa to charge Justina, but also more devastatingly, Clover was in a position to unleash his Prometheum attack. He charged Romeo first, cutting him down, then smashing Damien away from the Raziel, and finally flinging an unfortunate Astraega through the ruins behind her. Two kills from one charge.

By now Alis Testarossa had dropped in on the girls at the back and a half hearted cat fight had broken out.

At the main front, Damien re-charged the Raziel and was able to put the hurt on it, but it's unstoppable nature meant it would still fight to the end of the turn, and in doing so it was able to smash Damien to pulp! Furthermore it absorbed his essential essence and came back to unholy life itself. Paul was gutted, figuratively...

Clover joined the fight against Justina, and it signed the end for her too, as another of the Church's warriors was flung into a wall of rock, never to rise again.

Two big swords+one little man = SPLAAAAAAT!

And so at this stage it became no more than a mopping up exercise; with a turn in hand the battle scarred but still highly effective Black sun team turned to advance on the last of the Church faction; who then had the wisdom to withdraw.

The game was closer than it at first appears, for both Tsubasa and the Raziel were close to being lost, infact the NK-X was technically dead for half a turn. Clover did not escape unscathed either, and it was only determined dodging and the aid of Sophia that kept Promethea safe. But it was nonetheless a clear win for the Black Sun, and must've given Paul plenty to think about.

Elsewhere at the Thursday club the usual sort of thing was going on, including DBMM and two games of Puerto Rico. Most interesting to me though was a trial of the rebooted Mongoose version of Starfleet Battles, as a simplified tabletop game.

Deep in the Beige Nebular, known for its tree-like asteroids...

Featuring all the familiar ships from the original board game (looking through the fleets in the rulebook was like a trip down memory lane, fondly drooling over the Gorns - my favourites - Kzinti, Orion Pirates and more). These are rules I think I will have to try at some stage, and the models look really nice too.

Albuera Dioramas

2012-01-08T20:31:00.001Z

I happened upon this on t'internet, and thought it worth sharing, a set of Spanish museum dioramas commemorating the 200th anniversary of the battle of Albuera.

Stirring stuff indeed. Certainly makes me want to get some more Napoleonics done. By the look of it, this was another reason why Perry miniatures are doing very well for themselves, most of the models look to be theirs, though I think there are Victrix french in there as well.

The museum itself appears to be in the village of Albuera in spain, unsurprisingly; but little evidence to support this shows up on the internet, so I can't elaborate more at this point.

Enjoy.

Serbian Army T55 paint-thru

2012-01-07T11:39:00.004Z

Having a rummage through the piles of lead and plastic, I retrieved a tank model to add to my Yugoslav forces. One of my favourites as it happens; the ubiquitous T-55.

The kit in question, and the one I would recommend you buy if wanting to build the tank, was the PST model shown above; a much better engineered model than some other kits of this tank I have seen; with crisp parts and plenty of extras (in fact you get all the parts to build a late model T-54 instead should you wish).

The model was build almost direct from the box, taking about 3.5 hours.

However there are a few items that distinguish T-55 in Yugoslav service, typically they were equipped with anti aircraft machine guns as standard, which the Russian made models did not initially receive. Secondly, as the war progressed they were increasingly up armoured, with side skirts and other measures to stand-off the effect of RPG rounds and HEAT warheads. Neither of the features are on this model, which is to match one we'll see later, based on the early war vehicles either used by or inherited from the Yugoslav National Army (JNA).

One feature that was common at that time however, was the removal of the front track guards. This I understand was to stop the tracks getting jammed up with soft wet soil; the reasons this might be important on a 32 tonne tank are unclear but it is too common in archive photo's to ignore, and the track guards are easily removed with a scalpel.

Next up the whole model was base coated:

You'll spot at this stage a machine gun has appeared on the model. I decided it needed one, and again based on photo's I added an M2HB to a mount forward of both hatches. This was a common fitting for tanks in combat as suppression fire against infantry was to prove far more important than anti-aircraft fire. As for the .50cal, well American supply of military equipment to Yugoslavia in the 1950's saw a large variety of equipment come in to the JNA arsenal, and the M2 was copied by and manufactured in the state factories. It's use on a variety of soviet equipment was commonplace on all sides in the war.

Anyway, the base coat is of Humbrol Acrylic 30, the reason being that it bonds to plastic far better than Vallejo Acrylics. The green plastic of the model is extremely repellent to pure water based paints. In other circumstances I may have spray-coated the model, but this was actually more likely to give a complete coat. However, this is far too dark a colour for Serbian armour, so:

Next up was a complete coat of Vallejo Russian Green. You can see the difference if you look at the HMG or the unditching beam which remain the Humbrol green. You can also see the rear of another T-55 whose (enamel painted) colours I was trying to match.

In an effort to match that tank, and to get a nicer finish, it was now time to highlight the model. Firstly an overbrush of the entire model was carried out by adding a little Vallejo dark yellow (actually a greenish buff) to the Russian green. I evaluated this and repeated it adding more dark yellow to the mix. I then added a couple of lighter dry brushes, with a small amount of pure yellow added to the mix. Practice and intuition are needed to apply these well, but the biggest helps with drybrushing as a technique are to use good condition, dense, short haired brushes; to make sure they are not saturated with paint before touching the model; and to concentrate on a gradual build up on the edges and top surfaces.

This took only a few minutes to get to the state below:

Next, I moved to the tracks; firstly by painting them Vallejo hull red (the tracks are moulded in black in a more paint-friendly plastic).

Simple enough. Next I painted the Machine gun and headlights a gunmetal/black mix; ready for highlighting. Then with a 50/50 gunmetal and steel mix, I overbrushed the tracks and HMG. Then over this I dry brushed some silver, some of this also being used on the headlights (not the machine gun) and some used the put scratches and worn paint marks on the tank.

Tracks done it was time to add identification markings. The only standard JNA markings appear to be a 5 digit serial number usually painted on to the sides of the turret on tanks; however unofficially the national flag was commonly used for identification, and slogans were not unusual.

With these added, it is time to move on to the weathering. I began with a mix of reddish brown stippled onto the lower half of the tank with a tatty brush that is little more than damp with paint. When applying the paint, have in mind where the tank would build up dirt, thick mud is unlikely to find it's way onto the turret or engine deck, but the wheels and lower hull will obviously be coated.

Rather, on the higher surfaces I apply first a stippling on mid brown and then several dry brush layers of sand brown, to gently build up a layer of dried dirt and dust. One thing that is common through the ages of tank warfare, is the dulling down in the field of large insignia, smearing stars or flags with dirt or even over painting them in darker shades. Nothing says shoot here like a foot tall white star seen in your rangefinder!

At this stage the model itself is finished, but it still needed basing:

Which is something you should decide on yourself. Below is a shot of the tank from the rear, showing a typical patriotic slogan: 'Serbia Forever' painted on the rear of the turret. You can also see the unditching beam has been painted like wood.

And here it is next to its' compatriot. It is a noticeably darker shade of green, but as we will see, it matches other models well, and the fact is, there is rarely a consistent paint colour in the field for all manner of reasons.

I love the look of the T-55 by the way, sure it's a sixty year old design and as crude as an Ikea shelf unit built by a toddler group; but it's tough as nails and looks mean as hell!

and here is my JNA frontline armour squadron together:

Two T-55's are joined by a pair of M-84 MBT's. As you can see the new tank is a very close match to the M84's. For those wondering, the M84's are converted Revell T-80's, I knocked up some 15 years ago.

Next up for this lot, some optional turrets for the T-55's, or the previously promised M60p scratchbuild.

Playing Favourites

2012-01-05T00:17:00.000Z

We all have them; favourite games, periods, inspirations and so on. The lull in gaming over the festive season gave me pause for thought on a few of mine, and since we are now in "awards" season, so I understand, I thought as a one off to herald the new year I could pass comment on mine.

Wargames Period

I'll play anything really, the blog shows that, but when it comes down to the periods I hold most dear it comes down to a handful. The front runners for me would be Ancient, Napoleonic and The Second World War. In terms of a variety of armies the Ancient world gets an early nod, and in terms of broader reading, and tying in to my other interests is probably the widest general subject; whereas the Napoleonic period is something I've only really taken a real interest in over the last three years, a tiny proportion of my gaming history.

Even as an eight year old boy I was, like many eight year old boys of my generation, fascinated with WW2; and it is a fascination that has stayed with me. Both my Grandfathers fought in (and one never returned from) the war, and as a child the world seemed saturated with war movies, Battle Magazine comics, and Airfix soldiers. My gaming began with the WW2 rules in Terence Wise's 'Introduction to Battle Gaming' and moved on from there. Today I still own four 20mm WW2 armies, with plans to do one or two more small groups, plus two large 28mm forces. As an enduring obsession and the one that lead me in to wargaming. The second world war must stand as my favourite.

Where it all began

Incidentally, I love fantasy games, but they simply are not a 'Period' in this sense, just a genre of game; and you can't have a favourite in a list of one, can you?

Scale

Soldiers should wherever possible be about one inch tall; call that 25mm or 28mm as is your preference, it matters not. There are exceptions, mainly for WW2 and onwards, where model availability and tradition dictates 20mm to be the appropriate height. Everything smaller is a compromise, anything larger is a vanity!

Rules

Now This is not a difficult one at all, save for which version of a great core set of rules do I like the most? Hail Caesar and Black Powder are both great games, and really give the feel of a traditional battle, as Charles Grant, Donald Featherstone or Brigadier Peter Young might narrate, but with the benefit of fifty plus years of game development and wisdom. For me Black Powder opened up new periods in simple playable ways, and turned old material into vibrant and usable inspiration (as we'll come on to later) It edges out its' newer sibling despite the latter probably being an even better rule set for this reason.

Honourable mentions must go to Warhammer Fantasy, Kampgfruppe Normandy, Donald Featherstone's Tank Battle in Miniature, Armati, AK47 Republic, Star Fleet Battles, Epic 40k and Hordes of the Things; all of which at times have been major obsessions.

Boardgame

Got a weekend to lose, try playing the original of Civilisation. What a glorious game! My memories of this now fade into the dim past as it is a good fifteen years since I last had a chance to while away the twelve hours or so needed to play it properly. More recently I've become a fan of Eurogames like Alhambra and Carcassone, perhaps because they are distinct from wargaming, and readily accessible to non gamers.

Figure manufacturer:

Metal/Hard Plastic

Obviously I'd considered these to be two categories, but on thinking about it, I could only pick the same for both - Perry Miniatures. It is not like I exclusively buy their products, but I would consider the Perry twins pretty much the best sculptors in the business and their models to be pretty much the ideal. And they remain well priced too!

Soft Plastic

What Perry are to 28mm, Zvezda are to 20mm; simply put, their models are beautiful works of art. I should know, I've bought far more than I have to date used, and although I've built Republican Roman and Etruscan armies from them, I also have a Macedonian army and about 600 Samurai sat in boxes waiting to be used.

Club

To be fair I've only attended five over the years, and as much as I enjoy my current group(s), I will always consider my time as a member of the Grimsby Wargames Society as the very best. After all, few clubs can boast of their own property, with permanent tables, hundreds of terrain boards and pieces, an expectation that games will usually feature thousands of painted models, and whatever opening hours members may require. Truly it is the best thing in Grimsby!

Opponent

On from the above, my Games against Tim Walker at the GWS remain my favourites. Whether Ancients, AK47 Republic, Hordes of the Things or random battles with Tim's vast collections they were always good natured, and depended on a natural narrative rather than the contrivance of winning at any cost in a points based fight to the death.

Inspiration

Film

There are several films, which when they are on, they will always get watched - A Bridge Too Far, Spartacus, Tora Tora Tora!, The Longest Day, Full Metal Jacket, Blackhawk Down, to name a handful - But the absolute definitive war film, imperfect as it is, for me is Zulu.

I could probably watch it every month if I had to, and as a man who rarely puts a DVD on a second time, it's saying something. It represents more particularly, an impression the British like to give of themselves, and for many can be considered fact, of stiff upper lipped stoicism and understated bravery, yes it has the colonial legacy worn without shame on it's sleeve, and it is a minefield of minor inaccuracies for the pedantic viewer, but by crikey it's a ripping yarn!

Book

I'll be honest, I am not the sort to solely read books on military history, war novels and the so called 'fluff' of fantasy and Sci-Fi tie-ins. Most of them don't catch my attention, and though I've tried many and finished a few, most get cast aside by about page 100. (I hold a degree in English Literature and Modern History, and it has directed my reading since.) That said I do have a interest in the classics, and have read Thucydides, Tacitus, Plato, Livy, Josephus and Xenophon amongst others; they are generally more accessible than you may think if you've never tried them.

I'm more inclined to reference that digest the background of armies and military campaigns into useful resources, in other words Osprey Books, The old Wargames Research Group series, Blandford Press uniform guides and so on. Even with wider histories and so on I often only dip in for what I need. Increasingly, the internet has provided some of this material; what can I say, I'm down with the kids.

But so far as wargaming specifically, there is one book above all that is essential to me, Charles Grant's Scenarios for Wargames. It should be for every wargamer!

Art

Angus McBride was the finest military illustrator ever, in my opinion, and his artwork is absolutely inspiring. I came to it first via the cover art for the Middle Earth Role Playing Game books, and to me defined the look of JRR Tolkien's world.

On seeing his historical work I was blown away; it is fabulous, clean and vivid, with a real sense of a story within each illustration.

The Interweb

Ignoring the forum for my local club, which surely sucks away too much time, and the blogs I link via mine, that are all either useful or entertaining reading - thanks folks - the most useful gateway is for all its' faults, Wikipedia. Google tends to lead here first on most research terms, and so I spend a lot of time looking through material of a wargames bent on it.

And so that is probably long enough to go on, I could add a load of daft things too; favourite table size: 8x5 feet; favourite tank: T55, with M4A2 as a close second; favourite colour to paint uniforms: deep blue, it's too easy to highlight. And as it's late and I'm mildly sleep deprived I could probably continue. But I should stop.

If you like the idea, feel free to poach it for your own blog, but do let me know, I'd be interested to see what your preference are too...

First figures of 2012

2012-01-03T23:19:00.000Z

Well these didn't take very long!

Actually it shows to be honest, they are rudimentary at best, a simple black wash job; but they did only take a total of about 3 hours from start to finish, including basing.

I picked up some Crusader Miniatures Normans to give me some nicer models and variety for my Saga troops. Having got the models I have mixed feelings about them. They are accurate enough but oddly static and as you can see some of the crossbows are not completely cast; can you say 'Quality Control'? Hopefully when I get to look at them the spear men and cavalry I bought will be better.

Still, it's a good start to the year isn't it. Back to work tomorrow though...

Braganza's Besiegers - AKI style

2011-12-30T16:08:00.000Z

The other major project for December has been a unit for my Dogs of War, who are now developing quite a base of Static firepower. Kings of War and the Perry Miniatures Late Medieval range has given this army a new lease of life, and they have now entered the dreaded 'Third carry case' stage of army evolution*

16 figures in all in a garishly bright quartered livery, so they'll really 'pop' in the army. As said the miniatures are Perry Plastics, and serve ideally in my Dogs of War force, being as it is a conglomeration of every race and manfacturer, in an effort to realise my old school fantasy aspirations for a mishmash army. They are of course tied together by the painting style and basing.

In close up you can see that the Pavaises' (big shields, for the rest of you!) are based on separate strips, to allow them to be optional to the unit. This then allows me to field the unit as the Marksmen of Miraglio instead, or simply as a default unit of crossbowmen.

The heraldry and banner were all free hand. A word on the banner. I painted it on paper, over a pencil design, such that the two sides would fold over to give the back to back design. Make sure you also paint the back of the paper your base colour. Once finished this is cut out and the back given a complete covering of pva glue. Folded on to the pole, you'll find the paper soft and malleable; whilst it is so you can form the natural folds into the flag, as you can see above. The shape will hold within minutes and once dry is pretty solid (though a coat of varnish will further strengthen the banner). Try to use thin, but good quality paper, I find letter writing paper works well for this, but office printer paper is fine too.

So that's it, the last painting of the year. The final result is a satisfactory 538 models, against a target of 360. A lower result than previous years, but in part because I reduced the points I scored for guns and vehicles, and didn't count scenery at all. Overall I'm pretty happy.

Happy New Year folks...

*This being a stage where an army goes beyond a satisfactory size, to one of sprawling excess. My file boxes typically hold about 150 28mm models on average, and I consider anything over 200 models to be a 'finished' force. Therefore once the 300 barrier is broken and a third box is needed, it is both a moment of satisfaction and of resignation - to the fact I need either more storage space, or to sell something else to make room!

Sherman's and Tank Riders

2011-12-29T22:54:00.000Z

So I've been on leave since the 23rd, and with time on my hands the other day I cobbled together another Sherman Tank squadron for my WW2 games.

Inspired by the tank rider equipped Panzer IV's of Gaz at the club, I decided to add infantry to mine.

One tank was painted some months ago and only needed infantry adding; the other two were done quickly on Xmas Eve before shooting off for the festive whathaveyou's!

Over a base of Russian Green plus a little German Camouflage Green, I built up layers of more Russian Green with with a little yellow. This was then weathered with red-browns and yellow-browns. The unit markings are speculative but pretty typical of the period; obviously one applies them before weathering...

The tank riders are from the Hat minibox range and excellent little sculpts, except for the figure with optional weapons; when assembled he clearly has three elbows, he's an abomination!

You can see them better in this shot:

To ensure they stay in place, each figure has been pinned to the tank; they were painted separately, given a black varnish wash and then glued in to place.

Nice quick work to fill a few idle hours whilst watching The Man Who Would Be King; classic Xmas fare!

(War)Gameswipe - Review of 2011

2011-12-27T15:46:00.000Z

Foriegn readers, no this is not me....

It's been a year that gave with one hand and took away with the other at Toomuchlead towers, we'll get on to the specifically gaming aspects in a bit but during this year I've moved twice, lost my old job, taken a offer just to stay in work at a considerable reduction in pay, but ended the year with a new offer on the table for more than I started the year with! Aside from that I've split with two women and crashed and burned with several others, been the victim of crime three times, crushed one car and spent over £2k on the other getting the damn thing back on the road (buying an Alfa may make you a petrol head, it also makes you a mechanics favourite customer). It has in short, been a helluva year.

Gaming and blogging has in some way helped keep me sane; but what in this crazy world of game has gone on, and how did I do on the prediction front last time....

Figures

2011 has seen me expanding established armies in force rather than starting anything new; with the exception of a couple of skirmish games. This wasn't the plan at the start of the year, when in a gaming high I had suggested I would build a new fantasy army and double the size of my Napoleonic French force. Neither came to pass.

Rather I enlarged my Medieval French, Dogs of War, Undead, Orcs and Goblins, WW2 Americans and Spartans; and built my skirmish forces for Anima Tactic and Freebooters Fate from scratch.

Model purchases for myself were inevitably limited but I did appreciate the Perry Miniatures release (eventually) of the British Hussars - now on the painting queue, Immortal Spartans and Mantic Ghouls and Zombies, which work especially well when mashed-up together. Also a mention should go to the success of the Plastic Soldier Company, I'm not a fan of all the poses, but they have really made themselves known on the market, similarly the Zvezda range of Art if Tactic miniatures has added further options to those who can see beyond the tyranny of Battlefront's ludicrous pricing of Flames of War models.

Beautiful 1/100 scale military vehicles for 1/3rd the cost of Battlefront

Overall I felt that the pace of plastic releases slowed down this year, though in the last few months it seemed to pick up. I think I was close to correct in saying at least one of the Plastic 28mm manufacturers would go under as Wargames Factory went close to the wire, and Immortal sold to Warlord Games; but then at least one more manufacturer is entering the fray, so the market may yet expand. The prices of metal have risen for the premium companies, but not by as much as I feared yet.

Game Systems

Three really stand out as new arrivals in 2011, Hail Caesar, Kampfgruppe Normandy and Anima Tactics. Ok granted the latter I started with last December, but my games of it began this year and very enjoyable they were too. Hail Caesar has got me back in to ancients gaming, having cast it aside for a long time due to lack of players of a set of rules I enjoyed; whilst KGN is WW2 gaming the way I remember it from my youth, but with a good solid set of rules to underpin it. Great!

In the first half of the year I played a lot of Fantasy Battle, but by September or so I was tiring of it, and tried actively to get other games in. The aggressively tournament style of play that became commonplace whilst the Leeds Wargames Centre was open was not to my tastes either.

Winning!

Other games I've enjoyed this year were Black Powder, of course, Freebooters Fate and Kings of War.

Next year my main plan, if there is one, is to find or write a set of Rules for Modern Games I like. A big ask, but there are options on the table.

Events

I went to five shows this year and did three display games, with varying success. Best to my mind was Poitiers of course, but in general it felt like a lot of effort at times. Had a lot on my plate this year and in some cases it did feel like I was having my arm twisted to do displays rather than doing it for my own enjoyment. In terms of event games, the Napoleonics games at the club were again the ones that really stick in the mind.

Blogging and Painting

Getting on for 55,000 hits this year; not in the big leagues, but for a guy who doesn't do a podcast and avoids a lot of the most popular systems, I don't think it's too shabby. Service has suffered a lot of disruption this year and it has shown in a couple of months, but overall it has been on a gentle upward track since I started getting detailed stats on it.

up to 26 December 2011

I work with statistics and data by day, so yes this is interesting, to me!

As for painting I think the December total will be about 26 points, bringing the approximate total to the year to about 527 points, against a target of 360. It's actually less than last year, but this year I didn't include terrain, and did aim to do more fine work. I'm less inclined to do competition standard now, and for 2012 I'm hoping to turn out a few more models.

So the aims for next year?

Continue The Pledge to paint 30 points of miniatures per month.

That's it in essence. I hope to start a new army, to scale up one of the forces I sold in 20mm to 28mm, and this will be a big painting commitment if it comes to pass, but it is still just a loose idea. Beyond that I still have lots of parts to expand established armies, and I still have items to sell off too; there being a long standing objective to reduce my collection of boxes by a third

This is so the next time I do move there is less puffing and swearing, along the lines of "why do I even have this s**t, I haven't even took it out the box in five f*****g years!"

The Scene

Hmm bit of a one that, locally gaming hit both highs and lows at the LWC, but in the end it was both a damn shame and anything but a surprise to see it go under. This alongside the move of venue for the old club in February/March saw the Leeds club scene go into a state of uncertainty it is only just coming out of. In wider terms Fantasy gaming has locally become as stated more competitive, and for me, less fun. Whilst there is a slowly building community of historical gamers now taking regular space in my favoured haunts. More gamers are coming in to the hobby with the widespread availability of plastic historical ranges, and this is a great thing. The rules are now moving towards a peak of development and availability too.

I think the future still bodes well for figure gaming, despite tough times.

Here's to an enjoyable 2012.

Dice factoids for Xmas

2011-12-24T14:28:00.000Z

Have you ever opened a cheap board game or Christmas Cracker and got a D6 with a weird pattern of pips, and the one and four painted red?

If so you are in receipt of a Chinese, or at least Asian made dice.

The red one is due to the inauspicious meaning of a single black circle on a white background; whilst the red four is thought to be of indian origin and is beleived to signify death. However, another tale suggests Emperor Chong Tsung (AD 684 - 701) whilst playing sugoruku (Japanese Backgammon) with his queen was about to lose and desperately needed fours to win the game. He cried out, threw the dice and they came up accordingly. He was so glad that he ordered that fours be painted red from then on.

The size of the one may be to balance out the weight loss of the six pips on the opposite face, though no similar consideration is given to the other faces. Personally I find that Chinese dice seem very reluctant to roll well and not keen on rolling sixes at all, so idea for Warhammer break tests!

So if you get any of these in you stocking fillers tomorrow, now you know a little more about them!

Happy Holidays folks.

Playa Dos Zubira 1810

2011-12-23T21:34:00.000Z

Last Sunday was my last figures game of the year, but we went out in style with a large five player game of Black Powder.

Neil was up for the day with his French and Jez also brought along a fair sized contingent; so many that third French commander, Laurie had only to bring himself along. Alternatively the Anglo-Iberian forces were a man down, as Martin was called in to work, so myself and Gav took command of the British and their allies.

The scenario was a simple classic, a large division of French under the overall command of Junot was attempting to force crossing of the Zubira river, defended by a much smaller British army, formed largely of Spanish and Portuguese allies under the command of Arthur Wellesley.

The river was at a summer low, and scarcely two feet deep, but the banks were high and soft and easy to defend, plus Wellesley and his cavalry commander, Marchant, had wisely deployed troops east of the river in farmland.

From the French left, all photo's are clickable for bigger versions

The French placed one Brigade in the woodland to their right, with a cavalry Brigade in column to their left. Their expectation was that the cavalry would guard the infantry advance to the river on the right of the farm, but they were not aware of the lead deployments of the British. Further to Junot's left a line Brigade led the attack with a guard brigade behind it, both in Ordre Mixte, with a grand battery formed from three formations of guns in the centre.

At this point I have to say that the French inexplicably left three battalions, one from each brigade, in reserve. I didn't spot this at all at first, and I remain at a loss as to how they miscalculated their available force. The only possibility is that they didn't have enough men, but I'm sure between us we did...

Nevertheless, they outnumbered Wellesley two to one. With a small light cavalry brigade forward of the river, with two companies of Rifles, myself and my junior decided to deploy the Portuguese to the left with the Spanish to the centre and in reserve; whilst the British Guard Brigade held our right covering the ford.

We too held forces in reserve, but in our case we knew we were doing so. Another British brigade of three battalions was advancing from the south, apparently unanticipated by the French. They were expected to arrive in about three hours (six turns time). to the rear of the advancing French left.

Additionally each commander in chief had a special personality trait. Wellesley had "Now's your Time!", once per game he could automatically issue a follow me order to any unit or brigade acting together on the board, without being part of it. This we were holding back to allow our reserves to strike.

For the French, Junot was classed as Unstable, at the start of each turn he had to roll a d6:

6: Flashes of Brilliance - all commanders gained +2 command for the turn

5: Vision - The French could reroll any one failed command that turn

2-4: No effect

1: Delirium - all commanders suffer -2 command for the turn whilst Junot is distracted

And so it was that the French began their advance on the British, on their second turn Junot had a brilliant turn and his urgings made his otherwise average generals dash forward with vigour.

Though it was not without the odd communication failure, and the French Cavalry seemed reluctant to challenge the British in front of them. Rather their infantry came forward and formed square to screen them. For the British this seemed to play in to our hands and as far as we were concerned, making the entire French Brigade form square to respond to one unit of cavalry was a good return.

Meanwhile before the guards, long range musketry opened up, and enough disorder was done to stall the first French attempt on the ford for half an hour. The French general of the lead brigade seemed frustrated by this and went on to throw forward a sacrificial unit rather than stand enfeebled.

The regiment advanced and struggled through the water to the steep facing bank and more withering fire. Some three hundred Frenchmen lay dead or dying in the warm waters of the Zubiya, whilst the other half of the formation broke and ran. In the centre the artillery pounded the Rifles, whilst French Hussars threatened to hunt them down, whilst on the French right the stand off continued.

The French resolved this by throwing forward their regiment of Cuiriassiers to counter the Light Dragoons, it was a fierce fight but the strength of the French told and the British were forced from the field. The Spanish cavalry had retired behind their infantry long since, whilst Wellesley himself was trying to reorganise his second line. French cavalry and infantry began to move through the farm, flushing out the Rifles to some degree.

But not entirely, and the lead Brigade Assaulting the ford were broken temporarily by savage crossfire. By now more than two hours had passed, but the French attacks were now coming on in volume, with both fronts coming under attack.

But the close support the allied line offered allowed even Portuguese and Spanish troops to hold, allowing even the French Dragoons to come on, holding them with musket fire and a whiff of Grapeshot.

On the French left losses were more severe, and becoming critical. Junot and Clausel implored General Foy to commit the Garde, but he was cautious, and it was another half hour of battle before the Grenadiers and Garde were thrown in.

Their late engagement finally cut through the British lines where , many hundreds of their brethren had failed. The Grenadiers in particular smashed a British Guard battalion. The Highlanders were finally after over an hours hard fighting reduced to retiring the field. But the fatal blow was the charge of French Hussars across the river; rolling up a Spanish militia battalion that Wellesley was trying to rally. Arthur was carried from the field in the ensuing rout.

And this at the very moment when the dust clouds of the British could be seen to the rear of the French, but with out Wellesley's guidance the Brigade of Beresford could not arrive in time.

Although threatened to the rear, it was clear that the valiant allied defence of the river was destroyed and so the French claimed a famous victory.

As ever a fantastic little game played out more or less in real time. The French came on in classic fashion, clearly without any inclination that the force before them may not be all they would face. Had Wellesley stayed on the field the last turns would have been very different. There were remarkably no blunders all game, and few problems to resolve. For me and Gav it was largely a game of delaying the French and snickering expectantly, until the smirk was wiped off our face at the very end; whilst for the Empire there was a clear division of command strategy, with Jez and Laurie at odds with their CinC Neil, who was being more cautious that they wanted to be. I was with them, even as the British, for it is the French way to attack!

For an alternative account of the battle, you can see the version of Jez at his blog here.

A well balanced scenario I'd urge you to try, and all in all a nice way to wrap up the year.

Carcassonne

2011-12-20T23:37:00.000Z

Carcassonne is one of those classic eurogames, whose simplicity belies its' complexity of play. Anyone can pick up the basic rules in a matter of minutes, but mastering the game could take dozens of plays...

Last Thursday was notable for the fact it was the first time I've won at the game, against season players as we'll as a total beginner (not me) taking the random button twiddling, ignore any and all sage advice offered to him, player. We played the river expansion, which requires the assembly of a number of themed tiles before players then take turns to draw a randomly drawn tile and place it on the board in such a fashion, as like a jigsaw, or complex game of dominoes, it matches to it's neighbours.

Onto these one can lay claim to the tiles you play by placing your population counters, into a town, onto a road or upon fields. When towns or roads are completed you get you counter back and some points. But farmers must stay on table until the end of the game; where bonus points are totted up.

In this game I recognised that the river would allow for early control of agriculture to the cities, so I went early with several key farming placements (I was black). By the end of the game I had racked up 85 points to my nearest competitor's 77 or so.

This game would make an appealing change from Monopoly or Cluedo for Xmas day, and being simple to pick up and free of combat, an ideal introduction to the extended family as to gaming.

Maybe worth adding late to your Christmas list?...

Dystopian Wars; By land, as sea

2011-12-19T20:29:00.001Z

A good 10 months ago I had a play of Dystopian Wars, but I don't think it made it to the blog due to only going on mobile phone photo's and timing to a point where my laptop was broken.

The rules were very like, by which I mean essentially identical to, Uncharted Seas which I played a few times when it was first released. I wondered how the system may translated to the land battles promised in the rules. As it happens I got the chance to find out.

Basically the core rules are unchanged. what is added is minimal, basically small tanks that come below the level of the smallest ships in the naval version, and aircraft that in many respects operate just like flying ships. Terrain can effect tanks, but they are basically so massive that only things like cliffs or lakes would impede them. They are also more manoeuvrable.

Above is an example of one of the biggest land ships, with the details of its' stat card. The provision of these cards with models makes life a lot easier reducing recourse to the rules. For those who don't know the combat mechanic is rolling a number of dice based on the range band, looking for '4+' to hit as a basic. Scores of six are worth double and get you a reroll, so are the way a lucky hit can become catastrophic! Score damage equal to the DR and reduce the unit by a hit point, Score equal to the CR for a random critical and double hits. Once all the HP are gone a unit will be destroyed.

As for my game, it was a small affair played on a 4 foot by 3 foot table with whatever terrain was to hand. I played the Federated States of America, whilst my Opponent and guide Paul played the Empire of her Britannic Majesty.

The American forces were blessed with longer range firepower, but less of it. Initially the small square based of British tanks out shot my own, but the big American guns were telling. The system being by unit activation allowed for the sort of simple tactical decisions of refusing options to the enemy, and rushing to act with key or opportunity forces.

Air power added another element to the battle as it cruised lazily around the battle (the aircraft themselves being reminiscent of Miyazaki designs). The painting of the models did cause a rarity of wargiming reality, where I indulged in a friendly fire incident in which I shot down one of my own fighter planes. We realised what had happened, but I insisted the result stood!

By this stage the British were clearly beaten, their multiple weak shots being no match for my hard hitting guns and luck. Overall it was a simple, but enjoyable game. I think I would still prefer the naval version, but it is an entertaining little game in it's own right.

Kampfgruppe Normandy - Action at Petit Filous

2011-12-14T22:53:00.000Z

It's only my second game of these rules, and yet I volunteered to take a new attendee of the club through them; in an effort to make a gamer of him.

I'd had to work out two simple, evenly matched armies, that importantly incorporated the collection of my opponent, Gary. These we'll see shortly, but of course on the morning I also set a suitable battlefield:

The village of Petit Filous, in northern France, surrounded by fields of Bocage, and areas of open woodland was the scene of a German withdrawal in the face of a feared heavy assault, that failed to transpire. Other localised German counter attacks had blunted the American advance and left the ground deserted. The Germans aimed to retake the no-man's-land, before the Americans recognised the lack of a defence.

A reinforced American Infantry platoon was supported by an over-strength squadron of M4 tanks, one with a 76mm gun. Reconnaissance was supplied by an M8 Greyhound, with an artillery spotter on hand to try and request up to four fire support missions.

Conversely, the Germans, short on mobility and fuel, marched on to the battleground largely as foot troops, even having to drag on their anti-tank support. However they were able to muster a fine squadron of Panzer IV-H tanks and had a full complement of 80mm mortars available to support.

The armour of both sides advanced upon the small village.and stumbled upon one around the curve of the road. A Panzer IV quickly engaged one of the M4's; but missed. Having drawn attention to itself, the Sherman's positioned themselves to counter, and by some fortune managed to destroy two of the German tanks in short order (despite needing 9's and 10's on 2d6 to do it! I counted myself very lucky, and felt Gavin, my opponent, would now struggle).

The Surviving German tank managed to destroy the 76mm M4, and tried to engage another tank with its' second shot, but failed to penetrate. Similarly their Panzerfausts and Shrecks proved unable to score a hit. finally, German infantry rushed to the village on foot, leaving machine guns to lay down covering fire.

Half of the American platoon rushed into the village, and deployed to the nearest houses, but German infantry had struggled in to the other building complex and soon each side was trying to pin down the other. The Panzershreck team in the field were able to knock out another tank and the surviving Panzer IV took out a third.

It was providing close range support to the infantry, as well as avoiding the threat of American mortar fire that was targeting the corner of the road where it had been; but it had not considered the danger of a flank attack...

The remaining American tank fired from under a hundred yards range and penetrated the side armour with ease. Recognising the threat of German armour was now scant, it retired out of infantry weapon range to a position where it could move around the flank of the village. The second half of the American platoon now advanced around the outside of the village to take the left flank too.

German mortar fire began to impact on and around the only intact building in the village, apparently intact for good reason, as the infantry inside huddled in surprising security, safe from the bombs rattling off it's roof (only two casualties to 6 direct hits represented extremely light losses)!

Far behind the front line the American infantry were racing around the German rear, but a wisely deployed MG34 team was able to eliminate their command jeep and crew, which saw the infantry begin to deploy in an effort to eliminate the attackers.

The M8 engaged the Pak40 with machine gun fire, but failed to inflict significant casualties, in return the German crew hauled their gun around and took their only shot. The M8 was a smouldering hulk in seconds.

The opposite flank was the concentration now though, with the surviving tank doing it's best to out flank and harry the German infantry. In the village American 4.2 inch mortar rounds started to pound the remaining German infantry, knocking out a section and a weapons team. By this stage it was clear the Germans were a spent force (their morale limit was passed) and they had begun to melt away through the woodland behind the village.

Petit Filous was finally liberated.

This was an excellent, simple little battle. Gav asked for little tactical guidance, but accepted advice where I felt his choices would be ill advised; he also had the benefit of a junior commander Joe, who after some initial confusion, soon got into the swing of the game, to the point of deciding which units to use, and what to do with them. I felt the Germans had much the worse luck in the battle, and the American advantages of numbers told more than they ordinarily would.

By contrast on another table, Mark and Andy were also going at it with KGN, and the Germans here were in control...

Grand to see two games of KGN on, and even more pleasing to get a new player or two involved.

So far December is proving a good month for historical gaming, and there is more to come with a big Napoleonics game scheduled for the coming weekend. More on that, another day.

The 2012 Display Game Project

2011-12-12T21:13:00.000Z

Thoughts turned to my games for next year over the weekend, Last year saw a big push on Napoleonics, and This year has been a mix of Fantasy and Ancients. When I moved for the second time in six months however I became aware of the number of miniatures I had yet to use for anything at all, or at least not in many a year.

One such set is my Yugoslavian Civil Wars models in 20mm. A result of the war being on the TV every day when I was getting back into wargaming, but also beginning to take world politics rather more seriously. There were, and for me remain of course, issues with gaming ongoing conflicts (as it was at that time) but with well over a decade passed since the end of this particular conflict; I feel as comfortable as I can with resurrecting the models from their long sabbatical.

This has not always been the case mind, I sold my Iran Iraq war models, mainly to avoid being expected to use them to play Gulf War, or War on Terror-esque games, and because it felt like a game with staggeringly few features to elevate it above glorifying slaughter. To be fair our harsher critics may say that of the whole hobby, but I feel there is a line in the sand that can be drawn, for me WWI, anything to do with the SS, The various Gulf Wars and anything within the last 20 years have to be approached very carefully indeed.

I don't want any part of my gaming to glorify the horrors of war, but I don't want to ignore them either; my display game will allow me to get regular games out of my collection again of course, but it should also allow me to a tiny bit of education?

My Guardian reading, leftist guilt assuaged then, I'm still wanting to put the last European war on, so the very first step was to take an audit of the models I had in my collection.

Surprisingly there was an awful lot of it, well over 30 fighting vehicles and another 20 or so civilian ones, and over 225 infantry. Many of the latter though need a degree of freshening up, and reflect a quite inventive collection of modern plastic and metal 20mm soldiers. A handful of the models from my JNA (Yugoslav National Army - the Serbian Regulars) forces are shown below:

The infantry are the ultra rare late period set of Airfix Modern Russians, which are staggeringly boring, workmanlike models. I got hold of thirty of these eons ago, and they served with minor repaints in a variety of armies. As part of the box contents review I decided to add some texture to the bases.

The vehicles are suggestive of a second line unit. On the left is a M36 Jackson; the USA briefly supplied Yugoslavia with military equipment in the 1950's when the country isolated itself from the Warsaw Pact. Photographs of this vehicle still in service in the 1990's are commonplace,though properly it should be a B2 variant with a raised roof for the turret. In the centre is a BTR152-K command variant, made by ACE models of Ukraine if I recall correctly. The last one may test you though; any guesses?

It is a Yugoslav M60p personnel carrier, an indigenous design that utilised parts copied from a mix of Soviet and American equipment. This is a near virtual scratchbuild, based on the running gear from the old Airfix ready-to-roll FV434 carrier. Some might say I committed heresy converting it in such a way, but this unique model is worth far more to me. The M60p was a good design of it's type in the 60's and 70's, but looked dated with the widespread distribution of Infantry fighting vehicles in the 80's, and was replaced by the M80a.

I hope to make another and will maybe do a step by step if people are curious enough.

So, to begin, I've considered the game to be socially acceptable, with certain caveats, and I consider I have enough models to restrain shopping. Now I should begin to refresh tired pieces, give thought to a set of rules, and decide on a scenario...

Garden of Morr

2011-12-11T21:00:00.000Z

The last of this year's commissions was the Games Workshop funereal scenery set; The Garden of Morr:

As with most of their recent scenery sets, this is both ambitious and ingenious, and certainly one of the nicest of their sets I've had the opportunity to work on. Really characterful despite the fundamental simplicity of the parts; the walls and bases are single-piece castings and the mausoleums are no more than four parts each.

The completed set is impressive:

Zombie for scale only; though he probably is also visiting relatives for lunch!

As it is all separate components, you can either create a single graveyard, or use the parts piecemeal for a varied effect.

And so a word on the painting. These models really were a joy to paint, and much easier to do than I first thought they would be. After spraying every thing black, before attaching the mausoleums to their bases, I worked up in dry-brushed layers of greys first, then doing the brown earth, and finally going back for the details.

There are more skulls, you just cant see them in this angle; wouldn't be GW without 'em!

Once the bases and buildings were painted this way separately, I then glued them to the bases. As you can see from the one above there are lots of characterful details on the models, which are obviously ideal for the Empire or Sylvania; but could also serve for pulp and Lovecraftian horror gamers.

At £25 or so from GW, I have to say this set is pretty good value, effectively 4 easy to build structures plus close to two feet of walls. Regular readers will know I'm not a partisan fan of Games Workshop and their pricing; but this product to me seems pretty good.

Saga - Norman Wisdom

2011-12-10T15:46:00.000Z

I assembled my first scratch force for Saga last week for a try of the rules in person. Rummaging through my Carolingians (actually a mixture of figures from all over Europe - and Middle Earth! - between 500 and 1100ad) I was able to assemble enough singly based models for a 4 point warband:

This exposed a couple of points, firstly that my old painting techniques - apply paint, stop - do not look very nice unless masked by being part of an army of 200 models. And secondly that my choices were compromised by a lack of heavy infantry on single figure stands. I may need to invest in a handful of new figures and some repainting time for this game.

The next thing one learns in a new game, is generally how to lose at it. To introduce the rules mark suggested the basic 'Kill the Warlord' scenario, the equivalent in the rules of a straight battle. We deployed and lined up for action. I sent my cavalry round the flanks hoping to surround Mark and roll him up.

Mark went straight for the jugular, chancing exhaustion to get his warriors and warlord into contact with mine whilst he was exposed. The effect of leading a personal charge was such that my commander was soon surrounded instead, and pounded in to the ground. Game one was over in ten minutes!

We reset and tried round two; this time I revised my plan, placing the warlord with a guard of mounted men; my levies deployed in the spinney to my left, whilst the rest of my troops broke to the right. In effect I refused the centre with the hope of over extending his lines and using my superior mobility to avoid trouble.

Mark picked one flank then the next to chase, and I was able to use hit and run tactics on the ends of his over-extended lines to some extent. Even the levy bowmen played a small part in this action, getting off occasional volleys of arrows into the confused Saxons.

Mark regrouped and advanced his men in two groups to the left and right. Diving back my infantry at heavy loss but faring badly against the levy, who appeared to have created some sort of defensive obstacle in amongst the scrub.

The lesson here is that a well rested force in defensible ground can wear down better troops. By this stage we had long overrun the number of turns set as a game limit in the rules, but had spent only an hour and a half playing. Clearly it was going to go down to the bitter end! Marks Warlord ran himself ragged chasing down my Warlord, who horse game him a serious advantage here. And in the final conflict a small advantage of numbers allowed my commander to edge a victory.

Here he taunts all the remaining enemy, from behind the remains of his own force. Yes, it was that bloody.

A fast paced game where the tactical subtlety is all in the use of your saga dice on the playsheets. Mark was constantly using his higher initial dice allocation to intimidate my troops in to missing turns, which meant I had at times to commit three of my five dice to one critical unit to ensure it did what was needed.

For my part I was committing dice to increasing the effect of bow fire and cavalry charges, and as these wore Mark down I was less effected by the intimidation and was able to turn the battle. Still the second round was dependent on my flighty tactics and refusing to fight fair.

A good steep learning curve.

Dawn of War(hammer)

2011-12-07T20:53:00.000Z

Myself and James played a 2000 pointer of Warhammer the other weekend, James is an old time WFB player but new to 8th edition (a late arrival) so the game was admittedly played at a slow pace.

The randomised scenario was the Dawn Attack, and I found myself with one of my key units out on a flank miles away from the rest of the army, with virtually nothing of the enemy anywhere near them. Prior to battle my plan had been to use large units of Ghouls to support a small force of Grave Guard and some elite troops; it was looking a little less certain now.

As for James, most of his Warriors of Chaos were clumped together. The nature of this scenario is such that once you've deployed any unit, the temptation to deploy other units in the same area, simply next to it, becomes overwhelming. The terrain funnelled us into certain zones too.

Battle joined the problem with my ghouls was even more apparent, as they were unable to march. Their slow plod began whilst the rest of the army rushed at the Warriors. I was confident I could beat most of his units, but to do so I would have to carefully coordinate my charges with some magic and a little luck.

My other unit of Ghouls, and my Wraiths got stuck in and used their natural advantages to tie up James centre. The Black Coach seemed determined only to reduce my spell casting ability, but in general it wasn't a problem yet.

I got stuck in to the marauders with the Grave Guard and soon they were routed. This left the Black Coach the job of destroying the Chaos Warriors which with a few bad rolls, it abjectly failed to do.

Still, James had no magic left and only one significant unit left. But when battle was joined with my Grave Guard.

They came out as the victors. The Vampire Counts Achilles Heel struck once again. When the lead Vampire dies the army is pretty much stuffed. I had a fair amount of troops left on paper, but their points value amounted to only a few hundred, and double that had just been wiped out by the Warriors. It was only right that I concede; it was pretty much time to pack up after all!

November was a busy Month

2011-12-06T20:43:00.000Z

Indeed, What with the prep for Recon and a bunch of terrain I knocked up I've managed one of my best Pledge months of the year.

All in all I score myself 76 points for the month; including the following:

Six Agincourt period handgunners. I have a total of 14 handgunners now, I think, but for Poitiers these were not required. Still, it was easy enough to paint these chaps alongside the other Medieval output of the month.

Once all the Hundred Years War models were painted, I grabbed some other models from the stockpile to which I could apply the same wash techniques:

A converted Skull Pass Troll, done in the very simplest of fashions; yes, I probably should have done some work on the wrist joints, this chap won't win any beauty pageants. But he was a real quickie. As were ten more 6th edition Orcs:

These bring my main unit of Orcs with twin Choppa's to 40 strong. Every model had a weapon or arm reposed to improve the appearance and ranking of the unit, and once painted, they were integrated to multi-figure bases.

These aside there was also 11 Us Infantry for my 20mm WW2 troops, the two previously shown Stuart Tanks and the oft aforementioned Medievals. Bringing the total to 76. That's 501 points this year with one month to go.

After a few lacklustre summer months, it's good to be on track again.

Pudsey Recon - Poitiers 1356 Refought

2011-12-04T13:51:00.000Z

My big game was an aim to get a goodly load of my 28mm Medievals collection on to a table, and thankfully by the end of set up, I'd done that much at least.

I took the Osprey Campaign book largely at it's word for deployments, but made some variations to the forces, both to reflect the other historical accounts and my available figure collection. In the end I used every mounted knight I had and 905 of my foot figures, putting just over 600 models on the table.

The French formed in three lines, German pike to the fore, with City Pavisiers behind, backed up by the King's men at arms and Brigans. The wings were comprised mostly of mounted knights intended to rout the English bowmen.

For the English, one flank was placed guarding the hedgerow, with a centre of men at arms and Gascon infantry, whilst the other flank deployed in the open between woodland, with marshes to their rear.

The opening moves saw the French knights impetuously charge towards the marshes, initially to some success.

But this attack drew out the mounted Gascon reserve, and soon a large melee was developing here, whilst the rest of the French army tried to advance.

And, I'll not lie. This was as far as we got on the day before I was sidetracked and worn out. There was a little more action, and I took some snaps during a repose. But the table was later reset for viewers, and eventually packed away.

In game terms though, the French needed to pull back their cavalry and get the heavy infantry, of whom they had a great many available, involved. Their horse were slowly being whittled away for little return.

The day was a tiring one for me, but not at all bad. Better than the boredom I felt at Wartorn!

It felt like I'd put on a proper game this time. But I want some better terrain for the next effort. And I suppose the next question would be what to try next time?

'Modern' warfare is tempting me...

Pudsey Recon - The Show Review

2011-12-03T20:31:00.000Z

So that's Recon over with for another year, Thank goodness really; I was pretty burned out by the end of the day.

Being an early arrival to set up my game I didn't get a chance to pick up details of the games on show, beyond what they themselves offered in places. So I will dive in with info as best I can and as ever you, the readers, can use the comments to illuminate on what was what.

Anyhow. It was the same venue as ever, but this year blessed with drizzle rather than a foot of snow.

Games wise, the view of the show on the interweb seems to be that the games tend towards the high end of club games rather than showpiece display games. That really depends on your club I suppose, but I think that it's a fair assessment. First of the games I took snaps of, once I got a break from setting up my own work, was this WW2 game from Mailed Fist:

It seemed to be some sort of attack on the most heavily defended part of the Atlantic Wall; gun emplacements aplenty!

Next up was a Gulf War I game featuring French versus Iraqi forces over terrain that appeared to be made entirely of paper:

For the record, Paper roads, rivers, houses; fine. Hills and berms, not so much. However the Iraqi T72's were quite nice.

Next up, some film inspired WW2 action with Kirklees' Force Ten from Navarone:

A good mix of off-the-shelf terrain and scratch-built pieces, but you needed to look hard to spot the figures on table.

DBMN (or is it just DBN) is an unofficial variant of DBA for the Napoleonics period. although only a small scale game (10mm I think) it was one of the nicest, neatest looking games.

I will at this point note that Privateer Press were present giving their usual display of Warmachine to anyone interested, but I wasn't so as ever I didn't photograph it. It's good they support these smaller shows though, must be worth their while...

Up on the Warlord stand the big news was their Zulu War range. Produced in partnership with Empress Miniatures, the new Zulu sprues look fantastic:

The technique of attaching the arms in the middle of the upper arm may seem strange, but the Zulu habit of wearing fur armbands makes this a reasonable option that allows for otherwise neked trops to be assembled without a compromise of seams.

These were on display with the contents of the Rorke's Drift boxed set, which is massive!, the two feature buildings are true scale to the figures, rather than scaled down, and quite simple staggering, the models filled a 3 x 2 foot table with ease!

Our club was being courted by Warlord for future events and activities, and it sounds like they have many other things in the offing, the English Civil War version of Black Powder - by the sounds of it a stand alone rules set - is due for Salute next year; however I missed most of this chat, as I was too busy dealing with the punters round my game to catch much of the meeting I was supposed to be at!

Back to the show and the next two games were amongst the most impressive; The firast I think was the Italians in Ethiopia in 1896, but I'm ready to stand corrected:

The scenery was the best at the show, with a large and imposing chasm cutting across the table. By comparison the figures were not incredible, but perfectly good!

Last up for photo's today was a large late Roman game; again on scuplted terrain, though of a more basic type.

The figures in general were some of the best at the show however, with high standards of painting and basing throughout:

There were a number of other games I either didn't get shots from, or nothing that looked any good on camera. Next to my display the Lance and Longbow Society had a Wars of the Roses game on, alongside a large reenactor presence. Upstairs Steve was running a Wings of War demo, there was the Teddy Wild West game on again, a WW2 Bunker raid game, a WWI tank game of some sort and a Napoleonics naval battle run by the Leeds Games Club, among yet others.

There were all the usual traders, but by the time I was free to look around them they were packing up and besides, I'd come to sell on the Bring and Buy, not spend spend spend! In the event I made a sum total of £73 after some haggling at the end of the day.

I'm pleased to report the catering was as idiosyncratic as ever. The mint sauce was there for the pie and peas officianados; not for me though! A random sandwich (Ham and Onion apparently!), tea and Redbull got me through, just.

And my game? Well it nearly did me in, being sleep starved as I was (why did I go out the night before?). One photo for today; but a full report on it in days to come.

As ever a good little show to finish off the year; One where I get to see many an old gaming colleague, and catch up, so hellos go out to Neil, Phil, Tim, Chris and anyone else who I had a chat with. Over the course of the day I realised I've been to five shows this year and done display games at three of them; more than I would normally contemplate in two or even three years!

I'm knackered! I can't begin to imagine how some people do this every few weeks.

Recon tomorrow

2011-12-02T11:50:00.000Z

All my preparations are done, there are masses of figures in boxes and enough terrain clothes and junk in the back of the car to ensure I can keep warm and safe at least if the weather turns like it did last year.

Any blog readers who happen to be along are welcome to say hi, I'll be the stressed/bored looking dude in the Orange t-Shirt by the Poitiers refight stand most of the day.

Til tomorrow....

http://recon-wargames-show.blogspot.com/

Saga - Sacred Ground

2011-11-28T20:40:00.000Z

I watched Paul and Mark play out an encounter in the new Saga rules, prior to my getting a chance to play the rules myself.

The rules provide a variety of scenarios,and some of the most straightforward army lists ever for the four core factions. Paul's Vikings comprised one unit of Levy, One of Hearthguard and two of Warriors; whilst Mark's exchanged one unit of warriors for a second unit of Hearthguard but was otherwise the same.

Rather it is the special abilities, as dictated by each factions control chart that distinguish the forces. Thus whilst formed of the same three troop types, the four factions - Viking, Anglo-Danish, Welsh and Norman - are all very different in what they can do.

As to the scenario, well it required the warriors to take and hold the terrain features; both sides threw levy forward to try to seize the hills, but Mark was able to take an early lead by putting many of his finest warriors into the enclosures:

After which they pushed through to attack the hill.

Dane axes cut through the line of Thralls armed with only bows, and they soon retired to safety behind their own Hearthguard.

Paul's warriors counter attacked , and slaughtered a great many of the Danes. Leaving only the Lord of the Anglo Danish, standing, facing his Viking counterpart.

Further to his left, The Viking Bondi attacked the Angles on the other hill, spear and shield digging deep against fearful levies.

The Danes found themselves forced back by the devilish tactics and aggression of the Vikings (who at this stage had a clear advantage in command dice over the Danes, who had now lost their Warlord too)

However an abortive attack on the Danish held fields, gave pause to the Viking efforts to mop up the Danes, they rather concluded the game by bringing forth the remnants of the levy, to shoot arrows into the hedges instead.

A quick and fun little game with a simple scenario, though one that did not detract much from most wargamers preference for simply thrashing the other side! All over in about 90 minutes. I look forward to sending my Franks into the fray later this week.

Pretty figures

2011-11-26T17:18:00.000Z

I wasn't playing at the Headingley Club on Thursday, but as ever I was armed with the camera and looking to take pictures of attractive models. There were five figure games going on, a selection of fantasy and historical games, and mostly with painted models. Here are some of the highlights:

Some DBMM 15mm's, painted in the classic black lining technique. It's an oriental army of some sort, but don't ask me which one.

Part of a heavily demon tainted 40k Orc army. Stuff like this is always a dangerous temptation to me, as the Ork's are the one 40k army that you can really do anything you like with. I remember my old army sold at the start of the year as it was all conversions and scratch builds.. These put mine to shame though, and the Bad Moons paint job is lovely too.

Next up for the camera are Paul and Mark's Saga troops:

Paul's Vikings above, and Mark's Saxons below:

Next time I'll be looking at the game they played in more detail, with a full battle report...

More Poitiers Preparation

2011-11-24T22:31:00.001Z

Little more than a week to go to the big show, the army lists are decided, the terrain is gathered and the last of the figures have been painted.

Above is a unit of 18 French knights on foot. All the heraldry is historic, though I'm not going to go so far as to say it is of individuals present at Poitiers itself, I'm not that much of a perfectionist! The figures are from Perry miniatures Agincourt range, but designed so that most of the troops would not look out of place earlier, when their armour would be the leading edge of technology rather than a mix of qualities. Only the shields really make it apparent they are of the later period.

I also finished off 8 Brigands:

These were Front Rank miniatures I bought some years ago, second hand, at a show. There's nothing like a big game to get me working through the piles of lead! I had doubts about the weaponry, but it is authentic, the figure closest to the camera in particular is a 'Langue de Beouf' or Cow's Tongue spear.

In general terms I've decided for the day on basic infantry units of 18; though units of pike will be 24 and units of mounted knights will be at least 12 strong. Only a unit of skirmishers will be any smaller than these standards, and as a result I think I'm putting about 550 figures on the table.

The only thing left to arrange really is the deployments for the game. I could do with getting a map ready for the show, so I have some idea beyond the one in my tiny brain of where everything is going on the day.

Other than that, practically ready to go...

Let the wolves fight and lions rise - 68AD

2011-11-23T20:45:00.000Z

One of the newest visitors to the club, a chap called Richard, has a tidy little Roman army he was itching to use, and a copy of Hail Caesar he was hoping to learn to use. Well, what else could I do? Hence a two for one day with the Spartans, and a hypothetical battle that see Greece exploiting the chaos of the Roman Civil Wars to rise up for independence.

Each army was formed of two commands; the Romans being distinguished as one of cohorts of legionaries, and one of diverse auxiliaries, whilst the Greeks were formed in to two balanced forces combining both heavy and light troops. The battlefield was gentle open pasture with a small farm to the Greek right and a couple of clumps of woodland.

The Greeks won both deployment and first move, in a game played without any special scenario; we opted to sweep forward in an echeloned advance.

Sadly only the Spartan phalanxes heeded this call, the allied states holding back. In reply the Roman auxiliaries including recently recruited Celtic mercenaries rushed forward, whilst the main body of infantry in the centre stood and waited.

The advance of the Romans was enough to drive back some of the Greek skirmishers, but this only allowed the Thracian infantry to contact the Celts. A bitter struggle began which favoured the well timed Thracian attack, and it would take the support of Roman trained auxilia to even the contest. As to the exchange of bow-shot to their left, the Roman bows only came off worse against the well practised Greeks.

The Roman Commander decided he had waited long enough, and unleashed a single, implacable advance of all his Cohorts, some 3000 men, in the centre. They smashed into the Spartan phalanxes, with hurl of Pilum and thrust of Gladius.

And many Spartans fell. The retreat was only stayed by the arrival of the city allies, and the delaying tactics of the Psoiloi and Helots sweeping around the Roman flanks.

The Greeks had to throw their leaders and their bodyguards into the fray, and this cost them the commander in chief, cut down by a Roman Optio. However the Roman general himself was an indecisive sort, and his troops stood for want of orders whilst the Greek flank attacks took some pressure off the centre.

In places it was enough the hold the Romans entirely.

In others it was only a case of diminishing returns. The Greek Left defeated the Celts but at the cost of many Thracians, and there was little ability left, despite the ineffectual Auxilia troops before them (the Roman bow inflicted but one casualty all day), to affect a change of outcome.

In the centre the Romans did enough to seal a victory. The Greeks had to withdraw badly bloodied, in the face of a forceful enemy, though thankfully one unwilling to risk advancing to hard, which thus allowed most of the Greeks to escape.

When we called time on the game (after about two hours of leisurely play, the club hours were running out before our enthusiasm), the Greeks had lost two Spartan Phalanxes and a unit of Thracians, the Romans only a unit of Celtic Auxilaries. It was a clear but not comprehensive win for Rome. Richard enjoyed the game, and quickly picked up the style of play.

So it looks like there will be more games in the future. Pleasing, though I think the Greeks need a bit more balance to make a straight fight of it; those Roman cohorts are hard to beat!

Kings of War - a Spartan interlude

2011-11-21T21:47:00.000Z

I took another new player of Kings of War through a game on Sunday morning, Alan, previously an occaisional player of Warhammer put out his small force of Bretonnians against me. I had another game booked for later in the day, so in a moment of inspiration, assembled a KOW army from the force I needed later. Hence a, still fantasy free, Spartan army!

In fact, were it not for a token Pegasus, in Al's army, this would merely have been an anachronistic historical game using an effective but unlikely set of rules.

Al got to grips with the rules quickly enough, and was able to use some of my vavourite human units, mounted knights, to great effect. However ge also made some mistakes, for example fielding two regiments of bows with musicians and standards, rather than four troop with out add ons - which would have doubled his firepower. He also chose some of the largely useless artillery.

The battle came down to a tussle of human spearmen units with Knights. The better defence of the Spartans was as nothing against a Knights +2 strength modifier. As such, give me the extra attacks of pikes any day!

In the end it was only late in the game I pulled anything back, and by the end of turn five it was all over, with only a handful of me unit left. The spears in the photo below were about to be destroyed!

I was pleased to find that Al enjoyed the rules, especially the pace of them andthe ease with which they could be picked up. He then went on to play another game against one of the other attendees. The KOW rules are picking up a significant following at the club, and I hope it's not a flash in the plan, for the last few weeks there's been more games of KOW than Warhammer in the new venue. It's spurred me on to buy a proper copy of the rules too. Well at just £5 it was mean not to.

Whilst at the club I got snaps of my latest terrain for the club too:

A 20mm ruin for KG Normandy (WW2) and some sort of communication node for sci-fi games (40k, etc) made from old Battle for Macragge starter parts. The 20mm ruin is thin foamboard and Javis plasticard tile sheet on a wooden base, built and painted in an evening.

I'm looking forward to fighting for it!

Preparation for Pudsey Recon - Vienne 1356

2011-11-19T16:53:00.000Z

I've touched upon the topic of my doing a Display/Participation (more of the former I suspect) game to round of the year at the Pudsey Recon games show in the blog before. My intention being to refresh and dig out my massive Medieval collection for the job.

Stage one was to audit what models I actually had, it turned out a fair few. The Combination of English, French, Flemish, German and Navarrese troops I have in my Hundred Years War collection came to some 600 infantry and 80 cavalry, not to mention 6 cannon! Nevertheless there were some gaps and some models that could be improved upon, hence recent painting activity.

Stage two was to pick a battle, and for various reasons I've selected Poitiers, not least in that I'd already done a small and simplified version of the battle earlier this year, and fancied a second go at it.

Stage three has been to get the research right. To that end Ive been busy boning up on the period with a couple of useful tomes:

Next, I felt I needed to do my bit to promote the show, which thanks to the terrible weather was far too quiet last year! To be frank they do themselves few favours, by being rather 2001 about promotion rather than 2011. But I can help with that:

The full address for the venue is:

Pudsey Civic Hall, Dawson's Corner, Pudsey, Leeds, LS28 5TA

Or just off the Leeds outer ring road at the roundabout shown below:

The event this year is on 3 December, and runs from 10-4pm, with a host of the usual traders, and a Bring and Buy, and Hordes of The Things (15mm) tournament. I will be looking forward to seeing if the bar this year has it's usual overpriced fare and jug of mint sauce on hand...

Lastly, I've begun to get some games of Hail Caesar in again, to ensure I'm comfortable with the rules for the show. For a first practice run, I trotted out the lads for a hypothetical battle based on the Poitiers campaign.

Edward the Black Prince's Chevauchee, or great raid, was being harried hard by King John II, But Edward envisaged being able to beat the larger French enemy in detail if it could be caught crossing the Vienne river that lay between him and the French. In the end he never achieved this, and had to fight in more compromised circumstances (though ultimately, victoriously, in a close run battle), but this game supposed that the Gascons and English were able to catch the French crossing over the river.

The game was thus set with the French in mid crossing; only one unit was allowed over the bridge per turn and the bulk of their force was in column when the English appeared. The river was impassable save by the Bridge (the Vienne in real life is at least 100m wide in the region of Poitiers); other terrain was largely inconsequential.

The French with the first turn were able to face the Gascon knights and Shire yeomanry in some order, but made little progress. The Gascons under Captal de Buch advanced to, trying to form a supported attack along the river bank, but finding the supporting bowmen to be in some confusion, and too far back to engage early.

The first contact was made by the Gascons, and met with some success, though by the open woodland the French had the upper hand, near the River the Gascons killed or captured many French nobles.

The French had to reinforce with Pavisiers, and sent Genoese crossbowmen into farmland west of the river in the hope of flanking the enemy.

By the woods the French chivalry found itself massively outnumbered, it's impetuosity leading to it being trapped by exhausted Gascon knights supported by the Wolds, and Welsh bowmen and the personal retinues of both the Gascon and English commanders.

They managed to capture most of those left, but by now, both sides' cavalry was blown. An open field stood littered with the wounded and dying where once they had been. The French continued slowly to reinforce the bridgehead. whilst the English attempted to get into bow range.

Sadly for them, a mixture of blundered commands and weak spirit when faced by greater numbers saw the English retire out of range; and the battle ended as a tactical draw, but a strategic victory for the French, who retained the Bridgehead to bring the rest of their troops over.

A useful practice with small forces, not as Steve, who played the English assumed, the actual game I intended for the show; it's far too small for my blood Steve! No, this warm up was little more than a third the size, and mainly served to remind me of the rules I usually forget.

Back to the painting and scenery scrounging then...

Kings of War - Tournament Report

2011-11-18T13:13:00.000Z

Last weekend was the club's inaugural Kings of War tournament, which considering it was essentially a intra-club affair boasted a healthy 10 players.

I'd brought a slightly improved version of my Human army, featuring three units of Pike, three of bows, some heavy cavalry, some horse archers, a few Ogres and a couple of characters. I was reasonably confident as this army had shown itself very adept so far.

My first game was against Paul, who fielded an eccentric Dwarven/Pygmy force.

It was obvious to me that he hadn't player many games yet, as he came on to me all to willingly, allowing me to use my significant advantage in unit numbers to nullify his individual hitting power; one of the keys to the game!

The terrain funnelled his attackers towards my units allowing me to deal with them one at a time with overwhelming force.

In the end it was a swift, and comprehensive annihilation of the Dwarven force. On my last turn there was only his mechanical behemoth left, and when I was able to charge it with four units (totalling 86 attack dice) Paul conceded he wouldn't be getting a last turn!

So it was an easy and emphatic winning the first game. But the draw for the second round upped the stakes significantly. I was to face Mark's Elves; an army entirely formed of bow armed infantry.

The scenario was pillage, which meant only holding objectives mattered, and this looked to offer a glimmer of hope, but if too many Elves were left they would simply mop me up, so I would have to beging with an all out attack.

To that end my pike bravely marched into the hail of fire, hundreds of arrows slicing through their units.

Only one unit of pike made it to the enemy, and themselves only destroyed one unit before succumbing to horrendous losses. But they had bought time for my wizard to seize a second objective; and for my flank attacking cavalry and ogres to fall upon the enemy; who proved as brittle in combat as at range they were supreme.

I realised the game was within my grasp.

And so it ended. Having lost most of his army, Mark found he could only contest two objectives, whilst my caution in stationing an outclassed crossbow unit on one objective to my rear, and the wizard on another at the farm, meant I could claim two outright.

I'd won my second game, and perhaps inflicted a first defeat on the Elves.

But the final draw would prove the real grudge match.

Elsewhere a new attendee at the club, Richard was getting to grips with Andy's undead, and with so many players, most of the armies from the rules were represented somewhere, though on the day I think there were three human forces...

And so to the final round, and it would turn out the decider. Myself and Darren were ahead, and were facing one another, the winner would claim victory, the loser second. Over a battlefield with a lot of difficult terrain, and with both of us as wise old heads who would not fall for obvious tricks, a cagey battle would be fought.

One I forgot to photograph! However in essence the Orcs decided to hold back again and made the Humans do all the running. The combats were largely inconclusive until the last couple of turns, when the Orcs had done enough damage to deserve a victory.

So Darren was the winner on the day, whilst I shared second with Mark and Andy. Everyone got three games within a space of four hours or so, and with the success of this event behind us, the intention is to repeat with wider promotion in January 2012.

This represents my best ever performance in a tournament, and the least stressful one to boot. Huzzah for that. What a nice set of rules!

Like taking Candy....

2011-11-16T20:48:00.000Z

One factor to arranging games via a club web-forum, which I often do, is that sometimes you don't know who you are going to get as an opponent, until the last moment. Thursday's game was one of those; where it turned out my opponent was a precocious 9 or 10 year old son of one of the other club members.

Cue an evening of ADHD influenced gaming, where to lose to a child would be an emasculating humiliation. Pride dictated that I take the game seriously!

As it was, it presented a potentially tough match up of my Orcs and Goblins against High Elves. High Elves have several natural advantages - Goblins fear them, they always attack first, high leadership, fast, and so on. However, I could rely on experience; and so I deployed with a plan to use my fast troops to outflank him.

As one might expect from a novice, he fell for just these traps, allowing his general to be sucked into fight after fight with units it's equal and all the time to be exposed to (sadly inaccurate) artillery fire. He also allowed his cavalry to engage in a suicidal charge against my goblins.

As he charged in he released a Fanatic, who ended up in their line of attack; passing through him to their target did enough damage to destroy them, but even had that failed, 24 poisonous goblin bow shots would have followed, and a dangerous terrain test for another magical effect. All before any melee; the elves had no chance.

The same goblin unit, augmented repeatedly with the poison spell, withered away a unit of Swordmasters, whilst its' compatriots blocked the advance of a unit of spears. At the rear of his lines, my spider riders flanked a unit of bowmen, destroying them utterly, in time to counter the Elf general on his Griffon. So far the Orcs had done nothing.

The Spiders did enough harm to finish off the Elven general, leaving just a confused Griffon. Whilst the Elven spearmen easily beat the goblins before them, their pursuit left them exposed to a Mangler squig and the massed artillery of the Goblins. Not that this mattered, as the scenario was Blood and Glory, and by this stage without its' General the Elves were already beat.

Actually a pleasant game, but a relief to win, and avoid the shame of defeat by a child!

Elsewhere at the club, Mark and Andy were having another pop at KGN. Canadian Churchill tanks were having a bad time of it struggling through the Bocage:

Mark had a much smaller force, but it had access to defences and tricks, the Panzer IV at top of shot was in fact a fake; however it was Panzerfausts and Shrecks hidden in foxholes that were doing most of the damage. An authentic game indeed!

The Black Prince's Shire Bowmen

2011-11-13T22:16:00.000Z

I'm on something of a medievals' binge at the minute, what with the display game at the start of December, it's made me root through my boxes for extra troops. It turned out that on top of the Knights and Pavisiers of recent weeks, there are also some thirty or so longbows, a half dozen Brigands and a units' worth of men at arms.

Hence in the last few days I finished these chaps off:

The only thing to mention here is that I painted fast and neat using what I would call a live palette technique. That is to say, for example with the tunics, I started with a set shade of blue, painted two tunics with it (one of each pose) and then added another colour in a small amount to vary the tone. Rinse and repeat. This is a great technique to use with dip or shaded varnish, as you don't have to attempt to highlight all those random colours.

I reckon I've now about 110 long bowmen painted.

Besides these, I knocked out a bunch of terrain pieces for the new club, using the sort of junk that ends up ignored in the bottom terrain boxes plus some sections of wood Laurie provided.

Two Lustrian Jungles, A Norse (Celtic or Beast man) stone circle, a Medieval camp, and various woods and trees.

A Routine Sunday

2011-11-12T16:13:00.000Z

There were a variety of games going on last Sunday at the club, not least of which, I had another warm up game of Kings of War for the tournament this Sunday.

Darren had learnt from the previous drubbing I gave him and played a cagey game, making me come on to him, which reduced the advantage of the pike and all my flanking units; but in truth we should both have lost several times, but for oddity results on the far flank, where all the heavy cavalry units clashed. In the end, Darren edged it, but I'm still fairly confident for tomorrow.

Other games on show included the usual selection of Warhammer and 40k games, but also there was Flames of War, seeing a first timer with his Americans against Steve's Germans:

Pretty, but as ever in my view not a realistic reflection of WW2 tactics, just a game based on their range of models!

Also the club saw Mark's 6mm Lasalle Napoleonics rolled ot for a grand little battle.

Nightowls is on the look out for new members as always, the new location is closer to Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield than before, but still within Leeds and just off the ring roads. More details are here.

Rememberance Day

2011-11-11T09:50:00.013Z

Lament of the Dead

What if I should die before the dawn?

And if I should die before the dawn,

What news ho, of me in England?

How cry you now?

Oh, men of mice!

Safe last night you slept.

’Twas the wind of war,

Wot kept me awake.

How say you now friend,

Did we win?

That some sad price was paid

For the laughter of today

That they should not forget.

But never know

The ignominy

Of death

While in their moment’s of play.

Brave men died

Tho’ thousands of miles away

The same sun shone on both.

James Love

James Love served in, and wrote his poetry in relation to, the Falklands War of 1982. The last veterans of the Great War may now have gone to their rest, but in the years since World War One, British forces have been involved in at least 25 significant conflicts, with scarcely 20 years of 'Peace'. 2000 was the last year that Britain was not in a formal armed conflict with any other nation or insurgent force.

Wars of the 21st Century alone have been responsible for over 4 million deaths globally.

Let us never forget.

Kampfgruppe Normandy - Action at Pont Deux

2011-11-08T21:41:00.000Z

For me, the childhood nostalgia accociated with 20mm World War Two soldiers is a heady brew. Names like Airfix, Matchbox, Fujimi, ESCI, Hasegawa and Nitto conjure up vivid memories of my youth, making hamfisted attempts at assmbling plastic models and fighting endless battles accross the bedroom floor. To this day there is perhaps no pleasure in my gaming hobby, quite like that of a table of plastic soldiers and tanks squaring up for a classic engagement.

Hence my joy at Kampfgruppe Normandy (KGN) reigniting interest in the 20mm scale at my local clubs. Time to blow the dust off my Americans and return to the battles of Northern France. Just setting up the battlefield and taking photo's of the troops made my inner 8 year old's heart sing in pleasure!

I set up the battlefield before Mark arrived, and discovered that the Headingley Club didn't have any roads! I'll have to sort that out. Otherwise the effect was pleasingly retro. My force of an American Armoured platoon with support from a squadron of Sherman's and some other equipment was to to make an attack across the river in the face of initially light German resistance.

I immediately found my force was short on command, and so progress was slow; one section of infantry decamped into thick woodland where a 57mm gun had deployed overnight, whilst another tried to set up a fire position by the bridge. Shermans' lumbered forward to put suppressive fire on the opposite bank.

However, I carelessly exposed one of my tanks to a flanking shot from the only German tank on the field at the time. Mark's Stug easily punched through the weak side armour of my 'Ronson'. On my next turn another Sherman moved to a hull down position on a slight rise and started to trade shots. But it's ineffectual 75mm rounds had no luck at the range against the slabs of German plate.

Meanwhile my infantry were getting bogged down by enemy artillery and machine gun fire. I began to respond with fire missions from 4.2 inch Mortars and the arrival of an M16 AA Half Track in the anti-infantry role; but German reserves were arriving too.

A Tiger tank and two more Stugs! Of course as far as the Americans were concerned it was all Tigers and the reports down the radio were claiming that we'd encountered a Waffen SS Regiment! A solitary M10 took a brave shot at the tiger and then ran off to try and deal with the Stug on my left. Dice were not on my side for much of the game; as this roll in particular showed; I only needed threes to hit:

The M10 destroyed a stug, and Divisional artillery requests successfully brought down 105mm fire on the Tiger, stalling it's advance. But similarly my own infantry were pinned down in the woods, and the best they could achieve was to pepper the open woodland ahead of them with everything they had.

And besides, by now German light troops, and SDKFz 222 and infantry were dashing into my rear lines and soon all my tanks and guns were destroyed. The Americans began an unsurprising, ignominious withdrawal in the face of indestructible armour. Infantry losses were light, but with the hulks of five burning vehicles it was a bruising for our green infantry.

As to the rules; I loved them! I think the balance in these attack and defence games needs some consideration (I think the attacker needs 50% more points if the defender is hunkered in at the start), but otherwise it all worked quite well. I also feel it needs some bigger tables to play over to get a sense of range, but it still played pleasingly on a standard 6 x 4.

I'm really looking forward to more games, and it may even tempt me in to a little German force yet again. No! must resist!!!

Two Unrelated Painting Projects

2011-11-06T20:01:00.000Z

Towards the end of October I made a rare addition to my Orcs and Goblins again, thanks to a donation of some unused parts from Jason's Arachnarok spider. Having access to all the howdah parts and weapons, as well as all the goblin crew bar the Shaman; I wondered what use they could be put to.

The solution, having looked at the price of Forest goblins on-line, was to turn them in to a war machine and crew instead of a full unit.

To do this I was able to use the web caster to create a plausible artillery piece, which will fit in to my army as a Rock Lobber. The howdah parts were fitted together in a typically gobliny style, which their design suited well.

As to the crew, one was ideal. As for the others, one spearman suited crew duties, and his spearhead was removed to become a sword on a bowman figure, who with the addition of a shield became the crew commander.

The completed model, is a little small, but quite charming I think.

Also in a way charming, are these little M5 scout tanks I picked up at Fiasco:

A quick paint job in the style of my other WW2 american tanks took a matter of an hour to do. Then it was just the basing and they'd be ready for the battlefield.

Kings of War, Bring and Try...

2011-11-05T16:41:00.000Z

A couple of weeks back we had a few games of Kings of War at the club, in a warm up for a little local tourney of the rules. I took my Human/Dogs of War army again, having been impressed by it's first run out. My first game was against a very compact force of Abyssal Dwarves (Chaos Dwarves for you GW-philes).

I was able to anchor my centre on the stone walled field to my right and allowed the Dwarves to come on to me. The only other unit Steve then had was of heavy Centaur cavalry; which I could send my Ogres, Knights and a Hero to counter.

Once they were despatched my centre manoeuvred a little to break up the attack of the now funnelled-in Dwarves. Their advance was slow and disrupted, and it allowed me to get my cavalry and pikemen into its flanks.

Steve complained bitterly that my Pike are massively underpriced, and that this put paid to his having any chance of winning. Since they had only one less point of Nerve than his equivalent troops, only slightly higher to hit rolls, but twice as many attacks and cost only two thirds the points, he is probably correct; but it's staggeringly rare for me to own an unfairly competitive army, so for now I'm not swapping them!

Elsewhere there were several other games ongoing; Darren and Andy got to grips with the Orcs and the Undead:

Whilst Mark and Laurie got together two different takes on the Elven list.

One thing I love about the rules is that you can get a game done in about an hour at this size - equivalent to a 1500-2000 point Warhammer game. In fact the game is often played timed, with 5 minute turns, run out of time before the end of the game and you lose by default, so no dithering!

This meant everyone had time for a second battle, I found myself against Darren's Orcs this time.

And I have to be honest, looking at his army, I knew the same plan would work so I scarcely changed a thing, except the deployment of my useless cannon! Darren's was another army with too many big units that hit hard, but had no tactical flexibility, only this time he had virtually no firepower. As a result I was able to stand off and shoot his infantry, whilst putting his cavalry effectively out of the fight on the flank. His centre ended up surrounded and destroyed. Another victory for me.

I love the pace of the rules, and their simplicity, unlike Warhammer everything is clear and in one rulebook, there is no massive set of contradictory rules for each army to get your head around. As a result it lacks the flavour of Warhammer, but it is much more generic and flexible, and above all fast. You could play a game with several hundred figures each, in a couple of hours. The rules would easily represent the battles of Tolkein, Moorcock or Robert E Howard. Moreover the new army lists are more varied, and try to represent several possible builds of certain armies, so now you can make your Elves High elfy, or Wood elfy; you can make the Humans very Empire-esque, or more Brettonian, or more Dogs of War. Variety is well covered.

And as for the Tournament, well details are on the Leeds Nightowls forum (via the website) but essentially it's a 1000 point army using one of the Kings of War army lists from the 2nd edition rulebook. The event itself is at the new Farsley venue on the 13th November 10-3pm. I'm sure you can turn up and play...

A quick look at Saga

2011-11-04T18:31:00.000Z

Not the holiday company thankfully, I've plenty of time before I'm eligible for that; no the recent Dark Age Skirmishing rules from Gripping Beast.

The rules are nice and glossy, and well presented, but at £25 or so for 75 pages and four playsheets, even in full colour, as a paperback edition these seem overpriced.

Still the gameplay looks to be very nice, the formations are small and loose and command and control is based on the roll of a number of specially marked D6 (you can use normal ones too). Once rolled, the results of these will allow the player to allocate them to different actions, some basic - such as moving or fighting a round of melee - and others more specialised, and unique to each nation, e.g. Intimidation and so on.

I must admit to not paying enough attention to the combat mechanism, but it seemed straightforward enough (I wasn't actually playing, in my defence). As did morale.

Overall my main concerns are thus twofold; the price and the flexibility. Skirmish rules cannot restrict themselves to stand-up fights, I don't see any reason why they cannot work with a variety of scenarios, but these may as much down to the inventiveness of the players...

Additionally, this was the first day of the Leeds Nightowls new venue actively running. The space is very comfortable, but mayber not as roomy as we first thought:

However, should we take a long term lease on the space there is the offer of the converted basement space for the same price, which would more than double our capacity, should we need it...

October's Output

2011-11-01T20:57:00.000Z

September was a dismal pledge result, but October has at least met the monthly targets.

I've already shown the Raziel NK-X, but additionally I managed to turn all the spares from an Arachnarok Spider Forest Goblin crew into a serviceable Skullchucka catapult. Photos to follow on that folks but pictures are definitely ready of my first new Dogs of War unit in ages:

Il Regimento Panettone, in a fetching black with purple highlights and red details uniform.

Secondly I managed a quick and easy unit of Pavisiers for my 100 Years War French; these will prove useful at the start of December when I put on a display game at Pudsey Recon...

These are done with my usual mass production technique, black varnish glaze. Less black this time has provided a much better result!

The numbers for the month then were a mere 32 points, but that's much better and leaves me on a total of 425 versus a target to date for the year of 300.

Getting back to normal I think.

Another Fiasco!

2011-10-31T21:25:00.000Z

One bizarre feature to this year's Fiasco, was its' unexpected sharing of space with the Leeds book of Remembrance for Sir Jimmy Saville; whether this had any effect on attendance, I wouldn't begin to imagine, but in some ways it was hard to tell who was there for what.

Once inside it was just another wargames show. The space as you can see from above, is big and spacious, with a refreshingly high ceiling making it quite airy despite a lack of natural lighting. It's the same room as last year, and despite the ongoing gloomy climate there seemed to be plenty of traders around.

What did not feel as plentiful in my opinion was decent games, there were a good few games as pictures will attest to, but other than a couple of Crusades games, little with a real visual impact. Too many games on a small scale for me! Still Diving in, first to catch the eye through the door was Pultaneys 13th Regiment of Foot with a Culloden game:

Striking uniforms compensated for the little models lost on a big board.

Leeds Nightowls was represented well, with Mark's representation of the Battle of Delphinium:

Although the felt cloth looked a little plain, I think the simple terrain was remarkably effective, and Mark's figures (virtually all Immortal and Wargames Factory plastics) looked excellent.

Moving on, for spectacle it was as mentioned, to the crusades one had to go to. One game was part of a rules launch, about which I know, or enquired for, no information.

Still, its simple terrain was well presented and the models were excellent eye candy. The Crusades are one of those periods I've never pretended to be interested in, but I always go for pretty at shows...

A runner up for spectacle, was this six mil Gettysburg what if from 'Bart Fegg's Club for Naughty Boyd and Girls' (go figure).

Beautiful scenery. I'm pretty sure this was at Triples earlier this year, and it still looks good, the only problem is again, the size of the models. 6mm gives great scope but I am not a fan of the visual appeal at a show. But then I do very little gaming in this scale, so it is a personal judgement.

If you wanted to see a crowd, you could do worse than combine cult TV, wargames, shiny toys, and a young woman in a suggestive t-shirt! This was the winning formula for attention on the Crooked Dice stand, for their 7TV system.

I've heard a little about these before, they essentially aim to allow the replaying, or fighting of battles as staged in cult tv and movies. Think Doctor Who (for whom they have a proper license, impressive), Bond, The Avengers, etc. How popular it was is anyone's guess, put it is certainly a polished product.

More humble, Wakefield's entry, a smugglers game of some sort I believe:

By comparison Barnsley put on a 10mm WW2 game, that looked quite nice, but again pretty small stuff.

The Lance and Longbow society and the Pike and Shot society combined efforts to put on a DBA Aztecs versus Conquistadores game. To be honest, with the combined efforts of two societies, I would have hoped they could have made it look a bit more attractive. The camouflage sheeting as a base is an offence unto the god of wargaming!

By contrast, and beack to spectacle, 28mm and the Crusades, the Ilkley Lads put on a refight of Harran in 1104 ad.

Great terrain, great figures.

Out front Legendary Wargames put on a WW1 dogfight participation game. Nice enough, but lacking in their usual impact, I would have hoped for another big 28mm game here...

On a final pass one more game caught my eye. I'm not sure who put it on, but it was clearly a zombie game, making I would suggest ingenious use of a set of Gulf War terrain.

Now that's a zombie horde!

So, I'm sorry to say, I was a bit disappointed by the games on display. No big epic flintlock period games, only one ancient game and the prettiest items on show were either periods or scales I'm not bothered by.

As for shopping, our club splurged £200 on terrain, which was pleasing, but for myself it was less than £20 on a couple of 20mm Stuart tanks and two Books on the Napoleonic Wars. The best aspect of the day was as ever at shows, the catching up with friends, and in this case, going to the pub afterwards for a few hours of chat and a couple of beers.

A good day out, by association; but Fiasco still struggles to impress; if it wasn't on my doorstep, I wouldn't lose any sleep over missing it.

Another "Gotta Go" Moment

2011-10-27T22:54:00.000+01:00

I'm actually kinda sad about this one, as my AK47 armies were at one time a great love of mine, but as I've used them three times or so in the last ten years, and have no opponents for them, I can't really justify keeping four separate armies for them.

And so on eBay you'll find these:

My, used once, United Nations Intervention force. 20 vehicles and 60 figures is here. Whilst for those on a more modest budget, or with an eye to the contemporary, there are these:

Seven vehicles and 18 figures, representing a mercenary contingent. These can be found here. Obviously given recent events I can imagine a number of uses for them...

Lovely 15mm models, some of which I've customised myself, and several of which I made the masters for! Still you have to know when to say farewell, and having lumped these models through seven house moves in the last ten years with nary a game. It's time to let them go to a better place.

Sensible bids welcome!

Of Blood Knights and Comets

2011-10-25T21:22:00.002+01:00

I was back to Jason's place for another bigger game of Warhammer. 4000 points each, with me fielding my Vampire Counts against his Dogs of War. On an unnaturally sunny day the Undead hordes lined up against the might of the Border Princes

Jason's left was covered by artillery and a small unit of crossbowmen, next to them, a horde of Norse with flails and a mighty giant.

To my right to face them, was a swarm of bats, some dire wolves, a unit of Black Knights led by a Vampire and a Wight and a unit of Ghouls. Just out of sight, a small unit of Grave Guard with the army general; another Vampire.

On Jason's right a forest split his command. On one side of it Beorn's Bearmen, to the other a horde of Dwarven crossbows were flanked by Leopold's Leopard company and Ricco's Republican guard. Another cannon and a wizard or two finished the job.

For me it was another couple of Ghoul units, a large force of Blood Knights led by a vampire, a horde of 40 skeleton spears and lastly a Black Coach.

With battle joined I rushed to engage the living on my own terms, I tried to close the distance and get some big kicker spells off, but it didn't go too well. In particular on his first turn, Jason sniped out the Black coach with a cannon and ended up scoring some 350 points of casualties on my side, for no loss in return.

The only things at this stage in my favour, were the composition and deployment of Jason's force. His large units meant there was a lot of empty space on the battlefield, moreover, putting three of the units on the extreme flank meant I could delay them with a minimal force and concentrate on beating the rest in detail before they could engage. I hastily amended my battle plans thus...

Jason, in my opinion, obliged me by charging his Bearmen into a wood to attack threatening Ghouls. This allowed me to tie them up for a turn to allow the Blood knights to inflict a devastating flank charge.

Elsewhere it wasn't all going so well, Jason summoned repeated Comets of Cassandora to blast my centre. Also my Black Knights being slaughtered for minimal reward, and the Dire wolves with them. But the bats had engaged the artillery park, and after suffering heavy losses, the Norse Marauders were destroyed by the Grave Guard. Jason sent his Giant into the fray, but it succumbed to the vile savagery of my Vampire lord...

And by this stage things were turning the Undead's way, despite losing out to gunfire and magic on every turn, I was beating Jason in combat everywhere. In particular he was suffering from the Vampires and the Blood Knights.

One in particular.

Having destroyed Beorn, the Blood knights followed up into an idling wizard, who quickly fell. Then they pursued onwards into the Dwarves. The start of the turn looked like this:

And this was the end of it:

And very nearly the end of the game. A Vampire with the lore of Death had used Purple Suns to keep the units of Pike at bay. Whilst a final threat of a comet cleared the centre of the battlefield. I summoned a few zombies to tie up Jason's remaining artillery and looked to disengage, hoping we'd done enough damage.

And as it turned out, we'd both done enough for a respectable draw, each with around 1800 points left. It's fair to reiterate that Jason's deployment let him down, as he admitted himself, once he'd deployed his Dwarves in the wrong place he felt obliged to support them. Whereas I could ignore them. However, in his favour, he out shot me and ruled the magic phase; so overall it was pretty close.

Kampfgruppe Normandy

2011-10-24T20:42:00.001+01:00

Spurred by their present sale and the opportunity I had to look at a copy of the rules a week or so ago, I succumbed to buying a copy of the Warhammer Historical World War Two rules.

Now, had I not had any chance to look at the rules before I would have presumed them to simply be another reworking of the Warhammer 40k game engine, as used for The Great War rules. I've dabbled with Warhammer World War two in the past, and whilst they worked adequately, they were not especially distinct or innovative. I would have passed on a £24 version of them (never mind a £48 version!)

But I can happily report that these rules are nothing of the sort. Although based on a purely D6 system, it is far more thought out than Warhammer and contains a number of features to reflect the fog of war and the reality of battle at a relatively small scale.

The rules are for combined actions in the Normandy theatre specifically, dealing typically with engagements of platoon to company scales, though for those with the time and space, Battalion scaled battles can be accommodated. It is early, and I haven't yet read the rules in full, or played them, but items I like based on first reviewing include:

Although the rules are IgoUgo, a player can set up his units to interrupt the opponent's turn.
You can only activate as many elements of your force per turn as you get randomised command points for, plus the value of command assets you've purchased for your order of battle.
You can always fire for suppression at a target, but aimed fire requires observation.
Hitting a target is much the same for any firer at a given range, it is down to the concealment of an enemy as to how effective those hits are. Units running around under the enemies guns, in the open, will get slaughtered by fire.
Similarly anti tank fire is effected very clearly by armour. If a tank's armour is too thick and the firers gun too weak, there is no chance of destroying the target, though on a double six you do get lucky and immobilise it.
Suppression stops units acting until the commander uses morale chips to remove them.
Artillery cover can be dedicated or limited, so there is no guarantee of getting it when you need it.
Air cover is even less certain.
Several actions require the use of morale chips, and when you use a morale chip it reduces your overall morale by a random value. Your force morale is based on mainline units in your order of battle. Run out of morale points and your force is broken and the game ends.

In short I like a lot of the core mechanics and they are nothing like 40k!

Also they are only the first quarter of a 360 page, full colour rule book. Also included are 8 army lists (4 German and two each for the Americans and British), 2 campaigns, a tonne of background and no end of scenarios. Given the production values, one can see why the book was priced originally at the astronomical price of nigh on fifty quid; but at half that it represents a veritable bargain!

The rules talk throughout about 20mm scale gaming, my first love, and lean towards, but don't depend on single based miniatures. I think those with flames of war armies would have no difficulty using these rules instead, though I feel the game will be slower and more realistic by comparison. Additionally small games with 28mm models will probably work well enough.

Given the apparent situation at Warhammer Historical/Forgeworld*, I wonder what future these rules really have, but if they play as well as they look I'm sure internet support will develop for them. Hopefully other theatres will be covered in the event of such success.

I certainly look forward to giving them a try, and if nothing else they are a rich seam of material to mine for any WW2 gamer.

*Incidentally, indicative of FW's mindset, and part of the problem with my copy of a historical set of rules, I received catalogues for their ranges of resin models for GW's premier fantasy and Sci-Fi gaming systems. No use to me, or many other of the buyers of these rules I think, and straight into the recycling. FW does not seem to understand its new subsidiaries audience and so is wasting money marketing wrongly at them. Yes, they have nothing to offer that audience, making no historical models; better to say nothing at all therefore than to annoy your customers with 'junk mail'.

Kings of War Double Header

2011-10-21T20:09:00.000+01:00

One of the Nightowls is running a small tourney of Kings of War on the 13th of November. In the run up to that a lot of the club would need introducing to the game of course, and so we ran a couple of intro games at the Headingley club the other week.

I had a game against Andy, who took on the role of the Orcs and Goblins, versus my Kingdom of Men:

Thousand point Kings of War armies are about the size of Warhammer armies of 1500-2000 points. My units of Pike were supported by cavalry on the flanks, against Orcish hordes flanked by goblin masses.

The Orcs came on forcefully, but the key to KOW in my experience (more than other players at the club, at nearly a half dozen games!) is not to expose your flanks. Andy found my heavy attacking force of Cavalry and Ogres rather too effective.

Whilst in the Centre, the small units of crossbows drew in the Orcs to be outflanked by Pikemen and Heroes.

And it turns out that the second key to a strong attack is sequencing. Attack first when fresh, expect to bounce off, but also expect to survive the response of the enemy, then finish him with the second round of attacks. \ideally with flank support. In the end the Orcs fell to experience of the rules more than anything! All over in less than an hour, we even played timed turns and I think I stopped the clock on 25 minutes!

Besides my victory, Mark and Amric had a game with Men fighting the Undead:

I have a feeling it was two nil for the Humans on the night, suggesting that the new army list for them is very potent, or that Kings of War has suffered army creep just like certain other games before it!

Or it could be, that me and Mark knew the rules better than our opponents. Ha ha ha! Anyway, there is a bigger trial of the games due for this weekend, so we shall see...

But at £5 for a complete set of rules and 8 army lists, as a game you can learn fully in the course of your first time playing and play in under an hour; what's not to like?

Thracians for Sale

2011-10-18T19:37:00.000+01:00

With a heavy heart but a light wallet, another of my armies that I've not used in the last five or more years has to go to the great online auction site in the sky:

Just over a 150 Thracians, featuring infantry and cavalry.

Painted and based to my standard style of a few years back, using a shaded varnish to bring up the detail and protection.

Sadly there just isn't justification for keeping them any more, and I could do with the money, sad to say.

It's all 20mm plastic, mostly Hat and Zvezda models and as you can see in good nick. If you are interested in owning them yourself, the auction is here: Linky

Anima - Raziel NK-X

2011-10-17T20:18:00.000+01:00

Having made some wargaming money on a couple of big sales, I treated myself to a pair of big figures for my Anima Tactics collection. The first to get completed being a centrepiece for my Black Sun force:

An undead knight and supposedly the most powerful necromantic creation to date of Black Sun, the Raziel NK-X is a seemingly unstoppable primal force. In game terms they seem staggeringly powerful, especially as I've equipped mine with two huge weapons.

The painting of this model was a breeze, as it is really only a mass of dark armour, a little undead flesh and a few touches of black. This hides the fact that the construction of the model was an epic however; being a kit, without instructions, of around twenty parts. A lot of dry fitting, reference to illustrations and the pinning of virtually every joint was required to assemble this figure. And even then, I suspect those barbed metal whips won't survive very long. In short, it is not one for beginners; confident modellers only need apply!

Nor is it particularly cheap, but on the table it is likely to be an imposing presence, as you can see from the size comparison against a regular Type 005 above.

For now this is my Black Sun force complete, with some 300 levels available to me. Next up for Anima is an addition to my Azur Alliance forces to build them up in a similar fashion.

Village of the Damned

2011-10-16T14:16:00.000+01:00

I had my first game of Warhammer Fantasy in what seems like ages a couple of weeks ago, in fact it was probably more like a month or so. However it is fair to say that I've being playing a wider variety of games over the summer, and trying to get more historical games in to the mix. Still it was nice to dust off the troops once again.

I was playing Neil's revitalised Tomb King army at 1500 points, when I say revitalised, it is fairer to point out that at this point they looked an awful lot more like Skaven than the ancient dead reanimated. Still they are a work in progress, whereas my Orcs and Goblins have essentially been finished for many a year.

With a village occupying the centre of the battlefield, it was little surprise that we both leaned towards the more open flank of the table, and true to form, the Tomb Kings castled all their forces into one corner of the table anyway. This seems to maximise their tactical advantages, though it does have it's downsides too. A ripe target for template spells, war machines and the like, not to mention reducing the ability of the army to manoeuvre or retire safely.

For my part it was a large block of Orc Big un's, a couple of small units of goblin bowmen (with a single fanatic each) and two units of goblin fast cavalry. With three lords to bolster my key units and a little magic, I was undecided as to how I would do, but the tactics were to outflank and pick off novelty units before the Big un's went in to smash his big blocks.

The fast cavalry were to prove pre-eminent in this stated task, not least as Neil was not used to their flexibility. Early in the game my wolf riders wrapped round his flank, to respond Neil turned two heavy infantry units to face, assuming I would have to attack one of those head on. But instead I was able to declare a charge on his exposed Casket of Souls, rolling it over and hitting the flank of the unit next to it. He hadn't allowed for fast cavalry's ability to change formation any number of times, or for the nine inch move speediness of Goblin cavalry.

Meanwhile the Spider riders took on the forces he thought would tie up the Wolves, with poison.

The other thing making life difficult for Neil at this stage was my Goblin wizard, a mere level two, but thanks to Mushrooms, pumping out his topline spell with staggering frequency. Much like a released fanatic, even if it didn't hit the enemy, it was enough of a threat to their front that most of his army now remained tied into the corner.

Eventually Neil destroyed the Wolves, but by this point the Spider riders were in to him instead, and having swapped positions the Orcs were bearing down on his Undead phalanx, whilst valiant Goblin bows covered their rear. Neil was certainly trapped, but fighting hard.

But luck was on my side, the Forest Goblin Warlord surviving everything thrown at him, and few things being able to stand in the way of a horde of angry - armed to the teeth - eight foot tall Orcs.

A final sweeping charge and it was all over for the Tomb Kings. A game that probably felt closer than the outcome actually was, Neil is a cagey player, but I completely blind-sided him with my well practised use of light troops and mobility. And so, an army list that failed dismally on it's first outing, with a few tweaks proved rather effective.

One should also add that this was my last game at the LWC. Not that I realised this at the time...

Warhammer Historicals; WTF is going on?

2011-10-14T12:59:00.000+01:00

You're well informed indeed if you are aware GW's historical rules arm, is having a massive sale; even better informed if you are aware of all the rules they now produce.

Currently on the Warhammer Historical website there is 50% off all books, rules or supplements including all the Warhammer Ancients series (looking pretty dated now of course), Legends of the Old West, Trafalgar, etc. But What about Kampfgruppe, their WW2 rules? or Gladiator and Waterloo? I was only vaguely aware of the WW2 rules, having appeared as a tiny notice in one of the gaming rags, and really only registered the laughable price of £48 (now £24) for the hardback rules, as to the others; I was mystified. When the hell did they release a set of Napoleonics rules!?!

How can a company as big and well organised as GW allow product to dribble out with such anonymity, that when it is reduced to clear, it's the first time people have even heard of it? The answer to my mind, is that in the many headed serpent that is the Workshop, the historical arm is not getting the sustenance it needs to thrive, and so it is dying off.

This sale feels like an attempt to clear stock before the operation is shut down, if it's an attempt to drum up interest in new product, surely more publicity would help? would it kill them to plug the rules in White Dwarf for once for example? No, it feels like the days are numbered for Warhammer Historical.

Get your bargains whilst you can...

Linky

French Knights

2011-10-11T21:16:00.000+01:00

All of the painting from September in one photograph! Rejoice!

As stated earlier I didn't paint much of anything last month. This was it, and these very nearly didn't make it even. Still a unit of six of the flower of French chivalry (and although simple, they are authentic heraldry's of the early Hundred Year War period) completed.

This is timely, as I've committed myself to putting on a display game at Pudsey Recon in December, and an enlarged version of my Poitiers game from a few months back is looking like the prime candidate. I'm hoping I can field 500 or so models over a seven by five playing area.

It means painting a few more models too, so progress should pick up.

As to these models though, it is fair to say that the black wash was far too heavy. It looks worse in the photograph than it really is, but it is still too severe. I'm out of practice!

Leeds Nightowls Fly to Pudsey

2011-10-11T09:15:00.000+01:00

In the fallout of the LWC closing down (we cleared out all our stuff at the weekend) the Leeds Nightowls have managed to find a new home, away from central Leeds but thankfully still technically within the city borders!

The new home is in the Farsley Conservative Club, in Pudsey. Now I must admit as a confirmed anarcho-syndicalist, I had grave concerns that the place would be a bit of a socialists nightmare draped in flags and pictures of Maggie Thatcher standing over her vanquished foes. But it transpires it is the most working class of clubs and the new accommodation, even if only a temporary measure, is large enough and comfortable enough for our needs.

Essentially a mile off the outer ring road of Leeds it is pretty easy to find and close enough to Pudsey rail station to walk to, as well as being on several bus routes. Parking seems plentiful.

The opening times for the club will initially be 10-3pm every Sunday, starting from this weekend (the 16th October). There is a possibility of the hours being pushed back a bit in future, if those of us who get hangovers can get our way! But for now it is an excellent stopgap. We got all our kit in on Saturday and hopefully we'll get a good turn out at the weekend to get things rolling...

Sad Passings

2011-10-06T12:47:00.003+01:00

Obviously today, for a lot of people, it will be a day of mourning for the passing of Steve Jobs. Mr Apple. Personally the only Apple product I have is a mk.1 Shuffle I found in the street, and it lives in the car, unused; but I can certainly appreciate his vision and ability to reshape an entire industry. I have him to thank for the fact I'm not sat typing this up at a grey box, and I have a touchscreen phone with practically the entire world inside it by my side. That aside he was anti-conformist and a firm believer in pursuing your own goals rather than compromise, that is hard not to like.

In more local news, the sad but strangely inevitable news that the Leeds Wargames Centre is to close it's doors after barely six months was announced yesterday. It's tough times for any business, new or established, but the suddenness of the decision caught us off guard. We were aware that Craig, the owner, with a baby on the way and demands for a more realistic income and lifestyle, was taking on a real job in IT and hoping to sell the business on as a going concern of some description. That came a cropper however, as his lease negotiations were giving the landlord enough grounds to simply get a new tenant. Cue a sudden closure.

This leaves the Leeds Nightowls effectively homeless, last night was the last official opening date (and I was busy with a date, so only turned up late to find out the news). In the short term as a club, we'll have to clear our stuff out and go on a hiatus, however the Headingley gaming club still meets on Thursday and the Leeds Gaming club is open on a Wednesday (having, it now transpires, wisely not pinned their colours to Craig's mast). Gaming will continue, but for some of the former attendees, I imagine they will return to their spare rooms and garages rather than a club community. This is a shame.

As for Craig, I think he walks away from this older and wiser, but fortunately has a job and escape plan to protect him. The LWC was a valiant effort, but in the end a failed one. There are still talks ongoing for a future club site, and even more brave souls willing to throw themselves to the fore in creating a new commercial venue; I wouldn't do it myself, but all the best to them.

Still RIP, LWC.

A Dismal Performance

2011-10-04T09:01:00.000+01:00

The laptop is away, so whilst I can still play, the blog is pretty compromised.

Another thing I've not done a lot of since the move at the end of August, is paint. Although I now have the 'luxury' of separate a kitchen and a large living room, the painting has now been exiled to the bedroom, and I simply don't spend enough time in there to get much done - other than sleeping!

The sum total for September painting wise was therefore a mere 6 French knights to add to my Medievals' collection; and photo's will have to wait until the computer comes back from repairs. This still leaves me well up on the year, in fact I may not have to paint anything more to his the annual target, but what with one thing and another, it's been the weakest month in a couple of years for painting output.

I know I am the only one expecting it, but I still expect better!

Kings of War 2nd ed. and a minor setback

2011-09-26T13:30:00.000+01:00

Well, to add to the constant interruption of service her at toomuchlead towers, the shiny new Samsung notepad, expired at the weekend (or some point before, whilst I was away), and so posts will yet again be affected whilst I get the warranty to apply and replace it.

In other news, I have got hold of a pre-release version of the new edition of Kings of War. At first glance there are a few changes to the detail of the rules, but really only cosmetic to speed up play and reduce reference to tables. Of more interest to all are the expanded army lists which now cover eight races:

Abyssal (Chaos) Dwarfs
Dwarfs
Elves
Goblins
Humans
Orcs
Twilight Kin (Dark Elves)
Undead

Some of the older lists appear to be expanded to allow for alternate builds, such as Tomb Kings-esque undead, to be catered for. Hopefully some of the weaker forces have been balance a bit more (Mantic had already dealt quite well with this), and it is pleasing to note that the human list has such a broad variety that pretty much any build can be considered. The list certainly covers my Dogs of War and medieval armies perfectly.

Hopefully I can get a game or two in soon, and try them. With any luck by that stage I should have my third laptop of the year and be able to show you properly what I think of them...

Hail Caesar - A Full Review

2011-09-20T22:58:00.000+01:00

A regular has asked for a full review, and after several games of Hail Caesar, I feel in a position to actually enter onto the same.

So essentially we have here a two hundred page hard back rulebook, in lavish colour throughout, as is the way these days. The mechanics of the rules are probably about half of this , and are clearly presented and well explained with plenty of diagrams. After one or two reads, play can largely be conducted from the 9 page summary at the back of the rules.

So how do these rules shape up against other systems, how do they work. Well , my previous experience includes Warhammer, Armati and DBM so I will reference these as I see fit. HC shares aspects of some of these rules, but is largely different from all of them, and any similarity is likely to be coincidental.

The core mechanic is based on Black Powder, which in turn was descended from Warmaster, perhaps Games Workshops best (if still imperfect) set of rules. Formations of troops are grouped together to form 'divisions' within an army, and each division is led by a General - one of which is identified as commander in chief. Units do not have casualties removed, rather they are marked in some way during the game to show losses. Therefore single figures are not essential, though multiple bases for a unit are valuable to represent formation changes. Figures based for DBM would work perfectly with this. The rules recommend basic unit sizes of 16-24, though we have found units of 12-16 to be perfectly satisfactory.

Units move by being given orders, an order being a clearly defined instruction announced by the commander to the opponent(s); such as," the Saxon Thegns will advance around the wood to their left to turn the flank of the Norman line". two d6 are then rolled against the command value of the general. the result allows 1 to 3 actions in the event of a success, or may fail, or even result in a blunder (a random move, usually with undesired results!). Fail and you stop issuing orders with that commander; though the commander in chief has the right to order one re-roll per turn.

Whilst players often overstretch themselves at first with this mechanic, a few games teach you that restraint is wiser, otherwise there is a good chance troops will be left hanging or lagging behind. Two other points are that units can move of their own accord once within 12 inches of the enemy; but once they are,they have to align to the nearest enemy and can no longer try clever moves. This ensures tighter battlelines.

The resultant tendency to maintain formations and fight in a clear battleline has more in common with Armati and DBM than Warhammer, which always looks like a Hollywood battle once a round or two of combat has occurred.

Shooting and combat are similar to Black Powder, but with a slant to hand to hand, units typically role 2-3 dice in shooting or 4-9 dice in hand to hand. The default being 4+ to hit, in combat both sides roll dice, and in either case, any hits may be reduced by a morale roll (identical to the Save roll in Warhammer). This is closest to Armati of the three other systems. Warhammer is buckets of dice by comparison, whilst DBM is on the fall of one D6 and a load of obtuse modifiers.

Units can take a limited number of hits, but these in themselves do not destroy a unit, until double their value are suffered, rather break tests are taken either when a unit loses a round of combat (suffers more hits than it's opponents) or has sixes rolled against it by shooting. The lower the roll on 2d6 the worse the result. The tables are subtly progressive.

There are two major additions to combat, supporting units add a small number of dice to melee, as does a general. However any general joining a combat will risk death or injury. This again swings the game more in line of Armati, but has a similar effect to the modifiers in DBM. One other point to make is that some units have higher combat values in the first round of a melee than in later ones. Representing the impetus of an aggressive charge.

As with BP, units can be varied by special abilities or weapons, and a range of sample units are presented. Along side this the second half of the book provides seven scenario's and therefore 14 sample armies covering two and a half millennia.

To summarise then, you have a set of rules that manage within the core to provide a good representation of the tactical limitations of the period, but with allowance for more flexibility than DBM/Armati without throwing reality out the window, like Warhammer. The size of formations can be scaled up or down to suit the demands of the players, and with smaller formations works perfectly on a 6 by 4 foot table, far better than Black Powder did.

In general the rules benefit from being effectively a second edition of the core rule system, honed and clearer, giving a better game than BP - which was already pretty good. With the advent of a supplement of pointed army lists, it is clear that casual and competition play, always popular with ancient gamers, will be accommodated.

Of course, the rules again expect gentlemanly conduct and fair play; not resorting to lawyerly precision to avoid disputes, favouring mutual agreement. We all know at least one player this will not work with, and the rules will often only be as good as the umpire if scenarios or re-fights are being played. Still with those proviso's I would say that these are simply the best set of rules for ancient games I've played in twenty years. And I cannot see me returning to any of the other mentioned systems, any time soon.

There is a mass of options and other material to explore in what is a comprehensive and attractive package. Why look anywhere else?

Valerium Noctum: 792ad

2011-09-17T12:21:00.000+01:00

Arranging a game in a rush, I had to come up with two armies in a hurry too. And so my game of Hail Caesar in the week was a hypothetical battle between a regional Ottonian King and Norse raiders led by Ragnar the savage.

The Ottonian foot drew up between woodland and some enclosed fields, whilst the Norse, under first time player and recent Roman army buyer Chris, took a wide frontage including a hill to face them. The Norse were aware that a major part of the Ottonian army was not present but probably roaming the fields attempting to outflank them, so speed was of the essence.

The Norse came on with enthusiasm, whilst the Ottonians decided to hang back and thicken their main lines. Outnumbered two to one and outclassed in most every way, they had to rely on holding on long enough for their King to appear.

Perhaps fortunately the Norse Hird and Besirkir, their most potent troops appeared to either be being held back in reserve or still to be drunk from the night before. Therefore the weaker Bondi led the Viking attack, chasing off the Frankish skirmishers before crashing against the lines of spears repeatedly.

The bishop leading the Ottonian levy managed a stirring job of holding the tidy, and by making counter attacks whenever possible, the Franks managed to weaken the edge of the Norse attack. The Beserkir in particular came off worse in a series of engagements with a dense shieldwall of levy. Still the Ottonian losses began to mount up and after an hours fighting they were close to breaking.

But at this point the rallying cry of the Frankish king and the thunder of hooves chilled the Norseman's blood. The Ottonian cavalry arrived en-masse; outflanking the Norse Hird and smashing through it.

The Norse scattered in the face of an unstoppable charge of armour and flesh, long spear and sword. But the centre refused to budge, and like many a Viking before them attempted to stand and fight to the death.

And to the death it proved. Though some of the cavalry were eventually stopped, Both the Norse commanders were cut down in combat, and with the remaining Hird already heading for the boats, it was clear that another victory had put the lie to tales of the northern supermen.

Chris greatly enjoyed his game, and thought the rules were something he could get in to; which is a relief, as he has spent good money on a Roman army. I gave him a pep talk on how to set them up after the game, as he is new to historical gaming, and five minutes on the basics is going to do you no harm is it.

So Hail Caesar has another convert, and we are hopefully getting to a stage where I can consider organising big games like I have for Black Powder.

Which is obviously a good thing.

Hail Caesar Supplement on it's way

2011-09-15T21:21:00.000+01:00

Good news for those of you who only play points matches or competitively!

Yes Warlord Games recently announced the army lists supplement for Hail Caesar. 63 lists covering the biblical and classical periods up to around 100ad.

This will be a great injection to interest in the rules, granted my preference is for refights and scenario's but there is no denying the simplification in getting a game of an evening.

The book will retail for £18, which compared to some of the Warhammer supplements sounds like good value, time will tell.

Anima Tactics - Les Jaeger

2011-09-11T15:55:00.001+01:00

Prior to moving house last month I made a start on a second team for Anima Tactics, models I'd gathered over the previous few months but yet to start. After several large projects the idea of painting just five models in detail again appealed, and meant that there wouldn't be too much to pack during the move.

Once shifted I was able to complete the project in short order and get to gaming with them. So swiftly in fact, that the first photographs of the models were taken at the LWGC:

Les Jaeger are the Azur Alliance's special forces team, tuned to stealth operations. They are a mix of stealth, hit and run tactics and mystical forces. The team above, supported by one of their agents is suitable for 200 level games.

In command is the Colonel:

A model requiring lots of paint effects that are new or unfamiliar at least to me. The flame came out reasonably, but I always think of it as a definitively unrealistic object to make in metal. As for the lighting effect of the flame on the Colonel's clothes, well, it's okay for a first try but I'm not overly impressed.

Reinhold is second in command, and a specialist combat psychic:

Like all of the models in this team, the bulk of the model is black. Which means a fast paint job. I highlighted each character to a slightly different theme, in this case, working up to a navy blue.

Kyler is the third of the team, and is a specialist in stealth and close up assasination:

Um, the only thing to say about this model is, that were it not part of the team, I wouldn't have bothered with it, as it just looks wrong from every angle. Some of the very early AT models are not all that good, this being one of them. To their credit they do seem to produce resculpts of some...

The last key member of the team is Kirsten, a long range specialist with a mysterious past:

A good model, rather simple though.

Lastly the team is filled out with Agent One:

Possibly my favourite of the models. Being the most recently sculpted. Incidentally, if you are looking at the bases and thinking what's going on with the untextured bit? Well, it's actually filled with Water Effect; and clearly it doesn't show up on the camera very well!

Subsequently to taking the photos, myself and Joe had a small 200 point game, Joe has a couple of the Wanderer figures which teamed up with those of my collection.

The game was reasonably well balanced, but the advantages of Les Jaeger were enough to swing it. In AT single faction teams are at a distinct points advantage over alignment based, mixed groups. One of the highlights of the game was Reinhold using his psychic powers to move one of the few pieces of scenery on the board that wasn't fixed down. Straight into a collision with one of Joe's warriors.

And the other was him blowing Joe's sole survivor apart with a final psychic blast.

Leaving little more than a puff of smoke. Between them Reinhold and Kirsten were easily the most effective of the team, The Colonel was highly useful, but unlucky; whilst Kyler proved about as attractive a proposition as his model.

Still my first win at Anima Tactics in ages, which was nice.

How the Professionals do it

2011-09-09T20:23:00.000+01:00

I've featured Dan's armies before on the blog, as I'm a great admirer of them; he's well known in Warhammer circles for producing some of the most imaginative, best painted, and toughest tournament armies. He was in at the LWGC last week with his latest force:

That's an entire 1500 tournament Chaos Warrior army. Typically Dan goes for small super-elite forces he can pretty up easily. The Chaos Warriors are based on Black Orcs and certainly look the business.

Sadly the Chaos Sorcerers' are somewhat hidden at the back of the units, one of which featured a marvellous swirl of books flying round the wizard.

The centrepiece of the army (if it is fair to call any part of this force the centrepiece!) if the amazing flying sorcerer; riding a monolith through the air. Whether this counts as a chariot or flying carpet I don't know, but it was certainly impressive.

If it goes to form, these will win a few best painted awards, place highly or win a few tournaments (Dan certainly knows his way around a game of Warhammer as well as a paintbrush) before ending up on eBay to fund his next project.

For some this would seem a shame, but I think Dan gets as much pleasure from coming up with and executing his next grand idea, as anything else.

Silva Arsia: 509bc

2011-09-08T21:26:00.001+01:00

Here I am with an early Republican Roman and Etruscan army in 20mm, and a copy of Hail Caesar; so what would make more sense than refighting one of their battles.

Of course in terms of historical accounts, the material for the period is pretty limited, the Romans at this time did not leave detailed records, and so what is handed down by their historians is rather scant; whilst the Etruscan language remains one of those untranslated mysteries of history. This game was based on the extraordinarily limited available material - you can read a pretty full account of what is known on Wikipedia; it won't take long!

Like many an ancient battle the terrain was essentially an open plain, but for effect, the forest of Silva Arsia flanked one edge of the board, with the foothills of Rome to the other.

Gav took control of the Etruscans and made his deployments. The Etruscans had three commands; Tarquin led 6 units of Hoplite infantry and 2 of bow armed skirmishers; Veii led 2 units of Second Line troops, 2 Italiot allied units, a unit of Ligurian warband and 2 Javelin armed skirmish units; lastly Aruns led 2 units of fine Etruscan cavalry. He put the heavy troops on his left, whilst the Cavalry were obliged by history to face the Roman horse on the right.

I took command of the Romans formed of Brutus leading 3 units of poor cavalry; Pubicola led 4 Hastati units with 2 units of Leves skirmishing before them; behind these was a Lictor leading 4 units of Principes, 2 Triarii and a unit of Accensi guarding the flank. Forming up a Roman army is a no brainer!

What happens after that is anyone's guess. I won initiative, but failed to deliver any commands, and so Brutus' army stood implacably in the face of the advancing Etruscans.

A handful of shots from the Etruscan skirmishers were enough to scare away the Accensi. Publicola tried to advance the Hastati to meet the enemy, but instead orders to withdraw were received and the left flank of the army simply wandered away.

Meanwhile the Cavalry were doing most of the actual fighting on the Roman Left, and by the time the Hastati returned to the front line, both Brutus' and Arun's cavalry had exhausted one another with a series of savage charges. The weaker Roman cavalry managed to survive due to greater numbers, but both sides had to retire. This would prove an infantry battle.

The Romans in three lines were on the back foot but the Etruscans were no match for the resultant deep lines of support. It turned out that the inability of Pubicola to motivate his men did at least leave short lines of command.

The Etruscans began to turn the Roman right, but were not actually having an effect on the Romans.

The deep Roman lines were of course bolstered by the Triarii. Tarquin thickened his own lines and tried to wear the enemy down, but only found his forces withdrawing from every charge.

Still the grinding match was wearing down both armies, both were getting close to losing a second command.

Gav risked delivering the Coup d'Grace, by putting the command of Veii into a final charge against weakened left of the Romans. Alas for him it failed, the Romans maintained order and their counter attacks were enough to finally break the fighting will of the more junior Etruscan forces.

In fact it was at a point where his main forces were still largely unscathed. The Romans were all over the place but they had made enough of a mess of the enemy to claim victory. It was a narrow scrappy affair, but it went to prove that the Roman way of war was superior to that inherited from the Greeks.

As time would ultimately prove.

Some Painting Updates

2011-09-06T21:39:00.000+01:00

It's a mixed bag today, but the end of the month has passed so I shall point out that the pledge result for August was 44, against a target of 30. Being the 70eme Ligne, five Anima Tactics models (to appear soon); and the diorama below:

Yes, this was mine, I'm sure regulars guessed that. An unwanted 40k Dreadnought, two Hasslefree miniatures naughty kids and a Miniart diorama were combined with lots of spare bits, clear plastic, barbed wire and naturally, paint.

As for the results, well I was pretty happy with the miniature graffiti, even if it proved curiously prescient. As I suppose is the oxidisation of the burnt out Dread.

The narrative of the scene being that the kid with the missile launcher was responsible for destroying the Dread with a hit to the left arm that caused the storm bolter ammo to cook off, setting fire to the rest of the machine. Her friend, as any kid would has got her smart phone out to capture the result.

The oxidising took about 8 layers to build up. Then it was sealed with hair lacquer on the blue side and thereafter painted as if new. This could then be soaked off and rubbed back to replicate melted and burned away paint. The Hairspray technique is well established, but this was my first try at it, the results look more realistic, but to gamer will look a little untidy, and it's not as quick to do as simpler weathering techniques.

A few nods of approval and favourable comments, but no prizes.

Elsewhere it was a month of scenery, some of which we've seen. The main reason being that they were all commission jobs or for the club. So I could hand them over to their new owners when done.

Two more buildings for Jason's Sylvanian town:

and lastly a few Lord of the Rings ruins, which wouldn't look out of place in parts of Post Roman Europe I think. I could see the Huns all over these...

Corsairs of the Crimson Sea

2011-09-05T15:44:00.000+01:00

It was pirate versus pirate, salty sea dogs baring teeth against one another, in my last game of Freebooters Fate.

We stuck to a simple scenario and inevitably we had a certain number of similar characters in our forces, though Ian, my opponent, did choose to field Blackbeard, and some other different crew in his crew.

Blackbeard came off worse in an encounter with my knife thrower, and long rifle. But over all the game swung slightly to Ian.

He kept back a number of his troops in the company of his Captain Rosso, and thanks to early injuries in my party, I was forced to engage from a safe distance, with some loss of ability. A late charge by a deckhand didn't do enough to redress the damage.

Still my pirates cannot be too downhearted, not seeing as they recently seized control of a beauty of a ship:

Two in fact! This is the smallest of the Playmobil pirate ships, which due to a little wear and tear I managed to acquire on eBay for £3.50. It comes as you can see with a substantial mast and rowing boat. As soon as I can figure out how to make it a waterline vessel, and what to do with the rigging and so forth, it shall be another major project to kick off!

Iron Owl Painting Competition - Entries

2011-09-01T22:23:00.001+01:00

A small field of entries did not detract from the admirable efforts of the entrants in the Iron Owl Competition when it was held at the LWC on the 6th August. Now through one thing and another we've heard enough about, I wasn't able to report this at the time so I'm a little fuzzy on the details. I'm not going to go to great lengths on the models or painters, sorry! Let's just enjoy the models...

The main entries. This and all images below can be clicked on to view larger images.

Savage Orc by Craig, owner of the LWC, and his entire painted collection I think ;-)

A Malifaux goblin on a pig! The wings are added apparently.

A scratch built Baneblade tank, by Alan. A pretty impressive effort.

"These are Our Ends, Bruv". Some blogger upstart did this diorama.

Another Malifaux figure, mounted on a clockwork base. This was one of the prize winners on the day, and is by commission painter, Jon Kerr.

54mm Dwarf warrior. Another of the winners, quite rightly.

Beastman Dragon Ogre by Daz.

Dark Elf sorceress, by first time painter, Karen.

54mm Inquisitor model.

Another of the same Malifaux model.

A Warmahordes figure.

Crimson Fist Terminator.

Malifaux again. These were beautiful models, and got my vote. And a prize.

One in close up.

An Infinity model. Another prize winner.

I didn't get photo's of some of the entrants, but that is sadly the bulk of them. Still this was the first time the event was run, and one has to hope it's not the last.

Of Tape Measures

2011-08-29T23:05:00.000+01:00

Sat watching Stephen Fry's top one hundred Gadgets on Channel Four* I notice that the tape measure comes in at number "32"

A new contender for the blog's dullest picture ever!

Now of course to most wargamers, these are essential gadgets, and I fully appreciate the entertainment as well as practical use one can get from them.

For my part my favoured measure is a cheap as chips Chinese orange number with a drum brake styled locking system. I had this little 3 metre number for a good 25 years now, by dint of its' apparently crappy design, it's never been stolen!

So here's to the humble tape measure, greater apparently than the Gameboy and Corby Trouser Press!

*Channel Four+1, other nationalities will have to accept this means nothing to them!

The Big (little) Sell Off

2011-08-29T17:19:00.000+01:00

Having had to move house for the second time this year, I've looked more critically of late at the mass off wargames figures that during such times hang like the proverbial Albatross around my neck. Now they are not the only items contributing to the problems of keeping my life mobile (why do I still have four snowboards, when only two are serviceable?), but they are in the firing line as much as all my other possessions for something of a culling.

First to go are my Dwarves.

Regular readers will know I have these occasions, where I resist the urge to horde and sell on things that seem to just take up space, and alas the Dwarves fall into that category now. Most gamers live with this dilemma, usually dictated to in part by wives' partners or parents, circumstances or whims. A mixture of the latter two lead me to sell these chaps on.

It's not without some regret mind, some of the little lads have belonged to me since I was a teenager (too long ago to mention), and have been painted, stripped and repainted to their present fine standard. But sadly their undoing was the battlefield, they just were not fun to play.

Well let me clarify that point, they tended to simple, static tactics and acted simply as a wall for other armies to crash against. As a player, I wasn't getting enough from them, though I'm sure for others this sort of reliable certainty is just what they are looking for.

So it is to ebay with them, and probably not the first of several armies in the future months. Looking at my collection during the move, I found whole periods that I simply thought "when am I ever going to use those again?"

Naturally, irony will ensure I sell all the items that 5 years from now I will kick myself for flogging, when after some future move I find myself at a club that only does 20mm ancients and 15mm ultra moderns. Such is life.

At the time of writing the army is up to £75 on eBay, if you fancy a punt the sale is here...

Poitiers 1356

2011-08-28T13:59:00.000+01:00

Several weeks ago, as it happens, I took Craig - owner of of the Leeds Wargames Centre - Through a game of Hail Caesar. It was at the time my first solo flight with the rules and so I was trying to be reliant on my knowledge of the game mechanics from Black Powder, without confusing the key distinctions.

Anyway, I decided on a refight of Poitiers; Being the smallest of the big three English victories in the Hundreds Years War, a chance to roll out some of my extensive medievals collection.

The forces and battlefield were a fair reflection of the day and were as follows:

The English
Edward the Black Prince - 1 unit of longbowmen, 1 unit of men at arms, 1 unit of Gascon Lancers (Pike)
Warwick - 1 unit of longbowmen, 1 unit of men at arms
Salisbury - 1 unit of longbowmen, 1 unit of men at arms
Grially - 1 small unit of mounted knights, 1 small unit of longbowmen (in a reserve flanking attack)

The French

Clermont - 3 units of Mounted knights
The Dauphin - 2 units of crossbowmen, 2 units of spearmen
The Duke of Orleans - 2 units of men at arms, 1 unit of spearmen
King Jean - 2 units of men at arms, 2 units of spearmen 1 large unit of peasants

Deployments were initially as history suggested, with the English in three battles defending a line of hedgerows flanked by marshes, whilst the French came on in four battles in column. On the day they were afraid the English were to slip away and so came on in something of a rush.

Craig took command of the French and tried to come on to the English, but struggled to make his many lines of men move in good order. For the English there was little to do other than close the gap in the hedges; but a blundered order instead saw the Gascon Lancers march off to the left.

Instead the longbowmen laid down a withering fire on the mounted knights, goading them to the attack. The Black Prince reorganised his lines as the French cavalry finally crashed into their lines.

It failed to break the sturdy English and the remnant s of the cavalry were force to withdraw. Still the rest of the French lines were far away from the English.

The Gascon pike dared to advance beyond the hedgerow, trying to draw the French spear into a fight they would most likely lose. But this was if anything, expecting too much of the French who were still struggling to for a cohesive line of attack.

By now, other English troops were crossing the hedges, eager to join the fight, and in the distance Grially appeared with his knights from behind a hill to the French rear. Now Jean was facing the enemy on two fronts.

Though at this time, the French had at last arranged their main attack, and they threw everything at the English line, putting it under pressure in a grand melee.

But in a desperate tussle to break through the gaps in the hedgerow, the French again came off worse, where several units broke. And although the rear attack from Grially was being contained, the French could see that the battle was lost, and so began a general retirement from the field.

History, largely then, was reflected on the tabletop. The English did an excellent job of holding their ground whilst the French were too tangled in their own deployments to make a conclusive blow to the enemy.

I think Craig enjoyed it, and hopefully it is another potential player to the ranks of Hail Caesar.

Havelange, Belgium

2011-08-25T22:04:00.000+01:00

Finally I've finished the flames of war terrain boards, by completing the Belgian village.

The two foot square terrain board contains a cluster of fourteen scratchbuilt buildings, and all told took about 25 hours alone. I hope the new owner appreciates it!

Even though I'd pretty much lost the will to live by the end, I was still able to add a few finishing details:

Well it's all very nice, and it covers up to ten feet by four as part of the wider set up. And I don't even play flames of War! Though it will work for 15mm European games back at a pinch to about 1800. So maybe I'll get the odd Napoleonics game over it one day.

Additionally, I was passed some trees to freshen up for the LWC/club. The first handful are done, but with a bagful more to get round to, there'll soon be the whole of the Ardennes to fight through.