Here come the Blue Lizards!

They were too tempting, I caved and rather than go gaming, sat and ploughed through painting my Lizardmen army.

Now when it came to a colour scheme, I didn't want to go with anything green, as they'de have just looked like Goblins or Orcs at the scale they are (actually - up close they Pendraken models are nicely detailed and distinctive; but for the 'Two Foot' test colour would be critical).  Thankfully nature has plenty of evidence for vivid reptile hues, and I was taken with a bright blue chap:



Indeed there are many species of blue lizards worldwide, so why not create an army of them.  And so I would.

Apologies for the lower quality images, I had to make do with the Mobile Phone for these, as my camera is temporarily unavailable!

I guess about ten hours were spent to build and paint the whole army.

A few units in close up.  I started by undercoating everything black and then dry-brushing the bases from brown up to a desert sand.  Flock was chosen over static grass as it would be less obscuring in this scale, but wasn't added until the rest of the painting was done.

I then added the bright blue flesh in a couple of stints, before using a live palette (i.e. mixing wet paint as I worked to produce varied shades) to do the loincloths and weapons.  Then it was a matter of detailing.  With a fine brush and a steady hand this is not too onerous a task on pre based figures of this scale; but a final retouch with the blue was still required, as this close up work still results in the odd sloppy bit of work or missed area being identified for a repaint.

Characters and shields got a little extra attention, and I had fun making tiny standards for the units and the army heralds:

Larger critters were done in a more traditional reptilian green with even some highlights and the eyes touched in.  Overall though, the work was essentially flat colours.  The shading was simply a layer of Army Painter Strong Tone applied with a brush, from their dropper bottle range not the thick stuff in a can.  It seems to work really well!

Lastly a shot of the Cocatricosarus, pride of the army thus far:

A pleasing result, and once packed into their new home I find there's room for at least three times as many troops - or perhaps an opposing army to accompany them; in due course.

Also the observant cant miss the adobe hut and Tudor house in the background of the army shot.  Some high density foam was put to good use to build some scenery for this scale to add to the club supplies...

Ongoing Fiasco's...

I've not been moved to post much this last week or two, I blame the personal life and will draw a respectful veil there - safe to say when I've got in at the end of the day writing my usual gaming nonesense had not felt appealing.  There is still some gaming activity to catch up on though, and I will get round to reports on a couple of wargames and boardgames of late in due course.

This weekend - Sunday the 28th - is the major Leeds gaming show; Fiasco; held as ever at the Royal Armouries (the less said about the precise environment the better, but I'm sure it'll remain the same spot and easy to find!)

Details of traders and so forth can be found here.

The Night Owls will be well represented this year with two games, not only a substantial 'Rorkes Drift' refight in 28mm but also for the first time I can recall something to represent our large fantasy gaming contingent.  The Warhammer players had their arms gently twisted into putting on a 'Storm of Magic' display game - given the quality of some of their painters, even if you don't like fantasy games it should be a visual feast!

I'll be nosing around for an hour or so; photographs, and a report as ever, next week sometime.

Hopefully by then I'll be over my blogging sulk and back to a normal volume of pointless exposition...

Scaling down - Part Two

Scales of a different matter today.

I am not a Kings of War haterz, see; I just bought a new army for it, and the shiny new hard back rule book.

Indeed at the Night Owls, Kings of war is having a little resurgence  with efforts to begin a KoW League, and games being organised in 28mm and 10mm.  To that end, and with plenty of PayPal cash in the wargaming kitty, I went shopping on the net for the rulebook and a new army to inspire me.

I managed to get the rules for a bargain price of £18 inc P&P from the Trolltrader.co.uk considerably less than the RRP and fast delivery too.  I'd already pondered a new race, and knew I wanted something that A) could not double for a historical force - so I wouldn't be tempted to turn it into Saracens, Mongols or whatever; and B) must be a race I'd never done before - which eliminated Orcs, Goblins, Dwarves, Humans and Undead from the book.

Rummaging around 10mm figure manfacturers, Pendraken eventually seemed to have the best choice, though frustratingly I had to look around for images of the models.  In the end I plumped for Lizardmen, as there are several ranges providing a variety of poses and breeds of critter.  Of the available army lists, they looked to have a place within the Twilight Kin, which has provision for bestial cavalry, monsters (dinosaurs then) and so on.  With a little bit of imagination the Lizard Kin would take shape.

At about the same time I found a damaged Marauder Miniatures Cockatrice in a box, the wings had broken off.  Ifigured it'd make a good base for a Lizardman monster, and so I had a go at sculpting some arms and so forth:

I remained concerned as to whether it'd scale up right but that'd have to wait for the Pendraken models to arrive.

Oh the waiting...

Pendraken not renowned for speedy dispatch times, two weeks after ordering I received my confirmation email, that they were in the post.  The next day they arrived:

Six bags of mostly Tribal Lizardmen spearmen, with some cavalry, characters and skirmishers.  95 models for less than £20.  First things first, I selected one of the Lizardman spears and, freed of his base, converted him into a rider for the dino-bird.

I may yet add reins but overall it was satisfyingly scaled.  From there I went on with basing up the troops.  I'd bought the numbers of models I had on the presumption that I'd be able to put about 15 infantry on a 40mm square base, and around half that number on a 40x20mm base.

Turns out the Lizardmen are pretty large - about 13mm to the top of their heads, and a wide stance what with tails and all.  So the most I could squeeze onto the square base was nine models.

On the plus side, this meant my giant troops fielded rather more stands than intended:

Enough for a 2000 point army of Lizard Kin.

Also, I'll easily fit all these in just a small part of their assigned storage box, so I can add more troops of a more modest size or different races when these are painted.  Which shouldn't take long.

Once current projects are out the way...

Sabugal Preparations

It is always a rare and pleasant opportunity to do a historical refight, even if as organiser they require rather more effort than a simple points game or a scenario lifted from a book.

Myself and Martin agreed to a game of Napoleonics, and I proposed to come up with something scaled to suit our combined forces.  Between the two of us, we could raise ten British Line Battalions and four of allies, not to mention cavalry and artillery.  For the French we could combine to eleven Infantry battalions, plus numerous light infantry, and cavalry, but rather less artillery.

As I'm not keen on grossly scaling down formations, portraying a Corps as three or four units is not my style, the available troops meant we needed to stick to a smaller engagement.  Thankfully dipping in to my resources led me to a small and little known (to me anyway) engagement of the Peninsular.  Sabugal.

On the Banks of the River Coa, Marshal Massena's Left flank was being held by the 2nd Corps of Reynier.  Protecting the gradually withdrawing French.  Wellington determined to attack the extreme, with the Light division, and plans to outflank the strong French defensive position with an attack from the rear.

Even for this relatively minor action, and more on the details of the day will be in the battle report, there were a lot of French forces to be represented.  Looking at the rosters it would be impractical to represent the whole action as anything other than an impossible task, requiring many French and few British, without some limitations.  To serve the end of making it playable I considered the dimensions of the battle and drew a map, based on others, to initiate the battlefield layout:

The Battle would be fought across an 8' x 6' table and the timings and positions of the attacks would be critical to reflecting the historical engagement; but I did limit the extent of the French and Allies as a result.  The Forces would thus (and corrected slightly from the image above!) be:

France

Regional (Corps) commander Reynier
Brigadier Heudelet: 2 bn's 17eme Leger, 2bn's 70eme Ligne
Brigadier Sarrut: 2 bn's 4eme Leger, 2 bn's 2 eme Leger, 2 bn's 36 eme Ligne, demi battery artillery
Brigadier Merle: 1 eme Hussars, 22eme Chasseurs

Anglo Portuguese

Regional (Divisional) Commander Picton
Brigadier Beckwith: 43rd Foot, 2 companies 95th Rifles
Commander Drummond: 52nd Foot, Portuguese Line (in some accounts a Cacadores bn), one company Cacadores, sqdrn 16th Light Draggons, sqdrn Kings German Legion Hussars
Commander Erskine: 6 bn's British foot

As stated the timing and set up of the attack would be key, as it was poorly handled on the day to say the least for the British, and I wanted the game to reflect that.  Also the weather on the day was absolutely critical, and so I ran up some rules (for Black Powder; of course!) to reflect the relative situations.

• Turn one: Beckwith arrives as per map deployment.  The battlefield is wreathed in fog and so firing is limited to half range, also orders to engage (charge) may only be given if a target is unobscured in the open, or within firing range in cover of any kind.  The fog also means that all forces blunder on a roll of 11 or 12, rather than the usual double six alone.
• Turn three: Drummond arrives.  The fog becomes heavy rain and although vision improves firing for all except artillery suffers a -2 to hit, losing one dice of firepower for each point above '6' needed to hit (e.g. a unit needing 8's to hit would actually need 6's but lose two firepower)
• Turn four:  Erskine arrives.  The crossing of the river may be conducted anywhere, but requires each unit to test individually to cross - though a divisional order may be issued to do so.  Two successes are required to cross, but may be accumulated over turns.
• Turn five: Light rain, -1 to shooting.
• Turn 6: dry.  The rain ends
• Turn 8:  End of game.  If before the end of the French turn eight they are unable to contest the Ridgeline, the French lose, if at the end of turn 8 the French are contesting the ridge, but defeated on table, the game is a draw.  If at the end of turn 8 or before, the British attacks have been forced back or routed.  The French win.

With all this in place it felt like a scenario ready to play out.  

But that is a post for another day...

Scaling down - Part one

As mentioned, I've recognised that whilst for grand scale ancient and medieval battles I have both armies and opponents for the classical and high medieval, my collection of dark age troops had remained generally redundant, unless facing themselves.  The trend has moved towards dark age gaming at a Skirmish level with the appearance of Saga and other rules at the club.

On the face of it I've no problem with that, after all barring a handful of engagements, few of the battles in the post-Roman and early medieval period weren't especially large anyway, and tactically were simplistic to say the least.  Skirmish sized games suit the heroic personal nature of the period, and the Saga rules especially introduce a tactical fluidity to this situation.  Basically, I am sold on the idea of restricting this period to games of under 50 a side, rather than grand battle of hundreds of models.

Which leaves me with both opportunities and problems.  The opportunity is to pick the very best models from my collection and improve their presentation as Saga armies.  As it happens I could easily pull out 7/8 points of troops (recognising I have some figures still to paint) for my Normans/Franks:

And the same number of points of Vikings:

However, this still leaves me with more than 200 infantry and 40 cavalry, in need of a new home!

Everything in the boxes is scheduled to go now.

Some of them are pretty terrible models, being surviving home-casts from when I was a kid (yes, my parents let me use a home lead casting kit - I have the scars to prove it), but others include numerous Gripping Beast, Foundry and Old Glory models.  There are easily enough for two or more warbands for Saga, and plenty of formed up units.

If I can sell the Saga warbands at the club to generate more game players, then I'm happy to make no money on the deal, but the formed units can go on ebay to fund some other purchases.

Also selling these models off will get me two box's full of space back on the gaming shelves.  I'm sure I'll fill it again, but at least I can replace old metal with new plastic!

The times, they are a changing...

Other hoots from the Night Owls...

Whilst I was turning back the tides of Carthage, other gamers in the club had a variety of games going on:

Since the new edition of Warhammer 40k, there has been a modest rejuvenation of the game at the club.  Here Al's Sisters of Battle face off against George's Ultramarines.

Elsewhere the historical lads were having a first go with Bolt Action:

The initial conclusion; "it's 40k for World War Two".

So in essence, two of the same game!  Sort of...

It never hurts to remind readers, some of you may be new to the blog, that the Leeds Night Owls runs every Sunday (except for Fiasco, on the 28th of this month) from 10:00am till 3:00pm (or later) at The Farsley Conservative Club - 51 Town St, Farsley, Pudsey, West Yorkshire, LS28 5HX.  We play all manner of historical, fantasy, sci-fi and boardgames.  If you're a local feel free to join us!

Gelem Minor 483 BC - Syracuse and Carthage meet again

Stephen brought along his ancients for a nice big game of Hail Caesar, and Martin joined us in pushing the chaps about.  I'd run up army lists for both sides, but Ste had been at the army lists  (shudder!) and so asked if it was ok to use his own list.  I said this would be fine, as I'd no way to know the value of either side, and of course there is no such thing as an evenly matched battle in real life!

We deployed by map as is my preference.  Well I drew a map, and Martin and Ste deployed first to table; same result.

I deployed a strong centre of deeply arrayed hoplites, with a small reserve on my left flank behind a wooded hill.  To my right I deployed my lighter tribal peltasts behind a farm and vineyard on another hill.  The plain between these two sites was destined to be the main field of battle.

Facing me the Carthaginians fielded a small cavalry force on their right, a thinner centre of mercenary hoplites and African infantry, and a heavy left hook of Celtic warriors:

I won the initiative, and feeling outnumbered decided I needed to anchor my flanks and push forward in the centre, my skirmishers were keen to get the job done.  My enemies found themselves with unwilling Celts stalling on their left, as did their cavalry.  Only their centre would advance slowly:

The Sicel peltasts occupied the vineyards, whilst the Elymians swept as far right as possible drawing some of the Celts off.  However in the centre the Carthaginians came on in force driving my psoiloi back.

As some of my hoplites had yet to advance this far the Africans smashed into my lead Syracusan troops; outnumbering them five to one.

A rare shot from behind enemy lines!  Never doubt the power of the phalanx; my Greeks held against theirs, despite the numbers thrown against them.  Allowing my second line to roll up in support.

Soon a vast clash of arms was under way:

Meanwhile in the vineyards the Celts had run the Elymians out of town, but the Sicels doggedly held their ground and the Celtic warriors now realised they were spread out at some distance from the real battle.  On the Greek left the African cavalry were making slow progress outflanking the reserve.

The grinding match in the centre only slowly began to swing in favour of the Greeks, but our denser formation and close fighting tactics allowed us to hold position and slowly wear the Carthaginians down.

The Celts began to push the Sicels back and briefly threatened the Greek flank.  But timing was not in the favour...

By the time they arrived, enough damage had been to the Africans that there were Greeks available to face the Celts.  The initial charge was weathered, and the Celts fell back in disorder.

As night fell, the Greeks had broken the centre of the Carthaginians, and though the Celts were threatening the flank, skirmishers were containing them to the vineyards.  And the African cavalry had achieved nothing

Victory!

Carthage had to quit the field, whilst the Greeks stood triumphant.  As stated, I've no idea whether I had more or less points, but it still seemed a balanced and close fought game.

Pledge time Again...

So every good wargamer should try to paint at least as many models as they buy.  A high ideal, but as we all know we tend to buy more instead.

This quarter has ended up as an acceptable one for thinning out the figure pile.  At the end of September I managed to knock out some quicky stuff:

The 2nd New Jersey regiment.  These chaps have a temporary stay of execution, having been in the 'Sales Pending' stack for a while, but I've decided at least to finish the miniatures I have before committing to that.  They always make a refreshing change to paint, being easy and quick.

I managed to find a decent reference for the regimental standard, but the uniform has to assume they wore a standard attire.

Those were so quick, I found myself with a gap in the (actually none-existent, I just pick stuff on a whim) painting schedule.  I dipped into the boxes and found two WW2 kits my brother got me back when my family actually thought about what I'd want for Xmas (about 2002 IIRC!).  Assembling old Hasegawa kits was interesting, they seem surprisingly dated, even for quite good models.  Still better than a lot of resin and metal wargaming models, though three hours assembly is rarely the case with those:

No fancy stuff going on here, just the usual painting style.

All told July to September generated the following:

• The entire Dystopian Wars French fleet
• 12 Swiss Handgunners
• 10 Orc Warriors
• 4 Goblin Heroes and Wizards
• 10 Dark Elves
• 3 Orc and Goblin Chariots
• 1 Troll
• 6 Hobgoblin cavalry
• 24 Portuguese
• 18 American Civil War Union infantry
• 1 88mm Flak 36 gun and limber

For an effective total of 163 points, just below that of the first quarter but well above the second.  A running total of 422, so above my objective of 360 for the year with three months to go.

Guess I can slow down now!

Saga - This Hallowed Ground

I managed to arrange a demonstration game of Saga the other week, ironic really - to call it a demonstration game - as I could barely remember the rules myself!

Nonetheless, I found no difficulty in gathering two forces out of my dark age troops.  My opponent would take control of the Vikings, whilst I took the Normans on.

Our scenario was the Hallowed Ground, which required only three pieces of terrain.  The wood on my left was my favoured ground, whilst the wood on my opponent's left was his.  The hill in the centre was  open to question!

We Deployed:

I had two units of mounted Milites, and two units of foot warriors; one with crossbows.  The Vikings had one unit of Besirkir, one of Hearthguard, a unit of warriors and a unit of bondsmen with bows.  Each force had a commander and was overall formed of four points.

After a slow start, due to my getting the movement rates for each side wrong! the Franks pulled out an early lead on the Vikings by deploying into the wood and sending our spearmen up onto the hill.  The viking levy hung back picking off some of our Milites.  Around turn three (of eight) my cavalry charges both his Besirkir and Hearthguard...

Resulting in the loss of all my cavalry, other than my commander.  Ulp!  I wiped out the Besirkirs but they were equally deadly in an exchange that had no victors.  On the opposite flank on Hearthguard walked away from a bloody but failed charge by the horsemen.

Around the hill, the Viking bowmen retired to the trees, whilst his warriors tried to catch mine off guard.  My Commander threw himself in to the fray; things were getting difficult for me though as the complete loss of two units meant I had less command dice than my opponent.

 His Warriors turned on my Warlord, and soon finished him off, despite losing a couple of men, but then my Warriors attacked the tired and weakened Vikings forcing them to retire.

Which neatly brought us to the end of the game.  You'll have noticed I didn't mention my crossbowmen; that's because other than picking off one of the Hearthguard, their only contribution was the steady strem of victory points for occupying my wood all game.  In fact as the Vikings never threatened to evict them it proved to be game winning for me.

It is always nice to introduce someone new to a game, but on this occasion it also set my mind to a different course.  When gathering the forces together for this game, I found myself wondering why I had so many dark age models - often it has to be said, of fairly poor quality - that I didn't really feel the need to use any more, when the only game I wanted to play with them required less than thirty a side.

More on that revelation in due course I suppose...

Ghost Stories

A friend brought this along to the Thursday club a couple of weeks ago, a place where board games are always in vogue.  This one is a collaborative rather than competitive game, with the players working together to achieve victory against the game.

The objective of the game is to protect the village from a horde of ghosts and supernatural monsters, in the style of classic Chinese fiction and Hong Kong martial arts movies.  The catch is it is really hard!

We had four players, the normal maximum for the game, each represented by one of the coloured figures and each having different skills.  As each player takes a turn you draw a card for a new ghost appearing, play it to the appropriate coloured card and then move once and take an action.  Actions may be interacting with the square - each of the nine squares of the village allow a player to do different things - or attempting to dismiss the spirits ravaging the village.

Early in the game and the ghosts are closing in.

To dismiss a ghost you must gather enough materials or roll enough successes in an exorcism to destroy the spirit.  For example a green ghost with a rating of two would need two successes rolled on dice alone, with a one in three chance on each dice of getting a pass; however you can use green materials to guarantee successes and if things seem one sided the temple and shrines in the village can further add to your power.

Doomed!

If you are overloaded by spooks you lose 'Chi' or health, until of course you die.  But other players can revive you at the graveyard.  Dismiss enough ghosts and you can stem the tide until the final form of the lord of the undead appears.  Defeat this particularly savage spirit - who comes with his own rules which change conditions for the players too - and you win; the village is saved.

Alas we didn't get that far, and were defeated as he finally appeared.  With only two of our monks still alive, the dark spirits gathered around the village and put site after site out of commission until the village effectively was helpless.

Beaten by the game.

Ghost Stories is a game that demands close cooperation from the start, forward planning, and a good dose of luck.  In the end we took our eye off the ball for a second and were smacked down for it, realising that our defeat had become inevitable.

There are supplements that apparently make the game even harder.  I'm not sure why that would be needed, we played at the easiest setting and still got spanked.

It should be clear from the photo's that the components are top notch, production standards are excellent throughout.

Entertaining, and definitely different.