Nightowls Fantasy Tourney - Not Bad Shocker!

So about once a year I dip my toe into the Warhammer Fantasy tournament playing scene, usually on a purely local scale, and to remind myself why I don't bother: getting beasted by netlists and filthy exploitative play is not my usual idea of fun.  Still once a year to support the club I'll give it a go.

James had organised a small event for the honour of the title (i.e .no prizes!) of Leeds Nightowls Champion gamer.  The rules of the day were simple, 2000 point armies with no special characters, and two hour games.  I decided on an all Goblin force, a tuned version of the list I'd had unexpected success against High Elves with in one of my few other games this year.

Built around a core of 93 Goblin spears with 3 heroes, and fanatic caddying units of bows, a large artillery park and numerous units of Cavalry and lone Trolls it was a very atypical Deathstar-esque list and far and away featured the largest single unit of the tournament.  Even I renowned club despiser of movement trays had to accept the need for a slab of MDF to shift the little beggars around on!

My first game was against Neil's Chaos Warriors, a compact list of Knights, Warriors and a pair of Warshrines (Whatever they are!).  Now no disrespect to Neil, but I felt I'd got a good draw in this game, Neil isn't the filthiest player and his tactics are conventional, I've usually fared well against him in the past.  The First scenario was a Dawn Engagement, and my typically disciplined Goblins pretty much all turned up, whilst Half Neil's army remained off table at the start.

I was also blessed with the first turn and managed to doom-diver his Chaos knights into a rout straight off the table.  From there on in it was downhill all the way for the luckless Neil, with only his army general way out on a flank making any headway.  The combined arms tactics of the Gobbos and my tendency to opt for fast outflanking manoeuvres, soon had him on the back foot.

The Chaos Warriors and another Warshrine advanced to the spears, but Perky the Troll made short work of the shrine and a combined assault by Wolf Boys, Spears and a fanatic made short work of the Warriors.

In the end I came out with a shocking 1766 point win, and so my next game was against a top teir player.

Rob is an entertaining opponent, but one I usually only play against at tournaments, which is a shame.  Also we always seem to be playing Watchtower scenarios, and this proved no different.  His Empire list looked pretty fearsome, featuring some 40 Greatswords, 13 Knights, a steam tank and an empire warshrine.  Although he won the tower, he chose not to occupy it and so we deployed around it.

In points terms I beat him about 3-2, wiping out most of his support troops.  But his Greatswords seized the Tower and his Tank kept the goblin spears away from making a counter attack.  So it was officially a Pyhhric victory for him.

And so onto my last game, with still a sniff of a respectable finish.  I wasn't dead last yet at least!  My final game turned out to be against James' "Red Orcs".  In the past I've been a jinx opponent for James but I think luck is beginning to even itself out on that score.  It was a conventional battle of unconventional forces...

James' red Orcs and Goblins come from deep in the Dwarven mines, and are competitively tuned through dozens of games:

Mine are more trad, and come from my last 25 years of irregular purchases of things Gobliny:

The battle was amiable, but unspectacular with me not being able to make much of an impact on him.  I spent too much time and effort trying to take down his Arachnarok spider, and ignoring his Savage Orcs.  A little luck went my way, but not enough to make a close fight.  I lost by about 700 points. 

But the end result was that with one victory and still having some 1300 game points I managed sixth on the day.  Shame it was only out of eight, but I did come above a Skaven and Vampire player, and beat Chaos and Empire on the table, even if scenario rules didn't always concur.  Pretty good for Gobbo's!

Lots of other photo's were taken on the day, which is just as well as fate had it that I never had to move from my table!  Al of FatSpider Casting took the following:

I can't feature the winning army/general as Daz - who it was - was the only player to bring an unpainted force.  For SHAME!! most of his cavalry didn't even have riders!  Not that it mattered, his killer list mauled all comers.

In conclusion, an acceptable foray into tournament gaming; though partly as I avoided the three armies/players I knew I had no chance against.  Lets give it another twelve months before risking another one though, eh!

La Marine Française à la Parade

You will recall a week or so ago I posted about my slightly impulsive Dystopian Wars purchase.  Well I've justified them somewhat by getting them already painted:

A nice little starter fleet - the contents of a fleet box plus a blister pack of destroyers for support.  Despite going overboard with the details, notably going for a dazzle pattern of camouflage and ship numbers, these were a breeze to paint.  It only takes so long to paint 1/1200th scale models for the wargames table!

I decided to add bases to the ships, not the convention in the game but it would make handling the models simpler and ironically, make storing the models easier.  The Spartan Games models are mostly a modern compound resinated plastic, which takes detail extraordinarily well, and it is also easy to see that they are computer designed and possibly the masters are produced on a 3D printer (given the precision of the work - though I'm guessing here!).  Only the large aircraft and the gun turrets are Pewter.

Everything, even the tiny aircraft on the flyer tokens, was given an heavily thinned ink wash for shading and to give something of a rusted look.

And yes, those aircraft are absolutely tiny!  Nonetheless you can see cockpit details, the engine exhausts and so on; given they are on a base all of 20mm square, they are remarkable!

So the fleet is ready for all hands action.  Overall I'm really impressed with the models, fine sculpts and great value.  Now to get a game o two in...

Drawing the Rebellion

Long before I devoted needlessly large portions of my time to painting tiny models made by other people, I used to spend a lot of time drawing.  In the last year or two I've started to get back to the habit, and have gradually re-learnt a lot of forgotten technique.

Stylistically, I'm more of an illustrator than an artist, and my influences are European comics (particularly Herge), Japanese manga and classic black and white illustration work.  Colour is something I've only dabbled with...

Anyway, this is a wargaming blog so ordinarily my other hobbies have no place here; but during the research for my developing Jewish Rebellion army I found that illustrations of the warriors of the period were pretty thin on the ground.  So in part as inspiration for my army, and to offer other potential gamers some inspiration too I began making illustrations based on my research of the period:

Above a Zealot wearing a Kippah, which may be apocryphal.  His equipment is spear and shield from the Herodian stores, and a long knife which is probably personal.

A village rebel, emaciated and relatively old for fighting.  He is nevertheless capable due to years of otherwise backbreaking labour of drawing a captured horse archers compound bow.  His cloak and tunic are cheap and unadorned.

Bandits were the Freedom Fighters of their age; with similarly conflicted motives.  This Parean bandit fought at Beth Horon and as a result is well equipped with Scutum, Gladius, an Auxilia mail shirt and rebel-made short javelins - most likely with bronze heads.  His cloak is unkempt but finely adorned, and so probably belonged to a member of the Jewish middle classes before being 'liberated'.

I hope you find these of interest, maybe I'll do more in future...

The Plains of Syracuse 348bc

Stephen, my old adversary - and never 'Steve' - has started to make welcome reappearances at the Nightowls.  Thus one Sunday we were able to have a friendly little game of Hail Caesar.  For this game my Spartans, were to wear their colonial garb and pretend to be Syracusians, whilst Ste brought the multinational Carthaginians to propagate their efforts to take over the isle that would later be known as Sicily.

As it was only Ste's second game of these rules, and as I'd written the army lists, I kept things simple and we played a classic linear battle, which of the period is entirely justified.

My Greeks were formed of two Hoplite divisions of four heavy units and some Psoiloi each, and a light division of two hill tribe units and a warband of coastal tribes, along with more Psoiloi.  I formed with my Hoplites in supported palanxes, and the light troops on the right exploiting the more difficult terrain.

Stephen had a heavy centre of African, 'Lydian' and Mercenary Greek troops, with a handful of Psoiloi.  To their left was a division of Celtic warbands and their skirmishing youths; whilst to his right was a division of small cavalry units, led by two Carthaginian units supported by two Numidian.

Both sides advanced, with the skirmish screens covering the heavy troops of the centre, whilst my light division tried to circle the Celtic fringe.  On Ste's side the Greks and Lydians refused to advance, demanding back pay and privileges.  The Syracusian Hoplites prefered not to be baited by the onrush of Gallic tribesmen.

This meant that the Gauls slammed with full force in to the supported lines of the Greeks.  Thankfully to bounce off in some confusion, on Ste's right his cavalry attempted to outflank the Greeks whilst skirmish fights broke out along the lines

In close up it was a titanic struggle:

Both the Greeks and Celts retired from the fight; but some of the Gauls were a spent force whilst the Greeks rallied with the support of their Generals.  Sensing the approach of Carthaginian cavalry was an inevitability the other Greek division formed a wedge, whilst on the opposite flank the hill tribes flushed the Celtic skirmishers out of the trees.

This would slowly develop in to a threat for the Celtic warbands as they realised the hill tribes were more of a threat than their open order suggested.

The combination of Greek and Sicilian light troops began to wear down the Gallic line, which started to retire...

By this point the Carthaginian infantry had begun to engage the Greeks, and their mercenaries had finally accepted terms to advance on the Syracuse line.  With the advance of the cavalry, the Greeks felt obliged to thin their line on their left to meet all possible foes.

But on their right the light troops were making good progress.  The centre was now a confused melee with both sides gaining the upper hand on certain points.

For the Syracusians it seemed time to strike before the battle put tthem entirely on the back foot:

Part of the centre was destroyed by the remaining Gauls, but the Greeks crashed in to the Lydians and forced back the whole mercenary line with heavy losses.  Half of the Carthaginians were broken too, and seeing the time to strike was now on them, the Greeks even charged the cavalry in a desperate attempt to defeat the might of Carthage.

And somehow all this worked.

Although the remnants of the Celts were still a threat, and the Greek mercenaries were trying to earn their gold in the centre, the Carthaginian cavalry had proved a glass hammer against the stout bronze shields of the Greeks.  As sun set the battle seemed inconclusive, but with most of the Carthaginians withdrawing the field fell for now to Syracuse.

It's certainly good to have Stephen back playing games, his banter and insistence on using painted models are always appreciated.  Hopefully with his wide range of Ancients armies we can expand on the historical scenarios at the club.

And any day when we can get 500 figures on the table for a run of the mill game is all right by me!

Les Guerres Dystopiques

Like a true gamer, I have sometimes to sell things, but usually only to fund other projects instead.  In this instance the selling of my otherwise unwanted AK47 Republic models has allowed me to guiltlessly embark on another game.

I've played Dystopian Wars a few times, along with its predecessor - Uncharted Seas.  The rules I really liked, providing a playable naval wargame, and the background - a steampunk version of the late 19th century transformed by the discovery of a 'super element' but still mired in very human politicing and fighting; but none of the initial fleets really appealed and so to date I'd been able to justify not getting involved in the game.

But with a hefty chunk of cash falling in to my Paypal account and some much mre attractive new releases; I've finally succumbed.

£50 or so with Trolltrader.co.uk purchased me the Rules, a starter fleet and an extra blister pack of ships:

And for the nation of choice, well I went with the French.




I find they have more elegance about them than the original model ranges (I really didn't like the look of a couple of the original nations produced for the game), and certainly look more like real vessels, even if as with most of the nations in the game, closer to the shipping of the 20th century than the 19th.  Though clearly the implied technology of the games' background plays a huge part in that.

One of the strengths of the rules is that they cover all arms warfare - land, sea and air.  And the French have attractive airships as part of their forces.
 


Though I have to say it is the naval games that appeal most to me, there's always been something about naval gaming that has fascinated me, and as the blog will attest to I've indulged in many maritime wargames.


But anyway, Spartan Games are certainly getting better as they go in the design stakes for their models, and with this game picking up in interest at the Headingley Club (I attend intermittently on Thursdays) I hope to be able to get some use out of these models once painted.


And given their size I don't see that taking too long to achieve either!

The Javelinmen of Salo

After what seems an age, I've finally added another little unit to my Dogs of War:

These are Copplestone Castings' Barbarian models, now sold - very reasonably - by Battlezone Miniatures. I used the javelin armed troops as this meant they could represent throwing knives, which is how I like to field my Duellists; with knives and small shields.

I went for a really bronzed flesh tone for these chaps and so added some brown to the basecoat, highlighting up to a mid-fleshtone, without any lighter touches.  As a lot of the rest of the models was furs, I opted for contrasting bright shades on the Javelins and shields.  The shield design is a much simplified version of the Pazyryk tattoo's which also chimes well with the standard, which was salvaged from some plastic Celt sprues I was given for spares.

I think they look pretty tidy for a fast old job.

6th Edition 40k Arrives

Well, last week or so the latest edition of Warhammer 40,000 appeared, and so the fanboys can begin a new round of declaring the end of the metagame, the rise of the new cheese, and how Games workshop have saved/ruined the game forever.  Not unsurprisingly many of the 40k players made it down the Nightowls last week (some for the first time in ages) to try the new rules out.

Personally, I'm glad to see the game back at the club, but I gave up on 40k 0 for the second time - midway during 5th ed; due to the disparity between relatively elagant (not realistic, but elegant as a game) rules and the ludicrous exceptions to the core system made at every turn by the army books.  There are a substantial group of players for whom exploiting or overcoming these flaws are the pleasure of the game however, more power to them, if that's what they like!

Elsewhere it was an all-fantasy/sci-fi day in the club with Games of Warhammer and Kings of War (in 15mm) also going on.

Myself, I had other fun and games planned for the day so could only pop in for half an hour, whilst most of the historical gamers were either otherwise engaged or at a convention in Scarborough.  Nonetheless is was gratifying to see the place busy again.

Easy-make Terrain: Hills

OK, time for another tutorial, I hope this isn't teaching one's Granny to suck eggs but here's how to make really simple hills for your wargames table.

First of all get hold of some high density foam.  Unlike packing foam, this material is used in construction and manufacturing roles - most familiarly for insulation - and as such is more durable, resultantly easier to work with.  It is graded in terms of density from the soft Pink to the almost wood-like Brown, with this blue material in the middle.

Having marked out an inner and outer template onto the sheet with a marker pen I then used nothing more complicated than a full length snap-off craft knife blade to gradually cut through the material at roughly a 45 degree angle.  Start with a shallow cut at the angle you favour then let the blade follow this cut around on successive passes (three or four times round should be enough) until it cuts through.

You can apply gentle reverse pressure (i.e. flexing the back of the board) to open the cut and make passing the blade through easier.  When you've released the shape, you can tidy it up if you wish.  If you are expecting particularly heavy use you may want to glue a thin layer of wood or other material to the base, but I didn't bother; this foam is really tough!

Above, the two sections could be used as a large and small hill, each is about 2.5cm (1 inch) thick.  But I used a hot glue gun to stick them together instead to make a higher hill.  PVA glue will work just as well but takes a lot longer to cure.  Superglue is not suitable for this job.

Next, give the hill a suitable basecoat of Emulsion paint:

Having done this; you may be happy with the finish as it stands and to be fair for old school games it will look the part.  But for our club, and my preference I now applied a generous layer of scatter.

Using a thinned down waterproof PVA glue paint the entire model, and then generously cover with a scatter of your choice.  I would recommend light-fast flock rather than static grass, at least for the first layer, as it'll cover more completely.  Give this at least 24 hours to dry fully, but you can shake off the excess after an hour or so.

Don't forget to pour that excess scatter in to a sealable tub, you want it again.  I would recommend you apply a second coat of scatter for a solid finish.  The second layer of PVA will seal in the first ensuring that wear and tear over time is minimised.  Also in your second layer you can choose to use static grass.

Give it another 24 hours and it's ready for the table:

The 28mm Knight gives some impression of the size of the model.

The beauty of making your own terrain is of course that it becomes crazily cost effective as you increase in volume.  I managed to scrounge this foam indirectly from a fabricators, but used probably only a fiver's worth to make all the hills below:

On top of that I used green paint and tools I already had, and bought £6 worth of PVA (from a budget DIY store) and scatter (from a model railway store).  Each of the single tier hills has a flat top large enough for at least a minimum of one horde sized unit of 25mm based fantasy figures on top, so should well suit club usage; how large you choose to make yours, is up to you.


So, what are you waiting for, go make something!

A Pledgers Progress: April-June

Three months have passed one again and it's time to tot up the numbers.  The figures are just above average in fact and run out as follows:

• 24 Zulu Wars British Infantry
• 20 Judean Fighters
• 8 Carolingian/Norman Spearmen
• 3 German Tanks
• 20 Zulu warriors
• 12 Judean Bowmen
• 10 Dogs of War Barbarian Javelinmen (Duellists) 

That brings me to a total of 109 points against a target of 90 for the quarter.  It's not particularly impressive, but I've had a busy social calendar of late; and added to the 169 points from the first three months of the year it begins to look better

Now the last two are the main additions for the month of June, and the Dogs have yet to be photographed, but I can show a picture of the completed Jewish troops:

These are light infantry, but with enough numbers to hold some sort of fighting formation if needed.  Most of the models are Wargames Factory Numidians with added cloaks, but three of them are their Celts.  These were an experiment to see if I could make them work.  Layers of clothing needed adding to some models and removing from others, all a bit fiddly, but there is nothing straight forward about this lot!  

The cloaks certainly look better on these chaps, with practice I'm sure they'll get better still.  I've also added some 'Autumn Tufts'  From the MiniNatur range; I think these best evoke some sparse desert foliage.

That makes the Jews up to a very modest 32 figures.  A long way to go yet!

Apocalypse - The Great Jewish War

Many years ago I had a stab at reading Josephus; concious that given his status as a traitor to Judea it was likely to be a biased account of the Jewish Rebellion.  That it certainly was, but recently getting back in to the period and looking for other books on the subject I came across and excellent tome, that discussed in detail why he would be so disposed to treachery, amongst many other points.  Not least an excellent account of the war.

Neil Faulkner's 'Apocalypse, is a book of two halves really, the first part details the background and context of the war, including great detail on the prior history of the region and extensive discussion of the Jewish society and religious movements that more often than not worked against one another during the rebellion.  The readar is introduced to Essenes, Sicarii, Zealots and more, as well as the Romanophile property owning elites of which Josephus himself was a part.

The second part of course attends to the war itself, which can loosely be divided into four parts - the initial rebellion in which the Romans are defeated at Beth Horon; the War in the north where despite some willingness to take on the Romans in battle the Galilean's led by Josephus are defeated in detail; The siege of Jerusalem (preceded by the small matter of the year of four emperors); and the the mopping up campaign concluding with the tragedy at Masada.

One particularly commendable point to Faulkner's account, from a wargamers point of view especially, is the detailed discussion of ancient warfare and siege combat.  If nothing else, pages 338 to 344 (of this edition) should be required reading for any wargamer, detailing as they do the reality and psychology of pitched battle.  The author also details at great length the siege tactics, campaign doctrines and army compositions of both sides.

All in all, it is an excellent and very readable account of the war, which offers more balance and insight than a  reading of Josephus alone would permit.  I'm glad I picked this up, and for anyone with an interest in the middle east or Rome at war this should be a must.