Having a clear out...and more Oldhammer musings.

Just to let you all know that I am selling a load of my lead pile. I have finally realised that I won't paint it or ever play with it, so it's going to make room for what I WILL play with! (Hopefully!)

There will be bits appearing on EBAY over the next couple of months, including a bit of painted stuff. There'll be a load of Foundry 7th cavalry and Plains Indians on sale shortly, plus some Redoubt FIW models, plus some WFB dwarf sprues, plus some Perry Crusades stuff, plus some painted 90s High Elves that I don't want for my Oldhammer project...all sorts...

Find me  here on EBAY...

However, I have a few bits on sale that I'd rather not put on EBAY... Have a look here.

EDIT!! ROMANO BRITISH AND SAXONS SOLD! 

And all this to make room for bits for Oldhammer... I just bought a load of 80s High Elf cavalry (drool, dribble) and am intending to buy some Mirliton (ex-Grenadier) High Elf infantry to accompany them as Citadel High Elf spearmen were conspicuous by their absence in the late 80s...there were but a handful and they don't seem to be appearing on EBAY much at the mo. Still the Grenadier figures will more than work...I had some of them years ago and flogged 'em..sigh...

I also have my eye on some Jess Goodwin Elf archers as there are some on EBAY that aren't going for insane money...

A nice little painting project to add to my stuff for the rest of the year, with the prospect of some games, so I actually have a reason to get on and do it!!! Add my LOTR stuff and it seems that Fantasy will take up most of my painting time for the rest of the year. That'll make a nice change!!

All Hail Oldhammer...

Back in the early 1990s, the 4th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle came out...it had a boxed set of plastic Elves and Goblins and was the first time GW had done such an approach. I had already picked up some of the old 80s High Elves, but had never played... Soon, I had amassed a 2000pt army of the lovely new 90s Marauder and Citadel High Elf models and my journey back into Wargaming really began there. Stupidly, I got rid of all those early Elf models because, back then, I thought the (then) new ones were cooler...Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid...

Anyway, I haven't played WFB since version 6, cos I thought version 7 was complete bollox and I haven't even touched version 8, which I believe has been christened 'Monsterhammer' and is apparently tournament heaven...Hmmm...not my forte...
But I do REALLY miss playing with my old High Elves, some of which I tarted up to improve the paint jobs about 10 years ago for a club campaign, so it was with some interest that I picked up on the current trend for 'Oldhammer' gaming - guys playing really early versions of WFB, usually (but not exclusively) 3rd edition, which costs an arm and a leg to buy on EBAY and which is spoken of in hushed tones...and is apparently mega complex if you play EVERY advanced rule, but is allegedly VERY good...

So, I went to Scribd.com and downloaded it plus the army book....£6 for 24 hour access, job's a good 'un (better than paying 80 quid on EBAY at any rate, although it cost me 25 quid in ink to print the bugger out!!!!)

Wow! What a difference from what I played in versions 4-6!!! Interesting! It's a weighty 300 page tome, so I have only skimmed it, but I am very intrigued! There are some cool ideas...initiative determining combat strike order, +1 to hit if charging, push-backs, 'free hack' (free strikes when enemy rout) being just some things that made me go "ooohhh....interesting!"  That and loads of levels of heroes and wizards... We'll probably need to keep the more stoopidly dangerous spells out of the games at the scale we'll likely play, but even so... I wanna give it a go!

Andy MacTaggart from the club is also rather keen on playing it, as it's where he actually started gaming as a nipper, so we have kinda agreed that it'll be a long-term project. I have already fetched my High Elves out of the attic and dusted them down, picked the nicest painted ones and those that will fit the lists (some need a lot of patching up, others not so much) and I'm on my way!

Watch this space for developments. Once I have finished the current painting odds n sods, the 'patching up' will begin - they need re-basing for a start...

What with that and the LOTR stuff and playtests for a set called 'Ride to Ruin' (based on Dux Brit), I am looking forward to adding decent Fantasy gaming back into my gaming repertoire... I know that some may sneer, but it's where I started and I have really missed it!!

Next up, some more Dux Britanniarum, a new WAB 'Raiding Season' campaign that got off to what some would call my usual start (yup...shit dice, loads of dead Romano-Brits, you know the score...still great fun tho') and then, hopefully, some more actual painting!!!!!!

Dux Bellorum at Salute 2013

Well, this was a result both unexpected and very gratefully received!! You know that you have achieved your 'wargame show aims' when you find yourself pretty much welded to your game for the day answering myriad questions, demonstrating bits of the rules, chatting to punters, etc, AND you end up winning a prestigious trophy, which, as the pics above demonstrate, was 'Best Painting.' At ANY show that'd be a result... At Salute, it's doubly special as there are SO many great miniatures on display.

So, overall, I think 'the team' (myself, Steve Jones, James Morris, Scrivs, Andy MacT, Tom and John) did ourselves proud and did a darn fine job of promoting Osprey's Dux Bellorum rules on the day.

It was a long day, as I was up at 4.20am to leave the house at 5.30am and got home at 8.15 in the evening, but it was really worth it in every sense. So may people came to see our game and left with positive comments. Lots of them told us that they owned the game, but hadn't played it and I like to think that a good number of them will now be inspired to go and try it having seen us play it through. We tried to ensure that we had one of our two games running at all points throughout the day. This worked well, as there was a little overlap and it enabled lots of the team to be on hand to explain stuff to the punters. We always try very hard to get that aspect right at a wargame show - while some punters don't really want to stand and chat, a good number do, so taking the time to say 'hello' and strike up a conversation is always worth the effort and having a big team certainly made that possible.

On the day, Arthur lost twice to the Saxons. In the first game, Scrivs beat me and in the second, Scrivs started out with the Saxons against Andy MacT who took the Romano-Brits, but Scrivs then toddled off to see the Chain of Command demo on TooFatLardies stand, so I took over and killed every Briton on the table...including Arthur!!! Over on the big game, they played it through once, but I'm not sure what the result was.

Both tables looked spectacular due to the quality of figures and especially the terrain - Steve's scratch-built hill fort and the charming 'church that is now a water mill' providing plenty of eye candy for the punters and prompting several questions.

I didn't get to see much of the rest of the show, as it's so big and I was only away from the game about 90 mins, so, while I had a wander and did a bit of shopping (new Musketeer Arthurian characters and cataphracts, some paint and Foundry's new Fantasy rulebook) there was too much to take in. There was a stunning 40mm Alamo game put on by Gringo minis which just look AMAZING - thousands upon thousands of pounds worth of minis and terrain, apparently - and a HUGE Waterloo game, which caught my eye simply because of the size of it and the mass of figures on the table - too many figures crammed into the space, if I'm honest, but then that always seems to happen when folk attempt a Waterloo refight. Still, that sheer number of models always causes a 'wow' moment.

The show seemed busy and it was GREAT to catch up with some gamers who I hadn't seen in a while, as well as to meet some of the bloggers who follow my ramblings on here...

Anyway, enough chit-chat, you wanna see some pics, right? Here are a few I took of our games. Apologies for poor photography on a few. I was experimenting with camera settings as, for some reason, I had more trouble than usual with settings and getting depth of field, focus and lighting right...

Scrivs' Saxons...

My Romano-British

More  of Scrivs' Saxons

Steve Jones' home-made hill fort...matchsticks by the thousand!!!

The Byzantine church that had become a watermill....

Steve's fabulous Late Romans...

James Morris' barbarian conspiracy Pict/Scot alliance

Action  hots up on the 'Arthur' game...

Preparations for Salute...Last Practice Game of Dux Bellorum

Last minute preparations for Salute are now done! I realised on Monday evening while packing my army to take to the club to play Andy MacTaggart at Dux Bellorum that I had forgotten to paint the extra casualty marker that I needed!! Doh!! Also, 25 of my Romano-Brit models had paint chipped off in varying degrees, so I needed to patch those up. Anyway, that's now done and I am all sorted and ready for Saturday! It's gonna be a long day, but no doubt a good one and the game I'm about to tell you about was excellent in that it helped Andy and I to realise some key errors we had been making in our games thus far - errors we will not make on Saturday! 

We opted for the 'End of Reign' scenario from the book. basically, you have to rout the enemy Companions unit to win the game - any other result is a draw. Also, this game's special rules are that you cannot allocate leadership points to save wounds on your companions... Interesting!!

We set up as follows: Andy split his force so that the bulk of his foot was on his left flank and a small flanking force was deployed way to his right. I countered by placing my cavalry on my left to hopefully exploit the gap and to keep his flankers busy.

In the event, it didn't quite work out. My heavy cavalry did fearful slaughter to Andy's infantry, but not enough to rout them before his flankers, having reduced my light cavalry to 1 cohesion, appeared in my cavalry's rear. My shieldwalls battled valiantly on my right, but by the end of the game, I was down to less than 50% of my starting force and, had we not called it a day, would have been in danger of losing my companions. I did manage to attack Andy's companions in the rear and reduce them to 1 cohesion, so it was close!! A draw it was, but I'm calling it a 'winning draw' to Andy.

However, we made a number of errors. Chief among these was that we got the part about avoiding uncontrolled charges totally wrong, so Andy basically avoided my shieldwalls for far longer than he should have and also did some illegal moves with those units as a result. 

Also, my rear charge onto his companions was illegal too! Although one can be behind the enemy and still charge them even with no line of sight, the unit has to surrender one base-width move to turn and make the charge. This is what I didn't do!!!

Still, even with the errors, it was a brilliant game! The more I play it, the more I enjoy it. In particular, I like the allocation of leadership points, which becomes almost like a poker game as one tries to out-think one's opponent!!

So, off to Salute with this army on Saturday. I hope to see some of you there. Pics of the battle from Monday night below....

Set-Up...

My cavalry moves to threaten the enemy...

It's looking good here! I did inflict serious death on those Saxon units nearest the cavalry, but not enough to rout them...

You can see my cavalry slogging away and killing Saxons, but they are about to get it big-stylee!!

Close up of the action in the centre...

The other flank...

It's about to go pear-shaped for my noble cavalry at top right of the picture...

I have reduced the Saxon unit at bottom right to 1 cohesion...can the Saxon  companions redress the balance long enough for their mates to rout my companions?

My infantry threaten the Saxon left...

My fabulous dice that so nearly routed the Saxon companions...just one more 6 would have done it!!

Back In The Land Of The Living...Just!!!!!

Greetings one and all. Apologies for lack of updates over the past 2 weeks. I had planned to post some pics of painted models, as I had several awaiting completion and had planned to do those over the holiday period. Sadly, a flu virus intervened and utterly wiped me out for 10 days!!! Truly, 'twas a mighty and most virulent virus, made worse by the fact that we were on a family holiday at the time...Great!!!! :-(

Hopefully, I am now on the road to full recovery and I hope to resume some painting and gaming next week. Next posts are likely to be the final practice game of Dux Bellorum before Salute (gaming that one on Monday evening) and I do hope to eventually post some pics of some Colonial Sikhs, a Saxon standard bearer and a new bunch of Elves...plus of course the next Dux Brit battle, where I attempt to salvage an iota of pride and throw Mike's Saxons back from the walls of Linnius...That last one is coming after Salute.

Talking of Salute, if any of my esteemed readers are frequenting the show this year, please look out for the Newark Irregulars banner, as that'll be where you'll find me demoing Osprey's Dux Bellorum rules. Please do come over and say 'hello'!!

The Annals of Linnius Chapter 7: Besieged!

It is now late Summer in the 473rd year after the birth of our Lord and Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. I, Publicus Librarius, scribe to his Royal Majesty King Mascuidius of Linnius do chronicle the days of kingdom and the coming of the dread Saex.

“Oh woeful day!! The wailing of women and babes in arms is fearful to our ears! The cries of wounded soldiery doth grip my soul and break my spirit! Can it be that Our Lord and Saviour has deserted us? Is the Day of Judgement at hand?

Scarce days ago our brave forces did engage the Saex in battle North of the city.  The omens were poor, as the army had been severely bested in a previous encounter on the road. Morale was low among the soldiery and the Praefectus Andrucius was heard openly challenging his Majesty King Mascuidius in his view about meeting the Saex in open field. However, one does not argue long with his majesty and live and so it was that the Praefectus led the army to battle.

The day opened with a challenge of champions in the Old Stone Circle and thus it was that Bedwyr of the swift sword, son of Emrys of the Saxon Shore, Slayer of Franks, Goths and Burgundians, protector of the legacy of Rome, bodyguard to Praefectus Andrucius did step forth to fight. Long was the duel that day and by God’s mercy, Bedwyr did triumph! This did raise the morale of the army in significant measure, but not enough to guarantee victory.

The shieldwall did form atop the great hills, but it availed not! The Saex, bolstered by heathen warriors from across the Irish Sea did outflank the shieldwall, doing mighty execution and forcing our warriors from the field in ignominious rout. Never has the like been seen in the days of our kingdom!

Now we are besieged within the city. The Praefectus assures us that the walls will hold for long enough to regain the strength of our army and that we shall then break out and drive them from our lands once more – “Remember the Great Victory!” he cries. “We have bested them once and we can do so again. Yet, this is but a hollow boast. The Saex have bested us in near enough every encounter. There are those within the kingdom who speak of abandoning our lands and seeking sanctuary across the Saxon Sea in the land of the Bretons. Privately, I believe the Praefectus agrees with them!

The Praefectus has visited me this past evening, as I tended the wounded. We talked at great length. He fears that he only retains his title, his lands, his role as army commander (and indeed his head) because there are no others to take his place. He fears the Saex Lord, who fights more like a Roman than a barbarian. Not for this Saxon the mad rush into the shieldwall, but rather a measured approach to the battle, the wide outflanking move, the discipline in his warriors not to attack until the very best moment. This man is a dangerous enemy. The Praefectus also informs me that new warrior bands have joined the Saex to join in their glory and in our slaughter. This makes it even harder for us to win the day. How can we take them on with the levy, when they are both better warriors and fight with greater discipline?

The Praefectus is a man who now keeps only his own company. He will do as he says and lead the army out to fight another day. What will happen on that day, only our Lord and Blessed Saviour knows…”

Have you ever had one of those games where it goes wrong on the very first move and gets dramatically worse from there on in? Oh, and you can’t actually stop it happening because you descend into ‘muppetville’ and ‘buffoon-land’ where each new decision you take is even more stupid than the last? No? Lucky you! It happened to me on Monday as Mike and I got together to play Dux Britanniarum at wargames club. I had played Dux Bellorum 3 weeks in a row and Black Powder before that and had entirely forgotten some very key facts about how to play these rules. And I was simply stoopid!!!!!!!!

I deployed badly, played woefully and lost massively, all helped by the fact that Mike deployed well, played exceptionally well and gained a victory to match! Horrible, horrible, horrible! Oh, AND I had some really shite dice as well! And Mike didn't, not this time... A whopping 6 point defeat leaving the campaign squarely in Mike’s hands. I have no cash to recruit mercenaries or do anything. He has foederati skirmishers AND an extra 6 warriors, meaning that, in every battle from now on, he is almost bound to win, as I have to stay in shieldwall to have any chance, but as soon as I do, he’ll outflank and destroy me again. My only hope is to make some evil terrain to anchor my flanks on and to completely reconsider my entire approach to the game, not an easy thing to do!! I do have one tiny plan I intend to try, but that’s a secret as Mike will be reading this!!!

And that’s all I’ll say about it… I didn’t enjoy it at all, simply because I knew I was playing really badly but couldn’t seem to stop myself…horrible!!!!! Still, good job I was playing with Mike as he doesn’t gloat at all, which was very kind of him!!!

Anyway, we reconvene after Salute for the attempted break out!

Here’s some pics of my ignominious demise…

Duel of Champions!!!

VICTORY!!!

Deployment...

Flanking move developing...

Even now it ain't a disaster...

Just before it all went wrong! I now charge off the hill to hit the flankers as they emerge from a wood, with Aggressive charge and everything....Good plan...except that I am FORGETTING THAT IT'S MINUS 1 TO F**KING HIT WHEN THE ENEMY ARE IN A WOOD!!! DOH!!!! AND, SHIELDWALL IS BRILLIANT ON A HILL... AND I'M NOT IN SHIELDWALL, OR ON A HILL ANYMORE.....ARRRGH!!! Muppet!!!!

Result...Hearthguard routed, warriors all dead and morale on 0!!! Ooops...

81,000 Views!!!!

Blimey!! 81,000 views!! Seems like only a week ago it was 75,000! Lots of you must visit very regularly and for that I thank you all very much! I'm so glad that my hobby adventures provide you with something to follow...and that you all leep coming back. Thank you all so very much 
:-)

Next up, tales of a disaster of global proportions in the Dux Britanniarum campaign, followed by yet more Dux Bellorum and maybe even some more painting!! I have a Saxon standard bearer, some more Elves and some Colonial Sikhs in various stages of semi-completion and I am considering painting some Huns to use as horse archers with a Late Roman army in Dux Bellorum...(yup, Dux Bellorum is the current 'must play more' set here at GeetarheroTowers...)