Happy New Year!!! Plans for 2015...

As I am out later gigging with my current bunch of ageing rockers known as Sidewynder, I thought I'd post quickly now, as I'll be in no fit state tomorrow.

2014 has been an interesting year. I have suffered major problems with my painting mojo this year and have actually achieved very little. On the plus side, I have made decent inroads into my Colonial collection and the LoTR forces continue to grow at snail's pace. Aside from that, very little. This is a shame as I have a lot of French Indian war/AWI skirmish stuff I want to start gaming and I had hoped too have got somewhere with that, but to no avail.

On the plus side, 2014 has seen a major new gaming interest: Rob Broom's War & Conquest. This has pretty much replaced WAB as my ancients/dark ages game of choice, although I still enjoy Dux Britanniarum and Dux Bellorum. I also enjoyed trying out Lion Rampant and hope to play more of that in 2015.

Plans for 2015 as follows:

1. Continue to expand the NW Frontier collection. I need to finish highlighting & basing 12 Gurkhas in the short term, then move onto a Mountain gun and about 60 more tribesmen, of which 30 have been started. I do have a couple of chaps at the club keen to do a bit of gaming with these.

2. Continue with the LoTR collection. I have decided that my recent 'scour EBAY for painted Orcs to tidy up' is the best way to build up the evil forces. It's not cheap, but it might mean that I get a few games in this side of 2020!!! The Elves, well, we'll keep on with those as and when. I do want to get 12 more and a hero done in the short term, as that'll give me enough for a few LoTR SBG games with son and heir.

3. Finish the Saxon characters I am painting for Andy M at the club...he asked me to do these in September and I have thus far got them undercoated!! Good job he ain't desperate for 'em!!!

4. THE BIG ONE!!!! Complete the late Roman/Arthurian/Early Byzantine/5th-6th century barbarian army lists I am drafting for War & Conquest. I have submitted Romano-British, Early Saxon and Patrician Late Roman (Aetius, et al) to Rob already and am in the middle of Belisarian Byzantines. This latter list is important because Andy MacTaggart and I have plans to do a demo game at our club's planned wargame show in November based on a battle during the Ostrogothic Siege of Rome during Belisarius' Gothic wars in the 6th Century. I will be the Byzantines and Andy the Goths. I therefore need to paint 3 more cavalry units for this (regular Roman horse archers, Roman Bucellarii and Hun mercenaries) and finish the army lists. This could be quite an exciting project and I am about to order the final 12 models from Footsore Miniatures who have taken over the Musketeer miniature ranges. The rest of my army will be composed from my current huge force of late Roman/Arthurian models as they are more than adequate for the army of Belisarius in Italy in the 6th century. This will be a tall order, as 36 cavalry is a lot to paint! To be fair, I can get away with doing 24 and leaving the Huns, so we'll see... Also, 'dip & highlight' is a much more speedy method, so it's not an impossible task. I also have to design the scenario and write a Goth army list. I can see lots of play tests for this taking up most of my gaming time this year...

5. Paint enough models for a Songs of Drums and Tomahawks war band. I have enough Indians for half a war band already but want to paint some AWI American riflemen to go with them. The latter are undercoated and the faces are base coated, so they are under way. You only need 10 models or so, so it's not impossible. They would make a good break from the Byzantines!!

I realise there's a lot to do there. I probably won't get anywhere near most of it, although I am slowly coming out of my painting slump. My New Year resolution is to spend less time on the laptop in the evenings trawling the internet and more time painting and list writing (and playing guitar, as I have a reunion with my old band 9 Lives coming up in Spring/Summer.) If I can manage to use my time more effectively, most of the projects above might get at least some progress in 2015.

Whatever you plan to do in 2015, I hope that it's a very happy, healthy and prosperous year for you.
Please keep looking back at my blog, as I will try to get updates going a little more regularly next year, especially as I get more models painted.

Season's Greetings!!! Painting and Gaming Update...

Hi folks. I hope that you are all enjoying your Christmas celebrations and that Santa brought you some cool gifts.

I have been busy over the past few weeks painting Lord of the Rings models, having been inspired by the latest Hobbit film. I know lots of people think the movie is a steaming pile of dingo kidneys, but I loved it! Anyway, I have been busy with completing some High Elf spearmen converted from Guards of the Galadhrim Court. They have been painted in my current 'dip & highlight' style. I like them - they aren't the best GW sculpts, but I think my paint job and the addition of shields has made them look pretty cool...

I have also been working on my evil forces as well, prompted by a chance encounter on EBAY. I had been worrying for a while about the amount of time it is going to take to get enough LoTR models on the table for a game when, quite by chance, I came upon 24 painted Morannon Orcs. They were not cheap, but had been painted in a fairly neat base coat, ink wash and dry brush style. Anyway, I took the chance and clicked 'Buy it Now.' 

This is what they looked like when they arrived...

So, I set to work adding proper highlights and tidying up areas where the dry brushing was dodgy. I also repainted the shields black, Dullcoted and rebased to match the Orcs I had already done. Here are a couple of close-ups after the surgery was completed...

Not too shabby, I think you'll agree!! I have 8 more to do by which time my Orc force will have quadrupled in about 4 evenings painting time...result!!!!

Here are a few 'action shots' of the entire LoTR collection thus far...

Finally for today, just before Christmas, Andy Mac and I reconvened for another play test of the War & Conquest Romano-British and Early Saxon army lists. This time we took 2500pt armies which gave me the chance to try armoured milites and Frankish allies. The game was, as always, a cracker. However, it did expose the fact that well armoured Romano-Brits are pretty well certain to grind out a win against the Saxon Duguth simply by virtue of better saving throws and by being close order infantry. This means they need to be limited in Romano-Brit lists. in fact, I am toying with the idea of forcing the Romano-Brit player to field at least one unit of Pedyt in any army list above 1500pts. The Franks were, predictably, slaughtered when facing foot Gedriht. The KA4 of the Gedriht means that they are invincible in a straight fight (although Welsh Teulu will be their equal when I write their list) and in this game, Andy's unit strolled through the Franks and one unarmoured milites unit. His mounted Gedriht came off distinctly worse against the mounted Romano-Brit Commanipulares, helped by the Equites, whose flank charge was a joy!!

Overall, we had to stop due to running out of time. Andy had killed 2 of my combat units, but I had killed more. However, he achieved his objective whereas I did not. Next, we will use different forces - Andy will try some Geoguth in his army and I will field a Vortigern list with Saxon mercenaries and Pedyt...

Anyway, a few pictures...

Saxon deployment...

Battle lines formed...

View from the other table edge...

View from behind the Saxon horde...

Gedriht showing my Franks how it should be done...ouch...

Arthur charges in...

Chop, slice, stab...

Andy ponders the pending destruction of his mounted Gedriht...

Saxon Duguth about to 'take their medicine' courtesy of Arthur's commanipulares...

I hope you enjoyed the update. Next up, more Elves and orcs, plus news of 2015's big War & Conquest project!

WAB Day 2014 - IMPERATOR!!!

Last Sunday, the club held its annual WAB event. This year it was a step away from our usual Dark Ages games and into the earlier Roman era, with an approximate timeframe of 70BC to 70AD. We had two factions, nominally Eastern and Western, although it didn't work quite as geographically as we'd have liked and armies ranging from Late Republican Roman, EIR, Dacian, Armenian, Ptolemaic, Parthian, etc.

Overall, it was a great day, with the Western faction coming out overall winners despite a late surge by the Easteners in game 3.

I had probably my best ever WAB event, with two victories and one massacre of a defeat.

Interestingly, this event will probably be the last I'll play of WAB until the same time next year, as I am abandoning the rules for War and Conquest. This is for two reasons:

1. I am helping to write army lists for WaC, so need lots of play test time.
2. I've not really enjoyed playing it much lately, especially when out of the supplements and into Armies of Antiquity - those lists are just too 'tournament' for me  and, while most armies I fought last weekend were not 'gamey', I'm afraid that I have just lost interest in it. Using AoA has certainly taught me a thing or two about the WaC lists that I am writing and the need to steer players towards an historical list, rather than a 'game winning' one.

Anyway, here's some pics from last weekend.... First, some shots of my Late Republican Roman army...

Legionaries...

Elite Legionaries with General and ASB

Legionaries and skirmishers

Gallic Cavalry - very old Foundry Gauls plus some more recent Foundry Germans. The Gauls were painted when WAB very first came out several years ago...

More legionaries. These had 12 hours work on them the day before to finish them in time. They had been painted using the 'dip and highlight' method although I applied 2 highlights to match them closer with the remainder of the army.

More legionaries

Various minis masquerading as armoured allied Greek Thureophoroi (peltasts)

Here's a few shots from the games, some that I was involved in, others I was not...

Firstly, the two faction leaders...yes...that'd be me in one of the silly hats...sigh...

Carlius Fisherum, leader of the East

Andrucius Hawesum, leader of the Western faction

Doubles games to start the day...

...And singles games later on...

All in all, a splendid day of gaming! Many thanks to all my allies and opponents throughout the day for varied and entertaining games.

First Playtest of My War & Conquest Romano-British and Saxon Army Lists...

Interesting game this...

I have been drafting some revised Arthurian army lists for Rob Broom's war & Conquest rules. It is a thoroughly interesting process and has resulted in mucho debate, especially about whether Saxon Gedriht should be KA4 (killing ability 4, so killing on a 3+ compared to everything else's 4+) Now, I know that in WAB, Gedriht are S4. Difference in War & Conquest is that in second and subsequent rounds of combat, they fight in 2 ranks so you get about 18 attacks coming in hitting on 3+, then you take normal saves (usually pretty crap in Arthurian armies) then they kill on 3+s. Now, I'm not sure that's a problem, but it has led to much debate and this was the first play test... Oh, BTW, you can have 2 comitatus units in a 2000pt plus army...

The following is copied from my post on the Scarab Miniatures War & Conquest forum....

My opponent (also called Andy, which may be confusing later... :?) had had difficulty accessing my lists due to email hassle, but had been unable to let me know. As I only took my British lists along to the club, we cobbled something rough together from my ailing memory. Anyway, I took the following:

Dux (with +1 SIP)
ASB
Decurio

12 x mtd commanipulares (heavy armour, thrusting spear, regular formation)
21 x foot commanipulares (light armour, large shield, heavy thrown weapon, which I bloody forgot to use...)
2 x 24 milites with large shield and thrown weapon
1 x 12 Equites with alight armour upgrade
12 x sagitarrii
2 x 12 skirmishers, one lot with short bow one with slings
This came to 1997 points.

Andy had

Cyning (+1 SIP)
Atheling
ASB
Thegn

1 x 24 Gedriht
1 x 14 mtd Gedriht
2 x 24 Duguth
1 x 18 duguth
3 x skirmisher units, 2 with short bow one with javelin

Approx 1990 points (we think....)

Andy had never played before...

We set up with Autumn deployment because it looks nice...

I favoured an infantry centre, with skirmishers screening my right and all my cavalry on my left. Andy favoured matching my skirmishers with his. His foot Gedriht were in the centre, flanked by large Duguth units accompanied by personalities. These were flanked by his mtd Gedriht and finally his small Duguth unit.

I won the strategic advantage for turn one and advanced slightly. The idea of this was to convince Andy that I was playing aggressively, only to fool him by forming shield wall in turn two and hoping to turn the flank, although I realised this would be tough with Andy's clever deployment of the 18 Duguth on the extreme flank facing my Equites. My initial archery dispatched a fair few of the heathen to their maker, which was a sound start.

Andy surged everyone forward at full pelt and I suddenly realised my error  - I HAD to win strategic advantage for turn 2 or all would be lost....

I didn't.... You can guess the rest....

But anyway, what happened was that I got charged by everything, so the skirmish screen fled, revealing the heavy infantry. The Equites were JUST in range of the Duguth charge (DRAT!) and their javelin fire proved useless.

The game then became one long protracted combat until I died.

This is how it went.

The mtd Gedriht demolished the mtd commanipulares in rapid order, with the equites suffering a similar fate. Both my units were run down in the pursuit. I think I lasted about 4 combat rounds. The mtd Gedriht did not lose a single figure and killed over half the heavily armoured commanipulares!!!!!

In the centre, I forgot my heavy throwing spears (STOOPID!!!!) which meant that my foot commanipulares stood no chance.

They lasted about 4  rounds of combat before eventually being run down. Interestingly, the 2 personalities both died in combat as I rolled an uncommonly large number of 6s when finding out if they were wounded and uncommonly large numbers of 1s and 2s when rolling for divine intervention...sigh...

However, my milites did defeat both large Duguth units, with one being run down in the pursuit. The other, despite losing 4 more men as they fled through my strategically placed sagitarrii, rallied on snake eyes!!!

So it was game over as over 75% of my units were gone, for the loss of one of Andy's. Absolute massacre.

Evaluation:

Mtd gedriht are very, very, very awesome. Probably too awesome! I do think the saxon buckler rule (may re-roll all hit dice in any turn they charge - that's all hit dice, not just misses...useful if you roll really shite dice...) should only apply to foot troops, as it was the re-roll in turn one of the combat that meant they scored 6 hits rather than the 2 they got on first roll!!! Also,  I think it's not appropriate for mounted fighting, having reflected on the fighting style described by those 'in the know'....

Foot gedriht are also very, very awesome!! It's that second (and subsequent) rounds of combat, where suddenly, 18 attacks hit and kill on 3+. I had a save of 4+ on my foot commanipulares and it mattered not a jot. Ok, had they been in shield wall, it would have been 3+. However, my mtd guys had a 3+ save and died virtually to a man without inflicting a single solitary casualty!! Yikes...

Duguth and Milites are well balanced. In a grind out, the milites will win. That's pretty historically accurate in my opinion, as late Roman style infantry were still capable of holding their own and grinding out wins against barbarians in this period. I didn't field Pedyt as this was a late Roman style Romano British Field Army...

Equites probably work fine if you don't get them charged by enemy infantry (sigh.....)

So, overall, the only questions I really have are as follows:

1. Should Saxon gedriht cavalry be KA4? Or would KA3 reflect less comfort fighting from a horse in the earlier armies at the very least?
2. Should mtd Saxons get the buckler re-roll? Gut feeling suggests that the answer is 'no' as it was a weapon best suited to foot combat where the individual could swirl about flailing buckler and axe/sword at all and sundry. That's bloomin' hard to do on the back of a nag....
3. Whatever one does about questions 1 and 2, how on earth will one balance Pict, Scots Irish and Welsh armies who have no shield wall? Welsh Teulu should be KA4, as they were every bit as good as the saxons - they maintained their lands for many, many years in the West and Rheged was never conquered, falling to the Saxons via dynastic marriage in the end - the warriors of that kingdom regularly trashed saxons from Deira and Bernicia (which became united as Northumbria) in the 6th century. But what about Picts? WAB gave their nobles toughness 4, but does Durability 8 (making them 5+ to kill) really work for them in these rules? Is there any justification to it beyond making Picts more attractive as an army??? Durability 8 is usually assigned to cavalry with metal mega-barding, rather than racking up a stupid armour save, so is that appropriate for a bunch of half-naked barbarians? Were Pict and Irish nobles really super humanly tough? I think some serious thinking is in order to make Picts (esp early Picts pre thrusting spear schiltrons, so pre 7th/8th century) and Irish viable armies.

I am also wondering about war band rules for Saxons. I am increasingly thinking that later period armies have no justification for the 'surge' rule in particular, although I think raiders must have it. I am inclined to say that buckler armed Saxons should be subject to war band surge, but am questioning whether shield armed ones should. Then again, maybe Geoguth should always be subject to 'surge' reflecting their eagerness for glory....

Anyway, Andy and I are playing again next week with almost identical forces (he'll make a proper list this time) and we'll see if I can get better results tactically!!! I also intend to just play through some combats seeing how shield wall fares against gedriht, both for milites (who will obviously die immediately regardless unless armoured) and commanipulares. BTW, I have resisted allowing foot commanipulares heavy armour, as that would mean they had a 2+ save in shield wall.

I hope you enjoyed that. I am looking forward to playing again!!!!

I do urge regular readers who are interested to visit the  Scarab W&C Forum General Discussion area. It's not a busy place, but that's where most online discussion about these lists will take place...