Like a sir

With the Perry WOTR mounted men-at-arms due to be released next month, I have been stepping up on my painting.

The figure in the centre is Sir John Savage from Trent Miniatures - I have no idea which Sir John Savage he is supposed to represent, but his size and the style of his armour makes him blend perfectly with the Perry plastics, even if his hairstyle may not...

I also bought the Friar Tuck and Maid Marian pack from the same series, which will give me a couple of civilians/non-combatants figures; skirmish games are always more interesting if you have them, aren't they?

I actually managed to prime the figure this afternoon and completed it in an evening, which gives me optimism about the time it will take to complete the mounted men-at-arms.

I also primed the resin bases I bought for my beastmen. The extra height the base provides makes Daachuh looks even more menacing than he is to begin with - I don't know how any human can not run away with such a beast towering over him...

Sit, boy!

Halfway through work this morning I was seized by a desire to own a 28mm scaled ceratopsian dinosaur model, perhaps suitably modelled with a fighting platform or howdah upon its back.

A visit to the mall near my place after work yielded this little guy, which is just the right size. Unfortunately I came in a big bag with several other ugly and out-of-scale dinos, which meant it didn't come at a bargain price. Still, a dino in hand is better than making a trip to another place to look for a toy that may not be there...

It's made of some sort of soft rubber or plastic and smelled quite strongly of solvent, but after a bath and some deflashing of the mould lines, it is ready for further work.

With the horns on its frill covering the front half of its torso, it means having a mahout sitting astride its neck is not an option - I'll have to think about how to control the creature. It also makes mounting a howdah or a platform on its back difficult, so I will probably fashion some sort of caparison and mount the goblin crew from the Chronopia goblin myrmadon set I ordered on it, while the myrmadon will await some other crew... (I don't know why I keep doing this sort of thing.)

One that is settled I will have to decide what colour to paint it. I'm not sure I want to go for the modern brightly-coloured interpretation, which may not work well on a wargaming model. Well, more googling then...

Overcoming Perry Paralysis 3

I've allowed the WOTR project to lapse for a long time (even as I rounded up my other projects and plot new ones), but the promise of the mounted knights boxed set at or soon after Salute 2012 has finally stirred me into action.

I completed a few half-painted figures and prepped the artillery piece and crew for priming. With luck, I can get some headway on these before my reservist stint the week after.

Other than the dozen foot knights I've completed, I now have these bills and bows.

Enough to use in a game of Strandhogg!

Daachuch the Broken

It took me many evenings, but he's done.

This is a resin model from Maelstrom's BaneLegions line. The material allows them to cast very thin parts - the head and the horns are actually a single piece.

I replaced the banner that came with the model with one from the GW Beastmen box set - the original one looks like it's stiched together from skin... Some of the models in the line (and other "premium, not-GW" lines these days) can look a bit gory, with what sores, open wounds and weapons stitched to stumps... and I want to reduce that here.

For the emblem on the flag I decided to use the symbol on his belly-armour (which is also on his shield), which also appears on some of the other figures in the Bane Legion line - I'm not sure what the fluff behind it is but it looks good and is easy to reproduce.

Here he is posing beside his boss, the Beastman Warchief from the Avatars of War line. I don't get why they feel the need to put so many skulls on the models. The beastmen must really hate us...

On the RPG front

I don't know about you, but that manticore brings back fond memories of childhood.

I was a solo-gamebook player before I was an RPG gamer (then gamemaster) before I became a wargamer. I played RPGs regularly throughout my student days, but stopped after university. A few years ago I met Adrian through an RPG forum when Dragon Warriors was re-released, and we have been gaming since then.

I suppose nostalgia is one big part of why I still play RPGs (I still have the GrailQuest books I first bought almost 30 years ago), but like wargaming, it's the company that makes the experience worthwhile.

Anyway, in preparing for a possible RPG campaign based on "John Carter's Mars", I found out that Arion Games (which I get the paper miniatures I use in my RPGs from) is going to publish the Steve Jackson Sorcery! series as a multi-player RPG campaign.

This is really welcomed news to me because I was left hanging without the last module in the series after Myriador, which formerly had the license to the Sorcery! series abruptly closed down after releasing the first three. I have hoped to run the campaign with some friends but without a finale, it seemed pointless. Now, with Arion Games taking up the baton, I can once again hope.

The module will be in the 2nd Edition Advanced Fighting Fantasy format, but I am sure it's little work converting it into my system of choice. I'll be keeping a close eye for the release date then.

Fun with Colour Printer

OK, so I've been playing with my printer more than I have been painting, but it's all for gaming purposes, I swear...

I bought some card and printed out the Age of Blood Fate Cards made by Sean. Most of the events translate to Strandhogg mechanics easily - 30 out of the 36 are usable. Unfortunately the cards did not come with 'colour lock' technology. If I do this again I will probably just print them on paper and put them into sleeves.

I think I will let each player start with two cards, and each time your opponent uses a card, you may draw one from the deck.

I also printed out a gradient colour backdrop to photograph my minis with.

Since I haven't completed the bestman standard-bearer yet, I used Pumpkin Nagg, my Blood Bowl Star Player, as the model.

Beastman Warchief feat. Devlan Mud

My beastmen force has been sitting on my painting tray for quite a while now, and after the arrival of yet another beastman model (from Reaper) and with planned purchases taking advantage of the Chronopia sale, I resolved to complete at least one model today.

I decided to complete the Avatars of War Besatman Warchief first - he has, after all been the model that inspired this little project.

I knew I needed an easy way to paint the beastmen since I will have a couple dozen of them to go through before I have enough for a game, so I chose to base the entire paint scheme on half a dozen colours straight from the bottle (i.e. no mixing my own hues). Now the earth tone can mean the figures will look rather dull, so I decided to give them white snouts and eyelids like Bighorn Sheep.

And to add depth to an otherwise plain base, I used GW's Devlan Mud (pretty much how some singers 'feature' a rapper in their number, hence the title of the post...).

You can see the results before...

 and after.

Like I said the figure is still too plain, so I will need to spice things up with some work on the base. I bought some resin bases just for this purpose, so hopefully I can be posting pictures of the completed figure by next weekend.

Scottorum Malleus

Last week Dan Mersey, author of the Dux Bellorum rules which will be published by Osprey in August this year, sent me a draft of Scottorum Malleus, his medieval rules aimed primarily at feudal and medieval English warfare (as apparent from the title of the rules) for playtesting an comments.

At the heart of the rules is an Orders Chart with 12 different orders a player can issue to his units during a turn. At the start of each turn, players take turns 'claiming' orders (which they may then issue during the turn), such that if the order for Rally is already claimed by the other player, you may not claim or issue the order Rally for this turn - however, there are duplicate for some orders like Battle, Move, and Shoot. This system requires the player to prioritise on what orders to claim during a turn, and also what orders to deny his opponent. Combat is a DBA-ish - units either stand, recoil, or rout and are removed.

As WOTR is a period my friends and I do, I decided to try a game using WOTR troops. As my figures are not with me, I printed out and used the paper figures from Junior General once again. As the figures they have there are for the battle of Towton, I decided that would be the scenario I would use.

The basic game recommended 8 units or so per side - I used 9 for the Yorkists and 11 for the Lancastrians (I planned on the mounted ambush and reinforcements but decided not to play them). The frontage of the battlefield was narrow, which prevented the Lancastrians from bringing their superior numbers to bear right from the start.

I gave Edward 4 orders per turn and Somerset 3, which gave Edward the initiative throughout the battle. The Yorkists advanced towards the Lancastrians, started to trade volleys, before closing in for melee.

Once melee is joined, the whole thing became a scrum. Since I matched like troop for like, and those who were most able to deal out damage were also the ones who could absorb the most damage, and damage resulted in a morale check but was not carried over from turn to turn, melee was rather indecisive.

After a few turns gaps did appear in the Yorkist line, and Edward tried to 'hog' the Charge order to prevent the Lancastrians from bringing their free units into the flanks, but this wasn't always successful. After many turns of trading blows with neither side giving way, I decided to end the game.

While it wasn't a very exciting scenario, I think it is fair to say that this represented WOTR warfare rather well - historically it was the arrival of flanking units that shifted the tide of the battle first one way and then the other; evenly matched opponents going at it face-to-face tended to result in a grind.

The use of the orders chart, while interesting, made things a little artificial - by hogging the 'Charge' order, Edward was able to prevent Somerset from bringing his available units into melee - perhaps the Unstoppable Force order can be modified to allow one unit to Charge and Battle an enemy unit?

I think it will be interesting to see how these rules work for armies with different troops, for example the Scots and English, or the Welsh and English. Hopefully other playtesters will be posting their battle reports soon too.

Dystopian Fleets QRS

To make our games play faster, I decide to create a quick reference sheet for ourselves.

The basic layout was easy, and the "Algerian" font gave a nice VSF look to the headers.

I was planning to print them on faux parchment paper, but then the idea occurred to me to print them on paper that already has some VSF themed graphics printed on them.

A quick google provided a few possibilities (tip: search "steampunk" instead of "VSF"), but those with too much artwork or too thick a border would obscure the tables or require me to shrink them, and so were abandoned.

I eventually picked one with faint artwork, but the original background colour was a yellow that was a little too bright. I loaded the picture into my photo-editing programme and "sepia-ed" it, printed it out, then printed my table over it (OK, I had to do it twice because I printed on the wrong side...), and this is the result.

Unfortunately I couldn't get my printer to do borderless printing, but all the tables are legible, and the background is atmospheric enough. If I can find more graphics, perhaps I can have a unique QRS for each player?

Napoleonic Tabletop Rules Playtest

As planned, I playtested the tactical rules from Real Time Wargames' ACW rules this afternoon.

I matched 3 divisions of French versus 3 of British. The British had better command and a slight numerical advantage.

The French deployed with a strong centre and weak flanks, holding some of their forces in reserve. The British deployed a small force in each sector, but opened the battle with an attack on their right.

The French were taken by surprise, and Ney sent his cavalry to counter the British in that sector - after two turns the British cavalry were dispersed but the French cavalry were weakened; they withdrew without taking further part in the battle.

In the centre both sides now carried out an artillery duel, but neither side made a committed attack.

Wellington fed more forces into the other two sectors to pin the French, then launched the remainder of the division into the contested right. Ney rushed a brigade from another division to try to shore up the front, but it was all too late for the weakened French brigade at that flank as the newly arrived British launched a ferocious charge that swept it from the field and captured many men (I rolled two 1s!)

Ney now began to plan his retreat and began to pull his artillery back. Wellington, having secured his right flank, began to the forces there to the transit area, but the French completed their pull-out before he could launch an attack.

The French lost a whole division in this battle, but they will recover 60% of the infantry lost, though none of the guns.

The British will regain all of their cavalry, as well as half of their guns, so in all this was a profitable battle for them.

All in all I liked the rules.

the first thing that struck me was how very little happened across the entire battlefield at one time. With limited command points, one could not hope to launch a co-ordinated attack on all sectors at the same time. In fact, unless you committed the CiC into a sector to lead an attack himself, attacks tended to happen piece-meal.

I will need to read through the army withdrawal rules again, as right now it seems that it is too easy if costly to retreat from the field of battle.

Dystopian Fleets ship cards

One of the things I wanted to make for our Dystopian Wars - Grand Fleets 2 project (which I will call Dystopian Fleets from now) is ship cards. I wanted them to be small enough to fit onto a standard collectible card sleeve so we can use non-permanent markers over them, yet be able to hold all the information required for gameplay.

After a night of mucking around with a word processor, I managed to come up with this, with a little help from my new printer.

The British and Ottoman ships will have their own ship cards with a different coloured header and their respective ensigns; I am using the Dystopian Wars ones for now.

I was able to fit everything on one card because we standardised the gun ranges and eliminated some elements; we do lose the granularity of WW1 naval gunnery, but with something like 15 ships/flyers and 8 plane tokens to look after each turn, we have to simplify things to make the game playable in an afternoon. It will still be a bit of work keeping track of 15 ships at once, but having a stack of cards may be preferable to loose sheets of paper.

Now if only they will tell me when they are going to release the Ottoman models...

Levee en papier

I had the idea that I wanted to playtest the tactical rules for our Peninsular campaign over this weekend, but since I only have French troops, I thought I would use counters instead.

Now I *could* just use pieces of card with military symbols and numbers on them, but since I just bought myself a new laser colour printer, I thought I would indulge a little...

After some searching online, I managed to find the fine top-down counters from the Junior General Home Page. I've known about the site for a while now, but it's only today that I realised that they have top-down figures - I forsee myself being a frequent visitor from now on.

With a bit of cut-and-paste and my rudimentary word-processing knowledge, I managed to make a set of counters with check-off stats for a two-corps fight. A bit of glue and knife-work and I should be ready to play.

Look out for the battle report here.

More Peninsular thoughts - Allies OOB

The Allies may require a slightly different organisation, with some manoeuvre units represented as a whole division or two 'demi-divisions', giving 4 Divisions (with 8 'brigades'), and the Light Division and the Independent Portuguese Brigade as single units, giving us 134 bases of infantry in 10 'brigades', with two brigades of cavalry each of 10 bases attached to two of the divisions, plus 2 guns per 'line' Division.


To simplify things, I may have.


British
C-i-C Wellington [4]

1st Div - Spencer [2]

Guards Brigade 13/3
KGL Brigade 13/3
2 Guns


3rd Div - Picton [3]

Mackinnon's Bde 13/2
Colville's Bde 13/2
2 Guns


4th Div - Cole [2]

Kemmis' Bde 13/2
Myers' Bde 13/2
2 Guns


5th Div - Dunlop [2]
Hays' Bde 13/2
Egerton's Bde 13/2
2 Guns

Light Division - Erskine [2]

Light Division 16/3

Independent Portuguese Brigades [2]

Portuguese Bde 16/2

Cavalry Division - detached
de Grey's Bde 10/1
Slade's Bde 10/1

The 'line' Divisions should have 3 or 4 bases of Portuguese troops to reflect the mixed nature of these divisions.

The number [X] behind a commander's name is is command rating, and the numbers for each Bde represents the starting number of bases and the 'flag' or quality rating of the unit.

The Allies start with larger (and thus more powerful) units than the French, and they have units with quality 3, which can make a real difference in combat (I think). I have however given their cavalry a rating of 1.

The French outnumber the Allies at the start of the game, but I will rule that for logistics purposes neither side may have more than 6 Bde of infantry in a node.

At the same time the French will have a movement of 2 nodes per turn while the Allies will have a movement of 3, which means the French cannot hope to win without at least fighting some rearguard actions. In addition, I will allow an Allies unit that has not moved its full 3 nodes to move an additional node after a battle if it wins, allowing them to catch a nearby French Corps if the rearguard failed to delay it.

Finally, I think the format of the game now lends itself well to a two-sided game with 2 players per side, which is what we have.

More Peninsular thoughts - French OOB

I spent most of yesterday night thinking about the campaign system.

To give more tactical options on the tabletop, we will need to tweak the scale to a 1 battalion = 2 bases, 1 squadron = 2 bases, and 1 artillery base = 4 guns.

The smallest manoeuvre unit will be the brigade. The 3 French Corps in the game will have a total of 178 bases of infantry in 15 brigades (4 to 6 brigades in a Corps), and probably 12 bases of cavalry and 4 of artillery per Corps.

French
C-i-C Massena [3]

2nd Corps - Reynier [2]

1st Division - Pierre Merle [2]

Sarrut's Bde 12/2 

Graindorge's Bde 12/2 

2nd Division - Etienne Heudelet [2]

Foy's Bde 12/2
Arnaud's Bde 12/2

Cav Bde 6/2
6 guns

6th Corps - Ney [3]

1st Division - Marchand [2]

Maucune's Bde 12/2

Marcognet's Bde 12/2

2nd Division - Mermet [2]

Bardet's Bde 12/2
Labassée's Brigade 12/2

3rd Division - Loison [2]

Simon's Bde 12/2
Ferey's Brigade 12/2

Cav Bde 6/2
6 guns

8th Corps - Junot [2]

1st Division - Clausel [2]

Menard's Bde 12/2
Taupin's Bde 12/2
Godard's Bde 12/2

2nd Division – Solignac [2]

Gratien's Bde 12/2
Thomières' Bde 12/2

Cav Bde 6/2
6 guns

The number [X] behind a commander's name is is command rating, and the numbers for each Bde represents the starting number of bases and the 'flag' or quality rating of the unit.

The Brigades should have a mix of Ligne and Legere bases (probably 2:1 ratio, since that's what I have).

Massena's Retreat - A Peninsular War Campaign

Even as we playtest our Grand Fleets 2 adaptation for use with the Dystopian Wars models, I am planning for the Peninsular Campaign project that we have been preparing for since the year before.

Between Martin and myself we have looked through a few sets of rules, and while he is painting up the Brits and Portuguese I have bought a painted army off ebay.

We still haven't decide on a set of rules yet, but a question regarding Realistic Modelling's ACW rules on TMP is making me look at using them as a candidate.

Now the rules come with a set of campaign rules and a set of tactical rules. The campaign rules have all the players playing Union commanders trying to defeat Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, bu each trying to outdo the other and win more Prestige form theselves, oftentimes at the detriment of their compatriots!

The campaign takes place on a map with node-to-node movenet, and the Confederate army's moves are determined by an algorithm that takes into account the size of the Union army that attempts to move into contact with it: if the opposition is strong, Jackson may decide to retreat or indeed move on to attack a weaker target nearby. The size of the Confederate army is also determined randomly, such that the Union player never knows whether or not he will successfully bring the Confederate army to battle, which Confederate general he is facing, or how many the enemy are.

Once a battle occurs, the action is moved to the tabletop, where a Union player not involved in the battle now plays the role of the Confederate commander!

The tactical rules are abstract, featuring brigades of around a dozen bases fighting over sectors of the battlefield which are depicted on-table, but whose physical relationship and distance from each other are not to scale - to me this is similar to the Dixie card game which I enjoyed more than a decade ago. Command is thus at a high level: as the Corps commander, you decide wich division commanders to activate and the division commanders in turn decide which sector to commit which brigades to, and which to hold in reserve. There are no rules for formations or tactics per se, and the player is locked out of the lower levels of decision. To me this is a good representation of warfare at this scale, but of course the commander can still decide to influencethings on the ground personally by leading a brigade/divison himself.

I then went on to read a little about the period to find a campaign that has a similar scope and setting, and decided that Massena's retreat from Portugal in 1811 may fit the bill. The retreat from the lines of Torres Vedras took place along a few axes which meant the French split themselves up and the Allies were not always sure where the French were, there were a few rearguard actions fought, and to the end the British still thought that there was a chance the French would still turn back and resume their invasion.

I found a map and translated the places of note and the routes between them into a node map, which gave in most places two or three lines of retreat with only one real choke-point.

Turning to the orders of battle I think a larger scale of 1 base = 1 battalion will probably be more suitable given the size of the forces involved (as well as the number of figures I have!). This will mean Ney's 6th Corps will consist of 1 Corps Commander, 3 Divisions of about 12 bases each, and a Brigade of cavalry and two bases of artillery... I should be able to field up to 2/3rd of the French army at one time.

Now things are still rather preliminary - we will probably require a couple of test games for the tactical rules and I may do a dry run of the campaign rules solo before deciding whether we should have a one or two-sided game, but it should be fun.

Making a splash

One of the nice things about naval wargaming is - let's face it - the chance to use splash markers.

While we are thinking of the really cool ones from Litko, I nonetheless decided to try my hand at making some after reading a post on TMP - it just so happened that I recently recaulked my bathroom sink and had a tube of white silicone sealant which was going to just dry up in its tube anyway...

On the way home I dropped by a general store and bought myself two packs of flat-headed screws. Once I got home, the clear plastic front of the packaging is kept aside for potential basing material, and the screws are glued to the cardboard backing itself - talking about being environmentally friendly!

After letting the glue dry, I squeezed the sealant over the screws and shaped them into plumes of water... as much as I could, anyway.

As you can see from the end result it's pretty... irregular. The few taller ones on the right actually have a second 'layer' of sealant added on top of them to achieve the height. The sealant is sticky fresh, but dries soon, allowing more sealant to be 'piled' on top.

The will probably need some final touching up to ensure all the metal is covered, but so far it's been a cheap and quick way of getting some splash markers done... even if it gets a little messy.

Dystopian Wars project - Grand Fleet 2 playtest

One of the projects our little group is embarking on this year is Spartan Games' Dystopian Wars.

To be precise, we are using their models in a VSF setting, but using a set of WW1 naval rules, with flyer rules bolted on.

Here's a picture of the first test game, using WizKids plastic card ships (without their masts), Majestic 12's Grand Fleet 2 rules, with some Litko Savage Worlds markers, on my desert terrain cloth with a few Heroscape hills as islands... Is that confusing enough for you yet?

I came up with a set of formulas to convert the Dystopian War stats to Grand Fleet 2 stats, and fg and I played a small game with 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers and 3 Frigates per side. The Germans had bigger guns with longer ranges and more powerful torpedoes than the Brits, but the Brits had better fire control and more guns.

After the first few tuns we got the hang of the rules, although it is still rather tedious having to roll for each battery, then penetration, then damage (and this is with half the number of models we expect to field in a full game).

I made the mistake on not capitalising on my ships' strengths and fg took advantage of that, closed in with his cruisers, and hit my Battleship so hard that it had only 2 hulls left (out of the starting 24) so I decided to strike colours.

With a little experience (and the proper markers) we can probably play the game faster. As it is we both like the rules enough to want to use them for the project. Majestic 12 is coming up with the third edition of Grand Fleet soon, so that may be something to look out for - in any case, we can continue to use the same models regardless of the set of rules used.

fg plans to get the French ships when they are released in March, while I will have to wait longer for Spartan Games to release their Ottoman fleet. We will need to get a sea terrain cloth, and a set of Amera islands is also on the cards.

Scout squad 2

Well, it took me a while, but with the holiday season behind, I've finally started painting again.


I decided to complete my sci-fi project by finishing the last two figures in my scout squad: the figure in the centre with the binoculars is from the Infinity range, while the one to her left is from Sedition Wars.

Next on the painting list will likely be some 28mm beastmen, hopefully followed by the Perry WOTR figures again when their mounted knights are released in April.

Making a list...

With the new year thoughts turn to new purchases, even as my pile of unpainted lead, resin and plastic glare accusingly at me as I type this...

Unfortunately, the few items that I wish to purchase are not yet available.

First on the list are Perry plastic mounted men-at-arms, previously thought to be scheduled for a Christmas 2011 release, but now known to be stuck in the queue waiting for Renedra to give it a slot in its production schedule. I sorely need the box set to renew my impetus in mt WOTR project.

Next comes the forces of the Ottoman Empire in Spartan Games' Dystopian Wars universe. wahj suggested the possibility of a VSF aeronef game using the Dystopian Wars models, and with my recent trip to Istanbul still fresh in my memory, I thought: why not the Turks for me?

Sadly, the release date for the second wave in this line is yet unknown.

Meanwhile, I await the release of three computer games. Mind you, I seldom find a game that hits all the right spots for me, and those that do I keep going back to despite their age (or would if I could find a copy). My all-time favourite games are Star Legions, Transport Tycoon, Master of Orion II, and more recently Blood Bowl, Crusader Kings, and Anno 1404.

Now PC games are becoming rarer on the shelves of the local gaming stores, so I was glad to be able to buy new and old games off Steam now. Unfortunately, the two games which I most want right now - Crusader Kings 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion - are scheduled for a 2012 release, but with date unknown.

So meanwhile, I spend my free evenings reading the third book in the Empire of the Moghul series; when the weather becomes drier, I will pick up my can of spray primer again...

Happy New Year and Blood Bowl Game 4

Another year has gone and looking back I suppose we did pretty good on the gaming front.

fg dropped by yesterday to play Game 4 of our Blood Bowl mini-league, which my Ra Team won, bringing the score to 3 wins for the Undead. We reckon the match-up negates most of the strengths of the Nurgle team, so in planning our next league we will probably be using my Fantasy Greek-themed Chaos Darf proxy team vs. his Shadowforge human team, which can of course be styled as an elven or Amazon team.

Meanwhile, Martin sent me a photo of the Gripping Beast Saxons he had been painting over the weekend, while wahj send feelers about a possible Dystopian War project...

Looks like it will be a good year ahead too.