Strandhogg Game 8: Dawn Attack

It's our eighth game of Strandhogg and the first appearance of the Perry WOTR infantry which I have painted. It seems strange that we are playing a fantasy skirmish game based on a set of historical rules, with both fantasy (LOTR) and historical (WOTR) figures, and refighting a historical (Great Northern War) scenario described in a recent issue of Battlegames.

Anyway, I finally decided to add a little background narrative to our games, so here goes:

After suffering a number of attacks by the goblins, the dwarves decided to form an alliance with the humans from the Barony to launch an invasion into goblin territory. In the opening stage of the campaign Barony troops secured several riverside settlements and made the logistic preparations while waiting for their dwarven allies to concentrate their forces.

The goblin king, learning of their plan, prepares for a guerrilla campaign, but decides to inflict a defeat on the Alliance to teach the humans and dwarves that the goblins are a force to be reckoned with...

The scenario depicts a small force of Barony troops billeted at a river-crossing near a village. With a swamp and a few rivers between them and the known goblin location, they did not expect to be surprised at dawn by a determined attack on their camp, led by a troll.

The herald blew a blast on his horn to wake the men and summon help from the village, while the troll charged right into the encampment, killing an archer and without pausing for a breath headed right for the leader of the group... who failed his Courage test and fled!

The other group fell back towards the village even as the goblin warbands surged across the bridge and the river.

The arrival of the more heavily armoured men-at-arms, led by the young Lord Holmes, prevented the battle from becoming a total rout. In the centre of the picture, our knight once again failed his Courage test...

The flanking force of warg riders which Martin sent now arrived at the centre of the table, but just when the Barony troops thought their fate was sealed, a small band of dwarves arrived on the scene, running as quickly as their legs could take them (fg using a Fate Card to speed their advance!).

The battle now turned into a massive brawl with both sides taking heavy casualties. The goblin king, seeing his point made, decided to leave the field early... but the young Lord Holmes was not about to let him go unchallenged!

Meanwhile, our troll finally gets his man (before dying in a hail of arrows off camera...).

Worried that his heavy armour would prevent him from fording the river safely, the Lord Holmes decided that the bridge would be a wiser course (Martin played a Fate Card that allowed him to move fg's figure). Seizing the opening, the warg riders launched an attack on him.

The attack was beaten off by the arrival of his household knights, while the goblin king made his escape.

The scenario was a bloody draw, although many of the losses represented combatants fleeing the field rather than dying.

The use of Fate Cards added another dimension to the game. I gave each player two cards to start with, giving their opponent another one each time he played one; both players were initially unwilling to use their cards, but eventually we had seven cards played in all.

Strandhogg is currently our most-played set of rules (which isn't saying much since we don't really play often), and while I am harbouring hopes of expanding my WOTR force to a size where I can play a mass-combat game, the others are painting up their own warbands.

Here is a shot of the Gripping Beast plastic Saxon that Martin painted. Hopefully they will be joined by more of their countrymen soon!

WOTR project update

Ten months and many other concurrent projects later, this is what I've got:

The first shot is taken using my usual 50mm prime lens, which is equivalent of a 80mm lens. This shot is taken from the end of the table, about six feet away.

I've arranged them in blocks for photography, although they will be used as mixed units in my Strandhogg skirmish games. As I mentioned before, they share the same colours as the state of Nordland in Warhammer's (The) Empire; I've got here enough figures for a general on foot, a priest, and mage, a unit of 10 fully-armoured men-at-arms with polearms (Great Swords), a 20-man unit of halberdiers with leader, standard and musician, 12 archers (which may be fielded as a unit or as attachments, and an artillery piece and crew.

They are a long way from a full WHFB army, especially with the large number of figures I read are favoured in the latest incarnation of the rules. I have been looking at Kings of War though. With my planned purchase of the Perry mounted men-at-arms box I can add one or two units of knights, a mounted general and an army standard-bearer. Add a box of Perry mercenaries and I can have 10 crossbowmen, 10 handgunners, and another unit of 20 foot which I may or may not arm as pikemen - I hear swordsmen are pretty cool, so maybe an arms-swop using Warhammer bits is possible? Last but not least, a box of ECW cavalry from Warlord Games will provide some light cavalry in the shape of Pistoliers... Well, one can dream.

The next few shots are taken with a wide (10 ~ 22mm) lens a friend lent me. These are taken with the lens literally a couple of inches in front of the subject, and they have a very different perspective which I quite like.

The lord's household.

Friar Tuck, Sir John Savage, and Maid Marian from Trent Miniatures, with the billmen to the left.

Perry WOTR breech-loading field piece. Although artillery men were mostly "civilians", I chose to paint them in the same livery, giving them red hoses and inner shirts to reinforce the uniformity and to mark their "elite" status. Plus red goes well with yellow and blue. If I decide to expand the army then more artillery and perhaps an organ gun will be a quick way to make up the points

Archers are visible on the other hill.

Finally, a shot of the beastmen who are partly responsible for my slowness. Here are all the Gors I have painted so far - to Ungors are waiting for their bow-arms. Unlike the WOTR figures I have no desire to expand these into a full army - they will remain a skirmish warband of 19 figures, supplemented perhaps occasionally by any nice beastmen figure I may come across. 

With these figures done, I am down to six casualty figures and 15 mounted figures for WOTR, and six Ungors and a Beastlord for the beastmen.

I wonder if it will take me another ten months...

Imminent Perry Paralysis?

I came home today to find my Perry metals in the mail. As before they are good sculpts but bad casts - one of the casualty figures is missing the tip of his foot, and most of them have deformed hands...

Anyway, the mounted command pack allowed me to have an idea of how big a cavalry figure would be, and whether the D&D hippogriff I intend to use as a mount for the commander will work. Here is a photo:

I decided to pull the wings off as I couldn't see how you can find a place to fit a man in front of them (short of making the model the size of a real chicken...). The wingless hippogriff is about the size of a horse, which means I will probably just give it warhorse stats - no need to bother with flying rules.

I've cleaned the casualty figures and mounted a couple which need to be based on bases, ready to be primed tomorrow.

Once more I am a little overwhelmed by the number of figures I have to paint: 6 remaining bowmen, 6 casualty figures, and 15 mounted figures including standards and musicians. Add to that six beastmen Ungors awaiting for bits... Hopefully the fully-armoured mounted men-at-arms will just be mainly a coat of silver paint and a wash of Badab Black.

Making camp

I came across one of those wooden road signs online and once more at the local gaming store earlier this week and thought to myself: I can make something like that myself at a fraction of the cost!

So I cut a few strips of balsa wood and glued them together, then stuck the end into a blob of putty on a washer.

When the putty has set, I glued my usual base mix on.

Since I also found a camp-fire scenic piece in the LOTR sprues wahj gave me, I thought I would make a whole camp set-up since I had a few resin tents from... I can't remember whom or where. Unfortunately, the resin didn't react well with my spray primer...

So I decided to use the Saxon tent template I featured on one of my previous posts instead. I manage to fit six of them on an A4 sheet of card (although I did lose one during the gluing process...).

A bit of white glue along the spine, a coat of off-white paint, a wash of Devlan Mud, and they are ready for the table. I kept the tents plain so they are generic enough for dwarves and men alike. Not too shabby for an afternoon's work, even if I do say so myself.

Orc War Styracosarus

Remember the styracosarus I bought on a whim last month?

I have been thinking about getting a crew for it, but didn't come across anything I liked, until I saw the Beast of Gorgoroth on the GW website.

The remote resemblance was enough to stir my imagination, and I was reminded just that day that wahj had given me his collection of GW LOTR figures many months ago. A quick search revealed several suitable crew figures, and I set about thinking of a way to make a howdah.

A few failed experiments later, I decided to keep things simple and turn to my new best friend: masking tape.

As it is impractical to seat the mahout on the neck of the styracosarus in view of its horns, I decided to have a cockpit for him on the back of the dino. The fighting crew would be housed on two 'gondolas' on the sides. The compartments are made with cardboard taped together by masking tape, with the floor of the gondolas made from foamcore for added sturdiness. I've draped a piece of cloth soaked in dilute PVA over the back of the dino.

In this second picture you can see how the whole rig is put together. The idea (I don't know how sound it is mechanically...) is that the weight is all borne by the square frame which makes up the base of the cockpit and which sits on the back of the dino. I've bought some chains yesterday which will be used to secure the front two corners of the frame in a loop below the neck of the dino; the rear two corners will likewise be secured by a chain passing beneath the tail of the dino.

The extra bits of balsa on the side of the frame and the gondolas represent the fact that the gondolas are suspended by sheets of leather which are nailed to the side of the frame.

The mahout is the star of the show, as his weapon and pose makes it look like he is using it to steer the dino by manipulating its horns.

The whole thing still looks more cute than intimidating, mainly because the dino looks docile, but a proper paint-job should rectify that. I've also got to decide how much work to do on the howdah - it's easy to make them all too spiky and scary, but the crew need to be able to get in and out of them... In any case, historical howdahs didn't come with anti-boarding spikes and whatnot. Perhaps a couple of pegs to hang the shields for the crew will be sufficient.

Quick and dirty sword racks

When we still used to build tentage Battalion Casualty Stations my job was to make a rifle rack out of some ropes - it was an important job as that allowed us to stow our rifles while we continued with our work.

(That's actually one of my medics undergoing assessment. The rifle rack would be a rope strung between the metal poles.)

Now I just recently found out about "unit fillers" while browsing the internet on Warhammer Fantasy Beastmen and Empire armies. For those who are not familiar with them, unit fillers are mini vignettes or dioramas on bases the size of several single troop bases, used to represent the equivalent number of figures that would have otherwise occupied that same frontage, presumably to save on the expense and time of actually buying and painting those figures - although I have seen at least one unit filler that contained the same number of figures it would have replaced. Like the mini-dioramas of Impetus bases and DBA/DBM camp and baggage elements, these unit filers add character to the armies the are included in.

Anyway, there I was cutting the tabs off the feet of my plastic GW Beastmen (the figures came with tabs but the bases that came with them did not have slots...) when it occurred to me that they would be useful for making... stuff.

Looking at the spare swords on the sprues of my Perry plastic WOTR figures, I decided to make simple sword racks. After some googling, I sat down in front of the TV and started work...

I started with a stable base and the uprights...

Then I cut a piece of crossbar that would fit nicely between the uprights, and carved notches in them with an Exacto knife...

Then I glued the swords into the notches, and simply glued the crossbar to the base.

Since everything was made of polystyrene, gluing was clean and fast. But then I thought a two-sword rack was a little impractical, so I decided to make a bigger one, this time with a different type of base.

A spray of primer and a quick paint job should see them ready for the table.

Beastmen Herdstone feat. Phaistos Disc

I've been working on this little project secretly over the past week, and it's finally done.

Presenting: the Herdstone!

I was thinking of building a 'traditional' obelisk herdstone, but then I saw a documentary on the Phaistos Disc and decided to find out more about it. It looks alien enough to pass off as a non-human script, so I went on ebay and found a fridge magnet of the correct size.

To make the 'base' I cut a hole in a sheet of foamcore and then stacked it on three more sheets, and carved a hill shape out of them as well as some steps, covered the whole in masking tape, then glued sand on it.

After the glue dried, I spray-primed it black, painted it the ground colour I use for all my bases, dry-brushed a lighter yellow-brown, and flocked it.

The steps were painted grey and the edge of the hole was painted dark green with a light-green highlight as the disc. My fluff is that the herdstone is some meteorite/warpstone which is embedded into the earth.

The disc fits snugly, and between games can be removed and returned to my fridge. This also allows the hillock to be used for other 'races' by substituting the centrepiece.

The whole thing still looked a little bare, so I googled around and learnt that beastmen would leave heaps of skulls and other trophies around their herdstones, so I rummaged through my bits box to find stuff I could use.

I decided to make a small removable base of 'stash', centred around an orc sabre stuck into a blob of putty moulded on a washer. The base was textured, and when it and the various bits were painted, I applied white glue onto the base and arranged the bits around the sabre. Again, this gives me the flexibility of using the base as an objective marker or just decoration in a game.

Here's a shot of the herd painted so far posing for a family photo.

Trent Miniatures Friar Tuck and Maid Marian

I was planning to complete a terrain piece today, but the mechanics of daily living took a little more time than I thought they would...

I did manage to finish painting the two 'civilian' figures I bought.

Their proportions are cartoony compared to the Perry figures, but their height are style of dress are compatible. Hopefully they will see action soon.

Beastie Boys

With the first three figures of my beastmen warband done, I decided to do up a couple of GW beastmen to compare the size.

The figures on the extreme left and right are GW Gors, and the one second from the right is Reaper's Traeg, beastman hero, given a GW beastmen shield.

The three non-GW figures are larger than the GW Gors, and have different head-shape and horns from them too. A limited palette gives a sense of uniformity and helps to tie the force together.

The GW Gors are easy to put together and take the block-and-wash approach well.

I think I will do up a couple of the Ungor skirmishers next.

Added: I just realised that my beastmen are from the old mixed Gor and Ungor boxed set, which means I don't get bow arms...  If you have some Ungor bow arms which you are willing to part with, please leave a comment and we'll see if we can work something out.

We band of brothers

(Background: Under the Singapore system, a male citizen typically enlists at the age of 19, serves two-and-a-half years full time, and then undergoes annual training of about two weeks' duration for the next ten years, before being phased into the reserve.)

Yesterday, the infantry battalion which I have served in for the past ten years formally stepped down, and I will be phased into the reserve in the middle of this month.

Having gone to medical school before rejoining the military, I did not start in this unit as most of the men did, but I did undergo every one of their annual training with them. However, my involvement with this unit did begin way back while we were both serving our full time stint twelve years ago, when I was the base Medical Officer at the army's training base in Thailand when the battalion came for their overseas training, and I was again the base Medical Officer at one of our Australian training bases when my current Commanding Officer went there for training too.

Over the past ten years we underwent a few changes of commanders and principal staff officers, went through tough training missions, and through all that we grew to trust each other. I gave myself the personal mission of not losing a single soldier under my watch, and when the battalion stepped down yesterday, I was glad to say I achieved that (although at one point it came really close...). While I enjoyed the camaraderie that has developed over the years, I often wonder to myself if I can deal with seeing so many friends and comrades being killed or maimed if we were to really go to war.

Today, my Commanding Officer made me a gift of his green beret which was awarded to him at the end of his US Special Forces training, as well as the badge and tabs.

I have a small collection of hats which I bought on my overseas trips or which were given to me by friends and family, but this beret has the most history behind it. It will take the place of honour among my collection, and remind me of the times I spent with the remarkable men whom I had the privilege of serving along.

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.