Chain of Command Game 1

I apologise for the poor photos in this post, but the crank handle on my tripod broke and it's only when I have to shoot without it that I realise how difficult it is to get proper photos of a game while trying to come to grips with a new set of rules.

Anyway, after several months of preparation, I finally played a game of Chain of Command with Martin this afternoon.

Martin's British are recently rebased figures from many years ago when we used them for Crossfire (remember Crossfire?) while my Germans are Plastic Soldier Company figures painted by Dragon Painting Service operating out of Hong Kong. I will get some clear photos of them the next session. Promise.

Anyway, Martin and I played the simple Patrol scenario. I think we got most of the rules right, the exception being the one regarding leader casualty.

The British at their Jump-Off points

A smoke round saves the British section caught in the open and in the sights of a German section.

The game played pretty much as promised: with a high level of tension as you can spend a few phases without having a go, and very often you will not have the die-rolls required to activate your sections in a coordinated way.

We both made good use of our "national characteristics" - I delivered deadly fire with my leaders directing LMG shooting, while Martin managed to save one of his sections from a crossfire by using smoke rounds fired from his 2" mortar.

We feel confident enough to have a go at it with vehicles the next game.

Schiltron!

This little project took me weeks to complete, but I am pretty chuffed with the results:

A unit of thirty-five!

The command figures are from Perry, while the rank-and-file are 50% Ebob, and 50% Claymore Castings. Of the two I prefer the Claymore figures, which are really full of character; the Ebob figures are not as well-cast, but while the Claymore figures have their pikes mainly at "porte", these are in attack poses.

Phalanxes look good from the side...

The rear view is more colourful...

To make sure that they all rank up, apart from the three command figures the front three ranks are actually based six to a 60mm x 40mm base: 2 wide x 3 deep deep on the flanks, and 3 wide x 2 deep behind the command figures. The rear two ranks provide "loose change" for casualty removal.

I bought an MDF movement tray to hold these guys, but instead of using the MDF base supplied I glued the top piece to a 1mm PVC foam card, which reduces the height and weight of the whole tray. The bottom piece will be used to represent the footprint of the unit once it comes into contact with other units, on account of the pointy sticks...

They will be fielded as spears under the WHFB rules. I do like the look of these, and were they easy to paint I might have been tempted to convert my entire army into a pike-and-shot army with just spearmen and handgunners. But for now, this will have to be it.

Romans vs Hellenics

It's been a while since Martin was able to come over for a game, so I am quite glad we managed to get a short game of our Dux Bellorum-Impetus hybrid this afternoon and knock back a couple of beers.

Martin used his Early Imperial Romans and I used my Pergamenes and some Asiatics as some sort of a Hellenistic army.

I tried to delay contact with the legionaries by sending my skirmishers forward on the flanks, hoping to win the flanks and then envelope the Romans.

Light cavalry on the flanks.

Once the Roman legionaries make contact, the contest is over!

The rules are pretty solid, but as we had small armies there weren't many tactical options available. On the plus side I think we remembered most of the rules this time!

Otherworld Female Human Cleric

I've always liked the way the Otherworld figures look, so when I wanted a leader for my flail-wielding female fanatics, I was happy to find that the female cleric from their range seems to fit the look.

I cut off the religious symbol she was holding in her left hand and replaced it with a chalice from a Blood Angel bit I had (knew those would come in handy one day!) to fit the theme of the unit. You can see her posed with the rest of the girls below.

I am also slowly "finishing" 60 skaven figures I bought off ebay. These came either partially painted or just primed, but already assembled. I started this project on the advice of my brother, who suggested that I might get to actually use my armies if I helped my opponents to paint theirs. Skavens are actually rather cheap on ebay, so I decided to follow his advice. The paint scheme is based on that chosen by Thomas, our skaven player. They are actually rather easy to do, and a lot of fun to paint too.

X-Wing 4 - More or Fewer Wings

I like X-Wing as much as the next guy, but I think that the new fighters are really just a copy of the original models with more or fewer wings...

Anyway, Thomas, fg and myself played a 150-points aside game this afternoon. I decided to fly the new TIE Defender and a TIE Advanced, since these have shields, and Thomas flew the Firespray, which I always thought was a silly design.

fg flew the E-Wing (really, guys?) and the Z-95, plus Wedge Antilles in an X-Wing, and a B-Wing.

fg picked some really effective upgrades, and dominated the battle. I get a feeling I am playing the Imperials wrongly... or maybe I am just bad at this game.

After the game we posed all of Thomas' models on the mat for a shot. I suspect he will be adding more models to his collection soon...

New Season of Blood Bowl

It's been more than two years since our last game, but fg and I decided to start a new season going.

I chose to field my fantasy Greek-themed Chaos Dwarf team, and fg fielded his female orc team which he used in our first league years ago.

The orcs are a rather versatile team which we have both used previously, but I found the Chaos Dwarf had no answer to the Black Orcs.

The teams face off for the first kick-off of the season.

A series of good dice-rolls on the part of fg saw several of my team go down, and the orcs were up by 2 touchdowns in the first game of the season. In the final turns I decided to run a passing play and managed to slip a hobgoblin down the side to score a point.

The depleted Spartans sneak a hobgoblin down the flank to score a touchdown.

With a bit of time left we decided to play the first half of the second game. This time the dice were a little more to my favour, and we both managed to score a touchdown each.

Line of scrimmage.

We used the pitch that fg bought from Impact!, which is really quite pretty.

As before fg has a more cautious style of play while I prefer the riskier style of play (hence my 4 re-rolls). The two teams seem well-matched, and I think the season will be a close-fought one.

Pleasant Surprise 2014 Part 2

I went to the post office today to pick up a parcel which I thought was some spearmen I ordered, but it turned out to be my Pleasant Surprise!

My gift came from Simon, known as somegeezer on the Warhammer Empire forum, and are six Perry HYW armed peasants plus a priest, all of which I have actually been eyeing! What's more, in the friendly letter he had included in the parcel he explained that he tried to paint them such I can add these beauties to my unit of militia; and as you can see from the photo below featuring both his work and mine, he has done a pretty good job - my only complaint is that his work is better than mine!

These guys are definitely going on my army list for my next game!

The priest is superb - Simon's blending is beautiful on this figure. I can use him as a wizard or perhaps even a warrior priest. And not that I can field him in a unit of flagellants, but he really adds to the whole mood of the unit when I pose him together with them!

Thank you very much, Simon. I must say this has indeed been a surprise, and a very pleasant one too!

I can only hope that I can give so much joy to my recipient in next year's exchange.

Fifteen fanatical female flagellants...

...  furiously flourish flails from farms fringing forests far from fens...

Swing out, sisters! OK, there are actually sixteen of them...

The thing about a game with army lists is that, you tend to want to have figures for all the units on the list.

As a Warhammer (The) Empire player, one of the units I've always thought would be fun to field was the flagellants - a bunch of flail-swinging, self-flagellating fanatics who look like they were based on the Seinfeld character Kramer.

However, as my army is based on a Wars of the Roses theme, I couldn't think of a way to incorporate them into my army - curiously, the flagellant movement, popular for a time in Europe, never caught on in England.

Still reluctant to give up altogether, I googled around for some flail-wielding figures and came to the Kingmaker site. There I found some figures which I have not noticed on my previous: Hussite women. The all wear hoods over their heads, which gives them a rather nun-like appearance. And of course, they wield flails!

It was not long before I came up with the fluff for a unit of fearless female fanatics for my army. I imagined them to be the widows of soldiers who died in battle, banding together in their common grief and seeking either revenge or rest in battle. Their dress would have to be black, as befitting of widows, and they would be nicknamed The Black Widows.

As an all-black garb will make the unit appear too dull, I thought I might give them a badge of sorts based on the markings on a real black widow spider. And wouldn't you know it, the black widow spider has a red hourglass shaped marking on its abdomen.

It occurred to me that the marking also resembles a chalice, which was an emblem used by the Hussites! We have come full circle.

So there you have it: I have a unit of black-clad warrior-women called the Black Widows, made up of figures of Hussite women and bearing the Hussite emblem.

I think I will make them an order of nuns, perhaps the Sisters of the Order of the Chalice, although they are more often called The Black Widows or the Sisters of Little Mercy by other people.

I have ordered an additional figure which I hope will make a suitable leader for them. Stay tuned.

Eureka Gendarme as Empire General

As usual with my collection, one thing leads to another...

The general mistook the feathers meant for the horse as for his own helmet, and none of the knights dared to tell him...

After painting the Reaper Bones griffon I thought I would mount a knight on it to use as an Empire General for Warhammer. However, the WOTR figures look a little too plain for the fluff, and so I bought a Eureka Miniatures Italian Wars gendarme to play the part. The right arm comes from the Perry plastic sprue, and I puttied over the left sleeve to match the right.

As you may be able to see from the picture above, both the rider and the horse are a little smaller than the Perry plastics; I had to raise the horse on its base and also the rider on its saddle to make it look less obvious.

However, on the griffon the crest on the helmet lends the whole model some visual balance.

I have been battling a bad cough for the past four weeks, but today it looks like I am finally rid of it. Hopefully that allows me to do some work on my next unit, in between some household chores.

Frostgrave - Final Playtest

Last Thursday fg and I got together to play two games of the latest draft of Frostgrave - unfortunately, right after the game I got an email informing me that the final manuscript for Frostgrave has been submitted to Osprey.

Dwarves and goblins scour the ruins of Frostgrave for treasures.

The good news is, even after a lapse of a few months, we both managed to pick up the rules quickly again, and we had fun. I guess over all, "fun" is how I would sum up Frostgrave. The rules are not complex, there are lots of spells you can use creatively, and you can have different strategies, from going after the treasures and making off as quickly as you can, to aggressively going for your opponent's troops; you can go for a small force of elite, or a horde of cheaper troops; you can have mainly offensive spells, to "buffing" spells for your figures.

It is also easy to get into - your warband will probably start off from about five figures, and max out to about a dozen figures, and there are enough troop types for you to get a warband together using whatever fantasy or medieval figures you have. Terrain is important, but many of our games were played on geomorphic 2D tiles.

A goblin thug takes the treasure from the cold dead hands of a fallen dwarf ranger.

Unlike the previous books from the Osprey Wargames series, Frostgrave is planned to be a hardback book, but hopefully it will be affordable.

Pleasant Surprise VII

This year I once again took part in the Pleasant Surprise gift-exchange organised on the Warhammer Empire forum. My unsuspecting recipient was Novogord, who has a dwarf army made up of the old Marauder figures. I managed to get one of these off ebay, and this was what I came up with:

A donkey cart of beer for his army.

The cart is one of two from the Nikolai 1/72 medieval cart box, and the donkey was from Warlord Games, with the harness made from epoxy putty. The barrels were from my existing collection of bits.

I painted the dwarf in the colours of his army, and tried to match his painting technique and base work - hopefully it blends nicely with his existing figures.

I really enjoy the process of cyber-sleuthing and thinking up and painting a suitable gift for a fellow wargamer, and will sign up for another round next year as long as it is being organised.

Reaper Griffin

I like griffons, but I think they are weird. Not just weird because they are monsters which are made up of two different creatures, but because they are neither the size of an eagle nor that of a lion. To my mind it would be more logical if the whole creature were based on the size of a lion. Maybe they are like ligers, which are bigger than a lion or a tiger.

Anyway, when fg backed the Reaper Bones kickstarter, I asked him to get me one of their griffons, which I thought would be useful for RPGs, dungeoncrawls, or as a monstrous mount for my Warhammer (The) Empire army. The Bones material is a bit soft, but it preserved the detail of the feathers and I think the Vallejo primer made a good bond.

Here is the figure painted:

Based on a monster-size 50mm x 50mm base.

On a 100mm x 50mm monstrous mount base, with a Perry mounted men-at-arms.

Another view with the rider.

I like Reaper's interpretation of the griffon. The current Games Workshop one looks like an obese pigeon. I decided against adding a saddle and reins because I want to use the figure as a "wild" griffin for RPGs and dungeoncrawls too - in any case I doubt griffons appreciate bits and reins. I am thinking of getting another rider though; something more flamboyant and with a cast saddle so it looks more "accurate".

Yet more CoC terrain

So far my CoC project has been frustrated first by a packing error on the part of the merchant, which required a re-shipment, and the incompetence (and I suspect sheer dishonesty) of my local postal worker. This means that the whole project will be at least 8 weeks behind schedule, which frankly makes me quite unhappy.

Still, we must soldier on, and I spent the time building our terrain collection. Here are the results:

From L to R: Italeri wire obstacle frame with Pegasus Hobbies barbed wire, Fujimi Dragon's teeth, Italerie Czech Hedgehog.

Wills Barn (SS30) with Nikolai (ACC09) medieval cart, scratch-built log pile, and Noch Abandoned Fences (13060).

Closer view of the barn.

Krosmaster Arena

fg and I played a couple of games of Krosmaster Arena, a chibi figure boardgame where... well, cartoon characters fight each other for gold and glory. While the rules are pretty simple, there are lots of upgrades you can buy which will add depth to the game. The figures and terrain come prepainted and the game components are of good production quality.

Warhammer Game 2

A dwarven unit is raked by enfilade fire as it marches across the Empire battleine.

Adrian and I played a 900-point game of Warhammer this afternoon. Actually, we played two - we forgot the rules and played it wrong the first time and so played it a second time since we still had time.

A dwarf miner unit that has erupted behind the Empire line is attacked in the flank by a unit of Knights.

The Warhammer system has so many special rules and it is hard for us to remember all of them since we only play them once in a while. Hopefully with a few more games under our belts we can play a perfect game in the future.

Everybody in the House

With Adrian and Thomas starting painting their Warhammer figures again, I thought I would do a photo-inventory of what I have painted.

Here's everything I've got so far:

Armed peasants. Not sure what to class these as under the Warhammer rules.

The first-aid post.

A closer view of the centre.

Whacked Pak

Remember this photo?

Well, here's the result of my attempt to replicate it:

PSC gives you empty shell casings in the set, which really helps with the atmosphere.

And here's the view of the whole destroyed gun.

The availability of cheap plastic kits aimed mainly at wargamers makes creating wrecked vehicles and guns as terrain pieces affordable. PSC is planning to release German trucks, so I hope to do the same thing with one. Problem is, you actually need a detailed kit if you want to reproduce a wrecked truck, because it's when a truck is blown up that you can really see the innards and axles and all the other bits which you hate having to glue together for your wargaming pieces. Take a look at this:

From militarymodels.co.nz

From militarymodels.co.nz

See what I mean? Now you know why they made the tyres separate from the wheels in Tamiya kits!

Anyway, if you do come across a photo of a destroyed Opel Blitz or similar which looks like it can be reproduced in 20mm, please send it my way. Thanks.