Showing posts with label 15mm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 15mm. Show all posts

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Analogue Painting Challenge - the final tally

As I mentioned a long while back, I decided to participate in the Analogue Painting Challenge for 2015-16.  I set myself a goal of 500 points and wound up producing 675. I am quite proud of this and very much appreciate the kick in the pants it gave me to complete my Space 1889 painting.

Apart form Space 1889 and general VSF, I also managed to fit in some terrain for Chain of Command and a couple of vehicles for grunts.

The images following are a visual record of my production.
Lead

More Lead


Martian and Askari Artillery

Askari and more Artillery

Crocean Heavy Lancers

Hill Martian Lights

Guild Rifles

Hill Martian Light Cavalry



Grave Digger


The Mechanic

Gentleman


Lady in Green


Dapper Gent


Street tough


Not Preston Manning


Gentleman on the move


Anarchist Sniper

Barbed Wire

More Wire

The Black Beaks - Askari mounted


Hover APC Malta Pattern I

Hover APC Malta Pattern II

At times it took some pushing but on the whole, a good experience.  Thanks to Curt for running it.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

War Printer

As mentioned in previous posts, I have a RepRap 3d printer that I have been using to print bits for wargaming. It has its own page where I will be putting more in-depth posts on the printing side of it.

Check it out:
War Printer 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

For the love of it.

When the women are away, the boys will play. With both our fair ladies off on a camping trip, Marc came over on Friday night for a little DBMM to break in the new table.  We each managed to scrounge together a little over 200 points of Britons for me and generic barbarian types for Marc. We did the whole rigmarole of dicing for terrain, skipped over weather and time of day then got stuck in. It has been a while for both of us so it took a couple of turns to clear the cobwebs out. We missed rules, messed up move rates, forgot about uphill advantage and a host of other little omissions and misinterpretations.

But boy did we have fun! And isn't that the whole point?

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Flocking Day

Last Saturday was Flocking Day. Given the lingering cold weather, I worked inside.


Everything laid out before I begin. In the recycled (and thoroughly washed) meat tray is my standard flocking material - spent tea leaves. These are collected,  dried out and stored in the blue tin in the background. The texture is fairly coarse but it works well with a little dry brush.



A soldier of the Queen gets glued up. I use a good quality PVA glue to stick the leaves down,


And into the tea leaves he goes.



Also due for some attention are some 15mm Ancient Britons. In either scale, I take care not to get glue where it shouldn't go. I am not too worried about getting flock on the boots or legs as it comes of very easily while the glue is wet and is still fairly easy to to remove once dry.


And onto the leaves they go. I don't press the flocking material down at all just give the base a good dunking. That helps keep the coating light and natural looking - well as natural as massively over-scale tea leaves can look.


And part one is complete. The Martians got the same treatment but using sand instead of tea. Once the flock is dry, I knock off any loose bits. Then using a brush or dipping, the bases get a dollop of PVA thinned with water to which a very, very small amount of dish soap has been added to break the surface tension.   This soaks easily into the basing material and locks everything in nicely. Once this is dry, all that is required is a quick dry brush and you have a serviceable base for your soldiers.




Monday, February 18, 2013

Friday DBMM Yuan Chinese and Javanese

This Friday past I was able to escape from a house full of teenage girls and head down to the club for a little 350 point DBMM.

Nicholas had set up the game and provided the Javanese forces while Ben brought his Chinese and Mongols to the table. Thank you to both for bringing some very nicely painted troops for us to play with. With the armies selected, the next step was to assign sides. Given my inability to handle horse, I, Pat, teamed up with Nick on the Javanese side and Patrick went with Ben on team Yuan. (Yes we get confused too.)

Next up was rolling for the battlefield. The terrain picks were a good assortment of woods, hills and marsh. The dice were fickle, and with the exception of one small wooded hill on the Javanese left flank, it all wound up crammed into the right side of the table leaving the centre wide open - perfect for ravaging horse.

We split the Javanese into three commands. A light command of horse and foot was tasked with holding the rough country on the right. Two roughly similar commands of bow and warband covered the centre and left. We set these up one behind the other to give us two lines of bow on the left and two lines of warband in the centre. Nick took the front line and the right and I took the second line.

The Yuan were also laid out in three commands. The Mongol horse on their right, a mixed force of blade, bow and artillery in the centre and a mixed light force on their left opposite the rough terrain. Ben took right and centre while Patrick took left. Both armies were pushed up fairly close to the centre line. I must apologized because being focused on my own troops, I didn't pay much attention to what was going on in the rough terrain.

The game opened fairly conventionally. Nick and I pushed forward across the board as did Ben and Patrick. Ben pushed his horse forward on our left hoping to flank and disrupt the bow line. Nick was able to adjust his line and caught a couple of bases of Mongols in range. One was the general. The option was to take a high probability shot at a base of troopers that would break up the line or take a much riskier shot at the general. Nick went for the general and he went down.

In the centre, we got a couple of moves in with the warband blocks. Then I rolled a 1 for pips and in they went. Nick let his go as well, leaving two lines of heavily caffeinated Javanese charging into artillery, bows and blades. On our right, Nick was able to push his lights almost the whole way through the rough going and he and Patrick began fencing with Lh and Ps.

In the centre, the Chinese man-powered artillery punched holes through the oncoming warband while bows nibbled away at the edges. The blades braced for impact. Ben's leader-less horse were able to harass the edges of the warband block but ultimately pip starvation meant that they fell under Nick's bow and broke.

As I said above, I am not sure what was happening in the rough on the right but Nick retired 4 or 5 dice that night so I suspect it was bloody. The centre saw the warband sweep away the artillery and get stuck into the blades. Going sponno freed up pips to protect the flanks and keep the front rank gaps filled in. A good thing too since the co-mingled warband lines were four deep in some spots. Casualties were heavy, but being only 0.5 ME meant that the warband had considerable staying power. Finally holes were ground through the Yaunline, a second command broke and the Yuan were driven from the field.

A great game with some great gamers.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

A short game of DBMM

A while back, two of the guys of the club scheduled a game of DBMM for last night. They were kind enough to let me take over one of the commands on fairly short notice. The battle saw the Abbasid Caliphate defending against the Ilkhanid horde of which I commanded one wing.  The Caliphate forces cowered in a fortified town and oasis, leaving their their pathetic horsemen to defend against the oncoming horde. The glorious Mongol army swept forward in a double envelopment their vastly superior steppe bred ponies charging around the unprotected flanks.

Sadly the game had to be called when one of the players fell ill. As always, it was good just to get out of the house and game. I learned a little bit more about how to use horse - always a weakness of mine and I got a much better handle on march movement.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

CanGames Day 3 Part Three - DBA and Wrap Up

DBA Tournament
I was really looking forward to this tournament and I was not disappointed.  There were 15 players altogether giving us a solid four games each. The tournament organizer, Tod, did his best to create reasonable match ups.

Game 1 Ancient British vs Macedonians
My first game saw me up against Macedonians. I managed some generally good match ups but the dice did not cooperate and the centre folded. Facing double ranked pike didn't help either. My second game was against Patrician Roman. This went as expected with fate tipping to the other side - but my opponent Ben is a very good player and definitely gave fate a hearty shove.


Game 3 Ancient British vs New Kingdom Egyptian
Game 3 against New Kingdom Egyptians  went a bit better with the foot sloggers on both sides hanging out while the chariots got to it - again I came up short. Game 4 saw me against Ayyubid Egyptians. With three straight losses I was a little rattled, I allowed myself  to be distracted by a kibbitzer and didn't put down enough terrain. I lost yet again.

Some of the other games
Crunch!

Burgundian Ordonnance vs some flashy eastern chariot army


Burgundians again
I have been holding off on this post for a while because frankly I was a little disappointed in my performance. I made a study of the rules, tried for good match ups, developed a set of contingency plans and still placed dead last. Ancient British has a reputation for not being the best tournament army but still I should have been able to pull off one victory. In the end, my scores were something like1:4, 3:4, 3:4, 2:2+General  which frankly isn't that terrible a performance for my first big tournament. My one lasting regret is that I let the kibbitzer distract me in the last game.  My opponent deserved my full attention.

So will I give up on Ancient Brits and get something more tournament effective? No - while a win would have been nice, just playing was the highlight of my weekend. When my boys do come out on top - I will relish it all the more.


Wrap Up
CanGames is a gamer's convention. Apart  from the small vendor's area there is nothing to do but game. This appears to be by design or at least tradition. During my volunteer stint we did regular headcounts including people not at the gaming tables. One of the committee remarked that if people weren't gaming, what else were they doing? I also saw one couple cancel a couple of Sunday games on Saturday afternoon because they had been gaming since Friday opening and were burnt out. I am not sure if the venue is big enough to effectively offer other activities and the formula seems to have worked well for the last couple of decades. It is certainly very well run with no major problems left visible to the attendees. 

Apart from the food situation mentioned earlier, my one complaint was the noise level. It is entirely due to the characteristics of the building and thus unavoidable but still I found it very difficult to hear even across a 2' table.

Would I go again? Without hesitation.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

CanGames Day 3 Part Two - Queenston Heights

On Saturday I decided to sign up for another game to replace the naval game I missed. Since this year is the anniversary of the War of 1812, I decided to go with a re-enactment of the Battle of Queenston heights using the Rockets Red Glare rules. We played in teams generally by committee until enough reinforcements arrived that we could each take a command. I stood on the wrong side of the table and was assigned to the American side.

Board setup



If you see some similarity between this setup and the Dr. Who game posted earlier, it is because they were run by the same person and I believe on the same terrain using the same troops. The objective is to control the town and the gun emplacement on the high ground.

The invasion goes in




The Americans have superior numbers but have to land them in waves under the muzzle of a rather nasty gun in the redoubt on the first elevation. Our beach area was roughly from the base of the high ground elevation to the movement stick in the village. There was a gun on the hill and a rifle and a musket unit in the village.  We decided that the gun was the biggest problem so went for that first.



The Assault goes in!
The first wave consisted of a unit of regulars and a unit of  Militia. We landed our regulars first and while we were able to shoot up the gun a fair bit, we were pushed back. The militia then went in and retreated in short order. While the regulars stood and took it and were chewed up for their efforts, the militia ran away preserving most of their strength.


Let's try the town instead.


We had been under harassing fire from Sharpe's younger brother and the Militia were proving decidedly ineffectual against the gun. We switched targets to the town. Above you can see the remnants of our regulars resting on the landing beach as the reasonably intact militia tries to clear the buildings.


Reinforcements for all!
This shot is from much later in the game. Both sides have received reinforcements including an American unit right next to the gun emplacement as part of a special deployment roll. Of course they took one look into that big black muzzle and hightailed into the wheat field upper left. Here they were able to occupy British reinforcements for the rest of the game. We have more troops in the town and are close to clearing it out.


At the whistle, we were a couple of turns short of the scenario limit but had got all our troops landed including a cannon. the town was cleared but not occupied but the British still held the high ground with fresh troops. So not exactly a success for the American side but better than the historical outcome.

The rules were not the ones the GM wanted to use initially and none of us was familiar with them. After reading them again there were many things we were doing wrong but since that was happening on both sides, it cancelled out.  An enjoyable recreation of a famous Canadian battle.

Next section

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Magnesia in DBMM

The Soldados Viejos blog has post on an amazing game of DBMM they played a while back. I love DBA but 12 elements doesn't compare to the beautiful ranks on ranks of figures on this table. 

SOLDADOS VIEJOS: MAGNESIA en DBMM

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Enemies of Rome DBA Campaign

This weekend marked the first game day of the Ottawa Miniature Gamers 2012 Enemies of Rome campaign. This is my first ever DBA tournament and my first long term tournament in any system. Each turn represents a year of 3 campaign seasons - each with one battle per pair of players. We start with a strategic map laying out the various major cities of the world of Late Republican / Early Imperial Rome and their transport interconnections. The map is also populated by various support armies loyal to a specific side.

Since we have six players, we  used a simple dice roll to decide which side attacks for each of three possible battles. For each attack that side specifies an enemy location it can reach from a city it owns then adds in 3 element support contingents from adjacent supporting armies as available and desired. The defender then adds in any support contingents they wish to use and it is off to the games table to play out the battle.

Attacker and defender both can use what armies they wish from their side but on the terrain of the actual area where the battle takes place. This results in interesting things like Celts in the desert and Pikes figuring out swamp wading tactics One notable point is that support contingents do not increase the break point of the army. Further, they only come on on a roll of 6 on their pip die. Once the battle is complete, any support contingents on the losing side dice for survival depending on the win-loss ratio of the battle. Once a contingent is used, it is spent for the year and cannot be used again. Dead contingents can be replaced at recruiting centres in the non-campaign season. Movement across water of the main army or supporting contingent can incur shipping losses depending on season and a die roll.

Unfortunately I had the tail end of the flu on game day so I am a little weak on some of the details. Following the advice of the original Purple Primer, I decided to stick with British as my main army and also - perhaps foolishly - used Ancient Brits for my supports as well.

Battle 1

I took a fairly standard army into the deserts of North Africa with 2xPs, 2xLh, 6xWb and a LCh General with another to keep him company. In support I took 3xLCh that due to their point of origin, would come in on my left board edge. Opposing me Duncan had some eastern army with at least one Nellie, some pikes and a mass of cavalry. Duncan had rolled poorly on the ocean crossing and had a core of 7 bases - The game was almost won! The first turn or two was spent with me moving my Wb into a rough patch and both of us jockeying our horses about as I tried to line up the Lh with the elephant. About turn 3, Duncan got his support contingent roll and moved a group of Cv onto the my left side of the board from his baseline. Turn 4 I got my roll and thinking like a Celt entered my LCh on the left as well to hit Duncan's support in the flank and end the game.

As it turned out - it didn't work out quite that way. I was unable to shake the chariots out of column into line fast enough and wound up losing all three including one recoiled off the board edge. Meanwhile at board centre, my Lh spattered off the El with some assistance from Duncan's core Cv.  Four units lost and game over.  Lesson Learned: Don't fight with your weakest arm against your opponent's strongest and make sure you have enough room to maneuver.

Battle 2
 Let's just get this over with quickly please? I forget the opposing army though it doesn't really matter other than it was foot heavy. I advanced my Wb (in two ranks to get the +1) across the board even using the extra move to contact because I was just that confident my boys would break through. After all my general was supporting them from the second rank.  That's right the second rank. With their general cheering them on from behind, in goes the first Wb with a +1 from his C in C - and loses taking the C in C with him. I lost my general + more game over thanks to utter stupidity on my part.  This match was over so quickly, we reset and went at it again. Same setup but with my general in front. I steam rollered my opponent.

Battle 3
This time I was up against Nick and his Marian Romans.  I had two supports for this match up both from my base edge and I went Wb heavy with just the obligatory pair of Lh to ward off the opposing horsies.. Pips were ok and we stomped across the board towards each other. Nick did some fancy wheeling about that I was able to match but which allowed him to chose the moment of contact.  Decision time found me two deep for the +1 but overlapped and facing Bd with Ps support. The first combat saw my overlapped boys go down under the Roman pila shower but the second pair stuck, removing the overlap and setting up the Romans to go down under a flurry of quick kills. At this point Nick decided to roll 6's lots and lots of 6's. Do you remember the scene in Gladiator where Maximus is galumphing through the Spanish wheat field? Well Nick was wearing Russel Crowe's sandals and my poor boys in blue body paint were the wheat stalks getting stomped under rusty Roman hobnails. Four dead end of game.


Oh those two support contingents I mentioned earlier? Over 4 or 5 turns, neither rolled a six to get on the board.

Aftermath
My fellow barbarians fared a little better winning two games and preventing our total humiliation. We retreated to lick our wounds and ponder how best to use the services of a minor Thracian slave currently in chains deep in the heart of enemy territory - Spartacus.....

A good learning experience even with the embarrassment of my stupid error the second game.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Father's Day

After two Father's day breakfasts - sibling rivalry has its benefits - I headed out to the club for a little gaming. Marc brought out his gobbos and I re-glued my dinos. We got in 3 games with me winning 2-1 but only barely. Marc can still roll dice like a demon and in the first game I managed 4 1's in a row in combat before retiring the dice. In the final game I went for a very cluttered board to give my dinos as beasts good terrain and replaced my hero general with a cleric general. Marc switched out the blades he had used to this point and went with bow  for the bad terrain.

The cleric was just the thing as its cone of protection messed up Marc's magicians. My beasts were shot to ribbons leaving me 8 points down but he had pushed his general into the bad going and got stomped for his foolishness leaving me with a win.

A great set of games if a little frustrating at times. HotT may get looked down on as just a fantasy set, but it remains one of my fast play favourites.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Hordes of fun

This Sunday past, I was able to get out to the local club for a Hordes of the Things Tourney. I have been a bit reluctant before because the majority of the games played are either with rules or in periods I am not really interested in. But I ponied up my membership fee and got stuck in.

Well let me back track a bit. Friday I realized that I didn't have a stronghold to put on the table. With a DVD coaster, a re-purposed paper clip holder and some Das clay, I made up a burial mound that I hoped would suitably impress my opponents. After the clay dried I added a base coat of brown then acrylic medium and flock. Sunday morning I awoke early to do the final dry brush and found that I had used gloss acrylic medium. What was meant to be an imposing barrow was in fact a sparkly fairy hill. The only matte varnish to hand was an ancient pot of Tamiya flat base - which has a tendency to go white when applied with a brush - but I was feeling lucky so on it went. Half an hour later I had a barrow that while no longer sparkly was now suitable for deployment on the Siberian steppes in winter. Several fast washes and some dry brushing later, I managed to get something not entirely laughable for the table.

So to the tourney. Today was to be a relaxation day and that means a Kilt day! I topped my camo kilt with a Hobgoblin t-Shirt and Marc was decked out in his Hung like a Norse T and jeans. The club (Ottawa Miniature Gamers) recently moved its game space to a local Freemason's Hall. The building is quite beautiful and well maintained. To keep up with the costs, the Masons rent rooms to many different groups. This being our first time there, we went through the front door and right into a Charismatic Christian Church service. I don't know what they made of us but we were definitely in the wrong place.

We went around the back where ruffians such as we are more likely to be welcome and found the proper place. We were given a hearty welcome by both club members and a couple of Masons there to observe a Poland 39 game. There may have been a raised eyebrow or two at the kilt but s*d 'em - the Celts are here!

There were 5 of us playing:
  • Mike - High Elves
  • Brian - Undead
  • John - Undead Hordes
  • Marc - Gallic Behemoths
  • Me - Ulster Cycle Irish
A quick set of rolls saw me facing Marc and his coffee-ground monsters. This time he managed to get his god on the board and pummel Cú Chulainn to a pulp. In return I managed to rack up a pretty good body count though. As one of the losers, I was tagged to sit out the next round but was able to see the other games and act as a floating ref. This was actually pretty cool as anyone who wasn't playing stuck around to help out rather than wandering off.

Lunch was called after the second game. Not knowing the protocol, I had packed a lunch (bacon sarnies and a thermos of tea) but others bulked ordered pizza at $7 a head - a pretty good deal I need to remember in future.

Lunch eaten, it was back to the fray. Next game was against Mike's Elves. We had more or less stopped rolling for terrain placement. The board we were on had a river on one side and as defender, Mike had set up his Elven spear on the other side of the river from his stronghold. I took advantage of this split and massed everything on one side with Ferdiad my hero general on the far flank. The centre locked pretty tight with the Elven spear slowly moving up toward the ford so they could get into the fray. Ferdiad ran out on the flank until he was menaced by some Elves in a small wood. I left him there while we contested the centre - me grinding down the Elves while Mike hurried his spear up. I got a 6 for pips and moved Ferdiad towards the Elven stronghold then another 6 getting him into contact. My first attack on the stronghold failed with a stick result. Mike rolled very poor pips and couldn't intervene. The second attack went through ending the game.

My third and final game was against John's Undead Horde army. He had chosen an alternate list wherein all
his troops except for the necromancer general were at -1 to Magicians - Cathbad the druid in my case. We got stuck in pretty quickly and my double depth warband ground away at bone while Cathbad sniped away at undead knights. John's list allowed him to bring back any undead lost in combat on a six, but he failed to retrieve a single casualty in the whole game. I moved a hero general into overlap which combined with the warband's impetuous follow up was enough to punch through the undead lines. John tried repeatedly to ensorcel my hero but again the dice were against him. In the end I killed 12 AP for the win.

At the end of the day, despite only playing three games and losing one of those, I won on points for casualties caused. They may not be flashy but those warband really grind away at the enemy. However, I didn't get to face Brian's undead with fliers - that would have been a very different fight.

Having some time left, Marc and I hung around to watch some of the Poland game - very tempting and the Lardie's rules have some very interesting mechanics.

A good day.

Monday, August 30, 2010

A good weekend

Friday started with a game of classic Talisman. Back in the day, I bought all the expansions but one and while we have one of the new versions, we much prefer to play the old one. Sadly, youngest got to the crown of command and flipped the random ending card to reveal the Demon Lord. Youngest had the Holy Cross so defeated him on the spot. As I suspected, poking around on the internet later revealed several interpretations that the holy cross  cannot defeat the Demon Lord. It was late so I gave youngest the win anyway.

Saturday saw Marc come over with our friend Drew who has expressed an interest in DBMM. We played a game of 100 with my Britons facing Marc's Gauls. I set up first, with warband centre fronted by Ps. Chariots on the left wing and light horse on the right. Marc lined up his cav with the chariots, his warband (O backed by S) in the centre and his Ps(S) on his left opposing my Lh. As described in the list, I pushed the slingers out to disrupt the Gallic line. while holding my main line in reserve. The Lh and Chariots went out on the flanks to harass his rear. The Lh got into a shoving match with Gallic Ps(S) and the chariots with the cavalry. I lost one of each to Marc's usual dice rolling skills but the flanks settled down into a shoving match.In the centre, the slingers did an ok job of disrupting the Gallic line. I got a little impatient and threw a couple of blocks of warband into gaps on either flank. This was to be my undoing. In time, I lost those blocks too and was forced to commit my main line. That, and poor rolling, lead to some more losses and I became disheartened. With a disconnected general and a pip roll of 1, my main troops went impetuous.  Not a huge problem as the Gauls went impetuous too when Marc fumbled a pip roll (for once - this guy is magic with dice). What killed me was the -1 combat penalty. A good game to Marc.

Lessons learned: don't get impatient let the skirmishers do their job.

Next up was HotT since Marc and I wanted to test our armies before the tournament in November. We ran two games back to back. Drew appeared to have enjoyed watching the DBMM game so I gave him my HottT Army to command less Cathbad the Mg who I kept control of. Youngest was pried off the computer and brought out to play 1/2 of Marc's Gallic army.  The Ulstermen setup in a central block with the heroes on the wings. The Gauls were divided between the Wb run by youngest and the Archers run by Marc. In both games, this separation of commands proved to be the Gauls undoing. The heroes were able to move quickly across the board and engage the Wb block pretty much unsupported by the Bw. Cathbad did nothing but run around scowling, the pip costs to move him up quickly proving too expensive. Drew handled the defeat in detail masterfully winning both game for our side - need to be careful playing him in the future.


A good couple of games but the Mgs did not get into play. The speed of the Heroes was a major factor in both battles. The lack of fliers and other interesting troop types means more testing will be needed.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

HotT Great news and a new list

With Hordes of the Things almost impossible to find and the last new copies long since sold out, the three authors have posted a PDF of the rules and allowed a single download for personal use. What a great way to support the players. Kudos to Richard Bodley Scott, Sue Laflin Barker and Phil Barker.
HotT 2.0 Rules
Page 23 combat results table

In light of this, I have signed up for a mythology based HotT campaign at the local club. Having only 15mm Celts at the moment, I went for an army based on the Ulster Cycle:

Troop TypeCost Per Element in APNumber of ElementsTotal AP Cost of Elements Total Army AP
C-in-C  Chariot Hero 
Cú Chulainn
4 1 4 4
Foot Hero
Ferdiad
41 4 8
Magician 
Cathbad the Druid
41 4 12
Warband
Men of Ulster
26 12 24

Other options could include switching Cathbad to a cleric, changing Cathbad for the hero Conall Cernach - Cú Chulainn's avenger or swapping some of the warband  for spear. The planned deployment is a block of warband flanked by the two heroes with Cathbad behind in support. Depending on the opponent the warband will go double depth and the heroes may both be on one flank. The main tactic will be to use the heroes to win on the wings then roll up the enemy lines with overlaps and flanks attacks. Bad going will feature in terrain selection.

I will post a battle report after the tournament.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A couple of Quick Games

My mate Marc and I were at festival this week past. We wanted to get some gaming in so though Marc was vending, we set up a small camp table at the back of his stall. We had less than a square metre of  space to work with and no terrain so we went with DBMM 100 using the old 1.1 rules as I am waiting to get a copy of 2.0. Because we were in the wilds of Canada, we used top downs pasted to MDF bases.

For game one we went with a fairly standard Marian Roman vs Gaul battle. Marc took mostly Wb(F) with a supporting unit of archers. Unfortunately, he thought they were Bw when in fact they were Ps.  I took a block of legionaries supported on each flank by bolt shooters. It was a pretty straight up fight. The Gauls charged across the field suffering some disruption from the shooters. The romans opened up into two ranks one base width apart to receive the charge. The inevitable crash took place and there was much tooing and froing with the Gallic Ps getting into hand to hand with the left flank bolt shooter and the main lines well engaged. In the end, the Romans survived the assault, cut down the Gallic Chieftain and took the field.

For game two, I stuck with Romans as that is all I had but went with the EIR list instead with a line of auxilia supporting a line of legionaries. The general was horse mounted this time and had a single mandatory Cv(O) to accompany him. Marc went with Vikings. He had a main block of Bd(O) supported by Bd(I) on his left and Bw(O) on his right. Again the Vikings charged forward for a couple of turns. I marched the auxilia through the Bd and executed a left turn into column and headed off to prevent the Bw from shooting at my Bd. As it turned out, I left this move a turn too late and wound up taking archery in the Ax flank. The Roman general went out on the right to harass the Viking Bd(I). The Ax - Bw fight was a mess with Marc consistently rolling good pips and combat dice. The (S) grading helped the Ax survive but not to push back. A big frustration for me was that I was able to double the Bw when shot at which allows the target to advance on the shooter in the targets bound but only in the enemy bound, so my troops cowered beneath the Viking bows rather than advancing. In the centre there was another shoving match while on the right, the Roman CinC was pushed back fitfully by the far more numerous inferior blade. After a turn or two, the mess on the left flank began to cost me as I couldn't get enough pips to shake out the Ax into line. I wound up losing 3 Ax on the left and a couple of Bd in the centre disheartening my entire army. When the lady wife appeared looking for dinner, I was about to pack it in when she said she would cook. I decided to play it out and was very glad I did. The next few rolls gave me enough pips to form up the Ax. Marc's formation in the centre had broken up giving me some overlaps which were soon converted into flanks. The Ax finally got in contact with the Bw and the S began to tell in hand to hand. Some flank double kills, one or two single kills and a dead Viking General and I had won by the skin of my teeth. Marc made me fight for it to the last roll.

An excellent pair of games in a small space and proof that you can game while camping

I am sorely tempted to pick up some of Peter's 6mm Romans even if they would be dwarfed by my 15mm Britons but then there is Kadesh with all those chariots and the local club is having a Book 1 DBA night I might actually be able to get out too. Decisions....

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Flat Romans

While mulling over the writing projects, I glued up about 400 points worth of Marian / Early Imperial Roman top down legionnaires to give my 15mm brits something to fight. Look out Claudius...

Cheap but effective

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

DBMM 100 Ancient Briton List

Based on the DBM Ancient British list, this is a possible army list for DBMM100:
Troop TypeCost Per Element in APME Per ElementNumber of ElementsTotal Cost of Elements ME
C-in-C Irr Wb(S) 5 4 1 5 4
Cavalry - Irr LH (O) 51 2 10 2
Foot warriors - Irr Wb (F) 31/2 16 48 8
Slingers - Irr Ps (O) 21/2 6 12 3
Chariots - Irr Cv (O) 61 4 24 4
Totals:
9921
Disheartened: 15 1/2           Defeated: 10 1/2

The slingers will screen the main force, attempt to break up the enemy line and retire through the main force as they are able. The CinC will keep the warband in check from the back rank until they can be released. He will then hang back to plug any holes. My standard formation for the main body will be a block 6 wide and 2 deep with 2 extra elements in column on each wing for easy expansion or in a third rank with the CinC as a reserve force along with any surviving Ps.

The Lh will take one wing and the Chariots the other. The Lh will carry out the usual flank protection and harassment duties. The chariots will attempt a flanking move and if prudent will dismount as Wb(S) per the list once pips become available after the main body goes impetuous.

Well, that's the plan anyway.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Done (almost)

This morning I epoxied down my last chariot model leaving only a handful of singeltons rattling around the leadpile. There is some base painting to do and a lot of flocking but otherwise all my lead is in a playable state.

The forces to hand:

  • 22 Warband Fast. I have them as Britons though they could be any generic Celts
  • 11 Pike Fast. Some new Welsh spear along with some very old Picts. They can be mixed in with the warband or used as a pike block. I'm looking forward to experimenting with the Pk(F)'s unusual characteristics. Heavy spear who waltz through bad terrain - I like it.
  • 6 Slingers. Mostly used by southern British tribes and graded an un-inspiring Ps(O), I became very fond of these guys while painting them up and gave them all woad tattoos. I have a premonition they will be interesting if not necessarily very effective.
  • 5 Light horse (O). My "comtemptable little ponies". Two are actually Welsh but they'll pass in a pinch.
  • 6 Chariots as Cv(O). Four are from the old pack and represent line chariots. Two are pretty little models from Essex and carry the Battersea shield command figures mentioned earlier. A third general remains on foot for the moment.
  • 4 Warband (S). Three are general stands painted to act either as foot commands or as dismounts for the chariot generals. The fourth is an old stand of naked crazy Celts. I'm not sure about the generals. Superior makes sense historically with all the affluent hostage king's sons clustered into one command but they will not be able to keep up with the fast warband. I expect command and control issues if I am not careful.
  • 2 Javlineers. Graded as psiloi(I), these are DBA level filler for some lists. Made from Wb(F) with the centre figure removed after the Great Pict Pike Rebasing, they may return as Wb(F) command groups given the number of Battersea Generals I still have. This would allow me to dismount the chariots as Fast or Superior.
And that's the lot. Enough for DBMM 200, 100 or DBA using British, Scots/Irish, Caledonian or Pict lists. I really need more chariots for everyone and foot archers for the Picts but I'm off to a good start.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Re-Rebasing

Ok - I'm cheap I admit it. I have been holding off on buying the DBMM army lists because I have a perfectly good set of DBM lists.While my intent is to play primarily Ancient Britons, the old pack of miniatures I am refurbishing also contained a Pict option and I have acquired a handful of new Essex Welsh spear who could pass as well. Under DBM, the Pictish spear were graded Irr Ax(X) a grading that does not exist in DBMM. So off I go to the errata in the 1.0 DBMM rules looking for an update. Naturally I find that Ax(X) are now Pk(F).

When last I based them, I wanted to keep a generic warband feel so I liberally mixed the round and square shield Pict spears in with javelin and sword armed figures thinking that irregular auxilia could be a mix of types. Now pike, at least to me, are a different beast with spear men standing close together presenting a hedge of points to the rampaging horse - an image not well supported by one spear on a base with two javelin. So, off the bases come the spears to be re-mounted as spear only groups. Thank the gods the base depth and width didn't change. These new all spear groups should still be usable as warband when sprinkled into a larger formation.

Now where's my glue gone?