Showing posts with label 6mm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 6mm. Show all posts

Friday, December 18, 2015

Worth sharing - Pushing Tin's Colonial campaign

If you have any interest in colonials (or VSF), go have a look at Pushing Tin - Campaign Anniversary. Stunning game pictures and excellent fluff, it is reminiscent of the Major General's work - but in 6mm. Inspirational.


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?

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

DBA3

Over the Christmas week I got in a couple of DBA3 games with Marc. I took my new 6mm on 25mm basing Romans against his Thracians. A few of first impressions. The new quasi-random terrain generation removes a lot of cheese. No more setting symmetric terrain that suits you no matter how your opponent rotates it. The new move rates get you into the fight much faster. They aren't really any different from DBMM but on the small DBA table you won't be manoeuvring much. As a result of this, both games were under 20 mins. Blades following up was a little odd. This is another carry over from DBMM where irregular blades follow up but regulars - like my Marians, do not. I am not sure how I feel about this but at the moment it doesn't feel right.

I won both but only because I was able to tempt the Thracians out of the bad going. An enjoyable pair of games.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

DBA Marians almost done - Pushing forward

I got a little demoralized at pushing off projects so I sat down last night and put the final paint on enough 6mm Marians for a 25mm DBA army. I just need to base them up and do some flocking and they are ready for the table.

I had been toying with the idea of getting a horde of 6mm Greek psiloi to make up an early Libyan army. However, the Baccus Greeks aren't out yet and Marc has his Thracians and will be getting Greek Hoplites so that is enough for us to get on with.

I have also been toying with Space 1889 again and went over to the RAFM site for a quick drool. %30 off all orders - ending that day. So I ordered two lots of Martians, another batch of British, a Gatling gun and some Victorian Civilians. I then dug out my existing company of Brits and got on with painting them. Much progress of an evening.

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, May 10, 2011

Reinforcements

With some acting pay in my pocket, I was able to place another order with Baccus this morning. I have been smitten by the look of pikes since I first discovered 6mm so I ordered up some extra cavalry for my Marians and the 25mm GS DBA Macedonian Army - Pikes, Pikes, Baby!. This will give me two DBA armies to field with support options for the Marians and a start on DBMM as well. Marc has the opponents but I'll let him post about that.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

A Good Painting Day

Some time to paint yesterday along with most of today allowed me to make a lot of progress on getting the new dwarves painted and based up for Polemos Mythic Army.
The Army:
Dwarven Army

I really like the sense of mass the larger bases allow. For the next batch, I will get a little more creative.

The Infantry:
Dwarven Infantry
A closer view. The figures on the painted base are from the first army pack I bought. The others are the new guys. I took a more relaxed approached and skipped the belts and boots. You really can't notice the difference. What is noticeable is the shield bosses on the new guys. A simple feature with a lot of impact. I will be repeating in on future figures.

Finally the Heavies:
Dwarven Combined Arms team.
Classic Baccus pusher carts backed up by high-tech steam driven fliers. I am really happy with the flier conversions. Fairly simple and very effective.

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, July 7, 2010

Dwarves!

I was going to wait until I had based them up but I can't. Here is the first installment of the PMA Steam Dwarves project:
Side view:

Top View:

They are Baccus war carts converted to fliers with brass shim, solder and #6 lead shot.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Dwarves - A New Stope

As noted in a previous post, almost all of my based up dwarves have been removed for re-basing to Polemos Mythic Armies standard. I have also placed and received an order with Baccus for additional troops including Napoleonic Russian Cannon. All of this is in aid of my Steam Dwarves project. Since I am digging deep into weirdness and re-interpreting both dwarves and Baccus' minis, I'm calling the project A New Stope. In progress photos will be up in my next post on this topic.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Re-basing again - Dwarves

After looking over some of the spell and army lists, I have become involved with Polemos Mythic Armies (PMA). Based around the Baccus 6mm line of ancient and fantasy figures, it offers a more detailed magic system than HotT and an epic feel to the game. Given that my dwarves are of Baccus provenance, I have decided to re-base them for PMA.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Another night of HotT

Marc came over last night for a "quick" gaming fix.

Game 1

The first matchup was the one we used previously. Goblins with beasts on his right, riders on his left and a warband general centre supporting a line of hordes. I was defending and responded with the stronghold centre covered by two artillery out front. On my left was a 2 column block of blade supported by warcart knights and a hero general.

The goblins advanced rapidly on the flanks using the mounted and more slowly in the centre. I played a waiting game, expanding one column of blade out to the left to face the beasts while moving my hero out to my left as well. The knights went out to my right with an eye to going after the gobbo general. The goblin mounted moved up. On my left I was able to get the beasts entangled with my axemen then kill them with the hero. On the right, I pivoted my rock twangers to face the goblin riders advancing in column. Shooting was ineffectual beyond recoiling the riders, but when we go into hand to hand, the artillery crews shone, beating back the wolf-riders several times before succumbing. The riders continued on to attack my Stronghold.

While the fight against the goblin mounted was underway, my knights crushed the horde in front of the general, pushed him back and disrupted the horde line before dying in double overlap at the gobbo general's feet. I really need to get another couple of bases worth of warcarts. With the beasts gone and my hero on the flank, the goblin horde line started to fall. It didn't hurt that in an attack by my hero against a horde with a hard flank from a blade,  I failed and both elements were repulsed. The goblin riders had little luck with their attack on the stronghold due to poor pips and one died. Poor pips were a problem in general for the goblins with hard choices required between keeping his attacks going and bringing back on horde. In the end I was able to kill enough to end the game.

Game 2

Again I was defending. Marc went for a goblin magic user as his general this time retaining pretty much the same forces and disposition as before. I in turn ditched the artillery and replace them with an extra blade and an another hero and used my knights as general. I set up more centrally this time in an inverted U with a hero at the back of each arm. I liked the block formation I had used in the first game but it didn't exapnd as quickly as I wiould have liked so I went with the U instead.

My intent was to use the two heros to split the fire of the magician. Marc wasn't playing that game however. He rolled very well for pips initally and was able to move his whole force forward quickly. I did some wing expansion and threw the heroes out as flank support. There was much measuring in the mid-game while Marc and I figured out firing ranges for the magician - he was the first one either of us had used. In time I figured I had better get stuck in and pushed my blade line forward. The heroes kept the flank cavalry busy, the knight general waffled about in the end zone and the silver line of steel ground forward. Marc sniped at the line doing little damage but forcing me to spend the pips to keep it dressed. Marc's early success with the pip die betrayed him in combat.  I lost a hero to his depleted rider force, kept his beasts busy with the other and finally managed to contact his horde line. A judicious choice of combat order, some good rolling on my part and dice betrayal for Marc lead to a double flank attack on the wizard and down he went taking the game with him.

Despite my inadequate descriptions, they were a pair of close fought games each with some nail biting moments. A good night of gaming fun.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Future plans

Marc and I had a great game of Hordes of the Things the other day. My freshly painted dwarves managed to squash his flat goblins though we made a couple of mistakes with the rules.

We like the HotT rules but I at least find it a bit of a bother keeping HotT, DBA and DBMM in their respective rules boxes. This threw us off in our game because the HotT 1 rules don't appear to specifically disallow multiple moves per unit per turn so we had Goblins and Dwarves flying across the board using the equivalent of DBMM march moves.

While looking for something a little more complex than HotT, I came across Luke Ueda-Sarson's Middle-Earth Army Lists for DBM. He has done some great work on these lists and they should be adaptable for DBMM. Marc and I would like a little more magic without getting to the Warhammer level. - Stay Tuned

While poking around for more HotT information, I came across Alan Saunders wargaming page. A great resource for a number of games and periods, it features a set of quick play gladiatorial combat rules:  Munera Sine Missione. So gladiators go into the pile of games to play (Nothing to do with Spartacus Blood and Sand featuring Lucy Lawless aka Xena in the all together).

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

A Cunning Plan - 6mm Baccus Dwarves

A week before the Easter break, I received my battle pack of dwarves from  Baccus6mm. Based on our usually busy schedule, I calculated I had enough time to get them painted for a HOTT game I had planned for Easter Monday unbeknownst to my opponent, Marc.

The minis themselves were crisply molded with very little flash but some strips had large sprues on the bases. These were easily taken care of with a coarse file. The alloy itself is what I would call "medium". Much harder than the old lead minis, a bit harder than my Essex 15's but not as hard as the alloy used by Corvus Belli. This gives the dwarves a good weight for their size and makes them very robust. The only area of concern was the command strip standard poles which are very thin and will probably need to be replaced with a plastic bristle or dress makers pin in the future. The only assembly required was for the war carts which went together with some 5 minute epoxy. Cyanoacrylate / super glue would have worked as well if not better but I would have wanted to use a gap filling variety.


Painting was straight forward but more time consuming than I expected. I mounted all the strips onto painting sticks using generic Blu-Tack. I find this is much easier for repositioning and removing the figures than white glue or hot glue and is reusable even if painted. While some of the bigger 15's can be a bit heavy for this method, the tiny 6mm strips weren't going anywhere.

Priming was done with grey generic automotive primer. I didn't hit every nook and cranny but then I have only recently started using a primer coat at all. My painting technique is best described as dab and flow. More or less following the painting guide on the Baccus site, I started with an overall coat of Tamiya aluminum. No particular reason for Tamiya other than it hadn't dried up in the 20 years since I last painted any minis. This was followed by dabbing on GW elf flesh on all the faces and hands.

Once the main colours had dried it was onto the beards and hair. With silver armour and helmets, this is one of the few places to easily add colour. The hair and beard pass was followed by another for weapon shafts, weapons and shields. Now this sounds straight forward but in fact each new pass revealed some bit I had missed in the previous pass. So working on the hair revealed any number of helmets in primer grey requiring touch up and colouring in the shields exposed where beard colour was smeared over armour - and more touch ups. The paints used were a mixture of acrylic craft paint (cheap) Tamiya (on hand), GW (my wife's) and one bottle of Vallejo which was beautiful to work with.

One of the saving graces was the presence of a number of artillery models, the war carts and single hero figures. Just when frustration set in with the mass painting, I could take a break and do a single model 15mm style.

One of the final things to do was to go over the boots, touching each with one of several browns or black. Then onto basing. Since we were to be playing HOTT, I based them up 15mm deep as Blades. Over this went a wash of wrought iron as I will be "flocking" with coal and stone. Remember all those boots I painted? - all gone under the wash and given the narrow space between the two ranks, much of the detail on the back of the front rank and front of the back rank is now lost in shadow.

Final thoughts, The Baccus dwarves are very nice figures and look great en masse. My painting technique needs to be further simplified to avoid wasting time on things that won't be seen.

Monday, March 15, 2010

New Rules!

Hordes of the things arrived in today's mail! And my dwarves are on the way after a small paypal mix up.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

More Troops!

As well as a good game, George brought over some of his Celts needing a good home. I now have 95 more figures to paint up and base but my barbarian hordes are on the way.

Since I walk to work everyday, I have taken to listening to podcasts and E-books as I go. Most recently, I downloaded 60+ episodes of Meeples and Miniatures and I have been working my way through. In 2008 I think, Neil interviewed Pete Berry of Baccus 6mm. Neil raved about Pete's 6mm Napoleonics so I decided to go have a look. I was also smitten but by the fantasy and ancients lines. I ordered up a dwarven army for HotT to see for my self and have been checking the mail constantly in over eager expectation. I'm committed to 15mm Celts for DBx but if the 6mm are as good in person as they are on the web, I will probably go 6mm for future ancients while keeping the 15mm standard basing..