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.

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.

HotT FTW

On Friday night I took my Irish Heroes down to the club for a Hordes of the Things tournament. It is a very simple army with a Hero General, Hero and 8 war band. My opponents fielded much more mixed armies and I think that was the telling point. My command and control was much simpler and my plan was simply to grind away with the Wb while taking care of the opposing Cv with my heroes. No fancy manoeuvring or match ups. I doesn't hurt that a hero general at +6 is a pretty imposing base to face. I was also very lucky in that I was defender in all three games so I was able to choose both terrain and get the first move which allowed me to offset my opponents' deployment and control the tempo of the game. There were a couple of misplays through the three games thanks to differences in the DBx series but nothing game changing. More practice is required :)

In all a good evening and though yes I won, it was the playing that made it. My one regret was that Marc's work schedule meant he couldn't play.

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.

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.

DBMM 100 Early Imperial Roman list

Needing an opponent for my Brits, I drew up this list for DBMM100:

Troop Type	Cost Per Element in AP	ME Per Element	Number of Elements	Total Cost of Elements	ME
C-in-C - Reg Bd(O)	7	4	1	7	4
Equites cohortales - Reg Cv (O)	8	1	4	32	4
Auxillia - Reg Ax (S)	5	1	6	30	6
Legionaries- Reg Bd (O)	6	1	5	35	5
Totals:				104	19
Disheartened: 14          Defeated: 10

I did not take the required 1-6 points of palisade as I think at the 100 point level it's a bit pointless and a vexillation of this size was probably working away from the main camp where all their stakes were. I wanted to take bolt shooters just because I could but practically, 4 Cv is the more logical choice. For anti-warband work, I envisage a line of Ax backed by the Bd with the Cv on a flank. Another option is to have the Bd backed by the Ax with the Cv in the rear - but then I have been reading too much of the interpenetration section recently. If I were to swap 2 Cv for 2 Art, I would put one on each flank of the infantry block to keep the horses and chariots at bay.

DBMM 100 Ancient Briton List

Based on the DBM Ancient British list, this is a possible army list for DBMM100:

Troop Type	Cost Per Element in AP	ME Per Element	Number of Elements	Total Cost of Elements	ME
C-in-C Irr Wb(S)	5	4	1	5	4
Cavalry - Irr LH (O)	5	1	2	10	2
Foot warriors - Irr Wb (F)	3	1/2	16	48	8
Slingers - Irr Ps (O)	2	1/2	6	12	3
Chariots - Irr Cv (O)	6	1	4	24	4
Totals:				99	21
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.

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.

200 points

With most of my remaining warband based up last night, I can just make 200 points worth of Britons if I put every piece of 15mm lead I own on the board. The distribution of troop type is off but I won't let that bother me.

Painting and Basing

The 39 odd 15mm ancients I now have based up are due to a need to work out a triplet of British chariot generals. Under DBx, chariots  Cv(O) can dismount as Wb(O) or in the case of the Britons, Wb(F) with chariot general Cv(S) dismounting as Wb(S). The Britons, Scots/Irish and Caledonian lists all have chariot generals, so I thought that getting the mounted and dismounted pairs based up was a good place to start.

In my purchase from George, I acquired a largish number of figures with the Battersea shield - a singular ceremonial artifact. Some were armed with spear and some with sword. Beautiful figures for sure but it's rather like having a handful of Napoleons at a Waterloo battle. I took three pairs and painted each pair identically. The sword armed for the foot commands and the spear to go in the chariots. I based up the foot commands as Wb(S). Getting four figures onto the 15mm deep DBMM bases involved some careful figure selection. I use five minute epoxy for final basing mostly because it's what I have and secondly because it is very solid bond yet will peel off if I need to re-base. I made up too much and scrambled to select the best of the remaining painted figures and base them up as well. I now have very nearly a DBA's worth of based warband. That left the chariot generals.

My four current chariots are Minifig - I think - and not wide enough to handle the Essex generals. This leaves me with two unpainted Essex chariots to work on and another to purchase. Oh. Dear.

Painting

Between Breaker Morant and half of Letters From Iwo Jima, I have finished the bulk of the painting of my warband. There remains some minor details to complete like metallics on the weapons, hair and the final touch ups. But soon - I'll be basing.

A weekend of painting

Lots of painting going on this weekend. I have nearly completed 6 bases of Ps slingers, I have based up my chariots and will even be flocking them and I will be working on  28mm1890 colonial brits for weird Victorian later today.

DBA with Marc last night.

I have played a fair bit of DBMM but wanted to try out DBA because it is popular locally. I had my friend Marc over to pit his flat Vikings against my flat ancient Britons. We went with flats based to 15mm for economic reasons and while I have a bunch of warband - they are still on the painting sticks. I must say, the vikings glued to bases looked good and store in a tiny tin.

What a different game from DBMM. Movement is much more limited, there is less of the feel of different troop types (Blade, 3, Blade 4 - all the same), impetuosity works completely differently (what do you mean my Wb don't advance automatically?). I have to say I don't like it nearly as much as DBMM. However - it is very fast playing.

To the results:

I sent a pair of light  horse around the Viking left. Marc responded by turning to face and there was a minor skirmish killing one of my ponies. However, I split his forces which was my aim.

I was pip starved generally so took a while to move the centre and right flank up. My chariots went out to the right and the warband straight up. I was able to contact Marc's left with the chariots while finally getting my Wb into striking position. One of the chariots was blocked by the Wb, denying me overlaps on both flanks. There was a tussle with between the blades and chariots seeing me lose one but this opened up space for the warband to get in.

The finale was a tense pair of bounds where I was just able to save a pair of flanked warband that would have cost me the game with good rolling. I countered with warband on blade taking 2 with a flanking quick kill for the win.

It all came down to two die rolls - but we had fun!

A good game and I will play again but it isn't DBMM.

New Recruits

Here are the new boys ready for priming:

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..

Almost done with DBA Celts

Yesterday being thanks giving here, I spent a good while painting up a decrepit DBA Briton/Caledonian/Scots-Irish/Pict multi pack I bought decades ago. While nowhere near the quality I've envied on the net, they will be I hope serviceable. Just need to stick down the chariots and cover the bases and they're ready for battle.

Armies again

Right so while spending a frustrating day waiting for a delivery that almost never came, I went through the few 15mm miniatures I have. I found that I have more than enough for British, Scots-Irish and Pictish armies in DBA and DBMM 100. The paint needs freshening up and or completing and some weapons need replacing but I'm in 3d business. More to follow.

Armies on the Cheap II

I found that I could get full colour printing on medium card for $2 a page so I went for full armies.

Early Imperial Romans

Scots Irish

It worked out fairly well. With the Scots, I positioned the individual elements by hand with space to cut between each. This meant two cuts were needed to remove the white space between elements and thus sore hands. For the Romans, I used a grid to position each element on the page with a touch extra to allow for trimming. To make things even simpler, I used a guillotine to cut - bad move. despite my best efforts, the card slid around on the guillotine,the cut line was hard to see and as a result, a couple of imperial foot commands came up a little "short".

In future, I will use the grid and black cut lines but trim by hand. Once you get the rhythm, its straightforward and accurate. Still - DBMM card armies are a lot harder on the cutting hand than DBA.