Papermau

Papermau is a site that host downloads and links to public domain and copyright expired paper models. The selection is varied and includes everything from video game characters to paper military helmets (yes pith helmets too). Some are straightforward but others like the Leopard 2 are quite complex.

Of interest to me are the military models including an 1899 armoured steam tractor, a monster WWI Russian wheeled tank, and the British WWII tracked patrol machine.  Many pieces like tread units and guns can be repurposed for VSF gaming and there is even some terrain like the Martello Tower. Don't miss the dirigible.

Finally, I think I will make up some 1:1 Congreve rocket models to go in the games room.  

Enjoy

Just Maybe - Martians in the Snow at the CNSE

The current election in Canada is due to take place on Monday May 2 - right after the Canadian National Steampunk Exhibition. Since I work for Elections Canada, this was going to prevent me from running my Martians in the Snow game. However, my unit's work load is slowing down and I have managed to parlay some of my over time into three days at the CNSE. This week will be filled with doing all the prep work I didn't do because the game wasn't on. Ugern from Junior General has created an impressive series of War of the Worlds paper troops that I will be using for the game.



The game is afoot and pictures will follow after the event (the Countessa is taking the camera with her...).

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....

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

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).

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.

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.