Jeremey has briefly been sidelined, so Tony F takes over the WIP Wednesday reins this week.
The club’s gone relatively quiet lately – obviously everyone’s efforts went into the jubilee ! However, there has still been some progress – Mark J has employed his magnifying glass for his 6mm Saxons (above), then broke out the electron microscope for some 2mm Antonine for Strength and Honour, which are based on perspex.
Warbases’ 2mm Roman Legion (Mark J)
Marcus meanwhile has been working on some 28mm Spy-fi and 15mm Sci-fi miniatures.
The initial stages of some 28mm Spy-fi from Marcus (who, like Bond, seems to have an eye for the ladies !).15mm Sci-fi from Marcus – mostly Brigade Models but with the odd interloper.
Jeremey has been converting a Copplestone figure to act as his Stargrave crew’s first mate.
Jeremey has named this image ‘Avon’ – a nod to the Blake’s 7 character perhaps ?
And finally, something from me – these were missed from the last WIP Wednesday post (about which I’m not bitter at all…) but since I’m in charge this week, I’m putting them in. First, it’s more additions to my Middle Earth armies – half-a-dozen elf spearmen to accompany the cavalry I painted a few weeks ago.
Six Rivendell elf spearmen
Next is my take on Radagast the Brown – it’s not either of the official GW figures which are rather expensive, but a Conquest Miniatures hedge witch. I added a bird from an OOP Celtos figure which is positioned as if the wizard is talking to it, painted up as a falcon.
Talking to the birds…
And to round things off, another small piece of 6mm desert terrain, an oasis made from 3mm Foamex, a sand/paint/PVA texture, cheap palm trees from eBay and clear PVA for the water.
Andy reports on a multiplayer Dragon Rampant game he ran on the April 23rd meeting, with contributions from the players.
We recently had a Society meeting on St Georges Day, there’s only one option for such an occurrence, a multiplayer Dragon Hunt game using Dragon Rampant (DR) rules.
Players were given the following briefing:
You have been drawn to this valley by tales of a Dragon terrorising the locals. Your objective is to gain fame, renown, and maybe even Sainthood, by killing the Dragon.
Then again, Dragons often have huge treasure hoards, picking up any loose gold or gems that might be lying around while you’re at it sounds like a good idea; unless you choose to be a Paladin, as Paladins are above such worldly things as wealth.
The Dragon hunters were asked to put together an 18 point warband, normal DR rules apply, with a couple of scenario specific modifications. Warbands had to contain a minimum of 3 units, and there were a couple of additional upgrades available:
Paladin, essentially the Slayer special rule with enhanced Courage, but not eligible to collect treasure.
Pack animals, which would allow a unit to carry an extra treasure token.
The Dragon itself was not limited to the 10 point unit maximum, it was a Greater Warbeast with Flame / Spore, Cunning, Fear and Flying and it had a modified failed courage test response.
Six players took part, order of play was determined by the draw of a card on each turn, one card for each of the players and a Joker for the Dragon and other fauna. The player’s army lists and game reports follow:
Swamp Army – Kim
Swamp Dragon (Elite Foot, 6 points). Leader.
Lizard Warriors (Heavy Foot, 4 points)
Small Lizards (Light Missile, 4 points)
Skeletons (Light Missile, 4 points)
First move kicked off with a random encounter consisting of a pack of wolves to the rear, lizard heavy foot turned to engage with Swamp Dragon. Casualties to both sides. Swamp Dragon engaged in subsequent turn and activated a swarm of poisonous spiders. Wolves eventually destroyed but the spiders succeeded in destroying Lizard Heavy Foot. Lizard light missiles failed to score any hits. Spiders finally destroyed by Swamp Dragon. Gained 2 treasure tokens.
Failed several activation attempts and got left behind other armies. Finally managed activation with a couple of units and headed to stream which was finally crossed just in time to see demise of the Dragon by Steve’s dwarves. Obtained a further treasure token, and as the army was isolated from any other units headed off table.
Final score 10 treasure and loss of 4 points.
Final position was more by default than any strategy due to failed activation attempts.
Thorin’s Company – Tony F
Thorin (Elite Foot, 6 points). Leader.
Dwarf unit #1 (Offensive Light Foot, 5 points)
Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Balin, Oin, Gloin
Dwarf unit #2 (Light Foot with Mixed Weapons, 5 points)
Ori, Nori, Dori, Bifur, Bombur, Bofur
Bilbo (Scout, 2 points)
“Thorin looked at the map, looked up, studied the landscape ahead and then went back to the grubby piece of parchment again. The wizard that sold it to him in the Hungry Ogre tavern – well, he said he was a wizard, he had the pointy hat and everything – had sworn that it showed him the way to Erebor and his long lost kingdom. But now they were here, something didn’t seem right. This really didn’t look as he’d expected – the city of Dale should be over there, the lake over there and as for the mountain – well, that hill over there just didn’t seem big enough.
The rest of the dwarves resumed their grumblings behind him. They were all hungry and fed up with their month-long diet of Cram, and the apparent lack of progress in their quest was beginning to test even the patience of the normally placid Balin.
So Thorin decided to lead. If in doubt, bark some orders and at least sound like you know what you’re doing. The hobbit was getting on his nerves – he’d had an ‘I told you so’ look on his smug, mousey features for the last two days – so Thorin sent him off ahead. ‘Burglar, time to earn your share. See that ruined chapel over there, on the other side of the stream? Use your skills and see if there’s anything in there we can use’. With a bit of luck he might get eaten by a giant spider – that would wipe the grin off his face…”
Tony F’s Bilbo investigates a treasure token.
I drew one of the better deployments on the table, on the far right flank. It turned out to be even better, since the hunting party to my left (Kim) kept managing to fail his activation rolls so left me alone. I sent Bilbo ahead to do his scouting job – he triggered a couple of random events which turned out to be nothing, and grabbed the first treasure token. Pushing on, he was the first unit of any party to cross the stream, but in doing so he unearthed a nest of venomous spiders in a wood. The giant arachnids charged the first group of Dwarves, threw a bunch of sixes for double hits and battered them, a state from which they never recovered. Thorin had to step in and dispatch the six legged freaks, along with a few well aimed stones from Ori’s catapult.
Bilbo kept up his covert advance, living a charmed life as he uncovered not one but two packs of wolves – the first didn’t see him and just wandered off table, the second also failed to see him and instead fell to Thorin’s rage-fuelled onslaught as the remaining dwarves followed on behind.
By this time the surprisingly wimpy dragon had fallen under the weight of Stephen’s axes, so the main prize had gone. I had three reasonable treasure tokens, so I should have cut and run at this point. Instead, like a true dwarf I got greedy and made a big mistake. Some of Jeremey’s rockmen were in the ruins sitting on a bunch of treasure tokens, so I sent Thorin in – who promptly got his backside handed to him and withdrew, bloodied and battered. The other dwarves had more success and sent the rockmen back, but the damage was done. Tony G saw a chance and send in his giant to finish off the injured dwarf. This ploy failed as the rest of the dwarves came to the rescue, but the delay, along with two successive turns of failing my first activation roll, allowed Tony’s goblin archers to move up. They finished off the second dwarf unit with a hail of black arrows, so in the end only Thorin and Bilbo made their escape.
Instead of getting off the table with three intact units each with a reasonable treasure token (and a total of +8 glory, which would have given me second place), the Dwarvish love of treasure ended up in a negative total and several dead members of the party.
And Thorin still didn’t know where Erebor was…
Wulfric the Wanderer – Eric
Wulfric and bodyguard (Bellicose Foot, 4 points). Leader.
Heavy Foot, Spellcaster, 8 points
Light Riders, 4 points
Scouts, 2 points
Wulfric’s Warband advance through a swamp, Stephen’s Axe Thanes in the background
Wulfric led his bodyguard in a wild charge sweeping Stephen’s Dwarvish scouts from the field; only for them to be routed in turn by Stephen’s Axe Thanes. The rest of Wulfric’s warband passed their courage test following his departure from the field, but soon after the scouts were annihilated by Stephen’s Axe Thanes.
Eric’s Riders searching a rocky outcrop for treasure.
Eric’s riders in search of better treasure, Tony G’s Goblins trying to keep up with them
Wulfric’s Light Riders and Heavy foot pressed forward, only for the Riders to be wiped out by Tree Giants. The only survivors were the Heavy Foot and Spell caster who escaped with 5 points of treasure.
The Goblin Horde – Tony G
Ettin (Heavy cavalry, 4 points). Leader
Fanatics (Bellicose foot with shiny armour, 6 points)
3 x Goblin bowmen (Scouts, 2 points each)
One of the Goblin Bowmen units was given a Pack Animal upgrade, in the form of a pack spider!, at 2 points)
My troops managed to deploy well, with my fanatics attacking a nearby bat unit. The following turn they then decided to attack one of Jeremys units instead which semi backfired when the bats attacked me. In the meantime, rest of the troops bogged down and couldn’t move out of the woods.
The next turn my leader charged the bats and wiped them out, and with Jeremy’s troops moving towards the stream my fanatics were luckily isolated (no wild charge!!)
Tony G’s Goblin Scouts sneak up on Eric’s Light Riders
Over the next couple of turns my dice rolling was appalling and only one scout unit managed to do anything resembling an advance.
Finally my troops did get going but again bogged down with several turns ending with an initial roll of double 1!!
Following the very quick demise of the dragon to the dwarves, the only way I was going to get anywhere was to grab as much treasure as possible and with that my fanatics attacked one of Eric’s units and whilst I wiped him out, my courage roll failed spectacularly and the fanatics fled the field.
By this time there were not many warbands left on the table so my Ettin with a unit of scouts went seeking part of Thorins company after the scouts softened them up, my Ettin charged and subsequently fled when the resulting melee was a draw (which pretty much summed up my day!!)
The Force of Nature – Jeremey
Heavy Rockmen (Heavy Foot, Spellcaster, 8 points). Leader.
Tree Giants (Heavy Foot, 4 points).
2 x Rockmen (Light Foot, 3 points each).
The forces of nature were on the march once more. I had a very simple army for this game but went for a full blow spellcaster to help cope with what this unusual game might throw up. My army came under attack from Tony G’s goblins from the start and soon saw one of my Rockmen units destroyed outright. With a crowded battlefield and coming under attack I made for the river and a chance to collect up some treasure.
Jeremey’s Force of Nature hold off a wolf pack. Tony G’s goblins hide in a wood.
Jeremey’s Treemen get their feet wetOne of Jeremey’s Treemen units, some what depleted.
Despite making some distance two constants of the game soon presented themselves. The treasure tokens each had a value with 1 being the lowest and yes you’ve guessed it the first three tokens I collected were all worth just 1 point each. The other aspect was each token collected had the potential to summon some random unit to deal with. In the end I spent more time fighting the random units than the other players.
But a quick dash to collect some more treasure after the Dragon had been killed at least provided some reward for having to fight across every inch of the field.
Kergen Sourtooth is a well known dwarven sorcerer amongst the dwarves of the Grimwold Hills. He had learnt of the location of a dragon, and dragons are known for their gold and also for the knowledge they possess. Two things that any sorcerer, and a dwarven sorcerer at that, would prize.
He had with him his two two bears – Doombear and Brawnbear. In addition he had his familiar, a colourful Jay called Orvar As well as these companions, a band of axe-thanes and scouts also signed up for this adventure. Together they would raid the dragon’s lands.
They hadn’t been the only ones with this idea. Other parties were also in the dragon’s valley, obviously after the same thing. A right motley bunch they were as well – another band of dwarves with a halfling thief, goblins, lizardmen, human barbarians, and a party of rockmen.
Kergen and his team used the cover of some woods to make their advance. But their cover was blown by a band of human berserkers. These savages charged the scouts and cut them down to a dwarf. Not content with that, they turned on Kergen, Doombear, and Brawnbear. This didn’t go quite so well for them – they’d underestimated the aged dwarven sorcerer! The human barbarians were pushed back with many casualties, but Brawnbear had fallen. Such sorrow.
Stephen’s Kergen and Doombear
But such anger as well! Kergen would have none of this and as the humans licked their wounds he summoned his powers and with the elements behind him he cast a mighty power bolt at the murderers who were all slaughtered. Let that be a lesson to them.
Kergen led the rest of his treasure-seekers along the edge of the woods, between some scrubland, and looking toward a river crossing.
Stephen’s Axe Thanes approach the river, with Kergen Sourtooth and his surviving bear bringing up the rear.
To his right he could see the lizardmen, but they seemed occupied with some menace of the valley. To his left were more of the human barbarians – he dithered here, the anger at losing Brawnbear still with him, but the humans were being waylaid by a pack of wolves and to make Brawnbear’s sacrifice mean something it would be best to achieve the aims they set out to complete.
Kergen led his troops across the ford. And there, ahead of them, they could see in the distance the dragon’s ruins and low and behold the dragon itself was abroad!
The Dragon leaves his lair (a ruined chapel). Jeremey’s Treemen have beaten back some Giant Spiders as Eric and Stephen’s warbands cross the river.
Kergen drew his axe-thanes into ranks. He turned to them and said:
“Well met, my fine fellows! Let us see off this dragon once and for all. Here is my plan – I will use my magic to hide you in a cloud of mist. The dragon will think it is aught but morning dew, and this will allow you to get close. Then, just as you reach the dragon, I will lance him with another of my power bolts, and then you can put this dragon to an end and his treasure will be ours! What say you, worthy dwarven thanes?”
“Aye”, they cried. A joyous, “AYE!”.
And that is what they did. The thanes approached under cover of the mist, then Kergen struck the dragon with a power bolt.
The Dragon faces off against Stephen’s Axe Thanes
At that, the thanes charged from out the mist with their axes ready, and they slew the dragon!
The end of the Dragon
Knowing the jealousy of those who were also seeking the dragon’s treasure, Kergen then led his dwarves, laden with dragon gold, out of the valley and back to the safety of the Grimwold Hills.
And such was the glory and renown he earned from this escapade that he was henceforth known as Kergen Dragonsbane!
Outcome
The players received, and lost, Glory points as follows:
The value of any Treasure tokens removed from the table.
Loss of glory equal to the points value of each unit wiped out or routed
First up we have a 6mm Field of Glory game, Later Hungarians vs Ottoman Turks.
The FOG Trophy, what they are all fighting for.Battle lines are drawnCavalry closeup
Alan ran a 28mm Vietnam game using FNG rules. It wasn’t a good day for the Americans! (Ed: I only managed to take one useable phot0, however Alan sent us some of his to add to the post.)
US Patrol advancesA quiet(ish) villageView from the the side of the villageUS scout across a stream
Peter ran a 15mm(ish) Hammer’s Slammers game, using a collection of 1:87 Roco Minitanks, mixing and matching turrets and chassis from WW2 and modern vehicles.
Peter’s winter wonderlandTwo out of three downArmour advancesBrew up!
Finally we have a four player Dragon Rampant game, Skeletons and Goblins against Dwarves and The Forces of Nature (Tree and Rock men), including Jeremey’s massive Tree Giant.
Andy’s Dwarf Scouts start the advance, the rest of the force stay put!Stephen’s undead Giant would dwarf almost anything, except Jeremey’s bark leviathan.Tony’s Warg riders start to outflank Andy’s DwarvesStephen’s skeleton archers take the high ground as his cavalry charge Jeremey’s rockmenDwarves finally advanceStephen’s skeleton cavalry losing to Jeremey’s rockmen
Stephen gives an account of a Song of Blades and Heroes game…
In this game of Song of Blades and Heroes (SoBH) I had a group of adventurers made up of a hero (Erik Jorgensen) with two sidekicks (Gudrun Frisk and Torsten Brand), a druid (Odinkar Thostenson), a berserker (Ingulf Bloodaxe), and several warriors who were looting a ruin looking for treasure.
There were three treasure tokens scattered throughout the ruins, and looking after them were the undead residents of the ruins!
Treasure!
SoBH is fun, quick, and dirty, and always gives an enjoyable game. Movement and weapon ranges fall into one of three categories – short (75mm), medium (120mm), or long (180mm). Models have only two characteristics – Quality (used for activating, morale, casting/resisting spells, etc) and Combat (used for both melee and missile). It’s that simple. When activating you can choose whether to roll 1, 2, or 3 activation dice. Each success allows you to take one action. Roll two or more failures when activating a model and initiative passes over to your opponent (yes, that’s right – if you only roll one activation dice for each model you’ll get to activate all your models, but you’ll move slowly and find it hard to do heroic deeds. At some point you’ll have to start rolling more dice!). Dead simple.I split the human forces into three groups with the aim that each group would make a grab for a different piece of treasure. Two of the groups had an archer each, plus one of the hero’s sidekicks, and two warriors. The third group had the hero, the druid, and two warriors. Berserkers can not form groups so have to go solo, but the berserker was positioned with the hero’s group and he would go the same way as them, just wouldn’t be able to do a group move.
So, on the first turn, Ingulf (the berserker) moved up through the ruins, passing between two buildings. The rest of the humans also moved up. Humans usually move medium, but in difficult going (e.g. ruined buildings) they are reduced to short. When initiative passed over to the undead occupants the first thing to move up was a skeleton minotaur. With a move of long, and three successes to boot, it came loping up at top speed and charged Ingulf.
This would turn out to be a very significant move and would cause Erik’s group a tremendous amount of problems.
Skeletons protect the treasure
The rest of the undead forces also moved up. A group of skeletons occupied the ruins where one of the treasure tokens was, meaning Torsten and his followers would have a fight on their hands. And Gudrun and her group, moving through a burnt out building, found themselves facing a pair of skeleton archers and another gang of skeletons armed with spears, swords, and axes.
The skeleton minotaur was more of a threat than anyone realised, because Ingulf went down – not killed, but knocked down. To save his bondsman, Erik ran up to engage the minotaur, to give Ingulf chance to get back on his feet. But the minotaur’s heavy axe was not going to stop – and down went Erik Jorgenson. Not just knocked down, but the lack of movement and amount of blood could mean only one thing: Erik had been killed!
Erik comes to Ingulf’s aid
This caused a morale roll on all the humans. One or two were shaken by the death of this noted hero and moved backwards, to consolidate. One of the warriors, an archer called Frode, was so shaken by Erik’s death that he fled the field entirely.
Now the skeletons launched an attack on Thorsten’s men. Not only that, but a pair of ghouls, carrying an axe in each hand, also moved up on Thorsten. Gudrun and her group had to put up with arrows whizzing past their ears as they picked their way through the ruins, but none of the arrows actually hit their mark.
Gudrun leads by example
Things took a turn for the worst in the middle. Ingulf had stood up, but the minotaur’s axe would have another victim, and Ingulf too fell dead beneath the hefty blade. Not just that, but Skade, a warrior, was also felled. This left just the druid, Odinkar, on his own against the minotaur skeleton. Not a good position to be in.
On the right, with Thorsten and his men, the battle with the skeletons continued with Thorsten facing off against three of the skeletons on his own. Colden looked to be in dire straits, with the two ghouls coming for him. Surprisingly, he managed to hold his own, dropping one of the ghouls to help even things out.
Skeletons and ghouls attack Thorsten and gang
Gudrun and her mob got stuck in a prolonged fight on the left. The skeleton archers continued to shoot arrows and continued to be ineffective. This gave Gudrun and the others the chance to finish off the other skeletons before charging the archers.
Odinkar the druid, meanwhile, was in quite a predicament. The minotaur took a swing at him and fortunately for Odinkar he missed. The druid then cast a spell, Fist of Thorns, to give him a bonus in the melee. This worked, and pushed the minotaur back. Odinkar is no fool though, and realising he’d had a lucky break, he turned around and made a run for it toward Thorsten and his men. Meanwhile, hearing the panicked yells and calls coming from the druid, Asmund (an archer in Gudrun’s team) came running over to help Odinkar with the intent of shooting the minotaur. But Odinkar took matters into his own hands – he cast another spell, calling out to the wilds to come to his aid, and a wolf came from out the wilderness to help him. To give the wolf a chance against the minotaur, Odinkar cast another spell – Transfix, and the skeleton minotaur found itself suddenly wrapped in brambles and briars, unable to move.
Give the dog a bone
This is what was needed. The wild wolf pounced at the stricken skeleton minotaur and brought it down – destroyed at last. It had come at quite a cost though. Odinkar breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Torsten and Colden were doing well. Thorsten had managed to destroy two of the skeletons and so it was only a matter of time until the third went down. This gave another of Thorsten’s men, Fritjof, the opportunity to rush ahead and grab one of the treasures, ensuring the band of thieves would get away with at least something!
Mine, all mine!
On the left, with Gudrun, things had also started to improve – Gudrun and Hakon had advanced to a ruined church. Ahead, Hakon could see a group of zombies, slowly shuffling forward. Gudrun stood back, as the better fighter it made sense for her and her blade, Naegling, to stand ready in case of attack whilst Hakon grabbed the gold chalice out of the church. But as Hakon rushed into the ruins the noise and commotion alerted a swarm of bats who quickly swamped the young viking with bites and sharp claws.
A swarm of bats assails the treasure seekers
Would things ever get easy? Not for Hakon, who was overwhelmed by the bats and was taken down. The wolf, meanwhile, had come charging forward and fortunately for Gudrun attacked the zombies. There was nothing for it – Gudrun drew out Naegling and sliced into the wicked bats.
Zombies shamble forth
Well, the game had more or less come to an end. Gudrun finished off the bats and quickly made off with the treasure as well.
Gudrun finds the treasure
The group had paid a vicious price for their loot – Eric Jorgensen was no more, neither was Ingulf. Other warriors had also fallen to the otherworldly guardians of the ruins. One more treasure token remained, but the group decided to cut their losses – two out of three ain’t bad. Just as well for them, because the final treasure token was also under guard…
Lucky for them they never got this far
SoBH is a great game – just right for throwing a few miniatures on the table with minimum preparation and fuss. My game had taken no more than an hour and half. You can use whatever miniatures you want, and is a good excuse for using some of those old 80s role playing figures you may have lurking around but can find no use for.
Jeremey takes us through an unusual wargaming project from many years ago (2009 to be precise!)
I like a bit of Fantasy wargaming but never really enjoyed the most popular rules Warhammer Fantasy. I tried 2nd and 3rd edition, but soon gave up. I tried a few other fantasy systems but nothing gripped me so I ended up mainly playing Science Fiction games, Space Marine, Full Thrust, Dirtside etc.
But then Warmaster was released and I like the look of the massed battles in 10mm. Rather than buy the Games Workshop Warmaster miniatures i went instead for the 10mm Fantasy miniature from Pendraken Miniatures. I bought enough miniatures to field an undead and barbarian armies.
However on reading the rules I just didn’t feel like I wanted to play a system with rigid rank and file units, needing to move around according to dozens of rules. I hadn’t encountered those kinds of rules and at the time was looking for something extremely simple.
Others would have at least given Warmaster a fair crack of the whip but my twisted approach to wargming meant I came up with my own set of rules and in a radical move decided to base the units on round bases!
Although I really liked the end result and with the round bases meaning units were more mobs and so didn’t need complicated movement rules, basing miniatures in this way was hard work. I had to poke the brush with glue for the flock between the legs. In fact after the first few bases I instead stuck a few on, flock that bit of the base, then stuck on the next group and so on until the base was completed.
But I persevered and completed two complete armies. At this scale it was easy to represent monsters, along with the usual spearmen, archers and cavalry for the barbarians i also had a couple of woolly mammoths and for the undead I converted a couple of 28mm skeletons to act as undead giants.
I took the game to one of the society meetings where a fellow member and I gave the rules a go.
Each unit had a number of hits it could take before being destroyed. To represent this I created a series of flags that were stuck on each base with a number of skulls representing hits remaining. I made lots of flags so that as the unit suffered hits you could replace the flag as appropriate.
The rules worked well enough (Sadly I’ve no idea what I’ve done with them), here the woolly mammoths are attacked by undead cavalry after charging in against the undead giant. The games worked on a fairly basic roll to hit, roll to save using D6’s.
I still have all of the forces I painted up but even if I could find the rules the idea of people rebasing their armies onto round bases was a bit of a non-starter. Practically every set of wargame rules from 15mm down to 6mm are based on rectangular bases which appears to have come from the original DBA/DBM rule sets. Still I thought it was a good idea and still think it looked cool on the table top.
I may yet dig the forces out again and see if I can recreate the rules for another game.
A tad delayed, but here’s a photo round up of our first meeting of 2022. In addition to our AGM, we had a SAGA battle day, involving 8 players, a FOG Renaissance ECW game, a Lords of the Rings Game and some Spy-Fi action.
First up a SAGA-fest with Scots, Bretons, Welsh, Vikings and Anglo-Danes. In addition to some experienced SAGA players we had a couple of prospective members join in for their first games.
Andy’s Anglo Danish face off against Stephen’s WelshJames’ Vikings vs Jeremey’s Anglo DanesTony’s Bretons vs John’s ScotsJames’ Vikings vs Jeremey’s Anglo DanesJames’ Vikings vs Jeremey’s Anglo DanesClose up of John’s ScotsTony’s Bretons
Moving on the the English Civil War, 15mm figures using Field of Gory rules.
ECW Armies line upCuirassiers chargeColonel John Lamplugh’s Regiment of FootRoyalist Regiments
Moving from history to fiction, Marcus had a try out of his underwater Spy-Fi rules.
Marcus’ seascapeDivers and mini-subMore divers hiding behind a shoal of fishThe two sides fight over the lost missile.
And finally to Fantasy, a Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.
The scene is set.Dwarves advance across the bridgeUruk Hai advance with a Troll in supportDwarf Heavy MetalDwarves holding the Bridge against the Uruk Hai
Shortly before Christmas Stephen issued a challenge, throughout the rest of December post pictures on our members groups.io page of famous scenes from military history, or myth, or fiction. Fantasy or sci fi, film or whatever, but using models from our collections.
Moving from myth to history, Andy contributed Gaius Julius Caesar leading Legio XIII Gemina across the river Rubicon in January 49BC precipitating (another) Roman Civil War.
Alea iacta est
And going back to fiction, Andy staged the battle between Gandalf and the Balrog in the Mines of Moria:
Gandalf and the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.
“Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks” “Yes, sir, of sharks and men.” ― Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Stephen had a play with his camera to create a sepia print of Pickett’s Charge.
Picket’s Charge
Mark delved into comic-lore to give us a scene from the comic 2000AD, Judge Death vs Judge Dredd.
Judge Death Lives! 2000ad progs 224-228, “you cannot kill what doesss not live”.
Marcus offers a scene from an Iron Hand mission in Vietnam.
Two MiG 21 Én Bạcs pursue a pair of F105 Thunderchiefs on an Iron Hand mission. A SAM-6 site is the F105’s target.
Master builder Stephen takes us through the construction of his latest masterpiece.
I recently ordered a few bits from Scotia Grendel and one of the things I ordered was some standing stones.
It was a nice quick delivery.
I have a soft spot for these old resin scenics – reminds me of back in the early 90s when I started getting into gaming and our local shop stocked them.
Anyway.
What I liked about these pieces were the Saxon style carvings. You see, I like my fantasy couched a bit in history. Problem was that the Saxon carvings only appeared on one side of the top pieces. On the other side was a more literal, typical fantasy, depiction of a dragon.
The dragon designs
And on one side of each of the uprights was an equally typical fantasy style arrow thingy.
The uprights
I didn’t like that.
So what I decided to do was make a mould of the Saxon style dragon, cast it, and use it to replace the dragon I didn’t like.
I used some Oyumaru modelling compound (Ed: other suppliers are available) to make a mould of the Saxon dragon. I then used some of Wilko’s own-brand epoxy resin with a tiny blob of brown paint to cast it.
Casting the new panels
Once this had set I sanded the reverse side down and also sanded down the fantasy dragon on the actual resin piece. I then glued it in place and used some Miliput to blend it in.
With the arrows on the uprights I simply sanded them down and then skinned the surface with Miliput and stippled it to look like the stone effect.
The updated stones
I then turned my head to the base. I wanted it mounted on a rocky outcrop to make it look more dramatic. To keep it light I was going to use expanded polystyrene. However, that’s not the strongest material. So I made a sandwich of it, with a wooden base and a wooden top to which I could glue the resin so it would be more firmly attached to the wood rather than expanded polystyrene.
I used PVA glue to fix it all together and then put a couple of heavy books on it to keep it flat whilst the glue set. I left it a good 24 hours, because the glue takes longer to set on polystyrene.
The polystyrene sandwich
When that had set it was time to glue the standing stones to it. A good dollop of superglue and the basic model was done. I then broke away the surplus expanded polystyrene in the shape of how I wanted the outcrop.
All the bits glued into place
To make the model stronger and more resilient to knocks I decided I would skin the model in Miliput. I used the Standard grade, because that’s what I had to hand.
To create a stone-effect I used…a stone! Yup, went out into the garden, found a small stone with a suitable texture and after the Miliput had been smeared all over I pressed and smudged the stone into the putty.
Layer of Miliput added
The altar stone with sacrificial goat was a piece from…well, I honestly can’t remember. It’s been sitting in the bits bag for a long time waiting for a use. And now its time had come. I also thought about adding a couple of poles with skulls on them. Had a few ideas about that, but it wasn’t the time to add that just yet, so I could keep mulling on it.
Right then, the painting.
Look, stone is rarely grey. That’s not to say there’s no grey stones, but stones have a lot more to them than just grey. Stone painted grey with a black undercoat just looks too stark and is not what stone looks like. It’s as wrong as painting tree trunks brown – have a look at them, they are not the colour of chocolate!
My usual approach with painting stone is to start with a dark brown undercoat. This was no different. I used Humbrol Model Spray dark brown. There then followed a series of dry-brushings using browns and, yes, some grey as well!
Dark brown undercoat
Heavy drybrush with khakiLighter drybrush with khaki and grey mixLighter still with a bit of white added to the mixAnother light drybrush with even more white addedLast very light dry brush with an off-white
With the painting done all that was left were the final touches. I revisited my skull-on-stick idea, but I toned it down. Instead of several I decided to keep it simple with just the one – made from a cocktail stick and skull from GW’s Box Of Skulls.
Weathering and shading done, and skull added.
I used static grass in patches around the base. I kept it sparse on top of the rock because there wouldn’t be so much earth for the grass to grow in. I then added some clump foliage to represent weeds and things, paying attention to add it to nooks and crannies and also the area that may not be trodden on so much.
With that done, the Temple Of The Wilds is complete.
The final model with static grass and clump foliageThe finished article, without festive adornments.
15mm War of Spanish Succession: France vs Allies. Field of Battle, 3rd Edition (Piquet)
Alliance infantry advance
6mm Peninsular War Napoleonic Peninsular, French vs Spanish & British/Portuguese
John La – Gaslands
Start Line for the Death RaceAndy’s first dice roll, not a good start!John rams Chris’s TaxiFirst two through gate 2, weapons hot!Eric shows Andy how the dice should be rolledAndy still hasn’t learned how to roll.Chris’s Mini gets revenge on John (7 hits!)Second Game (Arena of Death). Chris’ Land Rover demonstrates its superior off road performance.
28mm Dragon Rampant: Dwarves vs The Undead
Dwarf Crossbows, and baggage.Dwarf AxesDwarf Main forceThe Dwarves’ Bear allies are pushed back by the undead (where’s Goldilocks when you need her?)Dwarves test the waters at the ford as the Ghouls approachThe remainder of the Skeletons take on some Dwarf Crossbows
And sometimes we don’t play games
Having lost his Dragon Rampant game, Tony paints some Dwarf reinforcements.
Last Saturday was the second meeting post lockdown. We are still operating with members only. Fewer games and members this time, perhaps because of the Bank Holiday weekend?
First up, a couple of games of Fields of Glory, Dominate Roman vs Selucid, report from Chairman John.
Mark’s Romans took to the battlefield against a very mixed force of Paul’s Seleucids. The Romans deployed their many legions in the centre to face off the Seleucid cataphracts, pikes and elephants.
With the full deployment revealed the Romans moved aggressively to take advantage with their skirmishes on the left flank. This resulted in successfully routing the enemy light foot off the table and capturing the enemy camp. However the Seleucids fought back attacking the rear of the Roman horse who were still sacking the camp. In the meantime on the other flank the Seleucid light foot seemed to be in excellent shooting form scoring hits in multiple rounds and routing the Hun cavalry.
The deciding battle should have been in the middle with the Seleucid caraphracts taking on the legions, but despite vicious fighting no overall victor emerged. At this point the Seleucids were declared the marginal victors due to their success on the flanks.
The second game was a repeat meeting, this time the Romans sat back and let the Seleucids come to them intending to not be aggressive on the flanks and risk losing their again. However the Hun cavalry again proved to be very vulnerable to shooting, with the cavalry and light horse on the other flank also suffering at the hands of some good dice rolling by the Seleucids. In the centre the cataphracts managed to manoeuvre to hit the Romans at their weakest point, eventually routing several battle groups, the Roman army withdraw just before it would break, a successful day of battle for the Seleucids.
The next table saw some Border Reiver action. Report by a different John.
I brought along Osprey’s En Garde! Ruleset, my collection of Outpost Reivers I’d purchased and painted many years ago and scratchbuilt terrain for Eric and Tony to try out the rules. We played on a 3 foot square mat. Whilst rule memory was hazy at times, we did manage to play two scenarios.
Scenario 1 – During a previous raid some of the stolen booty had to be hidden in a derelict Shepherd’s hut in Bewcastle Waste. Both gangs were desperate to recover the heavy chest containing cutlery and a wooden dinner service (yes, they would have been that desperate). We used the capture scenario from the En Garde! Rulebook. It was dark and raining, typical Reiver weather.
Both forces approached the hut with some figures dismounting so that they could enter the hut and grab the chest. Eric’s gang managed to score some hits using a Latch – a short range rapid fire crossbow as the skirmish developed around the hut.
The skirmish around the hut.
With men down, Tony attempted a ride by lance charge on Eric’s Headman but unluckily failed and with that, Tony’s chances in the game faded.
Scenario 2 – Eric’s gang have kidnapped the lady love of Tony’s Headman’s son and locked her up in their fortified farmhouse. The scratchbuilt Bastle House is an accurate model of Gatehouse (North) Bastle in Tynedale. We used the Defence Scenario from the En Garde! Rulebook.
Bastle House modelled on Gatehouse (North) Bastle in Tynedale
For this scenario, Tony had got some hired help as He would have to break into the Bastle. He decided to use the time honoured tactic of ‘Scumfishing’ applying fire to the door in order to smoke out the occupants.
Trying to fire the door to the Bastel House
Meanwhile if Eric’s Headman’s son could rush out and light the straw pile, this would alert the Land Sergeant and the Militia who would be duty bound to come to their aid (unless handsomely paid off by Tony). The son was ruthlessly put to the sword by one of Tony’s henchmen. Tony was unable to start a fire at the door and with time running out, brute force was brought into play. A fierce melee took place in the basement with Tony’s men just avoiding a bucket of night soil thrown down the chute above the door. The Headman’s son was able to rescue his sweetheart (the only girl in the village with her own teeth) in the nick of time or by the skin of his teeth.
So honours were even over the day. We had a couple of queries on the rules and will probably bring in house rules next time where our protagonists will encounter ‘Mad Meg’s Bairns’ a merciless band of cutthroat mercenaries and I’ll start looking at the possibility of a campaign.
Last, but by no means least, Tony and Andy tried out Dragon Rampant. Report by Andy
Tony wanted to try out Dragon Rampant using his Lord of the Rings Rohirrim troops, so we agreed on a 24 point game.
For our first Game Tony’s army was made up of :
1 x Elite Riders (Theoden and guard)
1 x Elite Foot (Royal Guard)
1 x Light Riders (Eomer and escorts)
1 x Light Foot with Mixed Weapons
1 x Light Foot.
I fielded a Goblin force with the following:
1 x Offensive Light Foot (Durburz and guards)
1 x Light Foot Wizardling (Shamen and Drummers)
2 x Light Foot with Mixed Weapons
2 x Scouts
Armies deployed for the first game (one unit of Goblin Scouts out of picture on the left flank)
Tony threw forward his cavalry, with the foot catching up as best they could.
Theoden leads his guard forward.
Having the leader as a unit of Elite Riders had the drawback of the unit having the wild charge rule, so once within move distance of my forces he had to test to charge.
Goblin Light Foot prepare to receive a chargeRohan infantry enter the village
After a game of attrition, with both sides losing their leaders, the last unit of Rohan foot await the end.
The last unit of Rohan foot await the end.
For the second game we both expanded our armies, Tony added a unit of Bellicose Foot, using his Army of the Dead models, and another unit of Light Riders, lead by Eowyn. I added a couple of units of Light Riders (Orcs on Wargs). This took both armies to 32 points.
In this game my Wargs were often successful in evading Tony’s Light Rider charges, until they ran out of space.
Another game of attrition, at the end all that was left of Tony’s Rohirrim was Gamling, leader of the Royal Guard
Gamling’s last stand
For our third game we expanded the armies yet again. I added a unit of Venomous Giant Spiders (Lesser Warbeasts) at 7 points. Tony gave his Elite Riders the Level Headed upgrade, which removed the wild charge and made it easier to move. He also converted his Light Riders to Heavy Riders and added a third unit. For the last point he added a War Banner to the Elite Riders.
The expanded armies deployedTheoden charging the Warg riders
Theoden still getting ahead of the rest of the units.
Eowyn leads the charge
Eowyn lead her unit to charge the Goblin Shamen, who surprisingly held them off.
Clash of leaders
Theoden about to fall to the Goblin King.
In all we easily got three games in at the meeting, and plan to try doing the Battle of the Pelennor Fields at a future meeting. Tony now has to work out how to portray the Mûmakil in Dragon Rampant.
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