Month: November 2015

A Few Extras Painted

I’m happily lacking any hobby deadlines at the moment, so have been dabbling with whatever takes my fancy (ie. whatever is already prep’d and undercoated).

The latest minor additions to several projects include:

Two units of skirmishers for my 15mm Punic Wars armies. Numidians (Corvus) at the back and blurry Carthaginians (Strategia e Tattica) at the front:

A unit of 6mm Grenzers for my Seven Years War Austrians, which I might finally make a proper start on soon. Heroics and Ros figures.

The first 3 Austrian battalions for my 6mm 1859 army, H&R again. Two of these units need flags, which I’ll be making from pin and foil – so I can scrunch them up and not have to paint perfect double-headed eagles, etc! I’ve tried the Baccus ones and, for me, they suffer from being printed – the symbols are a bit pixelated and they’re faded rather than full of colour.

Who knows what I’ll do next, more soon.

Lion Rampant Game Day

Last weekend saw a dozen gamers gather together from far and wide (Scotland to Essex anyway) to celebrate Goat Major reaching extreme old age and to play some games of Lion Rampant.

The venue was Foundry’s premises at East Stoke Hall, and they generously laid on some superb terrain tables for us to use. Even if you don’t collect their figures it’s a great place to visit, as their ranges are extensive and go on for room after room. The recent addition of a huge display cabinet with thousands of beautifully painted figures is a real treat too. I have to admit that their old fantasy ranges got me interested, with a Frostgrave project to get back to sometime..

We had a great day, with 3 x 4 player games in the morning, using scenarios from the rulebook and card-driven random player activations. It worked very well and the guys on my table (Iain, Andy and Dave) had a lot of fun watching Iain hide (but win..) and Dave/Buff get massacred. The boasts element of the game is interesting and adds some characterisation and storyline to the on-table action, beyond just going for the objectives and killing the enemy. Not having painted my own retinue yet, I was very grateful for the loan of a lovely Wars of the Roses force from Gary. It was a small, tough, force of 4 x 6 point units and was interesting to use. That said, even a small force can be difficult to do anything with if you fail your first activation roll..

GM had worked up an interesting back-story and we were all fighting for either the King or the Usurper, as well as for ourselves. Scores were kept (I scored a net zero in the first game once I’d deducted unfulfilled boasts from the tax points I gathered!) and added to a scoreboard where both individual and team progress was recorded.

Some action from the morning game I played in:

 

 

After lunch we put all the tables together and set up for a big 6 v 6 bash, with players’ positions drawn randomly along their faction’s baseline. We had 3 objectives to fight for overall. There must have been over 500 figures in use, so it was a BIG skirmish game, but actually it played very smoothly and I think it demonstrated the flexibility of the rules. We reverted to IGO-UGO, with each side of the table taking its turn before swapping back to the other side.

Inevitably the game provided some excellent moments and a lot of entertainment, and after a couple of hours we had a result (by which time there were far fewer figures on the table). Scores were counted up (I scored about 8 this time, which at least contributed something to the Usurper’s side which I was on) and individual and team winners were declared.

Somehow Iain, who’s courage and parentage have since been extensively (and quite rightly) questioned on the LAW forum, won the Best General award amid great mirth and mockery. All’s fair in war and wargaming though, so well done Iain. The Usurpers won the overall campaign though, so a new and enlightened era was heralded.

 

Then we packed up and went off to warm ourselves up (it had been a cold day!) with a beer and curry night in Newark. All in all an excellent day with a lot of fun, good company and good gaming.

I like the Lion Rampant rules and the games they generate, and it’s very easy to pick up and get stuck in. I have the Normans in Italy retinue planned, and intend to switch my 15mm Dark Ages collection to this as well in the future.

Beef

Bought a few years ago, based and undercoated over a year ago – I’ve finally painted this very small herd of cattle. They’re 28mm (from Redoubt possibly?) and will serve as generic scenery in some games and specific loot-type objectives in others.

I took the lazy route and went with an easy colour scheme!
Not much more to say really 🙂

Cows (in skirmish order):

 

 

FPW Wurttembergers

I realise that many people (especially those who play solely in the larger figure scales) may not be able to tell the difference between the subject of this post and the previous one, but these are Wurttembergers as opposed to French 🙂

Although I prefer my armies and units to be ‘right’, there’s something nice about 6mm for allowing a bit of ‘fudging’ when it comes to figures, uniforms and flags. A wise man once wrote in a wargames magazine, “at this scale, who cares?” and, while I don’t completely subscribe to that philosophy, it’s something I do fall back on from time to time.

I wanted to add some contingents from other German states to my FPW collection and have decided to create a combined Wurttemberg and Baden division to join the Prussians and Bavarians. These pics are of the first 4 battalions of Wurttembergers, and there’ll be a few more to follow, plus Baden infantry and cavalry, and artillery from both. I’ve done the command bases too as part of this batch.

Of course Heroics & Ros don’t do specific Wurttemberg figures, and I was left with a choice of using figures with kepis (FPW French or ACWs) or… finally using up some packs of Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr I’ve had knocking around for a while. I was originally put off these because the headgear is a bit wrong, as is the equipment and pose – and they’re a bit bigger than the FPW figures. Then I thought, “at this scale, who cares?” and just got stuck in. Similarly with the flags, a shield, a crown and two heraldic beasts became 3 gold blobs and a black blob. I didn’t bother with the blue scroll at all.

All in all, I’ve decided they’ll do. Once they’re on the table they’ll look OK and the games are battle-level affairs so the players’ focus is on command decisions not button counting. That’s my excuse anyway!