Samurai Archers (finally!)

You’d think after all the time I’ve been working on these I’d have two or three stands of them done… sadly no, all I’ve finished is the one…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)



These are Clan War figures from AEG. I’ve painted them in a red, orange, and yellow scheme to make them Phoenix Clan Samurai.

As mentioned before my Phoenix Clan army will be heavy on the magic – three Magician/Shugenja stands and most of the close combat infantry will be summoned creatures (the ghostly “Void Guard” or Earth Elementals) or magically protected (“Avalanche Guard”). Human life is far to precious to the Phoenix to risk any actual people mixing it up in close combat. I figured they DO have to have SOME Samurai however, so I’m going to include a couple stands of these Heavy Bow/Samurai Archers in the army.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have no idea... I'm mostly still sorting and organizing and planning...

More Indians

After Sean’s comment on the last post I had to bust out Last of the Mohicans last night and while I watched (well… mostly “listened to”…) that I finished up two more stands of Indians. Actually I think I had been watching Barry Lyndon while I was painting the Cannons earlier in the week…


These are some more North American Indians for my Seven Years War British and French. The miniatures are from Old Glory.


I also finished up a couple of “dead markers” for the French and re-based a Highlander (who had previously been based on a much smaller base – I put him on a bigger one to match all the other dead markers).

I like having the dead markers for when I’m planning to do a battle report of the game – putting them down to replace a stand that has just been lost gives a more clear visual indication of what’s going one and saves having to do before and after pictures for readers to study to determine exactly where stands were lost. I’d like to have dead markers for all my armies…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

After finishing up these I cleared off my workbench and started a grand reorganization… a clean slate upon which I will heretofore only place small numbers of figures that I intend to finish before moving on to something else… so many choices… where to start…?

I may put those Phoenix Clan Samurai archers back on – because they are so very close to completion… Then I have to do some planning and see what – if anything - I need to get done for the upcoming HOTT campaign, and then work on stuff I might need for the Dark Ages DBA campaign and my Savage Worlds L5R Campaign… and maybe work in some other fun stuff here and there.

I’m kind of all over the place again… so many things I want to get working on and just not enough time to see them ALL get to any sort of state that would be of use. In the last week I’ve felt the urge to paint some sci-fi skirmishers, space ships, MORE 18th Centruy stuff (mostly British – for the DBA army… but also some French Cavalry, and assorted figures to be based individually for skirmishing!?), some English Civil War horse (and then start a SECOND ECW/DBA army…), various Elves, various Dwarves, Samurai, Modern SWAT team members, Amazon horse archers, Hoplites, The ”B Team”, some more Phoenix Clan Shugenja, Trolls, Skaven, some Goblin Hordes, skeleton archer and cavalry… and the list goes on...

Indians and Aliens

A couple more odds and sods rolling off the workbench today…

Those of a gentle disposition - please avert your eyes!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are some North American Indians (or “Natives” or “First Nations Peoples”…) from Old Glory. They will be used with my Seven Years War British and French. I think they're classified as "Auxilia"... I had originally thought perhaps "Warband"... But Auxilia works fine as well - moves quickly, not super powerful, fights good in bad-going, etc.... I'll eventually have some others that are three per base and all musket armed to use as jägers as well

Sometimes I just love Old Glory… cheap like dirt (well, compared to many of the other options out there…) and occasionally you get little gems in a pack like this “British soldier being scalped” vignette….


These, I think, are some sort of Kryomek(?) aliens. They were easy, and so now they’re done!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have too damn much stuff cluttering my work bench once again… I need to clear it off and come up with a better system – like having only one thing on the workbench at a time and – maybe a stand or two or three of the same stuff, or a squad’s worth of skirmish types – and leave them there until they are DONE and add nothing else to the workbench until they ARE done… When they’re done select next item from the “on deck” box…

Maybe tomorrow…

Seven Years War British and French

After last weeks game at John’s I got thinking again about gaming the Seven Years War with the DBA Extension for 1500 – 1900AD… so I got working on finishing up a few things I needed to finish up two opposing 12 stand DBA armies.

Actually I had all the French ages ago. Indeed I am only two stands shy of being able to field two complete French forces.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are the British cannon and crew I have just finished. The figures are all from RAFM.


Here are the two French General elements (both I am classifying as “Light Horse”). The only newly painted figure is the cavalryman on the base with Le Marquis de Montclam – the others have simple been rebased… All of the figures here are from Old Glory.


Here is the entire British force. There’s actually 13 stands in the picture – all of the british I have. Right now, that’s 1x Light Horse (General), 7x Muskets (Line Infantry), 2x Muskets (Grenadiers), 2x Cannon, 1x Jägers (Rangers).

Ultimately I’d like to think of the armies/commands as “brigades” generally organized as follows

1x Light Horse (General)
1x Cannon
1x Jäger or Light Horse
3x Regiments/Battalions of 3 stands each (for a total of 9 stands)

(These regiments would be some combination of Infantry (Muskets) and/or Cavalry)


Here is the entire French Force. Again this is all the stuff I have currently painted. It amounts to; 2x Light Horse (Generals), 3x Light Horse, 2xCannon 15x Muskets. Eventually they will be organized similarly to the British.

I have some North American Indians I’m working on that could be added to either forces – when they’re being used for battles in North America… I also have some French Militia, Highlanders, and other fun stuff to paint up… At some point I would still like to do a recreation of the battle on the Plains of Abraham… The british would have three brigade/commands and the French something similar… so I have a lot more painting to do…

…oh, and then there’s the jacobites… but we won’t even think about that for now…

SPARTANS!!!

PREPARE FOR GLORY!!!

So some time back I was trying to gauge what folk around here were most interested in playing so I could decide what project to work on next and Jackson indicated he might like to do a SPARTAN DBA army. I mentioned that our mutual friend Mr. Bertolini had actually modeled and moulded a generic hoplite some time ago and that’s all he’d really NEED for a Spartan army – 12 stands of Spear. So John has been casting up Spartans and handed a few to me to paint up. I thought I’d help Jackson along the way by painting a stand of Spartans for him…


These, as mentioned were modeled, moulded and cast by my friend John Bertolini. Because of their dynamic pose I wasn’t able to quite get two full ranks on to the base. Even as they are there’s a bit of the figures bases bulging at the back of the stand but that should be able to be hidden with some careful application of static grass and shrubbery….

I probably shouldn’t have done any basing details and left that to Jackson – so the base of this stand would match the rest of the stands in his army…. Ah well, he can repaint it and then add whatever kind of details he wants. I couldn’t just hand over a blank base with a bunch of guys glued to it!?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A couple of stands to finish up a pair of Seven Years War DBA armies...

just... don't ask...

Magic Rats and a Samurai

Just like it says...

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are some more of Jolo’s old Skaven (Citadel miniatures produced in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, under license, by Rafm) – repainted and rebased for Hordes of the Things.


Another samurai from Perry Miniatures.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Dammit I’m GOING to finish those wretched samurai archers one of these days!?!

After that I may switch gears to work on some other fantasy bits and options for some of my other HOTT armies as the 2nd Annual HOTT Campaign Weekend is a scant SIX WEEKS AWAY!!

Gaming with John’s Toy Soldiers

This past Tuesday me, Gary, Rick and Jackson all wandered over to John’,s for a change, to play with his pretty toy soldiers. All the figures are 40mm home-cast toy soldiers that John modeled, moulded, cast and painted himself.

I have to admit I’d been having a long tiring week and was half asleep for most of the game so I’m a little hazy on a lot of the details…

SITUATION

I know the battle took place in the mid-1800s and that Jackson and I played the Russians and Gary and Rick played the Austrians. The Russians wanted to blow up the bridge and the Austrians wanted to capture it intact.

SCENARIO

The Russians objective was to take and hold the bridge for five turns (how long it would take the engineers to prepare it for demolition. The Austirans simply had to be in possession of the bridge at the end of the game. Either side could win by eliminating half of the opposing force.

Given that we had identical forces, and John assured us that his home-cooked riles were “fast and bloody” I figured the battle would simply be determined by whole killed the mostest the fastest.

FORCES

Both sides had identical forces
1 battalion of Light infantry
4 Battalions of line infantry
2 squadrons of Cavalry
2 Artillery batteries
1 General
1 Colonel

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


John (right) explaining the scenario.


The Austrian Forces


The Russians initial deployment. WE were to mark down which units were to start on the table and where (could be 6” in from any point 18” from the corner of the table, only 6 of 9 units could start on).

Conveniently the Austirans “didn’t hear” the bit about keeping 3 units off at the start and so deployed all their stuff on the table… then had to remove a few units (after they say what we had on…)


Our plan was to rush forward the light infantry in open order to sieze and push beyond the bridge, followed closely by a line infantry unit in a march column. The two cavalry squadrons also began on the table and went to opposite flanks to ford the river and threaten the enemies flanks. The guns were to get up on the hill and deploy as quick and possible and fire in support of the advance.


Rick and Gary moving up the Austrians.


Everything going smoothly and according to plan.


The Russian Light Infantry storm the bridge.


Russian guns setting up on the hill.


Another shot of the Russian Light Infantry rushing across the bridge.


A Squadron of Russian cavalry prepare to ford the river.


Russian reinforcements arrive.


Austrian reinforcements arrive right in the thick of it!


A big mess! I'm not even going to bother trying to explain what was going on here...


Big Mess from a different angle.

In the end I think the Russians coup-de-main gambit paid off and we won…?

When John said “fast and bloody” I was expecting something faster and bloodier than other games we have played (like Ever Victorious Armies – which is VERY fast and bloody). There were a LOT of halving modifiers which very quickly reduced a units firing effectiveness to essentially zero… "for your units attack roll a single die, if you roll a 6 one guy in the enemy unit dies…" HUH!? Seriously!?

If only I could convince him to base them all on 60mm frontages and have a go with the DBA extension…

Anyway, it was super fun getting to go to Johns and play with his marvelous toys!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More painting… maybe some rules for the upcoming HOTT Camapgin weekend (only SIX WEEKS AWAY!!)

Lions and Tigers and Bears…

Well… okay, maybe just the Lions…

(well look at that, I DID find some more ‘easy’ ones to crank out!)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are Lions (obviously). The figures are Clan War figures from AEG (Lion Clan “Warcat Pride”). Ostensibly these are for a HOTT Lion Clan army (when I ever get around to that…) but could really be used as “Beasts” for ANY army I could reasonably throw them into… Narnian, any HOTTified ancient African or Middle East army, and I’m sure Amanda will want to use the ones with just lionesses for her army of “HOTTies”.

Damn… I totally forgot to paint their noses… CURSE THESE CLOSE-UP PHOTOS!!!


Two more of the same, singly-based for pulpy adventures and skirmishing on the Dark Continent… or perhaps in the lair of an eccentric evil genius (who just keeps them as “pets”)!?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Started on a couple stands worth of samurai archer the other night…. but then had a board meeting last night… game at John’s tonight… maybe by the end of the week…

Spectral Warriors and Elementals

In order to boost my lagging painting rate and lower the aquired-to-painted ratio I give you a bunch of stuff that was really easy to paint – because here at Tim’s Wargaming Blog QUANTITY is job #1!

Seriously though… I didn’t paint these JUST because they’d be quick and easy they are some really cool figures. Okay, it was PART of the reason – but it was as much about finishing stuff to boost morale (which wanes some around here during the dark cold months) than simply for the sake of numbers.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


These are from the “Dream Warriors” box set from RAFM. I picked them up recently off of ebay, and at first I thought they might have been part of a Call of Cthulhu line. Having a closer look at the box it seems like they were just part of a fantasy line.

I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to use them. Obviously I’ve based (most) them for Hordes of the Things - but what should they be classed as…?

BLADES…? Slow, hard-hitting heavy infantry…? Probably not. If I had wanted to do that I should have based them 6 to a base…

WARBAND…? This seems to make a bit more sense. A bit faster moving and unaffected by bad going…

SNEAKERS…? The ghostly/spectral aspect might work… but how would I ever need four stands of them!?

BEASTS…? Faster moving, ignores terrain, foiled by mounted? Nah…

HORDES…? This kind of works for me. The not-entirely-corporeal in form could make them not-so-effective in terms of sheer physical punishment they can dish out… Indeed their effect my not even be physical! Rather if they ever “destroyed” a stand it could be that they’ve so terrorized them they have fled the field of battle. The fact that they’re not alive to begin with means they can keep coming back if they have been “disrupted”.

Fliers…? Ghosts undeterred by terrain or other worldly things (like units of enemy soldiers) could feasibly move at a very high pace. Not terribly effective. Foiled by woods and built up areas…!? How do you explain that!?


These are Phoenix Earth Elementals. The Phoenix Clan are all about the magic – why send in a precious live to fight those who INSIST on fighting when you can have magic do your bidding. I think I will classify them as BLADES.

They are Clan War figures from AEG.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’d like to say more easy stuff… LOTS more easy stuff… but I just don’t have any easy stuff that I really want to work on!? So I think I’ll try and carry on with the Phoenix Clan HOTT army. Maybe after that (or concurrently) I'll do a bit of work on the Unicorn Clan as well as bits and bobs of this and that… we shall see.

It Gets HOTT in Winter…

It was just over a year ago that I started playing a LOT of Hordes of the Things. I had started playing DBA 19 years previous (though there has been a few LARGE gaps) and had owned both editions of HOTT, but I never really played it at all until last Xmas when JC was in town and decided to play a game.

It seems like it’s been a while since I played, but that’s just not true… up until November I was running a HOTT email campaign and was weekly playing out the battles and posting reports on this very blog…. Mind you a LOT of those games I didn’t actually PLAY in – I was mostly there as “provider-of-miniatures”, Games Master/Referee for others that came over and played the games, as well as chronicler….

Here are some brief reports of games played over the last couple weeks or so. I actually got to PLAY one of the games. Then I got to introduce my good friend John to HOTT (though Amanda played the opposition). Finally, last night Gary and Rick came over to play a game.

GAME ONE

The first game saw the return of the infamous Mr. Miller (the OTHER Tim) to the War Room’s gaming table and we FINALLY played a 36-point game – which he has been at me to try for over half a year (ever since he HAD 36 army points worth of stuff to play with!)

The battle was a classic match-up Elves versus Goblinzes

FORCES

The Forces of Timbaryll of the Elves
3x Magician
1x Blade General
2x Blade
6x Shooter
1x Knight
2x Rider

The Goblinsie Forces of Timmillur the Clean
1x Magician
2x Artillery
1x hero
2x Behemoth
1x Horde
1x Lurker
2x Beasts
2x Riders
1x Spear
1x Spear General

THE GAME

We played with d6+1 PIPs.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The Elf Battle Line


The Goblinsie battle mob.


The first bold moves – The elf magicians surge forward and BLAST the Enemy Hero… HANG ON!!! Recoiled?! Heroes don’t RECOIL from Magicians!? Or was he proposely keeping it back out of their 600 pace range… Hmmmm that’s what happens when you write these reports a couple weeks after the fact!


Trying to flank the Magicians…


Magicians move forward as does the entire elf line.


Uh-oh – Those nasty spider-riders took out one of the elf magicians…


One backs the heck out of there, and the other tries to flank the magicians again…


Spider riders and Hero wrecking havoc on the flank!


A little tit for tat – One Elf archer and one spider Rider gone…


Elf mages playing a little game of “scare the trolls and make them run away and cry”


What’s with the Spider rider moving there…?


Ah, yes… shoot the archer with artillery so they recoil into the spider riders… I guess that’s what you have to do when you have cowardly gits for an army…


Wow that trolls got gumption! Trying to go toe-to-toe with an elfie magician!


BLAM! Dead troll…


Ah… we’ve seen this tactic before… I didn’t actually get a pic with the dead marker, but I don’t’ see the stand of blade in the next pictures so I’ll go ahead and assume that they were recoiled into the riders and died…


Those riders got their though…


Crunch!


Hmmmmmm that seems to be it for pictures… fo some reason I think Mr. Miller took out another magician and that was about it…

The 36-point game on the bigger playing area was kind of interesting… Seems like it’s just an excuse to play with more 3-4AP heavy hitters. With only one bonus PIP for and army 1.5x as big it certainly favours that kind of army. The triple wizard combo with six extra schmoe stands and only one extra PIP made the elves a little unwieldy… Ah well… It was interesting to try out and fun to actually PLAY with my own damn toys for once – rather than watching other people play with them…


GAME TWO

The next game was on New Year’s day and, as I mentioned, I was introducing my friend John to the game. Amanda had tried to go out and see Avatar but couldn’t get in and so got back home just in time to play her army of “HOTTies” against a goblin horde played by John.

FORCES

The Goblin Horde of John Khan
1x Warband General
4x Horde
1x Hero
1x Shooters
3x Riders
3x Beasts

The Sapphic League of Unity and Togetherness
1x Hero General
1x Magician
1x Rider
2x Shooter
2x Warband
3x Blade

THE GAME


(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The Orcs prepare to defend their homeland against the invadin’ wimmin folk.


The Sapphic League arrays for battle.


Amanda and her army


Ponderously the two sides advance.


…and a bit more…


Dum-de-dum… What the hell?! Was everybody rolling lots of ones for PIPs or was I a little triggerhappy on the opening moves... ?


Ah here we go – General Libby gets right into it and charges into action!! Okay so those wolves (Beast) are +4 vs. mounted and you are +5 for being all Heroic and stuff… +1 for being a General… but -2 for being mounted fighting opponents in the woods… and -1 for being flanked… so… They have +4 and you have +3. If their total is higher, you’re dead, game over…


BLAM! General Libby pulls it out of the fire!

Hang on… Why is that beastly frontal opponent recoiled? They should have been quick-killified by the (mounted!) Hero!!

Ah well, it was his first game… maybe she was taking it easy on him.


…and the wolves come back and once again General Libby’s in a back no-can-back-up situation…


Skeh-DOOSH! She blasts them off again (and again forgot that the wolves should be quick-killed by mounted…)


Some general re-deploying going on – getting the line of infantry moving forward and getting the General and magician out of some tight spots.


Whoop this could, once again, potentially be bad…

Maybe she was throwing the game here… Sometimes, when I’m introducing some one to a new game I let them win… It makes it more likely that they’ll want to come back and play again. I generally won’t totally throw the game… but... y’know I don’t exactly play all that hard


Amanda has no such compulsions… No mercy, no quarter – BLAM! Dead General, game over!

Truthfully Amanda was rocking the dice and John had a hard time rolling anything but a one… Must have something to do with being a Fallcon organizer…

GAME THREE

Last night Gary popped by with his Vikings and a couple new Fantastic Elements to make them into a HOTT army… Rick also showed up and wanted to have a go with my Goblin all-mounted army…

One of Gary’s new elements was a stand of Valkyrie Fliers… WE’ve never used fliers before and so it caused us some brain injury trying to figure out how exactly they worked! I still don’t think Gary and Rick believe me that they do exert a zone-of-control when they’re flying.

The Army of Grick the Speedy
1x Hero General
1x Hero
5x Rider
3x Beasts

The Army of Sigary Snorrisen
2x Hero
1x Blade General
Xx Blade
2x Shooter
1x Flyer
1x Beasts

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


The mounted horde rushes forth!


In … slooowww… Moooo… tion… (as rick rolls a series of ones while trying to redeploy his line… )


GrarrRRR!


Gary also brought along some of his beautiful new terrain – including this swap!


The defenders of the kingdom take positions on the (STEEP) hill before the stronghold.


Still coming…


Almost there…


Hey, here’s those pretty valkyries…


GAH! Enough with the redeploying!? Get in there already!?


BLAM! Then all hell broke loose… There was all sorts of madness Blades fighting beasts (+3 vs, Mounted) on a steep hill (-2 for bad going, +1 for uphill) with side edge contact (-1 for overlap… total combat factor +1… ). It was all bad…


Look at this mess… In the last turn I think a total of 6 stands were lost (including a hero or two…?) maybe four of the Vikings and two of the Orcs... I don't know I was half asleep by that time...


Here’s what was left standing. The mounted hordes of Grick were victorious!

Well the fliers were interesting… I know we made some mistakes – like forgetting that they require an extra PIP to move!! I might have to paint up one or two of my own to try them out a bit more…

I also started to think about throwing in some other elements that we haven’t really tried much – dragons, gods, sneakers, airships, etc… I think we tried Dragons once or twice… I’ve never tried a gods, sneakers, or airships…


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I feel like I’ve been doing a LOT of prepping – cleaning, basing, priming, organizing – and not so much painting lately… I need to do some PAINTING!

Next Week my other firned John is going to be hosting a game at his place – using some homebrew rules and his 40mm home-cast mid-nineteenth century “toy soldiers” – I’ve been totally looking forward to this for some time - so stay tuned for that!