Dire Boar, Henchmen, and Egyptians

A few items rolling off the workbench.

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

Two henchmen for Song of Shadows and Dust I converted from a couple of Dark Age Old Glory miniatures.

The Dire Boar… which I think was from Wizards of the Coast’s Chainmail line…?

He’s a big beastie:

Here he is with the hanchmen – just for a little perspective.

I’ve had the mini for a few years but quickly painted him up last night as I suddenly  have an immediate use for him in a RPG/tabletop adventure I have planned for the kids…



A Carpet Dealer from a Mega Miniatures pack (Sultans' Harem...?) that will go nicely with the Carpet Seller's stall I painted a few weeks back. 

Egyptians Spearmen from Wargames Foundry  for a  Hordes of the Things/DBA (New Kingdom-ish) Egyptian army.

The rest of the army so far…

A pair of Black Tree Design Dark Age figures. These have been sitting on my workbench, finished, for some time now waiting for me to finish a couple more Dark Ages guys for me to take pictures of them with... but that's not likely to happen any time soon, so I thought I'd just add them to this post and tuck them away in the appropriate storage box.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More games... More painting...? I've been slowing on the 23 figures per week schedule... and while I had been planning to finish the Egyptian and Nubian DBA armies over the next few weeks, I have a feeling Greek and Roman subjects are likely going to take over for a bit... 

Mostly Dark Ages Stuff

(But also some Fantasy and SF)

A few things I’ve finished up over the last week or so…

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

Like it says on the box, I’ve been mostly working on Dark Ages stuff for a A Tale of Blades and Heroes I’ve been trying to get going… 

A Viking Berserker from Black Tree Design

Some Saxon archers, also from Black Tree Design

Some Saxon Civilians… yup, Black Tree Design again….

Some rock-chuckin’ Irish from Crusader Miniatures.

Another Skaven from Games Workshop

Two more Wood Elf Wardancers – also from Games Workshop

Finally, a few Catachan Imperial Guardsman. Only the loader and the single guy running are new – the guner for the rocket launcer I did some time ago and was originally individually based. I’ve been trying to be more consistent with my modern and sci-fi skirmish minis and base heavy weapon teams together and I found a spare loader on ebay to base up with this rocket launcher. I was also experimenting with some camouflage…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Wow… If I had to say, probably another Power Legion playtest report. I’ve sort of abandoned painting fantasy and Dark Age stuff and have started on some Ancients (Nubians and Egyptians – and have been eyeing some Romans…) and am feeling the urge to paint some new Super Heroes (to have a few more options for Power Legion.

Vikings Invade England and… NORMANDY!?

John was over again to play some more DBA. There was 100% less cheating than last time.

This time I wanted to try out Vikings vs Anglo-Saxons – to see how the flank support for spears works against the Vikings – which normally walk over them. I also wanted to try out the Normans again either against the Anglo-Saxons (with a little less cheating this time) or against Vikings to see if the ties = dead knights comes up often…

GAME ONE

FORCES

Middle Anglo-Saxon

1x Spear General

10x Spear

1x Psiloi

Vikings

1x Blade General

11x Blade

THE GAME

John took the Vikings, I took the Angl-Saxons.

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

A pretty stretch of the English countryside with my Anglo-Saxons all lined up and ready to defend their home from the evil Viking invaders… with their new-found flank support rule they are so confident in their ability to do so they haven’t even set up on the hill…

The lines meet with a thunderous clamour of metal on metal and wood and flesh and the cries of dying men…

The first bounds outcome. Much shoving back and forth – no elements broken. John’s Vikings have started pushing back the left of my line towards the hill, determined to give me the uphill advantage.

One my follow-up bound I shove a few Vikings back to make a bit more of a mess.

But at the far right end of the English line we see the first significant losses – An element English Spear is lost!

The next bound more or less straightens out the line – John “closed the door” at the right of my line, but a desperate defense threw back the Viking attackers. AT the other end of the line the Vikings continued to push the spear up the hill to the point where next turn I’ll have a +1 up hill advantage… that’s when I figured it would all come apart for the Vikings…

Um… Okay… NEXT turn it’ll all come apart for the Vikings – we just wanted to retire a little further up that hill to ensure we were all well and truly on the hill and deserving of that uphill advantage factor…

Well it did not all come apart for the Vikings… despite my uphill advantage and flank support…. Not only did John not get pushed back down the hill – he doubled and DESTROYED me element of spear!? I can’t think of how… Oh I know, the other spear element went FIRST and was recoiled back up the hill losing me the flank support and gaining me a negative overlap factor +5 to my +3…

At the other end of the line things were not looking so good either – the Vikings had turned the flank of the English line and, despite a desperate defence the sturdy Saxons were eventually overcome.

I think John was determined to shove my spear OVER the hill to get an uphill advantage of his own… just to show off, or something… As it turned out he didn’t get the opportunity.

At the other end of the line an isolated element of spear was over run by the Vikings and that was the end of the game.

I like the flank support rule. When the Spear are in a nice solid line it lets them fight at even odds against blade… Once that line gets broken up a bit they become a bit more brittle – and if the Vikings can get elements of blade surrounded – by pushing into their line on either side of an element, losing them the flank support and giving them an overlap factor or two it’s suddenly +5 to +3 or +2 and that is how I lost most, in not all, of the elements I lost in the game.

GAME  TWO

FORCES

Vikings

1x Blade General

10x Blade

1x Bow

Normans

1x Knight General

7x Knights

2x Spear

2x Bow

THE GAME

John decided to stick with the Vikings, though I convinced him to swap out one Blade for the Bow option… I took the dreaded NORMANS… The Normans didn’t take kindly to this visit from their back-water, hillbilly, fjord-swelling cousins…

Not a piece of terrain on the Normans side… well… not a piece of bad-going…

It occurred to me that it could be possible for there to be a table with no bad-going at all… you are only required to select ONE piece of bad-going (I took the woods) and if it were diced for last and ended up in a quarter where there was already two pieces of terrain and couldn’t fit I would have to be discarded. Perhaps there needs to be a rule whereby bad-going must be diced for first! (maybe there is and I missed it!?)

All lined up and ready to rumble.

The bow did successfully break up my line on the approach and on this bound I rolled a one for PIPs… so I didn’t even get to send in my whole line…

Not that it mattered… One bound. Four dead. Including the General!?

Now I have to mention that all through the previous game with the English and the Vikings John and I were rolling a staggering number of ties – which I thought spelt certain DOOM for the Normans if that kept up – the whole point of this engagement was to check out the blade quick-kill of knights on ties… (should happen one in six times…?) I guess we got all the ties out of our dice in the previous game, because we didn’t roll a single tie anywhere along here…

Anyway. Fun games. I’d like to get in some more. I’d REALLY like to finish up some hoplites and try some spear on spear; +5 on +5 is going to be a huge shoving match… It’ll be all about the terrain and where that odd element of psiloi gets to…

Unfortunately production seems to be slowing around here as I’m trying to get to bed a bit earlier these days so I can get up and start going for early morning bike rides now that the suns coming up earlier and the weather’s getting nicer… well… maybe not THIS WEEK – it’s been pissing rain the last couple days… but soon enough.. 

Picts!?

Yes… Picts….

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

These are two elements of Psiloi for my Pict DBA army. All the figures are from Wargames Foundry.

Here’s the backside of them to show off their pretty tartans.

Two individual Picts for skirmish gamin’ (from Wargames Foundry). The chap on the right looks a little like a sentry. I kept imagining him as the opposite of THESE GUYS - just on the other side of the wall (in the woods, rather than the watchtower).

Here’s the backside of these guys to show off their pretty tartans.

Okay, fine… since I promissed more Greeks stuff in my last post; Here's a Greek woman! Also from Wargames Foundry.

 There’s nothing special about her backside.

Well… not that’s apparent in the way I painted the miniature…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

 Still a bunch of Greek Hoplites and Amazons populating my workbench… but there’s also Centaurs lurking at the rear… other Greek heroes and monsters and whatnot… so who knows… Maybe Zulus and Martians!?

Normans and Saxons

Following up the games on Monday with David, John popped for a couple quick games on Thursday. I wanted to try out Normans versus Saxons with the latest draft so John took the Normans and I fully expected to be slaughtered…

GAME ONE

FORCES

Normans
1x Knight General
7x Knights
2x Spear
2x Bow

Anglo-Danish
1x Blade General
2x Blade
9x Spear


THE GAME

The Anglo-Danish were defending so I chose at road for my compulsory terrain and a waterway and two gentle hills for the optional…. I’d debated taking some bad going – difficult hills or woods or such – hoping it might clutter up the field a bit and cause the Normans to be split up a bit and I could perhaps launch an attack on one of the smaller segments – much as I had (attempted to do) in a game with Christian a while back… but ultimately decided against it.

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


The Anglo-Danish on the left, the Normans on the right. The Waterway kind of cramped out deployment zone.


After the first bound or two we’d straightened out our lines and I just sat with one end anchored on a hill and awaited the Normans charge.


Steadily the came – not getting ahead of their supporting infantry on the flanks.


BLAM! The lines met and John could not stop rolling ones!?



The Normans lost three Knights and a Bow. The English lost two spear.


Game over…

Wow…

That was fast.

Now I should mention that I was cheating. I realized after the second game when we were figuring out probability and I was rereading through the flank support and realized that it is only against other FOOT!? (DOH!!!) Not that I would have mattered a whole lot as the rolls were pretty ghastly.

Well since that was so fast we rolled up some new terrain and tried again…

GAME TWO


No Waterway this time, just three gentle hills…. Which I just realized was not legal… there should have been SOME kind of bad-going… DOH!!!


The lines meet!


Normans lost two Knights, including the General and I lost two spear…


In the following bound I moved my General and Blade s down the hill a bit to meet the Norman Bow and destroyed them… end of game…

Again, atrocious luck on John’s part. Though I may not have actually killed his General if I hadn’t been such a big dummy and… well… been cheating!

Anyway, we spent some time figuring out odds of various outcomes and ultimately decided that it all seemed to work out rather well.

Spear versus Knight for example; 4/36 (11%) Spear will KO the Knights, 10/36 (28%) the Knights will break though and ride down the spear, and the remaining 22/36 (61%) the Knights will recoil from the spear…. Spear is pretty solid. Sure, there’s a chance the Knights will ride them down… but it’s more likely that the Knights will recoil and there is a chance that they will impale themselves on the spears and die.

Blades seem considerably more volatile – 15/36 (42%) they will be swept away by the knights, 8/36 (22%) they will destroy the Knights, the remaining 13/36 (36%) The Knights recoil from the Blade… Compared to Spear the Blade have double the chances of killing the knights, but are also almost twice as likely to be killed by the Knights.

I’d definitely like to try this again (without… y’know… cheating!?) and also try a Viking vs. Norman battle.

Meanwhile, Somewhere in Wales…

David popped by this evening for a couple quick tries at the latest draft of the DBA3.0 rules. We just used the rules as written – no changes to the terrain placement. The really new thing was the side support for spear…

GAME ONE

David thought he’d try out the Welsh, I took the Anglo-Saxons because I wanted to try out this new-fangled spear side support.

FORCES

Middle Anglo-Saxon III/24b
1x Spear General
10x Spear
1x Psiloi

Welsh III/19a
1x Cavalry General
9x Warband
2x Psiloi

THE GAME

The dice said I was invading Wales so David picked two Difficult Hills and three Woods and diced for their locations. One of the woods was discarded as it didn’t fit in the section rolled. Both the Difficult hills ended up on one side of the table and as I did NOT want to have to try and winkle the bloody Welsh (WARBANDS!) off of difficult hills with Saxon Fyrd (SPEAR) I chose that side to deploy on!

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


Unfortunately deploying on that side put two large bad-going features at the front of my deployment zone…

Painstakingly trying to get those coloumn of English spear down off the steep hills before the Welsh got to them – despite being uphill of them, the Welsh would still have the advantage there!


First contact was with some Welsh skirmishers on my left…


…which recoiled my own skirmishers back up onto the hill!


The battle was more or less split in two and devolved into two drunken brawls on the flanks – while my general sat in a valley in the middle wondering what the hell was going on!?


Over on my right Warband were attacking Spear


…and scored some initial success! (English down one!)


Meanwhile over on the right…


It was the reverse (tied up; one-to-one)

Whoops! Looking at this picture I just realized the Welsh should have pursued me up to the hill…


GRARRR! Right back into it went my lads!


Shoving the Welsh back (before they could


The lines meet again… well.. out on the flanks…


The Welsh General galloped up to give some support to his troops – overlapping my Spear.


And the Spear were destroyed! (English down two)


Lines evened out on the right again.


And another Welsh Warband is destroyed by the Spear (tied, again, at two)


Here I thought I might have had a chance for a quick victory – the Saxon Spear General vs. the Welsh Cavalry General flanked by spear… of course I had an overlap as well… my +4 to his +3…


NO such luck, the Generals' element shoved of the attackers and pursued the following turn.


Over on the right the English success continued (Welsh now down three)


The Welsh surge forward again…


And took down another spear over on my right…

…and I think killed the General, because that was apparently the end of the game… but I don’t seem to have taken any pictures… Anyway, close game, lots of fun. Catching the Welsh in the open is great – if you can deploy in the open. Having to deal with the bad-going kind of hampered my ability to maneuver to meet the onrushing Welsh Horde…

I also got to try out the side-support for spear, which I’ve got my head around now and it seems pretty neat! Spear recoiling from Warband on a tie came up a couple times… kind of glad they don’t have rear support anymore… Not sure if I’ll be so glad when I’m playing the Welsh.

Well since that was so quick, we played another.

GAME TWO

As David was having fun with the Welsh and just getting the hang of warband he stuck with them. I took the Norse Irish… just for… well… something different…?

FORCES

Norse IrishIII/46
1x Auxilia General
7x Auxilia
4x Psiloi

Welsh III/19a
1x Cavalry General
9x Warband
2x Psiloi

THE GAME


This game took place entirely on one half of the table. The table was pretty even – difficult hills in opposite corners and woods in opposite corners… Not that I was terribly concerned about either with the Irish… I was all Auxilia and Psiloi…


The Welsh first move was to secure their position on the hill.


Two moves on and my line of Auxilia was at the base of the hill, the Psiloi, who had been kind of left behind were maneuvering to the flank in an attempt to swing round and cause trouble on his flanks.


Anticipating this the Welsh sent down their own skirmishers to deal with them.


Skirmishers skirmishing on the flanks…


I’m not sure if I’d noticed it in previous drafts, but on the read through earlier in the day I noticed that an element with a flank edge less than one base width from the table edge, as these are, is counted as overlapped… interesting.

It helped do in these Psiloi.

Finding himself outnumbered four to one and potentially being overlapped on both sides, the Welsh skirmishers retired…


The following bound I scored five PIPs so up the hill we went!


It was a bit of a bloody mess… but ultimately the Irish took down two of the Welsh Warbands – we quickly discovered that sitting on a difficult hill is a great strategy against Vikings (Blade), English (Spear) or Normans (Knights)… doesn’t work so brilliantly against the Irish (Auxilia and Psiloi) who were able to maneuver and turn flanks…


Here’s one of those funny things in the rules.. I’d sent this Auxilia out to guard against the General turning around and flanking the flankers… In fact I was able to go far enough to catch him in my Threat Zone – thus keeping him from galloping to the other side of the hill and relieving the flanked warbands there and scattering those annoying Psiloi…

Now The whole threat zone thing reads: “An element… in an enemy TZ with no part of another element in its path, can move only: (a) to contact the front edge or overlap such a TZ-ing element, (b) to move straight forwards towards or to become more lined up and parallel to is without contacting it, or (c) only directly to it’s own rear…” Now, as it’s “own rear” is facing the Irish Auxilia here… is his ONLY option to ride towards the Auxilia…!? He can’t gallop away?! What am I missing…?


As it turns out he did turn about and contact the Irish Auxilia… and it didn’t work out to well for the Irish…


The Irish Warband that had pursued a recoiling Irish Auxilia the previous bound (and found themselves overlapped on both sides) was destroyed and that was the end of the game.

Again fast and fun.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I hope to get in another couple games later in the week with John and/or David again… stay tuned for those reports. Or perhaps now that I’ve got the space cleared I could get in a couple games with the kids some afternoon or another?

Should also finish up some Greeks over the next couple days. After these two games I'm pretty fired up to get some more Spear elements finished up for a Greek Hoplite army!!