Picts Revisited

I took a bit of a break last week  (or maybe two weeks ago...? or THREE!?) to reorganize and rebase my small force of Picts. 

Some time ago I picked up a lot of Foundry Picts. I can't for the life of me remember where...? Ebay...? Maybe from Bob...? Or someone else...? I don't know... At some point later I picked up a few Black Tree Design Picts when I was placing an order with them. The only other post with the Picts label (at the time I started writing this) is from nearly a decade ago... Searching further back I found some pics from about 15 years ago (I should probably add the Picts label to THOSE posts!) 

Originally the plan had been to build a De Bellis Antiquitatis/Hordes of the Things army with them and have a few spares left over to base singly for assorted skirmish games or role-playing games (which was what I did with most things around that time). You can see the elements I did get around to completing in the Ancient Rome, Enemies, Allies and Gladiators Gallery.

Thought I never finished painting the entire Pictish army, I did use the elements I'd painted with a few of the Dark Age Irish in many Hordes of the Things games as "Generic Celtish Warrior" armies.

I have not played DBA or HotT for some time and, though I still like those games, figure I'm more likely to play Lion Rampant or Dragon Rampant and have slowly been rebasing a lot of the older HotT armies to use with Dragon Rampant (or Song of Blades and Heroes or any role-playing game...). There are some forces I'll keep based for DBA - Dark Ages armies, Greeks, and Roman, Enemies and Allies, and the Diadochi (if I EVER get to painting them!?) mostly because I could run campaigns with them - which would be a LOT of fun! 

I started this early last year with Orcs Revisited and  Dwarves Revisited (and Distractions - Lord of the Rings)

I think this is the first of the historical DBA forces I've rebased. I was back and forth about whether to base on wooden discs or plastic bases. Generally I've been doing all the fantasy forces on plastic - to match with the many, many GW miniatures I have that are all on plastic bases. And these being armed with swords and spears - like other fantasy forces... I thought I might do these on plastic... the most likely opponents for them will likely be fantasy armies... but I can't do EVERYTHING on plastic as that would get silly expensive (the wooden discs are, like, 1/4 the cost of plastic bases, and I've bought a lot of them... so.. eventually I went with the wooden discs...)

All the Picts. 

(Still a bit to paint) 

Mostly I've had Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant in mind while reorganizing these. Here is how I think they will likely be fielded

• 3x Light Foot/Infantry (12)  @3 = 9
• 2x Scouts/Skirmishers (6) @2 = 4
• 1x Light Riders/Cavalry (6) @4 = 4
• 1x Belicose Foot/Warrior Infantry (12) @4 = 4

Total = 21 Army Points

Here's what's done so far:

All the PAINTED Picts

(about 15AP of the stuff above) 

Light Riders - the leader Leader's unit. I might change these to Heavy Riders/Cavalry... They don't really have the armour to justify calling them "Heavy" or "Elite" Riders/Cavalry... but they also lack the missile weapons that "Light" Riders/Cavalry should have (other than the three in the back with javelins).

I do have an extra rider that at one point had a flag... I'm not sure what happened to the flag... At SOME point I may get around to making a new one and then this rider could be substituted in for one of the others... 

The core of the force - three units of Light Foot/Infantry (only one of which is currently painted). When initially organizing them I thought the three of them would be 12 Army Points... alas they are only nine... so I have a few more Army Points of stuff to come up with!?

Two units of Skirmishers/Scouts. 

I could have made it ONE unit of twelve Archers/Light Missile troops... but I don't think the Picts tended to use massed missile troops and would more likely have used skirmishers... (I could be wrong, I'm no expert on Pict warfare tactics!) 

Another option could be to take these and mix them into the Light Foot units so I end up with four units of light foot and give them the light Missiles/Javelin upgrade which gives them a limited ranged attack... that would be four units at 4 Army Points and my total would then be 24...? I kind of like the idea of separate skirmishers and blocks of light infantry. 

Belicose Foot/Warrior Infantry. 

Tactically I imagine the Bellicose Foot/Warrior Infantry would be set up out front of the army and just charge straight into the enemy to disrupt their lines while the light infantry behind move up to seize important ground and then hold it. The Skirmishers/Scouts would fan out and attack/harass the enemy from the flanks! The cavalry would be the fire brigade set up rather centrally to move up to attack the enemy where the pict line was having trouble...? I have no idea if that would work. 

I have a few spare infantry. I figured I could pull the sword armed figures out and call them Elite Foot/Infantry...? At least in the fantastical games played with Dragon Rampant... They could be a small unit of bad ass warrior elites. Maybe this could be a dismounted version of the Riders (which I could call Elites as well...?) 

I also have a Chariot... I'm not sure if this was, specifically, a Pict chariot or just a generic celt one that some how made it into the force...? 

I also have a warrior Priestess. Maybe something crazy could be built around her. An Elite foot infantry unit with some of the aforementioned spares...? 

And then there is THIS guy... maybe he could be a Single Model Unit of Elite Riders in Dragon Rampant and be some sort of Heroic General...?

Conveniently it all fits into ONE DRAWER in my game room. So, no room for MORE! Just need to finish up the two units of light foot and the handful of others... 

Still a fair bit to be painted before they could be fielded (unless I did something ridiculous in Dragon Rampant and brought in the Hero General and/or Pirestess as single model elite units, or something)... (28 foot miniatures, to be precise) Not sure when I'm going to get to that? I've only painted 82 this year so far... Also, I haven't really been playing Dragon Rampant lately, haven't for a while and don't have any immediate plans to do so... Mind you, I think these would be a little easier and quicker to paint...? Maybe if I got them done I'd get motivated to play...? And there are a group of guys in town that are very interested in playing miniatures agnostic games (because they HATE Games Workshop now). 

If I continue with this, I should really finish rebasing all the Isengard Orcs - because that would give me a full ready-to-play force for Dragon Rampant (and other games!) Honestly, though, I was hoping to get back to working on Warhammer Underworlds miniatures! (and I did!) This all probably came about because I hadn't played it for a few weeks and lost focus... 

I have Ancient Egyptian and Nubians that were initially meant for DBA armies that I think I'll rebase at some point as well... 

RPGaDay 2017 #6

Question #6

You can game every day for a week. Describe what you’d do!

Well… it depends…

This seems like a question that’s meant to inspire you to dream a little – like wow wouldn’t this be cool if we could game every day for a week?! But I’m in a position that I potentially COULD game every day for a week. Heck for the last few years we’ve played a game every day for the month of September!? Often when there are school breaks and the kids don’t have activities we DO play games all week long…

So… How do I answer this question? What would I do different? What am I going to do NEXT time we have a week off and want to do some gaming? It really would depend on who is going to be available for this week. Would I have one group of people that will be available EVERY DAY for that week? Are we talking gaming ALL DAY for every day of the week? How much preparation time do I have…?

I guess if I could get the right people together, and they could play all day, every day for a whole week I’d love to run an entire complete, marathon-session, RPG campaign from character creation to ultimate epic conclusion. Or possibly an extended miniature campaign – like the ones I’ve done over a weekend, but extend it to an entire week!

Which campaign? Well, that would really depend on what people could make it!

I guess if we were dreaming and assuming if there was anything I organized the right people would be available to play... well I always thought the idea of a D&D Birthright campaign sounded interesting. I wouldn't use any of the actual D&D Birthright stuff, but just the idea that the players take on the roles of nobility with land and armies at their disposal... and have to defend their lands against neighbouring nobles that desire to take it by guile or force... or bring disparate, feuding nobles together to fight against a greater enemy...? It'd be fun to incorporate some miniature battles into it either Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant or DBA/Hordes of the Things (depending on the scale of action). 

Another campaign I'd LOVE to run over an extended weekend (or a week) would be a HUGE Song of Shadows and Dust campaign -with, like, 12 players. Each would have their own faction and their own home turf - I would have a huge map of their city and the different neighbourhoods and districts. Each district would have a different benefit to the controlling player. There would be more neighbourhoods than players, so to start they could fight over new neighbourhoods and once they were all snapped up they would have to try and expand into other's turf while simultaneously trying to defend their own. I'd also like to works some chariot racing into it using Faustus Furius.

Another idea I had was to have a campaign on two different levels (this wouldn't be a one week sort of thing, but rather run over a number of months). On one level I would have a group of players locally that would be playing a medieval-ish fantasy campaign as a minor noble and their retinue that has just come into power, surrounded by potentially hostile neighbours. On the other level I could have other players - playing by email, perhaps, that represent the aforementioned hostile neighbours. So on one level it would run like some of the other play-by-email miniature campaigns I've ran in the past (like the one I ran... oh... eight years ago!?) except in the midst of this war there would be an actual role-playing group of adventurers trying to do... well... whatever it is they are trying to do. Oooh - maybe if they players actually decided to travel to the lands to negotiate with the leaders of the other factions I could organize Skype session with them! 

Odd and Sundry Bits

Below is a collection of an assortment of odd and sundry bits that have been haunting the periphery of my work area for some time, partially painted, that I’ve recently –  over the last month – finished off… but didn’t feel any one group necessitated a post all of their own… or maybe they all could have, but I was feeling lazy…?

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

Two English Civil War cavalrymen. One, on the left, is from Old Glory the other, on the right, is from Perry Miniatures.

The two finish up a unit of heavy cavalry for The Pikeman’s Lament.

An English Civil War musketeer casualty from Perry Miniatures. You can’t see it, because it’s hidden by the grass, but he’s sitting on his musket.

A Teutonic Knight Casualty from Gripping Beast. The beginnings of a Teutonic Knight retinue for Lion Rampant. I have two units of Mounted Men-at-Arms and an assortment of pilgrims and clergymen and a bunch of cavalry to paint up for the force. Well… some of the clergy are already painted… I’m not sure what I was thinking when I decided to pick up the knights… seemed like a good idea at the time…? I’ll probably need to pick up some Mounted Sergeants and some more foot for the force at some point… maybe when I actually get some of the other units finished!!

First two of the Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter, which arrived a couple weeks ago, that I’ve “painted”. There wasn’t much painted involved – other than the base.

The Wizard I actually have a not-so-translucent version of – so I can make him “invisible”.

I’m not sure why I ended up with the invisible/translucent dude with the hammer…?

Three Lead Adventure Miniatures post-apocalyptic survivors.

Two more post-apocalyptic KGB from Lead Adventure Miniatures. I finished the others from this set back in February

One of the figures from the Psi-Paladins and Techno-Barbarians Kickstarter for Mutants and Death Ray Guns.

A Grenadier Guards Officer from Miniature Figurines Winter of ’79 range.

Three female police constables also from from Miniature Figurines Winter of ’79 range.

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath from Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter. I got all the big mythos creatures out of this set. Painted up this guy as an adventure I’m prepping to kick off a Cthulhu Invictus campaign involves a Dark Young…

With the wizard for scale – he’s pretty damned big! Shub0niggurath herself and Dagon are even HUGER?!

A terribly out of focus shot of three Grymm sniper specialists from Hasslefree Miniatures. Their camouflage was so good the camera could just not recognize what to focus on…

Are the Grymm supposed to be like Space Dwarves…? I think so. But given that hasslefree minis are on the slightish side, I though they might fit in with one of my units of Imperial Guard Ratling snipers.

Unit of Ratling snipers. They’re still on the slight side… maybe female Ratlings are smaller and have tinier heads than the males of their species…? I probably should have converted their boots into big feet to match up with the GW guys a bit better… ah well…

That’s it for me for now. Need to do some planning this week and figure out what I’m going to work on in the coming months…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Game Plan 2017: What’s Next…?

More Fantasy Stuff and an SAS Jeep

Wow… it’s been three weeks since my last post… It’s been a busy month around our house and I haven’t been doing nearly as much painting. I can’t even remember when I last played a miniature game… (Oh wait, yes I can – it was the Frostgrave Campaign weekend! Over a month ago…). We have gotten a few board games in over the last month.

Here are a few things I have been working on…

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

First are a few female adventurers from Casting Room Miniatures that I picked up for a Frostgrave warband (to go with the Blue Wizards I painted last September.

Here’s what they look like with the rest of the Warband so far…I'm not sure what sort of wizards they might be... Illusionists, maybe...?

These guys from Black Tree Design are the first miniatures destined for a THIRD medieval retinue for Lion Rampant (or a Warband for Dragon Rampant…?)… because… you know… who can live with JUST TWO!? As the other two retinues were using Red/White and Green/Yellow, I decided the most sensible colours for this new retinue would be Black and Blue…

I also picked up a PILE Of Halflings from Casting Room Miniatures - like ALL of them – the entire line

 (of 5 packs…). They are ostensibly for Dragon Rampant or A Song of Blades and Heroes (but could be for any fantasy skirmish/role-playing games…). Here’s what I’ve finished up so far…

The halflings from Casting Room Miniatures that I've painted so far...

A command element - the leader of the Halfling Hollow Defence Committee Militia along with his standard bearer and a few musicians. 

A few more members of the militia. 

Father and son skirmishers. 

One of the main reasons I picked up all of these - there are female halflings! 

A fellow taking a nap. I thought I might use him as a casualty/battered unit marker - halflings never DIE they just tire of the business and wander off to have a good nap! 

Here is the whole Halfling Horde so far... 

I’ve been back and forth on how to organize them for Dragon Rampant. At one point I was thinking I’d organize them into the following units:

1x Militia Command (Light Foot) @3 points

3x Militia Foot (Light Foot, Mixed Weapons) @5 points each

1x Milita Archers (Light Missiles, Sharpshooters) @ 6 points

I could have them organized into more separate units of Light Foot and Light Missile – but light foot get the “wall of spears” special rule… and I only have a half dozen Halflings with spears… so I thought mixed units of hand weapons and bows might work (as the mixed units drop the “wall of spears” rule).

Or possibly…

1x Militia Command (Light Foot) @3 points

3x Militia Archers (Light Missiles, Sharpshooters) @ 6 points

1x Militia Skirmishers (Scouts) @2

1x Mob (Hordes) @1

Or maybe I’ll downgrade one or two of the Militia Archers (removing the “Sharpshooter” special rule) and field another couple units of Hordes…

I have a few more of these Casting Room Miniatures to finish up – along with a handful of old Ral Partha Halflings (which look like Halfling children next to most of my other Halflings… and that’s probably what I’ll use them for! Younger members of the Halfling Hollow Defence Committee’s Militia). Stay tuned for those in the coming weeks.

This is the first of a trio of SAS jeeps from Perry Miniatures.

I don’t know if any of the SAS jeeps used in WW2 were painted pink… I do know that some British units, at different times, used pink to camouflage desert vehicles – including some of the LRDG trucks. And I’m pretty sure the SAS and LRDG had a fair bit of latitude when it game to customizing their own equipment… So I figured why not paint one of them pink for giggles. The rest will probably be done in some sort of tan.

Each of the three jeeps in the set came with three crew. I wasn’t sure if they were meant to have three in a jeep or if they just came as “options”. On their website they’re pictured with three in each jeep, but I’m pretty sure they just operated with two in each jeep… So I’ve only used two from each…

I also have a pair of SAS jeeps from Company B (with the Rat Patrol crew… again, for giggles…) to paint up and another from Warlord Games on the way (along with two LRDG trucks!). I’m not entirely sure why I picked them up at this point… It seemed like a good idea at the time…? Of course NOW I’m going to have to find a bunch of trucks to make up a convoy for them to attack – or some airplanes to line up on a runway for them to destroy…  and do I get 1/72 or 1/48….? Just a few 1/48 aiplane models could end up taking up a bunch of space on the tabletop – but 1/72 might look a little small… There’s a raid scenario in the new Bolt Action campaign book Duel in the Sun. I wonder what scale of models they imagined people would use in that…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Last of the Halflings…? maybe some Elves…? SAS Jeeps…? a Lost in Space robot…!? who knows!? Lots of stuff on the workbench at the moment… 

Horse Archers and Crossbowmen

A few more things rolling off the workbench this week…

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

Turcoman Horse Archers from Gripping Beast.

These will be a unit of “Mounted Yeomen”/Light Riders for my medieval Muslim Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant Retinue/Warband.

Here they are with other members of the Retinue/Warband so far…  (The foot are actually part of Frostgrave Warbands – but I figure I could press these ones into service as a unit of Fierce/Belicose Foot and Bidowers/Scouts…).

Some Armoured Crossbowmen from Perry Miniatures. I was picking up some other stuff from Perry Miniatures so I thought I’d grab these to use as Marksmen in Frostgrave - as they have Mail, Crossbow, and Sword – the equipment of marksmen… unfortunately these are earlier crusaders and the helmets on the rest of my soldiers are later medieval… ah well…

If you look close, two have been painted with yellowish tunics for the Gold Wizards warband and two have green for the Jade Wizards. The other two in could be for anyone. I haven’t ever taken any Marksmen – I’m not a fan of the slow-loading crossbows – I’d rather have a Ranger that can get twice as many shots down range… but I thought I should get some Marksmen to try out at some point…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’m pretty excited about the Medieval Muslims at the moment, I may try to push to finish up the remaining two or three units of cavalry so I could have a fieldable force – and then work on the additional infantry options when I get to them. Of course there are a lot other things on my workbench, so who knows…?!