Lard Magazine 2021

And drum roll please...Ta Da. The Lard Magazine 2021 has just been made available for you to download and it includes my Khalkhin Gol article and scenarios, as well as quite a lot of really good stuff for a wide selection of the Lardy rules, which is a nice change from the usual. 

There's also a very interesting interview with Mark Backhouse about Strength and Honour, which is well worth a look if you want to get a better grip on the system and how it works. It all makes up just a little bit for what can only be described as a bit of a ***** year! 

Westwind Summer Sale

 

 

Westwind have a 25% off sale at the moment, with 30% off some overstocked items. I've ordered a pack of Pictish heads to use as Saxon heads for my long planned Dux Britanniarum project, together with some shield transfers which I forget to order the first time round. It's well worth a look if you need some extra bits and bobs.

Dark Age Village

In an effort to get my long overdue SAGA project back on track for this Autumn, I've acquired a set of resin 'dark age' village buildings from PMC games via ebay. These come ready painted and include three wattle and daub houses and a rather nice manor house / church building.

I reckon these can also be pushed back a few hundred years and be used for Romano-British structures as well, making them useful for Dux Britanniarum, should that ever get off the ground. I've been re-reading the rules again and love the way they form a mini-campaign of linked battles and raids.

I just have to steal myself to paint up seventy or so 28mm figures to cover both the British and the Saxons! If I can manage to paint up the SAGA Normans  in a month when I get back from France, then DB might be a slightly less daunting prospect for the not too distant future?

Westwind 30% Off Sale

I got an nice email from Westwind yesterday which announced another one of their very generous 30% off sales on the Arthurian, Samurai and Berlin or Bust WW2 ranges. I made the most of last year's sale by assembling a Romano British and a Saxon army for Dux Britanniarum, saving me a shedload of cash and resulting in yet more lead in the pile.

This time, I've kept my expenditure to a minimum by ordering a 3'' AT gun for the Bolt Action project. The Berlin or Bust figures are much smaller than the Artizan ones but I don't think the guns will be noticeably out of scale, so it will add a bit of punch to the platoon espacially as I already have the Artizan gun crew. I may well go back and get some more Arturian figures though!

Dux Britanniarum Background Book

We went to Tintagel again today as the weather was decent and we have English Heritage membership, which makes it a cheap day out. I'm not a fan of Tintagel due to the excessive numbers of tourists and the proliferation of plastic pixies, pasty shops and knick knack emporia, but it's an impressive site nonetheless.

To minimise the culture shock, I bought a copy of this book in the gift shop as background research material for Dux Britanniarum. I know next to nothing about the period so it should fill in some gaps, although the rules do have a very good overview of the whole sub-Roman period. I'm not sure if it's any good but it looks quite interesting and has lots of maps, which is usually a good thing.

Dux Brittaniarum Romano British

To soften the culture shock of having to return to work today, I decided to treat myself to the other half of the Dux Brittaniarum set up, making use of the last day of the Westwind 30% off sale. I ummed and arrhed a bit about this but, in the end, decided to save a lot of expenditure now for a project that I can tackle later, even if the figures end up in storage for six months or more.

I ordered a warband of the Welsh spearmen as my levy, a warband of Romano British spearmen as my warriors, a single pack of armoured figures plus a pack of armoured command as my elite, with a single pack of archers for my missile troops. I also included the rather splendid Arthur character pack to add to the existing spare figures that I already have from the Mordred set.

I haven't decided yet if this force will be based in my local area of Venta Belgarum or Caer Gynntguic, in which case they'll be a bit more Sub Roman, or if it will be based further west in Dumnonia, in which case it'll have more of a British flavour. I quite fancy the first option, as it allows me to include more late Roman style units but, for the moment, I've been re-reading the rules and the WAB Age of Arthur book for ideas.

It's all a long way down the road but the excellent figures, the neat rules and the really cool campaign system make this a definate front runner for 2013.

Dux Britanniarum Early Saxon Army

I spent an hour or so costing up the various alternatives for Dux Britanniarum this afternoon. These came down to the Splintered Light 15mm range, the Westwind 28mm, Musketeer 28mm or the Gripping Beast 28mm ranges.

I really, really like the 15mm Splintered Light figures and they're now available in DB battlepacks for $38 including postage but I'd need to get both sides for any solo games, which makes it as expensive as 28mm in the long run.

The Westwind Arturian figures also look pretty good and, at the moment, are on offer at 30% off, making them much cheaper than the Gripping Beast or Musketeer options, even when using the pre-packed army sets that are now available from Toofatlardies. In 28mm, I can also find an opponent or two at the club, so I only need one force rather than two.

I've decided to go for the Westwind Early Saxons as a result. This involves an unarmoured and an armoured Warband pack, a single pack or five archers and a single character pack of Mordred and three warlords, just to add a bit of variety to the army command.

With the 30% discount added in, this cost me just over £40, which I think is a bit of a bargain, even if the figures aren't as varied as the Gripping Beast or Musketeer ones. I have no idea when I'll get round to this but at least it's now a viable project for the future.

I may still have a go at 10mm or 15mm, though, perhaps using the new Dux Bellorum rules from Osprey, which are designed for larger scale battles using element based units. I've read a couple of positive reviews and they seem like excellent value for  money, as well as being fun to play.

TFL Summer Special

I've been reading this today, alongside my copy of Dux Britanniarum, as there are some interesting articles on DB that might help me decide if and, subsequently how, I might go about it. I'm still sitting on the fence at the moment, as I don't want to spend lots on 28mm figures and the smaller scale alternatives are either too expensive (Splintered Light 15mm) or would give me bucket loads of surplus figures (Pendraken 10mm). I've also got the SAGA Vikings to do first, amongst other things...

Dux Britanniarum

I've been putting this off but finally decided in a moment of weakness to pre-order a pdf copy of the new Toofatlardies Romano-British rules. It's not a period that I'm particularly familiar with but that's an advantage as it'll give me the excuse to do lots of background reading. If I decide to add this to my list of projects, it'll be way down the line as I already have lots of things half done that need my attention, including the SAGA Vikings, for example. It'll also be as small as I can possibly make it, as it won't be cheap to put together a 28mm army even if it's at a skirmish level. I suppose I could do it in 20mm or even 15mm, if I can find a good range of figures? Anyway, it'll be a good read for the holidays...