Monday's Game of ADLG

Back in November/December I signed up for our club's ADLG tourney. Possibly not the best of ideas with the Challenge about to start, but these things happen.

I finally played my first game (of four) on Monday against the Madaxeman. I'd rather stupidly opted for the Alans (the only army I have at present for the period/theme of the tourney) and the other armies in my group are Romans and Macedonian successors - not the ideal opponents for a cavalry army. The Madaxeman's army was an Early Successor one - mostly pikes, some heavy cavalry and a nellyphant with a smattering of other heavy/medium/light infantry thrown in.

Unfortunately I lost the initiative roll, so the Madaxeman opted to be the defender and selected Mountains as the region type. The terrain and where it fell was not brilliant for my cavalry. The dark green blobs are forest; there are two steep hills in the top right corner. The other two pieces are brush.

I was a little surprised to find him only deploy two corps and announce that the third corps was on a flank march. I was expecting it to come in on my right flank, but it actually came in on my left. But that happened a few turns after this. I probably should have sent one  of my corps on a flank march, but forgot. I should also have put my camp between the forest (and next to it) and the brush on my baseline.

If you are wondering why I haven't deployed any heavy cavalry to the left for the forest, I couldn't - there are strict deployment zones for battle-line troops and you can't deploy them in the outer margins. The forest started at the deployment edge

I'd deployed with my shooty-cavalry ahead and advanced them fast to slow down and shoot up the pike blocks and other heavy troops. My right wing was advancing to try to get into position to attack the flanks and rear of the pikes. The lancers in my centre and left wing corps were being held back so that they could either sweep round on his right flank/rear or react to any flank march.

His flank march arrived quite early - three heavy cavalry and two light horse. If only I'd sent one of my corps on  a flank march down that side- his would have been driven back and had to deploy no more than 20cm from his base edge on that flank. The next turn my corps could have come on and hit him in the flank or rear.

Rules tip - if both armies have flank marches on the same flank, which ever has the most units (light units count as half) drives the other back.

Rules tip - if you have a lot of units on your flank march, you'd better hope that you roll high for command pips and have enough space to deploy them all!

My lancers on the left charged his lancers. The shooty cavalry had been charged by the elephant and evaded, so I'd decided to bring them down to support the lancers.

Rules tip - different unit types have different cohesion points. Skirmishers have two, most battle line troops have three, some (eg pikes) have four. To show how many have been lost, the convention is 1 loss = green; two losses = yellow; three losses = red; four losses = black.

It turned out that my lancers did need some help! The one at the top also got charged in the flank by some hoplites (supported by light foot) but did succeed in killing the lancers they had originally charged - at this point they have turned to face the hoplites. However my other two lancers got creamed. To try to stop his lancers carrying on, I charged in with my shooty cavalry. One of them did OK, the other died ever so quickly.

In the top right you can see what happens when pikes that have been shot up get charged in the flank by lancers. One unit got blown to pieces by the charge and the lancers pursued into the next. It's even better when those lancers are supported on each flank.

Rules tip - in melee combat, each supporting unit gives you a +1 to your attack roll (light troops count half, rounded up).

Rules tip - if you are attacked in the flank you lose your attack bonuses and if the charge was by battle line troops you also drop a cohesion level.
NB - pursuit into contact with a new unit does not count as a charge.

Meanwhile in the top right corner, I'd sent a unit of light horse to loot the camp. However, thanks to us both having not played ADLG for months we forgot that light foot can't charge anything other than light foot in the open. A turn or two later, another light foot had come out of the woods and charged them in the rear. Of course, we didn't discover our mistake for several turns, but which time another of my light horse had joined in and some of the medium or heavy cavalry that was milling around in the middle of the table doing sweet FA had decided to take a look.

I could have looted his camp much earlier and then taken on the light foot in my own good time.

Getting back to proper fights though, here you see my centre corps lancers have charged into the front of his two remaining pike blocks. I didn't have any choice as my command pip roll was too low to stop them, so I used a point to declare the charge. Or they might have been close enough for a zero-point spontaneous charge. 

Rules tip - impetuous cavalry have to charge any unit within charge range. If you don't declare a charge then for each unit you have to pay 3 command points. You don't normally want to launch uncontrolled charges as you take a -1 on your melee attack roll. You definitely don't want to frontally uncontrolled-charge heavy infantry, particularly spearmen or pikes, as they will be at a +1 or +2 in the combat anyway (not to mention negating your cavalry's combat bonuses).
Edit to correct - Impetuous cavalry don't have to make frontal uncontrolled charges against heavy infantry. Thanks Seb!

By this time, the last remaining unit of my left flank corps had been destroyed and his elephant had taken out some of my shooty cavalry. Fortunately the next turn was mine and I had units teed up to hit the pikes in the flank and rear.

At the top of the pic the two cavalry must have charged into another infantry unit (possibly hoplites, maybe Thracians - they're not in shot and I can't remember. It may even have been a flank charge).

In the final turn I took his camp and charged the flank and rear of the pike block. That was enough to break his army and win the game, but I was only 1 point off being broken myself!

Analogue Painting Challenge: 28mm Vikings

I did finish the Vikings yesterday and the pics have been up on Curt's blog for a day now, so I can post them here. Do check out Curt's blog - the entries by my fellow Ronin are well worth the effort of looking through.

I was quite pleased about four things:
1) I hadn't realised that hand-painted shields get a bonus point, so I was getting 6 points a figure instead of 5 giving me a total of 120 points for that entry.
2) I am currently in 11th place with 236 points (but will drop down the rankings during the week)
3) I am ahead of Ray (currently languishing in 19th place with 120 points), but I expect that the dastard is secretly painting up a massive entry of several hundred figures
4) It's only 1/6 of the way into the Challenge and I'm already over 1/4 of the way to my target. I'd thought that aiming for 800 points over the three months was stretching myself, but it doesn't appear to be so.

So, with the Vikings done, what have I been up to?

28mm Gripping Beast Saxons

These are now assembled, based and primed. I took a different approach to the basing this time and did it after priming the figures (with Vallejo white polyurethane primer) and the metal washers they are based on. Rather than brushing slightly-thinned PVA over the entire base and then dipping it into sand/gravel mix I brushed spots and smears of thicker PVA onto the bases then shook coarse grey ballast over the figures, shook off the excess and left them to dry for a while. Then I brushed thinner PVA into the gaps and covered the bases with medium grey ballast, shook off the excess and left them to dry again. Once I thought the glue had dried, I went over with an even thinner coat of PVA to seal the ballast and left them to dry again. Finally I went over the basing with primer. They are now sitting at the back of my painting area to allow the primer (and underlying PVA) to fully harden.

The next step will be to give them a black/brown wash before painting to provide some pre-shading.

15mm Late 30YW Horse

Thinking that I could probably do with a break from 28mm (not to mention assembly of plastics) I've decided that after the Saxons are done, my next unit for the Challenge will be the remaining cavalry from my 30YW leadpile. When I got the figures out to start prepping them, I remembered that I also had 6 mounted standard bearers sitting in the leadpile without any obvious use. "Hmmm, what if I mixed them in with the rest? That would give me 10 bases, 8 of them with standard bearers. I can always order some extra figures to make up a 3rd regiment later."

So, this evening I have prepped 30 horses and riders - at the moment they are soaking in warm soapy water. I'll probably rinse them before going to bed and put them out to dry overnight.

Preparing for a FoG:AM Doubles Tournament

A clubmate and I are taking part in the Godendag doubles tournament at Usk in a couple of weeks time. the theme for the FoG:AM competition is "Rise and Fall of Rome" so we are taking Early Alans. Today was the last date for submitting army lists, so I was putting the finishing touches to ours.

We'll be trying it out tomorrow night at the club, which will also be a good chance to check out the differences between V1 and V2 of FoG (Godendag is using the V2 rules). The camera is packed and with 2 of us playing on each side, there's no excuse for not taking any photos nor writing a turn-by-turn record for writing the AAR.



Oh, you want pics of the Vikings? Go on then:

Challenge Entry #3 - Gripping Beast 28mm Vikings

Here they are in all their glory. All parts got at least basecoat and wash, some parts got highlights as well. The shield designs were hand-painted and I noticed when looking at the photos that some need some touching up, which I'll do at some point. I decided to seal them with neat Klear rather than my usual Klear/ink mix.

The bases got a basecoat of Khaki Grey, followed by a wash of Burnt Umber. I then dry-brushed with Khaki Grey, Iraqi Sand and finally with Sky Grey. I think it looks effective. I decided against using any tufts for these figures, but did use two different mixes of flock - Moorland and Meadow Grass.

All Together:

Blackshields:

Blueshields:

Greenshields:

Redshields:

Yellowshields:

And for anyone who thinks pink is a girly colour, this gent doesn't agree with you!

Hope you like them!

Swiss Tour of Spain: First Leg vs Crown of Aragon

As expected, they got beaten. However, the drubbing was not as bad as the one they got against Mike's Hungarians.

My army list was about right. The only change I might want to make is to drop the fortified camp and 4 handgunners, and replace them with two 4s of crossbowmen. My main problem was how I deployed the pikes and idiotically deciding to move them forward from a good defensive position. The 8 of pikes on my right wing was also too far forward to be of much use and vulnerable to being isolated.

IC & 2 x TC
2 x 12 pike
2 x 8 pike
1 x 4 halberds
1 x 6 halberds
2 x 4 crossbows
1 x 4 handgunners
fortified camp

It didn't help that 9 of Ian's 12 battle groups were skirmishers who had better armour than mine.

Anyway, I did remember my camera and did remember to take pics, so here are a selection:

Beginning of turn 3. To explain the terrain: the black circle is impassable terrain, with two steep hills above it; in the centre of my half is an area of brushy ground with another steep hill in line with it. Just about visible in the shadow of Ian's elbow is an area of marshy ground.

If I had demonstrated any common sense I wouldn't have moved my troops from their positions at this point.

As you can see, common sense largely went out of the window, although was present when I withdrew my skirmishers. What on earth was I thinking of, sending an 8 of pikes on its own towards an 8 of offensive spear?

The right wing pikes square up to face the offensive spear.  Beyond the steep hill, Ian's 3 battle groups of light horse  make their way steadily into a very threatening position.

Oooh 5 shots vs 2 and good positioning for charges by my skirmishers against Ian's. If only I had another unit to block them from evading....

A couple of turns later, Ian's 6 skirmishers decided to stand when my two crossbow units charged him. This scrap was to last several turns.

Just a second, weren't there some pikes and a general in front of those offensive spears? In the previous turn Ian had killed my general, then managed to score 8 hits in the next melee. I'd already been dropped to 5 bases, so really needed to roll 3 or more to survive. Guess what? I rolled a 2, taking me to 3 bases which meant they suffered an autobreak.

Looking decidedly dodgy for those 4 halberdiers, who've been disrupted by shooting from the archers in front of them.

Looking even dodgier - menaced by offensive spear on their left flank, being shot to crap from the front and right and threatened by light horse on their right flank.

And they're gone, broken by shooting. Two BGs down - thankfully this was the last turn of the game

Positions at the end of the game - in the previous turn Ian's Impact medium foot had charged my other 8 of pike. For the last turn, the melee was at evens so I put my IC into the front rank and then rolled 2 hits and two 3s - grrr, no rerolls. Ian scored 3 hits but failed to kill my general. Phew.

Final score:
Ian - 14.4
Me - 5.6


No posts till Sunday

My bags are pretty much packed and I'll be going straight from work to the tapas bar to meet up with the rest of the group going to Derby tomorrow, so will be incommunicado blogging-wise until I get back on Sunday evening.

I did get in a bit of a panic while I was packing - I couldn't find my bag of terrain shapes. It turned out there was a very good reason for that - I'd transferred them into a box file. Panic over.

Wish my Early Alans luck!

Back from Campaign

I;m back! Tired, defeated but having learnt a lot and having had a most excellent time dudes!

Well, here's a very brief report for you.

Saturday

Having been collected by my lift at the unseemly hour of 6.30am, we headed up from London to sunny Milton Keynes. With traffic light, we made it to the venue in good time, dragged our bags and boxes out of the car and headed inside with plenty of time to buy coffee/breakfast an use the facilities. Unfortunately we were slightly too early and Costa coffee and the facilities weren't open. We weren't the first players from Central London club to arrive, so we spent a while chatting until Costa opened so we were finally able to make a pit-stop and feed our caffeine habits..

Central London had a total of 5 teams entered - 2 in the FoG Ancients, 2 in FoG Renaissance and 1 in DBMM. Some other club members were turning up on the Sunday for a King of the Battlefield (demonstration?) game. On the Saturday, (almost?) all of us were wearing natty new club t-shirts with our motto "It Smacks Of Incompetence" and a map showing where the pub we meet in. There was also a Flames of War Tournament going on.

It was certainly different to most wargames shows - it is held in the Middleton Hall in Milton Keynes Shopping Centre, so we had ordinary shoppers walking around watching the games. Although the various tournaments took up most of the floorspace, there were also several traders, demonstration games and participation games.

Onto the games.

The draws for the 5 games in our Division were:

Saturday:
9am Round 1: Oxford vs Escape to Defeat (EtoD, my team); Rabbits in the Mist (RITM) vs Central London Wargames (CLW, our "A" team)

1pm Round 2: Oxford vs CLW; RITM vs EtoD

4.30pm Round 3: Oxford vs RITM; CLW vs EtoD

Sunday:
9am Round 4: A = 1st place vs 4th; B = 2nd vs 3rd

1pm Round 5: Winner A vs Winner B; Loser A vs Loser B

I'll just give my results here - AARs with pics will follow! Honest guv'nor - they will follow!


My Saturday Games

Round 1: I was facing Lynda's Foederate Romans. She had Alan and Hun allies. I lost 24-1 - she'd routed my army (6 units broken) but I had broken one of hers. I'd lost the initiative, so was fighting in "agricultural" territory.
Lynda has a rather unusual, but very effective, method for making terrain pieces for wargaming.  I won't spoil the surprise - you'll see when I post the AARs with pics.
I made some schoolgirl errors in my deployment and later positioning of units which didn't help me - you'll see the evidence of this in my AAR.

Round 2: I was up against Chris P's Foederate Romans, again with Alan and Hun allies. I lost 24-1 again - routed with 6 units broken, but one of my light horse units, accompanied by a general had done a long flanking run to sack his supply camp! I'd lost the initiative, so was stuck in agricultural lands again, but witha decent amount of empty space in the centre.

My dice in both games were absolutely atrocious, so I made use of the break to buy some new ones from one of the traders. To balance out the dice, I couldn't have wished for more helpful or friendly opponents.

At this point, somehow we had managed to sneak into 3rd place ahead of our club's A Team!

Round 3: up against Dave's Foederate Romans. You'll never guess what allies he had. Somehow I managed to break one of his units and sack his supply camp. Unfortunately he managed to break 5 of mine and sacked my supply camp, so another army rout for me. Score: 21-4 to Dave. Changing dice helped a little - I won the initiative and chose steppe territory. Well, the army list chose steppe for me - it's the only option available for Early Alans! During the battle, my dice were very much up and down.


After the last game finished and we'd packed up our figures, a bunch of us from the club (and my team captain's Commander in Chief, aka the memsahib) went for a very nice curry. Once we'd stuffed ourselves, with good banter along the way, and settled the bill we headed off to our various accommodations.

I was staying in a surprisingly cheap-but-nice hotel a few miles out of town. I wish I'd looked it up in advance as I discovered when I got there that it had free internet access in the bedrooms - I could have taken my mini laptop and posted last night. Oh well, that's something to remember for next year.


Sunday

Compared to Saturday, I was able to have a lie-in. However, that was all relative - we still had to be at the venue for the first game at 9am. After shower and some breakfast we packed our stuff in the car and headed over - we even had time for a pit-stop and to grab coffee.

On checking the leaderboard we discovered that our A Team had beaten RITM by enough to leapfrog them and us and go into 2nd place. This meant that my team would be playing Oxford first off then whoever managed to win out of CLW and RITM for our final game.

Round 4: Lynda once again. Neither of us had changed our army composition; Lynda won the initiative, unsurprisingly opting for Agricultural territory again. Fortunately my dice luck was better and I was able to move or remove several pieces, leaving the table fairly open.
I had a much better battle plan this time and the fight was much closer - it could have gone either way right up until the crucial moment when the dice turned against me. I ended up losing 24-1 again, breaking 1 unit of Romans, but having 5 of mine broken and 2 fragmented for an army rout.

CLW had beaten RITM, so they were playing Oxford and we were playing RITM. On checking the leaderboard, ours was the important match - CLW would need to win their games by very large margins to beat Oxord, and neither of us could win by enough points to leapfrog into 2nd place but we were close enough that it was a fight for 3rd place in the Division (or, more accurately, not a fight not to be in 4th place).

Round 5: Chris P again, no change to his army either. I won initiative (Yay!) and my army list chose Steppe territory for me. I succeeded in getting a very open table, with the terrain mostly limited to one corner in Chris' half. I tried a slightly different deployment and battle plan; the dice gods smiled on me slightly more and we had a very close match. As we were approaching the 3 hour limit, I had lost two units broken (one in what was the final melee)and had 2 more fragmented; Chris had 1 unit broken and 1 evaded off table. Right at the end I was able to rally one of my fragmented units up to disrupted, giving a final score of 12-8 to Chris.
It's shame that we weren't able to continue the battle to its conclusion - I was getting very close to reversing that score and potentially routing his Romans.

On calculating the final scores for our two teams, it turned out that on points we had somehow ended up equal for joint third place!

After packing up our figures, terrain, dice and other bits it was time for the prize giving ceremony. CLW got their 2nd place prize (displaying their incompetence by not getting 1st place), but our DBMM team let the side down by very competently winning their tournament. Our FoG:R teams did even better in the incompetence stakes - neither had made it as high as 2nd place. I took pics of our 2 prize winning teams, also of the Oxford team who won in our Division.

Lessons Learnt
1. Look at all the available army lists and pick one that isn't so one-dimensionally predictable.
2. Check out the hotel you'll be staying in to see if there is (hopefully free) internet access
3. Take a packed lunch for the Saturday along with plenty of snacks and bottles of drink for the weekend
4. The dice gods are fickle and capricious - take plenty of sets of dice to worship them with
5. Practice more with my chosen army before turning up, particularly with respect to positioning of units to provide rear support, interception charges and to avoid "burst through" by friendly charging/evading/routing units
6. Don't place my supply camp or any "hold back" units within 6 inches of the table edge as they are automatically lost if your opponent does a flank march (in a couple of games I was just outside the 6 inches - phew!)


Overall Impressions

I had a really enjoyable weekend. Three 3-hour games on Saturday and another 2 on Sunday is mentally and physically tiring, but it helps having such nice opponents.
I went into this tournament fully expecting to lose 25-0 in all 5 games. The fact that I actually scored points in all my matches and only suffered a rout in 4 of them was a significant bonus, and it was a great way to learn how to play FoG better.
The venue was fantastic - light and airy with plenty of space and decent food/drink shops on hand. Despite it being open to the public, I only heard one derogatory comment about wargaming in the whole weekend. A lot of passers-by showed great interest in the games and the players nearby were more than happy to explain what was going on.
Would I do it again? Definitely. there are other team and doubles tournaments later in the year, so maybe I could be persuaded. Campaign will definitely be booked into my diary for next year.

Of Terrain, Campaign and More Flocking Sarmatians

.... oh, and winning a game of FoG....

Terrain

Having realised that the foam-sandwich hills weren't salvageable, and that the gully didn't quite work out, I decided it was time to go back to that wargamers' favourite material - Styrofoam.

Steps Done So Far:
Cut out rectangles from sheets with heavy JCB knife - 3 from a 25mm sheet for hills, and 1 from a 10mm sheet for the gully.
Using a hot-wire cutter cut the rectangles into appropriate shapes (including central cut-out for the gully)
Sculpted the slopes of the hills and gully
Applied first basecoat of "Cocoa Bean" matt emulsion.

Steps Still To Do:
Second basecoat of Cocoa Bean
Drybrush patches with Slate Grey and Cool Grey
Apply gravel/sand mix to patches
Apply flock

Just painted - still wet

Campaign

Last night while I was at the club playing a practice match, we received an email confirming the teams entered and the draws for the Saturday matches. A total of 10 teams had entered, 2 from Central London Wargames Club, so the organisers had placed the teams in 2 divisions - 6 in Division 1, 4 in Division 2. Somehow, both CLWC teams ended up in Division 2.

OK, so what does this mean? Well, it does mean that we will have to fight out clubmates at least once (on the Saturday). There is also a possibility that we will have to fight them again on the Sunday.

There was another twist from the organisers. As there are only 4 teams in Division 2, we will each have to fight 2 teams twice (once on Saturday, once on Sunday) to complete the 5 matches. They have therefore decided to allow us to submit a different army list (which can either be a different version of the same list or a completely different army within "period") on the Saturday evening for use in the Sunday games. Apparently this is a rather rare occurrence in tournaments, so it would be rude not to consider taking the opportunity. Gordon has said he will be taking lots of boxes of spare figures that our teams can use if they do wish to change their lists for the Sunday.

Which brings me on to....

More Flocking Sarmatians

Or Sarmatians-posing-as-Alans if you insist.

So far I've only finished the basing and matt varnished the figures I was going to be taking to Campaign. As I now have the opportunity to change my army list for the last 2 games, I'm going to want to take some more figures with me - light horse, cavalry and light foot. And they will need to have their basing finished.

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I decided that I might as well finish the basing on all the Sarmatians I've completed painting of. Last night, when I got back from the club I dry-brushed the texture with Revell "Afrika Brown". I'll probably do the flocking tomorrow morning before I head off to work, then I can add tufts and clumps in the evening and do the matt varnish on Thursday.




"Why are you waving pitchforks and burning brands around?"

"You haven't done an AAR of your game of FoG last night!"

"But, I told you the outcome at the start of this post!"

"Maybe, but we want pics and details and cake!"

"Cake? You can have pics and details, but I'm not giving you cake - you might eat it after midnight and turn into Gremlins. Oh, just a second - I think someone must have already fed you after midnight already!"


*runs for the hills*

Yup, as I said at the start of this post, I won my game last night. Not by much, but a win is a win is a win.

"OK you rabble - where are my bagels and muffins?"

My Early Alans were up against the Seljuk Turks that Howard is taking to Campaign. As much as anything, the game was to give Howard some practice with a cavalry army - he's more used to lots and lots of infantry. Howard won the initiative and luckily for both of us chose Steppes as the territory.

Losing the initiative and having first move is definitely helpful if you have an all (or mostly) cavalry army and your opponent does as well, as it allows you to restrict their room for manoeuvre.

Well, here are some pics:

All troops deployed - Seljuks on the left, Alans on the right

Zooming in on the Alans - Skirmish line (L to R): 1 x 4-base LH, 1 x 8-base LF, 2 x 4-base LH; Battle Line (L to R): 1 x 4-base Cav in single line, 6 x 4-base Lancers 2-deep (2 of the BGs are providing rear support), 1 x 4-base Cav in single line; at back edge of table: 4 generals waiting to be deployed

After my first moves. Now, is that ambush marker in the gully real?

After Howard's first moves - view of my left

View to my right - yup, it was a real ambush, a 6-base LF group. I think the ambush was revealed 2 turns ago and managed to get one round of (ineffective) shooting in on my light horse, who then did a cheesy turn-and-wheel to take themselves out of range

I forgot to take pics for a couple of turns. Some of my lancers are happily sitting behind their light foot screen, hoping to provoke the Seljuk "knights" to charge, whilst others on y left and centre are manoeuvring  to get into more useful positions. My left wing LH did a good job of protecting my left flank.

Meanwhile, on the right flank my combo of lancers, cavalry and LH are causing chaos. The green marker and lost base occurred a turn or 2 back as a result of ganged up bow cavalry and light horse (since chased off by may lancers and bow cavalry)

"Right, let's move a bit closer and see if we can provoke a charge by those "knights" now!"

"Yeah, can't let our light horse on the flanks be the only ones to charge!"

Remember those Seljuk bow cavalry from 2 pics back? Well, a couple of turns of shooting saw them drop to fragmented, then my lancers charged, they evaded but still got caught and were broken at impact and lost a base. This led to an immediate rout move and my lancers' pursuit caught them again, turning them to red mist!

I made a big booboo here, trying to show Howard some options for his potential charges whilst forgetting my own otions. With my help, he charged my left-wing bow-cavalry with 2 units of his bow cavalry - at impact he managed to roll 6 hits (automatic base loss for me) against my 2, and I dropped to disrupted when I failed my cohesion test. After the melee they dropped to fragmented.

What I should have done: 

Option 1: Evade with my bow cavalry - risky as they could have been caught in the rear by one of his BGs. However, my "rear support" lancers would have been in an excellent position to flank- or maybe rear-charge  in the next turn.

Option 2: declared an intercept charge by my left-most lancers. This would have blocked the second BG of Seljuks leaving the other impact/melee as an even fight which I could have reinforced with either my free LH or the "rear support" lancers.

At this point we'd reached the time limit. I'd broken one of his units, he'd fragmented one of mine. So, a minor victory for me.

So, what would have happened if we'd carried on? In my centre, the 2 units of lancers would have charged the "knights", bursting through my light foot to do so. The unit of lancers to their right would have charged the light horse ahead of them - the LH would probably have evaded and there is a chance that my lancers would have hit the Seljuk bow cavalry behind the light horse in a flank- or rear-charge. 

On my left flank, my "rear support" lancers would have moved to join in the melee, with my free LH either joining the other LH in their melee or hopping in to the bow-cavalry melee.

Over on my right wing, my bow cavalry would have charged the Seljuk cavalry ahead of them, with the light horse providing fire support against the non-overlap bases. the second "rear support" lancer unit would have moved to provide rear support to them. The lancers who had charged, pursued and vaporised that unit of bow cavalry a turn or two ago would have turned and (Complex Move Tests permitting) wheeled to threaten both the light horse and bow cavalry units currently on their left.

It was a good game and it was certainly odd for me to be teaching someone how to use their cavalry army, given my previous track record. It was also rather scary that I seem to have somehow acquired some tactical awareness from somewhere!

WIP: Terrain Pieces of FoG #3

Tasks completed (so far) today:

1) Matt spray varnished my Sarmatians-posing-as-Alans. Had to go back for a second light coat as some still looked glossy. I then went back and brushed gloss varnish on a couple of bits of the camp - the spit-roasting pig and the "liquid" in the cauldrons.
2) Prepped my Khurasan "Space Demons" - I've glued the bodies to washers as singles (25mm), pairs (32mm) and triples (38mm). Somehow I ended up with an extra body. I'll hang onto it in case I can find a use for it or acquire an extra head.
3) Fitted the Old Glory cuirassiers to their horses
4) "Fixed" the flock on the terrain pieces. Having doused one piece with 25% PVA using a dropper, I realised that was a mistake and decided to try something I've done successfully in the past - spraymount adhesive. There seems to be a lot of loose flock on the pieces despite repeated tapping, shaking and such-like. I guess over time the excess will flake off.

Anyway, here's a pic of the completed pieces:

Might do later:
1) Glue riders to horses
2) Glue heads and spines to the space demons


Next onto the workbench:

1) Prime and paint Old Glory 30YW cuirassiers
2) Prime and paint the space demons (these will be a fairly quick job - black metallic spray paint, colour/metallic washes, basing, mouth details)
3) Finish painting Sarmatian "other cavalry"
4) Finish painting Scythians

WIP: Terrain Pieces for FoG

With Campaign fast approaching, I figured it would be useful to have some decent looking terrain pieces to take with me. Now, I could spend lots of dosh buying some pre-made pieces, but why should I do that when I can easily and cheaply make up my own?

Step1: Purchase Materials

So, after work I popped into Poundland on my way home and picked up these:

20 A5 sheets for £1 - bargain. I picked up 2 of these and a 10-pack of A4 sheets. I've already got plenty of paint, PVA, ballast, gravel, flock and stuff.

Step 2: What Terrain Pieces Do I Need?

As my army is Sarmatians-posing-as-Alans, my natural terrain type is Steppes. In fact, according to the FoG army lists, Steppes is the only terrain type that Alans can select (if they win the initiative).

OK, so what terrain choices are there for Steppes:
"Open" (ie, a blank piece used to block other pieces from being put down) - x4 (2 compulsory)
"Broken" x4
"Brush" x2
"Gully" x1
"Gentle Hill" x1

As these have to be able to hold a 6" x 4" block and can be no more than 12" in diameter, A5 sheets are ideal.

I've already got suitable pieces for the 4 "open" terrain pieces (plain 12" diameter circles - they get removed once all other terrain has been placed), so I just need to make up the other bits. I decided to make 2 hills, as these will be useful anyway.

Step 3: Cutting Shapes

Using a 6" x 4" piece of card as a template, I drew around it on various sheets of foam, then cut these out. For the hills, I did the bottom layer at this stage, then used that to mark out the next sheet, cutting a suitable distance inside, repeating to give 5 layers per hill. I did a similar thing for the gully, but with only 2 sheets, cutting a hole in the middle of the upper sheet to represent the depression.

Step 4: Sticky Business

The 5 layers of the hills were then glued together with the PVA, as were the 2 sheets for the gully. PVA was dotted in patches around the edge of the "brush" pieces and scrunged some clump foliage onto the glue.

Next Steps

Tomorrow, once the glue has had a chance to dry fully, the following steps will be done:
1) PVA glue in patches covered with mix of sand, ballast and tallus (actually, I might do this bit tonight)
2) Basecoat of  B&Q "Cocoa Bean" matt emulsion paint.
3) Drybrush sand/ballast/tallus areas
5) PVA glue everywhere else and add flock.
6) Fix flock with another PVA coat.

Pic Of Current State:

(The shapes for "broken" ground have been left out)

Back: hill, hill, gully

Front: brush, brush