Pillage: Ransack the Middle Ages

 Recently I acquired the new Victrix dark ages wargame rules, Pillage, and that looks like a good opportunity to shuffle the restoration of my SAGA figures a bit more to the front.

 

 

Okay, so "to the front" meaning probably near the end of the year, but a buddy of mine, Philip, is intrested as well so we are going to give this game a try for certain.

 

The book is just short of 140 pages, coming with great artwork and pictures, a really well done, high quality set on that regards.  I myself got the PDF version, but I have been looking through the physical one as well before biting the bullet and get them.

 

Seperated into various sections, like the Generalities, Game Turn, Advanced Rules (like pillaging, because guess what, that is a big part of a ruleset called Pillage), the Factions (currently you can choose between 7 to 11, depending how you count), Playing the Game which has the scenario's, and Collecting which has about all the hobby related things.

About those factions, what I mean is that the Picts, Scots and Irish are all covered by a single list with minor special rule twists, and there is a Generic list as well. 

 

The book also has a nice "history lesson" introduction, without it becoming way to big and boring for the non-historical player.  But it gives a good idea of the setting and the forces involved further then "Vikings!".  The game is usually played on a 48by48 board, but can be gamed for smaller encounters on 36by36 so I see the options here for an occasional solo game try-out in the future on my kitchen table!

 

The scenarios define the normal size of a force used there, and all models should be represented by WYSIWYGG, of which I can only agree to be honest.  Now, I played quit a few games and gamerules in my 30+ years of wargaming, and if I should have to draw a line to more well known sets in "my" usual field of gaming (aka Fantasy), I would say this set leans closest to the Lord of the Rings rules from Games Workshop.  Except like in the old days, no pre-measuring allowed.

The majority of the rules will quickly feel pretty familiar, especially if you played something else in your lifetime then "just one game".  There isn't anything really revolutionary or special in them, which is a good thing.  This just feels like a good, solid set of rules anyone can quickly get familiar with.

 

It also helps in this regard in that the armies generally use the same equipment.  Sure, things like Dane Axes are more prelevalent with Vikings, while Picts run around mostly unarmoured, but the forces are on the same levels generally speaking.   What sets them apart are their "faction special rule" and the gold cost (aka points) of models and equipment.  You can also purcahes Talents, which are special skills for your models, but these tend to become very expensive very fast, and you must weigh of if you are not better off with a warrior or two extra instead.

 

Talking models, for most scenario's you will be set with the contents of a single box of plastic figures out there, like from (ofc) Victrix, Gripping Beast, Wargames Atlantic etc... though for more specialised units, many manufacturers are out there.  Dark Ages has been a popular era for as long as I remember wargaming after all.

 

So all that remains for me to do now is to get 250 GP of figures restored to try the game out (which would be a skirmish on a 24by24 surface) and get a hang of the rules as such, and I'm looking forward to doing so.  After that, we will see how much GP of value we end up with once all models are done *cough* famous last words.

 

Now to get ready to do some Pillage-ing! 

AHPC10: Sarah's Balloon: To the Peak!

And so it comes to the moment we move to the Snow Lord's Peak!

After tasting a lot of the locales of Challenge Island, I take the balloon of the lovely Lady Sarah and hitch a ride towards the central part of the island, dominated by the large mountain and the home of the mysterious being known as the Snow Lord.

The model is from the germanic dark ages range by Wargames Foundry, and great looking for standersby in Middle Earth, especially in Rohan (which is what I am using them for).

So that yields another 5 points to the total for this year, and the 1000 point mark.

Now let's wait and see what daring challenge the Lord lays before me!

AHPC10: Flying to Sander's Sand Dunes

After exploring the Path of Imaginaton for the largest part, is is time to once again make use of the Lady Sarah and her lovely Balloon.

And this time, I am paying the fare to fly me to Sander's Sand Dunes, starting point of the Path of History.

For the toll, I painted up this viking lady that I still had lying around for a Dux "civilian hanger-on".  Except that the Dux campaign already ended last june and the model still was lying on the Lead Mountain.

The model was produced by Wargames Foundry in their Viking range, and looked like something suitable for this AHPC... as she can still make appearances on my Rohan set games!

And as to that, she yields 5 points for the tally, as a single 28mm figure.

AHPC10: Flying to Fran's Fjord

One of the fun things of Challenge Island this year, is you can get to any grid by making use of Lady Sarah's Balloon Service.

And as I have completed the Path of the New Shiney, I`m doing just that, and taking an airlift to Fran's Fjord.

But to make use of the Balloon Service, there is a fee: paint a female figure entry.  My first fee, as I`ll be making use of the balloon quite a bit, is one of our Crisis wargame show entrance figures: Queen Mathilde van Vlaanderen, wife of William the Conqueror.

Sculpted by Paul Hicks, she was handed out to the first 1000 visitors during the show's 2016 edition.

Now, for those intrested in obtaining a copy of her, she is still available on my ebay page, as the responsibel board member of TSA, tasked with selling the older figures to help pay for the new editions, and can be found HERE.

And so we take to the skies, and prepare ourselves for the next Path of entries in the challenge, adding these 5 points to our tally for a single 25mm figure, as well as the 30 points for making use of the service for the very first time.

Vikings season 5 part 2

Right on time for the (final apparently) 6th season, season 5 was, like it's predecessor, split into 2 semi-seasons of 10 episodes each.

And in this second part, it is all about returning home.

After being expelled by Ivar from Kattegat, the other sons of Ragnar together with Lagertha are looking for ways to retake their home, all through different means.

While Ubbe finally claims the lands Ragnar was promised in England, thanks to the wise ruling of the current king (the son of Athelstan) and settles it together with Dane vikings, Bjorn convinces King Harald to sail with him and attack Ivar.  Hvitserk in the meantime allies with a swedish King to also lay siege to Kattegat, now ruled by a tyrant Ivar, believing himself to be an actual god...

And Floki... he and his settlers set upon hard times in the far away country, still looking for the Norse Gods...

A strong second part of the season, and my biggest grief is the demise of Bishop Heahmund, fantastically set down by Jonathan Rhys Meyers (of Tudors fame).

The new Dux has been chosen

And it became Arne, who broke the 17 Reknown barrier and couldn't be ousted from it in the final month.

Congratulations mate on this well deserved victory after a year of bloody campaigning.

And thanks to Willie for running the whole shabang, which wasn't an easy job with all us hotheads in there x-D

I myself stranded on second place, not to shabby at all for a newbie.

Arne met 19 punten

Tomsche     15
Tonny        14


Glenn        13

Erik            10
Ruben        7
Joeri           6
Dimitri        6
Pierre        6

Richard     5
David        4


There might be a new campaign next year after the club moves, but that won't be for me to be honest, I'm not a fan of the whole Dux gamesystem I must say.  It has some serious loopholes for my tastes, and that makes for some serious unrealistic moments on the one hand, and as I said in an earlier post a few months ago, some serious 'redundancy' of the tactical movement of a game.

But it was fun while it lasted, and I was glad to have participated for sure even though I`ll probably never play the ruleset again.

The Dogs of War

Another small set of "scatter terrain animals" in this post today.

I had these models for ages, and finally gotten around to restoring and repainting them after they served in my Chaos Dwarf / Hobgoblin force a decade ago.

A variety of breeds, these 28mm scale dogs are great to populate villages in games of SAGA and the likes.

Nothing to spectacular, but I adore the English Bulldog ;-)

Dux Britanniarum... game over man

Readers of my blog know I joined in a Dux campaign that is running since last year over at the club, and at time of writing, I'm actually in the lead.

But I don't like the ruleset by Too Fat Lardies one single bit.

Now, this has as a result that I haven't been declaring raids for months now, and only play when forced, aka when people attack me.  And recently I'm turning those games into non-fights, withdrawing from the field after the whole process of setting up and such has been done, generally making it a non-game, even though I declared this in front that I don't want to play it anymore.

The reason?  The rules suck, and as a lot of historical players tend to shout those sorts of things about GW rules, sometimes correct, I think it isn't obliged to be a TFL "fanboy" either because of those same reasons.  Well, in my opinion, and let me enlighted my standpoint on them with some examples.  Surely, it might be that this is how they interpret the rules at the club, but it makes for a really bleugh experience for me on the table.

Here is a first example from a game.  My opponent has a unit 20 something wide, and I managed to get units on both his flanks in a reasonable charge range.  The card for the unit on the left fals, and they charge in.  Now according to the rules, the attacked unit now lines up, but this means it suddenly carreens on it's flank point, and the 20+ unit now goes on it's side, making it only 2 figures wide.  This means it suddely "shortened" almost 10+ inches, and gets out of charge range should the card for the other unit fall.  Let alone if they actually win and get even further away should my units be pushed back and persued.

And that brings me to the second, and even bigger gripe I have with the rules: the totally random manner of unit activation, and no, no "fog of war" or "chaos on the battlefield" blahblahs can convince me otherwise.  It's not that they where fighting in clouds of gunsmoke...
I had it happen that I manoeuvred my cavalry into a good charge position, when at the end of the turn my opponents cavalry card came.  His horses (sanely) moves away and turns around to prevent a back charge, but I would need a far above average roll now to charge his horses.  The deck gets shuffled and hopla, there is his cavalry again, he plays the Carpe Diem, +1 dice for move card and one that makes you hit easier with his Shock cavalry, which was doomed after 4 rounds of carefull movement on my part, now thunders forward and totally flattens mine.

The randomness for me totally takes out the "tactical thinking" part of the game in the movement phase, and the degrades the game to nothing more then pray you come first and charge in everywhere as headless chickens.

Heck, to say it in 40k terms, even Khorne Berserkers have more tactical insight in battle...

So yes, these two examples have seriously caused me to dislike the ruleset, and I am praying the campaign is over ASAP for me.  I will definitly NOT end on spot 1 even if it means having to loose on purpose, so I don't have to participate in the 8-man multiplayer challenge for the win (something that did come in the campaign as it was already running, but as the majority agreed to this; so be it) and become the Dux of Britain (aka the winner).

Now, don't get me wrong, I see a lot of people having a good time in the campaign, but it is just not my cup of tea in both style of how the games are able to be selected, or how the rule mechanics work.  The campaign as it is is well thought out by the organiser, but it is just not a place to be for a player who "disects" his opponents armies and tactics in order to gain an upper hand, only to have everything screwed over by just pure, uninterruptable or influenceable randomness  (for an example with what I mean by this, the Opportunity Fire rule in Future War Commander for example is a good thing on how to try and do something on your opponent's turn, at a cost in your own, so you have to balance the potential advantages against the tactical plan on your turn).

The one thing I do know is that the army I bought and painted for the campaign will be on eBay as soon as the final whistle sounded...

Unboxing Thorrun

A well known character from the second season of Vikings, Thorrun is available as a 28mm miniature from Bad Squido.

In this small video, I`m taking a look at the blister pack.

Now to decide to paint her scarred or not...

Irish Heartguard

A small, and normally final, addition to my Dux force.

These two mounted Curaidh, or Hearthguard, are normally the elite bodyguards of the lords.

But I bought this two model Gripping Beast blister for other reasons.  Namely to represent my Lord (or a noble)  and a champion.

By putting them on horses, I can have them join my mounted regiments for games where speed might be of the essence, or a devastating cavalry charge might be called for.  Though as mostly the defender in the campaign, that won't be happening very often...

But heck, it at least allows me to have all options open...

Wiccan Ritual

While I painted up an old hag last month to serve this role on the Dux battlefield last week, these models are the actual Wicca High Priestess(esses) for my force.

And now that this little vignette is finally done, the hag can return to the role she was bought for (the model that is), namely that of the Crone my force has.

These models are from the Foundry range, pack AG018 - Germanic Women, and I thought it fun for the placement on the table to actually combine them on a larger base to represent their "status" on the field, namely as the highest ranking (un)holy powers in my force.

Painted like most of my dark age forces, in a simple colourscheme and making use of the Army Painter Strong Tone, they are now ready to spur my warriors onwards in the bid to win the campaign.

I just feel sorry for the poor horsey...

The Scotti Return Dux Britanniarum battle report

Even after learning the scotti a lesson a few months ago, they invaded my shorelines once again.

Their target?  A rich villa near the coast, but alas for them they have been spotted by the local watchtower and reinforcements are on the way.

Can the valiant defenders hold out until their lord arrives?

My force was 2 Levy unit down, as a result of last weeks massacre.  Of them, a Noble was located in the tower with two units of warriors and the archers... archers who would become the doom of the scotti...

The Scotti came ashore with their usual mass of skirmish units and cavalry, so the key would be to make a wall and hopefully let their forces break on it.

My noble gathered his warriors and went forward, while the archers loosened a volley.  One raider fell overboard, while his noble already had to spend his Constitution of an Ox to avoid injury.

Flanked by skirmish cavalry, the noble went out for vengeance and advanced towards my defenders, while the rest landed to make haste to the villa.

Unit after raider unit assaulted the small shieldwall, and after a Goat it's formation was broken, but it had stalled the scotti forces for a long time.  Just as the Noble led his warriors in a final desperate assault, a horn sounded.

The Romano- British had arrived, and the cavalry lined up on the hill.  In the meantime, the Lord gathered his warriors and levy around him to form a massive shieldwall and block off the flank of the woods, sending his wicca's forward to reduce shock and keep the defenders in the battle as long as they could.

Alas, they fell to the sheer overwhelming numbers of the raiders in the end, but the noble was released back afterwards as war compensations.  The massive lord led wall now stood ready to take on the raiders on this side of the forest.

But then the thundering of hooves could be heard.  After slowly moving into position, taking out first the scotti archers, and the next turn the skirmish cavalry (with the help of a Carpe Diem card), the mighty charge began.

Looking a lot like the Rohirrim on the Fields of the Pelennor, the shock cavalry crashed in the scotti cavalry, who had only just seen their allies break down the doors of the villa.  The villa had held out thanks to a mighty spirit wall in front of the door, but had cost the raiders precious time.

After inflicting a massive 20 hits (my noble rolling 16 dice on his own with his magical sword, and card combo's), one unit of cavalry fled after recieving 18 shock.  The other unit, these ones elites, containing the scotti lord, was totally wiped out and the lord and his champion barely escaped with their lives.

The game was over, as the scotti morale tumbled under 0 after this.  In the end, I took home a +3 victory, good enough to not sustain any losses and to fill the treasury again a bit.  And this brought my morale to 16, one point short of declaring myself Dux Britanniarum in the campaign and going into the grand finale.

Next time it will be an actual battle, as my former allies both have gathered against my liege, and I will stand by his side with a plan. Or to retreat swiftly if it starts to look to shabby...

The Heroic Coward Dux Britanniarum battle report

Okay, that might be a title drenched in vinegar, but that is because I really wasn`t in a mood to play this game.

I love campaign politics and betrayals as much as the next guy, and I don`t mind if your ally betrays you after as soon as a month an alliance was forged, but it was his explanation that ticked my boxes.

I always liked Glenn, and he was the guy I lost to in the very first game, before going on the winning streak.  So he comes around again now and raid me (fair game) because he wanted to see how I did it, winning all the games on tactics.  Again, fair game.  He explained the breaking because he wanted to see in a straight fight he was the better lord on the battlefield, again, totally fair to me, it's a game after all and it is there to be played.
But then he goes on and brings along one of the blocks of Saxons that can be hired in the campaign (two of them are available, and you can only get them if you are at a certain time behind the pc to give your raid and hire them), because yeah, all those extra Warrior and Elite classed troops make it a fair battle of skills... so that`s where the vinegar comes from.  Heroic enough to come to my turf, and cowardly enough to bring along an extra army just in case... a real straight and fair fight of skills this is going to turn out.

I even considered just refusing the game.  But as the Dux campaign is already low on my "having fun" factor anyways even though I`m solid in the lead, because it's not because I`m winning the whole shabang that it means I`m enjoying it.  The reasons being simple, I just don`t like the ruleset that much, to much depending on luck in drawing cards as the main reason, and some game mechanics I can`t really enjoy as the other.
I just decided to get it over with, even if it would shatter my force.  I went in this game with one disgusting plan: focus on his warlord, try to assassinate him, and knock Glenn out of the campaign as a result.  And make it David's ultimate revenge versus Goliath.

The scenario rolled was Defend the Watchtower, and my plan to lure Glenn to a trap was simple: open the gates and run to my side.  I know this works on him like a red carpet on a bull, so his cavalry would race after them.  By saying I wasn`t planning on bringing up my army in the third turn, I tried to give him a (succesfull) feel of safety.

His army was as per the scenario split in two, and would come on both the far ends of the table.  My levy did just as they where ordered, making the hopeless sprint to my table edge, only to be caught halfway by his forces.

However, his cavalry with his lord strayed to close to my table edge in his third turn, and a 16 inch charge later my cavalry crashed in his line.  His units where beaten to a pulp and lost the amphora, running for their lives and taking for now his lord with him.  His morale dropped to 1 due to this, but I didn`t have any real "safe" targets anymore to break it.

In order to preserve mine as long as possible, I formed a huge shieldwall with my lord, to safeguard him and make his cavalry avoid charging into them.

I made the hopeless charge against a warrior unit and a saxon warrior unit, but they didn`t break hard enough to make him take another test unfortunatly.

In what would become the final turn, he charged and overwhelmed my elite cavalry with noble, pushing my morale under 0 and netting him the game.  But it was a bloody close fight where I managed to keep the saxons out of the game as much as possible, even though their presence blocked all my possible access lines.

While my losses where after modifiers only 2 levy units missing the rest of this month, and the killed noble surviving, it was a pity I couldn`t pull of the miracle win in the end, pulling almost any trick out of my hat that I had at my disposal with my hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed force.

But it was a fun game (Glenn is a fun guy to play with, it`s just the whole hire thing, see above) and it would have given a whole other result I guess without his extra 3 units of Elites (making it 4 against my 1) and 2 extra units of warriors.

Still, no prestige has been lost, so we are still on the path to the crown as Dux Britanniarum...