Aerial Progress & Cold Wars Ancients

WWI Aerial

Per previous request, here's a shot of everything I've got done so far. Since the last entry, I assembled the Revell S.E.5a, which looks great and went together very quickly and painlessly - a big difference from the Sopwith Tripe.

Note, the DR.1 on the "ground" is the Eduard model I'm working on for a friend, not mine. Earlier this week I picked up some "music wire" from the local hobby store. It's a little finer than the wire I used on the Pup. I'm going to try it out on the minimal rigging on the DR.1.

I'm going to get a list of all the planes awaiting assembly soon.


Cold Wars

Apparently the GM registration for the Cold Wars PEL snuck up on everyone. It seems a bit early to me (and apparently to others.) I hadn't planned on making any final decisions until after the holidays, but I wanted to get in the PEL, so I made a last minute decision last night. I'll be running a pair of WAB games on Friday morning/afternoon, called "Hispania Ulterior" featuring Lucius Hirtuleius vs. Marcus Domitius Calvinus in some Rome on Rome action with plenty of special guests.

Guess I'll find out if WAB has any life left in it. ;)

So if I can tear myself away from the planes for a bit, they may take a bit of a back seat to finishing up some more Romans & Spanish by March.

Phalanx, Primer, Crusader, Campaign

Phalanx Test

This is my first phalanx test figure. The base isn't painted yet. Most of the figure was painted using blocked out colors, then a wash using my Substance-D. The only post-wash painting was the face of the shield and the pike shaft. I'm considering getting some decals for the final shield design.


Armory Primer

There is a saying, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." I would like to amend this to contain the third phrase, "fool me a third time and I must be a f-ing idiot." Why? I primed my first 24 phalanx using Armory primer. I had run out of my usual Krylon, and the only stores that seem to carry it are across town. I had no plans (nor time) to go across town for a can of primer, so I figured I would give the Armory another chance as I still have cans and cans of the stuff (all colors, plus clear) filling a small crate. Everything went fine. I did a test figure and it worked fine. I did a few other figures, they primed fine. I put 24 Macedonians on the painting board -- they turn out fuzzy. F-ing worthless Armory primer.



Crusader Miniatures

On a more positive note, I would like to state (once more) how much I love Crusader brand figures. My first 72 Macedonians (including the one above) are Crusader. I've also got about 24-28 Crusader Thureophori to work on. I also own and have painted some of his Ancient Germans, Spanish, Romans, Numidians, and the recently posted Carthaginians.

They are clean figures, both in terms of sculpting and casting. Because of this they paint up quickly, and look nice and distinct on the tabletop. As a US customer, I appreciate that they have a North American distributor/caster, as it saves me a bundle on postage that I would pay ordering from some of the other UK companies/sculptors that I would otherwise like to buy from. That's a big advantage to adding +40% for overseas postage from the UK from some companies. At any rate, I for all of those reasons I am a fan of, and enjoy painting and collecting Crusader figures!


Ancients Campaign

As much as I had been looking forward to trying to put together a Diadochi campaign, I think I may try a Roman "end of the Republic" campaign first. Of the 5 local WAB players I know, we now have 4 Roman armies, and one "barbarian" who we can easily work in. My thought is to divide into two major factions (Optimates and Populares or whatever) with two Romans in each faction, then toss the barbarian player in as a bit of a wild card. I'll set up a map that will determine resources (points and troop options) are available to those possessing different territories. Points will be assigned in two groups, Core (mainly legion & Roman characters) and Allies/Mercenaries/Levies.

Attacks will be made in adjacent territories, or if an army is in a territory with a port and is willing to risk a hazardous sea voyage (roll on a table for effects) they can move to another port location. Moving into an unoccupied territory means you take possession of it (I'm thinking of throwing in a random table to see if there is some sort of temporary side effect.) Moving into a territory with an enemy army in it means a battle. Each army will have a certain amount of the total faction points assigned to it. Battles can be fought between any player or players from the faction involved, based on who is available to play. I figure this will allow the campaign to continue without getting bogged down by people's schedules, while letting those who are not as frequently available still get to play some occasional games.

I'm thinking of putting a couple of special rules for a few territories and/or troop types. Maybe something like Egypt requiring a dedicated garrison force, Germania can not be conquered, bringing too many foreign troops into Italy or Rome will risk an uprising, some troop options become unreliable if taken too far from home, etc.

At least those are my thoughts thus far. Maybe this can be a practice run for a Successor campaign to see what works & what doesn't.

GW Triple Whammy

A few of pieces of GW news this week have me wondering what is going on with them...


First is Forge World's release of Kampfgruppe Normandy, a WWII game. I don't play WWII games, so it's roughly $86.00 price tag (at today's exchange rate, including postage, not not service fees for currency conversion) for US customers won't hurt my bank account.

What also surprises me is that they not only continue to spiral off in other directions, but then have the balls to charge prices like that when they have a reputation for not supporting the other games they've left incomplete. I'm still bitter about buying WAB2 and buying into their promises of army lists that were supposedly soon to follow.


Second is GW's Storm of Magic expansion for WFB. Two of my complaints about 8th edition are the game winning spells they introduced, as well as the increased focus on huge critters (and the associated downplaying of troops, maneuver, tactics, etc.) Any thoughts I may have had that this was an unintentional fluke in the game has been washed away by the description of Storm of Magic, which promises to increase both of those.


Third are the rumors of the discontinuation of metal figures from GW. According to many sources, retailers have been told there will be no more metal, and further rumors indicate that they may be switching to resin. I've bought very few of the metal figures in the past few years, as I can't stomach paying $12-$18 for a single infantry figure. Since every other time GW has announced an "improvement" and "cost savings" it has been immediately followed by increased prices, I expect the resin figures to be of lower quality (unless they've really got something new up their sleeves) and at a higher price.


Every bit of GW related news the past couple years seems to be driving me further away from their games. I'm seeking ancients rules elsewhere. I sold of all the figures I had collected for a WFB wood elf army, and just sold off most of my unpainted Skaven and I am thinking of putting the painted stuff up for sale next. While I hear some people rabidly supporting the company, I just don't see much appeal any more, and have seen a fair number of other long time veterans departing as well.

Landsknecht Pikemen

I finally finished the Old Glory landsknecht pikemen I've had. Again, I sort of "speed painted" them. While they're not as crisp as Artizan or Foundry, they are very nice figures. In fact, I'd say some of the best Old Glory figures I've painted. The castings were very clean as well, and required minimal cleanup.

My photography, sadly, is not as clean or nice. But here are a pair of photos of the group.




I still need to add a banner (or two) and find a suitable leader and musician. Foundry and Artizan look too bulky to mix in to the unit, and the few TAG figures I've got are too small & lean. Anyone have a spare Old Glory leader (or halberdier) and musician?

These figures will also be seeing use in WFB, as I will be starting to use the fan written Dogs of War book. They'll possibly see battle in the my Empire army, as spearmen, too. Both Empire and DoW are going to be "Marienburg" armies, just with different rules.


I've also broken my own stoodio rule (lasted all of a month and a half at the new place) and allowed my latest art critic / assistant in. Milo likes to sit on my lap and point at where I should paint while I'm working figures. When I'm at the easel he just headbutts and paws at my shins while trying to engaging me in conversation.

WAB: Rome vs. Carthage

Got in a WAB game with a friend who's just starting out. He's an experienced WFB player and has been working on his WAB figures for a while, but this is the first game we've played. He brought Republican Romans, so I wanted to try something more interesting than more Romans or Gauls, so I put together the elephant I posted in my last entry, and pulled out my half painted unit of African spearmen and fielded a Carthaginian army. It was a Punic War in Spain list, so other than those two items mentioned (and the leadership, of course,) the army was mostly Spanish & Celtic (or Celtiberian.)

Romans are on the left, Carthaginians are on the right. Here's the first turn advance...




My elephant took a wound in the second turn, stampeded through the unit that caused the wound, and into the first line of Romans.



Unfortunately, Jumbo blew his dice against the Romans (the crew both caused wounds, though) and stampeded back towards home. I had already prepared for this possibility and had opened a lane for him. Some of my own skirmishers, and my army standard bearer, panicked at the site of the elephant fleeing, though.

My heavy cav on my left flank (Gallic) have got themselves through the skirmishers and first line of Romans, and are locked in combat a little too far ahead of the rest of the army. Spanish caetrati have attempted to sneak through the woods in support.



And this is towards the end of the game. On my right, I managed to let a big unit of Celtiberians get flanked. They took heavy casualties, broke and took most of the flank with them. A lone unit of Roman velites mopped up most of the fleeing troops. My left flank was a bit similar, the cavalry broke and panicked the nearby skirmishers and ceatrati. In the center I pressed forward as quickly as I could in a last ditch effort. But my Punic spearmen panicked from the antics on the flanks, and left just two units going in alone, a big mob of Celtiberians and a unit of scutarii. Both performed fairly well in combat, but not well enough to break through the Romans. In the long run, they would lose the battle of attrition, and were on the verge of being surrounded anyway.

Victory to Rome.


I mentioned elsewhere that I don't have much faith in elephants. I've never used on in one of my own armies, but I have faced them. From that point of view, I have rarely seen them perform well. So while I'd like to give him another shot (or two) I'm already tinkering with a Jumbo-less variant on the list.

Toys and Ancients and Late Night Rambling

Ancients

Iron Mitten has posted an amusing illustration regarding the state of ancients rules...

http://iron-mitten.blogspot.com/2011/03/let-games-begin.html

The saying, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" keeps popping into my head in regard to WAB. Ten years after the game was released, I was still waiting for the promised supplements covering most of the popular ancient periods/armies -- many of my favorites. A year or so ago GW released a new edition of the rules, supposedly with a series of new army lists hot on its heels. Not only was the new edition barely a change from the old one -- I feel I paid a lot of money for a book that contained more errors than rule changes -- but we still have no lists.

I am looking forward to all of the new rules, and taking a second look at some already released rules.



Vinyl Toys

The opening reception for the vinyl toy show I previously posted about was this weekend. I had a long day Saturday, but managed to pop in the gallery for a few minutes. It was packed full of people and a decent variety of custom toys. There were a few I really wanted to buy, but alas, unemployment is taking its toll and I am really starting to feel the financial crunch -- it's no time for me to buy art toys.

Earlier in the week, I also started a new one...




...again, it's a Munny Mini. So far I'm pretty happy with it. I do have to admit to a certain amount of inspiration for this one. I'm working on painting up a set of the Armorcast Cinematic Effects for display, and was thinking about how much I really like they way that they capture a sense of action in our toy soldiers. The other inspirations were the fact that the Munny came with the baseball bat accessory and I wasn't certain what to do with it and earlier in the week I also saw a performance of Don Giovanni (in which my wife performs) and there's a lot of vengeance talk. Well, singing rather than talking, really. So mash that all together and I came up with the above. I'm hoping I've got some time to start painting it this week.



Hobby, Art and other Rambling

I've also been working on some 100% custom sculpted type things. I think the lines between my hobbies/creative outlets/work are starting to get a bit blurred. I'm not sure where those sculpts fall. For example I can trace my own process for two of them as coming from the vinyl toys, and two came from gaming & toy soldiers. Now all of them are converging into something that doesn't strictly fall into either of those categories -- at least not as I feel most people see it.

Painting and converting toy soldiers, painting and modifying vinyl toys, traditional sculpture, traditional painting, architecture, model building... there's always been a bit of crossover of skills & knowledge, but it's hit a point where I'm seeing far less boundaries. I feel like some of the toy stuff has completely left the realm of what most people do. When I've brought up 100% custom sculpts in the context of custom vinyl toys, it's like I was speaking a foreign language. I just didn't realize that what I viewed as a further evolution was something that they saw as "outside." I was recently talking about the fact that I sometimes like to see the obvious paint layers and brush strokes on some of my toy soldiers. That can be borderline taboo with many of the people who believe realism being the goal in figure painting (or any painting, for some people who only like realism in art!) I'm also (slowly) working on several larger "traditional" paintings based on one of the standards I painted on a WFB figure.

I feel like I can really appreciate the way that things I've learned in one media or interest has translated into some of the others. I think I've just had a few awkward moments recently where I've brought these up and they haven't fit into other people's narrower views of their hobby/art/job. But aside from the momentary awkwardness, I don't think this is a "bad" thing.

I've seen a few other similar cases on some of the blogs I follow, and I think that's great. I started this blog as a toy soldier and gaming blog -- and that's primarily what I follow as well. But I really enjoy seeing other people's sketches & drawings, paintings and other (even non-artistic) interests. It puts their toy soldier & gaming work into context.

Two WAB reports

The past few weeks I've played a couple of WAB2 games with my Romans... much to my Romans chagrin. The games have been against Seleucids and Early Achaemenid Persians.

Both games played out more or less the same way...

First up Rome vs. Seleucids


Romans on the left had four regular legions, one unit of Spanish scutarii (auxilia), some Gallic heavy cavalry, and an assortment of skirmishers.

The eastern menace had four phalanx units, four heavy bolt shooters, a catapult, two units of archers, and an assortment of sling and javelin armed skirmishers.

Turn one the catapult snipes my general. From there it went downhill. I got close to engaging in combat (see photo below) but taking some last minute heavy casualties from shooting forced some panic tests, and resulted in the Romans fleeing, leaderless, from the battlefield. I don't think their odds would have been that great in combat anyway, considering their diminished numbers were facing fresh phalanx.




Game two, against the other eastern menace -- the Persians.

I fielded the same Roman army.

The Persians had about four units of Immortals, two units of levy, four bolt shooters, and some skrimishers.

I had wanted to take advantage of the Roman drill to try to fast march, but the bolters were a bit of a deterrent again. As it was, it wouldn't have made much difference by my after-the-fact calculation of the distances. That and I would have been eating six ranks worth of bolt shots instead of 2-3 after the first turn of shooting annihilated the skirmishers.



So that would be the pattern. The first turn saw the skirmisher "ablative armour" blasted away. The next few turns whittled down the legions and allies so that only a few lonely Romans actually made it into combat through the hail of arrows and other missiles. And like last game, they had to face fresh troops at a combat advantage (these were behind spara, rather than the phalanx benefit.)





In considering the assorted "stupid roman tricks" I'm not certain how to approach these all-shooting armies. In both cases my infantry units more or less equaled my opponents. So even if I bump up the skirmishers or try some shooting of my own, it will come at the cost of dwindling melee troops. Seems to be six of one, half dozen of the other -- in either case I won't have much that survives to actually get into combat. Maybe taking the raw recruits is the answer... go for cheaper troops?

I want to solve the puzzle with the Romans, but the easiest option seems to just switch back to the Germans & Gauls. ;)

Hail Caesar on the Horizon

Is it my imagination or does the cover of the new Hail Caesar rulebook look like the love child of the Black Powder cover and the WAB2 cover?


I played a game of WAB last weekend. My Romans vs. Selucids. I've got some photos & a report to post, but just haven't had the time to do it this week.

WAB & RPG & HE

I finally played my first game of WAB2.0 today. My Romans solidly beat a FotW Warlord army. Maybe it's the backdrop of the drastic (and more familiar to me at the momen) change between WFB7 & WFB8, but WAB2.0 doesn't seem much different (nor play much differently) than it used to.

After the game, my opponent spoke of doing an all skirmish army, to which I set up my reply:




This weekend I also tentatively dipped my toes back into the world of RPGs after 20 years away. The rest of the group are a mix of returning old-time RPG players and totally new players. Half the group got together for character creation. I will be playing a slightly dishonest hobbit drug dealer named (for now, unless I can think of something better in the next week or two) Nob Scrobbelton. :)

My slacker sidekick/familiar for character creation day...



I continue to paint. Finished some commission elves last week:


Except for the army standard bearer (red & white) the figures are plastics from the latest WFB boxed game. I was quite impressed with the quality of the figures. I'll be painting some of the new swordmasters next, and they look quite nice as well.

Balearic Slingers

I've got to admit that I am a bit hesitant to post this pic, as I'm still getting used to my new lights and the light colors on these figures have really washed out. But I'm going to post it anyway, even though I think it makes the figures look poorly painted.

After talking with some of the other local painters/gamers, I think I need to invest in a light box as soon as I am able. I'm just having too many problems with light when photographing my figures.

Anyway... in my quest to finish off some of the half-started projects on my desk, I finished up a unit of 9 Balearic slingers. One of those units that's generically useful to many ancient armies. I picked up a pack of Foundry figures at a flea market, and added one misc. slinger (another Foundry? Greek?) to bump the unit up to 9.

Hundred Years War

There's talk of a Hundred Years War WAB campaign event at Cold Wars next year, so I'm considering that might be a good excuse to get some focus on my upcoming painting time.

Most of my medievals are later 15th century, but I do have a head start on a HYW army. The two options that look good for me at the moment are Burgundians (probably using the later Burgundian list again) and Flanders (Low Countries.)

The figures I already own that are appropriate for the era are...

60 Flemish Pike
20 Crossbow
20 Halberdiers
40 +/- Misc. melee troops
A few ribaldquins & one cannon


Depending which way I go with this, I will need to pick up a few more things. What I need in either case are some infantry command, some mounted characters (general and army standard,) and some medium and heavy cavalry. I can probably squeeze in a small unit of archers in either army as well. If I go Flemish, I will some more pike. If I go Burgundian... well, probably just a larger proportion of cavalry and no additional pike.

Games!

I may have a heart attack... I've officially committed to not one, but two days of gaming in the next two months.

Black Powder in September. WAB in October.

Not only that, but I actually painted last night. Granted, not anything of mine. But the point being, I sat down and put brush to miniature.

A new day is dawning, I tell you!

Origins 2010

I drove down to Origins in the morning, picking up my co-pilot on the way. After discovering the parking lot I had mapped to was full, we drove around a bit (in confusion) trying to find another spot and unfortunately picked a garage by the Arena. We have the plan for next time, however, for making use of the loading docks.

Before lunch we wandered the massive vendors hall. I ran into a few people I wanted to say "hi" to but not all (nor even most) of them, unfortunately. I could have used a few more hours to really wander around and look at everything. A lot of interesting stuff...





I stopped by "the bitz guy" (The Game Room) booth and picked up a few small things I had been looking for. Unfortunately, none of the DoW I was looking for.

There was one place that had a ton of cheap books and 50% off old Confrontation metals. I grabbed one box of gunners for which I have been looking, but didn't have enough time to really go through it all.

So I was pretty successful in not spending money. I did, however, find something with which to score points with my fiance. She's a big fan of Michael Parkes and there are a few prints/posters she's been dying to get. At the big art booth, I thought one of the posters at the back of a stack looked familiar...


... I win.



WAB

After lunch I met up with the small WAB group organized by Ralph K. It turned out that I was the only one with a civilized army (and their opponent,) everything else being what some of the WAB-list refer to as "bog wallowers." I almost got suckered in to acting as a Viking general, but ended up coaching a couple of new players through the game using my Romans & Cimbri (Gaul list from HatPW.)

A few interesting twists before the game started. The armies were still packed up from my previous demo games, which use a bit more than 2000 points. So each side had some extra troops. Then we were put on what looked to be the smallest table (about 5' wide) with some really clogging terrain. It was interesting watching the players deal with it.


The game went back and forth for a bit, with the Romans scoring some early advantages. Both players seemed to have a good grasp on the game and tactics, however neither one of them could roll dice to save their life. Quite a few large "buckets o' dice" combats resulted in a single wound or none at all. Everyone enjoyed themselves however, including me, and the game took a dramatic twist at the end when the Roman general couldn't seem to roll anything under a 10 on two successive waves of panic tests.



There were five games going at any given time, with a number of experienced players coaching some of the new players along the way.





It's been quite a few years since I've been to Origins, and the last time I went I didn't get much time to leave the table where I was helping to teach miniatures painting.

The miniatures hall at Origins is HUGE, with plenty of space for twice as many miniatures games. With all of that room, and a large number of people wandering around, several things seemed strange to me, especially given that it was Saturday:

• Most of the games were small, and while some of them had some pretty interesting tables/boards, most were small games and quite a few were using unpainted figures. This is a big, big contrast to even the smaller HMGS conventions where there are quite a few large games, and even the smallest are usually a beautiful visual spectacle.

• There didn't seem to be much manufacturer promotion in the gaming area, and even the vendor's hall was missing a lot of "big names." I think Origins is an ideal place to promote your game & figures. I just don't understand why some of the manufacturers/publishers would pass up this great change to make an impression on so many people. So even beyond the "big names" I'm not certain why on a Saturday afternoon I didn't see even the small scale people putting on at least one table worth of demos or participation games with a big visual "wow" factor.
  

So my plan for next year is to come back for more of the weekend, and try running some games, and maybe even play in a few.

Summer Slowdown?

Gaming & painting continues to be a bit slow around ZeroTwentythreeland.

Social & family events, additional time at work, and wedding planning have been keeping me pretty busy.

+++

Game Day

The good news is that I did make it to my old gaming group's Game Day over Memorial Day weekend.

In the first time slot I played in a home-brewed murder mystery miniatures game, set in a 1920's town full of secrets and beset by wolves, snombies (snow zombies!) and me... I was secretly the murderer and achieved my mission to transform myself into an unholy monster. (And presumably eat the rest of the townsfolk.)

In the second time slot I ran the WAB demo game that I had hosted at Cold Wars earlier this year. It went pretty well, though this time the Germans & Gauls won. An early blown combat by the Romans, along with the overrun into the general (who then fled off the table) helped give an early advantage. The one flank where the Romans were initially doing well was counteracted by a lucky barbarian rally.

The third time slot was a big game of Blue Max/Canvas Eagles. It's been a while since I've played, but after just one turn I was back in the saddle (or buckled into the wooden bench, to be more appropriate) again. The allied player directly across from me at the start asked to be shot down quickly, as he had to leave for another commitment. My plan initially failed and he ended up tailing me right away. I quickly put on the breaks & pulled a stall, ended up above and directly behind him and shredded/exploded his plane. I took a little damage as the game progressed, but by the end I was the only one flying against 3 or 4 allied planes, while facing the wrong direction. So I bravely flew off into the sunset...

+++

Plans

The WAB game still used the WAB 1.5, as our 2.0 books only recently arrived, after about 5 weeks wait. Hopefully we can try out the 2.0 rules in the next couple weeks. If I can get some time, that is!

As far as painting, I've not had a lot of time. Mostly I'm trying to wrap up a few small commissions. I always try to get at least a little something for myself in the lineup, though. So I've got 9 Balearic slingers on the table at the moment.

I do need to consider what focus I will take next, however. I'd like to start hosting more games at the game club(s), at my place, and at conventions. Although I've got some other projects I'd like to move on (Successors, Carthaginians, etc.) I'm thinking that since I've got a decent start on the Romans anyway, I should just push ahead with bigger and better battles in the civil & Social wars of the first century BCE.

Although the new WFB is out soon, I'm feeling a bit "done" with the game for a while. I will pick up the rules. But my will to paint more Skaven has been sapped before it even got charged up. I'm more in the mood for expanding on the Empire troops, though I'm still not "excited" by WFB at the moment.

Slow Painting

I've been a bit busy lately, distracted with other things and what little painting I've done recently has been mostly for other people.

But I did manage to squeek in another small unit of Spanish caetrati. I've started on a few other small projects. Hopefully I will wrap up one or more of them in the near future!


(I just noticed I never finished the throwing spears on these figures! I'll have to go back and touch them up a bit...)


Still waiting impatiently for WAB2 to show up here.

Wiz & WAB

I repainted one of my oldschool wizards for my Marienburg army.

The big news seems to be that WHW has announced they will have WAB2 at Salute. I'm glad to hear that it's finally (hopefully) hitting the market, and the price isn't as bad as the other Forgeworld books. I'm disappointed that it's only available direct, though. I like to support my local game store, and I was hoping to get some interest in the game there.

Burgundians vs. Scots

Sunday evening I dusted off my Burgundians & headed down to my friend Rich's for some WAB medievals. Initially I thought I was going to be facing Low Countries, but it turned out to be an invasion of Scotland... the (in)famous "Battle of Twinsborough." All the same to me, really. (Well, not really.) One is a bunch of pike armed rabble supported by a bunch of guns, the other is a bunch of pike armed rabble supported by some even more unruly sword wielding rabble. ;)


Since I recently painted up some more gendarmes, I added them in, substituting them for their dismounted equivalents from one of my last used lists.

In the photo below, Burgundians are on the left. From foreground (Burgundian right flank) to background we had... Coustilliers followed by Household Gendarmes, skirmishing Archers behind a low stone wall, a block of formed Ordonnance Archers, Ordonnance Pike, and a second block of Archers. Beyond the central blocks was a unit of Crossbowmen with pavise. In the (ruined) farm were some skirmishing Handgunners, and on the far side of the farm were some Gendarmes.

The Scots, on the right, had three screening units of skirmishing Archers across the bulk of their line, then from foreground (Scots left flank) to background the main body of troops consisted of two warbands of Highlanders, two Pike Schiltrons, another Highland warband, one more Schiltron, and some camp followers. Behind the ruined farm were some Border Horse and one more group of skirmishing Archers.





The Burgundian left was a disaster. The gendarmes easily chased off the border horse, but were ambushed by lowly archers and destroyed. The handgunners shot off several rounds before losing combat to the camp followers who came into the ruins to fight them.

On the Burgundian right, things were a little different. The coustilliers chased off the skirmishers, and broke through the the rear of the Scots line. However, one of the bands of highlanders had panicked due to heavy casualties from bowfire, and had fortunately rallied in a position to keep the coustilliers from taking advantage of their breakthrough.

In the center the Scots rushed forward through a storm of arrows and hit the Burgundian line -- but not hard enough. The Burgundians held long enough to allow the crossbowmen on the left and more importantly, the household gendarmes on the right to swing in on the flanks. The Scots resisted panic from the initial charge itself, but the casualties from the Gendarmes were great enough to crush the first schiltron in front of them and send almost the entire center fleeing.

The victory was just crushing enough to save face for the embarrassing defeat against the underhanded commoners on the left flank.

Cold Wars - Wab Singles, Part 2

Game 2, Romans vs. Indians


First off, a bit of a disclaimer. The scenario involved leaving a portion of your troops off the table in "reserve," to follow the rest of your army onto the table at a later point. Due to misreading the scenario, both my opponent and I kept rolling (and failing!) each turn, instead of automatically bringing on our reserves at the start of turn 3. In all honesty, though, this probably benefitted him more than me, since I left almost half my point value off the table, and due to the drilled + fast march "stupid Roman trick" I could have redeployed pretty quickly had I actually made it onto the table.


At any rate, here we go...


From left to right I've got (at the bottom of the pic) slingers, then skirmishers, in front of a unit of Spanish auxilia and a unit of legion, then more skirmishers and slingers in front of another unit of legion. That's it.

My opponent had, from left to right, elephand plus escort, big unit of archers, elite infantry (maiden guard?,) noble chariots on the hill, another elephant plus escort, followed by some mercenaries.






So obviously my plan was to rush ahead as quickly as possible and not get shot to pieces.

Early in the game -- turn 1, I managed to get a lucky sling shot into the left elephant's skull and send him stampeding through the woods. On the right, my skirmishers fled from the elephant and the legion let it pass through their ranks. Their combat with the escort, and pursuit sent them into the mercenaries beyond.






On the left the Spanish kept the flank occupied but did little. The legion, however, beat the maiden guard, sent them fleeing and panicked the archers and the general. The general rallied at the last minute (I think) but everyone else kept running.

Game over. Victory for the Romans.

Cold Wars - WAB Singles, Part 1

As it turns out, I was really bad about taking pics of the doubles tournament. Again. So we're just getting a bit of commentary. To be brief, let's just say that things didn't go so well for The Good Guys.

The Good Guys were, of course, my fine upstanding Romans, and the barbaric yet noble savages in my friend Ron's Warlord army.

Our first game was against Macedonians & Persians, in which I started off by failing a few freak rolls, my entire flank crumbling in spite of having an advantage of position, and then recovering enough to at least hold off disaster (and even recover a bit.) The Warlord army was also thrown out of whack by an early bad dice roll, especially a failed Warband test which saw the biggest baddest unit on our side charge almost 90 degrees into the flank of an elephant instead of doing something more useful.

The second game was against Greeks. Lots of them. I screwed up trying to redeploy and get my allied cavalry away from the phalanx on the flank. My partner ended up getting pounded by hoplites. If we had been playing, oh, maybe like 10-12 turns I might have been able to bring my plans to fruition. But in hindsight, that doesn't seem like it was such a good plan.



My luck improved significantly in the Classical division of the singles tournament. Or at least it initially did...


Game 1, Romans vs. Picts.




Our bad rolls from the night before (doubles) seemed to plague my opponent. We set up per the scenario, and it looked like a straight forward battle. On my left flank, I hoped to get my Spanish auxilia onto the hill before the warbands arrived. On the flank, I also hoped to contest the hill with the cavalry and swing a legion around the far side, covered by the slingers. This turned out to be a bad idea, but I quickly redeployed the cav to the far flank (against the enemy cav) and my legion onto the hill.



A few failed warbands by my opponent on my left flank ensured that the left and center were mine. The cav surged forward into formed legion (and then flanked by the Spanish) and one Pict warband ran forward into my charge range, then stopped -- giving me another ideal flank situation. On my right, I managed to pull myself out of the awkward redployment quite well...



...until I rolled like crap. With the center and left more or less wrapped up, I started to use the legions' drilled ability to move them over to my right. I was holding and grinding the warband down on the hill, and my cav (with chieftain) on the right got the drop on the Pictish cavalry.

Sadly, I rolled no hits, but lost one of my own. In addition to running away from a decent fight, they took (panicked) the legion on the hill one half turn before they could receive support from the center legion hitting the warband on the flank. So much for famed Roman LD -- rolling 11 hurts everyone.

So with that last minute flub, the game went from what looked like a sold Roman victory to a draw.

Cold Wars Photos

I'm never going to get around to a proper entry explaining all the Cold Wars pics (or at least those I can explain.)

So I've just set up a public Folder of Cold Wars 2010 Photos. Browse and enjoy.

I'll just mention that some of the highlights, for me, are the WAB Aztec game, the Siege of Alesia, and the Hoth game.

I will make one final entry (with pics) about my Romans in the WAB tournament. (Embarrassing as that may be. For me.)