Too many projects

My 28mm Romans and Britons continues but is slightly side tracked. Some 15mm Xyston Seleucids arrived yesterday, beautiful figures- enough to make me replace my Gauls/Galatians and Numidian infantry with this range. I got some Corvus Belli Gauls and Libyans last year and quite frankly wasn't overly impressed . I'd heard good things about the range but I don't like it, maybe its too "true 15mm" for my taste, but the bigger and bulkier Xyston figures with their crisp detail are, IMO, amongst the best 15mm ranges avaialble. I've heard of some scale issues but we'll see.

So there are a couple more projects to do. I completed the first 3 elemetns of Seleucids last night (they are one of my maybe lists for the comp in CHCH) and intend to finish the rest this week.

Also, next weekend is Queens Birthday weekend in New Zealand and that means its the annual Dunedin wargaming comp, Southcon. My friend Richard runs the Flames of War and always puts an interesting spin on things. Southcon attracts most of the top South Island players, including the Invercargill guys who have some very good players but they only travel to two comps-NATCON and Southcon. As all the South Islanders were in one group at NATCON we didn't get to play so I hope to get to play against a few of them this time round. As is usual, Southcon is a mid war comp.

I haven't looked at a Flames of War figure since NATCON and really can't be arsed coming up with a new force in a week or so. I've gone Axis as the Russians have had a good run of comps in the past year. In the past I have never got to grips with armoured panzer grenadiers (won a Mid War Comp with Armoured Aufklarung- more half tracks is good) but now that they price has come down for the half tracks, and given my recent successes with Rota Razvedki, I feel its time to give them a try. So have come up with a list based on what I've got available. Usually we playtest for about 4-6 weeks prior to a comp, but not this time, I'll be making it up as we go!

I wanted a '42 theme to run one of my panzer-grey forces (typically round here most guys run late '42 arioes os I usually end up having to use those (I try to match my force to the campaign/timeframe of my opponents in freindlies). Also I chose '42 to exclude the gear that is so prevalent amongst mid war Germans at present- panzerwerfers and HS 129s. By picking Stalingrad as a theme I can force myself not to take those!

So this is what I'm going to go with:

	Armoured PGs- Stalingrad
2x	HQ	70
7x	Armoured PGs + P/K
7x	Armoured PGs	230
3x	Panzer IV F1	300
3x	Nebelwerfers	115
3x	Marder Is	220
2x	SiG 133s	170
3x	Pak 38s + 4xH/Ts	160
		1500

So we'll see how it fares.

Craig

DBA: Ancient Britons vs Imperial Romans

Time to try the Romans.

Finn was keen for a game after school and chose the Romans. He decided to defend and set up the terrain as he wanted (we don't abide by the rules, I let him set it up as he likes- keep it simple with 8 year olds!).

I took a warband general as I am a bit short of chariots and Cavalry for anything else!

The two lines advance.


A bit blurry but you get the idea. 1 pip for the Britons, the Romans moved their infantry to align with the cavalry.


The Celts get ready to charge.


Getting closer.


The impetuous Finn charges. He sent his cavalry into the marsh to assist the blades who were fighting the Britons- but were in good going. He was confident he'd win and it proved correct. Actually, now I think of it he shouldn't have been able to move that far in bad going, oh well.


Let the carnage begin! I lost 2 elements and Finn one and there were a few recoils.


And it all goes horribly wrong! My general punched through a hole in the Roman battleline and cut down another element of blades. My Cavalry and chariots combined ot destroy another cavarey element but then...

With a blade flanked and attacking with supporting warbands (4 vs 4) I rolled a 1 and the Romans a 6 (result 10-5= 2 dead elements of warband). 4-3 to Finn!

Next time Finn, next time...


Notes:
The game all up took about 30 minutes and by the end of the game Finn was at about the limit of his attention span so DBA is ideal to get him into wargaming without boring him silly.

Craig

DBA II/56 Early Imperial Romans

A busy week of painting, due in part to floods down this way closing my school on Wednesday, has meant that I've completed the first part of my Warlord Games Early Imperial Romans, at least enough for a DBA game!

The figures are outstanding, my only complaint is the size of the auxiliaries vs the legionnaires. They are huge, I know that they are supposed to be the larger Germanic/Gaulish types but really, the difference is very, very noticeable. However, the plastic auxiliary figures are nicely animated though and are my preferred poses.

As per normal they are based to my own heretical conventions rather than "standard" DBA- that way they can be used for both Big Base DBA and Impetus. I hope to give Finn a try at Impetus soon. I'm not sure if the rules will be too complex for him but I think he should be able to handle it.

Anyway, here is the army so far.

Early Imperial Romans

4x Legionnaires (Blades)


3x Auxillia (should be 4)

I need 4 bases but there were only 24 figures in the box which is enough for 3 bases @ 8 figures per base) One is without a transfer on his shield- this will be rectified once I get some more auxiliaries as I ran out of transfers having done the axillary cavalry first.

2x Praetorian Guard

Not really needed (except as pseudo auxillia for the next wee while), but can be used as veteran legionnaires to differentiate the different units.

3x Auxillary Cavalry (Wargames Factory figures)

The Wargames factory Cav figures are much bigger than the legionnaires and my plan is to replace them with some Warlord Games Cav as soon as I can. Warlord Games have an Auxillia special deal (48x auxillia, 2 commands, and 10x Aux Cav for 50 pound so think I'll grab one of those as then I should have 10 bases worth of Auxillia and 10 of legionnaires). Of course to get the free shipping I'll need to add a few other things to round out the force (such as the western archers...)

1x Warmachine


And a few shots of the infantry battle line.







What Next?
Well I still need another 5 bases of Auxillia, a couple of bases worth of western archers and 2-3 more Cavalry to do a Double -DBA force (or more variety for Impetus) so will get those ordered soon.

I've 5-6 more bases of legionnaires and Veteran legionnaires to finish off as well.

I also need a few more boxes of Gauls/Britons (including another 3-4 chariots) to complete a Double DBA Ancient Britons/Gauls force

Craig

28mm HoTT: Beastmen vs the Gauls

A rainy day so had a couple of Games of HoTT with Finn after he'd finished school. He took the beastmen army, I ran with the Gauls.

Beastmen

• Boris the beastman (hero)
• 2x Behemoths (Minotuars)
  
• 4x Ogre warband
• 2x beasts (Wolves)

Gauls

• 2x Heroes
• 6x Warband
• 2x beasts (warhounds)

The two armies advance

Pretty similar set ups- beasts on the flanks, heroes/behemoths and warband together.

The heroes and behemoths line up...


Game over: The two lines meet, the only decisive result was the behemoth hero losing combat vs the Celtic hero and so being cut down in his prime. Seeing their leader slain the army decided to pack up and go home!


Game 2:
Finn swapping a beast for a flyer element and converting Boris to a Behemoth (so he can't get himself killed by Heroes so easily!).

This time the Celts advanced into beastman territory.


The Celts ran out of steam (and pips) so waited to see the Beastmen's response-a general advance with the flyer scooting out to a flank.


At moments like these the only thing to do is...CHARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it all went horribly wrong! The beasts outflanked his beasts but lost the combat, then the behemoth forced back my general, leaving my warband exposed to two angry behemoths that promptly romped through the warband- quick kills leave 4 dead warband!

The Celtic casualties.



Game, set and match to the beastmen. The Celts retreat to lick their wounds.

We might need to set up a final later in the week!

Craig

DBA II/11 Gauls- Completed!

At last the Gauls are completed! Well, for now at least.

• 2x Chariots
• 2x Cavalry
• 8x Warband
• 1x Psiloi
• 2x Warhounds/beasts
  

I love the Warlord Games Chariots! Truly beautiful miniatures.



The Warband.


The Beasts of War- for HoTT anyway. The warhounds are to be used as 2x elements of beasts in the HoTT version of the list.


The Cav/light horse- Wargames Factory figures.


An aerial view of the entire army.


I still need to add more warbands (at least another 8, probably 12, bases worth) and maybe a couple more chariots to be able to morph it into the Ancient British force for vs the Imperial Romans. I'll also add a few Germans at a later stage to be able to morph those out of it as well.

Now, to complete the Imperial Romans.

Craig

Warlord Games Romans

Here they are with the bases finished.




The Wargames Factory Aux cavalry. I used some of the spare transfers from the Warlord Games Auxillia to complete the shields.


Craig

DBA Battle of Balaclavacus

Next week we are doing a charge of the Light Brigade in DBA, with Chariots- Dave Batchelor has a scenario from Slinghot that he is just itching to try out.

Next Week- Really big DBA - 54BC....The Battle of Balaclavus. Hopefully a full turnout of DBAers as we can have 4 players per side. I will of course play my natural role as a gentle loving god beloved by all. At this stage we will probably have Caesar Rippin commanding the Romans including Oliver, and Pommie Git Raglani Malone fighting for a free Britain. We will have to find a suitable sucker (also known as Hero) to play the Chariot Commander Lord Cardiganus (Only requirement is to know the word"Charge"). The Romans will have the advantage of having heaps of artillery but operating in 4 well separated groups. Can the masses of Brits operating with interior lines in the valley defeat the hated invaders? The forces are as per the dba lists -Marian Romans & Ancient Brits with the artillery as a bonus for the Romans,the possibility of reinforcements for the Brits if Raglani thinks they are needed. The more he adds the higher the victory conditions for the Brits. Each commander will have between 10-16 elements to command. Depending how it works out I might do a write-up for the Society of Ancients Magazine on our version of the battle which may give some free publicity to Timaru Historics!

The forces:

• Roman Right Flank Outpost- 8 Blades (incl Gen), 2 psiloi and 2 catapults
• Roman Right/Centre Force (Oliver)- 8 Blades, 2x Psiloi, 1x Cav (Gen), 2 x catapults
• Roman Centre (way down the valley) Heaps of artillery and Caesar(Blade Gen), 8 Blades, 2 Psiloi and 2 Cav
• Roman Left Flank Outpost 2 wagons (loaded up catapults), 4 Cav, Cav Gen, and a wee way away 6 Blades 2 Psiloi
  

• Raglanni Centre Reserve- Warband Gen, 6 WB, 4 Psiloi, 2 Lght Hrse
• Lord Cardiganus Centre- 12 chariots (incl Gen)
• Lucani Left Flank- 1 Ch (Gen), 10 Warbands, 4 x psiloi
• Nolano Right Flank- 1Ch (Gen), 6 Lght Hrse, 6 WB

Emergency Reserves- More Warbands and Psiloi.
So that's the basic briefing.

And for the historical document it was based on:

From the latest Society of Ancients magazine Slingshot "Approximately 120 miles north of London a team of Archaeologists has discovered a previously unknown battle site from Caesar's second invasion of ancient Britain. In addition to the usual detrius of warfare: various weapons, shields helmets, pieces of chariots and of course dozens of skeletons an amazing find was uncovered by Dr Benjamin Joyce. Three intact scrolls were found within what is believed to be the trenches of the Roman camp. The ancient author has been identified as L. Tennisonius, a little known poet who it is believed lived from around 80 to 30 or 25 BC. Only fragments of his work survive but it is understood he was with Caesar during the fall and winter of 54BC. Though the translation is not yet complete, experts from the Classical Languages Department at Oxford have deciphered the following lines:

Half a Roman league, half a Roman league,
half a Roman league onward
All in the valley of Death
Rode the seven hundred
"Forward the Light Chariots"
"Charge for the bolt shooters!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the seven hundred.

Forward the Light chariot "Brigade"!
Was there a warrior dismay'd?
Not one Raglanni knew
Some chieftan had blunder'd
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs but to paint their chests
And bellow a war cry
Into the valley of Death
Rode the seven hundred.

We look forward to the full translation. But in the meantime there is enough information to recreate this unknown battle between Caesar's Legions and the Ancient Brits under Raglanni.


It should be good.

Warlord Games Romans

Tonight's work- my first two stands Imperial Romans (16 figures in total). Tomorrow nights task will be to finish off the bases and do another two stands. Two down, six more to go for my starter force for DBA.

The cavalry in the background are Wargames Factory and still need their shields finished- they were Tuesday nights task.






They look a bit shiny but I think that's just the flash- they have had a wash of GW's Devlan Mud but may get a black wash on their armour if it looks to shiny in natural light tomorrow.

DBA II/30 Galatians

Well tonight I had the fastest game of DBA I've had in a long time vs Stephen's Early Imperial Romans.

Three turns and it was all over. Stephen advanced his artillery down the road, I moved forward and he took a pot shot at my general- I rolled a 1, he rolled a six. Game set and match!

One


Two


Three

Game 2:
The second game was vs Nigel with Alexandrian Imperial (2x knights, elephant, 6x pike, aux and psiloi) and again I went down (this time 5-2 although I did mange to kill a knight and general but his pikes finally got into action vs the warband to take the win).

Not an auspicious start for the Galatians!

Warlord Games Romans
My Warlord Games Romans arrived today (along with a copule of Celtic chariot) so I will be busy in the next wee while assembling enough for a DBA double based force. The figures look great and I can't wait to see the finished product.

Update

So what have I been up to in the past few days?

The Auxiliary Romans are not quite finished, but I've managed to paint up a few 15mm Gauls so that I can make Gauls, Ancient Britons and Galatians for DBA while I wait for my 28mm figures to arrive. The figures in the foreground are to use as imitation legionnaires in the Galatian army. Most of the figures are Old Glory that I had lying around. Personally, I would prefer the imitation legionnaires look more Gallic so think in 28mm I'll make them out of a combination of Celtic and Roman figures.




I also completed the battle of Brunanburh which was a close win to the forces of Wessex. I will try it again using Basic Impetus.

Lasalle

Managed another game of Lasalle vs Dave last night, my Polish infantry + lancers vs the Russians Grenadiers (supported by light Cav) A fun game and I think we are getting the hang of it, pretty bloody towards the end. Neither of our reserves arrived until about turn 10 & 11 so they didn't get invovled much (or at least mine didn't)

Nopt sure of the outcome- Dave was on Morale tests and I was just above them when we had to call it at turn 167. I had shattered a couple of French infantry and rolled up one flank but in the last turn 3 of my battalions on the other flank crumbled leaving me in a precarious position vs the Polish lancers. Game played fast and we both definitely enjoyed it, a couple more games to get things down pat and game will play even faster.

We have decided apart from a few fences that this is proably enough terrain for Lasalle, any more and manoeuvrings will be a problem.


From the Polish lines


The Russians advance


The Front lines close


And from the other flank.


The Russian assault goes in


How's that for crap dice rolling!


The French are slightly worse off- 2 disruptions to one.


On the other flank two assualts go in and shatter the Polish battalions.


The last turn- the infantry in the foreground managed to form square and miraculously destroyed the Polish lancers. The other battalion wasn't so lucky, failed to form square and was destroyed.

My instinct tells me that the Russians would not be able to recover from this as the rest of their forces were in no position to intervene. A close game the Poles on 11 lost points and morale checks vs 6 at the end of his turn for the Russians (and a couple more battalions about to go), but still the game was in the balance.


Craig

DBA II/11 Gauls

Well, there is a 15mm DBA comp in Christchurch in a couple of months (book 2 armies only) that the local DBAers are gearing up for. I have narrowed down my options to the following:

• Numidians
• Gauls
• Visigoths

The Visigoths are probably the most flexible of the three, Numidians would be very challenging to run, and the Gauls pretty one dimensional but I'm leaning towards fielding those (Warband, chariots and a couple of cav!)! So last night I was supposed to sit down and paint up my 15mm Gauls/Visigoths that are part of my ill-fated 15mm FoG army so I can run them ina play test at the club next week. However, I go side tracked by Wargames factory Roman Axillary Cavalry (which are going to be the cavalry elements of my Early Imperial Rome 28mm army) and rebasing my 28mm Warlord Games Celts/Gauls. My initial bases were too shallow (8x 5cm- which are now the depth for "blades"). All my warband type forces are now on 8x6cm and I've been putting off re-basing the Celts but did so last night.

This change of periods/scales was also partially in response to having ordered the Warlord Games Imperial Roman starter army. With figures working $1NZ or less (when bought in bulk) they are actually cheaper than comparable 15mm figures! I'll have far too many but can always grow that army. I also ordered a couple of chariots for the Celts (one for the general), a Roman warmachine and some Numidian light horse (to start the 28mm Numidan army) so have even more painting ahead of me.

It is hard to get inspired to paint 15mm DBA figures on standard bases when big based 28mm looks so much more dynamic!

To me this looks like a barbaric horde!









Wargames Factory Germans as the Cav element.


Psiloi


Tomorrow night I'm supposed to be playing Dave at Lasalle so hopefully will manage a few pictures.
Craig