I won (again)

Blog giveaways are happening all over the place now, and I've entered a few. The last time I won I had to put in quite a bit of effort, and the result was winning the Heropress competition with my graphic origin of 'the Hand'. This time all I had to do was leave a comment on Daniel Mersey's blog saying who my favourite knight of the round table was and briefly explaining why (My answer was of course Sir Bedwyr the wise!). The random roll of a D20 and I was the winner! My prize was three books from the Osprey Myths and legends series: King Arthur, written by Dan himself; Thor and the recently released Robin Hood. Fantastic! Dan duly dispatched these tomes to the opposite side of the Earth, and they arrived yesterday. I opened them eagerly to find:

That's right - they misspelled Thor!

Not only does Dan Mersey write cracking wargames rules, useful magazine articles and enjoyable books, he can also time travel (no wonder he knows so much about the Dark Ages) because Troy is not due to be released for another two months!

I was looking forward to Thor, having started collecting comics in the golden age of Walt Simonson's run on the Marvel mag, and still having the fondest memories of the Thunder God (and Frog). But there was no experience of disappointment upon finding Troy. The complete opposite in fact. I have read the Iliad over and over in the last two years as I teach it to my Year 11 Classical Studies students. I've purchased 28mm armies from Black Tree Designs for the period intending to use yet more of Osprey Publishing's output in the form of the 'Of Gods and Mortals' rules. That my daughter is named 'Cassandra' is no accident. All in all, I am a bit of a 'Troy-head'. 

Si Sheppard has done a great job of retelling the whole story of the Trojan War, from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis to the escape of Aeneas. It is actually refreshing to read a book about the war that does not dwell upon archaeology and evidence for its historicity, but focuses on the epic and its heroes. Maybe there are lots of books out there that do this, but they aren't the ones that I've been reading. The art by Jose Daniel Cabrera Pena is moody and beautiful. I particularly love the plate with the three goddesses vying for Paris' judgement over the golden apple - all three women are gorgeous, but the look of contempt that Aphrodite is giving Hera is absolutely priceless. The double page spread of the battle for the ships is incredibly atmospheric. On reflection I'll probably be getting a class set of these to accompany the Iliad for my students (who to be honest start to get a little weary of Homeric similes after a while - but they do a pretty good job for 15 year olds).

Robin Hood and King Arthur are also great books (I had already bought King Arthur as an E-book, but to be honest I'm much happier with the tangible version - I didn't like the layout of the e-book). I really enjoyed reading through the tales of Robin, and there is a section devoted to possible historical prototypes which I found enlightening. Each of the main characters are looked at in turn to trace their development throughout time in various re-tellings. Do I now feel like getting some feudal figures for a skirmish game? What do you think...? Actually, feudal figures are the next boat on the horizon as later this year Dan Mersey's next ruleset for Osprey, Lion Rampant, will be coming out.

In all I would unreservedly recommend all three of these books. To my mind the Myths and Legends series along with the Wargames series, are absolute winners for the Osprey stable.

So many thanks to Dan for running this competition. The prizes are being appreciated a great deal. The next step is that as a condition of entering the competition I must have a giveaway of my own. The idea as originally conceived by Captain Arjun of Cor Blog Me was to offer up some rulesets or books that I had bought but wasn't using and offer them to someone who might have a use for them. I have some in mind, but will wait a couple of weeks until school calms down a bit before I run it.

Nate

First games of IHMN

Dan was here for a short stay last week, and we took the chance to have a couple of games of In Her Majesty's Name. These were in part a playtest for the Imperial Cossack Company, with stats changing between games to balance the various characters out.

The first game was a scenario to defend a central building, in this case one of the secret depots of the Society of Thule.

St Petersburg has its tendrils stretched far in attempts to make sure that it stays abreast of developments with its Great Power rivals. It was something of a coup when one agent discovered a base in an East Prussian forest that the Society of Thule uses to test its experimental weapons. The Tsar duly called on his best saboteurs in the form of the Imperial Cossack Company to make an attack and render the base useless. Little could Colonel Razin and his cut-throats know that visiting the base at the same time was Von Stroheim himself...

Jager deployed to defend the south-western approach.

The south-eastern approach defended by Von Stroheim, Krieg and Dr Kobalt.

Approaching from the south-east, the witch Solokhna and 3 Cossack riflemen. (I had to use proxies for my Cossack riflemen which turned up in the post the next day - enter the Sand-people)

And coming from the woods to the west, Colonel Razin and Olga, Grigori and Yuri.

Yuri bounded through the wire aided by his speed, but his jager opponent survived the first round of combat and with rifle, bayonet, guts - and quite a bit  of luck - dispatched the bear swiftly.

At the same time Feldwebel Krieg advanced to fry some Cossacks, but went down to some long range rifle fire.

Grigori and Razin advanced to avenge Yuri and remove the jagers. What happens when your leader rolls a 1 on their pluck roll? He joins the bear - out of the game!

Girgori killed a jager only to be knocked down himself. Note Olga behind a stack of crates trying to give covering fire. She didn't hit anything all game.

Getting back up Grigori clubs down the resultant todtruppen from his previous victory.

His single-handed fight comes to an abrupt end in the next turn.

A Cossack charges in to deal with Dr Kobalt, only to have Von Stroheim save the day.

Von Stroheim moves off after Olga, but the remaining Cossack riflemen shoot down Dr Kobalt! 

By now 12 turns were up and it was fairly clear that the Prussians were winning, so game one to the Society of Thule. It was a good learning game, and we soon realised all the things we had done incorrectly - like subtracting the opponent's speed from the 'to hit roll' in fighting. Yuri probably would have survived the first round of combat if we had been playing correctly. We made sure that we applied all of these lessons for the next game. We also made sure to arm Razin and grigori with fighting knives, and to give Yuri the same weapon (counting as bear claws) in order to boost their hand-to-hand capability.

The stat lines have been updated  in the Imperial Cossack Company blog entry.

Another big learning curve was just how able a pleb with rifle and bayonet is against characters. Admittedly Colonel Razin had some pretty bad luck (and would again in game two), but the jagers and the cossacks gave good accounts of themselves. The other surprise was that 12 turns took three hours. Even accounting for the learning nature of the game, I had anticipated a swifter conclusion. The game never got boring despite this, and provided for a few moments of hilarity along the way.

I hope to put up a brief description of the rematch soon.

Nate

Society of Thule

I finished painting the Society of Thule company from North Star minis. Now they can take on the Imperial Cossacks.

The characters - Von Stroheim, Dr Kobalt and Feldwebel Krieg

The perfectly live and healthy jagers

The imperfectly dead and stumbling jagers

Game coming soon.

Nate

The Imperial Cossack Company

Another home grown company for In Her Majesty's Name is my Imperial Cossack Company. Colonel Razin (he has some famous ancestors) leads a disparate group of callous and dangerous agents in the name of the Tsar. First up is his niece, Olga. Beautiful but deadly. Here she is with her uncle.

So ruthless she would shoot her own uncle in the back.

Grigori was raised by bears, and had a veneer of civilisation coated on him by the hunters who found him (and turned his 'mother' into a nice rug). He later found his long lost 'brother' Yuri the bear, who is fiercely loyal and obedient to Grigori. In a hand to hand fight any enemy can expect to be clawed and chewed on... and then Yuri might attack them too!

'Look, Yuri! A smackeral of honey!'

Rounding out the company is Solokha the witch. Sometimes known as the Dark Lady, this beautiful but terrifying woman has various mystical powers - including the ability to reanimate the dead.

Black is always stylish - especially for necromancers

Cossack zombies - one of them is obviously an original gangsta

'Ewwww! A spider!'

The living people are all Artizan Designs figures form their Thrilling Tales range. Yuri is from the North Star Menagerie, and the zombies are Secrets of the Third Reich Soviets. I've replaced the heads on two of the zombies with skulls from the Wargames Factory Undead box, because the heads that came with the figures had forage caps which don't work for the later Nineteenth Century. I'm still waiting on 4 Musketeer Miniatures Great War Russian figures that I ordered to be the pre-dead zeds.

In games terms, I haven't put stats together yet, but I see Solokha functioning like Dr Kobalt from the Society of Thule, but using magic to reanimate dead soldiers rather than technology. I haven't yet bought Heroes, Villains and Fiends which has animal characteristics in it, so in the meantime Yuri will be put together with a number of other traits that might reflect a grizzly bear.  I have now come up with points and stats for the Pharaonic Revivalists, and will post these when I've completed the stats for the Cossacks.

Just one big happy family

Edit 16th January:
The stats for the Cossack Company:

	Pluck	FV	SV	Speed	Cost	Talents	Equipment
Colonel Razin	2+	+2	+3	+1	55	Leadership +2, gunslinger, tough, fearless	Brigandine, 2 Mauser pistols (carbine)
Olga	4+	+1	+2	+0	19	Duellist	Mauser pistol (carbine), Brigandine
Grigori	4+	+3	+1	(+1)*	37	Tough, fearless, martial artist*	pistol, Brigandine, fighting knife
Yuri the bear	3+	+4	-	+2	38	Terrifying, berserker	Claws (as a fighting knife)
Solokhna	4+	+0	+0	+0	37	Necromancer, Clouding Men’s Minds	Lined coat, dagger (fighting knife)
Cossack rifleman	5+	+2	+1	+0	30	Bayonet drill	Military rifle and bayonet, lined coat
Reanimated Cossacks	3+	+2	+0	+0	n/a	Numb, terrifying, anti-venom	Lined coat, hands as clubs
Necromancer allows Solokhna to reanimate any dead troops within 3”. They remain reanimated until Solokhna is taken out of the game, or they move more than 12” away from her. (major power + lasts more than one turn + 12” range =21 points).   Reanimated Cossacks do not start the game, They can only be brought on to replace dead Cossack Riflemen as a result of Solokhna's necromancer power.

Options

• Any Cossack Rifleman may be mounted on a horse and must replace his rifle and bayonet with a sabre and carbine at an additional 2 points.
• Any character (except Yuri) may be mounted on a horse at +5 points. They may take the trick riding talent at a further +5 points and may take a sabre at +4 points.

I wasn't too sure how to work out Solokhna's Necromancy, and I've given my breakdown here. I'm open to suggestions.
The company costs 276 points to run with 3 Cossack riflemen.

Re-edit 17th January:
Based on feedback from Craig (the gentleman who wrote the rules) I've recosted the Cossack Riflemen to take into account that they may become mindless zombies. I've also added options for mounting the Cossacks.

Re-reedit 20th January:
After playtesting Yuri has gone through some changes, the +5 per Cossack Riflemen for reanimating them is gone (the 3" distance and then a pluck roll to activate is quite a difficult thing to achieve compared to the automatic reanimation of the todtruppen within 8"). In its place I've added anti-venom.

Nate

Sneak peak of things to come

I couldn't resist test painting a few Roman figures as the beginning of my upcoming Gallic Wars project.
These are all Wargames Factory Romans.

The four test figures - command for my 16 figure century.

The grim faced Centurion.

Legionary in drab.

They paint up quite nicely and although the detail is not as crisp as the plastic sets that have appeared since, they are still a good product.

I tried to use the Little Big Men decals that came with the box. I'm not sure if the problem is that they are a bit too old or not, but I found them fiddly and too easy to tear. After three attempts I gave up and just painted the shields. I don't think they look too bad and it was easy enough to do. The Gauls will have painted shields so both sides might as well be consistent.

I'm working on a 1:5 scale, so 16 figures represents 80 men, or one century. I'll have four centuries giving me one cohort. Adding in some skirmishers, a scorpio and allied Gallic cavalry, that will be my 1500 point Roman garrison which will be in the middle of a rebellion by local Gauls. Which Gauls will side with the Romans? Can the legionary fort hold out? These are the questions I hope to answer in a solo campaign.

I need to finish the SAGA Normans and my In Her Majesty's Name companies, and then the Gallic Wars will be all on.

Nate

Infinite learning curve

On Friday night I had my first game of Infinity against Michael. I had a good idea of turn sequence and resolution of combat etc, but absolutely no idea about special rules or the effects of weapons and armour. So Michael taught me about these things in the time-honoured way - by handing me my butt on a plate - twice!

The table looks cluttered - but needed to be cluttereder for me!

We took 150 point forces - his were Haqqislam and mine were basically the Pan-Oceania Acontecimento starter box. I had purchased this group for the winning reason that I thought they looked cool. And they do. Bully for them.

Akal commando with boarding shotgun. Probably pretty impressive if he had got to use it.

Bagh-Mari deployed defensively. They died in pretty much the same place.

We were playing the scenario 'let's kill each other', and I started playing like I play most games - advancing for contact. I soon found out that this was not such a good idea. Cover is pretty much useless and the best thing to do is to be out of line of sight. Unless someone activates multiple times and comes around your flank and zaps you from behind. So it pays to set your models up looking in every direction, watching each other's backs and flanks. This may all seem pretty straight forward, but is a level of detail that I'm not used to playing in games. Infinity is like a first-person shooter video game, where the models act like real people would. Anyone that has seen me bumble my way through 30 seconds of Call of Duty knows that this isn't exactly my forte.

They may have all died helplessly, but at least my models were painted Michael!

My mostly combi-rifle armed group was not in a great position to duel with snipers and HMGs with good lines of fire at a distance, so I'm looking at how I can change my list and add some nastiness. I'm also going to have to get down on my knees to look at the board and fields of fire before deployment, as I simply don't 'get it' looking with the 'eye of god'.

Despite the smell of burning Pan-O wafting over the board at the end of each game, I've learnt a lot and am quite looking forward to revising my list and having another game.

Nate

The Company of Pharaonic Revivalists

A long time ago I bought a number of Reaper Egyptian horror figures to go with some Egyptians Dan had bought for pulp skirmish. When I first saw the Servants of Ra company I immediately thought of doing something similar, but not the same. So I grouped together a number of figures, did a couple of conversions and voila - the Company of Pharaonic Revivalists was born. Headed by an Egyptian academic and occultist, Professor Zawi, this is a terrorist group dedicated to Egyptian independence and the restoration of the Pharaohs of the Nile.

'They did the mash... They did the Monster mash...'

I wanted to have all four of my mummies involved, not to mention the big cheese Pharaoh Ramarama himself. I haven't invented all of the names, nor worked out all of the stats for this company, and it may be that the points are so high I can't take them all at once.

Pharaoh Ramarama, ready for a ding-dong battle.

I gave the professor an assistant to carry his scrolls and a bodyguard with a scratchbuilt arc rifle.

'Is that Mummy photo-bombing me again?'

And to add extra muscle/firepower to the group, an arc-cannon. Can you have an arc cannon? Well it's something big and heavy anyway.

'Go over there and shoot in case it blows up.'

I'll figure out the stats and post them later.

Edit 16th January:
Here are the stats for the Company of Pharaonic Revivalists:

	Pluck	FV	SV	Speed	Cost	Talents	Equipment
Professor Zawi	3+	+0	+0	+0	35	Leadership +1, Fanatic, Dragon Breath, Clouding Men's Minds	Lined Coat
Usman	5+	+1	+0	+0	8	Medic
Abdullah	5+	+1	+1	+0	14		Arc Rifle, lined coat
Mohammed	5+	+1	+1	+0	13	Tough	Pistol, lined coat
Kaseem	5+	+1	+1	+0	8		Pistol, lined coat
Habib & Musa	4+	+0	+0	+0	21	Treated as one figure	Arc cannon
Pharaoh RamaRama	2+	+4	+0	+0	86	Terrifying, Numb,  Mesmerism, Feet of lead	Mystical aura, hands as clubs
Mummy servants	3+	+3	+0	+0	44	Terrifying, Numb	Mystical aura, hands as clubs
Mystical Aura gives an armour rating of 11. Muhammed and Kaseem may be upgraded to have a military rifle at +9 points each. Habib and Musa act as one model. they may not separate from each other at all.

That means that the company comes to 273 points with two Mummy servants. Only 9 figures and a lot of points in a few characters. I don't know how this one will play out.

Nate