Men with long pointy sticks and other stuff that should have been posted last month

Here is the first phalangite unit for Craig's Successor army. 32 figures, using Little Big Men decals. I've finally got the hang of getting these onto the shields, although decal softener may be an idea for future investment as they tend to get crinkles on the concave surface.

Lot's of sticks with pointy bits on the ends.

Despite the crinkles, the shields give a good effect.

Another shot just for the hell of it.

And facing their enemies - the legions of Roma.

The gregarious Greeks are not the only chaps to see the paintbrush in the last couple of weeks. A further Marlburian unit has been added to the slowly growing collection.

Starhemberg's Austrian regiment

The command figures for this unit come from Ebor miniatures.

Close-up of the hand-painted colours.

A couple of weeks ago I also completed the state troopers for the Bush Rangers project:

The troopers

Plain clothes police and/or civilian helpers

And this was followed by sorting some scenery for Aussie - notably using the Perry 'American' farmhouse and store. Perfect for Oz too.

The store with the OK corral used as part of the scenery.

The farmhouse with a resin thunderbox.

The full battlefield including sheep.

 I also started a Persian Sataba for Mortal Gods using the cards that have been published on the Footsore Website. My Warlord cavalry turned up early, so they were the first to get the paint. The infantry from Crusader Minis are currently on the painting tray.

So many colours, so much fun to paint!

Finally, and this goes back some way, the first unit of skeleton warriors for the fantasy project. The Undead will be the next army to feel the love of the paintbrush, but they will have to wait until next year as the Ancients and Marlburians are my current priority.

Shambling and decaying

But nevertheless quite animated!

Nate

Infiltration - Grimgob's raids continue

The Orc campaign continues, and Grimgob heads west after his victory, aiming for the riches of Geradefurt and the important trading city of Dunzell.

Grimgob moves towards Dunzell.

Along the way the Southern realms have been putting a force together with supplies coming from Sasterten. Hearing of this, Grimgob has dispatched a small force northwards to try to burn the human supplies and weaken their defence of Dunzell.

This was scenario 25 from One Hour Wargames (amended slightly) which has 4 units trying to move off the north edge of the table while the opposition arrive in the battle piecemeal.

All deployment was rolled for. The Orc chariot ended up on the road while the Orc boyz were scattered along the baseline. A unit of handgunners was the lonely defensive force on the hill.

The other two Orc units on the extreme left.

The supply dump - plenty of important goodies here.

The first turn saw the handgunners inflict casualties on a advancing Orc mob - who promptly failed their morale after only one casualty and then proceeded to never rally again all turn.

Despite their initial victory the handgunners couldn't stand toe to toe wit he next unit of Orcs who chased them out of their defenses.

Meanwhile the orc chariot careened towards the supply dump.

The handgunners are still retreating as Grimgob arrives beside the dump, but it is turn 3 and reinforcements have arrived for the humans!

In their second round of hand to hand the Orcs failed their morale. Like their mates, they never rallied for the rest of the game...

Distracted by the need to wildly charge at the enemy, the Orc chariot goes head to head with spearmen.

The last unit of Orc boyz is hit with a devastating volley before it can reach the dump and set fire to it.

Dispatched from the main army at Dunzell as an escort, Southern reinforcements arrive.

Oh dear. A battered Orc unit, and guess what it couldn't manage to do for the rest of the game...

The Orc chariot stands alone, but both sides are battered.

The noose is tightening as the chariot rallies and makes one last charge.

Which the spears are equal to - just! The supplies are safe!

This was a diversion from the next main game, the battle of Dunzell, where both armies will be arrayed in full. Had the Southern Realms lost the supply dump, they would also have lost a random unit from the next battle. Now it will be full forces clashing in the next game, where the leaders will have boasts to fulfill as well.

Nate

I've been painting, not posting

And even less gaming - nothing since the Pikeman's Lament game. It has been rather hectic this end of the second term, as it usually is. Nevertheless, painting has happened. All of the Great War Germans are now complete, and residing in Hastings with Craig.  Not the original plan, but I've made the decision that there will be no more 15mm for me. Figures will be 28mm or larger, and I will focus mostly on lower level games using, for the most part, the various iterations of the Lion Rampant system. With that in mind, here are the first figures for the Peninsular War using rebels and Patriots:

Voltigeurs - the only completed French unit at the moment.

60th Rifles - a bunch of Germans in the Royal North American Regiment of the British Army - what's not to love?

Light Infantry unit of the 88th Connaught Rangers. I probably had some relations in there somewhere.

When I play Rampant I don't for a second think of these forces as one figure represents one man. In my mind the scale is about 1:10, and these units represent a company (or for the French, half a company). This means that my planned armies are several companies of the 88th foot supported by a company of the 60th and a squadron of the 1st King's German Legion Hussars. Facing them will be several companies of the 18th Ligne supported by Dragoons - not too sure which regiment yet.

I've also put together the first few figures of Aussie Bushrangers. This is using the Legends of the Old West rules in an Aussie setting. For some reason I've always had a thing for this period - Ned Kelly has a lot to answer for.

The Bushrangers Osprey arrived the same day as the Rebels and Patriots rules. instant inspiration.

The unarmoured bush rangers

The Ryan brothers in their home-made armour

Close ups of the rest of the gang

All painted with base, wash and a few highlights here and there

Let's not forget that the second edition of Test of Honour is coming. I haven't even played the first edition yet, but I'm readying my forces, including this 4ground scenery which I bought on sale from Mighty Ape.

The whole farmstead

The forces of Yumisushi wonder whether the beef or the chicken would make a better dinner.

While these Tomuchisake warriors just want to go home for a drink.

The cavalry is painted (although the bases haven't been done), and came that way second hand. I just need to paint the infantry now. Some cherry blossom tress are now in order I feel.

Mortal Gods just released some Persian cards to celebrate 3000+ members of their facebook group, so I ordered some Crusader and Warlord Persians, which I'm keen to paint up as soon as they hit these shores.

I'm planning on continuing Grimgob's saga in the school holidays. That's only a week away, so this is enough of a post until then. I'm hoping that the rest of the figures for the bushrangers project will be complete by then.

Nate

Pikes running rampant

Games night at John's on Friday, and we pulled out some figures from his English Civil War collection for a game of Pikeman's Lament. We used the same unit flank rules that we've been using with Dragon Rampant, and they worked a treat.
The sides were broadly similar, except that the Parliamentarians had trotters, the Royalists had gallopers and the Roundheads also had a Dragoon unit while the Cavaliers had a third unit of horse.

The game begins as the Royalists begin to move up.

The Royalist horse are not mucking around at all!

The Parliamentarians are up for the challenge.

By this stage the Royalist horse have been worn down on either flank, while the Roundhead commander and his entourage ride down the flank of the Royalist musketeers.

But in turn the reserve Royalist cavalry charge into the flank of the Roundhead pikemen, causing massive casualties and forcing them to break.

The end of the battle with the last Parliamentarian musketeer unit in retreat, the Roundhead commander killed and the Cavaliers in possession of the town.

I continue to be in love with the 'rampant' family of rules. At the moment I've just started collecting some Napoleonic figures for Rebels and Patriots. More on that later.

Nate

The raid of Grimgob - Dragon Rampant AAR

The Southern Realms are scrambling to meet the latest incursion by the Orcs and Goblins north of Feuraten.

Forces of the Southern realms assemble to prevent the Orcs crossing the Feuraten river.

In this case the scenario was rolled up from the One Hour Wargames book, a great little resource for creating an instant narrative. There are two fords on the river, which count as rough ground for fighting but don't hinder movement. The rest of the length of the river can be forded at half the unit's movement rate.

The battle takes place in the Praetoriate of Feuraten, one of the provinces of the Southern realms that has suffered heavily from Orc incursions in recent years. This latest raid is very large, and led by Grimgob in his mighty chariot.

Map of the Southern realms, showing the direction of Grimgob's raid.

Aware of a build-up in Orc activity, the Southern realms have gathered a force in Feuraten, which has been dispatched north to hold and defeat the Orc raid.

The two forces line up against each other

Orcs go first and immediately all move forward. No mucking about when you're green!

On the southern ford the artillery takes pot shots at each other.

Grimgob isn't mucking about. He crosses the river at the northern ford and is instantly met by the Langwierig knights, whose wild charge is activated. 

Grimgob beats back the knights, and the Orcs begin to cross the river. The Schiffsplatz handgunners fire a volley, but the there is something very wrong with the command structure of the Southerners. 

Goblin spider riders make short work of the Feuraten Scouts, who fail to evade.

Grimgob pulls back as the Orcs charge in. The knights are destroyed, as are the Geradefurt spearmen, but the Orcs lose 2 units themselves. Not that Grimgob cares that much.

Oh dear. Gazboom the Shaman goes boom!

And the Goblin archers are shattered by the first volley of the Englenholz handgunners

At the southern ford the goblins have crossed the river and charge the artillery, which is destroyed.

Another double 1, another wizard disappears in a puff of smoke!

The Goblin scouts lure out the Knights of Durranach and fight them in rough going. The result is unbelievable...

The end of the battle - only the battered Englenholz handgunners are left to cover the retreat of the Southern army.

This was a very fun game. The two sides were each 40 points, which is a good size for a battle. I used the flank rules written by Dan Mersey and available on the Dux Rampant forums. This puts a whole new level of tactics into the game without complicating it much at all. It makes it feel like a bigger battle game. The artillery is my own design, costing 4 points and needing a 7+ roll to reload as an order, which keeps it less effective than it would otherwise be if it was simply heavy missiles. It has armour 1, defence 6 so doesn't handle combat very well, as it shouldn't. As it was, the artillery did very little this game, mostly because the Southern realms kept failing their command rolls before I got a chance to reload it.

The double 1 for magic is my own as well - snake eyes and your magician is incapacitated by magical feedback. I can't believe they both went that way though!

Where will Grimgob head next? West to Dunzell, or south to Feuraten itself? Hopefully we'll find out soon!

Nate