A few games

I thought I'd try out the Post of Honour rules today with my Marlburians. These rules have been written by Keith Flint to provide a simpler alternative to Honours of War. They certainly are simpler, using d6s and having units which seem to have a little more survivability. I played out the St Ulrich scenario from the Honours of War rulebook as it only has a handful of units which suits how little I actually have painted at the moment.

The Confederates advancing in column

The Spanish defenders providing the rearguard for the bridge

The Confederates advance

The Spanish stand and wait, while the artillery on the hill across the river fires the first shot of the game.

The Confederates deploy out into lines, Starhemberg's regiment taking the lead.

Both sides are in combat range, with close in volleys that weaken the Austrians, and the English Horse losing their initial advantage over the Osuna Dragoons.

The end of this turn sees the cavalry both weakened and standing off staring at each other, while the Austrians give as good as they get with the Viejos Murados.

The last recorded image of the English General before an unfortunate collision between his head and a cannonball.

With no general to help rally, the English Horse are unable to charge again this game, the Austrians are broken, but in turn the Spanish are broken by the Rivers' and St Amant regiments.

 The upshot was a victory for the Confederate attackers, which was fairly predicatable considering their numerical advantage, but there were moments where the game was in the balance, which is what you want from a set of rules.

Here's some lose up of the new units completed this week:

Spanish artillery

A Spanish general. I figured the yellow coat was justified as the Spanish Horse in the Nine Years War sported the same colour.

English Artillery

That was a solo game this morning, and took just under an hour to play out. Then this afternoon Adam came around and we had a game of Warhammer 40K Killteam. This relatively simple skirmish game should have been quite quick to play, but we did our best to lengthen it out to two and a half hours by being rather incompetent. We eventually worked out everything that we were doing wrong, so we'll be ready for the next game.

The battlefield

The sides begin coming together.

The Ultramarines had a pretty happy day chopping up the Genestealer cult.

I've found that I never take many photos when I play opponents, probably the part of me that believes that spending time with a phone in your hand when you have company is actually rather rude. I realise that we are a declining species.

Anyway, the Ultramarines had a pretty solid victory and then we decided that we'd have ago at playing speed-freaks. Adam had brought these over to play, but we had spent so much time mucking up Kill Team that we only ended up with a small amount of time to play. Nevertheless I played enough to get a good feel for the game, and it is a lot of fun. Not to mention that the models are simply stunning.

Me ramming Adam - these models were works of art. I loved the corkboard roads on the bases.

We managed to lose all of the war bikes very early.

A busy day and it was great to play a few different games.

Nate

The shape of things to come

The last week or so I've been following the buzz centred around this upcoming game:

Unlike the Batman miniatures game that I just never got into, the Marvel Universe is my true home (and of course the NDC Universe, but that is another matter altogether). So this game really excites me. I'm hoping to see my two favourite groups, the X-Men and Fantastic Four, represented in this game, but I feel that it will be a bit like Pokemon in that I'll just have to catch them all.

With the impending annual reminder of my nativity, I've also determined to finally get Star Wars Legion underway as well. Clone Wars is coming out, and I was mightily tempted - Yoda and Obi-Wan are my favourite Star Wars characters - but I'm going to start off in the rebellion. So the core box set and some rebel pathfinders are in order, combined with a great deal where I just picked up 2 core sets worth of imperials!

It is a great time in the history of world to be a comics fan/star wars nut/ miniatures enthusiast!

Nate

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