Saga and Swedes

I had the pleasure of playing some historicals this past Saturday at Guardian Games, though not as many as I'd have liked.

First off was the monthly historical games day, which has rather developed into "28mm medieval skirmish" due to the interests of the regular attendees. I threw down my Crusaders in a Saga game against some Anglo-Saxons in a battle for the ford.

The Anglo-Saxon Warlord considers his options

The Crusader band is decimated, but the Anglo-Saxon warlord is dead and his warband on the back foot.

It went well enough, though my opponent conceded after my fourth turn. He felt that he was in an irreversible position, though I disagreed. Still, it was nice to break out the crusaders again after a few months. I'm not terribly happy with some of the paint jobs, and I think they might get repainted sooner than later - and I really would like to replace my mounted knights with some Perry or Gripping Beast models.

After, I took command of the Imperial army to put paid to Gustavus Adolphus' attempt to turn the tide of the Thirty Years War (as commanded by Andy and Victor, and put on by Kevin). This was something of a test game for the Pike and Shotte rules from Warlord.

Closing lines, from the Imperial point of view.

Swedish maneuvering

Imperial left flank and center getting it rather rough

Our verdict was that it's a decent rules set, and worth playing again. One house rule we'll probably be using is to grant a commander a single activation if they fail their first command roll in their turn - something both the Saxons and the Imperials needed to take advantage of several turns in a row.

Napoleonic Shako game and Khurasan Fantasy figures

A belated quicky:

I played the French right flank in a Peninsular game versus the perfidious Spaniards the other day, using the classic Shako rules and 1/72 (or 20mm) figures. Good fun, though my flank was rather badly used by the Spanish - the French dragoons were run off by their counterparts, which seems terribly unfair to the victors of Austerlitz.

Most of my time recently has been spent painting up some Khurasan 15mm fantasy figures for a friend. I'm quite happy with the results:

Coming soonish: A Republican Roman legion I've been working on, more Napoleonics, and perhaps some Saga or Warmachine stuff.

Warmachine Tourney Report

After last week's unpleasant tournament, I stewed for a bit and then decided to stick with it, and signed up for a tourney this Sunday at the Portland Game Store. I took the same two warlocks, Wurmwood and Tanith, but tweaked the lists significantly. (It didn't hurt that the Leyline Podcast from Hand Cannon Online put out a Tanith list I could crib. Like I've said, I dislike list building. )

This was a much nicer experience. The location was a bit nicer - PGS is on a walkable street with some nice restaurants nearby, and only twenty minutes from my house. It was considerably cooler weather. OTOH, I'm fighting a cold, so that's a minus. But mostly, I played better. I still only went 1-2, but I'm much happier with how I played. If I hadn't clocked myself on the second game, I might have gone 2-1.

So. Glad I went.

Circle Orboros Update

Well, I'm making progress with Circle Orboros, sort of. I still haven't won any games with the faction, but I'm selling on my warlocks to focus on: Wurmwood, Krueger 1 and Krueger 2, and Tanith. That's two for Champions format and they should all work reasonably well for standard Steamroller formats. Unfortunately, much as I love the game play of Warmachine, this whole experience is reminding me how much I don't care for the list building part of... well, any game. It's one thing I much prefer about historicals. Ah well... give it a few more months and the community will have come up with some decent lists I can copy, and then I can just focus on table time.

Painting - and Gaming - Update, July 2016

I've been rather terrible at updating the blog, but I've been keeping busy regardless.

On the painting front, I've finished some Perry Brothers samurai, and some Hordes models.

Perry Brothers spear and bow ashigaru, and one errant samurai.

Back row: two Efaarit Scouts. Front row: Lanyssa Ryssyl (L) and Alten Ashley (R)

Painting the Efaarit Scouts was a real pleasure. They're very well done models.

L to R: Wold Wyrd, Tanith the Feral Song, Baldur the Stonecleaver, Wild Argus

Gaming wise, I've been playing in the local Journeyman League for Warmachine & Hordes, and enjoying it a fair bit. I'm very much enjoying the Circle Orboros playstyle, and so far I'm having a good experience with the Mark III rules. Sadly, no pics of this...

But I am getting some more historical stuff in. I did a demo of Blucher at the last Portland Historical Wargames day, which was nice and portable using cards and flat terrain. Someday, I'll get on with rebasing and painting all my 6mm figures for it...

Technically in June, I played a biggish Gaugamela refight as seen below, using the Armati system. (At least, I think it was Gaugamela.)

Deployment

Lines advancing

Elephant-eye view!

Oooh, that's a lot of casualties. (That's Darius on the chariot in the back.)

This one went contrary to history, with a Persian victory - and most notably, Alexander's capture by Persian horsemen midway through the fight! No "the Great" in this battle's timeline...

Painting Update - June 2016

Been a bit slow on the painting front lately. With Warmachine Mk III coming out, I've decided to drop Skorne for the foreseeable future - every time I look at the new cards, I'm just disappointed. Instead, I've been working on Circle Orboros. Though, to be frank, I'm not sure I'll continue with Warmachine - I'm much less interested in the list building and competitive aspect of wargaming than I was a few years ago, and I simply don't have the time to stay competitive anyway. Still, my first game of Mk III was pretty fun, and reminded me how much I do enjoy the game itself. So here's my latest batch of cannibal druids and their monsters:

Kaya the Wildborne, Warpborn Skinwalkers, Gallows Groves, Gnarlhorn Satyr, and Feral Warpwolf

Enfilade 2016

Rather belated, but...

Enfilade took place, as usual, on Memorial Day weekend at the Olympia Red Lion. Let me get the bad out of the way first: The hotel was in the middle of renovations, so, while the convention hall was in good shape, the rest of the hotel was a mix of brand new (and still off-gassing) material and raw plywood. They also seemed to be short-staffed for the entire weekend in the lounge/restaurant, which was pretty disappointing. Still, props to the staff themselves, who worked very hard to keep us wargamers happy.

I don't remember what it was, but it looked good!

 On to the good!

Apparently, we had more attendees than any previous year, with an odd concentration on Friday night.

Alyssa's Battle of Watling Street game

Alyssa ran her Battle of Watling Street game with much success, getting the best game for that period, as well as best in theme, if I recall correctly.

WW2 Action

I don't remember this one, either...

 The first game I played was a Blitzkrieg Commander set up, with 15mm models on a decent-looking table. I do need to make one of those tablecloths, as seen below...

The setup was simple - the Germans are defending, while the Americans try to punch through across the river, somewhere in Belgium. The Germans begin with most of their forces coming on the table, while the Americans begin entirely off table and have to do some traffic management to bring their force - divided into four parts - on to the table.

American forces in the Bulge

  And that's where it rather fell apart, in my opinion. My American co-commanders were both pre-teen boys, and while I'm all for bringing new blood into the hobby it's a damned annoying experience to have them completely fail to hold one side of the table - and to prevent a full quarter of your own army from coming on, as well!

Americans getting stuck in - and stuck - during the battle

The scenario limited the Americans to three access points, and thanks to BKC's activation system - and the scale of the figures - it was impossible to get one's entire force on in one turn. The far right commander managed to create such a traffic jam that he prevented the American reserve force, which included the American CiC, from even coming on the table. Meanwhile, the Germans managed to push so far forward across the river on that flank that they cut off the left flank from any reinforcements.

All in all, it was a rather frustrating game. It wasn't helped by the referee, whose vocal style might best be described as "barking". Still, the scenario itself wasn't terrible, and the rules are ok.

The Swedes vs the Empire, all lined up. Gustav's on the far left.

 My next game was altogether more enjoyable, despite having a couple of teens on my side. Kevin ran the Battle of Lutzen, Thirty Years War, Swedes versus the Holy Roman Empire. He used 15mm figures and De Bellis Renationis with some rules updates from DBA 3.0.

Imperial cavalry on the road

 I took command of the Swedish cavalry and its associated commanded foot, which was pretty nice - covering the right flank against Croats and cuirassiers.

Lines closing

 The game ran quite smoothly, though one of the Swedish commanders had some trouble with understanding how to allocate pips from his command dice - he kept trying to use pips from the Scots to command the Swedes in front, which wasn't workable.

After the initial clash - Scottish mercenaries in the back rank, ready to step in

Swedish and Imperial cavalry get stuck in

The right (cavalry) flank is a furball

In the end, it was a close-fought Swedish victory when the period ended - while the Empire still had forces on the field, the Scottish contingent on the Swedish side was just getting into the fight and still fresh.

The Scots are stuck in, probably tipping the battle to the Protestant side.

On the whole, I'm really beginning to warm to the DBA system. It's not my favorite, and I still feel it's too opaque to new players, but it does run pretty smoothly and quickly when all the players are familiar with the modifiers. I think it may, despite my best intentions, become the game I end up playing the most in the next five years or so.

Ancients in 15mm - Gaugamela

 

Barbarians ready to overrun a Roman fort

Roman fort ready to repel the barbarians

Saga - my Crusaders prepare to take on some Scots

Next up was the Saga tournament, but most of the players had gotten their games in during the previous period. I got to play against a fellow who had Scots, a most durable and damnably defensive army. (He also had this neat project where he'd been making unit cards for each army - very pretty, and quite helpful!) Against my highly aggressive Crusaders, it was a bloodbath. Mostly for me. I should have dismounted my knights, as they ended up having to charge into terrain quite a lot. I still managed to scrape out a win, barely, by scoring more scenario points by turn six. Had the game continued for another turn or so, he'd have tabled me.

The Conflict - initial march

Saturday evening I had volunteered to work the registration desk, but the organizer decided to close it - so I gave Bill Hughes' The Conflict another shot.

Form Square!

This time I had a much better experience than last year - they seem to have cleaned up their refereeing system quite a bit and I'm much more familiar with Napoleonic warfare than I was. Still, I came to the conclusion that - while it's well-done - it's much too far on the rivet-counting side of wargaming for my taste. They're planning on publishing it next year, and I hope it does well. I'll probably pick up a copy, even if I never play it again.

So that was my Enfilade experience. I didn't play as many games as I'd have liked, nor did I clear as much at the Bring & Buy as I'd hoped (though I did manage to liquidate all my old Flames of War and Warmachine books), but on the whole it was a lot of fun. I bought into Frostgrave, splitting a box of soldiers and a box of cultists from Twin Lakes Books with James; bought a heck of a lot of terrain from Monday Knight Productions for my 6mm Napoleonics; and picked up a few odd rules sets from the Bring and Buy and the Game Matrix. Ted Henkle's posted a nice round up of other blog posts that give a more complete picture of the convention. Looking forward to next year!

Battle Report: Watling Street, and thoughts on Bear Yourselves Valiantly

Boudicea's vengeful horde

 We took a first crack at Alyssa's Battle of Watling Street scenario for Enfilade last night. She's using the Bear Yourselves Valiantly rules, with a fair number of modifications to suit the scenario, and this run through was more playtest than anything else.

Roman defenders, ready to stick it to the hairy barbarians

 Bear Yourselves Valiantly is a decent rules set, IMO. It plays faster than it looks, and I do love the card activation. I'm also a fan of the big bases (in this game, each base was 120mm wide). Still, it's not what I'd call my perfect ancients set.

Chariots and naked warriors smash into the Roman line

 It uses a d10 for combat resolution, which can feel rather swingy - without a bell curve, results feel like they can be all over the place rather than trending toward an average with less common outliers. It's much the same gripe I have with Savage Worlds, to look at the RPG side of things for a moment. Because of the importance of the Morale Value for each unit, it's also rather fiddly to get the MV just right - too high and your units break instantly, too low and they never do. But given that even an MV of 3 means that a unit will fail a morale test on 25% (I think) of its checks, MVs have to be rather low to begin with... This is less a flaw or a feature of the system than just part of the way it works.

View of some Celts - Alyssa's been on a painting tear with these, doing everything on the table in the last four months or so

 The writing, too, is not quite as clear as I'd like - despite the author's claims that it doesn't require charts, I think a simple quick reference sheet for players is extremely helpful - especially one that lays out exactly which dice you need to roll for each situation.

End of game due to time, though clearly it still had several turns of potential to come to a conclusion.

Speaking of dice, BYV uses special dice - six of 'em - to give results for leadership checks, random order checks, tests to close and tests to receive the charge. This is probably my favorite part of the system, as once you get used to the dice it makes the game play quite quick.

Overall, I'm ok with the system. I'm looking forward to playing a few more games of Bear Yourselves Valiantly and I also plan on checking out their Fate of Battle variant for Napoleonics.

An April Summary

This past April was rather light on both painting and gaming; I've been rather distracted with a number of non-gaming things. Oddly enough, my historicals this month were confined entirely to sea...

Enfilade playtest

Post-Battle

Early in the month, Andy ran us poor landlubbers through a playtest of a scenario he's working on for Enfilade - I'll say no more than that, save that was a fun experiment with a refereed double-blind game, and that it involved the Pacific Theatre.

England expects every man to... muck it up and run into his fleetmates!

Later in the month, we broke out Alyssa's enormous Sails of Glory collection and tried that game out for the first time. It's an adaptation of the flightpath system used in Wings of Glory and the X-Wing Miniatures Game, tuned to work for naval warfare in the Napoleonic era.

Three British 3rd rates face off against French counterparts

 The game - even with all the optional rules - plays very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that with six newbie players each commanding a single ship, we were able to knock out three games in the evening.

Maneuvering: Harder than it looks

 There were perhaps more ship-to-ship collisions than might have been expected, but...

See above!

...it was remarkably good fun. So much so that I went out and bought several more ships for my own collection. Looking forward to playing this again.

Historical Games Day

Saga - Scots vs Vikings, Viking win

 As usual, we had the Historical Miniatures Wargames day on the third Saturday of the month, coinciding with the Sails of Glory game evening. I demoed Sails of Glory to Gabe and saw a Saga and a Lion Rampant game go down.

Lion Rampant - Hundred Years War, IIRC

Warmachine & Hordes

I drove down to Corvallis at the beginning of the month for the little Just-A-Games Con at the Elks lodge there. This year the tourney wasn't really well attended. Only six players, and one dropped after the second round, so... I took Zaal 1/Zaal 2 theme forces for ease of packing, and found out that neither one is a good answer to Butcher 3 after I had to play against him twice, losing terribly each time. My opponents were perfectly pleasant, and the organizer did his best, but... well, the highlight of the trip was the sandwich I had for lunch at Togo's. And it was a pleasant drive, so there's that.

Of course, this was all cast deep in shade by Privateer Press' announcement this month of the next edition of Warmachine and Hordes! Mark 3, as everyone except PP is calling it, will be pre-released at Lock & Load in June, and released at retail on June 29. This has had two effects in the local group: everyone's very excited about Mark 3, and no one has much motivation to play competitive Mark 2 games. So we're seeing a lot of very oddball games lately as people try out those weird things they've been thinking about for years, before the new edition rolls out.

Painting

Painting-wise, I've been focusing on a particular commission - some Saga Pagan Rus for CGR Painters. Pictures of that to follow when I get it done in a week or two. I must say, it's a pleasure to paint Gripping Beast figures.

As for May, well... once this commission's done, I'm going to try to knock out a few Warmachine models before the new edition, and then get to work finishing my 15mm WW2 skirmish stuff. But the highlight of the month promises to be Enfilade. Really, really planning on not buying (too many) unpainted figures this year...