DBA Republican Romans

I just finished my first proper army for De Bellis Antiquitas: Polybian Romans from Essex Miniatures, suitable for fighting Carthage or Syria. I'm pretty happy to have finished an entire table - ready army in a week. Next up I need to finish the Japanese and Galatian armies to oppose them...

July Historical Day

Saturday was the monthly historical miniatures wargame day at Guardian Games, and for the first time in quite a while we had more than just me and Gabe, thanks to a crowd that came up from Salem. I played Saga with Oliver, and my Crusaders sadly lost to his Saracens on scenario.*

Saga - Vikings versus Pagan Rus

We played a couple other Saga games - Finns vs. Jomsvikings and Vikings vs. Pagan Rus - as well as trying out a game of Lion Rampant.

Lion Rampant

* So my main game is Warmachine, and one of the reasons it does well competitively is because of the updated-yearly Steamroller packet, which contains the official tournament format(s) and scenarios. I'm going to try adapting a few features of that to Saga. The easy sell is the scenarios; the hard sell is using a chess clock or timed turns, as I've found most non-Warmachine players are extremely reluctant to use them...

Battle Report: That's A Huge Base Tournament, July 18, Haven Gaming

I competed in a Warmachine Master's format tourney this past Saturday down at Haven Gaming in Salem. I didn't do very well, 2-2. I'm feeling pretty burned out on competitive Warmachine right now, to be honest; I don't feel like I can keep up with the competitive players simply because I don't have the time to dedicate to practice and theory. And I'm not sure it's really worth it, in the larger scheme of life, to make time...

But enough maundering. The games!

I brought the following lists, using the ADR rules. Rasheth is the caster I'm most comfortable with, and since my meta has a preponderance of Legion, he's a really solid drop in most competitions. Makeda is there to drop against Cryx and Cygnar, but I'm very inexperienced with this list.

Archdomina Makeda

* Mammoth

* Cyclops Raider

* Basilisk Krea

Mortitheurge Willbreaker

Extoller Soulward

Cataphract Cetrati (max)

Venator Slingers

Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer

Paingiver Beast Handlers (minimum)

Specialists:

Cataphract Incindiarii (max)

Gatorman Witch Doctor

Cyclops Shaman

Tyrant Vorkesh

Objective: Bunker

Dominar Rasheth (Chain Gang theme force, Tier 4)

* Titan Gladiator

* Titan Sentry

* Titan Cannoneer

* Bronzeback Titan

* Basilisk Krea

Agonizer

Agonizer

Agonizer

Paingiver Task Master

Gatorman Posse (max)

Paingiver Beast Handlers (minimum)

Specialists:
* Titan Sentry

* Basilisk Drake

* Basilisk Drake

* Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

Objective: Arcane Wonder

Round 1: Vyros, Incissar of the Dawn

Turn Three, and Ryan's set the line of engagement well forward for him.

First game was against Ryan, who brought Vyros 2 and Issyria to the party - both at tier 4. He dropped Vyros with a battlegroup evenly split between heavy and light 'jacks. I countered with Makeda, and swapped out the Krea so I could bring in the Gatorman Witch Doctor to Tough my infantry.

The scenario was Close Quarters. I lost the roll and selected the side without the enormous obstruction in front of the deployment zone. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake, since the wheat field (rough terrain) on the side I did choose turned out to be something of a problem.

At any rate, he moved up the board extremely quickly, and managed to jam me out of the middle of the board. Although I killed just about all of his army, I wasn't able to contest my own flag, and he was able to win on scenario by turn 4.

Round 2: Lich Lord Terminus

Turn two: Cetrati hold the line against Mechanithralls.

Kyle brought Lich Lord Terminus and the now-ubiquitous Deneghra 2 Body & Soul Tier. He dropped Terminus, to my regret; I can deal with Body & Soul, but the Terminus list brought way, way too much meat for me to kill. Bane Thralls, two Mechanithralls units, and, of course, two units of Stitch Thralls. I dropped Makeda again, and swapped out the Slingers and the Krea for the Incindiarii. I probably should have actually taken the Cetrati off the table instead, just to maximize my ranged attacks.

The scenario was Recon. Terrain made little difference in this game, except for the craters in the zone. I'd assumed they were simply rough terrain, while he thought they granted cover (+4 Defense). Remember, kids, talk out terrain with your opponent before the game starts!

This game went much like the last; he managed to jam me out of scenario, and though I did kill quite a few zombies, I wasn't able to contest. He killed my objective, dominated a flag, and controlled the zone to win by turn 3.

Round 3: Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight

No picture for this one; it was too blurry.

Don brought Thagrosh 1 and Abyslonia 2, and dropped Thags T4 - two full units of Warspears, Carnivean, Ravagore, Scythean. I dropped Rasheth and subbed out the Cannoneer for the two Drakes.

The scenario was Outflank; I lost the roll and picked a side. The only terrain that mattered was a forest between the two scenario zones which divided my forces, but made no difference to the Legion units.

This match up was one I'm quite comfortable with. I jammed out one side with fast moving Gators, used the Drakes to engage the other side, and brought my beasts up the middle. The Sentry with Carnivore under feat was able to remove both his Ravagore and Carnivean in a single turn. After that, it became a bit of a grind; I narrowly avoided assassination thanks to Thagrosh not having Eyeless Sight to draw LOS through a forest, and then was able to finish off Thagrosh himself with the Bronzeback.

Round 4: Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight

Rasheth's POV on turn two

Derek had Absylonia 2 and Kallus; he dropped Aby, I dropped Rasheth. Lost the roll, picked a side (same table I played round 2 on, as it happens), and we got underway with the Destruction scenario.

Aby had a pair of Blight Wasp swarms, two Scytheans, a Seraph, and an Extreme Carnivean. I used the same setup as I had in round 3. This game was a bit tighter than last round. Derek was able to kill off quite a bit of my pieces, but I caught him out with a classic Gladiator slam & follow up assassination.

All told, not a bad tournament. It went to 5 rounds, but I dropped after round 4 to get home at a reasonable hour. But I think this will be my last tournament for a few months, maybe for the rest of the year.

Painting Update: Summer 2015

It's miserably hot in Portland right now, which means I'll be spending as much time as possible in the basement, where it's cool, painting. The 2015 summer Cog Collective painting challenge is in full swing, so I'll be working toward that as well as polishing off a few unfinished projects that have been taking up space for far too long.

Cog Challenge

For this year, I'm limiting myself to just four projects, and I don't even expect to finish one of them. They are:

Essex post-Mongol Japanese army for DBA

Old Glory Crusaders, for SAGA
These probably won't get done, because I need to order spears and that probably won't happen till August

Krueger the Stormwrath, a Pureblood Warpwolf, and a Shadowhorn Satyr
These are for the summer Journeyman league, and about the only Warmachine models I plan on carrying out from start to finish this summer.

Battlefront WW2 Hungarian infantry, for a commission

As for unfinished projects, they are legion. In order of priority, more or less:

• Skorne Mammoth. Really need this for an anti-Cryx list.
• Kings of War Undead army. Interest in KoW is rising in Portland thanks to the imminent release of 2nd edition as well as GW's release of the very different Age of Sigmar to replace Warhammer Fantasy. This will invovle some rebasing, something I swore I would never do...
• Assorted Minion models for Warmachine - Gatorman Posse, Bog Trog Shamblers, and Efaarit Scouts.
• Not quite unfinished so much as not yet begun, but I have an army of Essex Attalid Pergamenes that I want to get finished so as to have something to throw against my Seleucid force in Field of Glory.

So that's a summer's worth of work, easily. We'll see how much actually gets done.

Hougomont in Napoleon at War

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Waterloo refight at Haven Gaming in Salem. Well, due to some confusion in the arrangements, it turned out to be separate refights of Hougomont and Ney's cavalry charge on separate tables. I took command of the French light infantry assaulting the British position at Hougomont.

The game was Napoleon At War, my first time playing it, and this scenario was drawn from the Hundred Days supplement. We used plastic 1/72 figures from several manufacturers, I think. (I painted one battalion for the organizers, and my take away is that I'm fine with the scale but detest the soft plastic material.)

French light infantry deployed in attack column in the foreground.

We deployed as we chose, French first. The British deployed with one battalion holding the farmhouse, the Nassau battalion holding the wall, and another battalion to their left in the woods. (The treeline in the photo above represents the edge of the woods, which extend back to the British table edge.) I deployed my six battalions with three in attack column to move up to the Hougomont, two on the right flank in line to prevent any outflanking, and one just behind in attack column to act as a reserve.

French advance. Leftmost battalion has taken the house.

The first two turns went swimmingly for the French; the leftmost battalion performed valiantly and stormed the farmhouse, destroying the occupying British battalion. In the center, I advanced more cautiously; on the right, advanced to exchange fire with the Allied troops in the woods.

Same table state as above, different view.

British reserves trickled on throughout the game, but did not get into action until turn five and six.

Turn four...

By turn four, the French light infantry had two battalions, one at full strength, occupying the farmhouse. An initial assault on the Nassau troops behind the wall had failed, but they now faced three battalions in attack column. Meanwhile, the battalion on the right had inflicted a nasty blow to their opponents, who had fallen back in good order, and took up position behind the wall.

Battle's end.

At last the line infantry came up from the French reserve. The three battalions opposing the Nassau troops assaulted, but the Nassau troops held the wall and nearly destroyed their attackers. In the farm compound, one Landwehr battalion was able to move into position to assault the French defenders... but they got cold feet at the last moment and the assault faltered.

The final result: a reversal of history, as the French gained a foothold in Hougomont from which they could not be dislodged.

As to the game, I found it rather nice. It played quickly; with both the French and British commanders completely new to the rules, we finished the game in about two hours (with considerable help from two experienced players acting as referees). It's been said that Napoleon at War is "Flames of War: Napoleonics" and that really rings true. It plays faster than FoW, though, and seems less fiddly. I liked it, though I thought the basing was maybe not to my taste.

Congrats and thanks to Oliver and the Wargames Oregon crew for setting this up and running it, and thanks to Haven Games for hosting it.

Lock & Load 2015: Master's Qualifier Report

Lock and Load 2015 was this past weekend, June 5-7. Since I live in Portland, it's an easy drive and after Enfilade, it's my favorite convention. This year I signed up for the first heat of the Masters Qualifier, so James and I left Portland before 6 to get there in time...

Qualifier Tournament Report

I brought carbon copies of Martin Hornacek's Masters' lists, because I'm terrible at list building and wanted to use the ADR rules. Mordikaar, who's a favorite caster, and Naaresh, who's not. But it availed me not...

Round 1

Deployment

Up against Brandon Anderson playing Body and Soul for a bad matchup to start things off, but this was the only game I won. His list was pretty straightforward B&S, and I dropped Mordikaar.

I was able to weather his feat pretty well due to him being about 1/4" further back from my lines than he thought he'd be, thus leaving huge amounts of my models able to move. We traded pieces back and forth until I was able to go in for a sneaky Essence Blast assassination and win the game.

Post assassination

Round 2

Deployment

This round saw me playing Jamie Perkins, noted tourney player, who was running Sorscha 2 with a bonded Conquest, Nyss hunters with Valachev, and the Winterguard Death Star. I dropped Naaresh into this one just to get him out of the way. Highlights of the game were Jamie's first turn, where he tried to pull off a double-handed throw assassination by pitching Alexia 2 at Naaresh. This, he told me, was to win a bet with Trent Denison. The assassination failed, but he was able to run roughshod over me with really clean, careful, fast play. Even though I lost to an assassination on turn 3, this was probably the game I most enjoyed playing in the tourney.

Post assassination

Round 3

This game wasn't a lot of fun. Not the fault of my opponent, save that he dropped a Skarre 1 list that pretty much took my Mordikaar out behind the woodshed and beat it six ways from Sunday. (Also, my opponent, Robert, was from my local meta, which always a little bit of a disappointment when you're hoping to play new people.) For his Ritual Sacrifice over the four turns of the game, he rolled 6 6 5 5, which pretty well put me on tilt. I lost on scenario.

End of game

Round 4

After my first turn.

Played Jon with his Khador. He ran a Harkevich list with Black Dragons, MoW Shocktroopers, Demolisher, Behemoth, and Black Ivan. For the first few turns, I pretty well had this game under control, to the point where I was able to jam his Black Dragons on one side and start scoring on my flag by turn 3. However, I'd shifted Tiberion too far to the left to deal with Behemoth and the MoWs, and when he slammed the Demolisher into my lines, I wasn't able to deal with it. I was running low on time, so I went for a low-probability assassination. It failed, and he was able to use his Demolisher to squish Mordikaar.

Right before the assassination.

Final Thoughts

To be honest, I'd have had more fun if I'd dropped after round 2; my game with Robert was very much not a fun experience, and I'd have been able to rack up some skulls in the Iron Arena or attend a painting hangout. It was also rather disappointing to face only Cryx and Khador... Still, I learned something from my games (positioning and don't lose sight of objectives), and I had enough fun. I'm also glad I made sure to pack some energy bars, 'cause not having to buzz off for food or dealing with hunger pangs made for a much more pleasant experience.

Final Record: 1 win by assassination, 2 losses by assassination, 1 loss by scenario. I felt I played quite well in first game, but not very well in the others.

I'm also not sold on ADR as a major advantage. I think it's a good edge, but not compared to having really solid practice with a caster already. So I'm excited for the next season's ADR, which has two casters with which I'm pretty well practiced and one caster with which I have a passing familiarity.

Enfilade 2015 in review

Memorial Day weekend is one of the highlights of my year, because that's when the Northwest Historical Miniature Game Society throws its flagship event: Enfilade. This year, it was in the Red Lion at Olympia, Washington, which is a very convenient drive for me.

Friday

James and I arrived in time to check in and then buzz off to the Fish brewpub for a tasty lunch. We got back in time to drop stuff off at the Bring and Buy and register for events. Well, James registered - I volunteered to help judge games for the first period. The highlight of this year's event was two very large Napoleonic games being run in half the hall, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. Friday was Ligny, while Saturday was Waterloo itself.

Battle of Ligny being set up

Something in 6mm

Judging the games was pretty quick; I and the fellow judges wandered around and checked each game for looks, organization, and the fun the players were having. We reached a verdict halfway through the period. With plenty of time left, I headed upstairs for the Warmachine open play.

Rasheth gets eaten by gators

 Sadly, the open play was very poorly attended, probably because of some late publicity and, to be honest, a lot of the attendees have no interest in fantasy gaming. I did get a game in with the organizer, Earnest, in which his gators crushed Rasheth's Skorne. This was damn near the exact same match up I'd played and lost to last week... Fun anyway.

Carthage defeated

After dinner, for second period, I tried out DBA for the first time. It was a learning event, Rome vs. Carthage, using the new DBA 3.0 rules. I liked it well enough to pick up the rules and a couple armies.

Ligny in progress on the big table

Saturday 

Crusaders prepare for the Viking onslaught

We kicked off Saturday with the SAGA tournament; I brought my Crusaders, and lost two of three games. It's really not a terribly good list, but it's all the models I have at the moment. The mounted knights I have on the painting table will improve it greatly, eventually. Congrats to Gabe for taking home the trophy with his Viking hearthguard deathstar.

The Conflict in progress

 For the afternoon session I signed up for Michael Hughes' The Conflict, a homebrew and quite developed set of grand battle Napoleonic rules. I have mixed feelings about this one. The rules were quite complex, in that way that seems simple to someone who's experienced with them but are pretty opaque to a newcomer. I'm still quite intrigued by the game, but I found actually playing - and coming in halfway through the (hypothetical) Battle of Antwerp - very frustrating. It was a case of not knowing what was going on, not knowing what to do, and the noise in the hall didn't help either. It's all the more frustrating because I think I'd quite like the game if I had a chance to play it in a quieter setting with better play aids for learning the game. (The only play aid at the table was a "How to play pamphlet" which involved playing through two scenarios and had a recommended running time of one hour. Not good.)

One good thing about the game was that it sold me off 6mm as a scale for pre-modern warfare. I want a little more pageantry from the figures, so I'll be sticking with 15mm for my ancients and black powder games. At least for now.

All that said, I have to say that I'm tempted to play The Conflict again.

Danes ready for the army of Karl the Great

After dinner, I sat down to try out Field of Glory for the first time, and took command of the right flank of the Danish army opposing Charlemagne in another battle that never happened. I cut out early as this one ran quite a bit later than my bedtime, but I had more action than anyone else on the Danish side: my brave shield bearers took the charge of Charlemagne's cavalry and acquitted themselves... well enough, I suppose.

I liked the system well enough, and it was well run, but I was already a bit grouchy from the last session and a lack of sleep, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have.

Karl's cavalry smash into the Danish right flank

Sunday & Final Thoughts

Neither James nor I had anything we wanted to play on Sunday, so we took a leisurely morning and stuck around for the business meeting. (Note for next year: bring a wargame or something to play in the mornings, as I'm an early riser.) Then it was back home for another year.

The Bring and Buy treated me well; out of a very large lot, I only brought home two items, and cleared enough to pay for both this trip and the Lock & Load trip that's coming up on the weekend of June 5. And I brought home a bit of swag:

• 15mm Essex Attalid Pergamene Flames of Glory army
• 15mm Essex DBA 2.2 armies for Post-Mongol Japanese, Republican Romans, and Carthaginians
• DBA 3.0 rulebook (and the Game Matrix's terrain set for DBA)
• Several Field of Glory Ancient and Renaissance supplements
• A couple Disposable Heroes supplements
• Some 15mm terrain for SF gaming
• Stargrunt II

All told, a quite satisfactory convention.