Sunday 31 May 2015

Seleukids on the march

Well, somehow it transpired that I never bothered myself to get the chickenpox when I was a kid. Even when my friends or my brother had it, I was just never that 'into' contagious diseases and didn't catch it.

Just over two weeks ago, my son got it. Now I am ridden with the pox and I'm not a happy camper; blisters everywhere, including one in one of my eyes. 

On the upside, it looks like I'll be off work a little while and I've already managed to paint four more infantry units for my 6mm Seleukids project/obsession. I thought I'd just pop 'em all out on the table to see how it's getting on.


My conclusions: I think I need more heavy cavalry. My cavalry already dominates the battlefield - and might be able to take on all my opponents' cavalry together with a fighting chance - but it just feels like I need more. It's not that I'm addicted to cavalry, I can stop any time I want to.


This army roster shows the current state of play. For anyone who is interested, it takes into account our universal use of commanders with leadership values of 9, and the bloc adoption of 'feigned flight' for mounted units and light infantry, and 'steady' for heavy infantry. 

I still have two units of light cavalry on the shelf waiting to be painted. If I add a few heavy cavalry units as well, that aught to bring me up to 1000 points ... and then there are the hoplites and Samnites also on the shelf which I will use to convert the Hellenistic core of the army into the forces of Pyrrhos of Epeiros.

Tuesday 19 May 2015

First look - Pendraken 10mm Picts

As my prize from this year's Pendraken painting competition, I ordered some of the new 10mm Picts to flesh out my two Dux Bellorum armies (nether of whom are Picts I might add).

Over the weekend I was able to slap a bit of paint on the new chaps and take a few grainy pictures.




These are the Pictish cavalry. There are only two sculpts, which is quite a shame, as these are very versatile generic hairy cavalry types. The model with the spear/javelin is really quite splendid, although I'm not a huge fan of the horse for the other sculpt. Both figures wear trousers, long sleeved tunics and cloaks. The sword waving chap has a simple helmet and both obviously carry small-medium sized round shields.


I've painted mine up to be riders - non-noble cavalary - for my Romano-British army. Here they are alongside a unit of noble riders (Pendraken Late Roman armoured cavalry). The Picts are quite a bit slighter than the Romans but this is more noticeable in the horses than the riders themselves. I have no problems using them in the same army, and the photo shows that, once painted, there's not a huge difference in size. I'm not sure I'd put them on the same bases though.



On this base I have a mix of Pictish skirmishers with javelins (square shields) and Pendraken Welsh spearmen (round shields). The Picts come in a pack together with early crossbowmen which is fine, but a bit odd in my opinion. Perhaps some rules sets call for mixed units? Regardless, what it means is that there is only one sculpt for javelineers and one sculpt for crossbowmen. In order to make up a unit of skirmishers with javelins, The Pict javelineers are dressed in long tunics and cloaks and carry the square shields that are so often used as a short hand to designate 'Picts'. I mixed in some of the spare Welsh. Again, the Welsh are slightly heftier than the Picts, but that is not really noticeable, even on the same base.


I painted my skirmishers up to support my Irish army, but used duller tones on the tunics than I have used on the noble warrior bases to represent the skirmishers lower status. Somewhere - and I wish I could remember where - I have seen an early Medieval representation of Irish warriors with square shields. I think it was on a carved high cross, but I've completely gone blank as to where it was. Anyway, it was enough justification for me to mix a couple of square shields in with my skirmishers.

Saturday 16 May 2015

Galleys & Galleons - Update and a Give Away!

The play testing of Galleys & Galleons has gone very well and we are about to enter the proofing stage. I'm not particularly fond of tempting fate, but I can't see too many scenarios stopping the rules from being released on schedule - in time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th.

I thought I post a few more pictures to give an idea of some different fleet types possible in the game. So far I have shown off my pirate fleet, and my Dutch East India Company fleet.

Powering out of port, propelled by the sweat of enslaved oarsmen, I'd like now to present my Barbary Corsairs. The three galleys are from Skytrex with Peter Pig deck crew; the xebec (as some of you may have seen) is a conversion based on a Peter Pig schooner.



The Corsairs
The Galley Sultana - 48 points
Q3 C3
Special Rules: Galley, Intimidating, Swashbucklers, Yare

The Galliot Emir - 50 points
Q2 C2
Special Rules: Derring-do, Galley, Shallow draft, Swashbucklers, Yare

The Galliot Pasha - 50 points
Q2 C2
Special Rules: Derring-do, Galley, Shallow draft, Swashbucklers, Yare

The Xebec Zenobie - 50 points
Q3 C2
Special Rules: Lateen rigged, Razée, Shallow draft, Swashbucklers, Sweeps

Joining them from beyond the edge of the map are a couple of creatures from the deep. The Triton is from Pendraken, and the big fish is from Impact Miniatures.



The Creatures of the Deep
Triton - 126 points
Q3 C4
Special Rules: Creature, Flagship, Ramming, Submersible

Sea Monster - 72 points
Q4 C4
Special Rules: Creature, Ramming, Submersible

I have also had a couple of decks of cards made up for determining player turn order in multiplayer games. These aren't anything essential for the game, but I was feeling flippant. There are 11 different characters, so everyone at the table should be able to find a card to match their own style. As there was no point just ordering 11 cards, I ordered multiple decks along with some extra cards with little wind gauges on them. Some sample images are shown below. I will have a chat with Andrea at Ganesha, and we'll see what process we'll use to give away the extra packs!


  









Friday 15 May 2015

Mighty Monsters News Update: European Empire increases spending for Imperial Response Groups


In breaking news, the European Ministry of Defense had announced that it has seen fit to increase spending on the armed forces, bolstering each Imperial Response Group to include a full platoon of Special Forces Storm Troopers including a brace of Shadow Scouts, a Banshee Gun Ship, Goliath Mobile Artillery Unit and a Vixen Battle Walker.

Costing 600 points, the Imperial Response Group is ready to tackle even the mightiest of Mighty Monsters.


Irregular Wars - Zapotecs vs Conquistadors

Yoyo Skywalker has been at it again and has posted two great little AARs from recent games of Irregular Wars. I re-post a couple of photos from his games below, but for the full story and many more pictures, check out his original blog post HERE.

The first game saw the conquistadors ambushed by the Zapotecs.


The second game saw the conquistadors making a punitive raid against a Zapotec village.