Irregular Wars Wargaming

*Record Scratch* *Freeze Frame* " Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got into this situation … " Andrew and I continued our gnomes and goblins campaign this week with another encounter. I had spent some of the loot accrued over the last two glorious victories to hire a new minion for the bog goblins, this time a little chap with a net and the trapper trait. Otherwise, the parties were the same as previously: Clachtoll the unstoppable wyvern and his little gobo jockey, Nigg, along with their two minions (archer and trapper), against the gnomes, Hrolf, Haakon and Hans, and their two fox minions.  Rolling for objectives, both parties ended up with NPC focused missions. The gnomes had to keep the peace, ensuring no NPCs were slain, while not making the first aggressive action. As for the goblins, they were trying to win over the hearts and minds of the local populace, striving to convince them the join the boggy gobby side rather than the notoriously nosey gn...

I've had these 3D sculpted traps from Vae Victis sitting around for a while and, after taking the head staggers with work this week, have finally gotten around the painting and basing them. In Fantastic Scuffles , traps can be set by models with the trapper trait during a regular encounter, or can be placed by the dungeon master during a dungeon delving scenario. Depending on the players' needs and wants, traps come in five varieties: bear traps, fire traps, pit traps, poison traps and spike traps. They can be based on anything up to a 40mm base - all these are on 30mm rounds. Lyra Halfcraft negotiating some bear traps. The Wolf, caught between what could be a fire, poison or spike trap, and a poorly disguised pit trap.  Flint Runehammer nestled between a fire trap and a spike trap. And because you were all thinking it...

Over the last few weeks there have only been a few snatched hours here and there to paint, so I have been slowly working on the second unit (and first infantry unit) of my 10mm Romano-British army for Fantastic Battles . Again, these are entirely Pendraken miniatures, taken from a mix of packs in the Late Roman range to give a real levy/ad hoc sense to the pedyt shield wall.  Rather than a single uniform shield device, I went a little wild with variations of geometric patterns, chi rhos, and alpha-omega in black and white marking what is most definitely a levy unit from a Christian civic community. I have aspirations for other shield walls to be more uniform, or more wild from the hills.

This week, Andrew and I played another couple of games of Fantastic Scuffles with new parties: he with woodland gnomes, and me with bog goblins.  In the first encounter, the gnomes were tasked with escorting four religious novices through a woods, while the goblins had been hired to hunt a golem stalking the same woods. The gnomes decided to play it aggressively, making short work of the goblin minion archer, but the remaining goblin and his wyvern led the golem a merry dance, into the gnomes. In the end, the gnomes went down fighting, but they weren't strong enough to cause much more than a scratch to the heavily armoured goblin. The second encounter saw the goblins recruited to vandalise a monument, while the gnomes were trying to steel an object of 'purely sentimental value' from the goblin minion. This was a very fast game as the wyvern quickly knocked down the dolmen, and the gnomes realised they had little to gain here and bottled shortly after. More anon!

Andrew and I continued to test the Fantastic Scuffles campaign system last week ( following on from this earlier game ), playing two more encounters between my Itinerant Adventurers, and Andrew's Restless Dead. For the second encounter of the campaign, the parties were the same as the first. There were just three adventurers: Crom the ogre warrior, Balthazar the seer, and Lyra the halfling rogue. Facing them were two undead characters: the bloodless king (a warrior) and the mummified priestess (a seer), along with three minions with swords and large shields. Balthazar carried a hand wound over from the previous encounter, while the bloodless king had a lasting leg wound. Rolling for objectives, the adventurers had a contract to hunt down any opposing seers and take them out of action, while the undead were searching for a hidden treasure located near one of the gate pillars of the little walled shrine (centre bottom in the photo above).  Advancing boldly, the undead priestess move...

Between work and other commitments, I have not managed a lot of painting recently. This weekend, however, I did get the first three-company unit painted for my Fantastic Battles 10mm post-Roman British army. These are from the Pendraken Late Roman range. Well armoured and carrying spears, swords and shields, in-game, these will be a built as an elite company, probably also using the mounted, barrage and skirmisher traits to allow then to dash forwards and away, hurling their spears, but still able to hold their own in a melee. As this is the first unit of a new army, I have provided rather too many photos. As I become more jaded, I'm sure I will suffice with just one photo per unit! The shields are inspired by one of the designs in the Notitia Dignitatum showing a stylised dog/wolf/dragon head. The exemplar has a wee Christ/saint's head off to the right - not something I felt confident of attempting on shield less than 5mm across.  Horse butts...

This week it was great to catch up with Andy T, an old gaming mate I haven't seen in person in years; certainly not since before Covid. We got in two games of Fantastic Scuffles over the evening - one with 200 point parties, and one with 100 points. The first match up saw my gnomes with a blood feud trying to slay one of Andy's ruffians (the toughest one with all the armour a luck would have it!), while his ne'er-do-wells were trying to get a message across the board. Rolling for environmental conditions, the weather was fine, but it was dark, hampering all our dice rolls. This was my first time running the gnomes (although they have been out before under Jim's command), and it took a couple of turns to work out the best strategy for using the vehicle rules. I was just getting used to the concept indeed when a thug with a great axe split the poor bunny chariot in half, ending the experiment.  My poor gnomes were quite unprepared for the amount of hand-to-hand combat th...

Wayward sisters, you that fright The lonely traveller by night. Who, like dismal ravens crying, Beat the windows of the dying, Appear! Appear at my call, and share in the fame Of a mischief shall make all Carthage Frommage flame Appear! It’s the evening after May Day and so time for more Devilry. This time the local coven of Witches (the Fineshade Ladies’ Progressive Association) has been bolstered by some visitors from the South, who are working on a new form of witchcraft they plan to try out on the Great Wen in the future. Enough with the sour milk and stuck doors, it’s time to get serious. And Frommage will be the first test of this new mischief. Tonight’s cast is … The Witches (Photo #1) There are 4 Witches, shown here with their Imps. The wolves are to show that when they change shape all the Witches assume Wolf form. The Hunters (Photo #2) Only two Watch members are on duty tonight, following a mysterious outbreak of stomach ache among other Watchfolk. Hmmm. But they have some...

  After an objectively Sisyphean week/month/quarter at work, it was a delightful moment when my new 10mm beauties arrived from Pendraken Miniatures on Friday. These are the start of a new Post-Roman British army for Fantastic Battles .  Expect sporadic updates for many months to come!

A few of the gents from the Irish Historical Wargamers Guild met up for another of our Big Game Sundays last week to play a spot of Hail Caesar .  We once more played an apocryphal match up between the objectively true heroes of the ancient world (AKA the Seleukids) and their Punic pals (Tony and myself), against the barbarous hordes of Iberia and the Roman Republic (Karl, Paul and Garry). The nominal and not really at all significant objective for both sides was to hold the oasis in the centre, uncontested, for two turns. I'm not overly fussed with playing on such a cramped table, but we only had two terrain mats and nobody wants to leave painted toys off the table. It did look impressive if I do say so myself! The mighty line of 28mm heroes. The savage line of 28mm barbarians. The Seleukid line was matched against the Iberians and about a third of the total number of Romans. The Seleukids looked the business, but their force contained rather more cavalry, light infantry and skirm...