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Ilium: A Game of Heroes - somewhere in the Bosporos in the 8th year of the war

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This week we were putting the settlement raid mission through its paces again for Ilium: A Game of Heroes . The Achaeans were once more on the offensive, raiding a small Trojan-allied settlement somewhere in the Bosporos. The game was set a couple of years before the fall of Troy, and would see Penthesileia and Hektor fight side-by-side. We rolled for the attacker/defender, with the Trojans and their allies being the defenders. The Trojans began with Penthesileia, queen of the Amazons, holding the centre of the village, with the Achaean kings, Menestheus and Idomeneus, already on the outskirts. With the weight of numbers in their favour, the Achaeans pressed forward. Menestheus personally killed two of the Amazonian promachoi next to the village well, while the Achaean bowmen focused their fire on the Amazonian archers on the roof tops. Soon, the nearest two houses in the village were alight, with only Penthesileia and a single Amazonian warrior standing the way of the Achaean flood. H...
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Sponsored hovercar for WarGears

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The next wargear out of the starting blocks is a speedy hovercar. This is a 3d sculpt by sergioinglese , available for free on Thingiverse and printed for me in resin by the lads at Bristol 5 Games.  This mini hits the spot with its retro sci-fi vibe, tarted up with a few decals including a custom sponsorship logo from Irregular Wars... The glass (windows and headlights) all got a coat of nail polish wo give them a reflective lustre. It looks great in hand, but apparently makes it much harder to photograph!
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Another night raid for Ilium: A Game of Heroes

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Reprising the night raid scenario for Ilium: A Game of Heroes , this week my Trojan heroes (Aeneas and Penthesileia) snuck into the Andrew's Achaean camp (the sleeping Ajax, Achilles and Odysseus). The Trojans approached Ajax's contingent first. Aeneas slit the throat of one sleeping shield-bearer, before pouncing on the sentry who'd been staring off in the opposite direction. Despite hitting the sentry square in the back of the head, Aeneas' axe must have caught in the sentry's crest, and the hit failed to cause a wound (i.e. I rolled a one!). The sentry called out in alarm, waking Greater Ajax and all of his contingent except Lesser Ajax who continued to snore. Penthesileia now engaged the bigger Ajax, but failed to land a hit on her first attack, but then pursued her death-wish and converted her next failed attack into a hit by taking a wound herself. This allowed her to cause a savage three wounds.  While the Trojans were mired in combats that were far less one-...
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Nostalgic 90s Marine Scouts

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Over the course of the year I've been slowly working on some old (mostly) 2nd edition 40K Space Marine scouts and a chaplain. These likely lads have been painted up to join with my much more recent subversive Irish marines, the Éireannach Preservers . However, if fielded with a squad of ratlings from the Flores Minor Ranger Corp , there are 500 points of 2nd edition Warhammer 40K recon goodness. Ah yes, 2nd edition - back in the good aul days when the grimdark of the war-torn future was a lot more tongue-in-cheek.   Scout squad with swords and bolt pistols, with one lad with a heavy bolter. Scout squad with shotguns and sniper rifles. I believe the lad with the shotgun on the far left is actually 3rd edition (if still dating from the 1990s).  The Brother Chaplain is good aul craic.
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Devilry Afoot on Table Top Simulator

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And now for something a little different. I was contacted by Chris B recently who let me know that he'd played some Devilry Afoot on Table Top Simulator. While I'm aware of Table Top Simulator, I'm a bit analogue and have never used it, so I asked Chris how it worked and his thoughts. He graciously allowed me to share them, and a few pictures of his game. Chris begins:  Long story short, TTS does not handle the mechanics. TTS is "just" a physics engine that lets you move objects around on a table. That is a very simplified answer.  It has built in dice rollers and decks of cards. It has bags you can put tokens in, and then draw out randomly. And it has a ton of other built in functions that you can go nuts with if you are a tech wizard. And it lets you import your own game assets, which is wild. And there is a massive library of community made stuff. Some of it is a bit questionable on the copyright front.... And it is a bit of a mud pile. Some of it is great. So...
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Ilium: A Game of (god-forsaken) Heroes

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I had a nice little mid-week game of Ilium: A Game of Heroes this week when Mrs Irregular Wars decided she wanted a go and we had a skirmish fought on the Trojan plain between the opposing lines of massed soldiery. Opting to go with Achaean blue, she started the skirmish with Idomeneus, king of Crete (top centre), and Machaon, Lord of Trikka (top left), on the board. They faced off against my red Trojans, running the Trojan prince, Helenos (bottom centre), and his cousin, the Dardanian prince Aeneas (bottom right).  At the outset, Trojan archer made a mockery of the Achaean shield-bearers, dropping two and having an arrow ricochet of a third to hit Idomeneus, causing three gruesome wounds. Machaon dashed forward to assist Idomeneus and heal two of his wounds, before the wounded Cretan king led his promachoi forward, hurling his own spear to wound Helenos, but otherwise having little impact.  Aeneas led his Dardanians forward and laid waste to the Cretan promachoi before them....
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Blades in the dark - a night raid for Ilium: A Game of Heroes

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As sleep descended on the Trojan camp outside the walls, only the occasional cough from the sentries broke the silence. But out in the darkness, among the wild dogs, Achaean sea wolves stalked the night. This week Andrew and I gave the Night Mission scenario for Ilium: A Game of Heroes a run through. Based very heavily on book 10 of the Iliad , it sees two heroes set out in the darkness to attack the enemy camp and steal a team of horses. Andrew ran Odysseus and Diomedes (bottom of the picture), sneaking into the camp near the contingents of Sarpedon, Asteropaios and Aeneas. All of the prone models are asleep, with only a single promachos from each contingent keeping watch.  The three sentries have restricted actions and a maximum move of 4" per turn. As Diomedes and Odysseus made straight for the chariot in the centre of the camp, the Lykian sentry (keeping guard for Sarpedon) was alerted and called the alarm, waking most of his own contingent and even the closest Paionians from...
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Galleys & Galleons: Anti-submarine operations at the KhiNok islands

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We return once again to our man in the Indies, Mark, for another dispatch. ***** Encouraged by the success of the Maluku Strait operation (Sep 2025) An-te Hai (Admiral of the Tribute-Bearing Fleets, Ming commander in the Indies) started a blockade of the KhiNok Islands. With the mothership Peony Pavilion parked at a convenient but hidden location he can keep one submersible on station at a time. Malakka had anticipated the Chinese move and augmented the small naval presence at the KhiNoks with some experimental aerial units which can - up to a point - spot and bomb submersibles in these clear shallow waters. The arrival of the Santa Isabella da Goa, inbound from the Moluccas laden with spices, brought matters to a head. The Ming blockading force (62 points) comprised - Zuhong Liyu (Vermilion Carp) (62) (Captain Wang Yi) Q3 C3: Ramming, Sluggish, Submersible, Unarmed, Unorthodox 3 x blinds, marking the possible positions of the submersible while submerged. The Portuguese defensive f...
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