Irregular Wars Wargaming

Mark returns to Frommage for some more Devilry Afoot : ************* “ Reportes are abroade as far as Leicester and Northampton, that the Mummers are returned into Rutland shire. Folke are wondering greatly, as such have not been seene in that countrie since Elizabeth was yet living. Time out of mind their visitation has always heralded a mighty battle against some devilry afoote. May God protect us [etc etc] ” (Diary of John Paston, entry for 29 April 1626. Northamptonshire Record Office). ************* Here’s a coloured woodcut of the Redshanks, as these Mummers are popularly known. No-one knows who they really are or whence they come and go (Photo #1). The Mummers (Hunters) are as follows. Obviously the models are not WYSIWYG. You should assume they are equipped with arcane musical and guising powers that can baffle the minions of the Devil, best represented by the conventional weapons etc they are said to carry. Thomas Hobbes (green ribbon shirt) Goodman: Devout, Penitent. Slovenl...

With possibly one of the strangest blog titles yet, Orc joins the Bedtimes Children! This is a 3d printed miniature technically called Orkbubu Labubork, available as a .stl file from DakkaDakkaStore on Thingiverse - although I bought a printed copy on Etsy. I call him Orc. Bedtime's Children are a tribe of survivors of the Great Fall, dressed in their nightwear, ever prepared for the inevitable long sleep that comes to everyone in the end. Orc fits right in, packing quite a bit of heat to boot!

It's been a little while since I've given any sort of update for Irregular Wars Wargaming projects, so here's the current state of play. *** I spent much of the day with Andy T filming a playthrough of Fantastic Scuffles , so that will be available in the coming weeks to give people a taste of the game play. It was a close fought scuffle, and I won't spoil it by saying who smote whom. *** For those of you based on this island, I have aspirations to run some demo/participation games at Gaelcon 38 in Dublin at the end of October. This would be my first 'proper' wargaming convention, so fingers crossed! *** I continue to dabble with the new two-player campaign variant for Fantastic Battle . It is not forgotten, just nudged aside by a couple of other projects for the time being. *** The new title, Ilium: A Game of Heroes , is nearing completion. A bit more playtesting and photography still to do, but August/September looks like a likely release date. Note however, t...

This contingent for  Ilium: A Game of Heroes  was built to represent the men of Trikka led by Machaon. Machaon and his younger brother Podaleirios were sons of Asklepios, the god of healing. Leaders of the men of western Thessaly, they are competent warriors but most valued for their skills as healers.  At a pinch it could represent any number of Achaian contingents and I suspect it will double as Odysseus and his Ithakans during playtesting. All models are 28mm Wargames Foundry Mycenaeans. Machaon, son of Asklepios, Lord of Trikka. Thessalian warrior promachoi. Thessalian archer promachoi.

I may have accidentally added an armoured personnel carrier to the Flores Minor Ranger Corp... This is Wombat 3, the newest support unit for my sci-fi halflings.  I say 'accidentally', as I wasn't really meaning to do this at all. We have just got a SLA 3D printer at work, and I was playing around with scaling models and layer levels when I came across the wheeled APC on Thingiverse, designed by Kristopher Wall .  Turns out, I really loved the model and scaled it appropriately for my halfies, just in case the print quality was good enough. At 0.16mm layers, this took a few hours to print, but the quality is first class! And thus Wombat 3 was printed - and got an immediate coat of paint along with a tank commander from Max Mini's line of space halflings. Here it is next to a Max Mini commander, and a converted special operative in powered armour. The APC itself is on a 60x80mm base - mainly for storage purposes. Now I want it to carry a fireteam into battle.  Now I want...

Here is the first chariot finished for my Ilium: A Game of Heroes project. This is a Wargames Atlantic plastic kit, with a Wargames Foundry driver - a spare Sea Person with the base cut off and right arm bent up to the railing. In  Ilium: A Game of Heroes , chariots play a mostly supporting role as described by Homer. They are mostly used to ferry heroes around the battlefield and to bear away the bodies of the fallen, rather than charging forward in the fashion of Medieval knights. I don't normally like painting 28mm horses, and certainly not greys, but these were quite nice to do. I can neither confirm not deny that the colour choice may have something to do with the 'night mission' scenario and the theft of Rhesos' white horses.

As a bit of a palette cleanser between all of my Bronze Age projects, I've been ducking in and out of my three 28mm sci-fi forces. First up, here is a squad of terminators for my subversive marines from the Érineach Preservers chapter . These models are a 2023 range of 40K terminators and are huge compared to earlier equivalents. However, they seen pretty 'in-scale' with the rest of the Érineach force when you account for the big-boy armour. I stuck with the same dark green and bone livery used with the tactical squad, with each marine bearing a small piece of Irish knotwork on their right pauldron (in green for regular marines, and bone for sergeants). I also finished off a squad of 40K 2nd edition scouts that have been hanging around for some time, and started a second squad, so perhaps more of them anon.

Over the last few weeks I've been very slowly working away at a set of 28mm Bronze Age Aegean fortifications for Ilium: A Game of Heroes . This is an mdf kit (two kits actually) from Supreme Littleness Designs - the gate tower (centre) and the straight walls (either side). I'll give a breakdown of sizes below, but all together it is 66cm (26") long, so perfect for the 60cm wide battlefield used for Ilium . To the top of the battlements, the tower is 24cm (9.5") tall. Along with the bit buttressing on one side and gate on the other, it is 30cm (12") wide. The gate itself is 6cm (2.5") wide.  The wall sections are each 14cm (5.5") tall and 18cm (7") wide, with a 5cm (2") wide walkway along the top. I took my lead from Michael from Supreme Littleness Designs and added texture to the mdf once the kits were built. I started with a bit of glue and paving sand to build up what I wanted to be larger stones. After that was dry, I went in and blocked ou...

We played through the 'Settlement Raid' scenario for Ilium: A Game of Heroes this week. Andrew once again took control of his Achaeans (starting with Achilles [left] and Diomedes [right] on the table, with Ajax coming on later), attempting to raid a settlement allied to Troy. I started with Aeneas deployed in centre of the board around the village well, with Asteropaios and Sarpedon somewhere off-table but close by. The settlement raid scenario gives the attacker (in this case, the Achaeans) three different objectives which the defender has to thwart, each with their own loading of kleos (glory): burn buildings, poison the well, and capture the notables (there are some ladies down there by the well). Given the limited number of promachoi on the table, the players have to make hard decisions around which objectives to focus on.    The scenario started very well for the Trojans, with Aeneas hurling his throwing spear and skewering Diomedes, causing four wounds (out of a total o...