Irregular Wars Wargaming

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...

A little more progress on my party of ne'er-do-wells for Fantastic Scuffles , I've added a lovely half-orc harlot to the gang. As with the rest of the miniatures in this party, she is a 3d sculpt from Vae Victis, bought as a physical print from an online marketplace.  I assume she is supposed to be a generous elf, or perhaps a half elf, but the print I received was out of scale with the rest of the party, so after preparing to retire her to the bits box, I relented and decided she could well be a half-orc with good genes... I'm glad I persevered with her, because she adds a certain 'something' to the party. As with her colleagues, she will adopt an animal nom de guerre. So along with the Wolf, the Vixen, and the Mouse, I present, the Great Tit.

The next ruleset from Irregular Wars Wargaming will be a skirmish game for encounters between small parties, Fantastic Scuffles . currently being playtested by players around the world, the following report has sent into me by Giulio in Italy. Giulio graciously permitted me to repost it here. ***** 1. The lists I created two lists, one for me and one for my wife. For the first playthrough, we decided to try to play together to learn the basics. For the first list, I wanted to create a hunter warband of the Order of Azyr from Warhammer. This is something that I've always tried to create in Warcry, but there was not much customization. The list has two mages, Domitan with Push and Fireball, and Leona, with Fly, Blink, and Curse. They both have Medium Armor and Holy Orders. Tavian is a tank with Shieldwall and Heavy Armor. Haskel and Brydget are two (relatively) cheap Hunters with black powder pistols and Resolve. For the second list, I had some cool set of werewolf miniatures that I...

Mark is back with another dispatch from the Indies: the Portuguese raid on Songkhla. ***** Don Marco da Pattaya has decided it’s time the Sultan of Songkhla received an unfriendly visit from the Portuguese. He leads a squadron North into the Gulf of Ayutthaya. The Portuguese sailed with 414 points, comprising - 1 x Galleon (Santa Caterina da Goa) (106) Q3 C4: Chaser guns, Drilled soldiers, Flagship, Galleon rigged, Master gunner, Trained gun crew. Don Marco is a Swaggering commander (I made him re-roll and he delivered another D6=6). 3 x Fragatas (Santa Barbara, Sao Jorge, Sao Martinho) (60 each) Q3 C3: Chaser guns, Galleon rigged, Master gunner, Trained gun crew. 1 x Submersible ram (Baderna) (58) Q3 C2: Ramming, Submersible, Unarmed, Unorthodox 1 x Dragao (Dragao) (70) Q3 C2: Airship, Bombs, Fiery attack, Lateen rigged, Master gunner The Songkhla fleet was not expecting (§ contingent event) this attack and some of it’s galleys have been hauled out for off-season repairs and maintenan...

After too long of a hiatus, Andrew and I set out to start testing the campaign rules for Fantastic Scuffles this week. We each started with a 100 point party.  My group of murder hobos known variously as Itinerant Adventurers Inc. or the Blue Company, had only three members - Lyra Halfcraft, the halfling rogue, Balthazar the Blue, the human seer, and Crom (just Crom), the ogre warrior. Andrew's restless dead had five members in the party - the King, a skeleton warrior, the Priestess, a mummy seer, and three minion skeletons with swords and large shields.  Rolling for individual objectives, we had each been commissioned to take out the other's seer - a straightforward enough prospect. As the restless dead shuffled forwards, Lyra turned herself invisible and snuck forward, hoping to get behind the enemy lines and remove the mummy seeress with a well-placed bolt to the rear of the head. Crom stood to one side, as Balthazar readied himself for the joy of a chain lightning spell. ...