Sunday 26 May 2013

Irregular Wars: Le Coq Fou's conflicts at the world's end.

Although I have, of late, been negligently distracted by other projects, fellow gamer Le Coq Fou has been hard at work putting together some wonderful 15mm forces for Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World's End. Below I have attached a few images of his excellent Woodland Indians (Iroquois) and English Adventurers (Jamestown-esque colonists) battles swiped - with permission - from his own write ups. I encourage you to check out his full blog here.







Extra! Extra! Read all about it... English massacred by noble savages.



Big kitty in the itty bitty city....

Well as the first slops of paint get brushed over my 15mm buildings, things are starting to look promising. That was before the incident...

... it could have been a massive disaster, but the wee girl knew she had stumbled onto something beyond her ken and just stood there mewing until I lifted her to safety. Only damage: feline pride.

Sunday 19 May 2013

Progress on Antioch

Just a couple of quick progress shots today. First up a photo of my suburb as it stands. I sprayed some of the simpler buildings with a textured paint as a bit of an experiment, then the whole lot (and the 2'x2' base board) were liberally undercoated with dark brown matt. I'm hopeful that the actual painting of the buildings will not be too complicated; I've never attempted buildings at this scale before so I will start with some of the smaller boxy structures before attempting any bigger houses or public buildings. 

Also for today is a snapshot of one of the factions that I'll be using in playtesting. These guys are all 15mm Xyston Jews but, in a wonderfully ironic twist, will represent a group of Syrian Arabs. The boxer has been shown before (as a potential gladiator), he is a zealot with a dagger removed; the other two bareheaded chaps are also zealots, they will be used as a henchman (with the club) and an assassin (with the sword). Their leader will be the converted rabbi figure with sword, the other rabbi figure will be a blind prophet (... Life of Brian style).


Sunday 12 May 2013

Painted 15mm Gladiators (part 3)

Here is the last batch of four gladiators for my initial pool. I might very well return to do some additional ones at a later date, but I'm not sure that I will need more than 16 any time soon for my immediate plans.

From left to right: Mick Yarrow gladiatrix, Lurkio 'Gaetulian', Strategia Nova 'scissor', Rebel hoplomachus.

This model is a little bit not safe for work, but just a little (about 3mm of her). I actually just wanted to have NSFW written in the blog as an experiment to see if it gets more hits... anyway... As with all the Mick Yarrow stuff I've done so far, she painted up a little better than expected; certainly the unpainted lead doesn't do the figure justice. I'm not entirely sure what kind of gladiator she's supposed to be, I'm going to use her as a Gallus or Thraex I think as I'm a bit short on them.

This little chap is the only Lurkio figure I've painted (a Moorish skirmisher) and I really like him. The figure is very slight (just a lad really) but as people come in all manner of shapes and sizes, in a skirmish or gladiator game, I have no problem using him along side his colleges shown here.

I love these figures from Strategia Nova. This one originally had a small spiked buckler on his left hand but I chopped it off to give him a second bladed vambrace (borrowed from a spare gladiator).

The hoplomachus from Rebel is, like all the Rebel sculpts, a big boy. He's a nice figure and I think he painted up ok - I suspect that he is also the single most accurate gladiator figure in my collection.

****

... And here are shots representing all the gladiators so far, catagorised by their classes in my forthcoming gladiator sub-game. There are going to be ten gladiator groups of classes altogether, in this collection I have figures for eight of them. The missing classes are the cataphractus (or crupellarius) and the noxius.

Cestus
Dimachaerus or Scissor
Hoplomachus
Retiarius or Laquearius
Sagittarius
Samnite, Murmillo, Provocator or Secutor
Thraex or Gallus
Veles or Gaetulian

Tuesday 7 May 2013

The Annals of the Relic of Saint Pius AAR (Chapter 3)

Chapter 3, Ambush

Having dispatched their erstwhile allies, the holders of the toe of Saint Pius had enjoyed little of the expected prestige. Instead, they found themselves harried by their defeated foes from Sorviodunum, recovered now and seeking cold vengeance and slavering at the chance to get their thieving hands on a holy relic. So now, with the smoke of their home cooking fires drifting on the light westerly breeze, the holders of the toe just had to make it across one last stretch of wilderness to home, hearth, and a stout palisade.

This is the third 'after action report' of the Relic of Saint Pius campaign, the full details of which can be found here.

As the victors of the the battle of the stone circle, Aethelwulf and his Angles took the role of the defender in this scenario. The attacker was the Romano-British warband of Flavius Constans.

The gallant and unbeatable Angles deploy along one edge of the table. Flavius Constans, having gathered enough recruits to rebuild his warband, deploys along the Angles right flank. All terrain pieces (including the river) were treated as potentially hostile with a 33% chance of tripping up or drowning figures trying to cross them.

Aethelwulf and Sigtrygg lead forward the spearmen while Godgifu rides on ahead. On their right, Constans martials his own spearmen for the attack. In the real world, the table glows bright from the setting sun (proving once and for all that it doesn't rain all the time in Ireland!) playing havoc with the photography.

 The British line starts to close in ...

 ... as the Angles surge forward towards the river.

 Aethelwulf holds off a determined assault, trying to let his lads get away over the water.

 The British archers advance ...

 ... and unleash a volley at the Anglian bard but he manages to dodge most of the arrows, even catching a couple in his cloak and breaking them in a show of his contempt of his foes.

Aethelwulf beats back his opponents allowing Godgifu and the spearmen to cross the fast running river. Three of the brave Angles are swept away by the strong current and are never seen again.

 Constans joins the fight against Aethelwulf, beating him to the ground ...

 ... where his body is torn asunder by a hail of British steel. Constans ripps the Holy Relic of St Pius from the Anglian warlord's corpse and raises it high as a physical symbol of his own piety. Calpurnius Draco dispatches the last Anglian spearman this side of the river and Sigtrygg makes a run for it away from the enroaching enemy. Meanwhile the British archers turn their fire on the fleeing Angles beyond the river pinning one of them (rather permanently) to the ground with a well placed shot and unhorsing Godgifu with another.

Before he can make it to the river, Sigtrygg is caught by Constans and his lads. He turns and faces his destiny, bravely holding them up while the remaining spearmen make good their escape. The last they knew of their scald was a flurry of British activity and a stirring baritone lament cut short half way through the second verse...

The only survivors of the Angle-apocolypse. Perhaps the Anglian champion will one day be able to make a name for himself and attract more followers but for now, the power of the Angles in the land of the Belgae has been broken. The battle at Constan's Ford will, for generations, be a byword for British resistance and general ballsiness.

Victory points:
Romano-British Milites of Venta Belgarum - 8
Aethelwulf's Angles - 3

Follow the reign of Flavius Constans here.

Monday 6 May 2013

The Annals of the Relic of Saint Pius AAR (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2, Dividing the Spoils

The heroes of Sorviodunum gazed anxiously at the ring of standing stones before them. They had surged forth following their victory to this, the repository of the little toe of the left foot of Saint Pius the Significant, brought and hidden here two hundred years ago by Nikolaos of Antioch. The heroes’ pitiful allies had shadowed their every move and now skulked in the mist beyond the stone circle. The recovery of the holy relic would bestow great prestige on its new owner, not just with their followers, but with the backwards inhabitants of the land – the search for the saint’s toe would not go unhindered.

This is the second 'after action report' of the Relic of Saint Pius campaign, the full details of which can be found here.

As the victors of the the battle of Sorviodunum, Aethelwulf and his Angles took the role of the defender in this scenario. The attacker was the Irish warband of Dubh Fiach.

The Anglish and the Irish deploy on either side of a mysterious and unspecified stone circle in the vicinity of Venta (Winchester) and Sorviodunum (Salisbury). Three possible locations for the Holy Relic are identified on the table: in the woods nearest to each deployment line and within the stone circle itself.

The Irish start with the initiative and delicately make their way through the woods to the first possible location of the relic ...

... where they are sorely disappointed - nothing there except a big green counter with the number three on it!

Other Irish warriors swiftly run forward towards the other two locations.

Meanwhile Godgifu rides her wee pony at breakneck speed to get to the nearest relic hot spot and is lucky enough to uncover the Holy Toe.

Much displeased, the Irish begin their pursuit ...

... reaching the lovely Anglian priestess but unable to knock her off her pony.

She quickly disengages and ducks away from the woods, aiming for her own battle line.

Behind her, Aethelwulf leads his men forward to create an distraction.

It works and Godgifu slips off the table leaving Iseult and her motly crew looking a little silly.

The Irish return to the main fight and start to surround the Anglish.

A couple of savage kills (including Aethelwulf himself) scatter the Angles.

The fearless Anglian champion stands his ground ...

... against increasingly unlikely odds ...

... until Iseult sneaks in her wicked blade and extinguishes the champion's resistance.

Victory points:
Aethelwulf's Angles - 9
Dubh Fiach's Irish Raiders - 9

In the event of a tie, we decided to cede victory to the Angles on account of the fact that they did get the relic off their own table edge.

Follow the victors here.