Irregular Wars Wargaming

The men of Ulster stood facing the Romanised British host. They knew the British king was young and inexperienced, and that their own swords were tried, tested, and thirsty for more blood. The coming battle was not going to last long. Behind the British lines, smoke tricked into the sky in thin wisps from the British village. The Irishmen could practically taste their new slaves. Another game of Dux Bellorum , as always, too long since the last. This time my Irish faced off against a new foe, the Romano-British forces of Andrew. He'd not played before, so it was a learning game. He was aided in inexperience by Lee, also having never played before. The Irish were the aggressors, the Romano-Brits were the repellers. From stage left, at the top, bowmen and three ordinary shieldwalls, the Romano-British king with his mounted companions, and three noble riders. From stage left at the bottom, two noble Irish warrioris, the Irish king and his warrior companions, two further noble ...

More of my recent painting outputs - four bases of Hellenistic horse archers. These are really nice little 6mm sculpts from the Bacchus Parthian range, but they will see service in the armies of Kommagene, the Ituraeans and the Kushan empire.

I painted this angry critter a few months ago, but have only just had the weather align with a moment of spare time to allow me to get him sprayed with matt varnish. I assume it's a him... maybe not. Who knows? Regardless, it's a badger from Krakon Games - part of their second Creatures Underground kickstarter.  In terms of Palaeo Diet - which is why he graced my painting table - he's a bit larger than I would have liked. In the picture below, you can see him with Herc who stands a good 22mm(ish) to the eye. The badger was intended to be a bulk 1 angry critter, but he may well end up being used as bulk 2 instead.

There may  have been a work meeting yesterday which resulted in me fiddling so much with a clicky pen that it broke. On the up side, I realised that there was a really easy way to create something approaching 6mm barbed wire. Nothing too sophisticated, but it'll work as 'dug in' markers for my Horizon Wars infantry squads.

Kapitän Johan Fuchs looked again at the map scrawled on the tattered paper in front of him. This should be the place - a small hamlet nestled between hills with a dilapidated stone church. The Hapsburg payroll was supposed to be inside the ruinous building, but the place was quiet. There were certainly no white-coated Austrians wandering around the place. Indeed, there didn't appear to be anybody wandering around at all. Maybe it was too quiet.  To the left, the ruined church which functioned as the Austrian deployment point and the objective for Fuch's Prussians. To the right, the Prussian deployment point in the woods. Playing Sharp Practice 2 ,  you never quite know who is going to activate first. The anonymous Austrians commanded by Brett kept having officer chits drawn out, but not deploying. Eventually I got an officer chit to, for Unteroffizier Shultz, my status I jäger seargent. who led his group straight up the right flank, through the woods. On the ...

A little while ago , a surprise birthday Kickstarter arrived from medievalkits.com. Over a the last week, my wee lad and I have been tinkering away and putting it all together. The kit consists of three mdf sheets of laser cut pieces and a few bags of different sized brass pins,  brass rims for the wheels, some string, some tiny rubberbands of the sort you'd see on bracers, and a wee tiny firing pin. The pieces all fit together beautifully and are held together with the pins - no gluing or hammering in nails. The only glue is used (optionally) to secure the knots in the string. Oh, and a squirt of WD40 (other lubricants are available) to grease up the gear mechanisms. It really was a great little kit, and both of us enjoyed putting it together. Pushing in the pins required a bit more thumb strength than could be mustered by a seven year old, but he was an awesome help with everything else. As you can see, it is pretty much the right scale to work with 28mm figures (...