Irregular Wars Wargaming

This week, Andrew, Lee and I met up to conduct some dirty deeds around the seedy streets of first century BC Antioch. Remarkably, the last time Andrew and I faced off playing Song of Shadows and Dust was five years ago! Back then, we played a great little three game campaign which saw his Palmyrene merchant faction drive my fishmongers (read 'pirates') guild out of one of the suburbs of Antiochia Mikros.  This was Lee's first foray with the rules. He ran the fishmongers guild (Kybiosaktoi) and Andrew led his Palmyrene merchants again. I went with a new faction, the Skenitai or 'tent dwellers' using a few pre-generated rosters from the book along with a pragmatic application of the custom faction builder software. Although there are some 57 different profiles listed in the rule book - ranging from drunks and cut-purses, to civic priests and disgruntled aristocrats - there is also an online faction builder (it can be downloaded too) to allow players to comple...

After a wee cup o' tea and a chat, we sat down for our second game of Men of Bronze . Amending our units of measurements from the previous game, we agreed that 1BW = 1cm (effectively halving the distances from last time).   We were playing with the same sized forces as last time. Lee (top of the photo above) commanded the same two drilled hoplite phalanxes, two units of peltasts, and a unit of slingers, all nominally hailing from - or employed by - Corinth. My force (bottom of the photo above) was sort of similar with two units of drilled hoplites, two units of slingers and a unit of archers, all mercenaries in the pay of the  king of Lowland Macedonia.    Again, the first few turns were all about moving in the general direction of the enemy. While I tried to make use of the rough terrain on my left... ... Leeandros pulled his peltasts back out of range, seeking shelter behind the phalanxes. In general, I think we both agreed that the shorter movemen...

This week we were able to get a couple of games in of Eric Farrington's (EF) new Men of Bronze rules, published by Osprey. Both Lee an I have been building up 10mm forces with this game foremost in our minds, so it was great to be able to get our wee chaps on the table for a run through. The rules are written to be scale and basing agnostic - a big tick in my book - but it seems pretty clear that they don't seem to have been extensively tested with anything other than units composed of multiple singly based figures.  The numbers just don't always stack up. Distances are measured in base widths (BW), which works fine if your phalanx is composed of ten hoplites on 1 inch bases. If the unit moved 6BW, obviously that is a move of 6 inches. However, that doesn't translate for multi-based units like ours (on 60x40mm bases). At this scale, you don't want a standard move by heavy infantry to cover 36cm (6BW of 60mm)! Now, EF does allow that BW don't need to be base...

The 10mm steppe goblin horde gathering has been a bit slower recently due to work pressures, but I have managed an assassin - Snickers the Knife (from one of the Polar Fox Studios steppe goblin command strips) - and also a giant. The giant is actually a tribal hunter from Blind Beggar Miniatures' recent Palaeo Diet Kickstarter . As the Blind Beggar hunters are twice as tall as my 20mm prehistoric collection, I looked around for another use for this chappie, and decided he made a pretty good 10mm giant. Stanley knife modelling putty at the ready, I set about embiggening (may not be a real word, but used on the Simpsons a looong time ago) him. I added eye lids to reduce the comic book appearance of the eyes; cut some little shields from plasticard, added shield bosses with putty, and added them together with a 10mm skeleton head as belt trophies. Lastly, I cut up a spare halfling and used putty to add a tare to the sack for the halfling to be struggling out of. He was ...