Irregular Wars Wargaming

The Flores Minor Ranger Corp were out in the wastelands again this week, this time seeking to ambush Andrew's mutants as they escorted a caravan through an abandoned settlement. Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones. Mike joined in the campaign bringing a fourth warband into the mix; sadly, also mutants. So now it looks like a thin blue line of the FMRC (vainly) attempting to hold back a wave of mutant warbands from destroying what remains of humanity.  Following on from the skirmish in the northern woodlands , the FMRC were accompanied by a new K9 - Pup - and the three hill folk adopted by Buckshot - Ogg, Snogg and Frygga. Andrew's muties were now a veritable horde, especially when seen alongside the trade caravan. They started on the central road through the settlement, the FMRC were waiting in ambush on the right, while Mikes muties were in ambush to their left.  Having to deploy on the very board edge was a bit disadvantageous to the FMRC given three of them have sn

I made my way down to Lisburn Gaming Club this week to lead my goblins into battle once more, taking on Roger's mighty ogre army for a game of Fantastic Battles . Now, my goblins are not the ideal army to take on something as monstrously tough as an ogre army, but I wanted to try out the new optional horde rule, so goblins it was. The armies were very different in composition: my goblins had 23 companies - so a breakpoint of 12; the ogres had only 15 - so a breakpoint of 8 - but clustered in a few large units. The centre of the ogre force was a unit of four elite companies with the monstrous, doughty and heavy melee weapons traits - so 32 Resolve in a single company! My hoard of six irregular companies only had 18 Resolve! Mishaps were negligible for both armies - one of my two units of wolf-riders enthusiastically moved forward, and the spider-riders and a giant on the far right were diseased. Among the ogres, their unit of cannoneers were delayed (behind a cyclops). Roger also ke

Time for another dispatch from Mark who has returned to his Galleys & Galleons narrative campaign, bringing Don Marco da Pattaya back to active service. He hasn’t appeared since failing to prevent the Ming Chinese from capturing the KhiNok islands , three years ago, when he ended up clinging to the same piece of flotsam as An-te Hai. ***** Now Don Marco commands a Portuguese squadron conveying ambassadors to the Siamese court at Ayutthaya. Expecting trouble from the militantly Islamic Prince of Songkhla, the Portuguese are ready to fight their way through. They have 414 points. 1 x Galleon (Sa Caterina da Goa) (106) Q3 C4: Chaser guns, Drilled soldiers, Flagship*, Galleon rigged, Master gunner, Trained gun crews. *Don Marco scored the coveted “Dashing Commander” rating for today. 3 x Fragatas (Sa Barbara, Sao Jorge, Sao Martinho) (60) Q3 C3: Chaser guns, Galleon rigged, Master gunner, Trained gun crews) 1 x Submersible ram (Baderna) (58) Q3 C2: Ramming, Submersible, Unarmed, Unorth

It would appear that the good folk at the Aberdeen Wargames Club have been at it again, hosting another participation game of one of my rule sets, this time  Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World's End at the Targe Wargames show (hosted by Kirriemuir Wargames Club ). The game was based on the Battle of Craibstone, fought in 1571 between the Forbes and the Gordons, part of the Marian Civil War. Craibstone was just outside medieval Aberdeen (since completely built over). One spectator at the battle was a certain Elizabethan courtier and his associates. No doubt he was visiting his Aberdonian fish-salesman cousin when hostilities broke out ... Not only did their table look amazing, but Aberdeen only went on to win both of the show prizes! The Targe : awarded for the best club display. This was the result of a vote by all the attending clubs and groups. The Crann Tara Targe : awarded to the best Scottish themed game or game with Scottish figures. This was the result of a vote by memb

Andrew and I got together this week for another instalment of our  This is Not a Test  campaign. Once again, his mutants and my peacekeepers - the Flores Minor Ranger Corps - clashed, but this time, in the verdant green lands north of the wastes. This time we played the Pest Control scenario: the mutants advanced from the left, the FMRC from the right, and both sought to irradicate what were supposed to be rad-zombie nests (the thickets within the blue circles). My son took control of half of the FMRC for the game, commanding BT29 the depend-o-bot, Hotshot (the hot shot sniper), and two rangers with shotguns, the veteran Snake Eyes, and rookie Buckshot. Hotshot was ranging out ahead, hidden under the tree on the central hill, while the rest were aligned top right. The remaining rangers, Sarge, Doc, Demo and Heavy were deployed bottom right. Andrew's mutant band had swelled to 11 members for this match, spread evenly along his board edge. The muties were closer to three of the nests

The Onesies warband continues to grow with the addition of Sven, the unicorn-onesie-wearing-heavy-hitter. Equipped with a sledge hammer, a cigarette and a heart of gold, Sven will add a touch of brute force to my crew for This is Not a Test . Like Vixen, Sven was designed using Heroforge and then bought as an .stl file which I had printed by Crisis Actor Minis . Some of the detail in the sculpt is a touch soft, but as Sven's face is mostly in shadow anyway, it is no problem at all. The print quality was again superb.