Irregular Wars Wargaming

’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on.…  William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2 From The history of witches and wizards: giving a true account of all their tryals in England, Scotland, Swedeland, France, and New England; with their confession and condemnation / Collected from Bishop Hall, Bishop Morton, Sir Matthew Hale, etc , by W.P., (1720). Source:  Wellcome Collection . Recently I have been pondering a new writing project: a 17th century skirmish game of monster hunting - pitching a handful of foolhardy hunters against a small number of 'monsters'. Designed for co-operative and solo play, the hunters will be controlled by the player/s, while NPC 'innocents' and the antagonististic 'monsters' will be controlled by the game. I see it as an opportunity to take the learning from Palaeo Die

Getting into the spooky season, I took my Night Stalkers (vampires and their ilk) out for a feed against Jim's human Byzernian Empire. The countess summoned her minions, the emperor rallied men to his standards and the stage was set. The table was laid out as rough moorland to the north of Byzernia - a central hill dominated the battlefield, with large areas of boggy ground, a couple of wooded copses and some fields off to one side where the ground was obviously more forgiving.  The Byzernians (top, from l. to r.) fielded a two-company unit of skirmishing kern, a three-company unit of mixed shieldwall, spears and bows, a two-company unit of cataphract heavy cavalry, an archangel, three companies in a unit of fierce gallowglass,  a three-company unit of spearmen, two cart-mounted flame-throwers and a unit of three companies of well-equipped skirmishing horsemen hidden in ambush in the woods to the top right. The Night Stalkers consisted of (bottom, from l. to r.) two companies of di

  While my thureophoroi sit waiting for a space for me to get them painted, Andrew has had a super productive October with yet more units for Project Seleukid. I'm not sure now whether he is way ahead, or I'm way behind. Perhaps both can be true!

Mark put on a small Song of Shadows and Dust game recently - small by his usual standards anyway. Here’s what you might want to know before we jump into it. It’s a normal day at one of the markets in Pattayavium.** This market happens to be near one of the red-light districts***. Here are a couple of kite eye **** views of the stage. Looking N (red light district at L) - ** Pattayavium: my imaginary Graeco-Roman trading settlement on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Siam, perhaps some time in the later 1st century AD.  *** Premises welcoming patrons include: the Dolphin, the Bacchic Revel, the Eros, and the Dryad. Not that you asked.  **** Kite: probably Haliastur indus. There are a lot of them around here. It’s the fish offal down at the beach. And E. The thatched roofed buildings at L belong to natives (Tai people) who are settling here is large numbers these days -  The plots, such as they are, comprising today’s episode concern two groups of players.  In the next photo, the figure

The first and last time I painted GW space marines was in 1993 - 30 years ago. They were 1992 mark VI 'beaky' marines - the first sci-fi miniatures I ever painted. So when JB showed me his 2022 Horus Heresy army recently, I mumbled something about all the nostalgic feels. JB then generously pushed a spare sprue into my hands. He's like that! So two weeks later, here is my second ever attempt at painting the nostalgic beaky bastards. I'm rather pleased with the result. I've no intention of painting a 30/40K army, but these gents will be used for something sometime. Most likely as a preservers warband for This is Not a Test . Nicknamed the Érineach Preservers, they have an Irish bent and carry letter identifiers rather than having names panted on bases like my other TNT crews. In TNT , the barter script for a starter warband of elites all wearing power armour would only allow for three models. Powerful I'm sure, but unlikely to win many scenarios! The taoiseach

The tribe stared with tired eyes, their muscles tight through lack recent hunts. After what seemed like many moons, the herds had started to return to the parched landscape that used to be so fruitful. Six hunters, three spears, an axe, a bow, and a fire-starter (and one hound), split up to surround the beasts. They hoped to bring down enough game feed their struggling people - both mammoths, or just three of the goats would be enough. But they were not the only hunters in the area. A lone wolf watched warily from one of the thickets, waiting to steal away a feed when the opportunity arose. As the fire-starter drove the goats towards the other hunters, one of the caprids was killed, drawing out the predatory wolf. A fierce struggle between man and monster followed in which, the wolf was slain but not without much spillage of man-blood. Thankfully, the axe-armed hunter had acquired a reputation as a healer and patched his wounded colleague before the wound went septic. With the predator

The adventure concludes … (if you missed part 1, click HERE , or part 2, click HERE ) Some months later … the information provided by the Mayan inscription (as photographed and drawn by expedition members in the Amazon) has been instrumental in defeating the plans of some bad actors, using Dr Muller’s research, to control the weather. Details need not concern us now. But professor Logarithm continued to puzzle over the rest of the inscription, especially some rows of glyphs at the bottom. Then late last month he addressed a meeting of the Society to announce his findings.  The bottom of the inscription although incomplete describes the journey of the Heavenly Twins (Mayan semi-divine humans, a bit like Hercules or Maui) into the abode of the Gods, where they performed valorous deeds but eventually were killed by the jealous deities. So far it’s normal ethnological stuff. A lot of cultures have legends like this. But then, the inscription seems to state that the gateway or portal they u

The adventure continues … ( if you missed part 1, click HERE ) Safely back at Marlinspike Hall, Professor Logarithm reveals that Dr Muller is working on advanced chaos theory that would enable him to control the weather. Fortunately he hasn’t yet been able to capture a chaos butterfly  (L. inaestimabile),  the wingbeat patterns of which are critical to success. The species is incredibly rare and apparently lives only in the most remote part of the Amazon basin. But if Logarithm can get one first, he’s sure he can create a counter-weapon that would negate Muller’s plans. A month later our adventurers disembark at Manaus, a thousand miles inland on the Amazon, and take canoes deeper into the interior, to where the only known example of the chaos butterfly (in the Natural History Museum, and unfortunately long deceased) was collected by the legendary Alfred Russell Wallace (a founding member of the Chronographic Society) over eighty years ago. ************* Pursuing the Chaos butterfly H