Irregular Wars Wargaming

Chapter 1,Sorviodunum Read stranger, the apocryphal words of Saint Neot the Lesser, servant of God and compiler of this, the Annals of the Relic of Saint Pius. It is a tale of Britons and Saxons, of Irish pirates and valiant knights. A song of holy relics and vile heathens, of the bravest of deeds and the most villainous of treacheries. I should know, for I was there... Flavius Constans, a man who fancied himself descended from a line of Roman Emperors, stared contemptuously down the slopes of Sorviodunum at the rabble gathering below. Sure, the combined Hiberno-Saxon host had driven him out of Venta of the Belgae– a centre his opponents were now calling Venta-chester, as if they thought he would let them stay. Sure, the barbarous hoards had forced him to seek shelter within the crumbling defences of Sorvidunum – but he had not gone down without a fight. Now, only two enemy warbands remained in any condition to continue the fight: Æthelwulf's band of Angles and a boat-lo...

This week marked six months since we left the sun-drenched shores of my native Antipodes and landed up here on these mist shrouded isles at the edge of Europe. I do love it here and have no regrets about the move,  but there have certainly been some ups and downs since arriving. To recap a little, we have been living at my in-law's house (down), for free (up). Wee Hotspur took his first real strolls only after arriving in Ulster (up) and is now competently feeding himself with a spoon (up). Wee Hotspur inspecting (London)Derry's 1641 ordinance. I didn't get the dream job straight away (definite down); and have instead have worked on some pretty average archaeology (down), some of which was actually really amazing (big up) but was so incompetently directed that the crew felt the need to start a mutiny which only ended with the direct involvement of the Minister for the Environment (a huge down topped with a bit of an 'up' cherry). An editorial i...

The talks from the second UCD Tudor and Stuart Ireland conference have now been made available as free podcasts from iTunes . The programme from the conference is worth looking, but to give you an idea of the talks on offer, how about: Simon Egan (UCC):  Enemies to the left, enemies to the right: The politics of the wider Gaelic world and the collapse of the MacDonald Lordship of the Isles, c.1460–1500 Francis Kelly (UCC):  Brian O’Rourke and the Spanish Armada Connie Kelleher (TCD):  Ireland's golden age of pirates: Early seventeenth-century piracy in Southwest Munster in the Stuart period James O’Neill (QUB):  Half-moons and villainous work: Gaelic fortifications and the Nine Years war Dr Benjamin Hazard (UCC):  Combat medics and military medicine: Irish experience during the Tudor and Stuart period A number of these will be worth listening to if you fancy wargaming Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries. Listening to most of them might even make yo...

After their altercation with the big dumb (and really strong) minotaur the other week, it became apparent to all that Håkon’s Heroes needed someone with a little magical omph. Someone to entangle, distract or otherwise hamper stronger opponents. And for Håkon’s Heroes, of course, everyone is a stronger opponent. So I went out to garage to sort through my newly arrived box of bits and found Mystico. He was part of the Splintered Light Druid's Faithful box set that I bought a while ago. There were five mice in the set which I kept aside thinking that one day I might make a mouse thieves guild warband. Instead, I've decided to appropriate Mystico and seconder him to my existing warband of sentient furry critters. May he last longer on the table than his comrades have done in the past. Mystico the Mouse Points: 36 Q:3 C:1 Special rules: magic-user, slow, stealth UPDATE Here are two shots salvaged from Mystico's fi...

I was able to get a game of Song of Blades and Heroes in over the weekend. It was good to get back in the saddle after the shock of seeing all my 15mm figures in such disarray. It was also a much needed chance to get the Wardens of Olympos on the field and blooded. As my beautiful opponent hadn't played in a long time, we settled for a simple 'all out battle' on a fairly open board. She selected the warband of sentient furry critters from  Hedgerow to be the Warden's first opponents. I would have preferred mighty mythically themed Wardens to take on warriors that were more suitably intimidating, but who am I to judge. The respective warband lists (and stats) can be found, as ever, over on the battle honours page of the blog. The two warbands approach each other; the Wardens of Olympos on the left, the Heroes of Hedgerow on the right. The Wardens did their best to get within pain-causing-distance as quickly as possible, Nysa the centaur archer t...