Irregular Wars Wargaming

Knowing when to stop... nope, haven't read that chapter yet. I recently sat down to dwell over my 6mm ancient and medieval armies to work out which one I need to build next and it got me thinking, if I added a couple more units of one sort or another, I could morph my existing forces into new armies of the same period. You know, sort of a 'value adding' exercise. Order duly placed for a few more packs, I sat down and listed historical enemies for the armies I can currently field without stretching too many button-counting friendships. Obviously there is a fair bit of overlap - my Seleukids, Arabs, Armenians, Kommagenians, Ituraeans can all fight the Parthians for example - but there are still quite a host of foes for my brave boys to smite. My armies are in bold, followed by their enemies. 30. Minoans 12. Libyan, 14. New Kingdom Egyptians, 20. Hittites, 22. Syria, Canaan and Ugarit, 24. Sea Peoples, 30. Mycenaean 42. Seleukids 41. Early Successor, 42. S...

In 279 BC, hordes of Celtic invaders swept down on the Greek world from the wilds of the north, destroying all before them. One branch of the invading army attacked the sacred oracle of Apollo at Delphi. According to ancient writers, the god Apollo appeared before the barbarians and put them to flight. This is the story of the Delphi incident... This week I finally managed my first game of the month. It has just been one of those months... Jim popped up the mountain to visit and we reprised our old roles as Greek and Irish deities for a game of Of Gods and Mortals  (Osprey Games). I took Apollo and a force of Greco-Macedonians defending the temple of Apollo, against his Irish, lead by Lugh of the Long Arm. Apollo and his escort of centaur archers. Lugh, supported by Queen Medb and the warriors of Connacht. I had less-than-stealthily placed my Macedonian hypaspists on top of the hill to dominate the table. Jim won the initiative, activated his banshee and watched my ...

With great pleasure and little fanfare, I'm please to say that Palaeo Diet: Fireside Tales ( PDFT ) has now been unleashed on the public. PDFT is a narrative campaign for Palaeo Diet: Eat or Be Eaten . Join Herc, the last of his people, as he regales a new tribe with tales of his heroic exploits, making excuses for his torn clothing, and remaining rather vague about exactly what happened to his old companions. PDFT includes: Five new scenarios with primary and secondary objectives; Four new beast profiles and reaction tables; New optional rules for unwashed hunters and guidelines for hunting juvenile beasts. A copy of Palaeo Diet: Eat or Be Eaten is required to play. So far it is only found on  Ganesha's Gumroad store , but it will soon be available through all the usual avenues in pdf and paperback.

Fireside Tales introduces four new fearsome threats to Palaeo Diet: Eat or be Eaten . The least of the new beasts is the angry critter. Angry critters represent small but aggressively territorial beasts such as badgers, stoats, snakes, wild cats or even swooping magpies. They do not pose any significant threat to hominids or other larger creatures, but they can certainly be a nuisance. These wee beasties are pretty much the antithesis of the much more timid 'regular' critters in the core game. Flushed out of hiding in the same way, they will always attack the hunter or hound that discovered them, and then will continue to patrol their terrain piece with bravado far bigger than they are. These two little guys are the newly released stoats/weasels from Krakon Games Gnomes Kickstarter. Here we can see the 'flexible' scaling allowable in a prehistoric game... Frygga, my converted Flytrap huntress, a Flytrap mammoth, and a rabbit from Warheads. I'm not sur...

Many, many , months after applying the first paint to them, I have finally finished my first, and I can assure you dear reader, my only, unit of 15mm Napoleonic cavalry - a single group of Prussian dragoons for Sharp Practice 2 . These are beautifully sculpted AB Prussians from their 1806 range and like all AB figures, it is hard to do them justice. That said, these just took me so  long, and I got dispirited along the way, heralding further delays. I have come to the conclusion that life is too short for me to paint Napoleonic cavalry at this scale. 6mm, perhaps, but not 15mm. And these aren't even fancy lads like hussars! This small patrol is led by Cornette von der Burg and will, hopefully, provide some interesting support to my otherwise skirmisher-heavy Prussians led by  Kapitän Fuchs . The illegitimate scion of a noble house of the Rhineland, Fredrick Wilhem von der Burg was raised by a distant cousin in Magdeburg and seeks, someday, to establish his own pla...

After a bit of a hiatus in my Sharp Practice 2 1806 Prussian project, mostly caused by my dislike of paining 15mm Napoleonic cavalry (almost there...), I am back on the wagon. To start with, here is my deployment point. Not as fancy as many DPs I have seen, and not overly accurate, but still better than the plain plastic counter I have been using! Above, Lucky Kapitän Fuchs and Der kleine Husar shown for scale. The signs are just cut up business card with multiple layers of paint and my attempt at a traditional (if generic) Germanic script. In our gaming circle we have Prussians, Austrians, Frenchies and Russians, hence the signage.

We had out first game of Lord and Lands by Craig Armstrong this week and I'm happy to say that it did not disappoint. It had been a few weeks since either of us had read the rules, so there was a bit of flicking back and forth to check things, but the guts of it flowed pretty well even then. I took us about two hours from start to finish, and that included the looking up of army lists and creation of an undead horde. Brett fielded two units of wights, one unit of skeletal cavalry, two units each of skeleton archers, warriors, spearmen, a bone giant, and an undead dragon. I was running the halfling militia of Hearthshire  (well sort of, I had an older list but didn't realise it - so while Brett had 1200 points of skellies, I had 1320 points of stunties; whoops!). The undead horde pushed forward generally along it's whole front, moving faster on the wings where the cavalry, dragon and wights on my left flank, and the bone giant on the right flank, looked rather inti...

More characterful reporting from Mark in Thailand: Sensational news in Pattayavium a few days ago with the arrest of Barabbas, serious criminal and public enemy number one. After strenuous attempts to get him to name his associates failed, he will be executed this morning. Unknown to the authorities and most of the citizens, Barabbas has followers who are preparing to mount a desperate rescue attempt by overpowering the guards as he is led to his just desserts.  The factions are: The Rescue Party: Diehard confederates of Barabbas led by his main enforcer. Total 316 points. Matthias (106 points) Q3 C3 Armed, hard, leader, streetfighter Marcellus, Nikias, Plautus, Saul (45 points each) Q4 C2  Armed, streetfighter Letitia (30 points) Q3 C0 Distracting The Execution Party: A squad of the Prefect’s guard led by their officer, and accompanied by civilian relatives of some of Barabbas’s murdered victims. Total 312 points. Barabbas (0 poi...

I seem to have done a lot of painting so far this year. Here is the third army I've finished so far - and by finished I mean 'reached a natural pause'. The Legion of Super Evil is the creation of my wee lad, painted with some limited direction from him. The Legion is lead by night elves, but supported by other creatures of the night, including hoards of skeletal warriors. The units above are enough for a 1,200 point army in Lord and Lands (army list above), or 2,000 points in Kings of War .  The sorcerer, commander, and assassin - all from Pendraken. The sorcerer is a converted high elf standard bearer, the commander is another high elf hero, and the assassin is a wood elf hero. The Moon Knights, Magister Militum high elf cavalry led by a Pendraken high elf lord, and Magister Militum fallen elf spider riders. Pendraken high elf swordsmen - these were the core starting force for the army, handed over by JB because he's awesome, had spares, and knew my ...