Irregular Wars Wargaming

As Andrew has recently completed his third 6mm army for L'Art de la Guerre  - Triumvirate Romans - we took the opportunity this week to get our wee chaps on the table and roll some dice in an epic 1st century BC grudge match in northern Mesopotamia, with the Romans up against the forces of the enlarged Armenian kingdom of Tigranes II, King of Kings.  Apologies for the photos - the light was not enough for my phone and I didn't think to use a flash! As the defender, I elected to fight on a largely featureless plain. There was a wee village of locals to help supply out camp, a couple of fields and a rough looking gully, but otherwise a big open expanse of level grassland - perfect for what I expected to be my massively overwhelming cavalry superiority. On my left flank I had two units each of pikemen, heavy swordsmen (imitation legionaries), and bowmen, supported by two units of slingers and three groups of LMI javelineers. My centre consisted of six units of cataphr...

Taking advantage of some much-needed downtime, I introduced JB to Ganesha Games' Of Armies and Hordes and PSC Games' Battle Ravens over the Easter weekend. JB brought his huge 10mm dark elf collection and trimmed out 1500 points worth of pointy wee b@stards to harass my halflings for our first game of the day. We set up the table with about 32 areas, sticking to relatively simple open terrain, light woods, hills, marsh, ruins, a burial ground and a village.   Feeling viscous, the dark elf wolf pack went straight for the village in the first turn. They encountered 10 stands of villagers who they overran quite easily, but not without suffering casualties themselves. The halfling artillery on the hilltop - first time I've used artillery and it seemed pretty effective -  bombarded the village, killing more wolves, before the halfling militia marched in and dispatched the last of them. In the distance the treefolk explored some ruins and discovered an poorly ...

I was really excited to get my copy of Men of Bronze by Eric Farrington (EF) yesterday, on the day of release. These are small scale battle rules for hoplite warfare in the Archaic and Classical periods. I love rules designated for specific periods as they tend to bring a lot more flavour to the games. I was excited by these rules given the period in question – essentially, these rules allow players to field relatively small armies (five to eight units in a recommended game) to resolve differences between Greek poleis and their neighbours. Indeed, I started a new 10mm Classical project in anticipation. However, this is a bit of a tricky review for me to write as I am both a wargamer, and a classicist; a game designer and an academic. Overwhelmingly I find myself appreciating the very neat game mechanics that EF has brought to the table, but I’m also distracted by my beardiness. Lets get those distracting niggles out of the way first … Some of the grammar is rather clumsy and t...

Following on from the goblin wolf riders I showed at the end of last month , here is the start of a small steppe goblin army. These fabulous 10mm sculpts are styled as steppe goblins (conveniently), produced and sold by Polar Fox Studio in Siberia. They come in packs of 30 cast on strips five wide. There is a random command strip and then a selection of other strips - there must be 15 unique sculpts in each pack.  The variation is quite impressive for a small range, and they really fit well with the feel of the Warmaster wolf riders with a similar Hun-inspired aesthetic. They are very characterful and therefore a bit of a bugger to paint. The end result is fantastic though. This wee chap is a Polar Fox steppe goblin shaman or sorcerer. In support I have some steppe ogres. These are actually 15mm orcs from Magister Militum, but their equipment is also a bit Hunnic in feel - well, some of their hats anyway - and they fit well with the 10mm goblins.  Here is the...

Paul Field over at Blind Beggar Miniatures recently approached me to ask permission to sculpt a prehistoric tribe based on the illustrations by Orestix in my  Palaeo Diet: Eat or be Eaten rules. Permission duly granted, Paul has sculpted and cast six prehistoric hunters with comic, characterful, over-sized, interchangeable heads (and a hound).  He's launched these as a Kickstarter which has already funded, so do go check them out. The hound is a stretch goal, and a Captain Mancave sculpt (unrelated, but usable) looks to be an optional add-on. Palaeo Diet: the Tribe Kickstarter

Having been re-invigorated by Of Armies and Hordes to expand the household's 10mm fantasy collection. First up are two units of goblin wolf riders from the company that shall not be named. While I generally want no truck with the afore unmentioned company, I've always wanted wolf riders and I managed to pick these up very cheaply second hand. The sculpts are... beautiful. This is the start of a new Steppe Goblin army led by King Snatters on his trusty wolf, Snowy. The remaining units are intended to flesh out my lads Night Elves. First up from Pendraken are his corsairs or adventurers.  Next, also from Pendraken, are a third unit of swordsmen (the unit on the left is the new one). Lastly, from Magister Militum, some Night Elf scorpion demons.

Last week saw me dip my toe in some relatively unfamiliar waters in the shape of Ganesha Games' Of Armies and Hordes . This is the fantasy mass-battle rule set which has been brewing away for a couple of years now, but was only released by Andrea Sfiligoi  in the last couple of months. Coming in the familiar 6"x9" format that all Ganesha titles come in these days, Andrea produced a limited number of spiral bound hardback copies and I was lucky enough to pick one up. It is a fantastic product from a manufacturing point of view and of really high quality. Regular copies will be softback, perfect bound like usual. To start of with, we went for small armies coming in at just under 1,100 points each. My Hearthshire halflings versus my wee lad's nasty Night Elves. Regular games would be double the size. The models are 10mm. The army lists are pretty intuitive. If you've ever seen a Ganesha Game before you'd be familiar with the Quality test mechanism u...