Irregular Wars Wargaming

Finding myself with a little unexpected time on my hands this weekend I focused my attention on the three Warp[loque] Miniatures beastfolk chariots I've had waiting patiently in the queue. These are one-piece digital sculpts/prints. There are three chariots, each with very distinct crews - and even the composition of the dogs differs. For my Fantastic Battles army of the Red King, these will be vehicles with (I think) the berserk, furious charge, and passenger traits. The most heroic of the thegns (big-beastfolk-warrior-chaps) is a goat with a mouse charioteer. I gave all the thegns the same Antrim-inspire tartan I am using across the army. The ram and his squirrel charioteer. The ram's shield is decorated with an Irish trinity knot - one of the other unifying motifs I am using sporadically across the army. I'm not sure that the contrast between the light blue and the dark green is enough to make a convincing shield design. The wolf and his mouse charioteer. The wolve'...

The newest forces to marshal under the banner of the Red King are the moohemoths - monstrous highland bovines augmented with sturdy battle platforms to carry beastlings into battle. In my beastfolk army for Fantastic Battles , these will be used as fantastic beasts with the monstrous, heavy melee weapons and passenger traits. Also shown is a golden hare piper to serve as one of the army's captains. As with the rest of this force, everything is from Warploque Miniatures - or Warp Miniatures as it seems they have just been renamed. The piper and the beastling crew are from a pack of tiny wee beastfolk spearmen. The two giant cows are from the halfling range. Once again, a joy to paint and a tough range to photograph well...

  A second beastling levy unit is now ready for the beastfolk army of the Red King. Once again, the unit combines Warploque 10mm beastfolk spearmen for the front rank, and archers for the rear two ranks. Splendid miniatures, if hard to photograph!

Andrew and I came to blows again this week in another 28mm l'Art de la Guerre Hittite-Trojan clash. Unlike the last encounter between these two armies, this battle really came down to ther wire. The Trojan centre of heavy spearmen matched up against a mix of Hittite medium spearmen and heavy chariots. On the Trojan left, the small corp of elite light chariots took on the Hittite chariot archers, both supported by assorted skirmishers and javelineers. But on the Trojan right, more Hittite heavy chariots rode into over  too many LMI bowmen in the open. Despite a strong showing at the extreme flanks, and the heavy spearmen holding their own, it was the deployment of the bowmen in the open which proved the undoing for the sons and daughters of Troy. They fought like proverbial Trojans, and died like Homeric ones. The battle came down to a single breakpoint in the end, but it was the Hittites who proved successful. With this particulat match up, it is clear than my Trojan chariots, de...

It was with great pleasure that JB came up over the hills this weekend for a game of Fantastic Battles . He led my standard goblin army against my wyld elves. Mishaps were unfortunate across the boards with disease rife and both armies losing companies to desertion. Early in the battle, the goblin wolf- and bat-riders swarmed the elvish stag-riders supported by the great eagle. After a couple of melees, both blocks of troops routed, taking a goblin captain and the elvish warlord with them, and leaving the flank wide open. Likewise, a large unit of goblins and a unit of elvish rangers - caught in the open - fought each other to breaking point. In the centre, the wyld hunt launched into a hill giant. But in the end, it was the clash in the woods where more rangers and a tree shepherd took on goblin madcaps and spider-riders was where the battle of resolved. The goblin dice gods abandoned them when it mattered and the elves got the upper hand, scattering the madcaps and breaking the gobli...

I had a good couple of evenings painting this week, cracking on with the Red King's  Beastfolk army for Fantastic Battles . The army is being built around Warploque Miniature's wonderful 10mm beastfolk range. Although I intend to only use Warploque sculpts in the army, I have been fairly loose in the choice of ranges to support the core of beastlings. These mushroom men - or shroomlings - are Warploque 3D scultps intended for 28mm games but scaled down to stand 8-9mm tall. They will be used as mindless irregular companies with poison (and perhaps forester?). The wyrd-sister. I was halfway through painting her as a shrew with a grass cloak when it dawned on my that she is supposed to be a hedgehog... A lovely wee figure all the same. A squirrel wearing a Scots bonnet - one of the army's captains. Two companies of mjowls - Warploque's name, but I'm keeping it because there is no better name for such a creature. These are supposed to be 28mm cat-owl gryphon-like critt...

Hold it now and watch the hoodwink As I make you stop, think You'll think you're looking at Aquaman I summon fish to the dish, although I like the Chalet Swiss I like the sushi 'cause it's never touched a frying pan Yeah well, it's been running through my head for some reason... And sure, have ever truer words been spoken? Now that is a question.  It has been a busy and tricky last few weeks, but I have finally been able to finish up my 28mm Eureka maenads for my Fantastic Battles  Bacchic army. These ladies form will form the largest melee unit in the army, formed of four irregular companies with berserk (racial trope), doughty, furious charge and stimulants.

The Bacchae took the field for the first time this week, facing off against Joel's nasty orcses. Joel had been part of the original Fantastic Battle playtesting group but hasn't not played since. We played a 750 point game on a simplified battlefield (just two large woods on an otherwise oven field) to get re-acquainted with the mechanics.  The Bacchae's stimulant racial trope proved interesting, with the centaurs completely uncontrollable, the maenads and one unit of satyrs becoming berserk and proud, and the other gaining +1 melee and +1 movement. The orcs more-or-less avoided any mishaps during deployment (just a little disease, but what do you expect from orcs), while both the centaurs and the goat-chariot deployed late on my side of the table. The table was a tad narrow, so we deployed closer than we should have. That meant that units closed faster than they normally would and reduced the benefits of both my shooting and my many magic-users. Bakchos (mage-lord with le...

Over the weekend I managed to paint up the first unit for my 10mm Beastfolk army. The miniatures are digital sculpts from Warploque, printed by Small Scale Prints (via Etsy). These wee guys - sold as 'vermen' which I thought was quite hurtful - consist of squirrels, mice, shrews, newts and frogs. There are only a couple of unique sculpts for each species, but they are some of the most charismatic miniatures I've seen in a while. They stand about 6mm to the eye, so they're quite wee; on par with my halflings, and noticibly smaller than my goblins and dwarves. Here they are beside the Red King for scale. Of course, for that to be useful, you'd need to know that he stands 12mm to the eye. For my beastling levy I've mixed together the spearmen and archers into a single unit. For  Fantastic Battles I plan to run them as either irregular or formed companies, with the long spears, shieldwall and shooting traits. I'm at something of a loss to come up with a suitab...

This week, Roger’s Wood Elves and my Wyld Elves took on Mike’s Undead and Andrew’s Ratkin in an epic 2000 point clash of Fantastic Battles . We played on a 180x80cm battlefield, littered with woods, a few fields and a settlement. Roger deployed facing Andrew (to left), and my forces faced Mike’s (to right). Andrew’s rats used the night march strategy to start forward of his default deployment area. He survived the mishaps rolls with barely a scratch, while Mike’s mishap rolls meant that his large units of mummies and skeletons were enthusiastic and deployed forward (in lone with the rats to their right). Roger’s wood elf spearmen were likewise enthusiastic, while one of my tree shepherds was late. Otherwise, there was little disruption in the deployments. Roger’s wood elf war-dancers were on stimulants and proved to be completely out of control (he rolled a 1) meaning they would be treated as out of command range throughout the game. The battle opened with both the undead advancing on...