Irregular Wars Wargaming

The last of the miniatures painted during my post-Covid down days are these four companies of Forest Dragon ghouls. Originally pre-Islamic demons from the Middle East, ghouls have come to be seen as cannibalistic fiends driven mad by their hunger for human flesh. In my Gothic Noir vampire army for Fantastic Battles , I'll be running these as irregular companies with the feast trope, and malodorous and impulsive traits to represent their enthusiasm to reach fresh victims, and the universal revulsion that their dining habits cause in others. Like everything else sculpted by Forest Dragon, these are superb figures and really capture the ghastly visage that ghouls conjure in the imagination. I am trying out different approaches in my painting style with this army, using a white undercoat and playing around more with thinned paints and dry brushing to let the quality of the sculpts shine through. I don't normally go in for 'evil' armies, but these are just classic! 

Yep... I'm really enjoying painting these Forest Dragon Vampire Counts. Making the most of Covid recovery to get as much of the small army done for Fantastic Battles as I can! Just finished are a two-company unit of Dire Wolves, and a happy-go-lucky necromancer. Since the 19th century discovery of pleistocene dire wolf bones in North America, fictionalised dire wolves have cropped up in numerous fantastic settings (Warhammer, D&D, Game of Thrones etc), extremely large, powerful, and blessed/cursed with human like intellegence, they usually bear little resemblance to their prehistoric inspiration. My new pups are no different! Huge, battle-scarred wolves the size of small horses, they will haunt the woodlands at the behest of their vampiric masters.

Time for another Galleys & Galleons dispatch from Mark in Thailand... The Sea Cannibals have sent an expedition to occupy and settle the island of Liang Bua, in the Sondonesian archipelago. This will give them a new base, well situated to menace the whole region. The island is an informal protectorate of the Knights of St Michael of Singapore, and as it happened a small squadron of the Knights was on hand - on a goodwill visit no doubt - when the Sea Cannibals dropped in unexpectedly. The Sea Cannibals expedition (264) comprised - 3 x Double hulled voyaging canoes (22) (52*) [Mangonui*, Tangaroa, Ureia] Q3 C3: Flagship*, Intimidating, Unarmed 6 x War canoes (28) Q2 C2: Boats, Intimidating, Unarmed The expedition leader was the war chief Hongi Hika. The Knights (246) had available - 1 x Galeass (66) [San Miguel] Q4 C5: Chaser guns, Drilled soldiers, High castles, Master gunner, Square rigged, Sweeos, Veteran NCOs. 3 x Galleys (48) [Cervesa, Corona, Stella Artois] Q3 C3: Drilled sol...

The Death Coach - sometimes the Silent Coach - is a lesser-explored feature in British and Irish folklore. A black coach decorated with skull lanterns and drawn by black horses, it is usually a harbinger of death; hearing or seeing its approach foretells of your own death, or the death of someone close to you. Once it manifests, death is inevitable and there is no power that can stop it. It even has the power to pass through locked gates and doors. Here in Ireland, the Death Coach (Cóiste Bodhar) is said to be driven by the Dullahan, a headless coachman with links to the pre-Christian god, Crom Dubh. The Dullahan's most distinguishing feature - beyond the headlessness - is a whip made from a human spine. Obviously, this Death Coach from Forest Dragon Miniatures has a slightly different vibe, being driven by a more conventional Death figure with cloak and scythe, and sans spinal whip. Still, its a cracking figure! This is the first piece of a small vampiric army I have planned for F...

It might be remembered that my 2020 project was a 6mm 1809 Austrian army. That was 'completed' by the end of that year and I have been adding to it, very slowly, ever since. The army has still not seen action, so there is no pressure, but every so often, it grows. I am coming out the other side of my first bout of Covid (I am traditionally slow to adopt new fads) and found myself with a few moments to knock out another line regiment. The red facings on this unit suggest it could be the 8th, 20th, 44th regiment, or similar. With 96 figures a regiment, these are painful to paint, but rewarding to complete. I also doubled the number of jäger in the army - the two bases on the left are new, matching well with the bases painted at the start of 2020.  Two more command stands - for a (forthcoming) grenadier brigade and a new command stand for the avant garde brigade - their old commander was transferred to lead a light cavalry brigade. An overview if the Austrian corp to date. On the...

This week saw a larger than normal game of Fantastic Battles down at Lisburn Gaming Club. Roger ran a 2000 point army of Wood Elves against an unusual alliance of diminutive furry folk - I ran 1000 points of beastlings led by the Red King on our right, along side Chris who commanded my 1000 point army of Ziggurat Dwarves on our left. We played on a 6'x4' table, increasing the deployment bepth to retain the recommended 10bw between the opposing armies. Mishaps were surprisingly light on disease, although multiple units on either side of the table were enthusiastic; this battle had obviously been coming for some time. Only one unit of elves was late - an elite unit od stag-riders who deployed right at the back of the elven right flank. In the first turn, their impetuous action saw them take their leave of the battlefield. On the same flank, both an elven and a dwarvern shieldwall deployed forward and they continued that movement to start a melee by turn two.  Two large blocks of...

Andrew and I playtested another Fantastic Battles siege game last week. The result - a new approach to sieges is necessary. Back in December I produced a free pdf document as a thank the community at large for the initial support that Fantastic Battles recieved. The document included new relics, traits, a few scenarios and, something asked for by quite a few folks in the Facebook group, work-in-progress ideas for sieges. It has taken a while to get back to working on them, but polishing the siege rules is my current priority as far as rules creation is concerned. After three test games, all against different opponents, it is clear that the approach that I had taken is not the way forward. I had attempted to create what might be termed a 'full siege'; simulating the attrition of sieges over weeks or months, with players needing to worry about supplies, foraging, engineering, and sallies etc.  While that approach can be done, and it can be done in some detail, it does not make ...

Preparing further for more Fantastic Battles siege playtesting, I've finally finished the wee order of siege equipment I made with Kallistra months ago. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed when they arrived and lost any enthusiasm to get them done. They just seemed a bit ... lacking. And the ladders would do for 28mm rather than 10mm, but that's another matter. However, now that I've done them, I'm not sure why I was disappointed! I'm quite happy with them for all that they are! Siege towers allow units to attack enemies on the top of defesive structures, and negates the enemy's defensive modifers.   Battering rams are good for knocking down gates, and perhaps punching through light defensive structures like palisades. Ladders - these ones have been cut in half - are cheap to build, and allow the beseiger to scale walls, but don't make life any easier than that for the poor sods who have to scale them.

While waiting on a new (small) army for Fantastic Battles to arrive, and 10mm fortifications to be built by Dark Architect Designs, I painted up a few 6mm sci-fi pieces I've had sitting idle. The photo above shows all the assets available to the Elysium Trading Company to date - walkers, tanks, artillery and snipers. I previously had a single small walker - an old GW Epic Eldar deadnaught (I think?). That has now been supplemented with two more, to give a nice little selection of walkers for 6mm games. Also freshly painted are a platoon of medium tanks - these are Hunter medium tanks from Alternative Armies. Three sport a nice double barrelled turret. The fourth (on the right) has a longer single barrel, and side guns.

With the completion of  Håkon's hallions and the shield-maidens , I now have enough hard-bitten vikingr to crew a snekkja, the small, fast, Scandinavian longships used extensively to raid up and down the coast. I only got the last of them varnished yesterday, so thought I'd take the opportunity for a group shot.