Siege of Gondor - Part 1.

So, today is my first post in my new project, replaying the Siege of Gondor. Many years ago, I was able to take part in a large scale game of Helms Deep that looked like this

The forces of Isengard are unleashed

Forth Eorlings

This game was played over an entire Wednesday, between my regular gaming opponents Terry and John. It was a lot of fun, and ever since I've always wanted to do the next big battle in the Lord of the Rings, Minas Tirith. To do this, I want to use the Hail Caesar rules as they would allow us for more troops. Whether this game ever happens is another matter, but a man can use it to help paint through his lead mountain.

And so, I've found myself a good place to start. Back in 2004, just after the release of the Return of the King, Games Workshop brought out the Siege of Gondor source book. So, as I'm now only two models away from having the required amount to play each scenario I decided to start painting my way though this book to help me on my way.

But, to make it more challenging. Instead of just painting enough models to fulfil each scenario's requirements. I am going to paint every single model I have of that miniature. For example, scenario 1, requires me to have painted 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Sword and Shield. I will make sure that all 26, that I own, are painted and based. 

So where to begin. Well the first model, for scenario 1, is Boromir of the White Tower. I originally purchased the model upon it's release in 2004, and it was undercoated and started to be painted, but was never finished. Time to get that sorted. I dug through my pile of unpainted models, and found him. 

A good start. His armour had been painted, as well as the flesh. It wasn't in the best of conditions, but the flesh would be passable, and so I sat down to repaint him. I did a quick google search and hunted down my copy of White Dwarf 263 to find the original painting guide for Boromir and set off painting. and here is the finished result.

Sorry for the poor condition of the photo, but I'm happy with the model and it takes my completed models to 104 for the year. Having only brought 14 models, this is a good thing. This year, I'm aiming to paint enough models to have 4000 painted models, which i'm about 500 away from doing so. Easily doable.

Anyway, back to Boromir. This model painted quickly enough, taking about an hour to do from start to finish. It's not one of my favourite models produced for the range, I think this is due to the thickness of Boromir's banner, but it's now done and I can move onto the next subject. Faramir. It's not mentioned in the Siege of Gondor book which version of Faramir to use. The ranger or the armoured version. I think I have an armoured version to finish off, so that's the one to do.

Tonight, I should get another Star Wars Armada battle in, so keep an eye out for the battle report coming up soon.

World War 3

Gentlemen, first to Moscow gets the prize

So, in a change to my scheduled game of Armada, I ended up playing the new game from Battlefront Miniatures, the creators of Flames of War, Team Yankee. This game is based on a book by Harold Coyle, which is all about, as you can guess by the post title, World War 3.

I played a game against Terry, who is the owner of all the toys on the table. I was given a quick overview of the rules, and then we threw ourselves into the game. We played a straight forward scenario, drive forward and capture an objective, before the enemy. We were both using Americans.

Winning the role off, I chose to be the attacker and advanced slowly forwards. On my left flank, one of my M1 Abrams took a pot shot at an opposing M1. My dice roll, which was not to last, was good and penetrated the tank. However, my dice rolls deserted me at this point and I was only to shake the crew from the tank.

Hello Mr M106

As this was an impromptu game, I can use this point to give my excuse for all of the bad dice rolling. I was using someone else's dice, in this case, Jim's. This failure to destroy terry's tank was a theme that would continue for the rest of the game. I still blame the dice, not my rolling technique. Anyway, back to the game.

Terry moved forwards and his Cobra attack helicopters came in on the side, near my unit of M106's,  and wiped out one of my vehicles.

Turn two arrived and with the sound of engines a pair of warthogs came swooping in, firing Gatling cannon shots left right causing serious damage on a pair of M113. I was also able to take out the M1 that I had shot in the previous turn and his mate, seeing the gaping ruin of the tank, ran for it.

It was obligatory to make engine sounds

Terry responded in time, and I soon found the M1's and my Commander, that I had been advancing through the middle of the battlefield, were caught in a rain of bullets. A storm that they didn't last very long in. On a more positive side, Terry's helicopters were unable to destroy any more vehicles at the rear of the table. However, unseen by me, one of his M1's slipped around the side and was near the objective.

Turn 3, and the Warthogs came flying back onto the table and launched a couple of missiles into Terry's mechanised platoon, causing a lot of damage, or so we thought. Terry had two anti-aircraft on the board, and we had forgotten to use them. We back-tracked, and he let rip, causing my two aircraft to rain down shrapnel, instead of firey death.

My tanks trying to make a last minute dash
for the objective. It failed.

As a condolence, my two Abram's on the left flank made a mad dash for the objective, if I could hold out for two more turns, I could snatch victory from the hands of defeat. Sadly, in Terry's turn three, my remaining units were systematically targeted and destroyed. The game was over, and Terry was the victor.

So, did I enjoy this game. Yes, yes I did. The game mechanics are nice and simple, and I enjoyed having stat cards for each of my units. I had a lot of fun playing it, but I'm not rushing out to get myself an army. At the moment, there are only two forces, US and Soviets. I believe that Brits and Germans may be added in the not so distant future.

However, for the moment, I can say no to collecting my own forces. If I were to get into some cold war wargaming, I would be looking for something in the sixties, using the 7tv rules from Crooked Dice studios, which I hope to pick up later this year. I watched the Man from U.N.C.L.E. film over Christmas and that inspired my wargaming juices more than this.

It doesn't mean I won't play it again in the future. I'll just use my own dice next time.

Quick Update

So, as I attended my first Wednesday night gathering, I discovered that my good friend, and regular opponent, Jim has started a blog. Head over, the link is over in the left side of the site and it's Wednesday Night Warlords. Good times.

I popped over to Warlord on Tuesday and picked up the first models from the new models in the Savage Core range. I feel in love with the Cro-Magons. I picked up the three blister. One chief, and six warriors. I love these models and I am looking forward to painting them up shortly.

I also feel and picked up my first Gates of Antares models. The Concord strike team. Again, I'm looking forward to painting them up. However, I've discovered that I've purchased wrongly. Today, Warlord previewed there Ghar Command Crawler and I've fallen in love. I have to have me one of those.

That's all for now. Next time, another update on my Bosworth project.

First battle in Space

So Wednesday night saw the first game of the year, and Jim and I took to the stars to play another game of Star Wars Armada. This is the third game that I’ve played and the second for Jim. I really like this game and it has a great positive in the fact that all of the ships come pre-painted, however, the rule book is a bit messy and could be presented better. But the rules are good, and I can buy a Star Destroyer, so I can let it slide. 

However, in the immortal of Benny, from the Lego Movie. Spaceships.

The fleets square of.

So, Jim took the forces of the Empire, with one Victory Class Star Destroyer, a Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, and an Imperial Raider. All of which were backed up by six Tie Fighter squadrons. I was playing the forces of the Rebellion and had a mark two Assault Frigate, two Nebulon B Frigates and a CR90 Corvette. These were backed up with four X-Wing squadrons.

So, turn one began and for both sides it was a matter of igniting the engines and sending the fleet forwards. All of the ships were out of range at the moment and so turn one ended quickly.

Going first, I send forward one of the Nebulon B and brought it into firing range. However, Jim’s fleet were still out of range. 

Jim responded by sending his raider forward, guns blazing, reducing my Nebulon B’s shield to nothing. I responded by sending the Assault Frigate forward,  responding in kind to Jim’s raider and targeting the Victory Class Star Destroyer.

Jim then moved in the Victory and inflicted heavy damage on my Nebulon B Frigate, leaving it limping forward. The remainder of the turn saw us trading shots with each other, I managed to take out one of this Tie Fighter Squadrons. 

Wait until you see the white of their eyes.

The third turn began and with some bad news for Jim as his Raider was destroyed under a withering barrage of fire from the Nebulon B Frigate and the Assault Frigate. It took a bit of doing, as my dice kept coming up blanks. But I got there. However, Jim was able to devastate the Nebulon B bringing it close enough to destruction, but it was still in there.

The fourth and final turn began and Jim finally was able to destroy the severely wounded Nebulon B Frigate. With a final barrage from the X-Wings destroying another of Jim's tie fighter squadrons. I had destroyed one frigate and two squadrons. Jim, in return, destroyed one of my frigates and X-Wing squadrons. We called it a minor victory to me, which was a good way to start the New Year. 

Next week, I'll be playing my friend Ben and we'll see how it goes again. 

New Year's resolution

So it's been a while in coming, but what resolutions have I made for the forthcoming year. Well I've got two main ones.

1)  Firstly, paint more models. It sounds simple, but last year I painted exactly the same number of models as I bought. Though, that's good, there was no net decrease in the spreadsheet. It does mean that I've not decreased the number of unpainted models I own.

To this end, I've gone through the spreadsheet that I use to keep a track of what I've brought and made a list of everything I've not painted yet. It's quite a lot, and it only goes back four years. I should get back to painting.

So far I've only bought three models this year and I've painted seventy five so things are look good for. 

2) Finally, I need to take a stock take of my models. I've got nearly six thousand of them, and I'm sure that there are plenty that's not accounted for. For example, I'm sure that I've got a Blood Angels Dreadnought, that someone gave me, however it's not on the spreadsheet. So that will happen.

This will most likely happen when I move house. So later in the year.

Finally, there are two resolutions that will be longer lasting. Firstly, play more games and post up reports. Secondly, try to consolidate the larger number of models I have into armies. For example I've got a 500 point Dwarf army, and so I'm going to look into expanding that.

Here's to the new year.

Wargaming the War of the Roses

Well, for the first post of the new year I should do something about wargaming resolutions for the forthcoming year, but that will be the next post, later today. Today is all about the start of my effort to wargame the War of the Roses, and more particularly the Battle of Bosworth.

I've got no real answer why I want to wargame this battle. I live quite close to the field, about fifty miles away. However, there has been something about that I have always liked. To me, it's the end of the Medieval period and the beginning of the Tudor and the renaissance. It's an exciting time.

So, where do I begin to research this? How do I plan my forthcoming purchases, so that I can make my army as historically accurate as I possibly can? Whilst wargaming in later periods, such as Napoleonics, you can look up the orders of battle, but the older you go back, the harder it becomes.

So I turned to the first really useful piece of research I can find, the Osprey campaign book on the subject. Helpfully, the one on the battle of Bosworth even has an article on wargaming the battle. It informs me that Henry Tudor's forces numbered around 5000 men, consisting of a lot of French, Scottish and Welsh Mercenaries and a core of Knights, both mounted and on foot that were Henry's personal men.

To this end, I have got a rough idea of the Hail Caeser force that I'm going to build. It will consist of four divisions. A mounted division led by Henry himself. This will consist of three of four units, plus Henry on a command stand.

I will then have a division of foot knights, with a commander. Again, this division will be three of four units strong. The remaining two divisions will be the mercenaries. One will be the Welsh archers and the Scotts, the other will be the French mercenaries which will allow me to field some crossbows as well. I will pop a couple of cannons in these units.

In terms of purchasing, I will be getting my models from Perry Miniatures. They have all of the models I want, in plastic, and so it makes purchasings straight forward. It also allows me to purchase metal character models, and to keep my metal fix, allows me to purchase and field units of fully metal models.

There have been some archeological discoveries of canon balls at the battlefield. However, my research has not said yes or no if Henry had them or not. One or two wouldn't matter too much as they won't do that much damage on a table top.

I'm still reading through the Osprey book, however, and so there is more research to be done. However, in a desperate bid to get painting, I have started on my first unit. A unit of Mounted Men at Arms. I did a quick google search to see what livery Henry Tudor wore, and it came up with green and white. Pictures to follow of my first unit, once there
based.