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.

500 Miniatures painted and counting.

So it’s happened I’ve painted my 500^th miniature this year. In fact, the total has now risen to 505. I’ve got some basing to do now to make sure it happens, but with the Christmas break looming. I can see get some more models done.

Sorry for the picture.

So what was the 500^th miniature to be painted? Well, it was an Aly Morrison Chaos Champion, that I originally purchased in 1997. Bizarrely I can even tell you where I purchased it as well. It was from the Games Workshop store in Coventry. I painted it back in the day to be a leader of my Khorne Berserkers and, I think, last year he got stripped in a bath of Dettol and he’s been kicking around my desk, waiting to get repainted.

So I did, I stuck true to his Khornate heritage and painted him in dark red and brass. I think he has come out okay. However, doing some research into this model has led me to realise that I made a mistake. When I brought him, I just assumed that he was a champion of Khorne. I was young and he has a big chain sword, however, I have now learnt he was just a standard Chaos Space Marine Champion. I am starting to think I need to purchase a proper Khorne champion to lead my squad.

However, there is a down side, the difference between the amount painted and the amount bought this year is quite small, and so I need a big push next year to try and clear down the back log as quickly as possible. Hopefully I will be able to get a large number of Germanic Tribesmen painted up in the next few weeks to increase the gap.

Repainting this classic miniature, and hitting the 500 model mark, has got me thinking of plans for next year. Firstly, there will be the continuing project of Middle Earth. I now have less than 200 individual models to purchase, so that I can complete my goal of having, at least, one of every LOTR model GW has released.

Some of my recent purchases.

This project also involves me getting enough models to be able each published scenario, either in a rulebook, source book, or White Dwarf. This is a slightly larger total of 980ish models. This is a long term project, that I am going to be plodding along with. I am trying to work through one source book at a time, whilst buying miniatures to bring down the need for the Hobbit scenarios. The next book to do is Siege of Gondor. I’ve got some mounted Royal Guard, an Uruk-Hai Ballista and a Mordor Troll to collect for that one. 

Further than that, I’ve been inspired to start a project on my beloved High Elves again. Earlier in the year, I was given a large number of models from a friend who used to play and was getting rid of stuff. In it was a large number of High Elves from the 4^th edition days. These were the models of my youth that I never got but have always wanted.

So, where to start. Well I made a decision to try and collect all of the models from when I first started, September 1996. I headed on over to the website Stuff of Legends and headed to the catalogue scans for 1995 and 1996. Any model shown on these pages is where I am going to start with. Thankfully, I know that I have a load of the original plastic archers and spearmen from back in the day. However I’ve acquired

ten unpainted models from my friend's lot, so I’ll start with them.

Going through the scans has reminded me of how many models I already have. This allowed me to make a decision. I want to be able to have valid units on these. Therefor all foot troops will be units of 20 strong, with the exception of archers, which will be 10 strong.  Cavalry units will be ten strong with the exception of Reaver Knights which will be five strong.

The only other exception is command units for Archers and Reavers. I don’t like giving them a command unit, except a champion, and so these models are therefore for nothing more than for me to being a completionist.  I am now going to spend some time hunting on eBay for the High Elf Sorceress riding a Unicorn, as well as a cheap, unpainted Warhammer 4^th edition box set for lots of plastic spearmen.

The other project I am going to be working on is the forces of Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field. I’ve already started owning some of the Perry plastic box sets and, as you can see from the photo on the left, I’ve already started to paint them up. This is going to be a difficult project as there are not a lot of lists or references to help me say I need to go and get X and Y.

However, there are places that I can start. I’ve ordered the Osprey campaign book on Bosworth, which has arrived and I’m going to read that and take some notes and start planning. Hopefully, this will lead to a good sized force, that I’ll be using with Hail Ceaser.

That’s all for now, and yes, Tanks are coming. Here is a picture of the Allied tanks for you.

Coming Soon

Tanks lots and lots of tanks

Dark Ages

The Vikings line up.

   So, the other night I took part in a quick game of Hail Caeser, playing a simple Viking raid on a Saxon dwelling. We had two divisions sides with a mix of Thegns and Hirdsmen. Terry and John took the Vikings Jim and I took the Saxons. Lines were drawn and here is a quick recap of what happened.

  The Vikings moved forward, chanting their war cries and shouting curses from Odin on their foes. The Saxons, however, remained resolute, fixing their shields into the customary shield wall and waiting for the enemies to arrive.

The Saxons engage Shieldwall manoeuvres 

  The moment came and with a great cry the Viking warband, led by Terry, charged forward into the mass of troops led by myself. After a quick exchange of blows, the Vikings found themselves not only being forced back but quickly set upon by their foe. 

It was the second Saxon turn and on the right flank, combat carried on with the Saxons taking the upper hand and forcing the Vikings back again. However, on the left flank, their glorious leader, Jim, urged them to charge forward, to gain honour and glory, to protect the women and children.

Only for the men to go. No. 

At this point, Terry’s division had become broken. His two units of warriors had suffered many, many casualties, but the Saxons kept in combat with, doing their very best to wipe the invaders of the land. However, with the other divisions being remaining largely untouched. The battle hung in the balance.

Do you have a flag?

On the left flank, the Vikings were close enough to charge. They just need a successful test to give them two moves. The dice were rolled; they passed, but could only move forward one move. Leaving them with the jeers of the nearby Saxons ringing in their ears. 

On the right flank, more of the same continued. The Saxons, with a plus one for winning the last combat, pressed home the advantage, but the Vikings were now beginning to fight back. Wounds were beginning to mount, and for one unit, they were getting dangerously close to breaking. 

Things are starting to look bad for the Vikings

This was the turn, charging forward the Saxons engaged with the Vikings interlopers, hoping for a quick and decisive battle, like their brethren on the left flank. However, it was not to be. The Vikings, eager to take revenge for their fallen brethren, or to burn some houses, were not sure which, cut down the Saxons as they charged in, and pushed them back towards the homesteads.

Worse for the Saxons, the left flank started to fragment with one unit managing to get the upper hand but took a heavy beating from the Vikings in return. And the other pushing forward, driving back the enemy again. Things were starting to get precarious.  

The final turn for the Vikings began. It was a game of combat now, however Terry’s unit of archers shot and took a small unit of slingers to their breaking limit. On the right flank Jim’s Saxon’s disappeared under a wave of axes and swords. There was one unit left, engaged in combat.

However on the right, the Saxons were beginning to falter. The unit taking the heaviest damage fell back, whilst the other units bounced the marauding Vikings back once again.

Or maybe not

The final Saxon turn arrived with a few quick charges and we were into the combat phase. The Saxons, on the right flank, thought bravely, and despite managing a high number of wounds, were unable to see of their foes. Jim’s Saxon’s on the left flank fought bravely, but no made indentation into the Vikings.

And with that the turn and the game came to an end. It was a highly enjoyable affair with two great armies, and everyone came away happy. What more could you want from a game. I felt that Terry suffered from some poor dice rolls, which stalled the Viking charge on the right flank, and that I was blessed with some very good roles, that enabled me to bounce Terry’s forces backwards. But’s that what Hail Caesar, and all wargames are like, a series of bad dice rolls and you’re scuppered.

The positive outcome of the battle, unless your my bank balance, is that I know want to buy Saxons and Vikings.