If you go down the woods today, you'll surely be in for a surprise

With plenty of test games under our belt, we gathered last Saturday to play out the first scenario in the Hail Ceaser, Germania. This is the battle for the Teutoburg Forest, where Varius led his legions to disaster.


As you can see from the photo to the left, the legions are deployed randomly along the road, with the Germanic tribesmen rushing in from the side.

Sides were drawn, Terry, John M, and Ben were to commanding the Romans, whilst John S, Jim and myself were the Germans who were to do their best to introduce them to a world of pain.

The objectives for the Romans was to get off the board in reasonable shape. For the Germans, it was to kill and loot as much as possible.

Turn One.

With the men deployed, the first turn fell to the Germans and we did our best to charge forward. However, a flurry of bad dice rolls saw only a couple of units getting into combat. John S saw his cavalry charge in and break one of the Roman Legions at the front. Whilst, at the rear, Jim did something similar with one of Terry's unit.

To represent the desperate last stand of this fight, there was an unusual special rule which saw the Romans reduce in size, when they break from combat, instead of being removed from the table.

In response, the Romans did their best to reorganize their lines, but a flurry of bad command rolls and units stuck in combat, saw little movement. Ben was able to charge his auxiliary cavalry into the flank of one of my warbands, and after causing many casualties, I retreated. Worse lay ahead for Ben as John S wiped out the lead unit in combat.

Turn Two.

With a lucky flank appearing before me, I charged a small unit of skirmishers, as seen in the photo to the left, into Ben's cavalry. The combat ensued, and I managed to cause a mighty six wounds to Ben's one in return. The cavalry disintegrated and the skirmishers swarmed forward, taking the Roman baggage train. They would do very little for the rest of the game, so I imagine them drinking their way through the wine. 

Elsewhere, John S was able to get two units into combat but saw his archers blunder and retreat in panic, gaining a wound as well. This combat was a success for John and saw Ben's forces retreat under the Germanic pressure. At the rear of the table, Jim was about to make his move to charge Terry but was left standing out on his own, after failing a command test. 

The Romans reply saw Terry charge Jim. The combat was quick and furious and saw the drilled might of Rome teaching the locals a lesson as Jim gave ground disordered. In other parts of the table the battle between Ben and John S carried on, but this time, it ended in a stalemate. John M tried to charge my skirmishers, but I successfully evaded them. The wine was mine, and I was not going to be giving it back. 

Turn Three.

Turn 3, was going to be an important turn, the Germans had been able to get the upper hand from their surprise charge. Jim was able to carry this on and was able to get a nice flank charge on Terry's forces. The combat was quick with Jim coming out on top. Terry's units, breaking, were once again reduced in size as they desperately fought on.

At the top of the table, more jockeying for position happened, whilst John S carried on his fight against Ben. It was another draw, but Ben had reached his limit and was forced to roll on the break table. Breaths were held to see what would happen, and the Romans sighed with relief as the unit was forced to give ground. 

In response, the Romans turn was somewhat poor. Trying a cunning plan to get them out of the road, and into a fighting position. However, several poor rolls for command checks left them strung out across the road.

Turn Four.

Again for the Germans, there was further moving into position at the top of the table. Many units passed their command tests, however, were left frustratingly short of getting into combat. However, the excitement was still happening at the rear of the table. Carrying on the combat Jim rolled well, causing hits left, right and center on Terry's unit.

Failing five saves, the unit crumbled and disappeared.

At the top of the table, the Romans were able to get into the action. Despite Ben failing his test, a regular occurrence during this game, John M was able to get a charge in against John S. The combat was short and fast, with John M coming out on top and John S forced to give ground.

At this point, we stopped for lunch and discussed the game so far. The Romans were still holding out, but their numbers were dwindling. The chances of getting a second game in that day looked less and less likely, however, we would be home in time to see England smash Wales. 

Turn Five.

In this turn, I was hoping that I would be able to get two of my units into combat but failed to roll well enough to get into combat with John M. 

John S and Jim did something similar to each other. Moving forward, whilst trying their best to remove wounds where they could. 

The John's carried on their combat, causing four wounds apiece. The result of this combat was that each unit became shattered and they were required to take a break test. John M became a smaller unit whilst John S gave ground. 

In response, the Romans threw caution to the wind and John M was able to cause some wounds with a  good round of shooting. 

Turn Six.

John and I charged into the Roman lines, getting several different charges off. With a good round of combat, we could finish the Romans off. John was more successful in beating Ben's forces, as you can see from the photo above. I, on the other hand, bounced John M's Romans. However, to help round up the turn, John S's cavalry made short work of a unit of Romans. Jim, having wiped our Terry's division was making his way as fast as he could to the top of the table.

In the Roman turn, things went more their way. John M was able to cause wounds left, right and centre, but in a moment of foolishness, he added Varius to one of his units, which was beaten in combat, allowing John S to kill Varius. Another point to the Germans.

Turn Seven. 

The final turn. Both Jim and I saw all of our movement stalled as we failed to roll well enough. John S was better, getting into combat with Ben's unit. The combat was quick and fierce with John S coming out the victor, breaking Ben's division at the same time.

In the final Roman turn, John M went all out for it and charged as much as he could. He won several combats which saw my division finally break. However, it was too little too late, the damage had been done and the game was over.

So, a quick top up of the scores saw the Germans win by 94 points to the Romans 65. Points were awarded for capturing baggage, destroying units and so on. The final score really shows how close a game it was. John M's last minute fight back helped them get some last minute points, but the German surprise attack had won them the game.

Now, to the next scenario. 

Wargaming needs

In an issue of White Dwarf, many moons ago, I remember one of the better freelance contributors, Mike Walker, once described new models like this.

"There are two types of new models. Those that you have to rush out immediately to buy, and those that you will buy shortly"

I'm paraphrasing there as I can't find the issue with the original quote, but for me, it's very true. I want lots and lots of models, and if I had the money, I would be living with a lot more models, than I currently own.

Why am I talking about this, well it's been a reasonably busy week on the painting front. On Saturday, we were due to play the first scenario in the Hail Ceaser supplement, Germania. This was the battle of Tuteburg and a write-up of this scenario will follow shortly. As in all of our big battles, we all bring enough units to play the games and have some fun. At short notice, one of our players dropped out and we were suddenly a few Roman units short. Out came the brushes and I set about painting up a unit of Roman Veterans.

Despite being struck with nurgle's rot I managed to get a unit of 16 painted up. I tried something that I had never done before, painted up without having undercoated the models. I remember the great painter Gareth Hamilton's Skaven army from many years ago, which led me to buy a Skaven army, painted without a base coat. It had a few challenges such as having to make sure that all areas were covered so that none of the plastic grey would show through.

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures in this post, but why am I rabbiting on about needs. Well during that week, between painting and applying for jobs, I picked up two warhammer supplements. Nagash, from the End of times series and Age of Sigmar book one, Age of Sigmar.

I'd deal with the Age of Sigmar first, I've been reading an awesome blog about playing through Age of Sigmar, and this rekindelled my love affiar with Warhammer.

Lot's has been said and done on Age of Sigmar, even a man burning his army. I'm going to say this the Age of Sigmar is an intresting rule set and allows me to play more narrative scenarios instead of just a line up and fight, however I do miss the background of Warhammer. Unlike an intresting series of comments on Gav's Thorpes blog after talking about his recent Age of Sigmar book, where people call the Age of Sigmar background as devised by the Games Workshop marketing team. I like the Age of Sigmar background and models, but it does need some more back ground, which is coming.

Now, at the same time I won Nagash off eBay for a decent price for the hardback version of the book. I have to say that this set is amazing. I've only dipped into the fluff book, and I have to say that after reading the Age of Sigmar which had lots of fluff but it was slightly on the lighter side, this book was packed.

What I've spent most of my time reading is the rules supplement. It's jam packed with new monsters such as Nagash and his Mortrearchs. Scenarios to represent the battles mentioned in the fluff. It's this last segment that's made me want to get back into WFB and get my Undead, Bretonnians, Skaven, High Elves, Dwarfs, Empire and Chaos out and get painting new units and repainting old models.

Which brings me back to my original point. I'm very much of a hobby butterfly and I want everything. So watch the blog as I get the Undead out of retirment.

Romanic civil war

So it's been a while since I posted. This is due to a bout of Nurgle's rot which saw me miss a Wednesday, which was a shame. However, I was back there this week and I clashed with Jim on a Roman vs Roman battle.

Romans lining up

It was a straight line up with a division a piece. I had a mixture of Legionnaires, with one unit upgraded to be veterans, with a few auxiliaries in the form of a unit of archers, which you can see to the right, and a unit of cavalry. 

Jim's force was similar in nature to mine, but instead of cavalry, he took some artillery. The opening phases saw us both moving forward. Our archers and artillery taking some early pot shots, but not doing anything of note.

Time to have em.

 As you can see from the photo above I was able to get the charge on Jim and combat ensued. I'm sorry to say that the dice  were not favourable to me, and Jim won the combat. I managed to hold my ground, but my forces were starting to wobble.

Cavalry to the rescue.

However, in my fourth turn, I made my game-winning charge. Charging my cavalry into the flank of Jim's supporting units. This is where our practice games came into use. Mistakenly, I had nominated the cavalry to charge and fight the unit, not supporting the combat to the right. A mistake on my part. However, the dice, fickle as they are, smiled upon me and I managed to wipe out Jim's unit.

This allowed me to take a sweeping advance into the other unit. Feeling confident I rolled, the dice and it looked good. However, Jim's dice rolls were better than mine, and my cavalry unit retreated allowing Jim to support the sprawling messy combat to the right. My plan had been good and had succeeded in part. However, by not tieing up the unit in combat, left it free to support a combat. With that, we rolled the dice and my units disappeared, give Jim the game.

It was an enjoyable game and though I tried my best, the dice were not in my favour. They were just not able to get the rolls I needed. Having the practice game's has been a good thing and left me ready for our upcoming Saturday gaming day, where if you go down to the Teuteberg Forest you'll surely be in for a surprise.

Now, I'm off to watch the Rugby. Come on Scotland, let's beat the French.

Germanic Invasion

In a few weeks time, my wargaming friends and I will be playing the first few scenarios in the Hail Ceaser supplement, Germania. As you'll know from previous weeks battle reports, we've been playing Hail Ceaser to get ready.

This week, we put aside the Saxons and the Vikings and brought out the Celts and the Germanic Tribesmen. Instead of just a straight forwards line up and fight, we decided to have an objective. The Germanic tribesmen had to get through the Celt forces and off the board edge.

How the battlefield look for turn 1 and 2.

So we broke out the troops and lined up the forces. Both sides contained a good mix of troops. The Celts, or as they should be called Brits, had a few chariots. Whilst the marauding Germans had some cavalry.

The Brits were commanded by Terry and Jim, and they won the right to go first. The only positive move forward was when Terry blundered and his division drifted to the right. On our turn, we moved forward slowly, getting ready to charge forward in the following turn.

That was if we had a turn two. In this game, as you might be able to make out from the photos, we had six division, three apiece. All six divisions failed their command checks. Worse for Terry, the division that blundered previously blundered again and remember that they had left the gas on, and left the board, taking a wound per unit. At this point, Terry was the only player to have caused any damage and that was on his own turn.

It's not fun getting up close and personal with fanatics

The third turn was a bit better and I believed that Jim was able to charge forward and take on John's forces on our right flank. Combat raged but neither side were able to find the upper hand. In our turn three, seeing a big hole in the middle of the battle line, I charged two of my units forward, hoping to break through a unit of fanatics and off to the green countryside of Britain.

We rolled the dice, and my men came off the better. Causing five wounds, to Terry's two. It was this point that we've realised that we had rolled the wrong amount of dice on both accounts. As gentlemen, we agreed to refight the combat, and this time, Terry came off the better. Causing many wounds to my units.

Just before my clever move to kill the skirmishers

Turn four was a brutal round of combat, and my memory is a bit fuzzy on this. Hopefully Jim, on his wonderful blog Wednesday Night Warlords, will be able to inform you more about this turn. But at the end of this turn, we saw my division taking enough wounds to be broken. Whilst on the right flank Jim suffered the same fate.

As it was getting late, we called it there as a draw. I enjoyed this game, and it was a good game, played with lots of laughs. I'm looking forward to getting a rematch next week. Hopefully, it will come off better for me.

On the painting front, the weather has been better this week and so I've been able to get outside and do some undercoating. This allowed me to get the remaining seven Warg Riders undercoated and as I write this I'm in the processing of painting two of them up. This leaves me with some Mordo Uruks to paint up and a basing session and I've finished all of the models I need for scenario 1 of Siege of Gondor. I hope to do a photo session of them soon.

A second quick update

So due to having to find a new job, things have been a little lax on the blogging front. However, I'm here to recount tales of gaming woe to you. Wednesday night saw another clash between Saxons and Vikings. I took on the Vikings with Terry, whilst John M and Jim were commanding the Saxons. The game was a quick and bloody affair with the Vikings being forced off in quick order. It was enjoyable but the game was hampered with many poor dice rolls on my part. 

The Imperials have entred the base.

However, on a slightly more postive note, I got to try out my christmas present on Thursday night with my friend, Jonathan. This present is, of course, Star Wars Imperial Assault. It's a nice hybrid of RPG and tabletop miniatures game and I've now got a Darth Vader and AT-ST in my colleciton, so I'm happy.

We played the training scenario through twice, allowing us to be both Imperials and Rebels. I lost both games, but had a lot of fun. It's a nice little system and I'm looking forward to playing it more in the not so distant future. 

On the painting front, my out put, so far this month, is not great. Getting another 30 models done. It's not been helped that, despite being at home a lot more, the weather is rubbish, meaning that I can't go outside to undercoat some new toys. And when it was fine to do some undercoating, I went and ran out of spray. Going to get some more over the weekend to resolve this.

However, I've been able to get a bit more work done on the Seige of Gondor front. I've now painted every model I need for scenario 1, for the forces of Gondor. There will be a large round of basing at the end of the month, where I hope to show some the models all nicely painted up.

I have then turned my attention to the forces of Mordor. This has seen me paint up the seven remaining Orc bowmen, that i've had kicking around my painting table for several years. And the several remaining Orc Warriors that I never finished when I was mass painting Orcs for the large Helms Deep battle that I fought in 2007. 

Next up on the Mordor front is Uruk Hai and Warg Rider which will take a few more models of the to paint list. Once I do a round of basing on the Orcs, it should see me being able to play through scenario 1. 

As you can see from the photo to the right,  I've got a long way to go before I've painted everyhting I want. Though you'll not be able to make them out I've spent a lot of time building. I've built another two units for my War of the Roses project and the Mirkwood Cavalry that I brought last year. Now to get that spray paint out and get some paint on them. 

If all things go according to plan, the next battle I should fight will see some Celt on Celt action as a band of maurading Germanic Tribsemen land on the British shores to a hostile welcome committe.

Stay tuned for that. 

Saxons vs Vikings round 2

Or the tale of how I managed to snatch defeat from the hands of Victory.

So, Wednesday night, I had a game of Hail Caeser against Terry and John. They were using a combined force of Vikings and Normans, whilst I would be fighting off their unwarranted advances with a force of Saxons.

Get em lads.

I had two divisions of consisting of five units of thegns plus some slingers each. Terry had two division of Viking hirdmens and John had a mix of warriors on foot and a unit of mounted knights. I won the role off and my right flank marched forced as ordered and set out in traditional shieldwall manoeuvres. My left flank, heard the order, and then ignored it and possibly mishearing the order for a chant of Skulls for the Blood God or Waaaaagh decided to charge forward trying to get grips with the enemy as quickly as possible.

Terry and John's opening turn involved them moving forward and forming a shieldwall of their own. John's crossbow-toting warriors took aim and peppered a small unit of slingers, causing two wounds. Turn two began, and the first of my units made it into combat. Terry had the better of the dice rolling and inflicted more casualties on my men and they retreated to safety but Terry followed up and combat spilled into their turn two.

Terry's Vikings let out a roar and more combats appeared on my right flank. John tried to charge his knights into combat but a failed order role left them stranded in the open. Combat was a brutal affair with my Saxons inflicting wounds that Terry was unable to save. Terry did his best, but I was able to make my morale saves and I had gained the upper hand.

How many units are in this combat then. Answers on a post card to

My turn three became a brutal affair, I charge as many men as I could forward, arranging a string of combats across the middle of the table. On my left flank, I moved my skirmisher with javelins forward with a small unit of slingers and let rip. Inflicting four wounds on the mounted Knights which John was unable to save two off. Having rolled two sixes to wound, John was forced to make a morale save, which the knights failed and fled the table.

The combat was brutal with my men making short work of Terry's units. However, as their third turn began things were not all going their way. I had tried to hack my way through John's unit of foot knights, but they remained  resistant to my axe blows and my unit backed off, losing one of them in the process. As you can see from the photo to the left, it was a big swirling combat, which caused much discussion over the rules.

However, in their third turn things carried on as they had been left off with myself gaining the upper hands. Out of their three divisions, one had been wiped out and another was perilously close to collapsing. It was here I made a few mistakes.

During my fourt turn, I should have done three things that would have guaranteed my victory. I had to move one unit forward into combat and break one of Terry's remaining units. I got into combat, but in a rare flurry of dice rollsTerry won the combat and I was beaten off. The two things that I should have done, which I didn't do was to move my division commander into a unit to brings it's stamina down, taking away it's shattered status, and to move a unit forward into support.

Terry and John's fourth and final turn saw one of my shattered units wiped out, which broke my division and I lost the game. It was a highly enjoyable game, and I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. When you get caught up in the game it's hard to take time out take snaps. Terry and John were fun to play against and so, despite kicking myself for losing, I did have a lot of fun playing.

A quick update

So February is here and so it's time for a quick update. Well, there's been a lot of painting done, getting 104 models finished in the month. It's quite an achievement, especially as I've got them all based as well. :)

Plans for February are to carry on with the painting of the models I need to play through the Seige of Gondor. This is going well. I've now added Faramir into the mix. Thankfully the model was already painted, and so all I had to do was a quick touch up and he was then based up with the other 104 models. You can see a bad photo of him to the right.

In terms of this project. The remaining models I need to paint, for the forces of good, are excitingly painted up. This is Beregond, Citadel Guard, and the Warriors of Minas Tirith. Some of these are needed to be based, and this will happen later this month. I hope to be able to spend some time getting better photos of these in due course.

So I am now turning my attention to the forces of evil. I have decided to start with my Orc warriors with bows. This is because I picked five of these models just before Christmas last year and I would love to get them removed from the list of unpainted models. I also have two plastic models still to go. I've found these and they are now on my painting table.

In terms of gaming, I was hoping for another Armada game last week, but Ben never showed. Claiming to have homework to mark. Anyway, on Wednesday, we are planning another Saxons vs Vikings game. This battle report is to follow soon. This is a reminder game of how to play Hail Ceaser as we prepare for the start of our working our way through the Germanica book from Warlord.