The Italian Job

Pint's of coke with a pink straw give you a +1 to all dice rolls

So, after a brief foray into the Age of Sigmar, this week was back to normal and a game of Bolt Action vs Terry. For many years, I've not enjoyed this game. It's something to do with the pulling of tokens to determine who moves next. However, in the last year, breaking out my 101st Screaming Eagles has given me a new appreciation for the game.

So, we played a quick 1000 point game. Terry is busy painting a force of Italians for a forthcoming tournament. First time I've played against the Italians and they brought with them a few surprises including a plane, more of which will come later.

We rolled to see what scenario we would be playing, and the dice gave us scenario six, Demolition. We each had an objective and we had to try and destroy the opposition's objective. Terry used a vehicle and I chose my Anti-Tank gun.

We deployed half of our forces on the table and began turn one. It was a slightly uneventful turn as we moved forward and took up positions, ready for the scramble forward. The only thing of note happening was my sniper shooting the LMG from one of Terry's squad.

Turn Two arrived and so did Terry's plane. Having no flack to deal with this, it came in on my left flank and proceded to decimate an eight man squad. I opted to go down with this squad, but I still lost four men. The turn began properly and saw Terry land a mortar shell on the second of my squads. Again, I went down and Terry was able to do some damage to the squad.

In the rest of the turn, we began to bring on all of our reinforcements, and we were both able to bring on the rest of our forces. We moved up and I pushed a ten man squad as far forward as I can.

Hang on a minute lad, I've got a great idea

Turn three was the pivotal turn. Terry has moved his command squad out into the open and my ten man squad charged forward, and despite taking a casualty as they charged forward were able to engage them in combat, and wipe out Terry's commander. My men advance forward, and I could see his objective. One more turn, and I might be able to win.

However, Terry's veteran squad charged forward, from the nearby building where they had been hiding out and wiped out my men. I had seen victory and then watched it slip away. Worse was to go for me in this turn. Terry had pushed forward an armoured car down my left flank, threatening my troops. I tried to blow it up using a Bazooka and failed. I then tried to land a shell from a light Howitzer on it. I need a six, it was a long shot. I rolled to hit. It hit. I rolled to see if I penetrated. I rolled a one. It was a frustrating end to the turn.

Turn four arrived with the reappearance of the plane. It aimed at my fourth squad and did some damage to them. Again, I went down, and was able to reduce the damage caused, but it still did some serious damage to me. Having the next dice, I was able to fire my howitzer at the armoured car again. Having hit previously, I needed a 2+ to hit. I hit, with a dice roll of 2. This was it. I was going to blow it up.

Only to roll a 1 again. Two turns and two failed attempts to wipe out the tank. This was the main highlight of the turn. Terry approached one of his squads forward and wiped out the last few men from one of my squads and took cover in a building.

Turn five arrived, and I was able to wipe out Terry's squad in the building but the game ended with little fanfare. Due to the scenario objectives, neither of us had achieved our objective and so the game was a draw. Though, having done the most damage I feel that Terry takes a deserved moral victory.

To go left, when you should go right

So, what went wrong. Two things. Firstly, the airplane did a lot of damage. It did have a ridiculous amount of dice for its machine guns and quickly did a lot of damage to my men, who had little to do but die. It's an interesting unit, and one I'm going to be thinking about adding to my collections.

The other thing was my suicidal charge. I went against Terry's command unit, but on hindsight, I would have done this separately. There were three units behind the wall. The command unit, the tankette, and a medium machine gun team. I chose the command as it had the lesser amount of shots to fire. However, I think I should have charged the machine gun. I think, I would have been a bit further over and hopefully away from the veterans charge range. Then, I would have been able to make my way forward and get the objective.

Having said this, it has rekindled my interest in World War Two gaming and I'm thinking about starting a Desert Rat army. As I say a lot, to many ideas, not enough time.

Age of Sigmar - game one

So, I finally played my first game of Age of Sigmar and before I go into a short battle report. I have to say, despite playing against Liam, which meant an automatic loss, I really enjoyed the game. The rules are very different to Warhammer and come with the adage easy to learn, difficult to master. I like them. It's a game that is designed to a narrative theme. So the point of the game might be to capture a building and hold it for the rest of the game, or kill the enemy leader, instead of the traditional lineup and wipe up each other out.

There is nothing wrong with the latter game, and I often enjoy this. But the little something extra that makes me think a little different about how I play is a nice extra. So what forces played. Well, I took my High Elves and brought a Lord on a Dragon, which you can see on to the left. A unit each of archers and spearmen, staples of my High Elf forces for years. A unit of Dragon princes, a skycutter, and a repeater bolt thrower rounded up my army.

Liam took a Beastmen force and had two units of Minotaurs. A Shaman, a warlord, and some bestigors and a few razorgors. Liam won the roll to see who sets up first and then elected for me to go forward. I moved forward and tried to get my Dragon Lord into a place where he could charge. However, I was out and so the only damage that I did was a hit from the Bolt thrower, causing a wound on the minotaurs.

Dragon meat anyone?

In Liam's turn, he moved forward and my Prince and Dragon suddenly found themselves being brutally ripped apart by their giant axes. Minotaurs axes, as we both discovered, do three points of damage for each wound caused. My Dragon disappeared under a hail of axes. Liam was very apologetic about this, but things didn't look good for me.

On my left, his bestigors had charged into combat with my Dragon Princes, and had quickly killed three of them. I was able to kill a couple back, but the unit then disappeared due to battle shock. On the other flank, the Razorgors had charged the skycutter, and my spearmen were able to join in the combat.  I was able to get the upper hand in this combat and caused more wounds than Liam.

Surprise

Turn two was pretty much the same as before. Liam went first and behind my rear, some giant monstrosity appeared and charged into my Repeater bolt thrower crew. Surprisingly, he managed to leave it with one wound, and despite my best effort, the crew was not able to harm it.

The Spearmen and the Skycutter and the Razorgors carried on the battle and it went mainly in Liam's favour. Both of my units were not looking healthy but were still in the fight. Meanwhile, the minotaurs charged into the archers and decimated them. Though, this time, I was able to get some attacks in but caused little damage

In our third turn, the writing was on the wall and Liam finally killed off the rest of my forces and we called it a game.

So, despite carrying on my tradition of losing to Liam, I had a lot of fun. Age of Sigmar seems to be an enjoyable game and I look forward to playing more in the future.

Now, all I need to decide is if I want to buy more. I'm very tempted to get the starter set and go from there. I'm not a big fan of either the Sigmar force or the Chaos, but the new Dwarfs look good. So many ideas, not enough time or money.

March update

Hello all,

  It's been a bit quiet recently due to ongoing busyness. Good news is that I've now found a new job, which allows me to invest in new models :) I've also gone past the owning 6000 models, which is exciting, but I'm itching to get a stock count to find out what I've got.

To get to this point, I paid a trip to the annual wargaming show in Sheffield, Triples. I was disappointed by the show, barely any traders and punters. I don't see the show lasting much longer if the organisers are not careful. However, despite this, I was able to pick up a few new units to add to my Napoleonics. I got another Hanoverian unit, which will be acting as the Hildesheim regiment and a unit of Dragoons which will be the 1st Royal Dragoons. It's another step forward to getting towards gaming Waterloo.

Painting has been going well, and I've now gone past painting 200 models this year. Recent highlights on my painting table have been a unit of archers and a mixed unit of archers and billsmen which will be seen in my Bosworth force. I've also been able to get some further progress on my Seige of Gondor project.

See you soon.

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.