Club Night 8th March - Bloody Barons

I'd been looking forward to a game of Square Bashing all week and when I turned up at the club on Friday I wasn't disappointed. That's because Sean had completely changed his mind but chosen the equally satisfactory Bloody Barons; a Wars of the Roses set from Peter Pig that I'd never played before. Game on.

The scenario he'd chosen for us was the Battle of Bosworth; the one that's been in the news lately that saw Richard III installed underground waiting for some nice traveller folk to cover him in tarmac. Victory conditions: kill Richard / Henry.

Deployment followed the more traditional interpretation of the day. Playing the role of the Henry Tudor I had a small, reasonable quality force facing off against a much larger force under Richard III (Keith). On my flanks the Stanleys lurked, waiting to decide which side they would support.

On the far left we see Thomas Stanley and in the centre left Oxford who was running the show for the ineffectual Henry. William Stanley is out of shot in the foreground. On the far right our the forces of some Yorkist non-entity whose name I forget, then the centre under Richard himself. The Yorkist left flank under Northumberland is again just out of shot.

The Yorkist left under Northumberland.

A nice shot of the Lancastrian centre.

 

 Richard and Oxford face off.

 

 

A nice shot of the Yorkist centre.

 

Things started well for the Yorkists. Their first arrow volleys did holy murder on the Lancastrian centre and a cannon shot ploughed a furrow through the forces of Thomas Stanley. Not the best way to win him over... Very little happened in my first turn; my attempts to persuade the Stanleys to commit to my cause were all in vain.

In turn 2 one of the Yorkist Household centre units made a mad charge across to assault part of Oxford's retinue. Unsupported they made little headway against the inferior quality troops. Richard joined his Household knights and moved up to the front of the hill. It was now my turn to rain arrows on my enemy, causing disorder and stalling most of their line's advance. Happily, both Stanleys decided I was the likely victor at this point and joined my cause. William moved to take on Northumberland and Thomas advanced on the opposite flank.

Things went from bad to worse in turn 3 for the Yorkists. The morale effects from the previous turns meant they continued to get the worst of the archery exchange; Northumberland's units especially were mown down in large numbers. Richard attempted a desperate charge on my centre but couldn't motivate his troops for the big push.

In turn 4 Oxford pushed through to the front of the fighting in the centre and helped rout the opposing infantry unit. The rest of Lancastrian army pushed forward, still getting the best of the archery duel and receiving virtually no casualties in return. Richard again failed to persuade his knights to charge though they braved the hail of arrows to move closer (below).

At the start of turn 5 the countdown was on 3 (4 maybe...) from 21 and the Yorkist army had largely melted away. Everywhere the Lancastrians were ascendant and we decided to call it. I'd have liked to play on, see Richard charge, and inevitably considering the forces arrayed against him be slain... It'd have been like watching history play out.

Great fun. Thanks Sean, for putting on the game. I'll let you do it agains some time.

Club Night 1st March - Blitzkrieg Commander

We finished early last Friday, a couple of players needed to get up early next day. We should have played on as as it turned out the game only had one and a half turns left in it.

Things went from bad to worse for poor Barry and the Brits. The superior CV of the German Panzer HQ allowed order after order after order to get through; a double 1 (2 actions from one order) helped too. Keith went first in turn 6, further carnage taking Barry past army Break Point. Barry failed his CV9 check to carry on so game over.

No story to tell as such, it was more like an execution in a Polish wood, so the photos are just a chance to show off Keith's gorgeous figures. (I remembered my camera...)

 

 

This game reminded me of an early East Front game of BKC that almost put another friend, Sean, off BKC forever. BKC absolutely does NOT work with a discrepancy in CV values across the forces. I'll remember this in future. It might be OK to have the odd poor HQ in bigger games with many commands but games this size are ruined. I hope Barry will play again...

Warhammer is Dead - Long Live Armies of Arcana!

The title says it all really. The Evil Empire finally broke me. I've played very little 8th Edition and not really enjoyed it. I don't like the look of the competitive army builds or how they play and so we have slowly drifted apart.

I started playing Warhammer when 6th Edition was new and I have large painted armies (more or less painted in some cases) for Empire, Chaos (all three flavours), High and Wood Elves, Ogres, Vampire Counts, Orcs and Goblins, Lizardmen and Dwarfs. I used to buy every army book for every army whether I owned that army or not, just to be in the know. But no more! £30? Are you taking the piss, GW? On top of the expense of altering my army as you continually crap on bought and painted units and introduce new Uber units? No thanks! Perhaps if I owned one army, but where is the fun in that?

So what to do? Another member of Stoke Wargames group, Keith, tried to get me to give 4th Edition Armies of Arcana a try a few years ago but we were both put off by base size issues. Last week however I bought 5th Edition and after a read through I'm all fired up to give it a go. Keith's keen to go down this route too; bugger the basing issues, we'll deal with it...

This will be big...

Spanish Houses Project III

Yay! The first four buildings are finished; filler on the bases, a slap of paint, some tufts, some static grass and some clump foliage. Voila! They've probably cost me about £1.50.

I think next up will be another batch of Spanish style buildings and then I'm going to go all adobe.

Club Night 22nd February - Blitzkrieg Commander

The game that was cancelled last week finally happened. Late WWII BKC in 10mm; British v. German, mostly Pendraken I think (they're Keith's figures). Keith (Vile Hun) v. Barry (More tea Vicar?); me umpiring (again!).

Germans:

CO (CV9), Recce Sdkfz 232, 2 x JgPz IV, 2 x Pak 40 w. Maultiers
FAO (CV7), 2 x 105mm batteries (off table)
HQ (CV9), 3 x Panther, 3 x Pz IVH
HQ (CV8), 9 x Rifles, 2 x MG, 1 x Mortar

Brits:

CO (CV9), 2 x 6lb ATG w. Carriers
FAO (CV8), 2 x Priests (off table)
HQ (CV7), 3 x Fireflys, 6 x Cromwells
HQ (CV8), 9 x Rifles, 2 x MG, 1 x Mortar

We only played 4 turns due to a late start, we'll finish next week. We played Encounter and the Brits struggled to get on to the table; for the first two turns they only had the FAO! The Germans had no such problems and swept on to the table and over the half way line with no opposition.

When the British armour finally made it onto the table it was heavily engaged by it's german counterpart and got the worst of the exchange. Both 6lb'ers were quickly detroyed and after two failed attempts to call in a strike the FAO was over run and fled. Oh dear...

The CV7 really hurt Barry until he learned to use his CO to help. He rolled crap all night too!

Some random photos from the game (we don't have any 10mm terrain!). I forgot the camera so they're phone quality.

Spanish Houses Project II

I managed to move this project on a little further today; corrugated paper roofs and quick paintjobs.

Basing and fancy detailing tomorrow to finish...

Spanish Houses Project

I'd been doing a little every now and again on my 15mm SCW stuff (I really ought to post a few photos to show where I'm at) and I was conscious of the fact that I don't have any suitable 'Spanish' buildings. I always planned I'd buy some but a trip to 'The Range' has changed that...

I came back with 5 A4 sheets of white 5mm foamboard and a new project was born. I need 15mm buildings that I can use for SCW, Mexican-American War and modern skirmishes in Central America. So pretty generic white buildings with terracotta pantiles it is then.

Everything so far is cut from just one of my 5 sheets.

 

 

I nearly forgot the chimneys; I found some inspiration for them on the Empress Miniatures site, "Rustic Chimneys". I just need to stick on the corrugated paper to represent the pantiles and then I can paint and base them.