Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Dingly Dell back on thin ice! more Fantastic Battles in 15mm

 Needing some scenery for Ian's snowy gaming cloth I created 3 snowy hills from a chunk cut off the large piece of insulation sheet that friend Chris had given me a while ago. This was a quick and easy project, although it made a right mess in the garage! I also painted up 4 new companies ready for this weeks game, 2 companies of skirmishers, an extra company of two handed swordsmen and a weird looking daemon thing, painted blue to fit in with the Ice Elves. 

Would the new troop curse affect these guys?

Dingly Dell troops deployed on the left were it by a couple of mishaps whereas the Ice Elves had some units surging forward towards the temple. 

We decided that there was a Troll Hoard hidden within the temple so with two of my units now approaching the temple from mishaps this was quite useful. 

The armies get into shooting range but not many casualties were caused. 

On turn 2 one of my captains searched for the hoard but he was vanquished and removed from the table leaving my units out of command. Happily they were very lucky with their Impetuous actions so fared well in the melee that followed.  

My swordsmen start to get surrounded. 

The ice elf spearmen about to charge and destroy the spirits. 
(I have forgotten what Ian calls this unit). 

However, the greater number of Dingly Dell troops starts to tell and most of my units become surrounded suffering more hits than they can dish out. 

My favourite unit, the Tiger Lancers charge into the Ians mushrooms who have shield wall so I need 6's to hit, look at my dice throw in the box lid! It is rare that the Tiger Lancers lose, but they got squished today. 
At this point, a deliveryman arrived with some snow covered trees I had ordered so we put them on the table, not bad but I think I will do them up a bit. 

Back at the temple Ian sends in a character, Purple Ronnie to find the relic and emerges with a Shadowy Cloak of Stealth which he never got chance to use.  

A single company of my ice elf skirmishers are left on the left flank. They didn't last much longer and of course my rogue was lost at the same time. I was getting quite short of character figures by now. 

The Dingly Dell magic-users made excellent use of the 'summoning' spell, raising 6 new units to fight for them including this wonderful and newly painted 'Tree-Rex'! It died of course being newly painted but all this summoning left me badly outnumbered.  Ian had also used 'Prophecy' at the start of the game and again used his extra dice wisely causing me many a problem. In Dingly Dell such use of prophecy is down to Denzil of the Dell and his Sacred Tablet. 

Ice elf archers about to be destroyed, the giant slug was one of the summoned beastie's. 

It was fun working out this melee. End result was all but my WitchKing on the Wyvern died, leaving me with very few companies left. At this point, end of turn 6 both sides had lost over half of their companies and so another closely fought draw was declared. 
Once again, Fantastic Battles had given us a really great game. 




 

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

15mm Royalist v Roundheads using the Epic English Civil War rules.

 We are in the happy position that between the three of us we now have more than enough 15mm English Civil War units to do some decent sized games (with plenty more units to come). Using the Warlord Epic Pike and Shotte rules we set up an encounter scenario based on one out of a magazine again. I had also devised some random event cards based on some ideas of my own and a few borrowed from other rule sets. Ian as commander of the Roundhead forces selected a card which made an opposing commander drunk with a minus on his Command level. Ian played it on Oliver Cromwell who was leading my cavalry. For us Nigel pulled a 'Bluff' card which we also placed with our cavalry in a weak attempt to 'bluff' Ian into thinking it was something more worrying...I am not sure it worked. 

Deployment, Parliament (Nigel and I) on the left, Ian's Royalists on the right. 

Oliver Cromwell getting drunk on a hill with his troopers. 

The Royalist cavalry facing their Parliamentarian foes engaged in a face off for the first 4 turns. 

Nigel soon got his foote troops lining the hedge and was getting the better of a firefight with the Royalists. 

Ian tried using 'column' to get his foote units quickly into position; sadly his poor command throws slowed him down. 

Ian's cavalry getting ready to charge.

Ian's infantry trying to move forward. 

The bottom three cavalry units are mine. Being drunk clearly inspired Oliver Cromwell  as my three units routed three of Ian's units and made the fourth unit withdraw 'shaken', (the unit with the yellow counter).  

With their cavalry wing destroyed and their infantry advance stalling before it had even begun, the Royalists conceded and a Parliamentarian victory was declared. This was another fun game and it seems like these rules are now our rules of choice for the ECW as they are fast and fun. 


 

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Battle on the Ice Fields: 15mm Fantastic Battles.

 With Ian having acquired a new snow and ice themed battle/gaming mat it seemed a good idea to christian the mat with a game of Fantastic Battles using my Ice Elves in their natural element. We placed a few patches of grey felt on the snowy mat and deemed these to be ice fields. Any unit or company moving over an ice field had to throw a dice and on a '6' fell through the ice to their doom. If a unit or company opted to stay on the ice for more than one turn the chance of falling through increased by 1, so a unit staying on the ice for a second turn would fall through on a 5 or 6 and so on. I did wonder about making it easier for my Ice Elves to avoid this fate as the ice is their natural home but decided that for a one off game this would be unfair but perfect for a campaign.  

This game would also be a first battle for my new unit of Ice Wyrms (fantastic beasts, mounted, furious charge and poison). I only have two of these old DandD battlesystem Miniatures but hope to have a couple more soon. 


Other than the special rules for the ice we played a straightforward encounter battle, the theme being that Ian's Gnome and Nature army were now invading the Ice Elves homelands. The Ice Elves rush to put a force together to face the Invaders across the snow and ice of their homeland. It was 1,000 points a-side. 

Deployment, Forces of Nature on the left, Ice Elves on the right. 
The patches of felt are the ice fields which were ignored and moved around by both forces. 
I think I need to make a few ice themed pieces of scenery. 

The Ice Elves did not suffer too badly from 'Mishaps' apart from a few points of resolve lost. 

The Nature forces also got off lightly from 'Mishaps.'

In the front right of the photo Ian's giant snails with howdahs charge my elf archers to negate the effect of their missile fire. 

The giant snails win that melee. 

Elsewhere my tiger riders squish some witches who failed to evade far enough but my tiger riders are now in danger of being surrounded. Ian's wizard had summoned the giant snail right onto the tiger riders flank. The elf spearmen move up to help. 

There were some very close melee's going on. 
My mage at the rear had taken 'Haste' as his spell choice. This was an experiment for me which back fired as I failed to use it effectively. I need to think about this spell choice but it felt like points wasted. 

Ian's giant mushrooms with a defence of 6 and regeneration proved to be a very tough unit. 

As the various melee's continued quite a few of my characters were destroyed alongside the units they were fighting with. I thought that things looked bleak for my elves.

After a final and hectic round of melee on turn 5 both sides reached their breakpoint at the same time resulting in a closely fought draw. 
I always enjoy playing against Ian's Nature army as he always mixes up the traits and troop types to present me with a real challenge of who and how to fight them. This was another fun game and we both agreed that 'Fantastic Battles' always gives a great game. 




 


Tuesday, February 6, 2024

More 15mm ECW

 We had another 15mm ECW game using the Warlord Games Epic Pike and Shotte rules today.  I set up a more open table, using less scenery than last week to hopefully allow us to get more units into battle in our 650pts per side game. Once again, it was a straight forward encounter battle. A quick set of dice throws decided that Ian was on the northern edge as the Royalists and Nigel and I were the Parliamentarians facing him. Ian also had to start the deployment, his dice throwing was poor and this seemed to set the tone for him for the rest of the game. 

Royalist deploy on the left, Parliamentarians to the right. 

The Royalist deployment. 

The Parliamentarian deployment. 

Ian sent his dragoon's forward quickly, trying to get on our flank. 

Ian also advanced his central infantry Battalia, leaving one unit behind as that had been disordered by canon fire and could not advance. His other infantry failed the order so did not advance in support. 

The Parliamentarians who outnumbered the advancing Royalists shot one enemy unit to pieces, destroying it and placing the rest of the Royalist foot in trouble. 

Nigel sent the Royalist cavalry off on a flanker. The front unit are his newly painted Ironside's, bound to come to a bad end as all such units do.

Another Royalist Infantry unit is destroyed by intense Parliamentarian musketry 
(and Ian's very poor Break Test dice rolls).

Nigel's Ironside's, led by Cromwell himself charge Ian's Cuirassier's, Ian couldn't even score a hit  on the Ironside's who swept the Cuirassier's away. Cromwell's bonus rules in melee really helped here.

Nigel's cavalry sweep round to threaten the Royalist flank.

The Royalists are in serious trouble now and start to withdraw with their central infantry Battalia broken 

As the battle ends the remaining Royalists cower in the corner, one of the quickest games we have ever had. Ian's luck with the dice was dreadful and really affected the outcome of the game but we still had fun, these are a good, quick playing set of rules.  




Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Trying Warlord Games 'Epic Pike and Shotte 'rules using our 15mm figures.

 In recent weeks we have been play-testing the 'in development' rule set 'Never Mind the Matchlocks' by Billhooks author Andy Callan. These have given us some fun games but as we played we also painted and now have enough figures for bigger battles that are perhaps beyond the intended scope of 'Matchlocks'. So today we tried a bigger battle using Warlord Games 'Epic Battles'. Having read the rules they seem a fairly straightforward adaptation of the Black Powder Pike and Shotte rules with the main exception being Pike and Shotte units are now treated as a single unit rather than 3 connected units. 

I set up the table with a deliberately open centre to encourage a straightforward encounter battle. Nigel and I commanded the Parliamentarians and Ian and Stuart were in control of the Royalists. 

Deployment at the start of the game has the Royalists on the left with the Parliamentarians facing them on the right. The Royalists opted to take the first turn and quickly advanced their cavalry. 

Looking along the Royalist line. 

Nigel's shooting was pretty good today, three shots and three 6's!
Sadly Ian saved two of them. 

Looking along the Parliamentarian line as their cavalry advance to meet the challenge of the Royalist cavalry. 

Royalist dragoons supporting their cavalry advance. 

After a couple of turns of melee, the Royalists won the first cavalry clash, chasing the Parliamentarians cavalry away. The dashing cavaliers seemed to be heading for a comfortable win at this point. 

The right flank Parliamentarian infantry lining the hedge, soon cleared the dragoons away with a lot of shooting. 

On the left flank some Parliamentarian skirmishers took refuge in the church and helped stall the Royalist infantry advance. Parliamentarian shooting seemed to be better than the cavaliers, was the outcome of the battle changing. 
Having won the clash of cavalry the Royalist horse then got hit with every fire from every direction which weakened them so much they had to withdraw. 
At this point the Royalists started to withdraw their forces as suddenly it was the Roundhead's who had the advantage. After seeing the Royalists off with another fine turn of shooting a Parliamentarian victory was declared. 
This was one of those great games where possible victory swung first one way then the other. All four players seemed to enjoy the battle so we play again next week.  

Dingly Dell back on thin ice! more Fantastic Battles in 15mm

  Needing some scenery for Ian's snowy gaming cloth I created 3 snowy hills from a chunk cut off the large piece of insulation sheet tha...