The Return of the Dead, 15mm Fantastic Battles

 Somewhere dark and dank the restless dead were stirring. From the deepest, scariest corner of Ian's painting shed the undead army appeared and marched over to Phil's house for their first game of Fantastic Battles. Facing these scary little blighters would be the combined might of Phil's Orcs (led by Lord Baarn Dur) and my Ice Elves (led by the Mage Lord Scathach Death-gaze). Ian also produced some suitably themed undead scenery to add to the atmosphere. We were quite interested in how this new army would play as it would be using Traits we had not played before like 'Mindless'.  All figures are 15mm from a wide range of companies. 

We came up with a simple scenario. 3 pieces of undead scenery were placed about the board serving as 3 objectives to claim.  The theme being the undead need them to raise more troops and the alliance needs to destroy them. 

Orcs and Ice Elves on the left were the attackers, Undead on the right were defending. 

Ian had lots of great previously unseen figures in his new army including these undead vultures from kallistra. 

Here you can see the undead mad cow and some of the scenery to be fought over. 

First main action of the game was my Ice Elf mounted crossbow being charged by the vultures. They remained in combat for about 5 turns before the elves finally won. 

The undead rogue was leading the vultures and he challenged the Ice Elf rogue to a duel and the two managed to slay each other. This left the two units out of command but locked in melee.

Love these skeleton cavalry from Ian. He used 'summoning' to bring these on. 

Phil's new unit of Trolls held our right flank all game, facing of against more undead cavalry and skeleton archers, neither of which dared advance against the Trolls. 

The Jester in the background is in fact Kroogerrand Hymax the Undead MageLord/Necromancer, he of the annoying summoning spell. Just as the alliance thought they were getting the upper hand, up popped a freshly summoned vulture, undead dragon or two companies of undead cavalry. 

Another very nice undead figure-that did nowt all game!

Ermantrude the Undead Mad Cow charges into my very worried Ice Elf archers. 

A view down the main centre battle where Phil's Orcs was slowly getting the upperhand. 

My Tiger Lancers having defeated one lot of undead suddenly find themselves charged by an undead dragon and a vulture. 

Ermantrude, the undead mad cow is slain by the Ice Elf Archers but falls onto them squishing a few brave elves. 

The centre of the battle as the Undead are broken leaving the Ice Elf/Orc alliance victorious.

Phil's main battle line a bit battered but still intact. 

Once again, Fantastic Battles gave us a great game that seemed incredibly close until the undead suddenly crumpled over two action packed turns. Victory to the Alliance but we are sure the undead, (currently sulking in Ian's shed) will return. Ian's use of the Summoning spell was very clever but none of us were quite sure on how it should actually be cast. His mainly Mindless army was quite tough to break and certainly presented us with a fresh challenge. 

We are enjoying Fantastic Battles so much we have decided to plan a small three player campaign, using the campaign system in the main rulebook with a few added tweaks of our own. It may take a few weeks to sort out but should be fun. 

I have also had time to paint up a couple more 10mm ACW buildings, a church from Timecast and the barn from Pendraken. The two ranges seem very compatible to me. The barn has an integral base, I added a small mdf base with a few cardboard graves to the church. 

More 10mm Black Powder ACW

 Having enjoyed last weeks game so much we decided to play another Black Powder battle of 10mm ACW using some of  the Army lists from the Glory Hallelujah supplement, set at 600 points each to match our slowly growing collections. I set up fairly neutral/symmetrical terrain and the dice decided that Ian's Union troops took the North table edge whilst Phil and I leading the Confederates deployed along the Southern edge. Here is the table after deployment...

Ian, just finishing his flapjack had created a very strong line for the Union. Phil and I as the attackers tried to go for a strong centre and needed a rapid advance. 

This being our second game we knew the rules better and this made for a faster moving first few turns. Early on, my centre advanced behind the hill in the middle of the table, Phil was advancing to the village and fields on our far right and my artillery and cavalry guarded our left. So far, so good. 

Phil's Rebs took up a good position in the cornfield and the outskirts of the town. 

A bit of a dark photo but things were looking good for our advance in the centre. 

This is what we were advancing towards, Ian's whole line of artillery with infantry support on either side. 

At this point, everything was going as planned for the Confederates. 

Ian's cavalry lined up opposite mine with a unit of infantry in Skirmish formation in support in the woods. 

My main infantry line get ready for the Rebel Yell and charge into those perky union skirmishers...but fail the Order roll twice whilst getting shot at from all directions. . 

Ian's infantry and artillery proved to be quite good shots. This combined with a sudden loss of all decent order rolls and then poor rolls on break tests for the Confederate's led to a complete and rapid collapse of the Confederate force. It took about 6 turns to get into position and about two turns to lose the battle. Well done to Ian but Phil and I were both amazed at the speed of our collapse and very poor luck with the dice.

 It was still a fun game even if we got well and truly whacked. 

15mm General D'Armee, Battle for the Farms on Waterloo Day.

 Howard very kindly invited me round for an afternoon game of 15mm General D'Armee to celebrate Waterloo Day.  For a quick set up/scenario we used the 'MacDonald's Attack at Bautzen' from the main rulebook but swapped to North France/Belgium (but we left out the redoubt) and using many of Howard's excellent British and French collection. I took control of the French leaving Howard in charge of  the British. 

French deployment from their right flank. With the dice allowing me to seize the initiative I was able to get quickly forward and capture the central farm. 

British deployment from their left flank. 

British deployment from their right flank-Howard was unhappy with the placing of his artillery and so limbered them up to move across to the centre. 

My French guard shelter behind the farm ready to pounce on any advancing British whilst a line unit occupied the farm. 

I also managed to occupy the right hand farm but this photo shows Howard's troops kicking me back out. Two turns later I was able to seize it back. 

By turn eight there was a real mix of units battling over the two main farms but so many of Howards units had suffered too many casualties and with my larger cavalry force now advancing on the right Howard called a British withdrawal resulting in a hard fought win for the French. 

This was possibly our best game of General D'Armee yet, helped by us getting more accustomed to the rules. 

Many thanks to Howard for hosting.  

10mm ACW using Black Powder

Recently I have been busy painting up my 3rd 10mm ACW army, but this time I chose to paint Confederate's rather than Union. Having painted over 160 figures in the past few weeks for this project and with Ian already having a decent collection and adding more; we decided that it was time to try out 'Black Powder' with extra ACW flavour coming from the 'Glory, Hallelujah' supplement. 

Having selected two almost identical forces it was decided that I would control the Reb's with Ian and Phil in command of the Union. In this photo my cavalry are moving to the small town in the bottom left to occupy the buildings and hold that flank. 

Ian loves to control cavalry and he soon spotted that my artillery were not well protected, thankfully I was able to get an Infantry unit across to protect them just in time.  

Some Union zouaves (how do you pronounce that?).

Phil found a wood to hide some troops in-he does this most games! (and it works too!).

Across the centre there was a slow advance from both sides and artillery was used to try and soften a few units up.  

The view from the Union line. On the top right Ian is breaking through and defeating my infantry/artillery Brigade. Yellow counters denote a 'Shaken' unit.  

Ian's victorious cavalry about to remount and try to get behind my line-things were looking bleak for the Confederates just now. Happily I managed to get a round of firing into them and rout them. 

The Union Zouaves start to advance as the Confederates fall back to reconsolidate their line... but they were not feeling too optimistic.   

Ian has painted up some lovely 10mm ACW buildings. My cavalry had spent all game lurking here whilst Phil's Union troops opted not to try and oust them. 

With defeat staring me in the face (and the end of the game close) I decided to take a last gasp gamble and charged my 2 cavalry units out of the town and into the Union Infantry on our right flank. Thanks to some tremendous dice throwing the cavalry survived some traversing shots, then closing shots from Phil and flung themselves against the Union Infantry. The dice remained good as I was able to force one Union unit back and rout the other. This resulted in that Brigade routing, the Union army breaking and handed me a most unexpected victory.  

Centre right of this photo show the routing Union troops and my victorious cavalry. 

This was another fun game and we really enjoyed our first go at ACW Black powder and aim to play again next week. The rules played well as we are familiar with Hail Caser so the game played quick. The hard thing for us now will not be getting the subtle differences between HC and BP mixed up when we switch from one game to the other. 

More 6mm Hail Caesar

 For todays 6mm Hail Caesar clash I pinched a scenario out of a wargames book, a simple capture the opposing town in 12 turns before enemy relief troops can arrive (or a huge sandstorm in Ian's imagination). Defenders deploy first defending the town, attackers arrive in two waves, half in turn 1 and then the rest during turn 2. The dice decided that Phil and I would be the Egyptian attackers with slightly more points than Ian's defending Elamites. 

Here you see the Elamites deployed in front of the town.

Whilst at the opposite end of the table my 2 commands of Egyptians entered first followed on the second turn by Phil's 2 commands, right in the top corner. 

Poor command throws meant that it took Phil and I sometime to get close to the Elamites. Ian very cleverly threw out his two chariot wings in a sort of pincer movement which meant we had to respond (or risk getting flanked) resulting in us taking even longer to reach the troops guarding the town. In this photo, my Egyptian chariots and Ian's Elamite Chariots have fought each other almost to break point. Ian eventually won that battle thus securing his flank. 

This overhead photo shows the gap between the two forces that took some time to close-we only have 12 turns to claim the town remember!. 

In the centre we slowly won a battle of attrition forcing Ian's troops back into the town, but only just and only by the end of in turn 11.  

There was another very bloody chariot clash on the other flank which Phil won but his remaining chariots were badly battered and took some time to get back into the game. 

With time running out Ian started to withdraw his badly beaten up troops deeper into the village making it difficult for us to catch up with them. On turn 12 we had a slight chance of shooting up one of his badly mauled divisions and thus breaking them and winning the game...sadly for us it was not to be and Ian just held out for a narrow win. 

This was another cracking game of Biblical Hail Caesar which we all enjoyed. When games are this good it does not matter whether you win or lose, it is simply great fun. 

I  am also busy painting 10mm figures at the moment. First up I have completed 3 elephants now and a unit of light cavalry for my 10mm Successors. Really nice 'chunky' figures from Lancashire Games. 

I have also been painting up some 10mm ACW for use with Black Powder and

completed a unit of Confederate Cavalry this week. The bulk of the Pendraken Army pack is now painted, also lovely figures that paint up well.