'The Barons War' and the 'Paint what you got challenge 2025/26'.

Long time gaming friend ‘Mister C’ has persuaded me to enter into the ‘Paint What you Got Challenge 2025-2026 run by Dave Stone of ‘Wargames Terrain Workshop’ fame where you have to paint up some of the many figures, terrain etc… that you already have over a 2 month period. With the main aim being to reduce your lead and plastic mountain it seems a good way to reduce my rather large unpainted mountain of figures.. The challenge starts today Dec 26th and finishes on Feb 28th.  

My local group of gamers have decided upon the ‘Barons War’ rules as a project for 2026. First job was to see what I already had in my collection that could be of use and came up with the following…  

Not sure if these medieval houses are quite right for the period but will use them anyway. 

The chapel is a Norman one so should be fine.  

A few peasant types with their livestock which should prove to be very useful. 

This batch of figures are from Wargames Foundry, a blister pack called 'Eadric the Wild'. Eadric was a Saxon rebel fighting against Norman oppression but these figures seem quite suitable for the Barons War too. The two figures on the right are a Friar Tuck figure that came free with a Wargames Illustrated magazine many years ago and the other priest is a Sub Romano figure from Westwind but to me he seems to fit in? 

Next job was to search through my library to see what suitable reading matter I had. I have just finished reading the Marc Morris book and it is a great read. Marc Morris is one of my favourite historians to read but the McLynn book also looks good. I also have the book on William Marshall but can't seem to find it at the moment.

 Friend Ian and I have marched ahead by already painting up some of the official Barons War figures over the last couple of months and mine are pictured below. 

Peasant levy with spears, hand weapons and bow, all in groups of 6 figures. 

I will tend to work in batches of six figures as this will make the figures useable in a wide range of rulesets. 

Six mounted Serjeants. I really enjoyed painting these figures and the banner was easy to do being a simple design. 

Six dismounted knights plus a couple of 3d printed tables I had in my collection. 

All shields and heraldry are hand painted. I am not too far away from having enough figures for a game but I need some Foot searjants so... 

Heavily prompted by me, my daughters bought me the Barons War Foot Serjeants boxed set of plastic figures for Christmas. You can see by this photo that I have already started to glue some of these wonderful figures together and my main aim for the challenge is to assemble and paint all 24 of these figures within the allotted time and hopefully add an extra terrain piece or two as well. 

The Barons Wars boxed sets of plastic figures are very well sculpted, animated and detailed. They also come with plenty of head and weapon variants so that you do end up with a plentiful supply of spares. This is very useful as most figures within the different boxed sets can interchange and use heads and arms from other sets. 

This is my figure to represent a dismounted John de Lacy owned Clitheroe castle at this time. We are keeping our first retinues local and as Clitheroe castle is only about half an hours drive away he seemed a good choice. He also has nice colourful heraldry which is quite easy to paint. There will be a mounted version of him soon.  

There is also a wonderful looking range of metal figures for the Barons war from Footsore Miniatures. However, when I bought the one in this photo (left side figure) to be the leader of my Retinue (a blister pack of a mounted and foot version of the same figure which is a great idea) he seemed quite small by comparison to the plastic figures?

Note my use of a brown spray undercoat. When painting the shields and surcoats I would first paint them white so that colours like yellow and red come out nice and bright.

So, I now need to assemble all 24 of my Barons wars Foot Serjeants and paint them by Feb 28th. By the time all these are painted I will be ready to play the Barons War rules so the challenge is on.

'Into the Jaws of Certain Death', Dragon Rampant scenario 10

 Also known as the 'Valley of Death,' scenario 10 'Into the Jaws of Certain Death' was our randomly selected scenario for today. Of course we added a few tweaks of our own such as each force deploying in two parts on opposing sides of the table but at one end with the equally split enemy force at the other end. I had fashioned escape ways/exit points from some of my cork and stone scenery. We also made our own random encounters for all dangerous terrain including some random encounters with some wild beastie's. As suggested in the scenario outline we put plenty of scenery down on the table which certainly had an effect on the game. 

Ian wanted to try using a giant (A Ghost Miniatures giant I think?) today so this fine chap lined up in the Goblin warband.

The Conquest goblin and Conquest dwarf are for scale only in this photo.

Medusa also came along to be a part of the fun. 

Goblins deployed at the bottom of this photo and the dwarves at the top. 

All of the scenery was potentially 'dangerous terrain'. 

It seemed a good idea to try and combine my forces so I sent my dwarves some Ogres (Conquest Miniatures) marching over towards their dwarven allies. 

I then failed all activations for the next four turns whilst Ian was running his troops around all over the place. 

Ian's trolls risk crossing some potentially dangerous terrain but luckily escaped having suffered just 1 point of damage. 

Ian was able to combine his goblin forces quite quickly. He also had some faster moving troops than most of mine which helped. 

Goblin wolf riders on the prowl around the table centre. 

Troll chieftain as 'king of the Castle!'

The goblin chieftain risks crossing some rough terrain only to be caught by some giant maggots (lesser warbeasts). The wounds the goblin chieftain suffered were to be important later in the game. 

Some goblin warriors (Hinchliffe Miniatures) make a break for their escape door/exit point between the cork 'rock' faces. First glory points to Ian. 

The dwarf chieftain always carries a cask of beer with him. 

Here he moves his unit cautiously past the medusa. 

The goblin friendly giant had a great melee with the dwarf axemen but the giant won the battle in the end. Things were not going well for the dwarves. 

The nasty little goblin mage teleported my dwarf chieftain into a wood where he was attacked by more maggots. The dwarf chieftain and his guard wiped out the maggots. Shortly later we realised that the teleport spell only works on your own units-whoops, but never mind. 

Then with the game approaching the important part of the battle I forgot to take any more photo's. The goblin chieftain was killed but all of his units survived their courage test. With most goblin units now heading for their escape route I managed to fail another four turns of activation meaning I had some units that still had not moved all game. This allowed Ian to get most of his troops where he wanted them (by both moving and teleporting). The ogres killed the wolf riders but my dwarf chieftain was slain and thus lost his cask of beer for the third game in a row. The dwarf wizard used his magic to improve the shooting and melee capabilities of some of the dwarves but it was too little too late. 

Ian used his teleport spell very well to help some of his units get close to their exit point. With 'glory' being scored for each unit any of us could get to exit the board, after a most enjoyable game the final result was 10 v 6 to the Goblins. So for the third time Ian and the goblins had claimed victory. 

Next week the dwarves and goblins battle it out for the Sacred Mole of Ukkert!

More Dragon Rampant with my old school fantasy figures.

Dragon Rampant: The Yellow Watcher.

Ian and I had another game of Dragon Rampant today. This time we upped the points to 36pts a side which allowed us to try using spellcasters. We randomly chose the scenario and came up with 'The Yellow Watcher'. We swapped the yellow watcher in a glade for an owlbear in a stone circle. We opted to put 12 white gaming gems in the stone circle to represent the Owlbears 12 strength points (often referring to them as eggs!). With players grabbing an 'egg' each time they took a strength point from the owlbear it would become a race to the centre of the board. 

The owlbear poses in it's stone circle before the battle with a couple of dwarf spellcasters. 

There was just time for the dwarf spellcasters to return home for a swift half. 

Dwarven house was scratchbuilt by me a year or two ago. 

The dwarf spellcasters did quite well during the game boosting either my attacks or my defensive abilities.Well worth taking asa troop option! 

Ian and the goblins to the left, myself and the dwarves to the right. Owlbear in the stone circle in the centre. 

We rolled randomly for Leader traits, Ian diced first and earned a trait of no use in this scenario but then my poor dwarf leader rolled and became 'cowardly' which meant that his unit could not issue any 'attack' orders for the whole game. This meant that the toughest unit on the board could not attack anyone. Ian wisely opted to just avoid fighting this unit and chose to shoot it to weaken it instead. 

A close up of the owlbear with her eggs/strength points. The owlbear is an Asgard Miniatures figure I think from the 1970/80's?

Hinchliffe Goblin wolf riders racing to the centre of the board. 

Asgard trolls advancing behind a Ral Partha goblin chariot. 

A unit of Conquest Miniatures dwarf axemen race for the centre only to be beaten there by the faster moving goblin chariot and goblin light infantry. 

Despite a few turns of awful dice throwing the goblin chariot and goblin light infantry delight in picking off a few strength points/eggs before the dwarves even reached the stone circle.  

We used red gaming gems to denote a spell had been cast on a unit. Here the goblin spellcasters had placed an 'Utter Chaos' spell on my dwarves forcing them to use a d12 for activations rather then 2xd6. It caused a bit of chaos to be sure with a few activation failures being thrown on the d12. 

The trolls helping the goblins proved to be tougher than the Conquest Miniatures ogres helping the dwarves... at this point.

Once the dwarf axemen reached the stone circle they did manage to grab 4 strength points/eggs including the final point that slew the owlbear but Ian already had 8 and technically took the win then. We decided to fight on as the game had only been going for about an hour by then. 

The ogres rallied to then eventually defeat and rout the trolls only then to be squished by the goblin chariot. 

(You can see that I like to write names on the bases of all my old school figures; just like I used to back in the 1970/80's). 

The fighting was proving to be very close but suddenly over a couple of very exciting rounds my warband fell apart leaving only my dwarf leader's unit left and they were quickly surrounded by the remaining goblins. Thus Ian won the game again! 

This game was so much fun and the spellcasters certainly had an effect on the game. I think I made a mistake with my deployment but will keep what I did wrong secret until after next week's game when my dwarves will sek their revenge. 

The Battle of Fornovo, 1495. Using Warlord's Pike and Shotte rules.

The Battle of Fornovo, 1495. 

Charlie very kindly invited Ian and myself over to his house for our Christmas game aimed at using his new and wonderful Italian Wars collection for the first time. Fortified by soup and mince pies at lunch time we fought our way through the Battle of Fornovo of 1495 and used Warlords Pike and Shotte rules. As neither Ian or I know much about the Italian Wars Charlie took the role of the French under King Charles VIII trying to escape off the far end of the board. That left Ian and myself in charge of the League of Venice. Our aim was to ford the river and try to attack the French, preventing their escape. The river was a wide obstacle reducing all movement to half also with rolls for disorder as a unit went down the river bank, across the middle and up the far river bank. This made it very difficult to cross, especially when the French were also shooting at you. 

The French Army marching down the road. 

The League of Venice deploy. The units under the table edge were to come on soon. The first cavalry unit under the board advanced on two moves them promptly blundered and ran back under the table edge. One of about 6 blunders during the game. 

Lots of colourful flags on display. 

The Count of Caiazzo leads his troops into battle. 

The Italian Wars is certainly a colourful period. 

More League of Venice troops ready to advance. 

The view from behind the French column. Look how wide that river is. 

(Ignore the random elephant that has wandered down from the alps).

The League of Venice troops line the river, ready to cross. 

Charlie (King Charles today!) on the left commands the French with Ian on the right, my co-commander of the League of Venice. 

Ian managed to get great scores to move his light cavalry that had deployed on the same side as the French, just ahead of them. He was straight in and amongst the French guns destroying them all in 2 turns of mayhem. 

Elsewhere Ian's troops were slow to move. In the distance you can see my tropos bravely trying to cross the river whilst being hit with crossbow and arquebus fire. The keen eyed amongst you may also spot the many red disorder markers I am collecting on my way across the river. 

In response to Ian's marauding light cavalry Charlie formed 3x Swiss mercenary pike units into a Kiel - that is a lot of pike, Ian started to soften it up with our artillery. 

The League of Venice force had more units and their superior numbers were beginning to gain an advantage and a slight foothold on the French side of the river but the French still had plenty of units left including the massive kiel. With the outcome of the game finely balanced we sadly ran out of time so a most enjoyable draw was declared. 

Our thanks to Charlie for organising the game and hosting us today. 

  

Lion Rampant 'At the Crossroads'.

Another cracking 4 (Retinue?) warband game of Lion Rampant set in the Wars of the Roses. We played scenario 7, 'Hold on Tight' with the main aim of the game to take and hold a centrally placed crossroads. Charlie (Lord Ogle) and Ian (Lord Ferrers) were the Yorkists with myself playing the Lancastrians as Clifford and Trollope.

Clifford's Retinue (slightly changed from last week).

Trollopes Retinue (same as last week but his randomly allocated leader trait was 'wounded' slowing him and his unit down to a 4" move). 

Lord Ogle's Retinue, (same as last week). 

Lord Ferrers Retinue. (a completely new retinue for Ian).

Clifford sent his heavy cavalry towards the crossroads, only for them to be shot to pieces . Clifford himself went on a flanker, heading straight at an enemy longbow unit. 

Trollope and Ogle jostling for position near the crossroads. 

Having routed one unit of longbowmen Clifford came tearing around the wood and went for another one. Elsewhere the Yorkists seemed to be gaining the advantage and also captured the crossroads for a point of glory. 

 At this point we paused for tea and cake.

 There seems to be an unwritten rule that fortunes change after tea and cake. 

Clifford routed the second longbow unit but ended up being battered and withdrawing back around the flank with just himself left. 

The Yorkists managed to get another unit to claim the crossroads, scoring their second glory point but slowly their luck deserted them and their army was beginning to crumble. On the other side of the table my longbow unit and skirmish unit routed the enemy skirmishers leaving Ian with only his Lords unit of Elite Foot left. 

In their desperation to salvage the battle Charlie sent the Yorkist leader Lord Ogle out to challenge Trollope to a leader duel. Fresh from winning a duel in the last battle Trollope soon killed Ogle which then caused mayhem in the remaining Yorkists units. 

The Yorkists now crumbled and granting another victory to the mighty Lancastrians who could now occupy the crossroads at their leisure.