Dark Elves and Dark Ages.

First army of 2020 finished is a Pendraken 10mm Dark Elf army. This was painted for fellow club member, James (of the Old Guard Wargames club) for a charity project he is doing. You can read full details of the project and the very sad reasons for it here... https://themadtinhatter.blogspot.com/2019/09/for-joshua.html Several of us at the club are contributing armies and we received a very generous discount from Pendraken to help us get going. James is happy to texture the bases of the figures to hopefully get some consistency in the basing. If anyone feels moved to contribute please do get in touch with James. The Old Guard club will be touring the shows with a 10mm fantasy battle game this year and all the armies and scenery will be raffled off to raise funds for a very worthy cause. The Dark Elves are wonderful little figures and very cleanly cast. They were also quite easy to paint, mainly painting and dry-brushing over a dark blue spray undercoat (that I had left over from the clubs ACW project).

I particularly like these figures, the raptor riders especially, so I may well end up getting myself an army pack one day. I have also been busy with painting my Late/Sub Roman British army, in preparation for the TTS tournament in February. Over the last few weeks I have completed the following...

Which just leaves me a unit of spearmen to do to complete my 130 points - although I already have plans to expand upon this, increasing the number of Early Saxons, painting up King Arthur himself and expanding properly into Late Romans.

Starting the KIngs of War Campaign and a bit of Lord of the Rings.

Today Chris and I started our much anticipated 15mm Kings of War Campaign, my goblins bravely taking on his ogres. Starting with a 500 point clash where Chris had to get his ogres to capture goblins slaves and my goblins had to stop him. We placed four counters/bases of small goblins around the village in the centre of the table. Here is how it played out...
 

Clash at Stiltz.               Jan 2020.

Hostilities between the Goblins and Ogres commenced early in the year when an ogre raiding party surged north and attacked the small goblin hamlet of Stiltz, which lies just a few miles south of Azgarheim. Expecting easy prey, the ogres advanced swiftly to try and capture as many goblin slaves as they could. By chance, Banga, a goblin wizard was close by, scouting the border area with his own force of brave goblins and trolls. 

Banga sent forward his goblin fleabag sniffs to try and get round the enemy flanks only to be hit hard by the ogre Warlock, Grik n Grak. In the centre the trolls quickly gathered some of the young goblins to safety and the Goblin Fleabag riders rode around the other flank.

Sadly some Ogre Braves captured a group of poor goblins so the Fleabag riders charged in and after a few rounds of combat routed them and freed the goblins. By now the fleabag sniffs had been routed as Grik n Grak blasted them away with his enhanced boomstick (there is a joke in there some where???) and drain life spell. Banga was caught hiding a couple of times so could not get line of sight to counter the Warlocks magic (I had positioned Banga very poorly). 

The kindly trolls were charged in the flank by the Ogre Warriors and were soundly beaten, allowing the Ogre Warriors to capture more goblins. Banga himself then suffered the pain of Grik n Grak's boomstick leaving the ogres victorious. The ogres had managed to grab two bases/tokens of goblins and the other two had run off- a clear ogre victory. 

Next we played our first small game of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game for some time. My brave band of Elves of Lothlorien proved to be a complete group of failures hardly able to hit a thing either in missile fire or melee. 

Chris's Mordor Orcs proved to be quite tough and comfortably overcame the elves. The aim of the game was to try and get back to the opposing edge of the table. With both of my warbands tied up with the larger of Chris's he was able to easily break through on my right. Another victory for Chris but with both of us wanting to play again soon. 

New Year, New Plans

Well 2019 proved to be a busy and fruitful year for wargaming. Many figures were painted and many games were played. Alongside the planned 10mm and 15mm ancients painting plus the 15mm 'Kings of War'  'Herd and Goblin armies, 28mm Napoleonics etc...; 28mm Bolt Action in the Western Desert sprang unplanned onto the painting table (thanks Stig!). 
A quick glance at the current state of my desk shows 28mm Sub Roman British and Saxon Mercenaries as I try to get an army  finished for the 'To the Strongest' competition at the end of February. Also on there are some 10mm Dark Elves for James' very worthy club/charity project-these should be completed soon. You may also spot some 28mm halflings and a goblin drum from Reaper Bones, all hints at plans for 2020.

A quick glance further along the desk reveals the box of projects 'to be returned to soon' as the hobby often leads me astray. In this box are some 10mm Early Imperial Romans and Ancients British, 15mm Goblin Chariots and 15mm Greeks and Persians.

Santa (in the guise of my lovely wife) was very kind this year, buying me the expensive but much longed for boxed set of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons and I treated myself to the new edition of the GW Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, both hints for future plans.

So, my plans for 2020 are...

Complete the 10mm Roman and British armies, about 5 units to paint and a Roman watch tower. 

Complete the 15mm Goblin army ready for a mini campaign against Chris's Ogres, hopefully starting later this month. I will then move onto 15mm Elves.

Continue with the 15mm Ancient Greeks and Persians, hopefully expanding into Alexandrian Macedonians (should I mention the large order I have just placed with Museum Miniatures due to their January sale-to be picked up at the York show). Plus finish a few more pieces of scenery, buildings etc... 

28mm Fantasy will hopefully feature in many games this year so I will try to paint many single based figures useable with D+D, LOTR SBG and Dragon Rampant, and I may even persuade myself to start a new 28mm KOW army later in the year and create some 28mm fantasy scenery of course. 

28mm Ancients, mainly Sub Roman British and Early Saxons to begin with. These are based for TTS, but in a way that I can also play Lion Rampant and Dux Bellorum as well. I also have one more building to paint and may tart up my 28mm stockade, made many years ago. 

So that lot should keep me busy, and then, being a total wargames butterfly...what other projects will tempt me along the way? Do I hear the call of 15mm Biblicals or be lured by 28mm Medievals...of course I will!

28mm Sub Roman British

A recent interest in the 'To the Strongest' rules has seen me return to the Dark Ages/Early Medieval period and try to complete a 130 point army. This army will be used in club/friendly games but also in the TTS Competition at the end of February down in Chalgrove. 
First up is my most recently completed unit, some Pedite Spearmen.

Then we have some light cavalry which have also been painted in the last couple of weeks. All these figures are Gripping Beast plastics. The light cavalry have already featured in a couple of games recently and did not last longer than turn 2 in both games!

The rest of the army has been painted for a while and it is about time I got the force table ready. I am imagining the army being based around Vortigern's forces just after he has invited some Saxon Mercenaries under Hengist and Horsa to come and help him retain his kingdom. His son Vortimer, who is still loyal to Vortigern at this time will command the cavalry. I need to paint up Hengist and Horsa, note the GW figure below is Morganna le Fay who will feature more when I get Arthur painted up too. 

All flags and shields are hand painted. For the flags I take black and white line drawings of celtic designs and paint over them, adding patterns of my own-apart from Vortimer's religious banner on his command stand which was hand drawn then painted. 

Many more to come in the next few weeks. 

TTS and KOW

A bit of a wargames fest over the last few days with 2 games of 28mm Ancients and one game of 15mm KOW 3rd edition. 
On Friday John and I drove to Pete's house to get some practise games of To The Strongest in to help prepare us for the competition we have entered in February. 
In the first game Pete used his Persians against my Sub Roman Britons. Initially it looked good for Pete, despite his scythed chariot rampaging back through his own lines. Happily for me he could not break through my centre and my troops wrapped up both wings and bagged the victory.

In the second game John completely foxed me with his deployment which put me on the back foot from the start of the game. His Romans proved to be quite tough to kill and he soon wore my chaps down. I really enjoyed playing in 28mm and TTS always gives a good game without too much brain ache. 

Then Chris came up for another game of 15mm Kings of War. For this game I had devised the following scenario...

Gold Rush

A Kings of War scenario set in Brynglan, based on 'Fools Gold' on p62.

Recent storms and torrential rains have caused severe landslides deep in the Gernuk Mountains. The heavy fall of rocks and earth have torn open a rich seam of gold that has now spilled out across the plains leading down to the river Eck.

King Kra'ag has eagerly ordered his goblin forces to collect as much of the gold as they can. Whilst the goblins toil to collect the gold they are alarmed to hear that a large host of Ogres is heading their way intent on claiming the gold for themselves. Re-acting quickly King Kra'ag assembles his forces ready to meet the rapidly advancing Ogres challenge.

The table should be set up with a couple of low foot hills and/or woods with two areas of muddy, marsh land, one in each half of the table. The marshes represent the boggy conditions caused by the landslide and count as difficult terrain.

Each side selects a force of 1,500 points and has 5 gold counters. Two of the counters are marked with a 0, two are marked 1 and the final counter is marked with a 2.

Each player throws a dice, the higher score chooses his table edge and deploys his first gold counter in the opponents half, following the rules for placing 'Loot Counters' on p59. Players then alternate placing counters on their opponents side of the table until all of them have been placed. Note that for this scenario players may not look at the counters value before deploying them, they should be placed totally randomly.

Only 1 counter may be placed in each of the marshy areas.

Each player now throws a dice with the higher score deploying one of his units in his deployment area. Players then alternate placing units until all units are on the table.

Players then dice again, the higher score chooses whether to take the first move or let his opponent move first.

Game length is 6 turns then throw a dice, score 1-3 = game ends, 4-6 = play one last turn.

Victory goes to the player who can collect the most gold: this is counted by adding up the total on the gold counters collected. The '0' counters represent 'Fools Gold'!

The armies deployed

As usual, as the game progressed Chris and I concentrated a little too much on killing each other rather than amassing gold. At first Chris's ogres did really well and I was a very worried Goblin King by the end of turn 2. Not much later I was a very dead Goblin King but had started to claw my way back into the game.

By the end of turn 7 there were very few units left on the table. There were more ogres still standing than goblins but the goblins had managed to grab more gold than the ogres thus claiming a narrow victory. A great game as always.  

Battleground Show 2019

Today we at the Old Guard gaming club put on our Bolt Action Demo game at the Battleground Wargames Show hosted by Pendraken. Several players contributed figures and scenery to help create a great looking gameas can be seen in the photos below. 

We never actually completed the game due to too much chatting and too much shopping!

I must say a big thankyou to all the players who both made and painted the tanks and figures and all the wonderful scenery that helped make the game look so good. 

Shopping wise, I got some 15mm Xyston Ancients from Col Bill, 28mm Romano British Spearmen from Newline and off course, my 10mm Dark Elf army from Pendraken. Plus lots of mdf bases for a whole variety of projects. 

A bit of Bolt Action

Today Pete came across to my house for a test game of Bolt Action in preparation for our larger demo game at the Battleground show on Saturday. I couldn't help playing at parading my DAK vehicles whilst setting up the table.  

In the actual game we were very rusty with the rules to begin with but after a few turns we were speeding through them. I made an ill-fated dash to control the central building which cost me dearly and my forces never really recovered from just how many 6's Pete was throwing. Best moment of the game for me was my AT gun blowing up Pete's armoured car first shot! Although both sides were badly battered it ended a convincing 4-1 win for Pete as he had destroyed four of my units whilst I could only claim the armoured car despite having lots of pinned markers on his other units. .