A Few Acres of Snow

I dropped by Bruce's place last night for a few games of A Few Acres of Snow. We haven't

 played in a awhile and Bruce was keen to try some new ideas for the French player.

Game 1 (above) went badly for Bruce--he just did not get the cards in the right sequence. An early military (mis)adventure, tough cards and amazing card luck for me meant a quick game (15 minutes) for the British. I almost felt badly for Bruce, but my recollection is that showing him any kind of pity inevitably bites me in the ass.

Game 2 was much closer (a tie in points, as it turned out--which goes to the French). I was slower, Bruce was annoying with his Indian raids, and he expanded fast enough to make up the difference. I felt pretty good going up the west side of the map but maybe should have focused on bringing the game to conclusion faster? So a split evening.

I wonder if a good strategy for the British is to buy the two settlers as quickly as possible to deny them to the French. I know the French don't necessarily need settlers as much as the British, but they do if they want to build up their cities and jack their victory points. Maybe a strategem to apply next time?

Up next: Some 28mm LotR are underway and I need to build a bunch of 15mm cavalry to prime when the weather breaks early next week.

LotR goblin warband

The last of the 28mm Lord of the Rings goblins are now dry. These are four bases of warband/blade and are plastic GW figures.

Interesting faces--the rest of the figure are so-so. Pretty good for mass production plastics and they look fine as a warband or blade element in HoTT. I think warband, though.

Up next: I'm off to Bruce's tonight tonight to play A Few Acres of Snow. On the workbench are a bunch of LotR orcs, wargs and a magician to round out this army. Went with a very different paint scheme for the orcs (drybrushing up the flesh).

28mm LotR spear

Some more LotR goblin bases are now dry. These are three bases of spear for HoTT. These are not the most animated figures in the plastic line but the faces are interesting.

I also painted some with hair and some with a cowl (in some cases, the primer on the figures made it hard to tell what was being modelled!).

Up next: Some goblin blades/warband and then a games night at Bruce's place.

LotR goblin bow

I've been working my way through some 28mm Lord of the Rings figures I picked up at the MayDay auction. There is enough here to create an evil army to pit against the good army I built awhile back. First up are the Moria goblins.

There are four bases of shooters (in HoTT) here. Nice enough figures. I chose brighter colours than I might otherwise paint with to get a garish effect.

Up next: I have spear and blade/warband bases drying right now and some orcs, wargs and others underway. After that, it is back to 15mm polish troops.

15mm winged hussars

I finally finished some 15mm winged hussars. These were quite the things to assembly but turned out okay in the end. I am short one figure so left space for it on the base when the horse arrives. The original horse was squashed in transit (think beagle) and had to be put down.

These fellows came with individual streamers for each spear but the ends are forked quite radically. Basically impossible to put on, although I've had a thought about this since I based them so may try a few before dropping the first four units off with the owner this weekend.

Up next: A bunch of 28mm LotR baddies are almost based and I have the rest of the army primed and ready to paint. Then back to these 15mm fellows=.

1/400 WW2 aerial action

I dropped by Bruce's last night to try out a WW2 adaptation of C21 AirWar usings ome old 1/432-scale planes Bruce dug out of storage from our days of playing Squadrons. I had a bit of a misfire right off the bat, with one plane failing a test and ending up blocking his wingman while Bruce moves his 109s info the kill.

Fortunately, Bruce can't roll worth beans and I got out fairly unscathed. But then this happened:

We quickly were down to one plane each and I finally figured out how to take advantage of my better pilot and hang back and wait for him to end up in my sites. We then tried two spitfires versus four stukas and I got my ass handed to me. Good times! All told, a nice set of rules where pilot skill factors in initiative, maneuver and combat.

Up next: A sore back has kept me from painting table but I have a bunch of wing hussars that need to be flocked and a bunch of 28mm goblins underway. Maybe tonight I will hit the painting table.

15mm German Mercenaries

I moved another group of 15mm troops to conclusion last night. These are German mercenaries sent to help out 17th century Polish forces to repel various invaders (and do some invading of their own).

The figures are 15mm from foot to chin, making them a bit taller than most 15mm, icluding the other 15mm in this range. And there are a few guys with crazy-long necks. But painted and based, most of this goes away.

There are two ranks of musketeers (although the pose proportion does not match the box art) as well as a couple of bases of pike, a cannon and a command stand. The command figures are good. The rest tend towards mono-pose so lots of colour differences help make them look a bit less uniform.

Up next: I'm painting details on some winged Hussars right now, which will put me half way through the commission. I was thinking I was going a bit slowly but each of these units if effectoively a DBA army so one a week is not bad. I also have some 28mm LotR bad guys primed and ready to paint.

EWG October 16 Club Night

It was club night last night and we had nine guys out with four games running. Bruce hosted Chen and Terry in a game of Swashbuckler (with cool new minis from Blue Moon). Elliott and Kevin played some Warmahordes and Dave and Mark played two games of DBA.

I brought out some sea raiders to face down Will's Saxons in a game of Dux Bellorum. This was my second game and his first and our armies were virtually identical except for a few special options. My plastic raiders (mix of Wargames Factory Saxons and Vikings) form up below.

Will quickly grabbed the hill and then flung javelins down at me. I slowly back out of range, requiring him to come off the hill. He then send his damned war dogs at me.

As I moved to stick the wardogs full of spears, he charged and basically bowled me over, bagging my general in the first turn of combat (jerk!).

A second play shows some interesting ways the mechanics model the era. Loss of a general cripples CnC by prohibiting the use of further leadership points. I think realistic and also very damaging--I might have pulled it out of the fire despite the bad first round of combat if I'd had some leadership points to play with.

The game also rewards putting together groups of units centered on a tough unit (so you use the better unit's bravery to maneuver) with weaker flankers (because their combat power is effectively lost of you use them a support--so you wouldn't want to commit to powerful units and have to put one into a supporting role). So you get the warband led by a hardened group of warriors feel.

Up next: Some 15mm foot and cavalry and some 28mm Lord of the Rings figures.

28mm fire hydrants and mailboxes

I'm chipping away at a 15mm commission but also taking some time to work in a few other figures (keeps the painting fresh). I bought a bunch of Black Cat scenics for superhero gaming awhile back. After several hours of struggling with a crappy cast and sculpt of limited interest, I finally threw out the phone booths and moved onto the hydrants and mail boxes.

This was some fairly easy painting. Base colour, tiny bit of trim and dip. The hydrants are too big for the HO-scale buildings I'm using. In fact, they are over-scale for the figures as well. But they'll do, adding a nice bit of terrain.

The mailbox, by contrast, is too small for the hydrants but fits in alright with the buildings and figures. I won't be ordering any more Black Cat stuff--they are 0 for 4 with this order.

Up next: Club night tonight with some Dux Bellorum on deck and then back to 15mm Poles. I have some foot that need the final basing and I'm painting my way through the Hussars.

FS 25mm Anglo-Dane DBA Army

SOLD!

My rule of thumb is that armies that lie dormant for two or more years must move on. For that reason, I have a 25mm Anglo-Danish DBA army to sell. The figures are 25mm plastics (not 20mm, or 1/72) from HaT's El Cid range. These are based on 60mm frontages and come from a smoke- and pet-free home. There are 17 bases with 64 figures.

The sharp end of the army are three bases of blades (above) with nine bases of spear (below) to back them up. All shields are handpainted.

There are also two bases of skirmishers (psiloi) with slings.

I also did three bases of bow (two longbow and one crossbow) to allow this army to morph (with the addition of some cavalry) into other armies (e.g., Normans, El Cid Spanish).

I wanted to add in one close-up image to show the paining a bit better.

I'd like $60 plus shipping for this army. Shipping in Canada or the US will be about $20. Iw ill bubble-wrap and pack with peanuts. These fellows fit nicely with 25mm sculpts; they likely wouldn't mix in the same army with 28mm sculpts. Offers to bob.barnetson@shaw.ca .

EDBAG HoTT Campaign Night 2

Last night was the second night of the EDBAG king of the mountain HoTT campaign. In turn 1, both Dave and Terry managed to grab mountains, joining Dennis with one mountain each. I joined Bruce as an allied contingent in game one, facing down Dave's Winter Queen army.

You can see me way over on the left (three bases of storm troopers) trying to join the fray across the river before Dave bagged Bruce's camp. No joy for me--I almost made it to the river before the game was over.

In game 2, I was also unable to be an attacker or a defender so I again sent an allied contingent (otherwise I would have just sat around). The way the geography in my part of the campaign map works, it looks like there is only about a 50% chance I can be an attacker or a defender in a fight each turn (otherwise I'm an allied contingent) and the chip draw means that I will only be the attacker 50% of the time that I'm a major combatant. And attackers will almost always face a defender and ally!

So, some strategizing was required. With that in mind, I decided to try and even up the odds for the next time I get to play attacker. I decided to join Dave defending a mountain against Dennis' imperialist ambitions (errr... sorry, desire to restore his historical territorial integrity). Stopping Dennis is in my interests. But I also decided to be minimally helpful in the hope that Dave would lose some elements and be weaker next game.

This didn't work out exactly to plan, with Dennis being down four bases before I even really got on the board. Yes, Dennis would get stopped, but Dave was looking like he'd have no losses at all! So Lord Vader maneuvered in behind his "ally" at a funky angle, causing some recoil woes (and general outrage). And then Dave's dice went south (way south) and suddenly it was an even game.

Eventually, Dave and I managed to take a base from Dennis and we called it a night. Dave rolled back all of his losses (drat) but Dennis did not get the mountain square. I'll be sure to wear my teflon gaming short next night... . I don't think any other attackers were successful that turn so Dave, Terry and Dennis remain tied at one mountain each.

Up next: Some 15mm foot are underway and I finished building and priming some 15mm winged hussars. Next Tuesday I'm playing some Dux Bellorum at the club with Will.

FS two painted 28mm renaissance armies

SOLD!

A couple of years ago, I got quite excited about renaissance armies and painted up two. My interests have changed and I'd like to free up some shelf space for a new North America project. I'm asking $100 plus shipping for each for these armies (about $20 each in Canada or the US; around $45 to EU or Australia) but, if you take both, I'll cover the shipping in Canada or the US. All frontages are 60mm (originally for HoTT or DBR) and they come from a smoke- and pet-free home.

First up is a German army from the earlier part of the renaissance. There are four bases of mounted fellows in plate (all very fancy--you can click on the picture for a larger view). There are also two knights mounted solo (heros in HoTT) and a clergyman.

There are three bases of pike along with a general base. Note that the flag symbol is only painted on one side (the other side is blue/black).

There are three bases of crossbowmen.

And there bases of gun-equipped troops.

All in, the first army comprises 17 bases, with 40 foot and 10 mounted troops. A mix of Perry, GW and one Warlord figure (I think). About 40 APs if you are playing HoTT.

The second army is a slightly later and more flamboyant army that I really enjoyed painting. It includes a hero and an artillery piece.

There are three bases of mounted hangunners.

There are three bases of gunners, one of which is the general element (flag painted both sides).

Then there are a whole slew of fellows (11 bases total) with various stick-based weapons (spears, halberds, etc).

I wanted to include a close-up of the fellows with the spears. The base below is a close-up of one of the bases from the groups above designed to illustrate the painting and colours I used.

All told, there are 19 bases, with 56 foot figures, 7 mounted and one artillery piece. This comes to about  41 AP if you are playing HoTT.

Offers to bob.barnetson@shaw.ca. All will be shipped bubble-wrapped and floated in peanuts.

28mm light foot troops

Finishing up some reinforcements for by HOTT/DBA/CCA armies, I have seven more bases of light troops dry and ready to go this morning.

I did four bases up an auxilia (in CCA), with slightly more armour than usual for lights. Again, these Numidians are very versatile troops. In this way, they are like the Bretonnian bowmen that GW does who have served in armies spanning 500 years.

I also made up three bases of light troops (the difference being the auxilia have a swordsmen on each base). Realistically, these guys will likely cross over depending on the needs of the scenario. Nice to have some non-Celtic light foot options.  These could also morph into components of various Greek armies. But before that I have quite a lot of lead to paint.

Up next: I'm building some more 15mm cavalry (frustration, thy name is winged hussars) and have some 15mm foot primed and ready to paint. I also have some 28mm renaissance DBA/HoTT armies ready to sell. I may post those tomorrow.

28mm ancient missile troops

I often find myself short of light troops, especially when I host miniaturized version of Command and Color Ancients. I picked up a box of Wargames Factory Numidians to help remedy that. Half of the troops I made up as missile units, allowing me to field both bow and sling troops.

The bow are a mix of bow and spear-armed troops. If no bow are needed, then these fellows can be basic light troops. They will also work as shooters in HoTT or Psiloi in DBA (although the basing is deeper than convention). The frontages are 60mm.

I also did four bases of slingers. I'd say the more experienced slingers are the guys on the right, standing in broken ground with plenty of ammo at their feet. The guys on the left must be the FNGs who aesthetic appreciating of rolling grasslands will gain them suboptimal match-ups with men on horses.

Nice figures that went together quickly (1.5 hours for 28 figures). Add in painting and basing and it worked out to be about 5 figures and hour from box to board. For $0.80 a figure, that is a pretty good deal. There was no fancy painting here: prime black, block paint (although I did drybrush their skin), dip and base.

Up next: I have seven more bases of light troops drying (light foot and auxilia) as well as a few miscellaneous scenery pieces. The there are three boxes of 15mm Poles waiting to be cleaned and built.
And Tuesday is the second night of the EDBAG HoTT campaign so my imperials will need to sharpen up their light sabres.