Evidence of madness

These are my Wars of the Roses cavalry painted over the last week or so. They are all Peter Pig figures from their Bloody Barons range. 2 units of retinue horse, 1 unit of men at arms and around 6 or 7 mounted generals with companions. They are pre dip so look a tad bland here. They are now dipped and look rather nice.

The men at arms are actually made up of the mounted bodyguard figures and have alot more colour to them than other men at arms I have painted and probably more colour than is historically accurate. But they are my figures and the splash of colour looks nice! I'll try to add some close ups when they are based and varnished.

I have enough cavalry for all the scenarios in the Bloody Barons rule book now. I am just short of a few crew for the heavy guns and I will have all the figures I will ever need. My plan then will be to refight each of the battles in chronological order, starting with 1st St Albans.

More soon...

Isn't it frustrating?

I've been painting ALOT of Wars of the Roses cavalry the last couple of weeks. Over 50. All at once. Which I dont really recommend but they were all ready and primed and have been waiting patiently for some love with all the WW1 action going on in the Office lately.

So, finished them a couple of days ago. The painting that is. Because when I came to base them up I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had put the 3cmx4cm bases made by Peter Pig I needed. Now any sort of modeller/wargamer worth his onions would improvise and use card or similar to make do. But my entire collection is based  on the plasticard bases Peter Pig produce so I am afraid the patient horse men will have to await me collecting my order from the York show on Sunday.

And I am fairly sure, just as the last drybrush is applied to the new bases up will pop a whole stack of the missing bases I know I have SOMEWHERE.

Whilst under the weather with man flu I have enjoyed trawling the web and various hobby blogs. A most enjoyable blog with inspirational pictures is that of Phil Steele. Links are over to the right. His work on Peter Pig figures is excellent and has spurred me on to try my first 'head swap' conversions with some tam'o'shanter heads to replace the glengarrys on one of my two First World War Scots units from Peter Pig.

A preorder is in for collection from York consisting of mainly bits to finish my 1918 Germans. Who knows what impulse buys I will come away with. Hopefully not much as I have more than enough going on. But if i see a reasonably priced ancients army I might be tempted.

Anyway I'm off for a lemsip.

more soon....

WMMMS 2011

Had a great day down at Alumwell. Lots of Stoke Wargames Group there to chat with and share the day. Of course Peter Pig were there with Martin, Nigel and Stewart in attendance. I took part in two Washingtons Army games winning both. Possibly a record!

At last years show I put on Towton but was somewhat put down by a couple of guys telling me how great their version of Towton would be this year. Well there are several pictures around the web and as you can see it is impressive indeed. Very nice scenary, lots of 28mm figures and a good depiction of snow (although my picture is before the snow was added!).

Now this indeed was a lovely display to look at and drew a large crowd all day. But, similar to the Blenhiem game at Warfare a couple of years ago, it wasn't a wargame. Troops were only moved occasionaly throughout the day to show the course of the battle. No dice were rolled and everyone looked very serious. Compared to my version the visual impact of the 28mm game left my efforts in the shade. But at least people watching last year saw dice being rolled figures being moved and the players enjoying themselves. Far more representative of my idea of what can be achieved at a club level.

It was suggested I say to the members of the club presenting their display that it needed more snow and would look even better in 15mm but I resisted the temptation!

My purchases were Hessians for AWI, cowboys for Hey You in the Jail plus a couple of books - The Road to Marston Moor, Birdsong and the 13th Valley, a Vietnam novel.

In other news, I am gutted to be missing John B's stag do in Ypres in April due to being unable to get the leave. I will console myself with a visit to Salute. After that is Fisticuffs followed by the annual PBI bash in Bournemouth on 21st May and a possible Battle Day in June down in Weymouth. So a busy few months.

More soon....

Easter Sunday

Having considered the comments about my Towton game from Alumwell, I may just run participation games in the future. I feel the demands of a demo game maybe beyond the time and efforts I am able to put into them. I stand by the game I put on, and feel it looked good as a club style game (ie a game you might expect to see on any given club night). It was a solo effort with all figures and terrain by me. I admire clubs that can put on demos with 1000+ 28mm figures on beautifully sculpted terrain. But such efforts are beyond most and for newcomers at their first show these games must seem baffling much like the Blenheim game at Warfare back in November.

Next Saturday sees me in Weymouth for the AK47 day run by Stuart Meecham. As I am travelling down on the Friday I am also booked in for a game at the Levellers club in Weymouth. I am busily preparing a few bits and pieces to take with me.

This site http://www.warflag.com has been around for a while but Warflag really is very good. I have used it for my burgeoning AWI armies, and intend to make it my first stop from now on.

So many plans at the moment with little time. We have sold our house but the house we were buying has fell through so we may be facing a short time with Lisa's parents. With impending fatherhood too, I can see my work/life balance changing somewhat! Still, upwards and onwards.

Hedgeley Moor

The Battle of Hedgeley Moor took place in April 1464 and was one of the smaller battles of the Wars of the Roses, with just over 6000 men slugging it out. It followed a long period of peace following the Towton campaign. Lord Montagu was sent north by Edward IV to make contact with Scottish supporters at Newcastle. At Hedgeley Moor he met a rebel force under the Duke of Somerset. Morale was low in the Lancastrian camp. It was an untried force that had only just come togethr from stragglers and those recentley pardoned by the King. As Montagu advanced, Lord Roos withdrew from the field with his men. The rest of the Lancastrians stood for a while but as contact was made, their cnetre also buckled and ran leaving Sir Ralph Percy standing. He was on home soil and saw a heroic last stand with Percy being cut down. The Yorkists continued on their way unopposed until a firther clash less than a month later at Hexham.

John B came over to Chez Sean for a game on Wednesday. It was our first game of Bloody Barons together. Having played other RFCM games, the mechanisms soon became familiar and we had a right Royal ding dong. John in the guise of Montague really played a blinder and true to history swept away the Lancastrian forces under Roos and Somerset. Although Percy survived by the end of the battle he was cut off from any line of retreat and in reality would in all probablitiy have been captured.



Montagu behind his command at the sentre of the Yorkist line.

The Yorkists prepare for slaughter on the moor.

Facing the rather nervous Lancastrians with Roos closest to the camera.

Percy's command facing Lord Scrope on the Yorkist right.

John chose the yellow dice this time after having bad memories of the orange dice during a game of CWB. Not sure how this happened after one particular roll of about 10 dice. Had to take a picture though. Its evil magic I tell you. We need to find a witch to burn!

A shaky picture of Montagus command looking pretty confident.

The end. Percy is to the right of the wood with Monatgu about to fall on his rear. It looks bad for old Percy. Bottom right shows the Yorkist command under the Bishop of Exeter who swept Roos and most of Somersets command from the field.

We had a good game and a good laugh with some nice digestives to accompany the tea.

Last night we replayed the battle with young Jon, young Ben and Matt from the club with John B swapping sides. John played a blinder again and reversed history attacking forcefully with Percy and holding the line with Roos (commanded by Ben). Roos' command did eventually succumb but the rest of the Yorkist forces took a real battering.

We did find one frustrating aspect of the rules. Matt had a unit of Household fighting one of Johns retinue. John had the better of it after a couple of drawn combats, eventually whittling the Household down to 1 base which happened to be the Captain, which always saves on a 2+. Johns unit had 7 bases left, but the lone captain fought on for 3 turns, which seemed a little unrealistic. In this battle the figure scale was roughly 1:15, with one base of figures representing 40-45 men. So in effect we had 40-45 men holding off around 300. The rules say nothing about such situations and indeed there are factors for 1-2 base units. Admittedly saving rolls were passed, but with luck (ie not failing the 2+ save) this could have gone on for some time. We felt that after a turn of fighting, weight of numbers would crush the few men left in this situation.

There are two remedies as I see. When it comes to morale tests for 2 bases, you could increase the morale factor to 3D6 instead of the 1D6 it is now. The justification is that things are really bas at this point! At one base, morale is immaterial as if they pass their save they cant lose the combat which is then classed as draw.

Secondly (which I think we shall implement), if a a unit is reduced to one base, it is removed, being classed as having being swept away. A captain base is allowed one turn of fighting, so may take an enemy base with him, but at the conclusion he is also cut down. Justification for this can be found elsewhere in the rules where gun crew are destroyed on being contacted. Also a single base unit is not allowed to start a fight. I think this makes alot of sense as it seemed a tad silly having a lone base holding up a massive horde on is own.

As a counter point a bit further over a levy unit despite losing a combat three turns in succesion and having to roll 7-8 dice each time, managed to survive its morale tests very much against the odds. I have no problem with this, as the unit was being whittled down, but was clearly made of stern stuff and was determined to see the thing through! Of course on getting down to 1 base, we advocate removing.

Lisa is now away skiing for a week, and though I am at work all week, I shall be making use of the free time to paint lots of AWI.

More soon!

New Year

First post of 2010.

Hope you all had a great time over the holiday period. Personally it was very busy with work followed by catching up with family and friends, so not much time for wargaming or blogging. However my 2010 painting points are under way with a few Samurai Generals and a unit of AWI Yankees in Hunting shirts.

Wargaming plans for the new year are manifold. Possibly most looking forward to C.O.W. in July, but also the Towton game I will be putting on at the WMMMS show in Wolverhampton in March. AWI will feature heavily come April with Peter Pig releasing their Washingtons Arny rules and figure range. I have made a start with a couple of American units done and a British battalion on the stocks.

With 2155 painting points for the year, I have to say it has been the most productive year ever for me. That includes a lenghty hiatus over the summer during which I scratchbuilt an Imperial City for the clubs 40K players. I have doubts that I will hit that points total again, purely because I completed two large projects that had been sitting around for a while. Both the Wars of the Roses and the Samurai collections were figure intensive, and though I plan to add to them they are both at a point where I can play most of the scenarios in the Bloody Barons and Battles in the Age of War rule books.

ECW, AK47 and Sudan collections will be getting some attention with additions here and there.I didnt play as many games I would have liked but I hope to improve on that this year with more games at home and hopefully at the club too. I do hope to get at least one game in for each of the periods I play. Not too ambitious I think.

As well as the AWI, I will look to complete one other new project, either WW1 for which I have most of the figures (both early and late war) or else Wild West. Cowboys would only be a small project so I may be able to do both but wont punish myself if I dont!

Show wise I intend to get to the usual suspects. York in February, WMMMS in March, Triples in April, Partizan in May and September and Phalanx in June. COWS fills the gap in July. I most likely will miss Salute this year and may replace it with Fisticuffs in Weymouth. I also would like to get to a couple of Stuart Meechams RFCM days and Miles Miltons PBI. I need to be careful with my planning and hope some of these days fall on rest days otherwise I will be using a lot of annual leave up!

The big change for the blog will hopefully be more photographic content. I hope to photograph most of my collection over the year.

More soon!

Thoughts

I have been painting more Wars of the Roses this afternoon. I have now painted over 1,500 15mm Peter Pig figures this year. Not sure I'll ever paint so much again as I did have a large back log. I have now virtually completed two projects, with them both stretching their neck for finishing line. The Samurai have the generals, 2 maku and some casualties left to do (all basecoated). The WotR have three units of retinue and 1 unit of horse to do, of which I have still to buy the last two retinue units. These are part of Norfolks command on the Yorkist right at Towton. In the scenario from Bloody Barons Norfolk comes on as reinforcements and in fact is not guaranteed to come on at all. I just now the first time I run the scenario Norfolk will be no where to be seen but it wont do to NOT have the figures just in case.

My painting was accompanied by the 'View from the Veranda' podcast which is part of Meeples and Miniatures. With the host Neil Schuck and Battlegames editor Henry Hyde discussing a hobby centric topic, I can highly recommend it to pass the time between coats of paint. This afternoon it was episode 2 discussing the morality of wargaming. Not something I have ever struggled with personally but an interesting debate all the same. There is a link in the sidebar to Neils podcasts which are informative and an excellent break from Radio 5 Live, particularly if Victoria Derbyshire is on!

So, Zombies. It seems you cant move on the Miniature Page for a new company releasing a range of Zombies. Now, I have played my fair share of Warhammer fantasy, owned a large Vampire Counts army and played Zombies!! which IS a great game. But, similar to the Cowboy fad, the Darkest Africa fad and the Pirate fad, zombies seem to be big at the minute, mixed in with the Pulp genre and Wierd War 2 type games. Never say never. Wargames Factory have some very nice zombies but they are not in my scale. I imagine in 15mm any civilian type figure could be painted as a zombie. a 'Shaun of the Dead' style game would be fun, maybe with old AK47 style mechanics or using some of Matthew Hartleys 'Riot' rules. With a wait between now and Peter Pig releasing their AWI rules and figures, maybe I could make my first foray into rules writing. Others seem to enjoy it, but most of them seem to be

a) More intelligent than me

and

b) More knowledgable on militairy matters than me

However, who can say they know more about fighting zombies than I do? mmmmmm........