A Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas to all!

Wishing all the Warblog readers and followers a very Merry Christmas!

I hope you've all been good boys and girls this last year and so Santa is good to you! Have a good one.

Cheers Rory

December WIP - Abbey Project

Abbey 002 WIP

Another of my ongoing projects (and yes I know there are a lot of them) is my 'Abbey' terrain project.

I have been held up on this one for a while as it was taking me ages to cast the arch pieces from the Hirst Arts molds, with one piece a cast and needing four for a complete arch and the cap stones for the walls was one tiny piece a cast and I was needing, well lots.

So anyway, long story short, I modelled a few pieces from milliput and I have finally got around to making my own silicone mold which I had around and was still usable. I cast up the pieces I needed and have progressed the next steps on the project and have done the basic assembly on items 002 and 003, the central section of the west wall (002) and the walled garden enclosure (003)

Abbey 003 WIP

Earlier in the year I did some sketches for the project to give me some direction and a skeleton to fit the project over and now I can proceed at a faster pace, at least faster for me anyway.

Next up is to texture both of the bases adding the usual detritus, and then get them painted up etc, all of which I aim to do over the festive season. Should be achievable.

Cead Mile Failte!

...or 'a hundred thousand welcomes', in Gaelic, to the new followers of the Warblog;

First up this time is jmilesr, who dropped by. I have been following his blog Lair of the Uber Geek for a while and his breadth of wargaming periods is pretty impressive, worth popping in for a look.

Next to drop in is quidamcorvus who hales from Poland and has an excellent Mordheim campaign and blog going on at Warheim Fantasy Skirmish.

Also dropping in from Poland is P[akh]B who's blog Posthuman Diary is excellent for all sorts of wargaming goodness especially his future and Sci-Fi modelling, worth a trip there.

Next to pay the Warblog a visit and kindly sign up for more is Flags of War, who I know many of you will know for their excellent, well...Flags of War. Stop by their site for lots of 'standard' goodness.

And the Warblog also welcomes Jehan who hales from France and has a wide spread interest in all things wargaming (and I believe re-enactment too) and you can check out his blog at L'antre de Jehan. 

All welcome to the Warblog, and I hope you continue to find something of interest.

Slainte!

By Fire and Sword

Many who have been following my blog for some time will know of my keen interest in Eastern European Warfare and in particular during the late Medieval and Early Renaissance periods.

It therefore comes as no surprise that my interest was raised, indeed excitement induced when I saw an advert in this months Wargames Illustrated for the 'new' (at least to me) By Fire and Sword range of 15mm figures and I believe a soon to be released rule set of the same name.

'By Fire and Sword' Rule Set (Polish Version)

Although I'm not really a 15mm gamer, the figures do look pretty tasty and the range looks to be fairly all encompassing as far as the 1585 - 1660's are concerned.

Winged Hussars

Crimean Tartar Command

The range includes for all the combatants; Polish-Lithuainians, Tartars, Ottomans, Swedeen, Cossacks and Muscovites coming soon, plus banners, terrain and accessories like baggage wagons, bases etc. All look to be pretty good. The company site for interest is here; www.wargamer.pl.


The site here is for info on the  rules info and updates etc, and in Britain the range can be picked up from North Star Games who continue to add to their extensive and very interesting stable of wargames miniatures from around the world. In America, Warpath Games and Germany,Frontline Games.

I do prefer 28mm for my gaming but you never know, I might be tempted to dabble, but in any event, it is good to see more available for the period which can only be good, and also good to see another continental quality manufacturer getting into the wargaming market. More like this can only be good for 

I also noticed on the Wargamer.pl site, various other bits caught my eye, including a book by I the artist Mariusz Kozik including pieces like this;

Glory

Might be worth tracking down too.

Trial Impetus Italian Wars Game

French vs French Impetus Trial Game

This week I had a trial game of Impetus for my Early Italian Wars French Army, Dave K kindly stumping up the opposition, which happened to be a Late Wars French Army. Interesting to see the differences in a 300pt a piece army list for one thing.

Still being a newbie to the Impetus Rules, and this being only the second game in recent history that I have played the rules, Dave K was happy to give me a 'friendly' game to help pick up the rules, aided by Dave B and Marco on the sidelines to point us in the right direction.

As is my usual want, and in the interests of picking up the rules I decided there was no point in hanging about and having won the initiative in the first round decided to go 'head down boot swinging' and with the usuial beginners luck with these things (aided by some pretty good dice throws) proceeded to demolish the whole left of Dave's French of Gendarme, Arquebusier and Pike Block, and succeeded in holding his right wing of Archers and Arquebusier, winning the initiative in the three turns we played.

As you might think at this point (as indeed did I at this juncture) that the game was in the bag and what a jolly good game it is. However, and there always seems to be a however in these things, my  beginners luck was about to turn.

On Dave taking his third turn there wasn't much left for him to do bar a bit of shooting on his right flank and the big barny in the middle where the two big pike blocks were having a scrum. So, expecting this to be his last move before the collapsed left flank disappeared altogether and what was left of his army to be rolled up from the flank, went for the jugular.

His dice improved slightly, and my dice deserted me, and his pikes proceeded to win the melee and pushed my pike back three times and each time stayed in contact, and on the third failure I threw a six. Dave pounced on this like a fox in a chicken coop and proudly presented me with the rule of....8.2.2

Yup, my General was with this unit and of course the roll for avoiding his death was...not what I was looking for. Death of General and and Command Routed. End of game.

All a bit sudden, and unexpected, but at least now I know the risk of generals being in combat. Thinking back on it, the incident was very Italian Wars with defeat being grabbed from the jaws of victory by the inopportune death of some French General getting in the way of a pike. Great stuff.

Good, blood and guts game and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Hopefully more soon. Just need to get some progress on the painting front. More of that anon.

Welcome to Der Feldmarschall

A big hello to Der Feldmarschall this time, who has dropped by the Warblog.

His blog Der Feldmarschall is chock full of historical info in his 'This Week in History' slots and lots more on rule sets, show reports and the wargame blog type goodness.

'Future Wars' Project

I have been working, on and off, on a Near Future project for quite a while, probably three or more years. Picking up the odd pack of figures here, and the occasional vehicle there. Probably started by picking up a pack of Copplestone's 'Future Wars' range of Marines a few years ago at one of the Claymore shows in Edinburgh, and over a period of time this kind of grew, as these things do.

Anyway, around last year, again at Claymore I picked up the last pack of figures that my initial plan required and I now had all the figures I needed to create an mechanised urban assault platoon of three sections, command and vehicles.

I have now managed to get this project off the ground having decided on a colour scheme for the troops etc and now getting things done, picking this one up as the muse takes me, since this one is just because, not for anything in particular.

First up then is the first crop of vehicles for the platoon, two APCs;

Old Crow Medium APCs

Next up is the Command Scout Vehicle;

Old Crow Goanna Scout

These are just about finished with just a couple of coats of matt varnish needed as they're still a bit shiny from the gloss varnish that I put on after painting for protection, then followed by matt varnish to finish them off. Generally pleased with these as they are the first vehicles I've painted since I was a teenager, (which you might guess wasn't yesterday).

I'm now working on the first section of 'assault marines' with a blue urban camouflage colour scheme and will post soon once complete.

Gratuitous group shot

Myself and a couple of mates have been searching about for a rule set to play a couple of games with these and have picked up a couple of rule sets including the synonymous 'Future Wars', Street Wars, a couple of freebie ones from Free Wargames Rules, and no doubt will be picking up the new Tomorrows War to try. Have had a couple of trial games just with a bunch of figures to get the taste of the rules but no definitive decisions yet as to which one or ones to go with. Will no doubt have fun trying to find out.

Welcome too Scottsz

An hello and  welcome is due to Scottsz who has joined the Warblog recently, hope you continue to find things of interest.

Empire Ogre Bash

Deployments for Empire vs Ogres

This week my game at the club was a one off game of WHFB with Ian who was wanting to try out the new Ogre Army book and some of his 'new toys' and I had agreed to give him a game using my trusty Empire.

As usual with a new Warhammer Army book, there was a few surprises in store for me but Ian hadn't gone the whole hog and just had a couple of surprises lined up. The main surprise was Ogre Scouts. I had expected scouts in his army of the Knobler kind, but not ogres so right from the start my deployment was snafu and the game was a brutal carve up from the start but not with out it's amusing moments, like the 22 hits from the Hellblaster on a lone Sabretooth, or the Empire General running around the battle field in terror.

Ians Ogre Cavalry hit the Empire flank

It was a pretty quick game with me giving up at the end of round three with the bulk of the Empire troops pulverised and little in the way of units able to do much damage to a largely intact Ogre army, but an education and an enjoyable game none the less, with Ian's Ogre army all very nicely done, with all sorts of conversions and really good paint jobs and a joy to play against for the eye candy.

Don't think I like the idea of Ogre Scouts, not least because they in effect cost me the game, but the idea just seems silly, but hey that's Warhammer for you. The scouts must be REALLY good at camouflage, (visions of large hulking brutes holding up twigs in front of themselves tip toeing about pretending to be trees flashes in front of me).

Welcome to the Warblog

Welcomes to the Warblog this time are due to Joao Mota and Geordie who have popped into the Warblog recently.


Joao's site G.E.M. is perhaps well known to many covering as it does a vast array of modelling projects and all sorts of hobby products, worth checking out if you haven't already.


Geordie's site Geordie's Big Battles is also a treasure trove, featuring his adventures in 'playing with plastic model kits' (don't we all) and has recently been getting into Impetus. Again worth a visit.

....Your in for a Big Surprise...in The Burbs

The Burbs Neighbourhood Watch
Mordheim Style

Our occasional Mordheim campaign has moved a step closer on it's journey as the warbands now move into the outskirts of the city on their trek to 'The Great Prize'.

The game being played on Halloween, had a suitably 'scary' theme. If you've seen the film 'The Burbs' the games namesake, you'll get the idea. (If you haven't, you should, it's early Tom Hanks at his best).

Gunnery School Lay down fire as they fall out of windows

Round three, 'The Burbs' was a different affair from the previous two outings with the bands moving into a more urban environment, things closing in a bit more. The number of bands were down a bit with my Gunnery School Cadets, Ian's Green Skaven (dressed up for Halloween and masquerading as Goblins and Spiders (nice touch)), Dave's Sisters of Sigmar, and Barry with his Skaven (who won the last round) being the only bands to venture out into the streets on an All Hallows Eve.

The Sisters get a fright from the Skavolins

The four bands squared up and there was a good amount of reward available, seven shards, with an entry into a building being diced to see if it contained loot. If it did then there was a good chance it was being cared for by a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch, namely a Grave Guard.

So without much ado, the bands set about it with Dave's Sisters quickly searching a couple of buildings, while Iain's Skavolins sneaked into position to intercept the Sisters. Meanwhile the Gunnery Cadets climbed into the ruins while keeping a weather eye on Barry's Skaven as they sniffed out some shards.

The game proved to be pretty short and bloody. Dave's Sisters, not being too numerous to start with had trouble with the local Guard and then Iains's Skaven who took an early toll and Dave took the side of discretion after loosing three or four of his number in quick succession.

The Gunnery School faired little better and after three of their number failed to climb up into a ruin, they finally managed it, manfully took out one of the Grave Guard in a trice, and then all three failed their climbing checks and left out of action two of their number and the Gunnery Officer stunned. The rest of the Cadets lined up and let rip two volleies at Barry's advancing Skaven as they moved towards the Watchtower but only managed to take one out and wing another and managed to loose another two gunners to return fire. The Gunnery school then decided to quit the field, leaving the table to the rats. Quite fitting for Halloween really.

Iain's Skavolin advance en-masse towards his opponent
and the tower

Barry's Skaven had a task on their hands with the Grave Guard, loosing three of his number to them, and tying up several of his number for a couple of rounds, and lost his Assasin to the Guard who appeared, quite rightly in the tower once searched.

Meanwhile the Skavolin advanced through the ruins and deserted building in search of booty, and all to no avail, with what was left of it appearing in Barry's searching. Iain, having seen off Dave's Sisters now moved to the centre to chase off the rear guard of Barry's band, taking out the last couple of stragglers and surrounding the tower with it's lone Guard and it's treasure. Deciding that the odds were he would loose more than he would gain from tussling with the 'hoody' he called it a day with Barry routing from the table with the lions share of the loot and Iain in possession of none but the field (except the tower).

Iain's Skavolin see off the last of Barry's Skaven
- but don't dare tussle with the tower guardian

So Iain claims victory in the third round, his second so far and managed to not loose a single figure. The rest of us retired to lick our wounds and replace our loses for the next round. As the bands move into the city proper, they search through the academic quarter in search of the Library and it's famed treasure.

Maybe the Cadets can prove their mettle then. They better...

Welcome one, Welcome all!

A welcome is due from the ALBAtwo Warblog to Timothy Lind and O'Shashar who have dropped in to the blog.

O'Shashar has his own blog Cupboard of Nurgle which details his activities in the lands of WHFB, 40K and modelling and has an 'Tale of Three Gamers project going.

Mordheim Gunnery School Recruiting

The Gunnery School Seven

I've just finished off the original Nuln Gunnery School Warband recruits for our current occasional Mordheim Campaign.

Quite pleased with the results overall and have learnt a couple of lessons painting wise in the process. 

The Instructor

Senior Gunnery Officer

Senior Classman
'The Old Boy'

Under Classmen
'The New Boys'

Gunnery School Marksmen

Enjoyed painting them up and I'm now working on the new recruits for the warband in the form of a Pistolier and a couple of Sons of the Guns. (read this as Cannon Fodder).

Gunnery School WIP
Pistolier and Sons of the Guns

I've also been doing a little on my Empire Army Standard Bearer on foot which is coming on slowly (as ever).

Empire Standard Bearer WIP

Next up is the next game of our Mordheim campaign, a special for Halloween; 'The Burbs'. Report on how the Gunnery School Cadets fare in the suburbs on a moonlit night...

Welcome!

Another welcome is due, this time to Kenzie and Oli who have dropped into the Warblog this week.

Oli has a very interesting blog Camisado which is dedicated to his early 15th Century Wargaming, well worth a visit for nice figures and some good source info too.

Welcome!

Welcomes to the Warblog are due to  Sebastofig and Captain Richard and who have joined us this week.

The Captains blog Captain Richards Miniature Civil War is chock full of ACW goodness and some damn fine vignettes and diorama's, check it out if you've not seen his blog before.

Foundry Condottiere Cavalry

I note from the Foundry releases that they have now release the Condottiere Rules and as surmised earlier in the month include mounted Light Cavalry. 

Once again the figures are less than startling. I'm not sure if this is because of the fairly flat painting or just the figures. The cavalry are pretty generic and all a tad lifeless but will have uses and it is good the see more figures for the period and the area.

I'll probably pick up a few to see how they paint up and do a bit of mixing and matching but we'll see. One thing I'll not do is use the figures with helmets which are appallingly bad. A bucket over someone's head would be better.

Impetus Berbers vs Normans

Berber Skirmisher

This week I finally managed to get a game of Impetus, using my Berbers against Dave's Normans in a pretty historical match up (think Sicily-ish). Having only played a couple of games a couple of years ago and enjoyed the games and with a rash of players getting into the rules for various periods and scales at the club, I'd been looking to join in.

Dave with quite a few games under his belt with his Normans took me through the mechanics as a refresher (read this as leading me by the hand) with Chuck and Marco lending moral support as onlookers and tech support as they also knew the rules better than I.

An enjoyable game was had and Dave, unsurprisingly perhaps, managed a convincing win even though suffering from frighteningly terrible dice, with his Norman Knights doing the bulk of the damage. Though I did notice that my Berber Infantry did successfully break through his centre, interesting only in that Impetus is yet another rule set that shows the Berber army's strength is it's infantry. (Or maybe I'm rubbish at using the cavalry).

The Berber Centre steamrollers
 through the weak Norman Centre

Interesting game all the same and I look forward to play these rules again.

I did notice that Dave's Normans do look very nice based for Impetus. The large bases do lend themselves to showing off figures nicely.  I did pick up some pre-cut bases from Warbases for use with Impetus (a nice quick service from them) but will use them as sabots as my figures are based to suit WAB/Crusader style basing. I may in the fullness of time do a dedicated army for Impetus, thinking about Byzantines here, but that's for another time and another year.

Tribal Skirmishers

I plan (as I am want to do) to get my Berber Army into a more complete state and will no doubt have more games of Impetus. Though I quite like Bad Wars (being fun and different each time you play) I intend to also use Impetus for my Italian Wars project, as much because the availability of opponents to play but also the more 'serious' feel to the rules also gives a good dependable game experience. I think more practice is much called for.

Oh What A Lovely War!

The Great War Rule Set

I had noticed with interest on various blogs and guys at the Club saying that Warhammer Historical's were having a half price sale. I already have most of the Rules ans Army Books etc etc for WAB that I wanted but I had had thoughts on picking up 'The Great War' which has recently been in the Wargames press having just released their first Supplement for the rules.

At half price I went for it as they have had a reasonable press and I have had thoughts over the last few months of doing something 'Early Twentieth Century', with thoughts of Russian Civil War White Russians which have always appealed and more recently the Mesopotamian Front from WWI having read some interesting articles on this part of the conflict and in particular the Third Battle of Gaza.

Having picked up a few figures recently, just because, the purchase of these rules was probably a good thing, concentrating the thought processes rather than random buys. I did note in the blurb at the back of the rules that there will be a supplement in the future for the Mesopotamian theatre which I will definately pick up when available.

With the rule set only appearing in the post today I can't really give an in depth review or anything like it. Suffice to say the rules have the usual high production values of the GW stable with lots of nice piccies and fluff for the background, painting guides and so on that we are all beginning to expect from our rule sets these days. The admittedly quick read I've managed to have seems to indicate a fairly standard WAB format to the rules with a few pretty simple add ons to allow for the 'modern' warfare element but they seem to cover most things needed and I look forward to give them a try soon. So watch this space for some vintage 20th Century action. 

Bad Wars on Trial

Bad Wars Trial Game

This week at t'club Dave K and myself had decided to have another trial game using the AB Games rule set 'Bad Wars'. Previous quick trys had given a promising taste of the rules and highlighted some good points and looked to be promising but we were put off slightly by the exceedingly poor state of the writing and layout of the rule set.

Since it had been longer than we had planned to give the rules another try the learning curve was pretty steep at first but once going the ideas got to flow again, and indeed we picked up a couple of things we had previously missed.

Although the game was exceedingly frustrating, due to the fact that some things just weren't explained or seemed to suppose that the player is already familiar with the AB system and so not explained at all, all in all the rules do give the flavour and feeling of the period through various mechanics which give the non-professional armies an thoroughly non-professional result with troops sometimes not arriving on time or being forced to halt due to lack of command and the War Tokens, if used with some sensibilities can be quite funny or just adding to the period feel.

The game we played was a fairly small 1000pt a piece game with Dave having poor luck in the deployment phase and struggling to get his troops on the table and barely getting past the start line whereas my French got off to a better start but managed to defeat themselves in a thoroughly French manner and recklessly charging off willynilly at the enemy and Dave's artillery and crossbow dealing out death and destruction.

The actual feel of the shooting and combat is quite similar to WAB, and although different mechanics the result can be similar with good dice rolling resulting in devastating results. Such are fast play rules.

In summary, we are going to give the rules another try with some modifications to a couple of points mainly on the deployment and the War Tokens and try to put together some form of play sheet to ease the flow of the game since there are some gems buried in the debris worth salvaging.

On a similar but different note I see that Foundry have put their 'Condottiere' rules on for pre-order along with the first releases of their Condottiere range of Italian figures.

Condottiere Renaissance Rules

The foundry site has several page previews of the rules, (click on the title above to take you there) and these do look quite nicely produced with good production values but little in the way of info on the rules. What the previews do give is a couple of sneak peeks into other figures Foundry are going to release in this new range, which look to include mounted crossbow and arquebus and new landsknecht and men at arms along with the Italian infantry already released. These appear to be by the same sculptor who has done their new medievals, which I am sad to say is a shame. Some look to be OK and useable, others quite chunky, basic poses and little detail. Could be that these ones pictured in the rules are from the Medieval range. Still good to see more figures for this period and even some usable is a good thing. You can make your own mind up on what you think;

The new range can be viewed here.

I will no doubt pick up a copy of the rules to see if there any good as part of the perennial search for a good set of Renaissance Rules.

On a completely different note, a welcome to the Warblog is due to Galpy who has joined us this week. His blog 15mm Paint Shack should be checked out for some very fine 18th and 19th Century figures and lots of other goodness. 

Italian Wars . . . . I have a Cunning Plan

Battle of Fornovo 1495

Back from Wales and though very nice it was I'm glad to be back home. I will get around to post a few (selected) photo's of the many medieval delights that Wales has to offer, but that's for another time,  once I've downloaded and sorted them out etc.

During one of the enforced days of rest due to crappy weather I managed to sort out my plans for the Italian wars project. I tend to go at these things a bit piece meal but I thought this time I should have an end goal. So I have now put together a project plan, all slightly anally retentive but hey, it occupied an otherwise dreich afternoon.

In brief I've listed out a French, Italian and HRE/Spanish armies which with a bit of forethought should provide a bit of variety interest and usefulness. All are aimed at the early Italian Wars for flavour which should mean I can use most of the units for other generally late 15th Century armies. I could list all sorts of alternative forces/armies but I'm sure you can figure the kind of armies out for yourselves.

The list for units;

I'll keep this updated on the Italian Wars Project page.

A welcome to the Warblog is due to Arlequin who has many on-line exploits but his main blog can be checked out here and you will see his many interests are legion and you can pick up on his other sites.

The Right Look

Young Knight in a Landscape 1510

I have been looking through my library of source books for some inspiration for my Italian Wars project and looking to see if I can fix the look I'm going for in particular the Italians. While searching I came across this illustration in an old 1970's book on later armour. A nice piece, especially the Light Cavalry look behind the 'Young Knight' which I intend to use as the basis for my Italian light Cavalry.

The knight, and I assume the cavalryman behind him, is actually Venetian, but I have decided to theme my Italian troops round a Romagnol theme, with perhaps a smattering of Papal troops to go along side them.

I have added a page to the blog, 'Italian Wars Project' where I intend to log my progress on the project. Not much progress so far, as the last couple of months have been hectic due to holidays, etc etc have prevented me picking up my paint brush at all, but onwards and upwards....hopefully.