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.

A New Perspective

After many years of wanting to make a tabletop periscope I finally managed to pick up a bit of suitably sized mirror (from an old toilet bag that was going in the bin) and with the use of a protractor and some scrap card I've put together this offering.

Quite pleased with the result although perhaps not the most aesthetically pleasing object, it does work and can be tarted up a bit if needed.

Put together so it can be used by simply putting it on the table at the appropriate spot (to check line of sight or just to admire the view) it can be viewed without hunkering down or other contortions.

Always wanted one since in my teens and saw them for the first time in Yorkshire at the Wargame Holiday place of the late Peter Gilder and was well impressed then. Now I've got one, I'll probably see if I can improve on the model, (if I track down some more mirror of a suitable size).

Coming Soon - Condottiere

Just noted from the Foundry site that they have an interesting new range coming, namely 'Condottiere'. Not much info on the website but going by the taster photo, it looks to be interesting although perhaps not hugely exciting going by the photo but early days.


This release seems to be tied in with a rule set release, (surprise, surprise) called Condottiere by Frank Chadwick. I'll reserve my judgements on both the figures and rules until seen, but both can only be good for stimulating interest in the period.

The Empire Strikes Back.....A Bit

Empire vs Dark Elves (The Epilogue)

After our recent WHFB mini campaign at the club, where my Empire forces managed to fight off Iains' Ogre invasion but got trounced by Kevs Dark Elves, I had thrown down the gauntlet to Kev to see if he wanted to have a re-match in the form of an epilogue to the campaign. (It also would round off the story line I had written around the two campaigns nicely one way or another (for this read salve a bruised ego)).


Thanks to Kev, being the sport he is, agreed to a one off game, namely the 'breakthrough' scenario from the 7th Edition rules where the DE have to get a third of their forces into the Empire deployment zone by the end of the game to win. Slightly biased I know, but based on past performance against the DE, highly likely (see previous posts).


The game was highly entertaining and just for a change, a contest right to the end with the DE running out of steam by round 5, mainly thanks to some very nifty magic (which was itself a bit of a novelty, the only place I got to throw more dice than Kev being power dice) and the Empire troops, and in particular the mortars, wearing down the DE numbers sufficiently over the course of rounds 2 to 4 enough to tip the balance.

The Nightmare comes to an end

So a victory at last for the Empire over the Dark Elves, preventing them from escaping with their ill gotten gains. But more importantly, finally a victory of my Empire over Kevs Dark Elves, the first in six years!


You can see from the final photo that there wasn't much left on the field which shows how close a battle it was.

Welcome!

A welcome to the Warblog to Colonel Shofer.


The Colonels Mild OCD Model Blog is worth looking out for for it's eclectic mix of figure reviews, gaming and general eye candy coming as it does in all sorts of assorted flavours.