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.