Hi All,

Had a great game of Art De La Guerre last night. We played a standard  200 point game of my Classical Indians versus Andrew’s Mid Imperial Romans in 15mm.

The Romans consisted of mainly medium auxiliaries and heavy legionaries with a smattering of assorted cavalry on either flank.

My Indians consisted of two commands of an elephant supported by swordsmen and light infantry backed up by three mixed swordsmen/bowmen units. The third command led by King Porus himself consisted of noble chariots and lance armed heavy cavalry.

The Indians deployed with their chariot and cavalry arm on their left flank and moved forward their whole line as quickly as possible to avoid being enveloped by the larger Roman army (25 units to 20).

The chariots and cavalry charge in.

The Indian Right Flank just fails to make contact.

Indian Cavalry and chariots smash through on the left.

Indian infantry and elephant does likewise on the right.

With the Roman flanks failing, their centre moved forward, to try to relieve the pressure, unfortunately the mediocre mixed Indian units proved more than a match for the legionaries causing a two-step loss on contact..

The Indian army continues to apply pressure across the line until the Roman’s break.

Well!! An unexpected win to the Indians. Despite some delays as we re-familiarised ourselves with some of the rules intricacies we both had a fun game (well I did anyway).  ADLG is still a system that allows massive 6 to 1 dice swings to massively influence the game at key times. Legionaries just should not lose to Indian mediocre units………. but they did………twice.

The Indian mounted left flank was always going to cause a problem for their Roman counterparts particularly early in the combat but the typical Roman staying power was jut not there (Andrew – destroy those dice).

Bucko, Andrew can’t wait for your arrival on the Island!!!

I found getting the Classical Indians off the shelf was the highlight for me. The last time they were used was as an Allied contingent to my sixth edition Macedonian Imperial Army (Book 2, List 37 if I remember rightly) some decades ago.

Last Friday had another game with the W.A.R.G.S. re-fighting the Battle of the Solomon Islands on 24 to 25 August 1942.

Historical, as the third carrier battle of the Pacific campaign, the battle was a draw but was considered a minor   tactical and strategic victory for the U.S. because the Japanese lost more ships, aircraft, and aircrew, and Japanese troop reinforcements for Guadalcanal were delayed.

Vice Admiral Nagumo (Steve N) was commanding the Shōkaku and Nomoto Nameki (David S) was commanding the Zuikaku.

Facing them were the clan of John G and Chris G commanding Fletcher’s Enterprise and Saratoga.

The game ended with the Imperialist Yankee’s Enterprise requiring Scottie to beam them up (from the seabed) and the Saratoga on fire from tip to stern.

The brave and loyal Imperial Japanese navy had some damage on both the Shōkaku and  the Zuikaku but they will both be in action in a short time to support the attack on Guadalcanal.

A great game using John G’s rules.

I have been hanging out to try the Osprey ” Pikeman’s Lament” rules as my 15mm Royalist, Parliamentarian and Montrose Scots armies have been sitting idle for years awaiting a good set of rules. The last set that had been used in earnest was Forlorn Hope which were great fun but far to complicated for my liking nowadays.

My biggest bug-bear has been the inability of rules writers to adequately reflect the impact that the various percentages of Pike and Musket unit combinations have.

Pikeman’s Lament doesn’t attempt this as units are only representing sections of 6 to 12 men armed uniformly as such a small section would be. I played the Royalists while the dastardly David K played the Parliamentarians.

Sir Reginald Archibald Wessex the Third (Reggie Da Turd)

Reggies Company

Pastor Bland (Blah Blah) – weren’t they all rather bland religious fanatics?

The Bland Company

Pikeman’s Lament consists of three games within the one. Playing the scenario, trying to achieve your special orders, and trying to increase the rank of your officer.

Firstly we had to determine the characters of our commanders.

Bland turned out to be a Brimstone and Hellfire preaching “Hothead” (during attacks may re-roll one failed to hit dice) and, as an officer always ready to meet his maker, was “Brave” (adds +2 instead of +1 to morale tests).

Sir Reggie was a natural leader who was disinheritated by his father and forced to rise up through the ranks (each turn you may re-roll one failed move, attack, or shoot test within 12″). As an officer he was a brilliant tactician (can add +1 or -1 to final total for choosing to be attacker or defender).

Pastor Bland’s special mission was to stand firm – as if!!!

Sir Reggie chose “This Time its Personal” as he wanted to oblige the Pastor by sending him to his maker………. personally.

By the pre-game pre-campaign process you should already get a feel for how these rules play.

The dice-off for attacker defender meant that the brilliant tactician ability of Sir Reggie was redundant because whatever he decided he was still going to be the attacker.

The game began by Sir Reggie moving all of his units forward to the attack, making sure that he secured the bridge and gave his raw musketeers the stream as protection against the Pastors trotters and regimental gun.

The Royalsit musketeers and forlorn hope dispatched two units of trotters whilst the Elite Gallopers of the Reggie completely routed Blah blah and his unit of trotters

Having smashed one unit of trotters and taking on a second Sir Reggie and his Elite Gallopers were gradually becoming fatigued.

Eventually this became to much for them and they were forced to retire to the safety of the muskleteers (code for routed off board).

The parliamentarian army artillery was proving its worth by routing the other unit of Elite Gallopers.

Eventually Blah blah’s company routed leaving Sir Reggie in control of the vital bridge and village.

The post game anaysis showed that Sir Reggie achieved 5 honour points for securing victory but none for routing Blah Blah as he did not do this personally. blah Blah lost and did not achieve his special order of standing firm (all but one unit in rout).

Blah blah remained as an Ensign on 10 points while Sir Reggie was half way to being promoted a to a Lieutenant on 15 points.

All that was left to do was to see if Blah blah and Sir Reggie survived the battle. A dice roll of a 6 and an 8 meant that both were wounded and rescued by their loyal soldiers and will recover in time for the next engagement.

Loved the game and the mini campaign so much I will now re-base and flock all three of my armies.

After our first game of “The Men Who Would Be Kings” I decided to put together  a 20mm plastic Egyptian Army. I wanted the option of a variety of troop types, some not included in the “official” list. The advantage of this army is that it can fight for or against the European powers.

HaT Set 8193 Egyptian Camel Corps were used for the camels and the kneeling shooting figure from the same set for the “Regular” Sudan Unit. HaT Set 8268 German WW1 Askaris were used for the Irregular infantry. I only used those figures with Fez for these units. The artillery crew and the officers in all units were from the HaT 8299 set of Zulu British Colonial Command, and the gun was from the Airfix Set 01731 WW1 Royal Artillery set. The cavalry unit which at the time of writing the blog is not yet completed was the camel riders from the HaT 8193 Egyptian camel corps and the horses from the HaT 8274 set of WW1 Ottoman cavalry.

These figures were used because they were what I already had that best suited what I was trying to represent.

A good review of the figures with excellent pictures can be found at:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx

The units were painted using a very basic technique which included undercoating the figures with a spray can colour that  matched the main uniform colour (white or Tamiya Desert sand.

The army prepared for battle.

A view from the other end of the line.

The Artillery with British Officer

The Camels Picture 1

The Camels Picture 2

The Irregular Egyptian Infantry

Sudanese Regular Infantry

You may have also noticed the Airfix Foreign Legion fort which is still soldiering on from childhood days, albeit with a brand new paint job. The model itself is older than a lot of my wargaming colleagues – there a some advantages to being an old codger – “what would you know my figures have been around longer than you were born”!!!!

I have found that 20mm plastics are ideal for this period, especially now that there is an excellent range available which means no more cutting up figure to get something that vaguely looks like what you want. Do you remember how many ancient cavalry types we used to make out of the Airfix US Cavalry set and the Airfix magazines which told you how? The quality is good to very good and with a great range of acrylic clear sprays available the wear and tear on rifles barrels and swords is nowhere near as damaging as the bad old days. The main advantage is the cost, because the size of the armies and the generic troop types means you only need a few boxes to get started.

Happy Colonial gaming.

Darius finally gets his revenge.

Darius ran a Land Raiders list. They we all mounted.

Attila ran the Sea Raiders list. There are no mounted available so all Attila’s troops were foot.

In the pictures Attila’s army is the closest. All references to left or right flanks are from Attila’s perspective.

Attila was the Defender. As such he selected the terrain.

Darius’ strategy was to get stuck in, hit with his mounted charging into the Sea Raiders ranks and then disengaging to charge again.

PICTURES.

This shows the starting positions from Attila’s side.

The armies clash.

 Darius inflicts serious damage in the initial combats. His cavalry recoil so they can charge in again.

One of Attila’s units breaks and flees from the field.

Attila flanks one of the enemy mounted units and destroys it.

Another one of Attila’s units breaks as one of Darius mounted units has got in behind his line.

And Attila loses another one.

Attila is down to two units only. The foot Companions are the second from the bottom.

Darius charged in again and destroys Attila’s commander.

Game over.

Sad but true.

It must be said though that Darius had some very lucky early fights that furthered his cause

Darius gets his revenge. Yay!

Following on from our last fortnights game of “The Men Who would Be King” we planned to have a Foreign Legion game at my place at the Mernda Wargames Holiday Centre.

As usual I planned to have a few twists, including heroes based on movie characters such as Gary Cooper, Buster Crabbe, Abbot and Costello, Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko as well as Claude baby and a few others.

I also had a card system designed to chose the three legion forces at random.

The Foreign Legion had three forces that started in an Oasis, an Arab village and the Fort.

The objective was for the two patrols in the Village and the Oasis to return safely to the Fort without losing 50% or more casualties.

The Legion in the Oasis lead by Buster Crabbe (“Up and at em”).

The old Airfix fort gets another run. The French were lead by Phil Silvers (“the man shows talent”).

The village full of French criminals lead by Humphrey Bogart (“the man has a bottle”).

No units had internal leaders as per the rules, but started with a leadership of 7+. The rationale was to give the heroes more importance in the game. All French Foreign Legion heroes counted as five men and were 5+ leadership. Each had additional set characteristics which befitted their movie character.

The game began with the Arabs appearing on both sides of the sand dune valley.

Airfix Arabs and HaT German East African Askaris painted up as Egyptian Irregulars

Old Airfix Arabs

The Village being Overun

The Cavalry from the Oasis sortie out to help the village.

The French cavalry charged and smashed through two units of Arab infantry.

Lead by Buster the cavalry were required to divert from their mission of saving the village and were forced to charge some infantry in their charge range. The charge was extremely effective smashing two units and almost destroying a third before they were destroyed. As befitting the hero he was Buster continued to fight on and was eventually saved by some infantry moving forward to his aid. Wounded (2 wounds remaining) he survived the battle.

Humphrey Bogart goes down in style, bottle in hand, whilst taking on a whole Arab unit.

In the end it was a near run thing with the French in the village lead by Blake losing a hero (5 VP), 21 infantry (21VP) and a machine gun (4 VP) for a total of 30VP’s out of a starting 33 VP’s.

The  French in the Oasis lead by John lost the Cavalry Unit (8VP) and one infantry for a total of 9 VP out of a starting 24 VP’s.

The total loses for the French were 42 out of a starting 57  – a substantial win to the good guys!!!

The loses in the fort did not count but Steve only lost 1 Infantry man.

The Arabs were slightly outnumbered but the ability to run through terrain without slowing down proved decisive. The Artillery firing from the Oasis caused a lot of damage and clearly showed its value and why you are only allowed one per force.

Another great fun game which was played by all in the cinematic style expected. Pip Pip to all!!!

PS. I bags those red dice again!!!

Whilst shopping in Aldi a few months ago I found these fishing tackle shoulder bags that contained 5 tackle boxes and two smaller ones in the side pockets.

At the time I wasn’t sure how I would use them but decided to buy all 7 that were left for around AU$19.95 each. I had only a few months early ordered a purpose built army pack for my X-Wing collection as they are hard to store and take up too much war games shelf space and thought they might be useful for something similar.

I then hit on the idea that they would be perfect for my Viking Saga and Irish Saga (yet to be painted- I know the blog will come) armies.

Firstly I used the side pockets for my Saga dice, dice, and fatigue tokens.

The bottom and top tackle trays were used for my wound counters.

The zipped side pocket fitted my measuring tools and turn marker.

I then ordered some foam trays from  Knights of Dice to be able to take my two leaders and 46 other Saga Viking figures.

These were purpose built but still quite reasonably priced.

Knights of Dice buildings are superb and I have purchased a full set of their Village and Desert building Tabula Rasa ranges. These are excellent for 28mm figures with the village set ideal for a Viking raid. (Viv that must be worth a discount on my next purchase!!)

You will note the cut placed in several slots to hold the 40mm round bases of the General figures.

So there you have it – everything needed to transport my Saga army safely to a mates place or a competition.

All in the one simple shoulder bag.