Imaginations in 42mm (8)

In a previous series of blogposts I commented on my initial 42mm imaginations armies. The project has been dormant for some time, but I decided it's time to get things moving again.

The photographs below show the lay-out of the initial battle. The "Blue" army will try to occupy a series of positions (2 hills and a bridge) outside the city of XXX of "Green" army (all names still to be decided ... ;-)), in order to set up artillery positions to attack the town in a later stage.

The time period of this project is late 19th, early 20th century. This allows for some technology to be included, but still allows for late 19th century pomp w.r.t. fancy army uniforms etc.

As for the scenery elements, I have reused some of the buildings of our Blue Lotus game. Adding some items such as cars or telegraph/telephone poles makes it look as if we are indeed have a setup in the technological era. It makes an "old" city, still having its city walls, a believable setting.

Terrain archeology

Just off the painting and flocking table:

This is the venerable Grendel Ruined Acropolis, a set which probably every wargamer of a certain vintage has lying around. This particular set has sat in its box since the early Lonely Mountain days of Schild en Vriend and has seen at least four house moves with me. So I decided it was high time it got painted :).

Latest additions to the index

Some quick updates:

• All issues of Miniature Wargames which are in my collection have been entered. Many are still missing ...
• Through an unexpected windfall, I came into the possession of Wargames Illustrated 51 and Wargames World 5. This makes the index for all "black cover" issues of Wargames Illustrated COMPLETE!
• The first issue of the digital Wargamer's Notes has also been added.
• I keep adding Miniature Wargames and Wargames Soldier Strategy issues through my subscriptions as they come in.
• I plan to add the series "Secrets of Wargame Design" as well. I do have the first 6 volumes, so it's only a matter of finding the time to enter them.

Access the index here.

Dragon Rampant: Elves vs Chaos

Yesterday we played a fairly large Dragon Rampant game. The setup of the forces was discussed before, and if we would use the point values, it came down to something between 65 and 70 points for each side.

We used our hexified version of the game (as discussed here), but we adapted some more things: units could be in adjacent hexes (one unit = one hex, so no confusion possible), and we used dials to track strength points. We didn't use the idea of group orders, as discussed in this blogpost.

Moreover, since I found the original troop rosters too unwieldy, I quickly made some troop cards for easy reference during the game (and as could be expected, there were some wrong statistics on them due to copy-paste mistakes). The biggest change in statistics lines was to simply list modifiers for activation rolls, relative to a baseline of 6+. So all troops activate on a 6+ for all actions, but some have a +1 (activate on 5+) or a -1 (activate on 7+). I think this provides a better perception on the advantages and disadvantages of each troop type.

I also made some cards to draw a random leader characteristic, and to draw some random spells for each wizard. I think that assigning 3 random spells to each wizard provides more fun and thinking, rather than allowing each wizard to use all possible spells - which would quickly degenerate in throwing fireballs back and forth.

Chaos Army cards

Elven army cards

Random Leader trait

Random spells

 Some observations from our game:

• When using large numbers of units, the activation system starts to break down. So group activation would be a nice thing to have.
• The differences in activation rolls barely influence player's decisions. So either we should change all activation rolls to 6+, or provide +2 or -2 modifiers to change this characteristic into something that actually does influence the decisions made by players.  Personally, I am not a big fan of varying troop characteristics simply to add flabour - they should also have meaning and influence decisions in gameplay.
• The combat resolution system is a bit tedious. Rolling 12 dice for each combat, counting hits, then dividing by Armour value ... both players said it takes the "punch" out of rolling the dice. You should be able to see at a glance how much damage you did. The Armour mechanic makes this difficult.
• Battered units with a -5, -6 modifier have it difficult to recover, but they still are not routing. They keep "hanging around" untill at last they Courage rollf alls below 0.  When units are written off - for all practical considerations - they should get removed more quickly.

Anyway, the pictures of  the game. Bart was playing the Elves, Koen was playing Chaos, and I was taking pictures.

Bart and Koen pondering their strategy

Initial moves.

Reinforcements waiting on the sidelines.

Elven army rushing towards the statues. Marauder Giant (nicknamed Freddy) leading from the front.

Chaos army deploying

Elven spearmen taking the first statue.

Freddy occupying another statue.

More Elven spearmen

A Tree horror and some Minotaurs running over the hills.

Gygax the Dragon fighting the Chaotic Evil forces.

The battle in full swing.

Another view.

And yet another view. Since my wargaming room is not that big a room, it is difficult to get good wide perspective shots.

A look from the Chaos battle lines.

Giant Spider with Venomous attacks.

And yet another overview.

And another random picture.

Then and now II - 17 years of painting redux

I'm currently setting up an Ancients game on my wargame table using one of my oldest collections of figures - Post-Roman Britons and Saxons. IIRC, Post-Roman Britons and Arthur were my second army, just after building a Gallic DBA army.

Setting up these figures, I inevitably come across many of the Arthur figures in my collection, including the one I posted about earlier. This figure was painted in the same colours as one I painted way back in '97 (which got a silver medal at the Crisis painting convention of that year, IIRC). It's interesting to show the more recent Arthur (painted in 2013) and that first Arthur together in the same photo, much as I did for some 20mm British paras earlier:

In the photo above, the figure on the left is the more recently painted one, the one on the right is the one from '97. One thing that is different from the first '17 years comparison' photo is that both figures in this comparison have been painted to the full extent of my painting ability.

Looking at the figures side by side, I was actually surprised at the higher contrast on the more recent figure. It is probably logical, given that the figure on the left was painted up from a black base coat, while the one on the right used a grey base coat. Still, I had the idea in my mind that these two figures were much more similar in painting technique than they actually are.

So, what do you think of these figures? Which one do you think is the best?

Upcoming Dragon Rampant game

I took some pictures of our upcoming Dragon Rampant game. I am not a big fan of "construct your own warband for 24 points" games, so I usually set up a scenario, and plop down a number of units that hopefully will provide an interesting scenario.

For this specific game, I decided to field an Elven army against a Chaos army. Most figures are rather old, going back the early nineties.

The Elves are as follows:

Elven Army

• Elven Prince: Elite Foot + Invisibility (Advanced Heroquest figure)
• 3 Archer units: Light Missiles + Sharpshooters (Warhammer 4th edition figures)
• 3 Spearmen units: Heavy Foot (Warhammer 4th edition figures)
• Wizard: Light Foot + Spellcaster (Advanced Heroquest figures and an old Citadel familiar)
• Giant: Elite Foot (Marauder Miniatures giant)
• Dragon: Greater Warbeast + Flame Attack, Flying, Ranger (Ral Partha)
• Eagle: Greater Warbeast + Flying, Ranger, Wild Charge (Citadel Eagle)

The forces of Chaos:

Chaos Army

• Champion: Elite Foot + Ranger, Invisibility, Enchanted Weapon (Old 3rd edition Slaanesh Champion)
• Wizard: Light Foot + Spellcaster (Citadel Wizard and a Chaos familiar)
• 4 Beastmen units: Heavy Foot + offensive (Old Citadel Beastmen, 3rd edition)
• 2 Minotaur units: Elite Foot + Ranger (Citadel Minotaurs, 3rd edition)
• 2 Tree Spirits: Greater Warbeast + Ranger 9Reaper Bones figure and a Horrorclix figure)
• Spider: Greater Warbeast + Ranger , Wild Charge, Venom (Ral Partha)

We use an hexified version of the rules (see earlier blogpost), and draw 3 random spells for wizards to use throughout the game. That adds some more fun and unexpected tactics.

The scenario focuses on 5 sacred statues situated along the river. The side who controls the most statues at the end of the wargaming day wins the game. The Elven army is closest to the status initially, and they have archers, but the Chaos forces have some more melee power, so it should be an interesting scenario.

Overview of the table. Chaos starts in upperleft corner, Elves in lowerright corner.

Statues along the river. Note also the "enchented forest". Forests are always enchanted ;-)