No fog on the Tyne

The Baroness and I are just back from a couple of days in the northeast of England. On the list of things to do was a visit to Arbeia, the Roman fort at South Shields, something we've wanted to do since a trip to Wallsend on the other side of the Tyne a few years back. With Gangs of Rome scenery on the workbench, I was keen to see the reconstructed buildings at Arbeia to get some ideas for colour schemes.

The fort we can now see the remains of in South Shields was built in the mid-second century, probably to guard the strategically important River Tyne. It went through several phases of rebuilding, much of the time serving as a supply base for Hadrian's Wall. Certainly there were far more granaries on the site than would have been normal for a fort of its size.

The site has a number of modern reconstructions of buildings and I was very impressed. Most imposing is this gatehouse on the western side of the fort.

The Arbeia gatehouse - Leven Miniatures did a similar model
in 6mm scale

A reconstructed barrack block is another modern addition to the site. Their remains are such a familiar feature of Roman military sites but it was really illuminating to see one in three dimensions.

Pleasingly, four of the six internal spaces are open to the public and have been fitted out to varying degrees. 

Quarters for a centurion with storage
chest, stool and pattens

A small wooden shrine and a wall mounting
for an oil lamp are nice touches

The centurion rates a second room...

... and a kitchen.

The spaces for the men were less palatial.

Primitive fireplace with a flue built into 
the wall

With eight men in a contubernium, these bunk beds will
have been somewhat cramped

But at least there's a ceiling to provide
some insulation against the British weather

Another section of the barracks has been left partly completed so visitors can see the wattle and daub construction of the internal walls.

I was able to get some useful photos of roof construction details. I may have a go at 3D designing some Roman roof tiles as they're quite different to modern pantiles.

At the southern end of the site there's a very impressive reconstruction of a third century commander's house.

Ignore the ironwork - it's a modern anti-climbing measure

A nicely done household shrine

Lots of paintwork to copy

The interpretation boards are numerous and really well done.

The interior of the commander's house has been fitted out in Third Century style. I took loads of photos but I'll just share a couple here.

Finally the on-site museum is crammed full of interesting finds with more in the internal rooms of the gatehouse. 

A painting by the late Ron Embleton, brother of Gerry
the well-known illustrator of military subjects

Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums and South Tyneside Council have done a superb job here and I thoroughly recommend a visit to Arbeia if you have an interest in Roman subjects.

Hachigata - The Assault

Mark, Ron, Phil and Andy came over this weekend and we played out the culmination of our Siege of Hachigata, 1568 campaign using The Pikeman's Lament.

The campaign has covered four games with each of the players taking on the role of a samurai commander attempting to gain personal honour whilst fighting on behalf of their lord. The assumption is that there are large armies involved on both sides and that our player characters' contingents form but a small part of them. However, key events of the siege do seem to have followed our boys around!

For the defending Hōjō clan Phil took on the role of Hōjō Tsebedetsu while Ron played Date Masamune. The attacking Takeda were represented by Takeda Mochinaga (Mark) and Honda Gozaemon (Andy).

Left to right: Takeda Mochinaga, Date Masamune, Hōjō 
Tsebedetsu, and Honda Gozaemon

This final part of the campaign saw the Takeda assault on the castle. I hadn't originally planned it that way. The historical siege ended when the Takeda gave up and their army marched away. My idea was to follow history and play two or three games set during the siege and maybe a couple more with Hōjō forces harassing the withdrawing Takeda. In the event, however, the Takeda were victorious in every skirmish of our table-top campaign. It seemed they'd have to have a go at assaulting the castle!

I thought events of previous battles should influence this one.

The Hōjō side's failure to steal Takeda Shingen's heirloom armour would give the Takeda the chance to reroll a failed Morale test as the unit concerned caught sight of the daimyo, magnificent in it.

Their success in digging a channel to divert the castle's water supply would give the Takeda the chance to infiltrate men into the castle. More on this later.

The capture of an outlying bastion (or yagura) would give the Takeda an additional, albeit immobile, unit in the game in the form of arquiebusiers firing from the tower.

Finally, I wanted to give the defenders a little something to reflect the stratagems used by defenders in Japanese siege warfare. I allocated them some two-inch-long strips of bamboo skewer. These represented a pile of logs that they could send crashing down to sweep attackers from the glacis. In the event, this was never used as no Takeda forces were in the right location. If I had the time again I might allow them to be used in any location but with a high target number for activation.

The game began with the defenders deploying their units lining the castle walls. This determined the attackers deployment area - basically at least six inches from the walls, further in areas where defending missile troops' maximum range extended beyond that line.

I had given the Takeda players the ability to infiltrate from the woods to the wall (and potentially into the castle) using the channel so laboriously dug by their miners in a previous fight. Mark ended up commanding this sector of the field and he was given two options. He could try to infiltrate a unit of samurai or he could employ ninja for the task.

With 13 inches to cover to reach the wall from the woods, samurai would move 2D10 inches whereas ninja would move 4D8 inches. Ninja were a better bet for penetrating the defences but taking them would cost Mark two points of honour!

Mark decided that the honour of victory would expunge any stain from using the untouchable assassins and made his way over to the dice tower to roll his 4D8:

 The resulting six inches of movement had the Hōjō snorting in derision.

The battle, then, would be fought with the Takeda attackers having to get across the walls without the assistance of a friendly force within.

The Hōjō tactic was to mainly use ashigaru to line the walls and to keep samurai in reserve.

A group of townsfolk was available and these were employed to guard the area of rough going where the stream had previously run through the watergate. Rated as "Clubmen" in TPL terms, they actual fight better in rough going than they do elsewhere!

The Takeda advanced on a broad front...

The defenders had a contingent of warrior monks who had the Wild Charge special rule. I declared that this would apply if the monks were actually lining the walls but not if they were held in reserve within the castle. 

Eventually Phil decided to let them have their head and they charged out into combat. They didn't last long but they seriously dented the Takeda line before their survivors were routed.

A couple of Takeda units made it across the wall but on both occasions they were surrounded and cut down. In the end Andy and Mark decided that they no longer had the strength needed to penetrate the castle's defences. The campaign would conclude, somewhat historically, with Takeda Shingen withdrawing to besiege the less imposing Takiyama castle instead.

At the end of the game we examined the Honour scores of the samurai captains involved. With a string of previous victories behind them, the two Takeda captains came out of the campaign with their reputations significantly improved. 

Takeda Mochinaga (Mark) lost two points for his unsuccessful use of Ninjas, another for acting without panache and a fourth for failing his boast. Still he finished the campaign with a total of 22 points of Honour.

Honda Gozaemon (Andy) had made three boasts before the battle and succeeded with one. He did act without panache at one point and, overall, lost two points of Honour ending with 30. Having started with 13 points, his was a tale of success despite a strategic reverse.

The Hōjō leaders were less successful overall.

Hōjō Tsebedetsu (Phil) was successful in his boast and on the winning side. He added six points of Honour to end the campaign with 16, the highest level he had achieved to date.

Date Masamune (Ron) was the only leader to have acted with panache throughout the battle but a failed boast saw his score unchanged overall on 17. Given that he started the campaign (as a veteran of many battles) on 18 points he had clearly failed to progress his career during the Siege of Hachigata.

And so the campaign is over. The players all said that they enjoyed the rules and would be happy to play some more The Pikeman's Lament (or its stablemates Lion/Dragon/Xenos Rampant) but next I think we may go on to try some Gangs of Rome.

Looting on the streets of ancient Rome

Today I had a first, solo, go at using the Gangs of Rome skirmish rules from Footsore Miniatures & Games.  

Looking back at this blog I see that I purchased version 2 of the rules at Fiasco in October last year but the serious push to actually play has been on-going for just five weeks. Not bad going!

I set up a 3'x3' area using my Deep Cut Studio city mat (with some plywood and a metre rule defining the playing area as the mat is 4'x4').

The buildings are a mixture of actually-Roman stuff built for Christmas 2018's Dark Ages game, some buildings that looked vaguely believable because of their pantile roofs, and a few pieces knocked together recently.

While the set up was on the table, Postie arrived with a couple of additional MDF building kits; a temple and a granary from Warbases. More on these later!

Having just used the basic rules, I've found them to be fun and quite clever in places. For example. I was wondering why they have separate "Move" and "Climb" activations when the distance moved is the same in both cases. The answer is that the results of failure are different between the two.

Fail your die roll to Move and you just stay where you started, fail you roll to climb and you fall half the height you were attempting to reach and take damage accordingly. Cleverly, though, climbing a ladder is counted as a move so is safer and potentially quicker than shinning up the scaffolding elsewhere.

I used the first scenario in the book in its "Core Rules" configuration. Basically it's won by the side that gets the lion's share of four resource tokens scattered around the board. On this occasion the Green Gang led by Molendinarius were successful.

I think Gangs of Rome would make for a great Saturday Afternoon Wargame[TM], possibly even giving us a campaign to follow the soon-to-be-finished Siege of Hachigata series.

Some random air support

By the time the recent Joy of Six show came around I really fancied painting some 1/300th scale aircraft just for the hell of it. 

Fortunately friend of the blog Richard Phillips sells the Scotia Micromodels range at shows and attends  Joy of Six so after a rummage through his drawers (Ooh er Matron!) I came away with a selection of early Cold War British jets.

First up is this English Electric Canberra. The Luftwaffe acquired a small number. They were officially used as target tugs (hence the bright colour scheme) but there is some evidence that they were in fact used for photographic and electronic surveillance of Warsaw Pact military operations across the Inner German Border.

Fellow Cold War Commander Andy T has a model of one of these aircraft in an all-over orange scheme so I decided to go with the part-orange scheme seen here.

The crosses on the wings (one upper and one lower) were from my spares box. They are probably over 40 years old but they went on fine with a little decal fix and softening solution. The remaining markings are hand painted or applied with a Staedler waterproof pen.

Next up is a DeHavilland Vampire in Indian Airforce colours.

Obviously a much simpler, and quicker, paint scheme; just all-over Vallejo Air Aluminium.

The Vampire seems to have variants with and without little winglets outboard of the tail. Their absence on this model pushed me to depict an aircraft in Indian markings.

Finally we have a Royal Swedish Air Force DeHavilland Venom.

I do like this model in its grey and green scheme (I used Vallejo Pale Grey and Reflective Green over a Middle Sea Grey base coat). 

The Venom is noticeably larger than the Vampire and while it should be a little bigger I think Scotia have overdone it. Never mind though; in these colour schemes they're unlikely to see action over the same table at the same time!

So that was fun. Has it scratched that itch for a while or has it just reminded me of how much fun painting 1/300th scale planes can be? We'll see over the next few months!