Christmas Goodies 2019

Happy Christmas everyone!  What did you get in the way of pressies?

Just a couple of gaming related acquisitions for me this year.

Somewhat out of my ordinary is this...

My Mum, bless her, doesn't really have a clue what kind of wargaming I do but she did pop into the local branch of GW and pick up the above figure.  She kept the receipt so I can swap it for something else.  I may see what I can trade it in for in the way of paint.

More my cup of mead is this gift from Jamie...

I've been considering Dux Britanniarum for some time as a way of using my Late Roman / Bacaudae figures.  A bit of rules reading is called for, possibly followed by some rebasing!

They've all got it in fer me!

Rich of the Too Fat Lardies seems to have settled on a name for his forthcoming ancients large skirmish game.  Disciplina et Virtus (or was it the other way round?) looked favourite at one point but it seems he's settled on Infamy, Infamy!  Than which, I'd say, there's no name more Lardy.

The rules clearly owe something to Sharp Practice.  Sharp Practice cards and force morale trackers are visible win the pictures on the Lard Island blog.  I believe Rich is also in contact with John Savage who ran a really nice-looking Sharp Practice Ancients game at Ebor Lard.

Between the two of them they really do seem to "have it in fer me".  I'm getting seriously tempted to start recruiting Imperial Romans and barbarians in 28mm scale.

I say Imperial Romans because it seems the rules will have a specific focus on first century combat along the limites of the Empire.  OK, I can imagine myself writing scenarios in that context.

There are early Imperial Romans available in plastic so a 50-odd figure force wouldn't be too onerous to recruit. Or I could adapt the rule to accommodate late republican forces and use my existing Punic War collection.

What I'd really like to do, though, is to make some better use of my fifth century Gaul forces - the Bacaudae and their opponents.

So should I get Infamy, Infamy and adapt it to the fifth century?  But then TFL already do a game, Dux Britanniarum, that's aimed exactly at that period!

Fortunately, I'll be at Steel Lard this coming weekend when Richard will be running Infamy Infamy and Mike Whittaker will be running Dux Britanniarum.  Somehow I just need to avoid being so busy running my Menton 1940 game that I don't get to see anything of the two games in action.

Vapnartak Weekend

An enjoyable trip to York today to the Vapnartak show and to catch up with various friends.  It was good to see Andy, Andy, Andy, Mark, and Mark as well as Jamie, Carl, Kenny, Will, and Annie.

I didn't take any photos this year but here's a pic of what I bought.

I've bought a second pack of Republican Roman cavalry from Curteys.  They'll form the cavalry ala of my second, Italian allied, legion.

The Tumbling Dice pack is a second set of WW1 Turkish infantry, which will give me a whole platoon (or a battalion in our bath-tubbed Andreivia campaign).

And finally, some very nice dark ages women defending their village with assorted improvised weapons - just the thing for our Lion Rampant Bacaudae games (or Argad if we decide to do some more).

I also bought some other stuff but I'm not allowed to tell you about that because it has to be wrapped up and given back to me on my birthday.

Christmas Games part two - Argad

Our second game this Christmas period used a new set of rules (to me) and the only one in my collection that was originally published in Breton!  Rather appropriately our first game of Argad was set in the part of Gaul that is now Brittany.

Armorica in the fourth century CE was notionally part of the Roman Empire but was de facto an independent state controlled by the bacaudae.  Historians seem to differ as to whether the bacaudae were bandits, proto-proletarian revolutionaries or simply bourgeois Roman citizens keen to avoid paying rent to absentee Roman landlords.  In this game my interpretation tended towards the last.

Our table was set up thus:

The table represented the civitas (in this case meaning a district) of Kerantrech, home of some members of the thoroughly Romanised Coriosolitae tribe.

A large villa (home of the local magistrate, a coriosolitae noble by the name of Syagrius) is the economic centre of the civitas.  A village stands nearby, it and the villa being set back from a nearby Roman road.

At the northern (near) end of the table a watchtower overlooks a small inlet.  A handful of soldiers of the local limitanei (border force) keep watch for Saxon or Irish raiders.

Jamie, Richard P, Kevin and Leo came over for this game.  Argad sits somewhere at the intersection of wargame and role-playing game.  The character roles for the players were:

• Jamie - Antonius Mago, representative of the Roman landlord who theoretically owns the civitas
• Leo - Syagrius, the magistrate of Kerantrech
• Richard P - Ellifer, the commander of the limitanae
• Kevin - Clodis, leader of a group of Franks who have papers to say that they have been given the civitas in exchange for service in the Roman army
• Richard C - umpire and all other roles.

Our story began with Antonius Mago, arriving on the road in the south, meeting up with the lady Genovefa who was travelling to Kerantrech to be with his sister, the wife of the magistrate, who was expecting her first child.

Genovefa's raeda passes the old pagan temple 

Antonius Mago had an escort of legionaries and some mercenary Alan horsemen.

Part of Mago's escort - perhaps not the finest legionary soldiers but
professional enough?

The southeast corner of the civitas saw the arrival first of Bishop Severinus (come to baptise the child) and then of Clodis and his mixed force of Franks and Roman spearmen.

Richard P, Leo and Jamie (l to r) look on at Kevin deploys his Franks

Argad moves pretty quickly and with Syagrius out patrolling the civitas and Ellifer busy trying to ensure that Bishop Severinus didn't bump into Malgwyn the Druid as the latter conducted a pagan blessing of the orchard, Clodis was soon in possession of the villa and seeking to dictate terms to all and sundry.

Clodis soon brow-beat Syagrius into supporting the new status quo.  The fact that Clodis had possession of the letters wife and newly-born daughter was pretty crucial here.

Meanwhile, Clodis found his newly achieved domestic tranquility disturbed who Antonius Mago's legionaries tipped over the statue in front of the villa and began digging under its plinth.

A fight developed between the Franks and the legionaries for possession of a strongbox found buried under the statue.  In the end the Franks were successful and Antonius Mago was forced to withdraw with nothing to show his sponsor back in Rome.  All in all it was a victory for the Franks - so in line with the broad sweep of history then.

As a final bonus, here's a shot that captures two random groups that entered into the action; in the foreground some Sarmatian mercenaries and in the background, Agravaine son of Lot with his Numidian servant seeking the Holy Grail (idea stolen from Fabrice of Argad).

Bacaudae Insipiration

My Bacaudae project is unusual that the original inspiration was a single picture; this one:

It's by Angus McBride from Tim Newark's book Medieval Warlords.

I looked up "bacaudae" and found to my great surprise that much of what is now Brittany was, for several decades in the fifth century, effectively independent of the Roman Empire.  It's not clear whether the bacaudae were proletarian revolutionaries or petit bourgeois tenants of Roman absentee landlords trying to retain the existing social order in a chaotic world but either way I could envisage an interesting setting for skirmish wargames.

This all sat in abeyance for many years until serendipity decided I was to be given a kick up the pants.  Within a couple of months I'd discovered Lion Rampant and found myself at Vapnartak where the bring-and-buy included some cheap Arthurians and a trader was selling another inspiring Newark and McBride book.  The Barbarians - Warriors and Wars of the Dark Ages gave me two more pictures:

Well after this one and the previous picture I knew I'd need a Roman villa to be a centrepiece of any Bacaudae-oriented game...

... and the fact that the central Roman government was handing out (already settled and civilised) land to any barbarian who would fight for them suggested any number of interesting plots.

And so one of this year's Christmas games will feature a civitas (basically a villa and associated farming settlement) in eastern Armorica beset by multiple claimants to ownership, wandering mercenaries and a fair amount of religious disputation.

Pics to follow roundabout New Years Eve!

Sunday Morning Photo Session

I took advantage of a spare few minutes and a clear kitchen table this morning to photograph a few models I've recently finished.

First up, I've knocked up a bit of the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (Berlin Wall to you mate) for a game that's planned for Tuesday.

It's a very simple construction - strips of 50mm high foamcore hot-glued to bases made from an old wooden Venetian blind.  If I was building the wall for a public display game I'd have made more effort to capture the curved top that appeared on most sections of the Wall.  As it is I don't suppose it'll be used more than once or twice.

I painted the wall sections with cheap grey artist's acrylic and suggested the sectional construction of the Wall by applying vertical strokes with a slightly paler shades with a large, chisel shaped brush.

My talented daughter Emilia is doing graffiti art as part of her GCSE course so she stepped in with the more artistic details.

In the pic above, one of the panels has been breached by a shaped charge. More on this in a future post!

Finished, for now, is my Andreivian gun emplacement.

Having done a bit of on-line searching, I found that the metal gun's a Britains anti-aircraft gun.  They stopped making them in about the year I was born so, like me, this one's an antique.  I've decided not to paint it.  I may build an alternative (smaller) gun to go here before next April's Crisis Point.

Moving on from 20mm to 28mm, I've made progress on some Arthurians for one of the Christmas games.

From left to right: Foundry, Foundry, Foundry, Gripping Beast, and Essex.

And finally, there's the Roman watchtower. We've seen it here previously but now I've painted and dry-brushed the woodwork.

Gripping Beast Arthurian hearth guard for scale.

The GBP Dark Age Cavalry are here!

I returned from a hospital appointment this morning to find that Mick the Postie had left a box from Gripping Beast.  So here are my first impressions of the plastic Dark Age Cavalry from Gripping Beast.

The box contains four identical sprues, each with parts to make three riders and horses. This means that, with the riders consisting of a main piece (torso, legs, upper arms and lower left arm) to which we add a choice of lower right arms and heads, the choice of rider poses will be somewhat limited.  Slightly disappointing, that.

The riders wear over-tunics with short baggy sleeves beneath which is a tight-sleeved undergarment. This gives them a vaguely Norman look although a quick look through Barker's Armies and Enemies of Ancient Rome and Heath's Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066 reveals no illustrations that match this look.

We get a choice of four right arms with spears and two with swords.  Hands holding axes can be substituted and one of more spearheads could be replaced with a Draco head.  I replaced the spears of my Late Roman Infantry with wire ones.  It was a bit of a faff; I may stick with the moulded-on plastic ones this time.

There are enough shields to give the resulting unit all oval or all round shields or of course you could mix them up.  A quick check shows that the oval shields are identical to those in the Late Roman Infantry set.

Eight heads per sprue are nice and characterful, though I note that Dan Mersey has questioned one of the helmet designs.  Personally I think I'll mix in some heads from the Roman set as I plan to use these guys for the Arthurian period.

Oh and finally, the box contains twelve 50mm square bases.  I'll not be using them. 

New plastic goodness from Gripping Beast

I've preordered!

I shall be combining them with shields and heads left over from the Late Roman Infantry set to produce Arthurian era cavalry.

On the workbench - November

Almost finished on the workbench at present is my Warbases 28mm watchtower.  This is the second MDF building I've put together and it's proving an enjoyable little project.

I started off building the model straight out of the packet; straightforwardly done whilst I was watching a Rugby League World Cup match on the telly.  Then, when the glue had dried, I proceeded to thatch the roof with flattened worms of Milliput, scored with a craft knife.

As you can see, I've also added some filler to the walls to add a bit of texture.

The first coats of paint are now on and there's just a bit more dry brushing to do on the woodwork.

I'm now debating whether to put it on a base, perhaps on something of a mound.

In production for Andreivia (and perhaps for WW2) is this strong-point.  It's the old Airfix gun emplacement but it's lacking the original gun.  I'm considering using the old spring-loaded Britains gun in its place.  The problems with doing this are twofold. Firstly the gun's a bit big and secondly, it's probably at least fifty years old; should I be repainting what some might consider an antique?

Moving on to yet another period, for Sharp Practice I'm working on a couple of additional groups for the war in the Peninsula.  First up these HaT Royal Marines, who just need their bases completing...

... and then some more HaT Spanish Guerrillas (who may double as United Irishmen for the 1798)....

Fiasco Purchases

Virtually the whole of my Fiasco spend went in the first half hour and at the Warbases stand.

I've invested in a number items for the Late Roman / Dark Ages game I plan to run at Christmas.  This raeda will doubtless by carrying someone of considerable importance...

I could have go some generic Dark Ages crew for this from another stand but in the end I didn't think the quality of the figures rated a fiver of my money.  I shall have to consider further when it comes to crew.

I've already made up and painted this vallus - a kind of Roman combine harvester.  In use it would have a horse harnessed in the frame to push it through growing wheat.  In my case it'll probably just be set-dressing.

The watchtower was officially in the Saxon range but it'll do nicely in my fifth century Gaullish setting.  More on this soon as construction has already begun.

And finally from the Warbases purchase, the main item was a Roman villa.  I've deliberately gone for a small one without a completely enclosed courtyard as I didn't want it turning into a fortress in the context of game.

And finally finally I picked up a couple of 28mm figures from a 50p bits box.  The chap on the left looks like an early Frank with the scramasax at his belt.  His mate is probably earlier, wearing as he does a short tunic over bare legs.  He carries a staff tipped with two streamers.  I'd love to know what he's meant to be (and who both of them are by) but he'll probably serve as a Gaullish civilian in my game.

Last Week's Purchases

Gauntlet isn't much of a shopping trip; it's more of a gaming event but I did manage to come home from the weekend with some new toys.  The bring and buy got me these two bags:

On the right is a collection of bits of white metal junk that was free to a good home.  I've already identified a severed head that will probably find a use as a battle trophy for my Gauls.

The other bag was a fiver from Paul at the Deeside club and contained these Arthurian /Late Roman types.  Foundry I think and Ideal for my Bacaudae project.

Finally, these chaps came courtesy of a diversion to the War Game Store in Brimstage on the way home. My diversion into the second century BCE in 28mm scale continues.

Christmas Gaming Part 1

The Christmas period has seen a positive feast of games here at Stately Counterpane Manor.

On Friday Jamie and I had our first game of Lion Rampant Late Roman Style.  I'd lent my copy of Lion Rampant to Andy so we ended up playing a scenario from the Dragon Rampant rule book. I played the Bacaudae and had to get as many units as possible to the far end of the table.

Jamie's Roman forces were split between both side edges of the table and had to try and stop me.

On my right Jamie had a unit of legionaries backed up by Auxilia archers and skirmishers (below).

On my left I faced Alan cavalry and more Auxilia, this time with spears.

I had to deploy spread out along my baseline.  From left (top of the picture below) to right I had units of skirmishers, bacaudae horsemen, bacaudae infantry (two units, classed as auxiliaries), and the mercenary Sarmatian cataphracts.

In something of a first for our games of Lion Rampant, the first turn saw all of the units on both sides managing to activate. Jamie went first and moved all of his units towards mine.

My skirmishers caused a casualty to the Alans and I then threw my horsemen in to try and finish them off.  This proved to be a disaster.  Pretty soon I was down to just two figures in the mounted unit although I had killed two Alans.

On the opposite flank I threw the Sarmatians forward to take on the legionaries.

Again things didn't go well. Despite their heavy armour the Sarmatians came off second best in the melee and were forced to withdraw.  A storm of arrows from the auxiliary archers then reduced them to a single figure....

On the bonus side, though, I had managed to reduce the spear-armed auxiliaries on my left to "battered" status.  

This allowed my two main units of bacaudae auxiliaries to push through in the centre and make for the far end of the table.  With my skirmishers having dealt with the Alans, Jamie had nothing fast enough to catch those two units so the result would come down to whether I could also extricate either my skirmishers or the last of the horsemen.

Sadly I couldn't.  The Roman legionaries moved across to block their escape.

I was only able to get away the two units and we found that this gave us six points each and a well-enjoyed draw.  I like to think that my skirmishers would have melted into the countryside to rejoin the rebels at some future date.