On the workbench...

So current production here at Stately Counterpane Manor is very much in a "random bits" phase.

First up is a pair of 3D printed bison I picked up at the otherwise disappointing Wirral Warboot sale back in September. 

I got them with Glorantha in mind and they'll still do for that setting but they're without the riders I originally thought of adding. Left riderless they'll also potentially do for What A Cowboy.

Next we have some Perry Russian infantry. The front group of eight and accompanying NCO are grenadiers. Behind them are two groups of musketeers with their own NCO.

The plan is still for Richard P and I to play a Livonia 1812 Sharp Practice campaign but his grandfatherly duties are making scheduling games difficult so I thought I'd get myself some opponents for my Prussians. Another group of musketeers and an officer need to be built and painted and when they're done I'll do a photoshoot of the whole force.

Moving down a couple of scales, I continue background planning for July's Joy of Six game where I'll be presenting Calais: Encounter on the St Omer Road on behalf of the Cold War Commanders. This was originally going to be the group's only game any the event but I think it will now be one of two, the other our more conventional Cold War fare.

A couple of evenings ago I updated 3RTR in line with my current understanding of early WWII British camouflage and with some sketched-in markings.

The formation is organised into four squadrons, two with Light Tank Mk VI and two with Cruiser Tank A13. Later the same evening I did a little more reading and came to the conclusion that the two types of tank were in fact mixed within squadrons. The question now is whether I redo the almost invisible squadron markings I painted on the turrets!

Also featuring in the Calais scenario are two German armoured car companies. These contain a mixture of SdKfz 221 and SdKfz 223 (indistinguishable in terms of unit stats and in terms of models as I'm not adding 1/300th scale frame aerials to the latter) as well as SdKfz 231 and 222.  

The 221s and 223s are armed only with rifle-calibre machine-guns whereas the 231s and 222s carry 20mm cannons that have some limited anti-armour capability.

I want to attract people who are interested in giving TacWWII a try so I need to give them some way to tell which units are which. As a couple of my SdKfz 222s already had air recognition flags, I decided to add them to all of the cannon-armed armoured cars.

A scrap of paper pencil-ruled with 2mmx3mm rectangles provided the basis. The red fields and white central circles were painted in with acrylics. The internationally problematic political symbols would then be sketched in with a fine drawing pen.

That's in for now. There are some Calais-related terrain pieces currently in production but I'll post about those in a few days when I talk about some of the design choices I've made in updating the scenario.

Joy of Six report

So Joy of Six is behind us for another year and I have to say I enjoyed it despite Sheffield Hallam University being on sauna setting for the day.

The Cold War Commanders Operation Vijay game was a success, I think, with Andy T and Neil M actually running/playing the game and me chatting to punters. Considering that the detailed scenario and the table set up were pretty much improvised on the day, it all worked out very nicely.

I think the Geek Villain mat worked well

An Indian Canberra flies over the victorious
Indian infantry

Other games included a marvellous Nomad assault on Pavis using the Midgard rules put on by author James Morris and pals:

Great fun to see a 6mm, massed-battle version of an action I've gamed in 28mm at skirmish level.

The MaDGamers of Maidenhead and District did a recreation of Alam Halfa, 1942 using the Rapid Fire Reloaded rules. Interestingly their handout says that they used both Baccus 6mm and Heroics & Ros miniatures in the same game. I can only assume this refers to men rather than vehicles as otherwise the scale differences would have been too noticeable.

Again the printed cloth worked well and the game certainly gave the impression of mostly empty desert.

Adjacent to our table were the Ilkley Irregulars, who put on Waterloo using Bloody Big Battles, something that I myself would like to do one day. In fact I bought a copy of the scenario book from them!

It wasn't the prettiest game at the event but the participants were clearly having a great time. I believe Napoleon was successful this time.

Given the very zoomed-out scale it's not so easy to produce lovely-looking terrain for a Bloody Big Battles game but the COGS group from Chesterfield achieved it with their Mons 1914 set up.

And finally among the Bloody Big Battles offerings was Per Broden's Gravelotte/St Privat, 1870.

This was lovely despite ParcelForce losing Per's dedicated game mat and his having to rebuild the battlefield using a borrowed one! 

Another very attractive game was the Siege of Bastogne by James Mitchell and Brendan Dolan. 

It's far from obvious but the table is actually organised on a square grid to support the rules in use, Eisenhower by Sam Mustafa. Very subtly done!

Total Battle Miniatures put on a small but beautifully formed representation of the 18th century Battle of Lobositz.

I thought the river was particularly nicely done.

Two American Civil War battles were represented. At the smaller scale was the Poe's Field portion of the battle of Chickamauga put on by the Three Shires group.

While the Leeds Wargames Club used Pickett's Charge to portray the Champions Hill battle during the Vicksburg campaign.

There were many other games but I didn't manage a comprehensive photo shoot this time I'm afraid.

I greatly enjoyed the day. Peter Berry tells me numbers were down this year but given that it was one of the hottest days of the year, I'm sure many who might have attended on a whim decided there were better ways to spend their time. Certainly for me a refreshing pint at the nearby Rutland Arms was much needed at the end o the day!

Models for Moonbroth

I'm helping out Simon Miller and Ian Notter put on a the Battle of Moonbroth at Hammerhead in March. It'll be great to get at least some of the GloryGeeks back together for the first time since... gosh, 2006?

I'm gradually going through my Gloranthan 28mm stuff to see what can be put on to temporary 120mm-wide bases to serve as To The Strongest elements.

First up are these Ostrich Riders.

These guys have appeared here before in a couple of Song of Blades and Heroes skirmishes. The riders 20mm scale plastic HaT Numidians with 28mm scale Numidian heads transplanted on to give a Pygmy appearance. The ostriches are white metal castings I bought at a show somewhere; sorry can't remember the manufacturer.

I made the sabot bases out of two layers of card and then textured, painted and flocked them to match the existing figure bases.

I'm assuming they function as conventional javelin-armed light cavalry in To The Strongest.

Next up we have a unit of Sun Domer archers.

I had one Hordes of the Things element of these but Simon very kindly sent me three more similar figures. I added arrow quivers (four from the Victrix late Roman light cavalry set and a couple that I designed and 3D printed myself. The second chap from the left also received the transplant of a hand with bow from the same Victrix set. A painted gold wristband helps disguise the join.

Not sure if these will be light infantry or bowmen in the game. I'll leave it to Simon to rule.

The rest of my Sun Domer Templar army will get a sprucing up next. It looks like forming a couple of deep pike units. There's also the Standard of Sun County which, if I recall correctly, has a never-retreat-in-battle thing going on. We'll have to consider its effect.

 

Fiasco purchases

Jamie and I went up to Leeds at the weekend to attend the Fiasco show. We try to get up there each year and it's become a tradition to visit the nearby Pizza Express at lunchtime.

In the past I've been to Fiasco and bought nothing at all, other times I've splurged heavily. This time I was relatively restrained. I bought some Dark Earth paint and self-adhesive steel paper from Magnetic Displays, some dead Mexican gunfighters and dead horses from Great Escape Games' Dead Man's Hand range and, perhaps most significantly, this:

As a fan of the Marcus Didius Falco books by Lindsey Davis, I really ought to have tried this earlier. I like the idea of translating the characters in the books into the games terms and sourcing suitable 28mm figures. In particular I'd love to find suitable figures for Lenia the laundress and Smaractus, Aventine gangster and Falco's landlord.

At first glance the rules look interesting. They are very clearly based on the assumption that the players will each be running a street gang trying to gain control of an area either for their own nefarious purposes or to promote the interests of some high-ranking citizen with designs on a senate seat.

Gangs of maybe three or four figures are controlled by the two players but there will also be a number of "mob bases" in the playing area. These represent the uninvolved population of the city and they move at least partly under the control of one player or another but only for short periods of time and on a random basis.

An interesting idea is that in some circumstances characters can disappear into the Mob, their figure being removed from the table only to reappear where least expected.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the activation system. This is initially driven by drawing counters from a bag. When one of your counters comes up, you choose a figure to activate and place one to four counters (marked I, II, III and IV) on the board stating what the character will attempt to do.

So you might say, I'm going to move to here (placing the "I" counter at the location your gang member will move to), climb down to ground level to here (placing counter "II"), move again to here (counter "III") and then blend into the this Mob (counter "IV").

The player then rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the character's Agility stat (this seems typically to be in the range 5 to 7). Each success (4+) sees one of the selected actions completed, obviously taking them in chronological order. Any action that isn't made puts stress on the gang member and has them rolling fewer dice next time. You can only remove this stress by achieving everything you attempt to do (you must attempt a minimum of one action) so a stressed character will probably take it easy when next activated.

The game is clearly designed with a view to urban adventures in the Eternal City but I could see myself adapting it to cover the encounters of a certain Imperial agent and his allies in the countryside around the Bay of Naples or perhaps even in the wilds of Germania Libera.

Finally, as always, I'm giving some thought to whether these rules might have a Gloranthan application. Gangs of Pavis? Gangs of Glamour?

Christmas Games part two

On the 29th we had a substantial gathering of gamers at Stately Counterpane Manor to play out The Liberation of Pavis - a multi-player Song of Blades and Heroes game. Regular attendees Jamie, Ron, Gus, Sam and Josh were joined by old friends Tom and Matt whom it was lovely to see after far too many years.

The Liberation of Pavis was the latest of a series of games set in and around that Gloranthan city. The players were read the following introductory text:

For those of you who aren’t Glorantha fans, a little back story.

Glorantha is a fictional world invented by the late Greg Stafford. At the time of our game, the history of Glorantha will turn upon the battle for dominance between the followers of two gods; Orlanth the storm god and The Red Goddess of the Moon. The storm-worshipping barbarians and the Lunar empire cannot co-exist peacefully and the long-foretold Hero Wars seem to be upon us.

The Hero Argrath Whitebull has emerged as a leader of the fight against the Lunar Empire and it seems his first act will be to capture the frontier city of Pavis. 

For weeks his motley army of nomads and Wolf Pirates has besieged the city but now they have broken in. How? Surely they know nothing of siegecraft? Afterwards some will say that the city was betrayed from within, others that magical plants, grown overnight, pulled down the city walls and yet others that the Sun Dome templars turned against their former Lunar allies.

Whatever the story, Argrath’s fighters are flooding into the streets of Pavis…

Those of you familiar with the setting may like to know that I based my scenario on the book King of Sartar, on the Chaosium website The Well of Daliath, and on Jeff Richard's Chaosium house Runequest campaign on Youtube.

In the game, Tom took the rôle of Halcyon var Enkorth, the Lunar Governor of Pavis. I knew that Tom was familiar with this character, who in our youth was the Provincial Overseer's representative in Balazar (from the Runequest campaign pack Griffin Mountain). I guessed that Tom hadn't kept up with the latest in Gloranthan lore and that Halcyon turning up in Pavis would be an amusing surprise for him. And so it turned out.

Ron would play Jaxarte Whyded, a recurring character in my Pavis games. By the time of the fall of Pavis he should have been at home in the Lunar heartland but I couldn't resist bringing him back to the city for one more fight (fatal as it turned out). Jaxarte's ticket out of the city (potentially) was the Lady Jezra who, it was hoped, could parlay a connection with the Eiskoli family into a safe place to hide from the invading nomads.

Finally on the Lunar side, Josh would play an isolated group of Lunar peltasts. They hoped the higher-ups would come up with some wonder weapon to save them but they were prepared to sell themselves dearly if need be!

The opposition was also in three groups. Gus was to play Rurik Runespear, well-known to Glorantha fans as the original RQ2 example character and now a Runelord of Yelmalio sworn to kill the Lunar Governor in single combat. I knew that Gus, as an old RQ player who ran up against Halcyon back in Balazar decades ago, would appreciate this task.

Jamie led a group of mounted Praxian nomads of the White Bull Society. I gave him the task of riding around the city carrying out rituals that were needed to bring the city under the control of the warlord Argrath Whitebull.

Finally, Sam ran an assorted group of Wolf Pirates who just wanted to loot the city and slaughter its inhabitants.

Wolf Pirates versus Lunar Hoplites

A confused melée developed in the streets made all the more so by the intervention of assorted non-player characters. I ran some of these but Matt was the main embodiment of the Disorder rune in this regard.

I invented a house rule whereby a gaming gem was placed in a mug every time a player rolled a failure on their activation dice. Each gem could then be spent my Matt or me to attempt an activation by a non-player character. These might be rampaging nomads or Wolf Pirates, additional isolated Lunar defenders or martially minded citizens of the city. We allowed the umpire team to spend these at any time, even if it meant interrupting a player's turn.

Lunars, Sun Dome militia, Praxians and
Wolf Pirates - a confused melée indeed!

Osrtrich Riders threaten fleeing Lunars

At the end of the game nearly all of the Lunars remaining in the streets were corpses. 

Jamie had completed the objective of the White Bull Society and activated a ritual coving about a third of the table. The ritual was deemed to have some greater significance to be discovered later but an immediate side-effect was to give all invaders within its area the special rule Hate Lunars!

Gus-as-Rurik managed to catch and kill Halcyon var Enkorth. Or so he thought! In reality, and in line with events described in King of Sartar, Halcyon and his lover Marusa the Shrew escaped the city. It turned out that Rurik had killed Halcyon's look-alike! Never mind though, both Gus and Rurik are still claiming the credit for victory.

The Lady Jezra eventually reached the Eiskoli house to claim sanctuary. She did so, however, without the company of Jaxarte Whyded. His promising career was brought to an end by a nomad javelin on the dusty streets of Pavis.

-o0o-

The game worked well despite having eight people around the table with varying levels of familiarity with the rules. We started off with one player at a time activating figures but after just one turn everyone was sufficiently au fait with things to allow us to run all three players on one side simultaneously. Having experienced SOBH player Matt on board (he was volunteered into the umpire team on his arrival) helped enormously when it came to keeping things moving.

The system of activating NPCs worked fine. I think I'll keep it in my arsenal of techniques for future SOBH games where a third force needs to be represented.

All in all I was very pleased with the day. It was great fun to bring to the table top characters many of the players had previously met in classic RPG adventures like Griffin Mountain, Sun County, and Borderlands. 

Thanks to all who came along to play in the game and chat afterwards. A Happy New Year to all and to those of you reading this!

On the workbench

I was putting in a Victrix order while they had their Black Friday sale running and was just short of the total needed to to get free shipping so I added in a pack of Gallic cavalry. I figure I may one day use them to play Infamy Infamy.

Feeling the urge to paint something just for the hell of it I made a start. Adding in a couple of existing Warlord Gauls I'm not far off a six-man unit with Leader.

There are only three horse sculpts - it doesn't look line the halves are interchangeable to give more variety in poses. I'm therefore working on using Green Stuff to vary the harness decoration. I'll share comparison pics when they're done.

Meanwhile I continue to persevere with the 3D printer despite problems with build plate adhesion. Successfully printed was this medieval tower. Yet another addition to the Eastern European 6mm urban terrain.

An earlier version of the print failed part way through so I'm working on a ruined version using quick-drying Polyfilla, grit, and slices of wooden coffee stirrer.

I've used a 6cm base, which I'll paint to resemble a paved square. 6cm happens to be twice my standard road width.

Finally, one of my planned Christmas games is another Song of Blades and Heroes skirmish set in Pavis. I wanted to reflect the fact that Pavis isn't depicted as all right angles so I've knocked up this cluster of buildings.

Very much made up as I went along, this one. The long balcony has been in my terrain bits box for years and the length of that side of the building was determined by the desire to use it. 

I even broke my usual rule of designing the building to fit an existing storage box but fortunately a new pair of walking boots provided exactly the size box I needed.

I generally make adobe buildings generic enough to pass for Pavis or Mexico but this time I'm thinking of going all-out fantasy with a statue in a niche above one of the doors and maybe painted runes on one of the walls.

Well that's it for now. I'll share finished pics when done.

Quick terrain

This is by way of a recommendation. If you're at a show where Richard Phillips is selling the Scotia Grendel resin terrain, it's well worth having a look at what's available. 

They come in blister packs and, once undercoated in black, they paint up really easily. These two dungeon terrain bits took me about a hour to paint this morning (I'd undercoated them a few days ago).

I'm not sure how much longer Richard will have them in stock so it's worth making a purchase while they're available if you think this sort of thing will improve the look of your fantasy games.

Zebra Tribe!

I'm busy building American Civil War figures for Sharp Practice at the moment but I recently decided to take a bit of a break and do some figures for Gloranthan Song of Blades and Heroes. 

A couple of white metal zebras of unknown origin were given riders in the form of Foundry Miniatures plains Indians. In addition, because SOBH is more likely to get played than Hordes of the Things at the moment, I decided to rebase my old Zebra Rider unit too. The result is these guys:

They should be useful in future scenarios around Pavis and in the Praxian Wastes.

Christmas Games 2022 part two

Our second Christmas game (or more precisely games) this year took place on 30th of December when Jamie and I were joined by five other gamers for the latest incident in the Song of Pavis campaign entitled A Treasure for Whitewall.

Regulars here may recall previous episodes. On the other hand, it's been so long since the last game, perhaps a reminder is in order. 

Protect and Serve - Jaxarte Whyded accidentally interrupts an incident on the streets of Pavis.

Raid on Ogre Island - a confused melée in the Big Rubble.

A Foggy Day in Pavis - yet again, Jaxarte finds himself involved in events he doesn't understand.

Part of the challenge of organising these Christmas games is that I often don't know how many players I'm going to have and not all games systems work perfectly in a multi-player environment. Song of Blades and Heroes works fine with two or three players but if you have to wait for five other players to finish their turn it can be a bit pedestrian. I decided I would run two or three linked one-on-one games simultaneously. These would be as follows:

1. Orlanthi rebels raid a warehouse in Pavis - they have a guided teleport matrix that will take one of them to a nominated location. Unfortunately for some reason it will only take them to a cave in the Vultures Country.
2. Another party of rebels will travel by boat down to the Vultures Country to intercept the escaping rebel from game 1 who hopefully will have stolen the Battle Banner of the EWF.
3. A third party of rebels will guard the riverside camp of the party in game 2. If attacked they'll be reinforced by Ostrich Rider mercenaries returning after guiding the game 2 party to the cave.

Game 3 could be played if I got five or six players or dropped otherwise. If I got a seventh player unexpectedly I would add the long-suffering Jaxarte Whyded as a further complication in game 1.

Game 1 was set on the streets of Pavis

The game 2 rebels approach the cave entrance led by the
Ostrich Rider mercenaries

Only a small number of rebels were left to guard the boats

In game 1 young gamer Josh ran the rebel raiding party. Unfortunately they never got close to overcoming Jamie's Lunars. It was almost as if the Lunars were expecting them and had strengthened the guards in and around the target warehouse!

 

Game 2 was much more one-sided. I'd hoped that the Trollkin bandits who had taken over the cave system would have been able to put up a better fight for their home but Mark, in his first game of SOBH, took a bit of a pounding from Andy's rebels despite the presence of a spirit of darkness in the tunnels.

It was nice to get some of my newer and more detailed dungeon sections into use. Resin casts from Zitterdes and Scotia featured.

Game 3 was also a bit one-sided, this time against the rebels. The thinly guarded camp was overrun by Morokanth (led by young gamer Sam) who made off with plenty of loot despite Gus's attempts to fight them off long enough for the Ostrich Riders to save the day.

In the end, the rebels failed to get into the warehouse. This didn't make too much of a difference as it turned out the banner they were after was a fake, planted by Lunar spymaster Gimgim the Grim to draw out previously unidentified rebels.

The rebels did manage to capture the caves and discovered therein a prize of great value - the missing sword and helm of Vingkot. These artifacts of the Gods' Age would be vital to the defenders of the besieged city of Whitewall if only they could be got there! However...

The rebels' riverside camp was overrun by Morokanth and many of their supplies were stolen.

Will the rebels be able to re-enchant the amulet to take the treasures to Whitewall or will they have to trek there across the trackless wastes of Prax? Find out (perhaps) in the next thrilling episode!