Infamous Events

The "learn Infamy Infamy in short order so I can run it at Ebor Lard" plan continues to make progress. On Saturday Jamie and Phil came over and we played a scenario I'd designed specifically as a learning exercise.

The idea for The Summer of 69 came from an episode from a podcast called The History of Cologne. Episode 7 on the Batavian Revolt depicted a time when the city (then called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium) was at the heart of a region overrun by raiding Germanic tribes and revolting foederati. With Colonia's strong walls attracting refugees and a drought causing food shortages, it made sense to run a foraging mission into German territory across the Rhine.

The set up was randomised using the tables in the rules. Below we see the area of battle before the game began. Note (far right) a single tree knocked over - the only casualty of leaving the game set up from the night before with a cat in the kitchen!

I think the Geek Villain Rocky Grass mat works quite well for summer-parched Europe.

Needing three areas of habitation for the scenario, I made a new A-frame hut to supplement to two Jamie could provide. Materials were foam core, cardboard, wooden coffee-stirrers, and Milliput for the thatch.

Jamie entered from the west (left above) with his legionaries in column of march.

German slingers emerged on their left and were opposed by the Romans' own in the form of some Balearic allies.

Who were in turn attacked by German warriors.

The Roman commander was forced to split his legionaries to respond to attacks from two directions.

Eventually, we came to a fierce action near the centre of the battlefield.

With time moving on, with plenty of rules interpretation questions under our belt, and with the Romans outnumbered in the main fight, Jamie decided to concede the day. 

With some Roman-allied Gallic light cavalry in his rear and with one undamaged legionary Group to his front, Phil was relieved. He later said that he thought Jamie could still have won from that position.

-o0o-

On Tuesday evening, I decided to build on my familiarity with the rules by solo-gaming a small Numidian Civil War action. I knocked up a scenario based on a passage in Sallust. 

Following the death of King Micipsa, Numidia was divided between his sons Hiempsal and Adherbal and his far-more energetic nephew Jugurtha. 

Jugurtha quickly arranged for Hiempsal to be murdered and then took up arms against Adherbal. Armies led by the two men met near the city of Cirta (modern day Constantine in Algeria) but it was too late to form up for battle so both made camp. In the early hours of the morning Jugurtha's army attached the unprepared enemy and Adherbal only just escaped to be besieged in the city.

This was a fun exercise with both forces consisting almost entirely of skirmish cavalry and javelin-armed foot skirmishers.

I won't go into details here of what was a confused affair but suffice to say it was great fun. With a little adjustment (I should have imposed greater penalties for surprise on Adherbal's units) I think it could make a fun Saturday Afternoon Wargame.

My next step will probably be to set up a solo, alpha test of The Iron Hand of Mars scenario before introducing it to my Saturday Afternoon play-testers.

A bit of Infamy

With Ebor Lard coming up in little over a month, I'm well into a programme of preparation for my Infamy Infamy game The Iron Hand of Mars. The scenario is written, I have sufficient terrain (though more is in development), and I have 75% of the figures painted and based.

The plan now demands that I properly master the Infamy Infamy rules (I've previously only played in other people's games) and playtest the scenario. Rich Clarke did a series of play-though videos on YouTube when the game first came out and following these step-by-step is proving very helpful.

The coming weekend sees the next stage as Jamie, Matt, and Phil will hopefully be joining me for a practice scenario I'm calling The Summer of 69AD. Set during the civil wars following the death of Nero, the outline is as follows:

After the assassination of the tyrant Nero a year ago, first Servius Sulpicius Galba and then Marcus Salvius Otho wore the purple. Now Aulus Vitellius, commander of the Rhine Legions has seized Rome and been declared Emperor by the Senate. This year will surely go down in history as The Year of the Three Emperors!

With the legions away securing Vitellius’s position, the situation of the Roman cities and forts along the Rhine is precarious. Several have already been sacked by rebellious Gauls and Germans. Marauding barbarian warbands and, it is said, rebelling Batavian auxiliaries haunt the countryside.

Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (modern-day Cologne) is in a particularly difficult position. Its strong defensive walls have attracted soldiers and civilians from across eastern Gaul but drought is making it hard to feed these additional mouths. Having largely exhausted the resources of the surrounding farmland, foraging expeditions must now be mounted into the forests across the Rhine.

I'm going to use smallish forces and leave out some elements of the rules. A straightforward foraging scenario should enable us to master the basics of the system.

I need three areas of habitation and Jamie will hopefully be bringing along a couple of suitable buildings from his Saga collection. I have another in production thanks to foam core, cardboard, coffee stirrers, Milliput and an off-cut of MDF...

Beware the Calends of September

In a moment of madness I offered to run at Ebor Lard (first weekend of September) the Infamy Infamy game I'd originally intended to have ready for Steel Lard (in November).

One Roman force - I need two!

While the basic game design is fairly well laid-out in my head, I still have to complete at least two items of terrain and at least three units of Romans. I also have to properly learn the rules and adapt them to fit my somewhat peculiar scenario. Oh, and playtest, playtest, playtest!

And I have to do all this in eight weeks, the first of which I'll be spending on holiday in Scotland. Wish me luck!

Batavian Auxiliaries

Further into the woods

Production on terrain for The Iron Hand of Mars continues apace. One of the locations in the game is an abandoned Roman marching fort, now overgrown. It was left behind in 9AD when the legions of Varus set out to over-winter back on the Roman side of the Rhine.

Standard procedure would have called for its destruction before the homeward march. That it remains intact serves as a chilling indicator that Varus's men thought themselves in friendly territory. They expected to return the following Spring and reoccupy the place. Instead they were ambushed and slaughtered by the German tribes under Arminius.

By the time Marcus Didius Falco arrived in the forest, the defensive ditch was clogged with brambles and the interior of the fort was a dense thicket of saplings.

Obviously I wouldn't have room to represent a whole multi-legion fort on the table so just a corner of the rampart appears on the table edge.

The base is 2mm MDF rescued from the packaging of a framed picture bought on line. The rampart was built from layers of foamcore and all but the ditch received a coating of brown wood filler for texture.

The brambles are rubberised horsehair (an advantage of being married to a traditional upholsterer) glued in place with matt Modpodge over the black-sprayed ditch. A light airbrushing in burnt umber then gave a suitably bramble-like colour.

The rampart got my usual layering of static grass over fine flock. I deliberately let some areas remain as bare earth. This is not a manicured lawn.

Finally I added some vegetation inside the fort. The silver birches are cheap Chinese-made trees tarted up by painting the trunks and dipping the tops in fine flock after a good coat of Modpodge. A few 2mm clumps in mixed colours and clump foliage bushes complete the picture.

In the book, Lindsey Davies indicates a more substantial structure with a rotting wooden palisade. Given the constraints of table space I decided to go with a simpler (and perhaps more believable?) structure for my abandoned fort.

Into the woods

The plans for an Infamy Infamy game inspired by events from Lindsey Davis's novel The Iron Hand of Mars continue apace. First up I've completed the construction of my German force.

Using a mixture of Wargame Factory and Victrix models we have five units of warriors (one of them oathsworn veterans), one of fanatics, one of rebelling former foederati, and one of slingers.

The former foederati represent a group of Batavians led by their former commander Julius Civilis.

I've gone for a preponderance of blue clothing and shields for these guys and given them rather more helmets than the general run of tribesmen. I see them as holding on to remnants of any former Roman army-supplied clothing and/or equipment.

Most of the German warriors are much less well-equipped. They lack helmets and fight with spears and javelins rather than swords.

At least one group of oathsworn warriors is needed. I've distinguished them by means of a more swords and more helmets. In The Iron Hand of Mars they'll represent the relatives of the prophetess Veleda.

Finally for now I've done a key piece of terrain in the form a sacred tree...

This will be the centrepiece of a sacred grove. The tree is sculpted from Milliput on a skeleton made from copper wire and a wine cork! A severed head from the Victrix Gallic cavalry set adds a nice detail.

I'm going to need more trees for the game so I've got a production line underway.

The Iron Hand of Mars

So my current plan is that next year I will run an Infamy Infamy game at Lard events. The working title is "The Iron Hand of Mars" and the game will (as currently envisaged) be loosely based on Lindsey Davis's novel of the same name.

Of course I'll need to include Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman informer (detective to you) and reluctant emissary of the Emperor. Here he is, put together from the Wargames Atlantic Citizens of Rome pack.

He'll be accompanied by the Centurion Helvetius, who will be acting as optio to  the tribune Camillus Justinus (not pictured here).

Falco and Justinus will be escorted by a small party of legionary recruits (all Victrix models).

At present I have some interesting ideas as to how I will run the game but I need to get a good handle on conventional Infamy Infamy play before I can confirm that they'll work. More on this to follow.

A weekend's shopping

I popped into Wargames Emporium on Saturday morning and bought some Victrix Roman legionaries to support the Infamy Infamy plan.

Given that some of the castings are designed as centurions and legates, the 24 figures is going to be enough for just two Groups in Infamy Infamy terms. Not sufficient for a whole force but enough to be going on with from a painting point of view.

Sunday was the annual drive up to Leeds for Fiasco. This event has moved back to the Royal Armouries from the conference venue across the square. The space allocated was smaller and it was a struggle, sometimes, to move around. On the other hand there was a good, busy buzz about the place so maybe the Leeds club will be pleased with the result?

I had a chat with Andy from Sally 4th over his Marcus Didius Falco Pulp Alley game.

This looked fabulous and I must get some of Sally 4th's Roman civilians. The terrain was inspiring from a Gangs of Rome point of view. So much so that my few purchases were all for that setting.

The two buildings will complete what I need for now as we move into an occasional Gangs of Rome campaign from Christmas onwards.

The figure is Bad Squiddo's 'The Seer":

Although she's probably intended for a fantasy setting, I think she'll work fine as a denizen of Rome. She could just be one more citizen in the Mob but I fancy coming up with some special rules at use her as an incola. For some reason the words "Woe, woe, and thrice woe" seem appropriate!

Germania libra!

One thing I'd like to do in the coming year is to learn how to run games of Infamy Infamy. This is a  large-skirmish rule set from Too Fat Lardies. You can regard it as the ancients version of Sharp Practice but I need to work through things thoroughly to catch the differences between the two sets.

The commercial success of Infamy Infamy was hampered by its release coming in June 2020 when the world was preoccupied with other matters. As a result we didn't get the rash of demo or participation games at shows that might have built a buzz around the rules (although John Savage did some fantastic games in the couple of years before publication). As a result of that it doesn't look like Infamy Infamy is high up TFL's list of rules to support with new products.

This is a shame. I quite like the idea of gaming small unit actions in the ancient period. The rules as written focus on Rome and its barbarian neighbours in the late-Republic-early-Empire period. I could imagine commanding punitive columns against the Iceni, fleeing through the Teutoberg forest with a remnant of Varus's lost legions, or trying to capture an Othonian supply convoy with troops loyal to Vitellius. I know Richard Clarke had plans to cover Rome's earlier wars with Carthage and, with a little adaptation, I suspect you could push the rules forward in time to fight, say, Picts in fourth century Britannia.

As a step in the right direction, I've painted up the Germans I picked up at a Whitley Bay antique shop.

The Wargames Factory models aren't the best in the world but these cost me practically nothing and they'll work fine as the unwashed mass at the heart of a force of wild Germans. 

The Warriors are organised, as per the rules, into groups of ten figures. I designed and 3D printed some irregular sabot bases for them.

The group of six slingers required a little more work.

The hands with slings were imported from Gripping Beast's Dark Age Warriors set and I used Green Stuff to add pouches on shoulder straps to carry their ammunition. One of the figures had a little surgery to give his left arm a slightly more dynamic pose and another guy got a wolf pelt from a Victrix Republican Romans pack.

I'll need more warriors and some leaders for the force. I'm hopeful of picking some up at Fiasco this weekend.

There's a possibility that next year I'll run some Infamy Infamy at Lardy Days. I have an idea that might just work (though it would require an inordinate number of trees). More on this later!

A nice antique shop find

Our recent trip to the North East included a visit to Owl and Pussycat Antiques in Whitley Bay, one of the Baroness's favourite shops. An advantage of visiting such places with an experienced antique buyer is that by throwing in something small with a larger purchase, you often get your small purchase thrown in for nowt.

On this occasion I found a few packs of Wargames Factory 28mm plastics and decided that some German tribesmen might find a place as mercenary muscle in Gangs of Rome.

The figures are just about the same size as the official Gangs of Rome miniatures from Wargames Atlantic, which is slightly disappointing as I'd have liked to see my Germans noticeably taller than their Roman citizen opponents!

They aren't the best models - a bit wooden in pose. I think I'll probably base them singly for use in Infamy Infamy. 

Workbench update

Looking back through recent blog posts I've noticed a few things that appeared here as work-in-progress but never got the final beauty shot.

First up there's the half-destroyed adobe building. 

Which now looks like this:

This building has already seen action in the Christmas Pavis game but the obvious destination for it is Puebla 1863.

Then there was the 3D printed medieval tower and its destroyed version.

Finished and added to 60mm square urban bases we end up with a couple of nice additions to the Prague 1948 city options.

And finally the Gauls:

These guys, intended for Infamy Infamy, now look like this:

These are Victrix apart from the guys at either end of the rear rank who are from Warlord. 

This leader is distinguished by his round base.

Finally, Gaullish cavalry in Infamy Infamy come with a free base of stewards; servants holding spare horses who can act as a rallying point for the horsemen if they need it.

The chap with the oval shield is an old white metal 25mm model, manufacturer unknown. The horse-holder is cobbled together model with legs from Warlord, Green Stuff torso and other parts from the spares box. The horse is, I think, Gripping Beast with a Green Stuff saddle.