Breaking the rules?

For many years now I've successfully restrained my tendency (shared with most other wargamers) to go whizzing off into new scales and periods by operating under three self-imposed rules:

Rule 1 - 20mm is skirmish scale and skirmishing is done in 20mm.
This means that I can't do 28mm skirmishing and I can't do massed battles in 20mm. This, in turn, means I can get away without having to build Rapid Fire sized units which tend to require a lot of figures and/or vehicles. 


Rule 2 - 6mm is massed battle scale.
If I come across a set of big battle rules I want to play I have to do them in 6mm scale. This has great advantages in both cost and time and 6mm massed units can look great.


Rule 3 - Rules 1 and 2 don't apply if the army in question is for Hordes of the Things.
This is because (a) HOTT armies are relatively small and (b) I know they'll see plenty of use thus justifying the deviation from rules 1 and 2.


Now, however, I'm weakening.  I've just had a little go at Basic Impetus by sticking a few of my old 28mm Wars of the Roses figures onto sabot bases.  I've just about got enough figures to allow me to do a couple of Basic Impetus armies.  In this case, I suppose I could relax the rules because I wouldn't eed to buy and paint any new models.

What's got me intrigued by Impetus is, as so often, the basing standard.  At 12cm frontage, an Impetus unit base is well suited to building the army in the form of a series of dioramas.  And what dioramas!  Check out this site.  I'm not going to achieve anything like this standard but you've got to admit it's damned inspiring!

Impetus seems, at first try to be quite fun and fast moving.  I've just thrown four unit each of Lancastrians and Yorkists at each other.  The charge of a unit of Lancastrian mounted men at arms into a pair of Yorkist heavy infantry units was instructive and had more flavour than you'd get from DBA or its progeny.  The bill unit hit square on by the cavalry was routed immediately but the supporting dismounted men at arms fought a back-and-forth melee over about three turns before loss of the other Yorkist units gave victory to the Lancastrians.

I think I'll give Basic Impetus a go at one of our Saturday sessions but i've got a feeling there's a big rebasing sessions to come.  Sod the Rules - leges utiles hominibus sunt!

Left off the list

The crews of these renaissance organ guns have complained mightily that I left them of July's On the workbench posting.

These guys, and the previously pictured spearmen next to them are the first elements to get a new, warmer, layered dry-brushing basing technique I'm experimenting with.  Obviously their static grassing is yet to come.  Click for a bigger pic.

On the workbench: July 2011

A bit washed out - I need to suss the flash on this camera - but I'm quite pleased with this gladiator.  It's one from a pack of Foundry gladiators I won in the raffle at Berkeley last year.  I need to add a shield before he joins my Wolf Pirates.

Next a base of Italian spearmen to join my growing 6mm Italian Wars collection that will hopefully soon see action under Renaissance Principles of War rules.

Massed units in 6mm scale really need flags to give them some individuality.  These crossbowmen have a Swiss flag.  They'll get a second rank before they are finished.

Finally, a couple of Airfix Golden Hind models that have been sitting unloved in my parents' attic for upwards of twenty years.  It's occurred to me that they would do for naval support to my 6mm renaissance collection.  Battle of Pinkie anyone?

Gauntlet Acquisition

This weekend's Gauntlet show was a blast.  Jamie and I spent almost the whole weekend playing in the SOTCW participation game “Fifty Five Days At Peking”.


For details see the SOTCW blog and Pete Jones's Free Wargames Rules blog. 


I did, however, have time to peruse the bring and buy and I came back with a complete 1980s Swedish Armoured Brigade in 1/300th for just a tenner!  They're rather poorly based for Corps Commander but it's no hardship to rebase for Cold War Commander. Just click to enlarge the pics.


First the whole force:

Two thirds of the tanks; Stridsvagn S-103s or S-Tanks if you prefer:

 The 155mm howitzers and AT company vehicles:

Brigade HQ, engineers and AA elements.

The mechanised infantry components of one of the armoured battalions; the APCs are Pbv302s:

I always wanted to do a Soviet invasion of Scandinavia.  Now it looks within reach.

Burning Cottage

After my visit to Triples this year I became obsessed with the possibilities offered by 6mm scale units as dioramas.  Another one has just left the workbench.  It's a generic 16th century command element (or perhaps just a terrain piece).

The man at arms is an Irregular Miniatures commander.  The cottage is cast in plaster by Baccus 6mm (part of a set I bought years ago).  The fence is scribed plastic card and the flames and smoke are a mixture of Green Stuff and hamster bedding!  The vegetation is a mixture of various terrain materials and paint effects.

For those of you not familiar with 1/300th scale, the base is 40mm square.  Click on the pics to see more detail.

More Wolf Pirates Completed

As I've said before, the Wolf Pirates of Glorantha are both my intended army for this year's Berkeley HOTT tournament and my Project for The Guild's group build this year.  

The latest batch include (left to right) a Vormaini exile, a pair of Char Un Cossacks, and a Kralorelan Tiger Son. 

There's also a pair of Trolls!  The Dark Troll wields an impressive lead mace while the Trollkin is unusually well-equipped for his caste.  He's obviously a "value" whose skills save him from the cooking pot.

Finally a close-up on that Tiger Son...  

... and of the Trollkin.

Some More from the Royal

Tom Zunder has provided me with some more pictures of Saturday's events and as his photographic skills far outstrip mine, I thought I should share them with you.

Below we see Matthew Richards's barbarian types facing off against my Asag and the Stone Allies under Tom's generalship.

I was please by how well me son Jamie did (he finished ahead of me for the first time).  He used his Army of Cornetto - an early renaissance Italian army with added Leonardo Da Vinci extras.  Here we see his two units of Knights.

Matt Zunder used my Northern Union army - a force made up of Rugby League mascots.  Here it seems that Huddersfield the Giant has just recoiled from some archers leaving St Helen's flank exposed.

Finally, Lizardmen (Tim Chadburn's I think) against Samurai.  The Samurai are from my Heroes of the Minamoto army which Richard Sangar used to good effect.