Lion Rampant Game

Following on from the first game of LR for the club members last week we decided to play again this week.

We decided to play the second scenario, Immovable Object.

The year is 1485 and the war of the roses is impacting all across the country. One Lord had ideas to relocate some of his wealth in a hideout. Unfortunately while on a visit he has become aware of enemy forces approaching. He decides to leave some forces to guard his riches while he returns to his estate and returns with additional help to secure and relocate. Unfortunately the enemy are fast approaching from the opposite direction. Can he hold them off capturing his treasures or will he lose the family silver?

The scenario was as is in the book except that we played on a 8×5 table with 48 points of retinues per side. 20 pts of troops left to guard the treasure with the rest coming hopefully to the rescue.

This tome we introduced leader traits, many would come in handy. Some would come in handy and some would have if remembered!

The defenders comprised of foot knights, crossbowmen, expert archers and mixed yeomen.

Ian T and Keith playing the attackers had a slow start. Compound that with Keith’s rolling had his leader acting more like Frank Spencer than a competent Lord.

Ian P and Steve started well with their reinforcements making great advances.

One of Steve’s mounted men at arms units has already reached the ford in the river.

Eventually both side were in range and bows and bolts were loosed.

Only maa and crossbows stand between Keith and Ian T’s victory. Maa roll to charge the xbows but fail. Keith under the guise of Frank Spencer forgets his trait of re-roll a failed moved order.

An early casualty was Ian T’s expert archers. A real shock as with only 3 casualties Ian rolled a 2 resulting in a -1 result and a flee.

Ian T has stormed the hill with foot maa to win. Unfortunately a fail to activate left them exposed and over the next two turns Sid’s forces arrived to plug the gap.

The gap left by the fleeing foot maa, left the way open for Frank Spencer sorry Keith to charge in and take the day. A roll of double 1s  scuppered the plan until, like Frank on the rollers skates all ended well when Keith declared a reroll, past it, charged in and captured the hoard of silver.

It had been a very tight contest with both factions feeling confident.

GREAT GAME, ENJOYED BY ALL.

The next scenario has been choosen and will be played with similar forces. We then plan to introduce pikes and artillery!

War of the Roses Rules – Are You Being Serfed? or I’m free, At least For The Moment

Sorry it has been a while but I am just recovering from flu. No, not man flu but real flu. It floored me for over a week.

Even though I have been feeling better for about a week it still sapped me of any enthusiasm.

What I have done to get back into the flow is to work on the rules we will be using for the demo game I am putting on at legionary on the 2nd May 2015.

If you have looked at any of the other rule sets we use, you will soon become familiar with the processes.

I make no apologies for them.  I believe they will give a fast and fun game. We are going to have in the region of 40+ units, 800+ figures on the table and with possibly only 2 players they need to be.

In the next few weeks I will add some more supporting paperwork for record keeping and I am also working on a random army generator so should also have some army lists. In the meantime here are the rules, I hope you enjoy them.

I have read through them a couple of time so I hope they make as much sense to you as they do to me. They do not cover every eventuality but if you enjoy these types of rules then it will not be an issue for you to work it out with the rest of the players. These are to have a laugh with but give a good sense of play. If you are a player who plays to the rules rather than the spirit of a game, please avoid them like the plague.

If you have any questions please drop me a line.

AYBS rules

Another War of the Roses update

A bit of a push on over the weekend.

Below are some shots of some more units I finished over the weekend.

Scots or French mercenary pike block

These are mainly Old Glory figures with a few Foundry in the front rank.

Perry Wagons

One of the house rules I have added is the ability for units to run low on ammo. This add a -1 on their ability to hit. I decided it would look good on the table to have some sort of ammo resupply. So if these carts are moved next to a low on ammo unit they may restock on arrows etc.

I have given the wagoner an outfit in a battles livery colour without any specific badges.

Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (27 June 1430 – September 1475)

As I stated in an Earlier blog I had to do a mounted command version. well here he is. These are Foundry figures with a home made flag. All I have left to do is the basing.

Think I need a week off painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More War of the Roses – the Welsh are coming!

The other week another few units turned up from Alan Hunter at Deadkingsrise painting service  (http://deadkingsrise.blogspot.co.uk/). He is helping me out by providing a few! units to go with my own growing collection.  3 units of dismounted knights and a unit of Welsh spearmen turned up this time.

So far I have only based the Welsh. These are Perry plastics with alternative heads and a few spears from other manufactures. I really like them as they do give an impression of a hastily formed unit. There are 2 units of Welsh archers still to come to help support these.

The bottom two pictures show a Welsh spear unit I have painted to go side by side with this unit.

 

Here is my unit. They are foundry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More War of the Roses

Just a little update on some more painting I have been doing for my game at Legionary 2015 (http://www.exmouthwargames.org.uk/). Below are a few photos of units I have painted in the last month.

I have managed to complete:

1 unit of Old Glory mounted knights- These are very animated figures, including the horses which could be considered a little too thin for my likings but they at least fit in with the foundry metals I have.

2 Artillery bases – These are Front Rank. I have to admit that these are the only front rank figures I have and will be the last for my War of the Roses armies. They are OK figures but so out of scale with any other manufacturer I have, they may not even make it to the table. One base is painted to represent Warwick and the other with the red/black livery will be ideal for Shrewsbury or Northampton.

1 unit of Northern Horse. These are Foundry. These are also done in the  red/black livery so will be ideal for Shrewsbury or Northampton and probably many others. I have decided to not put livery emblems on the figures and to use a Banner. The trick is to wrap the banner around a small tube/pipe and slide it over the standard-bearer’s spear. I have found that a cotton bud with the ends cut off is ideal for this. Then when you need a unit on the oppositions side, just swap banners.

More soon

Old Glory Knights

Legionary 2015 Update

For this show which is my local I was hoping to put on a war of the Roses Game. In fact I had decided to try and do Bosworth. As the show is now only a few months away I have taken stock of where I am. I have to admit I am a long way off having all the troops ready. Too distracted with other eras and a new job. With this in mind I am working on a slightly different approach and intend to do an encounter game. it will probably involve most of the troops I have. Below are a few shoots of the stuff I have painted over the last month or so.

So what have we?

Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (27 June 1430 – September 1475), As an Exeter boy myself  born and breed, I just had to have a battle representing him. I currently have a small command base on foot, mounted to come, 1 unit of bills and another of Archers. this will probably increase to 2 of archers.

The figures are:

Archers – Perry Plastics

Bills – Old Glory

Command – Foundry. these are smaller in height when compared to the others so put each figure on a small base to lift them up then hid it with the textured base. all of my units are made up of 3 bases 60mm x 60mm.

Exeter’s Battle 1

 

Exeter’s Battle 2

Burgundian Crossbows

These have been sat on the paint table for about a year half finished.

The figures are Perry plastics with the Pavaise artwork transfers by Little Big Men Studios http://www.littlebigmenstudios.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=1

I might stick a few arrows in to the pavaises and surrounding ground for dramatic effect.

 

That’s all for now.

Battleflags

Review of Battleflags.

While looking for flags for my up coming war of the roses game, I came across “Battleflags” from Ancient and Modern Army Supplies. I sent off for Edward IV standard and banners. These are my thoughts on what was supplied.

What do you get?

The picture (1) below is what I got. Two Battle Standards, Banner of Arms and a Lance Pennon.

Initially I was impressed, although to begin with there was something odd but could not quite put my finger on it. It stuck me when I was struggling to see the detail and had to put my glasses on. The SIZE. I am no expert so these are only my thoughts;

1. Having read a few articles, the size of the Battle Standards were approximately 4 feet high and 15-17 feet long. Therefore in 28mm, if the average height of a man was 5’9″ then 1 mm = 2.46″ call it 2.5″.

if the flags were 4 ‘ high  then they should be around 19.2mm high and if 16’ long, they should be 77mm long. What you get is a flag that is 14mm high and 61mm long. This gives us a size of 2’11 x 12’9″.  These flags are more in scale to 20mm/1/76th than 25/28mm.

If we compare this to the Perry flag you get in their booked set (Picture 2). Their flag measures 21mm by 86mm. While slightly large, it is certainly in my opinion a better fit to figure ratio.

2. The motto is also just a mirrored version, backwards and upside down on the left hand flag. This may be correct but on every other flag I have looked at, the writing is correct.

3.These issues are a real shame as the printing is first-class and the Banner and lance pennon are more to scale.

Picture 1

Picture 2

As said, these are just my thoughts.

PAW 2015

Don’t Call Me Yella, Fella!

 

Last weekend was PAW 2015. This is a great local show to many of my wargaming buddies who live in Plymouth. As I have said before this is a great and growing show. Good free parking on site (get there early). More on the show later.

Laurie lives in Plymouth and normally takes responsibility for putting on a game. This year he decided it was time to unleash a project that has been growing over a number of years.

A Wild West themed game.

I have to admit that I have never played anything to do with the Wild West but my excitement level was whetted when I saw the terrain. The building looked fantastic and the internal detail on many of them just conjured up ideas of bar room brawls. The hand built mine and train all added to feel and flavour.

Well the premise of the games was a coming together of minds, not.

A group of cowboys led by Wilson “Will” Getya who have just driven a herd of cattle into town seek some chill time in a local saloon hoping to spend little but party hard! (Sounds like an 18 -30 trip to Ibiza). They knew the town well as one of them had a half-brother Marshal Karl Phogg “KP” Nut who was a lawman in the town. While in town, it would be good to have a catch up with his brother and his new girl (ex good time girl from the saloon)Wendy Wonnit.

Unknown to the cowboys and the lawmen, was that a local cattle Baron, Woody May-Kit was in town with his boys looking for the girl who left him for a lawman. If he could not have her, no one would or there would be no one for her to have. (He doesn’t sound nice). The head boy was a baddie called Billy Beans “Claim Jumpin ” Hatfield, a man so mean even his undertaker wouldn’t look him in the eye.

The rules used were “Dead Man’s Hand” these were given to me to use as umpire. This was literally the first time I had seen them but within 20 mins I had the gist. They basically work on a card system and once activated each character gets 3 actions. An action can be to move/ aim/fire etc. More time spent aiming helps but players can try to trump your turn by playing cards from their hand which have specific instructions on them.

I do not intend to go into a turn by turn account but provide an overview and some great pictures.

Unfortunately none of the players knew the location of Wendy, I had randomly generated her location. The Baron’s men had 20 turns to find her and convince her to return home!

Casualties start to build up. at least the undertaker does not have far to carry them.

Stage coach and pony express head for town

Wendy returns from outa town shopping. As always, prepared. Like any good time girl she always carried protection.

 

View down the main street

Billy looks at shot comrade. In the back, someone was copying his normal MO.

Civilian takes out a baddie.

internal shot of the bank.

Sneaking around the back of the town

Karl and Wilson try to find the Baron.

The baron’s men started by strolling up the town’s main thoroughfare entering shops looking for her. No real issue until an unlucky roll meant that the barber resented being bullied and spoke back. This had the result of a shot ringing out and him falling to the floor dead. Billy was living up to his reputation. This ensured the lawmen reacted and confronted the gang. Both gangs started moving around the town trying to get the upper hand on their rivals. The odd shot hit home and casualties started to build up on both sides.

Soon the stage coach started to come on the table. Inside was Wendy returning from shopping. Both sides saw Wendy at the same time and headed for the stage coach as it pulled up outside the undertakers. Karl headed for the coach with the last of his posse and brother. All were hit but only light wounds. The coach team fired back as well and hit an outlaw.  Each side traded shots until like a Quentin Tarantino movie Wendy bursts out the coach, aimed and fired. The turn aiming paid off as Woody was hit and was dead before he hit the floor. It was at this time that Billy decided to get outa town.

 

Overall.

The terrain was perfect.

The rules were good. In the game you place a playing card next to each character in the game. These are turned over to reveal their value and highest goes first. The initiative phase could be slow at times and the playing of cards distracted from the game so next time we will have character records on the table edge and cards will be placed there along with any wound markers etc.

All agreed it was a game we would like to play again soon.

All the buildings and figures were from Laurie’s collection. Brian played Woody, Steve played Billy and Laurie played Karl, Wilson and Wendy. I was the umpire and thoroughly enjoyed the day

 

The Show – PAW

Venue – Ideal. two large halls on the level with plenty of parking.

Entrance fee £4 a day – fair. A 2 day show.

Demo games – Good selection and balance from Fantasy/Historical/Sci-fi

Competitions – Located in the second hall along with a few traders and the bring and buy. Very well supported, cannot tell you much more than that.

Traders – Increasing year on year. This year there were 3 selling similar ranges. This can be a bit disappointing but it did enable me to get a good deal on some Perry box sets, 3 for £50. getting a good balance of traders in vital.

Bring and Buy – Big, mostly Fantasy/Sci- fi but I did pick up some osprey MAAs for £1.50 each, and Games workshop’s Man O War complete for £15 and Trafalgar rules for £10.

Catering – Weak. Food soon ran out. This needs to be addressed, otherwise people will bring their own and this will put less coppers in to the club. when there was food it was OK.

 

I will next be at Legionary 2015 on the 2nd of May 2015 with my War of the Roses Game. Hopefully see some of you there.

 

 

 

Wargaming Saturday

This Saturday was a great day, our first wargaming day since Christmas. We all discussed what we had been given before settling down to play Blue Max from Stratelibri.

I have to admit that as we sat down, I nor any of the others, Nathan, Luke or Brian had played the game before and sadly in my case even looked at the rules until an hour before.

Game box with beautiful artwork

So what do you get? –

Rulebook –

Double sided hex game board (1 side plain blue, 1 side historical landscape) –

6 View protection screens (3 per faction), brown/grey outside, rule summery inside –

18 Manoeuvre sheets (9 per faction) –

18 Airplane cards (9 per faction), 1 side airplane info, 1 side airplane details –

You get 3 of each plane. Each with different paint scheme.

144 Small game cards (136 damage cards, 8 trace cards) –

18 Airplane tiles, hex (9 per faction), 1 side top view, 1 side flank view –

3 of each, matching the cards. The letters around the edge indicate what type of damage you take if hit.

6 Ready marker tiles / direction tiles –

12 Special damage marker tiles (6 fire/smoke, 6 observer killed) –

15 Ammunition marker tiles –

30 Altitude marker tiles (1/2/3/4/5 each 6) –

24 Altitude manoeuvre tiles (up/down/constant/landing each 6) –

60 Fuel marker tiles –

1 Block with 60 record sheets –

6 Special dice – marked 1-6 with additional blue or red markings on some faces  for damage.

The planes

Allies – Bristol F.2B – Nieuport 24 – Sopwith Triplane

Central: – Halberstadt CL.II – Fokker Dr.I – Albatross D.III

We started to read the rules and set up the game as described.

Brian and I were flying Halberstadt CL.IIs while Nathan and Luke were flying Nieuport 24s. We set up at each end of the board. We had agreed that for our first game fuel and altitude would not be a worry. These would be added in to the next game if we agreed to play it again!

Both sides dived in and tried to get to grips with the enemy as soon as possible. First blood went to the allies hitting Brian. Each side continued to trade shots on each other. The turning point came when in one turn Nathan was hit with 7 fuselage hits and machine gun destroyed. This was due to a long machine gun burst from me, but this caused my gun to jam. No problems just fly level and roll a 4-6. Seven, yes seven turns later having rolled a 1, 6 times, I am still trying to un-jam my gun. While all this was going on I( (Snake Eyes Graham) should have been a sitting duck, albeit a flying one. Luckily,  Nathan’s gun was out of action and Luke had his own problems. In one turn he jammed his guns and had smoke appear from his engine. Considering I was trying after 7 attempts to un-jam my guns, Luke managed it first attempt. Cool hand Luke as he was now known then did a slip manoeuvre to help remove the smoke. Needing a 4-6 he rolled a 1. This had the unfortunate effect of turning the smoke into a fire! And changing Cool Hands Luke in to Hot Hands Luke! 4 turns later Hot Hands Luke finally puts the fire out and with little un-burnt framework to his plane left, headed home.

Outcome: A small victory to the Central powers. All pilots lived to fly another day.

Will we play it again?

In short YES. We all loved it. Simple, fast and fun.

Positives

Great art work

Hex board can be multi usage. Plain blue on one side and terrained on other. The blue side will be ideal for may other uses.

Simple clear rule processes once understood. By turn 2 we all knew the procedures and processes

Hex movement ideal and less cumbersome than the template system used in Wings of War.

Scalable up to 1/72, just need a large hex mat. or just use the 144 scale planes from wings of war.

Minimal book keeping

Negatives

Rule book not too clearly laid out but OK once read thoroughly. Had to jump around the book it felt at times to get the full understanding of some processes.

Limited planes. I think the original game version had about 20 plane types to choose from, not the 6 in the current version. I am not sure if additional plane are available as an add-on but check out the Canvas Eagles’ website. Canvas eagles is a printable version of this game and has every plane from an Eindecker EIII to a Handley Page 0/400 bomber.

What next?

We have already started discussing which 1/72 planes to get. I have just ordered a Handley Page 0/400 bomber. I intend to start this at one of the table with a small escort and have a Junta of DR1s attempt to shoot it down.

Armada

After a break for lunch we played Armada from Zvezda.

Not a great deal to mention. great game as always. Nathan and myself played the role of coach/umpire to Luke and Brian as neither had played before.

A great afternoons gaming was had by all and all agreed that these two games will form part of our wargaming more often.

Here are a few pictures of Zvezda’s latest release to support the Armada game – the Golden Hind. She is small compared to the ships included in the game. Here she is waiting for her masts and sails.

Hind and Revenge for scale

Golden Hind 4

Golden Hind 3

Golden Hind 2

Golden Hind1

This is a beautiful kit. I have to admit that she is fiddly, though this is due more to the size of my hands. She will be needed to be based  as she will not be sturdy enough I think to stand up to the regular rigours of wargaming. I am panicking about doing the rigging!

The only thing I think disappointing is that she never came with a dedicated character card. It doesn’t even appear to be downloadable from the website. Of all the Zvezda’s ” Art of Tactics” websites “The Ships” version is the weakest. When compared to the Samurai or WW2 versions there are no additional scenarios or rule amendment/clarifications.

I do hope that Zvezda release a few additional Spanish ships to increase the variation soon. How about an oared galley?

The format for this game is brilliant and could also be rolled out to other eras.

How about a medieval version with English Cogs battling it out against the French in the Hundred Years War version or against each other in a War of the Roses version.

Does anyone know of a manufacturer of cogs etc in 1/144 – 1/300 scale. I would have a go at writing the rules and creating art work.

A Long Time

Really sorry it has been so long but the computer crashed and died 4 weeks back and after receiving CPR was no better.  I had to get a new PC and just so many other things have got in the way. That and understanding windows 8.1

Science Fiction

I have to admit that I have never been too much into Sci-Fi wargaming although I do like Sci-Fi. That said I do believe that my wife maybe an alien replicate! I have come to this conclusion based on this year’s Christmas presents. Up until now, every Christmas was the same. I can hear her saying ” You are so awkward to buy for. You only want toy soldiers and I don’t know what to buy you, they all look the same to me”.

I know you are all thinking, but I also have to admit that she is a star even when I have the dinning table still cluttered up 30 mins before Christmas dinner, she never moans.

Therefore I would normal end up with lovely items that I needed but little of what I wanted. So imagine my surprise this year when I started opening the presents to find:

4 off Perry War of the Roses wagons – these will be used as ammo wagons to carry arrows to hard up archer units in my demo game.

Zvezda board game Samurai – Looks great. Want to start constructing it but there is so much.

9 boxes of additional Zvezda Samurai troops

War of 1812 Scenario booklet by Stuart Asquith

Stuart Asquith Book

Sun of York card game – Could be good

Blue Max WW1 tabletop game – Looks great and fun. I had toyed with getting Wings of War but the choice is now made.

5 of 1/72 scale WW1 aircraft for starters. These will use the above rules.

SE5a

Fokker EIII

Fokker DVII

Fokker Dr1

Albatros DIII

Zvezda 1/350 Golden Hind for Zvezda’s Armada board game

Hotz 3”hex game mat, well a voucher as delivery was not due to till the New Year. This will replace the tiles you get in the Armada Game.

Box set of “Hornblower” ideal to have on in the back ground as we play or build the Golden Hind.

There were many other things but these are the ones that count. Do I report the abduction? I think I will wait and see if the cooking is still as good as ever, if so she stays. Just have to work on the Toy Soldier comments – model replicants is so much better and she may be able to relate to the term!

I will give updates/ reviews on all items as I start them.

Hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and most of you got what you wanted and not what you needed.