Complete Celts

Finally managed to finish off my Warlord Games Celt Warriors.  Just a quick pic for now with a final set of tips and thoughts later this week.

Warlord Games Celt Warriors, finished and based thank God.

Slow Progress

Work has taken a lot out of me this week, and I've had little energy to throw into miniatures each evening. I've found that putting in even 5 minutes a day helps keep projects moving along, so this week has seen me clipping Wargames Factory Romans from their sprue and finishing the decals and painting on some Warlord Games Celt shields.

Warlord Games Celt shields, attached to tape and card for assembly line detail painting.

I'm hoping to make some significant progress this weekend. I have 30 Celts just dying to get their shields attached and based.

Ancient German Archers

Got the bases finished off on some Crusader Ancient German archers. Pretty quick paint job to get these on the table quickly.

Crusader Miniatures Ancient German Archers

Foundry and Old Glory Victorians

When I was going through my individually based WWII minis recently I found a handful of Victorian era figures I painted up 10 years ago for some "Gothic Horror" skirmish gaming.

Foundry 28mm Victorian Big Game hunters. Top Hat is from a "Bowery Boys" set I believe.

28mm "Vampire Wars" priests. 

Hail Caesar Status Markers

I've only played a few test skirmishes of Hail Caesar, but I realized I wanted to include some on-table markers to help me remember the status and abilities of various units. Even with only a handful of units per side I found myself forgetting which ones had used their Wild Fighters ability, or which were allowed the "Winning" bonus from victory in the previous round.

Hail Caesar with unit status markers

I thought about creating a unique marker for each potential status, but decided that would be a bit overwhelming, with dozens of extra markers necessary for even my existing units. I settled on a single figure stand with interchangeable color-coded bases to indicate the unit status. It took a little trial and error, but I finally came up with a system that should be fairly simple to both build and use in play. Check out my solution after the jump.

MATERIALS

The materials are fairly simple, and available at my local craft and DYI store.

• Magnetic Tape
• Wooden Disk (about 32mm across)
• 1/2" Washers
• 1/2" Magnet

METHOD

1. Cut a bit of magnetic tape wider than the hole in the washer. Glue it over the hole, with the magnetic side facing down.
2. Drill a 1/2" hold in the center of each wooden disk. Insert the magnet so that it sticks up out of the hole and acts a plug the washer fits over.
3. Check the fit to ensure that the washer fits over the magnet plug and the magnets touch inside before glueing the magnet within the wooden disk.  

From L to R: Assembled marker base, washer with magnet overlay, disk with magnet plug

PAINTING

1. Paint each wooden disk with colors to indicate unit status. I used purple for "Winning" and orange for "Wild Fighters"
2. Glue and base figures on top of each washer assembly. While painting the figure base, weather the wooden disks at the same time to help them blend together.

Winning and Wild Fighters markers for Hail Caesar

And that's it! I plan to place a figure with an orange base next to each of my warband units. Once the warband charges and uses its Wild Fighters ability (only available on the first round of combat in the game), I can remove the marker. If the warband happens to prove victorious, I can easily swap the orange base for a purple to remind myself the unit receives a "Winning" bonus the next time they're in combat. Easy, fun to make and shouldn't clutter up the table with too many pieces of card, beads or extra dice.

Foundry WWII

A friend of mine is a WWII nut and recently proposed we break out Crossfire for a few games.  It's been a few years since I last played Crossfire, and with all the hype around the latest version of "I Aint Been Shot Mum" I suggested we give that rules sets a try to see how they compared. I had an older version of the rules that I picked up years ago but never got around to playing, but  rereading them now, I realized my collection of 20mm WWII miniatures were all multi-figure based. It didn't sound like that would work well with IABSM since casualties (kill and wounded) were tracked individually.

I'll be honest, the Warlord Games newsletter always has a lot of tempting 28mm WWII figures in it that have been catching my eye lately. I remembered I had painted up a few individually based 28mm World War II minis about 10 years ago, so I broke them out to see what I had and decide if I wanted to add on to them for testing IABSM. 

Foundry (I think) 28mm WWII Germans

Foundry (I think) 28mm French Resistance

Not enough for a very extensive game of IABSM, but maybe I can throw in a few U.S. Paratroopers and we can run a quick Normandy squad v. squad action.

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A Calamity of Celts

I made some progress on my Warlord Games Celt Warriors over the last week or so. I've got the whole group painted up to table quality and ready for a final dip in Army Painter Soft Tone to pull them all together and give 'em a little more shading.

I was a little impatient with getting this lot done.  For the Ancient Germans I had a pretty strict color palette of muted earth tones. I wanted the Celts to stand out with much more vivid colors. I also know the Army Painter will soften the colors quite a bit, and any patterns that aren't high contrast will become dull and difficult to make out.  The colors and patterns are what give a Celt warband its personality, so I overcompensated using a lot of off-white, GW Foundation Red, navy blue, and bright green with striking high contrast patterns.

As I continued to work the group up though, the overall effect was a little to clown-like. I tried repainting, switching to muted colors, trying a lot of different patterns, etc.  In the end, there's a lot going on with the entire warband, and without a really unified color palette I think the effect might be a little TOO chaotic, even for such a wild band of barbarians. I've sunk enough time into these though and I'm eager to get them on the table. I'll just chalk this up to a learning experience for my next band of Celts.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #2!

Hail Caesar: Rome vs. Ancient Germans skirmish

What a great game! I had another chance to try out Hail Caesar, this time with my wife. She's up for games of any stripe so it wasn't very difficult to cajole her into playing. We also watched the HBO miniseries "Rome" a few years ago, so she had a little background with the era. I offered her the choice of armies.

"Romans. Not stupid barbarians." I got out my meager cohorts and passed them to her.

"These guys are neat," she commented. "Hey, you put these spears on backwards. You've got the handle pointed forwards."

"No, those are called 'pilum'. That long metal part isn't a handle. It has a hard point, but the shaft gets weaker when it gets near the middle. The Romans would chuck those at guys when they got close. The hard point would go into their shield, and then the weak part would make the rest of the pilum bend down, so they've got this curved wonky spear stapled to their shield. The pilum was ruined, so the enemy couldn't throw it back, and it was weighing down their shield which would have hindered them too."

"Huh. That's actually really interesting."

"Really?"  She's not much of a history buff. This was probably the first time any historical fact elicited more than a polite shrug.

"Yeah. I mean... if you had just told me that out of the blue I wouldn't have cared, but now that I see the little guy and he's about to go fight, that's actually pretty neat."

<HAIL CAESAR RECEIVES +1 WINNING BONUS VS. HISTORICAL DISINTEREST>

See how she fared after the jump...

INITIAL DEPLOYMENT
Sticking to the true spirit of the rules, I threw every painted figure I have on the table. Which wasn't much.

The Romans

3 Heavy Infantry (Elite, Drilled, Pilum)
1 Small Light Cavalry (Feigned Flight)

The Germanic Barbarians
2 Warbands (Wild Fighters)
2 Small Light Infantry Archers

I''m still learning the rules and kept everything fairly simple. Each side is a single division. There are no commander figures on the board so we're ignoring the rules for proximity to commanders, commanders joining battle, etc.

Hail Caesar setup, from Ancient German side

The barbarian horde deploys along their base edge, between two small woods. The Romans deploy two heavy infantry in the center, one heavy infantry in reserve behind a small hill on the Roman left, and their cavalry in reserve behind a wooded hill to their right. I elected to take the first turn to demonstrate how command rolls, movement, etc. worked.

"Yeah! This is Roman land! You're not comin' in here stupid barbarians!"

THE LINES ADVANCE. TENTATIVELY.
The initial moves by both sides were rather lackluster. The barbarians sent both archer units loping ahead with three successful moves each. But the warbands, ordered to surge forward, merely milled around.  On the Roman side, things weren't much better.

"Roll 2d6 for your command roll."

"Yes! Boxcars!"

"Oh, heh. No, you want to roll low. That's actually a 'blunder'."

The Roman center slunk to their right, hoping to join their comrades hiding behind the hill.

The following round saw the barbarians got their center moving to join the archers who had advanced ahead of them. The Romans, finding their nerve, advanced as well towards the enemy horde.

Roman center advances

Seeing their enemy had found their nerve, the germanic warbands slowed their advanced to discusse strategy ("Should ve charge, or perhaps charge?"), but the archers were now within bow range of the Roman center. They loosed their arrows and set the legionnaires into disordered panic.

Archers loose arrows

And disorder Roman center.  "Owie! Titus, take this pointy bit out! Owie!"

With the sounding of their trumpets, the centurion of the Roman left gave the order, "Advance to the top of that hill and prepare to beat down those punks! Also can you get me some more wine? Thanks honey."

"I told you zere vas Romans behind dat hill!"

ROME STRIKES!

With the barbarian horder drawing close, the Roman center unable to recover from disorder despite their Drilled trait, the Romans order their flanks to advance.

The Numidian mercenary cavalry on the left flank succeed at their command roll with a massive three moves. Although they were in line of sight of the Germans at this point, I ruled they could perform an end run around the wooded hill as long as they ended their move pointed towards an enemy unit.

Numidian Light Cavalry swings 'round behind the barbarians

With enemy cavalry to their rear, the warbands attempted a risky three move charge to come to grips and break the Romans in one blow before the cavalry could charge. Unfortunately, the matter was still in debate ("Vait. Olaf says ve should charge, bud Helmut makes a good point that ve should probably charge. Maybe ve haff drinking contest to decided who is right, ja?")

Numidians poised to strike

SWORDS ARE DRAWN

Numidians close and lock into warband rear

Seeing their opportunity, the light cavalry charge the barbarian rear, while the Roman left atop the hill charge down it into pila range of the enemy archers, and the Roman center surges forward to drive off the archers on the opposite flank.

Archers recoil from Romans descending the hill

"We lost because we aren't based yet!"

Combat ensues, with disastrous results for the cavalry. Despite being attacked to their rear, the German barbarians are still fearsome and inflict enough casualties to force a Break Test which sends the Numidians back to Africa.

Seeing their mercenaries flee sets the Roman blood to boil. They continue to advance on their left, driving the archers farther from the hill, and gaining a good position to the barbarian flank.

On the Roman right, the legionaries charge and batter the barbarian archers on that flank. In the ensuing melee, the Roman center manages to Shatter the archers. Their commanders take a moment to pile the enemy bodies and perform a victory celebration to Mars upon them.

"Do a little dance! Spill a little blood! Get down tonight! Get down tonight!"

THE LINES CLASH
With the lightly armed troops routed, both sides turned their full attention on their main battle lines. The Romans were able to close the distance first, and charged the warbands, while the Roman reserve turned from the base of the hill into a flanking position on the barbarian line. Things were suddenly looking very poor for the hairy Germans.

With the Roman right bloodied from the attentions of the now Shattered archers, the melee began on the Roman left. The ancient sky gods left the Germans at this point.

"Ok, the Romans won the combat here by three casualties, so I need to roll a Break test at -3."

"I want to figure out how this chart works. You roll and I'll tell you what you got.  I think I'm getting the hang of this. So you roll 2d6 to see what happens to your guys and...you got a 3. 3 minus 3 is 0.  I don't see that on the chart. Oh wait, I see. '2 or less: Break Break Break'  What does Break mean again?"

I explained the term. Then we learned about Moves by Victorious Units. Also, Closing the Door and Rolling Up the Line.

"Let me take the picture so I can show their cute little butts running away!"

The remaining melee saw a half hearted attempt by the final warband, but suffering from the Attacked on the Flank penalty they scored a single measly hit which was saved. Another round of combat ground the last vestige of resistance from the Germans. Leaders were executed, captives sent to Rome, a wine cups were drained by the victors (literally).

German warbands performing the "Skedaddle Maneuver"

REPORTS SENT TO ROME
Wow! So fun! I don't have nearly enough figures, my terrain needs work, and I still haven't learned my lesson about exposing my flank, but I really enjoyed the game. My wife liked it too and we discussed bringing in some of our other friends for larger games.

Her Review: "It's like a board game, but it's cooler because you painted all these little guys. And the rules aren't hard. It's like, 'Just move that guy about six inches and whatever.' I like that."

Year End Review

2011 was my return to painting ancients after a three year hiatus.  I didn't even start until the Summer, and a combination of work, family and other projects tended to divert me from miniatures from time to time. That said, I did manage a small bit of progress:

• I painted 111 foot and 6 cavalry, which is a pittance, but was quite a lot compared to the fat 0 figures painted in the previous few years.
• Finished 1 megawood terrain scenic, 3 small woods, and several small hills and hedges. 
• Managed to attend Historicon.
• Got in a few games of Hail Caesar.

It's not a lot, but I wanted to get it all down so I can compare my progress next year. Here's hoping I can double my output and games played in 2012! :)