Wargames Factory Romans, rough colors blocked in.

I squeezed in some painting time this weekend and managed to get some of the major blocking done on these WGF Romans.  I painted individual fantasy figures for decades, so switching to large massed ranks for ancients was a big change for me. I adopted a quick, assembly line style paint job to get units on the table, but before getting any washes or highlights on them, I always feel like I'm doing a crummy job. Once I've got the flesh tones on and a few colors for gear or clothing, I can see the potential for the final product which makes the rest of the painting process easier.

Wargames Factory Romans Progress for 2-13-2012

Not much to report. I managed to get my Wargames Factory Romans assembled and primed. I'm hoping that the similar poses will be more conducive to rapid assembly line painting.  I really have no idea how some wargamers are able to paint hundreds of Celts at a time. I did 30 and now I'm totally ready for more rapid progress on some easy peasy legionnaires.

Wargames Factory Romans. I prime them black.

The Boring Phase

I currently have a few projects that are in progress, but none are at a point where there are any exciting photos to show. I've been clipping and cleaning a box of Wargame Factory Romans and made some headway in assembly. Hoping to get them fully assembled and primed by the end of the weekend. I might have a few tips for anyone thinking of putting together some of their own as well.

Wargame Factory Romans in progress.

Colosseum

Worked on a few wargames projects this weekend but not enough progress to show.  I did get in a game of Colosseum though, our first play of it even though I've had it for a few years.  It was fun, though there are a lot of fiddly bits to the rules that will take a while to master.

Crummy iPhone pic. 

Set in ancient Rome, each player  attempts to draw the largest crowd to the events they put on in their arena.  You acquire gladiators, chariots, thespians and more and combine them into a variety of "shows", the more extravagant the better. There are also bits about attracting senators and the emperor, making improvements to your amphitheater and bidding against the other players to acquire the best stable of performers. Play felt a little bit like Pirate's Cove, and I can bet we'll give it another shot some time.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #3!

My wife and I played another Hail Caesar skirmish. The addition of my newly painted Celts brought our tiny forces up to the same point total (although I just eyeballed it when setting up the game). Having lost every Hail Caesar skirmish to date, I was hoping to eek out a win. I also wanted to add some more terrain to the field to see how it altered the battle. The Roman legionnaires would be facing off against their barbarian adversaries lurking in the dense forests of Germania. Check out our skirmish after the jump.


INITIAL DEPLOYMENT

The Romans

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

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

The Romans deployed two units deep in the center flanked by their cavalry. One unit of infantry deployed on the Roman left. The barbarians deployed in the right half of the field, between some rough ground to their left and the table edge. Their archers deployed in the woods beyond the rough ground.


Neither my wife nor I knew how the woods would impact the battle. The Roman plan was to send their single heavy infantry into the woods to act as bait and pull the barbarians towards it. My wife had learned how fragile her cavalry were from our last encounter and decided to use them to advance into the gap between the woods near the center of the field and harass the barbarians with javalins. Ideally this would allow the main Roman units to follow up into the gap and hopefully attack the barbarian flank. 


As the barbarians, I planned to send my archers to the top of the hill in the center-left of the field while my warbands moved in line into the gap, using the woods on their left and right to hold the flanks. I expected the Romans would steer clear of the woods and be forced to face me head on. When they did so I meant to take the first opportunity to charge them to gain the +1 charging bonus and make the best use of my Wild Fighters ability.


I really should have looked up the rules on woods before the game.


TURN 1: EVERYTHING GOES CRAZY
Neither of us were able to get our light forces moving, but my wife was first in getting her Romans into the woods. Surprise! Not knowing the rules well, we allowed units to switch to Open Formation if they entered woods automatically (oops!).

Seeing a single Roman unit drop into a vulnerable Open formation, alone in the woods, I took the bait and threw all of my barbarians forward in a head long rush to catch them before their allies could reach them. Sadly I only rolled two moves instead of the the three I needed and my barbarians wound up in the woods, but inches short of making contact.

PEPPERED WITH PILA
Buying time for the main Roman legionnaires and  cavalry to arrive, the Romans held back and pelted the barbarians with short range attacks, managing to force them out of the woods.

The single barbarian warband remaining in close formation was charged by the Romans in the open. As my wife was moving her Romans forward into contact I noticed she had started whistling a song: The Imperial Death March from Star Wars.



The barbarians fared poorly, taking heavy casualties, being Shaken and forced to recoil, back into the woods to their rear and automatically dropped into Open Order (though we may have botched that rule as well). Luckily, the barbarians had dealt a hefty blow to the Romans before retiring, handing them 4 casualties before retreating.  Eager to get her wounded Romans into a supporting role and off the front line, my wife elected to use their Victory Move to fallback in order to rotate their lines out of harms way on her next turn.


TRYING TO SALVAGE THE SITUATION
Things were looking grim for the German hordes. One of my warbands was shaken, two had taken some hits from pila and been forced back to nearly my starting position, my archers were stuck in the woods having not moved at all. I consolidated my barbarians back into close order in an effort to get my horde back into position to face the Romans. I finally managed to get my archers out of the woods and onto the hill. From that point I hoped to either whittle away the Roman cavalry, or get set up for a flank attack should the Romans manage to get into contact with my warbands.

The archers succeeded in diverting the attention of the Numidian cavalry and in a protracted (but uninteresting) javelin duel would eventually force the Numidians to back off. Meanwhile, attempting to rotate their lines by passing through each other, BOTH Roman units became Disordered. Hoping to stall the barbarians from attacking them in their Disordered state , the Romans in the woods advanced, charging the barbarians in front of them. The Romans inflicted some casualties, but the barbarians rolled 12 dice against them. 9 of them hit. The Romans rolled their 9 morale saves, needing a 4+ to save.  They only made a single save. Losing the combat, Shaken and with a heavy casualty difference, the Romans rolled and failed a Break test.  Shattered, a few survivors fled into the woods, never to be seen again.


She wasn't whistling anymore.

THE PAIN TRAIN
The Romans in the center recovered from their Disordered state and elected to fall back again to give their cavalry room to maneuver so they could close with the barbarians and inflict a few casualties before the barbarians were able to charge the remaining Romans.


Issuing the order to fallback as far as possible, my wife rolled 2d6 for command and got.... boxcars. The tide of battle had finally swung! She rolled for the blunder results and got "Fall back two moves, retain facing".  Exactly what she had been attempting!


With her turn over, I rolled my own command roll to get my barbarians turned and moving into the gap vacated by the retreating legionairres. I rolled and got... boxcars! Two command rolls, two blunders in a row. I rolled on the blunder result table and got "Uncontrolled Advance. Advance forward three moves charging if possible.", exactly what I wanted.  Too weird!  

Directly in front of the uncontrolled barbarians was a woodland, which didn't seem to make sense. We talked it over, and the free form HC rules really shined at this point. The barbarians, seeing the Romans falling back, would obviously see this as a sign of weakness and throw themselves forward after them.  Being uncontrolled, they would naturally end up thrashing through the woods that flanked the gap in front of their foes and be forced to drop into Open Order to reach their enemies.  We both agreed this made sense based on the events of the game. Suddenly my wife found herself staring down an frighteningly large horde of semi naked barbarians.

"I notice you aren't whistling the Darth Vader theme anymore."
"No, but look at all those guys coming at me! You should see this. It's scary! 'Stay on target!'"
"Stay on target?"
"Yeah, you know in Star Wars when they're in the trench and Darth Vader is bearing down on them and they're trying to hold it together? That's what this feels like."
"I'm going to put that in my blog."
"Whatever. That's fine. Just don't make me sound like an idiot like you did last time."


AND THEN SHE LOST
The barbarians and Romans hurled themselves at each other, the Romans just barely inflicting enough casualties to win the combat, forcing a Break test and seeing their enemies scattered before them.

But for Rome it was ironically, a Pyrrhic victory. In the combat the barbarians dealt six casualties, leaving the last Roman unit Shaken. with all three of her remaining units Shaken victory went to the barbarians.


WHAT DID WE LEARN
1) Hail Caesar is fun. Even if all of your troops get stuck tangling in one corner of the board and you don't know the rules for dealing with woods, it's a fun, tense game. I really like it.
2) Woods! Ok, here's the deal. If you are in close order and you reach the edge of a wood, stop. You are done. Next round you can switch to Open Order, but a formation change like that uses your entire unit's movement. The following round, now that you are in Open Order, you can move into and through the woods. That's three rounds to move through a stand of woods.
3) My status markers worked really well! Just need a few for the Romans.
4) I need to paint more. I'm itching to get more forces on the table. Getting twice as many Romans on the board as we have now should start to open up more of the tactical decisions in the game.

A Few More Tips For Warlord Games Celtic Warriors

I finally managed to get my box of Celts finished off a few days ago. I posted a few tips for building Warlord Games Celtic Warriors back in December, and I have a few final thoughts for anyone attempting to tackle the same project. Check them out after the jump.

Good grief do Celts take a long time to paint! I recently finished some ancient Germans who I painted up with patterned pants and shirts as well as some shields with various unique geometric designs.  These were mostly Foundry, Black Tree Designs and Crusader and despite the attention that painting plaids and stripes required, I found I could still move through them assembly line style since many of the poses were similar.

Not so with the Warlord Games Celts. Constructing them was a lot of fun, and because they are plastic there's a lot of opportunity for customization. Because they are multi part kits, Warlord was also able to create much more dynamic poses than any ancients figure I've seen. Every Celt is either charging, ducking, attacking or skirmishing and while I was initially skeptical of some of the poses, I think you can put them all together into really nice poses.

When it came to painting though, those poses really worked against me. Painting plaid on bent legs required shifting and re-shifting my "angle of attack" to get at each part of the leg. And with so many different poses, I found it hard to get into a rhythm since there only seem to be 3 or 4 of each pose type.

Celts surge forwards.

I was also surprised at seeing them on their bases. I thought the dynamic poses would end up looking chaotic and unfocused, but seeing them in the flesh, they really do convey a sense of movement. You can nearly hear their cries seeing those tiny figures frozen in their surging poses.  Speaking of flesh, check out the bird's-eye-view of the finished base.  The defining characteristic of Celts (to me at least) is their colorful shields and plaid clothing.  Most of the figures in the Warlord Games box are either bare chested or in armor. Seen from amove, there are very few Celts with shirts that can be painted up in plaid. Between those two points I think it's a wash.

SHIELDS
Warlord packs a sheet of sticker shield designs. I was originally going to forgo the stickers and ordered a few packs of Little Big Man Studios decals instead. After waiting for a few weeks for their arrival I got impatient and decided to test the included stickers. I figured I could always use them as casualty tokens or something. The stickers actually worked out quite nicely. There is a bit of "height" to the stickers since they aren't thin films like waterslide decals, and they don't snuggle down into depressions as easily, but they are fast and cheap. I found that touching up the edges of the stickers with paint (even a non-matching color) will hide the sharp white edging of the sticker. At 12 inches away I found I couldn't tell the difference between the Warlord stickers and a waterslide style decal.

Tip 4) Paint the edge of those stickers!

See? Warlord Games sticker shield decals didn't turn out too badly.

MR. SQUATS
I do have one important warning that didn't become evident until I got to basing and ranking up these Celts. One of the poses that you'll end up constructing features a squatting Celt, ready to pounce on some unwary legionnaire, a spear in his hand.  One of the shields featured in the box includes a pair of extra spears or javelins the bearer will grip in his shield hand. I thought the shield with extra spears fit well with the squatting pose. That was a mistake.

Look out for this one. He's a troublemaker.

In his bent pose, the Celt thrusts all of his spears forward, rather than keeping any of them raised. When  I tried to include him on a multifigure base, or in the ranks of my large warbands I found he was difficult to position, and his spears tended to overhang onto other bases, already crowded with figures, making it difficult to keep all of the bases aligned. My advice is to save the squatting figure and extra spears for your status markers.

Tip 5) Keep Mr. Squats away from the extra spears or he won't play well with others.

Overall I was happy with the final outcome. Cleaning and assembly were painless, painting took longer than I had hoped, but the dynamic poses really do stand out uniquely on the tabletop. I would certainly pick up another box of Warlord Games Celtic Warriors, but I think I need a little break from plaid for a bit. Better check the Ospreys for "Unbleached Linen Warriors  200 BC - 100 AD" for my next project.