Winding Down 2012

Last year I did a review so I could compare my progress on my painting and gaming output between 2011 and 2012. Blogging, keeping records and setting goals has really helped me keep my lead pile under control, so humor me while I do a little year end bookkeeping.

Pic from Dec 2011: The sum total of my painted ancients at this time last year.

Miniatures Painted: 216 foot and 16 cavalry (28mm), 120 foot (15mm), assorted animals 

Terrain Projects Completed: 8 

That's a big jump over my output from last year, but mostly because I stuck to steady progress throughout the year. With quite a few real life difficulties, painting provided a welcome break from this year's challenges.

Conventions Attended: 2 

I visited a number of the HMGS conventions in the past but my trips were quick affairs where I dropped in, took a look at a few games and picked up some figures from the vendors before heading home. They always proved to be nice day trips, but I never felt compelled to attend for multiple days or even play in any of the games. This year I decided to get involved. Wow, what a difference! Conventions are fun! I've roped one of my game buddies and our families into making multiple convention trips per year, and I finally have a third member of our group and his wife booked for our trip to Historicon this year. I think these gaming conventions are going to be a feature of our family's yearly plans for a long time to come.

Games Played: 7 

Here's the one area I'm hoping to improve on in the coming year. I like painting, but gaming is where this hobby changes from a solo pursuit to something that becomes a shared experience. I don't laugh out loud when I paint by myself, but I do so frequently when I'm rolling dice and pushing little lead men around. There's always a sense of satisfaction in finishing off a unit, or discovering a new period, but the real joy in this hobby comes from actually spending time with friends and family while you play. With our busy lives I'm really hoping to get in at least one game per month in 2013.

Goals for 2013

I've got five main periods I'm working on at the moment. I was sorely tempted to pull the trigger on even more projects during the holiday sales this year, but I made my Willpower saving throw and resisted expanding into X-Wing, Bolt Action or Dux Britanniarum.

Ancients: I've been slowly adding to my Carthaginian army for quite a while, using the Gauls as the core to play against my Caesarian Romans.  I've been reluctant to pick up their Republican opponents because I want to commit to a single manufacturer and I'm waiting to see what Victrix has lined up for their plastic Republican Romans.

Beating them to the punch has been Warlord, who have their own Late Republic Romans ready for release in the next few months. With a few units of Wargame Factory's Romans under my belt I might stick to that later period to be able to game Caesar's battles against the Gauls and the civil wars against Pompey. I've got a dream of doing a hypothetical battle of Octavian vs. Mark Antony and Cleopatra on land rather than their historical sea borne confrontation.

In any case, I've got about one and half division per side for Hail Caesar. I'd like to double this to three divisions per side to get a little closer to playing the rules as they are written.

Dark Ages: I've just started dabbling in the dark ages with SAGA. With two points of vikings painted up and four points of Normans atop the lead pile, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the two sides to 4 points each and on the table this year.

World War II in 15mm: Spurred by our games of Fireball Forward at the HGMS shows, my pal Mike and I are working on some WWII forces in 15mm. We both have the cores of our eastern front armies painted up, so progress on this will largely be focused on getting some armor and terrain ready.

Sci-Fi: I have a set of rules I've been working at periodically for years. They are a pet project, but I'd love to get my notes pulled together into a final format simply so I can stop being bothered by their  unfinished state.

Fantasy: There is a big box of Reaper Bones headed my way this March. I'd love to get them all painted up within a year of receiving them, but with my wife and I trying to sell our house this spring, that might not feasible. We also have a large scale fantasy wargame we've been thinking of playing that I was hoping we could get up and running by this summer.

A Message to Games I Won't Be Playing 

No Bolt Action, I will not be tempted by your wide range of plastics. No Perry Brothers, I'm not going to buy your ACW plastics nor your highly detailed War of the Roses line. No Fireforge, I've heard the rumors that you'd be releasing muslim opponents for your Crusaders, and while I have every intention of starting a pair of 1st Crusades armies, it won't be this year. Absolutely not, Post Apocalyptic warbands. I see you beckoning me from the Chicago Skirmish games, and I know you've got Mad Max 4 currently in production, but no. It's not going to happen. My willpower is strong. Please stop batting your eyelashes at me.  Please.

28mm Ancient Iberians by Crusader Miniatures

Crusader Miniatures 28mm Ancient Spanish

After the trouncing my gauls received in my last Hail Caesar game, I decided it was time to reinforce them with some of the allies I had atop the lead pile. I'm aiming for a full Carthaginian army to oppose a Republican enemy, but with my interests ping ponging between periods, this Punic Wars project is going to take a few years to complete. Take a look at the color scheme I worked out for my ancient Spanish after the jump.

Planning an Army Color Scheme

For the Romans I know I want to stick to the classic red as a unifying color, with linen white and earth tones and I have a general idea of what I'd like the Carthaginian side of the table to look like. Hannibal's army is made up of a range of tribes, warbands and mercenaries picked up as he marched his invasion force from Africa through Spain, France, into the Italian peninsula. With such a wide variety of soldiers, it would be easy to paint each ethnic group with a variety of colors, but I feared the overall effect would be garish. By restricting my color palette for each group I'm hoping that each mercenary unit appears distinct, making the Carthaginians look like the amalgam of numerous tribes and groups that it was. If each group used a similar rainbow color palette, I think the overall effect would be of a unified army of clowns. Definitely not what I am going for.

I've already knocked off quite a few units of Gauls (with some ancient Germans acting as stand ins). They've received the most colorful tones, wearing their hallmark plaids of blue, green, yellow and red. I intend to paint the Carthaginians in white linen with accents of black and red. I've also started some Numidians using muted earth tones: off white tunics against warm brown Berber skin tones. Before starting the Spanish I pulled together some of my favorite images to construct a color palette.

Angus McBride's Ancient Iberians 

I really like Angus McBride's ancient Spanish. The warm skin tones, muted browns, chocolates and mustards stood out to me because of their tight monochromatic color scheme. These aren't eye popping troops, but will make the colorful Gauls and high contrast Carthos stand out even more by providing a muted color counterbalance.

I selected a number of representative colors from each plate to build my Spanish color scheme.

 

Tunic	Vallejo Khaki 72061
Baldric Should Sling	Vallejo Beasty Brown 72043
Belt	Vallejo Red Leather 70818
Helmet	Vallejo Beasty Brown 72043
Headdress	Vallejo Dark Sand 70847 and Red Leather
Shield	Americana Spicy Mustard and Vallejo Leather Brown 70871

Crusader Miniatures Ancient Spanish 

I really like the solid, detailed sculpts of Crusader Miniatures. These figures are armed with the iconic Spanish falcata sword and scutari shields. Hannibal's Spanish mercenaries served him as solid heavy infantry, and the rows of similar poses, brutal swords and large shields should provide a nice mirror of their Roman heavy infantry opponents.

"I pity the fool who makes fun of my mohawk toupee"

The Crusader sculpts painted up quickly and easily. I hand painted the shields with a common mustard yellow base copied from the Angus McBride plate, but modified for the cramped space of the Crusader shield with boss. I really enjoyed painting these ancient Iberians up. I'm already planning on picking up some more packs for a second unit, and maybe a few Celtiberians too. And some cavalry. Heck, maybe I should just do a Spanish army instead of a Carthaginian one.

I'm never going to finish this project, am I?

Spaniards Celebrating Saturnalia

"Bethlehem? Never heard of it. Do you need directions to Saguntum? They do a heck of a Saturnalia display."

Merry Christmas! It's been a bust few weeks, but I've managed to sneak in a few painting sessions. I've got a batch of ancient Iberians ready for matte varnish, but the weather is snowy and sleeting today, and not very conducive to outside spraying.

I hope you enjoyed your holiday. We spent time with friends and family and had a pleasant day at home on the 25th recuperating from the buildup to Christmas. My wife left a number of wargame presents under the tree which I'm looking forward to completing during our winter vacation. Her Numidians, Architects of War terrain and Flames of War figures will be making appearances on my blog soon. Did Santa drop any little lead men down your chimney this year?

Starting a Viking SAGA Warband

I found some time to make headway on a viking warband for SAGA. I was especially keen to see if the color palette I selected for my vikings would provide a suitably gritty and varied appearance while still maintaining a subtle tie between the various figures.  I've used predominantly warm browns, with a large amount of ivory and red as the thematic tie between all of my vikings.

2 points of vikings for SAGA

I picked up a pack of Gripping Beast bondi to add to the Wargames Factory vikings I had on hand. I wanted to use Little Big Man's shield decals, so did a little swapping to keep the bondi all wielding similar shields and reserving the intricate designs of the LBM decals for the more well off viking hersir.

Wargames Factory viking hearthguard.

These vikings were some of Wargame Factory's first plastics. WGF early sculpts seem a little off to me, but the flaws in their Romans disappeared once they were ranked up. Based singly for SAGA though, the Wargames Factory sculpting oddities are more apparent. Many of their arms seem unusually short and stumpy, and their hitchhiker thumbs sticking out allow various weapons to be chosen for the warrior, but look pretty wonky to me.

Viking bondi. Gripping Beast on the left, Wargames Factory plastics on the right.

To fill out the unit of bondi I added a pack of Gripping Beast metals. They mix well enough with the WGF plastics to my eye, have great detail and life, and were free from egregious mould lines or flash. I'm hoping to get some GB plastics to compare, but with the few models needed for SAGA I'm leaning towards forking out the cash for nice metals rather than the more economical WGF plastics.

More vikings may have to wait until the new year though. I've switched scales and periods yet again, this time to gingerbread in 80mm, but this should be a short side project that won't divert me from the dark ages for too long.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #6: Who Let This Guy Be a General?

With our retro board game night of Axis and Allies canceled at the last minute, my buddy Mike and I decided to throw together a quick Hail Caesar bash. I eyeballed the ancients I have painted up, and the Romans were still outnumbering the barbarian hordes. To even things up I thought a scenario in which the Gauls began the game outnumbering the Romans with some Roman reinforcements en route would help even things up.

The Gauls began in battle array, staring across an open plain with a few scattered hills and woods at the Romans completing a river crossing with a third of their forces on the far side of the river. Find out if the Romans were able to get their lines formed up before the Gallic assault after the jump.

I was playing the Gauls. In previous games of Hail Caesar I had relied on command rolls and risky maneuvers that wound up in disastrous attacks against the Romans. This game I decided to move safely and methodically, using initiative moves (which don't require a command roll) to slowly move into mid field with my battle line, using the hill and woods to anchor my flanks.  My missile troops would stay in front of my main line to pepper the Romans with arrows and rocks, ready to retreat through my own lines if charged. My medium cavalry I kept in reserve, ready to exploit a gap, or cover my flank.

Throwing the scenario together we decided a unit could cross the river with a d6 roll of 4 or higher. The Romans placed their Cretan archers at the bend in the river to cover their own flank with ranged fire until they could get all of their troops across and formed up.

I stuck to my plan, moving forward slowly, but was surprised by both Roman units crossing the river in the first turn. Seeing things already starting to slip away from me, I rushed my missile troops forward. Some very lucky rolls broke my way and saw his Cretan archers broken after a single volley.

As I crept forward, the Romans used their time to dress their lines and send their Numidians towards my right flank. "Ah ha!" I thought, "Not a problem!" I sent my cavalry towards the gap on my right, ready to drive off the inferior Numidians.

My confidence was quickly shaken when Mike gave a division order to his entire line to rush my right flank. He rolled a triple move, and though his lines began to break up, it was clear I was suddenly in a terrible position.

I didn't think my main line was nimble enough to make it around the woods into his flank, and my cavalry wouldn't last line trying to hold off the Numidians plus four heavy infantry. I started shifting my line to try and get my infantry into the gap on my flank. One warband made it, but the remaining three warbands had to spend their turn consolidating in the hopes of charging into battle on a subsequent turn.

Gallic cavalry and a warband rush to halt the Romans threatening their flank...

while the remaining Gauls fall back and consolidate their line.

The Romans pelted my cavalry with pila and javelins, managing to disorder them repeatedly  I couldn't even charge his infantry with my disordered cavalry, so it fell to the single warband I managed to move into the gap to fend off his attack.

My missile troops fared better. They drew off two of his infantry units and the Numidians, and decent rolling kept the Romans disordered, and evading backwards out of their reach when charged.

In the gap, things quickly went south for my Gauls. My warband was destroyed  and follow up moves by the victorious legionnaires saw my cavalry surrounded and defeated.

Taking a look at the battlefield I realized I needed to fall back and redeploy on the ridge that was on my left flank.

My archers continued to fall back, but my slingers got caught between two of his infantry units.

Charged and unable to fall back into safe territory the slingers were overwhelmed. The Romans were taking a toll on my Gauls, but most of their units had taken a beating. I still had three fresh warbands, all still with their Wild Fighters ability ready to use. Wild Fighters allows any missed attacks to be rerolled on the first round of combat in the game, and with their huge number of dice available to the warband when it charges I thought I had a good chance of turning the battle around.

As the Romans redeployed my archers were even able to break one of their infantry units. This was totally going to work.

My Gauls, still fresh, held the high ground, and began pelting the Romans with javelins and arrows as their lines approached. Unfortunately, the Romans all had a hell of a throwing arm and were rolling quite a few more ranged dice than the barbarians. In an extended archery duel the odds were against me. With one of my warbands thrown back and disordered by Roman pila, I had no choice but to throw everything at the Roman line.

My surviving Gauls rushed forward, crushing and throwing back the Romans on one line, but unable to break through.

On the Roman turn they moved all of their troops into support. Against the crush of numbers and now using their sustained combat rating rather than their clash dice the Gauls fell before the onslaught of Rome.

Aftermath

As soon as the Romans got both of their units across the river on turn one I knew things were going to be tough for the Gauls. Despite the uphill climb and eventual defeat, this was a heck of a fun game. Do you see how much those lines shifted, redeployed, fell back and charged again? We were sure to check proximity to enemies, and did our best to make sure all of our moves were legal, and this battle was much more dynamic than I expected an ancients battle to be.

Mike and I both had to constantly refer to the rules (life's been busy, so we're both rusty) but we both agreed it was a fun battle. I keep bopping from one project to another, but some allies for the Gauls are in the pipeline so the next game won't be so lopsided.

In retrospect I can see a number of places where different decisions could have given me a greater chance of victory. I'd love to get some additional tactical advice though. What would you have done differently?

What was it like fighting behind a shield wall?

CC Licensed by Flickr user mararie

At the moment I've got 15mm Eastern Front for Fireball Forward in the wings, the Reaper mega delivery of fantasy figures coming this spring, and Warlord threatening to release plastic Caesarian Romans soon, so the only natural course of action when faced with so many projects is to start a new period. Of course.

I've heard the siren song of SAGA and been working on some dark ages terrain and a few test figures to try color schemes recently. I love the historical aspect of our hobby, so I've also been picking up Ospreys and pouring over articles and I've recently run into a few really interesting bits. "Behind the shield-wall: The experience of combat in late Anglo-Saxon England" is a masters thesis by Jordan Poss, written while attending Clemson University. What caught my attention was the paper's focus on the experience of the men in combat. What was it really like to march up the hill at Hastings, shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers, clutching a spear and shield before charging into battle?

Poss is an entertaining writer. He gives a general background of the political situations that lead to the set piece battles during the dark ages, explains the tactical challenges faced by the opposing armies at Maldon, Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge, and Hastings and then tries to get into the head of the men fighting toe to toe. Looking beyond the arms and armor to explore the role of fatigue, terrain and morale in these case study battles. His description of the experience fighting amongst the slain and wounded warriors and their disemboweled horses really stuck in my mind.  I've read a bit about the various battles of the Conquest but it was nice to revisit them for another view of these ancient struggles.

Architects of War Dark Ages Buildings

Architects of War was running a show special at Fall-In for a bundle of dark ages terrain I couldn't pass up. I painted up the Daub and Wood A-Frame and Timber A-Frame to go along with my wattle fences in anticipation of some SAGA. My thoughts and progress pics after the jump.

I'd heard the bare resin was resistant to paint and even typical game primer, so I hit both buildings with Krylon tan camo primer.

After priming I painted both buildings up with my standard terrain paints: cheap student artist acrylics and sample paint pints from the DIY store. I gave the exterior wood of both buildings a base of very dark gray (80% black + 20% gray) followed by several lighter mixes of gray. The exterior plastered walls were given a two coats of successively lighter shades (50% light brown + 50% bone white followed by 20% light brown + 80% bone white).

I took a look at a lot of photos of thatch roofs. As the light gold or tan of fresh thatch is exposed to the elements it gradually turns gray with lighter ivory highlights. I went for a slightly weathered look for my thatch. It took several different shades of drybrushing to get the effect I was looking for:

• 75% black and 25% gray base 
• Dry brush 50% black and 50% gray 
• Dry 20% brush black, 40% gray, 40% light brown 
• Dry brush 10% black, 45% gray, 45% bone white 
• Light dry brush 50% gray, 50% light brown 
• Light dry brush 50% gray, 50% bone white

Lit By Fire: Interior Light Effects

Other examples of these buildings I've seen included fully painted interiors. There's a lot of detail within the buildings that paints up nicely. The effect though, seemed as if the player was literally a giant lifting the roof off of the building and peering inside. I wanted to suggest something different, using paint to replicate the lighting situation so it felt as if the viewer was looking through the roof to the dimly lit interior. 

I started by giving the interior a spray coat of black primer, followed by a spray of tan primer centered on the fire pit at the center of each dwelling.

I went back and added more definition and shadows with straight black paint. I drybrushed the edges of any interior elements facing the fire pit with orange followed by a light drybrush of yellow on the items closest to the pits. 

I was pretty happy with the effect, which looks more realistic in dim light (but doesn't photograph as well).  I really enjoyed painting both buildings up. There's a ton of character and tiny details, and getting both buildings looking decent was easy. A+ Architects of War!