What did you do during the first virus, Grandpa? #2

Spent some time through the week working on a few projects.

First up is Highlander infantry for the F&I war period.  I like these guys but knew they would be a bitch to paint, especially their socks. I tried several patterns of their kilt on my test model before settling on a much simpler plaid. I was finally satisfied with the colors, especially at a distance, and did a group of three.

A note about all these models and the Grenadiers: I swear they look much better in person! I seriously considered not posting these, because at super-macro, they look like shite. In the end I decided WTF? You'll just have to take my word for it: they look half decent in person.

These guys are based as skirmishers, meaning they will be in the woods. The rules set I prefer is Muskets & Tomahawks, and by rule, line companies cannot fight in rough terrain. That's why the guys below have just flock on their bases. And yes, I usually put a little more effort in my basing but these guys match what I did earlier with my F&I guys. I suggest you learn to live with it. I *do* like the little 28mm maple leaves I got from Green Stuff World. Check out their site. The 'sticks' are from a bag of Japanese tea.

Their socks are supposed to be white with red criss-cross stripes and a red garter. That ain't happening. Essentially, my painting is utilitarian, not art. If you want that I'll get some pics of my brother Chris' stuff; it should be in a magazine. Anyway, I may do a few with just plain white socks (and red garter), to see how they look. Don't judge me.

These guys are painted as the 40th and 48th British Grenadiers present at Braddock's Defeat which occured almost in my back yard back in the real world. Their mitres are really cool but there was no way I was going to be able to paint them accurately. (See below.) Instead, I tried to make a decent representation from arm's length. You be the judge if I succeeded or not.

Yeah, not painting that at 28mm.

The rest of my Band of Brothers. I now have about half a company (about 50 dudes); more than a platoon, with 2 MMG's. For my purposes, that'll do.

Here is the redeploying MMG. These are Warlord figs.

Some close ups.

I really like these guys and have discovered they are Artizan figs. (Remember, I get them on the black market.) Nice sculpts; not a lot of clean up work at all to get them ready to prime. Plus, I think they are proportionate for the most part. (Maybe some of their weapons are oversized.)

So, I've got 9 more Grenadiers and 15 more Highlanders to keep me busy for a little while. Not to mention the hordes of Dark Ages stuff looking at me.

Oh, fun fact: recently my Spell Check, and *only* my Spell Check disappeared from the tool bar on this blog. Isn't that cool? Well, fuck me, but there might be some misspellings (sp?) here and there. Feel free to point them out so that I may ignore you.

The End.

What did you do during the 1st virus, grandpa?

Just a quick update on a few of the projects I am currently working on. I've got a few actually, which is rare for me. I typically only have one thing going at a time; I complete it, and then I move on to the next one. It's actually quite frustrating sometimes as I will get bored with what I am working on but can't move on until I finish. The perils of OCD, I guess.

Anyway, having said that, I am trying to maintain a 'side project' while I work away on my primary one. I recently made a trade for 56 of the old LotR Riders of Rohan from 1976; the same line of figures we collected as kids. I only had 6 and wanted more, especially since I have many more orcs and Uruk Hai. It's hard to do a re-fight of the battle of the Pelennor Fields with only 6 Rohirrim! They were painted way back when by another 16 year old (at the time) whom I made the trade with. I have been reconstituting them between my painting of my U.S Airborne force. He apologized for the paint job but I told him no worries, I was just slapping paint on dudes myself, way back then, too.

Speaking of...

Here's a squad with 1st Lt. and medic. I 'ordered' 30 of the figs overall, of which 12 others are painted. Nine to go.

I am not sure who the maker of these figs are. In a shady deal several months ago, a guy from TMP contacted me and let me know he could get certain figures for me at $1 each. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. I have bought a few hundred figures from him since! Haha, I've no idea what the deal is and don't care. I tell him what I want, Paypal him the money, and metal figs show up at my door a few days later. It works for me.

Oh yeah, he also can't count! (Do the math above.) I always get more than I pay for. From as little as one figure too many to as much as doubling my order; I never get the correct amount. The first few times, I offered to pay him for them, or in the case of sending me 24 figs instead of 12, offered to return the extra, but he always says it's no problem. Who knows.

Front and back of the same figure. I always get a few duplicates but that's to be expected. And once they are mixed in with others, you never notice.

Here's some of the Rohirrim as I received them in the trade. (BTW, I sent him a bunch of micro-armor in exchange. We were both very happy; I think. He kept some for himself which I think is great! There is nothing like those first figs you ever got!)  In gamer terms, at least most of these are painted and use-able if you really wanted to play, but this was not how I was going to leave them: I wanted them to match my own figs that I reconstituted several years ago.

Here they are after a quick touch up, and I really mean quick. Some paint and some Army Painter washes and viola, looking like new once again. I am doing them in groups of 5. I have 15 done and 41 to go, usually while waiting for my Airborne washes to dry.

As with our own figs from that era, I always try to leave something on the model as an homage to the original paint job. In the case of these guys, it is their shields. I didn't touch any of them.

I'm really kind of sad that I can't take the entire line of these figs I own with me when I die. I don't play with them often enough; I need to change that.

So, after I complete the Airborne I am going to try something different and try to paint two units at once. I have lots of stuff primed and sitting on the shelf looking at me with pleading eyes, just begging to be painted. They include (about a dozen each) Late Roman Infantry, 8 cataphracted cavalry, British F&I War Grenadiers *and* 18 F&I War Highlanders (yay, I get to paint plaid!), F&I War French Line infantry, Anglo-Saxon sword and shield men, Viking two handed axe men, some native Americans and a few WW2 odds and ends, including a Soviet 50mm mortar team, a 'redeploying' Airborne MMG team and one lonely German officer who I stepped on and broke his head. I finally got around to re-gluing it and priming him.

That should get me through this virus and the next two or three that come down the pike.

Some Recent Games (Saga, Song of Blades and Heroes, and LotR SBG)

I wanted to post some pics of some recent games that never made the blog. While maybe not all that recent, there's some good pics nonetheless. This is more of a pictorial essay, so enough of me and let's get straight to it.

The set-up for Saga. We play the good edition, not the money sucking GW model newer editions. This game featured the Late Romans vs. Saxons somewhere in Britain in the 5th century. The Romans deployed their two units of hearth guard behind the wood with the idea that they could react and go either way while being hidden from the slings and arrows of their outrageous enemy.

The Saxon Warlord. I fucking love this figure. It reminds me of an old friend long dead who often struck this pose on the battlefield,

Fyrd. Thinking WTF? right about now.

The bloody Romans. Shield transfers from Little Big Man studios. Shout out to them; their products are great! ( I hand painted all the Saxon shields.)

Legionnaires in the woods.

The Saxon Hearth Guard running to keep up with Gorath the Warlord.

Who doesn't like chicken?

Gorath gets caught in the open, his aggression is his demise. 13 attack rolls later, he was kaput.

More Romans.

More Saxons.

My Roman archers who did two things all game: jack and shit.

Set up for Songs of Blades and Heroes. I had been wanting to get this game on the table for years and it was good to finally do so. The results made me want to play again. It's quick, easy and an excuse to use those old/odd figures we don't use so often.

Goblin archers hide behind a rock from approaching Tengu.

Beastman Guard looking for a fight.

They've got a cave troll, I think. Oops, wrong game.

One of Chris' stellar models.

Both sides advance.

The Troll Slayer meets the giant centipede. While this fight was inconclusive, it ended shortly after with the Beastmen carrying the field.

This is a good game. Try it if you can.

Off to Moria and the LotR Strategy Battle Game. This is the first edition of the game. (I'm not sure how many times GW has had people re-buy it since, but this is the same game.)

We all know Balin died in Moria, so we decided to tempt fate and see how he and 40 of his best mates would fare against the Balrog. We played that the dwarves would win by either exiting Balin off the far edge or killing the Balrog. 12 turns.

Some of Moria's finest.

We used our old Ral Partha figs, still the best range for LotR IMO. These guys are 44 years old. (That's young for a dwarf, right?)

Armored goblins with spear support.

There he is, in all his terrifying glory. My father painted that model in 1976.

These goblin figs, especially the guys in skull helmets, may very well be my favorite models of all time.

The dwarves push inexorably forward, brushing aside the Balrog's puny goblin detail. Meanwhile, he was using his lash every turn to grab a dwarf and bring it into close combat where he would pulp it. If you look on the far left, you can see Balin. On the 3rd turn, the Balrog used his lash on him, dragged him in an did 4 wounds. Now we know how Balin died.

Fiercely and quickly, the Khazad Guard cuts through the goblins.

The first dwarf hits the bridge! He died.

The Balrog come to us. On the 3rd turn we made base to base contact with the beast. And for 9 consecutive turns he won the fight roll (getting at least one '6' eight times ((meaning he automatically won)) and on the 9th try we had 10 chances to beat a 4 and could not.)

So he killed an average of 3 dwarves a turn for the next 9 turns. The dwarves never won a fight roll, never touched him. He exited with no wounds gone for a starting 10.

I guess this is what happens when you fight a Balrog. Observe Balin's crumpled body on the bridge where the demon left him. At least he didn't fall into the chasm so he can be entombed later.

Lots of fun games and cool pics. I hope you enjoyed.

Battle at the Fords of Isen

Back in the 'Burgh for some old time gaming with my buds. We chose to do a LotR scenario on the battle of the Fords of Isen using GW's Strategy Battle Game, or whatever they are calling it this time to get people to purchase it again. Regardless, it is a great game and well suited to multi-player scenarios. This one was 'from the book'. Since, in the author's story, Theodred, son of Theoden, died at the battle, our scenario was won by the Rohirrim by keeping him alive. What a different story it would have been!

Rohan got 8 each archers, javelin men and sword and weapon guys with reinforcements of 10 or 12 riders, and the heroes Theodred and a foot hero, can't remember his name. He may have been a GW construct, or someone Tolkein named once.

Evil got a shit ton of uruk hai, including 8 archers and about a half dozen hyena riders and 8 sacrificial Dunlandings. They also had Lurtz and a Dunlanding hero with a big ass sword.

Older, but still so goddam handsome!

Terrain was simple, though we added a few trees. One of which ended up with about 200 arrows in it, but that story comes later.

Mondo and I were Good. We split the starting forces equally, each getting 4 bows, 4 javelins and 4 sword and board schleppers. I had the command of Theodred, who instantly hid behind his men. We weren't sure if archers could see him over the other guys as he was mounted but ruled they could not. so he stayed safe behind his human shield.

(Sorry, pictures are shit because I forgot my camera and had to use my phone.)

Mondo's guys. Note that they are uncharacteristically all facing the correct way.

The bad guys face us. I admit I was more than a little scared. Set for 12 turns, I fully expected to play about 2 before we were destroyed. I was eyeing Mondo's board games to see what we would play next!

I set up the forward guys to act as a speed bump. By rule, models cannot pass by any other model by less than an inch. So, I set up 7/8 of an inch apart in an effort to slow down the Evil horde and pray for the reinforcements.

Great GW models. It's not their fault Peter Jackson turned wolves into hyenas.

Great fucking beard.

So the proverbial shit hits the fan. As is their wont, the orcs swarm across the Isen. 

While the rest of the battle may appear to be rather static and boring, it was quite the opposite. While it may have been physically static, the rules are such that there is constant tension, even in a battle line like this one pictured. With Priority (who goes first) being a roll off each turn and with Heroes who have special Might Points to change die rolls and other abilities to circumvent who moves and attacks first, it is quite fun and tense.

Three things of note here: first, in the lower right, my two remaining archers hunker down behind a tree. Note that there are four orc archers across the river. My two killed twice their number while the orcs put arrow after arrow after arrow into the tree. It was comical (for us, not so much for them.)

Second, the very end of our line on the right were stalwart to the highest degree! They should have died so many times but simply refused to do so and killed twice their number. (Translation: their dice sucked all day and ours didn't.)

Lastly, having failed 6 times to roll for our reinforcements, and with our line wavering Theodred charges Lurtz on the left side before the latter can single handedly turn our flank. Lurtz is bad news and no mistake. Luckily, he had taken an arrow wound and was down to two wounds when Theodred charged home. Some lucky rolling and the use of a Might point and Lurtz was taken out by our hero.

Finally, our reinforcements arrive and things look bad for Evil.

That's kind of the way it is with this game: it's really close and then it all goes to shit for one side or the other. That's not a gripe; it's just that when it goes south, it goes south in a big hurry. Once you hit 50% casualties, every model has to take  a Courage test to stick around. Well, you can imagine the Courage level of orcs, in this case.

We did realize that Good had also hit their 50% mark but with better Courage and even better rolls, many of them stuck around and all of a sudden there were about 2 or 3 Evil models left. We mercifully called it.

Even the Dunlandings got into the fight, but it was too little, too late. 3 of my original 4 guys in the original speed bump are still there!

Great game, great time an great food prepared by our hosts: Mondo and Jenn. It was great to see everyone and Gabriel even chose to stay rather than go to his scheduled D&D game! That's says something;

It's a very good game: easy to learn but has a surprising amount of nuances that are difficult to master.