Impetus game and the state of the hobby on the hill

Spanish Christians vs Andalusian Moors

Last month Nick and I played a double header of  big battle Basic Impetus and as often is the case the pictures didn't come off as well as I would have liked, but I'll share them anyways. It of course was great fun!

First game was Late Romans vs Germanics which is a mixture of both Nick and my own figures. Nick took command of the Late Romans and myself the Germanic. If I remember correctly the hairy Germans rolled over the Romans. It helped that my dice were pretty hot that game. Sorry only these two pictures somewhat came out for this game.

The Late Romans

The Germans

The next game we played was Spanish Christians vs Andalusian Moors with the figures from my own collection. The pictures came out a bit better for this game, but still not as good as I would have liked. I took command of the Spanish and Nick the Moors. Again my dice remained hot and Nick's unfamiliarity with his army pretty much saw the Moors routed from the field. As always Nick remained cheerful and great games were had by us both.

The two armies face off

The Moors arrayed for battle

Andalusian light cavalry and Christian Mercenaries

Black Guard and Berber Infantry holding the center

Berber infantry and Skirmishers protecting the flank

Christian army formed up. Lots of heavy cavalry on flanks with a decent amount of infantry center

Didn't I say the lots of Heavy cavalry for the Spanish

Yep, more cavalry

Spanish launch an assault on the Moors left flank

And turn the flank.

I need to increase the size of my forces especially the Moors as they need a lot more infantry so I can play them as Almoravids and Almohads. I also need to make some special command bases as I expect the newer versions of Impetus will be using those.

Next topic is:

During Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge I won a prize for reaching a goal. The prize was a gift package from Simon from The BigRedBat Cave blog and author of "To the Strongest" ancients/medieval rule set. He not only sent me a copy of the rules but playing chits as well and all of it free charge to include shipping! Extremely generous and thank you very much Simon!! I haven't had a chance to play the rules, but I've heard only good things about them and book itself is lovely indeed!

Please check out his:

Blog-  http://bigredbat.blogspot.de/
Shop- http://bigredbatshop.co.uk/
Forum- http://tothestrongest.yuku.com/

And finally my plans in the future will of course include more Impetus projects with some ACW thrown in, but another rule set that has caught my eye that I want to try and that is....

Yes sir, like many others this has grabbed my attention, but for now I'll keep it a little secret as to what it will be building for this, but let's just say since I was a kid a certain film has always peeked my interest in the period and no it's nothing you have seen from me so far. Oh and I won't answer guesses:-)

For some reason blogger didn't post this until 5 hours later! Well at least it finally got posted.

 

More Almoravid Berbers

With the addition of these combined spear and bow Berber units I now have enough units to field a Basic Impetus Almoravid army which is quite nice! However, I  plan to grow the army further as my opposing Spanish Christian army is already quite large and the Almoravids will need to grow to match them which will of course open up even more gaming possibilities.  As we all know armies are never really finished are they.

These Berbers were painted using the same earthy palate as the rest of the army with some green to tie them altogether. The shields and banner were hand painted to keep the look I wanted. The figures themselves are a mix of Artizan and Gripping Beast with done with AP and added highlights.

I have more Almoravids on the way, but I think some horse and musket might creep in between first, but I'm not sure yet.

The friendly side challenge(Bavarian Challenge)between myself and Nick in the Analogue Hobbies Challenge is going at a pretty good pace with both of us always remaining within striking distance of each other so I'm pretty curious to see who will come out on top. Anyhow I'm pretty pleased with the pace I've managed to maintain regardless of the outcome as my cabinet keeps getting fuller which feels great.:-)

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Artizan, Gripping Beast

Almoravid Light Cavalry

Continuing on with my 28mm Almoravid Impetus army with some light cavalry additions. They consist of two Berber units with javelins and one unit of Guzz with composite bows. Normally my Almoravids are a mix of manufactures, but these units are all Artizan which imho are some of the best in terms of Moor figures around.

I stayed with the low key earthy theme colours with just a bit of green as with the rest of the army. The shields are hand painted as I wanted to keep a certain look as with previous units I've done.

More Almoravids on the way next week hopefully if things stay on course and maybe something else if I can manage.

Almoravid Black Guard

My enthusiasm for adding more to my Impetus Almoravid army continues into the new year. I decided having a Black Guard unit in my Almoravid army was a must as they are both elite and look quite intimidating and if you have seen El Cid they give the quintessential Almoravid look.

I decided to equip the whole regiment with Hippo shields which is made from hippopotamus hides which looks either dark brownish or greyish depending on how it is cured. I prefer the brown and went with that. I feel the darker shields combined with the black clothes gives the unit an even more sinister and intimidating look. In addition to the black clothes the uniformed shields will further help differentiate them from the wooden ones carried by the rest of the Almoravids and mark them out as an elite unit within the army.

The figures themselves are a mix of Artizan and Gripping beast. I made a few modifications by adding veils to some of the figures that didn't have them to keep uniformity. One would think all black would paint up fast, but actually it didn't as I had to use several layers of grey adding gradually to get the effect I wanted thus taking longer then anticipated. The banners were downloaded then hand painted by myself.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Artizan, Gripping Beast

Almoravid Berbers

I've finally got around to starting my Impetus Almoravid army to of course provide opposition for my  El Cid army.  My Caballeros were tired of sitting around a table throwing dice waiting for somebody to fight.

This was my test regiment consisting of Berber spear supported by archers. The figures are a mix of Gripping Beast, Artizan and Musketeer(Footsore) miniatures. I wanted my Almoravids to have a fairly strong contrast to my slightly colourful Spanish so I went for a very sombre low key look to reflect the dour and strict mindset of the Almoravids. I did this by choosing very earthy natural colours of  creams with shades of brown and then adding some black and white in the mix. Lastly I choose a dark green as a both an army unifier and a contrasting colour that wasn't too strong. The shields I also kept very minimalistic in keeping with my theme. Like my El Cid army I used ap with highlights added. All shields and the banner were painted by myself.

So far things are going to plan which has motivated me to moving more units on to the painting table and getting prepared for painting later this month. I'm happy I finally started the project as it's been too long!

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Gripping Beast, Artizan, Musketeer(Footsore)

  

Impetus now avaliable on Digital + my plans

Impetus here my favourite Ancients/Medieval rule set will soon be released in Digital format by Wargames Vault for those looking for a more inexpensive way to try or own the rules. The rule set will be the original version so you will need to get any errata from the Impetus web site which is of course free.

I expect the period supplements will follow at some point, but in the time being there are lists included in the book to get you started. Impetus without doubt looks better then game out there with it's approach to diorama type basing which also has the added benefit of making transportation and casualty removal much easier. The game rewards good strategic play, but with a healthy dose of chance where the game can change around which keeps players on their toes and involved. Basically, if you play good your likely to win, but it's far from guaranteed. It also has a nice new forum to visit here and where your questions are pretty quickly answered often by the author himself and a blog here.

Some samples from my El Cid army based for Impetus that I did awhile back:

So, if you were ever curious about Impetus now is the time to check it out!

On to other issues.....I'm not an especially prolific poster but even for me lately things have been pretty slow around here for the past couple months with the heat and just a general lethargy that has set in. I'm having problems focusing on any one thing and just keep starting and stopping which in effect has left me with quite a few half painted units sitting on my desk.

One issue I'm having is scale for Ancient/Medieval periods. Ancient/Medieval gaming really benefits from having multiple armies to game to keep things interesting so this poses problems.  I just can't decide if I should focus on 15/18mm or 28mm.  15/18mm is far more practical in terms storage, gaming space and quicker to finish armies making variety much more possible, but I really prefer the look of 28mm armies and games plus it's frankly more fun to paint and easier to do as my eyes get older, but of course it takes a lot longer to finish armies reducing variety and needs more storage. It's been such a conundrum for me that I really have not done nearly as much as I would have liked by now as I'm always in a state of procrastination on it!

Fortunately, I don't have this issue with horse and musket armies (which are also nice in small scales btw,) but I have solidly decided on my preferred larger 28mm awhile back ( AWI/ACW/SYW )as variety is not quite as important and fighting the same opposition does not get boring due to the historical line up. I find with these periods once you have the core forces to have a game it's only a matter of adding units at your leisure to make bigger games which is just fine with 28mm.

Skirmish goes without saying in that 28mm is ideal scale for whatever period and is pretty self explanatory so doesn't present any issues with me.

Currently working on ACW, AWI, LR, Ayyubbids, SCW etc....................... oh well the life of a gamer I suppose....