Dux Britanniarum

I played my first game of Dux Britanniarum from TooFatLardies on Saturday and I had a blast!! I thought the rules sounded good, but actually playing was even better then expected! I played the role of the Saxons using my Vikings in substitution until I can paint up some actual Saxons and my friend Nick from http://moitereisbuntewelt.blogspot.de/ used his lovely Late Romans.

Sorry, no pics of figures as I was just play testing to see if the rules work for me before committing to anything. As it turns out they did indeed work very well for me so more posts on  Dux Britanniarum will be coming soon! For sure one of the best skirmish games I've played and easily right up their with Operation Squad in terms of innovation!

Just to give a real quick overview of what Dux Britanniarum is in that it's a game set in what we often call the Arthurian period which is to say the period just after after the Romans packed up shop and left England to it's own devices in 410 AD. It pits the Romano-British (Romanized Britons) holding on to their land vs the Saxons( Germanic tribes) raiders who are trying to carve out a kingdom for themselves at the expense of the British inhabitants. The game is campaign based where you take the role of either a Romano-British Tribune(Junior Officer) his subordinate officers, and his military contingent or a Saxon Lord, his Nobles and his Warband where you both try to take and hold land and rise in status to either a King or Dux Britanniarum and of course establish your own Kingdom in the process. Later Picts, Irish and Scotti, will be added to the mix to compete for their own piece of the turf vs I suppose against themselves and British and Saxons.

The system requires very little bookkeeping to run, but allows a player to add more complexity if he wishes to do so. Rules can be a little tricky to find in the book at times(probably my own ineptitude), but once found are very easy to understand and so don't require constant checking later.

We decided to set the scene in Southern England in the Kingdom of Rhegin which consists of 9 or 10 provinces with Noviomagus Regnorum, Anderitum, Magnus Portus being the most important. I'm attacking from northern Germany via the sea and need to establish myself at some point on the coast and then move inland. However, I first need to make a few raids to acquire enough wealth and  prestige to be declared a Warlord before I can take any land.

 
We played a scenario involving a raid on a small village church that worked out well for Hamarolf "The Battler" my Saxon Lord in netting him a small victory and some coin to enrich his coffers. I was luck to cause enough casualties over my own to Nick that I was able to field a fully recovered force a month earlier then he could. I promptly declared another raid the next month. Nick was faced with the situation of either fielding a reduced force which could go pretty bad for him if he lost and so I think he wisely choose to let me conduct an uncontested raid where I could only acquire a small amount. However, this still put me in striking distance of becoming a Warlord if my next raid is successful. As said earlier once I achieve Warlord status I can actually attempt to take provinces. I've already started painting my Saxon Warband and so will post my results along with updating the campaign as we go along.

Time to hone the axes and hit the sea as I smell loot in the air!

The 15th Alabama Regiment

Back to the American Civil War. This is my latest regiment and they are from Sash and Saber and the flag from the GMB Designs. Clean up can be a little tricky, but not too bad and some of the areas are hard to get to. That said the figures pack a lot of character that I really enjoy and so off set any negative.

The 15th Alabama was formed in May 1861 originally under the command of James Cantey, but later was taken over by the aggressive William C. Oates in 1863 until he himself was replaced by Alexander A. Lowther in 1864 through political manoeuvres. It comprised 10 companies to include Cantey's Rifles, Fort Browder Roughs, and Henry Pioneers to name a few. Ages ranged from 13 to 70 believe it or not! Although the vast majority were likely late teens and twenties one would have to suppose.

They fought in almost all the major engagements of the Army of Northern Virginia to include The Valley Campaign, First and second Manasas(Bull Run), Seven Pines, First Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Boonesboro, Sharpesburg(Antietam), Fredricksburg, Suffolk campaign, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Knoxville, Wilderness, Spottslyvania, Hanover Junction, 2nd Cold Harbor, Siege of Petersburg, plus many others. However, probably the most important was the great snowball fight on January 29, 1863 between several regiments of the ANV(around 9,000 participated!). That must have been a sight to see!

Out of 1958 men listed on the regimental rolls throughout the conflict, 261 are known to have fallen in battle, with sources listing an additional 416 deaths due to disease , 218 were captured (46 died), 66 deserted and 61 were transferred or discharged. By the end of the war, only 170 men remained in the regiment.

An interesting bit for you Gettysburg fans in that this is the confederate regiment that opposed the 20th Maine on Little Round Top on July 2nd 1863. All the praise and spotlight has gone to the 20th Maine for their heroic stand on Little Round Top led by an equally heroic Col. Chamberlain and rightly so as they did save the union army that day I believe, however in fairness the 15th Alabama should be admired for their efforts as well. Bear in mind by the time the 15th reached the Little Round Top they had marched 20 miles in searing July heat fighting some skirmishes and sniper fire with canteens empty by this time and quite exhausted. They were thrown into the assault without a pause to fill their empty canteens up a rocky hill versus a fresh enemy dug in at the crest. They attacked not once, but five gut wrenching times before Oates ordered a retreat seeing how his men were in no condition to conduct a sixth attack. Unfortunately for the 15th this was exactly at the same time Chamberlain ordered his famous counter attack when out of ammo and caused the 15th to break. I take nothing away from either regiment and believe both fought like old angry mules and should be applauded for their bravery and commitment.

Another interesting fact was that while Chamberlain and Oats(the 15th's commander at Gettysburg) were amiable to each other after the war as both respected the other, they did however exchange some heated letters years latter as to how far the 15th got up the hill. The 20th Maine has a monument on Little Round Top which they should and Oats wanted to place one for the 15th and Chamberlain didn't object as he was an honourable fellow. However, because they could not agree as to how far up the hill the 15th reached a monument was never placed for the them on the Little Round Top. The veterans of the 15th made their own stone pile monument on the top of the hill, but Chamberlain had it removed  finding it inappropriate to the memory of the men of the 20th Maine who died ensuring the summit was never taken. It just goes to show you the pride men felt on both sides about the deeds and sacrifices they went through.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company- Sash and Saber

Warbase Ruins

I did this a few months ago and now have finally got around to posting it. It's my first Warbase building here and I started with the ruin for some WWII terrain. It's intended for 28mm and is made from laser cut MDF board. The walls are too thin, but I added some extra details like the shingles and broken bricks to add some depth to it, so overall I'm reasonably happy with the result as it works on the table.

The advantage of MDF buildings are they are cheap, very easy to assemble, and can give the the base parts of a structure that you can add on to saving you time of having to cut out the dimensions yourself. Also, the little fiddly parts like windows and doors they sell are very useful time savers. The negative is the buildings can be a little flat and boxy and the walls too thin so will need some extra attention to "fill them out" so to speak.

My overall opinion is I prefer resin and foam card buildings, but I will use some more MDF buildings here and there as they are great time and money savers and do fit the part.

*edit*Apparently, I sounded a bit negative which a reader very kindly pointed out which wasn't my intent at all. I was only trying to give a balanced opinion of which I seemed to have failed miserably.  I am happy with the product and for sure will be building more and I do recommend them to readers for the positive aspects I mentioned! I do like how it turned out especially for such a low cost in both money and time! A real bonus folks!:-)

Thanks for viewing!:-)

Miniature Company-Warbases

AWI Early American Contentials(10mm trail run)

Just finished and based my first regiment in 10mm as an experiment. Why some may ask and the answer is the common one in that it's darn cheap and I want to have some armies finished quick to try some rules out. While 28mm is my favourite scale and likely always will be, I wanted a second scale on the side to get a few armies done as it takes a long time in 28mm.  I find 15mm is faster then 28mm naturally, but it just isn't enough faster leaving me the feeling of I just wasted time better spent on 28mm. So, I'm now trying some 10mm in the hopes that it's considerably faster.

The sculpts are from Pendraken and are quite nice for the size as they really show a lot of detail for so small a figure and are priced great at 30 figures for around 4.70€. Ideal for building large armies or multiple armies. The detail is raised so are in fact easier to paint then 15mm in some ways. The flag is also Pendraken, but I re-painted it to add some more colour depth. I'm pretty happy with how they look and a whole army would be nice to have. Ok, that's the good part.

Here comes the negative. My eyes are getting old and so even with glasses the little buggers are hard to see causing me to miss parts of the model and having to go back. Also it's easy to slip with the brush and paint areas you don't want to. I know I could get an optivisor, but I don't like things on my head when painting or doing anything for that matter, but I may likely need one if I paint more 10mm. While they did paint faster then 15mm and of course 28mm it still required significantly more time then I had hoped. My whole purpose for 10mm was cheap and time efficiency. While it checks the box in cost it falls short of my expectations in speed.

I need to rest and regroup and try again latter which I will for sure. For now it's back to my beloved 28mm for the moment.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Pendraken

Maurice a second look

The opposing  armies meet across the battlefield

My friend Mike came over last week where we played our second game of  Maurice. I couldn't stand much as my back is really troubling me of late, so I did most things from a sitting position in true armchair general fashion. We played Maurice last summer and the experience was a mixed bag, where I liked the cards, but found the force structure a little hard to get my head around. However, I always felt I didn't give it a proper chance and so wanted to try again. Normally I know if I like a game first time around and seldom change my opinion after more games, but Maurice was genuinely a game where I wasn't sure how I felt and I'm very pleased I did try again as I had a fantastic time!

Why you may ask? The answer is I better understood the concept of the force structure combined with using the cards  or at least a more clear insight into some of it which enabled me to enjoy the game a whole lot more. I won't go into all the pro's and con's of the game or how it's played as that information is available on the Honour site, but I will mention a few things as I go along.

We decided to play " Imagi-nations" which is playing fictional armies in a real historical time frame. In this case we went with the 18th century which is the focus of Maurice. We grouped all of our SYW, FIW and AWI together as we don't have enough completed figures of any of those periods to play by themselves yet to do a proper historical battle and so all you absolute purists please look away now to avoid a unsightly mix of periods which could potentially upset you.:-) While we may prefer real historical armies "Imagi-nations" is fun too as it allows one to use what one has or simply cheery pick units you like from different armies and put them into one army of your own creation not to mention it works really well with Maurice.

We pooled our armies together and divided them equally with Mike receiving one extra unit for being the attacker(12 to 11 army points). Mike took the Austrians, Russians and half the Americans which we will call the Kingdom of Nuremberg for reference and I took the other half of the Americans, the French and British making up The Grand Duchy of Hollfeld. For right now and the near foreseeable future we will play equal armies until we have enough figures painted for each to build the standard 100pts force from their own personal collection. We also ignored the infantry and cavalry ratio of 3 to 1 and will continue to do so until we have enough cavalry completed to meet this requirement.  Also, we played without the terrain/scout special set up card or Nobles and National Advantages plus all units we counted as trained as we wanted to nail the mechanics down. We plan to add all these the next time around and in addition give two elite choices per army for extra flavour. One day we of course aspire to actual historical armies, but until then "Imagi-nations" will be the format for gaming Maurice.

I'll give a somewhat highlighted account of the battle so I'll leave out less dramatic activations. You can read Mikes excellent version of the battle here .

Mike began the game as the attacker and promptly opened up a cannonade to soften up my forces before launching a fast and furious assault with his small ruthless cavalry running down my equally small cavalry caught out in column with brutal efficiency thanks to a few choice cards he drew. However, my nearby infantry were able to exact a measure of vengeance and gunned down his hot blooded cavalry in a hail of lead.

At this point Mike realized he needed to advance his large compact infantry block if he was going to achieve any kind victory since I decided my army held the objective of the tower and didn't feel the need to move other then a few wheels to get a better position. So advance he did with drums and flutes signalling the advance in an attempt to overwhelm my thinner deployed formation and probably would have......except that I used a highly useful swamp event card and placed it right dab square in front of his advancing block which would disrupt any unit moving through it. Mike had no choice, but to bite the bullet and move through the swamp emerging on the other side of it in a bit chaos which I of course promptly took advantage of and unleashed a torrent of musket balls and cannister and nodding self satisfactory to myself in the belief I had him in bad way. However, to my surprise this did not destroy his force who through a feat of stubborn tenacity where able to actually stand and return a deadly fire of their own! The battle escalated into an almighty fire fight for the next few rounds with both our armies inflicting heavy losses.

Our troops were holding in there with both Mike and I staying about equal till we reached about 4 points left each at which point Mike cleverly used a nice little card to force one of my depleted units to charge his fresher one which sadly led to their demise and basically my whole left flank along with it! To add insult to injury my last artillery piece also went up in smoke. However, my troops where not quite ready to throw the towel in and with just 1 army point left managed to rally and counter attack and with lady luck smiling succeeded in destroying another of Mikes regiments bringing him to 1 army point left as well! The drama has now gone Hollywood at this point!

At this point our exhausted armies played a game of cat and mouse with both rallying then shooting or charging until we ran out of cards to draw from the deck.  I somehow managed to hold on to a few more cards at the very end giving me more time to rally and fire resulting in my lads breaking one of Mikes regiments and in the process his army at the very last moment!

Mike was an absolute gentlemen as always and the game could not have been better. It was a real nail biter down to the very last army point for both sides with all cards played and Mike holding the objective which he won through a real show of determination leaving me the only chance for victory was breaking his army before the very last card was used which is exactly what happened to my very good fortune! Major kudos to Mike for getting so very close as he had the more difficult task as the attacker and fought a outstanding battle. An amazing game and the kind of close one most of us gamers strive for.

There is no question Mike and I are very keen for another game of Maurice!

The Kingdom of Nuremberg

Some of the Nuremberg troops

The Grand Duchy of Hollfeld(minus one regiment not seen)

Some of the Hollfeld regiments

Mike prepares to unleash a cannonade

Mikes Hussars after running over my cavalry

Only to have themselves scattered by a hail of smoke and lead

The Nuremberg infantry advances without difficulty until an unexpected mire reveals itself

The armies clash in a maelstrom of smoke and repeated fusillades 

Casualties begin to mount at an alarming rate!

An undisciplined charge leads to near disaster for Hollfeld!

Hollfeld rallies after their flank collapses and mount a successful counter attack

 Barely giving Hollfeld a victory just moments before night falls leaving bodies to tell the story

Spanish Skirmishers

Slingers  above

I finished these a few days ago, but I haven't had time to publish them. They are some Spanish skirmishers for my El Cid Impetus army. I painted them in slightly less flashy colours(mostly browns and creams) to represent their lower peasant status.

I just recently had a game with Sir Toby vs his lovely Andalusians, but sadly my pictures came out so badly they truly are not worth publishing and I'm really quite disappointed about that! I hope his had more success when he finds time to publish his. The event in Ulm was great and I really enjoyed putting on the Impetus demo with Sir Toby! We plan to do another one in the future together, but we are not sure what just yet and so want to give some time to think it over first.

Now that the game day has passed and I'm free to paint other projects again and I find there is so much I want to do! I'll just have to figure out what, but I'm pretty excited and eager. I will return to my El Cid army, but for now on to other things!

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

Archers

Javelin #1

Javelin #2

The Parthians a focused Impetus supplement from Jim Webster

 As advertised from TMP:

Wargame Vault announces the availability of:

The Parthians; historical background – army lists – campaign game

Publisher: Jim Webster

The purpose of this guide is two-fold. On one hand, it is to give the interested wargamer a guide to the Parthian armies and those of their enemies, and to put the armies in a historical context. For many people, the Parthians are a vague presence on the eastern edge of the world. As this guide shows, they were really a bridge between civilizations, linking Rome with India, acting as a barrier to nomadic tribes moving westwards, and even having some contact with China.
The second purpose is to offer up some army lists (designed to fit with Impetus rules, but easy to follow, and equally easily converted for other wargames rules) to help those wargamers who use Impetus, and who want to field the armies described in the guide. The idea is that the lists will enable you to produce an army which is reasonably authentic, and as much as possible has some of the strengths and weaknesses of the original.
The third purpose is to provide a simple campaign to help players use their armies within their historical context.

Price: $6.12 USD

For more information


I've downloaded it and it's great! It does have Lorenzo's(Impetus author's) support for anyone concerned about the lists being "legal". Jim said he would do more if enough interest is shown. He already hinted at having some Pyrrhus material in the works and you already know that has my ears perked up!  For 5€ it's a bargain so pick yourself up a copy and support Jim and the Impetus game.

Christopher