Saturday, March 31, 2012
Field of Glory- Napoleonics. My copy arrived.
Hi all
I've just received my copy of 'Field of Glory, Napoleonics'. First impressions are that it is a very well presented product. The book is very well constructed. By that I mean it's well bound and looks and feels like it will hold together. If you've ever held the Field of Glory, Ancients books you'll know what I mean.
Good news for me is I won't need to do any rebasing to play a game. As some of you might know I use LASALLE as my preferred rules, so if FoG-N takes off, my 18mm armies are good to go.
Anyway, I'll give these rules a good read and hopefully get a game in soon. I'll post a review after I've pushed some miniatures around.
Cheers
Friday, February 17, 2012
LANDWASTER '11. As viewed from BOTH sides of a battlefield
Hi All
Last year I played in LANDWASTER, a DBA tournament in Canberra. This was my 2nd tournament for the year and it had been my 2nd tournament in about the last 4 or 5 years.
In game 4 of the 6 rounds I was matched against my old mate Doug.
He posted a series of game reports from LANDWASTER, so I thought it would be noval to add my comment to the report he posted about our encounter in round 4.
I figured some of you might find it interesting to read about the battle as seen from both sides of the table.
My comments in BIG BLUE BOLD ITALICS.
Soooo over to Doug for the report:
GAME 4
At least I think this was game 4... Things were getting Hazy.. anyway - Scott (Trailape) is a top bloke to play against, hard but fair, and up for a laugh. As was customary by now.. the Waterway went down.. (groan). His army was a mix of Spear and Chariot cavalry led by Hector, looking splendid in his red chariot and shining armour.
ABOVE: Hector on my right, this wasn't the final deployment.
This wasn't the final deployment, with Hector switching to the centre and a Blade element (more of him later) moving to support two chariots on my right.
ABOVE: See those blokes with the bald heads second from the left in the front rank? Grrrrrrr....
I decided to mass my cavalry on my right and overwhelm the two cavalry in front of me then turn the line. Scott decided the best form of defence was attack and as I threw the column foward beside the waterway, he charged me with his two cavalry chariots - I had bow turning behind the column, and suddenly realised that the two Bw elements turning behind couldn't be pushed back and could cost me dearly!
This was my plan exactly. Initialy I was a tad aprehensive as Doug is a very experianced and canny player. His Bw was of concern to me on his right, so moving my Blade (Lukka Warriors) to that flank was a ploy to try and nulify them. Once I saw his 'blunder' with the column on his right I saw an opportunity to sieze the initiative on that flank and in turn roll up his flank.
LESSON ONE of DBA:
DBA is a excellent game for 'siezing' the opportunity, as usually one mistake can be fatal. With most systems, (such as DBM DBMM and FoG for example) you can bounce back from a single error. In DBA it's normally one mistake that can unravel the whole plan.
Luckily for me, the dice gods smiled on me, (oh.. how were they to turn!) and I threw off the first assault at 2-3, then moved out to get my own overlap and got a 4-1 to take out one of his chariots.
Unluckily for me! I really should have made more of this opportunity, but to then have potential success turn in to abject failure was quite disasterous. For the initial attack to fail was bad enough, but to then have the '4-1' result take a chariot out was just plain horrible!
By now I had elements pouring into the space on my right, behind and flanking the spear and blade that were left there as the second Trojan chariot succumbed. On my left I kept Hector and his other Chariot amused with Auxilia and Bw in a wood, supporting my remaining cavalry and LH that were facing off his Sp line in the centre.
Now both Chariots on my left were destroyed, and things looked very grim.
Lesson TWO of DBA:
Even when all seems lost, fight your way back into the game. If luck can be harsh (see Doug's comments on my failed Infantry assault below) she can also be forgiving. NEVER SAY DIE.
I had some extraordinary luck holding the Spear off (in one bound I had 5 combats and rolled 4 x 6 and a 2.. unfortunately the two was against that pesky Blade.. and the sixes weren't enough to do damage to supported spear). I was lucky not fleeing & sticking too much, as that would allow the Spear to contact me front and flank, but in the meantime, victory was turning to disaster on my right. I managed to kill the Sp with Cv in front and side at 3-3, but the remaining Blade (remember him?) was beating off all attacks.. and then to add insult to injury, got a 6-1 to kill a cavalry in front of him.
Clearly my redeployment was a stoke of genius. My Lukka Warriors obviously had a taste for horse flesh, (maybe they were Gauls).
I took a chance at a flank attack on his main spear line, which didn't come off at 3-3, and in return lost the cavalry attempting it. by this stage I was now two elements down, Scott was three down, and all I needed to do was kill this last Blade element, which was now completely isolated and surrounded by LH and Cv. For several bounds this went on, either sticking or throwing me back, I threw a bow in behind a spear hoping to recoil it into the bowmen with my cavalry, another fail... and lost the bow.. By now it was 3 elements each.
See notes on LESSON TWO. With the Lukka warriors fighting like Spartans in a narrow defile, I needed to now do a redeployment and get some support to them. Their luck wouldn't hold out for ever,...
I shot at his charioteers at 4-3.. several times, another fail, and still I couldn't kill the axemen as Hector drove his red chariot the width of the field to crash into the rear of my horsemen attacking the axemen, who again threw their opponents back, to die beneath the hooves of Hector's chariot horses. Game over, and I had gone down.
Hector to the rescue! By consistently using a pip each turn I was able to extract Hector and drive him across from the far flank to assist the Lukka Warriors. Hector insisted he saved them, by the lukka's assert that they had just been "having fun with the horsies".
A fun game, but one in which the dice played a disproportionate part. I was lucky to get away with surviving the first chariot charge, but after that the combat dice were not in my favour. Where I didn't need high dice, I was getting them as in the centre vs his spear, and yet time and again, needing to roll 3 or higher to get that last element I just couldn't do it.
LESSON THREE of DBA:
Just when you need a high roll, you can be sure you have at least a 50% chance of getting a low one.
Scott's Blades should be rewarded with dancing boys, gold ornaments and some clothes. But yet again, I was left thinking that my troops didn't have enough punch to finish an enemy off when I felt he should have been on the ropes.
My lads are Trojans,.... not Greeks! Dancing Girls and a nice Horse steak was reward enough.
You can find all reports from all 6 rounds at Doug's BLOG: A LEAD ODYSSEY
Last year I played in LANDWASTER, a DBA tournament in Canberra. This was my 2nd tournament for the year and it had been my 2nd tournament in about the last 4 or 5 years.
In game 4 of the 6 rounds I was matched against my old mate Doug.
He posted a series of game reports from LANDWASTER, so I thought it would be noval to add my comment to the report he posted about our encounter in round 4.
I figured some of you might find it interesting to read about the battle as seen from both sides of the table.
My comments in BIG BLUE BOLD ITALICS.
Soooo over to Doug for the report:
GAME 4
At least I think this was game 4... Things were getting Hazy.. anyway - Scott (Trailape) is a top bloke to play against, hard but fair, and up for a laugh. As was customary by now.. the Waterway went down.. (groan). His army was a mix of Spear and Chariot cavalry led by Hector, looking splendid in his red chariot and shining armour.
ABOVE: Hector on my right, this wasn't the final deployment.
This wasn't the final deployment, with Hector switching to the centre and a Blade element (more of him later) moving to support two chariots on my right.
I decided to mass my cavalry on my right and overwhelm the two cavalry in front of me then turn the line. Scott decided the best form of defence was attack and as I threw the column foward beside the waterway, he charged me with his two cavalry chariots - I had bow turning behind the column, and suddenly realised that the two Bw elements turning behind couldn't be pushed back and could cost me dearly!
This was my plan exactly. Initialy I was a tad aprehensive as Doug is a very experianced and canny player. His Bw was of concern to me on his right, so moving my Blade (Lukka Warriors) to that flank was a ploy to try and nulify them. Once I saw his 'blunder' with the column on his right I saw an opportunity to sieze the initiative on that flank and in turn roll up his flank.
LESSON ONE of DBA:
DBA is a excellent game for 'siezing' the opportunity, as usually one mistake can be fatal. With most systems, (such as DBM DBMM and FoG for example) you can bounce back from a single error. In DBA it's normally one mistake that can unravel the whole plan.
Luckily for me, the dice gods smiled on me, (oh.. how were they to turn!) and I threw off the first assault at 2-3, then moved out to get my own overlap and got a 4-1 to take out one of his chariots.
Unluckily for me! I really should have made more of this opportunity, but to then have potential success turn in to abject failure was quite disasterous. For the initial attack to fail was bad enough, but to then have the '4-1' result take a chariot out was just plain horrible!
By now I had elements pouring into the space on my right, behind and flanking the spear and blade that were left there as the second Trojan chariot succumbed. On my left I kept Hector and his other Chariot amused with Auxilia and Bw in a wood, supporting my remaining cavalry and LH that were facing off his Sp line in the centre.
Now both Chariots on my left were destroyed, and things looked very grim.
Lesson TWO of DBA:
Even when all seems lost, fight your way back into the game. If luck can be harsh (see Doug's comments on my failed Infantry assault below) she can also be forgiving. NEVER SAY DIE.
I had some extraordinary luck holding the Spear off (in one bound I had 5 combats and rolled 4 x 6 and a 2.. unfortunately the two was against that pesky Blade.. and the sixes weren't enough to do damage to supported spear). I was lucky not fleeing & sticking too much, as that would allow the Spear to contact me front and flank, but in the meantime, victory was turning to disaster on my right. I managed to kill the Sp with Cv in front and side at 3-3, but the remaining Blade (remember him?) was beating off all attacks.. and then to add insult to injury, got a 6-1 to kill a cavalry in front of him.
Clearly my redeployment was a stoke of genius. My Lukka Warriors obviously had a taste for horse flesh, (maybe they were Gauls).
I took a chance at a flank attack on his main spear line, which didn't come off at 3-3, and in return lost the cavalry attempting it. by this stage I was now two elements down, Scott was three down, and all I needed to do was kill this last Blade element, which was now completely isolated and surrounded by LH and Cv. For several bounds this went on, either sticking or throwing me back, I threw a bow in behind a spear hoping to recoil it into the bowmen with my cavalry, another fail... and lost the bow.. By now it was 3 elements each.
See notes on LESSON TWO. With the Lukka warriors fighting like Spartans in a narrow defile, I needed to now do a redeployment and get some support to them. Their luck wouldn't hold out for ever,...
I shot at his charioteers at 4-3.. several times, another fail, and still I couldn't kill the axemen as Hector drove his red chariot the width of the field to crash into the rear of my horsemen attacking the axemen, who again threw their opponents back, to die beneath the hooves of Hector's chariot horses. Game over, and I had gone down.
Hector to the rescue! By consistently using a pip each turn I was able to extract Hector and drive him across from the far flank to assist the Lukka Warriors. Hector insisted he saved them, by the lukka's assert that they had just been "having fun with the horsies".
A fun game, but one in which the dice played a disproportionate part. I was lucky to get away with surviving the first chariot charge, but after that the combat dice were not in my favour. Where I didn't need high dice, I was getting them as in the centre vs his spear, and yet time and again, needing to roll 3 or higher to get that last element I just couldn't do it.
LESSON THREE of DBA:
Just when you need a high roll, you can be sure you have at least a 50% chance of getting a low one.
Scott's Blades should be rewarded with dancing boys, gold ornaments and some clothes. But yet again, I was left thinking that my troops didn't have enough punch to finish an enemy off when I felt he should have been on the ropes.
My lads are Trojans,.... not Greeks! Dancing Girls and a nice Horse steak was reward enough.
You can find all reports from all 6 rounds at Doug's BLOG: A LEAD ODYSSEY
Monday, January 30, 2012
CANCON 2012
BELOW: Prussian Landwehr V French Line.
Well I attended CANCON this year and I must say it was a hoot.
The three day event normally sees me playing all three days, (in the past DBM).
This year I just wanted to relax a bit more, so settled one day (Day 1) of shopping and 'looking around' and then playing 'SONGS OF DRUMS AND SHAKOS' (SDS) on the Saturday and DBA V2.2 on the Sunday.
SDS was a lot of fun. I'd only played a couple of games before, so the whole experiance was a bit of a learning experiance.
ABOVE and BELOW: My Brits give those French scoundrels a bit of a touch up.
BELOW: Egged on by Colour Sergeant Thompson, my Riflemen dispatch some Frenchmen
Trotting out my trusty Tojans I managed to finished 9th out of 30. On handicap I apparently came 3rd, so not a bad result.
Rd 2 saw me victorious over a medieval Cypriot army. Rd 3 and we defeated Alexander's Macedonians. Rd 4 and we defeated Sung Chinese. Rd 5 and Free Company got the better of us, but a Rd 6 victory over Goths restored honour.
BELOW: The DBA comp in full swing.
BELOW: The shortest DBA gamer I've ever seen. It was great to see so many youngsters playing a 'Historical' game.
BELOW: Travel buddy Stan does battle in only his 2nd ever DBA comp with Sub-Roman Brits. He finished 10th. Not a bad effort!
As usual for CANCON the trade stalls appeared to be busy.
BELOW: Dragon Painting Service (DPS) with Carlo at the helm appeared to have sold a swag of beautifully painted miniatures. I purchased the best part of a new 7 Years war Prussian Army ( all Front Rank miniatures). I suspect Carlo could sell Pork Sausages to Arabs.
BELOW: Between DBA games, a view across one of the game halls.
BELOW: A CANCON regular! Nic and EUREKA MINIATURES. As usual Nic was a pleasure to chat to and always had something new on offer. For me it was 28mm Saxon Guard du Korps Cavalry 1812! (I'll post a review of these magnificent miniatures soon).
Below: My Trojans envelope Alexander and his Macedonians.
BELOW: The following photos from my battle with the SUNG CHINESE commanded by the talented David Lawrence..
The Sung Artillery was of great concern, but by sending my 'Lukka' Blades, 'Hittite' Auxilia and an element of 'Trojan Archer' Psilo through the woods (green felt), I managed to destroy the Chinese bow on David's left flank, sweep through and capture his camp and attack his artillery in the flank.
BELOW: End game for the SUNG.
The results of the DBA COMP were as follows, (and Directly from the Organiser Greg Kelleher) :
"Well DBA at Cancon has come and gone for another year. This year there were 30 players with 6 being juniors. The major prizes went to:
1st place Marcus Treganza
2nd place Stephen Hopkins
3rd place Chris Burg
Junior Champion: Bas Braham
Executioner award Chris Hersey
As can be seen from the list of armies below there was a great spread across the four books. Certainly the Early Hebrews proved to be the surprise army of the tournament.
As always I would like to thank our very generous sponsors Essex Miniatures Australia for providing trophies and prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, Baudea for providing the junior champion prize and Hall of Ancient Warriors for providing the prize for the executioner award.
And thanks to you all. Without your participation there would be no tournament.
Player Army Score Count Back
Marcus Treganza IV/03 Anglo Norman 44 202
Stephen Hopkins IV/66 Later Polish 44 186
Chris Burg I/27 Early Hebrew 43 218
Peter Bismire II/03 Classical Indian 41 201
Jason Dickie IV/13a Medieval German 38 192
Brad Del Munns IV/74 Free Company 37 221
Darryl Hills III/04b Early Byzantine 36 194
Bas Braham (J) IV/83b Wars of the Roses 36 194
Scott Driscoll I/26b Trojan 36 189
Stanley Crabbe II/81c Sub Roman British 34 170
David Lawrence III/61 Sung Chinese 32 176
Sam Braham (J) II/07 Achaemenid Persian 32 164
Gavin Bowman IV/75 Timurid 31 215
Jon Willacy III/39 Later Tang 31 173
Chris Hersey IV/83b Wars of the Roses 30 199
Bruce Bell II/36a Graeco Bactrian 30 170
Jerry Hearn IV/83b Wars of the Roses 30 156
Alex Filewood III/05a Middle Frankish 29 207
Ken Filewood II/39b Ancient Spanish 29 158
Peter Braham II/43 Maccabean Jewish 28 199
Greg Kelleher III/14c Early Bulgar 28 179
Brenton Searle IV/26 Lusignan Cypriot 25 200
Patrick Hersey (J) III/66 Hsi Hsia 25 155
Michael Chellew I/52c Early Hoplite Greek 24 168
Alexander Bell II/12 Macedonian 23 181
Steve Jones IV/09 Eastern American 23 165
Ryan Blake (J) II/47a Early German 21 150
Ronan Hersey (J) II/15 Alexandrian Imperial 18 169
Sebastian Carraro IV/01a Komnenan Byzantine 16 160
Lysander Carraro J II/49 Marian Roman 16 149
Cheers,
Greg"
In summary, CANCON was excellent.
As usual the DBA was great fun, and I'm very interested in seeing Version 3 of these brilliant rules released.
You can find more photos and comments on CANCON 2012 here: LINK! (the very nice Storm and Conquest BLOG)
You can find more photos and comments on CANCON 2012 here: LINK! (the very nice Storm and Conquest BLOG)
That's all for now.
Cheers!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
On The Work Bench: Too Much!
Hi Guys
Above: This is what a work bench looks like when you have too much on the go at the one time.
And this is only about a 3rd,..
What you can see here is VICTRIX French 1804-7, French 1812-15, PERRY Dutch Belgians for the 100 days (1815), VICTRIX and PERRY PLASTIC British for 1808-12, REDOUBT ENTERPRISE Trojan War Personalities and some FRONT RANK Personalities for my Inagi-Nation and my friend.
But I am making headway. Just starting to base my Romans and Successors. See below:
The Romans and successors are mainly Foundry Figures, with some OLD GLORY Phalangites added to the Successor's ranks.
Finally, I'm continuing with my friend Arnaud's Duke of Marlborough. The horse needs to be transformed into a Grey, and the whole set will be dipped. He's a nice FRONT RANK miniature.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Successor Elites: Alexander's Foot Companions.
Hi Guys
A break for a moment from Napoleonics.
I thought I'd share a few photos of my recently completed Hypasapists. I've got six 60mm x 20mm bases. 28mm Miniatures. Mostly FOUNDRY, (insanely expensive but very nice) with some OLD GLORY command Figures for a bit more variety.
I based them for DBA but will also use them for IMPETUS.
The Shields are all hand pained.
My favorite figure is the Officer on the right (above). He's an OLD GLORY miniature, and seems to be 'breaking ranks' to urge the lads forward (as seen below):
"Follow me Men"!
UPDATE:
I thought I'd addsome photos of my recently completed Companions. Four bases of these Elite Cavalry will help secure Victory for the Foot Companions, (I hope). The miniatures are OLD GLORY. I added lances from my left over WARGAMES FACTORY 'Amazons'.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Dutch, Belgians, French and a Duke!
Hi All
My first posting for 2012! I was hopeful I'd have this post up before the new year but alas 'twas not to be.
Anyhooo,.. What am I working on at the moment you might ask. Well I'm working on a beautiful FRONT RANK miniature of the Duke of Marlborough as a late Christmas gift for a friend of mine, (see above). This is the first FRONT RANK miniature I've attempted to paint, and I must say FRONT RANK miniatures are very nice.
I'm also painting some cracking good PERRY MINIATURES Dutch Militia. Long story here. I purchased some Belgian Line Infanrty online and the guy sent me half a unit of Belgian Line and half Dutch Militia. Anyway after an email or two the mistake was acknowledged and the other half of the Belgian unit was sent. What to do with half a unit of Dutch militia? I placed an order to the PERRY's for the other half of the unit and started painting. One of the 12 painted figs I was sent is on the left. My attempt (thus far) at replicating the paint style can be seen below.
Results thus far can be seen below:
They sport a very nice MAVERIK MODELS material flag.
More updates soon. Cheers!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Calpe and Perry French! Oooh La La!
BELOW: CALPE (L) and PERRY (R).
Hi Team
I just received my order of CALPE 28mm French.
I've taken some photos of them side by side some Perry Miniatures 28mm French so you can make a comparrison of these two outstanding manufactureres of fine 28mm miniatures.
BELOW: CALPE (L) and PERRY (R).
BELOW: SAPPERS, CALPE (L) and PERRY (R).
BELOW: FUSILIERS. PERRY (L) and the CALPE offering (R)
I'll do a detailed review of the CALPE miniatures soon, with VICTRIX and EUREKA miniatures side by side.
I also purchased some CALPE Saxons, and an entire Division of CALPE PRUSSIANS.
Cheers
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