The BigRedBatCave
Friday, 4 August 2023
Late Knights
Tuesday, 1 August 2023
Herding Cats
Thursday, 27 July 2023
Black Shields
Wednesday, 26 July 2023
Yellow legion progress
Tuesday, 25 July 2023
Wofun II
Last night we played a very entertaining game at the London Wargaming Guild Guild in Seven Dials. This time we pitted some of my newly-acquired (and very portable) Wofun Caesarians against a Wofun Gallic army. It was a very interesting game because the two armies are quite asymmetric, the Gauls having 3 hits and a hero each, whilst the Romans have pila, a better save and greater manoeuvrability. In the end, it was the latter feature which told; as the lines broke up, numerous warbands were successfully "civilised" by Roman flank attacks. Son'n'heir came as bag carrier and co-general, this photo must be from one of the other players.
There was a cracking Romans vs. Carthaginians game going on the next table; the Carthaginians eventually flanked the quincunxs and prevailed.
In other news, there's an interesting "World Cup" poll of historical wargames rules on Facebook here. It is well worth a look; it's interesting to see how many historical sets there are about- also to encounter some old friends like "Science vs. Pluck or Death to the Mahdi!", still popular after all these years! It has also been very pleasing to see how popular the TtS! games remain (particularly as I'm currently making steady progress on Renaissance, my "difficult third book"). The first round might have ended by the time you read this.
Lastly we popped into the China Missing Century exhibit at the British Museum. This was a nice little show, and worth a visit. There was some material of interest to the wargamer, they had this nice flag, for starters:
Saturday, 22 July 2023
Test Ostrogoth Lancer
Recently I've come to the conclusion that I need some portable armies that I can take to wargames clubs or carry on the train, to tournaments. These will need to be primarily plastics, for reason of weight and toughness. Luckily I've started to find some plastic sets I like.
I've bodged together a test figure from a Gripping Beast Parthian rider (there's one spare per sprue), with a Parthian head on a Wargames Atlantic horse and with the plastic spear replaced with a slimmer metal one. I want to have most of my projected Ostrogoths on unarmoured horses. I think it came out pretty well. Unfortunately, I don't like the WA horses very much. There's something a little "off" about their build and the poses of their legs, so I'll probably use GB Goth horses instead; it's not worth spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar.
Wednesday, 19 July 2023
Very Late Romans
Here are two units of Early Imperial Romans that Shaun painted for me some 4-5 years ago. They've been waiting patiently in a storage box for their transfers and finishing, for far too long. They are mostly the old Foundry Saleh units, including some rare variants and some head swaps. The LBMS transfers are even older than the minis, and some of them have deteriorated- but I'm managing to salvage most of them. The yellow design is really super!
When these are completed and based, they will join the four-cohort vexillation, above. Eventually, I might take them up to a full legion in strength. I also need to do a 5th cohort of I Adiutrix, also shown above (from behind, in the blue gear).













