Saturday, 12 December 2009

Dead Nellie

I'm trying to sculpt a dead African forest elephant for our Zama project.  This is because I don't expect any of the actual elephant models in the game to survive past the first 15 minutes!   Ideally, I want a dead model to replace each live one when slain.

It is safe to say that it is an at an early stage... I feel that I have the shape very approximately right but none of the details are added, yet.  It's much smaller than most elephants we see, at roughly 40mm to the shoulder.

Friday, 11 December 2009

Nellie Fever

I'm very frustrated that I have picked up no less than 6 elephants in the last few months, and don't have the time to paint any of them because of my preparations to the Zama game!  To ease the pain, I've treated myself to a couple of nights off Zama to at least stick a few together, even though I know I won't be able to paint them until May.


First (above) is the excellent Aventine Pyrrhic Indian elephant. This is a fine beast; very expressive with his raised trunk.  It went together very cleanly, with just a little greenstuff at the seams.  As with other Aventine minis, there was no flash or mould lines.  I was very impressed with the two part Howdah; so impressed in fact...
                                     

...that I used a spare Aventine howdah on the female Indian elephant from TimeLine, shown above .  I will be using Aventine crewmen, too.  Aventine sell howdahs and crewmen seperately, which is a valuable facility.  I still need to add some ropes in greenstuff to this model.  I wanted at least one female elephant in my elephant "brigade".

        

Finally, above I have a most unusual beast (above).  Mario of Empire Models very kindly sent me one of his African elephants.  I felt it was rather too large a model for an African beast, but couldn't resist the magnificently sculpted armour and so have given it an Indian head donated by Barry at Timeline.  I should say Keith of Aventine also very kindly sent me a spare head (thanks!), but the Timeline head was slightly larger and more closely fitted the large, broader frame of the Empire torso.  I've had to trim the neck of the torso to get the head to look OK; in due course I'll add a crest so that it matches the other Empire elephants I own.  I damaged the crenellations on the howdah, and took them off.  Again, it'll probably have Aventine crewmen.

Other elephants I have not shown here include one each Aventine Sassanind Royal, Pyrrhic and Seleucid.  I'll try to put the Seleucid together next week.

Finally here are the three together; they match surprisingly well in size.  The Empire in the centre is larger, but not unbearably so. 

                

Roll on May...

Thursday, 10 December 2009

Muswell Militia house amendments to the C&C Rules

We play the rules pretty straight, except for two changes which help with armies incluiding cavalry.  We find that light horse aren't a great troop type in the rules.  This is partly because they aren't much good in melee, and run huge distances when they get a flag (often perishing when they reach a table edge).

Firstly, we use a slighly deeper table than the boardgame.  Our Hotz mats have two more rows of hexes than the standard C&C boards, and this extra depth is very useful when armies with cavalry, giving them a bit more space to manouvre (and to run away!).  Frankly, if we had 3 or 4 more rows of hexes, I wouldn't be unhappy!  But my table depth is 48" and there is no space for them.

Secondly, we have amended the evade rules.  In the standard rules, when evading, the attacker rolls a number of dice against the evader depending on his troop type; paradoxically this means that the slower troops, eg Heavy Infantry, with 5 dice, are likely to inflict more casualties on evaders than faster troops such as Medium Cavalry with 3.  Moreover, the potential casualties inflicted on evaders seem disproportionate by comparison with the one or two dice that skirmishers inflict through shooting.

Soooo... the Muswell Hill Amendment is that when skirmishers evade, they take one dice when the attacking troops are slower than them; two if the attackers move at the same speed, and three if the attackers are a faster troop type.  Simple... but it makes a huge difference with battles involving light horse, such as Ruspina.



Here are some Scythian light horse I prepared rather earlier.



We played the Ruspina scenario again last night, with 14 units of light horse, and it worked very well.  I must say that I now feel that Carrhae could just about be squeezed onto our table.  If only I had 80 or so horse archers, rather than two dozen...

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

Command & Colors + Glorantha

Mark Sims of Crusader Miniatures was suggesting on TMP that it would be good if we adapted C&C to be useable for fantasy games with our Gloranthan minis; well we already did!  I thought it might be fun to show some of the photos of a game I put on with Greg Privat of Gloarmy, and friends, at Salute in 2007.


We slightly amended the Command and Colors rules, to permit magic and very large creatures, such as the Crimson Bat and GonnOrta the giant.  We represented some of the major spells with effects, such as meteors for the Crater Makers and a pillar of fire for Cragspider.

Greg's impressive Gonn Orta model was converted from an Incredible Hulk toy.  Another impressive model was Greg's Moonboat (just visible on the right in the photo).

The mine was stunning.  It stood around 5 foot high, with a sound track and a lighting system of its very own.  Its only function was as a backdrop to the game.  If anyone wants to make an offer for it, it's in my cellar (in London); drop me a line and I'll forward it to Greg.


Above left, Gonn Orta and the Bat slug it out. 





And who can forget Nick Speller's Zombie whale?






There are many other photos on Greg's site under Articles, and many of the miniatures are featured on Greg's Miniatures Blog.

Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Ruspina 46BC Part IV; To the Green Fields, Beyond?

Here we are for the fourth and final installment of this After Action Review.  The previous part is here if you've not already read it.



Here's a view of Casear's right wing.  The poor Caesarian archers are completely isolated and surrounded by light cavalry!  Labienus, in the middle distance has moved down the hill, and out of Caesar's charge range.

 

Above is the situation in the centre.  The main Roman force is inclining to the right, and Caesar was thinking that the schwerpunkt of his thrust would be near the central palm tree.

 

Labienus' body language is looking a little stressed as the Caesarian Cohorts converge towards the palm on the hill.  The newly arrived Numidian army under Petreius has been trying to move to block them.

 

And it's not improved on the following turn either, as the Caesarians pile forwards! 

 


Argh!  General Petreius plays a double time and hurtles down from the hill into the Caesarian line. 

 

He doesn't inflict great casualties on the Romans, but is in a position to hit them again, next turn.

 

In the Caesarian turn, they encircle and subsequently destroy two Numidian cavalry units (above).  In his next turn, Caesar only needs to move a unit or two off the table (towards the elusive granaries) to win.

 


But Labienus has one turn left befor that happens.  To win, before Caesar is able to win next turn, he needs to be able to kill 4 units.  His best card allows him to activate only three units so it is very difficult to achieve this... However he is lucky in that his first three attacks are successful and each kill a unit, wiping out two low-strength Roman formations and the last survivors of the Caesarian archers.  The third attack was with a unit including his general, which is therefore entitled to a momentum attack.  Can General Petreius roll three hits on three dice, to kill a fourth Caesarian unit?

 

He shoots, he scores!   Labienus/Petreius win by the narrowest of margins, 8 blocks to 7. 

 

Final view of the battlefield.

Of all the rule systems I've played, Command and Colors comes up time and time again with the closest, most exciting finishes.  Although defeated, I particularly enjoyed this game, and hope to replay it this week as the Numidians.

Monday, 7 December 2009

Ruspina 46BC Part III; Caesar vs. Labienus; Head to Head!



We rejoin the action for the third part of our four part account of our refight of Ruspina.  Caesar, thwarted in his attack on the left by the arrival of Petreius, has advanced the right of his line in an attampt to break through in the centre.  This would require fighting his way through Labienus' veteran Gallic and German cavalry...

 

Above, Caesar's outnumbered Gallic cavalry charge bravely forward but are engulfed and founder amidst a sea of Numidians and Germans.

 

Five more Numidian units march onto the table to join Petreius on the ridge...  gulp.  The Caesarians were outnumbered roughly two to one in units, by this stage. 

 

"Lads, if we can break through, there's all the wine you can drink on the far side of that ridge!"  Caesar (right centre, you can just see his red cloak) advances to avenge his Gallic horse.

 

Caesar contracts his line, moving away from the worrying Pompeian buildup on his left.  That's a Command and Colors summary sheet in the foreground.

 

The cavalry unit in the centre of this mass of legionaries is Labienus with his German bodyguard.  Caesar managed to isolate it by marching a couple of units to prevent it from evading, and personally attaked it at the head of his troops.  The unit was comprehensively slaughtered.  However, Labienus managed (somehow!!!) to survive no less than 5 rolls to kill him as he broke through the encircling units to escape.   Grrrr.  If he'd have died, Caesar would have been able to claim "Spolia Opima" and to hang his armour outside his house in Rome.

 

And here, in today's final shot, Labienus taunts Caesar from the relative safety of a hillock.

Final part, tomorrow.

Sunday, 6 December 2009

Ruspina 46BC Part II; Opening Moves




In my previous post I described the deployment of the forces for this refight of Ruspina.  We drew chits to see who would play which side; I drew the Caesarians, and was to be ably assisted by TimeLine Barry who played Dubius Status, my Tribune.    My old adversary, Ian, played Caesar's old adversary, Labienus.

Caesar decided that his strategy would be to advance as swiftly as possible in order to minimise shooting casualties and to pin the elusive enemy (who, even without their off-table reinforcements, included no less than18 units of skirmishers!) against their baseline.

Above is the situation after the Caesarian second move; the Caesarians have moved up to drive back the Numidian skirmish line.  Caesar delegated Dubius Status to roll the combat dice; needing to get a "green on a one in six chance, he managed to roll no less than 5 hits on 10 dice! 



Above, the Numidian skirmishers in turn managed to inflict some casualties on Caesar's line.  The unit on the far right has already been reduced to a single stand (gulp!).  Caesar's archers have moved into the line on the far right.



Here's a cloesup of the rather menacing situation on Caesar's right, which was eventually completely surrounded by the Numidian host.



Caesar lacked a suitable card to recover the situation on my right, but had an "Order Medium Units" card which enabled him to throw the left half of his line forward, at the double. This meant that Labienus would need to react to this on his next turn, or Caesar would be able to snaffle two units of his light infantry.  This had the effect of relieving the pressure on Caesar's other wing.



Labienus successfully pulled back two of the threatened units but Dubius Status was able to isolated a third, and destroy it with some more highly effective dice rolling.  The Caesarian line, on the left, has pushed right up to the Numidian horse; leaving a wide gap in the centre of the line!  It looked , for a minute, like Caesar was poised to break through onto the ridge and into the greenfields, beyond.



However fate had other plans; Labienus played an "Inspired Leadership Right" card and brought on Petreius and 5 units of Numidian reinforcements.  Defending hills, the Numidian Auxilia are better than legionaries; Caesar realised that he would need to break through somewhere else, instead!

The next installment of this battle will be published tomorrow.