Monday, 4 November 2019

Edgehill - Unit cards - Sneak peek!

Here are a couple of images from the Edgehill Unit Cards pack. The cards are designed by my chum Ian Notter, based loosely on the images in the Streeter Naseby engraving. Here is a page from the introductory pack that accompanies the cards, and, below it, an image of a sheet of the unit cards, themselves.



These are some of the Parliamentarian Edgehill foot; large units, eight  ranks deep, so with an extra (fourth) hit. We have added uniform colours, where known (not often!), sometimes we have guessed. The flags indicate who the officer for the brigades is, and his superior general. All the information needed for play with For King and Parliament is on the card tab (save, ammo, battalion guns and so forth). If you laminate the cards, then you could use them with a whiteboard pen.

The whole Edgehill OOB, with lots of "what if" units, will be included in the download. Hopefully I'll have it in the shop on Wednesday or Thursday. If it proves popular, we will give the same treatment to some of the other battles of the ECW; perhaps we could produce a set of generic unit cards for use with the game.

Sunday, 3 November 2019

Edgehill Scenario- sneak peeks

Here are a few sample pages from the imminent Edgehill scenario booklet- due out later this week.  :)




Friday, 1 November 2019

Edgehill Scenario and Unit Cards coming soon....

Very shortly I will have two new For King and Parliament products coming out- a PDF scenario booklet, based on Andrew Brentnall's excellent and well-tested game, and a pack of stunning unit cards designed by Ian Notter, which can be printed out and used to re-fight the battle (if you don't have three or four thousand suitable minis ready to go, that is ;-) ). Here are the covers, I'll post some images from inside, in the next day or so!



Watch this space!

Thursday, 24 October 2019

Mancetter at SELWG

Here are some absolutely cracking images of the final outing of the Battle of Mancetter at SELWG, last Sunday- also the final event of my wargaming year, before my annual hibernation. All the pictures were taken by Ian Notter, and they came out brilliantly! They will expand, if clicked.


Above, waves of Britons crashing against the Roman lines. The Roman auxiliaries are in front, and the legionaries in reserve, as at Mons Graupius.


The omens are good! Lamb cutlets for supper.


I absolutely love the way that the above shot came out; even with the ghostly hand! Those are Wargames Foundry "Saleh" sculpted legionaries, my favourite Early Imperials. I've not come across anyone else with a collection of them.


Above, one of the eighteen British chariots. 



Finally, another shot of the British advance. Most of the Celts were painted by Shaun McTague with a little finishing by me- others are by Nick Speller and Shaun Watson, and others, still, random purchases from eBay. The trees are from Debris of War.

We had a super day at SELWG. My To the Strongest! rules worked very well, delivering two results in just over two hours a game. The Romans won one game, and the Britons, the other, leaving the natives ahead by five games to three on the 2019 series. Romanes eunt domus! This is a most surprising outcome, what with the Romans being both better armoured and uphill; I put it down to the staying-power of the deep units, and some plucky British players.

A huge thank-you to Ian Notter, Ian Cameron-Mowat, Mike Lewis and family, Nick Speller and John Carpenter who helped set up or knock down, or both. Also my thanks to everyone who played!

Tuesday, 22 October 2019

Making basing!


These are the additional bases required for my Salute game (luckily, my Numidians are already based). There are (I think) 124 of them, each of which needed the edges to be chamfered and fitted with 6-12 magnets.  They took me something like 5 weeks of evenings to do, I went through around 60 Xacto blades and a couple of fingers.

The bases at the back are from my FK&P14 range- two of them fit in a 20cm square. The bases at the front are from various other ranges and three fit in a 20cm square. Laid edge to edge, there are 10 metres worth of bases here; the reason for having so many is that both armies will be formed up four units deep across the whole width of the battlefield.

Now I just need to fill them with minis!

Friday, 27 September 2019

Bande Nere



Here are my Bande Nere di Giovanni, ready for the Italian Wars, for which I am currently writing rules. I've recently expanded the pike to be 4-deep. The arquebusiers can be fielded as light or massed-light units. All of the minis are Perrys, with most painted by the prolific Shaun McTague, and finished and based by me. You can click the photos for a close-up! The flags are from Pete's Flags.


I have the ratio of pike-to-shot correct; 2:1. This was thought at the time to be too high.


Now, I suppose I need to get someone painted for them to fight!

In other news, it's my Birthday, today, so I have a sale on.  :-)

Monday, 23 September 2019

To the Strongest! in Glasgow, Part II

Here are some photos from the second day of the Glasgow To Strongest! event, starting with my third game. This was against Ian Austin and his Spartan army. Ian set up in the left corner of his side, and I set up in the left corner of mine. My flank attack failed to kill the Spartiates, largely on account of their excellent saves, and by mid-game most of my units were facing right, and most of his were facing left.


Despite our best efforts, nothing was dying. Nothing at all. I couldn't break his hoplites, frontally, and any knights that got disordered pulled back and rallied. It became a unique game with not a single unit lost, not even a measly helot. I cannot recall this in any previous game of TtS! that I've seen; it is a famously bloody set of rules.

In the penultimate turn of the game, though, I rode some light crossbowmen off of the table edge near his camp. On the final turn, I managed to bring them back onto the table, and activate them for a lucky second time, to trot into his adjacent camp, securing three points. You can make out Ian menacing the offending horsemen, in the image below. Ian had certainly picked the rules up, in only his fifth game, he was playing quite as well as I was, after well over 100.



In the final game, I found myself facing John Muir's Italo-Normans. across an open plain. This was a very different game from the previous three. Eschewing subtlety, John and I lined up opposite each other, and charged. He had more knights, but I had better-armoured knights, so it was pretty even. The battle degenerated into a single huge confused melee (below), with troops facing in all directions- charging, retiring, rallying and shooting. Slowly I was able to gain the upper hand and, eventually, cornered and killed one of his generals to win the battle 10:3. It could easily have gone the other way.


The scores...


And onto the presentations! 


Above is Liam Entwhistle, who secured third place with his beautiful ex-WAB Later Hungarian army.


And, second once again, yours truly! Always the bridesmaid, never the bride! ;-)  I received some lovely Claymore Castings minis, so I suppose I'll have to start another army, now.

Finally, below, the winner Peter Clarke whose Fatimid Egyptians had pipped me 63.5 points to 63. As well as a trophy, Dave Soutar presented him with a stunning command stand, painted and generously donated by chum David Imrie.



And finally Dave Soutar very kindly gave me some souvenirs - haggis, Scottish shortbread biccies and a limited edition Glasgow and District Wargames Society dice (!!!) tray. 

A huge thank you to Dave Soutar and the other organisers of the event, and to everyone who came along and played! It was a blast. I very much hope to come back next year. Dave and l set a provisional date, shortly.

p.s. Dave has just sent me some more photos- I'll either do a third post, tomorrow., or provide a link if he posts them online.