Whimsical Forest Dwellers 0 - Sons of Odin 1

Thanks to the Duchess looking after the kids for the afternoon I had the rare opportunity today to get a couple of games in with Dr Hotspur.

For our first game, we playtested one of the scenarios from Hotspur's upcoming second edition of his Irregular Wars - a fun set of rules for small actions between 1519 and 1641. The scenario we tried out was the 'Reive and Retrieve' game, setting my Lowland Scots on a sheep stealing raid against Hotspur's Royal English.


Holding off the English horse on their left flank, the Scots make a grab for the livestock.

The game worked well - particularly well for me! Although my force took heavy losses I managed to drive half the English sheep off my end of the board, leaving the Scots survivors full of mutton and the English looking sheepish.

The Scots captain and another company of horse escape with their ovine plunder.

For our second game, we played Song of Blades and Heroes (great game!), setting my Vikings against Pan, a flock of satyrs and a dryad named Phoebe.

Check out the bizarre terrain!

Although Phoebe scored an early success by entangling one of my warriors and setting him up to be finished off by Pan, my hero Harald the Hard Bastard waded in and sorted her out, rapidly dispatching her with a gruesome kill. This unnerved a couple of the satyrs, who ran away, allowing me to concentrate Harald, a berserker and the rest of my warriors against Pan and a satyr with a strong stomach. Despite Olaf the Unsteady being knocked over at one point by Pan, pragmatic Norse steel soon prevailed. Of the satyrs who legged it, one returned just in time to get axed, the sight of which again appalled the survivor to the extent that he took to his little goaty heels. I must confess to feeling a certain amount of guilt about the dryad.

Thanks to Hotspur for a fun afternoon, and for designing a great set of rules in Irregular Wars.

Irregular Wars - Regular Result

Last night I paid a Ducal visit to the HQ of the Southern Battle Gamers in Sylvania and met up with Nic, aka Harry Hotspur, the author of the 'Irregular Wars' rules. You can learn about the rules and read a highly tendentious account of our battles on Nic's blog here.


Game 1. Lowland Scots v. English

We fought two battles, me with my lowland Scots and Nic using first his Royal Sassenachs and then some Irish rabble. Irregular Wars is a fun system for fighting small actions from c.1519-1641, and I think Nic has captured something of the flavour of small confused melees, quite different to rules dealing with larger set-piece battles. I particularly like the way that the loss of a unit can have catastrophic effects on those around it. Once general melee is joined it feels like a slogging match, until the loss of a unit can result in a sudden collapse of your whole army.

Well, that was certainly my experience...



Nic has given his own reports on our engagements, and the Dux is not one to quibble or split hairs. He forbears, for example, to point out that his army may have been vanquished but remained entirely free of the pox. Nor does he point out that his morale was steadily eroded by the sardonic comments of Stu the Nameless One. But beaten I was. The first game surprised me - I was pretty confident for most of it, but the English demi lancers proved decisive.


Border horse try to hold the English demi-lancers, but are hit in the flank by pikes.

The border horse are swept away, followed soon after by my cannon.

Due to my poor recruitment die rolls in our second game I was heavily outnumbered (albeit pox free), so didn't hold out much hope. My plan was to put all my horse ont one flank and try to roll up Nic's army before he could envelop me on the other. This worked ok, and I managed to neutralise his superior numbers for a while, but my general in the pike block in my centre ended up practically surrounded, then dead, which made the rest of my force evaporate. All except the unit of border horse that went riding off, out of control after routing some Irish Kerns.


Game 2. My pitifully small force faces off against an all-infantry Irish army of kerns, bonnachts and gallowglasses.


My cavalry on the left flank fail to make the decisive breakthrough I need, while my general's pike block in the centre is assailed by gallowglasses and Spanish targeteers. Oh it's all so depressing...

Despite my customary drubbing, it was a great night, and thanks to Nic for meeting up for a game. Irregular Wars is well worth a look.

Irregular Wars - Scotland 1, Spain 0

Met up last night with Paul the Galloglaigh to try out the Irregular Wars rules. Paul fielded a Border Reiver army, intent on plunder, while I had the Spanish Expeditionary Force. The beer war Dark Lord, a great wargaming ale with Black Tom Fairfax on the label.

I started strongly, charging a company of border horse with my pikes. Then everything went wrong. I allowed my companies of shot to get involved in melees, and by the end Paul ripped a whole through my centre and surrounded my pikes and one company of cavalry. Disaster!

The rules were fun and simple, although I think there were a couple of melee rules we got wrong. We'll definitely be playing it again.

Irregular Wars

It's been a rough couple of months with the family sick, so this is the first post in ages. I've taken a break from my usual projects to make a couple of armies for Irregular Wars, a nice little set of free rules for minor battles in the C16th which is available here. The rules are written for 15mm, so I set my principles aside for once and bought a bunch of little metal men.

The first army (or 'battle' as they are called in the rules) are Border Reivers. Figures are Essex and West Riding Miniatures.

My second battle is a Spanish expeditionary force, supported by Irish kerns. Figures are by Essex.

I have to say, painting my first 1/72 figures in years didn't make me like 1/72 any less. The WRM border reivers in particular were a bit of a disappointment, with some of the figures being incredibly flat. At some stage I'll make some armies for Irregular Wars in God's own scale of 1/72....