HMS Phoebe (36)

Here is my next Langton ship: the 36 gun frigate HMS Phoebe.

And here Phoebe joins HMS Orion, their captains drinking bumpers to Bonaparte's confusion and enjoying a noble great spotted dog for pudding.


Next up I have two French ships in the yards, but then I'm thinking of painting up a small Danish fleet, for something different.

Just quietly though, I'm also getting pretty excited about the upcoming Saga rules from Gripping Beast...

My First Langton Ship!

And now for something completely different....

Having finished the Norman Basic Impetus army, it's time to finish off some old projects. A couple of years back I bought four of the beautiful 1:1200 scale Napoleonic ships made by Rod Langton I got half way through making two of them until the rigging did my head in and I lost heart.

However, the Dux is made of stern stuff, and is further inspired by rereading the Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian. These are easily my favourite historical novels ever. I'm quite keen to do some age of sail gaming, so I got hold of a copy of the 'Kiss Me Hardy' rules from Too Fat Lardies, which look good although there are lots of things they don't explain very well (at least not to a lubber like me).

So, fortified by half a litre of strong Norwegian beer, I got back to the rigging. The first ship off the blocks is the British 74 'Orion', which fought at Cape St Vincent, the Nile and Trafalgar. You may note that 'Minotaur' is written on the base, but the Minotaur was a somewhat different design, so I have since renamed it. There is also now a pennant flying from the mainmast. This is the first one of these little gems I have tried to make, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Basic Impetus Demo Game

On Friday after school last week we put on a demo game of Basic Impetus for boys who wanted to know more about Historical Wargaming. This was the first game for my 28mm Viking and Norman armies, and actually the first game I've played with 28mm figures. I used the Normans, under the nom de guerre of Odo Iron Arm, with Conan the Librarian taking the Vikings.

The scenario:

The year is about 1020. A Viking raiding force has been making itself generally objectionable in the Duchy of Normandy, nicking plasma screen TVs and so on. The local powerful bastard Odo Iron Arm drags himself away from the mead hall and wenches to call up his retainers and catch the Danish seawolves. Moving through a recently looted village, Odo's men see the Vikings drawn up on a ridge waiting for them.

The set up.
The Normans struggle to deploy for battle from the road.

The game:

The first few turns saw my Normans trying to deploy off the road and making a mess of it. My initial plan was to concentrate on the Vikings on the ridge to my left, hopefully softening them up with footsoldiers and crossbowmen first. This didn't work so well. My footsoldiers charged the Vikings shieldwall and were promptly massacred, while the missile troops failed to make any impression.

Failing that, I charged the Bondi deployed across the road. This turned into a slogging match that started looking worse and worse for me, particularly after Conan launched some of his other Bondi into my flank.


Over on my left, the Viking Berserkers finally couldn't take it any longer and charged my general. This was one of several epic moments in the game, where Odo and his retinue beat off the Berserkers and pursued them back through the gap in the Viking shieldwall, only to be hit in both flanks and destroyed by the Odalsbondi on either side.
Running out of shields to bite, the Berserkir charge.

Odo pushes back the Berserkir, but not without loss. Casualty figures mark disorder and shields with different numbers of segments keep track of damage.

Fortunately, from this point on I had uncharacteristically excellent luck. I sent a unit of knights around on my right flank and dislodged the shieldwall isolated on the right side of the road. They continued on, rolling up the Viking Skirmishers and tipping the balance in the centre. Meanwhile, over on my far left flank a unit of knights broke another unit of Bondi. The Vikings army reached its break point and victory was mine (just).

The game was loads of fun, and hopefully served to inspire a few more boys to get into historical wargaming. I did here one boy remark 'it's just like Warhammer', but restrained myself from putting him on detention. Once again, I enjoyed the unpredictability of Basic Impetus, but also the way that different armies have their own characteristics. The Viking ability to form a shieldwall, especially when deployed on a hill, made them tougher than the Norman knights so long as they kept their formation. So whereas I had all the tactical mobility and initiative, I had to try to find a way to lure the Vikings out of their strong position or end up in unpredictable slogging matches (which is largely what happened).
Endgame.

More Normans

Things have been busy at Homunculorum Towers, but I have been chipping away at my 28mm Norman army for Basic Impetus. Here are a few pics of the latest batch of knights from Conquest Games.

This is Svein, having a bad day. Not only did he leave his helmet at home, but he wasted so much time looking for it that the other Vikings went off without him. Here he is trying to find their shieldwall in a bit of a rush.

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.

The Witch Hunter Chronicles

My mate Stu has previously appeared in this blog under two of his aliases 'The Nameless One' and 'Loathpa' ('Lord of a Thousand Half-Painted Armies'). Last year he happened to mention to me that he had been working on a series of books (!) and had a contract with Random House (!!). Most hilariously, for a man who famously refuses to read any books written in the first person it turns out he had written one.

Anyway, this is a shameless and unsolicited plug on his behalf, because the first book in the series ('The Scourge of Jericho') is out this week. It looks like his Witch Hunter Chronicles are going to be huge with their target market of teenage boys. I can't wait to read them myself, although I haven't been able to extract a copy from Stu. Stu has a great knowledge of the 17th Century, which is when he has set his books, and the stories of the Hexenjaeger ought to provoke some interest in the period from his readers. So if you know a teenage boy, or haven't grown up yourself, buy 'em a copy.

You can read more about the book here, complete with a photo of Stu looking like a big eejit.

Covenanters in 28mm - WIP

Along with my 10,000 other projects I have a great big pile of unpainted 28mm figures for the ECW. And now I've actually painted a few! These will probably be for a Scots Government army from 1648, as I have already made a few useful banners, and I quite admire the pragmatism of the Engagers. But back to the Normans for now...

Oh - and figures are from Warlord Games and Eureka. The Eureka figures are a little smaller than the Warlord ones, but the mounted troops mix well enough. The Eureka figures are supposed to represent Lord Gordon's Horse, who went over to join with Montrose's army. And very nice figures they are too, even though they seems to have switched sides yet again.