Victory is Mine!

Well, no.

Had a great night last night down in the Shire playing DBA against Harry Hotspur. We played four games, two with my matched pairs (Late Roman v Ostrogothic) and two with his armies (Seleucid v Nabatean and Pegamene v Seleucid). Hotspur managed to work out his unfounded anti-Roman prejudice by crushing my Late Romans twice - (I need to work on clever use of terrain to neutralise all those Gothic knights). Switching to his uxorious Hellenistic despots, I managed to defeat his Nabateans after Hotspur undertook an impressive outflanking move with about fifty elements of psiloi, which then failed to play any further part in the battle. They occupied that patch of woods to my left rear, and by the gods they were not going to give it up. The last battle I would rather forget. My disastrous deployment led to rapid and comprehensive destruction.

So 3-1, but some valuable lessons learnt, and the first games of DBA in some years. As always, thanks to Hotspur for thoroughly enjoyable games. A man as gracious in victory as in his rare defeats, although he does have a thing about the Romans.

I think Ross Mac is right in his comment on my last post - I must get into the proper mindset before MOAB. So, this week I will be doing some intensive training by watching the Dambusters, Master and Commander and The Way Ahead. I will drink some stong ale and work on my general belligerence. And I shall work on my motivational speeches, modelling my pre-battle harangue on this fine example:

Anyone coming to MOAB?

The Dux doesn't get out much, but is planning a ducal visit to MOAB on Saturday 1 October. Anyone else coming? It would be nice to meet some of you in the flesh.

In fact, I have even succumbed to the suggestion of My Lord Hotspur and signed up for the 15mm DBA competition on Saturday! This will be interesting, and no doubt humiliating, having never played DBA in a comp, and not at all for about 5 years. The competition is for matched pairs, so I have dusted off my old 15mm figures I painted for DBM in 1993-4, and recruited a late Roman army and the Ostrogothic army of Radagaesus. I have quite an affection for these old figures, painted back in the days before shading or washes, and before I realised that card bases warp and Essex figures look like gnomes.

I have given them a bit of a once over, splashing about some Devlan mud, improvising some camps and fixing up a few shields and bases here and there.

This is II78a (Late Imperial Roman: West)


And this is II/67a (Early Ostrogothic - army of Radagaesus)

I'm heading down across the Brandywine into the Shire to have a game with Hotspur tonight, so I'm sure he will be gloating on his blog by this time tomorrow.

What's on the Workbench...

I have a couple of weeks off from work at the moment, and am hoping to use it to do some serious hobbying, within the constraints of looking after small children.

As it happens, it was also my birthday last week. My brother very kindly gave me a gift voucher for some Langton ships from Waterloo Minis. Even better, my father gave me a cheque out of the blue and told me to spend it on my hobbies!! As a result of the planets aligning in this miraculous way, here is what I have to look forward to:

1. I've bought a copy of the Lasalle rules from Eureka, and they look great. Time to paint some more Napoleonics, I think. But the dilemma of scale...stick with my preferred 1/72 scale? Trouble is, I know of one other person on the continent who plays with this scale (Bonjour, Rosbif!), and this is a large continent. So, wade into 28mm? Great figures, but probably too much of a commitment in painting time... So 15mm it is, swayed by the lovely AB figures.

2. Therefore, I've ordered a battalion of French line infantry and a regiment of Chasseurs a Cheval from Eureka, with the aim of making a Lasalle force for 1813.

3. From Waterloo Minis, a small force of Danish 1:1200 Langton ships are on their way. Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to try out some different Age of Sail rules (I already have Kiss Me Hardy).

4. The Trafalgar rules from Warhammer Historical are on their way...

5. Today is the official release of the Saga rules from Gripping Beast. I'm really drawn to these rules from what I've read so far, and think they might work well at the school historical wargames club. So I've taken the plunge and ordered the rulebook and a starter warband for the Welsh and the Vikings.

If only I had the time to do all this justice, but it will keep me busy for a while. Thanks dad!

Scipion and Hortense

The British ships I finished recently need something to shoot at, so here they are: the French Scipion (74) and Hortense (40). I think I'm starting to get the hang of the rigging, although the ratlines and shrouds still do my head in.




Now that I have four ships completed, I'm going to start trying out the available rules, with 'Kiss Me Hardy' being the first.

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.