TANKTOBER!

I really must apologise. After inventing and aggressively advertising Tanktober last year I have been completely remiss in giving it any blog coverage so far in 2015. For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, there have of course been tanks a plenty.

Fortunately, Tanktober has been getting some traction this year with the outstanding coverage from Man Cave Paul aka Sea Otter aka Captain Pugwash. Paul has managed to post a pic of a different tankevery day, most of which he has taken himself (the pics, not the tanks, unfortunately). If you haven't already, get over to his blog and start identifying tanks.

I do, however, blame Tanktober for what is turning into a dangerous sort of obsession. I'm thinking microarmour, Cold War, c. 1980-85. Reckon another project is looking likely.

Project Zama Hits the Table

Isn't it great when you've been working on an army for a while and you finally get the chance to chuck at least some of it on a table and roll some dice?



Last night at our regular Odin's Night club, Steve and I gave our Zama armies some exercise. As our armies grow they are destined to try out various sets of rules, but last night we just had a game of Basic Impetus. I used to play quite a lot of Basic Impetus, but lost a lot of steam when SAGA came out. It was great to play it again, and remember how much I like the game. It's simple, it's bloody, and it makes me think far more about the narrative of the battle than the intricacies of using rules against my opponent.



As we know, there is an immutable law of the universe that newly painted armies always get slaughtered in their first battle. Since this was the first time either my Romans or Steve's Carthaginians had taken to the table we were interested to see who the Dice Gods would favour. They smiled on me, praise their name, and I managed to win a decisive victory over the Carthaginians. Fortunately, in the deployment I was able to keep my cavalry away from Steve's elephant, neutralising it instead with some allied light infantry. My general's cavalry over on the opposite (left) flank meanwhile managed to hold off attempts by Numidian light horse to get around my flank, while my legionaries in the centre steadily destroyed their Carthaginian opponents.



So much to like in these rules! Thanks for a great game Steve, and I feel your disappointment. During the evening his mood steadily slipped from this:



To this:



ROMA INVICTA!

Project Zama: Italian Allies

Here's a unit of socii (allies) I finished this week to help out my Romans. Figures are from Relic Miniatures, and I've painted them to be a bunch of Campanians, hence the bull and man- headed bull on the shields. One of them even has an Oscan inscription.



As always, shields are hand painted.



For those interested in Project Zama, check out the other half of the project at Steve's blog. Yep, he's started a blog at last to help motivate his painting, so check out how his Carthaginians are getting along. Great to see you in the blogosphere, Steve!

SAGA-lite with the Valkyrie

Had a great game yesterday with the mini-Valkyrie, playing SAGA-lite. This involves using the first column of activations on the SAGA battleboards and the rules for fatigue, but none of the other abilities.



As is her wont, the M-V played Vikings, this time led by a Valkyrie warlord she had painted. The Vikings had six points, my Welsh four. The Vikings had to break into the Welsh fort, raid the hut inside the fort to recover a magical horn the Welsh had stolen from Odin, then escape with it. To suit her divine status, the Valkyrie had armour of 6, and generated 6 dice in combat. To break down the gate, attackers had to accumulate 8 hits on the gate, hitting on a 6 with no saves.



After taking some losses from Welsh javelins, the Vikings managed to break into the fort, the Valkyrie and her followers leaving a trail of death and destruction behind them. The Vikings escaped with the magic horn, then went back to slaughter most of the Welsh. That's my girl.



SAGA-lite has been a great success in getting my M-V into miniature gaming. Next time we're going to have a game using all the battle board abilities.

The Last Hastati for Project Zama

I've just had a couple of days between Army Cadets annual camp and going away on a family holiday tomorrow, but I managed to finish another couple of bases of hastati for Project Zama. This means I only have 56 more figures to paint!



As usual, the figures are mainly Agema plastics, with one metal Agema figure (the bloke crouching really low to throw his pilum). The command figures are from Relic Miniatures.

Trying Out the Battle Mat

At the games club last week I had the pleasure of trying out my new Cigar Box Battle Mat, available in Australia from Campaign Books.



As a farewell to Lawrence as he heads back to Blighty we played a 1000 points game of Battle Group Overlord. Steve and I played a British infantry division battle group with Churchill support, while Lawrence and John took the Germans. Suffice it to say, nothing much went right for us Brits. Well-sighted German artillery gave us a hard time, and our Churchills couldn't make any headway against the Panthers they came up against. Foolishly, I separated the Achilles tank destroyers from the Churchills, so the poor old Churchills didn't have any nice effective firepower to maneuver with. I like Churchills, I really do. But every now and then I forget with Churchill I-IVs that just because they are big, hideously slow and woefully undergunned, that doesn't mean they have thick armour.



Apart from the Germans, the other big winner of the night was the Battle Mat. We just chucked it down over some very dodgy foam hills, and behold! a lovely contoured battlefield. Add some lichen hedges, trees and a building and it looked pretty darn good.

Numidian Cavalry

Painting production is slowing up a bit as we grind towards the end of term, but here's a couple of bases of Numidian cavalry for Project Zama.



Figures are from Relic Miniatures, except for the Numidian king, who is from Crusader.