There was this little toy truck..

Well, yup, a little toy truck that I was sure had a use.,.. and I was right. Initially it was going to be a 'knight' for the  HotT Weird World War 1 army, but it was a little large for the base, so ... another behemoth it is. That seems to fit with the 'narrative' I have in my mind .. an army of large lumbering inventions ... behemoths, if I ever I saw them. The basic toy needed those add-ons that would make it the WWW1 beast, so there was a lot of digging into the spares box, as you do.

Here is the end result.

Hittites DBA 1/24b completed

Motivation is a funny thing. The figures for my DBA Hittite army have sat in their box since before 2011 ( I remember that because it was our earthquake year). I bought them because I've always loved chariot armies. My first was the Minoan army, completed quite a few years ago now. I bought the Hittites and the Early Achaemenids at the same time. The Achaemenids are another story.

My interest in DBA had waned, as 'gaming interests so often do. However a resurgence in interest was brought about as I have been able to try some DBA 3.0 games with Keith, Jim, and Andy.

So in amongst those frenetic work evenings I have managed to paint the Hittites.

Righto, what's next?

Royalists to the fore ......

I have always enjoyed the renaissance period, and have variously played it with the original WRG George Gush rules, then DBR and finally Armati. I enjoy both the latter rules sets, and last night was able to begin re-acquainting myself with DBR as Keith offered to pop around and coach me through a first game.

I currently have a 15mm Royalist ECW army, and have most of the figures for an Ottoman army. I will be bringing that army forward on the painting schedule, so it may well appear on the painting table soon. The Royalists found themselves pitted against their old Parliamentarian foes. Just a fe photos to set the scene.. I didn't photograph the whole encounter as I was a little too focussed on getting my head around the rules again.

Warpath: take 2...

Andy and I got together for our second game of Warpath, again using our 6mm Epic armies. My 'Space Marines' counted as Enforcers, while Andy's Eldar counted as GCPS. We used a table 5' long, with 2000 point armies, playing the 'Ambush' scenario.

The 2000 points allowed us to add in some additional unit types.. vehicles and aircraft in particular.

The battlefield seen from the Enforcers' deployment edge. The Enforcers air support (carrying an assault team) was deployed on the opposite edge

GCPS Marines deployed behind the ridge, striders atop the high ground

GCPS Autocannon

Armour... a Lancer battle tank - eeek

More GCPS Marines

Enforcers Heavy Weapons unit

Enforcer Strider

The Enforcers pushes a team forward into a copse on the left, but were then assaulted by a unit of striders.The Enforcers lost one team and the other was pushed back out of the woods, into the open

One GCPS armoured vehicle pushed forward to engage the Enforcer strider

The Strider survived the attack but carried a number of suppressions

However a Weapons team using AT missiles managed to destroy the GCPS armour

The Enforcers air support came in, conducting a strafing run... 

And it just kept getting worse for these guys who also took fire form an Enforcer unit

Next turn a second strafing run caused moire mayhem.., 

The striders atop the high ground also took fire

A unit of snipers on the GCPS left flank started to take concentrated fire

Meanwhile on the Enforcers' left flank, a heavy weapons unit, and the remaining team form the unit assaulted in the woods, find themselves in the open, and taking very heavy fire.

The heavy weapons unit loses a team

Enforcers occupy a small village in the centre

The GCPS left flank is devastated, the striders destroyed, and the unit of Marines behind the high ground now coming under pressure. The aerial assault team uses its anti grav equipment to complete a drop from the Accuser Interceptor to add to the pressure. The dead Lancer battle tank can be seen lower centre

The remaining team from the Marines unit faces devastating fire

The second  Lancer Battle Tank deployed on the GCPS right flank takes AT fire, but has already caused mayhem amongst the Enforcer units

The Marine son the GCPS left are about to be assaulted by an Enforcer unit, IF they survive the fire.

The battle ended in a major victory for the Enforcers with over double the VPs of the GCPS. We are getting the hang of this, although this was the result of only three turns, remembering that each unit activation 'feels like a whole turn in itself'. We are getting faster, but a couple of new parts of the rules took a little thinking about.

Still, an interesting game, with layers developing as you vary troop types, objectives, and weapons systems.

Testing the 'Warpath' rules

The Epic Armageddon armies languish in the drawer .. GW Space Marines of old, rarely used in the decade or more that I have owned them. When Mantic's Firefight and Warpath rules came out we bought them, not because we were dissatisfied with Epic. Quite the contrary, a great set of rules. We sadly play them too rarely to be able to master them with any degree of confidence. What I thought I was seeing in Firefight and Warpath was what I have described as 'Epic Lite'. Similar clever mechanisms, simpler rules, and similar nuance.

We'd tried Firefight a couple of years ago, but had yet to try Warpath, the macro level version of the game, and Andy felt that this would be a good use of those 6mm Epic armies. So tonight we gave them a try. The figures work well, although mapping the old GW armies across to Warpath isn't totally seamless. However, the rules worked well, we used a very simple version with small forces and no orders. Next step will be to add greater variety of forces, and use of the orders system which is simple but again almost elegant.

Here, some photos of the small game in action, using the 6mm Epic figures: my 'space marines' counting as Enforcers, Andy's Eldar counting as GCPS

Just a few cool games....

For the second week in a row I have been able to enjoy some 'gaming. Last week it was some DBA 3.0 with Keith. This week some HotT with Andy.  These are all interesting games that seem to suit the currently busy life style. Short games with enough depth to challenge to the degree that you fell suited, without requiring the investment of 3-4 hours for a single outcome.

We managed four games in two hours (along with beer, coffee, sausage rolls, and plenty of good conversation). The first saw my 25mm French napoleonics fighting Andy's 28mm VSF army.

Game 1

French columns (behemoths), Cuirassier (knights), Old Guard (blade) and recruits (horde) with a hero general 

Germans.. a behemoth general no less!!!

Shooters ..

The raw recruits ..

The French stronghold

Quick game, Prussian hero general destroyed, and more points than I'd lost..

Game 2 ...

The result a reversal from the first game...  the evening was developing well, with honours evenly shared

 Game 3... weird world war 1 Germans vs British

The newest British behemoth .. first game ever

 

British Behemoth and hero destroyed, and the first ever outing on the table top for the behemoth .. sob! sob!

A hard fought encounter that went to the German army.

The fourth game saw Andy's British napoleonic army fighting the treacherous orcs which were as nasty as ever, with victory to the orcs.

No detailed AARs here, just a photo record of a great evening of games with some very cool looking figures and vehicles, with honours shared equally at 2 games each, beer coffee and sausage rolls enjoyed, and some of the week's stresses forgotten. That's why I enjoy this hobby, even after fifty years.