Volley and Bayonet goodness...

I'm like a 'Pig in S--t" as my Mother used to say.. I received my copy of the second edition of Frank Chadwick's "Volley and Bayonet: Road to Glory" rules. I have played with the play-test version of these for a number of years now, and they quickly became my all time favourite rules set (and that after 40 years of gaming, and I don't know how many rules sets).

The rules set allows gaming from 1700 to 1900, (with minor rules variations for each sub period) and plays so elegantly and subtly... they have given me viable 'gaming access to many sub periods of this era that I had longed to play for most of my gaming career. The rules I had previously found were (for me) always cumbersome, awkward or.. well, they just never suited me. Now that's not an atack on the other rules sets, they just never suited me: Volley and bayonet does.

There are some subtle yet significant changes in the second edition, but unlike some other rules systems, we have not seen a wholesale re-write of the system. The rules have a comforting familiarity that leaves me feeling secure after 9 years of using the earlier edition. As a 'gamer I like that.

The rules come with a scenario generation system that looks rather cool.. i might write more once I've actually used them.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a lot of Napoleonic games (my 25mm French, Spanish and British need some exercise)... more Volley and Bayonet goodness...

Larry Leadhead does DBA

I'm on a bit of a DBA/HotT kick at the moment. Just in case there are blog readers who haven't seen Fanaticus, by way of a teaser (with no intention to contravene copyright!!):

And you can find the rest here..

In the meantime, back to revamping those 25mm Early Imperial Romans for DBA. They match up reasonably with the 20mm Early Germans (if you squint a little).. photos to come in the near future.

DBA II/47(g) Early Germans

I've had a bunch of 20mm Esci Barbarians sitting in a box for probably close to 20 years. They were painted in my days of block painting - so no shading or highlighting, well ... nothing really, just block colours. I thought it was time to get these guys out and give them a spruce up ready for some Book II DBA gaming. I simply gave them a 'Dark Flesh' wash, followed by a dry brush highlight with a light flesh, and then put them on new bases and ... voila!!!

The first photo shows the army complete.. 10 Wb, a Wb general, and a Psiloi. The other photos are just .. well, more warband basically, because that's all there is.

Of course the army will easily morph into a HotT Barbarian army as well... a few beasts, a Magician/Shaman and.. well, we'll see.

HotT Tournament

We have confirmed a date for Christchurch's first full HotT tournament (I think it's the first!!!): it is 30 November, as a part of the "Carnage" tournament.

This is a full on Fantasy Wargames day at the Woolston Club, with the HotT Tournament, and a WFB tournament.

So..

Gather your Ghouls
Patch up your pirates
Zap your Zombies

and get ready for HotT Carnage...

I am looking at using the Berkeley HotT tournament rules (I hope the Berkeley guys take that as the compliment it's intended to be). 

So watch out for details .. in th meantime.. back to the spiders..... which incidentally had their first outing today. Lost the first game.. wow!! warbands sure eat Hordes as my hordes found out, but won their second. The two heroes did the business while the Hordes held up the larger part of the opposing army, dying regularly, but coming back often.. now that was a good feeling.

So I think this horde army could work well if handled with care.

Creepy stuff? Go the spiders...

There I was in a local bookstore, and there they were.. packets of small black plastic spiders, 12 to a packet for $2 ("Ming Shing Creepy Spiders") - love at first sight, really!!!. It's a mark of obsession I guess, but my first thought wasn't 'oo, creepy black Spiders', it was... 'Oo look, Hordes'.... I saw creepy hordes of spiders scuttling across a barren landscape, the bases with enough terrain on them to suggest unstoppable spiders climbing over everything, nothing standing in their way.

So, 24 Horde bases? Well, a lot of horde bases, but maybe a few other things as well. Down the aisle of the mall was a 'Nature's Discoveries' shop.. full of neat plastic animals and insects: arise two spider heroes, rather large creatures, guaranteed to creep even the hardiest player. One is a hairy looking Tarantula, the other a shiny redback, a Katipo spider, both nasty creatures for those of us with arachnophobia.

So far, the army has 12 Horde bases, and 2 Heroes.

More to come.. I'd first thought spiders could also be sneakers and lurkers, but on reflection maybe just lurkers? I was after a different HotT army to my other three, and lots of Hordes seemed to be very different in composition to the other three armies. I certainly expect this army to play differently to the others. We'll see.

TAGCon 08 and DBA

Wow!! well that was it.. my first tournament or competition in 27 years, DBA at the Timaru Armchair generals Convention (TAGCon) 2008.

A day of fantastic games with great people, each of 8 of us playing 7 games, with armies from Book 4. My own Ottomans fared pretty well i thought: 4 wins, 2 losses and a draw.. not bad for an army i'd used twice before (losing both games. 

You see, I've never considered myself a Light Horse type of guy: give me some solid Romans, or Hoplites, any day. However I pretty soon became master of the 5 march moves opening gambit, positioning a column of light horse on my opponent's flank.

Anyway... here  is a taster, and a link to a pile of photos on the day.

Thanks to Dave Batchelor and his team for a tremendously well organised and jolly good fun day.

A HotT Winter's Day

Today was the day: 'A HotT Winter's day'.. a HotT games day played here in Christchurch, New Zealand. Nine players played 13 games in a superb atmosphere of fun and cameraderie. Players varied enormously in experience, but brought a fascinating array of armies to the day: re-animated terracotta Chinese, British VSF, Chaos, Lost Worlds, Dwarves, Semi-Historical Mediaeval, Semi-Historical Indian, Undead, and more. Mark Ottley won all games played, while Andy Gorman won the prize for the most creative army (the VSF army with air boat, flyers and behemoths, judged by fellow players) while Gordon Pinchin won the prize for best painted army with his Dwarves as judged by the wargames Club President.

So successful was the day that the players all voiced the desire to repeat the exercise, perhaps in a more formal tournament format.

Below is a range of photos, in no particular order.