Big axes and attitude to match

Yup.. it's happened again.. It's no secret that I've pondered WH Fantasy for a while.. and even bought those mostly painted Tomb Kings figures as a start, only to convert them to HotT with a new base job.

However discussion on our local war games forum of how 'boring' dwarf armies to play with and against perked my interest.. how could short guys with big axes, and an attitude to match, be boring?

So.. I've bought the 'battalion box', and started my first Dwarf regiment.



No this isn't them... this is the GW promotion photo from their own web site. Hopefully I'll post a few photos in a week or two. I had hoped to 'speed paint' them, but life has intervened with other priorities, and also i just can't bring myself to use dips. I am still a layering man.. I still like the old fashioned layers and highlights.

I played a small trial game a couple of weeks ago, and was pleasantly surprised at the 'layers' of play possible with move, magic, fire, and close combat, each adding a fascinating series of layers to what I'd thought to be a simplistic game. Now that's not to say think this game is the best thing sliced bread (I know better!!), but at its own low level it did remnd me of what I enjoy about the Spearhead family of games.

I am a fanatical fan of Great War Spearhead, and also play WW2 and Modern variants of the game. Take the Moderns period: movement, fire. close assault, ECM, chemical warfare, artillery/counter battery fire, air attack and defence.. the tremendously appealing aspects of this rule set are those multi layered challenges that the rules present, built around the need to first create a plan that combines time, space, objectives and forces.

OK.. The WH Fantasy rules don't go anywhere near that level of complexity, but I have the feeling that they are going to be a little better than I'd thought.

And anyway, how could you resist short guys with big axes and a great big pile of attitude to match???

Volley and Bayonet: French Revolutionary Wars

A few weeks ago good friend Adrian Powell and I played a Volley and Bayonet game using forces from the French Revolutionary Wars. The armies were French and Prussian, with the French on massed bases, and the Prussians on linear bases. We wanted to try out the skirmish facets of the newest edition of the rules, as we felt some scepticism about this facet of the rules.

I am pleased to say that the rules still worked pretty well.

Below are a few photos of the action. The photos are 15mm, from Adrian's collection.

HotT Tomb Kings army...

Several years ago I bought some GW Tomb Kings figures from a young man who had made a brief foray into Warhammer Fantasy, seduced no doubt by the Citadel beautiful figures. I had full intentions of completing a WHF Tomb Kings army (having been the victim of the same hobby seduction), but realised that this wasn't really going to be a realistic objective. So I was left with quite a few infantry skeletons, a carrion, some Tomb Swarms, and a couple of Liche priests. I'd also bought a couple of delightful wooden Egyptian figures, intending that they would become some nice scenery,

Well... you've guessed it, I could hardly leave these figures languishing in a box, they have been transformed into my newest HotT army of Tomb Kings. There ae plenty of figures, so you se below more than 24 army points.

The army composition is:

1 x Hero
1 x Magician
2 x Behemoths (those fantastic wooden souvenir figures)
1 x Flyer
4 x Spears
4 x Blade (one is the general)

That's 34 army points, so there are plenty of options. This army will be different from any of the others I have completed so far, with its Spear and Blade bases.

War in the east 1914...6mm style

I've been planning a new WW1 project for quite some time: eastern front in Great War Spearhead. I began some 20mm forces last year, but various things have brought that project to a temporary halt. However, I recently took the plunge in 6mm using a sponsorship voucher from the very kind Eureka Miniatures in Australia to purchase the first Russian infantry regiment. The figures are Irregular, and this first regiment has just come off the 'painting stocks'.

These first photos show the whole regiment, with the divisional HQ in attendance.





Now to order the rest of the first division. Using the scenario generation system devised for Great War Spearhead, I'll need a couple of divisions, plenty of artillery, and some cavalry. The Russian troops are a delight to play.. I'm looking forward to some fantastic actions once I have enough to face off against my waiting German divisions.

HotT Womanly wiles... HotT Angels

After nearly 30 years, my wife Lorraine finally said.. "if you can't beat 'em.., I want an Angel army". So we spent a number of weeks before Christmas looking for figures she liked. We discussed the idea of a paladin, a knight on a white charger, some foot knights maybe, to give some ground elements. Nope, I want angels. But they would be flyers, and all flyer army will be hard to sue for a first time player. Nope, I want angels.. OK... Someone on the HotT list did point out that not all angels have wings, but these all did, so here it is.. an army of angels (with a couple of fairies thrown in for good measure.. why? She liked the figures!!), and all flyers. Lorraine even did the basing herself, clouds....not bad, eh!! We just have to complete a Stronghold.

So:

1 x Aerial Heroine, the big angel dude!!
2 x Airboats, the large fairy flyers
6 x flyers, little angel babies











Now it seems that husband/wife wargaming may be taking off. Tim of Saskatchewan recently reported his first HotT date with his wife, and made comment on a growing trend reported elsewhere on the web. I'm looking forward to something similar, doubtless with the full range of distractions and other womanly ploys to defeat me....

Volley and Bayonet in action

We played a great little Volley and Bayonet game last night.. a small ACW action using my 15mm armies. The action was unbalanced, but nicely so. I used historical OOBs (Cedar Mountain) on a fictional terrain. The battle as we played it ended in a Confederate victory, but to provide game balance the game really required a time limit. The Confederates outnumbered the Union (both quantity and quality) as they fought over a strategic across roads.

This is only the third game I've played with the second edition of the rules. The rules are still fundamentally great, but there are a couple of changes in this new edition that I cannot justify in my own mind either logically or historically.

The treatment of skirmishing detachments in particular presents difficulty IMO. I am having trouble figuring out how a brigade can detach its own skirmishes, and end up increasing its own firepower and melee ability. I have watched discussion on the Yahoo group, but sadly don't feel confident to express my opinion on the list.. and that's not a feeling I've had on that list before.

We still had a great game.. ... and there will be many more.

Crossfire rules..OK!!

Finally finished the recycling of my old 20mm WW2 figures for Crossfire - well OK some would call it re-basing (the bane of the wargamer's life) but I'm trying to keep a positive spin on this..OK?

The photos below show two completed battalions, both late war: German and British. The photos of the Germans show a range of camouflage uniforms, while the British 'battalion' is made up fROm a company each of standard infantry, commandoes, and paratroopers. This eclectic composition is purely because those are the figures I have, and I like them.. the variety is nice. They will in all probability do service as standard infantry despite their uniforms.

The German were all painted by good friend Gerard D, a dab hand with a brush on those camouflage uniforms. The British were all my own, all from another age when I knew nothing of black undercoats, shading and highlighting etc. I had planned to give these figures a series of washes and highlights to sharpen up their appearance (see my previous blog on the Early German DBA army for an example), but as I mentioned in my previous blog though, I think these have a charm all of their own, even though my painting style has well and truly moved on since then.

The figures are almost all plastics (Airfix, and Esci mostly, from memory) with a few metals mixed in. The metal British commandoes and Paratroopers are Brittania, although I think there are a few FAA figures in there as well.. it really is that long ago that I can't tremember too well where I bought many of them from).

And yes, you aren't imagining things, some of those paras are sheltering behind crumbling brick walls (shades of Arnhem there). Each time we use them we make the jokes about how tiring it must be to haul those brick walls around after them as they go into action....

Now I am looking forward to a few serious Crossfire games.