Renaissance with Armati

With the regular Friday night 'gaming shifted to a Saturday night this week, Adrian and I played a Renaissance game using the Armati I rules (that's the rules set that combined the Ancients and Renaissance periods in the one rule book, whereas the newer Armati II is solely an ancients rules set).

Adrian was using his newly finished Elizabethan English army against French. The game was fascinating - we each smashed through one flank (logically that means that we each lost the other flank), and then had to turn around to face off against each other again, from opposite sides of the table. Here are some assorted photographs from the game, the figures are early Essex figures, all painted by Adrian.

The English skilled bands (combined Pike and Shot - aquebusiers).

English Halberdiers and longbow men.

Landschnekts in French employ!! Nasty pike blocks.

Ahhh, French Gendarmes.. really heavy really elite cavalry.. mwahahahahaha... cue maniacal laugh. This was the flank on which the French broke through, alongside the Millers, and the pike blocks.

However this is the flank that the English broke through on - English Halberdiers go up against French aquebusiers.. not much of a match up really!!!

French Millers take on that English left, breaking through in style.

The Gendarmes were held up by two 'speed bumps', the Border Horse of the English army. But that was all they needed to do to keep the Gendarmes occupied and out of the rest of the battle.

The Landschneckt pikemen breaking through.

A great game, finally won by the English when their longbow men did some dreadful damage as the two armies faced off for the second time. My poorer deployment as the French commander meant that I'd failed to protect my musketeers and aquebusiers, so by the time we hit the second phase of the battle I'd lost the lot.. damned careless of me really!!

Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre

While away at a dancing event this weekend we took the time to visit the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Blenheim New Zealand. Here's a quote from the web site:

The collection is managed by the 14-18 Aviation Heritage Trust, which is chaired by film director Peter Jackson, and has been brought to life in a series of theatrical dioramas constructed with the artistic talent and technical expertise of some of New Zealand's most talented storytellers.

Now I spent a number of years working in the museum world (specifically in the technology heritage area), and have visited many museums both in New Zealand and through Europe. Frankly this is one of the best I have seen. All but two of the aircraft are replicas, and the replica fleet includes three airworthy Dr1 Fokker Triplanes. The presentation is absolutely top class, and it is easy to see the Peter Jackson/Weta Studios influence in the quality of the interpretive dioramas that have been created around a number of the aircraft.

A Taube monoplane - I hadn't realized how large these are in real life.

A fantastic diorama of the recovery of a wounded airman form a crash landed Morane Saulnier. The mud and water effects on the ground are so realistic....

The trio of Triplanes..... yup, these are great!!

One of my all time favourite WW1 aircraft: the DH2.

And the diorama of the end of von Richtofen... Australian troops recovering the Red Baron's body and along the way helping themselves to a few mementoes.

I was going to publish more photos, but am conscious of the copyright issue.. hopefully Omaka won't mind these, as a blatant plug for the whole complex. There are so many more aircraft, mostly WW1, but you are greeted at the entrance with a Ju87, and a Hurricane.

Blenheim isn't exactly on the main tourist routes, but it is in the heart of one of the premier wine producing regions of New Zealand, and here, bang in the middle of such epicurean delights, lies a truly wonderful aviation museum. If you are ever visiting, this is worth detouring to make the visit. I picked up a copy of 'Aces High' on DVD, and the cafe serves great coffee.. I was like a 'pig in sh**'... sigh!!!

Older Eldar still foot it!!!

Time to try out the newly acquired Inducted Imperial Guard troops, even if I haven't yet had time to finish their bases, nor to paint the unpainted heavy weapons and others. The boys faced off against some older but still beautifully painted Eldar; Adrian's wraith army from the Craftworld codex. Enjoy these photos, mostly of Adrian's beautiful Eldar.

The Avatar - looks like the Inquisitor might have his work cut out!!!

Some of the Guard eagerly advancing - maybe some of these lads aren't too bright, me thinks, there's a very nasty daemon lurking out there, with an awful lot of heavy fire support from a heap of Starcannon!!!

The Inquisitorial team look intent on business, as you'd expect.

There's even a Leman Rus there to offer at least some moral support, although the boys were really hoping for a lot more than that.

Wraith Lord and Wraith Guard.. shudder shudder!!

Wraith Guard with their Warlock -- my Guard Squads and Callidus Assassin managed to account for both warlocks, but the Wraith Guard didn't seem at all phased in the end.

Bloody hell, 4 star cannon!!

The final 'face-off' between the Inquisitor Lord and the Avatar had to happen.. but the game was already lost, the Eldar held both objectives, and there were an awful lot of Guard bodies lying around.

Mid War SH troops..

Well I might have bought the figures for the next next project (the Inducted IG for a Daemonhunters army in 40K) but that doesn't mean I'm leaping straight into it. There is still plenty of other unfinished business that is higher up the queue. I've been expanding the WW2 Spearhead armies. There's plenty of Russian equipment for early and mid war, but the only opponent they have had until now is an early war German army. So, I started work a few weeks ago on the freshly arrived PzKW IV F2s for mid war eastern front battles, and a few Panthers, with some Flak, for a later war morphing of these same forces.

The PZKWVs set to go.

Their flak support... in other rules sets I've played these were typically almost 'super weapons', but Spearhead makes them effective but not unbeatable.. I like that.

The flak, with some STUGIIIs in the back ground.

And enough PzKwIVs for two battalions, although using Keith McNelly's Scenario Generation System I'm unlikely to field this many, but  "bit of a mess up on the ordering front, Reggie".
I was very happy with the camouflage scheme as it finally turned out on these. I used a GW Kommando Khaki and Tamiya Desert Yellow base, with a Devlan Mud wash. This created the yellow base with brown patches which was then completed with the addition of green patches. The wash worked out remarkably well. While possibly not quite accurate I wanted troops that would be OK for mid to later war scenarios.

And finally back to the few late war additions. I think I should have ordered some PzKwVI Tiger Is as well, but maybe next time.

Another one...

Isn't it wonderful how projects ferment in our minds, often for quite some time. I've blogged previously about how war-gamers are so often already thinking three or more projects ahead. Well, this a project that I pondered and planned abut 7 years ago when I first took an interest in the GW game Warhammer 40k.

My attention was captured by the idea of an inquisitorial army, and I bought some Gray Knights, some Imperial Storm Troopers, and an Inquisitor etc for the army. I have used the army occasionally (I'm not a regular 40K player), but always at the back of my mind was an inquisitorial army that sued inducted Imperial Guard.

This week the opportunity arose to buy some IG figures, already painted, to add to the project.
Elliot, the painter/seller of the figures, has moved on to paint a VERY nice Vostroyan army, and felt that his paint job on his Cadians was not really up to the mark. He also just didn't use these guys any more (given the look of his Vostroyans I can see his point).

Well, I think he'd made  a pretty reasonable job of the figures, certainly good enough for me to use. They just need to have their bases finished. There are some extra figures yet to be painted, and some Storm Troopers that I'll need to repaint in their Inquisitorial red to match my existing figures. Here is the box 'au naturel', as I got it from Elliot.

And a little more detail of a nice Leman Russ: I'll need to check whether or not I can use a Heavy Support choice with the inducted IG in the Daemonhunters' army too.

So, there's another project that has taken a step forward. Of course we could always argue that I should put more time, energy and money into the genres I play more regularly, but... hey, I'm a war gamer, and proud of it!!

Sisters and Brothers...

Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K isn't a game we play a lot of, although I suspect that few would deny that the figures they produce for their games are beautiful.  Tonight was however another 40K game, with Adrian deploying his Sisters of Battle against my Space Marine Brothers (my 'Les Voies Sacrés' Chapter) in a 1250 point face-off. Well actually my force was an Inquisitorial force based on the now very old Daemon Hunters Codex. My force was based around an Inquisitor Lord with a couple of acolytes,  two small squads of Storm troopers and a Callidus Assassin. Any veteran 40K players reading this will probably laugh at my experiment (???) but i opted to ally a number of small SM tactical squads in support of the Inquisition, supported by two small Devastator squads and a Dreadnought.

Adrian's force was based around four tactical squads of Sisters, a Penitient engine, an Exorcist, and a penitent engine.

The game was an 'Annihilation' scenario from the rule book. We play so little that we made a heap of mistakes, included in which was my singular inability to read a stats line, giving my assassin 3 wounds instead of 2, thanks to one reader for pointing that out .. LOL .. Oh well....

I just LOVE the penitent engine models.

Devastator Squad with two plasma cannons, not destined to cover themselves with greatness during the game. On their first turn of firing they both rolled a '1' to hit, and one of them failed his armour saving throw, and then on the next turn the other also managed a '1', and proceeded to fail his saving throw. They did more damage to themselves than to the Sisters (well actually they did NO damage to the enemy at all... sigh!!!)

Seraphim advancing behind cover, with penitent engine and Sisters squad in support. This was a very effective combination.

Inquisitorial storm troopers advancing to cover the left flank of the army. Two squads of these guys advanced to cover my left flank, and with their flamer, and Hellguns, managed to take out an entire squad of Seraphim (sadly after they had destroyed my own Assault Marines, but you can't have everything!!).

OOO .. that penitent engine again.. NICE!!!! ...nasty in combat too. And did I say that I really like the look of the Penitent engines????

The Callidus Assassin struck in turn two, taking out the sister commanding the opposing force (a tough lady, I have to say, with quite a temper on her.. she inflicted 2 wounds back before falling to the assassin's blade), and then locked in combat with a Sisters squad for several turns. Eventually they wore her down.

I used my Assault squad badly ... if you play this game you can probably tell that this isn't going to end well for the assault marines, it's the Sisters' turn prior to their assault phase.

Overall Adrian took the game with 6 VPs to my 2, but a very enjoyable game, and nice to get the armies out again. It has motivated me to re-activate a long lost project to build a decent Inquisitorial force, with an Inducted Guard option (just because it appeals to me, I suspect it won't be that effective, but I don't play enough to judge) but more on that later.

My wife's ....

.... evil HotT army has been sitting partly complete for quite some time. Her plan was to have an evil army to match her 'good' Angel army. They have been awaiting basing, and here is the first batch.

A magician (well an evil witch actually), and a Heroine start the army.

Then there are the 5 bases of beasts, GW Dire Wolves in fact. I had fun painting these for her. The exposed flesh was finished with a purple wash, giving it a nicely cold raw effect.

Still to come are two bases of bat flyers (GW Fell bats, and another very nice evil vampire  witch ... mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ..... )