Let the games begin!

Posts will get a little slow until the start of the summer holidays due to a variety of factors at work (we are going into special measures - again! - and my job is changing - again! - and the timetable is changing before the end of the year - again!) However, one bright spot is that I finally got around to starting up a wargames club at work again.

We've attracted a good spread of ages and genders. Interestingly, of all the games so far the girls have proved to be far and away the best commanders.

So far we have had a couple of games of Iron Cross which went down very well.

And then this last week we started a Wars of the Roses Lion Rampant campaign using the miniatures I put together waaaay back at the start of this blog.

Everything is going rather swimmingly; it also turns out that most the students play Bloodbowl, so it looks like we'll be getting a league up and running.

Overall. it's good to have come full circle. After all, it was a history teacher at my old school who got me into this habit lo those many moons ago!

End of an Era

So here's the good photos of the medieval mounted men at arms to finish off the Wars of the Roses project. These side by sides show the difference with the colour palettes quite effectively; just the standards to add and then they're finito.

Back to painting in the evenings as of tomorrow!

Paint Table Saturday

Crikey, it's been a long road. This is a slight expansion of the original War of the Roses project but I've now finished all the Perry Miniatures that were bought for me as Birthday presents back in January.

Here we have the Neville cavalry, rather neater and better equipped than their Percy counterparts. Again, I chose cooler colours from the blue end of the spectrum to help tie the forces together. 

The coloured lances, incidentally, are a detail I lifted from the ever useful Osprey publications. They were more prevalent than we sometimes think.

This is the one I did the major conversion work on, and I'm rather happy with the dynamic pose:

Like the ever Sainted Mr Awdrey I, too, have now to prepare for the new Academic year, so my painting will probably slow down. I am, however, determined to finish the human Blood Bowl team; so hopefully there will be at least one more completed project post before the new term.

Here comes the Cavalry!

Got the first lot painted up: a group of men at arms allied to the Percys.

The first issue was to decide the colour palette. Livery didn't work like uniforms, of course - after all, each of the Men At Arms was likely to be a landed knight in his own right - but you want to try and tie the various forces together.

So with my Percys being kitted out in quartered red and black, I went with things on the red side of spectrum; red, purple and yellow. Overall I'm quite happy with how they came out. Proper photos will follow when I've finished the Nevilles, hopefully tomorrow.

CHAAAAAARGE!

So last night I popped the rest of the Doctor Who story on the DVD that I was using for reference for the Third Doctor and Brigadier (The Green Death, fact fans) and made a final push on the medieval project.

The Perry mounted men at arms box is just as good as their other WotR sets; a massive amount of options and plenty of bits left over. The variation allows for some very dynamic poses and lots of potential for conversion.

So here we have the first Lion Rampant unit of 6:

And here is the second:

As an example, here is the only major conversion I did with these: 

all that was done was a slight reposition on the base - the posing of the rider, legs and horse-head was done purely with mixing and matching the different bits of the kit to get the desired effect.

The plan is to get these undercoated and done today and tomorrow.

Post 100!

It's been a little over six months since I got back into the painting groove after the birth of my two kids. In that time, I've managed to do something that has eluded me a lot over the years - I managed to finish a project!

So here, for those people who have patiently waited since way back in January, I have actually completed my two Lion Rampant retinues. Annoyingly, they've already had their first road test but they're now ready for action at the school open evening in September.

Here are the Nevilles, resplendent in their neat white and blue livery:

And here are the slightly more rough and ready Percys:

Two fine bodies of Yorkshire men, I'm sure you'll agree.

Up next, another Project to finish off and then the start of some Victoriana.I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone for their support. It makes it a lot easier to pick up the brush and get cracking if you know there are other people out there who share your enthusiasm.

So thanks, and here's to the next 100!

Getting Medieval on the Summer

Due to an organisational cockup, my two delightful children have ended up having to attend nursery more than we intended over the summer. This means that I had an unexpected free day.

And, my word, I put the time to good use (apart from having a nap).

First, I completed the last unit of Neville serjeants at arms:

Secondly, I finished off a Witch King of Angmar I found kicking around in the lead pile. The trick here is how to paint black interestingly - I used what I'd learnt from Doc Holliday to highlight but then decided to cool it down. I created a glaze using Vallejo Transparent Blue and a lot of water. This lowered the temperature of the grey without giving it a noticeable coloured tint (this, believe it or not, is a trick I learnt from Photoshop). Finally, the most impressive thing about the Lord of the Rings movies was the verisimilitude; in keeping with this, I've always made a point of weathering my LotR minitures as much as possible, so here we get dust and mud splatters to ensure that the Lord of the Nine is grounded in reality.

Finally, I put together something I'm looking forward to painting immensely. A incredibly talented chap named Vermis on the Lead Adventure forum has sculpted a Victorian Villain, the Man Who Grins.

The sources - both Conrad Veidt and the Joker - are obvious; as is the inspiration for the Victorian Vigilante:

These will be my reward for finishing the Wars of the Roses retinues. I'm intending to use them for In Her Majesty's Name.

Last thing is just a bit of a brag; at the trawl round a car boot sale at the weekend, I picked up Memoir '44, a board/wargame with a very good reputation, unplayed for a tenner. Expect a review as soon as I can find someone to play it with me.

On the boardgame front, tomorrow night I will be playing Rex which I've been looking forward to for some time, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Odd Jobs

So this week has largely been a write off between looking after the bairns and catching up on sleep from last year*. I did, however, manage to get some bits and pieces of prep work done.

• I have undercoated some Neville Wars of the Roses serjeants for Lion Rampant, as I am determined to get both forces finished in time for open evening at school in September
• I've also stripped the Human Blood Bowl team so that me and the Good Lady She Who Must Be Obeyed can have a few games
• And while I was on, I stripped what appears to be a Moria Cave Troll I picked up from a car boot sale.

I'm suffering one of those periodic lacks of mojo that hit all of us every now and again. I think, in order to kickstart my painting, I need to move on to pastures new - that means parking the Wild West project. I know there's only four of them left but... yeah. For the moment, they're a sacrifice I'm going to have to make.

Hopefully some pictures of some hot painting action this weekend.

*I'm not joking - on Tuesday I slept from 8am to 3pm. I've never been this tired in my entire life. 

Much Frottage and Porking on the Wold (Lion Rampant AAR)

Finally, a game of Lion Rampant. Two retinues, both alike in dignity - as in, not much.

I'd been up since Oh-Christ-Hundred Hours with a sick child; my brain was not functioning. My opponent - a fellow teacher and upstanding member of the community - was so hungover that for first fifteen minutes of the session he simply sat there soaking up lucozade and grunting. 

Here he is, bravely trying to look sober and awake.

The stage was set for an epic clash of medieval warriors!

(trans. two barely coherent blokes stumbling round a table at 9am)

As this was our first test game, both retinues were exactly the same; men at Arms, Foot serjeants and Archers at 14pts. Leader qualities were rolled for and my opponent picked the Nevilles and I got the Percys. This meant that his leader was Sir Stig, which would come to be an issue. 

The Battle of Much Frottage

"Bertrand!" called Sir Percy Percy to his trusty squire. 

"Yes, my Lord?" the boy replied, scampering up.

"Yonder lies the lands of our enemy, but it seems he has sent a force to protect that village. Canst thou seest the device of the Knight who stands against me?"

the boy squinted into the morning sun. "Aye, my Lord. That I can."

"Then, pray tell, who is my victim this day?"

"Some sayest that he sucketh the moisture from ducks, and that he thinks the Middle Ages are what happens when you turn forty, Lord; all I know is... he is called Sir Stig."

The Village of Much Frottage had no idea what was about to descend upon it.

For our first go we decided to simply have a go at the Bloodbath scenario. As you can see, deployment was relatively simple.

Turn one; my leader, Sir Percy Percy, ordered his archers to advance. They shuffled their feet and made a point of looking in the other direction. That was my turn over. Sir Stig ordered his Serjeants to advance. They looked at my archers and refused. Obviously, there was some sort of Mexican Standoff in Much Frottage.

The Foot Serjeants advance, into a withering hail of longbow fire from my archers. One of his men is killed.

"Lacastrians, Sir! Fousands of 'em!"

They advance again, into another storm of arrows:

Another few fall, but not enough to make the difference as battle is joined!

Rather predictably, the archers are hammered and retreat off the table. The Neville archers are still somewhere on the other side of the field, breathing in through their teeth and improvising on the theme of "oooh, nasty". 

Meanwhile, on the east side of the village, my foot Serjeants have stopped to pick some daisies or something. My Men at Arms however, sneak around the side of the cottage, only to discover that Sir Stig himself is also indulging in a spot of cottaging. At this point, Sir Percy Percy rashly issues a challenge. 

This is rash on two counts; firstly, before the battle, Sir Stig issued the boast that he would kill Sir Percy in a duel; and secondly, Sir Stig rolled the Braveheart leadership quality. Thirdly, incidentally, Sir Stig is the coolest looking miniature on the field. 

"Hi there. Loved you in Top Gear."

The two knights meet in the thick mud of the ploughed field and a deadly contest of skill begins as a flurry of feints, parry pas four and delicate-- nah, not really. Sir Percy gets disemboweled in short order.

It's the nonchalance that marks out the true craftsman. 

At this point, the Nevilles had picked up a pretty unassailable lead in Glory points. Although my retinue passed the courage test caused by the death of their leader, I was happy to call that one a loss so we could try again with a random scenario. We shuffled the scenery around a little, and got set.

Crackling

"Right, let's get those swine!" Sir Hugh cried. "Errr, sir...?" One of the serjeants shuffled his feet nervously. "Thing is, guv.. well, me and some of the lad, we's related to them lads over there and we's not that comfortable wiv you callin' 'em pigses."

"No..." Sir Hugh sighed and shaded his eyes with his hands. The Peasant's Revolt had a lot to answer for, he reflected. "I mean it literally. We're going to go and set fire to their pigs."

"Oh, right." There was a pause. Here it comes, thought Sir Hugh. "I'm not entirely convinced some of the lads ain't related to the pigses, Sir."

This time the rolls placed me in the role of attacker and gave us the Sausages and Mustard scenario; so four pigs were placed in the central field and Sir Hugh Percy Percy - brother to the unfortunate Sir Percy Percy - bravely sallied forth to burn some pigs. 

This is the village of Porking on the Wold. Stop making your own jokes up at the back.

Now, anyone who cares to zoom in on that picture will spot the mistake that the defenders made in deployment. 

Let's have a closer look:

Troops who need to sit and wait for people to come to them... yes, let's give em pointy sticks.

This is a picture of a man who's just realised he should've put his archers in the rough terrain where they could shoot at anyone who dares to approach them and fight them all on more or less equal terms.

Doesn't he look happy?

The Percy forces stormed down the table. Well, except for the archers. They sort of meandered.

As my archers continued to pick away at the foot serjeants stuck in the middle of the field -

- our Men At Arms came within sight of each other on the north side of Porking on the Wold. Proving that the AA definition of insanity is pretty much spot on, I issued another challenge:

Which went about as well as the last one:

That's pretty much dismemberment, whichever way you read those results. 

Undeterred, the remaining Men at Arms charged into the Foot Serjeants.

That little paint pot is a pig. It's in disguise. 

They won the combat, but then the one remaining chap found himself the corned beef in a medieval military sandwich!

Behind you!

My Foot Serjeants are just there around the back of the cottage, ready to leap into action but by this point my opponent had a dentist appointment and I was falling asleep on the table so we called it a draw. Ish.

The undisputed Man of the Match was, of course, Sir Stig. 

Man of the Match. Held by hungover man of the match. 

So, what were the first impressions of Lion Rampant in play?

It's pretty much as good as everyone says it is. The activation rule adds a nice bit of friction to turns and requires you to think about the priority of your actions. It runs very fast and creates wonderful opportunities for storytelling. It will work very well with the kids at school - if the two of us with our cognitive impairments today were able to work it, 11 year-olds will have no problem.

Tomorrow - the start of an X-Wing Campaign!