Berserkers

These viking berserkers are happy to be out and about, enjoying a bit of fresh air and socialising with the locals. Hopefully things won't get too out of hand. And I am happy to have finally painted something, it's been a struggle recently. I might even get to game with them at some point, that would be a real treat.

These are mostly victrix miniatures, though the extra furry guy on the left is V&V miniatures. They scale together well. They are all based on two pence coins.

They paint up nicely, I used my usual method of thin coats and glazes and it worked just fine. In fact, I have a couple of videos in preparation to show how paint chain armour and how to make and paint realistic bases. More on those soon.

X.VIII - Cold Warriors

As the snow gently falls outside, it's a reminder to once again visit a past project, in celebration of my decade of blogging. It was 2015 and quite an easy year to choose a highlight from, as I focussed on just two main projects. The first of these, at the start of the year, was painting a Wars of the Roses force to play Lion Rampant. I made really good progress and painted the whole lot in about three or four months. Billmen, archers and men at arms.

As pleased as I was with my historicals, it was fantasy once again that took the crown for best of the year, in the shape of a Khorne force based around the Age of Sigmar starter set, with a few classic metals from my collection added in for good measure.

I don't consider myself a particularly talented convertor, but I was really pleased with a couple of these figures. The ogre in the marauder unit was built from plastic bits, a rat ogre and an ogre kingdoms head. The khorgorath (daemon beast thingy) from the starter was a more complex job, adding an old metal bloodthirster head and a little basic greenstuff work. Compared to the work of other talented hobbyists, it is beginner level, but I was happy with the results. 

Viking archers

It's good to finally have these painted and crossed off the list. I started them in the first week of the year, then got distracted by many other projects before finally knuckling down to get the job done. I find historical figures particularly challenging to paint as generally they are not as inspiring as my fantasy collection, though these archers are better than most available.

These are Drabant Miniatures metal figures - two sets of viking archers and one set of Saxon archers. Mixing enemies together in a unit like this is the best I can manage with the limited number of figures available - maybe the Saxons have turned traitor or been captured and are now slaves. From a distance they don't look too obvious. In games of Lion Rampant missile units tend to be smaller skirmish units, so two units of six.

Review of the Year - Painting

Another year gone by, so as is traditional it's time for the annual look back at hobby highlights. This post will look back at my painting efforts over the past year. There's a companion gaming review post to summarise dice adventures.

The start of the year was dominated by the Lion Rampant project. Over a period of four or five months, I built and painted a complete late medieval force of Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses figures. It was nice to complete a project in such a short timespan - some of my projects have been plodding along for years!

My painting mojo was obviously firing on all cylinders in spring, for I quickly fired off a few more units for various projects, including some warg riders and  Rohan troops for my Lord of the Rings collection, and these undead vikings, which I am unsure what to do with - something will come to mind at some stage. Sometimes it's good just to go with the flow and paint up what you fancy. 

After all those units I wanted to slow down and concentrate on some individual figures for a change of pace. We had started playing In Her Majesty's Name, which requires just 10 or so figures for a complete force, so I made a start on my oriental faction, the Silver Serpent, with these rather finely featured Malifaux figures. Actually, I slowed down to such an extent that this trio took me over three months to complete!

It was some time in late summer that I bought the Age of Sigmar starter boxset. I kept the chaos figures to add to my collection and sold the rest. I painted up the warriors, marauders and daemon beast model, and also finished painting a unit of ogres plus a lord on jugger, to give myself another skirmish faction to play in various game systems. 

Last but definitely not least, I started a dwarf project. Even though I already have a fully painted army for Warhammer, and a fledgling Lord of the Rings force, I could not resist buying a complete army from a forum sale. It's a project to savour, one to mature down the years. I painted up possibly my finest single figure of the year in the shape of a dwarf champion, followed by a splendid looking unit of rangers. More short beardy painting is sure to come in 2106. 

I reckon 2015 has been a good vintage for my painting. Two warbands completed - the Wars of the Roses force and the Khorne Warriors - and a good start made to a dwarf army, plus a little progress made on my Lord of the Rings collection. Looking to the year ahead, I am determined to get two small forces together for some steampunk gaming, so more work on the Silver Serpent and some new figures. The boxset of Blood Rage figures is calling to me, more vikings on the way. And no doubt the dwarfs will make an appearance too. I don't like to plan my painting too much, my enthusiasm for projects ebbs and flows and I make best progress if I just paint whatever takes my fancy at the time. 

Review of the Year - Gaming

It's time to look back at how the dice rolled over the past year, with a brief review of my gaming adventures. There's a similar review of the year's painting if you have not already seen it. Most of my games are played in Matt's gaming dungeon and you can find his blog here.

At the beginning of the year we were already well started with a Dux Brittaniarum campaign, with the luckless viking Ivar Sveinson attempting to invade England. The game mechanics proved easy to pick up and we enjoyed a good half dozen or so adventures. The campaign system seemed less than satisfying, and after 2 campaign years we came to a faltering halt. I have often thought that, with a little tweaking, the rules would form the basis of a nice little fantasy skirmish game.

Spring arrived and I was busy painting my Lion Rampant retinue. A few games were enjoyed (by me at any rate) in Matt's dungeon, it's a shame that the rest of my group didn't really take to the system. I even managed to get in a couple of games in my more modest gaming area. It's more cell than dungeon so can be a bit limiting on my 5 x 3 dining table, but it looks good with my homemade terrain and mat.

Summer came in the usual damp and dreary British way, and with it the bombshell that was the destruction of the Warhammer world. I had not played the game much over the past few years, but I was pretty sad to see the old game destroyed like it was. The replacement system I tried a few times, but as a skirmish game I think there are better alternatives, and the new aesthetic leaves me cold, so it felt like the end of an era. 

Much of my gaming over the summer months was down in Matt's dungeon, where we enjoyed a good number of games of In Her Majesty's Name in a Victorian Cumbria setting. Matt has also started to play Very British Civil War using mostly Bolt Action rules and I tried a couple of games of that too. The picture below was borrowed from Matt's highly entertaining blog.

Towards the end of the year we have been playing more fantasy games again. We tried adapting Lion Rampant, but found more success in Fantastic Saga, a fan-written mod to Saga. I was able to dig out some old friends in my dwarf and undead armies. 

A decent gaming year, I would have liked to have seen my Lion Rampant force get on to the battlefield a bit more, but it was good to get out the old fantasy figures. More Fantasy Saga games are on the agenda, with Dragon Rampant and Fanticide and even Of Gods and Mortals still to be tried out - so lots more fantasy gaming in 2016. I am also determined to get my oriental gang adventuring on the streets of Victorian Cumbria, and hopefully even get together a little steampunk set up of my own. And that's just the skirmish games! 

Lion Rampant Fantasy Gaming

The old dwarf army returns
So old it's black and white!

It's been a while, but in the past week I have rolled dice in a couple of games. Both times it was Lion Rampant being used with fantasy figures. In one game I used my Lord of the Rings figures to play a two-thirds game of Rohan vs Orcs (more detail on this here). In the second game it was the more standard full size game, pitching my obsession of the moment (dwarfs!) against some marauding beastmen.

In the first game I was teaching a complete newcomer the rules. As ever with Lion Rampant, they were very quickly picked up and the game rattled along at a fine pace. I gave each commander a single reroll per turn for a failed activation, to remove some of the randomness that can be frustrating and unbalancing. The game played well, swinging one way and then the other, until my opponent lost his general in a combat (he rolled the dreaded double 1). From this point it was much more one sided, as the Rohan forces under my command found it much easier to repel the leaderless orcs.

In the second game I fielded my ancient Warhammer dwarf army, it must be 3 or 4 years since they have seen any action. We played a convoy scenario, the dwarfs attempting to escort three crucial barrels of beer across beastmen territory. It played reasonably well. Centigors were very effective, galloping around and hurling spears to great effect, while dwarfs hunkered down into shield walls, thunderers blasting the depraved ones from afar. It seemed that the dwarfs were going to get two of the three barrels home safely, but after a lengthy trek overground, harried by centigor spears, they finally succumbed and dropped the barrels over a small outcrop, just yards from safety (failed activation roll in the dying moments of the game). No doubt the centigors were even more drunk than usual that night!

Using Lion Rampant to play with fantasy troops allows gamers to play with the minimum of fuss. It's quick and easy to map the troop types from the rulebook on to your fantasy forces, the game moves at a fast pace and there's little need to refer to the book. On the downside, the limited troop types can lead to forces feeling a bit samey, which is not necessarily a bad thing, it just seems to lack a certain something. It does not (by design) have the same level of detail that WHFB had, so when my dwarf slayers ran from the board after suffering a couple of spear wounds, it felt wrong. Similarly, when bestigors clashed with ironbreakers, and both sides were using the same profile, it felt a little flat. There are extra layers in the WHFB rules that are missing from Lion Rampant, which is not a good or a bad thing, it's just a thing that needs to be borne in mind.

There is an official fantasy version of the rulebook due for release around xmas time, the aptly named Dragon Rampant. From preview material on the author's blog, it sounds like Lion Rampant with extra rules for flyers, monsters, undead and a very basic magic system. From what I can gather it allows more troop upgrades (and downgrades), so I will certainly be giving it a whirl at some point. I don't expect it to provide rules and troop differentiation to the same degree that WHFB did - the game is not designed to be that way. I may well have a tinker at some point to produce something a little more akin to the old game, HammerRampant or some such. I have also discovered a fantasy mod for the Saga game, but that's a story that requires more investigation on my part. Fantasy gaming is alive and well, just different to days of old.

Medieval Miniatures On the Way

I started playing medieval gaming with Lion Rampant just this year. At the time I looked around at everything on offer and decided to collect a Wars of the Roses force, based on Perry Miniatures plastics. Partly this was because of the low cost, but mainly because I was unable to find what I really wanted - decent 14th or 15th century sculpts. How things have changed in just a few short months!

Claymore Castings produce some excellent stuff, their crossbow unit jumped to the top of my buying list - sadly I have been able to get just one pack to date as the company seem to have had some casting problems over the summer, hopefully now rectified. These are metal figures sold at a very reasonable £6.50 for a pack of four. I prefer plastic or resin models, but I will make exceptions for quality castings such as these. In the pipeline they have some very characterful spearmen previews, another must have for my collection.

 

 

Top of the plastics manufacturers to my mind are Perry Miniatures. Their English (Agincourt) army was very tempting, a complete Lion Rampant retinue in a box costing around £20, with some very nice sculpts, but I passed on it because I thought it would be too similar in gaming style to my Wars of the Roses force. But just a couple of days ago they released images on their facebook page of the French Agincourt army and this looks far more promising. More crossbows and spearmen to add to the collection. There's plenty of material here to make up foot troops galore, with the prospect of mounted troops further along the line? It's great to see some historical miniatures that can match the high quality of my fantasy collection. 2016 is shaping up to be a good year already.

Fireforge medieval archers on the way

Fireforge have announced that they are soon to release medieval archers (they call them Crusader archers). Details are a bit "sketchy" at the moment, the full press release is here. In short, they are resin kits and will be available in August - not long to wait then.

This is good news for those of us building medieval forces, archers are rather scarce models. I was pondering the Perry English Army archers, but I really want something a little more generic and this concept art really fits the bill. We need to see actual sculpts and prices of course, but they look very promising at this early stage.

Fireforge Infantry first impressions

I have been searching around for some time for figures to make a generic middle ages force for Lion Rampant. The idea is not to recreate one particular historical nation, but rather a stereotypical medieval force. There are lots of metal figures around but not many of them appeal to me - too many have a squat, chunky appearance that I dislike. Luckily, there are quite a few decent plastic sets around and there's a good range of choice at reasonable prices. When a gaming mate offered me these Fireforge infantry at a discounted price, I was happy to raid my battle chest.

The casting quality is excellent, matching that of the Perry plastics - hardly surprising as these are produced by Renedra. The detail is good, crisp without being too clunky. The sculpting is mostly very good, with good proportions and realistic folds in the garments. One minor problem I have is that many of the poses are very dynamic. Given that half of the box can be used to make up crossbow armed men, I would have thought that half of the poses being a bit more solid would have been appropriate. I am no expert on medieval weaponry but I would expect a solid stance is required to fire a weapon. It's not a big problem for me, I am building half as spear armed sergeants, half as hand weapon wielding troops, but worth bearing in mind if you want them for crossbow duty.

The figures required very little cleaning, with faint mould lines easy to scrape off with a knife. They are quick to assemble too, comprising just a body, two arms and head. They are probably the easiest plastic historicals I have assembled to date. This dozen I whipped up in a couple of hours or so, which included a bit of conversion work on weapon length, a couple of Perry head swaps and the like. In terms of scale they are a very close match to Perry Wars of the Roses figures, so you could easily get a box of each and mash them together if you wanted to make generic fantasy/medieval troops. All in all, highly recommended.

Tweaking Lion Rampant Again

Over the weekend I played a little game of Lion Rampant with my son (his Father's Day gift to me, along with a cooked breakfast and an amusing card!). I set up a game in Middle Earth, pitching Rohan against invading orcs. My good forces are not huge, I have just 24 infantry and 8 cavalry available. Lion Rampant units are generally 12 infantry and 6 cavalry, so it could have been a very short game with just 3 units. I suppose I could have played half strength units, but instead I decided to tweak the unit sizes to two thirds. Now I had 2 units of four cavalry and 3 units of eight infantry, perfect for a small battle.

I also tweaked the mechanics a little, reducing the dice rolled from the usual 12 per unit to just 8 per unit (two thirds of course). This would mean less hits per combat, but with smaller units I was hoping it would even out. There were no units with an armour value of 4 so I figured it should all work out.

The game rattled along at a fine pace - the orcs stormed into the village and burnt down two of the three objectives, but then were unable to push back a shiltron defending the final prize. Arrow casualties and cavalry charges whittled away the orc numbers and a final desperate challenge by the Rohirrim saw the orc commander face down in the dirt. I didn't take any photos so a stock art picture will have to suffice.

The tweaks worked a treat. The combats and courage tests seemed to play out as they would in a typical full size game. The game mechanics were picked up quickly and we were able to concentrate on the action, not the rules. We did notice that the profiles in the standard game are possibly not well suited to a fantasy environment. With the exception of fierce foot, infantry are better in defence, which is not really what orcs are about. My son reckoned that it's far more random than other games he has played, which is a fair comment. We also noted the lack of differentiation between the two factions, something that Saga battleboards do better. The abstraction of Lion Rampant, while it certainly makes gameplay very fast and simple, comes with the price of all factions resembling each other. If we were to play again, I would make further tweaks to the profiles, to allow more aggresive infantry for the orcs. A really interesting experiment would be to pitch a modified Lion Rampant against home-brewed Saga battleboards, the battle of the tweaks!

Rohan reinforcements

Eight Rohan infantry added to my small force. That brings them up to 24 infantry (8 with bows) and 8 cavalry, not a huge army by any means, but enough for small skirmish games. I was wondering about playing Lion Rampant, but rather than half strength units as some seem to suggest, go for two-thirds. This would mean units of eight infantry and four cavalry, giving me five units to put on the tabletop, about the average number for a Lion Rampant force. I wonder if anybody has tried it?

Undead Vikings Painted

I managed to get the first batch of shambling Nordic revenants painted up fairly quickly. Most of these are simply mantic zombies and ghouls, with just a few viking bits to add flavour. Future batches will contain more historical bits, so in the end they will look more viking like than this lot.

There's 13 figures here, enough for a unit in either Lion Rampant or Saga. I see them as lowly fighters, the equivalent of bondi or even levy troops. I am hoping to double their number, and also add some more elite troops.

Warg Riders

Lion Rampant formation

I finally finished painting the warg riders. There's eight in total, though as they are mostly metal only six are unique. That's fine for Lion Rampant, when playing Saga there will be a couple of duplicates. I must dig out (or invent) a battle board and get some games with them.

When it came to the palette, I was struck by how much the beasts looked like hyenas rather than wolves. A quick google and I was sold on the pale brown fur. The muzzles are grey for a little contrast. The riders are pretty drab, to match in with my Mordor and Isengard collection. Another unit crossed off my painting list, a satisfying feeling. I have quite a large force of orcs now, so I need to switch my efforts to the good guys for a while - either paint more Rohan or Dwarfs.

Saga formation

Tweaking Lion Rampant

Bold deployment by Clifford, a ragged approach by rookie di Pollo

More games of Lion Rampant. After last week's outing in the dungeon, this week it was a return to the more compact dining room table. Eagle eyed viewers will note the newly constructed pathways and village area on my wargaming blanket. Lord Clifford and his men, buoyed by their victory against the Normans, marched on to Italy to try their luck against the condottiere Stephano di Pollo. I'm not sure if that was his actual name, but that's what Clifford's men called him.

For these games we decided to add a simple house rule. Each general received the Commanding trait, allowing them one reroll per turn on a failed activation. Hopefully this would remove the sometimes wildly random failures that can frustrate, annoy or even ruin an evening's entertainment. The generals also gained one other trait. Clifford was strong (of course, though he forgot about it in the heat of battle). Stephano was insipid, his men would not receive +1 courage for his presence. After seeing his performance on the battlefield, it was easy to see why!

In long grass, even lowly bidowers are a match for men at arms

In the first scenario the two forces vied for control of a strategically important village, nominally fighting over the stone cross on the outskirts. After a promising early start in which Stephano's men boldly siezed the objective, they came under withering arrow fire and were forced to retire. From their advantageous central point, Clifford's archers were able to pour arrows into any advancing force. Stephano pleaded with his men to hold fast, but his insipid cries were lost in the din of battle, as his troops clanked past him to the rear. The extra 1 on the courage roll could have saved at least one of these units, and rolling a double 1 never helps either. Stephano and his remaining men retreated to the nearest trattoria.

For the second scenario we chose another simple game, bloodfeud, which is basically a kill the enemy general scenario. Stephano declined to hunt down his tormentor Clifford, so it was up to me to hunt down the enemy. This turned out to be easier than anticipated. The enemy general mounted on cavalry suffers from wild charge, so it was relatively straight forward to march my expert billmen towards him, shout insults, receive the charge and dispatch the dog (or should that be chicken).

Two games in two hours, a couple of beers, a few laughs (and for the loser, a cup of lukewarm tea). What more could you ask for on a Friday night?

Undead Vikings

The first fantasy army I collected, over twenty years ago, was the Undead. The first historical army I owned was a viking army. I guess there's a certain inevitability about me starting an undead viking force.

I have a few good reasons to be painting this lot up. First, there's a revenants battle board for the Saga game I can use them with. Secondly, I would like to have a fantasy force available for gaming the new Dragon Rampant game when it surfaces later in the year - I am also thinking that I should receive Blood Rage at about the same time, so having a fantasy force of vikings and undead vikings would make sense. Thirdly, most of these models were already built to be used as zombies in a WHFB army, so it only took a couple of hours over the weekend to get the rest kitbashed. As you probably realise, there's a combination of Army of the Dead, mantic undead, and a smattering of historical bits been used. Fourthly, I enjoy blasting through figures like this at a fast pace, far quicker than I can complete commission work. It's early days yet, this is after just one painting session, but I already feel like I have made a lot of progress.

Last of the billmen

Foot Sergeants

The final unit of my Lion Rampant retinue painted. The lightly armoured troops I group together into one unit and play them as Foot Sergeants. The more heavily armoured I play as Foot Sergeants with an expert upgrade. This represents (in my mind at any rate) the distinction between well armoured and better trained soldiers and those who are more part time. From my background reading it would seem that there's little evidence about how troops were deployed, but of course for the sake of wargaming we make these convenient distinctions.

Expert Foot Sergeants

I think I have now played just about every scenario in the book, both using these troops and some Lord of the Rings figures. Each troop type performs a different role on the tabletop and I am still learning who does what. While there is a lot more randomness than most games I have played, there is still a need to keep your wits and put your troops to their best use (and then pray for decent activation rolls!).

The Perry figures I used here stand head and shoulders above their plastic competition - in fact I would rate them as better than the metals too, including their own. The main disadvantage to the plastics is the brittle weapons, I have already suffered one snapped bill head during action. Undeterred, I will be searching through their medieval ranges for inspiration, probably later in the year. I have a fancy to build a more generic, more classic medieval force. In the meantime, here's Clifford and his household retinue at the May Day parade.

Clifford's finest march into town

Men at Arms

These are the penultimate unit painted in my Lion Rampant retinue - men at arms, plastics by Perry Miniatures of course. It's quite hard to make a basically silver unit look interesting, the heraldry on the flag and surcoat were my attempt here, though as usual I feel my freehand lets me down a little. The lowlier troops in the background are far more visually appealing, but I will be unable to show them for a couple more weeks due to them being entered in the Lead Adventure Forum painting league.

In terms of gaming, I have had another couple of sessions since my first efforts. Lion Rampant continues to puzzle and impress at the same time. The mechanics are very nice and easy, combat is simple to perform and there is no "fiddling about" that seems to plague many a ruleset. The morale system is particularly well done too - as casualties build in the unit, it's more likely that the troops will lose their nerve and leg it! The frustration comes in the activation system and the scenarios. A few games have been won and lost in the first couple of turns of the game - a failed activation roll at the start of the game can be very difficult to recover from. I hope to get more games under my belt, see if a solution presents itself.