Three elves in a fountain.

Hi Guys

Played a fun game of the GW Lord of the Rings skirmish game. I bought a shoe box full of 300+ figures for about €40 a few years back and they get taken out every once in a while to see the light of day. They havent gotten the attention they deserve, but I have hit a flat spot with 15mm ancients and painting the current batch is more a chore than pleasure, so I may set aside the Romans for a while and do LOTR stuff instead. All the models are still as they were when I got the box.  Some of the figures are quite well painted, just needing the base done, but would really profit from an ink wash & dry brush. Other figures look like they were painted by a colourblind chimp during a bad acid trip. I will probably alternate between these. I can get all of the elves to a quality I would happy with in one or two evenings, so it is tempting to do these first. The Goblins need more attention, possibly medical. I plan to lay out all the figures and work through the box race by race, Elves first , then Goblins and so on. I have about 7 Gandalfs and 5 Saurumans. Ed has suggested putting them together into an Istari cover band. I picked up the rule book second hand for €5, and made all the buildings myself, so this is frugal gaming in the extreme. The only proxy we did was we couldn't find the troll model so used Sauron instead. It is a lovely model and probably the only time it will get used, so I wasn't too worried.

An open urban set up

Multi level wizards house with viewing tower.

Searching the ruins

Goblins search the storehouse / outside toilet.

We didn't field any wizards, he just looked good there...

Chop !

The "Troll" does some smiting



We played a modified version of the rules and used a simple scenario . We were both looking for an unnammed treasure. Each building could be searched for it. On a 2D6 roll, a twelve would find the loot in the first turn, 11+ on subsequent attempts. Small buildings could be searched once, medium buildings and ruins twice and the big buildings three times. On a roll of double 1, a creature with the stat profile of a troll would be disturbed and attack the searchers.  No treasure was found and no trolls disturbed but a good laugh was had with some appaling dice rolls. Will have to play LOTR again soon.

Phil

Magazine rack

Hi guys

Here are a few pics of a recent game of Dystopian wars between Ed and myself. I took the FSA American fleet and Ed tried out his new Australian fleet. The Aussie fleet is a change from the normal Dystopian wars box sets. Usually a naval box set for DW contains 1 battleship, 3 cruisers, 9 frigates, 2 bombers and 10 fighter stands. Instead the Australian fleet is 2 pocket battleships, 4 gunboats (heavy cruisers), 9 frigates and 2 minisub tenders with 8 minisub stands, and no aerial forces at all. The minisubs are purely for boarding and have no ranged weapons. Most of the boxed sets are of roughly equal pointage and thats what we usually play for an evening game. It was only after the game we checked the points on the Aussies and realised I was seriously out-gunned..... I had roughly 700 points against over 1000 points on Eds' side. The Australian models are superb, incredibly detailed and crisp. They have a choice of turrets as there are two Aussie factions, one using energy turrets, the other using conventional guns. The larger ships have shields, with can be used to protect just the ship the shields are on, or extended to cover nearby vessels but at the expense of making the shielded ship more vulnerable. This is shown on the model by a sliding hatch over the shield generator, the hatch closed means the ship is protecting just itself, open means the shield are extended and the ship more vulnerable.

FSA cruisers

The FSA fleet

The Aussie fleet

 The Australians deploy their first squadron and then we each deploy one squadron in turn until everything is on the table. The Aussies take the initiative and their pocket battleships open up on a single American frigate, but miss the small target. There is a general advance on both sides. The FSA cruisers open up on an enemy Gunboat with long range rocket fire and scores a critical. American bombers then launch torpedoes at the same target and sink it.

 

Turn 2, the FSA win the initiative and their battleship opens up with everything on an enemy pocket battleship and scores a crit. Things are looking good for the Americans at this point. This is about to change. The surviving Aussie Gunboat opens up on the battleship with its monster gun. Is scores 27 hits (!) and two crits. The first crit isnt too exciting, the second roll is double 1, the first but not last Magazine explosion of the game. The resulting explosion, and it is a big one, takes out 3 nearby frigates and the smile from my face. Ed however is grinning like a medicated politician. My cruisers score a single point of damage on the gunboat. There is an exchange between frigate squadrons , sending an American ship to the bottom. The pocket battleships fire, presumably using special anti-rudder ammunition as they score stering lock crits on two cruisers and a bomber. An American frigate squadron fires to no effect. A gunboat opens up on the centre of the 3 FSA cruisers, again scoring a Magazine explosion crit and the blast scores a point of damage on both his squadron mates.

 Turn 3, Fsa wins the initiative and sends a flight of dive bombers in to attack a pocket battleship. They score a crit and get chaos and disarray, weakening its defences. A gunboat fires on the damaged FSA cruiser, scoring two crits and sinking her. A second flight of American dive bombers crit a gunboat . Americam bombers torpedo a submarine tender but only score 1 point of damage, while taking heavy damage from AA fire in the process. The last surviving FSA cruiser fiers at a Gunboat and scores the third ammo explosion crit of the game. This time the explosion takes out a nearby American frigate, the crippled American bomber and 7 Aussie minisubs. The last FSA cruiser is then mobbed by Australian frigates, takes 2 more crits and sinks, clearing the board of American units...

So America rules the sea floor, the Aussies own the top part. Then we added up the points. I was robbed !

A mighty Empire will fall....

Hi Guys

A brief write up of a Basic Impetus game between myself & Ed the other evening. As a change from the usual Cartahge /Rome games we have often played of late, we dusted out some old figues, Early Achemenid Persians and Lydians. We used the standard list for EAP and the army list for the Lydians was from the one kindly supplied by Jim Webster via the BI forum. http://impetus.forumsland.com/impetus-about3412.html

Ed was playing the Persians and I took the role of  Croesus (!). The lydians were attacking and Ed set up the terrain. He deployed first then Iset up opposite.

Positions at set up

Turn 1; The Lydians won the initiative and moved forward in a general advance. The Persians just moved up their cavalry and light horse, the infantry staying put for now.

End of turn 1

Turn 2; Persians win initiative, their light horse chages the Lydian light horse, forcing it back and then destroying it. The Lydian heavy foot slog forward.

End of turn 2

Turn 3; Lydians win the initiative, their cavalry charge the Persian light horse and destroys them, but takes 2 points of damage in the process. The Lydian general charges the Persian general and causes 1 point of damage and drives him back , but fails to maintain contact. The Lydian peltasts advance and loose a volley of javelins at the levy, and rolls 3 6's. I assume the levy is done for, but they roll a 1 on their check and are merely disrupted. Ed is somewhat smug....

The Persian cavalry charge the Lydian cavalry in the flank and destroy it. The Persian general charges the Lydian general, but is pushed back and killed. The Persian infantry try a long range volley against the hoplites in front of them, but it is ineffective. The levy charge the peltasts but no ones scores a hit.

End of turn 3

 Turn 4; Lydian initiative, the Lydian General wheels towards the flank of the Persian sparabara and the hoplites advance. The levy vs peltast fight again yields no hits.  The Persian cavalry wheels towards the flank of the hoplites, while a volley from the immortals in the middle of the Persian infantry line score 2 points of damage on the advancing centre unit of the hoplites, but the sparabara on either side of the immortals fail to do any damage on the advancing spearmen. The levy finally get swarmed over by the peltasts.


End of turn 4

Turn 5; Lydian initiative, the Lydian general charges the flank of the sparabara but fail to land a hit, the shame ! The hoplites all advance and the peltasts destot a second levy unit with a volley of javelins. The immortals destroys the centre hoplite unit and the sparabara drive back the Lydian general, inflicting 1 point of damage while taking none themselves....

End of Turn 5

 Turn 6; Lydian initiative, the Lydian general charges again against the sparabara who had driven him back, this time destroying them. The hoplites contach the Persian bow line but fight with little effect.  The persian light horse charges the Lydian general in the rear and destroys him. This breaks the Lydians and loses the game for me  :(

End of turn 6

We swapped forces and played a second game. This was a second win for Ed, and one of the few games we have played which was very one-sided. The Persians were wiped out out the Lydians taking a single loss. Much tea was drunk and good fun was had. Ed has a hugely inflated sense of the Levys worth, but they always seem to perform way above their stat line for him....

Game 2 set-up

Phil

15mm Carthaginians from Lancashire games.

Hi Guys

Havent posted in a while, the lack of a working computer got in the way of blogging. My wife recently got me some 15mm Carthaginians from Lancashire games as a birthday present. I got these primarily for Basic Impetus, but possibly for other ancients as well. I got enough figures for 1 unit of heavy cavalry, 2 units of heavy foot with spears and 2 units of medium foot with spears as well as a mounted general. I was very pleased with all these figures, but was especialy pleased with the heavy spear and the foot command packs. The figures were nice and crisp, with enough detail and little flash. All of the Lancashire games packs are very well priced, being cheaper than the most of competittors.I also received a few Spanish light horse as free samples and was quiet taken by them. They will be useful for my Carthaginians as well as my Romans, and possibly a few other lists as well. Here is the page most of the stuff is on : http://store.lancashiregames.net/index.php?_a=category&cat_id=58

The heavy spear are probably my favourites, being very close to a colour plate in a FOG list for the early Carthaginians, showing a sacred band spearman. The heavy cavalry will be pressed into service as later Greek shielded cavalry, the helmet with crest and double feather plume being close enough for me.




Heavy spear with command stand

Mounted General

 

 

Medium foot with command stand

 

 

Heavy cavalry with lance & shield

 

 

 

 

It is shocking how much my limited miniature photography skills have deminished in the past few months from lack of practice. I will post again soon when the balance of the order is finished, when I start on the enemy, the mid republican Romans from Warmodelling.

 

Phil.