15 March 2009

Home Again, Home Again

Back from Cold Wars, settled in and relaxing a bit.

As usual I had a good time, and enjoyed catching up with old friends as much as playing games.

I played in the WAB tournament, had three great opponents including Duncan MacFarlan who ended up winning the sportsman award. I won "first place" in the Medieval division -- a division in which I was one of two players. ;) My first game was against Teutonics, but then I was out of period with Sassanids and Early Crusader (El Cid). I had a win and two draws. More on that later.

I learned to play Field of Glory (FoG) later that night, in a Rome vs. Rome game put on by a friend. I've got mixed feelings on it so far. I think I picked up the game pretty quick, but it seems needlessly complex in places, and has a few wonky spots in which the mechanics seem a bit out of focus from common sense. I'm willing to give it a few more tries, though, and I do have to admit that seeing all those figures in a 15mm army, even in a "small" game looked more like a real wargame and/or battle than WAB.

I met Tony Reidy of Wargames Factory & chatted a bit, and got another box of Romans, so I can field a WAB army of at least 2000 points. To that end, I also picked up a few support troops (mainly Spanish skirmishers & some Numidian Cav) at Crusader. My ever-shifting Classical era plan is this... get Romans (with allies) done for doubles tournament at Historicon. If enough people sign up for the medieval division, then I will most likely play Burgundians. If not, I play Romans again. But who knows, I'll probably change my mind twenty three more times before then. A longer term goal would be to have enough to field two Roman armies (or one large one, obviously.) I'm not certain I can get the painting done in time, but I would love to run a WAB demo type game at Historicon, either Rome vs. Rome (which would require more Romans) or Rome vs. "Barbarians" (most likely Celts with a few Germans) which would possibly require a few more more Celts/Germans.

In any case, I've got a pile of painting to do. Romans, Celts, Gauls, Spanish, Numidians.... plus GW High Elves, Swiss, Undead, and more Spanish for other people.

But wait, that's not all... I was shopping around at the booths of a couple of dealers who sell a lot of 1/72 figures, looking for the Zvezda human knights for their "Ring of Rule" fantasy 28mm line. I struck out. BUT, I did find two boxes of the "Royal Infantry" from the same line, which are essentially 15th century European infantry. They are multi-piece plastics. I'm not sure if they are still producing them or how easy they are to get in the US or elsewhere. So I asked about them and was offered a price I couldn't pass up. ;) Actually, I told him I would definietly buy one box, but would like to open it up immediately to see if I wanted the second box. I ended up buying both boxes. Initial reaction is that they're not as crisp as some of the other plastics, and a few of the weapons are a bit oversized for historicals (which is what I plan on using them for) but I think they will still make decent Burgundians or Swiss (or Germans, maybe French... etc...)

I'll have some more comments, pics and maybe some WAB battle reports coming soon. But now, back to my relaxation.

4 comments:

  1. Please paint those Zsveda out and post some pictures of the process. I saw some of their stuff on stores and it looks ok, but never saw any outside the box :)

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  2. I may try to get a clear image of the sprue on a flatbed scanner and show everything that comes in the box.

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  3. Bitten by the ancients, bug, eh? It's a slippery slope...

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  4. You should have no problem playing the AoC category at Historicon. They normally have a nice turnout.

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