29 June 2009

More Paint Frenzy

In the midst of the other painting previously mentioned, I've been working on a couple of figures "just for the fun of it."






I've only started Repanse.

Painting Frenzy

About two weeks to go. I have one half painted warband, one primed warband, and one primed unit of cavalry to finish.

Plus I need to finish a few movement trays. Not much work involved in those, I just need to remember to proceed to each step, since I glue them in stages in the basement and forget they are there for weeks on end.

My fiance is out of town for the next 5 days. My plans? Nights out with the guys? Wild debauchery? Nope. Probably going to hide out in the back room and paint toy soldiers like a man possessed. I lead the the exciting life, I tell you. ;)

I recieved myRoman command figures, as previously mentioned. Unfortunately my pack of Roman generals had two Pompeys, one Caesar, and no Consul. Also, Caesar's foot appears to have broken off and is MIA. So I emailed Caliver to see if I should contact Foundry about it, but they are taking care of it. So between the quick shipping and the helpful customer service in taking care of the minor glitch that wasn't even their fault, I'm pretty happy with Caliver and will use them again in the future.

In regard to the actual figures, I will give more details when I actually paint them (not until post-Historicon). But looking at the unpainted figures, the standard bearers all look decent, but the generals look really disappointing. The faces really lack the usual Foundry definition to the extent that they're bordering Mr. Bill territory. I'll wait until they're painted and post some pics before final judgment.

23 June 2009

German warband

Finished a 30 man German warband. A mix of Foundry and Black Tree figures and shields. As with the others, I'll go back and add designs to the shields once I've got enough figures to field 2000 points.



After starting off strong & ahead of schedule, I'm now behind on everything due to various uncontrollable circumstances. I've got some commission work I need to finish too. So I'm worried about getting everything done for the WAB doubles.

I'm starting to consider which is the lesser of two evils, fielding a primed or only partially painted unit of warband, or dropping one and filling in the points with more chieftains. :/

Back to the miniatures... I did rush them a little bit, but I really like the sculpts. A few of the BTD figures don't seem to match the rest. They almost look like cavemen moonlighting as Germans. Some of them, though, are almost indistinguishable from their Foundry counterparts. I'm trying to keep the colors dark & earthy.

14 June 2009

Barbarian rumble

Played a 1000 point game over the weekend. My Gauls using the HatPW list vs. a Warlord list from FotW.

My army was 3x25 warriors, 9 javelin skirmisher, 9 slinger, and 10 cav. A cheiftain in one unit of warriors, a high chieftain in another.

I faced 2x30 warriors (1 with chieftain, 1 with warlord), 6 steppe cav, two units of 9 skirmishers (1 with chieftain), and 8 archers.

I thought it would be a straightforward match of running forward, hitting each other and then one side becoming more disordered than the other -- game over.

Instead, first my cavalry got ambushed trying to fast march around some woods. I destroyed the skirmishers, but the pursuit was exceptionally enthusiastic, and that put them between the two lines of infantry. They ended up fleeing out of the game. A poorly timed "unruly advance" roll caused my infantry to move up into charge range, so I was charged by the slightly larger enemy warbands. I did OK, winning one combat, losing the other. In the combat I won, my opponent both lost his chieftain in a challenge with my general and failed his break test. So it was panic tests for just about everything on the board. I managed to roll 12 for both of my warbands, plus my skirmishers ran as well. The only thing left was my slingers. I managed to make some lucky rally rolls the following turn, and my warbands came back.

So both lines scattered a bit, realigned, and met again. I lost one more combat, and that was pretty much the game.

I had my general, his warband, and my slingers left.

My opponent had his general and accompanying warband, a his steppe cav, and his archers left.

Interesting game that highlighted the subtle differences between the two lists.

12 June 2009

Roman Command

Over at Warseer, in a thread on the Perry's upcoming WotR line of plastic figures that had gone a little off topic, Griefbringer (renamed "Joybringer") by another user recommended:

http://www.caliverbooks.com/

for dodging the ridiculous extra costs of doing business with Foundry outside the UK. You can order from Caliver and pay at the actual currency exchange rate and reasonable shipping.

So my Roman high command has been ordered. :D

11 June 2009

WAB?

Since there's a lot of grumbling going on about the state of WAB, I felt like getting a little rant off my chest.

I'm still trying to take a "wait and see" attitude with the game. I started WAB when it first came out. Initially because I thought it was an interesting novelty. It quickly grew on me for a number of reasons. It was an excuse to play ancients in 25mm instead of the 15's that were more popular with other games. It was a fairly easy game, almost "beer & pretzels" level, and ideal for gaining ancients converts from WFB players. But I was also initially taken in by both the enthusiasm of the authors (and the community that quickly sprung up around the game!), which was reinforced by their track record of longevity.

10 years on and some of the initially mentioned army lists still haven't been released. In fact, there are huge gaps in the game. The way they've chosen to release army lists really only makes it an appropriate game if you are interested in either playing a particular campaign. But it fails as a complete game for ancients/medievals in general. Popular examples would be that you can do Alexandrian conquest, but not the wars of his successors; you could also play the Spartacus slave revolt, but not the wars of Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, etc.

I've heard it said that you can make your own lists, or find someone else who has done the same. But then why buy a half finished game when there are other, more complete options available? If I wanted to write my own game, I would have done so from the start. More importantly, it's simply become difficult for some of us to play that way. Half my games are against strangers, at stores or gaming events. I can't just show up with my own lists. I don't have the luxury of a "local" gaming group any more.

Maybe I should have faith and patience that they will sort everything out eventually. That's what some of the more loyal fans have said. But it's been 10 yeas with little progress. Where other games have either come out in complete form or have been released with a clearly stated (and timely) plan for releases, WAB has been shrouded in secrecy to the extent that fans/customers don't even know if they game is still alive, and rumors abound of various suppliments/lists being cancelled or pushed back indefinitely (as if the 10 yeas wasn't enough.)

I want to play games with little toy soldiers. I don't want to even have to think about whether or not proper lists will ever be released for my armies or periods of interest, or how to substitute another list for the figures I have. I just want to push miniatures around a table, roll some dice and have some fun.

My faith in WAB led me to sell/trade off all of my 15mm DBx figures, and all of my 28's have been based for WAB, so I'm in a bit of a bind as far as ease of taking the figures into other systems. But I'm thinking about looking for alternatives. :/

08 June 2009

German & Gaul skirmishers

I've finished some more of the skirmishers I need in order to warm up a bit before really diving in and painting furiously to get the large warbands done.

First some Wargames Factory Celtic slingers....




...and some javelin armed Germans from Foundry and Black Tree...




As before, I'm temporarily passing on painting the shield designs until after I've got the basics of all the figures done, that way I've got a painted army to field, and I can add detail at my leisure.

Next up, hordes of Germans.

No, really. My workspace is overflowing.

01 June 2009

More scale comparisons for Renegade

Since a few people have commented on the Renegade cav. both here and elsewhere, I took a few comparison shots vs. other large figures that are from different periods/genre for the sake of comparing scale.









They're big, but close to the scale of GW figures. I suppose that would be a bonus for anyone wanting to use Renegade for WFB. Also, the Crusader late medievals are a bit large, and don't match the rest of the Crusader line. I believe when I bought mine long ago, they were sold be Corvus Belli, who seem to have gotten out of the 28mm historical business.