Warlord vs. Foundry

I dug up one of my old Foundry Gauls to compare their size (and a change in painting style over the past decade, it seems...) with the Warlord figures.

I was too lazy to move the unit I was basing out of they way, so you get them charging at you in the foreground.

As usual, click to enlarge.

Burgundian vs. Swiss Turkey Showdown

So I just took 2500 points of Burgundians against their best-friends-forever, the Swiss, and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Charles would be proud.

I only snapped one pic, a bit blurry because my newer-better-more-expensive phone takes the crappiest photos on the planet.




This is at the turning point, from behind the Burgundian lines. On the left are some Swiss mounted crossbowmen and way back behind a wall by the farmhouse in the upper left is their ribaldquin that never fired a shot. To the right of the building are my coustilliers who had plowed through the shot-up remnants of some halberdiers, then through some skirmishers, and into the flank of a pike unit. Just to the south of them are some dismounted gendarmes waiting to join the fight above. Behind them are some skirmishing handgunners who had fled from the afore-mentioned but now annihilated halberdiers, but later rallied.

To the right of them is the Fustercluck Royale. (Pardon my French.) On the Burgundian side we have (from lef to right) ordonnance archers with hand+half swords, Low Countries pikemen, and ordonnance pikemen. A second unit of archers with hand+half swords has maneuvered around the flank of the Swiss line. On the Swiss side (again, left to right) are unarmoured pike, gewalthut with heavy armour, and more unarmoured pike. The Swiss were the chargers. My mounted general and BSB moved left, from behind the lines, just in case they needed to avoid the fleeing of their own troops. On the hill to the left are some Burgundian crossbowmen. Not on the table are some more Swiss halberdiers and a huge unit of allied knights and lighter cavalry in a combined formations. To the north of the hill are my gendarmes who were running down successive waves of skirmishers desperately throwing their bodies in my way in an attempt to slow me down. (Halberdiers had killed several gendarmes already, due to my inability to roll anything but 1's for their armour saves. This is a curse for me in WAB, as my Sarmation cataphracts always did the same thing. I can make saves for nekkid guys with wicker shields all day, but never for the tin-men on horses.)

So I was doing OK up til this point. The Swiss had a substantial pile of bodies, and I had lost a cannon, some skirmisers and a few gendarmes. Due to the loss of the skirmishers, though, the resulting combat above aligned funny and was one single combat involving six units. This was my downfall. I did OK with two of my three units, and considering that I had worn the Swiss down already, I would have probably won the two outside combats if they were three separate ones. The pain came from the gewalthut in the center. Not only did they still have all their ranks, they did a lot of damage in combat and my Flesmish pikemen were typically ineffective. (I notice they make a good scapegoat for the Burgundian dukes, so I'll work with what history has provided.)

In the subsequent break tests, my archers on the left stay, but all the pikemen run. And run fast. Off the table. Then the panic tests set in. My coustilliers, who had just beat the tar out of the pikemen (who were stubborn, so stuck around despite casualties) AND the mounted crossbow (who had charged them in the rear but then fled from the combat), take off running. The archers who were ready for a flank charge also take off running.

The subsequent turn, my dismounted gendarmes charge the pikemen, but with a less secure position than if the coustilliers had stuck around. The archers on the left lose combat again and are run off the table. The Swiss pike swing in to the side of the general, who panics from the loss of the archers, letting the pike hit the BSB instead. Except that the general is caught by pursuit. Dead, so more panic tests all around. Everyone but the dismounted gendarmes fail. The worst of it is that my mounted gendarmes flee from skirmishers. How embarrassing.

I get the last turn, so most of my fleeing troops do rally, but the loss of 3 big blocks of infantry plus the mounted gendarmes (who were below 5 figures at this point) hurt. The fact that I had beat up on several of his pike units didn't help, since they still had small remnants left. If there were half-points as in WFB it would have been a closer game.

So the big battle in the center was the pivot. Two things went wrong. One was the alignment of the combats. Second was bad break & especially bad panic rolls.

Fun game nonetheless! 2500 points in about 1.5 hours. That included a bit of flipping through the books as we were making sure not to confuse WFB & WAB rules. Afterward we both commented on how much more fun WAB feels vs. WFB anymore. We're alreay speaking of a rematch and getting a couple more people for either a mini-round-robin or team game in the Classical period.

Burgundian Banners from Imperial Forge

I recently received a preview set of Burgundian Ordonnance banners from Imperial Forge. ( http://stores.ebay.com/Imperial-Forge ). So here's the first set of photos & a bit of a review.

Actually, I'll get right to the photos (click to enlarge) of some heavy infantry...




...and Antoine, The Grand Bastard...


Those are the only ones I've got on figures right now. I've got some more that are "prepped" but are awaiting a few finishing touches on the figures on which they will be mounted, and a couple more still drying.

First off, a little background. I've been painting figures for, well, quite a while. I've gone through different materials & methods for doing banners, but I've always painted them myself. I want my Burgundians to look good (as I'd like all my armies) but after much consideration, I figured it would not be in my best interest to hand paint all the standards. So prior to receiving these standards, I tried printing my own on an inkjet at home with decent but unimpressive success.

So enter Imperial Forge's recent Burgundian banner preview. Even before I received them in the mail, I could tell from his own photos that they were more detailed than what I had pieced together on my own and definitely more detail than I could paint by hand. They're also right about the size I had scaled for mine.

So this week I started cutting & gluing the IF banners. Keep in mind that what follows is my first real experimentation with printed banners... I'm using brushed on watered down Sobo (PVA) glue. This has been a bit tricky for me. The paper drinks it up fast (the dry environment here probably doesn't help), so once I start sticking the two halves together, they don't want to move. I was afraid I was going to destroy one or two of them when I had to pull them apart a few times, but they survived intact. I'm getting better as I go.

While they dry, I am wrapping them around various plastic tubes, paint brush handles, paint bottles, etc. to get them to dry in a wavy manner. I tried giving one some more "extreme" folds, as I saw someone selling pre-fab banners at Historicon with severly wrinkled folds, but I was less successful. These banners appear to be on a slightly heavier paper, so the folds were creating some unattractive wrinkles/lines in the paper & printing when you looked very closely. I'll stick with the curvy waves as above from now on. The ones I saw at Historicon may have been on thinner paper, possibly regular stock, since they were a bit less colorful if I remember correctly.

Speaking of color, these are nice and bright. Almost a bit too bright compared to my figures. This may be a trick of the slightly gloss finish of the banners. This was helped by hitting them with a layer of clearcoat, and did take the edge off the gloss. You can still see a hint of it in the photos, but a second coat should do the trick. I also ran a thinned layer of paint very carefully along the edges of the paper, to hide the barely visible white thickness of the paper.

I think one of myh favorite things about the banners is the texture on some of the fields. You can see it in the photos above, but it's not overbearing. Definitely something I would not have had the patience to paint had I done this by hand.

My own inexperience with printed banners aside (though I've improving as I put more together!), the only downside is that some of the text is a bit hard to read on one of the banners. The one I'm looking at now (I'll post a pic in the next day or two) is the St. Judas banner, with the Je Lay Empirins motto and details in yellow (or/gold/whatever) on a black background. I notice a black outline helps define the details and lettering on the other colored fields, but I think on the black one is a little visually confusing. A similar thing happens with the more delicate/thin areas of the fleur-de-lis on one of the other banners.

Speaking of saints, I do like the level of detail on the saints' images and the tiny lettering identifying them (which is legible.) I hope to see a St. Thomas banner in the next set, since I share a name and occupation with him. ;)

So basically, I'm pretty happy with the banners. I'm a convert. After seeing the two above in place, I'm planning on using more for the rest of the army. As I said, I don't have a lot to compare these too, but compared to my own attempts at paper banners and the thought of trying to hand paint them, I'm digging the Imperial Forge banners and will be on the lookout for more.

Warlord Games Celts (part 3)

I'm more or less done with the figures. I still need to base them. I had considered doing some plaid/stripe/tartan/check patterns on some of the clothing, but I'm not sure I've got the enthusiasm for it at the moment. But I'm a moody painter, so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

After I transferred the photo to the computer, I noticed the menacing figure coming around the cardboard backdrop. I decided to leave him in. (He's one of a group of figures I'm touching up for a friend.)





So, after doing all of this on the Warlord Gauls, how do I feel about them?

Pros:
Price
Ease of convertability
Good detail

Cons:
Assembly time
Difficult to rank
Bad poses

Middle:
There's a certain ability to create variety with the figures, but considering the potential for multi-piece figures, there's a lot of same-ness to the figures. If the would have made the bodies single piece, but with a variety of separate arms, this may have turned out better. I don't know. I bitched about the heads already, more variety there may have helped also. Still, compared to something like a range of say, seeing the same 12-16 metal figures over and over, they're not really worse off.

The way I see it, they are nicer looking competators to Old Glory figures. They're both cheap and make it more affordable to buy a huge barbarian horde. The trade off is that although you get nicer looking figures with cleaner details than Old Glory (in my opinion), you end up paying for it through time spent cleaning & assembling the figures.

Maybe that gets quicker with practice. I doubt it, though. My WFB Empire army could probably grow to twice its size just with plastic kits hidden away in my basement. But after putting so many of those plastic figures together, I've lost the will to continue for the moment. In contrast, I just quickly cleaned up some more metal Front Rank medievals for my Burgundians. They're quality figures, and I pay twice as much for that. But I spent a fraction of the time prepping them, which means more time painting.

So while I'm not going to bash Warlord's Celts, I can't honestly say I'm a huge fan. I do look for a good balance between price and quality. Unfortunately, I think the frustrations of these figures listed in the "cons" column push them just barely over my tolerance. The newly announced mixed metal & plastic Britons don't help generate enough enthusiasm for me, as I'm not fond of mixed plastic & metal kits and can already image the problem, for example, of a plastic figure with a metal carynx or standard.

I still can't comment on Wargames Factory, as their Celts haven't shipped. I'm going to assume that they will still involve similar issues in terms of prep time. But if they manage a similar level of detail while avoiding goofy looking poses, and manage to rank up decently, they could swing my opinion the other way a bit. Addressing some of the variety issues would help, as well. Even better if they scale up with Warlord's figures, since that would help with varity already.

I'll post some final pics once these are based.


Coming next... more Burgundian Ordonnance. A preview of some new banners from Imperial Forge. And maybe a battle report from a Thanksgiving weekend showdown between Bold Chuck against those pike-wielding pussies from the Alps. The Burgundians are practically guarenteed a win. ;)

Warlord Games Celts (part 2)

I've got at least a basecoat and wash on everything but the weapons & shields. I've started highlighting the clothing, belts, etc. after this pic.

I'm going to try saying some nice things. The detail really is pretty good on these figures. Although I complained I was disappointed in the variety of heads, I do like the detail and expressiveness of the faces. There are a couple of awkward mold lines, but that's plastic figures I suppose.

The folds & details on the clothing are nice. A tiny bit on the smallish side for fast painting, but it's not a bad thing per se.

There was a little too much daylight coming in the windows (from the left) for the camera settings in the photo below.






I've recently re-read Agricola and Germania, and I'm about half way through Caesar's Conquest of Gaul.

Since I was "in the mood" I decided to reserve the first season of Rome on DVD at the library. I just got done watching the first episode. So of course now I'm thinking, "well, a Roman army wouldn't really require too many figures, and I could use Gauls or Germans to fill them out a bit. And I could do some civil war stuff with the one friend I've managed to get interested in WAB recently.

I've got the attention span and focus of a typical wargamer.

So I am seriously considering a small Roman force. I probably will go ahead and try out some of the new plastics. What can I say, they're the latest craze. And they're affordable enough to make my lack of focus somewhat acceptable. I just have to decide between Warlord & Wargames Factory.

BTD Ancient Germans

I've seen the figures in person, but not directly next to Foundry's Ancient Germans. If anyone would care to comment on how well the two would mix, leave a reply. I suspect they will work well together.

BTD Ancient Germans

Also, I've not ordered from them before, but have heard some people in Europe/UK mention delays. But since I'm in the US, I'd be curious to hear if everything's OK ordering from them in TX.

Just spotted that they sell gift certificates. I'll have to drop some hints to friends and family for the holidays. ;)

Warlord Games Celts (part 1)

I've assembled and started painting one box of Warlord Games Celts. So here's the start of a quick painting project and a bit of a review.





I like big horde armies. Multi-piece plastic sounds like a great idea, in theory. That's what I figured, initially. You get 100s of figures all looking different, they're cheap, and you don't risk back injuries carrying around all that lead. Whether you like GW or not, you've got to admit they've done some great things with plastic kits. I would think that the companies starting to manufacture similar kits for the historical market would pay close attention. (Especially those companies run by ex-GW staff...)

So with that optimism in mind, I picked up two boxes of Warlord Games Celts, and pre-ordered two boxes of Wargames Factory Celts.

I've got to admit that after assembling just one box of the Warlord Games figures, I realize I had overlooked one of the negatives of plastic horde armies. Assembly time. It was tedius. And after all of that cleaning and fitting and gluing, I've still missed a number of mold lines. And the mold lines are one of my issues with the figures. Some of them are quite prominent.

The detail is pretty good. They're not metal figures, but that's an acceptable trade off. The bad spots are some of the "mitten hands" and one of the heads has some sort of strage issue with the eyes. I'm not sure if that is a molding problem or a sculpting problem.

Which brings me to the low point. I've got several significant complaints with the sculpting and choice of "bits." Some of the poses are bordering absurd - doubled over and harshly twisted torsos. Add the outstretched flailing arms to the mix and the figures are a pain in the ass to rank up. In my photo below you can see that there is actually an extra loose figure. That's because when I mounted the figures in the center on a couple of group bases, I just ran out of room. Plus I couldn't stand having even one more of the bent-over-sniffing-someones-butt poses in the formed unit.

At first I was annoyed by the lack of shields for all the figures, but in the end there's no way I would have got them to rank up if they all had shields.

I do admit that part of the issue may be that I am basing them on 20x20 bases (or their multi-figure equivalent). Maybe if I was putting them on larger bases, they would work out better. But unfortunately, that's the size I need for the games I'm playing. It's not honestly that unusual, so I find it surprising that a manufacturer would design figures which are difficult to rank up in popular or common basing schemes.

You're really got to match up the right torsos with the right legs as well. They're posable, but only to a limited extend before the anatomy starts looking even more screwed up. Add the limited variety in heads (many duplicates) and there's not as much variety as it seems there would be.

So far all I've got is the black primer and a few coats of flesh done. This has gone pretty well, at least. They've far more pleasant to paint than to assemble, probably because of the fairly crisp and well proportioned detail.

So far: I'm disappointed.

I'll post some more pics as I make some progress.

More Khador pics

The two commission figures are done.




Mine are just about finished. I need to decide how to finish the bases. I was going to do something rocky with snow, but now that I've done the basic texture & painting, I'm not sure about the snow. My fear is that it will blend in with the rest of the base too much.

More Khador

I worked on the previously posted Khador figures for Warmachine. As usual, you should be able to click on the pics to enlarge.


First up is the one who's furthest along, Drago. He's almost done, though I've got a bunch of tiny detail work I want to do on him.





Next, my two warjacks, um, Jack and Jack. I guess they don't have proper names. I don't even know the generic names off hand. I suppose I'll need to invest in the reference card deck if I'm actually going to use them. (Again, the two below are mine, the first pic and the last pic are commissions.)




And finally the Devastator.




My plan is to finish up tomorrow or Sunday, depending on how the weekend goes.

Germania Calls - a shameless plug

My copy of Tacitus' Agricola & Germania has been AWOL for many years. I just picked up a used copy through Amazon after too much waiting to find it at local bookstores. I haven't managed to find it at any of the local bookstores and the chain stores' (Borders and B&N) "History" sections are full of Hitler and pseudo-history and conspiracy stuff like Templars, masons and how aliens built the pyramids. A sad state for the study of history, if you ask me.

So I tore through it the past two days.

I've been leaning increasingly to Ancient Germans for my next project. I'm still trying to trade/sell off some of the odds & ends in my collection to help fund this. So I've made the brave/foolish decison to dive into the world of eBay...

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/zerotwentythree_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

By the way, in addition to Foundry's wonderful looking (though still a lot of cash in one chunk) holiday sale, I'm very tempted by Black Tree Design's Ancient Germans for a bit of variety!