A Year In Gaming - 2021

Well, that's another year come and gone. And what a year it was.

In-person gaming became more regular again as wargamers got vaccinated. This also meant that the SJGA could start meeting again face-to-face. And I even went to a convention!

Here's what I played this year:

• 'O' Group - 4
• Battletech: Alpha Strike - 1
• Beyond the Gates of Antares - 1
• Black Powder - 1
• Bolt Action - 5
• British Grenadier - 2
• Chain of Command - 1
• Field of Battle 3 - 1
• Frostgrave - 1
• General d'Armee - 1
• Glory: 1861 - 1
• Hail Caesar - 1
• Live Free or Die - 1
• Middle Earth SBG - 3
• Mythic Americas - 4
• Rebels & Patriots - 1
• Saga - 2
• Strength & Honor - 1
• To the Strongest! - 1
• Warlords of Erehwon - 3
• Warmaster: Revolution - 4
• Wings of War - 3

That's 43 games total for 2021. Far less than 2019, but hopefully it's building up again. 

It's also another year of mostly one-off games. This is something else I noticed while going back over the end-of-year posts for 2020 and 2019. This year, I only managed to play a single game at least five times; that was Bolt Action. The same set of rules also managed to hit that benchmark in 2020. But back in 2019, there were five sets of rules I managed to play at least five times. Hopefully I'll get into some sort of league or campaign next year. 

And now a look at what I painted over the year:

• 10mm Cavalry - 60
• 10mm Infantry - 146
• 10mm Monsters - 32
• 15mm Infantry - 118
• 2mm Infantry - 1
• 28mm Cavalry - 1
• 28mm Infantry - 100
• 28mm Monsters - 9
• 28mm Vehicle - 5
• 6mm Vehicle - 15

In reverse of 2020's played games, I painted less. But then again, I didn't have a span of three months when my workplace was shut down and I was stuck at home. 

It was more spread out this year, with no scale really taking precedence. Though I did paint my first set of 2mm miniatures!

'O' Group

Battletech: Alpha Strike

Beyond the Gates of Antares

Bolt Action

British Grenadier

Chain of Command

Field of Battle III

General d'Armee

Live Free or Die

Middle Earth: Strategy Battle Game

Mythic Americas

Rebels & Patriots

Saga

Strength & Honour

To the Strongest!

Warlords of Erehwon

Warmaster: Revolution

Wings of War

As always, here's to a happy new year and lots of fun hobbying in 2022!

Painting Update - Squadhammer, Badgers & Burrows

 It's almost the end of the year, so here's one last look at what I've painted in the closing weeks of 2021.

I wanted to finished at least a small force of Astral Claws for my Squadhammer project. I added a Razorback to the mix to complement all of the infantry units I had done so far.

I also completed a Captain to lead the force. Combined with the rest (Tactical Marines, Dreadnought, Assault Marines), that should give me enough elements to play a decent game of Squadhammer and I can add more later on. 

My end-of-the-year meanderings also led me to finally pull out my small collection of Badgers & Burrows and get a starter warband painted. 

These are delightful miniatures to paint, full of character. I feel like I need to get more colors so I have more options for the rest of them!

Miniature Musings - Painting 2mm Miniatures

After posting about my positive reception of Strength & Honour on Twitter, I had Korhyl Miniatures (the maker of the resin armies I purchased at the convention) reach out to me and ask if I could come up with a post about how I ended up painting their 2mm minis. 

So here's the step-by-step process I took to paint a Roman Legion base. 

I started with the base which went into a quick soapy water bath before being air dried. 

Then a black primer, which I tried to make as thin as possible while still getting a good coat. 

As you can see, the individual blocks are still visible. 

Since this was my first attempt at anything this small, I decided to start with the base instead of the troops blocks. 

I used Vallejo's Flat Earth as a base color, and then dry brushed Tan Earth overtop to lighten it a little. 

Normally I'd apply a brown wass to Flat Earth to give it some depth, but with such a tiny scale, that'd probably be too dark. 

After the game of Strength & Honour, I was advised by Maurice to use extra fine point (that's 0.7mm!) acrylic markers, and he was right! The tips were just small enough to make the dots that give the impression of faces, shields, swords, etc.

Having a good set of pens with a range of colors is nice, especially when it includes pastels that can pass for various colors of skin and horse hair. 

The longest part of the process was dotting the blocks. 

Some advice: Do the shield dots first, then the face dots. I tried doing the faces first, only for the color to be covered over in places by the shields. You need the "faces" to give the blocks a sense of direction. 

I placed "shields" on the front and left sides of the blocks, and used silver dots to show swords and armor on the rear and right sides. 

I predominantly used a single shade of red, with a shade of red and white to break up the color monotony. 

I've heard plenty of hobbyists say that, when you get into the smaller scales, basing makes the unit really 'pop', so I tried that out here. I used two different flocks for grass, as well as tiny clumps of foliage in a couple colors to represent bushes or low trees. 

And with a quick varnish, that's a unit done. Accomplishable in a day, or less with some dedication, you could easily finish an entire army in a week or less and be able to play massive battles. 

I'd really like some thoughts and feedback. Anything you'd do differently? My only thought, at the moment, would be to make the entire top layer of the Legion base metallic, to show Roman armor, then adding the colored tops. Maybe I'll try that with a second base. 

Dice and Stones - Strength & Honour AAR

My last game of the convention was another demo of a set of rules that had piqued my interest. 

"Strength & Honour" is an upcoming set of rules by Mark Backhouse and published by Reisswitz Press and Too Fat Lardies. What sets it apart from other ancients wargames is the intended scale. While it can be played in any scale, it's designed for use with 2mm miniatures!

Seeing those tiny, rice-grain sized units on various social media platforms, I couldn't believe how a relatively simple paintjob could give the impression of thousands of warriors gathered on a battlefield in formations that larger scales could only dream of. For example, the Romans could actually form up in their cohorts on a single base, while wild warbands of Gallic or German warriors looked more like flowing masses of bodies. 

When I saw that there would be demo games at Historicon, I jumped on the chance to play.

The game was based on the Battle of Vosges in 58 BC, between the German forces of Ariovistus and the Roman forces of Julius Caesar. I ended up controlling the German center as Ariovistus. 

The Romans had a mix of veteran, trained, and raw legions, with some cavalry and skirmishers on the flanks. The Germans consisted mostly of warbands, with some superior warbands scattered about alongside skirmishers and cavalry on the flanks. 

Maurice, who ran the game, walked us through the various aspects of the rules. I'll talk about my impressions through this after-action report. 

Most units in our game were big, lumbering blocks of troops that were best used when just marching forward. Cavalry and Skirmishers had better chances to maneuver, and all movement is randomized. It takes command points from army leaders to move multiple units together in formation.

Movement is done via grids, which is a big plus in my book.

My most stunning takeaway is that this game is firmly rooted in Blood Bowl, of all things. Plenty of actions can result in a "Reversal of Fortune," which stops your turn and lets the opposite side start acting. Poor combat results, a failed maneuver roll, etc. 

The combat is also a lot like Blood Bowl's Block Dice. Units will compare their Battle Strength, which can be modified. If they're equal you roll 1d6 and look at relevant result on the combat chart. If your strength is higher, you roll 2d6 and pick the result. If it's lower, you roll 2d6 and your opponent picks. 

From my observations of the game, it's rare for a base to disappear entirely unless something has gone disastrously wrong. What happens instead is that bases will shove each other back and forth, racking up Misfortune cards (or the much worse Disaster cards) for their side as they lose combat and cohesion. These cards have numbers on them, but they're hidden from both sides.

The main purpose of the cards is a way to check army morale through a fun rule named "Haemonculus Est" (roughly "Little Man" in Latin). When a side calls it, the other sides' cards are counted. They're tallied together and compared to the army's morale value. If it's equal or higher, the game ends. If it's over half, then the game continues, but the side becomes tired and gets movement and morale penalties. And if it doesn't reach have, the side whose cards are being counted gets to remove one of cards from the pile (likely the highest value). 

The two sides had their own strengths in the game. The Romans were better on the defensive and, when supporting each other, could easily rebuff individual German warbands. 

In comparison, the Germans warbands gained strength bonuses when charging or when supported by other warbands. If a Roman legion was cut off from its fellows (like one ended up ended up on our right flank) it resulted in some pretty nasty combat outcomes. 

This game ended with another historical results. For the first half it seemed like the Romans had the better of the Germans, dishing out card after card and throwing the German left flank and center back. The Germans did manage to rally later on, smashing the Roman's own left flank with some deft cavalry maneuvers. 

It was the Romans, however, who called "Haemonculus Est" first, and despite the German's attempts to delay the inevitable, there were just too many cards to hope that our army morale wouldn't be reached. It was a small consolation that the Romans were fairly bloodied as well, and had the Germans called "Haemonculus Est" first, we may have reversed history.  

Maurice had brought along six armies from Korhyl Miniatures, whose products are featured in the above pictures. I bought a Roman army and a Pontic army, and I'm looking forward to getting a copy of Strength & Honour when it's released. I'll probably pick up a second Roman army from Korhyl so I can play out the Roman Civil War, as the rules will apparently allow players to run campaigns and watch their units evolve over time. 

A Hill to Die On - Live Free or Die AAR

With Thursday and Friday done, I arrived once again at the Valley Forge Casino for a day's worth of gaming.

The morning game was a refight of the Battle of Brandywine, ran by the Little Wars TV crew. I'm a huge fan of their on-going, fantastically produced battle reports on Youtube, and I jumped at the opportunity to get into one of their games as soon as the convention registration opened. 

I was especially excited because it was an opportunity to play their new set of rules for the American War of Independence, Live Free or Die. 

Before the game began, the British Commanders (myself and Walt) were presented with a couple choices. We had the chance to rest our troops before engaging, which would cost us a couple turns but give us the ability to remove morale hits (DMZs) at the end of a turn. We could also send a flanking force to try and cut the Americans off on another table which was centered on the small town of Dilworth.

We decided to rest our troops (which gave us 10 turns to complete the objective) and send a small brigade of two Guards regiments to outflank the American position. 

Walt controlled the majority of the troops with Cornwallis' and Medow's Brigades, while I had Agnew's and von Donop's brigades. 

The American players (Zach and Ray) had loaded most of their troops on their right to block the road under Zach, while Ray's troops were positioned to block my own. 

The British advanced towards the Americans who, apart from some slight shuffling, held their ground. 

With the Americans angled on the hill, it took several turns of marching before my troops could get into firing range. 

Zach and Walt, on the other hand, clashed immediately, with Walt's troops fixing bayonets and charging up the hill. 

Ray's position on the hill meant that my regiments had to cross multiple obstacles to reach him. Doing so gave my units a DMZ per obstacle crossed. 

I planned to give Ray's troops a round of firing before charging in. 

Live Free or Die is also a shoot-then-move ruleset, and units that don't plan to move can "volley fire," doubling the amount of shots they get. 

The British got the worse of the exchange of volleys, with multiple stands lost and units forced back down the hill (which meant I would have to cross the obstacles once again!).

Meanwhile, the Americans must have gotten word that some force of British was moving on a flank march, because their entire right flank suddenly about-faced and started marching back towards Dilworth.

With his flank in the air, Ray decided against retreating his own troops and instead planted his flag and stood his ground. 

Walt, on the other hand, was chasing after the treating Americans. 

The fighting was fierce between the remaining British, Hessian, and American troops, and ownership of the hill was fluid. Both sides were gathering DMZs like they were on sale.

Walt's path was open, so he split his advancing troops into two forces; one was sent after the retreating Americans, while the other was gathering to push into Ray's flanks. 

Despite being outnumbered, Ray's soldiers stood firm in the face of the Hessian Grenadiers, and sent the whole brigade fleeing backwards when I failed multiple morale checks. 

Despite multiple pushes, I couldn't seem to get my regiments to form a cohesive attack on Ray's position. 

By this time in the game, most of the left side of the table had been completely emptied. 

And the Americans were gathering at Dilworth. 

Now flanked by Walt's troops, Ray wasn't going to do down without a fight, using his skirmishers and last, tattered regiments in a curved line.

However, a combined charge by British regiments saw the last American troops on the hill routed. 

The game ended with Walt's flanking troops advancing on the Dilworth table, but too far away to keep the Americans from consolidating their position. 

The game ended with a somewhat historical result; the British ended up taking the American positions but were unable to stop the Americans from retreating in relatively good order. It had been a much bloodier refight, though, with both sides taking far more casualties than in the original battle.

Given another chance, I probably wouldn't have bothered with letting the British troops rest for two turns in exchange for access to the "Redress Ranks" phase. The cost of losing the extra game time wasn't worth the benefit of removing DMZs, since you have to be outside of 12" of enemy units to do so. That was on me - I convinced Walt to delay the advance rather that immediately step off. A couple more turns may have made all the difference!

This was a fantastic game and one of the best convention games I've participated in. The miniatures and terrain looked fantastic, and I'm absolutely planning to use Live Free or Die as my go-to AWI rules. It looks like I'll have some orders with Pendraken in the next year.