Widbrooke Common - For King & Parliament AAR

My first game of the year was at Ted's weekly game night. The guys had been playing For King & Parliament for the past few weeks, and I was more than happy to join in. 

The table was set up following the second scenario from the 'Marlowe to Maidenhythe' scenario book. 

The Royalists (Chip and Steve) had won the previous scenario with a tally of 5-0. I was joining Ted as commanders of the Parliamentarian forces. 

The Parliamentarians were on the attack in this scenario, with standard Pike battalia, Dutch-style cavalry, and a pair of field cannons. The Royalists had their flanks covered by Swedish-style cavalry and their center consisted of a number of pike-heavy, untested battalia. 

Both sides would fight until one had lost all of their victory medals. 

My main concern on the right flank was a farm occupied by a Royalist Forlorn Hope unit. I had to get rid of it before Chip's cavalry could reach me. 

The main clash was going to take place between Steve, Ted, and I as our forces clashed in the open fields beyond the hedges. 

I got lucky with the first cannon shot of the game and gave one of Steve's infantry battalia quite the fright, which would take it out of most of the game. 

Steve's galloper cavalry got just close enough to allow Ted the chance to 'pounce' with his trotters as the infantry formed up on the cavalry's flank. 

You'll notice that the Forlorn Hope is still in the farmhouse. And that the infantry battalia I had assumed would chase the skirmishers off had not only failed to do so, but managed to accrue a couple disorder tokens as well! This didn't bode well.

And then it got worst! My infantry were so demoralized by their poor attack on the farmhouse that they ended up breaking. Chip maneuvered his cavalry through the hedges, ready to swing into the open Parliament flank.

Both sides seemed to mill about in a bloody mess as cavalry charged and countercharged. Ted pointed out to me that it was probably best if I stood off and shot instead of trying to go pike-to-pike with Steve's over-equipped battalia, so I burned through my ammunition tokens to fire at the double. 

Steve's gallopers were the first to break through the stalemate, chasing off their trotter opponents. 

I gave up on the farm and pulled my remaining battalia back over the hedge to protect the cannons. 

The Roundheads seemed to catch a break, if just for a moment. With the Royalist cavalry blown, they couldn't counter attack and Ted routed two units. 

As they're want to do in FK&P, the remaining cavalry from both sides began to chase their routing counterparts from the battlefield. If anyone managed to rally before running off the table, it could have decided the end of the game. 

I had also finally managed to rout one of Steve's infantry battalia. 

For the moment, it seemed like the Royalist center might break. 

And then on came Chip's cavalry like a hot knife through clotted cream. 

With horsemen to the front and flanks, my battalia was out of options as to how to defend their position. 

Chip wasted no time in routing not only my infantry, but the guns as well, taking out the last of the brigade.

What had seemed like a potentially precarious but positive position was now a dire, doomed defense. 

The Parliamentarian center was flanked on both sides and pinned from the front. Not only had Steve managed to rally his remaining cavalry unit, but he had re-organized the cannon-shaken battalia from the start of the game and brought it up to reinforce his line. 

Meanwhile, Ted was try to reestablish control of his trotters before they trotted right off the table. 

I sent one battalia to keep Steve's cavalry off my flanks as Ted's dismounted dragoons fired from the hedges, while my now-outnumbered troops tried to fend of Steve's infantry. 

Chip arrived at the right time to charge the flank of my commanded shot unit, easily routing them. 

Unable to get that last disordered marker on one of Steve's battalia, my own infantry was flanked in turn and routed. This removed the last of the Parliamentarian victory medals, leaving the battle as a Royalist victory, 7-0. This put the campaign's score as 12 for the Cavaliers and 0 for the Roundheads. 

As always, For King & Parliament is a fantastic set of rules that are easy to learn and quick to play. I'm always happy to see it on the table, and I'm looking forward to hopefully playing out the rest of the campaign. I'm also hoping that the rumors are right, and that Warlord Games' next 'epic' project is the English Civil War. 

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.