Master of None

DBA Army III/78: Early Russians

2012-01-25T20:17:00.000-05:00

Here is my most recently completed DBA army: Early Russians, III/78. This is an Essex army pack. I haven't finished the Knight option yet, and may not paint the Horde at all.

Essex Early Russians: 3Cv(gen), 3Cv

Inspiration for shield patterns and clothing colors came primarily from Osprey titles and some creativity. My goal was to use a variety of bold colors without looking too bright or gaudy. I've also tried to keep trying new colors instead of getting stuck in a rut.

Essex Early Russians: 2x3Cv

The figures are quite nice. Not all Essex figures are sculpted very well, but these have nice sculpting and a good variety of poses.

Essex Early Russians: 3Cv

Unfortunately, there is a bit of hazing from CA glue on the horses from gluing the grass onto the bases. This has cleared up a bit after I took the pictures, so I don't think it'll be a problem in the long run.

Essex Early Russians: 2x4Sp

Essex Early Russians: 2x2Ps

Essex Early Russians: 2x2LH

Essex Early Russians: 3Ax

Congress of Gamers 2011: More HotT Pictures

2012-01-23T13:14:00.000-05:00

Here are all my pictures from the Lord of the Rings Hordes of the Things game at Congress of Gamers 2011.

Hordes of the Things army: Die in a Fire

2011-12-08T22:29:00.001-05:00

David Kuijt and Dave Schlanger threw down the gauntlet before Fall-In: Paint up 48 points of Hordes of the Things in time for Cold Wars, and they'll have a matched enemy to fight against it.

Well, I already had a bunch of prepainted D&D fire elemental (and related) figures I planned to build into a HOTT army, so why not do that? At Cold Wars we played a 72 point Fire vs. Ice battle, and lost, so this project has turned into a grudge match.

Here is the army so far. I may augment it if I get additional figures for Christmas, which would push it up to 72 points.

The bases are laser cut masonite, with chunks of broken plaster attached using paintable transparent silicone caulk. I built up enough caulk to swirl into a lava texture, and placed the rocks so that on each base, the miniatures would be appropriately either standing on a rock or emerging from the lava.

The lava colors were painted starting with white, then yellow, wet brushed orange and dark orange, and then over the black I applied dark red and grey on top. Fire is brighter where it's hotter, in the center, and darker at the edges where it's cooler, so you end up using the reverse order for shading. Adding a lighter color over the black can make it lit from below in some places.

The only concern I have about this army is its durability. The figures mounted on lava are likely to pull the paint off and break off, because I didn't strengthen the plaster with anything before I painted it. I'll just bring lots of superglue and touch them up when I'm finished.

In the center is a Fire Titan (behemoth). On the right, a magician, and on the left is an Immoleth, which I'll use either as a God or deep warband (using WADBAG's excellent variant rules for deep spear and deep warband).

All of the figures shown here are D&D miniatures, except for the Mage Knight figures shown here and the dragon below. There would be a lot more army potential in MK figures if more of them were as good as these. On the left and right are blades and in the center is an aerial hero. It's not very visible from this perspective, but the flame guys on the left are flaming skeletons.

The fire elementals on the left are warbands, and the Azer Fighters and Raiders on the right are blades. Some of the Azers are repaints of ther crappy model, done to match the not-crappy Azer.

The Magmins on the left and right are lurkers. The Flame Salamander will be either a beast or a deep warband (they have the same depth).

Here are two fliers on the ends, and either a flier or an aerial hero in the center. As you can see, when I originally purchased my figures I didn't consider how I was going to base them, so I have a few mismatched bases that I don't prefer. Clearly it means I just need more figures...

In the center is the impetus for building this army in the first place: a phoenix I bought at Michael's crafts. It'll be a dragon in HOTT. On the ends are large flame elementals, deep warbands.

Miniatures: D&D Characters

2011-12-08T22:13:00.001-05:00

I'm planning to start playing some D&D 4E with my daughter, her friend, and his dad. I've sent them all through the new red box "build a character" section, but we haven't gotten all four of us in the same place at the same time to actually play a session.

It's been so long, I don't remember any of the characters' names, but I've had a chance to paint figures for all of us.

Daniel chose a female Halfling cleric. Clerics with swords? Blasphemy! This is Reaper Miniatures Gnome, because it's virtually impossible to find a halfling cleric figure. She's too tall compared to the elf, but she'll do.

This is a Reaper miniatures human thief I painted years ago. I just rebased it on a square base and modelled some more stones for use with the D&D square grid. This is Levi's character.

Martine chose an Elf wizard, wearing maroon (just like House Gryffindor). This is the Celeborn figure from Mithril Miniatures. Not exactly a level 1 wizard, but he's wearing mundane red, and we're pretending that scepter is a wand. I like the way the green gems turned out.

Mung smash! Raah! I "rolled" up a fighter to beat stuff up. This is a Mithril Miniatures Easterling. I'll play Mung when no one else is around, but I expect we might invite another friend over once and a while. All theoretically, of course.

Norse Irish, Painted for the Kids, part 2

2011-12-03T17:26:00.000-05:00

I've finished basing the whole Norse Irish DBA army. Soon I'll be auctioning it off on the Fanaticus Forum with the proceeds going to the Child's Play charity.

DBA army II/46, Norse Irish.

Here are the elements not described in my previous post. Most of the figures here are from an Essex Miniatures army pack. The camp followers are Trey Corbies, donated by Sean Devitt of Trey Corbies miniatures. Paul Potter donated two elements of Auxilia from mixed manufacturers.

Thanks to all of the painters who helped on this project! I should have the auction thread started on Fanaticus shortly.

Jon Barmore painted 2x3Ax.

JM Seman painted 1x3Ax and 1x2Ps.

Paul Potter donated and painted 2x3Ax, various manufacturers.

Sean Devitt donated and painted camp followers from Trey Corbies, as well as the camp.

Tim Hladon painted 1x3Ax and 1x2Ps.

Preview: Norse Irish, Painted for the Kids

2011-11-20T21:43:00.000-05:00

Over on the Fanaticus forum, I'm organizing a charity painting project. Painters have volunteered to paint one or more elements of a DBA army. When it's finished, I'll auction it off on Fanaticus, and all proceeds will go to the Child's Play charity.

The army I selected was Norse Irish, II/46. Most of the figures are from an Essex army pack, but some painters have volunteered to provide their own figures to save on shipping costs. There will also be a camp and camp followers to go along with the army.

I sent out the unpainted figures, and completed the basing and groundwork after they were returned. I decided having consistent basing would be important to giving the army a unified look, since the painting styles would be different.

Here's a preview of the first 6 elements completed. I'll be taking better pictrures when everything is finished.

A hearty thanks goes out to all of the participating painters!

Jeff Franz painted two elements of Psiloi.

Frank Wesner painted the General (3Ax) and one 4Bd.

Alan Ferrency (me) painted one element of 4Bd.

Vincent Maloney painted one Auxilia.

Fall-In 2011: Part 2

2011-11-07T01:29:00.000-05:00

Before we went to bed on Friday, we made sure we knew what time Saturday's events started.

Embattled Isles

The first event on Saturday was an excellent set of themed games arranged by the Davids. They built 7 scenarios that all took place in England over a long span of time. The battles chronicled successive waves of invaders taking control of England and then defending against the next invading army. Each battle had preset terrain and army deployments, and some had special rules. Unfortunately, we only had enough players to play 5 of the 7 scenarios.

I enjoyed this format immensely, but it must have taken a lot of work to arrange. The huge win here is that all metagame concerns are completely gone, so players are evaluated based on their ability to command in a variety of situations they don't have complete control over. Defenders and invaders had separate winners, ensuring that any scenario unbalance was compensated for in the results.

In the end, the top three on our (defending) side went 3-2, and I ended up in the middle of the pack (worst of the best) based on points.

The shortened event left us with too much time to spend money in the flea market and dealer's hall as the snow piled up outside. At some point during the weekend, possibly between these two events, I got in a few pickup games with Jeff Franz and Jan Spoor.

Viking Fury

In recent years, the highlight of every HMGS-E convention has been the themed campaign event run by (you guessed it) the Davids on Saturday night. This year's theme was Viking Fury: the Viking invasion of England and Ireland. I played one of the Viking players: Ivar the Boneless. Unfortunately JM, aka "Ragnar Shaggybreeches," wasn't around for me to blame him for my name (Ragnar was Ivar's father, but he's still not sure who the mother is).

Chris's Picts are taken from behind.

In the first round, I yelled "Waagh!" and ran forward, as all good Vikings should. "You guys approach his position from the woods, and we'll sail up from behind and surprise him.

Chris surrounds me, but not fast enough.

In the campaign turn, I landed on a space on the map that must be defended by either Chris Brantley or Jan Spoor, and took my chances. Chris defended with his Picts, placed a mandatory waterway, and ended up with it at his rear. Fortunately for me, he didn't anticipate my littoral landing. I boldly deployed my general with 3 supporting units behind his lines, and took his camp on the first turn. Luckily I had enough PIPs to run forward with the remainder of my force. The 3" move for 3Bd (Raiders special rules for this campaign) definitely helped get my guys back into command.

After that, it was a matter of me killing two more of his units before he surrounded and destroyed me. I plowed forward in the center, while he spent PIPs to go around me on both flanks. In the end he completely surrounded me, but I was back in command and he had gotten out of command. He was almost within striking distance of my camp when I killed a second element and convinced these reasonable men to join my cause. Bitches!

Pushing David Kuijt back into the sea.

In the second round, I attacked David Kuijt, also a Viking who had claimed a landing spot on the campaign map.

He did anticipate the possibility of a littoral landing at his rear, and protected against it. However, through a combination of not making very many horribly bad mistakes, and rolling really well, I finally beat David, 4-2.

He ended up being my first vassal, since in the first round my victory only gained me a place to park my boats and set up camp.

Nick Swales rolls me up.

In the third round, I had yet another chance to invade on the campaign map, and I attacked Nick Swales with a long line of spears. This was a fairly straightforward "line 'em up and roll high" sort of affair. Unfortunatly only one of us gets to roll high enough to win, and this time it was him. He poked a hole in my line where my warband had hoped to poke a hole in his, and beat me down with attrition in a 4-1 victory.

In the final round, Rich Baier attacked me to steal my growing vassal tree. Again we were both Vikings, so it should've been a fairly even match. And again, it was a straight line without much complicated maneuver involved. But this time, Diceman was on a winning streak. He didn't win with a few 6-1 splits, but instead he kept pushing me back with die rolls just good enough to beat me, consistantly over a long period. Eventually I had to die, and I did.

Diceman has a lucky streak

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed playing against Rich, because I had so many recoils that my combat factors were never horrible. I consistently felt like a good die roll was just around the corner; it just never came. I don't have notes regarding how badly he beat me, but I suspect it was 4-0. He went on to win the entire event, and I ended up in a multiway tie with the third most points.

I definitely have fun at these conventions, especially given how few opportunities I end up with to play DBA and HOTT outside the conventions. I know I'd play better if I played more often, but I'll take what I can get.

And now, to plan for Cold Wars. I need to get 48 points of "something HOTT" ready for a grudge match, and it's looking like it'll most likely be my Fire army. We'll see what other events pop up that will require more painting...

A hearty thanks to all of the game masters and the event coordinators!

Fall-In 2011: Part 1

2011-11-07T00:32:00.000-05:00

JM and I rode out to Lancaster with Larry early on Thursday, to get to Fall-In with time for dinner before Larry's Glue Factory event. I wanted to write this up before I finished reading JM's account of what happened during BBDBA on Friday. I expect he may find my post-game analysis a bit tedious, but I find it helpful to go back over images to learn from our experiences.

Mike Guth's Tuaregs approach the dunes.

Thursday: The Glue Factory

The Glue Factory was a DBA theme requiring all participating armies to contain at least 8 mounted elements out of 12 (not including elephants). I brought Mongol Conquest, because it was one of my two eligible armies (along with Skythians). Mongols have many light horse, with low combat factors, no room to maneuver on a 24" board, and high aggression "guaranteeing" I'd never place terrain. I didn't think this was a strong army compared to what I expected from the competition.

I expected to see mostly Knight armies, but I shouldn't have been surprised by Mike Guth's Tuaregs in the first round. He won terrain and placed massive dunes in the center. These are bad going to me but not to his camels. The only thing in my favor was that they didn't block shooting, though they did constrict his command radius.

An anachronistic civil war vs. Dave's Golden Horde

I didn't expect to win with this setup, and I felt successful for killing 2 elements before I lost 2-4. This was too much terrain even for Mike, who had command radius issues once he sent his general into the center.

In the second round I had a much better chance of success if you just compared army composition. I faced Dave, whose last name I didn't learn, with his Golden Horde. Surprisingly, I won the terrain roll, and had to figure out what a Steppe is supposed to look like. Unfortunately I lost my fourth element to his bow shots before I killed four of his, and he won 4-3.

I found it interesting that when you have two light horse armies, you no longer need to play as a flanking force to gain an advantage. My success was through flanking him around my right side... but so was my demise.

Mike Bumala's Normans

In the final round, I faced Mark Bumala's Normans. Once again, I placed terrain. This game was a horrible massacre: I lost 1-5g. I was really perturbed by how uncooperative my dice were being; it's the only time I remember recently when I got very angry at bad die rolls.

Friday: Big Battle Doubles

Friday morning, JM and I got up nice and early, with plenty of time before the BBDBA doubles tournament at 9am. Except, it didn't start until 10am. When did that happen?

We had time to get in a bit of a Viking civil war between our recently finished Baueda Viking armies. This Fall-In was notable for being the first HMGS-E convention I've been to when I've played a substantial number of pickup games between events.

This time, the Grey Wardens (JM and I) took Leidang (III/40d) with a Medieval German ally (IV/13a). We chose 6 blades and the psiloi from each Leidang, and 2 auxilia in the German ally. This left the Leidang with 2x3Kn, 12x4Bd, 4x3Ax, 4x2Ps, 2x4Sp, and the Germans with 5x3Kn, 2x4Sp, 2x3Ax, 1x4Cb, 2x2Ps.

Two Davids: Leidang on Leidang action

In the first round we faced Two Davids (Kuijt and Schlanger) with a nearly mirror image of our army. They also had Leidang with a German ally, but they included 5 blades and 1 bow from each Leidang army, and used all of the German spears. We won terrain and placed the terrain we planned for, with the waterway on a short edge so we wouldn't see any landings.

The crux: our right flank bad going

We initially placed both Leidang commands, and then we were faced with the typical defender's dilemma in BBDBA. After placing 2 commands centrally so they're hard to ignore, the enemy places 3 commands so they overlap your two and extend out each flank. The defender now must choose which flank to attack and which to hold back.

Their Germans were on our left flank, but their knights were deployed inside a marsh, and didn't look like they had room to maneuver. On our right flank, we were a bit cramped by terrain, but our Germans are better in bad going than theirs. We deployed the Germans on our right. After a few turns we learned a few reasons not to have done what we did, but I think if we had deployed on the other side we simply would've learned a different lesson.

Our allies see their brothers working for the enemy, and flee.

We were slightly outmatched in the bad going on our right flank, but it could have gone either way due to the low combat factors. When we first entered combat, it did go either way, and we ended up getting crushed in the bad going, and soon the German command broke before it could make contact.

On the left flank, JM did an admirable job of holding off the Germans for as long as possible, but unless you're winning somewhere else, living as long as possible just isn't good enough. He broke the enemy's German command by killing its general, but that was too little too late, and we couldn't catch up in elements before losing by attrition, 13-87.

In retrospect, in the best case scenario our knights on the right flank would still have been waiting for that combat to end before they could attack very strongly. The fact that we didn't want to advance on our left flank gave the enemy Germans the time they needed to maneuver to our flank unhindered. It feels like we might have been better off deploying our Germans on the left, but then we would've had our knights facing their bad going, and we still wouldn't have been able to flank them as easily as they could with bad going troops on the other side. In short: it's better to have terrain to anchor both of your flanks, than only one of them.

Stooge stand-in Mark Pozniak, with stooge Larry.

In round 2, we faced Larry Chaban and Mark Pozniak, using Larry's "Jagoff" army: Medieval German IV/13d. With 6 war wagons and 6 artillery, this is a formidable beast.

They defended and Larry placed pool table terrain. They deployed "everything except the mounted" first, with supported pike protecting the war wagons and artillery. The Pike are too strong for our blades to beat consistently, and the war wagons don't let us get any overlaps because they don't recoil. Our only hope was running fast, killing some artillery, and taking advantage of gaps in the line.

We were left with the standard BBDBA attacker's dilemma: when faced with a narrower force, which side do we deploy heavier on? Which flank do we want to attack, where do we want them to deploy their third command, and how do we deploy to encourage them to comply with our preferences? In this case we didn't ask all of these questions, so we didn't answer them.

For the Leidang, we used an interwoven command deployment: part of command A, then part of B, then the rest of A, then the rest of B. The theory was to be able to get localized 2-on-1 command advantage, but the downside is that it always costs more PIPs to maneuver the groups, and it lets them get 2-on-1 command advantage at different locations. We won't be trying that again

In this game, we were basicaly trying to attack with our blades and knights while they attacked with their knights. The problem with this plan is that all else being equal, their knights are faster than our blades, so we have to hold them off longer than they'd have to hold us off.

We also learned a lesson about allied commands: they are unreliable. They can get high PIPs, but they can also get low PIPs. This makes them more well suited for less PIP-intense missions than "primary attacking force."

This time, the force JM was using to hold off the enemy also happened to be our CinC. We did kill a few elements, but not many: we lost 8-92.

Rob and Matt Torres place their center command.

In our final round, we faced Robert and Matt Torres with their Low Countries army. They had lots of pike, with some artillery and knights in support.

Just before initial contact

They won terrain and placed a river to narrow the board, with terrain on one flank. They deployed a pike block on each side with an empty space in the center for their artillery and blades. Our counterdeployment was simple: a straight line of blades against most of their pikes, with a flanking force of mounted and bad going troops on the one open flank. Our hope was to break the center and then hit both of their internal flanks from their center to break another command and destroy them.

Overall, our plan worked, but there was a flaw: neither of their weak commands we attacked was their CinC. Since we rarely have occasion to need to know how to win, we (or at least I) didn't realize that demoralizing two commands isn't enough, only attrition or demoralizing the CinC lets you win.

The Aftermath

In the end, we did kill their center and envelop and destroy them on our right flank; but we still needed to frantically kill elements while their strong CinC command hammered our low PIP command. We ended up losing one command, and almost lost our camp, but we survived long enough to win a 74-26 Pyrrhic victory.

Looking at these pictures, it becomes more clear to me that with heavy foot lines, you really don't need to extend very far past the enemy's flank to gain a significant advantage. We could've shifted our entire line left two elements and we'd have been better off on both flanks.

Finally, the Grey Wardens won a game! I think our next goal should be to end with more than 100 points. I feel that we made mistakes, but they were a bit more strategic in nature than in past events, and that we agreed on what we'd try, even though it didn't work. At least I didn't run my forces towards inevitable crushing defeat, like last time.

In the end, the Stooges and the Davids didn't finish in time but still ended up first and second in our bracket, so they diced off to enter the finals. Larry and Mark went to the finals and won the event. Congratulations!

A Game of Ice and Fire

Because we knew we wouldn't be participating in any other events during the time slot after Big Battle Doubles, JM and I arranged for a pickup game of Hordes of the Things against the Two Davids. This turned into 72 points of 3-on-3 mayhem.

The Ice Elementals, commanded by David Kuijt, David Schlanger, and Mark Pozniak, defended their barren icy wasteland from liberation by the forces of Fire and Earth commanded by me, JM, and Chris Brantley.

I didn't get a good sense of the battle on the other end of this large table, but the general flow seemed to be: we melt them with our fire, and the resulting water puts out our fire. The earth elementals broke first through the loss of their general, followed by my complete annhiliation.

This was my first experience using the "large warband" variant rules, and I liked them a lot. The figures were pretty, and the terrain was also quite nice. Overall it increased my inspiration to play HOTT, and to complete some of my existing HOTT armies. I've started basing my own fire elemental army, using many of the same D&D figures seen here.

Oh yeah! JM and I also played a pickup game of Hordes of the Things, Ewoks vs. Undead. I was not at all put off by the weird combination of troops, it really didn't seem any worse than fighting ahistorical matches in DBA once you got the figures on the table.

Congress of Gamers 2011: DBA

2011-10-11T00:42:00.002-04:00

This past Saturday was Congress of Gamers in Rockville, MD (just outside DC). I was afraid I might not make it to the De Bellis Vasingtonium (DBA open) event, because we were going on a long family weekend... to DC. I'm glad Marla argreed to let me leave them at the zoo for most of Saturday. Thanks!

The events I didn't participate in included a lot of open board gaming along with some organized board gaming events such as a racing series. There weren't many miniatures games other than the ones organized by "the DBA crowd." Unfortunately I wasn't able to participate in the Wings of War Balloon Busting event either, due to time constraints.

I really enjoyed the format of the "Bring-and-Buy," where you drop off your old board games and hope someone buys them. I didn't bring any games due to timing, and didn't end up buying anything because the prices were high compared to the size of my wallet and my desire to own the games. But I think in future years I could sell off some of my games fairly easily since I wouldn't expect to get as much as they were asking for theirs. I also missed participating in the no-ship math trade.

Hordes of the Things

I arrived too late to play in the Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields event, a Hordes of the Things giant battle scenario set up by David Kuijt and Dave Schlanger. I did get a few pictures: here's an overview of the whole battle.

This scenario was based on the Battle of Dale. This battle was left out of the movies, and the main characters weren't there so it was chronicled in less detail in the books as well. Around Dale in the North of Middle Earth, Dwarves, Elves, and Men faced the forces of Sauron: mostly Easterlings (evil men).

In HOTT terms, each side had 108 points split into 4 commands, good guys vs. bad guys (aren't they always?) As in the Giant Battle rules, all players on a side played simultaneously. Although this can slow things down given enough players, I think I prefer the "long line" battles over the more free-for-all format used in the Two Davids Monsterpocalypse themed HOTT games. I should probably actually play a normal Giant Battle before I settle on that decision...

All the figures were Games Workshop, mostly Lord of the Rings figures (with a few pigeons from the Warhammer elf line.)

De Bellis Vasingtonium

As it turned out, only an "hour" of wolves and shattered shields was a bit optimistic. When everyone finaly cleaned up the Battle of Dale, we started De Bellis Vasingtonium: a 4 round DBA tournament open to all armies.

I couldn't decide whether to take Feudal Spanish (III/35b) or Later Achemenid Persians (II/7), so I brought Hittite Empire instead: I/24b. I chose the psiloi option, giving me a final composition of: 3xHCh (gen), 1xLCh, 6x3Sp, 2x2Ps. Except for its lack of bad going troops, this is a fairly solid composition, especially for 1200BC.

JM's right hand blocks his view of his Greco-Indian general.

I thought I might face another early army, but JM's Greco-Indians were the earliest possibility, so we played each other in the first round. "I came all this way to play against you?"

I attacked and JM set up basically a pool table, which suited us both just fine. Early on I denied his elephant flank and concentrated on his other side. I didn't win this battle, JM lost it 2g-0. Our battle lines seemed fairly well matched, but after the first few bounds of combat, JM misused a 1-PIP roll and left his General open to being outflanked, so I killed him.

Apparently JM stopped making mistakes early, because this was the only game he lost. Congratulations on the 3-1 placing, that's excellent!

Before: Doug Austin's Bosporans vs. my Hittites.

In the second round, I faced Doug Austin's Bosporins. I've faced these guys twice before in BBDBA but never in single DBA. I was the attacker, and Doug set up symmetrical terrain with two roads and a central wood. He set up in a tight block with his bad going troops poised to run down the road and take my camp. My plan was to run as fast as possible towards his knights while expending the minimum force necessary to distract and delay his light troops... who were running twice as fast towards my camp.

After: A big mess of Bosporans and Hittites

In the end, my expectations were met and my plan ended up working, but the timing and some luck went in my favor this time. His plan was complicated somewhat by a greater need to consider his general's command radius due to the woods, but mine was limited by the speed of my heavy foot.

He moved to within striking range of my camp before pulling back his bowmen to try to kill my general. In the mean time, my spears and mounted troops finally reached his knights and I started gaining an advantage there. He was even able to shoot several times with his artillery, which he deployed on his base line. In the end I took his camp with my LCh, and won 3c-1.

I decided to use "before" and "after" pictures here, because the contrast is so striking. After Doug ran down the road and I ran up the open ground, we ended up almost perpendicular to our starting deployments, and Doug had turned my "flank" (my original rear). Apparently his bowmen thought my wall was too high, because he didn't end up attempting to take my camp.

I won two games in a row? Weird! Unforutnately things started going down hill from here.

Mike's Medieval Portugese took my camp.

In the third round, I faced Mike Guth and his Medieval Portugese time travellers. This seemed like such an ahistorical matchup that even a bystander asked something like "what are you... why.... what?" In reality, they were just using their time machine to get some practice in before sailing to North America.

I don't have any pictures of the start of this game, but I defended and set up terrain with a small wood on either side of a road. I deployed with my spears in depth in the center (double ranked with psiloi support) and mounted on the flanks, to defend against a central Knight assault. In retrospect I think a thinner line would've been more flexible and less intimidating to him.

The Portuguese and Bostporin army compositions are similar, but with more heavy foot in the Portugese. I don't remember Mike's setup.

He pulled a psiloi rush on the first turn. He didn't kill my LCh, but did really annoy me for the entire game. That psiloi required a huge PIP expenditure for me to defend against, and the best I got was a stalemate. Finally, he took my camp with his auxilia and won 2c-1, with about 1 minute before time was called.

It was definitely a good move for him to do the psiloi rush even if he didn't kill me, because I was definitely set up incorrectly to handle it. I put two mounted on that flank, because as soon as I was free of the woods they could move out to their flank and be more useful... the problem being that they were never able to move past the woods. I may have been able to deal with it better if I had spear and psiloi over there.

I don't have any pictures at all of the final game, which is probably just as well. I faced David Kuijt's Hussites, and basically beat myself with a bunch of mistakes to go along with my lack of experience with or thought about Hussites (or war wagons in general). My only consolation is that I learned more than DK did :)

First of all... a gentle hill is not bad going, and you should ask what kind of hill it is before you decide which board edge you prefer. After deploying incorrectly because the hill was not actually protecting my flank, I failed to correct my mistake and wasted PIPs maneuvering around the hill even though it wasn't bad going.

Hussites have war wagons that are superior to my mounted but inferior to my spears, and blades that are superior to my spears but lose to my knights. His initial set up let him swap his elements to ensure he had a few hot spots that he could take advantage of and poke holes in my line. I'm not a very good element dancer, so I didn't see much advantage to trying to swap elements into good matchups as I advanced... but I hadn't considered that the PIP sink of the war wagons would've prevented him from swapping back as easily.

But that wasn't the last of my mistakes. Without much enemy mounted, my psiloi were wasted in the spear support role I put them in: this is a mental block I need to get over. They don't die to anything in his army except his light horse, so I should've had them out in front, extending my line or at least preventing flank maneuvers.

I hadn't even considered the effects of massed War Wagon and Artillery firing on my lines. That's pretty brutal.

In the end, he outflanked my short line with his light horse and general... but his 4-0 victory came from slaughtering my line in head-to-head combat while making me spend all my pips on my flank.

In general, I have a problem with beating myself when playing DK by paying more attention to what he's doing than to what I'm doing... but this time I made some big mistakes that I should not have, and that made it even worse. Larry wouldn't have admitted to knowing me after seeing that game.

In the end, I finished in the middle of the pack with a 2-2 record, which surpassed my expectations but not my hopes.

Summary

I had fun at Congress of Gamers, and if there are enough events I'll try to make it down again in future years... but the hotel cost may be too high to make it worth it if we aren't planning a trip down there already.

Malifaux: More Totems and Spiders

2011-10-10T22:37:00.001-04:00

Before I recently finished my DBA Viking army, I painted some more Malifaux figures. Here are some pictures, now that I have some that are in focus.

I prepared and primed my Guild totems about a year ago, but didn't get much paint on them until a few weeks ago. I bought Abuela just after Christmas. So: Yes! Some of that old lead does end up painted eventually...

Governor's Proxy

The Governor's Proxy has a basic, serviceable paint job without too much interesting going on. The basing matches all my Malifaux bases, which will make it harder for me to change my mind later with a new crew. All of the bases shown here are from Dragon Forge Designs.


Enslaved Nephilim

I decided to go with red skin for my Enslaved Nephilim. I like the way the grey hair and red skin turned out; it almost has the look of ashes and fire. His wing stumps, not seen here, are also grey.

Abuela Ortega

Abuela Ortega was a fun figure to paint, but apparently I'm running out of different colors of brown to use for outer layers. I tried to add some interest to her dress and shirt/apron but not much of them shows.

Overall I seem to be taking more of my 15mm technique onto these larger figures than the other way around, these days. It works well enough and produces a reasonable result, especially for the B-list figures instead of the big names.

Steampunk Arachnids

Finally, my last stand of Steampunk Arachnids? Hopefully. This brings me up to two sets of three Arachnids, and two Arachnid Swarms. Unfortunately these models are a slippery slope.

I have most of the Hoffman box set crew assembled and primed, as well as a Peacekeeper and a few other M&SU/Guild figures. I'm not sure when I'll get to those. They're an excellent crossover crew for my Ramos and Perdita crews, because Hoffman is guild and can use Perdita models; Ramos and Hoffman can use each others' steam punk models; and Hoffman is M&SU so he can use my M&SU mercenary cheaply as well.

DBA Army III/40a: Vikings

2011-10-03T03:07:00.000-04:00

Baueda Vikings: DBA III/40a

Here's the army I'll be playing in the Two Davids "Viking Fury" campaign game at Fall-In 2011: III/40a, Vikings. JM and I bought identical Baueda figure packs for our armies, and I look forward to contrasting JM's paint job with mine.

3x4Bd(gen). "You're not doing anything, you must be in charge."

The Baueda figures are good: not the best I've ever painted, but also not the worst. They have an extreme variation of poses, which is good for this kind of army, but they are also reasonably static poses that don't get in the way of fitting the figures on the bases.

3x3Bd.

The army pack usually comes with a viking tent, but I already have one, so I ordered it without the tent directly from Baueda. Unlike most DBA army packs, which provide only exactly as many figures as you need for the army, Baueda provides enough figures to build either III/40a or III/40b with all options, and you'll end up with spare figures on top of that. We also received additional free samples from Baueda, with even more Viking scouts. Between our two army packs and the samples, we're only short a few handfuls of figures to build a third army (not that we want to right now).

2x3Bd, 1x3Wb.

There are a variety of different shields, weapons, armors, and poses, resulting in a wider variety of combinations of those features. I like the level of detail the figures include: they have belts and a few pouches, but the figures aren't cluttered with a bunch of "what is that, anyway?"

3x3Bd.

The only problems I have with the figures are that they required a bit more cleanup than I'd prefer, and some of the individual figures have poorer sculpting than others. The quality of faces varies widely across the figures, and some of them have rougher cloth sculpting and a few missing details.

1x3Bd, 1x2Ps.

I had some goals when painting this army. I wanted a variety of colors and patterns across the army, but I also wanted a coherent look that didn't end up as gaudy and garish as I think my Leidang turned out. I also wanted to try some new color combinations, since I've been getting stuck on a few standards lately. Overall, I think I achieved my goals, but only some of the experiments were successful.

I also used a new sand for the bases. It has a higher contrast between darker and lighter grains mixed in the sand, which is more apparent at this small scale. Overall it reads a bit lighter than I'd prefer, but it will probably work just fine.

Overall, once again I'm happy with the way this army turned out. I look forward to trying it out with the special Raider rules that will be in effect during the campaign.

Terraclips: Almost Awesome

2011-10-03T02:38:00.000-04:00

Just like everyone else interested in the Wyrd Miniatures/Worldworks Terraclips terrain building sets probably has, I read and heard lots of good reviews about the kits... and then I bought them: one each of the Streets, Sewers, and Buildings kits, and three boxes of clips. This is definitely a high quality, well designed product. However, instead of repeating all the glowing praise I read before I bought them, I'll list all my picky problems. Hopefully this will help someone to decide whether this is the right toy for them.

My overall summary is: I think these would work great for D&D 4E dungeon crawls, but I don't think they'll be very good forMalifaux.

Here's a 3 foot square of Malifaux terrain built using parts of all three kits. The build took Frank and I 2 hours to complete. We started with a half-assembled build, and spent some time disassembling it but saved some time reusing a few of the buildings and roofs I built earlier.

And here's the first problem: Terraclips are slow to assemble. I rarely spend this much time setting up terrain, and that's when I am planning a historical scenario. I'd rather spend my time crafting individual terrain pieces that can be reused quickly, or playing a game.

Because of the long setup time, you need either a lot of free time, or a place where the completed terrain can sit until you use it. Unlike large purpose-built terrain boards and smaller area/element terrain pieces, Terraclips can't easily be stored assembled.

Many reviews I've seen gawk at the huge amount of stuff you get in each box. It's true: you get a lot of stuff. However, having a lot of stuff doesn't necessarily mean building a large area of terrain. The kits come with the parts needed to do anything, but not to do everything at the same time. For example, there are enough roof pieces to handle any L-shaped or T-shaped building, but you can build more square one-story buildings than you can add roofs to. If you build taller buildings, they take up less area on the map, so you require more streets and sewers to take up the slack.

We found that we had a huge number of balcony and railing parts left unused (unpunched, even), but we ran out of roofs and walls without doors. Another challenge is using the right ratio of 6" and 3" pieces, to ensure that you don't run out of one before the other.

These parts are also quite fiddly to assemble. Experience would definitely help building things faster and more cleanly, but I don't expect I'd ever be fast enough to roll up a Malifaux scenario and then build terrain for it as the rules recommend.

The clips all have a bump on one side but not the other (look in the clip's slot, which tends to put a slight angle in the connection, especially when using I clips. The T and L clips don't join up the cards in the same orientation at the corner, depending on which direction the clip is used, which can leave you with some less than square buildings if you don't align all the clips the same way. All these little errors add up over the course of a large build. The few instructions available implore you to make sure everything is lined up properly and fully assembled, but it's still fiddly.

The remaining issues I have with Terraclips are related to how they will work with Malifaux.

Malifaux didn't have any comprehensive rules for working with buildings, the last I checked. All terrain pieces were "area" or "element/item" and had an overall effect; they didn't contain discrete walls, doors, windows, and so on. In previous games using our scratch built buildings and Mordheim buildings, we adopted the Mordheim rules: any obstruction gives you cover, and line of site is WYSIWYG.

WYSIWYG line of site works great... as long as you are able to use terrain to disrupt and limit that line of site without being able to completely hide. In this regard, the terraclips don't perform well. None of the wall sections have open windows, they only have doorways and arches. These highly enclosed buildings have the effect of breaking the board into small, isolated, easily protected sections. We have yet to see how this plays out in practice.

We also found it difficult to add enough buildings to a flat city street grid, to block the line of site across the board adequately. We were limited by roofs. We might have been able to build a few more buildings taller, but we couldn't really add more of them. Actually, this is great for my Perdita crew, so I'll just stop complaining now.

For what they are, the Terraclips do a very good job. These will be great for doing D&D dungeon crawls and encounters inside buildings, and I could even see building a dungeon crawl on the fly if it's straightforward enough. They even have 1" squares subtly printed on all surfaces. But I don't have high hopes for building a wide variety of different terrain boards for a series of Malifaux games.

In the future I'll be sticking to building more individual terrain elements to place on my Terrainguy mat, but I'll save these kits to build dungeon crawls, assuming I can ever fit them back in their boxes.

DBA Army III/35b: Feudal Spanish

2011-08-19T01:42:00.000-04:00

Feudal Spanish Knights; Old Glory 15mm

I finished the Feudal Spanish army I bought from Tony Aguilar via Fanaticus. I'm quite happy with the way the army turned out, and I particularly enjoyed the painting process I used for this army.

These are all 15mm Old Glory figures. I'm happy with the figure selection: Thanks, Tony!

Feudal Spanish Cavalry; Old Glory 15mm

We went on vacation for the first week of August, and I decided to take a painting project. These Spanish were cleaned and primed but I hadn't started painting them yet. I knew the basic color scheme I wanted to use, so I put together a limited set of paints and used only those colors to paint the figures. It was an interesting change to work from a more limited color palette.

I also didn't bring any research materials with me, and I was mostly without Internet for the week. The only reference I looked up while I was on vacation was getting an idea of Andalusian shield patterns. This is why some of the shields and smaller flags have yellow stripes on a red field instead of red stripes on a yellow field.

It felt liberating working under these self-imposed restrictions... some might even call it a "plan." I finished the painting with a few days left over, and lamented the fact that I didn't bring a second army to start painting.

Allied light horse; Old Glory 15mm

The General's stand is flying the colors of Aragon and/or Catalonia. As far as I know, these figures slightly predate the age of heraldry, so shield patterns were primarily decorative and not hereditary insignia.

Feudal Spanish spearmen; Old Glory 15mm

I have a lot of red, white, and yellow armies, and plans for more. I didn't want the Spanish to have the same general look as my other armies, so I emphasized the yellow more than I've seen on other Feudal Spanish armies. I also colored most of the cloth in various shades of excrement and detritus, instead of using cleanly dyed colors. Overall I like the greater contrast here between the colorful shields and flags and the bland natural colors.

I hadn't painted any Old Glory 15mm figures before I did this army. I like the variety of poses available without overly dramatic, active posing. The sculpting isn't bad, but it's not the best I've seen, either. The figures are a bit smaller than Essex, which is fine with me: the horses actually fit on the bases.

Feudal Spanish Psiloi; Old Glory 15mm

The spears are basically square, which is a bit weird. They require a bit more cleaning than other manufacturers' figures, but not dramatically so. The main drawback I see is that Old Glory 15s come in packs of 24, so it's often not cost effective to buy armies that have more than a few different element types, unless you're building a triple army.

I haven't played this army yet, so I don't know how it'll do. That's a lot of psiloi, but I like psiloi.

Painted for Historicon 2011

2011-08-19T01:11:00.000-04:00

Say hello to my little friend! Museum miniatures.

I am only just getting around to photographing the random elements I painted up to bring to Historicon in July.

First are two bases I painted to use my Rajput Indian army in DBA-RRR.

The cannon is huge, and sticks off the front of the base. I didn't expect this to be a problem, since it's basically doomed if anything contacts it anyway. As with my other artillery crew figures from Museum Miniatures, these crew are way taller than the other figures in the same line.

Essex miniatures Rajput general for DBA-RRR

DBA-RRR allows the use of a separate general base if you want, so I painted one up. I like the way the shield turned out, and the more intricate design makes the individual figure stand out. He also almost always detached from his unit, since elephants are so fragile in DBA-RRR with cannons shooting 8".

Baueda Viking tent

I finished this Baueda Viking tent as a camp for my Leidang army, and I expect to be painting a Viking army to use it with as well.

GW giant eagles, 28mm

At Cold Wars I picked up some more figures for my Hordes of the Things Elf army at the flea market. Here are two units of fliers: giant eagles from one of the Games Workshop Elf lines. I was happy to learn how to use fliers at Historicon. These figures originally had Elf riders, but they were too big for the eagles and didn't match the rest of my Elves, so I decided to remove them and build some more general-purpose flier elements.

Historicon 2011: Friday, Saturday

2011-07-13T01:29:00.000-04:00

Friday: Monsterpocalypse

After BBDBA on Friday night, the only event was the Two Davids giant Hordes of the Things game: Monsterpocalypse Episode 2: Rise of the Terrasaurs - There goes Tokyo!

This was an 8 player HOTT game played on a huge board using rebased Monsterpocalypse figures. Each player had a 24 point army, and sat next to an ally on one side and an enemy on the other. The goal was to capture objectives on the board. Capturing an objective increased your army's power, and decreased the power of the defensive forces in the city. The first army to capture all 4 of their objectives won.

My aerial hero general is nuked

I was signed up for one of the IOUS slots (Insects of Unusual Size) and Rich Gause took the other. Apparently we left our hive mind at home. I deployed in a completely stupid way and boxed myself in, spending several turns to even get out of my deployment zone. Dave Schlanger decided not to flank my general and kill it in the first 2 turns of the game, but it didn't extend my lifetime very much. Instead, both of the defense forces to our right beat the crap out of Rich's bugs.

Soon, Jon Bostwick rolled a 6 and brought out his nuke (a god, in HOTT element terms). This killed off several of Rich's elements, broke his army, and then started wandering towards the center of the map.

Eventually I unboxed myself, got some PIPs, and flew away. Alex Bostwick, to my left, used a Jedi mind trick to convince me to attack the nuke, and it was a total disaster. We didn't understand how multiplayer attacks were resolved, and didn't realize we couldn't cooperate to flank and destroy it. When it came back to Jon's turn, he nuked my aerial hero, which broke my army. On my turn, immediately after Jon's, I rolled a 1 for PIPs, and the rest of my army evaporated instantly (in HOTT, demoralized elements that you can't hold on the board are removed immediately instead of fleeing).

In The Princess Bride, the ROUSes were killed by fire spouts. I guess when your unusual size is as large as a skyscraper, a tactical nuke is just about the right scale for a fire spout. Even though I was out of the game, I hung around to watch. I left before it finished, but eventually the Terrasaurs captured their fourth objective and won.

Saturday: NICT

The NICT, basically the DBA annual national championship, is open to anyone who has placed first in a NASAMW sanctioned tournament (or second place, for larger tournaments). My win at the Battle at the Crossroads this year qualified me for the NICT, so I got to sit at the big kids' table this year. The event was played on 24" boards with dismounting in any bound.

Since the pyramid event I qualified in was so weird, both in terms of tournament scoring rules and special rules in use during play, I decided to use the army I qualified with: Leidang, III/40d. This is not an awesome army within its period: it's basically bringing blades to a knight fight. I took 1xKn(gen), 5xBd, 3xAx, 1xSp, 1xPs, 1xBw.

In the first round, I faced Greek Alex's French Ordonnance, on my terrain, and lost 4-1. He really didn't want to dismount, but he swapped in his blades to dig my auxilia out of the woods. In the second round, Tony Aguilar beat me 4-1, also with French Ordonnance, this time on his choice of terrain, a pool table. I was playing my blades aggressively like knights, and he was playing his knights timidly like blades, but he still ended up beating me. I tried to concentrate my forces on one end of his line, but I didn't support myself well enough and ended up outflanked and destroyed piecemeal.

In the final round, I had a somewhat better matchup against Ron Giampapa's Medieval Scandinavians, but I still lost: 5-1 this time. I don't have any pictures, but this was a straight "line 'em up, knock 'em down" affair with minimal maneuver. The dice didn't let me exploit any local advantages I managed to create, so my line quickly crumbled.

This wasn't a frustrating event, but it wasn't particularly inspiring, either. I prefer themed events over opens, because of the variety of armies present. Even in themes, I'm more likely to choose an army I like instead of choosing my army based on how competitive it will be. Hopefully I'll eventually get good enough to win despite my army choice.

Saturday: HOTT Open

Tom Thomas ran a Hordes of the Things open tournament with 25mm basing and 4 foot boards. He had plenty of nice loaner armies, so lots of people dropped in who weren't planning to play. We had 9 players, which let Tom participate to even out the field.

I brought a new version of the Elves of the Offwhite Tower, and got to show off my phallic symbol again... this time complete with a sheath. My army list was: 3xSp (gen), 1xBd, 2xSh, 2xFl, 2xRd, 1xMg. I learned a lot and enjoyed playing the army, but I am likely to change it up before I play it again.

In the first round, I played against Catherine Thomas, who played a Stark army based on R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series of novels. Considering how much mindshare these books are getting among persons whose opinion I respect, I'm going to have to pick up a copy of A Game of Thrones before vacation.

Catherine's army was very similar to something you'd see in DBA, except with a Hero. I surrounded her with my flyers and started pestering her a lot, but she ended up killing my general and winning 8g-2.

In the next round, I faced Jon Bostwick again, and he had another Boudicca army. This time he had a giant tree for a Behemoth, Boudicca was a hero, and the army was rounded out by a handful of warbands and a couple more chariots (riders). He ended up killing my general, but I was ahead and won 12-8g. For some reason, it seems like the majority of my wins this weekend were against Bostwicks...

I faced Tom Thomas in the final round, also with a Song of Fire and Ice army. This was an interesting battle, but unfortunately we were running out of time and I had to cut it short in order to make it to the Peloponnesian War campaign event.

My magician ensorcelled his magician, and we were at 6-6. He brought his magician back, and I killed his hero: back to 6-6 again. He tried to ensorcell my magician, but he failed and ensorcelled himself, so it was 10-6. He was able to bring his magician back a second time, and then ensorcelled me, bringing it to 10-6 in the other direction. This back-and-forth could've gone on for some time, but I was out of time. I hated to concede and leave in the middle of the game, and hated to cheat to lose, so I explained I was short on time and put myself in a vulnerable position for him to take advantage of. It still took a few more turns, but he killed me and won 12-6. Sorry about that!

I learned a lot from this event, and I'm now more inspired to play HOTT more, build at least one more army, and build a few more interesting elements for my Elf army. Larry said it was a bad idea to take both a Magician and Fliers in the same army, and I can see why: they both need 2 PIPs to move, they can't group move together, and magicians need even more PIPs to use their spells. But they're both so useful!

In all of my games, I put a second rank of spear behind my general, bringing him up to +6/+6. Eventually I realized this is silly: I should have a Hero general. For the same 4 points, I get a +6/+6 element that moves a lot farther, isn't quick killed by knights, and maneuvers more easily since it's only a single element. It's less flexible, but that only matters if you intend to use the flexibility.

Flyers are very fun. I thought I'd need two of them to make them useful, but I'm not sure this is necessary. One is enough to wreak havoc behind the enemy line, providing flank or rear contacts. I also see much more benefit to taking high PIP elements than before. I thought it would be a handicap to have fewer elements, but you have more PIPs to run the remaining elements, and they're stronger and more maneuverable.

Saturday: Peloponnesian War Campaign

"It is 431 BC, and things are going to crap."

Peloponnesian Campaign Map

The Two Davids campaigns are the highlight of every convention and a great end to a fun weekend. This year's event was in ancient Greece, with a bit of Persia thrown in for good measure. I was signed up for one of the Spartan slots, II/5a: 9xSp, 1xCv, 1xAx, 1xPs.

In the first round, I attacked Corinth, played by Alex Bostwick with II/5i. His army was the same as mine, except with one more psiloi and one less spear. This was a fairly straightforward hoplite battle, except for the part where he took my camp with his cavalry. I was eventually in a position to take it back, but by then I had beaten him, 4-c. I controlled Corinth, and had a vassal in the first turn. Yay! This also meant I had a big target on my head.

The Davids, who run the campaign, are becoming famous for getting the lowest numbered tiles in many rounds. After Larry thoroughly searched the campaign tile bag, and demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction that there was no funny business going on, Dave Schlanger drew the 1 tile in the first round. In the second and third rounds, David Kuijt drew the 1. Shenanigans!

DK's Hoplite Echelon concentrates force on my left flank

I was a pretty target, so DK attacked me in round 2. He had an identical army composition to mine. I set up the same terrain as in the first round, approximately. David did something very clever, shown in the accompanying image. I've seen and used echelon formations before, but not in this way. He made very good use of the tactic here to deny one of my flanks while concentrating superior force on the other, for a minimum of PIPs, and while mutually supporting his own spears in the process. By the time I saw what he was doing, I had already wheeled into a position that would take many PIPs to send my spears against him... but I was rolling 1's for PIPs and he was rolling up my line. He beat me 5-0, and I became his vassal.

After I saw what he was doing and commented on it, David again said "It doesn't always work this well."

"So," I responded, "when you say it doesn't always work this well, that means you can do it but no one else can figure it out, right?"

"Yep, pretty much."

That "pretty much" guaranteed I had to try this enough times to figure it out. Even if it doesn't always work, it's important to learn more tactics so you can not only use them, but protect yourself from them and find ways to beat them.

In the third round, Mark Pozniak attacked me with his Athenians. I tried the echelon tactic, but it didn't work correctly. I ended up leaving my general's flank open, and after several turns of back-and-forth combats, he eventually beat my general and won 3g-0. I made some mistakes I should've avoided, but I was more interested in learning this new way than practicing what I already knew.

In the last round, Jon Bostwick attacked me, again with the same army composition I was using... and again, I attempted the echelon tactic. Again, I left my general's flank open, but I realized it a bit earlier and was able to protect it somewhat. However, it didn't help me win, and he beat me 4-0.

When I think about hoplite battles, they always seem boring and uninteresting to me. This is probably because it's a typical army choice for demonstrating DBA to new players, where hoplite battles are typically played out in a very straightforward fashion for the benefit of the new player. When I actually play with hoplites against an experienced opponent, it's a lot more fun.

I finished this year's campaign in the middle of the pack, which was satisfying, but more importantly I learned new ways to play this army, gained a greater appreciation for it, and best of all I had fun.

Another year of Historicon is over, and no one knows where next year's show will be. I guess we'll find out eventually, if the convention actually happens in 2012, but depending on where it's held I might not end up attending.

Historicon 2011: Big Battle Doubles (Friday)

2011-07-12T02:20:00.007-04:00

Friday's main event is always Big Battle Doubles. Since JM wasn't in attendence, The Grey Wardens couldn't make a return appearance. Luckily, Dave Schlanger set me up with Mark Pozniak. After we settled on playing Mark's Ancient British, II/53, we chose the team name Woad Kill. The final army composition was 12xLCh, 6xLH, 15x3Wb, 3x2Ps. This is not a power army by any means, but it can definitely win through outmaneuvering (and high die rolls).

Somewhat unfortunately, Warband is a finesse troop in DBA. I say "unfortunately" because historically these guys were more likely to yell "Waagh!" and run straight ahead. This is only "somewhat" unfortunate because warband are fun to play the wrong way, since they maneuver so well.

Game 1 deployment vs. Doug Austin's Bosporans with Sarmatian ally

The first image demonstrates our final defensive plan: two large pieces of bad going in the center, daring the enemy to approach our central CinC command and camp; two pieces of bad going near the board edges to constrict a flank. It also shows the command split we used for all three games:

3xLCh, 1xLH, 5x3Wb, 1x2Ps (10 el, BP: 4)
3xLCh, 3xLH, 6x3Wb, 1x2Ps (13 el, BP: 5)
6xLCh, 2xLH, 4x3Wb, 1x2Ps (13 el, BP: 5)

One flank command (low PIP) would hold on and try not to die for as long as possible. The center command and other flank command would work together to attack the enemy's weakest flank. In this picture, the enemy deployed ideally for us, by putting most of their army on our preferred defensive flank.

During planning conversations with Mark, I had three primary concerns with this plan and command split. First, the low PIP command consisted of both warband and mounted, and with 10 elements it might not have enough PIPs to accomplish its missions. Second, combining two commands which were split by a piece of bad going might lead to command and control issues. Finally, what would entice the enemy to approach us centrally? In practice, only some of these ended up being real problems, and we only defended once anyway.

Round 1

In the first round, we faced Team Bosporan: Doug Austin and Bill Connely. They played the same army Doug used when JM and I faced him at Cold Wars: Bosporans (II/25) with a Sarmatian ally (II/26). They also had a 0 aggression, but we won the terrain roll. Doug set up very similarly to last year: a central low-PIP command consisting of primarily artillery and bow, with his CinC command split on both sides of that command; and the allied block of knights (with 1xLH for variety, this time) on our left flank. The first picture above shows the final deployment.

We knew we had enough bad going troops to take and hold any piece of bad going, but our goal was not to hide in bad going and delay the game. Instead, we intended to look like a Warband army but act like a Mounted army. The bad going provided a safe "home base" and staging area for the warbands, but it couldn't be a final destination if we wanted to finish the game on time.

Game 1 in progress: attack the right flank.

As the game progressed, we advanced into the bad going, defended on the left flank, and attacked quickly on the right. Our cavalry and warband reached their right flank before their knights reached our left, but Doug retreated from our advance and competently maneuvered to avoid our attack. This would've gone a bit differently on 30" deep boards, with an extra few inches to use in their backfield. In the center, nothing really happened: they didn't approach, so I held our central mounted in reserve to act where they were needed the most.

The End is Nearly Nigh

In the end game, my left flank warband were able to aid in the defense and even tried to pick off a few CinC elements (or at least suck away some PIPs). We delayed the inevitable break of our low PIP command for a long time, but eventually it did break. I allowed the elements to flee enough to get in the way of oncoming knights before trying to hold them, but there were only a few turns left. With time running out, Doug graciously recognized they would lose eventually, and allowed the game to come to a conclusion on our right flank instead of retreating and delaying until time ran out. In the end, we killed enough elements to break their CinC, and won 84-16.

Regarding my concerns about this plan: The low PIP command was not too large, and did have enough PIPs, even though it was acting both in the open and in bad going. The key to success here was the fact that it had a passive mission to "not die." It would have failed if it were required to attack. Command and control wasn't a big issue in this game, because the central command was only required to work on one side of the woods. It didn't really matter whether the enemy approached us centrally or not: instead of advancing aggressively in the center and risking attacks from bad going, they tried to maneuver to our right flank and faced the warband there instead. I didn't see this flexibility before I saw the plan in action.

Round 2

Vs. Two Davids, after a few turns

In the second game, we faced Two Davids with "some kind of Romans" and Sub-Roman British (King Arthur). They were also aggression 0, but they won terrain. We applied basically the same plan we used in the first game to the enemy's choice of terrain since it was similar enough to our own.

Much of this game hinged on a minor but costly mistake shown in this picture: the CinC command sent a column of warband down the road to "help" in the woods, but they ended up out of command. This sucked PIPs from the CinC while severely hampering the ability of the right flank command to maneuver there and attack effectively. We were able to maintain this PIP debt for longer than we expected, but eventually the Davids killed off enough elements in the woods to control them completely, and it was all downhill from there.

Another noteworthy part of this game was the Davids' deployment and initial maneuver. They deployed their line behind the deployment line, and placed their third command in front of their main line near the center. As seen in the image above, they wheeled the two overlapping lines away from each other, in a beautiful maneuver I can only compare to the blooming of a flower. It was very instructive to watch and learn from, but as David Kuijt said, "It doesn't always work out that way." (Hold that thought, and read the Saturday update once I post it...)

I don't know what would've happened if we had anticipated the command and control issues, and decided not to send the central warband toward the right flank. The real battle here ended up being in the center and the right flank woods, not on the far flanks, so the extra force and PIPs would have been helpful.

In the end, we hardly killed anything, and lost 94-6. I enjoyed the game a lot, and seeing the flower bloom taught me enough to make it worth losing. Command and control was more of an issue, obviously, but the low PIP command still had enough PIPs. I think the tides could've turned somewhat to our favor in the woods, but the Davids had the overall PIP advantage and we were fairly evenly matched in combat, so they were bound to win if the dice acted as expected (and I'm not one to bet against them).

Round 3

Alex and Jon Bostwick, not the One True Boudicca!

The Long Island Bostwicks (Jon and Alex) read our team name on Fanaticus, and decided that they weren't going to be outdone by us, so they took Ancient British as well. They totally out-woaded us! They must be extroverts, or something.

Unfortunately, no one else was familiar with the recent Beastie Boys video (and trailer). I wanted to bring a super fresh, old school beatdown to the table: "We're the real Boudicca!" "No, we're the real Boudicca!" I've listened to and grown up with the Beastie Boys since middle school, so as long as they're still rapping, I know I'm not old yet...

Once again, everyone was aggression 0, and they won the terrain roll and defended. Since we have the same army, this wasn't a big deal. Their command structure was different than ours: they put all of their mounted in one huge CinC command, and split their warband into two commands. They had no psiloi, and took more warband instead.

They deployed their mounted command centrally with one warband command on their flank. Their mounted had some elements in reserve behind the lines, and there was a road in place allowing them to redeploy as necessary.

As usual, width is better than depth. We decided to create a longer line and outflank them on each side. Cavalry is superior to warband, so we didn't want to face their cav with our warband. By putting two commands next to each other, we had enough mounted to meet their cavalry with one or two elements in reserve, and the third command's mounted elements were still available to provide a superior force on one flank.

Their third command placement showed a bit of father-son rivalry. Alex wanted all the warband on one flank, while Jon wanted the third command on his side. I think Jon may have had the better answer, but Alex got his way and commanded both warband commands on our left flank. Unfortunately, this meant that the reserve chariots were out of command by the time they reached the flank. This sucked up their PIPs, and once I tamed their warband on the left flank it allowed us to use all three commands against their CinC command.

We were going neck-and-neck until one turn when I broke both of the warband commands: one by killing 1/3 of the elements and the other by killing its general. After that, it was only a matter of time; but we ended up killing enough CinC elements to end the game before they lost 18 elements. We won 86-14. No, we're the real Boudicca!

Once again, the low PIP command had plenty of PIPs, since its mission was to advance in a straight line and attack in the open in a single line. There was some potential for command issues on the left flank, but I kept the general in a useful position and it wasn't a real problem.

Summary

I had a lot of fun in this event, as usual, and I'm glad to have partnered with Mark. Thank you very much, Mark! You won so many other events that I hope I didn't hold you back very much in BBDBA.

Besides having fun, I learned a lot. At the time I couldn't identify many specific lessons, but now that I'm writing it up, they are a bit easier to identify.

My approach to planning in past BBDBA events seems mostly on the right track. I considered most of the same aspects Mark did, but valued their importance differently. It's not clear how useful considering all possible enemies is, given the limited field you're likely to face unless you reach the finals.
10 elements aren't too many for a low PIP command, even if they're of a variety of element types. The more important aspect of their success is their mission.
It's very important to pay attention to command and control radius. Yeah, I already knew that in theory, but I need to pay even more attention to it.
If you split a command to work on two areas of the board, you can share its PIPs with two other friendly commands. However, you may also present that command to two separate enemy commands, making it more vulnerable to enemy attack. If it is your CinC command, it may make the CinC easier to break.
On the other hand, using multiple commands against one enemy command is an important aid to your success. Balancing this with avoiding exposing your command to too many enemy commands may be difficult.
The Blooming Flower tactic is an interesting, useful, and dangerous way to deploy your commands flexibly in two overlapping lines.

BBDBA seems to warp time in an odd way. For me, time seems to be controlled by the overall flow and pace of a battle, and not wall clock time. As a result, when I'm finished with a big battle game it feels like it was just as long as a single DBA game, and I wonder where half the day went.

Thanks to my partner and my opponents for a wonderful day of BBDBA!

Historicon 2011: Wednesday, Thursday

2011-07-12T00:22:00.007-04:00

After Cold Wars, I said I didn't take enough notes to write detailed descriptions of what went on, but apparently I was wrong. This time around I expect to post even less information, so I apologize ahead of time for not remembering details such as what happened in any of the games, or my opponents' last names.

Since JM wasn't going to Historicon, I rode down with Diceman and slept on the floor of the Stooges' room. We arrived early on Wednesday, and would've had plenty of time for dinner before the first event if they would only have brought us our check.

A Shot in the Dark

On Wednesday night, Larry ran A Shot in the Dark. This limited tournament required armies with at least 4 bows, so I took my Tlingit army with 10 bows and 2 psiloi. I expected that this would be a poor army choice if I wanted to win, and I was mostly right. Most players took the best army they could find with at least 4 bows, instead of maxing out on the shooting. There were a lot of Medieval combined arms armies, as well as Indians.

In the first round I faced Dave, a very new player with War of the Roses English. I ended up winning 2g-0. The next game was against Hank Drapalski with his Medieval French (IV/64b). As expected, he ended up dismounting all of his knights into blades. On the last bound before we ran out of time, it was 3-3 and I shot one last element... and killed it! Oops, no... my general doesn't get +1 unless someone's shooting back... so yeah, it was a 3-3 unfinished game that could've gone either way in the next few bounds. So close, yet so far away. In the last round, I faced Ron Giampapa's Early Egyptians (I/2b) and lost 1-4.

I enjoyed learning about bows in this event. I tend to be a bit of a chaotic player, and often increase geometric complexity and let my troops mutually support each other outside the typical straight line formation. This isn't always what I plan. I often end up with many groups of elements, but I don't mind as long as they're safe and don't require PIPs for maintenance. In this event, I ended up using my bows basically as aggressive skirmishers, moving around in small groups and seeking out local advantages while attempting to prevent poor matchups. Because they shoot, it didn't work horribly, but considering I only won one game it didn't work very well, either. Larry says "never let your bows get overlapped," and that's basically true, but when the field is covered with blades it often doesn't matter anyway.

Overall, I don't think it was a particularly competitive army choice, but it was in line with the theme so I enjoyed being able to field the army again before it's most likely changed by the release of DBA 3.0.

DBA-RRR Open

On Thursday morning, I played DBA-RRR for the first time in the Open event. I brought Rajput Indians, built from my Hindu Indian DBA army with additional Rajput knights and blades, and a cannon (pictures forthcoming). This is also not a particularly competitive army in the face of firearms, but I enjoyed my limited exposure to DBA-RRR and would like to eventually get an army that takes advantage of more of the RRR-specific element interactions. I'm not very interested in the Renaissance, so I'm unlikely to paint many armies for DBA-RRR.

In the first round, I faced Dan McKellick, another player new to both DBA and DBA-RRR, with Italian Condotta, I/1. I lost 1-5... so he got the beginner's luck and I didn't, apparently. In the next round, I faced Bill Brown's English Civil War Parliamentarian II/22a. I was leading 3-0 when I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, to pull off a narrow loss at 3-4.

In the final round, I faced Brian's Valois French, I/8c. In the first turn he did a "psiloi" rush with only a single skirmisher to attack my lonely cannon. In DBA-RRR, skirmishers shoot at +2/+2 with 200p range, and they're still immune to cannon fire. He didn't kill anything quickly, but this ended up being a tremendous pain in the ass for many turns. I brought over a bow to help shoot at the skirmisher, but he killed it off with his shooting. I was moving 2 blades over to help as well, when he moved behind my cannon to shoot it from the rear. I managed to turn around, and when he shot me on the next turn I fled him off the board. Finally! In the mean time, he had tied up a quarter of my army with only one element. I'm surprised I lived through it as long as I did, but in the end I lost 2-4.

My elephant was basically useless in all of the games, due to its vulnerability to cannon fire, so I'm glad I was able to detach my general. Clearly it's not a good idea to leave your cannons vulnerable, even though they shoot 8" in this game.

In this event I was making some mistakes, but I chalked it up to being the first time I played the game. Unfortunately I didn't stop making mistakes as soon as I had hoped...

Team Cup

The Team Cup format requires players to form 4-player teams, and each player selects an army from a different book. Teams are matched up against other teams, and players play against their opponent within the same book. I couldn't build another Pittsburgh team, so I joined Tony Aguilar, Rich Gause, and Ron Giampapa to form the North and South team. Unfortunately I don't remember all of our team results.

There were an odd number of teams, so in the first round we got a bye. This counts as a win, but that's not the point: I'm here to play the game... so Rich and I played a practice game during the free slot. I was in book II with Lysimachid, II/17; Rich was in book I with Vedic Indian, I/23. He won 2-4.

In the first "real" round, I faced Dave again with his Later Carthaginians (II/32, no elephants). He beat me 4-1, after I made some big, dumb mistakes I should have known better than to repeat.

In the next round I faced Larry, also with Later Carthaginians. He took one elephant and one light horse. In the last bound, Larry graciously allowed me to take a move back. I ended up winning 5-4 by killing double ranked warbands, but the combat rolls would've produced the same results if I had used my second-best move instead.

I think our team all lost our first game, and we were 2-2 in the second round, but I could be wrong. Looking at past years' army selections in book II, I expected to face Tamil Indians at least once, but I didn't.

Midnite Madness

It can't be "midnight" if it starts at 11pm, right? Well, it didn't end until almost 3am, so that's close enough. As usual, this is a single elimination event open to all armies, but the motivations are warped by the fact that it happens so late at night. The winners advance to the next round and the losers get to sleep, so it's never clear which is the better option. The only loser is whoever comes in second place, since they had to stay up until the end but they still didn't win.

I used Mark Pozniak's Ancient British, II/53, to get some practice with them before Big Battle on Friday. In the first round, I beat David Bostwick's New Kingdom Egyptians, I/22, at 4-3. In the second round I faced Ben Hatch, who was a fairly experienced DBA player who hasn't played at conventions before. He beat me 4-2 with his Vikings, and I truly learned the lesson that warbands are bad going troops. Unfortunately I wasn't able to maneuver them into bad going before they had to face blades.

And finally, sleep...

Medieval Heraldry of Brunswick

2011-06-08T01:37:00.001-04:00

I did some research before settling on how I wanted to paint my Medieval German army. Eventually I found the alliance between King Valdemar II of Denmark and his nephew Otto I, Duke of Brunswick (later, Brunswick-Lüneburg). I chose the coat of arms of Brunswick: "Gules, two lions passant guardant or." I'm confident that the coat of arms I chose is accurate for Brunswick during this time, but I'm not sure if I'm using it in the way it would have been used historically.

I wanted heraldry accurate for the troops of Otto I, around 1227 when he fought alongside Valdemar II at the Battle of Bornhöved. Otto I was Duke of Brunswick at this time, after inheriting Brunswick indirectly from his uncle Otto IV of Brunswick. Otto IV's imperial coat of arms from his brief stint as Holy Roman Emperor incorporated Brunswick's two gold lions on a red field, over the center of the black imperial eagle.

Much later, an Armorial of the Holy Roman Empire, ca 1510, uses the same coat of arms for Brunswick, as shown here. Brunswick (Braunschweig) is shown just left of center (depicted with the lions facing right instead of left in this case).

These two instances bracket the period I'm interested in, and suggest a strong continuity for the use of this coat of arms in Brunswick.

I found it interesting that the original arms of Brunswick were inspired by the English coat of arms with three gold lions on a red field; and then, centuries later, they were reincorporated into the United Kingdom's Royal coat of arms in 1714, as a subdivision of the coat of arms of Hanover, as seen here.

The Internet is pretty good at finding pretty pictures, but doesn't always help with the facts. I planned to build a City Militia army. Based on the DBM lists, the knights would either be mounted burghers, mercenaries, or ministeriales. The spears, crossbows, and psiloi would be city militia.

This is where my questions start. The basic question is: historically, who used the city's coat of arms, and who didn't? More specifically:

Which, if any, of the city militia troops would bear the city's crest and colors? I decided to use the crest on everyone holding a shield, and the colors on the crossbowmen but not the psiloi.

Mercenary knights would certainly use their own coat of arms. Would Burghers have a coat of arms of their own? If not, what would they use?

What about ministeriales? My limited understanding is that these were essentially indentured servants who served in the role of mounted combatants (knights, but not lords). I can't imagine they had their own coats of arms, so whose did they use? Did they work for the city or for a feudal lord?

I decided to use one coat of arms for everyone, because I like the way it looks better than using a wide variety of arms. I have no strong historical evidence that this is accurate, but here are the made up reasons I'll use to justify it.

The troops are a combination of the city militia of Brunswick, and the personal troops of Otto I of Brunswick before he married into Lüneburg in 1235. Both of those should use the same coat of arms, as far as I know (which isn't very far). There likely weren't very many troops that could be depicted accurately this way, but this doesn't bother me very much. I'm happy pretending these figures are using a 1:1 scale of figures to men, since DBA 2.2 does not provide any accurate or reasonable real world scales.

At a certain point, my decisions started to be based more on personal aesthetics than on history anyway. We all have to draw the line between researching and "just paint the damn things" somewhere, and this where I chose to put it.

I find it interesting that when I was a kid, I was first attracted to the world of ancient and medieval warfare by the ubiquitous and stereotypical "knights in shining armor." It was only as an adult that I started learning about and becoming interested in all of the other forms of ancient and medieval warfare.

At this point, "knights in shining armor" and the earlier knights and their heraldry do not interest me as much. For the most part, I don't like what they stood for, how they acted, or how they looked anymore. However, I need at least one typical Medieval army if I am going to be able to participate in all possible themed events. Hopefully I can grab a German spot early if it ever comes up. This army will also play a role as an ally in several BBDBA armies we have in the works, as well as an enemy in one or more matched pairs.

DBA Army IV/13ab: Medieval Germans

2011-05-31T00:19:00.000-04:00

The army arrayed: DBA IV/13ab, Medieval German (Braunschweig)

One of the beautiful things about DBA is that all of the armies are the same size. Once you paint 12 elements, you have a complete army and you never have to paint anything for that army again.

Except, it's a lie! A dirty, dirty lie!

In order to field all of the available options for some armies, you have to paint far more than the 12 minimum required elements. The winner of this dubious award is Medieval French, requiring 29 elements to field all possible options. Apparently I got off easy painting these Medieval Germans, which only require 20 elements for the (a) list. I painted all options except the 2x4Pk, but I included an extra Knight so I could field it as a DBA 2.2 (b) list as well by using deep sabot bases for the 6Kn elements.

The elements are 6x3Kn, 4x4Sp, 4x4Bd, 2x3Ax, 2x2Ps, 1x4Cb. This will build the dismounting knights for IV/13a or the double-based knights from IV/13b. In the proposed DBA 3 lists, this builds the IV/13b list with mandatory blades but no dismounting.

The Knights: 6x3Kn, or 2x6Kn, 2x3Kn.

Even though the army lists are under revision and will likely change before DBA 3.0 is released, I'm confident that I'll be able to field a legal Medieval German army with these elements.

All of the shields are hand painted. The foot figures use painted highlights on their red coats, but I used a Devlan Mud wash on the horses for expedience. I skipped painting lions on the horse cloths, but I bet you didn't notice, did you?

4x4Sp.

I decided that one of the main reasons I don't like most of the Medieval DBA armies I've seen is that they are too gaudy. Typically, people either paint a wide variety of generic coats of arms that may or may not be accurate, so they can morph the army for use as any medieval army; or they accurately research 30 different coats of arms and it still ends up looking to me like a bazooka festival at a paint factory.

The best looking German army I've seen was painted by Scott Ludwig, and his work is directly responsible for convincing me to paint a Medieval army. He chose a single set of heraldic devices and painted a unified color scheme across the whole army. I decided that whether or not it was accurate, I'd do the same thing.


2x3Ax.

Since I was looking for an ally for King Valdemar II the Victorious of Denmark, I chose the coat of arms of Braunschweig. Otto I "the child", duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, was Valdemar II's nephew, and allied with Denmark against all enemies in the first half of the 13th century. Things started to go wrong at the Battle of Bornhöved, where they both lost, and Otto was captured and imprisoned.

The coat of arms I chose, two gold lions on a red field, is that of Braunschweig (Brunswick). It may be anachronistic for Braunschweig or Otto I at the time of the Battle of Bornhöved, but I found at least one source on the Internet that associates these arms with Braunschweig. Who trusts the Internet anyway? As a result, there are now two sources on the Internet, and the lies turn into truth by repetition...

1x4Cb, 2x2Ps.

The figures themselves are from Black Hat miniatures, part of the old Gladiator line. These are very nice figures, I have absolutely no regrets regarding my figure choice. They are well sculpted and highly detailed. The faces are very distinctive, and I could see how someone might not like them, but I definitely do. This is the same manufacturer that made the Auxilia I used in my Leidang army, and they definitely go well together.

4x4Bd, dismounted knights for IV/13a.

The Knights and Blades are technically a bit late for the Battle of Bornhöved. They are closer to 1275 than 1227. If I believed Denmark should be using primarily kite shields at this time, why didn't I think the same for Germany? It's not like they're very far away from each other.

Instead, I bought a few more blades to augment my Leidang in case we ever decide to field a triple army.

I am very pleased with the way this army turned out, but slightly paranoid about the accuracy. I like to get things correct, but I'm not willing to spend money or an inordinate amount of time to ensure that they're correct. In the mean time, I can sustain myself with the dubious honor that comes with painting 82 microscopic yellow lions.

Rebasing miniatures? This is madness!

2011-05-30T22:58:00.001-04:00

Madness? This is Sparta!

To be more specific: this is my newly renovated DBA army II/5a, Later Hoplite Greeks: Spartans. I didn't actually rebase them, I only redecorated the bases they were already mounted on. Not very dramatic, I know; but I don't have a bottomless pit handy, so it was the next best thing.

The army arrayed: DBA II/5a, Spartans. Essex DBA v1 army pack.

The left half of the line: 6x4Sp.

5x4Sp(Gen), 1x2Ps. General is on the far left.

This was the first army I finished painting for DBA, and the first 15mm figures I ever painted. It was around 2003, and I found a few DBA v1 army packs on discount. For the most part, the Spartan army didn't change at all for DBA 2.0 (at the time); though more options were available in the 2.0 list. These 12 elements were the only options provided in the original Essex army pack: 11x4Sp, 1x2Ps. I later augmented the list with the other options available in 2.0, with slightly better basing: 1x4Ax, 1x3Cv (not shown here).

By the time I came back to DBA years later, my basing standards had improved. These guys were painted well enough, but they looked like they were standing in a pool of toxic waste. I repainted the ground brown, and added flock and static grass. It's as close as I can come to my current basing technique without fully rebasing the figures.

I also took the opportunity to reattach spears and do some touchups. They won't be winning any painting contests, but I'll feel better using them... and at least I don't have to paint another 11 elements of hoplites any time soon.

Now that I know a bit more, I don't like these figures (or any Essex hoplites) for a few reasons. Essex hoplite shields are too small, aren't as round as they could be, and have no rim. The single pose doesn't bother me, because I prefer a "toy soldier" look for heavy foot. However, I absolutely cannot stand forward-facing spears: they're unusable in practice on such shallow bases, even if they more or less accurately depict fighting hoplites. In the future if I build any more hoplites, they'll all be holding their spears upright.

DBA Army IV/65: Wallachians

2011-05-16T02:14:00.000-04:00

I love counting people! Let's begin. One impaled merchant, Wa ha ha ha!

I'm sorry, that was Count von Count, not Vlad the Impaler. I always get those two mixed up.

Vlad the Impaler, not to be confused with Santa Claus.

Here is my new DBA Wallachian army, IV/65: 1x3Cv (gen), 3x2LH, 5xPs, 2x3Bw, 1x5Wb.

I decided to paint Wallachians mainly because the new Essex figures looked so good. The army list is "not competitive in an Open tournament" and doesn't fare well in DBA against most of its contemporaries. 5 psiloi in 1330-1504? AD? Besides, who the heck were the Wallachians anyway?

That last part is easy: Vlad the Impaler! Vlad III Tepes, aka "Dracula" (son of Dracul, his familial name meaning "dragon") is considered the prototype for Bram Stoker's vampire. Sometimes I think he'd be a good Darth Vader, given Vader's penchant for killing people off. Wallachia was a part of what is now Romania.

Wallachian Light Horse.

This army is from an Essex DBA 2.2 army pack. Most of the figures are from the new Wallachian/Moldovian line, but the cavalry General consists of older figures from other lines.

Wallachian and generic Psiloi.

The Light Horse figures are very interesting. Unlike any other Essex mounted figure I've ever painted, these are cast in a single piece except for the spears. They have very nice details and sculpting, and are well proportioned. However, the poses are quite flat. There is enough of a variety of poses to be interesting, but they vary mostly only in their heads and armament.

Wallachian bows and generic Warband.

There are 5 Psiloi elements. The army pack provided three elements of Wallachian spears and two elements of generic light medieval crossbowmen. For the shield designs on the light horse and psiloi elements, I referred to Wallachian heraldry online as well as WRG's Armies of the Middle Ages 2. There are only a few true heraldic devices, with the rest being merhant marks. Besides being the only source I could find, this felt somewhat appropriate, since Vlad made a hobby of killing off all the nobility as painfully as possible.

The two units of bows were from the Wallachian line, but the warband was a generic horde.

Overall I'm very happy with the figures and my paint job. I would've preferred to see a few more of the Wallachian-specific psiloi, but I expect that they chose alternate figures for a reason. The other non-Wallachian figures were well chosen and fill their role well.

I haven't played this army yet, and don't know when I will. Besides not having many opportunities to play recently while I'm so busy with work, there aren't many opponents I'd bother irritating with this band of light troops. Hopefully there will be a good Eastern European themed event for me to bring them to before Murphy's Law totally revamps the list for DBA 3.0.

Rant: apparently Shimano 105 hub bearings suck

2011-05-16T01:36:00.000-04:00

This year has been horrible for flat tires. While repairing my latest rear flat today, an explosive pinch flat on a massive pothole ("spring" in Pittsburgh is measured by the potholes and not the weather), I noticed my rear hub bearings were loose, so I investigated.

I examined the drive side cone and it had a pit in the surface. Maybe that's why it was so noisy. I found a spare cone and started replacing it... but then I looked at the other cone and it was way worse: it had pitting all the way around. The hub was still packed with grease (no dirt), and had only 7-10k miles on it. (I didn't pull out the balls and examine them.)

Maybe the damage was caused by the fact that the hub bearings were loose, but I'd expect them to be loose after so much pitting and wear on the bearing surfaces. In any case, I've never heard of bearings loosening while installed on the bike.

This isn't my first problem with this wheel set (it even matches!), either. Within a year after buying these wheels, I had a horrible noise in the front wheel, and investigation revealed that the balls themselves were severely pitted. That wheel hasn't had any problems since I repacked it with new balls.

These are Shimano 105 road hubs bought new only 3 or so years ago. I thought these were supposed to be better than off-brand hubs. Maybe 7-10k miles is "better," in these days when department store bikes are ridden an average of 20 miles total, and "real" bikes have their components upgraded every year to keep up with changing fashion.

Stoogecon: a Matched Pair?

2011-05-16T01:22:00.000-04:00

Stoogecon was a few weeks ago. As with last year's event, the tournaments were three rounds long: an Open and Matched Pairs. Unlike in previous years, the DBM folks showed up as well, and even managed to get as many players as "we" (the DBA players) did. Although I mainly want to share my thoughts about my choice of Matched Pair armies, I'll start with a summary of the day.

In the Open, we apparently all had the same idea: "everyone likes medieval knight armies, so I'll take elephants." I brought Rajput Indians, III/10b. The other players had Tamil Indians, Graeco-Indian, Southern Dynasty Chinese, New Kingdom Egyptians, and Romans.

A quick summary of my Open games: In round 1, Frank with Tamil Indians beat me in a close and hard-fought match, 4-3. In round 2, I shouldn't have gone into the bad going, and Rich's Chinese punished me for it, 4-1. In the last round, Larry's Egyptians ran up to me and committed ritual suicide: I won 2g-0 on the bound Larry first contacted me.

For the Matched Pairs event, I chose Early Bedouin, I/6c, vs. Later Achaemenid Persian, II/7. Bedouins have: 3x3Cm (Gen), 1x2Cm, 4x3Ax, 4x2Ps. I gave the Persians 1xLCh (Gen), 2x3Cv, 2xLH, 4x3Ax, 3x2Ps. The basic difference is the Bedouin camels are better vs. mounted, but there are fewer of them. Bedouins have the possibility of Dunes, but with Ag: 3 to 1 they'll rarely get to use them.

So, is this a well-matched pair? I'll share my thoughts after a summary of the event.

In the first round, I played against Jim using his armies: I played Middle Imperial Romans vs. his Later Imperial Romans. I didn't feel like I made any big mistakes during play, but still ended up continuing my losing streak against him: 4-0.

In the second round, we used my armies, and JM chose Bedouins. These armies have low combat factors, so they're fast and bloody. I don't remember the details of the battle, but it was a total rout: I won 6g-1.

In the third and final round, we played my armies again and Frank chose the Persians. Surprisingly, the Bedouins won terrain and of course placed some big central dunes. That whole "rout" thing worked so well, I tried it again... only this time I was Bedouin, so I lost 5-2.

At this point my conclusion may be obvious, but I first want to make it clear that I really enjoy playing either one of these armies against the other. I've had some tense and interesting games, and even the routs didn't look totally hopeless until the dice started rolling. Using primarily light troops means you run faster, so you get into combat faster with less time to rearrange lines before contact; and the low combat factors mean someone dies quickly. You'll never end up with an incomplete game, in any case.

The basic premise of this matched pair is to take two similar but slightly different armies, with similar compositions but relative strengths and weaknesses. Bedouin camels have an advantage against mounted but a penalty against foot, and don't suffer bad going penalties if they happen to find a dune to stand in. Persians have more mounted, but less bad going troops.

Despite these seemingly even odds, I don't think I've ever seen the Bedouins win. It can certainly be done, and there have been some close games, but overall I don't think the pair is as well-matched as I used to. After Stoogecon, I considered why this might be, and came up with a few ideas.

First of all, "dunes" are mostly a red herring. Bedouin will rarely get a chance to place dunes at all, only 6/36 of the time. If you do get dunes, they can probably be used effectively, but I haven't done it correctly yet. The benefit of dunes in this matchup is not that camels fight in them without penalty; it is the camels' ability to move through dunes as a group. No Persian player would be dumb enough to put their Cavalry near the dunes, so the camels will only be facing foot... but the camels aren't very good against foot. So, deploy the dunes for disruptive PIP advantage, rather than as a central terrain to fight over.

The other problem is the nature of the armies' advantages. Bedouin camels are better against cavalry, which is 5 elements; but they're worse against foot, the other 7 elements. Their advantage turns a cavalry matchup from 3-3 into a 4-3, which increases their odds of a kill from 2/36 to 4/36 and a recoil from 15/36 to 21/36. Their disadvantage against supported auxilia goes from 3-3 to 2-3: 2/36 chance of being killed up to 6/36, and 15/36 recoil up to 21/36. Against unsupported auxilia, 3-2 to 2-2 reduces the chance of a kill from 6/36 to 4/36, while increasing the chance of being killed from 1/36 to 4/36.

So basically, Bedouins get a lesser advantage against fewer foes, and a larger disadvantage against more foes.

The overall dynamic is that the Persians are happy playing with their entire force out in the open, while the Bedouins want to keep their foot in bad going to stay away from the enemy Cavalry. They have to choose to either stay in bad going and give the Persians both numerical advantage in the open and overall PIP advantage; or to come into the open and give the Persians combat factor advantage

Not all of these factors played into every loss I've seen, but in my previous attempts to use this matched pair I came away with similarly skewed result.

Overall, I have a bit of a dilemma. I really enjoy playing this pair of armies, but I no longer think it's an even match. I either need to figure out how to win with Bedouin, since I already know how to win with Persia; or find another matched pair that I enjoy playing as much as this one even when I'm losing. Any ideas?

Post Tax Day BBDBA 2011

2011-04-20T01:48:00.004-04:00

Last weekend I drove out to Columbus, and Mike and I played BBDBA at the Post Tax Day event. It was a fun time, definitely worth going to Ohio. I hope to go back for future DBA events out there.

Unlike my other BBDBA tournament experience, this was a singles event instead of doubles. I borrowed JM's Hittite army so I could field double Hittites (I/24a) with a Mitanni (I/19) ally. My planning ahead of time was limited to figuring out how to break the army into commands, and considering general defensive deployment (but not terrain placement). In all three games, my commands were split as follows:

High PIP: 4xLCh(CinC), 9xSp, 3xPs.
Low PIP: 4xLCh(Gen), 3xSp, 1xPs.
Ally: 6xLCh, 2xAx, 3xPs, 1xHd.

I'm a bit of a wuss, so the Mitanni horde never left the camp.

Game 1: Hittites

Brian Peruski with Hittites

The first game was a Hittite civil war: I faced Brian Peruski's triple Hittites (I/24b). Our army compositions were similar, but he had knights instead of cavalry, and I had the Mitanni ally.

I defended, and placed fairly open terrain with two roads and woods. My army wanted some bad going to play with, but not a lot. I placed my Hittites first, with the spears supported and in two ranks as shown here. This provided good defense against knights, and the symmetrical deployment allowed me to deploy my Mitanni on whichever flank I though I could gain an advantage on, while leaving chariots to protect the other flank.

Although I hoped to face knights with my spears, I didn't expect it. Although knights quick kill spears, the combat factors are horrible if the spears have support.

Brian deployed with one command poised to go into the woods on my right flank, and a mounted command on my left. My choice at this point was to try to figure out which command was his low PIP command, so I could ignore it and concentrate on the other side instead. I deployed against his mounted-heavy command, and left my right flank relatively open.

It turned out I was wrong about his commands: his mid PIP was on my right and his low PIP was on my left. In the first turn, Brian ran down the road, and everywhere else we advanced in an orderly fashion. This left his column of spear ahead of the rest of his force, and within striking range of my chariots.

For the remainder of the game, three chariots from my high PIP command delayed and distracted his mid PIP command on my right flank. He was never able to bring the rest of his troops up to support his spear. In the center, we pushed back and forth until I killed off some knights and held my advantage. On my left flank, I outflanked and destroyed him.

Eventually I broke his C-in-C command in the center, after suffering a loss of 6 elements. The final score was 88-12 in my favor. My first win in tournament BBDBA!

Mike's Early Crusaders are run down by Brian's Hittites.

This game reaffirmed my faith in well-supported spears against knights. Brian learned from his mistake of deploying his knights against my spears, and in the second game he crushed Mike by deploying his spears against Mike's knights.

This also provided a great example of Economy of Force. Holding off 10 of Brian's elements with only 3 of mine made a huge difference. Early on, I was afraid I made a mistake by placing both roads, because they ended up providing Brian with as much mobility as they provided me. Luckily, facing my chariots left him without enough PIPs for the rest of his force to advance.

Game 2: Medieval Swedish

John Lawitzke with Medieval Scandinavians (Sweden).

Ugh, what a nightmare. I totally screwed this one up.

John Lawitzke defended with his Medieval Scandinavians (IV/54c): blades and bows galore. As in his first game against Mike, he placed a fortress of maximum sized forest and marsh in front of a waterway.

Clearly he wanted to sit inside the fortress and not outside it, so I made the only good decision all game by choosing to place the waterway at my rear. He placed his camp centrally, and I deployed mine on my far right flank so I could deploy at least part of my force in front of the bad going.

After he deployed centrally, I started screwing up. First of all, I didn't deploy a strong force against his C-in-C command, but instead virtually ignored it. Second of all, I spent way too much effort attempting to prevent a littoral landing. I could've lost both camps on the first few turns, but since his army was so slow I should've had plenty of time to recapture them before he hit me. Instead, I bottled up my troops and made it impossible to maneuver.

When we first met in combat, it didn't look like a completely lost cause until after I rolled the dice. I had some advantageous combats, but they all failed; this turned my disadvantageous combats into epic fails, and I lost several elements. After that, I never had a combat that was in my favor for the rest of the game.

He quickly crushed the Mitanni on my right flank, and then demoralized my C-in-C command. By the end of the game I was cheering when I simply caused a recoil. He beat me 100-0. Doh!

Game 3: Antigonids

Scott Ludwig with Asiatic Early Successors (II/16a).

In the third game, I defended against Scott Ludwig's Early Asiatic Successors: Antigonos (II/16a). My terrain placement was intended to encourage him to choose his side of the table, and to anchor his pikes on the woods on his baseline. It worked. The hill on my left was steep and on the right it was gentle.

I used the same symmetric deployment as in the first game, but with a single rank of spears where I assumed his pikes would be. After he deployed where I hoped he would, I placed my Mitanni where they could play on the steep hill and restrict his options on that flank.

Scott's command split was pretty severe. He had 18xPk (C-in-C) and 1xLH in his low PIP command. This is just enough PIPs to walk forward in a straight line, but it provided no room for maneuver. The key to my survival was clearly based in not letting him poke me with his long pointy sticks. On my right flank, his mid PIP command had 6xPs, 1xLH(Gen) in the woods. On my left was all of his mounted in a high PIP attack wing.

He advanced his pike line with his psiloi in support on my right flank. There was a mistake in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what the better answer would have been. The three chariots on my right flank killed off the entire psiloi command before starting to outflank his pikes.

In the center, I really didn't want to face his pikes. I advanced as far as necessary to gain a hill advantage, and then sent my psiloi into "pain in the ass" mode. They played between the lines, forcing him to shift sideways to align with my group of psiloi, and then preventing him from advancing more than 5-10mm at a time before contacting another psiloi unless he broke formation. His troops were well trained and stayed in line, but it was virtually impossible for him to gain ground. His 1-2 PIPs per turn were dedicated to fending off my chariot attack on his pike's flank.

My left flank was most interesting, tactically. I had superior numbers and terrain advantage; he had superior combat factors. It wasn't clear whether I'd be able to turn his flank on my right before he gained an advantage on my left.

After the death of Scott's high PIP general.

He broke through my line with his elephants, demoralized my low PIP command, and started killing spears in my high PIP command. In the end, I won with a bit of a Deus Ex Dice: I set up an advantageous combat against his high PIP command's general and killed him. With his low PIP command completely destroyed and his high PIP command demoralized, and almost no PIPs available to advance his pike line, he conceded. He'd have been hard pressed to keep his three elephants on the board, since they were in 2 groups and cost 3 PIPs per group to avoid retreat. In the end, I won 78-22.

This game was another great example of economy of force, but I was able to make a strong offensive strike against his psiloi since my light chariots quick kill them. He might have been better off rotating his pike line on the bad going, letting him keep some of his psiloi in the woods.

I was really happy with my terrain placement. It was minimal enough to look harmless, but provided exactly the function I wanted it to. In some games my plan would be too obvious and therefore easy to ignore. However, it's still sometimes a good tradeoff to give the enemy the terrain they're looking for in exchange for terrain you're looking for. The alternative is no one getting the terrain they want, which may be just as good.

Summary

In the end, I came in 5th place out of 10 with 166 points. Mike won a game as well, in the third round and his third game of BBDBA ever. I didn't even have to exercise my "bring a new player so you'll have someone to beat" option.

This whole "BBDBA singles" thing has a lot more of the feel of a DBA event than a BBDBA doubles event. In the end, it's still DBA and I enjoy DBA. Mike wasn't sure whether he'd like the longer game length of BBDBA, especially when you're losing, but he had a good time and continues to have enthusiasm for DBA.

Hittites with Mitanni ally are a bit more interesting than I expected, compared to Hittites in a single army. If I were playing triple Hittites, I'd definitely prefer the later Hittites with heavy chariots.

The Mitanni are a very useful ally for several reasons. Their combination of bad going and chariots is a good mix when facing a mounted command near bad going. I also liked the PIP distribution with this ally. I never felt like I was PIP screwed even when I was rolling low, and I really enjoyed the fact that my low PIP command typically had more PIPs than a triple army's low PIP command.

Thanks for the great event, I hope to be back for more DBA in the future!

Speed painting: Elf Blades

2011-04-20T00:00:00.000-04:00

Just before Cold Wars (like, a day or two before), I wanted to augment my Hordes of the Things Elf army with some blades, so I picked up some figures in the Legions bits bin.

GW Elf blades based for Hordes of the Things.

Since I didn't have much time, I did a rush job on these to match the paint job of the rest of the army. I completed everything from assembly through letting the paint dry in one night. They suffered a bit in the rush: they were rained on after the dip dried and before I sprayed them with dullcote. I dried them out, but unfortunately I missed a few spots, which created some craters under the varnish in the low spots. I'm over it.

Greek Shields

2011-04-19T23:53:00.000-04:00

I won an auction for a painted 25mm DBA Hoplite Greek army at Fall-In. Hey, it was for the kids! I'm not sure if I'll play 25mm DBA, but I can use it for HOTT as well.

I rebased the army and painted shield designs. The rest of the paint job is nothing to write home about, but here are the shield patterns I painted. Two shields have decals, as labelled below; I painted the rest.

The leftmost two are decals, the rest I painted.

More Indians

2011-04-02T15:07:00.000-04:00

In order to morph my Hindu Indian III/10c: Other army into Hindu Indian III/10b: Rajput, I needed at least one knight and an extra blade. We also needed a LH general for the Mountain Indians at Cold Wars. So, I painted some more Indians.

Essex Rajput Knights

Here is the Rajput knight. These are Essex figures from their Moghul Indian range. They match some of the cavalry figures from my existing Hindu Indian army, except they have armored horses. I used a bit more interesting colors than on the rest of the Hindu Indians, which is probably a bit more accurate.

Indian Blades: Outpost and Museum miniatures

Since I needed one more element of blade, I decided to paint all of them. This allows me to morph my Hindu Indians into Tamil Indians II/42b, and gives me a head start on a double Hindu/Tamil army. Most of these figures are from the Outpost Tamil/Hindu Indian line. The sculpting is detailed, but not very deep. There are 3-4 different poses, all with a sword and a small buckler.

The club-wielding half giants with bad hair are from Museum Miniatures. I like most of Museum's Indian figures, but these guys are just ugly. The sculpting is adequate with deepset features, but the single pose is pretty bad. They're taller than the Outpost figures, as well as some of the other Museum Indians.

Museum Indian Light Horse general

The Light Horse general is also from Museum Miniatures, and was a part of their Mountain Indian army pack. These light cavalry figures have only a single pose, and like all Museum cavalry I've seen, they're cast in a single piece. These aren't my favorite figures from the Indian line; I much prefer their bow and spear infantry.

The army pack didn't come with any way to distinguish the General stand, so I painted the horses white. I've started painting white horses by starting with grey and bringing the highlights up towards "almost white." It gives a bit of a greyish look, but I like it better than the results I get by washing a white horse.

To finish a second Hindu/Tamil Indian army, I now need to paint a bunch of bowmen, some elephants, and some cavalry. I should probably paint some more knights for the Rajput as well, eventually. I find that Indian infantry goes really quickly, so I've already prepared the bowmen for painting. I don't have any deadline or goals in mind for the Indians, so I'll just fit them in when I have time and motivation.

Hittite Camp

2011-04-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

Here is a camp I built for my Hittites. It is based on images in the Osprey book Hittite Fortifications, c. 1650-700BC.

The wall is built in two sections, each of which is the maximum size allowed for a camp: 40mm x 120mm. The left section with the gate will be my camp for a single Hittite army, and I'll add the extra wall section when playing BBDBA with a Mitanni ally.

The walls and towers are constructed of styrofoam cut on the bandsaw. The crenellations are made of mat board, and the exposed beams are short pieces of balsa. I brushed on water based primer and varnish, since spray paint and superglue destroy foam.

At this point I'm officially finished with any modelling required before After Tax Day BBDBA.

Cold Wars 2011: Saturday

2011-03-16T01:19:00.000-04:00

Saturday had two big events with a free slot for shopping.

Luckily, the "good old days" of playing 4 new rule sets and coming home with 4 new armies to paint are long gone! I managed to buy relatively little this time around. Besides picking up some random stuff at the flea market and more bases from Gale Force 9, I also got a 15mm Hordes of the Things army from Splintered Light. They have really beautiful figures. I chose a mixed Undead force, with dwarves, humans, centaurs, goat men, and even an undead elephant.

Hordes of the Things: Good vs. Evil

The Diceman. Some people call him... Tim.

The morning event was Hordes of the Things in 25mm. I brought my Elves of the Offwhite Tower, but I never defended; so I never got to place my "vaguely flesh colored" tower, as David Kuijt described it. My army was comprised of 3xSp (gen), 2xBd, 3xSh, 2xKn, 1xMg.

In the first round, I faced Rich Baier's Lord of the Rings Orc army, and lost. Next, I faced Frank Popecki's Dark Elves, and lost. Finally, I faced David Schlanger's Haradrim, and lost.

I like Hordes of the Things, but so far in a very different way than DBA. It's a very similar game to DBA from a rules perspective, but the different element types require very different strategies than DBA. HotT seems like a game I want to play mostly for the fun and cinema of it, while DBA feels like a game I want to get better at.

Campaign Theme: 4th War of the Diadachoi

For me, there are two main events that bookend every convention: BBDBA doubles at the beginning, and the Two Davids campaign event at the end. This time around, the campaign included Alexander's successors and some outlying barbarians, during the 4th war of succession.

This was an interesting mix of armies. The successors all had heavy pike armies, but most of the other armies had light foot or spears. In many theme campaigns, the very different army compositions are typically not close to each other on the map, so you usually face a comparable enemy. On this map, the light armies were all over the place, so any Pike army that wanted an easier target could probably find one.

Successor campaign map

I played Lysimachid (II/17): 1x3Kn (Gen), 1x2LH, 4x4Pk, 4x3Ax, 1x2Ps, 1x4Sp. I hadn't tried a 4 pike army before, and I really enjoyed this one; even against armies with 6 pikes. I initially wanted to play Kassandros, who has an elephant instead of a spear, but I think I'd prefer this army to have more PIPs available to maneuver the light foot, instead of dragging an elephant around with me.

In the first round, I played against Alex Bostwick's Bithynians: mostly auxilia. He defended, and I beat him in a fairly straightforward, unmemorable battle.

Frank

In the next round, I faced Frank Popecki with Antigonids: an elephant and 6 pikes. He attacked, and sent his elephant with 3 other elements around the far side of a wood. I decided to respond by sending a larger portion of my force to that side, to try to isolate them from their general and kill them when they were out of command.

The strategy was working fairly well, until he took a risk and killed off one of my Auxilia in the woods. After that it was a very intricate, tactical game, but he had the upper hand and eventually won.

DOOM! But I won...

In the third round, I faced Alex Halkiadakis and his Aiotolian League: a few spears and a lot of psiloi. This was going fairly well, as I punched a hole in his spear with my knight general and exploited the gap. He had heavy losses, and I could win by killing only one more element, so I took a risk. I sent my spear against his light horse with an overlap on one side, and used my general to flank him on the other side. This left me without a recoil, so I'd die if I lost the battle... but since it was 4-0, that was only possible if we rolled a 6-1 split in his favor.

We rolled a 6-2, and the combat was tied so neither of us moved. Alex sent his general against the rear of mine, who turned to face. It was his 5 to my 4, and if I recoiled I died. Things weren't looking good, and then... another tie!

On my bound, I brought up my psiloi to compensate for the missing overlap, and closed the door with my light horse so I would actually kill his element, and got rid of his light horse before my general recoiled (but lived). That was a close battle that came down to only a few rolls.

Next, I faced Alex Bostwick again, with him attacking this time. I killed a psiloi early, which was lucky; because in the next combat I sent my Knight general against his light horse with one overlap: 5-1. Again, I had a huge chance of winning, but I'd die if I lost... but I'd only lose on a 6-1 split in his favor. In retrospect, since this was not a game winning move, I probably should've been more careful; but I wouldn't be saying that unless we rolled 6-1 and I lost, so obviously that's exactly what happened.

The game wasn't over yet, because he hadn't killed more elements than I had. I held on for a few turns through even more locked combats that I would've preferred to win, but with my moves requiring 2 pips after losing my general, it didn't take long for him to take out one more element and win.

In the final round, I faced another player whose name I forget, and who wasn't originally signed up for the event so I can't look it up, either... sorry about that :)

It was another 6 pike army with an elephant, aren't they all? I defended and deployed 3 pieces of bad going diagonally across the board and a road down the center. There was enough space for my 4 pike between the bad going, but not his 6. My plan was to catch his flank of his pike as he tried to push through the bad going, or crush him in the bad going if he tried to take the central hill.

Early on, things were going well, but eventually he started catching up. We ended up in another very tricky tactical battle with elements all over the place. He killed a fourth element before I did, and took victory at 4-3.

The event was a lot of fun, as usual.

The main mistakes I know I made in this event were taking some small risks of losing instantly, and taking advantage of short-term tactical benefits while failing to maintain coherent battle line. I noticed several times when I was broken into too many groups. I know the decisions that brought me there made sense at the time: I was intending to win with combat odds that were in my favor, not to lose and end up spread all over the place.

I enjoyed playing the Lysimachid army, but I have mixed feelings about it overall. I guess I'm not inspired by it, even though it's quite fun to play. I think it worked well in this campaign event: if I attacked I could choose an enemy who had more light foot and would likely place terrain; but if I was attacked it was most likely by a 6xPk army so I could deploy bad going and gain an advantage.

I may not play this army again soon, but I think a triple Lysimachid or triple Kassandros army might be a better alternative than double Alexander with Mountain Indians.

It was another great convention! Now I'm looking forward to Post Tax Day BBDBA in Columbus, Stoogecon here in town, and Historicon.

Cold Wars 2011: Friday

2011-03-16T00:25:00.004-04:00

I didn't take enough notes to post details of everything I did at Cold Wars, so a summary post will have to do.

We stayed at the Lancaster Host again... that place is getting to be a bit of a dump. We got a pretty crummy room: it reeked of smoke and had clogged drains. Fortunately we really only slept there anyway so it wasn't a big deal. On the other hand, food options are better than they used to be. There are burritos available for lunch, and the "family restaurant" next door turned into a Japanese/sushi restaurant. They also still have the nightly pig roast, if you're into that sort of thing.

JM and I arrived a bit after 8pm on Thursday, so we probably could've played the Dismounting Knight event. Instead, we decided to get in some more games of Hordes of the Things, since we had hardly ever played and had an event on Saturday that sort of expected us to know most of the rules.

BBDBA Doubles

Friday's main event was BBDBA Doubles. JM and I took Alexandrian Imperial (II/15) with a Mountain Indian Ally (II/2). This was supposed to give us good punch in Alex's mounted wing, a defensive wall of pike, and lots of bad going troops in the ally. It's a high aggression army, so we expected to attack every game, and weren't disappointed. Although we considered many of the enemies we might face, some of our opponents gave us a bit of a surprise.

Stephen Aspenberg and Doug Austin

In the first game, we faced Doug Austin and Stephen Aspenberg, playing Bosporans and Sarmatians. They had a lot of knights, with some light troops and artillery in the center. We deployed the mountain Indians on the far left flank to outflank them, and Alexander on our right. Unfortunately my Mountain Indians were crushed by playing with knights they should've stayed away from, and our pikes were too far off our right flank to be as useful as we would prefer. In the end, they beat us with two commands demoralized after taking 50% losses to the army; but our C-in-C command had no casualties; mostly because they took so long to get into contact with the enemy.

Alex and Jonathan Bostwick

Next we faced the Bostwicks, who had a ton of cavalry with some light foot in the center. Since they didn't have anything affected by double ranked pikes, we thinned out our line and faced them on a wide frontage. My Mountain Indians had relatively even odds against their Cavalry, but they were more able to take advantage of holes in our line, so my right flank was the first to fall. On the left, we fared much better: JM demoralized their C-in-C command. Unfortunately, we had more losses than they did, so we didn't win outright. Instead, we lost the battle of attrition as they killed us faster than we could kill them.

I think our setup worked better in this game, and I'm not sure how we could've improved things very much from a strategic perspective. One possibility would've been to place our Mountain Indians in the center, and hope they responded by deploying their Cavalry opposite us. This would've been essentially the same matchups we had, except our pike would have been able to gang up on them... eventually, if they ever made it into contact with the enemy.

In the third round, the only teams we were likely to face were both from Pittsburgh and were both playing Ptolemaics. We ended up facing Larry and Rich instead of Tim and Lisa.

The Stooges: Rich Baier and Larry Chaban

Since Saturday's campaign theme was a Successor event, we did a bit more thinking than average about how to face another Pike army. The biggest questions we had were: what do you do with the Mountain Indians, and how can you break their C-in-C command when it's built entirely out of Pikes? Our typical strategy was to try to break the C-in-C command, but against pikes we might need to settle for killing everything else; but we needed to keep their pike at bay while we did it. The answer we came up with was to send the Mountain Indians against their pikes, while facing the rest of their army with our remaining two commands.

The Mountain Indians have 7 elements that can't be harmed by pikes unless they step out of formation and make themselves vulnerable, so that's relatively safe. Our light horse general can also quick kill their pikes relatively easily... in theory. We did relatively well, but our main mistake was to send too much of our pike against their pike instead of facing their lighter troops. Our other big mistake was thinking the center of their line was made up of auxilia, when it was in fact blades. They concentrated two commands against our C-in-C command, and crushed us relatively quickly.

Littoral Landing Lovers

After BBDBA Doubles was a themed event that only allowed Littoral armies. In the first round, I faced Larry and he finally got his payback against my as-yet-unbeaten Leidang (III/40d). This time, I took 1xKn, 5xBd, 3xAx, 1xPs, 1xSp, 1xBw. I did a landing and had some initial success, until he killed my bow with his knight and rolled me up.

Doug Mudd

Next, I faced Doug Mudd. The game went so quickly, I don't remember his army. He attacked, and did a landing behind my line. Using a first turn psiloi double move, he sent a psiloi against my Knight general, which turned to face. The combat was his 2 to my 4 with me quick killing him, but he rolled high and recoiled my general into my own troops, winning the game 1g-0 before I even had a turn. Oops! We had a lot of free time, considering some players weren't even done deploying yet, so we played an unofficial rematch (shown here), and I beat him in this second game. I don't think either of us did a landing.


Stephen Aspenberg

In the final round, I faced Stephen Aspenberg's Athenians. I decided that since this was a Littoral Landing event, I'd better do another landing. I sent 2 elements against his flank, and he sent 3 against mine. My elements were able to kill 2 of his, while I held off his landing with only 2 of mine. When we met in the middle, my blades beat his spears and I won.

This leaves my Leidang with a 7-2 record, which I'm only keeping track of because it's one of the only armies I've managed to win consistently with.

Midnight Madness

I don't remember a lot about Midnight Madness (and don't have any pictures), but there wasn't much to remember. In the first round, I played my Hittite Empire (I/24b) against Jonathan Bostwick's Minoan & Mycenaean (I/18). I won, but that's all I remember... though I have a feeling neither of us remembered to place our camp. In the second round, I faced Later Mycenaeans and Trojan War (I/26) and lost.

DBA Army I/19: Mitanni

2011-02-28T00:31:00.000-05:00

DBA army I/19: Mitanni, from an Essex army pack

This is my recently completed Mitanni (I/19) DBA army. All figures are Essex, from their prebuilt army pack.

For this army, I painted quickly instead of looking for perfect results. The people (infantry and chariot riders) are all flat painted and washed with Army Painter Strong Tone. When I got to the horses and chariots, I decided not to go with "the dip" and instead used Devlan Mud in some areas and painted highlights elsewhere.

Mitanni chariotry

Mitanni have 6 light chariots, the most available in any DBA army. These models don't match the typical shape of Mitanni chariots available from other manufacturers, but they're close enough for me. Mitanni was a loose coalition of a variety of different peoples, so they probably had a variety of chariots available as well.

As usual, I found building and painting the chariots to be fiddly and annoying, but I like the way they turned out once I finished. The horses are a bit bright for this time period, and the colors are based on guessing and assumption more than actual evidence.

I paint the crew, assembled chariot, and horses separately, and then do final assembly. I stick the chariots to nail heads to hold them during painting. This time I was careful to angle the chariots when I mounted them, so they can all line up front-to-back without bumping each other. The general gets blue on his horses, and points at things instead of shooting them.

Mitanni infantry

As you can see here, the slingers in the back row are my "stumpy brigade." Two of them lost a hand, most likely by being run over by a chariot: I don't think they had threshing machines in the 14th century BCE. I was surprised to see that Essex made you assemble the slingers: the sling was separate and had to be glued into place. Annoying! I'm also not that pleased with the figure selection in the horde. I know that product code has more poses, because I used them with my Hittites; but I got a lousy mix, with 3 of one particularly distinctive looking figure.

This army will be a matched pair and an ally to my Hittites. I purposefully put them on different bases (thin metal instead of thicker wood) than the Hittites, so they will be easy to distinguish on the battlefield despite the similar color schemes (offwhite).

Battle at the Crossroads: 2011

2011-02-21T01:24:00.003-05:00

Saturday was Battle at the Crossroads in Cambridge, OH. Rich, Larry, JM, and I drove out to participate in the DBA pyramid format event.

This year's theme was Vikings and their enemies, so I brought my Leidang army. The composition I used was: 1xKn (gen), 5xBd, 1xSp, 3xAx, 2xPs.

There were several special rules in effect to keep things competitive for the Vikings. I'll list them there for future reference, and to provide context for the tactical decisions shown in pictures below:

Knights other than generals don't quick kill blades
Blades fight at +4/+3
Viking blades receive rear support by psiloi against foot (as well as mounted)
Vikings always attack, Leidang always defends

Larry contemplates his fate.

I beat Larry a few weeks ago, so he wanted a grudge match. He wrote "same year as Alan" as his army's year selection, and we were paired up in the first round. He brought East Frankish: III/52, with plenty of emasculated knights.

I had a plan for the first round, when I knew I'd be defending against a non-Viking. I set up two medium-small central woods and the required waterway. The intent of the terrain was to divide the enemy forces, while maintaining superiority in the bad going.

The biggest flaw in my plan was the possibility of a littoral landing. I hadn't considered whether to land, or what to do with my landing force if I did. Nevertheless, I held back 2xBd and 1xPs and deployed everything else from the woods to the water.

On the first turn, I brought on my landing force somewhat forward, and angled toward the center of the board. Here, they got in my way and inhibited my movement; but, they also restricted Larry's ability to advance effectively on that flank. They required many pips to unscrew completely, but in the mean time they weren't a big liability: they mainly delayed any action on that side of the board.

Larry sent his horde and a spear around the other flank, and I countered with 2 Auxilia. In the end, I killed a bunch of knights on my right flank, and he killed my auxilia on my left flank. Result: 4-2, I beat Larry again. Overall, the battle was a confused mess; but I find that I often prefer a confused mess instead of two straight lines walking straight forward.

Dan Joyce's Sub-Roman Brits; Mike Demana's Vikings

In the second round, we faced Dan Joyce, C-in-C playing Sub-Roman British; and Mike Demana playing Vikings. We placed woods on the sides of the board to narrow it, and a steep hill in the center. I deployed on the narrower side, and as expected, Mike's Vikings ended up opposite me. Larry deployed against Dan's force on the other side.

Pulling it out of the fire

Larry made me roll his PIP die so he could blame me for the bad rolls. He got his bad rolls, and his command was the first to break. Things were looking bad, and we were about to lose. Eventually I pushed Mike's Vikings back far enough to take the nearest camp, which happened to be the C-in-C's camp on the wrong side of the board. The two element loss was enough to break the command, and we won.

This was an interesting, stressful game. It felt like I was running out of time, but only because I was anxious to see how things turned out in the next few turns.

The Final Round

In the final round we played a 4-on-4 game against Scott Ludwig's Early Germans (C-in-C), Andy Swingle's Vikings, Rich Baier's Leidang/Viking (I forget which), and Dave Welch's Welsh.

Initial deployment; more Vikings are off our left flank

We deployed on one side instead of in the center, which was a bit of a mistake, in retrospect. Mike's Vikings were on our far left flank by the board edge. I came next, and Dan Joyce's British were at right flank of our initial deployment.

In response, they deployed more centrally, and narrower. They ignored the vikings on our far left flank, so in order to include them in the battle we'd have to walk slowly so they could catch up. Larry, with the most mobile force, deployed on the right flank at the end of our line.

A better initial deployment might have been to deploy centrally, and place Larry's mobile command last on whichever flank was more vulnerable. However, the enemy still would've been able to ignore our slower flank, so we probably wouldn't have gained anything.

Just before we made contact

In the early game, I wheeled to the right and Mike sent his Vikings over the hill, while the rest of our army stood still. Eventually we clashed. Dan and Larry faced 3 commands against their 2, and suffered for it. Also, Larry could have as many 1's as he wanted on his PIP die, which I was still rolling.

Hilarity ensues; the end is almost nigh

Larry's command broke first, and then Dan's. On my side of the board we had superiority, so we broke Andy's command and then Rich's. Neither C-in-C command was close to breaking, but we were both losing a lot of elements.

The End. This used to be straight battle lines?

In the last few turns, we were each a few elements away from the 50% losses required to lose. Larry's command was completely destroyed or fled off the board, and Dan was hanging on for dear life and winning some tough combats more often than statistics would suggest. It was a battle of attrition and a race to the bottom. My general ran rampant in the center of my flank, killing demoralized elements as quickly as possible to increase our death count, but Mike killed the decisive element: Andy's blade general.

It felt like we lost this game several times, but "it's not over until the fat Viking sings" and it was a good thing we stayed until the credits rolled.

Our side won, and I ended up taking first place for overall points, probably because of Valdemar the Victorious' killing spree in the last game. Quick killing demoralized blades with your knight general is the kind of fun you really shouldn't indulge in very often, or you might get spoiled.

Thanks to all of my allies and opponents for the wonderful games, and special thanks to the organizers for staging this event. I hope to be back next year!

Viking Forge Elephant: MCC-14

2011-02-18T23:35:00.002-05:00

Viking Forge Carthaginian Elephant: MCC-14

I did not paint this Viking Forge Carthaginian elephant, but I did add details to the blanket and apply a dip. It's a part of my Later Carthaginian beater army that I bought at Historicon last year. I'm showing it here as a part of my elephant comparisons.

I have two of these elephants and they have a driver and two crew each. The spears have broken off, they should be taller. The crew are separate figures, but I can't tell how the elephant itself was cast. The head must be separate, judging by its overhanging ears, but I'm not sure if the body is one or two pieces.

These are by far the largest elephants I have. They're taller, fatter, and longer than Essex models, and the ears are impressively large. The pose is quite static, but it gives the impression that the beast is so large that it can't make any sudden, drastic motions.

Left: Black Hat CA13; Right: Viking Forge MCC-14

The sculpting of the elephant itself is excellent, but the crew are pudgy and unimpressive, without a lot of detail. The driver is distinctly KKK-like, and I don't know what this is intended to represent.

The second picture shows a Black Hat Carthaginian elephant on the left, and Viking Forge on the right. The Black Hat elephant is shorter, but the crew is much taller and thinner. The proportions are completely different.

I would not likely buy any more of these Viking Forge elephants, but only because they're out of scale with everything else I have, and the crew is pretty terrible.

Black Hat Elephant: CA13

2011-02-18T23:19:00.001-05:00

Here are two Black Hat Carthaginian elephants, product code CA13: "Carthaginian Elephant." The elephant comes with one driver and two different crew figures.

These are interesting models. The sculpting is quite good, and the end result is completely satisfying. However, I have several complaints about my overall experience when building and painting these. These concerns are likely my problem more than Black Hat's.

The most noticeable difference between this elephant and the rest I've built is how they are assembled. The elephant, including its head and the driver, is sculpted in a single piece; the box on the back and crew are separate castings. Black Hat did a wonderful job maintaining a high level of detail with a single casting.

You'd think that assembly of a two piece model would be easier than elephants with two body halves and a head, with an optional howdah. Nope! Unfortunately, the boxes for their backs were filled with flash that is difficult to trim out, and then the box doesn't fit on the back of the elephant without a lot of trimming.

The shields molded on the side of the elephant are a bit oval, I'm not sure why.

The crew figures are also quite odd, though it doesn't show at all on the final model. From the waist down, they look like they've been packed in a box on the back of an elephant for a year of campaigning... so I guess that makes them accurate? The crew are flattened from the waist down. Detail of cloth and armor is still there, but it's all squashed. I'm sure this is to allow the figures to fit in the box, and it's not visible once they're in there, but it looks weird before you assemble everything.

Left: Essex Indian elephant; Right: Black Hat African

While I was painting this elephant, it felt miniscule, like a pigmy compared to other elephants I've painted. However, once I actually compared it to other elephants, it doesn't seem that small. It's definitely smaller than an Essex elephant, but it's not as small as the Museum or Chariot models. It's tall and skinny, but not as long as the Museum elephant. The ears are tiny.

I'm not very happy with the proportions of the elephant compared to its crew. The crew is bulky and the box looks huge on its back. I think this adds to the feeling that the elephant looks small.

Chariot Successor Phalangites

2011-02-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

Here are some Chariot Miniatures Alexandrian Successor phalangites. I painted them to have better pikes for my Lysimachid army in the Two Davids Successors campaign at Cold Wars.

Overall, I like the figures quite a bit, and they turned out well with minimal effort due to my cheezing out and using Army Painter dip. Chariot Miniatures are nicely sculpted with nice deep details that take ink well. The poses tend to be a bit more static than modern sculptors, but I think this works well for regular heavy infantry. They're slim and slightly smaller than Essex figures, but close enough to be compatible.

I have only two minor complaints about these figures. First, their right arms are too short. You'd have to go out of your way to notice this if you aren't painting them, however. My other complaint is more about the Magister Militum web site than the figures themselves. These pikemen have beards. I wanted pikemen without beards. However, these seem to be the only successor phalangites in the catalog that have beards, and also the only ones that were photographed from the rear on the website. Doh!

I had trouble resisting the temptation to paint a stand or two as garden gnomes; the beards and hats made it almost irresistable.

The Offwhite Tower

2011-02-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

Behold The Offwhite Tower, impenetrable stronghold of the Pretentious Elves.

After showing off the preview of this tower, I'm not sure I have much useful to say about it. It's a Hordes of the Things stronghold, suitable for use with 25mm basing. As buildings should be, it's slightly smaller than true 25mm/28mm scale; but it's also about 14" tall, so it'll probably be the tallest thing on the table most of the time.

I turned the tower on the lathe, in two pieces. Then, I carved shallow areas for the windows, and scribed vertical lines to define the brickwork and shingles. Finally, I added cardstock details around the lower windows and door. It's based on masonite with stones, flock, and static grass.

The Elven general stand was painted by Bob Barnetson and is representative of the army that will defend this Stronghold.

Preview: The Offwhite Tower

2011-02-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

It's been so cold out lately that I haven't been spraying matte varnish outside because it doesn't turn out matte. But, I have been modelling and painting.

Here's a work-in-progress shot of the Offwhite Tower, stronghold of the Pretentious Elves. Yeah, I really should've chosen Horde instead of Alliance...

I turned this on the lathe in 2 pieces, carved windows, and scribed the brick work. I added a few details around the windows with cardstock. The tower's overall height is about 14". It looks great with paint on it, but I still have to finish off the base.

This will be the stronghold for my 25mm Hordes of the Things elf army. Now I just need to cut some felt for 25mm terrain.

Museum Miniatures Naked Hoplites

2011-02-05T12:52:00.000-05:00

Here is a picture of the Museum Miniatures naked hoplite figures, since they don't provide one on their site. There is only one pose, this shows both sides. Overall it looks a lot more cinematic than historical.

DBA Army III/40d: Leidang

2011-01-23T01:04:00.129-05:00

Here is my latest DBA army: III/40d, Norse Viking and Leidang. JM and I specified the 15mm figures for two Leidang armies (one for each of us) from a mix of manufacturers: Khurasan, Legio Heroica, and Black Hat. Although I don't think the figure/pose selection is perfect for the period, it's close enough for us and I am very happy with the resulting army. We didn't buy all army options, only those we're most likely to use.


The army arrayed: Valdemar II and his followers

This obviously does not look like an ordinary Viking army, because it isn't. We chose figures for the mid to late portion of the (d) army list, so the 12-13th century. The selection was based on a few sources: Osprey's The Scandinavian Baltic Crusades and Medieval Scandinavian Armies (1), as well as WRG's Armies of Feudal Europe 1066-1300. Scandinavians in this period looked basically like Southern Europeans of a few hundred years earlier, except possibly hairier, more warmly dressed, and with fewer horses. I'm a bit dubious about the hair; personally, I'd start shaving if I needed to wear mail armor regularly.

I'll go over the individual manufacturers with the pictures below.

The full army list is: 1x3Kn (Gen), 8x4Bd or 3Ax, 2x2Ps or 3Bw, 1x4Sp or 7Hd. I painted only 7x4Bd, 3x3Ax, and no Horde.

3x3Ax: Black Hat Lithuanian/Prussian axemen and spearmen

According to the DBM army lists, the auxilia and psiloi represent Finnish levy troops. Although these aren't Finns, we liked the figures enough to call them "close enough." These are Black Hat Lithuanian/Prussian axemen, spearmen, and archers. These and the bowmen below are probably the best sclupted 15mm figures I've ever had the pleasure of painting. I highly recommend them. A+!

2x2Ps: Black Hat Lithuanian/Prussian archers

The detail of the sculpts is astounding, including belt buckles, gaiter laces, and woodgrain on the axe handles and shields. The heads are a bit meatier than I'd prefer, but the face sculpts more than make up for this. Unlike many detailed figures, these are not carrying around a waist full of pouches, bags, bedrolls, and other junk that is a pain to paint and would've been left at camp during battle anyway. There are a lot more poses available than I saw at first glance: the same pose is often dressed in different combinations of furs and cloaks.

These figures worked well with washes. I used a variety of natural tones on their clothes, and a wash of Devlan Mud tied them all together well. The faces were shaded with Ogryn Flesh wash, and I painted highlights on the hair.

3Kn(gen): Legio Heroica feudal cavalry command

The Knight General is a command pack from Legio Heroica's fine line of Feudal cavalry. A better figure choice would have made these guys look a bit more knightly, with kettle helms or closed helms and probably some horse armor. These are solid figures with nice horses, and the riders even fit on the horses properly. The main downside is the quality of the face sculpting, though it's mostly hidden. A-

This is the first army I've painted with substantial shield designs, and one of the last shields I painted was the general's. I decided this army would represent the Danish, in the era of Valdemar II "The Conqueror." The coat of arms he used is still part of the Danish coat of arms: three blue lions on a gold shield, with 9 red hearts.

Dannebrog was a total square in the 14th c.

The only other connection I attempted to make with Valdemar II is in the flag. Denmark's flag, Dannebrog, has its probably fictitious origin story under the reign of Valdemar II. It is said that a red flag with a white cross dropped from the heavens and inspired the disheartened Danes to win the Battle of Lyndanisse in Estonia in 1219. This flag is the approximate shape and proportion of Dannebrog as depicted in the 14th century Gelre Armorial, which is quite different than today's Danish flag.

2x3Bw: Khurasan Frankish crossbowmen

The two optional 3Bw elements are represented here as crossbowmen. Crossbows were used more and more through this army's time period, so we decided crossbowmen would be more appropriate than archers. These figures are Khurasan Frankish crossbowmen. We probably should've chosen some hairier guys, or maybe a few kettle helms. They're very nice sculpts except for the faces, which are rather featureless. A/A-

The remaining figures are the multitudes of blades, and one element of spearmen. For these, we chose Khurasan's Saxon Huscarls (with axes), German Milites (with swords), and Saxon Select Fyrd (with spears). Most of the shields are kite/almond shaped, which is expected for an army this late, but we tossed in some round shields which would still be in limited use.

The only complaint I have about any of these sculpts is with the faces on the German Milites and Saxon Fyrd. The clean shaven faces under nasal helms have almost no facial features. I admit they're almost totally covered, and it's only a minor problem, but the Huscarl faces are so much better that it's a noticeable contrast. A/A-

It was only as I was cleaning and assembling these figures that I realized a flaw in our figure selection: all of the figures except the spearmen were using two handed weapons with their sheilds on their backs. Oops! The upside is that during battle I get to see all my shield painting, instead of a bunch of Danish mail armor.

The other thing we could've chosen a bit better is the helmet selection. There would be more kettle helms in use during this period, and a few more closed-face helms as well. The figures we chose were purposefully limited to two mail order transactions, which is an unfortunate compromise to make, but I'm not sure my entertainment level would increase enough to warrant paying for shipping a third time. I will look for some additional suitable figures at Cold Wars, however.

For the shield color and pattern selection, I used the same sources cite above, along with some other Internet research. I found one interesting site intended for use by SCA participants attempting to register Viking heraldry even though it didn't actually exist. Along with speculation about how to fit Vikings into the rules, it has an interesting description of Scandinavian heraldry and a survey of the colors most commonly used.

Some of the shield patterns are directly from Osprey books, but most are simple divisions of the field in the common Scandinavian colors. Unfortunately the sheild bosses don't leave much room for symbols on the shields. Apparently Scandinavian heraldry didn't change as much over time as other heraldry, though, so I wouldn't expect the complex patters that emerged in the rest of Europe.

As with everything, it's all a matter of how picky you want to be and how much research you want to do. I did as much research as I wanted to do, and came up with something "close enough" in my own mind. I spent as much time painting them as I could while enjoying it. Now it's just time to learn how not to lose with them.

Bike Shelf

2011-01-01T12:02:00.000-05:00

After seeing the hand made bike shelves available at Knife and Saw, Marla and I were inspired to find a better bike storage solution than a hook in the ceiling. Unfortunately I ride enough that the convenience of storing the bike right inside the front door outweighs the ugly factor.

So, Dad and I designed and built this shelf. Thanks for your help! It's more pragmatic than pretty. I like the shape and proportions better than the Knife and Saw shelf, but we used practical high quality plywood instead of pretty hardwood. I'll put a better finish on it once the weather is warm enough to do this outdoors.

Terrainguy Brown-Green Mats

2011-01-01T11:37:00.001-05:00

In response to a recent question from a Fanaticus forum reader, here's my take on the Terrainguy brown-green gaming mats. I've included photographs from a few recent blog posts that show m brown-green mats in action.

Close-up of Terrainguy brown-green mat.
For comparison, the bases are flocked with
Woodland Scenics Fine Turf and sand.

A view of a 4'x6' green-brown mat.

These mats are available in a variety of colors and sizes. I have a 4'x6' mat and a 30" DBA mat in brown-green, and I'm very happy with both of them.

This is the best looking flocked gaming mat I've seen so far, but I know of a few I haven't seen in person. The flocking material is not static grass, it's more like the Woodland Scenics "fine turf," made of very fine ground foam. The mat itself is made of canvas with a rubberized material on the surface that holds the flock in place. Mine aren't old enough or well-travelled enough to know how well the flock holds up to heavy use, but I haven't had any problems so far.

For storage and travel, I roll the mat. I would not recommend folding it, I would expect it to get permanent creases. They're flexible and roll easily. They hold a slight curl when you unroll them, but they're easy to flatten out.

Overall I'm happy with these for the price I paid, and I'd definitely buy another one if I need any more mats. The larger mats often go on sale, but the DBA mats seem to always be full price. The DBA mats are in a different section of the web site, making them harder to find in the color you want, but all of the colors are available for DBA sized mats as well as the larger mats.

2010 Mike Daddy Memorial WWII Miniatures Game

2010-12-29T12:06:00.000-05:00

"Hey, I remember when we used to play WWII games with Mike." So, when he's in town over the holidays, I make an effort to do it again.

For the most part when we play WWII, we play skirmish scale games: individually based infantry and about a platoon on each side. We also play infrequently, so we seem to have settled on the Disposable Heroes ruleset. It's easy to relearn for only one game per year, and it lacks most of the quirks we found in rules like BAPS.

For WWII, I prefer to play scenario games instead of point-based pickup games, so I've invested in a bunch of the Skirmish Campaigns scenario books. They provide a lot of balanced scenarios with different sized forces and boards, with a credible but not overwhelming amount of research in support.

Russian tanks threaten the barn as Germans advance
from the right

This year we played Counter-Attack at Bereza, a scenario from Russia '41 - Drive on Minsk. Mike played the Russian force, and Frank and Andy were German. I ran this as a single-blind game. Both sides moved their forces on a map, and I made spotting checks. When units were visible, they were placed on the board for all to see. This slows down the game significantly, but adds a lot: when you don't know where the enemy is or what their objective is, you have to expect the unexpected. It's dangerous to move around not knowing where the enemy is, but you need to be aggressive in order to take your objectives.

In this case, both sides had the same objective: to take and hold the two buildings on the map. Germans started off board and approached from one side, and the Russians started on the other end of the map but on the board. No one held the buildings initially, but they were closer to the Russian side. However, the Germans didn't know where the Russians started, so they didn't know whether they'd need to assault the building or just walk in unopposed.

Russians hold the house and threaten the German advance

Both sides had only 2 squads of infantry to take and hold the buildings, and 5 tanks or antitank guns. The tanks were all comparable: early war lightly armed and armored. There seemed to be two main forces at play here. The infantry had no anti-tank capability, but they were valuable to help spot the tanks before they were placed on the board. Tanks also have a hard time shooting infantry in this game, but they can be deadly if they can acquire a target. Achieving armor superiority was important to save the limited infantry for the buildings.

In the first half of the game, the Russians were in a better tactical position, but lost a few tanks. They still had a good crossfire set up, and were in cover, so they regained armor advantage before the end of the game as the Germans advanced in the open.

On the infantry side of things, the barn in the center was the first contentious point as expected. Mike's Russians made a mad dash for the building with a heavily damaged squad, right in front of Frank's German rifle section. He made it into cover, but the Germans drove him off in close combat shortly after.

With Frank's other section basically gone, this left Andy's squad to take the second building. Mike moved into the house with a Russian tank crew, and then reinforced it with his squad of ninjas who made it almost to the last turn of the game before being spotted. Andy's infantry took heavy fire, and at this point it became clear that we had a standoff.

Although the Russians were in a stronger defensive position, the Germans had advanced past the barn. Neither side had infantry close enough to their second objective to reach it in the two turns remaining in the scenario. We could have fought a battle of attrition to the very end, but this was only a small part of a very wide front, so it would've been as pointless as most real wars are, and no more fun. We called it a draw and moved on.

Some gamers who play nothing but DBA like to complain that "other games" take a really long time, and don't produce any decisive results. Although this game was a perfect example of that phenomenon, there was no real downside this time since we all get along well. The main point was to hang out and have fun, and we did. I call that a win.

Hopefully Mike can make it out to Pittsburgh more often. I enjoy these games, but I am not likely to put in as much effort as I did more than twice a year, these days.

Tlingit Camp

2010-12-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of the camp I built for my Tlingit army. Since the Northwest Americans are a Littoral army, they will always have a waterway when they place terrain, so I decided their canoes would make a good camp. I left room to add a totem pole, but I haven't been inspired to build it yet.

The canoes are longboats from Museum Miniatures, modified to look a bit more like Tlingit canoes on the front end. The rear end isn't right, but it's the way the canoes looked when I got them. The paddlers with the canoes were totally inappropriate for precolumbian North America, so I didn't use them.

The patterns on the sides of the canoes, barely visible here, are based on images of Tlingit canoes I found via Google image search and in Flickr.

Panzer III comparison

2010-12-29T10:10:00.000-05:00

Here are two 15mm Panzer III models I painted. The one on the right, "311," was painted maybe 5 years ago, and it's a Command Decision model. It's probably a Panzer IIIF, but I don't remember the specific variant. I painted the one on the left, "312," a week or so ago for our annual WWII game. It's a Peter Pig PzIIIE variant.

It's hard to tell which differences between these models are due to the different variant they represent, and which are just sculpted differently. Overall, I much prefer the quality of the Command Decision model. The Peter Pig castings have a rougher surface and are less detailed. The drive wheels on 311 are toothed and have properly shaped holes in them (not round) while the PP wheels were obviously just done with a drill bit. The PP model is larger overall.

In practice, I don't think these details show very much on the game table, but if I have a choice between Command Decision and Peter Pig for a specific vehicle, I'll choose the Command Decision.

WWII Russian Vehicles

2010-12-28T23:10:00.000-05:00

Here are the Russian WWII vehicles I painted for our recent WWII game. Since it was a blind game, I withheld these until after the game was finished.

First are four Russian T-26 tanks. These are Command Decision models and I like them a lot.

When researching appropriate tank markings for these, I found more images of captured T-26's with German markings, than T-26's with Russian markings. Apparently not many of them survived long enough to bother marking them up. I added a red star to one tank to identify it as a commander, but left the rest blank.

Next is a 45mm antitank gun and a relatively light Gaz truck. The truck looks straight out of WWI. These are also Command Decision.

DBA Army I/24: Hittite Empire

2010-12-28T17:39:00.002-05:00

Although I haven't made a new post in a month, I've still been busy. Here are some pictures of my latest DBA army: I/24, Hittite Empire.

The figures are almost all Essex, but this was a semi-random selection of figures, and not from an army pack. I bought this as a "not for the squeamish General" deal in the bazaar on the Fanaticus forum, so the figures are not all as appropriate as they should be; however, it's close enough for me. I'll get another copy of the army if I like it enough.

Specific figure selection problems: Most of the spearmen are royal guards, and the rest are charioteers instead of ordinary spearmen. I got a pack of generic biblical-era hordes for the horde, and got the chariot runners from JM, who also bought one of these semi-random army packs. All of the figures with beards are somewhat inaccurate unless they're interpreted as allied forces, since Hittites were apparently known for shaving their faces.

All Hittite chariots used two horses. The heavy chariots had three passengers instead of two. I modelled all of mine so they can be used either as light chariots in I/24a, or as heavy chariots in I/24b. The chariot with an archer and no runner would be used as the light chariot in I/24b.

For color selection, I mostly referred to the Osprey Hittite Warrior and Ancient Armies of the Middle East books for inspiration. They show white robes with red and blue decorations at the edges, and skirts on the guards that use brown and blue stripes. I also read the appropriate WRG reference, which suggested shields, clothes, and chariots could be colored/painted instead of using natural leather and cloth colors.

I decided on red and blue as the main colors for the army. Unfortunately this makes them look very similar to my Arab Conquest guys, because it uses "safe" colors I'm comfortable with. I'm going to have to push myself next time around.

For shading, I primarily flat-painted everything, added detail and some minimal shading, and then applied Army Painter Strong Tone. It does an adequate job on the white, but it's certainly not ideal. White is hard however you do it, and I'd rather not spend much effort on it. I pretend it's just before laundry day: how clean are soldiers going to keep their kit while on campaign, anyway?

I really like the effect Army Painter has on the horses, flesh, and offwhite colors. It certainly gets adequate results quickly.

Achievement unlocked: You painted a horde element? Really?

Comparison: GW vs. Army Painter

2010-11-27T12:49:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately the focus is slightly off in this image, but it gets the point across. This is a comparison of the difference between GW's Devlan Mud wash on the left, and Army Painter's Strong Tone dip on the right.

Both figures were painted with the same base coat colors in the same areas, and both were sprayed with Army Painter dull varnish after they were dry.

Overall, for these colors I prefer the Army Painter dip. It darkened the colors a bit less, and stayed in the cracks a bit better. The black on boots and gun were affected less by the Army Painter dip than the wash. I also don't like how it deadened the green helmet.

I really like Devlan Mud, and I will still use it in cases when I don't want to wash the entire figure. But Army Painter works really well. It's almost depressing how good a job it does, compared to making an effort.

The colors, for reference, are all Vallejo except the black which is a craft paint. They were selected based on the Flames of War painting guide for Russian infantry:

Russian Green helmet (894)
Khaki Grey uniform (880)
German Camo Beige for the straps and gear (821)

Unfortunately you can hardly tell the difference between the two khakis used for uniform and belts.

WWII Russian Infantry

2010-11-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

Here are some of the Russian Infantry I painted for this year's Mike's Memorial WWII Miniautes Game. ("I remember back when I played games with Mike... let's do it again.")

These are 15mm figures I picked up at the flea market at Fall-In. As far as I know they're Quality Castings, but no guarantees. They seem small, but it may only be compared to the Ancients I usually paint.

I got them done quickly: 50 infantry in 2 nights of painting; and another 6 LMG's in about an hour. I used simple flat base coats of Vallejo paint and then applied a GW wash or Army Painter dip. They came out good enough, which is just what I'm looking for.

After playtesting BAPS with Frank last night, we decided we won't be using BAPS for this game. Instead we'll probably fall back on Disposable Heroes again.

My First Sauerkraut

2010-11-27T12:31:00.000-05:00

What? A post that isn't about games? Weird.

On the way home from Fall-In (obligatory gaming reference), I picked up some home made Sauerkraut at a farm stand. I mentioned to JM "I like live food. Well, as long as it's small enough that it won't run away." It was pretty good sauerkraut, and it reminded me that I wanted to try making my own. Apparently lots of people are doing this these days, but I hadn't done it yet.

After finding a suitable bucket (Thanks, Brigid and Ross!) I'm good to go. This one gallon bucket seems to be the perfect size for one large head of cabbage. The container of water is a weight to press the liquid out of the cabbage... not much to see here.

I'll update in a while when I see how it's coming along.

Fall-In 2010: Gallic Wars Campaign

2010-11-07T01:22:00.000-05:00

The Two Davids DBA campaign games are a highlight of the HMGS conventions. When I heard the theme at Fall-In was going to be Gallic Wars, I had mixed feelings. I don't like the Gauls as an army, but I basically already had them painted anyway so it wouldn't require any effort. After actually playing the campaign, I changed my mind: this was an excellent campaign and I really enjoyed playing this army in historical context (but without Romans).

The campaign had 20 players, with only 7 armies that weren't a (possibly modified) Gallic list. There were two Romans, but most of the other armies were also warband-heavy. Most of the armies were built around a core of warband, and this gave me a lot of opportunities to learn how to use them (or how not to use them). The armies were all quite evenly matched, but the Davids customized some of the lists, and this provided just enough variation to keep things interesting.

I've written a bit about the campaign format before, so I'll stick to what actually happened. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures during this event, so you'll have to use your imaginaion.

In the first campaign round I drew a high enough number that I was attacked: by David Kuijt. This was a short but interesting game. I set up to one side of a central wood, but a road ran the length of the board on the other side. DK ran down the road to take the woods at my flank. Although I immediately knew the danger, and managed not to get my cavalry sucked into the woods, I did make enough mistakes to lose. I didn't have enough warband close to the woods to hold it; and I wasn't aggressive enough running around the woods with my cavalry to maintain an advantage with the foot I did have. The entire battle was fought over the woods, the rest of the board hardly made any difference.

The tile selection was modified somewhat this time. Battle winners always chose two tiles and assigned one to their minions. David gave me the 1, allowing me to attack. I chose to fight against David Bostwick. Unfortunately, I also got the 1 on all my combat rolls, and I was quickly and completely crushed. I made first contact, and chose fights that were to my advantage; even so, I lost 3 elements on my turn. On David's turn, he killed 3 more of my elements. Several of these were 3-2 in my favor, which required a 6-1 split for me to lose... but I managed, somehow. I lost, but was still DK's vassal.

The next round David Bostwick chose the tiles, and kept the 1 for himself; apparently I lost it in my failed attack against him. He wanted a rematch, and attacked me back. This game was a bit longer, but it was still bloody... and luckily, this time it went in my favor. However, since I defended, I didn't gain him as a vassal.

In the fourth round, I almost had a low enough number to attack... but not quite, so Jan Spoor attacked me. I don't remember this game well, but I think this was when I decided double-ranked Warband were too dangerous to use regularly: I lost 4 elements in the form of two warbands along with their rear support. This put me under Jan's control and lost DK a vassal.

Meanwhile, in round 4, an interesting thing happened. Two vassal trees attacked each other in a way that resulted in a loop. Larry was DK's vassal; Rob was Larry's vassal; Doug was Rob's vassal; and DK was Doug's vassal. Apparently there were some intergenerational marriages going on here. I think this was the first time this happened in a campaign game, and the main result was that all of these players ended up with big targets on their backs because claiming any of them would break the loop and potentially give control of all four of them to a new master.

In the final round, I was able to attack again and attacked David Shepps, who was playing Early Germans. He had no mounted support, and deployed to the side of a board-splitting wall of woods in a line of double ranked warband, with a warband and psiloi perpendicular and behind to protect his flank. I attacked frontally but also advanced two warbands through the woods. They acted as bait and died for their service; but it disrupted his line enough for me to take advantage of him and eventually secure a win. I won with 5 elements killed to his 4, a close match. This gave me my first vassal ever!

In the end, I feel like I played well, learned a lot about warbands, and overall had a really great time. I'm looking forward to future Two Davids campaigns that have more similar armies like this. It's sort of like playing a tight theme night at Legions but with more games and a wider variety of opponents.

Fall-In 2010: Open Scramble

2010-11-04T23:04:00.002-04:00

Saturday afternoon was the Open Scramble format tournament. I thoroughly enjoyed this event and look forward to playing a similar event again.

The Scramble format is interesting and different, but like Matched Pairs, you have to be willing to let other players touch your army. In the first round, each player gets a random army from one of the other players, and is matched against a random enemy. Players were required to select specific terrain pieces to be used in all rounds as well. In the second round, winning armies are matched with losing players, but no player can use their own army. In the last round, each player uses their own army.

The organizers of this event decided to use a timer to ensure the rounds were all exactly one hour long. I liked this official time keeping, but probably only because my games weren't too long.

I brought two "beater armies" for JM and I to use. These are built primarily from the "old school" Carthaginians I bought at Historicon, and since I didn't paint them and they're already mostly damaged, I didn't mind if anyone else used them. I let JM use Gauls (II/11), which I was saving for the Gallic Wars event, and I used Later Carthaginians (II/32) without any elephants, and with 2x3Wb, 1x2Ps for the other option.

In the first round, I ended up with JM's Gauls, and I was matched against Jason Bostwick, using Later Achaemenid Persians (II/7) with the all-Auxilia option and a scythed chariot.

This game was over quickly. Once again I was crushed by an invincible Scythed Chariot. Jason flanked me and rolled up my line, winning 4g-0 (as shown on the right).

Our results were so skewed that we predicted I'd end up with Jason's army from the first round, and he'd play with mine; and that's just what happened.

In the second round, I played Later Achaemenid Persians against JM, who had some kind of Crusaders... early, perhaps? "I came all this way to play against you?"

He defended and set up terrain. I ended up with a large wood on one flank, and he set up in a line to avoid it. I set up on my left flank, intending to use the woods as a highway for my light foot, and sweep around his flank on my left while denying his right flank.

This is exactly what happened. It was a long, hard fought battle, and early on I lost many combats that were statistically in my favor; including losing the scythed chariot almost immediately. Eventually my luck turned and I killed enough elements to win. Neither of us remember the final score or have pictures of it, unfortunately, but we know the organizers' notes were incorrect.

In the final round, I fought against Zenboy, aka Michael Downey. I had my Later Carthaginians, and Zenboy played his Later Achaemenid Persians. He defended, and placed a wood on one side with two gentle hills and a road that played no effect in the game.

This was a much more straightforward fight than the previous one: we stood in a line and walked straight forward, both of us happy with the element-to-element matchups we had. Zenboy lost his Scythed Chariot early on against my psiloi, and it was all downhill from there. Judging by the final photo at the right, I ended up losing only one light horse, and he lost 5 (since the SCh didn't count towards victory).

The most interesting part of the game was when I used my warband against his psiloi-supported auxilia. I used one warband to turn the psiloi out of supporting position, and attacked with the front warband first. He killed the auxilia, and then advanced into flank support position for the second combat against his psiloi, which also died. I learned something; maybe next time I'll be able to set that one up on purpose :)

I really enjoyed this event, despite the fact that every round I played with or against an army I brought, and only one army in one game was an army I don't own. All my opponents were fun to play with, and I learned some tangible lessons. I like the balancing factor provided by people playing with armies other than their own. I'd like to play another scramble format event, but next time I hope I get to play with some new and intresting armies.

Fall-In 2010: 1491 Pyramid Event

2010-11-04T21:59:00.003-04:00

There were two niche events covering the same theme: American armies. Since I had painted my Tlingit (IV/11) and a camp, I originally planned to play in both events. After playing in the first event on Friday night, I was uninspired to get up early on Saturday just for my bows to die versus Warbands again.

"1491" was a pyramid format event on Friday night. In this format, the first round is a series of 1-on-1 games. In the second round, the winners and losers are combined to form two player teams who play each other, carrying over their losses from the first round. Luckily we had 8 players, allowing the third round to be two full four-on-four games.

I've enjoyed the Pyramid format in the past, but unfortunately I didn't have as much fun this time. Although I really like the way my Tlingit look, the Northwest Americans (IV/11) just aren't very competitive against their contemporary enemies. They have 10 bows, and I didn't play against anything except warband-heavy armies in this event.

In the first round, I lost against Ted Galacci, 4-1. In this event, they matched one game's winner with the other's loser, to enourage you to really wipe out the other guy. In the second game, Bob Beattie was my commander in chief, and JM played under Ted's leadership. Our side won 7-2, which sent JM and Ted to play under our enemy's C-in-C; and we got Mike Guth and another player whose name I unfortunately forget; he left early.

By the last round, both sides had 25 elements. Or was it 27? Maybe 26. I think it was 25. In any case: this was four players playing about 2 armies worth of elements. We rolled 4 PIP dice and they were assigned by the C-in-C appropriately. This left us with almost twice as many PIPs per element compared to a normal game, giving a relative advantage to warbands and players who maneuver inefficiently.

In the end, we lost. JM's three remaining elements apparently killed more than their weight in gold... shiny, Aztec gold.

The goal of matching winners with players who lost to someone else was to encourage players to kill as much as possible instead of making arrangements to lose with minimal losses and gain an advantage in later rounds. I'm not sure this worked out as well as it was intended to. I don't think it was as satisfying to play under the command of someone who didn't beat you; and unless you made an effort to avoid it, it was easy to end up playing against your original opponent in subsequent games. Finally, I think the game works better with more elements in play during the later games.

I'm currently not very inspired to play my Tlingit. They're pretty, but 10 bows and 2 psiloi, while flexible, don't leave much room for deception. I think I'll have to let them sit on the shelf for a while to rebuild my interest.

I am interested in trying another Pyramid format event. JM and I discussed it on the way home, and decided that Samurai armies would work well in this format. Battles between individual Samurai and joining forces against a common foe feel just about right for this period.

Fall-In 2010: BBDBA Doubles

2010-11-03T01:44:00.002-04:00

JM and I formed "Team Red Meat" at the Fall-In BBDBA doubles competition. The name was inspired by a combination of factors: we're first time competitors, aka "fresh meat;" and I really enjoy the Red Meat comic. Unfortunately I never remembered to say "I hate you, Milkman Dan!"

Larry heckled us a bit for planning ahead and bringing a document describing our plans. Yes, we were inspired by the Two Davids who make similar documents in preparation for their battles. However, our goal was not primarily to win. We only wanted to fail to make utter fools of ourselves, and I think we succeeded.

Planning ahead allowed us to think on our own time instead of wasting our opponents' time, and gave us a baseline to measure what worked and what didn't so we could learn more quickly. Neither JM nor I have a very strong knowledge of historical tactics used by real generals, and neither of us have much experience in BBDBA or other larger scale Ancients games, so planning was also intended to offset our deficit in experience. I'm glad we did it and we'll likely do it again, for similar reasons.

There were eight entries in this tournament. The field was split by army year into two groups of 4, and everyone played everyone else in each group. The winners in each group played the finals some time after the convention was over; I never heard the final result.

We fielded Warring States Chinese: Chao (II/4c). As seen in earlier posts, I painted two of the armies and JM painted the third. No one noticed our use of 3Cb instead of 4Cb or our single Russian light horse stand in with the Chinese; though neither had any effect on gameplay. Our command split was the same in all our games:

Mid PIP (C-in-C): 2xHCh (gen), 3x2LH, 6x4Sp, 3x4Cb, 2x2Ps; 16 elements, breakpoint 6
High PIP: 4xHCh (gen), 3x2LH, 3x4Sp, 3x4Cb; 13 elements, breakpoint 5
Low PIP: 3x4Sp (gen), 3x4Cb, 1x2Ps; 7 elements, breakpoint 3

Stooges: Larry and Will

Our first game was against Larry and his honorary Stooge partner Will. "We came all this way to play against you?" They brought Seleucids (II/19), which combined the elements that posed our greatest anticipated challenge: pikes and elephants. We forgot about the possibility of Scythed Chariots, and they were the killer this game.

We defended, and set up terrain as planned: three small central hills with a road the long way behind one. It wasn't much, but we placed it where we hoped we could take more advantage of it than our enemy.

The plan for elephants was to avoid them, or try to shoot them with bows. Larry had an interesting command structure around his elephants: he combined three elephants and three scythed chariots with one other element. Since the expendible chariots don't count towards the break point, the command needs to lose 6 of its 7 elements before it's destroyed, providing additional protection for the elephants.

Death by Scythed Chariot

For the pike, we wanted to outflank them with light horse and peel them apart. Unfortunately, they used their pike in passive defense of a well defended position. We decided to win elsewhere, and didn't approach the pike. I'm not sure if this was a good idea or not.

Our failure and prompt demise came on the opposite flank. Will's scythed chariots totally destroyed our line, and then broke through to the road where they could kill whatever they wanted. These things are called "expendibles" for a reason: they aren't supposed to live very long. Will rolled really well a few times, and that provided him with the tactical advantage to roll us up. This was our fastest loss in the tournament. One important lesson I learned here, was to pay attention when to let your broken command flee. They're only useful when they're still in the way; after that, they're screwing up the high/low/mid PIP die rolls.


Two Davids: Kuijt and Schlanger

In the second game, we faced the Two Davids: David Schlanger and David Kuijt playing some kind of Romans (Early Imperial, I think) with an ally (Arabo-Aramean, I think). Their army didn't have any particularly problematic elements, but the Davids are very good players.

We defended again, and placed a waterway to reduce our time to contact. It did an adequate job of that, but probably wasn't really necessary since neither of us was particularly fast.

They refused our left flank with their artillery and forced us to play our attacking force on our right.

This was a very interesting game, I enjoyed it a lot. There was a lot of back and forth on our attacking flank, but the Davids did a great job and I learned a lot. We had some localized advantages on occasion, but unfortunately I missed our prime opportunity to pull a win from the jaws of defeat. I had a chariot within striking range of the enemy camp, and asked DS about the finer points of attacking a camp. I decided not to attack the camp, but in the mean time I missed the fact that I could've flanked their commander in chief, which might have ended the game in our favor instantly. Instead, they broke our high PIP command, then a second command, and won.


A lesson on the virtues of a subtly painted C-in-C

The Davids did a wonderful job of using two of their commands against one of ours, and winning through PIP advantage. The high PIP Roman command and the allied command were next to each other, and moved into overlapping positions. This allowed both commands to work together and share PIPs, whether the critical position ended up being in the center or on the flank. We tried to start doing this later in this game and throughout our next game, but since we hadn't planned for it, we didn't do a great job.

I think the Davids' choice to use an Ally makes this easier: by placing the ally next to the high PIP command, they can always easily tell which elements are a part of each command. The downside is that ordinary maneuvers are always more expensive since they're split across two commands and can't use a single PIP group move.

Team Canuk: Colin Rice and Michael Saunders

Our third game was against Team Canuck: Michael Saunders and Colin Rice. They played Patrician Roman (East) II/83b, I believe. They had a wide variety of troops, but without any elements that were particularly problematic for us.

They defended and placed terrain: a wall of woods down the center of half the board, a road perpendicular, and the rest of the board empty. They set up their first two commands in the open area, and left their bad going troops (aux, warband) in their last command.

We didn't stand a chance in the woods, so we compressed our spears into double ranks against their knights and stuffed ourselves into narrow frontage in the open. We tried to overlap our commands somewhat, but we limited this to the elements we could tell apart when they stood next to each other. They deployed their light troops behind their main line, and the entire battle was limited to one half of the board.

They redeployed on their baseline while we ran hell to leather

They ended up spending several turns to redeploy and maneuver their troops without advancing at all, before we made contact. We were running as fast as we could, but just couldn't get there before they had time to fix their deployment problems.

Once our lines met, we had an advantage early on and damaged all of their commands, but none to the breaking point. It felt like we had a real chance of winning. We even had several 4-3 rolls against their C-in-C, but they all failed.

Finally, the Canadian luck turned, and they broke our commands before we did anything else to theirs. Just before time ran out for the round, they killed us.

I really enjoyed this event, and I look forward to playing BBDBA Doubles again. JM and I worked well together, and I think with a few refinements we can increase our expectations to include actually winning a game. Our plans were not obviously bad, and I'm glad we spent time on them. Their simplicity helped us implement them correctly.

Neither of us are content with our army choice, but we want to revisit the army "later." Warring States Chinese are quite low on bad going troops, and don't have many different element types available.

Between the two of us, we have enough BBDBA armies to practice together effectively, and with our current level of motivation we should probably start soon. I wouldn't want to give any secrets away, so I won't mention our options for Cold Wars.

Fall-In 2010 Summary

2010-11-02T22:50:00.000-04:00

Almost everything went according to plan; at least, nothing went horribly wrong. JM and I had a great weekend and we both hope to go to more conventions in the future.

Driving to Lancaster always confuses me for some reason, and I found new and different ways to get "almost lost". We made it there in time for registration, but just missed getting into Larry's game (Auxilirama).

Staying at the Lancaster Host was a good idea, and I'll do it again. It costs more than the closest cheap hotels, but being in the same building as the convention left more time for gaming between sleep breaks. We still had to go outside to get to the dealer hall, otherwise I wouldn't have gone outside all weekend.

Speaking of the dealer hall: I seem to be getting better at not buying things I'm not going to paint. Between the dealer hall and flea market, the only unpainted figures I bought were 15mm early WWII Russians. I plan to paint these up for a scenario I'll run when Mike is in town over the holidays. I'll have to fire up the airbrush, since "all one color" is faster that way. I also bought a variety of other materials and accessories: more bases-by-the quart and adhesive "plasteel" from GF9; a few nicer road segments for DBA; and some cards from an obsolete CCG.

Apparently, last year was the first year they started supporting Toys for Tots at Fall-In. Besides collecting toys, they also get donations of games, models, figures, and supplies from vendors and individual modellers, and either raffle or auction off the donations. All proceeds go to Toys for Tots... it's for the kids! I have no problem donating money to a good cause, so why not get something good out of it too?

So with that in mind, I won two auctions. One was a set of foam core buildings, 28mm scale. These were built by hand with a printed veneer to add a great amount of detail without having to actually paint them. They're the perfect scale and style for Malifaux, and they'll complement our existing terrain nicely. I also won a 28mm Greek Hoplite army for DBA. It's not likely to be a big winner in any tournaments, but it's a better size for demonstrations and kid-sized hands, and it'll allow me to play in 25mm DBA events in the future.

I played in all of the events I planned to enter, except the Armies of the Americas event on Saturday morning. It was early: 9am; and I needed a time to dedicate to shopping without a time limit. Armies of the Americas was very similar to the 1491 event the night before, and I'd have used the same army for both events. Unfortunately I got sick of playing my all-bow army pretty quickly... but more about that later.

This was my first convention playing nothing but DBA. I don't miss "all the random events" very much. The comraderie of playing a game I know I like with a group of opponents I've played with before more than makes up for the lack of variety. In the future, I wouldn't mind spending one or two slots testing out some new rules if there's something that looks really interesting, but I won't miss it if that doesn't happen.

Fall-In 2010 Plans

2010-10-28T00:26:00.000-04:00

Fall-In is this weekend! JM and I are driving out tomorrow. It's in Lancaster, and we got a room in the Lancaster Host where the convention is, so we don't have to leave the building all weekend except to go to the dealer hall (if it's still out back).

Although I feel a bit burned out on DBA, it's the main plan for this weekend. I've basically packed the weekend with events; hopefully I can sneak out to the flea market once or twice.

We want to register on Thursday so probably won't play in Larry's Auxilirama game. I won't be bringing an eligible army for this.

Friday morning until 6pm is BBDBA doubles, and Team Red Meat has a plan. Basically I'm going to lose and say "I hate you, Milkman Dan!" a lot like a whiny little girl.

JM and I are bringing Warring States: Chao (II/4c). Two of the armies are mine and JM's providing the third. We aren't likely to do particularly well, since we can count the combined number of BBDBA games we've played on one hand and some of those were against each other. But we did think ahead enough that we hopefully won't slow everyone else down too much. I'll post more on that after it's done.

Friday evening is 1491: New World Dominance, an American army pyramid tournament. I really enjoyed the pyramid format at Battle at the Crossroads earlier this year. However, with at least two Mound Builders in the Northern bracket, I'm very likely to face them, and they provide a formidable opponent to most other eligible armies. I'll be fielding my Tlingit (IV/11) with their newly completed camp, without a totem pole for now.

Finally, Midnight Madness starts at... well, 11pm. I guess they call it "Almost Midnight Madness" now. I'll choose an army based on whatever I feel like at the time, but most likely Later Carthaginians (II/32) with warbands but no elephants.

Hopefully I'll wake up in time for Armies of the Americas at 9am on Saturday. This is a non-pyramid format tournament with the same eligible armies as the pyramid tournament. I'll be playing my Tlingit (IV/11) again.

At 1pm is an Open Scramble. You play 4 rounds, but don't use your own army until the last round. In the first round you use your enemy's army and after that the winningest players use the losingest armies until the last round when you use the one you brought. I was planning on using Later Carthaginians (II/32) again, but come to think of it... maybe Gauls (II/11) would be better. Or worse. It's not clear which is preferrable. In any case, JM will use the army I'm not using. They're both beater armies, made up mostly from the quadruple Carthaginian army I got at the Historicon flea market. I won't mind if they get a bit beat up by strangers.

5pm starts the Two Davids campaign: Gallic Wars. I'm playing Gauls (II/11) just like everyone else... but I'm using a modified list. Oh! I'd better go bring figures for the unmodified version to use in the Open.

That's "it." I've managed to pack 5 armies for 6 events, including 2/3 of a BBDBA triple army. That's not necesarily a good thing, though, since I'll probably be sick of playing all of them by the end of the weekend.

Despite having a weekend full of DBA, there are other events I'm missing that I'd enjoy. There are several Hordes of the Things themed events, and some 25mm events I don't have an army for.

Malifaux: Samael Hopkins

2010-10-27T23:57:00.000-04:00

Samael Hopkins

I finished Samael Hopkins, another Guild figure I started along with Perdita and her crew. I was disturbed by his superfluity of straps and decided to set him aside for a while.

He was a bit easier to paint than I expected, but I totally cheesed out on his boots and knee pads. I decided that the sculpt has enough detail as it is, I don't need to try to ruin it with too much fancy paint. So I just used black with a bit of grey highlighting.

This time, my Army Painter dull varnish was really really dull. It's not as dusty looking in real life, but it still doesn't photograph well. I picked out the metallics with gloss varnish.

I got this figure on discount without a card, and I'm unwilling to pay Wyrd's shipping price for a single $.50 card, so I may have to make my own.

Malifaux Terrain

2010-10-20T22:33:00.002-04:00

Here are a few shacks I painted up for Malifaux.

These are from an O-scale model railroad plastic kit. It's the Hobo Jungle from Bachmann's Plasticville USA series. Despite its horrifyingly bad name, there are a few good models in the Plasticville range.

According to the TMP All About Scales page, O-scale is supposed to be 1/43.5 scale or equivalent to 37mm miniatures. In practice, these are great with the 32mm Malifaux figures and fit well alongside Mordheim terrain (intended for 28mm). They're quite small overall, and most of our 32mm figures won't fit through the doorways.

I'm not sure how brown can be described as "bright," but I think some of these turned out brighter than I intended. The rusted metal turned out well enough, though the rust may be a bit too "fresh" looking... or just too bright.

I also have a Plasticville ~~sniper~~ water tower to put together, and I haven't finished the outhouse from the Hobo Village. I think I'll put the outhouse on the edge of a swamp terrain piece.

DBA: Gallic Cavalry

2010-10-20T22:17:00.000-04:00

I wanted to play in the Two Davids campaign at Fall-In, and this time the theme is Gallic Wars. Almost all of the armies are Gauls, with a few Romans to kick around and maybe a few others who aren't even as civilized as the Gauls. I had most of a Gallic army in the form of Carthaginian allies; I just needed some cavalry to round out the list.

In this campaign, I chose the Remi. These guys are allowed more cavalry and less warband, so I painted 4 elements (the maximum). None of the cavalry are allowed to be chariots.

These are Black Hat miniatures that I added to one of JM's orders. I really don't like the rest of my Gallic figures, they're very "old school." These are also fairly old school sculpts, and they aren't my favorite figures, but I'm happy with how they came out considering how much effort I put into them. I painted them as quickly as possible, by blocking out the solid colors and then using more of my Army Painter Strong Tone quickshade dip. That's the only shading done on them, but this stuff works really well. The figures had enough sharp detail to catch the dip.

I'm a lot happier with these than I thought I'd be before I painted them. I don't like Gauls, don't like the rest of the army, and don't really like these sculpts. They may be a bit too bright, but I skimped and didn't paint any plaid.

Malifaux: Nino and Santiago

2010-10-20T22:07:00.000-04:00

I finished painting Nino and Santiago Ortega, for my Malifaux Perdita crew.

Nino's repeating rifle is excellent at long range, and his Hunter ability lets him shoot into cover more effectively. Nino reminds me a bit of Badger from Firefly, mostly because of his bowler hat. I'm afraid he's going to break off at the ankle, but I'll just try not to drop him.

I looked a others' interpretations of santiago online, and there is a clear consensus: he wears blue pants (jeans) with an offwhite shirt (dirty t-shirt) and a brown duster.

The figures are displayed here on the second floor of one of Frank's ruined houses.

Malifaux: Cowboys versus Samurai

2010-10-19T00:47:00.074-04:00

Frank and I played a 25 stone game of Malifaux on Saturday. We had a surprisingly balanced outcome compared to most past games, and we played through 5 turns before the end.

I chose my Perdita crew, set up straight out of the box: Perdita, Santiago, Francesco, Nino, and Papa Loco. Frank didn't actually have any samurai, he chose his Viktoria crew: 2 Viktorias, 3 Ronin, and Misaki. I had the advantage in ranged combat, but Frank's crew had high mobility and great melee.

Andy was around to watch and learn, so he set up terrain. We flipped on the extended encounter chart and wound up with a Shared Deliver a Message strategy: both of us had to take a (2) interact action within 2" of the enemy Master, to deliver a message and gain victory points. This ended up having a large effect on the way we played, which means that as a game strategy, "it worked."

We announced all our schemes. I chose to Bodyguard Perdita, and to Kill the Protege: Misaki. I chose Bodyguard since Deliver a Message required Frank to keep Perdita alive; but in retrospect it wasn't the best choice, as it gave Frank more incentive to kill Perdita as a contingency plan. Frank chose Steal Relic, which also required him to take an action near Perdita, and Gather Soulstones: end the game with more stones than me. He started with only 3 stones and I had 2; but he had the option of sacrificing Ronin to get more stones.

For the first few turns, I did the most important thing possible: get Papa Loco as far away from me as possible, and close to Frank; so when he dies, the explosion doesn't hurt me. We got surprisingly close to each other on the first turn, and had a bit of a shootout. Papa didn't survive, I'm sorry to say, and his final explosion had no effect. One of Frank's Ronin died soon after: Perdita shot her for failing to Obey her orders to run down Misaki.

In the mean time, the Viktorias were approaching Nino and Santiago around a building, while Misaki hid behind it. The two remaining Ronin were on the other flank, seemingly out of the action for now. The Viktorias hit Santiago in melee, and in response he took 2 actions to Deliver the Message. Since I completed the scheme first, I got 3VP.

At this point, Santiago survived long odds for longer than I expected. All my remaining guys emptied their guns at the Viktorias in rapid succession, in one huge Companion activation for the whole crew. Since I was shooting into combat, all of the shots required me to randomly determine which model was the target, but Santiago avoided all but one of the attacks. Unfortunately, the only luck I had was used up missing Santiago; I also did almost no damage to the Viktorias.

On their turn, Viktoria (no, the other one) killed Santiago, and Frank's remaining Ronin closed in on Perdita, locking her in combat. He Delivered the Message for only 1 VP, and then Stole my Relic (so we thought) and started running away. I killed Misaki. By now we were both out of soulstones, and the score was at 7VP for me (completing the strategy and both schemes) and 4 for Frank.

But the game wasn't over yet. Frank killed Perdita, knocking me down to 5VP. For him to win, he needed to keep one Ronin alive (giving him 2 of his current 5VP) and sacrifice the other to gain soulstones (for another 2VP). For me to win, I needed to kill either of his Ronin.

In the final turn (turn 5), my shooting was ineffective but Frank's was not. He got initiative, allowing him to get one Ronin out of the way. I wasn't able to kill the other because it was Hard to Kill, and Frank cleaned out all of my remaining crew with the Viktorias.

So in the end, it seemed like Frank won with 6 VP, and I had 5VP. But wait! He realized he was supposed to make a Willpower duel in order to steal my relic, but we forgot to do it. The result is unclear; but I think with the cards I had, I wouldn't have been able to beat him.

I made some mistakes: I spent too much time shooting with Perdita to remember to keep her out of harm's way. I expected more from my guns based on their past performance, and Perdita was frustrated that no one would Obey her.

The strategies and schemes definitely affected gameplay and our play motivations. I put Perdita into danger, counting on Frank not to harm her until he got his strategy and scheme VP's... unfortunately I wasn't able to get her out of trouble quickly enough once that happened. In the end, I could've won the game with all my models lost, if I had only killed one more model. I still really like the Malifaux encounter system, and we haven't repeated any strategies yet.

I like this crew, especially how different it is from Ramos. I also the opportunity to demonstrate that it was in fact possible to beat them; maybe now I'll hear fewer complaints about how broken they are.

When all you have is a hammer...

2010-10-01T22:13:00.001-04:00

"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a cat."

Johann, facing off two groups of Hoar Cats, a Cerberus Sabertooth, and a Ronin, is sure to die. It's been a long time since Johann has gotten a hit off with his giant hammer, but I think my spiders saved the day, this time...

Minecraft

2010-09-22T09:08:00.036-04:00

I started playing Minecraft, but I was hampered by a nearly complete lack of instructions. It's a fun open-world sandbox game, but it's easy to get frustrated until you know how to control things.

Here is a basic control summary, targetted for people unfamiliar with normal game controls. It's based on my limited experience with the Mac standalone executable version Alpha 1.1.2 in single player "free weekend while the website is down" mode.

I'm playing on a laptop without a right mouse button: ctrl-clicking is the same as a right button click, just like everywhere else in Mac land.

The most commonly used controls:

Look around using the mouse pointer
Move using the standard WASD keys

W moves forward
S moves backward
A slides left
D slides right

Jump using the space bar: you can jump one block high, to climb hills
0-9 select the on-screen inventory item slots.
Left click to destroy the block (or creature, aka "mob") you're pointing at. The most important clue: press and hold the left button to break blocks, don't click it rapidly.
Right click (ctrl-click) to place the currently selected block where you're pointing
I opens your inventory

I or esc to close inventory
left click to pick stuff up
right click to pick up half a stack
left click to put stuff down somewhere else in your inventory
right click to put down one item from a stack

I've also found that multitouch on the Mac scrolls through the 0-9 inventory slots, and it can zoom your screen in and out if you have ctrl pressed. I don't find this useful, but it was an explanation for why "weird things" happened when I didn't realize I was resting another finger on the touch pad.

I don't want to spoil very much, but staying alive for a few days is important if you want to make any progress. Skip this section if you prefer a challenge or know how to use Google search. Penny-Arcade provided a good summary introduction to Minecraft with a good starting strategy for "survival mode" (single player): build a shelter as
soon as possible, without any human-sized entrances. When night falls, wait in there to avoid the zombies.

It's good to build a shelter near where you started the game, since that's where you'll return after you die. You might build a spire above it so you can find it from a distance: the map can be confusing until you get used to it, and you'll want to get home quickly as night falls.

The Minepedia has an excellent introduction to crafting, providing a useful reference during gameplay. You need tools to mine stone, and need a workbench to make tools, so start by knocking down some trees and collecting logs. A workbench and tools will also give you stuff to do at night.

If you know me in real life and want to play on my server, send me an e-mail.

Malifaux Update

2010-09-14T00:38:00.000-04:00

I've taken a break from painting DBA models, and finished some more Malifaux figures.

Here is Ramos with his mechanical minions. I've added another Steampunk Arachnid Swarm and an Electrical Creation. I've always used Johann in this crew, but he seems to be best at dying. When a few more nice looking models are released from the Rising Powers set, I'll be adding those.

I've also built some scrap counters to match my crew, since Ramos needs scrappy bits to convert into more spiders. In the center is a treasure counter I modelled for Mordheim, that I've been using when the need arises in Malifaux. Of course, I replace the Wyrdstone with Soulstones first.

I'm also painting a Perdita crew. I'm very happy with the way her pants turned out, but she definitely has a face made for radio; luckily she keeps a hat over it. Once again I started this crew with a full can of Army Painter dull varnish. Unfortunately it's hard to shake the can enough, which results in a semi-gloss finish at the beginning of the can, and an ultra-flat finish near the end of the can.

And here's the star of our show: Francesco "Zappa" Ortega, aka The Grand Wazoo. Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?

His cohorts may consider his shirt a bit flambouyant, but Francesco always uses the right tool for the job.

Papa Loco likes fire. Heh. Blow stuff up!

I still have a few more Ortegas to paint before I can field a full Guild crew. I also have a Peacekeeper, because I like the big robots; and Samael Hopkins. I'll post more pictures once they're finished.

Old Bedford Village: Drums in the Forest

2010-08-30T22:52:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went to Old Bedford Village. This is a historical reenactment village in central PA, similar to places such as Colonial Williamsburg, Old Sturbridge Village, or Strawbery Banke. This weekend was Drums in the Forest: a reenactment of Braddock's Defeat held every 5 years in the forest just outside the village.

We arrived in the midst of the reenactment. As with most publicly viewable reenactments I've seen, this one seemed heavy on the show and light on accuracy (or, maybe I'm just an eternal critic who doesn't know what he's talking about). It seems that when you're reenacting a specific event, it's hard to find enough properly uniformed troops, these days. There were plenty of irregulars, but there didn't seem to be enough properly uniformed British. Truthfully, if I were tromping through these woods I'd leave my bright red coat at home too.

There was lots of smoke and plenty of muzzle flashes, but I had a hard time avoiding the image of a bunch of boys running around in the woods yelling "Bang!" (and this is coming from a "grown man" who plays with toy soldiers as a hobby).

Although I found the reenactment a bit disappointing, I consider that to be my fault and not theirs. The whole family thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the village, and I was able to have fun once I managed to put things into perspective. The permanent installations provided many good demonstrations of period industry and craft, and all of the reenactors looked and acted wonderful as long as I ignored the context of the massacre they attempted to demonstrate. The reenactor's tent encampment would have been a lot more interesting to me than the reenactment itself, but since they were actually living there (for the night), it felt like a big invasion of their limited privacy even though they probably expected it. I expect the reenactors probably call us all "muggles" and complain about us behind our backs.

Personally, I find the individual demonstrations of professions such as leatherworking, weaving, cooperage, candle making, tinsmithing, and basketmaking in the context of the homes or shops where they were done a lot more interesting than presenters talking to an audience about what was done and why. Orating about period Colonial dress is not as compelling to me as seeing the place someone lived, and experiencing the limitations of their life that inspired the solutions they implemented in their industry.

The buildings at Bedford have interesting stories as well. Some of them were moved, log by log and stone by stone, from other locations to this site. I'm reminded of the family who tore out their new house's "modernized" drywall to find a log cabin underneath... and they were wondering why it was so hard to run wires through the walls?

DBA at Legions, Friday August 20

2010-08-21T02:07:00.000-04:00

This month's theme for DBA on the third Friday of the month at Legions was Chinese armies and their enemies. There were 5 of us; unfortunately, at least JM, Kevin, and Larry couldn't make it.

I played II/4c: Warring States Chines, Chao the whole night, and managed to get in a game against everyone.

First, I faced Jim's Sung Chinese (III/61), with a single Artillery. He was defender, and set up on one half of the board, with his deployment zone bisected by a steep hill. My response wasn't ideal, and I made some mistakes (not following my plan, and moving my LH where they didn't need to go). In the end, he beat me 4-1.

Next I faced Neal, who borrowed Jim's Ming Chinese (IV/73) with two Artillery. I defended and placed triangular terrain with two steep hills and a wood (with a road through the middle). He attempted to flank me around the wood with his two light horse, but I managed to repel them with a single element of crossbow, and kill one in the process. I approached his artillery and bows with my spears. His shooting was ineffective even after many shots, but I killed one of his bows in the woods. I think my other kills were blades by my knights, but I don't remember very well. It was a pretty even match that finally ended with me winning 4-2.

In my third game, I defended against Rich's Southern Dynasty Chinese (II/79) including an Elephant. I placed a small central wood and a gentle hill bisecting one deploment line. I deployed facing the side opposite the hill, with my forces concentrated on my left and my bows moving towards the wood. He placed his elephant on the road directly approaching my line.

My deployment was adequate, but not spectacular, and Rich had the upper hand early on with expected matchups. He moved his elephant down the road, supported by blades, toward my spear line. However, he was frustrated by poor PIP rolls: he rolled a single 3 and nothing else higher than 2 for PIPs for the whole game. I was able to use my higher PIPS to maneuver into better matchups and pushed his elephant back, but I was very vulnerable at some points, if he only had enough moves to take advantage of my position. I ended up winning 4-3 in a very close, tight game when I killed 2 elements in the last turn on a few more lucky rolls.

My last game was against Steve, who attacked with his Shang Chinese (I/13). I used a smallish steep hill and smallish wood on two deployment zone corners; the road played no part in the game. I never got my bows out of the wood on my side: he attacked with superior forces of Auxilia and Psiloi. I had a fairly strong central position, but he controlled the other flank with his bows against my light horse.

I was able to shave a spear off to hold back the bows, but my bows were suffering in the woods on my other flank. I ended up killing off his three psiloi, while he whittled me down. Eventually he was winning 3G-3 and I needed 2 PIPs to move anything. I lasted another 2-3 turns, when he killed my fourth element and I wasn't able to return the favor, so he won 4G-3.

I learned some important points in these games, mostly about the interactions of bows in bad going. Chao has a very small bad going force, only a single Psiloi, so the bows have to pull double duty in the woods and steep hills. Playing against Neal, I realized my spear were an even match for him in the woods, since he couldn't shoot me in there and we were both +2 and 2" move. Rich taught me that blades are still better than bows in the woods, with their +3, and my shooting didn't make up for this. Steve reinforced the point by demonstrating Auxilia's superiority in bad going: they survived many turns without moving or recoiling from my shooting. In short, Bows are good only against a few troop types in bad going, even in a defensive role: mounted, pike, and maybe psiloi if you can get a double shot off.

There was a wide variety of Chinese armies there. Besides the armies I played against, Steve also had Ming and Post Mongol Samurai; Jim could field Yuan, Khitan-Liao, and maybe one other option; and Rich also had Warring States (other). I had all of the Warring States options except (other) as well as Mongol Conquest. This seems to be a very heavily populated part of the world, w.r.t. locally owned DBA armies.

I also noticed several of the armies had Museum figures in them, and they were all painted very differently. It was interesting to see the different color schemes, they made the figures almost unrecognizable in the different armies.

It was a fun theme this month. The proposed theme for next month is Elephants: every army must have at least one. Sounds good!

DBA Army II/4: Warring States Chinese, Double Army

2010-08-13T01:21:00.002-04:00

I've completed the elements necessary to field two Warring States Chinese armies at the same time, or a double Chao army. It's been hot in the attic so I haven't gotten a chance to take pictures for a while.

The green army is II/4c: Chao, which has no options: 2xHCh (gen), 2x2LH, 4x4Sp, 3x4Cb, 1x2Ps. I needed to finish the chariots, crossbows, and psiloi to field this army.

All of the figures are Museum Miniatures. Overall I really enjoy working with these figures. There is very little flash or other cleanup required. The poses are limited, but I like the overall effect in this army. The infantry has enough detail, but not too much, and lends itself to a clean simple color scheme.

I'm not quite as happy with the green army chariots as I am with the blue ones I painted a few months ago. I mounted the umbrella too low on the general's chariot, and didn't paint the red quite as well.

For the cloth, I used a light base coat and mixed a wash from darker paint, gloss varnish, and water until it flowed well over the cloth. A few highlights on top finished it off well.

The blue army started as II/4a: Qin, but I quickly decided I wanted to morph it into other Warring States armies. The first morph was into II/4c: Chao, but along with the green army I can now morph into any of II/abcd with all options. I'm missing the 3Bd and 3Cb elements for II/4e.

Here, I have 2xHCh (gen), 1x3Cv, 2x2LH, 4x4Wb (with halberds/dagger axes), 4x4Sp, 3x4Cb, 2x2Ps.
In this round of painting, I only needed to paint the 4x4Sp and 1x2LH elements.

I chose to model the warbands with halberds to differentiate them from the spearmen (shown here). According to the DBM army lists, the same troops are categorized as warbands in the Qin army and spear in other armies, due to their different motivation and not different weapons: Qin soldiers were paid by the head.

The light horse is the only element I needed to match colors with an existing element. It's not identical but they're close enough that it makes no difference.

With only a few elements of light horse, I don't mind that there's only one pose. With an entire army of light horse, I need either different poses or different colors to keep things from getting boring.

This is all the Chinese I need to paint for our planned BBDBA tournament at Fall-In; but it's fun, so I could forsee getting around to painting some more. Maybe I'll build enough to morph into a double army other than Chao, or maybe into Han.

DBA Army IV/11: North-Western American: Tlingit

2010-08-11T00:56:00.000-04:00

I finished painting my Tlingit army. The camp will wait a bit while I finish some other projects. Here's the whole army: 10x3Bw including the general, and 2x2Ps. Since the main body of the army is bows, I decided to use melee troops for the psiloi. The only sources I've read about Tlingit fighting suggest that they'd be better classed as warband. At the Battle of Sitka they apparently rushed at the enemy in an attempt to win individual combats, and didn't shoot en-masse from a distance or advance in formation.

On the other hand, most folks seem to agree there weren't enough of any North American warriors to build a "real" DBA army. That really doesn't bother me: I painted these guys because they look cool, what more do you need?

Here are pictures of individual elements. On the right side of this image is the General, distinguished by melee weapons, and the fact that all three warriors are wearing helmets.

I looked at sources on the Internet for inspiration to paint the patterns on the helmets, armor, and conical hats. My patterns are paraphrased versions of the real patterns, but the overall effect should be similar. Most of the helmets were done with a brush and paint, while some of the fine black lines on armor and hats were done with a Pigma Micron pen, .005".

Almost all of the helmets and armor patterns are taken directly from specific images I found online. Some of the helmets are patterned after modern helmets carved and painted by Tommy Joseph: specifically, his Wolf War Helmet and a human helmet whose images I can't find anymore.

Other designs, including all of the hide armor patterns, are inspired Tommy's pictures of Tlingit artifacts in museums around the world, which are available only on his Facebook pages. One of the helmets (top center in the second detail picture) is patterned after a Shark Transformation helmet, depicting a human (on the front) transforming into shark form (on the rear).

Overall, the coloration on most helmets seemed very uniform. Faces of humans and most animals were copper/tuquoise blue, with red (iron oxide?) on the lips, nostrils, and ears. Eyes, hair, eyebrows, and other details were black, and teeth are inlaid in white. Depending on the specific animal detailed, portions were left wood colored, painted white, red, or black. The blue paint I chose was somewhat more blue than it should be, but I had a very hard time mixing a blue-green that didn't read as "way too green" at this scale. Some animals (bears) are depicted with a black face, but lips and nostrils are still red.

On the wooden slat armor, I painted the body of the armor khaki, similar to the color of the fresh bindings shown on Tommy Joseph's reconstructed Tlingit body armor. I detailed the exposed wood portions at the edges with a lighter yellowish wood color. Historical artifacts all show much darker wood and bindings, but those are hundreds of years old. I expect in battle, the armor would look much newer. Many of the wooden armors have a detailed crest on the chest, but some are plain or have patterns of exposed wood between the bound areas.

I didn't find any evidence for the colors used for bows or arrow cases. I expect both were more decorative than I've depicted them here, but I'd rather err on the plain side just in case. I don't think any of the arrow cases are visible in pictures here anyway.

I'm very happy with the way this army turned out, but I don't have a lot of hope for its prospects in open battle. Luckily there are two North American theme events at Fall-In 2010, so I'll have a chance to win a battle with them.

Overall, I like the Eureka sculpts. It might have been better for me to choose a different mix of helmet/armor options, but another limiting factor is in the shapes available for the helmets. They are far more limiting than the wide variety of animal shapes used on real Tlingit helmets. The other problem with the Eureka sculpts is that they don't use a large enough collar: I think the helmets should be sitting much higher than they are here, compared to the head height of the warriors without helmets.

I sat on these half-painted figures for a while, worried that I'd wreck them by detailing the helmets and crests. I'm glad I finally jumped in and finished them, because I think they turned out quite well.

Meanwhile...

2010-08-04T23:24:00.001-04:00

Meanwhile is a very interesting graphic novel by Jason Shiga. I highly recommend that anyone interested in graphic novels read it, or at least experience the free interactive online version.

The cheap and easy way to describe Meanwhile is to compare it to the Choose Your Own Adventure books our generation enjoyed as kids. This comparison is unfair to Meanwhile. Athough the mechanism involved is similar, the results are very different.

Instead of reading panels left to right, top to bottom (or right to left if you prefer Manga), the panels in Meanwhile are connected by directional pipes leading to the next panel in sequence. Often, these pipes lead you to a choice, and the path you choose changes the part of the story you experience. Sometimes when you're tasked with entering a pass code, it starts to feel a lot more like a game than a story.

After experiencing a few of the many paths through the book, it starts to require a concerted effort to find your way onto the remaining pages, or onto paths you've seen in passing during other parts of the story. Some parts of the book are pure Easter Eggs that can't be reached without "cheating" and flipping through page-by-page, and others are available only by making poor or random choices at key decision points. Just as in real life, some of the most interesting endings are available only through serendipity.

While Choose Your Own Adventure books tell a different story depending on the choices you make, Meanwhile is a single, coherent story; you just experience it from a different perspective based on your decisions. I'm sorry I can't tell you more without giving too much away. You'll have to go experience it for yourself!

Completing the story provided about the same length of entertainment as a "normal" graphic novel of a comparable length, but it was satisfying in a very different way. I wonder how it was created, and if another story could be created that would work as well as this one does.

The physical book is printed in full color, in a hardback binding that protects the thick, glossy paper tabs at the edge of the book. It is a very pretty object, and it's designed very well. It was well worth the purchase price, and I'm glad I have it to share with others.