Thursday 26 April 2018

Making woods for wargames

I recently decided to spend a bit of time making woods for my 15mm l'Arte de la Guerre games in a new way. I have seen many variations on the theme and decided to have a go myself.
I set the following up as a pdf but cannot find a way of including that on here so have converted the three pages to hires png files.




Godendag the return

I was looking to test some new video software and decided to use some of the photos I took at Godendag.


Monday 5 February 2018

Godendag 2018 - Veni, Vedi...er, um...

Godendag 2018 was another exceptional weekend at Firestorm Games. There were several competitions running - l'Arte de la Guerre, DBM, Mortum et Glorium and FoG Renaissance.

My partner in crime for l'Arte de la Guerre doubles competitions is Ralph Ashdown and once again we (OK mostly me) decided that a new army to be finished the day before the competition was just what was needed.

Palmyrans, as mentioned in an earlier post, would be the army of choice for the weekend. Not having anything to fit in with the designated competition period a new army would be required. After all, why use Ralph's Macedonians that are already painted and ready to go when you can buy a paint a completely new army in under a month? Practice games - that's almost cheating!

So I turned up (complete with a speeding fine on the six lane wide Newport Road into Cardiff  - that is allegedly 30mph limit - I must have missed that change due to the high degree of concentration needed to navigate due to most of the road signs not having many vowels in them), and proceeded to put the troops on the table and play.

Palmyran cataphracts and light cavalry advance on the enemy

The first game was against Warring States Chinese. We came second but did a reasonable amount of damage to our opponents before they broke our army. Unfortunately I neglected to take many photos.

Palmyrans against Warring States Chinese - the eventual winners of the competition.

Our second game was against a Late Imperial Roman - we knew something strange was happening when we actually won. Huzzah our first win in our second year of the competition. Next year we are going for two wins.

Cataphracts face off the Late Roman Cavalry


My Saturday evening was spent in the company of the Midlands contingent celebrating Mark Clarke's half century that was looming on the next day. The l'AdlG umpire had arranged a surprise presentation of gifts and cake and a less than tuneful rendition of 'Happy Birthday' by the competitors.


Even a cake was provided on Sunday after the first game with gifts and a song

A birthday gift from Tercio Desperrates


Game 3 on Sunday morning found us facing Southern States Chinese. Heavy chariots and lots of infantry with 2HCW. The whole game hinged around the field in the centre of the table neatly positioned by our opponent. We diced to move/remove it got a 5 so moved it into our deployment area. Just right. They then diced also got a 5 and put it back where they originally had it - right in our way. Even our attempt to narrow the table with a waterway didn't help as the Chinese were boxed up tight on their left flank.

That wretched field






Game 4 saw us facing a Patrician Roman (the army of choice for  a lots of players over the weekend) and the inimitable Tim Porter. Tim and his partner had not been having a good weekend with three losses and all to play for in the last game. Lack of terrain and poor positioning of our troops led to our rapid downfall.
 Just let me roll higher than a 3.
Tim Porter prays to the dice gods for anything but a one

Tim Porter's detailed account of our last game. Opinions are his own!

We had some outstanding die rolls on our right flank and were wearing the Romans down but they outnumbered us and the rest of the battle was already lost.

Overall it was a really good weekend with four interesting games and friendly opponents. We are already planning for next year.

Monday 1 January 2018

Another New Year and painting resolutions

There is nothing quite like a deadline to focus the mind when it comes to painting a new army. The trouble is I seem to have four on the go at once. Nevertheless, Godendag is looming at the end of January so a new 300 point 15mm army for l'Arte de la Guerre in needed at the double.

Over the Christmas break I have managed to paint six stands of cataphracts and two of light cavalry towards a new Palmyran army. All figures are from Irregular Miniatures.


Hopefully the rest of the army will arrive in the post this week, leaving me around three weeks to paint the other 24 stands plus generals needed.

One interesting thing I uncovered at my parent's home today was an old press cutting from the Evening Echo (Bournemouth) dated 29 June 1974. Hard to believe that after 44+ years I'm still painting figures.

I hope I am still painting figures for another 44!
Happy New Year