100 Game objective achieved

My second game of DBA with Mark at the Falkirk club last night got me over the line.  I will post more details of games played in a review of the year at some point over the Christmas break


Thanks to all my opponents in 2016.


Can I do even better in 2017?

What rules to use with Wood Elves

I am just about to purchase a collection of wood elves from a fellow club member, all old citadel stuff.  I will have about 90 infantry, 8 cavalry, 3 hawks/eagles with archer crew and a tree man ent type creature

Forces for Hordes of the Things and Dragon Rampant are very doable but I wondered if anyone had suggestions for other rule sets that might be suitable?

First game with the Elves

Played my first game of Songs of Blades and Heroes tonight and got taken down by Dwarfs.  The Curse of newly painted figures strikes again  !!!!

I am enjoying painting Elves!!!

At a loose end for a game this coming Monday I posted up on the club facebook page looking for an opponent.  Tim replied.  I know that he is a fan of Songs of Blades and Heroes and as this is a system I have not yet played I suggested this to him.  He was happy to oblige with an introductionary game and sent me some info through.

A starter force is only half a dozen models so I thought that I might have enough figures in my “stash” for a wood elf band.  Sure enough I found half a dozen plastic GW archers in need of a bit of a repaint, a couple of  metal figures of unknown origin in need of a touch up and a nicely painted dark elf (a little on the small side) who can be drafted in as a leader.

Last night I spent a happy hour applying paint to the figures.  Those of you who know me will recognise this as an unusual occurrence.  To me painting is a necessary chore rather than a pleasure.  I do get a good feeling once having completed a figure (however imperfectly) but the act itself is not one I particularly enjoy.

However, for some strange reason, painting the elves last night was a great experience.  Perhaps it was a one off but today I feel enthusiastic about expanding my elf collection (about 25 high elves, 12 dark elves and 8 wood elves) into full army sized forces.  As well as potentially SOBH I am thinking Hordes of the Things, Dragon Rampant and Chaos Wars.

I am not foolish enough to start buying masses of new lead or plastic.  One of my problems is that the transition from bare metal to finished figure always seems a long and daunting one.  My plan is to scour the bring and buys at shows for (cheap) painted and partly painted figures and bring the armies together over a period of time, looking for opportunities to find games I can use them in as I go.

Wish me luck.

My Claymore Challenge

Off to Claymore tomorrow (Sat).


I have set myself the challenge of playing 7 games, to help me get closer to 100 this year.


I will report back

Mid July - games played to date

Up to 62 so not too bad.  Helped a lot by playing shorter games such as DBA.  Lets see if I can keep on track.  The list is: 

DBA 3.0	24
Lion Rampant	5
Wings of War	4
Dragon Rampant	3
Saga	3
Blood Eagle	2
Chain of Command	2
Hordes of the Things	2
Mordhiem	2
Star Wars Attack Wing	2
Algernon Gets it Off 2nd ed	1
Beyond the Gates of Antates	1
Blood & Faith	1
Bolt Action	1
Check your 6 Jet Age	1
Custers Last Stand	1
DBR	1
Frostgrave	1
Hail Caeser	1
Hammerin Iron	1
Irregular Wars:Conflict at the World's End	1
Otherworld	1
Renaissance Warfare	1
Team Yankee	1
War of the Ring	1

100 Years of War Sunday 25th September 2016

I am organising this event again.  If you are interested in taking part or putting on a game please drop me a note.


Following the A Hundred Years of War label will take you to posts from previous years


Some notes follow:

Jointly sponsored by Falkirk and District Wargames Club and the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers – now in its 4th^d year

 Date: Sunday 25^th September 2016

Timing: 10:00 – 17:00 (2 gaming sessions with a short break in between for lunch)

 Venue:  Newlands Community Centre, Montgomery Street, Grangemouth, FK3 8QR

 Cost: Free – tea and coffee (and possibly biscuits) will be available without charge from the kitchen

Notes for Those putting on games

Each game should be capable of being run in full in one of the 2 gaming sessions and will normally only run once.  The expectation is that games will be run by individuals or small groups.  Think participation game rather than demonstration game.  Any system from 1900 onwards, land, sea or air.

Those taking part are very likely to be experienced wargamers but may have not played the rules before – indeed people use this as an opportunity to have a go at a rules system that they have not used before so please bear this in mind when designing your scenarios

 Tables and boards are available as is some club terrain if needed

 If you put a game on hopefully you will be able to take part in another game during the other session and you will have first choice of which game you want to take part in

 Please contact Dave Knight with details of the game as soon as you can.  An initial statement of intent is helpful but please forward details of those putting the game on. period, scale, board size and number of participants as soon as you have them worked out and by mid-September at the latest if at all possible.   An example would be John Smith and Joe Brown, Normandy 1944, 15mm, Chain of Command 6 x 4 table 2 – 6 participants.  Also advise if you expect to play in the other session.

             Notes for game participants

You will have the opportunity to play 2 games during the day, although if you can only make one session this is no problem.

There will be an opportunity for you to state a preference of which games you want to take part in nearer the time, but please be aware that your first choice may not be available and you may be placed in a different game. If this causes you a major issue please have a quiet word on the day.

Part of the fun is to mix people from different clubs and for you to have a chance to play something new, but the primary aim is for us all to have 2 fun games so no strict rules apply other than normal sensible behaviour.

Mid Year update

Against my annual target of 100 games I have managed 59 so broadly on track but still pretty challenging as December is usually a write off and I have (non wargaming) holiday weeks to take yet.

What has helped has been a playing much more DBA – Monday saw another 3 games.  It was my regular last Monday in the month DBA/HotT  event but this time we down to just myself and Dave P.  No matter as we had 3 interesting games with me using Romans against his recently acquired Cartheginians.  It ended up 2 -1 to myself – I was a bit reckless with my general in the last game.

Last Saturday I attended the Lakeland Phoenix show event at Penrith.  Not a bad start for a new show – I am sure it has the potential to grow in future years.  I had a quick run through with Beyond the Gates of Atares – think SF Bolt Action.  I don’t think I was in the target audience as we ran through it all in not much more than 10 minutes – I would have appreciated more of a game.  I then played an absolutely excellent Lion Rampant Lord of the Rings game recreating the final scene before the Fellowship went their different ways.  The aim was to get the Hobbits to the boats and thanks to some good rolls I managed to get them all away.  Great fun – well done to Matt who played it through 9 times on the day – I have suggested that he might like to bring a game to Carronade.

Onwards and upwards – just another 41 games to play this year!

Mordhiem Round 2

We all went down to the woods on Monday and the big surprise was the effectiveness of the wandering Dryads who took out more opponents than the 6 warbands together.  I only lost 3 figures all to one wandering Dryad.


My forces reputation obviously preceded them as almost all the other warbands headed for the hills after minimal contact.  Even the hated Witchhunters whom we had been hoping to get stuck into ran off rather than fight us.


There was talk of a casket of treasure but we never saw it, probably just duff intel.

Dance of Power First Campaign Season

Red Orm's fame preceded him to the lands of the Anglo Saxons who were happy to pay him and his raiders off further boosting his already impressive reputation.


'As it should be' he mused on his return - 'now where to go a Viking next?'

DBA/HotT good SAGA bad

Last Monday saw the first of our 'last Monday in the month' DBA/HotT events.


Myself, Frazer, Gordon and Andy K got through 3 games of 25mm DBA. We played a round Robin with Andy and Frazer winning 2 games each  and myself and Gordon 1.  We still have a lot to learn but it was fun.  I got 2 new armies (to DBA) on the table, Early Achamenid Persian and Seleucid.


The 4 playing 15mm fantasy were Andy W, who provided the figures, John M, Ric and Doug.  I think they only got 2 games in but once again all seemed satisfied. 


The next event is scheduled for 27th June.


Bad news on the SAGA front, 2 Mondays with work commitments and other campaign nights mean that I am probably going to have to pay Danegeld for the first round!


Looking forward to tomorrow as we are taking a couple of games to the Wartime Experience event at the National Museum of Flight.

SAGA game plus DBA plan

On Monday I had a final rehearsal game of SAGA before the campaign kicks off.  It was my opponent's first game of SAGA and I of course took advantage and soundly thrashed him.  To be fair rolling lots of 6s helped.  I now have a catch phrase for the campaign 'The Viking Way'.  This means that my plan is to ignore scenario's victory points etc. and just get stuck in at every opportunity.  We will see how well that approach works! 


We have a good turn out for Monday 30th and our first DBA/HotT night.  There are 4 playing 25mm DBA and 4 15mm HotT.  I have been working up some new armies so we have Achemenid Persian v Hoplite Greek and Seleucid v Roman. Although most of the figures are painted some need finishing off and others based up - DBA has certainly increased my output compared to previous years.  I will probably bring along another couple of armies in case anyone else wants to join in.

Blog Relaunch

The blog has been very quiet recently – largely due to my difficulty in getting pictures onto it.  Some time ago I found that I was unable to post photos saved on my laptop onto the blog.  This was compounded more recently when I could not even download photos from my camera to the laptop.  I am afraid that I have very little patience with computer issues and when a couple of attempts to fix these issues failed I have simply parked them for another day.

So what has changed?  Well firstly I have made a resolution to have another serious go at solving these problems.  More importantly I want to record my progress on current projects and the blog is the best place to do that. So these projects are:

Mordhiem campaign.  This will be my second campaign of this system at the Falkirk Club.  The games are always relaxed and fun.  I picked up some old citadel medieval/fantasy types at the Carronade flea market for a song (nicely painted as well) so these have formed the basis of my Marienburger warband.  We had our first outing on Monday with 6 of us on the table with a simple treasure hunt.  I paired off against Andy’s Skaven and we quickly knocked each other to pieces.  I departed first with no treasure quickly followed Andy who did rather better – however in the post game phase Andy lost 3 killed whilst the worst that happened to me was that one of my heroes was knocked stupid.  Kev and his Undead were the winners.  Next game 20^th June.

SAGA campaign.  Tim, another Falkirk club member, picked up the SAGA campaign system pre release at Salute and has organised 8 of us to fight it out over 6 seasons.   I had the figures, have played a couple of games which were quite fun so decided to give it a go.  It looks as if it will be June before the first game.  One added bonus is that with the exception of Tim I have not played any of the participant before, some of whom have only been down to the club a couple of times.  Playing new people is always fun.

DBA gaming.  This one is not a campaign, more an opportunity to get a lot of myf25mm figures on the table for the first time in years.  This has also involved a little bit of painting and basing resulting in me being my most productive for years.  I ran a fun tournament back in April where I provided the 12 armies and it was well received.  This also resulted in me getting some contact at the Glasgow Phoenix club and visiting them a couple of times which I very much enjoyed.  I have a plan to play DBA (and HotT) at Falkirk on the last Monday of the month for the remainder of the year and am hoping to get a good turnout on the 30^th May.  All welcome, by the way, whether Falkirk club members or not.

Jason and the Argonauts.  This is the one that I am most excited about.  I am a member of the Society of Ancients and the last 2 issues have included the first parts of a series on the classical Greek story.  For some reason this has really caught my imagination.  As well as a lot of background information the articles include ‘actual’ and what if scenarios with maps and army lists for use with the Hordes of the Things system.  There were 3 such in the first article and 6 in the second.  My rather ambitious plan is to follow the series through to the end refighting all the battles hopefully several times.    More on my progress in a future blog.

Thanks for reading – sorry about the lack of pictures – hopefully that will be sorted before too long.

 

I'm organising a friendly 25mm DBA 3.0 tournamet

It will be held at the Falkirk club's usual venue on Sunday 24th April from10:00 to 17:00.


I will be providing historically matched opposing armies with fixed terrain and the players will rotate around the tables


It's friendly because none of the players taking part have that much experience with the rules and it is really an excuse for us all to play a few games and for me to get my 25mm figures on the table.


The title of the event is Antonine's Folly  which is the same name as I used for the Impetus competitions that I used to run - this one is definitely DBA 3.0!


There is enough interest so far to mean that this event will run but there is plenty of space for more participants.


Please contact me if you are interested in taking part

2016 plan

Simply put get more done!  So (a) more time on the enjoyable stuff, (b) do the necessary but less enjoyable stuff quicker and (c) do a lot less of the time wasting stuff.

In the wargaming context this means (a) play more games, (b) finally get the attic fully organised so I know what I have got and can find it quickly and (c) cut down internet browsing significantly.

On the games front my aim is to hit the magic 100 games played this year.  This basically means taking every opportunity to get games in.  For instance in 2015 I attended 6 shows and played 4 games.  I could probably have played 14 and certainly at least 12.  Fit another couple of shows in and I could get close to 20.

It is not all about games at shows of course.  Applying the get more done principles to my non wargaming life should free up time to look for other opportunities without unduly impacting my family life – my wife is very understanding about my hobby time but I certainly don’t want to take that for granted. 

It is not all about quantity of course – quality is just as important.  I hope to get involved in more campaigns at the club (Falkirk and District) and perhaps even run one myself.   Also a good number of historical refights.   I am running a DBA competition for the first time (April 24^th) which I am looking forward to and expect to run 100 Years of War again in September.

More blogging would also be good and I want to write an article or two for the publications of the various societies of which I am a member.

So here is looking forward to a good (perhaps very good) year.  I hope all the readers of the blog are able to do all they set out to do in 2016 as well.   Happy New Year!