Painting in September

 Here is September's offerings, all fantasy this month. I suppose most of my painting of late has been in the fantasy/VSF/Sci-fi genres (but then I do already have large historical armies!).

I was planning to continue with my 28mm historical re-basing project, but I got distracted, so that's on hold until October.

Firstly, three elves painted up as Alfar for my Jotunheim setting. Lovely minis, these are 90's era designs from Heartbreaker, sculped by Phil Lewis (or maybe Chaz Elliott?).

Three more demons for the expanding "Reign in Hell" collection, all from the Blacklist Games fantasy kickstarter (the one the actually fulfilled!).

A bit off scenery for "Reign in Hell" (or Jortunhein) mammoth/dinosaur/big monster ribs. 3d prints from Headbunny Games.

A pair of sabretooth cats, also from Headbunny games. I have put them on snow bases for now, but I may change that depending on which setting they end up in.

Three more Heartbreaker elves, these are joining my Middle Earth Silvan Elves.

My plans for this month were derailed by discovering the superb Myths of Albion range by Conquest Games. In my defence, I was just browsing on the internet when I saw them. My wife looked over my shoulder and said "Those look good, if you like them why don't you get some?" 

That's why I married that woman! Although I suspect she thought I'd just get one or two packs.

But I'm a wargamer!😂

So here are the Legions of the Green Man. The Green Man, Defender of the Wild summons the spirits of forest, swamps and mountains to his aid.

The Green Man himself, a druidic elemental being.

Dryads, defenders of the sacred groves.

Tree men, spirits with the strength and power of ancient tree roots.

Marsh spirits, no namby-pamby Will o' the Wisp luring unwary travellers to a water demise, these beasties grab them by the throat and drag them in!

There are a couple more packs I still need to paint. I bought these with no idea of what I'd use them for, but I've already had ideas for a Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign that will feature them. I am also toying with the idea of boosting them up to make a 300 point Midgard army!

War of the Worlds Survivors 7

 We played the next game in the post Martian Invasion campaign, unfortunately, without Colin this time. As a change from the countryside or ruin villages, I went for an urban setting.

It was a completely different experience for the two players. Mark advanced quickly, but this drew the attention of the various Shades wandering through the streets. He found himself bogged down in a prolonged melee for the first couple of turns, unable to search any of the potential loot points. Mark's combat rolls were fairly average for a time, he kept knocking the Shades down, but they kept getting up again and keeping him distracted. Henry, on the other hand, avoided getting into hand to hand combat and rolled some really good scores in shooting (helped by my inability to roll anything over 2 for the first three turns!) This allowed Henry the opportunity to snatch most of the available loot.

Henry also scored the first kill of the campaign on a Martian war machine, admittedly it was only one of the smaller Scuttlers, but it shows that the players perception that the machines were unkillable wasn't correct! I wonder if this will impact on the player's behaviour in future games?

By the time any of the larger machines appeared, the players had searched all the possible loot points, so everyone very quickly legged it off the table.

Here are a few pictures from the game.

The quiet before the storm, a view through the peaceful streets, well peaceful apart from the occasional Shade wandering around.

An overview of the table.

A Martian Scuttler turns up early.

Mark's leader has to resort to using the butt of his shotgun as the Shades close in.

And more are on their way.

No helped by the rifleman covering him running out of ammo on his first shot!

In the meantime, having set up a crossfire on the Scuttler, one of Henry's party takes aim and must have hit something, because the machine topples over.

Mark keeps knocking Shades down, but they keep getting back up before he can deliver the coup de grace!

As more of Henry's party pour lead into the fallen Scuttler, someone hits a vital spot and it bursts into flame! (It doesn't matter how much tech and armour it has, when he rolled a 6 and I rolled a 1, there was only one result!)

With the threat neutralised, one of the party breaks cover and runs for the next loot point to see what they can scavenge.

Having finally finished off the Shades around them, Mark advanced to try and at least find something for his troubles. Another Shade appears and Mark's leader lets fly with his shotgun, only to run out of ammo. No problem. he had a unused action to reload....then realised his leader didn't have any spare ammo left!

Now some serious opposition turned up, in the shape of a Stalker. Both plyers decided it was time to quit and started retreating. It took after Henry's party, which led to a running gunfight through the streets, before they managed to get off table safely.

An interesting game, with very different results for the two players. Mark moved up first, which drew the roaming Shades down on him. His failure to kill any of them quickly, pinned him in melee for the first few turns, allowing Henry to scoop up most of the available loot in relative safety. In a change from his usual cautious behaviour, Henry aggressively engaging the fighting machines proved to be a successful tactic, achieving the first kill on a Martian machine in the 7 games so far!

Of the 7 potential loot points on the table, Henry searched 5 of them and only one was a blank. On the other hand, Mark only searched 2 and one of those was a dud.

Punic Wars with Midgard Heroic Battles

 Keeping on with our attempts to try out as many of our existing ancient armies with Midgard, Colin brough over his Punic Wars Carthaginian and Roman 10mm armies last week.

We roll a die for the armies and I ended up with the Romans. This era army is quite limited in troop types, with only a handful of cavalry. Reading the list it seemed perfectly suited to fight historically and set up three ranks deep. Apart from the fact that the Carthaginians would have then easily outflanked me and attacked from both sides (and probably the rear!). My other change would be how to counter the Carthaginian elephants, a unit which had proven decisive in all our Sassanid/Roman games.

The Roman army advancing in turn one.

Whilst the Carthaginians wait6 in a nice straight line!

With those nasty elephants, flanked by Numidian light cavalry.

In the Carthaginian turn, Colin started by having his priest read the Omens, which were not good and immediately reduced his Reputation scare! The Carthaginians advance along their line, the only action being an exchange of missiles between skirmishers on the flanks.

In turn two the Roman velites got more aggressive, charging into the slingers opposing them and destroying the unit.

On the other flank they ganged up on the Numidian horsemen, inflicted casualties.

In an attempt to gain the upper hand on this flank, Colin charged his cavalry into the Roman line and the Numidians into one of the velites. Having pinned the skirmishers in place, he then charged his elephants in as a secondary unit in the melee. He knew that if he had gone in first with the elephants, I would have evaded the charge, sneaky!

Unfortunately, his dice rolling did not match his planning and my velites won the melee, destroying the Numidians. As the elephants were a secondary unit in the melee, they also were forced back...

,,,into the spearmen behind them and failing their command test so they took a wound from disorder. Normally the nearby general could have used one of his mighty Deeds to allow a reroll of the test, but elephants have the Aloof trait, so cannot be influenced in this way. In the nearby cavalry melee the Carthaginians lost and were forced back, pursued by the Romans.

In turn three the Roman cavalry kept up the pressure, whilst the unengaged Roman cavalry swung around behind the melee, to start to move up on the elephants' (now open) flank. The Roman velites moved closer to the elephants and bombarded them with missile, trying to force another retreat.

In the melee the remaining Carthaginian cavalry  fell to the Roman onslaught, with inflicting any more casualties on the Romans.

In the Carthaginian phase the Gauls rushed forward but the attempt to restore their flank was only partially successful. The spearmen behind the elephants managed to move across to block the left hook from the Roman cavalry, but the elephants failed to move. Now they had taken casualties they need to pass a 3+ command test to move, they rolled a 1! At the end of turn three things were looking a bit dodgy for the Carthaginian player, not only were both flanks threatened, he was down to 4 Reputation to the Roman score of 10.

In turn four I just went for it, with an all-out attack along the Roman line.

The Carthaginian centre was forced back, despite Colin throwing just about every general and champion into the fray. Elsewhere the Gaul's lack of armour was telling, even when they held the Roman charge, they took wounds at a much faster rate than their opponents.

The melee round in the Carthaginian phase just completed things, with half the Carthaginian army just melting away!

At the end of turn 4 it was game over, the Carthaginians now had zero Reputation to the Roman 11. An overwhelming victory to Rome.

A lot of laughter and fun in this game, despite the result. We also learned that the counter to elephants was to hit them with skirmishers - historical tactics do really work with these rules.

Reign in Jotunheim (Hell) 2

 Ross and I played the second game in our Jotunheim campaign using Reign in Hell rules from Snarling Badger Studio. I rolled the Relic Hunt scenario, where we both have to collect as many relics as possible in 5 turns.

The table set up, Ross' Lords of Hell are on the left and my Demented cabal opposite.

The Demented Leader and Devout advance on the closest relic.

The faster moving Lords of Hell rush forward, their leader reaching their closest relic and collecting it.

As the Lords of Hell close in on another relic, the Demented Leader leave his relic for the Devout to collect and advances. In the background the two little Mephet Demons can be seen in aerial combat over the last relic.

Too late, a Tentacle Demon collects another relic for the Lords of Hell.

The Demented Spiked Demon uses his impaling charge to crash into the Tentacle Demon, inflicting a lot of wounds!

The Lords of Hell Mephet, despite his wounds, manages to break off clutching the relic.

At this point Ross could have pulled back and consolidated his position, holding three of the four relics. Instead, he tried to be clever. His leader has the ability to activate another demon after his round, potentially jumping ahead of the usual activation sequence. He decides to charge his Leader into the Demented Leader, then immediately follow up with his Devout Demon, hopefully killing my leader with the double attack. I good idea....against anyone except my leader! The Demented Leader has a Poisoned Soul, which means any 6s rolled in defence not only remove 1 of the hits on himself, but also inflict 2 hits on the attacker. So after the first round of combat, the Demented leader had taken 2 wounds and the Lords of Hell Leader took 4!

Now the Devout Demon charged in and inflicted a further 3 wounds.

But I rolled three 6s in defence. this removed all the wounds I had received and inflicted 6 wounds on the devout. Additionally the Demented cabal have Unpredictable Defence, if any demon rolls a triple on defence combat roll, they inflict that number of wounds on the attacker. This meat another 6 wounds on the Devout, killing him outright!!!!

My leader then attacked Ross' leader in my next activation , inflicting more wounds. I had the next activation, so my Devout charged into the fray.

With only 2 life left, the Lords of Hell Leader fell to the onslaught. Ross had forgotten that the Leader was carrying one of the relics, which my leader now picked up from his mangled carcass.

With 4 of his warband now killed, to no loss on my side, Ross decided to pull back the demons carrying his other two relics and pushed forward his Slaughter Fiend to caver their retreat. He fell to the impaling charge of the Spined Demon, but the delay he caused prevented the Demented from closing with the survivors before the game end!

Another great game and a lot of fun. Much laughter on both sides, especially when I rolled that triple 6 in combat!😂

We are both looking forward to the next game.