Hopalong Hoplites

Hi,

Despite the ravages of a miserable cold, I finished up a unit of hoplites for the Pyrrhic list.







This unit is a bit of a cheat, actually. The figures and sheild designs are more appropriate for an early persian war or Peloponesse era army. The base will eventually make it's way into the planned Spartan list as allied hoplites, once I get my hands on some Itallioate hoplites to replace them. In the meantime, however, I've got three bags of early hoplites to use, so these fellas will do just fine.

On another note, I've finished up a unit of 9 soviet shermans. While these were orignially planned for my late latmented army, they're now redundant. I'm in process of flogging them on Ebay. Take a look if you're interested.

I might take a break from the 15mm stuff to do a little Dystopian Wars stuff, before getting back to the historicals again.

First game of (Basic) Impetus

Hi,

So, yeah. I'm hooked.

Got in my first game of Basic Impetus last night against JJMicromegas of the THMGS last night. J was kind enough to supply the figs, and we played Polybian Romans (he) vs. Pyrrhic (me). He forgot to bring the elephant, however, to which I credit my rather convincing defeat.



As an aside, when I told the wife about forgetting the elephant, she laughed. Occasionally, one bumps into the non-gamer perspective on things.

Despite the fact that we spent a good chunk of the game either looking stuff up or figuring out all the stuff we'd already gotten wrong, I had a blast. There are a number of issues we need ot look up, and I'll need to read the rules again, but we will definitely be getting in more games. I think our little demo may also have piqued the interest of some other people who were there last night. I get the feeling there's a pool of potential ancients gamers out there waiting for the right ruleset to come along.

As for the game itself, it mostly involved me being ground down by romans. We kept terrain to a minimum for simplicity's sake, and started from here:



He's got a boatload of Romans flanked by skirmishers, with cavalry behind. I've got (bottom to top), my heavy cav, Itallian hoplites, pikes, Oscans, and then Tarantine and Itallian cavalry at the top, with skirmishers in front. In the basic game, the option for skirmishers and light cav to flee / evade frontal attack doesn't appear to exist, so our skirmish screens mostly moved up, and then took pot shots at opponents causing the occasional disruption.



I charged my heavy cavalry on the left into his skirmishers:



. . . and got absolutely no hits.



Believe it or not, this turned into a couple rounds of grind before his cavalry counter charged (we need to check if you can interpenetrate into melee).

On the right, my cavalry block charged. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with light cav in the Basic version of the game. My Tarantines don't have javelins like they do in the full version, and can't evade like in the full version. Mostly, they seem to just be crappy cavalry, with the predictable result that they were ground down by the romans, who then went after my Itallian cavalry in behind.



In any event, the real battle was in the centre.

Roman republican maniples are hard. In fact, anything with a VBU of 6 or more is just sick, as it makes it difficult to make damage stick unless you hit them with an enormous number of dice. Add in the potential effect of the pila (which in this game was inefective except when he needed it most), and you've got a solid combo. One on one, none of my infantry match up - damaging Romans is a matter of luck, which means I can't count on it over the long term.

The best charge I got off was a deep unit of pike, supported by Itallian hoplites, against a single Roman unit, and I had the charge. On defense, however, he throws three dice for his pila, and got enough hits to disrupt me, which imposes a -1, plus the loss of my Impetus bonus. That brought the fight down to (IIRC) 7 dice to his six. He got two hits, I got none, and with my lower starting VBU, my front pike unit degraded quickly. Once that happened, he was able to move up and start grinding down what was left.



I think some of the observers were impressed by the fact that things get destroyed in Impetus. There's a clash, grind, tipping point / destroyed feel to the combat dynamics that people said they hadn't encountered with ancient gaming before.

In the full version of the game, I can see how having plenty of skrimishers and light cav, or missile troops, could help disrupt the Roman line prior to engaging them, but I'm still working out how to do it with the basic rules.

Good game overall, though already I'm making a list of things we missed. The basic rule in BI seems to be that if something would cause disruption, and you're already disrupted, you can't do it (for eg. a wheel). Also, infantry charging cavalry don't get an Impetus bonus. Also, you can't interpenetrate a unit in melee. I'm sure there's other things as well.

One last comment. The figures were using were the old Ral Partha true 25mm. I can't remember the last time I saw figs at this scale, and I'm wondering why people ever moved away from them. They have the same sort of appeal as 15mm for me - big enough to reward detailed attention, but small enough that you get the feel of a big battle. Pose range was a little limited, but lovely little figs. Thanks again to J for bringing them, to the Dueling Grounds for use of the space, and to the THMGS for use of terrain.

That's heavy, man . . .

Hi,

It seems I've caught the painting bug. Having finished off the first unit of pike for my Pyrrhic army, I then proceeded to paint up these Macedonian / Epirote heavy cavalry:







Impetus Unit Type: CP
Base Size: 8cm x 6cm
Manufacturer: Old Glory 15mm

The initial game plan was make this a more colourful unit than the pike - which vary from figure to figure but use the same palette throughout. I was initially going to colour coordinate between horse and rider, but found it made the unit lack cohesion, so experimented with swapping them around. As it stands, each rider has colours found on at least two others. Not sure if I'm sold on the final effect, but what the hey, I'm experimenting.

I also cheated a little on the figures themselves. Two of the riders are actually on persian horses. I wanted to distinguish this unit of CP from the unit of Itallian CM I'll be doing later. My plan is to use undbarded horses for the latter, which limited my choices for this unit to "barded" horses, of which I only had two poses for the greeks. I figure we're tlaking about a generation past Alexander, so equipment styles could easily move around, especially given the disruption of the Diadochi conflicts.

One of the things I'm finding interesting is that there is a huge range of possible units in the Pyrrhic list - heavy, medium and light cavalry, heavy foot in deep, and deeper units, light foot, skirmishers, elephants. Pretty much everything but chariots, which means being able to distinguish between units at a glance will be important. My plan for basing at this point is to go with the following system.

For infantry, 12 figs per base for super-heavies (really dense formation like pike), 10 for heavies, 8 for lights, 4 for skirmishers. For cavalry, I'll go 6 figures for super-heavies (fully armoured cataphracts, ordonnence knights, etc.), 5 for heavies, 4 for medium, 3 for lights. Keeping basing standard will help with identifying unit types on the table. I've also decided that although it's more figure intensive, I'll go full size for the rear components of deep units - it'll just look cooler. I'm also going to base commander figs separately, so I have to option to attach them to different units as I learn to play the game.

Next up I'm painting up some soviet Shermans I had half finished, and they'll go up on the auction block, followed by some hoplites for the Pyrrhic list. I'm also hoping to get a trial game of Impetus in Wednesday night, so hopefully I can get some pics up later this week.

Puttering, podcasts and paint, oh my!

Hi,

Just thought I'd touch base. Soviets sold, not as high as I'd hoped, but I still got a decent price. They're winging their way to sunny California as I write this, and I hope they like their new home.

As noted previously, this leaves me with a clean slate. I have no painted armies. The result, predictably, has been a feverish scouring of both rulebooks and the internet to decide what I'm doing next, despite the long list of projects already waiting for me. The local game club has been talking about doing something with the Lasalle rules for the 2012 Borodino anniversary. The thought of this managed to devour several lunches worth of internet time, as I compared the relative merits of different 15mm figure ranges before remembering that a) we're talking about something a year and a half away, and b) right now, I have no money for new toys.

What I have been tinkering with is my first unit for Impetus - successor pike for my Pyrrhus army. Borrowing an idea for format from JET at Geektactica:








Impetus Unit Type: FP
Base Size: 8cm x 3cm
Manufacturer: Old Glory 15mm

I quite like these OG15mm figs. They have good detail, a reasonable range of poses, and mix well with the other 15mm figs I have, from Xyston. The plan for the basing is to reflect southern Itally and Scicily, where Pyrrhus did most of his romping around. I might want to warm up the colours a little, but for a kind of baked earth effect, it seems to work. This is the front unit of what will eventually be a three-deep "large base" of pike. There's actually very little info on what Pyrrhus' forces looked like, especially his Epirotes, but from what I've been able to dig up, the core of his forces were actually a gift from Ptolemy of Egypt.

For the first unit of pike, I figured I'd go with some classic Macedonian-style colours and insignia, hence the yellow and red, and the use of the Macedonian star throughout. I might add in some Ptolemeic sheild insignia as I move into the rear units. I've read that the trident was a common image for the Epirotes, and that Pyrrhus had a symbol he used, though I've not been able to find an example of the latter. I'll likely use those for sheilds in the planned second base of pike.

These were fun to paint, and had me stretching a little. While I've painted lots of 15mm, it's mostly been WWII, with fairly drab colours, so learning to paint bright colours like red and yellow has been interesting. I suspect I'm going to end up somewhere between the techniques I use for 28mm and those I developed for 6mm. Faces, sheilds, etc. will get a little more attention to smooth colour transition, but I'll have to pay attention to contrast and tone to make the smaller figures pop and make detail stand out. I've already noticed that the highlighting on the yellow, especially the sheilds, seems to wash out in the photos.

The pike base has the added advantage of being the most figure dense base that appears in the army - everything else involves painting the same number or less. Next up for Pyrrhus will be some cavalry, either Macedonian or Itallian Greek, with the plan to work towards a 300 point list. Once that's done, I'll get to work on 300 points of spartans, and then use those armies to try and hook in some locals for a game.

Having been doing some painting, I've also been getting caught up on my podcasts. I assume if you're reading this you're aware of the interetherwebs, but on the off chance you're unfamiliar, think of them as a radio show on the internet. I've fallen into the habit of listening to them while painting, or sometimes on the commute to work. There are a number of them out there, and I though it was high time I gave them their propers. The d6 Generation and Meeples and Miniatures are both excellent podcasts that cover a wide range of the hobby. I painted a good chunk of my Soviets listeming to What Would Patton Do, and for Warhammer, there's Podhammer. The latter tend to earn their R rating at times, but include good insight into the dynamics of the game.

FMB

Now what?

Hi all,

With the sale of my painted FoW soviets, I find myself in a strange situation. For the first time in about a decade, I am without a painted army, from any game system, to play with. I'll likely be selling the Bretonnians I've painted so far as well, leaving me with a clean slate. What this means for the blog is that the focus is likely to shift from AARs and game coverage to painting and army design / construction. Although I don't have an army to play with, I do have enough lead and plastic kicking around to hold the Keeper at bay in purpetuity. Along with the cossacks I mentioned for FoW and the Dystopian Wars stuff that just came in, I have plenty more Bretonnians, God knows how many 40k orks, a good sized Tau force, and even the beginnings of a Beastman force.

In addition, I have this:



These are the results of an impulse buy with a happy ending. A while back, I picked up a copy of the Malifaux rulebook and a starter box. I really liked the minis, and thought the game would be interesting. Unfortuneately, no one in the area was playing, and I never did much with the figs. By the time the game caught on, I had lost interest. A few weeks back, however, I set up a trade with a fellow on Btown - one I've traded with in the past, and who has always been a pleasure to deal with. Turns out, in addition to the models we agreed to in return for the malifaux lot, he sent a pile more. Add in some Xyston Spartans and OG Mongols I had lying around, and I have the makings of a number of ancient armies, for, say, Impetus. From what I gather, I have enough figs to do 500 point impetus lists for Sparta (or other hoplite-era greeks), Pyhrrus, and at least one successor list, plus possibly the mongols. Which is nice, because the first three, at least, are things I've wanted to do for a while.

I'm also hitting a point in my life where I just do not have the time to paint for the sake of "getting it on the table", or what the army I'm playing with "needs". I think that's part of what burned me out on Warmachine. The game started to feel like MtG with miniatures, rather than the game it was when I became aware of it (around the release of Escalation). Given the demands on my time, which are only going to expand in the future, I think I'm going to work on a new painting ethos: paint what I want, as best as I can. There are also a number of projects I want to do before I die (the Geek Bucket List? Good idea for another blog post). I figure it makes sense to combine the two goals.

One thing that's been on my list for a while is to try Impetus. JET, over at Geektactica has me thoroughly intrigued with this game. In the past, there have been two factors discouraging me from getting into ancient gaming: the rules, and the lack of opponents. While I dabbled in DBA a while back, and I enjoyed it, the game never felt "right" to me. The abstraction that makes the game so simple and cool to play, coupled with the small army size, meant the game never felt grand in scale; I always felt I was playing DBA, rather than fighting the battles of the ages.

Up until Impetus came out, I'd have said that DBA was the best of the ancients lot, despite it's flaws. Everything else out there either felt like a 3-D Avalon Hill game, or Warhammer without all the neat stuff. Impetus, on the other hand, just looks cool, and there's a guy at the local club who's interested in trying it out, at least the basic version. That more or less removes the existing barriers to putting ancients painting on the agenda - now that I have a rule system that seems appealing, and a stack of lead, there's no reason not to indulge. For starters, given the resources available to me, I'm looking at:

a. A hoplite era Greek army. Ever since I read the Peter Connolly books published by MacDonald Educational as a kid, I was hooked on the Greeks. It's the sheilds. I mean, who could resist painting a pile of guys that looked like this:



With the mass of hoplites in my possession, I can do this, and still have figures left over for other projects. The three Impetus lists I'm looking at here are the Spartan, Magna Graecia and Syracuse lists, but I'll likely settle on the Spartans.

b. A Pyrrhic army. I love the idea of fusion forces - armies with a little bit of everything. It's why I was looking at Carthaginians when first I was looking at Impetus. The Pyrrhic armies, however, are the ultimate in mix and match. Greeks, Itallians, hoplites, phalangites, elephants, Oscans, Tarantines, Macedonian style cavalry, the whole shebang. Add in the character of Pyrrhus himself, the guy who won every battle but lost the war, and in the doing knocked about most of Italy and Sicily, and you've got something worth doing.

c) Indo-greeks successors, for starters. I'm fascinated by the post-Alexandrian period in India. The durability of the Greek successor states, their ongoing conflict with local Indian powers, and their eventual subsumption by the Yueh-Chi / Hun / Hephthalite / Kushans makes for a pretty cool story. They also have the same sort of appeal that the Pyrrhic army has - a little bit of everything, and one force easily morphs into another. I have enough phalangites and Hellenistic figures for both Pyrrhus and the indo greeks. The indian units for the latter can be expanded into a full Indian army, or combined with other options for a Hephthalite / Kushan force. Kurasan and Xyston both make lovely Indians, btw.

There are other projects I'd like to do if these three leave me with a historicals bug. Matched Crusader and Saracen armies, Nevsky-era Russians, Samurai, Warring States Chinese. Basically about 15 or 20 years of geek backlog. On top of that, there's the FoW Cossacks, the Bretonnians, and one of these days, my 40k ork army. Once upon a time, I used to have a huge Ork army. Then I sold it (which in many ways can be considered the start date of the issues prompting me to sell my Soviets). I want another one, and this time, I want to really see how far I can push my painting.

I think I will start with building towards two 15mm Impetus lists, one Spartan, and one Pyrrhic. At 300 points, the minimum unit numbers are halved, and you only need one general, plus, as JET has demonstrated, it still makes for a solid game.

Shameless self promotion

Hi,

So, the Soviets, in all their glory, are up on ebay. The whole shebang looks like this:




And a teaser close-up:



It frankly guts me to sell these, but like I mentioned in my last post, I've found myself in a situation where every bit of cash helps. Please do spread the word on the auction if able and willing - aside from my obvious interest in attracting bidders, it is a nice lot of Soviets, had a fair bit of time lavished on it, and I'd like to see them go to a good home.