Ochone! Ochone!

 Hi all,

My nefarious, Skeletor-worthy plans are showing fruit.  Actually managed to get the Cub to play some historicals, at his suggestion ;)  Broke out the Scots and Royalists for some Pikemans' Lament.  24 points.  We both had Pike with Shotte wings.  He had good dragoons and gallopers, I had okay trotters and dragoons, with an edge in numbers rather than quality.  As it was his first game, we played the simplest scenario, Ga Pa, which is basically about taking out opposing units, and protecting yours.

The Cub is rapidly emerging as the terrain maker in the family.  He spent a chunk of the Christmas holiday putting together stuff for the old GW Bretonnian jousting game (which he played out with the Puddin').  The Windmill was a kit he put together, and the the house he scratch-built.  

The game unfolded in three phases.  The first involved the Cub charging his elite gallopers into the guts of the Scot infantry (deployed on the right).

This turned out to be a pretty good plan, as he managed to shatter one shotte wing, and generally put the bulk of my Scots on their back foot.

I was able to drive his cavalry back, but he made morale rolls with distressing frequency, and was able to keep hammering them in on a regular basis.  This had the effect of both keeping me more or less on my side of the table, and getting some decent hits on my infantry.

In the meantime, he drove his infantry forward on my left.  We'd had a quick chat about how pike and shot units worked together in the period, along with game mechanics, and he'd clearly taken the conversation to heart, as he used his pike quite effectively to block my cavalry from his shot wings.

On the right, the remnants of his gallopers continued to stall a good chunk of my army, despite my swinging a unit of trotters across to reinforce.

At this point, the game swung solidly in his favour.  A couple of abysmal morale rolls in response to shooting sent my cavalry fleeing from the field, and the Cub was free to swing his infantry over to put more pressure on my right.

There were certainly some things I could have done better (particularly in the use of my dragoons and terrain), but it was a solid game, and the Cub played well.  He's familiar with the core mechanics from Dragon Rampant, and used his units together quite effectively, coordinating his shot with both the pike and various horse units at different times in the game.  I thought he did quite well, and earned the win.

It was such a delight to get to play historicals with him.  SciFi, and so some degree fantasy, remain his main interest, but here's hoping I can tempt him into the occasional game in future.  I suspect working up some more Vikings and French for a Lion Rampant game might help in that regard, so I will see what can be done there.

Almost . . . there . . . .

 Hi all,

We are well into the post-Christmas fugue state, in which the passage of time blurs, days become unknowable, and only the slowly-dwindling pile of leftovers marks the looming presence of real life.  Sooner or later, I'll snap out of it, and realize how much work has piled up over the holidays, but for now, I'm enjoying denial.  

Most of the haul.  Missing are some tins of preserved fish, and new whisky glasses.

Christmas was low-key, but fun.  We had a delayed Christmas dinner, as the Cub didn't join us until Boxing Day, but we made the most of it once he was here.  The kids, as usual, ended up with a pile of stuff, the Beloved got a mess of books, a rather snuggly sweater, and some films, and I even got a bit of geek-related gear in the form of a couple of Perry 100YW boxes.

Burgeoning Scots.

As far as the year goes . . . it went.  We continue to be (knock on wood) ridiculously fortunate here in Monkeyland, as we've had work that was both safe and secure throughout, and no one has caught the plague (despite a couple of near misses).  I can't pretend that going on two years of working from home, and relative-but-real social isolation, haven't taken a toll, but compared to a range of entirely probably "might have beens", we're doing okay.  I can only hope that we'll keep doing as well in the coming year.

Bulked out the Horse to 12 figures.  Or 2x6 for Pikemans' Lament.

Hobby's been fairly productive this year.  I've been more or less sticking to my "do what you feel like doing, and don't push it when you don't" approach, and have gotten a fair amount done as a result.  As predicted, ECW and 40k took the lead in terms of both gaming and painting, with AoS and 6mm showing some production, but less than expected.  Flames of War mostly fell off the radar (a lack of gaming opportunity meant a loss of interest), and some of my historical projects ended up advancing less than expected (notably Carthaginians).

Dragoons join the fray.

That said, I ended up close to 40 28mm cavalry figs, almost 200 28mm foot, and a selection of other things (itty-bitty ships, 6mm units, terrain, etc).  For me, that's pretty good productivity.  I may even have whittled down the lead pile slightly, depending on how one rates "non-standard" painting, like large figures and 6mm units.

The "full" unit of P&S, with bulked out pike, and be-flagged shotte.

I imagine this coming year will be much the same.  Likely projects include:

1. ECW.  This remains a strong contender for both painting and games.  I seem to able to maintain sufficient running interest in these that I basically alternate between them and other projects.  The Scots have been the primary beneficiaries, now that I have enough Royalists for an opposing force, and I've been both adding units, and expanding the ones I have.  I'm within striking distance of a Pike and Shot multi-unit batallion, and will treat myself to a command stand when that milestone is achieved.  Pikeman's Lament continues to give fun games, and I've begun exploring options for larger scale gaming in the period.

More Dragoons, and another pike unit should finish the first batallion off.

 2. 40k/AoS remain games I'm likely to get to play, and continue to enjoy to paint.  In addition, if you believe the internets, this year might be my GW annus mirabilis, as a number of the factions I play are expected to see new rules and figures.  These include Beasts of Chaos, Ogors, and World Eaters / Khorne, with prospects of a dedicated faction book for the latter.  I've begun cloning my organs in preparation for the financial hit, so am hopeful that the rumors pan out.  Failing that, the Cub remains an ethusiastic opponent, and I'll get in games with him while I can.

Going to need some more command bases.

3.   28mm Medievals.  There's a couple of variations here, but grouped together they make the period a likely prospect.  I continue to pick away at my vikings, and there's some local guys interested in gaming early medievals, so the prospect of some summer raiding is good.  I'm looking forward to getting some of the just-aquired Perrys done up, but gaming with them might have to wait until I can also get some opposition painted. Depending on how the year goes, 100YW could feature largely, but it's hard to predict right now.

Royalists.  Didn't really grow past the "starting opposition" stage, but who knows?

Less likely, but still possible, include:

4. Bolt Action.  I've got more than 500 points of Soviets painted up, and have enough bods left over to expand to 1000 points.  Action here will likely depend on gaming opportunities.  There are some local players, but getting games in will be very much dependant on the plague receding.  As we are (locally), at what is hopefully the height of an Omicron-driven case spike, prospects for games seem a little gloomy right now, but fingers crossed this year goes smoother than last.

Royalist dragoons.  Same figs, twice the floppy hats.

5.  6mm.  Blucher saw a fair bit of productivity at the start of last year, and I'm only a few units away from a small, but complete and playable, force of Russians.  I've also been thinking about digging into my SYW stuff of late.  The 6mm bug seems to strike me randomly, but I wouldn't rule it out.

They probably deserve the "bulking out" treatment.  I mean, the feathers alone . . . .

Beyond that, who can say? As I think I noted around this time last year, I'm learning not to look too far ahead these days.  There's enough instability flying about that predictions seem less useful than a willingness to adapt to what may come.  In the meantime, here in Monkeyland, life is pretty good; my family are here, we're all well, and I still have the opportunity to not only indulge my hobby, but to natter on about it to the ether ;)

As I'm not likely to post again before the New Year, best wishes to you all.  May the New Year bring you health, joy, and prosperity.

FMB

Last of the sun?

Hi all, 

September has been a busy month, with work ramping up again, the kids back to school, and much scurrying about getting the house ready for the 8 months of inclement weather we enjoy here in sunny Nova Scotia.  That said, I have been puttering away at the Bolt Action soviets when I can scratch together a few moments, and am getting close to 500 points of painted figures.  Once they're done, I'll throw up a post showing them off, along with a starter game I managed to cram in.

More recently, I was able to take advantage of a rare day of decent weather to get in a backyard game against Jura, once again taking the Covenanters and Royalists out for a spin with Pikeman's Lament.  Covenanters had two shot, and a unit apiece of trotters, dragoons, pike, and a regimental gun.  Royalists had two shot and a pike, and elite or veteran gallopers and dragoons.

Pictures courtesy of Jura, so from his side of the table.  Covenanters to the top, Royalists at the bottom.

This was one of those games where the activation mechanic of PL was visible.  For those of you unfamiliar with the system, units activate on a two-dice roll, different actions have different degrees of difficulty, and failure on a roll ends one's turn.  

Early in the game, Jura couldn't get his boys moving for love nor money (in point of fact, his gallopers opened things up with a blunder that sent them running away from the battle for a turn), but this evened out later in the game, when I had the same problem - I couldn't get my guys to attack on a couple of turns where it was critical for them to do so.

Festivities opened up on the right, with a clash of horse.  The Royalist elite gallopers had an advantage over the Covenanter trotters, who were sent packing on a bad morale roll.

As it happens, I quite like both PL and the "Rampant" series of sister games, in part because of this command friction mechanic.  That said, it can be mind-bogglingly frustrating at times, when your opponent presents you with a perfect opportunity, and your units Just. Won't. Act.  ;)

I imaging this kind of hair-pulling frustration isn't entirely unknown to actual field commanders.  What I like about the PL system is it's much more about managing a force, rather than controlling it.  You are constantly reacting to events and frictions in game, while still actively trying to implement a plan; there's an adaptive process throughout that keeps one thoroughly engaged.

Infantry begins to close.  Royalists have already sent packing one of the Covenanter shot wings.

We've been playing infrequently enough that we're still sticking to pretty basic scenarios, and haven't really brought in the more campaign-focused mechanics (like commander traits and experience).  I'd love to do that at some point, but as it goes right now, we often struggle to remember the point of the scenario.  The one we played, Patrol, was supposed to have us trying to get across the table, with a time limit.  We pretty much forgot about the latter element, and aside from Jura's dragoons, generally abandoned the "moving across" bit in favour of a slugfest.

Covenanters have some success in the middle, as they push back and rout the Royalist pike, but they're now flanked by a unit of Shotte.

By the end of the game, we were down to a couple of damaged units apiece, with everything else either routed or otherwise off the board.  Not to worry, however.  It was great to actually get minis on the table, including a couple of units that hadn't seen action yet (the dragoons on both sides, for eg.). 

End game.  For a scenario that was supposed to be a running battle, it turned out to be a meatgrinder.

I'm more or less satisfied with the Royalist opposition force for now, so I think my ECW efforts will refocus on the Covenanters, with an eye to grow them to something closer to small Pike and Shotte scale games.  With the Bolt Action Soviets close to playable, ECW will likely return to the painting queue, along with the victrix vikings I picked up a while back.  There's a few folks in town with vikings, and the Cub has inherited both my old Wargames Factory stuff, and added to them some fantasy elements for use in Dragon Rampant.  Vikings and Scots will likely see me busy through Christmas, at which point, no doubt, Santa will be the Magpie enabler he so often is.  Normans in Italy is something I've thought about for a while (and those new Victrix normans are looking AWFULLY nice), and there's always the prospect of some other craziness.  Victrix adding Persians to it's range is making it harder to resist the idea of an Antigonid force, for example . . . .

More fighters from a divided land

Hi all,

As I mentioned in the last post, I've been doing a bit of painting for my ECW stuff.  First up were some command stands for my completed shot wings.  When I did these initially, I just had them as troops, with flags and command elements in the pike core.  I like flags, however and am always looking for an excuse to get them on the table, so decided to add some to the shot as well.

In the process, I also discovered that along with the large core of Old Glory figs, I also have some Perrys in the mix.  The latter are a scootch bigger, but not enough to interfere with mixing, even on the same base.

I also did up a unit of Dragoons for the covenanters.  I went back and forth on the possible basing options for these.  In Pikeman's Lament, there's no rules distinction between dragoons on foot or mounted.  Effectively, they're assumed to be mounted when moving, and afoot when shooting.  Pike and Shotte, on the other hand, does distinguish between the two "modes".  As I'm effectively building "towards" a P&S force, I thought about doing both mounted and dismounted versions, but I quite liked how the mixed basing looks, and in the end, opted for that (with the use of a marker if/when I get to a larger force.

I also did up a unit for the Royalists.  Both are made from the Warlord dragoon box, with hat swaps to distinguish them.  I rather enjoyed these figs; they're nice sculpts, and the abundance of gubbins on the saddle packs reminded me quite a bit of the old Bretonnian questing knights.

A while back, I also finished up some Royalist horse.  They were completed in time for my backyard game earlier in the summer, but as they'd not had a close-up yet, it seemed overdue.

I've now got a "complete" force of covenanters for P&S, and am a base of shot away from the same for the Royalists.  Once the latter are done, I think I'll treat myself to a heavy gun, before moving on with more troops for the covenanters.  

FMB

Action at Sackville Creek

 Hi all,

Stop the presses, hold the ketchup, and pass the parcel, because an honest to gum, real-life, against a human with miniatures, HISTORICAL game just went down in Monkeyland.

Early stages.  Royalists attempt to seize the bridge.

Jura (with whom I've been playing C&C online, among other things) came over and we played a 20-point game of Pikeman's Lament.  It was particularly fitting, in that the bulk of the ECW stuff I have (all the Scots, and about half the Royalists) came from him in The Big Trade last fall (?  I'm losing track of time . . . ).  Having spent the winter beavering away, and finally finding a day that was both conducive and sunny, we set to in the back yard.  He took the perfidious Royalists, whilst I took the staunch defenders of Kirk and Covenant, i.e., the Scots.

Another angle of the early stages.  That one unit dragging behind just would not move.

While the Cavaliers are facing a fair whack of angry Scots.

We played the river crossing scenario, which I tweaked a little by adding a second crossing to our river (more of a creek, really), so we ended up with both a bridge and a ford.  Hills and forests made up the rest of the terrain, and I appropriated the Cub's house for the look of the thing.

Their first time on the table painted, however, so you can't blame them for being eager.

A certain amount of back and forthing left both units of horse somewhat battered.

We deployed in opposing corners, and set to.  The objective was to get as many units across the river as possible, whilst preventing the opponent from doing the same.  Forces were more or less mirrors, except that the Scots traded a shot unit for a small unit of commanded shot and a frame gun.  Game ended when one side got all of their surviving units across.

The Scottish right pushes on to seize the ford.

On the other side, the Royalist foot pushes to the creek.

There's a fair amount of "command friction" in PL, in that each unit must dice to activate, and any failure end one's turn.  This leads to a certain amount of predictable, if amusing (for the opponent) frustration, as that one key unit you need to do one key thing won't.  Persistently.  Case in point, one of Jura's Shot units simply would not advance for the first several turns of the game.  We eventually decided they were drunk.

The mid game had the two of us ranged across the creek from each other.  Basically, whoever pushed into the creek was going to sacrifice a couple of turns of offensive action for movement, and leave themselves open to shots or attack - the latter at a disadvantage while crossing.  Much maneuvering took place, along with some shots fired, as we jostled about looking for an advantage.

Scots horse got bogged down in the creek, and ended up being cut to pieces.

Eventually, I forced the ford, and Jura got his boys across the bridge and creek.  We each more or less lost a flank, and though I ended up getting some reserves (lucky result on a very good activation roll), they were too late to affect the outcome.  We had each gotten three units across, but Jura's Royalists had the edge on points, and that, plus a few extra his officer had picked up along the way (again, a lucky roll, but we attributed it to his rather fancy hat), the Royalists won the day.

It was great to get the minis on the table and get in a game of Pikeman's Lament.  It's the first time I've been able to play against another person (as all games to date have been solo), and it's super fun.  Jura and I had a chat about how the different units performed, and we'll likely try another game soon-ish.  I the meantime, I'm feeling quite charged up to paint, and with a few points remaining for a "normal" sized game, I've got some Royalist Dragoons in the queue.  We'll see how they turn out.

FMB