Brits in shorts and Stuarts.

I've been building up my forces in anticipation of a NUTS: Big Battles game at Hubcon.  So far I have added a company of 8th Army Brits, to act as Argyll & Southerlands in the fall of Singapor, and a pack of Stuarts.

I'm no longer sure if these are Battlefront or Forged in Battle figures.  They were begun too long ago. In NUTS: Big Battles, a platoon is 3 bases (squads, sections) + a support weapon.  A company is 3 platoons + a company support weapon and a company command squad. In this formation, all are considered to be in control of  the company commander and can activate on his rep.  The picture's not the greatest.

The Stuarts are from Plastic Soldier.  They are a bit fiddly to assemble, but contain lots of options.  I named them on the left side so that I can use them for both US and UK.  An odd thing about the photo is the 2 different shades of OD.  They came from the same can of Testors spray, and are exactly the same color.  It shows the hazard many modelers fall into when basing their finely painted models on a single photograph.

Egyptians for Colonial Adventures, The Sword and The Flame, and The Men Who Would Be Kings

Colonial Barracks was an excellent TSATF convention.  I got to catch up with old friends and play in games.  One of the things that impressed me was Richard Smethurst's 15mm games, to the point that I went out and ordered a bunch of 15mm Egyptians (momentarily forgetting the Fuzzy-Wuzzies to oppose them).

Both Colonial Adventures and TSATF use a 20-man unit including an officer and NCO. Richard had based his figures 2 to a 20 x 30mm base. He used base removal to mark casualties at a higher level. Each 20-man unit equaled a company.  I'm using the same bases, but I'm playing at the unit equaling a platoon, two platoons equaling a company with another officer added.

Here is a unit of Egyptian infantry in Formed Line.  This formation, though slow to move, can volley fire, very important in Colonial Adventures, since each hit caused by the volley results in a reduced Reputation for the target, who then tests to see if they stay or go.  This is very important when the Rep 3 Egyptian infantry is firing at a Rep 5 Beja mob! The figures are Old Glory 15s, not Blue Moon, which are 18mm.

The officer is marked by a white rock and the NCO by a darker one. All figures here would be able to fire.

Ammo can run low, and casualties must be taken, so there are two figures on half-sized single bases.  I chose to leave the officer and NCO on double bases, and will mark them with rings if they become casualties.  This is to remind the player that the unit is leaderless. When ammo runs low, a figure is sent to the ammo dump to replace the ammo. Why send 2 figures when 1 will do?

Egyptian companies each have a different flag. The first company's is blue. I have marked all the bases in this unit in blue with a 1, to indicate the 1st platoon of the 1st company.  The second platoon will be marked with, tah-dah, a 2.  This photo also shows the 2 single bases.

Next is a unit of Egyptian gendarmes in Mob formation.  They are a police force, and not really as well trained as the regular infantry, so they will only be able to adopt the Mob and Open formations. This means they cannot volley fire.  Right now, there are only 16 figures in the unit. I'll have to see if that makes them too weak, on top of not being able to volley fire.  Their unit also includes 2 single bases. Essex figures with a Old Glory 15s officer.

These are all the figures I have finished, though there is another regular infantry platoon half finished on popsicle sticks, and 4 more finished gendarmes still mounted on sticks.

I have another company of regular infantry still in the bag, a company of Sudanese infantry, cavalry and artillery, but I'll stop at the second platoon, to paint Fuzzies coming from Stone Mountain.

Grishnak's Grief.

Yes it's always that black orc Grishnac, isn't it?  Well, he won't be coming back!
This is a Rally Round the King game of orcs versus elves.  It did not go well for the orcs.
But yours truly forgot some things, of course.  For this game the orc commander had a War Rating of 4 and the elf commander 3.  Of course, the orcs out-scouted the elves, with a skirmish unit against nothing but heavy infantry for the elves.  So the orcs are the attacker.
Here we have the orc army, straight out of the lists.

They stretched out as far as they could.  The wolf riders are off the left of the picture.  They were further hampered by bad going in the middle of their line.

The elves, out-numbered, chose a compact formation with a bow unit on each wing, and the marines as reserve, since they're the fastest elves.

In turn 1, the orcs advanced and the elves brought the bows to touch the back corner of the flank, thereby hopefully staying out of melee, but able to support the line.

In turn 2 the orcs advanced further, while the elves stood firm.

IN turn 3, the orcs advanced into bow range.  The orc unit on the left flank of the center battle line was handled roughly by the bowman.  The bows hit him and cause him to advance 1/2 half move, which caused the bow to take an Enemy Threat test, and fire again.  This time the orc unit ic forced to retire and take 1 hit.  He now has 3 hits, and as a Rep 4 unit is pretty much out of the fight.  The wolf riders advance towards the marines.

The elf commander decides to call a charge, but fails and must stand still.  The elves' right wing bow unit turns 90 degrees to face the skirmish unit, if it ever gets there.

Turn 4: The orc commander orders a charge, and the elves do not countercharge, but stand to receive it.  In the combat the orcs' dice total 16 hits and the elves 18.  This is not so good, as all but 1 orc unit has AC 2 and the elves are all AC 4.

The wolf riders get into threat range of marines who are dual armed, and put 1 into the orcs. The wolves completed their charge and take another hit.  The elves take 2 . And the wolf riders retire and take another hit!
 It's now the elves initiative and they continue the melee.  The orcs score 13 to the elves 7. And the 2 orc units on the right fail their UD roll and stand still.  Another orc unit retires and takes another hit.  And the orc leader dies, leaving them with a War Rating of 1.  The loss of their leader causes the wolf riders to rout.

Turn 5:  The orcs have no choice but to tough it out in melee. The orcs take another hit, and so do the elves.  2 of the orc stands rout, and incredibly the elves fall back taking another hit each.

But it's all over for the orcs.  The elves charge, the orcs stand, and the last element in the line rout, leaving the field to the elves.  The orcs have 3 stands left that have not been in combat, but being UD would be fodder for the elves.  The elves have all their stands, but all but 2 have taken hits.

The orcs at the bottom of the picture have no chance against the better disciplined elves.

Did I forget some stuff? You betcha!  I forgot that the orcs have frenzy and are UD, so those two sort of cancel out.  I forgot to start from the right of the line on the orcs twice, which benefited them.  All in all a fun game played in about 45 minutes including taking pictures and writing everything down.  Both sides had the advantage of my dismal die rolling.

Rally Round the King armies from Mighty Armies boxes

I have two Mighty Armies that have sat in the box since the rules came out in 2004.  At that time we would play 6 or 8 man DBA tournaments on Wednesday night.  I had my barbarian army and a couple of others had other armies.  If you've ever played a friendly DBA tourney, you know that 2 guys will finish way before the other and have to twiddle their thumbs white waiting for their next opponent.   So the Mighty Armies was played in between the DBA games.  Of course, Katrina ended all that, wiping out the game store where we played, and a couple of our guys lost their homes and armies.

So, I now have a couple of friends who are willing to play Rally Round the King.  I have converted my Barbarian army to that ruleset and done my Orc army to the same.  Let's start with the Orcs.

Here's the whole army in one shot.
                                 
There are 5 Orc bases at 24 points for a total of 120.

 Plus a Foot Skirmish (Archers) at 8 points, a Black Orcs base (where my general is) for 36 points and a Dire Wolf Rider base for 36 points.

This is a 200 point, 8 base, army straight out of the army list.  After making your 200 point army, you are left with another Dire Wolf Rider base @ 36 points, 2 goblin bases @ 20 points (40 points) and a 3-figure Orc base which would be 18 points (derived by dividing the 4-figure orc base by 4 and then multiplying by 3, duh!).  So you have an additional 94 points in the box.  Oh, and you get a spellcaster.

Now for my take on the Barbarian army.  YMMV.
Being a dyed-in-the-wool DBA gamer with a penchant for warband armies, the Mighty Armies set up didn't light my fire.  So here we go.  All bases are AC 2. All but the Archer bases are Frenzy UD, and the Berserkers add Fanatic.
For the general, I used a 4-figure base, figuring he would have more hangers-on, and gave him a Rep 5 for 24 points.  Since Mighty Armies has a separate pack of Berserkers, I included a 3-man base at Rep 6 for 30 points.

Then we add 7, yes 7, 3-man bases of Warriors @ 18 points for a total of 126. ( I did 2 pics of them to show the mass.  Neither is sparkling.)

And two 2-man Rep 4 bases of Archers (Foot Skirmish), 8 points each for 16 points.

This gives you a total of 11(!) bases at 196 points.  When the Mammoth is available again from Rebel Minis I'll add it at 6 points (Rep 4), either dropping a base of Archers for a total of 194 points, or if I'm playing a charitable opponent, add him for a total of 204 points.  Of course, elephants are just as iffy in Rally Round the King as in DBA, but much easier to hurt, with only AC2.  What's left?  Only an Archer base, since I used 2 of them with swords held high to fill out a Warrior base (the last base in the top photo of the Warriors.)   I could have filled it out with figures from the Berserker pack, but I wanted the Berserker base to be unique in my army.  By the by, this is one of the few armies for which you can buy extra Warriors and Berserkers.  Oh, and the spellcaster!

I hope this gives players a little hint about how to make your own armies.  I'm sure one could go into the historical army and find a use for the chariots, but they are so huge that they would have to be mounted on 40mm x 50mm bases.  You don't want 4 of something that enormous falling back!  Here's a picture of them.  I may at some point get bases for them and go to the historical lists for an army, but they would only be either Rep 5 light chariots (Mounted Missile) at 7 points or Rep 5 (Mounted Melee - Dual Shock) at 12 points.  At any rate, here's a photo of them.

Though I've showed them before, here is my other army so far, Amazons straight from the Valkae list.

2 noble bases, ET, one containing the general.

3 Warriors - Frenzy

1 base of Sword Maidens Frenzy Elite and one of Marines Dual.

and 2 Archers

To swap out I have 1 base of Noble Cavalry, Shock and 2 of Cavalry (Mounted Skirmish)

Now if I can only get time and energy to get some solo games in.  The Amazons are from Black Falcon.  All other figures are from Rebel Minis, who is the supplier for all things Mighty Armies.

Shanty Town, my Shanty Town, where the lights are ... non-exisitent!

Been a while since my last post.  Real life, as usual.

In a moment of insanity, I decided that it was time to paint about 150 - 200 Peter Pig AK-47 republic figures I bought as a hodgepodge about 10 years ago.  Then somewhere in the past, when Cannon Fodder Miniatures was still selling them, I bought a pack of his African irregulars, recently added to with Rebel Minis' Bongolesia box set.  All of these are, of course, 15mm.

So far, I've only painted Rebel Minis African regulars, close to the picture on his site.

But the recent release of a Shantytown by Finger & Toe decided me to do buildings first.  Originally I reduced the 28mm buildings to 55%, but that made them too small, so I ended up reducing them to 73%, to match up to the ones I had generated in Model Builder at 1/87.

I had found a pack of 50 new, unused Budweiser beer coasters at an Antique store and decided to use them as bases.

Here are the nine bases I made up.  The ground texture is from Finger & Toe.  The roofs with round ventilators on them are from Finger & Toe, as is the two-story hovel.  The fences and the rest of the buildings are my designs.  Finger & Toe's buildings are from a more advanced shanty town than mine, since they have electricity.

This shot is obviously from a passing UN helicopter, but gives you a better idea of the cluster.

And here's a panoramic view featuring the outhouses on the left!

One like this, and one like that.

There is also a need for a more modern town, so I designed these 2 buildings with Model Builder, with signs from PrintMaster.

I'll design more, and place them on some floor tiles Chris Swearingen gave me.

The picture quality is not up to my usual because I didn't use a tripod as I was getting ready to go to Texas and needed to get the buildings off the dining room table!

Oh, though I mentioned AK-47 Republic rules, I won't be using them.  I'll look at Rebel Minis' Modern Havok and Bongolesia, and do what he does; modify something from Two Hour Wargames.