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.

VSF, VBCW, and fantasy

Between helping my wife recover from surgery and a 4-week (so far) engine replacement in my van, I've been a bit busy, but I do have a few more figures to present.

A friend has become interested in A Very British Civil War, so I dug out an old pack of Wessex Games armed Victorian British constables.  I tried to get a tiny bit of blue in their uniforms by painting them in Deca Ceramcoat Blue Velvet, washed with P3 Armour Wash.  I then painted the belts and shoes, helmet straps, and edging with black, and gloss coated them.  All pistols and the shotgun were painted with IWM Steel.  Skin was a craft flesh washed with a light brown wash.  And no, I didn't paint duty bands on the left cuff.  Happily, they weren't molded on.

The constable to the far right will be called "Monkey" for obvious reasons.  These are older figures and are not on Wessex Games page anymore, unless you go through images on Yahoo.  So I don't know if they are even available anymore.

Next up are rat warriors from Mega Minis, also no longer available.  I got them not long before they sold all their molds.

Unusual for me I primed them in black, dry-brushed them and washed them with a brown wash.

And a Hasslefree vampire hunter, and old GW pirate.  Though it's not apparent in this photo, I drilled out the end of his cannon.  His base still needs terraining.

And here's a paper Winnebago I couldn't resist, since I love Spaceballs!

And, of course, no post of mine is complete without some partially clothed horrible harridan!  I'm not sure who made her, but from the size of her feet, I'd guess GW, though probably Metal Magic for real.

T-t-t-t-thats all folks!

Since the beginning of the year...

What have I been doing?  Well, my wife had rotator cuff surgery on Jan. 2.  So, she's not able to wait on me hand and foot.  I actually have to do a few things around the house.  However, she's making good progress.

All I've done so far is a bit of painting.  I painted 10 conquistadors from Monday Knight Productions. http://www.mondayknight.com/Miniature%20Pages/GoldandFeathers/Conquistadors.htm  These are old Pass of the North figures, and nearer true 25mm.  Why these instead of Foundry's lovely figures?  Cost, and they are near in size to some salacious Native American maiden warriors I painted a looong time ago (maybe 20 - 25 years ago.)

So I figured I would emulate Vampifan and show the front and rear of the figures.

I ordered the 10 random figure set.  The 1st figure left is armored with leather studded armor, and has the most detail of the bunch.  The second figure is half-armored and holding a pike.  He was the first one I painted, and I decided that there wouldn't be too many more stripes, since their clothing is basically landesqueknect, and a pain to paint.  The third figure is 3/4 armored.

The arquebusier is unarmored except for the helmet and has a few apostles hanging from his bandolier. Last is the figure in the leather coat and shield.  Because of the great amount of armor, I deviated from my normal course of black undercoating on the metal, and a single coat of some sort of metal paint.  I undercoated in black, the added P3 Pig Iron, and then used GW Mithral Silver for the greater part of the metal, leaving the Pig Iron untouched for depth in the crevices and crannies.  The soft clothing was painted with various P3 and craft acrylics, and then washed with a brown wash.  There skin was painted a darker flesh tone, again craft paint from which the label has long disappeared.

 The remaining 5 from left to right.  The first figure is wearing a leather vest.  The crossbowman is wearing quilted clothe armor.  One of the ends of his crossbow was missing, so I fashioned a new one from scrap lead, pewter, whatever.  The next figure is half-armored and probably a dismounted horseman from his thigh boots.

I consider the next figure to be the leader, so he got a gold-hilted sword and some brass on his helmet, a black scabbard, and matching upper and lower clothing.  The final is basically a duplicate of the second figure in the first bunch but with a burgeonet instead of a morion.  He has pink britches because I saw a photo of a reenactor with pink britches online.

Now for the salacious Native American maidens.  I don't know who made these figures.  I got them a very long time ago, and have 21 including the queen.

I had originally painted all their weapons metal, but a closer look, and a remembered conversation from when I originally painted them convinced me to paint the axes as stone and the spears and daggers as obsidian.  I just added EZ Line bowstrings to all the bows.  The queen is a Ral Partha figure.  I repainted her sword as a wooden club.  I'm sure these were painted with GW and crafts paints, maybe some D&D paints, and washed with a brown wash.

My plan is to have 4 of the conquistadors lost in New Spain searching for Cibola, and running across the maidens.  I'll be using Warrior Heroes Legends.  It covers the armor types, and while it doesn't cover firearms, I have enough experience (and other THW rulesets) for that to be no problem.  The four conquistadors stats are already done, and 11 (2-12 on 2d6) pefs generated to represent the girls.  My aim is to see if heavier armor can just walk over the unarmored.  I also have, unpainted, a couple of bags of early Apaches from the lamented London War Room.

And, of course, I forgot that I had bags of Frontier conquistadors and mule train that I got from Time Portal Hobbies a couple of months ago.  There are a total of 4 mounted figures, more than enough for any conquistador game, even were I to add of the Frontier.  Oh, the Monday Knight Productions figures have the seeder (a leather-worker tool) eyes just like Frontier.

No, they will never see Aztecs.  Now all I need is the time to play the game!

Boring Boers & another pointless nude!

I haven't been able to play a single game since Colonial Battles III, so here's a few things I painted.  Dale Kemper was there of Stellar Miniatures, and among other things, I picked up 2 20-man units of Boers.  Then I went through some figures Al Reis had given me and found a half-painted unit of Boers and artillerymen.  A look through a box donated by Paul Harruff found a few Boer corporals by Falcon US and 18 - 20 mounted Boers by Ral Partha.  Here's the first stuff I painted.

A unit of Ral Partha's with a Falcon US corporal.

A unit of Ral Partha's with a couple of artillerymen converted by Al Reis, including the corporal.

And the Ral Partha artillerymen with a Falcon US officer.  Al had painted them for German Southwest Africa, and I painted them "freely interpreted" for the second Boer War.

And finally, to maintain my salacious reputation, an old sorceress I recently obtained and painted on the misspelled Pegasus "Alter of Evil".

Not much of a post, but all I've got at the present.

Colonial Battles III, Nov. 8-10, 2013, The Sheraton near Causeway, Metairie, LA

This is the 3rd (obviously) Colonial Battles, a convention devoted to Larry Brom's "The Sword and the Flame" and all it's variants.  It's also a gathering of old friends to celebrate what Larry has given us, THE colonial rules, and lots of wargaming friends.  I realize now that this will be a totally narcisstic report, since I only took pictures of games I was involved in.  the comraderie was too good to leave.
Friday
On Friday, I spent most of the afternoon kibitzing and buying Ral Partha from Dale Kemper.  In the evening, I played in Dale's 55 Days in Peking game, which took place entirely on top of an incredible Tartar wall, behind the legations.  As a Boxer, we were fed onto the ends of the wall each turn, while the US Marines stood us off at barricades in the center.  As usual with my dice rolls, I couldn't get my mob to die to a man so I could get a fresh one.  We eventually drove the Marines off the wall just as the Indians arrived to save the day.

Here the brave Marines, and their even braver Lt. (mounted) withstood our furious assaults.  The Chinese rockets performed as expected, causing little damage but great effects!

And here you can see our hordes unsuccessfully assaulting the baricades.  My troops are the dark ones just behind the white clothed Boxers assaulting the barricades.  After finally getting knocked off, I left at about 10pm, since I'd awakened at 1:30am, not seeing us drive the Marines from the wall, too late to matter.

Saturday
I spent some more money, though I'd bought most of what I needed (wanted) on Friday.
Jim Pitts put on A Very British Civil War game in the morning, which I played.  I had intended to play in Terry Sofian's "The Hive and the Queen" game, but Jim's table was filled with Greffen paper buildings, and since I'm a paper building aficionado...

My troops, the Soviet Naval troops were stationed in the upper middle of the of the center picture, a unit hiding behind the blue fence, another in the building across from the church, and the third in the building across the alley from the blue fence, rather bad placement, since I was forced to come out the front doors of both buildings in the face of machine guns.  The black truck in the lower picture had a tarp covering a 4" naval gun with crew.

Here you can see some of my troops hiding behind the wall, as regulars approach.

And, on the left, my compatriots, both braver and better led than my sailors.

My erstwhile opponent, Gerry Webb, of  Castaway Arts of Australia http://www.castawayarts.com.au/ who out-generaled and out-shot me.  Behind him are some of the Ral Partha drawers Dale Kemper brought with him.  I did do some damage to the Rolls-Royce armored car, but couldn't stop it.

Here is the battle on our left flank, where we did better than my flank.

Some of my dead from the unit in the building to the left of the blue fence.  My unit has been charged by Gerry's unit.  He unfortunately had a number of stragglers.

Here we are, lined up and ready to "put it up 'em", before my shooting.  The figures on the right are dead from a unit that Gerry put paid to, running them into the trees, before finishing them off.

The high point of the game for me.  My shooting and better die rolling saw Gerry's regulars bounce off me.  Off course, they did not fail their morale.  The game was declared a success for the enemy, since my flank crumpled, and I achieved none of my goals.

And these are photos from my "Carry On Up the Khyber"  game, in which the Burpas had discovered that the 2rd Foot & Mouth Highlanders wore underwear, and so no longer feared the "devils in dresses".  They tried to force the toll gate (?) at the Khyber pass.  Duane Bailius was unable to get his elephants to move slower than a crawl, so the Burpas were almost up to the defile that would allow them to bypass the gate before he got his Gatlings set up.

Some of the hordes of Burpas led by Al Himmel as Bungit Din, who were attacking the pass.

The elephants have finally reached their desired location, as the wave of Burpas lap the escarpment.

An overall view as the British horse arrive, soon to dismount, since there were no Burpas behind the walls for them to spear.

One of the elephants has disappeared as the Gatlings finally fire.  Unfortunately, we got a late start, and so called the game for supper, since the restaurant, though very good, was also very slow.  The British felt they would be overwhelmed, and the Burpas felt they could not break the pass, especially after the Gatlings did in the Burpa gun crew.

After we packed up. Al Himmel serenaded us with three tunes on his bagpipes, even though he was the Burpa leader.

Gerry Webb put on "Gunga Din", with the Highlanders trying to relieve the sergeants in the temple.

Mike and Martha and Mark Stevens await their assignments.

(Hmmm. That elephant looks familiar.  Everything else was Gerry's.)  The column heads toward the temple in close order.

As the British cavalry turns to flank the column, my cavalry bravely charges them in the flank.  We exchanged a single cavalryman each, but more of my men were pushed back, so I fled.  And when the Brits followed me, I ignominiously fled the field.

However the ground-pounders led by Jim Pitts and others kept the Brits from achieving their objectives, so it was a Pathan victory, in spite of my cowardly cavalry.

Sunday

On Sunday, Mark Stevens ran "The Real Glory", in which a few brave Moros attempted to be catapulted over the wall.  Three landed unhurt outside the fort, one landed as a squashed bug inside the fort, and another landed on the wall in the midst of the defenders.

Here you see the corner of the fort, and my command outside to try and save Mother Superior and her orphans.

Bill Hamilton's troops have reached the bottom of the wall as their companion bravely confronts the constabulary on the wall.  

A bit later in the game, my reduced and somewhat scattered force faces three units of Moros and a jurmentado who is seeking the prize of Mother Superior.  (She escaped into the chapel).  John Murdaugh's incredible rolling on shots of from the Gatling ensured that I faced no complete units.  And they suffered heavy leader losses, and were never able to close to melee.

At far end of the table, the US arrives with a unit of regulars and 2 more units of constabulary.  By the end of the game, the Moros were almost without leaders, and so were unable to press any meaningful attacks.  They faded back in the jungle, leaving us to lick our wounds, and have a quiet celebration.

And here they, those who made our enjoyment possible for all these years.  Lori, Larry, and Chrissie Brom, our Sergeants Three!   In the background, you can see Martha Stevens back, my profile, Jim Pitts, and in the dark shirt on the right, Mark Mod.

I had a great time, got to play as many games as possible, and time to chat with many old friends.  From my viewpoint, a complete success!