Adventures on the Wargames Table

“In a land of myth, and a time of magic…” Yes, good chum Orange Dave has lured me in to trying out Age of Magic. I’ve played a lot of Saga (first edition) over the years mainly with Saxons, Vikings and Normans, so I’m familiar with the basic game mechanics although second edition is obviously going to be a bit different. My plan for this gaming year is to get a few projects finished, so this “new” project might seem at odds with that aim. However, I’ve had most of these figures for ages, only the big fellow was a recent purchase. These are some of my favourite Foundry figures and I’m really looking forward to painting them. Here’s my force primed and ready for painting. A unit of 8 elite warriors (Hearthguard, 2 points) Two units of 12 warriors (3 points) A unit of 12 archers & slingers (Levy, 1 point) The Wicker Man... or 'Alan' is I like to call him. (Monster, Titan, 1 point) He’s from Crooked Dice games ( here ) and is beautifully cast in good quality resi...

Here is Weatabix and his family on their farm in South West Britannia just waiting to welcome their new Roman masters... The cattle pen and the chicken coop were shown in an earlier post .  The new dwellings are the two round houses, from Hovels, painted in the same style.  The wattle enclosure was made in the same fashion as the cattle pen. Closer pics Dramatis personae, Weatabix and his delightful missus Chlamydix with family.  Foundry figures. Every farm needs a few hostile “attack” geese. Warbases figures. Wolves for ambush points.  Again, Warbases.

These buildings are Hovels and Gripping Beast and have been painted in the same style as the thatched hut I did some time ago. NB: the roof of the larger building was base coated in VMC Leather Brown, and the smaller was given an extra highlight of Foundry Boneyard light, so as to give a bit of variety. Settlements need crops, animal enclosures, livestock, etc too.  The piece on the right was originally made for Saga but has been re-purposed.  The fences at the rear are Renedra.  The enclosure in front was made by weaving garden wire around cocktail sticks then given a couple of coats of PVA. This is my test piece for a marsh.  I used much darker earth colours than the other pieces as I wanted to give the ground a more boggy appearance.  The water areas were simply washed with a drab green. These hills are from Kallistra and I’ve just jazzed them up a bit with extra grass and some clump foliage. That should be enough to get playing Infamy Infa...

It's been a while since I last took part in a WaC event (Aug '17 I think!) so I was anticipating an enjoyable day of battling it out in the ancient world with a few good chums. I was especially looking forward to my game with good chum George; the last game was far too long ago! For logistical reasons I could only attend on the Saturday, however this turned out to be the same for a number of other players due to the suddenly inclement weather, the so called mini “beast from the east”. Game One – Saxon Civil War! This game was against Steve, a newcomer to WaC and this was to literally be his first game. Thankfully Rob was on hand to help us with the rules as I was decidedly rusty in places :o) Steve has a lovely Saxon army so I’ve posted a couple of pics here. I dusted off my own Saxons but, as I hadn't used them for three years, I couldn’t quite find all of the figures so we were limited to 2,000pts a side. The forces deploy for battle! My Saxons prepare ...

Here’s some counters that I’ve made to go with Jenny’s British Celt army. The figures are from Black Tree Design – Legionary and Auxiliary casualties. The bases are from Warbases. They were undercoated white, then black and chainmail/brass for the armour. The rest was block painted in Foundry base/shade colours before applying a thin wash of GW Agrax Earthshade. Then it was simply a matter of applying the shade / mid / light of each triad. Since she’ll be playing War & Conquest they’ll be used as Push & Shove markers (basically a way of recording one side’s advantage in an ongoing mêlée). I’ve also painted up a very interesting “Boudicca” model, but that can wait for a later post. ;o)

The weekend of 17/18 November was the Warfare 2012 show in Reading and we were there with a War & Conquest demo game. We played the same game as we put on at Colours in Newbury earlier this year, "The Battle of the New Road". The Romans are trying to clear the land ready to build a road, however the proposed route passes right through a sacred Celtic shrine where stands an mighty, old Oak tree. Needless to say that the matter can only be decided with swords and spears! You will be able to find out more about this game in a future issue of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. First though a few words about the show... It wasn't as good as Devizes or Colours, mainly because the venue itself is a really bit below par IMHO. The very uneven carpets laid to protect the indoor bowling green were a real hazard - I saw plenty of people trip and stumble. To be fair the club have complained to the venue about this. Also, the logistics were a bit chaotic. Getting there quite earl...