Adventures on the Wargames Table

Sunday and our final game of the weekend. George and I would be travelling back almost 1400 years to the hills and valleys north-east of Bath , for a War & Conquest game of The Battle of Deorham 577AD ... and it was a real belter of a game! Game 4 - The Battle Deorham 577AD The Romano-British army (let's call them the good guys ;o)) were comprised of three smaller armies - from Bath, Gloucester and Cirencester - each led by their King.  The Saxons were led by King Ceawilin and the Atheling, Cuthwine.  Naturally, since I live in the South-West, I took command of the Romano-British army trying to preserve the fading light of Rome and hold back the hairy Saxon horde! Here's the field of battle.  That ridge line would be where my brave men would make their stand. Here are the two large armies arrayed for battle!  George has done a grand job on these armies, plenty of flags and banners, shield decals, big units... Stunning stuff :o) Two beautiful armies!...

Visiting friends for a weekend of wargaming is most definitely one of life's real pleasures!  So with high hopes of a fine time I packed my toys and scenery in to the car and headed North so see top chum George (of http://musingswargameslife.blogspot.com/ fame) for a weekend of Bolt Action and War & Conquest. In a little over 8 hours I was there.  Yes folks, just 8 hours to do 240 miles on our great British motorway network.  Still, I like to look on the bright side, it did afford me time to admire the fine views of the countryside in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, etc.  Not to mention the vibrant urban diversity of places such as Bristol and Birmingham! :-D Anyway... I was very warmly greeted by George and his lovely missus Evelyn (pronounced Ev-lyn of course!).  I'll start by saying a huge thank you to Evelyn for looking after me so well!  Seemingly endless cups of tea, plenty of cake and a truly superb frui...

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 ...

Yes, I've been at it again with the brushes! Just a few figures this time to bring one of my 18 man cohorts up to a more durable 24 figures. The recipe is as follows Undercoat GW Black Spray Tidy up any 'gaps' with a little GW black, slightly thinned helps. Armour Base of GW Leadbelcher Apply black wash e.g. GW Nuln Oil 1st highlight GW Leadbelcher 2nd highlight GW Mithril (now Runefang Steel) for the edges of the armour Then GW Gehenna’s Gold for the brass fittings. If you have it then a dark brass/copper colour like GW Tin Bitz makes a good base coat for the gold. Tunic (and scarf) GW Khorne Red 1st highlight GW Mephiston Red 2nd highlight Foundry Bright Red Shade My Legion have a range of reds for their tunics, some have the Foundry Madder triad for example, other Foundry British Redcoat. Try making some of the scarves a dirty off-white with any light brown and the Foundry Boneyard. Flesh Foundry Flesh triad. Sandals Base of GW Mournfang Brown Apply Agrax Earths...

Here's my latest bit of modelling - a rally point (or objective marker, etc) for my Early Imperial Romans! For War & Conquest it's a rally point, but other games systems often require similar "objectives" or it can just be a nice piece of terrain. The tent is resin, from Grand Manner. The stack of supplies came from Bad Squiddo Games, the shield from Black Tree with the excellent LBMS transfers. MDF base from Charlie Foxtrot. Painting recipe: Tent - Foundry Spearshaft shade, a wash of Agrax, then the shade / mid / highlight, ie the full triad. Supplies - The darker wood was painted Foundry Bay shade, the 'parcels' in Foundry Buff shade, the jar in Foundry Conker Brown shade, the basket in Foundry Butternut shade. Then give the whole lot a wash of Agrax. Then highlight with the original base colour followed by the rest of each triad respectively. Note - for the dark wood just give it a light dry-drush of a light cream like VMC Dark Sand to bring out t...