Gauntlet 2016 and other stories

So Gauntlet has been and gone, and it high time I posted some pics of our game, firstly though I thought I'd post some of the other stuff that I've painted recently, and some of the other stuff I've been up to:

One new thing we tried recently was the old GW WW1 rules- a surprisingly good version of WH40k! I wasn't sure that would work out well but the game flowed well, and felt like a WW1 game should. My BEF Royal Fusiliers went up against some late war German storm troopers who were rather tough, but the Fusiliers held them to a draw. My only gripe would be that the rules require whole formations so if I want to field my lancers I'll need about 40 or so, which is a bit expensive! So, I picked up a Rolls Royce Armoured Car from 1st Corps at Phalanx to provide a bit more manoeuvrability for next time.

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Found these chaps at the west midlands safari park- 50p each. thought they would do nicely in my undead army, and provide a bit of skeletal variety, and some much needed hitting power...

 however in their first outing against Rick's undead they were soundly trounced by zombies of all things...

 Also at Phalanx I picked up this chap; Nong the Not Very Nice At All, by Wargames Supply Dump. I very much like this figure and need to get him some henchmen so he can turn his evil against the galaxy!

Bwahahahahaha!

 Gauntlet 2016:
As usual this year the boys and I decided to run a big game for Gauntlet, another large set piece battle to awe and inspire as best we can! It was, apparently, my turn to come up with something and so after some thought I decided we should have a fantasy game, using the KOW rules but with a bit of an Oldhammer vibe. Obviously we wouldn't be using any warhammer rules for the simple reasons we wanted to actually get a result before we died of old age...

To this end I envisioned a Champion of Chaos, a sorcerer known as the Duke of Damnation, powerful and ambitious, who has decided that he is beloved of the Ruinous Powers and that they want him to conquer the world in the name. With promises of plunder he has called a horde of barbaric, bestial and bloodthirsty followers to his banners. Subjected to his rambling sermons and badly thought out manifesto for world domination most of them have come to the conclusion that he doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of actually getting very far, but have pragmatically decided that the opportunities for plunder still make it worth the effort.

Their first target is an ancient city called, er....Stadtburghgrad.  Once known as the Bulwark of the North, for millennia its walls held back the tides of darkness from swamping the lands of men, but in recent centuries the city has been in decline. A long period of peace and prosperity means no hordes of daemons or barbarians throwing themselves at the walls, and with no enemies to hold back those walls fell in to disrepair , the city's population reduced and its armies were forgotten.

An army on the march doesn't stay secret long and news of the impending attack spread. The Warden of the City roused himself and ordered the ancient defences be put in order, the militia to be called up, stores laid in, the beacons have been lit and the coffers emptied to hire mercenaries. The citizens are preparing for a siege and can do little more than wait and see if ancient alliances still hold true.

So far so good eh? I came up some rules for fortress walls, siege equipment and looting and destroying buildings, and decided upon an actual scenario- The forces of the Duke of Damnation would attack a city and its environs (an outlying village, farms, mills etc), destroying everything in their path. A smaller force commanded by the Warden would defend the city , and possibly receive reinforcements from an ally. I decided to include various random elements which could fight for neither or either side- a Gigantic Ancient Spider in the woods who doesn't like to be disturbed, a coven in the city desperate to defend their homes by any means necessary, an old hermit in the wizards tower, and other things stirring beneath the city...As the Umpire I hoped to be able to control things impartially, but things didn't turn out the way I expected.

In the original plan I would umpire, and Chris, Dave, Michael and Rick would pair off as the actual players. Dave abandoned us the week before to go and play Gates of Antares in Nottingham, so Michael roped his son Ben in to help, however he had to leave at lunchtime! Rick had manged to turn up long enough to help set up but was called away as his daughter wasn't well and didn't make it back till we'd finished! I thus spent the first half of the game umpiring and fighting on both sides! Luckily we were able to rope in a couple of chaps who were standing around without anything better to do- Dave and his friend (whose name escapes me) spent the rest of the day pushing figures around for us. Well they do say that no plan survives contact with the enemy, but it turned out ok in the end.

I won't bother with a blow by blow account because it would take forever and I can't remember the details, so instead I'll settle for pictorial highlights.

The Walls of Stadtbughgrad

Michael and Ben arraying the defenders of the village.

The last supply train makes its way to the City gates

Dwarfish Artillery attempts to bring down the siege towers.

The hermit in the tower, Sirius Diction summons his followers
 to defend his tower from the barbarian horde.

The coven summons daemonic aid but fail to bind the daemons to their will- they devour
 the coven and spill out on to the streets but are contained by the militia.

The Warden on his firedrake attempts to thin the horde but is trapped and killed before the walls.

An Elvish prince brings his warband to the aid of the defenders,
emerging from the woods to attack the Minotaurs

Some noisy Orcs awaken the ancient Spider Lloth. She isn't pleased...

The Beastmen find a gap on the walls and pour through to the undefended streets behind

The ancient and rotten walls collapse under the assault of the
minotaurs- the miltia fall back in good order, trying to stem the tide.

The monstrous Snaegl makes short work of the commander of the villages defences.

A beastslaying Champion is sent to deal with Lloth..she adds him to her larder.

Another section of the wall collapses! The mercenary Pike plug the gap.

Ratmen rise up from the cities ancient sewers to fall on the unsuspecting citizens. 

In the final analysis it was deemed that the defenders and held their ground like heroes, and done enough damage to the Dukes Army that it would be in no condition to take to the field again. Several sections of the wall had fallen,the village was in ruins, but the defending forces were mostly intact, and we hadn't even brought on the reinforcements they were entitled to! The attack had simply taken to long to gain the momentum needed to drive through the defences and loot the city behind.

It was a good fun game, and I'm sure you'll agree it looked rather good, which is the aim. A full third of the figures never made it on to the table and it was hampered by lack of familiarity with the rules. This was a known issue before the game- I was most familiar with the rules, Chris and Rick less so, and the rest not at all, but KOW is a pretty straight forward set of rules so I didn't envisage much problem as I was umpiring and able to help everywhere. However with Rick out of it, Chris remembering less than expected and a high turn over of players meaning I needed to actually play it wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped.  With no clear commander in chief on the attacking force, the attackers lost focus of the objective and didn't make as much headway in collecting loot as I'd hoped , instead preferring to fight the defenders.  When they did they tended to send individual heroes to try and knock over whole buildings alone whilst big hard hitting creatures which would have ground the city to dust in a few turns went for softer targets, which meant the all out assault was slow and did a lot less damage than it could have done.
In future (and with a bit more time) I'd have provided each unit with a marker for it stats so any player could turn up and command any units with ease, otherwise I'd just let each player command their own forces rather than pooling them..which isn't something that would have worked for this game given that most of the figures on the table belonged to me and Chris! I'd probably make the buildings/city walls etc weaker as you can't rely on people to even roll average dice! With every roll well below par it took a long time just to loot a tiny little cottage!

Still, all in all, I think it went well and everyone seemed to have fun which is the main thing.  Didn't seem as much at Gauntlet this year, but there was a small Oldhammer gathering playing Rogue Trader and what appeared to be a WHFB 3rd ed Skirmish. Also a couple of tournaments for WRG(?)Ancients and FOW, and a scattering of other games. We always try and do something big and impressive for Gauntlet, so I wonder what we're doing next year...any ideas chaps?

Back to the painting table...

So,  Ive been getting some painting done, and thought I should post the results as its been a few months.

For starters I dug my old Dark Elf army out and decided its god-awful twenty year old paint job needed to be redone.  So the whole lot was stripped, excess models were sold, and the remainder reformed to make a 2000point KOW army.  Just under half has been through the painting process now:

I decided to do this a bit differently from the traditional black and purple look:  Skintone is blue.  Hair is grey.  Thats pretty much all that unifies the force .  I wanted a slightly irregular, almost piratical look so every figure is unique- theres no standard issue uniforms here- so bright colours were generally the order of the day.

The Witch elves.

The elite Guardsmen

Crossbowmen, ballista and Sorceress.

Corsairs, with my favourite banner!

Each of those units will double in size, and theres a few Cold one Knights and heroes to finish too.

Finally found a second bombard at triples- Ok, so this is actually the almost but not quite identical Foundry version of the Citadel model.  Its slightly smaller but not hugely so. 

I decided recently that I needed an alien force for 40k, a hunt around the internets suggested there wasn't much choice-  or rather, theres loads, but not if you want an army: theres plenty of Alien ranges consisting of just one pack of maybe 3 or 4 figures, but I wanted a variety of heroes etc to boot.  So A GW army it is, which narrows us down to either Orks or Nids. Then I found this chap on ebay:  

WAAAAAGGGHH!

Its always a figure I've quite liked and the decision was made.  It took only one evening to paint him: sometimes the brush just loves the figure!  I got a pile of Orks of various sorts from ebay, enough to make a 1000 point army in 2nd ed 40k, including Thraka for a mere £20 all told.   Also found this chap- 

 who will be on the painting table shortly, and then bossing the Grots around. The 40k stuff must take a back burner for a while though, I've got a lot of fantasy stuff to paint by Gauntlet in July, including this lot: 

I've been wanting a pile of skellies to add to my fledgling undead army for ages now, and the way I see it theres only a few options if you want a mass of plastic skeletons:

1) mantic-  not my favourite due to the clutter of rags and armour- prefer bare bones.

2) several generations of citadel skellies- the earliest Horde being the best, the later ones getting a bit too cartoony.

3) Wargames factory- my favourites but currently unavailable due to distribution going over to Warlord games who told me they're definitely in the pipeline, but they need to organise repackaging , where they fit within their range etc before they're released.  Arrrgh!    

Luckily I reckon the Wargames Factory and Citadel Skeleton horde to be about equal in terms of quality and style and, unable to get the former, was happy to find the latter for sale on ebay- I managed to pick up about 30 infantry and 10 cavalry (though 5 of those are the later metal mounted wights) , plus a vampire and necromancer for £30, which I figured wasn't too bad.

Also on the painting table are a dozen pikemen- Ive been wanting to bring my old Dogs of War Pike regiments up to full strength for ages but its been a long time since those figures were available for a sensible price, and I wasn't about to sell a kidney.  Instead I picked up some of the Perrys metal Renaissance Pikemen - they're about th right size and style, and had a go at sculpting-  I'm not great at that but hopefully a forgiving paintjob will hide the worst of my efforts- the plumes for the Alcatani Fellowship and the leopard skins for the Leopard Company.  Ill wait till they're painted before posting pics!

Last but not least this chap recently galloped off the painting table:

I picked him up at Triples for a mere £1.50 from the bring and buy. I'd managed to get four 5th ed metal Bretonnian knights off ebay and wanted a fifth to finish the unit, and the army.  He must be one of the earliest figures sold as a Bretonnian, being a 1989 Chevaliers De Notre Dame De Bataille  so its sort of fitting that he's the last figure for my first army.  

Anyway, thats all for now, I'd better get back to the painting table!

The Fight at Jims Place

Down at the Deeside Defenders this Thursday a most tense and exhilarating action was fought between Rick, Chris and myself. We had considered a game of KOW...but I'd been mulling over something else for a while, and was keen to try it out.
 "Ok, Name the time and place" they said,
"Alright," I said, " 1879...Rorkes Drift."

So I gathered the Zulus (123 rather than "Faasands"), and mustered the Redcoats (80th Foot rather than 24th!), and worked out some rules.  Not from scratch I must add- I've been quite fancying the old Lord of the Rings Ruleset for skirmish games, so I just had to work out appropriate profiles for the various figures. In hindsight I'd modify them, this was very much a test game!
Scenery was whatever I could find that would do at a pinch! Two buildings from my napoleonic collection, some stone walls, bits of lichen, the redoubt of a bunch of gabions on a couple of box lids was the best I could do...

The Zulus:
120+ Warriors, armed with a variety of spears and firearms. For the first half the game casualties were recycled.
a Shaman ( didnt actually make it on to the table because I forgot to put him in the box of zulu reserves  after explaining all the rules)
A runner. To carry messages...
A Prince on a horse, with a proper rifle.
The runner could provide any warrior in the vicinity with a Might point to spend on heroic actions, The shaman came loaded with Fate (presumably he would already know that he was going to survive) and a bit of Might, and the Prince got a good rifle and the skills to use it ., with a couple of points of Fate and Might

The British:
14 Riflemen with rifles and bayonets
2 Sergeants.  ditto
1 Bugler...with a bugle.
1 Officer. with revolver and a stiff upper lip.
Sergeants got a Might point each, the bugler generated a Might point for any nearby officer/sergeant, the officer got two Might points, and a fate point. British Casualties would be placed in the storehouse/church where they would roll each turn - on a 1 they expired, 2-5 they were still recuperating, 6- Reynolds has patched them up and sent them back into the fight!

The first wave of Zulus came on in the SW corner of the field. Subsequent waves would come on from the west, then the north west and north of the position.

Chris took command of the Zulus, with the objective of destroying the British by Ten pm. Rick took command of the British. I umpired, until Rick had to leave at 9, then took over his command.  If there was anything left...

Zulus, approaching from the South West,  thousands of them.

The men on the South wall give the approaching Zulus a volley,
and set the standard for the days shooting, by missing with every shot.

"We're next boys, this is the blind spot!"  The Zulus head for western end of the
 position, where the ineffective British fire struggles to reach them. 

As the British fall back across the front of the Hospital
 the Zulus lap around to the South wall again

Eager to reach the redcoats the Zulus swarm over the roof of the Hospital which promptly collapses
 under the weight of so many pounding feet (seriously Chris, next time, go round!)  , several Zulus are put out
of action by the fall! 

The platoon on the southern wall hold back the first wave.

Covering fire from the Redoubt thins the horde a little.

Heeding the bugles call The garrison fall back on the next line of defence. Some good bayonet work puts off
their pursuers. Zulus take up position on the abandoned walls and give fire...

Zulus throw themselves at the North Wall.

The north west corner of the position now sees the fiercest fighting...

...as more Zulus close in from all sides!

Wary of being outflanked and unable to man the whole perimeter the British fall back on the redoubt and fire yet another ineffectual volley!

The Zulus swarm over the abandoned barricades, and there's more still coming...

Cornered, the British drive the Zulus back with cold steel and fire again, with no effect. 

"FIRE!"

The Zulus, encouraged by the lack of effect of the Redcoats puny weapons and storm the redoubt!
But this last effort takes its toll, exhausted, and with the few remaining British falling back on the Storehouse, they quit the field! 

 A cracking game full of drama and tension and desperate heroism!

It went badly from the British from the off, whole turns went by without a Zulu casualty! Musketry was ineffective despite needing only 3's to hit, and the Redcoats couldnt win a melee roll off to save their lives. Only the barricades saved them from being overrun almost immediately, but even their good fortune there vanished half way into the game and the Redcoats dropped like flies. Most of the Garrison was being cared for by Reynolds in the Storehouse, with 4 dead out right. Barely 30 Zulus fell in total, which was why they stopped getting recycled- there wasn't any point!  Chris could have done as well with half the numbers he had. And another turn or two and he'd have had it in the bag.

I'd like to play this again but with a single modification- The redoubt needs to be harder to get into, due to its height: we just used the same rules as for the walls which had proved quite tough, but the redoubt fell quicker than it aught.  I have not decided on a solution though.

Stats for the troops I would do as follows- these have been modified a little as a result of the battle.

Zulus-
Prince        F4/3+   S4   D3  A2   W2   C6   Fate 2,  Might 1.
Shaman     F3         S3   D3  A1   W2   C5   Fate 2 . Any Zulu within 6" auto passes courage tests
Warrior     F4/5+    S3   D3  A1   W1   C4
Runner      F3         S3   D3  A1   W1   C3   Generates 1 Might per turn which a warrior within 2" may use for a heroic action
All Warriors armed with either throwing spears (range 8", S2, no move penalty), primitive musket (range 18" S3, full move penalty), Hide Shield (may use a 2nd Fight dice but if wins cannot strike a blow, doesnt increase D.)  Prince carries Breach loading Rifle (Range 30" S4, half move penalty) and rides a horse.

N.B I would have included more heroes for the Zulus but lacked any figures that stood out of the crowd.

British-
Officer      F4/3+   S3   D3  A2   W2   C6    Fate 1  Might 2
Sergeant    F4/3+   S4   D3  A1   W1   C5    Might 1
Private      F4/3+   S3   D3  A1   W1   C4  
Bugler      F4/3+   S3   D3  A1   W1   C4     Generates 1 Might point per turn which any officer  or Sergeant within 2" may use for a Heroic Action

Officer armed with revolver (Range 8", S3, no move penalty) , all others are armed with Breach Loading Rifle (range 30", S4, Half move penalty) and Bayonet (Fights as if spear armed i.e can fight through a friend in base contact) . All British Soldiers auto pass a courage test if there is a friend with 2".


There, that should do.

The Unending Swarm

Commander Peribon Krate leaned against the walls of the ruined building, and looked across the valley floor- behind him he could hear a litany of grumbles and curses as Number Three section worked their way through the ruins. The rest of the Grenadiers were strung out across the valley, advancing carefully across the remains of an ancient city. They weren't far from the gleaming dome of Outpost 219 now; it towered over the ruins, but Krate wasn't taking any chances- the last known communication from the Outpost had been abruptly cut short, and he didn't want to lead the Trevuntular Grenadiers into a trap. 

The comm-link in his ear crackled- "Arklay here, something moving out there. 1500 meters and closing, moving fast, over."

"Roger that, Sergeant. Grenadiers; hold your positions and take cover, contact imminent."  Krate turned to the Comms Operator, "Get on the line to Brigade, tell them we've found the scum!"

Been a while...Rick decided he wanted to play a game of 2nd ed 40k with his Tyranids. As we both had a day off work he came round and I set up a table, and dug out the Grenadiers. He insisted on playing the Tyranid Attack mission, which allows him to recycle all his figures, but requires him to wipe my forces out; a single Grenadier still standing at the end wins me the game! We played 1000 points aside.

The Trevuntular Grenadiers
Commander Peribon Krate, with laspistol, powersword and stasis grenade
HQ with banner and grenade launcher
3 infantry sections with an array of plasma guns, lascannons, heavy bolter and flamer.
Missile launcher squad split into 3 PIAT teams.
Wolverine MBT, with battlecannon, heavy bolter, and heavy stubber.
Wolfhound armoured car with autocannon and heavy stubber

Myself and the Grenadiers.

 The Swarm
Hive Tyrant with whip and venom cannon
Carnifex
3 termagant broods
2 hormagant broods
1 warrior brood
1 spore mine launcher thing with 4 mines.

Rick and the Gribbly Horde

The Grenadiers deploy for battle

The Grenadiers right flank

The Tyranid menace advances 

1st shot of the game comes from the Hive Tyrants Venom cannon,
which penetrates the Wolverine MBT and destroys it!

The steady volleys of the Grenadiers completely fail to slow the Tyranid advance.

The Wolfhound armoured car attracts the attention of the Hive Tyrant but is unharmed

The PIAT team are roughed up by the Hormagants, but
Peribon Krate is on hand to to turn the tide!

Number Three Section's flamer thins the horde slightly...

In the centre Number One Section takes the fight to the enemy,
their surprise assault destroying a Termagant Brood... 

...pity about the Carnifex really.

The Grenadiers around the ruins give it their best shot, mowing down
the smaller 'nids, but a few strays make it into melee.

The carnifex proves imperious to bayonets.

The Wolfhound charges around the enemy flank, only suffering minor inconvenience from a gribbly thing
that had snuck into the vehicle, and start giving the 'nid horde the benefit of their three sustained fire dice!

The next wave gets closer, and there's barely a Grenadier to stand against them now!

The defence of the ruins gives way as the 'gaunts close in.

The last few Grenadiers on the right go down fighting with their backs to the wall!

The wolfhound is opened up by the next wave of warriors. I didn't know
they could be recycled too!

So many 'nids, so few guns left to stop them!

The Tyranids move to finish off the last of the Grenadiers...

...but Peribon Krate, and two of his men, remain standing!

 Peribon Krate rammed his laspistol into the maw of the obscene creature and held down the trigger till its head was nothing but mist, he turned and brought his sword round in an arc that bit deep into the head of another alien abomonation , the Grenadier next to him exploded in a mass of writhing tentacles, and he snapped off a few shots at the 'nids swarming along the side of the building. At his feet the abandoned comms unit was chattering to itself; he grabbed the headset and pressed it to his ear "...age repeats, this is Nightreaper, mark your positions with orange smoke..." He dropped the headset and yelled the instructions into the grenadiers comm-net, diving for cover, his men at his heels. The orange smoke was already billowing above his head as his ears were filled with the roar of jet engines, and his nose was filled with the smell of napalm...

Great game, with some heroics and desperate fighting from the Grenadiers who proved themselves able to halt the unending swarm! 

You might have noticed an unusual vehicle in the pictures above- here it is again:

The Wolfhound Armoured Car- a repainted eaglemoss 1/43 model
of a French WW2 Panhard armoured car, with bigger guns and stowage added.

And it was only the start of a day of gaming- we had a go at Eight Minute Empire, a nice little game which Rick won. And then it was off to the gaming club to play Xwing for the evening, picking up a Y-Wing from the model shop on the way! Two games resulted in victories over Chris and his Imperial lackeys - that Y-Wing turned out to be a great buy with its Ion Turret forcing the TIE fighters and Interceptors to fly in very short straight lines whilst the X-wing and Headhunter lined up the killing shots! Also it proved impossible to kill- even with multiple enemies targeting it they still struggled to remove its shields!

Anyway, I've done a fair bit of painting this last few months. Ill try and get pics on here soon!

Thats all folks!