At the back of my mind as I've been putting my Roman army together, has been the need to provide some baggage, or camp. We haven't used these in our games at all yet, but perhaps ought to. On a practical note - it's a good place to keep your spare ammo chits and perhaps victory medals for To The Stongest!
I thought I'd start with a single camp 'unit' which in TtS! is a 'deep' unit. I knew that I would want to fortify this (we are Romans after all!), so decided to combine the camp base with three sides of fortifications. I had considered building the two parts separately, but figured this would be more practical and I can always make up some more field fortification pieces later. The base, therefore, was a piece of hardboard cut to size - 180 x 150mm. This will fit fairly neatly onto the 150mm grid we use.
In best bodgy blue peter style, I took a sharp knife and glue to some foamboard, a load of cocktail sticks, applied wood filler and paints and finished up with this. The groundwork is painted up to blend with the arid look on the rest of the army.
I think field fortifications cost 2 points per grid edge, rather than per square, in which case this would cost 6 points, plus the 1 point for the camp.
it does remind me of a DBA camp element.. in fact I'm sure I have one just like this in 15mm somewhere!
Last week had a great game of To The Strongest! with Scrivs.. I say 'great' because it was a very rare and very convincing victory for my Romans. OK, in hindsight there was a lot of luck involved and perhaps we tweaked the small units rules a little which gave my lads a fighting edge they were lacking.. but anyway..it were good!
I didn't take any pictures but Scrivs did and posted a write up on his blog.
One thing we did was to try the new TtS! 'chits' - (Thanks Simon). These are an alternative to using playing cards. They certainly look better on the table , although I have to confess to missing the experience of using cards.. somehow flipping a card and hoping for a lucky number seems more dramatic than drawing a chit from a cup!
Speaking of cups.. I casually mentioned to my better half that some kind of bags would be good, as long as they could stand on the table, rather than using tea mugs.. next thing I know, she's knocked up a couple of very suitable little chit bags from a pair of old jeans!
On Sunday I paid my first visit to Vapnartak, the wargames show at York racecourse with Mr and Mrs Scrivs and Mansfield wargames stalwart Steve. Much bigger show than I anticipated and quite interesting.. one or two nice games on display - Trev and John had a Dux Britannium game with Curteys minis that looked great, and tucked away in a corner was mountainous Afghan 1919 game using Bolt Action rules which was a looker too, Upstairs was an impressive 18th Century bash going on too, sadly can't recall the club or the battle, but it was very pretty.
I hadn't got a shopping list, but came away with a copy of 'Blood Bilge and Iron Balls' as it was on offer, look like pretty simple rules, first impressions suggest a lot of tabletop rammel though - record sheets and cards and templates etc.
I'm making a start on a base of baggage for the Romans - most likely with a fortified perimeter, Scrivs and I split a bag of Renedra tents from Gripping Beast. I also picked up a couple of the MDF wagon kits from Warbases. I put these together last night and I have to say they are really good.. so easy to assemble, just fine enough for wargames and a great price too. I dare say they'll get painted, but it's tempting to leave them as they are.
