"Glory Gives Strength" I honestly don't know whether that is the actual proper Hogg family motto.. but the internet says it is, so it must be true!
I've been waiting for some pending commercial and fancy-shmancy genuine shield transfers to become available .. but that doesn't seem to be happening. I put off tackling anything myself, because I knew that as soon as I did, they would appear in the web-shop, so today I am testing that theory!
Recently I remembered that I had a sheet of transfer paper that I'd bought from eBay some time ago, (turns out that was 'clear'. You can get 'white' transfer paper too).
I put together a graphic of the shield pattern that I wanted and printed off onto my inkjet. The quality of the print is not brilliant, but not bad. A couple of passes of a matt sealant and these were good to go.
This afternoon I nervously prepared my desk, cut out and dunked the first transfer, wondering if the ink would lift off the paper. It held just fine and went on to the shield better than some commercial products I have used in the past.
So, despite mis-calculating and not quite printing off enough, I now have my Lion Rampant retinue properly 'badged'.
Once these are really dry, they will get a coat of varnish and then some touching up to blend the transfers in where necessary.
Not up to professional standards, but I have the pleasure of making something myself, and a retinue which now bears my own family crest. Pleased.
Haven't been painting or keeping the blog up much just lately .. mostly because I've been quite busy playing with trains..
Last week Ade and Quint joined Scrivs and I for another Punic game of To The Strongest! The Romans sadly reverted to their original brittle state and promptly lay down in front of the Carthaginians. Much as I am enjoying Simon's rules, it is becoming a bit of a theme that the Romans fight a desperate defence from the start and I mostly try to lose with grace rather than consider the prospect of victory. I'm not sure that means that anything needs changing, it's just as likely that I'm not using my troops properly!
Last night I had a very enjoyable introduction to "Field of Battle' Horse and Musket rules, guided by Steve and using his amazing collection (just a small part) of 'traditional' toy soldiers. Sadly I have never rolled so many 1's and 2's in one game before! Considering we were using a variety of dice, up to D20, I think I rolled an 8 once, otherwise pretty consistently below 5. A little frustrating for Steve, who was trying to demonstrate the rules and these rolls kept bringing up rather extreme results. Also seeing his newly painted Russian grenadiers leave the table on the first turn due to some pinpoint Prussian artillery fire didn't help!
Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to play with these beautiful 40mm home-cast figures. It felt like a game straight of one of the war-games 'classics' that I used to borrow from the library as a teenager. The rules seemed a lot less complicated than at first impression too, and have some nice mechanics.
Not great photos as I was using my phone, but you can see a lot more of these on Steve's site.
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.
Nothing like a deadline...
Quint is arranging a Lion Rampant day at the club soon. Having bought the rules at Partizan, I had yet to build and paint my retinue from the boxes of Fireforge Sergeants that I had bought at the same time. One of the stipulations of the tournament day is that players use armies from pages 59 - 60 in the rules. At first I couldn't figure out a way to do that from the figures that I had, but then I realised that with a little swapping and chopping about I actually could field a 'German' retinue as per the list - brilliant!
With this renewed inspiration, the deadline for the game day, and the knowledge that I am due to attend a pretty intensive training course next week (ie no painting time), I have recently cracked on with my force.
The one thing sadly lacking so far is the heraldry. I am assured by Richard at Battleflag transfers that a set for my own surname is pending, so I can't let that opportunity pass by!! So hopefully my retinue will be carrying something like this..
There is a 'theme' of black and white running through the units (with red as a highlight colour here and there) which I think should go well with the shield design and give the retinue a consistent look.
So, the force will consist of;
(Not finished) Mounted Men at Arms. I will be using the Fireforge mounted serjeants. Although they are on undecorated horses, I think they will look sufficiently 'heavy' to pull this off. I will be painting each of the six knights in his own colours, one of whom is my leader.
One unit of Mounted Serjeants with crossbows.
One unit of Crossbowmen with Pavises. I added some shields planted in the ground to half of the unit, which I hope will serve as a visual indicator for the pavises..
Two units of Foot Serjeants.. As I made up half of these with hand weapons, rather than spears, I will mix them up so that it is clear that they are spear armed..
Seems that most years around this time I have a couple of solo games. There are one or two game days being organised at the local 'club' but family commitments and a wedding means that I'll miss out on most of that.
My attention span for solo gaming is not what it was, and I thought I'd have a go at the 'Song of Blades and Heroes' rules that I'd ordered fairly recently. (Tom has posted one or two reports that looked like fun).
My first thought was that I had got shot of what fantasy figures I had years ago (probably quite collectible 'OOP' stuff now!) and although I could of course use Vikings and my WIP medievals.. I thought it would be much more fun to print out some free 'paper' figures from the tinternet.. so after an hour or so last night playing with prittstick and scissors, I had two small (around 220 points) warbands to try the game out.. After a brief distraction to clear the drive after the first big snowfall of the year, I gave the rules a go this afternoon.
A patrol of city guard, led by the gruff Captain Griff, encountered a band of stinky Kobolds in the hills above the town.. Griff wasted no time in ploughing forward, calling his men to to join him and with his first blow exacted a glorious 'Gruesome' death on the Kobold leader!
The shock of seeing their pack leader being disassembled sent many of the kobolds scattering, but as their shaman cast a 'transfix' spell on Griff, freezing him in his angry tracks, they managed to regain their composure, putting up a brief scrap, killing one of the guards, who had rushed to protect their Captain, before their own losses eventually proved too much and they skulked back off into the hills.
Quite an enjoyable little ruleset, has the feel of a 'toolkit' almost, that you can tailor to suit the game that you want to play. Although I'm not a big fantasy fan as such, I've also seen the newish Reaper Bones figures which look quite affordable and you never know, fielding a Unicorn might even persuade my daughter to roll some dice!
