Numidian 20mm Army Advances

I painted up a box of HaT Numidian Cavalry a couple of months back and was surprised at the speed they were off the table. Well next up was a box of Zvezia which are a fair bit more detailed and showing less flash. This time I expected speed, OK not as fast due to detail and the extra figures but speed none the less. I was not disappointed, the lack of equipment on the horses make them a speed paint for sure.

The picture above shows the new arrivals, three light cavalry units and a medium. Based for Impetus as some of you may well know. I really liked working with this brand and only wish they did more figures that I could use, well worth the extra cost. The original units I based the lights four figures to a base and was not fully happy with this, so this time tried three and I like the look a lot better. I probably will remove the extra figure on the other two bases sometime and reposition giving me an extra unit!

This is King Joba, yet to be based as I want to get round bases for my command figures. I know under Impetus you are supposed to have them within the units but Barry and I decided we wanted to have them this way. I have copied the box rear panel. The detail is fantastic from his cloak pin through to the studs on the shields straps.

The HaT all have shields whilst these have about an even mix between shield and without which I rather like. I have bought a further two HaT boxes already so will have all the light cavalry I need (8 units) but not the 16 I could have!!!!

The medium cavalry unit. I was going to place six on the base but this was too crowded, I will save that for any army I do that has heavy cavalry in it. No this army just has the one medium cavalry unit, even the Roman deserters are lights!! I have four of the five figures with shield but I see it's more tactical use and numbers rather than armour that defines then medium cavalry.

The whole army to this point. Who would have thought buying that one box of Roman Auxillia would have ended up with a full army on the go? So far we have 6 light cav one medium and two Roman Auxillia. I have under prep all the light foot, these should be started next week and look towards finishing them late that week or the following week. Just waiting varnish and basing are 24 15mm Cataphracts which should not hold me up too much.

A view from above. I said last night that all I needed to do was photograph the figures then I could put them away. Cath asked if that bothered me as it meant they were not getting any use. After a small pause I told her no as I know they WILL get used and whilst that may be months away (as it is with some of the other figures I am working on) it will happen. I then went on to mention that some guys never paint their figures but play with armies painted by others whilst yet others just paint figures with no intent to use them, even if they are based as if for wargameing. She could understand the reasons behind the former but the latter was all alien to her. Oh well, bless.

Oh if your reading this and your not at The Blog With No Name then chances are your at the site of a theif who takes others work, pretends it is his and makes money out of it. What a cad eh?

Oppertunities.

Or how to turn a day out shopping for kids shoes into something to do with games. OK you probably know the drill. You are bound to if you have kids I am sure. It's the weekend and you have a stack on mini's to paint but the kids need shoes. Well maybe...... I say maybe as the last four times you took them to be checked no was the reply come back in x weeks. Now whilst I always keen to hear 'No shoes today' after all that's £40 a pair these days it starts to wear a little on the 4th or 5th visit. But I have failed to add one small detail, we go to Nottingham for the kids shoes, yep Wargames Capital of the UK, home of so many of the big names. The only issue is that none of them seem to be in the city centre and if they are I have failed to take the effort of tracking them down!!!

Well this time of course was no exception so I fully expected to come back empty handed aside a pot of Devlan Mud wash from Games Workshop. Well in truth I would have been happy with that anyway as I have plenty to keep me going but when has that ever stopped us?

The trip into GW was worth the visit anyway. I swear I have not gone further than 6 steps into that shop. I have a memory of when James was playing 40K and went in to get something small and one of the staff forced him to show him how much money he had on him and then promptly started to try and get him to buy something to that value. I was not standing with him at the time so when I then made the stupid prat take his wallet out he neither expected it or saw the funny side. So in I went (my local shop never seems to have a pot in!!!) straight to the paints (4 steps) and back to the counter after picking up one of the 4 pots in the otherwise crammed rack. A staff member comes up, is that all you need, how about brushes?, paints..... ? No thank you I said politely remembering the court order. 'How about a White Dwarf?' Sod the court order I thought. "I don't know do they have anything in that would interest me?" I asked sweetly, Well what are you interested in? "With a smile I asked in my best little voice, "anything that's not total shite such as 40K or other rip off priced kid sucking crap" Turns out no they don't have anything other than this in the White Dwarf. In fairness he took it all in part and asked me to have a nice day, I was tempted to spite him by not but you know how it is.

So having baited a shoppie my wife wanted to check out a new book shop, she found nothing but Liberation by William I. Hitchcock looked interesting. Basically it's about what happened away from the photographs of happy and saved civilians and looks at the reprisals and the effect of being liberated at the cost of your house and half your family etc etc. I have often wondered about this side of the coin. Just looking at photo's of columns of allied vehicles winding between rubbled houses has always made me question just how happy they must have been! You can pick this up for about £25 at the moment from Amazon but this shop (neither of us can remember what it was called but was upstairs in Victoria Centre) was selling it for £1.99 and a few copies at £3.99 go figure. So was a happy carrot.

Last off I went to ModelZone and on impulse picked up a couple of boxes of HaT 1/72 figures. I was planning on getting a few boxes to make up an army to base to Impetus to play against Barry's armies. Barry has been holding off ordering a few boxes until I was ready but I wanted to first paint a few before committing to a supplier. I know some of the blogs I follow paint up plastics really well but can I? So these serve two purposes, they scratch an itch and also give me a quick fast test that I can fit in between projects. Whilst technically these are two different roman periods I am not too worried as I will be doing a slight conversion and period change anyway. Not only this but they will also be swapping sides to the Carthaginians. With the Cavalry this is really easy, the Auxiliary Infantry really need changing from chain armour to general clothing but I think in fact these will just get painted up as they are supposed and end up either in Barry's collection or used as needed as that extra unit. I do look forward to getting them painted though and even more to then picking up the required forces to match Barry on the battlefield. A kind of way of showing commitment to his scale and period as he has done to mine. Mind you since he painted up the 6mm Brit Nap's we have failed to get a game in!! Soon sort that out though.

AAR Battle of Annes Table

OK so this was not based on any real action as sooooooo many games are not, but it was on Anne's table so thanks MUM. 44 years old and still nips over to Mum's to game, bless. Well given Barry lives across the road and we were using his figures it seemed the easiest option. Not sure the manufactures but these are all 1/72 (20mm) plastics (though the cart mounted Art was metal and for a guess Irregular Miniature). We diced for sides and I got the Romans which was interesting as I have never ever ever played with Romans before. The game just like the one two weeks before was just to try out the rules. This being Basic Impetus which Barry is keen on given that they suit small numbers of units and given the scale we will only use small numbers on such a table, though we could nip to the local games store and play on a huge table if wished as we will possibly do with the 15mm.

I personally had grave doubts about the rules though they read fairly well I know chunks of the good stuff were missing. Just like the game before we set at the same time paying no attention to the other players positions etc. Under the assumption that we would be over in a couple of hours we started later than normal but with about 3 hours play time, plenty.

Barry set up his Gallic force up on the left my Romans on the right. More or less a straight up set up, Barry had Cav on both flanks whilst I only had the one Cav unit but I set up archers in front of a legion and ART on the hill. The warbands kept behind the crest fearing my mighty ART. As we were both more interested in trying the rules than winning the game we both were keen to come to grips in ways that under other circumstances we would not even think of. That said Barry managed to tempt my Cav out wide on my flank by offering a target that I had every right to expect a quick conclusion. This move indeed worked and sprung his three chariots to drive towards the infantry flank. I sent one of the two Auxilia to face these, OK they won't stand for ever but they should cause some damage, meanwhile I sent a Legion to play with a unit of skirmishers not even bothering to use the Pilum in first contact. The only other action at this stage was the other wing of Cav charging my other unit of Auxilia on my extreme left flank.

The only action that was conclusive first off was my Legion against the skirmish troops. I rolled oh so high and killed them all giving me first blood. This just exposed a war band with support which I received a charge from but this time I did use the Pilum and to some effect. This was an interesting combat as it swung back and forwards till...........

Not the way you want to roll, especially when they were rolling five dice to your seven! I passed the Cohesion test and as such managed to soldier on. At that point I had still to loose any loss whilst both warbands were down two levels. This scrap went on to the end with first one winning then the other, dice were fairly even once the disorders started to kick in but Barry struggled to do much in the way of casualties to me and they have lots of levels to resist damage.

This was the story through out the game, one side then the other seemed to get the upper hand. On my left the Auxilia had been disordered by the Cav but thanks in part to being uphill I continued to stave off being beaten and slowly the casualties rose. Barry decided after being pushed back twice for one last charge and the rolls went all my way and another unit routed from the field. This would allow this unit that was still in good condition to remove it's disorder then attack the flank of the double warband approaching my two Legion units still unblooded in the centre. The bow troops really to this point had done little as they could not fire into melee and I was not about to charge into a fight. The last skirmish unit approached them and I let them have a fairly unimpressive volley of arrows before they crashed into me guys. Well I won and caused a casualty forcing them to break off. Now I had a double warband to face. OK stand, fire and die or run away? Hell it's only plastic, fire away and ooch two damage, both are handed on to the back unit so no disorder or problems for the front guys, still every little helps for the Legions awaiting the main event.

Oh the joy, these two warbands crash into my poor bow troops and what happens? just a disorder thanks to some epic die rolling by me and average by Barry. Now my boys would stand for another turn allowing my flank troops to recover and make preparations to go in on the flank.

On their right I was still fighting off the `yes we can roll four sixes' and in fairness this was still any ones game. Both had survived another round of combat and both sides were becoming brittle, one more push could well have seen the winner though with the Chariot battle raging to the end how I would have reacted if I had won was up in the air but only bad things would have come from a Gallic win of this mini-fight.

Those damned Chariots!!, they seem to me at least far far too powerful on paper. In the game they just could not get the job done. One unit of Auxilia held all three off for the whole game but only by dicing Barry turn after turn after... you get the idea. The only bonus I had was that after a couple of rounds I was never facing more than two a turn and towards the end his strength was falling and losing these Chariots would have been high point values and a major blow but I was not in best of shape.

Well what should have been the easy battle (two or three dice advantage throughout) was at the start just a case of no result and then slowly gong my way before swinging to Barry right up to being down to one level left at game end. Still I had managed to halt, loose my disorder and was ready for that last charge, good rolls would win me the action but Barry pipping me with just a one 6 more than I had would kill my unit unless I rolled a 1 on the cohesion test. I would probably need two rounds to finish him off so odds were in favour of Barry in this one.

Well the kids needed collecting from school so we needed to call it at that point but it had been lots of fun and I can see that these rules work well for the limited number of units in play. The acid test was that I wanted to play to the end and I wanted to play another game soon. So we will try these rules again in the near future, however they are not without warts.

You don't shoot as your opponent charges in which is a big deal if they had the 2nd initiative in the last turn and first in the next. It seems not to pay any attention to armour or if you have shields or not. I don't like the idea of passing a cohesion test and because your disordered you lose a casualty anyway, why bother with the test for single casualties. It seems to be that if a unit lost three CP's if like I did it passes the CT then only a disorder happens? OK I had -3 o the test but the unit had 6 levels so still 50% chance to pass. Just quick fire problems that we can work out/through with more in depth play and maybe a house rule or two. Of course the real objective of these rules is to hook you to the main rules and get you to buy them. Barry is hooked but I already have the hook from Field of Glory and will be trying these out with the 15mm. Not sure I want to play both full sets for the two scales though taking a few bits from full Impetus and installing in the basic rules appeals. Once FoG has had a few games and we are happy (unhappy) with the rule set then I want to try out Impetus, that is unless FoG rocks, but does any rule set really tick all the boxes?