Agema and other Companion's

Spurred on by the opportunity of a game I managed to get painted and based 24 Companion Cavalry in less than 7 days. This is possibly the best work to quality result I have had to date in figures. So to reward myself I did this..........

I was the only one not to cheat!!!

Yes as a surprise for the kids we had a street party in the house for the Queens Jubilee, well it was raining though it's quite possible I would have been less wet outside.

Praying to the dice gods?

It is doubtful we have had so much laughter in a day as we had yesterday and I really don't care how much painting time was scrapped for it.

So back on track, I painted both units up at the same time which speeded up such as the Horses and tack etc. Here is the second unit of Companion's which in fact gives me more Companion Cavalry than I can use with the Alexandrian Macedonian list but the Later Macedonian would use them.

Shown all drawn out and yes that is a telegraph pole each man is carrying! I went for red tunics with yellow cloaks so they will stand out on the table.

All figures are 15mm Magister Militum in both units. I have started to use the Vallejo Sepia Wash for all but the sniper reminders that will use the Devlan Mud until used up. I am finding the Sepia not to be even close to DM but works well enough that I will continue with it.

The Agema, I used three different reds for the different sections of painting and whilst it is not obvious at first look in the flesh you can see enough of a difference to make it worth the effort. I really like the in your face finish on these figures, lets hope they do well when on the table.

The face masks on the helmets really took my fancy and I like the result. I realise the unit is the cream of my cavalry but I felt they would look better if the armour and helmets had a little difference between them so whilst many have the same, I included enough changes to break it up a little.

Overall I am rather pleased with the result. OK both units are supposed to be lance and the Agema are dwarfed by the rest of the lances in my army but I can turn a blind eye to that, now all that needs to be seen is how well they all do on the table. It's going to be fun fighting with/against an army that has for the most part never been used and those that have managed just a single learning bash.

Games That Define Me

Games that define me, or rather that have stuck in my mind! This was fairly easy to put together and after reading other bloggers offering's I thought I would also throw in my choices.

The second wargaming I ever did. First it was 1/72 plastics just throw a die and if it's 5 or 6 you get a kill. But in reality this was the first game where a set of rules was used. GoA was published by Avalon Hill and covers the whole of Europe during WWI. When played with the full rules it was really rather dull. I played about 4 games of this in total and had enough fun that it turned me onto board games. This was to lead to playing The Rise and Decline of the Third Reich which also managed about half a dozen full plays. It would have got more but early on we had switched to figure gaming which took up more of our gaming time.

First came WRG 6th Edition and we stayed with these rules till DBA turned up, tried it and hated the whole play for 10 minutes and you have a winner. After 6th it seemed more a case of throw a D6 to see who wins than the actual fighting itself. As such DBM really stood little chance and whilst I painted an army up for these rules so I had options to play other opponents I never got round to it selling to a French man at Partisan many many years ago.

For ECW we tried WRG Renascence rules but were not fans and went over to Tercio. These were much like 6th, lots of book keeping and nothing like today's dice over paper style of play.

Almost life changing in it's impact on both my gaming and personal life. I think this game possibly put me back two years in the pursuit of girls. Sure I still had an interest but I often sought comfort in cardboard than was possibly healthy LOL. I just loved this game, whilst I still played figures a great deal I could play this solo and the rules were simple enough that you could drag the most casual of wargamer into a game. For realism and ease of play I think Don Greenwood struck gold in this one game. Whilst the add of gamettes added so much to the system it was also the death of Squad Leader.

About this time Andy went off to University leaving the rest of us to our collective gaming but on his first visit back he brought with him the idea of Roleplaying! Our first games were based on D&D and it did not take long till we expanded our playing group and bought into AD&D before we settled into for the most part MERP whilst using the Role Master books for attacks tables, spell lists etc. We still played AD&D and many others but MERP is where my heart is. I would love to get back into roleplaying again some time.

And then back into boardgames. Our roleplay group (by now we had a group that mostly played wargames and another than had moved to just roleplay) which included many figure gamers was also prepared to play other games, first it was Blood Bowl but a lack of knowledge at the time of American Football meant that apart from a couple of guys we moved on. How ever I picked a copy of BR at I think Triples and it was an instant hit. Between campaigns we would get a game of this in if we had 5 players. It had a fair bit of hammer and whilst it has not been played in years I would pull it out again with out hesitation. I remember games lasting till morning!

Of course the same bunch of guys were also drawn to Diplomacy, a more pure negotiation game that we had lots of fun with,. Again I am fairly sure it was Andy that brought this gem to our attention. I went on to run a games zine that offered Diplomacy as one of the games (The Mag With No Name) as well as playing postal for a number of years. At one point I think I owned about 4-5 sets.

Then IT happened. Not since SL had a new game taken my by the throat, kicked me around the room and still had me say thank you at the end! It was through Diplomacy that I discovered German Board Games as they were known then (It's Euro Games now). Two of my Dip opponents had mentioned them but I was soon to become a fairly regular at Leicester Boardgames group which was a two hour drive both ways but I was hooked. Better still so was my squeeze. Whilst our first trip away was a normal holiday many future weekends were spent at game cons both close (MidCon) and far (BayCon) where I have made friends that have stayed with me ever since. Oh yes and I think that perhaps one of the reasons my squeeze stopped being my squeeze was the games. Given that she became my wife I guess I have something to be grateful for in these games and we look forward to when the kids are old enough to play the classics.

Euro Games really was the death of my figure gaming. I have come up with several alternative reasons, but really it comes down to these games. Not just Settlers but the whole gambit. For a small outlay you could get a good game and at that time only the best games made it over to Britain (a few exceptions) so these games got a lot of play and broke into my local wargames club (sorry guys). In fairness it was already going down the pan with the amount of Magic The gathering we were also playing! For the next ten plus years I just played the Euro's, I had a group of players who would not touch a miniature and I lost touch with the lead guys.

Th one exception wa the occasional game of ASL with Lee, but that became less and less till about 7 years ago when we stopped. I still played a few games a year solo but nothing more. I then made the decision to sell up, looking on e-bay and seeing the price of the stuff it was an easy choice. But I went looking for more info, after all it was all mixed up and well I guess I wanted to take one last look. I found Gamesquad and suddenly I was immersed in ASL again, loads of people played. None close to me but by this time I travelled with work. Instead of selling I went into a buying frenzy. At the time I thought the prices high but against today's prices they were bargains and now I have everything that is official and plenty that is not. Euro Games had dropped off with John fleeing to Cornwall and whilst we still get the odd game I had a itch that had not been scratched in years. Now I play both face to face, live on line and postal. Vast majority of my gaming time is ASL, it remains my favourite system.

And back to the figures after around 15 or more years away! FoG for me seems to be the right balance between a good game and a historical battle. I see it as 6th Edition with a face lift. Sure it is not perfect but it works in the most part for me. Impetus is DBM  with knickers on! I will never fully accept them either as historical or a good set of rules but they play well and fast and suit the type of game I want some of the time. Forced to choose I would fly to FoG. Not that I feel I need to stick to these rules as I am happy to try other systems as well. What I can say is it's good to be back.

May The Month Be With You

April was big and smelly for me. Two weeks lost to being ill and no good news that I could remember!! So May did not have to do much to improve my mood but what a month it was! Thanks to some good people here in the world of blogging I was shamelessly pimped that took me from the low 40's to 76 followers that I now have and also padded out my visits to the extreme. So Guys and Gal, thanks much. Last Month I nearly doubled the visits with 2406 and over a quarter of my visits came last month! I guess I rose to the challenge with 28 posts which felt good and is the most done in a single month, March was fairly close to this but no other month has been close. Obviously I had the giveaway which helped keep interest fairly high and the question is, when next?

So posting was high, but what of other things? Well obviously we had Triples and if not for Partisan being the following week I could have made two cons in a short period! So my purchasing was up and that helped fuel the painting fire. Not only the six buildings I bought at Triples or the two units of 24 Companions but a fair bit more beside. The thing is I still have the brush between my teeth the only issue is what first? One reason for this full speed ahead can be seen below.

OK by many standards this is not great shakes and I really still need to organise it properly but for me it's a massive upgrade to my small portable table (though it will still get plenty of use).

Game wise I just got the one game against Barry with miniatures and the ASL has dropped back from the normal but from a potential I can't complain. Andy this week, Barry hopefully soon after and Lee as soon as we can get sorted. Hopefully I will also get to play with Lee and his mates and the 28mm Nap's that I mentioned a few weeks back. So it's fair to say it was the Merry Month of May.

Broadside

OK Broadside is next week as I am sure many will be aware from all the other blogs trying to help out the organisers after not one but two mags let them down with paid advertising failing to get into the mags!!! I decided to wait awhile and more act as a reminder as these things can sneak up on you.

Well that does not seem enough of a effort to make do a post so I guess I had better will you in hobby doing's. Met up with Andy my first ever opponent over the weekend. He introduced me to both wargames and rock music, I recon he owes me a small fortune! Anyway he is back in the area next week for a number of days and we hit upon the idea of having a game. Now Andy has not played in years and years, his figures are as he put it, buried behind a pile of shite. So with this in mind and the guilt of the poor lads sitting on the painting desk for some time I finally got round to starting the Agima and Companions I had undercoated. These are for my 15mm Alexandrian army and I am pleased to say that all 24 figures are now based and awaiting flocking etc. Yes they will be ready for a game next week. For me that's real fast painting and trying to keep the momentum up I have already started to clean up 32  more 15mm foot (Peltasts) and 4 more 28mm Australian's for the Sniper Project.

So Wednesday or Thursday will see a fairly complete Alexandrian Army facing off against one of the possible Persian armies I can field. I will assemble the Alex army and then build a Persian to a similar point value. It will be interesting to see how Andy reacts to new rules whilst I either face or play with what amounts to a brand new army (about 4 units have been used in one test game over Christmas).

Meanwhile I hope to get a game of Napoleonic's in with Barry and another FoG with Lee before too much longer which would give us three games together with these rules. So after a rather heavy painting period I hope to be rewarded with a fair few games. Sometime next week I also hope to get the turn back for my Diplomacy Game, I know France is expected to force his way to Burgundy which threatens Munich but more on that when it happens.

So a four day Bank Holiday and ten days of having the kids off school, lets see  what effect it has on the painting front.

Warhammer Historical - The Last Rights?

For a number of months I have wanted to get round to doing a review of the Warhammer Historical rule set Gladiator. Instead it seems a epitaph would be more appropriate! I am sure that by now everyone who cares already knows that the plug has been pulled on the whole of the Warhamer Historical series. As to why I would imagine we have about as many ideas as we have posts on the subject. Having worked with the sticky subject of licences in the past I have yet another idea to throw into the melting pot, that of expired or withdrawn licence. Given that Gladiator was only released last year and had adverts for yet to be released product it's safe to assume that if the licence was drawing towards expiry that the holders were expecting to renew the licence. But something happened in the mean time and not that long after Gladiator was released. The half price sale towards the end of last year really points towards an expectation to loose the licence either through none renewal, removal of licence or quite possibly a renewal price that was set at a unaffordable price which would be a possible reason for the half price sale in an attempt to raise the cash to keep the licence. The key thing about licencing is that whilst you may have done all the work on producing an item, that item will not be your intellectual property if a licence comes to an end. OK it may not be held by the issuer of the licence but what will be certain is that the item can not see light of day without permission.

So what does this mean for rule sets such as Waterloo and Over The Top etc.? Well some of the comments I have read has people thinking that it's possible for these rules to be released into the Public Domain, or that another company could "just change a few words and a few rules and release as a fresh product", well er no, not a chance, unless someone wants to take of the might of Games Workshop who will be forced to protect their intellectual property. OK I hear you, but GW did not do the work, they did not spend hours and hours play testing the rules etc. Sure your right and it counts to nothing. Unless the designer goes to the trouble of almost complete re-write they are playing a dangerous game. WH books are based on a series of rules that already have seen print. Gladiator is based on the LOTR rule set, if that had been released post licence loss and could be traced back to LOTR series then GW have cause to claim copyright infringement, intellectual property theft and have the financial clout to see it through the courts. Now to be fair GW would have to prove finical loss (either currently, in the past or FUTURE LOSS)  to get a financial payment from the infringes. But even if they do not get any money from the suit, they would almost certainly get the new product removed from sale or free release. The legal cost would cripple who ever had tried to release the product even without damages being awarded. This is why any product that was in development won't see the light of day beyond play test copies.

So how about unsold copies of the rule books? This is tricky, typically once a set date has gone past no more copies can be sold by the vendor, even copies that have been sold on to other companies can be recalled with the right clauses (with the cost of buy back etc. being born by the supplier. Whilst this is somewhat unusual what tends to be the norm, is that any sub-companies or direct trading partners are banned from selling post this date and so often what you get is a mass dumping of the product to a budget supplier. It would be wise to keep an eye on such as The Works etc. though  GW may well have bought the stock. What you won't see is the local stores suddenly offering them, nor will you see e-bay suddenly flooded by the original supplier. Worse case scenario will be the stock will be destroyed, unlikely but quite possible dependant on who will lose out the most on the financial fall out. The idea that stock levels were low is unlikely to be true. It seems fair to say that notice of the decision regarding the licence was relatively short and whilst the fire sale will have sold many a copy that very many more were in stock, especially the newer items that would have had a fairly huge print run given the selling price of £20 a copy.

Is it the last rights? I think so, it's possible that the licence could be offered back at a reduced price or a greater royalty. It's also possible the licence could be handed over to another company with a deal done on the unpublished works. I am not 100% sure on the relationship between GW and WH and the website selling the rules. it's possible the last two are shell companies ran by GW or syndicated companies. What ever the reason GW has for dropping the line it's a shame for those who have bought into the system and it''s a shame that the most profit rich companys in the business has again turned away from historical wargames. Am I fan of GW? No but they were the company that I bought WRG 6th Edition Ancients from and they were the company that introduced roleplaying to the UK in a way that it stuck.

The Commandos at Dieppe Book Review

This book refreshingly takes a look at one successful part of the disastrous operation that was the attack on Dieppe. This book I gave away as part of my blogs giveaway and I am happy to say it was a good read. Typical of most books of this type it goes into detail regarding the formation and original training of the Commandos which is very welcome and a run through of the war to this point, which is not. It's a specialist book so why do we need what is essentially filler. Anyone who does not know the order of things up to that point really are unlikely to be reading the book anyway. So the question has to be, was it filler to pad out a thin book or worse was other more interesting detail missed out? I really think it's a mix of the two and whilst the actual engagement is well covered further information regarding the run up or after affects of the action could and should have been included in the book. So it's a bit like being cheated out of some detail for the lack of being prepared to go the extra mile. Whilst this is a little unfair it stands up as long as they continue to waste our reading time by putting the usual Germany Invaded Poland etc etc shite in books that clearly the reader already knows. Rant over.

The detail of both the run up and raid itself is both good and well presented. Whilst the area of the fight was relatively small Will Fowler does a great job of keeping the action separated into compartments but also knitting them together. The section on the battle is chock full of possible scenario's for small actions and whilst the famous mortar round would be hard to replicate you have plenty on other small actions that warrant table top representation. As for those just wanting a good read they will be happy with the way it is written. The human element comes through very well and we get a view of the action from all three sides.

What makes this a hit for me is that given the strange habit the Brits have for highlighting our failings in war and the seemingly desperate attempts to make all Generals seem either plodding, stupid or most often both, this book celebrates the part of the action that went right and where it did not, the action taken to get it back under control. Yes the raid was a disaster and yes it was one of many but reading so many other books it's a surprise we ever got to France never mind Germany. It's nice to read a book for a change that does not paint up Tommy as a accident waiting to be shot and as such thank you Mr. Fowler, I will forgive you for the potted history, maybe.

Nothing to do with a gaming blog!

Nothing to do with a gaming blog? Well almost nothing. You see my excuse for staying in all day Saturday and painting was that I was waiting in for a phone call to go fetch three 'point of lay' hens to bring my back garden brood back up to strength after a hard winters campaigning. So here are the new ladies in my life.

Warren Hybrids.

These are Warren's but bread so that they are slightly better egg layers. That is to say the already great layers become super layers. The old battery farms (and vast majority of commercial farms) use this type of bird though they also pump them full of chemicals that make them lay even faster and sell them off for turning into hot dog sausages etc. Mechanically reclaimed meat is code for whole birds, beak, legs and all just minced into puree. Don't go there! Our original birds were rescue birds that would have had that fate but are bought by a charity and whilst not in the worst state they could have been were fairly bad. Broken toes, urine burns from sitting in their own mess and 2/3rd featherless. Well post having these which against the odds all survived (many of these birds die after coming off the heavy dose antibiotics that allow them to stay alive in such condition - junky chickens coming off crack is not fun to watch), we could not take other ex-bats as we do not have a separate place to put the rescue birds whilst they recover. Putting them in with full strength chickens is a death sentence as the others will just peck them to death.

So since then we have just had young 16 week(ish) birds. Last time we went for something different, Light Sussex and Black Roc hybrids. These produce less eggs but we don't have them for the out put. So what did the old gals think of the new?

Chicken Stare!

Not impressed! Blossom, the white one has been the boss for well over a year and when ever new birds get introduced a new pecking order has to be established. The new birds will not challenge her position, well not for some time but the whole who's boss has to be ran through. It started really bad as one of the two originals fetched blood of Cath's new girl Phebe. Fortunately with the heat it dried quickly as running blood to chickens is an open invite to attack after attack. We kept a close eye but really did not want to separate them. Anyways they all settled down later and apart from the odd flap they have settled in well, just like all the others before.

Ollie, that's my girl.

Olli is mine, a Black Roc who is black all over except the neck and wing/tail tips which are golden. She is the one most in danger of slipping down the pecking order and she knows it. She is a smaller bread and has always been at the bottom of the chain. This is no problem though as they have plenty of room .

Anyways, next post will be back to what you want to see, honest.