Gaining Impetus - Vikings versus Saxons in Hooliganism Shocker

Well, we did no gaming in February, but managed to get a couple of games of Impetus played in March. I am only now getting round to posting about them. I took photos in the first game but most of them were out of focus and unusable. My fault for not checking what setting I had the camera on! I completely forgot to photograph the second game. Probably just as well because the Saxons won!

We really enjoyed playing Impetus. It went slowly as we learnt the rules and had to check everything twice in the rule book, but overall it was an enjoyable experience and we liked the way the game flowed. We shall certainly play a lot more Impetus as and when time allows. Here's the only photos that I thought were worth keeping (click the pics for larger images):

The Vikings in the foreground chose to deploy in one line. The Saxons deployed a flanking unit across the stream.

The Saxons advanced piecemeal from their position on the hill, while the heroic Viking commander tried to keep his line together and only detached troops from the end of the line to secure the flank.

February is ... More Vikings!

Primary Objective: add 100 points of Vikings to my Viking army.
Secondary Objective: begin work on remodelling the 15mm Bwendi army for our forthcoming sci-fi campaign.

After discussion with Steve, we have concluded that February will be another month of Vikings, because he wants to paint more of his Saxons. I had considered moving the Norman army to the painting desk, but Vikings it shall be for this month. We shall play Impetus using the small armies this month as part of the overall project and my goal will be to expand my Viking army so that we can play larger games next month once we have a better grasp of the rules.


My secondary objective will only be engaged if I meet the primary objective early enough. I do not hold out any great hope of that because Real Life(tm) is going to impinge even more on my gaming time this month, a problem that is compounded by it being a slightly shorter month. For our forthcoming sci-fi campaign, we are both preparing our forces. I have a version of the Bwendi army for the Laserburn universe, but it is not suitable for a Traveller-esque setting, so I bought some GZG New Israelis in the sale last year. These are part-painted and I plan to complete at least a platoon's worth plus transport for forthcoming Tomorrow's War games. The platoon transport is provided by QRF Ratel 20s, which seem suitable for the background of the army and the near future setting of our initial games. I have modified them slightly with bits from the GZG packs, but overall I think they look right regardless. If this objective is not achieved this month, it will become the March objective instead.

January is ... Vikings

Figures: Baccus 6mm
Rules: Impetus

My target for this month is a 200 point Viking army. This consists of:

• 2 Guard Huskarls
• 5 Huskarls
• 2 Skirmish Archers
• 2 Skirmish Javelinmen
• Casualty markers

I had a bit of time free at the end of last week and also this morning so I was able to paint the Guard Huskarls, the Archers and the Javelinmen. I also painted a bunch of casualty markers. It's amazing how quickly you can paint 6mm figures if you just sit down and focus on painting. The figures are now glued to their bases and awaiting varnishing. The remaining Huskarls and some more casualties are sitting on the painting desk awaiting my tender attentions. Pictures will follow when the army is finished.

For the record, I still have a bunch of unpainted Vikings that are not allocated to the army yet. This pile consists of:

• 2 Veteran Huskarls
• 3 Huskarls
• 12 Hird (as the lesser Vikings are called in Impetus)

If my progress on painting continues at the current pace without distracting from my PhD then I shall add some of these to the painting desk and aim for a 300 point army. Looking at the pile of figures, I reckon I can field about 450 points of figures. I would like some more of the axemen to use as Veteran Huskarls and maybe some more ordinary Huskarls so that I can field a full 500 point army with some options for variety, but that will have to wait until the current batch of figures has been used a few times and I have painted their opponents.

Some 6mm Vikings

This is the first part of my Baccus 6mm Viking army. These are enough stands to cover their use in our Rally Round the King campaign. All units are based on 40mm frontage by 20mm depth while the heroes are on 20mm by 20mm stands. This means I can easily use the same forces for Warmaster Ancients, should I choose to expand the army that far. At present I am undecided and shall probably just crack on with producing a 6mm Viking army for Impetus based on 60mm by 30mm stands. Perhaps I shall produce the full WMA army in the future or it may just happen naturally if the Rally Round the King army is successful in the campaign and expands to that size.

The Rather Large Award-Winning Towton Project

The team took the Towton game to Salute last weekend. I could not make it because my friend had chosen to get married that day but it seems to have been a successful day even without my micro-management, because they came away with the Most Impressive Troops trophy. Nice. There's more about the show, including more photos over on the Towton project blog but here's a couple of photos just for the Ooh Shiny Complex followers. Click the images for larger versions.

0900 on a snowy Palm Sunday in 1461. Shivering, the troops line up as snow begins to fall:


As they realise that their arrows are not reaching the Yorkist lines, the Lancastrians begin their advance across Towton Dale:


Norfolk falls like a slightly asthmatic lion on the Lancastrian flank. The Lancastrian rout begins.

Only one week until Salute

I now have a complete single iteration of the order of battle painted, based and ready to field. The last of the flags went on today. That's 288 stands with around 8500 figures in total on them. These photos were taken before I had finished all my figures so there are some gaps in the lines:



The terrain is completed, all 18' by 4' of it. There are just a couple of tasks left to do:

1. Print orders of battle for the game;
2. Print display material;
3. Rely on the other team members to turn up with their figures;
4. Work out how to fit everything in Steve's car.
   

I shall not be at Salute because my friend has decided to get married that day but the other team members will be there for you to talk to and the game will be there for you to ogle. I hope you enjoy it.

The orders of battle (each square represents one stand):

It's fun to stay at the ...

Y - M - C- A

Mirholmen Death Dealers for our Talomir Tales campaign (aka fantasy Vikings from the new Baccus 6mm range). As usual click the pics for larger images.

I recently took delivery of some of the new Baccus Vikings and could not wait to put paint to lead, because these miniature beauties are just fantastic. Peter has produced a most excellent range of eleventh-century Vikings for invading England with, and he has also just released the Normans, who are also stunning. My painting efforts are currently focused on Wars of the Roses, so I decided to scratch the Viking itch with this stand of half-naked berserkir, who would be quick to paint. As naked berserkir belong in the realms of fantasy anyway, I did a base on 40mm frontage for our fantasy campaign, rather than a 60mm frontage base for the Impetus army I plan to produce. Naked berserkir are a nineteenth-century fiction that seems to be enduringly popular despite the total lack of actual evidence for them. They derive from confusion between Celtic and Norse cultures at that time.

‘Grenjuðu berserkir,
Guðr vas þeim á sinnum,
emjuðu ulfheðnar
ok ísörn dúðu.’ (1)
(Berserkers bellowed,
Battle was about to begin,
Wolfskins screamed
and shook steel.)
One emendation of the above verse reads 'ok ísörn bítu' 'and bit iron'. These Mirholmen heroes are clearly sword chewers.


(1) 'Haraldskvæði' in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzk fornrit, 26, 3 vols (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2002), I 4th edn, 116.

February Update - More 6mm Wars of the Roses

This month we have mostly been building terrain for the Towton refight. My target for painting was to add two more contingents to the Lancastrian army, which I have done after a fashion. I did not paint them all myself though. Peter at Baccus kindly lent me his Warmaster Ancients army on condition that I rebased it to the 60mm x 30mm standard bases that he favours. The army was on 40mm x 20mm bases before. So, rather than spending the whole month painting, I have spent a large part of it rebasing stuff. This has actually put me ahead of schedule as I now only need to paint ten more stands to have a complete single iteration of the Lancastrian order of battle, once Steve finishes the contingent he is painting for me. With this done we should be ready to rock at Salute. I shall then get the rest of the figures I was meant to paint myself done so that we can add some extra figures to the battle when we attend Derby in October.

The Yorkist army has also benefitted from Peter's kindness to the tune of one contingent, but I forgot to photograph them when I took these other shots. This leaves just twelve stands of troops remaining for the Yorkist army. Those are currently in the capable hands of my friend John, who has promised them soon.

In addition to these figures, I have included a teaser shot of the Towton terrain at the bottom of this post. As usual click the pics for a larger version.

Here we see the whole Lancastrian command that I am working on(empty bases show what remains to be painted):


This is what I have painted this month:


And here we have some of the figures that I rebased for Peter:


Proto-Towton terrain (everything you need to build Towton properly):

The Battle of Blore Heath, 1459 - The Cavalry

As part of our Rather Large Towton Project, we shall be putting on a small game of Blore Heath at Triples in April. Please come along and say hello if you are there. The Lancastrian army at Blore Heath had a cavalry wing and Blore Heath was one of the few Wars of the Roses battles to feature cavalry so it is fun to play it out. Here we see the whole of that cavalry wing, in this picture led by Exeter. Click the picture for a larger image.


I can't wait to see these guys thundering across the battlefield and then getting shot down by the heroic Yorkists! ;-)

Here are the knights on their own:


And here are the men-at-arms on their own:


As usual for the Towton project, all the figures are by Baccus. The banners are by Freezywater and the company flags on the men-at-arms are by Baccus. It has been fun painting some cavalry for this project instead of the masses of infantry that I have been working on and still have a lot of to paint. Mind you, I am behind schedule with my painting, so I had better get on and paint more infantry.

V-Day - Painted Vikings!

Peter Berry of Baccus sent me some pre-production models of his 6mm Vikings the other day, as I posted earlier. So, my first priority was getting some of them painted and here they are. This is a stand of armoured Vikings. I apologise for my painting standard, although I blame the photographs too because the close up images show every single flaw. I reckon the figures still pass the 3' test quite adequately though. Click the pics for larger images.

V-Day Part 2 - 6mm Vikings

Peter Berry at Baccus 6mm has made me a very happy man today. I returned home from delivering flowers to other people only to find something far better on my own doorstep; a small parcel from Baccus. Within lay two packets from Peter's forthcoming 11th century Viking range. These are pre-production models and they look rather tasty to me, but that means that we still need to wait before the general release.

The bags were labelled Armoured Viking Heroes and Unarmoured Viking Heroes (or words to that effect). Each consisted of 20 heroic Norsemen with spears and 4 command stands with semi-circular banners. They really are very fine figures and I can see them having greater utility than just the specific period they are designed for. After all, one bearded, spear-bearing Dark Ages warrior looks very like the next one. I can't wait to see the full range and had better start saving right now.

My apologies for the quality of the photos; my camera seems to be having a problem with white balance at the moment. Still, you can click on the pics for larger versions and should be able to get an idea of the glorious Viking-filled future that awaits us all. Excited doesn't even begin to cover how I feel about this range.

Armoured Viking Heroes


Unarmoured Viking Heroes

The Rather Large Towton Project - Update

I have just completed my first contingent for the Towton project we are doing. This consists of 294 figures in 6mm. You can see the results on the Towton Blog. Here's a shot of the whole contingent to tempt you to look there (click for a larger version):

My own contribution to the whole project will be about 8500 figures. I hope that the others can contribute half as much each. If they do then we shall have a truly epic game to play. The figures are all Baccus 6mm and they are awaiting the flags we are due to get from Freezywater/Lance and Longbow Society. Watch this space or, better yet, follow progress on the other blog.

The Danish Army at Helsingborg

I have previously posted pictures of my Swedish army for the Battle of Helsingborg. As part of my clearing the decks process, I have now finished rebasing my Danish army too. As usual, click the pictures for larger images. If you want to see more picture of this army and the individual units, you can find them in my Photobucket account.

The whole army for Helsingborg using Polemos order of battle:




The army is now based on 60mm x 30mm stands. Originally, when I first conceived of the Helsinborg project, I envisaged using Koenig Krieg to refight the battle. However, further experience of Koenig Krieg suggested to me that those rules might not suit my schedule and available gaming time. Therefore the project stalled with both armies painted and stuck to KK bases. Then along came Polemos. I decided to rebase to that standard. I figured that I could then use the armies with Volley and Bayonet too. I like Volley and Bayonet, although some find them a little simplistic. I also think that Volley and Bayonet may well suit my available gaming time better, although I intend to try both out.

As an example of how the units look, here is a picture of the Guard infantry:


And here is a picture of Bulow's Ungarske Dragoon Regiment.


Just to show how truly geeky I am, here are the casualty markers that I put together for the original Koenig Krieg project. There is a full set for every regiment in the army, painted in regimental uniforms.


Some figures that are not needed for Helsingborg, but which I rebased anyway:


Following the rebasing, I also find myself with a lot of extra figures left over. The Koenig Kreig battalions are larger than the Polemos / Volley and Bayonet ones so I have the equivalent of half a dozen regiments of infantry spare, as well as some additional commanders and dismounted dragoons. The infantry will have their facings changed and will become regiments that fought at Gadebusch in 1712. These spare figures will need command figures adding to them too, but I have plenty in the lead pile so that is not a problem. I shall be assuming that most regiments had not received their new red uniforms by then, but if I need to begin afresh with some units then I shall paint them in the red uniforms.

The Battle of Hälsingborg, 1710 - The Swedish Army

On 10th March 1710, the Swedish army marched on Hälsingborg fuelled only with a shot of schnapps that morning. It was a frosty day, which worked to the Swedes' advantage, for that meant that the marshes and bogs along their line of march ceased to be serious obstacles to their progress. The Danish army was deployed north of Hälsingborg but the Swedish approach march was aimed at their flank so the Danes had to quickly redeploy, leaving most of their artillery behind.

About ten years ago I decided that I wanted to refight this battle. Don't ask me why, because I have no idea why this particular battle became the focus of my efforts. I had been looking at the Baccus 6mm Great Northern War ranges and decided to make a large purchase, my first from Mr Berry. I then set to painting the figures and doing background research. I found Dan Schorr's excellent Northern Wars website, and also Nick Dorrell's work on the same subject. Communications with Dan Schorr led to him sending me a copy of the Danish General Staff's description of the battle, which still languishes half-translated on my hard drive. One day I shall finish the translation but in the meantime I have read it through a few times and been able to apply what I knew to the production of my armies.

Having bought vast quantities of 6mm figures, I needed a set of rules. I had played Koenig Krieg before and liked them. I also had Volley and Bayonet, which I also enjoyed. I opted to produce my armies for Koenig Krieg. What I fool! Had I but realised, I might have had this project completed ere now by simply opting for Volley and Bayonet. So, I painted all the figures and dutifully began building terrain. Unfortunately, the project lapsed and languished not forgotten but merely shelved, because my opponent moved away and I had no one enthusiastic about the project to keep me interested in finishing it.

And so we return to the present. Followers of this blog will have read my reviews of Polemos: GNW, so you will have seen that Steve, my regular opponent, is foolish enough to have shown some interest in this period. Bwa ha ha ha ha! As a result, I have stuck all of my figures on bases to a Polemos standard, which will also work for Volley and Bayonet. I have just completed the rebasing process for the Swedish army, so here is the full Swedish army according to the order of battle in Polemos: GNW. A Volley and Bayonet version of the same army would be about half this size. I have posted more pictures of this army on my Photobucket account. Although I have not photographed them, each regiment has a full set of casualty markers in its own colours too. How sad is that?

The Swedish Army at Hälsingborg (click the pictures for larger versions):


Jönköpings regemente:


Smålands och Östgöta femmänningsregemente till fot:


Östgöta kavalleriregemente:


Along the way, I appear to have successfully managed to paint a whole pile of extra bits too. Some of these are versions of the infantry regimentes in the main army, but with pikes, while others are spare bits as a result of the change of order of battle caused by using different rules. The vast amount of artillery is brought about by a general feeling that I wanted it.


And finally, if you have been interested enough to read this far, I shall work up a scenario for this battle at some point in the near future and post it here. I also need to do the basing on the Danish army, so that will be one of my next projects. With that done, perhaps I can turn my attention to finishing the terrain. Fortunately, there is not a lot there because there were only a small number of low hills on the battlefield, none rising higher than 40' above ground level.

Mercenaries of Talomir

Warrior Heroes is an element-based game of fantasy warfare. It has recently been superseded by Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures, and is no longer available. However, I am still fond of it and have been painting up a number of armies for games using the rules. I would love to be able to field all 44 armies listed in the rules, and especially to use them in the grand campaign game that comes with the rules. One facet of the campaign is mercenaries that you can recruit. There are two named companies of mercenaries in the rules. Both hate each other with a fury and they will not accept a contract if it means fighting on the same side as the other company.

The Black Company
The Black Company is led by Alfred Badenhorst, a one-time resident of Altengard. Badenhorst is a notoriously poor loser at cards. It is rumoured that his rivalry with Sir Geoffrey Chambers of the White Company stems from a game of Brag that he lost.

The White Company
Sir Geoffrey Chambers is the Captain of the White Company. He was born in Treyine and still holds some affection for that land. Many of his contracts are in service with the Treyine army. He is said to be a poor woodcutter's daughter, as was his father before him. He also appears to enjoy Morris dancing and real ale.

All figures are 6mm and by Baccus Miniatures.

Mission: Ooh Shiny - March Update

Woohoo! All goblins painted!! That gives me an available force of:
6 stands of Black Moon Goblins
10 stands of Goblin Archers
12 stands of Goblin Warriors
6 stands of Goblin Light Wolf Riders
2 stands of Ogres

The whole army:


This force will be more than enough for the Warrior Heroes game that we are planning next month. It amounts to twice the number of compulsory stands, which will permit some variety in the way I field the army. It really needs some more Goblin Warriors but I shall wait to get those until I have some spare cash, which may be a while now. As usual, click the pictures for larger images.

Irregular Miniatures Ogre allies:


The units are all based on 40mm by 20mm stands, with as many figures on each stand as I feel like putting on there. I like the 40mm by 20mm stands. They are neat and look good. For some reason I prefer this style of basing to the more normal DBx bases sizes that many rules use. I think it is because the stands rank up neatly together. The character figures are based on 20mm x 20mm stands with one or two figures per stand.

Baccus Goblin Wizard:


The figures are predominantly Baccus 6mm with a few Irregular Miniatures figures to provide those elements that Pete Berry does not produce. I really like the characterful goblins that Pete produces and they paint up really easily, but I do wish he would expand his fantasy range a bit. Mind you, having been made redundant recently, my gaming budget has been drastically reduced, so it is probably just as well. Perhaps it can wait until I have a new job.

Baccus Goblin Heroes:


The Irregular Miniatures figures paint up nicely, but they tend to be a bit lumpish in the lead. These particular Irregular figures do not have the same character that the Baccus figures have. This is a shame really because Irregular Miniatures are one of the nicest companies I have ordered from and they are really helpful if you ring them up with queries. They also have the fastest mail order system I know of. I believe they must either have Mystic Meg working for them, predicting what they need to package up in advance, or they have a time machine so that they can get your goodies to you immediately! Anyway, apart from their WW2 vehicles, I would still recommend Irregular to anyone wanting cheap figures and good customer service.

Irregular Miniatures Goblin Archers in the foreground with Baccus Cavalry and Infantry behind:


Irregular Ogres and Baccus Cavalry:

Polemos:GNW - Second Impressions

Following our first game of Polemos (see post dated 25 January 2009), I asked a couple of questions about the rules on the Polemos Yahoo Group. These were answered very quickly by Nick Dorrell, the rules' author, so full marks for support of the rules and a big thank you to Nick. I have now re-read the rules and they make much more sense with a game under my belt; it is much easier to see how the rules fit together and how the various parts interact. So, with all this behind us, Steve and I set to and played another game. This time we played an attack/defence game. Steve took the Saxons again, defending the small town of Nieder Kurzhosen, which is rumoured to be situated near Cleethorpes. I took the Swedes in a bid to drive the Saxons from the field.

The Scenario
The Saxon garrison of Nieder Kurzhosen has sallied forth from the town in an attempt to drive off the Swedish advance guard. They are afraid that the Swedes will be able to cut communications to the Saxon main army if left unchallenged, so sitting out a siege in the town with its poorly maintained defences is not an option. The Swedes wish to drive the Saxons from the field and sack the town because they are badly in need of the local schnapps, which drink is famous throughout the country.
The Game
In a bid to speed up the game, and taking our cue from the rules, the Saxons set up in their half of the board, while the Swedes were allowed to set up within 1' of their base edge. This meant that the two armies would start about 5 Base Widths (BW) apart. The Base Width is the basic unit of measurement in Polemos: GNW. My Baccus 6mm GNW figures are based on 60mm x 30mm bases so 1BW is 60mm. The table was 4' x 3'. The figures were deployed as shown in the picture below: The progress of the game was simple. We had two hours in which to play the game and managed seven turns. The Saxon infantry occupied earthworks in front of the town and stayed there for most of the game. Only one infantry battalion ventured forth to fire on the Swedish cavalry and that was both late in the game and ineffective. The Swedish infantry were assailed by the Saxon cavalry over on the Swedish left flank in a ding dong battle that saw first one Saxon cavalry unit routing and then a breakthrough by the Saxon second line that routed a Swedish infantry unit. Overall this fighting was inconclusive and honours were about even. On the Swedish right flank all of the Swedish cavalry assailed the Saxon dragoons and drove them from the field in the end. Typically, I had managed to give my worst commander command of my best cavalry, so their progress towards the fight was slower than might have been desirable. The following pictures were each taken at the end of a turn and hopefully should give you a taste of the flow of the battle (More pictures from this game may be found in my Photobucket account).

Conclusions
This game flowed much better than the last one. We achieved roughly the same result in half the time. Issues that were not covered in the rules still cropped up but we were able to work out our own solutions to them until I could ask about them on the Polemos yahoo group. All of my questions so far have been answered very quickly and I would commend Nick on his customer service in that regard. We still think that the game needs a better QRS, but other than that, it plays well and is worth checking out if you enjoy this fascinating period of history when Sweden was a great power.

The game itself felt about right for the period, although I would quite like to see the infantry getting stuck in more. Cavalry seem to dominate because of their extra movement. Command and control is key to winning the game and it is very easy for your commands to become disrupted. It then takes a while to reform them, or, if you have more pressing things to do with your tempo points, your errant troops will just sit there until charged or night falls. This emphasis on command and control really makes the game for us.

So, what does this mean for the game. Well, we enjoyed the game more now that we had clarified a couple of issues. The learning curve is steep but has been worth the climb for us. The down side is that our usual gaming slot is about 2-3 hours so even a small battle of Polemos is unlikely to be completed during one of our usual gaming sessions. We shall certainly play Polemos again because the look and feel of the game work for us but we shall need to allow more time, especially if we try a larger game.

Afterword
Both armies used in this game are Baccus 6mm starter armies. Baccus are linked from the sidebar if you want to investigate further. They also produce and sell the Polemos rules, which were used in this game.

If you are interested in the Great Northern War, I would recommend reading Voltaire's Life of Charles XII (the Everyman edition is good and usually fairly cheap secondhand) and Robert Frost's Northern Wars. The former should give you a good feel for the war from the Swedish perspective, while the latter is a drier but more informative history book. If you opt to buy either of these books, please use the links above because clicking through the Amazon link at the top of the page will help support my thrifty gaming project. Thank you.

Other sites you may find useful are:
Dan Schorr's Northern Wars site. This site keeps running out of bandwidth so get in early in the month. It has many useful pdf files about the period and is probably the most useful site for the period that you will find online.
Nick Dorrell's Great Northern War site has other information and links to other sites too. This is also an excellent site that neatly complements Dan's site.