Categories
1/72 scale figures 20/25/28mm figures anglo saxons wargame rules wargaming

AMW test drive : Two Shieldwalls

The Anglo-Saxon list in AMW offers the following

Nobles – Dark Age Infantry – medium armour, Elite between 1-3 units

Peasants – Dark Age Infantry – light armour, Average between 4-6 units

Archers – Light Infantry (bow) – light armour, Levy between 0-1 units

Special rules

Shieldwall can be adopted by both Nobles and Peasants. This formation imposes movement limits while providing enhanced saving rolls equivalent to the best you can get.

Integral Archers gives extra firepower to a unit just in the first turn of combat

Cavalry – one unit of nobles can be reclassed as

Cavalry – Heavy Cavalry – light armour, Elite

The warband option only applies to armies before 600AD and is mandatory before that date. I was interested in the shieldwall so my armies were post 600AD and in fact more like 900AD, what’s a few hundred years in dark age time………..

The Gloom of morning catches the scene – Rebels in the foreground with the Kings men approaching in the distance

I opted for two identical armies conveniently named Wessex 1 (Kings Earl) and Wessex 2 (Rebel Earl). Nothing like some internal dissention.

The 8-unit armies were both the same.

2 units of Nobles

4 units of Peasants

Shieldwall capability applied to the above 6 units

1 unit of Archers

1 unit of Cavalry

I had intended to give the rebels the integral archery option but forgot to do that in the actual game. So much for testing!

The core of each army were peasants and noble units forming shieldwall

The six infantry units squared up against each other while the light infantry supported the right wing in each case with the Cavalry withdrawn on the left.

The Rebel Earl stood with his men in the Shieldwall
These Kings men look like interlopers both mounted and on foot, hmmmmm

The nobles were in the centre of each line and both lines matched each other so as the battle got underway it was noble against noble and peasant against peasant. I did not pitch each leader’s unit against each other though. Remember that the leader confers no extra benefit or disadvantage if lost.

At the centre of both lines the leaders fought adjacent to each other, something which would affect the battle outcome in an unexpected way.

The Kings men expected to make short work of these insolent rebels.

The sun began to shine although the glare did not seem to affect the rebels on the left flank

In the early stages, it was the rebels who made rapid gains on both flanks racking up hits before everything hit a stalemate or rather a slower rate of hits, now being equally inflicted.

The Kings men of the left flank take an early barrage of hits omniously.
On the rebel left the Kings men were just taking a bit more punishment than they handed out. Maybe these rebels were no pushover after all

Finally, the left flank peasant unit of the Kings army fled the field after some hard fighting. And even the Cavalry behind them were no support to keep them in line.

The left flank peasant shieldwall dark age infantry reduced to a yellow ring indicating two bases left had already incurred 3 of the 4 available hits left to them on this ring. Three hits (yellow dice) were incurred while no saving throws made the cut (orange, 3,1,2 versus required 6) so with one base lost a nasty twist in AMW rules is triggered – throw for morale due to a base loss. Here the Kings men needed 4-6 and threw a measly 2. Already down to one base that went as well.
The left wing of the Kings men leave the field in full view of the cavalry reserve
The Kings men cavalry reserve approaches the shieldwall which was now reforming. As they came up to the line the levy archers poured a few arrows into the hapless cavalry

These Kings horsemen rode into the fray. They crashed into the victorious rebel peasant unit who held them. The battle now continued until the rebels centre crumpled and a noble unit turned tail. The triumphant Kings Army Leader drove forward into the gap and turned onto the Rebel Leaders flank to deliver the killer blow. However, the rebel cavalry charged into the centre and took the Kings Noble Leader unit in the rear.

A rebel nobles unit on a yellow ring and with 2 hits remaining repeats the same trick of losing a base to combat (yellow 4,6 versus orange saving throws of 1,2) and then their remaining base to morale (green 2 when a 3-6 would have done the job)
The rebel nobles unit retires leaving the Kings men with the opportunity to exploit the collapse of the rebel centre.
The rebel leader and the right flank are dangerously weak with 2 red rings and one yellow
the kings men leader attacks the rebel leader while the rebel cavalry reserve come to the rescue of their leader
Now the tables are turned as the Kingsmen leader unit is caught in the rear by the Rebel cavalry

Meanwhile the Kings own cavalry unit gave up its fight with the rebel peasants and left the field. And in the centre the Kings Leading Nobles also succumbed, failing to destroy the Rebel nobles and unable to deal with the Rebel Cavalry attacking their rear.

On the Kings men left flank their own cavalry have had enough and retire
The kingsmen leader unit routs and the adjacent peasant shieldwall joins them.

A Kings Army peasant unit also abandoned the fight at this point.

Th Kings Army had now been reduced to just 1 noble unit, 1 peasant unit and 1 unit of archers. All three of these units were quickly attacked by the Rebels. The result was no longer in doubt. And the first to flee were the nobles!

The remaining Kings men shieldwall is now outflanked while the archers on the right flank can do little but watch their army disperse and look to their own survival.
The end of resistance by the Kings men as the last noble unit abandons the field

With just two Kings Army units remaining the Rebels had the field and could celebrate a great victory.

The Kings Army had melted away and now the Rebels could enjoy their freedom for a while.

in this game I used rings and dice. You could use coloured dice to achieve the same result although I think the combination is quite neat.
The battle turned on situations where the combat losses forced a morale test which when you fail it can be devastating – here a unit goes from blue (4 bases) through green (3 bases) and onto yellow (2 bases). Yes I know its really pale blue in the photo but the middle ring looks green in real life – ok thats sea green!

The casualty method I adopted here was to show nothing where a unit had all 4 bases intact with no losses. When the first hits were incurred the unit acquired a dark blue ring and a die showing hits received. A pale blue/green ring showed a unit was now on three bases. No die meant all 4 hits were intact. More casualties took units through yellow rings for just two bases remaining before the last remaining base was indicated by a red ring. You could use coloured dice of course.

The game uses saving throws which is something of a regression for some rule writers. In a way you get no more dice rounds than DBA – one for one against. What you do get more of is the number of die thrown for a unit in a fight. That’s the buckets of dice syndrome. That means you throw 4 dice at full strength instead of always just one in DBA per base/unit. On the upside even DBA has the dreaded list of “plus or minus factors” and AMW only uses this approach in the optional rules per army which add some flavour.

With no push backs the line remains static or rather you don’t see the push and shove and gradual break down of the line: It is not played out physically by the gamer, so you have to imagine it happening. This is a greater abstraction than DBA where the push back is required to be seen and of course gives combat benefits being integral to the next or adjacent base combat. DBA push back also alerts both players to outcomes allowing helicopter management: Appropriate for tournament play maybe. Of course, “transparency” is a competition issue and “imagination” has no place in tournament play.

During the slogging match the rebels were losing and at times it looked like the king’s men would make the decisive shieldwall breakthroughs. In fact, it was the Cavalry that made the difference. The king’s cavalry filled a gap in the line but were then quickly seen off by the shield wall peasants. The rebel cavalry was far more useful when the kings leading nobles exposed their rear in attacking the rebel leaders.

The moves I made were all logical – in the heat of battle why would you not descend on your enemy leader’s rear to finish him off and Leaders wheeling to expose a flank or rear – so what – those cavalry in the distance might not move our way……but they did.

For both armies I sent in the cavalry in response to an adverse situation that would be seen by the cavalry sat patiently to the nearby.

The combats were close such that on another day it might be the rebels fleeing from the field.

History Note: If you accept that Anglo-Saxons rode to war, which I do, then the army list is fine. The two situations in the battle (allowed under the rules) suggest why their use may have been more restricted and why the rules could be amended.

The Kings Cavalry charged a Shieldwall that had just defeated another Shieldwall. If we allow for the defeated men to drift away the cavalry will have been faced with a tired but formed body of men experiencing euphoria and relief. It is possible to conceive that the cavalry leader believed they were so tired that he could drive them off. In the event the Shieldwall reformed and defeated the cavalry. That seems reasonable as well.

In the other situation the cavalry reserve could see their own centre begin to collapse and after they own men had streamed away, they could see the “backs” of enemy troops. That assumes they could tell the difference at a distance. It seems reasonable to make that assumption because their own men had just left a gap in the Shieldwall line. With the backs of the enemy in sight why not charge into the fray.

In both cases it is about the morale and the decision to move rather than the outcome of the subsequent fight. And AMW allows you freedom to move. No pips, no movement decisions testing and no morale tests prior to moving.

AMW Rules note

On the face of just one playtest the temptation is to put in some control. AMW is attractive because it lacks the rule quantity of other sets. Restricting decisions to move or rather introducing wide ranging controls feels wrong here. Can we solve this problem another way? I think so and the answer lies in AMW having optional rules.

The Anglo-Saxon cavalry was an optional rule itself.

AMW House Rule No1

Anglo-Saxon Cavalry are permitted in battle and may advance into combat areas. They may charge into contact. After one turn of fighting they withdraw one full move unless they have at least one more base advantage than the unit they attacked.

So, the thinking here is that unless they make some rapid impact, turning the fight in their favour, they will use their mobility to withdraw before being destroyed.

This is not such a punishing rule as it seems. The withdrawn cavalry remains a threat and effectively may pin the opposition or at least make them think twice about their next moves. And they remain one of the three units required by the whole army to stay in the fight.

I think this rule reflects the likelihood of Anglo-Saxon cavalry being opportunists and pursuers in battles where the victory tide has turned one way or another.

Summary

The game was enjoyable and the result fine. I must admit allowing either army to fight with 3 units always looks a bit odd. Yet if you think in terms of abstraction – there are other men on the field all retiring or surrendering and not modelled. The few units left on the field show where the remaining core of resistance still exists. I can live with that.

One final thought is that shieldwalls are strong. How strong are they against a concerted cavalry attack though?

In my next post I will explore the classic dark ages infantry versus cavalry conflict.

Categories
1/72 scale figures 20/25/28mm figures anglo saxons basing wargame rules wargaming

Prelude to Wargames Rules tested

So having had a good start to the year painting wise, by August I had enough units to do some gaming. My wargaming has always been predominantly “solo”, so road testing rules on my own is natural for me.

Impetus elements of Anglo Saxons, Carolingians and Normans ready to do battle

I should also say that from my earliest wargaming days I have tinkered with rules.

It is a quirk of fate that the first wargames book I read on rules came from my local public library (remember them?). So being a child you take what you can or rather see. So what did my local library have in the adult section? Well a single Donald Featherstone book. And his book was called “Advanced Wargames”. It was a book about wargames and the advanced bit meant nothing to me.

years after my public library discovery I bought my own copy of this book. It actually contains material that has been “invented and popularised” decades later such as grid gaming

So armed with Advanced Wargames I started rule based wargaming and of course met a big problem. Advanced Wargames is a set of chapters dealing with “aspects” of wargaming. Drawing on multiple sources and authors the book covers most areas of rulesets yet they are not joined up to provide a single useable ruleset.

The assumption was that you had a wargames ruleset/s already and some prior knowledge of the whole idea of rules based wargaming. Then you would cherry pick additions and improvements from the book.

I think this is the origin of my “tinkering” with wargames rules. Give me a set of rules and I will invariably add in some “house rules”.

So back to my road test of the rulesets of Neil Thomas and Daniel Mersey.

I have posted previously about my reluctance to move from seriously thought out but quick DBA into the very simple world of AMW. Yet this ruleset is very enjoyable and is more subtle than you might think.

In Ancient & Medieval Wargaming (AMW) by Neil Thomas there are four period rulesets

  • Biblical Wargaming 3000BC – 500BC
  • Classical Wargaming 500BC – 300AD
  • Dark Age Wargaming 300AD -1100AD
  • Medieval Wargaming 1100AD – 1485AD

My choice here was obvious – Dark Age Wargaming.

I used his rules without house rule changes on this occasion. Well with one exception.

I use Impetus sized elements having abandoned DBA with its restrictions on depth. And I had settled on 1/72 20-25mm figures on 80 mm wide bases which Impetus assumed would be for 15mm although the rules clearly gave you the option for 1/72 basing.

In fact Impetus rules whole approach to basing was so refreshing when I encountered them. And for me they have set the tone for most of the last decade.

I think they were in the vanguard of “BW” measurement or base width’s. This simple decision meant the end of the need to “rebase” figures when switching between rulesets. Of course if you only have one ruleset it is never an issue.

I have almost as many rulesets as guides to painting figures if not more……..dozens.

AMW assumes you have DBA based figures so uses 4 40mmx20mm bases giving you an 80mm x 40mm element and 8 of these make an AMW army.

In effect you need 32 dba bases which is not so good if you have 12 unit dba armies: And most of my thinking had been on these compact DBA army lines.

table size and figure basing all go together for me. I fixed my maximum table size at 6’x4′ imperial and 1.8m x 1.2m metric. 3 collapsible picnic tables from lidl are the foundation
surface finish is 3 x 20mm thick mdf 4’x2′ (1.2m x 0.6m) boards to minimise warping covered with felt in this case

Then I read an article in the Lone Warrior magazine of the Solo Wargamers Association. There the writer suggested a cheap way to build armies was just use the 40mm x 20mm bases as single elements and/or reduce figure count to just say 1 for light troops, 2 for medium and 3 for heavy troops. Well it was something like that because it was the principle that made the difference to me. It broke me fully away from DBA “figures per base rules” and Impetus gave me the solution of 1/72 figures which I prefer – yet now on a smaller 15mm scale base size I also prefer.

The net result is I use 80mm wide bases and actually a generous 60mm depth for all units. This allows the impetus suggested “diorama” approach, better showing individual figures you have carefully painted rather than their being very squashed together under DBA.

You sacrifice ground scale though. I guess in this I have followed favourably the increased “abstraction” approach on ruleset design. Abandoning figure removal for losses in the 1990’s? was the start of this “abstraction” and for some the descent fully into gaming and away from any simulation. I love history yet I love gaming so the compromise matters.

Neither AMW nor Dux Bellorum require explicit command bases but I like them so here is one – from my much delayed “Normans in the South” project – none other than Tancred d’Hauteville looking at the shield design.

Using single base elements meant that required base removal in AMW rules was not now possible. The fix here was simply to use two dice. The first was used to show the 4 “virtual” bases while the second showed the 4 points value each virtual base could sustain before being knocked out and removed from play. I have also used three dice in other games (18 so showing 6+6+4 at the start). But the rules in AMW use base counts to indicate available attack dice. Unless you like mental arithmetic, showing the two aspects gives a simple visual indicator.

A few years later Neil Thomas used this “one number” technique to good effect in his fastplay “One Hour Wargames” (OHW) rules where units are a single base elements with a value of 16 which equates to all the elements morale/resistance/casualty value and overall strength in one number.

With AMW you need not fear flank issues so the shieldwall has gaps between each element/unit ! you can of course place units in base to base contact – i was reflecting the AMW book diagrams!

So I played two games with AMW. The first was essentially two shield walls crashing together and the second was a cavalry led force attacking a shieldwall.

The mighty Norman/Carolingian or Franks in AMW speak start their assault on the Anglo Saxons shieldwall. AMW give suggested army set ups although you still have plenty of choice in the small army lists in the text

The third ruleset test game was another shieldwall versus shieldwall this time using Dux Bellorum.

atmospheric artwork throughout the Osprey book makes its use feel positively different to the text heavy AMW where a central batch of irrelevant but professional model armies fails to add any real value. The AMW font is bigger so the text is much easier to refer to in the heat of battle though!

These rules are aimed at a narrower period AD367-793 and with a nod to fantasy gaming called “Arthurian Wargaming Rules”. These rules use the “BW” concept, being published in 2012, 5 long years after AMW.

a solid pair of shieldwalls square up for Dux Bellorum. The dice are colour coded for the unit grades such as “nobles”.

Again there were no tweaks for once. Indeed in both cases as I fought shieldwall battles a side benefit was to better understand the design of these two rulesets. Because shieldwalls in both rulesets result in quite a static and very balanced game you can see the effect of a limited number of the author’s variables in action.

Here is an Anglo Saxon Command with to its front my version of a shieldwall in 1/72 Strelets plastics on an Impetus 15mm scale 80mm wide element base.

In my next blog I will consider what happened in each game.

the ring and dice combination solved my AMW rule problem when using only base instead of 4.
Categories
anglo saxons

Bad Poetry Day

ok so it was yesterday “bad poetry day” but here goes………..

A poem for Aethelflaed.

Aethelflaed leader of men,

In battle fought Dane and Norseman,

Took Leicester of the five boroughs without a fight,

faced down the invaders scourge so Derby fell,

pious and devoted Queen

of Mercian lands now forgotten.

A great leader and Queen of Mercia in all but name
Categories
anglo saxons Book Reviews new additions saxons

More Anglo – Saxon fiction

I have enjoyed the first book so can look forward to many more…………..

Having bought the first book of Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom series and found it an easy and interesting read – so nearly finished in short order – I have bought part 2.

The first book ends with a big battle and the hero? well the storyteller, has gone from childhood to close proximity to the big players of the day Alfred and Guthrum.

Uhtred is used by Bernard Cornwell to observe both sides and he conveniently lives and fights for both. It allows him to comment on a whole range of subjects and this in turn enriches the story. He can also play out the conflict between christian and pagan showing the differences through Uhtreds own eyes.

I have found Bernard Cornwell writes in such a way that you tumble along with the words, sentences and paragraphs aiding rather than hindering your progress. Likewise he pitches the content just right – you want entertainment and enjoyment – not a history lesson.

Yet the depictions of events are sufficiently convincing to make the reading more compelling. I can think of other fiction where a good storyline is hard going precisely because the background material is so jarring.

Categories
natural world

Intermission 5

As summer progresses it is this time of year that our friends the spiders begin to appear in numbers. I am not completely at home with them yet they are fascinating.

It all started when one parachuted down from the ceiling into my line of sight!

We have quite a few of these in our house every Autumn and somehow they got called Trevor. I really cannot remember why!

Anyway Trevor did some dancing on his thread
Trevor looks quite cute really
Then there are the “harvesters” who are very gangly and frail looking.
And over lunch our small black and white jumping spiders put in an appearance
They seemed to like our plates matching their colour scheme

And then there are the hunters

Having met the jumping spiders at lunch I was on the lookout for other spiders and this stunning hunter was wizzing through the grass. Fortunately it stopped to pose for me – I think you can see two sets of eye clusters on the near side

Finally as the nights draw in and cool down our house will become home to some monster chaps who we have measured to about 40mm or 1.5 inches across leg span.

Remember spiders are good home keepers tidying your home of too many insects and other crawlies.

Categories
world war two

VJ Day or the end of the second world war

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the end of war with Japan.

The generations of the early 20th century had fought two world wars in quick succession.

They lived, worked, fought, suffered and died to give us 75 years without another world war. At the time I suspect they would have simply dreamt of survival. They enabled most of us to live life largely free of war and able to make choices about our lives.

So it is all the more relevant that the 75th anniversary falls during a period of restricted movement and activity across society in ways not even seen during World War 2.

We should remember all those who made sacrifices so we could choose to live freely and in peace.

I am grateful for the freedoms I enjoy – thank you.

Categories
1/72 scale figures 20/25/28mm figures miniatures painting wargames blog wargaming

Wet Palettes and Appreciation

This is the tip I found by chance on the “The Waving Flag” blog of Martin who runs Vexillia. I found Vexillia during my interest in impetus rules and italian figure makers.

Then I dropped out of that and very recently came to Martins blog by way of one of his recent posts and then having wandered around his blog site again I found the tips section. And wet pallettes update from 2016!

OK so I am slow on the uptake but I do remember a lot of discussion about wet pallettes a while ago (was it in 2016 though?) and it passsed me by. It so happened this time round I was in the middle of a lot of painting and well the article or should I say tip caught my eye.

And yes I followed Martins advice and it works and works really well.

I had some ochre base paint in the wet pallette box for the best part of 3 weeks – no mould in sight and the paint remained perfectly workable.

So thank you Martin.

This is also my 50th post so I can say that starting this blog and achieving this very small milestone in the blogging world is in lots of ways due to the work of others. All those other blogs I have followed over the last 10 years for example.

Here are some that have inspired my gaming, painting and an appreciation of what blogging has contributed to the wargames hobby.

Thank you to one and all. And for those omitted from the list, thank you as well – it is the variety that matters – the different tastes and interests mean there is always something for everyone to enjoy or discover.

And my whole DBA 15mm world received a massive jolt one day in 2007. I picked up a magazine in WH Smiths at a railway station. Nothing untoward you say, except it was a copy of Battlegames published by Henry Hyde.

Subsequently in one of his magazines I read about the beginners guide to blogging by Greg Horne and his Duchy of Alzheim blog. At the time with zero wargames playing going on blogging looked like a waste of good gaming or even painting time.

Much later, much much later in the atlantic publishers era I read in Battlegames Henry’s guide to starting your own blog. Still not for me. And the site link above is Henry’s consolidated site now – the guide I followed in the magazine has been removed. But his main site mentions it.

Another site Henry introduced me to was meeples & miniatures blog and Neil Shuck, and that led me to podcasts – but thats another story.

Some of my favorite blogs have been the following…………

Pauls Bods – absolutely excellent painting of 1/72 plastics and most recently metals by tumbling dice

Wargaming for Grown Ups – great all round musings and plenty of 1/72 ancients plastics that got me out of a 15mm DBx rut and into simpler gaming with plastics and even modifying them

Plastic Soldier Review – has simply fed my 1/72 craze

Blogs of War – source of so many great blogs

Keith’s Wargaming Blog – I found Keith’s blog back in 2009 and have enjoyed his writing

The Sharp End of the Brush – another early blog discovery, plenty of written word and 1/72 wargaming

Olicanalads Games – battle reports, scenarios and scenery – another early discovery I have regularly visited

Wills Wargames Blog – lots and lots of painted 1/72 plastics – a production line of reports about what Will is painting – excellent reporting

The blog with no name – plenty of ideas and variety

I live with Cats – another blog whose written content has been signficant

Archduke Piccolo – imaginations inspirations

Don’t throw a 1 – 15mm and lots of funny stories plus he drew me towards the wars of Louis 14th and the late 1600’s

Miniature Minions – lots of old school metals of the 20/25 mm era

Unfashionably Shiny – reconnected me with my original gaming figures of the 1970’s

Castles of Tin – excellent items on painting literally anything – flats and imaginations very good

Pijlie’s Wargames Blog – lots of variety including some 1/72 material

History in 1/72 – great for ideas about what you can do in 1/72

Parade Ground – got me back into 20mm metals with the likes of tumbling dice/newline/SHQ alongside plastics – motivated my purchase of Late Romans by Miniart. excellent 1/72 ideas, painting and figures

The Grand Duchy of Stollen – simply drove my enthusiasm for 18th century imaginations wargaming

The Eastern Garrison – pics of the much missed figures of greenwood and ball – the garrison metals I always wanted were the Carthaginians. Great archive.

Sumer to Sargon – exemplary painting of early ancients

Harness and Array – excellent medieval material, motivated me to do or rather start my stoke field project. Sadly it is my one 28mm enterprise and remains unfinished despite the fantastic figures.

Dark Age Wargames – although it only ran from 2006 to 2016 I found this site very useful for my interests in the Dark Ages

Cameronian only a game – good 1/72 selection – one of the first blogs I found

Camisado – always top of his game and consistently wonderful blog about the 15th/16th century european wars

Je Lay Emprins – excellent figure painting and another blog that stoked my interest in wars of the roses – no pun intended!

Aut Ceasar Aut Nihil – ok all 28mm but I just love the figures and posts

Dalauppror – great discussions/observations on the hobby and gaming ideas and one of my early blog discoveries

The League of Augsburg – drew me back into the late 17th century – sheer quality of material hard to beat

Wars of Louis Quartorze – also drew me back into the late 17th century with a wealth of information

Pauls Wargames Blog – a great variety of posts and a good read

The Wars of Wine and Cheese – another imagination thought stream that got me revisiting horse and muskest warfare – but always with a “fantastic” leaning

Vintage Wargaming – so enjoyed the old metal ranges being replayed I rebased mine and used them again

Bennos Figures – great painting inspirations

Baueda – got me properly going with PVA priming and dipping my toe in the plastics world

DBx wargaming with 20mm soft plastic figures – wealth of ideas about gaming with 1/72 plastics

John’s Wargames page – another blog that got me convinced to go down the soft plastics 1/72 route

Heres no great matter – sustained my interest in 15mm, showed me the drawbacks but pleasure of ancient and medieval warfare (AMW) and lots of small but great ideas like dice army pics to show each turn development when reporting a game

20mm wargamer – lots of 1/72 plastics ideas

Dux Homunculorum – painting inspiration for my 1/72 plastics

Jim Duncan Wargamer – plenty of painting and ideas

Carpat’Land – simply amazing figures to enjoy especially in medieval period and L’art de la guerre ruleset appeared to me here

Steves Random Musings on Wargaming – consistently offers a variety on interesting ideas for me – books and war of the spanish succession to name but two

20mm figures and modelling – wargaming info provided lots of useful links plus news, rulesets views and some interesting carolingian material

the duchy of tradgardland – another imaginations find in my ealry days of reading other peoples blogs

As I say these are just some of the wargame blogs I have enjoyed – some are no longer updated but I think all I have listed can still be visited.

Thanks to every author who has committed time to share their ideas on this fascinating hobby.

Categories
anglo saxons metal miniatures new additions saxons wargaming

Heft

Wargamers apparently have adopted this word in the realm of figure quality. Metal miniatures with heft matter. The rise of the plastic miniature in 28mm I suspect is the driving force. There have always been metal miniatures – well since the days of H G Wells and the 54mm lead soldier.

There have been plastic figures since the 1960’s, maybe even before that. Plastic has been the 20th century wonder material that is now the 21st century waste problem. So the appearance of plastic soldiers is from a wider phenomenon.

Heft appears to be a popular north american term for weight and so much more expressive I think. So not just “feel the weight of this I just hefted” said the man from Gloucester (UK) but “feel the heft in these” said the man from Philadelphia (USA)?

Apparently metal wargames figures are so much better in metal. I guess they perform better on the gaming board. Mind you plastic figures can be bought in their hundreds for the price of tens of metals, especially those metal figures blessed with detail from all that valuable tin in them. And then of course there is the quote “quantity has a quality all of its own”; was that said by a certain Mr Josef Stalin?

When it comes to books heft no longer applies to the vast swathe of “E” books. Yet in the realm of the printed book there is still room for heft.

Most of my printed books are paperbacks and they do their job well. Then once in a while you acquire something on a different scale.

This then is heft – John Blair’s Building Anglo-Saxon England published by Princeton University Press.

Anglo-Saxon buildings are rare, raring than Romano-British ones. The simple reason is building material. We are back to the plastic waste problem. Maybe just maybe in a hundred years from now all the metal miniatures might have been melted down and reused while dozens of plastic soldiers survive. Unlikely but maybe. Anyway the lover of anglo saxon buildings is frustrated because they all “rotted” away to leave some post holes and thats it. Except John Blair has published a lavish and I mean lavish, book on the buildings of anglo saxon england painstakingly reconstructing for our minds this aspect of dark age britain.

remember dark age britain on this blog means anything between the 4th and 11th centuries.

The book wins the “heft” competition in my collection!

Categories
life natural world

Intermission 4

In July the Buddleia start to really blossom and it is no coincidence it is known as the butterfly bush. The butterflies flock to its nectar rich flowers which are so prolific. It happily grows in very thin soil so it is often seen as an invasive albeit pretty weed that grows into small bushy trees though! Of course weeds are a rich source of nutrients for our butterflies.

two small tortoiseshells enjoying some late evening sun
Some butterflies like this red admiral get more attention because of their colour.
This little orange/brown butterfly proved very elusive and just would not settle even for a close up! so this is a long shot….It is called the gatekeeper because it inhabits hedgerows and is seen by humans by the field gate! A proper flutterby!
This white butterfly was more accommodating – a nice example of the “small white”
Categories
new additions wargaming

A quick AMW army in 1/72?

On impulse I have gathered a set of figures to build a pictish type army for the british isles dark ages.

So which figures have I chosen?

I looked at the plastic solder review site and did not like any of the pictish figures on offer. So I looked around for something that might work. My main choice has been Orions slavic foot soldiers who would be more used to fighting at Adrianople or in the Balkans against the embryonic East Roman Empire.

The army will use the army choice given in AMW for the Picts – I have added two commands as well
This set was bought for my much stalled stoke field project in 28mm! yes they were too small anyway. I have used some of the javelin and bowmen plus some of the mailed figures for the command bases
These Sarmations were a snap choice when passing through Frome in Somerset. I knew they would come in useful except not for dark age Britain! They provide some mounted troops
Having now bought these figures they are wonderful sculpts. It is unfortunate that the Plastic Soldier Review plays down these figures on account of poor casting and flash. These figures have fantastic detail. They make up my main units for a pictish army

The army will comprise all the options for AMW so thats 12 units but based singley on impetus style 80mm wide bases with no base removal possible.

Neil Thomas and his Ancient and Medieval Warfare (AMW) book has grown on me over the years. At the start I did not think I would like an 8 unit army requiring 32 DBA bases to allow casualty removal. I tried it with single bases and dice and it worked. The breakthrough came with his One Hour Wargames (OHW) using the same technique and reducing the armies to just 6 units but crucially playing many scenarios.

I have played much more of both OHW and AMW than say DBA or my preferred ruleset of Impetus.

I arrived in Neil Thomas’ world by chance. Mike Tittensor wrote an article in Slingshot magazine published by the Society of Ancients (SOA) about bronze age warfare and using Peter Pig’s Bloody Barons ruleset. I bought the rules and these got me into plastics because I wanted a low cost solution. This was my first departure from what had been a preference for 15mm metals DBA gaming on a 600mm square board – an excellent coffee table sized game by the way. By chance I had now the opportunity to return to a dining table or 1800mm x 1200mm type gaming table. I was toying with 28mm but disliked the size of figures from a painting point of view. I had struggled with my Wars of the Roses Perrys figures to get a look I liked.

So it was the peak of the plastics era in the 2000’s and I just bought lots of chariots none of which in the end made it to the painting table – irony in there somewhere.

What I did get was a drift away from DBA gaming, first into Bloody Barons, then Impetus and then Neil Thomas.

Neil Thomas and 1/72 plastics are a perfect way to experiment in wargaming.

Not sure when this army will complete – sunshine and a last push for summer beckons.