Show Report - WMMS, 2017

Hello again.

Well, the West Midlands Military Show, known to all and sundry as "Alumwell" after the host club and former venue, has now been and gone.

Sunday, 12th March saw a plethora of gamers, traders and visitors, along with a few staff, spend several hopefully happy hours at the Aldersley Leisure Village near Wolverhampton, engaged in the various pursuits found around the average wargames show - spending money, taking money, chatting, gaming, renewing acquaintances, eating, drinking, arguing about rules and then going home again!

What did I think? Well, this show is always one I like to go to, not least because it is local but also because I get to spend too much on various whims and fancies, lay on a game and speak to like-minded individuals without the usual jibes about "toy soldiers" and references to Peter Pan's refusal to become an adult...

The footfall seemed high this year, perhaps more so than recent years, which can only be a good thing. Trying to get down some of the aisles at different times would certainly back up my view on this, but only the organisers would know for sure. And the aisles are not even narrow compared with some shows I have been to!

There were some notable absences on the trader front from recent years, however, at least how I remember them. No Lancashire Games, no Foundry, no Baccus 6mm, no one seemingly willing to turn up with a job lot of wargames buildings for sale. Booksellers were also few and far between. This must be the first show I have been to where I did not see Dave Lanchester.Yet there were still plenty of opportunities to hand over the hard-earned, opportunities which I duly took with my usual abandon!

One highlight for me was a company I had not previously encountered, namely "Oakbound Studio" from Bristol, first time attendees and purveyors of a marvellous-looking, Celtic-inspired skirmish/ roleplaying range of books and figures called "THE WOODS". I'll cover my loot in a separate post, but suffice to say that this small company took some of my money and I was most happy to be relieved of it! I am reading through the main sourcebook for the system and enthusiasm is VERY high.

The standard of games ranged from the sort of club night affair run for fun to some truly awesome-looking events, with all things in between. We ran our "Storri's Trek 2: The Rath of Cahan" game, slightly amended from our last outing as is our way (never exactly the same game twice), so when you next see it (at the BARRAGE SHOW in STAFFORD on JULY 9TH), it will be different again. Telford, Wyre Forest, Shrewsbury and others were all in evidence, but best in show went to the excellent-looking (and magazine featured) "Siege of Athlone" game.

The venue is light, airy and BIG ENOUGH for the purpose to which we put it. Most importantly of all, it was the first year in many that we had no fire alarm to disturb the fun!

Overall, I enjoyed the show immensely and hope the growing footfall (IMO) continues. Popular shows means more traders (I think). Why else do such concerns exist if it is not to make money, so the more people, the more intake of cash!

Finally, a massive THANK YOU to the guys at the Chase Wargames Club, from whom I acquired a large number of wargaming and military magazines to plough through for various bits of source material, completely free of charge. They are still in the car, because if there is one thing about my hobby that my wife hates, it is all the magazines and books, that are slowly causing our little pile of bricks to sink into the Staffordshire landscape under their combined weight!!! I will get around to sorting through them and keeping articles I like the look of...

WYRLEY RETINUE: Nephew Paul's command formed of Nephew Nick's Vikings, with a few of mine sneaking into shot bottom left.

WYRLEY RETINUE: Daughter Eleanor had charge of the Norse-Gael contingent of the Irish forces in her on-going battle for most wins with Occasional Wargamer Brother Kev.

WYRLEY RETINUE: the Irish mass for battle under control of Nephew Nick. They lost (AGAIN!!!)

ATHLONE: Danish contingent march to battle

ATHLONE: more Danes

ATHLONE: some Jacobites on the other side of the river to the Danes

ATHLONE: the aforementioned river - Jacobites to the right, Williamites to the left

COBRIDGE?: the Battle of Ramillies done in 10mm. I am not sure about the basing convention though. Surely the two lines of troops in each battalion should be rather closer than this? Couldn't you just argue about aesthetics all day!?!?!?

COBRIDGE?: the full Ramillies table, complete with zorbing event in the foreground

A Peninsular War skirmish game by an unknown (to me) group

WYRE FOREST: a Tiger tank trundling down a lane near you (if you live in Normandy at any rate)

WYRE FOREST: more bits of Normandy

My 10 year old son wants a Willy's Jeep when he grows up, so I took this shot for him. He also wants a Bugatti Veyron...

Rorke's Drift by an unknown group

SHREWSBURY: another good looker from the Borderers of the Welsh Marches in what seems to be their favourite period, the 18th Century

SHREWSBURY: and they also seem to like boats a lot over in Shropshire

SHREWSBURY: my favourite scene of any game on the day - simple but very well done

A Fokker DVII's view of his next kill.

So that concludes a brief round-up of some of my favourite bits of the show, together with a shameless plug for the Wyrley Retinue!!!

G

Healthy Competition

Hello again.

This was going to be a post about my receipt of something I have been looking forward to for a while, but then sort of mutated in my head into a quandary I have yet to resolve.

Being a fan f the SAGA series of games and supplements, I was keen to get my hands on the proposed Arthurian version when it finally arrived. Well, now it is indeed here.

The new SAGA rulebook, with the Romans/ British dice set.

In all its hardbacked glory, it arrived here Chez G on Monday morning. It looks gorgeous, is full of eye candy and will get plenty of outings, I suspect. I had already checked out a couple of reviews (Type SAGA Aetius Arthur into your search engine and you will find many, but I would recommend the run through Wargames Illustrated gives it). The main criticism seems to be that there are numerous references to other titles in the SAGA series, which is problematic if you do not own them. I do own them, having bought into the series in a big way, but I can fully understand that a reference to the effect that "see page x in supplement y" is less than helpful to those who do not have that access. However, what you get is not only good to look at and will probably play well, but is also another six forces to use as well as notes for using other, previously detailed forces too. Of special note to me is the ability to use my Irish as Scotti, which means I only need to paint up one other force to start some games, unless I use the "counts as" line of thought and backdate my Vikings as Saxons or whatever. I would recommend this book heartily, warts and all.

HOWEVER...



Other, more big battle orientated sets I also like the look of.

 



I had in mind some other sets for the period and that is where the quandary arose from.

SAGA is a game for singly-based figures, unlike the two below (though you can do so with Age of Arthur if you want to spend all day setting up and moving).
I have based all my SAGA forces on 25mm round bases (50x25mm for cavalry).
I have a horde of figures for the period, and want to use them all where possible, so mixed basing styles possibly would not suit.
I can use sabot bases, but don't tend to like the look of them and in a WAB game, anything that has a wider frontage per figure tends to lose out.
Dux Bellorum uses whole unit bases, so sabots may work here as with WAB, but there is still the aesthetics to overcome.

I will of course sort these little issues out one way or other.

The main thing is that I now have even more reason to paint all the Saxons and Arthurians I have stashed away. And I even have a box of Huns stowed away somewhere for something slightly different! I may even buy myself a box of Gripping Beasts Late Roman plastics, though, if I stay with SAGA for this period and indeed forego other sets, I no doubt have enough to do a large Late Roman and a British force already.

In the current absence of any defined project for 2018 for a show game or whatever, I hope to get started on this very soon, once reinforcements for my FIW forces have been completed.

Now, how exactly does a wargames magpie solve such conundrums as which project to do next and how to stop buying more stuff???

G






The Leinster Light Horse

Hello again.

Rather a grandiose and potentially misleading title for this post perhaps, but "Dark Age Irish Cavalry" is a bit dull...

When the "Wyrley Retinue" were preparing this year's show game, "Storri's Trek 2: The Rath of Cahan", I decided we needed loads more figures than our SAGA collections would provide.

Sundry cries of "Megalomaniac!" later, not to mention claims that I did not understand what a "small game" was, and I had enough Vikings and Irish to field several SAGA forces. In my defence, I was not just thinking about SAGA, but had the WAB "Shieldwall" and "Age of Arthur" supplements in mind too and now, and soon to be winging its way onto G's doorstep, the SAGA "Aetius Arthur" edition of the game. I might finally get my British and Early Saxons done!!! And, in my defence, units under the "Lion Rampant" rules we are using for the show game are larger than their SAGA counterparts.

Anyway, I wanted some Irish cavalry, so looked around for a few suitable figures. I found a few bits at Colonel Bill's (though the horses were massive), and I could have thrown in a few Picts or similar, but felt they were too early in style for the 10th Century, or thereabouts. So I settled on some Crusader Miniatures and Gripping Beast figures, with a hint of mail armour and a spangenhelm or two for some melee-orientated types, as depicted here, together with a leader figure, whose provenance I am unsure of (as a figure anyway. I am sure his provenance as a leader is first class!)

I have just finished painting a more skirmish-orientated unit of cavalry too, who will make their debut at WMMS in March (12th to be precise, at the Aldersley Leisure Centre near Wolverhampton in the UK), together with some more Vikings, some more Norse-Gael and perhaps a few other bits and bobs - we do like to slightly alter our games between outings so you see something just a little different each time. However, I will post pictures of those later on.

So, for now, here is the Leinster Light Horse in all its finery.

G

Fergus mac Cormac, in all his finery, ready to take the fight to the Norsemen. He will certainly be taking the fight to the Norsemen if Occasional Wargamer Brother Kev gets to command his unit again. I think my dear brother believes all cavalry are British Heavies from Napoleonic times and uses them accordingly...I think I will try him out with something like Huns in future to test the notion further.

Fergus is clearly a Christian and likes blue.

And the view my Vikings prefer of him.

Fergus' hearthguard or comitatus or whatever. Fianna, that's it.

Raging Ruaridh likes one to one.

Santa's been!!!

Hello again.

As 2016 wends its way towards conclusion, I thought it time to recap on what this month of gifts and goodies has brought me, starting with my purchases at "Wargamer" back on 4th and working my way through to the destruction of various sheets of coloured paper as I eagerly unveiled my presents on 25th!

For a small show, I managed to spend WAAAAAYYYY too much at "Wargamer". I bought myself a copy of "Escape from Colditz", now published by Osprey, and backed that up on the gaming front with a Fantasy Flight Games offering called "Age of War", which is a dice game and a sort of cross between Yahtzee, Risk and Happy Families. It is set in the classic age of the samurai and the object is to win control of various cards, representing castles, by rolling appropriate combinations of dice, each of which has various icons which may or may not be of use. The castles can form a set, which grants more points to their holder and the person with the most points wins. That person has so far mainly been daughter Eleanor...

I bought some stuff from Ainsty, who are carrying the SAGA ranges from Gripping Beast nowadays, so my fledgling Anglo-Saxons/ Anglo-Danes acquired Harold, Gyrth and Leofwine Godwinson, some huscarls, Hereward the Wake, some "Sons of Death" to add to my Irish excursion and William the (insert your epithet of choice) to add to my Normans, who are eagerly awaiting their turn on the painting table, along with Saracen and Military Orders forces for "The Crescent and The Cross". I also bought some Highlander reinforcements and a starter set of Compagnies Franches de la Marine for my "Sharp Practice 2/ Muskets & Tomahawks" foray into the French and Indian Wars.

Dave Lanchester furnished me with a copy of Neil Thomas' "Wargaming 19th Century Europe, 1815 to 1878", which I have read with gusto, and, last but not least, Tiger Miniatures very kindly sold me some of their Renaissance figures, including artillery, some arquebusiers and some cavalry, who have joined the ranks of my proposed French Wars of Religion project. Daughter Eleanor conned me into buying her her own set of dice (soft touch that I am) and I think that is about it.

Just before Christmas, I took delivery of some basing sheets from the ever-helpful Coritani/ Magnetic Displays (fantastic service as usual and highly recommended to all who would buy from them - Trevor even sent me a nice Christmas good wishes message, which only goes to show how good their service is!). To that I added a package from Pendraken consisting of some reinforcements/ alternatives for both my proposed 10mm American Civil War project and my "Warband" fantasy project that I spent most of last spring working on. They too deserve a lot of credit for their service quality, as I missed the posting deadline for Christmas quoted on the website but still got my order well before Christmas. Many thanks!

Christmas itself saw the opening of a parcel from Caliver Books containing a copy of "The Italian Campaign of 1859", edited by Dr. Stephen Summerfield, which I have again eagerly devoured. I also got a turntable, so I can play my old, vinyl records, many of which I do not have on CD, which has nothing to do with wargaming or the blog as a whole but just shows how much my lady wife loves me!!! I still wait with anticipation for the latest "Wargaming in History" offering on Koniggraetz, but Dave Ryan has my order and warned me it was unlikely to arrive pre-Christmas as it has not been published yet!

After all that, it is again time to decide on where my focus lies for 2017.

1. I still have a passion for anything involving the Austrians, so 1859 and 1866 feature a lot in my thoughts.
2. I want to get some ACW actions going to take advantage of all those readily-available battle reports and orbats, in my chosen 10mm scale.
3. I want to fill out my Dark Ages pretensions and have now built an entire Anglo-Saxon/ Anglo-Danish force for SAGA which I need to paint.
4. I want to add the extras to my 10mm "Warband" fantasy forces.
5. I want to thresh out my FIW stuff and get some games of "Sharp Practice 2" and "Muskets & Tomahawks" in.
6. I eagerly await Nephew Nick's commitment to the Marlburian Wars so I can kick-start my 1690 project and take him on! It will be just the excuse I need to add some more French and Irish units to my existing stock...
7. I am torn between Germans vs Hottentots in what is now Namibia, Maori Wars or Sudan Wars for "The Men Who Would Be Kings", but seriously want to get something up and running soon for that era and rules set.

And then there is the large scale WW2 skirmish figures I bought last year, the Arthurians that have been lying around for ages, a large Macedonian army I have had for upwards of ten years that I still have stowed away, the Peninsular War stuff I bought back in July for "SP2", 15mm WW2 Ostfront c. Kursk, Bolsheviks to take on my WW1 Russians/ "Whites" and, of course, the French Wars of Religion project I want to get off the ground, ideally for 2019 and the 450th anniversary of the likes of Moncontour and Jarnac. I suppose I could stretch out that last option to 2022 and the 450th anniversary of the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, but I prefer battles to massacres...

The good news is that my interest in this massively absorbing hobby has not waned one iota and I do not have a project to focus on specifically for 2017, as 2018's show game is decided upon already and I have the armies already too! (I could always rustle up an extra unit or two though, or perhaps a terrain piece or feature piece or...)

I love this hobby of ours!

G

Storri's Trek 2: The Rath of Cahan

Hello again.

"Wargamer" saw the "Wyrley Retinue" take to the road with our latest demo game offering, "The Rath of Cahan". The game is an Dark Ages affair set in Ireland, with Viking forces trying to defeat a force of Irish and their Norse-Gael mercenaries, who have the aforementioned rath to assist their defence. The rules are "Lion Rampant", written by Daniel Mersey and published by Osprey, and they give a quick and decisive action, so expect to remove figures quickly! You can also expect a truly frustrating time moving around if you suffer bad command rolls too! This is the only reason I took so long to get into combat on the day and there should be no suggestion that I was letting everyone else kill themselves so I could run away with the loot and keep it all to myself...

Nick built the boards and trees, I did the ship and buildings, Nick painted a third of the Vikings and I did the rest of the Vikings, the Irish, villagers, looters, livestock and the Norse-Gael.

Here are a few photos to hopefully whet the appetite ready for our next outing, which will probably be WMMS in Wolverhampton in March, but could be the new ROBIN show in Nottingham in February. We shall see.

For this outing, Nick and Kev took on Paul, Eleanor and me. As we always try and provide something different for each outing of any game we put on, you can expect more troops, sub-plots, perhaps a bigger table and other things next time we show up somewhere. We hope you enjoyed our little offering and, if you did not make the show, we hope to see you sometime soon at a show near you!

G

Four-fifths of the line up. From left of screen to right we have Nephew Nick, Santa Claus' understudy Occasional Wargamer Brother Kev, Nephew Paul with yet another dodgy homage to his favourite football team and Youngest Daughter Eleanor.

I bought two second-hand longships ready for the game but only had to paint one f them (the other does not fit!) The sail is a roll of paint-dyed calico secured with cotton ropes.

One of the prizes on offer was the Irish village, complete with sundry village types

The rath in all its glory, neatly blended into the board by Nephew Nick after I built it. I am sure that dice tower was not there when I took the photo...

My troops, which uniquely of all the figures on the table, belong to Nephew Nick and were painted by him. I do not know what the Norse for "they who will not move" is, but these are they! I blame Nephew Nick for infecting them with tardiness.

Some of my Viking figures advance through the sparse woodland, commanded by Eleanor. She is truly a reincarnation of Boudicca, Gwenllian, Zenobia or some other famous warrior type given her predilection for combat! She kept going right to the end despite enormous casualties!

A few more of my Viking figures, mainly composed of recent purchases courtesy of North Star.

These Vikings have obviously had some success up river. They are mainly Dixon Miniatures with a few odds from my spares box thrown in for good measure.

Some of Nephew Paul's command, headed by some berserking types.

Nephew Paul faced off against Occasional Wargamer Brother Kev with the mixed Irish/ Norse-Gael command. OWBK's command of his cavalry earned him the nickname "General Gung-ho". Lord Cardigan would have been proud! He did at least temporarily halt the Viking advance on this flank.

Some of Eleanor's Bondi prepare to test their strength against Nephew Nick's Bonnachts.

And I try and get moving off the riverbank...

A view from above and behind the rath.

Shout it loud!!!

Hello again.

THE "WARGAMER" SHOW IS NEXT SUNDAY, 4TH DECEMBER, 2016, AT THE LEASOWES LEISURE CONTRE, KENT ROAD, HALESOWEN, B62 8PJ.

That is very near Birmingham, England, NOT Birmingham, Alabama. This Birmingham has probably never had a Governor, and, if they ever did, he was probably never robbed and we certainly never "did what we had to do", unlike Lynyrd Skynyrd with their Birmingham as celebrated in "Sweet Home Alabama".

So, you have the date, you have the address and, having picked up "MINIATURE WARGAMES" issue 404 for December, you have an advert for the show courtesy of that journal's "DIARY DATES" column on page 7!!!

I even joined Facebook this evening to add a comment to say the "Wyrley Retinue" will be there with our Dark Age Ireland game, "Storri's Trek 2: The Rath of Cahan".

This is a decent, little show and deserves support, but does seem to suffer from the simple fact that most people (in my small circle at any rate) do not even know it is on, because it is not generally well advertised.

The blurb on Facebook and on the web (wargamer.tripod. something or other) lists some eclectic traders and a fair number of clubs attending from the local area. Traders are set to include (according to the aforementioned blurb):

Warlord Games
Magic Geek
Black Pyramid
Ainsty
Tiger Miniatures
Dave Lanchester
Commission Figurines
PE2 Collectables
and numerous others to whom I can only apologise for my declining memory or they would have got a mention too!

The website and Facebook also have directions to the show, but typing the postcode into your satnav is probably a lot easier. You really have no reason not to be there!

So folks, let's see you there!

G

The Rath of Cahan

Hello again.

Apart from a few Dark Age Hibernian des res roundhouses, the forthcoming "Wyrley Retinue" demo game for 2017 required something a bit more substantial - a Rath, or Irish ring fort.

I first encountered one of these in an article on building one in "Wargames World" magazine, issue 5, about 30 years ago. That was also when I made a mental note to forego Ellendun, Ashdown and Maldon if I ever got into Dark Ages wargaming and head west instead to the Emerald Isle. An even better model than my original inspiration turned up in the "Shieldwall" (glimpses) and "Age of Arthur" (full on PHWOAR!!!) supplements for Warhammer Ancient Battles. So, with our theme decided earlier this year, we were heading off to Ireland in the 9th Century (-ish) and we were having a Rath.

Step 1 - take a piece of 3mm MDF and add concentric rings of polystyrene to achieve the desired height. Four rings in my case. Leave space for a gateway to access your primitive fortification.
Step 2 - take lengths of bamboo skewer, twig, cocktail stick, thin dowel and similar wooden materials and glue them into your ring of polystyrene using PVA glue or similar stuff that won't melt your rings of gleaming whiteness! A palisade may be a bit of artistic licence in this era, but I like it. The Ancient British stopped using palisades in their hillforts before the Romans arrived according to archaeology.
Step 3 - use wood filler to cover all the polystyrene.
Step 4 - build your gatehouse.
Step 5 - paint everything to taste.
Step 6 - remember to either build in some steps up to the ramparts and gatehouse platform for your figures to access them. Alternatively, build ladders afterwards like I did!
Step 7 - add scenic materials to blend it into your normal terrain boards/ cloth/ whatever.
Step 8 - remember to take it to the "Wargamer" show on 4th December for its first outing!!!

The very basic structure as in Step 1. The octagonal base is intentional to try and prevent warping. A circle would also suffice, but Nephew Nick wants to sink the base into his boards to make it all more seamless so the octagon is easier in this regard. The whole thing is about twelve inches across.

Not wishing to bore you unduly with yet more constructional photos, I have jumped straight to Step 6. I was keen not to have it all look like Sir Christopher Wren designed and built it, so the uneven and jagged palisade is intentional. I have tried to paint the woodwork as aged, weathered timber. This involved taking the basic wood colour and staining it with paint washes of grey and brown, followed by drybrushing with lighter greys and browns.

I have painted the whole thing largely to represent earth banks, but patches of rock are also visible for some variety in the finished article.

The gates are made from two 50x25mm plastic cavalry bases, heavily scored to represent wood and painted. The hinges are made from lengths of wire and a plastic sleeve from a ballpoint pen inner. After adding the sleeve, bend the wire ends and mark your holes in the dowel uprights. Drill small holes with a pin vice and do this BEFORE you build the gatehouse. The whole thing is stuck down piece by piece with my hot glue gun. More filler was then worked around the area to blend it all in. I added the hut for effect. It will be glued in later and blended in with more filler and paint. The gates even open and shut without breaking them IF you don't get paint in the mechanism!!!

Access ladders were made from matchsticks with artists' card runners glued on.

For scale, I have added one of my newly-painted reinforcements for my Dark ages collection, complete with suitable grisly trophy. The battlements are pieces of coffee stirrer and the base on which the figure stands is a 60x40mm MDF figure base.

I will glue in the most fancy of the three roundhouses and cover off some basic scenic work in the largely inaccessible bit behind the roundhouse and then hand the whole thing over to Nephew Nick to blend in to the boards he is making for the game, covering off Step 7. Finally, as in Step 8, I trust he will actually turn up at Wargamer with it!

G.

Riddle-me-ri

Hello again.

What do you get if you cross a cardboard tube, some fake fur and a pot of cheap wood filler?

 

 

 

Some Iron or Dark Age roundhouses, of course!

 

I am a rare builder of terrain at best, preferring to spend my time acquiring and painting figures, but every now and then, the urge takes me or I am forced into it. This is a mix of both urge and coercion.

 

Sunday 4th December, marks the next "Wargamer" Show at the Leasowes Leisure Centre in Halesowen, near Birmingham, England, and the "Wyrley Retinue" will be there as usual with the first outing for our next demo game. This year's offering (i.e. 2017's) is a large-scale skirmish affair set in Dark Age Ireland, an idea borne of our collecting for and playing of "SAGA". All three founder members of the Retinue started with a Viking force, so we have figures already, and I took the plunge to branch out into something different to the usual Saxons/ Anglo-Danes by collecting Irish, amassing quite a few, to which I have busily been adding reinforcements over the past few weeks. Nephew Nick is building some bespoke boards for our outing and I, apart from figures, agreed to do some other items, a couple of which you can see here.

 

The other major item I have built for this project will be posted later, so watch this space. (CLUE: I have wanted one ever since I saw an article on building one in "Wargames World" magazine issue 5 about 30 years ago! And it is very Dark Age Irish!!!)

 

G

 

 



This is the four bed detached executive residence, complete with cardboard porch clad in coffee stirrer. I got to use my limited knowledge of Pi to work out circumferences and heights of cones and the like to do the roof, which is covered in a layer of the fur. I also added some air-drying clay to the card roof former for this one to bulk it up a little, but it was not really necessary. A skim of wood filler on the tube, after the tube had been scored, and a paint job and "job done". The fur is dirtied up with a gloop of PVA glue, dark green paint (a few drops only) and some black and brown wash.

I also made two of these smaller huts. Actually, they are only smaller because: a) I did not bulk out the roves with clay prior to adding the fur and b) I did not add a porch. All three huts are made from a section of tube surmounted by a cone of card and some fur. They are deliberately basic in their execution as I wanted a grungy look rather than something rather more civilised.

 

 

The Quest for THE Rules, Part 2

Hello,

In the second instalment of Nephew Nick's and my quest to find the definitive set of rules for our forthcoming Dark Ages Ireland show game for 2017, we moved on from Games Workshop's "Lord of the Rings" set (which we liked overall, but had one or two reservations about), to another possibly suitable offering in the form of Dan Mersey's "Lion Rampant".

We have only tried this set out for a single game before, a quickly-arranged affair using my Late Medievals. I set up the forces, working out something that was vaguely Viking and something else that was vaguely Irish, and we set to.

I was most enthused by the idea of "Fierce Foot", but then discovered just how rubbish they are when defending! Nick placed great store in his huscarls, greatly aided by the fact that we used the Foot Men at Arms stats for them...

The Vikings won is all I will say for now.

Nephew Nick's Vikings set up ready to take it to the Irish. Those huscarls are ROCK HARD when counted as Foot Men At Arms. Perhaps a downgrade to Armour 3???

The Bhoys!

I used my Warlord and his "Fierce Foot" (he was "rash" in the game, so upgraded the unit he was with from their actual status) as a reinforcing unit to take advantage of my breakthrough in the centre...at least, that was the plan. It actually worked until I ran out of figures and he ended up having to take on all comers!

Nick's Vikings, with one or two of my figures knocking around somewhere.

The Warlord's unit broke through, but was overwhelmed in the end.


So, what did we think?

1. The rules were very quick and bloody, perhaps too much so! We may well be able to play this three or four times per show!!!
2. The rules worked well.
3. The Irish should all be fleet footed as per the rules, even the Fierce Foot, to allow for faster movement.
4. The Irish also deserve a job lot of javelins.
5. Viking huscarls are IMMENSE!!!
6. We have a plethora of ideas to enhance the game with mini-scenarios within the main game, different victory conditions and so on.
7. We can easily accommodate several players per side, which would allow us to have some participation element.
8. WE LIKED THESE RULES A LOT!

It is debateable whether we will continue our quest having found "Lion Rampant" to our liking so much, but something like "Legends of the High Seas", basic (i.e. 1st Edition-ish) Warhammer and no doubt a few others may yet get a try out. Hmmm.

G