Blackpowder and Deadites!

Over the last couple of weeks at the club I've been trying some new things. Last Sunday I took part in a Napoleonics wargame, of disgusting Frenchies vs. Prussians, using the 'Blackpowder' rules. Dougie kindly ran the game, kept us up on the rules and provided all of the (very nice) minis, whilst Martin handled the main French line, Alan took their column of ambushers and I commanded the proud Prussians.

The Blackpoweder rules held some welcome surprises.

Wargaming the Napoleonic era seriously does not churn my oats. I bloody loved watching Sharpe (as surely every red blooded male in the land should), but the idea of playing out a battle just leaves me cold. Lines of dudes armoured in cloth jackets, armed with guns which struggled to shoot straight, and ordered to walk into enemy fire and simply....die... Pffft. Not for me. But, I'd seen Dougie put on a Seven Years' War game before and his kit looked pretty tidy, so I thought I'd try something new and give it a bash.

The Blackpowder rules are new to me, but there are some aspects of them which are great! The guys at GW should have a good look at these for WFB. Movement is based on what is basically an Ld check. Depending on how well the unit passes (if they pass), the unit get to move 1, 2 or 3 times. That means cavalry can (and often does) move 36" in a turn! By the end of turn 3, one of my units of Dragoons had pretty much toured the entire battlefield (reaping carnage wherever they went of course!). Firepower varies based on unit quality, size and condition. The importance of fresh undamaged units is key in this game - as is having units of reserves to plug gaps left by fast moving troops leaving the line, or fragile busted up infantry blocks legging it. It felt really tactical playing this game, especially as due to the scenario I had to deal with Martin's advance and then handle Alan's successive flanking move, determining who to pull from the line, when to linger to finish things off, when to move on, etc.

Doubt bubblegum was around in 1813, but my Dragoons were certainly kickin' ass and chewin' somethin'...

This was a fair sized game, but it (should have) flowed very quickly. Once units take a pounding, they just crumble and go. The speed of movement also ensures hand to hand comes in quickly. There were - at the level we played at, anyway - no significant characters. Officers were discrete units, but they simply flew about rallying and bolstering units - they didn't fight or have outrageous stats that could motor through units singlehanded like in WFB or 40k. After relying so on vampires to do do the work for me, that was pretty strange! Players also have to state exactly what each unit is doing before any dice are rolled, otherwise they simply take their full move straight forward. Martin fell foul of this in turn one as his entire line marched 36" to stand about 3" in front of my gun line; and moving goes after shooting in this game...heh heh.

Suffice to say, I pounded Martin with all I had, he wilted and I turned to engage Alan's flanking move. It was in the bag 30 mins in, but I got three horrific casualty test rolls after Alan's first turn of firing and literally half my army ran for it. Shit. I was still going to win due to weight of numbers, but it took a damn age and Alan refused to accept the obvious and concede. Dougie was getting quite exasperated by it, which was a shame, but I still enjoyed the game.

What? The Frenchies ran away? Mon Dieu, I just cant believe it!!

Things about the rules I wasn't so keen on was that the game is very vague on unit composition. Its based on what players have, so before the battle they agree how many models in a large unit, how many in a medium unit and so on. There are four set sizes of unit in the game and models are simply arranged onto these agreed footprints. Its too vague for me. When casualties are taken, a marker is put down by the unit (break tests come after 3 casualties are suffered - officers can each test to rally one casualty off in the final phase of the turn. All casualties above three are removed and ignored as long as the unit survives its break test at the end of the turn). Models aren't actually removed unit a unit breaks, and is removed form the table.  Another thing that slightly bugged me was my 'medium' unit of riflemen (16 models I think) had only 3 dice to fire. I miss the idea of each model making an attack, Warhammer style. I know it balanced with the dynamic of the game; but maybe GW have indoctrinated me, or its just a touch of the autism...

Overall, a good fast system. Martin tells me the Hail Caesar rules are very similar, but slowed down a bit movement wise for our heavy Greek Phalanxes, so I'm looking forward to that. In fact, I've been building more hoplites tonight ()taking a break to peel the glue off my finger tips). While I'm still not swayed to part with cash to buy an army for this era, i enjoyed the system and had a good game. Nice one, Dougie!


The week before, I ran my Necromancer scenario at the club; a multi-player Warhammer skirmish game where each player takes a single necromancer and his cadre of crumblies and battles for dominance of the graveyard of Mousillon. It was based on the Regiments of Renown Rules we used in the April tournament in the club. we ended up with 7 players (a bit more than I'd expected!). Here's the dit I ran on the club forum:

What a handsome looking necromancer we have here... Watch out for that magic missile, pal, its a right bitch.

NECROMANCER

Ever played against a Vampire Counts army and wished you could have a go summoning hordes of the undead to overwhelm your foes, but don’t have a VC army of your own? Maybe you’ve got a great sorcerer model in your collection, but never had the chance to use him? Did you enjoy Hammer Horror flicks, Evil Dead or World War Z? Love the idea of playing warhammer through a creepy crypt, ruined castle or haunted graveyard? Then this warhammer skirmish scenario is the game for you!
 
I’m going to run a one-off scenario in the club, using the regiments of renown ruleset we used a few months ago. It’ll be undead Vampire Counts only: you don’t need to bring any models (unless you’ve got some and you fancy giving them a run out of the crypt… as they will be provided. Each player (2 up to however many are interested!) takes one up-and-coming necromancer accompanied by a handful of shambling deadites. The aim of the game is to seize an objective on the table by the close of play – such as a crypt holding the body of a sleeping vampire, or a ruinous tower for your nascent necromancer to appropriate for his lair!

The obvious thing about necromancers is that they start small, but if you don’t snuff ‘em out quick, they’ll have hordes of gravemeat pounding at your door (and peeking in the windows, crawling over your roof and pushing up the floorboards too). Each player gets one level 2 necromancer, with raise dead (9+, raises 2d6+3 wounds worth of undead), vanhels danse macabre (6+,chosen unit moves 8” and rerolls missed ‘hit rolls) and soul burn (6+, magic missile, 18” range, d6xs4 hits). Players also have 50 points to spend on their intimate crew of deadites. You may buy:

Zombies (WS 1, S3, T3, ASL) – 3pts
Skeletons (WS 2, S3, T3 w/LA+SH) – 5pts
Ghouls (WS 3, S3, T4, A2, poisoned attacks) – 10 pts
Dire Wolves (M9, WS 3, S 3, T 3, W 1, A1) – 8 pts
*Grave Guard (WS3, S4, T4, w/HA+SH) – 11 pts
*Black Knight (WS 3, S4, T4, barded skeletal steed, ha, sh,lance, killing blow) – 26pts
*Fell bat (WS3 S3 T3 A2 flyer with 2 wounds) – 16 pts
*Crypt Horror (undead ogre w/5+ regen, poisoned attacks) – 38 pts

Players may have no more than one (each, possibly) of the models marked with * in their starting list, although they may get more during the game. Note that standard rules for undead will apply: that is, no psychology, no break tests (you lose a wound for each point you lose a combat by), and if you’re outside the 12” bubble of your necromancer, you cant march. For the purposes of the raise dead spell, necromancers will be able to raise anything on the price list, although they must declare first what they’re going for, and will get considerably fewer black knights than they would zombies for the cost of the spell…

Write up your list (it shouldn’t be long!), and bring it with you on the night. Rules for movement, attacking, etc are all as per the regiments of renown set used previously in the club. This time however there will be a turn limit (d6 roll + turn number at the start of each turn, if the number ever goes above 10, then the sun comes up and its time to scurry away) instead of timed games, and veteran rules wont apply.  The table will be a feast of graveyard architecture and goodies, including barrows and crypts where speedy players will be able to unlock anything from bat swarms, to banshees to the mindboggling terror of a black coach!

This could a great bit of fun if you’re interested –depending on the number of players, I’ll either play on one board with several aspiring necromancers mixing it up, or split us off into pairs for ‘quick’ timed gameslike in the regiments of renown. Remember, all models will be provided by me, unless you want to bring some of your own. Who will claim the title as ‘King of the Crypt’???
I fleshed it out with this as interest grew:

The battlefield will be set up to look like a cemetery in Mousillon, on the edge of a crumbling district of the city. There will be burial mounds, monoliths, crypts, graveyards, tombs, rambling walls, statues and of course the fringes of the city as well. Terrain will be tight; plenty to hide behind (or within) as you skulk about!

The table will hold 5 objectives all together. At the centre will be the Van Drak family mausoleum, where you believe a powerful coven of vampires currently sleep. Around the graveyard there are four other objectives: a charnal pit (if we can get a citadel battleboard tile with the skulls in the fissure in the ground, that would be pretty cool, failing that we can use a blast crater piece form the 40k scenery), a Statue of Mhorr (a sinister statue), an arcane ruin (the tomb of a long forgotten Breton mage), and the crypt of Erfried the damned (a banshee, who can be released and mastered by players). The Van Drak mausoleum is in the centre of the field, the other four are arranged in a circle around it, each at least 12" from the mausoleum and 12" away from each other.

The game lasts until only one necromancer remains, or when the sun comes up (ie when a d6 roll + the turn number is greater than 10). The game is won by holding the objectives. Objectives are held by the nearest appropriate model, up to 6" away. The Mausoleum is worth 3 objective points, the others are worth 2. Zombies, dire wolves and fell bats may not hold objectives. All other unit types at a player's disposal may do the job!

Special Rules
The rules below govern magic and the objectives. Fighting in a magic laden, undead infested graveyard does tend to change things...

Spells:
As in older versions of the Vampire Counts army book, we will play under the rule that all necromancy spells may be cast multiple times in a magic phase, as long as a player has the necessary power dice, or doesnt fail a cast. In other words, as long as you dont screw it up and fail to cast a spell, you could theoretically cast raise dead two or three times in your magic phase (although obviously your opponents will be working to dispel you!)

Vanhels danse macabre (6+ cast, range 12", chosen unit moves 8” and rerolls missed ‘hit rolls)

soul burn (6+ cast, magic missile, 18” range, d6xs4 hits).

Raise Dead (6+ cast, range 12". Casting this spell in a necropolis alters it use. The cast number is lower, and with so much raw around, who knows what might come up? If several models are produced, raise them all at the target point, deploying each model as an individual unit, 1" apart. Once successfully cast, roll 2d6 on the following table to find what is summoned:

2-4: 1d6+4 zombies
5: 1d6 dire wolves
6-7: 1d6+2 skeletons (with la / sh)
8-9: 1d6 ghouls
10: 1d3 grave guard (with ha / sh)
11: 1 Black Knight (with barded skeletal steed, ha, sh + lance)
12: Wight Lord (with ha / sh)

Objective Special Rules:
The Charnal Pit - this ossuary provides a delightful supply of spares. All undead within 6" have 5+ regen.

Mhorr's Statue - the God of the Dead is fickle presence. At the start of player 1's turn only, roll a d6 for each model within 6" of the statue. On a 1-3 it recognises them as an ally of its master. On a 4+ beams of light blaze from the stone eyes! The model suffers a strength 4 hit.

Arcane Ruin - the weed-choked, crumbling crypt of some long forgotten Breton mage. Any necromancer within 6" of the arcane ruin may choose to roll up to 4 dice for channelling; however if three or more dice come up as '6s', then the necromancer must take an immediate miscast roll.

Erfried's Crypt - entombed within is the restless shade of Erfried the Damned. Those with the correct knowledge may break the bonds which bind her wretched soul to the crypt. At the start of his turn, any necromancer within 6" may attempt to control Erfried by passing an Ld test. If passed, place a banshee on the table next to the crypt. It is controlled by the summoning player until destroyed, and may move normally. If Erfried is destroyed, her spirit is banished back to her crypt, where she may be freed once more. Necromancers may only test to release the banshee once per turn. Other than frustration, there is no penalty for failing the Ld test to free Erfried.

The Van Drak Mausoleum - This rambling, ornate structure is the ancestral burial site for the noble Van Drak family. Recent occurences have led you to suspect that the Van Draks were not all that they seemed, luring you here in an attempt to harness control of something truly powerful. At the centre of the field, the Van Drak Mausoleum is worth 3 objective points compared to the 2 available for any other objective. The mausoleum houses many unsuspected horrors (or delights). Any Necromancer casting Raise Dead within 6" of the Mausoleum should disregard the standard summoning table and roll 2d6 on this special one:

• 2-4: 1d6+4 skeletons (with LA / SH)
• 5-7: 1d6+2 ghouls
• 8: 1 crypt horror
• 9: 1d6 grave guard (with ha / sh)
• 10: 1d3 black knights (riding barded skeletal steeds, with HA / Sh + lance)
• 11: a Black Coach
• 12: 1 enraged vampire hero! (frenzied, cannot be controlled, will immediately attack the model nearest the mausoleum and continue killing everything near it until it is killed itself!). Immediately place the vampire in base to base with the relevant opponent.

Based on the numbers taking part, here is the plan. If James does indeed join us, then we will have 6 players. If it stays at this, we extend the table to the the normal 6x4 and each player gets a 12"x12" dz at the corners and a 12" wide x 4" deep at the mid point on the long table edges.

If someone else joins in then we go with the arrangements for 6 players as listed above with player 7 or me taking the role of the city guard. The City Guard appear at the start of turn 2 from a random table edge, at a point at least 12" away from any undead models (or the greatest distance possible along the table edge rolled for).

If James doesn't play, or if someone cant make it and we drop to 5 players, then we stick with the original 4'x4' table and I'll take the City Guard. If there's some untold disaster and we only end up with 4 players, I'm back on the necromancy with you guys and we play at each corner of our original 4'x4'. Hope this doesn't confuse matters, lads! The more the merrier, but our little 4'x4' slice of the world would be busier than the bar at an 18th birthday party if I try to cram more than 5 players on it!

The City Guard
The rules for the City Guard are as follows. Prowling through the night shrouded streets, lanterns held high to root out the unsavoury, come a well armed patrol of the City Guard. The Guard Captain himself - Sir Guillame Delberz leads them. There have been some dire rumours on the streets of late and he seeks to root out the source of these tales for himself.

• Guard Captain - Sir Guillame Delberz - Bretonnian Hero (WS5, S4, T4, W2, A3, Ld8) with hand weapon, ha / sh, riding a barded warhorse. Sir Guillame has the virtue of resolve, making him immune to psychology).
• Man-at-arms musician (special rule: as long as this man lives to ring his bell, 1d6 men at arms will appear following the City Guard deployment rules at the start of each turn). - 10 pts
• 1 x Yeoman Warden (WS 3, S 3, T3, A2) w/ La+sh+halberd - 18 pts
• 2 x peasant bowmen (WS 2, BS 3, S3, T3, Ld 5, longbow) - 12 pts
• 2x men-at-arms (WS 2, S3, T3, A1, Ld5) w/ La + Sh + Halberd - 10 pts

Special Rules
Deployment - The City Guard appear at the start of turn 2 from a randomly rolled for table edge, at a point at least 12" away from any undead models (or the greatest distance possible along the table edge rolled for). Models may be placed on and moved normally, including charges. Place a coin or marker to keep a note of this spot, as it will be used by future reinforcements.

Reinforcements - as long as Gilles the bell ringer lives (the Men-at-arms  musician), the City Guard answer the call of the bell. 1d6 reinforcements will arrive at the start each turn from the same table edge as the Guard initially arrived. They also appear at the same point the Guard originally appeared from, even if this is now no longer the furthest point from any undead. Models move normally as soon as they are put down. The Guard player may choose to split his reinforcements from peasant bowmen or men-at-arms, depending on the models available. If the musician is dead, then no further reinforcements will come.

City Guard Victory
The City Guard achieve victory on the same conditions as the necromancer players, with 2 VP for each outer objective, or 3 VP for holding the Van Drak mausoleum. In the case of the Guard, its denying the objectives to the filthy uindead that will earn them the victory. Any City Guard model may hold an objective, as long as he is the nearest model standing within 6" of it.

The battlefield, crammed with players. Expectation still high...

The buzz for this one was great! Guys were writing up fluff as background for their necromancers and adding in to the running thread on the forum. We ended up starting with 6 necromancers and Tam came in as seventh man on the City Guard. We set up the table and it looked AMAZING. First turn in and everyone was starting to raise their undead hordes. I'd spent most of the previous week gluing together a box of 30 Mantic Zombies, 3 Crypt Horrors, Krell, and a dozen Mantic Ghouls. The pile of goodies available was huge!

Martin and I clash around the Sorceror's Tomb.

John Scott's deadites prowled in through the shuttered streets of Mousillon.

Angus' Necromancer and his burgeoning crew of cronies free Erfreid from her tomb and scale the hill up to the Van Drak Mausoleum.

A rare pic of Craig's short lived mob holding the Arcane Statue and making a dash for the Van Drak Mausoleum. Unseen by Craig, James' Necromancer works up a barrage of magic missiles over by the treeline.

Then came turn 2. James saw the mighty fucking flaw in the rules I'd written. Drawing a bead from his necromancer to Craig's he cast the magic missile 'soul burn' on him... again.... and again... and again until he fried him. Craig's army promptly did a Bedknobs and Broomsticks and crumbled unanimously to the ground. I'd reverted to the old rules on spamming out spells to make sure players didn't only have a single chance to raise, and get it dispelled by the others. The magic missile was intended to allow necromancers to nerf powerful enemy models such as Wight Lords our Crypt Horrors. I'm such a tit that I didn't see it coming that the lads would simply fry each others casters! With so many of us on the table, most of us were in range of each others casters, so it all went Pete Tong!

I was properly gutted for Craig - he was well into it, and as the game only lasted an hour or so, it rather shafted his (and mostly the others lads' too) night of gaming. James' necro got the same treatment in the next turn, I went next (the good old way at least, my craven necro run down and skewered by a charging enemy knight) and Martin in shot order thereafter. Tam's City Guard turned out to be quite powerful with us dropping like flies, and he took out John. The Guard Captain turned out to be quite the killer.

The entry point for the City Guard proved a bit contentious. Due to his setup rules, he was quite far away from most of the objectives, so the (remaining) necromancer, Angus, had quite a leg up on pinning down the objectives before him. Maybe next time allow the Guard to feed in from the town, as it fits the fluff.

Tam's City Guard Captain gallops in to the fray, ready to tear in to the unsuspecting rears of John and James.

The game finished with Angus winning, although it was a close run thing. He miscast and reduced his mage to level 0, an as last necro, he couldn't raise anymore. We reached our turn limit before Tam's City Guard could make it far enough on to the table to threaten enough objectives and mow down Angus' now very finite force. Tam was a little sour about his chances, but to honest I'd written the guard rules never expecting them to be in with a shout at winning (as I thought the table would be crawling with undead!) and the race against the dice at the end added tension to see if Angus could hold out.

Overall, did not expect that one! A disappointing night it has to be said, and the first fantasy event I've organised that has more or less binned on me! I did not for a moment think that only one necromancer would be left by the end; it was almost comical how fast we were going down! Not a complete disaster though; the game did generate quite a buzz at the club and some of the lads not playing have asked when I'll be running it again. Of course, the talk of the night was how to fix that damn magic missile spell, and damn right I'll be changing it up before coming back to this one. The look of it, the buzz beforehand and the enjoyment of the first turn were great however, so I will come back to this and run something like it again... if anyone will want to play it!

As for this week, I'm not sure what I'll be up to as yet. The Greek play-by-mail game is going well, and Athens is kicking ass and taking names! I'd been frustrated by a bloody non-player neutral - Corinth - which although a large sized city, had fought me (and lost twice) in battle and still managed to bounce off my siege. I sent the troops back in and in an effort to draw a line under the war (and not fall behind the others, some of whom are spreading like mold in a warm fridge) I sent them this message:

To Corinth (to be delivered by Miltiades’ herald once our army stands at Corinth’s gates once again): “Hail, Corinth. We salute on the ingenuity of your builders. The counterwall was well placed and built with courage. Further resistance however will only cause greater destruction to your city and pain to your wives, mothers and daughters not yet widowed or bereft. Twice our army has proven your superior, and bloodied you on this field. Five and a half thousand of your male citizens have been thrown away. 225 of these have already been sold into the humiliation of slavery, never to see their homes again. After last year’s battle, we have no fewer than 1400 of your citizens in our custody. Our army is here again to press our cause. Soon, we will crush your trade completely, and your city will starve. Miltiades, Archon of the demos of Athens presents you with our terms:

You have three options open to you, as chosen by the three fates. Clotho, the spinner, will give you this: that you will surrender your city immediately and join Athens as our tributary. You will open your gates and allow our army to occupy your city immediately. You will acknowledge Athens as your master and overlord, but will be allowed to maintain your own rights, customs and practices. Corinth will be allowed to run its own internal affairs, but will acknowledge and follow any instruction from Athens. Corinth will pay Athens 15 talents a year, every year, starting from this one. Corinth will also send Athens 3000 citizen troops to serve in the army of the Demos each year. As tributary, Corinth will ally with Athens. We will allow you to continue to build your own projects, manage the bulk of your forces, and trade with whomever you see fit. Athens will move Athenian troops in and out of Corinth as we see fit, and may even station men here if we choose to. Once your loyalty has been proven, Athens will return the Corinthian citizens we hold captive. This is the bloodless option, the option which your people will thank you for, and the only option which truly holds any honour for you.

Lachesis, the allotter, will give you this: that you surrender your city in its entirety to us immediately, and disband your army. Archon Miltiades will march in and occupy your city with his army. There will be no bloodshed, and the Corinthian prisoners of war will be returned to their families. Corinth will become part of the proud and vigourous Athenian Empire, under Athenian rule.

Atropos, the unturnable, will give you this: if you reject our overture and stubbornly refuse to accept the inevitable then the Demos of Athens must show you no quarter. Miltiades will lay siege to your city walls. The lives of your citizens which we hold in our custody will be forfeit. Each day we will stake out two of your people on the ground before your gates. There they will cook in the sun until the vultures come to pick at their flesh, and their cries clutch at the hearts of your people. Each day another two will be drawn – one in the morning, one in the afternoon – and dismembered before your walls. We will slice them piece at a time, like a butcher working a carcass of mutton and ensure that the life takes a long time to leech from their bodies. Their screams shall rend at the ears of the men on your walls until they can take no more. Each piece we take shall be catapulted over your walls to be found by your people. Let it not be said that the Demos of Athens is without mercy. Many of your men will return to their homes – even if it takes them a whole day to cross that wall. When your army fails and your walls are taken, our officers will not stay their hand or run the rule over their men. Warriors shall be given free rein of your riches, your women and your children. No coin shall go unstolen, no daughter of Corinth left unfucked and soiled with Athenian seed, no child left untaken for a life of slavery and black, fucking despair. Should the Gods of chance in some way grant you a reprieve and break our siege once again, rest assured that we will be back. Again, again and again until everything with a heartbeat in that shithole you call a city is dead.

These are your fates, Corinth. We will not offer you terms again. Deny us, and there is only Atropos.

I had fun writing that! John was so impressed he let me roll a dice for it when we met up at Dark Heresy. In the end they chose Lachesis and surrendered the city to me. Job done! Now to get on with the conquering...

By turn 5, Greece looks like this (with Athens bagging Corinth). The news says Pherae has besieged Amphissa, which puts his armies east of Thermopylae. That puts the cat amongst the pigeons...

The first player war has begun, between Robert's Pella and Angus' Olynthus up in the far north, and it looks like it may potentially pull in everyone else, as we all seem to be allied to someone up there! Robert made the first strike and besieged Olynthus with what (he thought) was a big army, but I hear Angus had been recruiting men inside and training them up and he sallied out to win the day. That puts Robert in a damn sticky situation now, as Angus apparently has 6 gold mines on the go, just pumping out gold. Over a long war, resources will tell - Robert's in the shitter if he doesn't get help or come up with something intelligent to do real soon. I've been hanging on tenterhooks waiting for the next turn to come in, and its still not here yet! Gah! So many plans to hatch...

Tonight then, I'm off to submit my doubles list for the Warhammer Doubles League. Martin came over Tuesday and we came up with a plan, which will either be awesome or just suck horribly and see us pumped repeatedly. First game should start soon.

 

The Wolves of the North

I finally finished The Wolves of the North by harry Sidebottom today! Looking back on the blog (actually using this for what I intended it for) I started it at the beginning of January. Jeebus, I'm getting slower...

This was the fifth book in the 'Warrior of Rome' series, set in the 260s AD, with the Roman Empire locked in civil war, threatened by barbarian invasion and beginning its long interminable decline.Sidebottom is an Oxford don of Classics, and the best thing about his writing is that his depth of knowledge is remarkable. Whilst the plotline or action may not reach the heights of Christian Cameron or Steven Pressfield, reading his books is an entertaining way of immersing yourself thoroughly in the ancient world's material culture.

After the last installment had the protagonist, Ballista, acting as an agent of the Emperor to shore up client Kingdoms in Armenia, this one had him sent to the extreme north-east, to Lake Maeotis and the steppe beyond Tanais, modern day southern Russia and Kazakhstan, to stir up trouble between the Alans, Goths and Heruli and keep them away from the Roman frontiers.

I remembered the Heruli from my trip to Athens back in uni, as they sacked the city and mangled it. I did a bit of digging online and found out that was 267 AD, four years after the book was set. Could be interesting to see if the author revisits the tribe and the invasion later in the series, although he did mention it in the afterword.

Overall I liked this book, liked the feel of it and the detail. The characters are likeable, although there was a Gemmell-esque twist at the end where one of the main ones gets bumped off in the murder sub-plot, setting up what I presume will be re-occurring villain. Sidebottom is good at avoiding the heroic and the cliche: his characters are quite human and fallible, not awesome killing machines, but often quite scared of what they're involved in. Partly I think due to him sticking as closely as he can to actual events, the protagonists dont always cover themselves in glory or win out - they just (mostly) survive. In this book and third one this has created quite a bittersweet ending to the book; just like Ballista, I felt pretty robbed by the end of this one!

I like reading the Warrior of Rome books, but they are an odd experience. I tend to plod through them (partly because they come out mostly during the busiest parts of term), much like the plot, until about half way through when things suddenly gather pace. A series I'll certainly go back to, though I'm getting a bit wary that he's going down the Simon Scarrow 'episodic Roman tales' route. The characters finished this one back on the borders of the Imperium and set for Mediolanum, the heart of the later Empire, so should be an interesting change of pace from this odyssey on the steppe. Whilst I was noodling around looking at Sidebottom stuff, I found this YouTube interview he did for his fourth book, The Caspian Gates. The bloke is seriously cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72p6u6mDixs

Next up is one I've been immensely looking forward to: Christian Cameron's 'Poseidon's Spear', book three of his Killer of Men series based on Arimnestos of Plataea during the Persian Wars. Manus bought the first one and took on holiday with him after I recommended it to him, and he loved it. Chatting with him about it has got me properly fired up for getting stuck into the new one!

Storms of Magic - The Gauntlet of Sorcery

There's been a lot of 40k at the club lately, as Robert's Storm Shield campaign plays out through its group stages.Since the big warhammer multiplayer I've lain off the warhammer at the club, to give the 40k gamers some space, avoid a fantasy burnout, and generally try some different things myself. I avoided any big commitments like leagues (although Craig's doubles league will be coming soon) and instead taken part in, or set up one off Warhammer scenarios. After digging through some old white dwarves when we were gutting the house for a viewing (three days of cleaning!), I found an interesting setup for a multiplayer Storms of Magic game. It'd been a long while since this had been seen at the club, so I put it out on the forum to see who'd bite. I wrote up a blurb which went like this:

In no time at all, we were cooking up a storm...

GAUNTLET OF SORCERY – WFB STORMS OF MAGIC MULTIPLAYER SCENARIO

I want to run a Warhammer storms of magic scenario at the club, which is open to several players (could be 2 up to 8). I’m using the ‘Gauntlet of Sorcery’ scenario from WD 389 (May 2012). You don’t need to own or know Storms of Magic to take part, others who have it will keep you right. To remind you, Storms games are magic heavy. Wizards (or runesmiths) are a must, and you get an extra 25% of your starting points to spend on goodies from the Storms book (bound monsters and magic items. If you have a big critter model – this is your chance to use it!) We can take care of your storms extras selection the week in advance, or quite quickly on the night. The game is played with 4d6 magic dice (rather than the usual 2d6). Here is the intro blurb from the WD:

THE GAUNTLET OF SORCERY
‘Dire chance has caused many Arcane Fulcrums to appear in close proximity. Will the wizards ally to deny victory to their hated foes, or will they merely fight amongst themselves?’

The table is a square of 9 realm of battle tiles (so 6’ x 6’). On it will be a circle of 8 fulcrums (objectives which can only be occupied by casters), each placed an equal distance apart, and 12” from the nearest board edge, to make our ‘wheel’ of magic. Dead centre in the middle will be a ninth fulcrum. Players win by holding the most fulcrums after 6 turns – the central fulcrum is worth 3 fulcrums when totting up the result!

Each player deploys around one fulcrum on the ‘wheel’ to start. They may place one wizard on it. The Armies will be 1200 pts in size,and must deploy no further than 6” out from the footprint of the fulcrum, so think carefully about your units! If it doesn’t fit, it comes on as a reserve from your nearest table edge.  The astute amongst you will have realised that you will need at least two casters to be in with a chance of victory – if you cant afford them in your list, casters are available from 185 pts in your additional ‘storms’ points allowance. Wizards shouldn't be too vulnerable in the game (although everyone will be trying to kill them), as any casters standing atop a fulcrum gain a 3+ ward save.

To determine who goes first, each player chooses a different wind of magic. Then, we spin the spinner. The player who chose the wind of magic that the spinner comes to rest on goes first, with play proceeding clockwise around the Wheel of Magic. We do this EACH TURN. Each player then plays out their turn. For the magic phase, the player whose turn it is rolls the power dice, and the dispel dice are shared out evenly as possible amongst the rest. Will your opponents band together to thwart you, or sit back and see their other opponents burn!?

This scenario presents an exciting opportunity for Machiavellian scheming, cunning use of deployment and army selection, with lots of devastating cataclysm spells going off whilst players cut adhoc deals on the hoof amongst themselves as the tides of fortune ebb and flow. The game will play a week on Sunday (July 7th).

Including myself, I got 5 players buying into the game: Martin with his High Elves, Tam's WoC, Angus with his Woodies, Robert with his Dark Elves, and my own VC.We played a fulcrum each (so cutting down to 5 fulcrums in the outer ring) with the uber-fulcrum in the centre.

My VC held the skull fulcrum to the right of the table. Angus is to my left starting on the tower, whilst Robert was on my right, beginning on the spiral fulcrum. Tam's WoC had appalling luck and cascaded their main mage into the warp with a miscast on turn 1. I'm just glad it wasnt me...

Robert won the spin for first turn (the random spinner determining who went first worked really well,  and helped to make the game a tense one) and promptly bee-lined for me! There were whispers of a pact between Martin on the far side of the table and Angus on my left, but as soon as Angus' turn came around this proved to be poison lies! He spent the rest of the game bombarding me with bowfire (he nailed my varghulf, and wounded my Necromancer lord on the fulcrum), raising up blood forests under my units to pelt my troops or otherwise charging straight for me!

Almost everyone made a move to seize the prizewinning central fulcrum early on. Robert sent a lone mage out on horseback to seize it. Apparently she had a magical item which was the only thing in the game that could destroy a fulcrum. He planned out take that out, denying the objective points to everyone, and then nab a second fulcrum off me to go for the win. Apparently the vampire counts on his left flank looked a softer prospect than the WoC on his right! He sent his entire army for me except for the hydra. Even though Tam rained down everything he had on that thing, it survived the game, whereas Tam's mages both nuked themselves, and his hellcannon misfired and blew up!

Robert's army charges over to chew up the deadites as Tam considers his fate on the Tree of Woe...

Caught between two enemies sandwiching me, I tried to raise zombie speedbumps to delay and redirect Robert, along with blocking my fulcrum with my unit of 25 zombies. The junior necro and his skeletons made off for the prizewinning fulcrum in the centre, whilst the shiny stuff ran forwards with him to draw fire and generally ope up some opportunities (ok, so I didn't really know what to do with them. If the vargheists or Varghulf charged Robert, his higher initiative and frenzy would have torn through my expensive units before they got a hit in. Against Angus, his stand and fire would have probably done for me).

Needless to say, I got sandwiched, shot to bits, magicked and mauled! Martin even appeared with a cockatrice (turned out I'd underrated those!) and his new phoenix from the opposite side of the table to have a go at me! Tam's rancid luck pretty much took him out of the game, so mostly the others beat seven shades of shit out of me whilst maneuvering to make their own play for the win. Martin (thankfully) sniped Robert's suicide mage and saved the central fulcrum.

It all boiled down to the last turn, and I was going last. By then my Necromancer Lord was dead, I'd lost my fulcrum and all I had left was a junior necromancer and about 12 skeletons fighting a cockatrice. It looked bleaker than an October break in Wales... By now Angus had killed my Necromancer Lord with a branchwraith and taken my fulcrum, stepping into the lead on objectives held. Martin made his play next, using cantrips to get his level 4 mage onto the central fulcrum, even though abandoning his own to do it. This gave him 3 objective points. With no mages left, Tam was out of the race, and could only noodle about with two depleted units of chaos warriors (which are still tougher than dried mutton). Robert used a cantrip of his own to push Martin's mage off the central fulcrum, taking the High Elves out of contention. He only managed equal Martin in the roll-off however; enough to push the elf off, but not enough to occupy it himself.

Martin's High Elf sorceror went for glory, only to be thrown from a four storey building for his trouble. If only X-factpr contestants were dealt with in a similar manner.

With two fulcrums to Robert's one, and with Martin, Tam and myself holding none, Angus seemed to have it stitched up. Step up one plucky and underrated junior necromancer! Having amazingly beaten the cockatrice in combat, chased it down and killed it with only a dozen skellies he stepped forward as a contender. Unable to simply march up and take the big fulcrum (because even though he was now in charge of the army, he wasn't technically general so couldn't march...), I used a cantrip to blast Angus's branchwraith off my fulcrum and take it back. I then put 6 dice into the cantrip which would allow me to swap fulcrum and take the big one. Amazingly I got it off with out rolling any double 6's, getting some obscenely high casting number.If this came off, I'd come from nowhere to take the game! Martin threw four dice to try and dispel it and rolled three '6s'. Bastard!

I guess it wasnt to be! Still I tied with Angus for the win on one fulcrum each. With the length of the game, even though we started pretty early, we only had time to play out 4 turns. Moves and fighting were short but Angus had a lot of shooting, and everyone's magic took a while. Still, with the free-for-all format (and trying to fend off three players attacking at once!) it made for a tense and enjoyable format as we all smack talked each other and grasped for sneaky alliances and deals. One things I learned for certain is to never trust Angus... The format of the game worked really well, I thought. The army sizes were just right and the system of magic where we divided up the dispel dice amongst the other players was great for the machiavellian deals that were being cut. Robert melted my fighty vampire on hellsteed (my objective pincher) who had death magic in his turn one - before I'd even had a chance to use him. Unfortunately, the rest of my casters were using the lore of vampires, so I had virtually no offensive magic! The plan was to summon the vampire back using the cantrip spell, but it never quite came off! I felt a bit for Tam too, who had a hard one as his mages got bombed out early on and his hellcannon proved less than effective. The game was impossible for him after that. Had his mage lived however with a 3+ ward on his disc, and re-rolling all rolls of a '1', he would have been nigh on impossible to shift. Cheesy bastard!

Chaos sorceror on a disc. Well nigh unkillable, the cheesy git!

Following on from the previous post, I've been busy today building models. In preparation for the graveyard scenario I'm running at the club on Sunday, I finally built 31 new Zombies! Its been a long time since I've done a serious amount of building, and I'm really impressed with the quality of the mantic zombies. Even better, I got them for a song at the Carronade flea market this year - only £8 for 30!

Lovely new zombies. Now for a big tin of Army Painter from Geoff!

Summer Projects

Easing in to the hols now, and deciding what to get started on first. Got my next two weeks of games lined up already - going weekly on the Dark Heresy at Robert's for Tuesdays and got some stuff lined up at the club. Next weekend I'm running a skirmish scenario based on necromancers dueling it out in a crowded necropolis, and the week after should be a long overdue return to wargaming with ancients as Martin takes Angus and myself through the hail Caesar rules.

Today though, I had a rummage through the cupboards and dug out everything I've got lined up to build or develop. Here it is:

So much to do!  Got lots of little fiddly jobs to finish off - a Panzer IV to give me enough panzers to play a mechanized company at FOW. There's also one Chaos Knight left to build and customise as to make up the last of my 5 blood knights. I'm really impressed with the styling and sheer size of these models, its just a shame this last one is so overtly 'chaosy', and will therefore need a buttload of work. I've started building my Mortis Engine, having built and painted the spectral host which support it. Gah I hate painting kits whilst constructing them! They should just get built in a oney like the good old days when you just threw everything together without looking at the instructions and then sobbed into your hands later because you had to snap bits off to get the last parts to fit....

I've started building my box of hoplites I'd ordered after Wappinshaw. Got 6 done so far, but their damn fiddly to pose. Really good value compared to GW: I got a box of 40 warriors for only 17 quid! The kit has loads of options and assembly for a wide variety of choice - my only quibble is they only have oval 'Grenadier Models' style bases (which threatens my autism, there should be square bases always!), and the detailing and proportions on their legs are a bit iffy. Other than that, I'm well impressed. Loving the Corinthian sallet helms (phrygian and Thracian helms are getting the heave ho...). My plan is to make these as close to the historical reality as possible. Already slightly upset that they dont rank up close enough in game terms to have the hoplon shields overlapping... These are the number one priority for the summer building, and I'll hopefully be using them in a couple weeks vs. Martin's Romans.

The unarmoured heads on one of the sprues gave me an idea for an officer. I want all the rank and file to be wielding spears, with this one holding a spatha sword (it looks like the longer curved Greek cavalry sword on the sprue rather than the short xiphnos blade they uses for stabbing). There are plenty of spare limbs and shields to outfit him, so I dug out a model to convert to use the body. I found a Gondor warrior model sprue I'd got free on a magazine years ago and hacked him up. Happily it proved quite easy as the plastic was rather soft (and I'd borrowed the wife's knife,which is sharp enough to flay the skin off a rhino). He looks a little short compared to the rest as he's leaning forward into a run, but overall I'm pretty satisfied with him. I cut off the chainmail, and otherwise his armour is pretty similar to rest, even down to the metal greaves on his legs. He'll be the only warrior with a cloak, but seeing as he's the officer, then I reckon he deserves one!

My Athenian Hoplites so far, with their new officer, the Logos.

Gondor warrior sprue from a magazine, spare limbs and equipments from the hoplite box

My new Logos, formerly of Gondor.

Other than the Greeks, I've got Mantic boxes with 30 Zombies and 34 ghouls to build for the warhammer skirmish scenario on Sunday. There's also some Grave Guard still to be put together, along with a big Terrorgheist, and 3 Crypt Horrors. I was swithering over whether to build horrors or vargheist with this boxed set but after proxying some models to try out Vargheists at the club last night, I reckon they're way too fragile. Crypt Horrors all the way, and I'll use the wings for some tasty fellbat conversions.

Hopefully I can get something along these lines. The wings are big; ideally I'll be able to get some of the current GW ghouls still on the sprue and use their bodies. Much better than the cartoonish versions GW currently sell.

Other than that I've got a Krell to build (the new one is a lovely model), a new wraith, a skaven regiment to see to and an island of blood griffon to convert to an abyssal terror. I've got the vampire lord rider of the terrogheist kit lined up to ride it (with a little bit of help from Jen's uberknife), and I want to get the 40k aircraft perspex upright to mount it on. I saw Martin had done this with his new High Elf Phoenix model last night and with the extra height it looks great!

Lastly I plan to spend some time on rules write ups. For the second year now I'm working on revising my Ancient Greek strategy play-by-mail game through publisher, in the hope of both polishing it off and eventually strolling into the printers over the road to get a nice glossy leather bound hard copy of the fruits of my labours to hold in my hand and navel gaze over. I also dug out star fleet battles to play against Sam a few months ago. I made this game up when I was about 12, when Roger got the star trek micro machine models for his crimbo. I'd read the revie wof the real game in the old 'Gamesman' magazine but couldnt afford it. Instead, I broke out the hex maps from the Battletech set and wrote rules of my own. It developed over the years - i remember playing it with the Pollock, the two of us devising new fleets based on what we'd seen on Star Trek or Babylon 5. By the end of it we had armadas playing campaigns across galaxies, with fighter squadrons, space stations and god knows what else.... It held up ok when I played it with Sam and (some of) the data sheets I'd drawn up for the ships still look really good. Over the summer I'll type up and refine the rules, scan the decent data sheets and use the web to photoshop something together for the rest. When its done I'm hitting the club to lure some bods into a game. Wont be as flash as Kev's X-Wing game, but it'll be fun!

Our old game didn't look far off this...

WAPPINSHAW 2013

For this year's Wappinshaw show, Martin and I put on a table on behalf of the club. As club's fantasy wargames co-ordinator (power drips from every finger..), it was going to have to be Warhammer! DWC's last display at Wappinshaw, which was going to be a historical one, had fallen through due to the various commitments of the guys involved. Last time I'd worked on one of these it had been the clubs first display - warhammer again - in 2011, but I figured enough time had gone by for people to forget...

Bust some poses for the punters lads, we're going on show!

Kev and Dougie had been working on a Flames of War demo table for Carronade two weeks before and looking at their project I knew I would have to go about mine differently. The lads were making a big effort - club resources for flames are still pretty low - at working up a really nice looking scenario from scratch. They went for Arnhem, allowing them to draw on the good supply of painted Germans and Brits available from club members, but making almost all the scenery from scratch. Kev knew a guy who could etch MDF with a laser printer for 'kit' houses, which would save a lot of cash - but money was still required to build and put together the scenary. There was a club drive to buy a tank for a painting competition to build up some funds, but it was all a lot of work, and they started with 3 months to go. As time went on, little was happening, and Geoff was getting ancy - the club had fallen through on commitments at shows before and I could understand that he didn't want us getting a name for ourselves.

Annoyed at myself for this, but no photo of OUR table! Instead, this is the 40k monster which we were next to...

Kev and Dougie pulled it out and put a nice table on, but it was a mad rush to the line - and the organizers stuck us next to the biggest 40k table ever... For Wappinshaw, I knew I'd only be using what was already available at the club. There are a wide range of Warhammer players however, with lots of different armies, some of whom are quite handy with a brush. I put out a call for the guys to bring in their best painted stuff and I got a great response! Chris especially - one of the newer members at the club - revealed himself to be a blessing in disguise. It turns out he is very involved o the painting side, and is even entering the UK Golden Demon competition next year! He got on board massively and provided a beautifully painted elven army - the set from the island of blood box, which he painted in a week (!), and some stunning big set piece models. James Craddock provided the pick of his ogres, Kev put forward his Bretonnians and a lovely green knight, Angus pitched in with some Wood elves, whilst Robert helped out with his huge model collection to give us daemons of chaos, dark elves and Empire. Martin put in his Imperial War Altar - another GW huge model - and about 80% of the terrain. I used my own Vampire Counts to make up the bulk of the 'bad guys'.

The original plan was for the display to showcase the big multiplayer games we have at the club. We'd played this year's massive multiplayer warhammer game only two weeks before, and I used the photos form that to make up a promo poster for the day. The display was to be a snapshot of one of these big multi-race encounters, with loads of allied contingents clashing on a grand scale. Initially I was going to use Kev's battleboard and paint it up for him, but time and resources scotched that pretty quickly. I ended up just using a flat green felt mat, as it looked great under our terrain. Martin really came through on this with his massive collection. Apparently he makes terrain just to de-stress, and he's damn good at it. Lets hope that work really flogs him this year! He'd just bought an Elven watchtower set, fully painted, complete with elven ruins. When I saw this, I knew we had to have it! The scenario took shape - a fading, beleaguered Elven trading outpost in the Old World, a remnant of older times under attack by an evil horde hungry to loot its treasures. The Elves put out the call to aid to their allies and the stage was set. Here's how the 'Battle of Tol Ganeth' panned out:

The battle for Tol Ganeth. The big terrain pieces such as the elven structures and river were Martin's. I made the bridge (wooop!) and bought the ruined roundtower at the far end of the table at the Carronade flea-market.

The Elven army advances from behind the river. Tyrion straddles the bridge, taunting the foe! Nice shot of Martin's tower set. The models on the hill on the opposite bank are Kev's skirmishing Brets set to disrupt the enemy advance.

The battle was set on a diagonal axis across the table. Playing this battle out would have been a mess, but it let us pack in the sprawl of combatants flooding in to the battle.

Robert's Empire gunners prime their shot on the watchtower balcony.

Robert's daemonettes charge in

Chris' amazing thundertusk. The paintjob was fantastic. Chris said he made the base using layers of shredded cork board.

Chris' Elven dragon. His lovely wife helped us out with setup on the day. Dragons are her favourite!

Geoff strapped on the promo as soon as we'd set up. From this end you can see my Fimir mage (had to use him!) lurking in the low trees by the swamp on the left. Its a good shot too of Chris' Mortis Engine, supporting my Vampire Counts models in all its massive majesty. I hope mine looks this nice when its finally done... At the centre, Kev's green knight rides into an ambush in the ruined roundtower by dark elven shades.

Al's flickering tea lights shrouded in smoke look great on the tabletop. Here we used it to make a burning ruin. Across the wide scope of the battle, we tried to set up small vignettes of models or units interacting with each other or setting the scene to try and give a bit of extra depth and tell the 'story' of the battle.

It was an early start at the Kelvin Hall for this one! I'd never been in the sports arena end of the building, but I was pretty impressed with its size (I even snuck in to the indoor athletics arena for a go on the track when no one was about). Angus, Chris and his wife were there for the set up at 8, whilst Martin and Tam joined us a couple of hours later. It was a good turn out on the day from the club as I saw lots of members come along and join us. There was only one hall (although a big one) compared to Carronade with its 3 or 4 the fortnight before, so it was sizeable but certainly not on the same level.  Looking around the hall, I'm fairly confident that we had one of the best tables there on the day, and we got plenty of interest from the punters. We spoke to a number of interested folks too, so maybe we'll see a few more faces around the club in the next weeks as a result.

The day went really well - enough of the lads showed up for us to get a game of the Game of Thrones boardgame on a table we appropriated and stuck on the foot of our display table. That got some interested looks too! I didn't buy anything from the stalls at this one, but it wasn't for lack of quality - I reckon I'd spent enough at Carronade the fortnight before to do me for a while. I liked the Warlord Games stand across from us though - I'm very impressed with their Hail Caesar ancients. Geoff could get us the stuff cheaper at the club however, so I saved my pennies for now. My only frustration with the day was that my crappy phone battery gave out and I didn't get many pics. The main guy who does the Wappinshaw blog was running the table next to us and too busy to get many shots either, so there aren't even many others to goggle at on the web. Here are the photies I managed to get of other tables:

This was a LRPG equipment stall at the front door. This must weigh a ton to wear!

Nice village buildings (resin models I'm told) from the Napoleonic table next to ours, put on by the Phoenix club.

Phoenix club's Napoleonic Table. The guy running this was a nice bloke.

A vignette from the Napoleonic table.

More Napoleonic. This table was huge!

The battle for the People's Palace in A Very British Civil War. Interesting looking system this - I love the tanks and planes.

More from the LRPG stand.

Overall, this was a great day :-) Looking forward to next years - already talk of putting on a Necromunda table, which could cause a stir; I've not seen anything like that on the shows circuit this year so we would definitely stand out. Just need to get interest going again at the club...