Best Sportsmanship

Chris and I won best sportsmanship award in the Cold Wars WAB Doubles Tournament. Good fun. Will try to play in the summer tournament (at Historicon) as well.

Chris ran his very lovely African Invaders army from out of the El Cid book (painted in part by him and his friend Matt). This is a really nice army, and not at all tricksy (I believe that the British term is "beardy"). I, on the other hand, ran the very nice Early Imperial Roman army that I purchased at Williamsburg Muster. I was not responsible for painting that army, but I must admit that it looks fabulous.

Here is a picture of our Dyanmic Duo (damned sexy wargamers) in action, while Odin looks on.Our first battle was with Chris N.A. Invaders and my Romans vs. an army of Spartans (I faced them), and early-ish Byzantines (from Byzantium:Beyond the Golden Gate). I did well against the Spartans (the Romans outmaneuvered them, and I got lucky on some end of game charges), while the Byzantines did well against the Africans.

The second battle was against the Bates Menace (Gil and Mike Bates - see picture below, and also displayed by the FBI at your local Post Office). Those nefarious gamers ran Crusaders (Mike) and Vikings (Gil). I really liked the Viking army, which is good since I am in the progress of painting my own.
Info on upcoming WAB tournaments can be found on the North East Wargaming Society website.

Tags: miniatures, wargames, romans, El Cid, moors, Warhammer Ancient Battles

Coming Soon - Defenders of Vietnam

In a fevered conversation, Elliot, John and I decided to write up Vietnamese versions of the old Marvel superhero group, The Defenders.

My voluntary contribution was to write up the Hulk and the Silver Surfer. These will be written up using HERO system (specifically Champions), and will be published in Haymaker magazine (an APA for supporting HERO games).

We are basing the basic ideas of the characters in a re-themed interpretation through Vietnamese cultural ideal. It begins with an overview of the Mythology of Vietnam. There are a number of iconic characters in that myth cycle to use, so I may pick one of those for each of my heroes, or come up with something that feels thematically close.

Tags: vietnamese mythology

Roman Army Uniforms, Equipment

Here are a couple of links to some good info concerning Roman Army uniforms and equipment (with photos or diagrams, where possible).

Wikipedia Page on Roman Military Equipment (good starting point, but look to other links)
New York Public Library Image Archive of Roman military images
Illustrated Roman Empire Lots of Photos on Lots of Topics
Roman Army page from the above illustrated website.
Armamentarium Beginner's Guide to Roman Military Equipment. Good stuff.

Tags: romans, military, wargaming,

The Viking Horde Grows!

Celebrate with me by listening to this Viking song!

I've completed the basing of 30 painted Bondi with mixed weapons. 12 Bondi with javelin and shield (buckler?). And 18 Archers. Those are all figures that I already had painted. They are based up for Hordes of the Things, but since they are on 60mm wide stands, with three figures per stand, they meet the 20mm per man standard of WAB.


I have started organizing the Old Glory and Crusader figures that I had gotten late last year, for painting.

From the "Revenge" line of figures at Old Glory I have four packs -

• Huscarls with 2h Axe (30)
• Huscarls with asstd wpn (30)
• Bondi with asstd wpn (30) (pictured)
• Bondi Archers (30)

From the "Somerled the Viking Slayer" line of figures I have the pack of Viking Command (30), which in addition to banners and horns, has a bunch of dudes with 2 weapons (might make good berserkers?).

From Crusader USA I have four packs (16) Ulfhednar, with mixed weapons.

Should be quite a formidable force, my friend. Good enough to warrant a Feast.

Tags: vikings, wargames, miniatures,

The Feast

The Feast

Because it's good to enjoy some good food while painting miniatures.

Tags: feast

New Units for Hordes

In between large amounts of school work, a conference, and other stuff, this week I got done a few dozen new units for Hordes of the ThingsMostly I was prepping, repairing, and basing some figures that were already painted.I completed the following:
10 Stands of Viking type Warband (including 1 general element)
4 Stands of Viking type javeling Shooters
6 Stands of Medieval Longbow type Shooters (include 2 general elements)
4 Stands of Lizardman Blades
1 Stand of Lizardman Spear
2 Stands of Eastern style Spear
8 Stands of Medieval Spear (including 1 general element)And finally I did some work on my new "Badgers of Craggen Moor" army...This army consists of some highland badgers that I have had for years. I think they were originally painted by and sold to me by Danny Jackson. For the badgers I completed -
3 Stands of Blades (highland badger with claymore)
4 Stands of Shooters (highland badger with bow)
1 Stand of Hero General (The Laird of Craggen Moor, and his Game Warden)
1 Stand of (either) Hero or Cleric (Bonny Prince Badger, and his Piper)That comes to (either) 21 or 22 points, depending on whether Bonny Prince Badger is a Hero or a Cleric. In either case, I have a few more things to add. I want to do the Great Beast himself, a giant badger (used as either a Behemoth, Beast, or Dragon). I also want to do a water lurker (Nessie). I am working up plans for a stronghold as well.

This gives me enough to do a good proper Medieval barbarian type army (northern raiders, Orlanthi, Immer, Northmen, Rangers, Vikings, etc). The start of a Lizardman army. The core of another Medieval army. And of course, Craggen Moor.



Tags: miniatures, wargames, Hordes of the things

Spring Fever - a great convention in Raleigh

Spent the weekend in Raleigh at Spring Fever. Nice little convention. About a third of the attendees were there for a Warhammer Fantasy tournament. The rest were nice people putting on nice games. Saw lots of cool stuff, the coolest, perhaps, was a really nice game of Sharpe's Practice being hosted by Chris from Sash and Saber with really big metal miniatures. Sash and Saber was the only dealer selling big figures. Lots of very nice little toy soldiers (15mm) for sale from Ron at the Game Connection (including Xyston and Corvus Belli), and a dealer with a lot of really old board games. Miniatures of Chesapeake was there selling everything in the world related to Flames of War. Interesting mix of historicals and fantasy/sci-fi. Saw Bob Bryant's fantasy game, nice presentation. Also his Colonial battle rules.Was supposed to run Old West, instead of Darkest Africa. All of the Old West players decided it would be cool to play Divine Right instead. That was a good time. I was dwarves, never could get a good alliance with a strong kingdom, but my ambassador killed the ambassador of Immer (when he challenged me to a duel), and also poisoned the King of Pon. Our warcry (Death to Trolls) was taken up for a while, until we realized that the trolls were a hollow threat.Also played Lord of the Rings risk, and the good alliance won a military victory, scant turns before Frodo and Sam reached Mount Doom.Played lots of Hordes of the Things in 28mm - that was a hoot. We played a big battle game on Saturday night (after Divine Right) consisting of four armies per side, and then a series of smaller battles on Sunday morning before leaving.The convention was small, but nice. There was a really great raffle, in which I won a Pegasus Hobbies pre-painted 28mm medieval stone house. (That will come in useful in the near future for my dark ages stuff.) It was great hanging out with good friends - Carl, Justin, Brian, Elliott, John, Dr. Bob and Joe from Charlotte, Ed Mohrmann, Bob Bryant, and a lot of others. And I made some new friends. I am beginning to really like smaller game conventions.

(photos courtesy of Charles Cabell, who played in the big Hordes of the Things battle on Saturday night. Thanks, Charles!

Tags: wargames, toy soldiers

RCW game at Cold Wars

As mentioned earlier in Gaming with Chuck, I ran a Russian Civil War game at Cold Wars. It was a great time. There were eight players squeezed into a six player game, with four on the Red side and four on the White side.

The scenario was quite simple, with the Reds guarding a railroad town, where they had captured a White armored train that was disabled. The Volunteer Army had a force of infantry and cavalry (mostly Cossacks) that were closing in on the town to recapture the train. The cossacks were led by the famous Colonel Bulgarov. To stop this, the Bolsheviks had a number of units of infantry, including Trotsky's Red Guard, and some Chekists. in addition, they had gotten the heavy guns mounted on the armored train into working order.
The game was a great blast of fun, and came down to the last squadrons of cavalry and companies of infantry fighting in and amongst the town over the train itself. The Volunteer Army had captured one of the cars of the train, and the Bolsheviks still held the other two, however there was more Cossack cavalry pouring into the town every minute, and most of the Bolsheviks had been dispatched. In the end, the Red cause had given up the train, and withdrawn.
The rules used are the current version of those I plan to publish later on this year, and many of the players stated that they would like to get a copy. I better follow through with this project, it was a lot of fun and the gamers really enjoyed it!

Tags: Russian Civil War, miniatures, wargames