A few figures that have been hanging around for years

These were figures that I got with the Congo Mungo Ma Lobeh campaign supplement, which features the real female explorer Mary Kingsley.

The picture above is Mary Kingsley and her adversary in the campaign, Uguwa, a powerful sorceror. The picture below features two bearers. Bearers are always useful for all manner of games set in Africa.

I have to admit that I've never actually played the campaign, mainly because we stopped playing Congo at the club ages ago and no one seems interested in picking the game up again. However, all is not lost, because these figures could easily be used in all manner of Pulp games.

I'm happy to finally get these painted up, even if they do end up sitting in a storage box until a suitable need arises.

My Saga: Age of Magic Otherworld warband is complete.

As mentioned in an earlier post, here I decided that most of my Warriors would be made from the North Star plastic Frostgrave Cultists box set. Well, I finally finished them off over the weekend just gone, and here they are;

As you can see, there are two groups of eight, all wearing a red/purple/lavender theme, with hooded faces. They are not all equipped the same, some have spears, others swords, axes and clubs. Some are carrying shields. Most of the shields are from the Cultist box, but there are also a couple of oblong shields from the Ghost Archipelago Snake Men set and also one or two small targets from the Perry plastic late mediaeval European Mercenaries box. I wanted these guys to have an almost uniform appearance but also have a degree of individuality, and I think that I have succeeded in this aim.

So, now they will have to make an appearance on the tabletop, and their first outing will be this coming Sunday at the club.

More Saga: Age of Magic - my Unstable Portal

An Otherworld faction warband takes an Unstable Portal as its Sacred Ground.

I spent some time looking for an actual portal to use, but nothing I saw really excited me much. However, I am a huge fan of H.P Lovecraft, as I have mentioned before, so a portal might just be an eldritch stone with strange otherworldly angles and mystical geometries, so this beautiful piece "The Living Icon" from Fenris Games was exactly what I was looking for. A stone monolith with actual eyes and carved tentacles? I mean, who could resist it? Certainly not me, for sure.

I can thank my lovely partner for this piece, she bought it for me as a present. Also, I can thank Fenris Games for posting it out so quickly, which meant it came in the post on Thursday. Of course, it immediately went straight onto my painting table.

Each face of the Icon is different, so I simply had to photograph each one;

I've added in a female wizard to give an idea of the size of the piece. In this final shot, I think she might be getting a bit too close. What is that book she is holding? Surely not a copy of the accursed Necronomicon? Who knows what will happen when she finishes her incantation? 

This was an absolute joy to paint. It is a single solid piece of resin with no cleaning up required. I undercoated it in Halford's grey primer and when it was dry, gave it a wash all over with diluted Windsor and Newton Indian Ink (black, of course). Then I did a progressive series of dry-brushings in paler and paler grey. Finally, I finished off by painting the eyes, which were finished with a wash of Windsor and Newton Brilliant Green Ink.

The base was a simple and uncluttered case of varying sizes of sand ballast, with some cork rocks, finished with some murky dark green flock, which I also allowed to creep up onto the lower surfaces of the monolith. 

Once it had been spray varnished with matt varnish, I went over the eyes with gloss varnish, using a brush.

To say that I am happy with this piece is an understatement. I absolutely love it. I can see it being used for more that just Saga AoM. It cries out for a Cthulhu game setting, maybe using 7TV's forthcoming Pulp rules? Who knows?

Saga Sunday; Shieldmaidens v Saxons

Well, Vikings v Saxons really, but using my Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens as the Vikings.

Owen and I played a few games at the club on Sunday afternoon. He hadn't played Saga 2 before, but it didn't stop him using his battleboard to the full, with his army being made up entirely of Warriors, grouped into four 12-man units, giving them access to some annoyingly useful abilities.

I started off with an army containing Thrall archers, as well as the usual Hirdmen and Bondi units, switching things around to give me an actual Shieldmaiden unit (led by a Valkyrie) after the first game. This is a useful addition, with eight attacks, plus a War Banner which allows the unit to remove a point of fatigue for free.

We ended up playing three games, all of them incredibly bloody encounters. We pretty much fought ourselves to a standstill in the first, I lost the second and Owen lost the third one, losing his Warlord in the process.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and here are some pictures of the action;

Gripping Beast slingers for my Late Romans

I didn't get these finished in time for my photos of my Romans, but I don't think that matters too much. They are Gripping Beast 28mm plastics again, from the Dark Age Warriors box set. I got them finished off yesterday while waiting for a parcel to be delivered, which didn't actually turn up. Annoyed was a mild word for my mood, but at least the day wasn't completely wasted.

The GB Dark Age Warriors box is a pretty useful set. You can make them up as spearmen, swordsmen or axemen, or arm them with javelins straight out of the box, but you also have the option of turning some of them into slingers. You do this by cutting off right hands that are holding other weapons and glueing on hands with slings, of which there are a huge number (32) on the sprues. This isn't exactly difficult and there is plenty of variety possible when it comes to poses. Because they aren't supposed to get into hand-to-hand combat, they don't really need shields, but I suppose you could stick some on if you wanted to. I think that they look better without, personally.

These slingers would do for pretty much any army from Late Antiquity and the Early Mediaeval, but for me, they are going to be levies for Saga and skirmishing light infantry for my Late Roman Sword and Spear project.

I decided to paint them with a fairly muted colour palette, after all these aren't elite troops, they are peasant levies, foederati or limitanei (i.e. defensive garrison troops, literally "the men on the limes" that is, the borders). There has been much discussion over the years about the difference between the limitanei and the comitatenses or field units, who are often referred to as being "mobile", which is a bit misleading because all armies were limited to movement at the speed of the slowest components, which were the foot troops and the baggage train. It is often also suggested that the limitanei were somehow inferior troops, less well trained or poorly equipped and somehow lacking in fighting spirit, but this is also misleading, certainly during the early Dominate period. At first, the only real difference between the two types was their role. The limitanei were there to defend the limes (borders) against incursions and were locally recruited (and therefore likely to fight doggedly to protect their homes and communities) whereas the comitatenses were units held centrally and used to create field armies designed to fight larger battles and act as a reserve. It is certainly the case that among the comitatenses there were more "elite" units, the scholae and auxilia palatina for example, but limitanei units could also be attached to field armies and these were then referred to as pseudocomitatenses. The Notitia Dignitatum lists out the names of many comitatensis units, as well as a huge number and range of imperial administrative offices from those associated with the imperial court to provincial ones.

However, the limitanei were apparently paid less than comitatenses and scholae units and their status certainly declined over time until they were pretty much just local militia by the 6th century, by which time the western provinces of the empire were gone, replaced by Romano-Germanic successor "kingdoms" across western mainland Europe and by a patchwork of competing small British and Germanic ones across the former Roman Britannia. When we look at post-Roman Britain we should consider that most, if not all units would have been classed as limitanei or, in the case of Germanic troops recruited to fight against Pictish and other incursions as foederati.

Late Roman unarmoured cavalry

Having completed the heavy cavalry, I went back and finished off the Late Roman light cavalry that I'd started a while ago. These are based on the Gripping Beast "Dark Age Cavalry" plastic box set, with a few head swaps to make them look a bit more Roman. Also, the majority have been given oval shields and all of them have Roman-style designs (from LBMS) on them.

The main thing that I wanted to do here was create some degree of standardisation in how the unit looks, but also keep some variation in their dress. I've discussed the lack of an absolute uniform appearance in Late Roman troops in a previous post, so I used a similar approach to the one I used on the infantry figures, i.e.using a range of fairly muted colours that suggest natural undyed wool or linen. However, I wanted to tie the troops together so I painted "Roman style" embellishments on the tunics in a mixture of red or light blue tunic edging and other designs such as the roundels and shoulder panels seen on Late Roman tunics.

I decided to use a standard red shield design with a yellow Chi Rho for eight of the riders, plus four riders with different shield designs. I did this so that I have a degree of flexibility in how I combine my various cavalry figures for tabletop deployment.

My main idea about these guys is that they can easily represent post-Roman British cavalry or also Germanic auxiliaries in the Roman army, such as those used in both the Eastern and Western halves of the empire from the late third century onwards.

Anyway, here are some more views of the latest recruits to my growing Late Roman army.

These last four figures, who I think of as the unit's "characters", really suggest post-Roman Britons to me. 

Late Roman armoured cavalry

I bought a box of the new Gripping Beast Late Roman armoured cavalry as soon as they were available. I was already working on a box of the Dark Ages cavalry to use as Roman light cavalry, but what I really wanted was some armoured riders to boost my Saga Late Roman warband, use as Romano-British "Arthurians" and also to enable me to field a warband as Last Romans as described in the Age of Vikings book for Saga 2. These guys would work as part of a warband from the 6th or 7th century, i.e. the period between Justinian the Great and Heraclius, but don't look right as troops from one of the Tagmata or Thematic units that made up later Roman armies from the 8th-10th centuries.

Anyway, although I'd started the light cavalry, these armoured riders jumped the queue and have been finished first. Here is the complete unit of 12 cavalrymen. Note that there is one rider with a different shield design (n.b. all the shield designs are LBMS transfers). More on him later.

There are six figures armed with spears;

And five with swords;

Now, here is the chap with the different shield design;

Notice that I've put him on a larger round base. This enables me to field him as the leader of my warband, as well as including him as just another member of a unit. Here he is from his open side;

I have to admit that when I was painting these I had a real crisis of confidence over how they would turn out, partly because I really do not like painting horses at all, but also because I was finding it hard to visualise how they would look once they were inked. This was because I wasn't sure that I'd picked the right colour scheme for them. However, I think that they have turned out fine.

Regarding the actual models, I am quite impressed with them. There are plenty of head variants, allowing you to create figures that are not all identical, plus the usual different weapons options. There is also a vexilla included, which I didn't use, but which would work fine, with a bit of cutting and glueing of one of the spear arms in the box. I did find, though, that once I'd assembled and undercoated the horses that the body halves hadn't gone together perfectly and needed a bit of Milliput to fill the rather visible gaps in the alignment. I expect that this was down to my assembly rather than any actual defects in the mouldings themselves. Anyway, I've already bought another box to paint up so that I have extra armoured cavalry for my Late Roman Sword and Spear army.

Saga - the Late Romans have a bad day

Well, Sunday was the first outing for my late Roman Saga warband down at the club. I had high hopes for my new troops, but I wasn't sure how the various Roman abilities on the battleboard would play out, especially as many of them are linked to the Roman Impetus feature.

My opponent Clive had brought along an Anglo-Danish warband, so there was a bit of a historical mismatch there, but the game's the thing, so I wasn't really that worried about an anachronistic encounter.

My warband consisted of 3 x 4 Hearthguards, split into two groups of six, 2 x 8 Warriors One with bows) and 1 x 12 javelin-equipped Levies, plus the Warlord. I hoped that this would provide a balanced force.

We ended up playing two games and in both of them, I was massively defeated. I think that the reasons for this were twofold. Firstly, I rolled some truly terrible dice in both combat and as saving throws, meaning that my units ended up losing pretty much every melee, and twice seeing complete units of Hearthguards wiped out in one round of fighting. Secondly, my Saga Dice rolls simply didn't give me the dice I needed to access the right abilities to counter Clive's Anglo-Danes and also be ale to get my troops moving. Losing whole groups early on also meant that I was rolling fewer dice, which made it even harder to trigger the better abilities.

There was, of course, a third reason for my failures. My battle plans were no good. In the second game, my archers were in the wrong place to actually do anything, and in both games my spear-armed Warriors were placed to meet threats that simply weren't there and were therefore similarly isolated away from the action. I also decided to take the battle to the enemy, which was a mistake. I should have sat back and waited for them to come to me.

I think also that the Anglo-Danish abilities maximised the power of Clive's troops while, at the same time exposing weaknesses in the Romans.

Still, this was a learning experience, and the games were fun, well as much fun as they could have been seeing my troops come of worse in every combat with predictable regularity. Having to roll to save 9 or 10 hits on six troops, and then rolling nothing but 1s and 2s does get a bit annoying.

Anyway, it is back to the drawing (i.e. battle) board for the Romans, with some careful thought about how best to use the abilities. They are a lot harder to play with than the Vikings are.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from both games;

New purchases

Here are some recent purchases which are intended to fulfil two things. Firstly, to satisfy the standard wargamer magpie urge and secondly, to boost an existing project and start off another one.

First, here is the project boosting set. These are the new plastic Perry 28mm Zulus, which I shall be using for Congo to give me some African warriors who are a little different from the standard Congo ranges of African Kingdoms metal figures. I like that this box gives the option of making warriors with muskets ot rifles as well as traditional weapons. This means that I can have four warriors with rifles and five with muskets. I'll probably have to buy some metal character figures but for £20 this is a cheap way to bulk out my Congo collection.

The next two boxes were something that I'd wanted to get for some time, because I really wanted to paint some Late Romans, but really didn't have a reason to go out and spend the money on figures for which I didn't have a use. They are Gripping Beast plastics, again in 28mm. My idea is to use these to create a Romano-British warband for Saga, but they could easily be the basis of a Late Roman warband too. Again, I might need to get a few metal figures as characters later on.

The Dark Age cavalry (I really wish they were called Late Antiquity/Early Mediaeval Cavalry, but that is me being a pedantic historian) will work well as Auxiliary light cavalry, and the foot troops look perfect for my plans.

I'd never really considered Saga before, but my appetite was whetted by Annie Norman's Freyja's Wrath Kickstarter, to which I have pledged enough money to give me enough figures for a warband with extra troop options and some characters.

Of course, the Late Romans/Romano-British will also be ideal for Dux Britanniarum, assuming I want to buy another set of rules, which can never be ruled out!

So, lots more figures to paint in the coming months. It should be fun.

Big Congo - a bit of an experiment

A few weeks ago, we were having a conversation at the club about how Congo could be adapted for larger games and games in different periods and locations. There were two different periods that we thought would work pretty well and they were The Wild West and Mexico during the age of the Conquistadores. I think that we have a bit more thinking to be done on these, but I am sure that the game mechanisms would translate pretty well.

The other thing we discussed was whether we could use the rules for larger games with more players and more figures. This post is about this, and some specific rules ideas that I wrote up for a specific experimental scenario. Here is what I wrote;

Big Congo special rules

This scenario has a small European force defending a village, kraal, trading post or similar built-up area. This is surrounded by a compound contained within a mixture of light and hard cover, plus buildings. One building/open area must be designated as a Dressing Station (see below).

Light cover could be hedges or light fences. Hard cover could be walls, sandbag defences or substantial fencing. This force is facing an attack from a local native ruler with a grudge against the Europeans. Perhaps he has been deprived of his income from slavery or maybe his dispute is over grazing rights, proselytising missionaries or some other insult to his dignity. Unable to resolve this issue via peaceful means he has assembled a force of tribal warriors, some equipped with firearms and mercenary fighters.

The game should be played on a 6 x 4 table..

The territory could be open savannah or a jungle setting. Regarding forces, it is pretty much what is available, but there really needs to be a much larger native forces attacking a smaller, but better-armed European one.

Composition of forces

Defenders

The defenders can choose from the White Expeditions list and could be something like;:

1 x Explorer
1 x Retired Officer
3 x Soldiers
1 x Adventurers
1 x Trained Askaris
1 x Askaris
1 x Ruga Ruga
1 x Loyal Warriors (see Forest Tribes army list for stats)
Any number of civilians, bearers etc.

Of course, if there is a different range of figures available, more groups could be included.

The defenders may contain 1 x Missionary. This character will add +1D6 to all dice rolls for units within a radius of M distance. The missionary is taken from the total number of available civilians. The presence of the Missionary will allow any non-European defending unit targeted by a Ritual to ignore the result if it can successfully roll against its Bravery. Any unit within M distance may also re-roll a failed Terror test. The Missionary does not need to be attached to a specific unit. The Missionary has stats of Shooting (0) Combat (6) Bravery (8).

Characters may leave a unit and join another at any time as part of normal movement.

Dressing station

All defender casualties are placed in the dressing station. In the round after they have entered the station roll 1D6. If the roll is a success, the figure is only lightly wounded and may return to its unit. Figures cannot do anything except move (at distance M) until they are back with their unit. If the roll is 1, the figure is dead and is removed. Figures can be rolled for again at the start of each round. There are up to two civilians in the Dressing Station, acting as doctors or nurses. Each doctor figure can roll a maximum of 3D6 per round.
 
Civilians

The defenders have a number of civilians amongst their numbers. Up to two civilians (not bearers) may be placed in the Dressing Station as medics. One civilian may act as a Morale Booster. This figure is an Inspirational Person. Any unit to which the Inspirational Person is attached may re-roll all dices scores of 1. The Inspirational Person has stats of Shooting (0) Combat (6) Bravery (10).

Up to four civilians (not bearers) may be armed. They have the same stats as Scouts (i.e. D6 for all characteristics).

Any other civilians present are simply unarmed and with no specific role. This includes any bearers on the table.

Native Attackers

The Native forces will be led by a Native Warlord (King). Up to two other characters may be taken. If available a War Horn may also be taken. The War Horn may only be attached to a unit armed with assegais.

Note: if a Witchdoctor is taken, he cannot influence any European units or characters, only other African ones.

Characters may leave a unit and join another at any time as part of normal movement, apart from the King, who must remain with his Bodyguard at all times. The size of the Native force really depends on what is available. Units in BOLD are obligatory. For example;

1 x King
1 x Bodyguards
1 x War Horn
2 x characters of choice
2 x Bundukis
1 x Fanatical Warriors
0-2 x Ruga Ruga
0-2 x Married Warriors
0-3 x Warriors
0-5 units of Young Warriors
0-2 x Pygmy Archers
0-2 x Pygmy Warriors

Fanatical Warriors and Married Warriors may make a Charge move (distance L) if they pass a Bravery dice test.

Native reinforcements

Each native casualty is removed until a complete unit has been destroyed. This unit can then rejoin the battle on the following round from the edge of the table as a unit of reinforcements. Reinforcements should move at double speed until they are within the zone of battle. Native reinforcements will be the same type of unit as the original one being replaced.

Pygmies

Pygmies will be ordinary units of natives and count as being in light cover when being fired upon. They make their saving throws using 1D6 and add 1 pip to their dice scores. Pygmy archers do not have poison arrows in this scenario. Pygmies count as being unseen until they are within 1 x L +1 x M distance from a defending unit.

Defensive cover

Defenders count as being in light or hard cover, unless clearly in the open. Saving rolls from Shooting are made on 1D8 for light cover and 1D10 for hard cover. In Melee, the defenders will roll 1 extra Combat dice if in light cover and 2 extra Combat dice in hard cover.

Long range shooting

All troops (defenders and natives) equipped with rifles (not muskets) may opt to shoot at Long Range. Each dice rolled suffers a -1 penalty for this.

So, that was the starting point for the game.

As things turned out, the European defenders had;

1 x Explorer
1 x Retired Officer
1 x Kirangozi
1 x Missionary
1 x Inspirational Person
2 x Medical Staff
4 x Soldiers
1 x Adventurers
2 x Trained Askaris
2 x Askaris
2 x Ruga Ruga
1 x Loyal Warriors (see Forest Tribes army list for stats)
2 x Bearers(who were just there as scenery really)

The Attacking side was huge. There were three players, each with seven or eight units and a couple of characters apiece, plus the King and his Bodyguards.

We played the battle out in a fairly busy forested region. I took the European side and the African tribes were played by Nick, Andy and Craig. Here is the table before the game started.

The woman in blue is the Inspirational Person and my Missionary is the younger woman in the green skirt on the right edge of the picture.

 

Here are the Africans. Lots and lots of troops.

Here is the defending force from the other end of the compound.

 

 
The defenders take up firing positions and await the onslaught.

What we agreed to do was this. Each player on the African side would have two Action cards per turn and could draw one Totem card per turn. As the Defender, I was allowed one Totem card per turn and four Action cards. The Turn would be as follows;
a) All four players choose an action card and play them. These are resolved accordingly.
b) the Defender then plays one action card in turn against each Attacker.
It took a while to get everyone onto place, but once this happened, the game proceeded pretty quickly.

As the game played out, it became apparent that the sheer weight of numbers would eventually favour the attackers and it was only a matter of time before the defences were breached and inevitably the defenders began to come off worse in hand-to-hand combat. As casualties mounted in the dressing station, so did the number of dead. Clearly this station was a pretty insanitary place and the medical staff were not qualified enough to do much to patch up their casualties.

In the end, the clock defeated us, but as things stood at the end of the game, it seemed obvious that the Africans would triumph. There were simply too few troops to defend the outer compound and the end would undoubtedly be grisly for all concerned.

We agreed that the experiment was relatively successful, but that there probably needed to be a number of adjustments to the special rules. A couple that seem to make sense are;

• Increasing rifle range to L+M as standard.
  

• Allowing two rounds of rifle fire per shooting action inside Range L (but with a success score of 6 required for both shots).
  

• Not giving the defenders any extra combat dice when fighting behind cover but possibly giving them a saving throw  for any casualties caused.
  

Anyway, definitely an interesting experiment.