Little Wars

My new iPhone has somehow breathed life into my blogging.  Here is my second post that has come via using my new electronic gadget.  In this case I was surfing the internet on war gaming topics while at lunch.  I came across an interesting tidbit about the birth of modern war games.   Apparently H.G. Wells was the first person to codify table top war game rules using tin soldiers.

He published a book, Little Wars, that gave all sorts of rules for infantry, cavalry, and hand to hand combat.  The book is available for download at Project Gutenberg in a variety of formats.  It's worth a peek just to see the creative use of building blocks for terrain.

The rules covered things we modern gamers would recognize: deployment (behind a curtain!) phases, special rules, "move or shoot" guns, even scenarios.  From what I saw, there was no dice rolling.  Assaults were settled by determining which side had more models in contact. I didn't see how shooting was resolved.

While the rules are musty and old news now, it is an interesting look at the roots of our modern games.  No matter how we jazz up things today, they tend to harken back to the basics laid out a century ago in this book.  I've only surfed through it, but at some point will probably read it all for the historical value.  It's more of a paper than a "book."  I think a lot of this book could be used today with some modifications.

Far Harad Battle Report

So I'll just be pretending that I haven't added anything to this blog in two years. Let's get right to a new post!

I'm not so big on photographing my models and posting up. I suck at photography, and therefore tend to dislike it. But my new iPhone has got me taking more pictures. These still all suck. But I plan to take more pictures of my games and document the fights on this blog. Hopefully I can improve my game by writing up an analysis and report of what happened. Let's go.

I played a game of Lord of the Rings today with Tim from Cursed Treasures. It was a 700pt game, with Tim taking Uruk-Hai and me taking Far Harad. We rolled up a scenario from Legions of Middle Earth, and came up with "Ill Met by Moonlight." This scenario calls for each players' forces to be divided in half. One half goes to the center of the board and the other half is deployed three inches from opposite table edges. The object is to fight until one or both sides is destroyed.

As for forces, I don't know the exact troops Tim took. There were about 65 models in the army, mostly Uruk-Hai warriors with normal Orc spear support. He had some crossbows, a few berserkers, and a nasty Uruk-Hai Shaman. I had 38 models in my army, mostly all warriors and eight half-trolls. I took three Mahud Raiders and put a King and Tribemaster on camels to complete the force. With 38 models total, it really hurt to dived them in half. Here's how the Mahud looked at the end of deployment.
I put all my half trolls up front along with some warriors and the Mahud Tribemaster. The King and the Raiders along with the rest of the warriors were deployed at the back. As you can see, the half of the Uruk-Hai that was deployed to the center already outnumbered me two to one. I lost priority and expected to get hacked up. If I had won priority, I wanted to pull back to bring my forces together. One thing I'm learning by playing small forces is that you shouldn't divide them without good reason. This scenario starts with you breaking that rule.

You can imagine my surprise when Tim did exactly what I was thinking. He pulled back to get all his troops together. I wondered at that move, since he had superior numbers. I should let you know this is only my second time out with an all Far Harad force. I didn't appreciate the power they bring to combat. So I think Tim was right to consolidate. Later when I saw the eight half trolls in action, I belatedly realized that front line could've readily handled the odds. Two wounds, fight five, and strength five turn them into "demi-heroes" capable of ripping up almost anything.

When I got my turn, I pulled back and here's what we looked like.
The basic flow of the game went as you might expect. The lines pulled back to reform then pushed forward to engage in close combat. I have three blowpipes in my force, which due to their move or shoot rule almost never do anything other than tote around the blowpipes all game. I never had shots. Tim, however, had six crossbowmen that took the hill that frowned on the center of the table. Having the high ground vantage point was great for him, and the only thing that limited its value was the special rule for the scenario. In this scenario, all ranged attacks were limited to 12" due to the moonlight. However, rolls to wound were at +1 due to being at a closer range.

I made a mistake with this special rule. I engaged the Uruk-Hai within 12" of the hill crest. This allowed Tim to pepper quarrels into my spear support and unengaged models. I should have stopped out of range of the hill crest to deny  the vantage point. Had I done that, Tim would have had nothing to use to prod me forward. But I guess I was feeling cooperative and parked myself so that his bows could hit me everywhere. It cost me a few men, and also cost me my Tribemaster's camel. Here's a shot of the line after a few turns. You can see the commanding position of the crossbowmen.

The rest of the battle was fun, but doesn't provide much drama in a write up. We kick the snot out of each other back and forth. The Uruk-Hai Shaman had cast Fury on himself from turn one. So he stood at the center of all key fights and gave everyone a who took a wound the ability to ignore it on a die roll of 6. Tim saved two or three warriors this way.

My heroes turned out to be the half trolls. They were incredibly good and earned every point. My King was the biggest let down. He wiffed everything, barely killing a few lousy orcs. Also sort of a mixed bag was my raiders. They are tricky to use due to their Impaler rule. If they kill whoever they charge, then they are sitting ducks for a counter charge. Tim wisely positioned his troops so I couldn't get multiple hits. So I often ended up hitting a model, killing it, and then getting swamped without the benefit of charge bonuses. I learned that with Raiders, you have to pick their charges carefully and to charge them before other friendly models move. This way, if you kill the model you charged then the other friendly models can intervene to protect the Raider.

I broke the Uruk-Hai, but due to the benefit of Fury they kept going. Everyone within 6" of the Shaman auto passes courage checks. That Shaman was the game defining model for the Uruk-Hai. Eventually, I got to break and we had to call time. It was an impressive fight, since my break was 19 models and the Uruk-Hai breakpoint was something like 33 models. So I had a good showing and could've had a shot at a win. But the Shaman kept everyone on the board. Tim saw the break point coming and each turn he moved the line tighter around the Shaman. Here's what it looked like with both forces broken.I definitely had a great time and appreciated the chance to get these guys on the table. There's a a lot of nuance to this army that I'm going to have to take the time to understand. They're brutal but very fragile. I don't want to even talk about what happened to this same force when it faced a Wood Elf army! (Evaporated in bowfire.) I'll try to take more pictures of future battles and post up. Maybe it won't be two years between posts!

Following Along with Flames of War

Every since my days of playing SSI's incredible computer game, Steel Panthers, I've been interested in WWII battle games. I continued with Talonsoft's excellent West Front, East Front, and Pacific Front series after SSI went under. All these games played exactly like tabletop mini games. So you would think that once I went into minis that I'd start with a WWII game. However, I wasn't able to find any WWII rules that people I played with were using consistently.

These days, however, the local gaming group has decided to go into Flames of War. I'm totally thrilled with this. From what I've seen right now, it plays just like Steel Panthers and the Talonsoft series! The small 15mm size is actually pretty cool, too. The models remind me of the soldiers I played with as a kid. And anything I can do to make me feel like a kid again is OK in my book!

When I played my computer games, I used to play Germans all the time. But for the tabletop game I've went with a US Army rifle platoon. I've got about 600 points worth of stuff right now. I'm still figuring out how the game works and what else I should get to up my army size. I guess that will all come with time. For now, here's the current state of my army. I'm excited to get these guys painted and on the table!

Far Harad and Corsairs

I took some pictures of my Corsair and Far Harad forces together as they will be on the table. While I know the Mahud are great fighters, they look pretty weak with just a few models out there. So Corsairs come to the rescue with cheap spear support! I would've done them all as spears, but would've had to buy another box of Corsairs to do so. It's not worth it, so a few sword and shield guys made it into the mix. There are also some crossbowmen who might help taking out a troll or two on its way in. I could drop them for Reavers, but I haven't decided yet. The Mahud are hitty enough on their own!

Here are the Corsairs alone. I never did a blog update of my whole Corsair force. There are more than what's pictured here. But this is what's allied with Far Harad. I was not impressed with Corsairs as a stand-alone army. They had some early success, but eventually their weakness overcame them. They are very much an ally army, capable of filling in as strong fighters. Just don't ask them to do the whole mission themselves. I guess that's sort of what you'd expect from real pirates!

Far Harad Completed

At last I have completed my Far Harad force. It's about 350 points worth of warriors, plus two half trolls and a mounted King. It's not a large force on it's own, but I intend to ally this force with my Corsairs to make a solid 600 point list.

I went with the native look for the Mahud. I think GW and the guys who made the LotR movies wimped out and made a "PC" bad guy out of them. But honestly, to me they look like brave, fierce warriors from a fantasy version of Africa. So that's how I painted them. The color scheme is a little blah. But for the most part all they're wearing is some sort of wicker armor and a robe. There's not much to fiddle with, though I'm sure more talented painters have figured out how to add pizzaz to these guys. Here are the pictures. Check out the King, as I thought he come out pretty nice.

Gathering in the Desert T-Shirt Art

Another year of the Gathering in the Desert is upon us. It is an independent grand tournament for Lord of the Rings, which is run here in Phoenix. The esteemed Mr. Kulinski helps organize it, and you can read more about it on his blog.

He asked me to create a painting for the GitD t-shirts he created for the event. I think the shirts are going to look great. The colors were changed from the original to accommodate the capabilities of the silk screen shop doing the work. They could've done full color, but that would've driven up the cost beyond what's reasonable. So here's a look at the original painting.

It was done digitally, using Painter 9 and a Wacom Intuous 3 pen tablet. You can see how the painting looks on the t-shirt by following this link to Tim's blog.

Starting Again

So, it's no mystery that I abandoned my blog for the last six months! In fact, I was not unproductive during this period. I painted a Lord of the Rings Corsair force, added Rangers to my Gondor list, painted dismounts for all my cavalry, and probably a few miscellaneous things I forgot to mention as well. But I just didn't document any of it.

Well, it's a new year obviously, and I'm inspired to start again.

I want to blog a little bit more about other things that I'm doing as well. But I'm afraid that too many unrelated topics will make for a lousy blog. (For example, my Japanese and Chinese language study and reading won't interest many people who are linked here for the gaming aspect.) So I'll just do a different blog for that stuff, and keep this one for miniatures and related gaming. Recently, I've been into World of Warcraft. That might be something to blog about.... or not. I guess it depends.

OK, so on the miniatures front for 2009, I am planning a different type of year than the prior three. For the last three years, I've been going gang-busters on getting an entire army ready for this or that event. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to paint figures that interest me for no other reason than that. I'm tired of racing to an event deadline, completing an army, and never playing it again after that event. So I expect to paint things that might not be part of an existing force. For example, Reaper miniatures have always interested me, but as they're not part of a game system I play I don't do them. Warmachine and Hordes are in the same boat, though I do occasionally play those systems.

So, I started the year off by getting back to Warhammer 40K. I haven't played a 40K game in about a year! I don't even know the 5th ed rules! It's a shame, since I enjoyed this game. Of course, Lord of the Rings has been my main game for 2008 and will remain that way for a while. Still 40K was my first game, and I still enjoy it.

Rather than adding to my Ultramarines (not that interested in them) or beefing up my Tyranids (love 'em, but recently can't "empathize" with playing a hyped up hornet with guns), I've gone over to an army I've wanted to do but never followed up on: The Tau Empire!

I only have a unit of Fire Warriors and an Ethereal. So, basically I'm just doing an Ethereal with his Honor Guard. What I'll add later, who knows! I'm in no hurry, and I'm not actively playing 40K -- yet. I'll get up to a legal list of at least 500 pts, so I could do some small games. But after that, I'm not sure what my plans are. I'll have to see how I like the Tau. At least I know I'll enjoy collecting them. The above picture shows the three that I've painted so far. I think they look pretty good, and just need some flocking on the base to finish them.