2015 Plans: Skirmish vs Big battles? Time for a sort out!

The work bench really, really needs a sort out!

Well, the process of writing my Wargaming review has actually got me picking up a paintbrush for the first time since mid-October.  Not for very long but it broke a psychological barrier.  I also did a bit of basing and did some work on the helmets of my Afghan Wars British to make them look more suitable for 1879.  The key problem now is the really bad light.  I have two daylight lamps on my desk but can't really paint shading without good daylight.

One of the things I discovered last year is that, thanks mainly to the work I did on IHMN figures, I really enjoy painting individual character figures and don't enjoy painting units.  Now given this, and given the fact that I am totally unable to focus on even as little as a few dozen periods, is it not now time to just admit that I am never going to be able to finish enough figures to field an army for a big battle?  People with the focus of Giles and Big Red Bat are much to be admired as they don't stray too far from their core interests.  I am sitting here looking at a based and undercoated Great War Miniatures British Crimean War infantry man. Am I really ever going to paint enough units for the Battle of the Alma?  No, is the brutal answer.  I have played in a few large games at Guildford (Republican and Early Imperial Roman, ECW and Wars of the Roses) where I could contribute my hundred figures or so to other people's larger collections.  In reality, I think, this is the only way I will be able to do big battles using my own figures.  So time to forget building armies that require several hundred figures, I think.

Wars of the Roses at Guildford Wargames Club.  Not much scenery required

However, there is a problem with skirmish games for me.  If you have two big armies facing each other in your typical ancients or medieaval game you really don't need much in the way of scenery.  A green cloth, a few trees, some lichen for scrub and maybe a hill.  All the effort and cost goes into the armies.  However, with most skirmish games lots of scenery is usually necessary; almost always to provide cover.  This is because, in many of the sets of rules I have played a hit (or two) means you lose the character and if you are looking at forces of six to 12 figures this can make the game very short indeed (as I have witnessed on one or two occasions).  With big unit battles the units are more resilient and don't get destroyed on first contact.  They can slug it out and maybe even regroup if they are forced back.  So being in the open and getting hit by a flight of arrows is unlikely to lead to your unit being taken off the table instantly.  You don't need to keep them skulking under cover so don't need cover for them to hide behind.  Skirmish games tend to require a lot of scenery and getting suitable scenery done is a problem for me given that I have no craft skills whatsoever, unlike Scott and Eric the Shed who turn out miniature wonders.  So its a trade off between lots of figures and less scenery and less figures and more scenery.  Time and cost wise, I suspect they balance out.

The mini Bosworth game I produced for my son's school project. 

I was talking to my new friend A about the problems of not painting enough figures for an army but she pointed out that, basically, if a unit fights as one whole then why do you need 24 figures when six or one serve the same purpose (I did not then start to describe DBA to her).  When I produced a model of Bosworth for a presentation my son did at school we represented all the major units using just 38 figures.  It is of course, certainly for me, all about the look of the thing (which is why I think DBS armies look ridiculous). Big units look better (as the writers of Warlord Games various rules acknowledge with what was, at the time, an unfashionable focus on large armies).  They are a figure manufacturer, of course, so like their Games Workshop former employers want to shift quantity but it has, to a certain extent, seen a return to Charles Grant sized (well, nearly) units.  

My 48 figure Blue regiment of foot

The first proper set of wargames rules I owned where Charles Grant's Napoleonic ones based on his articles in Military Modelling in the seventies.  These posited 48 man units.   I do actually have two units this size; the only two ECW units I have painted.  The size was dictated by having what looked like a reasonable block of pikemen.  Sixteen figures was as small as I thought looked good and then that dictated the sizes of the sleeves of shot.  I tried a nine man pike unit and it looked odd.  The next size up to keep a square pike block would have been 25 figures leading to 75 man units.  Too much!  For my armies I now work to a 24 man standard size but this would mean that, at most, I could only paint four units a year and that would be if I could focus on one period!

Five colour shading really isn't necessary on 18mm figures, perhaps

The big battle people would say that the obvious solution would be to move down to 15mm or less.  My problem with this is that figures of 12mm or less have ludicrous looking anatomy.  I did too much anatomy while studying art to get over this.  There are a few, a very few, manufacturers who make reasonable looking 15mm figures, which is why I have bought into the War and Empire Kickstarter.  15mm really is sensible for ancients.  The problem is that with the few 15mm (really 18mm, of course, these days) figures I have painted I paint them as if they were 28mm so I don't paint them appreciably faster.  When I was choosing which armies to select for my War and Empire forces I eliminated all those where I had some 28 figures painted, which meant I eliminated nearly everything. This is why I have ended up with Spartacus revolt.  I wanted to go for the Punic Wars but I have quite a lot of 28mm figures painted for this so just couldn't, even though I know that I will never finish an army for either side in this scale.

Muskets & Tomahawks at the Shed

This last year, however, I think I have solved the problem with the appearance of rules like Lion Rampant and the fact that I played my first game of Muskets & Tomahawks.  My force for the latter was three units of six. Admittedly, there were two other players on my side with the same number of figures but that is nine units in total for not many more figures than in my ECW units.  These are both what I would call semi-skirmish games, using around 6o figures a side maximum.  This is an achievable target for me. 

My only painted figures for El Cid

So what does this mean going forward?  I will keep working on IHMN companies and I will jump forward in time with the rules, slightly, to cover The Lost World (I just picked up the lady explorer I had been looking for to finish my characters for this) and the twenties in Egypt and, possibly, the twenties/thirties in Asia.  I will get going on more pirates and Jason and the Argonauts figures too.  I am seeing the Afghan War as a semi-skirmish project so will carry on with that.  I want to do a Lion Rampant force and the logical one would be the Wars of the Roses as I have already got most of the figures but I am also tempted to go back in time and do Crusades or El Cid for this.  There is more to be done on Darkest Africa which is another semi-skirmish project but one where I have painted a lot of figures.  Add to this some Hobbit,  Mars Attacks, WW1 and Texan War of Independence figures and I think I have more than enough to be going on with.  See, even my focus is already losing focus!  Lots of stuff to put on eBay, even so, I think!

A Wars of the Roses Game at Guildford!

The board set up.  Mike Lewis (left) of Black Hat Miniatures took command of the left flank

Well, I went along to the St John's Centre in Merrow on Saturday morning, home of Guildford Wargames Club.  The club had been asked to put on a demonstration game as part of the activities being laid on to celebrate the hall's tenth anniversary.  As church halls go it is pretty impressive (it is Surrey after all) with a first floor, where the seminar room is, in which the club meets every Monday.

The most popular figure on the table!

We had decided on a game set in Britain as we felt that it should have more resonance for our visitors.  The ultimate selection of a Wars of The Roses game was fortuitous given all the recent coverage of Richard III and nearly everyone asked if we had a Richard figure.  Fortunately, I had the one I painted for Guy's mini Bosworth demonstration at school a few years ago.  This was his first game, however, which is usually a bad omen.

My battle on the right flank.  This is one of the few actually viable armies I have!  About 1700 points

We had three players each side, authentically commanding a battle each.  I was on the right flank as Richard III or, rather, as our fictitious battle was set in the 1460s, the Duke of Gloucester.  We laid out our troops with, what to us on the Yorkist side, looked like a vast numerical superiority on the Lancastrian side of the table, particularly in cavalry and archers.

Our extremely numerous opponents

We used WAB 2 rules, which I have never played, although I have played WAB quite a bit.  The key changes seemed to be around making manoevering more difficult, the effect of characters as regards morale and three rank depth bonus limits.  Anyway, I forgot my rule book (or rather I brought my revised WAB 1 instead as I had completely forgotten WAB 2 was a large hardback) so although it didn't make much difference I did plod along at normal moving speed as I wasn't sure about the rules for moving at marching pace.  I thought you needed to be in column or have a musician but everyone else was moving at eight inches a go and I was moving at four.  Anyway, this did prove to be critical in the end as my foot units never really got engaged in melee. 

Old technology beats new technology in the village

Most of my game was a missile duel.  I had a cannon, two units of longbowmen and two units of crossbowmen who I remembered were very strong in WAB.  Most unusually, I had good dice throws all day and by concentrating my fire on certain units I sent some running very early in the battle.  My mercenary crossbowmen (my force is actually the Earl of Oxford's, so are usually fighting on the Lancastrian side where continental mercenaries would have been more common) did a great job on the far right; destroying Dave's handgunners completely and sending his cavalry back the wrong way.

My artillery crew flee their gun to escape the hail of arrows - but not before breaking two units of the opposition

It was the first outing for my cannon as well and, although the crew were eventually sent running from their piece by concentrated archery they did cause quite a few casualties first.  The other guns on the table mostly blew up!

End of the game

Thinks didn't go so well for Mike on the left flank where there was a vicious back and forward in the churchyard.  The centre also saw a reverse for the Yorkists.  Altogether we played for about four and a half hours without a final resolution I still had a viable force and hadn't lost a unit other than my artillery crew (and they still had a chance to rally) but our centre and right had been pounded.  The scene at the end of the game (above) shows me with a unit of men-at-arms (unengaged) and units of crossbowmen, pikemen and archers still fighting.

Further to the right I still had another unit of bowmen, another of crossbowmen and a unit of billmen (also unengaged).  Both of Dave's remaining units would have been removed with one or two more casualties in the next round.  So whilst it was a loss for the Yorkists I would like to think that Richard could have made a tactical retreat, at this point, to fight another day!

As to the real purpose of the day, we had a constant stream of visitors (and even at least  one potential recruit) all of whom seemed fascinated by what was going on.  Dave and some of the others had also laid out some static displays of troops from other periods, ships, aircraft and  the Lord of the Rings. People on  TMP are rude about Games Workshop but it was amazing how many people knew about Warhammer!  The ladies from St John's Centre kindly provided cake and there was free tea which helped calm my battle-stressed (or, rather, rules-stressed) nerves somewhat.

Part of the static display

This was the first big battle game I had played since April 2009!  Despite my nervousness about remembering the rules I did enjoy the day in the end and must thank Dave in particular for letting a non-member return.  I am now seriously thinking about re-joining and maybe doing some more Colonial gaming again.  The other question is: Do I start painting Wars of the Roses again?

Oh no! I'm going to play a wargame!

I've agreed to go along to Guildford Wargames club on Saturday and participate in a demonstration game as part of the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of the hall that the club uses.

Appropriately, given the news this week, it will be a Wars of The Roses game so my rather Hobbit-like Foundry figures will get another outing.  They must be my most used army!  We will be using WAB2, which I have never played so need to look at as, I think, it changes maximum rank bonus from four down to three which will effect the shape of my units.  

I'm excited to get some figures on a table but terrified of the actual gaming bit as usual.  Also, I repainted some figures from my Earl of Oxford's army for Guy's mini-Bosworth a few years ago so will have to get them off their bases and, possibly, re-paint their livery.  I'm out on Friday night so only have two evenings to do it!

Mini Bosworth

Mini Bosworth with the battlefield Guy made: an exemplary lesson in minimalism

My little boy Guy had to do a presentation on Bosworth at school and suggested that the battle would be easier to understand if he could put some figures on a battlefield. Originally I had thought of putting some 15mm figures on some stands or maybe getting some 6mm figures for this. In the end, however, we were running out of time and given that I had already got quite a lot of the old Foundry figures painted we decided to use those; with each figure representing roughly 500 men. I had most of the standards and banners to hand and a few hasty repainting jobs put figures into the correct livery.

Henry Tudor and his standard bearer William Brandon who was killed by Richard himself whilst charging to attempt to reach Henry.

What I didn't have was any figures to represent Richard III or Henry Tudor as mine is, at present, an infantry only army. So Dave Thomas' stand at Salute was our first port of call on Saturday and we picked up the Richard and Henry character sets. These contain the character plus a standard bearer and a herald. The presentation was on Tuesday and I realised that I wan't going to have time to paint all six figures so I just went for Richard and Henry and the two standard bearers.

Henry Tudor

I filed, based and undercoated them on Saturday night. On Sunday I painted Richard and Henry and got the standard bearers done on Monday, thereby breaking my record for fastest painted purchases from Salute! The two standards are included in the Perry Plastic infantry box.

King Richard III who according to Shakespeare rode his grey White Surrey that day. Although a pure white horse would have been more appropriate I wanted to have a go at a more complex grey coat in preparation for some Sudan figures I am preparing.

I really enjoyed doing these and will fast track some of the plastic infantry now. My figures are painted as the Earl of Oxford's force so I will paint the first batch of plastics as Norfolk's troops. I also bought an artillery piece but didn't get time to do that but have started work on it so maybe it can be artillery piece of the month for next month (this month's is the Zulu War rocket team from Empress Miniatures, which is nearly finished).

Richard III and his standard bearer Sir Percival Thirlwall who, although unhorsed and having had both legs cut off, continued to hold Richard's standard aloft until he was killed

Guy's presentation (he also did an excellent powerpoint) was so good he was awarded a headmaster's commendation for it! Well done Guy!

Indian Mutiny etc.

I spent ages painting subtle shading on the off-white trousers. All invisible because of the flash!

Well, yet again I have got distracted! Having come up with my master plan for the next month which involved finishing a group of Zulus and some more Force Publique I have been distracted by Mutineer Miniatures new (ish) Indian mutiny figures sculpted by Mark Owen.

I hadn't got any information on uniforms so didn't start the figures I bought at Colours (or was it Warfare?) but I picked up the Foundry book The British in India by john French and The Indian Mutiny by Saul David. The latest release by Mutineer announced on TMP got me to base the 12 figures I had got and over the last few days I have painted my normal test figure. Like all of Mike Owen's figures it was a delight to paint. So much so that I have now started work on three more and have undercoated the other eight. Worse than that, I ordered enough extra figures to form a TSATF unit of 20 of my first chosen unit: the 53rd foot. I found some TSATF Indian Mutiny rules on the net so now aim to get a unit of each done in the next month.

I have also just started the Saul David book and it looks like it will be as enjoyable as his one on the Zulu War (even though that was not well received by the likes of Ian Knight).

Anyway here is the first figure.

I also painted one of the new Perry plastic Wars of the Roses figures. Also very easy to paint in a way that their metals aren't.

Invisible. Not.

The final figure I did for my daughter. It is the Games Workshop "invisible Frodo". Of course he isn't and my son pointed out that it would be much better to just use an empty base (as his Combat Hex game does). Oh well, I shall count it towards my total anyway!

I am also currently working my way through the director's cut of Troy, which is rather better than I remember from the cinema. Of course this has got me getting my Foundry Trojans out; especially as Newline Designs have just started a new Mycenean range. So much for selling them all on ebay!

Wars of the Roses

Nice example of a WoR banner

My last pictures from Loseley Park are of the Medieval Siege Society's skirmish. They were in War of the Roses period armour and equipment. I really felt for these chaps (and, again, quite a lot of ladies) as tramping around in full plate can't have been much fun!

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

They conducted an archery duel as part of their demonstration and Guy and I, who are both archers by inclination and practice (he has been having lessons recently and I did it for three years-competing in the Moscow Olympic trials), thought that this looked like the most fun type of re-enactment as you actually did for real what your original models had done. "The musketmen don't really fire bullets, the swordsmen don't really stab people but the archers really do shoot arrows (albeit rubber tipped ones!)" as Guy said!

My Wars of the Roses Army is one of the few that I have that I can actually field as a complete force. I think I have about 1750 WAB points worth.

My sole mounted Man at Arms

No army is ever finished, of course, and mine needs a unit of mounted men-at-arms. I have painted one and that wasn't too bad but I just haven't got around to painting the 11 others I reckon I need. They are very expensive in WAB and tend to be a one shot weapon. I have also found that mercenary crossbowmen deal with them pretty effectively. I have fought several battles and never felt the lack of them. Still... I would also like a few handgunners, maybe a bombard and some pavise men. OK and maybe another unit of billmen. And some more archers...

My force represents the Earl of Oxford's

The figures I have are probably my least favourite of all that I own. When the Club announced it was doing a WotR campaign a few of us needed to get armies from scratch. Mike (of Black Hat Miniatures) and I went halves on a very good Foundry deal whereas the rest of them went for Front Rank Miniatures.

My commander

I sort of regretted it. They are old Perry sculpts and nearer to 25mm than 28mm with some very big heads on some of them. They were dwarfed by the FRM figures on the field and the latter looked much nicer (despite them having bows that look like baguettes). Despite me not being happy with their proportions they did paint up quite easily and I had to get a lot painted quickly.

Men at Arms

Wars of the Roses is pretty popular at Guildford as so many of us have an army and you can do a characteristic three battle army on each side and involve six players. So I am increasingly tempted by the prospect of the Perry Miniatures plastics that are set to appear later this year. I saw the three ups at Salute and they look very very nice indeed. Perhaps they will do mounted men-at-arms and I can confine myself to those. But somehow I feel that it will all be a lot worse than that! Never mind they are some way off, it seems...

Nothing wrong with the proportions of these...