Anticlimax - Metal Magic Asterix Figure

So this fellow has been hanging around for a while, and today with the rain tumbling down, paying bills and generally it's pretty miserable, I thought I would take a break from the 15mm Early Imperial Romans, and paint this guy up.

Anticlimax, from 'Asterix in Britain' drinking a cup of hot water with a spot of milk.

The one thing I realise is my flesh technique is fine for 15mm, but too clumsy for 25mm. Hmm. Time to retire the Citadel 'Bronzed Flesh' and Citadel 'Flesh Wash' I have been using for years.

More Tomorrow's War

So deciding that the various technologies didn't work well together, the Exterminators from Khurusan arrived, plus EM4 Steel Warriors and some Grav APC from Critical Mass. So now I have two Tomorrow's War forces needing more paint.

That plus the rigging has started on the Houston's Ships..  and the Early Imperial Romans are lined up awaiting paint and the arrival of LBM shield transfers.

I need to spend the next couple of weeks at home following an operation, so hopefully that's my chance to knock over a couple of unfinished projects.

Tomorrow's War - The Day After

Had some fun undercoating and starting the paint process for my vehicles. As usual, I undercoated with a cheap flat black primer spray can, but I then remembered something I had seen done by aircraft modellers, where they 'pre-shaded' parts of a plane prior to doing the main coat. This gives a lot of depth. I couldn't really be bothered doing it very accurately on six vehicles so I just grabbed my can of gray spray primer and gave them all a very short sharp angled blast to get the grey on edges and prominent parts.

Khurusan APC - very nice casts

Khurusan APC - rear view

Then I went ahead and used very thin paint (old humbrol acrylics) on the APCs, and I was very pleased with how they turned out. I will probably just do pin washes and a very light grey drybrush and call these finished.

The New Alba fire-teams are progressing, and I have the support weapons on order,

The Wallace GSCO1 grav tanks however..  need more work...

New Alba Fireteams backed by the Wallace grav-tank

Lots more work to do on these bad boys...

Tomorrow's War - Today

So things have been very quiet on the wargames front. I have been unwell, working hard, and travelling.

But I got back to the office today, and waiting for me were the vehicles to go with my Tomorrow's War forces. So far I have 21 Rebel Minis Earth Marines - which are becoming my New Alba forces, and I have now got three Khurusan Miniatures APC plus three Critical Mass Arc Fleet Grav Tanks.

Now both are lovely models, but I am not sure they work together. The Khurusan Minis are absolutely lovely mixed resin/metal castings, a touch of 'Aliens' - and gritty near future. So the castings have lots of rivets and panels, periscopes and so on. The Arc Fleet is much more 'Futuristic'  also lovely castings but much less gritty - more 'Halo' - so I think I may have two basic armies here. the New Alba are maybe 22 Century, while the Khurusan are much more - next 50 years..  in which case they will have to end up dark green/black and partnered with some 'Colonial Marines' - so I guess I am looking now for some more 'futuristic' APCs to cart my fireteams about.

Pictures to follow when I have applied more paint than a basic black undercoat....

DBMM at Cancon 2012 - Day 3

Day 3, and it was to be a Russell-fest. After being handed a well-padded portion of my anatomy by Aaron and his Khitan, I was facing Zac and his New Kingdom Egyptians for total mastery of Egypt. I invaded, and bad terrain in the centre saw the table essentially split in two. I hadn't looked forward to this game, as I thought it would be a very tough opponent, and with an 'Inert' general, his army would be really big (although very immobile).

When I saw the terrain, I decided to mass in the open ground between the waterway (Nile) and the rough in the centre, go deep and try to overwhelm him with numbers and PIP pressure. Much dancing inhibited by poor pip rolls on a crucial occasion, and I managed to take down one command, with the moral penalty breaking another. A very bloodthirsty game, where weight of numbers locally and the ability to refocus effort using PIPs gave me an advantage. The Turcomans did break, and I lost 40% of the army all up, so an 18-7 and the True Egyptians triumph.

Ayyubids massed behind Turcoman Light Horse.

A view from the Alexandria Lighthouse - the NKE in the distance never got into the game.

Nice looking NKE - DPS I think?

OK,  game 5 out of the way, and despite giving away a lot of points, I can still make an impact in the final standings, provided I do ok in the last game. Greg Russell, who used Ottomans with an Albanian ally. I set up with the Turcomans on my extreme right, CinC in a double line, and behind him my sub. You can see the game at a crucial point below. The sand coloured bases are my Ayyubids outflanking his line behind a difficult going (narrow) river, the Ghulams pushing forward to engage his Janissary Bow, and some of my other cavalry turning back towards my base edge to head off a home run by the Albanian ally.
 

Exciting times.. my base edge is to the right..

Sadly for me, this game was notable (for me) for the number of times an extreme dice split went against me, so I managed to intercept his fast light horse and overlap with my ordinary light horse, only to then get a 1-5 split that cost me that element. Another 1-5 cost me a cavalry that intercepted the Albanians by marching into them, and there were too many 6-1 splits to remember that cost me Ghulam superior cavalry. Even when I hit his elements behind, it did nothing, even at 3-0 and 4-2. Overall, although I kept throwing the Cavalry into the Bow, I never got the dice roll (beat him by one in his bound, or two in my bound) to do any damage.

Overall, very frustrating, and I was really getting stressed when no matter what I did tactically, virtually nothing came off as I simply couldn't roll high enough to beat him. I suspect my loudly expressed disbelief at his combat dice was very unsporting. It didn't help when a little known wrinkle in the rules cost me another superior Ghulam. Eventually the 6's told and the Turcomans broke, causing the sub also to break following his losses in superior Ghulams, and game over.

At this point I had disheartened one command and taken nearly a quarter of his largest command. If I had survived another bound it would have been interesting. I was likely to have broken one command (he had his own superior cavalry exposed with a general able to make a flank attack), and the transferred morale penalty would have disheartened his largest command.

Third place overall, behind Greg & Aaron. I handed the discount voucher to John the organiser. I have too much lead already.

Anyway - 3 days of DBMM is too much for me. Too stressful, too fraught, and I don't have the temperament for it at the moment. I am going to take a break from competitive wargaming for a while, and see if I can't get my head in the right frame of mind to return to the table more relaxed and more capable of coping with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/dice-rolling.

DBMM at Cancon 2012 - Day 2

Day 2 - Game 3 - late.. arrghhhh! a little bingle (that's Australian for 'Minor Accident') on the road ahead of me caused a traffic delay, and I didn't get there till 20 minutes after due time. Richard Cornwell (Yuan Chinese) was very understanding and we kicked off in plenty of time to get a result.

No photographs again, though Richard took a few with his Canon EOS, so I hope to get some to add later. Again I was defender and there wasn't much terrain to speak of. I deployed to my right with the Turcoman Light Horse, and two blocks of Cavalry behind in the centre. Richard had a lot of Superior Cavalry - and a lot of Superior Light Horse, and quickly redeployed to my left, I counter-moved to create a defensive arc on my left, and tried to move my Light Horse over to counter, but they were allocated a low PIP and a series of ones meant I was very slow to respond.

Richard managed to knock over a few of my ordinary cavalry but I was also causing losses to his light horse and disheartened (in DBMM - a quarter of a command's fighting strength) one of his smaller commands.  Killing the light horse in front of him, and losing his cavalry flankers to a 5-1 death and a 4-2 recoil then left my CinC exposed and Richard hit him with his general, at a major disadvantage (to me) as I was then double overlapped..  a dice split of 4-1 in Richards favour, my Commander in Chief was gone and his command disheartened.

A furious cavalry and light horse melee continued but my ordinary cavalry were now fighting at a disadvantage (in DBMM, lesser troops in a disheartened command get a -1 to their scores).

All not lost however, as Richard followed up he broke this command (its next PIP or Command dice roll was a '1', and with the general gone I couldn't move anything!). The broken command transmits a morale effect to nearby friendly troops, and this meant my second cavalry command was disheartened..  all along the line, except for the Turcomans, all my lesser troops were now fighting at a disadvantage..oh dear!

And now the dice showed how fickle they were, Richard attacked my two broken superior cavalry with his own superior cavalry..  a 6-1 cost him the first one, and a 5-1 cost him the now overlapped second..   all of a sudden his command was looking shaky with this added to the losses of light horse he had already suffered. In my return move, I rolled high for PIPS (allowing me to manoeuvre) and picked on his small light horse command, two combats at 3-1 in my favour where he could not recoil (so destroyed if beaten), and that command broke.

Richard then shook my hand.. the additional morale effect of the command breaking had taken two more commands over their break point.. game over. Huge losses to me, so a 16-9 in my favour.

Without the broken superior cavalry killing his, it would have been an extended game and the result uncertain (me with one broken, one disheartened and one intact to his two broken, one disheartened and one intact. So you could say the dice were in my favour, but then again, it took a 5-1 to strip my general of his flank protection, and the 4-1 to kill him, so I guess it worked both ways.

Game 4 - Dugald Duncan - Mu-Jung Hsien Pi...

More Kn(F) - plus a Chinese Ally, with a load of LH(F) supports, I was defender and terrain was minimal, a waterway, road and two marshes with a built up area (BUA) on my right.

I deployed the Turcomans in a single element wide screen in the centre, two Arab light horse on the road to inhibit him just marching up there, and the cavalry behind the Turcomen so they could pass through as required.

Dugald placed his chinese ally on my right (lots of Auxilia, skirmishers and some light horse) placed to charge up the road and sweep round behind me.. then two large commands of mixed Knight (Fast) and Light Horse (Fast)

A quick game is a good game so I advanced my light horse to charge reach of his Knights, and extended my cavalry lines to match his extension. In Dugald's turn the Chinese were unreliable so he advanced and tried to extend his lines with his other Light Horse.

One in..  all in..   I threw the light horse into his knights...  a massacre ensued. Dugald stubbornly rolled low, and the superior factors kicked in..  end result, 13 combats and 6 dead knights. No losses to my light horse.  Dugald then rolled low for command pips and wasn't able to repair the damage - he did kill 3 light horse, but in my next bound my cavalry moved up and the holes, overlaps and combats just got worse for him.   Another bound of low PIPS for Dugald, I lost another Turcoman, and then in my bound finished it off. One command broke, which caused the morale on another to break, and his unreliable Chinese changes sides. 25-0 to the Ayyubids.

End of Day 2..  70 points and I am the meat in a Russell sandwich. Greg on 86 points, Aaron on 81, me on 70 and Zac on 66.

DBMM at Cancon 2012 - Day 1

Arrived for Day 1 of DBMM2 at Cancon. As usual, the place is packed. The biggest gathering of wargamers, freaks, geeks and who knows what. This year there seemed to be more women playing, which is a positive sign (especially if we want to rejuvenate the hobby with young boys...).

Anyway, game 1 was versus Michael Stone, running Normans. My Ayyubids are essentially one command of very good Light Horse (LH(S) - Light Horse Superior in DBMM parlance), supported by two commands of 'Askaris' and junior 'Ghulams' (Cv(O) - Cavalry Ordinary) with a smattering of senior Ghulams (Cv(S) - Cavalry Superior). Normans are essentially lots of relatively lightly armoured charging mounted (Kn(F) - Knight Fast) supported by Breton Cavalry. Terrain, (I was attacker) was essentially a large open space between a set of enclosed fields in which Michael put his bowmen and the bad going on the other wing. I didn't waste time, deciding a Light Horse charge followed up by Cavalry was the best option.. Letting Michale hit me with that weight of a punch would be a bad idea...   the pictures tell the tale.

The Ayyubids line up for the charge

Some very poor dice rolling by Michael and 5 Knight down in the first combats

It only got worse from there.

I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of Michael's bad dice..  once the first line crumbled I was able to exploit and he never recovered - Game 1 - 25-0

Game 2 was against Aaron Russell with Khitan Liao, he, his brother Zac, and their father Greg, have been coming to Canberra and plundering trophies for the last few years, and they play a very hard and skilful game.


No photographs I am afraid...  brief summary?

I made a deployment mistake, and Aaron is to good a player to do that against. His Light Horse poured through the gap. (My miscomprehension of the marching rules really) - very frustrating game. My dancing Ayyubids suffered from a shortage of PIPS, and then he turned on some amazing dice rolling. In two rounds of combats we had 20 combats, in which he rolled 14 x 6, 2 x 1, 1 x 3, a 4 and 2 x 5.  Needless to say when his Kn(F) were attacking my cavalry, just about every 6 was a death for my troops and I went down in a heap. I did manage to cause some casualties, but a very frustrating game. I was grumpy and really furious with myself. Only bright spot was my baggage fighting off about 7 separate attacks by Light Horse.. (go baggage!) 21-4 to Zac, and I felt he deserved the win, (but not by that much).

My mood was NOT helped by the fact every time I tried to go get food at lunchtime, the queue was round the block, (Note to CGS, two food outlets working very slowly for a couple of thousand people with a fixed lunchtime just doesn't cut it. I am now taking food to Cancon, and I will not queue for overpriced coffee, and overpriced slow 'Fast Food' again - I think you just gave a lease of life to my Thermos flask.) I have learned that a Sugar Low in the middle of the afternoon makes me a grumpy boy...

So - End of Day 1 - I expected my Light Horse to beat the Normans with reasonable dice luck, (and so it was). Game 2. My fault, but salt was rubbed into the wounds by Aaron's extraordinary dice.