Pudsey Haul

I'm back from Recon at Pudsey.  It might not be the biggest show, but I've always had a fondness for it, I went to one of the very earliest Recon shows when it was in Headingley, and I've tried to get to them all since.

It seemed a little quieter than usual, maybe that was just because I was earlier than usual.  The organisers pride themselves on still running a Bring And Buy.  This was very busy, though I didn't see anything that quite called to me.

I looked at various manufacturers 15mm figures with a view to using them with my 15mm KoW, but all the new stuff, nice though it is, is noticeably larger than the old Essex stuff I already have.

I had a good chat with the chap behind Too Much Lead about bargains and the unfortunate attitude of some members of the hobby.  He was running a very nice looking Dragon Rampant game.  Having seen him collecting the forces on his blog, it was almost like meeting an old friend.

I particularly liked his giants (details on them here).  They look even better in life.

So what was my haul?  Not much actually.  A resin cross for Blood Eagle and similar

Dark Age games from Ainstey Castings.  Two piles of crates and other items from Skytrex (very nicely detailed, these).  A metal Reaper Miniatures bear (second hand, or should that be paw?) and a pack of dogs and another of wolves from Warbases, great for Frostgrave.

Current totals for December

Bought 8 (Bear, dogs and wolves, Celtic cross and two piles of packages)
Painted 0
Sold/traded 0

Frostgrave - Ready for the Frozen City

Astute readers will have noticed two of my new Frostgrave minis demonstrating the use of clothes-pegs the other day.  Well that batch is finished now, so here are the rest of two Frostgrave warbands.

Firstly the Sons of Empire wizard and his apprentice.  Both GW plastic figures.  The chap with the rather fine dragon staff came free with an old White Dwarf and I believe was also used in a version of the Talisman board game.  His apprentice was, I think, from Advanced Heroquest.  If I can find one, I'd like to replace the apprentice with the wizard from the original Heroquest.

Three specialist troops for the Sons of Empire; thief, man-at-arms and crossbowman

The wizard and apprentice for the Men of the North.  These are actual Frostgrave minis from North Star.  I thought they fitted nicely the dark age/Viking look of the rest of the band.  I might even manage to use them in a game of Blood Eagle.

Men of the North thief and barbarian

Men of the North infantryman and man-at-arms

The Men of the North were a mix of Wargames Factory Vikings and bits box bits.  The rather sinister head on the thief is from the Frostgrave cultists box.  The Wargames Factory minis have less interesting poses than the Gripping Beast ones I used for the rest of the band, but they do have a useful leather armoured body.  The barbarian is an old GW metal Viking Berserker.  I used to have this mini years ago.  A good friend gave me a replacement, I altered it to have a double axe rather than a sword and shield.  These should all fit nicely into games of Blood Eagle as well as Frostgrave.

Although these took some time to finish, I really enjoyed painting and modelling them.  I didn't go for any form of uniform, but the Sons of Empire all have some yellow as a distinguishing mark.  I would think something like this is pretty important in the ruins of Felstadt.  

I'd like to call this project finished and move on to other things, but already I have had ideas for other soldier types for each warband.

Anyway;  current totals for November

Bought 1 (the survivor)
Painted 11 (Frostgrave warbands)
Sold/traded 8 (5 dwarf berserkers and 3 lesser obsidian golems)

Which puts me nicely ahead.  I've also got a simple modelling project that I'll get photoed and up here in the next few days.

Warbands

It should be no secret to my reader(s) that I like skirmish games.  The small size of the forces is a definite plus; you can get playing that much sooner.  I also think it's easier to tell a story within the game, as the miniatures are more like personalities.
Frostgrave is one such, and a while ago I showed my warband made up of various prepainted minis, mostly from the old WotC D&D line.  This warband was only ever meant to be a 'get-me-by' until I got round to painting one from scratch.  Now I am well on the way to finishing two warbands, on the grounds that its easier to show the game to someone with a warband ready for them to play.
For 'reasons' I am theming each warband; this is what I have so far.

Warband 1 'Sons of Empire'.  These are made up of old GW figures, mostly the rather excellent Empire Militia (formerly the Mordheim humans).  These minis are ideal for Frostgrave, although perhaps they need a scarf or something.  They will also do for Ghost Archipelago, and D&D as well.  this picture shows four of the thugs, before I remembered that thugs are supposed to be unarmoured.  I'm sure if I make it clear what the are, no one will mind.

More of the 'Sons of Empire'.  (l to r) Another thug, a knight, borrowing a torso and shield from the Empire command options on the spearmen/handgunners sprue, and two archers.

Warband 2, 'The Men of the North'.  These are Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors and Archers.  (l to r) two thugs and two archers

More 'Men of the North (l to r) knight and three thugs.  More Gripping Beast.

The Men of the North will, of course, fit into my Blood Eagle games as well, so they are nicely versatile.  No wizards yet, they and their apprentices are still on the painting table, along with reinforcements for both bands.  That's the problem.  Once I start thinking of ways to show the different soldier types, I can't stop.  Already both bands have thieves, men-at-arms and infantrymen on their way to being finished.

These aren't for Frostgrave though.  That said, there's no reason why not.  This is the sample goblin warband for the alpha rules of Kings of War: Vanguard.  I rooted around among my KoW goblins and found what I needed, along with some reinforcements from Dungeon Saga.  Just about all these will find a place in my KoW collection as well as being good for Vanguard, so yet more versatility.

I like the look of the rules so far, and want to try them soon, though I have a DeadZone campaign to finish off first.  I suppose I should get an opposing force as well.  At around a dozen minis that shouldn't be too hard.

Quest for the Perfect Skirmish

I have been searching for a long time for the perfect skirmish system.  By that I mean something that gives a fun, fast game, and ideally something that is adaptable to many different settings and backgrounds.
An experience or advancement mechanism would also be great (I have fond memories of the old GW Battle Systems in Middle Earth, specifically the Battle companies variant).
Recently I tried Savage Worlds' skirmish game called Showdown (available free on their website here).  I tried a game against my good friend 'Merlin' in North Yorkshire on one of our irregular gaming days.  He came up with the scenario and I brought the rules.  His elves were trying (ultimately futilely) to prevent my orcs desecrating a sacred well.

Elves and orcs face off across the forest glade

Elven bowfire initially seems ridiculously effective, wiping out a whole unit of orc archers.

The two forces clash

Now the orcs love of the fight comes to the fore

Eventually the elves are slain or driven off.  the death of their leader is the final blow, and the rest fade away into the woods.

The game was fun, and the scenario was excellent as it forced the elves to move to contact the orcs rather than just stand back and shoot, while the orcs had to stay close to the well rather than chase elves down in the forests.

However, the game took virtually all the allotted playing time, partly due to unfamiliarity with the rules, of course, but also there seemed to be a lot of overly fiddly bits.  I suspect this is due to the system's birth in the Savage Worlds Role Playing Game (an excellent system, by the way).

Somehow, it wasn't quite for us, and every time one of us thought of a way of simplifying the rules, the other decided it wasn't quite right.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we got another gaming day.  This time, at Merlin's suggestion, we tried Blood Eagle from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare.

This ruleset is an adaptation of In Her Majesty's Name from Osprey.  This is a Victorian era Steampunk game, and one I bought some time ago, but have never got round to really looking at.  IHMN is itself an adaptation of In the Emperor's Name, a skirmish game set in the WH40K universe.

Blood Eagle uses (as far as I can tell) the same rules engine, but is set in the Dark Ages and focuses on small warbands with a basic alignment towards either Christianity or Paganism.

Merlin provided the figures from his collection, and I provided the table (and lunch).  We managed two games, both great fun and full of cinematic moments, such as the lone Saxon in the first game who just would not die, or my skald using his Wyrd powers to shatter a huscarl's shield.
Both games were simple 'slog-it-out' battles of Saxons vs Viking raiders. Honours even at the end of the day.  While we forgot some things (like Run, doh), we learnt more as play progressed.

Vikings advance through the woods towards the waiting Saxons, while the berserk flanks around the mead hall.

The Saxon archer takes aim while his colleagues wish they had known they could Run.  The rather overweight priest was the first to remember this.

More Saxons hiding in the fir trees.

The Saxon view of the invaders.

As the two forces clash, a Saxon Fyrdman is slain at the foot of the (obsidian, definitely not only undercoated) monument to Thor.

The second game was just as much fun, even though I got tabled.  I misplaced my camera for most of the game, hence only the one pic.

In conclusion, Blood Eagle provides us with a fast, fun play experience.  The rules are simple enough to learn, but complex enough to reward tactical thinking.  The force sizes are about what I was looking for, and the upsurge in plastic figures recently is great for this kind of 'wysiwyg' game.  

I will definitely dig out IHMN and some of my old EoD figures.  I am also thinking this might be the ruleset on which to base my ideas for a Boarder Reiver skirmish campaign.