SPQR Revised Edition or "Show some Passion, you Lazy......"

I'm going to need an analogy for my relationship with SPQR from Warlord Games.

Sometimes in football (soccer for The Cousins) your team signs a new player, usually a striker. Great things are expected from them. The crowd are initially very enthusiastic about the new signing. He looks the part. Then after a few matches it seems something isn't right. The striker is not delivering, not putting the effort in, is lazy or just doesn't care. The crowd's initial enthusiasm turns to bewilderment and then to exasperation, and sometimes to downright hostility.

That was me with SPQR. My thoughts on this were posted up after they were first published and the disillusionment was at it's height here  https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/08/spqr-warlord-do-it-again.html

Originally much touted by Warlord as a great new Ancient "Warband" scale game (30-50 ish figs a side). This was pitched right into Two Fat Lardie territory and looked like it could deliver. Beautiful book, excellent artwork. First glance showed a character progression system, campaigns, the works.  What could go wrong?

Then the elephant in the room - the rules were shite (sorry, that is my considered view). They were not bad - they simply didn't work. After a couple of games it became clear these were unplayable. They lacked any integration between the individuals and units, there was no tactical thought, there.... ok look these were bloody awful and the list of things that didn't work in the rules will take longer to explain than I would care to waste. Probably the worse set of rules I've ever seen chucked at the public. Playtesting??? there are a list of playtesters and frankly they should hang their head in shame. I suspect these are Warlord staff who messed about but didn't actually point out the problems because they were in house and didn't want to rock the boat, or were playing a different game. In addition to the crap rules there were some almost unbeatable combinations - Gauls with a certain combination of large units and heroes would destroy everything they contacted without fail. The only solution was something like an equally stupid \ gimmick build of massed archers who if they won the initiative would just annihilate anything they can see. Neither of these made for good games. SPQR was so bad I think I said they were insulting to the customers and not fit for sale. I got permabanned from the Warlord SPQR Facebook group for saying something along those lines.

So now Warlord have reluctantly recognised there were issues, and have produced a "revised" version. This was originally going to be available free to the poor suckers (like me!) who had bought the original. They changed this so it was available for free with a purchase of a box set from their Ancients line. I bit.

OK I have to admit I bit reluctantly. Warlord are getting a rep for just chucking out stuff that looks good but really is riddled with errors and typos. I'm not sure if this is a quality control issue or something deeper and related to the way they manage their projects and development. Either way it is getting to be a regular thing - Cruel Seas was an example, and SPQR was probably the worse case, but Victory at Sea also seems to have some big issues around a lack of proofreading, particularly in the "Fleet Lists" section - the rules do seem much more "nailed down" to be fair. 

Anyway back to SPQR (Revised). What has changed? Actually not a lot, but that which has changed  will impact on the game in a big way and for the better. Gone is the mind numbingly stupid "everyone fights in melee" to be replaced with only those in contact fight. This neatly fixes the issues previously with Heroes being able to fight at the point of a wedge and never take any risks until everyone else was dead. It also makes smaller units more viable. This is a good start. Gone are most of the bonuses that made large units unstoppable (or at least I think they are). Gone too is the "Parry" system, which allowed units or individuals to parry a number of attacks each turn, now replaced with a much easier to manage reroll system - though again you get to force rerolls irrespective of the direction of attack, so stabbing someone in the back still has no benefits, even when he is already busy fighting someone to his front. I'm not sure if this works or not, or rather if it is much of an improvement. I quite liked the mechanic that allowed a "pool" of shield parries and maybe just a tweak here may have been better?? Then again that was hard to keep track of, but this is very simple - big shields reroll all failed armour saves, little ones reroll 1s. Also the weapon "reach" idea has been reworked to make short spears a bit more useful and the whole idea of "reach" seems more coherent. Mostly. 

There has also been some tweaks to the points system, but as usual with Warlord some errors (?) have crept through. Just how many of these there are is open to debate - did Warlord actually intend for some equipment to be cheaper to buy for one faction than others? It's possible, but Occam's Razor points to a visit by Mr Cock Up.

So are they any good? Will the crowd like them? Back to my football analogy. Sometimes a Manager sees a player is struggling for motivation and kicks them off to Boston United on loan, where much to everyone's surprise they rediscover their motivation and return with a surer touch and become the seasons top scorer, receiving the plaudits and well deserved adoration from the home fans. Will this happen with SPQR (R)? Not sure. It will take some games to decide this, but I must admit I think there may be a spark of interest returning. Maybe they could be the new Marco Van Basten - who knows??

https://www.theguardian.com/football/football-league-blog/2015/feb/24/adam-boyd-marco-van-basten-hartlepool

Ancient Macedonian attrition - a thesis

Every other morning or so I have come down stairs to find a 28mm Macedonian phanangite pikeman on the floor. Sometimes by "find" I mean "stand on".

The Macedonians in question are part of an army in progress - I was bought a Warlord Games Successor Army pack for Christmas a year or two ago and having failed to paint it passed it to a friend (Fred) who did a reasonable job with the brush at a very reasonable rate. The models are now languishing in the loft in open boxes waiting to be based.

However some have started to appear in strange places, mostly on the stairs. After thorough investigation I have discovered the culprit - it is my four year old cat Poppy. Poppy is usually very gentle and we have had her since she was a kitten at the local kitten rescue centre. It appears every night she sneaks up to the loft, selects a pikeman from the open box, and carries him downstairs in her mouth to be left as a gift for me in the morning. I've had this sort of behaviour from other cats, but it usually involved small mice or voles taken from the fields rather than my Successor Infantry.

To be honest at the moment this isn't an issue. I do have several spare pikemen and most of the casualties will be repairable, but I couldn't work out why she was doing this. Then, this morning as I was tidying the latest casualty up, it came to me. Poppy must have some Persian heritage!

Problem solved! now all I need is a lid to go on the box to stop her whittling down the numbers of the hated Greeks :-)

However, I may have a bigger problem. This is Lili. Lili is now two years old and was adopted from a Polish lady after her cat had a litter and could not look after them all, which technically may mean she is Polish  - this may not bode well for my plans for a Blitzkrieg German Army for Chain of Command :0) 

 

SPQR - Warlord do it again

SPQR from Warlord Games has been out about a month now. It's described as a "Warband" level game, set in the Ancients period, which my guide to modern gaming idiom Ste "Arkwright" Johnson helpfully translated to me as big skirmish. He will get another mention later.

The tagline is that it is all about the Heroes forging their legends and carving their names in history at the head of a small band of (unnamed) disposable followers (minions in the rules). The rules are credited to Matt Sprague - of Mongoose fame (infamy?)

The game is available in two formats - rules only for £20 (£10 digital) or starter set for £40. The starter is particularly good value as it contains 50 plastic Celts and 20 plastic Republican Roman figures from Warlord's existing ranges. They are also adding resin figures which are very nice too.

The rule book is very pretty, well laid out and excellently illustrated. Surprisingly the rules are quite short - amounting to about 20 illustrated pages, followed by the bulk of the book being army lists and scenarios. There is a lot to like here. The Heroes develop between games. Each battle gains you experience, which can then be used to buy  "Talents" - basically skill trees where you progress upwards gaining new related skills, or you can start a new tree. Heroes, in true Hollywood fashion are rarely actually killed - when they are struck down they mostly survive to return in a later game or suffer a minor injury, although serious injuries and death are possible. Another interesting mechanic is the "parry" - where in certain circumstances you can force an opponent to reroll an attack using your shield or sword to parry his blow. All attacks are simultaneous so to me this sits really well with the vibe of heroes slugging it out, and for me feels much more cinematic than the one sided roll to hit roll to wound that predominates many games today. The army lists and historical backgrounds that go with them also seem well thought through and read well, and where some may wander a bit into fantasy for some, like Druids curses, all in all that seems pretty good.

The problems come however when you start to read the rules and play the game. There are some pretty big "huh?" moments. The rules don't really explain how hits are allocated in combat - or rather they do - wounds from missile attacks are inflicted on the closest figures in the firing unit, melee wounds are taken from the rear. This is all well and good until you introduce a Hero into the mix, who will probably have different stats to the unit he is leading. If he's at the front does he soak up all the arrows? The rules say you can't single a Hero out in a unit, but what if he's just stood the closest to an archer unit? Do they shoot the unit and miraculously hit everyone but him? Or does he take a proportion of the hits, and if so how is this decided? There are also some decidedly iffy melee mechanics. When a unit fights everyone in both units roll their attack dice. Fair enough. When a third unit charges into the rear of an engaged unit however, the unit being charged suffers no penalties for being charged in the rear at all - in fact it simply about turns and fights a fresh round of melee to its rear with the new charger while the unit to its front does nothing - presumably breaks out the sandwiches and takes a breather? Actually it is worse than that, because the guys charged in the rear gets to fight TWICE unhindered. If a 10 man unit is fighting another unit it gets (for instance) 10 attacks in the melee, but if a second unit joins in all 10 guys fight again - so if attacked by two units of 10 it fights 20 times, but if attacked by a single unit of 20 it only fights 10 times - WTF???? Pretty soon you realise the only actual tactic is to ensure your move to contact is at least 3" so you can claim the charge bonus in melee, and to do it with the largest unit you can (30 figures in case you are wondering). Manoeuvre or tactical finesse in SPQR has zero value, to several decimal places.

There are quite a few issues like this. Arkwright suggested I was expecting too much for what is a "Beer and Pretzels" \ Bar Brawl game. He may have a point, but I think my pretzels should be properly baked, and in the admittedly small number of bar brawls I have been involved in, hitting the guy from behind has proven 100% advantageous.

There are also some other issues, mainly centred around contradictory rules and points values. I'm less worried about this sort of stuff as I'm happy that a Gaul pays less \ more than a Roman for a javelin (or whatever), but there was quite a lot of criticism from players when it people got to have something more than a cursory glance.

It feels like this has not been playtested sufficiently thoroughly. In fact this seems like a rerun of what happened with Cruel Seas, where Warlord issued a 12 page FAQ explaining \ correcting the rules about a week after release

There has now been 2 SPQR FAQs issued within a month of publication. These do deal with the Hero issue quite well, but only by retconed the whole process and rewriting how Heroes and units operate, including a total rewrite of how many figures in a unit now fight. The results have (I think) fixed many of the issues, but the wider question remains - "why did it go to publication in such a state?"

Warlord are developing a reputation for this sort of thing. Clearly it is not reasonable to expect a 100% fault free product, though some achieve it, but both Cruel Seas and SPQR appeared to be released in an unfinished or untested state, and the players are left to make the fixes as Warlord rush off and claim everything is ok.

I like Warlord. Almost to a man they're friendly and helpful - the "almost" being reserved for the "gent" who has been banning people (and me!) from the official SPQR Facebook group for having the temerity to be critical. It is also true that even with the initial launch problems Cruel Seas is undoubtedly a fun game, and I suspect SPQR could be, with a few more nudges. It is also true that the starter sets for both are very good value even if you just want the figures \ models. I just think they are showing a distinct lack of care with the finished product which is stopping an ok product to be a great one. 

So would I recommend them - yes, I would, but with another Latin phrase in mind "Caveat Emptor".

Impetus 2 = Like a reunion of an old rock band

Last night me and five other old Impetus players sat around a table and watched \ assisted \ hindered as a game of Impetus 2 was played.

Quick digression. Impetus is a set of Ancient \ Medieval battle rules from Lorenzo Sartori that were released rather a long time ago and were my no 1 go to rules. They arrived and were adopted at about the same time as plastic 28mm ancients were becoming available and it was a match made in heaven. Actually Italy, as that's where Lorenzo hails from, but you get the message. Lorenzo managed to create a fluid and exciting game and over the years I collected rather a lot of armies and played many, many games, including lots of tournaments which were never that large but always friendly and interesting. Impetus was also a great antidote to the "Boutique" nature of modern wargaming - all those terribly throw away small scale skirmish systems which have become the norm in modern wargaming. To do an Impetus army is a long term project, quite possibly open ended one. It was good to have a commitment.

The problem was every year as more players joined, more army lists were added and the tournament scene grew, a new set of annual tournament amendments were needed. After five years or so the main rules were now wandering away from the original and a new edition was needed if just to tidy up. But Lorenzo took his time. Lots of time. As this was happening the flow of new players dried up - it was difficult to recruit new players with the pitch "you need this set of rules, and then modify them with this sheaf of printouts until v2 arrives", and many players have moved on or decided to wait for v2. He's been working on version 2 for about five years and when version 2 was finally released in January my enthusiasm was tempered with some reservations.

So back to last night. After a few shaky starts it started to feel good - rather good. The same smooth play, the core mechanics are solid but have been streamlined. There are some differences which may impact on the overall game, but it is all looking good. There are some changes needed in my armies - mainly the change to basing generals individually, and the old "Rolls of Destiny" have gone, replaced by a new card system which seems quite interesting. Anyway, I'm feeling the old juices flowing again.

So back around our table last night it was rather good. The vibe was something like I imagine a group of old musicians getting back together - including the same frictions and bloody annoying youngsters,  but after a while we found we were slipping into a good, familiar and comfortable  groove - it was all good.

So I'm now looking for some nice Thracian Commanders to paint up, and some light cavalry, and ..................

:-)

The Fantasy Side Project Part 1

Yup yet another one!

There is a plan to put a Fantasy campaign together at Asgard WarGames, linkity link where I seem to be doing a fair % of my gaming nowadays. The players there are thinking of converting their spare Oldhammer figures to use the Sword & Spear Fantasy rules from Great Escape Games. I gather Age of Sigmar is too "skirmishy" for them, and it certainly isnt a project I ever have any chance of getting an interest in. Rather importantly, these rules use group bases rather than individual bases, and the guys at Asgard have fortuitously decided to use the same base sizes as Impetus. When I heard that, my ears pricked up – surely I could use some of my Impetus armies plus a few suitable Fantasy types to flesh them out – that seems very much like “a Cunning Plan”! This looked like another cheap project. In fact I thought, ok maybe £50? That seems reasonable. Yeah.

30.05.17 Rules ordered. £15…not sure if that’s part of the project budget, more the research – we’ll see.

So which army? Clearly I need a theme. Then I thought about the stuff I already had, and for some reason I thought of Jason & the Argonauts, or rather Colchis – the owners of the Golden Fleece. 

This looks like a good idea, its pretty iconic in the sense everyone has heard of them, or at least just about everyone of a certain age has seen the film. It has some great fantasy elements and at the same time I already have both Thracians and Scythian troops from Impetus, and they both fit the “generic foreign” and originate generally in the right area of the Mediterranean \ East to double up as Colchis and their allies, particularly when viewed through the now misted lens of childhood and Hollywood.

So first I need a Golden Fleece! I thought about making one, but there are already a couple on the market. I’ve already got the main troop types so my £50 should be safe for some special bits. Steve Barber makes one in his Greek Myth Range here so why not.....

30.06.17 Golden Fleece ordered from Steve Barber Models. Cost £7.50 plus £4.00 p&p. Does p&p count towards the budget? Not sure, but I suppose so. Total spend so far £26.00. Just over half way there…..or only £7.50 if I ignore the rules (research – clearly a different budget) and p&p (Logistics?)

More in part 2 

Building an Impetus Army Part 3 - Ecce Romani

 or “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

The Early Imperial Roman Army is something of a classic. The hard core of the army are the Legionaries. These are the benchmark Heavy Infantry in Impetus, and they represent the Romans at their most basic, a simple and horribly efficient meat grinder. You feed the opposition in at the front and mincemeat comes out at the rear. You need to take a minimum of four units, and a theoretical maximum of twenty. At a basic cost of 28pts each they’re not cheap, and you can upgrade them to A class if you really want to push the point home.  The trick is to ensure you keep these efficient killers in fighting condition and get them into contact at the appropriate point. The rest of the army exists to funnel the opponent into the blades, or protect them from pesky things like cavalry and skirmishers. 

To do this you have two different supporting arms, both of which are worth getting. Firstly there is the Cavalry. Roman Cavalry is not very special. There is nothing wrong with them, it’s just that they’re a bit err, Meh. They can have some average medium cavalry, and a couple of javelin armed light horse. You don’t get enough of either to make them a main fighting arm, and the opposition are usually either better or more numerous, or both. That is in many ways fortunate in that it makes you concentrate on doing the main thing, staying uncommitted and keeping the opposition cavalry off the Legionaries until they’re in position to do their thing. 

The other troops you need are your light infantry. You get some Auxilia infantry, and a few skirmishers. The Auxilia are a bit of a puzzle in some ways, particularly to new players, as they look a little bit like weak Legion, and they don’t have a missile weapon unlike most other light infantry. They do have a high initial combat factor and also the handy ability to negate the Impetus bonus of warband. They’re also very good at clearing woods – something the Legionaries are pretty poor at, and you really should take at least a couple of units. You also need some skirmishers. These can harry opposition heavy infantry as the Legions move up, or screen the Legions from enemy missile troops.  

Proportionally I think you need enough Auxilia to intersperse them between your Legionaries, so 4 Legions will require 3 Auxilia, 5 Legions 4 Auxilia, That allows you to intersperse an Auxilia between each Legion if you are fighting Warband, or to mass them to fight enemy light troops in bad terrain or operate as a mass on a flank if your opponent does not. Half as many skirmishers as Legions is more than enough to act as a skirmish screen. Your Cavalry force needs to be large enough to hold it's own, or rather not get overrun too early, so one or two medium Cavalry and two light Cavalry are probably enough.

So where does that leave us?

4 Legions @ 28pts each = 112
3 Auxilia @ 23pts each = 69
2 Funditores (Skirmish slingers) @ 14pts each = 28
2 Equites Alares Medium Cavalry @ 23pts each = 46
2 Mauri Javelin armed Light Cavalry  @ 21pts each = 42

Total so far is 297, so plenty to play with if we are planning a 400 point Army.  Romans have an Average or Good Command Structure, for 12 or 20 points, and you will need some Generals too. How many Generals and how good they are is up to you, but at least two. There's a big debate to be had as to the merits of three smaller Commands over two larger ones, but the Romans seem to be able to make 2 work as long as you are careful with the cavalry, so you can split the cavalry into one Command and the Infantry into the other, which is a straight 60/40 split so within the list building constraints. The Romans don't rely on flamboyant or high risk tactics, so they don't really need high value Generals - two Fair, or even Poor Generals will manage, but you do probably need some help from The Gods so maximise on 3 Rolls of Destiny (re-rolls) at 5 pts each.

So here is the a suggested Roman Army based on the above ideas. It's solid, conventional, and efficient.

Average Command Rating
3 Rolls of Destiny

Commander in Chief (Poor)
4 Legions
3 Auxilia
2 Slingers
Total Break 20, Breaks on 10

Cavalry Command (Poor)
2 Medium Cavalry
2 Light Cavalry
Total Break 8 Breaks on 4

Army Break Total 28 Breaks on 14
Total points 344

Your opponent will only guarantee a win if he breaks the main Infantry Command, or the Cavalry and a chunk of the Legion. If you are cagey with your Cavalry he will find the latter hard to do, and if he breaks the Legion its Game Over anyway.

That leaves you 56 points to play with. The Romans get a lot of support options, and plenty of Allies too. The Allies are a bit risky as they have to deploy as a Command themselves, so at 400 points I would tend to avoid them. You could upgrade you Legions to Veteran for 11 points each. Veteram Legions are superb, but if you are fighting enemy Warband you will probably not be doing much other than walking steadily forward so the extra training and experience is probably wasted. Other options are to add a couple of Archer units, or maybe some Light Artillery.

Weaknesses - deep heavy infantry - here I mean good quality Hoplites or Pikes deployed as large units. In Impetus large units maintain their fighting power longer than normal ones, so Legions are in danger if fighting 1-1, however those Large Units are sacrificing width for fighting power, so can usually be outflanked and then surrounded - another good use for your Auxilia.

Charging cavalry can sometimes bowl the Legions over, but they are rare and will certainly be outnumbered.

So that's it - a possible Roman Army for Impetus - next, what to buy and where? 

Building an Impetus Army Part 2 - Which Army?

So picking your army.

I'm not going to say which you should pick - for reasons that will become quickly obvious, but rather give you some things to think about that may help you in your choice.

First - Period or Free?

Are you planning to play in a narrow historical period or take on all comers? Impetus will happily allow you to play armies from the Biblical Era to the end of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, and it will  allow you to use New Kingdom Egyptians against Medieval Burgundians if you so wish. That doesn't mean they are equal however, as armies from different periods will have wildly different fighting styles and capabilities, and unlike Fantasy or Sci Fi armies, they have those styles and capabilities for real world reasons which are mostly to do with their "regular" opponents. As a general rule the later armies are smaller and harder hitting, so if you are looking for "killer" armies Late Medieval ones may well fit the bill (pun), however the earlier periods are often far more interesting AND more fun to play. Again this is very much a question of your gaming group. If there are already a core of period armies it would be best to choose something that fits in, DO NOT PICK HUSSITES*.  There is a good core of "Classical" Period armies in my area, Greeks and Romans etc, so they are a great place to start.

Second - Competitive or Friendly?
Yes we are all friendly around here, but there is a little bit more to it than that. (If you are not a competition player please don't get put off competitions by what follows, just be aware.) The problem with competition formats is you need to play three games in a day, plus time for lunch, fags, cuppa's, a bit of shopping etc. It follows that you have usually about an hour and a half to three quarters to play each game, from opening the box to packing up. Also to "do well" in competitions you need to score well in all three rounds - narrow wins or draws do not help. That means winning competition armies must be direct and to the point - you can't spend too much time softening an opponent up, messing with ambushes, flanks etc or trying a lot of finesse, you just need an army to smash the opponent in the face and shock and awe him into oblivion. The ultimate competition army is of course Swiss Confederates, who are so single minded and aggressive it is hard to believe the same people gave us Cuckoo clocks and Toblerone. Getting hit by a Swiss army is something like getting hit by a truck. The other side of the coin is if you are playing friendlies or not that interested in being a top scoring competition player you can pick armies with more finesse or that take time to wear an opponent down. A good example of this phenomenon in action are my beloved Persians. They lack any real punch so usually do average to poor in competitions, in fact I've only ever came top once using then and that was a fluke. On the other hand they're a great army for club \ shop games where you can take a bit more time and enjoy the game more.

Lastly, and most importantly, do you feel a connection?
Eh? Ok what I mean here is that you need to feel some kind of connection to your army, know a bit about them, or at least find out a bit about them, learn why they fought in the way they did. Impetus armies are a major investment in time and effort, not to mention money, and if you are going to get to the end of that building stage and get the return in enjoyment it helps if you can identify with "The Lads". I'm not suggesting you dress up as Hannibal (you can if you want) but you will get more from the whole experience of building and playing with your army if you have an affinity, no matter how daft or indirect. All my armies are chosen because I feel something about them interests me. I like the  religious pigheadedness and modernity the Hussites represent, I like defending Richard III as the brave and savvy King not the panto villain Shakespeare turned him into, etc etc

* unless of course you are playing with armies from Late Medieval Europe in which case wheel them on, OR if you just take pleasure at watching 99% of opponents stare across the table at you in perplexed puzzlement. Hussites are almost unbeatable in competitions. They are also totally useless in competitions because they rely on your opponent smashing his army to pieces on the front of your wagons. As soon as they realise this you may as well call it a draw and pack up.

Next - a couple of examples of what armies to do, and possible what not to do

Building an Impetus Army - Just in case Santa got the note!

I've been asked a couple of times by the guys in the shop about playing Impetus and choosing your armies, so I thought this would make an interesting post topic (I hope you agree!). What follows is a list of things I think you should think about before you start.

1. Scale
OK I know this seems stupid but "some" people (looking at you Mark) seem to forget that you really need an opponent. Make sure whatever you are buying is in the same scale as the local gaming group, unless you are ploughing a lonely solo furrow, it really helps if your toys are the same scale as your likely opponent. In my area this means 28mm for preference. There are several advantages here. 28mm is easily available, and although the individual figure cost is higher than 15mm and 20mm, you will use fewer figures per unit, so 28mm also tends to be cheaper. Lastly , if you are of "a certain age" they're still big enough to see :-)

2. Cost
The next thing you need to have in your mind is budget. Historical wargaming is not expensive compared to the Fantasy \ Sci Fi stuff around at the moment, and if you are used to paying GW'esque prices this is probably not such a problem. That said do a little bit of a costing per figure to give you a rough idea, and if its looking too rich, maybe think again as if you cant hit the playing points level, you probably wont get to play.... As a general rule historical infantry are about £1-£1.50 each in metal, cavalry between £3-£5. Plastics are cheaper

3. Time
One thing non historical gamers sometimes are surprised by is the size of historical armies. There are a few that can be built at low figure counts, but most are going to be 100+ infantry and at least a couple of dozen cavalry. That can be a significant painting time commitment.  Impetus isn't a "boutique" game with a few figures and simple rules. Building an Impetus army is a much bigger and challenging project. Of course it is worth the effort, but it is a lot of effort and will take you months not weeks to complete.

So that's part 1. If you are still interested I will look at what you should think about when choosing an actual army.

Cheers!

And for completeness I suppose I should mention - Hussites and Derby

Given the earlier post about the Hussites I think it only fair to report on the result of the Impetus Competition and our trip to Derby for Derby World Wargames, which actually happens now in a large shed on Donnington Park. I should apologise for the pics - I'm rubbish with the camera on my phone and was really concentrating on other "stuff" for the most part to take coherent pics..

 The venue moved from the University to Donnington Park a couple of years ago and it is a bit of a mixed blessing. It certainly has more room, and everything is under one roof, but the noise level is high and the other facilities not that great. On the other hand the traders love the easy access and there is plenty of parking. It was as always well organised by the Derby Club, who have plenty of experience at this sort of thing so it runs like a Swiss watch.

The Impetus competition is a small and friendly affair - this year only eight players which put us rather embarrassingly less than the number playing WRG 6th.  It was an open format with the following armies present

Hussite, Chosun Korean, War of the Roses Lancastrian, Thracian, Italian Coalition, Parthian , Carthaginian and last but not least British & Welsh Kingdoms. 

My first round game was against the damned Italians. It was a close run thing, with the Hussites deploying badly and spending the first few turns getting their cavalry back inside the protection of the wagons, then trying a complicated wheeling to get out again. It wasn't quite shambolic but it took time - not helped by one of the generals having a crisis of confident and dropping from Poor to Incompetent. In spite of this I did succeed in turning the Italian flank and it was looking as though I may get a win but we ran out of time, resulting an a low scoring draw. As always the wagons did their thing and anchored the whole army.

Second game was against the Lancastrians. This time I decided to flank march my cavalry with the intention of falling on his exposed flank. This worked, but instead of arriving mid game when the opposition would be strung  out and disordered, they arrived on turn one to find the opposition waiting in their deployment zone. On they charged anyway, to be met by a resounding check all along the front - this shouldn't have happened, and the result was a third of my army was pinned in a corner outnumbered and too far away to be supported. In the end they broke, taking a significant proportion of the opposition with them. Both sides glared at each other, then offered a draw as he had no intention of trying his already battered army against the wall of wagons, and I couldn't launch a credible attack. Another low scoring draw :-(

Last game was against Parthians. This was a beautiful army but totally ill equipped to deal with Hussites. To be fair they did their best, attacking the Hussite cavalry that refused to move far from the  protecting fire from the wagons, `and in the end this was the deciding factor, leaving me with a win that looked a lot better on paper than in reality.

Overall I finished in a creditable second place, and a lot of fun was had. In my incompetence I seem not to have a good pic of armies before we started, however here are a couple of shots snapped between turns of the others.

Other stuff - spending was fairly limited - for reasons I bought some more Hussites (can't resist a Hussite)  and some Pig Iron miniatures Colony Militia, which hopefully will get converted into Serenity\Firefly Browncoats at a later date, plus some interesting fantasy character figures.

The demo games were of typically high standard and almost too many to mention, however mention must be made of the near legendary Sir Rich of Lard Island who was demo'ing Sharp Practice 2

and nearby was more SP2 - this time a Retreat From Moscow

and a final mention should go to the lads of Daruma who were showing off their SLA Industries :Cannibal Sector skirmish game. This looks very much like the one that got away, ie something I would really like to try but know I can't give enough time \ money to. Which is a genuine shame.

So that's my belated roundup of our trip to Derby!

Battle Report - Impetus Koreans vs Persians

I'm off to Vapnartak (York Wargames show) on the 7th Feb to play in the Impetus competition. This will be the first time we've played with the new 400 pt format so my usual opponent "Big Paul" suggested we get a bit of practice in, and it would also give him the chance to get his newly acquired Yi Dynasty Koreans on the table - and get the "new army first game auto loss" out of the way before the competition started. I decided to go with my old faithful Early Achaemenid Persians, but to use the extra 50 points the format gives to upgrade the Immortals to "A" class - never had the points to do that before so I thought it would be interesting :-)

Both armies had 2 commands, the Korean left being 2 units of VBU7 heavy cavalry supporting 4 units of VBU 3\1 Comp B light horse. The Korean C-in C was with his infantry, 2 deep units of B class foot backed by bowmen, plus a unit of rather scary "two sword wielders" and a secret weapon - a rocket launcher!

The Persians were similarly arrayed, two deep units of Immortals supported by two units of Sparabara on their left, with three Medium cavalry (5-2 Comp C) supporting four light horse (4-0 Comp B) facing the Korean cavalry on the right. This was an interesting face off - the Korean heavy cavalry were in theory superior to the Persian mediums, but the Persians had bows and an advantage in numbers. They also had a unit of Thracian Javelinmen bought in case there had been a need to scout any difficult terrain the cavalry could not get into.

Terrain turned out to be uneventful - some broken ground on the Persian left. Here is both armies after deployment

And a couple of pics of the Koreans - very nicely painted by Steve Irvin and based by Paul

 In comparison the Persian looked a bit boring

Turn 1 and the Persians won the initiative, but elected to stand on opportunity. The Koreans advanced a little, tempting the Persian Immortals into a bit of long range shooting which disordered some light horse but otherwise achieved nothing.

Turn 2 and the Persians pushed their light cavalry forward to try and capitalise on the Korean disorder, safely within the protection offered by the line of mediums behind them. More disorder in the Korean light cav, who were starting to look like they were coming unstuck against the slightly better factors of the Persians.

Meanwhile the Korean infantry also advanced

and deployed their secret weapon!

Which missed! The Persians responded with long range bowfire which achieved little other than a couple of disorders which were soon shook off.

Turn 3

Persians won the initiative (Ahura Mazda be Praised!) and their light cavalry pressed home their early advantage, wiping out a pair of Korean light cavalry. Paul realised the battle was swinging away from him so charged with his heavy cavalry. The Persian lights evaded but their supporting mediums declared a counter charge from Opportunity, meeting the Koreans head on. Their was a quick mellee which went in favour of the Koreans, but both sides had suffered losses and the Korean heavies had not managed to maintain contact with the Persians as they fell back, leaving them feeling rather exposed. Whoever won the initiative next would gain a big advantage.

After three equal initiatives the Persians finally won, and like a well oiled machine they started to take the now stranded Korean heavies apart with a combination of point blank bow fire and charges to the flanks. The Koreans broke, but not before a heroic charge threatened the Persian Cavalry commander who survived by the skin of his teeth.

On the other flank the Immortals decided to give an example of how dangerous A class troops can be, and threw themselves across the battlefield and into contact with a rather surprised Korean infantry command. The Koreans proved a tough opponent however and drove the Immortals back, at least initially!

With the flanks now threatened by the arrival of the Persian light horse it was clear to everyone that the game was up for the Korean infantry. The Immortals rallied and fired point blank into the still disordered Koreans before charging in. The Korean artillery was also overrun, breaking the army morale, but not before a brave charge from a surviving light horse unit rode the Thracians down.

The final positions as the Koreans broke

All in all an interesting battle, with both players looking thoughtful and thinking about tinkering with the lists a bit. I was rather impressed with the Koreans who could easily have won the cavalry fight if the initiative had gone their way and they had been able to press their heavy cavalry advantage before the Persians rallied.

Thanks again to Paul fpr the game and Hartlepool Wargames Club for the venue.

Cheers

Dux Campaign March 550 Anno Domini

The first Saxon raid got our Hartlepool Club Dux Brit Campaign off to an interesting Start.

Paul and his Saxons had snatched some livestock and were heading back to the boats through some fairly bleak and marshy terrain - see pic. He also managed an awful pre battle speech which cost him Force Morale points and a Fate Card. My Romano Brits managed to over indulge on the booze "Nunc est Bibendum! gaining two points of force morale, losing a fate card (and two bibamous cards added to the fate deck) followed by some pretty damned impressive speechifying which cancelled out the lost fate card and gave the Lord level 4, at least until he and the troops sober up :-)

Table looking up from Saxon start to their exit at the other end

The ill gotten loot

The initial set up and scenario went badly for him - he only got one turn head start on the Romano Brits , and they in turn came on very close to his forces.

The main British force arrived quickly as the Saxons struggled to get their stolen sheep home

A well thrown javelin slows a Saxon Unit

Romano British arrive in force

The British closed steadily with their Warriors and Elites while the Saxons tried to face them off.

At the last moment the British Lord tried to wheel his shieldwall to give him maximum frontage fighting, only to roll a "6" for the move and the whole formation fell apart in front of the Saxons! Luckily the Romano Brits (me!) won the next initiative, reformed the shieldwall, and charged in!

The fight that followed was hard and bloody, with only the Shieldwall saving the Romano Brits from terrible casualties, and the pre game drinking session hadnt helped, with Paul playing a sequence of Bibamus cards as the melee ground on.

Luckily the Shieldwall held, and the Saxons broke after a prolonged fight, just before the Saxons could outflank it.

Paul wisely decided to abandon the sheep and other livestock and leg it - and I certainly was not going to contest the retreat. The Saxons got away using some well played retreat cards to minimise their losses, the Romano Brits scoring an overall +2 win.

Good fun, and the Saxon threat to this part of the Kingdom has retreated for a while at least.

This scenario went badly for Paul from the outset, and demonstrated just how unbalanced some of the campaign scenarios can be, but in a good way. Had Paul gained more of a head start, or the pursuit not started as close this could have been very different. It also showed some really interesting facets of the rules off to good effect. Shieldwall is great as long as you can close - in the post game chat Paul admitted he made two mistakes, the first being getting involved with a melee with the shieldwall. Even then he almost managed to outflank it, which would have been pretty bad or me. His second mistake was keeping his Lord at the back with the sheep - he thought it was a good idea to survive campaign turn 1, but in doing so he negated his main commanders ability to influence the fight - lessons learned. From my point of view I learned a couple of interesting ones too. Having two Bibamous cards in the deck from my overindulgence pre game left me with some pretty apprehensive moments every time Paul reached for his fate cards. The +\- 1 in combat is bad enough, but the loss of control, particularly when trying to get a shieldwall together, was a very big worry. May make me less likely to reach for the beer next game.

The other point I was impressed at was just how much fighting a campaign game made us both wary of our campaign positions. My losses were initially low but as the fight at the shieldwall wore on they began to grow to the point that even if I won I was risking my campaign status. I'm going to pay a lot more attention to the pursuit cards in my fate hand next time - it may even be worthwhile letting the Saxons win the odd raid rather than suffer heavy losses fighting over a sheep.

Quick and Dirty Dark Ages Part 2

So now I had the figures assembled and based all I had to do was paint them. I grabbed a selection of fairly neutral colours (this is supposed to be the Dark Ages after all) and basically blocked in areas, no shading, no highlighting, bugger all finesse, just speed.

Once done I then applied a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone - or as it is known here "gunk". I brushed it on, using it as a dip is just too messy and wasteful, and you do get some control with a brush. Then I left them to dry overnight.

The final parts of the cunning plan stumbled a bit. I had intended to use Late Roman Chi-Rho style shield transfers from Little-Bigman Studios but these were uncharacteristically late in arriving so I decided to go with some simple geometric patterns - quarters etc. Lastly the bases were painted with earth shades and highlighted, and then everyone got some nice, bright static grass clumps. These are important as they add some brightness to otherwise dull figures and also allow me to tell which group is which - ie one group has a green and yellow clump etc,

The end result after being blasted with matt varnish

I'm OK with these. They look ok on a table at normal viewing distances. I have to admit I feel a bit cheap and uneasy at the speed and short cuts I took, particularly the Army Painter which I'm still not 100% happy with. I tell myself I will go back and add highlights and more detail, these are still works in progress etc (some hope). What I also think is that these guys have now been on table five times, which I think means they have already done about 10 hours "in action" and I probably spent somewhere like a quarter of that time painting them. That is a damned good ratio under the circumstances.

When I first joined the wargames club - 28mm Ancients

When I first joined the wargames club back in the Second Sheet Metal Age, when God's Dog was still a puppy, White Dwarf was in single figures and all that, there was really only one big game, the one that showed you were a serious wargamer - 25mm Ancients using WRG 5th or 6th Edition.

The armies were big and quite expensive, but the biggest and most obvious sign that you played was the big metal cantilever toolbox universally used to haul your troops around - like this, but bigger.

When full of 25mm white metal figures these weighed a ton, and you had to seriously weigh up (literally in some cases) the desirability of adding that unit of Hoplites to the army with the possibility of getting a hernia. This was particularly the case at the Hartlepool club where the games rooms were on the top floor and only accessible by a series of about a hundred narrow stairs.

Things have changed now of course. The arrival of cheap plastic figures from Perrys, Gripping Beast,  Wargames Factory, Warlord Games, Conquest, Agema and Victrix have made 28mm (scale creep) ancients gaming both cheap and portable.

So yesterday we had a great time playing Impetus at Waugh Games - half a dozen like minded souls just having a good time doing ancients like the old days. We had six players and a good selection of armies - A Republican Roman, Early Imperial Roman, Ancient Brit, Carthaginian, Selucid, and Mongol (there's always one)! We were playing 350 points which is the current competition standard. One interesting point was just how small the two Roman armies were - probably because they both went for a lot of A class legionary units.

So here in no particular order is some pics I shot between moves

Selucids vs ABs

ABs lining up

"The important thing about a pike is the unpleasant stuff happens a long way away" Selucid Pikemen ready to roll

Meanwhile the ABs camp is full of the usual pre fight activity

Mongols vs Republican Romans

OK there are not many of us but we are A Class and rock hard - and also very pretty - Republican Romans

Early Imperials advance against Carthaginians

Hanibal and his lads get stuck in - this ended badly for the EIR Auxilia

Oh look, bloody Mongols outflanking AGAIN

Selucids bracing for impact

EIRs doing the grinding thing they do so well

Republicans bouncing Mongols (the suspicious Cav on the end is a proxy Mongol)

and now the Mongols are in the rear - AGAIN

Crunch

Sometimes having the longest stick is worth it

More bouncing Mongols

Selucids vs Republicans

EIRs and ABs

A road? Mongols try to get even farther onto the Carthaginian flank

EIRs grind towards the ABs

Selucid vs Republican Romans

EIRs vs ABs

EIR setup vs Carthaginians

Proper wargaming :-)

and here is an interesting thought - most of this was plastic, with the odd metal figure in there. You could probably buy a 350 point army using plastics for £60-£80. That's brilliant