Don’t go down to the woods today.....

You’re sure of a big surprise. A week or so ago having seen a lovely Warrior Priest on Michal’s blog I thought it was a long time since we had seen any of my Warhammer collection on the table. So for another virtual game I developed a simple scenario where the Empire forces led of course by a warrior priest were looking to clear out a nearby Forrest populated by dark creatures of the woods. No doubt the local village has seen a number of raids taking place, people disappearing etc...

We played with Dragon Rampant for ease as it works better for simple virtual games. I didnt take too many photos and realised afterwards that i didnt take a photo of the Beast / Herdstone which was actually located 3/4 of the way between the Empire entry corner and the Beast corner. The scenario required the Beast to set up two units randomly selected at the Stone to protect it the rest would arrive from the other three corners randomly on a dice roll. The empire would come on all from one point. The winner would be the side holding the stone when one army was down the only 3 remaining units

Onto the action...

The Empire forces also have a Griffin

As a ‘flyer’ this charges across the table making short work of a small unit of beast scouts but they do manage to get a wound on it

The rest of the Empire men spread out although they make slow progress

The braying of beasts as centigors and and other horned demons charge out of the Forrest (i should just say at this stage that although we dont play much Warhammer these days and GW have completely messed up, the concept, back story and world created for warhammer is in my humble opinion second to none i absolutely love the concept of the beleaguered human population living out their lives in constant fear in a dark medieval fantasy world)

The griffin is distracted by another herd who manage to rag it away from the objective

Greatswords playing as elite foot knights should be able to cut though the beasts

It not all the beasts are so small a massive Minotaur leaps forward towards the handgunners

My mounted warrior priest armed with a very large Warhammer ! He has magical spells but doesnt really make these count 

Swamped the greatswords are outnumbered

Hey see off the first assault but are then hit from the side as well

Wounded the Minotaur is eventually felled by the heavily armoured knights

But it is all over............and the Empire forces are forced to flee the Forest 

In reality the Empire forces never really got going and were hampered by some very poor dice rolling, this is sometimes the way with games although it was great to get the figures on the battlefield. i do miss Warhammer and am thinking about how we get some more games when face to face gaming is back.

In the meantime i have been prepping lots of figures....including a side line in Early WW2 German Zombies which i am looking forward to painting 🙂

All sorts of stuff done in my holiday week

Bit of a catch up on stuff I have been doing between walking and cycling, but back to work this week so less hobby time.

First up a Sentinel Steam Wagon, they were still making them up to the end of the war and this corgi 1/50 scale is copied from a picture from about 1930 so it does fit my Operation Sealion, of course it’s local relevance to Kent made it a must have, but I have been waiting for one to come on eBay at a cheap price it finally did 🙂 not sure what a collector would make of my deliberately distressing it but it was far too shiny before. This will be coming to battlefield as soon as I can.

These are the last of a large batch of second hand Black Tree arabs I had to paint up for Al Andalus, my shield designs are not particularly inspiring but they contrast nicely with the colour of the unit.

Finally a few might remember that back in November I picked this up at a show, it was slightly damaged on the base so I created a bigger base to hide the chips. It is very heavy as it is almost solid resin !

Same unit as above for scale, it will see its first battlefield in Al Andalus, I will probably add a magnetic cross / crescent etc to the top.

So some nice progress, thanks to those who gave advice on blogger, I have reverted to the legacy version which appears to work just fine 😎 long may it last.

Waterloo 205 Anniversary

We had a game planned for Thursday evening so it seemed like a good (rare) opportunity to my old Napoleonic figures out for a skirmish/battle. I didn’t have time to plan anything to historical, and this would be another down the line virtual game so a simple scenario would be best. I don’t get these figures out very often as they are an odd mix we modified Rebels and Patriots so we didn’t have to learn any news rules. They seemed to work fairly well and gave a fun and close battle. That is more than can be said for Blogger which is giving me real problems ? If I disappear from the bloggersphere you will know why 😢 

The British march forward, the scenario (entirely fictional) involves capturing two bridges outside the small town on the Belgium border

The French coming on in there usual way 

Both forces are mixed but with Line infantry a small element of cavalry and artillery

British light infantry move up into the woods

..... and the Guards move into the orchard

The young guard advance and gain a bonus unit of Cavalry (Double 6’s were very plentiful on the French side !)

British heavy cavalry is pushed back by the French cannons

French light infantry advance on their left flank

Holding the wall line whilst the Hussars are sent forward 

French Dragoon’s charge recklessly over the bridge, at this stage the French did appear to be heading for a comfortable victory, the British already struggling and pushed back...

The dragons just fail to charge the Guards regiment in the orchard

The Scots greys decide to also through caution to the wind and gallop forward

But looks what’s waiting for them !

They manage to wipe out one regiment of the young Guard but then are wiped out themselves 

The French heavy cavalry had been notable by its lack of backbone and when they take a full volley in the flank from the Back Watch in the trees they high tail it to the rear !👍

But more french infantry assault the bridge

And advance in the centre ..........no Prussians coming to save the Brits today !

The highlanders are having none of it and assault the Young Guard on the bridge ......desperate hand to hand fighting

Meanwhile another volley sends the French light infantry packing as well, the battle is possibly turning

Give them the bayonet lads.....hoorah !

.....and again, the Black Watch live upto their reputation but when the remaining french flee they are mercilessly cut down by grape shot, paying for the bridge with their lives

The British commanding officer moves on to the bridge, before also being unhorsed

But finally the battle is up, both sides have worn themselves out, the French cannons have been devastating, but there are just enough British infantry to hold and claim the bridges.

A very close game, not taken too seriously. It does make me think i should do more Napoleonics and I have thought for a while that I could modernise and expand my collection with suitable 20mm figures....perhaps a project for another day ?

And still the weather has been good so my holiday week has seen a lot of time outdoors walking int he Lake District 

Blencathra

Sheep (the dark ones are Herdwick’s which are very famous highland sheep in the Lakes)

The beautiful northern fells.

So assuming this isn’t my last post ! And blogger settles down take care and see you soon 🙂

Mounted Arabic Crossbowmen and lots of other stuff....

Seem to have been busy again, but I have a week off...originally planned as a holiday in wales but instead spending it at home in the Lake District. Blogger seems to have messed up how I load photos ? But my BlogTouch app still seems ok. Anyway a mixed bag before I blog up a recent virtual fantasy battle from the other evening.

First up some Al Andalus mounted crossbowmen, these are the first Artizan figures to join my AA collection, they are lovely solid casts, not too complex, very like Crusader miniatures, they do a good range and I already have a unit of infantry somewhere to paint.

They are based so I can use them either as a small unit or in Lion Rampant games as shown above

Having completed pretty much all the RCW figures I had, I obviously ordered some more. All infantry and a mix of Reds and Whites

Can’t remember if I had blogged this previously but picked it up off eBay a while ago for Sealion games. Maidstone is close enough to find itself in SE Kent, I have given it some dirt and decided the very white lower sections needed to be darker. Apparently this is wrong as they were white around the base for the blackout but it just looked wrong

I also painted up these wall sections which I picked up at a show second hand if anybody knows who makes them I might pick up a bit more as it is lovely characterful terrain. Very simple paint job with some red/brown paint

I had this picket fence but rarely used it because it wasn’t on proper bases so I got this fixed with a view to the AWI

Some signs I made a few weeks ago for RCW got quickly painted up as well, so I feel quite productive, following Norms suggestion I am looking at what next I could buy to support all the non shows happening.

...and I have been doing some more walking, I won’t blog every trip as I plan to use this week to get active, but the weather has been really nice for the last few days.

Brotherswater 

Little Hart Crag looking NE

Even managed to get Mrs Dungeon out this morning..........👍

Take care all 😀