Crisis in the 3rd Century

It was a year of turmoil, as many were at that time. Usurpers, pretenders, generals raised to the purple by mutinous soldiers. Another year of swords and fire and sudden murder in the dark.

Duplicitous, Comes of Raetia, along the Danube frontier was one such, and found himself marching west with some Roman troops that had declared him Imperator, and a host of Gothic mercenaries, to have a show down with a rival, Gladius Maximus, Comes of Germania Superior, who had a tribe of Franks filling out his army. The winner would get to march on Rome.

Dan was very excited and had searched through his figure inventory and pulled together a significant force of Frankish troops and was getting them nice bases for Midgard. So for Saturday's game we decided to pit our armies against each other. Each of us had a core of Roman troops supplemented by a significant contingent of barbarian feoderati. Both armies came to 450 points.

I won the roll and got to set up second, so I deployed my cavalry on the right, facing his Frankish foot and skirmishers. My center and left were in two lines. Gothic warriors in front and then four units of Romans supporting them from the seond line.

Duplicitous' army on the left, Gladius Max on the right

I refused my left and attacked with my right while advancing and pinning with my center.

My Gothic feoderati cavalry crash into some Frankish warriors

Dan maneuvers a band of Frankish warriors in to engage my supporting line

Gothic skirmishers about to get smacked out of the way.

Lines clashing in the center. I put the Goths in front with the Roman troops in support.

Gothic cavalry enveloping Gladius' flank

Facing off against Frankish skirmishers

Fighting is general in the center. Upper left you can see Gladius' Roman cavalry trying to turn my left wing which I've refused

Gothic Hero Hengist (R) level 2, takes on the Frankish chieftain (L) who is a level 3, but wounded (but presenting a really lovely command stand in spite of that)

Hengist wins after 2 rounds leaving the Frankish King food for the crows. This put Dan at -1 Reputation

So I had to finish the turn and not let bad dice or disaster steal the victory from me.

To finish the turn my cavalry keep pushing. I just need to stay in the Plus for Reputation

Equus Fornicatus, Gothic chieftain leading the cavalry, has his squadron of cavalry killed but challenges the wounded Frankish hero to single combat and slays his opponent!

End game on my right

End game view of center and left

My Reputation at the end. The replica Roman coins were Dan's idea for Reputation and Mighty Deed Tokens

This game saw our first two single combats which was very cool. Having them decide the victory was even cooler. I'm sure Wagner will be writing an opera about this in a few centuries.

This was my ninth game of the year. I'm doing pretty well on that front. I'm also really enjoying the heck out of Midgard.

Death to the Man-Things!

Another batch of Skaven has rolled off the painting bench of the Underrealm. This group has a Midgard unit of 8 more heavily armoured clan rats and two more rat ogres, all ready to wreck destruction upon the kingdoms of men.

Look closely and you can see regular rats poking out by their feet

Love this guy, Wish I could do an entire unit or two of him as Stormvermin

And two poor, tortured, and quite angry about it, rat ogres. If there aren't humans to kill I'm sure they'll take their frustrations and pain out on the closest warlock.

Used red ink to make the skin around the Horned Rat sigil look angry and sore and probably infected

Green contrast paint over yellow and then some red ink in the skin cracks to make this look very ouchy as well

Each rat ogre will be it's own unit, with some 3d printed swarms of giant and regular rats to fill their base out with.

Painting is pretty simple. Brown undercoat, Dry brush steel bits. Block paint the skin, clothing/rags and fur (using GW Vermin Fur!). Then it's burnt umber ink wash. Highlight metal again and do some dteails like the warp stone and claws.

Done.

Only 5 more units of clan rats, some artillery and some characters to go. Might have enough to play with then.

Duplicitous and his Legates

The Mad Padre had some Victrix Roman commanders going spare, so he sent me a sprue of them, which produced three mounted heroes for the plastic Roman army I'm building with Wargames Atlantic figures.

Yes, they're 1st century AD rather than 3rd in costume, but I think your Senatorial class Romans were more conservative in fashion. That's what I tell myself anyway. I seriously doubt we'll see plastic late Roman commanders any time soon. I suppose I could convert some Gripping Beast Late Roman cavalry figures, if I could find proper 3rd century heads.  And then you're cutting into how many turmae of cavalry you have. 

Each sprue can make a Senior Commander. He's in a purple cloak, because he's been proclaimed Imperator by his troops, whether he wanted the job or not. "In for an obol, in for a sesterces!" as the Pater used to say.

A Subordinate Commander. I gave him a yellow crest to command the cavalry as the Magister Equitum, whenever Wargames Atlantic makes them. 

Note I'm not putting the subordinate commanders in red cloaks. The red cloak is very much the symbol of the Commanding General, so he and the next are wearing nice brown or grey woolen military cloaks.

And a mounted Centurion. I removed the transverse crest and gave him a crest from the Wargames Atlantic set. I just don't like the transverse crest that everyone seems to fetishize. Yeah, I said what I said.

With the longer stride on the horses, the last two wouldn't fit on my usual 40mm washers, but fortunately some figures that I've got from Footsore came with a selection of nice MDF pill bases to mark them out as a little different from standard rectangular bases.

Full Ahead No.1! Markers for Snorkers! (Good Oh!)

A connection on Bluesky has taken to Snorkers! (Good Oh!) and being a clever chap, has designed 3d printed counters, which are easier to handle than the card chits.

USS Nicholas under Full Ahead 

Evasive Maneuvering markers

You can get the stls here.

The Mad Padre has gotten himself an FDM printer and gave me a bagful when we were catching up at Hotlead.

I painted them up, which was pretty easy due to the high relief.

Clockwise from left: Evade, Bridge Hit, Squadron Activated, Director Hit

Engineering Hit, Fire

I did the Full Ahead in reverse though. I thought the arrows looked like the wake of a ship at speed. Although painting the depression was a bit of a palaver, requiring touching up the arrows again.

USS Helena has tried to evade torpedoes but has taken steering damage and has a fire

I also received my 1/1800 scale prints from Don. So now I've got USN, IJN, RN, and RM to start working on!

Comparison in the two scales

Measuring heavy cruisers and battleships to get an idea of bases needed. HMS Eagle in the foreground was free, so why not?

I'm going to need bigger bases! I think I'll order some 2mm mdf from Warbases. I think 3mm is just going to be too chunky looking unless I go with clear acrylic, which is double the cost.