This Old Black House

At Hotlead I bought a box of lovely poured resin Hudson & Allen early and high medieval buildings from an estate sale. 

As purchased there's a couple of smaller buildings not pictured 

The three stone "dark ages/highland" buildings were what I really wanted because I've always fancied doing some Picts to fight my 3rd century Romans, especially now that there are a couple of plastic options to build a Pictish warband with. The Medieval buildings were a nice extra and worth paying a few more dollarbucks for the lot.

As you can see my friend had painted them rather unimaginatively without much in the way of shading or depth or highlights. As you can see above, the roofs on two of the Pictish houses were a solid dark green, the same green he painted the grassy bits on the integral bases with. And the third with the sand roof is just well.... ummm. Let's just leave it at that.

So everything got a nice coat of burnt umber ink and then I started drybrushing. Couple of shades of grey on the stone. Couple of shades of green on the sod roofs and the grassy bits of the bases.

After fretting over how to paint the sod roofs I said "Sod it!" and decided to just use the same flock that I would put on the ground.

 This took a couple of nights to accomplish. And then after shaking off the excess I went over the bare patches, which were sculpted to look like old roof in need of refurbishment, with watered down burnt umber.

With out any Picts yet, some of my Romans are checking the village out.

And the Quar like them too. I think these will be nice for any Quar living in the rugged mountainous regions of Alwyd.

Praefect Carolianus Silex

I was commenting on Bluesky about the fact that my 3rd century Roman force was going to make a tidy army for Midgard, I just needed a mounted commander to be suitably heroic.

A message slid into my DMs from Carole Flint (read her blog here). "What's your address? I've got extra Victrix Roman Generals."

So after quizzing me on head and horse options, she very kindly sent me the parts to make this fellow. Who arrived last month after being delayed by the Canada Post strike.

He didn't take me long to assemble or to paint really. Honestly he was done so fast during a Friday night Zoom paint-and-chat session (yes, a friend still organizes one every week), I set him aside for a few days before basing, just in case I'd forgotten something.

As a nod to my benefactor in Bristol, I've named him Carolianus Silex. Hopefully he'll do better than Shakespeare's tragic hero.

I've been calling him a Tribune, but I guess he's actually a Praefectus Cohortis. My Romans are modeling a Cohortes Equitata, a mixed infantry and cavalry auxiliary cohort. These units did a lot of the hard work on the frontiers, while the legions were further back building roads and plotting rebellions.

Now I really must get my thumb out and make some 120mm movement bases and finish my Goth/Rohirrim heroes so I can play some Midgard!

Riding to Ruin

Had Scott and Weirdy-Beardy over for some Middle Earth action Saturday night. Used both Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant to get my newly painted Rohirrim on the table against a wolf heavy orc raiding force out of Mordor. 

We played the "Sausages with Mustard" scenario from Lion Rampant. The Orcs have to burn the village. Both sides were 43 points, with no magic or heroes. I did give my Rohirrim chief's household the 'blood thirsty' upgrade (which equals 'venomous blades' in Dragon Rampant). Because the armies were bigger I made the force holding the village 6 points instead of 4.

The table with new trees. Orcs deploy in the far corner. Rohan comes in nearest corner.

Forth Eaorlingas!

New light cavalry go wolf hunting

Villagers (light foot with javelins) forming a shield wall including the Bad Squiddo female villagers. 2 pt unit of skirmishers on the far side. 

Rohan right wing sweeping around the village

This unit of light cavalry got game MVP by shooting up both units of Wolf Riders

On the other flank two packs of wolves (Lesser Warbeasts) and my black Wargs (Greater Warbeasts) savaged the Riders opposite them saving the orc flank.

Orc infantry close on the villagers

More wolf hunting

I did not get a picture of my Rohirrim chieftain and his comitatus crashing into the 3d printed Orcs with polearms. It was bloody, but glorious! Paying for the "Bloodthirsty" upgrade paid off by rolling three 6s and driving back the uruks, although the chieftain and his bodyguards were reduced to one figure.

Eventually Scott was down to 1 units of goblin archers still standing, whereas I had some light Riders, and some foot to hold onto the village. A bloody victory indeed.

Forth Eorlingas!

I have finished the second box of Gripping Beast plastic Goths at last! Took me 18 days to paint 6 cavalry. Ok I did prep my game for Lard Eh 3, make some autumn trees and record a podcast plus assemble 2 Sarissa churches (they aren't done, so I haven't shown you yet) in there, but still. 

I based these ones on singles to add to my previously completed figures so that I could form the 6 figure squadrons into even ranks of 3.

This gets me to 1x mounted hero, 4x squadrons of heavy cavalry and 2x squadrons of lights, plus 3x shieldwall foot units and archers. At Lard Eh I bought a them a shield maiden as well, so there's a 2nd hero once she's painted.

That should keep the orcs busy. 

Rohirrim/Gothic Chieftain

The next unit of Gripping Beast Gothic cavalry has trotted out of the flocking paddock. I liked the leader waving the sword so much I decided that this group would be my army commander/Gothic Chieftain/Rohirrim Lord with his comitatus. I decided that to mark them out as extra spffy they'd all get grey horses.

I know JRRT doesn't mention draco standards in the books, but they are a) cool and b) pretty common with ancient central European cavalry heavy armies, so I think the Professor would be OK with them. So very appropriate for my Chieftain when he's a Goth fighting the Romans, and why not when he's Adhelbert, Lord of the North Downs! defending the Northern marches of Rohan from marauding orcs. He missed Theoden's muster to march to the Pelennor Fields and instead fought alongside the Ents and Elves from Lothlorien at the Battle of the Entwash.

In Which Mr and Mrs Rabbitman Dine Out

Mrs. Rabbitman and I haven't been to KEGScon since 2019. We were all set to go last year, but some niggling health problems made me decide to cancel at the last minute. But this year I committed to running a game of Lion Rampant and even painted up more troops for it, booked our hotel room well in advance and made dinner reservations for both evenings.

Mrs. Rabbitman likes going with me. She enjoys the hotel and Chatham has some nice restaurants. So while I was playing, she was enjoying the room, reading, napping and watching TV. Rinse and repeat.

On the Friday night there was a social and whiskey tasting hosted by Hot Lead Team Members Joe, Pablito and David. Brian ran a Battle of Britain game while Pablito and Joe served drinks. I've decided that whiskey tastes to me like turpentine. So I drank water and had a good visit. Then we played Groo the Wanderer card game until far too late for me. I paid for that next day.

Saturday was the main event. There were about 50 people in attendance participating in 15 games over the morning and afternoon sessions. In the morning I played a Sharp Practice game set during the War of 1812. The scenario was the historical action at Cook's Mill in October 1814, with the Americans trying to cross the creek and outflank the British position at Chippewa. This apparently was the last battle fought in the Niagara theater during the war.

British begin deploying. Some American rifles are in the distance

American infantry advance

American dragoons try charging the Glengarry Light Infantry, they will be wiped out and their officer captured. The 100th Foot deliver some volleys to drive off the rifles.

British artillery opens fire, engaging the American infantry across the creek 

Situation at game end. American advance across the creek has been stopped

A quick lunch in the hotel restaurant with Mrs Rabbitman and then I had to set up my Lion Rampant 2nd edition game. I decided to give the new pike rules a showing and fulfill a lifelong dream of having a big Swiss army to finally take on my Burgundian army

All the Swiss on table at the same time, at last. Although I can't help but think that they need more flags.

Burgundians deploy. Both armies are 80 points, divided into 3 divisions.

For once things went the way Charles the Bold would have wanted. The Burgundian archery shot up the advancing Swiss and their attacks were piecemeal. Things were looking shaky on the Burgundian right, but then the Swiss commander was killed in a combat and things fell apart for the Swiss player.

A couple of Burgundian units were battered or routed by Swiss pikes, but not enough and eventually most of the Swiss army was retreating. I think next time I should make the Burgundians a little less shooty. Or Fearful so they have more fragile morale.

The player commanding the Swiss left shared a bunch of pictures with me.

Swiss advancing 

Burgundian Foot waiting 

Burgundian skirmishers feeling out in the cold

Swiss left pressing onwards 

Swiss center and right trying to push into the Burgundian arrow storm

A fierce fight threatens the Burgundian right flank

Burgundian Gens d'Arms attack

Swiss advance is pretty ragged

Swiss left is broken 

Swiss rally and try again!

Endgame 

There was some What a Tanker in the evening but I felt like rubbish after dinner so I didn't join in.