One Weekend Two Games

Two very different games this weekend. 

Romans on the right. Palmyrans on the left. Both starting with 11 Reputation

Saturday Evening, Game 28

Pasha Dan messaged me on Thursday to see if my Romans wanted to face a Palmyran army in a game of Midgard. I tweaked my army list a bit to make it more shooty, and hard hitting, since I'd be facing a nasty combination of cataphracts and archery.

Palmyran center. Their one unit of heavy infantry is just to the left.

Cataphracts

So many cataphracts. That's Zenobia following along behind on her camel.

Weirdy-Beardy was on my side with my 3rd century army. Electical Pete and Handyman Huw ran the Palmyrans with Pasha Dan giving colour commentary from the sidelines. I failed the roll and had to set up first. I decided to keep my cavalry all together on the left wing and anchored my right on some low hills and brush. I put more centuries of infantry in the front line, only keeping two back in the second. My eastern archers were depoyed as four units of skirmishers across the front to increase my shooting.

Carolianus Silex in the center

The Palmyrans faced my cavalry and center with a mix of horse archers, massed archers and skirmishing archers, and one unit of heavy foot. Five units of cataphracts ("knights" armour 4, hit on 4+ in their first combat) with the general braved the rough ground on my right to try and ride down my infantry.

Archers fail to evade! But they used up that unit's 4+ initial attack.

My cavalry had a good day, getting in several good charges and eliminating the opposing light horse before smashing the sole unit of heavy infantry. My cavalry leader was wounded by Palmyran arrows, but held onto his Today We Fight to Win Mighty Deed until that final charge so that the Roman cavalry rolled over the Palmyran heavy foot.

Meanwhile, Weirdy-Beardy has been getting pushed back by the tide of iron horse, and things were getting tense. My Prefect, Carolianus Silex and Centurion Primus both put in local counter attacks, using Today We Fight to Win. Weirdy-Beardy charged into the opposing General's squadron who rolled three 1's on the Risk to Heroes, a Roman spear thrust obviously finding a fatal chink in his armour and putting him in the dust. That coupled with losing a unit of Cataphracts caused the Palmyran Reputation to be at 0 by the end of the turn.

Both sides are hurting. If not for this Risk to Heroes roll, I'd have probably broken first.

Sunday Evening, Game 29

Big Pat has been busy painting all of the 1/2400 scale WW1 Starter Squadron Packs from Dobbie's Hobbies that he got at Hotlead. 

He's got enough done that he was ready to try a small game of the fast playing Dread Not! rules.

Russian pre-dreadnought coastal battleship 

Turkish pre-dreadnought 

Turkish dreadnought (formerly the SMS Goben)

Russian torpedo boats

Russian battleship, the Rurik I think

The set up is interesting.  Pat had to deploy first and a die roll determined how far from the center of the table and in which direction. 

I then rolled for my bearing and got to set up on the Turkish starboard quarter! Presumably our fleets were steaming around blindly when the weather cleared and we sighted each other at very close quarters!

Of course battleships have a maximum range of only 20", so we were probably several kilometers apart.

Opening moves. My cruisers (left) are moving behind the Turks, while my torpedo boats move in for an attack. My battleship squadron (foreground) is steering to try and bring their broadsides against the Turkish battleships. 

Firing is general. My torpedo attacks roll very well, sinking a cruiser and a pre-dreadnought.

The Turkish dreadnought Sultan is still crossing my T (my battleship is in foreground)

End of game. Torpedoes and guns sink the Sultan, but my cruisers (left of frame) are both torn apart by Turkish torpedo salvos.

That took an hour to play. Of course if my deployment roll had put me further away there would have been a few additional turns of maneuvering.

This was quite a small game for these rules I think. Gunnery is to simply add up firepower brought to bear by all ships engaging, compare with target armour to get odds, and roll on an old fashioned Combat Results Table. 

Damage is mostly ticking off boxes until you sink. Not nearly as detailed as Snorkers, but Snorkers isn't trying to do fleets actions. 

Shell Shattered Woods

If I'm going to have Quar running around WW1 battlefields then I really need shell blasted trees, and lots more craters, to be honest.

Verdun

James Mogsymakes has been doing some really lovely looking Great War Chain of Command. His terrain is rather inspirational.

While rummaging about in the basement looking for something else, I found some old, abandoned attempts at making 15mm field positions out of old gift cards and CDs as bases, with plasticene to build up the banks. I thought, "Why not combine this with my use of Gorilla Glue and sand?"

Striking while the creative madness was upon me I set to, trying to ignore the Quar squawking about getting painted.

Sticks from the garden were broken roughly at one end and cut straight at the other. Flat end was hot glued to the base. I also used hot glue to build up some crater shapes before adding Gorilla Glue over top. I let the hot glue set up and then brushed water over everything. I then applied beads of Gorilla Glue, leaving the center of the craters free, and spread it around with a Q-Tip.

Before the sand

I made sure I reinforced the tree joins with more Gorilla Glue over the hot glue. I then covered each base in a deep layer of sand as the glue was applied.

In a second batch I made craters from plasticene, glued those in place and then covered them with more Gorilla Glue and sand to try and get deeper craters.

Notice foaming blob of Gorilla Glue at base of closest tree trunk. Covered with some more sand after taking picture. It happens. You just add a bit more sand to cover.

Excess sand shaken off. Awkwardly located pieces of gravel removed.

Base coat of Burnt Umber applied.

After dry brushing with tan and grey-green

Even after all that, there was still some bits of DVD base and bright plasticene not covered by paint, so those were fixed with some burnt umber and a medium pointed brush.

I then poured some Woodland Scenics Realistic Water Resin into the craters that I had deliberately left smooth and dark brown, making sure I had a level surface to leave the pieces on to dry. Two layers were needed.

Finished bases

24 hours are needed to cure after each layer of water effects. I made sure the cure was done before flocking, because that green stuff gets everywhere.

While I was at it, I also found these two hasty defensive works made with twigs and sand glued to old iTunes cards. They just needed a bit of paint and flock to make them usable for Quar HSG teams

I am so pleased with the result I started on another batch of nine more iTunes gift cards. I'm running out of sand!

Quar Terrain

To further increase the First World War theme for the Quar,  I obviously need barbed wire sections.

After weeks of looking at how-to videos, pondering,  planning, and over thinking, I decided at 9 PM last Sunday night to quit fucking about, and just do it! and started making barbed wire sections. 

I laid out sixteen 3"×1.5" bases on a piece of fiber board paneling. Cut them out with a knife and steel ruler, beveled the edges, and drilled holes with an electric drill. 

By bedtime at 10, I had this:

I cracked on with the first eight to learn as I went. After gluing in all the posts, sand was glued on, and things were let to dry until Wednesday:

A spray of Tremclad Leather Brown and then dry brushing craft acrylic Cashmere Tan and Vallejo Grey Green. Posts were dry brushed craft acrylic Slate Grey.

This is the same palette I used for the trenches, to keep things visually consistent. 

The posts then got some brown ink.

Then flocking. You can vary the amount of flock for more tortured landscapes.

Then it was stringing wire. No glue. I'm just twisting lengths of screen window mesh wire around the posts. A couple of feet for each section, so there were at least two, and sometimes three strands between each post.

I then hit the wire with some brown ink to make it look rusty.

While inking this section I realized the wire was a bit thin, and added some more to thicken it up with more strands.

I also decided to make some scatter terrain featuring craters and broken wire while I'm in the zone.

The craters are formed with a bead of Gorilla Glue and sand.