Some Chivalric Characters

I thought I would show off some of the chivalric characters for my early Medieval troops whilst musing about how to utilize them in Hail Caesar. My collection has, in my view, a decidedly Arthurian feel to it. One of the tropes in the Arthurian stories are these knights showing up all in solid coloured livery and matching shield, so I took some of the figures I thought had a bit more character and turned them into such champions.

I was thinking assigning these champions some of the special rules from Hail Caesar, and as long as they are alive (make them test for wounds in combat just like a general) the unit they are with would benefit from that rule.

Of course we have to have a Black Knight. He may not be completely evil, but he is a force of chaos and lawlessness, defying the rule of law which Arthur, and of course Good Count Raymond, wish to impose on their truculent barons. He's usually with the Black Company's cavalry.

The Black Knight

Next of course is the White Knight, heroic and virtuous. A knight without peer or reproach. This is a Gripping Beast Norman figure I got in a random assortment. I thought he looked defiantly heroic and rather tired. Just the sort of guy to keep fighting against the odds because it's the right thing to do. His shield is white, but with some cut marks on it.

The White Knight

I always enjoyed Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in school. The idea of a 'fairy knight' in archaic armour and lost in time appealed. I also wanted to paint one of the Games Workshop LOTR Rohirrim, just because.

The Green Knight

Next up is the Red Knight, full of berserk rage and leading furious charges against the enemy. He's from the Old Glory Crusader Command set.

The Red Knight

Of course, the Courtly Romances of the era often feature troubadour knights, wooing the ladies with songs and using their wit to defeat their enemies. The knight is from Old Glory's Norman Command pack from a anecdote about a Norman Knight who inspired William's host before the battle with the 'Song of Roland'. His fool is the old Games Workshop jester, which I got back when GW had a warehouse in Canada and you could buy separate bits.

Guillame d'Or, Troubadour Knight with his fool

They count as two figures in a cavalry unit obviously. The fool's acrobatics and quick wits making up for his lack of a horse and weapons, obviously.

Yes, they are inspired quite a bit by the similar character in a very old Bretonnian army list from a few editions ago of Warhammer.

Finally there's the Brown Knight, or Hermit Knight, Sir Abelard. He went to the Holy Land, was presumed dead and his true love went into a convent. When he returned after many years, he took vows of poverty and chastity and lives in a small hermitage, patrolling the roads for bandits. He looks old and grouchy to me. He's from the OG Crusader Command Pack and is supposed to be the Hospitaler Grand Master.

The Hermit Knight

Cardinal Berengar is a command figure. He's from the OG Crusader Command and is supposed to be Grand Master of the Knights Templar, but I have little use for Religious order knights in my setting. I thought a devious clergyman encouraging Fulk in his rebellions might be just the thing. So he gets a good command rating (9) but adds few combat dice (1) if he gets stuck in.

Cardinal Berengar

Here is Iago the Black, Mercenary Captain of the Black Company. Cunning and intelligent, he gets decent command rolls (command 9, combat +3). He is also the only figure I purposely bought for the Black Company. The rest were second hand dark age figures bought cheap and unified with some black paint and wash to hide their otherwise garish paint schemes

Iago the Black, Captain of the Black Company

Fulk the Bastard, illegitimate son of Raymond (he wasn't always so good in his youth and now suffers for it) with his Raven standard. He's from the OG Norman command pack. I had my friend Dan add the hawk to his out stretched hand, because otherwise he looked kind of goofy. He is Command 8, combat +2.

Fulk the Bastard, the constant rebel

Good Count Raymond, patron of the arts and sciences, a kind and just lord to his folk. He's taking his role as Lord of the Realm very seriously. Command 9, combat +2.

Count Raymond

Henry the Lion. One of Raymond's major Barons. A more traditional fighting, hunting, feasting kind of lord and less into the benefits of education. But he is a just lord in his own rough and ready way. Command 8, combat +3.

Henry the Lion

I am of course still on the look out for a suitable Blue Knight figure. And I haven't totally ruled out a company of religious order knights, I just haven't figured out the back story to fit them into the realm of Mantovia.

Some Babes, and a couple of Grumpy Old Men

I was working on my cards for my Sharp Practice on the Northwest Frontier project and had a couple of blanks left on the last sheet and remembered a couple of more Pathan characters to photograph. While shooting them, these lovely ladies wanted to get in front of the camera too. I'm pretty sure they don't need their own cards, being more of distractions for the Big Men.

First up is my bazaar dancing girl. I suppose she could be a spy. Or just table dressing. She's a Reaper figure.

Next we have the damsel in distress. The Tea Merchant's or Governor's kidnapped daughter awaiting rescue in the evil chieftain's mountain aerie. Her attire is generic enough I suppose she could even be a Medieval damsel in distress about to be burned at the stake. I got her and the next one at Historicon 2008 out of a big bin of discounted babes at the Ironwind booth (she's a former Ral Partha figure). She was actually the most tasteful female captive figure, the rest were drifting more into BDSM  fantasy:

Lastly a naked bathing beauty, which I admittedly purchased just for puerile gratification. I should have photographed her backside too, it is rather nice. But she can always be put on table to distract Col. Flashman from his mission.

Here's the Mad Mullah, preaching Jihad. You have to have a Mad Mullah. According to the illustrated weeklies there was always a Mad Mullah fomenting rebellion along the Frontier. He's a Gripping Beast Moorish character. Give him an AK47 instead of the sword and he could be modern.

Finally, the reason I went to take the pictures in the first place, the Wazir of Pakhora. He is a RAFM figure. I got him second hand. But someone on the Miniatures Page found his listing on their website; Wizard in Sedan Chair; item number RAF03750. The scribe is from a Call of Cthulhu set though. I have a second sedan chair piece which I'm thinking of attaching to the back of an elephant.

Digging In

I was gifted some bags of excess figures by a friend. Some British and some Germans. The Brits and some of the Germans were kinda of old fashioned and boring sculpts without a lot of animation or detail. A lot of pioneers with mines and flamethrowers. Even my nephew turned his nose up at them when I offered. Some of the Germans were kinda of interesting; all late war helmet covers and zeltbahns, wielding StG44 assault rifles and panzerfausts. Enough to organize a platoon of Volksgrenadiers.

But the idea didn't stick and I wasn't too keen on painting them up. So I chucked them all in a box to sell off at Hotlead. (Trying to be clever this year and sort my Bring and Buy stuff out early instead of the night before.)

Then I had an even cleverer idea. So clever you could put a tail on it and call it a fox.

I chopped them in half.

I cut a bunch of 25mm by 30mm bases (a Flames of War small base I believe). Then I squirted on nice little rounds of caulking and smoothed these into roughly oval/rectangular embankments. Before the caulking dried I buried them in my fine sand.

Slit trenches

The next day I shook them off and glued two half figures into each slit trench.

Dug in Canadian platoon

 Don't worry, after the picture was taken I straightened out the squaddie leaning against his fellow.

Section of Germans

So I've done all the Canadians and have enough for a dug in platoon. For the Germans however, it looks like I've got a couple of platoons worth with lots of MG42s once I fashion some more slit trenches for them.

Some Hail Caesar

Had the boys over last night for a game of Hail Caesar. Didn't get to prep things as well as I would've liked and then had wireless issues when Patrick was trying to buy $200 worth of stuff from the store.... so game got going late and I was fair frazzled when we finally trooped down to the basement, but everyone had fun anyway.

My camera died, but Scott R. stepped up to be combat cameraman for the night and sent me his snaps.

Fulk the Bastard has recruited the mercenary Black Company and some Moorish allies and raised the banner of rebellion against the Good Count Raymond. He has also enlisted the support of some unholy allies (as if the heathen Moors weren't bad enough!). The witches gave any unit with LOS a reroll on a failed Morale Save once per turn. Came in very useful when they remembered to use it.

Fulk's household troops

Moors advance

Villagers watch the storm gather around them

Hillmen hold Raymond's right

Raymond's host musters

Heavy infantry on Raymond's left

Raymond's chivalry in the center

The Bishop wandering about in full vestments was able to give the Count's troops some divine aid in the form of re-rolls and Rally commands as well.

Both sides made a generally disorganized advance hampered by universally crap die rolls and fighting along the length of table (the deployment zones chosen in spite of the terrain obstructions because people didn't want to shift their seats!).

I pushed my foot into the village and the crossbowmen started potting at the Black Company causing some hits.

Patrick advanced his Moors and then the hillmen swarmed down to beat them up causing  a lot of hits and making some units Shaken. I managed to get one charge in with a squadron of knights to finish one unit off, but more crap command rolls meant I failed to get the rest of my cavalry up to exploit and ride down the rest of the heathens and opening the enemy flank.

Raymond's knights ride down one unit of Moors

In the center Mikey attacked piecemeal and was held at bay by my troops in the village. Unfortunately I only got the spearmen up to support and never managed to roll enough to get them in the front of the fight!

On the left the Black Company also advanced piecemeal, the cavalry getting shot up and forced to withdraw. One company of foot finally pushed me back from the fence and the second company advanced to get pincered by foot and knights at game's end.

The Black Company push me back in the center...

...and get destroyed on the left!

So a victory of sorts, not a great victory. No tactical brilliance was demonstrated by either side. 

In that year, Fulk the Bastard, enemy of God, did raise the banner of rebellion against the Good Count and did hyre many heathens and black-hearted soldiers of fortune. There was much stryfe of fyre and sworde throughout the land...

Lessons learned are to include the special rules on the order of battle sheets I made up (I noticed that everyone, including myself, was forgetting them), have some predone armies and order of battle sheets already sorted, so I can spend my pregame time setting out terrain and deploying armies, and maybe getting a smaller wargame table so my larger friends can fit behind it and won't feel like they need to cluster at the ends.

Of course once the rabbits have hopped off to the Big Warren in the Sky (and they are 8 years old now) there will be more room in the basement once again. I might even get a permanent painting table again! 

The Hobbit 2: the Desolation of Canon

Daughter No. 2 had a bit of cabin fever during our Christmas holidays, so she suggested a delightful father-daughter movie matinee (we hadn't had one since her 5th birthday when I took her to see Disney's Hercules)to take in the second installment of Peter Jackson's latest epic, of The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug. Long time followers of this blog will know I am a complete and total hobbit-head. I would spend lottery winnings (should I ever get any) building a hobbit hole to live in. I think Tolkien is the greatest writer of the 20th century (as stated here). I really like the idea of second breakfast and try to have it as often as possible.

So last year I was rather disappointed by the first installment of the 3D Hi-Def thrill ride that has become the Hobbit. Of course, that movie was operating under the terrible burden of anticipation of a frothing fan who had been looking forward to it since he was maybe 12. Mrs. Rabbitman, with much lower expectations, was pleasantly surprised. I did see part 1 again later in the year, in 2D with no-Def and actually enjoyed it.

So this year I was resolved to get out and see part 2, before the 2D regular definition viewings were gone. Part 1 of course pre-warned me to Jackson's vision, so I sat back with a big bag of popcorn and just enjoyed the over-the-top, adrenaline fueled, thrill ride that only bears a passing resemblance to the beloved book.

Sadly I think all the deviations from the book added too much padding and took film time away from some parts that I really quite liked (such as Bilbo's teasing of the spiders). The fight with the spiders, cut short, the sojourn at Beorn's homestead, also cut short, the search for the door and waiting for Durin's Day, cut short,... everything just jammed together so we can have Tauriel the elf archer girl, the barrel chase scene (which I have to admit did give me a few laughs), a fight with Orcs in Laketown and Thorin and Company fighting Smaug in the caverns of the Lonely Mountain.

There were a lot of WTF? moments.

I did like the barrel chase scene, and Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown was brilliant as usual.. I also liked the extra depth given to Bard. The whole political conflict added to Laketown was interesting too.

This fake movie poster from Cracked.com kind of sums up how I feel:

So I have rather mixed feelings. I will get the boxed, extended DVD set, if only to view the making of documentaries, because Peter has a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Looking backwards and forwards

Been looking over this past year on the blog and thinking about next year, as one does. Life is entering a new phase with the girls and the job and some adjustments need to happen.

I think that 25% of this year's blog posts appearing in the past month (after finally getting a new job) indicates how much time and energy my job search this past year really took out of me and my painting/gaming. I do find that my reading, painting and gaming all sort of feed into each other. I'll paint a new model and want to game with it, or read a new book and suddenly I want to paint and game that subject. Start diverting time into the depressing field of job hunting and it all kind of grinds to a stop.

It's also been bloody hard to get the boys together for a game too.

I didn't get much painting done this year. The Medieval artillery (which still aren't played with),

and a bunch of additions to my SYW Austrians (infantry, jaegers, artillery),

 for WW2 I added the 17 pdrs

and sniper teams to my Canadians (neither have been played with)

and have as Works in Progress some PSC Churchills, plus just yesterday I got platoons of Fallschirmjaeger and Canucks based for Chain of Command.

Did add a bit of terrain with the redoubt,

the 4Ground buildings

and the grassy fields. But no churches.

For games there's not much to report either; no ancients, no medievals, a bit of SYW with the Padre, one Colonial game

and a bit of WW2. My Sherman squadron hasn't had a chance to hit the table again after being chewed up by Kampfgruppe Peterson last August.

So this coming year I'd like to paint more and find a way to play more. Perhaps with my morale improving I'll be able to get back to some commission work too. Being on afternoons every other week should help with the painting at least. Although the mandatory overtime every weekend will complicate scheduling games.

The plans I made last February for my Medievals didn't get very far. I should push those plans along as well as my Sharp Practice on the Frontier games. I have been working on some nicer cards for that using Google images etc. And Chain of Command has, if you hadn't noticed, grabbed my attention, so moving that along and getting those platoons painted up seems like a good idea. I have thus far resisted starting 15mm Russians for WW2, maybe I can keep resisting this year and spend more on terrain and whittling down my lead pile.

Playing some more Hail Caesar and Black Powder also seem like good ideas. Nice fast moving rules that can accommodate a group. The glory days of getting together every Saturday night with 4-12 gaming friends seem to be well and truly gone. We're all older, busier and more tired. This year I'm hoping to play maybe once a month with 2-6 players.

So that's the plan anyway. Let's see how long it lasts until my wargamer ADD acts up.

More Chain of Command with the Padre

The Mad Padre just put up a lovely game report of our town fight on Friday using Chain of Command and my spiffing new 4Ground buildings.

You can see his post here.

Suffice it to say the good Padre opened a can of holy whup ass on me as my poor Canucks got hammered under a barrage of 80mm mortars and then shredded by massive amounts of MG42 fire. I thought I was being clever taking a Wasp carrier as support but it never got on table. In hindsight it would've been smarter and more economical to have taken a FOO and an extra section, or maybe an extra 2" mortar even to smoke the crap out of him.

My jump off points were all kind of bunched in the center as well, I should've used the cover on my left and pushed out in that direction during the patrol phase to give me some flexibility.

Live and learn.

I am going to base my last platoons of Fallschirmjaeger and Canadians on some 15mm round bases for more Chain of Command however!