Word Bearer Dark Apostle

I'm old enough to remember when George Michael used to sing about Faith, though I doubt he was thinking of this chap's.

This is a Fine Cast model from Games Workshop. Like many I've never been a fan, not quite as detailed as a metal casting and certainly not as resilient as either plastic or metal.

But if cleaned (no easy task) and primed properly a reasonable paint job can be applied and for a while it was the only way to get older, rarer unit types.

This recently finished fallen marine is part of the Word Bearer contingent coming to Morgoth XIII.

Plancenoit - Total Battle Miniatures

I'm flirting with 6mm at the moment and I've been looking at figures (more of which in another post) and of course terrain.

This is Total Battle Miniatures Plancenoit kit which I'm very impressed with. It comes with twelve buildings and a flexible mat which gives the town a bit of structure.
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Even my slap dash, paint job can't disguise how cool the kit is.

There's now a whole lot of famous Hundred Days buildings now sitting on the workbench. Just need some very mini minis to fight over it.

League of Augsburg - Leipzig Part 2

In my earlier post on this game I promised a few more photographs and some explanation as to why Monsieur Murat was swanning around in the river.

The layout was straightforward - the villages of Dosen and Dolitz formed strong points to the front of the French lines then behind a river sat the main French strong point of Probstheida.

Allied forces use a duplicitous dice disguise to sneak up on the sleeping Italians.

Initially the French strategic plan was to fight to the last Italian though the ones on the left flank clearly didn't get those orders. Having missed an early morning Cossack caller as their commander was 'indisposed' these chaps proceeded to have a balmy day of sitting around idly speculating what all the noise and smoke was about, whilst the entire Allied army waltzed passed without hindrance.

Dear Mamma, Having a relaxing time in Saxony. Weather good though neighbours noisy - Dosen at the end of the battle

The Italians at Dolitz initially proved equally lackadaisical. It was foggy and an entire Russian brigade managed to sneak past the pickets and blunder into the only deployed French battery who were annihilated without a shot being fired.

The Italians in Dolitz decide whether or not to make a last stand of it...

The contest for Dolitz was short lived with the Italians either following the Emperor's instructions to the letter and dying to a man or succumbing to stereotype and running at the sight of anything resembling an Austrian or Prussian trooper.

The Austrians a bit like the no22 bus - wait all day then 50,000 turn up at once.

Murat had his warning and whilst attached to a Neapolitan infantry battalion became the first officer under my command to have something positive happen when rolling for officer casualties. Yes! In the next round of combat the troops were to be inspired by their King's heroism (or perhaps dress sense) and get a +1 modifier to morale!

Unfortunately, there weren't any men left to benefit from this unheard of circumstance.

Murat escaped the infantry's annihilation and headed for the bridge but whilst trying to force his way through a couple of untouched but unnerved brigades he was toppled into the river by a sharp elbowed private with an eye for advancement (a man after my own heart!).

The crush on the bridge

Thus the fate of the King of Naples was sealed (mirroring that of Prince Poniatowski at the same battle).

Murat takes an early bath

The rest of the engagement was taken up by two major events, the first was the dogged Allied assault on Probstheida which was defeated more by the river, marsh and steep approach than the valour of the French. The second was an almighty cavalry jam which prevented my cuirassier brigade from charging a few cheeky Jaeger who had nipped up the hill to take some pot shots.

The combination of marsh and a steep slope prove too much for the Allies

Finally the road did clear and after two and a half hours my cavalry moved into charge range but, before tests could be thrown, the commanders declared a draw.

Final Score:
Kings of Naples: 0
Killer Colin:        1

Chimera

A little bit of transport for the growing Imperial Guard army.

 

 

Fully equipped with a twin flamer and mega-big dakka as an Ork might say.

As ever GW model.

League of Augsburg - Leipzig

A few pictures from the League of Augsburg game in Irvine on April 10th 2016. More pics and a full explanation of why Murat is getting his feet wet to follow.

Going Analogue

There comes a point in most long games when I realise I have been doing something completely wrong. In the League of Augsburg refight of Waterloo last October, this inevitable epiphany came half way through the Saturday when it was pointed out that I had not only been calculating the number of skirmish fire groups erroneously but also inadvertently halving the movement of them in wooded areas. Fortunately my opponent round Hugoumont way has such vast experience of my bumbling ineptitude that he kindly calculated his own skirmishers' fire and movement in the same manner for the remainder of the game. As usual I was left thinking to myself there has to be a better way to keep track of these things than bundles of paper and naturally my thoughts turned to computers.


What was the close combat bonus for Piedmontese Jaeger units comprised entirely of Pomeranian circus folk? Book is Waterloo - Warhammer Historical

Readers of this blog (all five of you kind gentle folk) will be aware of the occasional confessional tone that can pervade; not only am I cursed/blessed with wargaming as my primary personal interest, after Jo and the kids obviously (you never know who might be reading this) but imbedded geekery extends to my working life too. I'm in computers, as they say, I wish they wouldn't it sounds way too contagious.

So, given the problem and given the profession when hit by my inability to follow basic rules and the embarrassing sound of my voice pestering the one umpire who foolishly held my gaze as it swept the room pleading for help with the same question I asked last round, I immediately think - write a program.

When learning to map out decision trees I used to take old sets of war games rules, Warmaster for example, and translate them to flow diagrams and then into applications. The algorithms in most wagames are reasonably straight forward with each calculation having a limited number of outcomes (usually between 6 and 12) and modifiers (usually between 6 and 20). Surprisingly the area that takes up time is entering units into the program whether this be via a database or an xml file. The order of battle for Waterloo for a game of Republic to Empire would involve the creation of hundreds of such entries and then there has to be a way to quickly search and edit these even after they have been inputted.

Some judges avoid the authors pleas for help by sitting at the opposite end of the room and fiddling with their cameras (Barry, Gerry and Bob from the League of Augsburg)

But I rarely got that far in a conversion. The first item is to write something that simulates one or more die rolling and the result is, to me, rather soulless. You put in the firing unit, the target unit, the range and pop get an answer - quick, accurate but lacking drama unless you're running on some retro hardware from the 90s. I like the act of calculating the number of dice required, running my finger down the tables and testing my (often in-) ability to count to ten. I love the anticipation of the little cubes rattling around and occasionally off the table, the bursts of laughter from onlookers (particularly when I roll for officer casualties); the counting and recounting of hits and so on. Despite the likelihood of inexcatitude brought about by three or four players wrangling a couple of dozen tables it feels much more fun that way.

So, I would like to apologise in advance to all the umpires, particularly those from the League of Augsburg, who will have to continue to patiently listen to my weedy requests for clarifications, judgements and reassurance. Feel free to roll those eyes whilst I get on with rolling those dice! 

(If you've read this far, congratulations you managed to get through a post that mentioned, programming, flow diagrams and had a Colin confessional. Truly you have exceeded your recommended caffeine intake for the day!)

Stern Guard

Just proving you can't keep a Blue Marine down - some Ultramarine Stern Guard.

Plenty of detail on these chaps as you would expect from a modern(ish) GW plastic kit.

Some of which hasn't been obscured by my rush paint job.

All they need is a far flung battlefield somewhere...