Fire Forge Samurai Minis

 

After watching the new vesions of Shogun I was once again hooked in the Feudal Japanese history and the later Sengoku period 1540 -1600.

Ofcourse the FireForge plastic range  The Samurai Wars was the answer to give me my Samurai fix. I always has had a soft spot for the FireForge minis, the last I built was their Almughavars back in 2022.

I got me a few boxes of Samurais and Ashigarus,  I also managed to get hold of a preview sample of the new Samurai/Ashigaru Command Sprue that I thought I should share some pictures of below.

It is a really nice addition to all the other boxes that lack command minis, you probably want to get hold of several of them if you want Ashigaru command minis in all your units, I will try to do the most out of the ones I have and convert the other command minis needed.

The box have 3 sprues, samurais, Ashigarus and Horses that will give you 14 minis, 3 mounted samurai and 11 samurai/ashigaru on foot, including Samurai on a chair and 2 kneel down, as well as a mox of shigaru officers, musicians, ammunition handlers, banners and ofcoures the umbrella holder, a very important man in every Samurai army;) 

The command box are still up for pre-order on the fireforge website untill the end of November.

Now Im of to build me a Samurai force for The Pikemans Lament, more to come.

Age of Penda

Planning on puting my Romano-British and Saxon minis up for sale as I dont use them much. Painted them some 15-years ago and they been through some tought battles, last one back in 2018 if I recall right. 

So I thougt they would see one last outing trying my matey Dan Mersays "Age of Penda" rules publiched by Wingalf Miniatures. I have been involved in playtesting the system but in the 100-year war version "Arrowstorm" so the Dark Age one are new to me. I like Dan´s Dux Bellorum rules set  during the same era of history very much so I have good hopes for Age of Penda to.

I just got the .PDF of the rules so cant say much about the printed book  The Rulebook as well as the .PDF can be ordered at WargameVault. The rules are 32-pages in an easy to read layout with out any pictures. 

To play you will need 2 armies of 6-15 units (basing or scale dosent realy matter so need for re-basing etc.), some 6-sided dice, 6-10 tacktical tokens that are markers to use on the Tactics Chart (picture abowe) that is one of the main elements of these rules.

You will also need a offset gridded battle fileld that are 5 rows with 5 or 4 squares in each row, a total of 23 squares. I used some markers to show the gridd. Might say im a bit dubious about the gridds, it makes the moving easy but i dont think the game look as good as without.

Each army are made up of a quite narrow amount of troop types, just 4 of them, Mounte Warriors, Armoured Warriors, Unarmourd Warriors and Skirmishers (only unit type that can shoot). one of the units have the Leader includend.

Each unit type has a cost you pay to recruite them in your force.

Despite the low number of different troop types I feel that it is enought to represent a large amout of different dark age armies, Dan has included 4 sample armies in the rules, all with different compossition and tactical chalanges.

Each turn the players start to place their Tactical Tokens on the Tactics Chart when all tactic tokens has been places the player alternate to perform the actions choosen from the tactical chart. Most of the actions activate all unit in a square, you can have no more than 3 units in a square at any time.

there are a bunch of basic actions like Shoot, Rally, Move, Battle but also 8 special actions that gives you the opportunety to get the best out of your units, like get your Warriors to throw javelins etc. 

All in all I like the "Age of Penda" rules, they give me fun, fast and managable dark age games, all I need:)

Wont give you a blow by blow AAR but can say that the Saxons managed to win it all, mostly due to poor dice rolling in the combat between the Romano-British Mounted Warriors and the Saxon Unarmoured Warrios with Skirmish support. below a bunch of pictures from our game, the warband composition and lastly a picture of the victorius Saxon taking the spoils of war.

Romano-British warband was composed of 3 Mounted Warriors  (one with the Leader), 2 Armoured Warriors, 3 Unarmoured Warriors and 2 Skirmisers.

The Saxons fielded 1 Mounted Warriors, 3 Armoured Warriors (one with the Leader), 5 Unarmoured Warriors and 2 Skirmishers.

Desperta Ferro! - Fireforge Almughavars

Santa brought me some of Fireforge plastic Almughavars so I thought I shold share some pictures of the frames. The box have 24 minis with 6 different body poses and a lot of arming option spears, javelins, swords, shileds and of course the classic large knifes. There are also a banner and 10 different head options. you get 4 main frames and 4 weapon frames. and bases in the box

I like the minis very much, especially all the different options, so many they wouldn´t even fit on the normal frame but Fireforge opted to add a separate 1/2 frame with weapons etc.

I painted a lot of 15mm Almughavars some 12 years ago for my FoG Catalan Company army so it will be nice to be able to filed them as 28mm for a Lion Rampant Catalan Company warband, and the 24 minis is just enought for two 12 man units, just need to add 6 Knights, 12 Crossbowmen and 6 Light Cavalry for a full 24 point warband:)

Longboat

I have just got the two resin Longboats I ordered from Games of War that costed me £10 each.

I like them very much, they are quite big, measures 20.4cm (8") in length and is 6.8cm (2.67") wide, so I will be able to fit in a bunch of minis from the Dutch Landing party for our Salute game Fort Mosquito in to them as well as rowers.

Below some pictures, I added a mini with a round 25mm base so you get a feel for the size of the longboats.

CONGO - Adventures in the Heart of Africa

CONGO from Studio Tomahawk are probably the best looking wargaming rules I ever got my hands on, at least top 3 with Donnybrook and ...?

Anyway I must really say that Fred Machu have made a greate work with the layout of the CONGO rulebook that are the latest wargaming rules from Studio Tomahawk (SAGA, Musket and Tomahawk, Jugula).

It is a set of skirmish rules set in the Darkest Africa as imagined by newspapers at the end of the 19th century. You play one of 4 diferent fractions The White Men Expeditions, The Sultanate of Zanzibar, The Forest Tribes or The African Kingdoms, each of them allows you to bring different warriors and characters for your African adventure. Each of the fractions would need about 25-35 minis, depending a bit on wheter you bring expensive elit warriors or more cheap ones. The gaming are are needed are quite small about 120x90cm would be enought.

The rules in them selvs are easy to understand and quick to learn and gives a good and interesting flow to the games much due to the activation cards that can limit you ideeas but also give you a puch in the right direction at a crucial time. The rules uses D6, D8 and D10 dice to describe the miniatures abilitys, the higher the better.

What I really like is that they managed to get a "mental" view to the combat to by making it possible to influence the minds of your enemies. They might be so scared that they performe lousy in the following combat or maybe even has run their way, leaving your White man explorer all by himselvs surounded by jungle cannibals.

What I dont like about the rules are all the markers needed and that ruin the good look of the gaming table... suppouse I can cope with that, but still a bit annoying.

The 8 Scenarios are presented in a stunning way, in the form of a 1870´s Newspaper "Le Bulletin de la Société Géographique", very inovative and gives a good feel for the era.

They also managed to keep out of the dubious exploitation of Congo by King Leopold of Belgium as they have placed the settings a decade before King Leopold hired H.M. Stanley to conquer the Congo Basin for his to be Congo Freestate.

The CONGO Rulebook are hardcover, full color and 108 pages. You also get a deck of 44 cards for activations and a Punch out sheet of tokens and measuring sticks needed for the game. Ofcourse also 4 double sided "The Bulletin" sheets (8 Adventures for the game) and a Double sided Dangerous Terrain sheet. The Rules cost £34 wich feels a bit costy in my mind, but you get plenty for your hard earned cach, and you won´t need that many minis to get started.

Dice (D6, D8 and D10) and Miniatures are not included but both Wargames Foundry and North Star Miniatures have Box Miniature Sets for each faction in the game.

If you got the funds for it and like darkest Africa gaming I would defently recomentd the CONGO rules as they give interesting and fun games and best of all the production value and layout of the rules, very inspirational indeed !

Deus Vult - Burn and Loot

I just got my copy of Fire Forge games latest medieval wargaming rules, Deus Vult - Burn and  Loot.

Deus Vult - Burn and  Loot specifications:
Format, 21cm x 29cm, paperback.
72 color pages,
Cost €23

The rules are for "big skirmish" games i.e minis are single based and grouped in to units of 2-48 minis. The authour state that you can simulate any kinds of battle, from small clash between border patrols or within cities, to large battles and attacks on strongholds.

The Rules are quite easy to get hold of and won´t be any problem to learn easy. There are several pages in the rules about seige warfare and rules to handle it. There is 9 different  scenarios are includede and 12 different Army lists, and more army lists are prommised on the fireforge website.

The book are full color and sprinkled with inspirational wargaming pictures with minis from Fire Forge.

A small one evening game would use forces of about 500 points, below you can find a example 500 point army that I made using the Kingdon of France army list found in the rules

1 Battle Leader (each force get one for free but have to pay for any addiationa equipment of wich some are Compulsory) 0pts + 55pts  (Chainmail, Horse with chainmail barding, Sword, Shield, Lance)

9 Chevaliers (knights) 25pts each = 225pts (minimum 4 minis in each unit)

24 Feudal Speramen 4pts each = 96pts (minimum 12 minis in each unit)

24 Crossbowmen 5pts each = 120pts (minimum 6 minis in each unit but you can max field 2 units)

In total 10 Knights, 24 Sperman and 24 Crossbowmen and you would get it all from 1 boxes of Fire Forge Knights and 1 box of Fire Forge Foot Sergeants.

Time to prepere for war !

En Garde! Swashbuckling Skirmish Wargames Rules - Review

I have been fortunated to get a copy of the latest Osprey Wargaming rules, En Garde! Swashbuckling Skirmish Wargames Rules - OWG12 by Craig Woodfiled, so I thougth I put up a short review of the rules.

Some basic facts:

En Garde! 
SWASHBUCKLING SKIRMISH WARGAMES RULES OSPREY WARGAMES 12
Author: Craig Woodfield
Illustrator: Peter Dennis
Short code: OWG 12
Publication Date: 20 Jan 2016
Number of Pages: 64
Paperback: £11.99
Want a copy: visit Osprey webshop.

First of all I want to stat that I love the Osprey Wargames, OWG-serie as it gives me the chanse to try out nice sets of rules, to a fair cost, that I probably never would have if they should have been published in a 200 pages hardback books. Just by that reason I try to get all the rules published in the serie, 12 so far and they all give me good reads and inspiration even if I´m not really in to the period.

The period that En Garde! focus on are a period I really like and are well in to at the moment, due to my work on the Pikeman´s Lament rules, that also will be published as a part of the OWG-serie, but not untill early in 2017, so it was with a very nice interest I started to read the En Garde! rules.

En Garde! is a small-scale skirmish game based on the Ronin rules (that also been writeh by Craig Woodfield and published by Osprey in the OWG-serie, OWG4), in which small groups of warriors fight each other for honour or riches and the rules covers the conflicts of the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries, when black-powder weapons started to become common in battle but martial prowess still determined the outcome, as the backcover so nicely state.

The layout of the book are as good as ever in the OWG-serie and one thing that really lift the En Garde! rules are all the stunning new artwork by Peter Dennis, that in combination with greate miniature pictures make me get a good feeling for the kind of game En Garde! want to play out.

I have to admit that I´m a bit biased regarding the En Garde! rule as I have had a go with the Ronin rules and I thougth they wasn´t my cup of tea. The rules had, at least for me, a to steep climb to get a smooth running game, suppouse I wasn´t to perseverant either.

So it was with a dubious feeling I started to playtest the En Garde! rules. The flow of the game are more or less as in other games, in each pahse of the turn the players take in turn to activate their minis, nothing starange at all and a nice way to get a interesting game. There are small differences from the Ronin rules in the game flow and I think that is good, cant decide if it is because the authour wanat to streamline the game or if his view of Japanese warfare difference from European warfare, either way I like the game flow better in En Garde!

The rules in general are well writen but I think that some parts of them have a bit to complicated explanation, like all steps that need to be run through to solve a shooting action, as well as close combat, are a bit confusing, with lots of additions, subtractions and refering to different tables.

As an example I have quoted a part of the Shooting Procedure:

"The model that is shooting roll 2D6, adds its Shoot characteristic and then adds or subtracts other modifiers to this roll (see below). The weapon being used (see Arms and Armour, p21) and certain Attributes (see Attributes, p.23) can also introduce relevant modifiers. Once all relevant modifiers have been applied, the final result is the Shoting Attack Roll.
Subtract 6 from the Shooting Attack Roll. The resultin number is the Hit Score. If the Hit Score is 1 or more, than a hit has been scored. If the Hit Score is 0 or negative, the attack has missed. A successfill Hit Score then becomes the Basic Wound Score. Add any relevant weapon modifiers, and subtract the targets´s AR value to calculate the Final Wound Score and refer to the Wound Table (p.17)."

This sort of mathematics and refering to different table to solve a simple shooting action are a bit to much at least for me, that evedently start to grow old. But as you learn the rules and have played more game than I have, I defently think it will work as smothely as ever in any other set of rules.

It is more or less the same procedure to solve a close combat, but one main difference as the use of Attack/Defence counters that you use to control the fight and the tactic you use - offensively, defensively, or by applying special skills and abilities. This I think is a really nice way to make a close combat interesting. Most often close combat in skirmish games are quite boring, go in and fight untill one are defeated. my only objection are that the minis are looked in the fight by the end of the close combat, I personally prefere the minis to be separated by the end of the turn so everyone are free to move, but that just how I like it.

After my first readthroughts and playtest I indeed think the rules will work fine as soon as the players are geting over the first learening threshold and have learned to run the shooting and fighting in a smoth way.

In the Rules there are also a guide for how to build your own warband list as well as a bunch of example warband lists like Border Reivers, Conquistadors, Landsknechts, Aztecs, French Musketeers, Caribbean Pirates and several others but no one based on Swedish history...

There are also several scenarios that are possible to play out on a 24"x24" gaming board and that is really of my liking that you don´t need a full gaming table as I sometimes just want to set up a quick game at home on the kitchentable. There are also set of Simple campaign rules allow multiple scenarios to be played in sequence and permit warbands to develop over time.

An appendix is also included to provide brief rules for supernatural creatures of the period - monsters, demons, revenants and witches - and new abilities and equipment to fight them, good for gamers who want something a bit different from the norm.

As I said in the begining I had a dubious feeling for the En Garde! rules I have had more games now than with the Ronin rules that uses more or less the same rule engine, I still feel that I need to have more games under my belt to really get past that initial learning threashold that I experience with them. While one have gone past the initila learning I really think they can provide very interesting and intense Swashbuckling games, much thanks to the use of the Attack/Defence counters that make it possible to personalise you fighting style and also add a lot of flavour to the close combats.

Considering the low cost and the greate productions value, the Peter Dennis artwork need to be praised again, I would recomend you to try them out  Give En Garde! a bit of time or be a faster learner than me and I think it is well invested money. I also like that En garde! is a set of rules that dosent need a tremendous amount of minis, 2-3 minis in the fist test games and maybe 6-12 minis later on that also will give good games in an very interesting period of our History.

I hope my little review have helped you out in someway. If you have any questions regarding the rules don´t hesitate to post them here and I try to give my view of it all, or we might have to solve any issus with the baldes...En Garde! ;)

Dragon Rampant - Review

A few weeks ago I got a advance copy of the upcomming rules in the Osprey wargaming serie - Dragon Rampant by Daniel Mersey.

I thought I should try to give an objective review of the rules, but it can be a bit tought as I really love the Lion Rampant rule engine and I and Dan also working on the Pike and Shot rules -The Pikeman´s Lament togheter that also uses the same rule enginge...

I hope my short review any way will be of help to decide if youe will spend about £12 on a set of fantasy rules.

I haven´t really played much fantasy wargames or done much fantasy project sins I stoped playing Warhammer Fanatsy some 10 year ago, a small detour in to LoTR miniatures ofcourse, but not much more, sins it coulden´t really compete with historical wargaming.

One thing that I have wanted to start up are a "Skägglavefantasy" (Treemoss Fantasy) project as my matey Jonas, unfortunate he lives some 450km south of me, so I haven´t had a chanse to participate in any of his games, but he is a greate inspiration. Now I might have the rules to get me going...

Dragon Rampant 
FANTASY WARGAMING RULES OSPREY WARGAMES 13
Author: Daniel Mersey
Illustrator: Craig Spearing, Mark Stacey, RU-MOR
Short code: OWG 13
Publication Date: 20 Dec 2015
Number of Pages: 64

So what to expect from Dragon Rampant, is it just Lion Rampant with a Dragon on the cover ? No not really, but one thing that should be cleare are that the rule engine from Lion Rampant are more or less the same and described with the same text, but with a fantasy touch. For me that is not a problem as I love the Lion Rampant rule enginge and way fix something that are not really broken.

Even with the same basic rules Dan have done a greate work to add tha fantasy flavoure to the rules as well as he have added special rules for Warbeats, like trolls, dragons and other stuff you ofcourse want to include in your fantasy games.

To handel these warbests and heros Dan introduced Single or reduced model units and Strenght points, wich gives you the possibility to field a single mighty hero/wizard with 12 wounds/Strentht points. It is a good solution to be able to keep the 6 or 12 man units but in a 1 to 3 man unit, each model just have more wounds, my only issu are how to keep track of them as I have small dices on the gaming table to see how wounded a mini or unit are... but the problem shouldn´t be to hard to solve.

The main thing that makes Dragon Rampant different from Lion Rampant are the Fantastical Rules, this is the rules that add the "Fantasy" to it all, like Flyers, Magic, Undead etc. You may, to a cost (most often), add Fantastical Rules to any of your units, this making them most often more expensive in point cost so a Dragon Rampant warband will be of lesser size in miniatures compared to a Lion Rampant retinue.

You will also find 6 new scenarios in the rules, all with a fantasy flavour to them, if you field a Warband of halflings you might want to try the Ringbearer scenario.

 As in Lion Rampant there are no "official" army lists for Dragon Rampant, but Dan have ofcourse been kind enought to include 15 sample warbands so you will have a good guide in how to build you warband and also give you ideeas of how to use the Fantastical Rules when deciding your troops pros and cons.

NO you can´t !.... you always need to have at least 4 units in your warband, so you can´t only field 3 forest troll shamans from the Borderland army list as you thought when reading it... Ofcourse there are a max limit of number of units to, and that is set to no more than 10 units, so the 12 units of Goblin-ambushers @ 2 points each, won´t work either.

So are the Dragon Rampant worth it´s £12 investment?

Yes indeed, at least in my point of view, as I already are a keen Dragon Rampant fan and I love to be able to go through my LoTR collection and also maybe building me a new warband from my plastic pile as well to have a look at all new stunning fantasy models that are out on the market, now I got a well designed and cost effective set of rules that give me the kind of easygoing game I want !

Happy Lucia to you all :)