Pilum at Canusium

Played an Ancients game today with Mark Ritchie, whose Tactical Combat rules are now available on WargamesVault. (I'm vaguely thinking of using or modifying it for VBCW, as it's a ruleset our local group have become very comfortable with.) The rules we used today were instead the hex-based Pilum/Firelock, which we used to play a medieval Polish game last year.

This battle was Canusium, fought betwen Hannibal and Marcellus in southern Italy in 209 BCE. It was just the two of us - most other regular members are in Orlando at the Recon convention this weekend. (I intended to go, but one of my cats has developed a refusal to eat anything but fresh food, so I can't leave her alone.) I took the Carthaginians, partly to see if I could be successful with elephants for once.

Scenario and forces.

The field of battle.

The Roman forces. Leaders are the ones with purple-spotted tags
at front - there are lots of them, the advantage of the legions.

Setup. Romans along the line of the river, Carthaginians
on the flanks.

My left. The tilted base in the center indicates hill carpet-tiles
under the felt. Slingers in the woods.

My right, with elephants.

My infantry slams into his cavalry. Not good - cavalry double
their dice rolls against foot troops. As a reminder, pipe-cleaners
denote hit-point loss, and yellow caps denote failed morale checks.
Two fails or 6-8 HP eliminate a base.

My heffalumps hit the Roman left. Unfortunately, they have very
good morale and it takes time to knock them out unless they roll
boxcars on morale. This actually happened twice, but that's not
all that useful when they had 20+ bases!

A special unit - flaming pigs to terrify the elephants. A
tactic I hadn't heard of.

Slowly stomping the flank (and the occasional pig) flat.

Closeup on Roman war machines and commander.

Closeup on the town of Canusium.

My left is battering itself into insensibility. At lower left a
unit is attempting to rally off its yellow cap - indicated by a
white cap. Hannibal has not got stuck in, because he only
has a leadership radius of two hexes, and is trying to keep
the slingers on-side.

My right is also winding down.

Ultimately, three of the elephants were driven into a rampage. An incredible roll by the pig-handler managed to kill one before it crushed him. With the pachyderms thundering off into the distance, I lost 19 points to 13  (1 per lost base, with occasional additions for commanders). But I did have the distinction that for the first time since Mark has run this scenario (including yesterday in Orlando) all four Carthaginian commanders survived.

The rules, particularly the Combat Results Table, are remarkably simple, and this was a fun, fairly quick game. I'd be happy to play it again. Though, as usual, I have no grasp of tactics... Till next time.

VBCW forces

Now that I've been working on the partisans for a while, I have more than enough Very British Civil War units on each side for a full game of Xenos Rampant. Since on one side I have regular 8th Army troops and on the other a mix of Navy, Canadian and LDV, this would seem to represent somewhere in northern England, on the border between the Albertine enclave and the Royalist Army of the Severn Valley.

Albertines (Defenders of Sautmeat-on-Rye)

Heavy Infantry: Canadian regulars. 2 points.

Recon Infantry: Canadian Mounties. 2 points.

Light Infantry: Naval infantry. 1 point.

Light Infantry, Reinforced: Naval infantry. 3 points.

Since this squad was eight strong, I've added leftovers from other squads.

Light Infantry Reinforced, Heavy Weapon: Naval Infantry with Lewis gun. 5 points.

Light Infantry, Reinforced, Heavy Weapon, Guerillas, Undisciplined: LDV with MG34. 5 points.

Support Infantry, Artillery: LDV with French 75. 7 points.

Soft-skin Vehicle, Civilian, Technical: Open-topped vehicle with pintle Vickers. 3 points.

Royalists (2nd Wessex Regiment, formerly of the Mobile Division)

Light infantry, Reinforced, Heavy Weapon: Infantry squads with Bren gun. 5 points. (X2)

Light Infantry, Reinforced: Infantry squad. 3 points. (X3)

Support Infantry, Heavy Weapon: Vickers team. 7 points.

Support Infantry, Indirect: Mortar team. 6 points.

Fighting Vehicle: A13 Cruiser tank, 6 points.

Fighting Vehicle, Light Armor: BUF L6/40. 4 points.

Either side:

Fighting Vehicle, Light Armor, Anti-Personnel: Rolls-Royce armoured car. 3 points. (X2)

Soft-skin Vehicle, Transport (10): Bedford QLT truck (I think!) 4 points. (X2)

These are well-oversized for normal games (24 points). In fact, if I give the extra vehicles to the Albertines, it's 42 points apiece. Legal armies, even, because only one fighting vehicle is allowed per 18 points. So this is enough for perhaps a small campaign, or a large game played at the club with two or three players a side.

A Little More VBCW

In a further, slightly convulsive effort to do something hobby-related every day, I've glued together my Warlord partisan infantry squad, and begun painting the partisan artillery crew.

Ten partisans, that can be divided into five-man sections.
One with an MG34 and the other with submachine guns.

Caps and trousers painted in Wolf Grey. (The People's Armies
supplement for VBCW has some useful details on period clothing.)

At this point in my reading of the VBCW background, my "forces" are starting to gel. 

• The 8th Army types are Regular troops of the Royalist Army of the Severn Valley, backed by a single BUF light tank.
• The rest are Canadian, Navy and LDV units loyal to Albert.

This may seem a little overwhelming on the part of the Royalists. But there are a few vehicles left over, and perhaps the Army woutld be the attackers into a town. This sounds like a village on the border of Yorkist territory.

Edit: Here's the mostly-completed gun crew:

Matt Black and Bugman's Glow for the shoes, Highlord Blue 
and Hardened Leather speedpaints for the shirts and sweaters,
Hardened Leather for straps, and a mix of Bugman's Glow and 
Wraithbone for skin.

I have next weekend off and am thinking of running something at the club. Most regular members will be at the Recon event in Orlando, but some will stay at home and I just might try to run Xenos Rampant with this lot - if I can finish painting the LDV.

Painting a Tank

I've slowly painted my L6/40 light tank over the course of a few weeks. I don't tend to spend long periods painting - I distract easily and so long as I can get one step done in a day I'm satisfied. I still see progress, even if slow. But when I do manage, rarely, to complete a project, it's the best feeling in the world.

Basecoat: The Fang and Plate Mail Metal.

Shade: Strong Tone Quickshade. Obvious staining, but 
why not, on a well-used vehicle?

Highlight: Wolf Grey.

Fascist "lightning-flash" decal added.

This is the first time I've ever tried a waterslide transfer. You'd think I'd have used them for 40K, but I didn't have a conventional Space Marine chapter. Problem - both color and orientation are incorrect. But as they say in Britain, "this is your VBCW," and I'm already using a 1940 tank in 1939, so claiming that this is a variant marking is a minor offense (or offence).

I finished the tank while watching a Games Workshop "hang out and paint" video. It may sound trite, but I find it encouraging to paint "alongside" others, even if virtually and out of sync. I have great difficulty concentrating on one thing alone, so sound and sight in the background keep me from getting bored.

Crewman in Wolf Grey and Strong Tone. Barbarian Flesh;
Flag in Matt White, The Fang and Fleshtearers Red.

I found it interesting to do the flag. I decided to start with white all over, then drew blue edges to each side with a little jiggling to have the lightning flash within. Then I painted red from the outside in.

The finished vehicle, with an extra decal for aerial recognition.

In between waiting for the crewman to dry, I started on the 75mm:

Speedpaint Camo Cloak, Plate Mail Metal, and Matt Black.

The crew figures will come next. One of the VBCW fluff books suggests drab colors - brown, blue, black, etc - for civilian clothes.

Here's hoping your painting projects are going as successfully!

If interested, here is a registration link to the veteran interview I'll be doing next week: https://www.mdpls.org/event/10418513

Space Weirdos and Other Stuff

Today I actually made it to Das Krieg Haus for a game. A member taught us Space Weirdos, a minis-agnostic skirmish game with shades of Necromunda - at least the way we played it.

Here, a Deathwatch team takes on Infinity figures.

John, who was running the games, had brought lots of minis - mostly Infinity with a smattering of old 40K - 2x2foot mats and some lovely sci-fi "Battle Systems" terrain. This was heavy card with plastic connectors, so pretty customizable, but also came with cool little "scatter" like chairs, tables and signs. I've seen a lot of this type of terrain recently and am leaning toward trying Tenfold Dungeons, which are simply stackable boxes with printing both inside and out. So it was nice to play on for a try-out.

Closeup on the furniture - good for a barfight.

Space Weirdos is a "ganger" sort of game, point-based such that about four figures make up the smaller group of 75 points. I got in one round - Infinity soldiers vs. ancient metal 40K Orks.

My squad: A leader with energy pistol, a sniper, and troopers
with autorifle and energy rifle. Two figures also had stealthsuits,
which make you impossible to target at longer than close range
so long as you're touching terrain.

The rules are simple enough that even I got the hang of them quickly. Figures have defense, shooting and melee statistics measured in die types - typical is 2D8. You always roll two dice - defender rolls defense vs. opponent's attack - but the type can rise or fall, anywhere from D4 to D12, if there are relevant advantages and disadvantages like cover, long range, or the defender having moved (hence the "footprint" tokens you can see. When hit, the victim rolls on a chart - low scores mean he may get to make a snap shot or blow back at his opponent, while higher scores result in "down," "staggered" or "out of action" results. Armor or special equipment can modify results on this table.

Every figure can make three actions, after which an opposing figure can take three actions. An initiative roll determines who goes first. Movement and range are in five-inch increments, easier than rulers if you have measuring sticks of the right length, but ranged weapons have effectively infinite range. Psychic powers typically have "one-stick length" range, which in my game neutered the opponent a bit, though one of his powers was teleportation. And some weapons, like my sniper rifle, cannot be fired at short range.

Each side also gets a number of tokens per turn (two at the size we were playing) that can be used for "interrupt" actions like dodging or recovering injury. At the end of the turn, used tokens are removed from the board and morale tests are taken.

The one game I played went quickly; I rolled high a lot, though positioning made a difference too. Terrain is key in this game since it makes it harder to hit and easier to dodge a shot, but movement is relatively high and any figure can cross the board in two turns if he focuses on it. We didn't have objectives; this was a straight-up bash.

Here I tackle a staggered (ie stunned) Ork.

This psyker Ork has moved once; he has three
actions, so has two more. Unfortunately his
psychic attacks have quite short range.

This figure has moved twice, so could shoot once.

Ultimately, I managed to take out two of my opponent's four figures, including his leader, and the penalties were such that he "bottled out."

The QRS for the game was clear and easy to use, and there are many customization options. The simplicity reminded me of Minceheim. I'd happily try it again, and it has solo mechanisms so quite tempting (there are signs of this in the "reaction" tables with the chances to shoot back if hit). There is a fantasy version, and with a little modifications I could see historicals working as well.

On my own account, I finished Gardeners of Salonika, added a second basecoat to my Italian tank, and undercoated my civilian 75mm gun crew. Not sure what color to paint the gun, but at least I'm making progress. More tomorrow, I hope.