The Battle of Arsuf

 Tuesday evening we returned to one of our favorites, Warlord Games "Hail Caesar!" . After a couple years of WAB and its WAB II incarnation. Hail Caesars game mechanics quickly won us over and its been our large format "go to" game ever since.

 This match was a demo for an event our group, (when I say our group, I mean  Rich) is running at Little Wars in late April. The Battle of Arsuf  was a pivotal battle of Richard I's 3rd Crusade.  Rich has a massive Arab army he's been working on for years, and a large amount of Crusaders as well, with couple of us helping out filling out the remaing details. With 4 divisions per side at 450 points per side this is a huge "Hail Caesar" game.

 The game coincidentally or not played out similar to our notes on the real battle.  I was running the Crusader Vanguard and was quickly engaged by annoying Skirmishers, including the incredibly annoying Nafitum (who throw flasks of flaming oil, immediately causing a break check on any wound. super dangerous to Cavalry) Having faced them before my Templars and Mounted Sergeants charged from the line getting lucky with a 3 move Order, However the Nafitum easily evaded. However if I could stand my ground the next round of shooting, I was in excellent potion to run down a whole bunch of skirmishers and med infantry with tough Cavalry, I survived the shooting
and did just that. This led to early collapse of lead flank turning the battle back toward Saladin.

 On the rear flank, per the Battle the Hospitaller Knights broke ranks with a 3 move charge and quickly got themselves in trouble until Mike end up reinforcing them and after several turns it did break his way.

 In the Center a long stalemate of failed orders under King Richard led to Saladin and his Body Guard
just waiting him out to see how the battles on flanks were going.  One of the great things about Hail Caesar, unlike various version of Warhammer is the Late Game , In Warhammer the fate of the game is often decided in the first two turns, and barring some extraordinary circumstance the game becomes an attrition toward the inevitable. Not so in Hail Caesar! where the late game of turns 5 and 6 often is the battle decider. This always keeps the game exciting until the last turn.

 When the Crusader counter attack finally comes in turn 5 with support of the Templars rolling up on Saladins Right Flank while the rear flank was steadily collapsing. Rich wisely pulled Saladin back and reformed a tight unit with his Bodyguard Cavalry..unfortunately the exhausted Crusaders didnt get the orders off complete to bridge the distance and the game ended in DRAW with the none of the four objectives (two for either side being completed).

The Battle of Arsuf

Saladins Forces

Division I

Mamluks with Spear and Bow
Berber Heavy Cavalry
Turcoman Light Horse X 2

Division II
Dismounted Mamluk x 2
Medium Archers
City Militia with Spears

Division III

Mamluks Bodyguard
Mamluks Spear and Bow
Syran Heavy Cavarly
Turcoman Light Horse

Division IV
Ghazi warband Fanatics
Medium Archers
City Militia with Spear
Light Archers X 2
Nafitum

Objectives
Break Hospitaller Division
Destroy Army Standard


Richard I  Forces

Vanguard Division

Holy Order Knights (Templars) Heavy Cavalry
Heavy Infantry
Heavy Crossbow
Mounter Sergeants - Heavy Cavalry

Division I- English
Crusader Knights- Heavy Cavalry
Heavy Infantry
Heavy Crossbow
Archers

Division II- Outreamer
Crusader Knights- Heavy Cavalry
Heavy Infantry
Heavy Crossbow
Archers

Rear Guard- Hospitallers
Hospitaller Knights - Heavy Cavalry
Heavy Infantry
Heavy Crossbow
Turcopole Horsemen (Light Cavalry)

Objectives
Break or Rout Saladin and his Bodyguard
Break two of the three Cavalary Divisions


Looking forward to this game at little wars I am putting together Richard I giant army standard which should be a nice table center piece. I've missed playing HC  this was a really fun game!

The Lighthouse

 

 Continuing the current pattern here is "The Lighthouse" for the Adepticon Legends of the High Seas Event.  More towering Gun platform than actual lighthouse, It  was a good a name as any and I can always stick a light in there. As always I plan on using this for various games not just Pirates I can swap the roof for various genres.

Here a good sense of the scale with figures at the base..this sucka is big!

Other the copper dome roof ( an old toy part) its made exclusively with Hirst Arts 4" tower mold.
I struggled with roof design for awhile figuring out what I wanted to do, wasting a couple pricey sheets of shingle plastic card and too much time in the process. I was kicking myself for not picking Hirst conical roof mold, which I am certainly going to do after this. Saving some of the kids old toys in the junk box instead of letting them go to the Salvation Army has come thru again, the dome part is actually from a Fisher Price Submarine aimed at 3 year olds.

 

The guns in game terms are 12 pound Cannons, if you are watching the Starz Pirate series "Black Sails" thats exactly the size guns the crew of the Walrus risked everything to aquire as they pack a hell of a punch. Cannons will be live in the actual game are they are going to cause some carnage for sure.

Capturing this tower and holding it is one of the major objectives of the game. While the 4 inch interior is roomy an assault here would take place all the way up the stairs, and while the tower comes apart in  3 pieces I didnt do the stairs all the way as it was pointless and nigh impossible to access with figures. As a result we have special rules for assaulting this tower in actual game and they are very friendly to the defender as you can imagine.

Building these tall tower in sections is a challenge. As careful as I was the sections still did not line up perfectly, doing it with the naked eye. Close enough with the forgiving fieldstone blocks but to do a tall tower like this right  you really need to build with some sort of inset shape in the center that keeps the thing perfectly round as you build it, Any deviation is magnified as you get taller and correcting those is a beast.

 All in all, I am psyched with the way this came out although the hours in with obscene amounts of casting one mold and difficulties with vertical building, rival the entire gatehouse which is probably double the plaster.

One more piece to paint and then some terrain painting of the actual boards  and Pirates is ready to go!

Alien Shock Troop Squad

If you' re like me and you are quite tired of the endless array of 40K inspired Sci Fi Aliens or its flipside of catoonish Pulp inspired Aliens. These might be just be what you're looking for. Currently looking for funding via indiegogo This Alien Shock Troop Squad is classic mix of classic Sci Fi Alien types for any generic setting. If you're a Traveller fan or an old Star Frontiers fan, like me -you'll immediately get the appeal.
My Sci Fi project currently titled "Low Orbit" has been in the works for years. Once I wrap up my currently hobby obligations in the next month I plan on see it to completion through out the summer.
Since last fall, I've been working on lots of related material on the side when time allows so when I start showing it off, I should have quite alot done.  "Low Orbit" is squad sized skirmish game set in the late 22nd Century Inspired by my favorite "Legends" games and the original Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. It features numerous unique mechanics with boardgame-esque scenarios, meshing into something that will hopefully be fast paced, fun  and challenging.

I surely hope these guys above fund, because I have tons of Human figures and have been looking for a good Alien team and was hard pressed for one until I stumbled on these over at the LAF.  LAF user "PF" is quite an accomplished sculptor , if your a fan of what I am talking about do us both a favor and pick up a Squad. You can follow his original announcement and these figs development here.

The Gatehouse - Painted up.

 Here's the painted version of the Gatehouse for the Pirate table at my Legends of the High Seas event at this years Adepticon. dressed up with some of my Spanish Privateers, its  representing the main standing fortification of Fort San Lorenzo and capturing and holding it, is one of the main objectives of the game. As you can imagine whoever gets in there first is going to be tough to dislodge with lots of hard cover to had and even some fireable cannons! the remainder of fort is going to be ruins from the original pirate castle we used in the past.

 Surrounded by water the Fort got the  "ruins by the seaside" paint job a mix of limestone, moss greens and earth. Painting was a 5 stage process of , Prime Black, Basecoat Brown, Heavy drybrush Sand, Weather with Pigment (in this case Green) then spot drybrush a linen /white mix.

 As usual these thing take alot longer than planned, I still need to paint the matching "Lighthouse"
which isnt really a Lighthouse, but a guard tower standing about 4-6 inches higher then the top of the
Gatehouse and is top with wide turret with 5 cannons...again a capturable objective of the game.
The lighthouse will more than likely be the next post.

 The is also a Church, which isnt out of Hirst pieces..but resin, some of you might recall old Armorcast Cathedral , I bought it in probably 2008 and never really used it much...so IF time allows its getting a fitting repaint and Tile roof for this event.

We've got plenty of terrain at this point so its really a matter of putting the best stuff together to make the best looking table possible, I am currently working on a Bolt Action table and with a little more month to go the pressure is on big time, I still have 3 60mm bases with 3-5 soldiers each ,a piece of equipment and some terrain feature to paint for my Bolt Action Army..and my Jeep!.

I really enjoyed building this piece, its going to get alot of use post Adepticon as the outer wall of my Fantasy town I am putting together, I'll probably add a few more pieces overtime, but like everything I build I try to do with multiple games in mind so abandoned castle in Empire of the Dead..why not?

 Stay tuned, as I do the "Dance of Death" or the "Time Sink Shuffle" as I try cram all this stuff
in the last 30 days before Adepticon, every year I ask myself -why I do this to myself?., I always say I am not going to do it, and always end up in this same spot is Eight years in row...sigh

Not to be outdone by Adepticon , Rich is hosting a huge Hail Caesar Crusades game at Little Wars this year, I am helping out and building King Richards banner and its entourage which is  an elborate piece on 100-120mm base with a half dozen elements and a giant free hand banner..Little Wars takes place 3 weeks after Adepticon and I'm not even starting the piece until the dust settles so I am on a 3 week schedule to get it done..shouldn't be too tough, I'm following that up with the Sci Fi project I started over winter break- That ought to keep me busy pretty much thru the Summer. Oh yeah then there is Lead Painters League Season 8 coming up end of March too, dont think I am making it this
year but then again, I said that last year too.

Bolt Action- bringing an Army to the table

 In any miniatures skirmish game, for me a measure of ones interest in said game can easily be gauged by the what they put into their models. Whether it be causal or competitive, I find it rare that people slave away on the models for game they dont really like. The reverse can be true as well ,where you may love the game but models just don't inspire you. I've bounced around a bit quite since I quit playing Warhammer, I had brief affairs with Warmachine, Kings of War, Flames of War, etc. all of my attempts to work around the various nuances that irked me, be it the IP, the models or scale all lead to my inevitable lack of interest in the games. Even my longest serving miniature passion, Lord of the Rings has suffered not due to not only my fading interest in the state of the game but failure of the new ranges to inspire in either the visualization or the physical material (failcast). After spending a year with Warlord Games, Bolt Action, its clear to me, I really like this game.

First of my 4 teams on 60mm bases my Sniper Team, finally finished up this morning.

 I've got two Bolt Action Armys, my British Paratroopers, and my favorite nemesis of theirs Germany's Waffen SS. I actually think this will only be the second minatures game where I can field more than one completely painted army ( other being LotR where I can field at least 600 points armys from numerous incarnations from 4 different factions but I have also been playing that game since 2007)

My Humber Mark IV is only 90% complete, I still have a bit of touch up to do and put some decals on it. The guys walking along aside are British Commandos from Black Tree Designs they work great with WG figures.

 Adepticon is about 47 days away, This about half my army I still have 6 commandos, my HMG team, ATG Team, Mortar Team, and Jeep to paint...they are all built modeled up and base coated
so I am going right into painting, My goal here is to be done the end of the month, that's looking unlikely but it will close. I'll surely crank about the rest of my Commandos and  my HMG team by next weekend, my 6 pounder ATG in the week after that..leaving me my Mortar and Jeep for the last month going in. Keep in mind I am simultaneous working on both the Pirate Table and Bolt Action table in between. While everything for the tables might not happen in the end, I am not worried about my Tournament armies, and for Pirates I already have more stuff then would fit on the allowable gaming space before I built the stuff recently built.

As for my painting I kept it pretty by the book, the uniforms are the uniforms however being military uniforms are bit drab I like to bring a bit of color into the miniatures, I am using a lot of bright highlights of the base colors hopefully getting them to pop out a bit more. The camo smocks on the Red Devils and extra work of all the resin bases definitely add on to the time to get them done.
Regardless, I am loving painting this army more so that any army in recent memory, looking for forward to posting shots of these guys on the new table, against another fully painted army.
(speaking of which any BA fan should check out my pal Jeremy's Japanese over at his Blog)
I am glad to report that reality is going to happen very soon!. Next weekend is my pal Tim's Gathering in Desert Reboot  "Operation Scorpion"  taking place in the Phoenix area. Bolt Action was the transition game for former LotR players as the game died out there, IL/WI is definitely following suit as   while LotR is still soldiering on here, almost every regular I played at events with for the last 5 years is playing BA, in fact 3 of my local LotR compradres are making the trip and I wish I was joining but alas, this time of year its night impossible for me to get out of town.

In other news coming up we are running a couple demos for public events I am involved here at out Bi-Weekly game nights which look to be back on track after getting sabotaged by this brutal winter
We are doing our Hail Ceasar demo of a huge Crusades game on a 12 x 4 table, this game is happening post Adepticon at Little Wars  which is great little local convention that always gets overshadowed by Adepticon.

Then we are demoing Pirates the week after, basically just to make sure the scenarion plays the way I want it to..again a 12 x 4 table...painting is underway on the Gatehouse piece I recently posted and Rich brought the ruined castle back over on Tuesday I'll be setting the whole thing up very soon to get sorted.. So hopefully I'll be back to posting a bit more frequently in the coming month, as all these
thing come to fruition I'll be psyched to talk about it.

A Pirate Cure for Winter Blues

Chicago is a damn frozen wasteland. I've lived here over 20 years and this is worst winter I remember, we've had worse individual snowfalls, but not the repetitive brutal cold and consistent snow we're having to date. Apparently this was the norm in the 70's and 80's but in those days I resided in the Mid-Atlantic states.

 I feel like I havent played a game in ages, our club night has been on hold since early December with my my wife slipping on ice and hurting herself, the Holidays, then this brutal weather. Everytime we tried to get together its been sub-zero and a snow storm, not exactly ideal driving conditions to head out into the night to play some games. Usually during this time of year I find myself with my most significant hobby output, the fore-mentioned plus  my new work schedule working totally freelance, and my playing video games with my kids has somewhat curtailed my time in the basement. while I certainly have been whittling away when I can it was about a week ago after I finished this recent project I was on, that I kicked on the afterburners.


Adepticon 2014 is right around the corner, while I always try not to over commit, I usually always do and this year in no exception. I am playing in two tournaments. The usual Lord of Rings Championships, and new for 2014 Bolt Action. My LotR army is singles 750 pt version of last years  Rohan Team army force not much new to see there, a couple new models I didnt  for BBB but I never actually made it to the tournament. The army is done and ready to go. With the recent shakeups at GW and the game fading away from it long standing limited popularity, there is only a singles event this year..and I wouldnt be surprised if its the last. GW cut its own throat on this game releasing some many Hobbit models in Finecast, while they know its not popular then complaining about lack of sales is maddening where if they had pewter or even plastic versions they would have gotten quite bit of my money, and I only like maybe half the releases...I cant be alone there.

Not coincidentally, the majority of the LotR player I know haved moved over to Warlords Games, excellent Bolt Action, very well supported with constant releases and moderately priced with a great ruleset the game is clearly the new Skirmish game of the moment (thou I must say I recently got the Saga Rules and I really like them, especially with fan made battle boards for things like Lord of the Rings!!!..LOL)

The feel of BA and LotR is similar in play. although due to all crazy variety there is alot more going on, My 12 order British Force is Paratroopers and Commandos, and comes in right at 50 painted models, while not quite halfway done, I am totally done with Paratrooper infantry on single bases, and moving on to the Commandos , still need to do the larger base stuff and touch up my Humber with some decals and finish up my Jeep. I dont feel rushed working on there guys I am batch painting the infantry around 6 at time for consistency, pretty confident they'll be totally done by the end of Feburary. I'll start leaking picks soon.  Aaron and I are also doing a table for the Bolt Action tourney
which were are in the building stage off.  Its a classic Northern Europe village set up with some great terrain features, like cobble roads, and bridge, a foot bridge..complete and ruined buildings...finish this up with take some time but I am not doing it alone and helps A TON.

preview of our Bolt Action table, long way to go yet!

Finally I mentioned Pirates!, as I freeze my arse off here, I cant forget that my Legends of the High Seas game is back this year at Adepticon and its is SOLD OUT., while only 10 players...and I think
I know most of them. I thought I'd unveil the table center piece pre paint with the gatehouse here:

Not totally cleaned up for paint yet, but very close...I plan on priming it this weekend.

 I have a lighthouse about 80 percent done and a Church about 80 percent done. Tim K, author of High Seas book is assisting me in running the event and is bring along a bunch of very period buildings from Cresent Root Studio all wonderfully painted. Those along with the my three new pieces and Rich's Ruined Pirate castle supporting my Gatehouse plus my Docks and Pirate ship...we've got one hell of alot of terrain. I'll have more on scenario and table layout in the weeks to come, I hope to have a 6 player demo version of the event here this month, until then I have the great new show Black Sails and Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag to inspire me.

While I had all this Casting going on,  I of course had to revist my Sci Fi molds get a couple ideas going, I'd really like to get some Sci Fi Skirmish going this year, and with the layout I am going to have I hope the guys cant say no. But I'll leave that for future posts.

I think you can get good sense of scale here and how it will work with the current Pirate Castle pieces we use.

Fully playable interior

Auld Lang Syne

I'm not sure where this is but, this is how I often picture the relationship between the rest of my house and my basement.

A fitting year end post, one of my recent "have a deadline projects" besides my upcoming Legends of the High Seas Event and Bolt Action Army is "cleaning out the basement", we are house shopping right now and out listing our current place in the next month. While I wouldn't call myself a "horder" I'm definitely a pack rat and every decade or so I have these massive purges, the last one was before we moved here and this one again is timed with the big move. While I certainly have a knack for holding on to stuff too long, the size my miniatures/ gaming/ Hobby material collection has grown since I moved here 10 years is exponential to say the least, I don't have the foggiest how many miniatures I have to but to just say "alot" feels like an understatement.

As a result I am getting rid of a ton of stuff, I have already downsized my number of gaming tables from the once ridiculous "more than the local game store" setup to a reasonable "2" we rarely have more than 4 guys over at once anymore anyway, I've also purged alot of hobby materials, mainly junk..I once had a fetish for picking up every damn goofy piece of junk I came across thinking this might be useful as terrain one day...which resulted in boxes of junk which went straight to the dumpster.

I'll also be selling a bunch of stuff on ebay, links to auctions will be co posted here in the next coming weeks I've let go of the personal attachment of much of my collection and decided ALL of my Warhammer stuff is going, including my epic Empire Army which is going to be sold off by unit, because I've done research and I just can't get enough for it as one army sale (from I see and am being told) I also have lots of Warmachine, Flames of War, 15mm Sci Fi, plenty of Historicals and terrain going up sale, there is alot of unbuilt opened WFB stuff going up at serious discount these would be Empire, Lizardmen and some other one off games, books, etc.

While since might sound like a "what are you getting out the hobby" type post, not even close. Again this about an overwhelming amount of stuff and one of the concessions of our upcoming move is we have to downsize.I'm still holding onto vintage fantasy, citadel, heritage and otherwise, newer fantasy (reaper , otherworld etc)all my Lord of the Rings, Empire of the Dead, 28mm generic Sci Fi, Bolt Action (GB and now GER)and of course tons of Historicals Saxons, Vikings, Spartans, as well as more Pirates than you can hit with a blunderbuss and even some Old West., in short the biggest purge is all my Games Workshop stuff I havent touched in years, plus games I invested in and only played a few times or never played.


On the positive side, I am working on finishing up the build for the gate house section of Fort San Lorenzo for my Pirate event and laying out the table..I hoping to demo the event very soon so look for that here also played another great game of bolt action again where my Red Devils continue to frustrate Aaron's Panzer Grenadiers..although my knack of rolling "6"'s and Ninja Mortar where definitely pure luck contributors in this win. Look for some Pirate and Bolt Action pics WIP and finished shots very soon.

On the blogging front, this is my lowest output in  single calendar year yet, a trend that seems to be continuing, I just dont have enough quality stuff to post and my time to gadfly comment on hobby goings on is slim to none..now that I work in a freelance capacity and am not sitting on my ass in front of computer all day, its clear that the blog has taken a hit, such is life. In short Plastic Legions is just  my personal chronicle, nothing more and will continue to be so. While with sales posts, Adepticon , the move, and another Lead Painters League I should have plenty to talk about this year.  SO to those of you who continue to stop by and see what I am up to want to say thanks , I appreciate it and Happy New Year to you and yours!