The Run up to Adepticon- Waffen SS Squad One

 Pictured L-R: NCO w/ Mp40, Rifleman X 2, Lieutenant, his Driver, (NCO with Russian PPSH41) MG34 Team, STG44 , 2 more Rifles all models by Warlord games., scratch buildings by Aaron Schmidt.

Better late than never, here my first Waffen SS Squad and HQ, for my Adepticon Team Army for Bolt Action. Aaron and I are running Waffen SS along with Panzer Pioneers, truth be told, I think our list is very tournament specific- as in Hard, Were running a Panzer IV, the brutal Flakveirling 38 AA gun, which forget about its AA prowess is an absolute infantry shredder,  consider things like Panzer Pioneers can pack multiple flamer throwers, and standby's like the Puma which is one of the best vehicles in the game...our list just kind of came out this way with any forethought about being hard. In a 800 point test game, my half of the list faced a Soviet List lead by a T-34 which outnumbered me almost 4 to 1 in bodies and the SS won it handily as Veteran Infantry with multiple Assault members is super tough on top of the big German guns.  I hope we can do it justice on the table as Aaron and myselfs tournament record is admittedly very sketchy, but at least we will look pretty.

I spent way too much time researching German Uniforms and seeing other peoples designs, and test painting guys.  in end I went a simple design, that while not 100% historically accurate I think it echoes the historical look, while making the miniatures look good. Some of my test pea dot, and other camo designs ended up just way to busy looking.

On the Hobby front, besides Aarons usual crazy awesome approach of "I am custom sculpting parts on basically every model in my army" (which certainly plays well against my limited to no conversion approach which has only hurt me in appearance scoring last few years) We got a great display in mind, with new terrain, with usual bells and whistles. I'm on track for finishing end of February with my army painting, Vehicles are all ready in the base coated stage, special teams and second squad are well underway. I recently ordered a Panther AUSF A from Warlord...and if I have time I am also going to try get that done so I can run my Germans in the Singles Saturday...it might be a rough go with only 7 Order dice..but its a lot less to manage and bring out, especially since I am bringing my Table out as well for the events., if time fails my Red Devils will be in the Singles...nice to have a back up plan.

As for my table, go a few new pieces already done to jazz it up a bit...and if I hope to get the resin water poured as well, all in all, I feel less exasperated than usual getting ready, I've had no nights where I had to force myself to paint when I didnt feel like it, (we all know how that goes)
I'm really looking forward to my 9th return to Adepticon!

Richards Banner Wagon

Here is my Richard the Lionheart's banner wagon for our Little Wars big game taking place this Saturday. The game is a retelling of the Battle of Arsuf which took place in September of 1191 between Richard's Crusading Armies and Saladin forces. We are using Hail Caesar Rules with 100 point divisions, with 4 divisions a side its a huge game. The event is set up for 8 players, each player taking control of one division.  Rich owns the majority of the models and Mike is bringing the rest. My contribution was the Richards Cart which serves as the Crusaders center piece and Saladins prime objective. (to destroy or capture it.)

The planning for this started way back in December hunting down the models and figuring out the proper size,  but accounts the flag was huge..so I made it huge..in real life numbers it's 12.5 feet high by  22.5 feet long, the beam being a ship mast at about 25 feet.or so

 

Intinerarium regis ricardi is a latin prose narrative of the Third Crusade, and is supposedly a surviving first hand account written in 1220's. The bit on Richards Banner reads:

"..The Normans defended the standard..it was formed of a long beam, like the mast of the ship: made of most solid ceiled work, on four wheels. Bound with iron, and to all appearance no sword or axe could cut or fire injure it. A chosen body of soldiers was generally appointed to guard it..lest it should be broken or thrown down; for if it fell the army would be dispersed and put into confusion"

 

Unfortunately, I came across the narrative a little late in my plans, as it seem the wagon was enclosed and encased in iron as well as part of the shaft. my version here is much more susceptible to damage and very period looking, medievaly speaking which  was the point. the wagon is from Lead Adventure miniatures and  the horse team are Perry Brothers and the 4 men a Norman command pack from Gripping Beast. while I had the miniatures for sometime this project was started for scratch right after Adepticon, so its taken me all of hobby time since to get this far...some touch ups might still be in order.

 

The most challenging about the build was of course the Flag, the final version was iteration Three.

The first being a failed all green stuff banner which looked cool but had poor texture to paint on and a very tough surface to free hand paint the lion on. I spent three nights on the GS banner before deciding it looked like crap and realizing it would take far too long to free hand both sides of the banner. and said "let try something else"  I moved over to a paper banner by itself, wasnt liking that either, then I remembered I have used foil banners before but wasnt happy with the there appearance. Then I came up with what will be the way I do all my banners forever .  I set up my banner in photoshop after finding an appropriate image and printed it out on sticker paper, I then put a piece of folded foil inside the sticker paper but cut it short so the edges of the sticker paper would seal on all sides. this way the interior foil would give it a nice bend. The next issue was the printed red on the flag was not robust enought and looked fake, so I hand painted the paper careful avoiding the lion and then touched up the lion itself with some highlights as the paper absorbed the paint its took on very nice texture and foil became even more ply able for bending., in the end I was really happy with this method and that is way I will be making historical banners from now on of any size. the flag and mast are attached to the cart with a heavy magnet so it can be removed and this piece can be used a standard baggage cart in other Hail Caesar games.

 

The cart made it first appearance on the table last night at Rich's place where demo'd the game once again and you can see the banner wagon makes an impressive piece among the hundreds of models on the table. it must have motivated the Crusaders because they sent Saladin running for the hills this time in a clear victory (last time it was draw only by failure of objective, in terms of casualties, we were decimated)

Looking forward to Saturday and pictures of the event, I missed Little Wars last year but last went in 2012 and thought it was great, hope to see more of the same look for a follow up early next week!

Hail Caesar! Fall Campaign

Summer has turned to Fall for our next Hail Caesar Campaign.  With our homebrew rules defined.
a new map in order, armies being built and itchy dice we are now just working on an agreeable date to start, which I am hoping is Oct 16th.  The participants are Syracuse, Rome, Sparta, Macedonia, and two different Persian lists: The Seleucid Empire, and Achaemenid Empire.

Again our quasi historical re-imagining of the Peloponnesian War. Not sure on everyone else's army status, (other than Chris and Rich are fully built and painted) while the rest of are in some build phase. Time is my worst enemy of late, I hope to be losing the proxies of at least the full army by the end of the month. If you want to read more about the campaign join up on the blog forum (link on the left) activity has been slow of late but once we get going on this it certainly will pick up alot.

I'll of be doing our bi-weekly updates here on the blog. Ok back to trying to paint some Angmar!.

A Study in Plastics

 Well its about time we talk about plastic miniatures here at "Plastic Legions" while its somewhat of an oxymoron as most of my miniatures are metal, and I generally dont care for plastic miniatures. However the blogs origins are really in the Games Workshop hobby, so back in 2006-2007 when I was putting together 10 Space Marines in different poses and that was the greatest thing since sliced bread. "Plastic Legions" seemed like a great idealistic hobby goal. However, gigantic Fantasy and Ancients armies later, with 40K never being anything more than a "hobby speedbump" for me. Plastic just never seemed to be the ideal medium in any category, except price. (exception Games Workshop).

Plastics have come along way in the last 6 years. With GW having the monopoly on what was the standard in plastics. I really enjoyed my time with the Plastics in WFB's Empire Models of 6th and 7th edition's. I wasnt until the historical plastics wave started to hit ( Wargames Factory, Warlord Games) did I realize how inferior these models where to what GW was producing. There use was in a slightly different context, mass "stand based" ancients armies versus GW's aesthetic that each model is it own unique piece in your larger army, While that showed clearly in GW's products, other manufactures on the Historical side chose to offer the perception of different posing options and weapons however many pieces were just not versatile enough to be worth the bother of multi parts for any reason other than making them fit on a sprue.

Well plastics have gotten a whole lot better.  While the Perry Brothers excellent War of Roses "Infantry" and "Mercenaries" kits have been around for a couple years now. I finally just into them as I sought to develop a Human army that could double as both a Historical and a Fantasy Army, The Perry's fit the bill nicely for me. Given the 100 years War and subsequent The War of the Roses are two of my favorite Historical periods, It feels like home for me. Not mention the Swiss and German armies of this period are the direct inspiration of Warhammer's Empire.

 The biggest peeve I have with plastic models is the illusion of  sprues and sprues of fiddly bits in order to provide some sort of individuality to individual models. It's one thing with Space Marines but totally another when you need 100 rank and file troopers that historically pretty much kitted out the same. While I like to make all my models as  different as much as I can there comes a point somewhere when you realize its taking you 30 mins to clean, build, accessorize, and base a single plastic figure and you have 100's to do, and then paint that the "FUN"  just crashes off the road. Give me a a nice selection of metal sculpts I can clean and base are 4 or 5 times the speed anytime. I am thankful to say the Perry figs are pretty easy to assemble.. the Pikemen of the kit are the easiest the Crossbow or Handgun options are much more fiddly but nothing compared to WFB's current Vampire Count Skeleton box, the thing that killed my VC army and any passion I had left for plastics until now.

 I currently am working on all three available boxes Perry has to offer from this period supplement by its great a identically scaled metal figures from the range...when this army will see the light of day, I can say but I am working on it I will need a few more boxes of both the Infantry and Mercenaries, if I want to be able to field a full army for either "Hail Caesar" or "Kings of War".

While its no secret that the Perry Brothers are pretty much my favorite Miniature sculptors. Dare I say that Victrix (know for its Napoleonic era figures, recently releasing a large line of Ancient Greek Figures) has out done them? While a sculpts beauty in is the eye of the beholder, its clear this Victrix
models were created to be plastic models, they are probably computer generated sculpts and not hand sculpts like the Perry's but the exaggerated lines and details make these models the best thing I have seen in plastic since GW's best stuff. I am very impressed by this kit and it was final deciding factor in going ahead with the Army versus proxying Gauls with my Saxons in our next "Hail Caesar" campaign. (Which is coming up in September).  I been struggling with going Spartan for my Antiquity army for some time, but the costs of a entire Spartan/ Greek army from someone like Gorgon Studios, was a daunting investment. These Victrix Models allow me to get my Spartan fix
with some supplemental models from Gorgon at a fraction of the cost and they look great too.

The Victrix Spartans are a bit more "Fiddly" then I had hoped and assembling close to 100 of them is a challenge well see how it goes. But the club and some other local people we know have started a hobby challenge for the second half the summer and my goal is to get these guys built for Sept's campaign. The only con of this kit is that the round molded bases of these figs are a bit thick. thick enough that gluing to a square base and piling sand up around could look weird, so I working on creative basing solutions for these..thats for another post.

 Both the Perry and Victrix plastic kits get a big thumbs up from me. I have boxes and boxes of plastic Historicals kits from Warlord Games and Wargames Factory that have never seen the light of day because, I just don't like the figures enough to go thru the work of actually building them. Both these kits I do, and that just about as good a review I can give.

 I'll sign off for now with more shots of my ready to be painted first sprue of Victrix Spartans. All the Victrix pic are models assembled from one sprue, there are 6 sprues in a box., there a couple extra heads and additions to mix these guys up a bit  providing enough variety given the amount of bits it includes. The only draw back is there isnt a supreme "leonidas" type solo model in the box, that would have pushed it over the top but there are plenty of  other options out there.(again Gorgon.)

 In an unrelated note, I having a difficulty creating Historical type banners from scratch, ( not painting them but creating the banners themselves) I have tried  Green Stuff,  Foil and Paper and am not happy with any of the results..if anyone has good tips of tutorial for historical scratch banners..I'd really appreciate it.

Brilliant Business Strategy

Despite the strong showing at this years Adepticon and its continued strong fanbase despite the total lack of support. Warhammer Historical has now had its last throes and is dead. I wont bother too much with jumping in on the  public flogging over  the epic stupidity of no longer officially supporting WAB, The post title says it all..(.I just wish I had a font that bled sarcasm.)  Needless to say, Warlord Games certainly thanks you. I guess its cool we move all the Historical events  at Adepticon over the Hail Caesar rules since The rule system is in print and well supported. That just makes good business sense.

HMGS Midwest- Little Wars 2012

 I made a quick afternoon trip out to Little Wars in St Charles, IL yesterday. Never having been before I was interested purely as a spectator in on a couple fronts, mainly to see how one of these events operates from Historical gaming side of the aisle and also to (what else?, shop Historical miniatures!) Couple weird things going on, 1) this event has a cross pollination of some of gaming you see at Adepticon. being a week after Adepticon this is very odd. In fact the scheduled WFB tournament had ZERO registrants (we saw Rob the organizer there) there was also a Privateer Press event run by my pal, Felix who never ceases to get the bodies there, Adepticon just last week or not. I stopped by the table and he had probably a dozen players.  And # 2) for the size room they had there where alot of empty tables there, while we arrived late in the day, so it possible alot of there events where completed but for Saturday afternoon I was looking for a bit more in the tables and terrain department, I was a little let down there.

Our main goal (since we weren't signed up for any events) was to check out the vendor hall. unlike Adepticon where vendor space is very limited. and probably less than 10% of the total floor space Here it takes up probably 40% of the event including the flea market room. This was pretty awesome. I because of way vendors bring the ton of stuff there alot just in bags..I could have literally spent all day in the vendor hall rummaging thru various things. Out initial hunt was for various Historical miniatures that you just cant get a good feel for from the various websites or just arent pictured. We saw alot of usual suspects, we were both kind of looking for some classical antiquity 15mm Historicals as the subject has come up for our next Hail Ceasar campaign. However we totally struck out there. I did find alot of metal Crusader blisters (which you cant get in the US anymore, you know have to order overseas)  at good  prices however it wasnt enough to get me to invest because I couldn't find two of the same blister of anything I wanted (as in enough to make a unit) Hank from Gorgon was out with a great display showing Gorgon's fantastic stuff. I am eyeing a bunch of different Gorgon's 28's depending on what period we settle on next but since he's local it's not tough to get.

 ( awesome skirmish table , no idea what they where playing but love the table)


Then we stumbled up the Iron Wind metals both who currently does Battletech but also has all the old Ral Partha molds and still casts and sell them..It was a Fantasy/ Sci-fi- / Pirates geeks- miniatures paradise- thousands and thousands of loose pewter models in buckets going for $2 an ounce. Some  seriously great stuff in there, Once Chris and I got a load of that..we were finished and we spent the rest of time there scouring stuff...I found some kick ass. Orc's from probably late 80'early 90's. I think these are Bob Olley sculpts as they look very similar to my Reaper Orcs..anyway I got 14 of them for $20. Chris picked a mix of Pirates and Fantasy Figs...we spaced out on the flee market room and by the time we got there they where packing up..bummer as it looked like there was alot of cool stuff  there. Next year I am making this a priority to get out there the first. if its not right on top of Adepticon or we dont get a Hail Caesar tourney to make the Adepticon cut next year..this might be the thing to do.

 As an aside, I was speaking to the Iron Wind gent a bit about this insane amount of figures and the amount of molds there must be..he tells me alot of the stuff 75% of it isnt even on the website..where they might so 5 poses of something but really there are 20..I did some digging and found this interesting article on Iron Wind . HERE. Battletech is currently experiencing some growth I've seen so expect these guys around for awhile which is cool with the old Ral Partha coming along for the ride.

Finally I wanted to show this awesome 15mm game I saw.  We've been taking about 15mm for size consideration and expense when jumping around to different periods with Historicals. I quickly realize the trap. Yeah figs are cheaper..but once you get the bug..you just start expanding the game size as the scale get smaller. Currently in Hail Caesar we run three divisions of 300 points. We've been talking going 4 division or 400 points.. because it removes the 3 division triangle where games can implode quickly due to bad event (like strong flank push with multiple sweeping advances) with 4 Divisions these quirky game enders based on bad luck are minimized so for a more balanced game we've talking about 4 Divisions. Due to excessive model counts four divisions at 28mm maxes out an 8 foot table really quick, I say its basically playable but too crowded, if you really want to use alot of Cavalry and use them effectively. SO-  15mm solves that problem. BUT The new problem, as perfectly illustrated above is once you go 15mm, if you are like us the next thing you know, you are saying " hey well instead of 4 divisions a side", lets do 6, then 8, or even 10....Arghh...something to seriously consider.

On the subject of Knights.

New Perry Bros, Plastic Mounted Men at Arms, coming soon in numerous boxes to my house as quickly as possible.. There isn't a release date yet, but when there is- I am all over it.



On the subject of Knights in Warhammer or just general Fantasy armies. One of my complaints in  my last post was criticism of  the new Demi Gryph knights...outside the rules issues brought up in comments and my major beef that every army now exact has same structure of pre determined roles for all its models.. Lets put all that aside and talk about something much more fundamental; Aesthetics, and how they changed in the Knight department.

 Here we have one of my favorite Empire units, my "Knights of the Blazing Sun"  I modeled and painted these guys up in 2008 and the height of my 7th edition fervor. While this kit in 2012 is tired as all hell, as it was released I *think* in early 6th edition. (maybe earlier??)  They are a prime example of the roots of the 15th Century Swiss and German armies that GW based its Empire IP on. While the iconography is its own, its a good mix of historical reality and fantasy. Just the way I like it.  The Bretonnian kits from the same era a cut from the same cloth. These kits obviously have serious staying power, as they are originally modeled in the very roots of core imagery of the game.

The next evolution of Knights comes with Vampire Counts Bloods and Chaos Knights at the tail end of 7th edition.  I found both kits appealing still because the retained a certain aesthetic , while it was clearly drifting in the over embellishment category (I like the Blood Knights more than the Chaos)  I felt they still paid homage to what the Warhammer world defined as the themes of it core setting.

There reason I keep coming back to the Perrys, Is this is what Fantasy Knights (dead or alive, barbarian or civilized)  should be based on. Fireforges Teutonic Knights (below) from 100 or so years earlier are another current great example. Or any of Musketeer Miniatures great Arab or Anglo Saxon Cavalries of various periods. These guys were the real deal, they rode into battle not against Dragons or Undead but against Men- flesh and steel vs flesh and steel, and for the most part their lives were short. They're the reason all this fantasy stuff even exists, They're part the reason we even play wargames, as for many people out there, its not just a hobby its also how we connect with our past.

 IF there is single figure in human history that is quintessential symbol of the human condition its has to be the Knight ( more directly the Questing Knight or Knight Errant via Arthurian legend) So shall we not pay the man the proper respect?
                                                                                                                                                      

(These Fire Forge models finally come out this month I believe)


























( No respect here, just six new Cadillacs. some epic headgear, and sign that says "Fat Bankroll")



Finally with these GW's new Demi Gryph Knights, we've stepped thru the gateway. We now have not only the continuing escalated over embellishments in the fantastical detail department,  but as dictated by a forced rule structure we're now riding Monsters who are kitted out like a steam tank. Now, I know its a Fantasy game..before anyone comments on the obvious, and Yes. I understand its allowed to evolve.  Lets just not overlook that where you take your intellectual property over time is going to dictate your fan base. and sometimes people just aren't going to like it anymore, especially when the Aesthetics are a founding principle in why your attracted to it. (ummm George Lucas anyone???)

 The best of classic fantasy literature mixes the REAL with the SURREAL, where its still fantastical but "it could be possible". Where pockets of our normal existence or our past exist only to be threatened by the abnormal or Supernatural. Crossing the boundaries to where everything is fantastical and nothing is grounded in reality is another mans game, that is not the imagery I put in my own head that attracted me to WFB in the first place. It calls up a completely different set of rules, that are in opposition to other and really boils it down to a black and white choice. Some people can just take it for what it is and have fun with it, I suppose I am burdened with the need for some sort of intellectual rationalization with my miniatures.  Sounds like total bullshit I know, but its true.



(Mad props to the Perry's, Percival would be proud)

Needless to say, I will be decking out a good dozen or so of  these Perry Men at Arms when they finally see the light of day. "Cheeearggge"!!!


Have good weekend folks.

Dark Ages Campaign

Our Dark Ages Campaign using Warlord Games "Hail Caesar" ruleset, kicks off next week. We are about a month behind getting this going, mainly to do my own workload but getting everyone armies in shape to have least 12 full units is somewhat of a process as well. I built a new 4 x 8 table that's actually 2 4x4's that can be flipped end to end for either a valley or hill with shallow river running thru the center. I have some pics of Tuesday when it I write up the first meet. My army is still bare metal with the exception on 1 unit thats about half done, I've just been too busy to make the time to get into it, but will change soon, as I hate being the guys with the least amount of stuff painted.

The map above plays out pretty much like a game of Risk, its diceless campaign game, that resolves map moves by calculating victory points played on the game table. I did it this way to avoid the time consuming pre game board turns of Campaigns past, this way people can resolve the map online during the downtime between session without have to rely on being face to face. After running gaming campaigns for years, I must say It just works better that way. The Campaign is Quasi Historical taking place pre Hasting at about 1000 AD. Forces are Saxons, (me) Normans (Aaron), Caliphate of Cordoba (Rich) and the Byzantine Empire (Chris) I had to stay a little loose with exact History and the map is just an excuse to give us something to fight for as we play out all these games.

Ancients interest around here has picked up. We have couple a new interested players one with an actual army..if I could find another looks for us to expand this 6 player. Ancients gaming is surely continuing around here all the way thru Adepticon 2012 while the Ancients events there are WAB related Rich is running a big open game with HC rules and there will be HC open gaming. I figure this Campaign with run around 8 rounds so until late Jan /early Feb when we all have to start cracking down for Adepticon.

Hail Caesar-Saxon Command

I've been digging into my massive Saxon Army quite a bit lately, It easily the largest army I own coming in at 250 models. I had (choice) to rebase quite abit of it for the larger units needed for Hail Caesar. Things like these commands stands are great fun to build and I wanted to get my feet wet painting one to what probably the final standard.



These guys are OOP Gripping Beast models, older and admittedly rough models (the king figure is a pretty bad cast) that have beeonly recently discontinued, My whole army is metal made up of mainly GB and Crusader models.



Nothing fancy here just base coat, a couple washes and a very few highlights. Shields are hand painted with simple designs. I have a whole bunch of decals I'll be using as well, hand painting 200 + shields is a bit further than I want to go with these guys. The Banner is a decal, just stuck to some heavy paper...I wished I used foil and will on the rest of my banners ,as the bends look more realistic.I guess consider these guys a test piece.



Outside basing, priming the whole army, I am on to, individual units working on my Viking Raiders who are getting a good amount of detail then moving into some big block of Coerls (Fyrd)



As we are gearing up for an Ancient Campaign in the fall, we are all in paint mode. Although I dont expect huge armies like this to get painted over the course of a campaign I am going to try, Rich is already 80-90% done with his huge Muslim force but he'd been working on the project for two years. I guess we will see how these guy are looking come spring.

Hail Caesar- Putting it to the test!

The battle line are drawn, a whopping 325+ models



We played our first game of Warlord Games new "Hail Caesar" rules last night and I am glad to say it was great success..despite the mandatory rulebook scouring the game moved along, well played well and most importantly felt like a "real wargame" . After years of Wargaming with results determined by random dice idiocy. It was great see a game where I felt the randomness was in "all the right places". I really felt like we were in control of our forces and results were risk vs reward based on choice of engagement. I think there is good balance in this games effectiveness between the excellent orders systems, the minimization of shooting, (where it can, of course be deadly, but not game controlling) and a great Hand to Hand systems, most of our questions had to do required movement due proximity of enemy units and what happens to units that have retreated have not broken. I answered 99% of these myself by going the rule book in detail with examples of our own play fresh in my head. (Disordered but unshaken unit moves off the table is it destroyed?)




Games is big enough that I can only fit half in a shot.




Mocked up command stands. Hail Caesar recommends round bases for command units and square for regular units for easy id...I like that idea...looks cool too.

Our game was set toward the end of the Dark Ages with my English Forces (Saxon /Norman) vs Muslims circa 1100AD either an unaccounted for skirmish or something that could have been during the First Crusade, Rich ran his awesome Arab force which can easily proxy just about any Muslim force from Ancient times up until 1400 or so thats a pretty good investment as a historical army and that being the case his force is pretty large and mostly painted as he been working on it for a couple years now.


This was not good for Rich's Ghulam Heavy Cav., we got a bit cocky after this and decided to try out a "sweeping advance" sounded good in practice but I ended up disordered, facing another cav charge, not such a good idea after all.




Norman Knights in the flank couldn't break these guys one of the only incidents in a 3 hour game were fluky dice roll had any impact.

My Saxon forces on the other hand are straight up to Hastings era force (Alfred to Harold), so we added some Normans in to round it out to be a joint English force similar to what I imagine Henry the 1st..army would of looked like although I am sure he would have had much more Cavalry. Yes I know my army is completely bare lead or primed, at this point. But since my last Hail Caesar post I made alot of progress with the modeling and figuring out "what" I want this army to look like, which was something I wasn't wrapping my head around with WAB. So do expect some paint soon as this game is winner and if I am loving it I am surely painting it. Although there are rules for a multiplayer game, we played it as one on one, even thou Aaron was running one of my Division with the Norman additions to my force.


Conquests Norman Knights..a great kit and to scale..with Gripping Beast, Crusader and Perry Figs..as well with Warlord plastics..not always the case with new plastic figs.

Army lists are posted here courtesy of Chicago Terrain Factory.




Playing on the full 4 x 8 table was really the minimum required here, as when all was laid out there was over 325 models on the table. Now that's what a proper wargame should look like! There was too much going on to field a battle reports see the comments under the photos for some insight into the battle. The Muslims won in squeaker mainly due to my shaken Huscarls who were managing to holding fast despite being "shaken" eventually retreating into a hill and being destroyed on a tied combat.



End of the game here, my Huscarls taking there second flank hit of game, after winning and breaking a flanker in a previous engagement. tied the combat with only 1/2 attacks..force to make a break test..I rolled a "5" with no modifier, I had taken 6 wounds at this point my Stamina total so I was "shaken" thereby making my break result.."Give Ground Disordered with Supports together" While I didnt have any supports I retreated straight into that hill to the right, which broke me.


Look for lots more Hail Caesar soon, as the 2012 Adepticon Ancient online Campaign incorporates multiple rules sets (not just WAB)




My Crusader Viking Raiders here on the right were the money, Destroying those light cav to the top of the photo and doing a sweeping advance into the other unit of cav, destroying them in two turns. The Vikings "Tough Fighters" rule, gives you one failed attack reroll, you wouldnt think one die is a big deal but it is...these guys where my all -stars.


4 Wounds and two units of enemy cavalry later but still solid and victorious!, alas they weren't in the middle of the table were we eventually got butchered....