End of July 2013 - Ave Romans!

Hello again Folks!

My preparations for Warlord Games attendance at my local Dice and Decks Gaming Club's charity event on the 17th August are proceeding well. I intend to have at least one side of a Hail Caesar game with me - which will be my army of the Late Roman Republic/Civil Wars and the First Emperor - Augustus. 

To this end as you will have seen on my last post I have already assembled one century and started painting it. Converting the helmets of the troops to not have a top-knot on them, and thus make them more realistic to a war/battle scenario and less like a parade ground army. 

I bought 2 more boxes of legionaries, one with Gladius and the other with Pilum on Wednesday, and my 3 boxes (2 with Pilum and another with Gladius - which is to be my first century - and thus get to keep their helmet crests) plus the Heroes of Rome; Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus blister pack of metal characters from the HBO series of Rome ordered from Warlord Games have also arrived to make 6 units for my army, taking it up to the size needed for a game (I hope!). I have commanders from the Foundry set of Tribunes I found on Ebay a while ago.

One century with Pilum have been partially assembled and Vorenus and Pullo have also been assembled and started to be painted. I have yet to decide whether to give the first century cloaks to go with those found on the Vorenus and Pullo miniatures. 

Pictures as always are included here: 

Pullo and Vorenus undercoated

 

Vorenus as of this evening

Conicern from my first century

My mega box of Romans from Warlord Games - taking my army to 144 Romans plus Commanders

The first century in the background, and the second in the foreground  - the one I am currently constructing

One of my Tribunes - the commanders of my Hail Caesar divisions

And there we are for this week once again folks. Dice and Decks has a normal club night on Friday where I shall be building yet more Romans. This is complemented by a all day gaming session at the Ross-on-Wye scout hut this Saturday will allow me to make even more Romans for the army whereby hopefully I'll be right on track to having an army by the 17th August.

Early July 2013 update

Hello once again folks,

I apologise for once again neglecting to post as often as I should. But graduating university and job searching occupy my time a tad. Plus my phone has started playing up when it comes to uploading pictures, which is something I always do before publishing my blog posts.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff, what have I been doing in the hobby world since last time I posted?

Well, I've been delving into both the fictional, and the non-fictional worlds of wargaming. Working mainly in the non-fictional realm of history - by working on my 28mm Caesarian era Roman Soldiers from Warlord Games. I have been trying to get the whole box built, and try to paint and finish a few more. I have gotten close to doing so at the moment; finishing on of my slightly converted Romans - I used a head from the Auxilary sprue to represent a Coolus pattern helmet - which were used in conjunction with the Montefortino helmets in the time period I am basing my Romans from. Plus it adds a nice bit of variety to a rather same-looking unit, which despite the general representation of Romans - there were variations in colour of tunics, shields and types of armour/helmets. 

My latest finished unit member

"Command section" - the Centurion

The whole unit  - front two ranks carry swords, back rank carries slings to add a bit of variety.

I also have a set of 48 from Wargames Factory, which whilst being slightly smaller than the Warlord figures, I intended to have to quickly and cheaply bulk up the Legion's numbers. 

Two of the Wargames Factory Caesar's Legions - bad quality and will not be ordered again, the feet sort of melt into the base and have no definition to them

As well as this, I have been taking advantage of July's free postage from Warlord Games, where I ordered their 3 box set of Caesar's Legions for £48 and Pullo and Vorenus (in approriate military garb), the Heroes from the now slightly older HBO TV series of Rome.

My aim is to have as many Romans as possible ready for Dice and Decks Gaming Club's charity event on the 17th August at the Larrapez centre in Ross-on-Wye, which I've been helping to organise. All persons welcome (shameless advertising!) and we have a selection of tournaments, retailers and demo games going on from 0900-1700.

In other news, my Defiance Games UAMC infantry arrived last week and I am beginning to build and convert them into Colonial Marines for my home-grown Aliens rules. I have started painting one, but realised a large number of marines in the film actually have shoulder guards, which these models do not - time to go searching through my bits boxes! I have built three of the marines, although one with a helmet and arms from a Games Workshop Imperial Guard Cadian aren't quite right - coming in at slightly larger than the Defiance Games Marines. Pulse rifles are from Hasslefree Miniatures, and are just about the right size.

Defiance Games Marines, nice models

Out of the box - the contents

The first painted Marine so far, I have added camouflage since this picture was taken.

My latest playtest board, we tried more scenery and it seemed to help the rules balance out

 So there we have it, another update, prepare for another, hopefully this coming week. Until then folks....

Last Week of June 2013 Update.

Hello again Folks,

I'm yet again slowly mumbling along with exisiting projects - such as Kings of War and Bolt Action.

At the moment however, I have decided not to paint any Bolt Action Commandos as I have not got the correct Vajello green paint for their Berets. A trip to Hereford still not sourcing - some internet shopping may be in order!

I have been building more Dwarves for my Kings of War army, namely adding to the Bulwarkers horde - which when completed will be 40 strong. I played a game at Dice and Decks Gaming Club and again lost to Undead, albeit with a better effort than last time, with the Bulwarkers taking turn after turn of damage and then hitting the enemy back. Unfortunately, my Bulwarker Musician has mysteriously dissappeared after the game! So I need to build the rest of the unit, and then either find or build a new musician for them, much to my great irritation. *Update - whilst writing this post, I found the Musician had his spear lodged in the underside of the foam tray he was under, and so has been found and rescued.

Bulwarkers holding the centre against the undead menace! Well, at least until the final turns of the match.

My Riflemen Ironwatch horde takes to melee combat, The single skeleton in front of them is a Liche King.

Meanwhile, in Sci-Fi related wargaming, I am in the process of building an homage to one of my favourite films of all time - Aliens (well, the series in general). This involves models, scenery and rules! I have the option of either using Tomorrow's War, developed by Ambush Alley Games, the same team that made Force on Force or alternatively, using some homebrew rules solely for the Aliens universe I am in the process of writing. They are quite detailed and allow for 4 forces in my mind so far; Colonial Marines, Aliens, Colonists/Civilians and Weyland-Yutani/Company Mercenaries.

I have already started writing the rules, and have models and scenery in the creation stage (sourced from various locations). The vehicle so far is a 28mm scale Colony Vehicle I found on Ebay, which is nearly painted. I also have started building scenery for a colony; starting with a sign to be placed on the outskirts of any colony terrain.

The vehicle as it is being basecoated, from the end of last week.

The vehicle in it;s finished colours, I feel the colour scheme matches that of vehicles from the films.

I have manged to do my first playtest game for my rules last night, and dare I say - it went rather well in terms of popularity with my volunteer playtesters at Dice and Decks. Who took on the role of the Aliens for the game, and promptly won against a team of 5 Colonial Marines (who were represented by my Viridians for Urban Mammoth's Urban War game). The rules were very basic at this early stage, and are still missing some vital elements that I wish to unclude - such as faction lists, vehicles, terrain, and some form of rules around crawlways and vents!

The Viridians representing the Colonial Marines in the first playtesting game.

The battlefield for the first game, I felt the lack of terrain, both in volume and suitability made the game alot simpler than it should have been.

However, I felt the game showed and/or added several key points;
- the basic rules around moving, shooting and close quarters combat are working
- the addition of little extra rules to do with the unique acidic blood of the Aliens is a nice feature (which we implemented, with the option of exploding Aliens being a possibility if not instantly killed during shooting, and the option of the Aliens wounding their attacker in close combat when they themselves are injured).
- Terrain heavy games will add a real tactical element to the rules, we didn't have enough for much of a game in my opinion, and as I have not written the full terrain rules, this made sense at the time.
- My playtesters wanted me to include additional factions, such as generic mercenaries, Genetically modified Aliens and the United Systems Military - all elements from the 4th film in the Aliens franchise.

I hope to continue writing the rules up, and hopefully continue improving and continue playing a game of my own making!
 
Well, that sums up events in the Wargaming hobby world of mine for the end of June. Until next time then folks!