Minor Hobby happenings

 

Let's squueeeze in a post before Halloween.  Folks might want some light (very light)  reading while waiting by the door for the trick-or-treaters.  Some of you might be waiting with the hose ready to repel the grubby gremlins away with jets of water.  Don't let the light from your cellphone give away your hiding spot.

Onward and Upward

In what is becoming a continuing motif in this Terrible Blog, I have for you more...wait for it....DICE MARKERS!  (cue the sounds of reluctant applause)

the Audience says, "enough with the Gird Dern dice already!  We git it.  Don't you have enough of those?"

No.  I'm aiming for around 50.  So that when I do finally get around to doing some sort of mass battle there are enough dice to track the hits to each unit on the table.  Because to run out of dice counters half way through the battle would be lame.  Plus, these dice are so small that I'm probably gonna lose a couple.

There's 37 done so far.  I have another 13 left on the bag. And that will make 50.
It's almost like they sell these in pack of 10.

Speaking of Mass Battles

The first 4 Big Battle Basses for the Viking Army are complete.   It's not really a base but a movement tray, but I'm a sucker for alliterations.   These are the same as for the Saxon army (10 man loose order trays from Charlie Foxtrot Models). 

Again, I'm just making the trays and then taking my already painted Vikings and putting them on.  One would think that I would just grab any 10 figs and be done with it, but NO.  It's easy to get meticulously picky about which figures to put where; scanning over the entire collection to find a miniature with the right pose, facial expression, and equipment to make the base POP.  

These are also magnetized like the Saxon's trays.  Gotta treat all your miniatures the same even if you do love one more than the other.  Just like my children.

Spears of Love

In my last game of Clash of Spears (see previous post HERE if so inclined) the units armed with throwing spears were, um...,  throwing their spears like crazy; GO FIGURE.  It's almost like they preferred to stand far apart and throw things rather than get up really close and stab each other.  

To mark when a unit threw it's spears (because it matters in CoS) I was using some generic markers that I had laying around.  Just 25mm disks with some flock and a rock on it. 

But since the game I've wanted something a little more DIGNIFIED, something more REFINDED, something more UPPER CLASS to note when hairy smelly men threw sharp sticks at each other.  So I came up with these.

Supposed to be Spears stuck in the ground.
A long stick in the ground just screams Dignity.

The End is Scary

Have a Happy Halloween.  Don't spray trick-or-treaters with the hose.  You're better than that.  

So far our plan is for me to pull the kids on the wagon while trick-or-treating.  Which sounds like a great way to ensure that by the end of the night I'll be tired and cranky and the kids will be well rested and full of sugar.  

Till next time.  Thanks for reading and all comments are greatly appreciated.  

Clash of Spears Wargame AAR Dark Ages

 

It's time for some payoff with a game of Clash of Spears set in the Dark Ages.

The Build up

People who read this Terrible blog regularly (Fools that you are!  Your time would be better spent re-watching reruns of Gilligan's Island) know that there's been quite a bit of build up for Clash of Spears Dark Ages gaming going on. 

To recap:

I made these dials to track Command Points,
just for Clash of Spears games.

I made a pantsload of these tokens to track Actions in Clash of Spears,
But to be fair they'll have other uses in other games.
I also suppose they can be used as earrings as the kids these days seem to like putting 
large disks in their earlobes.

I made a slew of these 5mm die holders to track Fatigue in Clash of Spears,
but to be fair they will have other uses as well.
I suppose the 5mm dice can dangle from the rearview mirror
of a car in 28mm.

I made two Longships and some coastline terrain.
Which is not needed for Clash of Spears but are now REQUIRED
for every Dark Ages game I'll ever play because, dammit, they look cool.

I invited my friend Mr AS over for a game on a Monday afternoon.  "Monday afternoon?" you say.  Yes, I have Mondays off and Mr. AS is retired so days of the week mean nothing to him.  This might become a regular thing.  Mr. AS claimed he had Viking heritage so chose the Vikings to play; so I took the Saxons.  I don't know my heritage and don't really want to know.  Who knows what I might find if I went looking.  

Army Lists:

CLASH is set in the ancient times / Punic Wars, but ports easily over to the Dark Ages (it's ALLL swords and boards anyway).  I used the Beta Dark Ages lists and traits that you can get online as a guide and made the following lists.  These will mean NOTHING to you unless you have the rules so skip and skim if you like...

Noble Saxons; 

Muster WarBand, 1042 Points 

Saxons!

Level 4 Saxon Leader x 2

-add heavy shield to both

 

Skirmishers with Bows (1 unit of 6) 

Combat: 5+  Ranged: 5+  Grit: 5+  Save 7+  

Weapon: Bows   Armor: What Armor LOLs 

Traits: Skirmish Specialist

Ceorls (3 units of 8)

Combat: 4+  Ranged: 5+  Grit: 4+  Save 5+  

Weapon: Throwing Spears   Armor: Heavy Shields

Traits: Shield Overlap, Wall of Spears

Thegns (2 units of 7)

Combat: 3+  Ranged: 5+  Grit: 3+  Save 3+  

Weapon: Throwing Spears   Armor: Full Armor and Heavy Shield

Traits: Drilled, Fedelis, Shield Overlap, Wall of Spears

Disgusting Vikings:

Ad Hoc Warband, 1043

Vikings!

Level 5 Viking Leader with Heavy Shield

Level 4 Viking Leader with Heavy Shield

Bondi (2 units of 8)

Combat: 4+  Ranged: 5+  Grit: 4+  Save 4+  

Weapon: throwing Spears   Armor: Partial Armor and Heavy Shield

Traits: Drilled, Furor, Shield Overlap, Wall of Spears

Hirdmen (2 units of 7)

Combat: 3+  Ranged: 5+  Grit: 3+  Save 3+  

Weapon: Mixed Weapons   Armor: Full Armor and Heavy Shield 

Traits: Combined Arms, Drilled, Shield Overlap

Hirdmen with Dane Axes (1 unit of 7)

Combat: 3+  Ranged: 5+  Grit: 3+  Save 5+  

Weapon: Double handed Dane Axe   Armor: Full Armor 

Traits: Shield Breakers

You'll notice that the Vikings list is worth one more point than the Saxons.  What's one point between friends?  (Editor Note: If the Vikings win then the Saxons can claim that the game was RIGGED!)

In general the lists represent my preconceived notions of what makes a good dark ages game.  The Vikings are better troops with traits that help them be (be) aggressive while the Saxons have more troops and traits that help them be dogged defenders plus being ruggedly handsome.

Scenario (The play is the thing):

This time around we're doing the Force Projection scenario that I slightly modified to fit my 5 x 6 table (the battlefield is 5 x 4).

Board set up.
Told you the Longship was Mandatory.

Here we have the outskirts of a peaceful quiet Saxon village, when in the morning mist a Longship shows up on the shoreline.  "Why do we KEEP building our villages close to the water?" the Saxons ask.  "Hey nice village.  We think we'll take it" says the Vikings.

 

The objectives: There's a marker in the middle of the table to fight over.  Also, the Saxons want to get a unit within 8" of the shoreline; which threatens the Longship and the Vikings ride home so they will have NONE of that.  The Vikings want to get a unit within 8" of the village wall; which threatens the village and really pissing off the Saxon women so the Saxon men want NONE of that.

What, you didn't need another view of the battlefield?
Did you notice that the Saxon village wall mirrors the shape of the Viking shoreline?
That's called Fairness.  Something Vikings wouldn't understand.

 The Payoff

Now after all that foreplay, it's time for the BIG payoff with a detailed, knock down, blow by blow AAR.  And just like my wife, I'll leave you disappointed.  

Because I was teaching the game, playing the game, and having too good a time to really take enough pics or remember what happened.  Also the lighting was terrible.   So here are some of the better pics:

Here are the troops right after the Engagement phase.
The Saxons seem to have gotten the jump on the Vikings
as they seem to have just barely waded onto the shore.

Thegns and Vikings square off on the central objective

Hirdmen and Ceorls face off in the woods.
Trees removed for game play.
My woods are pretty and functional!

In the end the Saxons beat off the Vikings, but it was a close run thing.  Second to last turn both forces had 3 break points just from slaughtering their enemies (never mind walking all the way to the shore or village).  The Saxons auto passed their force morale check (being a muster force) and the Viking made their roll.  After the last turn the Vikings had 4 break points to the Saxons 3, and then failed the roll. 

Overall: I, adore this game.  The trading of activations and reactions just keeps the players engaged throughout the game.  The option of choosing the type of attack and the defending response makes every combat interesting.  It's a constant dance that keeps you interested but is not grinding in complexity or options.  

Playing this game is like going to an ice cream shop that only sells your favorite flavors.

I was also very pleased that all those counters worked well with the game and looked good. 

The hard part about the game is remembering what all the traits do.  Traits that come up a lot like Shield Overlap and Drilled are easy.  Remembering the rarer ones are harder; I think I forgot that the Hirdmen with dane axes had the Shield Breaker rule. Not that they needed it as they slaughtered two units of Ceorls.  

Least I remembered to use my fate points (those are re-rolls).

Next time I should try out some Normans.

These Things Always Cost Money

What things?  Fun things!  fun things cost money.  Sometimes unexpectantly.  

After this fun game I went online to see of there were any developments in the dark ages supplement and instead found another Ancients supplement.

Again, I know very little about Romans.
But this cover is EXACTLY how I picture them.
All stoic and hard bad asses.

I wasn't interested in any of the army lists, but there were some new traits and rules in there as well.  The book focuses on 100 BC to 100 AD as seen on the cover and my knowledge of history doesn't really start to around 400 AD but they're getting close to pleasing me; this one person.  But I have blog read by dozens of people so my voice will be HEARD!

I bought the PDF.  Mainly because it wasn't very expensive and to support the company.  I skipped all the army lists (though sample army lists are nice examples of unit profiles, and it's all swords and boards anyway) and potted history and went right to new traits and stuff, which I did like. especially the Poorly Equipped trait that I'll be using for now on; so am pleased with the purchase.  If the eventual dark ages supplement is this nice when it comes out then I'll be even more pleased. 

I Know the End When I See It

This is the end.  Hope you enjoyed the post.  Thanks for reading and comments appreciated.

Till next time.

The Saxon Army

 

"Did you just say 'The Sex on Amy?'"

-No, I said Saxon, as in my Dark Ages Anglo-Saxon Army.  

"That's not as exciting.  Unless you like a bunch of dirty men with long strong spears."

-But doesn't everybody??

"In-deed."

Dark Ages Anglo Saxon Army

Since aaaaaalll the way back in August (as seen in THIS previous post on August 4th) I've been slaving away at making new big battle bases as the old ones just wouldn't do anymore because I am an older, wiser, and generally more fussy wargamer.  

With 4 more bases done; I peered up from the frantic work at my hobby desk, waved away the lingering clouds of static grass and flock hanging in the air, rubbed the brown paint off my fingers and face, and discovered---- "Hey, I'm Kinda out of Saxons.  Guess that means the army is done."  

Now it is time to see the army in it's new glory and also do an inventory (because I'm not really sure what's in it).  I laid out the army as if I were gonna play Hail Caesar.  It's a Parade!  

 

Saxon King in the center of the army

A noble leading the left flank

A noble with a fine mustache on the right flank.
If I ever go bald, I'm growing a huge cop-stache like this.

Picture taken from the helicopter of the whole army.

Here's a graphic of what's in the actual army

The entire army consists of 8 bases of armored 'Thegn" types (chainmail) and 10 bases of unarmored 'Ceorl' types.  3 leader types, and 4 groups of skirmishers.  Since a normal unit consists of 10 miniatures I made the small skirmisher units 5 miniatures.  2 of the Thegn bases could count as Huscarls if I wanted, as the base has miniatures all with axes, a steely penetrating gaze (which was hard to paint), and a standard bearer.  Though, I think the army overall is a light on banners and could use more just for the visual appeal. 

In Hail Caesar, it's perfectly fine to have loose order skirmishers without a base and just little blobs.  Other rule sets that I also want to use will want these on bases as well.  The plan is to use a standard 10 man base with the 5 skirmishy miniatures and 5 blanks to cover to left over holes. 

The priest miniatures are just for show because I have them.  Besides, no self respecting defender of the christain faith would take to the field without a few to nag at him.   Though in actual HC games they will serve as markers for special rules and re-rolls.  

Last pic I promise.  Though doesn't everybody LOVE a parade.

I'm very pleased with the overall appearance of the army.  On a side note; I found it difficult to photograph so many miniatures so I'm not sure I pulled it off.  

I did say "Kinda" 

Just to be super clear: I haven't been painting miniatures.  All those Dark Ages Saxons were previously painted and I'm just sticking them on the new fangled base.  IN FACT, looking back at previous posts shows that I haven't painted ANY miniatures at all this year.  I find that interesting.  I've painted other stuff of course; one cannot completely escape the endless chore of painting in miniature wargaming.  Just like doing dishes or laundry, and I thought getting married would free me of those chores....

While 18 units is suitable massive, I actually envision the army being closer to 24 bases, because that's how many I bought for them.  And there is a still a handful of Saxons left over.

Left over Saxon dregs.
"Why don't you love us?"

Obviously not enough miniatures to fill a base, so these remainders will be just stored loosely all on their lonesome, and who knows what trouble they will get into?  Staying up late, drinking hard cider, and looking at naughty things on the internet.  Websites like "dark age beauties" or ever worse: hobby blogs. 

A Conflict of Desires 

I have a strong desire to actually finish something.  Can you imagine having a wargaming project actually finished?  So on one hand I want to start painting up Saxon miniatures to 'complete' the army or at the very least so that every Saxon is on a new ultra pretty big battle base.  On the other hand I have a desire to keep churning out big battle bases but now for the Viking Army 

Tub of Vikings says,
"you better make us some fancy-smancy bases before we get bored
and burn down your house and enslave your family."
Damn pushy Vikings.  Always threatening to pillage something.

When both armies are on the bases then some mass battle games can take place.  I got some things in mind I want to do.  

To make up my mind on what to do next, I'll play that game where you answer a bunch of rapid fire questions of 'This versus That' and you answer without thinking too much to arrive at your true desire...

Pizza or spaghetti?    Pizza

Sit ups or push ups?   Nap

Blonde or Brunette?   Brunette

Airplane or boat?   Boat

Coffee or tea?  Coffee

Summer or Winter?  Winter

Roses or Daises?  Ahhh, I'm a man, all flowers look the same

Cats or Dogs?  Neither

Missionary or Cowgirl?   Nap

Cake or Pie?   Cake

Hamburger or Taco?   Taco (that one was actually hard to answer)

Pancake or waffle?    Pancake

Tattoos or Piercings?   Well I still have all my tattoos but I took out all my piercings years ago...

Robots or Dinosaurs?    Dinosaurs

Guacamole or Salsa?   Guac

Pineapple Pizza or Candy Corn?  Gross!

Miniatures or Bases?   Bases.

AH-HA!  Bases it is then.  One can't argue with a modern psychological technique that I read in a Cosmo magazine.  

Till next time.  Thanks for reading.  Comments appreciated.  

Deja Vu

 This post will cause a sense of Deja Vu for the regular readers.    Which I'm always surprised that I have.  You can probably just skim down to the bottom. 

Deja Vu Tokens

Continuing on from the last post, I've made some more dark age themed counter tokens.  

26 more super theme-y dark age tokens

There are now around 50 of these things, and that SHOULD be enough to fit all of my purposes.  

For more Deja Vu sensation; I've also made more dice holders for the 5mm dice.

You could call these Deja Dice.  But that Kinda sounds like a porn star. 

I think I have supplies enough to make around 50 of these as well.  But I'd like to try them out in an actual game first just to see if they aren't too faddily to actually use.

Deja Vu Bases

Continuing on with the grinding out of the big battle bases.  Here are 4 more of the 10 man bases with Anglo Saxons on them.  Yay!  

There they are, all base like.  

Deja Vu Objectives

No wait... these are new-never-seen before.  

I didn't mean to make these.  I just ran out of suitable weapons for the counters and had 4 little bases left over with nothing to put on them.  

Two Objective markers  I decided to make into "fairy rings" because when I had the idea; I liked in theory but I'm not so sure it came off in practice.   But in any case they'll do to mark an area of ground that needs to be fought over while not getting in the way.  Lots of games require such markers.

Earning some Hubby Points

We've talked before about Hubby Points.  Sometimes called $Hubby bucks$.  These are the things you earn by being a good husband and father that you store up and spend to go play games later on and ignore your wife and children.  I just spent all mine on my recent game weekend so am in dire need of some more.  Every man earns them differently; I mainly get hubby points by doing the dishes, folding clothes, watching Jane Austen movies, and vacuuming the floor without being asked.  Flowers help too.  When you have a baby like I do there are extra opportunities to earn points by changing especially stinky overburdened diapers.  

My wife is also the Girl Scout troop leader of daughter #1.  When she had the idea that a fun Girl Scout meeting would consist of racing mini-donuts down a track of some sort but then despaired of not having such a track; I capitalized on the opportunity to earn BUCCO Hubby Points by offering to build it.  

Then naturally put it off till the last minute.  But a promise is a promise and a promise to your spouse is more like sacred oath that if broken will call down the gods of vengeance.  

I made two.  One 'race track' down a long slope and one 'skill track' where the girls could try to aim the donuts going the slope into target holes. 

These weren't anything that had to be permanent so I made these out Foamboard that I got from the dollar store and a hot glue gun.  Spray painted blue with some painted details. 

The 'Race track"

Race Track in Action

My Daughter on the 'Skill Track" 

(These pics were from the iphone movie so aren't the best, but you get the idea.)

Afterwards the girls get to eat the donuts.

Protip: Powdered donuts make great racers.  

Like a lot of things in life about half way through these projects I realized how I could of done it better but it was too late to start over.   Just like my life overall.  

Thanks for reading.  Comments greatly appreciated.  Till next time.  

B to B and BBB

Stands for:  Back to Blogging and Belated Blog Birthday.

Back on the Interwebs

Hello All.  I've been absent from the internet / blogosphere for about a month.  Just had a lot going on with the family and Work.  Not all bad but not all good either but that's the way it goes (says this stoic individual resigned to his fate).   As some of you know, I do most of my blog writing while at work because I have built in time where I basically just sit around and 'be available.'  But lately I've needed to actually earn my money.  What kind of world is this??? 

There was also about a 3.5 week period where I didn't have a cellphone.  It was TOTURE.  I actually had to look at my children and wife while they were talking me.  And since my cellphone is the primary way I view blogs and leave comments, I haven't been doing any of that.  So IF you missed my stupid inane comments on your blog posts that's the reason, and it's definitely not that I was mad at you and giving you the silent treatment out of jealously because your miniatures hobby is cooler than mine.

(Ok, maybe it was a little of that)

I got my cell back and have started leaving comments again.  I'm working my way up my blogroll.  

I did have email access while at work and limited access to our laptop while at home; I say limited because during that time the wife was also working on two very big projects and needed to computer for important stuff.  It didn't feel right for me to hog it in order to gossip about toy soldiers.

And while I am fessing up to being a bad blogger, I'll add in that the blog birthday came and went and I didn't even notice.  4 years of A Terrible Loss.  Time flies and we all get older (cue the Landslide song).

Progressi nell'hobby  

(Felt like saying 'Hobby Progress' in Italian, not sure why but it adds a little je ne sais quoi (and now French!  This blog is SOOOOO internacional!))

Even with all the stuff going on I managed in squeeze in some hobby times for the sake of relaxation and downtime.  It was weird doing hobbies without a cellphone as I usually play a youtube vid/podcast/audiobook while doing stuff and so it seemed eerily quiet.  Also, I didn't have a good way of taking pictures.   Not that there is a lot to photograph...

First up: Tokens 

I really like the rules  Clash of Spears but it needs a lot of tokens.  As I like my games to be at least as pretty as I am (a low bar) I wanted some fancy-smancy tokens that will look good on the table.

These are just 25mm bases with some ground texture; I tried to make them plain enough so that it's easy to see the swords and stuff as that's the important part.  The weapons are mostly from the Gripping Beast boxes of plastic dark ages infantry  types and there's more where that came from.  Proof that you NEVER throw sprues away because I've had these lying around for years.

Clash of Spears also requires that each unit track it's fatigue.
I made these tracker markers.

I dislike dice on the table.  Problem is; dice are very useful for tracking things in wargames.  Especially if the number is gonna be a number 1-6 which it is soooooooo much of the time (it's like wargame rule writers KNOW we have oodles of D6s).  So if I must have dice on the table then let's try to disguise them a little bit.  The idea being that when you look for the die you can see it but otherwise it blends in.

Anglo Saxon Spear man says,
"These dice look small even to my eyes, which you did not paint."

These are small 5mm dice and frames that I got from Minibits placed on a 25mm base.  I might of gone too small, but larger dice still screamed "THERE'S DICE ON THE TABLE HERE!" to me.  

The tokens in action!  This unit has taken two actions and has 3 fatigue.
It's an amazingly exciting picture.
What can be more dramatic than pics of tokens in action?

This is enough markers for a 2 player game.  I'd like to increase the number for a 4 player game, and it occurred to me that these markers will have uses in Mass Battle games as well.  For example; units in Hail Caesar can take up to 6 hits and can become disordered. 

Kinda like this.
Another extraordinary shot of tokens in action.
Bout as exciting as watching ice melt.

Speaking of Mass Battle

I continue upgrading my mass battle trays.  I completed 6 more of the 10 man trays.

An artistic pic shot an angle.

Front view.
The middle center unit all have axes and are meant to be Huscarls.
They have an nifty banner.

Rear view

That's 10 bases done so far.  I'm guess-ta-mating that there's likely enough Saxons for about 8more bases.   And then there are the Vikings still to do.  I'll be making bases for awhile it seems.  Good thing I enjoy it and it's a nice break from painting miniatures. 

Ein Wargaming-Wochenende ist Wunderbar!

(I actually took 4 years of German in high school.  So naturally all I remember now are the cuss words and phrases from WWII movies.)

Here in the USA it was Labor Day Weekend recently.  For awhile there I was planning on attending my first game convention since the pandemic hit called Pacificon held over the same holiday weekend.  I ended up not going due to 'reasons.'   Instead, my local friend CG and I got together for a gaming weekend on our own which worked out quite nicely.  Goofed off all day Saturday and most of Sunday.

On Saturday, I hosted an ACW game of Regimental Fire and Fury.  We did the Battle of Stones River scenario in the RFF book.  It's basically a big CSA assault onto a Union line.  There were 4 players including me.

My Confederates moving on the left

Some more on the right side of the field

Union reserves

I was busy hosting, playing, eating, socializing, and sneaking off to the bathroom to do bumps of cocaine.  As a result, I only took those 4 pics.  4 pics over a 6 hour game.  

The rest of the weekend was spent playing board games of various sizes and shapes with people that CG knew.  Apparently; when your children are all grown up you get time to play board games on the regular.  That's nice to know!

A bit About Board Games

I like board games, and it's something I don't do very often so it was nice to scratch that itch.  And I like board games that are moderately complex and take awhile to play.  I didn't take any pics because as a rule pics of board games are BORING to look at (Exception to the rule: Norm's blog).   Yet by the end of Sunday afternoon I was definitely 'boardgamed-OUT.'  We were starting a game called Viticulture (a worker placement game where you make wines, and it's a pretty good game)  when the depressive side of my brain rudely  engaged itself stating 'You're gonna spend 3 hours playing this game, you're gonna figure out the engine but probably 3 turns too late to win, and even if you like the game you're not gonna buy it and you're probably never gonna play it again and even if you do it's gonna be years later and you'll not remember sooooooo why are you doing this?"  

I drowned that voice in iced coffee and had fun anyway.  I think I was just getting tired of learning new games.  It's like I want to play new games, but also want to play games that I already know I like and know how to play.  And the wife says I am hard to please.  

Also, My Wife is Awesome

Because not only did she watch the 3 surviving kids while I was off playing games; but on Saturday morning at the last minute we lost our gaming venue, and the wife immediately said we could play at our house.  She also speed cleaned it as we headed over there (I mean the house was clean, but wasn't 'guest clean') and THEN took the kids out of the house for most of the day so they wouldn't underfoot.  

Freaking Awesome.  I should buy her something nice.  Maybe she'll like a board game about making wines?  

The End (I know I know I know)

That's it!  I hope you enjoyed this post about... nothing really.  Some pics, some jokes, some half formed thoughts.  Probably what you expected!  

Till next time hopefully not as long.  

-Stewart