The lesser known Wallachian invasion of Asia Minor

Vlad III Tepes, the Impaler, once again went on a rampage in foreign lands, travelling back in time to invade the territories of Seleukos in Asia Minor! 

 Battle Report

I won the attack role and chose to meet the Seleukeid army on the plains! McBeth selected a lot of terrain, aiming to constrain my light horses' ability to ride all over the shop, but the placement roles put it all in useful places for me and the one bit I suspect he wanted to fill with his ally command, I was able to remove.

To begin the battle, I pushed my light cavalry out in front of my army and, in particular, up the left flank, hoping to whip around the back of the Seleukeid phalanx:

McB promptly rolled enough pips for the phalanx to do some epic professional pikeman reployment and withdrew and reoriented to close the pathway I had to the back of the board. Very nicely done! We skirmished heavily on that flank before the phalanx separated to try and see off my light cavalry. After our light cavalry rode rings around each other, I eventually lost a pair of light horse in melee hat I definitely started with advantage:

We imagined that as the remnant of two of the LH units streamed away from combat, the last formed element retreated in some order while at the same time I managed to sneak a couple of light horse through the gap in the phalanx. You can imagine the picture in the 'Great Battles of History' book that would show this cunning manoeuver by Vlad Tepes to try and stop his left flank from collapsing! There were a lot of good stories in this game!

On the right flank, the Seleukeid and Wallachian bowmen exchanged fire basically across the course of the whole game. McBeth and I both pulled troops back from the brink on and off which just made the whole thing drag out. I learned that in this context, Pavise is a handy rule!

In the end, McBeth pushed some Thracians and an elephant past my line to swing them onto the end of the bow line (and I started to panic with nothing but a pair of light foot there to stop them) but see below for how I absolutely got away with this...

Around the same time McBeth threw his Heavy Cavalry into one of my two groups of mixed Heavy Cavalry and Knights with a view to denting them badly before I could get the second group in and....well...it didn't go well.

I won two of the combats by 4 and the other one drew which meant I was able to throw one of my extra cavalry into their flank and finish them off. I had enough scope to throw a couple of bases into the pike, knowing that'd be bad but it might just hold them for long enough to break the rest of the army. Could McB have unpicked this? Absolutely. But when his Strategos died in combat and he spent two turns rolling a 1 for pips, his large command, including those bits that were threatening to roll up my right, came to a grinding halt and gave me some breathing room.

That's broadly how it turned out in the end. The light horse on my right managed to escape and find their way into the rear of McB's Elephant / Thracian formation and with the help of some Curteni archers made an elephant very pin-cushiony (this is where I also learned you can't rally elephants) which, with the death of the Strategos, pushed the Seleukeids over the break limit.

 It was a great game. It's one of those matchups where I desperately want to keep the pike out of the game because I simply can't fight them, and hope to exploit the fact that the Seleukeid frontage must be narrower than mine to try and give my mounted the advantage. McBeth played some very cool and clever moves, especially with his pike, to try and give my Light Horse something to think about. 

At the end of the game, we went over the evade rules some more as they're still one of the more curly bits of ADLG and discovered one very big screwup. We missed the bit of the rules where the edge of the world is not an obstacle. I should definitely have lost at least two, if not three more light horse which made the final score much closer.

We also learned a little more about side-by-side conforming (which is actually really cool), when routs hurt things behind them and when they don't, why mixing impetuous troops with non-impetuous troops is a bad idea and I think we've finally nailed down what happens when a base is hit in the flank by light troops (and mostly what doesn't happen) so definitely feeling like I'm getting my head around this game.

Some thoughts about ADLG in 15mm

McBeth, Scotty, clubmate BB and I all enthused about ADLG at 15mm. It feels like a different game than at 28mm which I think is mostly a result of the base size:table size ratio but also some of the armies one might do in 15s, you'd never do in 28s. 

I really enjoyed running the army of light horse and even with the screwup about the edge of the world in evade moves, I felt like I had a lot of room to work with which is really appealing. The next time I run this army, it's going to have even more light cavalry. I've also made up a list with some chunkier infantry options too for a change. 

Playing McBeth's Selekeids has given me some pause on the makeup of my soon to be inbound Mycenaeans but I think I'll get that on the table and figure it out from there. 

Next Time

I've been hard at work on the Spanish so  expect the remainder of the Spanish cavalry and, hopefully, the Landsknecht Kiel. Playing 15mm ADLG has given me the oomph to get the Renaissance stuff done. 

Anniversary Weekend Workbench

 

Deathwatch Combat Patrol

After much faffing, the third Aggressor has been done and added to my Deathwatch collection:

Replicating old paint schemes, even when you've had the good sense to make notes on all your decisions, remains challenging so I'm pretty happy how well he fits into the wider squad:

 

The whole Combat Patrol is a real mishmash of stuff and, given Deathwatch, I kind of love it. The Lieutenant model is a Phobos Marine, the Apothecary is a Biologis and the Intercessor squad is half Stalker Bolt Rifles and half Auto-Bolt Rifles which is a nice vibe for Deathwatch. 

  

Amazingly, given this army was never intended to be assembled in this way, the Intercessors are all unique chapter-wise and I think there's a couple of Blood Angels and a couple of Dark Angels across the whole force. Not bad given how much effort I've put into that over the years!

ADLG

Because the nice people at Museum Miniatures have an excellent New Years Sale, I decided I have to get cracking and finish my Spanish so I can buy my Myceneans and get into another 15mm ADLG army, mostly because I REALLY enjoyed my game last week and the Myceneans will be a very different proposition. To that end, I painted the camp for my Spanish, partly so I can print some flags and test those out on the one lone pikeman on the camp base:

Once I've got that squared away, I can work out how many more flags I need for the rest of the army. It was good to get back to painting the 15s - I've gotten so used to painting 28s over the last few years that I feel like I'm a bit of out practice now! 

Next Time

Good question. I'd like to get the Deathwatch out for a Combat Patrol game or I might give the Wallachians another run. We've also got a Flames of War competition coming up in April and I wouldn't mind giving the list I'm thinking I'll play there a run either. 

I forgot to make blog material....

 Yep. Played two excellent games at the club yesterday and remembered to take two whole photos of the second one. Some days I don't help myself with this insistence on a weekly posting schedule.

ADLG

 I played my first game of ADLG in 15mm yesterday with Blogger Scotty with my ancient Wallachians invading the plains of Al-Andalus to battle Scotty's nascent Taifa Kingdoms army. My Strategist and hordes of light cavalry meant I won the roll to attack.

Scotty deployed a mix of medium foot and crossbow on his right with some Medium Cavalry Javelin, a solid centre of supported Heavy Spear and more Medium Cavalry Javelin and, on his left, some light horse and his Medium Knight Christian cavalry.

I deployed a screen of light horse and my bowmen in front of my portable fortifications and camp, largely refused the centre other than some light horse and deployed my Crusader knights and Boyars on the centre-right and right.  

My pip dice started stupidly and largely stayed there for the whole game. I had SO many 6s for pips. I don't think there was a moment during the game that I had any shortage of activations. So I advanced my lights aggressively, partly to pop Scotty's one ambush marker, and he responded by aggressively advancing his cavalry. 

On my right, his Light Cavalry Javelin engaged my Light Cavalry Bow and as that combat stalled  Scotty engaged my Heavy Cavalry with his Medium Knight and my Heavy Knight with his Medium Cavalry Javelin and the grind began.

Die roll included to rub salt into that wound...

As you can see from the photo above, Scotty got on the flanks of my Knights in the centre and I did the same on my right but these things that should have been sitters didn't wind up that way at all. Where his dice were bad, so were mine and where mine were good so were his. Until they weren't and my 6s were matched by his 1s...

 Eventually, the Heavy Knight managed to push through the Medium Cavalry Javelin and my Heavy Cavalry held up Scotty's Medium Knights to eventually break the Taifa Kingdoms. You can see in the photo above Scotty's Spear and Bow never really made it into the fight which also gave me a lot more room to move.

Here we see a pivotal moment before my token resistance on my left flank collapsed (more on this later). Blogger Scotty's Medium Cavalry Javelin engaged my Bowmen and, over the course of two turns, broke them completely.  That opened up the flank for Scotty's medium and loose medium infantry to crest a hill and sack my camp. Scotty charged up a hill into my fortifications (read: Levy) and I rolled a bunch of 6s and he rolled a bunch of not 6s and the Levy boldly defended the camp...!

It was a really good game made interesting because the slightly different board dimensions for 15mm meant there was (or certainly felt like) way more room to move with my light cavalry. Scotty's and Blogger McBeth's experience at an ADLG event last year also helped with clarifying things I had largely forgotten and getting a bit of good advice about some choices that would otherwise have been bad. 

I definitely learned some things about the army and I think I'll get a bit more basing done to open up some other options. I also am going to have to go through and replace all the pewter lances with steel. They're just too bendy and I hate it. Very old school but as I think this army is going to see some more table time, I'm keen to get it looking it's best!

What about KoW? 

I had a great game with  blogger Tank and didn't take any photos at all so instead, some tactical reflections on trying out some new toys. Tank's use of the new Ordered March rule for his Dwarves definitely made my flying circus a lot less terrifying and given he took one of my flying troops of Spectres on the first turn, it became a lot more about applying good old fashioned fist to face!

The new Ravagers were impressive. Hordes of Large Infantry offer a fairly phenomenal number of attack dice and having Crushing Strength(1) and Piercing(1) on their melee and ranged attacks respectively definitely gives them utility. Almost makes the monetary cost of buying the models and the small stabbing while rebasing them worth it.

The Mindscreech won me the game in the end (that and an extra turn - if we'd stopped at 6, Tank would have had the win!) - two turns of shooting Lightning Bolt at damaged units did enough to push them to rout. It was lucky to survive being charged by Tank's uber-dwarf-golem thing and I absolutely wasted a turn using it in a rear charge against some DEF6+ Dwarves but all-in-all an impressive performance.

The Bloodworms were also impressive despite being fairly meh stat wise, they make up for that being Hordes with high Nerve Values and Lifeleech(2) gives them a bit more survivability. I might consider taking the less offensive version of the Mindscreech and using that to boost that healing and survivability.

Because pictures are nice, here's the whole finished force: 

I do still need to finish the water effects but otherwise, I've got lots of interesting options to play and that makes me super happy.

Next Time

I'm staring at the pile of stuff that wants doing and honestly at this point I have no idea. Next week will definitely be a painting post...

Finishing up something that's taken too long!

 It's been a pretty quiet week on the hobby front. Last week's little accident certainly impeded any meaningful hobby progress that might re-open the wound which left me with a fair whack of downtime so I haven't got that much done this week until the last couple of days when it finally feels like I'm not going to do that! 

 Apotheke? 

He's done! I really do like this model and I'm pleased with how it came out. Given he's Deathwatch, I decided I'd give him the white helmet and some white trim on his Ultramarine pauldron just to pay some reference to the lore in which Apothecaries have white armour regardless of chapter.  

So now I'm just waiting on the third Aggressor to arrive from the UK and I'll be able to finish up the Deathwatch Combat Patrol. Given my Imperial Guard were utterly eaten by Blogger Pooch's Tyranids in our abortive invasion of Planet K I'm keen to send in the experts and give those bugs a bit more of a professional treatment! 

Ghosties! 

First off, I completed the rebasing job that created the aforementioned scalpel-adjacent incident and put some focus into finishing some things:

Ravagers (formerly Spectres), Butcher Fleshripper, Butchers

 I've done some aggressive basing to get ready for club day this weekend. It's not quite done as the water effects still need to go on but I'll try and get those done during the course of the week and set before Saturday:

Less of a glass cannon than usual?

Just the two bases of Reapers to finish up this army I think. And maybe a Nagash. Maybe. 

Next Time

I'm taking the new Ghosties out for a run so I'll see how that goes! 

Pooch's December update and 2024 goals

So that's it, 2023 is done. There was a LOT painted this year, but it's fair to say that the goals more or less went out the window in December once I got super excited about a new project! 

But still, lets look at what did get finished in December, before I share the goals for 2024...

1. Paint a platoon for Flames of War

This month's is VERY MUCH a cop out. I painted 4 PaK 36 AT Guns. That's it. Not the crew, those came from something I painted months ago. 

I mean. It counts. But isn't a win...

So... yea. That's something done at least.

2. Add something to armies I have already painted

You know how I said that I got super excited about a new project? 

There has been a lot of talk in the group about 10e 40k, and wanting the game to be fun. We all love the fluff, but some of the previous editions with their rules bloat, and metagaming just really didn't feel good for the group, which meant that we never got into the swing of it. Despite pretty much all of us having full armies for it!

So, I decided that I wanted to get back to my 40k roots, and to do that, I would paint something new for it that I had never owned before. And I would pick something that already had a codex, limiting the risk of codex creep making a whole bunch of units obsolete- enter the Tyranids!

Added bonus with them was that there was plenty going cheap on the local trading site too! 

In December, I finished up the Combat Patrol box, made up of a Warrior Prime, 20 Termagants, 2 Ripper Swarms, 5 Barbgaunts, 3 von Ryan's Leapers and a Psychophage. And I also painted three Tyranid Warriors too. To classify under this goal, I'll also point out that a bunch of those models together (8 termagants and 3 warriors to be precise) would also work as a Kill Team!

The whole army so far!

Warrior Prime

Another shot of the Prime

Can't have a Prime without a unit of Warriors for them to lead!

von Ryan's Leapers. I assume von Ryan didn't make it.....

Barbgaunts!

Psychophage

That's a LOT of teeth.....

Found: one arm. Slightly used. Looking to return to owner

Four of the twenty Termagants

Get used to seeing green and purple, I have many more space bugs left to paint!

3. Finish up a piece of terrain

I know that I said that I would finish the last building for my Wild West town.... but I ran short of time, and so instead assembled these two wagons also for my Wild West town!

Two wagons. Does what it says on the tin.

I do still have that last building to make, which I should really do!

4. Play a game a month, that was different to the last month

This month was our Remember December competition, (read McZ's report here), where I took my US Paras, supported by the F4F Wildcats I finished last month out for a run.

It is always great to get out for a series of games, and I do so love my US paras. I was too busy with the games that I actually forgot to take any pictures reall, I only managed these two, the first showing my Paras holding on to a hill, and the second showing the British forces that were holding the hill opposite!

This is my hill

This is not my hill

For that game, it's worth noting that at the end, neither hill was my hill....

5. Paint a Hundred Years War French Army for ADLG

Now, this one I genuinely failed at this month. I didn't paint a single thing. That'll be a problem for next year now I think!

So what about 2024 then?

I find having the monthly blog, with a set of goals to complete  really good to focus me, and to keep a focus on actually completing projects, instead of keeping things in a 50-80% completed state. I want to have a slightly broader set of goals this year, but with a specific goal to actually get myself into playing 40k, and playing it enough to actually know the rules and army well enough that I enjoy those games!

So what's the plan for 2024 then? Just four goals this year:

1. Paint something bought in 2024

2. Paint something bought before 2024

3. Play a game of 40k each month

4. Play a game of not-40k each month

And that's it- I'd better get cracking!

Pooch