The army of the Dark Lord part two

I finished painting and basing the next batch of units for the Dark Lord's army this morning.  Two of them had to be primed.  Though I used a grey spray primer, it was not the right shade of grey and I had to paint all the figures with Charcoal Grey from Howard Hughes..  This batch went quickly as there were only seven other colors that I used.  Where I could I did paint some teeth and tongues   There are two units of spearmen in the back row, two units of archers in the front row and one unit of javelin armed skirmishers in the center of the front row..  I will be starting on the next part tomorrow.

These are being used for a fictional campaign using a map that I used several years ago.  The Dark Lord is located in the northeast corner of the map.

Army of the Dark Lord part one

I started painting the next army this week.  Two units were already finished and a third was almost done, but there were three infantry units and one mounted unit that needed to be primed.  All the rest of was just primed.   As of this morning I completed the one that was almost done, primed and finished the unprimed mounted unit and completed three other units.  The other unit that was already finished will be included with the other units of the same type.

 All six units

 The Dark Lord's mounted guard.  This was one of the two finished units. 

 Elf knights on reptiles.  This was one of the unprimed units

 Another knight unit.  Most of these came from the Battle Master board game.

 Reptiles riding reptiles

 Light horse.  this was the unit that was almost finished.

 Dire Wolves

 Character figures

 Two subordinate commanders to left and in front.  Army commander in center

Two heroes.

Elf Army Project Part Two

Last night I finished painting five, sixteen figure units of Elf light infantry and another 14 Elf light infantry.  I will either base the extra 14 figures as an understrength unit or add a couple of extra heavy infantry figures to bring it up to 15 figures.  These figures required more work as they were just primed.   I have ordered some plastic glue from Amazon so that I can make needed repairs to some figures and add standards to two of these units.  I will be flocking bases later.

Elf Army Project Part One

After painting the 6mm figures last month, I spent the first week of this month taking care of other things and reading the new set of rules from Wiley Games.  These are the set called "Bigger Battles and are intended for larger scale skirmish games where units of 5 to `12 figures are used instead of individual figures.  This inspired me to dig out my 28mm figures that I had started a while back and finish painting them.

The first batch is the Elf heavy infantry.  The next batch will be the Elf light infantry, followed by the elf cavalry, and finally special figures like heroes and mages. I had originally started painting these a while back and then decided to change the color scheme.  This group of figures was about 1/4 to 1/3 completed prior to working on them this past week.  The Elf heavy infantry is organized as eight units of 16 figures.  The color scheme is green and yellow uniforms and equipment with red weapons and silvered and gold armor. I need to get a tube of plastic glue to fix a few missing spear points on several figures. Edit:  This is the first of three blog posts the other two follow directly by clicking on the newer post at the bottom of the page.

Shields were made from scans of shield patterns that I had and resized and reshaped as ovals in addition to the circular ones using PaintShop Pro.  I did not want to use the original shield shape and patterns supplied by Games Workshop.  The new shields are printed on heavy card stock and glued to the figures. Most of the shield patterns are sort of floral in design.  The guard infantry unit has a white Pegasus on a pale blue background and one unit has an altar with a central flame.

 The guard infantry

Keepers of the flame

 

 

 

 

 

When the rest of the army is finished they will be able to engage the dwarf and human forces I painted a while back.  Dwarf Army  Human army

The past couple of monts gaming with Fistful of Lead Galactic Heroes.

Its been a while since I posted.  I have been busy painting figures making buildings, and some gaming.   My original plans for projects for this year has changed.   I have developed an interest in a recently published rule set titled "Fistful of Lead:  Galactic Heroes"   from Wiley Games.  The original rule set was designed for the American West or the "Wild West" as it is sometimes referred to.  The rules were published last November and a couple of members of the Sacramento Club hosted some games.  Since then I have played in a hosted some games as noted in the previous three posts.  The next post after this one will cover the recent Conquest Sacramento convention held March 22-24.

After taking part in a game and having a lot of fun, I dusted off my old 25mm SciFi figures, printed out and assembled some cardstock buildings and started playing.  I still have some additional cardstock structures to print and assemble.

I purchased up some additional Grenadier Models Traveler Imperial Marines for $18.including shipping off of eBay to round out the troops I had.  The set had 10 of the 12 figures.   I saw a couple of listings for complete sets asking $130 and $165 plus shipping.  Way more than what I originally paid for the two plus sets that I bought back in the 1980's.

I also replaced some figures that I purchased back then with figures from another company.  I ran a game of Galactic Heroes at the San Jose club's March meeting and one of the players needed some figures. The new guys are the Martian Orbital Fusiliers from Anvil Industry.  They are multi-part figures.  The offer a 10 figure pre-packaged set and I added some additional heavy weapons and a few extra figures to three of the sets to get an extra discount and free shipping. this gave me a 41 figure platoon of three squads.  I painted them in a faded blue color to match the camouflage scheme on some cardstock scifi tanks I printed.

The San Jose Club was also having an estate sale for a member who had recently passed away at the meeting.  His estate had thousands of figures in multiple scales and multiple periods along with buildings, scenery, planes, and ships.

Several of the Sacramento Club members and I are planning on adapting Galactic Heroes to Sword and Sorcery.   I recently got a pdf copy of "Thud and Blunder"  a brand new set of Fantasy skirmish rules that had received very good reviews.   They include a number of pre-designed warbands that have traits/characteristics from a list in the rule book.   Many of those traits are directly translatable to Galactic Heroes trait, some were combinations of GH traits, while a few required some thought as to the appropriate conversion.  This has led me to purchasing some additional fantasy hero figures to go along with the 28mm figures I already have.   This has also inspired me to decide to finish painting the 28mm fantasy figures that I already have.

Dark Sword figure filling in as Red Sonja

Dark Sword miniature painted as Valeria

 An unnamed Dark Sword miniature that is similar in appearance to the Valeria figure in the add-ons to the Conan board game.

 Another unnamed Dark Sword Miniature

 Another unnamed Dark Sword character

 A Princess

 Valeria's shield - a Pegasus

Hadrathus filling in for Toth-Amon

 Shevatas

 one version of Conan

 Another version of Conan  Also have a couple of other versions of Conan covering his later life as a mercenary and king.

 Belit

Dwarf Army Finished - Iranistan campaign

One of my projects this summer was to finish painting and basing my 28mm dwarf army. Most of the figures are from Games Workshop. Others are from various games or other manufacturers. All items are plastic. They have participated in a number of battles over the years. The army has ten units of warriors, five units of missile troops and four artillery units. For the rules they normally fight under this would be about 15,000 infantry plus generals, heroes and guns. Paints used for this project were Vallejo and various acrylic types from Marshalls.
I should also note that we don't use GW rules.

Update - Since this was posted the army has been adjusted to 50x50mm bases (2inch by 2 inch) instead of 100x100mm for the infantry and represents 30,000 infantry.

Projects completed

The following photos were taken with indoor lighting that I should have adjusted for. The background is actually white so there is a bit of color shift. These are 25/28mm figures that I have painted this year.

Three units of archers filling in as Bossonian archers for Aquilonia.













Two more units of archers.

Billmen







 




The following figures will be used in the club game on Halloween day.

Iranistan regular cavlary.

Iranistan regular heavy infantry.

Irregular infantry in Iranistan employ.

Irregular cavalry in Iranistan employ

Iranistan regular light infantry

Field of Glory Fantasy Rules Playtest

Today Mike and I tried out several rules for a fantasy variant of Field of Glory. We recreated the battle from Robert E. Howard's story "Black Colossus". We did make several alterations to the opposing forces. Each side received a battlegroup of flyers and an extra mage. Natohk's army was changed to skeletons and the army of Khoraja got an extra hero.

The army of Khoraja had one battlegroup of 4 knights, five battlegroups of 4 bow,sword cavalry, one battlegroup of 4 impact foot, one battlegroup of 8 pike, one battlegroup of 8 light foot archers, one battle group of 4 cavalry lancers, and one two stand battlegroup of flyers.

Natohk's army (commanded by Mike) had three battlegroups of 4 light chariot bows, two
battlegroups of 4 cavalry -1/2 lance
and 1/2 bow, one battlegroup of 2 flyers, and six battlegroups of 6 superior mob 1/2 light spear/bow and 1/2 bow.

The first picture shows Natohk's deployment and the second shows Conan's. Conan also had a flank march with the cavalry lancers, two battlegroups of the cavalry bow, and the sub-ordinate field commander. My daughter rolled a twelve for the flank march which promptly arrived on the first turn
next to Natohk's camp (photos 3
and 4) which had been placed near
the right edge of Natohk's side of
the table. One of the bow cavalry
straggled, but the others appeared
on the Natohk's right flank. The two units of Khorajan cavalry would spend the rest of the game engaged in a desperate battle with the opposing skeletons and the second mage before finally breaking them.

Meanwhile, the rest of Natohk's
army advanced on the ridge line where the Khorajan army was deployed. Conan led two units of Khorajan cavalry and the nobles (knights) advanced to engage the chariots. The extra hero was with the knights. Bow fire from the chariots disrupted both units of cavalry archers, who evaded when the chariot unit on Natohk's right charged them. While Conan went to rally them the knights charged the other two battlegroups of chariots who also evaded. The chariots stood their ground when the knights, who had become disrupted from missile fire, charged them again. Conan rallied the first unit of cavalry he joined and led them in an interception charge against the chariots that had charged them. Although the knights did some damage to the chariots, they failed another cohesion test and became fragmented. The mounted archers did much better and were able to defeat the lone unit of chariots they were facing.

While all this was going on the Khorajan flyers had chased after the opposing flyers. We had to substitute some regular cavalry for the flyers. A short engagement occurred when Natohk's flyers turned to face them and promptly lost half their stands on impact (top of photo 6). The pursuit took the Khorajan flyers almost to Natohk's camp.

On the other half of the battlefield the horde of skeleton foot advanced on the ridge. Several turns of missile fire from both sides saw the Khorajan cavalry on their right flank break while the light foot archers held their ground with the aid of the mage who had joined them. The Khorajan mercenary pike advanced and tore into one of the skeleton groups while the lesser Khorajan nobles (impact foot) also engaged an opposing battlegroup.

Due to time limits we ended the game at this point. The Khorajan army had lost two units of cavalry archers due to straggling and routing while the Khorajan knights were fragmented and would also be lost. Natohk had lost his flyers and one battlegroup of foot. A second battlegroup of foot was also treated as lost along with his camp and one battlegroup of chariots.

In all both magic systems worked well without dominating the battle. The mage using the Hyborian magic system forced the flanking cavalry to take several cohesion tests due to hits and had to pass one death test when one of his casts backfired. The other magic system helped the Khorajan light foot archers pass several cohesion tests which could have resulted in the collapse of the Khorajan right flank if they had not passed them. Superior mobs of skeletons were found to be very hard to break. The hero with the knights had only a minor effect on the die rolls for the stand he was with. A couple of minor changes in the flyer rules were discussed