Dragon Princes of Caledor

This week I finished a unit of GW High Elf Dragon Princes. They are very detailed models and make up a very punchy unit, they have dragon armour (heavy armour with a 2+ ward save against fire) on a barded horse with lance and 2 attacks each. So they will hit hard, but with only 5 bodies likely not last long if they caught stuck in for too long. They will be useful for clearing out those pesky flamers and salamanders.




Next up: some miscellaneous reinforcements (more swordmasters and spear) plus a bolt thrower and lion chariot to round out my High Elf core army. I have also had an urge to go back to my ECW stuff and maybe flesh out the Covenanters, plus an Egyptian DBA army calls...Mark is coming by later on to give my Early Achaemenids a chance to roll some more 1s, so my motivation to paint those Egyptians depends on how the fortunes of DBA war favour us today.

Island of Blood Elves completed

This week I finished off the IoB High Elves, the remaining elements were the swordmasters:


The swordmasters are formidable (2 attacks with great weapons that always strike first) but fragile, T3 with heavy armour.

There is also a prince of griffon who I might run as Eltharion on Stormwing, a formidable heroic warrior with spellcasting to boot:



In other news, I managed to lose 4 games of DBA this week, 3 losses came after my general went down in an even fight (4:4) which can only happen if I roll a 1 to my oppenents 6. THREE TIMES it happened. I am a population geneticist, I do math and probability for a living, and I can tell you it's pretty goddam unlikely...the only scientific explanation must be that I need new dice.

Next up: Dragon Princes

Crusades Campaign

Here is a set of campaign rules I have drawn up for our upcoming DBA campaign, based on GW Mighty Empires and to be played on a Mighty Empires map. They are intended to represent the "generic" crusade, perhaps the third one, since there will be several Crusader armies that will likely start as established kingdoms in the Levant. Comments welcome.

Crusades Campaign

Victory Conditions: The game ends at the end of a turn when at least one power has reached a total of 10 territories + cities. At this point the winner is the power with the highest total of territories + cities.

At Start: Players dice for order of starting placement. Low roller chooses their start territory first and places a control marker on the map accordingly. Players should choose their starting territory somewhere consistent with their historical origin (e.g. A Fatimid player should choose a location in Egypt, a Crusader player in Palestine, etc...). The starting territory may contain a city.

Turn sequence: At the start of each turn the powers are ranked according to their territory size, where territory size is measured by the number of territories + cities under control. Tied ranks are settled by a die roll.

The player with the lowest rank has the first choice of opponent to challenge in a battle. The next highest ranked power not yet challenged can then challenge any higher ranked power to battle, and so on until all of the powers are paired up. When there are an odd number of powers, the remaining power has to sit out the turn.

Each battle is fought as per the normal DBA rules including dicing for attacker and terrain placement. The attacker has the choice of playing on a 30” or 24” board size.

After the battles have been fought, the winner of each battle gains conquest points equal to the margin of victory that can be used to expand their territory holdings. All expansion must be contiguous with currently held territory (i.e. adjacent to a territory held or just taken control of). A player player not challenged and sitting out a turn automatically gets one conquest point, representing consolidation activity during a peaceful break. Conquest points can be converted to territorial gains as follows, starting with the lowest ranked power:

1pt- the player may take control of an adjacent uncontrolled territory that does not contain a city.

1pt- the player may fortify any controlled territory that does not control a city.

2pts- the player may take control of an adjacent uncontrolled territory that contains a city

2pts- the power may conquer an adjacent territory controlled by the power just defeated that is not fortified nor contains a city.

3 pts- the power may conquer of an adjacent territory controlled by the power just defeated that is fortified or contains a city.

All conquest points should be spent on the turn they are earned and cannot be saved or held over. Multiple territories can be taken control of or conquered. A player is knocked out of the campaign if their last territory is conquered.

Here is the map:

Cities: Constantinople, Nicaea, Konya, Edessa, Antioch,Tripoli, Acre, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta

Players/Powers

Chen-song- Byzantium
Me- Sultanate of Rum (Seljuks)
Bruce- Crusaders
Jonathan- Crusaders
Mark- Crusaders
Dennis- Syrians
Barry- Fatimids
Terry- Ayyubids

More High Elves

Some progress on the Island of Blood High Elves this week, I finished the Lothern Sea Guard and the Mage. Very nice models, quite time-consuming to paint




I also managed a game pitting my Brets against Daemons of Chaos at Scott's place on Saturday. I played an army featuring the Fay Enchantress who had a good day. By the end of turn 2 my pegasus knights buffed by flesh to stone had destroyed a unit of flamers, a tzeentch mage and a unit of bloodletters, plus the lady inflicted dwellers below on a unit of horrors.

Now working on a Mighty Empires campaign map and the next batch of IOB elves.

Sultanate of Rum (DBA III/73)

Over the last two weeks I finished my Seljuk army for our upcoming DBA campaign. I decided to do the Sultanate of Rum list, which is a bit heavier than the generic Seljuk list, but it is still dominated by light horse. It will be fun to play, challenging to win with against crusaders with bow and knight combinations. The figures are from Legio Heroica and I got them in exchange for painting Terry's Ayubbid army.

The army consists of Cavalry general:


An additional cavalry element:


One element of knights:


6 elements of light horse:


Spear, likely to be my camp garrison:



Choice of bow or psiloi:



Choice of bow, psiloi or auxilia:



Next up: I might get back to High Elves and break open the Island of Blood models, and I also have a plan to do a Crusade campaign board using GW's Mighty Empires.

Finished a unit of 16 High Elf spearmen for WHFB. I acquired these from Bob in a trade and they were in bad shape when I got them. I used Simple Green to strip them, and was really pleased with how well it worked. I have in the past used Pine-Sol but it is very strong and the missus hates the way it smells. Simple Green works just as well, perhaps better, is less toxic and with only a slight and not unpleasant odour. It just takes a bit longer- I let them steep for about 10 days before using an old toothbrush on them to take them down to bare plastic.




High Elf spearmen are not a game-winner, unless perhaps the unit is very large, but it provides a safe place for mages to hang out while they cast their magic. So you have really got to have some. I would like to pick up some more, but GW charges $42 for a box of 16....sheesh...

Next up: 15mm Legio Heroica Seljuks for DBA are assembled and primed.

Ayubbid DBA army

I just finished a Legio Heroica DBA army for my chum Terry at the club. In exchange, he bought me a Seljuk army that I will paint later for our Crusades campaign.

Terry indicated he preferred a dark theme for the army, so I went with black robes and dark chainmail with some gold trim, and turbans and sashes in a masculine hued colour palette (blue, red, green and white). I'm saving the pastels for my Seljuks.

First we have the General, this is a model of Saladin, champion and standard bearer. Terry will need to add a standard since I don't have anything good for it.


The core of the army is cavalry, 5 elements of it:


They are supported by 2 elements of light horse:


Then there is a choice of horde or auxilia/warband (nobody will choose horde, but they always look so cool!):


Then two elements of bow and/or psiloi:


And finally another light horse or psiloi:



Nice army, should be very competitive in good going with all the mobility, plus there are significant element choices to contest bad going patches too. It will reward a player that makes the most of manouever rather than force. Saladin was very canny, after all.

Hope they meet his approval. It occurred to me as I was lining it up that I owe him one more psiloi element. Doh! I'll get it done, mate!