More Celts and some Saga

I moved this unit of Warlord Celtic cavalry off the workbench this week. Nice models, very animated. Clearly not just out for a pony ride

Mark Wall and I also managed a game of Saga this afternoon, my Spaniards (played as Normans) versus his shiny new Anglo-Danes. This scenario was all about holding terrain features. I manoeveed 12 knights onto the main hill very early on to soak up VP, then as his footslogger marched forward I sprung 6 knights into 8 unarmoured warriors and managed to lose what should have been a squash! (my 15 dice hitting on 4+ lose to his 8 dice hitting on 5+...I lost 2:3!). Mark's surname should be "Shield"Wall.

Half my strike force blown, I spent the rest of the game skulking, sniping and getting picked off unit at a time. At the final reckoning, a tie VPs 54:54!

ECW Parliament green regiment of foot

Over the last week I completed my third regiment of foot for my Parliament army. I need this unit and one more for my MayDay game. I decided to do these guys in hunter green tunics with buff facings because I like them. Not sure if there were any green coat regiments left by 1651, when New Model units were mostly in red coats, but who knows? These are yet more Warlord plastics, funny how I don't seem to get tired of assembling and painting them.

I think I have settled on running the battle of Inverkeithing (Covenanters vs New Model Parliament in 1651, following Dunbar) for my MayDay game using Warhammer ECW. I can do it a 1:20 or so figure scale.

Alford 1645

I completed a few bits and bobs last week including this very nice Celtic cart from Warlord that will come in handy for baggage or an objective in Saga:

I also converted a cavlalry trooper to be Montrose's Royal Standard bearer, here alone and beside an ensign from the Irish Brigade. The flags are from Battle-Flag and I highly recommend them (http://www.battle-flag.com/).

And a Lord Leven, also from Warlord, who stood in for Lord Balcarres in a refight of the Battle of Alford between the Royalists and Covenanters.

I used an order of battle for Warhammer English Civil that I found on their Yahoo which is a really good resource (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/WECW/). There are a series of excellent Scottish scenarios for the ECW by David Whitfield. I played Alford with Mark on Saturday. We really enjoyed it.

The Covenanter artillery battery misfied 3 times and only hit 2 models the whole game before being overrun by Highlanders.

Montrose was instrumental in leading a counterattack with Highlanders against Balcarres horse which broke the Covenanter left flank.

Other highlights include disastrous advice from a pushy Presbyterian minister attached to one of the Covenanter regiments (run away!) at the worst possible moment which left the Covenanter right flank open. The Irish rolled them up.

Most of the Covenanter army fled into the marshes and were cut down. Strangely historical outcome....

Up next: Currently working on another Parliament regiment of foot for the battle of Dunbar.

More Celts

This week I finished off my first box of Warlord Celts, this batch has a few carrying gory trophies. These were fun to paint.

The cat (Harry the ginger Norwegian forest cat) also received a new outfit. He has an incredible temperament, I think he enjoys makeovers...

First batch of Warlord Celts

Today I finished 20 Warlord Celtic warriors. Very nice sculpts, perhaps a bit over-animated, but much better than WF Celts in quality. They would be quite difficult to rank up on 20mm square bases so I put them on 20mm washers which give a couple of advantages including heft, magnetizability, and ease of ranking. The other shortcoming of this set is that there are only shields for 50% of the warriors and while the transfers are nice, they are paper stickers that have to be cut to fit. A real bugger to get right!

I think my work on fleshtones has improved, same paint scheme as the last batch but a bit easier on the wash, plus the detail is deeper and anatomically better on these than the WF shop mannequins.

Villers Bocage

I have spent the last week painting Cromwell's, Fireflys, and repainting Corgi diecast half-tracks to try out a game of Kampfgruppe Normandie at the club in the first week of February. I really like these rules, they are very simple and the book is awesome (350+ pages of colour- loads of scenarios, background, etc, but the essences of the rules could fit on 2 pages...). We'll see how they hold up next week. Villers Bocage is of course the battle where Wittmann bushwacked 7th Armoured in Normandy and single handedly destroyed most of a brigade. He didn't do so well in my first solo playtest, but dice are capricious.

Cotton's Cromwell in Villers Bocage.

Corgi die-casts (Marine Corps markings) repainted in olive drab with russian green drybrush and Commonwealth decals. I see there are some details still to pick out.

This one is my favourite, Hasegawa Humber MkII armoured car:

Which one is Wittmann? I think he drove a Tiger I with 007 markings at Villers Bocage. I have here two Dragon pre-paint Tigers, one Forces of Valor Tiger, and a Forces of Valor MkIVH with schurtzen:

Ciao!

Celtic slingers

Just finished some cheap and grim looking Celtic slingers. These are the Wargames Factory models. Mixed results I think. I like the flexibility, but some stiff poses seem inevitable. Not sure if I am sold on the wash either, I used GW sepia on the flesh areas and it seems a bit overwhelming and dark. It's a good product, the fault is mine for perhaps going a bit heavy.