Hobby Update - 30 Jun 26

 I have made a little bit more progress on the painting (and repair) pile over the last week or so. I am still prioritizing stuff for the little one, either stuff that is his or stuff that is going to him. That means a lot of 28mm stuff, which although it isn't expanding my collection too much, it is at least saving some space as they leave my pile and enter his room!

 

First up is a bunch of Soviets: some Bad Squiddo Soviets (Platoon command, plus a sniper pair) and a Warlord Games sprue, kindly donated by a member of TWW! Also, the Russian from Hour of Glory and a few repaired Romans.

 

 

Some repaired Zulus, Mahdists and a 24th Foot Ensign.

Some repaired and some fresh-built British Paras, including a couple of women to use as SOE operatives and suchlike!

A couple of free gift sprues of Germans: one sprue of Panzer Lehr and another of winter German paratroopers. Anyway, they are really nice figures, both types. I will keep these ones I think, no doubt I will find a use for them at some point!

Okay, back to stuff for the bairn: US infantry and paratroopers spares and repairs:

And a USMC platoon command pack for the Pacific:

 So definitely maintaining a bit of forward momentum now. I am looking for some proverbial easy wins next, so will prioritize stuff going to the bairn (plus he has NO issues getting stuff to the table. and under the bed. and on the stairs. etc...)

 

Five Leagues From the Borderlands - Bank Holiday Campaign

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, I felt like something a bit lighter game-wise, so I got out some 28mm fantasy figures and started a new Five Leagues From The Borderlands campaign. As well as playing the game for its own sake - and it needs no further justification - I was looking at what the minimum figure and terrain requirements might be, so in current domestic circumstances I can create a small 'game in the box' which covers most of the necessary options. 

 

 

 

I am four campaign turns in so far. I will do a quick summary as I go of each campaign turn. I started off with a 'standard' party of 4 Heroes and 4 Followers. Just for visual identification, the heroes are the Knight with a two-handed sword, the Knight in red surcoat with sword and dagger (the avatar), the blonde archer in green, and the Norse Shieldmaiden with sword and shield.

 

Turn One: 

A good non-combat encounter finds me a new comrade-in-arms: some kind of runaway scholar! Oh well, he can figure out how to use his bill as he goes...

Then an encounter with some Northern raiders...

The merry band...

The fight was quite hard - raiders are reasonably tough - but in the end it was a convincing victory, and no serious injuries amongst the party.  The loot was okay, but much better, one of the followers ended up becoming a hero.

 

Turn Two: 

The next turn only had a combat encounter; this was against some bewitched local cultists, who ended up acting as dumb fodder for some evil sorcerer...this band was led by a mercenary warrior out of the Far North, however...

Okay, the action begins with the party spotting the cultists, and the arrows begin flying.

The archers do their work well - that warrior is still untouched, mind

The melee becomes general - plus one of the heroes and his follower have got around the back - no escape for any of this lot

The mercenary warrior is the last to fall, surrounded by the party and hacked down - he was a very tough customer, and a couple of the party are a little worse for it

 

Turn Three: 

The party track down a band of bandits to their lair - a ruin hidden in a deep vale. On the way however, they encounter another bit of good fortune...another character who wishes to join the party...a soldier...who also turns out to be a hero! He is one of the characters with a Bill, for identification.

The party has surprised the bandits in their lair.

The archers have good position

The enemy leader - some kind of charismaic demagogue, using the bandits for his own nefarious ends

Some neat archery brings down a couple of the bandits - the bandits are possibly the weakest enemies in the game.

And another one - the archers are outdoing themselves in this battle!

The remainder of the bandits are despatched, although a couple do manage to make their escape

 

Turn Four: 

Some more bandits are encountered, this time whilst the party is travelling

Another charismatic leader goes down, along with a henchman - one of the heroes has gone a bit far though, and is ambushed by two bandits

The remainder of the bandits have been overwhelmed in the meantime, however

None of the bandits escaped this one

 

Game Notes: 

Really good fun, and a nice little change of pace for me. Things are actually going very well for my party - having the extra heroes does make the fights noticeably easier!! Still, they will leave soon enough (IIRC the party will reset to normal numbers at the end of a campaign segment...need to check that). I do have the latest edition of Five Leagues...but I haven't got around to properly examining that system yet...and in any case, it isn't like I am not enjoying the first edition! I think it bears repeating that I really wish I had had this game when I was about 10-12 (that and Nuts! or Five Men at Kursk) - I would have played these things so, so much! Great solo-friendly gaming on a small board, with a low figure count. What I have been working on is getting a minimal 'set' together, having all the terrain and models I need to play the game as written, but contained in a very small overall space. I use the same hills as I am using for my 6mm Horse & Musket 'game-in-a-box', but the trees for this game need another box, with a few other bits of terrain, like the ruins and the barrows in some of the pictures above, to give it some flavour.  But it is working well so far - a few Dark Age warriors (Gripping Beast), fantasy Norsemen (Westwind Nordvolk) and some Cultists (Frostgrave) are supplying most of the adversaries, the heroes and heroines are mainly Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses figures and conversions, and some Bad Squiddo & Gripping Beast shieldmaidens.

Five Leagues Campaign Battle 003 - Heroes & Heroines against Goblin Slavers

My jaunty band of adventurers set forth on another expedition to clear the Bree-lands of the forces of darkness.  A little bit of time has passed since the last fight, since the previous expedition encountered no enemies...

In this encounter, the  adventurers have picked up the rumour and later the signs of a group of slavers.  Tracking them back to their encampment in the dell beneath a couple of old barrows, the group use the cover of the relief and the trees to get quite close...before a watching goblin screams the alarm and everyone starts running at once... 

The Set-Up:

The goblin slavers are based in the dell in the centre, surrounded by barrows and other hills.  The adventurers spotted the sentries by the track previously (right) and so had moved around to attack from the opposite direction (top-left), but they hadn't counted on the other goblin watching from near the river (bottom-left)

The slavers are led by an Orc, who was conferring with one of the goblins just before the adventurers were spotted.

The pair of goblins by the track.  They really weren't expecting any pursuit into this secluded, desolate and (some say) haunted area...

The other watching goblin (foreground) spies the adventurers advancing gingerly through the woods by the river (centre-left)

The Battle:

The archers Nuna and Sommeryth (top) were shooting off their arrows, but managing to miss the mark every time...tricky shooting in the dark dell, perhaps?!?  Meanwhile the rest of the adventurers and the nearest goblins have converged at the edge of the dell...

...which you can actually see better in this shot (top-left); the two goblin sentries (foreground) start running back down the track

A fierce melee has erupted by the edge of the dell; this goblin (foreground) got the upper hand against Ruda, but Gillion (centre) has stepped in; the slaver's chief, the big Orc, has been felled by Leothain (centre-right)

Clahanar felled the goblin escorting the Orc that Leothain defeated (centre); the other goblins have now arrived, as the two archers continue to miss everything!

One of the goblins out-fought Gillion (centre) and was pushing him back up the slope towards the barrow (centre) when finally one of Nuna's arrows hit home, and the goblin fell.

With the majority of the goblins down, the last goblin (the other one was killed at the extreme left of the photo) runs away down the tracks.

Nuna and Sommeryth continue shooting...and continue missing!  The goblin escapes.

Peace returns to the gloomy dell...

Game Notes:

Simple and straightforward fun this one with the Five Leagues Over the Borderlands (first edition) rules.  The absolute numerical superiority of the adventurers, and the local numerical superiority at the initial point of contact, and the firepower superiority, and the generally heavier armour of the adventurers, all added up to a relatively easy fight compared to the two previous fights, which could have gone either way.  

The mechanisms are really intuitive, I feel that I am not actually looking at the rulebook that much during the battles - I spend more time looking at rules details when I am doing the 'campaign' bit than re-fighting these tactical battles. All of which is exactly how you want it for games of this type!  The initiative system is finally balanced to allow the player a bit of agency, usually - but not that much.

 

The solitaire system built in to the rules is basically fine.  It is easy to administer which is the most important thing.  It might benefit from being a bit richer in terms of tactics and so on but since keeping the administration overhead down is pretty key, I am fine with it at the moment.

I did mess up on the figures slightly - I have some goblins who would have done much better as the slavers than the ones from Heroquest I actually used! Oh well, maybe next time...

The Band:

As a reminder to myself as much as anything, the party currently consists of:

 

Gillion (a Dunedan fighter, uses a sword and a mace)

Annungilgweld "Nuna" (a Dunedan fighter, uses a bow and a sword)

Clahanar (a Dunedan fighter, uses a two-handed axe)

Herudoina "Ruda" (a Northwoman, uses sword and shield)

Léothain (a former Northman soldier, now a hero, uses sword and shield, wears full armour)

Davron (a Dunedan squire, learning from Clahanar)

Serronsel (a wily rogue Northwoman, but attached to Ruda)

Sommeryth (a hopeful young Northwoman, archer)

 

Clahanar, Hero, Dual Weapon fighting style, Full armour, 1/4/+1/5, +1 Luck, Quality Sword; Helmet; Skills: Organization, Teaching (the Partizan free 'Martin Schwartz' figure)

Gillion, Hero, Two-handed weapon, Full armour, 1/4/+2/4, Helmet; Skills: Dodge, Parry (Perry 1450-1500 Mercenary captain figure)

Ruda, Heroine, Sword & shield fighting style, Light Armour, 1/6/+1/3, Helmet, Shield; Leadership, Medicine (Shieldmaiden figure - Bad Squiddo possibly)

Nuna, Heroine, Archer fighting style, Partial armour, 2/5/0/3; Skills: Tracking, Pathfinding, Foraging (Shieldmaiden figure - Gripping Beast?)

Leothain, Hero, Sword & Shield fighting style, Full armour, 2/4/+1/3; Skills: Tactics, Library (Perry 1450-1500 Mercenary captain figure)

Davron, Follower, Light Armour, 1/4/03; No skills (Perry 1450-1500 WotR Billman figure)

Serronsel, Follower, Light Armour,  1/4/+1/3, Shield; Skills: Barter (Shieldmaiden figure - Gripping Beast?)

Sommeryth, Follower, Light Armour, 2/4/0/3, Crossbow; Skills: Dodge (Oathsworn Amazon figure?)

Five Leagues Campaign Fight 002 - Encounter By the Stream

For the next Five Leagues from the Borderlands trial game, following on from the initial fight, my plucky band of heroes and heroines set out once again to do battle with the forces of Evil lurking near Bree. Hearing a rumour of a band of evil cultists hidden in some wooded downs to the south, the band set out...and whilst they were scouting on a track by a stream in one of the wooded valleys, they encountered a small group of cultists coming down the same track in the opposite direction...

The Forces:

The Band: 5 x Heroes & Heroines (2 x Sword & Shield fighters 1 x archer, 1 x 2-handed fighter, 1 x dual weapon fighter), 2 x Followers (inc. 1 x archer).  One of the followers from the first game is still too wounded for action, another of the followers has found his inner hero and takes his place in the ranks of the champions).

 

Gillion (a Dunedan fighter, uses a sword and a mace)

Annungilgweld "Nuna" (a Dunedan fighter, uses a bow and a sword)

Clahanar (a Dunedan fighter, uses a two-handed axe)

Herudoina "Ruda" (a Northwoman, uses sword and shield)

Léothain (a former Northman soldier, now a hero, uses sword and shield, wears full armour)

 

Serronsel (a wily rogue Northwoman, but attached to Ruda)

Sommeryth (a hopeful young Northwoman, archer)

 

The Cultists: 3 x Cultists, led by 1 x Professional Killer (archer)

 

The Action:

The band are scouting through the woods when they spot, and are spotted by, the cultists.

Another view, showing the order of march of the band: Nuna and Sommeryth lead, with Ruda and Serronsel protecting the rear.  The boys are in the centre (Gillion, Clahanar, Léothain).

Nuna and Sommeryth start loosing arrows at the cultists.

The lead cultist charges forward; the archers on both sides exchange fire.

Note Nuna (right) has now had her line of fire blocked (right)

After an exchange of blows, the leading cultist is felled by Clahanar.

Nuna has crossed to the other side of the track to resume firing; note the cultists coming through the woods over the hill (centre-right) have avoided the missile fire to get close.

The melee is joined again on the slight hill, as two more cultists come up to do battle with Clahanar.

The cultists' leader is felled by an arrow shot by Sommeryth.

The initial exchanges are indecisive, allowing the rest of the band (Ruda, Serronsel and Léothain) to come up

All of a sudden, one of the Cultists, in a burst of furious energy, downs Serronsel and Léothain in quick succession!

Nuna and Sommeryth work along the flank to try and get a shot in if there is a break in the melee.  Gillion follows up the path, having aborted his move around the left now that all the action is on the other flank.

Ruda leads the way with some strong blows forcing the surviving cultists back.

Roused to anger by the hurt done to their comrades, Ruda and Clahanar fell the last two cultists.

After the outbreak of noise and slaughter, peace returns to the picturesque valley...

Game Notes: Not too much to say about this one, as all the mechanics seemed to work fine and are entirely intuitive. Some of the 'chrome' in the advanced rules looks fussy but because the basic mechanics are so intuitive, then it doesn't feel like the chrome adds much complexity. The heavier armour of the band was the difference maker in the fighting against the cultists in the trees, whilst the superior number of archers (i.e. 2 to 1) worked in the band's favour there, too.  There was a decent amount of luck chucked in there, mind: Sommeryth was hit twice by the Cult leader's fine shooting, but each shot only grazed her!  It could have been so different...

If I were starting again from scratch, I might prefer to do this in 15mm, or even 6mm: the movement and shooting distances work fine game-wise, but visually they would work better for me if there were more real estate implied.  But, I already have a decent number of nice 28mm figures, even if my painting hardly does them justice, so I can't see me doing it necessarily.  But, just a thought.

The figures are a mixture of (I think) Perry Miniatures, Bad Squiddo, North Star/Frostrgave and Gripping Beast.