Civilisation...at gladius point!

As promised...a little belatedly due to a stint in hospital...my game from last Monday at club, with my Roman Legion, Vs Derek's Celts, a 2000 pt Warhammer Ancients v2 game.

the beginning of the battle, and Derek has deployed lots of impetuous youths with pointy sticks in a screen in front of his ammassed host.  My Sagitarii on the hill loose a volley in to them, causing a morale test, that they fail, a good start. Next I lob rocks from my Tormenta, and bolts from my scorpions to thin the ranks of the central war band.

Whilst my attention is fixed firmly in the centre, Derek moves his Charriotry, and light cav on one flank, and moves his noble cav into the woods on the other.

As you see Dereks' brushmanship is superb, and it is a pleasure to play against these models.

I respond by charging the Charriots with my Roman Auxillia cav. They come off worst however, and are run down in thier flight.
 The Celt light cav move round to threaten the flank. The  Celtic allied skirmishers I deploy as a road block on the flank, see the Roman Cav cut down before them, fail thier 4" test and flee also.

I decide to drop another ballistae rock this time on to the Charriots...only to go wide and miss.

Right, time to charge the warbands I think...it is either that or be on the recieving end of multiple charges next turn...

this I do, and am only partially successfull in pushing back one warband. The next turn the charriots and light cav descend upon me...
 and on the other flank the third war band, supported by the Noble Cav out of the wood , charge into the unsuspecting Sagitarii.

Derek charging the Celtic Charriotry.

Thus surrounded, the Romans go down fighting...could this have been how the IX Hispana met its end ?
Another great game...you may notice I lose quite a bit...but that doesn't detract from an entertaining game,played with good friends, which is what our hobby is all about (and probably why I don't like tournaments!)

Rules of War

Last night at club, I set up an ECW game using Warhammer ECW rules. I decided to make the two forces fairly mirror image, so as to enable a teaching game for one of our members just starting to collect this period, Stef.

Here we see the infantry deployments, with Parliament, my command, to the right, and the Royalists under Stef to the left. Note that steff deployed his firelocks in a skirmish screen in front of his army. Just out of shot below where the shot is taken are deployed a Saker each, and below that, we each have a regiment of 12 trotters with a brace of pistols and light armour.
I won the roll off, and began with a shot from my Saker into the Kings Life Guard regiment, and advanced my dismounted dragoons through the wood, and pushed forward with the pike and shot battallia. The cavalry edged forward cautiously, not wishing to commit to anything too early on.

The Kings Army, ably commanded by Goring fired the Saker, felling some of the Trained Bands (red coats), and a fusilade from the fire locks. The Life Guards advanced to the lower slopes of thier hill, and the Cav moved forward more boldly than the Roundheads.

parliaments Turn 2, and I decided a rather risky tactic to scare off the pesky Firelocks. I was at close range to them, and so fired a salvo. For those who don't know the WHECW rules, this allows both ranks to fire, expending 2 of the 4 shots you have in the game, but any hits result in the enemy having to take a morale check. The result was unsurprisingly poor, with only 1 casualty, but enough to satisfy the morale requirement rule, which Stef duly failed, sending the firelocks scurrying behind Gerrards regiment.

 This of course would leave me a little vunerable for a move, having expended move 3's ammo, but I considered that Gerrards too far away to do any real harm at present. however in Stef's turn he did rather well, shooting off several musketeers. On the other flank I fired my advancing firelock armed Dragoons, and fired the muskets of Col Green's Regiment, to the cost of a couple of Lifeguards.

IN Stefs move ,he elected to charge my cavalry, winning the fight by one point, I took my test and failed, the Royalist Horse then persued and ran down the hapless Roundheads. This caused a morale check on the Trained bands muskets and the Saker Crew, that up till now had been steadily knocking off Lifeguards. The Trained Bands passed...the Gun crew did not, and fled the field.
Turn 3 and I decided to press the harried lifeguards before Steff could turn his victorious cavalry round and threaten my rear

This resulted in a stalemate as I failed to get sufficient casualties inflicted, and the Lifeguards have the advantage of higher ground.

After a turn of firing at each other in Turn 3, the time Came for Push of Pike, and Steff charged my Trained bands in Turn 4, which I duly lost, with the whole regiment routed, persued and cut down.

Add to this the victoriuos Cavaliers back for more glory, and my Green regiment being slowly whittled away on the other flank, I decided to concede the game to Steff.
 Another great evenings Gaming, Next week, Romans Vs Celts, but this time my Romans Vs Derek's Celts in a 2000 pt engagement.

Apocalypse Now

Today at the Club, we had our Apocalypse game, well, it was more of a large 40K but without Force Org rules. Anyhoo I was allied with some Eldar, Vs Ultra Marines, Chaos and Sisters of Battle....I always knew that lot were suspect!. Mike had worked out a scenario with a line of Webway Portals that we could use to teleport between, not that anyone did, and some objectives, and special mission rules for each faction.

My Blood Angels and our Eldar allies began proceedings with a turbo charged race for the river in the middle, where the portals lay. Then an almighty barrage of fire to take out as much as we could.

My classic Whirlwind.. laying down a barrage amongst the Ultramarines

the BA and Eldar speed towards the centre, note the squad of Scouts in the long reeds near the ford.

the other flank saw my Scout bikes, marine atack bikes and speeder squadron rush forward.
the oposition made some maneuvres, taking out one of my predators, and a few other shooting moves, but most significantly launched a drop pod right on my Devastator Squad position, near one of the objectives

this put the cat amongst the pidgeons as you might imagine. My Eldar ally assured me he could deal with the problem, so I took my reserve rolls, both arrived, and both on target.

the Storm Raven, complete with Dreadnought and squad of Sternguard. This unloaded it's weapons on the hapless Defiler to it's front, yes all the Bloodstrikes too!

Drop 2 the deepstriking landrader...hoo yah! thanks to the machine spirit, I launched a salvo of Lasgun shots at the Ultramarines landraider before me, 6 to hit. 6 to pen...6 result..BOOM...hoo yah!  Unfortunately, the Terminators AND the plague marines decided to exact revenge and blew it up in turn!

Mike had a few more GM move plays to pep up the action, a liberal scattering of LICTORS around the board...we had one pop up right in the squad where the Drop Pod landed....nice! This left our gallant Captain to single handedly deal with the disgorging Ultramarine Sternguard squad, plus ...oh joy, they brought a librarian! this combat ended with the death of both Heros and the reduction of the squad to 1 marine...the Devestators dealt with thier bug problem with far fewer casualties.
 It was now getting quite late, so we all decided to call it a day. But a great game, enthusing us to try another in coming months.

Close up on Ultramarines position, with Sisters Rhino, and Assasin. Eldar jet bikes advance in the distance.

Roman Vs Celts

More battle reports...you lucky people!
 Last night at the club my old Chum Brian and I set to with Early Imperial Romans Vs Celts using Warhammer Ancient Battles. Brian commanded the Celts, and formed up his two 40 miniature warbands in the centre, with a 24 fig warband of Fanatics to thier left, and skirmishers to the front. on the right flank were 2 squadrons of three light charriots each, and on the right flank a band of 5 Noble Cavalry.

 I as Roman commander elected to take the High ground with 3 cohorts each of 20 minis, to the left a contubernium of  10 Sagitarii (western Archers to you!) and to the right a Scorpion,with my general in the centre rear of the line.
 Brian proceeded with advancing his Noble Cav into a wood on his left table edge, and advancing the Charriots, and Skirmishers forward. He had taken his Warband test, passing all.

We even have spectators for the game, another pal, Barry looks on from the side lines!
In my turn I loosed the Scorpion ( you can hardly "fire" a catapult!) but missed, and loosed some archery at the skirmishers, being as that was the only target presented to me, and missed, predictably. But you have to have a go!. Brian then advanced the Charriots and skirmishers further, throwing javelins, which bounced of my Heavy Armour, I threw some javelins back, and also skewered a few Fanatics with the Scorpion. The Celtic advance continued, and the Noble Cav decided to emerge from the trees, and charge the Scorpion, the crew fled, leaving the Nobles in javelin range of the third Cohort, that thanks to it's Drilled ability promptly moved to face in my turn. On the other Flank, the Chariotry charged the Sagitarii, and as this is WAB 2 they cause fear in infantry, so the Archers promptly fled.

My turn saw more javelin exchanges, and the Noble cavalry being cit to 3 figs from the original 5. The Charriots persued the Archers from the table and chased after them, leaving the table just to the rear of my hill. They faild both turns Ld tests to return, too!
 Brians Warbands were now getting ominusly close, so my Roman General decided taking refuge in the second cohort would be wise. At this point both the Fanatics and the right flank warband threw 1's on the WB test, and promptly charged the Roman line,"at last" I thought. Despite the Fanatics fearsome reputation, Brians dice were abismal, but mine were not, such are the fortunes of war, and the naked Celts showed a not too clean pare of heels, amongst other parts of thier anatomy! The other warband fared not much better, but thanks to thier overwelming numbers could give ground rather than flee. This is one of the new mechanisms in WAB 2 that i like.

Unfortunately it was at this point that we ran out of time, but a good fun game.  I felt I had Brian on the ropes, he of course was of a contrary opinion. I think this calls for a re match.

Host of Angels

Well, as promised my Stormraven has been completed, and I thought it would be nice to show the whole army!

Yes I know some are painted green! This was the first 40K army I painted, and coming from an Historical background as I do, I felt that they would Camo thier vehicles.... yes Herecy...since then I have painted red! I also did a test paint on one of my Predators that was green, and the red paint job wasn't too bad, so I will try to rectify the greenness in future weeks! I also wondered how big this force was so did a little force work out on Army Builder , the fantastic army organisation software from lone Wolf Developement, and this little lot come to over 4000 pts.

In this shot you see my Sanguinor, with the two predators, the one on the right, with autocannon is the one I re painted. Now although I have mostly original marines from Rogue Trader, as things have evolved it has been either not possable to have early minis, or I have simply taken a fancy to a model, or as in the case of the Sanguinor, he just wasn't out then! It is great that my favourite Marine Chapter is being given all this attention from GW though...and I can even field both of my Dreadnoughts if I so wish...note to self must get new dreadnought kit for use as Death Company Dreadnought....

Ah thar she goes! my new Stormraven, tooled up with Typhoon Missile launcher,the 2 shots and either a blast or anti armour capability make it usefull for multiple situations, plus the Huricane Bolters on the side will take care of most infantry squads, A twin linked Assault cannon in the turret, and of course the four Bloodstrike missles under the wings. This loadout will hopefully cover most eventualities,and with my Sternguard and one of my Dreadnoughts on board it is all kitted out to strike deeply into enemy territory and take objectives....nice!

In this shot you will see I even painted the pilot and gunner . This is done by not fixing the canopy to the model but spraying up the model, painting the twu crew, then gluing the clear plastic to the canopies and affixing them to the hull. A word of warning,when I painted the turret, I left it off the main hull but then found that the guns meant you couldn't turn the turret such that the lugs engaged with the slots in the turret ring. I had to carefully remove one of the guns to enable me to get the turret into place.
Still we are all set for the big game this coming Sunday!
 You may be wondering on the Spartans I purchased at the same time as the Stormraven. well they are constructed and undercoated, I will report on them when they are done, but in the mean time there is nothing like an upcoming game to get the figures pumped out!

4 Way 40K

A great club night at the Gladiators last night. And a few of my Orks got thier combat debut's.
 The game was between myself, Orks, Mike- Chaos Beasts, Lee- Marines, and Steve-Marines.
 We each had an objective marker, and another objective in the centre. All HQ's started in the centre, and then we rolled for first turn. I came on first, and made a bee line for the nearest two objectives. There were three in close proximity, so it was obviously going to get hot very quickly.

Lee (green shirt) and Steve (blue Shirt) settle thier differences on one corner of the table . Lee's are the Ultra marines, Steve's the Welsh themed Chapter of his own creation in green white and red.

My Orks come thundering on, lead by the battlewagon, of course. I actualy managed to get the Death Roller in action, as various shots from the imperials bounced off the 14 front armour Yes those Terminators you can see in the distance were the target of rolling orky death!, only managed to get one trapped in the mechanism though, and they then tried to assault it in thier turn. Sorry boy's going too fast, and they missed the to hit roll. Waagh!

Mikes Chaos beasts, and a Demon Prince decide to deep strike in the middle of all this, and the Demon Prince has a go against no less a personage than Marneus Calgar and his retinue. This battle royale slugged out for the rest of the game, meaning my sneaky orks could concentrate on the real business of grabbin' objectives.

My Nobs Wagh charge the nearest Ultramarine Tac squad, but thanks to thier chapter masters presence, the stalwart boys in blue refuse to yield.

The Ultramarines try to tame the Chaos Prince with a Venerable Dreadnought..nah that didn't work!

One good swat and he is for the scrap bin..."for Macragge ...And we shall know no fear!!"

The game ended as we ran out of time. Steves Welsh marines, Mikes Chaos, and my Orks each had an objective firmly in our grasp. Lee managed to contest an objective with my green horde, so a three way draw. Great game!
 We are planning a big Apocalypse game on the all day meet in a couple of weeks time, so look out for another battle report.