Natholeon
eldannardo
Hot off the painting table, here is my completed army for DBA I/29b Philistine 1099-600BC:
And here are a couple of close-ups:
So now that they are complete, onto the next project – a 50 point force for Warmachine v.2. I’ve already painted some more Hammerfall handgunners, and Alexia and 6 Risen are due for the paintbrush this week. If I can keep up a steady pace, I should have them all completed by the end of May.
There are other projects beckoning though: Two 6mm armies for DBN – French and Russian; and 15mm Marlburian Allied and French armies for Beneath the Lily Banners. I’m looking at getting these from Lancashire Games. This will be followed up by a couple of Napoleonic ships for the Warhammer Trafalgar rules and a 6mm Anglo-Portuguese army for DBN. That should be the last of the ‘big’ projects for this year.
The decision to go with 15mm Marlburian is threefold. The first is economic. I can completely buy two armies for the same price as half of one 28mm army. The second is speed. I can paint 15mm three to four times faster than 28mm, which means I can be gaming within a reasonable space of time. Third is that I found that really enjoyed painting the 15mm Philistines, and found previous 15mm armies to be a similar experience. 28s can be enjoyable if there is no pressure to paint up a lot of them, and Marlburian would require this. I’ve purchased and painted a Williamite Anglo-Dutch army from Lancashire (long since sold), and really like there figures, so no worries there, then. I’m looking forward to them.
I’m just sorting out some Napoleonic Austrian and French 6mm figures that fellow Rotorua Irregular John purchased. They’ll be based up for DBN as well. DBN will be my army level game for Naps, whilst the 28mm have been sorted out this weekend for Sharp Practice. Now I just have to paint some of this stuff!
Nate
I took out the trial subscription to Ancient Warfare magazine just to see what it would be like. This is 6 months (3 issues) for 10.65 Euros. It seemed like a good price for a trial so away I went. Having received my first issue this week, what do I think? Excellent. I already have Bob Bennet and Mike Roberts’ book on the Wars of the Diadochi, and thoroughly enjoyed it. As such, a lot of this was not new to me. However, without that background there is a wealth of information here for a newcomer to the period.
A walk through the contents first up gives a very good overview of the period by Bennet and Roberts. This is followed by a very interesting piece on fortification in the Successor period focusing on Philon of Byzantium. Next is a biography of Demetrius Poliorcetes by Pat Wheatley. This is a competent overview, although there was nothing new here for me after having read Bennet and Roberts. After this Joseph Pietrykowski looks at the Macedonian military machine and its employment by the Successors. I found this very useful as a wargamer. Next is a description of the battle of Gabiene by Micale Park. This is a competent and torough article well illustrated with two clear battle maps.
An archaeological report on Sarissa finds, an article on Gladiators, a reconstruction of a naval carpenter from the excavations at Herculaneum and an article on Vegetius are next. Finally there are reviews and a description of the picture on the front cover rounds out the magazine.
There is certainly a lot here, and the magazine does a fantastic job of bringing current scholarship to the fore in a readable way. There is obviously a pattern for the articles, and the idea of devoting half of the magazine to a particular topic is a good one. What I loved about it was its aesthetic quality. The magazine is all in colour, chock full of diagrams, photographs and full page colour plates. I’m no expert on the ancient world but I do have a lively interest and consider myself well read in the area. So for a magazine to grip me and teach me something new rather than rehash the same old information, as some Military History magazines do, is a pleasurable rarity. My final verdict? When my trial subscription ends I will take out out a full subscription. Alongside Battlegames, it is the best magazine I have found in a long time.
My second review is of the Osprey fortification series volume on Maori fortifications. There had been some eyebrow raising on various fora over this book as the author is Ian Knight, a respected British historian, but someone seldom associated with scholarship on the NZ Wars. I have to say that he has done an admirable job in putting this book together. He begins with pre-European pa (hillforts), goes on to speak about the development of the gun-fighting pa during the Musket Wars, and then the subsequent use of pa in the New Zealand Wars of the 1840s-60s.
The text is evenly balanced in that it avoids falling into one side or the other on the revisionist debates surrounding this conflict. This is probably the advantage of distance that Ian Knight has. His narrative is clear and unbogged by controversies. Given the size of the volume and the audience, this is a good thing.
The only real problem with this book is that being solely about fortification it can’t look at raiding tactics, the political context or strategic plans and options of the commanders in any detail. An elite or campaign volume on the New Zealand Wars would be appreciated as an accompaniment. For wargamers, the Northern War, the Waikato War and the campaigns of Titokowaru and Te Kooti beg for closer attention, to provide more uniform detail and potential scenarios.
What the book does do, though, is give the fantastic Osprey treatment to an aspect of the NZ Wars. The plates by Adam Hook are excellent, and the colour photos and diagrams complement the text perfectly. There is enough here to whet the appetite and to come up with various scenarios for several periods of New Zealand history. My hope is that the book sells well, that accompanying Osprey volumes will appear, and that the war will begin to attract more attention amongst wargamers.
Nate
Just got back from NATCON yesterday. Three days solid of playing Napoleonics. I was borrowing an army off the unpire, Russell, to use with his First Volley rules. These are very much in the style of the ‘Grand Manner’ rules, with very large battalions.
Russ gave me 1813 Austrians to play. They were mostly militia and 2nd Class troops with a couple of good cavalry regiments thrown in. I was beaten in the first two games by Andrew’s 1805 Russians and Mark’s 1812 Franco-Swiss. Then on Saturday I was trounced by Paul’s 1812 Russians and Kevin’s 1813 Italian- Wurtemburgers. I have to say by that stage I was feeling a bit down on the poor old Austrians. They seemed to be scared of their own shadows and the 6 pounder artillery was getting thrashed by bigger guns on a consistent basis. But the four games had given me a good understanding of the rules, and an insight to the army I was using.
The fifth game was an extra long one on Sunday was against Simon’s Saxons. I’d worked out a pattern for deployment that could see me get the most out of my cavalry brigade, and realised that using the militia as cannon fodder was probably a good idea, as retreating militia didn’t give the same disadvantages to morale as a retreating 2nd class unit.
The game was played at a leisurely pace, as both Simon and I are rather new to the rules and we wanted to make sure we understood them to the best of our ability. The game consisted of Simon launching a huge cavalry offensive on my left flank while I made an attack on the right with my infantry. There was a big gap in Simon’s centre which my dragoons exploited, but they just didn’t have enough time in the end to do the damage which they might have done. Simon’s Guard Zastrow Cuirassiers smacshed themselves against my 2nd class squares, but depsite the inability of the squares to do any dmage with volley fire, the squares stood firm. The 6 pdrs managed to get within canister range of Simon’s artillery, and whilst he was masked by his own troops, I let rip. It was the first triumph for the Austrian artillery all weekend!
In the end time was against us and a count up of victory points showed that the Austrians had won. Despite enjoying the whole weekend, the last game did contribute to an overall positive feeling from the competition. I’m not sure of the final points tally, but I’d be pretty sure that I was placed 6th in a field of 6. Without the last game, I probably would have been 7th! But placings wasn’t the rationale for playing – it was all about learning the First Volley rules so that the Rotorua Irregulars could play them and start to use a standard rules-set that would work when travelling to other climes. At the same time I had some good games with a great bunch of guys who played in a fantastic spirit. I’ve now determined to build a French force for First Volley, and look forward to future games with the ‘Mid-Island Mercenaries’ (as Kevin called them)!
(Sorry there are no photos, I forgot my camera!)
Nate
