Wargames Foundry - Devon Wargames Group Day, May 2019

As well as enjoying a visit to Partizan in May, which coming up from Exeter is a bit of an expedition, the chaps from the DWG like to make a weekend of our time away and so have arranged to gather over the previous two trips at Wargames Foundry to pick up some figures and to roll some bones.

Wargames Foundry - Devon Wargames Group 2017
Wargames Foundry - Devon Wargames Group 2018

We had a very enjoyable game of Dux Bellorum this time last year and the rules work well for a large group and with a lot of Dark Age collections between us enable everyone to be kitted out with a suitable force.

Last year we played the 'End of Reign' scenario which saw both sides going at it trying to cause the demise of each others king.

This year we went for the 'Bards Tale' which as you will see produces an entirely different type of battle in that all the players of the different forces are looking to create situations where they are able to cause enemy units to disperse or have their own units do the same thing, provided the bard that accompanies their army is present to witness the glorious end to the combat and add it to their repertoire of songs and poems to be rolled out at the next feast in the Lord's Great Hall.

Thus with every great deed of valour witnessed by the attached bard, victory points are accrued at the end of the game and we end up with the slain littering the battlefield, opposing armies dispersed and the most successful (in a very Dark Ages way) commanders identified, to be long remembered in song and verse.

It's mid-morning and the chaps are setting out their respective forces having sorted out the opposing teams

The more I play Dux Bellorum, the more I like them and they really seem to capture the feel of these kind of battles for me.

My viking line, frothing at the mouths and biting their shields, cant wait to get stuck in.

Tom's Saxon shieldwall with the bard (horn carrying chap seen above the banner to the front) placed near his Lord ready to take notes

Cavalry loitered on both flanks

You really can't beat the look and drama these figures create with their multicoloured banners and shields with two opposing lines ready to get stuck in.

Let slip the dogs of war!

The advance begins as command tokens get placed to make sure everyone knows how to move forward at the right time

The scenarios provided in Dux Bellorum are designed to create the typical types of battles that populate the chronicles recording them, given the sparse amount of detail there is to base that upon.

Needless to say killing opposing kings, fighting for control of territorial boundaries often at river and stream crossings is what this kind of fighting is all about.

However an important aspect of these kind of armies was the bonds that tied them together, with kings granting rings and favours to their most loyal and capable followers and the legacy to be left from a life often short and brutal.

That is where the bard comes in, to make sure that a warriors immortality is guaranteed with his deeds of valour and sacrifice long remembered in song and verse, giving inspiration to those that come after.

Still plenty of ground to cover before the lines clash

What skirmish groups there were kept a discreet distance away from the opposing lines, with archers preeminent.

King's such as Alfred new the importance of cultivating reading and writing within their nobility and making sure that a few well placed supporters within the religious estates were writing the chronicles in a favourable way.

Some of the participants in this particular battle, after reading my account, might ask what's changed, to which I would answer, nothing, my chronicle my version! Ha ha ha ha!

The lines close and groups jockey for any advantage

First clash as the cavalry strike with bards trying to get a good view of the action

Religious houses are always a good source of journalists, especially given their abilities to read and write! However an axe wielding bard can also make a good alternative. Plenty of note taking going on here.

Get stuck in chaps and smile, as you might be going down in song and verse

The two opposing Viking lines in the centre played a cagey start to the battle

One account of this titanic struggle might waste time over petty details, such as Nathan, Tom and Panjo scoring highly in this battle, but the actual version that has come to us from the few remaining sources talks about the valiant Viking king in the centre of the line who anchoring his line, forced the dispersion of the army of the usurper, seen to run from the forward lines screaming to anyone that would listen about how unfair it all was and how they didn't expect to find a force using Shieldwall!!

No cagey starts on the flank with cavalry swords and infantry axes plying a bloody path 

A great period for colour and drama

If you haven't played this scenario, I would suggest you give it a go, coming as it does as one of the favourites of the author.

The victory conditions, with a greater focus on individual combats rather than just which army won or lost, really do produce a more open free flowing kind of game with players losing a lot of their inhibitions about getting stuck in and the fun of working out the best place for a bard at any given time.

You can still lose a combat, but if your bard is there to witness your end, you can still score points.

The Scots on the other flank keeping the stream between them and trouble as they worked their way into the enemy rear

And of course, cavalry are around on this flank as well

The opposing lines start to have gaps appearing as units get thrown into the melee

A bard stands ready with note pad behind shield

The raven's eye view of a scattered battle with units dispersed leaving the hardy few to battle it out for those last points. The legions of the dead lie stacked up behind the stream.

Scots cavalry and infantry have crossed the stream and are starting to mop up the remnants

As you can see from the end of battle shots, both armies were well and truly done in at the end, literally leaving the last men standing.

On the other flank the cavalry are dead or run off but having left the battered defenders in a bitter fight with new foes

The centre ground is now practically empty with the two Viking forces off the table having bled each other and with new members of Valhalla introduced to Odin

Modern day Saxons Carousing - The DWG On Tour, ready to gather in the Lord's Hall for a curry and mead
Left to Right - JJ, Tom, Steve M., Vince, Mr Steve, Chas, Jason, Nathan, Andy and Panjo.

Thank you to Diane Ansell and her team at Wargames Foundry for hosting us again and thanks to the chaps for all the fun.

Saxons Carousing - Pat Nicolle
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/saxons-carousing-pat-nicolle.html?product=greeting-card

Here's looking forward to next year.

JJ

Next up - I'm off walking Offa's Dyke and visiting Shrewsbury with Mr Steve this week, so will look to do a post about our trip, plus Roman Legionaries and the new Victrix Roman General Officers are nearly finished.

Dacian Warband

So following a slight detour into WWII and my collection of British bombers and German nightfighters brought to completion with the few purchases made at Salute, it was back to my main project, the Romano-Dacian collection which sees Warband number eight added to my Dacian host and about two-thirds of the force completed.

If you are interested in looking back on the others in the collection since work started back in September 2017 with Warband number one I have put links below to the other posts, together with a link to all the work on the collection completed too date with terrain and games played.

Dacian Warband One
Dacian Warband Two
Dacian Warband Three
Dacian Warband Four
Dacian Warband Five
Dacian Warbands Six and Seven

JJ's Dacian Wars

As with previous builds, my Dacians are primarily composed of the Warlord plastics with a few strategically placed additions from Wargames Foundry, which work well with Warlord, to help add further variety to the look of the unit as a whole.

With an eye to the army as a whole I have given this warband a blue and white themed draco standard to compliment that carried by number seven, thus pairing my warbands into regimental groupings of about two-thousand men.

Each thirty-six figure warband is accompanied by a two figure 'brave warrior' marker that is used to indicate when the unit has used it brave warriors to gain an advantage in combat, rather similar to Romans throwing pila and I try to have these markers looking that little bit more aggressive with multiple weapons in hand or carrying the odd head, careless of their own preservation as they launch themselves into the hated invader's ranks.

The plan will see at least twelve, possibly fourteen of these warbands available to the Dacian player to line up alongside the Sarmatians and really create a big battle look to the table opposite a Roman line.

I was really excited to see the plans for the Victrix Dacians and will no doubt add a few units of their offerings to add further variation to my host as well as all the loveliness that Victrix brings to any collection.

Talking of Victrix loveliness, next up will be my first cohort of Victix Roman Auxiliaries complete with heads held aloft on spear points, which I am really looking forward to taking a brush to.

As mentioned my warband is composed of figures from Warlord and Wargames Foundry and the shield decals are from Little Big Men

Romano-Dacian Battle Casualties

If the number of games I look at in the hobby is anything to go by, the depiction of battle casualties is not a high priority with most gamers when constructing their collections, and this would probably be borne out by the sales of sculpts from the various manufacturers.

The fighting has moved on and all that is left is the human debris of battle

I think this is a shame because as we play our games and happily remove figures from the table or, more commonly these days, turn the casualty/disorder die to total up the loss inflicted on a particular unit we miss an opportunity to have our table tell the story of the drama that is unfolding.

Battle casualties are a simple but effective way to enliven any tabletop game

Of course we live in a fast moving twenty-four-seven world where it seems that not many have time for such niceties and I suppose our hobby reflects that fast moving life-style trend with the growth of fast play 'snappy' rule sets that get the game over and done with in a couple of hours or less and give us time to get back to more important things!

I try to have each cameo suggest a story of the battle that has happened

In such a world where gamers are encouraged to just get the toys out on the table as quickly and as cheaply as possible and with collections reduced to the size of a skirmish trying to look like a battle, there is certainly no time for wasting on painting up the unfortunate souls in a force who have fallen in the fight.

Once the figures are positioned, weapons and shields placed carefully among them can add extra effect

Well as you can probably guess I take a completely opposite view point and have always felt something missing in those games in which I have played where a major clash has occurred and the only hint of that on the table is one or two units perhaps routing away from the area of combat and with all the units involved either looking slightly smaller than they did or with a little, or not so little, casualty die in tow, or heaven forbid a curtain ring or two draped around a few figures!

WWII gamers, a group I include myself in, have always seen the need to plonk some flames and smoke on a tank that takes a catastrophic hit causing it to smoke and burn, but even then the human debris of battle is often, in my opinion, sadly lacking.

I like my games to tell the story of the battle they portray in the pictures I create and there is something really pleasing to the eye when a combat situation can be described with all the drama implied with words and pictures that seemingly captures the images we can read about and sometimes see in historical accounts of the real life battles.

The book publishers understand the importance of this aspect of our hobby and Osprey are a classic example of this way of appealing to our senses through the medium of print and the hobby can imitate that through the medium of three dimensional art, namely tabletop wargaming.

Our hobby is, I would argue,  if nothing else, all about aesthetics, because if not, we might just as well focus on board gaming and Kriegsspiel.

Reflecting the drama that is battle is what our games do, combining rules to govern the activities of our tabletop warriors with the aesthetics of a visual portrayal of them and the terrain they would operate in, and the debris of battle, human or otherwise is part of that portrayal.

In fact, creating little dioramas like these could be looked as as just another bit of terrain that is added to the table as and when required.

Needless to say the carnage reported by the ancient authors and the nature of the combat involving sharp pointy weapons used at close range, particularly with the Roman tactics of stabbing to the midriff of their opponents would suggest that the wake of these combats would have been littered with the dead and those about to die, in an age of primitive casualty recovery methods

These bases take the same time to produce as painting a large warband with a similar number of figures and by combining them with those left over weapons and shields you can easily produce really simple but evocative pieces to be placed on the table during those moments of drama in battle.

The next time you see these chaps, they will mixed in with a few of my units to create yet more visual appeal

The figures are a mixture of Wargames Foundry and Black Tree and at the moment just include infantry types, but I will add in a few dead horses, just acquired on Ebay, to litter my cavalry combats and I have held back a few of the infantry sculpts for inclusion among one or two of my units as well.

Lots of stuff happening this month to cover with trips to South Wales looking at more medieval and Roman history, a visit to London to hear Ian Knight talking about the Zulu War, and a visit to see the casts of Trajan's Column in the Victoria & Albert Museum and thoughts about my coaching lessons in getting to grips with Chain of Command plus more work to do on the Romano-Dacians.

Shameless Plug for Parkinson's UK and Will's Three Peak Challenge

Finally, a shameless plug for my youngest son Will, who is doing an amazing expedition, this May, in support of Parkinson's UK, a charity for support and research into Parkinson's Disease by planning to climb the three highest mountains in the UK, Ben Nevis in Scotland, Mount Snowdon in Wales and Scafell Pike in England, in twenty-four hours.

Will is three years into his Medical School training with a first class degree under his belt and as well as developing a keen interest in expeditionary medicine is also into a bit of wargaming when time permits.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/will-jones24

If you would be interested in supporting him in this project with a contribution to his fund raising page that would be very much appreciated and you would be supporting research into this terrible disease and care and support for those currently suffering from it.

Thank you in anticipation
JJ