A month of DBA #7 - mighty empires or petty kingdoms

I'm getting a bit carried away here, but as I slowly work my way through the two armies that arrived in a small padded envelope I have the opportunity to think ahead. Painting in 15mm has rekindled my enthusiasm for miniature gaming - and coupled with the fast-play rulesets that I have now had time to read through I can imagine playing very regularly, rather than the very irregularly that had been the case with 6ftx4ft Warhammer Fantasy Battle gaming. The economies of scale, time and well, cash, means that regular gaming is simply a much more realistic proposition for gamers with kids and all the rest of that grown up bumpf.

Nothing worse than a convert, eh? None of the experience that renders one critical, even jaundiced...

Even so, browsing around the Fanaticus site I found an adaptation of Games Workshop's Mighty Empires to DBA rules. Fantastic, cos look what I have sitting in my cupboard:

(Dreadfleet is still in shrinkwrap - that's the power of bad reviews. Most of those copies of Sociology are still in their wrappers - that's the power of e-journals.)

I never played Mighty Empires as a campaign architecture for WFB. I couldn't fathom the amount of time that would require. But Mighty Empires as a system for adding depth to a DBA/HotT campaign? Now that would work, wouldn't it? [That's half a rhetorical question, and half a question looking for an answer - playing electronically, via DBA online is not necessarily a good simulation of the practicalities of playing.]  Depending on the level of aggression, I would imagine that you could easily play out a couple of years of a campaign over an evening. And in an age of digital cameras, taking a record of the arrangement of all the oversized hexes, and the location of the units, settlements and counters is straightforward. Back in the day, if you wanted to pack the game away and continue later you would have needed to laboriously note down the locations on paper, or take a roll of film down to Boots.

So I was thinking of a Mighty Empires DBA 'Petty Kingdoms' game, with armies representing the Welsh/British, the Saxons, the Picts, the Irish, maybe the Vikings and Franks - depending on player interest - all on some fictionalised hex map of the not-quite British Isles. Fictionalised, as I'm thinking that I'd get greater player buy-in if the game it set up to maximise gaming fun, rather than historical accuracy. But once we go fictionalised, couldn't we (shouldn't we) add in some mythical/legendary elements?

And that is the point at which I came across Steven Balagan's excellently prepared DBA/HotT lists for Britain AD600. I'm perfectly willing to stretch the time period by a couple of hundred years to accommodate this only pseudo-historical game. Steven's lists include suggestions for the incorporation of HotT elements - Gods, Heroes, Magicians and Clerics, Behemoths and Beasts, Lurkers and Sneakers, into appropriately themed 'historical' lists. Hopefully that will at least address some of the criticism from D, who complained that historical wargaming wasn't as 'open' as fantasy.

Or, of course, we could just do 15mm HotT 'Warhammer' using Mighty Empires. The Demonworld miniatures from Ral Partha look just about ideal.

A month of DBA #6 - the first elements

Okay, so I'm not making quite the progress in my 'Month of DBA' as I had hoped. It was, after all, an absurdly ambitious rate of miniatures per day. And, but damn, the Essex miniatures are absurdly detailed sculpts for 15mm. I own models from a few other manufacturers, and none have the detail, especially on the faces, that the Essex minis have. And there is also the variety. Essex's Middle Anglo-Saxon army pack includes a bunch of DSG5 and DSG6 spearmen (as below, the 6s are the ones with the helmets), and - if I have counted right - there are 11 different miniatures.  this means that I've devoted more time per mini than I had envisaged at the start of the project. Nevertheless, I think that extra effort has meant that I've done a pretty decent job: 

(Apologies for the picture, as usual. I need something better than an absurdly unwieldy iPad camera - taken while holding a table lamp in the other hand!)

Question One: Do I slosh Devlan Mud all over them?

I'm particularly pleased with a couple of the shields, particularly the red dragon on yellow and the, erm, eh... yellow 'swastika' on blue. With the latter, I was sitting there, eyes crossed, tongue sticking out the corner of my mouth as I doodled the design. Then I held the finished little man are arm's length, blinked, focused, and said, 'oh, bugger!' 

I am very much enjoying painting these 15mm miniatures. I have to confess, it has led me to scour the net, identifying 15mm fantasy and sci-fi figures for future projects. But there will be no other 'hobby' projects until there are fully painted, terrain-rich Dark Ages battles being fought on a 2ftx2ft landscape.  

But thinking ahead to future 15mm gaming... 

Question Two: What do people base their individual 15mm miniatures on? 

and

Question Three: Does anyone play Warhammer Fantasy Battle in 15mm? 

Is it too much hassle dealing with individually based miniatures at this scale. I suspect so - it is quite a bit of hassle dealing with individually based miniatures in the big WFB units, especially casualty removal. You end up with the units being 'collectively based' on movement trays, which, after a few casualties have been caused, end up ugly and exposed, and which also inhibit changes in formation (psychologically at least, "oh, my, what a fuss!"). I guess I'm talking myself out of both individual bases and playing WFB at 15mm... So:

Question Four: What other games can be played with DBA-based 'elements'? 

I'm aware of Hordes of the Things (and can see a use - one day, one day - for all my 25mm Lord of the Rings minis - too few to make an army for the GW game, but more than enough to make a 24AP HOTT army).

Question Five: Who wants a tonne of 25/28mm stuff? Only joking, but...

A month of DBA #5 - if you go down to the woods today...

While waiting for my armies to arrive - the first element is nearly done - I made myself a wood. Or a forest, depending on what we're taking an element of 15mm little men to represent. So, a vast tract of trees for DBA, and a copse for a skirmish game. A useful thing to have on the scenery shelf. Incidentally, I have owned a Citadel Wood for some time, and haven't got past painting up the base... yet this, starting from a base point of some basic modelling materials rather than finely sculpted plastic, was table-ready in an couple of evenings. Go figure.  

The trees are N scale 'sycamores' from JTT Scenery Products (8 for £10.95 from Antics). JTT appear to make some fantastically realistic railway scale trees, though these seem to be from their 'budget' range (even with the packaging to hand I'm having trouble finding this exact pack of trees online). Nevertheless, they're really nice trees, better, in my opinion, than many of the more expensive scale model trees I have seen.

The bases are made from plasticard - the 'footprint' base from a relatively thick piece (relatively?! - like a fool I didn't keep track of the sizes which would allow me to replicate this process, or use the information to avoid replicating inadequate results) coated with a fine gravel/PVA/cheap acrylic paint mix to match the board. I've gone for a bit darker a shade of green/brown for the 'footprint'. 

The stands of trees use much thinner plasticard (too thin, in my opinion, as it has curled up a bit at the edges - also a problem for my road which passes through the foreground) 'roughed up' with Humbrol Model Filler. A few quick passes with Vermin Brown, Bestial Brown, Bubonic Brown, and Camo Green, and you've got a reasonable approximation of a forest floor - stick some loose green and orange 'sponge' on the base and we're done.

Coming soon: a very short shieldwall.

A month of DBA #4 - a small pile of lead

So, a little over a week after I decided on my DBA project, the armies arrive...

As a 28mm man (Hey! I'm short, but not that short!), what sort of unit fits in a parcel this size?

Hang on. When I open that parcel there is a smaller, well padded envelope inside. I enjoy pass the parcel as much as the next overgrown child, but where are my armies!

I'm actually really impressed with the quality of the sculpts, but I can't get a good picture of bare metal on my iPad. But that's the pile. And having made the smallest of dents in it, I can say that these little men take paint really well. But the task is do more than dent the pile. Two armies. Twenty four elements...

A month of DBA #3 - he marched them up to the top of the...

...hill.

Still waiting for my armies, I decided to get a head start on making some scenery. Knowing that I'd need at least one hill, I decided to make do with what I had to hand. 

I didn't have a junior hacksaw - we've leant it to a friend who needs it to do something or other in the real world - so I cut the balsa with a craft knife! Yes, I am the modeller who will win a Darwin Award. So little three tier structure built, I needed something to give it some shape. I found a bit of Milliput. A bit of Milliput several years old. I'm not sure it was really in all that great shape - it certainly didn't seem to have the right consistency when I'd mixed it. But hey ho, I want a hill now!

"Steps removed and sequence shortened. Network speeds may vary." It needed a bit of texture - and something to hide all my fingerprints - so I mixed up some Humbrol Model Filler, some fine gravel, some PVA, and (probably a mistake) some water. Gave me a nice Artex-like gloop, which I smeared all over the hill. Then, when dry, painted the whole thing up in the same manner as the board. Speaking of which: 

Three 25mm Dwarves for scale.

Not sure if they're dancing, or posing for an (ironic) catalogue photo...

Incidentally, doing a little bit of modelling each night, finishing short, sharp projects, has actually made me far more productive at work. Rather than a distraction, this discipline has helped keep my mind in some semblance of order. 

A month of DBA #2 - a gaming board

The opportunity to play a well-regarded miniature wargame on a 2ftx2ft game board is one of the things that appealed. Economy of space; I have three 2ftx3ft pieces of board that get balanced on the dining room table whenever WFB gets rolled out. Which is all too infrequently these days.

So, while waiting for my armies to arrive in the post - probably today, but only nominally, as I'll likely have to collect them from the Post Office - I decided to get started on my gaming board. I wanted to buy four 12"x12" canves boards, but our local Hobbycraft was under-supplied, so I bought two 12"x24" peices of plywood. This wasn't optimal. And I meant to use housepaint, mixed with sand, but I went with a sub-optimal alternative there too. I am an impatient man, and I used what I could find.

First I sprayed the boards with an undercoat. I still had a good amount of Army Painter Army Green left when it was one of my preferred undercoats.  

Hey, job done, eh? Well, It'd certainly be functional, but I wanted to do a little more. I didn't have any miniatures to paint, and it was a lovely, sunny afternoon. In lieu of housepaint mixed with sand, I mixed up some PVA, some cheapish WH Smith's white acrylic, some very fine gravel that I use for basing, and a splash of water. Borrowing a spatula from the kitchen drawer, I smeared it all over the board. 

When I'd covered the board I instantly developed modeller's regret. Why, oh why, didn't I just wait until I had the right materials? Why did I have to improvise and waste my time, energy, and plywood? But I left the gloop covered board to dry in the sun. When it dried - okay, slightly before it had dried, I did tell you that I am impatient - I sprayed with alternate light passes of Army Painter Leather Brown and Army Green, and Humbrol Desert Sand. And as it dried I realised that I had accidentally made something that looked reasonably good. I also threw in a few passes of Liquitex Gloss Varnish in the hope that it would help hold everything together.

And it does seem to hold together.

As a final touch, I liberally stroked Dark Green Model Colour Ink all over the board, to fill in the gaps left where the spray hadn't got through the gravel and add a bit of texture. 

What you can't see here is that the board is slightly bowed. I should have cut the board into 12"x12" tiles. Why didn't I? Because I am an impatient idiot. So this board has spent the night, balancing with one end on Ian McEwan's Solar and the other on Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, with Commands and Colors: Ancients and one of the very heavy collection of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon weighing down the middle. All in the hope of ameliorating the bend. If that doesn't work, well, I won't need to make any hill terrain in this month of DBA. 

A month of DBA #1 - the book arrives

So, thanks to everyone for helping me make up my mind. De Bellis Antiquitatis it is. The book arrived yesterday, just in time to begin a month of DBA - throughout this month my gaming attention and energy will be devoted almost entirely to my doable DBA project.

The project is to 'build' *a* game; two armies, board and scenery, in order to be able to run a number of 'historical' scenarios on the spot, without the other player needing to bring anything. As I'm on a bit of a Bernard Cornwell trip at the moment, the choice was simple; Sub-Roman British (II/81) vs Early Anglo-Saxon (II/73) - i.e. The Winter King, etc. - or Middle Anglo-Saxon (III/24) vs Norse Viking (III/40) - i.e. the Uhtred books. God knows why I didn't go for the Sub-Roman Arthur option, but the latter won, and I ordered the appropriate DBA armies from Essex Miniatures. C, meanwhile, has ordered Crusaders vs Saracens...

So, 29 days to paint and base 24 elements, knock together a 2ftx2ft 'Arable' game board and accumulate the appropriate bits and bobs of scenery. I'm unlikely to succeed, but by the end of the month the finishing line should be in sight.