One Hour Ancient and Medieval Skirmish Wargaming

I was having a chat about medieval wargaming projects at the club last night, primarily Lion Rampant and The Barons' War, when this set of simple, diceless skirmish rules popped up in the conversation. When I got back home for my curry and glass of plonk, I dug out my own copy and had another read through. As a fall back option for small skirmishes, patrols and raids in the Hundred Years War, or even in the Anglo Saxon era, these look really promising. I particularly like the diceless, card based activation and combat system, which is a bit different and offers a lot of player interaction. In the meantime, it's back to the work bench and on to the blocking in on the first unit of longbowmen!

Biggles and the Black Ravens Club Game

A good game of Algy at the club tonight which ended in an RAF victory, primarily due to a lack of coordination by the Jasta 18 players and some unlucky dice rolling. In the end, Ltn.Spindler went down in flames but bailed out successfully, while the RAF managed to get two aircraft off the table, with another two badly damaged and probably on the way to a forced landing behind enemy lines. One of the German pilots managed to fly off the table after failing two manoeuvre tests in a row, while another seemed to do most of the heavy lifting as Ltn.Kandt, despite ending up in a spin right at the end of the game. It's a good set of rules but definitely needs a redraft and some holes patched before it's ready for more club games!

Big Bombers in Algernon Pulls It Off!

Hans Müller tangles with an RAF HP 0/400

In the Algy rule book there is a rule that was carried over from Bag the Hun which prohibits bombers from anything more than Easy manoeuvres. This was obviously designed for large multiple engined aircraft like the Heinkel 111 or Vickers Wellington, rather than the two seater light bombers of the First World War, many of which were pretty nimble, especially later on.

I have decided that, in the interest of both realism and game play, this rule will only apply to aircraft of Size 5 or greater, so the big multi engine types like the Handley Page, Gotha and Zeppelin strategic bombers in the main, rather than lighter aircraft like the Airco DH4, Breguet XIV and so on. I think this makes a lot more sense and avoids any unnecessary special rules tweaks or restraints.

Never Mind the Billhooks Delux

Fairly early on, when planning the medieval projects for this year, I dismissed Never Mind the Billhooks as being way too much work, requiring upwards of about 100 figures for each army. I was reading the rules for painting advice today and thought it might actually be a long term goal to assemble an English army for the Hundred Years War, after building a core from my Lion Rampant / Ecorcheurs! retinue. It's something to aspire to at least but I doubt I'll get there until much later in the process, if at all?! 

Longbowmen Blocking In

The English Retinue Assembled 

The longbowmen unit ready for blocking in

I'm kicking off the Lion Rampant retinue painting this week with a unit of twelve veteran longbowmen. The blocking in will start with the aketons, either using Foundry Moss or Foundry Cadaverous green, in two or possibly three stages. It's all a bit suck it and see but I'm going to aim for a consistent and fairly limited range of colours in the palette, together with some light ink washes to add some depth. 

Lion Rampant English Retinue Skirmisher Conversions

The attempt at some kit bashed bidets for the English Retinue worked out quite well this morning, using Perry Miniatures heads and bodies from the Agincourt English and French infantry sets, with arms from the War of the Roses infantry set. The long bows on the War of the Roses arms are shorter than the ones on the Agincourt figures, but that is actually a good thing, as they represent hunting bows rather than war bows, so perfectly useable for a self-contained skirmishing unit. I used the heads without helmets apart from the scale caps on a couple of the figures which I didn't use for the longbow archers. I also used some of the running bodies from the French infantry set to add a bit of dynamism to the poses, perfect for flighty skirmishers nipping out of the bushes for a pot shot at the enemy! 

English Retinue Skirmishers

                 

I have a two point shortfall in the line up for my Lion Rampant English Retinue, which I was going to fill up with some leadership bonus points, but I've been thinking of adding a two point unit instead. This will be either be a unit of six longbow armed bidets, using the Perry Miniatures plastic figures with bare or hooded heads and perhaps some arms from the War of the Roses infantry sprues, or possibly a unit of hand gunners. The metal hand gunner pack looks like a good option for this but I'm not sure if it's appropriate as a skirmishing unit, outside of siege warfare or garrison duties. I'll have a go at building some bidet archers as a proper skirmish unit today and see how I get on...

Skirmish Wargaming Scenarios

I've been going back to my skirmish wargaming roots lately and have been reading the classic Featherstone book on Skirmish Wargaming, with a focus on my medieval projects in 15mm and 28mm. There's a really good narrative scenario here, based on a sally by the English defenders of a besieged castle in 1429 during the Hundred Years War, the objective being to spike a French bombard in the siege lines. This would make a great scenario for Ecorcheurs! or even for Lion Rampant, giving me some ideas for my own games or even a linked campaign based on the background in the book. 

English Retinue Lion Rampant Extras

I've been busy with work the last few days so not much has moved on the work bench front, apart from a six point Lion Rampant units of six elite infantry Men at Arms, bringing the force up to a respectable twenty two points. I am still planning to add ten more longbowmen to round out the retinue but, in practical terms, it's more or less complete. I can also use these for Ecorcheurs! which is an added bonus. This weekend I'm hoping to get started on painting at least one unit...although it's going to be tricky to squeeze in some time due to family commitments.

Algy Club Game

Next week I'm running a club multiplayer game of Algy that I had to postpone from a couple of weeks ago due to illness. This will be the Biggles and the Black Ravens scenario, featuring No.55 Squadron Airco DH4 bombers against the Fokker DVII scouts of Jasta 18. For this game I'm going to ignore the restriction on tricky and hard manoeuvres for bombers, as the DH4 was renowned for it's manoeuvrability, especially when not loaded with bombs as these had already been dropped in the historical action. I may also pack a formation move / fire card for the RAF, just in case someone wants to try to reformate, even though the scenario prohibits this based on actual events. Hopefully, I've thought of everything that might crop up, but you never know when multiplayer games are in full swing!