A little bit of Middle Earth finds it's way onto my desk

Ok - first up I will admit I am a Tolkien tragic. It was therefore only a matter of time before I tried to paint some HoTT armies based on the Middle Earth mythology.

I actually got these figures about 12-14 months ago - for my birthday from my son, and I have done bits and pieces on them over time.

The miniatures are 18mm Eureka Miniatures figures, and they are fantastic in detail. I will post just the two pics at the moment and then in a later post take a pic of one of the finished elements and put it up.

While these guys are Uruk Hai, I bought a bunch of "vanilla" flavoured orcs, some dwarves, elves and men to put together the Battle of the Five Armies from The Hobbit.

I bought the Uruks to also look at putting together a Rohan v Isengard scenario. That will come in time too :).

Anyway, enjoy the two little teasers.


I will in time get to painting more of these but at this stage, I am determined to finsih the 6mm WW2 British and then the 6mm Marian Romans.

My 6mm experiment

As I have mentioned previously I am starting to dabble in some 6mm stuff - still for DBA and Crossfire. I have attached a couple of photos to show what I am doing.
Here are some Marian Romans. This is the blade general element:



Next up is an image of a German WW2 company company commander for a paratroop company:


I am finiding the painting of these fairly easy and you can get a nice effect - particularly with the DBA elements with the figures massed on a base. Unfortunately time is still short and so while I can get some progress it is still slow.

Still onward I presss.

Update

OK 2010 is half over and I am yet to post the blog...not a great start to the year!

The big news for me in my wargaming is that I am trying a few new things. First up, I am trying out a new era - WW2. I am have acquired a copy of the Crossfire rules which is a great game. I love the way it represents the momentum of the modern battle. No fixed turns, no measuring. All very interesting. I am currently putting together a WW2 German paratroop company,a dn close to follow will be some British motorised infantry.

The second big change for me is a move to 6mm. The WW2 armies I am doing are in 6mm, and I have a Marian Roman DBA army in progress in 6mm too. I am loving 6mm because of the ease of paitning and the portability of the terrain for the WW2 stuff.

Is DBA dead for me? No not by a long shot, just stretching my legs a little.

New Projects and a New Experience

Just an update on what is happening in my gaming word at the moment.

I am currently painting my DBA Pictish army - it is taking longer than expected, due to a little thing called life demanding my time! I have finished the 2 x2LH, 3 x 2Ps, 1 x 3Cv (gen) and 1 x 4Sp (gen). So just 6 spears to go, plus a light chariot to cover the earlier option. Looking forward to fielding these little fellows against my other Dark Age armies - Saxons, Vikings, Wesh.

For my birthday recently I also got a number of figures for a 15/18mm set of armies to recreate the Battle of the Five Armies from The Hobbit. I am using the HoTT rules. I will put up a separate post to discuss the composition of the armies concerned. The figures are mostly Eureka fantasy minis.

This weekend I am traveling to the Sydney Southern Battle Gamers Historical matched pairs tournament (http://www.southernbattlegamers.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6:2009-dba&catid=2:events&Itemid=3). I am taking my Vikings III/40a and Welsh III/19a. An interesting matching of blades v warband - superior strength of arms v quick kill. This wil be my first tournament, so I am pretty excited about how it might pan out. I will keep you updated.

Tried "biggish" battle

It's been great of late. At work there are 4 of us al learning DBA together. Playing games during our lunch break. We keep a timer on the moves to ensure we get a result in time. This week we decided to try out a "biggish" battle - 2 v 2.

It was an interesting experience. We played totally non historical teams - Later Carthage (Commender in Chief) plus Patrician Romans vs Later Visigoths (Commander in Chief) plus Dark Age Welsh. We also tried to implement the timer for the game as well.

The first observation was a total feeling of lack of control - normally in a game of DBA I generally feel some level of control over what is going on. In the big battle I wasn't feeling that way - there was so much going on and with the timer running I didn't feel like I had tiome to comprehend what was going on.

On the tactical side, both armies had the same aim - try to demoralise the commander in chief's command. For us, we isolated 4 of CinC elements on the edge of the board, and with spears v warband we had quick kills on the opposition. But the bigger space on the battle field made it difficult to get the general in position to get enough pips to be able to use the warband effectively. We would get there but it would take time.

But then we lost our centre as the Roman mounted troops ripped through the Visigoths. That demoralised our CinC (in one bound we lost 3 elements of the CinC) and from there it was always going to be difficult. With the warband spread out, it was difficult because pips were double for some of the key elements.

All in all an interesting experience. I wouldn't recommend a timer on the moves for this kind of battle. To be successful at this form of the game I would need to learn to use the distance from my general better. I am sure we will give it a better go at some stage.

I am a slacker...

Well I have been busy with DBA but you wouldn't know it, by viewing this blog. Well here is a bit about what I have been up to.

First up, on the painting front. I have painted my second army - Middle Anglo Saxons. After painting Vikings, Saxons was the obvious place to visit next. I will post them up soon - once I photograph them. At the moment I am in the process of painting some Picts - they will prove a fine addition to my other Dark Age British armies. Also I purchased a Dark Age Welsh army off Ebay. A nice paint job on them too!

Once I have the Picts done, that will make it 4 Dark Ages armies, and my thoughts turn to which next. Happy to hear any suggestions.

My first painted army - III/40a

A while back (years we are talking) I bought myself a copy of the DBA rules (v1.1 I think). I had been told about this game and thoguht it would be good to get into. And so once I had the rules I thoughtit best to get myself some figures...and so I made the choice of Vikings. I knew little of them, but they seemed interesting and they had a lot of blades and for all I knew, blades seemed to have the best "pluses". It was dumb and naive, but it is what made me part with my cash.

And those figures sat in a box for years as I almost forgot about them. Late 2008 rolled around and I finally got to painting up my first DBA army...and here are the results...

Here are all the scandanavian lads:

Here is the general's element:

The camp and guard with bow:


Most of the figures are Tin Soldier I believe. I had to add a few extras and they are Museum.

Here are one of the swords blade elements:

And after all those blades, you can always use an element of psoloi


I had enough figures to put the options together for the extra units for the 40 b option so here are the bows and warband (my personal favourite).

So there you have it. My first effort in painting a DBA army.

My next job is to touch up a Feudal English army I bought on EBay.