Who slew the mounted ravagers with the keenest blade *

Its been a busy month but I finally got an actual game in, the first since the last Saga group gathering last month.  I ran the same Lombard warband with a unit Bulgars mercenaries.  Nellie, who I have not seen since we played Oathmark last summer, fielded Normans.  I was kind of in a hurry because I had errands to run so probably chose my terrain poorly (I should have thrown more LOS blocking stuff out there to limit the 2x long range of the Norman archers).  We also agreed to a four turn game instead of six. Nellie went first and punished me for that oversight - killing an impressive four out of six Lombard mounted hearthguard on one shooting attack in the first turn. Ouch!

This spurred me to move rather than stand around and get horses shot full of arrows.  I sent 10 warriors against the Norman mounted hearthguard and both lost about half their figs. this started a pretty devastating series of charges on one side of the field.  By turn four all 20 Lombard mounted warriors were out as were all ten Norman mounted hearthguard.  Nellie sent his warlord in to try and knock out my last two hearthguard (getting one), and then on the last turn my warlord slew his.  Final score on points was Nellie by 3 (24 to 21). 

My main takeaway is that the Bulgar mercenaries are not working super great. A unit of levy with spears might be of more use as they could be stacked with the Lombard melee board bonuses and could clear out groups of archers.  Anyway, good to see people, lots of painted figures, and roll some dice.

Game start. Normans at bottom and Lombards at top. 

Ineffectual Bulgars.

Lombard mounted warriors.

These Lombard warriors just lost five to knock out three Norman hearthguard.

Vagrant Warrior mercs in Norman service. Like the rest of the infantry in the game, they did not move at all.

Norman archers that I foolish gave sweet board position to.

Norman hearthguard.

Bulgars after riding across the board. 

Lombard warlord and his last two hearthguard companions.

*Y Gododin. LVII 

Alan Horse Archers

I purchased these 20 Alan Horse Archers last August to bolster my Late Roman (i.e. Barbarian West) armies, which seemed to be sorely lacking any horse archer contingents.  The Alans (or Alani) were an Iranian nomadic peoples (the name may refer to an amalgamation of several tribes from that region), who were notably settled by Aetius in the vicinity of Orleans in Gaul in 442 CE.  The Alani fought alongside Aetius against the Huns, and other groups of Alani were also subjects of the Huns, so they will make great additions to a Roman or Barbarian army.

Old Glory Alan Horse Archers.

These use the same two-part casting for the rider as the Bulgars, with the legs and torso as separate pieces that you can then join so that the rider is shooting his bow forward, to the side, or even over his back. However, some of the torsos have too slim of a waist to match up with the legs half. You can disguise this a bit by painting as part of the belt and it is not really noticeable.

These were easy to paint but I am not satisfied with how the brown jackets came out - I was hoping for a sort of leathery-look but instead it blends with the horse and the brown fur trim too much, I think.

French Line Infantry

Another thirteen (only ten of which are lined up here) Third Republic French infantry for games in the Little Wars style.  These firing poses will really help break up the uniformity of the marching pose the rest of this army relies on...

The bases are 1mm MDF from Litko.

Hotchkiss Machine Guns by Dorset Toy Soldiers

Finished up these Hotchkiss gun crews from the Dorset line by Imperial Miniatures. Reasonably priced and good service so I recommend. Will make a nice addition to French forces for Belle Epoque games.  The loaders had some flash under the visor of the kepi that almost looked like they were wearing goggles! Took me almost to the end of painting them to realize it was just flash and easily cut off.  The kneeling officer is a W.Britains recast by London Bridge.

The Dorset catalog numbers to make the gunner plus loader combination are: D-C057 and D-C058.

Kings of War Historical (in the Barbarian West)

Too much going on non-gaming wise so another solo Kings of War Historical solo game, this time with the Late Romans. 1,250 points per side roughly which worked out to four heavy infantry regiments, three archer troops, two cavalry troops, and a regiment of cataphracts for the Romans, up against six regiments of warriors, three archer troops, and three cavalry troops for their Germanic opponents (mostly Goths with some Frankish allies).

I used my terrain cards random draw system to set up the table and a random deployment table to deploy the armies.  The result was that the Romans ended up in a single line but behind the woods.  The Goths were deployed in two divisions.  The Romans accordingly split into two divisions and used the woods to anchor a flank for each division.

End of Turn 1.

Roman archers.

Roman legionnaires.

Kings of War Historical continues to hit a lot of sweet spots for me. Movement/charges are not subject to the whimsy of dice, which puts the onus on the player to make the right move at the right time. Combat is not too swingy. Shooting is not overly effective. The 'Heavy Warrior' Roman legionaries held their ground against lighter 'Warrior' Gothic infantry. A six turn limit to the game with victory points awarded for moving your units across the table disposes with tendency to 'turtle up' or to wait for other side to make a mistake. The moral bonus of Generals is small but not insignificant.

Roman right gets into line.

End of Turn 2.

Things I am less sure about include whether Kings of War Historical can support multiplayer games (with two or even three players sharing a side), and also what would happen if terrain and especially deployment were not randomized. Especially with deployment, I think competitive thinking by players would result in some more gamey, less realistic battles.

Goth left looking towards Roman line.

Scattered state of affairs on opposite flank.

Goth cavalry has routed a troop of Roman archers but taken some casualties from ranged attacks.

Things getting heated on right Roman flank. Gothic cavalry taking casualties from Roman cavaly and cataphracts.... 

...while Roman legions push through Gothic archer screens.

Infantry finally getting in range of eachother on Roman left.

Roman cataphracts (by Old Glory miniatures).

Roman legions (finally) clashing with Gothic warriors.

For this game the basic arc was that the Roman right, which included its big regiment of cataphracts, was easily able to cross the table middle point and push back the Goths, while on the opposite flank, while the Goths were able to cross the middle point (but not push back the Romans), the point total of the handful of warrior units was not greater than the entirety of the Roman right.  So, a Roman victory, which was clearly how the game was flowing anyways.

To the strife of mail-clad warriors *

Monthly Saga group game night saw the Lombards deployed for fourth time and getting their first win.  The opponent was Adam's Carolingians, which was interesting to see how that faction/board played in person, as opposed to trying to parse it from the text. Adam fielded four points hearthguard (as 6-6-4 units), a warrior bow unit, and a javelin levy unit.  I took 1.5 hearthguards, 2.5 points warriors (as 10-10 units), 1 point levy bow, and 1 point Bulgar mercenaries.  I'm not quite sure how to use the Bulgars, yet.  Their 'Retreat' is pretty great and it totally bailed them out when they were charged by the 4-figure Carolingian HG unit towards the end of the game. But the two 10-figure mounted warrior units were able to destroy both 6-figure Carolingian HG units by using variations of combinations of Attack / Immunity / Cuneus / Gratia while "only" losing 4 and 5 figures respectively.  Bulgar rangey-ness maybe makes them most useful as a distraction to the opponent and as potential exploiter of advantageous situations, such as mopping up already weak units.  Anyway, here's all the pics...

Initial set-up, Carolingians on left, Lombards on right.

Lombard warriors in two units of 10.

Lombard initial set-up, Bulgar mercenaries on left flank.

Carolingian initial set-up. Two hearthguard units of 6-figure each at upper left.

Bulgar mercenaries get to throw dice in anger for first time, taking out some Carolingian javelin levy.

Bulgars vs. Carolingian levy.

Carolingian javelins extract heavy payback, however...

Lombard warriors complete routing of both Carolingian 6-figure hearthguard units.

Carolingians.

Casualty situation by bottom of turn 5.

I probably dang near lost the game by letting my 6-figure hearthguard get whittled down to 3 figures by bow and javelin attacks, and then the Bulgars losing half of their unit to javelins and then getting wiped out by the Carolingian hearthguard at the end of the game. But the hearthguard were probably too tempting a target and probably diverted a lot of actions away from responding to the Lombard warriors on the other side of table who were doing so well.

*Y Gododin. LIX.