Yet Another 15mm Eastern Orthodox Church

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Last week I posted that I had bought another two 15mm eastern orthodox churches, and here’s the first of them, from E-Bay seller WarFayre.

This is a lovely model, and well worth the £19.95 I paid for it.

It’s 3D printed in hard plastic, so surprisingly light for a model this size. It actually comes in three pieces (one per floor) but I glued it all together before painting…but you could use it as an open-up building if you wanted too: the interior would hold quite a few figures!

I painted it in two short sessions: three colours of Contrast paint for the main body, then the dome, doors and windows in acrylics. Note that I used GoreGrunter Fur for the main body and trim: I like the warm look you get if you use that colour for wood. The rooves are all in Wyldwood.

Those of you who have been keeping count will know that this is eastern orthodox church number twelve for me: here’s the full gallery so that you can see how this one scales.

One more to go!

ECW Scots Lancers

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Another lot of figures rescued from the depths of the lead mountain: a unit of Scots Lancers for the English Civil War period.

What I usually find is that I get into a new period or army and fanatically paint enough figures to enable me to get it onto the tabletop as soon as possible.

As I’m doing that, however, I add more units to my core, initial purchase as I think about all the different variants I could play. These, new, purchases generally go to the back of the queue and, as my initial surge wears off, get relegated to the lead mountain as I switch from painting the army to playing with the army. Painting-the-same-uniform-a-million-times fatigue also sets in!

So here is a unit of Covenantor lancers that were initially bought a couple of years ago when I first started putting my ECW Scots together. It was actually a pleasure to paint them. The lancers are 15mm figures from Khurasan, with a Peter Pig command figure. Paints were from the Contrast range, with the horses actually painted in Fyreslayer Flesh!

Time for another game of For King and Parliament…

TFL Painting Challenge: Late September Update

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The entries to this year’s challenge are still flooding in, and some very impressive scores are being racked up.

We already have Andrew with a score of just over 3,000 points; Lloyd and Sapper with over 2,000 points; and Steve, Nick, Carole, Matt, Stumpy and I on over 1,000 points.

Personally, I’m chasing a personal best of 2,004 achieved a couple of years ago, so need about another 300 points to do so. Some desert war American tanks should take care of some of it, then some more Napoleonics and Hoplites, and then perhaps finally getting around to re-basing my Crimean War British to polish it off. So much to do, so little time!

Anyhow, here’s a taster of this week’s entries: do visit the individual galleries to see all.

Still plenty of time to get your entries in!

Another Eastern Orthodox Church?

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It’s happened: I’ve finally cracked!

There am I saving up to buy Museum Miniatures’ excellent, CAD-designed Z Range 15mm Normans when I come across another 15mm Orthodox church.

Borodino Church from Monday Knight Productions

Now for those of you who have not been keeping up with the story so far, I seem to have developed an unhealthy obsession with making sure I have every 15mm Orthodox church available, Most people might have one, or possibly two: I now have eleven!

What could I possibly need with eleven 15mm Orthodox churches? Even I do not know the answer to this. Worse, I have another two on order!

This latest one is from Monday Knight Productions as part of their Borodino range of 15mm scenery. Excellent service from them sorted any potential problems with the fact that they are in the States. The church has actually been sitting on my painting table since the beginning of the year, and it was really the purchase of the other two that spurred me to complete it.

Here’s the full gallery of churches so far in size order, smallest to largest:

Some Painting, Some Re-Basing

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Almost unbelievably, I recently actually managed to find time to do some painting!

What with real life being very busy and all the actual gaming I’ve been doing, the painting side of things had slipped, but I had a spare hour or two and thought that I really should get something done…so I did.

These are the Laminids: more 15mm sci-fi from Khurasan. I’m going to add them to the Pelagic Dominate force that I already have: they will fit right in with the other “sea creatures” that that range features.

These are very simply painted with GW Contrast paints: just one coat per colour, so only four paint pots opened. They were, in fact, so easy to paint that next time I order from Khurasan, I shall add another two squads to make a platoon and ask Jon if he can add a command figure to the range.

Sassanids

I’ve also finally got around to re-basing the Sassanid infantry to go with the recent re-basing of the cataphracts, clibanarii, horse archers and elephants.

I almost didn’t bother: I mean, who fields Sassanid infantry anyway? But the figures were there, and would have prayed on my slightly OCD mind as “incomplete”, so re-base them I did.

The latest To The Strongest lists give them as either standard or deep javelinmen, so I split the figures into two units of each:

I was a bit nervous how the deep bases would turn out - I’ve only ever used the double-sized bases to deep elephants before - but, actually, these look just as good…and I had a bolt-shooter set that I could add to one as dressing as well, so all good.

Polish Lithuanians

Finally in this burst of figure production, the painter I use to augment my own efforts sent through the first of the Polish Lithuanians: a unit of Petyhorsy armoured cavalry.

Nice figures and beautifully painted.

One thing, though. By Fire & Sword, the manufacturer, use plastic horses with metal riders. Now I’ve no objection to plastics and have loads, but they seem to be using the soft rather than the hard plastic, which can sometimes lead to the horses, particularly with ‘heavy metal’ riders, not standing up straight.

So bad was this on one of the mounts in the unit above that, despite its proximity to its neighbour, the horse leant to one side to the extent that its rider’s lance was tangled with that of his comrade next door…and nothing I did would make it otherwise. Worse, it made the whole unit look weird.

The solution: a bit of stiff wire (actually the bit cut off a lance to make a spear) as a brace between the two steeds:

The close up makes it look very noticeable in the photo, above, but it isn’t on the tabletop. Job done!

TTS AAR: Classical Indians versus Akkadians

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Having played Kavan using the Akkadians versus his Classical Indians, we decided to swap sides and play the game the other way round.

The Akkadians were outscouted, and set up in a long line of men holding sharp pointy sticks, placing their veteran battle carts on their left/my right. I matched their infantry with my own, but put all my chariots and cavalry on my left. My plan was to hold my infantry back, giving them as long as possible to shoot their longbows, whilst I outflanked and won the battle with my mounted troops on the left.

Initially, this actually worked very well indeed. On the left, my chariots and horse neatly swung out a bit and headed past the end of his line at a rapid rate of knots.

This allowed me to send one unit of chariots towards his camp, and the other into the flank of his right-hand infantry.

Surely this was the game sown up…but, no, the Gods laughed and shuffled the deck, and the lone Akkadian spear unit at the end of his line snapped round neatly and disposed of my (previously outflanking) chariots without much difficulty!

This was disappointing, but his camp was still about to fall:

Meanwhile, on my right, his battle carts and infantry had finally reached my line and were dashing themselves against it.

This was actually quite worrying as although my javelinmen can hold their own in hand to hand combat, my longbowmen have a tendency to crumble really quickly.

Fortunately, the Akkadians assaulted the longbowmen piecemeal, so my three units of archers could concentrate their fire and pincushion the most forward enemy unit each turn. This meant that they tended to hit my line disordered, which really evened things up.

Moreover, my javelinmen were up on a hill, and resolutely refused to give way no matter what. Here’s a pictorial account of events on that wing:

So the left wing was doing well, but hadn’t won the game for me; and my right wing was holding, but under pressure. I would now have to win the game in the centre, and that was where I had my elephants and the elite Maiden Guard.

In they went as fast as a charging pachyderm, and nothing could stand before them!

Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but with the cavalry on the left now free to assist, and the right wing just about won, the elephants did provide the coup de grace needed to take the last of Kavan’s victory medals.

A glorious victory for the Classical Indians!

TFL Painting Challenge: First September Update

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Lots of entries today and from a wider selection of people than normal: must be all the summer holidays work coming in!

Do look at the individual galleries, accessed through the nav bar, above, but here’s a taster to wet your whistle (correct spelling!):

Colours 2022

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A good visit to the Colours show yesterday. Very crowded in the morning, but had largely emptied out by the time I left at two-ish.

A big fantasy game from the show. They obviously knew the way in!

Interesting journey there: I’ve been many times before, so went my usual route, only to find that that entrance to the racecourse was closed, with no way through to the correct entrance just the other side of a traffic barrier. It was really a case of so near, yet so far! I then spent the next twenty minutes driving around the nearby industrial estate trying to find my way in…and all the time I could see the racecourse, and the stand where the show was held, but just couldn’t work out how to get there! Eventually ended up looping onto the end of a convoy of obvious wargamers following someone who did actually know the way in, but that’s still twenty minutes of my life I’m not getting back LOL.

My irritation immediately disappeared, however, when I remembered that there was no entrance fee this year, so one could just swan in and out as required. Jolly good show already!

Colours followed its usual format. The ground floor (the betting hall) was packed full of traders, and ws the usual scrum to get through. Slight need for more deodorant from some people as well, particularly in one corner away from the doors, but that could just be my still-unusual, post-COVID sense of smell kicking in. I bought some bases and tufts, but nothing major: just the things you get irritated having to pay postage and packing for.

I did fail to immediately buy a giant crab for £14 from Disain Studios only to find that they had sold out when I eventually decided that I had to have it, so I remain crab-less. I have no need of a giant crab, I hasten to add, nor any expectation of needing one anytime soon, but it was calling its siren song to me, so I will probably end up getting one at another show. Or I could go to their website to get the link for this post…no, must resist…at least until I see it in the flesh (the shell? the resin?) again!

I couldn’t find the crab on their website (am I destined never to get crabs?!) so here’s a shot of a large ancients game from the show

Next floor up was combination of demo games, trade stands and places to eat and drink. Catering was the usual snacks and sandwiches (can we go back to Ascot again please: the food there was lovely!) and this was the floor where the Lardies had set up shop with games of Chain of Command and Strength & Honour.

The CoC set up was part of the legendary TFL Arnhem triptych some of which I had seen at Operation Market Larden, and looked even better than before. Can’t wait to see all three in place in the near future.

Then onto the top floor: demo games and the Bring & Buy. This latter didn’t have anything I wanted, but at least had a sizeable frontage that meant not too much barging around to see what was what.

Roundway Down

Lovely For King & Parliament demo game was up here as well: featuring the Roundway Down scenario. Also good to finally meet Simon and Andrew face to face.

So that was Colours for another year. As I said, a good show, and loads of people to say hello to and chat to.

TTS AAR: Akkadians versus Classical Indians

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Time for a game of To The Strongest: I would take the Akkadians (the new, ‘slim-line’ version from the latest army lists) and Kavan would use a Classical Indian army of the Republican variety.

My plan was to act almost purely defensively: luring the Indians forward onto the tips of my spears. My only offensive move would be to send my heavy chariots forward on the left to try and get around the Indian right flank.

Everything went almost to plan, as the Indian javelinmen, chariots, elephants and cavalry hurled themselves forward without the first on the list even bothering with their extra longbows. To cut a long story short, they impaled themselves on the Akkadian line, and the game was won pretty easily.

Chronological pictures of the game appear below, but it’s worth mentioning why I said “almost” above. My heavy chariots did indeed thunder forward on the left most impressively, but then ran into bother facing a couple of raw units of Indian javelinmen. I sent some Household Infantry to help, and they got into trouble as well!

Unbelievably, the only thing that saved the day was the unit of Nim skirmishers in the rough ground (the unit with the die with ‘1’ on it in the picture above) who not only resisted every attempt of the Indian javelinmen to evict them from said rough ground, but went on to use their javelins to wipe them out as well!

Their success held my left flank together and allowed me to win the battle in the centre and on the right.

So a relatively workmanlike victory for the Akkadians. Here are the pics:

One thing to note: figures for both sides come from the Museum Miniatures CAD-designed Z ranges: highly recommended.

FK&P AAR: Cossacks & Transylvanians versus Muscovites

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After the Cossacks got so badly hammered last time out against a Muscovite army, it was time to reinforce them with some Transylvanians: the Cossacks would provide the war wagons and foot, the Transylvanians some fairly decent cavalry.

The Muscovites were, again, mostly Sons of Boyars or Reiter cavalry supported by two small brigades of infantry.

View from behind the Muscovite line

Muscovites

Transylvanians & Cossacks

Muscovite Reiters

Elite Transylvanian Cavalry

As the battle began, both sides advanced forward smartly, with the terrain meaning that the game divided into three sectors: my left flank, the centre and my right flank.

On My Left

On my left, some scummy looking Border Guards had appeared in front of me: the perfect target for the Transylvanians!

Apparently not, as rather than running over them like a badly dressed speedbump, my horsemen got impaled on their pikes. This flank then turned into an uneasy stalemate as horse and foot units milled around charging each other with little effect. The battle would be decided elsewhere!

On the Right Flank

On my right flank, I had some Transylvanian Enlisted Light Cavalry supported by two Haiduk units sheltering in the woods.

The plan was to send the light cavalry forward to soften up the three units of Reiters coming towards me so that the Haiduks could wipe them out from safe amongst the trees.

This did not work: the light horse were swept away almost immediately, and then the Haiduks were charged from the flanks and front and, despite the bonuses for being in cover, were swept away as well. The final unit of Haiduks did hold out for some turns, but eventually succumbed, leaving my centre now vulnerable to flank attacks.

Meanwhile in the Centre…

Meanwhile in the centre, the main body of Muscovite Reiters steamed towards my line: a mixed line of raw Moloitsy short-pike-and-shot and tabor war wagons.

My tabor fired valiantly away with both their light guns and musketry, but because I only had two of them rather than my usual four, I couldn’t get the concentrated fire I needed to halt the enemy Reiters heading towards me.

The Moloitsy were charged and gave way, leaving the tabor as islands of resistance amongst a swirling sea of Muscovite horsemen.

By this stage, I was also getting very short of victory medals…

The End

As my right wing collapsed, the loss of one unit too many caused my army as a whole to collapse: the Muscovites had won the day!

This wasn’t a hammering, I hasten to add: the Muscovites had been losing units as well, but it the Cossacks and Transylvanians who crumbled first!

Another great game, through, even if the Muscovites are currently proving unstoppable!

FK&P AAR: Cossacks vs Muscovites

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Time to get my new Muscovites onto the tabletop and into action, with their opponents being the Zaphorogian Cossacks. Russians verses Ukrainians: who would have thought!

I played the Cossacks, daughter #1’s boyfriend, Kavan, played the Muscovites. The rules used were For King & Parliament with the Eastern Front adaptations taken from the Tales from a Wargaming Shed website.

This turned out to be a fast and furious battle with what seemed like an endless wave of Muscovite horse crashing onto the Cossack tabor and infantry.

Here a gallery of the set up so that you can see the two sides:

The battle opened with a brigade of Muscovite Reiters thundering forward on the Cossack right flank, held by a brigade of Moloitsy and Registered Cossacks. The cards were with Kavan, with a couple of consecutive “10’s” ensuring that he actually charged home on his first turn!

The rapid charge had, however, obviously exhausted his cavalrymen, as they bounced backwards from the Cossack infantry, losing one squadron in the process.

The Muscovites also advanced another brigade of Reiters on my left flank, but not as fast, so I sent my Tartar allies out to deal with them whilst I advanced the tabor forward and prepared to deploy.

I almost came a cropper at this point, as his Reiters were once again quick off the mark, and hit one of my tabor wagons before it had a chance to deploy. Fortunately, I managed to survive the charge, but there was definitely now a weak point in my line!

Even worse, my Tatar Nobles (the best troops I had) had obviously been bribed by the Muscovites, as they left the table, along with some of their horse archers, without achieving anything!

I was now in quite serious danger of being outflanked on the left!

Fortunately I had a reserve brigade of infantry that I could deploy to face this threat, and the battle became a series of Muscovite assault on a fortress of Cossack tabor. Again and again, the Reiters and elite National Cavalry charged home, and again and again the Cossack line held.

My artillery was overrun, two of the tabor wagons were overrun, my Registered Cossacks on the right were wavering, but still we held, and the relentless assaults were costing the Muscovites dearly.

Kavan also wasn’t helped by a run of bad cards, including what you can see in the last picture, above: an absolute dead-cert winning flank charge on the reserve unit holding my left flank foiled by a couple of Aces drawn in a row.

This gave me the chance to get the last remaining unit of Tatars in on his flank and, finally, the Muscovites had had enough and retreated. A very narrow escape for the Cossacks!

It had been a terrific game, with everything coming right down to the wire. I had lost half my army, but had just managed to hold on long enough to get the win. Roll on the next game!

IABSM AAR: All American #03: La Fiere II

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Great write up of a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum from the keyboards of Dan Albrecht and Shane Waley.

Dan used a modified version of the third scenario from the All American scenario pack, along with a modified version of IABSM using Derek Hodge’s command card activation system.

Click on the pic below to see all:

TFL Painting Challenge: Final August Update

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Just time to squeeze in a quick Painting Challenge update before we hit September.

Lots of entries this time around, so do visit the individual galleries. Here’s a taster to wet your whistle:

Interestingly, I’ve just realised that I’ve been using the phrase “whet your whistle” almost every time we have a Painting Challenge update…and spelling/using it incorrectly each time. It’s “whet your appetite” as in “sharpen your appetite” but “wet your whistle” as in “have a drink”.

So I now need to go back and change every Painting Challenge update to “whet your appetite”…or not bother as a reminder to myself not to get it wrong again!

FK&P: Lists for the Eastern Front

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Whilst researching for my English Civil War armies, I came across the blog Tales from a Wargaming Shed. It’s author, Tim, had some rules and army lists for using For King & Parliament to fight pike and shot battles in 17th Century Eastern Europe as opposed to just the UK’s green and pleasant land.

Muscovites versus Cossacks, from a recent game

This, combined with the comprehensive miniatures for the theatre available from Wargamer.pl, inspired me to start a collection of Zaphorogian Cossacks to face friend Bevan’s Polish Lithuanians and then, as my collection expanded to include Muscovites, Transylvanians and others, to build on Tim’s work and the information provided in the By Fire & Sword rules by Wargamer.pl, to create more detailed army lists for For King & Parliament for the theatre.

On this new page on this blog, therefore, you will find pdfs of the army lists I have created so far. These are, I hasten to say again, hugely based on Tim’s work and the information provided in the By Fire & Sword rules by Wargamer.pl. All I have done is build upon their work, adding information taken from other sources (for example, the Steven’s Balagan blog) to put together enough information to get as many different eastern front '“pike and shot” armies as possible on the tabletop. Any mistakes are my own, and I welcome corrections or suggestions (send to admin@vislardica.com).

FK&P: The Eastern Front

IABSM AAR: Capturing Rauray

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Earlier this year, at the Lardy Games Day Operation Market Lardon, I played in a very enjoyable game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum run by Phil and Jenny.

The game involved elements of 2. SS Panzer-Division Das Reich and 9. SS Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen attempting to recapture the town of Rauray in Normandy from the 1st Battalion Tyneside Scottish. Noddy and I played the British against some very skilful German opposition.

The game had actually been playtested several times, and here’s an AAR from one of those playtests from the excellent Bleaseworld blog.

Click on the picture, below, to see all:

More Kudos to Warbases

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I recently bought a whole load of painted figures for use with my Zaphorogian Cossacks: there was a complete Muscovite army, large numbers of Transylvanians, and a smattering of Ottomans as well.

The only problem was that they were all based for the miniatures’ parent rule system By Fire and Sword: so although I wouldn’t have any problems adapting the units to FK&P/Eastern Front version, it did mean that I would be moving figures on lots of bases around the field rather than my usual large element bases.

I did think about re-basing, but the bases that the figures came on were far too well done to be casually destroyed…and re-basing figures is always a tedious and sometimes risky business. I needed another solution.

Step forward Warbases: that excellent company from north of the border who specialise in bases of all sorts. They already supply the custom bases I use for IABSM infantry squads, the larger bases I use for TTS deep units, and the standard movement trays I use for my Vikings, so I investigated what they could do.

I wanted movement trays of two different types (one for foot, one for horse) but with a narrower lip than usual so they wouldn’t end up being too prominent on the battlefield.

One quick e-mail to Warbases describing what I wanted and they were happy to provide. Okay so I had to stick the extra thin lip on myself, but that was hardly a hardship!

Here are the results: multi-based infantry, horse and artillery units now beautifully and conveniently trayed-up and ready for the tabletop. Once again: well done Warbases!

 

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