Tale of three Armies

What with playing Ancients recently I really didn't see me getting back into playing Warhammer but we had a one off game using the ancinets figures and bits of a nearly forgotten Empire army at the back of the cupboard and were surprised how much we enjoyed it. I think playing without a magic phase really encourages you to focus on unit combat which is the real strength of the Warhammer game. Gives us a beak from playing too much Ancients and getting too jaded with it.

As a result we dusted off the old figures and set about working up three seperate 1000pt lists - trying to get a different theme for each one - having rummaged around the spares boxes we found just about enough figures to cover all three armies - I plumped for solid infantry with a bit of everything, Steve is working on a Nuln based gunline and Dunk's is more of a Crusader theme with lots of knights and archers.

So firstly a WIP on my 1000pts - The main part being two units of Swordsmen with militia detatchments and a Mortar, with two units of Handgunners for the flanks and a flanking force of Knights and Pistoliers:

One of the Swordsmen units - about 80% painted with the highlights and banners left to do.

Knights - managed to cobble together 10 from the bits box though i'll only have six in this list

Mortar with converted handgunners as crew - using up spare bits has made this a pretty cheap project with a lot of small individual touches.

More 40k - Col's Eldar

Sticking with the Desert theme I thought I'd post some pics of my rather less completed Eldar - not done any work on these for ages but they were the first Army i collected for 40k, I even have some of the original figs somewhere so this is probably the one i'll keep from ebay just in case we fancy a game for nostalgic reasons:

Group shot from a while back - very simple two stage brown wash used

Wraithlord conversion - one of my vavourites to do as the original model is very static looking - cutting into the knee joints meant i could get a more dynamic pose.

Group shot with the Vypers in the foreground - some of the nicest platstic kits produced by GW at the time.

Guardians in the foreground to show scale - have another Wraithlord to finish for these guys - one rainy day maybe...

Praetorian

Truth be told I just don't enjoy playing Warhammer 40k these days - it was the game we all grew up on, huge games on the living room floor with scenery improvised from anything you could find, half painted armies blu-tacked together, it never quite went away. But as an actual game it seems a bit simplistic even if we do have some nicely painted stuff these days...

With that in mind here are a few shots of the collections we've amassed over the years - god knows how much we've spent, to say nothing of the time invested in getting it all done. First up some pics of Steve's almost complete Preatorians - back in the day these were produced by as a limited run by GW for a "Rourke's Drift" themed display when we all worked for GW, even remember painting some for the event:

Group shot with his converted Highlanders front right

Some of the sergeant and extra casualty figures are very characterful

Some of his converted cavalry with the HQ in the background

Lascannon teams as support

2007 Open Season

Click on the table to view it properly

This year years results so far - 1000pts of WAB with no general and hopefully a different result this time round given all Steve's crowing from last year. Republican Romans and Persia both scoring highly at the moment, a good deal of it at my expense though i think i've got the hang of this manipular formation stuff now...

Sparta!

Okay so 300 wasn't actually all that as a film but it was pretty much inevitable that we'd want to recreate it at some point. In the end we settled for 2500pts apeice with the Spartan hoplitess deploying as a single 1250pt unit lead by Leonidis and supported by 1000pts of peltasts and Theban hoplites.

The first few turns saw duncans persian cavalry threatening the Thebans on the Spartan left flank whilst his archers came forward to ensure we were definitely fighting in the shade. Frustratingly his levy infantry kept well out of reach and all the Spartans could realldo was hold the centre. On the left the Thracian light infantry came forward in a mad rush to intercept the cavalry, a gamble that very nearly paid off but in the end the cavalry managed to grind them down and persued them from the field.

Towards the end Dunc managed to flank the massive spartan unit with his Immortals, eventually supporting them with his levy in the final few turns whilst his light cavalry broke into the rear. Whilst the Spartans typically held their ground, the Theban hoplites, held down by heavy armour and threatened by flanking cavalry were unable to move in to provide support and the game ground on with few decisive moments - in the end we had to settle for a somewhat unsatisfactory draw but we'll kick of the 2007 season with a 1000 pt league - this time with bloody turn limits....

Historically accurate phalanx formation. Ahem.

Some nice shots here of a couple of games me and steve played this weekend. The strong natural light coming through his front window in the afternoon gives a high contrast and we were pretty pleased how they turned out.

We played both games at 1500pts, the first was Encounter where my motor company dug in and countered on the right with Grant tanks and carriers. Steve's tanks were split over both flanks and the grants knocked out the L6 light tanks quickly allowing the carries to advance on His artillery. On the Left flank His M14's were seen off by the now dug in RHA battery though he manages to overrun an infantry platoon in the eventual assault, his company commander went down to my infantry follow up leaving little left to fight on.

The second game was Hold the Line and whilst i managed to pour a lot of shells onto his advancing light tanks and infantry the survivors doggedly kept on and managed to hold up on my forward objective long enough to grasp a close win. I was a bit unlucky and should have kept a closer eye on the distance from my objective but they were both great games. Steve's now got himself a pair of Lancia's on order to counter my Grants so we'll see how i do next time but have really enjoyed playing motor company so far.

Veni vidi vici

Right, quick update as it's friday and steve wants some pictures of his all-conquering Romans on here which are currently cutting a swathe through both me and duncans warhammer ancient armies...so much so we've had to concede he got the best of us in 2006 but here's to the new year