The Headless Horseman rides again!

I've always enjoyed Folklore and have tried at times to find ways to combine it with gaming, so I painted these 28mm Westwind figures for some "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" games! The game basically plays as a typical miniatures skirmish game, but with a few RPG elements. Each player takes a character figure (Ichabod Crane, etc.) and a few henchmen and has their own victory objectives. Some of these goals might have to do with taking out other characters, killing the horseman, or solving a mystery or two! As far as the Headless Horseman is concerned, I make a secret die roll at the start of the game to determine if he is either purely fictional, totally real, or is just being portrayed by a character to scare the town,.... or a combination thereof! Here are some pictures:

 

The villagers come out to see what the ruckus is all about!



The Headless Horseman rides again!

Another view of the Horseman - that old Hessian!

The Headless Horseman with unlucky soul's head!

The Sleepy Hollow town militia comes out for a look!

These are quite versitile figures and could work for a few periods,

The rules I'm using! Good stuff! Happy Halloween everybody!

Link to Westwind's Sleepy Hollow "Gothic Horror Range" figures:

 http://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=2_20

Perry War of the Roses plastics

I had some free time this weekend, so I decided to start work on my plastic, Perry, War of the Roses figures. The figures are amazing, but I knew I was in for a job when I opened the box. Sometimes I think I would just rather pay more for lead figures then to have to fight with the super-glue and X-acto knife! But anyway, I had a good time of it because I moved from my normal work area, to the family room so I could watch college football on Saturday (go Noles!) and the NFL on Sunday (go Titans)! I was able to get all 80 figures cut, glued and  assembled by Sunday afternoon. I did like how I was able to customize each figure. I also glued each figure to a card base, since I like to have a larger sized base to hold when I'm painting. I divided up the figures into a 32 man polearm unit and two 24 man archer units. They will be getting primed black here in the near future.

Working on the figures. I have them grouped into their units here. Some are already mouted
to a card painting base. My arch-nemesis, Super Glue, is also pictured.

Another shot of my weekend project.

A painted 28mm Front Rank knight unit from the game we are currently playing.

A different view of the same mounted unit.

An overview of the battle.

28mm War of the Roses - Hail Caesar

My friend Titch, international gamer extraordinaire, attended Salute 2011 in London this Spring. I asked him to get me a copy of Hail Caesar and a couple boxes of plastic Perry WOR figures. He succeeded in his mission! I had originally intended to use HC for future 28mm Roman & Celt armies, but after doing a little reading of the rules, and looking at some pictures of a WOR game Rick Priestly posted on the HC yahoo groups site, I think I just might have a go at playing a WOR game using these rules. I'm sure I'll get around to it sometime, and I'll be sure to post some pics and a battle report. I'm actually pretty excited about these rules and figures and can't wait to get started clipping and gluing! We are definitely entering another "golden age" of miniatures gaming with lots of great plastic figures coming out (Perry, Warlord Games, Mantic, etc), and some fantastic new rules too from all the ex-GW guys!

I was browsing YouTube looking for videos of Salute 2011 and just stumbled upon a video with my friend Titch in it. You might remember him from the DBA game post a while back. Yes, he's the loud American gamer in the Old Glory T-shirt! Way to go Titch...now get busy painting the rest of your War of the Roses figures so we can play that massive game we've been talking about!

Link to the Salute video:

http://youtu.be/RRUoyvDqSNQ

28mm War of the Roses

28mm War of the Roses game. I just set this up and we will be playing soon. Here are some pictures!

The local townsfolk...they are debating about getting involved in the fight. Most of these figures are old
Wargames Foundry Perry figures. I'll let the players roll some dice to determine what these guys will do!

Old Glory wounded figues hurt in the initial pre-battle skirmishing!

A light unit of horse moves toward the bridge.

The line of battle. We are using "Medieval Tactica" by Arty Conliffe (with a few house modifications). These are a great set of rules for the period. I just picked up a copy of "Hail Ceasar" and am looking forward to trying them.

Mounted Knights in reserve. These are Old Glory figures.

Skirmishers advance!

Line of battle - mostly Front Rank figures.

Lord Wenlock - painted for the massive Tewkesbury game Titch and are are planning to run soon at a Con near you!

Burgundian pikemen

These are old Grenadier figures I picked up years ago at the Sword of the Phoenix in Atlanta, GA.

An overview of the battle....mostly skirmishing will occur on this side of the table.

Another view of the battle....this will be where most of the heavy fighting will occur. The "hot spot" is caused by the sun coming through the window in my gaming room, but it makes for a great "sunrise" shot!

15mm DBA

My good friend, Titch W., rolled into town recently for a visit and some gaming. We hit the local gaming store first - Wargames, Inc., and then played two DBA games. Here are some pictures of the games and Titch's nicely painted 15mm armies.

Titch unpacking his figs. I like his travel set-up in the tackle-box.

A Carthaginian elephant. I really enjoy this army because of the
diversity of troop types available. Nice paint job!

A roman element of "artillery". Some more nicely painted 15mm DBA
figures from the brush work of Titch.

The Roman initial set-up. I played the Romans and Titch played the Carthaginians in the first game. He
provided all the figures and we used my terrain.

Titch's Carthaginian DBA army deployed for battle.

Almost crunch time!

A decisive turn in the battle! The elephant and spears broke the center of the
Roman line. It was actually a close game but I lost the game by 1 element!

A shot of the second game we played - Romans vs Scythians. This game turned out to be
a quick Scythian victory. The light horse armies usually win or lose BIG!

A close up of Titch's Scythians. We had a lot of fun with the games and we are
definitely both looking forward to a rematch!

15mm Napoleonic generals....on the painting table!

I have been extremely busy lately with family activities and work, but I have found a little time to paint!

I have decided to not start any major new periods  for a while, so I have been focusing on adding to my existing armies.

 We played a 15mm Napoleonics game not too long ago (see my pics of the 1809 Austrians vs French game!) and I saw that I needed to add some generals and command figures to my troops...so here you go!

15mm French Essex Generals. The building are the old
"Architectural Heritage" buildings...which are my favorites!

A closer shot of two French officers.

The painting table. I'm working on Austrians and a few more
French and allies (Hessen & Bavarian).

15mm Goblin Bat Clan - Hordes of the Things (HOTT) army

These lovely 15mm / 18mm figures are from Splintered Light Miniatures - 

 http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/

Splintered Light carries some of the finest 15mm fantasy figures on the market. This is my goblin "bat clan" army with a few orge & bugbear allies. The army consists mainly of goblin "warband" stands, but also includes some goblins mounted on bats (flyers, riders or knights), behemoths (the ogres), beasts (werebats), shooters (a couple stands of bowmen), hordes (goblins), bugbear warband, and a goblin shaman (magician). I have plans to add bat swarms, a hero, some artillery, lurkers and sneakers! I also liked the bugbear and ogre figures so much that I'm thinking about branching off and building an army of  these! Here are some pictures:

The whole clan!

The ogres!

My red haired, wild,  goblin warbands prepare to charge!

Bat riders!

Goblin shooters