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Thanks for your opinions, guys. Much appreciated. In the end I went for the middle one, but it was a close call between this one and the one in the right.

@Mymearan: Thanks. They're Arcanists.

Now I'm currently working out a proper recipe for the whole thing by means of this test mini:



+++INTERMISSION+++

Yet another Operation Squad Battle Report of mine was just put up on skirmishwargaming.com.

http://skirmishwargaming.com/battle-report-operation-squad-game-2/#.VfQf7ZdodR0




Thanks for having a look if you did.

The past Thursday I played Command&Colors for the first time. We played the Ancients variant (which to my knowledge is the most acclaimed one from the series). I have to admit - this is a very, very well designed game.



It's Romans versus Carthiginians in the Punic Wars. I played the Romans (grey meeples). We played the first scenario from the booklet (there are about 15 included in the box). As you can see the board consists of hexes. Dotted lines signify centre, left and right flanks.


Virago reading rules while I muck about with the camera

The general distinction between units is as such: Light troops (colour coded green), Medium Troops (blue) and heavy troops (red). Each category includes foot as well as cavalry (incl. camels, chariots, etc.). The game comes with two quick reference folders in which you'll find combat tables and unit stats. There can always be only one unit on a hex, you may not move through other units (unless it's light troops under very specific circumstances) or shoot through them. Foot units consist of 4 meeples each (depicting their 'health points'), cavalry of 3 each.

Depending on the scenario each player has a hand of a certain number of cards. In this scenario I, the Roman player, had 6 cards, the Carthiginian player got 5. Each turn you may play one of these cards.


It was only in editing that I realized I had chosen the same card twice to show examples. D'oh.

These cards show which units to activate. This is pretty much the core of the game. Choosing which units to activate when. The cards in the above example are pretty straightforward: Activate two units in the centre. Activating a unit means that you may move them up to their total allowance of between 4 (light cavalry) and 1 (medium and heavy infantry) hexes. If the units get on a hex bordering a hex on which an enemy unit is sitting they may attack them in close combat. If the unit has ranged weapons they may fire them at the enemy (they may not target enemy units in adjacent hexes. Firing ranges typically are 2 hexes for most light troops, 3 hexes for archers. If they moved this turn they roll fewer dice for their ranged attacks. Once the units got activated and rolled for combat the card played is discarded, a new one is drawn and the opponent's turn commences.

...which leads us directly to combat!


The game uses six-sided dice. Instead of numbers they show symbols for the various troop types (green - light, blue - medium, red - heavy), a helmet symbol on purple for leaders, a swords symbol and a banner symbol.



On this QRS sheet you can see the combat tables for ranged combat and close combat. When ever a unit attacks at an opponent either in ranged or close combat you roll a number of dice (usually 1 to 2 for ranged attacks, up to a whopping 5 for heavy troops attacking in close combat). If you fire at light troops you need to roll a green symbol to hit them, to hit medium troops you need a blue symbol, for hitting heavy troops you need to roll red symbols. For each fitting symbol you rolled your opponent has to remove one meeple from the target unit, if all meeples are removed the unit is killed. Sword symbols do nothing in ranged combat. In close combat they mean an additional hit on the target unit. The white-on-purple helmet Leader symbol also counts for a hit if the unit has a general with them or on an adjacent hex. For each banner symbol rolled the target unit has to retire their full movement allowance. If a unit is alive after a close combat attack and wasn't forced to retire they may strike back at their attackers.

If your unit gets charged in close combat you have the option to evade, meaning that you possibly take a bit less damage but you don't get to trike back and instead automatically retire. If a unit was wiped out or forced to retire the attacking unit may move on to their hex. Cavalry in many cases is even allowed to immediately attack enemy units they got into contact with due to this move.
If a unit containing a general is hit there is a slight chance he may gotten hit. This you roll for as well.

The scenario we played was the beginners' scenario, so there was no terrain (there are hex markers for that in the box) and the objective was to accumulate 5 victory markers. These you get for killing enemy units and you get an additional one for each enemy general killed.

And that pretty much is it. There are some minor special rules for things like camel troops (horses NOT liking camels), elephants (rampaging when forced to retire) and so on, but as far as the core rules go, that's it. The main part of the game is playing your cards right. Especially later in the game I ran into a situation in which I had no left flank left at all, so all of these cards were worth naught (usually they allow you to activate a single unit of your choosing if the card in question has no more use for you) and on top of that it often got necessary to activate badly battered units to have them run from the enemy troops and keep them from getting wiped out rather than activating troops to do harm to the enemy.



The bits and pieces look rather nice. I like the look of the meeples even though of course you could play the game with miniatures (preferrably painted by yours truly :p ) and I heard of many people using miniatures over the meeples with the stickers on them (which I hear are a load of work to put on :p ). The whole thing feels like a proper strategy game. It strikes a very nice spot between simple mechanics and strategy along with a good dose of battlefield friction in the shape of the players not knowing which card they'll get next. But this is migitated by the fact that they hold a whole hand of them.

Good game. Solid quality, very enjoyable. Thanks to virago for introducing me to C&C:A!

Good read, as usual, nice report!

Reminds me of the way we used to play Napoleonic's in my very distant past.

@Littletower: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

@Solar_lion: There actually is a Napoleonic variant of C&C out there. I just hear it's not all that great. But that was just one opinion, so who knows.



Right, this is the state of the Federation at the moment. These are pretty much done, even though I'm not sure if I'm entirely happy with how they look (plus, the photo kind of sucks too ). Three Wo-Dao or Dao Gunships (depending on whether or not the little extra turrets I haven't painted yet are dropped into those square slots), one Guan-Dao Battlecruiser, 4 Wue Destroyers (those still need their dragon-shaped flamers painted) and nine Nu Frigates.



These are of course the unfancier ones, but it's good getting those out of the way. What do you think of the final colour scheme, Sirs?

I really love the ones with the lighter tan color, would there be any way to work that color in on the other ships? Overall they all look great, but those ships have the best balance of colors imo, and avoid being too dark. So I'd love to see that light tan decking on some others.

Also sent you an email reply about the farrow, although I know you're busy painting

@RTides: Thanks very much. The decks are that tan colour on all the ships, there's just varying amounts of visible deck planks of course. Yeah, I think I went a tick too dark on the whole fleet .Oh well. Maybe I'll do something to brighten things up. As for your message - thanks, I'll get back to you asap!

Look everyone, I just published another miniatures review!

In this article I took a look at The Assault Group's 28mm WW2 infantry. First time I did anything with TAG minis, but I'm impressed.

Here's thre review, hope you find it interesting and informative!
http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2015/09/review-assault-group-ww2-germans.html



Thanks for having a look!

Ah that makes sense on the decking! I just love the test mini color distribution:



But you can't create decking that isn't there! It's hard to see in the pic but I think it's mostly the 3 small ships in the center that looked to be missing that color. Not sure if it could be added on the interior sides of those, like it looks the small ships on the far right of the pic have?

The WW2 minis look nicely gritty!

@RTides: Thanks for the comment! Yeah, I think the fact that these dragon flame throwers on the smaller ships in the middle of the last picture still were just undercoated black didn't help much either. That's fixed now. At a higher angle you also get a bit more of a look at the decks.

Right, these optional slip-in turrets are done now as well so I can turn the Dao gunships into Wo-Dao. (at least two. Still looking for that darned third turret bit.). Apart from that the two Chui Support Carriers are done.



The planes still are just all white, not sure about a colour scheme on those yet. Probably white with red? Or jade green like these dragon flame thrower things here:



Finished the smaller Destroyers and the Jian Battleship. Above it's in the Mk.I configuration with additional crew compartments and armour (fer bordin', yarr!!) and below you can see the Mk.II version with Bombard Rocket Batteries:



That's that then, ships done. Next: big, flying things.

Thumbs up. Look great.. I think the planes look good white as a base color. Some red will fit in nicely!

Nice background as well.. is it a mat?

Those are looking stellar my friend. Great color combo on the ships.

Oh man, those look really great now! I do think it was the "dragons" in the middle of the ships just being black that threw me - I did not realize they were still being painted. They're just awesome in that light green now

@Solar_lion: Thanks. I think I'll go for jade green on the airplanes now. White and red might get mistaken for Japanese planes too easily. That blanket thing is from the Dreadfleet game.

@Gitsplitta: Thanks.

@RiTides: Cheers. Yeah, I'm not sure I pointed out properly that these were still to be finished. I guess I just wanted the stuff to be finished quicker and left out that bit of info.


OH NO, it's the mighty Zhanmadao Dreadnought Bastion!!!!1



Well, WIP. :p

Sweet.. love the green tiling. Are you going to paint the dragons green to match?

I'm guessing the dragons will be the paler green like the ones on the ships? I love how you have run with the scheme, they're a lot of colors I wouldn't have expected and are working extremely well together

It all looks fantastic! I am going to check out that Command and Colors game. Looks like something I could play with the old man to good effect.

That's a very impressive piece Sigur... it's like a flying Imperial palace! Going to look great when finished.

@Solar_lion: Yeah, the dragons I did as on the ships.

@RiTides: Me neither. Trying to do Far Eastern stuff is always a challenge to my learned colour sensibilities. I learned that first when I did 28mm Samurai. Cleaned the minis, put them on bases, basecoated them - and then I noticed that I had NO idea what a Samurai armour or an Ashigaru actually looks like in detail.

@Wehrkind: Thanks. It's a really, really nice game. There pretty much are versions of the game for most periods you'd want to play (Ancients, Napoleonics, ACW, WW1, WW2), but I hear that the Ancients and ACW versions are the best.

@Gitsplitta: Cheers, I hope it will.

Updates!



For a slight change, here are the finished Dun Floating Bastions.





They are armed with one of those dragon-adorned flame throwers one to each side, bombard missile batteries and a Rampart Generator each, which, as long as both these things are still active, generates an energy field between them which weakens fire directed at targets behind it. One of those gimmicky things I suppose. This more and more feels like C&C:Red Alert 3.

And yes, these totally look like an inverted game of Hungry Hungry Hippo.




Here's another WIP shot of the Zhanmadao Dreadnought Bastion:



And here are lots and lots of small fliers (66 thereof):




The tiny fliers were less annoying to do than I thought. But then of course I kept them very simple and the base edges are still left to do. Hope you like them!

Wow, that's a ton of little flyers! They look great (especially for the size). By the way, is this for a client or a personal project? I assume it's a commission but just checking

Like the flyers and the water bases. Very cool.

The jade dragons on the smaller floating bastions are really amazing. Looks just like the creamy green jade I've seen in so many beautiful sculptures.

@RiTides: Cheers. I did those on the side for myelf along with commission stuff I'm not allowed to show online.

@Solar_lion: Thanks. Got to work out some techniques for doing water bases like that back when I did the League of Italian States fleet last year.

@Gitsplitta: Thank you, Sir. I was lucky in getting a rather pleasant result at the first try. Down the line I refined the recipe a little and there ya go.


Hey, remember the Mordheim dudes I did about two and a half years ago? Well, they're getting their annual reinforcements!



They're Don Pedro and Sorceress by Brother Vinni Minis. Can't and won't say too much about them at this point because I've got a review planned.

What I CAN say something about is that these are going to be added to the crew for reasons of Frostgrave. There's a mercenary wizard in the group already who will act as wizard in Frostgrave, but you also need (well, you don't really need him/her, but it's a very, very handy addition) and apprentice. The thing about Frostgrave is that it's set up as a campaign game, but the only character out of your crew of up to 10 models who actually 'advances' in power and such is the wizard (and along with him/her the appentice). The rest of the warbands are just cannon fodder really. Which is an idea that puts me off a little. It just feels wrong, putting one dude over the others just because he can cast spells. And I'm pretty sure that one could construct parallels to weird ideologies around that ("Fudge everybody else, as long as they're useful to me for personal profit and 'advance'!"). Yeah, not a fan of that. But I'm rambling. Not a huge wizard fan. Self-entitled, power-hungry bad news, the whole lot of them!

On the other hand I'm sure it's a very fun game I definately intend to play. I mean I've got the rulebook, I've got a bunch of Empire, Chaos and Dark Elves (and soon-ish a bunch more Dwarves), time to give that thing a go!

If you want to know more about Frostgrave and aren't sick of it due to all the marketing and general buzz about it, as always the first and foremost adress for solid info on wargaming related things is the Meeples and Miniatures Podcast. The latest episode has a very in-depth review of the game.

Either way, have fun, hope you like the WIP shot, hope to finish these minis soon and get the review article up!

Lovely paintjobs and crazy flying boats.

@Warboss_Waaazag: Hooray! Thanks.




..aand done!



Hope you like them. I'll try to finish the review today as well.

I like them better with the black background... Just sayin'.

They look really nice, the glow from the flame is really good.

@Gitsplitta: Quiet you!

@GiraffeX: Thanks. Very rough OSL there, but I think it's a funky connecting bit not only to tie her in with the colour scheme of the rest of the gang, but also with her teacher:

Mordheim models look great, although I especially like the teacher from previously... on the white background

@RiTides: Oh, you people. Anyway, yeah, I really, really like that Mordheim warband. Just yesterday I saw it again and it looks so much prettier in real life than in the pictures I made then. Not to blow my own trumpet, I just would really like to take some new pictures of that group some time.

Yesterday I had my first game of Dystopian Wars. A friend decided it's time to teach me the rules. He's only familiar with 1st edition DW, I only have the pdf of 2nd edition, I played the Chinese 2nd edition list, he played the old 1st edition Italian list. Somehow it still worked despite lots of rules looking-up and all. Not a bad game. Not a fast, intuitive or elegant game by any stretch of the imagination (for that, please refer to Chain of Command and/or Dux Britanniarum ), but not a bad game.

We played ca. 750pts per side, I brought my Guan Dao Battle Cruiser, a squadron of two Wo-Dao Cruisers (a flight of four bases of dive bombers each), a squadron of two Chui Support Carriers, a squadron of 4 Yue Destroyers (the ones with the big flamethrowers in the front) and a squadron of four Nu Frigates.

He brought a battleship, a squadron of three Gladius Cruisers, six bases of torpedo boats (now these guys are annoying), a squadron of three Fortuna torpedo bombers and a squadron of three nasty Destroyers (torpedo turrets and top turret). Italians are fast, got shield generators and have so, so many gun turrets. Must be really nice if all your guns are mounted so you can fire pretty much anywhere rather than having them in an fixed arc to the front.

No, i'm not complaining. Chinese have no generators to rely on, but only their cool Rugged Construction which still is rather nice. Also: All hail Isolated Systems! Those saved me not only from an ammo magazine explosion which would have ripped justg a huge hole into my lines, but also it saved me from so much other stuff.



In other news:



We're setting up this huge Waterloo game for VIVAT2015 (November 15th, drop by for lots and lots of historical wargaming stuffs!) and I contribute to a small capacity. Above you see the humble beginnings of the 27th line regiment (1st and 2nd batallion) as deployed at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. This is one of the smaller units, all in all it'll be 36 figures. The miniatures used is a mix of plastic Perrys and Warlord Games late Napoleonic infantry there'll be a demo game on the upcoming weekend at Vienna Army Museum. Not that these guys will be finished by then.

Apart from that I'm currently busy painting the 7th regiment of Vistula Legion Lancers (early 1980s 25mm Minifigs) for a customer. As with the Guard Lancers before I'm rather unsure if I pull it off correctly. The required painting style is very different to what I'm used to. Every single thing I paint I have to do in a different way than I'm used to. Oh well. Hope you like the 27th so far.

Quite. So yeah, we're just going with a 1 Mini = 30 men ratio (roughly). It still will be quite a sight to behold.

Here's a 'teaser' from a wargames show earlier today at which the guys set up a quick-ish Waterloo-ish game:



....and of course everybody has to check out the 1970 film Waterloo. Most probably the best film about the battle which has and will ever be done.


edit: By the way, I reactivated my Twitter account. If you want to follow me just look up Battle Brush Studios on Twitter.