Khmer and fight me like a man*

       Despite our latest move to picking armies from the same half of one of the army list volumes we managed to get an even more unlikely pairing than the last one. This time we had the Vikings facing off against the Khmer, that is one long trip halfway around the world. Perhaps we should limit ourselves to a geographic areas? Second book, eastern Europe.... who knows, it's all just silly fun anyways.

The Terrain Gods proved fickle this time around and with neither of us taking much of a mounted arm I ended up outscouting Anton 2:0 so he had to deploy first and here is our initial deployments.  

 

Battlefields, the morning at least!

        Despite the wonderful weather (a rarity in Michigan this time of year) The turnout was quite good with 100+ gamers partaking in the days events. All games were participation games and most were full to capacity. The jovial Pro or Con staff was welcoming and the company convivial. My apologies to the Gamemasters, Tabletop Events took down the list of games the day of the event and the game guide provided on the day didn't list the Gamemaster's name (which it used to do) you will remain anonymous but the great games that you brought will get credited!

 

overall shot of the hall in mid-morning

Gaming Update, 23MAR24 My Place 7pm

        As usual the title says it all.

Be there!

Thracians take a thrashing, WRG 6th ed, yet again

 This time Around Anton gave me the "head fake".  We were working out of the first half of the first book, so all the VERY early armies were in play.  Anton spent the week talking about using the "Northern Barbarians" the Asiatic step nomads before they discovered horses, so I went with the Historic opponents, The Early Shang Chinese.  Anton however instead went with the Thracians which guaranteed a blood bath for our battle as both armies relied on 2 handed cutting weapons.   Anton massively outscouted my 49:1 so I deployed my army first.  

Prehistoric Terrain

        When I think about it my idea of "prehistoric terrain" is more informed by Saturday morning "B" movies than any sort of erudite study.  These epics often took place in the desert valleys near Hollywood, a terrain MOST unlike anything encountered by humans trying to survive at the end of the last Ice Age! Some quick study made it clear that the climate was far more temperate. Land so recently scoured by glaciers would have far less topsoil and much more exposed rock so plant life would be scattered and struggling. With those thoughts in mind I sat down to paint the terrain for Zhodani Commando's caveman game.

 

a now-dead volcano's basalt core bared by the relentless weight of the ice

Wargaming Update, Battlefields is coming soon 16MAR2024

        That perennial favorite, Battlefields, will soon be upon us. Make sure to set the day aside to attend this great local convention, it is always a fun time. New this year is a Bolt Action tournament and a Paint and Take table, two great additions. Of course there will be the usual raffles and free Flea Market tables. Just $10.00 gets you in all day and games are free. There is hot food and a bar in-house and any number of good restaurants nearby. Easy access off of I-96 or I-275.

         You can find the list of games and the location on Tabletop Events.

Marius visits Persia

       Just an explanatory note; our group long ago adopted certain "alternate methodologies" when playing WRG Ancients. Frankly we abhor book-keeping so we began substituting a "saving throw" rather than carrying over fractional casualties. As, under the rules, each figure represents twenty real soldiers we decided that we would roll a D20 against any fractional remainders after the whole figures had been removed. An example would be a unit suffering 35 casualties would have one figure removed (twenty soldiers) and then roll a D20 against the remainder of fifteen. A score of sixteen or higher and the figure stays with no fractional accounting, if the result of the die roll is fifteen or less the model is removed. This can lead to some unpredictable results but we had always considered that casualty generation under WRG was far too predictable (and everyone finds my ability to roll one less than the needed number to save quite amusing). The other thing we did was to discard written orders and just announce general orders to the opposing player at the beginning of the game; "This lot will skirmish forward" or "The main line will advance and engage the enemy" and trust that our opponent will cleave unto their orders honestly (and who would care to game with someone that isn't honest?). This has worked admirably in speeding play and getting rid of tortuously-written standing orders loaded with conditional circumstances. 

This time around Anton had 19 scouting points and I had 14 so no one was outscouted and we both followed the rules and deployed our armies from our own right to left.  Below is initial deployments.  

 

Roman vs Roman

       Ed Note: I must say that in all my years of wargaming (nearly a half-century now) this is the silliest terrain that I have ever played across. The Housemartin and I followed the terrain generation rules exactly and ended up with this odd terrain. Also, despite my endless carping about poor dice rolling, this game saw the longest run of positive rolls in many a decade. Therefore I will quiet my complaining and work on my generalship!  

         Anton's cessation of complaints not withstanding, I would be remiss to not complain about the fact that We rolled to play out of the Second Army list book, but Anton "senior momented" (Ed. note I am officially a Senior Citizen and I plan on milking it for all it is worth!) and decided to run an army from the first book.  So his Marian Romans will be taking on my Late Imperial Romans.  One thing for sure, the terrain turned out quite silly.  I was trying to get a gentle hill for my artillery and Anton placed a wood line in front of all the hills ( I placed four of them).  Two of my hill stuck, but unfortunately Anton's wood line obscured the field of view for both.  I had 16 Scouting points, Anton had 14, so no one was outscouted and we both deployed from our right to left.  Here are our deployments and the messed up terrain.   

1/72nd Hobbyboss F4F-3 Wildcat

 

overall it is a nice model, I liked the flashy paint-job

       In an effort to distract myself from building a vast (unauthorized) underground cave complex for Zhodani Commando's cavemen I decided to build this kit. The "easy assembly" is a bit of a misnomer, it is easy to build if you don't mind that the wings and the fuselage don't quite fit together, or that there is no option for retracted landing gear and no trace of a pilot. Assembly required a fair bit of filing and a dash of brute force to get the wings and fuselage to accept each others company (I had the same problem with the Dewoitine D-520 from the same manufacturer). Once that was done and a bit of putty and filing had been administered the retracted landing gear needed to be scratchbuilt. After all that it made up into a decent looking model, fine panel lines and an excellent look.