Wargaming Overload Part 2

I'd been looking forward to getting more figure gaming done after the move and I haven't been disappointed.

I've had a large 28mm ACW game using Black Powder which was fun but it confirmed my suspicions that Black powder isn't for me. It's great for getting large battles played out in an evening but the mechanics just don't appeal. I'm hoping that Longstreet will fulfil my ACW needs and I've taken the plunge and I'm getting two Pendraken 10mm armies professionally painted. I'll post some pictures of them once they're done.

Action on the left flank of the ACW game.

Although I've always enjoyed ACW, ancients is my first love. So I was really pleased to not only try out the full Impetus rules but also give Sword & Spear a go. I've played a few games of Basic Impetus and although I've had the full rules ages I've never been able to try them out. Luckily there's a few Impetus players locally so I've managed to play some games. The full rules are better than the Basic set but the combat is more or less the same. And that's the problem I have with them, for me the archery is just too powerful. There's a lot I like about the rules and I'd recommend giving them a try if you haven't already but they're not for me.

That brings me nicely onto Sword & Spear which has been generating quite a bit of buzz lately. The rules have lots of interesting mechanisms and require quite a bit of tactical thought which is a good thing. Plus the PDF is only £6.00 so you can't go wrong. The rules read quite well and it's quite easy to pick up the basics but there's a few wrinkles that you only noticed after playing. But that's no different from any ruleset, as you always get things wrong and miss things in your first few games. Overall I think they're a good set that can give you an enjoyable game and again I recommend giving them a try. But what I have found is that you concentrate on moving the individual units so much so that it feels a bit like you're moving chess pieces around a board rather than managing the massed ranks of an ancients battle. But I'm sure that many people will love these rules. Unfortunately my search for the perfect ancients rules goes on especially as we all know there's no such thing. I'm planning on going back to take another look at Dux Bellorum as I enjoyed the rules and I've found some variants to expand them into other eras. I particularly enjoyed reading about the Sumer to Sargon variant 'Warrior Kings'. At the bottom of the rather long page is an excellent AAR showing them in action.

Tomorrow I'll take a look my venture into Napoleonics using the 'Napoleon at War' rules.

28mm Saxons

In one of my many manic phases I bought a load of 28mm plastic Vikings, Saxons and Normans to use for Impetus and Saga. Normally I like to fight ahistorical battles, Egyptians vs HYW etc. but most people I play prefer match ups. So my current plan is to build Saxon and Norman armies for Impetus to use as a historical pairing.

As I'm not really a painter I always look to do things as simply as possible. I started with some foot and sprayed them with Army Painter's Plate Mail primer. Next I painted anything that wasn't mail or metal in an appropriate colour. They were then finished off with a coat of Army Painter Dark Tone dip.

I was pleased with how they came out. They were fairly quick to paint and the dip picked out the detail nicely. The shields were a pain though. I did these separately and used transfers for the shield designs. I had to paint some of the shield fronts white to give them a decent background colour for the decals. I've always found white to be a difficult colour to paint and I never get a smooth finish. But I've bought one of the new white GW Base paints now so I'll give that a try as they claim it can cover black in one coat.

Although these are fairly easy to paint I haven't played ancients in months so they are now low on my list of painting priorities.

A quick review of Basic Impetus

Ben asked me for a quick review of Impetus so here goes.
Impetus, and the cut-down version Basic Impetus, are wargames rules covering ancient & medieval warfare produced by Italian company Dadi & Piombo. I'm going to focus this review on Basic Impetus (BI) as I've played that more than the full game.
BI is available as a free 9 page pdf download which allows you to play smaller games than Impetus using about 80% of the full rule set. The rules are simple & straightforward. Typically I can play at least 3 games in a night even against someone who hasn't played before. By the second game the new player is concentrating on tactics not on remembering the rules.
Base sizes are 80mm wide with the depth varying according to unit type. This width allows you to play with figures based for FoG (40mm) without having to rebase them. You just use 2 FoG bases instead of one. BI armies range between eight & fifteen bases per side, so it's easy & cheap to build up an army. The number of figures per base is left up to the player (base size determines unit type) so the system lends itself to players building small dioramas on the bases instead of just ranks of figures. Such as in this rather grisly Viking tableau from Mark Rowsell shown below.

Each unit has a simple stat line showing things such as move distance, weapon type & most important of all VBU. This stands for Basic Unit Value it's not BVU because the rules were initially written in Italian & they decided to leave the acronyms the same. VBU indicates the units relative strength and how many dice it will roll when it attacks. When a unit takes casualties figures arn't removed instead the VBU is reduced, when the VBU reaches zero the unit is removed. Certain units also have an Impetus stat which gives them extra dice to roll when they charge into contact. This is quite a nice mechanism forcing units with high Impetus values to attack to gain the benefit rather than being charged themselves when they don't get the extra dice. Combats are done one at a time and fought to a conclusion.
A melee consists of both players working out how many 6-sided dice they each have to roll (VBU), plus any modifiers (not a long list), hits being scored by 6's or if you roll a double 5.  The loser of the melee, if there is one, then has to roll lower than their current VBU on a 6-sided dice or be eliminated. Quick, simple, clean but not as brutal as it seems. The system as a whole rewards good tactics and planning, plus it's so quick to play if you do lose you can always play again with different tactics.
This is just a very quick overview of the rules. If you are interested in finding out more there are lots of other reviews on the 'net. I'll just finish off with a few pictures of some of my figures based for Impetus.

My Samurai General

'Angry Peasants' from my Samurai force.

Some 28mm Saxons for my Hastings refight (if I ever get my Normans done)

Games & painting for the next couple of weeks

I'm one of those people that only like to game with painted figures. I don't mind if my opponents figures arn't painted I understand some people have lives. But using unpainted stuff just doesn't feel right to me. So I use my gaming schedule to help motivate me to paint. I find that if I have a game coming up I'm much more likely to get the painting done than otherwise.
So for my Warmachine game at  Wessex Wyverns on Monday I'll have my 20pts of Khador from the 2 Player Battlebox finished. I should also pick up my 2 boxes of PSC Panthers on Monday night & they will be my next project. I'm hoping to get a FoW game arranged on Thursday at Christchurch Crusaders where I can use them. That will give me 3 days to paint up 8 Panthers so that shouldn't be a problem.
On Monday the 19th I'm teaching Steve Basic Impetus ancients. I have a few 15mm armies already painted & based for Impetus but I'm also part way through painting a Classical Indian army. I'd like to get that done in time for the game but painting the decoration on the elephants & chariots is a bit of a pain & as I have painted figures for both of us to use the motivation to get them done is less.

I'll try & get some pictures of the finished Khador on the site on Monday.