Rediscovering The Joy of Six (And while I'm at it painting some 6mm armies for fun and charity!)

If you have been involved in the wargaming hobby in the UK over the last 10 years or so, and particularly in the miniatures side of the hobby, the chances are you will have heard of the Wargames Show entitled "The Joy of Six".

The show, usually held in early July, is the brainchild of Peter Berry of Baccus 6mm, a figure manufacturer specialising in, funnily enough, 6mm tall figures. In fact if it hadn't been for the dreaded C word the show would have been held this coming week-end.

Originally a show case for Baccus it quickly grew in size and now other manufacturers of 6mm or 1/300th scale or micro scale take part with a variety of display and participation games being run by likeminded aficiandoes. 

One of those aficiandoes of the 6mm figure is a chap called Per Broden, originally from Sweden but who has been living in the UK for many years now. Per has acquired a reputation for putting on some spectacular games with 6mm figures, most recently his display game on the Battle of Poltava which was the key battle in determining the outcome of The Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia in the early 18th Century (Sweden lost that battle and the War which just goes to show that Per doesn't hold a grudge). 

That is some table!

Per has appeared on a number of Podcasts in recent years, including Meeples and Miniatures, Henry Hyde's Battlechat and Gods Own Scale to name a few, and is clearly a man very passionate about the 6mm figure and works very hard to promote the scale. 

It has to said that there is a definite bias against the 6mm figure amongst certain wargaming types who tend to look down their noses at the small but perfectly formed miniatures in preference to the larger scales. And I suspect that if Peter Berry got paid a pound every time he has heard someone saying "I can't paint those - they are too bloody small" he'd probably be a very rich man.

With the lockdown caused by the C word cancelling wargaming shows all around the country there has been much chatter on the interweb about what  wargamers could do to keep their hobby interest going and online gaming using zoom calls and the like has certainly helped many people keep their wargaming sanity through the crisis. 

Many have started online painting clubs where they will meet up on the video portal of their choice and blether away whilst sitting at their respective painting tables painting their lead and plastic piles. I haven't tried that myself yet - I really should try and get the THAGGers (that's "The Honourable Arbroath Gamer's Guild" for those of you new to these ramblings) organised for such a project.

Per was due to have put on his game of the Battle of Fraustadt from 1706 at Joy of Six this year but with it being cancelled, he started applying his mind towards doing something whereby he could continue to spread the word about the joys of playing games with 6mm figures and also do a wee bit for a good cause. So he has come up with the idea of asking wargamers to help paint up a number of 6mm units to put together 2 "Imagination" Armies - The Kingdom Of Denswe and The Tsardom of Siarus, which Per and his son would then fight a campaign with, record the progress of the Campaign on Per's Blog Roll A One Then at the end of the Campaign Per will auction off the 2 armies to raise funds for the Combat Stress Charity.

So Per duly put the call out on Twitter looking for volunteers and I am pleased to say that I managed to get my name on the list and was advised by Per that it would be my task to paint Matlund's Foot Regiment for the Army of the Kingdom of Denswe. 

Peter Berry had kindly agreed to provide everyone with their respective units free of charge and my unit of 24 foot figures duly appeared at the end of last week. All I had to do was get them painted and post them off to Per and he would then base them up to join their fellow comrades in arms.

Now I have painted 6mm figures before but it was a long long time ago. In fact, when I started getting into the hobby in the late 1970's I do recall sending off for a pack of Napolenic British Highlanders from Heroics and Ros 

I did actually put paint on some of them but alas the results have not survived to this day 

The remaining figures from that very first pack of 6mm figures - still in their natural bare metal colour.

Then in the early 90's when gaming at Kirriemuir Wargames Club, there was a lengthy period of time where we played a lot of 6mm Napoleonic games. When the Kirrie members decided on this course of action I didn't have any painted Napoleonic Armies so for the first time I sent off an order to a painting service (whose name now escapes me) and they were very good at churning out in quick time a couple of corps of British Napoleonics made by Irregular Miniatures and many nights were  thereafter spent trying to get that crashing volley off against the dreaded Froggies.

With the inevitable power creep starting to occur and my dastardly opponents ordering more figures I decided that I would have to join the arms race and ordered some Heroics figures to bulk out my forces. These though, I painted myself.

Now I would like to say that I quickly painted up some Heavy Dragoons, some Light Dragoons and a couple of Battalions of Fusiliers - I did paint them - I just can't remember how long it took me to paint them.....

1st Battalion Welsh Fusiliers (honestly)

But that must have been at least 25 years ago.

And I haven't painted a 6mm figure since. I've painted 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm and larger during that period but had never gone back to the 6mm figures.

But over the last few years with Per doing the rounds on the Podcasts and also Peter Berry doing his bit for the 6mm figure I had started to get very interested in looking again at the scale. The trick, so they said, when painting these size of figures was to paint the unit, not the man. And certainly when you look at a unit of 6mm figures on a wargames table, it really looks the part and with a large collection a battle can really start to look like a real battle. 

Having also listened a lot to Henry Hyde's podcasts I quite liked the idea of doing a couple of Imagination forces and thought this would be the ideal size of figures to build up a couple of manageable forces.

So it was with all the best intentions of the world to start a new project that I picked up from Baccus at the 2019  Claymore Show in Edinburgh, the starter set for the Wars of the Spanish Succession.

I got the figures home, spent a number of days looking at the sculpts, thinking about how I was going to base them and then....

I put them back in their box.

And that's where they stayed. 

But when Per announced his initiative, I thought this was the ideal chance to give painting 6mm figures another go whilst doing so for a good cause and hopefully get the creative painting juices flowing again to start on my own figures.

Per had sent all the painters a list of the units being prepared for both armies and with a colour guide for the uniforms and trim. For The Kingdom of Denswe he was suggesting that the coat should be blue and in the case of Matlund's Foot the trim was to be yellow. Whilst waiting for the figures to be posted out Per put up on his blog a number of helpful painting guides showing his techniques in painting each of the different troop types and I would recommend you go have a look at these as they certainly helped me -

Undercoat applied and a black wash applied

My choice of paint for the Coat Colour

Coats done and the fleshy bits added

My choice of paint for the Trim. I was a bit worried about this as that paint pot has seen a lot of winters

Adding the cuffs. Later I added some trim to the bottom of the coat and also painted the Drummer's coat yellow using the "reverse colour" scheme that was used in a number of infantry regiments.

Adding some brown for the belts, muskets and pike shafts.

White applied to the trousers or stockings and silver for the metal areas.

Starting to look like a real unit!

Adding the trim to the hats

A final wash with Winsor & Newton Nutbrown Ink

It took about 3 painting sessions to do the unit. I'm sure I could have painted them a lot quicker than that but I wanted to take my time. Also the advice mentioned above "Paint the Unit, Not the Man" really did help me keep my focus on what I was trying to do with the figures and so I resisted the temptation to try and coax out every last detail on the figures (and for such small sculpts there is a lot of detail on them). And Per's painting guides were so helpful in establishing a routine to painting the miniatures

I will send them off to Per and he is going to base them and the other units up so that he can get all the basing consistent. I'm really looking forward to seeing pictures of the completed armies. Some of the other painters have posted up some pictures of what they have done and they look amazing - I only hope Matlund's Foot can live up in their company!

So has it persuaded me to get my Spanish Succession box off the shelf?

You bet it has!!

Mortal Gods - First Playthrough

So my mate, Alan, has been waiting with fevered anticipation for this to arrive and so when the postie delivered Mortal Gods (originally by a company called "War Banner" but who have now had to change their name to "Dark Peak Games" and then to "Footsore Miniatures and Games" due to having received cease and desist letters from GW and Peak Games - see the announcement here) to him a couple of weeks ago he has been been busy as the proverbial painting up the core set figures. And Alan being Alan, had also got the Spartan and Athenian boxed sets as well as a number of "extra" models so he has gone pretty well all in on the game!

So when I went up to his house last week he had a couple of warbands pretty well all painted and ready to go

All set up and ready for action

Each player creates a Warband with each individual warrior, group of warriors and hero costing a number of points with 300 points being suggested for a reasonable sized game. Each Warband (or "Lochos" to give it it's proper title) is led by a "Lochagos". At least half of the warband's points must be spent on rank and file troops (called "Companions") and for every 125 points spent on the warband, the Lochos can include an additional hero.

The Athenian Lochagos - Andronikos the Defender

Different types of warrior are represented - from your skirmishing troops to your classic Hoplite Warrior and each unit will be classed as either Light, Medium or Heavy representing the armour that those warriors wore.

Each part of the warband will have a stat card showing the various attributes that you need to use throughout the game - movement, attack value, "active" defense value, resistance, courage and activations. Some units may also have "gifts" bestowed on from the Gods - special abilities that can perhaps boost movement or combat or courage.

Stat Card for an Athenian "Peripoloi" unit. 

The Brave Defenders of Democracy - the Athenians

The Tyrannical Spartans 

The system is activation based. Rank and file units will normally only have 1 activation they can do per game turn with heroes having 2 or more. At the start of a game turn each unit is allocated a token per activation it can do (in the core set you get white pebbles for rank and file and black pebbles for heroes) and these are put in a draw bag and then the player draws a pebble from the bag. If it's white  pebble then they can take an action with one of their rank and file units and if it is a black pebble they can take an action with one of their heroes. In the game that we played each of heroes had a special ability whereby they could use their activation to order another of their units within 6" of them, even if that unit had already activated that turn - effectively giving the unit a "free action" - this can come in very handy!

With an activation a unit can either move (Light troops can move up to 8 inches, Medium troops up to 7 inches and Heavy troops up to 6 inches), carry out a charge attack whereby the unit can move it's normal movement plus D6 inches - beware, however, if you roll a "1" on the D6 then your unit is deemed to have "stumbled" and won't then charge! Missile troops can carry out a ranged attack. If a unit has the "form up" gift then it can join up with 2 other similar stands of figures to form a phalanx.(this didn't come up in our game so I don't know what the benefits of forming a phalanx are except to assume that it will be pretty hard in combat! - I'll investigate this in more detail the next time we play!).

Combat involves rolling some custom dice - these are emblazoned with swords, double swords, shield or a "Pegasus" symbol. When attacking, a unit rolls the number of dice as shown on their stat card plus any other bonus dice that they may qualify for through their gifts or some other event. Every sword symbol rolled counts as a success and if a Pegasus symbol is rolled then this may also count as a success if the attack stat on the card has a blue Pegasus symbol next to it. 

That's a lot of swords!!!

Before any attack dice are rolled, the defending unit will need to declare if it is "actively defending". If that unit has not yet taken an activation for the turn then it can choose to actively defend (and thus use up it's activation for the turn) thus allowing it to roll the number of defense dice shown on it's stat card. If it chooses not to actively defend - thus hoping to keep it's activation to do something else then it will need to make a courage check - the unit will roll a number of dice as shown on the Courage Stat on it's card. If it rolls a sword symbol - it passes. (I will need to check this time next time I see the rules as it didn't seem very onerous a check - that is until my Lochagos did a courage check and just managed to roll 1 sword on 4 dice!). If the check is passed then the unit will roll defense dice equivalent to it's armour rating, 2 for Heavy troops, 1 for Medium troops and none for Lights!

For every Shield symbol rolled (and if allowed by the Defense Stat - Pegasus Symbols) will cancel one of the successes. If there are still 1 or more successes remaining then the attacker will roll a number of dice equivalent to the uncancelled successes and again each sword symbol will this time score a wound on the defending unit (as marked by the red dice in the Peripoloi picture above). Once a model takes wounds equal to it's resistance value it is removed from play. If damage is scored then the defending unit will be forced to retreat 1 or 2 inches back depending on how much damage is scored. If no successes are scored then the attacking unit will retire an inch.

If a stat symbol has a "Red Pegasus" symbol next to it then that will cause a penalty to the particular unit when using that stat if a Pegasus symbol is rolled. Again note the Red Pegasus symbol next to the defence stat on the Peripoloi card.

In addition to all of the activation peebles placed in the bag are placed 3 red "Omen" pebbles. If one of these peebles is drawn then the top card is drawn from the "Omen"deck of 30 cards which is shuffled at the start of the game. This card may bring a boon or curse to the unit or it may be an event that affects one side or the other or perhaps the whole battlefield. Some may only last for that turn, others may stay in force for the rest of the game. Who knows what the Gods will bestow upon the combatants!!

When the 3rd red Omen pebble is drawn the turn ends and all of the activation pebbles returned to the bag and a new turn starts.

The game is scenario driven with a dozen suggested scenarios given in the Rules - setting out the objectives, length of the game and any other special rules. The recommended play area is a 3' x 3' table although in our game we just played down the length of Alan's table and it seemed to work out fine.

Note the cool measuring stick!

So being our first try out we just went for a simple attrition scenario - that is - kill as many of the other guys as you can and the player with the highest number of victory points scored wins!

The Athenians deployed ready for battle!!

The Spartans line up nervously at the other side of the battlefield wondering where Gerard Butler has disappeared off too!!

The Spartans advance

The Athenians stride out to meet them. Unfortunately the turn ended before I could get my last 2 warriors (the 2 guys at the back) to activate.

Andronikos the Defender urges his men forward!

First Contact - The Athenian Marines (I can't remember what Greek name they have!) are assaulted by the Spartan Krypteia - top dogs in the Spartan Army apparently!

The Marine take some wounds but not enough to remove a model. They do a strategic withdrawal.

The Spartan Krypteia being so distracted by the Marines fail to see the danger on their flank as Andronikos charges in (no flanking rules in this game as far as I could see anyway)

As seen from the Spartan side

Having already removed one model from the Krypteia, Andronikos gets another activation and charges in scoring 8 successes!!

The Krypteia only cancel 2 of those successes so Andronikas rolls for wounds and scores 6 wounds!! Dead Spartans!!

The Athenian Archers open fire on the lone Spartan Hoplite who dies when the sky is filled with arrows.

The opposing Hoplites clash shields! 

Then the Spartan Lochagos decides, eventually, to get in on the act

And is forced to retire!!

3 units against 1?? That's hardly fair. Now the Spartan light troops get involved.

The Athenian Hoplite counter attack on the Spartan Light troops results in 2 models being removed. Another Spartan Hoplite Warrior decides he needs to help out his comrades.

The Spartan light troops - egged on by the Spartan second in Command (the Promachos) face up against the Athenian light troops.

Andronikos arrives to take some pressure off the Athenian Hoplites and crashes in to the Spartans

The Spartan Hoplites routed! The Athenian Hoplites hanging on, down to their last model (who had one wound left!)

The battlefield at the end of the final turn (turn 6).

I'll not embarrass Alan and announce the score but let's just say that the Gods were definitely smiling on the Athenians who gave their Spartan foes a damned good thrashing.

So a good fun game to begin with. Definitely a few points that we missed (critical hits being one of them) so hopefully in our next game we can tidy up on those points and if Alan keeps painting at the speed he has been doing then we might even see enough troops being available to form Phalanxes so it will be interesting to see what that brings to the battlefield.

Warhammer Underworlds - The Waaaghrio Brothers Come Out to Play

Roo, in true wargamer style, has been jumping from project to project recently. Having started painting up some 28mm Fins for Bolt Action, he then started chopping up Space Marines (although not to play 40K - I'm not sure what rules system he had in mind for that). Then he started swapping out the bendy axe from a pre-painted D & D Gnoll and replaced it with a much more sturdy weapon and latterly he decided to finish painting up the figures for his Orc/ Orruk Warband for Warhammer Underworlds. For some reason he decided to paint them up using the colours of the Marios Bros so Gurzag, seen above, is in blue and red in homage to Mario himself.

Bonekutta is in the colours of Luigi

Hakka wearing yellow as does Wario

And Basha in the colors of Waluigi.

Of course, having such a fancy colour scheme is all very well but until they had been proved in battle, the Waaaghrio Bros may as well stay in the box.

So it was that they took to the table to play their first game of Warhammer Underworlds, taking on the servant of Khorne himself, Magore Redhand

Magore Redhand - ready to claim Skulls for Khorne

Zharkus The Bloodsighted

Ghartok Flayskull (don't you just love the names GW give their models?!)

Riptooth

Disclaimer - Roo did not build the decks for the Waaaghrio Bros - he just used the decks that I had previously built for my Orc/ Orruk Warband. He asked me to state this before you read any further.

So having won the roll-off for board placement, I decided to place the boards slightly offset (but still keeping 3 full hexes in no-man's land) and then having placed the objective tokens and drawn our objective and power cards, we then deployed our warbands.

However, despite having deployed my warband first I still managed to lose the roll-off to see who would take the first activation. Gurzag/Mario decided to launch himself headlong into an attack against Ghartok.

Gurzag/ Mario shouts obscenities at Ghartok.

And promptly misses. Ghartok has a reaction attack with his Gorefist but given that the way to inspire a member of the Waaaghrios is to cause them damage, I held back the attack. However, Gurzag/ Mario didn't hang about and playing "Brutal but Kunnin'" Gurzag/ Mario then ran away 3 hexes......

Ghartok is left bemused at the sight of Gurzag/ Mario making a "tactical" retreat.

However, Ghartok was not to be denied and in my first activation, declared a charge against Gurzag/ Mario with Ghartok.

Ghartok shows Gurzag/ Mario some combat skill causing 2 wounds.

As "reaction" I then played the "Twist the Knife" power card which caused an extra wound to Gurzag, so 3 wounds inflicted in total - a half dead Gurzag/ Mario. With the attack being a success  I was able to inspire Ghartok. However, taking damage also meant that Gurxag/ Mario also inspired.

Now being a friendly, non-competitive game we don't abide by the Banned and Restricted card list that GW have published for Warhammer Underworlds which you can find here (mainly due to the fact that I've never had enough time to go through my built up decks and check them for such cards). So when I played "Great Concussion" there was no gnashing of teeth from Roo or howls of "Foul Play" but I used this to push everyone away 1 hex from the designated hex primarily to avoid the possibility of Ghartok being tag teamed by one of the other Waaaghrio Bros and counting Gurzag/ Mario as support. However, it did also mean that my other warriors were just that further bit away. And as it turned it out it didn't stop Ghartok being charged in turn by Bonekutta/ Luigi and Hakka/ Wario although thankfully neither of them did any damage to Ghartok.

Bonekutta/ Luigi finding out that his axe is too heavy and promptly missing Ghartok.

Scene at end of Round 1. Ghartok is shouting for help as the Waaaghrios gang up on him.

I did manage to score a glory point with Ploymaster having played 3 ploy cards in the first round whilst Roo scored a glory point for having 3 of his models declare a charge. With my glory I upgraded Magore with "Trophy Hunter" which would give him an extra glory point if he took out an enemy fighter

The next few activations saw Riptooth and Magore both charge without any success although Riptooth's charge did result in Gurzag/ Mario being pushed back.

Not sure why Bonekutta/ Luigi and Hakka/ Wario are looking away from the action. Probably too embarrassed to watch the pathetic dice rolling display by both sides.

The end of the second round saw me score glory for Sudden Advance and Master of War so the score at this point was 3 v 1 and we entered the final round.

Magore activated first and with his attack took out Bonekutta/ Luigi scoring 3 glory points in total for having Trophy Hunter and also I had drawn Show of Strength which gave me an extra glory. In desperation Roo played Shardgale inflicting a wound on everyone and finally taking out Ghartok as a result but also killing Basha/ Waluigi.

Sensing ultimate Glory and Honour, Magore then charged Gurzag/ Mario and missed. Hakka/ Wario did decide to turn round and charged Zharkus, killing him and scoring another glory but at the end of the final round it was a sorry looking battlefield -

But with the objectives that I scored in the final round I ended up with 10 glory and Roo scored 3 in total.

So a sorry first outing for the Waaaghrios - the dice didn't really do anyone any favours and although Magore did have that one success both leaders were otherwise pretty bad at hitting anything.

Roo, of course, claimed it was because of the decks that he had to play with and that next time he will play with decks of his own creation. Now that sounds like a challenge.......!

Gratuitous shot of the 3d terrain that I made using some Azyrite Ruins and a mdf hex base