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.

More comebacks than Lazarus

Hello?

Anybody there?

Hmmm, I guess it has been a long time since I've been on here. 

But I know that some of you are still on the go as I saw the pic of the Bloggers Gathering at Salute last week.

Yes, it's been a long time since I last put something up on the Menagerie. As always that curse of all hobbies - real life - had a lot to do with that. Work - boo; 5 shows - which were good but take up so much time with rehearsals etc; and then I was ill for a while which fair knocked the stuffing out of me for a while (do I hear volins playing???). 

As a result gaming time has been much reduced over the last couple of years. Not that I haven't done any - it's not been that bad!!! - just not a lot for me to feel justified in boring the pants of you lot. I'm definitely not one of those people who blog just to let the world know what I had for breakfast that morning.

Still it has been a pretty lean time on the gaming front. 2014 was the first time for many years that I didn't get to any of the Wargame Shows in Scotland so that was a bit of a blow and the way things are going I'll not manage along to Carronade in Falkirk next weekend either.

However, all is not lost as I will be allowed to cross the Border at the end of May when Ruarok and I go to the UK Games Expo in Birmingham so we are both looking forward to that.

One major plus on the gaming front did happen during my absence from t'internet. Last year, did see me hit a significant birthday - yes 21 at last. Persistent readers of these ramblings may remember a very early post where I put a picture of where I did all my gaming (those of you who don't remember will find it here). Well to celebrate this significant birthday, Mrs Kingsleypark agreed that I could get something special. So inspired by Postie's Hut from Postie's Rejects fame and also remembering a post that Jim Duncan put up many moons ago here I ended up getting one of these .....

A 22ft x 12ft self contained wargames cabin, man cave, games room, hobby escape call it what you will - just don't call it a SHED!!!!

Inside I have enough space for all my toys, including a mezzaine level.

So plenty of storage space......

It took a couple of weeks for the cabin to go up and then about a week to get the floor varnished and the furniture moved in until it eventually looked like this

Plenty of room for a 8ft x 6ft table and with some shuffling about of the trellis legs and the boards I can also put up a 12ft x 4ft table as well

First game on the table? 

.

Yup, started down that slippery slope that is Commands & Colors, so much so that Ruarok and I are taking part in the C & C Ancients tournament at the Expo.

Ruarok about to make the critical move which once more condemned me to another hammering at C & C

Although, figure painting has been almost non-existant, the C & C rules have got me thinking of the possibility of using 6mm or 10mm on Hexxon terrain. It's only got as far as thinking about it mind you......

Not sure when the next post will go up on the Menagerie - I have show next week and then an EXAM!!! the following week (an academic exam that is not a medical examination) so not much scope for gaming over the next few weeks. As a last hurrah before this hiatus the guys came round the cabin on Wednesday past to play Star Wars X-Wing. 

It was my first time playing and was enjoyable enough but I can resist the temptations of Star Wars, never having been a big Star Wars fan. This on the other hand might be the ruin of me....

Speak to you soon!

Favourite Units of Mine No. 7

To Joe Public, the 15mm scale model above by Essex Miniatures will look like an Elephant with some guys on top it.

To an Ancients Wargames General, however, what he will see is an instrument of terror, several tons of crushing power, the scourge of mounted troops, a harbinger of chaos and doom and that's just when the General is thinking about the effect the Elephants will have on  his own Army!!

There is no doubt, the Elephant is one of the more colourful troop types available to the Ancients Wargames General. The Ancient Worlds' version of the tank, the Ele can be devastating to formed bodies of Heavy Troops, particularly cavalry, who will normally be under some kind of penalty for being in close proximity to the beasts. In Warhammer Ancient Battles 2nd Edition, an Ele will cause fear in infantry and terror to cavalry - and that's to the troops on both sides! And if an Ele takes wounds from a shooting attack, then if it is not slain, it takes a stampede test and if that test is failed then the Ele will stampede moving 2D6" in a direction determined by a scatter dice. If an Ele loses a combat it automatically stampedes. And of course, if it runs into an another unit, friend or foe, it will attack that unit.

In Hail Caesar, the Ele has a similar, although perhaps less dramatic effect. In combat, any Cavalry charging an Ele will lose it's charge bonus and will risk disorder on a roll of 1,2 or 3 ( which then gives that unit a -1 in it's combat round). An enemy unit that loses a combat to an Ele may be forced to re-roll one of it's dice when taking it's break test. And if the Ele gives ground in a combat, on a roll of a 1, it will stampede 3D6" away forcing any unit that it bursts though to take a break test.

No doubt other rule sets will treat Eles in a similar way but it is with good old WRG 6th Edition now re-printed by John Curry and The History of Wargaming Project that I had my greatest ever wargaming disaster.

At Dundee University Wargames and Role Playing Society back in 1983, I had arranged to meet my mate, Chris, for a game of Ancients at the club. Chris had been busily painting his new Aztec army which he had purchased from Tin Soldier UK. As my Byzantines were nowhere near ready, I agreed to use Chris's Carthaginian Army. I had played with the Carthaginians before, with various degrees of success, so felt I could handle them, so much so that in addition to the 4 "Irregular C" Class Elephants that could be fielded I also decided to field 4 "Irregular D" Eles, but didn't bother upgrading them to Irregular C. Irregular D class troops were the real time bombs in any army, regardless of what the troops actually were. It was a very fine line between the unit going impetuous or turning tail and heading for home.

So I duly arrived at the club room, Chris was already there.

"Did you bring terrain?" asks he.

"No" said I. "Was I supposed to?"

"Well I've brought all the figures, I didn't have enough hands to carry anything else!" he responds.

"So what are we going to do??" I asked.

Much scratching of heads.

"Okay" says he. "We can use some books for hills and we can tear up scraps of paper and use them for woods, rough ground and the like."

"Okay", says I.

So it wasn't going to be the most aesthetically pleasing table to fight over but needs must. So we deployed terrain as per the rules, a few hills here, a bit of rough ground there, and a wood right on my far right flank, just inside Chris' side of the table.

So with terrain deployed we took a step back and looked at the lie of the ground and then, and to this day I don't know why, I took off the bit of paper that represented the wood on my right flank. I guess I must have just been on automatic pilot and was "tiding up" the battlefield of rubbish before the game started. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it, okay?!

So we then drew our maps and wrote down our deployment and orders for the first turn. We started deploying our troops. By this time I had realised that although Eles in WRG 6th Ed can be devastating, there were no mounted troops in the Aztec army to cause panic on. And as most of the Aztec Army had Two Handed Weapons (2HCW), they were pretty effective weapons against Eles. Sooooo as the Eles were looking a bit vulnerable I stuck both units on my right flank, as near to the centre line as I could go, with the Irregular D's being on the extreme right, with the thought of trying to out flank the Aztecs and try and threaten their rear.

So troops deployed we were about to start the first turn.

"Hang on" says Chris.

"What?" says I.

"Where's the wood?"says he.

"What wood?" says I.

"The one that should be over there!", says he, pointing to the spot on my far right flank, just inside his centre line and right opposite where the Irregular D's were standing.

"Oh Bugger!" says I. "I thought that was just a scrap bit of paper! It's in the bin".

"Well it's not scrap, Garfield!" says he (Garfield was my nickname at the club, due to the belief,  and in my view, much mistaken belief, that I looked like the cartoon cat). "Go and get it out of the trash and put it back on the table!" (Chris was American hence the use of the word trash).

"But I've put my Eles right in front of where that wood is now sitting!" protests I. "I wouldn't have done that, if I had realised that there was a wood there!" (Elephants could not move into woods). "Can I move my Eles?"

"No!" says he.

"That's not fair!" I protest again. "Come on, let me shift them?"

"No!" he retorts. "We'd have to redo all the deployment again and we haven't got time. And it's your own stupid fault for removing the woods in the first place!"

I knew I wasn't going to win the argument, so with heavy heart I relented and we started the game.

The Eles were pretty stuck. They couldn't move directly forward because of the woods so, as there was a sizeable gap between the woods and the nearest unit of Aztecs I decided I would aim them for that gap and wheeling the Irregular D's to their left, started forward. The first turn's shooting saw me cause absolutely zero casualties and Chris scored a few, but not enough to force a unit to remove a model.

So the second turn started. Charge Declarations. I had none as the nearest Aztecs were still some distance away from me. Or so I thought.

"Ok", says he. "My unit of Otomi in the woods will charge the Eles" (Otomi were "Irregular A" Light Medium Infantry, as were the majority of the Aztecs, which meant they didn't suffer penalties for moving through woods and they carried 2HCW).

"WHAT???!!!", screeched I. "Where the hell did they come from???"

"They were at the back of the woods at the start of the game, moved through them on the first turn and now they are going to charge your Eles. And oh, I believe that it is also in the flank".

The grinning leer on Chris's face as he uttered these words has lived in my nightmares for a long, long time.

So he rolls his charge test. Irregular A troops, 3D6 to roll, needing 11 to charge, 12 to go impetuous, nae bother. The savages go impetuous and make the charge distance with about 5 paces to spare.

So I roll my reaction test. Again being Irregular troops, the Eles would roll 3D6 but being "D" Class, I needed at least a 9 to avoid being left shaken in the ensuing combat.

1, 1, 1.

Chris' howls of laughter around the room were only drowned out by my wails of anguish.

"Let's work out the result!" he chortles.

"Do we have to?" says I.

"Oh Yes! Let's see, you get +1 for advancing, but no other pluses, so that puts you on 4. You get -1 for me advancing, -2 for having enemy on your flank, and -3 for being mounted troops being charged by foot, so that's a total of -2. Break!!"

So the Irregular D's turned and fled. And in WRG 6th Ed, when a unit breaks, every friendly unit within 150 paces must then take a reaction test in response to that break, for which you then get a -2 to your test for each friendly unit within 150 paces that you see being broken. And you tested from your right flank to your left.

So which unit was next in line? The "Irregular C" Eles.

They broke.

There then followed the worst sequence of reaction test rolls I have ever made in my life. Like a row of dominoes toppling over, unit after unit failed their test, even the General's unit spectacularly failed it's test, with the end result that by the time I had taken the last test on the last unit on my far left flank, the entire army was routing towards my table edge.

I hadn't inflicted a single casualty and my army had routed off the field, on TURN 2!

Needless to say, I was not allowed to forget the game for many, many years.

I don't think I played with the Carthaginians again after that battle, such was my humiliation. Still it gave me plenty of incentive to get my Byzantines painted as quickly as possible.

So it's probably a misdescription to call the Ele a "favourite unit of mine", though it is certainly a memorable one, but for all the wrong reasons.

This Ele is not a Carthaginian Ele, but an Ele from the Alexandrian Imperial range by Essex Miniatures. I won't have Carthaginians in the house!!!

Roman General and Dog

We all knew who Warlord Games had in mind when they released this figure

Cammie bought it a wee while back for his Imperial Roman Army, which alas is still some way off seeing the battlefield. Possibly because of that he asked me if I had could have have a go painting Maximus, sorry, I mean random Roman General figure from the late 2nd Century AD.

And despite the lovely detail on his cuirass and his armour, I found the lack of hair detail on the back of the General's head and his cloak a bit disappointing. It would have been nice to have seen a few more folds in the cloak, in particular

So, the General and his dog now stand forlornly waiting for the first signs of the General's Army getting a lick of paint. Hope he's brought his sandwiches, it could be a long wait!


2020 BREAKING NEWS - CAMMIE HAS AT LONG LAST PAINTED UP HIS ROMAN ARMY!! JUST IN TIME FOR THE RELEASE OF THE TOO FAT LARDIES RULE SET INFAMY, INFAMY!

Favourite Units of Mine No. 4

Imagine the scene -

You are a peasant soldier, serving in the army of your King, Samuel, Tsar of the Bulgars. You are standing in line with 20,000 of your fellow Bulgars, armed with your spear, the point of which is blunt, your shield is held together by rusty nails and you stare out over the ground before you to the rise just ahead. There is a sound, almost like the soft crashing of the surf on the beach, growing steadily louder. You look nervously around, your neighbours about you shift uncomfortably, what lies beyond the rise you wonder?

Your hands grip ever tighter on your spear, the sweat on your brow starts to seep into your eyes.

The sound increases like a crescendo, now like thunder, then all of a sudden a thousand glints of light break the horizon, but these are not stars, but the shining points of lances, borne by a host of armour clad horsemen.

You are transfixed, frozen to the spot in fear and wonder at the sight as the horsemen  move closer and closer, now over the rise you see them in all their glory for the first time, huge mail clad warriors riding horses encased in leather and steel. The plumes of their gleaming helms flutter in the wind, and then you notice their faces, all clad in steel mesh with only the sockets of their eyes visible, staring out towards you, cold, determined, deadly.

Your friends start to waver, some start to turn to flee from the oncoming tide of death and destruction. The sound of the hooves of the steeds is now deafening, your friends shout in terror and alarm, then as one the shining points of the lances lower and a roar erupts from the horseman as they crash into your lines, the clang of steel on steel,  the neighing of the steeds, the screams of dying men. Suddenly you are released from your stasis as you become aware of one of the horseman, his lance now discarded having impaled one of your hapless brethren, now crashing towards you, arm raised high with mace in hand.

You turn away, you must flee from this herald of death, but there is confusion all round, a press of bodies, unyielding, you can't get through. You turn your head to see the rider your last vision on this earth as the mace arches down and crushes your skull to a pulp..........

All hail the Klibanophoroi!

The Elite arm of the Byzantine armies of the late 10th and early 11th Century, they were a return of the Cataphract Cavalry that had not been seen since later Roman times.

Their armour was a design of overlapping plates, known as Lamellar, usually made of iron, but sometimes of leather or horn, and their horses were encased in similar heavy coats of leather armour. The corselet formed by these plates was known as a klibanion from which the troops got their name. The rider's body was fully protected from the head to foot in plates of armour and mail. They were the Emperor's finest troops, their wedge formation in battle would bludgeon into the enemy lines with first, lance and then the heavy steel headed maces.

In WRG 6th Edition, these were the stars of the show for the Nikephorian Byzantine list, Regular A, Super Heavy Cavalry (SHC) they even carried Darts (no not the Phil Taylor type, but heavy lead-weighted missiles) which could be thrown into the ranks of their foes to cause mayhem, while the charge struck home. These were not filthy mercenaries who fought only for gold or ran away when the going got tough, these were the rock upon which the Byzantine Empire would be built. They were a symbol of Byzantine wealth and greatness and the terror of the Bulgar and other Slav nations who stood in their way.

Unfortunately for me though, none of the guys at the Dundee University Wargames and Role Playing Club had Bulgars, or Slav or any of the other traditional Byzantine enemies. Instead we had Carthaginians with Elephants, and Indians with Elephants, and Swiss with Halberds and Later Romans with Scythed Chariots. Talk about a pile of woe and disaster for my Byzantine Super Stars, they were doomed to become known as the "Scythed Chariot Magnets".

Everytime I played Jim, the Mad Doctor, who had the Late Imperial Romans, it was uncanny. You plotted the position of your troops on a plan before deploying on the table. Everytime we put the troops down, there they were, the Scythed Chariots, standing directly in front of the Klibs. I'd put them in the Centre - the Chariots were there, I'd put them on the flanks, the Chariots were there. Jim always denied that he had been peeking at my map before deployment and I always checked his map, but everytime the Chariots were where he had put them down on the table.

And these were not the sort of Scythed Chariot that you saw in Ben Hur or were driven by Boudica, Oh No! These damned things were pulled by horses who were clad in armour and driven by drivers encased in the same armour as the Klibs. These were Super Heavy Scythed Chariots!!

Desperately, I would always try and manoeuvre the Kilbs to safety but almost without exception it was doomed to fail. The Chariots would crash in and with their +5 bonus against SHC, they would invariably send my prized warriors to meet their makers.

I never won a battle with them against Jim's Romans and while occasionally I would have success against  some Auxilia or some Libyan Spearmen if I was fighting the Carthies, they were an expensive flop.

But, they just looked so cool..........

The guys above are now based for DBM were they now languish as a Reg KN (knight) (I) - Inferior!!! What happened to my highly paid, creme de la' creme, Emperor's Finest pin up boys? Guess Phil Barker must have heard how crap I was with them.

Hail Caesar

Oh boy this looks like it could be the rules release of 2011.

© 2010-2011 Warlord Games Ltd

Written by that awfully nice chap, Rick Priestley, HC looks like it will follow the trend set by Black Powder with the emphasis on big, but fast, flowing games. I can do no worse than direct you to Mr Priestly's teasers that he has posted on the Warlord Games web page giving explanations of the combat system and the basic ideas behind the rules

Given the uncertainty over the future of Warhammer Ancient Battles (will they, won't they be issuing new army lists for 2nd Ed???), I think Hail Ceasar will definitely be making a big push for becoming the rules of choice for Ancient Gamers. Full colour throughout and no doubt full of pictures of beautifully painted miniatures.

Warlord Games are already taking pre-orders for the rule book on their web page, and again as with Black Powder, if you order the rules through Warlord you will receive an exclusive miniature. I'm hazarding a guess that it may be a model of the Roman on the front cover of HC??? And if you order now (until the end of March) there is free shipping worldwide, saving you some more of your well earned gold.