Just one pic tonight - and not a very exciting one at that, although it is quite exciting for me!

I arrived home today to find my parcel from Ebor had arrived, containing the 6 battalions of Crimean British I ordered about ten days ago. And helpfully, I assume to put NZ Customs off the GST scent, the customs declaration put the value at GBP 50 - which has the real benefit of misleading my dear wife as to the true value of my latest purchase!  Anyway, I have spent the evening filing off flash etc and getting the figures split up into the correct units, ready for painting

So as mentioned in my earlier blog, today I went over to Andrews place for a game of Frostgrave - sometimes I worry a bit about my gaming, the last three or four games I have had are either pseudo board games, ACTUAL board games, or now Fantasy! Still, playing at Andrew's always involves beautiful scenery at the very least, so that should mean some nice pictures, regardless of the type of game, or the result!

For those who are not aware, Frostgrave is a game where each player has a band of up to 10 figures max, always led by a "wizard" of some type, plus an apprentice and then various human warriors - Paladins, Knights, men at arms, crossbowmen, archers etc The wizards come in various "types" such as enchanter, elementalist, witch, etc.. Below are two pics of my ten "person" war band. The lady in green is my "enchantress", the one in red with the book of spells, scratching her head, is of course, the apprentice. In addition I have, a knight (in armour, wielding two handed sword) two archers, a barbarian and two thieves. For this game, I also spent some money and employed a marks "man" (specialist archer) and a toughened infantry man with a magic two handed axe - more about him later. (Yes, HE was a MAN!)

                                     

My barbarian taunting the other war band prior to the game commencing - maybe not such a good idea

The enchantress and her apprentice getting in some last minute "spelling" practice!

This is the motley crew who were opposed to my war band

Aerial view of the centre of the table - top centre is a crypt from which we had to remove treasure and which might generate armed skeletons each time some treasure was removed. At the commencement of the game, two skeletons were on guard. Below this, the red area was an impassable pit of fire.

Julian won the first three or four initiatives and moved first each time - here his war band enters the gaming area on the first turn

My enchantress was able to use here telekinesis power to levitate one of the piles of treasure away from the crypt and towards her band of followers. Next turn, my apprentice did the same trick, and Julian's wizard did likewise. The figure in the middle is the sole representative of the male gender - he was supposed to be a rough, tough mercenary armed with a super dooper magic weapon, but the first skeleton that engaged him rolled 20 on a 20 sided dice and he disappeared for good - secretly, the girls were all quite pleased, they had never wanted a smelly man to join them in the first place!

As a result of the treasures reaching our bands and being physically picked up for the first time, Andrew, as umpire, rolled for skeletons and monsters. A rabid wolf/dog cross appeared behind Julian and bounded full pelt up behind his crossbowman

The crossbowman turned to face the beast and engaged it in combat - Julian's apprentice attempted to assist by casting an elemental bolt spell, but failed and just gave himself a migraine! In the end, the crossbowman easily defeated the hound of hell.

Meanwhile, my knight was engaged by two skeletons simultaneously and pushed back right to the edge of the pit of fire.......and Julian's bloody wizard reversed my apprentices spell and pinched my second lot of treasure, moving it back towards HIS war band!

Another skeleton advanced on my apprentice, but she was nobly defended by my markswoman, who dispatched the bag of bones with one well aimed shot

Having got rid of the dog, Julian's crossbowman next eliminated a goblin at extreme range. His other archers and crossbowman were equally effective, one seriously wounded one of my thieves who was carrying off a pile of treasure, and the other was peppering my enchantress with arrows, eventually causing her to withdraw from the field entirely

My barbarian leaped the corner of the pit of fire and rushed to help the knight with the two skeletons - a success at last as she smashed her opponent into a pile of dust

My second thief managed to get away with one lot of treasure but the first thief who was originally carrying it was crawling on her hands and knees, trailing blood from the crossbow bolt Julian had chivalrously fired into her back

Julian's thief exiting the board with the first of two lots of treasure he got away.

A view from Julian's side of the table showing his apprentice and accompanying figures

One of my archers took up this vantage point but had no real impact on the fight

My apprentice still looks confused as the game comes to an end - I lost two figures including my enchantress and got one lot of treasure - Julian had no casualties and got away with two lots of treasure, so no doubt about the winner.

The treasure I was able to get away with - it amounted to 50 gold coins - Julian gained 170!

My markswoman and another archer departing the table, they live to fight another day - which is more than can be said for their boyfriend who, in post game dice rolling, was confirmed as stone dead - at least my enchantress survived and will be able to return to the fray next time!

All good fun and a much better way to spend a Sunday than visiting Sylvia Park Mall - which is what the rest of the family were up to today - thank goodness for a forecast of torrential rain all weekend!

I have finally completed the first of the two Spanish Battalions for the Carlist War Brigade.

The full battalion, grenadiers with red distinctions on the right (left of picture), light company on the left with green and the centre companies with yellow.

Slightly different view

The right flank element - three grenadiers and three centre company

Rear view of the right flank element

The left flank element

Rear of the left flank element

I am off to a different friends place today for a game or two of Frostgrave, so will be getting these ladies out - a report on how they got on to follow!

Friday 16 September I went to a mates house for a War of the Roses game using (I think) a set of rules called "To the Strongest" which is another quasi board game with figures - the table is sectioned into squares, movement and firing ranges are in multiples of the squares and you use playing cards instead of dice to decide on activation, hits, morale tests etc.

I arrived a bit late at Julian's (by arrangement) and my partner John was on the back foot with a cavalry attack coming in on his left flank. Our position was looking decidedly dicey but over the course of the next couple of moves, I pulled back onto the hill we were defending and John was able to repel the flank attack by Chris' cavalry.

We carried on with a ding dong battle over the next couple of hours and all I can say is that we must all have fantastic love lives because we were certainly NOT lucky with the cards! The method of deciding an outcome is that each side has a pile of coins at the start of the game and as they lose a unit, they remove coins - till there are none left and the army collapses. After two hours of both sides being stymied by turning over the absolutely worst cards possible at the most inopportune moment, we were down to one coin each side. My partner in crime managed to lose the game by turning over a 1 (for about the third time in the game) when firing an artillery piece and causing it to blow up, thus losing our final coin.

Below are a few photos of the game - sorry a few are not the best - I had taken about twice as many as this but they came out terribly out of focus etc for some reason - must be time for a new phone!

The centre of our position, with, on the left of the picture, one of the two artillery pieces that eventually lost us the game

Johns knights moving into position to secure the left flank

Chris' cavalry after they were pushed back - the red casualty figure indicates they have suffered one casualty and are shaken - if they suffer another, they disappear from the table!

A body of infantry that Chris struggled to get into position to support the cavalry assault on the left. These included crossbowmen weighed down with bolts that they seemed inordinately reluctant to use. Basically, if these guys had done their thing, we would have been finished off an hour earlier - this was the bad card luck in evidence!

View from behind Johns two artillery pieces - they too should probably have been wiped out earlier by Julian's knights parked in front of them but again, atrocious card turning left the heavy cavalry stranded where they were for several moves. We got them up to one casualty several times but when we git the second hit, they constantly were able to save it ...GRRRRR

A view along the length of the table from the right flank - my end. In the foreground Julian's infantry are attempting an assault on my right flank units 

Evidence of the poor card turning - part one. To activate, you need a minimum of a two. You can then perform an action of fire. If you wish to do something else, you must turn another card but beat the previous one, so obviously the best card to turn over first IS a two, because theoretically that means you might be able to get two or three more turns - unless you turn over another bloody two of course! This unit ahd just inflicted a casualty on Julian's troops in the top centre and should have been set up to have a couple more goes at them to wipe them out - but this happened - but wait, there is more!

The adjacent unit turned over a one - the only card that could prevent them from joining the attack. No problem, they have a commander with them, so they can redraw - they did - AND TURNED OVER ANOTHER ONE!!!!!

At this stage, we were down to one coin each - our turn and John needs to get his artillery to fire at the shaken knights - if he can get one hit on them they will be gone and so will Chris and Julian's last coin. he has no ammo but that's ok, you can resupply simply by activating - so what he needs to do is get a 3 or 4 , get one piece of ammo, then get a 6 or 7 and fire.....so of course he gets a 10 with the first gun - enough to get a resupply but he cant beat a 10 and fire. Move on to gun number two - and the same thing happens!

Next time we tried to fire the guns, John got the famous 1 and then failed to save it - bloody thing blew up and we lost our final coin!

The final position on my right flank - the unit that survived when I turned over the two two's and two ones, was wiped out the next turn, and we were in pretty good shape here. On the left flank, things were a bit shakier ...if Chris had been able to turn over some decent cards, John probably would have been done like a dogs dinner. As it was, they were in a card induced stalemate.

A fun game but quite frustrating - to say the least! The rules were introduced to us by another friend who, as far as we are aware, has never actually participated in a game where they are used - we have thus christened them "Nick's Revenge", as we suspect they may be a cruel joke he is playing on us!

Things have been a bit slow on the painting front this week - and last weekend I spent most of Saturday and Sunday out and about in the beautiful spring weather.....

Here is what I HAVE been able to get done so far - the command element of the first of two Spanish Battalions in my Carlist War Brigade. This is based on the following data gleaned from the web......

5 May 1836: Order of Battle

On 5 May 1836 the Legion was divided into English, Irish and Scotch Brigades, with the Chapelgorris assigned to the Scotch Brigade (Parsons, 1996).

Light Brigade	Irish Brigade	General Chichester’s Brigade
Rifles 3rd Westminster Grenadiers 6th Scotch Grenadiers Chapelgorris	7th Irish Light Infantry 9th Irish 10th Munster Light Infantry	1st English 4th Queen’s Own Fusiliers 8th Highlanders 800 Spanish Troops

I am creating General Chichesters Bde - I already have the 4th QO Fusiliers and 8th Highlanders (see previous posts) plus the two unpainted Spanish btns (how I have interpreted the 800 men mentioned above), so just the 1st English btn to be purchased.

Front view of the six figure command base - a grenadier officer on the left, centre company officer in the centre and drummer to the left - in the rear rank is another drummer and two ensigns. The uniform is a "generic" Isabellina one, based on examples on the Perrys web site

View from the front right oblique angle

View from the rear

View from the left rear oblique angle - the flags were downloaded from the web.

Tonight, I am working on the right flank element - 3 grenadiers and 3 centre company figures - may get them completed tonight as they are already half way there....ok, back to it!

CARLIST WAR BRITISH LEGION 4th BATTALION COMPLETED

Here are a few pictures of the Queens Fusiliers - the 4th Battalion of the British legion - recruited to fight in the Carlist War in Spain, on the side of the Isabellinistas. The figures are by Perry Miniatures.

The full battalion - as this is a fusilier regiment, I have not painted the usual flank company distinctions, all the men in shakos have a red over white plume

A slightly different view of the full group

The command stand - I found the Queens colour on Google - the image is from the National Army Museum in London

The left flank stand

The right flank stand.

These are all the British I have to paint at the moment, but I still have two battalions of Spaniards to do now, and the seven battalions of British Crimean infantry should be en route from Ebor as well!