Running GAGG XXIX - Sharp Practice Demo

 Greetings, readers! This past weekend was the annual gaming convention put on by the university gaming club I've belonged to for almost 20 years now - Running GAGG, hosted by the Geneseo Area Gaming Group. I joined as a freshman in September 2005, and have only missed the convention twice since then. 

This year I committed myself to playing more games than I ran, something I've never done before. I signed up to take part in two wargaming demos - Sharp Practice and Bolt Action - and two RPG sessions, both played with 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I also ran a session of the RPG "Barbarians of Lemuria" with an adventure I'd written set in Alex Bates' Lost World of Azor, with miniatures available on his website. 

Playing AD&D from 10pm on Friday night until 2am Saturday morning meant I was in no shape to attend the 8am Saturday game of Bolt Action. However, I did get to learn to play Sharp Practice on Friday afternoon, which was a lot of fun despite a late start!

The scenario was a simple meeting engagement between American colonists and British regulars in the American Revolution. I took the British, while the gentleman hosting the event played the Americans. We were dead center in the student union ballroom so it was a bit noisy, but overall I had quite a bit of fun.

I don't recall the names of the units - I know I had three 8-man blocks of Highlanders with an officer, two 8-man blocks of Grenadiers, a 3 lb cannon and a small unit of scouts. The Americans had similar unit sizes as well as a preacher and a sergeant. I did take a few pictures as we went:

My deployment

Scouts meeting on the road

Cannon moving into position (disregard the pile of tokens)

The British Highlanders in retreat

We were coming up on the end of our timeslot, my forces' morale were much lower than his, so we called it there. Overall I had a good time and would absolutely play this again. And this counts towards my two games a month!

Figures Purchased in 2025: 27

Figures Painted in 2025: 21

Dragon Rampant Update - Giant and Billmen

Over the past week I've managed to finish off (mostly) two more units for my "Men of Albion" Dragon Rampant army - a Hill Giant, by Reaper Miniatures, and a dozen Perry plastic War of the Roses billmen.  These will be a single model unit of Bellicose Foot with the "Fear" special rule attached, and a unit of Offensive Heavy Foot, respectively.

In my thinking as to the story of this army, the giant was either press-ganged or sufficiently bribed (a daily ration of whole cow, maybe?) into joining the army; the mismatched gear he had accumulated - the shoulder pad, the shields strapped to his midsection - were painted with the colors of the army to show he was "theirs."

I chickened out on painting half his body as heavily tattooed; once the skin was finished I liked the way it looked too much to risk mucking it up.  And while I've seen a number of people paint his fur kilt as having been stitched from different color pelts, the uniform fur texture throughout made me think it's pieces of hide from multiple examples of the same critter; in this case, I opted to paint it as grizzly bear fur, with a dark brown basecoat and building up alternating drybrushed layers of a slightly lighter brown and a pale, silvery gray, probably three drybrushings of each color.

I still need to make a flag for the unit standard bearer and get these guys varnished; I had left my priming box in the hallway outside my apartment door overnight to air out and it got picked up and thrown in the trash while I was at work.  So I need to get another box; I've got a big Reaper order coming in on Tuesday that will hopefully work, if not I'll be grabbing one of the envelope boxes from work.

the whole army so far

After this, just a unit of archers left to paint; once they're done, I'm actually going to be going back to Kings of War and doing rank-and-flank fantasy and hopefully finishing a 2000-point army in time to play with it at a tournament in November.  I had always wanted to collect a Chaos Dwarfs army in Warhammer Fantasy; alas, Games Workshop had nuked the army shortly before I discovered miniature painting.  So I'll be building an army of "Abyssal Dwarfs" for Kings of War in search of much the same aesthetic.

Rampanting the Dragon, Again

I need to start a project; I've got nothing really sitting half-finished (at least not anything I'm likely to pick up again), and I think having something to work on would help my stress levels.  I haven't bought the book yet for Gaslands, though I probably will, but my frequent opponent Tom has begun work on a Dragon Rampant army.  I have 24 points of undead but I'm not really feeling them; I decided to start a fresh army.

Last November I'd assembled a box of Perry War of the Roses plastic infantry, giving me a unit of billmen (Offensive Heavy Foot in Dragon Rampant terms) and two of archers (Light Missiles).  I'd picked up some foot knights with poleaxes (Elite Foot) and with just those, I could field either a Lion Rampant retinue for the War of the Roses, or a very mundane human force for Dragon Rampant.  I started brainstorming and playing around with list ideas over the past two days, and got the unpainted figures out of the closet.

The metal foot knights I'd bought were not good clean casts, unfortunately; they'd had a ton of excess metal and the butt-ends of the poleaxes were all malformed.  I did my best to get them cleaned up and presentable but ultimately I couldn't get them to a place where I felt happy with them.  They've been binned and replacements - six dismounted men-at-arms from Front Rank's War of the Roses line - ordered.

The next step was fantasy elements.  I started thinking about legendary or mythological creatures

from the British Isles, and hit on the idea of a Giant; I removed one of the units of archers from the list and added in a giant (treating it as a single-model unit of Bellicose Foot, with either the Terrifically Shiny Armor or Fear special rules applied).  This would be not only a hard-hitting unit that emphasizes the fantastic nature of the game, but also provide a visual centerpiece to the army, towering over the remaining troops.  I'm picturing the giant as having been rounded up and press-ganged into service; I think I still have enough pieces left over to make a couple more billmen to model prodding the giant forward on a big diorama base.  I selected Reaper's "Krug, Hill Giant" to serve as my brute, favoring the $8 Bones figure over the $40 metal version.  I'll probably have to put a steel pin in one of his legs to keep him from leaning and possibly do the same with his club to keep it straight.

I'm tempted to paint the giant as having Pictish-style tattoos; we'll see how ambitious I get when he's actually in my hands.

So my list at this point looks like this:

• Foot Knights (Elite Foot, Leader) - 6 pts
• Billmen (Offensive Heavy Foot) - 6 pts.
• Archers (Light Missiles) - 4 pts.
• Giant (Bellicose Foot, Fear, Single Model Unit) - 6 pts.

This puts me at 22 points, 2 points short of a standard game.  I could throw "Enchanted Weapons" on the Foot Knights, or upgrade the Archers with "Sharpshooter," which would make them activate (to Shoot) on a roll of 4+ on 2d6, or I could boost the Giant's armor to make him harder to kill.  Or, I could pick up some Halflings/Hobbits with bows and add a unit of Scouts.

Ultimately, I think I'm going to add a minor spellcaster, or "Wizardling" in game terms.  While a full "Spellcaster" costs 4 points as an upgrade and can cast any spell on the list in the book, the Wizardling costs 2 points and can have three spells, selected before the game starts.  Rather than the pointy-hatted wizard with a floor-length beard, I decided I wanted a more subdued-looking, utilitarian figure.  After doing some digging, I settled on an older figure from Reaper's Dark Heavens line of metal miniatures, #2306 "Lor Gorna of Kjord." I like the shorter beard, the simpler staff and the open book.  I definitely get a "hedge wizard convinced to help the army before returning to his hermitage" vibe off this figure.

I'm on the fence as to whether I want to add him to the Elite Foot unit as an adviser to the warband's general, or put him with the billmen to bolster them with spells like "Sharper Swords!" or "Stronger Shields!" If we end up doing larger game with higher point values, I'll probably separate him off as a single model unit of Light Foot, but for now he's mixed in with the troops.

So this is what I'm going to be working on for a bit.  The weather is finally nice enough to where I can spray-prime, so a dozen archers and the billmen are going in the priming box today.  Hopefully I can start painting tomorrow.

Men of the White Island

So, funny story.  I had been thinking I would build 24-point and 48-point versions of two or three different armies for Dragon Rampant for demo purposes.  I've got my 24 points' worth of Undead and Men of the West; and a good chunk of my "Coalition of Evil" army is on its way.  While digesting pie, I was weighing options for what I would need to buy to build the second 24 points for the Men of the West.  

And then I remembered that I have a box of Perry Miniatures' Wars of the Roses infantry sitting in my closet from last Christmas, and it makes two dozen archers and a dozen billmen, plus command.  With the right upgrades, that's 18 points of a Dragon Rampant army right there.  Pulling it out and giving the sprues a once-over, I decided that given the differences in armor styles and weaponry between these figures and the Normans I'm using for my Men of the West, these would be a different, potentially allied kingdom, and for simplicity's sake I dubbed it "the White Island." I tend to favor the Hyborian approach when designing a fantasy world and steal as much from history with the names changed as possible.  

Selecting the 10 heaviest-armored bodies off the main sprues, and the two bodies off one of the command sprues, I quickly assembled a unit of Offensive Heavy Foot using the bill-carrying arms, and gave them a commanding officer and standard bearer as well.  

Tomorrow I'm thinking I'll get the two dozen archers assembled and then I can start priming them, holding off on painting them until the Painting Challenge begins.  Colorwise, I'm leaning towards the white and blue livery of Richard, Duke of York as my basis for these; based on my limited research, I believe that's whose banner my own ancestors would have been marching under in the 1450s and I think it'd be amusing - since this will be able to double as a Lion Rampant retinue - to field a retinue raised from the town in which my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents had lived.  

I placed an order with Perry Miniatures just now for a half-dozen foot knights with polearms to complete the retinue.  

In Dragon Rampant, the army roster will look like this:

• 1x Elite Foot - 6 pts
• 1x Offensive Heavy Foot - 6 pts
• 2x Light Missiles (Sharpshooter) - 12 pts

In Lion Rampant, it will look like this:

• 1x Foot Men-at-Arms - 6 pts
• 1x Expert Foot Serjeants - 6 pts
• 2x Expert Archers  - 12 pts

All in all, what I'm looking at painting for the Painting Challenge is going to look like this:

12 War of the Roses Billmen

24 War of the Roses Archers

6 War of the Roses Foot Knights

6 Normans with Two-Handed Axes

12 Medieval Russians with Spears

12 Medieval Russians converted to be carrying Crossbows

24 Goblins with Spears

6 Goblins with Bows

3 Giant Spiders

For a total of 105 28mm figures, putting me comfortably within my target goal.  Granted, I don't know that I'll be able to get all that done, especially as I anticipate having other deadlines to meet and projects requiring my attention, but it's a goal.  

Merry Christmas 2016

Merry Christmas to all, and strongest possible wishes for your continued health and good cheer in the new year ahead.  I hope everyone was able to spend time with loved ones, eat well, and received every bit of gaming loot their hearts desired.  I made out like a bandit this year:

Three boxes of Fireforge plastics and one of Perry Brothers - apparently my mother picked up some in London and then bought more on Amazon when she got home.  The box of Teutonic Infantry and one of the boxes of Knights (damn army list composition restrictions!) will form the basis of a Teutonic Order army for Warhammer Ancient Battles, while the Perry Wars of the Roses infantry will likely become the basis for a retinue for Lion/Dragon Rampant.  The second box of Teutonic Knights I'll hold on to in case of very large games of Warhammer Ancient Battles.

Finally, the board game "Elder Sign" was a gift from my sister, knowing my interest in Lovecraftian gaming.  Gina and I may give that a go later tonight.

We're in for a small bit of unseasonably warm weather, so I've begun assembly in hopes of getting some priming in tomorrow while I'm off work for the holiday. As of right now I've got a unit of 10 knights with command assembled and ready to go: