Temple Dogs!

I have been promising to publish a battle report featuring the scenery that I have made for my Samurai collection. I did actually publish such a report, but on Facebook rather than on my blog. I thought that it might be useful to put a slightly expanded battle report into my blog featuring the details of the scenario and forces involved. So this is a slightly more ‘wordy’ blog than usual as I will publish the scenario over view as well as the two briefing documents for the players. I hope that you find these useful.

The left flank of the Ikko-Ikki side of the table. Note the Bamboo and woods to the side and the placement of the hill.

Temple Dogs

Scenario notes for both players

Both attackers and defenders may cross the large bridge without penalty or disorder if they can clear the bridge in one turn (2 actions). They may charge on the second move if permitted to do so ( Samurai and Sohei).

Neither side can cross the wide areas of the river.

Only skirmishers can use the small footbridge.

Units may cross the narrow lengths of the stream but will become disarrayed as per our usual games.

Artillery may fire over the heads of units that are 9 inches away from the gun and 9 inches away from the target without penalty provided that the gun is on a hill.

If artillery roll 2 or more sixes in a turn, it will destroy a section of the bamboo barricade as well as inflicting the normal casualties on the sheltering unit.

The Bamboo barricades confer a+1 save for any troops sheltering behind them ( except for artillery!). All charge bonuses are lost when attacking units immediately behind this barrier. In melee, both sides hit on a 5+ from the start. There is no additional armour save in melee. It’s harder to hit someone behind a fence but if you do it is assumed to be just as effective! You can’t cross a fixed bamboo fence but will have to fight through it. Or go around it!

A an attacking unit that moves up to a barricade may attempt to hack their way through it. It will take one full turn to do so and during this turn the unit may not take any other action. They will benefit from cover from the barricade if shot at but if engaged in melee before the end of the turn, they will fail to breach the barricade and instead fight the melee as detailed above.

You may not spot or shoot at a target that is inside the bamboo thickets unless they have moved to the edge and shot at one of the attacking units outside of the thicket.

The range for shooting and spotting inside the thicket is 4 inches. All units benefit from a +1 cover save.

The Samurai have no interest in taking Ikko-Ikki heads as trophies and the Ikko-Ikki player may refuse all single combat with leaders without penalty. So it is unlikely that additional morale tokens to be won in this way. The Ikko- Ikki player could attempt to initiate single combat if they choose to.

The right side of the Battlefield with the large bridge behind the Tori gate, the small footbridge and the temple tucked away at the back.

Ikko- Ikki Player

Troops

1 unit of Sohei Monks (armoured) 24 points

4 units of armoured Ikko-ikki 48 points

6 units of Unarmoured Ikko-Ikki (pointed as levy) 54 points

2 units of skirmishers 12 points

Bamboo Barricades 18 points

Total 156 points

Note that you have one samurai leader for the Sohei Monks that you must roll for his leadership – he cannot be a dolt! You have five leaders for the Ikko-Ikki units. Roll for leadership as normal but note that you may refuse single combat in melee without penalty.

You may deploy and arm your Ikko-Ikki units as you choose, either as blocks, lines or single units. Normal command distances apply.

You have NO Daimyo card.

You may deploy any unit up to halfway across the table and you may deploy hidden units in the Bamboo thickets using a marker to indicate the position of the lead unit.

The Sohei Monks may be concealed in the temple shrine. They may not be deployed in the Bamboo and will become disarrayed if they move into it.

Your formed Ikko-Ikki units may move and attack as normal through the bamboo thickets and wood and will not be disarayed.

You must hold the Temple for at least 6 turns. If you loose the Temple, you loose the game regardless of morale tokens lost.

The challenge for the Ikko-Ikki player is of course to hold out for 6 turns. Half of their army is unarmoured levy. However, they have the advantage of being able to move freely through the wooded terrain and have protection from the barricades.

You can see some of the Ikko-Ikki deployment here – bear in mind some units are concealed!

Samurai Player

Troops

1 unit of mounted Samurai Archers 24 points

1 unit of Samurai Foot 24 points

2 blocks of Ashigaru Bows & Naginatas 48 points

2 units of Ashigaru teppo 24 points

2 Cannon 18 points

2 skirmishing teppo 12 points

1 unit skirmishing Ronin 6 points

Total 156 points

Notes

If your guns roll 2 or more sixes in a turn, you will destroy a section of the bamboo barricade as well as inflicting the normal casualties on the sheltering unit.

Your formed units may enter the bamboo thickets and woods but will immediately become double disarrayed and stay as such without being able to remove the disarray until they leave the cover. They may only move at half speed inside the thicket and may not charge or counter charge.

You may not fire your artillery at the temple shrine!

Capturing the Temple will win the game regardless of morale tokens claimed. You must capture the temple within 6 turns or lose the game.

You can see that the Samurai have a much stronger force but are under time pressure to capture the temple. They cannot afford to hold back and try to out shoot the enemy. They are also hindered by the terrain and of course, the risk that their guns may self destruct when firing! The Daimyo card gives them a bit more flexibility when issuing orders as well as an extra morale token

The Samurai deployment. They avoided using the hill for the artillery and stayed well clear of the bamboo thicket! However, the woods, just visible behind the guns were to prove a danger!

Here is a brief battle report from the game:

Last night we played through a scenario for Never Mind the Naganitas with Ikko-Ikki defending a shrine from a local Samurai Warlord. Ian Callan and Austen Kime were the defending Ikko-Ikki commanders, with Andy Callan, Robert Andrew Kime and Wayne Ellington as the attacking Samurai. The scenario had a few traps built into it to challenge the players and to add to the pressure on the Samurai, they had six turns to achieve their objective and capture the shrine.

The Samurai wasted no time and went straight for the Temple. The Artillery eventually managing to knock down the barricades just as the attacking Samurai reached them. You can see the Ikko-Ikki defending the bridge with volleys of gunfire!

The game started badly for the defenders with an early foray by their hidden troops and skirmishers chased off and daunted. Add to that, the initial bombardment by samurai artillery was taking its toll, inflicting casualties on the Ikko-Ikki teppo men lining the barricades. The Samurai advance was focused and relentless! Add to that, Wayne, managed to win Six bonus cards in a row by rolling six sixes!

Of course, no Bill Hooks (or for that matter, Naginata) game follows a script and the game began to turn when the Ikko-Ikki pulled a special event card that enabled them to deploy a band of Ninja, who made swift work of destroying the Samurai artillery. However, the artillery had done its job and brought down two sections of barricades leaving the way to the shrine nearly open- a stream being the only barrier. Meanwhile, over at the bamboo, the Ikko-Ikki skirmishers brought down the Samurai cavalry with incessant gunfire. The Ikko-Ikki were feeling there was a chance as the turn count moved up!

The Samurai on foot charge across the bridge, brushing aside the Ikko-Ikki defenders

By now Wayne’s Samurai were in a position to assault the main bridge to the temple and successfully charged and routed the defending block of Ikko-Ikki. The response was a furious charge from the Sohei Monks that were concealed in the shrine that resulted in almost wiping out the Samurai and they retreated utterly daunted with just one man remaining!

The concealed Sohei monks come charging out of the Temple. They are more than a match for the Samurai and eventually put them to flight after a brutal combat!

It was still going to the wire. The Ikko-Ikki were fast running out of morale tokens and Andy had methodically moved his troops into position to deliver the killing blow. It all came down to turn 6!

In the foreground, the barricades have been destroyed. It is just a case of crossing the stream to take possession of the temple and win the game!

Somehow, by clever use of a forfeit card to thwart the Samurai advance the Ikko-Ikki prevailed in a tense final turn. The Samurai warlord had run out of time and as night fell he was forced to acknowledge failure. Well done to Ian(Ikki) and Austen(Ikko). Victory was theirs!

The close games are always the best! Ian and Austen managed to hold the shrine when all appeared to be lost!

The plan is that the full adaptation of Never Mind the Naginata’s will be published as part of the next Bill Hooks redux book later this year. If you fancy playing a Samurai skirmish/battle then I hope that you will enjoy the rules. In the meantime, there is a few months for you to paint your army in preparation – the lists above will give you some idea of the troops that you will need!

As always – Happy modelling!

Samurai Command

It’s fairly self evident that I have been rather pre-occupied with painting Samurai troops for my collection. I am getting to the stage where I have built enough to satisfy my gaming requirements but still have a few painting goals to achieve before I can move onto the next big project – whatever that is!

I picked up a box of the Fireforge command set at the recent Hammerhead show. The purpose being that I would have a nice Daimyo to lead the Fireforge faction of my army and give it a focal point. The three mounted commanders would also provide leaders for my Samurai cavalry contingent, thus satisfying my OCD requirement that all my units would be led by Fireforge models.

Front and back of the Fireforge command set

As you can see, the Fireforge set allows you to make 14 models ( although, confusingly, only 13 are shown on the rear of the box. My priority was to build the figures on foot, starting with the Officers.I also had decided to build three of the Ashigaru as musicians to compliment the banner bearers and the final model as an ammunition bearer for my Teppo Ashigaru. Although these options are not shown on the box, they are shown on the Fireforge website. I suppose I shouldn’t moan, but I will! I do wish that manufacturers would include a bit more in the way of instructions with their models or at least give a bit more help on their websites. To be fair, Warlord and Perry are very good at this, Fireforge are definitely not.

As you can see, I managed to make the ammunition bearer with the arm attached to the wrong side! I only spotted this as I started to paint it. So unfortunately, he was relegated to the back of the work bench whilst I considered the best way to fix the error. Obviously, a arm removal and replacement is required but I may change his role from Teppo support to Yumi support!

Meanwhile, I continued to paint the rest of the figures. First up, the sitting command group. These are my favourite figures from the set. The Daimyo, looks particularly stern, sat on his chair! I went to town on the stitching for these models and also added a pattern to the Daimyos shirt. Painting circles that small can be difficult, I often end up with a spot! It is easy to correct any errors by placing a blob of the base colour in the middle of the spot to get a circle again!

The Ashigaru holding the parasol is a nice characterful model. I did consider painting some sort of design on the brollie but decided to take the easy option and go for plain red!

There are two other foot samurai in the set. These will be officers for my Samurai units. I actually quite like the one that I have finished in black, white and silver but confess that he looks better from a distance than close up!

Next up are the two banner men. The one with the black banner has a script that I copied from pinterest. I’ve no idea what it says! It could be something inspirational for the army but as my brush work isn’t the best, it could be closer to a shopping list! As for the Takeda banner, this also is entirely made up. I’m afraid that I can be a bit lazy when it comes to researching such things and to be truthful, the Takeka banners that I had seen, I didn’t like…As my armies tend to be fictional rather than an attempt to exactly recreate precisely an army at a specific battle, it doesn’t worry me too much. The Takeda mon are decals from Veni Vidi Vici.

I wanted some Ashigaru Musicians in my HQ set up and the drummer team was an obvious choice. I was pleased with the finish on the drum. I used a red tone ink over Vallejo burnt red to get a nice lacquered effect.

To go with the drummers, an Ashigaru blowing a Conch horn. He completes my contingent of musicians for now. The mon symbol on his hat is from the warlord set of decals.

And so with the foot figures now completed the next project is the mounted figures and another cavalry unit. However, I will take a short break from painting Samurai – all that lace is straining my eyes!

One final figure to make it off of the work bench was the lovely Giants in Miniature figure for Wargames Illustrated, Takeda Shingen. He will actually be another unit commander in my army, so a bit of a demotion for him!

That’s it for now. Happy modelling!

Samurai Artillery

I had been given a couple of 3d printed Samurai cannon and the crew by good friend and gaming buddy, John Grant. As I had no immediate use for artillery in my set up I had them put to one side for a future project. However, that all changed when I was asked to put together a scenario for ‘Never Mind the Naginata’s’ involving the Ikko-Ikki. If all goes well, I’ll detail the battle in a future blog.

So the cannon were promoted to the work bench and painting started. Just a quick word regarding 3d prints. I am in awe as to the detail that can be produced with 3D printing – the rope work on the cannon is superb. However, I have my concerns with both the robustness of the final models – they seem to be brittle, ( I have had two break badly when dropped) and the longevity of the models once they are painted. I’m sure that all will be fine, I guess that my sceptism is yet another sign that I getting old!

The two crew to the left are the 3D printed models, the one to the left is the Fireforge conversion.

Back to the figures themselves. As already mentioned, they are superbly molded and are compatible with the Fireforge models that the majority of my Samurai army is made up of. The guns come with two crew members but I needed three for NMTN’s rules, so I made two ‘gun captains’ from spare figures from the Fireforge command set.

To make the bases for the guns, I used two 80mm x 60mm Mdf bases but as I wanted the gun crew to be removable in the event of taking casualties, I went for a sabot arrangement. I used some 32mm conversion rings to hold the crew. These were glued to the base, leaving a space for the cannon in the middle.

The next task was to cover the base in Milliput, levelling everything off ready for the next stage.

Trial fit to make sure everything is OK – figures are at the block paint stage.

I then covered the bases in Vallejo texture paste and added some fine talus for detail.

When it came to painting the cannon, I used a tried and trusted technique to bring out the detail on the wooden carriage. You can see a step by step guide in an earlier blog by clicking here:

TREBUCHET!

The barrel and iron work of the cannon was painted matt black, and the rope work painted with Iraqi Sand, washed with dark tone and re highlighted with Iraqi Sand. As for the crew, I went for two themes, based very loosely on James Clavells Shogun. That is one crew in browns, the other in greys.

Rather than a step by step guide to painting the figures, if you check out my previous Samurai blogs, you can read about the method that I use to paint Samurai and Ashigaru. I usually start with a black undercoat and then give the figures a light dry brush in medium sea grey to show up the detail. After that, I use a block paint and wash process followed by a highlight of the original colour. I don’t always put a pattern on the clothing but as there were only six crew in total, I added some dots, circles and flowers. These look better from a distance! I also added some Warlord Games Takeda decals, which with hindsight perhaps was a bit OOT!

Once the figures were painted, I went back to the base and used my standard basing process to complete the models. This involves painting the bases with Delhi Bazaar ( a green/brown colour) emulsion and then dry brushing with lighter shades of the same colour mixed with Iraqi Sand. I used Woodlands scenic’s green blended turf and then a mixture of Gamers grass tufts to add detail.

So with both gun crews completed, I am ready for battle!

So onto the next project – completing the rest of the Fireforge Command set!

Happy Modelling!

I’m back! Samurai Scenery.

My last blog post was back in November, some five months ago. I haven’t been posting for a number of reasons including minor ailments, household projects ( decorating!) and an aversion to spending any time on my desk top computer – it reminded me of work, something that in retirement I am keen to avoid!

The good news is that I have been thoroughly immersed in my hobby and there has been no lack of progress there! So, rather than retrospectively detail what I have been up to, I thought that I would just post a simple guide to making some battlefield scenery for my Samurai. I have plans for a specific scenario for my adaptation of Never Mind The Bill Hooks to Samurai warfare – Never Mind the Naginata’s, that will require some additional simple scenery pieces and this is how I went about making them.

The first piece was a Bamboo thicket, in fact I needed at least three of these to cover the left flank of the six foot by four foot battlefield. To make the thickets I had sent for a bag of 100 plastic bamboo plants from either Amazon or Temu ( I forget which!) that at the time cost me £14.99. I then used a 170mm by 105mm oval MDF base from Sarissa Precision and drilled randomly spaced holes through it. It is then simple enough to push the bamboo through the holes – I used a blob of thick expo super glue to hold the bamboo in place.

The next stage was to add some texture to the base using Vallejo paste and adding some detail with Various sized talus from Woodlands Scenics. I confess that in the past, I would have just used some small pebbles from the garden for this job!

I think that I could have used the bases without further detail but I followed my usual basing scheme of painting the base with a green/brown emulsion, Dehli Bazaar and highlighting with further dry brush coats of the same colour, lightened with Iraqi Sand. I then added some Woodland scenic blended turf using a watered down PVA glue and the job was finished.

The middle base is finished, the other two are in progress. In the foreground the next project.

With the bamboo thickets completed, the next job was to build some bamboo barricades for my Samurai shooters to hide behind. I decided to use up some spare 120mm by 40mm MDF bases that I had in the spares box and I needed six of these for the scenario. To make the fencing, I used some bamboo place mats that I had bought from the pound shop. You’ll never guess how much a set of four cost…

Bamboo place mat and coaster chopped up for fencing!

Once again, I drilled the bases with six holes at 10mm intervals and after cutting the bamboo to about 50mm lengths, pushed the uprights in and secured them with super glue. I then cut the horizontal spares to length and glued them on with super glue. The diagonal bracers were also cut and glued in similar fashion. Incidentally, I used my trusty Zuron sprue cutters to snip the bamboo to length – just watch out for bits flying around your work room!

As you can see, I’ve used Vallejo paste and Woodland Talus to detail the fences. I did consider leaving the bamboo in it’s natural state but decided to paint it a chocolate brown and the inked it with Army painter strong tone to give it a bit of a shine and texture. I left the ends of the posts unpainted though.

I then painted the bases and added some scatter and some Gamers grass tufts to finish.

The finished fencing and Bamboo thicket – all matching bases!

I did consider adding some thread around the joints for extra realism but that would have meant tying18 knots per fence – 108 in total. I decided that it was time to move on to painting more Samurai! Allowing for drying time, it was just about an evenings work to make three bamboo thickets and six Bamboo fences. All being well, I will show you them in use on the battlefield in a future blog. I hope that you found this useful.

Happy modelling

Workbench Round up for November

Yet another round up of projects completed rather than an in depth coverage of anything in particular. I have gotten out of the habit of writing a blog – something that I will try to address in the New year. I have been fairly busy, painting and working my way through my various projects, so in no particular order these are the completed models that have made it into my collection.

The first model is a small vignette from Athena Miniatures featuring Margaret of Anjou, Henry 6th’s wife and her page. I copied the paint scheme from Graham Turners beautiful book ‘The wars of The Roses’. Here’s a picture of the illustration form the book.

Margaret of Anjou from Graham Turners Wars of the Roses

Incidentally, I am just about to finish reading this book. As well as the superb illustrations and paintings by Graham Turner, the book is a well researched overview of the Wars of the Roses. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in the period.

The next project was to paint four more warriors for my Dark Ages collection. The three on the left are Footsore miniatures, the figure on the right is a limited edition figure, I think, but I have forgotten who from! Painting these figures gave me a total of 48 Anglo Danes/Vikings that I have now moved on from Saga to allow me to field 4 units for Never Mind The North Men. No doubt I will be adding more next year!

Whilst I was painting Dark Age figures, I came across this lovely figure of Odin from Footsore Miniatures in my spares box, so I painted him up, pretty much copying the Footsore example. I’m not sure where he will fit in to an army but he looks nice!

I finally finished a SMER 1/48th scale model of the Fairy Swordfish. The last part of this project was adding the rigging using stretched sprue. Very fiddly and time consuming. The swear box was in constant use but I’m pleased with the finished result.

I had already painted a foot version of the Bishop of Bath and Wells from Battle Flag Miniatures but also had the mounted version. It seemed a shame not to finish him off as well!

On the subject of the Clergy, I also have a lovely Landsknecht mounted command group from Athena Miniatures. I’ve started with the easiest of them – the mounted priest or Bishop – the others are currently in progress. As you can see, I have yet to finish the basing.

I’ve also finished another 12 Ashigaru from Fireforge miniatures. I now have enough figures to field two Samurai forces for Never mind The Naginitas, of which 140 are Fireforge with a similar number of Warlord and Footsore minatures to oppose them!

Finally, I spent some considerable time adding decals to my finished units of Samurai/Ashigaru. I used a mixture of warlord and Vene Vedi Vici decals. It took me some time to finish this task as I had 7 units of 12 to complete. So I had 12 x 3 x7 decals to apply – that’s 252 decals! Going forward, I will add the decals as I finish the unit!

So thats November up to date.

Happy Modelling!

Work Bench Round Up for October

It’s been some time since I have written a blog post but the good news is that I have been busy gradually expanding my collection of painted figures and if not reducing my lead pile, then at least keeping it under control!

Rather than a step by step guide to a particular project, this post is really just a round up of some of the stuff that I have been working on. If I can get back into the habit of writing a regular blog, I will perhaps revisit some of the projects – I think that the making of movement trays might be quite useful.

I had to get this unit of Stradiots finished for the Derby Billhooks BASH. They are from Perry Miniatures and I bought them last year at ‘The Other Partizan’ and they would complete for now, my Italian states army of Gendarmes and Landsknechts.

The five Kern were from a set produced by Battle Flag Miniatures. I had already painted the three Gallowglass in the set and wanted to finish these to add them to my Irish army. The figure wearing the Morian Helmet is really more suited to the Elizabethan age but I doubt if anyone will notice if I sneak him into a WOTR army for service at Stokes Field!

I also finished the commander of the ‘Fighting Irish’ Battleflag miniatures set. I’ve hedged my bets a bit here and finished him in Spanish colours. He will work as a commander for a Spanish army of Conquistators, maybe a Tercico for the Italian wars or even as a commander of an Elizabethan force fighting the Irish.

In a change of direction, I painted this Rohan Standard bearer from the Magazine collection, Battle Games in Middle Earth. I have now reached issue 41 of this series. I really could do with a blog post rounding up my collection so far.

I’ve also been making movement trays for some of my units. These Anglo Danes were originally a Saga force but we have been playing ‘Never Mind the North Men’, yet another spin off from Billhooks, written by Jan Ash. I’m really quite pleased with the new trays. I used 60/000 black plasticard and 1/8 inch balsa strip to make the trays. Once you have the first one made, you can use this as a template and it is suprisingly quick to knock out more!

I now have 24 of the Fireforge Ashigaru archers completed. The plan is to have a complete army based on Fire Forge figures for ‘Never Mind The Naganitas’ another NMTBH’s rule set that I am working on.

With these 12 Ashigaru completed, I am close to finishing the army. Another twelve to do and the troops will be completed.

The last figure is from the Grey for Now ‘Seven Ronin’ boxed set. I painted him more or less at the same time as the Ashigaru, using the same colours. I’ll work my way through the set – they are lovely figures but I’m not sure what I’ll use him for yet!

That’s it for now. Happy Modelling!

Dinofelis!

Dinofelis (“terrible cat”) is a genus of Machairodontin saber-toothed cats belonging to the tribe Metailurini that lived approximately 5-1.5 million years ago. Dinofelis is known as a “false saber-tooth” cat because, instead of true saber-teeth, it had a cross between long, flat saber-teeth and the cone-shaped teeth of the modern-day felines. A Dinofelis was about the size of a Leopard or Jaguar.

Any pictures of these beasts are of course conjectural, as all we have is fossil evidence to go on. Some images show Dinofelis with tiger stripes, others with markings similar to a leopard.

The Deezee range of pre historic animals contains a model of a Dinofelis. Since I have retired, the DeeZee range is no longer available on line. However, there are plans to change this and the range should appear back on line in early 2025, all being well. In the meantime, my plan to personally paint each one of the 39 packs available in the range continues with DZ14, Dinofelis. Painting these miniatures gives me a pleasant break from my usual military subjects and a chance to indulge my imagination. There are two identical models in the pack but I chose to paint them in a slightly different colour scheme.

The first version that I painted, had a golden yellow coat with leopard spots. The main body was painted with Vallejo Gold Brown 70877, over brushed with the same colour lightened with Iraqi Sand 70819.I used Ivory 70918 for the underbelly and face, highlighting with off white 70820. The spots were painted on with German Cam. Black Brown 70822 which I thought was less harsh than using pure black. I did pick out his nose eyes and mouth with 70950 Black and finished the model with a light wash of Army painter soft tone.

Version two of the Dinofelis was painted in a lighter brown colour. This time I started with Cork brown 70843 overbrushed with German Cam. Beige 70821. The spots were painted with Chocolate brown 70872 and then the centre’s picked out with Beige Brown70875 to get a ‘rosette’ effect. As with version one, the underbelly was painted with Ivory, highlighted with Off white and the details picked out in black. Again, a light coat of soft tone was applied to bring everything together and give some shading.

So another pack of DeeZee can be crossed off of my list. It only took an evening to paint these models and as I have said, it was a nice break from my usual subjects. Indeed, painting the spots was quite therapeutic!

Happy Modelling!

Bill Hooks BASH VI Battle Reports

The 6th Bill Hooks BASH was held on Saturday14th September at the Boards and Swords venue in Derby. Organised by Pete Harris, this event is a celebration of the Never Mind the Bill Hooks game, played in a non competitive spirit, the emphasis being on having a fun and enjoyable day with like minded enthusiasts. The players are split into Yorkist or Lancastrian supporters and the winning faction can enjoy boasting rights at the end of the day!

To confirm the social bias of the event, it has been customary for players to meet for a meal (latterly at the very pleasant Exeter Arms) and a few drinks on the Friday prior to the event. This is very much an evening of great conversation and banter as well as laughter. Of course, it’s an ideal way of breaking the ice for new participants. This year we had 13 attendees for the meal – I laid out an additional place at the table to make fourteen as I thought that having 13 diners on Friday the 13th was testing lady luck!

And so to Saturday when battle was joined! I’ll write a more thorough overview of the day that should be published in Wargames Illustrated,.This will include details of the winners of the painting competition, overall results and list the participants This blog article will just concentrate on reporting on the two battles that I fought on the day. As usual, my reporting is not quite up to par – I failed to record details of my opponents army or photograph them before battle – Doh!

Battle 1 vs John Kersey’s Italian State Army

John was fielding an Italian State army which had the benefit of being composed of plenty of units but the slight disadvantage in quality as some of the units were rated as Levy. I felt that the Landsknechts under my command would be more than equal to the opposition. As I had a unit of light cavalry (Stradiots) and John only had heavies, I was able to out scout him and he was obliged to place his Skirmishers and artillery as well as one other ward first in the deployment phase. With his artillery and heavy cavalry deployed on his left Flank, I deployed my Landsknecht blocks well out of the way on the my left ( his right). Pike blocks can be very susceptible to artillery fire and I wanted them to be as intact as possible as they moved across the field of battle.

The movement phase commenced with me detaching my gunsmen from the pike blocks and moving them forward to open fire on the opposition pike block causing the first casualties of the battle. We then went to turn one of the cards and the two armies began to close. As luck would have it, my skirmisher card came up again and the gunsmen delivered another volley into the pikes. Early into the turn, John won a bonus card. This can usually mean trouble but on this occasion it was a blessing for me. A sudden rainstorm meant that no shooting was permitted! Under the cover of the rain, the Compte de Biscotti advanced his Gendarmes to counter the advance of the Italian heavy Knights as he confidently ignored the artillery and crossbowmen threatening him!

The Compte de Biscotti chases off the Italian knights!

Turn two saw Biscotti charging home against the Italian knights and despite the counter charge, Biscotti was triumphant, winning the combat and routing the Italians. This prompted the Crossbowmen skirmishers and the artillery to run off the table with the knights! For now, my right flank was secure.

The situation on the left – two blocks of Landsknechts move relentlessly forwards!

On my left, the infantry on both sides closed with each other with my two blocks of Landsknechts facing two pike blocks and a levy spear unit supported by skirmishers. Unfortunately, the spear unit had advanced a bit to far from the support of the pike blocks and was very exposed! The gunsmen in the woods continued to harry the Italian pike block.

Turn 3 and the Vorhut, under the able command of Lorenza de Pala charged home against the levy spearmen. Despite the mismatch, the spearmen held! Bravely fighting on for another turn. Undeterred, by this slight setback, the Gerwalthut, commanded by Captain Nicomo Cosca attacked the levy pike block. This was a more successful combat for the Landsknecht’s, with the levy pikes breaking and routing from the field, taking the supporting skirmishers with them!

Flank attack! The Italian Pike charge home!

Despite seeing the levy pike block flee the field, the more professional Italian pikes were undaunted and were able to press home and attack into the flank of the victorious Landsknechts. These tough mercenaries were able to hold, despite taking casualties.

The glorious charge of the Duc de Bourbon!

However, the Duc de Bourbon decided to take matters in hand and on his card being turned, charged home into the flank of the Italian pikes. Although there are are rerolls or charge bonuses for cavalry hitting a pike block ( even in the flank) the Duc managed to inflict 14 hits with 9 kills! with the extra hits from the Landsknechts, the Italians crumbled and retreated from the field!

Just two casualties taken by the Gendarmes as the Italians retreat from the table!

Jon had by now run out of tokens so it was Victory for the French! The Duc be Bourbon boasting how his charge won the battle – a boast that would come back to haunt him later….

John reacts to his pike block running from the battle – Game over!

Battle 2 vs Richard Marriot

Richard and I had met before at Billhooks BASH IV where he had pulled my Irish army to pieces stopping me getting a clean sweep on the day. To read all about this encounter, click here:

Bill Hooks IV

I was determined to get my revenge! Richard was fielding a straight forward WOTR army but as noted in my last encounter, unusually fielded a unit of mounted knights which had caused so many problems to my Irish. I was determined that they would not do so again! Deployment was fairly straight forward, we both had light horse so rolled for deployment. There were no real surprises on either side – I did ensure that my commander was safely deployed far out on the left and matched his heavy and lights with my own equivalents. It would be up to the Landsknechts to slog it out with the opposing infantry!

Opening the battle, my gunsmen had already killed three knights before being wiped out by arrow storms!

In the movement phase, I once again dispatched my gunsmen to cause as much of a nuisance as possible. In this case, their target was the English knights and with their opening volley, they were able to kill three of the enemy. Richard was not going to put up with that rate of attrition and so used his archers to send a number of arrow storms and wipe them out! I thought it a fair exchange – three knights and three arrow storms for 12 gunsmen. I’m not sure that the gunsmen would agree…

Turn two saw the Compte de Biscotti charge the English knights and despite superior numbers, they lost the first round of combat! Fortunately, they survived the morale test and combat continued. By turn three, Biscotti’s numbers overcame the diminishing English Knights and they fled the field. Meanwhile, the Landsknechts chased off the light cavalry temporarily and despite them taking numerous arrow storms, casualties were extremely light. The English archers aim seemed to be off and as the two armies closed, the archers were running short of arrows!

Look closely and you will see that two archers are holding up the Landsknecht pike block!

In turn three, using a combination of a sneaky special event card ‘False colours’ the Gewalt were able to charge home against the single unit of archers! The result should have been a massacre and it was, the pikes killing 10 archers. They needed to throw 11 to stand. Bugger! they did just that, holding the Landsknechts for the time being!

Things are getting busy on the battefield!

Things now started to get busy on the battlefield with the Vorhut engaging a bill and bow block and the Stradiots charging another unengaged bill and bow block in the flank. The Stradiots inflicted 6 casualties but the block passed it’s morale test causing the Stradiots to bounce. Meanwhile the Gewalt finally put the archers to flight and engaged the same bill and bow block. Again, the English, whilst taking casualties stood firm, passing their morale check.

The Duc de Bourbon edges closer to the combat – watch out there are gunsmen in the woods!

There was no doubt the the English were under pressure and sensing victory, the Duc de Bourbon began to edge closer to the fighting, ignoring the gunsmen skulking in the woods. However, the English, although taking severe losses somehow managed to fight on, surviving each morale check required. The gunsmen had also started to inflict casualties on the Duc’s Gendarmes, infuriating the Duc!

Biscottti has survived his own morale challenges and ready’s for the charge!

Things started to get desperate! Although the French had yet to lose a morale token, they were beginning to be frustrated by the English army’s resilience and ability to continue to fight. The French had taken 5 morale tokens and when Biscotti charged home into the flank of the engaged Bill and bow block, daunting it, just one more token was required!

Biscotti charges in, daunting the English!

The Vorhut, however, had failed to break the English block that it was fighting and after three turns it was forced to withdraw, leaving a heavily depleted unit. Surely it was just a matter of time before the English folded.

The Duc de Bourbon finds that the English are not going to give up!

The Duc de Bourbons card was then drawn. With the English bill block left with three men, surely it was time for him to charge in and deliver the coup de grace as he had in the previous game! With 8 dice hitting on 4+, re rolling all misses and the commanders automatic hits and saving on a 3+ what could go wrong? Well, the Gendarmes inflicted 5 hits all of which were saved…The billmen inflicted 3 hits, 2 of which were not saved!!! The Duc had lost the combat and would need to check his morale. He failed miserably and ran from the field! Somehow the stoic English had put flight to the French commander and won the game!

I was so shocked that I forgot to take a picture of Richards victory dance – he had snatched a most unlikely win thanks to my impetuous charge. That will teach me, as if I didn’t know already, that in billhooks it isn’t over until the dice say so!

So two fantastic games with two excellent and sporting opponents, John and Richard. I trust that we will meet again at a future event. Thanks once again to Pete Harris for organising the day and the superb meal, thank you to Boards and Swords for hosting the day and of course, thank you to all of the participants for making the day such a great event.

Happy modelling and gaming!!

Britcon 2024

Britcon was held over the weekend of Friday 9th August through to Sunday 12th August at Nottingham Trent University, right in the heart of Nottingham. Britcon is a great addition to the wargames show calendar in that it follows the format of American wargames conventions with the emphasis on participation and ‘competitive’ gaming. Also on offer is accommodation in the student union buildings, so it’s easy for gamers to spend the whole weekend playing their favourite games with like minded people. With over 400 gaming attendees, the show certainly achieved it’s objective. Add to that, the 400 day visitors ( free entry if you booked on line in advance!) and a super selection of traders in attendance, there was comfortably over 1000 enthusiasts at the show over the weekend!

And boy, were they enthusiastic! I went to the show on the Saturday with Andy and Ian Callan to do a ‘recce’ in advance of our demo games of ‘Bill Hooks’. The hall was packed with gamers at 9.45am, absorbed in their games. On the Sunday, we returned to set our demo up in the Wargames Illustrated Room at 8.30am to find the gamers up and at it already! I did ask one of them if he had actually gone to bed!

A quick shout out to the traders – many of the dependable ‘big boys’ were there – Sarissa Precision, Warlod Games, Perry Miniatures by Dave Thomas to name my favourite three but three new stands caught my eye:

Winterdyne Commision modelling had an amazing selection of high quality 3D printed terrain pieces, you can see the full catalogue here: Winterdyne Commission Modelling Shop – 3d Printed Wargaming Accessories and Models from Winterdyne Commission Modelling

F4FreddieTerraFirma had some of the nicest table ready scenery that I have seen ; F4freddieTerraFirma – Etsy UK https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/F4freddieTerraFirma

And the stand that took my cash was Athena Miniatures. I very much liked the War of The Roses range and picked up a couple of packs of character models. All being well they will feature in a future blog but to see their range, click here: https://www.athenaminiatures.co.uk

As well as the trade stands, there was an extremely well run and stocked bring and buy. Although I wasn’t tempted, the two Callan brothers were constant visitors and certainly helped recycle a number of items!

Rick Priestly, Alan and Michael Perry host a Valour and Fortitude game based on the Napoleonic Egyptian campaign

Of course, the main reason for my attendance was to help with the demo games of Never Mind The Bill Hooks, held in the special Wargames Illustrated room. On the Saturday, the room featured three amazing games showing off the Valour and Fortitude rules, with the author Jervis Johnson on hand to answer any questions. He was ably assisted by Rick Priestly, Alan and Micheal Perry amongst others, so it really was worth calling in to say hello!

The pictures above give some idea of the scale of the games. Massive tables and massive armies as well as spectacular scenery made the room a feast for wargamers eyes!

A few more pictures showing the detail on the tables. I suspect that Dan at Wargames Illustrated will have some better pictures, so look out for these in a future issue!

And so onto Sunday. It was the turn of ‘Bill Hooks’ to take over the WI room. Our tables weren’t quite as spectacular but the gaming fun was as good!

We put on three games – Boat Hooks, Bill Hooks Italia, and Bill Hooks Fantasia. I think it’s fair to say that we did more chatting than playing but there were some good games played. My new French force was soundly beaten on the Italia board, The English Fleet scoured the French from the sea and I think that the Evil side put the ‘goodies to flight in the Fantasia game!

The centre piece for the Italia board was a fantastic model castle, originally made by, I think, Hudson Hall in America and somehow brought back to the UK by the late, great Duncan McFarlane in his luggage!

Heinrich Kane supervises the gun battery!

And so as Sunday came to an end, it was time to pack up and go home to mull over a most enjoyable weekend spent playing war games in the company of some very good friends. I really enjoyed meeting up with old friends and acquaintances and making new ones and I think that this is the side of the hobby that gives balance to our obsession!

I must mention Pete Ware, who I am sure made the longest journey to attend Britcon. Pete hails from Perth in Western Australia and had come to Nottingham via Edinburgh!!!

As usual, I missed almost as much as I saw. Next time, I will get to the Lard demonstration room! Britcon 2025 is already in my diary and I look forward to attending on the 8th -10th August 2025!

Happy modelling!

Great D’Arcy of The Pale

Just one of the magnificent entrances to Rhodes Old Town

It’s nearly two months since I’ve written a blog post! In that time, I’ve had a lovely holiday in Rhodes, relaxing and reading as well as exploring Rhodes Old Town and the beautiful medieval fortifications built by the Knight’s of St Johns also known as the Hospitalers. I’ve also been on numerous picnics and days out with Julie and Grandaughter Eleanor. The sunshine has not helped, it has been at times too hot to paint and certainly not the weather to be sat in front of the computer typing a blog post. And then there is the Olympics and the football!

Despite all of these distractions, I have been steadily painting bits and pieces, including some Samurai Cavalry.

Samurai Archers – Four more painted to complete the unit

I’ve added four Gendarme Standard bearers to my collection.

I’ve also added a couple of LOTR models to my collection and I’ve now reached issue 38 of the magazine collection by painting Grima Wormtongue!

Finally, I’ve painted another of the ‘Giants in Miniature’ models produced by Wargames Illustrated, Great D’Arcy of the pale. In this case, D’arcy was a bit of a giant – he was reputedly the tallest man in Ireland at the time. William D’Arcy was an Irish lord who was involved in the Lambert Simnel plot to topple King Henry VII in 1487. D’arcy carried Simnel on his shoulders at Simnels coronation in Ireland. Fortunately for D’Arcy, he did not follow Simnel over from Ireland to the battle at Stokes Field as he may well have suffered the same fate as the rest of the Irish rebels, killed or hung as traitors during and after the battle!

He makes a nice addition to my Irish collection and will no doubt take to the Wargames table in future engagements as one of the commanders!

That just about rounds up most of my hobby activity for the last couple of months. The plan is that the blog will be upgraded and changed from the Arcane Scenery blog to ‘Steve’s Hobby Blog’ to reflect my newly retired status. I hope to write on a more regular basis and include a few ‘tutorials’. Mind you, I’m a bit concerned that my eye sight is deteriorating – the eyes on Great D’Arcy are a bit wonky when viewed up close but despite this, hopefully, fellow hobbyists will find some colour guides and research that I do useful.

Happy Modelling!

More Ashigaru

I continue to build my Samurai army. Well, the way things are going, I’ll end up with two armies. One exclusively based on the Fireforge models, the other a mixture of Warlord Games, Footsore’s Warring Clans, Perry miniatures and other odds and ends. To take a break from painting Fireforge, I decided to build a couple of units of the Footsore Ashigaru. I was lucky enough to acquire all of the packs available in the range (courtesy of the generosity of Mark Farr and Andy Hobday) and so painting these would also reduce my lead pile – two wins!

The first unit of Ashigaru with Yari ( spears)

I used the three packs of Ashigaru with Yari and the Ashigaru Sergeant to make the first unit. As this still left me two men short of the twelve needed for a unit, I added in a couple of Warlord figures. I also decided to change the spears from the metal ones supplied to the plastic ones that come with the Warlord figures. I had plenty of these in the spares box. So why the extra work? Well the metal spears are extremely sharp and I would be stabbing myself throughout a game using them. The other issue with metal spears is that they are inflexible and are more likely to cause damage to other figures and themselves, whereas the plastic ones flex and there is less change of committing Hari-kari with them! The plastic spears also look better and will blend in with my other Ashigaru units.

For the unit armed with Yumi (bows) I used the four different packs of three that are in the range to make a full unit of twelve. There are some lovely poses in these packs. I really liked the pair handing out the extra arrows. I decided to leave off the majority of the flags (sashimo) as they would get in the way of the arrows and quivers. The bows supplied with the figures are nicely done. I am concerned that they will not stand up to the rigours of gaming but time will tell. I think as a general comment regarding the Warring Clans range, its my opinion that they are superbly modelled and cast but are inclined to be less robust than other figures out there. They would make lovely display figures but I am concerned about breakages when it come to gaming. As I have said, time will tell and they are too nice not to be included in my army!

I cleaned up and assembled the figures – very little filing was required, the casting were excellent in this respect – they were then ready for priming. Once the black primer had dried – I’m now a great fan of the new Colour Forge primers – I dried brushed the figures with Vallejo medium sea grey and I used Army painter tanned flesh for the faces and hands.

I then blocked in the rest of the colours. Pastel Blue for the shirts and lacing; Off White for the socks, waist band, rice bags, sashimo and neck covers; Leather brown for the satchels, water bottles and quivers; Old wood for the arrows and sashimo supports, New Wood and German Cam black brown for the bows. I mixed things up for the trousers. On the bowmen, I used Rose brown and Beige brown with yellow ochre for the standard bearer. For the other unit of spearmen, I was less adventurous and just used Burnt Red for the trousers and neck guards on the whole unit.

Once I had colour blocked everything, I gave the figures various ink washes – flesh wash on the flesh, soft tone on the leathers, woods and cloth, dark tone over the whites. When the inks were dried, I then re highlighted everything with the original colours, touched up any obvious errors and then painted a simple three dot pattern in white on the shirts. I considered adding a pattern to the trousers but decided against it as I felt that it would make the figures look a bit ‘busy’ and I was too lazy!

The full block of Bowmen and Spearmen, based and in their movement trays ready for battle!

I followed my usual basing scheme, detailed elsewhere in my blog article and my units are ready for the battlefield. Look out for them in a forthcoming Never Mind The Naginatas battle report! Finally, I have yet to add the Mons (or clan identifier) to the flags. That’s partly because I have yet to make my mind up as to which clans to use. I already have quite a few Takeda troops but fancy some different banners for variety. I quite like the Mori mon as well as the Oda clan. I think that it will come down to where I can get the decals from as I don’t fancy painting them myself!

Happy modelling!

Personalities and Procrastination

Lets deal with the procrastination first. It’s all about me not completing my blog for over a month. It’s not as though I haven’t been busy with my hobby. Far from it. With several fantastic games that I have played with friends, to reasonable progress on my painting projects, there’s been plenty going on. I just haven’t been motivated to write about it!

Edgar comtemplates his opening move as Pete tries some misdirection!

I’ll start with the gaming. I met with Pete Harris and Edgar Gillock over at Boards and Swords in Derby for a Bill Hooks play through. What made this special was that Edgar was visiting from the USA and was able to get some gaming time in whilst over here. It was a lovely afternoon and great to meet Edgar.

My next game was an Indian Wars encounter at Andy’s place. We were using the ‘rules for old wargamers with short memories’ rules set written by Andy some years ago. We also tried out some new Ideas for scouting using scrabble blocks and magnets. You will have to wait to see if this sees the light of day in the future but it was good fun and I can see another ‘Bill Hooks’ supplement coming from this early play test.

Another playtest for ‘Never Mind the Naginatas’!

The following week found me play testing my version of Samurai Bill Hooks or ‘Never Mind the Naganitas’. This was a large affair with five players and in excess of 200points per side. All went well and lessons were learnt – the 6th draft of the rules is now completed ready for the next test.

Perhaps my favourite battle of the month was a Black Powder battle on Pete Harris’s wonderful Spanish Village board – the battle for Foz d’Arouce. We had played this as a demo a couple of times at events and as you can see the scenery is superb.

The highlight, or from the French point of view ( I was playing on the French side), the low light, was following a superb flanking move, the French attack column lost a combat it should really have won and then failed its morale test to rout. As if this was not bad enough, the cascading morale tests saw another four, yes, four consecutive rolls of just three from two dice to send the whole of the French right wing from the table! Despite the incredible run of bad luck, it was still a most enjoyable game and a pleasure to be playing Napoleonic’s again.

A free figure from the Bristol Bill Hooks day – he will be part of a crew for ‘boat hooks’

As for painting, I have been working my way through building Samurai units but as a ‘rest’ in between I have been painting some single ‘personality’ figures that I have picked up.

Doing her best Spice girls impersonation ‘ Stop right there’ Lady Galadriel attempts to dissuade Lord Flash Heart from taking advantage!

So I finished Lady Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings magazine collection – I have now reached issue 35 of 91. I also completed two ‘Giants in Miniature’ both favourite characters of mine. Lord Flashheart and Flashman of George McDonald Fraser fame.

Sir D’Isgny – the free figure from Partizan 2024

My final personality figure was the giveaway at Partizan 2024, a fictional figure Sir D’isgny based on the family from the village of Norton Disney nearby Newark. As you can see. I have yet to finish the basing as he is in a batch with the Duke of Monmouth ( the free personality figure from Hammerhead) and a Samurai unit.

The First Duke of Monmouth – free figure from Hammerhead 2024

I’m still working through Samurai units. The unit of 12 mainly Footsore ‘Warring Clans’ figures are all but complete. Perhaps my next blog will feature these in more detail. Again, these are nearly complete now but need the tufts on the bases to finish them off.

So that’s it for now. A busy and fulfilling hobby month for me. My painting has been a bit hit and miss but the lead pile hasn’t grown too much and a few more figures have been added to my collection.

Happy Modelling!

Temple Dogs!

Samurai Command

Samurai Artillery

I’m back! Samurai Scenery.

Workbench Round up for November

Work Bench Round Up for October

Dinofelis!

Bill Hooks BASH VI Battle Reports

Britcon 2024

Great D’Arcy of The Pale

More Ashigaru

Personalities and Procrastination

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