Dux Britainniarum: Playtest 2

We had our second play test of the DuxBrit at the Hobby Bunker last Thursday night. We played the Border Tower Raid. Although, I thought we had the rules down pretty well, many questions again arose which I will go over at the end of the photos. The combat and movement all went well, there is a very simple engine to the game that is easily remembered.

It is a straight forward raid with a British Noble and 2 units out on a recon mission. The Angles have to capture the Noble to have a successful raid. Below you can see the basic terrain with the Border Tower in the farground. A river runs almost the full length of the terrain. This was placed before the game started. Otherwise 4 pieces of terrain was placed by each of us in alternate fashion with the Angle player going first. We then through a D6 to place the tower, as well as D6's to decide each of our starting positions. Adam additionally threw a D6 to see how many units he got to start with.  

Here si looking towards the tower, the rivers are from Wargamers Terrain, a local Massachusetts  concern run by Joe Linares. He was excellent to deal and really provides a first class service and product. I can highly recommend him. These are his FlexRivers Delux. They come in green, blue or brown water, I picked brown in a 3" width. I am enormously pleased. You can also see one of his swamps below. 

The river was a major obstacle, the swamp and trees medium obstacles and the hills a minor obstacle.   The fence around the hovel is a linear obstacle. The Angles started mid way up the board on the far side of the rivers. They had 2 groups to start. The Britons were also mid way up the terrain but on the near side of the river. The Briton noble had two groups of warriors with him. If I remember correctly the Angles started with their lord and two unit of elites.

The Britons started the rest of their troops within 6" of the tower.  This included their elite unit, 3 i=units of levy and their slingers. The Angles brought on their other units in the second turn as their cards were drawn.

The Briton Noble and his two units of warriors

The Angle Lord and his champion with two elite units.

The Briton levies advance to protect their right flank, while the slingers advance to cover the retreat of the recon group. The British elite group advances through the swamp to meet the Angles. 

The action heats up, it was very difficult for the Angles to the far left to cross the river. The penalty for a major  obstacle is -3 pips on each D6. Since 3D6 is movement you need at least a toss of 10 to even move 1"

The Briton warriors elect to enter the walled compound. Stupid!

The Angles decide to all head toward the escaping Britons, the levy move to counter the move .

Two groups of Angles combat the Briton elites.

The British warriors attempt to escape the rapidly approaching Angle elites. Step Forth cards are thrown about.

The battle turns against the Britons, their elites as well as one unit of warriors  have lost their Amphora

In a show of Bravado, the British Lord and his champion with the escaping Noble  turn around an attack the Angle  war party, they are thrown back but the Angles fail to overwhelm the British Nobles and they withdraw.

The Angles fail to capture the Noble, thus fail in their quest. We did not use morale in this game , I think that I lost 10 figures and Adam lost 6. I had three units lose their amphora and I think Adam had two units in rout. So it was a closely fought game with a marginal victory to myself.

So on to the points of confusion that arose in this game, again the TFL Forum was instrumental in clarifying things.

• Card Sequence: Cards are only played on activation of a Noble, not at any other time. If a card is played in response by the non-phasing player, then that activation may take precedence (the example being the Step Forth card being played in response to a possible attack). The phasing player can change his initial plan and does not lose his cards if already played.
• Unattached Nobles Movement in Varying Terrain: No clear rule, will go with the same modification as harassing troops.
• Attaching and Detaching Nobles: Is at no cost and can be carried out twice in a single activation. What I missed is that an attached Noble does not suffer the reduction in command range to 3" if he is NOT engaged in combat.
• Missile Kills on Formations of Units: Per firing player, may select one unit in a formation.
• ZoC: If an attacking group fails to engage in combat because of failure of movement, the ZoC does not stop the attacking group at 4".
• Movement through Varying Terrain: No hard and fast rule but Rich Clarke suggests the following; Imagine the obstacle is some boggy ground which reduces movement by one pip per dice. That ground is 5" away from your unit. You roll 4, 2 and 6. I'd let you move 4" with the first dice as you can move that full distance without getting into the bog, but then the 2 and the 6 are both reduced. The truth is, you can use any system you like for this, so long as you're consistent in a game. But that's the one I prefer. 

By the way Adam has some excellent photos on his blog the Fencing Frog.

Painting a Zuzzy Verdant Fields Latex Mat

I have been looking for a transportable mat for some time, it really is impossible to transport styrofoam terrain pieces. There are a lot of options out there and I have already purchased 2-3 mats. When it came down to it I just did not like what I had purchased.

I had come across Zuzzy mats on TMP so I said why not. It was $52 for a 4x6' mat which I thought a pretty reasonable price. You certainly have to be patient, as the wait list is 2-3 months. But what I got was well worth waiting for, it comes in a plastic sheath wrapped around a hard cardboard tube. It is make of latex and it has some very interesting characteristics. But why not let photos do the talking. I could not find many resources or guides to painting the mat, so I just went ahead and designed my own. I was looking for a colour scheme that would jump out, less importnat was a natural look.

The mat come in a green colour, I suppose I could have started from that but I find that a Raw Umber  is an excellent choice. I use Sargent Art acrylic paint, it is quite inexpensive and it dilutes easily. I used about a 50:50 water paint mix to lay down a priming coat. I should note that you are advised only to use acrylics on these mats.

Once dry you can see it's first interesting characteristic, there are essentially two different major textures to the mat, one more upright and ridge like and the other flatter with less detail. I of course use the upright for grass and the flat for the brown patches. It does take 24 hours for the first coat to dry well.

So next up is the grass. I apply the dark green initially as a heavy dry brush I used Winsor and Newton Galeria acrylic Phthalo Green, this is a very dark green but when diluted is a little brighter. It is then diluted to fill in the crevasses. You can see the two effects here. Try not to let the dilute paint bleed into the earth parts.

Next I use a mocha coloured brown as the first highlight on the earth, I used  Americana Sable Brown as a heavy dry brush. This is followed by a light dry brush of VMC Iraqi Sand.

I found that I needed to blend the two colours together at this stage to take them down a bit. I used a  very thin wash of raw umber. And I mean very thin, I let the mat dry then for another 24 hours.

Next up is a medium dry brush of a Grumabacher Sap Green, and then a slightly lighter drybrush of a 50:50 mixture of the Sap Green and Newton and Winsor Galleria Cadmium Yellow Light.

Final dry brush with the Cadium Yellow Light on the grass and VMC Iraqi Sand on the dirt. You can also see the second interesting characteristic of these mats; the imbedded stones which I have painted black.

Well all done, the final step was a successive dry brushes on VMC Neutral Gray and Citadel Ulthuan  Gray  on the stones. I take them down then with some Citadel Nuln Oil black wash. All done! Maybe a little garish in the photo, but under natural light the colours are a little more restrained.

Close up with all the details.

With some terrain........a quiet little farm in Northern Britain around 500AD.

Tree bases and hovel from Architects of War, Houses from 4-Ground. Wattle fences fron Renedra.

Crop fields made from pieces of Zuzzy mat and cereal strips from Tamjima1. 

Army in a Box from Fernando

On February 21st, this year I emailed Fernando Painting Services in Sri Lanka to tell them that I was interested in getting some Blue Moon ACW miniatures painted. By February 24th, I had a quote not only for the painting but for the painting service to directly purchase the figures in the US and have them sent to Sri Lanka. The company actually paid for the figures themselves and then billed me. We ran into some problems as neither of the two credit card companies (one associated with a local bank and one associated a national bank) would approve any payments to Sr Lanka. I had to send a cheque by registered mail. Not withstanding this when the figures arrived in Sri Lanka on March 10, they started the paint job even though they had yet to receive the cheque for the figures (I had not even sent the cheque for the painting). On March 17th they received the first cheque, and by then the painting was well underway and I was receiving photographed samples. The only modification I had to make was to get the figures with havelars painted correctly (they were painted blue rather then white). On April 24th, I got notice that all my figures were done and fortunately the cheque for the painting arrived soon the next day. Once the figures were weighed for shipping, I still owed $30, but by then I realised that I could use a Canadian credit card to finish the purchase without difficulty (after living now in the US for 15 years, I have come to the conclusion that they have the worst and most antiquated banking system in the western world). Today, May 2, the figures arrived.

Absolutely amazing service, 402 figures done in 2 months on spec! So how was the job done, very well indeed. The box arrived well packaged which each group of figures in their own packaging, not one figure was damaged. I had planned to apply washes, as I had ordered the lowest standard at 70 cents each, I believe. They do not need washes. Well this is what they look like.

The package groups from Blue Moon was preserved so there would be no confusion. Everything was carefully labeled.

Standard Infantry firing.

Iron Brigade

Infantry with havelars

Cavalry with carbines and well as some dismounted cavalry

Artillerists and more dismounted cavalry

The sergeant even has his stripes!

Zoauve command, this was the only screw up and my fault, half should be red and blue , but the other half should be light blue (146th NY), but only 5 figures to re-paint.

5th New York

146th New York

More cavalry

402 figures

Just to show that I can paint 18 mm figures, here are some of Berden's Sharpshooters and Heros as well as some limbers for Longstreet. I also have a dozen cannons ready to paint.

Well I have to give this company 10/10, just terrific job and terrific service. Highly recommended. Oh by the way, here is the OB of my ACW Union force.

Old Glory Miniatures

I recently had reason to order from Old Glory Miniatures. This company has a very broad range of figures including Napoleonics. I had previously ordered some Austrian Grenzers, Spanish Infantry and some Austrian Hussars in the early stage of my figure painting career (about 5 years ago to be exact), I was not too impressed by the figures and got rid, and moved on to better things. They do, however, have a lot of miniatures that are not available from other manufacturers, especially in the equipment range. I was looking for some rockets and in 28mm they are it (someone of course will say Minifigs have them as well, but although they are nice they do not fit with other 25-28 mm ranges).


Their website is easy to navigate, but there are a couple of problems. It was easy enough to find the British Rockets, and there is a nice picture, but I could find no indication of what was actually in the bag. It looked like there was 4 figures and 1x24pder and 1x6pder with 1 rocket so I ordered 2 packets. Lasalle recommends a 3 base unit for a Rocket Battery, I thought about ordering 3 packets, but I said to myself let's wait and see. I should also note that they do not take Paypal, but you can order online with a credit card.


The order was made made on the 8th Jan, charged on the 11th and they arrived well packaged on the 15th which is within a week, not too bad. I did get a confirmatory email that they had received my order on the 8th, but no email to say they were dispatched. I also note that they charged $9 for postage and an extra $3 for packaging! Now the rate is $3.09 + delivery confirmation, so less then $4, I believe. I hate these hidden charges, add the cost of packaging to the item and charge what it actually costs to ship.

The item was nicely packaged as you can see, but wow there appeared to be a bit more in the package than what I thought. I actually got 12 figures (4 poses) and 4 each of the 24pder launching apparatus, 24pd rockets, 6pder launching apparatus and 6pd rockets. This was quite a deal for $23. With this I can easily make 3 bases of the big rockets with 3 figures to the base and an extra base of the little rockets with another 3 figures (does anyone want to buy my extra packet)!


The rockets themselves appear to be quite nice and they were not too much work to assemble. The figures, I believe, are not the best sculpts, but they are not as nasty as the Redoubt figures I have as my RHA. They are much more slender then my usual Front Rank etc, and also a little thinner than the Perry's, but they will fit in the army without problem. The flash was not too bad, we will just have to see how they paint up. You can see the equipment is done already.

So what should I say; the figures and equipment are certainly well priced. I do have some reservations about the website, the mailing costs and the figures themselves, but certainly they will be happily received by me in my British Army. I will give them a 3 out of 4 rating.


Rating: Recommend 


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Triangle Miniatures

Triangle Miniatures is the American distributor for many of the first class British figure manufacturers as well as GMB flags. These include Calpe, Elite and Front Rank and they also carry Victrix, Perry Metals and Steve Barber Figures. The company is run by Buddy Hoch, who is quite an affable and helpful fellow. His website is first rate and I find it more useful in most cases than the actual manufacturers websites. It's only weakness is that you can not order directly from the website and I do wish he would take paypal. 


Since I prefer to use Front Rank, Calpe and Perry Metals, I have had occasion to order from this company at least half of a dozen times. I find the prices about 20-25% higher than direct order from UK, but with the postage this is usually a wash. There is one exception and that is large orders from Front Rank which are greater the £300, here you get a preferred postal rate, 15% discount and battalion pricing. I saved over $100 on my last large order. I do believe that there is a 10% discount on orders greater then $200 at Triangle Miniatures.


Generally I find he has almost all your selections in stock and if they do not, then what was not immediately available usually shows up within a couple of week. I find almost invariably that Buddy has your order in the mail within 24 hours. My last order was made November 9th and received Nov 12th. 


The quality of these figure lines is well known, so there is not much to remark on here. They come well packaged and sorted, Buddy appears to have some proprietary packaging for Perry and Elite figures, and the Front Rank and Calpe figures come separately packaged according to type. I hope he does do some proprietary Calpe packaging though, as they are a lot of work to sort if they get mixed together as no codes are etched on the figures as is the case with Front Rank. I have had problems with just one item in one order (ordered some Calpe cavalry and the horses were missing). This did take a bit of time to resolve, although it was to my satisfaction. Otherwise all orders have been without problem.


Rating: Recommend without reservation


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Hovels

Second in my "plug" blogposts is my latest acquisition from Hovels in the UK. My latest project is a combined Hougoumont/La Haie Sainte scenario and for this I needed Hougoumont. I ordered it Nov 1 and received it by Airpost on November 8, 2010, which is quite good service. From the postage stamp, I could see it was sent the day after I ordered it. I had been emailing back and forth with Carol at Hovels about some details in respect to size and she was quite prompt and helpful in her responses. I do wish they had more details about size on their website, but Carol was quite helpful in providing the information. As you can see each piece comes packaged in their own little labelled bag. I have done some rooting here, but I can say that the pieces were well and safely packed. All pieces ordered were there. I had ordered extra to make up for the long wall running to the east which enclosed the orchard.

I game in 28mm, but the foot print of the 28mm Hovels version is 136x102cm (4.5x3.3ft), there is just no way I could do this on a 12x5' table except as a skirmish game, which I am not interested. I decided to go with the 15 mm version which is 54x36cm (1.8x1.2ft)

As you can see it all fits together nicely. The vertical scale is quite off, but really I think it will work nicely for my game. As you can see the model is quite detailed, there is hardly any flash, and is paintable from the box.

Time to get painting. I will use a white prime, followed by a Citadel Dwarf Flesh medium wash over the brick parts, and GW Fenris Grey medium wash over the non brick roofs, pick out the details around windows and doors using a light grey. The bases of the walls will be painted green to match the terrain. The whole complex will then get an application of the the black pigment (Darktone) AP. I am hoping it will not take too long. Colour scheme is as below (from Hovels site)

Rating: Recommend without reservation

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