Historicon 2010: Duke’s Jubilee

Duke Siefried has gained a reputation over the years for running large, impressive games at the conventions.  He decided to retire from this and clear out his collection, presumably so his kids wouldn’t have to. But first, one last bash: Uncle Duke’s Diamond Jubilee!

For his last year at Historicon, Duke brought 14 games and ran them (with the help of numerous volunteers) throughout the weekend.  There was a special area set aside just for these games, and they were all always full of players.  After the show, everything was available for sale (I didn’t check the prices: “if you have to ask…”)

Here are some pictures I took of the highlights.  It’s hard to convey the scale of these games in pictures.  They are simultaneously really big and highly detailed at a small scale.  The miniatures were definitely painted to “convention gaming” standard, but when you put this many 25mm figures on a table at the same time, it looks impressive even with a basic paint job.

Most of the games were large, but his Jolly Roger game was played in a very innovative way.  Large scale pirate ships with 25mm crews were mounted on waist-high movement stands, and the game was played on the floor.  This provided for a much bigger game than a table allows (due to arm length limitations) without having to sit down.  There were floating islands and ports around the edges of the play area as well.  The game used Duke’s Jolly Roger home rules.


I think this game is Zulu! with Isandlwana Mountain in the distance.  It stood taller than me, and the table was probably 15-20 feet long. The rules were a variant of The Sword and the Flame.

I didn’t take notes on which game was which, but this one is most likely Fire & Sword in the Sudan, using Duke’s Fire & Sword home rules (not to be confused with The Sword and the Flame rules for the same period).  The table used real sand scattered over the terrain for a very realistic effect.

This one is Babylon I, with the hanging gardens just out of frame to the right.  This Babylonian vs Assyrian game was played with 25mm figures and a variant of DBA called De Bellis Extravaganza.  Talk on the Fanaticus forums suggests the rule changes were minor, and related to the specifics of this battle: some combat factors were modified, and some troops that ordinarily don’t have ranged shooting could shoot.

Finally, Azteca!   Set in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City in the time of the Aztecs), this battle between Aztecs and Conquistadors was played with another of Duke’s home rules: Aztec! The Game. 

Historicon 2010: Games Except DBA

Since DBA took up the bulk of my Historicon experience, I’ll go over “everything else” first.

There was “much ado about nothing” this year, w.r.t. Historicon changing locations. My two second synopsis of the Valley Forge location is that it was just fine, and I’d go back again. The only downside I could see was that the club rooms were far away from the rest of the gaming, but that’s not a big problem for me.  It certainly wasn’t substantially worse than what I remember about Lancaster.

I stayed in a campground in my parents’ RV. This reduced lodging costs, but the extra driving wasn’t ideal. For future conventions I’d consider committing more completely to “con as vacation” or maybe just a long weekend.

My big mistake was missing the online preregistration period. A smaller mistake that ended up being a major pain was choosing the wrong line to stand in during walk-in registration. The other line moved, mine didn’t: I was there for hours longer than I would’ve been in the other line. This ruined our evening, but at least it was before the convention started.

The game selection this year emphasized periods I’m not interested in, probably due to this year’s theme (Pike and Shot). The changes between the Priliminary Event List available online in May and the program seemed minimal. Luckily I only needed to find a few games to fill my schedule.

The first of my three non-DBA games was a Battlestar Galactica space battle. The rules aren’t published yet, but the working title seems to be Picon Military Academy.  It’s based on the Colonial Battlefleet rules that were played last year and published in a lincense-free generic form.

The Iron Wind BSG figures are beautiful! They have a lot of detail and look like they’ll paint up easily while providing excellent results.  Unfortunately the gamemaster didn’t have any missiles or torpedos, so we ended up with a lot of markers on the board.

The rules are IGO-UGO.  Ships have a current speed, maximum speed, and can change their speed by a certain amount each turn.  They are also very maneuverable, and can make one or more 30 degree turns each movement.  Fighters go wherever they want.  Shooting is done per weapon system using a range system: the gun’s range (including a die roll) must be greater than the target’s distance to hit.  Hits roll penetration, and penetrating hits do damage.

Our scenario was very straightforward, and quickly turned into a shoot-em-up. I think it was a bit too early for the gamemaster to be “all there” yet.

I’d play the game again, and I was very tempted to buy the figures; but I’d really like to wait until the rules come out so I can figure out what to buy first.  These ships are definitely on my “to buy” list once I know what I want.

My second game was Celluloid Heroes of the West,” a Wild West skirmish game pitting television heroes against movie heroes using the High Noon ruleset and 25-28mm figures.

The basis of the scenario was the Wild West portion of the Back to the Future series of movies: Marty McFly and Doc Brown had to get their time machine onto the train tracks and get it up to speed to travel back to the future.  Most scenario gameplay was character-based: each player got victory points for doing the sorts of things their characters did in their movie or TV show.

They had a long table set up with very dense terrain, and multiple games going on along its length over the weekend.  The tables were connected with specially built gulleys with bridges and rivers.  All the buildings opened up so you could put figures in, on, and around every floor.  The end we played on had the towns, and at the other end was desert.  We had about 8-10 feet worth of table to work with for our scenario.

This was a great convention game, but nothing I’d try to do at home.  The game would fail without the flavor of the scenario.  Our particular game was greatly improved by the boyfriend-girlfriend combination on opposite teams constantly trying to foil each others plans’ while maintaining consistency with their characters’ typical behavior (“Does the Lone Ranger really push Silver in front of the train?”

These High Noon rules seem to be the older set published in the 90’s, and not the modern version available on the Internet. Activation is IGO-UGO; every figure can move, but they need to pass an activation test to do something else such as shoot or melee. The stats have enough details that each player can run only two figures effectively.  It uses a percentile system with a long list of combat modifiers.

I’d play this game again at a convention, but I’m not inspired to paint Wild West figures or attempt to find or play these rules.  It’s just not a great game for only a small number of players without a game master.

On Friday, I got into a game of Disposable Heroes that ended up being almost empty.  This was my first experience playing in the Pacific theater of World War II (New Guinea, in this case).

I played two platoons of Japanese infantry, with a tank in support of each, as well as a mule train.  My objective was to get the mules to boats on the coast, retrieve supplies, and transport them back past a river; the US Marines across the board from me had different ideas.

The whole board except the beach and road was dense jungle (light cover) and visibility was reduced to 10″.  The Marines with their Garands and BARs (I think that’s more appropriate for the Army, who got all the good guns) totally outgunned the Japanese and had essentially no move-and-fire penalty.

The Marines were fast and deadly. In the end, my opponent crushed me utterly, leaving only the mules, the tanks (one disabled), and about 3 infantry.  I claim victory, because with everyone dead I no longer needed the supplies.

I was the only player who had played Disposable Heroes previously.  It’s definitely not my favorite WWII ruleset at a similar figure scale, but it’s fast, “good enough,” and easy to remember if you haven’t played in a while.  The terrain and figures were nice enough that I’m inspired to paint up some Japanese and/or 20/25mm figures, but it’s low on my list.

The rest of the time I ate expensive food and went shopping.  Amazingly, this year I didn’t buy any new rule sets or figures for new periods or scales I don’t already own (except for a box of 1/32 scale plastic Vikings for Martine).

The Flea Market did suck me in: I bought a painted Carthaginian army… well, actually it would make four DBA armies or a good start at a DBM army.  This force has definitely seen better days, and will make a good “beater” army.  I’ll put minimal effort into rehabbing it: I already rebased it so the base sizes are correct, and I’ll be touching up and dipping it all.  After that it’s the road to glory: either I’ll get crushed by Romans as they expect, or my victory will be all the sweeter for beating them with an army that looks as bad as this.

BBDBA: About JM’s plans

Since JM didn’t have commenting turned on for his blog, I’ll post my thoughts about his plan here.

It’s easy to find flaws with a plan after it has failed, so I’ll try not to restate anything obvious. Instead I’ll describe my reaction to what JM planned and did.

JM anticipated my command structure correctly, except for expecting all the pike in one command. I decided I wanted to field my pike in three blocks of four, with psiloi linking them. This worked well to improve maneuverability and provide flank support and anti-psiloi support.

9x Cav, 3x LH, 3x Sp, 1x Ps (= 1x Sp quad)
The mounted will run forward towards the pike and hope to get overlaps
using the light horse.

In the planning stages, I feared JM’s LH would quick kill my pike, but a little calculation told me that it wasn’t a big concern. I wasn’t worried about a head to head match with his Cavalry (partially because I forgot the Pike didn’t get rear support against Cav). The big danger for me was if JM could turn my pike’s flank.

The thing I’ll have to watch out for is contacting him too soon, or making it too obvious what this command’s mission is. If I contact him too soon, I’ll be unsupported and he’ll probably still be in more or less a nice line.

In gameplay, I wheeled my pike in separate blocks. I wonder if my disorganized line encouraged JM to contact me sooner? He hit me in good order before I had a well-formed line, but my pikes survived anyway.

When I deploy, I’ll put the high command favoring a far flank, but not out of reach of the center. If he chooses to deploy opposite me, so be it: I’ll be able to go after him without him having the benefit of support on either side. If he puts the pike in the expected middle, fine, I can catch him before he can get out of trouble.

I deployed in reaction to JM’s setup, so it’s best for me not to deploy myself into trouble to begin with. If you want to cause trouble as the defender, your best bet is your final command placement.

At the time, I regretted putting my camp to the right. I wanted to deploy my pike in a long line with their left flank right next to the waterway and my mounted command next to it. I would deny JM’s slow heavy foot on the opposite flank. But he had a bit of light horse over there: just enough to take my camps if I left them unprotected.

Instead, my pike command deployed to delay contact with JM’s mounted wing, allowing me to wheel and protect the pike’s flanks. I considered advancing in echelon instead, but in retrospect I think my wheel was the better move.

The mid command:
3x Lh, 3x Aux, 4x Ps

This was a reasonable command, but assuming I could move my Kn/El into first contact, I wasn’t very afraid of it: the Knights would crush the auxilia most of the time, providing overlaps for the elephants. If he contacted first he could combat the elephants and hopefully kill one, leaving my knights exposed. Instead, he wheeled parts of his line to protect his flank, and I wasn’t about to move my elephants into overlaps.

What, a waterway, are you crazy?

The waterway ended up being irrelevant. The pike are so narrow, you’d have to cut the board in half with a river to give them much advantage. I expected JM to use the waterway to anchor one of his flanks by deploying directly next to the waterway instead of 3″ away from the board edge. With the bad going on the other end of the board, he could’ve fought entirely in the open.

Remember when I said I wanted the bad going to tempt Alan? Well that’s why there’s a road in there! Let’s hope it’s too much for him to resist.

This was, in fact, too much to resist. There was at least a 50% chance that I’d have enough PIPs on the first bound to send my Auxilia all the way to JM’s deployment zone. I like those odds and I’d bet on them again. I probably would’ve gone into the bad going even without a road, if he deployed the same way he did this time.

JM deployed his mid-PIP command in front of his spears. That hampered their ability to move and contribute to the battle, and disrupted his plan for that command. I wonder if it would have worked better to put the light foot in the center to harass the flanks of both my mounted and pike commands.

… I hope he sees my reserved deployment as a sign that he can get to the bad going.

I didn’t notice that the spears had space in front of them until he deployed the light foot there. Watching my Elephants’ enemy transform from Spears to Auxilia was an unwelcome surprise.

I’ll conveniently put down as little bad going as possible.

Unfortunately, that terrain placement was a perfect highway for the auxilia. The road made it way too fast. It may have been better to place two tiny woods in the corners opposite the waterway, and do away with the gentle hill he ended up having to use in the center.

The heavier Alex block will be the one to avoid. Either Alan is afraid that I’m going to chose to ignore his pike, or he’s being sneaky in his pre-game e-mails and actually wants me to think that’s a good idea…

I don’t remember what I was thinking in pre-game e-mail. My basic opinion of pike is that they’re very tough, but their lack of maneuverability makes it hard to choose where (or if) you meet your enemy.

One strategy against pike is to take advantage of their lack of maneuverability. A few small groups of psiloi can delay a pike block for “a long time” (in pike years). That’s another reason I included some light foot along with my pikes.

I think the mere fact that I’ve bothered to think through this all will help my chances.

I read a quote by Randy Pausch erecently that I like a lot: “You can always change your plan, but only if you have one.”

I think having a plan can also accelerate learning from your mistakes. It’s easier to learn which of your decisions turned out to be bad if you know what your decisions were. Or: “You can make your plan better next time, but only if you have one this time.”

BBDBA After-Action Report: Alexander vs. Darius

… in which Alexander learns the value of a good road.

I made plans and predictions about how this game would go in my last post; how accurate was I?  Well, my summary prediction was wrong… but at least Darius III didn’t flee off the table. We played the game on a 5’x2′ board using NASAMW standard rules, since this seems to be standard these days.

JM was the defender (no surprise), and placed minimal terrain: a waterway along one short edge, and a large wood in the center of the opposite short edge with a road running through it.  A single gentle hill in the center of my board edge fulfilled his terrain requirements while leaving most of the board empty.  He deployed his camp in the center of his edge, and I deployed my camps slightly to the right of the gentle hill.

Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the deployment, I only have an image after the first turn, so use your imagination.

The Persians deployed their high PIP command first, in the center of his right flank: 9x3Cv/LCh (gen), 3x2LH, 3x4Sp, 1x2Ps.  The low PIP command was next: 6x4Sp, 4x2Ps on the center of the left flank.  I wasn’t expecting a board as devoid of terrain as this, and it threw me off: there was nowhere I could funnel his troops to face my narrow pikes.  He deployed his commands with gaps on all sides, which would allow his third command to be placed anywhere: either in the center or on either extreme flank, giving him lots of options.

The only place I could use terrain to my advantage was the one big wood on my right flank, so I decided to deploy my Mountain Indian allies there.  I placed the command in columns: 5x3Ax on the road, 4x2Ps parallel to the road, and 3x2LH outside the wood.

My command structure was as I planned yesterday: 4x4Pk, 3x3Kn, 2xEl, 2x2LH in the high PIP command; 8x4Pk, 2x2Ps, 2x4Ax in the low PIP command.  But where should I put them?  It seemed clear that I should scrunch into my right side of the board so I could protect my camp, but which command should face his mounted wing and which should face his spears?

I can’t win against his cavarly with my pikes, and his light horse would quick kill my pikes or flank them easily.  So I placed my mounted command facing his cavalry, and deployed my pikes facing his spears.

No, wait.  I changed my mind.  The pikes face his cavalry and my mounted face his spears.  Done.  As the game progressed, I concluded this was the better choice, as it fit my commands’ missions better.  I shouldn’t try to deny a flank with troops I also intend to win with.  The pikes wouldn’t kill his cavalry quickly, but they also wouldn’t lose quickly; this would give my right flank time to start winning.

A problem I had in planning was that I never formally decided what my commands’ missions would be.  This would have been easy and obvious: the mounted command is there to win in the open; the Mountain Indians were there to win in bad going or flank and enter his backfield; the pikes were there to hold the line and “not lose” while everyone else won.  If I had noted this explicitly, the proper deployment would have been more obvious.

JM’s third command deployment was a surprise: he left space in front of his spear line to place his Auxilia.  Now my elephants were facing Auxilia instead of spears: not ideal.

On the first turn, my Indians got 6 PIPs and plowed through the woods: my psiloi took their first turn multiple move, and the Auxilia took the road.  Wow, roads can be really useful!  This is the best use I’ve ever had for a road.  My mounted command advanced steadily while my pikes wheeled in two psiloi-separated blocks to face the flanking threat from the Persian mounted wing.

This set the stage for the next few turns.  On my right flank, my Indians formed up on the flank of his double line, as my mounted advanced towards him.   On the left, I deployed my pikes into a line and got my auxilia out to protect the extreme left flank from an impending light horse maneuver.

Unfortunately, I forgot that Pike don’t get a rank bonus against cavalry.   But, I also forgot they were +4 against mounted, so in the end I managed to live (since +3 can’t double +4). 

JM wheeled his light infantry against my elephants and knights, and threatened their flank somewhat with his light horse. I was able to maneuver my light horse into place to face his, but I refused to attack his Auxilia line.  Instead, I advanced the Indians against his flank, since I knew that would have a great chance of success.

On my right flank, I ended up having my high PIP and allied commands combining forces against his single mid-PIP command, while his low PIP command stagnated behind the lines.  That gave me a big edge on that side of the board.  In the mean time, his “must win” flank was still a few turns away from contact.

In the middle of the game I held onto my initiative on my right flank, and JM proceeded against my left flank.  JM’s mid-pip command was the first to be demoralized, after I destroyed a few of his light horse and light infantry.  We eventually realized he never assigned a general for that command, but many of his elements never saw combat anyway so it might not have mattered.

On my left, I was very nearly undone by his light horse flanking maneuver, but my auxilia managed to pull their ass out of the fire for a few turns until I could maneuver into a better position.  Unfortunately for JM, he let his high PIP command’s spear block fall behind, as I was hoping would happen.  He needed to rush his cavalry into contact in order to have a hope of winning there quickly enough, but this also left him with too few troops in combat and the rest left behind.  At that point he had to spend so many PIPs redressing his lines that he couldn’t advance his spears.

Once enough of his light foot command died or fled out of the way, I could finally start facing his spears on my right flank.  I had already killed some supporting Psiloi, and after facing off with my knights and elephants, he lost a spear with psiloi support and that command was demoralized as well.  At this point it was only a matter of time; but I still feared for my left flank.  In retrospect I shouldn’t have worried: I could win even after losing that entire command.

In the end, JM lost 18 elements as two of his commands were demoralized and fleeing off the board.  I lost 3 elements: two Mountain Indians and one from my pike command (or was it the other way around?).  This was a total sweep, but definitely not in the direction I expected.

Although my plans were not well defined, were very direct instead of subtle, and were primarily a reaction to JM’s deployment, they ended up working.  Some of this was luck: early on, I got the PIPs I needed to push out of the woods on my right flank, and I won several crucial combats that could have turned the tables if I had lost.

On the other hand, my deployment and maneuvering supported my plan.  I never felt like I was in a hurry on my right flank: I had the time I needed to turn his flank instead of walking into his angled line and splitting my elephants up, and I was confident that flanking would be the better maneuver.

I enjoyed seeing how the “grand battle” unfolded in this game, as it usually does in BBDBA.  I liked this army composition a lot more than I expected.  I’ve been sick of playing with or against Alexander in normal DBA lately, and I previously considered the Mountain Indian ally to be a compromise based on what I had on hand instead of a useful complement to fill Alexander’s deficiencies.

Thanks for a great game, JM!  I’m sorry you lost, but someone had to do it.  But since you lost, you probably learned more than I did, so I expect you to start beating me soon.

BBDBA Before-Action Report: Alexander vs. Darius

 JM and I have a BBDBA game tomorrow night. He’ll be playing my triple Later Achaemenid Persian (II/7) army, and I’ll be playing double Alexandrian Imperial (II/15) with Mountain Indian ally (II/2).  He has written up his plans in a blog post, only to be revealed after we play, so I suppose it’s only fair that I should do the same.

My prediction is that my pike block will walk forward slowly while my elephants mill around without enough PIPs to move, and JM’s large cavalry wing will flank me and roll up my line.  What a way to think positively, eh?

I told JM my army selection ahead of time.  Alexander will bring elephants and auxilia, giving a total of: 4xKn (gen), 2xLH, 2xEl, 12xPk, 2xAx, 2xPs.  The Mountain Indians will be led by a light horse general and won’t take any heavy foot, providing: 3xLH (gen), 5xAx, 4xPs.  The choice of armies is based mostly on availability, but I think the Mountain Indians will provide some useful bad-going support.

In response, JM has given me his army composition, which as far as I can tell is what I’ve chosen in the past: 2xLCh, 7x3Cv, 6x2LH, 9x4Sp, 3x3Ax, 9x2Ps.  On one hand, it’s the best choice given the elements available; on the other hand, I painted them all based on what I thought I’d field, so there isn’t a lot of flexibility here.

Other than knowing what I did with the Persians last time I played with them, this is as far as my Deep Thought has gone so far.  Before I play, I need to decide a few things: how to split up my Alexandrian commands, and what the commands’ missions are likely to be (depending on the Persian deployment).  JM will most likely be placing terrain, unless he wastes his 6-1 split on the terrain roll, so I am not going to concern myself with the prospect of deploying terrain, just yet.

Dividing my commands should be a bit easier for me, since I have only two armies that can combine forces with high/low PIP dice, and an ally who must act as a separate 12 element command.  All else being equal, the best divisions give each command a number of elements indivisible by three, so they must lose one additional element before they’re reduced by 1/3 and break.

Since each command needs at least 6 elements, the options are: 7/17, 8/16, 10/14, or 11/13.  Typically, large pike blocks don’t need a large number of PIPs to maneuver, they just need to run really fast.  I expect JM, with more recent Pike experience, might disagree with this assessment, but I’m going to run with it anyway; because in comparison, elephants need many PIPs to move at all and knights need enough PIPs to stay alive after the first round of combat.

Dividing commands and deciding on the strategy to use are tightly coupled.  I’d like to deploy my Pike in three blocks of four with psiloi joining them, for added maneuverability.  There’s basically nothing in JM’s army that can consistently face two ranks of pike in the open over the long haul, but he has plenty of ways to delay them and make them ineffective.  There’s no money in my pike trying to kill off his mounted wing, so if I want to win with them I’ll need to point them at the spears and push hard.  They can do a great job of delaying his mounted wing, but that would be hard to get him to agree to.  I’d also like a Knight general with the pikes, both to fill gaps and to possibly punch a hole somewhere important.

How will he deal with my Elephants?  He can either outmaneuver them, or try to delay or overwhelm them with psiloi or auxilia.  He may need his auxilia to protect the flank of his spears, and a few Psiloi to support the spears and auxilia.  This leaves him with about 5 free psiloi.  The elephants can’t kill psiloi, but knights can.  I’m inclined to face him with a block of Kn-El-Kn-El-Kn so his Psiloi can’t find safe footing against the elephants.  This will also work well against his mounted contingent, since they also don’t want to face elephants or knights.

The main question now is, how should I divide the commands for greatest effect?  I think it would make most sense to put the pikes in the larger command, but give them the low PIP die.  I think I’m leaning towards this option:

  • C-in-C high pip command with 3xKn (gen), 2xEl, 2xLH, 4xPk
  • Low pip command with 1xKn (gen), 8xPk, 2xPs, 2xAx
  • Allied command with 3xLH (gen), 5xAx, 4xPs

Unless I take some pike in the C-in-C command, I’ll drain off all the light support which will suck even more PIPs from the C-in-C.  The downside is, the pike block wants one PIP every turn; but I can maneuver them separately from the rest of the pikes since they can’t group anyway.

The allied command is quite strong against Persians.  The psiloi-backed auxilia can face some Persian mounted in the open if necessary, and can hold bad going.

I feel like Persia’s mounted wing has the potential to overwhelm mine, or occupy it and turn my flank.  He has 15 mounted, and I have only 11.  My elephants and knights are stronger, but I have a higher proportion of light horse, and they can’t coordinate their attack as well.  He’s also more maneuverable.  Overall I’ll have a shorter line with my double-ranked pike, but maybe I can extend it by strategic placement of single ranks.  I can also attempt to take advantage of terrain to funnel him and prevent him from using the full width of his army.

Most likely, JM will deploy terrain and set up 2 commands first.  I’m not going to try to guess JM’s terrain deployment, but I expect he’ll attempt to protect one flank with terrain and leave the other as open as possible for his mounted wing.

I am guessing JM will have to deploy his mounted wing early since it’ll likely contain his C-in-C.  This will somewhat reduce my ability to bluff without being obvious, because if I leave an obvious flank open by his mounted, he’ll either have to go after it or risk a trap.  If it were an option, I’d consider placing my pikes opposite his spears but with a flank open to his mounted.  My Kn/El block would be at the edge of his spears, and the Indians further down the line.  In practice, the pikes would turn to face the flank with a narrower frontage and try not to lose, while the Kn/El pounced on his spears.  The Indians would try to turn his other flank.

This would be a risky attempt to deny his mounted flank.  But he’s much more maneuverable, and his light horse quick kills my pikes while I have no second rank bonus.  So I don’t think that’s such a good idea.

My ideas have run out.  I’m tired, my laptop battery is running low, and tomorrow night I’ll be almost as tired by the time we start.  Hopefully my thought ahead of time will be enough to let me run on intuition once the game actually starts.

I plan to publish this as soon as the game is over or maybe only after it’s started; the after-action report might have to wait a while.

Essex Arab Camp

If I remember correctly, this is Essex part number TT9: Tent with fire, seated Arab leader with two bodyguards.  I painted it for my Arab Conquest army.  The fire has a pile of sticks with two plates next to it; on one plate is a chunk of food (meat?  let’s pretend) and a knife.

The tent is tiny, only as high as the seated leader.  It’s certainly not a general’s campaign tent in most armies I’d know, or a stereotypical arabian merchant’s tent.

However, the cloth sculpting on the tent is excellent.  It took drybrushing very well.  I’m happy with how this camp and camp followers turned out; I might even like it better than the army itself.

Historicon 2010: DBA Plans

Assuming everything goes according to plan, I’ll be going to Historicon this year. Unfortunately I missed the pre-registration period; they seem to have changed things a lot since I last went to an HMGS convention 6 years ago.

For the non-DBA events, I won’t know what I’m playing until I start the game most of the time, because I won’t get to pre-register many events.  But all of the DBA events I’m playing in either have unlimited seats or I’ve already reserved my place because they don’t use the HMGS registration system.  The Historicon DBA schedule is on the fanaticus forums.

And now I give away all my precious meta-game information.

Thursday, July 8th, 7pm: Splendor of Persia.  I’ll be playing III/25b: Arab Conquest with the bow option.

Thursday, July 8th, 11pm: Midnite Madness. I’ll probably keep playing Arab Conquest, since I only expect to last one round anyway, so it’s hardly worth unpacking another army.

Friday, July 9th, 7pm: Cruel Tyrants: Assyrian Dominance and Fall, 745 BC — 612 BC.  I’ve decided to take my Early Bedouin, I/6c, instead of Skythians since I’ll be playing another light horse army on Saturday.

Saturday, July 10th, 9am: Not the NICT. This will be my second matched pair tournament. I want to minimize the number of armies I’m bringing, so I’m considering taking Later Achaemenid Persians (II/7) versus Early Bedouin (I/6c).  If I use the auxilia/psiloi options for the persians, the armies will have very similar compositions. The Persians will have one more mounted while the Bedouins have camels instead of horses, but otherwise they’re the same.

Saturday, July 10th, 4pm: The Baltic Crusades.  I’m quite looking forward to participating in one of the Two Davids campaign games.  I’ve signed up for the Mongol Conquest IV/35, and I can’t see any reason not to take the artillery option.

That’s all I have planned so far.  This leaves my days open before dinner on Thursday and Friday, but Saturday’s full except for a small block in the afternoon.  I’ll have to eat a big lunch before Baltic Crusades, and maybe hit the vendors and flea market.

Game Review: Dominion: Alchemy

Everyone I’ve played Dominion with has really enjoyed it, including Marla and even Martine.  With the proper card selection Martine (at age 6) has no problem finishing games with the full rules, and has even been known to beat grownup opponents.

The first two expansions, Intrigue and Seaside, both add a good selection of cards to the game without changing the flavor very much.  I had high hopes for the third expansion, Dominion: Alchemy, when Andy brought it over to try it out.  Unfortunately, I don’t like it very much yet.  My opinion of the cards might improve if I play it more, but this expansion is different than the previous ones and I’m not sure I like that difference.

As anyone who has read my previous review knows, the basic game play in Dominion is to use the resources in your deck of cards to buy more cards for that deck.  As you cycle through your gradually improving deck, you hope to collect enough victory cards to be ahead when the game ends.  Cards can be actions, which do things; treasure, which is used to buy more cards; or victory cards, which do nothing (but are required to win).

There are many different effective strategies, and they vary a lot based on the cards available and how you use them.  Despite these wide differences, it’s still possible to categorize the basic action strategies into two broad categories.  I’ll call them “Action Combo” and “Utility Action” strategies.

With an Action Combo strategy, you buy many action cards, and depend on playing a big tree of actions each turn in order to cull the treasure out of your deck.  Since you have so many action cards, adding a few more victory cards isn’t a big deal, so it’s not always important to concentrate on the highest point value victory cards.  Action Combo decks often take long turns and end up with a large portion of the deck in play each turn, even late in the game.

A Utility Action strategy uses a low proportion of action cards in the end-game deck, and doesn’t rely on the use of a lot of actions each turn in order to win.  Instead, the deck concentrates on acquiring many high value treasure cards, and uses a few action cards to improve the chances of drawing big hands of cash to buy high value victory cards.  In this strategy it is important to concentrate on the highest value victory cards, so you don’t dilute your deck.

It’s possible to win with both of these strategies.  It can be a lot more fun to play with an Action Combo strategy, because you get to do a lot more on each of your turns even when you’re losing.  However, I usually end up playing with a Utility strategy.  I sometimes win the game with only 4 or 5 action cards total, but with many Gold and Silver treasure cards and a stack of Provinces.

(One strategy I enjoy a lot with the basic set is to buy a Smithy and a Silver in the first run through the deck. I often end up buying Gold on the second through the deck and Provinces on the 3rd and 4th runs through.  It’s very fast, but it can stall unless you build up enough treasure and actions to get you through the clumps of Victory cards.)

In the basic set, Intrigue, and Seaside, almost all of the card effects have varying degrees of synergy with each other, but there is only one card I can think of (Seaside’s Treasure Map) which requires another specific card in order to be useful.  Even Treasure Map only requires another copy of the same card in order for you to play it. Other action cards allow you to build interesting combos, but they combine with a many other cards and almost all of the actions are useful by themselves.

The Alchemy card set is different, because of the existence of the Potion card.  Potion is a new kind of treasure. Most of the other Alchemy cards require a potion to purchase them, and many of the actions are more beneficial if you have a Potion in play (that is: if you just used it to buy something). 

Since most of the cards in the Alchemy set require a card combo in order to use them at all, it tends to push you towards using certain strategies.  In order to get any Alchemy cards you need a Potion, but once you have a Potion you need to use it enough to justify its cost (both in treasure and the space it takes in your deck) since it won’t buy you many victory points.  Overall, this expansion guides you into using an Action Combo strategy. 

Yes, there are cards available that let you trade in one card for something else, which would let you turn a Potion into something useful after you’re done with it.  But I don’t find these Remodel cards to be very useful.  Why would I buy a card I don’t want, buy another card that can turn it into something else, hope I draw them both, and then spend an action to change one into another, when I could just buy the card I wanted in the first place?  Again, the result is an Action Combo strategy.

The main problem I have with Alchemy is that it doesn’t provide very many cards that support a Utility Action strategy (with some notable exceptions).  In practice, this isn’t very limiting for me, because typically you use cards from otehr sets along with the Alchemy choices, and I can almost always find a useful Utility strategy using only those.  But then I’m not using the Alchemy cards, which makes them a bit of a waste for me.

Overall, I’d definitely play Dominion with Alchemy cards, but it probably wouldn’t be my first choice.  I do want to play more games to get used to the cards and figure out how I can use them more effectively.  I also think it’s worth it for me to play with a set that forces a combo strategy occasionally, just for a change of pace. But I’m pretty sure I won’t be buying Alchemy at least for a while, especially since Andy already has it.

DBA Army III/25b: Arab Conquest

Here is another Essex DBA army pack: III/25b: Arab Conquest.

The army is evenly split between mounted and infantry: a cavalry core is supported by warband and bows (or psiloi, if that’s the way you roll).  The army list I’m most likely to play is: 5x3Cv (gen), 1x2LH, 4x4Wb, 2x3Bw. 

I liked my color scheme until it became too montonous.  I intended to go primarily with offwhite/tan, grey-blue, and red, and fill the rest in with various browns. But when it came time to paint some shields, I was at a loss.  The brighter blue wasn’t too bad, but I think the green was a mistake.

Luckily I don’t have strong feelings about this army.  It took a while to get motivation to paint it, and now that it’s done I’m happy that it’s finished and not upset that it’s not what I’d prefer.

I used the same basing technique as on my Early Bedouin army.  The metal bases have a layer of spackle with sand dusted on top. Then I paint them with Vallejo Middlestone, followed by Yellow Tan and finally Buff.  It’s a bit weird, but it ends up working well especially after I apply the static grass patches in green and yellow.  I based the Bw, Ps, and LH elements prior to painting them, but based the Cv and Wb after they were painted.  Spraying with varnish keeps the sand in place before painting the bases, which is convenient.  However, overall I think the basing on these is a huge pain in the ass.  I’m not likely to continue with this technique in cases where I’ll be using grass-like flock over the entire base.  I’d prefer to do selected spots of dirt/sand on an otherwise grassy base.  It’s a lot less messy and requires less touchup than applying spackle to bases with already-painted figures.

I tried another new technique with these figures, and I’m very happy with the results.  The red tunics and head wraps are done with Vallejo Transparent Woodgrain, a dark maroon-red.  I applied this in a single coat over the white-primed figure, and it did an excellent job of darkening the shadowed areas while leaving the highlights lighter without any additional inking required.  Adding a bit of water to thin it out produced no ill effects.  This is truly a transparent (or translucent) paint: adding more layers of paint darkens the color significantly instead of reaching a final tone the color of the pigment.

If I were picky, I’d change a few things about this army:

  • I think the warbands would be better off using spears rather than swords
  • I’d research more appropriate colors
  • I’d look into the possibility that my cavalry stands should have mixed figures instead of identical figures on each base
  • Overall, the cavalry seem better suited for use in the Crusades period

However, I’m not picky.  Lucky me!

I still have an arab tent camp to paint, but otherwise this army is ready to bring to Historicon 2010.

Painting Workspace

Neldoreth started a thread on the Fanaticus forums about the workspace we use for painting miniatures.

My main workspace for painting miniatures and other modelling work is a nook in our attic dormer: probably 7’x8′ and 6′ high.  I use the rest of the attic for gaming space and general storage.

Points of interest in the first image include:

  • My paint shaker: a converted electric knife
  • O scale model railroad buildings destined for use as Malifaux terrain
  • Games Workshop boxes are good at catching excess flocking material
  • Elmer’s glue by the gallon? I may as well buy a horse.
  • Yes, there are other hobbies stored on the shelves.
  • The card table provides supplemental horizontal surface area, as well as a workspace when friends come over to paint and watch crappy movies.
  • Crayola Model Magic! It’s excellent for building hills and other terrain features out of a flexible, moldable 3D material.

It’s probably obvious that I lean towards the “a clean house is the sign of a misspent life” school of thought.  When I organize my workspace, it is almost always as I’m planning or about to start a new project, and not when I’m finished with the previous one.  Organizing my workspace and organizing my plans for the next project go hand-in-hand.  If I don’t need to put much thought into the next project, I also tend not to put much effort into preparing my workspace for its execution.

In the second photo:

  • This is an Ikea Jerker desk, one of the best computer desks made by man.  With independent height adjustment for the keyboard and monitor, this desk provided the best ergonomics available to mere mortals.  Luckily, with my adoption of a laptop and console gaming, I don’t need it for programming or gaming anymore.  The only downside of the Jerker is its lack of drawers.
  • Although I built a paint rack from MDF and pine, I obviously don’t use it as much as I could.  I’d benefit from a table top model instead of putting it against the back wall.
  • The only projects visible here are either not mine, or haven’t been worked on in years. 
  • Yes, I use inexpensive brushes in high volume, except for a few “special” brushes.
  • Craft paint is fine for terrain, grey, and black. Modern GW washes and Didi’s Magic Ink are good for shadows.  Other than that, I use Vallejo paints almost exclusively.
  • Yes, I have piles of unpainted figures.  The fact that you can’t see them is a good thing.

There you have it!  They aren’t the tools of the trade, because this is no trade.  They’re the tools of fun!