Old stuff...

All right, here we go. New year, new post.

The stuff is old, though: Alternative Armies' Firefight 1.0 ruleset and line of miniatures.

I bought this game in the beginning of the 1990s, when it came out in France, That must have been 1991-1992. For some reason the game was translated to French right upon production, or at least as far as I can tell quite early after it issued in Britain. The game was Mac Coxhead's brainchild, something he did for Alternative Armies before Flintloque. Paul Cockburn and Coxhead created the ruleset. Illustrations were by someone you should know: Pete Knifton, illustrator of the cover for the first Warhammer 40k book. Old school right there... Overall the book and the game have an amateurish feel that did not so much disturb then, but does today in comparison to the standards this industry has reached. But Rogue Trader was also an amateurish product, hastily put together. Who cared back then?

In my local group the game was an absolute bust. Nobody played it. Moving to another town, eventually to Paris then out of France, I never met anyone or played with anyone who would know of the game. Eventually the book and minis ended in moving boxes and on a shelf in the basement.

Funilly enough, when Alternative Armies decided to put up a website, a section was kept with some of Firefight's minis. It also documented the game's setting: the Ion Age, a futurist space opera setting where the Human Free Companies defend Human settlements against a conglomerate of alien races dominated by the mysterious Shia Khans. Eventually the company developed a 15 mm game, a 6 mm game, then recently a couple of 28 mm games in the same setting. And they seem to have other plans. Coxhead has passed under the radar, mine at least, after a stint with a Scotland-based company called Maveryc. They produced a game and a range of minis set in a Weird Fantasy Roman Age Germany. I bought some of their minis, Halflings as a matter of fact. Not my finest moment. They were cheap, and they went right to the pan when I needed white metal to cast something else. Those were the roughest minis I ever owned, cluttered, lacking detail... The setting had potential, but now Maveryc's website seems to be on hold. End of story, I guess.

But Firefight remains. The game has flaws but also lots to go for it.

First things first: to play with minis on ilustrated cardboard tiles divided in squares regulating ranges and movements is just not, to me, a satisfying idea. It simplifies the game, for sure, making the calculation of ranges, the movements and such easier to organize. But miniatures standing on illustrated cardboard is not what I look for in a game of toy soldiers. The gamemakers seem to acknowledge that by presenting on the backcover of the book a picture of the minis set on a normal table-top scenery. So, yeah... Forget it.

I thought the range of minis was for the most part nice. Firefight, like 40k, is a product of its time. It comes in the middle of the 1980s-1990s Britain-wide bubbling of gamers, sculptors, painters, game concepters. A "British spring" in tapletop wargaming, that created a generation of creators moving between their garage/backyard shed/basement, various small workshops, and a few big companies: Games Workshop, Reaper, Wargames Foundry, etc. Jervis Johnson and Rick Priestley are the best-known of this generation, but there are several others. Both in its ruleset and minis, Firefight documents this specific timeframe, the early 90s.

Some of ths minis show their age, for sure, and have a distinct 80s British feel to it. There are sculpting flaws, the details are cluttered, chunky, sometimes a bit rough. But to me most of the range has aged very well, especially the Levy soldiers, the Crusaders, and the Khan legionnaires. Those stand the comparison with current standards, especially I would say the Khan legionnaires.

Most of the range was Gary Morley's work, especially the Crusaders, power armoured veterans of the Free Companies. Some of the models, especially the Khan infiltrators and Goblins, are obviously the work of Bob Olley. Those would be for me some of his best early sculpts. Olley is very hit-or-miss for me, but this is good work. I could swear that Marc Copplestone sculpted a few ones as well, especially some Khan legionnaires, but I don't know for sure.

Anyway, overall this is good work. Here pictures of two crusaders, a Templar officer, and a Khan legionnaire.










As for the rules, there are lots of problems and things to change and clarify, but I liked the ruleset's basic system. Each mini gets basic characteristics, modified by its equipment (Move, Ranged, Melee), then skills that give them modifiers (Assault specialist, etc). The turn would start with one activated mini, who would choose an action (move, move and fire, aimed fire, sustained fire, melee etc) for the turn. Depending on the action, a mini would throw a number of D6 equal to its characteristic used for the action: to move, for example, a Goblin would throw 5 dice, his Move characteristic. Armed with an Amber lightsword, a light assault weapon, he would add 1 dice. Armed with Sandpiper heavy weapon, he would soustract 2 dice.

Of the results, 1s would be dodges, 6s attacks, others general actio dices. This rule of thumb would be modified by the action taken and battlefield conditions to give the mini its options. Different actions would force you or give you the possibility to rethrow dodges or attacks. Then, another mini from the same player would be activated, etc. Once a mini's actions are done, the mini has the possibility to keep some dices, mostly dodges, next to it in order to resist the enemy's actions. The basic turn would be interrupted by various ambush-type actions. When a mini would shoot another mini, this mini would be forced to activate, choose an action, etc. Generally the attacked mini would try to get as much dodges as its attacker did attacks, in order to cancel those. It could also attack its attacker, providing it would get attack dices.

The system of 1s and 6s got me right from the start. Once you play, the system is simple, flexible and elegant. There is certainly an excessive randomness to it, and the normal round is easily disturbed, which clutters the game. There are dozens of problems in the way the rules are written. But through the clutter shines a nice and quick basic system for skirmish tabletop gaming. At some point in time I would like to write down a new version of it, without the floortiles, and with some clarifications to the system. Maybe, one day...

Well, now you know Firefight. I will post more painted figures from the range as I paint them, hopefully through the year.

Some pics of the game itself, with the unfamous floortiles:

Spring...

... and a new blog entry. My resolution for the year: one blog entry per season...

He. look out, ducks!

Something completely different indeed: the Mongoose publishing ducks for their edition of the mythic rolegame Runequest.

Runequest was the first rolegame I played, and I still have a soft spot for the setting, the world of Glorantha, and the BRP system. To me, it remains "the" rpg, the standard. After Runequest I stayed in the BRP world, playing Hawkmoon, Call of Cthulhu, Elric and so on.

So nothing to do with objectivity here: for me, Runequest, Glorantha and the Chaosium system are for ever linked to these wonderful first experiences of rolegaming. And Mongoose's version looks promising. I have bought the basic book so far, but with no time to play I cannot really judge the whole thing. To me, Mongoose has a reputation for shabby proofreading and rather messy rulesets. This has spoiled the fun of some of their games which I was ready to embrace otherwise.

But they decided to produce minis also, and they started with Ducks and Broos. Immediately things looked much brighter, and I had to buy the only box of ducks in the local shop. I came out, holding it to my chest under the laughs of the ignorant crowd: Ah! ducks! ridiculous!. Fools! :P

Ducks, or should I say Durulz, are Nobel-class unadultered genius, easily Greg Stafford's best idea ever. It shows Runequest at its best: as an inventive setting putting a nice twist on the classical fantasy "races", and creating its own. Plus, who would not like diminutive weaklings with a dark family secret and a past full of betrayal and mishief?

Two minis from the box:





The fighter is not based.

These are nice. The box is not too expensive, the sculpts are ok, devoid of glaring problems (seamlines very discrete, no flash...). They paint easily, and the sorcerer is a nice touch. I still have about half a dozen of those to paint. They will be perfect for playing with A Song of Blades and Heroes...

As an aside, the box seems to be impossible to find anymore. Most e-shops do not carry them, and they have disappeared from mongoose's site. ?-(

Small is beautiful

A quick post to put up two more "GUardsmen". Old GW (Citadel) "Space Dwarves" plastic minis, extensively remodelled to get more varied poses. Oldies, but definitively goodies. I am a squat fan, by the way...

Beauty, the Beast, and friends...

Intensive blogging days... More old school IG for the IG army. Mostly old GW imperial guard from the 1980s. Great stuff, with lots of character. The ogryn impersonnates a Heavy Weapon team of two guardsmen. I picked the idea from somewhere, just cannot remember at the moment where from... Ah, anyway. There you go. Pictures are dark and blurry, sorry. I need better light...

















And the army's big boss, Colonel Nathaniael Shatz.



This is one superb miniature. I hope I did it justice. The sculpt is just perfect.

More to come.

Where the wild things are...

In between painting ancient Greeks, I have been busy gathering an old school IG army as well. The idea was to pick everything vaguely sci-fish that is lying in my flat AND is not a Space Marines, and make an army of it for Warhammer 40k. That means quite a lot of old school IG, some tanks, and ... that:



I am the proud owner of a few of these old beastmen. I think they are old Grenadier or Ral Parha, and I bought them about 15 years ago. The series is now re-issued by a British company called Em4 miniatures. I do not know how they do that, but the sure thing is that I bought a lot of those. These are superb miniatures, with good detail and no flash. They remind me of Bob Olley's sculpting style. If it is indeed his handywork, then this is the very best he has done. I have often had difficulties with Olley's style, but this is just great.

Those guys will be added to the IG army as riflemen. The idea is to get an abhuman-human army, with ratlings, beastmen, ogryns and the like. Here is one more painted example, and a few waiting for paint.

Some ancient greek cavalry...

Then the Athenians, when they had learned that by inquiry, were coming to the rescue, even themselves, to Marathon and ten generals were leading them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades, whose father Cimon, Stesagores’ son, it had befallen to go in exile out of Athens from Peisistratus, Hippocrates’ son.
Herodotus


Ok, let's move on to Greek cavalry. My intention is to make an army for 490 BC, the period of the battle of Marathon. With an emphasis on the defense of Athens by the forces of mostly Athens and Platae.

At this time, Greek cavalry was an extremely limited affair, mostly with lightly armed skirmishers on light horses. Osprey and other sources show a very light cavalry, and I was tempted to represent mine as Thessalian light cavalry, as can be found in the Wargames Foundry ancient Greek range (BRWGA9: LIGHT CAVALRY). Those would be lightly armed horsemen wearing a specific headgear resembling a cow-boy hat. Osprey's "The Greek and Persian Wars" has a good depiction of what I want, plate G2. The plate depicts a Thessalian light cavalryman coming from the plains of Thessaly, in the North of Greece. These were mercenaries, and wore the typical chiton loincloth and a cloak. Armament was light, mostly javelins or spears. Their hat is particularly striking, with its wide brim and small crown.

With this in mind, I was not really satisfied with the various sets I had: Hat Thessalian cavalry, Zvezda or Hat Greek cavalry, etc. They tend to represent the cavalry of Alexander the Great during his conquests of Persia and the Caucasus. This armored, heavily armed cavalrymen often wore shields, which Greek cavalrymen of the Marathon period never used.
So I took the wonderful Zvezda horses (from the Alexander's cavalry set) and mixed them with Hat and Zvezda light infantrymen, plus a few bits and bobs. The results below:













You get the idea. As an aside, the Hat Alexander's light infantry set contains a wealth of material: I will most probably use those as well for Persian light subject infantry or mercenaries. A guy with a loincloth and a spear can be a Persian, a Greek, an Egyptian or something else all the same.

One problem is the saddles: Thessalian light cavalry rode bareback, without stirrups, but their horses had mouthpieces and reins. I was wondering about filing off the saddleclothes of the Zvezda horses, but Mr. Osprey told me that these cavalrymen sometimes used a piece of cloth called an ephippion to ride on. This is great, because the soft plastic these 1/72 figures are made of tends to melt or shred if you file it. This is messy business, and I was happy to let them as such.

I will do two units of those, counting as light cavalry in the Warmaster list. For heavy cavalry, always following Osprey, I will basically represent them as hoplites on horseback, without the shields.

Ok, more later.
Cheers.

PS. A few links on Greek cavalry and ancient Greek warfare taken from the Interweb. Between that and the Osprey books you already get a lot of information. I am ashamed as to how little I actually know about certain aspects of this period. Or, to be precise, I know more about the organization of Ancient Greek societies than about their military life. Well, never too late to learn.

• Some wikipedias on Ancient Greek warfare and Miltiades, the Greek commander in Marathon.
• A superb website full of black and white pictures related to Greece and especially ancient Greek sites. You will also find there the writtings of Herodotus, especially his depiction of the battle of Marathon. Very inspiring stuff...
• Robert E. Gaebel's "Cavalry Operations in the Ancient Greek World" and a book review of it giving you a good road map through the book
• A forum entry with drawings of hoplite shields' symbols (very useful for painters)
• And, because I can, the best book I have read so far on Ancient Greek civilization: L'aventure grecque, Pierre Leveque. Yes, it is in French.

Something old, something new...

New projects here, after a long and pleasant summer hiatus. I even got to play my robots once, in a 750 pts tournament over a week-end. It was the first time I played since April, so needless to say I was beaten several times during the week-end. Good games, though.
However, there has been much else going on in the last weeks: Imperial Guard for Warhammer 40k, Greeks and Persians for Warmaster Ancient, a group of Mongoose Publishing ducks for Runequest (a commercial link, sorry, I didn't find them from Mongoose's website), some Gauls and Romans for playing with GW's Lord of the Rings ruleset... Finally, an army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle... a special, odd one... green, for the most part. With robots. And giant constructs... Niak niak niak...

But let's start with Greeks and Persians for Warmaster Ancient Battles, the "operational" system of Warhammer Historical for 6-15 mm. I used to play Warmaster Fantasy version with Dwarves, and appreciated it a lot. The rules' most important notion is command: each leader has a command value, and you test for the capacity of these leaders to have their orders followed by their troops. Without orders the troops can act instinctively, fleeing, assaulting, etc. The game system is one of the best Games Workshop produced, and certainly one of the most elegant. It has problems, for example with recoils (troops under fire do not die easily, but they tend to get distressed and recoil. This is often very messy when you have lots of units together in a tight spot) and like Warhammer it tends to end up with a big bash in the middle of the field. It is a good game though, very well presented and easy to grasp. It is also a one-book game system: no need to buy codices or army books: lists, rules, everything fits in one book.

The Ancient and Fantasy versions share lots in common, but have a few differences. Especially, the historical version limits the number of orders you can give to the same unit or groups of units, hence limiting the number of time this unit will be able to move in the same turn. The historical version also gives a bigger role to skirmishers. Of course it still is a GW-product, so the "historicity" of the lists for example is more often than not debatable. But in the same way as in Warhammer Ancient Battles, the designers are very clear on that: the point is to play Warmaster with an historical feel, not to "re-enact" historical battles or aim at more than general accuracy. If you are ready to keep the little historian in you repressed for a few games, this is a very rewarding way to play with historical toy soldiers. It pays its respect to historical accuracy without letting it get in the way of a good game.

For me, it was mostly an excuse for taking a few plastic toy soldiers out of the cupboards. I have a long history with plastic 1/72 soldiers. These are the first "miniatures" i owned, and I still have extremely fond memories of a set of Vietnam era US Marines I bought back as a teen. Excellent stuff. Since then two companies especially have been putting out superb sets: Zvezda from Russia and Hat, an English company. I had Greek hoplites from both, so of we went for the Greek-persian wars.



Painting is very straightforward (references Vallego or Citadel). Black undercoat, then main colors Dark Fleshtone, Brazen Brass, Bleached Bone, Dark Green, etc. Dark basic colors. Then on that a first highlight color, then a second on the edges and tops. For white for example: Bleached bone, then pure white. For fleshtones: dark fleshtone, then dark fleshtone + bronzed flesh, then bronzed flesh.
I am preparing two 1000 points armies for the battle of Marathon period, one Persian and the other Greek. The models take the paint very well. Zvezda's miniatures have no flash to be mentioned, Hat a bit more. Zvezdas are a bit more ... chunky, big than the Hats, which are thinner. But they mix very well. The Hats do not have the spears included, but I did some with bristles from an old sweeper: works very well. The Hat figures have their shields in odd positions, but this is minor. For about 7 euros I get a box with, either 36 Zvezda hoplites, or 48 Hat mercenary hoplites. These are superb miniatures, with no flash, well sculpted, and easy to assemble. Enough said.





They are based on 60 mm * 20 mm strips of plasticard. Basing is also very simple: some joint filler paste, glue then sand in patches. Then the paint: basecoat GW Snakebite leather, then heavy drybrush with bleached bone and drybrush with pure white. Finally some static grass in patches. This makes a suitable dry looking landscape. Remember if possibe to paint light-colored bases, it makes the miniatures themselves appear bigger. A dark base will "suck" the color of the mini.

Following the instructions of the Warmaster Ancient rulebook, I enlarged the bases a bit to accomodate these bigger 20 mm. This means I will have difficulties to play these armies against other Warmaster-based armies on 40 mm * 20 mm bases. But this is not a problem as I don't intend to play these armies much outside friendly Persian-Greek fights.

Enough for today. Lots more where they come from, though... The only problem I met with Zvezda and Hat is with Greek Cavalry. I heavily modified the Zvezda Alexandrian cavalry set using Hat and Zvezda greek light infantry in order to reproduce the very light cavalry that was used by the Greeks in front of the Persian army. I will show those later.

For the information, I used three Osprey books (Ancient Greeks, Persian Army, and the Greek-Persian wars). The Ancient Greeks book is particularly useful, and beautiful too. Angus Mac Bride was definitely the best military illustrator of his generation. There is a vibrance in his drawings, real life, something lacking from the more academic illustrations of the two other books.
In the list of links, you will find the Plastic Soldier Review website and both Zvezda and Hat sites. PSR is an excellent website, full of information and updated at a staggering pace.

Yep, more on that and other projects later. Just a little hint as to the green mystery army...



LEFT! NO! RIGHT! YOU STOOPID!

Cheers.