Two Battles - Romans vs Celts

As promised, here are some pics of the recent games with my friends Jim and Adam. The window at the other end of the room made taking pics a bit tricky but hoprefully you'll enjoy the action.

Here's the deployment for the first game. Not too much in the way of scenery as we wanted to keep things simple for our first game of WAB2.0. Jim took charge for Rome and deployed carefully around the hill, whilst Ad became a hairy barbarian and made full use of the 6'x4' table width. Actually, I forgot that in a pitched battle the army must not deploy within 12" of the edge ... oh well, only the first of what proved to be quite a few forgotten rules!


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A close up of the Roman line.


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Some Ancient British who were very keen to take on the might of Rome.


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Watch out for the nudey-men!


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Here we are in turn 2 I think. The Roman ballista and bowmen had made very impact on the Celt lines as they rushed forwards. Even the Romans own Celt skirmishers decided they'd had enough. The chariots thundered into the right flank of the Romans but the line held firm.


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The chariots are beaten off whilst on the other flank some very brave light cavalry took on a large unit of Auxilia. The main line of Celts wavered a bit instead of getting stuck in.


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C-h-a-r-g-e!


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A turn or two later and we can see than the head on attack by some of the British was eventually repulsed at both ends of the line, but it was a close run thing.


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Another attack by the British but it fails to overwhelm the Romans.


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Near the end of the game and things got a bit complicated. However the disciplined staying power of the Romans carried the day! It was a close game and very enjoyable.


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Battle number two and a Roman supply column has been ambushed by a strong British force.


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Sensibly, the Romans all headed for one half of the Celt army.


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Now, apologies 'coz I forgot to take any more pics of this battle but I can assure you that it was rather one-sided. The Romans thrashed one half of the Celt army before the other could cross the table. After that it was clear the Romans had soundly beaten off the ambush.

All good fun, though the first game was by far the best. Scenarios are tricky things to get right.

We were playing WAB2.0 but in reality it was more a mixture of WAB1.5 and 2.0. Hey - I did only get the rules a few days before!

Latest Painting ... EIR and Celts

I've been fairly busy with the brush recently, mainly because this weekend I have friends visiting for a relaxing weekend of chatting, wargaming, beer and good food. We'll also be trying out the new WAB2.0 rules for the first time!

One of the games I'm running will be an ambush scenario where the Celts take on a Roman supply column. This means I'll need some "baggage". So here's the pack horses. There's also a wagon on to which I'll put some boxes and barrels.


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The horses were painted by my wife using her drybrush/highlight technique, rather than the dip.

The cart horse is still to be painted but here's the wagon. Sprayed white white a coat of Foundry Tan then dipped. Metals parts are GW Black followed by GW Mithril Silver.


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In order to quickly get a fourth cohort of Romans ready I ordered another sprue from Warlord and painted/dipped them.


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You may notice a few veterans in the group. To avoid the 'heavy armour' look I painted the arm armour (I forget its proper name - doh!?) as if it were cloth. Looks ok to me.

Here's a close up of the command group. Obviously I need to add the shields.


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Now for some more Celts...

Please do not adjust your set! It's a 15mm Essex Celtic Chariot. Had the figure for a while and just wanted to see what it would look like with a quick paint job and some dip.


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The other side.


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Here's the start of a unit of fanatics. Quite a mix of manufacturers - the leader (holding a severed head) is a Warlord model. The two figures either side are the GB naked fanatic command group, whilst the other three figures are from Essex.


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A close up of the command group.


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Whilst at Essex minis I also picked up these Celt slingers.


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I'll post up scenarios, battle reports and pics of the games as soon as I can find the time.

Wargame-o-meter #5

Well... WAB2.0 is in the post (hopefully!) so it's time for another look at my wargaming agenda.

Sort of a joint 1 and 2 really as I have some old friends visiting in less than 2 weeks and I'm planning a few reasonably large games of WAB, mainly Romans vs Barbarians. I promise to post pics and battle reports after they've visited!?

1) Celts
Busily getting a few more fanatics and three Gripping Beast chariots completed. Seems to be taking ages! This army is going to look huge and I'm really pleased with it so far. For me the dip was really the only way I'd ever have painted an army of Celts.

2) Early Imperial Romans
Now have around 1,750pts ready, that is, according to the EIR list in WAB1.5 so things may change. Ordered some extra plastic troops from Warlord and dipped them. These will do fine until I catch up with properly painted metal.

3) Age of Chivalry & HYW English
Whoosh - from out of almost nowhere good King Hal and his merry men burst on the top 5. Why you may ask ... ? It's all Bernard Cornwell's fault... again. I've been listening to Harlequin whilst painting and it's got me thinking about my HYW English army. If I could just find the energy to finish off a few more archers and men-at-arms then my old Bretonnian army can ride again. Hmmm ... perhaps I can persuade Jim to sort out some HRE opponents :-)

4) Ancient Scenery
I haven't made any noteworthy scenery for ages which is a pity because it's good fun and (if you'll pardon my immodesty) usually looks quite good. So I've started hoarding Pringle tubes and gravy tubs with the vague idea of building a Celtic farmstead or village.

5) Age of Arthur
Still hanging in there ... I even managed to undercoat some figures. Also, my order from North Star arrived with a pack of Armoured Romano-Brit spearmen and they're superb!

As I said above, a proper post with pics of games and such like will follow in a few weeks.