Song of Arthur and Merlin - Ambush at the Forge

Mordred had sent forth his Knights. Looking to take down Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

A quick and bloody affair using Song of Arthur and Merlin.

Sir Kay and Sir Bors de Ganis were at Wendels forge, the pack mule had thrown a shoe which was slowing their journey to Camelot.

Approaching from the East and West were a group of Mordred's Knights looking to take down two of King Arthur's finest.

Arthur's Knights had to hold on. If they could light the Beacon the Town Guard would be called out which would drive off Mordred's Knights.  The only near by help were Sir Palomedes and Sir Pelleas who were manning the town gate. Would 4 Knights be enough?

Good and Evil faced off against each other. Sir Kay picked up his heavy axe and readied himself for war..... Wendel was less convinced of victory and volunteered to head off and light the warning beacon, skirting across the field.

Sir Palomedes and Sir Pelleas rushed down the track from the town only to be ambushed by a number of Mordred's Knights. 

As Sir Kay carved through the evil warriors at the forge poor old Wendel's son was hacked down, these Knights really were evil.

Sir Palomedes was beaten to the ground as he fought two attackers.

But Sir Pelleas enraged by the loss of his brother Knight took out two of his attackers and with Mordred's Knights down to only three and the Blacksmith cresting the hill, the dark Knights left the field. 

A fun affair with lots of 'eavy' metal on the table... the Song of Blades and Heroes mechanism makes for a fun game. The Good Knights were hindered by their chivalry having to let their enemies stand up and being unwilling to double up in any melee... Something the lesser evil knights did not have to worry about.

A long way to go before the Knights have enough chivalry points to go on a quest for the grail.

Old Hammer Chaos Knights.... Excalibur

The last sword and shield outings got me thinking about revisiting my own medieval type encounters.

Thanks to good friend of mine - I am now the proud owner of 6 additional Chaos Knights a perfect addition to the dark knights for Excalibur project which first landed on the table a year ago.....

I suspect these were from the original Citadel Miniatures range from the 1980's. Which morphed into Games Workshop, the rest as they say is history.

These were a pleasure to paint and look suitably evil armed with large axes and huge broadswords, with very few skulls and like which later GW sculpts went on to add on to many of the range.

Merging them with the others Mordred now has quite the force. 

Time for some proper eavy metal.......

Dispatches from the front XXII - Projects old and new.

A rather eclectic mix of games and projects.

First up club night and over at the Wyvern's a 4 player Stargrave outing, using anything we can get our hands on, just simply turn up and play.

One of the chaps dug out the Core Space playing board, despite it only being 2x2 it did make a fun encounter with lots of laser blasts and Aliens popping out of the walls and floors. Warlords Algoryn took the bragging rights on the night.

Meanwhile the Visitors from the 4th planet from the Sirian Star make hard work of picking off the local inhabitants.

After months of nagging I finally relented and let my young nephew play with the grown up toys. King Arthur has to travel the table visiting various way points picking up recruits and defeating any nasty's along the way. We picked Songs of Blades and Heroes as a great introduction to proper gaming. 

My young padawan  picked up the rules really quickly, even if  he did play fast and loose with the measuring stick :-) After slaying numerous enemies.... Arthur was victorious.

I fear I have created a monster.

A fun encounter besides it gave me the excuse to finish off a couple of odds and ends such as the Warbases Gibbet and the mighty Excalibur stuck firmly in a stone. 

Having given the Sudan a well overdue outing I saw a post of on Tales From GHQ: The Battle of Tettenhall Green with an excellent game of The Very British Civil War. It's been a long while since Worcester was a flame... so maybe time for another outing.

With the King residing in the County at Madresfield Court, Worcester has stuck to it's long held motto of "Civitas in bello et pace fidelis" - The City Faithful in War & Peace. The City maintains a moderate pro government stance with reluctant support from the regular royalist forces and local Worcester City police.

Whilst largely peaceful as the crisis in the country unfolds a number of opposition groups have sprung up, notably armed elements from the Severn Riverside, Wharf, Labours Federation (SRWLF) with an enclave in the Diglis area. This group is supported by communists out of Birmingham and armaments being shipped over the Malvern's from the Anglican's based in Hereford. 

Just need to find where I packed the figures away now.

That's an old project now for a new one - Coming soon in May.

For years I fancied turning the excellent Standard Games - Outremer/Cry Havoc game to miniatures, with the new Baron's War range it might just make it to the table.

Until next time.....

Dispatches from the front XXI - The Butterfly Awakes.

A few weeks since the end of the holiday period and a couple 'additional' purchases that did not appear from the Christmas wish list.

I am not sure if it's the time of year or the fact that I am coming to the end of the Pony Wars Project with all the metal based and undercoated if I get them complete and the buildings by April I will have completed the entire project in 12 months now that is a record for me.

I have been distracted by thoughts of several fresh projects...... Idle hands and a Paypal War chest? ;-)

It started with the unboxing and a couple of games Undaunted: North Africa a cracking game and really well balanced, you need to apply the specialists in the right roles to ensure proper tactics pay off. Unlike the Normandy version this one is based on single figures and of course it led to the inevitable conversation about converting it to miniatures, after all I was looking for an opportunity to use my desert terrain a little more and Perry Miniatures have some lovely castings.

Game 1 - The scout was quick to clear the tiles ahead opening up the board for the demolition expert to destroy the plane and lorry before the Italians could stop them although there were some hairy moments when he was pinned on the open runway trying to plant the explosives.

Game 2 - The LRDG faced the might of the Italian Armour and the Boyes Rifle simply did not have the punch to kill the damn thing. The fascists were soon stripped of their supporting Infantry but the Allies had a risky time trying to dodge the mobile pill box as they attempted to destroy the fuel dump.

I could seriously be tempted in some figures for this especially as the figure count is rather low.

I picked up a copy of Silver Bayonet designed for Napoleonic monster hunting convincing myself that I would not any further figures (who am I trying to kid) as I have French for both Haiti and Egypt both regions lend themselves to monster folk lore. Could Claude Canard make a come back?

The rules are well produced and well polished in a format similar in style to Frost/Star Grave.

Next thing you know I am thinking about Russians and pinching some of the elements of the faction for the Russo Japanese War, which allow me to utilise some of my Water Margin collection besides who doesn't everyone need a hopping Vampire?

A restock from Foundry they were advertising a range of discounts on orders over £50 unfortunately paints were excluded which was a shame as I would have topped up the order to bring up to the first threshold so for once held back on knee jerk purchases :-)

Expensive postage and duty aside, I picked up an excellent Brain Bug for Starship Troopers. The Mongoose original has being going for in excess of £75.00 so this variant on Etsy was a great proxy. 

Good communication from AlieCatCraftsnStuff who scaled it down to 25mm scale.

Meanwhile as Covid starts to retreat again, it was nice to get some club time in.

I had an outing over to the Wyre Forest Club and had an excellent game of  Blucher, thanks to Neil for putting the game on and and Daniel my French opponent. A close run thing down to the very last turn.

On the right flank my Austrian Cavalry Corp ran into French Infantry which were surprisingly tough to drive from their defensive positions.

Meanwhile the French cavalry rode down the Austrian guns before exhausting themselves on the massed ranks of Austrian Line.

A great game mechanism and allows for some great master strokes across the table.

Over at the Wyverns another Arthurian outing using Song of Blades and Heroes this time Romano Britain's looking to turn back the Saxon raiders.

Quite the battle with a number of gory deaths messing up both sides formations and massed archery felling several of the armoured Britain's.

Until next time....

The first game of the year - The Hunt for Morgana

Nice to start to get back into the swing of things.... and an attempt to play with all the freshly painted toys more quickly. First up an outing for Song of Arthur and Merlin from the Ganesha Games stable, the perfect rule set for a quick evening game. 

The Arthur and Merlin rules are a great set covering the classic Arthurian folklore through to the Celtic/Welsh King and that of Romano-British, so plenty to choose from.

I picked the High Medieval setting for this outing and following the Excalibur movie timeline with which portrays Morgana as King Arthur's half sister and Mordred Arthur's illegitimate son... 

On with the game.

Morgana slipped out of Camelot taking a young Mordred with her, Arthur set out with several of his knights to bring her back. Morgana reached the village of Galeford closely following by Arthur she was looking to hide in the village hoping to wait out until her own knights arrive at the village.

To make things interesting I hid 6 tokens within the central buildings, Morgana was marked on one counter so neither of us knew where she is hiding.

Morgana was able to beguile a number of villagers to hopefully hold off Arthur and his knights whilst her own Knights appeared to whisk her away. She was not able to activate until found by either side.

The points per side were even by Morgana was a Q2+ Legendary Wizard and at 260 points 8 times the host of a lowly Knight.

The knights advanced to the cross roads clattering into the village strong men. One of the intriguing part of the rules is the Chivalry rule, which rewards good acts, such as not striking a fallen enemy, but loses chivalry points for acts like ambushing there opponent. On when Knights achieved a set number of points could they take part in a quest and in our games then would be given a name and greater character skills.

It turns out Arthurs knights are really good at seek and Morgana was rubbish at hiding, found in the first building in a filthy stable of all places.

Overcoming the shame of it hiding in a stable, she was able to slip out of the grip of the advancing knight and was now protected by an evil warrior, whilst another of Arthur's knights was engaged by a local villager.

In the centre of the table, the villages were defeated, an evil knight encountered Sir Galahad, the only named Knight in Arthurs ranks who bettered his counterpart striking him dead. +1 Chivalry Point.

Morgana and Mordred ran for the outskirts of the village but was surrounded by Knights, despite one of her villagers taking down one of Arthur's men she was unable to escape.

A great first game, Arthur gained a Chivalry point, so to did Sir Galahad. However one of his knights could not help himself and struck a fallen opponent losing a point. 

Could he be turned to the darkness?

More games to follow......

Excalibur - Arise Sir Boorman.

How about that for influence. 

A mere month since I started a small project to recreate Excalibur for Songs of Blades and Heroes than the director John Boorman is knighted for services for film.

Thanks to everyone who helped me track down the Mordred and Morgana castings. Buried deep in the Minifigs catalogue it was almost a quest in itself. They are however lovely castings and have captured the movie brilliantly.

L-R (Wilderness) Lancelot, King Arthur. Mordred and Morgana.

Mordred with spear in hand and Morgana ready to cast her evil spells.

Good King Arthur and his trusty Champion Lancelot back from self imposed exile.

Morgana and the child Mordred - Merlin's see's the future.

Mordred masses his forces looking to over throw King Arthur.

The Knights of the Round Table stand firm against the forces of darkness.

The scene is set for the final battle at Camlann, will Mordred win and seize Excalibur and the Crown.

Looking forward to getting these on the table for some quick evening games and a quest or two.