~ Basic Impetus Tourney – Friday

As many of you know that follow this blog (all 2 of you?) I spent a good deal of time over the last month building an army for the Basic Impetus tournament and it was Friday morning first thing that the mighty army of Eumenes (one of Alexander’s successors after his death,) took the field.  Chris brought a 5th century Pictish army to the field.

The Tournament was a three round affair and though we got started a little later than planned, the games began to roll by quick.

My First game was against a SARGONID ASSYRIAN 680-609 BC army.  This army has a unit of chariots, some cavalry, and some descent infantry and missile troops… and a couple of flanking skirmishers.  I rolled as the defender so I set up as I had planned, Heavy Cavalry to the Left Flank, Medium on the right. My Phalanx’s of Pikemen in the center, screened by the skirmishers, and the medium infantry in reserve.  Solid plan I thought.  To my left a gentle hill and to my right, closer to the Assyrians, a steep hill (we ruled it impassible.)  From my left to right, my opponent had set up his skirmishers, missile troops, guards, and chariots.  To my extreme right he set his cavalry in route around the impassible terrain in an attempt to flank me.

The First Moves

The game started out good as both sides advanced.  I sent my medium cavalry out to meet his soon to be flanking horses.  As we closed in on range he began toopen fire with missile weapons and soon brought disorder throughout my ranks.  Soon my Skirmishers fled, my heavy cavalry suffered great losses and did not move forward (I wanted to try to remove the disorder marker,) but my medium cavalry took a great stand against his cavalry and held them to a choke point where he could not advance further.

There used to be some Cavalry to the left - but at least the Chariots are avoiding the Pikes.

By the time all of my pikemen reached his lines they were weak and disordered and in no time, the army fled the battle to return again next round.  I had managed to not take out a single unit of my enemy so my score was now a whopping – Zero.

As the second game rolled around, the 6th player arrived so we now had a third table playing albeit a game behind.  Chris’s picts had lost their grueling battle at the river so as it turns out we fought each other next.

Chri's Picts vs. The Persians - I managed not to get any photos of our battle

I swapped sides of the table I had just lost on, but now there was a pesky lump of trees added to my right flank (which had been added between rounds.)  I had the honor of setting up first yet again and now that I had a much smaller area to do so in I placed my phalanx of pikes in the center as before with the skirmishers screening yet again.  My Heavy cavalry however set up to head left and move to flank around the impassible terrain such as my last opponent tried while the medium set up in reserve hoping to punch out once the infantry pushed past the tree-line.  Chris as the attacker sent everything in at me in a reverse V.  As the game began and I struggled to get out of my deployment area, the Picts came barreling down upon me fast.  It was a short and bloody battle as his troops converged upon mine.  Neither Cavalry could get in position – Big mistake and soon I was crushed.  In this battle however I was able to score some casualties and brought my new total to – 24 Points.

So… a bit frustrated I examined the flaws in my tactics as we took a break for lunch in hope to re-group the troops and pull out a win against my next, and last opponent – the Romans.  (Late Imperial I believe…)

Some of the great miniatures at the tourney

Well, with plan in hand we returned from the King of Burgers and lo and behold, my third opponent had left for home unexpected to him (I do hope that everything is alright.)  Unfortunately for him, this was the same gentlemen who had shown up late so he only was able to play one game.  I was offered a game against Chris’s first opponent who was now set to battle the other gentleman, and tourney organizer who also had only one game under his belt however I declined… after all, the smack talk between these two guys on the Maine Wargammers Forums now needed to be settled once, and for all.  A third game would have been fun, but the gauntlet had been thrown weeks ago and I was not going to get in the way (and, I had hoped to learn something more about the tactics of Basic Impetus.)

More great miniatures

So in the end, Chris ended up winning his third game and placed Second overall missing first by only a few points.  [When I get the final results, I'll post them below in the comments.]

We both came away with some 1st Corps Miniatures donated by Dadi & Piombo [The publishers of Impetus] which will be a good start to a 28mm army for next year.

So next post in a couple of days will be a recap of the rest of the Huzzah but the highlights include Field of Glory Renaissance, Ambush Alley, Black Powder and Jai Hai (A Home Brew.)

And lastly for Chris…  By 1st Corps Miniatures -

Elephant by 1st Corps

~ Dan-O

See More photos of the tournament and Huzzah here, at my photobucket.

Hope to see you there,

~ Dan-O

2 units of pikemen fully painted (save their pike tips (5 min,)) 24 figures – Done.
1 Unit of Light Infantry – 8 Figs  - Done
1 Unit of Skirmishers with Slings – 4 Figs – Done
1 Unit of Skirmishers with Bows – 4 Figs – Done
2 Units of Pikemen – 24 Figs – Basecoated, ready to wash, add pike tips – In Progress (20 min to go)

Which leaves A unit each of Heavy and Light Cavalry – 12 figs on horses (Of which the horses are primed.)

oh… and I have to base it all but I really do think I can finish it all in time for the weekend…. er… Friday.

~ Dan-O

The (unpainted) Army of Eumenes

So as some of you know, Chris and I are entering into the Basic Impetus Ancients tournament at Huzzah in Portland Maine this year and in doing so… well, we both need an army.  Oh, and this tournament is three weeks away so I better get cracking on painting, basing and most importantly… Learning the game.

I have chosen (at the moment,) to go with the Army of Eumenes from Volume 3.  One of the main reasons is the pikemen.  Very few armies in the game (in this time period – I don’t know about later in life,) have this many pikemen.  The thought and look of them poking up and out is one thing that got me interested in wargames in the first place.  I am contemplating one other list, but I will look into that after a live playtest or two.

EUMENES (VDT=18/9)

Nr	Type	M	VBU	I	VD	Notes
1	CP(*)	10	6	4	3	Xystophoroi
1	CM	10	4	1	2
1	FP(*)	5	5	1	3	Argyraspids - pikes
3	FP	5	4	1	2	Phalangites - pikes
1	FL	8	4	1	2
2	S	8	2	0	1	short bow B or sling

Special rule. Argyraspids can form Large Units with other Phalangites.

Chris incidentally is making a Pict army and perhaps sometime down the road I’ll have to create a Roman army as an adversary.

So the first step was to find miniatures and I have chosen the 1/72 scale HaT miniatures.  They are inexpensive and look nice and the scale looks great on the table.

Below are some closer photos of each of the units (Except the Medium Cavalry is missing for some reason… hrmmm…)

And Finally… The first four of seventy-two painted. Not my best work but it’ll do.  I created a black wash to help speed the process and I do think I should get a different ‘brass’ as I am really not liking this one.  Vallejo makes one with smaller pigment that I think would look better.

Well – soon I need to get back to the painting table.  More to come soon…

~ Dan-O

Next up are all of the support pieces – Turning templates, fire arcs, measuring sticks, etc.

~ Dan-O

- or is it Havoc and Me? -

Well, I officially submitted my request to run a game at Havoc this year (Apr 1-3, 2011).  It’s for a WW2 Air game I’ve mentioned before called Sturmovik Commander.

The Rookies Earn Their Wings
“Listen up Rookies. Do you see that captured Japanese ship over there? It’s our job to look over it and make sure nothing happens but first, get up on the flight deck and I want you all to show me what you’ve got!” – This ‘What If’ introduction to the game Sturmovik Commander (http://www.sturmovik-commander.com/) will take the pilots through the ropes as they learn to maneuver and shoot the F4F Wildcat somewhere over the Pacific, but what could possibly happen when their training ends?

So yeah – there we are.  I’ve requested Saturday Night partly cause there’s not much going on that I see on the schedule, and partly cause there’s a couple of things I want to play in the other time slots.

The To Do list – Playtest, Paint, Playtest, build, Playtest, and hope that the event gets chosen…  and Playtest among a few other things.

~ Dan-O

I was able to get in a couple of Flames of War games in.  One against Chris and Two against Alex.  Two of the games we tried to play 1000 point small forces (restricted to one combat platoon each,) on a small 4×3 table.  It was a format I saw on another site and quite frankly it didn’t really work for us.  The units were too packed in to really be able to do much.  In the end though the Canadian’s were victorious against the hordes of Chris’s Russians but lost to the might of the German onslaught.

Our third game was  a larger game that ended in a draw however we ran out of time and I truly think that the Canadian’s would not have held out.

Lastly, I was able to prime a few of the M10′s with the Black Gesso – an amazing product which I’ll be touching on soon.

~ Dan-O

as well as couple of 1/700 scale submarines for the Sturmovik game.

Next up – prime and paint (or assemble more Flames of War stuff…)

~ Dan-O

Dark Elf lord on pegasus; 1+ save, Stubborn Crown, Pendant of Khaleth, Soulrender

Lvl 4 Sorceress, with Lore of Shadow, Sacrifical Dagger, and Lifetaker (magic crossbow)

Lvl 1 Sorceress, with Lore of Fire

Hag BSB with a Cauldron of Blood

7 Dark Riders with crossbows

2 units of crossbowen, 1 20 and 2 10 stong all with shields

25 Spearmen with command

2 units of 5 Harpies

20 Black Guard with armor piercing banner

5 Cold One Knights with Flaming Banner

2 units of 5 Shades with Crossbows

War Hydra

So an army with 117 shots a turn, an unkillable, nearly unbreakable, general and two of the best close combat units in the game with Black Guard and the War Hydra, Paul won easily. Rather than describe all the horror of the game it might be better to have you watch the Passion of the Christ, that gives a rough idea of the pain my warriors felt. I basically just put stuff down on the table and saw how things went, not good but it taught me some good lessons.

So things I’ve learned and changes I may make to my list:

1. Sorcerers need a bunker to hide in that will not be in combat and protect them from shooting. I’m thinking of dropping the Warrior units down to 15 and dropping the hounds, using those points to buy a Marauder unit and sticking them in there. We’ll see.

2. Having a small army that spreads out across the table against something with this much shooting and redirecting units is just foolish. I’m planning for next game is picking one half of the table and putting everything there to give my opponent more threats than they can deal with in a small space quickly. Then when/if that half is done, I can swing over and deal with the other half. With this in mind, I may have some adjustments to some magic banners. I’m thinking swapping out the War Banner for the Rapturous Standard to make a good anvil unit that can protect my exposed flank which should be towards the middle of the table.

3. As of now, I don’t have anything to deal with small redirecting units. With no shooting and no magic missiles in the army at all, I didn’t have anything to deal with the Shades, Dark Riders, or Harpies except with combat. The Slaanesh hero did great in taking out a unit of Shades and the Cold One knights by himself, but it’s not enough. The Warshrine excels against these units but is too slow to be a major threat and can be avoided easily. I may have to adjust the Nurgle/Shadow lore combo idea to deal with this.

But, onto the positives! The Slaanesh Hero did great, I made him to deal with small skirmish units, mainly Flamers found in deamon armies, and any unit with a flaming banner since he has a 2+ ward save against flaming attacks. Thankfully Paul’s Cold One Knights had it so he ended up killing them despite being charged from the rear while fighting the Shades.

The Warshrine did about as best as it has done in several games. None of it’s buffs were a waste, and it took out a unit of Shades quite easily. With it’s Toughness of 6 and 3+ ward save, I’d like to use it more as a tarpit. But, against anything with a static combat res of 3 or more, it’ll just break from combat. 5 Strength 4 attacks only go so far.

And finally, if I ever want to play Dark Elves, I know which army list to build. lol

So the current idea for my army list is the following:

Level 4 Sorcerer of Nurgle, 4+ ward, Tzeentch’s Blood (one casting reroll/turn can’t reroll 1s)

Level 2 Sorcerer, Lore of Shadow, Dispel Scroll, Spell Familiar

Exalted Hero of Tzeentch, Battle Standard, Armour of Destiny (3+ ward with Mark), Great Weapon, Barded Steed

Exalted Hero of Slaanesh on Steed of Slaanesh, Sword of Battle (+1 Attack), Dragonhelm (2+ ward vs Flaming attacks)

2 units of 18 Warriors of Tzeentch with Shields and Full Command, one with War Banner, one with Banner of Rage

5 Chaos Hounds

5 Marauder Horsemen with Throwing Axes and Musician

5 Knights of Tzeentch with Standard and Musician, with Blasted Standard (4+ ward vs. shooting)

5 Knights of Khorne with Standard and Musician, with Flaming Banner

Warshrine of Tzeentch

Now I realize this list is faaaar from optimal. Financially, I can’t buy alot of things I would like to really make the list how I would, so I have to use what I already have purchased. The idea for the Nurgle/Shadow decks are mainly that I like the buffing/debuffing units and also Curse of the Leper. That spell combined with Shadow lore’s Strength and Toughness debuff can delete entire units. First, the Shadow sorcerer debuffs a unit down to either Strength or Toughness of 1, then the Nurgle Sorcerer casts Curse of the Leper on them. Curse reduces the Strength and Toughness down by one, and if either of those stats drop to 0, the model dies with no save at all. It’s very tough to pull off, and I’ve yet to do so but the one time it happens it’ll be great.

Sadly this army, and Warriors of Chaos in general, are very one dimensional (run up and smash) and I look forward to making a new army that is much more balanced, but that’s not for now.