Famous Monsters Game

As today is Halloween, I figured I would finish up with my monster themed posting with the first set of toy monsters I got back in the early 80's, Heritage USA "Famous Monsters" game. The game came with figures, paints, rules and a map to play on. The game also came with instructions on how to paint the figures. I must admit, for a first try I was happy with the outcome.

The village people.

The Heroes

The baddies. Actually in the game Dr. Frankenstein and Ygor can be either good or bad.

Dracula and his bride. 

15mm Legend of Sleepy Hollow Figures

Among Old Glory horror figures is "the Legend of Sleepy Hollow", which also happens to be my favorite short story. Besides the Headless Horseman and Ichobod Crane, there is a good collection of village folk, most in peaceful poses which would be great for civilian figures in a war-game.

School teacher Crane wooing Katrina Van Tassel

The Headless Horseman in the flesh (?)

Headless Horseman dismounted, after finishing a visit to Hollywood.  Someone should remember that the Headless Horseman was a Hessian. I can't find this uniform in any of my Osprey books.

Old Glory also has a nice little line of witches  to go along with their horror line.

For Halloween: Old Glory Vampires

As Halloween approaches, I thought to get in the spirit I would show some of vampires produced by Old Glory miniatures.

15mm Peter Laing Hadendoa Figures

   

On one of my earlier posts, a writer commented just recently on how he would like to see Peter Laings manufacture again (wouldn't we all!) and how he has no Peter Laing Hadendoa tribesmen.  As I only have around ten of the figures myself, I feel for him.

Peter Laing Hyborian Battle

      Going with the idea of using Tony Bath's Hyborian campaign with Battle lore, I dug out my old copies of "Battle" magazine which has a continuing series of the Hyborian campaign. The first in the series  had a good map of Hyboria. By using this map and Horde of the Things list of Hyborian Armies, setting up battles with a purpose becomes easier. By using this idea, the last battle report involving  Crusaders verses Muslims becomes the army of Zamora fighting and defeating the army of Zuagir.
        Going farther along this line, it becomes easier to come up with a narration of the cause for battle.
The Zuagirs, being a nomadic people, are not above raiding their neighbors. What's more, a drought has been devastating eastern Hyboria, leaving the Zuagir people in the state of starvation. So now the raids have an even greater purpose. Prince Asfar of Zuagir  is ordered by his father to lead a raid into Zamora to find livestock and other foodstuffs. As the previous article showed, the Zuagir raid failed.
        If the situation wasn't so desperate, the Princes life might be in danger. However, the needs of the people outweighed the wraith of his father.  After much debate, it was decided to raid Vendhya.  While the empire of Vendhya has a large army, it is spread throughout the empire and the majority of it are militia levies.  A fast strike and they might not even have to battle the Vendhya Army. However, Prince Asfar decides to bring a unit of heavy armored camels just to be on the safe side.
       At first all goes well. The Zuagir raiders send large amounts of captured livestock back to their waiting tribe. But as the Zuagirs go deeper into Vendhya they noticed they were being trailed by scouts. It soon became apparent that the Vendhya Army was trying to get between Zuagir Army and the border. By the time Asfar decided it was time to withdraw, it was too late.  Every attempt to outmaneuver the Vendhya Army failed, so Prince Asfar resolved to attack it before more reinforcements arrived.
       The Vendhya Army draws up between two rivers, with units on the other side of each river to guard the flanks and possibly work around the Zuagir flanks.  For Prince Asfar this is good as it narrows the Vendhya frontage so it evens up the engaged units. While the rivers are fordable because of the drought, it will be easy enough to catch the enemy in the river at a disadvantage.

The Vendhya Army at the top of the battlefield with units on both sides of the rivers. All their units are light, except two infantry units and one cavalry unit, which are medium units. The Zuagir  Army on the bottom of the field. Most of the Zuagir infantry is medium. The cavalry is made up of 3 light cavalry units, one medium camel unit and one heavy armored camel unit.  Victory goes to the army which inflects 50% casualties to their opponent. The Vendhya Army has 16 units, the Zuagir Amry, 12 units.

A look down the Vendhya Army line.

A look down the Zuagir Army line . The unit of armored camels are in the rear  for reserve.

After the first couple of moves. The Zuagirs push forward their medium infantry in the center. The Vendhya forces on the opposite banks push forward to threaten the flanks of the Zuagir Army.

The battle from behind Vendhya lines. In the upper left of the picture the Zuagir archers keep a watch  on a Vendhya light cavalry unit. In the right center of the picture the medium infantry units slug it out, inconclusively.

Two units from Vendhya try to cross the river. A Zuagir archer unit holds the high ground to hold them off.

Two Zuagir light cavalry units slam into the Vendhya right flank, forcing it back. Notice the Vendhya light infantry unit starting across the river at the top of the page. At the center left of the page a Vendhya light cavalry unit had crossed the river, only to be forced back by the archers on the hill.

The Vendhya archers that were in the river now come up behind the Zuagir light horse. Their fire comes up with a "retreat" throw. If a unit cannot retreat back (they are blocked by the other Zuagir light horse) they must lose one piece.

Meanwhile on the Vendhya left flank the Zuagirs had advanced their other light horse and medium camel  to try to break the stalemate in the center. This picture shows after the advance of the Vendhya medium horse. They have routed the camels (2 retreat dice), that can be seen retreating up the valley.The medium horse then uses it's pursuit to hit the light horse,  inflecting 2/3 loses on it.

General Mirgol of the Vendhya Army now starts trying to turn the Zuagirs right flank, pushing forward all his troops on that flank. Notice the Vendhya horse blocking the valley to protect against the camel unit.

This picture shows after a particularly brutal fight. The armored camels came around the other side of the hill on the right of the picture. It inflected 2/3 casualties  on the medium horse and forced it to retreat. It then hit the light horse unit, wiping it out. However, the Vendhya medium horse counter attacked and caused 2/3 losses on the camels. The archers (at the left of the photo) then finished off the rest.

The Vendhya forces back one Zuagir light horse unit and cuts off the other light horse unit, which was shortly after dispatched.

At this point in the battle each side only needed to take one enemy unit to win the battle. The Zuagir medium infantry was just going to force the Vendhya light infantry off the field for the victory. Notice the two man Zuagir infantry unit, with the light horse right behind it.

This is a photo of the Vendhya infantry unit that won the battle. It spent most of the battle standing in the middle of the river. However, with the center of the army collapsing, they charged out of the river and hit that Zuagir medium unit in the flank, hoping to at least force it to retreat. However, it's roll came up with two "medium" hits, wiping out the unit and carrying the day!

HUMP DAY! Celebrating with 2 new Peter Laing Camel Figures

      Finding Peter Laing figures for sale in the U.S.A. is a rare thing. Last week on Ebay there was a lot of colonial British figures. There were only individual figures, most of which I already have. It looked like it was a sample pack which didn't live up to the buyers' expectations. I almost didn't bid on it myself, except the fact there were two camel figures; one of a British Camel Corps figure and another of an Egyptian Camel Corps figure. I plan to save the figures to use at a later time for mold masters.

I am finding my near obsession with Peter Laing camel figures quite disturbing!

Future Plans for my Peter Laing Ancients

       While using the Battlelore game with Peter Laing figures, I started reading a book called Battles of the Bible.  It has me thinking of a war-game along the lines of Tony Bath's Hyboria campaign. The book tells of the different city-states in the middle east that were sandwiched between two large empires; and how it became a battleground as the empires fought for supremacy.  I have a large collection of Peter Laing Assyrians, Greeks and Persians. I also have smaller lots of various ancients. With the smaller lots of figures, I can see them acting as the bodyguards for the kings of the city-states.  To build on their armies, they would hire companies of mercenaries.  Of course the more numerous Assyrians and Persians will form the large empires.

       While Battlelore is a good set of rules, how to use elephants and chariots? Of course by using another set of Richard Borg's rules; Command and Colors Ancients.  However, the game is quite pricy; all I want is the rules. The main part of the rules I need are movement and battle rules.  Luckily the rules are on line so I can get in information I need. So the Peter Laing elephants will see battle again.

Newest Peter Laing Recruits

There has been a lot of Peter Laing Persian figures on Ebay for  a few months  that was quite pricey.  However, with my renewed interest in ancients and medievals, and that the lot had 3 figures I don't have yet, I broke down and purchased them.

Persian horse Archer.

I have no idea what this figure is.

A Sassanid Persian Clibanarii?

This one I know; a cow (or is a bull?)

This trebuchet I actually got from Ian Dury, who gave me several siege engines. What's great about this  piece is it actually works! Put a piece of ammo in the arm and tap the counterweight and it throws the ammo! Get a couple of these and you could have an ancients Little War.

Experimenting with Battlelore Rules

I have been seeing a lot of promise using Battlelore systems for fighting wargames. By using Peter Lanig figures with Heroscape scenery, my interest in wargaming has been renewed.  How to come up with armies was proving to be a problem.  At first it seemed just using Hordes of the Things armies seemed to be the way to go. HotT uses a point system, where different units used up  a certain number of Army Points (APs). However looking at the rules, a strong unit such as knights cost 2 AP;  but light units such as archers also cost 2 AP.  But by using the system in Table Top Battles, A unit such as knights had a higher AP than archers. I decided to use this point system with Battlelore.
    Instead of using the same Agincourt scenario, I chose another one from the scenario book and made up two armies using the Table Table Battles point system. The armies were a Crusader army, with an a Muslim army to oppose them.The Crusaders used half their points on mounted knights supported by men at arms and two archer units. The Muslims had mainly light troops. The Muslim army was a Peter Laing army that I really wanted to use. However, there wasn't enough figures to provide for a 24 point Muslim army so both armies only had 20 army points. The first army to lose 50% lost the battle. The Muslims had 11units; the Crusaders 8 units.  I once again used my movement dice to decide how many units could move.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

The Muslim army is on the top; Crusader army on the bottom.

Once again, looking down the battlefield with the Muslim army on the left and Crusaders on the right.

The Muslim infantry advances. By advancing in this formation, all the units are "supported", meaning in battle they are considered "bold" and can ignore one retreat dice and have the opportunity to battle back when attacked.

The knights attack and inflects losses, but the infantry being supported, hold firm. The Muslim camels advance to attack.

The Muslim cavalry hits the knights' flank.

The knights break through the Muslim center.

The Muslim light cavalry eliminates two of the knight units.

As the battle wore on, the last knight unit lost two knights. The light Muslim cavalry forced it back two hexes and followed in pursuit.

The knight unit rallied and pushed the Muslim light horse back. In the pursuit, the knight unit eliminated the light horse.

The battle came down to the Muslims having lost 5 units, the Crusaders 3 units.  The Crusaders managed to defeat the Muslims, 6 units to 3, but the battle could have gone either way.

This battle has me thinking of the possibility of a campaign along the lines of Tony Bath's Hyborean campaign.