New Purchase: Peter Laing Feudal and Dark Ages Figures

Last week I managed to win several lots of Peter Laing Feudal and Dark Ages figures. I am disappointed that I still haven't found my camera to get some shots of them. Luckily, Ian Dury was in contact with the seller, who graciously forwarded photographs of the to Ian. Ian, in turn, has shared them with me. Thank you again, Ian.

These lots added several hundred figures to my collection.

I dare say I believe this is going to put a stop to my ECW game for now. These figures have me thinking of my Hyborian game, or possibly a Crusaders game. Also, these figures go well with my Airfix castle.  They are great inspiration for more wargames.

A Kindle Bonus & My First Wargame Rule Book

    Last month I ordered ONE HOUR WARGAMES by Neil Thomas through Amazon. I bought the actual book, not the Kindle version.  It is not due to be shipped until November 19.  Yesterday I checked on the status of my order, hoping that the books came in earlier than expected. Nothing had changed on the due date; however, if you do buy the book, Amazon offers the kindle version at a good discount; for ONE HOUR WARGAMES I got the kindle version for $2.99. And it was on my Kindle in a few minutes after the purchase. Between the Kindle and book version, it still only cost me $20.00. Not a bad deal. I'm starting to really like my Kindle!

   While looking for another book, I came across the first set of war-game rules I ever bought. When I was in high school one of my brothers took me up to the big city (Boston) for a day of sightseeing (with no adults!). We went into a bookstore on Beacon Hill and I found the book THE NAPOLEONIC WARGAME by G.W. Jeffrey. It was produced by Almark Publishing, first published in 1974. I never did play them.

More Semi-Flats

I recently bought another lot of semi-flats on Ebay and they arrived today. Most of the figures are cavalry; the majority appear to be German hussars with lances. I did get some more infantry, along with a cannon and casson. Among the figures are two interesting  figures. One seems to be a boy carrying a bag over his shoulder and a suitcase (maybe a new recruit?) the other a small semi-flat lancer, who seems to be about 20mm range.

The new lot.

Gone for a soldier.

The little lancer.

Another Peter Laing Joust

     With time on my hands I decided to try out some ideas on the game. I also wanted to try them with both the RISK and DINOWARS style rolls.  The field of battle was squared off with 1 inch squares. With the first game I would use the RISK roll. What's more, when a knight suffered a wound, he suffered that wound or wounds the rest of the game. They can only battle while between the tilt (the barrier). If not they had to around and start again. This never became a problem, although if I play again I will add to the tilt. Also maybe having different color dice for each knight would be less confusing. I found 6 different knight with different colors, so I just used the main color to name the knight.

Entering the lists: (on left) the silver, purple and red knights. On the right, the white, the blue and the black knights.

The silver and black knights joust first.

The black knight rolled the red dice(!); the silver knight the black.  The silver knight is dismounted! Here is why I think different colored dice for each knight is needed. In the game the knights entering from the left use black dice, from the right they use red dice. If the joust goes on for a few turns it gets easy to forget who should be rolling. Of course I have a paper to keep track of hits so a glance tells me who has what dice for that joust.

After the different rounds, the game comes down to the black knight and the white knight. Black has already fought twice, but suffered no wound. The white knight has suffered one wound and will battle with one less dice.

The first joust of the match: White knight has inflected two hits to the black knight. The next joust white got two more hits on the black knight, and became the Champion of the tournament.

I tried to use the DINOWARS rules for the tournament. After three passes there were still no wound to the knights.  This was going to make for a long game: I called it quits at this point. However, I decided to try DINOWARS for a melee battle.

The set up for the melee. This is a free for all. Below are some shots of the action.

At the end of the game only the red knight had been dismounted (by the black knight); the black, the purple, and the blue knight each had three wounds; the white knight two wounds; and the silver knight one wound. At this point did the black knight win, being the only knight to dismount another, or the white knight because he suffered the fewest wounds? If I ever was to play this again, a point system would have to be worked out, unless it's to the last man standing.

With the end of the melee game, the joust game will go to the back burner.

Peter Laing Joust

     My back pain finally came to a head on Monday. I managed to get to work thinking the pain would go away.  Instead the pain started going down my right leg. I finally went to a doctor only to find that I have sciatica. After two days of the worst pain I've suffered,  I could finally put some pressure on the leg.  Being bored of TV, I  went to look at some of my Peter Laings. After my last posting I was thinking that the rules would be good for a Medieval joust.  I dug out 6 knights and some dice and played a game.  
      The rules were simple. Roll a dice for each knight at the same time. For each 2 pips rolled they advanced one matchstick. When they came together they would each start by rolling 4 dice. I used the RISK game idea of comparing dice starting with highest rolls and working down, high rolls would take one dice from the other player. Each dice counted as a wound. First one to lose their dice would be eliminated. Last knight standing won the tournament.

Parade of the contestants. The White Knight withe the red lion hosted.

First joust; the White knight suffers 3 hits. Next round he was eliminated from the competition.

After three rounds the Black knight dismounted the Red knight.

After two rounds the White knight with black shield dismounted the Blue knight.

The final round found the White knight (with black shield) vs the Black knight. It took three round but the White knight dismounted the Black knight.

The Champion!

With a little more work this could be a fun game to play when there's those periods of stagnation .
As most of my knights are already painted (by people who have more skill than me) it would be easy enough to come up with names of the different knights and make a  book of heraldry using their shield designs. Also have matching foot figures so there could be the traditional melee on foot. Another back burner project!

Wargame Motivation

   Today I was determined to get a wargame in. As the day went on I somehow fell behind with getting the work around the house done. By the time work was done, I had little time to set up a game. Then I thought of a skirmish game.  In the past I have used a set of rules from Lone Warrior called "Dinowars" by Mike Crane. The rules were made for kids using two dinosaurs fight to the death. I have used them before for single combat. For this game it was going to be two knights battling. I had set up a couple of pieces of Heroscape to test with the recently purchased bridge, so that would be the battlefield.  The battle was fought between a local prince and a rogue knight. The knight managed to inflect two wounds to the prince, the prince only one. After a while with no decision, I called the game for the knight.  The game started to drag and I ended it. Hopefully with the coming lousy weather more time can be spent on wargaming. Perhaps it's time to look at the Hyborian Wars again.

The field of battle.

The Prince with his herald.

The knight gets the jump on the prince.

Closing for combat.

The prince is wounded crossing the bridge.

The prince tries to outmaneuver the knight.

The knight, having wounded the prince twice and forced him back over the bridge is declared the winner.
I still haven't found my camera and used my wife's. A good excuse for bad photos.

Peter Laing ECW Cavalryman Mold; the 64th Time is the Charm

     The Peter Laing mold  made before going on vacation was tried out today.  After a little work on the mold, the figures were the best I have managed to cast. Of course, the master was painted with a thick coat of enamel paint that I couldn't remove and the base was flocked, so there is no detail to the figure. Still, for my project they will do fine. The pictures are poor as I still haven't found my camera and used my cell phone to take the pictures.

New Inspiration for Wargaming

      My wife and I returned from our week's camping  in New York.  We had just about the whole campground to ourselves and I got some reading done on the English Civil War. This has got me wanting to do a ECW war-game. Hopefully my copy of "One Hour Wargames" will be mailed soon. Before leaving for vacation I also made a mold of a Peter Laing ECW cavalryman, as I have very few of them, and it seems in many ECW battles there were large number of cavalry. The mold looks promising and hopefully I can get some casting done in the next coupe of days.

    While on vacation we managed to visit Olana, the home of Frederic E. Church, a Hudson River School painter.  He built his home on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson River. One of my interests is the painters of the Hudson River School, so this was an enjoyable day for me. The photos below were taken with my cellphone and don't do justice to the views. The good photos are on my wife's camera, which still needs to be downloaded.

 

Olana,  Frederic E. Church's home.

A view of the Catskills Mountains from Olana.

Our home away from home. One night my wife woke me to point out two deer outside our camper. She  saw 5 throughout the night grazing in the field we were camped at. One week just wasn't enough!

Unusual Wargaming Inspiration

  My wife and I are on vacation this week and are preparing to go camping one last time. My wife wants to go to the "Sheep & Yarn Festival" in Rhinebeck, NY. For me it was an excuse to try out our new camper for the week. Also, it is close to Sleepy Hollow, of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" fame. We have visited Sleepy Hollow before, but I might try to get there this week.

    Now Halloween is my favorite time of the year, and with my wife working Saturday I spent the day watching ghost stories on Youtube. One I watched was from a series from England named "A Ghost Story for Christmas". This story was called "A View from a Hill". At one point the main characters were standing on a hilltop viewing the surrounding country side and one pointed out a village and  mentioned of "some battle fought in the Civil War". The scene made me think of what the battle would have looked like from that vantage point.  I also watched "Matthew Hopkins; Witchfinder General" starring Vincent Price. This movie took place during the English Civil War. I  now find myself wanting to use my Peter Laing ECW. I don't have many figures but I have also ordered "One Hour Wargames" by Neil Thomas. Based on Bob Cordery's review, it seems like the rules call for a small number of figures, and the rules are very basic. The book is not yet available in the states, but hopefully by the time we return from vacation I will have some idea of when the book will be shipped.

   I still haven't found my camera but borrowed my wife's camera to take some shots of the Minifigs/Hinchcliffe? landscape pieces.

The bridge assembled and painted. Forgive the poor quality of the pictures; it's been a couple of  years since using the camera.

The brick wall, with a Peter Laing peasant behind for scale. The picture is from slightly above, which makes the wall shorter than it actually is.

The hedgerows. Unfortunately the SD card at this point was full and I couldn't take a photo of the stonewall.  These pieces would be good for my ECW wargame.  I am thinking of trying to cut a sample down to 1 inch long pieces to see if they could be useful at this length. As I have about 24 pieces of each, the loss of one wouldn't be too bad.

More Gaming Purchases and Great Values on Kindle

      While my job and sudden interest in R/C naval combat has distracted me from wargaming, I still haven't completely given up on war-games. I have bought several lots of old Minifigs 15mm terrain, including stone walls, brick walls, hedgerows and 5 arched bridges. I was going to include photos of them, but seem to have misplaced my camera.  Also after reading Bob Cordery's review of "One Hour Wargames", I ordered the book.

    In a previous blog I brought up about buying books for my Kindle. One very good buy is a collection of Osprey guides. I bought 4 so far, The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871, The Mexican War 1846-1848, The Ottoman Empire 1326-1699, and Byzantium at War AD 600-1453.  At $1.49 each, it is a great buy. While they are not illustrated, they have maps and are listed as being around 90 pages. I am going to try to get the whole collection in time. I also downloaded "Sino-Japanese Naval War 1894-1895" by Piotr Olender. After reading this book, I plan to buy a paper copy of it as the illustrations of the warships makes it worth the extra money.