Slaughter in Somerset

It's dry again and cool, could warm up later which is just as well as I am off on another road trip in a few hours to darkest Somerset the land which gave us such talent as the Wurzels, a group before their time who would be loved on Britain's Got (no) Talent. I digress, I am off for a weekend of War and Conquest to make up for missing last weekend, also why not, I still feel like I am on holiday.

I have my lists ready, the Patrician and Anglo-Saxon I am happy with but not so sure with the Twelfth who are fighting two battles tomorrow. I am trying something which may simply bring disaster down on my head but I shall trust the boys to come through despite their general, the dice of course are another matter, I am taking two sets just in case.

My right shoulder is sore and it is because I have been playing the long awaited Dawn of War III set in the W40K world. It is early days and although no doubt I shall get my money's worth I am still on the fence about how long my interest will be sustained as I think it is needlessly complex and requires more imaginative maps. The former may just be me as I am not as quick on the ball as I used to be and the latter usually does turn up as a game ages along with other factions etc. Despite all the little complexities, choice of doctrines and elite hero units, so far I have found that Stalin's maxim of 'quantity has its own quality' seems to work fairly well. I know it is early days yet but I have only been abused once so far with "Help, C(word)" directed at everyone on the team but the idiot typing it, such are the joys of online anonymity.

Anyway, a weekend of real wargaming coming up with good company, real people, beautiful armies and perhaps the odd slurp of wine along with the fake beer. We march!

Up and Running(ish)

I was told yesterday, Wednesday, that my computer was ready and could I pay the invoice, I duly rang Scan up and paid, it was only the carraige as the parts were still under warranty, so I got a new motherboard, new graphic card along with a new processor, but it was too late in the day to get it delivered next day so I expected it this Friday. I was nearly out the back door on the way to the shops when the doorbell went, it was my computer, no emails, no warning, just a big box, lucky me, or was I.

Along with the new stuff above I also got a new, clean or 'refreshed' C drive with none of my programmes on it. I then had to spend most of the afternoon persuading several firms I was indeed who I said I was and that I wanted to reload my programmes as I had already paid for them, and no I could not remember the product key from three years ago but you take my cash every twelve months.

I think I have everything up and running now, all the important stuff anyway, thankfully I learned my lesson with Illustrator and saved my preferences so I only had to reload them, no doubt as the days go by I shall go to load something and find it is not there, but at least it is in front of me again instead of on a workbench somewhere.

My son has informed me that Dawn of War III will be released on 27 April, so it would seem I am just in time to lead my Space Marines against the decadent Eldar and disordered Orks, as you know if you are a regular, Dawn of War is one of the few PC games I have enjoyed and this one is arriving just as I shall be getting some me time having nearly finished the new army. I have preordered it to get some freebie's but mainly to have it on day one.

I also recieved four guards to use on my Patrician Rally Point from Footsore in the mail, and there was an added bonus inside the envelope of a free Saxon Noble figure, I got the wrong end of the stick and thought you had to spend over a certain amount to get him, but on checking no, any order this month gets one. Still, a nice gesture from an excellent company.

I was going to take a break from painting this week and only build and prime my Hun Nobles, I once again had a terrible time putting them together as the new metal does not like superglue very much, I gave up with this and turned to a general purpose glue and it worked fine. My disappointment at this was quickly overcome by the excellent look of these figures and although it is not my cup of tea Aventine give you buckets of stuff to personalise each rider, I am looking forward to painting them. I have already started on the horses. If you do buy Aventine and avail yourself of the Nomads or their like then think of using a general purpose glue or an accelerant or, believe it or not, one of the cheaper superglues you can get at the likes of Poundland. Sorted.

I also finished my Roman Commander Aetius this week, just in time to lead his men out on to the field of battle on Sunday.
 

On Track

Home alone until tomorrow, the missus has been away all week, so I have painted all my figures, no of course I haven't, but despite losing a few days at the weekend battling in Caen and on the plains of Gaul I have now got my Goth Bucellarii/Nobles complete. I am very pleased with them and they look exactly as I had pictured them, tough, well dressed, armoured cavalry, I am uncertain whether I will add normal Goth cavalry but at the moment this troop will do very well.

I may be taking the Patrician Roman's to the club on Tuesday so I have been painting some Christian types for Intervention Points as the Church was beginning to get a hold on the hierarchy of the Empire at this period. Along with these I have Senior and Junior Roman commanders and the Goth chieftain, who would have some kind of Roman military title as they enjoyed these and it enhanced their prestige with their own people. They are at the varnishing stage at the moment.

I now only have three more units in the lead pile, more Goth infantry and the Huns/Alan cavalry, I am going to take an hour or so later to get some nomad cavalry ready for the tray, I do seem to be racing ahead with these guys, they were supposed to last me until the summer.

I was given my wife's old iPad when I bought her a new mini last Christmas, and I have struggled with the thing ever since, god knows how much rubbish is on it and it takes several pressings of the button to change pages and some pages take forever to load. Yesterday I had had enough, I bought myself a mini and it arrived today, in fact I have got it up and running and will spend some time putting it the way I like this evening. You never need one of these technical marvels until you get one then it seems to become an extra arm. I check my emails on it and follow several writers that have the same view of the world as I do but articulate it better, at the same time I took out a subscription to The Spectator so I receive a digital copy as well as the written word and an archive going back to 1864ish.

I am unsure however of where I will find the time to read it, I had to shelve a large map project for a priority one only to have that too shelved for a more priority one(?). I also took almost three hours to complete a map yesterday only to press the wrong button and the thing disappeared into that vast recycle bin in the sky, I was not amused and it took the shine off buying the iPad. Looking on the bright side the work will put the Anderson Map Fortune back in the black.

Lords of Midnight

Apart from less than a handful of computer games I have generally been more than disappointed with most of them. It sounds perfect, letting the PC do all the hard work while you get on with conquering the planet, but I always find that the PC is a cheating so and so, it always seems to win no matter what you try. The answer of course is to get one you can play be email or in real time, but you still need that staple of wargamers, a dedicated opponent which even online is hard to find.

I have played some dreadful tactical games which purported to be proper wargames but in fact the only thing they had in common with their period was the box art, but non miniature gamers seem to get sucked in every time and sing their praises, while I look for the returns label.

I did enjoy Steel Panthers, along with an Eastern Front game which I can't remember any other details of, I leant it to a friend and never got it back and Dawn of War. Now I am going to have to admit I was pretty much addicted to DoW for a long time, the game was just perfect and exciting. I also dabbled with Company of Heroes and European Escalation which were good but didn't grab me the way DoW had.

A long time ago before we had any real sophisticated games, when Manic Miner was top of the charts I played a little gem way ahead of its time called Lords of Midnight, originally made for the Sinclair Spectrum. The game was a fantasy type effort which you could play in a purely military way or complete a quest or try to win attempting both at once. Basically you were the good guys and had to defeat the bad guy, otherwise known as Doomdark before he could take over the land of Midnight, as I said you could meet him on the field of battle by recruiting lords to your armies and conquering his citadel or you could use a character to destroy the Ice Crown.

For some reason I looked this game up the other night and lo and behold it is still available for almost every computer platform you can think of and there are a couple of add ons, Doomdark's Revenge for one. I splashed out £2.99 and it is now on my iPad although I haven't been able to begin a campaign yet I will at some point.

No Need to Fear the Russki's

Last night I joined in a 'Modern' wargame with 1/300 models, the rules were a shortened version of the real rules and were free online, so we found ourselves somewhere in Europe with the British and Americans fighting off a Soviet attack. No Belgians, Danes, French etc. cheap shot but it was too good to pass up in the present climate. I have never fancied warfare after WWII as it seemed too complex to me unless it was grand strategy with a boardgame at divisional level.

I did play a fantastic computer game entitled Wargame: The Next War In Europe and its expansions which moved to the East and brought in aircraft and ships, this is almost the only computer 'wargame' worth the title. You had a points limit and you chose your forces from either Nato or Warsaw Pact countries and fought the game in real time with up to ten people, it was and is brilliant, although I have not played in a long time as real wargaming is now taking up most of my time.

Anyway, I commanded two platoons of mechanised Soviet infantry and a small recce force, I decided to hare it along a road and debus in a wood and set up a defence. I found out that my recce units were basically useless and my armoured column was toast on the road, if you can see it you kill it ruled. I had to withdraw my BMP's to keep them alive, if I had won the race it would have been the same result but the Americans would all be dead.

Forwardski!

Ooops.

Ooops II.

Stuart on the other flank with the tanks advanced in true Soviet fashion and got slaughtered, our artillery was pointless as you had to put a marker down and the enemy seeing it there simply drove past or around it, then it was catch up for the spotters. We finished the game early as the Russians had no one left and the same fate obviously awaited our reinforcements, I didn't actually get one shot off. Another club member said he had a much better and simpler rule set and given a week or so would put something together so we could try it out, so we will see.

On the other table we had Matt giving an introduction to Chain of Command on the Eastern Front, by the look of the troops the Germans had just invaded, there were some lovely Germans on the table, I think it was 15mm or maybe even 10mm, not sure. There was a little more happening on the table than I usually see with CoC but it still seems overly complex for what it is.

 Next week there is some Sharpe Practice again and I hope to get in a Bolt Action game at last and kick off my campaign.