Hail Caesar: Carthaginians versus Gauls AAR

After months of not being able to get our gaming group's schedules aligned, Eric and I were able to meet up for a 1 on 1 game of Hail Caesar at one of our local shops.  This battle on a 4' x 8' table put my invading Carthaginians and allies against the Gallic chiefs of the area.  

The Carthaginians arrived first and placed their cavalry on the right flank.  This consisted of elite Liby-Phoenicians, Gallic traitors, and small units of Numidians and Ligurians.

The center division was composed of the heavy Libyan formations, with supporting Numidians and Ligurians, and an elephant.

The left flank was composed of traitorous Gauls, with a few Samnites in support. 

The Gallic chiefs  packed their ranks with warbands for the left and center comments, withe the most elite units opposite the Carthaginian heavy infantry.

In addition to warbands, the Gallic right flank included their cavalry,  strategically placed as far away from the Carthaginian elephant as possible.  

The Gauls began an advance with their center and right flank, but the left flank refused to budge.

Carthage sent forth their Gallic and Samnite allies, along with part of the heavy infantry, and the melee commenced.  

Enraged at their countrymen's treachery, the Gauls managed to destroy and push back many of the warbands on Carthage's left flank.

While some of the Samnites and Numidians also lost ground, Carthage's heavy infantry managed to hold.

The rest of Carthage's heavy infantry and cavalry finally began their advance.

Carthage's left flank continued to struggle against the Gallic onslaught and risked collapse as the warriors were either killed or fled the battlefield.   

Carthage's center didmuch better, pushing back some of the Gauls and killing their general.

The Gallic warbands attempted to charge the Carthaginian cavalry, but failed to close the distance.  The Carthaginians then slammed into them and expected to crush the Gauls.

However, the supposedly elite Liby-Phoenician cavalry lost the round and fled the battlefield like cowards.

With their light cavalry pressed into heavy combat, it was questionable on if Carthage's right flank would survive or collapse. 

At this stage, the battleline was a mess and uncoordinated melees covered the battlefield.

Carthage's left flank finally collapsed and the surviving units started to retreat, often picked off by the Gauls before they could escape.

Meanwhile the heavy Libyan formations and elephant found success in pushing back many of the Gallic warbands, eventually breaking the Gallic center.

The Gallic cavalry began a flanking maneuver on the Carthaginian center.

Unexpectedly, the Numidian and Ligurian light cavalry fought fiercely enough against the Gallic warbands to crush their resolve and the Gallic left flank collapsed, causing their entire army to flee the battle. 

Despite significant shortcomings at the start of the battle and a real belief that I was done for, the Carthaginians managed to hang on by the skin of their teeth and survive for another day. 

Wars of the Samurai: Old Glory Cavalry

I'm back with another unit for my Pike & Shotte: Wars of the Samurai armies. This will be the first of three cavalry units I'll be fielding on the table.

As mentioned in my last post, I was able to buy a large quantity of secondhand Old Glory miniatures at a convention flea market. The cavalry was in pretty rough shape, with the figures partially assembled using globs of hot glue and epoxy, and many of the riders suffering from badly bent and broken weapons. After a day of disassembly, cleaning, rebuilding, and rebasing, I was able to assemble three 12-man units. 

While the sculpting quality of both the riders and horses is reasonable, especially considering the price, there is a significant issues with how the separate riders fit onto the horses.  The open shape under the saddle/rider's legs is much wider that the horse's back, resulting in huge gaps between the two. Even squeezing the rider's legs against the horse doesn't completely eliminate the issue. 

As such, the only way to get the figures to look ok is to fill the gaps with large amounts of Green Stuff or putty and try to blend it in with shaping and paint.

My figures came with six horse poses, so you can get a good variety for 12-man units. I used the excellent images on the Kriget Kommer blog when selecting horse colorations. 

The riders come in a variety of armor styles, which is nice, but some styles seem a bit archaic for my mid 16th Century setting based on the Osprey books I have.  However, I'm not an expert and worst case, perhaps some samurai still like the older styles.  The faces and bodies of the riders are not as realistically proportioned as the Perry figures, but do have a lot of character and remind me of exaggerated woodblock prints. 

The armor and lacing color selections were based on the Osprey books, the catalog of Osaka Castle's armament collection, and various woodblock prints. I tried to go for a mix of elaborate and subdued lacing, both for variety and to preserve my own sanity while painting.

This particular unit will be Mōri clan allies for my Ikkō-Ikki army. I've gone with a red standard, as I've seen this color associated a lot with the Mōri. In the future, I'll order some Mōri clan mon decals for the standard.

While these figures will never hold a candle to the newer samurai miniatures on the market, I think they are still a viable option if you're on a budget and and have the ability to work around their shortcomings.
 

Wars of the Samurai: Ikkō-Ikki

I'm back with another resurrected Warhammer Ancient Battles project.  Originally abandoned when Warhammer Historical dissolved and the Divine Wind supplement was cancelled, I completed some of the figures about 13 years ago for Osprey's Ronin game. But the majority have sat unpainted in the pile of shame at the bottom of the hobby closet. With Warlord Games releasing their Wars of the Samurai supplement for Pike and Shotte, I figured it was time to get this project out of mothballs.

As no other players around here are into Samurai, I'm going to build two smaller forces:  the Ikkō-Ikki Buddhist rebels and forces loyal to Oda Nobunaga in the late 16th Century.

First up are the sohei monks.  I painted these a while back, but basing materials have improved since I last worked on them, so I've refurbished them to a more modern standard, similar to my old Hail Caesar armies found elsewhere on the blog.

The figures are Old Glory and The Assault Group (TAG), with a Perry miniature thrown in as well. There were no sohei bannermen available at the time, so I tried to create one from an Old Glory samurai using greenstuff.

I had a few of the peasant figures painted back in the day, but the majority came from the unpainted lead pile.  These are a mix of Old Glory peasant infantry, TAG peasants and followers, Perry's dedicated Ikko-Ikki, and a few wako pirates from the old Cavalcade line.  The sculpting styles vary widely between the lines. The TAG are thick and a bit characterized, the Perry are thinner with realistic faces, and the Old Glory are somewhere in between the two in size and style. The Cavalcade are the smallest and weakest of the sculpts  and my least favorite out of the mix. If I were to start over today, I'd likley go a different route, but at the time TAG and Cavalcade were available at the local shop and I was able to get the budget friendly Old Gory figures at a convention flea market for pennies on the dollar. 

These eight stands will form the backbone of the force, but I am looking to supplement them with some teppo (matchlock) and yumi (bow) ranged units and samurai from the allied Mōri clan.

Into the Wasteland: Final Warbands and Scatter Terrain

The building and painting phase of my 32mm Fallout/This Is not a Test project has finally wrapped up with my last warbands and scatter terrain.

While you don't see really see large groups of Vault Dwellers on the surface in Fallout, I really felt something would be missing from my games if I only had the two Vermilion figures I previously painted as guns for hire.  I found offical Modiphius Vault Dweller figures fairly underwhelming and the other Vermilion proxies were lacking in the weaponry to be a viable warband. Luckily I found a seller in Canada with a line of 32mm Bunker Security Agents under the Nuke World banner that fit the bill perfectly.  You can buy them with Vault themed bases, but I opted to use extra post-apocalyptic bases I already had.

Science Officer and Overseer

Security Captain and Riot Trooper

Riot Troopers with firearms

Additional Security Officers

Here is a quick comparison between an official Fallout miniature, a Nuke World miniature, and a Vermilion miniature.  While there is some difference in the base heights, I would say the Fallout and Nuke World figures are almost identical in size (Nuke World may be a fraction taller) and the Vermilion miniatures are a little smaller.  However, they are within standard human differences and stylistically I think they all look fine mixed together. 

My last warband is another set of raiders from Vermilion, the Rust Reavers.  I was unable to figure out if an official Fallout raider group inspired them, but I am going to use them as a cannibal warband.  

The two suits of power armor seemed to be cobbled together from different models with additional bits of scrap welded to them. Fallout 76 introduced excavator power armor for civilian usage, so I decided to paint these as two work suits that were repurposed for combat by my raiders. 

Shotgun wielding Raiders.  The Etsy images of the figures had clips attached to all of the guns, but these were not present on the weapons I received for some reason. 

Raiders with ranged weapons, including a Junk Jet that can fire scavenged debris (as seen in the first season of the TV series).

Melee raiders

I also finished off my remaining scatter terrain. These are 3D printed bits for raider camps, including a Great Khan scarecrow, and some boobytraps made from cymbal monkey toys and dynamite (a freebie from one of my Esty sellers).

Piles of human remains and a spiked body. Perfect for cannibals. 

Some resin mattresses from TT Combat. Not the most appealing for a good night's rest.

I bought a 5 piece set of brick wall bits off Etsy, but unfortunately didn't realize it was a single design just being shown from different angles. I've painted each one slightly differently, but will have to be selective on how I scatter them about.     

Another set of 3D printed walls, and luckily this time 5 of 6 the pieces were unique. Unfortunately the print lines were pronounced, but I was too lazy to try and sand everything.

However, I think they still look ok and are big enough to block line of sight for larger figures.

With that, I think I am now ready to play This is Not A Test.  I'll get some solo test plays in to learn the rules and then see if I can convince someone to give it a go with me.  Fingers crossed!