Basing Impetvs Hoplites

So, with almost all of my Hoplites painted, it became time to get them based from SAGA to Impetvs. Here in the South, we use 8cm frontages with varying depths for our armies (head here for a breakdown for units).

So for my Hoplites, this meant that they needed to be on 8x5 bases, but for SAGA, they needed to be on 25mm rounds... which is a problem.

The solution? Well, it was very simple in fact, using a Sabot base. Those of you with military minds (which is probably all of my readers, lets be fair) will know of the term Sabot, which is a casing used to allow a smaller projectile to be fired from a larger calibre. In short, more bang for your buck!



An Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot round (APFSDS) on it's way to the target

Obviously, the solution was not a cannon, but rather a base that could accommodate the 25mm round bases, to make them into an 8cm frontage. The simplest solution is always throwing money at things, so I went to a top quality laser cutter up in Auckland called Dopey Dog, to get him to whip me up some bases.

And they arrived yesterday, and look phenomenal.



A base all ready for some FL Peltsats to use!

I mocked up my bases on the computer, and sent through the designs with measurements. Because I needed units for various purposes, there are different ones for different units. There are some like the FL base above...



Or a base for 6 FP Hoplites....



Or even one which is specially prepared to be my General's base, so my armies can be led by any of my Greek Heroes!

If getting some wargames bases done interests you, I highly recommend Dopey Dog. The quality is superb, all of the bases are exactly what I asked for- right down to the last millimeter! Plus, costs were reasonable, which is great when quality is so high. His website is here Dopey Dog, I will be sure to use his services again!

In case you were wondering how it all looks ranked up, here is my whole haul of Hoplites to date...



Now one of the locals recently returned from a trip to the Crimea, bringing home many stories and wargaming dreams, but also brought home what will now be known as the "SAGA Amphora" to be claimed as a right for winners of SAGA Trojan War games!



Glorious!

More painting on the block at the moment, more historical stuff for Impetvs!

CP

More Hoplites!

Over the past week or so, I have been chipping away at getting some more Immortal Games Greek Hoplites painted up. The reason? Well, I have previously mentioned that I like SAGA, so having more warriors for that is all good, but the real reason is to use them in Impetvs. And the first step for that is that I needed more hoplites!

This is another unit of 12 Hoplites. They are the "blue" unit (contrasting to the previous red and green units). They are painted the same as the other hoplites that I have already done, they are only missing the Army Painter tufts of grass, which I ran out of! More are on the way shortly, which will solve that problem. For SAGA, this unit represents another 1.5 points of Warriors, and for Impetvs it will break into two bases of FP Hoplites.

This is another 6 hoplites, or one base of FP in Impetvs. I actually have run out of Hoplites again, I would like another 6 for this unit, so that I can run a full 48 Warriors in SAGA! At any rate, this is the "yellow" unit. The plan is with the 5 different colours (yellow, red, blue, green, black) is to mix them all together for Impetvs so that the Hoplites look nice and colourful, which is what they would have historically been. I quite like the Yellow unit, the mustard-ish yellow makes for a nice subtle contrast with the off-white armour.

Just a quick little update today, come back tomorrow for another "On Heroic Greek Characters"!

CP

SAGA Trojan War- On Heroic Greek Characters Part 2: Ajax

Following on from my earlier post about Greek Heroes , I humbly present Part 2, all about that loveable chap from Salamis, Greater Ajax (or Aias).

A painted representation of Ajax from the 1800's

Ajax (Aias in Greek), son of Telamon was known as either "Ajax the Great" or as "Telamonian Ajax", to differentiate him from Ajax, son of Oileus, who was known as "Ajax the lesser". Which must have been a real ego killer for him!

Ajax was a King of Salamis, and as a suitor of Helen, he was called into battle against the Trojans during the epic struggle that was the Trojan War. On the battlefield, he was a brilliant warrior- second only to his cousin, Achilles. Ajax is described as having great strength and bravery, known as "the bulwark of the Achaeans", he went into battle carrying a massive shield as well as an axe or sometimes a spear. In terms of the heroic poem the Illiad, Ajax is unique because he receives no help from the Gods, which is totally unique among the heroes on either side of the conflict! In that then, Ajax comes to represent hard work and perseverance, of earning the right to have glory.

Ajax's great strength is displayed twice in the Illiad while attacking the Trojan Prince, Hector while Achilles was sulking. In Book VII, he gets the better of Hector, wounding him with his spear in a duel. The only thing that saves the prince of Troy was that the heralds called the duel a draw; at the request of the Trojan loving Zeus. Ajax and Hector again battle in Book XIV, when the Trojans make a brutal assault onto the Greek ships. Ajax hurls a massive rock at Hector, gravely wounding him. Apollo revives Hector, who returns to attack the ships again. All the while, Ajax armed with a spear and his massive shield is leaping from ship to ship, holding off the Trojans without any aid. Hector returns and disarms him, but by this stage the destruction of the fleet has been avoided, and Ajax survives without a scratch. As well as fighting Hector, Ajax kills another named 27 Trojans or their allies, in addition to the nameless ones.

It is Ajax assisted by Menelaus, who recover the body of Patroclus from the Trojans, who were to feed it to their dogs for Patroclus being a liar (pretending to be Achilles).

So, Ajax was a brilliant warrior, second only to Achilles. He was equal to the best of the Trojans (Hector) and was able to defeat many of his enemies in single combat. He also displays eloquence about the true path of the warrior, acting as an embassy to persuade Achilles to rejoin the war. In combat he has no equal, but he is known to be not as cunning as Nestor or Odysseus.

Ajax, as with all Greek Heroes is a tragic character. Although he survives the Illiad, he is not to live long into his old age.

Upon the death of Achilles, the Greeks have a competition as to who is now the 'Greatest of the Achaeans'. As is was Ajax and Odysseus who are the ones to rescue Achilles' body, they are the two who claim the title and Achilles' armour as their own. In the end, it was Odysseus' eloquent words that won out the other Kings, proclaiming the armour to belong to Odysseus.

Now, Ajax in later poems was a character who disregarded the gods. In Ancient Greece, the gods were a force to be appeased at every turn- for example Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter to have fair winds for his fleet's sailing to Troy. Odysseus' odyssey was caused by Poseidon being angry with him. For Ajax then in his hubris to disregard the Gods, he became at their mercy. And it is after the loss of Achilles' armour, that the Gods punish him for his hubris.

Upon waking the next morning, Ajax is beset by madness (god inflicted)and attempts to slaughter his comrades, only to be tricked by the gods into slaughtering some nearby cattle. His wits return, and upon seeing what he had done in his madness, he commits suicide. That decision, makes Ajax completely different to other heroes, and helps explain the code by which Greek Heroes (in poems) exist. Ajax, the great warrior displayed his arete through his strength, his courage and his honour on the battlefield. But he became too proud, in his hubris, his pride he dishonoured the gods and as such, was punished. Upon realizing his mistake, the loss of honour was too much for Ajax, it was unbearable, and so he falls upon his own sword, akin to what the Japanese would call seppuku.

For the Greeks then, his story is a warning, a tale against hubris. Why am I talking about him? Well, I constructed a version of him to use in SAGA

His body comes from the Immortal Games box, as does the head. His arms are from a Warlord Games Ancient Briton, his axe head from a Viking, and his cape comes from a Saxon, with a redesign to make it fit.

So, I have decided to make more Greek Heroes of the Trojan War, and will write a bit of a biography for them too. Question is, who would you like next?

CP

SAGA Trojan War- If Achilles goes down to the woods today he is sure for a big suprise...

And that suprise is.... A trojan spear to the face. Repeatedly.

So, Achilles in his hubris from his previous victory over the cunning Odysseus thought that he would go for a gentle stroll through the forests surrounding Troy with a few of his best buddies, maybe stopping for a nice wine amongst the trees. A lovely sunday stroll one might say.

Quickly, into stroll formation!

Tragically, Hector was also out for a stroll. Except his stroll was not leisurely, it was instead murderous!

From a tactical point of view, the less said about the games the better, in short, everything I learned from my game against Odysseus I forgot. I charged things off blindly, I didn't keep my battle line in formation, and in short, I kept getting Achilles killed!

For his part, Hector was most obliging to take advantage of my tactical ineptitude, the Trojan bow armed warriors were enacting a horrific toll onto my warriors, quite simply refusing to miss, while I refused to hide behind a shield (damn cowardly that is).

But, there were some highlights, my 8 strong unit of Myrmidon Elites kept up their impressive killing streak, ably seeing off larger units of warriors and causing many, many casualties.

What do you mean "we missed one?"

And now some more pics of the Myrmidons in action...

Achilles did serve himself pretty well, I need to remember that he has more abilities than just the "no fatigue" aspect. It is interesting at any rate to run around with some cool looking hoplites.

Back to the painting board, working on a SAGA Dark Ages army....

CP

SAGA Trojan War- Teaching Odysseus a lesson for calling me "emo"

Achilles and Odysseus squared off last night in our first crack at SAGA- Trojan War.

We played a 6 point game, I was using..
Achilles (the best of the Greeks)
8x Myrmidon Elites
12x Myrmidon Hoplites
12x Myrmidon Hoplites

Jamie's Ithacans looked like...
Odysseus (the cunning)
4x Ithacan Nobles
12x Warriors
12x Warriors
8x Warriors

The Myrmidon battle line.

We were playing the "Kill the Warlord" scenario- seemed only right to describe the meeting between these two, after Odysseus' claims of Achilles being "emo"! The terrain was pretty simple, the Ithacans are good in the rocky ground, so naturally when we rolled, there was a massive bit of rocky ground in the middle of the battlefield! Cunningly, I put all other scenery on the outside, where it would have no impact on the battlefield at all.

The Achaean battleboard (here) is relativly straight forward. Achilles is an absolute combat monster, so what you want to do is get him into combat. Alot. If you keep him alive in combat, he will probably kill everything in combination with the Heracles ability, so you need nice little ablative hoplite armour kicking around with them. My plan was simple then, get Achilles in combat, get the Myrmidon Elites in combat, fluff around with the warriors.

The battle started pretty slowly, Odysseus reduces my amount of SAGA dice to 2 for turn 1, 3 for turn 2 then back up to full from there. So basically turns one and two were pretty low key, getting my troops forward to get into position to attack the Ithacans in close combat.

Myrmidons have captured the rocky ground!

The start of turn 3 saw me roll 2 6's- perfect for the Heracles ability! So there was nothing to do but to charge Achilles blindly into the intervening Ithacans in the rocks.

"Achilles SMASH!"

And smash he did. Killing a fair swag of Ithacans- 10 dice hitting on a 4+ is ruthless! Combined with his "no fatigue" makes him an absolute monster. Soon, the battle of the rocky ground was so bad that Odysseus himself was forced into the fray to save his warriors! Unfortunatly, Achilles and his Myrmidon elites had far too much fun slaughtering them, until there was only Odysseus left.

"Hey, Achilles, could we have a time out?"

All the while this was going on, I had sent one of my Warrior units on a massive flanking mission, sweeping away the Ithacan Nobles and then laying into the smaller unit of Ithacans.

Get them! Kill the unpainted ones!

But by this stage, I had lost a few of the Myrmidon Elite, giving their lives willingly (ish) to save Achilles. They were at least allowed the honour of killing the last of the Ithacan infantry!

Weren't there more of us? Fatigue sucks, why can't we be like Achilles?

The merry slaughter of Ithacans continued, until only Odysseus remained.

In spite of killing one of the Myrmidon Elite, Odysseus fell, was put into a headlock by Achilles until he said "uncle". Now the two could go off and sack Troy together, honour intact!

So, Achilles killed no less than 11 enemy models, including Odysseus.

My thoughts on SAGA? It is brutally simple in a lot of ways. Rolling to hit is simple, no great modifiers, changes or anything like that. But, through the battle board, you find some real complexity, I think I will use my battle board much more effectively next time (I think), the Achaeans don't have too much finesse to go along with them, certainly if I can keep the Heracles dice ready to use at any time for my Warlord, I will kill a lot of stuff, but I think the cunning Odysseus might have some new plans and machinations of his own.

SAGA is fun. Hoplites look awesome, the Pro-painter is doing a great job on the Ithacans, expect more games of this in the future!

There was a Day of Days update on here earlier today, make sure you check that out too.

CP

SAGA Myrmidons- Completed

In the Illiad, the Myrmidons were the bravest and most skilled warriors of all the Achaeans, led by the best of the Greeks himself, Achilles. The Myrmidons were regarded highly for their loyalty- they refused to fight when Achilles sulked, only going into battle without him because they thought the Patroclus was Achilles. The eventual killer of King Priam was also a Myrmidon, a chap called Neoptolemus (he was also the son of Achilles), described in the Aeneid (a shameless pro-Trojan story) as having done the deed with the Hector's son as a weapon. And they made a lovely vase of it, now in the Louvre in Paris....

In other myth, the Myrmidons came into being after a great plague, which left the lands of King Myrmidon destitute and without any life. Naturally, he prayed to the Gods, and Zeus turned all of the ants from a sacred oak tree into people, the Myrmidons. So the word 'Myrmidon' actually can be translated into "ant people".

But, all the myth and legends aside, I have painted my full Myrmidon warband for SAGA.

First up, is the big man himself, being played by Brad Pitt in this movie. The miniature comes from the Wargames Illustrated "moments in time" range- give it a week and you will see Hector from the same pack appear on another blog...

Next up is my generic Warlord, for use when Achilles is dead or sulking. Or he could be Neoptolemus, for when I want to kill kings. The model is the Immortal plastics, note the piper in the background, his funky headgear was not just fashionable, it was also functional to keep the pipes playing properly!

This is my 8 Elite Hoplites, Achilles' chosen ones. They get the best armour, and the oh so classy shield curtains! More of the lovely Immortal plastics (now from Warlord Games).

Then we have 2 units of 12 Warriors. These guys are again Warlord Plastics. To tell them apart, one unit is based around red colourings, the other based around green. I plan to add more hoplites to turn these into a full army of Impetvs Hoplites.

So, that's it right now for my Hoplites. I plan to get a game in with them next week, I think Odysseus' Ithacans are in need of a reminder who the best of the Greeks is!

Day of Days is this weekend, will post up something about that Friday I think, and I painted the start of Secret Project No. 5 (Operation Cassowary), so pics of those to come too...

CP

2 Projects, SAGA Myrmidons and FOW Valentines

Well, I completed a big-ish project last weekend and a smaller side project (pics of both soon!), so I need something new to get my painting total up for Analogue!

First up is my army for Valleycon- and after spending such a long time thinking I would be playing a German Kradschutzen company, a lack of motorbikes means that that plan went out the window! So, I was too short of panzers to run a proper company, and I have no inspiration to play a German Infantry company (they are boring, and I have played them before!). So, I am going with British instead!

I am using the Early War powerhouse that is the Valentine Tank!

So to support them, I am going to bring some NZ Infantry. The list looks like this...

HQ-2 Valentine II
Tank Platoon- 3 Valentine II
Infantry Platoon- Full Strength, Sticky Bombs
Carrier Platoon- 2 Patrols
Field Artillery Battery- 4 25pdr guns

And the army looks like this....

Boy does this look like a tournament ready army....

So.. there is plenty of painting that needs to be done! The valentines have a base coat of dark sand on them, but that needs a few more coats before it looks anywhere near right! The artillery need to be put onto new bases (I don't like the ones they are on now)- the carriers need a repaint..... And so on.

So that is project 1, this is project 2.

Achilles v Hector

Jamie had the cunning plan to adapt SAGA for the Trojan War. This is far more interesting to me than the Dark Ages (I will still make a Saxon army still...). I have chosen the Achaeans as my army, specifically those killers who answered only to Achilles- the Myrmidons.

Now there isn't a battleboard for them yet, Jamie is still writing it! But the overall plan for the Myrmidon list is that they will have no Levy. None. So the warband then is going to be Hoplites and better Hoplites! Which is pretty damn cool I think!

The great Hoplite race of 2012- This was a real olympic event by the way....

So, this is the army as it stands, fully assembled! I have...
Achilles and an extra Warlord (plus another in the works)
8 Elite Hoplites
24 Hoplites

And that's it! A 5 point army! We are currently working out what to have Achilles as- probably a "named hero", meaning he is an extra point.

Generic Achaean Warlord (name to be determined) and Achilles himself!

My hope is that SAGA Trojan War becomes a playground of heroes, the armies changing depending on which Hero is leading them, Odysseus, Ajax, Achilles, Agamemnon or even Menelaus for the Greeks.

But more on all of this on the future, I am thinking this will be pretty cool!

As for the Trojans, you are going to have to wait for Jas to update his blog......

CP