Well thats just ruddy spivving!!

  Hello all, just a quickie to let you know i have listed some more stuff on ebay, so if you are looking for a project to keep your self busy over this period of ...errr....oddness why not have a punt?. But before i show the lots its time for....

I,ve been on a bit of a 90's noise binge of late....

 You can find the following lots here on my ebay page (of  doom), please peruse at your convenience.

 30 Years war 1:72 Swedish cavalry. Most are Revell but i think the odd one or two may be Mars knock offs as i brought them in a job lot.

 Some Zvesda and Imex 1:72 Vikings.

 HaT 1:72 Gallic warriors.

A random mix of HaT 1:72 el Cid bits, some converted for fantasy gaming.

 I also have some Dark Alliance and Caesar fantasy stuff i could be persuaded to part with if you ask nicely.

 While i am in full on spiv mode i thought i would point you in the direction of the fantastic Silver Rain art studios facebook Art work page, its run by the Amazing Mrs Sprinks as a showcase for her work, much of which is for sale (commission work has been mentioned), Stuff like this:

Pop over for a browse and drop her a like or two if you are so compelled.

......'till next time.......

Skirmish at Phlemm Valley

  After all the build up its time to launch this continuingworldbuildingcampaigntypething!:

The situation that has led up to this situation can be read, well i would do a list but if you read the last 6 posts (but take out the 'Hassles of Hoff' as a semi-related piece) you should be up to speed.

The war of four kings is well known to have been officially started by Osewrenne Cobbenhamme, the 19th Earl of Fossestershire ordering troops south into Crivenshire to contest the interim rulership of Olde Albilande after the whole royal line was wiped out in a single night by a poisoned pudding instigating the need to implement wazzcockes law, which decrees the election of a new king from the serving Earls. (whew, long sentence!).

Two of the four counties have called their forces to march against each other as both their ruling Earls have laid claim to the right to rule until the election of the new king can be decided (Royal Crivenshire in the south and Fossestershire in the north). Another of the counties (Offenhammeshire to the south west) has secretly called its troops to arms but is keeping its plans under wraps. Who knows whats happening in the other shire ( Burkenshire, to the east). The campaign map shows the current situation:

Click to make it far, far clearer!.

Each flag shows an army called by the shire. Fossestershires 3rd army has marched from the border town of Phucenmere, over the border to Crivenshire at the Earls Request, only to be intercepted by the much larger Crivenshire 2nd. Stopping short of contact with the enemy just west of Gibblet, Sir Physs, Commander of the Fossestershire 3rd has sent out scouts to access the situation. Reports of frequent border patrols personally lead by a minor knight of the shire to harry and discourage any forward movement has caused him to halt his advance. Physs' plan was to intercept a patrol and massacre it, not only to clear passage for an advanced force to gain ground undetected but to land a initial moral blow to the enemy. To this end he has ordered a mounted force to slip south to cut off any retreat a patrol may make and to attack them with a second force from the north. This way he reasoned the patrol would be trapped by the split forces and wiped out. However his plan relied on trapping a mobile enemy. Thus, he chose the high ridged Valley of Phlemm as the stage for his rouse.

He chose able commanders to lead his split forces. Sir Crankerton-smithe, veteran of the forth Lamavic uprising lead a mounted force south of the valley ready to cut back north. The young sir Mallalllall would command the infantry that would attack the patrol and herd them towards the cavalry attack. 

  His plan however would not be as clean as he had hoped, a rain storm took hold a day before the attack upsetting the arrival of the horse, There was also a surprise in store when the Crivenshire force was discovered!.

   Fearing an attack the Commander of the Royal Crivenshire 2nd army, Lord Chopah of Ralligh commanded the patrols be doubled and constant contact in the field be maintained between the parties to ensure threats could be reacted to quickly. Thus the patrols of sir Crowesfell and sir Finnagree the Clenched met in the Phlemm valley to compare notes when sir Mallalllallls force attacked!.

The Game

  For this game i'm using Ospreys Lion Rampant as for Medieval skirmishes its pretty great. I set some victory conditions: The Crivenshire patrols had to get an unbattered unit off of the table at either end of the valley floor to send word of the attack to the 2nd army. Fossestershire had 5 turns to ensure no Crivenshire forces got away to raise the alarm thus would win if the patrol failed to get any troops out.

 The game begins with both Crivenshire patrols in the center of the valley, on the first turn Sir Mallallalls infantry may move on to the northern edge of the valley by passing a move activation. From turn two onwards the force of Sir Crankerton-smithe can move on to the southern valley edge in the same way.

On the first turn sir Mallallalls troops move first.

The forces:

 The Crivenshire patrols are identical, being made up of two units of mounted sarjeants with bows, a knight leads one of the units. (the Crivenshire forces have blue and white bases)

 Sir Mallallalls infantry force is made up of two units of foot yeomen with mixed weapons (spear and bow), one is lead by Sir Mallallall.

 The Fossestershire horse contingent consists of Sir Crankerton-smithe leading a unit of Mounted Men at Arms and two units of Mounted Sarjeants. (all Fossestershire forces have white bases with Grey trim).

The Valley of Phlemm, pre-bother. (taken from the north)

The Crivenshire patrols of  sir Crowesfell (left) and sir Finnagree the Clenched (right) meet.

 Sir Mallallall and his troops burst into the valley.

 Sir Mallallall enjoys pointing with his sword

one unit is sent to sneak round the trees!.

 Surprised, the highly trained patrols spring into action!

Sir Finnagree sends a unit onto the high ground to draw a bead on the sneaky foot!.

 With sir Crowesfells unit bearing down sir Mallallall orders arrows to fly!.

 To the south of the Valley sir Crankerton-smithe leads his lancers onto the field!.

The noose tightens!

 In the north end the foot by the trees are charged and forced to fall back.

 Sir Crowesfell orders his troops into the hail of arrows!.

The brave charge forces Sir Mallallalls foot back and leaves them battered!

 A brave unit from sir sir Finnagrees patrol counter-charge the lancers of  sir Crankerton-smithe in an attempt to hold them off.

sir Finnagree the Clenched leads his troops up the valley to head off the galloping Fossestershire sarjeants, if they can just buy Sir Crowesfell more time!.

 Elsewhere sir Mallallall tries to rally his troops when  Sir Crowesfell leads another charge home against his troops!.

 Forcing them to bolt for home!.

Sir Mallallalls other foot Yoemen unit are also sent running!.

 Down the valley sir Finnagree the Clenched's patrol sell their lives dearly to buy time for Crowesfells escape!.

 The lancers steamroller the sarjeants that dare to impede them. Crankerton-smithe hollers a challenge across the valley to the cowardly dog sir Crowesfell.

Who honors the sacrifice of his troops by heading home to raise the alarm to the Crivenshire 2nd! 'Fossestershire have attacked, the war has begun!'

 Well its started, where it will end i do not know but it looks like i may have a game or two to get on and play!. Right i best get Burkenshires forces based up!....

.....'till next time.....

background vs tone, or how to really get on your own tits!

Hi all, this post may contain bits of seriousness, i make no apologies but feel advanced warning is required!. So why the seriousness i hear you ask?, after all, this blog has ticked along without so much of a sniff of it so far. Well, one of the things that dragged me back into the funding of the toy solder industry through the medium of collecting so many of the little blighters that my wife has been known to be driven to the use of the language of the gutter due to another box of plastic turning up was the designing of my own rules and setting. This is one of the most satisfying aspects of the hobby in my book and are both things i often spend too much time dreaming up!. One of the reasons for starting this very haven of random silliness you are reading now was to share and expand on these things. However....The setting i have come up with is one populated by human kingdoms and highlights themes such as greed, power, addiction, morality, economics and the resulting carnage that these things cause in mankinds selfish hands. This has led me to collect forces to represent the multitude of kingdoms and nations that populate this world, to date thats 18 armies, each representing over 3000 points of troops (some more like 5000) in oldschool warhammer terms to give some kind of point of reference as to what i'm  talking about,

one medium sized force, just to give some idea.

I do not include the above picture to try to show off  (look guys, im ssuuucchhh like, a collector!!!) but to demonstrate the investment of thought and time that i have put into the background i have been working on. So, whats the problem, why am i so frustrated?. Well i'll tell you. The way i write and put together prologues and so forth is very stream of thought, i generally write them in one draft and let the tone find itself, and as i'm sure you know, the theme i enjoy most is to write silly (hopefully kinda fun) stories (and the odd poem) to create a narrative to game. this is the way i naturally write (and i love a narrative to bring a game to life), if i sit down to write anything gaming related my serious side tends to go for a lie down!. This has resulted in the more seriously themed background i have worked at not being represented in any way in the now 18 posts i have so far put together and has been far from my mind when writing content for Wronghammer. Now part of me thinks 'sod it, its fun, find your voice and muck about...you keep going on about gaming being fun so why the stress you numpty!', while another part of me thinks 'when are you going to show that you can come up with more than just stupid stories, no matter how much fun you have writing them at the time?.....you numpty!'. So although i'm hurtling into the realms of the self centered rant and i understand there are far bigger problems to have, i have discovered the style i naturally write in and some of the subjects i created this blog to cover just dont go together!. 

Hence i'm getting on my own tits!.

So, as i have always told my kids not to moan about a problem without  offering a solution i want to try the following if its o.k. with you guys: I will attempt to blog about the background i have come up with and put these in their own dedicated posts, they will kinda be 'info dumps' and will probably also be a touch 'dry' in style as i do feel i cant do much justice to this subject. I will title them in such a way as to be easily skipped if they are not your kind of thing!. So if  you prefer my silly side fear not, i will by no means neglect it, it will still be the main focus of these pages of random prattle!.

Right, thats quite enough seriousness for one post, time to end on a song! 

Oh oh before i go i must say a massive hello and welcome to Mr Herr Zinnling, who has done a very silly thing and.....oh hang on this post includes a serious side so it must be a serious welcome. Welcome Mr Zinnling thank you for taking the time to follow my grey and dour and really very serious blog. For those of you that are not aware Mr Zinnling writes a very good blog of his own that you can see here (and i suggest you do!).

Anyway 'till next time.....

The hunt for the Rum-pum-allorey (AAR)

Well its been quite a while since the prologue but without further ado Wronghammer theater 'proudly' presents......The hunt for the Rum-Pum-Allorey part ii!!!! (part one can be found here).

'I returned to my bench where the stranger remained ,
to hear the rest of the tale of grim Greggor Bane ,
Of a young man at sail with a great beast to tame,
That his name may mean riches and glory and fame.'

'The stranger leaned close and fixed me with a stare,
and it made me on edge as his eyes held me there,
'The rest of this tale', he began 'is the truth now I swear,
for the truth is i seen it, its true i were there!'

I looked at him aghast, 'you were part of the fleet?'
he pulled at his drink and said with a wink,
'you can make up your mind i really do think,
we must get on with the rest before this place runs out of drink!'

Now it was not just Greggor that hunted the beast,
a foul witch named mallora wanted it for a feast,
for such things gave her power when parts she did eat,
and she was down to her last pair of manticore feet!,

The local tribes lived alongside the beast,
and had learned they and he could co-exist,
so long as no one awoke it at least,
so they made it their work to see it never released.

Greggor lead us on a great hunt for the monster,
and Mallora yelled at her Orcs, 'for darkness sake FASTER!,'
the locals formed up to prevent a disaster,
each looking for their own sake to contain the creature.

So through twisted trees we came on a clearing,
and Greggors fine horse took to rearin',
for against us stood savages silently sneering,
and then came the orcs whooping and jeering!,

A stand off it was at the mouth of a great cave,
Inside we could tell the beast was contained,
and we prayed to the gods this desolate place,
would be the field of glory and not just our graves!.......

So this is it!, a three way blood bath at the mouth of the cave of the Rum-Pum-Allorey!. I almost gave Dragon Rampant its first run out for this one (for i know own a copy, so am only about 6 months behind the rest of the gaming world!), but i decided to do another game of Kings of War to see if small forces worked in that rule set. I picked 3 forces of roughly 500pts, 2 used the Kingdoms of men army list and the orcs used amazingly the Orc list. I also had the beast itself which was run as a Greater Earth Elemental.

Anyway, the forces:

Greggor Banes glory hunters:

From the left: Crossbow troop, Regiment of Knights (the pink knights of death!),  Greggor Bane (General on horse),Sheildwall Regiment. (minis by strelets, zvesda and a call to arms)

Malloras' Orc horde:

Rear: 2x Orc Ax regiments, Front from left: Skulk troop, Mellora (human wizard with bane chant2 spell), Gore troop. (minis by dark alliance and ceaser)

The tribal warriors of 'shhhhh, dont wake the bloody great rampaging beast you bloody ingrates!'.

Clockwise from front center: Wizard, Sheildwall Regiment, Earth Elemental troop, 2x Bowmen troops. (minis by Hat, ceaser and games workshop).

The den of the deadly Rum-Pum-Allorey and surrounding areas (not a dining room table or anything!):

The beast is sleeping in the cave at the top of the picture, the local tribesmen are creating a defensive barrier in front of it. The orcs burst on to the scene from the left and Greggors force from the tree line in the south.

As normal i have used coloured bases for each force, Greggors force are on blue with black trim, The locals are on green with red trim and the Orcs are on black and green trim.

The beast itself is hibernating in its den, it will be awoken by excessive noise from above, at the end of each turn i will test to see if the beast wakes. To do this i will roll 1d6 and add the total number of charges executed that turn within 8 inches of the cave. If the score is greater than 6 the beast will come out of its cave and attack the closest target!, it will then charge or move toward the closest unit it can see.

The objective for the Orcs and Greggors force is to kill the beast and kill the opposition. The locals need to ensure the beast survives and drive off the enemy forces.

THE SAGA OF GREGGOR AND THE NASTY WITCH TYPE LADY!:

The action begun with the Orcs surging forward towards the defenders, the thought of the bloodletting that lay ahead (not to mention Melloras wrath) spurring them on. Greggor roared his battle cry and sounded the charge. The Orc gore riders worked round toward the flank of his force so he ordered the sheildwall to block them off. As one the defenders gave a loud(ish) sssshhhhhh!!!! and readied their weapons, the bowmen peppering the oncoming enemy with arrows.

Opening moves

Greggor urged his knights to charge the Elementals facing them, only to be rebuffed as the foe stood firm!

CHARGE!

The Sheildwall braced against the Gore riders

                                                                         CHARGE!!

The rest of the Orcs moved to engage the locals, an Ax regiment attacked the local sheidwall.

Errr,........charge??!!!!!

While all this went on the cave remained silent.....but that would change!. The Knights charged the Elimentals again, this time the attack was enough to fell the (super)natural foe, opening up a gap to the monsters home!. The Crossbows let fly at a troop of bowmen sending them packing!. The Orcs ganged up on the tribesmen between them and the cave, Mellora added her magic to her charges, the extra power helping the Orcs to wipe out the human scum!. Suddenly the local wizard looked quite lonely!........then the ground began to shake!.....

The knights ride down the Elementals, the cave remains quiet.......until....

Deep underground came a chilling screech, the earth rumbled and the cave shook as a sleeping beast decided it was time to complain about the bloody noise!. At the mouth of the cave the wizard stood, an incantation on his lips, lost in his own works......behind him the foul creature emerged! 

Not a morning monster!

And promptly ate the wizard!. RROOAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!

With the beast on the rampage and the local force wiped out it was a race between Greggor and the witch to claim the beast!.

Mellora spurred on her orcs, they slammed into the beast weakening it but being flung back!. The creature screamed in rage and charged the closest orc regiment killing most and scattering the rest!.

Seeing his chance Greggor attacked!.  He sped into th back of the beast while it chewed on some dead Orcs!.

With a mighty swipe of his blade he opened a deep gash in its back. The monster lurched forward, then rocked back before finally.....

TIMBER!!!!!!....(which makes a nice change from charge!).

Over the din of battle Greggors men saw the beast fall and let out a cheer!, the day was theirs!. Greggor lifted his visor and punched the air, the beast was dead!......Then, across the field his eyes met hers.

The witches eyes glowed bright jade and Greggor could not lift his eyes from hers. He began to feel warmer, he broke out in a sweat. Soon he was rending and tearing at his armour as his flesh began to burn!.

He fell from his horse with flames licking from the gaps in his plate. The witch stepped forward, and laughed. (In actual fact she used a fireball spell but thats a little boring isnt it?)

The position at the end of the battle.

'I listened engrossed to the story unfold,

and the blood in my veins began to run cold,

i looked up at my host and something occured,

'if you were there how did you get home?'

He looked in my eye and said 'its true i was their',

But which side was i on?', then i noticed his hair,

growing fast and long as he sat in his chair ,

and his eyes began to glow with a wicked jade flare,

'Oh there i was in victory,

the beast and the day belonged to me,

and now my pretty you too will see,

The fate of young Greggor when he crossed me!'

My skin felt quite pickly, i began to itch,

'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU EVIL BITCH!?!'

But the fire grew hotter and gloated, the witch,

'You are only a bar snack...... but will do in a pinch!!!'.

So ends the saga of Greggor Bane, all that remains is to say HELLO to the fantastic Paul of Pauls bods a brilliant blog full of 1:72 goodness!. Paul is the latest person to contract the madness that causes individuals to detach from all sanity and become a member of this humble blog!. Welcome sir!.

Anyway, till next time.......