And she's back!

Hi all!

Sorry for the long gap between posts. In the week after my last post I got very little done in terms of painting (a few steps done on the Korean artillery), although I did manage to prep some more figures. I was also out at the club on two nights for gaming. After that I was down at the TUC Congress in Bournemouth, from which I have returned with a stinking cold. I did prep the rest of the pirates for my army, and since my return I've got most of them glued onto painting sticks ready to be primed.

The first game was to give Simon a practice game for the Lisbon international teams tournament as he hadn't yet played a single game of FoG:AM under the V2 rules. It was quite a successful game in regard to that as I think we covered all the major changes that he might come up against. It wasn't so good for me though as I lost 21:4!! Simon's army was Early Hungarian (approx 1200AD) and I had fiddled up a list for my Swiss making it as early as possible for the figures I had (1425-ish I think). In fact, I'd done two lists - one with 13 BGs and the other with 17 BGs (same overall numbers of each troop type, just bigger BGs). Unfortunately I went with the 17 BG list, which competently demonstrated the difficulties of manoeuvring lots of small BGs with just a few generals (V2 has imposed limits on how many BGs can be moved together by generals, so a TC can only move 2 whereas in V1 generals could move as many BGs as were in their command radius and in contact with another BG in the group). I did take pics and will try to remember to write up a AAR this week.

The second game was against Gordon and was a practice for the Derby World Teams tournament at the end of the month. I'll be taking a Sea Peoples army (figures borrowed from Gordon) which should be good fun. As the army is mainly Impact Foot-Swordsmen, tactics should be quite easy - plough straight ahead, charge the enemy line and hope to win the impact phase as I'm likely to be down in the melee phase otherwise. The main difficulty will be getting there intact against opponents with shooty troops as I have very few skirmishers to screen them as they advance (in fact, I'm probably better off sticking them on the flanks to hold up any attempts to outflank me).

The game itself was good fun and resulted in a draw. I was winning on my left flank, holding on my centre-left, but losing badly on my centre-right. On my right wing things were quite close as we ended the game, but I was in a very good position to win there if we'd carried on.

It was certainly a useful learning experience for me as I've never really played with a medium foot army before. I've certainly rethought my deployment and basic battle plan (stick the superiors in the centre of the line, use the skirmishers supported by some average MF to protect the flanks, have some BGs behind the main line to provide rear support and keep generals in range of all the battle line BGs - the latter two should help provide some protection from the cohesion-dropping effects of shooting on the way in.


Being a Winner

Whilst my luck in games may not be good, my luck in winning prizes in the blogosphere seems to be excellent. A couple of months ago I won a prize on Msr le Rosbif's blog. It arrived yesterday and I am thoroughly looking forward to reading it. Eventually - I've got quite a queue of books to read at the moment.


So, what will I be up to this week?

I was planning to go to Colours today, but my cold has put paid to that. Whilst I could still go tomorrow if I feel better, I probably won't as part of the rail journey has a bus replacement service and I've got a ton of chores to catch up on. Oh well, maybe next year.

Painting

Hopefully I'll finish the Korean artillery over the next few days. Then it will be back to Donogh's Hasslefree figures. I may go back to the beginning and try a different tack, working on them one at a time. Once they are done, I intend to set to work finishing off all the figures in my WIP drawers before I commence any new projects.

Prepping

I need to finish prepping the last 60 Sarmatian lancers, so I plan to take those into work with me this week, to do during lunch breaks. The horses they'll be going on were painted a year and a half ago, so it's about time I actually painted the riders!

If prep on those goes well, I've also got some 28mm figures for Saga to prep - a Viking warlord, some berserkers, two wolves and a mounted Norman warlord.

Once all those are done I will start prepping some other historical stuff, probably the remainder of the 30YW stuff and my 6mm ACW. After all, I want to have plenty of figures prepped and primed, ready and waiting for this year's Analogue Painting Challenge. I may also prep some of my 15mm SF stuff to paint up over the next few months.

Priming

Simon finally handed over the figures I'm going to paint up for him as a winner of my 1st Blogday prize draw back in January. So, 36 15mm Spetsnaz troops have been prepped and stuck on painting sticks. I'll be getting them primed during the week and will start painting them after doing Donogh's (or maybe alongside). These will be done in the blue urban/winter camo, but Simon hasn't told me yet which pattern he wants (tiger, woodland or reed). They should be good fun to paint.

I'll also make a start on priming the Pirates this week.


Gaming

I've got two more games lined up for this week. On Monday I'll be giving Gordon a practice for Derby. He's loaning me a Mid Republican Roman army to use against the Late Dynastic Egyptian army that he is taking to the tournament. How will I cope with nary a sight of a horse in my army?

On Thursday Richard is giving me a practice game for my Sea Peoples. I've given him some suggestions for opponents I'd like to try out the army against, but don't know yet what I'll be facing.