Field of Glory

 Dusted off the old Viking 15mm figures for a couple of games of FOG (Field of Glory) at the club on Sunday, using the version 3 rules. Been 9 plus years since they have seen the light of day. Brain FOG was the biggest challenge trying to remember the rules and use the new tweaks and updates which have been done to the rules. It was a good day and nice to get some gaming in. Couldn't find my camp for the army, so improvised with a little putter Viking ship.

Won the first game and then worked out a few things we were doing wrong, a hollow win, but I’ll take it. Then got my but kicked in the second game. 

The Wooden Spoon

Oh yeah … nothing like getting the wooden spoon at a tournament.

So Battlecry 2015 event was held at a new venue, the Remuera Bridge Club. I believe thanks to our lovely council hiking the costs through the roof for the previous location at the ASB stadium…..(insert large amounts of colorful language about Auckland City council…bleep … bleep … money grubbing …..bleep bleep ..bulling …bleep .. bureaucrats … yes they aren't my favorite people )

A much smaller venue saw alot less things happening, but not that I ever got to see much else as I’m normally playing in the Fields of Glory tournaments anyway. I found it alot cooler today once they got the ceiling fans going, so that was a big bonus as the ASB stadium got crazy hot in the afternoons. Space was a little tight, but nothing to crazy. So all in all a good location and close to some nice cafe's to get my caffeine fix.

With the usual suspects from the South Auckland Gaming Club there, and a bunch of others from down south we had five tables going. The opening round was

Players

Arthur Young  vs Stephen Ladanyi

Kevin Carberry vs Richard Jeffrey

Cavan Orsbourne Vs Richard Woolford

Bryan Orsbourne Vs Scott Gallagher

Robert Wood vs Ian Doel

So yesterday I played Ian up first,who I’d never meet before. A really good game which I got totally wiped after a few awful dice rolls at the wrong times and as well as Ian being a very good player.
My second game on Saturday was up against Cavan with his Spartan army .. Oh my god .. the Orsbourne Dice rolling machine of destruction versus my dice rolling (an armless leper could have rolled better than what I did)… safe to say I got completely wiped out.

I never took many pictures,I was too busy getting slaughtered. :-)

Then today my first game was up against Kevin, who I had borrowed the Ptolemaic army off. So he got to play against his own army. At that stage after day one, the both of us were at the bottom of the points table. The dice rolling continued to be epically bad for both of us, but my lack of playing with the army showed, and Kevin changing his tactics and using his chariots effectively saw me crumble and then collapse in a spectacular fashion. (It was rather funny in the end)

Then the final game was against Scott with his Gallic force. Last time I played Scott he lost pretty much purlly on bad dice rolls. This time the match up was going to be alot closer as long as the dice behaved.
As it turned out the game was very close ending with Scott taking an early lead and my pike making hard work of in middle of the table. In the end it was a draw with Scott taking 12 points from me and I got 8 from him. By far my best game and also the most enjoyable. A close game is a always a good game.

A great weekend gaming done and dusted. Even if I got the wooden spoon

Thanks to Kevin for being the umpire and also lending me his army.  And thanks to Glen and Bryan from Battleline Miniatures for sponsoring the tournament.

FOG Practice

Another cracking clear hot summers day for our monthly South Auckland Gaming club day. With the Battle Cry 2015 tournament next weekend, FOG Ancients was the game of the day so we could all get some practice in. Especially for me as I’m borrowing an army to play in the tournament since I didn't have one that fitted into this years theme. It was my first games with the army today. (thanks to Kevin for letting me borrow them) A Ptolemaic list of lots and lots of Pike, of which I’ve been on the receiving end of a brutal beating from Kevin when he used them against my Vikings a few months back.

First up was a game against Bryan with his Romans. Having not played FOG in quite some time the rules were in the usual rusty state of mind, and a few mistakes were made in the first game. It was an unusually brutal game on Bryan as my dice were on fire,seeing a large amounts of 5’s and 6’s. Adding to that a few rules blunder made it a very decisive win to me. If we had of played the rule correctly,I think I would still have won, but not as convincingly. With my numbers I managed to do the good old pincer move and get around on both flanks which helped win the game.

Second game was against Glen, and more Romans. This battle was alot harder with Glen’s larger units making it hard work. Lucky for me a fluke dice role killing one of his generals helped make a big difference in the middle of the battle. Then an outflanking move meant that I managed to collapse Glen’s main battle line completely, which soon resulted in me breaking Glens army for my second win of the day.

A good learning curve for me with a Pike based army, as both games were very different. A few blunders made for sure, which I wont do next week… hopefully.

Looking forward to Battle Cry.

Battlecry 2014 – Day 2

Another cracking summer day saw us in for a hot afternoon at day 2 of Battlecry 2014. After my whippings of yesterday I was matched up with Arthur in my first game. The game started well and it was tit for tat for quite awhile, and then things went south. Arthur breaking my army in the end, but I did get kill half his army so got some points.

Second game of the day was a rematch of Phil’s Spartans, who I beat up a few weeks back. Phil deployed well and had lined up my softer Freeman for a pasting by his Spartans. So in fear of receiving that pasting, I tried a manoeuvre that was a little risky. I ran my heavy hitting Huscarls forward and slide them across partly in front of the Freeman so they would all overlap. Managing to find enough turns I got the line reformed enough to survive the first impacts. The turning point of the game was when I sneaked around the end of Phil’s battle line and hit them in the side, thing turned really good for me as a result and I won the game losing only one battle group.

Last game of Battlecry I landed with facing Will and his Romans. So for fun I went a little nuts and chose mountain terrain with as much as I could get on the table. The dice decided to laugh at me soon after as Will rolled me completely.

So I ended up coming 6th (I think) on the points table…. out of 8. Not bad for so many pasting's. The weekend was alot of fun and the 600 points games were great fast fun. I definatelly be going along again next year.Thanks to Battleline Miniatures for the sponsorship.  http://www.battleline-miniatures.co.nz/

I took a few other shots of things going on.

Battlecry 2014

Drop the “Battle” and just Cry 2014 is more like it. One win and two utter wippings.

My first game was up against Chris with his Cathy’s. Having played his army several times before I knew what to expect. With a good start on the terrain deployment and some bad rolls on Chris’s side, I walked up and rolled through him wining well and truly. The game was won on my overlaps, and share numbers in each of the smaller battles over the game.

The second game was a completed turn around as I faced of against Richard with his Later Mycenaean. The outcome was the same as last year when I played him. I got completely wiped out. Probably the worst every terrain deployment for my Vikings. No I’m not making excuses, Richard is a superb player and won on skill, but the terrain didn't help me at all. I spent half of my forces chasing Chariots off that I was never going to catch while the other half got slaughtered. A few bad rolls and some mistakes by me. Getting my support to close causing a chain reaction of failures and Richard destroyers me.

Game three I faced off Steven, who I had never played before, running a force similar to my New Kingdom Egyptians. Terrain this time was much better. I knew straight up that I was in for a long fight, and spent the game running across the battlefield chasing his five battle groups of Chariots. I hadn't learnt from my previous game and got myself into pretty much the same situation as in the previous game with getting my support group in to close. This time I saw it coming, but not quite soon enough to stop it happening.  Crash, Bang, Wallop… I lose completely again. Still it was a fun game and the guys are all really good spots.

We had plenty of time to walk around and see what else was happening and I shot a bunch of other photos.
Some good old Epic looking awesome.

 6mm Gaming .... crazy small scale to paint.

28mm Napoleonic 

Star Wars Lego display.

Three games of Field of Glory Ancients done and dusted….all great fun, but I’m definitely ready for a better day tomorrow, better on the wining side that is.

F.O.G terrain

I had some old carpet tiles and off cuts lying around from when work redid the floors. The ones with the nice thick rubber base. So today I made up some more area terrain from them for 15mm Field of Glory and the up coming Battlecry tournament. For the cost of two spray cans, it's cheap and easy terrain that works a treat. The best part is they will last forever and a day and they are flexible and have a good solid weight to them so they don't slide around on the table.

Also tried out making a hill and some enclosed fields with fences  by just cutting out the scraps and gluing them on. A bit of PVA glue should do the trick, time will tell if it holds well enough. The photos below are before I spray them, above is what they end up looking like

Roll on next weekend.