Impetus Campaign - Henry's Choice

Henry surveys the field

Henry de Cheraute, advancing in a northeasterly direction to the north (left) of Raymond's main body with a predominantly infantry contingent, was sent to "investigate" the village of Beren. As his troops trudged along the muddy road to town, Gauthier de Morenz, commanding the light infantry advance guard, reported back that an enemy force was drawn up near a crossroads beyond the next ridge. Henry, riding with his men at arms under his younger brother Thomas, crested the ridge and surveyed the scene before him.

Ahead, beyond a small clump of trees, was a fork in the road. The left fork, curving to the north, led to Beren. The right fork continued east in the direction of Henry's next rendezvous with Raymond, where he was due by nightfall tomorrow. Centered on high ground to the north of the road fork was an enemy force that appeared smaller than his own. He did not see any cavalry, but his visibility was hindered by the trees and the high ground.

Thomas studied the scene for a few more moments as their foot soldiers clanked up the road behind them. Finally he spoke. "Well, brother, what's it to be? We could double back the way we came. Or force our way down the east road. Or fight."

Henry smiled and replied "My orders were to pay a visit to the good citizens of Beren. Let's go test these gentlemens' resolve..."

The (visible) enemy

Scenario #2
Through a bit of random selection, our second scenario will be a small fight between two primarily infantry forces. After laying out the basics of the situation I randomized whether Henry should behave aggressively (fight), moderately (bypass and head east) or cautiously (retreat). On a 1-10 scale, I rolled the low end of aggressive, so Henry's plan will be to attack, but prudently. If things do not go well, he will look to disengage and head east.

Henry's forces (with their newly named "captains"):

• Commander Henry de Cheraute (Fair quality)
• Mounted men at arms (Thomas de Cheraute)
• Provincial heavy infantry [FP] (Richard Pominville)
• Provincial light infantry, long spears [FL] (Gauthier de Morenz)
• Provincial light infantry long spears [FL] (Emile Larcevaux)
• Crossbowmen, class B [T] (Edmund Wilkinson)
• Javelinmen [S] (Phillippe Boncarre)
• Scottish mercenary pikemen [FP] (Robert Cadogan)

The defenders of Beren:

• One leader whose rating will be randomized the first time we need to use it for something substantial
• Two units of heavy infantry [FP] with long spears
• One unit of crossbowmen [T] (class B)
• One unit of town militia [FP]

In addition to these named forces, beginning around the time the troops become engaged, I will begin to randomly test for enemy hidden forces or reinforcements (size and type TBD if they appear). Henry might get a surprise of some sort...

...to be Continued

Impetus Campaign - What's In a Name?

Grace has been showing interest in the Impetus game I played recently (as she does with many of the games I set up, and figures I paint). When I was explaining the idea of a campaign to her, as a series of linked battles, she looked at the leader figures on the table and asked me "do they have names?" I said they didn't. She thought they should.

So we are coming up with a bunch of French-ish and English-ish names so that we can have a named "captain" in charge of each unit on Raymond's overall roster, not just the three generals. This is actually a good idea - it will make the characters of our little drama seem more real, and make for more interesting battle report write ups, especially in the sense of continuity from one to the next. It will also mean I throw together a few simple rules on these "captains"; losses inflicted on units during the course of a battle should have some chance of wounding, killing or capturing our named guy, much the same way in which attached commanders can be effected in the normal rules. These "captains" will have no impact on the game other than to provide color. At least that's the plan at this point, but who knows...

When I have concocted enough names, I will go back and edit the first battle report. We will have, for instance, references to "Giacomo Penneti's crossbowmen" instead of "the Italian mercenary crossbow unit."

I think I like the idea. Yay, Grace!

Impetus Rules - First Thoughts

Having played a single solo game of Impetus, after having read the rules several times in fits and starts over the last couple of years, I might as well post my first impressions. I do so with the caveat that there were lots of pieces of the rules that were irrelevant to my little medieval battle and therefore got skipped over entirely (pike and shot type considerations, pila for Romans, elephants, chariots, artillery, large units, wagonburgs, etc).

First and foremost, it was a fun and straightforward playing game. Even with my lack of experience with the rules, I didn't spend too much time flipping through the book trying to find a rule. When I did, I didn't have too much difficulty finding what I was looking for. I jotted down a short list of questions that I will seek clarification on. Nothing that occurred during the game had me mumbling "well that's silly", which is always good for a first impression.

Some specific random thoughts:

• Differences in missile troops types, even within the same weapon type, can be substantial and will take some getting used to. In my game, the mercenary crossbows (class A) on my side had a long range of 30U. The French crossbows on the other side (class B) only have a short range out to 15U and cannot shoot at long range. That means the mercenaries can sit anywhere in the 16"-30" range band and shoot at their leisure with no ability to be shot at in return. Hmm.
• I liked the ability to take multiple movement phases with a unit as long as you are willing to risk the disorder. This made for some interesting choices throughout the game.
• The relationship of "damage" to actual "losses" via the Cohesion Test is subtle but effective. High VBU units like men at arms, heavy cavalry and some of the better infantry are pretty stout. As these units wear down (and all lesser VBU units from the start) they become very fragile, often only taking one damage and routing from the resulting failed cohesion test. Experience will give me a better feel for this, but it seemed reasonable.
• A command structure rated "poor" is really ineffective, and pretty much requires that you attach your leaders to units, making them vulnerable to the effects of combat. A command span of 10U (inches) from the board edge is useless.
• Low current VBU units locked in melee seem like they could be stuck there for quite a while waiting for one side or the other to roll the "6" they need on one or two dice. Just an observation...

And I did have a few questions:

• Can Rally be attempted by a Disordered unit stuck in an ongoing melee when it first activates, before fighting the next round of combat? Nothing in Rally or Melee says you can't, but it doesn't seem like this should be possible. I played that you cannot. [Later addition...it says in Disorder near the beginning of the rules that units in Melee cannot attempt to Rally.]
• Is there a limit to the number of "retreat/pursue/catch/immediate refight" cycles that can happen in one activation? In my first cavalry clash, this situation came up. The Melee rules don't say either way. I played that one retreat/pursuit/refight cycle, and then a continuing melee carrying over into the next activation/turn.
• For units locked in an ongoing melee, if another round of combat is fought and nobody causes damage (nothing happens), is there any resulting effect at all? I couldn't find a reference to anything, but it seemed like maybe each side would pick up an additional Disorder (turning into a loss if already disordered). If nothing happens, then (as per my comment above) it seems like units could sit locked in melee for quite a while.

I guess I should set up a user ID on the Impetus website forum and post my questions, or go trolling for answers in the multitude of old posts that are already out there (I wonder how good that forum's search capability is???).

Hundred Years War - Next Steps

As I played my way through my first Impetus game, a bunch of thoughts were going through my head as to what I needed (or wanted) to do next with the Hundred Years War part of my collection.

• I am torn about basing. I love the look of Impetus style bases vs old-style smaller bases. The freedom to make each base a small diorama, and to have the figures less "regular" in their appearance is appealing. Mounting 25mm infantry on a 60mm wide and 25mm or so deep stand makes everyone end up looking very strictly ranked. Mounting the same figures (and perhaps less figures per unit in total) on a deeper base allows for unit types that should look regular to still be ranked nicely, but to have unit types that should look more irregular be staggered on the bases. The standard 25mm figure unit base is 120mm wide. For those few units I have based this way, I have still based each unit in a pair of 60mm wide bases. This allows for a "column" type of formation (which Impetus doesn't really have but should) as well as using the figures for other games such as Medieval Warfare. I think what I am going to do going forward is to rebase just a few units in this manner, but to do more like this as I add more new units. [As an aside, the current version of Day of Battle uses Impetus style bases.]
• I have lots of figure bases in this period that were mounted after coming back from being painted in Sri Lanka but the bases were never finished. It pains my finicky nature to play with figures glued to plain green-painted bases, but I also hate finishing the bases. Base finishing is one of my least favorite things. But...time to suck it up and properly finish any units I use in this campaign.
• I could use more mounted men at arms (knights). I have figure stock on hand for another half dozen or so units. I should work on them (yes, I know, add them to the list...with the Ottomans...etc).
• I still need better lighting for picture taking in the gaming area. I have a great camera but you'd never know it from the poorly and unevenly lit pictures.
• A few of my oldest "generic medievals" that I had painted by a guy in Ohio 10 or 12 years ago are not up to standard and could use some touching up. As with the base finishing, any unit that gets used in this campaign goes into the "needs work" area of the painting table for touch up before it can be used again.
• I need to buy a bunch of 60mm wide by 50 or 60mm deep bases from Litko or Gale Force 9 at the FALL IN convention in a couple weeks.

So much to do...

Impetus Campaign - Cazalet Finale

Second and final part of the skirmish at Cazalet
Turn 6
Friendly - Longbows rally, shoot with 3 dice at the heavy infantry and miss. The mercenary crossbows rally, fire 4 dice at short range, score 2 damage resulting in 3 losses and rout/destroy the enemy crossbows on the hill. The remainder of William's forces work on forming some sort of battleline with the heavy cavalry and the heavy infantry billmen ending disordered. William and his knights edge forward.
Enemy - The heavy infantry fails to rally, and the two levy infantry units inch forward to stay hidden behind the hill.

End of turn 6

Turn 7

Enemy - Heavy infantry rallies. The enemy hold their ground.

Friendly - A battle line is formed, more or less, but the heavy cavalry, billmen, longbows and mercenary crossbows all end in disorder primarily because of the necessary obliqueing and sidestepping.

(I forgot to take a picture).

Turn 8

Enemy - One of the levy units charges into the billmen, who are advancing up the gentle slope to their front. The enemy wants to deny the hilltop to the billmen, and also take the opportunity to get an impetus bonus on their charge. The levies roll 4 dice (VBU 3 plus 1 impetus), score 3 damage, and inflict 2 losses. The billmen roll 4 dice also (VBU 5 minus 1 disorder), score 1 damage, but also inflict 2 losses. As this is a tie, both units remain locked in melee. The levies become disordered (the billmen already are, and since they took losses I didn't give them another for disorder on top of already disordered - I think I did this correctly...). 

Friendly - Mercenary crossbows fail to rally, move once forward and declare a point blank shot at the levy unit in front of them. Since this shot is likely to be very effective, the levy chooses to reaction charge the crossbows (they can do this as the crossbows have entered their 5 inch forward zone of influence and are shooting at them). My interpretation was that this charge happens in lieu of the shooting as the opportunity/reaction takes precedent over the triggering event (the declared shot), and this is point blank range where the missile unit is not a class A longbow. I believe a class A longbow would have been able to shoot as the levy charged in. The crossbows rolled well, causing 1 damage resulting in 2 losses for the levies, who failed to hit in return. The levies retreat 2 inches and end disordered.

The billmen activate next and fight their continuing melee against the other levies. No result is achieved and they remain locked in melee. As both units have 2 losses and are disordered, they roll very few dice and therefore it is hard to hit the opponent (billmen have current VBU 3 minus disorder for 2 dice, and the levies have current VBU 1 minus disorder for zero dice, and roll the minimum 1 die). The way I am reading the rules, there does not seem to be a minimum effect of a round of combat, so nothing happens.

The longbows shoot and disorder the heavy infantry behind the hedge. The mounted troops wait patiently.

End of turn 8

Turn 9

Friendly - The mercenary crossbows fail to rally, but still shoot 7 dice at the damaged levies in front of them (VBU 4 plus 4 bonus point blank vs infantry for class A crossbows minus 1 disorder). Only 1 damage is caused but the cohesion test for the levies goes poorly and they lose their last loss and rout. The billmen fight another inconclusive round of their melee with the other levies. The longbows shoot at the heavy infantry again, cause 1 damage, which due to more poor French cohesion die rolling turns into 2 losses. The light infantry move forward, the heavy cavalry remains disordered and William bides his time...

The Men at Arms clash in turn 9

Enemy - The constable sees the situation slipping away from him, and pride dictates (randomly) that he take matters into his own hands. He grabs his banner and spurs his men at arms forward down the road, aiming directly for William's banner. William, being charged in the front but not being on opportunity must pass a discipline check to countercharge, which he passes. He spurs his knights forward and they crash into the constable's oncoming men. Each side rolls 11 dice (VBU 7 plus fresh first round impetus bonus of 4). Both sides roll poorly, inflicting only a damage or two, and no losses to either side result. Both units become disordered and locked in melee. Neither attached leader is required to check for casualties as neither cohesion test rolled a "6".

End of turn 9

At the end of turn 9 we have two ongoing melees. The situation for the French blocking force is dire; the heavy infantry are being shot up with no real option but to stand and take it, and the brave levies are having a tough time with the better quality (and more numerous) opposition.

Turn 10

Friendly - The mercenary crossbowmen rally, move, wheel, and end in disorder. Still, they are able to shoot with 1 die across the field into the flank of the heavy infantry sheltering behind the hedge, but do no damage. The billmen fight another round of their ongoing melee and take a loss (their third out of 5) and retreat 2 inches back down the slope from the valiant levies. The longbows then target the heavy infantry, causing 2 damage and 2 losses, which sends them routing from the field.
The swirling clash of mounted men at arms continues. Each unit rolls 6 dice this time instead of 11 (VBU 7 and disordered). The constable's men take a loss and retreat 3 inches. William's knight roll for pursuit and catch the retreating French, precipitating another immediate round of combat. In this round, William's men take one loss and retreat from the fight. I am not sure according to the rules whether these retreat/pursuit cycles continue indefinitely or not, but I chose to not allow a second pursuit beyond the one already conducted in this phase. Lastly, the skirmishers fire into the flank of the French knights and surprisingly cause a loss.

During turn 10

Enemy - The constable urges his men forward one more time and crashes into William's knights. The French cause 4 damage but miraculously no losses. William's troops cause 2 damage which ends in 3 losses (poor cohesion check), along with a casualty check for the constable (cohesion die roll was a "6"). The constable escapes unscathed but retreats. William's knights pursue, catch the French, and fight another round of melee. William suffers 1 loss, but another cohesion roll of "6" for the French sees a total of 5 additional losses and the death of the constable.

End of turn 10 - Battle over

With the two best units on the French side lost in this turn, and the constable dead on the field of battle, the last vestiges of resistance crumble. William gathers his troops and continues his march to Cazalet and the rendezvous with Raymond.

Recap and Campaign Notes - This scenario did what I wanted it to do; it gave me an introduction to the rules. I can now reread certain sections of the rules and try to answer some of the questions I scribbled down as I played. Despite what ended up being, as expected, an easy win for William, there were some moments of potential future impact that could have turned on a die roll. Given that I am using this as part of a series of linked battles in a campaign, a bad cohesion die roll on any of a few different occasions could have gotten one of William's units beaten up pretty badly, and as we saw with the constable, it only takes one bad cohesion die roll to end a leader's career in an instant. As for the forces involved, there were no serious casualties, so there should be minimal impact to this contingent going forward.

I will post my thoughts on the Impetus rules themselves in a separate post.

Grace, who helped me push some figures around and was my designated dice roller for a few turns this morning, is already asking me when we will play the next scenario. I told her "soon Dear, soon"...

Impetus Campaign - Cazalet Part 1

Turn 1
Enemy - Wins the initiative and puts his impetuous Men at Arms and the crossbows on opportunity.
Friendly - Skirmishers and mercenary crossbows both take two moves and end disordered. Longbows move twice, end in good order, shoot at the enemy crossbows with one die and miss (4 die for VBU minus 2 for moves minus 1 for long range vs infantry).
Reinforcement roll fails (would have needed a 1).

End of turn 1

Turn 2
Enemy - Wins the initiative but nothing to do.
Friendly - Skirmishers fail to rally and make one move. Light infantry rallies and moves twice, disordering again. Longbows make one move and fire at the crossbows, rolling one damage but only disordering them. Mercenary crossbows rally and move once, firing but missing.
Reinforcement roll succeeds, so the heavy infantry will enter next turn.

End of turn 2

Turn 3

Enemy - Wins the initiative again. Crossbow fails to rally and so cannot go on opportunity. Nothing else to do.
Friendly - Heavy infantry makes three moves on the road and ends in good order. Skirmishers fail to rally again and move forward toward the stream. Longbows remain stationary and fire at the crossbows but miss. Mercenary crossbows move twice, wheeling and then moving ahead, ending in disorder. The light infantry fail to rally and only creep forward a few inches so as not to get in the way of the advancing reinforcements.
Reinforcement roll passes so William will arrive next turn at the head of his household Men at Arms.
The range advantage of the friendly longbows and mercenary crossbows compared to the regular enemy crossbows is substantial, but the friendly fire continues to have trouble hitting anything. We will continue to close the range.

The enemy sits and waits patiently.

End of turn 3

Turn 4

Enemy - Wins initiative, fails to rally the crossbows, who still don't have a target, as the nearest target is just outside of 15U (inches).
Friendly - Skirmisher rallies and moves one move to the edge of the stream (remember the stream is just decorative in this particular game). Mercenary crossbows fail to rally, shoot with 1 die and miss. Longbows move once ahead, and shoot at the heavy infantry ahead of them behind the hedge (at short range; 4 dice minus 1 for the move, total 3 dice). They miss. Again. Light infantry fails to rally and moves once to get to the right flank. The heavy infantry moves once up the road and then a second move to form up in place (I think I am making this rule up...but it needs it), ending in disorder. William and his Men at Arms move twice up the road and then a third move to form up, ending in good order.
The reinforcement roll is passed, meaning that the last unit, the heavy cavalry, will enter next turn.

End of turn 4

Turn 5

Friendly - William wins the initiative for a change and surges forward. The skirmishers sidestep one move to give the following troops more room. Longbows move one move oblique to the left front, automatically disordering. They shoot at short range with only one die (4 minus 1 for move, minus 1 for disorder, and giving a minus 1 for the hedge). The roll a hit to get a damage, but the target heavy infantry passes its cohesion test (but therefore does end disordered). Crossbows fail to rally, move ahead into short range of the enemy crossbows, and shoot but miss. Light infantry fails to rally but moves once toward the right flank. The heavy infantry rally, move twice forward and end in disorder. William and his knights move twice and end in good order. The newly arriving heavy cavalry move twice up the road and then a third move to form up, ending in good order.

Enemy - Heavy infantry and crossbows both fail to rally. The crossbows have a target now and shoot 2 dice (3 minus 1 for disorder) at the mercenary crossbows and miss. The constable and his men at arms stay on opportunity to keep from having to act on their impetuousness.

End of turn 5

After 5 turns of almost no action, I am satisfied with the exercise so far. I have been able to fumble through a few turns of basics; initiative and turn sequence, command, movement, disorder, rallying, and firing. This is exactly why I set this scenario up the way I did. Things should get much more interesting very soon though, as we have missile troops within short range, formed troops fairly close to each other, and the command issues for the good guys straightened out with the arrival of William. Next order of business will be to get the good guys deployed so they can get stuck in...

...to be Continued

Impetus Campaign - A Beginning

I purchased the Impetus rules not long after they became available in the US, mainly because I buy just about every rules set I can get my hands on for medievals, but also because it had gotten good press in various blogs and from friends and acquaintances. I have read the rules in fits and starts, several times over, since getting them, and while they looked promising, had never gotten around to actually playing them. Figuring that the only way I ever will is to throw some figures on the table and have a go at it, I have decided to concoct a solo hundred years war era campaign. I have no grandiose plans for this endeavor other than to finally play around with these rules and learn them, fighting a scenario when the mood strikes.

I decided to start very small, and over the last couple of nights have gotten in a few turns of a "baby steps" game.

Raymond of Saint Palais

Background - The campaign will follow the exploits of Lord Raymond of Saint Palais, a noble in the Orthez region of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region of southwestern France, circa 1380. The region, south of the heart of Gascony, is a semi-autonomous region sandwiched in between the remaining English holdings to the west around Bayonne and north/northwest toward Bordeaux, Spanish Navarre over the Pyrenees to the south, the French Agenais region to the northeast, and the southern French Bearn and Languedoc region to the east around Toulouse. This will allow me to use a variety of troop types from the various army lists covering the French, English, Spanish and other miscellaneous Free Companies, mercenaries and "provincials." In other words, I can justify using any hundred years war figures I own (and other "generic medievals" too)... I will string together scenarios with a loose narrative to hopefully make things more interesting than fighting a series of one-off battles. I intend to develop some random muster tables, random scenario generator ideas, etc, as I go along. We'll see what happens...

To keep track of how Raymond is doing, I will start him out at a 5 on a scale of 1-10, or a "stance rating" of "doing ok so far". Good scenario results will raise his "stance" and bad results will lower it. I will figure out some way to use this to help me plot the course of events. Raymond's full force, which I don't expect to have on the table all at once for a while, will approximate 400 points to begin with, but events can affect this going forward. I have drafted a rough list of his army composition in total, and will use different pieces of it for different games.

Chevauchee, July 1380

William of Navarrenx

As the English holdings in the region have been driven further and further back, the French to the northeast have become increasingly troublesome, threatening the area with repeated raids. Several local Barons have banded together to give the French a taste of their own medicine, and have launched a raid northeast towards Agen. In addition to our own Raymond, the other two main forces are led by Bertrand of Dax and Thierry of Orthez. These three forces are advancing somewhat independently as they ravage the countryside, and may or may not be able to support each other at any given point in time. Raymond's army has two subordinate commanders; William of Navarrenx and Henry of Cheraute.

The Scenario
Raymond's forces have crossed the Adour river at Aire-sur-l'Adour and are headed generally northeast. As one of Raymond's contingents under William of Navarrenx approaches the village of Cazalet, it finds a small enemy force drawn up behind a stream to oppose it. William's goal is to brush aside this blocking force to rendezvous with Raymond beyond Cazalet.

William has 7 units with him at the moment [most troop profiles are from the English list]:

William's forces at start

• His household unit of Men at Arms (impetuous) [Gascon MAA]
• Heavy cavalry [English hobilar CM]
• Heavy infantry billmen
• Light infantry spearmen
• Longbows
• Mercenary crossbows
• Skirmishers with short bows

The enemy, led by the local constable [most troop profiles are from the French list]:

• Local Men at Arms (impetuous)
• Heavy infantry
• Two units of local levy/militia infantry
• Crossbows [French T]

On this day, both leaders randomly came up rated "fair", and both command structures are "poor." This translates to a friendly force of 137 points vs an enemy force of 84 points. I selected the troops first then added the points up out of curiosity.

The defenders of Cazalet

Setup and special rules - The battle will be fought lengthwise down a 4' by 6' table. The enemy force will be behind a stream that is cosmetic only, but will have a small hill and a few hedges. The four friendly light and missile units begin on the board, the heavy infantry and two mounted units (and William) will arrive randomly. At then end of each turn, the friendly player will roll one die, and if the result is less than or equal to the turn number that is just ending, the next friendly unit will arrive the following turn. The heavy infantry arrives first, followed by the Men at Arms and William, with the heavy cavalry arriving last. William's goal is to exit the far board edge as quickly as possible while taking as few losses as possible (nice and vague...). The friendly player will be hampered by lack of an on-board commander for some part of the game while William gathers his spread out forces to engage the enemy (i'll use the 10U poor command range from the board edge until he arrives). That being said...this shouldn't be too difficult for the good guys while I familiarize myself with the basic rule mechanics...

...to be Continued

Halloween 2013

A few pictures of Halloween 2013. With Julia as Eponine from Les Miserables (or a flasher, not sure which), and Grace as a zombie bride.

Carving pumpkins

Eponine and Zombie Bride

...and again

It will be sad when they are too old to do this anymore....

October Hobby Update

I have been delinquent in posting recently, but I have been diligently putting some time in on finishing projects that had been started but then languished, taking up space in limbo without being able to be checked off and filed away.

Bocage

Bocage - I had made some hedge/bocage terrain for 15mm WW2 use, and it worked well in the Fireball Forward! games that Leo and I played back in August 2013. I made around 15 linear feet or so of the stuff the first time around, but what became very quickly apparent is that even a modest sized table can eat up lots and lots of these. My write up on how I made the "hedge" pieces is back in March 2013, here. This time around, I made another batch of 22-23 feet, almost all pieces having a small tree or two embedded in them. I also made a variety of lengths, ranging from 12 or 15 inches down to little pieces that are only 3 inches long. This will give me more flexibility for terrain layouts, as well as for creating "breaches" in the bocage as needed during games (pull one long piece off and replace with two smaller pieces separated by a gap).

Roads - brown and gray

Roads - Making roads out of a non-flexible material is not the most preferable thing in the world, as it makes them, well, less flexible. But I have been in need of more roads, and as I was making hedges the first time around, it occurred to me that the same general process (carved balsa strip, glue, sand, spray paint, dry brush) could be used to make roads. I saw a game of Fireball Forward! at a convention last year that used a combination of roads like shown below to have both "urban" roads (improved roads in built up areas) and "rural" roads. It was very easy, with Grace's help, to make about 20 feet each of brown and gray road, a sampling of which is shown. I am pleased by the result. They are 1.5 inches wide, and look good for both 25mm figures of all periods as well as my 15mm WW2.

Saxons and Vikings

Dark Ages skirmish - I have modest sized armies of both Saxons and Vikings in 25mm that I never use. In preparing for the Fall In convention in November, I have signed up for a Saturday morning flea market table. I have too much stuff that I don't use often (or in some cases at all), and I would rather focus my energies on the things that I do play. My original intent was to sell all of both of these armies, but I decided to pull out 40-50 figures of each and make armies for Saga skirmish rules. While rebasing, I also took some time to touch up the painting on a few of the figures, as some of these are among the oldest figures I own. Whether or not these get played with or not remains to be seen, but I definitely stand a better shot of getting around to it than I did with conventional dark age armies. The remainder will be sold...and maybe these too someday.

Ottomans - I have also made some painting and basing progress on my Ottomans (although as usual the bases have not been scenicked yet. Over the course of the past few weeks I painted one little unit of 4 akinji light cavalry figures, completed a unit of Janissary archers in a green scheme, and painted three units of Ottoman armored infantry. All are Old Glory 25mm.

Ottoman akinji

Ottoman Janissaries (front and side)

Ottoman armored infantry

The Ottomans are going to be based on Impetus style bases rather than conventional basing as per the rest of my medieval armies. I am a little hesitant to do this, as this will be my only army based this way, but I do like the more random "diorama" look you can get doing it this way (as well as needing fewer figures because they don't need to be crammed in as tightly in such a rigidly structured way).

The Lion King on Broadway

or... Julia's Big Day

Julia is a huge fan of musicals, and following her Christmas present of tickets to see Les Miserables on stage earlier this year, she has been plotting and planning and watching lots of YouTube video clips of other things she would like to see. Julia doesn't have a ton of different interests, but when she gets into something, she really gets into it (and therefore it makes it impossible for us not to support it)... One of her recent obsessions has been The Lion King. Unlike Les Miz, The Lion King isn't touring, so if we saw it, it would have to be on Broadway. For Julia's recent birthday, we decided to splurge, and we got her 4 tickets (to make it a full family event) to see her new favorite show. Her birthday was a month ago, but the Saturday matinee date that made sense was this weekend, so she has been anxiously awaiting the day for weeks.

We left home at around 9am and were in the city by a little after 11am, having made great time. We knew the general location of the Minskoff Theater on Times Square, and parked nearby. As it turns out, when we walked up out of the underground garage, the first thing we saw was the Minskoff marquee, with Lion King in big bright lights. Julia was thrilled.

Big smiles

Grace and the Diners, Drive ins and Dives car

Everyone was hungry, we had time to kill and needed lunch, so we were looking for a place to eat when Grace spotted Guy Fieri's American Kitchen and Bar. Grace and I love Food Network, and she knows Guy Fieri well from all the various things we have watched, so she insisted on eating there. Which was fine with us. It was just opening at 11:30 and we were among the first in the door. Grace ooh'ed and aah'ed enough that the manager who seated us gave her a pair of Guy Fieri wristbands and a free dessert for being a big fan of Guy's. It's always nice to feel pampered, even in a small way, but if you can make my kids happy then you have made Amp and I happy. Apparently this restaurant had only been open for about a month, and we liked it a lot. The food was delicious (I had a huge roast beef sandwich with very good dippy juice). Prices were New York City appalling, but that's to be expected in a name location right off Times Square. It only hurts if you think about it, and once more when you sign the check...

Happy girls

After a nice long relaxing lunch out of the chill, we made our way to the theater and waited in line for a short while before they let us in. We had seats in the balcony, 4 or 5 rows back, right in the middle. They were good seats, with a nice view of the stage.

The show started at around 2:10pm to a packed house with lots of kids. The opening scene, "Circle of Life", is terrific, with all sorts of life sized animal "puppets" making their way to the stage from all different parts of the theater. For this part, it would have been great to be down low near the stage as the animals all came up the aisles, but our seats still had a great view, and there were performers along the sides of the balcony as well. The first act lasted about 65 minutes, followed by a 15 minute intermission that was closer to 25 minutes, and a 55 minute second act. So it was not a long show, but very impressive nonetheless.

View from our balcony seats (pre-show)

Overall the show was terrific, very faithful to the movie and therefore very familiar, and with great music, dancing and visual effects. Julia was enthralled the whole way through, and it made me very happy to look over at her at various points throughout the show and see the huge smile on her face. Today was really one of those days where I felt like a good Daddy.

If I were to have any complaint at all, and it is a minor one, it would be that the singing was hard to hear at certain points. I am not sure if this is because of how the performers were miked, or the volume of the orchestra and percussion, or the sound mixing (or our balcony seats). Independently, Amparo had the same observation, so it wasn't just my imagination. Vocal quality was fine, volume was not so much so sometimes.

Julia had a wonderful day and was very appreciative of us doing this for her. She has said over and over "I never expected anything like this for my birthday." Which makes it even more special.

By shortly after 5:30pm, we were back in the car and heading toward Amp's sister's house in north Jersey to hang out with them overnight, returning home Sunday. An A+ weekend for sure...

Rosewood Trio at St Peters Inn

Our intrepid Explorer

Today was a gorgeous Fall day, and the Rosewood Trio, including brother Dave on bass, were playing on the patio of the St Peters Inn in St Peters Village, near French Creek State Park. They have played a couple times at the bakery there, but we had not been able to make either of those events. With no major kids' events scheduled, we put this on the calendar as a nice way to spend the afternoon and see someplace new, as I had heard from a number of people that this was a nice place to take the family for a few hours. Now if we could just get the forecasted chance of showers to hold off...

As it turned out, Amp was very sick to her stomach over the weekend, so it ended up being me and the girls making the pilgrimage to see Uncle Dave. My first inclination was to skip it and stay home since we couldn't all go, but Amp wasn't dangerously ill (easy for me to say), and the kids needed to get out of the house on what turned out to be a beautiful day, so off we went.

A River Runs Through It...sort of

I'm very glad we did. There isn't a whole lot to St Peters Village, but it is a nice scenic spot, with a number of old buildings overlooking a boulder-strewn stream valley (which Grace loved playing around on). The weather was perfect, the music was great, and it was nice to hang out on the patio with brother Dave's Darling wife and a few other friends enjoying the day and having a few good snacks and beverages. I'm very sorry that Amp couldn't make it, which did put a bit of a damper on the day, but the girls and I had a good time and would have no hesitation going back if they play there again. Which I hope they do...

Chip, Sandy, Dave and that pesky porta-potty

"Here Comes the Sun"

A smile caught on camera

Backing vocalists (pass the wine...)

The St Peters Inn patio

Fair to say, a good time was had by all.

Ottoman Project - Ready to Paint

I have prepped and primed almost everything I have in the way of Ottomans (minus a couple bags of foot), as well as some additional 14th/15th century odds and ends for Ottoman opponents. The foot I haven't primed yet are not absolutely necessary for a small game, so I can deal with those later. Now that everything is laid out in one place, I am able to assess what I need more of, and can put an order together for Old Glory that can be picked up at Fall In in mid-November. I'm not completely sure what this order will be yet, but I could use some additional eastern looking command types, as well as a bag of janissary archers. Other purchases will probably be some not-really-necessary but fun to have things from OG's Vlad the Impaler range. Things like Dellis cavalry and some of the more exotic looking eastern types.

Ottomans at right, opponents to the left

Now all that remains for the moment is painting. Lots and lots of painting...

Grandmom's Desk

My grandmother on my mom's side was a wonderful lady; the quintessential Grandmom. We spent countless summer weekends at my grandparents' place on the Sassafras River while growing up, and I have many wonderful childhood memories there. She passed away in October of 1999, just five months short of her 100th birthday. When my aunt moved into a nursing home several years ago and Grandmom's house was sold, one piece of furniture that I wanted to keep was a secretary desk that had been in her front hallway.

When we got it, it was badly scratched up, with some water damage to the finish in several places. A couple of the drawer pulls were completely missing, and others were broken or damaged. We could also tell that the pulls had been replaced at some point in the past with cheap ones that didn't match the style of the piece. From faint outlines on the drawer fronts and some internet searching, it was obvious that the drawer pulls had originally been "swan pulls" mounted on a pair of small rosettes.

Having assessed everything, the project entailed the following:

• Dismantle the entire piece.
• Remove the complicated letter slot/ drawer insert inside the fold down part of the desk. We saved this, but it was pretty beat up and would have been impossible for us to sand and refinish (well, without making the project take forever...). The piece, while losing some of its authenticity, will be much more practical now, as the interior space is much larger than before.
• Sand the entire piece down to bare mahogany.
• Do some basic repair work on the ball and claw feet.
• Replace the plywood backer with a new piece.
• Do a little repair work on the drawers so they move easier.
• Stain the entire piece (two coats).
• Two coats of polyurethane.
• Replace the drawer pulls with new genuine ones ordered online.
• Reassemble and admire.

We began in late July, dismantling and sanding, and worked on it periodically over the next month or so. Amparo gets most of the credit for doing the tedious work, which involved hours of careful sanding. At that point it was hard to imagine the end result, or ever being done for that matter.

The staining and poly coats were not difficult, it was just a question of putting aside time to make some progress. We stained in batches during September and did most of the first poly coat. The drive to the finish line began last week in the evenings, and completed over the weekend.

I wish I had taken a good "before" picture, but I don't seem to have done so. The picture below is the earliest I can find. We have dismantled the piece and sanding is just beginning.

Sanding down to bare mahogany

The bare mahogany was lighter than I would have expected, but would get dark again the moment we began to stain.

Almost ready for staining

I am amazed at the end result. We did a good job (especially considering that this is really our first effort at this sort of thing).

The Finished Product

In addition to having a nice piece of furniture, it makes me smile to have a tangible memory of my grandparents' house sitting here in mine...

Ottoman Progress

We've had a low key weekend with the Wife trying to shake off a cold and some serious congestion, so we didn't stray too far from home (other than Thing 2's first sleep over last night, which went well, at least by the criteria of not receiving the 2am "Daddy I wanna come home" phone call).

Since we did stay close to home, the two main projects were to get the desk refinishing project near completion, and to spend a few hours here and there prepping more figures for the Ottoman Project. I'll spare the pictures until there is something more glamorous to show for my efforts, but the tedious hours spent this weekend were well worth it. Prepping and priming figures isn't a whole lot of fun, but is obviously a necessary part of the process.

This weekend I accomplished the following (all are Old Glory 25mm figs):

• Finished prepping 10 armored sipahi cavalry (1 bag)
• Prepped 20 unarmored sipahis (2 bags)
• Prepped 10 akinji light cavalry (1 bag)
• Finished prepping 10 Wallachian cavalry (1 bag)
• Prepped 30 French crossbows (1 bag)
• Prepped 30 French heavy infantry spearmen (1 bag)
• Prepped the remnants of an Ottoman high command bag
• Prepped about 15 voynuk heavy infantry (about half a bag)
• Prepped the last half bag (12 figs) of armored Ottoman infantry
• Touched up the black priming on 10 German caparisoned knights and 10 Hungarian knights

After all these figures were assembled, I have begun to prime them. Unarmored figures (sipahis and akinji) will get a brown prime (which is a head start on painting the horses). Everyone else gets a black prime. Metallic armor looks better over a black prime, but for unarmored figures I have started to use a brown prime. I find that the brown gives similar shadowing in the recesses like black does, but is less harsh to paint for my tired old eyes...

I'll post a picture soon, either after I have made some painting progress or at least primed all the figures.

Ottoman Project in 25mm

Several years ago I made some initial progress on an Ottoman medieval army in 25mm, circa the era of Nicopolis 1396. I painted a few units myself and had some painted in Sri Lanka for me. Then nothing much happened for quite some time. I need a painting project to focus on, and I am planning to get back to this.

The pictures below show where the project stands at this moment. I have completed 5 stands of Hungarian skirmish cavalry and 5 stands of akinji skirmish cavalry, along with 2 mounted leaders and a banner bearer. There is also one unit of armored infantry, one unit of janissary archers and two units of regular archers. In the partially painted category are another unit of janissary archers and another unit of armored infantry, along with one more mounted leader. Primed are 9 armored sipahi cavalry figures, with 9 more figures partially assembled. The three bags in front contain 10 more akinjis and 20 unarmored sipahi cavalry.

Step 1, I guess, will be to complete the two partially painted foot units. Step 2 will be to finish assembling and priming lots of cavalry. That way I can assembly line a good number of cavalry in hopefully a fairly manageable amount of time. A bunch of foot may get sent to Sri Lanka. One can dream...

In addition to what is pictured here there are more armored infantry, voynuk heavy infantry, archers and spearmen. There are also some Wallachian cavalry assembled and ready to paint as Allies and/or opponents. Plus Hungarian knights primed and ready. Now all I need to do is actually paint.

An Anniversary Weekend

I've been fairly quiet recently, which is more an indication of things having been busy than anything else. I have some blogging to catch up on regarding the ill-fated Maine 2013 "guys trip", but that will be a catch-up story for another day. Brother Dave's blog is hitting the highlights (low lights?) of the trip, at least from my perspective, and that will have to suffice on that subject for the moment.

In the aftermath of the Maine trip, Amparo suggested that we try to get away for our 23rd anniversary this weekend, just the two of us. This would be a rare and wonderful thing, and after getting confirmation from brother Dave that he and his Darling Wife could watch our kids while we were gone, it was up to me to plan an overnight away. The basic goal was a nice dinner, some sort of evening entertainment and then a really good hotel. After spending some time figuring out what kind of entertainment was available nearby on the evening of the 28th, we ended up with the following: dinner at Deep Blue in downtown Wilmington, excellent seats to see Graham Nash (of Crosby Stills and Nash, as well as the Hollies) at the Grand Opera House, capped off with an overnight at the Hotel DuPont. Dave and his Darling Wife would be at our house by around 2pm Saturday, and we would be on our own until noon Sunday.

Shopping sans Children
Without the kids in tow, we decided to start our 22 hours of freedom with some unencumbered shopping at the Christiana Mall. This may not sound all that exciting, but those parents out there will likely appreciate the idea of going to the stores you want to go to and browsing things you want to see without the continual backdrop of "I'm bored...are we going home yet?". We did some shopping for ourselves as well as some shopping for Julia's upcoming birthday before heading back to Wilmington at around 4:45.

Deep Blue
Getting back to Wilmington was a breeze, and we were checking into our room at the Hotel DuPont by about 5:10. After a quick freshen up (in our very luxurious deluxe single room), we walked the short block and a half to Deep Blue, and were seated at our table by 6. We had been to this restaurant once before, a few years ago, and had been very impressed. Amp started with a Caesar salad and had the crab cakes with bacon horseradish mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. For starters I had an arugula salad with bacon, heirloom tomatoes, candied walnuts, blue cheese crumbles and a blue cheese vinaigrette. My entree was sauteed scallops with spinach spaetzle and a lobster cream sauce. We split a ginger creme brulee for dessert. Everything was wonderful.

Our view of the stage at the Grand Opera

Graham Nash at the Grand Opera
The choice of seeing Graham Nash was something of a shot in the dark, insofar as I don't know much about him other than the Hollies and CSN hit songs from many years ago. Given what was available to see on the evening of the 28th, this seemed like a good bet, and in retrospect, I couldn't have made a much better choice. I will write a separate post about this concert soon, but suffice it to say that this was a fabulous event. Nash is 71 and a half years old, but his voice was still terrific, and to hear some of these songs by a musical icon in a small venue is what live music is all about. Highlights were Bus Stop from the Hollies, Our House, Marrakesh Express and Just a Song Before I Go from CSN, Blackbird by the Beatles, and the final song of Teach Your Children by CSN. The Grand Opera is another one of those smaller venues that makes every event special. I will be keeping an eye on the event calendar for this place.

The Hotel DuPont
After the 8pm concert wrapped up at 10:40pm, we made the two block walk back to the hotel and spent the rest of our evening enjoying some quiet and relaxing time...without kids. Our room was very nice, with a living room, a large bathroom with shower and big soaking tub, and an adjoining bedroom.  Everything was clean and nice, and I would heartily recommend the Hotel DuPont to anyone looking for a really nice place to stay in downtown Wilmington.

Our living room at the hotel...

We slept in a bit on Sunday morning, getting up in time for the 9:30am room service breakfast we had scheduled the night before. It was a luxury to spend a quiet morning in the room, lounging around the breakfast table in the nice cotton robes provided by the Hotel. I could get used to that... Eventually, we showered and left in time to get home by noon, as we had promised.

An Appreciation...
We had an amazing time, and none of it would have been possible without brother Dave and his Darling Wife watching our kids while we were gone. Words cannot express how appreciative we are for having been given the gift of an overnight away. Thank you so much...

Far and Away

In a blog post yesterday, brother Dave wrote about our upcoming trip to Maine, and his brief research into whether this would be the northernmost point he had been to. It turns out it will not be for him, but having already looked into this myself (map geek that I am), it got me to thinking about the rest of my "furthests." So without further ado...

Within the United States:

• North - Watford City ND in 2011 when we left the Theodore Roosevelt National Park north unit and drove into town for supplies. 47.8025N. Getting further north in the US would only be possible very very close to the Canadian border out west or in the vicinity of Seattle. Or Alaska of course.
• South - Miami FL for a few different sales meetings over the years. 25.7877N. The Florida Keys would be about the only more southerly option. Leaving the continental US, Maui Hawaii is further south at 20.8000N, which was our honeymoon in 1990.
• West - In the continental US, this would be San Francisco, at 122.4167W, when Amp and I went to SF and Napa on vacation in the early 1990's. Maui at 156.3333W is obviously further west. There is very little continental US west of San Fran; just some strips along the coast in northern California, Oregon and Washington. Some Hawaiian islands are further west than Maui.
• East - As of right now, Hyannis MA on Cape Cod would be my furthest east point, but circumstances willing I will top that next week when we land in Maine. Woo Hoo!

Worldwide:

• North - Berlin, Germany (then West Berlin) at 52.5167N in the summer of 1985 as part of a 4-week Eurrail pass trip with a couple of friends. There are many cities in Europe that I have been to that are further north than Watford City, ND (including London, Brussels and Amsterdam).
• East - Athens, Greece at 23.7167E. This was in the summer of 1986, following my sophomore year in college, when I spent much of the summer working on an archaeological survey based in Heraklion (Archaia Nemea) in the Peloponnese. Athens is 5,027 miles east of home.
• South and West - I have been to the Philippines to visit Amp's family in Manila twice in my life. Once when Julia was 3 months old in 1998 and once when she was 3 years old in 2001. On the earlier trip, we took a day trip by boat to see the historic island of Corregidor, guarding the western entrance to Manila Bay. This was an incredibly cool experience (and should be a future "memory lane" post). This island is my furthest west at 120.5731E and furthest south at 14.3856N. Corregidor is 8,554 miles west of home (and an eternity by plane via the west coast and Japan, especially with a baby that can cry the length of the Pacific...).

This probably isn't of interest to anybody but me and perhaps Dave, but what the heck...

Maine 2013 Trip Update - 2 Weeks Out

It hardly seems possible, but this year's trip is now less than two weeks away. With that in mind, Dave, Leo and I got together last night to go over final planning considerations, and as an excuse to get together.

Remembrance of things past - Little Devils Tower 2011

Earlier in the week, we had a very unfortunate development; Ted, the fourth member of our crew this year informed us that some pressing work concerns had arisen and he won't be able to make it. This is really bad news, not in that it changes anything we would be doing, but one of the main things about a trip like this is the camaraderie, and the more the merrier. Four in the Dakotas was great. Five in the Adirondacks last year was even better. This time we will only be three. The only planning change this necessitated was that we could downgrade the vehicle rental from an SUV to a car and save money that way. After making sure that we had all the logistics taken care of, we spent some time going over gear lists in terms of who would be bringing what, and discussed some of the possible hikes we will do. We even batted around a few ideas for a 2014 trip, but that is a whole different story.

Other than some additional hike research for background, there isn't much of anything left to do except start setting aside what I will be packing to take, and making sure that I have everything I need. I want to do this sooner rather than later, since I may need some clothing. The prior two trips have both been warm weather locations (and seasons). Maine in mid September will be different, and could be very different. The average daily highs are around 72, and the average nightly lows are around 52. Record highs are only in the low 80's, and record lows are down in the 30's. So to be on the safe side, I may well need to have more cool weather options than I own. Probably not, but maybe, and one way or another I need to figure that out now.

So that's the plan for this weekend; closet review, and then start making the gear pile in the basement. Almost none of this stuff gets daily-life use, so I might as well start gathering it together now.