Cnoc Uí Chinnéide: Pikeman's Lament AAR

We played The Pikeman's Lament on Saturday. We wound up being a bit short staffed. I planned a six-player game and set up the terrain on Friday afternoon. Based on feedback about who was planning on playing, I initially worried that there would be too many people showing up to play, but at 11:00 it was just John Kennedy and I there—and John had to be there because he owns the place. I was afraid I'd given a war and nobody came. However, about 11:30 a newcomer named Mason showed up. He'd seen John's posting about the scheduled game and was eager to give The Pikeman's Lament a try, so John, Mason, and I gave it go. It turned out to be a great game.

The scenario was set sometime during the Nine Years War (a.k.a. Tyrone's Rebellion) in Ireland—late 1590s. The English had a command atop a central elevation, Cnoc Uí Chinnéide (Kennedy's Hill). Behind that was a river too deep to cross except at a ford and a small bridge.

The field of battle

The Irish were all on the same side of the river as the hill and were in position to begin pressing the English hard. The narrowness of the approach for the other two English commands would provide a few turns of opportunity for the Irish to concentrate against the hill.

Control of the hill depending on proximity to a large Celtic cross erected in some bygone age. To claim control of the hill one side had to have at least one unwavering unit within 3" of the cross without any unwavering enemy also within 3". If neither or both side were within 3" then the hill was contested and no points for control awarded.

English in sole control of the hill

You can download a PDF of the scenario showing each command here.

I ran all three Irish commands, John ran the English left flank command, Mason ran the English right and the center command on the hill.

The defence of the hill: pike, shot, and billmen

In past games I've run with the English and Irish, the Irish tended to get the better of the English because they outshot them. When I started creating the armies a few years ago, I imagined the Irish kern as clouds of skirmishers that would annoy a column of English troops. However, the mechanics of Pikeman's Lament are such that skirmishers (commanded shot) can shoot pretty much as well as shot units, in addition to moving faster and treating rough terrain like clear—but cost half the price. The only downside was smaller units and a 12" maximum range. But what it means for play is that the Irish can throw 24 dice in a firefight for every 12 dice the English throw. The Irish kern shot the English columns to bits in both games I ran of the Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits. The game I ran at Enfilade! this May saw the English win by the skin of their teeth and only by meeting the condition of getting their wagons over the ford unharmed; the English force itself had been decimated by Irish firepower.

Irish shot and Irish kern with calivers

For this game, I wanted to tame the Irish shooting a bit, so I combined the 6-figure kern units into 12-figure shot units, and then I made them raw shot (hit on 6/18"). I don't think I'll make them raw if/when I replay this. Raw shot are pretty awful. I made the English shot all veteran (4+/18"), which were pretty deadly. However, while the Irish certainly didn't shoot the English to pieces in this game, neither did the English obliterate the Irish. It seemed to be mostly balanced, at least in terms of actual results in the game, which must take into consideration some really bad waver test rolls that saw a few units routed even though they had minimal casualties. Rolling snake-eyes has consequences...

The raw shot has a maximum range of 18", but shoot hitting on 6s only. Beyond 12" they're -1 on the die roll. Since they can't roll 7s on a D6, they're really only able to fire at 12" except for their first fire, which adds +1 to the die.

The Irish left wing: lots of raw shot

The Irish moved first. I adopted the Rebels and Patriots activation style and instead of a side's turn ending on a failed activation, I allowed players to go on to attempt activations of all their units. In multiplayer games especially, the loss of a turn when you fail your first activation is a bit deflating. Some players in our past games have been bereft of taking a turn for several turns running. I rather like allowing an attempt to activate all one's units before passing initiative over.

My plan was to strike quick in the center against the command on the hill while delaying the English reinforcements as much as possible with parts of the flank commands, while other parts of the flanks aided the battle in the center.

Moving up the horsemen

My plane sort of worked, but took longer than I figured. The fire of the English veteran shot on the hill caused a lot of pain, although I was able to pass my waver tests for several turns running. I also found myself critically outmatched when I tried my raw shot against Mason's veterans. My one unit of skirmishers (kern with javelins, whom I gave only a 6" range) was supposed  to advance through a bog and harass/distract on of Mason's shot units. It never had a chance to fling its javelins, but it did occupy them for a couple turns, enough to get my cavalry in place and get a unit of raw shot over from my right flank to provide more fire (anemically).

The kern advance to prove that one should never bring a javelin to a gunfight

The Irish cavalry took one shot from Mason's calivermen on the hill and lost 1/3 of their strength. However, they were in position to strike.

Before the carnage and glory

Even though the first few turns were desultory, on turn 3 I was able to strike hard. My Irish shot (real shot, not the saffron-wearing kern) got off a telling volley at Mason's pikes and sent them back wavering. I was then able to charge my cavalry against Mason's shot. I did good damage on impact, although I also took another loss, which put me a half strength. The shot retreated and failed its waver test. I then followed up (gallopers) and in my second strike at them they took more losses and routed after a badly failed waver test.

My diminished cavalry sitting where the English shot made its last stand

Defeating the English shot took a lot of pressure off my forces. Shooters—especially veteran shot—matter. The loss of a unit like that hurts. However, the Irish cavalry didn't last long on the hilltop. Mason attempted to attack with his billmen (and officer) but failed the activation. In my turn I charged only to get repulsed with loss. In Mason's next turn, he charged home and took out my last horse standing. Theirs was a short, but glorious career.

On the English right, Mason's forces were crossing the bridge. The narrow access kept their advance from being strongly felt for a few turns, but before long they were starting to worry me.

English forces cross the bridge against the Irish left

I had a bit of luck at this point. Mason lead with one of his veteran shot units, who advanced within 12" of my raw shot hunkered down behind a stone wall. With the first volley (getting a +1 for a grand effect of 5+ on their shot) they inflicted 2 casualties, Mason rolled snake-eyes for his morale test with no officer within 12". With a result of exactly 0, his fine unfired veteran shot went away. It was the last hurrah for the Irish kern—also their first. It was their only hurrah, but they'll be making much of it and embellishing the story down the generations.

A glorious victory in the making

On my right, John was getting across the ford, slowly. He'd had a string of bad activation rolls, which gave me a bit of time to get in relatively good position. He led with his commanded shot. His officer;s unit was way in the rear and didn't add much to his activations, morale, and rally tests.

John's forces cross the ford

The fight for the hill between Mason's billmen and officer and my gallowglass and officer went for a few rounds. The initial clash was a draw and I was forced to retire.

St. Patrick and St. George content for the hilltop

On the last turn of the game, however, I got one more charge in and wiped out the billmen, killing Mason's officer.

Preparing for the final charge

All the while, John was putting a steady pressure on the Irish right. He was outgunned, having just two veteran commanded shot against two Irish shot units plus a unit of raw shot (kern). Although, my feckless kern spent most of their wasted effort not hitting Mason's billmen on the hill.

Battle shaping up on the right

The Irish shot, on the other hand, managed to eliminate one of John's commanded shot and damaged the other. They also put a few casualties on one of John's pike blocks. In the course of things, though, John put some casualties on one of my shot units, which rolled snake-eyes for its morale test (a trick they'd learned from watching Mason) and they went running back to the bogs of Ballyshannon.

Getting near to push of pike on the Irish right

We sparred a bit with our pikes, but that's kind of ineffectual. Pikes are better defending than attacking. To attack pikes with pikes is to put yourself at a disadvantage. John tried that once and got bounced back. I stood my ground until one of my shot units managed to inflict some casualties and John failed the morale test, becoming wavering. Nevertheless, my attack on his wavering pikes didn't do much more than inflict some casualties and send him backwards. He was able to rally on his next move and our pikes spent the rest of the game glowering at each other.

Taking out Mason's billment on the hilltop was my last good deed for the day. His right flank forces were coming in now. Despite losing one of his two veteran shot, he still had a formidable force, especially against the raw shot I could send against him.

Mason held off my left with his pike unit and moved his remaining shot and his billment to the hill. He also had the right hand shot unit from the hilltop command. I'd been keeping that unit busy with my left flank command, but had suffered much from them, while doing little harm in return since they were well ensconced in a wee wood.

Trying to press him on that flank proved disastrous. One of my raw shot was shot away and my pikes were as well. I had a forlorn hope unit (redshanks mercenaries), but it had taken some damage attacking Mason's sot in the woods and was at half strength. For some reason, the unit of gallowglass—along with my officer—on the Irish left spent the whole game in a wood. I was so focused elsewhere, I just forgot to get them into the fight. I think somewhere in the back of my mind, too, I was regarding them as my last reserve to be committed only to stave off calamity.

The end wasn't calamitous, although it was an English victory 14-9. We played out 8 turns in about 2 hours. The English held the hill uncontested for most of the game. At game's end neither side had uncontested control, so no one got points for that. As for shooting troops, the English had one intact unit of veteran shot, one that was a bit shot up, and a nearly half strength unit of commanded shot. The Irish still had two units of shot, two units of raw shot (for what they were worth), and the redshanks at half strength.

Post mortem

It was great to play The Pikeman's Lament again. We've been playing a lot of Rebels and Patriots, so going back to TPL was a bit of a sea change and it took a few turns to get into the flow. I did use the R&P activation rule that players can keep activating units after one fails until they've made an activation attempt for all their units. It worked very well that way.

I think I tamed the Irish shot, as I hoped. Maybe they were a bit too tame, or maybe making the English veteran shot was too much. Shooting a 4+ is a big advantage, especially when your opponent is firing back a 6.

Pike are clearly a defensive unit type and best used facing cavalry.

I'll run this again later in the year, hopefully when there are a few more people who can play.

Delicate (too delicate) beauties: Lucid Eye Amazons

A short while ago, I found an image of the Amazon figures that are being produced by Lucid Eye Publications for their Ziggurat range. In the pictures I saw, they looked good enough to eat. Plus, they're sculpted by Steve Saleh, one of my favorite figure sculptors out there. He's the one who did Wargames Foundry's World of the Greeks range—in my opinion the best figure range ever made.

I ordered one of each pack they had and the figures arrived yesterday.

They are beautifully sculpted. The detail is very good and I look forward to them being a delight to paint. They're 28mm from foot to eye, but have a very tall look to them. They're also very slender figures, which is a good look for willowy Amazons.

Willowy Amazonian war-women

However, I was immediately disappointed in a few crucial aspects of them. Overall they seem delicate—so much so that I effortlessly broke off a plume while working on one figure. The metal is softish. Trimming, filing, and drilling into the metal is pretty easily done, maybe too easily.

deplumed

When I saw the pictures online and on the Lucid Eye website, which show the sculptor's greens for the figures, my impression was that the spears were cast on. That gave me pause. I really don't like cast-on spears. It's a sculpting practice I had hoped to have been left in the 70s. Nevertheless, many companies still do it. The effect—as it was in the 70s—is to have oversize barge-pole spears that, after a bit of use, wind up being all wibbly and wobbly. Even before use, it's impossible to get cast metal spears straight. Separate never-bending wire spears have been a thing for four decades. We have the technology, why don't we use it?

Why, oh why?

But it's worse than that. The spears are cast on, but cast onto the hand. Just the hand. The hand isn't cast onto the figure. You have to glue the hand holding the spear onto the figure. The point where hand joins figure is the wrist, the delicate willowy wrist of an Amazon war maiden. It's a very, very small point to attach them. It does not threaten to be a future place where the figure breaks, it promises. In simple, normal use of these figures I can guarantee that I will lose hands and spears. I should prepare myself for replacing them with hooks or some similar prosthetic.

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

My joy of finding the package from Lucid Eye in my mailbox yesterday was soon dissipated when I saw how the figures were. Had they left the hand attached to the wrist and made it open to accept either a cast cartoonishly large spear or a metal wire spear, they would be infinitely better figures for gaming. I can only ask myself, again and again and again, "What were they thinking?"

Hire people with hooks

Rather than just butt-weld the hand/spear to the wrist, I drilled out both and pinned it with brass wire. I hope that helps, but I'm not at all confident that will create a strong join.

The shields are separate, which is typical for figures with shields. They too are attached by a simple butt-weld of fist to hollowed out bit behind the shield boss. That's also pretty standard for figures. I have a lot of Aventine Romans whose shields attach exactly this way. (Aventine, BTW, provides their legionaries with separate sword arms to glue on. That's not great—I hate having to glue appendages onto figures—but at least it's not butt-welding hand to wrist.)

Probably OK if I don't drop it

Apart from the shields, the sword-armed figures are one piece. Also entirely one piece are the archers, which are very nice, so nice as to practically redeem the entire range by themselves.

Perfect, one-piece, what's not to love

I may be whinging a bit—but I'm not merely whinging. Wargame figures are playing pieces that get handled a lot. Even if you're the only one handling them (and you never are) there's the ever-present danger of mishap that results in lost spears or shields. With these figures, I will lose whole hands, which are not easily repaired once broken.

I fell in love with the images of the figures I saw on the Internet. I'm much less in love with the figures I received. Having glue-on hands holding big barge-pole spears is just dumb and ensures future breakage. Had I known this about the way the range is cast, I would never have bought them.

I'll make the best of it now. I'm primering the first batch today. I have another package coming with more spears, more archers, and a new figure: the Amazon queen. I plan to use them with Mortal Gods either as part of the Mythic supplement or just as normal troops—albeit willowy, bare-breasted troops with delicate wrists. But still I ask myself, "What were they thinking?"

Battle of Barlowe's Necessary: Rebels and Patriots AAR

Kevin Smyth and I ran a game of Rebels and Patriots on Saturday at the annual Fix Bayonet! game day held at the Fort Steilacoom museum. We were challenged with trying to maximize participation for 6 players with a rather small table size of 5' x 6'. The scenario we come up with was a variation of a classic 'take and hold' engagement. We had three commands on each side all of roughly equal—and low—points value, between 12 and 13 points per command. This meant that commands had two to three units.

The AWI scenario had advance units from the American and British forces fighting for control of a space that held advantages for position in an imminent fight between the main forces. There were three objectives:

• Farmer Barlowe's farmhouse, which could be used for a command post
• Barlowe's bridge, a small footbridge that would improve communication across the creek
• Barlowe's necessary, a humble outhouse on farmer Barlowe's back forty, the only outhouse around since the one at Barlowe's farmhouse was destroyed by a drunken British gunner taking pot-shots the day before. After weeks of hard campaigning in the wilderness, officers on both sides were eager to perform their bodily evacuations in a civilized manner.

The honor points value for holding these objectives at the end of the game varied and were randomly chosen and secretly assigned before the game. None of us knew the value of the objectives we fought over until the game was over. We also awarded honor points for each enemy force reduced to 33% (counting figures lost from original force) and for honor points gained or lost as a result of double 1s or double 6s activation rolls.

In addition to the usual grumpy old men, we had three younger boys playing: Sean, Chris, and Isaac (if I recall their names correctly). The teams were Mark Serafin, Sean, and Isaac playing the British with Kevin Smyth, Chris, and I playing the Americans.

We rolled for officer traits after we got our commands. Not many surprises there except that I got a an officer that adds +2 to activation rolls and Kevin got added to his force a unit of local militia: Line infantry, green, poor shooters. Given that each American command had similar units of militia, it was not a burden to have more.

Kevin, Mark, and I are old Rebels and Patriots veterans, the boys picked up the rules pretty quickly—a nice testament to the playability and inherent sense of the rules.

One the British side:

• Mark's command was a unit of 12 grenadiers (shock infantry) and a unit of 18 light infantry.
• Isaac's command was a unit of 18 line infantry, a unit of 12 light infantry, and a unit of skirmishers.
• Sean's command was a unit of 18 grenadiers and a unit of 12 grenadiers.

The British deployed

On the American side:

• Opposing Mark, Chris had one unit of 18 line/militia (green), one unit of 12 light infantry, and one unit of skirmishers.
• Opposing Sean in the center, Kevin had one unit of 6 light cavalry (aggressive), one unit of 12 light infantry, and one unit of skirmishers. He also had one unit of 12 line/milita (green, poor shooters) that he got from his officer trait roll.
• Opposing Isaac, I had one unit of 18 line infantry, one unit of 18 line/militia (green, poor shooters), and one light gun (no limber).

American initial moves

Because of the way the objectives were placed, we started in possession of the bridge and the British started in possession of the loo;  the farmhouse sat between Isaac and me and was the only objective actually fought over in the game.

Overview: farmhouse and bridge, Barlowe's necessary is just above the Brits in the upper left

The fight in the center of the table between Kevin and Sean looked like a losing proposition for Kevin from the start. He made one rash charge with his cavalry against Sean's skirmishers uphill in a small wood. The skirmishers failed to evade, but Kevin failed to made any effect on them and got bounced back with loss to then stand in the open getting peppered by British musket balls.

Kevin advances in the center (before the mayhem)

I advanced towards the farmhouse through some pretty rough terrain with my force. I got the line infantry (Continentals) through the brush, across the creek, and up against a fence line opposite the farmhouse at about the same time that Isaac was moving one of his grenadier units into the house. The other one was under steady fire from my Continentals, militia (to almost no effect), and pop-gun. 

The Continental Artillery makes its presence felt

The light gun may not pack the same wallop as a heavier gun, but I was scoring hits from 24", well before his grenadiers could fire back.

Crossing the creek

Mark, with the privy secured, advanced his troops against Chris but was bedeviled by his own poor dice rolling. He failed a few activations, but worse still were failed morale tests. Just after mid-game, his grenadiers buggered off, leaving his with just his light infantry to hold against Chris' relatively unscathed force.

Grenadiers approach the farmhouse

Sean, in the center, was getting quite aggressive against Kevin and me. After repulsing a cavalry charge, his skirmishers kept up a steady fire, his line infantry crested the hill, and his light infantry worked away towards the right flank of my Continentals.

The 23rd advances

In response to this, Kevin moved his light infantry (Lee's Legion foot) against Sean's lights. Lee's Legion took a lot of punishment, but stayed strong. Kevin has always had a knack for passing tough morale tests in Daniel Mersey games.

Looking desperate for the Americans

One good service that Lee's Legion performed was being a bullet sink and keeping the shots from Sean's light infantry from hitting my Continentals. 

At this point, Isaac made the fateful decision to abandon the house he'd been occupying. He was taking shots from all my units and decided to pull back to cover. This gave me the chance to pop my Continentals in the house, which would make me the target of all the British fire—except that Lee's Legion was still hanging on occupying the attention of ean's light infantry.

Kevin decided to go for broke and charged his light cavalry—William Washington's 3rd Continental Dragoons, which he'd just completed for the game—into Sean's light infantry. It was dicey. The dragoons were at half strength, the Light infantry was not. The dragoons were aggressive, so hitting on 5+ with 6 dice, the lights hitting on 6 with 12 dice. Kevin won the first round of fighting forcing the lights back 4" and disordering them. Then he followed up and destroyed the unit.

Smyth's charge: the aftermath

The dragoons later took more fire from the British line and were reduced to one figure (Kevin's officer William Washington). 

On the last turn of the game, Isaac charged the house with his grenadiers—a still formidable force. He was hitting on 5+ and I was defending on 6, but I had a defense bonus for the house. He failed to get a single casualty, while I managed to roll a slug of 6s and took out three attacking grenadiers. With the last charge repulsed, we called the game.

Americans held the house (2 points) and the bridge (1 point). The British held the outhouse (2 points). Americans got 2 honor points for two British commands having 33% losses, British got 1 point for that (Kevin's command had been through the wars). Americans also got 2 honor points that were awarded when Kevin rolled double 6s and got a +1 honor points result. End result: Americans 7 points, British 3 points.

Οι γυμνοί και οι νεκροί (the naked and the dead): Mortal Gods AAR

I just finished painting 9 naked Athenian hoplites from Wargames Foundry's excellent World of the Greeks range. With them still smelling of dullcote, I lead them to ignominious defeat in a four-player game we had on the 7th. My only satisfaction for the defeat was in dying to a man—no retreat, no surrender! Like Leonidas and the 300, my lochos is legend.

Mike Lombardy and Eric Donaldson played one side, Wes Rogers and I were the other. We played the Field of Glory scenario using deployment map 7. Each player had about 300 points.

The troops I have painted so far are relatively light. As one might assume from naked hoplites, they weren't well protected. I ran a lochos consisting of one one phalanx (3 bases) of experienced medium hoplites (peripoloi), 2 bases of archers (toxatai),  1 base of peltasts (peltastai), 1 base of slingers (sphendonetai), plus a heavy lochagos. Wes had a similar force: one phalanx (3 bases) of medium hoplites, 2 bases of slingers, 1 base of peltasts, 1 base of javelinmen (akontistai), and a heavy lochagos.

Eric and Wes square off

Eric went with a very light lochos of a phalanx (3 bases) of light hoplites, 2 bases of peltasts, 1 base of slingers, and a heavy lochagos. Mike went with the heavy stuff: a phalanx (3 bases) of experienced heavy hoplites, 2 bases of experienced medium hoplites, 1 base of archers, and a heavy lochagos.

My doomed lochos faces Mike

I started out being aggressive with my slingers and got a shot off against one of Mike's experienced peripoloi—to no effect, a theme I revisited again and again in my attacks. Mike came back punching. His peripoloi charges my sphendonetai and inflicted 5 wounds, i.e., reducing my 3-figure base to a single wounded figure. Because his total wounds inflicted was more than double than my base resistance (actually, nearly triple my base resistance), he took a free action and smacked into one of my archer bases, inflicting 3 wounds on it, which removed a figure.

Moving against my archers

My whinging could be heard next door. Throughout the game, Mike continued to roll amazing hits scores against me. I, on the other hand, consistently threw less than average. I think I never inflicted more than 2 wounds at any time. In an attack against one of my archer bases, Mike scored 7 wounds—enough to kill the whole base and then some.

My peripoloi advance foolheartedly towards Mike's men of bronze

I thought I might get some benefit from being the first to strike when our phalanxes clashed. My experienced peripoloi hit as hard as Mike's hoplites, but lack the armor. My attack was anemic. I'm not sure he'd noticed I'd struck.

Mike's dealers of death, impervious to harm

Wes' and Eric's fight was going a bit more evenhandedly, with—initially—fairly equal losses on both sides. Eventually, Wes' heavier (barely) peripoloi got the edge as Eric's losses started to exceed Wes'.

Wes' peripoloi, backed by slingers, javelins, and peltasts

After my initial whiff at striking Mike's phalanx, Mike sent in his lochagos, which Mike tends to do. Lochagoi are heavy-hitters, although losing one is a game changer.

Mike's lochagos begins to bedevil me

The battle in the center see-sawed a bit. Employing my peltasts in his rear, I manage to cause one (1) figure loss to Mike's phalanx, which broke it up. It became something of a wild scrum after that. My pathetic peltasts were first shot up by Mike's archers and then disappeared in a red mist after getting struck by Mike's heavy hoplites.

General mayhem

Mike and I each managed to inflict five wounds on each other's lochagos, with each of us surviving wounded. He eventually managed to re-kill my lochagos, which left me leaderless, but not out of the game since Wes' lochagos was still in play.

Eric, too, lost his lochagos to Wes, but since Mike's lochagos was still living, we all played on.

Wes killing Eric's lochagos

Lochagoi are glass hammers. They hit hard and they can take a lot of damage, and possibly survive their own death. However, in a 1:1 game, losing your lochagos means losing the game. My own inclination is to keep my lochagos back issuing commands and generally looking imposing. Mike tends to send his into the fray early and often, tempting fate but benefiting from the strength—like the way some chess players use their queens.

Eventually, I was entirely on the defensive. I kept getting hit so many times by Mike that I used all my actions for my anemic attempts at defense, leaving me few opportunities for hitting back. When I did hit back, I managed to inflict no hurt on Mike whatsoever.

In an act of desperation, my lone surviving slinger—really just a naked guy with a rock—ran up and attempted to bean Mike's lochagos. He managed just one wound, not enough to kill him (a second time) and I had to hang on in hope that I'd have a next turn to try again.

We will, we will rock you!

It wasn't to be. On turn 4, Mike went into blitzkrieg mode, killing every remaining figure I had on the board (and probably several I haven't even painted yet) and then started to redeploy against Wes. I lost all 22 of my figures to Mike's loss of 4 out of the 19 he started with.

My end is nigh

Post mortem and further thoughts

Despite my pitiful and frustrating experience this game, I like Mortal Gods. I like the period and think that the game does a good job bringing out the feel of the period without requiring the play to be nothing but a slog between heavily armed phalanxes. Phalanxes tend to be a short-lived formation. After the initial advance and first clash, phalanxes tend to break up and the fighting becomes more piecemeal.

Heavier lochoi tend to do better, I think. Mike had a much heavier force than I did. Even though the number of hit points was the same (56), heavier types defend better. Most of my troops were psiloi, Mike had only one unit of archers, the rest were experienced heavy hoplites or experienced peripoloi (medium). Wes' lochos was similar to mine. Eric's lochos was all light. He benefited a bit from his light peripoloi taking 3 wounds before being out of action, but he never put them into phalanx formation and so lost the advantage of using their defense value—and deprived himself of their nifty javelin toss. Nevertheless, Eric still had two full bases of troops at the end of the game and Wes was pretty beaten up.

I like that the game is expanding to other aspects of war in the classical world. I've ordered the Persian card set and have started working on my Wargames Foundry Thracians in anticipation of a card set being released for them later this month. I'm also working on a few Greek horsemen in anticipation of cards for them being released soon. After that, Andy Hobday has indicated a shift to the early Roman world with Etruscans and Tullian era Romans due for card sets at some point down the road.

Wargames Foundry: Agony and ecstacy

I truly love Wargames Foundry figures, but my experience with the company has become a sort of agony and ecstasy experience.

I saw them for the first time at The Emperor's Headquarters when I lived in Chicago in the late 1980s. Foundry had only started up in 1985, but was already gaining a reputation of excellence. I didn't buy my first WF figures until I moved to Seattle in the early 1990s. Back then, every order arrived packed in slim black boxes. Figures were always sold individually and carefully hand packed in the boxes and gently cushioned with quilt batting. They also arrived in about 10 days from the UK, sometimes within a week.

Those days are gone. Figures are available now only in blister packs, whose makeup sometimes seems to be the work of a loon or sadist. The very nice gladiators range comes in blisters that contain more figures you'll never use than ones you will. With some ranges you have to buy multiple packs just to get four or five of the figures you actually want. However, it's not that bad with most ranges and pretty much everybody these days makes you buy in preset packs of 4, 6, or 8 figures.

The other thing that's gone is the speed of delivery. A Foundry order can take two months to arrive. It will arrive, experience has taught me that, but only eventually. Someday. In the fullness of time. Even though I know that now, it's still hard not to get antsy after 6-7 weeks have passed since you ordered.

My order from July 6 just arrived today (7 1/2 weeks). It's the most recent of several orders I placed this year. All have taken a long, long time.

My first order was for some AWI British 5th Foot light infantry that I wanted for the Concord Project that Kevin Smyth and I did for the Enfilade! convention in May this year. Only Foundry makes them in their distinctive caps. After 6 weeks, I called to inquire about the package. I agreed to wait another week and then contacted them again. They sent a replacement, signed & tracked, which arrived in 8 days. Two days after that, the original order showed up.

The agony, but I was impressed that they sent a replacement order so fast. I paid for the replacement, rather than send back one of the orders.

I was so taken by the figures, however,  that I gave the unpainted Perry AWI that I was going to work on to Bill Stewart and ordered the same types of figures (British grenadiers and light infantry) from Foundry. I knew I was cutting it close by the time I ordered. I imagined that the long shipping time was just an anomaly that wouldn't happen twice. But it did.

Waiting for this order made me antsier than normal. I had to have a lot of grenadiers and light infantry painted for the convention and I was starting to feel that time was running out. Another email to Foundry telling them of the deadline I was facing and they sent a replacement by express courier—at their cost—that got to me in 2 days. The original order arrived about 10 days or so after that.

It's hard to be mad when Foundry does so much to rectify the issue, but it's also hard not to be frustrated. I thought they were very responsive and accommodating when the order didn't come. It's still perplexing, though. The orders were shipped soon after I made them, they just took forever to get to me—and I'm not alone. Kevin Smyth recently endured a long, long wait for a Foundry order. He needed the figures for a game he ran just last week at a game day event at the Veterans Museum in Chehalis, WA. With time running out, he contacted Foundry and got a replacement shipment. Then, some time after receiving the replacement, the original showed up.

Foundry also says that they're perplexed about why it takes so long for customers to receive their orders. It's just them. I order from the UK from various companies at least once a month, sometimes multiple times in a month. The average shipping time is 8-10 days. That's true for any company I've ordered from.

I spent a bit of time trying to suss it all out. It seems to me that for whatever reason, Foundry is shipping using Royal Mail International Economy. That's the least expensive, which makes it attractive, but the Royal Mail website says it takes 6-12 weeks for arrival! Royal Mail Standard International to the US is just about 40% more expensive than Economy International and has a delivery time of 5-7 working days. I'm happier to pay 40% more for shipping than to wait 800% longer to get my toys.

The order I just received from Foundry included some exquisite World of the Greeks peltasts. But the peltasts came with hoplite shields, not peltast shields. I didn't want to muck around trying to fix the order. Instead, I've just ordered 2 packs of 12 peltast/psiloi shields from Foundry. It looks like I can't plan on finishing the figures until late October or early November.