Pike and Shot: The Video Game

While breakfasting with my friend Rick at BJ's Brewhouse in Redmond, WA a Saturday or so back, he alerted me to a new video game for IOS (and PC) called Pike and Shot produced by Slitherine Ltd. in the UK, the same people who brought us the miniatures rules Field of Glory: Renaissance, as well as the Field of Glory ancients miniatures rules (and the video game also for IOS, PC, Android, and Mac). What could I do? I went to the App Store and bought it for $19.95.

I'm instantly hooked. I've mentioned before, I think, that the pike and shot era was one of my first loves as a wargamer. Even though I've always been an indifferent video gamer, Pike and Shot is fun and beautiful. The game is turn-based/alternate move, you playing against the AI. There is also a PBEM server you can use to play against friends. There are five difficulty levels. The default is level 2, but even at that, the AI is kicking my hiney.

The graphics are fairly nice, though not stunning. On the iPad, you can use the standard IOS pinch/spread finger resize to zoom in and out of detail. You can also maneuver around to get different perspectives, so you can see your troops from every angle. Getting around the action is pretty easy after a bit of practice (or with no practice at all if you were born after 1990 and video gaming is like breathing).

The tercios advance

The options for play cover most the pike & shot era from the Italian Wars at the end of the 15th c. to the English Civil War. There are historical scenarios and skirmish games. The skirmish games typically provide options for buying variable troop types.

Swedes vs. the Empire 30 Years War

There are a few tutorial games to get you into the play. These are heavy on providing tips about play and explaining everything going on. For later play, there is an option to minimize the amount of messaging on screen.

ECW Royalists

The skirmish games give you a lot of variety for play. You can choose the type of action (defense, attack, open battle, waiting reinforcements, flank attack), the terrain type, size of action, width of battlefield, etc.

30 Years War

You can also alternate to map view, which give you an overhead perspective. It's a lot easier to keep track of the whole scope of the battle in map view (IMO).

Dutch vs. Imperialists Map View

You can alter the speed of the play. So far, my games last about 30 minutes to an hour. The bigger historical scenarios can be quite involved. Each unit has to be moved separately. There's a unit roster that you can toggle to view so you can more easily keep track of which units have moved or fired.

Let's see, I think I'll move my gend'armes...

Dutch vs. Imperialists Battle View

One of the things that irks me is that the AI always chooses the superior force or better position. For some reason, I always seem to be outnumbered, outgunned, and attacking an entrenched enemy. My armies seem to lose heart too easily (or I just stink at this).

Well, darn.

I think, however, that I can choose either side, so I might revisit some of my past defeats to see if the odds really are stacked one way or the other, or to see if it's me. Some scenarios you expect to be losing causes. I played the Biccoca scenario. I recall the battle narrative well from Oman's The Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. The Swiss mercenaries, "inspired by blind pugnacity and self-confidence" (in Oman's words), charge an impregnable position and get their butts handed to them.

Biccoca: The Swiss Attack

Only in the game, you're able as the French player to bring up your reserves to support the Swiss, something the French commanders failed to do historically. In the game the Swiss are on autopilot; you can only command the non-Swiss forces. I managed to cause some trouble on the Imperial flank with my gend'armes and stradiots, but not much—and certainly not enough to offset the slaughter of the Swiss at the entrenchments.

The system includes one add-on (so far) called Tercio to Salvo, which covers the period from the end of the Italian Wars to the start of the Thirty Years War. It costs $9.95. I've played the Battle of Dreux scenario from it. It's another one of those where my side (the Huguenots) were man-for-man a bit better than their opponents (but just a bit); however, they were outnumbered considerably.

The French Catholics had a lot of raw pike and shot, but a couple ringers in blocks of elite Swiss pikemen. My average pike and shot could deal pretty well with their raw opponents, but I had to gang up 3:1 on the Swiss to no avail. I'm looking forward to (a) getting better so I don't constantly lose, or (b) finding scenarios where the numbers and entrenchments are on my side.

Overall, Pike and Shot is a good game. I'm looking forward to more modules, such as late 17th century (Dutch War, Scanian War, Nine Years War).

To Infinity and Beyond (the Gates of Antares)!

I have a soft spot for Sci-Fi gaming, though I don't know why. I've never played Warhammer 40K, nor had an interest in doing so (although I kind of like the figures and the flame-throwing gattling gun fully-automatic self-propelled chainsaw of doom kind of weapons they use). I have been a big fan of Silent Death and painted a huge amount of models, sold them off, and then restarted painting another collection after a hiatus of several years.

When Warlord Games came out with Beyond the Gates of Antares (BTGA) last year, I wasn't sure what to think of it. I saw a lot of hoopla about the system, but for the longest time there was no product of any kind. Eventually, you could start buying a few blister packs here and there. Last October, they released a beta copy of the rules as a PDF download.

John Kennedy has played a few games of BTGA at The Panzer Depot and gives it rave reviews. He thinks that it has a lot of features that Bolt Action should have. As a dealer, John got a few sample packs of the figures. I was happy to see that they're quite nice.

Typically, I haven't really liked the figures that come from Warlord. Their resin and metal AFVs for Bolt Action are great, but the 28mm minis have never gotten me excited. They seem small compared to other 28mm ranges. I admit I like a chunkier figure (perhaps being well-fed myself, I have a natural affinity) and Warlord lack chunk. I'm also strongly averse to plastic figures (just say NO, people!) and Warlord seems to be moving plasticwards.

The sample figures that John had grabbed me right off. They have chunk (or heft, they're often the same) and they're metal—glorious, glorious metal.

In the last few months, retail figures have been available and John carries them at the shop. I browsed them a few weeks ago, but balked at buying because of the price tag. A box set containing a squad of five figures runs $32.00 USD—that $6.40 a figure!

Just today, however, I stopped by the store and bit. I picked up a box of the Algoryn Armored Infantry (AI). The box contains a single blister and five round plastic bases. You also get a command die for the squad. (The command dice are the same used for Bolt Action.)

A whole lotta package

I wonder whether less packaging, no dice, and no plastic bases would lower the price a bit. I have buckets of command dice from playing Bolt Action and I won't use the plastic bases. Probably not. Some items, like command packs, come as three figures in a blister only with no dice or bases. The price point per figure is the same.

The good news is that squads are five figures and an army is only about three or four squads. In fact, you can get starter sets with two squads, a command group, and two heavy weapons groups for just over $100.00. In short, you don't need a lot of figures at $6.40 to make a game.

I'm sitting down this afternoon to clean and prep the figures. They come with separate heads, but are otherwise easy on assembly. I'll likely mount them on metal washers 1" round. I'm not sure yet what color scheme I'll use for them. Maybe something metallic...

Faux Lucre

More bread cast on the water has returned to me after many (many) days. Way back in September of '13, I caught sight of a Kickstarter campaign for metal gaming coins—not just any metal gaming coins—these were the best damn metal gaming coins ever! I kicked in at the $100.00 level, which gave me 500 coins. I was duly notified on 9/1/13 that I was in the club.

The campaign was fully funded soon after that at the fullest level. This unlocked a lot of new coin options. Among them all, I went for the Roman coins because my idea was to use them for betting in gladiator games. I chose eight of the standard sets and one each of a set that included just one coin type. For reasons I'm still unsure of, I chose to get a set of 20 of the "Caesar" coins and a set of 70 of the "Constantine" coins. I had the option of adding additional sets for $10.00, but close to stick with my $100.00 funding. I wish now I might have kicked in another $20.00 or $30.00.

The making, sorting, shipping of the coins took some time. Months. 18 months, in fact. All the while, we kept getting progress reports good and bad (mostly bad): Production delays, production problems, shipping issues, etc. But fulfillment drew inexorably nearer. Finally, last Thursday, a very heavy and well-wrapped priority mail package appeared in my mailbox.

Little plastic packages filled with the best damn metal gaming joy ever!

Each set contains 4 of the large gold "Caesar" coins, 6 of the silver "Augustus" coins, 10 of the bronze "Constantine" coins, 16 of the nickel-ish "Antoninus" coins, and 24 of the wee bronze "Trajan" coins. It turns out that one set didn't contain any "Augusti" but I got an extra set of "Caesari" instead. I could complain, but I'm too happy to have the coins to whinge. I can manage to do with six fewer of one and four more of another.

It makes sense for valuation to assign them Roman numerals from smallest to largest: I=1, V=5, X=10, L=50, C=100. All told, including the mis-sort, I have the following:

"Caesar" coins (value C): 56
"Augustus" coins (value L): 42
"Constantine" coins (value X): 150
"Antoninus" coins (value V): 128
"Trajan" coins (value I): 192

"Caesar" coin

"Augustus" coin

"Constantine" coin

"Antoninus" coin

Wee "Trajan" coin

I have my 35mm (closer to 40mm) Gripping Beast gladiators in the works. Now that I have the coins, I think there's nothing stopping me from finishing the project (other than myself, of course).

I do need to figure out a betting system for the games, however...

These wounds I had on Crispian's day...

Chris Craft ran a 100 Years War game on Saturday using Warlord Games' Hail Caesar rules. The scenario was a hypothetical action just after Henry V and his wee army cross the Somme: Harry and the lads have an advanced guard set up behind stakes with plenty o' arrows. Coming on to their left are another English division and, farther off, a small Gascon division. The French facing them consist of a division of mounted men at arms, two divisions of dismounted French men at arms with a few crossbowmen, and a third division of militia.

The English advance guard well-positioned with cannon

John Kennedy, Ken Kissling, and I were the French; Chris and Steve Puffenberger were les Anglais. All the figures were painted by Chris.

The serried ranks of French chivalry à cheval et à pied

The second English division forms up

The French attack started somewhat disastrously. Three of the five mounted men at arms units went forward against Chris' position; the other two went right against the second English division with the right-hand dismounted men at arms in support.

Les chevaux advance into the withering bow-fire

Unfortunate command die rolls kept the units going against Chris from contacting right away. They got plastered by bow-fire and two of the three were driven back.

The view from the English side

The French right prepares to go into the fray

Undaunted, the third unit smacked right into a well-supported longbow unit, where it got beaten to a pulp and broken.

while all the world wondered (sorry, wrong war)

Cry, "God for Harry, England, and St. George!"

At this point, some of the units from the left-hand French dismounted men at arms (who were commanded by Constable D'Albret) began lurching forward. They hadn't fared well in their early command rolls and were going in piece-meal.

The dismounted men at arms push forward

The two mounted men at arms that were pushed back by bow-fire earlier, returned to the fight and smacked into the English line, only to be repulsed.

Twice the punch as before, but the same fizzle

Over on my side of the world, my crossbowmen managed to inflict some pain on one of Steve's men at arms units. Two turns worth of flinging quarrels at him caused him to withdraw disordered into the cow-pen beyond. In turn, Steve's bowmen obliterated my crossbows.

Trying to just move forward and menace them, I sent a unit of men at arms forward and wound up blundering to glory. I rolled box-cars on my command dice and the blunder roll forced me forward three moves, just enough to smack into Steve's bowmen.

Furia Francese in a very small space

The ensuing melee was hard-fought, but I forced him back and kept pushing. The end result was my unit becoming shaken, with one of his bowmen shaken and another bloodied. I stayed in place, not sure of whether I really wanted to.

After the dust cleared from the second French mounted attack, John sent in his dismounted men at arms and contacted along most of Chris' line.

Foot sloggers forward!

On English left, the Gascon division finally made its presence felt. Steve moved the mounted men at arms against one of my dismounted men at arms units. I managed to bring another unit into support and the Gascon charge fell flat.

Before the charge

Gascons stymied

I followed up and in my next turn, I charged Steve's men at arms. This was a tie that left us both shaken.

Back in John's part of the field, his attack met the massed closing bow-fire of Chris' with aplomb. In a spectacular bit of bad luck, Chris inflicted no casualties on John. In the ensuing fight, John wiped out the English cannon, and pushed back their supporting bowmen.

The Frenchies keep pushing

From here it was all downhill for Chris. In the next turn, John broke four of the bowmen units and the dismounted men at arms. King Harry was wounded and sought shelter with the only remaining bow unit on Chris' side. The Constable of France was also wounded in the fray, but the prospects for his survival looked better than Harry's.

Back on my side of the world, Ken tried for several turns to get his cavalry stuck into Steve's bowmen. One of the unit's broke after a desultory bow-shot caused a break test in which Ken rolled snake-eyes. However, the remaining unit came to blows and drove the bowmen back. My shaken men at arms just happened to play a part by remaining where they stopped a few turns back, but were in just the right place to support Ken's victorious attack.

The Irish make trouble

The Gascon's were a spent force, though my men at arms were as well. Steve now brought up his Irish skirmishers to harass me. He got only a single ineffective shot before we called the game. The English had taken a beating, most of their loss coming from the collapse of Chris' flank. The French were pretty hurt as well, but the fourth division of militia was fresh and uncommitted. They were no great force, but had three units of crossbowmen and three units of men at arms.

It was great playing Hail Caesar again. I played it a few months ago commanding some Gallic/barbarian hordes against well-disciplined and better-armed Romans. That didn't end well for the semi-naked savages.

The game has me re-thinking (or is it re-re-re-thinking) about what to do with my Early Bronze Age/Biblicals from Cutting Edge (Warlord Games). I would need to get a lot more figures to get even moderate opposing forces, but I'm heading that way. Four-stand units, which is what Chris uses for his 100 Years War armies, would be the way to go. "Heavy" infantry would be four figures on a 40mm x 40mm base, light infantry would be three figures, skirmishers would be two. Chariots would be one model on a 40mm x 60mm deep base (for two-horse or two-equid chariots/war-carts) and, I think twice the width for the four-equid battle carts.

At this point, I should just start painting the figures...

Prodigious, Purple, Pricey: DBA 3.0

Well, I just had to do it. Even though I sold my DBA armies a few years back with the thought that I would never play DBA again (which may still be true), I couldn't resist the allure of the new DBA 3.0 rules.

I balked at the idea of purchasing them after I looked online for them from the sole US reseller and discovered the price was $47.00(!). The slick, glorious, glossy rules from Warlord Games are cheaper than that. My balking at the price of things doesn't tend to last long, however. I have every edition of DBA from 1.0 on, so I thought I should get it just in case.

I heard that The Game Matrix in Tacoma, WA had them in stock and I set out to get a copy this Saturday. After morning mass in Bothell, I made a stop at Eltana Bagels in Seattle for a breakfast nosh, then down to Tacoma. Traffic was good and I got to the Game Matrix much quicker than I thought, arriving just a bit after opening hours. I didn't see any of the South Sound stalwarts around—in fact, almost no one was there. (I might have intuited that right off by the fact that I could park within 100 yards of the door.)

I trotted back to the section where historical rules can be found, wondering if they'd have any left. I might have called first, but needn't have bothered anyhow. There were two stacks of them dominating the rules shelf. They're big. It looks like A4 format (210mm x 297mm), though I haven't measured. They're also hardcover. Both size and binding are big departures from past editions of DBA.

Oh, they're also very purple (which is, appropriately, the liturgical color for Lent, but I don't think the Barker's had that in mind.)

And, they're $47.00, which is three times what DBA 2.2 cost.

I had a browse through them when I got home to stately Chez Dave in bucolic Lynnwood, WA. Unlike most of the people on the Fanaticus forum, I don't have DBA memorized, so I can't spot offhand how much they've changed. However, from the look of it, 3.0 is not a major revision. What they have done is:

• Add diagrams for some of the more opaque rules situations (as an alternative to just writing the rules in Standard Modern English?).
• Expand the army descriptions, so you don't have to go to Wikipedia to look up what Blemmyes are (in which case you might think they were an army of headless people).
• Change the army compositions, which must cause a few groans from people who have 100 DBA armies that they need to change in order to be valid.
• Tweak a the rules regarding rear and side support.
• Changed some of the combat outcomes.
• Change the measuring system to be multiples of the base width.
• Revise the terrain setup rules.
• Change the army deployment rules.

That's all that I can see from what I've browsed. There may be a bit more that I don't notice yet; I'm a bit obtuse sometimes, so I expect I've missed a lot.

These aren't the Blemmyes you're looking for.

I have, I think, some 15mm DBA armies in a box in the garage. Unpainted, of course. I'm not likely to paint them any time soon. I have, however, a bunch of the 28mm Cutting Edge Bronze Age minis from Warlord Games. I bought these last year because I couldn't resist. As a recovering ANE student, I'm pretty jazzed about having accurate figures available for the period. From Akkadians to Amorites, they've got it all. But I've been wondering what to do with them.

Maybe a 28mm DBA project...

My last 15mm DBA project was painting the armies and enemies of  Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom Egypt. I could do a similar project for the Age of Hammurabi (ca. 18th c. BC). The figures aren't bulky, so I could easily fit them on the official base sizes (60mm wide) for larger scales.

Mounted on the standard bases, I might also be able to repurpose anything for DBA to be used with the old Al Margolis Legion rules published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1976.

Postscript: Eltana Bagels

Eltana is a new favorite spot for me. It's on the edge of Seattle's Wallingford district and not far from where I used to work when I was at Adobe and later Sakson & Taylor. It's also just up the street from the Pacific Inn Pub. The best dive bar in Seattle with the best fish & chips in the world.

Eltana makes their bagels Montreal style in a wood fire stove. They're chewy and slightly sweet. The only comparable bagels are Siegel's Bagels from Vancouver, BC, but that's too far to drive.

When I was in between jobs last summer, I went down to get a bagel on several mornings. A toasted bagel with schmeer and lox is the best way to start a day. I wish they'd open a shop up north by me.

Little Bites

In an effort to keep posting despite being addicted to long, rambling blog posts, I'm trying to add a few brief updates about various goings on that I might omit altogether or wait until I get a big postful of content to bury it in. So, rather than a big blog meal, here are a few little bites, nibbles, if you will:

After many days...

As it says in Ecclesiastes 11:1, "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." Some time last year (August maybe) I cast my bread upon the waters and ordered some of the Tékumel Club's figures. I had just finished M.A.R. Barker's The Man of Gold and was eager to get a few Tékumel figures to paint.

Some of the figures I ordered were still in progress and imminently to be released; others were available right then. I opted to wait until everything was ready before having any of it sent, but production problems meant that the imminent release was less imminent than was thought. The figures needed to be re-sculpted and re-cast. Tékumel Club is a small, one-man operation, so things can take time. Production for the ones in progress appears to be still ongoing, but Howard Fielding (Mr. Tékumel Club himself) sent me the others separately. Quite by surprise, I found them on my doorstep one day, like little foundlings.

The figures that came were two war bands of the Aridáni Legion of Lady Mríssa. (Pix below are from the Tékumel Project blog.)

The Lady Mríssa herself

They're very nice figures. Tall-ish 28s, but on the slender side—though to be fair, these are winsome women warriors and not likely to be hulking.

Trooper standing with hand open for spear

The detail is very well executed and I'm looking forward to get started on them this weekend.

Officer with Sword

I also found a good guide to painting them online, although it differs a bit from the official painting guide published by M.A.R. Barker in the 80s. I'll go with this because it's visual.

What to do with them? I don't see myself painting armies of Tékumel. I do see, maybe, another Lion Rampant variant...

First Blossoms

I ordered some Front Rank Wars of the Roses foot men at arms last year without really knowing what to do with them. (I do that often, which is why I have so much unpainted lead and orphaned projects.)

I bought them before Lion Rampant was released, so now I'm working towards painting them for that. I'll probably do a retinue for The Earl of Northumberland (Percy), a Lancastrian.

Anyway, I completed the first Lion Rampant unit of six foot men at arms this week!

They turned out to my liking, except for the eyes. I swore I wouldn't paint eyes for any figure smaller then 40mm, but I can't help myself. Even wee figures look like moles if you don't do something for the eyes.

Who turned out the lights?

But my feeble attempt to do eyes always results in the Marty Feldman effect.

I still only have foot men at arms on hand. I have to order more figures to get the archers, billmen, and what-not to complete the retinue. In the meantime, I have plenty of Old Glory medievals primed and ready to roll to complete a retinue for Lion Rampant. I'm probably going to make them Flemish in honor of the brave men of Courtrai.

Somebody Stop Me

I was innocently blundering through the aisles of my local Safeway store last week (that's typically how I shop) when I fell upon a box of frozen microwaveable White Castle cheeseburgers. Having lived in Chicago, I knew White Castle from of old. Gourmet, they are not. However, they are an addictive taste sensation.

I picked up a box of 16. They come like Twinkies in a two-pack. Zapped for 1 minute in the microwave, they come out hot and melty with a soft wee bun. At a White Castle, you buy 'em by the bag and you can easily down half a dozen in one sitting. I ate them four at a time and the box was empty in two days.

I just picked up another box today and ate six of my 16 while writing this post. (The cats were locked out of the room lest they try to get at them.) I had hoped so much for starting better eating habits, but I hadn't counted on this...