Planning for the rest of 2012 is a little bit more difficult.  I would love to start a new Pyrrhic army from Aventine.  The Phalanx figures are looking nice and I can work in Etruscans from Gorgon as Italian allies. Pyrrhic is an exciting and dangerous army – the figures easily cross over into a variety of ancient periods and armies, which could lean to an uncontrolled expansion of my ancients collection.  Fire Forge Games is coming out with plastic Teutonic Knights and are promising a whole line of plastic figures for the 13th century.  This could mean I’d be building a whole new army to match my Saracens, but I hardly see that as a actual problem.

And I’m sure there is some other project waiting to get my attention in 2012.  Even if the Mayans do get us, at least I’ll most of a year to work on the lead pile.

For comparison, I will use a 2 division army from Hail Caesar which is roughly similar to a 2000 point WAB army.  This army will have 2 units of cavalry, 4 units of infantry and 2 units of skirmishers which totals 20 cavalry figures and roughly 125 infantry figures.

Most metal historical figures will need to be equipped with a wooden base (11 cents from Litko) and a wire spear (20 cents from Northstar).    Most plastic figures come with Renedra bases and do not require weapon replacements.   Army values include base and spear (for metal figures) but do not include shipping, currency conversion or unit/army discounts .

• Gripping Beast metal:  $2.20 per infantry and $4.80 per cavalry.   Army = $415.95
• Gripping Beast & Conquest plastic:  $.73 per infantry and $2.33 per cavalry.  Army = $137.85
• Perry Miniatures:  $1.83 per infantry and $3.25 per cavalry.  Army = $338.70
• Aventine:  $1.75 per infantry and $4.67 per cavalry.  Army = $357.10
• Musketeer:  $2.34 per infantry and $4.67 per cavalry.  Army = $430.85

I could keep going, but the trend is apparent.  Metal figure armies run between $350 and $450 dollars.  Plastic figure armies price in at less than $150!

Prices sourced from:  Architects of War, Aventine, and Musketeer Miniatures

If you are interested in the files, leave a comment or email me at ChicagoTerrainFactory @ gmail.com

Sample output: Arab Army List

Figure Magnets:  MSC Direct offers adhesive backed magnetic strips in a variety of widths.  Use 1 inch width for cavalry and .75 inch width for 20mm infantry.  A 10 foot roll will provide 160 infantry bases and 60 cavalry bases.  For about $20, an entire army can be magnetized.

Steel Tray:  Home Depot sells sheet sheet in 12×12 sizes for about $5.  You’ll need a pair of tin snips and a pair of gloves to cut the steel.  Take care – the steel will be sharp.  Glue the steel to a standard GW movement tray with 5 minute epoxy.  Several hobby retailers sell rubberized sheets for movement trays – unfortunatly, these do not provide a firm base for heavier metal figures.

Sheet steel with GW tray

How far...

Can you go...

One more option for trays:  Shogun makes sheet movement trays.  The Flanged trays are no thicker the the stock sheet from Home Depot but are super sturdy.  Being all steel, the magnets stick strongly.  Best of all, the trays are very cost effective.  I look forward to trying out the trays during my next game.

Shogun tray

The Medallions are 2 layers of 3mm Depron foam with a coat of Foam Coat from Hot Wire Foam Factory.  Before the layers were attached, fine gauge wire was inserted to provide a means of anchoring the medallion to the costume.  The waist chain is a 99 cent vinyl belt spray painted gold, and the hand/throat attachments are made using fabric pins.

Now I get to see if my creation can hold up to a day at school followed by some enthusiastic trick or treating.

As an aside – does anyone else find themselves using hobby skills for all sorts of projects?  Are hobby skills just that useful, or is a simple case of using the skills we already have?

Medallion

Anchor wires

Medallion Belt

Daughter aka Raven

Prime White with Rifle Butt (Howard Hues) undercoat.

• Tunic:  Chalk White (Vallejo) and Dirt (V)
• Hat:  Astronomican Grey (GW)
• Robes:  Flat Red (V) undercoat with Beige Red(V) top coat; or French Mir. Blue (V)
• Spears & boots:  Saddle Brown (V)
• Shield:  Saddle Brown (V) base coat, Burnt Cad. Red (V) top coat
• Bow:  Tan Yellow (V)
• Bow case & Scabbard:  Tan Yellow w/Saddle Brown
• Arrow fetching: Astronomican Grey
• Spear tip, shield boss:  Chainmail (GW)
• Flesh:  Snake Bite Leather (GW)

All except the white robes were washed with Dark Sepia from Secret Weapon.

As an example – Caesar’s battles in Gaul are well documented by Caesar’s own text.  We know how many legions were at each battle.  We know if the legions were freshly raised or veteran.  We also have a good understanding of the number of men in each legion.  In contrast, we know very little about the tribes which battled against Rome.  Enemy numbers vary significantly and can we trust troop sizes from a book written as a propaganda tool?  Using the game system, Sabin is able to estimate the number of tribesmen present at the battle as a balance vs the “known” number of Roman soldiers.

From a gamer’s point of view, Lost Battles is an excellent resource.  The book literally lays out battles in gamers terms – number of units, historical deployment, historical results.  His system uses a concept of Key Zone – a section of the battle field that the army needs to occupy to receive a moral bonus.  The Key Zone encourages generals to match the historical result through way of a reward.  Players may very well see something like it appearing in Adepticon’s 2012 WAB tournaments.

The author maintains a site containing an over view of the game system with links to a computer simulator using the book’s game mechanic.  A Lost Battles board game is also available from Fifth Column Games.

The Alexander list was easy to build – lots of pike phalanx, cavalry and a handful of light troops to support the main line.  The Elite useful rule was used for the Companion cavalry and the White Shield phalanx to represent the well lead and opportunistic  nature of Alexander’s army.

The Republic Roman list was a bit harder.  Traditionally, the Republican army deployed many small units in a checkerboard fashion.  One way to simulate this style of deployment would be to use many small units.  However, this sort of a-symmetrical army list would be difficult to use and be a bit of an exception when trying to teach the game.  The final list instead used large blocks for the Roman heavy infantry, representing the line in a more abstract way.  The phalanx useful rule was given to the Tirarius to represent the defensive nature of the unit.

Hail Caesar Republic Roman army list
Hail Caesar Alexander army list

Aftermath

Once again Hail Caesar provides a well matched game which came down to the last few rounds.  The Roman line threatened to fall apart after a series of unfortunate dice events lead to a unit of Hastati being broken, allowing the Macedonian Pike to begin a roll up the battle line.   While the Pike battered themselves on the Roman line, and All Start barbarian unit crashed the line.  Using a combination of follow up moves and Sweeping Advances, the Gauls destroyed 5 units in a rampage which covered half of the board.

I suspect that my opponent and I made a few rules errors in the course of the game, but that did not prevent us from enjoying a well fought battle.

Only point of contention so far is the frequency that a division will fail a command roll multiple turns in a row.  For our game, the left flank was uneventful for a number of turns as neither John nor I could motivate our troops to move.  Not a big deal with 2 other divisions to play with – but could be frustrating in a group game when each player only has 1 division.  I’ll need to come up with some sort of “get out of jail” card when running HC as a convention participation game.

Unit values are mostly based on the Damascus scenario from the main rule book. The list was balanced vs. John’s list by having the same number of Heavy and Medium units, by matching the number of Useful Rules (Bows for me, Axes for John) and by having the same number of small units.  Hail Caesar Arab 12 unit army list

Army list:  African Invaders army from the El Cid book

• Mounted General
• Battle Standard Bearer on foot
• 2 units of Berbers with bow
• Mercenary Spearmen
• Mercenary Knights
• Berber cavalry
• Andalusian bowmen