Rome: a passion and long term project

So I have always been enamoured by Rome and its history, yet my wargaming past has often seen me shy away from it as a period.

Maybe its by slow painting or the fact sci fi and fantasy took such a forefront along with WW2 etc but I have always wanted to spend more time playing in the time of Ceaser and the Republic

Whilst I have less time to paint delaying any rush into building a legion!

I have had a passing acquisition of gladiators and their ilk

I picked up Songs of Shadows and Dust a Ganesh games rules set for skirmishes in Roman cities between gangs or followers rather than mass battles

I really want to get some proper games in and to that end have been starting on some suitable figures, mostly using the Numidian infantry box set I picked up on the cheap, otherwise I have plenty of Gladiators and now other Roman types to populate the streets and arena

Some of the kit based Raptors below

Some pugilists two bought and two kit bashed

Three Tribunes and a guard

Three Senators out enjoying the games perhaps, also an experiment using nail art gems for rings and such, think it works fairly well on the right models

The Emperor and his aide and a guard

A kit bashed trainer/dokter to referee and train fights/fighters 

Finally got hold of a copy of this OOP ruleset by Warhammer historical

Even includes rules for fighting Ostriches! 

very detailed and lots of information, well worth picking up 

Pre weathering and basing

Bargain Playmobile arena, this thing is pure massive!

OOP for awhile but since I saw it I had to have it to base my arena around, I have lots of ideas to develop it but may end up looking like this for awhile!

Tempted to keep the playmobile statues lol

£22.50 including p&p the next two I saw went for over £70 each! so well chuffed

Two pugilists prepare to fight

Pocket Chariot racing: 6mm using (Faustus Furius) FAVSTVS FVRIVS by Ganesha games / Irregular Wars.

 As many of you who follow my ramblings will know, I am rather partial to the out put

from one Ganesha games.

I recently decided to add their new Chariot racing game to my collection and deciding I wanted it to be a quick fast play game which could be taken easily to fill free time etc, I opted for the 6mm chariots.

This should allow me to come up with a nice detailed yet storable and transportable circus maximus to take around places with ease including on holiday etc.

Recommended minimum track size is 30cm by 60cm so easily manageable

 The chariots I ordered painted from Irregular Miniatures and I am pleased with my purchase and look forwards to getting them in a race!

I opted for ten in different colours allowing for multiple players, yes I know the historical should have kept me to the main 4 Roman coloured teams, but so what!

I do however prefer the idea of pure racing so although these rules allow for all sorts of chariots and archers etc, I will tend to lean towards the historical racing section of the rules.

Now to build a arena!

Various ideas, if I can find the right old electric horse racing game, looks perfect to paint up!

I also have a large(ish) number of ready to game 28mm Gladiators so once my arena for that arrives I will be all set for a day at the Roman games!

Last Sunday at Essex Warriors: Imperial Skies using Dystopian wars fleets, and Kings of Wrath

Last Sunday I made it back down Essex Warriors and took part in two great fun games.

First up was a game of Wrath of Kings, 6 players and 4 of us had never played it before.

Game went well and I was suprised to say our side was the winners with minimal casualties.

Rules seemed to go down well and whilst I have some nitpicking over a couple of the rules wordings in the main it is a straight forward and fun wee game.

As is often the case the full table was provided by Mike who's painting as usual puts mine to shame!

I understand there is some distribution issues for this game within the UK which is a shame.

Other players remarked the setting and style lends its self to also using Warmachine figures which i think is a good point.

Next up is the game I was most looking forwards too and the one that leads the photos below.

We all have large Dystopian wars fleets and in the main they are some lovely models to game with.

As such we used them here for our first game of the new rules set Imperial Skies.

The view being that this is a simpler and faster rule set to use than Dystopian 2.0

I personally still like DW however I can understand how the plethora of special rules and advanced options can make it seem unwieldy. The base mechanics I like however.

And there is a lot to not in IS that is similar both the DW and other games I have played.

Each gun has a class L, M, H, and each of those classes improves the chance of causing a hit the closer you get.

There are range bands which are a neat 5" apart and the weapon classes fit nicely within those improving rolls needed from 6, 5,6, 4,5,6 as you get closer to the target.

They also utilise exploding 6 on shooting rolls which is another thing I am fond of in naval games specifically.

We had a mixture of naval and air based fleets in this game and chose to exclude the optional altitude rules for this play through.

Having 6 big fleets on the table in a 3v3 game looked great and we were into the action from the start.

Having 100 of each of the 3 colour dice needed on the table also made for a contrasting change!

each colour corresponds to a range band making working out which dice are for which guns nice and easy.

once we got in range, most fleets drifted slowly forwards unloading broadsides each turn, we had a couple of crossing the T which was damaging.

the idea of having a card per ship and marking off damage and the impacts is similar to other rules but is kept really simple by when you reach a negative modifier it applies to all guns and movement.

I was very pleased my dice rolling did not desert me and our side won our second victory of the day!

A Great days gaming all around