27 July 2009

Henry, 1st Lord Scrope of Masham

Henry, 1st Lord Scrope of Masham, was born on 29 September, 1312, in Masham, England. Henry figured prominently in all the wars of Edward the Third, and in 1350, was summoned to parliament as Baron Scrope of Masham. He fought at Crecy, Poitiers and Najera. He died on the 31st July 1932. The Scropes of Masham were a cadet branch of the Scropes of Bolton family, hence the use of the white difference or cadence mark over the Scrope arms of azure, a bend or.

Anyway, scene set (real history, by the way, fact fans!), I actually chose Henry as he had a nice simple coat of arms, and I was able to download his flag (free, gratis, and for nothing) from the rather excellent krigspil.dk website. If you want a flag for pretty much any period, then check them out before spending any money.





I based these on a 30mm un-lipped base (i.e. a slightly larger version of the bases like those sold by GW), which handily is within a gnat's crotchet of the same thickness as my standard bases for the rest of the army. I think I'll base all my commanders like this. If I'd planned ahead a little better, I'd have put the banner-bearer on the other side of him so that I could stretch the flag out to the right and it wouldn't look (to the casual or uninformed viewer) like I'd painted his bend or going the wrong way!

The main reason I did him now, as opposed to later, is that I've been finding it rather more difficult than expected to get nice horse-flesh colours on the mounts of my hobilars. However, the English summer is doing its rainy best, so I'm off for another attempt.

22 July 2009

Archers

Managed to find a few moments (i.e. it was raining) and got these fellows polished off this afternoon. As mentioned before, the green and white livery is that worn by troops raised by the Black Prince.




Next up, some hobilars:


I also came across an article in the paper today, mentioning a website www.medievalsoldier.org which carries a database of the soldiers who fought for England against the French between 1369 and 1453.

TTFN

20 July 2009

Oh yeah, baby, it's the holidays!

Nothing new to report, geek-wise, apart from a few splashes more paint on those archers from the workbench a couple of posts back. It is, however, now the school holidays :) Hopefully I'll pick up the pace a bit, but if it's sunny then I'll be down the allotment. So, anyone who likes seeing the geeking I'm up to needs to pray for rain in East Anglia.

The weather at this moment? Glorious sunshine; I'm off to get weeding...

6 July 2009

Carrot Crunch

No, not a new type of breakfast cereal but the name of the Bloodbowl tournament I went to this weekend. I had an absolute whale of a time; the Sudbury and District Wargamers did a superb job organising it. There were forty coaches - some very experienced, others at their first tourney - and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves throughout, no matter how their games were going. The continuous flow of free food, soft drinks and beer throughout the weekend may have helped towards that cheerful glow ;)

Game 1
Opponent - Amazons
Score - 0(1)-3(4)


First game was against Dave ("Lycos"), the current president of the NAF - the world Bloodbowl coaches organisation. This top bloke, aside from his other talents (gaming and organisation-wise), has the most remarkable memory for people's faces and names. He goes to pretty much every tournament running and has quite the results record, but we've never played each other before so I was pleased to see we were paired up for the first game. I really enjoyed the game, even if I was hopelessly outclassed, and I got a casualty with my chainsaw player...

Game 2
Opponent - Goblins
Score - 2(0)-0(1)


After the spanking I got in game 1, I headed right down to the bottom table where I met Emrys, another goblin coach. We were prepared for a game full of dirty tricks, secret weapons and fouling, and neither of us were disappointed - marvellous :) The picture shows the field in turn 7 of 8 of the first half when I had removed ALL of his players from the pitch. I scored in turn 8 to finish the first half 1-0. The second half was a highly entertaining repeat of the second, with poor Emrys reduced to one standing and one prone player before I scored at the end of the game to go 2-0 at the end. A win? Hurrah!

Game 3
Opponent - Humans
Score - 0(2)-3(5)


A picture of munson's human team (the lovely Greek-themed miniatures from Impact). Despite him still suffering from the night before, munson's aggressive style made absolute mincemeat of my little guys.

The roll at the beginning meant I got to receive the ball and therefore go first. Mwahaha - I fired up the chainsaw and killed his Ogre straight away before he even got to move :) This was about the best moment of the match, however, and I ended the half 1-0 down (not too bad), but with only two big (and stupid, needing to roll 4+ before they can do anything) trolls and one goblin left. As this left me no defence, another three TDs rapidly followed, with me down to one troll by the end who still managed to run, pick up the ball (!) and head for his end zone. To no avail. I have now been officially 'munsoned'. Funny though!

Game 4
Opponent - Humans
Score - 2(1)-2(2)

An awesome first half for me against Jason saw me score twice to end the half 2-0 up. The goblin on the pogo-stick (I told you they were a silly team) scored both of them, Leaping over the astonished humans and speeding towards a risky ball snatch and sprint for the line each time. The photo below shows Jason putting a brave face on things as I wound up to score the 2nd.


The problem was that for the 2nd half, all my Secret Weapon wielders got sent off leaving me somewhat reduced in numbers (down to 8 compared to his 11) and unable to defend (have you worked out the theme of my weekend yet?) as is standard for Goblin teams. He scored twice and then went for the winner. First up he cleared the pitch (including a very sneaky set of Crowd Pushes) so that I had no players for my turn 7. On to his turn 8. With the ball carrier being 7 squares for the end zone and having a movement of 6, Jason took the least risky option of the 2+ roll (with a reroll to hand) needed to Go For It one extra square. Breath held until the dice came to rest, I gasped as he rolled a 1, then I have to admit whooping when his reroll also came up as 1. The moment of his disaster is captured below, where you can also see all my players in the KO'd or Dead and Injured boxes.




Game 5
Opponent - Wood Elves
Score - 0(2)-5(3)

A game of endless misery. Sense of humour mismatch with my opponent, coupled with him managing an astonishing twenty-one succesful dice rolls in a row in a single turn, compared to me rolling eleven 1s in a row!!! Least said, soonest mended.


Game 6
Opponent - Chaos Dwarfs
Score - 0(0)-2(2)

My opponent (Val) really entered into the spirit of carnage and disaster that my dice-rolling wreaked upon my own team with great humour. By the end we were giggling like schoolchildren as we worked out more and more outrageous things that his team could attempt.


The pic above shows the ball coming to rest after I failed to roll a 3 on two attempts. The number of my players on the pitch reduced very rapidly from this point onwards. Only the truly unlikely (5+ dodge, 5+ dodge, 3+ dodge, 2-dice his choice block, pick up on a 5+) things worked for me, but it wasn't enough. My tournament ended with great hilarity, if little actual gaming success.

I will definitely be going to this one next year!

I will also definitely be taking a team that doesn't get smooshed so easily. Lesson learned.