Star League - Week 9

Standings after 9 games

With their easy 4-0 victory over the Betelguesans, the Canopans clinched the Galactic division and have earned the right to play for the Star Cup against the Stellar Division champion. With a 2-1 victory over the Fomalians, he Geminids took a step to being the Canopans' opponent.

Week 9 Games
Denebians vs. Antarens - in the first game of the week, the Denebians stayed in the championship hunt with a tight 1-0 overtime victory

Canopans vs. Betelguesans - in the next game, the Canopans ended Denebian hopes with their division-clinching victory.

Hydrans vs. Electrans - once again good goaltending helped the Electrans to victory.

Geminids v s. Fomalians - the best goalkeeping performance came in the most important game of the week. The Geminids and Fomalians came into the game tied for first. In the first half, the Fomalians peppered their opponent's goal, but could only manage 1 score. The Geminids came to life in the 2nd half, scoring twice for the victory. The Gemind goalie recorded 17 saves to ensure the victory.

And on a blog-related note, this is the 17th post of the month - a new Warwell monthly record (largely due to the Star League).

A Redgrave Raid

With my 6mm huscarles complete, I've been itching to see them in action. One problem - I have no 6mm terrain. I tried my hills and they'l work, but I'll need new trees and houses. Fortunately, I had some bump chenille lying around, so I whipped up a few trees and I was ready for a quick scenario.

I have 2 inspirations for this battle. First is Dux Britanniarum, the Dark Ages rules set by Too Fat Lardies. The campaign system features one of the post-Roman kingdoms fending off Saxon attacks. My plan is to have Redgravian raiders attacking the decrepit Empire. My second inspiration was this beach battle from the TV show Vikings. My plan for the scenario was to have the raiders trying to get back to their ship but they are blocked by Imperial forces. However, I don't have beach terrain so I used what I had. Well, I had some new trees so I had to use some of those too!

Here is the opening set up. Ragnar and his raiders had just successfully sacked several villages and were on their way back to their boats, laden with plunder. They crested a hill to find an Imperial force, led by Count Delaus, blocking their path. Unbeknownst to Ragnar, Lord Flavius had a band of spearmen lying in ambush in the woods.

Ragnar spies the Imperials

 Wary of the woods, Ragnar shifted to his right. Sir Marius advanced with his band against Ragnar. Delaus preferred to bide his time, remaining motionless while Marius advanced. On the Imperial right, Lord Flavius grew impatient and began to chase after the raiders who were moving away from the woods.

Ragnar shifts right

 With a yell, Ragnar's left-flank band charged down the hill toward Flavius's troops.

Charge!

 There is a desperate struggle, but Flavius held his ground. The charging Redgravians were cut down to a man. Meanwhile, on the left, Marius grew nervous without support from his commanders. He drew back so he would not be completely outflanked. Ragnar pursued and brought Marius to battle.

Flavius holds his ground while Marius is beset.

 Marius launched himself into the fray. His inspired men took heart and they cut down their foe.

Ragnar's band suffers casualties

 Ragnar's other bands advanced but could not come to grips before Marius struck down the enemy commander.

Ragnar falls!

 With an enemy band directly in front of him, Count Delaus finally moved forward to engage while Lord Flavius smashed into the enemy flanks. At the same time, Marius engaged the raiders on the flank.

The Imperials wiping up the raiders.

 Delaus and Flavius wiped out their opponent. The remaining raiders gave up on trying to reach their ship and fled into the countryside.

The End

Despite his cowardice in refusing to advance against the enemy at numerous occasions, Count Delaus secured an impressive victory (largely due to the stellar efforts of Flavius and Marius). Most of the plunder was recovered and Delaus's reputation at court has skyrocketed.

I Finished a Project! (Sort of)

On a whim a week ago, I ordered a pack of Baccus 6mm Saxon huscarles. Today, I finshed a super quickie paint and basing job, and here are the results.

Redgravian raiders

Imperial spearmen

My camera cannot take good close-ups, which is probably a good thing because I did a very rudimentary paint job. I primed both sides in dark gray and then slapped on the armor color. I used silver on the Imperials but then decided to go fancy with gold armor for the Redgravian raiders. It's not particularly accurate for a medieval inspired army, but hey this is an imagi-nation. It also lets the Redgravians stand out more from their adversaries. I then painted the shields - white for the Imperials and Red for the Redgravians. Next I was going to paint faces and spear shafts, but with my bad eyes I could not really see that detail from table level so I skipped it. I then based them on green-painted wood rectangles from Michael's.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the result. Sure, they're not particularly pretty, but they are ready for a game in a week! You may have noticed that I usually dawdle with my painting projects. The ease of speed painting has convinced me to move back to 6mm. I just placed an order for several packs of Baccus's American Revolutionary War miniatures in addition to some Norman knights and archers to complete my medieval Francesian armies.

I plan to make one change to my basing. The huscarles were based one strip to a stand but in the future I'll use 2 infantry strips to a stand. I think that will give each infantry unit a bit more impressive mass.

What's Old is New Again

When I discussed my miniatures history a few months back, I mentioned that I once had some 15mm and 10mm figures before I scaled down to 6mm (technically 5mm). Recently, I picked up some Baccus 6mm and gave them a quickie paint job. I'm sold on Baccus. Once again, I'll be scaling down a bunch of projects to 6mm.

What this means is that I have some extraneous lead sitting around, which I'll be selling off. This includes my 10mm 100 Years War, 15mm Vikings, and 15mm War of the Spanish Succession, and miscellaneous Historifigs N-gauge. Sales will be announced once I do an inventory,


My Kallistra 100 Years War collection has SOLD. Thanks!

Star League - Week 8

Standings after 8 games

The Canopans have a 2-game lead in the Galactic Division. They only need 1 win or a Denebian loss to clinch the division title. Meanwhile, there is a tight race between the Fomalians and Geminids in the Stellar Division. The Electrans have fallen back and would need a miracle to take the division.

Week 8 Games
The theme for the week was blowouts. Three of the four games were won by 4 or more goals.

The "best" game of the week was between the visiting Electrans and the Geminids. The Geminids managed a 1-0 overtime victory. The game itself wasn't really that close; the Geminids outshot their opponent 19-1 but the Electran's excellent keeper kept the score close.

Star League Standings - Week 7

Here are the standings after 7 weeks of league play.

The Canopans have a comfortable lead in the Galactic Division while there is a tight, 3-team race in the Stellar Division. The final 3 weeks will feature intra-division games so there will be some important match-ups.

Week 7 games

Hydrans at Antarens - a tense 3-2 overtime victory for the Hydrans. All goals in regulation came off counterattacks after the defense stole the ball.

Electrans at Betelguesans - the Electran goalie continued his excellent play; shutting out the Betelguesans. The Electran offense came through, scoring early in the 2nd half for the game-winner.

Fomalians at Canopans - an easy 5-1 victory for the Canopans.

Geminids at Denedians - a tough battle between two division contenders. Early in the 2nd half, the Geminids scored on a rebound. They held a 1-0 lead in the closing seconds of the game. After a series of back and forth actions, the Denebians stole the ball, shot and scored. Both sides managed a shot in overtime, but no one could score. In the shootout*, the Geminds scored in the final round to win the game. The win kept the Geminids in a tie for the division lead while the Denebians fell 2 games behind the Canopans.

* For simplicity, I just use the Shot table for the shootout, which leads to very few scores.

GADD Again

I'm suffering some more Gamer's Attention Deficit Disorder when it comes to prepping troops for gaming.

I noticed that the Kaptain Kobold over at The Stronghold Rebuilt is moving away from 6mm figures to paper minis for one of his projects. Ironically, I am contemplating doing the reverse for my medieval project.

When I last mentioned it, I had built up two paper mini armies for battles between medieval Redgrave and the Empire. I just never got around to using them (I don't like how the stands came out but I'm too lazy to fix them. As a result I have not been inspired to play a game). Well, on a whim, I decided to order a pack of Baccus Miniatures 6mm Saxon huscarles. So far, I like what I see. The figures are easily recognizable, nicely proportioned, and with nearly non-existent flash, I primed the pack and will try a quickie paint job. I'll post some pictures once I get more done.