Never Mind the Billhooks: Edward's Retinue

My initial retinue (battle) for my Never Mind the Billhooks armies is done.  Well, mostly sonce I've decided I need to add a block of 12 x Pike and 6 x Skirmishers.  Really happy with how these guys turned out.

This is Edward IV's battle (red/blue), supported by troops from Stafford (black/red).  I have both mounted and dismounted command stands for Edward IV.  I need to finish Stafford's command stand.

Pictures below of the troops finished so far ...

I went back and forth on how I wanted to base them.  I settled on using 100mm x 50mm for the infantry (12 figures) and cavalry (4 figures).  Artillery is on a 50mm x 75mm base and commanders are on a 50mm x 50mm base.

War of the Ring: Revised Rules (Beta)

I've spent a good chunk of time on revising the War of the Ring rules.  Why?  The rules are fairly old and "very GW" in how they are written.  Of course they wanted to be able to bridge those who wanted to use their collections for both skirmish and mass battle engagements.  Really, it was just a build onto the skirmish system.  That being said, there is a lot about the rules I like.

Disclaimer: I'm posting this so I can track it and have it easily accessible to myself and for my gaming group.  I share it only in the interest of the community as a whole should someone out there also be interested in using these modernized WotR rules for their own purposes.

There are many things that needed to be say - modernized - for the rules.  Streamlining things that slow down the game that could be integrated together, collapsing easily forgotten rules into profiles so that what you see in a profile is accurate to everything that formation is equipped with (e.g. two-handed weapons decreasing a units fight), and simplifying things such as heroic actions (now called mighty actions), movement rates, formation sizes, and so on.  The idea is that the game is still very much War of the Ring, but plays easier.

I've done some playtesting of the rules and I'm happy with the results.  But, still calling them beta rules for now until I get more and larger games played out.

You can download the rules here:

War of the Ring Revised (Beta) Rules

Army lists are a separate document, which can be downloaded here:

War of the Ring Revised (Beta) Army Lists

I've created preview images of the 8 pages (A4 that print as 4 double-sided sheets) below.  You really only need these sheets in order to play.  Owning the original rules is handy, but not required.

As I mentioned, there are all new army lists to go along with the above.  Preview images of those lists below.  While I've done many of the armies from the original book - not all of them are there at this time (missing currently are the Elves, Dwarves and Misty Mountains).  The "larger" army lists are laid out so that the unit profiles are all on one page, with the faction specific special rules on the next page (or reverse side of the page if printed double-sided).  The small army lists have both the profiles and special rules on a single page.

So there you have it.  I'll be working through any updates that are needed as a result of playtesting and looking to use these rules to run a large WotR game at PacifiCon in September.

General Update: June

Just a quick update to let you all know I'm still kicking!

My son joined a competitive Volleyball club which runs a compacted summer program from mid-May to the end of June.  As a result I've been travelling around the US for various tournaments (last one is next week in Orlando, Florida).  As a result the project progress has slowed.  My massive backlog of basing is, well, only more massive.

With my Napoleonic Russian army mostly done, I'm focusing the bulk of my effort currently on the "two WotRs" ... that is the War of the Ring (LOTR) and the War of the Roses (Never Mind the Billhooks).

Bohdan has been making excellent progress on my Corsairs of Umbar ...

The force consists of 2 x 36 figure raider warbands, 2 x 18 figure arbalesters (crossbows), and some heros/characters.

I also have finished the first "battle" (brigade) for Tewksbury for the War of the Roses, but need to get them on bases ... more on that soon hopefully.  I have a crap load of plastic infantry to assemble for the 5 remaining battles.

So apologies for the lack of posting.  July should be a good month though.  I will be making a lot of basing progress.  Also, while I've been on the road I spent a lot of time modernizing the War of the Ring rules.  I've been doing some solo play testing to get all the updates/changes ironed out and feel like they are in a really good state.  Will post that up soon.

KublaCon 2022 Report (Picture Heavy)

KublaCon 2022 has now come and gone.  Given the number of pictures, I perhaps should have broken this up into seversl posts, but screw it, here we go with a very long and picture heavy post!  

Please bear with me here ... if you scroll down you will see, in order:

1. 10mm Fantasy Orcs vs Humans (Hail Ceasar/Warmaster)
2. WW2 Shaggy Ridge (Bolt Action)
3. Test of Honour Samurai Skirmish
4. Battle of Bautzen (General d'Amree)
5. Sudan Colonial (Men Who Would Be Kings)
6. French and Indian War (Rebels and Patriots)
7. Pictures of other games at the con

The miniatures footprint this year was great and overall quality of the games being run in general was higher than previous years IMO.  Additionally, I did something I have not done before, which is go Thursday afternoon all the way thru to Monday afternoon.  I generally go Friday around noon thru Sunday evening.  I'm really happy I did for this particular convention, because I really enjoyed the extra gaming.

I stuffed my car full on Thursday AM ...

Arriving Thursday rewarded me with a great parking spot right next to the side entrance to the hotel (what we call "rockstar parking" back home in Canada).  I loaded up my dolly, hauled most of the stuff up to my room, then it was off to meet up with Rob Bauman (who flew down from BC) to kick off some gaming.  Below you can see one of three dolly loads going up to the room ... this one with the boxes I use to store my miniatures ...

I immediately jumped into Foundations of Rome with Rob ... and Kentucky Mules (bourbon).  The miniatures coordinator Hector also came a little later and joined in for a game of Wonderlands War.

Both Foundations of Rome and Wonderlands War are excellent boardgames I highly recommend.  Ok, on to the miniatures!

10mm Fantasy

Adam Clark ran his beautiful 10mm fantasy game using Warmaster figures but with his own straight forward set of rules based on Hail Caesar.  I played on the Empire side, anchoring the right flank.  I had some early success but had to deal with flanking Orc Boar Boyz.  After some decent rolling (for me) I was able to keep the flank secure while the others pushed for the objectives on the left flank.  I also had the Empire Wizard, with the Flaming Head (which I call Flaming Head Job).  It went off in glorious fashion, hiting 5 Orc units that had all lined up to take advantage of the woods for cover.  The Orcs did manage to breach the castle and take it on the last turn, but it was a grind for them.  They did use the Fists of Gork to smash a part of the fort wall.  Adam scratch built all the buildings and castle/fort.  Exceptional work.

WW2 Battle of Shaggy Ridge

John Lantz hosted his WW2 battle of Shaggy Ridge game.  With all the foam and the size of the hill it was more like Shaggy Mountain - impressive!  Not only did John capture the elevation, but the topographical look of the top of the ridge, which is hard to do in 28mm!  Excellent work.  The Japanese managed to pull off a victory at both the top and bottom sections.  At the bottom the allied infantry got not one but two FUBAR results that saw them run off the table just after having taken the objective.  Someone pissed in the karma pool.  At the top, a Banzai charge in the last turn by the Japanese was just a little to much for the Australians, who had to withdraw due to losses.

Test of Honour

I pulled out my Test of Honour stuff to run a couple of games.  Nothing fancy, just rolled out one of my larger mats I brought for Bautzen and threw out my Japanese terrain.  I used my Samurai and Sohei Monk warbands and ran a few people through the game.  Very fun!

Colonial Sudan

Matt Hilzendrager hosted his Sudan game which he has added several new units to - along with a very bool river boat!  He used The Men Who Would Be Kings rules which work well for this setup.  What can I say, the Sudanese could handle firepower of that magnitude!

Bautzen, 1813

I finally got to host my "full" battle of Bautzen game (MacDonald's Attack) from the General d'Armee rulebook.  The full game adds two additional brigades per side.  I used a 6 foot by 16 foot table for the game which turned out to be perfect in size.  I was able to embellish the towns on the table with additional buildings since I had the space to work with.  The Russians pulled off a minor victory.  They had a major victory after having captured the small village on their right flank, but the French pushed them out and recaptured it on the last turn of the game.  The Russian cavalry did very well on the center/left, launching several charges that held off the French.

Unfortunately, I was a little late on the setup and had forgot my fancy camera up in my room.  I was hoping to pop up to get it but all the players (14) had not played GdA before, so I was kept fairly busy answering questions and hosting for the game.  As a result, I only have phone pictures for this game.

French and Indian War

Dan Kerrick hosted a FIW game.  The scenario was for the Ohio river valley and saw the French attempting to secure two bridge crossings.  Just phone pictures for this one as well.

Other Games

There was a host of other games I attempted to snap pictures of during the convention.  Several games, especially the first pictures below, were very well done!

This was just the miniatures room that I spent the weekend in.  There is a lot more going on a KublaCon that I didn't take pictures of (showcase games in the main foyer, stuff all over the place).  

If you've read/scrolled this far ... well done!  That's a KublaCon wrap!