Malcolm III and William Rufus 1093 - Battle Ravens

Since discovering that the boardgame Battle Ravens translates so well to the tabletop for a wargame with 54mm toy soldiers we thought we'd give it another outing.

  Our first trial of the game was a standard shieldwall encounter between Vikings and Saxons, but the game also offers sets of cards to portray the national characteristics of Scots, Welsh and Normans so we decided to try something different. 

  For a scenario I chose the border raid in 1093 by the Scots of Malcolm III, in support of Saxon refugees, against a frontier outpost held by the Normans of William Rufus. 

A Frisian trader has beached his ship alongside the Norman keep and is unloading his trade goods in exchange for Saxon slaves, when the alarm is sounded!  A Scottish warband has been spotted approaching the stronghold.

The Frisian crew join the Norman garrison and form shieldwall outside the stockade to protect the ship from the Scots and their Saxon allies.

Lessons learned from our previous encounter meant that the action flowed much faster and furiously this time around, more risks were taken and the subtle nuances in the rule system became more apparent. 

The game is played from two static shieldwalls and despite the lack of manoeuvre there is still a great deal of movement as warriors are pushed back and forth to reinforce holes in the line.  

The Playmobil viking ship with sail down serves as the Frisian merchant vessel, it only acts as set dressing but adds depth to the scenario.

The Scots command group, King Malcolm with his retainers and priest.  The standard bearers here and below are conversions by Eric Kemp acquired at the Plastic Warrior Show in May.

There is a temptation to press heavily on one sector of the enemy line and attempt a breakthrough but this can have repercussions later on, in the long run it's often better to give ground and degrade your opponent's forces.  

The game plays comfortably in a couple of hours but you could easily expand it by allowing reinforcements to be fed in at set points.  It would make a great demonstration game at a convention, easy to transport, limited number of figures involved, several participants could take different sections of the shieldwall and the larger figures add a bit of spectacle for the spectators.

It was a close run thing and looked as though honours were even but on closer inspection and a recount the Normans carried the day by one point.

Those with sharp eyes will recognise figures by Timpo, Johilco, DSG, TSSD, Emhar, Cherilea, Del Prado, Jean Hoefler, Elastolin, Jecsan, Reamsa, Oliver, Conte, Fontanini, Replicants, Marx, Armies in Plastic, Starlux, and Cafe Storme.

Battle Ravens - Dan Mersey

It's been a while since we last had a game but this weekend I finally managed to clear enough space for one.  Battle Ravens is a board game designed by Dan Mersey with graphics provided by Peter Dennis, both well known names in the gaming world, the former for rules systems and the latter for his excellent ranges of paper soldiers.  The game is about combat in a Viking/Saxon shieldwall and comes with opposing 35mm armies of Peter's card mounted paper soldiers.  Anthony thought it would be good to play using 54mm toy soldiers so I dusted off the Dark Ages collection and this is how it went:

The two armies square up to form shieldwalls, each has armoured Hirdmen (Hearthguards) in the front line, unarmoured Bondi in the second line and a group of Thrals (skirmishers) behind them.  The command units overseeing each shieldwall have no role in the game but I included them to represent the players, and because they look good.

Each shieldwall is split into 6 areas, delineated here by the use of movement trays, at the start of the game players dice to see who goes first and then take it in turns to allocate tokens (Ravens) to each area of their shieldwall, Ravens are used to pay for activity in each area, either attack, defend (saving throws) or to move between areas.  

Player A selects one area in their shieldwall and pays with its' Ravens to either attack or move, but not both. To attack, Ravens are payed to buy dice throws, a score of 6 is two hits and 4 or 5 gives one hit. combat takes place against troops in the immediately opposite area, two hits will kill a Hirdman and one hit kills a Bondi.  If there are casualties Player B can now pay some of the Ravens from the area being attacked to buy saving dice throws: 6 saves two hits and 4 or 5 saves one hit.

Player B then selects an area of his wall to activate and either attack or move.

To move, one Raven is paid for each figure to be moved to an adjacent area and no more than 9 figures can be placed in any one area.

When the Ravens in all the areas on both sides have been spent it is the end of the turn and a new turn begins with both players alternating, as before, to allocate Ravens to areas in their shieldwall.

The Playmobil pirate ship above is perfect for 54mm toy soldiers, it was a cheap car boot find and plays no role in the game but looks great so I had to include it for a bit of set dressing.

The three bowmen behind the shieldwall are Thralls and they allow failed attacking dice throws to be rerolled, for each reroll one Thrall is removed from the board, at the start of the next turn any Thralls that were removed are returned to the game.

Each player also gets 5 bonus cards which reflect the national characteristics of of the armies and allow additional actions, just one card can be played each turn.   The basic game offers expansion kits of these cards to allow for armies of  Scots, Welsh and Normans.

The simple game system is very easy to learn and quick to play, despite this we made some inevitable errors in our interpretation of the rules and soon learned that the apparent simplicity masks some subtle nuances which emerge as the game progresses.

As wargames with 54mm toy solders go, Battle Ravens can be played in a very small area, across a dining table would be ideal, and with very few figures required.  We used 18 Hirdmen, 18 Bondi and 3 Thralls per side so only 78 figures needed in total.  

The sail billows in the wind, sending the longship scudding across the waves towards the estuary where the surf crashes against the treacherous rocks.

I really enjoyed building these Dark Ages armies and was it was great to get them on the table, using 54mm toy soldiers makes a massive difference to the visual impact of the game.  There's a great variety in the painting and poses of the figures which include Timpo, DSG, TSSD, Emhar, Cherilea, Del Prado, Co-Ma, Jean Hoefler, Jecsan, Conte, Fontanini, Replicants, Marx, Armies in Plastic, Technolog, NeTechnologist and Cafe Storme.

We both felt it was a great system for portraying the desperation of the shieldwall, the frustration of battering away trying to force a breach while urgently rushing to shore up the holes in your own wall before it collapses, now I know what it feels like being Uhtred in one of Bernard Cornwall's Last Kingdom novels.

Toy Soldiers of the Great War

An early birthday present to myself (because I'm worth it), "Les Petits Soldats de la Grande Guerre" has been out for while but I've only just come across it, the cover announces that it includes 800 toys of WW1 so I had to have it.

Published in 2013 by Editions Glenat, A4 format, it has 256 pages illustrated in full colour throughout, ISBN 978-2-7234-0700-2.  Written in French only but light on text so not too challenging for anyone with with a smattering of the language and a grounding in the Great War.  The pic below gives an example of the layout and quality of the illustrations.  The cover price is 39 Euro, which I would say offers very good value for a book of this size and quality, I got my copy on ebay France, new and still in the cellophane wrapping for 19 Euro plus 9 Euro P&P from seller "Book77".  Bargain!

There are 12 chapters looking at different aspects of the war, into which the toys are conveniently slotted.  The cover gives little away and I half expected the book to include every type of toy from diecast vehicles to dolls and teddy bears, but fear not, apart from a chapter containing tinplate tanks and ships the rest is all toy soldiers.  

You can expect to see the perennial favourites from Britains, CGB Mignot, and Elastolin  but they don't dominate, it's packed with figures of every genre: paper, flats and semi flats, conjoint tin, wood, hollowcast and solid lead, composition and even a little plastic and modern white metal (but not much).  The more I flick through it the more I enjoy it, I reckon you will too.

Still limping on the long road home from Moscow

For Napoleon's Grand Armee, the humiliating retreat from the Russian capital is about to turn in a nightmare of epic proportions. 

While the muffled boom from the Russian guns, harrying the rearguard, drifts across the endless plain, the Cossacks look for any opportunity to pick off stragglers or fall on unescorted wagons.

The Cossacks attack in waves but are easily held off by formed up bodies of infantry, or scattered when they come under artillery fire.  An unfortunate salvo from the rearguard falls near the wagons and sees a unit of Cossacks driven off by friendly fire!

The Bavarians trudge on, shadowed by the menacing Cossacks, they know their only hope of salvation is to stick together.  Ahead of them in the right foreground the Russian main army is approaching from the flank and has set up a Grand Battery to ward off any attempt by the French to rescue their supply train and come to the aid of the rearguard.

Unprotected wagons are easy prey for the Cossacks, who suddenly appear like ghosts out of the swirling snow fluries.

………and never miss an opportunity for plunder.

The Russian main army makes it's appearance on the field...….

While the Grand Battery prepares to face the French relief force, which has now been spotted racing to save the supply column.

The column escort has now splintered into isolated pockets of resistance which are systematically picked off one by one

A unit of Saxon infantry, allied to the French, take shelter in the ruins of an abandoned monastery.

The Cossacks continue to plunder the column.

Nearing the end of the game, the French rearguard, seriously depleted, stood it's ground heroically just as it did in 1812.  While the Emperor and his staff, in a moment of distraction, fell prisoner to a passing Cossack patrol, okay that didn't happen in 1812 (but it could have!).

And suddenly it was all over!  Time to pack away all the toys and sit down for tea.

The rules used for the game were a Napoleonic variant of Funny Little Wars which are as yet unpublished and are here being playtested.  One new development is the use of polystyrene foam balls impaled on a matchstick (shown here in the centre foreground) so they can be fired from a cannon, this makes their flight rather erratic but it also makes it much easier to see what has been hit.  The figures were drawn from too many sources to list, and included many conversions, but most sharp eyed readers will be able to guess their origin (and if you're really stumped you can always ask!)

It's surprising what turns up.

The recent mild weather in the South East (UK)  has ushered in the start of the Car Boot Sale season a little earlier than usual.  Our local one is held on a farm, so it's a good long walk in the early morning fresh air, and I like to go along as often as I can for the exercise.  Who am I kidding, I go along for the bacon rolls and to hunt toy soldiers!   It can be very hit or miss but  here's what I picked up this week and last:

A group of modern white metal figures made by Del Prado, the first one depicting Captain Souter of the 44th Regiment of Foot could have walked straight out of the Last Stand at Gandamak painting by William Barnes Wollen.  The remaining five are all types of the French Foreign Legion, this series was issued in France but not in the UK so they are harder to find here, I use them mostly for uniform research and at less than £2 each they had to come home with me.

I know nothing about old tin toys, except that I like them, and I do like to include them as set dressing in wargames.  The saloon car is about the rights size for 54mm toy soldiers while the Omnibus is a bit small but I think we'll get away with it, they both need a bit of cleaning up and straightening out but nothing too drastic.  I don't think there's any great age to them, they look like modern reproductions to me but for a couple of quid each they had to go in the bag.  Likewise the ceramic stable block which was made to take a tea light candle but will now illuminate my toy village.

Finally a hotch-potch of odds and ends that came in at about 50p each from various junk boxes.  The first three Britains/Herald Robin Hood figures are so damaged and scuffed that they will end up as conversion fodder.  The Evzone and horse from the Lone Star Lone Ranger figure will be passed on to someone else at the forthcoming Plastic Warrior Show next month.

The remaining two figures I'll keep, the chap in green is a Starlux character figure of Barberousse (Red beard) from the ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) TV series Richard Coeur de Lion.  The set was issued in the mid 1960's and included two foot figures each of Richard, Redbeard and Blondel and one mounted figure of Richard, they're quite hard to find.  The diminutive figure of Napoleon was made in France by MDM.  The palm tree is a modern white metal item.

The Plastic Warrior Show is being held on Saturday 11th May and further details can be found on the Plastic Warrior blog, link in the column to the left.  Good Hunting!