Last Saturday (15th September), Doug & I had a first play through of the introductory scenario from Albedo Combat Patrol.

I also played this scenario through with Justin when we visited Beasts of War and we made a 'Let's Play video of it'

Click here to take a look

The introductory game represents a recce patrol running into a defensive standing patrol. Confed Forces are in defensive positions around the main communications complex. The ILR have sent out recce patrols of fire team strength to identify the defenders state of readiness and the strength of their positions.

Click here to download the scenario as a PDF file

Click here to find out how to get a FREE copy of the rules

This clash takes place in the industrial estate surrounding the comms complex.

As this is an introductory scenario with very small forces involved, each figure gets it's own activation dice and acts as an independent unit. Confed had a fire team consisting off a squad leader with machine pistol and three troopers armed with the LAKW 1-56 Assault Rifle.

The ILR fire team has a team leader and five troopers, four armed with carbines and one with a LMG.

The Confed team leader and foxy trooper deploy into a building, hoping to get a good field of fire from a covered position.

Trooper Fox smashes the glazing with his rifle butt and scans the horizon for signs of movement.

At the far side of the complex, ILR troopers are moving through buildings and taking up positions for a cautious advance.

Confed form a loose line, making best use of the cover in and around the buildings to the left.

The superior range of the Confed rifle takes it's toll, as the lepine casualties mount.

However, the frontal assault is a feint and a pair of ILR troopers make their way around the rear of the buildings. Although one of the pair goes down, the survivor takes Trooper Fox out as he fumbles a magazine change, leaving the path clear for a rush to the exit (which game the ILR three bonus victory points) as they had slipped the patrol and could report on the positions they were shielding.

At that point, on the last turn it looked like a draw with 4 victoty oints a side. Confed had incapacitated 4 ILR troopers for 4VPS, ILR had got a trooper of the table and incapacitated one Confed trooper for 4 victory points. How ever, in the last activation of the last turn this Confed trooper charges and manages to incapicitate his opponent tipping the scales to a 5 vs 4 result for Confed.

This was a very tense and exciting game which could have easily gone the other way. The introductory scenario is a great way to get to grips with the fast, fuirious and realistic card driven combat mechanics at the heart of Albedo Combat Patrol.

Albedo Combat Patrol was sucessfully funded via Kickstarter.

For more details check out the these links!

Albedo Miniatures available now

Albedo Miniatures pre-orders / Late Pledges via Backerkit

Albedo Combat Patrol website

Albedo Combat Patrol Facebook Group

Albedo Combat Patrol Newsletter

Around fifteen years ago, I used to run a couple of hobby stores and I had just about every Warhammer and Warhammer 40K army that was available, including a 3,000 point Imperial Guard (Cadian) Army. Most of my 40K troops were auctioned off on ebay to finance other projects but I do have some bits and pieces of Space Marine, Ork and Tyrannid left.

When I was tidying up last night I came across a case of Imperial Guard Heavy Weapon Platoons, so I've decided to use these as a basis for putting a small force together.

They are all heavy weapons teams. Enought to make a Mortar Platoon, Anti-Tank Missile Launcher Platoon and a Heavy Laser Platoon. I will need to check the latest fluff to find out what these are called at the moment.

I had a quick look and I'm pretty sure that these are the same as the currently available Imperial Guard Miniatures, so my next job is to pick up a box set of the standard infantry to start putting some core troop choices together.

Friday 31st August 2018

Just arrived, a brand new box of WH40K Imperial Guard Infantry, just the way that I remembered them from about 15 years ago when I last put some guardsmen together.

This time however I am going to be looking to do some conversions rather than straight builds.

One of the things that I used to love about Warhammer was the sheer breadth of the canvas, back then you could buy straight from Games Workshop a huge variety of different uniforms for the Imperial Guard including ones based on 19th century British soldiers from Rorkes Drift, WW2 Russians, WW1 Germans and many more together with Abhuman troops including Ratling (Hobbit) Snipers, Squats (Dwarves), Ogryns (Ogres) and Beastmen. The whole rational from Games Workshop was that the Imperium was huge and that the Imperial Guard raised regiments from tens of thousands of planets and that there was a wide diversity of life to work with.

... so this next stage is going to be to play around with some bits that I have left in my bits box from making some miniatures for another new sci-fi miniatures game, Albedo ACP164, to come up with a new and unique look for my Imperial Guard.

Update 2nd October 2018

Finally got around to assembling and painting first five Imperial Guard Feline Conversions.

These all use the plastic pieces from the standard Games Workshop Imperial Guard plastic sprues combined with Feline head and tail conversion pieces from Albedo Miniatures.

I've also upgraded the bases to Sally 4th clear plastic bases so that they will belnd in with what ever terrain they are standing on.

All of the terrain shown is from the Albedo Miniatures game Kickstarter which goes live on 15th October.

Links for Further Information.

Albedo miniatures figures and conversion parts

Sally 4th Clear Plastic Bases

Albedo Miniatures Game Facebook Page

Albedo Combat Patrol Forum

Sign up to Albedo Combat Patrol Newsletter

Free Albedo Comic Book Archive

On Sunday 19th August we were at 'The Other Partizan' wargames show at Newark Showground, with our Red Book of the Elf King participation game.

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2. The game was played on terrain boards made using Sally 4th Terra-Former terrain tile kits. These are kits to make 12" x 12", 12" x 24" and 23" x 24" square terrain tiles with embedded rare earth magnets and precision laser cut profiles of hills, cliffs, rivers and streams and much more.

3. If you like the look of these terrain boards, and would like something similar, you can give Sally 4th a shout as they now offer a custom terrain making service.

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9. The author, Rick Priestley offers some advice and answers some questions on how the rules work.

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Click the links below for further information on.

Red Book of the Elf KIng Rules & Miniatures by Lucid Eye

Terra-Former terrain tiles

Lukes Apps terrain making products - these are what we use for ground cover and are highly recommended.

Custom terrain making service.

Last week Nick & I decided to have a go at Simon Millers 'For King and Pariament' English Civil War rules. Both Nick and I had played ECW miniatures games with many different rules sets including Warhammer ECW, 1644 and Piquet Anchor of Faith over the years. One of the idea that attracted me to this set of rules was that the rules have done away with tape measures and measuring completely. For King and Parliament rules use a grid for movement, the size of the grid is related to the base size of your miniatures.

My ECW collection are based on 50mm square bases. I therfore decided to use a 6" grid. This was very easy to achieve as my wargames terrain is built on Terra-Former tiles. Terra-Formers are kits toacy build 12"terrain tiles with embedded rare earth magnets to hold the tiles together so that they do not drift apart during play. The pieces are precision laser cut for accuracy. There are a wide range of profiles available including hills, cliffs, rivers, streams, beaches and many more. We found that no markings were needed when using Terra-Formers as it was easy to judge the centre of the tile and mentally divide it into four quarters.

My miniatures are magnetically based. I therfore made a small tray for each unit large enough to hold three bases together with space for a unit stat line together with a coloured square to identify which brigade the unit was from. The rule mechanisms such as activation, shooting, melee and morale tests are all conducted using standard playing cards. To activate a unit you draw a card and need a card with a value of 2 or greater. The more difficult the maneuver, the more negative modifiers to subtract from the value of the card turned. For example, a maneuver other than advancing straight to your front is -1 as is maneuvering a large unit.

If you have an officer attached to your unit and it fails to activate, the officer can use his influence to draw another card. If you were lucky enough to have drawn a low card (that was still enough to carry out the activation) you can activate again by drawing another card, although this time you need to beat the value on the previous card. Instead of using actual playing cards, I made a set of 25mm square playing card chits that could be drawn from a bag and placed on a space left for them on the units base.

We played the introductory scenario in the rule book which saw a slightly stronger Royalist force with a less effective command structure deployed along the length of a broad hill. The Roundheads initial force was weaker as they had two regiments of horse who had been dispatched to forage for supplies. The return of these troops was diced for each turn, but when they did return, they arrived on a flank, which gave them a big advantage.

We played the scenario twice, taking it in turns to play Roundhead and Cavalier. The Royalists did win both times but my the smallest of margins, and we felt that the battle could have easily gone the other way. I really liked the mechanisms of the game. Easy to learn but with depth and just the right amount of command friction.

For further information on Terra-Former terrain, click here. To check out our range of magnetic and steel vinyl basing materials, click here.

Red Book of the Elf King

Fantasy Skirmish Gaming

On Monday, Doug and I got together for another great game of Lucid Eyes, Red Book of the Elf King. Up until now, all of our battles have taken place up in the mountains on our waterfall and cliff boards, so we thought we would have a bit of a change, especially as we are taking our waterfall terrain to Partizan for participation gaming on Sunday.

As usual, we shuffled the 6 faction cards from the Glamour Deck and drew randomly for Thane (leader). Doug drew Saylian Trollblood from the Sarlant Marshes, a good all rounder, versed in the powers of troll knowledge with a troubled face that causes enemy within 6" of him to roll courage checks at a big disadvantage. He is also armed with the Blade Impure, a cursed weapon that deals two wounds per strike instead on the normal one. I drew Meksant Farseer, Keeper of The Red Book, he is one of the most powerful mages in the game. With him you know that pretty much every glamour (magic) you cast is going to work. Although he only has 2 wounds compared to Saylians 4, he does have very powerful magic armour giving him a save of 8 on a D10, plus he has a magic item which allows him three rerolls for failed armour saves.

Saylian deployed all of his forces together in the centre of the table.

Meksant deployed half to match him in the centre and the other half, led in person went arond the left flank.

The companions clashed early on outside the ruined keep. In RBEK fortune does favour the bold, giving a healthy plus two bonus (on a D10) if you charge rather then defend.

Meksant brings a second unit up to form a battle line in the centre and attempts to wear down Saylians companions.

Meantime he works his way forward on the left flank, making good use of cover. He has drawn a mixture of offensive spells and activation manipulation spells, which serve him well. Casting a glamour on the enemy that causes a red death to spread amongst the enemy, in a single turn he kills a companion and wounds three more before the spell is spent.

In the fight, center stage, Saylian moves up and leads from the front, causing much damage with his savage melee attacks.

The combination of his companions and his own savage melee attacks, combined with his special ability that forces an enemy to check courage with a minus three modifier (on a D10) clears the center ground of opponents.

AT this point Meksant casts a mighty glamour that rolls back time, meaning that all of the activation tokens he has, and any units within 6" of him have get put back in the bag. This meant that Meksant and the Companions next to him got two activations each in a row. These were used to deliver no fewer than 14 ranged magic missile type attacks against Saylian. This reduced Saylain to two wounds, but he passed his courage test and proceeded to cahrge Meksant regardless of his wounds.

In the resulting melee both Thanes managed to inflict two wounds on the other, however Meksant used his magical item to reroll the two failed armor saves and second time around he saved one of them. This left Saylian dead but Meksant still on his feet, wounded but the victor of this encounter.

This was another great game of Red Book of the Elf King. If you are not familiar with the game, Sally 4th are the official show stockists for Lucid Eye. We keep there full range in stock, which you can take a look at by clicking here.

We always get a few questions about scenery, bases and tokens, so here are some useful links.

The terrain is all built using Sally 4th Terra Former terrain tiles. These are kits to make 12" terrain frames with embedded rare earth magnets.

The miniatures have been based onSally 4th Clear Perspex Bases.

The red blood splats that we use as wound markers are Sally 4th Perspex Wound Markers. These are available in either Black or Red Perspex in either shape of a drop of blood or as a blood splat, they are on the Bullets & Brains page as they were originally designed for them!

We are running participation games of Red Book of the Elf King at The Other Partizan at Newark Showground on Sunday 19th August from 10:00 onwards.

Hope to see some of you there!

Warmaster Fantasy Battle

For the last year or so Lewis has been tirelessley running an online Mighty Empires campaign. Mighty Empires was a great board game that Games Workshop released about 15 years ago. It could be played as a stand alone game or it could be used to generate table top battles to be played out using Warhammer or Warmaster Fantasy Battle rules.

The first campaign year saw rising nations enjoying an uneasy peace as they seized unpopulated lands to form there lands. As most of the unpopulated lands had been claimed the second year opened with a Tomb King invasion into the Dwarven Republic.

On Monday Josh and Lewis came over to transfer this action on to the table top. My Dwarven banner in the campaign was worth 1100 points and Josh's invading Undead ammased 1500 points worth of troops. We selected troops, determined that the game would last for 8 turns and deployed on to the table.

As my thin line of Dwarves were defending they positioned themselves in a line across a significant hill side. The centre was strengthened by a couple of cannons and a flame cannon while a unit of troll slayers was positioned on each flank behind the main line to reinforce where needed.

The Tomb Kings army must have outnumbered the Dwarves four to one, including a huge block of chariots, bone giants and the mighty Spinx.

The Tomb King archers cross the river as the skull chuckers are set up on top of the cliff.

A pesky unit of Carrion attack the flank of the flame cannon, luckily it manages to hold off the birds for the first turn. It then turns to face and incinerates most of the birds.

During the first couple of turns the Tomb King is very unlucky with command rolls so the army does not make the progress needed to sweep the Dwarves off the hill.

In places the Dwarves make localised counter attacks. Here a unit of Dwarf Warriors seizes the opportunity to charge into the flank of a unit of Tomb King chariots.

The Bone Giant models were actually representing Sphinx. These huge monsters charged the centre of the Dwarf lines and created a huge dent, but not huge enough to sweep the dwarves off the hill. At the end of turn eight we counted up our losses. The Dwarves lost 80 points of troops, the Tomb Kings 120points. The difference was so small that it was judged to be a draw so in campaign terms both armies had to withdraw from the campaign hex.

On Tuesday Lewis tried his High Elf army out against Josh's Tomb Kings.

After the previous inability to activate a lot of the army in early turns, Josh took far more Liche Priests as leaders and consequently got to activate far more of the army each turn.

A mighty river divided the battlefield, crossable by a ruined bridge in the centre of the table. Armies were deployed on both sides of the river.

After some initial localised successes by the High Elves the Tomb Kings rallied and scored a significant victory. Although the elves caused a lot of casualties, the tomb kings units were very cheap compared to the high elves troops so when the losses were totalled up Josh had scored a significant victory.

The game was fought over terrain tiles built using Sally 4th Terra-Former kits. If you've not seen them before, you can check them out @ Terra-Former Tiles.

Saturday 4th August 2018 - Claymore Wargames Show Edinburgh

Lucid Eye - Red Book of the Elf King Participation Game

Last weekend we were at Claymore Wargames Show in Edinburgh putting on a participation game for Lucid Eye's Red Book of the Elf Ling miniatures game.

Red Book of the Elf King is a fantasy skirmish set of rules, written by prolific rules writer Rick Priestly (Warthammer / Warhammer 40K / Warmaster / Bolt Action / Hail Caesar / Beyond the Gates of Antares etc).

Red book of the Elf King is set during an Elven Civil War, brought about by the dissapearance of the Elf King (presumably together with his red book?). Factions are Led by Thanes. The rest of the faction are aleed Companions. Companions are organised into units of 3 miniatures.

A faction normally consists of a Thane plus six groups of four companions (19 miniatures). To keep our participation gmae moving along quickly we played with four factions, each containing a thane and three groups of three companions (10 miniatures per side).

Each faction started in the center of one of the sides. Victory would go to the last Thane standing. In the case of more than one Thane standing at the end of turn four, the amount of companions remaining would be used to decide a tie-breaker.

The activation system in Red Book of the Elf King really suits multi-player participation games. Each player rolls a D6, an additional 'Common Die' is rolled and the common and player rolls ara added together. This determines how many activations each player has available. This varies between 2-12. For each activation a token is placed in the bag and drawn at random.

The token is allocated to a unit which can then either move, charge, fire or move and fire or cast a glamour (spell).

This mechanism ensures that all the players are continually involved in the game.

On top of the rocky bluff, Salian Trollblood surveys the carnage below. A wise player has to balance when and where to risk there thane in hand to hand combat. Although they are the most powerful units in the game, if you lose them you lose the game.

Salian wisely lets his companions weaken his enemies, while he contributes long ranged magic attacks until the time is right to get stuck in and make a difference.

Early on in the game, Vashel and Alloysian get involved in the melee and both end up dead.

Meksant is the most powerful magick user in the game, he is kept out of the battle for as long as possible, contributing powerful glamour attacks to his force.

... but eventually the activations go against him and Salian Trollblood manages to manouver his forces to force a combat with him. Once wounded Salian moves in to finish him off.

This was a really exciting game. The four gamers who took part had noy played previously, but very quickly picked up the way that the rule mechanisms worked.

The next time that we are running a participation game is 'The Other Partizan' at Newark Showgrond on Sunday 19th August, where we will be joined on the day by the Author, Rick Priestly.

We are Lucid Eye show stockists so will have the complete range of Red Book of the Elf King, Savage Core, Age of Ice, Plot Device etc with us. We are taking pre-orders now through our web site (just check out as normal and select 'collect at partizan' as the delivery option). If you can not get to the show, we also supply any where in the worl via the website.

Click here to take a look at the complete lucid eye range.

Click here to take a look at Red Book of the Elf King.

All of the terrain is constructed using Sally 4th Terra-Former kits. Click here for details.

We also provide a custom terrain making service, so if you would like a battle board like the one shown, click here for details.

Sloppy Jalopy 28mm scale Interwar / VBCW Miners

This week I have been painting this lovely pack of Very British Civil War Miners from Sloppy Jalopy. I don't know why it has taken me so long to get around to painting them, as they are a lovely set of miniatures. Richard gave me a set to paint up to go in our display cabinet a couple of years ago when we became Sloppy Jalopys show stockists. I'd painted the cricket team and the canal folk, so I was determined to get them painted before I saw Richard and Laurence in a couple of weeks at 'The Other Partizan'.

The miners have been base coated in a variety of greys and browns and then dipped in Army Painter Quick Tone which has brought the detail out nicely.

The figures came on the usual plinths, which I snipped off with side-cutters and remounted onSally 4th clear perspex bases so that when I use them in a game they will match the terrain they are standing on.

I decide that my miners would be from a Durham colliery as Ann's Grandad worked in a colliery in County Durham.

Feel free to download this banner image to use on your miniatures! (Right click on image - Save as)

The miners have now joined the canal folk and cricket team in our display cabinet. We are just packing up to head to Claymore in Edinburgh on Saturday and on 19th August we will be at The Other Partizan at Newark showgrond, so you can see them there, or click here to take a look at the Sloppy Jalopy range in our webstore!

Sally 4th are the show stockists for Lucid Eye, so when we heard about there collaboration with rules writting legend Rick Priestley to publish 'The Red Book of the Elf King', we were keen to get a demo table together. The 'Red Book of the Elf King' (RBEK) is a set of skirmish rules set in an Elven civil war. Each side has a leader and between 9 and 18 followers

The landscape that I had imagined for RBEK is mystical / fairie in nature with a waterfall cascading over a high cliff face into a pool that feeds into a mountain stream that winds it's way across the valley floor, with plenty of rocky outcrops, caves and forest.

We built the terrain using Sally 4th Terra-Former tiles. We will not go into the detail of the build here as we have promised Wargames Illustrated an article on our techniques. However, we can say that as well as Terraformers we used the excellent range of landscaping products designed by Lukes Apps. These are foam based rather than static grass or the traditional sawdust meaning that the glue is absorbed into the product, sets solid and does not shake off all over your car or house. Click here for full details of Terraformers or here to find out about Lukes Apps landscaping products.

If you would like a gaming table of this standard, give us a shout. We offer a full custom terrain making service at great rates. Click here for details

Alloysian of The Marshes is one of the warband leaders. I decided to mount all of my miniatures on Sally 4th 30mm round clear perspex bases because I like the way the miniature blends in with the terrain it is standing on. The RBEK miniatures are supplied with 30mm diameter black plastic bases.

Here we see the Thane Meksant Farseer and some of the elven companions. All of the Elven companions are armed with long spears. They may also make ranged attacks, but they favour magic rather than anything as mundane as an Elvish longbow,

I have my first game scheduled for this Thursday evening, so will add a full games report at the end of the week.

You can check out the full range of RBEK miniatures, rules and accesories by clicking here.

Thursday 19th July - First game of Red Book of the Elf King

Last night, Doug and I got together to have a first play through of Red Book of the Elf King (RBEK). We have played many fantasy skirmish games between us including Lord of the Rings, Frostgrave, Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish so was very interested to see how RBEK compared. Games are played with a Thane (Leader) and 18 Companions, which is quiet a mangable number to paint, even if you have to paint both sides. The introductory scenario is even easier to get on the gaming table with a Thane and three groups of three companions per side.

I have painted four Thanes up so far, so we decided sides by drawing a Thane stat card at random. Doug drew Alloysian, Lord of the Marshes meaning that his companions were particularly skilled at ranged combat, getting to roll one extra dice per unit firing. I drew Saylian Trollblood, meaning that my companions were adept at moving and shooting, so they did not take the normal down one modifier for moving and shooting. The fact that the companions skills are associated with the Thane that leads there warband is a great feature. I was a little concerned that armies would be to similar, as they are mainly elves and all the elven miniatures are armed with shield and spear. As well as different special abilities each Thanes companions stats are slightly different, for example Saylians troops are more accurate at shooting while Alloysians companions are better armoured.

We both thought that the activation system was particularly good. In a similar way to Bolt Action, tokens are placed in a bag and drawn to determine activation sequence, however here the similarity ended. Rather than having one token per unit, both sides roll a D6 and someone rolls a common D6. Your roll plus the common roll determines how many activations you get. The minimum you can get is two, the maximum is 12. Activation chits, once drawn are allocated to a unit. Each unit must have one token before a unit can be given a second token. The clever bit is how this interacts with the morale system. If a unit takes casulaties it needs to take a courage test. If it fails, it picks up a penalty token meaning that it can not activate until all the other units on your side have been activated once. At the end of the turn, units with penalties take a courage test. If they pass the tokens come off, if they fail they are exhausted and one token is left on, meaning in the next turn they also can not activate until all units on there side have been activated once.

We deployed our 'armies', on opposite sides of the stream and advanced to contact. The engagement started with some ranged combat. In RBEK elves spurn the traditional elven longbow in favour of an 8" range magic missile, called 'Rud Magic'.

Ranged Combat and missile combat is carried out using D10's. If your attack value is 5 for example you need to roll 5 or under to hit and if you charge your stat get a +2, so you would hit on a 7+. When we discovered this, melees broke out across the table as we were both keen to charge, rather than being charged.

The first scenario lasted for four turns, Saylians troops had destroyed a unit of Companions and his troops had taken casualties also. Doug concentrated on keeping a unit of companions in front of his Thane to protect him, as losing him lost you the game. In the final turn I managed to concentrate the attacks of my companions of Alloysians body guard and eventually pushed them back away from there leader. At that point (the last activation of the last turn), Saylian charged Alloysian hoping to deliver a killer blow. He did, but unluckily for him Alloysian managed to mortally wound him as well. We both lost our Thanes, so I took a minor victory as I had eliminated more companions.

All in all, a very enjoyable evening. We have already arranged for a second game using the complete 19 figure armies on Monday evening, so I will update my blog next week with details of how that game went.

If you have not seen the game or miniatures yet, click here to take a look!

Wednesday 25th July - Second Red Book of the Elf King Game

Following on from last weeks game, Doug and I decided to play a scenario using the full warband of 19 models, a Thane or Leader and six groups of three companions.

As both sides are Elves and are made up from the same 6 packs of Elven Companions armed with Long Spears I had taken the practical step of painting 18 companions with blue shields and the other 18 with red shields. These would then serve which ever thane we decided to play with on the day. We decides for the sake of fairness and variety to select Thanes as random from the ones that we had not played with before.

Doug drew Meksant Farseer. He is the most powerful magic user in the game. Magic or 'Glamours' as it is called in the game world are a key feature of the game. Thanes have access to a wide variety of Glamours that they can cast as an action. Each Glamour has a casting number which the Thane has to roll equal to or under on a D10, so Glamours with higher numbers are easier to cast. Numbers range from 1-9, so a 10 is always a failure. The Thane gets to add there Glamour rating and Merksant's is 4 so he is pretty much assured to be able to cast most Glamours.

I drew Vachel Goldenhand. He is the worst magic user in the game with a Glamour rating of 0. However he is pretty good at hand to hand combat . Surprisingly although Vachel is depicted as being heavily armoured and Meksant not wearing any armour, they both have a good defence rating of 8. Meaning that on 1-8 on a D10 they save hits. I guess Meksant must have some sort of bubble of magical protection!

We played scenario 2, The Red March. This is a very basic scenario, both sides deploy on to the table. Killing the opposing Thane is the primary objective, if this is not achieved the winner is the side who has killed the most companions.

Both sides advanced to contact. Meksants Companions favoured a single line across the width of the table, with Meksant lurking at the rear. Goldenhand deployed on a lesser frontage hoping to be able to get into melee quickly and with some local advantage of numbers.

As Goldenhands companions are very poor at ranged combat (needing 1 or 2 to score a hit compared to Meksants companions who hit on 1-7), it was important to close quickly and get into hand to hand combat. One of the unique features of the game is that these are the only elves that I have ever come across that do not own a longbow! Instead of firing arrows they fire short range 'magic missiles'. This is called Rud magic. I think the reason for this is that Rick did not want it to be a game of long range sniping, which an elf on elf game could easily be, so invented this background and set the range of missile fire as 8".

The 8" missile range is less than the 10" charge range which creates an interesting game dynamic. If you use 'Rud Magic' you do not risk yourself in a melee, but if you are charged your opponent gets a hefty +2 charge bonus, so it is better to be the one initiating a melee.

The first five turns saw both sides advancing, manouvering for position and charging where it seemed there was an advantage. Goldenhand was keen to get stuck into the up close and personal action, right up to the point that he suffered his third wound (out of four), at which point his companions closed ranks around him as protection.

Meksant on the other hand spent most of the game at the rear using long range magic attacks. In the closing turns I managed to get a couple of groups of valiant companions in range to charge him. Which they did and even managed to score a couple of wounds. Charging a Thane with companions is always a dangerous option as they are all armed with mighty magic weapons. Companions have a defence value of 5 or 6 meaning that if they are hit they have to roll under that number to 'save' however the strength of the opponents weapon is subtracted from there defence, so my Defence 6 became Defence 3.

At the end of the game, neither of us had managed to kill the opposing Thane, although they were both seriously wounded but my side had caused one more casualty (on the last melee of the last turn!), which gave us the narrowest of marginal victories!

This was a fantastic game, exciting down to the last die roll. The mechanisms arer as well!) very straight forward, sensible and easy to remember.

We will have a demo game with us at Claymore next weekend, so if you are around do come and have a look!

For further information, click links below.

Red Book of the Elf King Miniatures & Rules

Terra-Block Terrain Making Kits (All of the terrain shown is built using them)

Custom Terrain Making Service (We build boards like this to order as well)

A year and a half ago I backed Mantic Games Kickstarter for Terrain Crates... loads of lovely bits and pieces for D&D style Fantasy style gaming.

The models did come in some nice carboard boxes, but in my opinion you would need to do a lot of rumaging to find the bits that you needed during a game, and as I am planning to paint the models I wanted to be able to store them so that the paint work would not get damaged and the pieces would be easy to find.

Firstly we have a selection of fences, walls and hedges. The stand up perfectly in a 35mm high Really Useful Box Tray.

There are quiet a few large pieces including tents, horse & cart, bookcases and big piles of treasure. I decided to use a 70mm deep Really Useful Box and put a 'Vehicle Insert' into it. Although the insert was designed for dividing trays up to hold WW2 model tanks in 20mm and 28mm scale, it is useful for all sorts off other purposes where you want to be able to change the size of compartments around or just divide the tray in to different sized areas. The insert has a set of teeth that you glue onto the long sides of the tray. You then slot the dividers into the teeth to divide the tray up.

Most of the small & medium pieces are stored in two 35mm high compartment trays. The one pictured above is a 10 compartment tray, having one large area and nine smaller areas. THe large area was perfect for holding all the pieces of mine railway track.

The last tray used was a 15 compartment tray. This was perfect for sorting out all the small pieces like chairs, tables, rats, skulls, maps, camping equipment etc.

You can use the Really Useful Box trays by themselves, as they stack up nicely on a shelf, but I like to use mine inside a 9 Litre Really Useful Box as it provides a good waterproof / dust proof enviroment for my models and makes it easy to grab a box of stuff to take down the club or to a friends house or a convention game.

Sally 4th has a huge range of games / miniatures storage soloutions including inserts for pretty much any base size ever invented plus complete storage soloutions for games such as zombicide, Conan, Wings of Glory, Sails of Glory, Star Saga, X-Wing and many more.

Click here for further details.