Big Battle Ravenfeast: Hastings

At the last minute, Alex and I decided to get together for some gaming. It was my turn to host the game and I hadn't done much preparation so I figured a game of LittleWarsTV's Big Battle Ravenfeast would be ideal.

I painted up the Norman, Saxon and Viking armies but never had a chance to game with them so this would be an ideal opportunity with some quick-play rules like Ravenfeast. My scenery isn't perfect for the 1066 campaign scenarios but it's good enough for this outing. I opted to go with the Battle of Hastings, I would command the Anglo-Saxon army and Alex would lead the Normans.

Ravenfeast, and the Big Battle variant, are fairly simple and straightforward: IGO/UGO with the usual sections comprising a turn (rally, movement, missiles, melee, morale, etc.). A player succeeds when they roll equal or lower than a stat line for their unit.

Harold Godwinson (lower right corner) with 3 units of huscarls and 9 units of Wessex fyrd. Harold would command the right flank.

Harold's brothers Leofwyn and Gyrth (center row) would hold the left flank with 2 bases of archers and 5 bases of veteran fyrd (I decided to use my Viking bondi as select fyrd to aid in visual recognition).

I deployed the archers on the extreme left followed by the veteran fyrd to their right. Leofwyn and Gyrth were deployed along the line to stiffen the fyrd. Harold and his huscarls formed the center and a deep formation of Wessex fyrd were on the far right flank.

Bishop Odo (bottom) with 3 units of Norman infantry and 3 units of Norman cavalry would command the left for the Normans.

William (bottom) with 2 bases of crossbowmen, 3 bases of Norman infantry and 3 bases of Norman cavalry.

Eustace would command the reserve with 3 bases of Flemish infantry, 2 bases of archers and 2 units of cavalry.

Norman deployment.

The Norman cavalry charged home and slammed into the flanks and center of the Anglo-Saxon line. William's foot started in shieldwall and moved slowly towards the line of contact.

The Norman missile troops managed to kill off the Anglo-Saxon archers during the initial exchange of arrows. 

The Anglo-Saxon left was in danger of getting flanked so I began to move fyrd from the second line to extend and secure the flank.

The Anglo-Saxons had a lot of inferior fighters in the fyrd but the combination of being in shieldwall on the hill made it hard for the Normans to inflict casualties (Alex and I forgetting to apply the cavalry's "mighty" modifier in the first few turns also contributed to Anglo Saxon durability). Alex ordered his infantry to move forward into the maelstrom.

The battleline saw significant losses (red caps) for William. Leofwyn suffered a casualty but he is "tough" and can take 2 hits before falling. The shieldwall was a tough nut to crack...

As the battle wore on, casualties began to mount. The integrity of the shieldwall was broken and parts of Harold's line could no longer count on the save modifier they initially benefitted from. Smaller, isolated battles took place along the line. A few "Deaths Worthy of a Song" and the death of Odo caused morale checks along the line and failed rallies caused more carnage.

Both armies suffered enough casualties that army morale tests were triggered and units on both sides panicked (yellow caps). Some did not recover.

All that remained of both armies. Both armies reached their break point and since phases within a turn are simultaneous, we agreed that night had arrived and both armies were exhausted. A bloody draw.

The fight between William and Leofwyn on the left flank.

I think the battle lasted about two hours and it was a most enjoyable game, Alex and I had fun and we are both interested in fighting the other scenarios. We did some things wrong and we forgot some rules (Alex remembered to use the "feigned flight" only once). It was good to get the armies on the tabletop on a rainy Saturday afternoon and roll some dice.

Thoughts on wargaming the Korean War...

While I am in the midst of painting up Austrians for the 1859 war, I began thinking of the Korean War. Last year I painted up a reinforced infantry company and my preferred ruleset for 20th century company-level combat is Five Core Company Command. As mentioned previously, the rules give good games but are a bit generic by design. 

I had previously brainstormed ideas for using the rules for French Indo-China and I decided to make a post for thoughts on Korea. 

From my understanding, the Chinese phase involved the communist forces using night operations to infiltrate with light infantry undetected in an effort to get combat on close quarters to mitigate allied advantages in artillery and air support. Wave attacks would try to threaten flanks and isolate enemy units. The terrain featured alot of hills and broken ground limiting mobility for vehicles. 

So how can I attempt to replicate this feel on the tabletop with Five Core Company Command? 

• Night Fights: increase the likelihood of scurry or firefight turn types. Perhaps have units default to "hidden" somehow?
• Fighting Light & Human Waves: Give Chinese forces fewer support weapons but perhaps more specialist attachments. And additional infantry sections to Chinese reserves. 
• Shock & Awe: Allied/American forces get a finite number of  air/artillery support cards they can use to try and call in additional off-board firepower. 
• Knife Fight: Provide Chinese player the ability to redeploy a finite number of infantry sections a certain number of inches closer to enemy units. Once redeployed, the units will be hidden. This will represent Chinese infiltration. 

I still need to paint up my American forces for this project (which I don't anticipate will happen until after my 1859 project concludes) but as I continue to brainstorm I will add thoughts and ideas to this post in updates. Feel free to provide ideas in the comments section. 

1859 and such...

The hobby projects for 2026 have been dominated by tackling abandoned projects. As previously mentioned, many years ago I purchased 6mm armies for the 1859 Franco Austrian War. I had even managed to paint a battalion of Austrian infantry and an Uhlan regiment. 

Putting my 17th century Polish further on the back burner, I found myself painting up my Austrians for 1859. In a week's time I had finished 5 more battalions and of Austrian infantry and beefed up my Uhlan regiment (from 8 figures to 12 figures) to look more impressive. The second week saw me paint up two artillery batteries, some generals, hussar regiment, jager battalion and salvage a half-painted and very battered infantry regiment that had lingered on my messy painting table for years.

Pictured above are the finished results: 7 infantry battalions, jager battalion, 2 light cavalry regiments, 2 batteries and 3 command stands. I'm pleased with the results. I didn't necessarily "speed paint" these figures but I did paint them in an efficient, assembly line process. I ordered some reinforcements for the Austrians although I still have some more jager, skirmishers, cavalry and artillery to paint from the original army set. Ideally id like to paint up 3-4 brigades of infantry (12-16 battalions of line, 3-4 jager battalions, 3-4 artillery batteries) and some additional cavalry and artillery. 

This is what an Austrian Brigade will look like: 4 infantry battalions, cavalry regiment, an artillery battery and a battalion of jagers with a Brigade command base.

Closeup of the infantry (from the rear). I always like the look of the Austrian uniforms with the white coats and blue pants.

Here are some pictures of the salvaged line infantry that had been lingering on my hobby table for years. They were battered with chipped paint and some of the figures on the strips had broken bayonets so I clipped them off and replaced them with intact sculpts. I had run out of line infantry so I made this command stand a little different with the mounted commander urging the infantry on.

Austrian Jagers. I decided to make the feathers on their hats more green than black for a nice color pop (I think they were actually black with a green iridescence). I placed 5 figures per base to give the impression of dense swarms of skirmishers. 

The Baccus army pack also includes a number of line infantry skirmishing. I will paint them as grenz although I have read that the grenz were no longer irregular skirmishing infantry by 1859 and were converted to line infantry. Reading through orders of battle, it seems some Austrian infantry brigades have a grenz battalion attached in lieu of jagers so I am thinking they may have still acted as light infantry in some capacity. 

Austrian artillery with dapper dressed crews in their chocolate brown tunics. It was a tight squeeze to get all the crewman to fit on the base with the gun. 

The beefed up uhlans. If you notice, the bases on these fellas are a bit lighter. I accidentally painted them with Teddy Bear Tan instead of Coffee Latte. 

Vibrant and colorful hussars. I believe this is the 10th Hussars, they have "grass green" shako covers which give a nice look. Basing for these figures is fairly simple. 3mm thick bases (20mm squares with 3mm rounded corners from Litko), fine sand affixed by glue painted with "coffee latte" brown craft paint, drybrushed and some medum green turf added.

Command stands. The ones with two figures will be brigade commanders. For the army commander, I will probably add a few figures and maybe use a 30mm base. 

I have a few more jager, grenz, dragoons and artillery to paint up. Once these last few bits of the Austrians are done, I will likely move over to painting up the French opposition while I await additional Austrians to add to the army. I also have 1866 Austrians, Piedmontese and Prussian...I will probably hold off on tackling these once the French and Austrians are complete. I still need to finish up those 17th century Poles....

Burrows and Badgers

Today, Alex and I met for a game over at our local hobby shop with Alex volunteering to bring his collection of Burrows and Badgers miniatures for us to play a game with. 

I had seen B&B advertised in miniature magazines and read a review of the second edition but I had never played the rules nor really understood the concept. For those unaware, B&B is described as a "skirmish game of anthropomorphic animals". It seems like a fantasy medieval setting with animals taking on the role of humans, e.g. a Robin bird takes on the role of Robin Hood. etc. 

I was to take command of the "royalist" faction and in those scenario, my company was working for the authorities to interdict a smuggler's wagon from crossing one side of the board to the other. The smugglers were a family of weasels comprising of a father with crossbow driving the wagon and his two sons pulling it. The weasels would have henchmen arriving to help them out in later turns. most of these henchmen were feisty but tiny shrews.

My forces consisted of a brawny beaver, highland fox, fox mage, a canine paladin and a kingfisher bird. Pictured here are the beaver and fox mage.

In this scenario, none of the animals would suffer fatalities. A sect of  shrew clerics (shown above) would come along and heal the fatally wounded back to some semblance of health.

The canine paladin and the kingfisher managed to knock the weasel family from the game. The bird isn't much of a fighter but he can fly which makes him a handy quick reaction force of sorts. The canine outclassed the weasels with his armor, shield and sword. 

Alex's shrew henchmen put up a fight, especially the shrew paladin on beetle mount. The shrews have a pretty impressive attack but their durability is another matter. Ultimately they succumbed to the Beaver and Highland fox. 

With all of the weasels and henchmen defeated, my royalist forces were victorious. I enjoyed the game with Alex, it was a nice departure from the normal wargame and I managed a very rare victory. The game mechanics were easy to grasp but had some nice nuance to them. Abilities for different traits were portrayed by the type of dice (D8, D6, etc), weapons, traits and situations provided modifiers to the dice result (e,g, +2 for axe, +1 for strength and +2 for charge, etc.).. 

I'm not sure I would ever collect the miniatures and rules myself (I have enough to paint in my queue) but I would definitely play this again. It was good to see Alex and I look forward to our next game.

The Wandering Eye and Forgotten Solferino

At the moment, I'm painting up some mid/late 17th century Polish for the wars of the Deluge because that was what I was working on before tackling my Spanish Civil War factions. In the near future, I anticipate some posts featuring Polish Winged hussars, axe-wielding musketeers and other fun stuff. 

While I grind through these Poles, my wandering eye looks to the next project. 

Rather than spend money on new figures, I want to pursue an abandoned project (and I have many). I was sorting through my storage and came upon this parcel below. 

It's an unopened package from Peter Berry and Baccus from August, 2021 (I removed my address on the shipping label). That was at the tail end of the Covid-19 lockdowns and I believe I placed an order for some figures for the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. 

I have a second unopened parcel of similar size, also from Baccus, that was ordered around 2023. I think that may also be French and Austrians or perhaps some Prussians. 

As I recall I had previously ordered some Austrians and painted up a few units. The plan was to use some quick-play big battle ruleset I found online if memory serves me correctly. 

Pictured above are some of the finished infantry. They are based on small 20mm squares. Looking at the paint job, they look a bit dull...I may have to touch them up a bit to make them pop a bit more. Below are the Uhlans, I think I stopped before finishing the basing because I decided I would place three sculpts to a base instead of the two you see here. 

The uhlans also look a bit dull and muted and will need some touch-up. It was around this time that I abandoned the project. There are still some battered and bruised, partially painted Austrian infantry that have been on my cluttered paint desk for years.  A few lost bayonets as they were pushed to side or another for other projects. These battered 6mm warriors are a reminder of my project failure.

My thought is that I will pursue this project in the near future. I will stick to the 20mm bases and use my preferred ruleset for the 19th century: Field of Battle 3. Of course, as I was looking at those half painted Austrians on my painting table I saw some half painted Fenians which reminded me that I likely need to finish that project first. Of course, a part of me wants to keep those two parcels intact and unopened...not sure why.

Mud on the Zaragoza Road - March, 1937

(Italians in panicked retreat...a sign of things to come...)

My gaming buddy Alex and I met up to have a go with Five Core Company Command and the Spanish Civil War. The scenario, Mud on the Zaragoza Road, is similar to the battle of Las Olivas (and also designed with the assistance of ChatGPT). The Italian CTV (played by myself) were tasked to push through a crossroads defended by elements of the International Brigade (played by Alex). The Italians intended to get units off the northern edge and also drive the Republicans from the intersection. The terrain layout is slightly different from the previous battle and the Republican forces are provided with some different support weapons (a 37mm AT gun instead of a mortar and 2nd HMG). The Republican goals were to stop the Nationalist assault and their secondary objective is to knock out the tankettes.

Some special rules:

The tankettes will begin on the road and can move normally on the road. Because of rainfall and muddy grounds, if they move off the roads, they must conduct a D6 task roll. A "1" stops movement immediately, a "6" results in the tankette getting bogged down. A task roll must be conducted to clear the bog and the tankette can resume movement attempts next turn. 

The International Brigade has high morale so will have two chits to overturn bad shock die results. 

The Italians have brittle morale. After the first base that is removed as a casualty, the Republican side will be given two chits to induce shock die rolls on their opponents.

The CTV began with initiative and start their advance from the southern table edge and the road. The tankettes led the charge with a platoon of infantry behind them and a platoon on either flank. The International Brigade had two infantry sections deployed behind each olive grove flanking the road intersection. Their 37mm anti-tank gun was position between two hills on their right flank. They had an infantry section behind the farm house and another infantry section with the HMG as reserve in the rear,

The Italians began their advance trying to take advantage of what cover and rough grounds that were available. They didn't do a very good job of that. Very quickly, Alex began laying down a withering fire from the olive groves. In Company Command, rolling 1s and 6s when shooting is a good thing. Alex warned me he has a knack for rolling ones and he wasn't kidding. An Italian infantry section on the left flank received a "1" from a shock die which induced a flinch and soon after received a "1" from a kill die which placed it in "men down" status. 

As seen above, the Italians begin a disjointed advance covered by ineffective fire from their Carcano rifles and Breda machine guns.

The first kill occurred when some Republicans opened fire on an Italian infantry section advancing on the road in support of the lead tankette. To make matters worse for the Italians, one of their tankettes turned off the road and promptly rolled a "6" getting bogged down in mud. 

On one of Alex's turn, he rolled for a firefight and took advantage of the opportunity. The Republican 37mm anti tank gun kept unloading roads at the tankettes and eventually a round struck home brewing the little Italian tomato can in flames. The Italian infantry responded back with rifle fire on the gun crew and drove them off for the moment. Accurate Republican rifle fire drove back the advancing Italians.

The tabletop at about the midway point with the Italians on the left and the International Brigade on the right. The advance is faltering. The little Italian Brixia mortars managed to cause some minor suppression and discomfort to the Republican infantry on the left flank, perhaps one last push will change the fortunes of the CTV?

The second tankette managed to extricate itself from the mud and advance to the crossroads but were quickly assaulted by Republican infantry armed with grenades. The second tankette was destroyed. Alex, feeling confident sent another section of International Brigade to charge the Italians with bayonets. Finding some pride and fury, the section of CTV repulsed the assault and wiped out their enemy. At this stage the Italians had lost two sections of infantry and two tankettes while only killing off one infantry section of International Brigade.

Things went from bad to worse for the Italians. A section of infantry panicked (dice rolls of 6s) on consecutive turns and fled from the battle.

In an attempt to make one last rally, I attempted to rally a few units suffering from "men down". Above, an infantry section with a LMG attached rolled a "6" on their attempt which wipes them out. The Italian HMG was also dealing with "men down" and also rolled a lethal 6. 

Alex and I played 8 turns in about two hours and had a clear conclusion (i.e. Italian defeat). In hindsight, I probably should have tried some different tactics, spreading my infantry further out on the flanks to put pressure on the flanks of the smaller Republican defenders. Something out of my control was Alex's timely rolling of 1s and 6s. Even with a numerical advantage, the Italians seem to have a tough time in the assault against a defender with better morale. The tankettes aren't exactly an armored fist either. They are protected against small arms fire but are only armored with a HMG and aren't big enough to overrun infantry. They are essentially mobile, armored HMGs and I didn't use them as such. Unlike my previous game "Las Olivas", I managed to play the rules correctly for the most part and thoroughly enjoyed the game. 

Company Commander is a solid ruleset and I think they really shine when you add some special rules in the scenario to better capture the flavor of the conflict you are trying to replicate. I don't what the next game I play will be but I won't be upset if it's Company Commander again.