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.