Trebian celebrated the 10th Anniversary of Shedquarters with the Monday Night Group, (which meets on a Tuesday, naturally), by re-staging Cannae with his rather splendid 25mm Hat and 20mm Airfix plastic figures, using Niel Thomas’ rules as a basis. YesthatPhil and I played in the inaugural game and I brought a bottle of Sekt. Graham still has the Cork lodged in the rafters of the Shed, so this time I played safe and brought Hobnobs. There was Red Velvet and Salted Caramel Cake. In the inaugural game I played the Roman side and the Carthaginians won narrowly. Hasdrubal, Hannibal and Maharbal are closest to the camera with Paullus and Varro opposite. At one stage, three generals were sucked into the cavalry battle on the Carthaginian left flank.
This time, I was on the Carthaginian side and the Romans won, again narrowly, with five players online and the table “pushers” taking over roles as a couple of players dropped out due to bandwidth issues in darkest Northamptonshire. The game therefore seems to be nicely balanced. Both times the dice had a role in the eventual outcome, but roll enough of them and things even out in the long run. It seemed to be in the balance until quite late in the game.
The full report can be found here. Graham gave me black dice, so I was feeling smug that I rolled a few numbers other than ones and twos with them! It didn’t help the Gauls though.
In other news, I have been working on a Japanese DBA army and more cavalry for the Chinese armies, as they are feeling outclassed by the Tibetan Trundlebot. Here are the horses with their gouache base coats, first coat of brown oil and black legs, manes and tails. They are all supposed to be Asian horses, so I don’t have to worry about greys, strawberry roans , bays and suchlike. There are more Japanese cavalry than warranted, as I elected to build enough for all 3 Cav or all 6 Cav. Not shown are a further pile of crossbowmen for the Twang Dynasty. They do need a lot!
Not Quite Mechanised 