I got together with my friend Josh to play Burrows and Badgers ( a game Oathsworn published by osprey games. the rules can be found here https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/burrows--badgers-second-edition-9781472864666/ and the miniatures here https://www.oathswornminiatures.co.uk/ ).

The Game is a medieval / renaissance fantasy setting in an imaginary land that resembles The British Isles. However instead of people, the characters are animals. The Authors describe the game as a A Skirmish Game of Anthropomorphic Animals.

The idea is simple. You make "Bands" of characters based on a budget (350 pennies). and you pick the characters (animals) form a list. Each type of Animal has its own characteristics, Hounds are good at searching, Beavers at swimming, birds at flying, etc., and also they have ratings, according to their size and constitution, that will help with the role you want to use them for (strong, fast, nimble, etc.).

Once you have chosen the members of your band, you choose an allegiance, and this is were the setting comes in. There is a back story that you can use if you wish, or completely ignore, but the allegiances are key since they give you access to certain specialized equipment or type of magic. You have Royalists, Free beast, Mountain folk, Rogues, etc., even Necromancers. Also with your allegiance you get to pick a Den, from the available to the allegiance and this is helpful, because say, the royalist have access to a Blacksmith Den, which is pretty useful.

Once you have this settled, and with the leftover pennies you have, you buy equipment for your band.

Now, call me A nerd, but I had a lot of fun doing this. If you are the kind that over analyzes and spends hours making army lists for fun, you will have a blast. However, if you want to whip out a quick list for a fun scenario, that is straight forward too.

Once you have your Bands (and this game allows for more than 2 players as scenarios with 3-more players can be easily implemented) you pick the scenario and off you go.

I had bought a set from Oathsworn that included a nice scenario (Stoatbart Haulage set). The Scenario has a family of Stoats that have to pull across the board a cart with merchandise, in my adaptation, potential contraband from the freelands, A Band of Royalists is sent to intercept them, and Papa Stoat being cheap, contracted a small group of Shrews and foxes to serve as muscle, but they would arrive later in the scenario). Also, the Shrine of Abbot McMoustin is nearby, and the monks, as neutral characters, rush to revive any character that is completely knocked out.

Here are some pictured that Josh took:

The game was a lot of fun, The Royalist stumped Thoroughly the scoundrels, even with the intervention of the Shrew knight errant, the most Valiant in the kingdom! 

The games mechanics are easy to learn and simple, but by no means rudimentary. I actually like them very much. I think I might try to use them for a Skirmish wargame and see how they hold.

All in All I had a great time and I will make a small campaign for fun, and then try to recruit players to try it. Hopefully I'll have some takers.

Getting a game in!

Monday I got together with My friend Josh. We hadn't seen each other in a while and was nice to hang chat, and get some table top wargaming going. His battle description is so much better than what I can try to attempt, and even if it looks lazy on my part, I do think that checking his blog post for a description of the battle would do it more justice than me trying to butcher up a description here. You can find it here https://lecoqfou.blogspot.com/2025/10/game-on.html

We used the Tercios rule set. I really like it. It is simple enough that you can play a full game in 2-3 Hours, but detailed enough that it feels the game time period. The use of order cards adds a lot and the attack-response system keeps the game honest. looking forward to playing some more games.

Here are some pics from Josh's excellently painted armies that he supplied for the game:

I have armies for tis time period in 15mm. Mostly Russians and Swedes, but Since this is one of my favorite time periods to play, I always wanted to add to the collection, so I have bought figs to make Spanish, French and Holy Roman Empire, and with the proper choice of units in a scenario, I could muster a Dutch army as well. This would be a labor of love of course.

Looking forward for another game and lets hope the gaming opportunities continue.

 The battle of Nyenschantz 1656

last Thursday (April 25th) I played with my friend Josh another scenario for Tercios. I really enjoy that game.

Pike and shot is one of my favorite time periods and tercios is simple enough to be enjoyable and well thought enough to provide a credible experience on field vis a vis the time period, it really is a lot of fun to play.

I put together a scenario for us to play based on the Nyenschantz battle of 1656, part of the Russo-Swedish war of 1656-58 in present day St. Petersburg, In what was then called Swedish Ingria.

It was very difficult to find the actual order of battle, but with a little research I found at least some of commanders that were likely to have been there (besides Potemkin which was definitely at the battle) and by the descriptions of the battle the main battalions involved. 

so for our tercios game I designed the armies  as follows:

Tsardom of Russia:

CinC Pyotr Potemkin

Infantry

Officer Khovanski, 1st Inf. Battalion, 2nd Inf Battalion, 4th Streltsi 

Cavalry

Officer Sheremetev, 3rd. Comp. Dragon Elite, 1st Reg Boyar, 2nd Reg. Boyar

Kingdom of Sweden

CinC: Horn

Relieving party, Cavalry

Officer: Lundqvist

1st. Cuirassier, 2nd. Cuirassier, 3rd. Cuirassier

Garrison force

Officer: Grundel , Battalion Nyen Inf. Veteran, Battalion Riga Inf. Veteran

The battle started with The swedish cavalry of table an coming in on turn 1. The Russians only could score points by attacking the fort, and the Swedish they got points by destroying Russian Units.

The game lasted 5 Turns, the game's card drive system is really good as the cards you choose may not be the right orders by the time the units get to be activated and creates enough uncertainty to make strategy and planning very important in the game.

The Russians outmaneuvered the Swedish cavalry and the Swedish infantry did a poo job in trying to dispatch the Russian pike and shot units, so the streltsi and the dragoons were able to assault the fort, even if the Swedes were able to destroy the Russian artillery battery in turn 2.

In the End it was a victory for the Russians, but it was a great time. Looking forward to playing again Tercios......

 After Covid-19 and a series of events that made me sideline The hobby for a long time, little by little I have returned to it. 

Last year I was able to play a game of  the Middle-Earth strategy game by GW. I built an army of riders of Rohan and played with my friend Scott. It was fun and I like the figures, they were fun to paint.

Then , last summer painted figures and have been painting and putting together terrain for Burrows and Badgers. They will be releasing the V2 of their rule set in 2025, but I got into their Facebook group to game test the rules in advance. I really like them. Its a fun great setting and the figures are very nice.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Huzzah and played Tercios with my friend Josh and that was great. This is one of my favorite time periods so got me really excited to start working on my pike and shot armies, specially since a new version of by fire and the sword will be releasing soon.

Finally, just out of the blue, Dutch, another friend from Huzzah, was looking for Art de la Guerre players, and I volunteered. We played last Saturday, and it was a lot of fun!

So all this recent activity motivated me to dive in into the closet and search all my old projects. Luckily, I had this blog, so i was able to more or less track what I was doing when I stopped completely and step away from it for whatever reasons.

so for the moment I will concentrate in finishing the ADLG figures that I already had primed and are in popsicle sticks ready to plaint, and I will prepare the pike and shit armies that I need to finish.

I am excited about this and I feel its going to be fun, I just need a bit more discipline and organization.

so let's start...

40K, Age of Sigmar and 1870

I have been working on my stuff on and off for a while, work and many other commitments have kept me away from gaming, and specially painting. Now that I have returned to the painting table, 40K, Age of Sigmar and 1870 seem to have my attention, with pike and musket coming up afterwards.

40K: I have been working for a while in a Skitarii army. I really like these models and I think they will become what the Lizardmen are for me in Fantasy. Not only I like painting the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I like collecting them, including reading the novels and collecting the art. So, it is easy to get motivated when you like a theme.

Also I have been working on some Dark Angels, Custodians, Sisters of Silence, Orks, Eldar and Necrons, So I have my work cut out for me.....

Age of Sigar (AKA Warhammer Fantasy 9th): I went back and started to re-work on my Lizardmen, as well as getting interested in the Daugthers of Khaine and Stormacasts. Also lots of potential as I really like the models.

1870: this is a labor of love. I have my fromch in 10mm mostly done, when I do so, I will begin on the Germans and carry on with the Italians.....

So, lots of stuff going on...

New projects and Deus Vult

So I have been playing a lot of Malifaux with my friend Scott, and since he has been routinely beating me like a rented mule with my traditional Ten Thunders crew, I decided to try something else. I had already bought a bunch of other crews, but they have been sitting primed on the edge of my desk now for a while, so I picked the Tara crew, a few Croolingans and a gang of Drowned and I will see if I can make some good use of them. I might add a couple of other pieces and see how it works. So I started painting the Nothing Beast from this set and it was fun. These figures are always a lot of fun to paint. the picture is taken from close, the figure actually looks better at the table top.

So, I will continue painting and I hope to have the whole set painted by next week. I might have to play them just primed, which i s awful, but at least I can see how they work together.

Also I had my 3rd game of Deus Vult of the Year. My friend Peter and I are probably the only ones that play that rule set in the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, so, as a matter of Principle we try to play at least 3 times a year. it was fun! and due to me winning initiative in every round and to some spectacular rolling on my part, my Teutonic knights Thrashed his Crusader Knights  in what will be known as the mauling of Acre.

   So, we will try to be Bold and play a 4th game before the year finishes, or even in new year's eve. lets see if it happens, so far our score is 8 games to 6 in my favor in the 5 years (not continuos) that we have been playing.

After a long hiatus.....

So as they saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.....after re-starting with the Hobby again, my actual workload changed, and I started to have less and less time to paint or play. Then I had to travel for work and then had family commitments to attend etc....
now it seems things are going back to a stable pace before I travel again.

In the mean time, I have still played some Malifaux and had the opportunity to play ADLG a couple of times. So I have gone back and painted some Teutonic Knights in 15mm and continued painting the Malifaux Crews that I had not finished.

Also, My local hobby shop got big into 40k (again) and to jump in the bandwagon I decided to build Orks and Talons of the emperor (Sisters of silence and custodians with some inquisition in it).

Lastly I finally dragged my rear to finally get my Franco-Prussian war project started. its a long term project that will involve the whole 1859- 1871 European wars era (Austro -Prussian war, Wars of the Italian unification, the second schleswig war etc). I am building it with pendraken 10mm miniatures and well I have ways to go but at least I started.

so that is all for now and hope to keep these posts going.