Army Showcase - Fishmen

A number of people have admired mu Fishmen over the years, but I realised I'd never done an army showcase for them. So here it is.

They're a 15mm army I painted around 2002. They were originally 24AP, but I've added a few extra elements over the years and they'll run as a 36AP force if you feel that way inclined. They are a good example of how a simple bold colour-scheme can make for a bold and eye-catching army.

I don't do much in the way of back-stories for my armies, but I've always seen them as a theocratic society whose warriors often take live prisoners for sacrifice. A lot of the figures have nets for just that purpose.

Anyway, here's the full army.

The core of the army, which includes the general, are the fishmen with tridents, which I run as spears. There's six of them. They're from Pendraken, as are all of the core troops, and they are some of my favourite fantasy figures.

They are supported by warriors with harpoon guns, classed as shooters. There's four elements of these.

This is the cleric element. I have, in the past, sometimes run them as a magician. But mostly they are run as a cleric.

A cleric means that there's an awkward 1AP left over, so I made a lurker. This is one of the GW Man O'War sea-monsters.

So that's the original 24AP accounted for. A few years ago I added some extras. These were the first - a couple of elements of warband. The figures are Deep Ones from Rebel Minis and were gifted me by my friend Terry Webb.

The original Pendraken army pack came with a small cannon and a couple of crew, but i never felt it fitted my view of the army. But I liked the idea of some artillery, so added this ballista and crew from Evil Gong's Fishman range.

Finally I felt the army needed some heavy-hitters. This is their behemoth - a sea-troll I 3D-printed from a file designed by DutchMogul on Thingiverse.

And the Fishman god turns up from time to time - it's Reaper Bones figure. I can't remember what's it's packaged as, but basically it's a mini-Cthulhu.

And that's the army. It's not fast of clever but often wins by slowly grinding down their foe, the spears in the centre being ably supported by shooters on the wings and varying levels of help from whatever else I bolt onto the army. 

In all this time I've never given them a stronghold. I should, really.

Frocktober 2021 - Part 1

Yes, it's that time of year again. The time of year when I wear more dresses than I normally do (and that's saying something), post lots of pictures and actively encourage you all to donate to FROCKTOBER!

So what is Frocktober? Well, here in Australia it's an annual charity event where those of us who like to wear a nice dress from time to time put them on, show them off and encourage people to contribute money to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation. Ovarian cancer is a gynecological cancer that's particularly hard to detect, and the foundation's researches are focused very much on making detection easier. Because early detection makes the likelihood of an effective treatment higher. And effective treatment is what we want; an Australian woman dies of ovarian cancer every eight hours.

The hardcore Frocktober participants will wear a different outfit on each of the 31 days of October. Some even do themed challenges. If you're on Instagram or Twitter you can follow the hashtags #Frocktober2021 or simply #Frocktober and see what they're up to. My goals are more modest. Wearing a frock every day for 31 days isn't really viable for me, so once again I have set myself the challenge of at least ten frocks during the course of the month. In my previous three years of direct fund-raising I have managed over $1500 and worn over 30 different frocks. This year I will be attempting to wear frocks that I haven't worn in the previous three years.

Once again my wife, daughter and I have formed a team, and once again it's called IT HAS POCKETS

On to the frocks so far.

Frock One - I started off with some fun polka-dots and a bit of flirting. I also did a client meeting at work.

Frock Two - Once again this year's event is sponsored by Little Party Dress, and I got a money-off voucher as part of my registration pack. I used it to buy a couple of new frocks, and gave this one its first outing for a picnic with Catherine, Maya and a couple of friends.

Back to a regular work-day for Frock Three, but I still went with something bright and cheery, since I had a few Zoom meetings and it pays to stand out when you're doing Frocktober.

And so on to Frock Four, which I wore to meet up with Caesar for yesterday's outdoor game of HOTT.

And here's a few shots of Catherine and Maya. They have worn other frocks, but really I'm mostly covering mine here. My blog, my rules.

And here's that donation link again: IT HAS POCKETS

More Outdoor HOTT

I met up with Caesar in the local park today for another game of  HOTT. We just played the one game, but it was a good one.

He used his Greeks again, and decided to simulate the Knights of Simba I used in our previous session, running them as six warband, four knights (one a genera) and a hero. I used my Fishmen - four spears (including the general), four shooters, two warband and a behemoth. I defended and got to anchor my line with a village full of shooters.

On the other flank the Fishman warband met their Greek opposite numbers in a field. They fought for most of the game, with a lone Fishman element surviving, but not really getting back into the battle afterwards.

Caesar closed up and ignored the village, so I swung my shooters round to outflank him. 

He brought his warband around to fight them.

The armies met in the centre, with the Fishman spear holding the initial attack by the Greek chariot knights. Only the mighty sea-troll behemoth was thrown back, by the Greek hero.

The Fishman general swung round onto the flank of the Greek hero, ready to push him back into his own general. But the hero fended him off.

The battle got to the scrappy stage. On my right the shooters and warband were fighting away, and the Greeks had lost an element. One of the Fishman spears had fallen to the Greek general.

The Fishmen seized an opportunity, surrounding some enemy warband and, more importantly, confronting the Greek general with a potentially fatal behemoth attack.

The warband survived, but the sea-troll did his work well, and squished the Greek general to win the battle for the Fishmen.

Final positions.

Turks vs Venetians

Last year I ran a club game of Galleys & Galleons featuring a battle between two large (for the game) forces of 16th century galleys. Today I set it up at home and ran it again.

The Turks had three lanternas (flagships), seven galleys and five galliots. The Venetians fielded three lanternas (also flagships), five galleys, four galliots and two galleasses. Both sides had their fleet split into three commands, each led by one of their lanternas. The stats for the ships were lifted straight from the rules - the galleys, lanternas and galliots from the basic set and the galleasses from 'Fayre Winds and Foul Tides' (there is a galleass in the basic rules, but it lacks the heavy fore and aft gunnery of the other version).

So there are at total of 29 ships in play, and roughly 870 points per side; I made up a 12pt shortfall on the Venetian side by making one of the lanternas 'Charismatic'.

Activation was by cards; each side had three cards, one for each command, and they were drawn at random with that corresponding command being allowed to attempt activations. Here's the two fleets set up, with the cards ready to be shuffled. The Turks are at the bottom on the picture and the Venetians the top.

The position at the end of the opening move. You can see how the activation system has broken up some commands already; the Turkish centre and Venetian left both suffered failures that meant that not all of their vessels moved. A couple of Venetian ships had tried long-range shots.

Another shot of the opening moves, showing the Turkish right.

The Turkish left closed up rapidly and took the Venetian galleasses under fire, shredding the rigging of the lead one, and leaving it virtually immobilised.

In the centre Turkish gunnery caused a Venetian galley to catch fire. The crew managed to extinguish it however.

The action was developing nicely now, with plenty of gunnery across the board, and some ships taking damage. The Turkish centre still hadn't moved up, and the Venetian left was still slow as well.

The lead galleass opened fire, inflicting damage on the attacking Turks.

The second galleass came up as well. The gunnery from these ships is fearsome, even when firing to the bow or stern. But they aren't easy to control.

The flagship of the Venetian centre pushed ahead in an aggressive attack. This is the one with the Charismatic trait, which affects the quality of enemy ships close to it, so it made sense to get stuck in.

The Venetian centre was pushing forward fairly aggressively, whilst the Turks attacked past them against the inactive Venetian left. In the distance the Venetian right - the galleasses, and the Turkish left were hotly engaged. To the bottom left you can see a couple of galliots from the Turkish centre being dispatched to reinforce the attack on their right.

Disaster on the Turkish left! Their flagship on that flank caught fire and exploded. 

This was rapidly followed by one of their galleys being crippled by fire from the second galleass. After a promising start things were not going well for the Turks on this flank.

Under sustained fire the galley sank, leaving the Turks down two ships.

On the other flank the Turks had softened up the Venetians with gunfire and now rushed in to board them. Boarding is riskier, but can give a quick decisive result if used at the right time.

An overview of the action at the end of another turn. As you can see it's reached the chaotic stage. Across the board you can see ships closing for boarding though.

Several boarding actions were taking place on the Turkish right, and one of their ships had already struck.

After a slow start the Venetian left was now working it was around the Turkish right, opposed by a handful of galliots.

The Turks mobbed the flagship of the Venetian right as the second galleass moved through the action still firing.

One of the Venetian ships exploded.

It caused two nearby ships to catch fire, and one of them - a Turkish galley, also exploded.

Another Turkish ship, shattered by the first galleass, burned and sank.

Furious action on the Turkish right as the Venetians continue to push through.

And a couple of large boarding actions in the centre.

In the centre the lead galleass was damaged after a collision with a Turkish galliot.

And a success for the Turks as they take a Venetian flagship by boarding.

Another overview of the action. By this stage the Turks were suffering badly, and would need a miracle to come back from the brink of defeat.

Sadly there was no miracle. I called the game in favour of the Venetians.

Here's the lineup. At the top are the active ships, although most were damaged. the Turks still had four, whilst the Venetians had ten. The second row were crippled ships, of which the Turks had two. Below that the ships that struck; five Turkish and three Venetian. And finally ships that exploded or sank - the Turks lost four this way and the Venetians just one.

So a convincing win for the Venetians in a scrappy, confused and entertaining battle.