Friday 29 June 2012

An historical debate concluded: A FOG batrep

First of all, my blogger friend Ray is having a prize draw to celebrate his 250.000 hits. Go there and see for yourselves, this draw is interesting. Congrats again Ray.

Tout d'abord, petit message publicitaire pour mon ami Ray, qui, a l'occasion des ses 250000 hits, organize un tirage au sort plutot sympa. Allez voir, ca ne vous engage en rien ;)


If you read on the internet, you can see that sometimes you get the question: who was better? The Chinese or the Republican Romans? Who could have dominated the world, provided they would fight each other? Well, that's an interesting question. A while ago, before going on holidays, I managed to squeeze a game of FOG for the ancients competition. I played against Dave and his Mid-Republican Romans. For your information, Dave is at the moment the 2011-2012 club champion. So it must mean something. After a careful reading of the lists, I knew I had one asset against his veteran legions, my heavy chariots, who could fight on equal terms. So I took the 8 of them. In the mean time, I wanted to strike fast and hard, so I took 3 simple commanders (Troop commander in FOG) just to keep them attached to the units (elite chariots anyone?)  to strike even harder. I knew it could be a tough game, especially when the legions would come into grips with my poor medium infantry.

Peu de temps avant de partir en vacances, j'ai joue une partie de FOG comptant pour le tournoi interne, me confrontant a Dave et ses Romains Republique. Dave est actuellement le tenant du titre et je m'attends donc a une partie difficile. Pour contrer les effets du hasard, je mise sur tous mes chariots superieurs, renforces par des generaux pour les transformer en machine a tuer, tout en evitant de me confronter a ses legionnaires veterans.

Here is the battlefield: fields on my right, and fields on my left and center, on the other side of the board. Good. I could lay a trap, placing my camp in the middle, in the open, to lure the legions forward. I only had shooting cavalry to protect it, while I had some infantry on my left, and the chariots and more infantry on my right. Do you remember Cannae?

the battlefield, with the troops arrayed

LE champ de bataille m'est favorable, avec un centre degage et des ailes garnies de champs. Je peux faire un magnifique appat en placant mon camp au centre, protege par... deux unites de cavalerie equipees pour le tir... Mes efforts se porteront sur les ailes, plus particulierement sur mon aile droite, car Dave a place de simples legionnaires, alors que j'y place mes chariots. Ca ne vous rappelle pas vaguement Cannes?

the regular Romans on the left flank

the mighty veterans in the center

I moved first and didn't lose time surging forward with everything I had, moving on my wings, ready to strike, while delaying in the center...

Bougeant en premier, je me precipite sur lui pour l'empecher de manoeuvrer sur les ailes, tout en le ralentissant au centre. Et tres vite, c'est la charge des chariots sur les pauvres hastati... Rome va devoir a nouveau recruter a tour de bras, niark niark niark.

And... Crash! The chariots charged and it was a massacre... The Romans were dying by the hundreds...





Dave tried to send reinforcements but it was never enough and I slowly crushed him on this wing... Though a unit of Triarii managed to survive longer than anyone else...

Dave tenta bien d'envoyer des renforts, mais cohorte apres cohorte, ce fut bien insuffisant... Seuls les Triarii survecurent suffisamment longtemps avant de succomber...





What happened on the left flank? Well, after two turns, my troops were on the good side of the battlefield, ie, in the field, flanking the Romans, and started to shoot at them, to good results. Meanwhile, my cavalry was shooting and denying the dreaded veterans any respite... He he. But then, he had to attack to win. So he charged, and I charged too... While he broke two of my units in the center, I broke his on the left flank... Yes, it was another Cannae, and the Romans faced total annihilation after 2h of battle.

Quant a l'aile gauche... Je fus rapidement en position dans le champ adverse, flanquant les Romains plus lourds, et commencant a les harceler au tir... Pour eviter une defaite totale, Dave me chargea, je tins bon. Je chargeai, il craqua... Au total, je perdis deux unites au centre, tandis que les Romains etaient massacres dans leur fuite. Rome devra donc lever de nouvelles legions pour continuer la guerre. J'ai eu de la chance dans la disposition des terrains, car j'ai pu faire ce que je voulais. Il me reste donc a affronter Andy et Chris.

So, were you an historian, you'd say the Chinese were better? Well, I had luck on the terrain, so I could manoeuvre and try a wing encirclement. So, now, I'm still to face Andy and his Seleucid, and Chris and his Assyrians.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Primer on!

Pheeww. The real life is rather mean to me at the moment, mostly because of my daughter. She has a lot of trouble sleeping, and so I'm exhausted most of the time, meaning I prefer relaxing instead of blogging. For instance, this past, she woke crying at 4AM and couldn't sleep until I came to her room and slept beside her on the floor.... Ouch, my back. Anyway, I'm still finding enough time to paint and you should see some things in a few. In the meantime, next Thursday, I'll have a practice game for the medieval comp, and so I want as many troups ready as possible. So yesterday, I prepped them, and... I primed them. Yes, you heard me correctly. I'll try the technique used by a friend of mine, Gilles, who owns a blog. I encourage you to visit him, just so to keep him busy posting shiny pictures. Anyway, here the stuff I intend to fast paint:






In 15mm: 21 mounted, and 72 foot.
In 28mm: 12 bowmen

We'll see if this technique is effective or not.


Bon, la vie reelle peut etre dure, surtout en ce moment avec ma fille, qui a beaucoup de mal a dormir. PAr exemple, cette nuit, elle n'arretait pas pleurer entre 4 et 5h du mat. Je me suis donc couche sur le sol de sa chambre et ai dormi a cote d'elle. Magique... Bref, vous pouvez comprendre que blogger est un peu dur pour moi... Passons. Jeudi, j'ai une partie d'entrainement pour le tournoi medieval du club, et j'ai besoin de figs. J'ai donc prepare le tout, et j'ai sous-couche! Ben oui, j'ai decide d'utiliser une technique de mon ami Gilles, qui semble efficace. Vous pourrez en juger en allant sur son blog. Allez zou, retour aux pinceaux.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

A SAGA about to begin, part 1

Yesterday evening, while watching the Euro games, though not very seriously, I finally started painting my first SAGA point, some Bondi. I admit it's not much at the moment, but I'm struggling with the scale, not being very familiar with it. The minis are from Gripping Beast, and seem to be easy to paint. More to come asap ;)








Et voila, j'ai enfin commence a peindre mes Vikings SAGA. Certes il n'y a qu'un point de guerriers, mais il faut s'habituer a l'echelle, et moi le 28mm... Les figs sont des Gripping Beast et me paraissent faciles a peindre. La suite tres bientot.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Another long term project finished!

Howdy. Just before leaving for Malta in early June, I managed to finish painting the Romans for my friend. Though I forgot to take pictures of the command bases, I asked him to provide the rest of the Roman camp to take a full picture, with workers, tents and fortifications. Here is the final result, and I'd say I'm proud of it!




Now I can concentrate my efforts on my medieval army and my SAGA warband.  Stay tuned. And besides, I have three batreps to post too.




Et voila, enfin un long projet termine. Il m'aura fallu du temps, mais ca valait le coup je pense. Juste avant de partir en vacances, j'ei termine le camp romain et les quelques bases restantes. #si j'ai oublie de photographier ces dernieres, j'ai demande a Ludo de m'apporter son camp pour faire un ephoto globale du bagage romain. Je pense que ca en jette. Maintenant, je vais pouvoir me concentrer sur mon armee medievale et ma bande SAGA. A+



Sunday 17 June 2012

Back! At last!

Sorry not to have given you any news this past month, but the real life struck me, though not very hard;)

Indeed, after two weeks of hard work, working 7 days a week, relief came, in the form of long awaited holidays. The family left for France, and after having dropped the mini-miss under my parents care, the generallissimo and I left for... Malta. Great weather, rather hot already (never a day under 29°)... We just came back to France to pick up the mini monster, and tomorrow we'll be off to London again.

So, to keep you interested, in the days to come, you'll get some batrep (yes I played a bit while in France), some finished Romans, some knights, some Vikings (I've entered a SAGA campaign at the club, to keep me motivated), and some interesting things I saw in Malta. Cheers.




Desolé de ne pas avoir donné de nouvelles durant le mois qui vient de s'écouler, mais la vie réelle m'a frappé, bien que ce ne fut pas trop dur. En effet, apres avoir passé deux semaines a travailler 7 jours par semaine, le temps des vacances arriva, et hop, direction Malte! Avec du soleil de belles températures. Ca change. Nous sommes tout juste de retour en France, pour récupérer la petite et nous reparton sur Londres demain. Les mises à jour vont donc reprendre, avec au programme, du Romain efin fini, des chevaliers, du Viking (pour la campagne SAGA qui va commencer au club et histoire de terminer la POM), et des rapports de bataille, ainsi que deux trois trucs qui valent le coup à Malte. Allez, a très bientôt.