Framlingham and Orford Castles

On Wednesday, in the scorching 33 degree heat of the English spring, I was able to take the kids to a couple of castles in Suffolk: Framlingham and Orford. I usually visit these two castles on the same day as they go together historically. I have visited these castles on a couple of occasions previously, but not for at least 30-35 years! The sites have been thoroughly modernised in the intervening years and there is more to see at both sites than I remember seeing when I last went. 

Framlingham Castle was originally built in timber by Roger Bigod in 1101 after being granted the manor by King Henry I. The Bigods were a lowly family when they arrived with William I to conquer England, but rapidly rose to power. The first stone castle was built around 1154 by Roger's son Hugh who, via a variety of machinations and side-swapping during The Anarchy, eventually became powerful enough for King Henry II to want to reclaim East Anglia for himself to reduce the Bigod's power. The king confiscated the castle and all of the other Bigod holdings in Norfolk (this included two other castles (Walton and another) I think) in 1157, but he returned Framlingham in the 1160s. Hugh Bigod did not learn from his mistakes and supported a rebellion against the king in 1173 which was defeated, so lost teg castle again. He died on pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1176.

Framlingham Castle

Framlingham is also famous for housing Queen Mary during the Lady Jane Grey fracas; it was here that she gathered support and later learned that she was to be crowned the first female monarch of England.

Orford Castle was built by King Henry II to counterbalance the power of Hugh Bigod in East Anglia whilst he reasserted his authority in the region.

Orford Castle

From the top of the castle you can see why the position at Orford was so strategic - the views over the Ness are amazing; you can see for miles. In fact, on a good day and without a few trees in the way you should be able to see Framlingham Castle.

Song of Blades and Heroes - Dragon!

My youngest son was with me over the Bank Holiday weekend just gone so we decided to play a quick game of Song of Blades and Heroes. I was in the mood to try something a little different from normal so decided upon using a dragon figure I painted up several years ago to see how fielding a single big monster would affect the way the game plays.

My son used one of his old warbands again, and to make up the points I added a ghoul to the 268 point dragon to make my warband the 300 points required. To be honest I didn't really want to and it nearly cost me the game at one point.

The dragon and the ghoul...

268 points of dragon (and 32 points of ghoul)

The humans...

The barbarians

The humans won initiative and moved up to try to grab the magic item tokens before the dragon could do so. The dragon rolled three successes and due to its Long Move quickly landed on a token that turned out to be the treasure (a Belt of Strength - that could be used in the next game if we so choose). The ghoul followed on slowly to give support and maybe to carry the treasure off the board in case something went awry.

The humans moved up to attack the dragon in the hope that they could wrest the treasure from its steely talons.

The barbarians, not being susceptible to Terror, were able to charge the dragon and ghoul and give combat. Despite the huge advantage that the dragon had in combat it could only manage to push back one of its opponents this turn.

The following turn, however, this changed and the first of the barbarians fell to the dragon's magical abilities.

Over the next few turns the barbarians began to fall at a rate of one a turn. However, at one point the ghoul was killed and, as the dragon's army had reached 50% of its original size, had to take a Morale check. This got me worried as I only had to roll a single one on the three dice and the dragon would have to retreat a Long Move, which would have taken it off the board and granted victory to the humans. Luckily I didn't roll a one but it did make me ponder how to use small-sized armies in future.

The dragon steadily mopped up the barbarians until they had to take a Morale check for the loss of their leader. One or two retreated away (one off the board) and directly after that they took another Morale test for hitting 50% of army size due to the desertion. Two more ran away leaving just a couple of archers. One advanced to take on the dragon from a vantage point at the ford on the river - he was turned to steam by its breath weapon along with half the river. Somehow the last remaining archer avoided retreating despite the Gruesome Kill and tried his best to attack the dragon, but the Initiative roll for the next turn went in favour of the dragon and the archer was stomped on.

So, it was a victory to the dragon with the entire barbarian army being killed or routing.

Observations from this game:

• During the entire game of 10 turns, I (the dragon) only won Initiative 3 times, and then not until the 7th turn!
• Ganging up works, as does volley shooting (unfortunately not well enough to take down a dragon)
• 268 points for one figure is a lot to spend, but it seemed to work
• Keep to the middle of the board if you only have a few warriors on your side to prevent routing, especially with a Long Move figure

Going forward, I think a dragon should be a solitary creature - the ghoul nearly cost me the game. I also think at this level the game becomes a little unbalanced. Maybe the opposition needed to have more men or the values of the warriors against the dragon needed to be more heroic with Traits that negate some of the dragon's abilities (e.g. barbarians are immune to Terror, which really helped)?

My son was not upset at all by losing this game - he was happy to see how it played out as he wanted to find out how a dragon would fare too. I guess he will want to take a dragon next time we play.

Dragon Rampant : my first game

Over the last few days I was able to set up and play a game of Dragon Rampant Second Edition. This game was a play test for, hopefully, a forthcoming magazine article. I will not put too much detail into this post, other than to say I ran it and enjoyed playing the game.

I haven't put videos up on the blog yet, so here are a couple of very shaky run throughs (taken from my phone) of each army as a test of how this all works - I will take more time and care next time I try to shoot videos for the blog.

The "Goodies"

The "Baddies"

And, here is an overhead or two of the game before play started....

There are a lot of proxied miniatures in each unit, but I was able to cobble together enough to at least get the game played. That said, fun is the main criterion with all my gaming, so who cares if the figures are not what they are supposed to represent? It was the mechanics of the game that I was testing, and then the story behind the game that are the main points here.

My take aways from this are that the game played well, with a few surprises due to some dice roll effects. At least it told a story that can be put into some light prose for the article.

More details in the forthcoming magazine article hopefully.

Goblin Raiding Party

Harking back to yesterday's post, the picture I used of a little band of goblin ne'er-do-wells really got my nostalgic juices flowing; enough to warrant a post of their own (and probably several more to come in the future).

These figures are from a very early Citadel box set - Speciality Set 4 - Goblin Raiding Party. The details for them on the Stuff of Legends website has the names I came to know and, erm, love, but their designation does not match up with my memories - the figures listed in The Stuff of Legends entry for them is here in this linky and in the image below...

Image from the back of the box, words by SoL

When I bought the set, this was how I remember them being labelled (basically all the same except SoL have the Warlord and Lieutenant round the wrong way)...

1. D'glish Sharpcut, Ubar's Lieutenant
2. Urag Legeater attacking with Warpick
3. Discipline Master, Snurd Hideflayer with whip
4. Bulbug Orcleaver with warhammer
5. Warlord Ubar Earbiter - Goblin Chieftain
6. Goblin Champion, Torg Dwarfsmasher
7. Norgus the Flatulent attacking with Spear
8. Shaman Pogo Wildchant
9. Gigblad Childsplatter with Morningstar
10. Zurguch Wartpicker with Sling

Here, again, is the picture I took yesterday of the warband all painted using Humbrol enamel paints and based on artists board, with Tetrion and cheap flock for the bases.

Goblin Raiding Party

Goblin Raiders

More Goblin Raiders

Apologies for the poor photo quality - they looked fine on my phone but they lost a lot of detail when I transferred them to my PC to re-size.

What brought these figures back to the front of my mind was their place in one of my gaming worlds from long ago. I saw them as the ideal faction to face off against my dwarf army (Bugman and his Dwarf Rangers got to be included in this army too), which I also bought around the same time. In addition to these, I also picked up dozens of Night Goblins and various other goblins that seemed to fit with this warband - some even had the same shields!

My thoughts when I was totting up the pile of shame was that I would love to re-do these for my more modern gaming sensibilities. Unfortunately, so many of the figures have been affected by the dreaded lead rot. I will need to look into how to arrest the decay of the remaining miniatures so I can get them painted before they become unrecognisable. I just hope the paint on these ones has preserved them.

Another strange thing I noticed - why is Torg Dwarfsmasher on a round penny base whilst the rest are on those square home-made ones? I really don't know is the answer. I will eventually get them all rebased onto pennies for uniformity and to be able to use them for Midgard and Dragon Rampant (I may need to add one or two more from the collection mentioned above to make up the numbers).

If anyone has any tips on how to arrest the dreaded lead rot, I am all ears. Also, what would be the best method for removing the existing paint jobs? They are enamels, so not sure if there are any special methods or particular brands that are better than others. I will do some searching on t'internet but if anyone can help out in the meantime I would be happy for the input.

Painting Summary - all my 28mm miniatures

I have been buying miniatures for nearly half a century now and I have amassed quite the collection. Unfortunately, like most gamers, I am subject to the "ooh shiny" syndrome, and buy far more than I should do, and rarely get to use or paint them before the next impulse purchase comes along. That said, I have bought relatively few miniatures in the last few years - the vast majority in my collection are well over a decade old!

Goblin Raiding Party

So, over the last few days I have been going through my hoard (or should that be horde? 😉 ) and listing them on a spreadsheet in order to see what I have got, and what does or does not need painting. The numbers have spurred me to get my paint brushes out and begin working on them - I would like to get two sides for each theatre of war, so I can play my sons when they come over or at least have two factions for solo gaming.

Here is a break down of the figures that I have catalogued so far. This is not the full total as I have a few more in bags and packets that I will either sell as they were freebies from gaming shows or magazines, or throw away as they are broken and cannot be cannibalised for parts...

• Romans                          283      (192 of which are painted)
• Britons                           180      (43 painted)
• Roman-British               71        (45 painted)
• Anglo-Saxons                88
• Vikings                          89
• Runequest                      18        (18 painted)
• Undead                          45        (38 painted)
• Frostgrave                     96        (7 painted)
• Other Fantasy                96        (2 painted)
• Old Skool Stuff             569      (357 painted)
• Rohan                            175      (60 painted)
• Isengard                         212
• Gondor                          207
• Harad                             52
• Rhun                              85        (22 painted)
• Dwarfs                           77
• Goblins                          58
• Free People                    119

This gives a grand total of (gulp!) 2520 miniatures, of which 784 are painted – a 31.1% completion rate. That is an OK tally, but I am going to have to pull my finger out to make the total more respectable. I will start by getting paint onto some of my Midgard : Britannia troops as they are still fresh in my mind from the campaign. I know it is a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but it will get me started, and hopefully inspire me to continue onto the Lord of the Rings stuff and so on.

I guess my concern now is ROI (Return on Investment); I would like to get some play out of them all in a fully painted state. As each faction gets completed, it will mean I can play more games in that era/setting and I can then do some whacky cross-over stuff like Romans versus Undead or make up Frostgrave or Rangers of Shadowdeep bands from Lord of the Rings factions etc.

Over the coming months, hopefully, I will get more of the pile of shame reduced and some more games played with my "newly acquired" miniatures. Midgard, Dragon Rampant, Rangers, Frostgrave and 5 Leagues are all calling out to me, as well as some return visits to MESBG and general skirmish fun using very old home brew rules.