DBx madness at Nashcon

NASHCON 2009

This year's Nashcon started with a bang, of musketry that is. We got the games rolling with a DBN demo game that I wung together at the last minute to try and help fill the Friday afternoon slot. I was going to play a test game, but folks kept stopping by and watching, so I just stepped aside and turned over the game to some willing volunteers. After that it was off to the races with a DBA campaign game run by Bob Kelso Friday night, an afternoon of DBx open gaming Saturday, culminating with the 2009 open DBA tournament.

The French columns supported by lancers prepare to assault the allied line in a "Road to Waterloo" scenarion based very loosely on Quatre Bras. The game was played with 25mm DBN rules on a 3x6 table.

Brunswick Avante Garde take position in a village to the front of the allied line.

The Snoopy Blimp overview of the action. Terry Webb (in the hat) is helping to coach the players through the rules.


The French Lancers charge into the Dutch, trying to break their lines before the rapidly approaching Brunswickers can turn and oppose them.

Friday night featured an eight player campaign game based on the first crusade. Bob Kelso hosted the game and provided all of the miniatures and terrain. Bob knew the period very well and kept things moving along at a fast clip all night.

Crusaders and Saracens about to clash!

Dave Cliffel was the eventual winner of the campaign and received a cash prize to spend in the dealer area. Bill Banks came in a close second and received an Essex DBA core army as his reward.

Here we see a shot of another DBN game, this time in 15mm. Glenn Little coached players through DBN during the DBx clinic and open gaming session. Glenn's French look to be taking advantage of my Prussians and Saxons due to the absence of their normal general (me).

Terry Webb and Chris Ward face off in a large Boxer Rebellion game put together by Paul Potter and using the Humberside extension of the DBA rules. Chris Ward went on to win one of two door prizes, an essex DBA core army. I actually won the other drawing and choose the artillery bastion terrain piece from Murray Terrain that I had been coveting.

Though I wasn't present for their innaugural battle, I did eventually get to sit down and take command of the orcs as they fought to crush the elf host. Unfortunately the orcs succumbed to the skill of the elven general, but managed to take a good many of them to the great beyond, before fleeing the field of battle. You can see more photos of the HotT games at: http://s292.photobucket.com/albums/mm4/photocrinch/

Nahtan Clairday, a relative newcomer to DBA, borrowed my HYW English for the tournament and managed to shoot his way into the top spot and win the DBA open. Ed Dillon can be seen in the background brushing the rust off of his game.

Terry Webb played his Feudal French and in the back Paul Potter can be seen setting up his powerful Navareese army.

The champions: (L-R) Bob Kelso in 3rd place playing a Qara Khitan army with 75 points, Nathan Clairday with the HYW English squeeked in to 1st place by one point with 76 total points, Joe Collins playing the Alexandrian Macedonians entered the final round as the only undefeated player, but fell to Paul Potter's Navareese and ended up placing 4th with 72 points. Paul placed second with 75 points. All four players received either an Essex Core army or an army pack from Splintered Light Miniatures. The participants and their armies were:

Terry Webb - Feudal French
Ed Dillon - Anglo Normans
Paul Potter - Navarese
Nathan Clairday - HYW English
Glenn Little - Early Polish
Bob Kelso - Qara-Khitan
Gray Strick - Mongols
Dave Cliffel - Turks
Jamie Gentry - LIR
Chris Ward - Marian Romans
Mark Leitheiser - Phyrric
Joe Collins - Alexandrian Macedonian

A special thank you to our most generous sponsors: Baxter Key at Wargames, David McBride at Splintered Light Miniatures, and Barry Scarlett from Murray Terrain.

Elves and Orcs Ready to Rumble

Ever since I saw these figures back in the early eighties I've always wanted an army of Orcs and Elves sculpted by Tom Meier for Ral Partha. Thanks to the magic of Ebay, I have finally acquired enough figures to make that dream a reality. I have based them for the DBA variant HotT (Hordes of the Things). Though I have enough figures now to make the requisite 24 point armies, the Elves far outnumber the Orcs, but not to worry. Waiting in the wings are about 40-50 more Goblins which I will mount up as shooters and hordes.

This Dragon is one of the few figures in the army not sculpted by Tom. I believe this one was sculpted by Julie Guthrie, but if anyone knows better please let me hear from you.  (Edit - I actually just heard from Jacob at Ral Partha Legacy, who let me know this dragon was actually sculpted by Tom Meier.  Many of these figures are available once again here: https://ralparthalegacy.com/ ) I will most likely play this element as an aerial hero or as a flyer, not as a dragon.

Here we have the Lord of the Nazgul with a wolf rider escort. The wolf riders are sculpted by Tom Meier, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Nazgul was as well, but I'm not really sure. Once again please let me hear from you if you if you know the sculptor

Here are two elements of wolf riders which I will probably play as beasts. These figures are still commercially available, but I found out later that Mr. Meier still owns the copyright to these figures and they are being produced without his consent. They are clearly old molds, as some of the detail of the chainmail on the riders is virtually non-existant now. These ferocious fellas will represent the general's element of Uruk Hai and will be played as a warband element. The drummer in the front was one I painted way back in the day, and there is no telling how many repaints and bases he has been on, hence the rather grity appearance of his drum.

Uruk Hai shooters. The bow strings are made from horse hair that I stole from an old violin bow.

The main body of Uruks will be played as warband. Once again some of these figures are still commercially available, but apparently without license to be sold. The spearmen are not available and I was thrilled to find an unopened pack of six on Ebay a while back. I have painted them in bronze armor, and being Orcs who are not to concerned with cleanliness, I have given the bronze a green cast from lack of polishing.

The Elven Host

Once again a dragon sculpted by Julie Guthrie with an elf rider sculpted by Tom Meier. I'm thinking aerial hero for this one.

The much feared Elf archers. Most of these are an older paint job, but serviceable. I did add the horse hair bow strings and touched them up a bit.

The Elven knights. You can see here the evolution of my painting style. The blue riders are underoated in black and the armor drybrushed. The Green riders are primed white, and then the armor and other details are given a wash and then highlighted in places. I much prefer the white undercoat and washes as they help keep the colors bright, while still giving good definition to the wonderfully sculpted detail.

The elven horse archers will play as riders. These are once again a mix of old and new paint jobs. I did some touch up work on the older figures, but I imagine it is still fairly obvious which ones were painted a long time ago.

The Elf spearmen are a mixture of figure types. In front are mainly sea elves I believe, and in the back row are converted Halbardiers. I like the halbardier figures, but I just had too many of them and they looked great as pikemen or spearmen, so out came the clippers.

Here are some of the Halbardiers as they were meant to be. The central unit comes from a pack labelled as Starbrow's select. Though I love Mr. Meier's work, these I'm afraid were not one of his best efforts. Some archers came with the pack as well and they are among my least favorite. The last stand is a mix of halbardiers and short spear, which I will play as a blade stand. I just didn't have enough of either figure type to make a homogeneous stand, so though not my favorite stand, it'll do. As of yet, neither of these armies has made an appearance on the field of battle, but Nashcon is coming up in a couple of weeks and I'm sure they will make an appearance there.