Dear Diary - a rolling 4 months of comment
re-base plan ... archers
My current archer bases are mostly 7 figures strong, though the one shown here has 9.
The Test of Resolve rules have archer units in WIDE formation, so they must be formed by two bases and that is proving too impactive on my collection, so I am rebasing to ease that problem.
I will turn each single base into two bases by going with just 5 archer figures per base and just painting up the extra archers that are needed to grow the original base figures number to 10.
Shown here are a contingent of Lord Percy's (Northumberland) archers. There are 9 figures so to grow this unit, I only need one more, which I primed last night.
The old bases are 80 x 50mm; the new will be 80 x 40, so I am hoping that there will still be a 'presence', and that the fewer archers will actually look more naturally spaced, giving them room to draw their bow and being a slightly less dense pack when facing enemy arrows—something that I was reading about last night.
My only concern at the moment is in re-basing plastics; I glued this down for life! and can only hope that separating them from their bases will not cause damage.
I will use the opportunity to get rid of the dice frame at the rear of the base. I have generally found these awkward to manage with not enough room for sausage fingers!
By slowly going through the bases, painting as I go, hopefully the task will not get too onerous and over time more of the bigger scenarios can be played.
Towton Reading
When the opening line to chapter 1 is 'It was a shitty day', one is inclined to do a double take on a historical based novel!
Bloody Meadow by Andy Johnson is a fact-based story on the Battle of Towton 1461. My interest in archery for the Wars of the Roses has brought this to the top of my reading list.
I picked up my signed copy from the author at the Partizan (UK) wargame show.
The opening chapter is post Battle of Wakefield and deals with a Yorkist ambush of Lord Clifford with the resulting death of said Lord. I went to my historical sources and was pleased that the 'story' was giving a good approximation of the history.
And so as we read on, we have a grognard commander who before he meets the location where the ambush took place can smell the 'fight' from the aroma of blood and spilled guts, that he knows only too well (who would have thought!).
There are some interesting notes on the construct of the armies and at this particular battle there was hard recruiting to get the numbers up and so men, not normally used to seeing action and certainly not equipped with adequate protection for it are there ... the levy type troops and their apprehension is well described.
Anyway as we talk of Captains of archers and the bowmen being distinct from the melee troops, I think this will be a revealing read and will give something for my more studious reading to hang from.
I am just up to where the two armies assemble and my next chapter is called 'arrow storm', so I am looking forward to reading on.
Second go at Test of Resolve Rules
Got the demo scenario back onto the table and had another go with the Test of resolve rules.
Things were much more second nature, so play was a little slicker.
On the left (from the Yorkist perspective), the Yorkist archers went out of arrows and retired to behind their melee troops. Exposed to arrow fire, the Yorkist Melee units left and centre advanced to contact, forcing the opposing archers to retire to behind their melee troops and then there was a large ongoing melee between the melee troops.
By contrast on the Yorkist right, their archers stayed on the field, looking for shooting opportunities, but by pure chance the Yorkist Fire cards must have been concentrated to the lower half of the card deck and before they were reached the two End Turn cards were played.
So the narrative by this time was hectic activity on the left, but quieter on the right. I liked the way that the cards delivered this narrative and from a solo player perspective, it was helpful to have this story made out for me, as left to my own devices, both sides of the field would likely have had the same level of activity and each force would have definitely operated in full unison - that level of control removed from the player is enjoyable.
What to do about basing is occupying my thought, but I don't want to rush into a wrong decision. I had thought that the melee bases needed adjustment, but actually, the pressure on the collection is being placed on the archers as they do need two bases per company to represent the WIDE formation.
I either need to paint a lot more archers and/or reduce the number of figures on my current bases to make them go further.
Another game of The Guards Counterattack
Back on the table, this is certainly the scenario that continues to give and is nostalgically enjoyable. The Soviets won the game, taking two buildings, though paying a heavy price and a good interactive scenario for both sides.
Some of those German defensive positions are formidable, with overlapping lanes of fire, but the Soviet 6-2-8 squads can get some powerful fire groups going and really eat into those positions.
The infantry rules are very embedded in memory now, I need to return to some gun and tank actions, to firm up on those rules.
Before breakfast, the gloss varnish went onto the two Wars of the Roses figures that I painted up and inked yesterday. Having slept on the basing thing, a question has popped into my mind as to whether I should go with a 100mm base frontage (rather than 80x80) and maintain a linear look, while increasing the 'presence' of the base. Choices ..... that's the last thing I need :-)
Oh No! - might rebasing become THE summer project?
Well, I have only had one game of Test of Resolve and already I am considering a re-basing of the Wars of the Roses collection.
There are 300 figures, so I don't want to race off with this. I actually like what I have with the melee troops being on 80 x 60 bases ..... though that was encouraged by some rules that I was using several sets ago!
The 80 x 60 does the job of creating a bit of mass while also still giving the impression of a linear deployment and this is a valid consideration as to other rules that I may want to use in the future.
I am thinking of re-basing these to 80 x 80 and adding 2 - 3 extra figures to maintain the sense of mass. The main benefit and the driver for doing it is that using two of the current melee bases, one behind the other per unit, as suggested by the rules for 'mass', will overwhelm the collection and there will not be enough bases tio give a standard game with three battles per side.
I could of course stay as I am and just use 1 melee base instead of 2 per unit, but I'm not sure that these single bases say "mass" sufficiently enough to deliver the visual integrity of the game.
In any case the archer units, commonly starting the game in WIDE formation, will need two bases per unit and so they will need to be more efficiently based.
This test base will advise me of several things ...... including whether I can deconstruct the current bases without damaging the plastic figures as they were stuck down with a combination of UHU glue and No More Nails onto MDF.
The only other option is to paint another 300 figures and make up new bases to match the current ones ...... and guess what? that isn't going to happen!
This of course is the dilemma of the solo figure gamer.
A first look at Test of Resolve rules
Taking the intro scenario from the rulebook, I have worked through the engagement, highlighting some of the rules through various moments in play.
I really enjoyed my first engagement and look forward to more games.
I have put initial observations up over on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog, together with some photographs.
LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/06/first-contact-test-of-resolve-rules.html
A bit of a bargain
Last year I saw this in signed hardback for around £23 from Waterstones (High Street UK book store). I kept picking it up and putting it down because I had recently bought Fisher's book on the same subject.
To my mind, the Fisher book is a bit more detailed down at the tactical level and I had bought it with a view to doing some scenario design for WWII squad games.
Anyway, the Hastings book is now out in paperback at £11, but the Sainsbury's Supermarket (UK High Street retail) has it on their shelves at £6.
I picked it up as being, in my view, an easier read and more likely to move up the reading queue for a proper cover-to-cover read. I quite like Hastings's writing style.
Test of Resolve (edited)
The hot weather persists with a 50-year record broken yesterday and expected to be broken again today, together with very high humidity, so not much 'real stuff' getting done here.
I have taken the opportunity to start reading the Test of Resolve rules, but I dozed off three times, dropping the book and now have some creased pages .... hugely annoying to my wont of keeping things pristine!
I was not finding them the clearest of reads in places, but then came across several pages of definitions at the rear of the book and that certainly helped.
Containing some innovation, I think they will benefit from just running an example slice of a game and working through the process, which in fact is what scenario 1 is intended to do.
Interestingly, the rules were reviewed by Little Wars TV two years ago and overall they recommended the rules, but had a sticking point with the presentation, citing no index and it being hard to look up individual points.
They also talked about the cards being printed in the rear of the book, but they are not there now. I checked the info panel and see that my version is v1.1 and I wonder whether following the comments of Little Wars TV, the cards were removed and replaced by the pages of 'definitions'. That would make sense.
I am though really glad that I met the authors at the game show and sat at their demo table to go through some of the processes. The game does not appear at all difficult, but some sections need double reading to be clear to author intent.
I am liking what I see and will keep on top of this, with the weather starting to break tomorrow and the grandkids visiting, I may get a chance to throw some dice on Sunday going into Monday.
It is just a bit hot!
The UK (together with the rest of Europe) is entering its second heat wave. The problem with our heat is that it is accompanied by high humidity and so 35˚ feels like 41˚ and everything south of me is a goodly amount hotter than that. Poor old France is seeing base temperatures at 44˚ today.
These are all record-breaking temperatures (tomorrow hotter) and we don't really have the infrastructure or practice to deal with it well.
Anyway, the point is, it tends to dampen down hobby activity, so not much is going on here.
(ABOVE PICTURE) Flying in the face of that, this morning, I took some of my purchases from the show at the weekend and primed them with rattle can primer before the temperatures started to rise and they seem okay.
White primer has gone onto the two blister packs of Perry Napoleonic Voltiguers that will build into a few skirmisher bases.
The black primer went onto the Wars of the Roses figures from Athena and the 'Ravens' pack from Warbases. The black will help the plate armour, but I think the two religious figures will need a heavy dry brush of white before their colours go on.
Matt varnish catch-up
My figures get brushed on matt varnish once painted and then once fully based and flocked they get a quick swipe of a rattle can matt varnish .... but that is a job for the better weather and never over winter.
So, these are the Napoleonic Austrians that I have painted since the end of last summer and includes the batch that I did for the winter painting challenge and they were brought together a couple of days ago for their spray varnish.
They have now cured and are back in barracks. The French figures that need a rattle can coating have taken their place on the spray tray. We are entering a 4 day heat wave, so I either need to wait until that has passed or get lucky and get a cool early morning.
Its actually nice to see them all together because it really shows the progress that has been made since last year and despite me almost resenting the hours poured into painting time, seeing them together like this is the reward to that effort.
Phalanx Wargame Show
I visited the Phalanx show (UK) today at St. Helens and had a very enjoyable time.
I may have discovered my 'go to' rules for the Wars of the Roses games and I picked up some bits that will help both the Wars of the Roses project and the Napoleonic 1809 forces.
There is a write up on the blog, together with some photographs.
LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/06/phalanx-wargame-show-uk-2026.html
A face-to-face outing
For last night's game I returned to the ASLSK The Guards Counterattack scenario, simply because I have been intensely looking at the rules and they are still at the front of my memory.
Mike has not played a Squad Leader based game for a while, so this game was just about doing the rounds of re-familiarisation.
The Soviets threw themselves into the attack and the first half of the game can be characterised by the Germans getting a run of unusually good dice results and that hurt the Soviet attack, to the point that the German defence started to look like a series of unassailable stacks of powerful firegroups. On their right, the Germans were encouraged to go over onto the attack and advance into an enemy held stone building.
Then, almost out of the blue, everything flip-flopped the other way. Cpt. Denikin had been broken and had falled back into a hex at the rear of a building with three other broken 6-2-8 units.
He is a powerful 10-2 leader and in the Rally Phase, he recovered to good order and so did the three units with him, the Soviets made a broad attack across the entire board, initially resulting in three separate successful Close Combats - suddenly there were broken and DM'd German units everywhere, falling back into a shrinking perimeter.
The Soviets took their second stone building and it was pretty much over - a Soviet win and a very dynamic game.
Above all, the play had done its job of getting Mike back up and running with infantry combat. The depth of the possibilities as much as any complexity, makes this an unsuitable game to fully explain to a person before play, they would just feel bombarded by information. Better to explain a couple of key things and then learn by play as the various nuances pop up over play.
I just very loosly covered First Fire / Defensive fire and the moving in the open / non-assault move penalties and we were off.
Back to painting!
Well my painting discipline has collapsed and these French Voltigeurs have been idle on the painting corks for a while now.
They are primed white and as a set of 9, these will give me 3 skirmisher bases, much like the Austrian Jäger that I did back in April (see the painting tab on the left menu).
They are metals (hence the rattle can primer) from Eagle Miniatures and come with bayonets attached, which I have nipped off.
My French forces are in desperate need of these chaps and really I could do with another three bases, whether to repeat with metals or go via the Perry plastics box is still to be decided.
