Here I Stand by email: Turn 1 (1517-1523) - The Fall of Paris

Now that the pandemic has scuppered our boardgaming plans, we've started playing Here I Stand by email. Here's what went down on the first turn!

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The first turn of the full campaign always starts with the Protestant player playing Luther's 95 Theses.

The phrasing "targeting the German language zone" is a little unfortunate, and we misunderstood it the first time around. What it means is that the Protestant player can actually make those reformation attempts wherever they like, but they win ties in the target language zone. With this advantage and the extra die provided by the Theses, the Protestant player targeted Leipzig, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Brandenburg and Breslau, converting all of these except Magdeburg. Here's the result on the board:

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Now that the Reformation is underway, next up is the card draw phase. My partner isn't participating in the game, but agreed to deal everyone's cards and tell them what they have, which we all greatly appreciate! From there we move on to the diplomacy phase. Here's the diplomatic situation at the start of the game: the Ottomans are at war with Hungary, and both the Papacy and Hapsburgs are at war with France.

The diplomacy phase on the first turn is truncated: it consists of England negotiating with France and the Hapsburgs. This time, England had no deals to announce, so we moved on to the Diet of Worms phase. This is another first turn special: the Hapsburgs, Papacy and Protestants all secretly choose a card to play, and they then roll a number of dice based on the command point values of those cards. The Papal and Imperial totals are combined, and the Protestants get 4 bonus dice. Whoever scores the most hits wins, and gets to flip a number of spaces equal to the difference of the hits to their particular denomination. Last time around, the result was a draw and everyone was disappointed.

This time, the Protestants played City State Rebels, with the Hapsburgs committing Pirate Haven and the Papacy Sale of Moluccas. Unfortunately, it was all in vain. The Protestants rolled eight dice and scored one (1) hit. The combined Papal-Imperial total was one (1) hit. So the Diet of Worms is once again a draw!

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After all these preliminaries, it's time to get the game proper started. Phase Five of the turn is Spring Deployment: every power (except the Protestants) gets to deploy one formation from their capital to a friendly location they control and can draw a route to. This is done in what the game calls impulse order, i.e. the Ottoman (that's me) go first, followed by the Hapsburgs, England, France, the Papacy and finally the Protestants. My spring deployment saw Suleiman lead an army of five regulars and one cavalry unit to Nezh, on the border with Hungary. The Hapsburgs followed by deploying their entire army in Vienna to Brussels. England deployed Henry VIII and three regulars to Berwick, while France's sole deployment consisted of sending Francis I to Rouen.

So, after these spring maneuvers, it falls to me to kick off the first Action Phase of the game by playing Peasants' War.

Unrest is a lovely thing: units can't be built in spaces in unrest, or lines of communication traced through them. If a stack returns home through a space in unrest in the winter phase, it loses half its strength to attrition. Spaces in unrest also don't count for reformation or counter-reformation attempts, so unrest in Catholic Germany is somewhat to the Protestants' advantage. When I was dealt the card, I briefly considered trying to place some strategic unrest in Germany to speed up the Reformation and cause trouble for the Hapsburgs, but I decided it's not really worth 3 CPs. An aggressive anti-French deployment by the Hapsburgs that empties Vienna, however, changes things.

On their impulse, the Emperor played A Mighty Fortress for 4 CP; Charles V and the Duke of Alva marched from Valladolid to Zaragoza with their army of four regulars, and mobilized a regular in Antwerp. Henry VIII followed with Venetian Alliance, also for 4 CP: England built a naval squadron at London, moved the fleet to the North Sea, and hired a mercenary at Berwick. The French played their home card to hire four mercenaries in Paris and one in Bordeaux. On the religious side, the Papacy plays Papal Bull for the command points and uses them to build St. Peter's, and the Protestants play Venetian Informant and commit Melanchton to get started translating the New Testament into German.

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On my impulse, I'm delighted to play Barbary Pirates.

Algiers now becomes a key under my control, I get Hayreddin Pasha and a fleet of corsairs - and I can use those corsairs for piracy. I also get two command points; I used them to move Suleiman's army to Belgrade, and on a naval move action: I moved the squadrons in Istanbul, Athens and Salonika to the Aegean Sea, and Barbarossa and his corsairs to the Barbary Coast.

The Emperor then gets things going with Holy Roman Emperor. Charles V travels to Antwerp, marches to Brussels with all his troops, and on to St. Dizier and Paris.

Before the field battle begins, the French play Landsknechts to reinforce their army, but they lose the battle decisively, taking four hits but only inflicting one. The two surviving French mercenaries retreat to St. Quentin, and the regulars and Montmorency withdraw into the fortifications of Paris. The siege is on!

Because everything is happening, the English play their home card and declare war on Scotland. France intervenes, and Scotland is activated as a French ally. Henry VIII reinforces his army and marches on Edinburgh.

The French are now at war with three of their five rival powers in the game.

On their impulse, the French play Defender of the Faith. They use the two command points to hire a mercenary at St. Quentin and march on Brussels, besieging the fortress there and cutting the Hapsburgs' line of communication.

Meanwhile, only one of the three counter-reformation attempts is succesful: Erfurt is converted to Catholicism. Next, the papacy plays Leipzig Debate and starts a debate, designating Eck as their debater and challenging one of the uncommitted German reformers. That turned out to be Andreas Karlstadt, chancellor of Wittenberg university. Because his debate level of 1 left him at serious risk of not only losing, but being burned at the stake, the Protestants played Here I Stand to substitute Luther.

Luther and Eck debated each other to a draw, leading to a second round between Martin Bucer and Girolamo Aleandro also ended in a draw, leaving all Protestant debaters committed but achieving no results. The Protestants retaliated with Foul Weather, using the command points to publish a treatise in German, which succesfully converted Magdeburg and Lübeck.

For my part, I played Fuggers for the three command points. Suleiman's army stormed the fortifications of Belgrade and captured the city with no casualties. I also tried a spot of piracy against the Hapsburgs on the Barbary Coast, but to no avail.

Things were about to take a very dramatic turn. Ignoring their severed lines of communications, the Hapsburgs played Treachery! and stormed Paris. They only lost one unit, meaning that they still outnumbered the defenders, and Paris fell to the Emperor!

On the English impulse, things only get worse for France. England plays Revolt of the Communeros for command points, adding a mercenary in Calais and assaulting Edinburgh. The initial rolls are one hit apiece, but England deploys Siege Artillery and finishes the job: Edinburgh falls.

The French play Colonial Governor/Native Uprising for command points, storming Brussels and adding a mercenary at Rouen. In spiritual matters, the Papacy plays Anabaptists, and flips Magdeburg and Leipzig.

The Protestants strike back with Charles Bourbon, using the command points to finish translating the New Testament into German. This nets them six reformation attempts targeting the German language area, and they succesfully flip Magdeburg, Leipzig and Stettin for a total of seven Protestant spaces.

On my last impulse, I only have my home card left in my hand, so I have no choice but to play Janissaries. I'm adding three regulars to Istanbul and one to Scutari.

The Hapsburgs play Printing Press for command points. The Duke of Alva leads his army over the Pyrenees to capture Avignon and besiege Lyon; Charles V marches to Dijon.

The French, still holding one card, skip their impulse. The Papacy play Spring Preparations for 3 CP, using one to build St. Peter's and two to burn books. The counter-reformation attempts are unsuccesful, but committing Tetzel nets the Papacy one more CP to St. Peter's. The Protestants skip their impulse. The Hapsburgs play Trace Italienne for 3 CP, taking control of Dijon, moving Charles and his army to Lyon and succesfully assaulting it with the loss of one regular.

The French play Ransom, returning Montmorency from Hapsburg captivity to Bordeaux.

When the Protestants skip again, the first Action Phase is over!

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It's now on to the Winter Phase, where we find winter quarters for our forces, and mobilize new regulars in our capitals. For my part, Suleiman is wintering at Belgrade with four regulars and the rest of the troops are returning to Istanbul. Hayreddin Pasha and my corsairs are spending the off-season at Algiers and my fleets in the Aegean will winter at Coron. The Hapsburgs are returning one regular from Lyon to Valladolid and two to Vienna, losing one of them to attrition due to the unrest. Having lost their capital, the French do nothing, and the Papacy is content to mobilize one regular in Rome. The English leave Henry VIII, two regulars and a mercenary in Edinburgh, and return two regulars and a mercenary to London, where they also generate a third regular.

Finally, in the New World phase, we find out what happened to the Hapsburg explorer and conquistador sent out before the game started. The explorer turned out to be Pánfilo de Nárvaez, who was lost at sea. Still, that means the next Hapsburg voyage won't suffer a -1 penalty for sailing into the unknown. The conquistador turns out to be none other than Cortes himself, and he promptly subjugates the Inca, earning the Hapsburgs 2 victory points.

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And with that, the turn is over! For what it's worth, Luther's 95 Theses was played on the 22nd of March. Paris fell to the Hapsburgs on Easter Monday, and Lyon on Sunday the 26th of April. The Inca were conquered on the Monday. So all in all getting the game running by email took a little over a month.

It's been quite a turn. The Reformation is underway, ineffectually opposed by the party pope and mostly ignored by the Hapsburgs. By my count, Magdeburg and Leipzig have been converted three times, from Catholic to Protestant and back to Catholic and to Protestant again. England captured Edinburgh, but the real main event has been the Hapsburg offensive into France. The fall of Paris with Treachery! was truly spectacular, and things look pretty dire for France - at the expense of Germany in unrest and Vienna held by one regular.

So far, this has been an absolutely excellent experience. As the English player put it to me at one point, there's a real sense of grand strategy when it can take over a week between moves. There's plenty of time to deliberate; at times, pauses long enough that you put the game out of your mind completely - and then suddenly everything is happening. I am tremendously enjoying this, and I want to play more games by email in the future.

Let's see what happens next turn!

Diplomacy:

The French are at war with England, the Hapsburgs and the Papacy
France and Scotland are allied
The Ottomans are at war with Hungary-Bohemia

Victory points:

Protestants 2
France 8
England 11
Hapsburgs 12
Ottomans 12
Papacy 18

Protestant spaces: 7

Cards removed from the game:

Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith

Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)

Let's Read Tolkien 68: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

But it was no orc-chieftain or brigand that led the assault upon Gondor.

Everybody is still fighting. The Rohirrim have crashed through the enemy forces north of the Osgiliath road, and Théoden leads his knights in a charge on the Southron cavalry, and cuts down their leader and disperses them. Their triumph is cut short when the Witch-king returns on a flying beast and crashes down on Théoden; the king is pinned under his horse and his knights run away in terror. All except Dernhelm, and his hobbit baggage Merry. As Dernhelm faces the Witch-king, it turns out he's actually Éowyn, and apparently the Witch-king has heard the prophecy because he has a little think about it. After Éowyn kills his steed, he attacks, but is stabbed in the leg by Merry and destroyed by Éowyn.

Théoden, dying, names Éomer king, and his body and the wounded Éowyn are borne into Minas Tirith. The battle isn't over, though, and as Éomer takes command of the Riders, they see black-sailed ships coming up the Great River. Everyone thinks it's the Corsairs of Umbar, but when the flag of Elendil breaks out on the first ship, Éomer and gradually the others realize that it's Aragorn and the dúnedain. The enemy is routed.

**

So here we are: the climactic battle of the Third Age and the Lord of the Rings. The Witch-king is dead; Théoden King is dead; Sauron's army has been wiped out. Thankfully, Tolkien built his battle narrative around the characters and their experiences. We even get Éomer as a point-of-view character for a bit. These are very powerful chapters with a lot going on, and I feel like anything I can write in this format and with the time I have available for this is barely going to scratch the surface. So my commentary feels even more random than usual. But here it is.

It's been opined to me that Éowyn slaying the Witch-king is somehow less meaningful because it fulfills a prophecy. I strongly disagree. Éowyn can only kill the Witch-king because of her exceptional valor: where all of Théoden's other knights fell or ran away, she stood alone against him. She knew nothing about a prophecy.

There's a tradition that King Harold's housecarls died defending his body at the Battle of Hastings, although I haven't actually found a source for it! This seems to have been connected to a wider, historical or not, Scandinavian/Saxon idea that a lord's bodyguard was expected to avenge his death, if not die themselves. Some idea like this was already present in the Hobbit, where Fili and Kili died defending Thorin's body (Chapter 18), and it will reappear at the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, in the Silmarillion, where the dwarves of Belegost carry their dead king from the field. The point here is that the retainer's loyalty to their lord transcends death. In staying to defend the dying Théoden, Éowyn is fulfilling this obligation, heedless of what happens to her. It's through this courage that she is able to strike his death-blow, but she doesn't know that. Éowyn is exemplifying Tolkien's notion of "northern courage": she's doing the right thing, even if it fails and leads to her death, because it's the right thing to do. Tolkien highlights how she is tested: unlike the others, she stays by Théoden; she defeats the Witch-king's mount; she withstands his blow and strikes back. It was by no means enough for her to just be there and have a sword.

Merry, of course, was not the first hobbit to try to stab the Witch-King. Back on Weathertop, Frodo went at the chief of the Ring-Wraiths with a barrow-knife, but missed. When Tom Bombadil sings the hobbits free from the wight's barrow, the text is quite explicit that each of the hobbits takes a barrow-knife. So the knife Frodo attacked the Witch-king with on Weathertop was similar to the one Merry had. Aragorn is apparently correct in surmising that Frodo missed because his knife survived the encounter, but seems to fail to realize that had Frodo hit, he might have done some actual damage. Aragorn wasn't making the best decisions at the time.

If you really get down to it, Saruman and Barliman Butterbur conspired to kill the Witch-king. If Saruman hadn't captured Gandalf and delayed him, and Barliman hadn't forgotten to deliver Gandalf's letter, the hobbits would have gone straight to Rivendell before the Black Riders found the Shire, never passing through the Old Forest and never picking up barrow-knives to stab wraiths with.

I haven't really talked about Tolkien's concept of eucatastrophe: a "good" catastrophe, or an unexpected event that stops what seemed to be an impending, unavoidable doom. Tolkien coined the word and uses the concept several times in his works. The example everyone keeps using is in the Sammath Naur, but I've always thought that Aragorn's standard breaking out on the black ships is the most definitive example, told excellently through Éomer's sudden change of mood and laughter.

Finally, Tolkien closes the chapter with a lament for the dead. I've said this several times, but I simply do not understand the critics who think these are Boys Own adventures where nothing bad ever happens. One of the main themes suffusing the Lord of the Rings is loss, and for all the glory and eucatastrophe of battle, that's what this chapter ends with.

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Next time: theology.

Gladius: Metal vs biomass

Earlier, I wrote about how Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War is a really good 4X game. After beating the game a couple of times as the Marines, I decided to try a steeper challenge and play as one of my favorite Warhammer factions: the Imperial Guard.

A great thing about Gladius is that consecutive games can be very different. After my Marine playthroughs, I bought the Tyranid DLC, and started a couple of games with them included. The first time around, I got into a proper fight with the Nids - until the Necrons, having first wiped out the Orks, steamrollered us both. Next time, the Tyranids were destroyed almost immediately, and as I was beating up on the Necrons, a massive Ork horde crashed into us and totally derailed everything. But the one thing that seems to be constant throughout is that the AI Imperial Guard gets wiped out.

To make a long story short, the Imperial Guard challenge is to survive your enemies' attacks until you can go all Steel Legion on them (although Chimeras are nowhere to be found!). This is made somewhat challenging by the basic infantry squads only having flashlights and being generally quite useless. The native wildlife is a real challenge, especially the Enslavers, not to mention any AI factions. Marines and Necrons are particularly bad news.

The key units in the early game are the Tank Commander and your Heavy Weapons Teams. Even with the nerf to heroes' damage resistance, the Tank Commander can really take a beating, and dish out some damage to enemy vehicles as well. Once your heavy weapon teams start levelling up and get a Lord Commissar to supervise them, they will fuck up anything in the game - but they need to be protected. It's a fun exercise to build cities that provide firing lanes for heavy weapon teams while keeping them screened.

As you move up the tech tree, more options become available. The Guard are the only faction in Gladius with any real artillery, in the form of the Basilisk. I really like artillery, and to be honest I was hoping the Basilisk would have been more effective; its damage output isn't brilliant. Where it excels is range and mobility: with a range of six hexes (I think? The wiki is wrong) and a movement of four, a battery of Basilisks can switch targets with ease. They also make besieging cities very economical; just rain shells down on the enemy city while your tanks wait outside the range of their defenses to beat up any counter-attacks.

Speaking of tanks, if you can stick around for long enough, the real fun starts when you get Baneblades. They will simply roll over everything while soaking up absolutely ridiculous amounts of fire. And unlike Dawn of War, you can have as many of them as you can afford. Which is amazing.

To get that far, though, there's one key thing you have to consider as an Imperial Guard player: cities. While the Marines are limited to one city, the Guard can found as many as they like. Each city inflicts a penalty to loyalty, which can really cripple your production; but on the other hand, cities automatically pool their resources. In the early game, you need food to support your infantry units; later you'll need ore to build your vehicles. If your starting location is, say, on some grasslands, founding a second city in an ore-rich area is a very solid move. The special resource bonuses are definitely worth grabbing; I don't think a city should be founded without two special resource hexes in its (potential) radius except for extraordinary reasons.

If you can weather the storm and make the Manufactorum go brr, victory through overwhelming firepower is yours.

Of course, the AI Guard doesn't always get wiped out. If they make it further into the game, it turns out they like to build flyers.

And I mean a lot of flyers. These huge flyer swarms are actually surprisingly difficult to deal with, and if I'm honest, they're one of my few real criticisms of Gladius: they are just silly as hell.

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After succeeding with the Guard, it was time for Necrons. Chaos Androids with a vaguely Space Egyptian theme, I thought the Necrons were a slightly silly addition to the 40k universe when they showed up back in 3rd edition. Innovation is anathema to Warhammer 40,000 anyway, and it felt like they were being shoehorned into the fluff way too hard. However, they've been around long enough that I've kinda gotten used to them, and frankly I ignore most of GW's fluff innovations anyway.

As it happens, Gladius is a really good way to get to know the Necrons a little bit. They play a lot like Marines, with very durable basic infantry and limited cities: Necrons can found as many cities as they like, but only on spaces with a Necron tomb. It makes the decision-making process a lot easier! Necrons also regenerate, which can be immensely frustrating when fighting them, and their higher-tier vehicles, especially the Obelisk, can take massive amounts of damage. One important thing in Gladius is that you need tough units that can absorb enemy fire; the Necrons definitely have them - and they regenerate.

Playing as Necrons is actually quite good fun, and somewhat forgiving on the lowest difficulty level, which makes them a good faction to learn about the game with. Their faction quest is all right; while it's a little boring that it mostly involves fighting other Necrons, it does help to get properly acquainted with the units when you have to use them and fight them. If you can beat up your fellow Necrons, you'll gain victory and a strange compulsion to buy a Triarch Stalker model.

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So, to sum up, Gladius remains one of my favorite 4X games of all time. What next? There's the Chaos DLC; I'm a little disappointed they apparently don't get any tanks, although there is a crab enemy, which might be fun. Or anime space communism! I'm hoping there are more expansions coming, by the way. Dawn of War had everything Gladius has now, as well as Eldar, Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle. I would love to see the Sororitas in Gladius! I will certainly pick up at least the Chaos DLC next time it's on sale.

I recommend the Tyranid DLC. It's a thrill to see Carnifexes and Biovores and Hive Tyrants and everything rampaging around, and uniquely even if the nids are wiped out, they'll leave their mark on the world as they reduce entire hexes to bare rock when they scarf up all the biomass - very cool. But above all, I recommend Gladius. It remains a criminally underappreciated game, given that I think it's pretty clearly one of the best Warhammer video game adaptations ever.

Let's Paint Star Wars: Rebellion, part 2

Last time, I painted most of Star Wars: Rebellion; now it's time to (finally!) finish the job.

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We scheduled a game with some new players, so the first thing I need to do is finish the models in the base game. Luckily there aren't that many of them left; we'll start with the Empire.

13. Star Destroyers

My Star Destroyers got the same treatment as the Interdictors: Dark Seagreen base coat, Light Grey drybrush.

I'm very happy with the end result!

14. Death Stars

For the complete Death Stars, I simply painted them Neutral Grey and drybrushed with Light Grey.

I painted the open parts of the Death Star under construction Black Grey, and drybrushed with Gunmetal Grey and Neutral Grey; the rest of the hull I painted the same as the completed ones.

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15. Shield Generators and Ion Cannon

With the Imperial forces finished, it's time to get the rebel hardware done. I decided to do something a little different with the ground installations, and painted the base of the ion cannons Basalt Grey, and that of the shield generators Light Green.

16. Mon Calamari Cruisers and Rebel Transports

I've been very lazy with the rebel starships and just given them a base coat of Ivory and a Smoke wash. I kept the wash very light for the cruisers:

But hey, I think it works. I made the transports a bit more grimy:

17. CR90 Corvettes

Although the Rebellion models have been fairly high quality, as Fantasy Flight models usually are, the sterns of the CR90s looked pretty horrid.

But it was nothing a file and a pin vice couldn't fix!

Then it was a simple matter of Ivory, Smoke and the same squadron colors as I used on the smaller rebel spacecraft.

**

And that's it! Here are all the base game models, starting with the rebels:

And the Empire.

I'm absolutely delighted to have finished painting these models. After all, this was the project that relaunched my modeling hobby, and I feel like it's done wonders for my mental health. I'm also very happy that this is the first modeling and painting project I've finished after my sort-of-New Year's resolution to finish things.

**

Unfortunately, the four-player game of Rebellion we were planning to try never happened because of the coronavirus. Instead, I painted the Rise of the Empire expansion's models that I hadn't done yet.

18. Golan Arms Turret

I painted these to match the other rebel ground installations, i.e. Ivory, Smoke, Gunmetal Grey, with some Basalt Grey along the bottom.

19. Nebulon-B Frigate

For these models, I followed the Armada example: the grey parts are in Dark Seagreen with a Light Grey drybrush, and the lighter paneling is Ivory with a Smoke wash.

20. Shield Bunker

Finally, the shield bunkers I simply painted Dark Seagreen and drybrushed with Neutral Grey.

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So there they all are: the project that got me back into this whole painting business is finally done. Of course, since we're still in coronavirus lockdown, who knows when I'll get to use any of these models for anything? Maybe when we've finished Here I Stand by email we'll do a remote game of Rebellion!

Here I Stand: Power cards and a list of units

Here, for reference purposes for our PBEM game, is the game board without any counters on it, and each power card in impulse order, followed by a list of the unit counters available to that power.

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9 naval/corsair squadrons
10 1-strong armies
7 × 2
4 × 4
1 × 6

**

6 naval squadrons
11 × 1-strong armies
7 × 2
4 × 4
1 × 6

**

5 naval squadrons
9 × 1-strong army
4 × 2
2 × 4
1 × 6

**

5 naval squadrons
10 × 1-strong army
5 × 2
3 × 4
1 × 6

**

2 naval squadrons
7 × 1-strong army
4 × 2
2 × 4

**

8 × 1-strong army
5 × 2
2 × 4

**

Independent and minor power unit counters all have a 1-strong army on one side and a 2-strong on the other, except for one Hungary-Bohemian army of strength 4, and the Knights of St. John who are strength 1.

Independent: 9 × 1/2 + St. John
Venice: 4 × 1/2, 4 squadrons
Genoa: 2 × 1/2, 1 squadrons
Hungary: 3 × 1/2, 1 × 4
Scotland: 3 × 1/2, 1 squadron

Warhammer 40,000: Renegades and Heretics

In our last game of Warhammer 40,000 we introduced vehicles, and it turns out my partner quite likes them. Also, a friend of mine has an Imperial Guard armored company list from back in 3rd edition, which will, sadly, be just as viable in 8th. So my Chaos army is going to be seeing more tanks and Knights in the future. This is a bit of a problem, since anti-tank isn't exactly a Chaos strength, and definitely not a Word Bearers one.

Of course, I could answer with more knights of my own, and maybe I will. But knights like to burn through command points, and a chaos marine battalion will be quite expensive and not that useful against armor. Where can Chaos get anti-tank weapons and cheap command points?

Renegades and Heretics, that's where.

**

The Renegades and Heretics army list is in Forge World's Imperial Guard Imperial Armour Index, along with all kinds of Imperial Guard vehicles they can use. I've always loved the idea of traitor Guard, but it's so rare to actually get to field them properly. Renegades and Heretics hit the spot very well: they have cheap infantry and HQs, and access to a plethora of Imperial vehicles from Sentinels to the Baneblade. On the down side, they suffer from atrociously bad leadership and the cheap infantry has terrible stats in general. Sadly, Chapter Approved 2019 dropped Chaos Cultists to 4 points each, making Renegade Militia and Cultists kind of pointless and scuppering my plans for a Renegades and Heretics battalion. Therefore, I think I'm looking at a vanguard or spearhead detachment.

First of all, whatever detachment I make, it needs an HQ. The Renegade Commander is a slightly odd choice: if they're not your Warlord, they provide no buffs or other useful bonuses, while their stats are quite weak on their own. They do, however, have two advantages: they're cheap, and since they're a Chaos character, they can summon daemons! I'm bringing a Renegade Commander with a power maul, which is a ludicrously low 29 points. Some of you may recognize the model.

It's a pretty good model, by the way! I added a Victoria Miniatures shock mace to represent the power maul.

Overall, though, I'm not all that impressed with the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare models; I think most of them don't really look all that interesting. I do kinda want to get some Super Mutants, though, and they're pretty good value compared to, say, GW Ogryns; so maybe we'll see...

**

While painting my Renegade Commander, I decided that the color of my Renegades and Heretics would be orange. I miss the old GW days, especially in Epic scale, when they'd have absolutely outrageous color schemes for the Imperial Guard, with the fluff justification that they might be fighting on planets covered in toxic industrial waste or whatever. In memory of this, my Renegades and Heretics are going to be orange and blue. I tried out the color scheme on a Sloppy Jalopy BMP-2, which I could field as a Renegades and Heretics Kirov-pattern Salamander recon tank, but really mostly for the sheer fun of painting a BMP orange. I love how it turned out!

I started doing Daedric lettering for my Renegade Armigers, and I really enjoy it: it's actually surprisingly easy to get into, and I think the end result looks great.

**

The best way to fight a tank (or rabbit-piloted AT-ST for that matter), though, is with an anti-tank weapon that's hard for the tank to destroy. One intriguing option in the Renegades and Heretics list is the Renegade Disciples elite choice: basically regular humans with a 3+ BS who cost 6 points apiece and come with a minimum squad size of 5. So that means a minimum-size squad with a lascannon is 50 points. I think I have to try this.

The great thing about Renegades and Heretics is that you can pretty much use any damn models you like. Last year, I published an article on Finnish army anti-tank guns before the Winter War, and built a Warlord Games Bofors 37mm gun to go with it. So I ordered a Finnish rifle squad from Warlord to make a minimum-size squad. Here they are!

For a second Disciples unit, I wanted to build some Chaos Squats. That's right: for those of you who didn't know, the beer-drinking, bike-riding mad mechanics of good old Warhammer 40,000 times also had their Chaos brethren. For models, I used Thundrik's Profiteers from Warhammer Underworlds, equipped with some Tau Fire Warrior rifles and a Victoria Miniatures lascannon. They're wearing Dark Red, and Brass and Copper armor with German Grey accessories and a Black Glaze wash. I'm very pleased with the result.

That's two elite choices; a third, with the Renegade Commander, would make a vanguard detachment. While I could pick a third anti-tank team, I'm actually more interested in trying something else. As a curiosity, Renegades and Heretics offers what I think is the only Chaos sniper unit in the whole game, in the form of Renegade Marauders. They're a fascinating unit anyway, with a special morale rule and your pick out of three buffs. The morale rule is that they don't take normal Morale tests at all, but if they've taken any casualties they roll a d6, and on a 1 the entire unit flees. You takes your chances! Of the three optional special rules, Stalker gives all enemy shooting a hit penalty and increases the Marauders' cover saves. They also have pretty decent base stats, and a minimum five-man squad with two sniper rifles clocks in at 34 points.

The models are built from Victoria Miniatures bits: Ranger torsos, universal bare rifle arms, Arcadian legs and sniper rifles, Anvil Kalashnikovs and Statuesque beret and veteran heads.

So overall, the disciples, marauders and commander make a 164-point vanguard detachment. This is definitely something I'm trying! Bringing the BMP bumps it up to 242 points:

Renegades and Heretics vanguard detachment (1 CP) - 242 points

HQ - Renegade Commander - 25 pts
+ shotgun (0), power maul (4) = 29 points

Elite - Renegade Disciple Squad (5) - 30 pts
+ lascannon (20) = 50 points [79]

Elite - Renegade Disciple Squad (5) - 30 pts
+ lascannon (20) = 50 points [129]

Elite - Renegade Marauder Squad (5) - 30 pts
+ sniper rifle × 2 (4) = 34 points [163]

Fast Attack - Salamander Scout Tank - 55 pts
+ autocannon (10), heavy bolter (8), hunter-killer missile (6) = 79 points [242]

**

So I think this is the first painting project I've finished during our coronavirus quarantine! There will be more.

Let's Read Tolkien 67: The Ride of the Rohirrim

It was dark and Merry could see nothing as he lay on the ground rolled in a blanket; yet though the night was airless and windless, all about him hidden trees were sighing softly.

Merry and the Riders of Rohan are camped out in the woods on their way to Gondor. Merry eavesdrops on a discussion between Théoden, his captains and a leader of the Wood-woses, an indigenous people living in the woods at the foot of the White Mountains. The Wood-woses hate orcs and offer to guide the Riders to the outwall of Minas Tirith by an old, disused Númenoran road, bypassing Sauron's army. This is done, and the Riders arrive at the Rammas Echor, which they find Sauron's forces have wrecked and left unguarded. The Riders pass through and Théoden leads them in a charge on the unsuspecting main body of the Witch-king's army.

**

So this chapter culminates in what I think must be the most famous cavalry charge in all of fantasy. I'm still a sucker for these parts of the Lord of the Rings; I think Théoden's restoration - almost resurrection - is still deeply moving, and it more or less culminates here, as he leads his riders into the greatest battle of the age. I love the water imagery Tolkien uses: the Riders pass through the broken outwall like a rising tide, and charge like a foaming wave.

There are a couple of messages here, so to speak. One is that Sauron and his orcs are such assholes that even the indigenous people, who have been treated the way indigenous people tend to be treated by white settlers, would rather help the settlers than Sauron's forces. The Wood-woses quite strongly recall Robert E. Howard's Picts: a crafty but strange, almost otherworldly and ugly native people; in other words, a lovely bit of racialized othering. The casual aside that the Númenorans and men of Rohan have hunted them like animals does get one wondering whether Sauron could have done more to get both the Dunlendings and the Wood-woses on his side.

The other is that Sauron and his captains actually aren't all that good at this. As Éomer points out, the outer wall could have been held against them for a long time, and that would presumably have won the battle for the Shadow. Instead they've blasted huge holes in it as they broke through, which seems kind of pointless: you'd think it would have been enough to tie up the Gondorian garrison as the main force made the breakthrough at Osgiliath, because soon enough they'd have to retreat or be encircled. This mistake is then compounded by bad planning: whoever made the decision to station a blocking force further north along the main road rather than at the wall itself was overly confident that the enemy would be taking the road and had no other path through.

Of course, this is all in keeping with Tolkien's theology: because evil is an imperfect mockery of good, they never do get things quite right, and inadvertently screw themselves over. "Our Enemy's devices oft serve us in his despite," as Éomer puts it - a recurring theme of the entire work.

**

Next time: ships.