Ghost Hunting

I’ve been making slow progress on my Ghost Legions project. Most of my free time last week was spent painting up my Army of Spartacus figures, and I went with highlighting skin in white and shading some parts to add variety. I don’t think I’ve lost the ‘ghost’ look, but I do think it’s a thin line:

They do have more skin on show and shields which add much more time to painting than my IJA Paratroops did when I did the same:

It only added an extra hour, so I think if you do end up painting as many ghosts as me by picking out those extra bits, just think about what kind of figures you have before embarking on that extra work. Managing time, expectations and boredom is key to getting that project finished versus the hundreds that get abandoned.

I’ve still got the Bashi-Bazouks to go, and then I will have painted around 150 figures in this way. Not a small undertaking.

The reason I went with three completely different eras was to test that any mechanics I came up with catered for three very different styles of army – the melee heavy ancient force, the half shooting – half melee gunpowder force and the modern all shooting force.

But now I’m on the hunt to expand these armies. One of the side effects of ghostly painting is the force looks very samey, more so than your normal wargaming force. Which isn’t something I had previously anticipated, and I think alternate figure types are going to be key to boosting the aesthetics of any game.

So to expand I’m thinking the IJA could get a tank, the Gladiators some cavalry and the Bashi-Bazouks some artillery. I think my initial dream of one box of figures per force may be falling away.

Here’s my cart with Emodels:

It was surprisingly difficult to find one seller that had all three thing I wanted. While I don’t need to strictly stick with history I tried my best. Dacians were the best I could manage for appropriate cavalry for my Gladiators.

I went slightly more expensive with my Japanese tank too. They did have an Airfix one for half the price but I still have flashbacks of trying to assemble an Airfix Tiger years ago.

The new purchases add rules complications too. Cavalry is fine, they’re just faster potentially tougher infantry. Artillery are just slower more shooty infantry. Tanks however often require different sets of mechanics entirely to ‘feel’ right in game. Although I am talking ghost wars here, so I’m imagining a Roman Gladiator has a chance against a Type 95. I may be thinking about hit points, armour values and turning arcs.

The rules as they currently stand, so what I’m going to try to squeeze tanks into, are as follows:

Roll 1D6 per leader figure you have in play. Highest single die roll = actions for the turn.

Pinned figures cannot do anything until rallied.

Actions include –

Activate all figures in a square and have them move to an adjacent square (not all figures need to end their move in the same square). Once all figures have been moved resolve any melees.

OR

Activate all figures in a square and have them fire at the enemies in another square (all figures must target the same square).

OR

Rally a leader (no longer pinned)

OR

Rally all figures in the same square as a non-pinned leader or in a square adjacent to a non-pinned leader.

Stats –

FP – Fire Power

RN – Range

MB – Melee Bonus

SHOOTING

Total the FP of a unit and roll that many dice, each 4+ counts as a success, 6s explode. A figure cannot shoot at enemies outside of their RN (Range). Divide total successes by target units Defence Value.

Defence Value = distance in squares to target.

Total = hits. Ignore remainders.

Make saving throws against hits – 

If in the open – dead 1-3, pinned 4+5, safe 6.

In soft cover – dead 1+2, pinned 3+4, safe 5+6.

In hard cover – dead 1, pinned 2, safe 3-6.

Pinned figures cannot do anything until rallied.

The player in control of the figures hit determines which figures are dead, pinned or safe.

MELEE COMBAT

When two opposing groups of figures are in the same square, pair up all figures in with opponents. When one group is larger pair up additional figures with already paired opponents and spread them as evenly as possible.

Roll a die for each figure in a pair adding their Melee Bonus, higher roller kills their opponent. Where multiple figures are paired against a single opponent only roll once for the larger side adding 1 to their MB for each additional figure. Higher roller wins, and if the outnumbered figure wins they will kill all of their opponents. Reroll any ties.

A figure that is pinned gets -1 MB.

After each pair is resolved, the side that took the most casualties loses the combat. If the losing side is now smaller in number than the winning side any remaining figures on that side are wiped out. If the side that lost is equal or larger than the winning side all remaining figures fall back 1 square.

When calculating which side is smaller count a leader, banner or musician as three figures instead of 1. If a leader was killed they count as -3 figures.

Let me know any thoughts.