Mid-August 2014 - Storming ahead into the Gates of Antares!

Hello again folks,

I have some interesting stuff to mention!

I didn't manage to have a game last week at Dice and Decks Gaming Club, much to my dissappointment, as my new Bolt Action book, the Tank War supplement, which I ordered earlier in the week arrived, along with, my playtester exclusive Algoryn AI Squad for Beyond the Gates of Antares, which is also currently in production and development by Warlord Games, it consists of 5 models, a squad leader, two troopers with different weapons and two regular armed troops. They are fairly big, much bigger than any Infantry seen in Bolt Action, and are very well cast.

I have also been working on 1 of 3 Cromwell tanks for Bolt Action: Tank War, which combined with my Sherman Firefly will form my basic platoon for any Tank War games in Bolt Action.

The first Cromwell is nearly assembled and ready for painting

However, after another day of Airsoft at C3 Tactical, I have had a game of Hail Caesar organised at Pegasus Hobbies and Games in Monmouth, using my Caesar's Legions Roman Army, which I spent a few days between Sunday and Thursday building as many extra troops as I could manage in time for the game. The invitation for a game of Hail Caesar came as a pleasant surprise as I've been waiting for a chance to throw my in progress legion onto a table and have a game! It plays in quite a similar fashion to Kings of War, I managed to play through 2 games, losing both! I didn't have enough infantry to hold off flank and rear charges, although I got my charging hits in first in the 1st game, before waiting for an advance in the 2nd game.

Archer Unit 1

Archers 2

My Light Artillery - Roman Scorpions!

My first game of Hail Caesar - Romans vs Romans, this shows the battle lines meeting each other.

Cohort matches Cohort blow for blow!

Veteran Cohort vs Veteran Cohort

My end game in the 1st match, a single cohort vs two warbands of Celts and a cohort of romans (on the left)

My battleline ready for game 2

During my time at Pegasus Hobbies and Games in Monmouth for the Hail Caesar game, I also got myself a box of Warlord Games Napoleonic Penisular War British Line Infantry, so I'm assembling these for the future, as Black Powder, if anywhere near Hail Caesar, will be something I fancy playing! Although in both Hail Caesar and Black Powder, I use whole boxed sets for 1 unit (well, I decided to use 32 men for a standard unit in Black Powder), so it'll be some time before my force is useable for this, unless I motivate myself to assemble them.

I have also assembled and painted a Sergeant made from the Eisenkern Stormtroopers I bought off Ebay, made by Dreamforge Games, this was for a Dice and Decks Painting Competition, and is painted as an Imperial Stormtrooper Sandtrooper Sergeant from Star Wars, the below pictures show work from assembly through to fully painted (fully painted picture in my next post):

2 of my other Stormtroopers, an officer and another Sergeant, this picture shows up the armour plates well

Nearly finished, as each plate was blacklined this process of painting each armour plate white took its time!

The finished product - one battle damaged Sergeant of Stormtroopers

Rear view of the finished Stromtrooper

I have also had another game of Bolt Action last Friday (29th August), which ended with three models on my opponent's side left, and me with two, a 20mm AA gun and 1 Panzer IV. So it was a very brutal and very close run game! Germans vs Germans, most of my infantry was lost in close combat with enemy infantry squads attacking my transports, which forces the transported unit to disembark and fight, which meant they were attacked by my opponent first, so I lost attacks, which combined with bad dice rolls led to me barely landing a hit back. This led to me losing the combats, which lost the squad. This meant my only successes were by unusual combats, my favourites being a Hanomag belonging to the enemy being assaulted by my two-man sniper team, only to find a single Lieutenant in it, who was promptly killed! Even more amusing was the 5 man assault-rifle armed squad that was in the same transport but had disembarked previously, assaulted my 5 man heavy howitzer crew, and somehow lost, without scoring a hit on the crew! All in all, one of my more memorable games of Bolt Action.

Panzer IV, Spotter for the Howitzer and 20mm AA Gun. The squad behind is a destroyed unit, due to an assault on their Hanomag transport.

Middle of the table, a sort of No-Man's Land, where any unit that entered was destroyed by its opposition

My Artillery, and Sniper Team, next to an enemy Hanomag, which was carrying an Assault Rifle armed 5-man squad, and an SMG Lieutenant, both destroyed by the crew and the sniper team respectively

This Friday just passed, I played another game of Bolt Action, but we only succeeded in getting through around two turns, but it was a large points scale game. Germans vs British. We still managed to have some great moments, which the game allows, a Dingo Scout Car tried to ram my Howitzer, but we interpreted the rules to allow a reaction shot from said Artillery piece, which fired a direct shot which landed a huge number of hits and destroyed the vehicle just shy of hitting the artillery unit!

My Left flank, a 150mm Howitzer, Tiger I and 20mm AA Gun.

Tanks take aim at each other, the destroyed Churchill took a direct massive damage hit off my Tiger I, which is just to the left of the picture!

Mechanised Germans (my force) advance

In Airsoft news, my new boots arrived, but I'm not sure they fit or not, I can wear them, but they aren't at present, the most comfortable things around. I have also got a rubber bayonet knife for my loadout, and a new M16A3 from G+P, which was tested yesterday at C3 tactical airsoft. Here's some pictures of my new kit before I leave you till next time!

My boots, based on Vietnam era jungle boots!

Rubber bayonet attached to my older M16VN

My new Airsoft M16A3 - I like this one, although it did seem a bit iffy at first test, although this was with one of my grey 20 round BB magazines, not the metal 130 round magazine that came with the Airsoft gun.