End of November/Start of December 2015

Hello again folks,

This Friday just passed (27th November) I played another game of Bolt Action against one of my regular opponents. My German army vs his British army, this time, the forces were a standard selection of both infantry and armoured vehicles. Highlights from this game included, my Officer unit once again destroying more than their fair share of enemy infantry, and my heavy howitzer, which was critical in stopping the enemy advance on the right flank, destroying half an infantry squad in the first turn, and then blowing up an enemy tank in the third turn. Although as seems to be a regular occurrence, my Tiger tank was destroyed by a Cromwell tank, but this was then destroyed by a 5-man SS unit which assaulted it in retaliation! Photos showing my force and parts of the battle are shown below:

The 20mm Flak Autocannon covers the advancing Infantry

A view from the left flank

Infantry stand ready - with the heavy howitzer behind them

My SS follow behind one of my Infantry squads

My Tiger tank

I have also finally bought myself my first units for my brand new 10mm Napoleonic army, all courtesy of Magister Militarum. I have ordered a set of 4 Line Infantry battalions, 1 General and an artillery battery, in addition to this, I have also added a battalion of Highlanders, for an infantry unit with a bit more of a kick to it, and a unit of Dragoons for my Cavalry element so far. This in my opinion is a great starter to my force, and gives me 7 battalions already, 5 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 artillery. This is a project I am looking forward to greatly as mentioned in my last post as it is something I have been trying to do for some time now, and it'll be an interesting challenge for my painting skills.

For the 10mm Napoleonics, my potential opponent has suggested we use Black Powder by Warlord Games, a ruleset I have owned for some time and never used. So this is no issue for me, although common sense now suggests I add their supplement for the Peninsular War of 1808-14 to my collection as well, as this is the area of the Napoleonic Wars which interests me most. 

I have also bought a new model to stand as my Necromancer for my Frostgrave warband - I'm using the Silence miniature from the Guildball Mortician's Guild, as he looks like just what I'm imagining for my Necromancer as well as being a great centrepiece miniature, I was hoping to try and get my Vampire from Empire of the Dead into the warband - he may have to take the role of the apprentice for gaming purposes. I'll come up with some background so that things for this band are more complicated then things would first appear. The Necromancer is now based and ready to be painted, with some warband members already to join him - a couple of spare Arthurian era soldiers will suit as mercenaries in the Necromancer's employ!

And that's all I have to say for now folks..... until next time!

November 2015 - 2nd Post

Hello again folks,

I've been painting a mixture of different models this week. I've been continuing to paint a Colonial Marine from Prodos Games' Alien vs Predator game. I've modelled the base to look like a vent in the floor of a spaceship, as this is where the game is based. I've also attempted some graffiti on his armour. I've been rather sparing with the graffiti but might attempt more on the next few colonial marines.
I've also prepared and started assembling one of the three Predators that come in the boxed set. This one has been based in an attempt to look like the Predators have forced their way onto the spaceship, so debris as well as metal flooring litters the base. I have started painting the first, poised to be throwing the smart disc.

As another game of Bolt Action loomed for Friday (20th November), I spent alot of the week painting more of my German army, including two of my troops in winter uniform. I've always been rather pleased with the conversions of the winter uniform troops. I'm tempted to convert at least one of my German troopers to be in full winter uniform, all this involves apart from a specific paint scheme is a conversion of the tunic to include a hood so that it represents the winter jacket worn by some German soldiers during the Second World War. 

This week has also led to a future project coming more into possibility - I've wanted to play Napoleonic games for ages, but 28mm is really too big for any games of any real size with the force sizes common to the Napoleonic Wars. So following the footsteps of a friend and fellow wargamer, I've opted for 10mm British for Napoleonic era warfare, as this can then come up against my friend's French force. Before anything else I need to work out what rule set we're  using and thus what basing needs to be used for the miniatures.

I've also assembled and started to paint one of my Eisenkern Stormtroopers, in the styling of the Brotherhood of Steel from the Fallout video game series. So metal coloured armour with red or white details. Although if I like the colour scheme on these troopers, I will assemble a sci-fi force using it, but with my own insignia for units.

I played another game of Bolt Action this past Friday (20th November) , and resoundly defeated my opponent. We decided on a mainly Infantry game, with a few non-vehicle support units, so I found my 150mm Howitzer, which as luck would have it, failed to provide the support it should have. However, my unlucky opponent's own artillery strike scattered and hit more of his own units (and more destructively). Which turned the battle much in my favour, and my opponent's best paratrooper unit being pinned until it fled the table finished the job as the second unit of paratroopers lost nearly half it's men to machine gun fire from my SS unit that had reached the maximum range to assist the units already blocking the enemy advance across the table. In-game pictures below show how this game looked.

My right flank - my most heavily armed and numbered side of the board

A view across the table

My infantry face a paratrooper unit supported by regular infantry

My officers take on the remnants of a infantry unit hiding in the crater in the centre of the board.

A smaller unit of veterans guards the left flank against some sneakiness!

My Italian infantry guarding the middle of the board.

My Howitzer at the back centre of my deployment zone, where it stayed providing ineffective support for the whole game.

My final point for these post is a slight annoyance I have for some Bolt Action players/tournaments which state "The main rulebook plus all FAQs and Theatre books are allowed" and then further down state "No vehicle flamethrowers and No tank platoons". This annoys me as a keen Bolt Action player for two reasons. As a player this annoys me as it limits what can be taken, purely because it is quite a powerful unit/platoon which isn't the fault of people who may like a particular style in their force, additionally this annoys me again in that it cannot follow all rules, theatre books and FAQs if it disallows certain things. Let me give an example, Tank platoons are a main feature of the Tank War theatre book, so if disallowed, you are effectively disallowing an entire theatre book in one fell swoop!

Anyway, that's all for this time folks! Hopefully more news to come soon....

November 2015 - Week 1 - Colonial Marines and Some Corner of a Foreign Field

Hello again folks,

Well, I have started to attack the contents of Aliens vs Predator: The Miniatures Game. It contains a board game, which seems so far to be very similar in style to Space Hulk (which, in turn, has always reminded me of the film Aliens, so the circle just keeps going).
In the box you get a spaceship layout, featuring several air-vents, corridors, rooms and doors. Additionally, you get 5 colonial marines (3 with Pulse rifles, 1 with a flamethrower and 1 with a smart gun), 3 Predators (armed with a variety of their equipment from the film series) and 15 Aliens (5 being Stalkers, which are like the dog-spawned variety from Alien 3) and 10 Infant Warriors, which are the traditional smooth headed creatures from the majority of the films.
Although Prodos Games are adding to this range, with a Queen Alien, Powerloader, Predator Hounds and Warrior Aliens (ridge-headed variety from the Aliens film) already available to pre-order from their online store.
I have already assembled the Colonial Marines, and even started to paint them - I intend to add graffiti to their armour to add a bit of individuality to them. At the moment, I've built the Smart Gunner, a marine with tracker and a marine with an incinerator, plus one alien warrior. I'll add pictures of these once some more progress has been done on them.

Last night at Dice and Decks Gaming Club, I played a game of Some Corner of a Foreign Field, which is now under the name of Danger Close and is owned by Empress Miniatures. The game was 8 British soldiers vs 12 Taliban insurgents. At first, this went well for the Brits, who have extra actions and activitations due to being better in terms of "skills and drills", which we quickly found was a ridicolously high advantage. However, a bad dice roll for throwing a grenade meant it scattered and blew up 5 of my own soldiers, leading to some slightly unorthodox rescuing by the remaining 3 of my troops. My opponent and me decided whilst the rules are not bad, they are missing rules for reloading rocket launchers, as nothing stops you firing three shots a turn with a British soldier, and serious injuries unless the casualty falls unconcious, have little impairment bar some slow moving. It didn't seem to affect the injured man's ability to fire in any way. The action system was also built on upon the "skills and drills" with a British Soldier being given 3 actions, and the British player was able to move 3 men per turn due to Skills and Drills 3, whilst the insurgents were Skills and Drills 2, meaning 2 insurgents per turn could act, and do up to 2 actions. This proved to be a problem when moving and spotting soldiers, as this used up all their actions and thus stopped them firing as well. These shortcomings seem to be a part of the rules or lack thereof in some elements, although they could be misinterpretation, but given the rules were 2 sides of A4, this is unlikely.

The available forces for Friday night's game.

1st British Section

2nd British Section

SAS Team

Insurgent Force

 Prepare for more posts soon folks.....

November 2015

My apologies for a long hiatus from blogging. Been a busy few months with many changes, which I'm not going to go into, I'll just add in content that's new.

The end of November 2015 marks the release of Team Yankee - a cold war gone hot game from Flames of War - using 15mm models. I already have 15mm Americans and Chinese from an aborted run at the end of last year at modern wargames in that scale. So I am painting my T72 battle tank, M1 Abrams tank and building and assembling T54/55 tanks and M113s in readiness for the Team Yankee release at the end of the month. I now have Flames of War bases to enable me to use previews to attempt to build the teams of Americans ready for the game as well!

A couple of the example unit cards for Battlefront's Team Yankee - as featured on their Breakthrough Assault blog page.

I have also bought the Flames of War main rulebook in the time since my last post and now, and today I also got the Fate of a Nation book and Tour of Duty book - both add-ons for Vietnam and the Arab-Israeli conflict in the early 1960s for Flames of War. 
This evening I also played a World War 1 Flames of War at Pegasus Hobbies and Games in Monmouth. This is the first time I've ever played Flames of War properly - and I enjoyed it greatly - I can't wait to see what vehicles do to the gameplay - as this WW1 game was infantry only, supported by machine gun teams and artillery.

In Airsoft news I have a new loadout; Soviet Russian from 1980s Afghanistan, using the video game Metal Gear Solid V as a reference, due to the variations in uniform, which enable a more interesting choice of equipment. This also means a new airsoft rifle - an ICS AK74, due to arrive shortly.

Lastly, I have the Aliens vs Predator game from Prodos Games, and am thoroughly pleased with the quality and detail I have seen so far - a gameplay review will be posted next weekend.

Bear with me readers, I'm back again, and need to work out what to post once more.

December 2014 and January 2015

Hello again folks,

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas (if you celebrate said holiday).I offer apologies for such a long wait since my last post.

I have been doing a mixture of painting some of my 15mm modern Americans, and assembling and painting my Warzone Resurrection Imperials, which I am enjoying, except for a broken banner on one of my officers and a broken bayonet on one of the rifles for the Trenchers. Which is annoying as I will have to try and remove the remaining part of the bayonet from the rifle without causing further damage, for the officer, I will have to smooth the flag and hand area and make a pin to replace the broken top half of the flag-pole. However, I can show you my results so far on one of the Officers and also on one of the Trenchers.

I have also purchased and painted an Orc Banner Bearer for Kings of War to be the model I use for the Dice and Decks Gaming Club Christmas Miniatures Swap, a sort of secret style event where you fill out a form with a few armies and games you collect, what force you collect for the game, and in what colours you roughly paint them in, then this is swapped and you go out and have a £12 budget to purchase a model for that person. The results of the Orc Banner Bearer are shown below.

I also have been given two models kits by my work, an Airfix 1/72 scale Harrier Jet, and a Revel 1/1200 of a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier. I have started assembling the carrier, and it seems to be relatively straight-forward.

For Christmas I got an addition to my 15mm Americans for the currently test stage game of 3rd Generation Warfare, an Abrams tank from Quick Reaction Force miniatures, the thing is enormous in comparison to the other vehicles I have so far! Dwarfing the M113A3s and the Stryker APC that it will be supporting! I also got a T-80 for the Russians, but for now until I get some Russian Infantry to support the vehicle, I will be using it as part of my Chinese force. On a related note, I have finished my Medical M113A3 Armoured Personnel Carrier. The pictures shown below show these vehicles and the finished Medical APC:

I have also painted a 15mm US miniature as a US Army trooper in ACU camouflage, well, as near as I could manage given the size of the miniature. Results shown below:

In Airsoft news, I'm re-designing the kit I take with me, so it matches the USMC uniform I wear (as in the UK, it's not a particularly common camouflage scheme), which means I need to find webbing etc and a plate carrier in Cayote Brown and not the Olive Green I have started off with for the last few months. I chose a suitable plate carrier, a Cayote Brown Condor Exo Plate Carrier, which arrived in the wrong colour, but this was negotiated so I would get the right colour delivered and the incorrect one picked up, and a free pouch would also be delivered as an apology for the mistake. I also bought more Condor pouches, which has all had a test run a few weeks ago, and other than the need for one extra pouch and a re-sort of where they are, all is well.

I am also having a big Bolt Action sort out now, at the end of January, having been given a bag o 4Ground scenery for Dice and Decks Gaming Club, which I have been asked to build. So I have started on the Cookhouse, whilst repairing my own 4Ground house, which has slowly been getting damage from travelling to and from my club. I also painted the front door and window sills blue to stand out away from club scenery.

I have a new army for Bolt Action - Italians. As they are quite a characterful force, and I had a relative that was part of the British force that landed in Italy in WW2. So these provide a nice addition to my collection, I have the 500 point stater force - two squads of 10, an officer and his attendent, a forward artillery observer and attendent, medium mortar team, medium machine gun team, and as an addition, a Semovente 75/18 assault gun.

I also, due to a visit from Square Orange Games visit to Dice and Decks in late January, now own a copy of Star Wars Imperial Assault. 

My final game before posting this was last night (Friday 30th January), and was a game of Bolt Action, my British vs a German Panzergrenadier company. I won, I'm thankful to say, as some lucky rolls of the dice at the start of the game put my opponent on the back foot before we got really into the game.