Into the new year

Hello again folks,

Well, things have been busy on the modelling front. 

I've been busy painting a model for the annual Dice and Decks Gaming Club Christmas Miniature Swap.

In other news my 10mm Napoleonic Miniatures arrived last week and I have started to assemble these ready to paint, they are very chrisp and detailed. I have 2 cannons, a howitzer, two mounted officers, 12 dragons, 4 line battalions and a highlander battalion. Some of these are shown in work in progress pictures below.

Due to a challenge on Saturday 19th December, I was forced to speed up my assembling of a warband for Frostgrave, I'm using the Silence model from Guildball as my Necromancer, his apprentice is a Pandora model from Malifaux. As for Soldiers; a variety of already owned models fulfilled this role, including some Arthurian soldiers and a dog from Kings of War. As well as a Tenderiser from Guildball who is standing in my warband as an infantryman. The whole of Frostgrave reminds me slightly of the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, probably due to the wintry area and the magic mixed with medieval weapons. I enjoyed two games of this, with the rules for random encounters being a source of great amusement to all.

I also as my birthday has recently passed got my hands on a squad of 5 automated British infantry from Clockwork Goblin Miniatures. These are 28mm scale but stand around 40mm tall, they carry either a Vickers or a .50 cal heavy machine gun, I intend to use them to supplement my Bolt Action army and this has been helped by finding the company has written appropriate rules to include these in games of Bolt Action. I also received a pre-done version of one of these automated infantry as part of the annual Dice and Decks Christmas Miniature Swap. I painted a Khornate flesh hound in black with red scales, which I was rather pleased with. A picture from the Dive and Decks Facebook page is shown below:

Over Christmas I received a box of Dreamforge Games' Eisenkern Stormtroopers, as well as their support weapons. I am intending to use these in near future games and so have painted them to look as though they are wearing camouflage armour. 

I have also been introduced to some new rules, Black Ops by Osprey Publishing, which is a great game, especially for infiltration style missions. I've played 3 games of this type so far, the first was a a World War 2 era game with a group go British Paratroops infiltrating a German held hamlet in order to eliminate a German officer. Whilst my opponent succeeded in killing the officer, luck wasn't on his side and the noise counters added up to the alarm being raised and a German reinforcements poured in, resulting in only one man making it back off the table. 

My second game was set in Afghanistan using ISAF special forces rescuing an informant held in a ruined factory complex by a group of Fanatics, I played the team rather than the guards for this game, and made it to the informant and rescued him without any losses.

My Spec Ops team - showing my attempts at Desert DPM from a few years ago and more recent Multicam.

 I'll be updating the pages section of this blog soon with a more recent major project I'm involved in. So keep watch folks!

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....

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. 

November 2014

Hello again folks,

I have been working on my 15mm modern miniatures, which arrived at the start of the month.

I have also got some bases, 15mm diameter and 3mm thick from Sarissa Precision in order to base these models. These arrived on the 6th November, so I quickly set to getting the models glued to the bases in order to try and get them ready for a game on the 7th November. Starting with one of my American packs, which was done within the night and ready for painting. Now I have based all the American Infantry, but want to label the underside of the bases so I can see without having to examine them in detail what country they are from before I start assembling the Chinese Infantry as well.

I had assembled both the Stryker IFV for the Americans and the Type 63 APC for the Chinese, with plans to stick these to 60mm square bases, which are big enough to hold them, but not big enough to take the eye away from the actual models. I debated using 40mm square bases, but these are not big enough and look odd. My bases for the vehicles are also from Sarissa Precision, and are the same thickness as my infantry bases, for the M113A3, I cut a 60 x 60mm base in half and used it to base the vehicle, otherwise the base took the eye away from the miniature.

I have also assembled and converted one of my four M113s from Flames of War Arab-Israeli War range into a current American M113A3, with plans to make it look like a medical vehicle, as it's my first attempt at converting a 15mm M113, so might not be the best looking, the other three will be a platoon transport section, with the lead and rear vehicles having variant weapon systems (an excuse to use the alternative gunner stations on the roof of the APC, so I have an Minigun in one turret, a .50cal on the Medical M113A3, probably another .50cal on the second transport, and I'm tempted to use the MK19 Grenade launcher on the last transport - the Flames of War Sets have alot of options in them). I have used the article in the October article of Wargames Illustrated to accomplish this -  adding the rear fuel tanks -  a combination of card templates for the sides and green stuff as filler, with a bit of metal rod as the rear lights. I also added some 1cm by 90mm rectangles as big red cross badges onto the sides of the vehicle, rather than just painting them on, as the sides looked rather plain -  and I have nothing with which to make (and a lack of ability to do so) the rails on the sides of the M113s. 

The Wargames Illustrated article that served as the basis of the conversion for the M113A3 from an M113

On Friday 14th November I played a game of Bolt Action, my Late War Germans vs another force of Late War Germans, and although the game finished prematurely, I felt that things were going my way.  My Tiger, having managed to corner around the house in the centre of the field, then rolled two 6s to hit and penetrate the armour of the opposing Panzer IV, and then a 4 to knock it out! My opponent rolled a Sdk Fz 251 with a squad of five "tank hunters" - Veterans armed with SMGs and anti-tank grenades to attack the Tiger, and these failed to do much to it, leading to them being pinned between their own transport, the Tiger and the house. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant of the enemy force, was also in the same transport, and stayed in it, meaning when a squad of 8 of my Veterans attacked it, he dismounted and fought them alone, leading to his quick demise! My medic saved my Officer, and one of my Infra-red sight armed Veterans, so he actually accomplished something. My ultimate success was the 150mm heavy howitzer, sighting and hitting a squad of 10 veterans with 12 hits, that cleared a squad off the board with no problems to my force! I felt it was a well balanced game, although as is mentioned quite often at Dice and Decks amongst us Bolt Action players, recce is a weird rule, a free reverse away from danger pretty much regardless of anything else! I have also tried a new and amusing way of writing these Bolt Action reports up, as "newspaper reports" of the battles, written from a British newspaper style of writing. I hope that the style is right. I shall continue to write them in a real world style as shown above as well, as these "newspaper reports" miss some details. Feel free to make comments and constructive criticism, here is number 1 (dated to suit the time news would filter home and dated for the war years), featuring Friday 14th November's game:

My Tiger takes out a Panzer IV having crept round the house my opponent felt would shield his tank from mine!

Some of my Germans, a 20mm Autocannon, Lieutenant and two infantry squads.

Infantry move in to support the Tiger.

Heavy Artillery supported by my Nachtjager Veteran squad.

The enemy on my left side.

The enemy commander in a half-track.

The same half-track carrying a small anti-tank grenade carrying Veteran unit, that failed to attack the Tiger, so my Veteran infantry attacked the half-track, forcing the enemy Lieutenant to disembark and fight 8 men alone, as per the Bolt Action rules! Need to be careful leaving single commander in a vehicle alone.

However, during the course of packing and unpacking my Germans for the night's game, I noticed some damage to my plastic Warlord Games WW2 British , much to my great annoyance. So I am debating on reinforcing them with some more metal miniatures to try and reduce the potential for snapped rifles and missing pieces! I have ordered some 16 metal Late War British from Artizan Designs, and the British Expeditionary Force metal boxed set from Warlord Games (this is to see size differences, and an excuse to get some more Brits! And I prefer Warlord at the moment for WW2 models, so was hoping to hide the BEF models in amongst the Late War Brits), hopefully this will lessen the amount of damaged models in my collection. I have also somehow suffered the great annoyance of my German artillery is warped, which in itselft sounds minor, except I have no idea how it happened as the metal is so thick I can't bend it back into shape.

 I have also started converting some British in short sleeved shirts or with sleeves rolled up on khaki shirts, as found in Osprey Publishing's The British Army (2): Middle East & Mediterranean. As I found a relative who served in the Cheshire regiment in WW2 was in Italy during the invasion in 1943/4, so my British are being converted to suit this theatre. I played a Bolt Action game using the British on Friday 21st November, which featured two British players against a Russian army. We won this game, using a Sherman Firefly to knock out the main Russian tank threat, a feat that apparently no-one else has managed to do before.

A picture of the mortar team in the ruined building, with officers on either side and a hill with a pair of Vickers MMG teams in front

My force, sniper team and tanks!

My BEF Vickers MMG team next to another Vickers MMG team, with an allied mortar team in the ruins, my officer is next to the pond on the right of the picture, next to the tape measure

My British allies! Alot of infantry with their commander stood next to the Dingo in the bottom right corner

Last night, Friday 28th November, I played a German force using my Brits in a Bolt Action game, and lost profoundly, the dice were not on my side. My only successes were immobilising a Panzer IV and taking out a German sniper with my own. 

I have also as a finale for the month, been assembling my Imperial Starter force for Prodos Games' Warzone Resurrection, which I am enjoying assembling and painting as they are incredible models, 32mm resin, crisp and solid.

My Imperial Officer - he has started being painted now!

My first trencher!

HMG Gunner - a loose term, as Imperial Trencher HMGs are actually Miniguns!

Rhino Tankette - a flamethrower equips this little thing.

 And that sums up the month folks! Hopefully some painted Warzone Resurrection models will grace my next post...

Mid-Late September

Hello again folks,

So, what have I been up to since my last post?

I've built, labelled and used my Afrika Korps for Bolt Action, bar about 5/6 models. All squads are assembled, so perhaps I can make a small unit of Veterans to accompany the regulars.

The game was last Friday (Friday 19th September), and was played on my Desert board, and resulted in me losing! A slight disaster of a game, starting with a Dingo ramming my 20mm AA Gun and destroying it, bad dice rolls cost me this, and my Panzer III, which had failed to take out an enemy Sherman II. My Major and his accompanying officer were both killed by a small unit of British Veterans in a Bren Carrier, and my other Lieutenant and a squad were killed by a large unit of British regular soldiers, although they had taken out 60% of the Brits before their eventual demise!

In Airsoft related news, I also have new American early style replica MICH helmet, more like a PASGT and not so high on the sides than on some models. I also have a MARPAT cover, but it is a slightly different version of the pattern compared to that on the fatigues I wear, but this will have to be tolerated for now. I have a game this Saturday and another Sunday!

I have also been painting some Deadzone stuff, as I've neglected this stuff for far too long - and I'm really enjoying painting the Plague Stage 1A.  On a related note, also from Mantic Games, I have also ordered the Mars Attacks: Attack on Greenville set, which contains the boxed set, and a few extras! I really like the heavy narrative theme, but still enough space for random skirmishes and games of my own design.

The Attack on Greenville set (courtesy of Mantic Games site). The top left is the averga boxed set, and the other items are extras included in the deal.

I have plans for colour schemes on the US troops included in the game  - USMC MARPAT camouflage, the same as my airsoft outfit. As this is a) approriate (if you allow a slight alteration in narrative from army to USMC) and b) it's an incredible painting challenge for me to try.

This Friday just passed, which I have no pictures for due to no battery on my phone, so apologies, I played two games of Deadzone, by Mantic Games. Partially because of Mars Attacks and also because I've gone on a bit of painting spree with the Deadzone kit and nearly painted my Stage 1 Plague and another Enforcer. These do have pictures (well, the plague does anyway) and are shown below: 

This shows how I painted the "skin" over the muscle beneath, using Scab Red I went over the black undercoat, except for the area near the eyes, and then used Vajello Iraqi Sand for the skin - which I interpret as having morphed into a tough carapace, thus why it is cracked and pitted.

So there we have it for now folks, until next time...