Early September 2014

Hello again Folks,

I've been working on a variety of different things.

Starting with Dystopian Legions, where I have finished my Captain, wearing a slight variation of my Desert uniform so he stands out as an officer. I am also working on my machine gun.

My Dystopian Legions Captain ready for action, wearing a variation of my Desert uniform I made up for my Dystopian Legions, based loosely off the Sudan War.

I have painted a Vampire from Westwind Productions Empire of the Dead range, ready for Dice and Decks Halloween Painting Competition (more of a whilst I remember thing than a need to get it done).

My Vampire from Westwind Productions, only thing that isn't finished on this model is the base

My third thing is building my Penisular Regiment of Napoleonic British Infantry from Warlord Games I mentioned in my last post. I have cut the regiment from large unit of 36 to a slightly larger than normal standard sized unit of 32 for Black Powder.

My Peninsular War Napoleonic British Infantry, slowly assembling.

I also have built a few more British for Bolt Action. As I have neglected this army compared to my German forces, which isn't very patriotic of me!

I had a game last Friday, Germans versus Airborne British, which was finished early, but was a close game that I enjoyed much more than I sometimes do - my tanks did something creative and took out a Sherman through combined fire! The Tiger immobilised it, and the next shot from my Panzer IV destroyed it, ending any threat to my heavy vehicles. Pictures below:
 

The Tiger stalks a Sherman from behind a house

The battlefield, Germans taking up positions behind the Church, and British Paratroopers head through a garden on the right.

This coming Friday I will be playing a game on my desert board against British 8th Army using my Afrika Korps force, which should be an entertaining game, if I get my last squad built. So until next time folks.....

September 2013

Hello again folks,

I've beavered away over the last few weekends, athough this week has been a bit slower and so will most weeks now as I am now employed from around 8.30am till 4, and tend to be a bit tired when I come back. This unfortunately impacts on my speed of posting on here.

Anyway, Dice and Decks has said it's goodbyes to Neal, who has moved to Australia, he will be missed. As a Mantic pathfinder, Neal introduced Kings of War and Dreadball to the club, as well as Privateer Press' Warmachine and Hordes. Kings of War is a major part of this week's update here on my blog.

A visit from Square Orange Games on the last friday of august has resulted in me spending money, as always, on more new stuff, including; what was meant to be a single 6-man box of Kings of War Ogres, but turned into the box of 6 Ogres and 25 more in an army deal box, giving me a roughly 1000pt Ogre army for Kings of War as well as my Dwarves. I have constructed three of these; two basic melee Ogres and the Captain, which are shown as always with my blog posts in the pictures below:

On the 6th Sept I played another game of Kings of War using my Dwarves, but also including two Ogres I had managed to assemble in time for the game. I managed to draw with my opponent, but on the higher number of points killed, just not enough for a outright win. This was despite several times during the game where things most definately were not in my favour, such as unit of "counts as" Werewolves tearing through my flanks, and were only stopped by the game's end.

The two sides face-off early in the battle

A small unit of warriors attempts to block some undead calvary from flanking my army, they succeeded for a time, but were destroyed by the Werewolves, represented by the three larger creatures behind the calvary!

My cannon is attacked!

Dwarves with Ogre backup go all out to clear some wraiths, only to find themselves attacked by the Werewolves, which tore up my right hand flank!

A brave Ogre attempts to halt the undead advance

My Dwarf Bulwarkers, with phalanx, block the route of advance for a unit of Goblin Spearmen, who also have the phalanx special rule, so it was unit quality which won this part of the battle, in my favour....

In addition to this, I also got a General Conveyor APC and a new Sergeant and Officer for my Dystopian Legions Kingdom of Brittania force. This makes my Dystopian Legions force a very respectable size and I'm hoping to get a few of these painted and into action in the near future. Having won the two games I played a while back, i'm interested to see how the addition of tougher vehicle units changes the way the games play.
So I have been beavering away on my Dystopian Legions - the new officer is nearly completed, along with some more work being done on a few of the basic infantry, my HMG team and the General Conveyor, which is being built and painted in sections before being fully assembled as I find painting some areas of vehicles beyond difficult after assembly. 

In other news, I've been painting a SWAT police team member from The Assault Group that I have had on my desk for a while. He is part of a pack of 4 that I've left for far too long, along with most of my painting table. 

Last Friday (20th September) I had a 4 player light-hearted game of Bolt Action, with me using my Commandos and the other players scrabbling together some small forces from British Infantry. The game was played on a 6'x4' table, with each player starting in a 12" curve from each corner of the board. The game didn't last long once combat began as each player had very few actual models on the table, although some interesting dice rolls led to some great war stories. 

The table at the start of the game, my force is closest, I advanced to the right, basically causing a pair of small skirmishes on one table.

My main squad of Commandos prepares to advance.

My British regulars, used by another player, they guarded this small farmhouse until the end of the game, taking on a patrol that tried to take it with little effort.

My main enemy in the battle, a small British force, inlcuding a PIAT, Vickers Medium Machine Gun and Sniper!

Another of the four players in the game, this force stayed out of the way until the more adventurous had finished each other off, before swooping in.

The Commandos which survived the advance begin to take revenge on the entrenched enemy force.

The terrain my Commando force advanced through to attack the enemy, as SMGs in Bolt Action only have a 12" range.

My British sniper team, so far they've succeeded in being worth their weight in my box, taking kills in every game I've used them in.

My lone Commando captain advances, showing the grit of british soldiers in the face of a rubbish set of enemy shooting rolls!

This Friday just gone, I deployed my forces back onto the (model) battlefields of World War 2, having started assembling my WW2 late war Germans. I took the Germans and my Sherman Firefly (which I've now named Cecil, after the character in the new World War 1 comedy show, Chickens), the Germans were a small Grenadier squad, and two different ranked officers with SMGs - one being a model of Oberststurmfuhrer Otto Skorzeny, the free metal model you get from Warlord Games when you order the Armies of Germany army book directly from them, whom I am using as a Colonel (which in terms of actual Bolt Action counts as a Veteran Major) armed with an SMG. Josh, another member of Dice and Decks Gaming Club, was on my side with my British under his command allied with my Germans against another British force (thus why I am quickly getting my Germans done - stops us having to use British against British). He had two officers, a Lieutenant (for my Veteran Infantry) and a Captain (made from a Commando, for use with my soon to be assembled Commando platoon, of which five and the Captain are built so far), oddly only two pin markers resulted during the game on the Captain, and led to 2 Fubar! results on a morale test, meaning the Captain spent the game running along the table edge furthest from the action as cowardice took over! (highly comical for a Commando Captain to do compared with a Lieutenant - who charged into combat with revolver in hand, again! Despite last time he did so ending badly). 

My Germans as of last Friday (27th Sept, a Lieutenant on the left, a squad at the sandbags and my Colonel, using Veteran Major's stats from the rulebook supervises them!

My force ready for the off, you can see my Sherman VC Firefly in the centre, with Germans in the foreground and supporting British infantry around the tank and in the background woodland.

The right flank, you can see part of a Churchill tank that was the main worry in this game, the infantry were shredded due to lucky shooting dice rolling.

The left flank was guarded by this small platoon, with Bren Carrier support, my Sherman destroyed the Carrier having shot and disabled a Churchill on the right flank the previous turn.

 My Colonel for my Germans has been painted, and I have assembled more Germans for Bolt Action since that battle. I have also been painting my British Sniper. Below are a few work in progress shot from this last week;

My German Colonel, the model is actually a named character from WW2 which is provided free to people who order Bolt Action: The Armies of Germany directly from Warlord Games. They also provide free characters for other nations if the army book for that nation is bought direct from them.

My Colonel with some of my other German soldiers mid-way through their own painting. The one to the left of the Colonel is my Lieutenant, to the right is an NCO with cap and STG44 Assault Rifle, with an MG42 Light Machine Gunner to the far right.

A few of my Brits, including my Sniper (centre, painted, kneeling whilst aiming soldier), and also my Germans so far.

Thanks for the patience if you've been waiting for a new post, I've spent far too long with this one and will try to update more frequently (at least one post per weekend) if I can. Until next time, folks!.....

Updates for August 2013

Hello again folks,

I really must apologise this time, this post has been put off for too long. A side effect is of course I have more to blog about!

On Friday and Saturday the 2nd and 3rd of August respectively, I've once again been beavering away on Romans, and on Saturday, I decided to build some Warmachine models so I could lend my unit of Knights Exemplar to Neal at Dice and Decks Gaming Club.

I completed the assembly of my unit of Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth Knights Exemplar, one of which was completely finished and was featured on this blog some time ago, another is mid-way through painting. The unit was successfully lent out and was used in the Midlands Steamroller Warmachine Tournament on Sunday at the Ross-on-Wye scout hut.

Fully Assembled Knights Exemplar (at last)

In the process I built the rest of my Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth Exemplar Cinerators, and I have been painting the unit champion. My colour scheme for my Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth force, as a reminder, since it's been a while since I last posted about Warmachine on this blog; white armour, with crimson cloaks and crimson/red and gold edging, eyes are predominately yellow. I have also restarted doing my Judicator Collossal for my force, which is also shown below.

In other news, I've been convinced, mainly by the quality of the models, to start collecting a few models for the Batman Arkham City Miniatures Game by Knight Miniatures. The models are 35mm tall on average, with various models being slightly above or below this due to their comparative heights. I have ordered the following miniatures to test; Batman - the Dark Knight movie versions, and Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Shadows.

Batman - Dark Knight movie version - images from the Knight Miniatures site

 

Ra's Al Ghul and League of Shadows - movie version

The rules and some scenarios along with stat cards for some of the models are all available for free, but the rules are badly traslated from the designer's native Spanish. Miniatures vary, a mixture of Batman's, currently 3, a Frank Miller version, a Arkham City video game version, and the Dark Knight movie version. There are a Dark Knight movie Joker and the one from the Arkham City game, along with gang members and Harley Quinn. Penguin and his gang, generic Inmates. Heroes and villains also include; Deathstroke, Green Arrow, Robin, Nightwing, Talia Al Ghul and Catwoman. Others appear all the time and so this list isn't to be considered up to date.

The models arrived for the aforementioned game yesterday, and I have started assembling and painting the League of Shadows and Ra's Al Ghul, the Batman model is a different story however. The company I ordered from has sent me the wrong Batman! They sent me the Arkham City Video Game version, not the Dark Knight Movie version I asked for. So I had to wait until this morning for the correct one to arrive, during which time I have assembled all of the League of Shadows boxed set and started painting Ra's Al Ghul and one ninja.

The models are nice quality and I am quite chuffed with them.The current models I ordered are all going to be an interesting challenge for me to paint and try to do some more techniques than normal for me on. I have already started trying a few of these on Ra's Al Ghul as he is sculpted in the gear he was wearing for the final scenes of Batman Begins; namely black suit, with black shirt, tie and gloves, so it's an interesting challenge to show different shades of black material on the model. Above here is the finished result, where I hope the camera shows the differences.

One of the Ninjas - Lotus on the stat card, is sculpted so as to be jumping whilst throwing a morning star, and so I clipped the tab off the feet, and pinned the foot to a metal pin. When in Hereford I bought a urban basing kit from the Games Workshop there, and some various Vajello and GW paints in various shades of blue and black for the Ninjas and Batman.

I have also started working on my Judicator for my Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth again, with the torso now glued and pinned to the bottom half. The left arm has also been mostly painted, bar a few minor details and has been attached to the torso. With the rocket pods that mount on the shoulders going to be painted seperately before being glued on, otherwise it'll be a pain not to spoil the already painted sections of the Judicator.

As I have for the last two weeks been going back and painting models that I have had lying around on my painting desk, I have also in addition to those mentioned above, been painting more of my 32mm tall Dystopian Legions Kingdom of Brittannia force. At this moment I am working on the HMG team for my second squad, focussing first on the loader. The work so far is detailed in the pictures below.

As I keep adding to this post before I actually add pictures and such, which then leads to it being published, I'll state another piece of Wargaming news, I've ordered the rulebook and one ship for Mongoose Publishings' A Call to Arms: Star Fleet. A game based in the Original Series era of the Star Trek universe. I went to just order a single ship - a Constitution Class Cruiser, the same type as the original USS Enterprise, so I could try and make a ship at a manageable size and then paint it. The rules were ordered just for me to have a nose at to begin with, I'll report my opinions in a future blog post.
I have assembled the Consitution with minimal effort, although a bit of bad casting on the smooth sections at the front of the nacelles involved smoothing and filling in with Green Stuff. A slight issue is that the stand fits into the body of the model at the bottom of the hull, but the hole is not the correct size and so has had to be corrected using a rotary tool before being pinned so it can be removed from the base for painting etc. In terms of painting I have started so that I can attempt to enter it in Dice And Decks Gaming Club's painting competition this coming Friday (30th August). Here's the result so far:

Main colour is done, now the details!

In other important news, Dice and Decks Gaming Club's charity event for this year had to be cancelled due to various circumstances, a great shame, but it is hoping to run more events for next year.

Easter Holiday/Mid-April Updates

Been a while since I last posted, I apologise.

I have however, been busy enough to merit a reasonable length blog post this time around. Concering various gaming systems as always, and a little bit of scenery.

So let's start things off with another dose of my amateur history - the military of the ancient Romans. I have once again returned to the realms of Hail Caesar, and the release of their latest Late Republican Romans has got me heading for a new and hopefully, will-be-finished-this-time force for the period of the Roman Civil Wars started by Julius Caesar and ended by his nephew Octavian.
My knowledge on the subject is quite extensive (he says) in the majority of elements as my collection of books on the subject is quite varied and large. However, I cannot say nor claim to be an expert in any sense.
I have a box of 24 Late Republican Legionaries, which is already partly under construction, although I am basing each legionary individually, but have a movement tray for gaming purposes. The Centurion is the first to be assembled, and is a very slight conversion, in that I have used a helmet from the later Early Imperial stock from Warlord Games, which has been shaved down to represent a Coolus pattern helmet from the era I aiming for, this is due to the fact I am not a big fan of the provided Centurion's helmet - designed to be a type based off Greek heritage, it includes a face element, but was not ever designed to be worn down on the face, and to me looks odd and so is not likely to be included in my force.
I have also taken to modifying some of the Montefortino helmets included in the force. In that in order to fit in with the style I am aiming for in my force I have removed the crests from the helmets, which makes the force look more rough and ready, and it helps make the Centurion stand out even more. However, I may not do this to every helmet, which makes the century look less uniform. Which I feel suits an ancient army, the romans were not 100% the same in terms of a uniform for every man, sword and dagger hilts were decorated depending upon the wealth of the soldier, the Lorica Hamata, or mail armour was a reasonably uniformed element, but tunics would probably have been various colours, which I will not enter debate on.
Here's the finished Centurion and a few work-in-progress pictures:

The newest romans from Caesar's legion

The sprues as they come from the box

View of the Centurion from behind, showing the chain mail and scabbard details

The front of my finished Late Republican/Civil War era Roman Centurion

Standard bearer/Vexillarius of the century being represented

Basic legionary, with the helmet cressed removed

A legionary mid-way through painting, this isn't the same one as above, in case my progress seems even slower than believed!

And to lead this new army are of course, Legates and associated ranks, which i found relatively cheaply from Foundry miniatures on ebay, brand new. They provide a bit more variety and a less "imperial" look to their gear, and so I feel more comfortable using them than another set of Roman officers from Warlord Games.I will post pictures of these in my next blog post after I have based them.

In other news I have started playing Malifaux, a game of Victorian and Gothic Horror mixed together. I have started with the Guild faction, the closest thing to the law in the game's background. I have a force, it is based around Lucius, a Henchmen, a low level commander in game terms, but perfect for my favourite aspect, the creepy soldiers of the guild, shrouded and kitted in long coats and deep shadow causing hats, along with large rifles. So far I have finished a Guild Captain, who came in the boxed set for Lucius, whilst this came with five models, and a further three riflemen came in a seperate box. Below is my progress for this force so far:

My Guild force under Lucius as it currently stands

The Guild Captain, fully painted

I have played my first game for this on Friday (5th April), and despite starting off with what I thought was a tactical advantage, I was resoundly beaten. I did come to realise that Guild Riflemen, a type of Guardsman and some of my favourite looking models from the range are very good units in terms of rules. They are capable of supporting each other, add defence to my current crew commander and can combine their activation to enable one riflemen to shoot three times, all the while ignoring cover bonus defences.

I have also gained an addition to my Kingdom of Brittania force for Dystopian Legions, one of my squads is equipped with a flamethrower, this was the squad from the starter set, and so is better off than the squad that I got second. This has been partially rectified by the newest addition, a HMG section consisting of a large HMG with gunner and a seperately based loader.

The new HMG section for my second squad

The Dystopian Legions force without the new HMG or the second Basset Tankette

In other game news, my UCM force for Dropzone Commander has grown and become stronger; with the addition of two Scimitar tank destroyers, large tanks with prototype laser turrets, a command Kodiak APC, which is based upon the Bear APCs used as standard transports, the final addition to this force is a Seraphim heavy fighter, used for ground attacks in game terms, it is a big aerial unit compared to the ground vehicles.

All of my UCM for Dropzone Commander so far

Top-down view of the Seraphim heavy fighter for the UCM

Seraphim before it's started being painted

Kodiak Command APC

A Scimatar Heavy Battle Tank

The three Condor dropships of the UCM force so far

My final current project not yet quite finished, but very soon is a Detached house for 28mm games, based on 18th-current era european architecture from 4Ground. It is pre-painted, but comes flat-packed and must be assembled, following the instructions as carefully possible. A door or two on the inside and the chimney are the only real things that still need to be done to polish this thing off.

The building as it comes in packaging

The sprues and assembly instructions

The ground and 1st floor mid-construction (yes, I did make a labelling error, but it made sense to me at the time), the building is now virtually assembled.

 And that concludes my latest updates, I hope to add another post before the week starts anew, with some more pictures of things in progress and hopefully, more finished miniatures. Until then, readers!