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!

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.....

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.