Part 2 end of 2013 - Resurgence of playing Dropzone Commander - End of October/Early November 2013.

Hello again folks, time for part 2 of the end of 2013, the last 3 months of it at least....

In the period of the end of October and November, I started playing alot more of Dropzone Commander, and added some Praetorians and Raven dropships to my UCM force in order to help take more objectives quickly and get them off the board without risk of the units transporting them being taken out by enemy forces. Additionally, I managed to get a copy of the Dropzone Commander starter set for myself, and played a couple of big games;

The starter set for Dropzone Commander.

The battlefield made from the starter set

CQC takes place in one building, my infantry outnumbered the enemy significantly and so easily removed them.

 I've also played a few games of Flesh Wounds - a zombie RPG wargame, using Zombies I got in a bulk box from Mantic Games, and the survivors I mentioned last post from Wargames Factory. The game is based on random numbers of patrols of Zombies attracted to survivors by the noise they make as they roam the board looking for aid and resources

Game 1:

Zombies swarm my character and the cause of their arrival....

Game 2:

The last survivor is overwhelmed by the numbers of Zombies

Part 1 end of 2013 - update for October 2013

Hello again folks, this is part 1 of a 3 part end of 2013 update, since I kept meaning to update each month but didn't.

I've was busy this month, making up for my slow work in the previous month - I played another game of the World War 2 28mm game from Warlord Games; Bolt Action, and expanded my German Army force for the aforementioned game by adding another infantry box and a Panzer IV Ausf H tank to the force, neither of which is ready for action just yet, but when they are, my force will be 51 men and 1 tank.

The game on the first Friday this month, (4th October) was with my usual opponents, with one ally, the force being Germans + British vs British. It went exceedingly well, and my team won with very few casualties.

The Sherman takes out a Churchill on the opposing side

My forces mop up the enemy

My second game, however, didn't go quite as smoothly, it was a 4 player free for all game. Two sets of British, Russians and Germans. Me and my fellow Bolt Action players have been experiencing some issues with the rules, especially around the orders per turn and the random player selection.

The field at the start of the game.

My German Colonel

Officers take shelter.

Snipers in the building, they managed to take out a few enemies approaching, but were eventually killed off by good dice rolls from one of my opponents.

I played my second game of Dropzone Commander by Hawk Wargames, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We used the terrain found in the two player starter set, and played a three player game, two of us using a UCM starter set each, and the third used the Scourge starter force.

My infantry occupy a building to search for an objective

Road-block!

I was assembling some Zombie Apocalypse Survivors from Wargames Factory in preparation for Dice and Decks Gaming Club's Halloween themed club night on the 1st November. These in comparison to the Caesarian Romans I purchased a while back from Wargames Factory are much better and I am very impressed with the casting, and the quantity of stuff you can use; guns of all types, chainsaws, ten different bodies (of which there are 3 sprues, and a weapon sprue). You can see the set in the pictures below:

I've also purchased a copy of Dust Warfare, a weird World War 2 game, set in 1947 where the discovery of advanced technology has bought on a new scale of war, with armoured walkers fighting alongside new weapons. I intend to have a practice as reviews on the models are varied, although the game seems solid enough to play for fun. I am building more of my Secrets of the Third Reich British Steel Suits to potentially smuggle into Dust as a unit of something.

I am also still building Ogres and Basilean Paladins, which are to be used as allies in the case of the Basileans and a seperate army in the case of the Ogres for Kings of War. The Paladins come from an angelic army, so I am painting them in white robes with gold or yellow trim and gold trim on their armour to show this is the "good" side of the armies available.

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!