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 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...

Early August 2014 - There's no business like snow business!

Hello again folks!

So I've had a game of Batman; The Miniatures Games, me using Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Shadows, my opponent used Batman from the Arkham video games, Catwoman and two police. We only really had a basic go, but Ra's Al Ghul got an early charge on Catwoman, but spent almost the entire game dealing with her, eventually critically injuring her, before being engaged by Batman for 2 turns, and then was virtually defeated. The Ninjas tried to melee and shoot Batman (Lotus, who was then engaged by Police and Yang) but failed and both were knocked out! Ying tried to take on the cops, but also was knocked out! So a technical fail, losing the Ninjas and nearly Ra's Al Ghul himself. But killing Catwoman was 66 reputation, compared to only 61 yielded by the defeated ninjas, so I technically won, but lost more of the crew. I also apologise as I was playing I forgot to take any pictures for this particular game!

My reinforcements for my Bolt Action Late War German army have also arrived, a 150mm Heavy Howitzer with crew, ready to add some serious indirect fire support, I have also made a spotter so that targets the Howitzer cannot see can be targeted by the weapon. I have been waiting for the late war 150mm Howitzer model to be released by Warlord Games, as it is a superb sounding weapon in the rules for the game, and this is compounded by the Forward Artillery Observer using the 3D6 High Explosive Howitzer shots when it hits a unit, and it has worked well for me! Hopefully on the board artillery will prove more useful.

The Howitzer just after assembly

The Howitzer after it's main coat of paint, I haven't made any more progress since this picture, but need to check on how they looked during the war before I do!

In big news, my rebasing of the German Bolt Action force is progressing - I have started adding Gale Force 9 snow to my originally finished models and have finished a few more, as well as sculpted more hoods to the jackets of some of the plastic models. I decided to change this to suit a more Eastern front, but will also work for winter/spring 44/45 on the Western as well as Eastern front. So it's normal uniforms, mixed with winter jackets and outfits. although so far lacking in great coat equipped troops. The snow is being used to try and get a tundra/thawing look, but some have got more on the base than others.

A Nachtjager and one of my German Infantry with a converted hooded winter jacket

My Tiger 1 is also done now. Below is some pictures from a game of Bolt Action I had on the 8th August, using my Germans with some of the pictures showing the rebasing in progress on some figures and the Tiger 1 in it's now finished state (well, except the turret as by the time I took the pictures it was mid-game and the Tiger had suffered a minor mishap fighting the Russians).

The main area of the table where my force was congregating, you can see a winter jacket-ed German in the middle of the infantry on the top left, as well as some of my snow bases so far!

The Tiger, post taking a hit off a Russian tank and so destroyed in-game, represented by this fire token in place of the turret  temporarily, but this is the finished tank, the base is representing thawing snow, rather than deep winter snow.

My Nachtjager squad with Infra-red Assault Rifles, one of these, as shown, is now finished, and with one of the more dense covered bases, these guys count as veteran grenadiers with assault rifles during normal Bolt Action games.

Infantry massing behind a wall, in various states of work in progress, to finished, such as the NCO in the centre with the snowy base.

The Howitzer and crew, as is normal for my new German Bolt Action kit, it missed all shots all game!

I also have a slightly random project I have just started, I bought a box of 20 Dreamforge Eisenkern Stormtroopers, and the accompanying accessory sprue. I am using these to make an sci-fi army for any system  at the moment, as they are to look as close to Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers as possible, which isn't too far off, bar a few details and the helmets. I decided to accept the deviations and leave the troopers as they are rather than convert the models and risk mucking them up or ending up with an even more obscure look to them. So look out fir these in future posts as I love the models and will probably end up with more of them.

My first Stormtrooper NCO, these are likely to see use during Beyong the Gates of Antares playtesting, I'm unsure if I want to on future models change the magazine on the SMG to look more like a Star Wars blaster. This model has been undercoated and I have started on the white armour plates since this picture.

I also had a game of X-Wing The Miniatures Game this evening (15th August), a full game using all rules (although there were no points spare on either side for modifications). I was going to use 4 of my TIE Fighters and a Lambda Class Shuttle, but this changed once my opponent showed up with alot more choices, so I ended up with 4 TIE Fighters (Howl-Runner, , and an Obsidian Squadron Pilot) and a TIE Defender.  These pictures were taken during the squad building/altering before the game started, but as stated above, the squadron changed from my original plan to a completely different fighters only squadron by the time we started!

My original squadron's character cards.

The originally planned squadron

My second idea for the squadron I wanted to field, since the game, I've taken a real liking to the TIE Defender, which is top right in this picture.

The character I chose as pilot of the TIE Defender I borrowed for the game.

Character Cards for the final squadron I actually fielded.

The squadron, 4 normal TIEs and a TIE Defender.

TIE Defender

Other options I could have picked, a TIE Advanced, TIE Phantom or TIE Bomber.

And in Airsoft news, I have some Vietnam era US Jungle boots for my next game, well, they're on their way, somewhere, and I have played my 6th game of Airsoft. Slowly , I am getting the right kit for a Vietnam loadout, for something a bit different. Here's a preview of the boots in question:

And that's all for now folks, so until next time, have fun...

May 2014.

This is a mixture of wargaming and a little bit of information on a major event in my life.

As of 23rd April I was taken into hospital with severe abdominal pain, which once an ambulance dropped me off at A+E full of painkiller, for which I bless the person who invented liquid IV paracetamol, as this was all that could stop me being in agony for the trip, as morphine was useless in my case. It was discovered that I had appendicitis, and so at quarter to one in the morning on Thursday 24th April, I was in theatre having my appendix removed, except, it wasn't that simple - the appendix wasn't there any more, it had died, having already burst, and was just a rotten black thing floating in my abdomen filling me with poisonous pus and endangering my life, which according to the doctor was a couple of days at most at this point, but luckily it was removed along with the majority of the pus. So then I spent 10 days in hospital on intravenous anti-biotics and suffering with a wound infection, which was sorted by the return of the surgeon who spotted it within seconds and involved him re-opening a few centi-metres of the wound to drain the infection. So now I am at home recovering off work for a few weeks. Which means I have had a few weeks in which to do nothing but play video-games, and assemble and paint my wargaming miniatures! Which leads us on to the rest of this post....


I have started assembling the remaining half of my Bolt Action German late war infantry, which are my veteran grenadier squads, who are the more heavily armed part of my force. I have also painted and finished the spotter for my sniper team, whose wearing splinter camouflage just like the sniper himself. 
I have also carried on painting my Tiger, and assembling and priming my two Sdk.fz 251/1 Ausf Cs. Which I regretted trying to do having already assembled one as I am having trouble getting paint under the lip of the armour by the driver's seat. Although this is extrememly difficult to spot if your looking at the vehicle, and will be further hidden when the MG42 gunner is glued in position at the front. 

I have also thanks to the Warlord Games forums, found out after years of postulating, what the 20mm autocannon used by the German forces at the end of Saving Private Ryan is. It is a 2.0cm Flak 38 anti-aircraft gun on its wheeled trailer just on a low elevation so it can hit ground targets, in honour of the film, which is one my favourite WW2 films, I have ordered a Flak 38 for my German forces in Bolt Action, ordered from The Wargames Command Store and it is made by the modelling manufacturer Company B. This will arrive next week (well, it was due to arrive last week but has been delayed due to stock problems) and will be a small but welcome addition to my force, as it is small enough to be potentially ignored by an opponent in favour of my tank/s and so it can be used to take out infantry all the way up to lightly armoured vehicles, and any future aircraft my opponents may get (as that is what it is really for, but I'll ignore it in favour of attacking infantry with it like in the film).

Anyhoo, last night (16th May), after a 3 week gap I returned to Dice and Decks, and took part in a massive game of Bolt Action, and did some shopping for my X-Wing miniatures game collection thanks to a visit from Square Orange Games. In terms of X-Wing, I expanded my Imperial force with a Lambda class shuttle, whilst the Rebel Alliance gained the transport used to evacuate Hoth at the start of The Empire Strikes Back.

The Lambda Class Shuttle for the Imperials

 

The Transport for the Rebel Alliance, half scale compared to the other ships, but still a nice model.

The Bolt Action game was a 2 v 2 game, consisting of me and another German player vs British and Russians combined. We never really got going, we managed one and a half full turns, but plenty of action occured with so many models on the table, which I have realised I didn't manage to photograph at any point during the night (Doh!). I can say that we had 3 tanks, 2 Panzer IV Ausf H and a Tiger 1, and 4 Sdk Fz 251/1s, along with around 60 men, and most importantly, my newly finished German Medic, converted from the basic plastics and whom I'm very happy with how it looks. He managed to survive the battle (our Russian player likes to take shots at Medics in game to prevent them saving casualties), much to an opponents annoyance. However, the enemy had 3 MMG teams, around 80+ infantry, a 17pdr Anti-tank gun, a Churchill Tank and a Josef Stalin 2 tank, which managed to take the Tiger out (so now 2 games into it being my army it still hasn't managed to do anything but blow up). 

Some pictures of my new additions to my Bolt Action Germans are below as well as pictures of my assembled force so far;

One of my Veteran Grenadier squads and it's transport.

1st Platoon Lieutenant and his guard.

My heavy-hitters, well, "hitters" is a bit of an exaggeration as the Tiger never does alot, misses every shot and dies very quickly in most games.

My most complete squad so far - with an NCO and a Grenadier both finished, with another two well on the way.

The Sniper team, as mentioned above, both are now finished, and wearing splinter camouflage tunics and the spotter's helmet is also in the same camouflage scheme.

My Colonel (who counts as a major in games) and his Bodyguard

My converted medic - a tempting target for the Russian Snipers (my Russian opponent hates Medics and prioritises them as targets for his snipers, so a bright white helmet might not have been the best choice on my part!).

My half-painted MMG Team

My completed force so far, there is another half to put on the table yet so it will be even more formidable yet!

Which leads onto another game at Dice and Decks on the 23rd May, another Bolt Action game, a 3 player game (due to the adsence of our fourth Bolt Action gamer). So it was my Germans vs Russians vs another army of Germans. As seems to becoming worringly often, the Tiger failed again to do anything useful, but at least wasn't destroyed this time. The other German force took out one of my Half-tracks, with a Panzerfaust, which is a first in our club. But this didn't end well, it set the Half-track on fire, resulting in it being destroyed, and the squad of Veteran Grenadiers bailing the vehicle, and losing only one man in the process. This led to a tense wait for the next turn's order dice, which I got, and so the surviving squad from the Half-track fired and caused four deaths on the squad that took out their transport. The Russians, as usual, were virtually invincible to all fire directed at them. A problem that needs to be sorted, some artillery might be needed in the future.

However, Warlord Games has had a half price sale on their individual sprues of plastic troops, so I ordered 3 sprues of Late War Germans and 3 sprues of Early War Germans (adding 30 more men to my force, the early war Germans will add variety to my force) and some extra weapons, and finally a squad of newly released Late War Germans with Stg44s equipped with early Infra-red night sights on them, which look interesting and so were ordered, giving me a unique looking squad of Veterans in my now company sized force, since I have 2 platoons now with these additions, 2 officers to lead them and an overall Officer in charge. 

My latest game of Bolt Action on the 30th May didn't give me a chance to field my new German reinforcements however. My regular opponent had also taken advantage of the Warlord sprue sale and managed to get a decent sized Japanese army! In the interests of a slightly more historical match-up, I decided to use my USMC, and lost resoundly, although I have a suspicion that the national rules may have been over-exaggerated. Next week, June 6th (70th anniversary of the D-day landings) I am having another game of Bolt Action using my Germans against another member of Dice and Decks Gaming Club member's British force. This will be a more close-run thing (I hope!), as our forces are more balanced and both of us are aware of each others special rules for the two forces.

I have also bought a new terrain piece of terrain for Bolt Action games, a 28mm scale church, which I have started assembling and have termporarily fitted together for use in games whilst I'm painting it, as I find it easier to paint it in pieces rather than glue it together and try to paint it all at once.

The main body of the Church, with the rest of the pieces lying in it.

The Church's front entrance, the door isn't present as it is being painted seperately.

And that's all for now folks!