28mm Afrika Korps test figure

 DAK Attack has become very popular at the club at the moment with people assembling vast quantities of 28mm LRDG vehicles and figures.  I thought I might build up a DAK force to provide some opposition.  I enjoyed painting the 20mm DAK figures that I have, so decided to give it a go with some Perry infantry and Warlord support pack.  While perusing the table top sales at Hammerhead, I spotted a pack of sentry figures, one DAK, one 8th Army and a WW1 Tommy or Doughboy.  I got the two figures for N Africa mounted and painted them up.  Tommy is taking a crafty drag from a cigarette, while Fritz is lighting his own.  Both these figures were marked Warlord Games on the base, but no sign of them on the current Warlord website.

Tommy's greatcoat is khaki, shorts, shirt and helmet are Iraqi Sand.  Fritz greatcoat is US Tan and helmet desert yellow.  Figures were washed in Agrax Earthshade, base colours touched up and highlighted with base colour with a little Iraqi Sand or pale sand.  Faces are light brown with pale flesh highlights washed with Reikland flesh wash.

Nice figures, should do the job of sentries quite nicely.  Now on with assembling and painting the Perry DAK infantry.

Thanks for looking.

28mm Late War German Infantry

Since last summer, we've been playing WW2 Chain of Command, mainly pitting Owain's US paratroopers against Late War German panzergrenadiers.  I've steadily worked through boxes of Warlord panzergrenadiers and support weapons, as well as picking up some unpainted figures at various bring and buys.  These metal Warlord Volksturm were picked up at the Penkridge table top sale back in September, a pack of 16 figures, just 4 missing from a complete box.

First up a unit of 5 tank hunter types armed with panzerfausts and mainly dressed as Hitler Youth or DBM.

Next, a group of 6 factory workers or similar with various small arms, a panzerfaust and an improvised Molotov cocktail.

The remainder of the set, 4 tough looking veterans and a "Golden Pheasant" SA officer.

Sniper with bendy barrel for shooting round corners - not seen any rules for this particular weapon, so probably just use him as a sniper or rifleman.

Three veterans, the guy on the left has put on a little weight since his last physical and carries a mine and panzerfaust.  Centre guy wears a reed green tunic and carries a late war improvised SMG, while the guy on the right, in addition to an assault rifle, carries a fliegerfaust hand held AA rocket launcher.  I'm not sure the Volksturm would have been issued with this wonder weapon, but I guess anything could happen in the last days of the Reich.  Wiki suggests a photo from Berlin in 1945 shows several of these weapons expended and lying in the street.

The SA officer or "Golden Pheasant" if I remember correctly from extensive reading of Sven Hassel novels in my youth.

Nice castings, very little to clean up and they have lots of detail that rewards some painting time.  I'm not sure when/where I'll be able to get them on the tabletop, but I did enjoy painting them.

Thanks for looking! 

Saga hearthguard

Two more units of hearthguard painted up for my Anglo-Dane warband.  Each is armed with spears, the first with round shields.

The second with a mixture of round and kite shields.

All completed figures so far, an Anglo-Dane warlord, an Anglo-Saxon warlord, one unit of hearthguard with Dane axes, and the two units of spear armed hearthguards.

A colourful bunch, very pleasing to see on the games table.

Thanks for looking.

Saga introduction

Well, it seems to be a month for learning new rules.  This Thursday at the club, Rick organised a Saga game so that I could get an intro to the rules and find out if I liked them enough to go out and pick up some of the lovely new hard plastic models from Warlord Games and/or Gripping Beast.  Rick had organised an evening game at the Defenders Club in Broughton and invited Luke and Red to come along for a 4 way intro game.  We quickly ran through the rules system, which is relatively easy to pick up and fairly straightforward, with almost everybody sharing similar statistics and capabilities.

During the brief walk-through of the game, Rick introduced me to the real complexity of the game which is the players special activations and abilities sheet and the "Saga Dice" system.  This is the real complexity of the game, and I was only able to scratch the surface of this aspect, as there seem to be a vast number of ways to use the Saga dice depending on your forces' skills and that of the opponents troops.

Rick has posted a battle report on his site:

http://rgmb-stonebridge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/saga-anglo-danish-welsh-alliance-vs.html

This shows some really nice pictures of the troops that Rick, Luke and Red brought with them (a big thanks to Luke for the loan of his lovely Anglo-Danish warband).  The key thing for me was how quickly the rules system became second nature and the game turns began to flow quite quickly with a nice period "feel".

All in all, a really nice game system and well worth the investment in a set of the rules and some suitable figures.  Now, all I have to decide is Viking, Anglo-Danish, Saxon, Welsh, Irish, Scots .... etc.  Decisions, decisions!

Thanks again to Rick for organising the game and the introduction, and to Luke for the loan of his troops, and I can only admire Red's immersion into the full-on aggression of his Viking warband.

Thanks for looking.