A box game I bought way back when.

Gaslands Refuelled Highway Patrol

 As part of the Gaslands Refuelled game, North Star released a range of 20mm figures.

One of the packs is the Highway Patrol.

The figure is based on a Renedra 20mm round base. The figure's puddle base has been smoothed in with Milliput.

The figure was undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black.

The uniform was Humbrol Oxford Blue 25. The gun's metalwork is Vallejo Black Grey.

The boots and the cap band and brim are Army Painter Black. The badge is Army Painter Stone Golem.

The shotgun slide is Citadel Rhinox Hide and the belt, holster and pouches Citadel Catachan Flesh.

Implements of Carnage

 

While ordering some other things from North Star, I added the two Implements of Carnage plastic sets.

The first sprue contains various upgrade pieces to convert die cast cars (and a motorbike).

The second sprue has another motorbike and a dune buggy plus lots of interesting bits and pieces.

Not Warfare 2020

North Star and Osprey Games released The second expansion for Oathmark on the 19th of November, and were running a pre-order offer from the end of October.

North Star had a five for the price of four offer on the Oathmark plastic boxes - including the new Skeleton figures.

So I reinforced my Human forces, added a whole box to the dwarf Infantry sprue I picked up at Salute a while back, added a Goblin box (I will need more) and two boxes of the new Skeleton Infantry. I also added  a Fireforge Northman Cavalry box and a Frostgrave Soldiers box.

As the pre-order was about the new Oathbreaker supplement for Oathmark, I also ordered the first supplement )Battlesworn and Oathbreakers.

Battlesworn adds experienced units that can improve over battles, engineers and rivers.

Oathbreakers adds undead armies and Legendary Heroes. There will be another post on this supplement later.

Frostgrave Second Edition adds and improves the existing skirmish game - more on this when I get a chance to read it.

While I was at it, I added a few additional items (more 25mm bases and sabot trays), added a new scale-theme to my collections (Mark Copplestones Gaslands figures in 20mm) and smoother bits and pieces.

Twilight 2000: Reference material 2

Back in the mid to late 'eighties, I used to play Ultramodern 6mm games. One of the companies responsible for the rules I used was Tabletop Games, especially those rules written by the late Bruce Rea-Taylor.

First up is actually a set of rules designed for 20mm scale games (based on a ground scale of 1cm = 1 metre). It includes organisations for British, American and Soviet forces.

 Challenger (and the later Challenger II) rules were for 6mm and 10mm games with infantry based as half section (Challenger) or full section (Challenger II). Challenger was published in 1983, Challenger II in 1988

There is a whole range of supplements for these (and the War-games Research Group).

The Digest series added additional forces from various theatres. Digests four and five were published after Mr Rea-Taylor's death and cover forces for Challenger II.

There was a scenario book, with a mix of historical and fictional scenarios.

A more detailed look at these books will follow.

Another set of rules from that period are Games Designer Workshop rules Combined Arms.

Those rules were at a larger scale, each vehicle/stand representing a platoon.

One of the most important fact/fiction books was The Third World War. This is the inspiration for Harold Coyle's Team Yankee novel.

Fame at last!

So a while back (May) I posted some photographs of my late 'eighties model of a tank from Twilight 2000.

This was in response to a thread on the Lead Adventures forum about a Twilight 2000 blog.

The guy responsible for the blog has posted photographs of my model on his blog:

Now I need to find some more of the rules (version 1 and 2) and build some 28mm models for it.

M1A2 Abrams "Giraffe", a Twilight 2000 tank

In the mid to late 'eighties Games Designer Workshop released a role playing game based on a Third World War scenario. The forces on both sides started out equipped with current and bleeding edge (Ultra-Modern) military hardware.

Many of the designs were based on experimental vehicles and test beds, others on "to be delivered soon" equipment. As the present steamrollered over the "future" many of them fell by the wayside.

A revised version was released with a revised "future" after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

One of the vehicles was the M1A2 "Giraffe", a slightly futuristic design based on the current M1 tank.

One of the continuing thoughts on tank design is how to reduce the width of the turret to reduce weight but still provide protection to the crew. One way of doing that would be to move the crew into the hull and operate the turret and gun remotely. There were a number of designs before the M1 Tank Test Bed (including a Cromwell with a remote turret).

The Giraffe was based on this concept. History (in the form of the US Army) moved on and the M1A2 became an enhanced M1A1.

So I built a number of vehicles to represent Twilight 2000 vehicles. This is the Giraffe.

It was built more than 25 years ago, so I cannot remember the origin of the Abrams kit.

The hull was built according to the instructions. The turret ring was plated over  leaving a hole to take the Meccano bearing.

A Modelscenes Sewer Pipe  was used to raise the turret above the hull..

The basic turret was constructed according to the instructions to make a suitably robust structure, it was then cut with a razor saw to remove the gun mount. The new turret was then cut from plastic card. The armoured box that contains the sight, the commander's hatch and the wind speed detector were added to the basic turret box. Milliput was used to smooth the transitions.

The plastic sewer pipe was attached to the turret box and a Meccano bolt was milliputed in place for the pivot.

Various items of stowage were added to the hull.

 The loader's hatch was added to the revised deck of the tank.

The camouflage was taken from an example in the US Army vehicle guide published by GDW.

This model has been in storage for more than twenty years, only being brought out in response to a posting on a forum.

References for the M1 TTB (normal warnings about external internet sites apply)

http://warfaretech.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/m1-tank-test-bed-ttb-with-unmanned.html

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/488315-what-happened-to-the-m1-ttb/

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/10260-m1-based-ttb-and-cattb/