28mm Republican Allied Italian Legion Sets Sail

 

This years project for the Analogue Hobbies Winter Paint Challenge is 1 to 20 Allied Italian Legion for the Punic Wars using 28mm Victrix figures. So that will be 32 Velites, 64 Hastati, 64 Principes, 32 Triarii, 24 Cavalry and 3 Command Bases.

Unfortunately 8 of the Velites have some how managed to desert in between them being prepped a month ago and paint time, search parties are out and the word decimation has been whispered in some plastic ears !

Here are all the bases for the project lined up ready to be filled with figures.

I really like the faces on the Victrix figures, they suit my painting style and are full of character. The figures are on 60 x 30 bases, 2 per base to reflect their skirmish role. I intend to use Mortem et Gloriam as a rule set but as with everything I do and in true Yarkshire Fashion I am basing them "how I bloody well like" and bending the rules to fit my basing.

24 figures is more than most armies these days, I sit and listen to a number of podcasts going on about how you can't have big games in 28mm and big units are unachievable etc etc, well Yarkshire Gamer disagrees and is fighting back 😀 

Also hot off the press is one of the three Command Bases I am planning, I'm going to do two, two figure bases and a 3 figure one.

These figures are from the Imperial Roman Victrix General set, I've just substituted some heads out of the Allied Legion box to Republicanise them a bit.

I've prepped all the shield transfers for the heavier Infantry so they are ready to go. I chose to do my Roman Legion with plain shields, but went for random decorated shield for my Italian Allied Legion, mostly for ease of tabletop recognition. I'm well aware of the lack of historical evidence for (or against) shield designs in this era so a educated decision has been made on their inclusion.

Update in a couple of weeks when some more are done.

December 2020 - Yarkshire Gamer Wargames Update

This months update video on the Utubes bring you up-to-date on the Yarkshire Gamer world just prior to the Vallejo Flow begins with the Analogue Hobbies Winter Paint Challenge, will I finish my 1:20 28mm Republican Roman Italian Allied Legion in 3 months ? Looking at them piled up on the desk with 200 shield transfers to do the answer is no ! But lets give it a go.

The new units featured this month are

Some 28mm 1st Corps Punic Cavalry, some 15mm WW2 German Infantry 

And some 28mm WW1 Indian Cavalry 

Some new Sweeney inspired Cops and Robbers mini Project vehicles

And one massive Castle !

Merry Christmas from Yarkshire Gamer, may Santa fill your sacks full of lovely toys !

WW1 Indian Cavalry for Mesopotamia

 

Those in the know will be aware of my deep dive into the  world of the obscure when it comes to my search for suitable figures for Cavalry for Mesopotamia and Palestine in WW1. With Brigade Games a very expensive postage charge away in the US my search has finally hit gold.

God knows how I found these, some random tinterwebnet search during a bout of insomnia probably. So these are from a Company called Newline Designs and they are hidden away deep in the depths of their website. I struggle to find them now and I've bought some in the past !

But if you can negotiate the minefield in the drive, beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes, make it past the shotguns in the hall, dial the combination to open the priest hole, you too might find these figures to by on the Newline Website.

Newline (to me anyway) are better known for their 20mm Napoleonic range, these Cavalry sit will a couple of packs of late colonial infantry all on their own. I bought and painted 6 of them a few months ago, liked how they looked and bought another 18 to make up a unit.

So if you are new to wargames and are more used to the modern skirmish style of gaming, this is what a proper unit looks like ! 24 figures is bigger than most armies these days 🤣

The figures come with metal Lances but they looked a bit small to me, I also prefer the steel wire pikes for strength and the sharp pointed ends deter anyone from picking them up in a hurry, so I cut down some 100mm pikes I had lying around. I also used a couple of sword hands I had lying around in my Crusades spares box for the officers.

I've not been able to find any pictures of these troops with lance pennants in Mesopotamia so I have left them off the models. Likewise I have left the rifles off the side of the saddle, I found that (with no pin and guide hole) the connection was very fragile and interfered with the position of the lance on a number of poses so I left them off. If it's going to break whilst I'm building it, it's definitely going to break when being moved around in game action.

So with Covid still around and us Northerners remaining in Tier 3 despite massively reduced infection rates there will be no Xmas Game this year for these guys to make their debut in. Things will be going very ancient here very shortly but I've seen that Newline are having a 25% sale in January, which could well mean another unit !

28mm Crusader Castle - Empires at Arms - A Review

 

Featured in last month's Utubes update was the latest addition to the Crusades Project, a 28mm MDF castle from Empires at War. It's a big old thing, it covers close to a third of our 12 x 6 table, perfect for the sort of skirmish games we like 😉

I've done a video review on the Utubes, photos below if that is your preference.

The castle comes in 12 seperate sections each of which can be bought individually. At 90 pounds all in I think this is good value.

https://empiresatwar.co.uk/product/28mm-western-crusader-castle-modular-kit/

The sections come in seperate MDF kits, they are good quality and are easy to put together, me and my lad put all these together in about 3 hours.

There are 6 wall sections, 4 corner towers, a gate house, a centre tower and a staircase. The items are all really well designed and when completed they fit together perfectly. Each wall section fits one of my 24 figure units perfectly.

My plan (in the future) is to somehow paint this up in the style of a Crusader Castle along the lines of the Krak des Chevalier in Syria, I love the white stone and hints of green vegetation. Any model builders got any tips on how do get that effect ?

However it will more than likely stay as it is 😁

All in all I think the piece is good value, detail is great. It's easy to put together and is nice and strong. It's a great building to have for some proper Big Battle Crusades Gaming.

Troops on Parade - 28mm Spanish Civil War

 

If you're not aware, Troops on Parade is a regular here at Yarkshire Gamer, usually during quiet gaming periods I take the opportunity to put a collection out on the table in its entirety, click a few snaps and make a bit of a Utubes movie to record everything in one period together in the same place at the same time, something that, even during a game wouldn't normally happen. With lockdown those opportunities are more frequent.

Above is the Spanish Civil War collection in all its glory, according to The Great Wargames Figure Count there are just short of 500 28mm figures here. It's one of the collections where a few of the others have decent sized forces so I don't personally own some of the various factions of the SCW, Falange, CNT, POUM etc, they are in other people's hoards.

Above is the Utubes video covering the collection, the rest of the post covers the same info but with still pictures rather than moving ones.

The picture above is of the Carlist Force, these are the troops I usually use in a game. Although completely impractical in modern warfare, I love the yellow tasselled Red Berets, they really stand out on the table. They probably also really stood out to anyone shooting at them as well. Our rules have a basic unit as a 4 fig HQ section and 3 x 8 figure sub units. There are 4 such Carlist "Companies" in the collection.

In addition to the infantry there are some Carlist support units, here we have a HMG and an Anti Tank Gun. Also in shot are a couple of Panzer I, metal models from Empress.

Next up are the Guardia Civil, a very distinctive unit in its mid green uniform, yellow braces and rear upturned head gear, a uniform that remains largely the same today. This unit contains a few figures from the old Anglican Miniatures range which are now made by Templar Miniatures (apologies I forgot the name whilst doing the video).

A versatile unit that could be used on both sides of the fighting.

Behind them are two units of Moors. Most of these figures come from North Star, who randomly do some Moors and some International Brigades but nothing else. One of the regular gamers here Rob has quite a few of these, we needed a few more for our Jarama refight so I invested in these. The Command figures are from Templar.

Next up is a rather lovely (even if I do say so myself) mounted unit of 20 figures, gorgeous models from Empress and definitely one of my favourites from the SCW collection.

The first figures I painted for the collection were these Spanish Foreign Legion, these journeyed from Africa with Franco and the Moors at the start of the war. There are 4 units in total. Looking at the photo reminds me I never got round to putting a layer of Matt varnish on these.

These three figures are a film crew I painted up for our University City Madrid 1936 Game (note the Land and Freedom on the clapper board. It was a great fun game and I recommend you have a go at it if you play Spanish Civil War.

Also featured is the Legendary Mad Bull (see our game write ups) along with a Ernest Hemingway figure sporting a Bradford City tie.

Here is the rather random selection of motley armoured vehicles, the FT 17 holds a special place in the Yarkshire Gamer heart, it was the first thing I painted for the collection, it was also the first 28mm vehicle I'd done and those of you with very long memories will recall it was the first photograph that ever appeared on Yarkshire Gamer.

I do have some opponents in my collection, 4 units of International Brigades, the British Battalion, the American Abe Lincoln Battalion, the Canadian Mac Paps and Conolleys Irish, plus 3 supporting Maxim Guns.

I used loads of different figure manufacturers to make up the International Brigades in an attempt to get the most ragged look possible. There are Empress, North Star, Warlord WW2 Partisans, Irish Rebellion and Footsore.

The quality of the figures is just superb and it was definitely a "shiny" moment that got me into the period, but they have grown to be one of the favourite games we do here at Yarkshire Gamer.

Hopefully things will return to normal soon and these will once again grace the Yarkshire Gamer table.

So there we have the Spanish Civil War collection. I doubt our traditional WW1 Mesopotamia Christmas Game will go ahead so I will probably do a TOP feature on that collection instead.

Thanks for watching and reading, it's much appreciated. Blogs seem to be going out of fashion, in favour of the more instant Twitter, Facebook, Insta platforms and hits here are a long long way down on the highs of a few years ago, where and what I do with the blog format is something I am currently mulling over.

15mm Kursk Russian Reinforcements

 

After the mega build over my summer holidays I had some more Russian tanks to add to the collection including some heavier stuff. I had some SU76s unpainted from summer (I forgot to take them on holiday with me) along with some Zvenda kits I had picked up off the tinterwebnet.

4 SU76s give and some nice Anti Tank and Support options for my Russians, like the way these look, especially the crew figures.

The KV1s are from Zvenda, although these models don't have as much detail as the PSC ones they do fill a number of gaps in the PSC range, the tracks on these need a bit of dirt but I do like how these have come out.

If there are KV1s then their will be KV2s, although most of these vehicles were out of action / becoming obsolete at the time of Kursk there were a few still kicking around, they could certainly still do a job.

In addition I have got some ISU 152s, (yes I like one is the wrong model) only 24 saw action AT Kursk but these are big dangerous beasts.

Finally some rather nice Zis trucks again from Zvenda. That's the last of the current planned stuff for Kursk for the moment, I'll do some playtests etc before I invest in some more.