Dark Ages and a wee boat

It's been a long time coming, but here is another small update. Things are ticking along as before, good days and bad etc. I have managed to get a bit of painting in and even a bit of gaming. Painting wise has mostly been Dark Ages troops for my collection. After starting out painting enough for Dux Brittanarium games, between 30 and 40 figures each side, I now have enough(almost) for a To the Strongest game with over 100 figures each side.

 So here are the newly painted figures. First up are 8 cracking Romano-British cavalry from Footsore miniatures. They are some of the best figures out there in my opinion and I will, eventually, get some more.

Then we have some plastic Gripping Beast and metal Black Tree Design cavalry. The Gripping Beast ones are ok, saved by the cost compared to metals but certainly not up to the standard of the Footsore ones. The Black Tree figures are nice, but the amount of work that needed to be done to the horses puts them off the future buy list. Sort out the molds fellas!

The next five photos are all Gripping Beast foot figures that I picked up on eBay for not much per figure or left over plastics from my Dux Brit forces. All together there are 117 assorted foot, a mix of spears, javelins, musicians and standard bearers.

 The shield and banner designs are all from LBMS and very nice they are too.

 I had thought I would have enough with this lot as it gave me a total of 32 horse and 240 foot but alas, I need some more archers.

Only 14 more admittedly, but it is still 14 more!





The reason for this is my To the Strongest Romano-British force has quite a few units of light infantry archers. I don't know if they are any good as we have only played the game twice, but I can have them so I will.

Here is the Romano-British army as it currently stands. Three generals, two units of cavalry, one of light cavalry, five units of pedites(spearmen), two units of mercenary Saxon warriors and five units of assorted light infantry. There are only three units of light infantry in the picture and they are missing a couple of figures, hence why I need 14 more.

 To face the Britons I have also put together a Saxon force. Three generals, one cavalry, eight warriors and three units of light infantry. A blunt instrument to be fair, but different to the Britons.

The other bit of painting I have done is a bit different, a small boat from China via eBay. It came as a plywood kit and looks pretty decent for a motor launch type of thing for future games. I have hidden some magnets under the deck so my pulp figures machine guns can be mounted on deck.

And that's it for now. I am playing To the Strongest at the Devon Club next month, so there will be a report on that at some point. Adios for now.

Back to 25mm WW2 figures again.

This afternoon/evening has been very productive. I don't know why but I have been painting and basing like a mad man and finished off quite a lot. Everything here has been in my unpainted pile for several months/years, so it's been quite good to get some of it done.

First up is a Warlord Blitzkrieg German infantry platoon, less the officer and mortar as I don't have them. All told it's 30 figures, all plastic and all finished.

They are organised in 3 squads of 10 men, each with an NCO with MP40 SMG, a 2 man MG34 team and 7 riflemen. I really like these figures, they are nice to put together and paint up well even if you slap it on like I do. These have even had the helmet decals and NCOs rank badges added. They may well end up on eBay though, I am not doing 28mm WW2 anymore...........

I could keep them to do a Operation Sealion game though, using my VBCW figures as opposition.......

I could.......

Couldn't I?

Hmm, do I order a command pack, 5cm mortar and AT rifle team then, just to complete the platoon?

Decisions decisions. ;-)

Yes, I know I have no willpower thank you.



I also finished off a conversion of an old pre-Warlord Bolt Action Universal Carrier. I always liked the fact that the Germans used pretty much everything they captured from small arms up to warships.


I decided to make a 3.7cm PaK 36 auf Selbstfahrlafette Bren(e), which is a long and complicated way of saying "We put a PaK 36 on the captured carrier". I got the PaK from the Rubicon Sd251 kit I made a while ago, the crew are cut up Bolt Action German grenadiers and the stowage is from my bits box and a mix of plastic and resin items.

I think it came out pretty nicely, with the crew looking a bit more dynamic than the ones in the Bolt Action kit you can buy. It's another "Should I keep it or sell it" conundrum though.

 I reckon I'll keep it as it is a one off and I like how it turned out. I can always blag it into a Sealion game as captured after Dunkirk and used against it's former owners.

Last but by no means least, I also finished off some winterised Germans I made up with Russian greatcoat figures from the Winter Russians box by Bolt Action. A simple job of using German heads, arms, weapons and webbing and voila, a 10 man squad of troops fighting in the snow. The snow is simply a PVA and bicarbonate of soda mix, applied quite thickly and left to dry. I think it works and it is much cheaper than buying any sort of special snow basing material.



So that's it for now again. I am off to do something less productive so have fun folks.

Too many new rules to keep up with

First up, apologies for the absence.  Things have been a bit rocky on the health front again so I have been keeping my head down and trying not to upset anybody.  Enough about that, onto wargames.

Gaming has again been somewhat limited.  A few Lion and Dragon Rampant games has been the limit of my action for the last few weeks.  It has got me painting some of the plastic/lead mountain though, which is good.  The rules are straightforward and give a decent game in a couple of hours, even if some people just choose to ignore the army size rules and do their own thing. ;0)

 So, first up we have a unit of Rohan infantry.  Most foot units are 12 figures in Dragon Rampant, so that is what I painted.  My thoughts are that they will be light infantry with added missile weapons, the leather armour and wooden shields rule out counting them as heavy infantry.  I will paint some more, this is just the first unit for a Rohan force.

The majority of my painting has been Uruk-Hai for an Isengard army as raised by Saruman in Lord of the Rings.  

 This is one of two units of 12 Uruk-Hai foot.  They are going to be "offensive" heavy foot, due to the heavy armour, big shields and large swords.  There are 12 more waiting to be painted but I have some 15mm tanks to do first.

The next unit is another 12 figures, heavy missile troops this time.  These crossbow armed figures are going for stupid money on ebay, so the odds are adding another unit are somewhat low.

The final full size unit is 12 Uruk pikemen, used as heavy foot with the Wall of Spears ability.  Less attack orientated but very handy against the Rohan cavalry.  The standard does nothing in the rules, it just makes the unit look nicer.

 The first support unit is a 6 strong unit of scouts, giving some skirmish ability as well as adding a bit of firepower.  Very fragile but also very annoying, these guys can run through the woods and are hard to hit.

Then some heavy hitters.  These 6 berserkers are used as Bellicose Foot with "Shiny Armour" to represent their toughness in the films.  They are a bit of a loose cannon with "Wild Charge", but they can really upset enemy units if they can get a charge in.



A troll Captain adds some serious grunt, I use him as elite foot with venomous to represent his mighty strength.  Currently I only have 2 trolls, so he operates as a single model unit.  Another troll has been obtained on ebay and then the trio will form the unit together.

 Troll 2, equipped with a mighty large hammer.  I really like these figures, they are lovely to paint and have a lot of detail and expression.  The ebay troll is the same figure but I will try to reposition the arms to make them a bit different.

The whole army of Isengard, gathered to reap havoc on the westfold.  It consists of 60 Uruk-hai, 2 trolls and Saruman currently.  I have 6 more archers, 12 more foot and 6 Warg riders to paint, as well as the third troll.  That should be enough I think.

 Finally I have started on troops for my latest "new and shiny" set of rules.  I have preordered the new set of Sharp Practice from Too Fat Lardies and have decided to do the American Civil War.  Other members of my local group have Napoleonics and the American Rebellion ahem, Revolution covered already, so I have doing the later conflict.  So far I have 60 Union infantry ready to go, next up will be some Confederate types to fight them.  One thing I am considering is getting some of the Perry's "British Intervention" figures to do some what-if scenarios.  Plus it's an excuse to buy some more lead.

So that's it for now.  I am looking forward to the local Legionary wargames show in 11 days time in Exeter, then we are finally getting back to visit Partizan up in Newark 3 weeks after that.  This is my favourite show in the country, but events have transpired to prevent any visits for the last few years.  Really looking forward to getting back up there and seeing some old friends again.

Right, I'm off to prep some Confederate infantry.  Catch you next time.

February already...how did that happen?

It seems that a month has passed and I have little to show for it.  All in all it's been a pretty rough month, with various ailments hitting me and not much gaming happening.  This time of year always comes with a host of coughs, colds and other such ailments but this year I seem to have caught every single one of them.  Ah well, new month means new hope.........I hope.

Gaming has been very limited, a game of Chain of Command and a game of Blood Rage has been just about it.  I did manage a short visit to Crusade up in Cardiff, which was a nice trip hindered only by my inability to stay awake for the whole visit.  A quick snooze in Nathan's car set me up for the trip home though.  Didn't buy much, saw some old friends and almost fell for a new period.  Luckily I snapped out of it and left it there.

Painting has been fairly productive, considering how rough I have been feeling.  I managed to finish and base my Templar Knights finally, as well as painting up the first lot of foot to support them.

 So here they are, 12 mounted knights/men-at-arms all ready to take the power of Christianity too wherever the gold is...I mean to educate the heathens.


Then there are 24 Crossbowmen ready to dispense God's will from a distance.  At some point I will get back to the Crusades and paint the next unit, 24 Spearmen to protect the crossbows from Arab cavalry but I have been sidetracked by painting things to raise a few pennies.


Finally I got a box of Perry Miniatures 8th Army painted up.  I have had these for ages and finally got all 37 figures done and dusted and promptly put on eBay to fund my kickstarter habit. Ah well, that'll teach me to spend more than I budgeted for.


That's it for now, I am feeling rougher than a rough thing so I'm off to me bed.  Hopefully another update will appear soon, I need to be more positive this moth as last month was pretty dire.

Happy gaming to you all.

Down, but not out.........

I'm still here, unluckily for some.  Sorry for the lack of posts, I have been struggling for a while with being ill for so long and it all got on top of me for a few days weeks months.  Still not back to normal, but things are better than they have been for a while.  Still being sick, still got stomach ache, still feel like crap, but I am off to University College Hospital in London on Thursday to see a new specialist so hopefully things will start to get sorted sooner rather than later.

Right, enough of the miserable crap and on to the important things.  Wargames!

I have struggled to get much of anything done since my last post back in June.  My concentration is sorely lacking and my patience has left the building.  I have "made" myself do some painting, but really not felt like it to be honest.  I managed to finish off a Warlord German Grenadier platoon that I had started back in June. These are nice figures and paint up easily, even with my level of skill.

I also got an engineer squad and attendant Sd251 Hanomag done.  The figures are Warlord again, but from the early war set with metal "pioneer" bits added.  They look the part and the extra bits do make them different from the usual infantry figures.  The Hanomag is by Rubicon and is a cracking model.  The kit comes with parts to make the engineers Sd251/7, the ambulance variant (Sd251/8) or the command Sd251/10 with a 3.7cm PaK gun.  I can't recommend this kit highly enough, it's a beauty. 



 Then it was onto something new.  The bunch of reprobates fine upstanding chaps that I game with on a Monday night are play-testing the forthcoming "Fighting Season" rules by Too Fat Lardies.  These are designed to cover the more modern insurgency(post 2000) conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan and are based on the Chain of Command system, but with many differences to allow for the less rigid style of combat.  So, I have been looking at getting some figures to play it and it worked out damn expensive.  I did plan to do it all in 15mm, but the lads all moaned about it being "too small for their ageing eyes to see" and "28's look better" and so on.  So 28's it is and, in my humble opinion  the best figures out there are Empress Miniatures and Eureka Miniatures.  Sadly both are a bit out of my price range at the moment.  So I looked about and came up with a cunning plan, at least for me it's cunning!  As I like to have enough forces to play the game at home I didn't need to worry about matching in with other peoples stuff so much.  I came across this blog and saw the 1/48 models from Airfix's "Operation Herrick" range and was sold.  A quick scout on eBay and a few models were winging their way to me. 
The initial purchase was an infantry patrol box and a Landrover Patrol box, which gave me 16 figures and a Snatch Landrover.  The figures are more realistically proportioned than wargames figures, but are close enough to the Empress figures that they will do.  Then a bargain appeared on eBay and I ended up ordering two more boxes, a bit larger but a lot cheaper.  These boxes gave me the extra figures I needed to make a full platoon, so here they are.  Three sections of 8 men, plus a command group of 6 and 3 "extras".  Not too bad and I am pretty happy with how they have come out.

The other bits in the bigger boxes included a pair of Landrover WMIKs, so I put one of those together as well.

Here are the 2 Landies, ready for action.  I had picked up the vehicle crew box as well, which gave me the crew for the WMIK and a spare figure for the Snatch.  Airfix models have certainly improved from my youth, the level of detail on these kits in amazing, even down to the mesh in the glass being replicated with decals.  I have some stowage to add to these from Red Zebra Models.  Very quickly delivered and beautifully cast, they will add that "lived in" look.

The final part of the boxes contents is a Lynx helicopter!  I was a bit concerned about this model as it is rated as a "5" for difficulty and it's been a few years since I have made anything approaching that level of complexity.  The instructions and parts are great though and it went together really well I think.  The WMIK was quite a complex model with 57 steps and 80+ parts, but the Lynx blew it out of the water.  There are 100 steps in the instructions and over 200 parts, plus over 150 decals.  I have modelled it as landed and with one door mounted GPMG.  It was quite a job to get it done, but I am fairly happy with it and hope it will be off use as an objective or something in the game at some point.  And yes, I do have another one to make at a (much) later date.  The price was too good to turn down, each box (8 men, 1 WMIK and 1 Lynx) cost £15!  An Infantry Patrol box(8 men) is about £10, so the price was definitely right.

Still to be made is the 2nd Lynx, another WMIK and I also have a Jackal to do.  And I would like a Warrior at some point....or maybe two. ;-) 

So there it is.  I will post again soon with a few pictures from the little bit of gaming I have managed over the last few months, but that's your lot for now.  Catch you all later.

Another update, more buildings and yet more 28mm Germans

It's been a busy few weeks.  Things did not go to plan at the hospital, despite losing over 5 stone(32kg to you foreigner types) I am still too fat around my middle to have the op.  So the plan is too lose another 2-4 stone.  In the meantime I am stuck with the Ryles tube going down my nose.  It could be worse though, so I'm still smiling.  Sort of.

Wargaming wise, I have not played much over the last few weeks.  I did partake of a multi-player Dux Britannarium  game, where the Saxons and Irish allies saw of the Romano-British levies and stole all the loot.  No pictures and I can't remember the details, except that we discovered the raiders are a real pain for the fairly static R-Brits to deal with.

Painting has gone on, but not much for myself.  Two more platoons of 28mm Bolt Action Germans have been painted up, one sold privately and the other is on eBay now.

This one sold on to a chap in France.  It's made up from the Blitzkrieg period figures released recently by Warlord.  They are a vast improvement on the original plastic Germans  and came out pretty well, even if I do say so myself.

The other platoon is made of the new Grenadiers in plastic.  Again, they are much nicer figures than the originals and look good.  A bit more work to paint due to all the camo, but they are worth the extra effort.  This lot includes a tripod MG42 and a pair of MG42 LMGs in each squad. There are also two Panzerfausts per squad, making them a well equipped force.

Here is a closer look at the MG42.  I have added some spent shell casings under the weapon, I didn't realise that the MG34 and 42 ejected the casing through the bottom of the breech.  You learn something every day.

My own stuff has been 15mm buildings being touched up and based.  Similar the the ones in my previous update, I now have a total of 7 bases of buildings done and ready for use.  These latest are made up to represent a street, from left to right there is the grocers, hotel, 2 unsigned shops(I didn't realise until I was taking the pictures!), an antiques shop, a patisserie, the town hall and another patisserie.  They all have
individual back gardens/yards as well.

This is the rear of the town hall and corner patisserie.  The town hall has a large courtyard while the shop has a smaller garden with some flower beds.













The rear gardens of the middle shops are split by an alleyway.  The left pair have much nicer flowers beds and such than the other two.  Probably because they have signs on the front of their shops.










The other end has a larger courtyard area for hotel guests to park, while the grocers has a small garden given over solely to growing vegetables.















The final 4Ground building I have at the moment is a pair of semi-detached houses.  These I have based up slightly larger with larger gardens that come around the side of the house too.  One has a nice garden with paving stones, flowers and a vegetable patch.  The other is a bit overgrown and is obviously left to grow as it sees fit.

Lastly I have also started basing up some of the Landmark buildings I bought when the now closed Battle Honours UK first released them.  This is the farm, made up of 3 Landmark buildings and a scratch-built pig pen.  I am fairly happy with how it has come out, although I may repaint the shutters on the windows.
 
 Anyway, that's your lot for now.  I am currently waiting on some decals to arrive, along with some more fencing.  Then I can crack on with the last few bits I need to finish before next Saturdays  trip up to Evesham.

Anyway, have fun folks and thanks for stopping by.